Monthly Archives: January 2017

A Proposed Solution That Will Only Make The Problem Worse

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Yesterday the Associated Press posted an article about a proposal to designate election systems as critical infrastructure. On the surface this sounds like a really good idea, but when you examine the idea closely, there are some problems with it.

But first, let’s look at the article, which states:

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced the move Friday with 30 minutes’ notice to the National Association of Secretaries of State and U.S. Election Assistance Commission, an independent bipartisan federal agency that develops voluntary voting guidelines and certifies voting systems.

Officials at both agencies are criticizing the department for what they said was a failure to work with state officials to fully answer their questions about the designation before making the change.

“We’re having trouble understanding exactly what they’re going to do, that we’re not already doing,” Connecticut Secretary of State Denise W. Merrill, who heads the national secretaries association, told The Associated Press. “States were already doing much of this (security work) themselves using very different products.”

The U.S. Constitution states in Article I Section 4:

The times, places and methods of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, will be decided by each State legislature. Congress may override these regulations at any time by  Law.

The U.S. Constitution states in Article 2 Section 2:

Each State, (and Washington D.C.), must appoint a number of electors equal to the total number of Senators and Representatives which that State (or District) is entitled to in Congress. The legislator of each State may determine the manner in which the electors are chosen. No Senator or Representative, or person holding an official position under the United States, may be appointed as an elector.

What is illustrated here is the fact that the individual states control elections within their states–the federal government does not. One reason it is difficult to ‘hack’ voting machines is that they are often not networked–they are individual machines and must each be ‘hacked’ individually. Although this suggestion by the Obama Administration sounds like an idea that would protect our elections, it would, in fact make hacking easier for hackers by centralizing the voting machines on one network.

Aside from being a federal power grab, this is a really bad idea. The goal here is federal control of elections. This will no longer limit corruption to some of our major cities–anyone will be able to be able to participate!

 

States Begin To Examine Civil Asset Forfeiture

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Yesterday Hot Air posted an article about a move in Texas to abolish Civil Asset Forfeiture. I have written about this procedure in the past (here, here, and here). One of the most common examples of Civil Asset Forfeiture occurs when the government accuses a small business owner of making multiple deposits of less than $10,000 in order to avoid federal regulations that track such deposits. The law has been used to take assets away from small business owners with little regard for their Constitutional rights. The assets seized can be sold and the money used to shore up local budgets. Needless to say, there is a lot of temptation there for some local governments. A few states have taken action to limit these forfeitures. Texas is now joining them.

The article reports:

Texas is looking to become the third state in the last year to abolish civil asset forfeiture, and replace it with criminal asset forfeiture. State Senator Konni Burton filed a bill last month which requires a felony conviction before law enforcement can gobble up someone’s property. It’s a major step in Texas’ fight for justice reform which has saved the state $3B (while crime rates are at record lows).

…There’s just one problem…the asset forfeiture laws are being misapplied in cases where people who are not convicted of crimes, end up losing their property because prosecutors and police believe they “may have” been involved in/had knowledge of a crime. A Philadelphia family was forced out of their home because their son was arrested on drug charges, even though it didn’t appear they knew what the 22-year-old was doing. A Texas man had over 53-thousand dollars in cash donations for an orphanage and school seized after he was pulled over in Oklahoma.

The home and money were eventually returned to their rightful owners after the cases got a ton of press. But Right on Crime Deputy Director Derek Cohen points out media attention doesn’t always happen, because the numbers aren’t really sexy (emphasis mine).

Ordinary citizens trying to run a business and live their lives should not have to worry about a government that almost arbitrarily can take their assets. It is good to see Texas moving in the right direction. Hopefully now the federal government will follow suit.

 

Why We Will Need Guantanamo For A Very Long Time (Warning!! Graphic Content)

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Yesterday PJ Media posted an article showing pictures of young Muslim children killing infidels. The children appear to be between the ages of about four to eight. The pictures are chilling, but I will post one here just to illustrate the point.

How do you undo the damage to a young child’s mind that is done by having adults tell the child to do this? This is child abuse in spades.

The article includes other similar pictures.

I seriously doubt that these children can be retrained. I suppose it is possible, but it will take at least a generation to undo the brainwashing that radical Islam is guilty of. Teaching young children to ‘kill the infidel’ is child abuse. If these children are ever captured alive by non-Muslim troops, I don’t know what the solution would be. I would like to think that putting them in loving homes and teaching them that killing is wrong would be the answer, but I am not sure what a successful deprogramming of these children would look like.

I apologize for the graphic picture, but we need to know what we are up against. The radical Islamist fighters have no problem teaching children to kill people who do not share their beliefs.

