Seriously, 6eorge? You must be making this up. What type of entity would do something so foolish? Pay for “G’Day”?

According to Thursday’s (Detroit) Free Press, Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano said that the $200,000 going away present given to outgoing (Michigan) Wayne County economic development boss Turkia Awada Mullin is “standard for a top appointee.”"

h/t The Detroit Free Press

Ah, yes, the public sector that Barack Obama wants to expand.

But, 6eorge, that’s only one individual. All walks of life have their FUBARs. Just one?

Nope, it’s wide spread.

Detroit— Embattled Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano on Thursday suspended a special severance plan that pays political appointees to quit, seeking to quell a swiftly moving scandal that’s prompted an FBI probe and new recall effort.

Ficano said he’s icing a plan introduced in December that would allow some 300 political appointees to receive up to 24 weeks’ pay if they leave around election time. The reversal came the same day The Detroit News reported about the package and one day after Ficano’s staffers defended the severances.

“As of today, the executive pay package that was reported is suspended,” Ficano told reporters at an event in West Bloomfield Township.

Ficano also said he’s sent a letter to the county’s retirement board seeking an end to a 5-to-1 match for a defined contributions savings plan, which has existed for years for some employees.

The move came the same day paperwork was filed to recall Ficano and commissioners threatened to subpoena him and his top aides to answer questions about a $200,000 severance to his former economic development czar.

The flurry came one day after the FBI served subpoenas at county offices seeking information about the severance payment to former economic development director Turkia Mullin and about donors to an economic development nonprofit that she led.

h/t The Detroit News

Oh, and did I mention? Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano is a highly influential Democrat.

You can tell just how rotten a political/civic class is by their ability to obfuscate and equivocate on behalf of things that are so obviously wrong.

That explains why some people are trying so hard to spin on behalf of Team Ficano in the wake of the Turkia Mullin severance scandal.

At the top of that list are legislative Democrats trying to dissuade Rep. John Olumba’s quest for an Attorney General’s inquiry into the matter.

Oct. 18, Detroit News: “It’s come straight out of their mouths,” said Olumba, who wouldn’t name members who expressed those fears. “(Ficano) is a prime donor. I have asked every Democrat. One person told me ‘I don’t want to touch that with a 10-foot pole.’”

h/t mlive.com

In Skunked, the PIMCO Investment Outlook published today by Bill Gross, the PIMCO Bond King laments

I speak, of course, to the budget deficit and Washington’s inability to recognize the intractable: 75% of the budget is non-discretionary and entitlement based. Without attacking entitlements – Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security – we are smelling $1 trillion deficits as far as the nose can sniff. Once dominated by defense spending, these three categories now account for 44% of total Federal spending and are steadily rising. As Chart 1 points out, after defense and interest payments on the national debt are excluded, remaining discretionary expenses for education, infrastructure, agriculture and housing constitute at most 25% of the 2011 fiscal year federal spending budget of $4 trillion. You could eliminate it all and still wind up with a deficit of nearly $700 billion! So come on you stinkers; enough of the Pepé Le Pew romance and promises. Entitlement spending is where the money is and you need to reform it.

And whadayano–6eorge searches for cheap segue link–Warren Buffett is bearish, too

Pimco “has been selling Treasuries because they have little value within the context of a $75 trillion total debt burden,” Gross wrote in the report published on Newport Beach, California-based company’s website. Congress “must make ‘debt’ a four-letter word.”

The comment echoes Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who recommended avoiding long-term fixed-income bets in U.S. dollars because the currency’s purchasing power will drop.

Which can be more colorfully titled as WARREN BUFFETT: Stay The Hell Away From Long-Term Bonds

According to Bloomberg, the Berkshire chief said in India yesterday:

I would recommend against buying long-term fixed-dollar investments. If you ask me if the U.S. dollar is going to hold its purchasing power fully at the level of 2011, 5 years, 10 years or 20 years from now, I would tell you it will not¹.

I would much rather own businesses. It’s very easy to take away the value of fixed-dollar investments.

¹But it’s not the Euro that Buffett expects to appreciate.

And finally, JP Morgan’s Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon on American competitiveness

“If America adopts a lot of things very different than the rest of the world,” U.S. competitiveness will be damaged, Dimon told investors at a Feb. 15 meeting at JPMorgan’s New York headquarters. JPMorgan’s chairman and CEO said forcing banks to spin off some derivatives business is “absurd” and other changes in last year’s Dodd-Frank Act are a “terrible shame.”

