Suitably Flip

Underemployed Secretary of State Defying Her Boss Openlier and Openlier

The grapple over her former Senate seat is the latest battle field in the apparently swiftly deepening rift between Barry and Hil.

Presto: Obama Saved or Created Another 130 Million Jobs In June

Unemployment ticked up to 9.5% and the economy shed a much-worse-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June, meaning nearly 132 million grateful Americans saw their livelihoods saved by their President during the month.

The June data brings the total payroll shrinkage since Obama's inauguration to 2.9 million.  A significant majority of those job losses (nearly 2.2 million) have occurred since enactment of the "stimulus" plan.

Yes, Helen.

Yes they do.

God of Czarnage, Revisited

The Fine Print Czar might be the most ironic of the bunch, as the appropriations for his or her office will undoubtedly be set within the thousands of pages of an emergency spending bill that no one will read before voting on it.

Previously: God of Czarnage

BILLY MAYS HERE FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA'S ECONOMIC STIMULUS PLAN!

Good stuff from the late great pitchman.

Governor Rudy

Via Ed Morrissey, America's mayor confessed this morning to weighing a bid to become America's governor in 2010.

Liveblogging the Bernie Madoff Sentencing

Reuters is tweeting it live from the courthouse (victims' statements, pictures, et al) where the superlative Ponzi schemer is about to get up to 150 years.

Update:  Boom!  All 150.  Crime doesn't pay, kids.

Strategy Room 3:00-4:00

I'll be on Strategy Room at FoxNews.com today from 3-4 pm.

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As always, you can email the show here and you can stream it live here.

Update:  An excerpt, wherein the National Enquirer reporter talks and I sit by, looking pretty.

"Maria Belen Shapur Photo" Blowin' Up

Hot Air Headlines notes that searching for pictures of Governor Sanford's Argentine beauty is suddenly the most popular thing to do with your Google (with an official Hotness rating of "Volcanic").

A cynic might assume that HA so notes in a naked ploy to cash in on some of that exploding search traffic.

Hmm... interesting idea.

Update:  Also via HA, there's the pic, according to News Bizarre.

Chris Quinn's Hysterical Hyperbole

New York City Council speaker Christine Quinn is dismayed about the legislative gridlock in Albany, noting that it has prevented the State Senate from imposing her and Bloomberg's nearly billion-dollar tax hike "revenue package" on New York City residents.

It's well known that New York is a dangerously undertaxed city, but I'm not sure Quinn's insistence that this is "close to life or death stuff" isn't just a touch overblown.

So He Chose Freedom. Running Around, Trying Everything New. But Nothing Impressed Him At All.

He never expected it to.

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford arrived in the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport this morning, having wrapped up a seven-day visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina, he said. Sanford said he had not been hiking along the Appalachian Trail, as his staff said in a Tuesday statement to the media.

Sanford's whereabouts had been unknown since Thursday, and the mystery surrounding his absence fueled speculation about where he had been and who's in charge in his absence. His emergence Wednesday ended the mystery.

Sanford, in an exclusive interview with The State, said he decided at the last minute to go to the South American country to recharge after a difficult legislative session in which he battled with lawmakers over how to spend federal stimulus money.
...
Sanford said he was alone on the trip. He declined to give any additional details about what he did other than to say he drove along the coastline.

Update:  Zoinks.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, his eyes red, admitted to having an extramarital affair Wednesday with an Argentine woman.

"I've been unfaithful to be my wife," Sanford said at a state capitol news conference.  

It began very innocently," he explained, saying that developed into an adulterous relationship in the past year.

He said he seen his unidentified mistress three times since they began the affair or, as he put it, "since the whole sparking thing."

Sanford said he was resigning his post as Chairman of the Republican Governor's Association.

Now This Is a Coup

What the NYS Senate Republicans did was a power play.  A legal and successful one.

This, however, is something else entirely.

Previously:
Legislating At Gunpoint: Paterson Threatens NYS Senate With Forcible Session
NYS Senate Dems Failing To Adjust Gracefully To Minority Status
Holy $#!&: Twin Democrat Defections Hand NYS Senate Back to GOP

Death Goes Green

Just because your heart has stopped beating, that doesn't mean it has to stop bleeding for mother earth.

Obama Defies Logic In His Identification Of Logic Defiance

In his meandering press conference today, "the only President of the United States" insists that opponents of socialized medicine who claim the "public option" will render private insurers unable to compete "defy logic" with their argument.  The dwindling of private insurance in competition with federally subsidized insurance, Obama maintains, must instead give the lie to the premise that insurance companies are even attempting to provide service at competitive prices.

It seems self-evident, but apparently it demands note, that the inevitability of the market dominance of a subsidized alternative is wholly logical and not at all at odds with the presumption that robust competition already exists in the private marketplace.

Hard Chairs and Near-Fights: The Torturous Life Of a Suspended NYC Public School Teacher

Weep for the fully salaried sexual offenders and other miscreants.

Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that's what they want to do.

Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its "rubber rooms" — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.

The 700 or so teachers can practice yoga, work on their novels, paint portraits of their colleagues — pretty much anything but school work. They have summer vacation just like their classroom colleagues and enjoy weekends and holidays through the school year.

"You just basically sit there for eight hours," said Orlando Ramos, who spent seven months in a rubber room, officially known as a temporary reassignment center, in 2004-05. "I saw several near-fights. `This is my seat.' `I've been sitting here for six months.' That sort of thing."
....
Mimi Shapiro, who is now retired, said she was assigned to sit in what Philadelphia calls a "cluster office." "They just sit you in a room in a hard chair," she said, "and you just sit."

Teacher advocates say New York's rubber rooms are more extensive than anything that exists elsewhere.

The End of Blogging

Of this one, anyway, should this come to pass.

I do ordinarily enjoy being hassled by the federal government, but a massive payola blogola crackdown sounds like a bit more of a nuisance than I generally prefer.

Legislating At Gunpoint: Paterson Threatens NYS Senate With Forcible Session

Too bad SNL's not in season.

Americans Want Higher Taxes

Yes, it's "true"!

A majority (*cough* of Obama supporters) favor hiking taxes to pay for socializing health care.

From the Washington Examiner:

Obamacare advocates can only hope their friends in the mainstream media do a better job of carrying their water for them in the weeks ahead than The New York Times and CBS with their latest poll. Using a sample with exactly twice as many Obama voters as McCain voters, the Times/CBS pollsters got a result in which 57 percent of their respondents said they would pay higher taxes “so that all Americans have health insurance that they can’t lose no matter what.”

Sotomayor Is a Fast Learner

Her membership in an elite no-boys-allowed club isn't problematic from an ethical perspective, but...

...she said she didn't want questions about it to "distract anyone from my qualifications and record."

America Loses Its Religion: Messiah President Forsaken

Blasphemy.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 32% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-four percent (34%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2. That’s the President’s lowest rating to date and the first time the Presidential Approval Index has fallen below zero for Obama (see trends).