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“1. U.S. manufacturing corporations are on track to earn record profits in 2011, of about $600 billion based on data available from the U.S. Census through the third quarter (see chart above). That’s an increase of 22 percent from 2010, and more than four times the 4.8 percent increase in profits for all U.S. corporations in 2011. It’s also double the $300 billion of manufacturing profits in 2009 and almost 15 percent higher than the previous record of $525 billion in 2006.
MANCHESTER — Former District 6 Democrat state Senator Jackie Cilley has thrown her hat into the gubernatorial ring for the Granite State’s Corner Office. Joining Maggie “the Marxist” Hassan, she seeks to replace Governor John “Lefty” Lynch who will not seek another term. “Silly” Jackie came to the Manchester YWCA to make her pitch yesterday rolling out the same old tired liberal screed often heard before. The Union Leader’s Beth LaMontagne-Hall reports, Cilley pledged to, “ensure quality education for all students, protect the environment, fight right-to-work legislation and keep same-sex marriage on the books in New Hampshire.
…then why has the number of self-employed Americans fallen by more than 2 million?
It’s one thing to say you support small business, but Democrats attaching the word jobs, small-business, or main-street to every bill that comes out of congress doesn’t make it happen. But after 2008 every press release about every vote manged to shoe-horn in some BS about how that vote would help put Americans back to work. Really?
The success of any move to add Casinos to New Hampshire will hinge on the Libertarian Republicans currently crowding the House and their ability to override a likely Lynch veto. While I am on their side in almost every other case, when it comes to casinos we part ways, and not for the reasons you might think.
This is not an issue of social conservatism for me, not exactly, not the way it is a social issue for some Democrats like Governor John Lynch or the left wing social justice cabal at the New Hampshire Council of Communist Churches (NHCcC). I see this as a matter of personal restraint, not because I object to people gambling, but because I am willing to pay a personal price, and forgo the risk of casino revenue, to ensure the liberty and freedom that I am convinced a casino culture in the halls of the State House would inevitably destroy.
I know that media and entertainment people live in intersecting bubbles where hordes of grovelers kiss their backsides 24/7/365 for the chance to ride on the coat-tails other peoples fame. I get that even the most grounded among them will begin to believe that everything they do and say is as great as all the butt-kissers tell them it is. But what kind of performer comes to the conclusion that giving 100 million people the finger (including my 11 year old daughter) is a form entertainment?
“What, this isn’t pay cable?”
Remember: the Bigger the Government, the smaller the citizen. And we are seeing this played now in the MSM as it is too explosive of a hack job by Obama to go unnoticed. This is not a topic that is going to go away any time soon – given the nature of Obama and HHS Secretary Sebelius on the Catholic church’s theology that contraception and abortion is sinful, it speaks to the very heart of American Rights – the Right to believe what one wishes without Government interference. Now, I am not Catholic (in fact, being an evangelical Christian, I have some major problems with some of their theology) but I defend their right to believe what they do and will defend them. Yet, this roughshod attack is what happens with an overgrown Government too Big for our britches when Government has to force compliance.
Progressives are ALL about Government staying out of their “private lives”. For years, all we heard was that Republicans want to tell you what to do in your bedroom. Fair enough, but is their use of Government to force me to pay for “the fun in their private lives” an infringement of my private life? And worse, how is their use of Government to force me to reject a core religious belief ? And THAT seems to be the logic that always escapes these nitwits – while they are all about setting things up so that some “identity / victim / special interest group” has the “freedom” to act as they wish without bearing the cost of that freedom, they never will acknowledge that in doing so, they “freely” (sorry, bad joke) have no problem in taking away freedom from the many to service the few. And they never, ever will admit that’s the shell game they play in buying off one group against another.
Well, over at Blue Hampshire, Granite Gnome decided to tried to come up with a defense of this indefensible cliff.
…then why is the percentage of Americans living in “extreme poverty” at an all-time high?
Nothing says economic recovery like rising poverty. Not just poverty but extreme poverty. What, you hadn’t heard about that?
Then maybe you hadn’t heard this either. Joblessness begets dependence, begets poverty, begets slaves to the will of the government. Big brother doesn’t have to spy on you, he’s controlling your income. If that isn’t a clear enough map how about this one.
The federal government is spending over a trillion dollars into debt every year—a trillion dollar deficit every year!—and Sen. Ayotte wants more federal money spent on a “job corps center” in Manchester…just without the unions getting their place at the trough. She misses the point: The “job corps center” shouldn’t be built at all. We … Read more
You want to register? No ID needed. Even if you use the names of star quarterbacks! Lovely! “We are not the police“…… Who else is getting disenfranchised today? After what happened here in NH, why hasn’t the MSM been digging into this with all of their armies of investigative reporters, fact checkers, editors, and political … Read more
Forbes.com’s Kurt Badenhausen detailed America’s Most Miserable Cities, 2012 last week. In formulating his thesis, Badenhausen writes,
We looked at the 200 largest metropolitan statistical areas and divisions in the U.S. to determine America’s Most Miserable Cities. The minimum population to be eligible was 256,000. We ranked each area on 10 factors, including average unemployment rate between 2009 and 2011; median commute times to work for 2010 based on U.S. Census data; violent crimes per capita from the FBI’s 2010 Uniform Crime Report; and how pro sports teams fared in the area over the past three completed seasons.
