OMFG: Sarah Jessica Parker Is The Highest Paid Actress in Hollywood

Shocking but true. Although she is tied for number one with Angelina Jolie so the world is not entirely insane. And how did SJP achieve this? Pretty much via Sex and the City:

Parker hasnÂ’t strayed far from her association with fashion-lover Carrie Bradshaw from the hit TV show Sex and the City. In 2010 she starred in the second Sex movie, which earned $290 million. SheÂ’s designing clothes with Halston and she has a line of best-selling fragrances, including NYC, which brought in $18 million in 2010.

And here's the rest of the top 10 list:

1. Angelina Jolie, $30 million
1. (tie) Sarah Jessica Parker, $30 million
2. Jennifer Aniston, $28 million
2. (tie) Reese Witherspoon, $28 million
3. Julia Roberts, $20 million
3. (tie) Kristen Stewart, $20 million
4. Katherine Heigl $19 million
5. Cameron Diaz, $18 million
6. Sandra Bullock, $15 million
7. Meryl Streep, $10 million

Eh. Frankly other than Angelina or maybe Sandra Bullock I could live a happy life completely free of any of these actresses. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:18 PM | Comments (769)
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The Greatest Orator Ever™ is going to try one more time to explain the debt ceiling debate to you rubes at 9pm Eastern. Why, oh why, won't everyone just let that poor man be clear?

Speaker Boehner's response to follow, but here are some suggested drinking game words/phrases for the main event:

• Shared sacrifice


• Millionaires and billionaires


• Corporate jet


• Balanced approach


• Compromise

I'll take the under on "Intoxicated under the laws of 57 states by 9:05."

Liveblog thingy below the fold. more...

Posted by: andy at 04:45 PM | Comments (382)
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Gee, what a shock. Democrats put out a spin-line, media regurgitates before checking or getting a comment.

The $2.7 trillion debt-limit increase proposal offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid contains a $1 trillion gimmick meant to disguise the plan’s shallowness on spending cuts. Supporters of the Reid plan are measuring their savings against a baseline that assumes the continuation of surge-level spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though the President has neither requested this funding nor signaled that he might request it. Instead, the President has signaled the opposite: a troop drawdown over the next few years. In other words, the Reid plan is claiming credit for “savings” that were already scheduled to occur, and for “cutting” spending that no one has requested.

Rather than defend this gimmick on the merits, supporters of the Reid plan are defending it by claiming that House Republicans “also included” this $1 trillion in savings when calculating spending reductions in the budget resolution that passed the House last April. This claim is false. The House-passed budget cuts $6.2 trillion in spending relative to President Obama’s FY2012 budget request, and this spending reduction assumes ZERO savings from the global war on terror relative to the President’s budget.

In the interest of maximum transparency, House Republicans produced additional estimates in order to provide a broad range of comparisons by which outsiders could judge the seriousness of the their budgetÂ’s commitment to real spending cuts and controls.

I wound up getting it right without checking myself. (Not that not-checking is a good thing or anything.)

Charts are included in his budget noting projected spending. Since he does not project fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan forever, there is little spending for those wars included in those charts.

Obviously. If you're not spending money for X it doesn't show up in your charts.

But he didn't include the "savings" of not fighting wars in his budget proposal.

So, shock, the Democrats lied, and the media trumpeted their lies around the world, before the truth had time to get its shoes on.

Posted by: Ace at 03:15 PM | Comments (294)
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At the Corner, the plan goes like this:

1. $ 1 T in new debt limit ceiiing.

2. $ 1.2 T in cuts... but over ten years, and via caps, which I'm always thinking will be ignored.

3. A twelve man congressional panel formulates ways of saving another $1.6-$1.8 trillion... there are some gimmicks here to get these measures to a vote in Congress, but of course that doesn't mean they'll pass.

Plus, you need seven of 12 to get them to a vote at all.

4. Obama gets to come begging for another $1.5 trillion later.

Good plan? No. For one thing, it makes Obama come back and beg for the rest of his debt limit. I don't mind that part at all, but to Obama, that's the only thing he cares about, so it seems a nonstarter there.

There are no cuts to entitlements -- which is the Congressional Democrats' absolute-must.

There are no tax hikes -- the Republicans' must-have.

But then, it also doesn't do very much to reduce the deficit, either.

