This is the kind of commitment to customers that every company should have. God bless the good people at Lego for making this happen!
Murray Rothbard: The Government Is Not “Us” (video)
The GOP must learn to dominate the plain of meaning…
Political Arena Editor Chuck Norton – Instead of calling it the “Fiscal Cliff” Republicans should call it “Taxmageddon”. It is more accurate and serves the battle of the narratives MUCH better.
“The rhetoric in Washington has done more to defeat liberty than all the armies and police forces in the world. This war all around us is being fought over the very meanings of words.
Meaning does not exist a priori. It is order imposed by individuals with arsenals of communication devices. Every inscription, every utterance, every gesture seeks to dominate the plain of meaning. Real violence is only an extension of this process.
Culture by definition a shared territory of meaning, inspires conflicts far more destructive than any other dispute over territory on the Earth’s surface. It is the message — the communication event — that we target.” – Warren Spector
Will: Colleges have free speech on the run
Parents, what you are about to read here is commonplace on American universities today. And you may be thinking, “I am in a conservative town so not my local university”…. well you are sadly mistaken.
This very writer is from South Bend, Indiana. Mike Pence is our new governor, Jackie Walorski is our new Member of Congress, and Indiana was the first state to go to Mitt Romney in the election. Yet, I can tell you with absolute certainty that Christians, traditionalists, and conservatives face discrimination and persecution on campus.
This very writer, when faced with persecution on campus, went very high profile on campus and used a strategy of making the left fear me. Having been a radio talk show host and a person with some resources I had that option, but many traditional students don’t.
Pro-life professors at Notre Dame, the largest Catholic University in the world, are persecuted on campus because the radical left has all but taken over the institution since Father Hessburg actively recruited Marxists to work at the university.
Hundreds of thousands of communists didn’t suddenly become libertarians after the East German wall fell. They had to go somewhere and most of them ended up “teaching” our kids. There are plenty of them on almost every campus in America.
At Tufts, a conservative newspaper committed “harassment” by printing accurate quotations from the Koran and a verified fact about the status of women in Saudi Arabia. Lukianoff says that Tufts may have been the first American institution “to find someone guilty of harassment for stating verifiable facts directed at no one in particular.”
He documents how “orientation” programs for freshmen become propaganda to (in the words of one orthodoxy enforcer) “leave a mental footprint on their consciousness.” Faculty, too, can face mandatory consciousness-raising.
In 2007, Donald Hindley, a politics professor at Brandeis, was found guilty of harassment because when teaching Latin American politics he explained the origin of the word “wetbacks,” which refers to immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. Without a hearing, the university provost sent Hindley a letter stating that the university “will not tolerate inappropriate, racial and discriminatory conduct.” The assistant provost was assigned to monitor Hindley’s classes “to ensure that you do not engage in further violations of the nondiscrimination and harassment policy.” Hindley was required to attend “anti-discrimination training.”
Such coercion is a natural augmentation of censorship. Next comes mob rule. Last year, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the vice provost for diversity and climate — really; you can’t make this stuff up — encouraged students to disrupt a news conference by a speaker opposed to racial preferences. They did, which the vice provost called “awesome.” This is the climate on an especially liberal campus that celebrates “diversity” in everything but thought.
“What happens on campus,” Lukianoff says, “doesn’t stay on campus” because censorship has “downstream effects.” He quotes a sociologist whose data he says demonstrate that “those with the highest levels of education have the lowest exposure to people with conflicting points of view.” This encourages “the human tendency to live within our own echo chambers.” Parents’ tuition dollars and student indebtedness pay for this. Good grief.
Obama Lied: Cuts Pell Grant Eligibility after Promising Opposite
This is no different than the Obama Administration targeting women’s cancer screenings for rationing while fully admitting that it will increase women’s mortality rates.
Why is it that women’s and minority health are the first to be targeted for cuts as ObamaCare takes over? Why is it that Pell Grants for college are already being targeted? It is because those groups vote Democrat in such large numbers, that the Democrat leadership can do whatever it wants and likely keep that group secured as a voting block.
With the elite media, and in the case of the young being barraged by leftist professors, covering for them most of the time Obama can get away with it. Do you ever wonder why inner city minorities get the worst teachers, worst schools, worst city services and worst police protection in cities and areas ran by Democrats? It is for the same reason. No matter what the Democrats do they believe they will always get 85% or better of the black vote, so they put resources in swing districts to win swing voters.
Victor Medina:
Sorry, college students. President Obama has cut your access to Pell Grants by 33%; he just forgot to mention it before Election Day.
During the recent campaign, President Obama claimed credit for increasing funding to the Pell Grant program, which provides college funds, free from repayment, to millions of students. However, an email sent out Tuesday to some Dallas college students is revealing a detail the President forgot to mention: the time a student can receive a Pell Grant has been cut, by as much as three years. With Pell Grants for the fall semester now dispersed, colleges are informing students of their options, bringing the cuts to light.
The email, sent out by the Dallas County Community College District, informed students of the changes to the Pell Grant program. It revealed that the number of semesters a student could receive a Pell Grant had been cut from 18 semesters down to 12. It is a detail likely unknown to most students; in fact, the cut in grants has gone largely unreported by the media.
The email states that the cut in eligibility was part of an education bill President Obama signed into law in 2011. “On December 23, 2011, President Obama signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012 (Public Law 112-74). This new federal law states that the amount of Federal Pell Grant funds a student may receive over his or her LIFETIME will be reduced to the duration of a student’s eligibility from 18 semesters (or its equivalent) to 12 semesters (or its equivalent). This new law applies to ALL Federal Pell Grant eligible students effective with the 2012-2013 award year beginning July 1, 2012. (DCL-GEN-12-01)”
The cut in grant eligibility has serious ramifications for non-traditional students. Part-time students who do not receive a full semester grant may lose out on funds if they do not earn an undergraduate degree within 12 semesters. Adults who go back to school, including retraining for a new career, will also have limited access to grants.
The amount of the grant varies based on family income (with a current yearly maximum grant of $5,550). If a student gets a grant less than a maximum, and a year later finds their income level has been reduced, they will not be able to recoup the difference in the lower amounts earned in a previous year. The cut in eligible semesters makes it difficult for students to make up that gap in later years.
