Posts
Our House Divided Against Labor
by John ransom,
townhall.com
September 15, 2012
Their hunger can’t be satisfied.
In a country where government spending now makes up 40 percent of our GDP annually and where our national debt is 106 percent of our GDP, public employees are helping out their fellow citizens during tough economic times by demanding a larger slice of the shrinking national pie.
In California, the state public pension plan is stiffing private investors- even ones they just recently borrowed from to make up for poor investment performance- in order to make sure that government employees are golden. In another case in California, the Poway Unified School District is borrowing $105 million to build schools, with promise to pay back close to a billion dollars at the end of the 40-year loan period. “Last August, district officials obtained $105 million for school construction with the promise to repay investors $981 million under long-term financing known as capital appreciation bonds, or CABs,” writes the U-T San Diego News. “The deal prevents the district from paying anything on the bond for 20 years as interest compounds, and requires [....]
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/09/15/our_house_divided_against_labor/page/full/
Video: obama's Pool Of Dead People
exposeobama.com
September 14, 2012
Death is personified as a black-robed figure walking the Earth robbing the souls of the living. Oddly,we have sort of a reversal of this figure in one Barack Hussein Obama,who on the outside is portrayed as a beacon of life,but it seems wherever he walks leaves a trail of dead. Case in point:Bill Gwatney and Stephanie Tubbs,delegates in 2008 planning to vote for Hillary Clinton. One murdered,the other suffering an “aneurism.” These two simply form the peak of this mountain of death,Obama’s alleged lovers at Trinity United Church of Christ all dying within a six-week period and forming the perfidious mount of Obama’s Death Mountain. And this is only one mountain in a mountain range of death and destruction left by the Destroyer-in-Chief.
http://www.exposeobama.com/2012/09/14/video-obamas-pool-of-dead-people/
http://youtu.be/b8qKa0YJS-4
From Spain To Libya: Why U.S. Forces Are Vital
by Luke Coffey,
heritage.org
September 13, 2012
After the treacherous murder in Libya of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens earlier this week, it was announced that a U.S. Marine Corp Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST), consisting of approximately 50 specially trained Marines, would be deployed to Tripoli to enhance security at the U.S. embassy there.
From where did these U.S. Marines deploy? Not from a USMC base on the east coast of the United Sates, but from the U.S. Naval Station in Rota, Spain—as the crow flies, only a couple of hours away from Tripoli by plane. This once again proves the importance of having robust U.S. military capability prepositioned and forward located in Europe.
As this case demonstrates, one of the most obvious benefits of having U.S. troops in Europe is its geographical proximity to some of the most dangerous and contested regions of the world. This proximity of U.S. forces gives policymakers the ability to respond quickly to a crisis.
To the south of Europe—from the eastern Atlantic Ocean to the Middle East—is an arc of instability. As demonstrated by events over the past 18 months, and accentuated by the events of the last week, this region is experiencing increasing instability that can have deadly consequences.
As Heritage analysis has previously pointed out: [....]
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/09/13/from-spain-to-libya-why-u-s-troops-in-europe-remain-vital/?roi=echo3-13118699548-9693698-dc1cd550fe0c3170b0d83dab93d7a7ac&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
barackingham Palace Indicates Kathaleen Sebelius Won't Be Punished
Staff Report,
foxnews.com
September 14, 2012
The White House indicated that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would probably not be punished, after federal investigators determined she had violated the law when she campaigned earlier this year for President Obama.
Sebelius broke the law by making "extemporaneous partisan remarks" during a speech in February at a Human Rights Campaign Event in Charlotte, N.C., according to the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). She made the comments in the city that would later host the Democratic National Convention.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz explained in a statement that the administration has already taken action on the matter, though, putting Sebelius through training and making sure taxpayers were reimbursed. [....]
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/13/white-house-indicates-sebelius-wont-be-punished-over-hatch-act-violation/#ixzz27G3Jkvtp
Lots Of Recoverable Oil, But One Non-recoverable president
by John Ransom,
townhall.com
September 14, 2012
There was a time in this country when ordinary people understood the connection between high gas prices and a sluggish economy. The pain they felt wasn’t just at the pump, but also at the office and in the warehouse.
Higher prices for gas meant job insecurity, slashing department budgets and less money at bonus time, if bonus time actually occurred at all.
There was time in this country when even government economists and network journalists knew this fact.
Over the last decade the biggest problems in our economy has been massive new spending by state, local and the federal government and the lack of stable, low prices for energy.