Posted by: Ace at 02:32 PM | Comments (174)
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I really don't like the "should" -- it suggests the Republicans are on the side of those who would make it harder for us to borrow and spend. And, alas, "borrow and spend" is the American public's preferred method of handling this. They will take this as "rooting against America," or at least they will after Obama and the media demagogue it a bit. I bet Obama will mention it in tonight's speech.

The only word I criticize here is "should" -- "will" is a perfectly good word, and avoids the trap of siding with credit rating companies, should they downgrade us.

Just say it will happen. It will happen, ultimately. S&P and Moody's have said as much. One smaller credit rating company already has downgraded US debt.

Just as with citizens, at some point, your future obligations via debt so eclipse your future revenues that there is no plausible path to meet already-undertaken debt repayments, let alone fresh ones.

And that's where we are. And the GOP should hammer this relentlessly -- this is a major pocketbook issue. It was always dirty pool to put so much of our current spending on our children and grandchildren, but the markets are going to soon take that option away by making it very expensive to do so, because we are burdening the next generation with so much debt that bankruptcy is going to seem a pretty reasonable way out.

And who can blame them. We're burdening them with bills they didn't accrue.

But I don't like that "should" formulation. It may be true, but it opens the GOP up to attack whereas a much better word would not have.

Trump: The Pressure Is All On Obama: This is the sort of thing that Issa's remark will be demagogued into.

By the way: Trump didn't say this, either. That's why the LAT piece is so short on actual quotes.

What Trump is saying is that this situation gives the Republicans leverage to, as Trump says, "make this country great again." In other words, they should press Obama's fear of being defeated in 2012 for all its worth towards the goal of putting America on a sound financial footing.

He's not saying, as Andrew Malcolm dishonestly claims, that the GOP should default just to win an election.

Nevertheless, this is exactly what I'm talking about with regard to words being twisted by the media.

Donald Trump has some interesting advice for the Republican Party. The New York real estate tycoon went on "Fox & Friends" Monday morning and told the hosts that if the GOP wants to ensure that President Obama isn't reelected, all it has to do is not make any deals with Democrats and default on Aug. 2.

Trump seems to think that using the country's sparkling AAA credit rating as a sacrificial lamb and letting the nation default would damage Obama, who has been willing to put everything including entitlements on the table, more than it would hurt Republicans who have stubbornly refused to raise revenues on the richest Americans and companies during the debt ceiling negotiations.

"When it comes time to default, they’re not going to remember any of the Republicans’ names. They are going to remember in history books one name, and that’s Obama,” Trump said.

The people who are unengaged in policy questions use personal feelings to make decisions on such matters. They don't know about debt, or default, or insolvency, or any of it.

They make decisions based on the sort of cues you make in evaluating someone as a person you like or don't.

In this scenario, what will swing them is the feeling that some people are "trying to do the right thing" and some other people are "playing politics." This is why Obama goes on TV every other day to star in his new direct-address reality-tv soap opera, I'm The Only Adult In The Room.

Trump's statement, and Issa's bad choice of a verb, is playing into Obama's plan to just seem like the Guy Who Is Trying To Fix Things.

I don't understand people who don't understand these things.

Even when someone doesn't say words inconsistent with the idea of "trying to do the right thing," the media will twist those words into petty politics.

This is the whole game-plan for influencing the disengaged voters that tend to decide elections. Caution, please. If Obama's trying to sound like the Only Adult In The Room, make him sound like the child.

Posted by: Ace at 01:10 PM | Comments (217)
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Ugh. The timing makes me think he'll be asking networks to preempt programming for another campaign commercial. That is, a "major address." In which he says the same crap.

Although this time he'll be committing to a plan, I guess. Reid's plan, which he likes a lot, because it punts the question to January 2013, and it only costs the country a mere $2.5 trillion to placate Obama.

Posted by: Ace at 12:37 PM | Comments (275)
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Consider this a follow up to Ace's post on Reid's plan, which Obama has now endorsed because it meets his primary objective of one hike that gets beyond November of 2012.

This is the plan that Obama will be calling "not a plan" (while offering no plan of his own) by the end of the day.

