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Forget about Saudi Arabia playing its traditional role as poil price stabilizer.
American Thinker Blog
A new Gallup Poll finds Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s favorable rating from Americans is now 66%, up from 61% in July 2010 and her highest rating to date while serving in the Obama administration.
The current rating is just one percentage point below her all-time high rating of 67%, from December 1998.
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire
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| Next stop, Texas? |
Caterpillar has been headquartered in Peoria, Illinois for 101 years. But the Pat Quinn income tax hike, and a generally nasty business environment-for instance, Illinois’ workers’ compensation laws need reform-has “Cat” eyeing out-of-state exit ramps.
Which is the subject of a Daily Caller op-ed from US Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL), the Chief House Majority Whip.
Over-taxing and over-regulation have consequences.
Caterpillar, a Fortune 500 company that employs 23,000 workers in Illinois, currently finds itself dealing with a new tax increase in an already over-taxed state. Their CEO, Doug Oberhelman, sent a warning shot on March 21st with a letter to Illinois’ new Democrat Governor Pat Quinn:
“I want to stay here,” Oberhelman wrote. “But as the leader of this business, I have to do what’s right for Caterpillar when making decisions about where to invest. The direction that this state is headed in is not favorable to business, and I’d like to work with you to change that.”
The “direction” Oberhelman refers to is the economic sinkhole that Governor Pat Quinn recently plunged Illinois deeper into by raising taxes on employers by 30%. Overnight, Illinois went from having the 21st highest overall corporate tax rate in America to the 3rd.
Oberhelman is scheduled to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee today, of which Roskam is a member.
Related posts:
Gov. Quinn Pro Quo: Pat Quinn’s public-sector union cash, part four
Illinois: Almost 97% of state workers could be represented by unions soon
Technorati tags: 
business economy government politics Peoria Caterpillar illinois politics Illinois Patrick Quinn Democrats democrat dupage county peter roskam news Republican gop Congress
Washington (CNN) – The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared to hold the cards Monday in a key campaign finance reform case involving an Arizona election law that would provide matching funds to underfunded candidates. The justices could continue a recent legal trend and strike down another effort at government restrictions on election spending.
The state law offers extra taxpayer-funded support for office seekers who have been outspent by privately funded opponents or by independent political groups. A key sticking point during the one-hour oral arguments was whether this law was designed to “level the playing field” through a public finance system, a legislative goal the court in the past has said is unconstitutional.
Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com
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Why is the current administration so obsessed with the delusion of high speed rail for America, and at staggering costs?
American Thinker Blog
Why is the current administration so obsessed with the delusion of high speed rail for America, and at staggering costs?
American Thinker Blog
“Project Gunrunner” Was a project of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fireworks In late 2009, the ATF was alerted to suspicious buys at seven gun shops in the Phoenix area. Suspicious because the buyers paid cash, sometimes brought in paper bags. And they purchased classic “weapons of choice” used by Mexican drug traffickers – semi-automatic versions of military type rifles and pistols. According to news reports several gun shops wanted to stop the questionable sales, but Bureau encouraged them to continue.
ATF managers allegedly made a controversial decision: allow most of the weapons on the streets. The idea, they said, was to gather intelligence and see where the guns ended up. Insiders say it’s a dangerous tactic called letting the guns, “walk.” Yes, that’s right, the US government decided, in order to fight the Mexican Drug Cartels, someone high up in the government decided to sell them guns.
The President said that neither he nor AG holder knew about the program which was initiated during his tenure in the White House.
“Well first of all I did not authorize it. Eric Holder the Attorney General did not authorize it. He’s been very clear that our policy is to catch gun runners and put ‘em into jail,” Mr. Obama said of the controversial ATF operation .”
“You were not even informed about it?” asked Univision reporter Jorge Ramos.
“Absolutely not,” said Mr. Obama. “There may be a situation here which a serious mistake was made and if that’s the case then we’ll find out and well hold somebody accountable.”
He went on to say that a Justice Department Inspector General will investigate who was behind the project. Unfortunately, if it is the same inspector general who investigated the dropping of the New Black Panther case it will be nothing but a cover-up.
I am not saying that the President is lying, but I am saying that anything that stupid had to come from a higher up. Sometimes the best, most incredibly creative ideas come from senior management, but even more often the worst and most stupid ideas come from, or approved by senior management.