The Past Eight Years

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Jeff Jacoby at The Boston Globe posted an article today evaluating the eight years of the Presidency of Barack Obama. President Obama is planning to give his farewell address in Chicago on Tuesday. The purpose of the address is to“celebrate the ways you’ve changed this country for the better these past eight years.” Wow.

The article takes a look at the past eight years to see if there is anything worth celebrating. Here are a few of the highlights:

In 2010, two years after electing him president, voters trounced Obama’s party, handing Democrats the biggest midterm losses in 72 years. Obama was reelected in 2012, but by nearly 4 million fewer votes than in his first election, making him the only president ever to win a second term with shrunken margins in both the popular and electoral vote.

The trend continued, he campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016, saying that a vote for Hillary would be a vote to support his policies during the past eight years. Hillary lost.

The article notes the economy during President Obama’s time in office:

The economy. Obama took office during a painful recession and (with Congress’s help) made it even worse. Historically, the deeper a recession, the more robust the recovery that follows, but the economy’s rebound under Obama was the worst in seven decades. Annual GDP growth since the recession ended has averaged a feeble 2.1 percent, by far the puniest economic performance of any president since World War II.

…In 2008, when Obama was first elected president, 63 percent of Americans considered themselves middle class. Seven years later, only 51 percent still felt the same way.

The article talks about President Obama’s impact on healthcare:

But Obamacare has been a fiasco. At least 27 million Americans are still without health insurance, and many of those who are newly insured have simply been added to the Medicaid rolls. Far from reducing costs, Obamacare sent premiums and deductibles skyrocketing. Insurance companies, having suffered billions of dollars in losses on the Obamacare exchanges, have pulled out from many of them, leaving consumers in much of the country with few or no options. And the administration, it transpired, knew all along that millions of Americans would lose their medical plans once the law took effect. The deception was so egregious that in December 2013, PolitiFact dubbed “If you like your health plan, you can keep it” as its “Lie of the Year.”

President Obama has not been successful in the area of foreign policy. The world is less safe now than it was when he took office. Part of the problem is the premature troop withdrawal from Iraq, which paved the way for ISIS. This is not totally President Obama’s fault–America has politicized wars since the Korean War. We have forgotten how to win them, and thus have wasted more lives because we were not willing to fight hard. War is ugly, nasty, and horrible, but there would be less of it if it were fought quickly and ended quickly. Somehow since the Korean War, politics have determined battle strategy, and that is a recipe for disaster. President Obama has to take some responsibility for politicizing the war in Iraq (along with his Democratic Party allies), but the precedent for their behavior was set many years ago.

The most disturbing area of failure that the article brings up is the area of national unity. The article states:

According to Gallup, Obama became the most polarizing president in modern history. Like all presidents, he faced partisan opposition, but Obama worsened things by regularly taking the low road and disparaging his critics’ motives. In his own words, his political strategy was one of ruthless escalation: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” During his 2012 reelection campaign, Politico reported that “Obama and his top campaign aides have engaged far more frequently in character attacks and personal insults than the Romney campaign.” And when a Republican-led Congress wouldn’t enact legislation he sought, Obama turned to his “pen and phone” strategy of governing by diktat that polarized politics even more.

The article concludes:

Obama’s accession in 2008 as the nation’s first elected black president was an achievement that even Republicans and conservatives could cheer. It marked a moment of hope and transformation; it genuinely did change America for the better.

It was also the high point of Obama’s presidency. What followed, alas, was eight long years of disenchantment and incompetence. Our world today is more dangerous, our country more divided, our national mood more toxic. In a few days, Donald Trump will become the 45th president of the United States. Behold the legacy of the 44th.

We need to remember that the U.S. Constitution was put in place to limit government–not to limit American citizens. Hopefully Donald Trump is aware of that history and will act accordingly.

It’s Amazing How The Narrative Changes

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Yesterday Breitbart.com posted an article about Donald Trump’s dismissal of politically appointed ambassadors. If you have seen the story in the mainstream media, it is probably accompanied by some level of hysterical hand-wringing. Well, wait a minute.

The article quotes The New York Times:

The mandate — issued “without exceptions,” according to a terse State Department cable sent on Dec. 23, diplomats who saw it said — threatens to leave the United States without Senate-confirmed envoys for months in critical nations like Germany, Canada and Britain. In the past, administrations of both parties have often granted extensions on a case-by-case basis to allow a handful of ambassadors, particularly those with school-age children, to remain in place for weeks or months.

