Hotel California

“I hate the [expletive] Eagles,” declares Jeff Bridges as the stoner-turned-detective hero of The Big Lebowski, the classic Coen brothers film study of Los Angeles.

But even if you aren’t a fan of the bestselling band of the ’70s, you’ve gotta give the Eagles this: Their most famous song was so dead-on that it now explains our state’s economic, geographic, and demographic realities.

You’re a Hotel, California.

As Californians pick up the pieces from the Great Recession, the trend is clear. The parts of our state’s regional economies that involve Californians serving other Californians—construction, real estate, government—have been hit hard. But the economic sectors that involve Californians serving people from elsewhere—trade, technology, and export-oriented pieces of media, entertainment, agriculture, education, and health—are mostly growing. So it’s more important than ever for us put on a hospitable face for the world.

Friendliness to visitors is all the more crucial since we are producing fewer new California residents (because of big declines in California’s birth rate and in immigration) and since some of our fundamentals—relatively high taxes, heavy regulation, and decaying infrastructure—are unattractive. Any hotelier knows that when you’re overpriced and a little ragged around the edges, like, say, the Hotel Del Coronado, you must make up for it with good hospitality.

Especially when it comes to travel and tourism. The amount spent by visitors to California can seem small—it’s a little more than $100 billion, equal to the size of the state’s general fund, which is less than 10 percent of the economy—but its impact is outsized.

While famous attractions like Disneyland and the Golden Gate Bridge are important pieces of their local economies, tourism packs an even bigger economic punch in smaller inland communities with undiversified economies, where one or two steady attractions can be a lifeline. A report from Dean Runyon Associates finds that Sierra counties like Mariposa (Yosemite Valley) and Mono (Mammoth Lakes) get more than half of their local taxes via tourism.

Via: California Political Review

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Oprah Tells Obama 'No' for Obamacare Help

Celebrities may be lining up to push the president's healthcare insurance plan, but Obamacare will not be getting any Oprahcare any time soon.

Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, who went all out during the 2008 presidential election to help President Barack Obama win the White House, is spurning the Oval Office's advances when it comes to promoting the troubled Affordable Care Act, said New York Times best selling author Ed Klein in a New York Post piece Sunday.

"The story of why Oprah has changed her tune and gone AWOL on ObamaCare goes well beyond mere gossip," Klein, author of "The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House," writes.

"It speaks volumes about the convergence of celebrity and politics under Obama and about a president who thinks nothing of using and then discarding his most loyal supporters."

In fact, Klein says a close advisor of Winfrey's reported the media mogul gave the White House an "immediate, flat-out, unequivocal no" when she was invited to the White House in August to discuss publicizing the president's health care plan.

White House adviser Valerie Jarrett had phoned Winfrey in August to invite her to the White House to meet with a host of other stars, including Amy Poehler, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys to meet with Obama to discuss publicizing the law.

Winfrey instead sent a lower-level representative from one of her talent agencies. As the president's healthcare plan has turned into the train wreck its Republican opponents have been calling it all along, the woman who brought millions of votes to Obama's first presidential campaign has not lifted a finger to help him out
Via: Newsmax

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[VIDEO] Un-Affordable Care Act: The High Cost of Obamacare for One Texas Business

American businesses are in a holding period of uncertainty because of Obamacare.

That’s the message Larry Patterson, owner of a glass-repair franchise in Dallas, delivered at The Heritage Foundation earlier this week.

Speaking on a panel about rising insurance costs under Obamacare, Patterson explained how his business is facing the prospect of a huge hit. If he renews with his current provider, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, in February, Patterson will face a 72 percent increase in his insurance premium. If he renews before the end of the year, the increase will be 23 percent.

“When you compound that with the fact that our insurance has gone up a lot since 2010, the increase is somewhere around 200 percent when you kick into what the 2014 premium will be,” Patterson explained. “How many increases can we sustain?”

Patterson is not alone. According to new research from Drew Gonshorowski of Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis, Obamacare exchange premiums are rising in all but five states. In some cases, costs are skyrocketing.

“With the data we have, it is putting it mildly to say that the Obamacare exchanges are in for troubling times,” Gonshorowski said at Heritage’s event.

Via: The Foundry

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[VIDEO] Alan Dershowitz: 'I Hate MoveOn'

(CNSNews.com) - Attorney and Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, who describes himself as a liberal Democrat, says he's disgusted by a petition on the MoveOn.org website that calls on the Justice Department to arrest House Republican leaders, including John Boehner and Eric Cantor, "for the crime of seditious conspiracy against the United States."

"I hate Move On because they're a bunch of radicals -- they're not liberals, they are not tolerant of differences. I am a centralist liberal, and I get along very well with centralist conservatives. What I don't like are extremists on either side, and Move On is an extremist organization and an irresponsible organization," Dershowitz told Fox News's Megyn Kelly Thursday night.

