Obama Prioritizes Family Spring Break Over White House Tours
As spring break begins for schoolchildren across the country,
thousands of students will travel to Washington, DC. The trips, funded
by bake sales and other events throughout the year, will allow the
students to take in Washington's historic landmarks.
One premier destination is off-limits this year, however. A few weeks
ago, the Obama Administration announced it was suspending public,
self-guided tours of the White House as a result of the automatic
sequester cuts that the administration proposed in 2011. While America's
students stand outside the White House fence, the First Daughters,
Sasha and Malia, are enjoying spring break with friends at the Atlantis
Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.
Breitbart News' Matt Boyle broke the news
Monday morning that numerous sources have reported seeing the First
Daughters in the Bahamas this weekend. Presumably, the Obamas are paying
the costs of the resort out of their own pockets. The robust Secret
Service detail that must accompany the First Daughters, however, is
funded by taxpayers.
The principal reason the White House canceled public tours was to save money on Secret Service staff. The White House reported that suspending the tours would save $74,000 a week. Other reports have put the savings at just $18,000 a week.
Whichever the true amount, the Secret Service detail necessary to
protect the First Daughters on their spring break could likely have been
used to keep the White House open to the rest of America's school
children. Judicial Watch reported
that Malia Obama's Spring Break in Mexico last year cost taxpayers over
$115,000. That amount would cover 2-6 weeks of White House tours.
At the very least, it would ensure that, this spring break, thousands
of America's students could cap their trip to DC with a uniquely
American tradition--a tour of the White House.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/03/25/obama-prioritizes-family-spring-break-over-white-house-tours
Bloomberg: You’re not going to be able to maintain your privacy, so just deal with it
It’s hardly a surprise that somebody who believes he has the
authority to regulate the size of your soda cup would be so passive
about the subject of personal privacy (yours, not his).
From Business Insider:
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg considers the
domestic use of military-style drones “scary” but says that there is no
way to stop it.
“Everybody wants their privacy, but I don’t know how you’re going to
maintain it,” Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show. “It’s just we’re
going into a different world, uncharted, and, like it or not, what
people can do, what governments can do, is different … you can’t keep
the tides from coming in.”
Bloomberg’s “you can’t keep the tides from coming in” comment is a little ironic, considering he endorsed a president based in part on his promise to slow the rise of the oceans.
http://michellemalkin.com/2013/03/24/bloomberg-privacy/
Politics: Not Just Red & Blue Anymore
While eating with Lee Stranahan, we started to have a discussion. We
spoke about everything from sports, to politics, to family, and how we
like our burgers cooked. What really caught my ear was something that
Lee said. I myself really thought about this idea, but when Lee said "As
a white man, you can be anything you want to be politically", it really
made me start to think. I understood what we was saying. Overall, if
you were white, you can be a Liberal, a Conservative, a Libertarian, a
Communist, and no one really blinks an eye. It's the sentiment that if
you're another race, color or creed, something is 'expected of you.
Where in this country does this sentiment exist that as a white man,
it's suddenly okay to be whatever you want? I have to be honest, it's
certainly not on the Left. If you're a Black Conservative, you're a
House N*gger or an Uncle Tom, if you're a Young Conservative, you're
just some rich white boy who plays with mommy and daddy's money, if
you're a woman and you're a Conservative, you're an oppressed wife
living in the Bible Belt who doesn't believe in Evolution.
Here are just some of the things that the Left expects; College
Students should be Liberals, Black a Liberal, Spanish a Liberal for
immigration purposes, White a Liberal, or you're considered a crazy
right wing conspiracist or as Joel Pollak was wrong wrongly accused of
by the Winged Nuts over at Media Matters, 'birthers'.
What ever happened to the 'American Dream'? The idea of 'Be All You
Can Be' is basically thrown out the window by the Left. Unless you are
what they want you to be, you're wrong. Many of you have probably said
this same thing over and over again. I know I'm not the first person on
Breitbart.com to write about the Left's expectations of all races,
genders, and creeds politically. However, it's not what we already know.
We all know tha as Conservatives and Tea Party members, we're called
racists by the Left and the Main Stream Media. We all know that this is
just some type of tactic they're using to portray the Right as the big
bad wolf of American politics. The Left feels as though their agenda
outweighs the Constitution, our rights and freedoms, and the ability to
raise honest children.
What really moved me was something that most of the American public
does not realize. The so called 'Right-Wing Conspiracists' or 'Crazy
Right-Wing Nuts' are some of the most tolerant, accepting people I have
ever been around. No matter who you are, what you look like or how you
think, you're accepted. Are there debates on difference of opinion?
Sure. But there is never a feeling of you're not welcome here. Being a
part of the Conservative media, I get to see this in different parts of
the country and with different groups of people. Lee Stranahan walked
through CPAC with a Black farmer, not a Conservative, not a Liberal, but
a farmer. Each and every person that met and spoke with him shook his
hand, looked him in the eye and didn't think twice that he shouldn't be
here if he wasn't one of 'us' or he didn't belong here. I truly realized
how tolerant a group of people I call my friends were with this one
single event.
Now I ask, what do we need to do to get everyone else to realize
this? Who is going to grab the bull by the horns and not let the
mainstream media portray us as something that we are not? Each and
everyone of us need to stand up, not against just Obama and the Left,
not just against the Main Stream Media, but stand up to your friends,
your family members, classmates, etc. Don't let someone tell you what
you should be or what you're supposed to be. Express your individual
liberties and freedoms every chance you get.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/03/22/Politics-Not-Just-Red-Blue-Anymore
IT'S OFFICIAL: Banks In Europe May Now Seize Deposits To Cover Their
Gambling Losses
As expected, Cyprus and the EU reached a new late-night bailout deal last night that will reduce the chance that Cyprus's financial system and economy will completely implode.