Mr. Trump, by contrast, has taken a hard line against leaving any of President Obama’s political appointees in place as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20 with a mission of dismantling many of his predecessor’s signature foreign and domestic policy achievements. “Political” ambassadors, many of them major donors who are nominated by virtue of close ties with the president, almost always leave at the end of his term; ambassadors who are career diplomats often remain in their posts.

But (as usual) there is more to the story. The article reports:

Fox News recalls the Washington Post reporting the news in December 2008 without the slightest hint of disapproval, or a single heartstring-tugging anecdote about the difficulties faced by the ambassadors and their families:

The clean slate will open up prime opportunities for the president-elect to reward political supporters with posts in London, Paris, Tokyo and the like. The notice to diplomatic posts was issued this week.

Political ambassadors sometimes are permitted to stay on briefly during a new administration, but the sweeping nature of the directive suggests that Obama has little interest in retaining any of Bush’s ambassadorial appointees.

Most ambassadors, of course, are foreign service officers, but often the posts involving the most important bilateral relations (such as with Great Britain, Japan and India) or desirable locales (such as the Bahamas) are given to close friends and well-heeled contributors of the president.

The article further reminds us:

The Center for Public Integrity counted 31 Obama campaign “bundlers” — good for at least $500,000 in donations — named as ambassadors, mostly to Western Europe and other “highly developed and stable countries such as Canada and New Zealand.”

“Another 39 of Obama’s second-term ambassador nominees are political appointees who either gave his campaign money or are known political allies. They, too, largely enjoyed postings to wealthy and peaceful nations — Ireland, Denmark and Australia, for example — or high-profile countries such as China and India,” the Center added.

It is quite possible that President Trump will also reward supporters with ambassadorships, but somehow I suspect the media will handle it very differently than they did with President Obama.

Just as a side note–is there anywhere that President Obama’s foreign policy was so successful that we should hang on to his ambassadors? Actually, I am hoping that the entire State Department will be fired for the horrendous job they have done during the past eight years.

 

Don’t Be Fooled By The Low Unemployment Rate

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Bloomberg.com paints a very rosy picture of the December jobs report. They note that the unemployment rate is 4.7 percent.

The article notes the following:

The 156,000 increase in December payrolls followed a 204,000 rise in November that was bigger than previously estimated, a Labor Department report showed Friday in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 175,000 advance. The jobless rate ticked up to 4.7 percent as the labor force grew, and wages rose 2.9 percent from December 2015.

Please note in the statistics below that the labor force participation rate rose by a tenth of a point–hardly enough to account for the uptick in the jobless rate. The economy is improving, but not currently at a rate that would indicate a recovery during the time that President Obama has been in office.

CNS News has a more balanced report:

The final jobs report of the Obama presidency, released Friday, shows that the number of Americans not in the labor force has increased by 14,573,000 (18.09 percent) since January 2009, when Obama took office, continuing a long-term trend that began well before Obama was sworn in.

In December, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, a record 95,102,000 Americans were not in the labor force, 47,000 more than in November; and the labor force participation rate was 62.7 percent, a tenth of a point higher than in November.

Hopefully as regulations are removed and small businesses are encouraged to grow rather than facing more regulations if they grow, the economy will improve. However, to claim that President Obama presided over an economic recovery is to stretch the truth to the point where it breaks.

I Need A Technical Person To Explain This To Me

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Twitchy reported yesterday that the FBI never examined to Democratic National Committee (DNC) computers in its investigation of the claim that Russia was behind the email leaks. Huh? Then how do they know who hacked into the computers if they never examined them?

The article includes the following:

The “he said, she said” allegations being exchanged by the FBI and the Democratic National Committee continued Thursday, with the FBI insisting that the DNC would not allow direct access to its hacked servers, leaving the FBI to rely on a forensic analysis performed by a third party.

Next we will probably find out that the third party is a relative of some high ranking official of the DNC. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

The article continues:

DNC deputy communications director Eric Walker told BuzzFeed in an email that the FBI never requested access to the DNC’s computer servers. Instead, the FBI relied on an analysis done by security firm CrowdStrike, which investigated the breach for the DNC.

NBC’s intelligence and national security reporter added this information to the mix.

This was also included in the article:

Why are we still hearing about this? Because the longer it stays in the news, the better chance it has of undermining Donald Trump’s Presidency. It doesn’t matter how many times the statement is made that the hacking did not impact the election, the media wants to keep the story alive. Also, if the focus is on the hacking, it is not on the content of the leaked emails. Remember, the leaked emails showed a rigged Democratic primary and a media that was coordinating with the Democratic party. Those are the two things we need to remember about the hacking of the DNC computers.

