links for 2010-11-19

Dennis Meyers, principal economist with the state Department of Finance, said the recovery remained slow. Job gains will have to be much higher to reduce the unemployment rate, given the state has lost 1.4 million jobs since July 2007, he said.

"We're sort of bouncing along the bottom right now with signs there's good things to come," Meyers said.

The state reported job losses in mining and logging, information and financial activities in October. The largest declines were in the financial industry, which lost 4,300 jobs.

The state's unemployment rate has now held at or above 12 percent for 15 months. It continues to be higher than the national average, which also held steady at 9.6 percent in October.

n the day after the House Ethics Committee recommended a censure for Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), the committee announced Friday that it will not hold the trial of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Nov. 29, as scheduled.

Instead, committee chairs Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) said they have decided to send Waters' case back to the panel's subcommittee for further investigation. Although the committee did not indicate why it had taken this step, sending the case back to investigators could either expand or reduce the charges against the 10-term congresswoman.
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Guess there is more to investigate. But, not a good development for Waters who will have to deal with a new GOP Majority in the next Congress.

The junk man's revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy. Metal detector? Back-of-the-hand pat? Okay. We will swallow hard and pretend airline attackers are randomly distributed in the population.

But now you insist on a full-body scan, a fairly accurate representation of my naked image to be viewed by a total stranger? Or alternatively, the full-body pat-down, which, as the junk man correctly noted, would be sexual assault if performed by anyone else?

This time you have gone too far, Big Bro'. The sleeping giant awakes. Take my shoes, remove my belt, waste my time and try my patience. But don't touch my junk.
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Read it all

Richard Lugar, the Senate's most senior Republican, earlier this week announced plans to stand for a seventh term in 2012. He then spent the rest of the week virtually daring someone to challenge him from the right.

On Wednesday, Mr. Lugar stood alongside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Democratic Sen. John Kerry at the State Department, denouncing the Republicans for their reluctance to take up the New START arms control agreement in the Senate's lame duck session. The same day, he came out against the proposed GOP moratorium on earmarks.
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If conservatives can recruit a good candidate, Lugar is toast in 2012

The open-borders progressives’ “DREAM Act” is an electoral nightmare. It’s not just an illegal alien student bailout. It’s a 2.1 million future Democrat voter recruitment drive. The “path to citizenship” dangled by Obama is a superhighway to generations of big government-birthed, identity politics-nursed dependents.

Misguided Republicans have supported illegal alien amnesties dating back to the Reagan era. And they have paid a steep, lasting price. As bankrupt, multiculti-wracked California goes, so goes the nation. The progs’ plan has always been to exploit the massive population of illegal aliens to redraw the political map and secure a permanent ruling majority.
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Read it all and Melt the Phones