This cut in eligibility was never mentioned by President Obama during the campaign, and when he boasted about increasing funding to the Pell Grant program, CNN fact-checked his claim as true. While the amount of government funding to the program is going up in future years, CNN failed miserably by not pointing out the cuts in eligibility to students. The cuts could be a rude awakening to students who thought President Obama was expanding their educational opportunities.
Milton Friedman vs a Socialist Professor and the 100% Inheritance Tax (video)
Milton Friedman vs a Socialist Professor
Milton Friedman on the 100% inheritance Tax
NSA Whistleblower: Government illegally storing EVERYONE’s email and Facebook messages (video)
A good reason to have a Reagan.com email address and to use encryption.
William Binney, whistleblower and former NSA crypto-mathematician who served in the agency for decades. Virtual privacy in US, Petraeus affair and whistleblowers’ odds in fight against the authorities are among key topics of this exclusive interview.
The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)
Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.
But “this is more than just a data center,” says one senior intelligence official who until recently was involved with the program. The mammoth Bluffdale center will have another important and far more secret role that until now has gone unrevealed. It is also critical, he says, for breaking codes. And code-breaking is crucial, because much of the data that the center will handle—financial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents, confidential personal communications—will be heavily encrypted. According to another top official also involved with the program, the NSA made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its ability to cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption systems employed by not only governments around the world but also many average computer users in the US. The upshot, according to this official: “Everybody’s a target; everybody with communication is a target.”
For the NSA, overflowing with tens of billions of dollars in post-9/11 budget awards, the cryptanalysis breakthrough came at a time of explosive growth, in size as well as in power. Established as an arm of the Department of Defense following Pearl Harbor, with the primary purpose of preventing another surprise assault, the NSA suffered a series of humiliations in the post-Cold War years. Caught offguard by an escalating series of terrorist attacks—the first World Trade Center bombing, the blowing up of US embassies in East Africa, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and finally the devastation of 9/11—some began questioning the agency’s very reason for being. In response, the NSA has quietly been reborn. And while there is little indication that its actual effectiveness has improved—after all, despite numerous pieces of evidence and intelligence-gathering opportunities, it missed the near-disastrous attempted attacks by the underwear bomber on a flight to Detroit in 2009 and by the car bomber in Times Square in 2010—there is no doubt that it has transformed itself into the largest, most covert, and potentially most intrusive intelligence agency ever created.
In the process—and for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration—the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net. And, of course, it’s all being done in secret. To those on the inside, the old adage that NSA stands for Never Say Anything applies more than ever.
Keep reading HERE….it gets scarier.
Leftist Academics Rewriting American History Schoolbooks: George Washington Nixed….
The fastest way to undermine a country is to undermine its history, and the best place to begin is in the nation’s classrooms where pliable young minds are easily influenced. This is precisely what the left has been doing for decades, and with evident success. The left has made great strides in undermining the family, taking over the public square, and dominating education at all levels. But some of its most effective work has been in revising America’s history. Russian philosopher Alexander Solzhenitzyn said: “To destroy a people you must first sever their roots.” Patrick Buchanan said: “To create a ‘new people,’ the agents of our cultural revolution must first create a new history; and that project is well advanced.”
In 1992 that bastion of liberal thought, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), received a two-million-dollar grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department of Education to develop new standards for history books for grades five through twelve. UCLA completed this assignment in 1997. Since that time, its standards have had the intended effect. UCLA’s standards for history books for public school children have resulted in the following:
- No mention in history books of such American luminaries as Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, or the Wright Brothers. It is the lives of exceptional Americans such as these, among many other factors, that validate the concept of American exceptionalism. Consequently, to undermine the concept, liberals must remove any reference to exceptional acts and exceptional people in American history.
- The founding dates of the Sierra Club and the National Organization for Women are given special significance. In truth, the only thing that warrants inclusion of these organizations in history books is that they are considered sacred institutions by the left.
- Instructions for teachers concerning how to teach the unit which covers the traitor Alger Hiss and the spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg encourages leeway to teach the unit either way. In other words, teachers are given the leeway to teach the unit as if Hiss was not a traitor and the Rosenbergs were innocent. This is the same Alger Hiss who was convicted by a jury on the basis of hard evidence, evidence that since his conviction has been validated many times over by further discoveries. These are the same Rosenbergs who gave America’s atom-bomb secrets to Joseph Stalin.
- The Constitutional Convention is not even mentioned. One of the reasons for this is that the deliberations of America’s founders as recorded in numerous documents such as the Federalist Papers as well as those of the anti-federalists are clearly at odds with today’s liberal orthodoxy. The tactic of the left is simple. If the founder’s views do not reinforce those of the left, eliminate any reference to their views in history books.
- George Washington’s presidency is not mentioned nor is his famous farewell address. Rather than learn about the two terms of our country’s first president—two terms in which everything Washington did was precedent setting—students are encouraged to develop an imaginary dialogue between an Indian Leader and General Washington at the end of the Revolutionary War. What students are supposed to learn and how students are supposed to benefit from this hypothetical dialogue is not explained.
- The Soviet Union is commended for its great strides in space exploration, but America’s moon landing is not mentioned.
- Teachers are urged to have students conduct a mock trial for John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil. No mention is made of the fact that the homes of most of the students are heated by energy derived from petroleum and the gasoline in the cars driven by teachers comes from petroleum.
The new history standards developed by UCLA have had far-reaching effects. Look at any history book written for public school students in the K-12 system and you will be appalled at what is included and what is not. There are now history books being used in America classrooms that give more coverage to Madonna than to George Washington. Further, America is often portrayed in the way that Barack Obama appears to view it: as a villainous nation bent on world dominance, imperialism, the perpetuation of slavery, and a variety of other evils. What is less likely to be found is any positive coverage concerning a Constitution that guarantees the rights of everyone, including liberals who are bent on the destruction of America as the founders envisioned it.
U. Texas Journalism Prof: US Founding Fathers like “Nazi’s”,
Parents, this kind of nuttery on campus is not uncommon. Most universities pay very low wages, barely enough to pay one’s student loans, so universities tend to often attract the least capable of academics who cannot make it in the private sector, or ideologues like Prof. Jensen who are so radical that the private sector is out of their reach.