After adjusting for inflation, oil prices reached a low of $16.80 in today’s dollars in 1998. Since then, with temporary lulls due to a slow economy, the price of oil has marched upward until it now stands at $98 per barrel.
The last time we saw this type of oil price action [....]
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/09/14/lots_of_recoverable_oil_but_one_nonrecoverable_president/page/full/
obama Fighting The Yuppie Factor
From the price of arugula to vacations in Marbella, the obamas are the perfect yuppie couple.
by Victor Davis Hanson,
nationalreview.com
August 13, 2010
In October 1987, Newsweek ran a cover story on would-be presidential candidate George H. W. Bush with the blaring headline “Fighting the Wimp Factor.”
That Bush was a World War II combat pilot, well over six feet, athletic, and a genuinely nice guy mattered little. Apparently, the fact that he had been Reagan’s subordinate for eight years, sounded nasal at times, and lapsed into occasional stuffy metaphors created an impression — fueled by everyone from the Newsweek editors to Jimmy Carter — that Bush was a wimp. He dispelled that for a time in 1988 (opponent Michael Dukakis, awkwardly perched in an Abrams tank, helped), but down-home good ol’ boy Bill Clinton exploited the preppy charge again in 1992, to some effect. Stereotypes, in other words, die hard.
For Obama, the stereotype is one of a distant, cool, rather narcissistic yuppie. Yuppism, remember, is not definable entirely by income or class. Rather, it is a late-twentieth-century cultural phenomenon of self-absorbed young professionals, earning good pay, enjoying the cultural attractions of sophisticated urban life and thought, and generally out of touch with, indeed antithetical to, most of the challenges and concerns of a far less well-off and more parochial Middle America.For the yuppie male, a well-paying job [....]
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/243667/obama-fighting-yuppie-factor-victor-davis-hanson#
Depending On Deptendency
by Dr Thomas Sowell,
nationalreview.com
September 13, 2012
The theme that most seemed to rouse the enthusiasm of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was that we are all responsible for one another — and that Republicans don’t want to help the poor, the sick, and the helpless.
All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts. Yet the notion that people who prefer economic decisions to be made by individuals in the market are not as compassionate as people who prefer those decisions to be made collectively by politicians is seldom even thought of as a belief that should be checked against facts. Nor is this notion confined to Democrats in America today. Belief in the superior compassion of the political Left is a worldwide phenomenon that goes back at least as far as the 18th century. But in all that time, and in all those places, there has been little, if any, effort on the left to check this crucial assumption against facts. When an empirical study of the actual behavior of American conservatives and liberals was published in 2006, it turned out that conservatives donated a larger amount of money, and a higher percentage of their incomes (which were slightly lower than liberal incomes), to philanthropic activities. Conservatives also donated more [....]
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/316724/depending-dependency-thomas-sowell
WMO Takes World Record Away From Libya
by Meghan Evans, Meterologist
accuweather.com
September 16, 2012
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has disclaimed the world record high temperature in Libya. El Azizia, Libya, supposedly recorded a high temperature of 136.4 degrees F (58 degrees C) on Sept. 13, 1922, and this temperature has often been cited as the highest temperature ever recorded in the world. An investigation [....]
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/wmo-takes-world-record-away-fr/73439Ford Mustang Station Wagon History
by Daniel Fehn,
timelessrides.com
July 18, 2012
I stumbled upon RK Motors Charlotte (My favorite classic car dealership) selling a 1965 Ford Mustang Station Wagon a few months back, and it really peaked my curiosity. I knew from the top of my head that Ford has never officially built a Mustang station wagon, but I wanted to know more about the historical aspect of this unique car. But first let's talk about this model I found for sale, which was built off a Mustang wagon model actually built in 1965, and ties to the early history of the Mustang.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=p0L5vXe_JII
This Mustang wagon was built by Joe Kamp, who based it off a wagon that was featured on the cover of the October 1966 Car & Driver magazine. The featured mustang in this magazine was built by Intermeccanica in Italy, with the idea being born from Barney Clark (an advertising executive tied to Ford), and Robert Cumberford (a car designer who had a relationship with Frank Reisner at Intermeccanica). They had planned on [....]
http://www.timelessrides.com/blog/automotive-history/ford-mustang-station-wagon
Aspiring Jihadist Arrested In Chicago
by Ben West,
STRATfor.com
September 20, 2012
On the evening of Sept. 15, Adel Daoud parked a Jeep Cherokee loaded with a large explosive device outside a bar in downtown Chicago. As he walked down the street away from the vehicle, he activated a trigger to detonate the bomb. The bomb, however, was inert, and FBI agents positioned nearby immediately took Daoud, an 18-year-old from the Chicago suburbs, into custody.