Dershowitz said he'd gladly defend the Republican leaders if they were tried for sedition: "This would really be an easy case to win," he said. "It's the same thing that some liberals tried to do to Tom Delay and, of course, his conviction was reversed in the Texas courts. What the Republicans tried to do to Bill Clinton. Let's punish people politically if you disagree with their politics, but let's not use the criminal justice system improperly."

Via: CNS News
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[VIDEO] EAG News exposes how Common Core teaches 4th graders to own their ‘white privilege’

It’s a Common Core 2 week lesson plan that centers around a book where a white boy wrongly accuses a black boy of stealing his brother’s jacket and then realizes he’s a racist or something. EAG explains below:

Via: The Right Scoop

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Cruz hits back at the 'Let Obamacare Collapse' caucus

There are several Republicans in the House and Senate who have taken the position that the GOP should allow Obamcare to be implemented because the party will benefit politically when the expected collapse occurs.

Senator Ted Cruz was on CNN this morning and gave what I consider to be the proper response to such rampant cynicism:

Bash asked Cruz if he believed that Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius should resign. Cruz replied that he believed she should. Bash questioned him about the politics of that. She asked, if Sebelius is such a liability for the Obama administration, whether Republicans benefit more from her remaining in her position.

"There are Republican gray beards that make the point, 'Let's let this collapse,'" he said.

"And they think you're stepping on the message," Bash added.

"I profoundly disagree with the message," Cruz shot back. "I want to step on the message."

"I consider that very -- the Bad Samaritan theory," he continued. "Basically inflict a bunch of harm on the American people and hope we benefit politically from it. What a terrible, cynical approach."

"I'm not interested in seeing the American people suffer just because my party might benefit politically if they blame the Democrats for the foolish policies that have been imposed," he concluded.

Via: American Thinker

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Capitol Campus Jumps Back to Life

Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call

Doerner moves the arms of the Ohio Clock to the correct time before winding the historic timepiece on Thursday. The clock had been stuck at 12:14 during the government shutdown due to lack of staff to wind the clock.

Normalcy returned to the Capitol campus on Thursday — the Ohio Clock began ticking, tour guides circled the Rotunda and gardeners from the Architect of the Capitol trimmed grass that sprouted during the 16 days the federal government was shut down.

“Perfect timing,” said tourist Tania Johnson, who had arrived Wednesday on a flight from southern California for her first visit to Washington, D.C. Johnson and her husband, Joe, arrived on the grounds in time to join the Capitol Visitor Center’s first tour at 8:50 a.m. on Thursday morning.

“We debated for two weeks whether to cancel it or not, but that would have cost us about $1,000,” she said, joking that they were considering buying lottery tickets after the good fortune of having a deal to reopen the government signed by the president mere hours before their planned visit.

The continuing resolution that passed both chambers Wednesday night cleared the way for legislative branch employees and services around Capitol Hill to return to a normal work schedule.

CVC tour guides, normally a visible fixture of the halls of the Capitol in their bright red blazers, disappeared from the campus as part of the reduced operations plan that cut the Capitol workforce to skeletal staff levels. As a result of the furloughs, only member-led tours were allowed.

“We’re very happy to be back at full forces,” said CVC spokesperson Tom Fontana. More than 6,000 tourists had reservations for Thursday, including a group of 150 World War II veterans from Texas who fanned out across Statuary Hall in matching red polo shirts by 9:15 a.m. Some wheelchair-bound veterans cleared a path for the staffers clipping through the marble corridor, but the halls were for the most part quiet after Wednesday’s dramatic, late-night session.

Via: Roll Call

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Signs of rift between Israel and US over Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the weekly cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office on Sunday, Oct. October 2013.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Just days after the first round of global nuclear talks with Iran, a rift appears to be emerging between Israel and its closest ally, the United States.

Israel's prime minister on Sunday called on the U.S. to step up the pressure on Iran, even as American officials hinted at the possibility of easing tough economic pressure. Meanwhile, a leading Israeli daily reported the outlines of what could be construed in the West as genuine Iranian compromises in the talks.

The differing approaches could bode poorly for Israel as the talks between six global powers and Iran gain steam in the coming months. Negotiators were upbeat following last week's talks, and the next round of negotiations is set to begin Nov. 7.

Convinced Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes the Iranians are trying to trick the West into easing economic sanctions while still pushing forward with their nuclear program. Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes.

"I think that in this situation as long as we do not see actions instead of words, the international pressure must continue to be applied and even increased," Netanyahu told his Cabinet. "The greater the pressure, the greater the chance that there will be a genuine dismantling of the Iranian military nuclear program."

Israel considers a nuclear-armed Iran a threat to its very survival, citing Iranian references to Israel's destruction.

Netanyahu says pressure must be maintained until Iran halts all enrichment of uranium, a key step in producing a nuclear weapon; removes its stockpile of enriched uranium from the country; closes suspicious enrichment facilities and shutters a facility that could produce plutonium, another potential gateway to nuclear arms.

Despite Netanyahu's warnings, there are growing signs that any international deal with Iran will fall short of his demands.

Via: Houston Chronicle

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