Saturday, April 6, 2013

Arts Alive tonight 6:00 till 9:00!

The Humboldt Central Committee (HRCC) is featuring artist Delores Terry's paintings. Hope to see you!

Stop by the Humboldt County Republican Central Committee HQ at 311 5th St., in Eureka. Delores's show runs April 5 through May 28. There will also be an open house tea party for Terry on May 3 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Tea, coffee, hot chocolate, hors-d'oeuvres and goodies will be served.

A drawing will be in progress April 5 through May 3. First prize will be a pair of tickets for the HRCC's Art & Other Fine Things Auction to be held Thursday, June 30, at Blue Lake Casino. A steak dinner buffet will be served,

◼ 'LIKE' Arts Alive! Humboldt on Facebook, and stay up to date on all the happenings.

Kiddie pr0n prop!



MSNBC host abuses her child on air - Protein Wisdom

Lean Forward: NBC Explores the Madcap World of ‘Crazy Vagina Politics’ - Ed Driscoll/PJM

“Something very rare and equally odd happened on MSNBC Friday,” Noel Sheppard writes at Newsbusters. “Not only did an anchor criticize President Barack Obama on the air — horrors! — All In host Chris Hayes also accused the current White House resident of engaging in what he called ‘crazy vagina politics.’”

MSNBC's Chris Hayes: Obama Engaged in 'Crazy Vagina Politics'
- Noel Sheppard/Newsbusters

CHRIS HAYES, HOST: Our politics will seemingly never stop going haywire when women's reproductive rights are on the table. There is just a special universe of politics where the issue of control over women`s reproductive processes exists apart from regular rules of any other kind of politics. There is normal politics and then there's crazy vagina politics.

And you can see the difference really clearly in the way this particular issue played out in this particular administration.

Watch this. You're going to see two clips of the same president talking about science and medicine from two different political universes. The first is the normal political universe. The second is a crazy vaginal political universe....



MSNBC, Kindergarten for Bored, Angry Unemployed People - Ace Of Spades

The MSNBC Messaging Machine finds new ways to be stupid just about every day....

MSNBC has fully embraced the blogger ethos of hit-whoring provocation first, second, last, and always. As well as exploring all the new and inventive ways to call people you don't like Nazis.

There simply is no professionalism at MSNBC, no aspiration to any kind of standards at all. It's Dumb By Design (TM), because Dumb is Easy and Easy is Holy.

MSNBC — All your children are belong to us - Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion

As the Krystal Ball cross-examination of her own daughter showed, there is something wrong in the water over there.

This ad for MSNBC is even worse (Newsbusters via Gateway Pundit h/t Fuzzy):



MSNBC: Your Children Are Not Your Children – They Belong To The Community - Gateway Pundit

From the video: “We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities”

En Flipping Fuego! Sarah Palin blasts MSNBC’s ‘All your children belong to us’ spot; Calls out CNN’s ‘Crossfire’ hypocrisy - Twitchy

Why is MSNBC aping George Orwell's villains? - Matt K. Lewis/The Week

In George Orwell's 1984, we find this dystopian observation taking place in the fictional land of Oceania:
The family could not actually be abolished, and, indeed, people were encouraged to be fond of their children, in almost the old-fashioned way. The children, on the other hand, were systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations. The family had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately.
Orwell's Animal Farm provides us with yet another example. In this instance, Napoleon the pig (who is said to represent Stalin) declares that "the education of the young was more important than anything that could be done for those who were already grown up."

Jobs report is a disaster. But why?

This is a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad jobs report. - Neil Irwin/Washington Post

The 88,000 net jobs added in March, if that or a similar figure holds up through revisions, is a tragedy: Nearly four years into the economic recovery, with the unemployment rate still close to 8 percent, the nation recorded a month in which too few jobs were added to keep up with the growing American workforce (that number is more like 125,000). The headline read that the unemployment rate fell to 7.6 percent from 7.7 percent, but it was almost entirely for bad reasons. A whopping 496,000 people dropped out of the labor force, and 206,000 fewer people reported having a job, meaning that the proportion of Americans currently working actually ticked down, not up.

90 MILLION OUT OF LABOR FORCE - Zerohedge

663,000 Drop Out - CNS

Friday, April 5, 2013

Krauthammer - Obama Lost The Gun Control Fight, "All he wants now is the money."



During a discussion on Fox News Thursday afternoon that linked President Obama’s latest round of fundraising for the 2014 midterm elections with his efforts to pass stricter gun control laws, contributor Charles Krauthammer suggested an idea that appeared to shock his fellow panelists as well as host Chris Wallace… - westernjournalism.com

During a discussion on Fox News Thursday afternoon that linked President Obama's latest round of fundraising for the 2014 midterm elections with his efforts to pass stricter gun control laws, contributor Charles Krauthammer suggested an idea that appeared to shock his fellow panelists as well as host Chris Wallace. Now that it looks like he won't get a vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate that includes the provisions he wanted, Krauthammer said, "All he wants now is the money."

Krauthammer's comment came after National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg predicted that the Senate vote President Obama insisted the Newtown families and other victims of gun violence "deserve" in his State of the Union address will now likely not happen. When Krauthammer quietly uttered, "All he wants now is the money," the discussion stopped cold with a short bit of silence from everyone before Chris Wallace jumped in.

"You don't really mean that?" Wallace asked.

Krauthammer asserted that even if the bill includes broader background checks, it "won't make a difference." He continued, "Knowing all that, he is out there now exploring it as an issue. He is not going to get the solution he wanted, so he will make an issue. And that's the way he operates. He does it on immigration. He does it on a lot of stuff. If you can't win on a solution or get your way, you turn it into cash. He is excellent at turning stuff into cash."

Today we wish President and Mrs. Bush a very happy 35th anniversary!

Democrats have doubts about Obamacare too

President Obama is eager to build public support for his health care overhaul in the few months remaining before its implementation, but waning enthusiasm from Democrats threatens his effort right out of the gate. - Brian Hughes/Washington Examiner @BrianHughesDC

Two-thirds of Democrats now believe Obama's health care reforms will either hurt them personally or have no effect on their daily lives, a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday shows. In comparison, just 27 percent of Democratic respondents said the reforms would help them.

The president has long struggled to convince independent and Republican-leaning voters that his health care blueprint would lower premiums and expand insurance coverage.

However, an inability to convince his own party that the reforms have merit suggests an even bigger problem for the president ahead of the 2014 implementation....

Just 3 percent of Republicans and 15 percent of independents believe the president's overhaul will help them personally, the poll shows. Even worse for the White House, 68 percent of self-identified Republicans and more than a third of all independents said the reforms would hurt them personally.

However, Obama continues to paint a rosy picture of how people will benefit from the most comprehensive overhaul to the health care system since Medicare was created in 1965.

During a fundraising swing through California on Thursday, Obama said the reforms are "already helping millions of people and will help millions more when it is fully implemented next year."

They found prescription medication for sertraline, a generic version of Zoloft used to treat depression, panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder; and Clonazepam, usually prescribed to treat anxiety and panic attacks.



Killer James Holmes' psychiatrist warned he may pose threat - Unsealed documents in the Colorado theater shooting case reveal that the suspect told his university psychiatrist a month before the attack that he was having homicidal thoughts. - LA Times

Adam Lanza's murder spree at Sandy Hook may have been 'act of revenge' - Matthew Lysiak AND Rich Schapiro / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Adam Lanza's motive for the shooting rampage that tore through Sandy Hook Elementary School and left 26 people dead remains a mystery, but Marvin LaFontaine, a friend of Adam's mother Nancy, is convinced Adam had been harboring resentment toward the school after being bullied for years.



Newtown killer Adam Lanza may have launched his murder spree at Sandy Hook Elementary School as an “act of revenge,” the Daily News has learned.

A close friend of Lanza’s mother told The News that the troubled boy was a target of relentless bullying when he attended the Connecticut school years ago.

“I think Adam felt betrayed by the school and this was his act of revenge,” said Marvin LaFontaine, a friend of Nancy Lanza’s.

“Nancy told me he was being picked on at school. That they were just torturing him.”

Nancy Lanza was so incensed by the school’s failure to protect her son that she sometimes showed up unannounced to watch over him, LaFontaine said.