Allow me to explain, my last job was for a small publishing company that published newspaper distributed magazines such as American Profile and Relish. The top guy was a genius at coming up with ideas. Because he was so creative in one meeting he could spin off 100 ideas, five of them would be incredibly wonderful, the other 95 were unworkable, not because of any lack of judgment but because like most good senior executives, he was locked in on the “big picture” and not the details. What made Dick so great was that he didn’t have an ego, he would let us throw away the 95 bad ideas and concentrate on the five great ideas. An egotistical manager in the same situation would say all of his ideas are sacred and would push for the “not so good” ideas to be implemented also.
Someone who is “close to the street” would never approve of giving guns to the drug lords unless they were ordered from above. Even a middle manager would not take the risk of approving such a program, it would be career suicide. Only someone higher up in the Obama food chain would have the ego to believe that this was a good program.
The lead ATF official in Mexico at the time Darren Gil says somebody in the Justice Department did know about the case. Gil says his supervisor at ATF’s Washington D.C. headquarters told him point-blank the operation was approved even higher than ATF Director Kenneth Melson.
“Is the director aware of this,” Gil asked the supervisor. Gil says his supervisor answered “Yes, the director’s aware of it. Not only is the director aware of it, D.O.J.’s aware of it… Department of Justice was aware of it.”
Gil went on to say senior Justice official Lanny Breuer and several of his deputies visited Mexico amid the controversy last summer, and spoke to ATF staff generally about a big trafficking case that they claimed was “getting good results.” Gil says Melson, ATF’s Acting Director, also visited Mexico City. Gil’s Deputy Attache and his Analyst questioned Melson about the case that surrounding all the weapons showing up in Mexico. “His response was ‘it’s a good case, it’s still going on,’” recalls Gil, “and we’ll close it down as soon as we possibly can.”
The investigation into ATF’s “Project Gunrunner” should be at the Congressional level, not by the Justice Department based on the Holder-led DOJ’s record of self investigation. Only then will we know which Senior official approved such as dumb idea.
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Globe and Mail |
UConn Huskies riding high out of the West again
Boston Herald ANAHEIM, Calif. – The three-pointer by Derrick Williams that would have ended this jubilant, most improbable UConn season bounced off the rim. Kyle Fogg kept the rebound alive and the three-pointer by Jamelle Horne … Calhoun's crew looks like team of destiny UConn rules West Regional and continues late-season spree Huskies rocketing to Houston and the Final Four |
Tuition and fees at the University of Connecticut will rise 2.5 percent this fall, the smallest one-year increase since 2000, the school’s board of trustees decided Wednesday. Last year’s increase was 5.66 percent.
Also Wednesday, reacting to recent news disclosures and criticism over high UConn salaries, the trustees agreed to do set up a compensation committee to look at administrative pay. Board Chairman Lawrence D. McHugh cited recent news disclosures in saying he believes that the school administration appears to have left the trustees in the dark about granting some big salary increases.
A March 13 Government Watch column in The Courant reported that UConn’s two top police officials – Chief Robert Hudd and Major Ronald Blicher – were paid $ 246,961 and $ 193,616 last year, much higher than the salaries of many of their counterparts in big-city police departments and at other universities.
For example, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was paid about $ 212,000 annually as of two years ago to command a force of 34,000 that protects 8 million residents and countless office workers and tourists.
Bill Maher on Friday night got nicely zinged by New York Times columnist David Brooks.
After the host bragged about all the over-confident kids that have told him they're going to one day be on HBO's "Real Time," Brooks marvelously said, "That's not necessarily a sign of high self-esteem though to want to be on this show" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
TINA BROWN, DAILY BEAST: Yeah, but it's also the tuned-out factor because unfortunately I think that just too many people are paying no attention at all. And that’s what really came out in our poll was that people on the extremes, I mean it was the exact opposite of what we've always thought which was that the middle was sort of the responsible. No, it seems the opposite. The people who are passionate and are engaged are on the extremes, and everyone, this big swath in the middle are just tuned-out. They’re listening to their…
BILL MAHER, HOST: That’s interesting. We think of the independents as, you know, smart people who are sizing up the different – no. They're the dumbest ones of all.
BROWN: They’re the couch potatoes.
