From The Heritage Foundation: Rebuilding Communities

The Senate will begin debating a bill that was supposed to be disaster recovery funds for those devastated by the storm. But so many special-interest projects were added on that the $60.4 billion request has turned into a farce. Roughly $28 billion of the request is marked for future disaster-mitigation projects.

It includes:

$200 million for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to be used freely at the discretion of the Secretary;
Money for salmon fisheries in Alaska; and
$2 million for roof repairs at the Smithsonian.

The bill also seeks federal funding for things that are provided on a state and local level, or by nonprofits and communities, such as food for food banks.

As Heritage visiting fellow Matt Mayer explains, “[S]etting aside whether these projects have merit, a supplemental spending request to deal with a current crisis is not the appropriate vehicle to propose new spending projects.” Items have been tacked onto the bill that should be debated for the regular federal budget, not disaster funding.

The way the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) responds to disasters—and the type of disasters that it responds to—are issues that need serious consideration. Hurricane Sandy is the type of disaster that FEMA should be responsible for, but using a legitimate disaster funding request as an opportunity for piling on all kinds of unrelated money is irresponsible and insulting to the victims of the disaster.

Adding injury to taxpayers, the Administration did not propose any ways to pay for the $60.4 billion cost of the bill. In the dire budget situation, when Congress and the President are already tasked with averting the fiscal cliff, coming up with any extra money isn’t an easy request—and only necessary funds should qualify for immediate disaster relief. Mayer estimates that “Removing unnecessary items from the Administration’s request yields a reduced request of $12.8 billion in supplemental funds. These funds should be provided only after being offset by spending reductions.”

Americans believe in coming to the aid of those who are hurting. Whether in Connecticut or New York, a devastated school community or a hurricane-ravaged neighborhood, we will rebuild. We must help meet the immediate needs of these communities while we carefully consider longer-term solutions.

http://links.heritage.org/hostedemail/email.htm?CID=14024840906&ch=20585F60A5F898A1444D3843189FE28F&h=47d902ecc40d5e57b24a819194ce1768&ei=scnYRDkWN

Media Dismisses Fact that Show of Force Stopped CT School Shooter

On "Morning Joe," Pete Williams reported that the Connecticut elementary school shooter ended his rampage and killed himself upon the arrival of the police:

Only when he saw and heard the police running down the hall toward him did this end, when the police say he used one of the handguns to shoot himself; ending this killing spree.

According to this media reports, then, what apparently stopped this awful massacre was a show of force -- was the shooter knowing the police were coming.

So where's the media discussion on what might have actually stopped this shooting before over two dozen were murdered, and that was brave individuals trained in the use of firearms on their way to confront the killer.

Everyone knows, including madmen, that they have at least five minutes to do whatever they want before police arrive. So…

What if we had the equivalent of air marshals in schools?

What if willing teachers were trained and armed in schools?

What if we treated schools like we do airplanes and advertised the hell out of the fact that there's a very good chance someone's in the building who is trained and armed?

One could argue that if this were the case, not only could these madmen be stopped sooner but that it might also work as a deterrent.

But all we hear the media talking about this morning is restricting the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves. Moreover, the media's also making it sound as though guns are the problem when they might really be the solution.

Why don't we treat schools like we do airplanes?

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/12/17/Media-Dismisses-Fact-That-Show-of-Force-Stopped-Shooter

Congrats, Barry. US falls out of top 10 most prosperous nations

You know that period between sleep and wakefulness where you're not quite sure you're still dreaming? I read this blog item at Powerline and had the exact same reaction:

Via InstaPundit, we learn that for the first time, the United States does not rank as one of the world's ten most prosperous nations, as rated by London's Legatum Institute. The authors of the report found that the U.S.'s slippage is being driven by "a decline in the number of US citizens who believe that hard work will get them ahead." Well, they're right: in Barack Obama's America, hard work doesn't cause you to get ahead; being politically connected does. We are all paying the price for the corruption of the Age of Obama.
Consistent with this finding is the fact that for the first time in history, the average Canadian is wealthier than the average American. Canada has a conservative government, and they have passed us like we are standing still. Which we are, at best.
All of which raises the question: do Barack Obama and his minions want America to be one of the world's ten most prosperous countries? If you believe, as I do, that actions speak louder than words, the answer is No.