The new deal is better than the last deal in one key respect:
- Deposits under 100,000 euros will be protected
That's very important. Those deposits were ostensibly "insured." To
seize them, the way the last bailout deal would have, would have been
grossly unfair and would have set a truly alarming precedent.
Now, small depositors in European banks can breathe more easily. At
least in this case of gross malpractice on the part of reckless bank
managers, their life savings have been preserved.
Alas, the good news ends there.
Although deposits under 100,000 euros will be spared, deposits over
100,000 euros will be seized and subjected to an as-yet undetermined
haircut--with the confiscated money going to bail out the gambling
losses of the aforementioned reckless idiots who run some of Cyprus's
banks.
This seizure, needless to say, will dampen the enthusiasm of rich
depositors for keeping money in banks that get themselves into financial
trouble.
And because many, many banks in Europe have gotten themselves into
financial trouble, this will create a general state of unease among rich
depositors throughout the Eurozone.
And it should wig out some bank lenders, as well.
After all, never before in the history of this global financial
crisis has a major banking system allowed depositors to lose money, no
matter how reckless and stupid and greedy their bank managers have been.
And only rarely have bank lenders--those who hold bank bonds--been
asked to pony up.
In this case, however, the depositors will lose money. Perhaps a lot
of money. And if there had been big bank debtholders in Cyprus, they
probably would have been socked with losses, too.
It's possible that everyone will just laugh off Cyprus, viewing it as
an exceptional one-off. After all, the Cyprus banking system was
notorious for being the offshore money-laundering arm of many Russian
oligarchs, so many folks will likely view this asset seizure as a case
of "just desserts."
But this optimistic view of the Cyprus horrorshow overlooks one key fact:
The main reason that Cyprus depositors will lose their cash is
because it has become politically difficult (impossible?) for leaders in
Germany and other rich European countries to bail out their brethren in
the "periphery" without taking many pounds of flesh.
And it is that precedent, in addition to the fate of big depositors
in Cyprus, that should spook Europe's big bank depositors and lenders.
If Germany is done bailing out countries and banks without having those countries and banks cover some of the cost,
it's not clear why Germany will relent next time Spain, Italy, Greece,
and other countries in near-desperately bad financial shape come rushing
to the EU with their hands out.
Unlike Cyprus, the banking systems in these countries do have
bondholders that can get haircut before the depositors get haircut, but
the effect will be the same.
For the first time since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, those who lend their money to banks or keep their money in banks are at risk. Because the neighborhood loan shark (Germany) is now extracting much more onerous terms.
That's a sobering precedent.And it will likely cause many people to wonder and worry about where their money is.
This Crazy Cyprus
Deal Could Screw Up A Lot More Than Cyprus...
But what's going on in Cyprus could actually matter — not just to the rest of Europe, but to the rest of the world. Here's the short version of what's happening:
Cyprus's banks, like many banks in Europe, are bankrupt.
Cyprus went to the Eurozone to get a bailout, the same way Ireland, Greece, and other European countries have.
The Eurozone powers-that-be gave Cyprus a bailout — but with a
startling condition that has never before been imposed on any major
banking system since the start of the global financial crisis in 2008.
The Eurozone powers-that-be (mainly, Germany) insisted that the depositors in Cyprus's banks pay part of the tab.
Not the bondholders.
The depositors. The folks who had their money in the banks for safe-keeping.
...
Cyprus's government tried to explain this deal by observing that it was better than the alternative:
Immediate bankruptcy and closure of the major banks. In that scenario,
depositors would lose a lot more of their money. Businesses would go
bankrupt. And tens of thousands of people would be instantly thrown out
of work.
But, still, not surprisingly, news that deposits in Cyprus's banks would be seized triggered an immediate run on the banks.
Depositors rushed to ATMs and tried to withdraw their money before it could be seized.
But the ATMs weren't working. And the government has now made it impossible to transfer money out of the country.
So, assuming Cyprus's government approves the deal (still pending),
depositors will have some of their money seized on Tuesday morning.
Now, half of these depositors are said to be Russian oligarchs and
other non-residents. And unless you happen to have the misfortune of
having an account in a Cyprus bank, you may not care much whether these
depositors have their money seized.
After all, that was the risk they took for storing their money in bankrupt banks, right?
Well, yes, that was the risk they took.
But ever since the Great Depression wiped out a big percentage of the
world's banks, vaporizing the bank depositors' savings in the process,
banking system regulators have tried to do everything they can to
protect bank depositors. And they are smart to do so.
Because the moment depositors think that there is risk to their savings, they rush to banks to yank their money out. That's called a run on the bank.
And since no bank anywhere has enough cash on hand to pay off all its
depositors at once, runs on the bank cause banks to go bust. That's what happened to hundreds of banks in the Great Depression.
And it's what happened to Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers,
and other huge banks during the financial crisis (though, with Bear and
Lehman, the folks who yanked their money out weren't mom and pop
depositors but other big financial institutions). It's what threatened
to bring the entire U.S. financial system to its knees. And it's why the
U.S. and European governments have been frantically bailing out banks
ever since.
...
And ... here's the important part ...