DAVID BROOKS, NEW YORK TIMES: But people are rewarded for being stupid. So, one of my favorite statistics is that in 1950 Gallup asked high school seniors, “Are you a very important person?” And twelve percent said, “Yes.” They asked again in 1998 – 80 percent of high school seniors said, “I’m a very important person.”
MAHER: Oh, I’m sure, yes.
BROOKS: So, they're being told they're wonderful. The amount of hours American kids spend studying has gone down while their grades go up.
MAHER: Their confidence is off the chart. If I had a nickel for every kid who come up to me and said, “I’m going to be on your show. Oh, it’s a fact.” I’m like, “Well, actually, it's not a fact."
BROOKS: That's not necessarily a sign of high self-esteem though to want to be on this show.
BROWN: Ooh. Ooh.
MAHER: Wow!
That Maher thinks it's a sign of confidence that kids think they're going to some day be on his show is a perfect example of how full of himself and detached from reality he is.
Nicely played, David. Bravo!
Bill Maher on Friday night got nicely zinged by New York Times columnist David Brooks.
After the host bragged about all the over-confident kids that have told him they're going to one day be on HBO's "Real Time," Brooks marvelously said, "That's not necessarily a sign of high self-esteem though to want to be on this show" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
TINA BROWN, DAILY BEAST: Yeah, but it's also the tuned-out factor because unfortunately I think that just too many people are paying no attention at all. And that’s what really came out in our poll was that people on the extremes, I mean it was the exact opposite of what we've always thought which was that the middle was sort of the responsible. No, it seems the opposite. The people who are passionate and are engaged are on the extremes, and everyone, this big swath in the middle are just tuned-out. They’re listening to their…
BILL MAHER, HOST: That’s interesting. We think of the independents as, you know, smart people who are sizing up the different – no. They're the dumbest ones of all.
BROWN: They’re the couch potatoes.
DAVID BROOKS, NEW YORK TIMES: But people are rewarded for being stupid. So, one of my favorite statistics is that in 1950 Gallup asked high school seniors, “Are you a very important person?” And twelve percent said, “Yes.” They asked again in 1998 – 80 percent of high school seniors said, “I’m a very important person.”
MAHER: Oh, I’m sure, yes.
BROOKS: So, they're being told they're wonderful. The amount of hours American kids spend studying has gone down while their grades go up.
MAHER: Their confidence is off the chart. If I had a nickel for every kid who come up to me and said, “I’m going to be on your show. Oh, it’s a fact.” I’m like, “Well, actually, it's not a fact."
BROOKS: That's not necessarily a sign of high self-esteem though to want to be on this show.
BROWN: Ooh. Ooh.
MAHER: Wow!
That Maher thinks it's a sign of confidence that kids think they're going to some day be on his show is a perfect example of how full of himself and detached from reality he is.
Nicely played, David. Bravo!
No wonder Wisconsin’s runaway Democrat State Senators chose Illinois to hide in. Their public sector union paymasters have that state well in hand, to judge by the compensation a school superintendant named Harry Griffith receives:
That’s $ 429,029 per year for an educrat who I’m guessing doesn’t work any harder than you do, judging by the dismal state of Illinois schools, the majority of which fail to meet testing targets. Even after he retires he will still collect over $ 300,000 per year.
At least now I understand why Illinois recently saw the need to raise its income tax by a staggering 67%. After all, Griffith isn’t riding that gravy train all by himself.
On a tip from Just TheTip. Hat tip: Gateway Pundit.
Stephenson's Jafar Mann was not doing the "Gator chomp" here. He was clapping in celebration of his team's win over Parkview last fall. (AJC photo by Jason Getz)
Stephenson defensive tackle Jafar Mann on Friday became the second player from his school to commit to the Florida Gators. And if he has anything to do with it he won’t be the last.
The 6-foot-4, 285-pound rising senior joined running back teammate Mike Davis in pledging Florida. The Gators are also in hot pursuit of Stephenson defensive end Jarontay Jones and linebacker Raphael Kirby. All four players have in excess of a dozen scholarship offers apiece so far.
Mann said there is a chance all four players will play together at Florida. “I’d say it’s a strong possibility,” he said.
These things can definitely seem subject to momentum. Mann admitted that Davis, who was the first to commit to the Gators on Feb. 19, definitely helped sway him toward UF. And they, in turn, plan to work on their teammates.
“He was an …