If this be a nightmare, someone please pinch me so I can wake up. This is incomprehensible to someone my age who grew up in a country that would always be free, prosperous, and strong.
This new reality makes me want to go back to sleep.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/12/congrats_barry_us_falls_out_of_top_10_most_prosperous_nations.html#ixzz2FQfh6Jk

Report: U.S. Gov't Owes $5.5 Trillion to Foreign Entities

Data released by the U.S. Treasury Department on Monday showed that as of October 31, the U.S. government owed nearly $5.5 trillion to foreign interests. The amount of U.S. government debt to foreigners has increased by 78% under President Barack Obama.

According to the Treasury Department, "the U.S. government owed $5,482,200,000,000 to foreign interests" as of October 31, up from "$5,476,200,000 as of Sept. 30."

CNS News discovered that "when President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the U.S. government owed $3,071,700,000,000 to foreign interests. Since then the U.S. government’s debt to foreign interests has increased by $2,410,500,000,000—or 78 percent."

According to the the Treasury Department's numbers, though "entities in Mainland China remained the largest holders of U.S. government debt, with $1,161,500,000,000 in holdings," Mainland Chinese entities have actually "decreased their holding of U.S. government debt by 7.5 percent."

Japanese entities over the past year, have started to accumulate U.S. government debt. CNS News found that Japanese entities have increased their ownership of U.S. debt by nearly 13 percent over the past year, from $1,006,100,000,000 to $1,134,700,000,000.

The Federal Reserve still remains the "world’s largest single owner of U.S. government debt," owning $1,650,297,000,000.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/18/Treasury-Dept-Report-U-S-Gov-t-Owes-5-5-Trillion-To-Foreign-Entities-Up-78-Under-Obama

Redistribution as Slavery

The idea that we should take from those who have and give to those who don't is viewed as proper and just among liberals. In fact, if you do not subscribe to redistribution ideology, you are attacked as being greedy at best and racist at worst. The problem is that income redistribution in practice promotes one of the same moral injustices found under slavery.

As Thomas Sowell put it: "Not since the days of slavery have there been so many people who feel entitled to what other people have produced as there are in the modern welfare state."

If morality is defined by private property, meaning that a person has a right, based on natural law, to their person and their possessions, and if property is generated by the productive and wealth creating behavior of a person's labor, then it follows that it is an infringement on an individual's rights to use any force (murder, theft, rape, etc) to injure or take away one's property. Using the productivity of another for one's personal gain is immoral.

We can then extrapolate from this premise. If taking the productive output of a slave and using it for another's personal gain is immoral; then taking the productive output of any worker and using it for another's gain is also immoral, no matter what race, color, gender, or socio-economic status the producer happens to be.
Logic leads us to one conclusion. A modern form of slavery has been embedded within the welfare state. And no matter how you slice it, property theft to promote a false ideology of "fairness" or advance a twisted form of "compassion" to gain power is abhorrent. It does not matter how many ribbons and bows decorate the rhetoric of "Robin Hood" redistribution, the final analysis is the promotion of servitude.

Redistributive ideology is not about a safety net for the truly needy or the necessity of government to tax in order to perform its proper functions of protecting people, property, and enforcing the rule of law. President Obama may call redistributive efforts "economic justice," or "economic rights," but in the end, using the power of the state to confiscate property is as immoral as taking the wealth created by a slave to benefit the slave owner.

Those on the left will look you straight in the eye and profess they defend liberty and property; but one need only to read the words of the president in regards to his definition of "social justice."

