Another crane topples in New York

From The New York Times:

A crane toppled and collapsed onto a high-rise apartment building on East 91st Street on the Upper East Side on Friday morning, tearing off balconies and leaving a swath of damage, in the second Manhattan crane collapse in two months.

At least two people have been pulled from the wreckage, at the southwest corner of 91st Street and First Avenue. Their condition was not immediately known, according to Fire Department officials.

The crane, which was apparently being used for a construction project at 354 East 91st Street, on the northwest corner of the intersection, collapsed onto the north facade of the building. The damage extends from the building’s top floor, about 20 stories up, to the second floor.

Traffic was blocked in both directions at the intersection, where ambulances, fire trucks, and police personnel were gathered. Residents of the building peeked their heads out from windows to survey the damage.

The accident occurred just two months after a tower crane collapsed on East 51st Street between Second and First Avenues, killing seven people and prompting an extensive review of the safety of the city’s cranes.

You will remember in the previous crane collapse that the inspector who had just signed off on the safety of the crane was arrested due to the fact that he failed to actually perform any on-site inspection. Given the political culture of New York City (especially now that a raving left-wing kook like Bloomberg is mayor rather than a sensible adult like Rudolph Giuliani) I suspect that there is rather a lot of that kind of thing going on.

I recommend that they hire a firm from outside the Northeast to reinspect all the city's cranes. And it wouldn't be a bad idea to have people from the DA's office or NYPD accompany those inspectors in the field either.

Capt. Queeg and Elmer Gantry steal WVA from Romney

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Mike Huckabee won the first contest declared on Super Tuesday, picking up all 18 national delegates awarded at West Virginia's state GOP convention.

Huckabee bested Mitt Romney, who entered the Mountain State event with the largest bloc of pledged convention-goers. Both men and Ron Paul made in-person appeals to the more than 1,100 convention delegates attending Tuesday's convention.

But the former Arkansas governor beat his Massachusetts counterpart after delegates for John McCain defected to his side.

The first round of voting at the state convention produced no winner, but eliminated Paul after his fourth-place finish.

When it became clear that Romney was going to win West Virginia Queeg's forces defected to Gantry. This was a coordinated move to deny the victory to Mitt Romney.

If there was anyone out there who was shit-all stupid enough not to realize that John McCain is nothing more than a carbon copy of Bill Clinton or to think that Mike Huckabee had any microscopic shred of honor or decency I hope you've had a wake-up call.

Will history record that this was how the Republic died?

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com reports some disturbing news out of Florida. Will this kind of shite be crazy liberal John McCain's margin of victory?

In northern Coral Springs, near the Sawgrass Expressway and Coral Ridge Drive, David Nirenberg arrived to vote as an independent. Nevertheless, he said poll workers insisted he choose a party ballot.

"He said to me, 'Are you Democrat or Republican?' I said, 'Neither, I am independent.' He said, 'Well, you have to pick one,''' Nirenberg said.

In Florida, only those who declare a party are allowed to cast a vote in that party's presidential primary.

Nirenberg said he tried to explain to the poll worker that he should not vote on a party ballot because of his "no party affiliation" status.

Nirenberg said a second poll worker was called over who agreed that independents should not use party ballots, but said they had received instructions to the contrary.

"He said, 'Ya know, that is kind of funny, but it was what we were told.' … I was shocked when they told me that." Nirenberg said he went ahead and voted for John McCain.

Rudolph Giuliani said that whoever wins Florida will get the nomination. This is not necessarily true, but is highly likely.

H/T: Dowager Viscountess

Hsu lives, somebody screwed up

From The San Francisco Chronicle:

Fugitive political fundraiser Norman Hsu was behaving erratically as he fled the Bay Area on Amtrak's California Zephyr, at one point stripping off his shirt and shoes, before paramedics were called to take him off the train in western Colorado, passengers said Friday.

Hsu, 56, on the run for the second time from a 1992 grand theft conviction in San Mateo County, was arrested Thursday after the paramedics took him to a hospital from the train station in Grand Junction, Colo. A spokesman at St. Mary's Hospital said Friday night that Hsu was in fair condition but would not say what was wrong with him.

Hsu boarded the train in Emeryville about 7 a.m. Wednesday, Amtrak said, two hours before he was to have appeared in a Redwood City courtroom in connection with his grand theft conviction. He had touched down earlier that morning on a charter jet flight to Oakland, his lawyer told prosecutors. Amtrak said he boarded the Zephyr with a ticket for Denver.

Passengers interviewed Friday when the Zephyr reached its final destination of Chicago said it appeared that something was wrong with Hsu.

Alberto Dee, 21, who boarded the train in Truckee, said Hsu "freaked out" when Amtrak personnel approached, and was roaming a train car "without shoes and no shirt. ... I thought he had a suitcase full of crack or meth."

