EBay’s board will oppose a proposal filed by activist investors calling on the company to disclose the disparity in pay between male and female employees.You've got to love the line “a large body of evidence suggests that diversity leads to better performance.” Because it's not true. Google, Apple, Ebay, and Facebook's workforces to look like America. They are overly white male and asian.
Arjuna Capital, a sustainable wealth management group that’s a division of the investment firm Baldwin Bros. Inc., urged the online auction site to produce a report by September that includes “the percentage pay gap between male and female employees, policies to improve performance, and quantitative reduction targets.”
The proposal notes that “a large body of evidence suggests that diversity leads to better performance.”
Friday, February 27, 2015
Board at eBay to block proposal to report gender pay disparity
The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
NBC Devotes Nearly Four Minutes to Dress Debate, Seconds to Clinton Corruption
Newsbusters reports:
On Friday, NBC finally noticed the corruption scandal swirling around Hillary Clinton. However, the coverage on the Today show was relegated to a 49-second mention within a story slamming Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. By contrast, the morning show devoted 3 minutes 56 seconds to a social media debate about the color of a dress.NBC: hard to call them a news operation. But, they sure like the press office of Hillary Clinton.
Downplaying the Clinton controversy as something ginned up by partisan critics, correspondent Kelly O'Donnell declared: "Conservatives seized on The Washington Post report that seven foreign governments donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state, violating an ethics agreement made with the Obama administration."
Flashback: Mainstream Media Hides Barack Obama's Own Words on His Marxists Friends in College in Dreams of My Father Audio Book
Will the liberal media ask Scott Walker how he feels about Obama's Marxist past? Here's Barack Obama reading the text from his book Dreams of My Father on pages 100 and 101.
Illinois Supreme Court Justice to testify in election fraud case
Crain's Chicago Business reports:
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Karmeier has been ordered to give testimony in a civil case that accuses State Farm Insurance of fraudulently concealing the extent of its involvement in his campaign.There's more:
Karmeier and State Farm had fought against requiring the justice to give a deposition in the case, which was filed in 2012 in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis and seeks $8 billion in damages. But Judge David Herndon rejected those arguments.
The plaintiffs can question Karmeier under oath “as to his knowledge concerning all aspects of his campaign including his decision-making process for running for the position in the first place and the persons with whom he consulted to make that decision, how the campaign was managed, how the campaign was financed, who was involved in the decision-making and strategy of the campaign,” Herndon ruled yesterday. “Without allowing the inquiry, there will never be light on the facts of this case and the federal rules will be thwarted.”
Requiring judges to give testimony is rare, even more so when the questions pertain to their own elections. The ruling likely will add to controversy that swirls around Karmeier, whose alleged ties to the Bloomington-based insurer and to the parent of Philip Morris USA, which has a multibillion-dollar case before the state Supreme Court, have drawn harsh criticism from plaintiffs' lawyers. Questions about his ties also demonstrate the flaws in allowing voters to choose judges in increasingly expensive campaigns, according to opponents of judicial elections.Yes, it's rare. But, Illinois has a major "ethics" problem to say the least. You'll want to read the entire Crain's and New Geography articles.
Herndon also granted the plaintiffs' request to depose an attorney for State Farm, Robert Schultz, who served as a member of the judicial evaluation committee for the Illinois State Bar Association when Karmeier was elected to the Illinois high court in 2004. Schultz now works for State Farm.
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Chicago's debt is now two notches above junk: Moody's
Crain's Chicago Business reports:
In a blow to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, one of the major bond-rating services today downgraded Chicago's credit to just two levels above junk, saying the city has not been able to adequately control the soaring cost of worker pensions.This isn't the first time Rahm Emanuel has been associated with financial failure: remember Freddie Mac scandals began during Emanuel's watch. The cost of Chicago corruption is large.
In a statement, Moody's Investors Service moved city debt to Baa2 from Baa1, and kept the city on a negative outlook. The latter means that there is a likelihood, though not a certainty, that its credit will be further downgraded in coming months.