Is this agreement a sign of the Apocalypse? Yes, the financial one it took to get three private-citizen Democrats to speak truthfully.

The lead paragraphs in the lowly fourth!! story in the Washington Post today

Just after 10:12 a.m. Friday, Leslie Johnson frantically phoned her husband, Jack B. Johnson, the Prince George’s county executive. Two FBI agents were at the front door of their two-story brick colonial in Mitchellville.

“Don’t answer it,” the county executive said, unaware that more agents were listening in.

Johnson ordered his wife to find and destroy a $100,000 check from a real estate developer that was hidden in a box of liquor.

“Do you want me to put it down the toilet?” Leslie Johnson asked.

“Yes, flush that,” the county executive said.

But what about the cash? she asked – $79,600.

Put it in your underwear, the county executive told his wife.

She replied, “I have it in my bra” – which is where agents discovered the money after she answered the door.

A clue is given on page two of a second article where the party of one of Johnson’s colleagues is mentioned. Jack Johnson’s polarizing tenure in Prince George’s has stark end with arrest.

No party affiliation is mentioned in the third article Reaction to the arrest of Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson.

For the answer, we turn to The Washington Business Journal

Highlight between the lines to see the answer
——————————————————————————————
Jack Johnson’s term will end Dec. 6, when his successor, Rushern Baker, will be sworn in to office. Jack Johnson, a Democrat, is a former Prince George’s County State’s Attorney who was elected to serve as the county’s sixth executive in 2002.
——————————————————————————————

“Governing isn’t as easy as you think. Many of you have taken pledges that are contradictory—to balance the budget and cut taxes, for example. You must be honest about the numbers, since our annual deficit now exceeds all discretionary spending combined. If you set as your goal to roll back the size of government, you have an obligation to answer the tough questions and show real courage, not just appeal to ideology. Treat the voters like adults.”

Surprisingly, I found myself agreeing with much of what he had to say¹.

Last night, I was listening to Mark Levin, and a couple of callers brought up their fears that some incoming members might not stay as conservative as advertised once they get to DC. Levin lit into them. Can we guarantee that each and every new Representative will follow what they laid out in their campaigns? Of course not, shot back Levin, but that lament flows only from those not willing to do the work to hold our elected officials feet to the fire once the 2010 elections are over. Eternal vigilence is the price of freedom.

RedState readers are familiar with the entitlement problem the US Government is facing. And who thus far has shown the courage to acknowledge the problem and propose a realistic solution involving some of the inevitable pain? Not Barack Obama, who is seeking the cover of a “bi-partisan commission.”² As far as I know, only Representative Paul Ryan R-Wisc has proposed a realistic solution/roadmap involving painful allocations of limited resources to get the adult discussion started.

We must continue to engage, and not let the 2010 campaign principles fall by the wayside as the Democrats did following their 2006 victory. Regarding “the most ethical Congress in history”, Baird acknowledges and laments

Before the 2006 election, he says, Mrs. Pelosi had 30 members working on a rules package to make the House more ethical and deliberative. “We abandoned all that work after the election, and leaders told us we should trust them to clean things up. I don’t know a single member of the Democratic caucus who saw the final rules package before they voted on it.”

Among his many examples of Democrats succumbing to the love of power, Baird cites a lack of fiscal transparency³

“We initially had numbers a bit more honest than the Republicans—we at least included war costs in the budget,” he says. “Now we’re authorizing programs for three years instead of five in an attempt to pretend we’re saving money.”

The difficulty for those taking Baird’s view of the world is that the trappings and perks of power go hand-in-hand with the types of programs he would support. All it takes for statists to siphon from Big Government programs is a little subtlety or sleight-of-hand. See Harry Reid’s fortune.

Conservatives, on the other hand, will find the trappings and perks of power in conflict with their principles. Of course, many will stray. But it will be our job to be vigilant, and to call them on it. There is hope for America in the newly engaged citizenry.

This is not the beginning of the end, but rather, only the end of the beginning.

¹ The most glaring, obvious exception is his second vote in March for ObamaCare. He originally voted against it in November.

² What result did we get when we fed our pre-surge situation in Iraq to the CYA dynamics of a bi-partisan commission? THe totally predictable timid groupthink.