Another passenger disembarking in Chicago, who declined to give his name, said Hsu appeared disoriented and was having trouble opening a door on the train. Several other passengers said they were told Hsu was behaving oddly but did not witness it themselves.

There are many possible explanations where the Clintons and the Red Chinese are involved. The most likely are a botched suicide attempt and a botched homicide attempt. If it was the Chinese he was told to "do the right thing" or his family back in Hong Kong would be "dealt with". If it was Hillary Hsu was told to make contact with someone on the train who would give him money and false documents so that he could safly flee the country and instead he got a dose of poison.

At least the Chinese will have to keep his family alive now for leverage.

Yet more Clinton scandals

From The Los Angeles Times:

The Los Angeles Times reports on this website tonight and in Wednesday's print editions that a major Democratic Party fundraiser named Norman Hsu is wanted by authorities for skipping out on an agreement to serve up to three years in prison after pleading no contest to grand theft swindling charges.

In a story by Chuck Neubauer and Robin Fields, The Times reports that for three years Hsu has been carving out a place of political and financial influence by funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions into Democratic Party coffers, much of the money earmarked for Sen. Hillary Clinton. He has earned the ranking of Hillraiser for pledging to raise at least $100,000 for her.

In just the last 36 months Hsu has been involved in raising more than $1 million for Clinton and other Democrats. Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, confirmed today that Hsu had been a "longtime and generous supporter" of the party including Clinton. "We have no reason to call his contributions into question or to return them," Wolfson added.

Hsu has developed a specialty of bundling hefty campaign contributions from obscure citizens who live modest lives and have never before given money to campaigns. Many are not even registered to vote.

Over the years other recipients of Hsu donations have included Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Edward Kennedy.

Clinton return the money!

[Lemuel stops and laughs out loud for 47 minutes]

Look, left-liberals aren't going to care that Hillary Clinton (like Bill before her) is the bought and paid for property of the Red Chinese military-industrial complex. Not as long as she wants to keep baby killing legal and raise taxes on the "wealthy".

But the rest of us, you know the sane ones, can and should take all this into account. But then again the sane people weren't going to vote for Mrs. Bill Clinton anyway.

Surprising no one

From The Wall Street Journal:

DALY CITY, Calif. -- One of the biggest sources of political donations to Hillary Rodham Clinton is a tiny, lime-green bungalow that lies under the flight path from San Francisco International Airport.


Six members of the Paw family, each listing the house at 41 Shelbourne Ave. as their residence, have donated a combined $45,000 to the Democratic senator from New York since 2005, for her presidential campaign, her Senate re-election last year and her political action committee. In all, the six Paws have donated a total of $200,000 to Democratic candidates since 2005, election records show.


That total ranks the house with residences in Greenwich, Conn., and Manhattan's Upper East Side among the top addresses to donate to the Democratic presidential front-runner over the past two years, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of donations listed with the Federal Election Commission.


It isn't obvious how the Paw family is able to afford such political largess. Records show they own a gift shop and live in a 1,280-square-foot house that they recently refinanced for $270,000. William Paw, the 64-year-old head of the household, is a mail carrier with the U.S. Postal Service who earns about $49,000 a year, according to a union representative. Alice Paw, also 64, is a homemaker. The couple's grown children have jobs ranging from account manager at a software company to "attendance liaison" at a local public high school. One is listed on campaign records as an executive at a mutual fund.


The Paws' political donations closely track donations made by Norman Hsu, a wealthy New York businessman in the apparel industry who once listed the Paw home as his address, according to public records. Mr. Hsu is one of the top fund-raisers for Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. He has hosted or co-hosted some of her most prominent money-raising events.

Mr. Bill Clinton's presidency was a wholly owned subsidiary of the government of communist China. Why does anyone think that Mrs. Bill Clinton's presidency (if God is angry enough with the US to permit that) will be any different?

Thanks to Bill Clinton the Red Chinese were able to steal our most secret nuclear weapons technology and able to buy the knowledge of how to make a functional ICBM from a corrupt American company. In return for this treason the Chinese generously financed Clinton's campaigns using a series of Asian front men in the United States. Anyone who thought things would be different with Hillary Clinton was a fool.

The really sad thing is that Democrats will not care. They will loose no more sleep over this than they lost over the fact that Bill was a paid agent of influence for a foreign government which is aiming thermonuclear weapons at the United States. If anything proves the absolute moral bankruptcy of the Left this is it.

Now to make the traitors pay

For those who wish a quick reference guide to how the various Senators voted on the amnesty bill here is a link to a CSPAN website with the information.

A "Yea" vote was a vote to invoke cloture and cut off debate on the bill. This would have cause it to go to a straight up or down vote which would have only needed a simple majority to pass. This was seen as the bill's only chance at passage.

A "Nay" vote was a vote to continue debate and allow additional amendments to be added to the bill. This was seen as highly detrimental to the bill's passage due to the extreme fragility of the coalition which was supporting the legislation.

