Christie on Illinois Governor: 'He's a Disaster'

The baddest governor on the planet lays a smackdown on his counterpart in Illinois.

It's on!

Gov. Chris Christie said Friday that he's not worried about businesses leaving for Illinois because Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is "a disaster." Christie's comments come as ads are set to appear in several New Jersey publications on Monday, including NJ Biz, criticizing the state's business climate. They were paid for by the advocacy group For a Better Chicago and are in retaliation for an ad campaign Christie launched to encourage businesses in Illinois to relocate to New Jersey.

"Let me tell you something: We won't lose any business to Illinois as long as Pat Quinn's the governor," Christie, a Republican, said during a news conference Thursday. "He's a disaster."

The Chicago group said it's taking out the ads to set the record straight on which state has the best business climate.

"We understand that governors have to be cheerleaders for their states, but the claims Gov. Christie is making are so far from the truth," said Jake Braun, For a Better Chicago spokesman.

The Chicago ads, which say "Rhetoric is nice, reality matters," focus on New Jersey's high property taxes and cost of living.

Christie launched his campaign after Quinn, a Democrat, raised personal income taxes to 5 percent from 3 percent and corporate business taxes to 9.5 percent from 7.3 percent to help balance his budget.

Important News: Staring at Breasts Increases Heart Health

I may strive to have the strongest ticker known to man. Just hope the ladies don't mind.

Guys, listen up. A study says it is actually healthy to stare at a woman's breasts.

Five-hundred men participated in the German study. Half were told to refrain from looking at breasts for five years, the other half were told to ogle them daily.

The study found the men who stared at breasts more often showed lower rates of heart problems, a lower resting heart rate and lower blood pressure.

Coming soon: Strip clubs as health centers!

Latest Scandal in Madison: Republicans are Bolting Windows in Capitol Building or Something

Do these paranoid lunatics have the slightest notion how idiotic they sound? Perhaps the sound of banging drums and nonstop temper tantrums have left them delusional.

The wooden windows were secured about 10 years ago to prevent anyone from coming into the Capitol through entrances other than doors. Wooden blocks were screwed into the window jams "to prevent the windows from being raised more than a few inches," Donovan said.

In the past week or so, officials realized some of the window blocks had been removed or otherwise damaged.

"Those found missing were replaced with tamper-proof bolts," Donovan said.

Specifically, Capitol facilities workers drove No. 8 wood bolts into the inside of the window frames, and then cut of the heads of the bolts so they could not be easily removed, Donovan said. As the pictures show, it’s not a fancy replacement.

"This is a temporary, quick repair," Donovan said.

He was unable to say exactly how many windows were done or when the work took place. It only takes a few seconds to drive a bolt into the woodwork and snap off the head.

Donovan said most of the window-securing was done in the rest rooms on the ground and first floor. It’s impossible to determine how and when those windows became unsecured, he said.

One of the windows secured was in a first floor office of a legislator, Donovan said. In that case, he said, the lawmakers’ staff filed a work order requesting that the windows be secured.

The state Democrats were not the only ones to notice the window projects.

A Feb. 28, 2011 blog item by AFL-CIO political communications director Eddie Vale carried this headline: "Walker Welding Capitol Windows NOW to Keep Workers from Passing Food to Those Inside."

His item read: "As we speak, Gov. Scott Walker & Senate R's are literally having the windows of the capital welded shut to keep people from passing food into the building to the people inside.

"Our attorneys are collecting affidavits from the people who witnessed this, along with people who have been illegally denied access to a public, government, building."

We asked Donovan about the welding charge.

His answer was simple: "We find that wood doesn’t weld well. It burns."

And that brings us back to the Democratic Party’s claim.

The party said Republicans have "bolted shut" windows at the state Capitol as part of the "ugly games" being used in response to protests. To be sure, tensions are running high in Madison. But the idea that windows are being bolted shut to somehow curtail protesters is off the mark.

It makes sense that windows would be secured so that people couldn’t open them from the outside. You would, no doubt, find similar safety devices on the lower level windows of many apartments in the campus area. It also makes sense that as Capitol Police and facilities staff took stock of the building after weeks of protests they found some windows unsecured.

I wonder if these idiots leave the ground-floor windows in their homes unlocked?

Union Leader: 'I Think the Democratic Party is in Crisis'

Democrats just love having it both ways. As they egg on the unions in Wisconsin, urging them to keep on fighting, they've gone and scheduled their 2012 national convention in a state where unions have no collective bargaining power.

With the American labor movement newly energized by its most serious threat in years, the Democratic Party's decision to hold its 2012 convention in the least union-friendly state is causing friction with a key constituency.

The Democratic National Committee selected Charlotte to show confidence in the party's ability to win crucial swing states in the South, including North Carolina, that President Barack Obama carried in 2008. But the choice isn't sitting well with some union leaders.

"I think the Democratic Party is in crisis and they're trying to figure out who are they really going to represent," said Angaza Laughinghouse, president of the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union.

Workers around the nation have rallied in solidarity with union brethren fighting Republican efforts to curtail collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin and Ohio. But the issue is a moot point in North Carolina, one of two states where all public workers are prohibited by law from engaging in collective bargaining.

In many other ways, Charlotte makes perfect sense as the site of the convention. A bustling city of more than 700,000 with a popular Democratic mayor, the Queen City is both a center of the American banking industry and a symbol of the New South.

But it's in a state where just 3.2 percent of workers belong to a union, the lowest percentage in the country.

Ironically enough, while Obama claims Wisconsin's efforts to reign in spending is an "assault" on workers, his own federal workforce doesn't have collective bargaining either, a fact the media ignores. If he really cared about "the workers," why didn't he and the Democrats address that while they had unchecked power for two years?

Despite the rank hypocrisy, neither side is going anywhere. They're hopelessly co-dependent.

"The Democrats are following a strategy they've been pursuing for 20 years or more, in which they try to win over the swing voters while to some extent ignoring their base," she said.

Part of the Democratic establishment, though, has moved to back the protests of public sector unions, most notably the group Organizing for America, Obama's political arm within the Democratic National Committee. Obama himself has called the Wisconsin proposal "an assault on unions."

Imagine the whining if the GOP held their convention in North Carolina.

Comedy Gold: Wisconsin Democrat Tackled by Police

The surprise here? A Wisconsin Democrat was actually trying to do some work. Hilarity ensues.

Police tackled a state lawmaker as he tried to enter the Capitol building, which was closed to the public.

Democratic Representative Nick Milroy of South Range in northwestern Wisconsin was trying to get into the Capitol Thursday night to retrieve some clothes from his office. Video shows him struggling with some officers at an entrance before he was tackled.

A Dane County judge ruled Thursday that protesters could no longer spend the night in the Capitol to show their opposition to Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill. The judge did rule, however, that restricting the building during business hours was unconstitutional and ordered it must reopen to the public.

Milroy was one of four Democrats who moved their desks outside the Capitol Tuesday after access for the public was restricted.

Sorry Ladies, Not This Time

To put it more succinctly, not NO, but HELL NO!

I was ambivalent on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell debate because, quite frankly, I have a great deal of confidence in the average military service member to deal with any agent provocateurs that would infiltrate in an attempt to garner some headlines and be a martyr to the gay/lesbian community, but allowing women to be in front line Infantry units is not only a bad idea, it is a deadly one.