³ I concede to his criticisms of the Bush fiscal stewardship, although I retain my view that Obama’s level of irresponsibility is the Bush level on steroids.

h/t to the National Review
Might as well use this diary as an open thread.

In contrast, Jetson favors a 100% tax on all new government programs which would be most efficiently collected by simply eliminating the programs.

In his article today, George Will warns of the VAT as a tool that will ease future expansions of government. You know, Uncle Sam as the deadbeat uncle that keeps hitting you up for more money.

Believing that a crisis is a useful thing to create, the Obama administration — which understands that, for liberalism, worse is better — has deliberately aggravated the fiscal shambles that the Great Recession accelerated. During the downturn, federal revenue plunged and spending soared.

[snip]

In the context of this concatenation of troubles, the administration’s highest priority was to put an enormous new health-care entitlement on the welfare state’s rickety scaffolding. Why? Because the liberals’ lunge to maximize government’s growth depends on quickly creating a crisis that can be called a threat to the entitlement menu and to the currency as a store of value. Then the public can be panicked into accepting the addition of a VAT to the existing menu of taxes.

While in theory, as a replacement for income taxes, a consumption tax may make some sense, as long as government thrist for spending goes unchecked, this proposed consumption tax will merely buy some more rounds for the government spending drunkards.

As one concrete counter-argument to the VAT, Will points out the unfairness to the elderly.

And wait until the political class’s most imperious masters, the elderly, are heard from. When they worked they paid taxes on their incomes; retired, they will resent — they are virtuosos of resentment — being taxed when they spend their savings.

And finally, Will points out the added degrees of freedom for government favoritism that a VAT would offer our DC masters.

Because a VAT potentially taxes everything, it would be riddled with exemptions. This is because it maximizes the political class’s opportunities for showing favoritism — by, for example, exempting certain “green” goods. It also widens that class’s scope for the pleasure of being bossy.

We must not let the government get its foot in the door with a VAT.

But I’m not sure what he means by this particular soundbite and I think it’s open to some criticism because it suggests that the President is an athlete and some people may suggest, you know, because all black people are good athletes. I mean that’s what it sort of sounds like to me.

-Norah O’Donnell

Someone should tip Norah off to the practice, common among politicians, of using words and imagery to boost their own reception and to lower that of their opponent.

And just where has Obama used basketball imagery as a backdrop for his political messages? Umm…

Basketball imagery has been ubiquitous with Obama. Anyone with a pea-sized brain should see that the rational tactic for the political opponent is to counterpunch against that imagery. It’s what politicians do.

Of course there is no shortage of the Left’s self-serving criticism of the Iraqi War. In one of the first Lefty articles to come up in a Bing search of Bush Lied, People Died. the author strives to stoke the anger so common in the Left by mockingly bemoaning the lack of inflamatory language in a Pentagon report

Can’t get too steamed up in a public document about 4300 dead coalition soldiers and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis.

As if Iraqis had enjoyed the safety of the benevolent Saddam Hussein prior to the war. I ask the left,

       Would Iraqis be better off with Saddam still in power?

As quoted in The Million Fool March to Prop Up Dictator Saddam Hussein, a exiled Iraqi Rania Kashi penned an open letter to the anti-war Left

“Saddam rules Iraq using fear; he regularly imprisons, executes, and tortures large numbers of people for no reason whatsoever,” she wrote. “Believe me, you will be hard-pressed to find a single family in Iraq which has not had a son/father/brother killed, imprisoned, tortured, and/or ‘disappeared’ due to Saddam’s regime. What then has been stopping you from taking to the streets to protest against such blatant crimes against humanity in the past? . . . I have attended the permanent rally against Saddam that has been held every Saturday in Trafalgar Square for the past five years. The Iraqi people have been protesting for years against the war — the war that Saddam has waged against them. Where have you been?”

Article author Jeff Jacoby continues by asking

If the suffering of Iraq’s people meant anything to the protesters, such cries from the heart might have prompted twinges of shame, or at least some second thoughts. But there is little evidence that the antiwar campaign cares at all about those whom Saddam has hurt.

and

where the antiwar movement was during Saddam’s war against Iran in the 1980s, which caused the death of 1 million Iraqis and Iranians. Or during his attack on the people of Halabja, when thousands of Iraqi Kurds were gassed to death. Or during the 1990s, when Saddam flouted one United Nations directive after another.

