August 1, 2013

Four Things the Media Aren't Telling You About [Yesterday's] GDP Numbers

Wednesday  morning the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its Gross Domestic Product estimate for the second quarter of 2013. Though it will surely be revised up or down in the coming months, the number is 1.7%. In the first quarter of this year the GDP was 1.1%, revised down from  initial estimates that were as high as  2.5%. The last quarter of 2012 saw the GDP grow only 0.1%. 

The result of today's GDP announcement has resulted in almost uniformly positive headlines. 

Business Insider went with all caps: GDP CRUSHES EXPECTATIONS. Joseph Wiesenthal, executive editor of Business Insider, was not only re-tweeting those using the word "robust," but in a fit of anti-science excitement, touted the notoriously unreliable ADP job growth estimates as more important than the GDP. 

Wall Street Journal: US Economy Grows Faster Than Expected

CNBC: US expands at brisk pace in 2nd quarter, defying gloom

Media types are just as excited on Twitter. All we're hearing about is "beats expectations" and "growth."  
CNN's spin was especially ingenious, making it look as though cutting a federal budget that has run trillion dollar deficits automatically means negative economic growth: U.S. economy pulls through federal budget cuts. What CNN fails to understand is that an American economy that relies on government spending is an economy destined to collapse.


At any rate, this is a fair overview of how the the mainstream media is cheerleading today's GDP estimate.
Here are four things the media are not telling you. 

1: GDP Growth of 1.7% Stinks --In order to artificially prop up President Obama, the media have created what I call "The Obama Curve." In order to make his failed economic recovery look good, the media have  -- for the first time in my lifetime -- dumbed down what was once considered acceptable job and GDP growth to practically zero. 

Just one example is this headline from 2002, wherein the New York Times expressed disappointment over an unemployment rate that dropped from 5.9% to 5.7% under Bush. 

The same is true of today's 1.7% GDP. Historically, not only is that a standalone terrible number that shows our economy is hardly growing at all; it is especially dismal when we're supposed to be coming out of a recession. 

2. Compared to 2011 and 2012, Our GDP Is Going Backwards: In order to pull off The Obama Curve, the media have to remove almost all context from their reporting. For example, in order to manufacture positive headlines for Obama today, the context is only "expectations." Since a dismal 1.7% beat even more dismal "expectations," the news can be manufactured into "brisk" and "robust." 

Below, I'm going to go back further in history to prove that lie, but for now you need only go back two years into Obama's own term to understand how awful 1.7% is. 

For four quarters, between the second quarter of 2011 through the first quarter of 2012, the quarterly GDP reached 3.2%, 1.4%, 4.9%,  and 3.7%. When you are coming out of a recession, those are not great numbers, but they are at least acceptable. Since then, however, the bottom has fallen out. 

The media won't, though, even look at or compare today's numbers to Obama's own track record for fear it might turn into a negative news cycle. 

3. We Are Living Through the Worst Four Years of GDP Growth In History - Under no condition is a 1.7% GDP growth acceptable, especially when we are supposed to be coming out of a recession. But the average GDP growth under Obama is even more discouraging. This is proven by looking back sixty years to what the American economy used to be capable of:

• 1948-57: 3.80%
• 1958-67: 4.28%
• 1968-77: 3.18%
• 1978-87: 3.15%
• 1988-97: 3.05%
• 1998-2007: 2.99%
• 2008-2013: 0.73%

This chart does not include today's numbers, but 1.7% would do next to nothing to improve that 0.73% number. 

Here is an important point for those who will argue Obama is not responsible for the recession he inherited:

Even if 2008 (-0.3%) and 2009’s (-3.1%) negative annual GDP percentages are dropped (something undone for the other periods) and only the 2010-13 period is averaged, the result is just 1.95% – still over a full percentage point below the previous decade’s.

4. Reagan Also Inherited a Dead Economy and We Roared Out of That Recession - One of the bald-faced lies told by Democrats and their media is that Obama inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression. This rhetorical trick is used to excuse Obama's dismal "recovery." The truth is that when Reagan assumed office in 1981, the economy he inherited was in many ways worse. Unemployment, inflation, and interest rates were higher, and after a decade of stagnation, the American people had lost hope.
If anything, these inherited recessions are only separated by two months. Reagan dealt with a 16-month recession, Obama an 18-month. 

The approach Reagan and Obama took towards their economic inherited disasters are case studies in polar opposites. Reagan cut taxes across the board, cut regulations, and in general got government out of the way of the American people's ingenuity. 

Obama, on the other hand, micro-managed the economy with his failed $800 billion stimulus, passed onerous regulations like Dodd Frank and ObamaCare, and never stopped hurling rhetoric about raising taxes and increasing regulations. 

The results have been as polar opposite as the approach. The economy boomed under Reagan. There were months when close to a million private sector jobs were created. But since we're talking about the GDP, let's stick to that. 

When a recovery is managed correctly, this is what the GDP numbers look like:

In the fourth quarter of 1982, the economy grew at a slow 0.3 percent rate. Starting in 1983 the quarterly growth rates were 5.1 percent, 9.3 percent, 8.1 percent and 8.5 percent, respectively. The 8 percent-plus growth rate continued into the first two quarters of 1984, before slowing to the 3.5 to 4 percent range. National Bureau of Economic Research data show the economic expansion that started in the fourth quarter of 1982 lasted for 92 months, until the next recession started in July 1990. …

The economy during President Reagan's second term exhibited steady economic growth with a 3.7 percent annual average. The GDP growth rates for the years 1985 to 1988 were 4.1 percent, 3.5 percent, 3.2 percent and 4.1 percent. Quarterly growth rates ranged from a low of 1.6 percent to a high of 7 percent. Of the 16 calendar quarters during the four-year period, nine quarters had GDP growth between 3.1 and 5.5 percent.

---
Because of Obama's poor economic philosophy and policies, we are suffering (needlessly) through the worst "recovery" in history. To cover this fact up, the American media remove all context from their reporting and have created The Obama Curve. 

Only through the use of propaganda can the media claim that 1.7% is anything other than devastating for the millions of Americans entering their fifth year of job growth that doesn't keep up with population growth, falling wages, and a GDP going the wrong way. 

The worst part of this is that The Obama Curve perpetuates this misery because no media pressure is put on the president to do better. 

