The city's Democratic Party organization invited 27 Philadelphia judges to a buffet breakfast this week and asked them to pay $10,000 each to assure party support when they face yes-or-no retention votes in November, according to judges who attended.
The figure is double what the party asked from sitting judges two years ago.
And the request was reportedly delivered with a warning from the party treasurer, former State Rep. Frank Oliver, that Democratic ward leaders would "cut" - withhold support from - judges who failed to pay, according to several witnesses.
"It's Godfather II," one judge told The Inquirer, comparing the situation to the heavy-handed political pressure that convinced an Atlanta company to walk away from a multimillion-dollar contract with the Philadelphia School District this year.
Like other judges interviewed Thursday, he asked that his name not be disclosed for fear of offending Democratic Party leaders.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2011 10:33 ||
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The figure is double what the party asked from sitting judges two years ago.
Two years ago the dhimocrats were riding high on teh 0ne and hope and change. Now reality has hit and their coffers are empty.
#2
"It's Godfather II," one judge told The Inquirer, comparing the situation to the heavy-handed political pressure that convinced an Atlanta company to walk away from a multimillion-dollar contract with the Philadelphia School District this year.
An unlikely story. Insufficient kickbacks are a more probable cause for the alleged "walk away."
To elect a bunch of local officials who will do exactly as they're told...
RIYADH/JEDDAH/DAMMAM: Municipal elections in Saudi Arabia concluded Thursday evening after 18 days of hectic campaigning, months of preparations by Saudi government and a note of success and satisfaction expressed by Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs Prince Mansour bin Miteb.
Prince Mansour said the Kingdom and its government agencies have satisfied the yearnings of the people "for a free, fair and credible election."
While the last municipal council elections were conducted with the assistance of experts from the United States, Europe and some Arab countries in addition to the United Nations, the preparations for the current elections were made by Saudi experts assisted by 16,000 Saudi workers in all the provinces, the prince said.
He also thanked Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for permitting women to participate in the next municipal elections, and hoped that the move would lead to a qualitative shift in municipal activities.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2011 00:00 ||
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This got a big boost from their last election, which was experimental, but had the government scared to death. But it was impressively boring, with a moderate turnout, and the candidates elected were just a tad more conservative than the ones who had been appointed before.
The king and government were thrilled. The typical Saudi on the street is fairly content with the status quo, and disinterested in radical anything.
Several of Barack Obama's top campaign supporters went from soliciting political contributions to working from within the Energy Department as it showered billions in taxpayer-backed stimulus money on alternative energy firms, ABC News and iWatch News have learned.
One of them was Steven J. Spinner, a high-tech consultant and energy investor who raised at least $500,000 for the candidate. He became one of Energy Secretary Steven Chu's key loan program advisors while his wife's law firm represented a number of companies that had applied for loans.
Recovery Act records show Allison Spinner's law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, received $2.4 million in federal funds for legal fees related to the $535 million Energy Department loan guarantee to Solyndra, a solar company whose financial meltdown has prompted multiple investigations. She pledged to take no portion of the money and did not work on the loan applications.
Spinner was not the only Obama political supporter to play a role at the Energy Department. California venture capitalist Steve Westly, who raised more than $500,000 for Obama, had Secretary Chu's ear on green energy issues as a member of a high-level volunteer advisory panel. Mackey Dykes, who was a finance manager for the Obama campaign, was hired to be the liaison between the Energy Department and White House. Each declined interview requests.
Obama's political supporters were also investors in companies that had applied for loans. Westly has held stakes in at least five companies that have won DOE support. Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser, another Obama bundler, was the biggest private backer of Solyndra. Westly, Spinner and the CEO of Allison Spinner's law firm, John V. Roos, (now Obama's ambassador to Japan), each raised more than $500,000 for Obama's 2008 campaign.
Barack Obama promised that his health-care overhaul plan would "bend the cost curve downward" and help Americans get better health care for less money. How is that promise working out so far? According to the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation ... not well (via The Weekly Standard):
The Kaiser Family Foundation shows family premiums topped $15,000 a year for the first time in 2011, increasing a whopping 9% this year, three times more than the increase the year before. The study says that up to 2% of that increase is because of the health care law's provisions, such as allowing families to add grown children up to 26 years old to their policies.