“She was so upset that the teachers weren’t protecting him from the bullies that she went with him like a bodyguard,” said LaFontaine, who was also Lanza’s Cub Scout leader when he was a young boy.

“Adam didn’t like her showing up. She would sometimes sit in the back of the class and make sure no one would touch him.”

Emails show history of illness in Adam Lanza's family, mother had worries about gruesome images - NY Daily News

Nancy Lanza's emails, obtained by the Daily News, offer new insight in the family's medical history. She feared Adam Lanza, who killed 26 in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, would develop the same auto-immune disease that killed his grandfather.

...Just two weeks before the Newtown shooting, Nancy discovered ghastly and sinister pictures in her son’s room featuring dead bodies, but she did not confront him.

“One (drawing) had a woman clutching a religious item, like rosary beads, and holding a child, and she was getting all shot up in the back with blood flying everywhere,” a friend said.

“Nancy was disturbed, really disturbed, but didn’t confront him,” he said. “She wanted to think it over.”

As the world now knows, on Dec. 14, Nancy was shot dead by her son, who then killed 26 more people during a rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Boehner pans Obama’s offer to trade Social Security change for tax hikes

House Speaker John Boehner preemptively rejected President Obama's call for more tax hikes Friday, after administration officials revealed the president's upcoming budget would tie tax hikes to changes in Social Security and other benefit programs. - FOX

The administration made clear that it is offering changes to Social Security and Medicare -- the two benefit programs most important to seniors -- in order to convince Republicans to accept increased revenues. The official said the plan to be unveiled next week "isn't a menu of options for them to choose from -- it's a cohesive package."

But Boehner bristled at the demand, noting that the president and his party already extracted tax increases on top earners as part of the deal to avert the fiscal crisis at the end of 2012.

"In the end, the president got his tax hikes on the wealthy with no corresponding spending cuts. At some point we need to solve our spending problem, and what the president has offered would leave us with a budget that never balances. In reality, he's moved in the wrong direction, routinely taking off the table entitlement reforms he's previously told me he could support," Boehner said.

Democrats have argued the recently enacted sequester cuts too deep, and continue to press for tax increases to help close the deficit. Many Democrats oppose any drastic changes to entitlements. The inclusion of the Social Security provision by Obama was meant as a gesture to Republicans - and one that has already drawn the ire of liberal members of Congress.

Left Furious With Obama For Backing Social Security Cuts - SAHIL KAPUR/Talking Points Memo

Liberals are mounting strong criticisms of President Obama amid news that his budget will include a Social Security benefit cut — an official endorsement of a policy compromise he’s offered Republicans for years — and warning Democrats not to dare vote to cut the cherished retirement program.

A trio of progressive advocacy groups issued scathing statements Friday in response to reports that Obama’s proposal will include a policy called “Chained CPI,” which would re-index Social Security cost of living increases to a lower rate of inflation — a benefit cut the president has included in deficit offers to Republicans since 2011.

“President Obama’s plan to cut Social Security would harm seniors who worked hard all their lives,” said MoveOn.org’s executive director Anna Galland. “That’s unconscionable. It’s even more outrageous given that Republicans in Congress aren’t even asking for this Social Security cut. This time, the drive to cut Social Security is being led by President Obama and Democrats.”

Stephanie Taylor of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee accused Obama of “proposing to steal thousands of dollars from grandparents and veterans” and threatened to subject any Democrat who votes for a Social Security benefit cut to a primary challenge.

“You can’t call yourself a Democrat and support Social Security benefit cuts,” Taylor said in a statement. “The President has no mandate to cut these benefits, and progressives will do everything possible to stop him.”

Failing The Labor Force

People Not In Labor Force Soar By 663,000 To 90 Million, Labor Force Participation Rate At 1979 Levels - Tyler Durden/Zerohedge

Things just keep getting worse for the American worker, and by implication US economy, where as we have shown many times before, it pays just as well to sit back and collect disability and various welfare and entitlement checks, than to work .The best manifestation of this: the number of people not in the labor force which in March soared by a massive 663,000 to a record 90 million Americans who are no longer even looking for work. This was the biggest monthly increase in people dropping out of the labor force since January 2012, when the BLS did its census recast of the labor numbers. And even worse, the labor force participation rate plunged from an already abysmal 63.5% to 63.3% - the lowest since 1979! But at least it helped with the now painfully grotesque propaganda that the US unemployment rate is "improving."

Bureau Of Labor Statistics: Details at the link. - GOP Research

Since Obama Took Office, The Labor Force Participation Rate Has Declined From 65.7 Percent To 63.3 Percent. - (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

The Last Time The Labor Force Participation Rate Was This Low Was In May Of 1979. - (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

In March, 496,000 Americans Dropped Out Of The Labor Force. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

21.7 Million Americans Are Unemployed, Underemployed, Or Simply Can’t Find Work. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

The Number Of Unemployed Workers Is 11,742,000. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

The Number Of Workers Working Part-Time For Economic Reasons Is 7,638,000. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

There Are Currently 803,000 Unemployed Workers That Have Given Up Looking For Work. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

The Real Unemployment Rate, Including Those That Are Working Part-Time Due To Economic Reasons, Is 13.8 Percent. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

Since Obama Took Office, The Average Duration Of Unemployment Has Nearly Doubled From 19.8 Weeks To 37.1 Weeks. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

In March, The Average Duration Of Unemployment Increased From 36.9 Weeks To 37.1 Weeks. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

Since Obama Took Office, The Unemployment Rate For Women Has Increased From 6.9 Percent To 7.6 Percent. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

Since Obama Took Office, The African American Unemployment Rate Has Increased From 12.7 Percent To 13.3 Percent. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

Since Obama Took Office, The Nation Has Lost 752,000 Construction Jobs. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

Since Obama Took Office, The Nation Has Lost 575,000 Manufacturing Jobs. (Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Accessed 4/5/13)

ACLU Opposing Senate Bill, Doesn’t Trust Harry Reid

At first glance this seems utterly ridiculous, but it is shaping up to be true. The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, announced today that the group is opposing the Senate legislation in the bill’s current form. - The Brenner Brief

Although any opposition is welcome, conservatives should not be jumping for joy just yet.

The intention behind the ACLU opposing Senate gun ban legislation has nothing to do with the preservation of the Second Amendment. The ACLU does not oppose universal background checks, or even a ban on the proposed firearms and magazines, but they are against the establishment of a federal government database containing private citizens who own firearms. The pro gun-control mainstream media outlets have portrayed this concern as a conservative case of paranoia, but coincidentally, the ACLU doesn’t trust the government with this information either.

ACLU says Reid’s gun legislation could threaten privacy rights, civil liberties - Vince Coglianese/Daily Caller

The inclusion of universal background checks — the poll-tested lynchpin of most Democratic proposals — “raises two significant concerns,” the ACLU’s Chris Calabrese told TheDC Wednesday.

Calabrese — a privacy lobbyist — was first careful to note that the ACLU doesn’t strictly oppose universal background checks for gun purchases. “If you’re going to require a background check, we think it should be effective,” Calabrese explained.

“However, we also believe those checks have to be conducted in a way that protects privacy and civil liberties. So, in that regard, we think the current legislation, the current proposal on universal background checks raises two significant concerns,” he went on.

“The first is that it treats the records for private purchases very differently than purchases made through licensed sellers. Under existing law, most information regarding an approved purchase is destroyed within 24 hours when a licensed seller does a [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] check now,” Calabrese said, “and almost all of it is destroyed within 90 days.”

Calabrese wouldn’t characterize the current legislation’s record-keeping provision as a “national gun registry” — which the White House has denied pursuing — but he did say that such a registry could be “a second step.”

As Texas attracts California companies, will Texas be Californicated?

Years ago, road signs at the border proclaimed: “Welcome to Oregon, Now Go Home” and: “Don’t Californicate Oregon,” met California motorists as they crossed into Oregon. - Ed Farnan/From The Right

Those signs are long gone as the process of transforming Oregon into a liberal blue state, have been completed.

California’s Apple Computer recently announced that expanding their Texas presence will make them central Texas’s largest employer.

Other large California corporations say they are transferring all or part of their operations out of the once formerly golden state. California has been getting deluged with television ads from other states, particularly Texas, who invite them to set up shop in their business friendly environments.