In response, Emanuel's office today noted that two other ratings services, Fitch and S&P, have affirmed the city's credit rating, and characterized the Moody's view as an outlier "out of step with the other rating agencies, (and) ignoring the progress that has been achieved."
But the action adds another element of uncertainty for the city and Emanuel just days after the mayor was forced into an April 7 runoff election for a new term.
Moody's, which also lowered its rating on some sales-tax and water debt, said it acted because of "expected growth in Chicago's already highly elevated unfunded pension liabilities and continued growth in costs to service those liabilities."
Those pressures will grow even if reforms in two of the city's four pension funds pushed through by Emanuel survive legal challenges, Moody's said, apparently referring to a huge $550 million boost in payments to police and firefighter retirement funds the city faces in 2016.
"Regardless of the outcome of the legal challengers to pension reforms, we expect Chicago's unfunded pension liabilities—and the costs of servicing those liabilities—to continue to grow, placing significant strain on the city's financial operations absent commensurate growth in revenue and/or reductions in other expenditures," Moody's said.
Moody's last cut the city's credit rating in March.
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Senate drops objections to Obama amnesty, clears ‘clean’ homeland bill
The Washington Times reports:
Senate Republican leaders retreated on the homeland security spending fight Friday morning, voting with Democrats to delete provisions that would have stopped President Obama’s deportation amnesty in order to avoid a partial shutdown of the Homeland Security Department at midnight.The Republicans buckle to lawlessness.
But the 66-33 vote only heightens the tension, as House Republicans remain adamant that the president’s amnesty be stopped, and say they’ll pass a short-term spending bill to keep the Homeland Security Department open for a few more weeks in the hope of working out a final agreement.
Democratic leaders, meanwhile, say they’re having none of it, insisting that the House GOP drop its objections and accept the Senate’s bill as-is.
“It must pass the Senate bill. We will not go to conference,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said, shortly before he led the Senate in passing the “clean” spending bill that funds the Homeland Security Department through the rest of fiscal year 2015.
White House: Seven in Ten Doctors Say Climate Change Is Harming Patients
The Weekly Standard on the Obama regime's new propaganda effort.
Q4 GDP revised to 2.2%, versus expected growth of 2.1%
CNBC reports:
U.S. economic growth braked more sharply than initially thought in the fourth quarter amid a slow pace of stock accumulation by businesses and a wider trade deficit, but the underlying fundamentals remained solid. Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.2 percent annual pace, revised down from the 2.6 percent pace estimated last month, the Commerce Department said on Friday. The economy grew at a 5 percent rate in the third quarter.No matter how the media spins it, anything less than 3% annual growth in GDP is a failure.
Eric Holder Wants to Lower Standards of Proof in Civil Rights Cases
Politico reports:
Attorney General Eric Holder plans to push, during his final weeks in office, a new standard of proof for civil-rights offenses, saying in an exit interview with POLITICO that such a change would make the federal government “a better backstop” against discrimination in cases like Ferguson and Trayvon Martin.The complainer: Eric Holder.
In a lengthy discussion ranging from his own exposure to the civil rights movement of the ’60s to today’s controversies surrounding the shootings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, Holder also acknowledged that he felt some of his own struggles with Republicans in Congress during his six years in office were driven partly by race.
Ed Schultz Convinces Judge To Hold Emergency Hearing Because MSNBC Host Thinks He Needs To Protect His Career
The Daily Caller reports:
Fox News wannabee and MSNBC host Ed Schultz has convinced a federal judge to hold an emergency hearing about alleged collusion between his ex-business partner and this reporter to “destroy” his career.What's Ed hiding?
The proceeding is scheduled for Friday morning before U.S. District Court for the D.C. Circuit Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee and donor.