Forget all that turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie, today should be a day of fasting and atonement for American “sin.” That’s according to Robert Jensen, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Jensen, known for his hard-left politics, also calls Thanksgiving a “white-supremacist holiday.”
Jensen’s opinion piece “No Thanks for Thanksgiving,” appeared on the far-left, Soros-connected website Alternet on Thanksgiving eve. In it, he wrote how Native Americans suffered because of the “European invasion of the Americas.” He went on to compare the Founding Fathers to Nazi Germany. “How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis?” he asked.
Foreign Policy Mag: Obama lied about standing up for tough Iran sanctions….
You mean they lied? So much for “standing strong” against Iran’s nuclear weapons program…..
The Obama administration often touts the Iran sanctions it once opposed. In the final presidential debate Oct. 22, President Barack Obama said his administration had “organized the strongest coalition and the strongest sanctions against Iran in history, and it is crippling their economy.”
The new Iran sanctions still must survive a House-Senate conference over the defense authorization bill, during which conferees may try to change certain portions of the new sanctions regime. Hill aides predict the White House will try to alter the new sanctions during that process, in what they would likely see as an effort to water them down.
“The truth is that the U.S. Congress continues to lead a comprehensive and unrelenting international sanctions program against the Iranian regime despite a comprehensive and unrelenting campaign by this administration to block or water down those sanctions at every move,” a senior GOP Senate aide told The Cable. “We beat them 100-0 last year and while they tried to kill this amendment more quietly this time, we beat them again 94-0. Hopefully House and Senate negotiators will stay strong and resist the administration’s strategy to dilute these sanctions in conference.”
After a month, plenty of Staten Island residents getting no help
….but (according to the exit polls) the elite media has people thinking that FEMA and Obama did such a great job….
Exactly who is “the establishment”?
This wonderful column by Steve McCann eloquently describes many of the problems this very web site was created to address and it is one of the most important columns of the year.
“Yet there is no sense of urgency or desire on the part of the governing class to level with the American people” – Indeed and think about it. Every politician says that they want a balanced budget, but will we ever get one again?
The United States will not reverse its descent into the abyss of financial and societal bankruptcy until the current political and governing establishment is replaced. That will not happen until the American people, who have been deliberately ill-educated and deceived, experience first-hand the early stages of the turmoil and suffering extant in Europe and elsewhere.
While professing to care for the interests of the average person, the underlying motivation for the vast majority of the governing class or Establishment is first and foremost self-aggrandizement and the acquisition of wealth. While a few may be motivated by ideology, the preponderance are not.
There are no offices on Connecticut Avenue in Washington D.C. with signs reading “The Republican Establishment” or the “The Democratic Establishment”; rather it is an amalgam of like-minded groups with one common interest: the control of the government purse-strings and the attendant power contained within.
The Republican and Democratic political establishments are made up of the following:
1) many current and nearly all retired national office holders whose livelihood and narcissistic demands depends upon fealty to Party and access to government largesse;
2) the majority of the media elite, including pundits, editors, writers and television news personalities based in Washington and New York whose proximity to power and access is vital to their continued standard of living;
3) academia, numerous think-tanks, so-called non-government organizations, and lobbyists who fasten onto those in the administration and Congress for employment, grants, favorable legislation and ego-gratification;
4) the reliable deep pocket political contributors and political consultants whose future is irrevocably tied to the political machinery of the Party; and
5) the crony capitalists, i.e. leaders of the corporate and financial community as well as unions whose entities are dependent on or subject to government oversight and/or benevolence .
The current iteration of the Democratic establishment was begun during Franklin Roosevelt’s 12 years in office as the Party chose to follow the lead of those such as Benito Mussolini in Italy, who promoted government as the source of all salvation and survival. This philosophy fit in nicely with those whose egos and drive was directed toward the aggregation of power and wealth.
The Republican members of the governing class, with the exception of the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the Republican controlled House of Representatives from 1995 to 1998, have been content since 1946 to merely slow down the big-government policies of the Democrats, while publically decrying their tax and spend policies. However, in truth, many have been comfortable with reaping the financial and ego-gratifying rewards of such indifference.
Since the1950’s this overall scenario has been tolerated and generally ignored as the nation was experiencing overwhelming and seemingly endless prosperity. The Democrats, with the tacit consent of the Republican establishment, promoted an ever-increasing litany of government programs to ostensibly help the people, under the rubric that the nation could not only afford it but was, in fact, obligated to guarantee a “decent” standard of living for everyone. Further, in the 1960’s the American left, as the Republican establishment turned a blind eye, began to dominate the education agenda. The public’s children were no longer taught American history and the importance of individual liberty; instead, the basics of capitalism and wealth creation were demonized. Additionally, the essential characteristic of a flourishing republic — a society wedded to honor, decency and integrity — was demeaned and ridiculed.
Thus the citizenry has become more willing to not only vote for whoever promises the most financial security, but they are now easily susceptible to unconscionable demagoguery and are increasingly tolerant of dishonesty as well as unethical behavior. Today, with the advent of welfare, food stamps, near endless unemployment benefits, free health care (Medicaid), and a myriad of other state and federal programs, the Democrats have succeeded in creating a virtually permanent voting bloc. One the Republican Establishment now claims, if they wish to win future elections, they must pander to as part of a new strategy of inclusion. Yet, by their acquiescence and indifference over the years, they helped create their electoral dilemma.
How have all these promises and deceptions perpetrated on the American people placed the nation’s financial future in jeopardy? Since 1956 the United States has seen a phenomenal growth in its Gross Domestic Product from $3,700 Billion (inflation adjusted) to $16,100 Billion (+335%). However, government spending at all levels has grown from $978 Billion (inflation adjusted) to $6,400 Billion (+554%) and the nation’s debt, $2,250 Billion in 1956 (inflation adjusted) is now $16,300 Billion (+625%). (source: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com)
As of today, the nation’s true indebtedness (promises that have been made for spending obligations, less all the taxes the Treasury expects to collect) exceeds $222,000 Billion. The indebtedness to Gross Domestic Product ($16,100 Billion) is a staggering 13.8 to 1. The United States is not facing bankruptcy, it is bankrupt.