Finally, to the Lefties that still resent the Iraqi war, I ask, where should the ambitious young Middle Easterner go? To an environment like that under Saddam? Or an environment like the one evolving in the newly freed Iraq? If given the choice, where would you go?

The First Day
Friday, 3 December

Captain First Rank Marcia Ramius of the Communist Movement was dressed for the arctic conditions normal to the Northern Atlantic. A dirty tug pushed as she commenced her campaign. The dock that had held the Red October for 46 interminable years was now a water-filled concrete box, one of the most reliable strategic sheltered births serving to protect against the harsh elements.

“Engine ahead slow, Karmarov,” Ramius ordered.

“So, my Captain, again we go to sea to serve and protect the Rodina!” Captain Second Rank Ivan Yurievich Biden poked his head through the hatch–without permission, as usual–and clambered up the ladder with the awkwardness of a landsman. Biden was the ship’s zampolit (political officer). Everything he did was to ser the Rodina (Motherland).

              *   *   *

Ivan Biden entered the cabin as Ramius read aloud “And the seventh angel poured forth his bowl into the air, and a voice cried out from heaven, saying, “It is done. ”

“A woman with your responsibilities, Captain, speculating about Doom.
And what’s this?” ‘I am become death, the destroyer of health’”.

“This book belonged to my husband. I keep it for sentimental value.”

“I’m sorry, comrade Captain. Your husband was…a beautiful man.”

“His death was… unfortunate.”

“I’m only doing my job, Captain. It is my responsibility.”

It was also not lost upon Ramius, whose defection is spurred by several other factors as well. In particular she is deeply affected by the death of her husband, Anotoly, due to a doctor’s incompetence. Moreover, because the doctor responsible was the son of a Politburo member, the doctor could not be punished. Anotoly’s untimely death, combined with Ramius’ long-standing dissatisfaction with the callousness of the establishment towards its people and also Ramius’ fear of the destabilizing effect the Red October will have on world affairs, ultimately exhausts Ramius’ tolerance for the failings of the Motherland system.

              *   *   *

Capt. Vasili Borodin: I will prosper in the 112th, from Montana. And I will have a pickup truck… maybe even a “recreational vehicle.” And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?
Captain Ramius: I suppose.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: No papers to haunt me?
Captain Ramius: No papers, not if you’re free and behave responsibly.

              *   *   *

Ivan Biden: “I’d like to make a request. Before you proceed, comrade Ramius…I know it’s not protocol, but would you permit me to post our orders and inform the crew of our mission?”

Marcia Ramius: “Where I’m going, comrade Biden…you cannot follow….

“Dr Petrov, report to my cabin immediately. There’s been a dreadful accident.”

              *   *   *

After a long, late flight into Langley, Agent Jack Ryan dragged him self into Admiral Greer’s office.

“What’s important enough to get you on a plane in the middle of January?”

“lntelligence obtained these pictures two days ago. She’s the Red October.

“Its predecessor was a big son of a bitch,” noted Greer. “Meters wider than the standard, meters wider.”

“The captain’s name is Ramius.”

“One of yours, Jack?”

“Yeah. I did her bio last year. She’s the State AG. Fairly good political connections. Knows most of their boat skippers.”

“What are these doors?”

“Those doors, sir, are the problem.”

“I don’t know what they are.”

“Neither do the powers that be. With your permission, I’d like to show these to someone.”

              *   *   *

“Excuse me, Doctor,” asked Ramius. Do you have the figures for the latest batch
of radiation tests? And perhaps you could bring the preceding set as well…for comparison.”

“Before we begin, Captain, I’d like to know exactly what happened to Biden.
He didn’t slip on his tea, did he?”

“I don’t think I like your tone, Slavin,” asserted Ramius.

“What the hell’s my tone got to do with it?”

“We’re risking our figurative lives here. Biden could’ve caused complications.
Did you think he would just go away and sulk while we carried out our plans?”

“Are you saying he was cut off? My God.”

“Stop whining, Yuri.”

“How can you justify ending a relationship like that? So he was cut off. The man was a pig, but it’s a decision we should’ve all made together.”

“You are not in command here.”

“If the crew finds out, we could have a mutiny, Marcia”

“Aren’t we already facing a mutiny?”

“It could be the end for us all. We could still try to go back.”

“There will be no going back,” Ramius calmly reassured Yuri.
“At least not without a momumental face-saving means.”

