Do you want to pay for Illinois's pension folly?

Illinois promised its employees generous pensions. But didn't face the music and set aside enough money to make it possible to pay what they promised. They bought votes with phantom money. But payback time has arrived. How do they turn phantom dollars into real ones?

Surprise! By picking your pockets. Do you want to take money out of your wallet to reward the politicians of Illinois for this folly? They expect you to. They have convinced themselves that the federal government - your tax dollars - will guarantee their pension obligations. Here "guarantee" means "pay for."

Fortunately there is push back, both in Illinois and in Congress. Illinois Policy Institute opposes a federal bail out.

(Now that this Illinois group has called out Quinn he has back tracked and said the controversial wording was a drafting error.)

Citizens Against Government Waste named Illinois Governor Pat Quinn its Porker of the Month for September, 2012.

Fox News

Poor impacted by closing homeless shelters

Seattle Housing and Resource Effort (SHARE) closed most of their facilities, which include two tent cities and sixteen shelters, which are mostly in churches in protest.

Who are being hurt? The people the organization was formed to help. They closed the shelters to reinforce their demand for more free bus tickets. Who sets policy around here? They intend to.

SHARE receives $400,000 from Seattle to provide shelters. Their spokesman Jarvis Capucion, who has been homeless for three or four years, moved here from San Diego after quitting his job in insurance billing and collections. Because the job wasn't fulfilling.

How does a protest that hurts the people they are concerned about help?

Seattle Times

The group said that beginning Monday, it will get $50,000 worth of bus tickets from Metro, about a fifth of what it says it needs for the rest of the year.

SHARE said that by closing the shelters during the warmer weather now, it could use its allocated bus tickets during the cold winter weather.

Asked whether shutting down shelters would generate bad publicity, a SHARE spokesman, Jarvis Capucion, said, "I don't think it can backfire publicitywise. We're doing it out of necessity, not for publicity."

On Friday afternoon, 150 to 200 of the homeless and their supporters marched from Westlake Park, then on the sidewalk along Third Avenue, south to the King County Courthouse.

79 per cent think everyone should pay some income tax

Americans disagree with the Democratic media, who are tearing Mitt Romney over his secretly recorded comments about the 47 per cent of Americans who pay no income tax. And most agree with Romney's concern about dependency on the government.

Breitbart.com

According to a new FOX News poll released on Thursday, 79% of Americans, including 85% of Republicans, 83% of independents, and 71% of Democrats, surveyed believe everyone should pay something in income taxes, even if it’s as low as 1%.

In addition, 63% feel Romney’s comments about dependence on government, which were secretly captured on video, are mostly (36 percent) or somewhat true (27 percent).

The poll found that 76 percent of Americans think the “average American” is somewhat dependent on government.

Seventy-three percent of those surveyed in the poll were familiar with Romney’s comments about the 47% of Americans who do not pay federal income tax.

Anderson Robbins Research, a Democratic firm, and Shaw & Company Research, a Republican firm, conducted the poll for FOX News and surveyed 1,092 likely voters from September 24 to 26. The poll’s margin of error is +/- three percentage points.

We O, We Owe is new Obama slogan

"We Owe, We O, so off to work we go."

The new official Obama slogan. How do I know it's official? It is available at President O's official store:

Obama's Store

US drops way below Canada in Economic Freedom

The US used to lead the world in providing the conditions for growth of the economy and jobs. Jobs! But we are hurting ourselves by allowing regulations to grow and refusing to cut spending when we are out of money. On the other hand… Canada...

National Post Canada

Canada has taken its place among the Top 5 countries with the most economic freedom, according to a new Fraser Institute report — now leaps and bounds ahead of the United States thanks to the gradual shrinking of the Canadian government since the mid-1990s as America’s just got bigger.

The annual Economic Freedom of the World report, released Tuesday, has Canada tied in fifth place with Australia — up one spot from last year. Hong Kong remains at the top, Singapore’s next, then New Zealand.

Meanwhile, the United States, once a “standard bearer” of economic liberty among industrial nations, spiralled 10 spots from the 2011 rankings to 18th place — its lowest position ever, and a huge drop from its second place spot in 2000.

