COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Friday, November 02, 2012

Back to the future in New Jersey gas lines


How desperate is hurricane-ravaged New Jersey? Not desperate enough to suspend a union monopoly that keeps the state in the bottom ten states for economic competitiveness (and #48 for business friendliness). Relief crews from Alabama who were specifically called to New Jersey found themselves diverted to Long Island, NY after they arrived because they use non-union labor. 




… nothing changes with Mike “shitbird” Bloomberg:


Fresh off his "climate disruption"-driven endorsement of President Obama, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has chosen to divert critical food supplies and power generators from desperate residents of Staten Island to Sunday's New York City Marathon. Gothamist reports

Those urging the city to halt the run believe that the thousands of Marathon volunteers could direct their efforts towards post-Sandy relief and cleanup, "and they also argue that the event will divert thousands of police from important hurricane-related duties." But despite petitions circulating, work started up again yesterday on the Marathon route.

A tipster, who wishes to remain anonymous, told us there were lots of workers in and out of the park today, who had "started before the storm and then came back starting yesterday." Trailers are lined up from around 71st to 66th Streets on Central Park West, a food truck was set up today, and "generators have been sitting there at least a week." The tents that were taken down prior to the storm have also been set back up, and there is a stage set up near 73rd Street.

Considering all the volunteer help and NYPD attention that's already being diverted to the Marathon, the added sight of generators and food being channeled to the event is probably going to strike some New Yorkers as a little misplaced—we're thinking of the ones who are currently lined up waiting for the National Guard to ration out MREs and bottles of water.
Staten Island residents are frantically calling for help, ABC News reported on Thursday:
The residents of Staten Island are pleading for help from elected officials, begging for gasoline, food and clothing three days after Sandy slammed the New York City borough.

“We’re going to die! We’re going to freeze! We got 90-year-old people!” Donna Solli told visiting officials. “You don’t understand. You gotta get your trucks down here on the corner now. It’s been three days!”

Staten Island was one of the hardest-hit communities in New York City. More than 80,000 residents are still without power. Many are homeless, and at least 19 people died on Staten Island because of the storm.

Staten Island Borough President Jim Molinaro blasted Mayor Bloomberg's decision to divert needed supplies from Staten Island to this Sunday's New York City marathon:
Molinaro urged New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg Wednesday to cancel Sunday’s New York City Marathon. The race’s staging area is on Staten Island and Molinaro said it would be “crazy, asinine,” to have the race after what has happened.
“My God. What we have here is terrible, a disaster,” Molinaro said Wednesday. “If they want to race, let them race with themselves. This is no time for a parade. A marathon is a parade. Now is the time to put your shoulder to the wheel. If they want to prepare for something, let them prepare for the election, not a marathon.”
“Do you realize how many police officers you need for a marathon?” he asked. “There are people looting stores on Midland Avenue. There is looting taking place in the homes on the South Shore that were destroyed. That is where we need the police.”
In New York City, apparently these days the Bloomberg show must go on -- even at the expense of those truly in need.

HAT TIP: BRIETBART.COM

56 comments:

  1. So it isn't always just the Govt that's totally fucked up:
    Sometimes it's self-centered, self-entitled shitbirds with food and generators pleasuring themselves, while fellow citizens nearby shiver and starve.

    Evidently the Union Activity is local shitbird union poo-bahs also, I've heard elsewhere in Jersey such is not the case.

    As has been said, the country could stand four more years of Obama, but not for long w/a populace that would vote to return this empty suit to the Whitehouse.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...not to mention the rich morons that voted in Doomberg the Fascist control freak.

      Delete
  2. I always had a different picture of Staten Island in my mind than those I saw today:

    Little houses out in the marsh, built many years ago...

    Now many floating in the waterways of the marsh.

    ReplyDelete
  3. 578,000 entered the workforce in October.

    410,000 found jobs.

    The Labor Participation rate rose 0.2%.

    People employed Part-time for Slack Work or Business Conditions fell by 304,000.

    Prior two months rivised Up by 84,000.

    A Good Report.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is wonderful news! It will be great start for the Romney administration.

      Happy days are here again!

      Delete
  4. It's all good, Rufie, despite the 28 million reduction in the workforce, the partially employed, the almost doubling of people on foodstamps.

    All good,
    ...as long as QE-3 Money is free.

