Eliot Spitzer ‘shacking up with de Blasio aide’

Lis Smith, 31, who was hired by the mayor-elect in September as his communications director, has been hosting the hooker-happy former governor at her Soho pad, The Post has learned.

In an embarrassment to de Blasio on the eve of his Jan. 1 inauguration, his flack was caught twice spending the night with the tainted, 54-year-old Spitzer at her Thompson Street apartment building last week.

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Lis Smith, a member of the New York City mayor-elect Bill DeBlasio transition team.Photo: Paul Martinka

The ex-gov showed up late in the evening, once taking her for a romantic dinner and both times slipping out of her building at dawn, a Post reporter observed.

On Wednesday, Spitzer pulled up in a cab a couple doors down from Smith’s five-story walkup at around 10 p.m., wearing jeans, sneakers, a white hoodie and a grin as he walked to the building and rang the bell.

He was buzzed in — and didn’t emerge until 5:45 a.m. With bags under his eyes, he stopped briefly on Smith’s stoop to look at a newspaper that had been delivered before bolting through the predawn darkness to catch a cab near Prince Street.

Smith, a tall, dark-haired beauty, emerged a little after 10 a.m. smiling and looking fresh in a hot-pink coat.

On Thursday night, Spitzer showed up again, looking dapper in a long black overcoat and dress shoes as he walked to her door from Prince Street at around 10 p.m.

He went in and emerged an hour later with Smith, both of them darting about 20 feet into Le Pescadeux restaurant on the ground floor of her building.

Via: New York Post Page 6

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Pelosi: Obamacare will be ‘glorious’

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Monday defended Obamacare amid fellow Democrats’ concerns, saying that while the politics may be tricky right now, eventually having voted for the health care law will be a boon.

“We’ll ride this out,” the California Democrat said on a conference call with reporters.

Some Democrats, particularly in the Senate, are worried about facing voters having backed the health law, which has seen a rocky rollout and is costing millions of Americans their health plans — even as it is aided millions of others to sign up or get on their parents’ plans.

“It’s worth the trouble, it’s going to be a glorious thing,” Mrs. Pelosi said.

Still, she said when it comes to voters, she believes they will not have the health law at the front of their minds when they head to the polls less than a year from now for midterm congressional elections.

She signaled that Democrats are likely to reprise the income inequality message President Obama used successfully against GOP nominee Mitt Romney last year.

“I think the election is going to be, as all elections are, about the economy and what is the initiative that is going forth from the administration, from the Democrats, to make a distinction as to who benefits from a fair and just economy,” Mrs. Pelosi said.

Via: Washington Times

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WHY I PREFER TO SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS

While the likes of Jon Stewart and others in the liberal intelligentsia might dismiss the idea there is a War on Christmas, the truth of the matter is that with every passing year people are more and more reluctant to wish one another a Merry Christmas. At times, people are expressly forbidden from saying Merry Christmas, as was the case this year at an elementary school deep in the heart of Texas. This is no accident and we are the poorer for it.

Although a recent poll indicates more Americans prefer to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, I believe most of us deep down would rather say Merry Christmas. In my own observations, most people settle for saying Happy Holidays. This term has been generally used as a catch-all phrase for Christmas and Chanukah, and in recent years has encompassed the celebration of Kwanzaa. But this year Chanukah began the night before Thanksgiving, thus giving birth to the term Thanksgivukkah. Although this convergence won’t happen for another 7,000 years it does seem particularly odd to say Happy Holidays when the last night of Chanukah took place on December 5.

Now I have nothing against anyone saying Happy Holidays if they mean it from the bottom of their hearts. No Salvation Army bell ringer ought not to have their bell rung if they choose to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas.

Nevertheless, I do find that when people do 

Via: The American Spectator

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LABOR UNIONS HAVE SOME WILD IDEAS ABOUT ‘WORK’

MIAMI – Defending workers’ rights is a noble mission.  But sometimes labor unions take it too far.  Here are some of our favorite examples of labor union contracts “gone wild.”