Other depositors at weak banks all over Europe, in places like Spain,
Italy, and Greece, will rightly wonder whether this is the beginning of
a new era of bank bailouts, an era in which bank depositors are going
lose some of their money.
What do you think those other depositors in Spain, Italy, Greece,
etc., are going to feel like doing when they realize that, if their
banks ever need a bailout, they might have their deposits seized?
That's right.
They're going to feel like yanking their money out of their banks. And if some of them yank their money out of their banks, well — then
the financial condition of those banks will go from weak to insolvent.
And the banks will go rushing to their governments and the Eurozone for help.
And if, god forbid, the Eurozone decides to seize the deposits of more bank depositors ...
Well, then, a good portion of Europe is going to suddenly experience a good old-fashioned bank run.
That, to put it mildly, could be a disaster.
It could bring the European financial crisis, which has lurched from
one flare-up to another for most of the past five years, to a rather
sudden head.
How much would it cost for the powers-that-be to bail out all of Europe's weak banks at once?
A lot.
More than the Eurozone has in its emergency lending facilities,
certainly. And more than the International Monetary Fund has on hand.
So the U.S. would probably have to get involved.
And, regardless of whether the U.S. needed to get involved, the
European economy would likely suffer the equivalent of a heart attack.
That wouldn't be good for the U.S. economy.
Or the Chinese economy.
Or any other economy that sells things to Europe.
So, you can see, this little decision to seize a little money from
bank depositors in the little island of Cyprus could be a much bigger
deal than you think.
It could conceivably precipitate a run on weak European banks.
And a run on weak European banks could hammer the European economy
and then the economy of Europe's trading partners. And it could cause
global markets to crash.
So keep an eye on what's going on over there in Cyprus.
It's potentially much more important than it seems.
Grasshopper Heaven, Worker Ant Hell
Do they still tell the story of the ant and the grasshopper to school kids?
In
this Aesop fable the fact that time changes conditions is illustrated,
putting forth the idea that it is prudent to "make hay while the sun
shines" even if there's more work than you would rather do, simply
because the time may come when there is no work possible. Summer
inevitably turns into winter for a while, yet one's daily needs will be
the same in either case. Saving for hard times is the thing to do.
Believing in spring alone won't cut it.
In our postmodern world, however, the idea of savings has been replaced by credit score.
Debt is the new normal while self-sufficiency has become an outdated
notion, falling by the wayside like dust on the side of the road.
In
contrast with the story linked above, my experience tells me that ants
usually work in groups, sometimes large ones. Furthermore, it has not
escaped me that the grasshoppers have organized into unions and
infiltrated the congress of lawmakers who have devised a clever plan.
They have promised to protect the ants and their assets from harm,
provide "social security" for their retirement and health insurance.
This effectively eliminates the need for savings and all for a very
small fraction of their production (initially voluntary, but eventually
and continually growing). Having heaped regulations and parameters on
the ants, more and more of their substance is drained away by the cabal
of grasshoppers (whose attitudes remain profligate and derisive, as is
their nature). Their habit is to spend the hard earned revenues and
party with other miscreant non-workers off camera, while speaking in
moderate tones to news repeaters (formerly reporters) about their
efforts to provide for the general welfare.
Some
things never change. They are called principles. Grasshoppers -- those
who prefer to play rather than to work -- existed in the time of Aesop
as they do now. But presently, in the system of social welfare concocted
by progressives, the grasshoppers are running a dishonest racket and
enslaving the worker ants while doling out favors to preferred groups of
their cohorts in legal plunder.
The
truth is there will always be haves and have-nots. Haves are those who
work. Have-nots are those who will not work. An argument will be made
that there are those who cannot work, but I say this is often merely an
excuse, as any doctor working in an emergency room can tell you with the
number of able-bodied people on disability coverage. So many useful
services can be done sitting in a chair these days that all one needs is
a cogent thought capacity. Unfortunately even this is not always
present in every individual.
Top Five Reasons Conservatives Oppose the Marketplace Fairness Act
Retailers claim nationally that states could raise $23 billion in
revenue if they collected Internet sales tax, and then they whine when
taxpayers point out that it is a tax increase. In fact, this $23 billion
collection number that they cite comes from .... wait for it .... the
National Council of State Legislators.
Yes, some state legislators and governors want to reach across their
state borders to your pockets, where you can't vote against them and
take your money. Yes, you get hit when you travel to another state and
pay their taxes, but with this new tax you aren't even in their state.
An amendment to the Senate budget, which was described as an
amendment to "establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to allow states
to collect sales and use taxes already owed under state law."
It is intended to be proxy-vote for a bill called the Marketplace Fairness Act.
Here are the top five reasons conservatives are against this bill, beside it being a tax increase:
1. The bill expands state tax authority - State governments will be
able to tax across their borders despite clear legal and judicial
precedent arguing otherwise. Plus, in the case of an audit, businesses
would be required to settle disputes with out of state revenue boards in
out of state courts.
2. The bill saddles small business with bureaucratic red tape - Small
businesses would be forced to accommodate over 9,000 highly variable
state and local tax codes, collection standards, and remittance
schedules.
3. The bill threatens privacy - Business and state revenue boards
with a track record of losing private information will have more chances
to do so.
4. The bill discourages tax competition -- Rather than competing to
lower taxes and attract businesses, states will compete to raise taxes
on residents of other states.
5. The bill imposes bigger and bigger government - The bill will open
the door for further government intrusion into the Internet and for
states to reach across their borders for other taxes.
At the end of each year, businesses are responsible for sales tax.