Apple, Campbell Soup, Comcast, Chevron Oil, Google and countless others are just the public tip of the iceberg, as California is engulfed in an economic wildfire burning up its private sector with record high taxes and miles of government red tape.

But will Texas and other business friendly “red states” soon regret what they wished for as they woo California business to their fold?

California’s new main export seems to be companies and jobs that it once used to attract like a magnet. But will this export of California prove detrimental to the very business friendly states that are attracting them?

That’s Weird?… Forbes ‘Manchurian Candidate’ Article on Obama Disappears Down the Memory Hole

after the article was posted for a few hours it suddenly disappeared down the memory hole. - Gateway Pundit

Here is the original article.

“There is something very wrong when the sitting president refuses to divulge huge pieces of information about his background. What is he hiding? Maybe the “birthers” were a little extreme, but is there something wrong with this “manufactured candidate,” whose history remains sealed from public view? What is he hiding?

Could the “Hawaii birth certificate” be a forgery? Is there something much worse—like “sponsorship” by an unnamed special interest? I don’t know. I do know that the man in the White House now is an imposter. The only question is which kind of an imposter: an incompetent “pretender” or a genuine phony, a “Manchurian candidate,” who is a liberal, ½ black and ½ white, and an obvious Muslim sympathizer.

Will this campaign expose him as the imposter, and the pretender his behavior has revealed? Will it expose his hidden history and murky background. We know about his failures and mistakes.

For those who don’t, here is another in this series of revealing excerpts from Hope Is Not A Strategy: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency.... More, at the link.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

“Our Boobs Are Stronger Than Their Stones”


Naked feminists celebrating “International Topless Jihad Day” held rallies across Europe in support of Tunisian activist Amina Tyler who sparked a scandal last month when she posted naked pictures of herself online with anti-Islamic messages across her chest. - Gateway Pundit

Al-Arabiya reported:
Bare-breasted activists staged rallies in front of mosques and Tunisian embassies across Europe Thursday against what they called an Islamist crackdown on Arab women’s rights.

Protesters from the Ukrainian women’s power group Femen held “International Topless Jihad Day” in capitals such as Berlin, Kiev and Paris and painted their torsos with slogans including “Bare breasts against Islamism.”

“We’re free, we’re naked, it’s our right, it’s our body, it’s our rules, and nobody can use religion, and some other holy things, to abuse women, to oppress them,” Femen member Alexandra Shevchenko said at a small demonstration in front of a Berlin mosque amid temperatures near the freezing point.

“And we’ll fight against them. And our boobs will be stronger than their stones.”

The rallies targeted, in particular, the case of a Tunisian activist calling herself Amina Tyler who sparked a scandal last month when she posted pictures of herself online with the words “My body belongs to me” and “F*** your morals” emblazoned across her naked chest.

Supporters fear she could face criminal prosecution.

Obama Calls Californian Kamala Harris ‘Best Looking’ Attorney General

President Obama assessed the beauty of California’s attorney general Kamala Harris, calling her “the best looking attorney general,” during remarks at a fundraiser in Atherton, California. - ABC

Obama’s event in California wrapped a two day, four fundraiser sweep through the Bay Area. Earlier Thursday he talked about the need for new gun control at the home of Liz Simons and Mark Heising, director of a San Francisco investment firm and a board member at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Why Kamala Harris is probably not thrilled with compliment - Chris Reed/Cal Watchdog

The instant national chortling Thursday over the fact that President Obama had called California’s Kamala Harris the “best-looking” state attorney general ended up being more about seeing the usual slippery standards on political correctness. Democrats can often get away with little blowback for things that would get Republicans fricaseed, and this was one more example.

But if you are Harris, you probably don’t appreciate the Obama remark because of the likelihood that it will remind people that it was her attractiveness that gave her her initial foothold in state politics.

Harris caught Willie Brown’s eye in her 20s

The first time she ever appears in a Nexis.com search of California news is March 22, 1994, when she was Assembly Speaker Willie Brown’s date at his 60th birthday party. She was 30 years-plus younger. But she didn’t just date Brown. She cashed in from knowing him:
“Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, continuing his rush to hand out patronage jobs while he retains his powerful post, has given high-paying appointments to his former law associate and a former Alameda County prosecutor who is Brown’s frequent companion.

“Brown, exercising his power even as his speakership seems near an end, named attorney Kamala Harris to the California Medical Assistance Commission, a job that pays $72,000 a year.

“Harris, a former deputy district attorney in Alameda County, was described by several people at the Capitol as Brown’s girlfriend. In March, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen called her ‘the Speaker’s new steady.’ Harris declined to be interviewed Monday and Brown’s spokeswoman did not return phone calls.

“Harris accepted the appointment last week after serving six months as Brown’s appointee to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, which pays $97,088 a year.”

Flash! Threat from Rebel Syria Becomes Clear and What Really Happened in the Benghazi Murders

While far too late, the Obama administration may be adopting a sensible policy on Syria. The strategy, however, is unlikely to succeed. Oh, and there is also a very important clue—I think the key to the puzzle—about what really happened in Benghazi. - Barry Rubin/PJM

What does this have to do with Benghazi?

Read this paragraph from the Washington Post:
Obama administration officials have expressed repeated concern that some of about 20,000 of the weapons, called MANPADS, have made their way from the arsenals of former Libyan dictator Moammar (sic) Gaddafi to Syria.
This weapons system might be the most technologically impressive arms ever to fall into the hands of terrorists. Once Libya’s regime fell (another U.S. foreign policy production), these weapons were grabbed by the Libyan rebels and sold to the Saudis and Qataris, who supplied them, respectively, to the Syrian Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to reliable sources, Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was in Benghazi trying to get those MANPADS back and was negotiating with radical militias toward that goal. Stevens was doing something good—trying to take weapons out of the hands of terrorists—and not running weapons to terrorists.

Yet that doesn’t mitigate the mess unleashed by the administration’s policy. At any rate, Stevens and these efforts failed. The money was too good for the Libyan insurgents to pass up, not to mention helping fellow Islamists and anti-Americans. And now thousands of advanced, easily launched anti-aircraft systems are in the hands of anti-Jordanian, anti-Iraqi, anti-Israeli, and possibly anti-Turkish terrorists.

And just imagine the very real possibility of commercial passenger planes being shot at, or even shot down, by terrorists armed with a weapon they obtained because of U.S. government ineptitude or even involvement.

Today, the school systems in 20 states employ more non-teachers than teachers.

THE PROPAGANDA CURRICULUM - George Will/Human Events

The real vocation of some people entrusted with delivering primary and secondary education is to validate this proposition: The three R’s — formerly reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic — now are racism, reproduction and recycling. Especially racism. Consider Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction. It evidently considers “instruction” synonymous with “propaganda,” which in the patois of progressivism is called “consciousness-raising.”

Wisconsin’s DPI, in collaboration with the Orwellian-named federal program VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America; the “volunteers” are paid), urged white students to wear white wristbands “as a reminder about your privilege, and as a personal commitment to explain why you wear the wristband.” A flyer that was on the DPI Web site and distributed at a DPI-VISTA training class urged whites to “put a note on your mirror or computer screen as a reminder to think about privilege,” to “make a daily list of the ways privilege played out” and to conduct an “internal dialogue” asking questions such as “How do I make myself comfortable with privilege?” and “What am I doing today to undo my privilege?”

After criticism erupted, the DPI removed the flyer from its Web site and posted a dishonest statement claiming that the wristbands were a hoax perpetrated by conservatives. But, again, the flyer DPI posted explicitly advocated the wristbands. And Wisconsin’s taxpayer-funded indoctrination continues, funded by more than Wisconsin taxpayers....

The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice reports that between 1950 and 2009, while the number of K-12 students increased 96 percent, full-time-equivalent school employees increased 386 percent. The number of teachers increased 252 percent, but the number of bureaucrats — including consciousness-raising sensitivity enforcers and other non-teachers — increased 702 percent. The report says states could have saved more than $24 billion annually if non-teaching staff had grown only as fast as student enrollment. And Americans wonder why their generous K-12 financing (higher per pupil than all but three of the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations) has done so little to improve reading, math and science scores.

