Last week the New York unionized School Bus Drivers went on strike. The city currently pays an average of $6,900 per student for transportation. Yes, that’s right, $6,900.00 per student, a rate that is totally unsustainable.

So the city wants to put the bus contract up for bid. The drivers are beside themselves because their employment will not be guaranteed by the next contract bidder(s).

NEW YORK [excerpt] – […] The nationwide attention that strikes, rooted in very local fights, tend to receive now is another indication of how unions have weakened in recent decades. “It’s sad that it’s seen as a novelty,” says Zev Eigen, associate professor of law at Northwestern University.

It also means that unions have to pick their fights carefully, he says, because public sympathy will go down if a strike is not tied to a substantial issue of fairness.

At the heart of the bus strike is a dispute over the bidding process for a bus contract to replace one due to expire in June.

The school district currently spends an average of $6,900 per year for each bused student, more than double the cost of the next most expensive district of Los Angeles. (more…)

This was brutally obvious years ago, but finally the Chickens are Coming Home To Roost….  Typical Dem.   Don’t look for the media to be too forthcoming with this story.  

NEW ORLEANS — Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was indicted Friday on charges that he used his office for personal gain, accepting payoffs, free trips and gratuities from contractors while the city was struggling to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

The charges against Nagin are the outgrowth of a City Hall corruption investigation that already has resulted in guilty pleas by two former city officials and two businessmen and a prison sentence for a former city vendor.

The federal indictment accuses Nagin of accepting more than $160,000 in bribes and truckloads of free granite for his family business in exchange for promoting the interests of a local businessman who secured millions of dollars in city contract work after the 2005 hurricane. The businessman, Frank Fradella, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to commit bribery and has been cooperating with federal authorities. (more…)

WASHINGTON DC – The White House has informed House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that it will miss the legal deadline for sending a budget to Congress. […] “Late Friday evening, Deputy Director Zients confirmed that for the fourth time in five years, the president’s budget will not be submitted in compliance with the law,” the aide said.  (article)

Yet today President Obama presents his administration as concerned about the fiscal state of the union, and declares “we are not a deadbeat nation”.

The last federal budget was signed into law Sept of 2007 by President Bush.   Since then not a single day of President Obama’s term(s) in office have any accompanying budget. (more…)

Considering John O Brennan is nominated to head the CIA, Chuck Hagel is nominated to head the Department of Defense and John Kerry is nominated to be the next Secretary of State.   It may seem odd to align the Treasury Secretary pick with them.   Odd that is, until you remember:

Prior to his position as President Obama’s Chief of Staff, and prior to him being Obama’s Budget Director (comical considering Obama has never had a budget) Jack Lew served as State Department Director under Hillary Clinton.    It was Lew’s influence that shaped and positioned the failed Obama foreign policy toward the Middle East.   Specifically toward Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya during their upheavel, the Arab Spring.   How has that worked out for our interests ?

President Obama has presented his Chief of Staff, Jack Lew, as his nominee for Treasury Secretary.   Make no mistake, this is not a decision made with the economic interests of the United States in mind, this is a highly partisan decision made with the specific intent of finding methonds of spending that will work AROUND congress.

Senator Jeff Sessions is right when he calls Jack Lew a “liar”, but the issues with Lew are far larger than his intentional propensity to mislead:

As the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Lew has spent an inordinate amount of time honing one specific aspect of federal spending. (more…)

HatTip for Research Assistance to “S” – The picture of President Obama, Vice-President Biden, Chief of Staff Jack Lew, National Security Advisor(s) Denis McDonough and Tom Donilon, has drawn quite a bit of attention.   Not from the main stream media – but from independent-minded research bloggers and seekers of truth.

The backstory that began the research is HERE, and the ultimate unraveling of the riddle behind what was actually taking place is HERE.   But the issues that surround the team pictured are larger and even more consequential. (more…)

There’s really not a lot you can debate about when the disparity between people is this large.   Polar Opposites actually – you could not get more distant than Obama/Reid/Pelosi and anyone who cares about the fiscal spending insanity.

WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged the president on Sunday to drop his resistance to the idea and simply bypass the upcoming debate over raising the debt ceiling by deeming the entire cap unconstitutional.

Appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Pelosi offered her strongest endorsement to-date of the 14th Amendment option, which holds that Congress doesn’t have the power to use the debt ceiling as a hostage-taking device because the validity of the debt “shall not be questioned.”  (read more)

I mean, seriously, what are you supposed to do when the President of The United States is operating his fiscal programs without a budget, borrows $4 billion per day,  running $1+ Trillion annual deficits, and our nation is nearly $17 trillion in debt.  Yet he proclaims “we do not have a spending issue”. (more…)

Sadly hilarious, in a predictable way…. we are only four days into the new year and already it appears five of our ten predictions for 2013 will come to fruition....

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has privately told other Democrats, including President Obama, that if the administration used its constitutional and executive authority to continue paying its debts in the face of House Republican opposition, he would support the approach, according to a source familiar with Reid’s message to the president.

The simplest escape route out of the debt ceiling impasse is for the president to direct the Treasury to find a legal way to pay its debts. The Treasury then has a variety of options. One gaining particular attention relies on a law that allows the Treasury to mint a coin of unspecified value and deposit it with the Federal Reserve. Those funds could then be used legally to pay debts. (more…)

[HatTip iOTW]  Please send in pictures of your receipts too… Email them to [email protected] and include the state in subject line of the email pic please.  (via Blacksphere) on facebook and twitter.

#1 OK…. Here comes some of those Obama care taxes on Jan 1, 2013. Soon every purchase you make, there will be more taxes. On 103.98 I was charged 8.58 for Texas state taxes. And then Obama care medical tax another 2.39. So the more you spend , the more goes to the “so called free Obama care”.

(more…)

I am tempted, VERY tempted, to take a trip down to DC and challenge New Jersey, New York Republicans on this issue on camera…..  weighing logistics and timing, but the vote is Friday…..

Chris Christie is not, repeat NOT, a conservative – He is a progressive.   He just wailed, screamed, protested, begged, belittled and held out his tin cup on TV for federal money to bail out New Jersey from Hurricane Sandy.    He continually used the term New Jersey “innocent victims”…  well, exactly what other kind of victim is there?

You.Must.Watch.This.Video….. Please.

First, there is a big difference between feeling empathy and sympathy for those in the affected areas, and seeing lives impacted by the overwhelming force of mother nature.  I feel sorry for them to have felt the brunt of such a storm, and now for so many to have to rebuild their lives.   But to watch people begging the federal government to “make them whole” is  the ultimate in-your-face nanny statist expectation.

Since when does the federal government have a role in mitigating risk and underwriting personal decisions? (more…)

The media is drumming the beat of “Sandy Relief” all day in their insufferable effort to ridicule the House of Representatives for failing to “Bail Out” New York and New Jersey. Why? Because they will NEVER want to expose the pork stuffed into the “fiscal cliff deal”….

(Via ABC News) The “fiscal cliff” compromise has been heralded as a saving grace for middle class taxpayers, their families and the unemployed.

But buried in the fine print of the 150-page deal are also some lesser-known New Year’s gifts to some of Washington’s favorite industries. […]

The mix of tax perks covering the next year, but with budget implications for the next two years includes everything from incentives for employers to hire veterans to incentives for employers to invest in mine safety. But it also includes these:

• $430 million for Hollywood through “special expensing rules” to encourage TV and film production in the United States.  Producers can expense up to $15 million of costs for their projects. (more…)