Businesses can choose to tax their customers at the point of sale or
pay what they owe in sales tax at the end of the year. Businesses,
therefore, act as a tax collection arm for the state in which they are
located and are the immediate taxpayer, not the consumer. During an
audit, it is the business that is responsible for settling any
outstanding balances. The state revenue departments do not pursue
consumers over individual purchases; the state revenue departments
pursue the business.
Use Tax is owed by consumers to the states where they reside, not to
the states where they make purchases. The Marketplace Fairness Act would
make businesses responsible for collection and remittance of
out-of-state consumer purchases. Remote sales tax would force businesses
to become sales tax collectors for all states. For example, if a
customer in New York state made a purchase from a company based in
Virginia, the Virginia business would have to collect New York sales tax
from the customer and then send the collected tax back to New York. At
the end of the year, if there are disputes over sales tax collection,
the Virginia business would be subject to the New York State Department
of Taxation and Finance and New York courts.
In order to collect the proposed remote sales tax, businesses would
be forced to send personal information about their businesses to a host
of state revenue departments, instead of just the one in their home
state.
In the case of an audit, businesses would have to demonstrate where
purchases came from, which affects customers' privacy. This opens
businesses and consumers up to the very real potential of losing
personal information. In South Carolina, for example, hackers gained
access to tax return data, including Social Security numbers, of 5.7
million people and 700,000 businesses. Hackers have consistently proven they possess the
capabilities to overcome many security measures. Government agencies
lack the expertise and resources to properly protect the personal
information they already gather. A law that mandates they collect more
information only makes more individuals and businesses vulnerable to the
dangers associated with the loss of personal data.
Of even greater concern is that a remote sales tax will create
competition among states for higher taxes, rather than lower taxes.
Currently, states can only tax those consumers who reside within their
borders. This "physical presence standard" ensures that the businesses
taxed by states have the ability to express their approval or
displeasure with state tax code through elections, referendums, etc.
This legislation encourages states to collect taxes across their borders
from businesses with no recourse. Thus states will compete for revenue
by increasing cross-border taxes, rather than lowering taxes. An
incentive to raise taxes can never prove beneficial.
For the reasons outlined above, it is no surprise that Americans for
Tax Reform, the Heritage Foundation, Heritage Action, National Taxpayers
Union, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, FreedomWorks, Americans
for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the R Street Institute, and the
Campaign for Liberty all oppose the Marketplace Fairness Act.
http://townhall.com/columnists/katiemcauliffe/2013/03/25/top-five-reasons-conservatives-oppose-the-marketplace-fairness-act-n1548461/page/full/
Obama's Tyranny: Petty or Something More Sinister?
Last week, headlines informed us that, because of the Sequester, the FAA will be reducing the number of Air Traffic Controllers and closing 149 control towers completely. Earlier, the Department of Homeland Security released
hundreds of illegal aliens awaiting deportation because they could not
afford to hold them because of cuts mandated by the Sequester, they
said.
Head Start is to face cuts due to Sequestration. Native American children are being sacrificed to Sequestration according to Slate Magazine. The Marine Corps faces massive reductions in manpower reports the Wall Street Journal. The U.S.S. Harry Truman and its escorts are sitting idle in Norfolk, VA because of the Sequester when they should be on their way to the other side of the world.
The
TSA is threatening cuts that will push airport security lines out onto
the street, while the government had been threatening to cut meat
inspections until Congress pushed back.
In
other words the Administration is holding a gun to the head of almost
every single American in its quest to inflict the maximum pain possible
on each of us to achieve its political objectives.
When
has this occurred in our country's history? When has a president
orchestrated such a symphony of hardship for party politics? When has a
president gone to such lengths for such a small amount of money?
The
Sequester represents $85 Billion out of a budget of $3.5 Trillion, or
just a 2.42% reduction in federal spending. On year on year basis,
spending is still increasing by over 2% over last year. The math used by
the Administration to generate this pain is simply crazy.
But
this is the same Administration that decided at the outset to assault
conventional energy in order to raise prices so that green energy could
compete. I was in some of the meetings where the Green Lobby advocated
this, and was stunned at their audacity. So now gasoline is at all time
high levels; natural gas is being stymied; coal is in the Most Wanted
list and nuclear has been sidelined.
We
have a Department of Homeland Security that has become one of the
largest bureaucracies in the history of our government in the space of
11 years. There is very little accountability and DHS has extraordinary
powers to infringe the constitutional rights of our citizenry. Drones,
computer monitoring, and wiretaps are all allowed under the Obama
Administration's overwhelming control of the mechanisms of state. Just
the other day, DHS announced plans to scan even more private e mail traffic.
There is a simple word for all of this; tyranny.
Tyranny is defined as the arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power or a despotic abuse of authority.
The
Obama Administration, through its concentration of power in the White
House and its staff; through its extensive use of czars, executive
orders, bureaucratic fiat and now simple oppression seems to have
stepped over the line with the American People.
Congress
has proven to be largely impotent in checking this steamroller strategy
by the executive branch. The other day another 800 pages of
gobbledygook regarding health care regulations was released by the
Department of Health and Health & Human Services and Henry Chao, the
bureaucrat charged with tying the system together electronically stated about Obamacare, "Let's just make sure that this is not a 3rd World experience."
If
you recall, the Affordable Care Act was never seen before it was voted
upon. It was passed in the dead of night on Christmas Eve and passed
only because of the greatest political bribery and blackmail campaign
ever seen in a city that has seen it all. Tyranny, anyone?
