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[Apologies for yesterday's very late post; had an SMTP-relay snafu]
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Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Lesson of an Affirmative Action President
Subject: txt bdd vals othr libs 1st -
The vote in 2008 was even crazier than picking your brain surgeon by the color of his skin. If the knife slips in the surgeon's hand, you might die, but the nation as a whole doesn't. But if the president has a nervous breakdown in the Oval Office, the whole world is at risk. It's a mad, mad, mad idea to elect people on the basis of race or gender.
We have been so PC-whipped as a nation that Obama's election as a black man -- not as a competent black man, not as an experienced and well-qualified black man -- was celebrated by liberals and Leftists around the world. It is the victory of brain-dead ideology over common sense. The guy in the White House today is potentially the most dangerous, mentally fixated, and irresponsible demagogue we have ever known. Those wacky ideas are once again on the rise, not just in the schools and colleges, but even at the very centers of power. The election of Obama was by far the screwiest thing American voters have ever done. It throws doubt on the whole American experiment, because we have inflicted this disaster on ourselves.
The lesson of the Obama presidency is exactly the opposite of what our stuck-on-stupid media are telling us. It is that we must never, ever hire, promote, or elect somebody to a position of power and responsibility merely because of his race. Abraham Lincoln would not have been surprised. Neither would Martin Luther King, Jr. Even the editors of the New York Times choose schools for their kids not by race, but by educational competence.
Somehow the American people have forgotten their common sense while Obama was rifling their wallets...
[Recommended > ]
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Gitmo? Mideast? Not in Obama Speech
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Don't look for any mention of Pakistan's struggle with al-Qaida in President Barack Obama's State of the Union address.
Or the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Or the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Obama was notably silent on those elements of American foreign policy during his speech Wednesday night to Congress. All are top challenges facing his administration, but they didn't make the cut for his first State of the Union address.
[Guess we're no longer in two shooting wars. Won't our young people in uniform be relieved.]
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Obama ‘Engagement’ Policy Has Led to ‘Unprecedented’ International Consensus on Iran
Subject: txt nsec intl iran - National Security Adviser Says
Washington – Gen. Jim Jones, President Obama’s national security adviser, claimed Monday that the administration had seen “unprecedented” success in rallying the world against Iran through its strategy of engagement.
“Engagement, our strategy in Iran, has resulted and is resulting in an unprecedented level of international consensus and unity on Iran,”
Jones told reporters Monday. The four-star general made the comments at a liberal think-tank, the Center for American Progress (CAP),
But while the other Security Council nations were reportedly considering circumventing the U.N., James Phillips of The Heritage Foundation, said that option has also recently imploded as well.
“I don’t know what consensus that he’s referring to that we should be encouraged by. I don’t see any progress being made,”
Phillips, who is Heritage’s senior fellow for Middle Eastern affairs, told CNSNews.com.
“Just today, the foreign ministers of the EU (European Union) backed away from imposing sanctions and said that they should be imposed only by the Security Council or that it’s necessary for the Security Council to take the lead.”
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[?]
Russia: Iran nuclear plant to start up this year
Der Spiegel: Iran able to produce nuclear bomb this year
'Iran to unveil new missiles in Feb.'
Iran’s Private Army Digs in for a Wider Lebanon War
EU wary on new Iran sanctions, waits for UN discussions
Iranian official uses 'N' word to describe Obama
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A vanishing
Subject: txt intl china lbrty sclm bbro -
Readers may remember Gao Zhisheng, the incredibly brave and valuable Chinese human-rights lawyer who was snatched last February — snatched by the state and then made to disappear. I wrote about him last April, in this column.
Interestingly enough, the Chinese Foreign Ministry was asked about Gao last week. And an official replied that Gao “is where he should be.”
Of course. And where might that be? Nowhere good, you can be assured.
[Never forget what we're attempting to 'deal' with in China: An undemocratic communist tyranny aggressively working for regional and global dominance.]