The FCC Is Toothless and Feckless
Gary North explains why it's too late for the FCC:
There are 196 nations. The FCC has zero authority in 195 of them. Each nation has different rules. Anyone can set up a website in most of them. Anyone can select the best legal location for his website. You can’t set up in North Korea. Cuba is off limits, but not for long. But if anyone wants to set up a website, he can find a server somewhere.You'll want to read the entire article.
There are no significant international regulations.
Web search engines can find any site, anywhere. These days, they have indexed over 4.5 billion pages. The FCC will be able to control almost none of them. The number of pages will rise.
To enforce its rules, the FCC must prosecute a violator in an American court. How many cases can its staff prosecute? How many convictions can it get? How many precedents will survive? Not many.
Think of the FCC as the Securities and Exchange Commission. Think of every website or blog editor as a potential Bernie Madoff. How likely is it that the FCC will be able to enforce its rules?
The FCC is trying to control pricing. It is setting up a system of price controls. When you hear the words “internet neutrality,” think “price controls.” But prices keep falling. Here is a technological law that has yet to be broken: “Bandwidth gets cheaper.”
O’Reilly Destroys Obama In Head-To-Head Cable News Matchup
The Daily Caller reports:
Sorry MSNBC, even the president cannot take down Bill O’Reilly.Imagine that.
In a head-to-head matchup Wednesday night, Fox’s O’Reilly annihilated MSNBC in the ratings, scoring a huge win over the rival network’s exclusive town hall event with President Barack Obama on immigration.
According to Nielsen, O’Reilly pulled in a whopping 705k viewers in the 25-54 demo, while raking in a total of nearly 3.1 million viewers. Meanwhile, even with a helping hand from Obama, MSNBC could only muster 129k viewers in the highly-coveted demo and 907k viewers overall.
City inspector general investigates early-and-often snow plowing on Ald. Ed Burke's street
The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
City Hall’s inspector general is investigating why city plows gave preferential treatment to the block of powerful Ald. Edward Burke during the blizzard that hit Chicago earlier this month.Chicago boss gets the special treatment.
The development came to light Thursday — just hours after Burke’s block once again got plowed much sooner than neighboring side streets after the overnight snowfall.
A Chicago Sun-Times reporter visited the 14th Ward block Thursday morning where Burke and his wife, Illinois State Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, live in a 5,600-square-foot, three-story home and found Burke’s street completely clean and salted by 9 a.m.
The pavement of nearby side streets was visible only where tires had left ruts.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Journolist Spencer Ackerman Declares War on Rahm Emanuel and His Police Department : From Obama Supporter to Investigative Reporter on A Brewing New Chicago Police Scandal?
He was an Obama supporter with a byline. He was a member of the elitist Obama supporting journolist network. He has declared war on Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Police Department. Spencer Ackerman is also declaring war on one-party Chicago. This really is news. For Chicago it's another chapter in its' history.
Detroit Pension Judge: Pension plans too costly for cities
The Detroit News reports:
The bankruptcy judge who green-lighted reductions in pensions and health insurance for more than 32,000 Detroit retirees said Wednesday he's "deeply concerned" about the unfunded liabilities other cities are saddled with.You'll be hearing a lot of this kind of talk in the near future.
Retired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes said Detroit and other cities need to consider moving away from costly pension plans and transition employees on to 401(k)-style defined contribution retirement plans.
Rhodes cited publicized estimates that American municipalities have unfunded pension liabilities ranging between $1 trillion and $4 trillion.
"It flies largely under the radar and it doesn't get a lot of attention and it doesn't get a lot of management and I'm deeply concerned about that," Rhodes said. "Because that's money cities don't have that they have promised to their retirees and I think that solution across the country, and including in Detroit, has to be at some point defined contribution (plans)."
'Gestapo' tactics at US police 'black site' ring alarm from Chicago to Washington
The Guardian reports:
The US Department of Justice and embattled mayor Rahm Emanuel are under mounting pressure to investigate allegations of what one politician called “CIA or Gestapo tactics” at a secretive Chicago police facility exposed by the Guardian.The long history of Chicago style corruption continues.