In
Robert Woodward's book, "The Price of Politics" the president is
described as arrogant and aloof. On the president's decision not to
deploy the Truman, Woodward, the ultimate Washington insider, said it
exhibited "a kind of madness I haven't seen in a long time." Presidents
do not hold military and foreign policy to ransom. Tyrants do.
But in Washington for the ruling elite nothing changes. Vice President Biden, on his way back from the installation
of Pope Francis, whose hallmark to date has been his empathy for the
poor, stopped in Paris for a night and then in London and racked up hotel
bills of $585,000 and $485,000 respectively. As an ostensible Catholic,
Mr. Biden might have perhaps followed the Pope's example of austerity.
After
being widely criticized for the cost of his golf outing in Florida
recently the President has been lying low, but he was able to shut down
tours of the White House as a part of, you guessed it, the Sequester.
One might almost think this suited the President just fine. None of
those damned plebes running around the place.
This
crosses traditional political boundaries. It involves the separation of
powers; executive privilege, and the rights of the People under the
Constitution. It is poor management and is thuggish. It is wrong on
every level.
This
President has done his best to oppress the American People with his
sometimes petty, sometimes quite substantive and always arbitrary
application of the Sequester. The media has proven their credentials
once again by refusing to challenge the Administration. Of course, even
if they did they would be mocked by Jay Carney, and one simply cannot
afford that if one is to be invited to the right parties.
Think
about how the Sequester has been applied. Think about how the
Department of Homeland Security has become a largely unaccountable
national police force and has regularly violated the law of the land.
And think about a President whose preferred policy is to use
intimidation and the intentional infliction of pain and suffering to
achieve his goals. When does petty tyranny become real and oppressive?
And how do we as citizens respond?
Administration moves $500M in Palestinian aid, as agencies scramble to delay furloughs
As federal agencies scramble to avert or delay sequester-tied
furloughs, the Obama administration continues to spend millions of
dollars on foreign aid to the Palestinians – and seek millions more,
despite past efforts by Congress to freeze the money.
The State Department confirmed this month the administration has
moved forward with $500 million in aid, and is trying to secure another
$200 million from Congress. Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland says
the aid is important, because an “economically viable Palestinian
Authority” would help regional peace and security.
The administration confirmed the transfers as President Obama, along
with Secretary of State John Kerry, toured the Middle East last week.
Obama met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as
top Israeli officials.
But lawmakers have heavily scrutinized a number of foreign aid
transactions, given the fiscal crunch facing Washington. The capital was
awash last week with memos and updates from federal agencies scrambling
to manage sequester cuts and cushion their staff from the impact of
furloughs.
After initial warnings that furlough notices would start to go out
for thousands of civilian employees at the Pentagon last Thursday, the
Defense Department announced it would delay those notices for about two
weeks while it continues to analyze the situation.
Attorney General Eric Holder also said in a memo that he was using
his “limited authorities” to shift around funds and give the Bureau of
Prisons $150 million to avoid furloughing correctional workers at
federal prisons. This, he said, would have created “serious threats to
the lives and safety of our staff, inmates and the public.”
But he said he was still “evaluating” whether his department can avoid other furloughs.
Foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority alone, though, easily
eclipses the amount Holder used to spare the correctional workers
division.
Nuland explained that the U.S. has moved forward with $295.7 million
in fiscal 2012 funds, part of which is for economic development and
humanitarian assistance, and part of which is for law enforcement aid.
Another $200 million falls under fiscal 2013 assistance.
Further, the administration notified Congress in February that it
wants another $200 million for programs under the U.S. Agency for
International Development.
Despite suggestions that the administration had “quietly” released
the money, Nuland on Friday stressed that she had publicly announced the
aid at a March 15 briefing.
Congress in 2011 voted to freeze part of the U.S. aid package to the
Palestinians in response to their push for statehood before the U.N.
But President Obama last year signed a waiver removing those
restrictions on national security grounds. He reportedly moved to
unfreeze hundreds of millions of dollars in aid last month.
The International Monetary Fund this month warned that the
Palestinians were facing serious fiscal shortfalls, in part because of
dwindling international aid packages.
60 Completely Outrageous Ways The U.S. Government Is Wasting Money
Is there anyone better at wasting money then the U.S. government?
Despite the sequester and all of the talk about “deep cutbacks”, the
federal government continues to waste money in some of the most
outrageous ways imaginable. For example, does the U.S. government
really have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to study the size
and shape of the reproductive organs of ducks? Does the U.S. government
really have to spend 1.5 million dollars to study why so many lesbians
are overweight? There is so much waste that could still be cut out of
the federal budget, and yet the very small sequester cuts that just
happened are being described as “catastrophic” by many of our
politicians. But you know what? The federal government will still
spend more money in fiscal year 2013 than it did in fiscal year 2012
even after the sequester cuts are factored in. So if this is how much
whining our politicians will do even though government spending is still
going up, what would they do if we were actually forced to start living
within our means at some point? That is something to think about. In
any event, please show this article to anyone that believes that the
U.S. government is actually “tightening the belt”. Sadly, the truth is
that the federal government is still wasting our money in some of the
most frivolous ways that you could possibly imagine.
The following are some of the completely outrageous ways that the U.S. government is wasting money…
#1 The National Science Foundation has given $384,949
to Yale University to do a study on “Sexual Conflict, Social Behavior
and the Evolution of Waterfowl Genitalia”. Try not to laugh, but much
of this research involves examining and measuring the reproductive
organs of male ducks.