Republicans insisted if the President wants his debt ceiling increase, the American people will require serious spending cuts and reforms. This two-step approach meets House Republicans' criteria by (1) making spending cuts that are larger than any debt ceiling increase; (2) implementing spending caps to restrain future spending; and (3) advancing the cause of the Balanced Budget Amendment - without tax hikes on families and job creators. While this is not the House-passed "Cut, Cap, & Balance," it is a package that reflects the principles of Cut, Cap, & Balance. Here is more information on the plan:

--Cuts That Exceed The Debt Hike. The framework would cut and cap discretionary spending immediately, saving $1.2 trillion over 10 years (subject to CBO confirmation), and raise the debt ceiling by less - up to $1 trillion.

--Caps To Control Future Spending. The framework imposes spending caps that would establish clear limits on future spending and serve as a barrier against government expansion while the economy grows. Failure to remain below these caps will trigger automatic across-the-board cuts (otherwise known as sequestration).

There would be a separate vote on a Balance Budget Amendment by October 1 of this year, a joint commission to come up with another 1.8 trillion in savings over 10 years that would be subject to an up or down vote and no new taxes.

Are people going to love this? No. Some don't want to raise the debt ceiling at all and we'd have to see if the "immediate" cuts are real or some gimmicks. Also some people want the BBA voted on now. Personally, I don't care about that. It's never going to pass. If we could get 2/3's of both houses to pass it, we could get a simple majority to actually pass a balanced budget.

As Boehner said, it's not "Cut, Cap and Balance" but that died in the Senate. This is in that spirit and it might pass. Given that we only have control over 1 out of 3 political levers of power, that's not bad. Serious entitlement reform along the lines of the Ryan plan was never on the table with a Democratic Senate and Obama in the White House. Plus, it cuts Obama out so he gets no credit or his "balanced" (aka "hike taxes'), so Mr. Adult in the Room looks like the brat he is being dragged along, kicking and screaming.

If, big if, Boehner can pull this off and it's acceptable to the majority of the House GOP caucus, he just might end up rolling Obama, Reid and the Gang of 6 in the Senate. Not a bad days work. I won't even make fun of him if he cries when it's done.

Via Philip Klein.

So, they'll cut a deal somewhere in the middle but in the end, no taxes. Bluff called and folded.

Update: Allen West is in.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:33 AM | Comments (242)
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Right now it's in 12 theaters, I think. It will be much more widely available in just over a month.

Honestly, I think VOD is a much better vehicle for releasing a smaller movie. 12 theaters versus millions.

Posted by: Ace at 11:13 AM | Comments (31)
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These documentaries expose the problems in education -- and the problems are mostly the teachers unions.

Waiting for Superman is a film by a liberal, who is forced to confront the fact that while he says he supports public education at dinner parties, nevertheless sends his kids to private schools, and would not even consider sending them to the hell-holes the public school system offers him.

It's a good film, with a strong emotional narrative. The film presents about eight kids who are all hoping to get out of the awful local schools they have been consigned to by literally winning "The Lottery" -- the lottery being the random-draw system set up to permit applicants to go to magnet schools and charter schools, the few functioning schools in the public school system.

But the teachers unions like to keep as few of those as possible, only grudgingly permitting a few to operate, to buy the public off as far as its demand for real, system-wide reform.

Thus, the teachers unions are sacrificing these children for the sake of blocking reform. The Lottery is just a sop to the public.

Waiting for Superman exposes this. You meet the kids, their parents (who really want a good education for their kids), and their dreams of just getting their name randomly pulled at the lottery.

The heartbreaking part is... well, most of the kids don't get picked in the lottery. So they're doomed.

Among the interesting tidbits in this film is something called "Dance of the Lemons." See, teachers can't be fired, pretty much, but each school can get rid of teachers who have caused scandals or who have become notorious for incompetence.

But all that happens is that all the schools nominate their "lemons" -- their bad teachers -- and pass them over to the next school, which itself passes its own lemons to the next, etc. Like the poker game "Pass the Trash."

The only thing a principle can do is hope the crap teachers he's getting rid of are slightly less bad than the crap teachers being sent to replace them.

I believe in this movie one reformer makes the statement that almost all the problems of bad teachers can be fixed, forever, by simply permitting the schools to fire their 6% most incompetent teachers.

But of course the unions won't permit that.

The Cartel is a similar documentary, but focusing on New Jersey, specifically. It's more of an overtly conservative tilting feature (which may be good or bad, depending on your politics) and doesn't have the emotional narrative arc that Waiting for Superman does. But also very good.

Finally, The Lottery. This one I didn't see, but it's about Harlem kids trying to win The Lottery again, this time, I think, for coveted preschool slots. It won all sorts of awards, and the opening line of the trailer is, "The problem is not the parents, the problem is not the students, the problem is a system that protects academic failure."