…then why has the number of Americans on food stamps increased by 3 million since this time last year and by more than 14 million since Barack Obama entered the White House?
There’s something to put on your resume.
“When I was President (pause) we created or saved (pause) a kajillion billion jobs (pause) but somehow (pause) put 14 million people on food stamps in the process.” (applause from adoring media, I mean Democrats–eh, same thing.)
How does that work?
OK, this video is politically incorrect and NRSFW (Not Really Safe For Work). Done by a rapper “Chapter”, I just thought it fit in well with my post on NH HB1658 (“limiting financial assistance for mothers who have additional children while receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).”). Do I consider it a parody or satire of the subject?
No. Again, at the risk of continuously sounding like a broken record (yeah, old school here), I heard it personally: have a baby, get a check. and if you notice in the video, the rather stark absence of men – mothers and their children, but where are the baby daddies (as to, you know, real husbands and fathers):
“We earnestly hope that you will put women’s health before partisan politics and reconsider this decision for the sake of the women who depend on both your organizations for access to the health care they need.”
One of the saddest (or is that sadistic?) things I have watched this week has been the pilloring of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure – private charity that specializes in fighting breast cancer. Simply by stating that they were going to withdraw their $600,000 or so donation that they have given to the abortion mill Planned Parenthood, all heck has broken loose on the Left – how DARE a private charity stop funding one of Holy Chalices of Secular Progressivism? As this snippet from Hot Air points out, it isn’t about the good they have done over the years (about $2 billion in charitable giving) but who it was that was no longer going to get their donation:
I could not believe my ears and eyes when I watched this video of her giving advice to the Egyptians as their “Arab Spring” moment moves onward and they begin the process of creating a their new Mubarek-less State (will that be a great tradeoff for the US with the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists controlling 75% of the new Parliament? Does anyone disagree that the operative phrase is going to be “Shar’iah Law”?). Given Bader Ginsburg’s status as one of THE defenders of the US Constitution, I could only shake my head. I expected more – much more. Sure, if one is a law lecturer, a legal scholar (which the Justices are, no doubt), I would not have been as surprised (slightly annoyed, but not surprised). But not only did I (and I would posit most Americans as well), expect her to be that scholar and more, and one that would have been championing the checks and balances, the simplicity of our Constitution.
From MEMRI, the short form:
Here is a longer version that was posted by the US Embassy in Cairo of the interview:
…then why is the average duration of unemployment in this country close to an all-time record high?
With six million less jobs, thanks to Obama’s so-called recovery policies, should we be surprised that the average duration of unemployment is at or near a record high? If you pollute the employment market, making it inhospitable to job creation–lets call it Obamagenic Employment Cooling–you have fertilized the field for long term despair.
(Full size Graph on the jump.)
What a sad bunch of foolish, prejudiced people are running the Concord Monitor these days. They seem to bend over ever more readily to lick the shoes of their friends in the New Hampshire Democrat Party. Here’s the latest prevarication from the Monitor, which every day looks more and more like nothing more than a … Read more
Yeah, pretty much as expected: when voting on an amendment that would have banned earmarks (and hopefully, the corruption and self-serving pandering that often comes from it), we had a disparity in voting from our two US Senators. As far as I am concerned, earmarks are nothing but giveaways to the politically connected. Beseech a … Read more
GOP Rep. John Hikel has sponsored a bill that will allow bottled spirits of all types to be sold in markets, grocery stores, convenience stores, and other outlets. This change in the law will obviously benefit the free market and consumers in New Hampshire, but it will also result in the creation of lots of jobs, and lots more work for truckers, delivery people, stockers, etc. A Commerce Committee hearing will be held this coming Tuesday, February 7th, at 2:15 p.m. in Room 302 of the Legislative Office Building in Concord. You should be there and testify in FAVOR of the bill.
But wait! There’s a problem! To understand it, consider the famous picture above. You thought it was a raucous party of drunks in Concord, right? What might result if we allow expanded consumer choice and convenience in New Hampshire, and pass Rep. Hikel’s bill? No, you idiot. Read on to find out what the real problem will be….
“In the grey line, Nomura economists have adjusted the unemployment rate for the number of discouraged workers who have left the labor force and therefore count as unemployed in this alternative measure. (And yes, they do take into account demographic trends by age group that would influence those leaving, the largest of which is retiring … Read more
(H/T: ohgizmo)