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DON'T LOOK TO EUROPE, THE UNITED STATES NEEDS REHAB CAPITALISM
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It makes no sense to regard the crisis of the American economic system as reason to glorify Europe's social welfare system, with its ghastly faults, or to see the latter system as a way out of decline, says Edmund S. Phelps, director of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University and the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics.
Europe has been a distant second to the United States in dreaming up, developing, marketing and embracing new commercial products. The reason is not bad luck. Europe is lacking in economic dynamism -- in systematically cultivating and facilitating innovation. This is evident by any measure:
- Venture capital investment in Europe is less than half the U.S. level.
- There are few start-ups in Europe -- no Microsoft, Netscape or Google.
- In European countries the same old companies remain in the top 20 from decade to decade.
Some economic indicators convey the costs of this deficiency:
- Young people still leave Europe in droves to make their careers.
- Reported job satisfaction and employee engagement are far lower in France and Italy than in Canada and the United States.
The corporatist strategy of inserting the state in place of private initiative and creativity has never worked -- we need return to high dynamism by bringing back old-fashioned banks that lend to business and old-fashioned companies that are forward-looking and courageous.
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'UN Wrongly Linked Global Warming To Natural Disasters'
Subject: txt owg grn - Breaking:
Just days after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted it used junk science to predict Himalayan glaciers would vanish by 2035, its claim that global warming is linked to increased natural disasters has also been found to be wrongly concluded.
The British Times Online reported moments ago:
THE United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.
It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny — and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak.
The report's own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.
The article continued:
When the paper was eventually published, in 2008, it had a new caveat. It said: "We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses."
Despite this change the IPCC did not issue a clarification ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit last month.
It has also emerged that at least two scientific reviewers who checked drafts of the IPCC report urged greater caution in proposing a link between climate change and disaster impacts — but were ignored.
The credibility of the organization at the very heart of global warming hysteria is increasingly brought into further question -- but will American media report this new revelation?
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U.N. Offiicial Won't Quit for Climate Report Error
Subject: txt owg grn -
The head of a panel of United Nations climate scientists said Saturday he would not resign despite a recent admission that a panel report warning Himalayan glaciers could be gone by 2035 was hundreds of years off.
But Rajendra Pachauri, who heads the panel, said no action would be taken against the authors of the report and he would not resign...
[Of course - that would be too close to accountability. Mistakes happen. The more indicative actions are those in response to their discovery...
And the Obama administration is supporting this outfit's ability to tax us directly for its operating revenue...]
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What Bias? Re: MSM Newsers Ignore UN Apology for Himalayan Glacier Error
Subject: txt owg grn msm bias -
Last Sunday [two weeks ago], it was reported that the United Nations was to retract a claim its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made back in 2007 concerning Himalayan glaciers being completely gone by 2035 as a result of global warming.
Last [week's] Wednesday, the IPCC issued a statement doing just that.
But despite the seriousness of this apology and its implications for the veracity of the entire manmade global warming myth, the announcement was completely ignored by America's major television news outlets except Fox News (partial transcript of January 20's "Special Report" below the fold):
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IT'S TIME TO FREEZE GOVERNMENT WAGES
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In a recession when wages are stagnating, you would expect governments to capitalize on the loose labor market by holding the line on employee compensation. But public sector compensation (as measured by the Department of Labor) rose 42 percent faster than private sector compensation over the last three years:
- Since the end of 2006, hourly total compensation (wages plus benefits) has risen 6.5 percent for private sector workers, essentially keeping pace with inflation; but state and local government workers saw their hourly compensation rise 9.2 percent.
- Federal civilian workers (about 10 percent of the public sector civilian workforce) are excluded from the above measure, but they did even better, receiving Congressionally-approved wage rises totaling 9.9 percent over the same period.
Why have public sector wages grown so fast?
- In some cases, it's because employees are receiving scheduled raises under contracts 'negotiated' [extorted] by public employee labor unions.
- But in other cases, governments have agreed to pay increases during the recession, or been forced into them by arbitrators.