Obama official admits Benghazi attack was terrorist

Obama official admits Benghazi attack was terrorist. Matt Olsen had better get out his resume. Oh… he might be safe. He doesn't know if the attack was spontaneous. Yes, the terrorists were driving around town with their rocket-propelled grenades when they came upon a demonstration.

Foreign Policy

The Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was in fact "a terrorist attack" and the U.S. government has indications that members of al Qaeda were directly involved, a top Obama administration official said Wednesday morning.

"I would say yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy," Matt Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, in response to questioning from Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-CT) about the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

As for who was responsible, Olsen said it appears there were attackers from a number of different militant groups that operate in and around Benghazi, and said there are already signs of al Qaeda involvement.

"We are looking at indications that individuals involved in the attack may have had connections to al Qaeda or al Qaeda's affiliates; in particular, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb," he said.

The U.S. government just isn't sure yet whether the terrorist attack was pre-planned or whether it was an example of terrorists taking advantage of protests against an anti-Islam film, Olsen said.

"It appears that individuals who were certainly well-armed seized on the opportunity presented as the events unfolded that evening and into the morning hours of September 12th. We do know that a number of militants in the area, as I mentioned, are well-armed and maintain those arms. What we don't have at this point is specific intelligence that there was a significant advanced planning or coordination for this attack," he said

Vote fraud knocks out MD congressional candidate

Yes, there is vote fraud.

Wendy Rosen is the Democrat candidate for Congress in Maryland's 1st district. Now she is trying to get off the ballot and to prepare for "possible litigation."

Rosen registered in both Maryland and Florida and voted in both in the 2006 general election and the 2008 primary.

This is vote fraud. We are told that even though people register fraudulently (non citizens, non residents, dogs, the dead) but they never vote. Here is one case.

Generic Freedom Foundation They show that more voting fraud is documented by Heritage Foundation.

Examples abound, from an election in New York in 1844 in which 135 percent of the eligible voters turned out to Lyndon Johnson's infamous Ballot Box 13 in his 1948 Senate election. More recently, in 2003 a mayoral election in East Chicago, Indi­ana, and in 2005 a state senate race in Tennessee were both overturned due to voter fraud. As the Supreme Court noted in its decision in 2008 upholding Indiana's photo identification requirement, flagrant examples of voter fraud "have been documented throughout this Nation's history by respected historians and journalists." Those examples "demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election."

Republicans lead in party registration

Republicans lead in party registration now by 4.3 per cent. And this indicates who has the advantage on election day.

When Demos lead in party registration they win. When the gap is small Republicans win. This is Rasmussen's Summary of Party Affiliation.

DATECHGUY shows this with the data for recent elections. He shows the presidential elections of 2004 & 2008 and the 2010 Republican blow out.

Baghad Betty Rice just can't see planned attack in Libya

Obama's ambassador to the UN Susan Rice just can't see it.

President Mohammed el-Megarif of Libya says the attack in Benghazi was planned in advance. That it was not a spontaneous reaction to the attack on the US embassy in Cairo, Egypt. They attacked with rocket-propelled grenades.

Daily Caller:

“The idea that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous,” Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif told the liberal National Public Radio network.

Instead, the killing was a military-style attack, he said.

That attack hit the poorly guarded group of diplomats, who had to be rescued by Libyan reinforcements.

Do spontaneous protesters just happen to have rocket-propelled grenades lying around? That's what Baghdad Betty sees.

ABC News

“Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo,” Rice told me this morning on “This Week.”

“In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated,” Rice said, referring to protests in Egypt Tuesday over a film that depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud. Protesters in Cairo breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy, tearing apart an American flag.

“We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to – or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo,”

Who are you going to believe? Libya's President who is there? Or Obama's designated spinner? That's why we now call her Baghdad Betty. *
* Baghdad Bob was Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, Saddam Hussein's information minister who claimed US forces had not entered the city Baghad while during the same live broadcast you could see US tanks in the background across the river. He just "couldn't see them." Wikipedia

Hat tip to John Carlson on KVI 570 for the appellation.

Obama violated his oath of office

Obama violated his oath of office.