    Moron.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Good News is that the "safety net" was there when the Republicans destroyed the economy Asshole.

      Delete
    2. Yup, see Chong Lee below.

      ....

      Honestly Rufus, can't you ever stop with your simplistic assertions.

      The Republicans this, the Republicans that....

      Bwaney Frank was more responsible than anyone else. George W. warned against it forever, eight years in a row.

      You sound like a Moron, Asshole.

      Delete
  5. Great report.

    October Jobs Report Shows Incomes Continuing to Decline

    By Noel Sheppard | November 02, 2012

    One of the negative features of the current economic recovery has been declining incomes of average Americans.

    This trend continued in October.

    The Labor Department reported Friday that despite 171,000 jobs being added to nonfarm payrolls in October, average hourly earnings for such employees edged down by 1 cent to $23.58.

    Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees also dropped by 1 cent to $19.79.

    This continues a trend reported by the Census Bureau in August finding that since the recovery began in June 2009, median household incomes have fallen 4.8 percent adjusted for inflation.

    Also of note, the manufacturing workweek edged down by 0.1 hour to 40.5 hours. The average
    workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls also edged
    down by 0.1 hour to 33.6 hours.


    Chong Lee • 5 minutes ago

    My income just keeps going up. My disability income rises 1.7% for next year. My food stamps increased last month and this new Obama phone will save me 40 to 50 dollars a month. All the while, my government housing doesn't cost more. I will vote for the democrats over and over again.
    .......


    Wonderful report, really.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Median Family Incomes have been falling since Bush took office, dumbshit.

      Unemployment rate for those with a Bachelors Degree, or higher, is 3.8%.

      Meanwhile, the Pubs try to figure out how to keep the lower-middle class out of school.

      Delete
    2. Go back to bed, Brainstem. Bush isn't in office.


      Meanwhile, the Pubs try to figure out how to keep the lower-middle class out of school.


      What a load of horse shit.



      Delete
    3. I'm going back to bed. It isn't worth it.

      Delete
    4. The Romney/Ryan Budget cuts Pell Grants by half, dumbshit.

      Delete
  6. Meanwhile, Richard (no relief for rape victims) Mourdock has managed to blow off a sizable lead, and now trails Joe Donnely (D) by 11 points in Indiana.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oops, Romney loses TWO Points in the Rasmussen Poll. Puts Rasmussen at a tie, nationally. Means Obama is up by about two.

    ReplyDelete
  8. 1,283,000 Americans have found jobs in the last Two months. That's a Big number.

    BLS Report

    ReplyDelete
  9. Rufus is a work of art. One of the few Assholes in America that are going to switch and vote for Obama after 4 years of knowing Obama is a big failure.

    Las Vegas newspaper does a little better -

    November 2, 2012

    Wow. Las Vegas Review-Journal lets Obama have it.
    Rick Moran


    This is the most incendiary indictment of a politcian I've ever read in the mainstream media:

    This administration is an embarrassment on foreign policy and incompetent at best on the economy - though a more careful analysis shows what can only be a perverse and willful attempt to destroy our prosperity. Back in January 2008, Barack Obama told the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle that under his cap-and-trade plan, "If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them." He added, "Under my plan ... electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." It was also in 2008 that Mr. Obama's future Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, famously said it would be necessary to "figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe" - $9 a gallon.

    Yet the president now claims he's in favor of oil development and pipelines, taking credit for increased oil production on private lands where he's powerless to block it, after he halted the Keystone XL Pipeline and oversaw a 50 percent reduction in oil leases on public lands.

    These behaviors go far beyond "spin." They amount to a pack of lies. To return to office a narcissistic amateur who seeks to ride this nation's economy and international esteem to oblivion, like Slim Pickens riding the nuclear bomb to its target at the end of the movie "Dr. Strangelove," would be disastrous.

    Candidate Obama said if he couldn't fix the economy in four years, his would be a one-term presidency.

    Mitt Romney is moral, capable and responsible man. Just this once, it's time to hold Barack Obama to his word. Maybe we can all do something about that, come Tuesday.

    This is a real hair on fire editorial. But will it change any minds?

    Since most people have already made up their minds one way or the other about Obama and Romney, it probably won't have a practical impact on the election. But as an indictment of the president, it stands alone as a singular exercise in the power of the press to clarify the issue, and to "afflict the comfortable" who might be less than knowledgeable about what the president has done the last 4 years.



