Is Obama Already a Lame Duck?
It’s been a bad summer for the Obama administration. At home, the
president’s negligible legislative agenda remains stalled as his
incessant attempts to demonize Republicans have poisoned efforts to find
common ground on even those areas where large elements of both parties
might work together. Even Democrats consider the rollout of ObamaCare to
be a “train wreck” as implementation of parts of the program are being
postponed and the impending devastation on employment and business may
be as much if not more of a nightmare than Republicans thought it would
be. A late spring of scandals (Benghazi, the IRS, press snooping) has
given way to a summer of paranoia about the National Security Agency
that the president has proven incapable or unwilling to address.
Abroad, the administration’s embarrassing failures in Syria (where it
has ignored the “red line” the president enunciated about chemical
weapons), Egypt (where its embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood has been
followed by a dangerous ambivalence as the military has launched an
effort to decapitate the Islamist movement), Iran (where it has wasted
five years on pointless diplomacy as the ayatollahs get closer to a
nuclear weapon), and the Israel-Palestinian conflict (where it has
invested heavily in a revived peace process that has little chance of
success and may do more harm than good) have worsened his standing in
the world as well as at home.
When you add all this up, it’s little wonder that the president’s
approval ratings have been steadily heading south for months. Given that
the only chance for a temporary revival of his political stock is if
Republicans shut down the government in a futile and suicidal effort to
stop ObamaCare, it’s fair to ask whether this is the moment when Obama
must be acknowledged as a lame duck.
Normally, discussion of lame ducks must wait until after the midterm
elections when the White House’s political influence declines
dramatically and even the president’s party begins to think more about a
future without the incumbent than the present. But the spectacle of the
ObamaCare meltdown and a divided Congress may accelerate this process.
Tracing the president’s approval ratings this year via the Real Clear Politics average poll bar graph,
it’s easy to see that the president’s post-election honeymoon died a
lingering death this spring once the season of scandals began and has
morphed into something that is starting to resemble George W. Bush’s
poll numbers in a similar period. It’s not likely that anything that
happens in the coming year will result in a media pile-on such as the
one that was produced by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But in the
absence of anything resembling an economic recovery and with the near
certainty that worse is in store abroad courtesy of Iran, his numbers
may never recover.
This is more than a semantic question; once the political class in
Washington begins to smell the ripe stench of presidential irrelevance
it is all over for any resident of the White House. As the president
contemplates a fall in which he has far more chances to flop than
succeed, the faint echo of quacking is starting to be heard.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/08/21/is-obama-already-a-lame-duck/
Arab Spring: Worst Soap Ever
By Ann Coulter
I didn't care for the "Arab Spring," but the "Arab Summer" is a blockbuster!
Liberals' rosy predictions for Egypt's Islamic revolution didn't turn
out as planned. Who could have guessed that howling mobs in Tahrir
Square in 2011 would fail to produce a peaceful democracy?
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had supported U.S. policy, used his
military to fight Muslim extremists and recognized Israel's right to
exist. So naturally, Obama told him he had to go.
Let's review what liberals said at the time about that glorious people's revolution -- only from The New York Times:
-- "(Egyptian) Officials blamed the Muslim Brotherhood (for the
protests). ... Even if the Brotherhood had a role -- the group denies
it; the truth seems more complex -- it is easy to understand why
Egyptians are fed up." (Editorial: "Mr. Mubarak Is Put on Notice," Jan.
26, 2011)
-- "The mistake, which still emanates from think tanks stocked with
neoconservatives, is assuming that democracy can come at the end of
sword. ... Now that some of the dominoes appear to be falling, this has
more to do with Facebook and the frustrations of young, educated adults
who can't earn enough money to marry than it does with tanks rolling
into Baghdad, or naive neocons guiding the State Department." (Timothy
Egan, "Bonfire of American Vanities," Feb. 3, 2011)
-- "It's time to be clear: Mubarak's time is up." (Roger Cohen, "Hosni Mubarak Agonistes," Feb. 4, 2011)
-- "What is unfolding in Arab streets is not an assertion of religious
reaction but a yearning for democracy with all its burdens and rewards."
(Ray Takeyh, "What Democracy Could Bring," Feb. 4, 2011)
Oops! Within less than a year, we found out that the truth wasn't
"complex": The Muslim Brotherhood was behind the revolution. They rigged
an election and were planning to implement Sharia law -- until the
Egyptian military stepped in on behalf of the people this year and
removed the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi as president.
In Arab countries, at least, it seems that democracy can come only "at the end of a sword."
Also in 2011, Obama ordered air strikes in Libya against Moammar Gadhafi
-- at the precise moment Gadhafi was no longer a threat to anyone.
After Bush invaded Iraq, Gadhafi promptly gave up his nuclear program
and invited U.N. weapons inspectors in to prove it. Apparently, he
wasn't interested in becoming the next Saddam Hussein.
Obama's bombing of Gadhafi was also enthusiastically supported at the
Times. Gadhafi, you see, had killed hundreds of his own people.
Meanwhile, President Bashar Hafez al-Assad of Syria can preside over the
slaughter of more than 100,000 of his people since that time without a
cross word from the left.
Libyan people proceeded to stalk and kill Gadhafi in the desert (video
on YouTube). A year later, the happy people of Libya murdered our
ambassador and three other Embassy staff. But as Hillary said, "What
difference, at this point, does it make?"