So what about that $2,500 in savings the president pledged? White House deputy chief of staff Nancy-Ann DeParle insists families will see that savings -- by 2019.
"Many of the changes in the Affordable Care Act are starting this year, and in succeeding years," DeParle told ABC News, "and by 2019 we estimate that the average family will save around $2,000."
DeParle said that the "big increases that occurred last year were probably driven by insurance plans overestimating what the impact would be and maybe trying to take some profits upfront before some of the changes in the Affordable Care Act occur.
Probably? Maybe? If you get the impression that no one at the White House knows what's going on, well, you're right. That was clear enough when the bill got introduced in the summer of 2009 and then extensively debated that the Obama administration had confused costs with prices. The entire bill consists of attempts at price control while ignoring the real causes of rising prices, which are innovation (better care) and a lack of price signals to consumers through the third-party-payer model -- a model that ObamaCare amplified rather than reformed.
Instead of lowering costs, insurance premiums increased at triple the rate from the previous year. Why? Thanks to new federal mandates, actual costs will increase for insurers, who now cannot offer lower-coverage and lower-cost plans to people who don't need so-called Cadillac plans for their current situations. Adding mandates increases costs, especially the mandates to provide coverage for pre-existing conditions and "community pricing" that requires everyone else to pay more to cover that risk. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about risk-pool behavior -- or just plain common sense -- could see that outcome two years ago.
Employers are now shifting more of the increased costs to employees, too:
The Kaiser study also indicates employers are switching plans and shifting costs onto employees. Half of workers in smaller firms now face "deductibles of at least $1,000, including 28 percent facing deductibles of $2,000 or more," according to the study.
That's actually not a bad way to get pricing signals to the consumer, although it should be done in conjunction with HSAs and hospitalization-only coverage. Unfortunately, ObamaCare obliterates the tandem of HSAs and catastrophic-only coverage, which would put consumers in charge of cost control and lower premiums to a reasonable enough level that employers could get out of the loop. Small businesses have to do this in order to survive, and it won't be long before larger firms do the same.
For the past two years, ObamaCare critics have repeatedly predicted this outcome. If the White House now can only provide guesswork as to why premiums are escalating faster than ever, it proves their incompetence at being the architects of a national controlled economy, and the folly of that venture at all. You get the feeling that no one in the white house really knows what is going on and made a grab for a full European Socialist model on hopes and dreams and are shocked as hell that things are falling apart?
#3
The gov't will decide a fair wage.
The gov't will decide a fair tax rate.
The gov't will decide who gets hired.
The gov't will decide what constitutes criminal activity.
The gov't will decide what to teach in schools.
The gov't will decide who is rich or poor.
The gov't will decide a fair pension.
The gov't will decide who gets healthcare.
The gov't will decide who receives a heart transplant.
The gov't will decide the price of oil and gas.
The gov't will dcidee which industries will remain in the US.
The gov't will decide the type of light bulbs you buy.
The gov't will decide interest rates.
The gov't will decide what faith you follow.
The gov't will decidewho you vote for.
The gov't will decide how long you shall li.....
The gov't will decide......
The gov't will....
The gov't....
Is it me, or does it seem that every union which can in whatever way has attempted to re-negotiate their contracts with an emphasis on continued health care costs to be picked up by the business, like they know something?
They whole thing should have been null and void after the first waiver as unequal application of the law; this care cost loophole as the cool kids call it.
DAKAR, Senegal -- The African heads of state who converged on the capital of Equatorial Guinea this summer are used to life's finer things - yet even they were impressed.
The minuscule nation located on the coast of Central Africa spent several times its yearly education budget to build a new $800 million resort in which to house the presidents attending this summer's African Union summit.
Besides an 18-hole golf course, a five-star hotel and a spa, the country built a villa for each of the continent's 52 presidents. Each one came with a gourmet chef and a private elevator leading to a suite overlooking the mile-long artificial beach that had been sculpted out of the country's coast especially for them.
Western diplomats say that the charm offensive worked, and on Friday the United Nations' cultural arm may be forced to create a prize named after Equatorial Guinea's notoriously corrupt president, due to a resolution passed in June by the presidents staying at the lavish resort.
If that happens President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, a man whose regime is accused of gross human rights violations, will be associated with an organization whose stated mission is the promotion of peace and human rights through cultural dialogue.