Yet there is no sense of urgency or desire on the part of the governing class to level with the American people. This nation is living on the residue of the economic growth begun in the 1950’s and accelerated in the 1980’s. That tidal wave of prosperity has ebbed. The United States has entered into a death spiral of unrestrained spending, excessive taxation, printing near worthless money, and stagnant economic activity. Rather than be straightforward with the populace, the governing class is content to paper over the problem by the usual shell games of phony long-term spending cuts, more borrowing, and prevarications about the efficacy of raising taxes on “the rich.”
The true nature of the GOP establishment’s motivation has been exposed by their reaction to the Tea Party movement. This grassroots rebellion was the first manifestation of the awareness by a large portion of the American public of the nation’s problems and ultimate consequences. Despite the overwhelming success of the Tea Party working within the Republican Party in the 2010 mid-term elections, nearly all of the Republican elites downplayed their success and fell-in with the mainstream media and the Democrats in their well-worn and gratuitous aspersions against these concerned and patriotic Americans. The Tea Party movement poses a threat to not only the accumulated power of the governing class but their livelihoods, thus the concerted effort to marginalize them by any vile or preposterous means possible.
The United States finds itself in a circumstance once thought unthinkable. An ill-educated and near morally bankrupt society increasingly made up of those dependent on government combined with a governing class whose primary interest is themselves. The nation cannot, therefore, make any meaningful course correction unless and until the people finally understand they have been lied to and conned by the current establishment. That will, in all likelihood, not occur until America faces imminent collapse and the citizenry turns on those who brought the nation to its knees.
Middle Class Households Poorest in 43 Years
But Obama says that he is transferring wealth to protect the middle class……
The only ones who get rich when government transfers wealth is government, because they transfer a LOT more to themselves per person than they do to the poor.
CBS DC:
WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – The median net worth of American households has dropped to a 43-year low as the lower and middle classes appear poorer and less stable than they have been since 1969.
According to a recent study by New York University economics professor Edward N. Wolff, median net worth is at the decades-low figure of $57,000 (in 2010 dollars). And as the numbers in his study reflect, the situation only appears worse when all the statistics are taken as a whole.
According to Wolff, between 1983 and 2010, the percentage of households with less than $10,000 in assets (using constant 1995 dollars) rose from 29.7 percent to 37.1 percent. The “less than $10,000″ figure includes the numerous households that have no assets at all, or “negative assets,” which is otherwise known as “debt.”
Over that same period of time, the wealthiest 1 percent of American households increased their average wealth by 71 percent.
[Political Arena Editor’s Note – in that 1% are government bureaucrats many of whom make six figures:
Nearly 500,000 federal employees make over $100,000
Washington D.C. Tops List of Richest Cities….
Now you know who is getting rich….
The person who needs help to get out of poverty gets about what $11,000 a year if they are lucky while the Democrat appointee who runs welfare gets over $187,000 a year.
Government programs are not anti-poverty program, they are government appointee and government union enrichment programs. It is no different than “paying protection”.]
As noted by Daily Finance, from 1983 to 2010 the share of total wealth held by the richest 10 percent of American households increased from 68.2 percent to 76.7 percent. Meanwhile, all the rest of Americans lost financial ground.
An August Pew Research Center study found that many in the middle-class are divided on how they believe his gap widened.
Fully 85 percent of self-described middle-class adults say it is more difficult now than it was a decade ago for middle-class people to maintain their standard of living.
Government spends $100,000 to teach young girls “condom negotiation”
We are printing up money and borrowing it from China for this? Can anyone say that Obama and the Democrat leadership is at all serious about getting the spending under control? There is no attempt at fiscal discipline. They literally say one thing and do another.
All of the talk about deficit control is just that, the tax they want to raise targets small domestic businesses to make it hard to compete against the mega-corps that fund the Democratic Party and assuming such a tax increase passes it will only raise enough money to run the government for a few days. Yet Democrats have the audacity to call their tax hike proposals “Deficit Reduction”.
The Democrat Leadership knows the spending and printing and borrowing will blow up the currency and make it collapse, and yet they are doing everything that can to bring it about. The only question left to ask is why.
The [Obama] administration is funding a $100,000 study of pregnant and “at-risk” 14-17-year-old girls on probation in Houston, Texas, to determine ways to help them choose safer lifestyles and avoid pregnancy, including better “condom negotiation” tactics.
The National Institutes of Health, part of the Health and Human Services Department, is providing a University of Houston researcher the money because of the lack of study of female teen juveniles in trouble with the law.
The school said the study, “Choices – Teen: A Bundled Risk Reduction Intervention for Juvenile Justice Females,” will include 30 at-risk girls, ages 14-17, on intensive probation with the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department.
The goal, said the school, is to determine if intervention programs will help the kids make better life decisions.
According to Danielle Parish, the assistant professor at the school’s Graduate College of Social Work who is conducting the NIH-funded effort, one of the big problems young girls need to learn is how to talk their boyfriends into using condoms.
According to the school’s release, “Parrish notes one of the big issues for this population of adolescent girls is condom negotiation. They may have a boyfriend who says it isn’t ‘cool’ to use a condom. To prepare the girls for these types of situations, the counselors and pediatricians will teach them how to negotiate condom use with their partner. The intervention also helps empower and motivate girls to make healthier choices regarding their alcohol use, smoking and prevention of unplanned pregnancy.”
Editor: I debated Dr. Gilarducci just as Mark Levin did
by Chuck Norton
In the video below Mark Levin very gently takes apart Dr. Teresa Gilarducci. She works for George Soros now, but before that she was an econ professor at Notre Dame. She was also on President Clinton’s Social Security task force.
When she was at Notre Dame I debated her when I was an undergrad in front of an audience, as I was the only one between IU and Notre Dame who would take the partial privatization position point of view on Social Security. Her incredible hypocrisy, that Levin exposes so well in the video below, showed itself in true form in my debate with her as well. Her “logic” is entirely political, circular and based largely on denial and misdirection. She is sweet, attractive and charming, and well knows it as she uses that as a weapon in her arsenal.
Dr. Gilarducci thought she was going to be debating a “college republican” undergrad, what she got is a former radio talk show host who passed the state exams and used to sell retirement and insurance products.
