This mother of five started her own business in Clifton Heights five years ago. She went out of business two months ago. A lot happened in between. Not all of it bad.
Holman Jenkins exposes a little secret about our healthcare system that Obamacare didn't fix: It's grossly regressive.
Let's step back. ObamaCare is a specific instance of a broader truth about America's health-care policy: It's grossly regressive. The giant tax subsidy for employer-provided health insurance is most rewarding to those in the highest brackets. Medicare is regressive: It transfers money from working people, with few assets, to the elderly, who own most of America's wealth. Even Medicaid, the program for the poor, is morphing into a program for helping the middle class shield its assets from long-term care bills.
The cumulative impact of these interventions has given us the health-care system we have. Because it subsidizes third-party payership, it destroys any hope of price-value comparisons by consumers. Because it commits the cardinal economic impossibility of trying to subsidize everybody, the end result is not better health but higher costs in the form of rising prices and the provision of services of questionable value.
Education is where the rubber meets the road: it is the system which does the most, good or bad, to produce a generation of Americans who will be able to operate effectively in the more entrepreneurial workplace that is coming — and it is one of America’s most dysfunctional and change-resistant sectors.
In Mechanicsburg, PA, which lies just west of Harrisburg, PA, it looks to many, including me, that Sharia Law has arrived.
Read it yourself, right here. How do we hold a Judge up to misconduct charges? So, in his eyes, everyone who wants to can walk up to a anti abortion protester and bust them in the mouth? I mean they are stressing their religious beliefs, and if you are pro choice, go pop them in the mouth?(In Mechanicsburg, at least)
My personal favorite line from the Judges own mouth, "Here in our society, we have a Constitution that gives us many rights, specifically First Amendment rights. It's unfortunate that some people use the First Amendment to deliberately provoke others. I don't think that's what our forefathers intended. I think our forefathers intended to use the First Amendment so we can speak with our mind, not to piss off other people and cultures – which is what you did."
Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua ordered aides to shred a 1994 memo that identified 35 Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests suspected of sexually abusing children, according to a new court filing.
The order, outlined in a handwritten note locked away for years at the archdiocese's Center City offices, was disclosed Friday by lawyers for Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former church administrator facing trial next month.
They say the shredding directive proves what Lynn has long claimed: that a church conspiracy to conceal clergy sex abuse was orchestrated at levels far above him.
"It is beyond doubt that Msgr. Lynn was completely unaware of this act of obstruction," attorneys Jeffrey Lindy and Thomas Bergstrom wrote.
Race car driver, practicing Catholic and Go-Daddy spokesmodel, Danica Patrick gives this response when asked about the Obama Administration's birth control mandate:
"I leave it up to the government to make good decisions for Americans."
Spoken like a discerning, thoughtful and liberty-loving citizen.
Kim Strassel points out Santorum's shortcomings as a general election candidate. He ain't doing that well with moderate Republican women either.
His finger-wagging on contraception and child-rearing and "homosexual acts" disrespects the vast majority of couples who use birth control, or who refuse to believe that the emancipation of women, or society's increasing tolerance of gays, signals the end of the Republic. It's why a recent poll out of Arizona showed women favoring Mitt Romney over Rick Santorum by 2 to 1. And these are Republican women.
Conrad Black is clear-eyed about the President Obama's gambit of bullying the Catholic church with his contraceptives mandate.
There is no question that the great majority of Americans favor accessible contraception (probably, so do most of the Catholic clergy). And early polls show that a slight majority of Catholics favor obligatory insurance of contraception to employees even of Catholic institutions. But the consequences of such a step in respect of abortion and sterilization and the constitutional implications of it have not sunk in.
The Pearl Harbor nature of the move and the unholy alliance between the government and the most abrasive groups in the abortion coalition could cause the administration problems. And even if the majority sticks with the administration, since these are groups that were in its pocket anyway, any slippage in moderate opinion could be decisive.
George Will is unimpressed with the electability of either Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney.
Romney is right about the futility of many current policies, but being offended by irrationality is insufficient. Santorum is right to be alarmed by many cultural trends but implies that religion must be the nexus between politics and cultural reform. Romney is not attracting people who want rationality leavened by romance. Santorum is repelling people who want politics unmediated by theology.
