Woo hoo! Free pap smear with child murder! You don’t see a deal like this every day. Get ‘em while they last.

I actually know a guy, a Ron Paul supporter, who thinks there’s some massive Jewish conspiracy. ROFL.

Love these comment on the video:

This moron may have just convinced me that the Jews are the next step in human evolution. Obviously, our elite Jewish overlords are far more evolved than this troglodyte.

If only he went to a jewish dentist.

Today is the last round of recalls in Wisconsin for at least a little while. This time, it’s the Democrats that have seats to lose, as the 12th District’s Jim Holperin (Conover) and the 22nd District’s Robert Wirch (Pleasant Prairie) face, respectively, Kim Simac and Jonathan Steitz.

I haven’t heard a thing about these recalls around here other than the mention that they’re going to happen today. Not a clue how they’ll turn out. Hoping we’ll snag at least one seat just for a little revenge, but won’t be too disappointed if we don’t.

Reuters:

In Tuesday’s two final special elections, Jim Holperin and Robert Wirch — two Democrats who opposed the anti-union measure and even fled the state for weeks in an unsuccessful effort to prevent its passage — are defending their seats.

Holperin seems to be in the tighter race. His rival is Kim Simac, founder of the Northwoods Patriots, a Tea Party group. Though Simac is a political novice, the district has leaned Republican in the three years since Holperin was elected.

No matter who wins, Republican Governor Scott Walker and his Republican allies will retain control of the legislature, where the battle over public workers’ union powers was waged earlier this year with public protests, legislative maneuvering and court challenges.

With seven of the nine recalls over, Republicans have managed to keep control of the state senate — 17 to 16 if they score no wins on Tuesday — because Democrats failed to unseat three Republican state Senators in the key round of six GOP senate recalls last week.

Update:

The Dems held onto their seats. Republicans maintain the Senate majority.

Minnesota Public Radio:

“Like my mom always used to say, things always work out for the best in the end, and maybe this is an opportunity for Minnesota,” said Tony Sutton, chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party.

Sutton said he hasn’t talked to Pawlenty yet, but knows what he’ll say when the time comes.

“Now that he’s not running for president, I sure hope he’d consider running for U.S. Senate,” said Sutton. “I think he’d make a heck of a candidate.”

Just recently, Pawlenty dismissed the idea of running against incumbent U.S. Sen. Amy Kobuchar, who is up for re-election next year. Pawlenty’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday. But Sutton isn’t deterred.

Pawlenty in Des Moines”The thing about politics is, you never say never,” said Sutton, saying Pawlenty was likely posturing about the Senate race because he was running for the White House.

LA Times:

Curfew is taking on a whole new — that is, more official — meaning for teenagers and pre-teens in Philadelphia, where the mayor is combating marauding mobs of kids known as “flash mobs” by ordering anyone under 18 to be off the streets by 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights in problem-plagued areas of the city.

Blaming recent violence on a “relatively small number of complete knuckleheads,” Mayor Michael Nutter told a news conference Monday that increased police patrols will round up minors caught outside after the curfew hours, and that parents will be called to pick up their kids. Parents could face fines of $500 if their children are picked up, or charges of child neglect if they don’t fetch their children.

[...]

On Sunday, Nutter delivered an angry lecture from a church pulpit that hinted at the crackdown, which represents a step up from the city’s existing curfew for minors. “If you want to act like an idiot — move,” Nutter said, directing his comments at troublemakers as well as parents who he said aren’t keeping tabs on their youngsters.

More here – http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/08/new-curfew-for-philly-teens-as-mayor-blasts-flash-mobs.html

Unlike in the United Kingdom’s Parliament, where a no confidence vote would remove him, a U.S. Senate vote of no confidence would be a symbolic measure that would send a signal to the president

“The stock market gave a vote of no confidence to Timothy Geithner yesterday and for the past 11 days,” Paul said in a statement. “Geithner has shown no acumen in predicting, diagnosing, or treating America’s economic woes. The time has come for him to resign.”