    Rufus why don't you get off your lazy ass for once and get up there to the northeast and join up with one of the church groups there that are actually out trying to help some of those people instead of sitting blowing gas out of your ass all day for another day?


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Las Vegas Review Journal is "owned" by Steve Wynn, and Sheldon Adelson. No one pays any attention to it. Obama's up by a healthy margin in Nevada.

      Cain't do it; my newest Grand-son is coming over this morning.

      Delete
  10. Yes I think he will win Nevada.

    I might ask, what isn't owned by Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson, sob's both, in Las Vegas?

    Have a great time with the kid!

    No indoctrination now.

    ReplyDelete
  11. All the smoke and mirror over Barack Obama’s employment claims

    On Friday morning, after October’s unemployment report showed the official jobless rate tracking slightly upwards from 7.8 to 7.9 percent, CNBC reporter Rick Santelli engaged in a screaming match with his colleagues after he contended that President Barack Obama has overseen a net jobs loss over the course of his first term in office.

    Asked how the market would react to this report, Santelli said that the pre-market equity trading had not reacted noticeably to the report. However, Santelli said that whichever way the markets react, this report is not what the economy needs.

    “Outside of revisions, coming in today – from the entire term of this administration, from February ’09 to today — they came in on the establishment survey down 61,000,” Santelli said.

    Santelli was told he was incorrect, to which he replied that he had done the calculation four times.

    “Net job creation is in positive territory the Friday before Tuesday,” Santelli asserted. He reiterated his point that, over the course of Obama’s first term, job creation is in negative territory.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Yeah, but the thing is, "we're not children." We remember the state of the jobs picture when Obama took office. We were in "The Middle" of a horrific Meltdown. It took several months for the situation to stabilize. In fact, if you'll remember, we weren't sure that we weren't sliding into The Great Depression II.

    Tea Party talking points, aside, we Are up about 5 Million jobs from the bottom, and we Have created 1,283,000 jobs in just the last Two Months. And, all this has taken effect while the various State, and Local Governments have been Shedding Workforce (and, I think there might have even been a slight reduction in Federal Workers.)

    We still have a lot of problems, but it's silly trying to make it sound worse than it is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Rufus, how many times does that '5 million jobs created meme' have to be shot down by the 'Fact-checkers' before you finally admit it is bunkum?

      That there is progress now is the result of time, nothing that Obama has done.

      .

      Delete
  13. Tester has pulled ahead in Montana. Right now, it's looking like 53 Democrats, and an Independent that's almost sure to caucus with the Dems.

    So, we've gone from the Pubs taking control of the Senate, to a Dem +1 pick-up.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Here's a couple of numbers that Santelli cannot dispute. In October of 2011 there were 140,297,000 Americans Employed.

    In October, 2012, there were 143,384,000 Americans Employed.

    That's an increase of 3,087,000 Americans with a job, in One year.

    That's Progress.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And, those working "part-time for economic reasons" has, actually, dropped by 446,000.

      BLS Report

      Delete
  15. Whatever it takes to help you sleep at night Rufdog. Have a nice weekend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jes readin' the numbers, anon. jes readin' the numbers.

      Delete
  16. Lots of folk here with a dislike of Mr Obama

    Very few with reasons to support Romney

    Gary Johnson 2012

    ReplyDelete
  17. Poverty up, middle income down, job numbers less than increase in population, food stamps almost double, 4 years of trillion dollar deficits.
    Everything's Fine.

    ...in RufieWonderWorld.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In the last 12 Months,

      The Civilian Non-Institutional Population has increased by 1.55% in the last year.

      While the "Number Employed" has increased by 2.2%.

      See: BLS link, above

      Delete
    2. .

      Sure the non-institutional population has increased. But that trend will reverse and the institutional population rise once they catch you my friend.


      :)

      .

      Delete
    3. Don' bet on it; I'm pretty slippery. :)

      Delete
  18. Johnson headed for landslide victory, in Deserter RatLand.

    One less vote to remove the disaster at the Whitehouse.

    Romney's record in business, the Olympics, and as Governor of liberal Mass. speak for themselves.

    ...not to mention his personal and charitable contributions to others.

