PBS is streaming the CPAC.
Full Schedule below. Times are EST.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/125668663/CPAC-2013-Schedule
Monthly Archives: March 2013
What Government Waste?
I think the argument that the private sector can do things a lot cheaper than the government is over. Or at least it should be. According to The White House, it cost taxpayers $74,000 A WEEK, not a month or year, to manage tours at The White House.
Florida Lt. Gov. Carroll (R), DONE
Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll (R), the first African-American elected statewide and first woman to serve as lieutenant governor, has resigned amid a gambling, racketeering, and conflict-of-interest scandal. Well isn’t that special?
The only thing missing here is something to do with sex.
Chimney Cam
Not to minimize the importance of choosing a new Pope, but if you are interested in being among the first in the world to know whether a successor has been chosen, you too can look at a chimney. Not just any chimney. The one at the Vatican.
Islam, Catholicism, Irrelevant In 21st Century?
You would not believe how bad the Iranian mullahs have their shorts in a wad over this picture. 
Word coming out of Iran is this picture shows that Ahmadinejad has violated Islamic tradition. Apparently comforting a grieving mother is a sin. Islam forbids men from touching women who are not members of their direct family. What’s up with that?
According to The Telegraph, Mohammad Taghi Rahbar, the Friday prayer leader of Iran’s second city, Isfahan, told Mehr news agency that Ahmadinejad had “lost control”.
Some observers say this is attack is politically motivated because elections are coming up this summer. It may be politically motivated. Is it Iran being idiotic, or Islam being idiotic? Or some of each?
“Islam is on the way to irrelevancy if they don’t start including women, and certainly people of other color, and ultimately homosexuals.” Yeah, this according to Sally Quinn of the Washington Post. There is this one caveat. She was referring to the Catholic Church and Catholicism, not Islam. Do you think she, or any member of the news media for that matter, would ever say that about Islam? Christianity, that’s fair game.
Link: Iran’s Ahmadinejad blasted for consoling Chavez’s mother
Alternate Universe Defined
Daily Beast and Newsweek contributor Michael Tomasky defines the Left’s alternate universe in one sentence. On advising Obama on how he should respond to the “deficit hawks” over House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s budget (that the president should listen to advice from the media is another topic), Tomasky says, “Obama should ignore them—and make it clear that jobs, not deficits, are his main priority.”
The alternate reality is that the only thing we’ve seen grow since Obama took office is deficits and debt. Not jobs. Which for normal people, begs the question whether Obama is sincere, lying, or has a clue on how to create jobs in the private sector? The left-leaning media, like Obama, don’t care about deficits and the national debt. In fact, reducing the national debt and arriving at a balanced budget isn’t in Obama’s proposed budget. And that alone should be cause for concern.
The reality is that Obama’s policies and deficit expansion have only worsened unemployment and expanded the need for government help. It doesn’t matter that he says jobs are his main priority. He’s been saying that since before his first inauguration. Both he, and Mr. Tomasky are of the belief that we can spend our way to prosperity and borrow our way out of debt. How’s that working for you? The reality is, the only way either of those things will turn around is by turning loose this economy and let it grow, instead of sapping the blood from it and holding it back. That’s when real jobs, not government jobs, will be created.
Note too that the Left has a word for being responsible with the people’s money. If you think that the government should not spend more than it takes in, then you’re a deficit hawk. Which ostensibly must be as bad as a defense hawk or war hawk. It follows that you’re a deficit dove (or ignoramus) if you think money grows on trees and can spend and borrow as much as you want, with no limit whatsoever. Which label do you think the low information voters identify with?
Behavioral Rehabilitation For Fido
After reading a disturbing story about a couple arrested on animal cruelty charges for starving their animals to death, and not given any jail time for it, there is this one that shows some hope for humanity. Something new, a Behavioral Rehabilitation Center for animals that are victims of abuse. Animals that, absent rehabilitative treatment, would likely face euthanasia.
People want their dog to be a friend, not afraid. But sometimes, fear grips dogs so tightly they shake, cower, bite, growl or pee. It can be constant, painful and hard to overcome. Such dread can consume a dog when it’s freed from a cage at a puppy mill or hoarder’s home because that’s the only life the dog has ever known.
Link: Woman won’t get jail time in pit bull abuse case | New Center Offers Help for Dogs Consumed by Fear | Tools for Fighting Cruelty
RPOF, On Notice
OK, this is the last straw. The Republican Party Of Florida sent me an email, ostensibly supporting an article in the Daily Caller, 
“Conservatives are wrong to attack Rick Scott.” They say, don’t fight this, Obamacare. The Democrats will demagogue you (like they always do) and Scott will lose a supposed tight race against (wait for it) Charlie Crist. I’ve never known Rick Scott to be so timid, nor to make judgements based on his political future instead of the future of the State of Florida.