Neither Romney nor Santorum looks like a formidable candidate for November.
The Drudge Report pulled up a speech Rick Santorum gave about Satan going after America, and it’s become a bit of a story. Apparently it’s not “hip” or “groovy” to talk about Satan as if he’s a real thing. DrewM had a good point on Twitter: Since Obama is all like Christian and stuff, shouldn’t a reporter ask him if he thinks Satan is real?
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” And now you get mocked for even bringing him up. That guy is pretty slick. But why worry about ancient silly things like Satan when we live in a modern world where we can force other people to buy it abortifacients?
I bet I know what Obama would say. He would say knowing whether Satan is real or not is above his pay grade. Go ask Rev. "God Damn America" Wright!
A famous and influential climate-change activist named Peter Gleick has admitted to a stunning breach of ethics (and maybe the law) in getting a hold of documents from an advocacy group of free-market, climate-change skeptics.
What he hasn't admitted to (yet) is forging a document meant to make the Heartland Institute even more nefarious than he and his fellow activists believe it is.
His friends and colleagues are beside themselves and trying to downplay the awfulness of what he has already admitted to doing.
The Atlantic's Megan McArdle has a good, even-handed, recounting of it here.
Evangelist Franklin Graham is asked whether he thinks President Obama is a Christian and basically says he doesn't know.
"You have to ask President Obama" Graham said. "People have to ask Barack Obama. He's come out saying he's a Christian, so I think the question is, 'What is a Christian?'"
When Geist pressed the point, Graham repeated that Obama has said he was a Christian, "so I just have to assume that he is."
Graham recounted a story that Obama told him he started going to church as a young community organizer in Chicago because community members had insisted on it.
"I cannot answer [whether someone is a Christian] for anybody," Graham said. "All I know is I'm a sinner, and God has forgiven me of my sins because I put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ."
Graham seems to be getting a lot of flack for his measured opinion. A lot more than proud atheist Bill Maher got when he theorized that Barack Obama was flat-out lying about being Christian.
I wonder why?
UPDATE: In trashing Rick Santorum as a "small-town mullah," NYT columnist Maureen Dowd recently wrote that Graham "heinously doubted the president’s Christianity on 'Morning Joe.'"
This is what passes for high-minded outrage among big-town progressives. Their arrogance is a sight to behold. An ugly one.
In the hopes of cutting down the amount of gun violence in the city of Chester, in 2010, public officials passed an ordinance that would require residents to report a lost or stolen gun within 72 hours. The penalty for not doing so is a $1,000 fine and or 90 days in jail.
Chester is one of about 30 municipalities in the state that have passed such a law.
Now a Republican state legislator has proposed a bill that would allow any citizen who is hauled into court on such a charge to recover damages from the charging municipality.
Seems fair to me.
Gun rights protectors argue that such laws are designed to discourage and penalize law-abiding gun owners. They are right.
Gun control advocates say that gun owners should be required to report lost or stolen guns because they are so dangerous when they fall into the wrong hands. They certainly have a point.
And yet, such gun control laws haven't been shown to have any serious effect on gun violence anywhere in this country. They are more designed to allow local politicians to appear to be doing something about gun crime, than actually doing anything effective.
When it comes to regulating guns and imposing laws on their owners, that's exclusively a state power. And even that power is quite limited thanks to the Second Amendment. Being a pro-gun state, Pa. voters do not take lightly to have their gun rights abrogated. When it comes to firearms, President Obama was right about us. We're clingy.
It is hard to believe that the ability to charge gun owners who failed to report stolen weapons will have any impact on gun violence in Chester or anywhere else. To gun rights activists such laws are nothing but the camel's nose under the tent. Once local authorities take it as their right to impose such laws on their citizens, they will attempt to impose more.
Responsible gun owners will and should report stolen firearms. But as one commenter on the story asked, who loses a gun? Guns are not wallets or car keys, which seem to go missing with amazing regularity - at least in my household. People who are constantly misplacing their guns seem to me rare indeed.