Daoud had been the subject of a four-month FBI investigation and sting operation, during which undercover agents had been communicating with Daoud and recording his statements. Sting operations have become the tactic of choice for the FBI and other U.S. law enforcement organizations when investigating would-be jihadists. As U.S. law enforcement agencies perfect their sting operations to identify aspiring jihadists and prevent attacks, jihadists, too, can be expected to innovate and evolve alternate means of communication and vetting of those with whom they collaborate.
Details of Daoud's Case
Daoud was a typical aspirational jihadist. He read Inspire magazine (an online jihadist publication), watched jihadist training videos, cited arguments from the late Anwar al-Awlaki, participated in [....]
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/aspiring-jihadist-arrested-chicago?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120920&utm_term=sweekly&utm_content=readmore&elq=4cbb6fc552f94facbe18cf3227731f1f
Tremendous T-Bird
by Power Block TV,
powerblocktv.com
September 17, 2012
They don’t get much nicer then this! This weekend on PowerBlock, Courtney welcomes the builder of this gorgeous ’61 Thunderbird. It was completely customized by Chris Sutton and his guys from Street Rod Garage in Grant, Alabama. You may have seen Chris and his team volunteering on Chad’s ’55 Handyman wagon on Search & Restore. The T-Bird was a 2-year resto for father and son owners Keith and Vic Jimenez. It was actually Keith’s car in high school. It has a Street Rod Garage air ride chassis, an all-aluminum LSX engine making about 400 horsepower, custom Boze alloy wheels and Nitto Tires. The Austrian Beige leather interior [....]
http://blog.powerblocktv.com/?p=5794
Video: Allen West's Five Adjectives Describing obama's Ambassador
http://youtu.be/gLk9wTEa1-k
Ann Romney Blasts The GOP Establishment Critics
by Rush Limbaugh,
rushlimbaugh.com
September 21, 2012
[Radio Transcript]
RUSH: I like this next sound bite. It's Ann Romney, and she is responding to the David Brookses and the Bill Kristols and the Peggy Noonans, all of these sideline commentators who are telling Mitt how to do it, telling him what he's doing wrong, when he shouldn't speak up and when he should speak up and how his campaign doesn't know what it's doing and so forth. Michelle Malkin had a great, great rant on this the other night on Hannity called the chin pullers. Pulling their chins, thinking deeply about all the cosmic ways that Romney's blowing the election and so forth. You know, it's one thing to be ripped and criticized by these Democrats, but you sideline armchair generals, dial it back here. I think Ann Romney said this very well.
MRS. ROMNEY: Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it, get in the ring. This is hard. And, you know, it's an important thing that we're doing right now, and it's an important election, and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt's qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.
RUSH: I think she's right. She's blasting these establishment types sitting at their keyboards and their think tanks. What she's basically saying is, "We are trying to save the country here. This is not just the next election in the schedule. We're trying to save the country here." He's drawing huge crowds. There was a dinner last night at [....]http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/09/21/i_like_it_ann_romney_blasts_the_gop_establishment_critics
What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week's Key Polls
by Scott Rasmussen,
rasmussenreports.com
September 22, 2012
Mitt Romney’s newly aired comment that 47% of Americans are dependent on the government and locked in to vote for President Obama has prompted debate all week. Scott Rasmussen argues in his latest newspaper column that Romney’s remark like Obama’s notorious comment about small-town voters bitterly clinging to their guns and religion highlights the condescending attitude the political elites have towards voters. “If he wins the White House, the only way for Romney to succeed will be to side with the nation's voters and throw out the club in Washington,” Scott writes. “That will be great news for the country but bad news for political insiders on both sides of the partisan aisle.” [....]
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/weekly_updates/what_they_told_us_reviewing_last_week_s_key_polls2
Agricultural Subsidies
Chris Edwards,
downsizinggovernment.org
June, 2009
The U.S. Department of Agriculture distributes between $10 billion and $30 billion in cash subsidies to farmers and owners of farmland each year.1 The particular amount depends on market prices for crops, the level of disaster payments, and other factors. More than 90 percent of agriculture subsidies go to farmers of five crops—wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, and cotton.2 More than 800,000 farmers and landowners receive subsidies, but the payments are heavily tilted toward the largest producers.3
In addition to routine cash subsidies, the USDA provides subsidized crop insurance, marketing support, and other services to farm businesses. The USDA also performs extensive agricultural research and collects statistical data for the industry. These indirect subsidies and services cost taxpayers about $5 billion each year, putting total farm support at between $15 billion and $35 billion annually.