The good news is that today, the Florida Legislature is on record opposing Gov. Scott’s decision to acquiesce to President Obama’s signature nationalized health care bill, aka the Affordable Care Act. Which, is anything but affordable.
The Florida Legislature makes it clear that it will oppose Gov. Rick Scott on the question of expanding Medicaid. On Monday, a Senate committee voted against an expansion of Medicaid under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Last week, a House committee led the way in the Legislature’s opposition to the idea.
I’m sick and tired of Republicans allowing themselves to be intimidated by demagogues and caving on principle. When will they ever learn that they are the ones following the Left’s plan? Let’s have this fight on Medicaid Hill Gov. Scott. There are better ways to solve the State’s, and the nations’, health care needs than socialized medicine.
The RPOF got my response:
Sorry RPOF. But I doubt Gov. Scott would have won the primary had he supported Obamacare. Now, he has betrayed our (conservatives) trust. We’ve been there before with Charlie Crist. And let’s see, Jumping Jim Jeffords, Arlen Specter, Scott Brown, Cristy in New Jersey. Been there. Done that.
You’re not a conservative if you are willing to sacrifice the future for a short-term gain, which is what (just like Charlie did) Rick is doing. NO, the answer is NO. There is a better way to solve our health care issues than this. Don’t go for it just because it is there. That’s what the administration is counting on. It’s the carrot, or outright bribery, that enabled the community organizer to get that bill passed in the first place. Well, that and a complacent Republican party, and candidate, afraid to stand up and fight back.
And while you poo poo conservatives for being conservative, as far as I’m concerned, McCain and Graham may as well fold their tent. They’re in bed with the devil too.
Some free advice; the RNC and ever other R party organization, can wait until hell freezes over before I’ll contribute to them. I, like others I know, will be contributing directly to people we know to be conservative and who will stay that way. You decide who you’re going to support. And if we’re lucky, it will be the same candidate. I’ve had it with the ‘establishment’ republicans pissing on conservatives. They are the ones that need to wise up, smell the coffee, and fight for first principles. Period, end of story. Beginning with Bush 43, the notion that the Republican party is conservative has been withering on the vine. Why no one is looking to repeal his new entitlement drug program is beyond me as well.
Now, you would be hard-pressed to convince me that there’s still something left to lose.
Links: Florida Legislature opposes Gov. Rick Scott on Medicaid expansion | Conservatives are wrong to attack Rick Scott | Statement by President Gaetz Regarding Senate PPACA Committee Vote on Medicaid Expansion
The Recoverless And Jobless Recovery
There’s a reason Obama’s economy and so-called recovery is referred to as the recoverless recovery. For much the same reason that drops in the unemployment rate don’t mean that we are creating jobs.
This video illustrates the performance of the last eight recessions and why the last three all look different.
In Obama’s jobless recovery, the unemployment rate is going down. Not because more people are working, but because fewer people are working. 296,000 less in February than in January. The BLS simply shrinks the job universe of workers, referred to as the labor force participation rate, before computing the unemployment rate. It is as though those unemployed whose 99 weeks of unemployment have run out, and are still unemployed, have died. The government stops counting them.
This is how the BLS describes it . . .
The civilian labor force is the sum of employed and unemployed persons. Those persons not classified as employed or unemployed are not in the labor force. The unemployment rate is the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force. The labor force participation rate is the labor force as a percent of the population, and the employment-population ratio is the employed as a percent of the population.
- When you include those unemployed as still living, the real unemployment rate, the U-6, is 14.3%.
- Multiple job holders, those needing and getting two or more jobs, grew by 340,000 since January 2013.
- There are 1,129,000 fewer workers in the work force in February 2013 than in February 2012.
- The number of unemployed that have been unemployed for 27 weeks or over increased by 89,000 from January 2013.
- Unemployment rate for “Black or African Americans” ages 16 to 19 years old went from 37.8% in January to 43.1% in February 2013. Same age bracket for “White” was 20.8% in January and 22.1% in February 2013.
The “highlight” that The White House and the media report is “Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 236,000 in February, and the unemployment rate edged down to 7.7. And, that 236,000 number includes second and third jobs found by the still employed. And, when you consider that due to retirements and population growth, a break-even in job creation would be 250,000 jobs per month, that we not only have a recoverless recovery, but a jobless recovery as well.
The details are here . . .
Technical Difficulty “Fixed”
If you were wondering where the “comment” feature to posts went, that makes two of us. I have “fixed” it (for now anyways) and you should once again have the ability to comment to a post by hitting the “Comment” link at the bottom of every post.
Sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused you. Really, I am.
ross
OK, so it still wasn’t fixed when I said it was. It just “looked” like it was fixed. Now, it’s fixed. I just tested it and no server error bullshit. Lesson learned is that the “jetpack” utilities for WP seem to break as much as they fix. Deleting the jetpack comment module seems to have fixed the problem.
One thing you can bank on. It won’t cost you “one dime” more.