Such ordinances will do little or nothing to combat gun violence and should be exposed for what they are; political feel-good, "at least we're doing something" measures. They are also something else; an illegal power grab by local governments. They should be challenged for that reason alone.
Villanova University cancelled a week-long workshop by a gay performance artist named Tim Miller who apparently makes his living going from university to university ranting about how tough it is to be gay in America. His "art" includes simulated sex acts, nudity, descriptions of youthful masturbation and playing his father's sperm as he "f---ed" his mother.
As a member of ACT-UP, a gay and virulently anti-Catholic protest group, he organized and engaged in various acts of civil disobedience that led to numerous arrests of which he remains very proud.
As part of his act, he calls the politicians who took away his NEA grant back in the 1990s, certain "f--- ed up, right-wing senators and congress people in Washington." How dare they.
I had never heard of Tim Miller until this "controversy," which he attributes to "homophobia," blah, blah, blah.
But after reading about him, I watched this video of one of his artistic performances. It's called Glory Box. Check it out. See what you think. Did Villanova make the right decision?
More in my print column tomorrow. But let's face it, for a militantly gay performance artiste there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Some of our loyal commenters have grumbled about my continuing number of pro Penn State blog posts. Well, they're going to have to stay unhappy because there are 10.68 million reasons to read on.
Mrs. Jake and I traveled to State College Saturday to enjoy the "Thon" finale with the real Jake. In a nutshell, main campus and extension campus students raise money for Thon all year, most visibly during the street corner canning appeal, culminating this weekend in a 46 hour dance marathon. This effort, benefiting the fight against pediatric cancer through the Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital, is regarded as the largest student-run philanthropic initiative in the world, and has raised over $88 million in the 30 plus years it has been in existence.
Obviously, this has been a difficult year for Penn State to solicit donations, even for this wonderful cause. Last year, they broke all records by raising $9.5 million, an extraordinary sum in a troubled economy. There was concern that all the negative publicity would hurt the current effort. Thankfully, it did not. Shortly after 4pm Sunday, it was announced that this year's Thon raised the stunning amount of $10,686,924.83.
Thon was an emotional event this year, missing the traditional pep talk to the weary dance marathoners from the beloved JoePa. His son, Jay, spoke in his place. But you couldn't miss the thousands of T-shirts which reflected how much JoePa was on everybody's mind and how Thon represents the ideals he lived and taught, "We are... because you were."
Update -- I would be remiss if I didn't mention the local kids who figured prominently in Thon. Mairead Hanna, a senior from Middletown was one of the co-chairs of the event. Dylan McAndrew and Michelle Green, seniors also from Middletown, were both marathon dancers for the full 46 hours. And the real Jake's fraternity, Pi Kappa Phi, raised over $160,000 for the cause.
Thanks for covering this story. After reading your article and then attending 8:00am mass today, it was said (near the end of mass by the parish pastor at Nativity) that the Archdiocese will hear no appeal to the winning appeal from St. John's in Wallingford, and the decision by the Blue Ribbon Commission was final. It will be a shame that an 100 year old tradition in the Borough of Media will end without a chance for Nativity BVM to make their case. I would love to see a follow-up article. Thanks for listening.
After reading a sugar-coated version of Bill Clinton's career in Esquire mag, and a seeing a sanitized PBS rewriting of his presidency, Andrew Ferguson recalls a few less flattering details about the man that include illegal fundraising, multiple felonies, lying under oath, paid-for pardons and oh yeah, a pathetic and demeaning sex life.
Those were the days.
UPDATE: From the article:
The common view of Clinton’s impeachment, like the common view of his presidency in general, is exquisitely wrong. The distance of time and the stilling of passions haven’t made the case assembled by Starr look more trivial and absurd; if anything the case today looks even more compelling to someone who, at this remove, can go through it with a disinterested eye. And the defense mounted by the president’s lawyers and publicists, a tissue of misdirection and question-begging, looks flimsier than ever. The public’s middling attention span, its impatience with legal nicety, its lack of familiarity with routine prosecutorial methods, its horror at the sexual detail unleashed by Clinton’s law—these were bottomless resources that Clinton’s team exploited brilliantly and shamelessly.