After all their carping about the Iraq War, you'd think liberals would
have waited a few years before getting sentimental about democracy in
Egypt and Libya. At least democracy is working in Iraq, despite Obama's
attempt to wreck it by withdrawing all U.S. troops. (We still have
troops in Germany -- but not in Bush's Iraq.) Still, our ambassador
wasn't assassinated in Baghdad.
Speaking of which, what is the geopolitical strategy behind Obama's
sending more troops to Afghanistan? The 9/11 attack was not committed by
Afghanistan. That country has no history of exporting terrorism.
Afghans have traditionally been the invaded, not the invaders. They're
too busy herding goats.
The 9/11 attack was planned by foreigners who had decamped to
Afghanistan. Although the Taliban was eager for al-Qaida's help in
fighting the Northern Alliance, it had no interest in attacking America.
Mullah Omar dissented from Osama bin Laden on that brilliant idea.
It was one thing to go in and wipe out the Taliban after 9/11 in
retaliation for their allowing bin Laden to set up shop there, but what
was the point after that? Three months into President Bush's war in
Afghanistan, we had accomplished all we were ever going to accomplish in
that godforsaken area of the world.
To quote one of liberals' favorite arguments against the Iraq War: What does victory in Afghanistan look like?
The one place Obama should have intervened was Iran. The moderate,
pro-Western, educated Iranian people were being shot in the street in
2010 for protesting an election stolen by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a
messianic lunatic in a Members Only jacket. There was a clear
alternative in that case that didn't involve the Muslim Brotherhood, to
wit: the actual winner of the election.
But Obama turned his back on the Iranians. Democrats are so opposed to
promoting the United States' interests around the globe, it doesn't
occur to them that, sometimes, our national interests might coincide
with the interests of other people.
Liberals made fun of Sarah Palin for not being able to define "the Bush
doctrine." Can Obama tell us what "the Obama doctrine" is? Leap in only
to make the rest of the world a more dangerous place? At least Egyptians
are safe now, thanks to their military and no thanks to Obama.
http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2013/08/21/arab-spring-worst-soap-ever-n1670330/page/full
Two Americas
By Victor Davis Hanson
Two quite different 21st-century Americas are emerging. The nation is
not so much divided by "wars" between the rich and poor, men and women,
or white and non-white. Instead, there is the world of reality versus
that of triviality.
In the vast plains of the Dakotas and the American West, thousands of
men and women of all classes and colors are fracking oil and gas to
create new energy for millions of homeowners and commuters -- while
giving America a second chance at strategic energy independence.
Yet the beneficiaries mostly ignore these elemental efforts. They
instead prefer to fixate on the alleged sexual creepiness of big-city
political mediocrities like Bob Filner and Anthony Weiner.
As we sleep, 7,000 miles away there are still thousands of American
soldiers of all races, ages, classes and genders in godforsaken
conditions fighting the Taliban to allow millions in Afghanistan the
chance for an alternative to medieval theocracy and to deter terrorists.
Meanwhile, back home, the nation is focused not on such existential struggles but transfixed by racial melodramas.
Was Oprah victimized by racial insensitively in a Swiss boutique when
inquiring about purchasing a $38,000 crocodile purse? Were 10 black
"American Idol" contestants really victims of "cruel and inhumane"
treatment because their arrest records were brought up on the show?
Should a rodeo clown -- whose stock and trade is humor -- be sent to
"sensitivity
training" for wearing an Obama mask?
At the end of two years of near-record drought in California, the fate
of hundreds of thousands of acres of irrigated farmlands, which feed
millions of Americans and earn billions of dollars in critical foreign
exchange, hinges on a snow-filled winter in the Sierra Nevada. You might
never know of that razor's edge from the state legislature. Rather than
discussing new dams and canals, it debated whether transgendered youth
in public schools could use the bathrooms of their choice and whether
residents should need a permit to buy ammunition.
The historic role of government is changing before our eyes. President
Obama is making the argument that the executive branch by presidential
fiat can pick and choose which laws should and should not be faithfully
executed -- whether Obamacare, immigration amnesties or No Child Left
Behind statutes.
The fate of the entire concept of voluntary tax compliance is currently
endangered by the politicization of the Internal Revenue Service.
Whether the government can monitor the communications of either
reporters or average citizens depends on getting to the bottom of the
National Security Agency and Justice Department/Associated Press
scandals.
Instead, the media seem more interested in whether Obama is playing golf on Martha's Vineyard.
Why is the country consumed by the trivial while snoozing through the essential?
We have become a nation of instant electronic communications -- Twitter,
Facebook, cell phones and the Internet -- even as reading and math
scores plummet in our schools, and newspapers and magazines go broke. We
can communicate information at the speed of light but have trouble
finding anything meaningful to send back and forth.
In prior times, writers, directors and actors endeavored to present
television drama characterized by good acting and engaging scripts. Now,
it is more profitable and apparently more entertaining just to film
pseudo-celebrities talking, eating and agonizing over the day's
banalities, as with "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."
Yet sometimes we get vicarious pleasure from watching oddballs do what
most of us won't or can't do. Nineteenth-century-style men who cut
timber, mine gold, drive big rigs and catch fish on the high seas are
now big reality-television hits. Apparently, those who did not go to Ivy
League schools or make a pile on Wall Street appear as more genuine
Americans --
at least in our dreams and fantasies.