After all, his economy is "robust" and "brisk."

 http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/07/31/Four-Things-the-media-arent-telling-you-about-the-GDP

Obama's Creeping Authoritarianism

Imposed law replaces checks and balances.

 If we learned anything about Barack Obama in his first term it is that when he starts repeating the same idea over and over, what's on his mind is something else. 

The first term's over-and-over subject was "the wealthiest 1%." Past some point, people wondered why he kept beating these half-dead horses. After the election, we knew. It was to propagandize the targeted voting base that would provide his 4% popular-vote margin of victory—very young voters and minorities. They believed. He won. 

The second-term over-and-over, elevated in his summer speech tour, is the shafting of the middle class. But the real purpose here isn't the speeches' parboiled proposals. It is what he says the shafting of the middle class is forcing him to do. It is forcing him to "act"—to undertake an unprecedented exercise of presidential power in domestic policy-making. ObamaCare was legislated. In the second term, new law will come from him. 

Please don't complain later that you didn't see it coming. As always, Mr. Obama states publicly what his intentions are. He is doing that now. Toward the end of his speech last week in Jacksonville, Fla., he said: "So where I can act on my own, I'm going to act on my own. I won't wait for Congress." (Applause.)

The July 24 speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., has at least four references to his intent to act on his own authority, as he interprets it: "That means whatever executive authority I have to help the middle class, I'll use it." (Applause.) And: "We're going to do everything we can, wherever we can, with or without Congress." 

Every president since George Washington has felt frustration with the American system's impediments to change. This president is done with Congress.

The political left, historically inclined by ideological belief to public policy that is imposed rather than legislated, will support Mr. Obama's expansion of authority. The rest of us should not. 

The U.S. has a system of checks and balances. Mr. Obama is rebalancing the system toward a national-leader model that is alien to the American tradition. 

To create public support for so much unilateral authority, Mr. Obama needs to lessen support for the other two branches of government—Congress and the judiciary. He is doing that. 

Mr. Obama and his supporters in the punditocracy are defending this escalation by arguing that Congress is "gridlocked." But don't overstate that low congressional approval rating. This is the one branch that represents the views of all Americans. It's gridlocked because voters are. 

Take a closer look at the Galesburg and Jacksonville speeches. Mr. Obama doesn't merely criticize Congress. He mocks it repeatedly. Washington "ignored" problems. It "made things worse." It "manufactures" crises and "phony scandals." He is persuading his audiences to set Congress aside and let him act. 

So too the judiciary. During his 2010 State of the Union speech, Mr. Obama denounced the Supreme Court Justices in front of him. The National Labor Relations Board has continued to issue orders despite two federal court rulings forbidding it to do so. Attorney General Eric Holder says he will use a different section of the Voting Rights Act to impose requirements on Southern states that the Supreme Court ruled illegal. Mr. Obama's repeated flouting of the judiciary and its decisions are undermining its institutional authority, as intended. 

The three administration nominees enabled by the Senate's filibuster deal—Richard Cordray at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Thomas Perez at the Labor Department and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy—open a vast swath of American life to executive authority on steroids. There won't be enough hours in the day for Mr. Obama to "act on my own."

In a recent Journal op-ed, "Obama Suspends the Law," former federal judge Michael McConnell noted there are few means to stop a president who decides he is not obligated to execute laws as passed by Congress. So there's little reason to doubt we'll see more Obamaesque dismissals of established law, as with ObamaCare's employer mandate. Mr. Obama is pushing in a direction that has the potential for a political crisis. 

A principled opposition would speak out. Barack Obama is right that he isn't running again. But the Democratic Party is. Their Republican opponents should force the party's incumbents to defend the president's creeping authoritarianism. 

If Democratic Senate incumbents or candidates from Louisiana, Alaska, Missouri, Arkansas, North Carolina, Montana and Iowa think voters should accede to a new American system in which a president forces laws into place as his prerogative rather than first passing them through Congress, they should be made to say so. 

And to be sure, the other purpose of the shafted middle-class tour is to demolish the GOP's standing with independent voters and take back the House in 2014. If that happens—and absent a more public, aggressive Republican voice it may—an unchecked, unbalanced presidential system will finally arrive.

A final quotation on America's system of government: "To ensure that no person or group would amass too much power, the founders established a government in which the powers to create, implement, and adjudicate laws were separated. Each branch of government is balanced by powers in the other two coequal branches." Source: The White House website of President Barack Obama.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324136204578639953580480838.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

IRS scoreboard: 100 percent of “targeted” liberal groups were approved, conservatives languished

Granted, virtually everyone understands the broad strokes of what happened at the IRS over the last few years, yet Democrats keep dredging up false equivalencies — so it’s useful to trumpet additional data like this.  Via NPR:

A House Ways and Means Committee staff analysis of the applications of 111 conservative and progressive groups applying for tax exempt status found conservative applicants faced, “more questions, more denials, more delays,” says committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich. That is, when the IRS sent groups letters asking for further information, conservative groups were asked more questions — on average, three times more. All of the groups with “progressive” in their name were ultimately approved, while only 46 percent of conservative groups won approval. Others are still waiting for an answer or gave up.

Right-leaning groups were asked triple the number of questions (like this, and this), and ended up getting shot down more than half the time.  Lefty organizations skated by with fewer inquiries and were all approved. Let’s examine the raw numbers:


To recap: Conservatives won the “who got scrutinized” category 104-7, the “who got rejected” column 54 percent to zero, and the “still in limbo or gave up” tally 56-0.  Indeed, as this controversy unfolded, a USA Today analysis determined that over a 27-month period, not a single Tea Party tax-exempt application was given the green light, while “dozens” of liberal applicants were rubber-stamped.  The “both sides were targeted, and Issa lied!” crowd can huff and puff all they want, but they can’t change these facts.  There’s also the tiny details that (a) the IRS conducted its own internal investigation prior to the IG audit, and reached very similar conclusions, which (b) is why they admitted to and apologized for the improper targeting of conservatives.  Meanwhile, the leaders of several established right-leaning groups are now alleging that the IRS abruptly began challenging their previously-granted tax statuses during this same time frame, thus forcing their organizations to divert significant resources to legal fees.  Chairman Issa has asked the Inspector General to broaden his probe to include these new accusations.  Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings — who went from being “outraged” at the IRS, to declaring the issue “solved,” to demanding further investigations — has objected to Issa’s request.  Has Cummings re-embraced his “problem solved” posture, perhaps?  For a “phony” scandal, this story sure seems to have an awful lot of loose threads.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/08/01/study-100-percent-of-liberal-groups-targeted-by-the-irs-were-approved-just-46-percent-of-conservative-orgs/

Obama scoffs at construction jobs for Keystone after embracing them for his stimulus

President Obama, who extolled the value of middle-class construction jobs during nearly five years of recession and recovery, has changed his tune to borderline contempt for the blue-collar jobs needed to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

In a speech in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Tuesday, Mr. Obama chuckled derisively when he mentioned that Republican lawmakers are promoting the pipeline project for the thousands of jobs it would create over two years.