Obama sent brown-shirted (literally) thugs to raid his home at midnight. Why? So he could be Obama's scapegoat. Without Nakoula to blame the world must look at how recklessly Sec. of State Hillary Clinton left our diplomatic missions unprotected in dangerous parts of the world.

What was Nakoula's crime that sent Obama agents on their midnight raid? Using his free-speech right to make a "movie" (appears to be 14 minutes never shown except in YouTube) that offended Muslims.

The attack in Benghazi was planned. Those attackers don't care about a movie no one has seen. They hate America because we have freedom. So Clinton is guilty of gross negligence.

Obama violated his oath of office by raiding the home of an American whose "speech" Obama didn't like. Well… We don't know if Obama liked it or not. Obama needed his scapegoat and violated this American's rights for Obama's political gain.

Glenn Reynolds say he should resign. Instapundit

No Marines for ambassadors in dangerous areas. Full security for Valerie Jarrett - update

Obama has his priorities. His uberaid Valerie Jarrett has 5 or 6 secret service agents guarding her in the dangerous clime of Martha's Vineyard. While some of our overseas consulates don't have Marines guarding them. Some, many? More than just Chris Stevens who dies in Libya.

Below the source also has polling data that says the American people care. And are not impressed.

Breitbart

[Democrat pollster Pat] Caddell today in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News: “Jarrett seems to have a 24 hour, around the clock detail, with five or six agents full time,” Caddell explains. “The media has been completely uninterested. We don’t provide security for our ambassador in Libya, but she needs a full Secret Service security detail. And nobody thinks there’s anything wrong with this. And nobody in the press will ask. What kind of slavish stoogery are they perpetrating here?

“This country has reached the point of absurdity. There are people dead because we don’t have security details for them. But she’s privileged to have a full Secret Service detail on vacation?”

Caddell points out that Americans are already unhappy with President Obama on foreign policy aside from the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Caddell, along with Republican pollster John McLaughlin, runs Secure America, a nonpartisan advocacy group. “We’ve just finished two polls coming out in the field today,” says Caddell, “but we already know that people feel strongly about Iran; they feel strongly about the administration’s policy with regard to Islamic extremists. They don’t like the Obama administration’s handling of these issues. And this election won’t only be about the economy. The American people aren’t stupid. They can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Caddell does reserve heavy criticism for the Republican establishment…. [of course]

Update: Sec of State Hillary Clinton signed the order for no Marines in Libya

Colonel David Hunt discloses at Breitbart

Hunt told Breitbart News that the new State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya, approved and signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton since the 2011 fall of Khadafi's regime, severely compromised the safety and security of murdered Ambassador Stevens and all American diplomatic staff in Libya.

He also stated that the decision not to staff Benghazi with Marines was made by Secretary of State Clinton when she attached her signature to the State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya document. Breitbart News has subsequently learned that under those rules of engagement, Secretary Clinton prohibited Marines from providing security at any American diplomatic installation in Libya.

SEAL leaking info is ciminal; if President leaks then it's OK

Def Secretary Leon Panetta says the crime of leaking classified material is a crime - except when Obama does it.

PJ Tatler

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made a striking admission today. In an interview with CBS’ Norah O’Donnell, Panetta threatened legal action against the Navy SEAL who wrote, under a pen name, about the raid that killed terrorist Osama bin Laden. Panetta said that any sanctions against the SEAL, who wrote No Easy Day under the name Mark Wood, would be intended to send a message that others entrusted with national security secrets that they should not divulge what they know.

O’Donnell then asked Panetta a direct question: What’s the difference between what the SEAL did and the leaks that have come from the administration to journalists and filmmakers? Panetta spun: “There’s a fundamental difference. The people that presented some of the details of the operations were authorized to do that by the president of the United States, who has that authority to do that, and inform the American people as to what happened,” Panetta said. “In this case, that was not the case. And that’s the difference.”

Among the information that Panetta now says the president authorized to be release, were the identities of the leaders of the SEAL team that killed bin Laden….

Cape PAC will steal your donation

A (criminal?) outfit called Cape PAC is putting up fake donation sites for Republican candidates for office. Why no Democrats? If you donate to Congressman Allen West on the fake Cape PAC site West will get nothing, All your donation will go to PR firms that reimburse each other until the money is gone,

Look for "hosted by Cape PAC" at the bottom or top of the web page.

