Gabby Giffords Retires

Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) is resigning her seat in the House after the State of the Union to concentrate on regaining her health.  We certainly wish her the best in that regard.

It’s the Economy, Stupid…

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Some interesting snippets on matters of the economy at the end of the week.

Reuters lets us know that the economy in the fourth quarter of last year grew a tad stronger than was initially thought.

(Reuters) – The U.S. economy grew more quickly than previously thought in the fourth quarter…

Gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of 3.1 percent, the Commerce Department said in its final estimate, revised up from 2.8 percent.

Several thoughts on this, first of all, even though 3.1% growth isn’t particularly anything to write home about, it’s better than 2.8% so you’d think that the Administration would be crowing about it.  After all, it’s moving in the right direction.  So why’d they release the news on Friday?  Maybe it could be the rest of the information in the article, ya think?  What could be wrong?  Well…

From the mouths of babes…

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Let me start with a basic statement of facts.

• I favor legal immigration and I favor increasing the number of people allowed to legally immigrate into the US.
• Immigration must be managed in a way that brings people based on their ability assimilate and be productive citizens.
• I am unalterably opposed to illegal immigrants, from whatever their home country.
• I favor laws, at the state level if necessary, that makes housing, employment and education as close to impossible as we can make it.  I favor the use of e-Verify or a similar system to validate the right of every individual to housing, employment and education and I favor harsh penalties aimed at employers, landlords/property managers and school administrators who allow illegal aliens to live, work or attend school.
• I favor an interpretation of the concept of “birthright citizenship” that grants US citizenship to children born of parents who are legal immigrants to the US and disallows citizenship to the children of illegal aliens.

This is where we note: It’s The Economy, Stupid!

I really wonder who dresses these people.  We have another unexpected announcement about the economy, this week it’s the housing sector.  Again.  Last week we had reports of new lows in the price of resale homes and they were shocked.  This week it’s a new low in new housing starts.  Actually, the news is really about both January and February, from the Wall St. Journal.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — New construction of U.S. housing units plunged in February, erasing a sharp gain in January and coming close to an all-time-low level.

Hi. I’d like to introduce you to reality.

So, the public employee unions and their lap cats the Democratic Party have drawn a line in the sand with a back hoe.  Union membership and representation is a God given right and since Thomas Jefferson was a union organizer the right to organize and hold the American taxpayer hostage is somewhere in the Constitution.  And I can guarantee that there is no shortage of judges who will have no trouble finding said “right”.  In the meantime, the Wisconson Democrats have discovered that if the Democrats have somehow been unable to either win or fix enough elections to hold majorities in state legislative bodies, they can leave the state and there will be no negtive consequences from the country club Republicans – including the Tea Party variety – and they can play the issue for the front pages and for time.  The bottom line here is simple, the Democrats and the unions are at war.  Republicans are just simple.

My bet is that Democrats and unions will “win” on the issue of contracts, wages, benefits and pensions.  Please note the scare quotes.  They’re gonna “win” in court and in the short term, in the court of public opinion.  The reason they’ll win in court is because the judiciary is stacked, roughly right up to the SCOTUS, where eventually they’ll lose.  Eventually.  Public opinion will sway their way because they are a lot like Chinese water torture, constantly repeating lies until people believe them.  People will believe them because for the most part, they are products of the US unionize education system and can’t do independent research or put two rational thoughts together in the same month.  So, the Unions “win” and keep their money.  Democrats “win” and keep their number one source of funds, taxpayer money passed through the hands of union members to their bosses to the DNC.  I used scare quotes because, while they will almost certainly be able to work the courts and the voters for a while, they won’t beat the fundamental laws of mathematics and economics.

Mitch Daniels, toast to me thank you.

Mitch Daniels has been oft mentioned as a possible candidate for President in 2012.  He’s done some good things as Governor of Indiana and appears to be popular with the folks in his state.  He’s also tarnished his conservative credentials a couple of times with some “missteps” like his proposal for a “truce” on social issues until we can get the fiscal problems facing us on the way to being fixed.  And then there’s his opposition to a bill in the Indiana legislature that would make his state – where he eliminated some collective bargaining ability by unions by executive order – a Right To Work state.

Frankly, I can live with the concept of the truce.  Mostly because in the real world, social issues – primarily abortion – isn’t going to come off the table, it’s just not going to be front and center but there will still be ongoing legislative actions to curtail the practice when the opportunity presents itself.  See the Congress working to defund Planned Parenthood as an example.

With the Unions, it’s ON!!

And if you don’t believe me, Just listen to the luminaries of the left like Jessie Jackson or Michael Moore.  They’re calling for blood in the streets, though they haven’t yet come right out and said “get a weapon”, their tone and their meaning is clear.

A bigger fish, film director Michael Moore, announced on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Wednesday that, “This is war. This is class war,” and that a national walkout of government school students would happen Friday. Jesse Jackson told Fox News that public unions will retain collective bargaining or “you’re going to have it through the streets. People here will fight back because they think their cause is moral.”

Ummm, about that recovery…

We keep hearing bluster about how the economy is recovering.  Bluster.  Let’s see, there was that announcement about job creation and the unemployment rate dropping to 8.9%.  Of course, in the midst of the trumpets and hallelujah choruses there was the note that the reason for the drop was not the “job creation”, rather it was the number of people who quit looking for work basically cooking the numbers for the Obama Administration.

Immigration laws that work…

Illegal immigration is a huge drain on the US.

It’s a direct assault on out culture – “Press Two for English”. It’s a direct assault on our heritage, the concept of the US being a melting pot where immigrants seeking freedom can assimilate into our culture, “Out of Many, One”, the famous quote from the Great Seal of the United States that Al Gore got exactly backwards. And illegal immigration is an assault on our financial stability and resources.  According to the Center for Immigration Studies, states with the biggest budget problems also have the biggest “immigrant financial” problems, specifically California and Arizona.  In fact, the cost if illegal aliens is about equal to the budget deficits in most financially strapped states

What a difference a “D” makes…

…and that would be “D” as in “D”emocrat, not “d” as in “d”ay.

Remember back a couple of years when oil prices went over a hundred dollars a barrel and gas prices broached $4 a gallon. You will also remember the screeching from Democrats and their media slaves about how George W Bush and Dick Cheney were profiting from the suffering of American families who were paying big prices at the pump. In March of 2008 the Washington Post ran a story – one of thousands, so yes, I’m cherry-picking but it’s not much different than of the ilk they published on this subject – where they made the following note…