Agriculture has long attracted federal government support. One of the first subsidy programs for agriculture was the Morrill Act of 1862, which established the land-grant colleges. That was followed by the Hatch Act of 1887, which funded agricultural research, and by the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, which funded agricultural education. In 1916, the Federal Farm Loan Act created cooperative “land banks” to provide loans to farmers. That developed into today’s Farm Credit System, which is a 50-state network of financial cooperatives with assets of $90 billion.
Nonetheless, federal subsidies to agriculture were still quite small going into the 1920s. The USDA was focused on producing statistics, funding research, and responding to problems such as pest infestations. But calls for direct subsidies to farmers began to intensify, and in 1929 the Agricultural Marketing Act created the Federal Farm Board, which tried to raise commodity prices by stockpiling production. After spending $500 million, this first major farm boondoggle was abolished in 1933.
A large array of farm subsidies were enacted during the 1930s, beginning with the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. New Deal programs included commodity price supports and production controls, marketing orders to limit competition, import barriers, and crop insurance. The particular features of farm programs have changed over the past seven decades, but the central planning philosophy behind them has not. While many other industries have been deregulated, agricultural policies remain stuck in the past, despite the high costs and ongoing economic damage.
Between the 1940s and the 1980s, Congress occasionally considered farm reforms, usually when commodity prices were high, but then it reverted to subsidy increases when market conditions were less favorable.4 In the 1980s, the Reagan administration proposed major cuts to farm subsidies, but farm finances were in bad shape at the time, which prompted Congress to increase farm support, not reduce it.
Agriculture subsidies have never made economic sense, but since the 1930s farmers have resisted reductions to subsidies, and they have generally held sway in Congress. While farmers represent a smaller share of the population today than in the 1930s, the farm lobby is as strong as ever. One reason is that farm-state legislators have co-opted the support of urban legislators, who seek increased subsidies in agriculture bills for programs such as food stamps. Legislators in favor of environmental subsidies have also been co-opted as supporters of farm bills. As a result, many legislators have an interest in increasing the USDA’s budget, but few come to the defense of taxpayers who foot the bills.
In 1996, Congress finally enacted some pro-market agriculture reforms under the “Freedom to Farm” law. The law allowed farmers [....]
http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/agriculture/subsidies
The Political Odyssey of Spiro T. Agnew
This article first appeared in the August 18, 1972 in National Review
by M. Stanton Evans,
nationalreview.com
August 18, 1972
For many American conservatives, the past few years have not been especially happy ones. Although public opinion on various crucial issues has been drifting steadily to the right and the liberal-welfare voting blocs have fallen into disarray, conservatives have yet to realize the political gains which these developments seemed to promise. At a time when a number of spokesmen on the Right expected to savor the fruits of victory and enjoy long-denied political power, they have found themselves on issue after issue quite stunningly repudiated — the cherished positions of weary decades of pain and struggle neatly vaporized in mere months.
Most of this has occurred, of course, at the hands of a Republican Administration elected with the backing of these very conservatives, which has caused the more intransigent among them to seek new options. But looking across the partisan aisle, they see an alternative sufficient to make them blanch with horror: The wraith of George McGovern, risen from a witches’ sabbath at Miami Beach, hovers above the once proud keep of the Democracy. Through this particular looking-glass, they find a party that embraces the foreign policy of the radical Left, refuses to turn its back on busing, and takes its forensic pleasure in deciding how, exactly, to word its plank pertaining to homosexual liberation.
Nor is there relief for bitter-enders who might be tempted to cast a protest ballot for Alabama’s Governor Wallace who mustered millions of votes in Democratic primaries but was ignored by the masters of the Convention. But Wallace has now said that his wounds and other considerations will prevent his running in the fall. So the choice comes down to a Republican regime which has become increasingly liberal on issues where it was expected to be conservative, and a Democratic challenger so far to port he feels compelled to manhandle Mayor Daley out the back door of the party while admitting Jerry Rubin and the Yippies and God knows what else by the front. Tobias Hobson couldn’t have arranged it better.
The good news, however, is as follows: [....]
Until Next Sunday....
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