“They keep on talking about this — an oil pipeline coming down from Canada that’s estimated to create about 50 permanent jobs,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s not a jobs plan.”

In an interview last week, the president gave a lowball estimate of “maybe 2,000” construction jobs that would be created by the pipeline project. He called those jobs “a blip” of what the nation needs.

The comments contrast starkly with Mr. Obama’s attitude during his first term, when he expressed enthusiasm for construction jobs of all kinds. As part of his “We Can’t Wait” campaign in November 2011, Mr. Obama held an event at the Key Bridge in Georgetown to call on Congress to approve more temporary stimulus spending on infrastructure projects to help unemployed construction workers.

“Of all the industries hammered by the economic downturn, construction has been among the hardest hit,” Mr. Obama said at the time. “I’m joining many of these workers to say that it makes absolutely no sense when there’s so much work to be done that they’re not doing the work.”

He chided House Republicans at the time for considering legislation to reaffirm “In God We Trust” as the national motto rather than devoting time and effort to helping construction workers.

“That’s not putting people back to work,” Mr. Obama said. “I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work.”

In February 2009, as he urged Congress to approve an $800 billion-plus economic stimulus package, Mr. Obama cited the need for construction jobs.

The stimulus legislation, he said at the time, “has the right priorities to create 3 [million] to 4 million jobs and to do it in a way that lays the groundwork for long-term growth by fixing our schools; modernizing health care to lower costs; repairing our roads, bridges, levees and other vital infrastructure; and moving us toward energy independence. It is what America needs right now.”

Even before he took the oath of office in January 2009, Mr. Obama was promoting government-funded infrastructure projects that he said were “shovel-ready all across the country.” Many of them also would have been temporary jobs, given the act’s proposed life of two or three years.

Two years later, amid criticism that the stimulus law hadn’t produced the promised number of construction jobs, Mr. Obama wisecracked, “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.”

The president’s top aides said Mr. Obama wasn’t disparaging the value of construction jobs in his most recent comments, but was trying to make a point that House Republicans lack a comprehensive strategy for creating jobs.

Dan Pfeiffer, senior adviser to Mr. Obama, told The Washington Times on Wednesday that the president’s latest comments are “not inconsistent” with previous statements about construction jobs.

“One infrastructure project is not a jobs strategy,” Mr. Pfeiffer said at a breakfast meeting with reporters hosted by The Christian Science Monitor. “That would be like saying our jobs strategy is to repair the Key Bridge. We’re talking about one thing, and it would have some temporary jobs which would be significant. But in the overall scale of the employment situation in this country, as the president said, it’s a blip. And when that’s done, contrary to … the rhetoric you hear, it’s 50 to 100 permanent jobs.”

Mr. Pfeiffer suggested that the president’s comments about Keystone are aimed at September confrontations with Republicans over spending and borrowing.

“He’s put his jobs ideas on the table, he’s calling on Republicans to do the same,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “To date, the core of the Republican jobs package … is vote to repeal Obamacare for the 40th time and build the Keystone pipeline. There’s a legitimate debate over whether you should build that pipeline or not. The president’s point is that’s not a jobs strategy.”

Republican lawmakers also suspect that the president is signaling his disapproval of the project, which environmentalists vehemently oppose. Last month, Mr. Obama said his administration would approve the pipeline only if it would not contribute to carbon pollution.

Canadian government and private officials have said repeatedly that they will mine the oil and sell it in the U.S. or somewhere else to burn and put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, regardless of whether the pipeline is built.

Republicans said that whether Mr. Obama is trying to kill the pipeline or is posturing for September, he is way off base in the jobs numbers for the project.

“The president famously pledged to ‘do whatever it takes’ to create jobs — but this is a new low,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, Michigan Republican. “Attacking new job opportunities is not a jobs plan. Unions and manufacturers are desperate for the president to say yes to the Keystone pipeline because it will get thousands of workers off of unemployment and back on the job. The president should listen to these American workers looking for a job and embrace the opportunity to realize the benefits of $7 billion in private investments.”

The State Department has estimated that the pipeline project would create 5,000 to 6,000 construction jobs per year. TransCanada Corp., which would build the pipeline, has said it would generate about 13,000 jobs over two years.

The State Department also said the project could support another 42,000 jobs per year for two years across the U.S. in related industries.

Mr. Upton and two other Republicans on his committee wrote a letter Wednesday asking Mr. Obama to explain his comments that downplayed the economic benefits of the pipeline. They said the administration’s nearly 1,800-day approval process for the pipeline “has now become an embarrassment.”

“Your recent comments have only added to the immense amount of uncertainty that surrounds the Keystone XL approval process,” they wrote.

 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/31/obama-changes-course-keystone-stance/#ixzz2ajI0TqNs

O'Reilly: Killing History

By Ann Coulter
Does anyone read anymore? I mean, besides tweets from Anthony Weiner? 

During his otherwise excellent commentaries on race in America, Bill O'Reilly, host of the No. 1 cable news show, claimed on Tuesday night that the one person who tried to help African-Americans more than any other was ... Robert F. Kennedy! 

No one laughed. I guess that's what they're teaching these days at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. (I can't wait to hear how Ted Kennedy helped eradicate drunk driving!) 

According to O'Reilly's Bizarro-World history, Bobby Kennedy was "the guy who was really concerned about African-Americans" and "who really DID SOMETHING. ... He went in with the federal government and he cleaned out the rat's nest that was abusing African-Americans in the South." 