- Transit agencies in New York and Washington, D.C., have seen their budget crises exacerbated by arbitrator-mandated pay increases, leading to service cuts.
- And Congress just approved another 2 percent pay increase for federal workers, effective this month.
Or, put differently, the last three years' excess growth in public sector compensation necessitates anextra $36 BILLION
in annual tax collections or program cuts,...
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Reality Check...
Subject: txt sclm bbro libs mny msm lbrty =
"When I made the decision to leave my job to found Public Allies Chicago [in 1993], an AmeriCorps program that prepares youth for public service, I realized right away that I had made the right decision. There are few things more rewarding than watching young people recognize that they have the power to enrich not only their lives, but the lives of others as well. But careers in public service are not always encouraged. We push our young people to strive for things, an advanced degree, a job title, a big salary... But, at a time when our nation is facing unprecedented challenges, encouraging careers in public service and social innovation is more important than ever."
Remarks of First Lady Michelle Obama at TIME 100 Most Influential People Awards
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis data, tables 6.2D and 6.5D.
- Michelle Obama's compensation in 2005 as vice president of community affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals: $316,962. (Source: Chicago Tribune.)
- Percentage of all households, among those headed by non-Hispanic white males, with more than $250,000 income in 2006: 1.3%. (Source: US Statistical Abstract, Table 683.)
THE GOLDEN QUARTER
Subject: txt mny hstry -
In the nine quarter-century periods since the American republic was founded in 1789, the one with highest economic growth and job creation was the period from 1983 through 2007. Particularly remarkable -- there were just four quarters (out of 100) of negative economic growth in that entire interval:
- That period of time was characterized by a reduction in government spending from 23.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 20 percent (the low point was 18.4 percent in 2000), and a reduction in marginal tax rates.
- Despite the reduction in tax rates, tax revenues both in absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP grew in the 1983-2007 period because of the improved work and investment incentives.
- As a result, the deficit fell from 6 percent of GDP in 1983 to just 1.2 percent in 2007.
Most people understand that if the government is growing faster than the economy (as it has been for the past two years) disaster ultimately will occur, but if the economy and the private sector grow faster than the government, as they did from 1983-2007, the country prospers...
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POLL: 59% Say Cut Taxes to Create Jobs, 14% Expect Congress to Listen
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Only 15% of voters hold the opposite view and believe that increasing government spending is the better approach.
However, while voters overwhelmingly think cutting taxes is the better approach, they also overwhelmingly expect Congress and President Obama to take the opposite approach.
Seventy-two percent (72%) say the nation’s elected politicians are more likely to increase government spending than cut taxes. Only 14% think they’ll cut taxes instead.
Republicans and unaffiliated voters strongly believe that tax cuts are the best tool for job creation. Democrats are evenly divided. Among those in the president’s party, 33% say tax cuts are best, 30% say increased spending...
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What Bias? Re: Networks Ignore Contradiction Between Obama's Middle Class Giveaways, Spending 'Freeze'
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In an attempt to boost flagging approval ratings, President Barack Obama announced a series of initiatives aimed at 'helping out the middle class' on Jan. 25, two days ahead of his State of the Union address.
"Good evening, everyone. He got the message: it's the economy middle-class voters are most worried about. And with critical congressional elections coming up this year, President Obama today rolled out a series of proposals designed to show he's on the case,"
Couric said as she teased White House correspondent Chip Reid's story.
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To re-empower our states
Subject: txt lbrty cali - bbro sclm -
As I was preparing to write a column on the ludi -crous maligning of the Tea Party movement by liberals, Democrats and the mainstream media (which I hope to write next week instead) I started thinking about one of the key objectives of the Tea Party people - the strict enforcement of the 10th Amendment ("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.").
As an early-1960s-vintage member of the then-new conservative movement, I remember us focusing on the 10th Amendment during the 1964 Goldwater campaign. It has been a staple of conservative thought, and the continued dormancy of 10th Amendment enforcement has been one of the failures of our now half-century-old movement.
