The Sunday 'Report;' 08/05/2012 [Part #1]

What The National Pamphleteers Don't Report:
[Any articles on investing MUST NOT be considered an endorsement; the reader MUST DO their individual due diligence!]

(That’s What WE Heard, Senator)
by Ben Crystal,
Personal Liberty Digest
August 4, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jS44N1XDQLA
http://personalliberty.com/2012/08/04/thats-what-we-heard-senator/

8 Outperforming Dividend Stocks Undervalued By The Graham Number
by 'Kapitall,'
seekingalpha.com
August 4, 2012
     Do you consider yourself a value investor? If so, we ran a screen looking for potentially undervalued dividend stocks you may be interested in.  We began by screening for dividend stocks: those paying dividend yields above 2% and sustainable payout ratios below 50%. We then screened for those that have outperformed the market over the last quarter, with quarterly performance above 10%. Finally, we screened that universe for those that appear undervalued relative to the Graham Number. The Graham Number is a measure of maximum fair value created by the "godfather of value investing" Benjamin Graham.
It is based off of a stock's EPS and book value per share (BVPS).
Graham Number = SQRT(22.5 x TTM EPS x MRQ BVPS)
The equation assumes [....]
http://seekingalpha.com/article/781231-8-outperforming-dividend-stocks-undervalued-by-the-graham-number?source=email_investing_income&ifp=0

A College Reinvents Teacher Education
Under pressure, Hillsdale improves its already excellent program and shows that accreditation doesn’t matter if you’re good.
by Daniel Coupland,
popecenter.org
July 26, 2012
    In 2007, Michigan’s Department of Education changed its policy to require national accreditation for all teacher certification programs in the state. Hillsdale’s program had been certified by the state for decades, but administrators concluded that it would be wasteful to dedicate precious resources to an accreditation process that lacked both value and credibility.
    Instead of closing the school’s Education Department, Hillsdale’s administration recognized that teacher certification is not the same as teacher education. The college could still produce smart, dedicated teachers for America’s classrooms, even if the students wouldn’t have an immediate path to certification. Hillsdale decided to continue its program and invite schools unrestricted by the burden of certification requirements to hire its graduates. The professors in the Education Department embraced this new freedom and began to think about what teacher education could be without the ideological straightjacket (i.e., “standards”) from the state. We began our revision by identifying what kind of preparation was truly important for future teachers. First, we concluded that teachers [....]
http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=2718

Bishop Pockets Congressional Pay Hikes AFTER Voting Against Them

Altschuler says incumbent should refund taxpayers for every raise he voted against
by Randy Altschuler for Congress.
Undated Campaign Material
    Tim Bishop’s penchant for publicly denouncing congressional pay hikes and then still pocketing them after the fact is emblematic of how out-of-touch longtime incumbent Washington politicians like Bishop have become, charged self-made businessman and Republican challenger Randy Altschuler today. When Bishop was sworn into Congress in January of 2003, the annual salary for a Member of Congress was $154,700. Since then, it has been increased five different times and now stands at $174,000 per year – a gaudy 12.5% pay increase funded by taxpayers who, according to the Federal Reserve, have seen their own net worth’s decline by 39% in just the last three years. Bishop has voted against each of the pay raises – bragging about it in the press to curry favor with voters – but then quietly pocketed the increases each time.
    “With over 300,000 New Yorkers having lost their jobs [....]
http://bishopsfamilybusiness.com/bishop-pockets-congressional-pay-hikes-after-voting-against-them/

Bucky Balls; Bucky Cubes
from the Corporate Website,
Buckyballs.com
(Undated)You might have heard there's a problem with our products...
THAT IS NOT TRUE.
    The government is saying they should be recalled because children occasionally get hold of them. That is unfair. We only market to adults. We are vigorously defending our right to market the products you love.
Let them know how you feel about this: Comment on Facebook; send a tweet; tell your friends; complain loudly.
http://www.getbuckyballs.com/
[Additional info on 'balls']http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/07/30/ceo_of_buckyballs_save_our_balls