Although this myth has been polished to perfection by the Kennedy PR machine (requiring all Kennedy stories to illustrate either courage or adorableness), it is simply a fact that helping blacks was not the Democrats' priority. Even the ones who wanted to, such as Bobby and John Kennedy, couldn't risk upsetting the segregationists, more than 90 percent of whom were Democratic. 

The job of actually enforcing civil rights and desegregating Southern schools fell to Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. 

Five years after Eisenhower had shown the Democrats how its done by sending federal troops to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., President Kennedy and brother Bobby still dragged their feet in helping James Meredith enter the University of Mississippi. 

On Feb. 7, 1961, Meredith wrote a beautiful letter to the Department of Justice, describing his inability to enroll at the University of Mississippi, He wrote: 

"Whenever I attempt to reason logically about this matter, it grieves me deeply to realize that an individual, especially an American, the citizen of a free democratic nation, has to clamor with such procedures in order to try to gain just a small amount of his civil and human rights, and even after suffering the embarrassments and personal humiliation of this procedure, there still seems little hope of success."


The full letter is worth looking up. I would venture to guess there are not many college applicants of any race who write this well today. (You know why? Because Americans don't read anymore. You watch cable news and fill your heads with nonsense history and false facts.) 

In response to Meredith's eloquent letter, Bobby Kennedy did nothing. And that's how Bobby Kennedy "cleaned out the rat's nest that was abusing African-Americans in the South"!

Remember: This was seven years after the Supreme Court had already handed down its decision in Brown v. Board of Education -- a ruling expressly endorsed in the Republican Party platform, but not the Democratic platform, I might add. 

But Democrats were in the White House, so Meredith had to take his case to the Supreme Court. Liberals were engaging in their usual massive resistance to court rulings they don't like and neither Bobby nor John Kennedy would dare try to stop them. 

You will notice that the Freedom Rides and civil rights marches all took place under Democratic presidents. It was the only way to get Democratic administrations to intervene against their fellow Democrats. 

In June 1962, a federal appellate court ruled that Meredith had been denied admittance to Ole Miss because of his race and ordered the university to enroll him. (At least that's how the two Republican judges voted; the segregationist FDR appointee dissented.) But one old segregationist on the court -- who had not even sat on the case -- kept issuing stays to prevent enforcement of the ruling. 

Only when these illegitimate stays were appealed to the Supreme Court did Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department finally weigh in, asking Justice Hugo Black, the circuit justice, to lift the stays -- nearly two years after Meredith had written to the Department of Justice asking for its help. 

Needless to say, Justice Black came down on Meredith's side in a matter of about six seconds. The full court had already decided the school segregation issue years earlier in Brown.
But the state still would not admit Meredith to Ole Miss. 

With a showdown inevitable, President Kennedy, on the counsel of his trusted attorney general, Bobby Kennedy, wrote a letter to the segregationist Democrat governor of Mississippi, Ross Barnett. 

These were JFK's stirring words on behalf of the constitutional rights of black Americans, redeemed with the blood of American patriots: 

"White House, September 30, 1962
"To preserve our constitutional system, the Federal Government has an overriding responsibility to enforce the orders of the Federal Courts. Those courts have ordered that James Meredith be admitted now as a student at the University of Mississippi."

So basically, his hands were tied. It reads like a letter from a Republican administration explaining why it's forced to comply with a gay marriage ruling. (JFK's weasel-word letter is also worth looking up.) 

Yes, eventually the Kennedy brothers sent the National Guard to force the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith. It wasn't hard to figure out what to do: Eisenhower had sent in the 101st Airborne to enforce desegregation back in 1957 against a much more tenacious segregationist (and Bill Clinton pal), Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas. 

But in the rest of the South, schools remained segregated as long as Bobby Kennedy was attorney general and either JFK or LBJ was in the White House. (LBJ on the 1964 Civil Rights Act: "I'll have those n*ggers voting Democrat for the next 200 years.") 

Black Americans may say hosannas to Bobby Kennedy, but they would have to wait for Richard Nixon to become president to win the promise of Brown v. Board. 

Within Nixon's first two years in the White House, black students attending segregated schools in the South declined from nearly 70 percent to 18.4 percent. There was more desegregation of American public schools in Nixon's first term than in any historical period before or since. 

It was not an accident that Nixon launched his comeback in 1966 with a column denouncing Democrats for trying to "squeeze the last ounces of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice." It's also not an accident that James Meredith was a Republican. (You'd know all this if you had read Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama, but you were busy watching TV.) 

Crediting Bobby Kennedy for the great work he did on behalf of black Americans would be like calling Harry Reid the country's greatest champion of the unborn. Sure, Reid says he's pro-life, but he dare not act on it lest he upset the rest of his party. It was the same with Democrats and civil rights. 

If you want to say something nice about Bobby Kennedy, remind everyone that he proudly worked for Sen. Joe McCarthy. 

http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2013/07/31/oreilly-killing-history-n1653553/page/full

Obama Suffers from Compulsive State Aggrandizing Disorder

As a matter of principle I am loath to treat political behavior from a medical perspective. But, there comes a time when the evidence is so overwhelming that a medical framework is appropriate. To wit, I have concluded that President Obama suffers from what a psychoanalyst might call "Compulsive State Aggrandizing Disorder" or CSAD for short. Though slow in arriving, this diagnosis was indisputable when I read about the president's recent New York Times interview. In a nutshell, CSAD is a condition whereby everything is twisted so as to justify expanding government regardless of the risks, costs, or likelihood of success. The parallel is compulsive alcoholism or drug addiction -- the addict refused to stop even when it is obvious that the addiction is the path to ruin.

In this interview, Obama expounded about the dangers of growing economic inequality which, said the president, would exacerbate racial tensions, boost unemployment, hinder economic growth, shrink the middle class and indirectly limit the discussion of such pressing issues as trade, climate, and immigration. 

It is easy to dismiss these ruminations as off-the-cuff babble from a frustrated president. Wrong. Pushing economic inequality on to the public agenda will only embolden others suffering from CSAD to ramp up their efforts and, make no mistake, they will discover even more alleged horrific consequences of economic inequality and demand billions of dollars of government expansion. Past manifestations of CSAD include pushing government to solve "dangerous" race-related gaps, invisible glass ceilings, and the absence of diversity.
Is CSAD curable? Probably not in its advanced stages (sorry about that, Mr. President) but it can be prevented from infecting millions of others. The preemptive public health measure first requires understanding "economic inequality" and its irrelevance to racial tension, stagnant economic, and other assumed national ills.