Former mayor, governor and Democratic National Committee Chairman Ed Rendel is looking to buy the Inquirer and Daily News.
"You'd think this was the first time some political people owned a newspaper," he said. "People are shocked that we would take over a newspaper and maybe have editorial input."
Nothing shocking about it. But Citizen Ed is confusing his movie scripts.
How did I miss this? From my colleague's Jack McCaffery's blog:
All right, already. Stop the begging. It’s going to happen.
Yes, Nadya Suleman —- the famous “Octomom” who gave birth to octuplets in 2009 —- will be in Delaware County next Thursday (Feb. 16) for a pillow fight. At last.
Suleman will fight three one-minute rounds against Lisa Marie, a 24-year-old Widener law student, at Warehouse 24 on MacDade Blvd. in Woodlyn. The 8:30 p.m. card will feature seven pillow fights and, according to promoter Damon Feldman, will help raise awareness for the prevention of abuse against women.
Good. I can stop begging. Thank you Damon. And thank you for all you do to raise awareness about whatchamacallit.
RADNOR — A 19-year-old Valley Forge Military Academy cadet has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting another cadet.
Jerrell McEachin, of Philadelphia, was arrested last week on charges of forcible indecent sexual assault and related offenses in connection with an incident that allegedly took place in a campus dormitory.
According to police, the victim was in a dorm room with two other cadets on Feb. 8 when one left to use the restroom. McEachin, the other cadet, allegedly approached the victim suggesting they have sex. When his advances were rebuffed, he allegedly forced himself on the young woman, who repeatedly told him “No,” police said.
When the other cadet returned, McEachin allegedly acted as if nothing had occurred.
Questions: 1. How long was the other cadet gone before he returned? Was he expected back? 2. What was the nature of the assault? An unwanted kiss? An unwanted hugging. A touching or grabbing of body parts? Some sort of penetration? 3. Were they in a boy's dorm or a girl's dorm? Was the other cadet male or female? 4. How did Jerrell get that fat lip?
Rivkin and Whelan explain how and why Obama's edict to Catholic institutions to provide birth control to employees is flat-out illegal.
This is contemporary progressivism at its totalitarian worst.
UPDATE: Eugene Robinson informs his readers that Obama's "war on religion" has been made up out of "thin air." Perhaps "war" is too strong a word. "Arrogant contempt for" is a better, more accurate phrase.
Robinson writes that GOP presidential candidates "know better; they're just cynically pandering to religious conservatives." Of course he is wholly ignoring that it is the president who is cynically (and illegally) pandering to his liberal base of abortion-on-demanders.
But what do you expect from someone who feels competent to publicly pass judgement on how Rick Santorum and his wife grieved after the death of their child.
"It's not just weird. It's very, very weird."
Such casual indecency is not weird for our progressive elite. It's becoming more and more commonplace.
Frank J. on the tough choices in President Obama's new budget.
Obama says his 2013 budget reflects tough choices. With a $1.33 trillion deficit, what were the choices?
“I could spend an obscene amount of money or a buttload of money. It’s like Sophie’s Choice times a million!”
Oh, here’s one of the choices: Out of a budget of $3.8 trillion, Obama decided to remove $20 million for the highly successful D.C. voucher program. Sorry poor kids; you have to stick to failing schools run by uncaring unions. But hey, Obama will make sure you get free contraception, and isn’t that all that poor people really need?
Who said, Obama's budget is "a nervous breakdown on paper"? Mitch McConnell? No. It was the head of the Congressional Black Caucus.
UPDATE: The WSJ sez:
Federal budgets are by definition political documents, but even by that standard yesterday's White House proposal for fiscal year 2013 is a brilliant bit of misdirection. With the abracadabra of a tax increase on the wealthy and defense spending cuts that will never materialize, the White House asserts that in President Obama's second term revenues will soar, outlays will fall, and $1.3 trillion annual deficits will be cut in half like the lady in the box on stage.
All voters need to do is suspend disbelief for another nine months. And ignore the first four years.
