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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (356859)	3/31/2010 12:49:03 PM
From: mph	13 Recommendations Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 793834

I heard Alan Colmes going on for a few minutes last night about how it's obviously racist to oppose Obama. The guy sounded like some bug eyed nut case. I think Obama and his little band of automatons ought to look closer to home if they want to comment on insanity and suspect motivations. Does anyone believe a word of what Obama emits from his facial orifice at this point? To me, he's become the archetype of the joke that explains the way to determine when a person is lying----his lips are moving.

To: LindyBill who wrote (356859)	3/31/2010 2:02:26 PM
From: KLP	Respond to of 793834

LB, THANKS! Geraghty was at his finest with this today! Great Rant! Perhaps I'm the exact wrong target audience; because I deal with news all day long, by prime time I just want to watch Jack Bauer waterboard Charlie Sheen or watch Adam Baldwin sneak in references to Jonah's book on Chuck. But really, who's yearning to watch Larry King lob his latest round of softballs to Ryan Seacrest in the 9 p.m. hour, or Anderson Cooper deploying his trademark soulful-mournful look while sucking in his gut in a t-shirt before some far-off scene of horrific human misery? Am I really supposed to gravitate to Larry King's health-care discussion with Mitt Romney and Kathleen Sebelius when a few nights earlier the show's hot topic was Kirstie Alley's promise to keep off the weight this time? And by the 10 p.m. hour, how much news is breaking? Cooper's either giving us the day's headlines that we could have heard at any other hour or walking in the footsteps of Sally Struthers in some refugee camp that just reinforces the sense that yes, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. And the onetime host of the reality show The Mole will be furrowing his brow at us the whole time.

To: LindyBill who wrote (356859)	3/31/2010 10:36:23 PM
From: KLP	4 Recommendations Respond to of 793834

Morrissey: Reason: The public sector is killing the private sector posted at 2:45 pm on March 31, 2010 by Ed Morrissey Share on Facebook \| printer-friendly “We’re twisting arms! We’re threatening people!” Normally, one would be tempted to call the government to stop people making these kinds of threats. Unfortunately, as Reason TV reports, those people are the government. In fact, the public sector has become the one growth industry in the Great Recession, with hardly a blip in its job expansion. But it comes at the expense of the private sector, and what’s more, it creates a permanent lobbying class for even more government expansion: 1. They cost too much. As USA Today recently noted, federal employees make on average almost $8,000 more than their private-sector counterparts. When you add in benefits, the gap spreads to about $30,000. State and local government workers make around the same as private-sector counterparts, but their health and retirement packages mean they make significantly more in the end. 2. We can’t fire them. The private sector has shed positions in response to slackening demand and the economic downturn. That sort of adjustment is painful but necessary, as it allows the economy to adjust to changing circumstances and workers and employers to move into new activities. Because it is guaranteed certain amounts of tax revenue and has a non-market mind-set, the public sector is largely insulated from such forces and keeps or even adds workers despite changed conditions. The result? We keep paying for things that we don’t use, need, or want. 3. They create a permanent lobby for expanded government and higher taxes. Look at California, where teacher unions have spent over $211 million dollars on elections in the past decade. One result is that 40 percent of California’s budget must be spent on education, regardless of the number and needs of students. Over the last 10 years, taxpayer contributions to public-sector pension funds has increased by 2000 percent! But the entire story can be told in this chart: hotair.cachefly.net As government increases, so does its reach into the lives and wallets of Americans in every walk of life. Instead of being public servants working at critical tasks, they have become the taskmasters — and increasingly unaccountable for their actions. Every mandate creates a new bureaucracy, and every bureaucracy creates a human cost when it comes time to cut it back. This is an increasingly dire cycle for Americans who value their independence and liberty. hotair.com