Begin with the simple observation that if economic equality is your paramount value, relocates to a primitive tribe in New Guinea or the Amazon rain forest. Here the distance between the richest and the poorest is minimal -- nobody has much of anything. But, even modest economic growth brings gaps between rich and poor, and ironically, the largest occur in poor kleptocratic Third World nations where small elites live lavishly while millions exist on a dollar a day (South Africa leads the world in inequality).

In other words, economic inequality is a ubiquitous factor of life, worldwide, across all societies (save the most primitive tribes) and calling it a "problem to be addressed" is vacuous nonsense. A condition is not necessarily "a problem."

A little research will also show that as the historical improvement in the world's economy is associated with rising inequality and, more to the point, as the bottom grows richer, inequality increases, not decreases. 

Moreover, the president's link between inequality and its alleged unwelcome consequences is a collection of non sequiturs and, more importantly, bereft of any scientific evidence. If the stock market crashed and hundreds of multimillionaires were wiped out, would more good jobs suddenly appear? Would race relations improve? 

But suppose inequality is a problem, what Mr. President is the dangerous level of inequality? There's an old adage from pharmacology -- toxicity is in the dosage -- and speaking as a social scientist, I have never seen an analysis that specifies a given level of economic inequality (measured by the Gini coefficient) as akin to, say, toxic levels of mercury in water. In fact, I doubt that this "dangerous" level could ever be specified given the innumerable measurement obstacles. For example, do we include food stamps, subsidized housing and multiple other government-supplied benefits when calculating the income of today's poor? Do we look only at income without examining assets? Perhaps Mr. Obama has solved these formidable quandaries, but I doubt it.

It is also true that economic inequality explodes when extraordinary levels of skill must be rewarded. No doubt, the best hunter in New Guinea may bring in twice as much as an inept hunter, but in a modern economy, this ratio of rewards may be a thousand to one, if not more. This pattern is most obvious in professional sports where those at the very pinnacle earn extraordinary amounts and as competition heats up, salaries climb sharply. For example, in the 1984/5 season the top NBA salary was $3.6 million; by 2010/2011 with new competition from European leagues and more TV revenue, the top earner made $58 million that one year while a "poor" journeyman could only expect a million or so (see here). Talk about economic inequality!

This pattern certainly applies to corporate America where a talented CEO can add hundreds of millions to the company's bottom line. What would happen if a firm's board of directors announced that it would forbid its top executives from earning more than 10 times the salary of its lowest paid employee so as to stop the unraveling of American society so bemoaned by president Obama? Bizarre, and a recipe for bankruptcy. What talented CEO would accept, say, $150,000 when those in comparable positions elsewhere earned several million?
But, let's suppose this quest for leveling incomes took root, and these radical egalitarians captured Washington in 2016? What's the menu? Tax the rich at 90% or otherwise try to confiscate wealth? Raise the minimum wage to $20 per hour with corresponding increases for those currently above the minimum wage? Or how about sending those barely scraping by in high school to community colleges to have a career, not just a low-pay job? 

Ironically, if implemented, these measures would work, but not as Obama envisions! Specifically, they would bring an economic collapse which, in turn, means greater equality. It would be a jail break of the most talented -- "overpaid" NBA stars fleeing to Europe while U.S. firms relocated corporate headquarters to Monaco. Yes, the McDonald's starting salary would be a government mandated $24.00 an hour, but only one hamburger flipper would be needed -- each morning she would turn on the machine that automatically manufacture the entire menu, collected the money and then made change. 

Here's the reality, Mr. President: capitalist competition puts a premium on skill, and with the increased demand for extraordinary skill, pay skyrockets. Yes, inequality increases, but economic competition pushed by highly paid, super-talented CEO's brings economic gains for everyone.

Of course there would be an exception to this new Great Depression -- government jobs by the tens of thousands. Imposing equality is no small task, especially in a society happy to reward top talent. Now thousands of Washington monitors, armed with thousands of microregulations must be on the lookout for CEO's who get paid under the table, let alone star athletes going home with suitcases of cash. But, our economic collapse aside, a retired President Obama will be happy, and as he will tell you, America is now better off than in the bad old days when inequality ripped apart America's social fabric.

We must find a treatment for CSAD and might I suggest that a million person Washington march for a cure. It may take a lifetime, but we have no choice. In the meantime, perhaps some "Get Well Soon" cards to the White House might help.

 http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/obama_suffers_from_compulsive_state_aggrandizing_disorder.html#ixzz2ajRXfr6D

Congress, Experts Question Legality of Obamacare Exchange Subsidies

IRS, Democrats defend administration’s decision to extend subsidies to all exchanges

 The Obama administration cannot legally offer federal subsidies to help people buy insurance on federally run health insurance exchanges, legal experts and Congressional Republicans argued Wednesday, potentially threatening the central feature of Obamacare.

Obamacare mandates that each state have a health insurance exchange where people can buy insurance, and the federal government is providing subsidies to help qualifying people buy health insurance on these exchanges.

The law says that the government can provide subsidies for insurance sold on an “Exchange established by the state.” Thirty-four states have refused to set up their own exchanges, leaving the federal government set them instead.

The Obama administration has interpreted the law to allow them to offer subsidies to people buying insurance on exchanges run by the federal government as well as the state governments.

Both legal experts and Republicans on the health care subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee contended that the administration’s implementation of the subsidy provision is beyond the scope of the law and Congress’s intent.

“At issue today is an example of the administration rewriting the law to meet political objectives,” said subcommittee chairman James Lankford (R., Okla.).

Congress originally limited the subsidy only to state-created exchanges to induce the states to set up their own exchanges, argued Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt agreed with Adler.

“When Congress passed the health care act, they presented states a choice,” Pruitt told the congressmen. “That choice was to establish a state health care exchange or to opt for a federal exchange. The ACA included with that choice a set of consequences and benefits.”

If states opted to create an exchange themselves, then their citizens would receive federal subsidies to buy insurance on the exchange, but employers would also be subject to fines for not offering affordable health insurance, Pruitt argued. However, if they opted against the exchange, they would not receive subsidies and employers would not be subject to fines.