I will not outline the entire debate, but in short I did two things.
First: I outlined the Galveston Plan which has worked wonders as a legal exception to Social Security. I also pointed out the government managed, but partially privatized retirement plan that Members of Congress have which has been a great success through thick and thin. Such a plan would serve as a good model to grow at least a small percentage of Social Security to at least attempt to have a growth to pre-fund our retirement benefits.
All she would say about these partially privatized plans is that the retirees wouldn’t get the money and even though retired Members of Congress and some in Galveston were already getting great benefits now she insisted that soon that money would vanish because only government transfer payments can be trusted. She kept saying again and again, “Until you go to get your money at retirement and it’s not there.”
Ironically in the video below, the type of plan she insisted could never work because the “greedsters” in the private sector would steal it all, is the exact same plan that she has for herself for her own retirement by her own admission.
Second: Dr. Gilarducci had written some good papers on 401K reform. She argued that too much of the 401K investment is in the employers own stock, so if the employer goes under said employee looses a lot of their retirement. As a fix she proposed that 401K laws be changed to require diversity of investment to more reliably pre-fund such retirement plans. Social Security has much the same problem as all of the eggs are in one basket, there is no diversity of investment and people’s retirement’s are not pre-funded.
So I used her own words and arguments on how to have a reliable and secure 401k, but replaced the term “401k” with “Social Security”. I used those near verbatim arguments to make most of my case.
All through the debate she insisted that (what she didn’t realize were her own arguments in her own published work) were just bad arguments from a young undergrad who just didn’t know better and that is how she treated me……until the end when I dropped the bomb that many of the arguments she so cutely poo-poohed were actually her own published work. She was floored.
Mark Levin:
During my last few shows, including as recently as yesterday, I have alerted you to Obama’s desire to nationalize your 401-k plan and eliminate your mortgage interest deduction.
Some background on the former. Back in October 2008, I got word that Professor Teresa Ghilarducci of the New School had testified before Rep. George Miller’s committee in support of a plan to nationalize private pension plans — in particular, 401-k plans. I not only spoke about it on my show back then, but we tracked down the professor and I conducted the first interview on talk radio. I will discuss this at more length on my program this evening, but I thought you might want to be among the first to listen to that interview again. Please pass it along to as many people as you can. See below.
How the George Soros Smear Machine Works (video)
This is one of Bill O’Reilly’s best segments ever; with Dr. Monica Crowley and Phil Kent.
Two-thirds of millionaires leave Britain to avoid 50% tax rate
It is an undeniable truth of life that wealth, capital and labor go where they are treated well. It is this economic truth more than any other that prevents socialism, communism, fascism, and kleptocracy from yielding positive economic benefits in the long term.
When you raise the tax rate, people will modify their behavior to avoid paying the tax, even if that means halting economic activity. As Ronald Reagan said:
The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.
UK Daily Telegraph:
Almost two-thirds of the country’s million-pound earners disappeared from Britain after the introduction of the 50% top rate of tax, figures have disclosed.
In the 2009-10 tax year, more than 16,000 people declared an annual income of more than £1 million to HM Revenue and Customs.
This number fell to just 6,000 after Gordon Brown introduced the new 50% top rate of income tax shortly before the last general election.
The figures have been seized upon by the Conservatives to claim that increasing the highest rate of tax actually led to a loss in revenues for the Government.
It is believed that rich Britons moved abroad or took steps to avoid paying the new levy by reducing their taxable incomes.
George Osborne, the Chancellor, announced in the Budget earlier this year that the 50% top rate will be reduced to 45% from next April.
Since the announcement, the number of people declaring annual incomes of more than £1 million has risen to 10,000.
However, the number of million-pound earners is still far below the level recorded even at the height of the recession and financial crisis.
Last night, Harriet Baldwin, the Conservative MP who uncovered the latest figures, said: “Labour’s ideological tax hike led to a tax cull of millionaires.
Far from raising funds, it actually cost the UK £7 billion in lost tax revenue.
“Labour now needs to admit that their policies resulted in millionaires paying less tax and come clean about whether they would reintroduce this failed policy if they were in power.”
Mr Osborne argued earlier this year that the 50% rate was deterring entrepreneurs from coming to Britain.
British Meteorology Office: No Global Warming for 16 Years
The British Meteorology Office, commonly referred to as the “British Met” has been on the paranoid tip of global warming fraud and alarmism for years. After the Climategate scandal where “top” climate scientists own emails revealed that they were rigging some data-sets and hiding others to make it appear as if man made global warming was real resulted in more oversight and ethics rules. After years of false claims of doom and incorrect predictions the British Met is now admitting the truth.
UK Daily Mail:
Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it
- The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures
- This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996
The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.
The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.
The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.
This stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.
Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased.
Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia [Editor’s Note – Jones is one of the busted Climategate scientists and had a long record of making over the top doomsday claims], last week dismissed the significance of the plateau, saying that 15 or 16 years is too short a period from which to draw conclusions.
Others disagreed. Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America’s prestigious Georgia Tech university, told The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were ‘deeply flawed’.
Science Fiction is the last playground of the philosophers – Gene Roddenberry (video)
We have said many times here at Political Arena that just quoting people facts and Lincoln-Douglass style debate isn’t enough. In order to teach the great lessons of life and deeper wisdom, it must be done through stories and narratives.
Star Trek is one of the very best programs that demonstrates this truth. Several of the Greek philosophers, plays, and literature have their work retold in Star Trek. The Roman legal philosopher and rhetorician Cicero is featured throughout the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine shows. William Shakespeare also is well represented in Star Trek.
To the intellectually dim Star Trek is just “space invaders” with actors, but to those with eyes to see and ears to hear, to the intellectually and philosophically curious, Star Trek becomes a wondrous teaching tool that can be used to reinforce the ideals that America was founded upon.
Here is an example:
Star Trek: Samuel T. Cogley Attorney at Law
Star Trek: The Wisdom of Captain Jean Luc Picard
Another reason why Star Trek works as a story telling medium is that the people of Star Trek are exploring the final frontier. Americans are a frontier people who have run out of “frontier”.