Infantrymen are the pointy end of the sword. I was one for 20+ years so it is something I can speak on with a fairly certain amount of expertise. We refer to ourselves as bomb dodgers and bullet stoppers. In the words of one senior NCO I had somewhere during my career, he stated that fully 95% of all weapons and tactics designed by man were developed with one intent. That is to maim or kill the Infantryman. The other 5% that were not specifically designed for that purpose could be quickly modified to do so.

Being an Infantryman comes along with a certain amount of unique characteristics. These are not only physical, but mental and sociological. Yes, the Infantry is the largest collection of good ol' boys you will ever find, but that is exactly what molds them into the most effective force. When you throw females into the equation that delicate balance is upset, and anything which upsets that balance leads to greater chance of injury and death for all. Surviving as an Infantryman, even when nobody is shooting at you, requires a great deal of effort.

A lot people will go on and on about the physical issue, which is very real, and regardless of what a bunch of eggheads want to theorize about, it is immutable and undeniable. But beyond that there is a thing called trust. Trust is the one intangible that receives very little attention, but without it, no front line fighting force can function effectively.

Trust is a reason I was ambivalent on the DADT question. I knew gays in the military, and while they were not in Infantry units, my contact came through the medics assigned to accompany us. I could have cared two flips less that you were gay as long as two truths remained. You could patch me up or get me to safety should something happen and you didn't go around dressed in drag propositioning me or my men. In other words, I could count on you to do your job and all that I had contact with could and did. If they didn't they would not have been around my unit very long.

Women are a completely different story. Infantrymen are macho, testosterone-laden Alpha males complete with an entire set of codes related to ensuring the safety and protection of the weaker sex. In addition to adding to their list of worries about bombs and bullets you now want to add the stress of protecting what used to be known as the kinder and gentler sex? Care to guess what happens when a couple of Alpha males wish to curry favor from the same female? I haven't even come close to what happens when the rumor mill goes into overdrive concerning what Johnny and Jill are doing.

I can tell you a long litany of anecdotal stories related to when units I commanded came into close proximity of women while in field environments and the often negative effects this had on the unit cohesion, but the talking heads would say that these social behaviors can be modified over time. Gentlemen and ladies who argue for this approach I would put this forth as an argument. Time is not an ally.

For much of my career, while stationed stateside I was part of what was then known as the Rapid Deployment Force. It's mission was to have boots on the ground anywhere in the known world within 96 hours. Do you think your high-minded social experiment will be ready for deployment in 96 hours?

Oh, no. Before any of you elitist social engineering snobs want to go tinkering with the front line unit dynamics I would suggest you spend about 30 days with them out in Injun country, far removed from anything approaching civilization. If you want to destroy the greatest military in existence you just go ahead and allow women to join the Infantry.

'I Am Not Making This Up. Win on a Game Show and You Can Apparently Run for the US Senate'

The Democrats obviously don't have a deep bench in Utah.

In an online forum, Jennings told readers: "[Sens.] Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.] and Harry Reid [D-Nev.] both called me back personally in 2004 to try to get me to run for Orrin Hatch's Senate seat."

Schumer went on to become head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2005 and earned a reputation for recruiting top candidates.

Jennings continued: "I am not making this up. Win on a game show and you can apparently run for the US Senate. That was when I realized the Democratic Party was f@#$ed in '04."

Don't Mess With Those Giles Girls

You all remember Hannah Giles, don't you? Well, she's got a sister with some very special skills.

She's studying at a college in Florida, and like any typical American teenager she loves shopping and hanging out with her friends. But at weekends she is one of the deadliest shots in the brush.

Regis Giles, 19, is one of America's hottest hunters - and she's taking the big game world by storm.

She's killed buffalo, wild boar, deer and a bear in her hunting career, which began when she was aged just nine.

And she's already drawing parallels to Sarah Palin, America's most famous gun-toting wilderness-loving woman.

Alaska’s most famous former governor’s much publicized love of hunting has led to an unexpected rise in female membership in the National Rifle Association - which some are calling the ‘Palin effect.’

Miss Giles is a lifetime member of the NRA. She was hunting well before Mrs Palin took America by storm during the 2008 general election. But she is as staunch a promoter of American blood sport as the former Alaska governor is.

Diane Danielson of the NRA’s Women On Target programme explains that the ‘Palin effect’ has increased female membership 20 per cent, with the NRA teaching 10,000 new women a year to shoot, and making more girls want to take up hunting, like Regis.

‘Firearm manufacturers are gearing their products towards women. They’re scaling down stocks, and shortening trigger pull lengths for our shorter fingers,' Ms Danielson said.

Miss Giles claims she lives a charmed hunter's life in Florida.

‘In the Everglades we can hunt wild deer, bears, wild boar and big game,' she told the MailOnline. 'It’s the perfect escape from life in the city of Miami.’

Her lust for hunting has also seen her travelling the country, shooting wild animals, and writing about it on her blog:

'Thwoop-pow! He is hit hard! He's running! Get up! Run!... I Shoot, reload, shoot, reload, shoot,' she wrote.

'This beast is strong, he proves to be an excellent hunt. He is now down. Congratulations are being made.

Congratulations should go out to the parents of these wonderful young ladies.

Shocking Report Recommends Evaluating Teachers By Performance

Next thing you know these teachers will start being held accountable for their performance. No doubt this will be interpreted as an attack on teachers.

New Jersey teachers should be judged by both their classroom performance and student test scores, a Christie administration task force recommended in a report made public Thursday.

This proposed evaluation system, if enacted by the Legislature, would influence high-stakes decisions about teachers’ pay and tenure once it’s phased in over the next few years. The report recommends piloting the system this fall.

"As a superintendent, it’s startling to me that we still use models of evaluations solely focused on teaching, rather than on teaching and learning," said Brian Zychowski, task force chairman and superintendent of North Brunswick schools.

The unveiling came one day after the state’s largest teachers union denounced any measurement of teachers based on student performance.

Yeah, how dare we judge them by how students perform. We should all just believe they're doing the best they can and take their word for it. And not even think of touching their lavish benefits or asking them to kick in more than 1.5% for their health benefits.

The New Jersey Education Association argued using student test scores to evaluate teachers would weaken curricula and promote teaching for the sake of passing a test. For this, Gov. Chris Christie once again publicly scolded the union.

"I find it fascinating that before the report was even issued or made public that the New Jersey Education Association already came out opposed to it," Christie said Thursday at a press conference. "Their charge is to protect the worst teachers, and they know the worst teachers will be outed."

Here's Christie discussing this radical plan to hold teachers accountable.

NASA's $424 Million Global Warming Satellite Fails to Reach Orbit

Oops. A half a billion here, a half a billion there. Pretty soon all this wasted money starts adding up.

A rocket that blasted off early Friday carrying an Earth-observation satellite has failed to reach orbit, NASA said.

The Taurus XL rocket carrying NASA's Glory satellite lifted off about 2:10 a.m. PST from Vandenberg Air Force Base, officials said .

But NASA said in a brief statement that a protective shell or fairing atop the rocket did not separate from the satellite as it should have about three minutes after the launch.

That left the Glory spacecraft without the velocity to reach orbit, NASA launch commentator George Diller said.