#2 The IRS spent $60,000
on a film parody of “Star Trek” and a film parody of “Gilligan’s
Island”. Internal Revenue Service employees were the actors in the two
parodies, so as you can imagine the acting was really bad.
#3 The National Institutes of Health has given $1.5 million
to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts to study why
“three-quarters” of lesbians in the United States are overweight and why
most gay males are not.
#4 The National Institutes of Health has also spent $2.7 million to study why lesbians have more “vulnerability to hazardous drinking”.
#5 The U.S. government is giving sixteen F-16s and
200 Abrams tanks to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt even though the new
president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi (a member of the Muslim Brotherhood),
constantly makes statements such as the following…
“Dear brothers, we must not forget to nurse our children
and grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews, and all
those who support them”
#6 During 2012, the salaries of Barack Obama’s three climate change advisers combined came to a grand total of more than $370,000.
#7 Overall, 139 different White House staffers were making at least $100,000during 2012, and there were 20 staffers that made the maximum of $172,200.
#8 Amazingly, U.S. taxpayers spend more than 1.4 billion dollars a year on the Obamas. Meanwhile, British taxpayers only spend about 58 million dollars on the entire royal family.
#9 During 2012, $25,000 of federal money was spent on a promotional tour for the Alabama Watermelon Queen.
#10 The U.S. government spent $505,000 “to promote specialty hair and beauty products for cats and dogs” in 2012.
#11 NASA spends close to a million dollars a year
developing a menu of food for a manned mission to Mars even though it
is being projected that a manned mission to Mars is still decades away.
#12 During 2012, the federal government spent 15 million dollars to help Russian weapons institutes recruit nuclear scientists.
#13 Over the past 15 years, a total of approximately $5.25 million has been spent on hair care services for the U.S. Senate.
#14 The U.S. government spent 27 million dollars to teach Moroccans how to design and make pottery in 2012.
#15 At a time when we have an epidemic of unemployment in the United States, the U.S. Department of Education is spending $1.3 million
to “reduce linguistic, academic, and employment barriers for skilled
and low-skilled immigrants and refugees, and to integrate them into the
U.S. workforce and professions.”
#16 The federal government still sends about 20 million dollars a year to the surviving family members of veterans of World War I, even though World War I ended 94 years ago.
#17 The U.S. government is spending approximately 3.6 million dollars a year to support the lavish lifestyles of former presidents such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
#18 During fiscal 2012, the National Science Foundation gave researchers at Purdue University $350,000.
They used part of that money to help fund a study that discovered that
if golfers imagine that a hole is bigger it will help them with their
putting.
#19 The U.S. government is giving hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority every year.
#20 Federal agencies have purchased a total of approximately 2 billion rounds of ammunition over the past 10 months. It is claimed that all of this ammunition is needed for “training purposes”.
#21 During 2012, the National Science Foundation
spent $516,000 on the creation of a video game called “Prom Week” which
apparently simulates “all the social interactions of the event.”
#22 If you can believe it, $10,000 of U.S. taxpayer money was actually used to purchase talking urinal cakes up in Michigan.
#23 When Joe Biden and his staff took a trip to London back in February, the hotel bill cost U.S. taxpayers $459,388.65.
#24 Joe Biden and his staff also stopped in Paris for one night back in February. The hotel bill for that one night came to $585,000.50.
#25 If you can believe it, close to 15,000
retired federal employees are currently collecting federal pensions for
life worth at least $100,000 annually. That list includes such names
as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.
#26 The U.S. Department of Agriculture has spent $300,000 to encourage Americans to eat caviar.
#27 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $666,905 to a group of researchers that is conducting a study on the benefits of watching reruns on television.
#28 The National Science Foundation has given 1.2 million dollars
to a team of “scientists” that is spending part of that money on a
study that is seeking to determine whether elderly Americans would
benefit from playing World of Warcraft or not.
#29 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $548,731 to a team of researchers that concluded that those that drink heavily in their thirties also tend to feel more immature.
#30 The National Science Foundation recently spent $30,000
on a study to determine if “gaydar” actually exists. This is the
conclusion that the researchers reached at the end of the study….
“Gaydar is indeed real and… its accuracy is driven by sensitivity to individual facial features”
Here are 30 more examples of outrageous government waste from one of my previous articles entitled “Chimps Throwing Poop And 29 Other Mind Blowing Ways That The Government Is Wasting Your Money“…
#1 In 2011, the National Institutes of Health spent $592,527 on a study that sought to figure out once and for all why chimpanzees throw poop.
#2 The National Institutes of Health has spent more than 5 million dollars on a website called Sexpulse that is targeted at “men who use the Internet to seek sex with men”. According to Fox News,
the website “includes pornographic images of homosexual sex as well as
naked and scantily clad men” and features “a Space Invaders-style
interactive game that uses a penis-shaped blaster to shoot down gay
epithets.”
#3 The General Services Administration spent $822,751 on a “training conference” for 300 west coast employees at the M Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.
The following is how the Washington Post described some of the wasteful expenses that happened during this “conference”…
Among the “excessive, wasteful and in some cases
impermissable” spending the inspector general documented: $5,600 for
three semi-private catered in-room parties and $44 per person daily
breakfasts; $75,000 for a “team-building” exercise — the goal was to
build a bicycle; $146,000 on catered food and drinks; and $6,325 on
commemorative coins in velvet boxes to reward all participants for their
work on stimulus projects. The $31,208 “networking” reception featured a
$19-per-person artisanal cheese display and $7,000 of sushi. At the
conference’s closing-night dinner, employees received “yearbooks” with
their pictures, at a cost of $8,130.