"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody"

"I actually believe in redistribution"

"Spreading the wealth around is good."

'Bring about significant re-distributional change"

"Actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change"

"I do not believe that those two things -- fair distribution and economic growth -- are mutually exclusive"

"I'm not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts"

"The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society."

"I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change."

And of course the classic lines "You didn't build that" and "those who do not pay their fair share" underline the president's belief that private property is available to be confiscated while ignoring the unalienable rights defined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

By advancing the welfare state and income redistribution through class warfare, one of the basic intellectually inconsistent ironies of liberalism is exposed: the indefensible practice of trying to defend equality and the dignity of man by violating the human rights of those very people you claim to be defending. The hypocrisy of the left knows no boundaries.

Far too many Americans have shed blood to protect the sacred rights of life, liberty and property. History reminds us the Civil War's fight to end the abuse of human dignity embodied in slavery was a victory that came with a high price.

The nation's current trajectory of wealth redistribution will eventually polarize the citizenry, creating the conditions for an open conflict between the takers and the makers for the simple reason that entitlement creates resentment. Americans must find moral clarity on property rights within the framework of law and republican tradition before inevitable political and social deterioration completes its work and a violent resolution is all that remains.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/redistribution_as_slavery.html

Media Bias in What Goes Unreported

We all know there's plenty of bias in the reporting that's done by the MSM: The adulation fro President Obama, the handy re-invention of taxes as "investments," the continued insistence (against all evidence) that Tea Partiers are the source of violence and incivility in our political culture.

But here's a handy reminder that media bias doesn't exist only in what is reported -- there's also bias in what goes unreported, too. As the invaluable Newsbusters tells us, neither ABC nor CBS bothered to report on the historic nomination of Tim Scott to the US Senate. This despite the fact that Scott will be the only African American senator currently serving, represented the district where the Civil War actually began, is one of only two African American senators post-Reconstruction (the Democrats have had three -- Carol Moseley Braun, Roland Burris and Barack Obama). What's more, he is taking the seat held for decades by Strom Thurmond, who was once a segregationist.

But nothing here worth reporting, no sir.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/carolplattliebau/2012/12/18/media-bias-in-what-goes-unreported-n1469487

Professor: I Want NRA Vice President's "Head on a Stick"

Yesterday we brought you reports of NRA President David Keene and NRA members receiving death threats in light of the Sandy Hook tragedy and now, Campus Reform has reported that University of Rhode Island Professor Erik Loomis has called for NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre's "head on a stick" during a rant on his Twitter page. Loomis also called the NRA a terrorist organization.

“[I] want Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick,” Erik Loomis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island (URI), tweeted.

It “looks like the National Rifle Association has murdered some more children,” he added.”

Can [we] define NRA membership as dues contributing to a terrorist organization?" he asked in a separate tweet.

Loomis’ comments come on the heels of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which left 20 young children and six faculty members dead.

The professor contended Democratic lawmakers should exploit the tragedy to force more restrictive gun control measures into law.

“You are goddamn right we should politicize this tragedy,” Loomis tweeted. “[F]*ck the NRA.”

I thought college campuses were supposed to be places of civility and calm...
UPDATE: Loomis is now claiming he doesn't want LaPierre dead, but put in prison for the rest of his life.

No Bipartisanship in Support of Tyranny

Appeasement of evil always emboldens and empowers tyrants. Conservatives cannot accept bipartisanship in support of tyranny. We must vigilantly oppose the oppressive and immoral policies that continually usurp our individual liberties and rights and increase the power, reach, and control of government. As history has shown, silence in the face of unjust policies and collaboration with immoral and characterless individuals never bring about genuine peace, freedom, or prosperity. "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent," warned Thomas Jefferson.

On the day following the disastrous results of the November 2012 presidential election, Mark Levin issued a passionate call for conservatives to stand on their principles and fight against the spreading of tyranny in America. In his opening monologue on his nationally syndicated radio program, Levin boldly stated that conservatives "do not accept bipartisanship in the pursuit of tyranny. Period. We will not negotiate the terms of our economic and political servitude. Period."