Cowardly House Republicans Refuse To Defund ObamaCare

by 'Coach,'
exposeobama.com
July 30, 2012
    Determined as always to travel the safest,least contentious path to their own re-election,House Speaker John Boehner,Majority leader Eric Cantor and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy have decided that the Party will do NOTHING to defund ObamaCare when current,federal funding legislation expires on September 30th.
    Thirty times over the past two years the House has voted to repeal the President’s “Affordable” Care Act. Of course,on each occasion Republican leaders were secure in the knowledge that the measure had NO chance of passing the Democrat controlled Senate or collecting the signature of Barack Obama. And this was of supreme importance to these stout-hearted,GOP Representatives as it meant none of the scheduled votes would raise the ire of the Party’s most feared and potent foe—the dreaded national media.
    For were the landmark legislation of their Marxist icon to REALLY be threatened by some Republican scheme,the New York Times and its left-wing colleagues might spend the rest of these pre-election months trying to discredit Republican candidates with all manner of vile half-truths and dishonest reporting,something the media would NEVER do without good cause! Yet weak knees on the part of Republican leadership should come as no surprise to interested conservatives as we were warned by [....]
http://www.exposeobama.com/2012/07/30/cowardly-house-republicans-refuse-to-defund-obamacare/


De-Bushing Romney
Mitt needs to explain to voters why he’s not Bush 2.0.
by Jonah Goldberg,
nationalreview.com 
August 3, 2012
    This is shaping up to be the second election in a row that’s about someone who isn’t on the ballot: George W. Bush. In 2008, Barack Obama won in no small part by turning the election into a referendum on President Bush and by claiming that a John McCain presidency would amount to a third Bush term. Since then, Obama’s presidency has been one long run-on sentence of blaming his predecessor, only occasionally punctuated with complaints about Europe, ATMs, the GOP Congress, Fox News, and tsunamis. Like a general fighting the last war, Obama is going with what’s worked for him in the past. And the thing is, it might work for him in the future.
    Whatever character flaws Obama’s relentless buck-passing might reveal, and whether or not it’s fair to Bush, the simple fact is that it may well be good politics. The Obama campaign has spent millions on polls and market research. If Bush-bashing was really hurting Obama’s numbers, he’d stop doing it. Instead, he relentlessly insists in ads and speeches that Mitt Romney represents a return to the Bush years.
“If you agree with the approach I just described, if you want to give the policies of the last decade another try, then you should vote for Mr. Romney,”
Obama declared in his June 14 speech in Cleveland.
    Romney hasn’t helped matters. When asked by NBC’s Brian Williams to explain how his plan differs from Bush’s policies, Romney offered up familiar talking points that could have come from [....]
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313043/de-bushing-romney-jonah-goldberg

Dividends On Sale:
The Big Drop In Bristol-Myers Is Worth Buying

by 'Hawkinvest,'
seekingalpha.com
August 3, 2012
    Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) shares were recently making new 52-week highs at just over $36 per share, but that all changed after the company announced disappointing news on a hepatitis drug candidate called INX-189, that it acquired when it bought Inhibitex for about $2.5 billion. This candidate was in phase 2 clinical trials when safety issues developed and caused the drug maker to suspend the study. Investors saw this as good news for Gilead Sciences (GILD) which shot up about 7%, since it has a potential hepatitis treatment that is further along in development, (now in phase 3 trials).
    If that was not enough bad news for Bristol-Myers shareholders in one day, it was also reported that a Bristol-Myers executive was charged with insider trading. While this only appears to [....]
http://seekingalpha.com/article/780071-dividends-on-sale-the-big-drop-in-bristol-myers-is-worth-buying?source=email_investing_income&ifp=0

Election 2012: Missouri Senate

Missouri: McCaskill Still Trails, But Closes Gap
by Scott Rasmussen,
rasmussenreports.com
August 1, 2012
Missouri: Romney 50%, Obama 44%
55% Favor Repeal of Health Care Law
Democrats’ Baldwin Now Leads GOP Pack in Wisconsin Senate Race
    Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill still trails her Republican challengers, but by smaller margins compared to a month ago. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Missouri Voters shows State Treasurer Sarah Steelman and retired businessman John Brunner each leading the incumbent 49% to 43%. If the race is between [....]
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_senate_elections/missouri/election_2012_missouri_senate