Majority Polled Now Against Gov’t Healthcare Guarantee
With Canada, Sweden and other countries making steady progress moving away from Government run health care it seems that at least some people are starting to get the fact that e do not want the same people who run the BMV, Embassy Security, the Post Office, and DC Metro Escalators running our health care.
The rationing is already begun and the Obama administration is targeting women’s cancer health screenings as the first target, but unless Republicans move to keep educating people, Obama, his corporate backers, and his allies in the media will launch a propaganda campaign to swing the opinion back the other way. Obama has no mandate for more government control of healthcare.
Rasmussen Reports:
Views of healthcare system overall more positive in some respects
by Jeffrey M. Jones
PRINCETON, NJ — For the first time in Gallup trends since 2000, a majority of Americans say it is not the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage. Prior to 2009, a majority always felt the government should ensure healthcare coverage for all, though Americans’ views have become more divided in recent years.
The current results are based on Gallup’s annual Health and Healthcare poll, conducted Nov. 15-18 this year.
The shift away from the view that the government should ensure healthcare coverage for all began shortly after President Barack Obama’s election and has continued the past several years during the discussions and ultimate passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010. Americans are divided on that legislation today — 48% approve and 45% disapprove — as they have been over the last several years.
Republicans, including Republican-leaning independents, are mostly responsible for the drop since 2007 in Americans’ support for government ensuring universal health coverage. In 2007, 38% of Republicans thought the government should do so; now, 12% do. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners there has been a much smaller drop, from 81% saying the government should make sure all Americans are covered in 2007 to 71% now.
One thing that has not changed is that Americans still widely prefer a system based on private insurance to one run by the government. Currently, 57% prefer a private system and 36% a government-run system, essentially the same as in 2010 and 2011. Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the percentage of Americans in favor of a government-run system ranged from 32% to 41%.
Poll shows most people blame GOP for the “Fiscal Cliff” when much of it is due to Obamacare taxes
Where is the establishment GOP? Where is anyone in the GOP to make the case?
Where is the GOP telling people that Taxmageddon, also known as the Fiscal Cliff, is largely do to 13 new Obamacare taxes, and the Democrats desire to raise taxes not on the rich, but on the productive middle class and small business S-Corps?
Where is the GOP to lambaste all of the wasteful spending and corrupt crony green energy boondoggles?
No one in the GOP is even defending themselves much less making a fight of it (please correct us if I we are wrong).
Famed actor Robert Davi said recently that he believes that elements in the establishment GOP and the Democratic Leadership are in a conspiracy to bring the country down. It is nonsense like this that make him correct.
It is nonsense like this that will finally push those who care about good policy to form a new party to replace the Republican Party because its brand is damaged and it’s establishment doesn’t seem to even really believe what it preaches.
I bet many in the GOP wishes they had Newt Gingrich right about now to make the case.
Via Breitbart News:
A new poll from CNN/ORC shows that President Obama remains Teflon despite the fact that he designed the upcoming fiscal cliff to speculation. Even though Obama insisted on massive defense cuts and huge tax increases as the two alternative parts of the fiscal cliff, the American public will apparently blame Republicans if the fiscal cliff isn’t stopped. A full 45% of respondents said they would blame Congressional Republicans – even though the Democrats control the Senate – while just 34% would blame President Obama.
The public, by and large, sees Republicans as obstructionist. That’s due to a combination of messaging failure on the part of the GOP — nothing new, in that they seem incapable of explaining the simple fact that low tax rates, particularly on job creators, spur economic growth and thereby raise tax revenues — and a media concerned only with saving its flailing president. The Republicans’ mixed messaging on the fiscal cliff has been astounding to watch. They signed off on the sequester, which put a fiscal gun to their heads, forcing them to choose between raising taxes partially or watching tax rates skyrocket and defense get slashed. Then they turned around and complained about the gun being put to their heads. Now, they’re standing for the principle that we need more tax revenue, but it can’t be raised by raising rates. No wonder the public is confused.
Poll numbers like this could be the reason that Republicans are looking to cave on tax increases, or ending tax deductions. 25% of the country says that the nation would undergo a crisis if we hit the fiscal cliff; 44% expect major problems. 25% say that it would cause minor problems. A full 77% of the public believes the fiscal cliff would hurt them personally.
Republicans have done such a poor job of informing the public about why taxes shouldn’t be increased that even Republicans, by a margin of 52%-44%, say they want both spending cuts and tax increases. An unbelievable 56% of Americans say they want high taxes on higher income earners, despite the fact that higher income earners pay a vastly disproportionate share of all tax revenue.
The US Govt Spent $24.3 Billion on Black Friday; $211.69 Per Household.
Welcome to the new America, where the federal government cost you $211.69 per day.
CNS News:
The U.S. Treasury increased the net debt of the United States $24,327,048,384.38 on the day after Thanksgiving, which equals approximately $211.69 for each of the nation’s 114,916,000 households.
At the close of business last Wednesday, according to the Treasury, the national debt was $16,283,161,895,179.85. On Thanksgiving, the Treasury took the day off and did no borrowing. But on Friday, the Treasury increased the debt of the United States to $16,307,488,943,564.23. That was a one-day increase of $24,327,048,384.38.
That means that since Obama has been president, the national debt has increased by about $49,432.73 per household.
The cruelest and most hilarious TV prank of all time (video)
Courtesy of Brazilian TV. ENJOY!!
Leftist film critics think those who liked “Red Dawn” are mentally ill. Sound Familiar? – UPDATED!
The elite media film reviews of the film remake of Red Dawn speak volumes of just who and what is in the elite media. The hostility is so great that they couldn’t help but reveal their collectivist politics in the reviews.
Did the idea of communists in America offend them? Not in the least. Did the idea of some American’s becoming sympathizers with and aiding the invading communists in the film make them even flinch? Nope.
What made the elite media positively furious? The idea of traditional Americans, including an active duty US Marine and three retired Marines, gearing up to act as an insurgent force to make the invading communists regret trying to gain a foothold in the United States.
In fact, so indoctrinated into the radical left are so many in the elite media including these film critics, that they present the exact same false narrative that communists throughout history have treated domestic dissidents who would dare oppose them; they present them or accuse them of being mentally ill.