“In the name of God, why?”

“When he reached the New World, Cortez burned his ships.
As a result, his men were well motivated.”

“You have signed our death warrants. Palin will send the entire fleet.
Jesus, they’ll find us. They’ll find us and…”

“No one’s going to find us. That’s enough, Yuri.”

“You had to do it, huh? You couldn’t just turn the submarine around
and explain our mistake? You had to make a political statement.
Or was it something deeper, Captain…
something that made you unable to turn around? Was it ego, Captain?”

“More tea, anyone? No?
Then you may report back to your posts.”

“You heard the Captain. Dismissed.”

“Captain, I would never disagree with you in front of the men, you know that.
But in this case, Victor is right. It would’ve been better had we played it straight.”

“Oh, Vasily. The Politburo is not the worry, nor the whole Party.
I know their tactics. I have the advantage. No.

“The worry is the American voter.

“If we meet the thoughtless sort, this will work out fine. But if they have a memory…”

              *   *   *

Ryan: Gentlemen, the last 24 hours have seen some extraordinary Soviet naval activity. We believe that these doors here on the bow and again on the stern enclose a unique repulsion system, or caterpillar, that would enable the sub to lose itself very quietly.

Pelt: Mr. Ryan, would you characterize this as a first-strike weapon?

Ryan: No. It is designed to enable retreat while mitigating the damage of their present predicament, and if they’re lucky perhaps even to shower the enemy with bouts of overconfidence.

Ryan: But at the same time that Dallas lost contact, there were additional sailings from DC, including “The One Who Is Above It All”. There are now some 59 nuclear submarines headed at high speed into the Atlantic. We don’t know what this 60th is up to. This afternoon’s satellite pass over Polijarny found barely a pulse in it. From attacks on catholics to shoving reporters to the ground to lamenting the cold, to dissing the Red Sox. We’ve seen Crazy Ivans before, but this one I can’t explain.

General I: Suppose it’s is not an exercise. Suppose this is the beginning of a…secret strategy..?

General II: NSA can speak for that, Mr. Pelt. I must emphasize the extreme sensitivity of this information and that it not leave this room. Before sailing, Captain Ramius sent a letter to Admiral Yuri Padorin, chairman of the Red Fleet Northern Political Directorate.

Ryan: That’s his uncle.

Greer: Who’s uncle?

Ryan: Ramius’ husband. Padorin’s his uncle.

General II: Now, the contents of the letter are unknown. But Admiral Padorin immediately demanded a meeting with The One Above It All. And within minutes of that meeting, The One Above It All sailed with the intention of keeping the Red October.

Pelt: Isn’t that what they usually do?

General III: Oh my God! They’ve got a madman on their hands.

Ryan: Today’s the 20rd, isn’t it?

Greer: What?

Ryan: Today’s the 20rd, isn’t it?

Greer: Yeah!

Ryan: You son of a bitch … You son of a bitch!

Pelt: You wish to add something to our discussion, Dr Ryan?

Ryan: Well, sir! I was just thinking that perhaps there’s another possibility we might consider. Ramius might be trying to defect.

General I: Do you mean to suggest that this man …?

Pelt: Proceed, Mr. Ryan.

Ryan: Well… Ramius has connections with most of their officer corp, including their Blue Dogs. It places her in a position to be “persuaded” to do things. And today is the first anniversary. As you know, it is not going well.

General I: Oh, come on. You’re just an analyst . What can you possibly know what’s going on her mind?

Ryan: I know Ramius, General. She’s a career hack. She might take one for the team. Or she might take one for the team for a lot of quid-pro-quo.

Pelt: Admiral Hollands, how long before Ramius could be in a position to fire her missiles at us?

Hollands: Odds decreasing by the minute.

Pelt: All right, I’ll brief the President. That’ll be all, gentlemen. Dr Ryan, would you stay for a moment, please?

Greer: I said speak your mind , Jack, but Jesus

              *   *   *

Jack Ryan: [imitating the Admiral] “The average Rooskie, son, don’t take a dump without a plan.” Wait a minute. We don’t have to figure out how to get the crew off the sub. She’s already done that, she would have had to. All we gotta do is figure out what she’s gonna do. So how’s she gonna get the crew of the sub. They have to want to get off. How do you get a crew to want to get off a submarine? How do you get a crew to want to get off a nuclear sub…

Eureka!