Pruitt has launched a lawsuit against the administration arguing that they do not have the power to offer the subsidies on federally run exchanges. Experts predict that Oklahoma’s lawsuit, if successful, could fatally cripple the law.

The administration argued that the law permits its interpretation.

“Treasury and IRS believe that the final regulations interpret the statutory language in a manner that is appropriate to its context and consistent with the purpose and structure of the statute as a whole,” said Emily McMahon, deputy assistant secretary for tax policy at the Treasury Department.

Simon Lazarus, a legal expert at the Constitutional Accountability Center, argued that other parts of the law clarify that federally run exchanges count as state exchanges for the purposes of the subsidy.

Lazarus also argued that the administration’s interpretation fits with the intent of the rest of the bill, which was to increase enrollment in health insurance.

Lazarus called the idea that the law’s crafters would create part of the bill so that it would fail if states did not comply “so absurd that I can’t imagine why any judge would spend three minutes with it.”

Adler countered that the bill contained precisely this “sabotage” trigger with Medicaid, by stripping all Medicaid money from the states if they did not agree to expand the program. The Supreme Court subsequently struck this provision down, saying it was too coercive.

Subcommittee ranking member Jackie Speier (D., Calif.) objected to the idea that people could have different access to federal programs in different states, based on what the state leaders decide.

“While I do represent a district in California, I also feel an obligation towards all the people in the United States of America, and that’s the way I look at this legislation,” Speier said.

http://freebeacon.com/congress-experts-question-legality-of-obamacare-exchange-subsidies/

Progressive Activists to Disrupt GOP Town Halls in August

A progressive group will coordinate with liberal activists to disrupt Republican town halls during the August recess, when lawmakers will face questions about Obamacare and comprehensive immigration reform. 

Americans United for Change, run by a former Democratic National Committee communications head, plans to send activists to Republican town halls in swing states and even red states to target lawmakers like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). 

"This is a new approach. The theory in the past has been to be stealth about the effort to confront members at town halls--but sometimes it's been too stealth, and we haven’t generated enough activity," Brad Woodhouse, the president of the group, told the Huffington Post on Wednesday. "Since everyone knows that both sides are doing this, we're going to be public-facing about it."

According to Woodhouse, the progressive group "wants supporters to confront the elected officials, ask them tough questions and record the exchanges." The Huffington Post reports the group "plans to share noteworthy responses, and to collect and share information about what Republicans are doing and saying." 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/31/Progressive-Activists-to-Disrupt-GOP-Town-Halls-in-August

Complaints reportedly force NYC school to remove book on masturbation from summer reading list

Sixth-grade students in a New York City borough were reportedly assigned to read a book that touched on masturbation until angered parents got the title removed from the summer reading list.

The New York Daily News reports that the principal of Public School/Middle School in Rockaway Park, Queens, announced Wednesday that “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” was no longer required reading following complaints from parents and inquiries from the newspaper.

“It’s about . . . masturbation, which is not appropriate for my child to learn at 11,” said Kelly-Ann McMullan-Preiss, 39, of Belle Harbor, who refused to let her son read the book. “It was like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ for kids.”

Parents told the newspaper that all incoming sixth-graders had been expected to write an essay on the book to be graded.

Lines in author Sherman Alexie’s award-winning young adult novel include: “And if God hadn’t wanted us to masturbate, then God wouldn’t have given us thumbs. So I thank God for my thumbs.”

Calls to the school were not immediately returned. A spokesman for the Department of Education, Devon Puglia, told the newspaper that there was no citywide required reading list.

“Selected texts are school-based decisions,” Puglia said.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/01/complaints-reportedly-force-nyc-school-to-remove-book-on-masturbation-from/?test=latestnews#ixzz2ajkl0wjf

Evil Never Sleeps

By Michael Reagan
Rush Limbaugh fielded a phone call the other day that even he couldn't answer.

"What's happened to the country I live in?" asked the frustrated woman. "And what do we do now?"

The Great Rushbo was understandably flustered.

Coming up with a cure for what ails America after five years of Barack Obama and decades of bigger and stupider and meaner Big Government in D.C. is not something you can do off the top of your head.

The woman's question reminded me of a question Newt Gingrich posed to me about five years ago.

"Mike," he said, "how is it that our side can elect great conservatives like your father and Margaret Thatcher but then after we win those elections everything seems to fall apart?"

What Newt said about conservatives squandering their biggest victories is true. My father's glorious conservative revolution of 1980 is largely undone today, washed away by 30 years of higher taxes, more regulations and a weak-kneed foreign policy.

Even Newt himself is an example of the problem conservatives have had in not being able to take full advantage of their greatest victories.

He was able to foment his own mini-revolution in Congress in 1994. For a while, as Republicans took control of the House for the first time since the Korean War, it looked like half a century of executive power and federal over-reach were finally going to be checked, if not rolled back.

But then Newt's historic and inspiring conservative resurrection fizzled.

The 54 new Republican rebels who helped Newt "take over" the House, as the liberal media liked to say, forced Clinton to reform welfare and kept federal spending in check -- at least until Congress let Bush II and Obama open the floodgates and drown us and our grandchildren's grandchildren in debt.

I think I've figured out what the problem with conservatives is. We don't understand the rules of the political power game. We think after we win big elections or defeat the Soviet Union, we can go home and savor our victories.

We think after we win our big fights, it's the end of the game. Welfare reform passes -- game over. Berlin Wall falls -- game over. We won, you lost -- game over.

But liberals and progressives understand the power game. They know it never really ends. What conservatives see as a victorious ending -- the takeover of the House or the election of George W. Bush -- liberals and progressives see as just the beginning.

The other side never stops fighting. When Scott Brown won that special U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy's seat in 2010, conservatives were dancing in the streets because they had won their 60th vote to stop Obamacare.

Conservatives thought Brown's shocking win was the end and went home. The liberals knew it was just the beginning of a tough fight. What did we get in the end? Obamacare. Plus U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

If we conservatives want to win the day and prevent liberals and progressives from undermining our way of life, sinking us in a sea of debt and turning us into a socialist Banana Republic, we have to never stop fighting.