"The flight was going well until the time of fairing separation," Diller said. "We did not have a successful fairing separation from the Taurus and there was insufficient velocity with the fairing still on for the vehicle to achieve orbit."

We're always told what a waste of money missile defense is, but those tests actually work.

The $424 million mission is managed by the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Friday's launch came after engineers spent more than a week troubleshooting a glitch that led to a last-minute scrub.

Glory was supposed to study tiny atmospheric particles known as aerosols, which reflect and trap sunlight. The vast majority occurs naturally, spewed into the atmosphere by volcanoes, forest fires and desert storms. Aerosols can also come from manmade sources such as the burning of fossil fuel.

But don't worry. Despite repeated failures now, we'll continues to waste billions pursuing the causes of mythical global warming.

NASA suffered a mishap two years ago when a global warming satellite also destined to join the Earth-observation network crashed into the ocean near Antarctica after launching from the same kind of rocket that carried Glory. An accident board was formed to investigate and corrective action was taken to prevent future problems. A duplicate is now scheduled to fly from Vandenberg in 2013.

Ban Ki-moon Tackles the Important Issues

Apparently a world in crisis isn't enough to keep this "world leader" occupied. Much like his kindred spirit in the White House who parties while the Mideast unravels, this dim bulb presses forward with the really important issues of the day.

Libya's aflame, Mexico's under siege, Iran's building nuclear weapons and what's the U.N. secretary-general doing? Pitching movie ideas to Hollywood bigwigs.

We kid you not. As the real world seemed to be coming apart at the seams, Ban Ki-moon swept into Tinseltown during Oscar week to urge the entertainment industry to produce more movies, TV shows and music about — drumroll, please — global warming.

During a daylong forum, some 400 writers, directors, producers, agents and network executives were briefed on recent heat waves, floods, fires and droughts that have been blamed on man-made climate change.

"Animate these stories!" the Los Angeles Times quoted Ban as beseeching. "Set them to music! Give them life! Together we can have a blockbuster impact on the world." And judging from the Times' unblinking account, ideas started flowing immediately.

Despite the fact movies about mythical global warming bomb at the box office, surely Hollywood will continue to pour money down the rathole.

The climate effort, managed by the same office, has broader ambitions. "You have power and influence to send to millions and billions of people around world," Ban told his Los Angeles audience. "To make planet Earth environmentally sustainable is a political and moral imperative."

Also speaking on panels were Indian economist Rajendra Pachauri — chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group of some 2,500 scientists who won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for assessing the effects of greenhouse gases — and Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres, who led global treaty negotiations in Cancun as the head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"There's a huge gap between what governments can do, given political constraints, and what they should do," Figueres told Hollywood executives. "That's where you come in. ... We need you to make it sexy and cool to bring about the energy revolution that has to happen."

King asked Pachauri if he had a "sexy story we could make into a film."

Please, don't ever mention Larry King and Patchy in the same sentence as the word sexy.

But Marshall Herskovitz, a veteran producer and director who has a climate-related project in the works, dismissed the comparison. "Everybody is interested in health," he said. "But audiences see climate change as a distant phenomenon that affects parts of the world we don't see."

Unfortunately, Herskovitz said, "the best messaging on climate change by far is by the deniers. Chevron has a brilliant TV campaign. They would lead you to believe that climate change is being solved by the oil business."

H/T.

The Home "Affordable" Modification Program: Curdled Government Cheese

Barack Obama's policies have consistently proven to be such epic disasters, it sometimes makes me think the GOP could nominate a piece of driftwood for President in 2012 and still win the electoral college in a landslide.

Then I remind myself that not everyone is paying attention.

And I weep.

President Obama’s beloved foreclosure-prevention scheme, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), was a fraud from Day One: It is designed to do nothing but camouflage the effects of the housing meltdown. It is based on bribery — paying the banks to modify (or pretend to consider modifying) mortgages that they really had no business or interest in modifying. And administration of the program was entrusted to Financial Public Enemy No. 1: Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored enterprise that did so much to inflate the housing bubble in the first place while enriching its politically connected executives and committing a sustained campaign of outright financial fraud. An economically meretricious bank-bribery scheme run by a known criminal organization: That’s the foundation of the Obama administration’s housing strategy.

This was guaranteed to go bad in a hurry, and it did. Republicans now want to kill the program, and they should, the protestations of our tax-dodging treasury secretary and the Obama administration’s feckless economic team notwithstanding.

HAMP often is criticized for the fact that the great majority of the people who receive temporary (“trial”) modifications under the program ultimately are rejected, receiving no permanent modification of their mortgages. The critics suggest that this is a shortcoming of the program, the effect of bureaucratic ineptitude and governmental inertia. That is poppycock: The fact that most of the temporary modifications will never become permanent modifications is a built-in feature of the program, the economic incentives of which all but guarantee that outcome. The program is, to be blunt, a scam.

You really should read the whole thing.

I wonder if there is even a single homeowner out there whose dire fiscal situation hasn't been made even worse by this wonderful program.

Cross-posted.

Change: NJ Unions Thugs Suspended For 'Sick-Out'

We highlighted this heartless group of spoiled union punks yesterday. Three of them are now suspended. Let's hope the rest of these greedy, heartless bastards are held to account and those suspended are soon fired.

Three union workers who called out sick to attend a labor rally at the New Jersey Statehouse last week have been suspended.

The move comes a day after Gov. Christie told NBC New York in an interview that "people who call in sick better be sick." Christie issued his warning ahead of another labor rally that drew thousands on Thursday.

Monmouth County officials said the three employees suspended without pay Thursday work for the county's Senior Citizen Area Transportation service and are members of CWA Local 1038.

The county said the workers were among 14 in the department who called out sick; officials alleged that 174 developmentally disabled adults who depend on the county's services ended up "waiting for buses that never came."

"These employees are being suspended without pay based on the fact that we have evidence to prove that they were not home sick as they had claimed," said Lillian Burry, a county official.

State Sen. Joe Kyrillos (R-Monmouth), who first complained of a "sick-out," applauded officials for the suspension, noting some workers were "caught on camera" at last week's rally.

He wants officials to keep reviewing video to see "if others were absent without proper excuse."

Some lamestream media outlets are making hay of the fact Governor Christie has said he supports collective bargaining. They want want to read the fine print.

"In fact, I love collective bargaining," Christie told the audience. "We're ready to collectively bargain. Let's have it be real collective bargaining, where someone is in there representing the people who pay the bills."

I suspect today's suspensions have Christie's fingerprints all over them. If the unions think they have a pushover in Christie, I wish them luck.

More here.

:This action by our SCAT employees is offensive to everyone because it adversely impacted our most vulnerable population," Freeholder Director Robert D. Clifton said in a statement. "The administration will continue its investigation into those who called out sick until we are satisfied that every employee who misused the county's sick leave policy is disciplined within the constraints of the Civil Service process. This is a prime example of why Civil Service reform is needed."

There's hope.

“Anyone who shrugs and abandons their contracted responsibilities should receive the strongest discipline allowed, up to and including termination,” Freeholder Deputy Director John P. Curley said. “They are responsible for aspects of government that are mandatory in dealing with public health, safety and well being.”