    Of his own, not other people's money, our money now being shoveled to crooks and crony "capitalists"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If I had to choose between Obama and Romney, dougo, I'd vote for Obama.

      Romney is a danger to the Republic.
      He has no core central political beliefs, but ...
      Is an effective manager/manipulator.

      A tax cheat and an exporter of US jobs.
      Proposes boosting the US military footprint around the globe.
      Holds no policy position with long term consistency.

      At least Obama is inept, incompetent and no danger to the future of the Republic. Past performance proves it.

      Obama has carried out the Bush Doctrine to it's ultimate perfection.
      He did, without doubt, Staying the Compassionate Conservative Course.

      RomnyCare on the Federal level the perfect example of Obama taking the compassionately CONSERVATIVE course. Federal mandates proclaimed by Mr Romney as the CONSERVATIVE course, back in 2009.

      Delete
    2. I would NEVER vote for an East Coast Liberal GOP ex-governor, dougo.
      Especially one from Mass.

      No matter how he is packaged.

      I know that fella, he is dangerous to everyone that he feels are subordinate to him. Which, if he were President, would be be all the common folk.
      His proposal to gut Medicare while allowing payments to Medicare insurance scammers continue ...
      Cuts that even Mr Ryan has endorsed in HIS GOP budget ...
      Indications of Mr Romney's lack of understanding and his continued tendency to lie.

      Delete
    3. I know who owns Mr Obama.
      They are of little account.

      I know who owns Mitt Romney.
      They are dangerous to freedom, liberty and the accumulation of happiness and property.

      Delete
    4. .

      At least Obama is inept, incompetent and no danger to the future of the Republic. Past performance proves it.


      No danger to the Republic?

      You been lickin them toads again, rat?

      .

      Delete
  19. No replies to this in previous thread, so I will repost here:

     10 Things About Obamacare That Just Don’t Make Sense

    10 Things About Obamacare That Just Don’t Make Sense

    Obamacare includes many disastrous consequences for America’s health care
    system. Contributing to the impending mess are these 10 provisions that clearly
    elude common sense.

    Expanding a program that one in three doctors won’t accept.
    [1] Obamacare expands a broken Medicaid program that already faces a severe access problem:
    One out of three Medicaid doctors will not accept new Medicaid patients. If the
    Obama Administration has its way and every state expands Medicaid, 17 million
    Americans will be added to the rolls—5.6 million of whom will join the other
    Medicaid patients who can’t find a doctor.


    Giving Medicaid doctors a pay raise—for two years.

    [2] Obamacare increases
    the payment rate for Medicaid primary care doctors up to Medicare payment levels
    in 2013 and 2014. After those two years, Medicaid doctors will face about a 22
    percent payment cut.

    Giving more government money to low-income Americans in the exchanges than to those in Medicaid.
    [3] The Congressional Budget Office estimates that every
    low-income individual who chooses to enroll in the new exchanges instead of
    Medicaid will increase federal spending by roughly $3,000 in 2022, because
    exchange subsidies will be more generous than the cost of coverage in Medicaid.

    Using Medicare money to pay for Obamacare.
    [4] Medicare’s finances are in serious trouble, facing a long-term unfunded obligation of $37 trillion and a bankrupt trust fund by 2024. Despite these facts, Obamacare cuts Medicare by $716 billion and then uses that money to pay for new spending rather than
    putting the money back into a struggling Medicare program.

    Forcing religious organizations to provide birth control coverage.
    [5] The Obama Administration refuses to exempt all religious employers from its mandate to provide coverage and pay for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs despite religious or moral objections to doing so.

    ReplyDelete

  20. Spending $1.68 trillion on a health care law that will leave 30 million
    Americans uninsured.

    [6] Obamacare’s coverage expansion provisions alone
    will cost $1.68 trillion over the next 10 years, but even after all that
    additional health spending, 30 million Americans will be uninsured.

    Overpricing premiums for young adults—so the government can subsidize them.
    [7] Obamacare’s age rating system forces insurers to charge unnaturally high
    premiums for younger adults. This will result in more subsidies going to healthy
    young people in the exchanges than would otherwise be necessary if insurers were
    allowed to continue charging lower premiums that more accurately reflect younger
    adults’ lower health care costs.


    Fixed revenue from a tax.