Evil never sleeps. Nor do its practitioners in Washington and in our state capitals. If we want good to triumph over evil in the long run, we have to learn to see our big victories not as the end of the fight but the beginning of the rest of the battle.

http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelreagan/2013/08/01/evil-never-sleeps-n1653376/page/full

UN's messy, billion-dollar peacekeeping air charter business hugely unfavorable to US

Four years after United Nations auditors declared that the U.N.’s  billion-dollar program for moving people and equipment on peacekeeping charter flights was a  mess, the world organization still spends too much to rent airplanes and helicopters, still favors a few suppliers of equipment over those who might want to bid for the work, and still doesn’t have the tools to keep track of its sprawling and overpriced system.

Moreover, an examination by Fox News of U.N. procurement records shows that the results of the deeply flawed air charter system are hugely unfavorable to the United States, which pays by far the largest chunk of the U.N.’s peacekeeping budget.

A follow-up audit to the one released in 2009 also shows that  U.N. agencies largely failed to do what the watchdogs recommended in order to fix the system, although the U.N. is apparently scrambling to straighten out some of the problems now. Result: many of the same bad practices are still occurring.

A copy of the latest audit, released earlier this year, was obtained and examined by Fox News.  

According to the most recent audit, the U.N.’s ability to assure the “ efficient, cost-effective and timely acquisition and contract management” of air charters was “unsatisfactory" -- the lowest possible rating. That, in turn, exposed the U.N. to “a high risk of acquiring air charter services at higher costs than necessary .”

Air charters to send peacekeeping troops into and around conflict zones are one of the biggest ticket items in the U.N.’s budget, accounting, the latest auditors said, for 27 percent of the U.N.’s entire procurement of goods and services in 2011.

As with most of the U.N. budget, the single largest piece of the expenses is paid by the United States, whose 28.38 percent share of the $7.5 billion peacekeeping bill for 2013-2014 (by some estimates, the cost will be significantly larger) would  amount to about $2.13 billion.

According to public U.N. procurement division records, meantime, only one U.S. air company -- Miami Air International -- won any U.N. contracts for “air transportation services” between June 2005 -- the start-date of the auditors for the 2009 examination -- and the end of June 2013. All of the Miami Air contracts were issued from 2010 onward, and the total came to about $3.4 million.

But “unsatisfactory”  was less-bad news, perhaps, for the relatively small number of air charter firms that have benefited in much bigger ways from the U.N. system as it is, and whose native countries pay less -- a lot less -- to support peacekeeping operations in the first place.

According to public U.N. procurement division records, for example, a single Russian air charter company named UTair and two subsidiaries won just under $1.3 billion in U.N. air charter contracts from June, 2005 -- the start-date of the auditors for the 2009 examination -- and the end of June 2013.

Nearly a dozen other Russian air charter firms also earned U.N. charter contracts, making their country far and away the biggest winner of U.N. business.

Russia’s annual peacekeeping contribution this year, based on a 3.1454 percent contribution rate in 2013, would be about $236 million.

During the same period, a single Jordanian Airline, Jordan Aviation,  also picked up more than $426 million in air charter contracts (and an additional $22.7 million earlier in 2005).

Jordan’s assessed rate for peacekeeping contributions in 2003 is a microscopic 0.0044 percent, which would amount to about $330,000 in 2013.

Neither of the U.N. audits alleged any illicit practices on the part of contract winners.

What they did point to, however, are a pattern of practices that make it tough for would-be suppliers to break into the business, or even think of bidding unless they have exactly the right kind of specified planes. (In one case, the latest report says, “there was only one aircraft  type in the world that could satisfy the distance and load requirements specified,” thus “effectively reducing competition.”)

In general, the auditors noted that there was “a strong correlation between aircraft types and models indicated in mission planning documents and aircraft eventually acquired,” and that, “in general, the aircraft models indicated in the budget were subsequently leased.”

Perhaps as one result, the auditors said, a review of 39 long-term charter cases from 2006 to 2010 showed that while anywhere from 30 to 86 vendors from various countries were invited to bid, only an average of 3.5 responded. The low response rates, auditors noted, sometimes caused the U.N. to register suppliers who did not meet their usual guidelines for financial strength, or even solvency.

As an indicator of what additional price competition might do, the auditors also noted that in two cases when charter suppliers learned of new entrants on a bid, they dropped their proposed prices by about 30 percent compared to what they had been receiving.

But then, the U.N. didn’t seem to think that lower prices were much of an object of the chartering exercise. As the auditors noted, procurement officers “used previous UN contract prices with the same vendor or other vendors as a benchmark.”  But even so, “in many cases the new contract prices were substantially higher than the comparator benchmarks, so it was unclear how the comparators were used to provide assurance regarding the reasonableness of the bids.”

(The U.N. response to auditors on this, according to the report, was that “since the UN operations were unique, comparison with other entities might not be meaningful.”)

Atop that, the auditors noted, when the U.N. chartered planes or helicopters, it asked for, and got, a lot more than it subsequently needed. An analysis of more than 1,0000 helicopter  flights showed that only 6 percent operated near passenger capacity, while ten times that many carried fewer than half the number the vehicle could manage.

On the cargo side, only one of more than 700 flights carried the maximum payload, while more than 70 percent carried less than half -- and how much less was not specified. Heavy Russian Mi-26 helicopters, chartering for $12 million per year, were used for half the time each month or less, the auditors reported.

The fact that some U.N. charter suppliers were “related parties” to other suppliers also caused the auditors concern. They noted that “there is no clear UN policy guidance regarding the participation of affiliated vendors (companies with significant common shareholders) in the same bidding exercise”

and worried that “participation in bids by affiliated vendors might make the procurement process even less competitive.”  

They suggested that the U.N. “enhance”  provisions in its bidding documents “to further mitigate the risk of vendor collusion.”

Overall, the recent audit report described  the U.N. as lurching around the air charter business, with procurement “done on a piecemeal and reactive basis. Even though peacekeeping is by definition a reaction to a crisis, the auditors said that “air transportation needs are generally known in advance” through the budgeting process for each mission. The U.N. also needed to reach out systematically to more vendors to solve its competition problem.

Above all, the report noted, the U.N.’s ability to even keep track of its operations and needs almost literally hand-to-mouth. Information systems “did not have real-time data, were susceptible to human error” and “did not help stakeholders in providing timely and reliable analyses for decision-making.”  Aircraft management software to solve that problem was “much needed.”