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Dem plan: Split GOP, tea party
Democrats are looking for someone to blame for their electoral woes — and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez is working hard to make sure it’s not him. Showing that they’ve learned the lesson of Massachusetts, Menendez and his staff will distribute a memo Tuesday advising Democratic campaign managers to frame their opponents early — and to drive a wedge between moderate voters and tea-party-
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Newsmax-Zogby Poll: Palin Tops GOP Field for 2012
Sarah Palin's recent book success and her new high-profile role on Fox News are having a stunning impact on her political standing with a Newsmax-Zogby poll showing the former Alaska governor now leading the GOP field as the party's preferred candidate for president.
The exclusive Newsmax Media-Zogby poll released Thursday asked likely GOP voters:"If the Republican primary for president of the United States were held today... for whom would you vote?"
The poll gave voters a selection of top tier potential candidates as well as some dark horses, the list included Scott Brown, Jeb Bush, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, David Petraeus, Tim Pawlenty, and Mitt Romney.
Despite the size and diversity of the field, Palin grabbed a solid 22.2 percent to take the lead with former Massachusetts Gov. Romney close behind with 19.4 percent.
Also making a strong showing was former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich with 12 percent, followed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 11 percent.
The Newsmax-Zogby poll suggests the rumble for top dog among GOP candidates is anything but static.
The latest data is clearly good news for Palin.
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010
No Answer to Terrorism
[HT:SG]Subject: txt gwot nsec -
Bin Laden’s latest message, real or memorex, is an uncomfortable reminder for the current ruling party of the United States that terrorism did not go away just because they found it inconvenient or thought global warming was a much more crucial threat.
Like every terrorist, Bin Laden does not measure victory against a much stronger enemy in terms of strategic assaults, but in terms of staying power. And so Bin Laden’s message to Obama is a very simple one.
“I am still here. The Mujahadeen are still here. What are you going to do about it?” [snip]
How can we win a war when we won’t even define who we’re fighting. The lead up to and the aftermath of the Fort Hood Massacre is a tragic demonstration of what the greatest military in the world fighting blind, wrapped in a blindfold of denial, looks like.
As long as we can’t define what we’re fighting, then we have no answer to terrorism, except to huddle together for comfort and be as defensive and reactive as we can be after every successful or unsuccessful terrorist operation.
No answer to terrorism, oh we have an answer. We’re ignoring it, until we can’t ignore it anymore, and then we shout a lot, make loud threatening noises and wait for it to go away, so we can go back to ignoring it. And we throw money at any terrorist willing to pinkie swear that he will go home to his wives and adorable children, and practice terrorism no more. That’s our plan. Is it any wonder we’re losing?
We can win, but first we have to fight. We can win, but first we have to know who the enemy is. We can win, but first we have to take off the handcuffs, toss away the blindfold, and take the safety off.
Imagine if US soldiers had spent the Cold War learning about the wonders of Das Kapital and the Communist way of life. Imagine if during WW2, Bundists worked freely in the defense establishment and Charles Lindbergh was the President of the United States. Imagine if we went into every war insisting that we were not fighting the enemy, but a tiny minuscule minority of their extremists. Imagine if respect for Das Kapital and Mein Kampf had been taught to every US soldier.
Imagine it? We’re living it right now.
We can win, but first we have to start fighting back.
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Al Qaeda terror leaders have eye on chemical, biological or uclear attack on U.S. soil: report
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Al Qaeda planners are lying in wait, plotting another major attack on U.S. soil involving weapons of mass destruction, according to a dire new report. Osama bin Laden's terror network continues to work toward acquiring large-scale biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, sais Mowatt-Larssen, who led the U.S.'s probe into whether or not Al Qaeda had aquired WMDs in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,
Former high-ranking CIA official Rolf Mowatt-Larssen reported in a paper for Harvard's Kennedy School that al Qaeda operatives are desperate to launch the most devastating terror attack yet.