TO THE LEFT, CALIFORNIA IS NOW THE MODEL FOR AMERICA



Ever since California’s voters approved the Prop. 30 sales- and income-tax increase on the November ballot, liberal commentators have been gloating about the resurgence of the Golden State after many years of predicted doom and gloom. Their evidence: Higher taxes seem to have cleared up the state’s budget deficits. - Steven Greenhut/Human Events

As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote recently, “California isn’t a state in which liberals have run wild; it’s a state where a liberal majority has been effectively hamstrung by a fanatical conservative minority that, thanks to supermajority rules, has been able to block effective policy-making.”

Krugman blames the “radical right-wing” for California’s problems, claims that the school system – which captures 40 percent of the state’s general fund plus local bond initiatives – is insufficiently funded (thanks to those evil right-wingers again) and believes that all is well now that “Mr. Brown [is] free to push an agenda of tax hikes and infrastructure spending … .”

It’s odd to blame Republicans in a state where they have had only miniscule power for at least a decade and even weirder to suggest that California’s milquetoast GOP is beholden to the radical right. The real questions: Has California been saved? Are higher taxes, more regulations and massive debt spending on public works the answer for the rest of the country?

Projected Shortage of 45,000 Doctors by 2020

...with the health care deadline looming, a new push has been launched in about a dozen states to allow nurses with a master’s degree or higher to order and interpret diagnostic tests, prescribe medications and administer treatments without physician oversight, the Washington Post reports. - AARP

WALGREEN clinics to begin treating chronic illnesses - AP

$423,500 Stimulus Program on 'Correct Condom Use' Yields Zero Jobs

The details of a stimulus grant awarded to Indiana University to study condom use have now been released on a government website. The study, titled "Barriers to Correct Condom Use," is now completed, according to the website, and the university received $423,500 of stimulus funds to perform the study. - Daniel Halper/Weekly Standard

The stimulus project yielded a total of 0.00 jobs created, according to the federal government. "No jobs created/retained," the form says under "Description of Jobs Created."

Jane Fonda: I Will Go to My Grave with 'Unforgivable Mistake'


“I made one unforgivable mistake when I was in North Vietnam, and I will go to my grave with this,” Jane Fonda says on the Oprah Winfrey Network. - Greg Richter/Newsmax

The actress and activist made an infamous trip to North Vietnam in 1972 in which she was photographed singing with North Vietnamese military members as she sat on an anti-aircraft gun.

She was criticized then — and ever since — and says she understands the anger.

Fonda said she knew immediately that she had made a mistake and has apologized repeatedly, both privately and publicly.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Countries That Cut Debt, Taxes And Spending Are Thriving

Several European countries, including Cyprus, have been mired in economic stagnation or decline for five years or more. - Alan Reynolds/IBD

Yet other countries in Asia and Latin America have flourished. What are the weakest economies doing wrong? What are the strongest doing right?

...Rather than raising top tax rates, all but one of the BRIC and MIST countries slashed their highest individual income tax rates in half; sometimes lower. Brazil cut the top tax rate from 55 to 27.5%. Russia replaced income tax rates up to 60% with a 13% flat tax. India cut the top tax rate to 30% from 60%. Similarly, the top tax rate was cut from 55 to 30% in Mexico, from 50 to 30% in Indonesia, from 89 to 38% in South Korea, and from 75 to 35% in Turkey....

What works, these successful economies discovered, is (1) to prevent government spending from growing faster than the private economy that supports it, and (2) to reduce rather than increase the highest, most damaging tax rates.

Occupy Wall Street, which under all the coats of paint was the same thing with a different brand, is no longer convenient. It served its purpose as an election weapon. Now that the election has been won, by the class warrior glutted on Wall Street money, no one cares about the little hairy man sitting at the folding table and trying to push buttons.

The Convenient Radical - Sultan Knish

Occupy Wall Street was every bit as hollow as any other election stunt. It was a temporary alignment between the agenda of the left and the far-left or the far-left and the really-far-left. The details, like the slapfights between the various species of Maoist, don't matter....

The convenient radical is only convenient when the left, in all its varied forms, is out of power leading to a common front. Then his toxic ideas bleed into less radical sections of his movement. Each setback radicalizes the opposition until it becomes hard to tell the men from the pigs and the liberals from the commies. And then success is achieved, some section of the coalition is carried forward into power and their unlucky cousins are left behind at their folding tables.

That is how the Democrats turned so far to the left and adopted most of the talking points of the anti-war movement. But then once in office, they still found that they had wars to run. It's all very well to say that Martin Luther King had a dream not a drone, but it's hard to fight terrorists with dreams. Even when your anti-war credentials are impeccable, you sometimes come to the conclusion that it takes a drone.

These days the anti-war movement is making more headway with some Republicans than Democrats; which shows how desperate they have become. And Anti-Wall Street? The Democratic Party is Wall Street. Take away the VCs, the trial lawyers and the entertainment industry, and you have eliminated the non-contractor funding for the party of the jackass.

Occupy Wall Street, like Obama pretending to scold Wall Street's bonuses, was a joke. A joke that its supporters and his supporters never understood. The punchline is power. Those who have it and those who don't....

The convenient radical understands this and seeks the society in which a large underclass is dominated by a narrow elite. This is the society that he tirelessly inveighs against and wants to create. This outcome is what makes the left into the totalitarian entity that it is. The knowing hypocrisy is what distinguishes the successful leftist, from the inconvenient radical.

Obamacare in Trouble?

Obamacare in Trouble? Exchange provision delayed until 2015 - FOX

The Obama administration now says a special system of exchanges designed to make it easier for small businesses to provide insurance will be delayed an entire year -- to 2015.
"Lots of small businesses struggle with providing insurance for their workers so this was supposed to facilitate it and make it easier for small business to do this," said Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. "It was a huge portion of the sale job. When they passed the law in 2010 there were many senators and members of Congress who were saying 'I am doing this because it's going to help small businesses.'"

JOE KLEIN: Early incompetence 'really bad sign' - TIME

Let me try to understand this: The key incentive for small businesses to support Obamacare was that they would be able to shop for the best deals in health care super-stores—called exchanges. The Administration has had 3 years to set up these exchanges. It has failed to do so.

This is a really bad sign. There will be those who argue that it’s not the Administration’s fault. It’s the fault of the 33 states that have refused to set up their own exchanges. Nonsense. Where was the contingency planning?

Cancer Clinics Turning Away Thousands of Medicare Patients - Washington Post

Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.

Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially.

Patients at these clinics would need to seek treatment elsewhere, such as at hospitals that might not have the capacity to accommodate them.

“If we treated the patients receiving the most expensive drugs, we’d be out of business in six months to a year,” said Jeff Vacirca, chief executive of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates in New York. “The drugs we’re going to lose money on we’re not going to administer right now.”

After an emergency meeting Tuesday, Vacirca’s clinics decided that they would no longer see one-third of their 16,000 Medicare patients.

“A lot of us are in disbelief that this is happening,” he said. “It’s a choice between seeing these patients and staying in business.”

Some who have been pushing the federal government to spend less on health care say this is not the right approach.

Unions Will Control Mid-Sized Cities with California Voting Rights Act

Unions firmly control the political agenda in California’s largest cities, but civic leaders and citizens in some of the state’s smaller cities are still resisting the union political machine. - Kevin Dayton/Union Watch

Can Escondido avoid the fate of Stockton and San Bernardino? Only if Republicans can convince Latino voters in Escondido that limited government and fiscal responsibility are better for their communities than higher taxes, bigger government, and more regulatory restrictions on commerce. These are two conflicting philosophical views about the role of government and the relationship between government and commerce. Right now the latter is ascendant in California.

Is ‘Scientist-in-Chief’ Obama competing with Brain Expert Dr. Ben Carson?

If President Barack Obama is serious about pioneering a Congress-paid, $100-million mapping expedition into the human brain, he should seek the help of celebrated brilliant brain surgeon Dr. Ben Carson. - Judi McLeod/Canada Free Press

But it’s far more likely that megalomanic Obama is only jumping onto the human brain study bandwagon because that’s where the increasingly popular Dr. Carson is....

Odd how study of the human brain is his current mega million dollar endeavour during the brutalizing of Dr. Carson by the left, particularly by white Liberals, including Republican ones among the ever yakking FoxNews talking heads.

“Obama wants to spend a hundred million dollars on the BRAIN Initiative and he’s applauded by Newt Gingrich,” Mark Levin said on his radio show last night.