The film’s critical drubbing was about more than just storytelling hiccups, says National Review contributor John J. Miller.
“Better dead than Red Dawn,” sneered the Washington Post’s Rita Kempley, who called the film “sick and silly.” Janet Maslin of the New York Times labeled it “rabidly inflammatory,” “incorrigibly gung-ho,” and “a virulently alarmist fable.” Bob Thomas of the Associated Press condemned its “bathos” as “unrelenting.” Perhaps these were the honest assessments of dispassionate reviewers….
The makers of Red Dawn, complained Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times, “spent too much time playing to the rabid anti-Commies.” You know: The movie must be awful because those icky conservatives approve of it. Even today, many liberals resort to knee-jerk denunciations: “Its guiding ideology is actually fascism,” wrote David Plotz of Slate in 2008.
That was then. This is the response the “Red Dawn” remake is getting from movie critics.
The Chicago Reader calls it a “Tea Party wet dream.” Time Magazine says “both movies play like hokey advertisements for the National Rifle Association, injected with high school pep rally enthusiasm.”
The Washington Post’s review says the film will be “red meat for tea party patriots,” as if Obama voters would rather allow an invading force take over rather than fight back.
Well film critics, we cannot speak for “all Obama voters”, but in your case the constant overt hostility you have shown over the years to American Exceptionalism leaves little doubt as to whose side you would end up aiding…just as Ronald Reagan knew all so well:
[Editor’s Note – I have seen the film, and even though it is not as good as the original, it is fun and worth the cost of a few tickets and popcorn. The biggest flaw in the film is that the film creators didn’t take a little more time to develop the characters to a point where you really cared about them. People make a story and stories are not as interesting when you don’t have a certain intimacy or identity with the characters.]
UPDATE:
Kate Dalzell comments – Goodness, what will these children think of next. Seriously, anything that has the slightest hint of pro-America or American exceptionalism throws these reprobates into a fear-based frenzy. Since they cannot self-govern, anything that opposes that which protects them from having to do so will induce such a tremendous amount of fear that they feel they must project, as a weapon, in order to maintain their therapeutic state.
Kimberly Saunders comments – Who wouldn’t like an America kicks ass over bad guys movie? I’d call it unAmerican and mentally ill if you didn’t like it.
Smaller insurance companies going away thanks to Obamacare
As we have said several times before and even when yours truly wrote for his old college blog, consolidation is a goal of the progressive secular left.
What is consolidation? It is when smaller players are driven out of the market by slanted government regulations, enforcement, and taxes in favor of the biggest players who tend to be campaign contributors. It also makes controlling the economy easier as a few players are easy to monitor and control. You cannot control the economy without first controlling people, so the less people to control the better. [Smaller companies tend to contribute to Republicans – Editor.]
Forbes: Obamacare Consolidation Continues: Aetna Buys Coventry For $7.3B
Consolidation in the healthcare sector was an obvious consequence of the latest Supreme Court ruling that upheld Obamacare. On Monday, Aetna announced it reached an agreement to buy Coventry Health for a transaction value of $7.3 billion including debt in over to increase its exposure to government business such as Medicare and Medicaid.
On the market side of that issue, major companies are already in consolidation stage. Aetna’s acquisition of Coventry, for which it will pay $5.7 billion in cash and stock, is a direct consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the individual mandate. As I wrote in the aftermath of the ruling, “in the face of it, this should be negative for major health insurance companies, as it will drive more customers at lower margins, and positive for Medicaid companies.”
Aetna was very clear in the press release, the transaction will increase its “share of revenues from government business to over 30% from 23% currently.” Coventry will add over 5 million members to Aetna’s plans, including about 4 million medical members and 1.5 million Medicare part D members. The deal also “substantially increase[s] Aetna’s Medicaid footprint, creating more opportunity to participate in the expansion of Medicaid and to pursue high acuity positions as they move into managed care.”
The Supreme Court ruling already fueled WellPoint’s acquisition of Amerigroup for about $5 billion, while last year Cigna bought HealthSpring for $3.8 billion in a push to gain exposure to Medicare patients. Markets appear to approve of consolidation in the industry, as stock prices showed on Monday.
Americans in Israel sue State Department for Providing aid to Palestinian terrorists illegally
Obama’s White House and State Department providing aid to Gaza in violation of guidelines passed by law? You don’t say.
Times of Israel:
State Department, White House ignored transparency requirements in delivering Palestinian aid, allowing some of the money to flow to the likes of Hamas, plaintiffs claim.
A group of 24 Americans living in Israel, some of them victims of terror, on Tuesday filed a civil action lawsuit against the United States government over what they claim is its funding of Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The plaintiffs were being represented by the Tel Aviv-based Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center, a legal advocacy group that combats terror organizations.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Washington, DC, contends that the State Department and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ignored Congressional safeguards and transparency requirements attached to US aid to the Palestinian Authority, thus allowing for the funneling of funds to Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Palestine Liberation Front. It also accuses the White House of not complying with the regulations and reporting obligations governing presidential waivers which facilitate emergency funding to the Palestinians.
“I just want justice,” said Stuart Hersh, one of the plaintiffs, an elderly Jerusalem resident and victim of a terror attack on Ben Yehuda Street in the same city in 1997, which caused him brain damage and left him partially disabled. “I am against the American government indirectly financing Hamas — the very people who try to kill me,” Hersh said by telephone, adding that he differentiates between “humanitarian aid for the Palestinian people and supporting political agendas.”
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the Tel Aviv-based director of Shurat HaDin told The Times of Israel that the State Department and USAID were particularly “lax” in requiring the Palestinians to “utilize bank accounts and other transfer methods that ensure transparency.” US funds have been flowing to the terror groups as a result of this noncompliance, Darshan-Leitner added.
“USAID’s funding of the PA, for example, is partially distributed to Gaza, where Hamas employees are paid, or Fatah, which still has anti-Israel elements in its charter,” Darshan-Leitner said. ”The American people are opposed to terror and do not want to fund it via their taxes.”
Karen Bell Eisenberg, an American-Israeli who lives outside Bethlehem in the West Bank, put it this way: “I don’t begrudge Palestinian aid money. But I’m tired of my tax money [she works for an American company and pays taxes in the US] being used to fund the very people who are trying to kill me.”