"We have done things that have made the country safer," ... "But we have to ask ourselves does that mean they can't mount another attack like 9/11 with 19 core, well-trained terrorists?
"It doesn't require a giant organization to pull off a spectacular terrorist attack like that. We have to be careful that we don't become complacent."
One of the motivations for his report, Mowatt-Larssen said, was the concern that government officials were getting too bogged down in focusing on the potential for smaller scale terrorist attacks like individual suicide bombers or plots to bring down a single aircraft.
"Just like a football coach that might say, 'We're never going to fumble, we're never going to have an interception,' well that's not going to last long," he said. "In the war on terror, we're going to have to -- as hard as it is for people to hear this message -- we're going to have to get used to making risk management decisions that means we're not going to stop everything.
"But the important thing, the most important thing, is stopping the next 9/11."
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Chairman of Senate Homeland Security Committee: Does Everyone In Obama Administration Know We’re At War?
Subject: txt gwot nsec -
The chairman and ranking Republican of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today urged the Obama administration to transfer the Christmas Day bomber into military custody, and harged that though President Obama
“has said repeatedly that we are at war, it does not appear to us that the President's words are reflected in the actions of some in the Executive branch, including some at the Department of Justice, responsible for fighting that war.”
In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and the president’s top homeland security adviser, John Brennan, Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Me., urged for the immediate transfer of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab into Pentagon hands to be
“held as an unprivileged enemy belligerent (UEB) and questioned and charged accordingly.”
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What Activism?
Subject: txt gwot nsec msm bias fnn -
Amanpour’s Viewership Soars -- on Fox News
CNN spiked a hot story on Sunday. But if their plan was to keep a lid on a heated and unflattering Christiane Amanpour interview, it didn’t quite work out. Christiane Amanpour interviewed author Marc Thiessen about his hot new book,
Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack last Wednesday, January 20. But Thiessen turned the tables on Amanpour and instead confronted her about her biased reporting.
Here’s where the story gets interesting. Fox News Channel then grabbed the CNN video clips off YouTube and aired parts of the revealing interview on its two top rated shows, "The O’Reilly Factor" and "Hannity."
The net effect was that parts of the interview were seen domestically by more than ten times the number who would have seen it had the show simply aired on CNN alone...
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Times Study: Only Fox News Offered Obama Historically Normal Scrutiny in 2009
Subject: txt msm bias reps libs crpt hstry - reality check -
The Washington Times’s Jennifer Harper picked up on a new study from the non-partisan Center for Media and Public Affairs showing President Obama getting much more flattering news coverage from ABC, CBS and NBC (46% positive vs. 55% negative) during his first year in office than did Presidents Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush, all of whom received roughly three times more bad press than good from those same broadcast networks.
But one network did offer scrutiny roughly equal to that provided by the old networks in the past, according to CMPA: the Fox News Channel. Reviewing the first thirty minutes of FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier, CMPA found roughly three times more negative coverage of Obama (78%) vs. positive coverage (22%) during 2009. This compares to the broadcast networks doling out 74% bad press for Ronald Reagan in 1981 and 77% bad press for George W. Bush in 2001. In 1993, Bill Clinton fared better than his GOP counterparts (28% positive vs. 72% negative), but much worse than President Obama. (Chart below the jump).
As the MRC’s Tim Graham noted in a just-released special report from MRC, Omitting for Obama, the three broadcast networks were routinely late in picking up on negative storylines about the Obama administration, and gave paltry attention to major scandals such as the radical affiliations of ex-White House aide Van Jones, ACORN, and the pro-communist musings of then-White House communications director Anita Dunn. Instead, those stories were brought to light by alternative news sources, such as Fox News, talk radio and the conservative blogosphere, and then only grudgingly covered by the old media.
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Clinton 'deeply resents' foreign criticism on Haiti
Subject: txt intl libs owg reality check -
WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday she "deeply resents" foreign criticism of the US response to the earthquake in Haiti, saying the United States was doing as much as it could.