Of course, U.N. auditors had made more or less the same observation, in slightly differing terms, back in 2009. Then, they said, U.N. air transport managers “did not have a sufficient performance management framework to monitor and report on aviation performance.” Nor did it have an “integrated, comprehensive peacekeeping aviation strategy.” Nor did it have a system to “track and monitor” the registration of suppliers.

Overall, they described the U.N.’s air charter planning as “disjointed,” said peacekeeping support services “could benefit from the use of performance indicators that would generally be important to an aviation organization.”

The 2009 auditors noted, as they would years later, that U.N. transport planes were dramatically under-used and under-loaded, averaging just an hour of use a day, even while costs were rising rapidly -- by 14 percent between 2005 and 2006, for example.

They also called for changes in the bidding system and noted the problems with overly-specific charter requirements. (In one case, two suppliers with 13-seat aircraft were eliminated because the bid called for 14 seats; the  one additional seat cost the U.N. $3 million.).

All of that, the U.N. had promised to change, with deadlines that ranged from August 2009 to March 2010.

Among the anticipated reforms: “utilization and load factor performance targets for applicable aircrafts,” changes in the “narrow definition of air charter requirements,”  disclosure of vendor relationships with each other, and acquisition of an electronic “Air Transport Management System,” or ATMS, which would pull together all the information required to keep track of planning, billing and even performance management.

As the more recent report documents, not many of those things actually happened, especially the electronic ATMS, which the U.N. says was selected and proposed, but then rejected by an in-house contracts committee due to “the limited number of bidders” -- a reason that apparently did not apply often enough to the actual spending of hundreds of millions of dollars on charters

 http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/08/01/uns-messy-billion-dollar-peacekeeping-air-charter-business-hugely-unfavorable/#ixzz2ajkEWPrI

 

North Carolina Ends Teacher Tenure, Teachers Will Now Have to Be Good at Their Jobs to Keep Them

 

Republican legislators in North Carolina have pushed through a proposal to revoke lifetime tenure for the state's public school teachers. Currently, all teachers are elligible for tenure after five years on the job, which makes it difficult for school adminstrators to hire, fire, and reward performance.

 Under the new plan, top performers will be offered four year contracts, while others will be on one or two year contracts. 

It's not exactly at-will employment—the kind of jobs that most of us have, in which both parties can choose to end the period of employment whenever they like, without advance warning—but it's a heckuva lot closer. 

Naturally, local union officials are flipping out: 

“It’s going to create a revolving door for public educators in North Carolina,” said Rodney Ellis, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators....
“That’s devastating to the educators and the profession itself,” Ellis said. “It sends the message to people throughout the state of North Carolina that educators aren’t valued for what they do.”

But North Carolina teachers still enjoy more employment protection than pretty much any other schmucks in the state. If the possibility of getting fired from your job means people do not value what you do, then the bosses of America are pretty universally ungrateful assholes. 

This is hardly an unprecedented move by the Tar Heel State. Idaho killed tenure in 2011 [UPDATE: That measure was overturned by voter referendum the following year], and South Dakota, Louisiana, New Mexico, Colorado, and Florida have all moved away from systems where teachers' jobs are sacrosanct as well in recent years. 

At times like these, it's always best to turn to Ghostbusters for some sage wisdom on how to deal with panic induced by changes in the pleasant bubble of academe:"You don't know what it's like out there. I've worked in the private sector. They expect results."

http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/30/tenure-revoked-to-keep-their-jobs-north

The godless Take a Plunge into the Bizarre

The Constitution is not an atheist manifesto

When an angry atheist group like the Freedom From Religion Foundation goes after something like the Holocaust memorial because it includes a Star of David, they do it because they hate anything to do with our Judeo-Christian heritage and to get in the public spotlight.

When groups like the American Atheists pile on with an anti-Semitic diatribe, for example, telling Fox News, “It’s important that we not give the Holocaust to just the Jews,” they do it for the same reason – to grab a piece of the spotlight.

But as soon as they have that spotlight, they rush to the absurd (as if that’s not absurd enough).  Their answer to everything they don’t like or that “offends” one of their members is to make it as if it never existed.  If two intersecting steel beams were discovered in the midst of a national tragedy and really brought solace to real people, they say you have to hide it from the public; pretend like it didn’t happen – didn’t exist.  See the Ground Zero Cross.  If a memorial was raised by World War II veterans six decades ago to resemble statues that actually meant something to these war heroes as they fought for freedom across Europe, they say tear it down; the fact that it happened hurts their feelings.  See the WWII memorial in Montana.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s newest target (using their renewed infamy to delve deeper into the bizarre) are quotes from famous people.  That’s right.  Abraham Lincoln shouldn’t have mentioned God in his speeches.  Thomas Jefferson’s lauded quotations need to be whitewashed of their religious references.  And Martin Luther King, Jr., well you had better cross out the reference to God.  The logic is unfathomable.

The quotes in question are apparently found on U.S. passports.  Here are a few examples:

• “That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln
• “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.” Jefferson Memorial, Thomas Jefferson
• “We have a great dream. It started way back in 1776, and God grant that America will be true to her dream.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

You can’t make this stuff up.  FFRF is demanding that the U.S. State Department remove these quotes – which were actually said, by real national heroes, at historically significant moments, about pivotal events in our nation’s history.

This is the apex of absurdity.  If they mention God, we have to remove them from history?

These angry atheists’ attempt to whitewash history belies logic; it teeters on insanity.  Yet their attempts cannot be ignored. As Orwell said, “Who controls the past … controls the future.”

Sadly enough we predicted that these groups would go after each of these things.  When we compiled the “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Protecting American Atheists” two years ago, we listed nearly 40 iconic, historically significant memorials, inscriptions, and references to our religious history as a nation.  In fact, we listed quotes from the Gettysburg Address, the Jefferson Memorial, and the MLK memorial now under attack.  These angry atheist groups are as predictable as they are wrong.

The First Amendment is not a mandate to whitewash history.  The Constitution is not a manual for the cleansing and expulsion of religious references from public life.

FFRF’s co-president Annie Lauri Gaylor inaccurately asserts, “The United States is governed under a secular and godless constitution,” as if the Constitution itself were an atheist manifesto.  The Supreme Court has long debunked this premise, specifically holding that to follow that legal argument “would be to find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.”  The Constitution requires no such thing.

http://www.redstate.com/matthewclark/2013/08/01/the-godless-take-a-plunge-into-the-bizarre/