[...]

It remains unclear whether other Republican senators will join Paul in calling for the no confidence vote, or whether Republican leadership in the Senate will support him. A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did not immediately return The Daily Caller’s request for comment. Also, at the time of publication, no other tea party-minded senators had signed onto Paul’s call for the no confidence vote.

WKBT:

Republicans are holding onto control of the Wisconsin Senate.

Republicans beat back four Democratic challengers in Tuesday’s recall election despite an intense political backlash against GOP support for Gov. Scott Walker’s effort to curb public employees’ union rights.

Two Democratic incumbents face recalls next week, but even if Democrats win those they will still be in the minority.

More than $30 million were spent on the recall races, the largest concentrated attempt to force incumbent state lawmakers from office in U.S. history.

$30 million dollars. That’s a whole lotta union dues.

My Senator, Dan Kapanke, was one of the GOP losers. He was considered the most vulnerable. This is a purplish-blue area. Kapanke managed to keep getting re-elected because he was liked personally. He would show up at liberal events and talk to people, pound the pavement, knock on the same door sometimes three times an election cycle, etc… I talked to one woman who hated all Republicans but voted for him, so… yeah. But after he voted for Walker’s budget reform bill, that changed. He lost the blueish ones that kept him in his seat. And a lot of teachers were out for blood.

Nice guy. Hate to see him go. I feel bad for the guy having to run for office twice and finally losing, but I’m proud that he stuck to his guns. It got ugly for awhile. He kept on going to the liberal, liberal places even when they hated his guts and often spoke while they stood protesting with signs right next to him, right in his face.

Anyway, we held onto the Senate. Recalling Walker seems like quite the long shot, especially since we’re starting to see some fruits of his reforms, and they ain’t too shabby. There’s another recall election coming up. Two Democrats are up for recall because they ran away to Illinois. We’ll see how that goes.

Weekly Standard:

Emily Koczela had been anxiously waiting for months for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s controversial budget repair bill to take effect. Koczela, the finance director for the Brown Deer school district, had been negotiating with the local union, trying to get it to accept concessions in order to make up for a $1 million budget shortfall. But the union wouldn’t budge.

“We laid off 27 [teachers] as a precautionary measure,” Koczela told me. “They were crying. Some of these people are my friends.”

On June 29 at 12:01 a.m., Koczela could finally breathe a sigh of relief. The budget repair bill​—​delayed for months by protests, runaway state senators, and a legal challenge that made its way to the state’s supreme court​—​was law. The 27 teachers on the chopping block were spared.

With “collective bargaining rights” limited to wages, Koczela was able to change the teachers’ benefits package to fill the budget gap. Requiring teachers to contribute 5.8 percent of their salary toward pensions saved $600,000. Changes to their health care plan​—​such as a $10 office visit co-pay (up from nothing)​—​saved $200,000. Upping the workload from five classes, a study hall, and two prep periods to six classes and two prep periods saved another $200,000. The budget was balanced.

“Everything we changed didn’t touch the children,” Koczela said. Under a collective bargaining agreement, she continued, “We could never have negotiated that​—​never ever.” Koczela, a graduate of Smith College and Duke University Law School, is no Republican flack. She says she’s a “classic Wisconsin independent. I vote both parties. I voted for Senator [Russ] Feingold but I voted for [Republican state] Senator Alberta Darling too.”

More here.

Moody today:

“For the Aaa rating to remain in place, we would look for further measures that would result in the ratio of federal government debt to GDP, for example, peaking not far above the projected 2012 level of near 75 percent by the middle of the decade and then declining over the longer term,” Moody’s analyst Steven Hess wrote in a report.

“Last week’s agreement suggests that coming to an agreement that would meet this criterion by early 2013 will be challenging, given the political polarization, but not necessarily impossible.”

The problem in a nutshell: