Where Are My Keys?

Just raise taxes on Warren Buffett, that'll make up the shortfall..

The USA lost 129,000 millionaires in 2011:

America’s millionaire population declined last year for the first time since the financial crisis, according to a new report.

The population of U.S. millionaire households (households with investible assets of $1 million or more) fell to 5,134,000 from 5,263,000 in 2011, according to The Boston Consulting Group’s Global Wealth study.

Total private wealth in North America fell by 0.9 percent, to $38 trillion.

 The ultra-rich were the largest losers in dollar terms. Households in North America with investible assets of more than $100 million saw their wealth decline 2.4 percent. Their population declined slightly to 2,928 from 2,989.

The main reason for all this wealth loss? Stocks.

 

Someone to cheer for during NFL traing camp..

Remember the name Brian Banks.

It's not every day that the Washington Redskins call up a man convicted of rape and ask him if he'd agree to a one-day workout, but it happened Tuesday.

Oh, and the Kansas City Chiefs called Tuesday, too. And the Miami Dolphins. And they were three days behind the Seattle Seahawks, who will work him out on June 7.

Why are all these NFL teams eager to check out a convicted sex offender, a man who served five years in prison and wore a GPS ankle bracelet for another five?

Because Brian Banks didn't do it.

A judge in Long Beach, Calif., threw out his kidnapping and rape conviction last week after looking at a videotape of his accuser admitting she lied. After 10 years, he was suddenly a free and innocent man.

"My mouth hurts from smiling so much," Banks told me Tuesday night. "Unbelievable."

Banks was 16 in 2002, the bluest of blue chips out of Long Beach Poly High School, an NFL feeder if there ever was one. He'd already been offered a full-ride scholarship at USC by then-coach Pete Carroll.

But on a summer day that year, he and a girl named Wanetta Gibson decided to go make out in a stairwell at school. When they came out, she accused him of rape.

No semen traces in the rape kit. No witnesses. And yet Banks' attorney insisted he cop a plea, saying his size, age and race would mean a sure conviction of 40-plus years. He said no, no, a hundred times no and finally, reluctantly, yes.

Banks got six years. He served 62 months.

When he got out, he had to wear a GPS ankle bracelet at all times. He had to register as a convicted sex felon. Couldn't go near schools, parks or zoos. Couldn't get a job. He was lucky to get a few hours a week unloading docks.

What did Gibson get? A $750,000 settlement from the school.

But then, last year, a chunk of luck fell from the stars. Out of the blue, Gibson, then 24, sent Banks a Facebook friend request.

Banks slammed the laptop cover down and jumped out of his chair. Was somebody playing a joke on him?

He looked again. Amazing. Gibson had typed, "Let's let bygones be bygones."

Best policy money can buy..

After the White House said there weren't any kind of deals with Big Pharma regarding Obamacare, the truth comes out:

Drugmakers led by Pfizer (PFE)Inc. agreed to run a “very significant public campaign” bankrolling political support for the 2010 health-care law, including TV ads, while the Obama administration promised to block provisions opposed by drugmakers, documents released by Republicans show.

The internal memos and e-mails for the first time unveil the industry's plan to finance positive TV ads and supportive groups, along with providing $80 billion in discounts and taxes that were included in the law. The administration has previously denied the existence of a deal involving political support.

The documents were released today by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. They identify price controls under Medicare and drug importation as the key industry concerns, and show that former Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler and his top aides were involved in drawing it up and getting support from other company executives.

“As part of our agreement, PhRMA needs to undertake a very significant public campaign in order to support policies of mutual interest to the industry and the Administration,” according to a July 14, 2009, memo from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. “We have included a significant amount for advertising to express appreciation for lawmakers’ positions on health care reform issues.”

The goal, the memo said, was to “create momentum for consensus health care reform, help it pass, and then acknowledge those senators and representatives who were instrumental in making it happen and who must remain vigilant during implementation.”

Can't say I'm surprised.

"But WAMK, deals like this are always done in D.C.  You're just mad it is a Democrat making the deals."

Really?  Then why did the Administration previously deny any kind of deal was struck?

Are you happy that part of the deal was to "kill" a portion of the Democrats legislation to allow imported drugs help lower the overall costs?

Included in the documents released by the Republicans was an October 2012 e-mail from Bryant Hall, a PhRMA lobbyist,

In it, Hall wrote that the Obama administration had agreed to block a proposal by Democrats in Congress that would let people import pharmaceutical products from outside the U.S., where price controls offer them at lower costs than they can be obtained inside the U.S.