Chicago Man Cited for Trying to Sabotage Fox News Truck in Madison

Remember, the left just loves free speech. As long as they can regulate it.

A Chicago man was ticketed for allegedly disconnecting extension cords for cameras and lights on a Fox News truck on the Capitol Square Tuesday, Madison police reported.

Dan Edelstein, 23, was cited for disorderly conduct by Madison police after he allegedly yanked the cords from the outlets on the outside of the Fox News truck at about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, police said.

The network wasn't broadcasting at the time, so Fox News Channel viewers weren't left in the dark about the latest goings-on from Madison.

The Chicago Way.

Surprise! Madison Mayor in Collusion With Unions

Imagine my surprise to discover Democrats and the unions were secretly trying to pull a fast one on the taxpayers.

As Gov. Scott Walker’s bill to rein in the power of unions to inflate city budgets was moving forward, the City of Madison was scurrying to sign contracts with its unions – “racing against the clock,” as one e-mail put it, to insulate city work

ers from having to pay something toward their entirely taxpayer-funded pensions.

In on the dealings: Madison Mayor David Cieslewicz and head Senate Democrat Mark Miller. WITI-TV (Channel 6) has the details, reporting that both officials also tried persuading Secretary of State Doug Lafollette to slow-walk the bill once it passed to make it easier to give away taxpayers’ money.

WITI got the story via e-mails that Citizens for Responsible Government got via open records requests. CRG head Chris Kliesmet told the station that the e-mails prove collusion between elected officials and their supposed adversaries and the bargaining table.

Of course the lamestream media will assiduously avoid this story because is comes from a Fox affiliate.

Before protesters stormed the capitol, the mayor of the city of Madison tried to pull a fast one. The governor's budget repair bill was on the fast track, and Madison Mayor Dave Ciesliewicz was racing against the clock to pass new union contracts first.

E-mails obtained by the FOX6 Investigators show that the mayor enlisted the help of State Senator Mark Miller. They both tried to convince the Secretary of State to hold up the bill by taking the maximum 10 days allowed by law before publishing the bill.

They were trying to buy some time so they could ratify new contracts to protect workers from benefit cuts. Citizens for Responsible Government Rep. Chris Kliesmet says, "This suggests, and this is a harsh word, collusion. There is collusion between some politicians and public sector employee unions.

Kliesmet says collective bargaining require that there be two sides. It is impossible to have collective bargaining with only one side."

Here are the emails and the video report:

 Update: The mayor

'My Gun Ownership is None of Your Business'

The left's contempt for citizens and privacy rights is breathtaking. Despite the obvious dangers they would place the general public in, nothing can dissuade these anti-gun nuts from their desire to disarm the public. You would think the Attorney General of a state that has one of the most violent cities in the nation would be more concerned with protecting its citizens rather than endangering them.

In a showdown over the privacy rights of gun owners, the Illinois State Police are refusing to release a list identifying all firearm permit holders in the state after Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan determined that the information "must" be made public.

The dispute, which soon could come before a judge, has been building since last fall when a reporter for The Associated Press made a Freedom of Information Act request to the police for the names of cardholders as well as information about the weapons each permit holder is authorized to carry.

But the state police, who safeguard that information, resisted as lawmakers and others raised privacy concerns. Critics questioned what public interest it would serve to let neighbors look up each other's potential weapons cache -- further, they warned that publicizing the information could put both gun owners and those who don't own guns at risk.

If the state publishes a list of gun owners, Republican Rep. Ron Stephens said, "You are by design also publishing a list of everyone who doesn't" carry a firearm.

That could be comparable to publishing a list of everyone who has, or doesn't have, a car alarm or home-security system, at least in the eyes of those who want to keep the records private.

"My gun ownership is none of your business," Stephens, who is pushing a bill in the General Assembly to lock down that list, told FoxNews.com. "I don't know what Lisa Madigan doesn't understand about that, but obviously she's confused."

Madigan's office, though, issued a detailed legal opinion Tuesday explaining why the state police should release the registry to The Associated Press.

Assistant Public Access Counselor Matthew Rogina, citing federal court decisions as well as Illinois law, wrote in a letter to the state police attorney that disclosing the names "cannot be characterized as highly personal or objectionable." He wrote that there is a "public interest" in releasing the information, citing the example of an individual who may have become ineligible to carry.

If there are people ineligible to carry isn't it her job to ensure they're not carying? Why on earth would this woman declare open season on those who carry as well as those who don't? It's lunacy.

National Rifle Association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said his group would do "whatever we can" to stop the attorney general decision from being enforced.

"There's no reason for the names of law-abiding gun owners to be released to the general public," Arulanandam said.

Indeed.

It's curious how the president, who enjoys inserting himself into state issues all the time, isn't poking his nose into an issue in his own state.

How Does 'Mayor Spitzer' Sound to You?

Let's face it, New Yorkers, would you rather have a self-indulgent, narcissistic megalomaniac named Michael Bloomberg lording over you and your diet for all eternity or would you be willing to take a chance on a self-indulgent, narcissistic megalomaniac to replace him? Unless the current occupant of Gracie Mansion decides to again rewrite the rules and give himself a fourth term in office, you could well wake up in January 2014 with Client Number 9 as your leader. Needless to say, the race could be fun.

Eliot Spitzer's resurrection -- from the disgraced governor better known as Client 9 to CNN talk-show host -- has the political class buzzing about him running for mayor in 2013. Wilder still, one of his former targets is talking about running against him.

Former New York Stock Exchange chief Dick Grasso -- one of the highest-profile targets of Spitzer's uneven assault on Wall Street -- has quietly been telling friends that he's leaning toward challenging Spitzer as a Republican (particularly if Police Commissioner Ray Kelly doesn't seek the GOP nomination himself, as some speculate he will).

Sure, Grasso (a Jackson Heights native) has no political experience, unless you consider his long years as NYSE chief, before he was forced out in 2003 amid the controversy over his massive compensation package. But ever since he beat back Spitzer's charges that he'd improperly collected tens of millions in salary as the head of the NYSE back in 2008, Grasso's been dropping hints to reporters that he may run for public office, possibly mayor.

And I'm told that Grasso's enraged at Spitzer's resurrection, as the liberal media and left-wing documentarians paint him as a force for pure good during his days as AG over the pure evil that were his Wall Street targets (Grasso included).

First a few caveats. The Grasso-for-mayor notion is a longshot (Grasso, who didn't return a phone call, is known for playing practical jokes), and the Spitzer-for-mayor scenario is far from a layup.

The idea is that Spitzer, the son of a near-billionaire real-estate magnate, would run as as a self-financed independent, a la Mike Bloomberg. But he's got baggage that Bloomberg, for all his crass temperament, didn't have in 2001 -- starting with his record in state politics.

"Polarizing" doesn't capture the Spitzer effect: During his short stint as governor, he was widely despised even by many fellow Democrats as a bully, threatening or throwing temper tantrums at the slightest provocation. Who needs a tough-talking lightweight as mayor?

For the record, a CNN flack says Spitzer has "no plans" to run for mayor and "is happy doing the show." Yet Spitzer is clearly fantasizing about a run, I'm told by several prominent city Democrats.

His fantasies have been buttressed, I also hear, by his ego-inflating experience as a CNN host (despite its lousy ratings) and the favorable treatment he got in "Client 9," the documentary about his rise and fall, as well as in "Inside Job," the Oscar-winning documentary on the financial crisis.