1) Three strikes and you’re still not out.

Believe it or not, an overly generous clause slipped into the teacher Master Agreement in 1997, basically states that Bay City School Teachers (Michigan) can be caught drunk at work up to five times before they get sacked.

In Florida, a teacher who showed up to class plastered and then started “dirty dancing” with her students may end up teaching again, thanks to her union’s excellent negotiating skills.

Bay City School teachers (again in Michigan) managed to negotiate a union contract where they could be caught in possession of, or under the influence of, drugs  three times before they lost their job.

2). No shows at work

Dozens of Miami-Dade County employees often don’t bother to show up for work, and instead, opt to spend their time working as union reps, on the taxpayers’ dime. County Commissioner Esteban Bovo told Florida Watchdog this is costing taxpayers anywhere from $12 million to $24 million annually.

3). A gamble where everyone wins

Martin Mulhall, a groundkeeper for Mardi Gras Gaming in Hallandale Beach, Fla., alleged the Florida casino traded the personal information of nonunion employees to UNITE-HERE, a hospitality union, in exchange for the union’s endorsement of a bill that would expand gambling in the state.

Via: Human Events

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Warmist fundamentalists ban dissent

First the Los Angeles Times, and now the popular website Reddit have banned critical comments on global warming orthodoxy in responses to their articles. Giuseppe Macri of The Daily Caller reports:

A content editor on Reddit's science forum wrote Monday that the site has banned climate-change skeptics, and asks why more news outlets haven't done the same.

"About a year ago, we moderators became increasingly stringent with deniers," Reddit content editor Nathan Allenwrote in grist. "When a potentially controversial submission was posted, a warning would be issued stating the rules for comments (most importantly that your comment isn't a conspiracy theory) and advising that further violations of the rules could result in the commenter being banned from the forum."

Allen explained further:

When 97 percent of climate scientists agree that man is changing the climate, we would hope the comments would at least acknowledge if not reflect such widespread consensus. Since that was not the case, we needed more than just an ad hoc approach to correct the situation.

Oddly enough, real science is based on questioning of data and conclusions, not on consensus.

This is a clear sign of panic.

Via: American Thinker

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Obamacare: Now Officially a Hardship

“If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” By now, every American has learned that oft-repeated promise by President Obama is—to employ a Nixon administration phrase—“no longer operative.”

That discovery came as those with individual health insurance started getting letters telling them that their plans were being cancelled and that they would need to buy new, Obamacare-compliant, replacement coverage. One response from Obama administration officials was to assert that the old plans were “substandard” anyway, and that the affected individuals could get better, more affordable coverage under Obamacare.

However, that explanation is now apparently “no longer operative” either, since recently the Administration released a “regulatory guidance” memo informing us that:

If you have been notified that your individual market policy will not be renewed, you will be eligible for a hardship exemption and will be able to enroll in catastrophic coverage if it is available in your area. In order to purchase this catastrophic coverage, you need to complete a hardship exemption form, and indicate that your current health insurance policy is being cancelled and that you consider other available policies unaffordable.

Obamacare stipulates that these so-called catastrophic plans must comply with all of the law’s new benefit mandates, but do not have to meet the same “minimum value” criteria imposed on other plans. Oh, and the plans also come with a standard deductible of $6,350 per person. Thus, an Obamacare catastrophic plan is—by both Obamacare’s own definition and design—a “substandard” plan.

Via: The National Interest

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The House Winner and Loser of the Year — and Other Notable Members’ Highs and Lows

At the end of the first session of the 113th Congress, it’s hard to call anybody much of a “winner,” as no one got close to everything they wanted. Republican leaders had an ambitious legislative agenda that was repeatedly squelched by a rebellious rank and file — or by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s circular file. Democrats hoped for more relevance, given the GOP leadership’s precarious grip on its conference, but Democratic “victories” were mainly a result of Republican meltdowns.