“Is he qualified to do this? No, but Ben Carson is. That’s been his focus for his entire life, his entire career anyway.”

With or without scientific backup, the “Scientist-in-Chief” resembles far more the “Pretender-in-Chief”.



Dr. Ben Carson: White liberals are the most racist people out there - Allahpundit/HotAir

HRWF Annual SPRING MEMBERSHIP TEA

APRIL 18TH 12:00-2:00 PM AT THE SAMOA MANSION
Belle-Starr Fashion Show, Mouth-Watering Sweets, Scrumptious Hors-d’oeuvres, Music, Drawings, and Gifts

Belle Starr owner, Lola (Debbie) Kelsey, has offered to give us a fashion show and some of our members will be modeling her lovely clothes. The Board members will be contributing mouth-watering sweets and scrumptious hors-d’oeuvres! There will be music, drawings, and gifts at this event! The Samoa Mansion, built in 1908, is a Grande Old Lady and has been around for many years. If you haven't seen this historic home, this would be a great opportunity to do so and to bring a guest! Everyone is welcome whether you are Republican Women or not! Also, our husbands and significant others are welcome, too!.....Of Course!

Because of the Tea, there will be no General Meeting at the Elks on April 18th.

Have you renewed your HRWF Membership this year? If you have forgotten to renew your HRWF Membership, a renewal form is included in this newsletter or you can go to our website at www.hrwf-ca.org to access the form and print or email it to a friend! Remember Membership Match! Everyone bringing in one new member will double our membership! Thanks to all who have sponsored new members!

Welcome New Members: Debbie Provolt, Michael Crosby, Jeani Vallee, and Sue Scott!

DIRECTIONS to the Samoa Mansion: 2 Rideout Street, Samoa, CA 95564:

From South: Travel 101 North and take the 255 Samoa exit from Eureka. Go over the Bridge to the Stop sign and turn Left onto Samoa Blvd. Continue west and turn left at the Cookhouse sign on left. Turn Right on Vance and continue past the Samoa Cookhouse. Pass the school and sport fields. Turn left at first stop sign onto Rideout Street. When you drive down Rideout Street towards the bay, we ‘ll have someone handing out flyers with Parking Directions. (We can’t park in front of people’s houses.)

From North: Travel 101 South and take the Samoa/Sunnybrae Exit. Keep right on Samoa/ Arcata ramp and continue West on 255/ Samoa Blvd. Pass the Bridge turn off and turn left at the CookHouse sign on Left.

*** Then Follow the Directions above.****

Hope to see you all there for this great event!

Republican-of-the-Year Dinner is SUNDAY, April 28th



Humboldt County’ s Republican Central Committee will honor civic and poliical activist Joe Bonino at its 21st annual Republican-of-Year Dinner, Sunday, April 28.

Bonino lost a close election for Eureka City Council last November. He was a member of the party’s Central Committee from 1996-2010, including several years as treasurer.

A Eureka resident since 1985, Bonino has been a volunteer with the Humane Socity of Humboldt County, the Clarke Museum, Easter Seals, Sons & Daughters of Italy and the City of Eureka’s Finance Advisory Committee.

Professionally, he has been with the Humboldt State Universtiy’s payroll departments since 1992.

According to Republican County Chairman Todd Walker, the party will also honor six Volunteers of the Year at the dinner. They are: Art Chase, Carole Del Biaggio, Michael Hutson, Fern Miller, Patricia Newell and Dean Nielsen. “They comprise the volunteer team that staffs our county headquarters month-in and month-out,” Walker said.

Invitations are in the mail for the dinner which will be held at the Ingomar Club.

CONFIRMATION: The date of the 2013 Republican-of-the-Year Dinner is SUNDAY, April 28th.

HRWF Scholarship Application (+ Information and links re: NFRW and CFRW Scholarships)

Humboldt Republican Women Federated (HRWF) offers a $500.00 scholarship, to be awarded to a deserving high school graduate. The scholarship includes an additional $500.00 to be awarded upon completion of their Freshman year provided the recipient maintains a 3.0 GPA during that year.



◼ Forms are available from High School Counselors, and you can Download or print the form here, at Scribd.

HRWF Scholarship Application 2013

Scholarship Application for Humboldt Republican Women Federated's $500 Scholarship.

REQUIREMENTS:

1.) A high school grade point average of 3.5 or more.
2.) A relationship to a member of Humboldt Republican Women Federated (Preference given to Humboldt County residents)
3.) A commitment to further your education at a Junior college, four year college or trade school
4.) Two letters of recommendation: one from a teacher or counselor and one from a community member.
5.) Completion of the application form

The application in the approved form, must be received by May 1st.
__________________

PLUS:

Additionally: The National Federation of Republican Women offers several scholarships and internships to female students. Click here for details. These scholarships are offered by the National Federation of Republican Women (NFRW). They are submitted through the State Federation. Applications from CFRW are first submitted to our Scholarship Chairman BEFORE they get submitted to our State President.

National Pathfinder Scholarship: Three annual scholarships of $2,500 provide financial assistance and support to women seeking undergraduate or graduate degrees. Undergraduate sophomores, juniors and seniors, as well as students enrolled in a master's degree program, are eligible to apply for the scholarship. Recent high school graduates and undergraduate freshmen are not eligible. Scholarship winners may not reapply.

Deadline: Applications due to State Federation Presidents by JUNE 1.

Pathfinder Application [PDF, 5 pages]
__________________

Betty Rendel Scholarship: Three annual scholarships of $1,000 are awarded to female undergraduates who are majoring in political science, government or economics and have successfully completed at least two years of college coursework. The recipients are chosen from applicants from across the nation. Scholarship winners may not reapply.

Deadline: Applications due to State Federation Presidents by JUNE 1.

Rendel Application [PDF, 5 pages]
__________________

The California Federation of Republican Women has the following scholarship available to qualified individuals:

President Ronald Reagan Scholarship: The annual scholarship of $3,000.00 is offered to an undergraduate registered Republican woman who is majoring in political science, communication, or directed toward law. The applicant must be a United States citizen who has completed two years of college. The applicant must be a resident of the State of California. Applications for CFRW's President Ronald Reagan Scholarship may be downloaded here and sent to the CFRW Scholarship Chair at: scholarship@cfrw.org

Deadline: Applications must be submitted to the Scholarship Chairman by August 15, 2013

OBAMA CAN 'SIMPLY BAN ALL HANDGUNS'

Prospects look fairly bleak for sweeping gun-control legislation in Congress, but action at the United Nations and in several states may end up having the same effect – possibly even opening the door for Obama to ban all handguns, according to one expert. - WND

On Tuesday, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to approve the Arms Trade Treaty, or ATT. Supporters, including the Obama administration, contend this is designed to crack down on illicit arms trafficking, but critics say it’s really an effort to stamp out gun rights in the U.S. and beyond.

“It’s far beyond what it’s purported to do. It requires this country keep a national gun registry of gun owners. In addition, it could be used as a justification for banning semi-autos and banning handguns without any further legislation,” said Mike Hammond, chief counsel at Gun Owners of America.

“It could be interpreted as self-implementing, and by an executive order Obama would simply ban all handguns using this treaty.”

Hammond told WND the ATT could also lead to microstamping, which would require tiny signatures to be on every cartridge fired and would be very expensive. He said the treaty will die in the U.S. Senate. Sixty-seven votes are needed to ratify any treaty and in recent weeks, 53 senators indicated their opposition to the ATT. But Hammond said that may not deter Obama.

“It has no chance of being ratified, but I expect to see an effort by the Obama administration to enforce it, even without ratification,” said Hammond.

Gun rights advocates fear U.N. treaty will lead to U.S. registry - Washington Times

With the Obama administration supporting the final treaty draft, the General Assembly vote was 155-3, with 22 abstentions. Iran, Syria and North Korea voted against the proposal.

U.S. gun rights activists say the treaty is riddled with loopholes and is unworkable in part because it includes “small arms and light weapons” in its list of weaponry subject to international regulations. The activists said they do not trust U.N. assertions that the pact is meant to regulate only cross-border trade and would have no impact on domestic U.S. laws and markets.