"I deeply resent those who attack our country, the generosity of our people and the leadership of our president in trying to respond to historically disastrous conditions after the earthquake,"
Clinton told State Department...
[Good for her.]
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Reality Check Re: GIVERS AND MISERS
Subject: txt intl gdd vals sclm owg msm libs -
Last week, Tom Miller, president and CEO of the United Nations Association of the United States, told the Westport Rotary Club that
"as the richest nation in the world, the United States could do more for Haitian earthquake victims."
Considering Miller's position, perhaps it would be instructive to contrast the U.S. contribution and support for Haiti to that of the other members of the United Nations:
- The United Nations' ReliefWeb database showed contributions from the U.S. government (a.k.a. U.S. taxpayers) worth $90 million, or 44 percent of the grand total pledged.
- That's just a fraction of the real U.S. contributions, which include millions in private donations plus a huge relief operation by the U.S. military.
- America has been sending ships, air-dropping rations and pouring in thousands of troops to open relief corridors and provide security; all this is politely styled as 'backup' to a U.N. effort, which is in reality propped up by the United States.
Just behind the United States in contributions to the U.N.'s Haiti appeal is a roster of Western democracies, starting with France (12.7 percent of the total pledged to date), Sweden (7.4 percent), Spain (3.5 percent), Germany (2.8 percent), Brazil (2.6 percent), with Australia, Finland, Canada, Italy, and Denmark giving even less... [snip]
Rosett goes on to note the paltry donations of the oil-rich Middle Eastern countries, but the main point that Miller should glean is that the United Nations and the world are lucky that America is ready and willing to act and financially support efforts to address crises like that in Haiti.
There doesn't seem to be a long queue of countries ready to take our place as the world's most generous and effective humanitarian nation...READ MORE
About That Corporate Takeover of Politics
Subject: txt lbrty crpt msm bias bbro - 2010 -
New York Times editorial board members, as noted last week, believe that Citizens United vs. FEC "has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding." They should think about reading their own paper, where David Kirkpatrick on Sunday asked "legal scholars and social scientists" about corporate corruption of politics, and found that "the evidence is meager, at best." From the piece:
"There is no evidence that stricter campaign finance rules reduce corruption or raise positive assessments of government," said Kenneth Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "It seems like such an obvious relationship but it has proven impossible to prove." [...]
Australia barely regulates political money. Individuals and corporations can give without limit. Parties can spend freely. And there is not much disclosure about who gives what to whom. But political corruption has not threatened a vibrant democracy there.
In the United States, studies comparing states like Virginia with scant regulation against those like Wisconsin with strict rules have not found much difference in levels of corruption or public trust, several scholars said. Jeff Milyo, an economist at the University of Missouri, has compared states with strict bans on corporate contributions to political parties against those with no limits at all. "There is just no good evidence that campaign finance laws have any effect on actual corruption," he said.
Whole thing here.
[They're used by established powers to restrict the influence of the little people.]
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Want to know what campaign finance reform is really about?
Subject: txt lbrty 2010 libs -
I've read more newspaper and magazine articles, court cases, and blog posts on various aspects of campaign finance reform than I care to remember, but none of them captured the essential points of what is at stake as well as this video produced by the Cato Institute:
[HIGHLY RECOMMENDED {5 mins}]
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Poll: 3 of 4 Americans say much of stimulus money wasted
[HT:PW]Subject: txt mny -
Washington--Nearly three out of four Americans think that the money spent in the federal stimulus plan has been wasted, according to a new national poll.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday morning also indicates that 63 percent of the public thinks that projects in the plan were included for purely political reasons and will have no economic benefit, with 36 percent saying those projects will benefit the economy.
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Reality Check Re: "Stimulus" Spending...
Subject: txt mny =
"Then you get the argument ‘Well this is not a stimulus bill; this is a spending bill." Whaddya think a stimulus is? That's the whole point! No, seriously. That's the point." Barack Obama, February 2009.
"[The stimulus is] doing more, faster, more efficiently, and more effectively than most expected." Joe Biden, September 2009.