Could Democrats take a chance on Spitzer? Or might they look elsewhere?

Indeed, is there a New York City Democrat more loathsome and contemptible than Spitzer waiting in the wings?

You betcha.

This Almost Happened: "Joe Biden Elementary School"

Fortunately, Delawarean grade-schoolers narrowly averted this humiliating indignity.

President Obama already has seven schools named after him, but his vice president still has some catching up to do.

Delaware voters may have sent Joe Biden to the Senate six times, but it seems they are not quite ready to name a school after him.

The News Journal (DE) reported yesterday that Brandywine School District officials asked local residents to vote on a name for a new elementary school that is being built on the former site of Hanby Middle School in north Wilmington.

Biden’s name ended up as one of the finalists, but ultimately Delawareans voted to keep the same name. The new school will be Hanby Elementary School.

The News Journal reported that a anonymous campaign popped up online in early January urging Delaware residents to not vote for Biden, saying it was inappropriate to name a public building after an elected official who is still alive.

“Mr. Biden will receive many honors in time,” the site reads. “Let's not make this one of them."

Indeed. One day, there will plenty of schools like this one clamoring to adopt Biden's moniker.

Just be patient, Delaware!

Cross-posted.

The Great Uniter: Obama Says Race a Component of Tea Party Protests

Bringing us all together by driving us apart. Just keep talking, jerk.

But Obama, in his most candid moments, acknowledged that race was still a problem. In May 2010, he told guests at a private White House dinner that race was probably a key component in the rising opposition to his presidency from conservatives, especially right-wing activists in the anti-incumbent "Tea Party" movement that was then surging across the country. Many middle-class and working-class whites felt aggrieved and resentful that the federal government was helping other groups, including bankers, automakers, irresponsible people who had defaulted on their mortgages, and the poor, but wasn't helping them nearly enough, he said.

A guest suggested that when Tea Party activists said they wanted to "take back" their country, their real motivation was to stir up anger and anxiety at having a black president, and Obama didn't dispute the idea. He agreed that there was a "subterranean agenda" in the anti-Obama movement—a racially biased one—that was unfortunate. But he sadly conceded that there was little he could do about it.

His goal, he said, was to be as effective and empathetic a president as possible for all Americans. If he could accomplish that, it would advance racial progress for blacks more than anything else he could do.

Expect a heavy dose of racial politics in the 2012 election. It has just begun.

Aww: Climate Camp Disbands

This annual gathering of environmental wackos going all the way to 2006 was so popular I never heard of it. Here all this time I figured "climate camp" would be where they send all of us climate deniers to be re-educated.

Sadly, however, it's outlived its usefulness. Now the merry band of idiots are moving on to broader issues, likely to include awareness of something. They'll figure it out eventually and will surely get back to us once the next great crisis is invented (via Tim Blair).

After five years of camps, composting toilets, vegan curry and run-ins with the police, Climate Camp is calling it a day.

There will be no camp for the climate activists this year and the loose-knit organisation will be disbanded in 2011. The decision follows a five-day meeting to reach a consensus.

Really? Five days to get it together to realize your sad, motley, rag-tag bunch just might have to get on with your lives now that this climate scam has rendered you all pointless?

In a statement, activists for the climate movement said the camp was being disbanded to leave room to "launch new radical experiments to tackle the intertwined ecological, social and economic crises we face."

All of which are sure to be fabricated and will largely entail removing money from your wallets to pay for their schemes.

Most camp graduates believe this was the right moment to call it a day. "There was a feeling that Climate Camp was committed to a certain kind of action, the annual camp, which is really a huge commitment in terms of energy and resources," said Kevin Smith, a key figure in the climate movement, who was at the Dorset meeting. "People from Climate Camp are now involved and helping to organise so many of the different movements around, I think people felt they wanted to be freed up to get on with new things."

He, like many others, is excited by the wave of political energy and engagement that he sees in the UK. "This isn't about people giving up on climate change. But most people feel that they want to focus more broadly now."

A wave of political energy so all-consuming they can no longer find enough people to camp out near power stations. Something tells me they're running out of useful idiots to underwrite their particular brand of idiocy.

Frog Porn Found on British Magistrate's Laptop

It wouldn't really bother me if the guy was surfing some generic porn sites on his own time, but dude, frog porn? WTF?

A SOUTH Yorkshire magistrate has been caught in possession of hundreds of “repugnant” extreme porn photos and videos - some showing women engaged in sexual activity with animals.

School governor Michael Hall, aged 46, downloaded the vile images to his laptop computer.

His sick collection - 230 photographs and 150 videos - was discovered when police raided his semi-detached home in September last year.

Some showed women engaging in acts with horses, a donkey, dogs, a gerbil, a frog and a live snake.

Officers acted on a tip-off after discovering the magistrate, whose online activity had raised concerns, had an account on a file-sharing website. Hall, of Foxland Avenue, Swinton, Rotherham, pleaded guilty at court to 21 specimen counts of possession of extreme pornography.

He was sentenced to a three-year community order which requires him to spend 144 days completing a programme for sex offenders.

Hall’s case was heard at Leeds Magistrates’ Court in West Yorkshire, rather than in South Yorkshire, where he would be well-known in judicial circles.

Hall was serving as a magistrate in Rotherham when his crimes were detected.

He was appointed to the bench in 2007 - and served until October last year when he realised his offending had come to light. He was also a governor at three Rotherham schools - St Thomas C of E Primary School in Kilnhurst, Swinton Fitzwilliam Primary School in Swinton, and Swinton Community School in Mexborough.

And he was a member of Rotherham Council’s Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Panel, which is made up of councillors and lay members with links to education or social care.

His role was to help scrutinise the council’s work in relation to policies and procedures affecting young people, such as anti-bullying strategies and how children in care are looked after.

Sally Sharp, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Rape and Serious Sexual Offences Unit in West Yorkshire, told The Star: “This case is particularly repugnant, involving multiple charges of possessing extreme pornographic images.

“The fact the defendant was a magistrate, and in a position of public authority and trust, is additionally an aggravating feature.”

Most amusing is The Sun has an image of a frog with the face digitally altered.

Bloated Gasbag Michael Moore: People's Money is a National Resource, Time to Confiscate It

Great, let's start with his money. Funny, but I never see these Marxist scumbags ever giving their own money away.

Ohio Group Tries to Draft Drew Carey to Run for Senate

Not the worst idea I've come across. Considering the incumbent is the nondescript lefty Shrrod Brown, he'd be a major upgrade.

A group of libertarian-minded conservatives are attempting to draft television star Drew Carey into the Ohio Senate race against Sherrod Brown.

With no clear-cut Republican contenders having emerged yet for the contest, conservative activist Josiah Schmidt took it upon himself a little more than a week ago to construct a website and Facebook page to kick off the draft effort.

While Carey, who is from Cleveland but currently lives in Los Angeles as host of "The Price is Right," has not yet commented on the movement, Schmidt told POLITICO the Reason Foundation has already agreed to reach out to the television star about the possibility.

Reason, a libertarian think tank, partnered with Carey on a documentary series on the plight of Cleveland last year.