Yet part of America's confusion about what is important and petty begins at the top.
Reggie Love, the erstwhile presidential assistant and "body man" to
President Obama recently reported on the critical moments of the mission
to kill Osama bin Laden. The president apparently was not glued to live
video feeds, as the photos from his re-election campaign suggested.
"Most people were like down in the Situation Room," Love said, "and [the
president] was like, 'I'm not going to be down there, I can't watch
this entire thing.' So he, myself, Pete Souza, the White House
photographer, Marvin [Nicholson], we must have played 15 games of
spades."
The commander in chief was playing cards while Navy Seals risked their
lives to kill America's No. 1 enemy -- only later to use photos of
himself watching live feeds for his re-election sloganeering: "bin Laden
is dead and General Motors is alive!"
That pretense sums up the growing void between real and trivial America.
http://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2013/08/22/two-americas-n1669884
United States is raising a nation of savages
By Todd Starnes
Christopher Lane was gunned down in cold blood – shot in the back as
he jogged alongside a road in Duncan, Okla. His alleged attackers were
teenagers who told police they were bored and killed the college athlete
for “the fun of it.”
The 22-year-old was attending school at East Central University – an Australian native who played baseball.
Good Samaritans saw the shooting and immediately rushed to offer aid.
One person called 911. Another tried to administer CPR. But it was too
late. The young athlete with a promising future lingered for several
minutes – gasping for air. And then he died – on a lonely stretch of an
Oklahoma roadway.
Police Chief Dan Ford said they found a chilling message on one of
the alleged killer’s Facebook pages: “Bang. Two drops in two hours.”
“I think they were on a killing spree,” Ford told Australian
Associated Press. “We would have had more bodies that night if we didn’t
get them.”
In other words – the teenage boys were hunting humans.
In Northwest Indiana, a 17-year-old boy is accused of hunting and
killing three kittens with a bow and arrow. Police told CBS News in
Chicago the teenager skewered the kittens on an arrow.
Investigator Michelle Dvorscak told the television station the boy posted the photographs on Facebook.
“He did confess,” she said. “He said he was bored out of his mind the
week before school started and decided to hunt some kittens.”
In Brunswick, Ga. two teenagers are accused of shooting a young
mother and murdering her 13-month-old child. Sherry West was taking her
baby out for a stroll when the boys demanded she give them cash.
“A boy approached me and told me he wanted my money, and I told him I
didn’t have any money,” the woman told reporters. “And he said, ‘Give
me your money or I’m going to kill you and I’m going to shoot your baby
and kill your baby.”
She pleaded with them to spare her child – but one of the boys took a gun and shot the 13-month-old between the eyes.
The United States is now reaping what it has sown – for raising a nation of savages.
We live in a nation that celebrates and glorifies violence. The proof is in our movies, our music, and our athletic pastimes.
“Violence has become the new pornography of our culture,” noted
author Robert Jeffress tells me. “One cause of the violence is the
unprecedented and explicit violence in video games and cable television.
It’s desensitized teenagers to the idea of taking a human life.”
Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Tex., said
parents bear responsibility for raising a generation of thugs roaming
the streets in search of their prey.
“Parents have absolutely failed in their most basic, fundamental
responsibility as parents,” he said. “And that is to instill God’s moral
law in the hearts of their children.”
The Good Book indeed says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
“As long as you continue to tell teenagers they are nothing but a
biological accident, we shouldn’t expect them to act in accordance with a
Creator-God who has basic laws concerning life and death,” Pastor
Jeffress tells me.
It’s true that American culture has turned its back on God. As a
result, we’ve lost our moral compass – replacing the moral absolutes of
the Almighty with the moral whims of an all-knowing federal government.
Right is now wrong and wrong is now right. And under the leadership
of President Obama criminals have become victims and their prey have
become afterthoughts – ingredients for the surge in teenage violence.
“Our culture continues to deny or marginalize the existence of God,”
Jeffress tells me. “We shouldn’t be surprised that teenagers would
ignore the most basic laws of God – like thou shall not kill.”
And as the stench of our rotting culture sweeps across the nation,
I’ve come to the conclusion that we have reached a moment in history
when the make-believe world of violence no longer satisfies our
bloodlust.
The United States is now reaping what it has sown – for raising a nation of savages.
Meet Brenda Edwards, Mother of Accused ‘Bored’ Teen Killer James Edwards
Did “bored” teen James Edwards learn about crime from his mother?
Edwards is the 15-year-old apparent gang member accused of shooting
Australian baseball player Chris Lane in the back last Friday. He
appeared in court Tuesday and reportedly made a mockery of the
proceedings.
A search on Mugshots.com turns up one Brenda M. Edwards,
50, of Stephens County, Oklahoma. I called the Stephens County district
attorney’s office today and confirmed that Brenda M. Edwards is James
Edwards’ mother.
Edwards is currently incarcerated in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
Her extensive rap sheet begins in 1994 with a conviction for larceny,
and spans her son’s entire life. Click on the image to enlarge.
She has three known aliases. As things stand now, her relationship
with Oklahoma’s criminal justice system won’t end for several decades.