"... the road to recovery is never straight... Last month, however, we slipped back, losing more jobs than we gained, though the overall trend of job loss is still pointing in the right direction. What this underscores, though, is that we have to continue to explore every avenue to accelerate the return to hiring." Barack Obama, January 2010.
Source: Heritage Foundation.
Job gains or losses in recent months (2009):
- December: -589,000
- November: +139,000
- October: -526,000
- September: -665,000
- August: -384,000
All 2009: -5,396,000
Dept. of Labor, Household Survey data, via the St. Louis Fed.
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Meanwhile, in our Professional media..
..
On his segment of CNN Newroom today, anchor Ali Velshi cited a CNN/Opinion Research poll showing that only a quarter of Americans believe Obama's stimulus program has wasted little or no money. He then set up an interview with a pro-stimulus academic:
Let's talk about this with Kenneth Rogoff, professor of public policy and economics at Harvard University. Ken, you have looked at this very, very carefully. I have to say, back when the stimulus bill was being discussed, very few said there is no need for an economic stimulus bill at all. Do you think this was a necessary thing to do a year ago?
Velshi's claim that few economists opposed government spending to stimulate the economy is false. Last January, Frank Ahrens, the Washington Post's business reporter, wrote "Cato Lines Up 200 Economists Against Obama's Stimulus." It began:
The conservative Cato Institute bought a full-page ads in The Washington Post and New York Times in the form of a letter to Obama, signed by some 200 economists, including three Nobel laureates -- Edward Prescott and George Mason's Vernon Smith and James Buchanan -- listed prominently at the top.
A group of 200 economists, including three Nobel laureates, doesn't qualify as "very few." Many in the mainstream media are eager to protect and defend the man they helped put in the White House.
We can expect more rewriting of recent history as that crusade continues...
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Democrats pull back on health care bill
Subject: txt hcare - fnn - 
WASHINGTON – Democrats retreated Tuesday from a quick push to pass President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, lacking a workable strategy to salvage the sweeping legislation that has consumed Congress for more than a year.
"There is no rush,"
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after a meeting of Senate Democrats
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FLASHBACK:
The chutzpah of Harry Reid
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Unions Strike Deal With White House on Health Care Excise Tax
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House and Senate negotiators have agreed on significant changes to the tax on high-dollar insurance plans in the health care bill, Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, announced Thursday.
The tax had become a critical area of disagreement between the House and Senate, with unions objecting to the tax on grounds it would unfairly burden middle class workers.
The modifications are a major victory for one of Obama's biggest donor groups...
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Ignoring ‘Climategate’
Subject: txt grn owg -
At first glance, Climategate’s leaked correspondence is the Dangerous Liaisons of the scientific world. Despite the drumbeat informing the public that science strongly supports the climate-change thesis, the leaked data paint a picture of a community of experts afraid of scrutiny, willing to use underhanded methods to silence doubters, and content to eliminate evidence that might undermine both their theories and their funding.
Yet the scandal has not led to serious policy reconsiderations or even significant stigmatization for many of the scientists and organizations implicated. Instead, even as fundamental suppositions about climate change were being challenged, the Environmental Protection Agency took initial steps to implement the most extensive carbon-emissions regulations the United States has ever seen. And only a few weeks afterward, the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, with 192 countries in attendance, began without meaningfully addressing the Climategate e-mails.
The extent of the planet’s warming and the idea that an increase in its temperature is the fault of humankind are matters that scientists may be able to prove decisively someday. But the Climategate e-mails show that, for now, the evidence is far from conclusive. For all the talk about the need for public policy about warming to be governed by science, Climategate illustrates that the belief in global warming may be rooted less in detached science than in the West’s uneasy conscience about capitalism and development.
Those skeptics who argue that the environmental alarmism on display at Copenhagen and elsewhere is the product of a modern pantheistic faith and not the result of empirical reasoning must be taken seriously. The best that can be hoped for in the aftermath of Climategate is that the community that cares about science will live up to the purpose of its studies: to ask questions and observe the evidence with cold eyes.