The State Department, under the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, is prohibited from providing “material support” to banned terrorist groups. Under that law, the State Department is required to certify that the Palestinian government is committed to peace and coexistence with Israel before distributing funds.
According to the advocacy group’s estimates, since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the State Department, via USAID, has given over $4 billion to Palestinians, with portions of that funding illegally falling into the hands of terrorists. Over the last four fiscal years, the average aid package has been roughly $600 million per year, compounded by the $200 million or so given annually to the United Nations Refugee Worker’s Administration (UNRWA).
The suit asks the federal court to review the conduct of the State Department and the safeguards on funds being distributed by USAID, and seeks to suspend future American aid to the PA and UNRWA until all the Congressional regulations and reporting requirements are fully complied with.
Is your state a “death spiral” state?
Are private sector workers are outnumbered by folks dependent on government in your state? If so don’t buy a house in that state, rent.
The list from the worst, New Mexico with a 1.53 ratio to Ohio with a 1.00 ratio:
New Mexico, Mississippi, California, Alabama, Maine, New York, South Carolina, Kentucky,Illinois, Hawaii, Ohio.
Forbes:
Thinking about buying a house? Or a municipal bond? Be careful where you put your capital. Don’t put it in a state at high risk of a fiscal tailspin.
Eleven states make our list of danger spots for investors. They can look forward to a rising tax burden, deteriorating state finances and an exodus of employers.
If your career takes you to Los Angeles or Chicago, don’t buy a house. Rent.
If you have money in municipal bonds, clean up the portfolio. Sell holdings from the sick states and reinvest where you’re less likely to get clipped. Nebraska and Virginia are unlikely to give their bondholders a Greek haircut. California and New York are comparatively risky.
Two factors determine whether a state makes this elite list of fiscal hellholes. The first is whether it has more takers than makers. A taker is someone who draws money from the government, as an employee, pensioner or welfare recipient. A maker is someone gainfully employed in the private sector.
Let us give those takers the benefit of our sympathy and assume that every single one of them is a deserving soul. This person is either genuinely needy or a dedicated public servant or the recipient of a well-earned pension.
But what happens when these needy types outnumber the providers? Taxes get too high. Prosperous citizens decamp. Employers decamp. That just makes matters worse for the taxpayers left behind.
Let’s say you are a software entrepreneur with 100 on your payroll. If you stay in San Francisco, your crew will support 139 takers. In Texas, they would support only 82. Austin looks very attractive.
Ranked on the taker/maker ratio, our 11 death spiral states range from New Mexico, with 1.53 takers for every maker, down to Ohio, with a 1-to-1 ratio.
The taker count is the number of state and local government workers plus the number of people on Medicaid plus 1 for each $100,000 of unfunded pension liabilities. Sources: the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and a study of state worker pensions done in 2009 by two academics, Joshua Rauh and Rovert Novy-Marx. Professor Rauh estimates that the shortage in pension funding is on average a third higher today.
The second element in the death spiral list is a scorecard of state credit-worthiness done by Conning & Co., a money manager known for its measures of risk in insurance company portfolios. Conning’s analysis focuses more on dollars than body counts. Its formula downgrades states for large debts, an uncompetitive business climate, weak home prices and bad trends in employment.
Conning rates North Dakota the safest state to lend money to, Connecticut the most hazardous. A state qualifies for the Forbes death spiral list if its taker/maker ratio exceeds 1.0 and it resides in the bottom half of Conning’s ranking.
Some political strategists do get it…
Jay Heine is one that has always “gotten it”.
Political Strategist Jay Heine:
You want to know why we lost ground in 2006, 2008 and 2012? We elect/select candidates that tell us what we want to hear, who are “electable”, but not trustworthy. They get into office and they follow the crowd. The most successful office holders are those that stand on principle and are unwavering. It doesn’t matter whether they are conservative or liberal, it matters whether they do what they say they are going to do. If they don’t they alienate the electorate. And all the Republicans who are about to sell us out on the fiscal cliff are making the same error.
Euro zone falls into second recession since 2009
Because central planning by internationalist socialists works so well…
It works well at chasing wealth and jobs out of a country.
The euro zone debt crisis dragged the bloc into its second recession since 2009 in the third quarter despite modest growth in Germany and France, data showed on Thursday.
The French and German economies both managed 0.2 percent growth in the July-to-September period but their resilience could not save the 17-nation bloc from contraction as the likes of The Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Austria shrank.
Economic output in the euro zone fell 0.1 percent in the quarter, following a 0.2 percent drop in the second quarter.
Those two quarters of contraction put the euro zone’s 9.4 trillion euro ($12 trillion) economy back into recession, although Italy and Spain have been contracting for a year already and Greece is suffering an outright depression.
A rebound in Europe is still far off. The debt crisis that began in Greece in late 2009 is still reverberating around the globe and holding back a lasting recovery.
Analysts said even the euro zone’s top two economies were likely to succumb in the final three months of the year.
Supreme Court to reexamine Obamacare
The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a federal appeals court to reconsider Liberty University’s legal argument that President Obama’s health care law violates the school’s religious freedom.
The case will be returned to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.
“Today’s ruling breathes new life into our challenge to ObamaCare,” Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which filed the suit on behalf of the school, said Monday. “Our fight against ObamaCare is far from over.”
A federal judge in 2010 rejected Liberty’s claim, and the appeals court later ruled the lawsuit was premature and failed to address the substance of the school’s arguments.
The Supreme Court upheld the health care law in June 2012.
In the high court’s 5-4 decision, the justices used lawsuits filed by 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business to uphold the health care law, then rejected all other pending appeals, including Liberty’s.
The school is challenging the constitutionality of the part of the law that mandates employers provide insurance and whether forcing insurers to pay for birth control is unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause.
The appeals court ruled last year the Anti-Injunction Act barred it from addressing the merits in the case. The act blocks any challenge to a “tax” before a taxpayer pays it — in this case referring to the penalties associated with failing to obtain health insurance.
However, the Supreme Court’s ruling stated the act did not serve as a barrier to lawsuits challenging the health care law. On that basis, Liberty University immediately petitioned the court to allow it to renew its original case.
Political Arena 