Because the cloture vote could not even get a simple majority it is likely that the bill was doomed in any case. The 78% of the American public who did not want the legislation to pass was an obstacle the bill's supporters could not overcome.

Still it is frightening to see how close they came.

If the American people wish to preserve the democratic form of government it is very important that they send a message to all politicians that ignoring the clearly and stridently expressed will of the people in such a fashion is unacceptable. All Senators who voted "Yea" on the cloture vote should be defeated in their next campaign for reelection.

Their own parties should refuse to support them. A qualified candidate should be found to oppose them in their party's primary and if that fails then members of their party should vote for the other party's candidate (if only for than one time in their entire life).

Our government is a Republic with democratically chosen leaders. The purpose of this form of government is to secure the blessings of liberty for the American people. If the leaders learn that they can disregard the wishes of the people then our free elections become nothing more than the ability to choose which tyrant will oppress us for the next legislative term.

Hat Tip for the list to The Pagan Temple

Season of the traitor

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate resurrected the immigration bill that could legalize millions of unlawful immigrants Tuesday, but the delicate compromise faces the same threats that derailed it earlier this month.

The White House and Republican and Democratic architects of the bill hailed the crucial test vote that revived the legislation, and they predicted approval of the measure by week's end.

Today the United States Senate flipped off the American people in what has to be the most brazen example of a democratically elected government* telling its citizens to go frak themselves that I have seen in my lifetime.

Our esteemed senators [sarcasm] told the people who put them in office to sit down and shut up that they knew better than we what was good for us. As far as they are concerned we should just pay our taxes and do what we're told.

The battle moves to the House of Representatives now and the forces of treason will have a more difficult time there. But do not let that encourage you to slack off. We must keep the pressure up on our House members from now until they vote to kill this abomination.

And when the senators are up for reelection we must mount primary challenges to take them out and if they win nomination we must be willing to vote for their opponents, even if that means putting someone in who will be worse in every other respect. We must do this because this kind of disregard for the will of the electorate must not go unpunished. If it does our democratic form of government will not survive.

*The only thing that comes close is the French president saying that the French voters rejection of the EU Constitution in a referendum meant not that France had rejected the Constitution but only the French people had rejected it.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

NEW ORLEANS, June 20 — The former president of the Orleans Parish School Board pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to taking $140,000 in bribes from a political operative thought to be the older brother of Representative William J. Jefferson, who has been indicted on bribery charges.

The operative is not named in court papers, and government lawyers have refused to identify the source of the bribes to the former schools president, Ellenese Brooks-Simms. But a person close to the investigation who asked not to be identified said it was Mose Jefferson, the congressman’s brother. Mr. Jefferson, also identified in local news reports as the one making the bribes, did not return phone calls.

Mose Jefferson has been one of the congressman’s chief strategists for more than two decades, a hardball-playing organizer of his campaigns, according to local consultants, and a discreet but powerful presence in one of New Orleans’ ruling political families.

Corruption! In New Orleans!

I am shocked. Shocked I tell you. Next thing you'll tell me is that there's gambling in Las Vegas or pornographic movies being made in Los Angeles.

Their roles have reversed themselves

From The Washington Post:

Former president Bill Clinton, who came to the White House with modest means and left deeply in debt, has collected nearly $40 million in speaking fees over the past six years, according to interviews and financial disclosure statements filed by his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

Now personally I have no problem with anyone making money so long as they're not using force or fraud to get it. Fraud as in identity theft or confidence games and force as in sticking a gun in someone's face and taking their wallet, or sending out men with guns (the IRS) to rob others on your behalf.

But here is where it gets interesting:

Many of Bill Clinton's six-figure speeches have been made to companies whose employees and political action committees have been among Hillary Clinton's top backers in her Senate campaigns. The New York investment giant Goldman Sachs paid him $650,000 for four speeches in recent years. Its employees and PAC have given her $270,000 since 2000 -- putting it second on the list of her most generous political patrons.

The banking firm Citigroup, whose employees and PAC have been Hillary Clinton's top source of campaign donations, with more than $320,000, paid her husband $250,000 for a speech in France in 2004. Last year, it committed $5.5 million for Clinton's Global Initiative to help encourage entrepreneurship and financial education among the poor.

Back in the days when Bill Clinton was Attorney General and then Governor of Arkansas if you wanted to bribe him you didn't need to meet with him or one of his people in a dark and smokey bar and slide an envelope of cash under the table. All you had to do was retain the legal services of his wife Hillary, of the Rose Law Firm.

This is how Hillary, whose legal work from the period shows a competent, workman like lawyer, but not a brilliant legal mind engaged in extraordinarily difficult legal work, was able to make multiples of the average lawyer's yearly income.

Hillary Clinton spent years serving as Bill's "bag man" for bribe money and illegal campaign contributions. Now it seems that Bill is returning the favor.