EPA Violates Private Property Rights

Stephen F. Hayward
realverse.com
July 21, 2012
Kirby Center Lecture Series with “The EPA and Private Property”
    The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) desire to regulate the American people seems to never end. In the name of ‘protecting the environment’, the EPA has crossed the line one to many times.
Its newest objective involves preventing private citizens and businesses from using water, resting on their own land, the way they see fit. The Clean Water Act (CWA) of 1972 made it unlawful to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters, unless a permit was obtained from the EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). But this wasn’t enough power for the EPA. Early this year, the EPA issued draft guidance on “Identifying Waters Protected by the Clean Water Act.” Through this act the EPA is attempting to drastically expand the powers given to it by the CWA by trying to regulate ditches and gullies on private property arguing that non-point sources are the cause of pollution in navigable bodies of water. [....]
http://www.realverse.com/epa-violates-private-property-rights/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOp2LuCSoy8&feature=player_embedded

Gunning For Tyranny

by Ben Crystal,
Personal Liberty Digest
July 31, 2012
    Late last week, as Democrats and their media minions jockeyed for position at the front of the macabre post-Aurora-massacre line of people who reflexively oppose the Bill of Rights, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) grabbed his moment in the glare. It’s well known that the space between Schumer and a working camera is far more dangerous than any place frequented by people with firearms, and Schumer’s latest publicly expressed folly was hardly surprising under the circumstances. A tragedy had occurred; and come hell or high water, Schumer was loath to miss a chance to use the coffins of the victims as a soapbox for yet another mind-numbing liberal pronouncement on the dangers of law-abiding citizens owning firearms. Worse yet, Schumer and a number of his fellow Senators were loath to miss an opportunity to force their anti-Constitutional criteria on a citizenry already suffering their presence in the halls of Congress.
Thus did Schumer proclaim:
(The) basic complaint is that the Chuck Schumers of the world want to take away your guns. I think it would be smart for those of us who want rational gun control to make it known that that’s not true at all.
     Personally, I think it would be smart for all of us to recognize [....]
http://personalliberty.com/2012/07/31/gunning-for-tyranny/?eiid=

Hillary Pelted with Tomatoes in Egypt

by Tim Young,
absoluterights.com 
Jul 16, 2012
    Just like the bad performers of old, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her motorcade were pelted with rotten tomatoes driving through the streets of Egypt. You might recall that the United States has claimed part of the responsibility of that country having democracy now...well this is the thanks we get.
This and the fact that the country could very well be under militant muslim rule. So I guess Hillary was lucky that it was just produce that was thrown at her motorcade. The crowd also chanted "Monica, Monica," and "Leave Clinton," showing that not only [....]
http://www.absoluterights.com/hillary-pelted-with-tomatoes-in-egypt/

How the Death of the Landline is Beneficial
by 'Above Average' Joe
absoluterights.com 
Jul 27, 2012
The landline is dead.
    Let’s face it, in this technological age the information of the world is literally at your fingertips. This has led to the majority of consumers cutting ties with their landlines and sailing into a sea free of wires. What does this mean for the practical minded survivalist? To me it means several new cubby holes for me to store things in.
    When I moved into my new home I quickly realized that I am in no way going to have a landline, it is an extra cost that is of little benefit to me. As I was painting my home and preparing to move in i realized that these neatly placed holes [....]
http://www.absoluterights.com/how-the-death-of-the-landline-is-beneficial/

Reforming Regulation: Some Sensible Steps
by James Gattuso

heritage.org
July 25, 2012
    More Like the weather, regulation is something that everyone likes to complain about, but nobody does anything about it. However, the House of Representatives this week plans to take up over half a dozen measures to reduce red tape. This comes in addition to last year’s passage of measures to require congressional approval of new major regulations (the REINS Act[1]) and to update rulemaking processes (the Regulatory Accountability Act[2]). The measures being considered this week are hardly the stuff of revolution, and few will make their way onto bumper stickers. But they do represent common-sense changes that promise to help limit unnecessary burdens.
A Broad Swathe
There is little doubt that the burden of federal red tape has been growing in recent years—and growing fast. According to the most recent Heritage Foundation analysis, 106 major new regulations—each imposing $100 million or more in new costs on Americans—were adopted in the first three years of President Obama’s tenure.[3] That compares to 28 during the first three years under President Bush. In dollar terms, the acceleration is even [....]
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/07/how-to-reduce-red-tape-and-reform-government-regulation?utm_source=FMF_080112VersionA&utm_medium=Email