During the AU summit this summer, Obiang succeeded in getting the body to pass a motion calling on UNESCO to approve a prize named in his honor.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2011 00:00 ||
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Why not? After all, the precedent was set when Bambi got the cracker jack toy aka Nobel Peace Prize for only thinking about doing good deeds. Back in the 30's there was amovie about a good deed doer, he worked behind a curtain also, and was a sham as well.
#3
I love how AP presents this as entirely the fault of the devious dictator, and the UN just an innocent victim. Who says the media doesn't have bias?
The Obama administration told the United Nations that too few of its 10,307 workers are being cut and average salaries, currently $119,000 a year, have risen dramatically.
Much as I agree with the sentiment, Bambi is not in a position to point fingers, as the Germans ever so politely suggested the other day...
The U.S. ambassador for UN management and reform, Joseph M. Torsella, said today that the proposed $5.2 billion UN budget for the next two years would scrap only 44 jobs, a 0.4 percent reduction. After an onslaught of add-ons, the 2012-13 budget would rise more than 2 percent to $5.5 billion, he said.
That is not a break from business as usual but a continuation of it, Torsella said in a speech in New York to the UNs administrative and budgetary committee. How does management intend to bring these numbers and costs back in line?
The Obama administration, he said, calls for a comprehensive, department-by-department, line-by-line review of this budget and a new process to approve UN funding.
It is our obligation to our taxpayers to do more with less in Washington and here at the UN, he said.
As the doorman at the White House said to Mr. Torsella, "who are you?"
Torsellas attack on UN salaries and workforce size follows legislation introduced by U.S. House Republicans on Aug. 30 that, if passed into law, would have the U.S. withhold a percentage of its contributions until at least 80 percent of the UN budget is voluntary.
While pressing for savings in the UN budget, the Obama administration is opposed to withholding U.S. funding. That approach to forcing UN reform is fundamentally flawed in concept and practice, sets it back, is self-defeating, and doesnt work, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, said on Sept. 13.
The U.S. pays 22 percent of the UNs regular operating budget and is assessed 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget. U.S. payments totaled $3.35 billion in 2010, of which $2.67 billion was dedicated to the 16 peacekeeping operations worldwide, from South Sudan to Haiti.
Torsella also complained about receiving the UN budget proposal in a piecemeal fashion with too little financial analysis. He cited, as an example, not knowing how much the UN spends on health-care benefits for its employees.
Calling personnel the largest and most important driver of long-term costs, Torsella said those expenses increased to $2.4 billion in the 2010-11 budget from $1.4 billion a decade earlier.
Legislation by Floridas Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, demands that the UN let countries decide how much to pay and which programs they will support, rather than assessing payments based on a formula. It would end funding for Palestinian refugees, limit use of U.S. funds only to purposes outlined by Congress and put a hold on creating or expanding peacekeeping operations until management changes are made.
I like the plan already. Let the Paleos fend for themselves.
In 2006, President George W. Bushs ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said the U.S. might push to make contributions to the UN budget voluntary. Bolton also focused on peacekeeping operations, holding hearings on reports of sexual exploitation by UN peacekeepers in Africa and up to $300 million in unnecessary purchases of equipment and supplies for peacekeeping missions.
Also in 2006, House lawmakers called for withholding half of the $429 million in U.S. funding for the UNs regular operations that year in an attempt to force changes in the world body. At the time, criticism was focused on evidence of graft in the $64 billion UN program that allowed Iraqs Saddam Hussein to use oil money from 1996 to 2003 to buy food and medical supplies for his people.
Anger over the scandal drove a 60-member group in the House to sponsor a resolution calling for the resignation of then Secretary-General Kofi Annan. An attempt in the House in 2006 to pass legislation tying payments to UN management changes failed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2011 00:00 ||
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The Obama administration told the United Nations
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The city's Democratic Party organization invited 27 Philadelphia judges to a buffet breakfast this week and asked them to pay $10,000 each to assure party support when they face yes-or-no retention votes in November, according to judges who attended.
Barack Obama promised that his health-care overhaul plan would "bend the cost curve downward" and help Americans get better health care for less money. How is that promise working out so far? According to the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation ... not well (via The Weekly Standard):