"Carey's outspoken libertarian-conservative policy advocacy, most notably through the Reason Foundation, has proven his credentials as someone who could be trusted to spare no sacred cows in his fight to reduce the size and role of government back to what it was originally intended to be. Furthermore, his name recognition, personal wealth, affability, and status as Ohio's favorite son would be a huge asset in an election," said Schmidt.

"Drew's increasing activism in local Ohio politics certainly gives us no reason to think he's uninterested in running for office. Also, his recent slimming down, the fact that he is in the last year of his five-year contract with Price Is Right, and the fact that he maintains a residence in Cleveland would all match up well with a 2012 Ohio Senate candidacy," he argued.

Union Salary of $320K Doesn't Go As Far As It Used To

With the NFL players threatening to go on strike again I found the sympathetic tone in this MSNBC piece to be just a little gag inducing. They want you to feel sorry for the poor guy who only makes the league minimum of $320,000.

Though a lockout has been threatened for years — and despite an apparent rise in the number of football stars safeguarding their millions — roughly 380 of the NFL's near 1,700 players still live paycheck to paycheck, according to financial experts familiar with the league.

Yes I have heard the arguments about they have a short career, to which I respond most of you are college grads. How about putting that education to work?

As for the risk of injuries I can sympathize, but if that is so high on your list of concerns why are you engaging in the sport to start with?

I'm not against them being paid for their skills, what I am against is them acting like crybabies because they can't afford multi million dollar mansions and hundred thousand dollar sports cars. Anybody who has attended a sporting event knows that the cost nowadays is so prohibitive that it has moved into the luxury column in our personal budgets. You can forget about buying food and drink at the stadium too. For the same price as a couple of hot dogs and a coke you can feed some third world countries for a day.

No, I am not real sympathetic to millionaires who are upset at other millionaires when the end result just ends up costing the working guy more money when he tries to escape his worries of the world for a few hours by embracing a sporting event.

You know, an NFL player living paycheck to paycheck is just slightly different from the family of four trying to make it on one paycheck that is probably 1/10th of what the league minimum is. Minimum wage has an entirely different meaning for most Americans.

Professional sports is probably the only occupation I know where you can get millions of dollars up front before you have even demonstrated the ability to perform at that level.

Can't wait for the players to hold a telethon.

Hard-Hitting ESPN Writer Claims Arrest for Assaulting Wife was Racist or Something

Sure. I imagine people were just hallucinating when they saw this guy choking his wife on the hood of their vehicle. He was just standing there minding his own business and all of a sudden the police are slapping cuffs on him.

The controversy surrounding Howard Bryant's arrest is not over, as the ESPN writer's lawyer is fighting back against the allegations that Bryant assaulted his wife outside a restaurant in Buckland, Mass.

According to recorder.com, Bryant's lawyer Buz Eisenberg claims that race was a factor in the arrest, insisting that the police officer involved did not completely investigate the situation.

"Mr. Bryant was the victim of excessive force," Eisenberg said after Bryant's arraignment on Monday in Greenfield, Mass. ''[Police] responded to the scene and rather than do an investigation they made an arrest of a black man with a white wife."

Bryant pleaded innocent to charges of domestic assault and battery, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest on Monday. He was released on personal cognizance.

Bryant's wife, Veronique, says she is not pressing charges against her husband of nine years and told the Boston Herald that she has never been a victim of abuse.

"I'm not a victim of abuse -- never been," she said in a phone interview. "Not now. Not ever."

Massachusetts State Police's director of media communications David Procopio responded to the Eisenberg's race claim, defending the arrest made by state troopers.

The two have apparently been in trial separation.

While Bryant offers his denial and race card, five witnesses reported he was choking her.

The trouble started, Procopio said, when state police received multiple calls from witnesses saying a man had put his hands on a woman's neck, pushed her against a parked vehicle and pinned her there.

Authorities responded within two minutes, he said. When a state trooper asked Bryant to put his hands behind his back, he refused, Procopio said. Bryant resisted arrest and struck one officer in the chest with his elbow, he said. Eventually, the state trooper, a Massachusetts state police sergeant and two local police officers subdued Bryant with an "armlock" and placed him chest down on the hood of his car, he said.

Bryant was handcuffed, read his Miranda rights and taken to the Shelburne Falls state police barracks where five witnesses gave statements, said Procopio.

The New Tone: Democrat Flack Says Walker is Waging 'Jihad' Against Unions

I guess this jerk forgot about the new civility. Oh, forget about that. That was just a means to neutralize freedom of speech for conservatives. Liberals can apparently do and say anything they want.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) jihad against public employee unions is about 30 years late and likely to make Republicans even less popular with voters, who endorse collective bargaining rights for public employees — professionals for whom they have abiding respect. It’s no wonder smart Republican governors, who are a bit closer to their constituencies than their congressional counterparts, regularly demur when asked to endorse Walker’s approach.

Once upon a time, Americans were worried about what they regarded as inordinate “union power” — that was back in the 1980s. In 1981, 60 percent of Americans told a CBS/New York Times poll that labor unions had “too much influence.” Today, just 37 percent express that fear. In Gallup’s data, anti-union sentiment, never very prevalent, also peaked in 1981.

How convenient he's quoting a bogus poll manufactured by the New York Times. If these liberals really believe this is a winning issue for them, by all means go ahead and run on a union platform in 2012.

Now he's really going off the tracks.

Before swallowing the attendant sixth-grade statistical analysis, do the following thought experiment: Would you expect people with higher levels of education to have higher salaries and benefits, on average, than those with lower levels of education? Of course you would. Public employees tend to be better educated than their private-sector counterparts. One careful study revealed that while 28 percent of private-sector employees had a college degree, 53 percent of state and local employees had attained that level of education.

Of course he doesn't bother citing this alleged study purportedly demonstrating how smart public employees are. Where is the evidence of this alleged careful study? Where is the link?

If anyone's behaving like jihadists, I'd argue it's the union supporters.

Token Christian Pakistani Parliment Member Murdered

Or in the words of "moderate" Muslims, problem solved.

Since shortly after the attacks on this country on 9/11, I have lumped the followers of Islam into nothing more then a blood thirsty cult more akin to those peaceful cultures like Incas and Aztecs, and they never fail to deliver on that image.

Assailants purportedly sent by al-Qaida and the Taliban killed the only Christian member of Pakistan's federal Cabinet Wednesday, spraying his car with bullets outside his mother's home. It was the second assassination in two months of a high-profile opponent of blasphemy laws that impose the death penalty for insulting Islam.

There is no part of it that is civilized or belongs in the modern world. In fact they reject the modern world violently. There are only three rules for those who join the cult.

1) Join and volunteer to die as a suicide bomber
2) Join and die because you belong to the wrong version of Islam
3) Leave and die as a unbeliever

Islam brings nothing nothing but death and despair to all it touches. While they may lay the blame for the killing at the feet of Al Queda, in truth they were just acting as the enforcement arm of all those "moderate" Muslims who support them.

As far as all these demonstrations in Middle East, I am not very hopeful that anything good will come out of them long term because quite simply democracy as we know it and Islam are completely incompatible. The 9th century cave dwellers only believe in the rule of the jungle. The guy with the most guns wins and gets to rule the others until somebody else with more guns shows up. Human life has no meaning to them, with women used as nothing more then breeding factories for their armies and with the most fanatical amongst them rising to positions of power, holding the reins of life and death over the others. Instead of lining victims up outside of some pyramid and laying them on an altar to cut their still beating heart out of their chest they prefer to strap explosives to their bodies and carry out the sacrifices en-masse.