Almost Union Free: ACLU, Union Caught in Reform Kill Plot
by John Ransom,
townhall.com
July 30, 2012    Emails obtained by Townhall Finance show that a recent lawsuit filed by the ACLU in attempt to stop school reform measures in Colorado was really the brainchild of the American Federation of Teachers, the statewide teachers’ union affiliate of the AFL-CIO. In an email to Smith, Smith’s union capos, Courtney Smith and Jennie Peek-Dunstone [eye roll], George Merritt, a senior strategist with OnSight Communications, a local political consulting firm, writes about the ACLU’s decision to sue the district: “I think this is another scenario where we need to keep our cards close to the vest and let the ACLU do what it does. So far, this is playing out exactly as you all planned, so congrats.”[Editor’s emphasis]
    The implication is that the ACLU and the local union have cooperated jointly in an attempt to kill school reform measures, despite disavowals by the union’s president Brenda Smith. A substantial portion of Ms. Smith salary and the salaries of her union staffers were paid [....]
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/07/30/almost_union_free_aclu_union_caught_in_reform_kill_plot/page/full/

Family Affair: [Payments to family members by Congresspersons; by state] by CREW, citizensforethics.org 2008, 2010 election cycles EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

    This report marks the first-ever complete study of how members of the House of Representatives use their positions to benefit themselves and their families. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) undertook a similar study in 2007, but it was not all-inclusive. Expanding on our earlier work, for this 2012 edition we reviewed every sitting member of the House.
    CREW’s investigation uncovered 248 members meriting inclusion in this in-depth compilation, which covers the 2008 and 2010 election cycles.
CREW’s key findings:
 82 members (40 Democrats and 42 Republicans) paid family members through their congressional offices, campaign committees and political action committees (PACs);
 44 members (20 Democrats and 24 Republicans) have family members who lobby or are
employed in government affairs;
 90 members (42 Democrats and 48 Republicans) have paid a family business, employer, or associated nonprofit;
 20 members (13 Democrats and 7 Republicans) used their campaign money to contribute to a family member’s political campaign;
 14 members (6 Democrats and 8 Republicans) charged interest on personal loans they made to their own campaigns;
 38 members (24 Democrats and 14 Republicans) earmarked to a family business, employer, or associated nonprofit.
    There are, of course, members who [....]
http://www.citizensforethics.org/page/-/PDFs/Reports/Family_Affair_House_2012_CREW.pdf?nocdn=1

ICYMI: Woman Around Town: Wendy Long- In a New York State of Mind

by Robin Weaver,
nygop.org
July 23, 2012
    Still fresh from her June 26 Republican primary victory, Wendy Long greets me at the door of her Carnegie Hill apartment. Along with Rosie, her family's yellow Labrador, she welcomes me into her inviting and tastefully decorated living room. Noticeable on the coffee table is Churchill biographer Martin Gilbert's book, Churchill.
    Winston Churchill is worthy inspiration as Wendy challenges incumbent U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the November election. As a Democrat, Gillibrand has a built-in advantage given New York's demographics and voter registration. While Wendy acknowledges that New York is indeed a "blue state," she points to the fact that Republicans can win in New York citing Reagan, D'Amato and Pataki as examples. Before the campaign kicks up in full gear, I asked Wendy to share her thoughts on why she chose to run at this time and what she sees as the issues of most importance to New York voters.
    As Wendy explains, "I have a strong conviction that we are on the wrong track. Government is way too intrusive. We need less government intrusion, lower taxes and less regulation, to create jobs and opportunity for everyone. People should be able to decide how best to spend their money and raise their families and run their businesses. They should have a range of affordable health-care choices, not central planning by the government. This is a message that resonates not only with Republicans, but with many Democrats and Independents too."
    Both Wendy's background and life experiences have honed her philosophy on government and the role of the Constitution. Wendy grew up in New Hampshire (the "Live Free or Die State"), but has spent the last 14 years living in Manhattan with her husband Arthur Long, a life-long New Yorker and a partner at Davis, Polk and Wardwell. The couple has two children: a son Arthur, 12, and a daughter Mado, 9.
Graduating from Dartmouth during the Reagan years, Wendy worked [....]
http://www.nygop.org/page/32
Part #2, to follow....