Her multiple convictions include distribution of cocaine. She was in
court in Duncan, OK, as recently as May 2010, when she was found to have
violated her parole by obtaining prescription drugs by fraud. Her probation was revoked.
If we’re going to blame a “culture” for James Edwards’ alleged part
in Chris Lane’s murder, as some want to blame the so-called “gun
culture,” shouldn’t the culture of recidivist criminality come under
scrutiny?
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/08/21/meet-brenda-edwards-mother-of-accused-bored-teen-killer-james-edwards/
'Black mob violence' – the forbidden words
Exclusive: Colin Flaherty notes killing of Australian just 1 of hundreds of similar attacks
The murder of the Australian man in Oklahoma was horrific, but not unique. Or even rare.
A similar episode of black mob violence happened just a few days ago
in Memphis. And a few days before that in St. Paul. And before that in
Burlington. And before that in Delaware, New Haven, Madison, Denver,
Flint, Peoria, Springfield, Greensboro, Green Bay, and on and on and on.
This is a long list with more than 500 cases of recent black mob
violence in more than 100 cities, big and small, many on video – and all
unreported as being part of an epidemic of black mob violence
throughout America.
“Beat Whitey Night,” for example: Two summers ago, black mobs beat
and robbed dozens of patrons at the Iowa State Fair for three nights in a
row. They also attacked police.
Ever hear about it?
Didn’t think so. That is because most editors are not comfortable
with the words “black mob violence.” No matter that black mob violence
exists plainly and exponentially out of proportion.
This reluctance is curious in the most race conscious country in the
world. Every day we read about the black caucus, black colleges, black
labor unions, black doctors, black lawyers, black business owners, black
TV stars. Many of these stories are written by members of the National
Association of Black Journalists.
But these same hyper-racial reporters go blind when it comes to
widespread and frequent and sometimes even fatal black mob violence. The
psychiatrists say we are only as sick as our secrets. And nothing
inspires more secrecy – and sickness – than racial violence and
lawlessness.
Before I wrote “White Girl Bleed a Lot: The return of racial violence and how the media ignore it,”
I had no idea how bad it was. Neither did Thomas Sowell before he read
it: “Colin Flaherty’s book made painfully clear to me that the magnitude
of this problem is greater than I had discovered from my own research.
He documents both the race riots and the media and political evasions in
dozens of cities.”
Sowell wrote that last year. It is much worse now. I know that
because people from all over the country tell me, especially cops. They
send links and videos and case numbers and mug shots and inside info
that does not appear in the local press.
Sometimes the black mobs are small, as is the case in Oklahoma where
two black people stalked and killed the Australian Chris Lane because
they said they were bored. Sometimes they are large: As was the case
earlier this month in St. Paul, where a mob of 100 beat and stomped Ray
Widstrand into a coma, with permanent brain damage, if he survives.
Sometimes the black mob violence is so common, like Baltimore, that reporters tell us we should learn to live with it.
Sometimes the violence is marked by hate and vitriol spoken aloud.
But not usually. In New London earlier this year, six black people were
sentenced for killing Matthew Chew. They said they were bored. Near
Cincinnati last year, a black mob beat a man comatose. It took him a
year to die. The black people involved said they were bored, too.
Sound familiar?
The busiest day, by far, for black mob violence is the Fourth of
July. This year, we saw dozens of examples of violence, theft and chaos
during our nation’s annual celebration of freedom. In Wilmington, Del.,
groups of black people threw M-80 explosive devices at police cars. Yes,
the police were still in them.
In Greensboro, the city council held an emergency meeting on July 3
to prepare for the racial mayhem that has become a regular feature of
their lives. Their curfew did not work. And now residents of a town
people used to compare to Mayberry wonder if their city is turning into
the next Detroit.
In Virginia Beach earlier this summer, black party promoters sent
buses to black colleges and filled the streets of this usually quiet
beach town with 40,000 black people bent on mayhem. In one six hour
period, police received more than 900 emergency calls to 911. Some for
shooting. Some for violence. Some for theft. Some for drugs. Some for
guns. Lots on video.
No one carried a sign that said Burn Baby Burn. Or Down with Honkies.
So editors behave like the one in Norfolk last year, who said that he
had no evidence that the 50 to 100 black people who surrounded and beat
his reporters were “racially motivated.”
That lack of evidence did not stop newspapers around the world from
reporting the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon
Martin meant that it was now “open season on black people.”
Let’s give the trolls their due: By itself, each incident is small.
Even the killings. But together, they build a pattern that sometimes
makes it impossible for even the most obtuse editor to ignore.
That happened a few weeks ago when the local Fox affiliate belled the
cat in Baltimore: The news report actually stated that mobs of black
people were responsible for a wave of violence and theft in and around
downtown. And that one of Baltimore’s largest employers was thinking
about leaving the area because of this danger.
This story echoed Maryland state legislator Pat McDonough, who said black youths were “terrorizing” the upscale Inner Harbor.
McDonough asked the governor to declare the area a “No Travel” zone
until the black mob violence stopped. The state’s liberal media and
political establishment roared in outrage at McDonough. Not because he
was wrong, but because he noticed.
The same day the Baltimore Sun unleashed an attack on McDonough, the
downtown experienced three more attacks of black mob violence and theft.