Politicians and civil-rights groups across the US expressed shock upon hearing descriptions of off-the-books interrogation at Homan Square, the Chicago warehouse that multiple lawyers and one shackled-up protester likened to a US counter-terrorist black site in a Guardian investigation published this week.
As three more people came forward detailing their stories of being “held hostage” and “strapped” inside Homan Square without access to an attorney or an official public record of their detention by Chicago police, officials and activists said the allegations merited further inquiry and risked aggravating wounds over community policing and race that have reached as high as the White House.
Caught in the swirl of questions around the complex – still active on Wednesday – was Emanuel, the former chief of staff to Barack Obama who is suddenly facing a mayoral runoff election after failing to win a majority in a contest that has seen debate over police tactics take a central role.
Emanuel’s office refused multiple requests for comment from the Guardian on Wednesday, referring a reporter to an unspecific denial from the Chicago police.
91 NYC schools have been failing for a combined 642 years. New data show that more than 50,000 New York City students attend schools with the state's lowest test scores and graduation rates.
Crain's New York reports:
Half the state's failing schools are located within the five boroughs, according to data released Thursday from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, with nearly half of those in the Bronx.Let's spend more money on the public education racket! Yeah! Government schools care about children ! Yeah! Government spending on NYC public schools is an investment! Yeah! Let's waste another 20 years experimenting on public school children! The $81,000 NYC high school diploma sure is an investment! Yeah.
More than 50,000 New York City students, or about 5% of the city's pupils, attend 91 of the state's 178 failing schools. This includes 44 in the Bronx, 25 in Brooklyn, 12 in Manhattan and 10 in Queens. (There were no Staten Island schools on the state's report.)
Some 40 of the 91 city schools have the dubious distinction of failing for a full decade. The average school in the group has been failing for a little more than seven years.
Mr. Cuomo's office noted that the failures come even as the city's per-pupil spending ($20,266) is nearly double the national average, with total funding up 13% over the past three years, to more than $1 billion annually.
"This is the real scandal in Albany, the alarming fact that state government has stood by and done nothing as generation after generation of students have passed through failing schools," Mr. Cuomo said in a statement.
Is More Crime Being Committed In Chicago's City Council Than The Most Dangerous Neighborhoods In Chicago?
Here's a quote from political scholars Thomas Gradel and Dick Simpson:
Thirty-three Chicago aldermen and former aldermen have been convicted and gone to jail since 1973. Two others died before they could be tried. Since 1928 there have been only fifty aldermen serving in the council at any one time. Fewer than two hundred men and women have served in the Chicago city council since the 1970’s, so the federal crime rate in the council chamber is higher than in the most dangerous ghetto in the city.The facts are rather revealing.
Charter Schools : Myths and Realities
City Journal reports:
The United Federation of Teachers wants to stop the expansion of charter schools. As part of its longstanding campaign to drive charter operators out of New York City, the union has seized upon the so-called “enrollment gap.” Charters, they claim, get such great results because they find ways to avoid serving the most challenging students—namely, non-native English speakers and the disabled. The enrollment gap does exist, but as my research and new data from the New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO) confirms, the union’s explanation for it is highly misleading.An education on education reform.
Charters aren’t systematically shutting out disadvantaged students. Enrollment is determined by lotteries, so when such students apply to attend charters, they are just as likely as other students to get in. But few English-language learner (ELL) students apply to attend charters, for perhaps understandable reasons. New immigrant families, for instance, may be less aware of schooling options beyond the neighborhood public school. Language barriers may also hinder parents of ELL students from researching schools and applying to them. In this respect, charters probably could do more to recruit ELL students—but that’s a far cry from suggesting a climate of active discrimination.
Flashback : Stealing $4 Million in Quarters Doesn't Disqualify Someone From Working In City Government In Chicago
Flashback 2004. The Chicago Tribune reports:
It's amazing, but these days reporters are giving the mayor no quarter on Quarters.No word yet on this story from Mayor Daley's former deputy Chief of Staff Valerie Jarrett.