The Atlantic

Noam Neusner, a former White House speechwriter for President George W. Bush, thought he had given $250 to Ohio GOP Senate candidate Josh Mandel.

He hadn't.

Instead, Neusner was one of nearly 3,000 donors who stumbled onto a network of look-alike campaign websites that have netted more than $570,000 this year in what some are calling a sophisticated political phishing scheme.

The websites have the trappings of official campaign pages: smiling candidate photos and videos, issue pages, and a large red "donate" button at the top. Except that proceeds from the shadow sites go not to the candidates pictured, but to an obscure conservative group run by an Arizona activist.

Such doppelgänger sites exist for nearly three-dozen prominent GOP figures, including presidential nominee Mitt Romney, House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and donation magnets such as Reps. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Allen West of Florida

Southern Poverty Law Center shows its bias

Since Southern Poverty Law Center  is fighting "the right wing" any thing it doesn't like is defined as right wing - including clearly left=wing groups. If Occupy Wall Streeters in Ohio are caught planning to blow up a bridge near Cleveland using C-4 explosives last April, suddenly the very left OWSers become "right." Huh?

SPLC started with a very worthy concern - fighting anti-black racial violence, but it got drunk on government funding. So when its defining problem was greatly improved they had to find other targets. And they did.

American Thinker

The Southern Poverty Law Center has built-up a lucrative fundraising business enabling it to pay lavish salaries to those who drum up money on the basis of fighting racism and "hate groups." The awkward fact that anti-black racial violence has diminished has not stopped it from developing other lures to keep this donations coming. The new favorite is to label supporters of traditional marriage as "hate groups."

Now, the SPLC has gone one step further in its logic. If it is violent and bad, it must be right wing.

The progressive movement in America has slipped the bounds of reality and is living in an entirely reality-free make believe world.

Obama hasn't done his job

Obama hasn't done his job. Says who? Says Obama himself.

When asked this month what grade he deserves on improving the economy: ABC News

“You know, I would say incomplete,” Obama said in an interview with Boulder, Colo., TV station KKTV

It's finals time, Mr. President. Why would the voters reelect you? You, yourself, say you haven't done your job - the job you promised to do. You promised that your $931 billion stimulus would keep unemployment under 8 per sent. But it zoomed to 10 per cent and stayed above 8 per cent for years.

Graphic from Washington Post based on White House Council of Economic Advisors. Found at Business Insider. Click to enlarge. 

This seat is taken

Thursday night at the Republican National Convention Clint Eastwood spoke to the empty chair = to the job President Obama is supposed to be doing, but he is too busy campaigning… and raising million-dollar access passes aka donations… and partying in the White House… and playing golf. He played more golf in one year than Bush did in eight. Telegraph UK

You didn't know talking about President 0 playing golf is racist - racist? - then you haven't been taking in every second of MSNBC. Free Beacon

Photo found at Patterico. Click to enlarge.

US press accepts government control

Journalists are giving up their independence to get more access to Obama's top officials. Rush now calls it the government-controlled press. See why.

The Germans see it clearly.

Der Spiegel

In the US, journalists are sacrificing editorial independence in exchange for access to top politicians. The practice has a long history in Germany, where interviews often must be authorized before publication.

In democratic societies, the media has long struggled with the political class to define what information is fit to print. While journalists seek access to high-level officials for a scoop, officialdom often does its best to control the flow of information to journalists in order to mold public opinion in its interests.

But in the United States, the balance of power between the journalist and the politician has increasingly shifted in favor of the latter. According to a July 15 report by Jeremy W. Peters of the New York Times, political journalists in Washington are increasingly trading their editorial independence for high-level access to members of the Obama administration.

Quotes gleaned from administration officials by a reporter are not just reviewed by the publication's editor, they are often sent to the very same officials for approval - and even redaction - before going to print.

According to Stephen Ward, there is a growing and unhealthy "pressure on journalists and … on news organizations to get the story, to be first, to be the first tweet."

"The officials who know this are quite aware that in this era of 24 hours news, access is king," Ward, the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told DW. "This is just a game of access - it's as old as journalism."