Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Your tax dollars at work — at strip clubs

Welfare recipients get their taxpayer-provided cash from ATM machines. The LA Times reports today that thousands of welfare dollars are dispensed at ATM machines in California strip clubs:
California welfare recipients have been able to get taxpayer cash -- meant to feed and clothe needy families -- from ATM machines at strip clubs across the state, including some well-known gentlemen’s cabarets in Los Angeles.

More than $12,000 from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program was dispensed from the start of 2007 to the end of 2009 at clubs including Sam’s Hofbrau, Seventh Veil and Star Strip, according to officials at the Department of Social Services.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered the department to remove the clubs from the official list of businesses where welfare recipients can withdraw benefits using state-issued ATM cards.

If the government is going to pay young males not to work, why is anyone surprised that the beneficiaries of the taxpayer's largesse choose to spend their non-working time at strip clubs? Does anyone really think that moving their ATM access out of strip clubs is going to change that behavior?

PREVIOUSLY on government handouts:
Poster child hypocrisy
Environmentalists and corporate welfare
Providing for the welfare of ex-politicians

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

A Democrat's deep thoughts on border security

Here is Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) held a town meeting in Fremont, CA, on June . To a MinuteMan, he asks: "Who are you going to kill today?" And, it gets worse from there:


In 2008, Rep. Stark won reelection with 76% of the vote to the his opponent's 24%. For all of his last six elections, he has received over 70% of the vote. He can afford to be a complete jerk because his seat is safe.

Hat tip: Bookworm Room and Michelle Malkin.

PREVIOUSLY on Rep. Pete Stark's outrages:
Stark: "The truth is that Bush just likes to blow things up in Iraq..."
Stark calls called Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., "a little wimp" and a "little fruitcake" -- and suggested the two should step outside.

Monday, June 28, 2010

How reporters avoid reality

Suppose that you are an "unbiased" reporter and you just discover that the Gen. McChrystal, hand-picked by the former Messiah himself, is not only losing the war in Afghanistan but he is also so politically inept that Pres. Obama feels compelled to fire him. How do you write the story? You need to find some way of spinning it that makes Pres. Obama seem noble. But how? Here is how the Los Angeles Times chose to spin Obama's response to the publishing of the Rolling Stone article on Gen. McChrystal:
Two days after the article first landed in Vietor's inbox, with the innocuous sounding description, "Rolling Stone article," one general had been relieved of command, another installed as his replacement, and the idea that the military answers to civilian leadership had been reaffirmed. [Emph. added]
Brilliant, isn't it? Nothing in the Rolling Stone article even hinted that McChrystal was so much as thinking about disobeying civilian leaders. Yet, LA Times reporters Christi Parsons and Peter Nicholas pretend that it does so that they can make Obama's response seem reasonable, even heroic.

PREVIOUSLY on liberals and their fantasy worlds:
Salon has a sexual fantasy about Palin as a dominatrix
If only hate could change false to true
Faking the news
University study finds Fox more fair and balanced than ABC/CBS/NBC
News media credibility at lowest level since polling began
Living in a Fantasy World, II
17% of US voters claim newsmedia unbiased

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Russia goes supply-side

Financial Times reports on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's plans to lower taxes and rein in government in order to spur investment:
Mr Medvedev laid out a series of new initiatives that aim to boost its attractiveness as an investment destination. “Russia needs a real investment boom”, in order to achieve its modernisation goals, he said. To stimulate that, Mr Medvedev announced Moscow would introduce zero taxation on capital gains for companies working on long-term investments starting from January next year and said Russia was improving the legal system to provide better protection for businesses against the long arm of bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, in the US, Pres. Obama is still going in the other direction.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of Obamanomics and how it differs from economics:
Study: Liberals are economically illiterate
Obama modeling US economy after Europe's
Irresponsibility pays!
Obamanomics prolonging the recession
US Aaa bond rating threatened by Obama's budget says Moody's
Obamanomics illustrated II
How Dems are prolonging the recession
How Obamanomics destroys jobs
Obamanomics illustrated
Deficits: Obama goes where no man has gone before (illustration)
How to raise the standard of living
Obama's anti-intellectual economic theory
Obamanomics and the test of science
Obamacare may raise insurance costs by 54%
Harvard economist explains why Obamacare will raise premiums
HHS says Obamacare will cause costs to go up and cause employers to drop coverage

Obama: a child's view of the world

Byron York (hat tip: Power Line) highlights a revealing moment from Obama's speech (full transcript):
A few months ago, I approved a proposal to consider new, limited offshore drilling under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe, that the proper technology would be in place and the necessary precautions would be taken. [Emph. add]
"Absolutely safe"? Nothing is absolutely safe. Driving a car is not "absolutely safe." Walking across a street is not "absolutely safe." But Pres. Obama was sure that offshore drilling was "absolutely safe"?

Liberals actually do expect that life on Earth can be made, not merely perfectly safe but, in all ways, ideal. As a small part of that, Democrats expect government-controlled medicine to provide all with unlimited free care. Taking it a step further, Karl Marx wrote that, under socialism, humans will suddenly become perfectly intelligent and reasonable:
the practical relations of everyday life [will] offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellow men and to nature. [Emph. added]

PREVIOUS examples of liberal thought include:
Tribal cohesion under test
Bollinger's delusion and the madness of liberals
Seeing imaginary crises
When practiced by Democrats, professor says partisanship is good
Obama campaign or religious revival
Democrat believes Bush intended for Katrina to devastate New Orleans

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Are you an "Obama scholar"?

This video, from Lincoln Bassett, a New Haven Connecticut public school, shows a class of students being led in a pledge to become "Obama scholars":

Beginning at about 1:08, you can hear them chant:
For I, am an Obama scholar.
An Obama scholar.
And I will strive to be.
Outstanding. Brilliant.
I will achieve. I will be motivated with a positive attitude.
While inspirational talks can be a good thing, this goes beyond that. This chant establishes a government-mandated (this is from a public school) cult of personality about a particular politician. That is anti-democratic and dangerous.

Among the least of the problems, what will happen to these kids' motivation when their government-mandated hero is seen as failing?

Hat tip: GatewayPundit and P/Oed Patriot.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of education:
School failure: Liberals are economically illiterate regardless of their level of education
Public school caught spying on kids at home
Study: sexist women teachers stunt learning of girl students
Berkeley High to eliminate "white" science labs
Black students, harassed for "acting white," get $150,000
Teaching self-esteem backfires
Education in Korea vs. the US: does "self-esteem" backfire?
LA pays teachers not to teach
What teachers learn in teacher's ed.
Obama promises to throw money at schools
How to get a job teaching in California even if you are illiterate

What is America?

Carol Negro explains:
America is not a plot of land. It is not a culture. It is not a nationality. It is not a set of traditions or customs. It is not a government. It is not a people. It is not a book of laws. And it certainly isn't a race.

America is an idea.

RTWT.

PREVIOUSLY on America and patriotism (or the lack thereof):
"Traitors to America and Proud of It!"
Minutemen vs. May Day protesters in San Francisco; Two arrested
Democrats attack their own patriotism
More loyalty to UN than USA: What are the Democrats core beliefs?
USS Cole attack aided by traitor
New Obama ad mocks McCain's war injuries.
Don't question their patriotism
Loyalty and treason
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