You can see some stunning pictures of GSA employees living the high life in Las Vegas right here.
#4 Do you remember when credit rating agency Egan Jones downgraded U.S. government debt from AA+ to AA? Well, someone in the federal government apparently did not like that at all. According to Zero Hedge, the SEC plans to file charges against Egan Jones for “misstatements” on a regulatory application with the SEC.
Normally, the SEC does not go after anyone. After all, when is the last time a major banker went to prison?
No, the truth is that the SEC is usually just a huge waste of taxpayer money. According to ABC News,
one investigation found that 17 senior SEC officials had been regularly
viewing pornography while at work. While the American people were
paying their salaries, this is what senior SEC officials were busy
doing…
One senior attorney at SEC headquarters in Washington
spent up to eight hours a day accessing Internet porn, according to the
report, which has yet to be released. When he filled all the space on
his government computer with pornographic images, he downloaded more to
CDs and DVDs that accumulated in boxes in his offices.
An SEC accountant attempted to access porn websites 1,800 times
in a two-week period and had 600 pornographic images on her computer
hard drive.
Another SEC accountant used his SEC-issued computer to upload his own sexually explicit videos onto porn websites he joined.
And another SEC accountant attempted to access porn sites 16,000 times in a single month.
#5 According to InformationWeek, the federal government is spending “millions of dollars” to train Asian call center workers.
#6 If you can believe it, the federal government has actually spent $750,000 on a new soccer field for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.
#7 The U.S. Agency for International Development spent 10 million dollars to create a version of “Sesame Street” for Pakistani television.
#8 The Obama administration has plans to spend between 16 and 20 million dollars to help students from Indonesia get master’s degrees.
#9 The National Science Foundation spent $198,000
on a University of California-Riverside study that explored
“motivations, expectations and goal pursuit in social media.” One of the
questions the study sought an answer to was the following: “Do unhappy
people spend more time on Twitter or Facebook?”
#10 The federal government actually has spent $175,587 “to determine if cocaine makes Japanese quail engage in sexually risky behavior”.
#11 In 2011, $147,138
was given to the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, Michigan. Their
best magic trick is making U.S. taxpayer dollars disappear.
#12 The federal government recently spent $74,000 to help Michigan “increase awareness about the role Michigan plays in the production of trees and poinsettias.”
#13 In 2011, the federal government gave $550,000 toward the making of a documentary about how rock and roll contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union.
#14 The National Institutes of Health has contributed $55,382 toward a study of “hookah smoking habits” in the country of Jordan.
#15 The federal government gave $606,000 to researchers at Columbia University to study how heterosexuals use the Internet to find love.
#16 A total of $133,277
was recently given to the International Center for the History of
Electronic Games for video game preservation. The International Center
for the History of Electronic Games says that it “collects, studies, and
interprets video games, other electronic games, and related materials
and the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play,
learn, and connect with each other, including across boundaries of
culture and geography.”
#17 The federal government has given approximately $3 million to researchers at the University of California at Irvine to fund their research into video games such as World of Warcraft.
#18 In 2011, the National Science Foundation gave one team of researchers$149,990 to create a video game called “RapidGuppy” for cell phones and other mobile devices.
#19 The U.S. Department of Agriculture once handed researchers at the University of New Hampshire $700,000 to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows.
#20 In 2011, $936,818
was spent developing an online soap opera entitled “Diary of a Single
Mom”. The show “chronicles the lives and challenges of three single
mothers and their families trying to get ahead despite obstacles that
all single mothers face, such as childcare, healthcare, education, and
finances.”
#21 The federal government once shelled out $2.6 million to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly.
#22 Last year, the federal government spent $96,000 to buy iPads for kindergarten students in Maine.
#23 The U.S. Postal Service once spent $13,500 for a single dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.
#24 In 2011, the Air Force Academy completed work on
an outdoor worship area for pagans and Wiccans. The worship area
consists of “a small Stonehenge-like circle of boulders with [a] propane
fire pit” and it cost $51,474to
build. The worship area is “for the handful of current or future
cadets whose religions fall under the broad category of ‘Earth-based’,
which includes Wiccans, druids and pagans.” At this point, that only
includes 3 current students at the Air Force Academy.
#25 The National Institutes of Health once gave researchers $400,000 to study why gay men in Argentina engage in risky sexual behavior when they are drunk.
#26 The National Institutes of Health once gave researchers $442,340 to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam.
#27 The National Institutes of Health once spent $800,000 in “stimulus funds” to study the impact of a “genital-washing program” on men in South Africa.
#28 The National Science Foundation recently spent $200,000 on a study that examined how voters react when politicians change their stances on climate change.
#29 The federal government recently spent $484,000 to help build a Mellow Mushroom pizzeria in Arlington, Texas.
#30 At this point, China is holding over a trillion
dollars of U.S. government debt. But that didn’t stop the United States
from sending 17.8 million dollars in foreign aid to China in 2011.
So what do you think about all of this government waste?
http://www.infowars.com/60-completely-outrageous-ways-the-u-s-government-is-wasting-money/
Terrorist Bill Ayers Awarded 'Visiting Scholar" status at Minnesota State University
Conservatives have long complained of a strong liberal bias on
college campuses. Now school officials at Minnesota State University
have selected left-wing radical and admitted terrorist Bill Ayers as the
2013 College of Education and Human Services “visiting scholar.”
“He is somebody who has written a lot through his teaching in the
area of social justice,” Professor Steve Grineski, who helped select
Ayers for the award, told Campus Reform
. “[H]e was selected because of his expertise” and his long history of
trying to commingle his own social justice principles with the American
education system.