He reminded conservatives why we must be vigilant and steeled in this battle for the heart and soul of America. Our children and grandchildren will suffer the most if we compromise and give in to encroaching tyranny. "We will not abandon our child to a dark and bleak future. We will not accept a fate that is alien to the legacy we inherited from every single future generation in this country," asserted Levin.

Levin further outlined the dangerous consequences of the false bipartisanship that Obama and the Democrats are trying to foist on the country. "Bipartisanship? Bipartisanship to shred the remaining Articles and Sections of the Constitution? To surrender the liberty and happiness of our children to an all-powerful group of masterminds? To steal the wealth of successful people so it can be redistributed to cronies and people who don't earn it? That's bipartisanship? Well, count me the hell out!" cautioned Levin.

Conservatives must remember that surrendering their principles for the sake of compromise and illusory bipartisanship will further erode our liberties, embolden an all-powerful and increasingly unaccountable government bureaucracy, and lead to more tyranny, misery, and suffering for all Americans. "Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny," cautioned Thomas Jefferson. The tyranny Jefferson warned us about is now at our doorstep. It is growing bolder and more dangerous every day.

While America slouches towards tyranny, conservatives must be bold and fearless in defending the freedom, moral values, and Constitutional principles that guarantee and protect our individual liberties. We must stand against tyranny and an all-powerful government. "There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war," warned Reinhold Niebuhr. In the current fight for America's soul, conservatives must not compromise their principles. We must defend freedom, liberty, and righteousness for the sake of present and future generations. Surrender and compromise are not legitimate and honorable options. The stakes are simply too high.

Here are relevant excerpts from Mark Levin's opening remarks from his radio program:

"We conservatives, we do not accept bipartisanship in the pursuit of tyranny. Period. We will not negotiate the terms of our economic and political servitude. Period. We will not abandon our child to a dark and bleak future. We will not accept a fate that is alien to the legacy we inherited from every single future generation in this country. We will not accept social engineering by politicians and bureaucrats who treat us like lab rats, rather than self-sufficient human beings. There are those in this country who choose tyranny over liberty. They do not speak for us, 57 million of us who voted against this yesterday, and they do not get to dictate to us under our Constitution.

We are the alternative. We will resist. We're not going to surrender to this. We will not be passive, we will not be compliant in our demise. We're not good losers, you better believe we're sore losers! A good loser is a loser forever. Now I hear we're called 'purists.' Conservatives are called purists. The very people who keep nominating moderates, now call us purists the way the left calls us purists. Yeah, things like liberty, and property rights, individual sovereignty, and the Constitution, and capitalism. We're purists now. And we have to hear this crap from conservatives, or pseudo-conservatives, Republicans.
...
(at 15:02 in the audio clip)Bipartisanship, bipartisanship to what end? To destroying the private sector? To drive up the cost of basic goods and necessities? To expand the Statist electoral base, the bureaucracy, and the power of government?

Bipartisanship? Bipartisanship to shred the remaining Articles and Sections of the Constitution? To surrender the liberty and happiness of our children to an all-powerful group of masterminds? To steal the wealth of successful people so it can be redistributed to cronies and people who don't earn it? That's bipartisanship? Well count me the hell out!

Just because we had an election does not mean I have to accept tyranny and it doesn't mean you have to accept it either. Does the Left ever accept the consequences of an election when a conservative wins? Hell no!

No way! I'm not going! I'm not being dragged into this hell ladies and gentlemen."

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/12/no_bipartisanship_in_support_of_tyranny.html

Also Reads:

http://readwrite.com/2012/12/17/how-obama-knew-how-youd-vote-even-before-you-did

40 Years Since Man Last Walked on the Moon

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/12/18/john-lott-destroys-cnns-soledad-obrien-on-gun-free-zones-n1469461