For the power players in the House of Representatives, it was mostly a year of lows, with not-so-very-high highs, and few lawmakers emerged unscathed from the heartburns of 2013. But when 218 took up the daunting task of designating the year’s “winners” and “losers,” it was hard to fit members into that binary, which felt overly simplistic, anyway.

So in the very first, year-end wrap-up post since the blog’s inception, 218 is offering up, for your consideration, one “winner” and one “loser” of 2013 — with a few runners-up. The rest of the the lawmakers profiled here defied those clear-cut characterizations, and are instead viewed through the prism of simply their wins and losses.

In 218′s estimation, the one clear winner of 2013 was … 

Rep. Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis.

One year ago, the House Budget chairman was the just-defeated vice presidential candidate and, though long-referred to as a GOP “thought leader,” hadn’t proved he could translate his respect within the conference into something tangible.

This year changed that. Ryan is now a deal-maker. He got the budget deal — a small one, granted — across the finish line, and proved he could work across the aisle when it mattered. He was also instrumental in helping to end the shutdown. Though he kept quiet for months leading up to the battle over the continuing resolution, his Wall Street Journal op-ed was a turning point for Republicans: It signaled that the fight over defunding Obamacare was over, and that the GOP ought to refocus on entitlement spending.

Of course, Republicans didn’t really get any concessions on entitlements in any of the big deals at the end of this year. Ryan’s ability to sway the conference, however, even when he can’t deliver the moon, shows he is going places. His first stop might be the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee, and from there the speaker’s gavel — if he doesn’t make a run for the White House in between.

When pressed to pick the “loser” of 2013, 218 settled on …

Via: Roil Call

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Photoshop: #CommonCoreGames

Over at Twitchy earlier today, they posted a photoshopped image of a board game modified for the Common Core crowd.

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Pretty funny stuff, and with that edge of sad truth that makes any photoshop worth doing. It inspired me to create a few #CommonCoreGames of my own. And so, I present to you now ….

COMMON CORE BORD GAIMZ!!

First up, Common Core Chess.

In common core chess, everyone is the same color, and the only piece is the queen. Everybody loses!!

Next up, we have the the game that sums it all up in the name:

In No Clue, your job is to try and open the box and remove the contents. Did you do it? YOU WIN!!

Next up, common core’s version of Scrabble, SCRIBBLE!

Spelling schmelling. Ever heard of spellcheck? What’s important, Billy, is how did you feelwhen you drew on the board?

Via: The Right Scoop

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After Senate Dems go nuclear, GOP fights back with conventional weapons

Democrats may have changed the rules on filibusters, but far from ending the intense battle over President Obama’s nominations, the move has pushed Republicans to fight harder — and to pioneer other tactics.

The latest move was made late Friday, just as the Senate was preparing to adjourn for a two-week recess. Republicans refused to allow a courtesy request to keep the full slate of Obama nominees pending. As a result, the nomination process must restart early next year.

It was a capstone of a year in which a deal on filibusters frayed and finally collapsed, leaving the Senate atmosphere more poisoned than it has been in generations.

Restarting the nomination process is a small procedural hurdle, but it’s the latest sign that Republicans intend for Democrats to feel the pain from using the “nuclear option” in November to change the filibuster rules.

“The normal way the Senate has operated for a couple hundred years has been destroyed this year, and to ask that normalcy come about now is just beyond the pale,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said as he delivered the parliamentary blow that forced dozens of nominations to be killed for lack of action.

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Alejandro Mayorkas was confirmed as deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department ... more >

Republicans did confirm a number of military nominations but blocked all pending judicial, ambassadorial and civilian Cabinet posts.

Such action is by no means unprecedented. Indeed, Senate rules state that if the chamber adjourns for the end of a session, any of the president’s nominations that haven’t reached at least the floor will be sent back to the White House.

Via: Washington Times

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