Second Amendment supporters worry that such records eventually will pave the way for a national firearms registry, currently prohibited by federal law.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott wrote a letter to President Obama on Tuesday saying he would sue to block the treaty if it is ratified. It “appears to lay the groundwork for an international gun registry overseen by the bureaucrats at the UN,” the letter said.
The Senate last month also signaled its aversion, voting 53-46 to oppose the treaty in a nonbinding test vote as part of the budget debate. Eight Democrats joined all 45 Republicans in opposing the treaty.
Sen. Jerry Moran, Kansas Republican, said Tuesday that it made no sense to pass a treaty that will bind the U.S., while Iran, Syria and North Korea will ignore it.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

SURVEY: AMERICAN WOMEN TERRIFIED OF BECOMING ‘BAG LADIES’

If you spend time worrying that you’ll end up on the street in your old age with your belongings stuffed into plastic bags in a shopping cart, you have good company. - The Blaze

A new survey shows that almost half of American women fear they will become “bag ladies” someday, and the anxiety ripples across all income groups.

Even among women with household earnings above $200,000, 27 percent harbor the bag-lady fear, according to a new online survey issued by Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America.

While Allianz is promoting the survey to encourage women to seek more financial-planning advice, the underlying concern is valid, according to a labor economist who studies aging and income issues.

Because women typically earn less and have more sporadic work histories, their pensions and benefits are less sturdy, said Barbara Butrica, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute’s Income and Benefits Policy Center. “They are starting retirement at a disadvantage,” she said.

Women also tend to live longer than men. “So she’ll have to make that income last a lot longer time,” Butrica said.

WARNING: GRAPHIC language. Video of extraction of tree sitters at Willits bypass project

>>> Video removed by user <<< ◼ Via Times-Standard on Facebook

The Willits News reports a tree sitter protesting the bypass project has been removed, and several other protesters have been arrested.

Breaking news: CHP and CalTrans workers have acted this morning in the heavy fog on Highway 101 south of Willits to remove the tree sitter Amanda "Warbler" Senseman. She and several other protesters have been arrested.
Be careful on Highway 101 near the protest site due to the heavy CHP and CalTrans presence, walkers hiking along the highway shoulder and extremely thick fog.

A challenge filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation contends that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional because the bill originated in the Senate, not the House.

COULD THIS LAWSUIT REALLY KILL ‘OBAMACARE’? - The Blaze

Although it’s widely believed that “Obamacare” is here to stay, one lawsuit is threatening to undo President Obama’s landmark health care bill.

“A challenge filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation contends that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional because the bill originated in the Senate, not the House. Under the Origination Clause of the Constitution, all bills raising revenue must begin in the House,” the Washington Times notes.

You may recall in June 2012 when the Supreme Court ruled on “Obamacare” that Chief Justice John Roberts defined the bill as a tax, not a mandate. This, according to the Times, is where PFL attorneys saw their opening.

“The court there quite explicitly says, ‘This is not a law passed under the Commerce Clause; this is just a tax,’” foundation attorney Timothy Sandefur said recently. “Well, then the Origination Clause ought to apply. The courts should not be out there carving in new exceptions to the Origination Clause.”

Lawsuit over health care tax could kill ‘Obamacare’ - Valerie Richardson/Washington Times

The Supreme Court upheld most provisions of the act in June, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. took pains in the majority opinion to define Obamacare as a federal tax, not a mandate. That was when the Sacramento, Calif.-based foundation’s attorneys had their “aha” moment.

THE LAWSUIT THAT MIGHT KILL OBAMACARE - John Hayward/Human Events @Doc_o

It would be ironic if the crazy legal hocus-pocus employed to make ObamaCare compatible with the Constitution became its undoing. ”It’s a tax… no, it’s a penalty… no, it’s a tax…” The President and his allies have steadfastly refused to refer to the ObamaCare mandate as a “tax,” even though such a designation is the only reason the Affordable Care Act still exists. Perhaps it will magically change into a “penalty” once again to evade the Pacific Legal Foundation challenge....

In theory, the Pacific Legal Foundation would scuttle the entirety of ObamaCare, unlike other challenges that might be addressed by piling a few hundred more pages of corrective regulation atop the current seven-foot Frankenstein monster of paperwork. In practice, I find myself skeptical that a government vast enough to embrace ObamaCare is going to let itself be thwarted by the kind of legalistic fine print it expects its subjects to obey. We may find out soon, as the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is expected to rule on the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss in the very near future.

Learn more at Pacific Legal Foundation

Getting to the HEART of Obamacare
Help us declare Obamacare unconstitutional

PLF continues to litigate a federal lawsuit against Obamacare, the "Affordable Care Act," because its billions of dollars in new taxes were enacted unconstitutionally. PLF’s mission is to fight back — in the courts!

Prescribing toxic taxes through Obamacare

Obamacare imposes more than $800 billion in new taxes and fees over the next decade — including the charge on people who choose not to buy federally dictated insurance. PLF is fighting Obamacare in federal court, because its taxes were hatched illegally — they started in the Senate, instead of the House, as required by the Constitution.

...For 40 years, we’ve been America’s leading litigators to “rescue liberty” — regardless of who’s in power in the White House, Congress, or the state houses. YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT will help us keep standing up to overreaching elected officials and bureaucrats, and defending their victims in court. With your help, we will keep defending American liberties, for this generation and those to come!

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign begins this year in Virginia

She hasn’t said anything about 2016, but Terry McAuliffe’s 2013 gubernatorial campaign is serving as a testing ground for Clinton’s clout, operatives and donors. - Politico

Millions Face Surprise Tax Bills Under ‘Obamacare’

Health care providers, advocates and tax experts say the vast majority of Americans know very little about the new health care law, let alone the kind of detailed information many will need to navigate its system of subsidies and penalties. - CBS-Washington

President Barack Obama’s new health care law will offer subsidies to help people buy private health insurance on state-based exchanges, if they don’t already get coverage through their employers. The subsidies are based on income. The lower your income, the bigger the subsidy.

But the government doesn’t know how much money you’re going to make next year. And when you apply for the subsidy, this fall, it won’t even know how much you’re making this year. So, unless you tell the government otherwise, it will rely on the best information it has: your 2012 tax return, filed this spring.

What happens if you or your spouse gets a raise and your family income goes up in 2014? You could end up with a bigger subsidy than you are entitled to. If that happens, the law says you have to pay back at least part of the money when you file your tax return in the spring of 2015.

That could result in smaller tax refunds or surprise tax bills for millions of middle-income families.

There is a liberal coastal aristocrat, but he is really not very liberal, at least in the sense of his regressive life not matching his progressive rhetoric. His views are mostly conditioned on his education, salary, and material circumstances. Put the coastal aristocrat in charge of a 7-Eleven in Stockton, and his therapeutic view would turn tragic quite quickly. And that fear is why he rarely goes to either a 7-Eleven or Stockton.

America in the Age of Myth - Victor Davis Hanson/PJM

I used to think that the coastal aristocracy was just hypocritical in matters of race, but as I age I fear I have become more cynical: it is not white guilt that explains why the coastal elite seek gestures of progressive caring (how else would an anti-Semitic, race-baiting provocateur like Al Sharpton be given his own show? Or an unaccomplished Touré rate over the accomplished Dr. Carson?), but a real aversion to mixing with unlike kind. On matters of race, the liberal worldview of affirmative action, busing, amnesty, and vast entitlements is a psychological mechanism for conniving to get your own into Princeton, for ensuring they are not schooled in fourth grade with a bused-in student body, and ensuring that you are not in the evening line at Save Mart as the only English speaker or privately racially profiling the two scary people who just lined up behind you at the convenience store checkout stand. An alien from Mars who studied the liberal aristocrat would conclude that he is a segregationist of the first order....

We all know how this Paul Bunyan legend will end up. The next president, be it Hillary or Marco Rubio or Joe Biden or Rand Paul, will not embrace Obamism. They cannot and have the nation still survive. The federal saddlebags are empty. We will not follow the Obama trajectory to 70 million on food stamps or $30 trillion in debt. Even a President Hillary Clinton would not lecture us that we didn’t build that. We cannot keep printing a trillion dollars through quantitative easing. Interest rates will climb. I don’t think Rand Paul will tell the Tea Party “to punish our enemies” or Hillary Clinton “to get in their faces.”