Last year in Minneapolis, black mobs were involved in dozens of
attacks downtown and at the Mall of America, many on video. One left a
local artist with permanent brain damage. When I asked the local police
department if race played any role in this violence, the spokesman was
indignant: They did not notice what race the predators were, he said
curtly.
This, of course, is the same police department that on its website
offers “protected minorities” special help, special test taking, special
opportunities for advancement for those who want to join the police
force. Lots of cities do that. Most, in fact.
Editors and mayors may be loathe to admit it, but people responsible
for the violence revel in it. They make music videos of it. They brag
about it on Facebook and Twitter.
Ask a cop; they know. Cops on the beat are heroes. They wonder why
the people running their departments are so busy excusing, condoning and
ignoring black mob violence.
And Chicago is second to no city in that department.
On Memorial Day two summers ago, 1,000 black people invaded North
City Beach: assaulting, destroying property, pushing people off bikes.
The city closed the beach the next day, citing a heat wave. Other nearby
beaches remained open.
Local residents took to talk radio, telling station WLS about the
racial violence. The radio station grabbed the 911 calls and the people
of Chicago learned the truth: Their city was under assault from black
mobs. City officials were not being honest about it. And local media
were going along with it.
In Philadelphia, during one of the dozens of racial attacks, a white
businessman was on the ground, getting kicked and punched. “Why are you
doing this?” he screamed.
“It’s not our fault you can’t fight,” said one of the attackers, described only as an “unruly teen.”
A few months later, a public health worker from a local university
set out to investigate the violence: “Its just kids blowing off some
steam,” he told a medical journal.
I was recently on a talk radio show where the host invited me to
remind her listeners about how I wrote a story that got a black man out
of prison. He had been convicted of trying to kill his white girlfriend.
I showed it was not true. The story made national news in places like
NPR, the Los Angeles Times and Court TV.
The host said she wanted to inoculate me against charges of racism. I
don’t play that game. I’m just a guy watching a car crash and wondering
why everyone is trying to convince me there is no car crash.
“White Girl Bleed a Lot” is not about grand theories. Or big solutions. Or apologies.
Nevertheless, its amazing how often people try to flip the script:
How they try and turn the predators into victims and the victims into
the real predators.
The thousands and thousands of videos of black mob violence are
making it almost impossible to play that game anymore. It was never any
fun to begin with.
http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/black-mob-violence-the-forbidden-words/
Suicide Pact
How to cripple your state in five easy steps.
It’s not just Texas eating the economic
lunch of basket-case states such as California and New York. Kansas City
saw about 9,500 new jobs created between May 2012 and May 2013 — every
one of them on the Kansas side of the border, where residents and
businesses enjoy a significant tax advantage thanks in part to the
leadership of Governor Sam Brownback and Kansas conservatives. Johnson
County, Kan., gained nearly $800 million in adjusted gross income
between 1992 and 2010, and the biggest chunk of it came from Jackson
County, Mo., which is down some $1.78 billion in AGI over the same
period. Money walks, which is the point of Travis H. Brown’s book How Money Walks, and his website,
which contains a wealth of excruciatingly detailed data about where
people are taking their families, their businesses, and their income.
From that data, here’s a five-point plan for destroying your state’s economy.
1. Make work expensive. The nine states with the
highest personal-income-tax rates lost $100 billion in AGI from 1995 to
2010. The nine states without any personal-income tax gained $146
billion. In all, some $2 trillion has moved between the states during
the years for which Brown has data, and the pattern consistently favors
low-tax jurisdictions. Taxes are the direct motive factor in some of
those decisions, especially for very wealthy people and retirees, though
the more important factor probably is the availability of work.
Businesses want to invest in lower-tax jurisdictions, and that creates
jobs and brings families and their incomes. According to Census Bureau figures,
nearly twice as many people move for jobs or job-seeking as for changes
in marital status, and about as many people were moving for jobs as
were moving because they were buying homes. Jobs move people.
Taxes
may be here serving as a proxy for a bundle of pro-growth policies; the
kinds of political leaders who keep a lid on taxation are also in the
main the kind who are responsible about regulation, education, and
related matters. But the figures are nonetheless striking.
These
trends also hold true within states. It is no surprise that New York
County (Manhattan) has lost AGI to nearby suburban areas such as
Westchester County, N.Y., and Fairfield County, Conn., or that
Philadelphia, which imposes a city income tax, has lost people and
income to nearby suburban counties. But that doesn’t mean that these
states are keeping it in the family: New York State has lost $68 billion
in AGI, with Florida claiming the biggest piece and North Carolina in
the No. 4 spot. Pennsylvania is getting beat out by (in order of
magnitude) Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and
Arizona.
2. Attack lifetime savings. Florida is a
good place to live and a great place to die. Its lack of a personal
income tax is attractive, and so is its lack of an estate tax. By way of
contrast, Minnesota imposes a significant estate tax, one that is more
rapacious than the federal levy: Whereas the federal tax excludes $5.25
million per person, Minnesota excludes only $1 million. And if you try
to give away some of your assets before you kick off, Minnesota imposes
its own gift tax, too, at 10 percent. Minnesota lost nearly $4 billion
in AGI from 1992, with the largest amounts going to Florida, Arizona,
Wisconsin (which recently eliminated its estate tax), Texas, and Colorado.