On Thursday, Mayor Richard Daley was asked about John "Quarters" Boyle, who was convicted of stealing $4 million from the Illinois Toll Highway Authority, then was given a cushy city job, and who was charged the other day with taking bribes for contracts in the Hired Truck scandal.
First, Daley said lifting $4 million shouldn't disqualify Boyle from gainful public employment.
Reporter: Would stealing $4 million from another public agency disqualify somebody from a city job?
"No, I don't think so," Daley said.
Alan Dershowitz: The Appalling Talk of Boycotting Netanyahu. Congress has every right, and even an obligation, to hear the Israeli leader speak about the Iranian threat.
The Wall Street Journal has an op-ed from Alan Dershowitz:
I certainly would never vote for or support a member of Congress who walked out on Israel’s prime minister.Just a reminder.
One should walk out on tyrants, bigots and radical extremists, as the United States did when Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust and called for Israel’s destruction at the United Nations. To use such an extreme tactic against our closest ally, and the Middle East’s only vibrant democracy, is not only to insult Israel’s prime minister but to put Israel in a category in which it does not belong.
Corrupt Illinois: Not A Few Bad Apples
New Geography has a piece written by one of Barack Obama's and Rahm Emanuel least favorite people. Your humble editor and publisher of Newsalert.
Washington Post Editorial Board: On immigration policy, the GOP is out of touch with the rest of America
The Washington Post editorial board claims the GOP is out of touch on immigration. Attention Washington Post, the GOP's views in the 2014 election didn't hurt them.
Will the unemployed soon be able to tap retirement accounts?
CNBC reports:
It's bad enough to tap your 401(k) when you are unemployed. But should you have to pay a 10 percent early distribution penalty too?The great moments of the Obama recovery.
Not if a little-known provision buried deep within President Barack Obama's proposed 2016 budget becomes law. The provision would allow those who've received unemployment compensation for more than 26 weeks to withdraw up to $50,000 per year from their IRAs and employer-sponsored retirement plans.
And while experts said the budget is unlikely to pass in its current form, there appears to be bipartisan support for the exemption.
Under the proposal, you would have to withdraw retirement funds either in the year when you received unemployment compensation or the following year.
Goldman Employees Reaped $2 Billion From 2008 Options Last Year
Bloomberg reports:
While Goldman Sachs Group Inc. employees may get less compensation than in the past, many cashed in last year for a payday they’ve been awaiting since the depths of the financial crisis.Where would Goldman Sachs be without looting taxpayers?
Employees exercised options worth $2.03 billion in 2014. More than 96 percent of the contracts were granted as part of 2008 compensation. Last year marked the first time bankers were able to take advantage of those awards.
Goldman Sachs’s stock has more than doubled since it granted 36 million options in December 2008 to give top performers incentive to stay. The bank had been forced to slash compensation costs that year, as a global credit crisis endangered the firm and pushed its shares down 61 percent.
Emanuel's big-money effort in aldermanic races sputters
The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel can’t call on the old-school patronage armies that his predecessor, Richard M. Daley, and other mayors deployed to the precincts at election time to help their City Council allies and punish their foes.The great moments of Obama's former Chief of Staff.
So Emanuel has tried to consolidate control over an already docile aldermanic flock by giving his Council allies a strong taste of what he has lots of: money.
The expensive effort at spreading around campaign cash sputtered badly, though, in races across the city in Tuesday’s election.
Like the mayor himself, the nine incumbents who received the largest amounts from the pro-Emanuel Chicago Forward political action committee all fell short of winning majorities and were forced into runoff elections in April.
Historic vote set for Internet rules
The Hill reports:
A new day is dawning in Washington’s battle over the Internet.Strongman Obama update.
The Federal Communications Commission will vote Thursday to issue regulations designed to guarantee equal access to the Internet, despite staunch opposition from Republicans and under the threat of lawsuits from major companies.
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