You've done it again. Solidified your position as the biggest bonehead to write a column in this area. With the possible exception of Christine Flowers. When are you going to realize it's a woman's personal choice? Not yours, not some nameless faceless politician, just hers! Mind your damn business and keep your nose out of other peoples personal lives. I saw a good bumper sticker the other day. In fact I bought a few. It says "Annoy a republican. Think for yourself."
Reminds me of you.
Dennis M. O'Neill
Dennis,
I am quite happy for everyone to think for themselves. Unfortunately, it's so-called progressives who become the most annoyed when others stray from the politically correct views they would like to have imposed on others. See Obama, B. and his administration's efforts to force religious institutions to pay abortifacients. Good luck with your bumper stickers, which are always a great sign of independent thought.
Those were the words David Brook used to describe Anita Hill when he was a right-wing journalist. Now that he is a left-wing journalist and head of Media Matters, those words might well be applied to him.
Media Matters is a liberal interest group that works very hard to get non-liberals fired from media jobs for saying things disapproved of by liberals. Like Don Imus for instance.
The conservative Daily Caller pulls back the curtain on the modus operandi of the group under the leadership Mr. Brock.
“He had more security than a Third World dictator,” one employee said, explaining that Brock’s bodyguards would rarely leave his side, even accompanying him to his home in an affluent Washington neighborhood each night where they “stood post” to protect him.
“What movement leader has a detail?” asked someone who saw it.
Extensive interviews with a number of Brock’s current and former colleagues at Media Matters, as well as with leaders from across the spectrum of Democratic politics, reveal an organization roiled by its leader’s volatile and erratic behavior and struggles with mental illness, and an office where Brock’s executive assistant carried a handgun to public events in order to defend his boss from unseen threats.
Yet those same interviews, as well as a detailed organizational planning memo obtained by The Daily Caller, also suggest that Media Matters has to a great extent achieved its central goal of influencing the national media.
President Obama has stepped in it again. He seems like some big religion hater. He tells Pennsylvanians that they are "bitter and cling to their Guns and their Religion." Then he hangs around with Reverend Wright, starts all kind of controversies with Israel and now goes after Catholics. What is he thinking???
"The furious response to the contraception decision caught many supporters off guard. One former administration official who has spent time with Obama said he was "a little surprised" by the administration's initial decision announced on January 20."
How do they make this mistake when we have a Catholic Vice President in Joe Biden? I have noticed Joe has been keeping a low profile lately, or being told to keep a low profile. Might have been a good time to consult him. But as Forest Gump says, "Stupid is as stupid does!"
Little Sally: Daddy, Daddy, hooray. We don't have school next Monday because it's the President's Day holiday.
Father: That's wonderful honey. Do you know why we celebrate President's Day?
Little Sally: Yes, Daddy. President's Day is the day when President Obama sticks his head out of the White House and if he sees his shadow, we get another year of high unemployment.
What better way to celebrate the massive success of the Chevy Volt than by having this beautiful piece of machinery as President Obama's running mate in 2012? They deserve each other! Go here for an incredible video.
Holman Jenkins weighs in the Clint ad and Obama's absurd pronouncements for and regulations of the U.S. auto industry.
No president in three decades has embraced fuel-economy regulation so fulsomely, and for good reason: Every study has found the rules to be costly, ineffectual and perverse. There is little evidence that Mr. Obama himself has ever given intelligent analysis to what he's doing or why. His one big speech advanced a perfectly silly claim that Detroit's troubles stem from building "bigger, faster" cars that the public manifestly wants and that earn Detroit most of its profits.
The president orders religious institutions, primarily Catholic organizations, to violate their own beliefs while explaining his tax proposals are based on Christian teaching. The hypocrisy is breathtaking and just keeps on coming.
From the forward of John O'Hara's 1934 novel "Appointment in Samarra"
There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture, now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
Kevin Hardin went to war and cheated death in Samarra. But not for long. My print column is up.
The Eastwood-Chrysler Super Bowl ad got the America jobs story backwards. Amity Shlaes explains:
… the Super Bowl ad infuriates because Eastwood, like so many others before him, gets the story backward. What’s wrong with the auto industry is not that it failed to create jobs. What’s wrong is that it emphasizes jobs over general growth itself.