Now that I watch the trailer, I'm definitely going to watch this one.

All of these are available on Netfilx, and I think The Cartel and The Lottery are both available as streaming features. Or at least were.

I've wanted to mention these films for a long time. Thanks to joeindc44 for spurring me.

Below, a clip from Waiting for Superman -- "The Dance of the Lemons" sequence.

Remember, this is all for the children.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:56 AM | Comments (159)
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In the New Jersey fight with teachers' unions, of course the unions would not agree to diminishments in pay or, more importantly, contributions to benefits.

The unions, then, forced school districts to lay off lots of teachers.

This may seem like an odd choice for a union, but it's what they always choose. For one thing, who gets laid off is often a matter of seniority or political pull within the union. There is the "union," then -- every teacher forced to join it -- and then there is the real union -- the teachers who are favored by union rules and can therefore choose to hold out for maximum pecuniary advantage, even at the cost of seeing other "union members" lose their jobs, because, hey, who cares about those other union members.

They say every profession is a conspiracy against the laity. And every union is a conspiracy against its management, by necessity. But every union is also a conspiracy against its less-well-protected members, because the more-protected members of it will sell out the less-well protected members almost every time.

Getting other teachers fired is also, the union thinks, a smart political move, because parents get very angry when, say, coaches are laid off, and they now have to pay for private sports leagues for their kids because the schools have cut back on organized sports. The unions think this will eventually break the public, and force them to accede to yet more salary and benefits, so they don't have to pay for sports leagues out of their own pockets.

But that only works up to a point. At some point, the public looks at the tax bill for the teachers' unions' ever-increasing demands and decides they're going to have to pay through the nose either way.

In Wisconsin, the budget reform bill has avoided all the teacher-union-caused turmoil NJ's parents faced, because now school districts are able to balance their budgets... without firing anyone at all.

Emily Koczela had been anxiously waiting for months for Wisconsin governor Scott WalkerÂ’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 wouldnÂ’t budge.

NEWSCOM

“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 stateÂ’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 teachersÂ’ 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 didnÂ’t touch the children,” Koczela said. Under a collective bargaining agreement, she continued, “We could never have negotiated that​—​never ever.”

Teachers' unions claimed they were willing to make concessions -- but not about collective bargaining on all their other perks.

And it turns out they were crafty to make this their Rubicon, because they were getting a lot of hidden benefits through these means. This month-old report by Byron York noted that the teachers' unions were extracting money from the public the public probably didn't even know about.

Of course, Wisconsin unions had offered to make benefit concessions during the budget fight. Wouldn't Kaukauna's money problems have been solved if Walker had just accepted those concessions and not demanded cutbacks in collective bargaining powers?

"The monetary part of it is not the entire issue," says Arnoldussen, a political independent who won a spot on the board in a nonpartisan election. Indeed, some of the most important improvements in Kaukauna's outlook are because of the new limits on collective bargaining.

In the past, Kaukauna's agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust -- a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. "It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them," says Arnoldussen. "Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor." This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.

Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage. And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position. "With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, 'We can match the lowest bid,'" says Republican state Rep. Jim Steineke, who represents the area and supports the Walker changes. At least for the moment, Kaukauna is staying with WEA Trust, but saving substantial amounts of money.

Teachers unions always, always claim that they are compelled to demand more taxpayer money for the children. They are only thinking about the children, you understand.

But in Wisconsin, here is the net effect of the budget repair bill:

1. No teachers are being laid off.

2. Teachers are teaching (in many districts) an additional period per day. They're doing their jobs -- for the children -- an additional period per day, rather than overseeing a study hall while they read Steven King books.

3. Putting 1 and 2 together, class sizes are being reduced in districts, since there are more teachers, teaching more classes, thus realizing what the unions always claim is their Holy Grail -- fewer kids per class, and thus more personalized instruction.

4. Budgets are balanced and teachers' salaries won't be coming out of the children's college funds. Um, isn't that a good thing too? Isn't it nice to leave parents some money to save for their kids' futures?

But the teachers' unions, and the left, and the media (but I repeat myself twice), wants you to believe this is all the most horrible thing ever.

Remember, everything they do is for the children, even if it often appears they are doing things expressly against the interests of the children and entirely for their own pecuniary gain.

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (67)
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