Ayers, co-founder of the communist revolutionary group known as the
Weather Underground, admitted to participating in a host of domestic
terrorism operations, including the 1970 bombing of the New York City
Police Department, the 1971 bombing of the United States Capitol
Building and the 1972 bombing of the Pentagon in his 2001 book Fugitive Days.
He later gained fame in the 2008 presidential election for his connection as a “family friend” to then Senator Barack Obama.
School administration officials told Campus Reform that they are not concerned with his radical past.
Ayers reportedly spent three days on the school’s campus and gave a
talk at the university in February titled “Teaching from the Heart:
Education for Enlightenment and Freedom.”
Ayers received a stipend for his appearance MSUM, but the taxpayer-funded school refused to disclose the dollar amount.
The political left must utilize its “absolute access” to America’s
classrooms to affect change, Ayers said during his talk at a New York
University in December. “If we want change to come, we would do well not to look at the sites
of power we have no access to — the White House, the Congress, the
Pentagon,” he said. “We have absolute access to the community, the
school, the neighborhood, the street, the classroom, the workplace, the
shop, the farm.”
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/aliciapowe/2013/03/25/terrorist-bill-ayers-awarded-visiting-scholar-status-at-minnesota-state-university-n1548590
The Left's Moral Relativism
Moral relativism, prominently on display in current events, is an anathema to the transcendent, objective moral standards necessary to distinguish between right and wrong, good and bad.
President
Obama's recent Mideast trip included a press conference in Ramallah
where he stood under a conspicuously large banner of Yassar Arafat,
former chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, responsible
for the deadly bombings of hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians.
Conservative
pundits promptly questioned the willingness of our incessantly "optics"
conscious president to be photographed against a backdrop of Arafat's
image. They contrasted this with his administration's previous request
to cover up all religious symbols visible in the backdrop at a speech
given at the Roman Catholic-based Georgetown University in 2009.
As
expected, the fawning liberal media came to the president's defense
responding that this was all much ado about nothing. One prominent
liberal analyst on a cable news network took the opportunity to expound
further. He opined that, though the Israeli's considered Arafat to be a
terrorist, the Palestinian people revered him as a freedom fighter,
similar to the way in which American's revered George Washington who was
viewed by the British as an outlaw rebel.
One
hopes that discerning viewers would have immediately detected the
glaring flaw in this comparison.
General Washington was the commander of
an army engaged in a war with the army of a combatant nation. He was
not involved in the murder of innocent British civilians, nor did he
abscond with money given to fund his military campaigns, as Yassar Arafat did, amassing a secret portfolio estimated at $1.3 billion USD by 2002, despite the degrading economic conditions of the Palestinian people.
This liberal commentary is a perfect example of the moral relativism that is a part of the liberal/progressive belief system dominating our educational system, mainstream media, and current government.
Morals
are an inculcated set of universal social principles that promote the
survival and progress of people and societies. They function as a guide
to individual conduct in a societal context. Morals are the standard by
which we are able to distinguish right from wrong, good from bad. If one
were to query the word "moral", one would find synonyms such as
ethical, good, honest, decent, proper, honorable, and just.
Moral
Relativism is the precarious philosophical position that moral
judgments are different across different people and different cultures.
The terms "good" and "bad," "right" and "wrong" do not stand subject to
universal truth conditions, rather they are relative to the traditions,
practices and views of the group or society in which they are
constructed.
Consistent with the utopian, radical egalitarian core of their belief system, liberal/progressives
believe that no group or society is better than any other, and that the
different moral views held by others cannot be judged as superior or
inferior, or right or wrong. Furthermore, they believe that one must
tolerate the behavior of others even when one disagrees about the
morality of that behavior.
The
egalitarian appeal of moral relativism is exemplified in the writings
of Friedrich Nietzsche, who stated that the problem of morality is that
those who were considered "good" were the powerful nobles who had more
education, and considered themselves better than anyone below their
rank. They determined the standards to perpetuate their values and
status. This theory nicely reinforces the narrative of class warfare
between oppressors and the oppressed that so animates the liberal/progressive impulse.
Common
sense would contend that civilization could not be sustained for long
if the universal objective moral standards of right and wrong and good
and bad did not exist. It would be impossible for people to definitively
distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Without such
standards, disagreements could not be arbitrated if both disagreeing
parties were considered to be correct and their behaviors could not be
judged. Murderers could not be brought to justice if one man's terrorist
is another man's freedom fighter. The chaos that would arise as a
result of this foolishness is self-evident.
This is another example of the stunning incoherence and contradictory nature of liberal/progressive thinking. Larrey Anderson, a frequent contributor to American Thinker, has described the folly of moral relativism as:
A
standard of standard-less behavior... Where society agrees to a social
contract to have no social contract...fostering a cult of tolerance,
where those who enter avoid the difficult process of making an actual
(moral) choice and get to feel good about it...where political
correctness enforces this "approved" way of thinking, contradicting the
very concept of tolerance that they elevate. (2)
Proclaiming
that George Washington and Yasser Arafat are on the same moral plane
exposes the intellectual frailty of the liberal/progressive punditry and their moral relativism.
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