October 27, 2009

Capital Flight In Action

Tax refugees staging escape from New York
More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy. It was the biggest out-of-state migration in the country. The vast majority of the migrants, 1.1 million, were former residents of New York City -- meaning one out of seven city taxpayers moved out.

What's worse is that the families fleeing New York are being replaced by lower-income newcomers, who consequently pay less in taxes.

Naturally. Not only do they pay less in taxes, but some of them are paying a lot less in taxes than they use up in government largess, which makes the tax revenue effect larger than the raw numbers would suggest. Why, you'd almost think they had monetary motivations...

Hey, I told you so.

October 26, 2009

Re-Branding...

Pelosi: Health care 'public option' needs new name
A government-sponsored "public option" for health care lives, though it may be more attractive to skeptics if it goes by a different moniker, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday.

In an appearance at a Florida senior center, the Democratic leader referred to the so-called public option as "the consumer option." Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., appeared by Pelosi's side and used the term "competitive option."

Toe-MAY-toe. Toe-MAH-toe. Giant Wooden Rabbit. Giant Wooden Badger. What's in a name, right? Sing it all together, boys and girls!

Branded!
Marked with a coward's shame.
What do you do when you're branded,
Will you fight for your name?

October 23, 2009

Useful Idiots

Maddow/Olbermann Invited to White House Chat with Obama, But Fox Isn't a News Organization?
The White House has sent TVNewser the complete list of those who attended the off-the-record briefing Monday: Eugene Robinson, E.J. Dionne, Ron Brownstein, John Dickerson, Rachel Maddow, Frank Rich, Jerry Seib, Maureen Dowd, Keith Olbermann, Bob Herbert, Gloria Borger, and Gwen Ifill. Several members of the staff also attended.

Nice to have a list of the top-tier anointed puppets, though it's not as if the strings weren't already obvious. And I see others have made the non-welcome list...

UPDATE: LOL. Heh. And more HEH.

Also: Reliable puppet Joe Conason didn't make the invite list? That's gotta sting.

October 21, 2009

First Amendment? What's That?

Jonathan Turley notes the Obama admin's support for speech restrictions:
Perhaps in an effort to rehabilitate the United States’ image in the Muslim world, the Obama administration has joined a U.N. effort to restrict religious speech. This country should never sacrifice freedom of expression on the altar of religion.

Seems that "wall of separation" between church and state is highly selective in the admin's eyes. Given their attempts to muzzle health insurers and the press, no one should be surprised.

October 20, 2009

Missing in Action

Journalism: Not Dead Yet

Not as long as we still have some actual journalists, such as Jake Tapper.

October 13, 2009

Bizarre

It seems like there really should be a Giant Wooden Rabbit involved here somehow....

That, or a horror film jointly produced by Sam Raimi and Hugh Hefner.

October 04, 2009

WORD

Don't f*** with Patterico.
As an associate producer of the documentary about Roman Polanski, you do not cover yourself in glory by coming on my blog and spamming a dozen identical anonymous comments that baselessly insinuate that I have a) bribed a witness on this case; b) blogged this issue on County time; c) written these posts to improve Mr. Cooley’s re-election chances; or d) engaged in “corrupt” behavior.

Not a smart thing to do, folks. Especially when you're going after a seasoned tech-savvy blogger with a firm grasp of criminal law and investigational technique. Folks, remember this: Unless you are using a proxy server or anonymizer, your tracks on the internet are pretty easy to trace. Even using such a service, it's still not impossible.