You see, Obamism is an emotional flight from reality, completely unsustainable to the degree it is a paradigm for anything. It is mythical, this notion of borrowing vast amounts of money to grow government and subsidize a new cadre on government support, or demonizing millions as suspect for their success, or assuming that foreign nations react best to apologies, contextualization, and sermons, or wish to join in the cultural adulation of an American president. Putin could care less. Ditto the North Koreans.

In short, in this mythical age, we all know that Barack Obama won the Nobel Prize, but none of us quite know what for.

Such is what passes for reality in our age of myth.

Monday, April 1, 2013

The United States is broke — fiscally, morally, intellectually — and the Fed has incited a global currency war (Japan just signed up, the Brazilians and Chinese are angry, and the German-dominated euro zone is crumbling) that will soon overwhelm it. When the latest bubble pops, there will be nothing to stop the collapse.

Sundown in America: The Corruption of Capitalism in America - David Stockman/NYT

...even Mr. Obama’s hopelessly glib policies could not match the audacity of the Fed, which dropped interest rates to zero and then digitally printed new money at the astounding rate of $600 million per hour. Fast-money speculators have been “purchasing” giant piles of Treasury debt and mortgage-backed securities, almost entirely by using short-term overnight money borrowed at essentially zero cost, thanks to the Fed. Uncle Ben has lined their pockets.

While the Fed fiddles, Congress burns. Self-titled fiscal hawks like Paul D. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, are terrified of telling the truth: that the 10-year deficit is actually $15 trillion to $20 trillion, far larger than the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of $7 trillion. Its latest forecast, which imagines 16.4 million new jobs in the next decade, compared with only 2.5 million in the last 10 years, is only one of the more extreme examples of Washington’s delusions...

These policies have brought America to an end-stage metastasis. The way out would be so radical it can’t happen. It would necessitate a sweeping divorce of the state and the market economy. It would require a renunciation of crony capitalism and its first cousin: Keynesian economics in all its forms. The state would need to get out of the business of imperial hubris, economic uplift and social insurance and shift its focus to managing and financing an effective, affordable, means-tested safety net.

All this would require drastic deflation of the realm of politics and the abolition of incumbency itself, because the machinery of the state and the machinery of re-election have become conterminous. Prying them apart would entail sweeping constitutional surgery: amendments to give the president and members of Congress a single six-year term, with no re-election; providing 100 percent public financing for candidates; strictly limiting the duration of campaigns (say, to eight weeks); and prohibiting, for life, lobbying by anyone who has been on a legislative or executive payroll. It would also require overturning Citizens United and mandating that Congress pass a balanced budget, or face an automatic sequester of spending.

#18) Each election, roughly 90% of black Americans vote for the political party behind slavery, segregation and Jim Crow laws.

20 Bizarre Quirks of American Politics - John Hawkins/Townhall

#1) The worst places in America for minorities to live are run lock, stock and barrel by the Democrat Party and yet the residents of those areas overwhelmingly blame Republicans for their plight....

#13) There are numerous members of the Republican Party, which gets roughly 50% of the vote nationally, that want to dump social issues so we can be more like the Libertarian Party, which gets about 1% of the vote nationally....

RE-CREATING AMERICA: Cultural Sensitivity in Wisconsin Schools

Preview: Chicago Teachers Union official’s sexually explicit language caught on tape - Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion

Now a preview of soon-to-be-released footage from the protest reveals another aspect of the Chicago Teachers Union ethic: a predilection for using sexually explicit language to interrupt one video journalist’s coverage of their event. Education Action Group has the preview of the footage that will be released later this week

A society in which a majority of births are out of wedlock cannot be other than a Big Government welfare society. Ruining a nation’s finances is one thing; debauching its human capital is far harder to fix.

The Death of the Family - Mark Steyn/National Review

Reverend León vs. Dr. Carson



Notes from Obama's Easter Service - Daniel Halper/Weekly Standard

President Obama and his family... went to Easter Sunday services at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. Here are notes on the Easter service from the pool reporter, which included this part, "It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back ... for blacks to be back in the back of the bus ... for women to be back in the kitchen ... for immigrants to be back on their side of the border":

link - Jonah Goldberg/National Review

Once you get beyond the nasty, clichéd and divisive insinuations about conservatives being racists and the basic inappropriateness of the whole spectacle, it seems to me the obvious point is to compare the reaction to Ben Carson’s remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast and the reaction to León’s remarks. When Carson made his pointed, but hardly outrageous, comments at the National Prayer Breakfast, he came under withering and outrageous assault from many liberals. He sullied a nonpartisan event! Well, what the hell do you call an Easter-morning church service?

WH Refuses To Denounce Obama Pastor’s Rev. Wright Style Easter Rant - Nice Deb

The Great Cyprus Bank Robbery

The Great Cyprus Bank Robbery - Ron Paul/Freedom Outpost

Especially affected have been the elderly, who were unable to use ATMs or to transfer money electronically. Despite the fact that ATMs severely limited the size of withdrawals during the two week-long bank closure, reports indicated that account holders who had access to Cypriot bank branches in London and Athens were able to withdraw most of their funds, leading to speculation that there would be no money available when banks finally opened up again. In other words, the supposed Russian oligarch money may well be already gone.

Mega-Rich Withdrew Money From Cyprus Before Looting - Paul Joseph Watson/Infowars

News that the Cypriot President’s family moved 21 million euros to London days before the bank accounts of his people were looted as part of the bailout deal serves as another reminder that while the media portrays the victims of the Cyprus “haircut” as the mega rich and wealthy Russian oligarchs, the real victims are middle class families and small business owners.

“A company owned by in-laws of Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades withdrew dozens of millions from Laiki Bank on March 12 and 13, according to an article published in Cypriot newspaper Haravgi,” reports EnetEnglish.

“The newspaper, which is affiliated to the communist-rooted AKEL party, reports that three days before the Eurogroup meeting the company took five promissory notes worth €21m from Laiki Bank and transferred the money to London.”

In addition, as Reuters reports, “While ordinary Cypriots queued at ATM machines to withdraw a few hundred euros as credit card transactions stopped, other depositors used an array of techniques to access their money.”

Money fled Cyprus as president fumbled bailout - Reuters

No one knows exactly how much money has left Cyprus' banks, or where it has gone. The two banks at the centre of the crisis - Cyprus Popular Bank, also known as Laiki, and Bank of Cyprus - have units in London which remained open throughout the week and placed no limits on withdrawals. Bank of Cyprus also owns 80 percent of Russia's Uniastrum Bank, which put no restrictions on withdrawals in Russia. Russians were among Cypriot banks' largest depositors.

As it turns out, these same oligrachs may have used the one week hiatus period of total chaos in the banking system to transfer the bulk of the cash they had deposited with one of the two main Cypriot banks, in the process making the whole punitive point of collapsing the Cyprus financial system entirely moot. - Zerohedge

◼ Earlier: Big depositors in Cyprus's largest bank stand to lose far more than initially feared under a European Union rescue package to save the island from bankruptcy, a source with direct knowledge of the terms said on Friday. - Reuters

Freedom: Saudi religious police lift ban on women on bikes

Local daily says women must be accompanied by male relative and dressed in head-to-toe robe to ride bikes in parks, recreational areas - YNet News

Judge: Stockton, Calif., Can File for Bankruptcy



A judge accepted the California city of Stockton's bankruptcy application on Monday, making it the most populous city in the nation to enter bankruptcy. - CNBC

Its salaries, benefits and borrowing were based on anticipated long-term developer fees and increasing property tax revenue. But those were lost in a flurry of foreclosures beginning in the mid-2000s and a 70 percent decline in the city's tax base

The city's creditors wanted to keep Stockton out of bankruptcy—a status that will likely allow the city to avoid repaying its debts in full....

The $900 million that Stockton owes to the California Public Employees' Retirement System to cover pension promises is its biggest debt. So far Stockton has kept up with pension payments while it has reneged on other debts, maintaining that it needs a strong pension plan to retain its pared-down workforce.

Union Greed Drives California to Bankruptcy- Steven Greenhut/Union Watch via ◼ Stop Special Interest Money Now

If (Judge) Klein sides with the city, then municipalities will face a disturbingly low bar for pursuing bankruptcy. They will be emboldened to choose Stockton’s course — i.e., using bankruptcy as a strategic policy tool to offload debts without having to confront the main reasons that they went bankrupt in the first place, such as lush pay and pensions. Bankruptcy will no longer be a policy of last resort. This should have an impact on bond markets.