    [8] Obamacare’s annual fee on health insurers acts
    like a traditional excise tax—with one unique difference: The revenue collected
    from the fee will be fixed in any given year, meaning the amount going to the
    government will remain the same with no relation to how many consumers are
    actually purchasing coverage, totaling over $100 billion from 2014–2022. Thus,
    the fewer people that buy insurance, the higher the tax rate will be for those
    who do.

    Obamacare gives $3.8 billion to fund CO-OPs—an insurer that is designed to fail.
    [9] It is uncertain whether any CO-OP insurers will actually be created, because
    there is no obvious market demand, the statute imposes restrictions that make it
    difficult to establish and operate one, and the law prohibits the most likely
    and sensible path to setting one up—a divestiture or conversion by an existing
    health insurer.

    Obamacare has two types of health exchanges—the law just didn’t describe the second one.
    [10] It includes the American Health Benefit (AHB) and Small
    Business Health Options Program (SHOP). For the AHB exchange, the law contains
    requirements for structure, functions, and operations. The law provides no such
    detail for the SHOP exchange, and thus it is irrelevant—yet it’s in the law.

    Finally, creating a new entitlement when America’s existing entitlements
    (Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) are in desperate need of reform, and
    the country is running annual trillion-dollar budget deficits, doesn’t make much
    sense.






     10 Things About Obamacare That Just Don’t Make Sense

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You cut and paste ten pieces of nonsense, and, now, a rational person is supposed to spend the whole afternoon refuting them one, by one?

      Fuggedaboutit. CNN Ohio Obama 50 - Romney 47

      It's over Buckos.

      Delete
    2. Isn't there a song by that title?

      :)

      Delete
  21. One Billion, three days worth of the Iraq fiasco.
    Peanut dough in the real whirled.

    Obama's connection to General Dynamics, and his cancelling the F-22...

    Now there is a story that is worth telling.
    Complicated, to be sure.
    Makes it all the more interesting.

    Figure it out dougo, and then report back.

    ReplyDelete
  22. President Obama continues to earn over 50% of the vote in Michigan in the final days of the campaign, but his lead over Mitt Romney in the state is down to five points.

    The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Michigan Voters shows Obama with 52% support to Romney's 47%. One percent (1%) prefers some other candidate, and another one percent (1%) is undecided.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Forty percent (40%) of Ohio voters say they have already cast their ballots, and among these voters, the president has a comfortable 56% to 41% lead.

    ReplyDelete
  24. why would a book have many values. One is like 10.00 and one is 25.00 and one is 45.00. all the same book and I'm not sure why this is.

    ReplyDelete
  25. also why would a book not have a copyright or a publishing co. in it.

    ReplyDelete
  26. and how would I know if a signature is authentic if the man died in 1957

    ReplyDelete
  27. again why would a paper back be more money than a hard cover.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Bobbie ees no awake.

      Missy come back later.

      .

      Delete
  28. On Sept. 21, AP reported that Doherty and Woods "were in Libya on contract with the CIA," but removed the line in later versions of the story and didn't describe the men's status in that way again until after Thursday's briefing.

    "We omitted mention of the two former SEALs' CIA connection in subsequent versions of the story after CIA officials insisted that other lives would be endangered," AP spokesman Paul Colford said in a statement to The Huffington Post.

    Over the past six weeks, the Benghazi compound has been primarily described as a consulate or diplomatic mission, even though it's now being reported that just seven of the more than 30 people evacuated from the city were working for the State Department. As The Wall Street Journal wrote Thursday night, "the U.S. effort in Benghazi was at its heart a CIA operation."




    And now it's clear the former SEALs killed that night were not part of a security detail for U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who also died in the attack, but were working for the CIA -- a fact that, if presented earlier, might have helped reframe the murky narrative from an attack on a diplomatic mission to an attack on a location primarily used for intelligence gathering.

    { . . }

    However, the Times didn't report that the former SEALs were with the CIA, while acknowledging that the paper had "agreed to withhold locations and details of these operations at the request of Obama administration officials, who said that disclosing such information could jeopardize future sensitive government activities and put at risk American personnel working in dangerous settings."

    Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told The Huffington Post that the paper "did get this request from the CIA and honored it because of the safety concerns they raised." She said, "Doing so did not impact our ability to tell the broader story about how the CIA's operations were severely impacted by this attack."

    Yep, just what we thot

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This plays nicely with "This classified and we can't discuss it."

      Delete