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U.N. Offiicial Won't Quit for Climate Report Error
Subject: txt owg grn -
The head of a panel of United Nations climate scientists said Saturday he would not resign despite a recent admission that a panel report warning Himalayan glaciers could be gone by 2035 was hundreds of years off.
But Rajendra Pachauri, who heads the panel, said no action would be taken against the authors of the report and he would not resign...
[Of course - that would be too close to accountability. Mistakes happen. The more indicative actions are those in response to their discovery...
And the Obama administration is supporting this outfit's ability to tax us directly for its operating revenue...]
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Economic growth 'cannot continue'
Subject: txt grn owg libs - lbrty -
Tom Clougherty, executive director of the Adam Smith Institute, a free-market think-thank, said Nef's report exhibited "a complete lack of understanding of economics and, indeed, human development".
"It is precisely this economic growth which will lift the poor out of poverty and improve the environmental standards that really matter to people - like clean air and water - in the process, as it has done throughout human history,"
he told BBC News.
"There's only one good thing I can say for the Nef's report, and that's that it is honest. Its authors admit that they want us to be poorer and to lead more restricted lives for the sake of their faddish beliefs."
[What they're literally saying is that we need turn the whole world red...]
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SWEDISH SCHOOLS MORE AMERICAN THAN AMERICA'S
[HT:CP]Subject: txt edu -
Our one-size-fits-all public education system leaves students in Dallas with less choice and opportunity than their counterparts in Stockholm. That needs to change, say Clayton M. McCleskey, a columnist with the Dallas Morning News.
The Swedish model is built on a voucher system at both the primary and secondary levels:
- According to the political adviser to the Swedish minister of education, if a public school isn't meeting a student's needs, he or she can take advantage of the voucher system and leave.
- Students have the option to switch to another public school or they can leave the public system altogether and opt for a private school.
- The government attaches money to each student, which then follows him wherever he goes, says the Swedish Wire.
According to the Stockholm County governor and former education minister Per Unckel: "Choice is for everyone, whatever income you have. The right of the kid is to get a good education. If the public sector cannot offer it, he or she should have the right to go somewhere else:
- When Sweden introduced the voucher system in the early '90s, it was controversial; but now it is widely popular, and the results have shown rising standards across the board.
- The program has also helped desegregate schools in cities with large immigrant populations, such as Stockholm.
- It's a way for the high achievers to get out of the environment that is holding them back.
Another feature of the Swedish system is that it allows high schoolers to choose from a smorgasbord of high school programs centered on three paths: college preparatory, vocational and a more remedial track.
So, Swedish students go to schools their parents like and students are able to follow their interests and passions...
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Poll: GOP primary for US Senate seat in Fla. a tie
Subject: txt 2010 NPAC >>>
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Former Florida legislator Marco Rubio has closed the gap in the race for the state's Republican U.S. Senate nomination and is in a virtual dead heat with Gov. Charlie Crist, according to a poll released Tuesday...
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Florida Senate Race Leads Nation in Fundraising
Subject: txt 2010 NPAC >>>
The Republican primary race for a Senate seat from Florida is one of the most watched in the nation, and the fundraising numbers released Tuesday morning are matching those lofty expectations.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist pulled in $2 million for the last three months of 2009 and has $7.5 million in cash on hand, with no outstanding debts.
Meanwhile Crist's opponent, conservative Marco Rubio, continues to keep pace with Crist, raking in $1.75 million in the same period with $2 million cash on hand.
Senior Rubio campaign adviser Todd Harris added,
"Charlie Crist's fundraising advantage is quickly disappearing..."
The latest polling shows the Florida Senate race tightening. Rubio has gone from a 31 point underdog in June to neck and neck with Crist...
The Florida race is pulling in big bucks as grass roots Republicans across the country are pouring money into the state.
"We're on pace in meeting our goals, and I am as confident as ever that we will have the resources to deliver our message and be successful,"
Rubio said.
NPAC >>
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