The killing of Shahbaz Bhatti, a 42-year-old Roman Catholic, further undermines Pakistan's shaky image as a moderate Islamic state and could deepen the political turmoil in this nuclear-armed, U.S.-allied state where militants frequently stage suicide attacks.

Don't forget, it is Muslim pirates which recently murdered 4 Americans they captured as well now seizing another boat and threatening to kill those aboard, including the children of the infidels.

The definition of a "moderate" Muslim is one which provides arms, money or sanctuary to armed terrorists, about like the differences between a moderate heart attack that doesn't kill you and a massive one which does.

NJ Democrat Defies Union Thugs: 'We’ve Got To Be Fair With Taxpayers'

When you're a greedy, spoiled union goon used to life sucking off the public teat, those are words you never, ever want to hear. Especially when it's a prominent Democrat uttering them. Naturally they're already making empty threats against him and are having a temper tantrum. They just refuse to accept the fact the free ride is over.

Calling it an attempt to throw out collective bargaining rights, leaders of New Jersey’s public workers unions Monday said they will launch a full court press against a bill sponsored by Senate President Stephen Sweeney that would force public employees to pay more for their health care benefits.

Hetty Rosenstein, state director for the Communication Workers of America, said her union would picket, extract pledges from lawmakers to oppose it and hold "lobby days" against the bill (S2718) over the next several weeks.

"It becomes illegal to negotiate anything different than what’s in that bill," said Rosenstein. "It preempts all collectively bargaining."

Bill Lavin, president of the state Firefighters Mutual Benevolent Association, said police and firefighters will protest it at a Statehouse rally Thursday and press all 120 lawmakers.

"It’s totally unacceptable. I think if that were to pass, it will guarantee that the Democrats will lose the majority," he said. "We’re shocked that Steve Sweeney, who calls himself a Democrat, would act in this manner ... He’s rolled over for the governor in every instance."

The pushback comes as the legislation has gained bipartisan support in the state Senate, with Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth) signing on as a prime sponsor.

Public employees pay 1.5 percent of their salaries towards their health benefits. Under Sweeney’s plan and a proposal by Gov. Chris Christie, workers would pay a portion of their premiums instead and would have more plans to choose from.

Under Christie’s plan, public workers would pay 30 percent of their premiums within three years. Under Sweeney’s, they would pay a sliding scale based on income, with the highest earners eventually paying 30 percent. Christie’s plan would require current retirees to pay part of their premiums.

"I understand people being emotional, but we really have to be fair with people. We’ve got to be fair with taxpayers," said Sweeney, who denied the bill was an attempt to eliminate collective bargaining. "I’m the guy that did paid family leave. I’m the one that did the minimum wage (increase). I’m absolutely pro-worker."

Anything above the current 1.5% they're paying and they come absolutely unglued. Is it any wonder they're not receiving an ounce of sympathy from those of us in the private sector who pay a much higher percentage?

By the way, when the shrill Ms. Rosenstein follows through on her promise to hold "lobby days," let's just hope her people don't leave seniors and dialysis patients stranded again.

Compassion: NJ Union Goons Strand Disabled Seniors and Dialysis Patients to Attend Rally

A new Jersey State Senator is justifiably calling for the dismissal of Communications Workers of America members after they cruelly stranded seniors and disabled clients last Friday so they could all go to Trenton to greedily demand more of your taxpayer money. Not only should they be fired, they should be brought up on charges, if at all possible.

State Sen. Joe Kyrillos, (R-13), of Middletown today called for the immediate firing of the 17 CWA workers he said staged a so-called "sick-out" last Friday to attend a rally, effectively leaving Monmouth County seniors stranded.

"It is outrageous that 174 disabled and elderly clients who depend on SCAT were stranded by what appears to be a coordinated effort by employees to disrupt service without notice," said Kyrillos. "The actions of these workers is completely unbecoming of any public servant, and should make every taxpayer in Monmouth County furious. CWA, the union representing these employees, needs to denounce their members for putting the well-being of these vulnerable individuals at risk, and the employees in question should be fired."

Kyrillos said 17 SCAT workers, including 14 bus drivers for the developmentally disabled and senior citizens, took sick leave with no notice on Friday, Feb. 25 - "the same day as a coordinated demonstration organized by labor leaders at the State Capitol." Service was disrupted for 174 clients who take SCAT buses to medical appointments or work.

H/T.

This was the same rally where the incendiary rhetoric of the "working people" compared Governor Christie to Libyan psychopath Moammar Khadafy.

More here.

Thanks to Instapundit for the link and the reminder it was a CWA goon who assaulted Tabitha Hale last week.

Thanks also to Hot Air for the link.

'It's a More Inspiring Approach to Therapy'

I figure if your going to pour your heart out to a woman, it might help if she's naked. I surmise her business will be booming after today.

There's one sure way to get a man to bare his soul - get naked.

Sarah White, a 24-year-old psychology buff, conducts online therapy sessions in her birthday suit. The naked therapist's unique approach to helping people solve their issues has, she says, aroused interest from dozens of suffering New Yorkers.

"For men especially, who are less likely than women to go to therapy, it is more interesting, more enticing, more exciting," said White. "It's a more inspiring approach to therapy."

White begins her sessions with her clothes on. But as the hour-long appointments heat up, she gradually sheds all of her duds until there's nothing left to take off.

"Freud used free association," she said. "I use nakedness."

The initial sessions, which cost $150, are conducted via a one-way Web cam and text chat. Once she develops a rapport with a client, she'll move on to two-way video appointments via Skype and even in-person consultations.

White said her roughly 30 clients are an eclectic mix of college students with sexual issues, middle-aged men with relationship problems and even a couple of women who just enjoy chatting with a nude peer.

Clients schedule appointments through her website, sarahwhitelive.com.

A freelance computer programmer, White said she got the idea to perform therapy sessions in the nude after being uninspired by the theories she learned as an undergraduate psychology student. She conceded that naked therapy is not approved by any mental health association. And she is not a licensed therapist.

White demonstrated her less-is-more style yesterday, slowly peeling off layers of clothing as she counseled a Daily News reporter on seeking a better work/life balance.

"It sounds like you're not sure if this is really a problem," White said shortly before removing her teal bra.

While White's boyfriend supports her new business, her parents are still in the dark.

"I should probably tell them before they read it in the paper," said White, of the upper West Side.

Not surprisingly, professional psychologists are not sold.

"She's using the word therapy here, but I don't consider this therapy," said Diana Kirschner, a New York-based clinical psychologist. "I consider this interactive soft-core Internet porn."

Party of the Rich and Connected: Fatcat Obama Pals Indicted for Insider Trading

Move along, nothing to see here. Bet your last dollar you hear no mention of these guys on the network news tonight.

Federal regulators have charged a former Goldman Sachs board member with insider trading, saying he gave confidential information to the key figure in what prosecutors call the largest hedge fund insider-trading probe ever.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the civil charges against Rajat Gupta on Tuesday. The SEC said Gupta told Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group hedge fund, that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway planned to invest $5 billion in Goldman before it was publicly announced at the height of the financial crisis.

