Trying to take full advantage of a faux-crisis….

WASHINGTON DC – Never say the White House isn’t affected by sequestration. The Visitors Office just notified Congress that tours of the White House are cancelled until further notice.

“Due to staffing reductions resulting from sequestration, we regret to inform you that White House Tours will be canceled effective Saturday, March 9, 2013 until further notice,” the White House email to legislative offices explains.

“Unfortunately, we will not be able to reschedule affected tours. We very much regret having to take this action, particularly during the popular Spring touring season.”  (more)

WASHINGTON DC – The Obama administration denied an appeal for flexibility in lessening the sequester’s effects, with an email this week appearing to show officials in Washington that because they already had promised the cuts would be devastating, they now have to follow through on that.

In the email sent Monday by Charles Brown, an official with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service office in Raleigh, N.C., Mr. Brown asked “if there was any latitude” in how to spread the sequester cuts across the region to lessen the impacts on fish inspections. (more…)

Y’all are smart enough to understand what is being discussed about here.

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(Reuters) – Michigan Governor Rick Snyder on Friday formally declared Detroit in a fiscal emergency and said he had identified a top candidate to take over financial management of the destitute city.

The declaration virtually assures that the state of Michigan will assume control of Detroit’s books, though Snyder was careful to say there is still a window of 10 days for city leaders to convince him otherwise.

“I believe it’s appropriate to declare the city of Detroit in financial emergency,” Snyder told a forum of community leaders at a Detroit public television station.

Detroit has faced the steepest population decline of any major American city in recent decades. Once the fifth largest U.S. city, which shone as the birthplace of the U.S. automotive industry and Motown music, it now ranks 18th in size with about 700,000 people – after suffering a 25 percent decline in population between 2000 and 2010. (more…)

RUSH LIMBAUGH:  Now, here’s this ABC story: “57 Terrible Consequences of Sequester.” Now, I wish I had time, I wish I had the ability to go through all 57. I’m not gonna bore you. But I want you to listen to some of them. This is ABC News, the same place Jonathan Karl works. They’re not even on the same page. Jonathan Karl is out there saying, “Well, we’re gonna spend $15 billion more.

“The public isn’t gonna really feel this.” Over here, elsewhere at ABC, the full monty, babe, full scare tactic, 100% fearmonger, 57 terrible consequences. “Air travel disruption. Longer security lines at airports. Slower extreme weather forecasts.” Slower extreme weather forecasts? “Greater risk of wildfires.” A greater risk of wildfires because the federal government is only spending $15 billion more than it spent last year? Do you realize how absurd this has gotten now? (more…)

CALIFORNIA – The former mayor of Bell, California, was too stupid and uneducated to know his $100,000 salary for the part-time city job was illegal, his lawyer argued today.

Oscar Hernandez is illiterate, has no high school degree and didn’t even finish elementary school, defense attorney Stanley Friedmand told jurors.

Hernandez and five former members of the Bell City Council are on trial, accused of stealing $1.3million in exorbitant pay from the working-class city of 35,000.

All six elected officials drew salaries of up to $100,000 for serving on boards that seldom met and accomplished little. (more…)

L’économie de plus en plus socialiste en France est en tête au ridicule profonde de toutes les nations, non seulement en Amérique.

PARIS (Reuters) – The CEO of a U.S. tire company has delivered a crushing summary of how some outsiders view France’s work ethic in a letter saying he would have to be stupid to take over a factory whose staff only put in three hours work a day.

Titan International’s Maurice “Morry” Taylor, who goes by “The Grizz” for his bear-like no-nonsense style, told France’s left-wing industry minister in a letter published by Paris media that he had no interest in buying a doomed plant.

“The French workforce gets paid high wages but works only three hours. They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three and work for three,” Taylor wrote on February 8 in the letter in English addressed to the minister, Arnaud Montebourg. (more…)

We have watched the horizon for this over two years now.  HERE and HERE –  The best view is through the comparative prism between Illinois and neighboring Wisconsin and Indiana (more following article).   In July of 2011 Illinois Governor Quinn signed the largest tax increase in history, raising state income taxes by 60%.   Now the state bond rating is the worst in the nation….

ILLINOIS – Illinois’ credit rating has taken another hit.   Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service downgraded the state from an “A” rating to “A-minus”, making it the worst in the country.

The New York ratings firm’s ranking means taxpayers may have to pay tens of millions of dollars more in interest when the state borrows money for roads and other projects.

The downgrade is the latest fallout over the $96.8 billion debt to five state pension systems.   The downgrade now ties Illinois with California, but California has a positive outlook.

Illinois’ fragile overall financial status netted it a negative outlook, putting it behind California overall.   The ratings came out now because Illinois plans to issue $500 million in bonds within days.   (article link)

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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…)