3. Run up your state’s long-term liabilities.
That means fat pensions for unionized state employees funded mostly by
hopes and dreams and fairy dust. The states with the most serious
unfunded-liability problems are basically ebola-infected hot zones for
mobile capital and income. People in Detroit have known for a long time
that the city’s 100,000 or so creditors were eventually going to come
around looking to get paid, and nobody wanted to hang around to get
stuck with the bill, which is one of the reasons why Wayne County has
lost $9.57 billion in AGI. Michigan as a whole has lost $16.8 billion,
with the largest share of it going to — stop me if this sounds familiar —
Florida, Arizona, and Texas. Illinois is down $29.3 billion, and
California is down a shocking $45.3 billion, with its incompetent
leaders due thank-you notes from Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Texas, and
Washington. Within California, Los Angeles County — the Detroit of the
West Coast — is down $36.4 billion.
4. Tax fanciful things. Maryland is the innovation leader here, with the ingenious leadership of Governor Martin O’Malley having decided to levy a tax on rain.
Already down $7 billion in AGI largely ceded to Florida, North
Carolina, and Virginia, Maryland has declared war on economic
development, with its rain tax levying charges on every square inch of
impervious surface — rooftops, parking lots, driveways — that will
produce runoff in the event of rain. The tax has been so poorly thought
out and implemented that it is expected to fall far short of early
revenue estimates, meaning that the state will pay the price for the tax
but realize relatively little of the hoped-for revenue. It’s harder to
take business away from Maryland, because so much of its economy is
based on its proximity to the hog trough in Washington, D.C., but it lost out to Virginia
in its bid to secure the world headquarters for Northrop Grumman in
2010, and Virginia has made a play for Maryland’s biggest business,
Lockheed Martin. Bechtel was considering uprooting its Maryland
operations, probably for Virginia, and the state was reduced to offering
the company a $9.5 billion sweetheart loan to stay put. The real impervious surface in Maryland is the thick skulls of its political class.
5. Don’t just be crazy — be California crazy. California is running out of things in the present to tax, and its future does not look terribly bright, so it has resorted to taxing the past.
A combination of judicial shenanigans and legislative incompetence
resulted in California’s reneging on tax incentives that had been
offered to some businesses — and then demanding the retroactive payment
of taxes for which businesses had never been legally liable.
Small-business owners, some of whom had sold their businesses years ago,
suddenly got demands for taxes running well into the six figures. And,
California being California, it had the gall to charge those businesses
interest on taxes they had never owed. Jim Fowler, a software
entrepreneur, was hit with a bill for more than $600,000. “I think
that’s the part that’s really going to ruin trust in the state of
California,” he said. “You can’t do this to entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs
will stop coming here.”
There was a time — and it really wasn’t
that long ago — when if you were a financial firm, you had to have an
office in Lower Manhattan, when film studios had to have offices in Los
Angeles, and high-tech firms really needed to be in Silicon Valley. If
Travis Brown’s big data set shows us anything it is that those days are
done. You can build very fine automobiles in the United States, but if
you aren’t already in Detroit, you’d be a fool to set up shop there. For
the feckless governors of high-tax, big-government states with Governor
Perry and Governor Scott breathing down their necks, the only question
is which Rick they’re going to get rolled by.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356404/suicide-pact-kevin-d-williamson
Woman Uses 50 Identities to Collect Unemployment in 8 States
An Ohio woman used 50 stolen identities to collect unemployment
benefits in eight states, according to the inspector general (IG) of the
Social Security Administration.
Audrey Costar, 46, was sentenced
to four years in federal prison for stealing identities over the
internet and collecting $78,674 in fraudulent unemployment benefits.
Using 50 fake identities, Costar collected benefits from Alaska,
Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Utah
between February 2009 and December 2012. She was also on unemployment
through her own name at the time.
“Costar used some of the identities to open bank accounts or cash
value cards over the Internet to which the unlawful unemployment
benefits would be deposited,” the IG said. “After the payments were
made, Costar would withdraw the payments using an automated teller
machine and used the money for her own benefit.”
“When one state cut [Costar] off, she would move to another and start again,” the Columbus Dispatch reported.
The paper also reported that Costar’s attorney blamed her actions on “fallout from long-term mental-health issues.”
Costar had pleaded guilty to two counts of theft of government funds
and two counts of aggravated identity theft in April. At sentencing on
Aug. 9, she was also ordered to repay the more than $78,000 in illegal
benefits.
http://freebeacon.com/woman-uses-50-identities-to-collect-unemployment-in-8-states/
Retailers who have been banned by the Food and Nutrition Service
(FNS) for food stamp trafficking are still redeeming more than $65
million in benefits from the program, a new report by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture inspector general (IG) found.
The report sheds light on fraud within the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP), with the IG concluding the integrity of the
program is “at risk.”
“The Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that the Food and
Nutrition Service (FNS) does not have clear procedures and guidance to
carry out key oversight and enforcement activities to address SNAP
retailer fraud, or adequate authority to prevent multiple instances of
fraud—either by a particular owner or within a particular location,” the
Aug. 20 audit report states.
“As a result, the integrity of SNAP is at risk because FNS does not
consistently provide deterrents for trafficking,” the IG said. SNAP
“trafficking” means exchanging food stamp benefits for cash.
As record numbers of Americans are on food stamps (47,635,297
as of May 2013), the number of authorized retailers has also increased
dramatically. A total of 246,565 stores participated in 2012, a 40
percent increase since 2007. With more retailers comes a greater
opportunity for fraud.