Even as the Super Bowl commercials were being readied, lawmakers in Indiana acted on the evidence and passed a right- to-work law. Indiana has plenty of union members, and it hurts to shut out union friends. The governor, Mitch Daniels, came under ferocious attack for backing this bill. The move took as much guts as any stunt in a Western. Yet Daniels, a gubernatorial Eastwood, signed the legislation. In other words, he stared the unions down.
Mark Steyn lays into the Liberal Enforcers in the aftermath of the Susan G. Komen Foundation fiasco:
By Friday morning lockstep liberalism had done its job. All that was missing was James Carville to declare, “Drag a hundred-dollar bill through an oncology clinic awareness-raising free mammogram session, you never know what you’ll find.” After 72 hours being fitted for the liberals’ cement overcoat and an honored place as the cornerstone of the Planned Parenthood Monument to Women’s Choice, Komen attempted to chisel free and back into the good graces of the tolerant: As Nancy Brinker’s statement groveled, “We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.”
Congratulations! Planned Parenthood certainly raised Nancy’s awareness. I wonder what color ribbon that comes with? Black and blue?
Lawrence Connell, the Widener Law School professor, who sued the school for trashing his reputation on trumped up charges of racism and sexism, has settled his case. His attorney sent out this email to interested parties:
I am authorized today, February 8, 2012, to make the following announcement about my client professor Larry Connell’s pending lawsuit in the Delaware Superior Court against the Delaware Law School of Widener University, Dean Linda Ammons, and students Jennifer R. Perez and Nadege Tandoh.
“All claims amongst all parties have been resolved amicably and Professor Connell’s employment with the University and Law School has been concluded. Specific terms of the resolution are confidential. So, we have no further comment.”
Thank you. Thomas S. Neuberger, Esq. Attorney for Professor Connell
Read the background of the case here. If Dean Ammons is still employed by the school this remains a travesty of justice.
The Komen foundation reunites with Planned Parenthood after trying to disassociate itself from the nation's largest abortion provider. My print column is up.
UPDATE: In the comments, Quadmom writes:
Factcheck, please:Regarding PP: "Its main business is abortion"Three percent of funding goes to abortion services.http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/what-planned-parenthood-actually-does/2011/04/06/AFhBPa2C_blog.htmlSince when is 3% a majority? Or are you worried that a pap smear somehow leads to abortions? "
Those numbers are a ruse. Planned Parenthood gives away many of those other services and referrals which are funded by government and other sources.
In 2010 Planned Parenthood pulled in an estimated $160 million from its abortion business. It's main business IS selling abortions. And it always has been.
UPDATE II: From the New York Times edit, I got a kick out of this line.“
“With its roster of corporate sponsors and the pink ribbons that lend a halo to almost any kind of product you can think of, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation has a longstanding reputation as a staunch protector of women’s health.
Putting a "halo" over the product of abortion was part of the problem in the first place.
Eastwood says that Americans are hurting and that “the people of Detroit know a little something about this. They almost lost everything. But we all pulled together. Now, Motor City is fighting again.”
We all pulled together? As euphemism, this is clever; as history, it is false. Congress never approved the bailouts. Given the option to do so explicitly, it declined. The Bush and Obama administrations acted on their own, diverting TARP funds to Detroit regardless of the letter of the law. In Eastwood’s telling, a legally dubious act of executive highhandedness qualifies as patriotic collective action.
By this standard, any initiative of government must be a stirring exercise in people’s power. Remember when we all pulled together to back the solar-panel maker Solyndra to the tune of $500 million? Right now, we are all pulling together to try to force Catholic institutions to pay for contraceptives and morning-after abortifacients for their employees. See? There’s nothing we can’t do — together.
With school funding becoming a big issue in this state beware progressive judges like those next door.