If the city wins the case, argued March 25-27 in the Sacramento federal courthouse, then the public-sector unions and the scandal-plagued California Public Employees Retirement System are right. No matter what problems befall a city, public services and taxpayers suffer first while union members and public retirement systems are protected....

In the 1990s, Stockton granted its employees some of the most generous and unsustainable labor contracts in the State of California.… Safety employees could now retire at the age of 50.… Many safety retirees today earn 90 to 100 percent of what they made when they were still on the job.

That’s common. But Miller noted that:

Stockton went even further than most other cities and granted things like unlimited vacation and sick time that could be cashed out when an employee retired, and added pay categories for almost everything imaginable.… Our public safety employees were costing us on average more than $150,000 a year each. That’s three times more than most of us in Stockton make in a year.

She described the “Lamborghini” health plan the city’s employees received:

This was free medical care for a retiree and a dependent for the rest of their lives. No co-pays, no generic requirements, no HMOs, and no premiums. See any doctor, stay in any hospital, purchase any drug, and just send the bill to the city of Stockton.

Absurd pay and benefits are common, and not just in Stockton. San Francisco Chronicle columnists Matier and Ross revealed recently that an Alameda County executive receives a $423,000 a year pay package for life. Compensation for California firefighters is in the $175,000 a year range. Some Newport Beach lifeguards receive $200,000 a year pay packages. As a friend of mine joked, revolutions have been fought over lesser instances of public pilfering.

Stockton pulled back on some abuses, but has left the main problem in place. Why is it OK that Stockton residents have to put up with closed parks, reduced policing and other cutbacks to protect outrageous pension and pay levels?

Stockton bankruptcy can move forward, judge rules - LA Times

Klein said the creditors could not legally walk away from the table, but he left the door open for CalPERS obligations to be part of negotiations in the coming phases of the bankruptcy.

At issue will be whether U.S. bankruptcy law trumps California law, which says the pension plan must be funded.

The $900 million Stockton owes to the California Public Employees Retirement System to cover pensions is its biggest debt -– as is the case with many cities in California.

Stockton slashed its police and fire departments, halted bond payments, cut employee benefits and adopted an emergency spending plan that cut many city services. But the city continues to pay into the state pension.

Stockton's bankruptcy is expected to be closely watched for precedent, and could be appealed as high as the U.S. Supreme Court.

The people of Stockton will feel financial fallout for years after a federal judge ruled Monday to let the city become the most populous in the nation to enter bankruptcy. - Bloomberg's Business Week

But the case is also being watched closely because it could answer the significant question of who gets paid first by financially strapped cities — retirement funds or creditors.

"I don't know whether spiked pensions can be reeled back in," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein said while making the ruling. "There are very complex and difficult questions of law that I can see out there on the horizon."

Pension Issue Still Alive Despite Stockton Bankruptcy Decision - Joel Fox/Fox & Hounds

The results of the Stockton officials’ efforts will reverberate across the state. San Bernardino and Mammoth Lakes also face bankruptcy and the question of dealing with the shortfalls while ignoring the pension payouts will likely arise in other places.

Should Stockton eventually need to get court permission to rip up its pension contracts, other cities will consider how to deal with pension burdens before the bankruptcy wolf is at the door.

Keep an eye on the biggest fish of all – the City of Los Angeles.

The Economist Breaks with the Climate Orthodoxy

No subject has convinced me more that modern liberalism is the most primitive religious faith on the planet (possibly excepting Wahhabism) than man-made global warming, aka climate change. - Roger L. Simon/PJM

So it was with some amusement that I read the other day that that most august of publications The Economist was having second thoughts:
IT MAY come as a surprise to a walrus wondering where all the Arctic’s summer sea ice has gone. It could be news to a Staten Islander still coming to terms with what he lost to Hurricane Sandy. But some scientists are arguing that man-made climate change is not quite so bad a threat as it appeared to be a few years ago. They point to various reasons for thinking that the planet’s “climate sensitivity”—the amount of warming that can be expected for a doubling in the carbon-dioxide level—may not be as high as was previously thought. The most obvious reason is that, despite a marked warming over the course of the 20th century, temperatures have not really risen over the past ten years.”
◼ Those pesky Russians are predicting something far worse — a new Ice Age: Scientist predicts earth is heading for another Ice Age - Express
Russian scientist Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, of the St Petersburg Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, painted the Doomsday scenario saying the recent inclement weather [in Europe] simply proved we were heading towards a frozen planet. 

Dr Abdussamatov believes Earth was on an “unavoidable advance towards a deep temperature drop”. The last big freeze, known as the Little Ice Age, was between 1650 and 1850.
Apocalypse perhaps a little later - The Economist

It would be a dreadful simplification to call this lunatic state of affairs Orwellian or even Machiavellian. It makes even Kafka's worlds seem positively stodgy by comparison. It is a trial where the only people to be found not guilty are those who already been convicted. It's a system that favors the people who claim to be dispossessed by the system. It is an absurd self-negation that exists as a mathematical impossibility and a living satire.

The Bad Good - Sultan Knish

...The old Bill of Rights extended rights irrespective of group membership. The new one wipes out universal rights and replaces them with particular privileges. Entire amendments may sink beneath the waves, but a few groups get comfortable deck chairs on the Titanic.

Why is one group protected rather than another? Why do gay activists get a government-bonded right, complete with Federal enforcement, while polygamy is outlawed? The only answers are rationalizations. With morality sinking fast and few common values that the people in charge will accept, there is no longer a common value system to rely on.

Progressive morality is constantly being reshaped in tune to the whims of the left. It can't be relied upon, because it isn't there. The only thing fixed about it is the need to fight for the oppressed, which not coincidentally at all is also the shaky civil rights era legal doctrine on which the whole modern house of cards rests....

Obamacare is Obama's Iraq War

Not even the most ardent defenders of Obamacare -- aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- claim anymore that the law will lower health coverage costs for Americans. How, then, will it achieve universal coverage, its central goal? - Shikha Dalmia/Washington Examiner

The short answer is, it won't....

People will ...have the option of waiting to buy insurance until they get sick. Thanks to Obamacare's "guaranteed issue" provision, insurance companies can't turn anyone away, even those calling from the intensive care unit. This will only deepen the problem of the "adverse selection death spiral" as healthy people stay out of the insurance market while sick people jump in. This, in turn, will trigger even more premium hikes.

The Iraq War cost $1 trillion and produced a quagmire abroad. Obamacare will cost $1 trillion and will create a quagmire at home. Americans need an exit strategy.

So CalPERS’ actuary wants to firm up CalPERS’ long-term stability by socking taxpayers, and what is the expected reaction from unions?

Why CA is so screwed up, in a nutshell - Chris Reed/Cal Watchdog

So CalPERS’ actuary, in a fit of unusual honesty, says the pension giant’s finances are in bad shape in the long run and need to be firmed up. But Alan Milligan realizes that asking his labor-dominated board of directors to have public employees pay more toward pension costs is a nonstarter. So what does he do? (Read the rest, at the link, and then...) Feel free to scream or cry or laugh or do all three. CalPERS’ board is hostile to having to properly fund pensions because then there would be “less money for salaries.”

CALIFORNIA NOW HAS NEGATIVE NET WORTH OF $127.2 BILLION - William Bigelow/Breitbart

A new financial report by California State Auditor and the Bureau of State Audits shows that California is heading down the tubes, and fast—it now has a negative net worth of $127.2 billion. It’s actually worse than that; although the report counted the state's long-term obligations at $167.9 billion, that doesn’t count unfunded liabilities for state employees' future pensions or the $60 billion in unfunded liabilities for retiree health care. Both of those costs have been listed by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board and Moody's as costs that states and localities should include in their budgetary assessments.

California and Cyprus - Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion

State auditor: California's net worth at negative $127.2 billion - Sacramento Bee
Were California's state government a business, it would be a candidate for insolvency with a negative net worth of $127.2 billion, according to an annual financial report issued by State Auditor Elaine Howle and the Bureau of State Audits.

The report, which covers the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, says that the state's negative status -- all of its assets minus all of its liabilities -- increased that year, largely because it spent more than it received in revenue.