The audit found that the “FNS currently allows 585 multi-unit retail
store owners to continue redeeming SNAP benefits at other locations
after being permanently disqualified for trafficking in one location.”
As a result, the banned retailers redeemed $65.3 million in benefits in fiscal year 2012.
Of the 585 prohibited retailers, 66 were “permanently disqualified
owners” who started businesses at new locations, redeeming $11 million
in benefits.
Thirty-nine were classified as owners who were directly involved in
trafficking and banned in the agency’s own database, which manages
approval for retailers to participate in the program.
Retailers can be permanently banned from participating in SNAP if an
owner or employee is found to be exchanging food stamp benefits for
cash, trafficking in firearms or drugs, or for three total violations.
The IG listed the $65.3 million as “questioned costs.” The FNS
disputed this, saying, “There is no indication that the [585] retailers
noted in this finding are committing fraud.”
The revelation that the program is giving millions to known food stamp traffickers comes on top of a release last week by the USDA, which found that the practice was at a record high of $858 million in 2011.
The number of Americans redeeming their food stamps for cash was up 30 percent from 2008 to 2011.
http://freebeacon.com/retailers-banned-for-food-stamp-trafficking-redeemed-65-3-million-from-the-program/
Bikers to counter Muslim march
Grass-roots movement plans to descend on Washington on 9/11
Muslims who have begun promoting a 9/11 march
in Washington that originally was to protest “anti-Islamic bigotry in
the U.S.” and then turned into a “March Against Fear” may have some
competition.
Loud competition. Very loud. And lots of it.
In what was a virtual impossibility before the Internet, a Facebook page has been created in which many individuals are coordinating what they have dubbed “2 Million Bikers to DC.”
At the Mr. Conservative blog,
the author said: “The best way to counter bad speech is to oppose it
with good speech. Sometimes ‘speech’ can be expressed simply by the
number of people who are willing to show up to support a principle.
That’s the view that hundreds of bikers (so far) across American have as
they prepare to join a ’2 Million Biker Ride to DC’ to counter the
planned Sept. 11 ‘Million Muslim March.’”
On the Facebook page, the community purpose is described as: “To
honor those who were killed on 911 and our armed forces who fought those
who precipitated this attack!”
More than 16,000 “likes” had been generated in just a short time.
“We have now created the final phase for states to coordinate! All
riders need to look at the state list, choose your state and request to
be added! Several states still need coordinators,” is included in the
instructions.
Four dozen pages to coordinate delegations from individuals states already exist.
A Ronald Curaba said: “Who ever comments I would like to do this …
should shut up and show up! Im a retired FDN Lt. I should be at my old
firehouse where I was on that ill fated day …. but I will be in DC
riding! God willing!”
Added Bryan Short: “How appropriate. A million muslims surrounded by 2 million hogs!”
Organizers of the page added: “Folks, just wanted to say thank you
for your support. This event has been a lot of work. But for our country
it is worth it. As with any event such as this we are being attacked
from every angle. But we will not allow those distractions to deter us
from our goal nor the goal of the originator of this event Mr. Bill
Williamson.”
“God Bless Ride Safe,” added Tammy Bowman.
“Ride on brothers,” said Bob Halley.
“Don’t forget ya’ll don’t need a bike to participate. Support
vehicles will be needed. I suppose most of the U.S. will be there in
spirit. Those of us who are lucky to still have employment still need to
work their knickers off to survive these days. Perhaps red/white/blue
boys can adorn people’s homes in support?” suggested Trish Zysk.
Options for those who cannot make the trek to D.C.?
“Organize a ride to your own state Capitol! Get with like-mined folks
and get started planning! Someone take a lead in your state and get the
event in motion.”
Also, get with your ‘Impeach Obama Overpass’ organization.
“Whatever you decide please do something to support America on 911!”
http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/bikers-to-counter-muslim-march/
Judge warns Obama on 'worthless' race complaints
EEOC claims background checks discriminate against blacks
A federal judge has described Obama administration claims that
corporations use background checks to target blacks “worthless,”
describing the allegations from the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission as a “theory in search of facts” as he granted a motion for
summary judgment, which is an immediate dismissal of the case.
“There are simply no facts here to support a theory of disparate
impact resulting from any identified, specific practice of the
defendant,” wrote Judge Roger W. Titus in the case brought by the Obama
administration against Freeman Inc., a company that provides services
for expositions, conventions, corporate events, meetings and programs.
Its revenues exceed $1.3 billion annually and it employs 3,500 fulltime workers and tens of thousands of part-time workers.
The EEOC alleged that the company, by checking the backgrounds of
prospective employees, was illegally discriminating against blacks. But
the Obama administration failed to provide any evidence of that, the
judge ruled.
“While some specific uses of criminal and credit background checks
may be discriminatory and violate the provision of Title VII, the EEOC
bears the burden of supplying reliable expert testimony and statistical analysis that demonstrates disparate impact stemming from a specific employment practice before a violation can be found …. the EEOC has failed to do so.”
The emphasis was in the original document from the judge.
Officials with Judicial Watch,
the Washington watchdog that seeks out corruption and reports on it,
noted the judge’s description of the Obama administration’s case as
“laughable,” “distorted,” “cherry-picked,” “worthless” and “an egregious
example of scientific dishonesty.”