The White House “is working on some very explicit language to kill it in health-care reform,” Hall wrote in an e-mail sent to Kindler and Sally Susman, a current Pfizer executive vice president and head of the New York-based drugmaker’s public policy and communications operations.

Why did the President kill a portion that was so important to members of his own Party, and a position he campaigned for himself?

Happiest guy in the NBA draft?

Weekly IUC takes a big tick up..

This week the number comes in at 383,000, and the four-week average moves up to 374,500.  Not a good sign as we head into the Summer hiring period.

Along those lines, Instapundit has a reader who shares this information with us:

I work at a large semiconductor company who does a LOT of business with Chinese firms (odds are many if not most of the electronic devices you have that say “made in China” on it buys it’s most expensive parts from us). recently orders have dropped precipitously. We are expecting to reduce the workforce before the end of the quarter by dropping contractor (temp) labor. We are entering what for the semiconductor industry is the Christmas sales season and the orders are going DOWN! Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Lame duck?

His own Party is acting like it..

It fits on a Post-it note, but some lawmakers are still confused by what’s on President Barack Obama’s “to-do” list — and so far, neither chamber has scheduled a vote on any of the five items the president has urged them to tackle “right now.”

When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) outlined his agenda for the June work period this week, only one item from Obama’s to-do list made the cut — a business tax cut package. That’s the item most likely to win GOP support, given that Democrats at this point plan to follow the lead of House Republicans and simply borrow the money to pay for it.

Reid also mentioned a half a dozen items that aren’t on Obama’s list, although one — preventing the doubling of interest rates on student loans — is a separate White House priority.

...

“Didn’t we do some things he wanted us to do?” asked Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). “[Export-Import] Bank, that doesn’t count? That wasn’t on the to-do list?”

No. The president wanted that, too, but it’s not on the list.

“Do you have a copy of the to-do list?” Landrieu asked.

After a reporter told her what was on the list, she quipped, “We’re adding to that list by doing some great things.”

“I don’t have a copy of it; I’m sure my staff does,” said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), when asked when the Senate might get to it.

“We’ve got June, July. We’ve got some time. What time frame did he put on that to-do list?”

When told the president said the to-do list could be done “now,” Casey joked, “Now is a very expansive term. It’s not even the summer yet.“

“Didn’t we just try to move on student loans. Wasn’t that on his list?” asked Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

No, that’s a separate priority.

“You’d have to ask Harry Reid” why the list hasn’t moved, Levin said.

Following his own logic trail..

Barack Obama says that if you stand next to a terrorist, you are a terrorist*:

"It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent," the Timesreports. "Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good."

I agree with him on this point.

So if guilt by association if enough for the President, what does it mean when he acknowledges he hung around with a terrorist?

*make sure to read some of the comments over at HuffPo.  Funny how the very same people that were calling Bush a war criminal for collateral damage, now fully embrace what Obama has made policy.

Listening to your customer base..

Awesome.

A little boy wears a hearing aid but doesn't want to. Superheroes don't wear hearing aids. So his mom writes to Marvel Comics. Marvel decides to create a new superhero, complete with hearing aid, just for the little boy.

Nothing like making fun of a dead kid..

During a graduation speech, no less:

 

 

One can only imagine..

Can you imagine if George W Bush was flying around the Country (while said Country was in desperate economic times), and "often" had ESPN on his TV?

During long hours on Air Force One, Mr. Obama sets himself up in the conference room as aides wander in and out. He reads briefing books; receives updates; checks in with his chief of staff, Jacob J. Lew, back at the White House; and flips through The New Yorker or Sports Illustrated. The television is often tuned to ESPN with the sound down.

What would the Media reaction be?  Wouldn't Bush be painted as uncaring, and out of touch?  We already know how they reacted to him playing golf while we were at war.

What if Bush inserted information into his stump speeches that were so incorrect, even his most ardent supporters want to change the subject?  What would the Media reaction be there?

In a commencement address two days later at the Air Force Academy in Colorado, a swing state, Mr. Obama rejected fears of national decline, essentially rebutting the Republican argument that he does not believe in his country or its future. A half-dozen times he uttered the signature phrase “I see an American century” — much as Mr. Romney has promised to deliver “an American century” in his speeches.

You already know why there is a set of Media rules for Bush, and a different set for Obama, don't you?