For half a century now, New Jersey has been home to the most activist state appellate court in America. Lauded by proponents of “living” constitutions who urge courts to make policy instead of interpret the law as written, the New Jersey Supreme Court has profoundly transformed the Garden State by seizing control of school funding, hijacking zoning powers from towns and cities to increase subsidized housing, and nullifying taxpayer protections in the state constitution. Its undemocratic actions have blown apart the state’s finances and led to ill-conceived and ineffective policies. If you want to understand what rule by liberal judges looks like on the state level, you need only look at New Jersey, which is teetering on bankruptcy though it remains one of America’s wealthiest states.
Kevin Lindemer, president of the Groton, Mass., Kevin J. Lindemer LLC consultant group, was hired by the Pennsylvania Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association to analyze the impact of the shutdowns of ConocoPhillips Trainer and Sunoco’s Marcus Hook and Philadelphia facilities.
“The net effect of the announced changes in refining and logistics system capacity is likely to result in little impact on summer or winter refined products supply or prices in the U.S. East Coast market with the possible exception of Southwest Pennsylvania,” Lindemer concluded.
The cancer-fighting Susan Koman Foundation wanted to end its relationship with abortion-giant Planned Parenthood but after being pilloried in New York Times and other liberal commentators it changed its mind and even apologized.
Kind of like a battered spouse who crawls back to her husband after a beating.
It seems the media lynch mob and all sorts of government prosecutors and pundits have a rather perverse value system. They want to hold a college football coach to a higher standard than the Attorney General of the United States. There is a sanctimonious roar for responsibility from one, and a deafening silence on accountability from the other. Let's review:
The allegations about homosexual rape and child molestation by former Penn State assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, are reprehensible. Legendary football coach, philanthropist and hero to thousands of Nittany Lion alumni, students, family and community members, the late Joe Paterno, was publicly criticized by law enforcement and unceremoniously fired by the university's Board of Trustees based upon the broad speculation that he "should have done more" to stop Sandusky.
Concurrent with this tragedy in State College is the investigation into the far greater, government-sponsored tragedy known as Operation Fast and Furious. This botched program, overseen by the Department of Justice from 2009 to 2010, cost the lives of at least 200 Mexican citizens and United States Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry. Nearly 1400 of the more than 2000 Fast and Furious straw purchases cannot be accounted for, and some 700 of those guns have been linked to criminal activity.
The man with direct oversight responsibility for this program is Attorney General, Eric Holder. He claims to have no knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious until 2011, has refused to apologize to the border agent's family, and generally stonewalled all congressional and media inquiries into this monumental fiasco. So far, the calls for Holder's resignation have been few and muted.
Granted, neither Joe Paterno or Eric Holder committed the child abuse or murders at issue, but both men were identified as being in charge. Realistically, Holder is more responsible since he heads the Department of Justice while Paterno reported to a larger university bureaucracy. Additionally, Paterno cut ties with Sandusky twelve years ago, while Holder's DOJ bloodbath is but a little over a year old.
Yet somehow, in the court of public opinion, Paterno has been tried and convicted, while Holder dismisses any questions as mere politics and continues his inept tenure as America's chief law enforcement officer. Where are the people who thought they saw Paterno's culpability so clearly? Why aren't they asking Holder if he "should have done more" to save the lives lost in his disastrous Operation Fast and Furious? Why the double standard?
I had never heard that the stock market could be an indicator of an upcoming election previous to reading this story. 1932 is stated as the last time in history it has predicted incorrectly. "An incumbent president faces a challenger ... and 13 out of 13 times the stock market picks the winner in January." That is really "Hope" I can believe in. Read the entire story and feel free to discuss!
Closing a plant and laying off people is a dirty, sad and unpopular bit of business. Sunoco CEO Lynn Elsenhans did that and took the heat for her board and her shareholders. Locally she became the cold hard face of corporate harshness in a tough economy. For that she will be well compensated as she heads out the door.
She could go out singing, "Don't cry from me, Delaware County." And don't worry. We won't.
California has something in common with the Chester Upland School District. It is about to run out of money. According to the state controller the problem is that tax revenues didn't meet the Gov. Jerry Brown's optimistic projections.
State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review, called the projected shortfall "a very short-term cash-management situation.
"All budgets are, by nature, an educated guess," Leno said.
Makes you wonder where the state legislature of California was educated. Oz?
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