Gupta also is charged with giving Rajaratnam confidential earnings information from Goldman and Procter & Gamble. Gupta served on Goldman's board from 2006 until last May. He was a P&G board member from 2007 until resigning Tuesday, after the charges were announced.

Gupta was an investor in some of the Galleon hedge funds when he passed the information along, and he had other business interests with Rajaratnam, the SEC said. Rajaratnam used the information from Gupta to illegally profit in hedge fund trades, the SEC said.

Prosecutors have said Rajaratnam generated profits of more than $50 million after getting inside information about public companies' earnings and plans for mergers and acquisitions. The information on Goldman made Rajaratnam's funds $17 million richer, the SEC said. The P&G data created illegal profits of more than $570,000 for Galleon funds managed by others, the SEC said.

"Gupta was honored with the highest trust of leading public companies, and he betrayed that trust by disclosing their most sensitive and valuable secrets," SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami said.

Gupta was once a guest at the White House.

Gupta's list of achievements is long. A guest of the White House at President Obama's first state dinner held for the visiting Prime Minister of India, Gupta is one of India's most high-profile immigrants.

He came to the Harvard Business School in 1971 and joined the blue-chip consulting firm McKinsey right after graduation. Gupta became McKinsey's first non-Western head when he became worldwide managing director of the firm from 1994 to 2003.

He's lavished money on Democrats for years. Rajaratnam was even more generous with Obama, as well as with Hillary Clinton. It's quite amazing how many of her fatcat fundraisers have wound up in prison or under indictment. Rajaratnam donated over $30,000 to Obama in 2008. Gupta also showered money upon former Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, who instead of facing charges for his role in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac/Countrywide scandals has landed a cushy, high-profile lobbyist gig.

A further look at Rajaratnam uncovers this:

Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge-fund billionaire charged as part of a vast insider-trading case, surfaced in an earlier, separate probe into U.S. fund raising by a Sri Lankan terrorist group, people familiar with the probe said.

As part of that investigation, federal agents said they uncovered documents showing Mr. Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, was among several wealthy Sri Lankans in the U.S. whose donations to a Maryland-based charity made their way to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, these people said. The LTTE, known as the Tamil Tigers, fought against the government of Sri Lanka in a brutal separatist war from 1976 until the LTTE was defeated in May.
...
He was also active politically. Data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks political contributions, shows Mr. Rajaratnam donated $26,200 to the Democratic Party's fund-raising arm in 2007. He also provided $4,600 in 2007 to the campaign of Hillary Clinton, now secretary of state, and $4,600 in 2008 to the campaign of President Barack Obama.

Even while under investigation, Gupta got to dine with Obama.

Obvious: Rightwing Pols Better Looking Than Lefties

They needed a study to figure this out?

Right-wing politicians are seen as more physically attractive than socialists and get more votes because of their good looks, a new study has found.

Researchers showed photos of anonymous political candidates to 2,500 people, and asked them to judge them on a scale from 'very ugly' to 'very beautiful'.

Right-of-centre politicians were viewed as better looking, while those left-of-centre were generally seen as less attractive, the report found.

The study was carried out by experts in Sweden and Finland, and the politicians used were 1,357 Finnish council election candidates.

But the people asked to judge their attractiveness were from five non-Scandinavian countries including the USA and Britain.

Researcher Niclas Berggren at Sweden's Ratio Institute said: 'We found those candidates on the right were considered to look better than those on the left.

The science has spoken.

Rangel: Abolishing Collective Bargaining is Like Slavery or Something

So says the tax-cheat Democrat from New York.

Yawn.

State governments taking steps to "abolish" collective bargaining rights for workers is similar to slavery, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) contends.

Speaking Monday at a Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) event about GOP-proposed budget cuts, Rangel brought up Republican governors' plans to target public sector workers, as in the case of Gov. Scott Walker's budget fix plan in Wisconsin.

“It doesn’t really make any sense at all for the president of the United States to talk about creating jobs in order to improve the economy and find out that mayors and governors are talking about laying off people," Rangel said. "Collective bargaining is something that is so close to slavery in terms of abolishing it, that it is not an American concept to tell people that they cannot discuss their economic position."

Rangel's statement is one of the strongest rebukes of Republican-controlled state governments' efforts to cut spending and go after public employee unions.

Sorry, but incoherent psychobabble akin to the rantings of Charlie Sheen and Moammar Khadafy is not a rebuke.

It's obvious why Rangel shows his solidarity with fat, lazy union thugs.


(Photo of fat, dirty, obese, heart-attack-waiting-to-happen union thug via GWP.)

Sesame Street Senator: 'Republicans Have a Vendetta Against Elmo'

Please, Babs, update the playbook.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that House Republicans want to strip government funding of PBS because they have a "vendetta against Elmo."

Boxer made the comments during a floor speech where she made the case for her bill that would ensure that the president and lawmakers are not paid if a government shutdown occurs.

Boxer said that the cost of four hours of the Iraq war would be enough to keep PBS funded — and the popular fire-red children's character on the air.

Boxer believes that the GOP has more than just a vendetta against Elmo. She added that Republicans hold a "vendetta against healthcare" and a "vendetta against clean energy."

Not to mention a vendetta against stupidity. That will be the toughest battle of all.

Irony: Black TV Reporter Rescues White Supremacist From Beatdown

This took place in Seattle the other day as a fight broke out while this reporter was nearby. Always on the job, he made sure the camera was still rolling as he intervened, and later discovered the guy he save was some white supremacist clown. No doubt that guy has lost street cred in the Aryan movement.

Illegal Alien 'Church Leader' Charged With Raping 12-Year-Old

If you hear anything about this story today, the main angle will be a "church leader" is charged with raping a 12-year-old girl. That's the preferred angle of the media. Rather than acknowledging this maggot is here illegally, which is buried deep in most reports, if even noted. This story, accompanying the video, makes mention of his status at the very end. This item makes casual note Amaya is here illegally in the very last sentence. Apparently, according to the scumbag's cousin, it's the girl's fault.

Amaya was accused of raping the child last May. He apparently got to know her at the Evangelical Refuge Church of Salvation in Patchogue, police said. However, Glenda Castillo, Amaya’s cousin, said the girl was pointing the finger at Amaya to cast blame away from herself, CBS 2′s Pablo Guzman reported.

“’Cause little high school girls do stuff with other guys and they blame it on other persons, that’s why. Parents should take care more of their freakin’ kids,” Castillo said.

The local ABC affiliate in New York doesn't even bother noting he's an illegal. He's just a youth leader. A Long Island newspaper also ignores the fact he's here illegally, but makes sure to call him a church leader.

Reading Is Fundamental

I saw this story on my local news this morning and for some reason I felt compelled to share it with the readers of this blog. It isn't politics, or world events or misbehaving celebrities which is the usual fare here but instead think of it as a public service.

There is a national organization which records text books for people who have some sort of reading impairment, whether it is blindness or dyslexia or some other reason. I know many people struggle with the written word, and to hear about a group such as this is heartening. If you know of somebody who might benefit from such a service please make sure to pass on the information. More information is of course contained at the links, so just consider this your little bit of good news in what has become a constant stream of bad news.