“That kind of whipping from a federal judge has got to hurt though
it’s unlikely to deter the administration from spending more taxpayer
dollars to file frivolous lawsuits against employers who use the checks
to screen job applicants,” the organization reported Wednesday.
“Of interesting note is that the EEOC conducts criminal background
checks as a condition of employment and credit background checks for
most of its positions. For some reason, it’s not discriminatory against
minorities when the agency does it,” the group reported. “But it is when
private businesses utilize the tool because information about prior
convictions is being used to discriminate against a racial or ethnic
group, according to the EEOC. ”
Obama’s EEOC claimed the business “unlawfully relied upon credit and
criminal background checks that caused a disparate impact against
African-American, Hispanic, and male job applicants.”
“To support this absurd argument, the agency presented the court with
‘expert’ data, including a detailed statistical analysis, supposedly
proving its disparate impact claims,” Judicial Watch said.
But Titus found the government argument “based on unreliable data,”
“rife with analytical error,” with “a plethora of errors and analytical
fallacies” and a “mind-boggling number of errors.”
Further, it was “completely unreliable,” “so full of material flaws
that any evidence of disparate impact derived from an analysis of its
contents must necessarily be disregarded” and “distorted.”
The judge said, “By bringing actions of this nature, the EEOC has
placed many employers in the ‘Hobson’s choice’ of ignoring criminal
history and credit background, thus exposing themselves to potential
liability for criminal and fraudulent acts committed by employees, on
the one hand, or incurring the wrath of the EEOC for having utilized
information deemed fundamental by most employers.”
The judge noted there are legitimate reasons for background checks.
“For many employers, conducting a criminal history or credit record
background check on a potential employee is a rational and legitimate
component of a reasonable hiring process. The reasons for conducting
such checks are obvious. Employers have a clear incentive to avoid
hiring employees who have a proven tendency to defraud or steal from
their employers, engage in workplace violence, or who otherwise appear
to be untrustworthy and unreliable.”
The Obama administration alleged that the company, by doing
background checks, had created a “pattern or practice” of
“discrimination against African-American job applicants by using poor
credit history as a hiring criterion … and against African-American,
Hispanic, and male job applicants by using criminal history as a hiring
criterion.”
The judge went even further,
blasting the EEOC for making a “mockery” of court standards by
“continually offering new expert reports … well past the applicable
deadline.
In fact, they were “poorly disguised attempts to counter defendant’s arguments with new expert analysis.”
http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/judge-warns-obama-on-worthless-race-complaints/
Global Warming Will Make World Violent
Just when you thought you’ve heard it all regarding the ills of
global warming, a new taxpayer-funded study reveals that it will make
the world more violent. That’s because when temperatures rise, so does
aggression.
In fact, shifts in climate change have long been associated with violent conflicts, according to this new study (Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict)
conducted by a public university in northern California. At the rate
we’re going, with the current “warming” patterns, violence and human
conflict will increase significantly, the academics found.
“We find strong causal evidence linking climatic events to human
conflict across a range of spatial and temporal scales and across all
major regions of the world,” the report says. Here is the short version
of how this conclusion was reached; the researchers drew from
“archeology, criminology, economics, geography, history, political
science, and psychology.” Then they analyzed dozens of the most rigorous
quantitative studies and came up with what they assert is a “remarkable
convergence of results.”
In a nutshell, the researchers found that studies conducted in
natural human situations as well as laboratory settings have showed a
connection between heat and violence. Higher temperatures have been
linked to innocuous hostile behaviors, such as horn-honking while
driving, and more serious behaviors such as domestic violence within
households, assault and rape. Furthermore, cops are also more likely to
use force at higher temperatures.
“Human behavior is complex, and despite the existence of institutions
designed to promote peace, interactions between individuals and groups
sometimes lead to conflict,” the report says. “When such conflict
becomes violent, it can have dramatic consequences on human wellbeing.”
This may be true but to blame it on global warming seems a bit
far-fetched, to say the least.
It’s as if the government is leaving no stone unturned to warn
Americans about the damages of climate change. In the last few years
Uncle Sam has funded a variety of studies cautioning that global warming
will make food and water dangerous, cause mental illness, cancer and
even threaten national security.
In fact, a consortium of Obama administration scientists from several
government agencies—including the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, the State Department and National Institute of Environmental
Health Science—have confirmed that global warming is one of the “most visible environmental concerns of the 21st century.” It’s a government-wide global warming frenzy!
Last fall yet another publicly-funded study disclosed that the
Washington D.C. area and surrounding government infrastructure will be
virtually destroyed by global warming over
the next century. Before that the U.S. government’s National Science
Foundation (NSF) published a report stating that global warming is much worse than previously imagined because
the ocean actually masks the true rate of damage for periods of up to a
decade. There appears to be no end this madness.
The Obama administration has used the hysteria to justify investing
tens of millions of dollars to counter climate change. Not surprisingly,
the administration has determined that people from low socioeconomic
backgrounds and those living in urban areas (this usually means ethnic
minorities) are more “susceptible” and “vulnerable”
to diseases exacerbated by climate change. That can only mean one
thing; taxpayer dollars will inevitably be allocated to further study
this phenomenon.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2013/08/global-warming-will-make-world-violent/
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