However, I do need a computer person to tell me how you can investigate a hacking without access to the hacked computers.

Making The World Less Safe As You Head Out The Door

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Yesterday the U.K. Mail posted an article about President Obama’s plan to release at least eighteen more Guantanamo detainees before he leaves office in two weeks. Four of those detainees will be sent to Saudi Arabia, not exactly a hotbed of moderate Islam.

The article reports:

Obama will likely focus on moving detainees who have been ‘cleared for transfer’ – a group that includes the alleged head of al Qaeda‘s bomb-manufacturing operation in eastern Afghanistan, the head of al Qaeda’s Tunisian faction in Afghanistan, and senior weapons trainers.

Those held in Guantanamo in recent years have been dubbed ‘the worst of the worst’ by military and intelligence officials. 

…The list of ‘recommended for transfer’ prisoners includes a number of top al Qaeda operatives and commanders.

…Some of the recommended transfers have also vowed to return to jihad if they are ever released, according to reports from US military officials. They have also threatened to assassinate the U.S. president, kill American citizens, and attack other world leaders who are allied with the West.

Please follow the link above to the article. The article includes a list and details of the prisoners now cleared for release. Anyone with an eye toward national security should be appalled by that list–these prisoners include an expert bomb-maker  and others who are skillful at planning terrorist attacks. If they were run-of-the-mill prisoners who had done the things they had done other than in the context of terrorism, they would never be let out of prison, so why is President Obama so anxious to set them free? There is little doubt about their crimes and tendency to continue in terrorism. In World War II, they would have been tried in a military tribunal and executed.  In America, they would have been sentenced to life without parole.

How would an American who had purposefully killed innocent Muslims be treated by the Saudis, the Iranians, the Afghans? Would he be treated humanely? Would his religious dietary requirements be met? Would he be given tennis courts? How long would he stay alive?

Guantanamo serves a purpose. Intelligence sources outside of the Obama Administration have stated that the recidivism rate among Guantanamo prisoners who have been released is probably higher than thirty percent. We need to remember that many of these terrorists have been trained in terrorism from a young age (see THE BLOOD OF LAMBS by Kamal Saleem). Terrorism is all they know how to do. It is unrealistic to believe that they can be retrained. The culture they have been raised in is brutal, and that culture has become part of who they are. To ask a country such as Saudi Arabia, which is steeped in that culture, to retrain them is ridiculous. That’s like sending a thief to a pickpocket convention to learn how to make a living. He might not learn the lesson you wanted him to learn.

The actions of President Obama as he leaves office make the world less safe for all of us.

Didn’t The Democrats Complain About Obstruction During President Obama’s Term of OFfice?

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Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about some recent statements by Senator Chuck Schumer.

The article reports:

The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, is promising to block one of President-elect Donald Trump’s first big initiatives — naming a ninth member to the Supreme Court.

“It’s hard for me to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose that would get Republican support that we could support,” Schumer said in an interview Tuesday night on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

Asked whether he’ll do his “best to hold the seat open” on the Supreme Court, Schumer responded, “Absolutely.”

For Schumer, it’s about retribution. The Republican-controlled Senate failed even to vote on President Obama’s last nomination to the highest court, Merrick Garland, who was put up for the job after the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Republicans instead made the Supreme Court a campaign issue, saying whoever was elected president would get to nominate Scalia’s replacement.

The Democratic Senate leader told host Maddow that Republicans got away with not voting on Obama’s nominee, but that “the consequences will be down the road.”

But in June, Schumer sang a different tune, blasting Republicans for not doing their duty and for creating “chaos.”

Does anyone remember the following quote:

“Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.” – President Obama to House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, January 23, 2009.

Donald Trump was elected. He won the popular vote almost everywhere except Los Angeles County and New York City. The American people are looking for people who will work for the interests of America. Do the Democrats really believe that opposing everything Donald Trump does is a winning strategy? Should someone remind Senator Schumer that the Democrats set the precedent of not approving a court nominee during the last year of a Presidential term?

One Example Of Why ObamaCare Needs To Be Repealed Immediately

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The following excerpts are part of a Department of Health and Human Services Report from the Office of the Inspector General. The report states, “Colorado Did Not Correctly Expend Establishment Grant Funds For Establishing A Health Insurance Marketplace.” The report can be found on the Internet here.

The mission of the Office of Inspector General (OIG), as mandated by Public Law 95-452, as amended, is to protect the integrity of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) programs, as well as the health and welfare of beneficiaries served by those programs. This statutory mission is carried out through a nationwide network of audits, investigations, and inspections conducted by the following operating components:

Office of Audit Services

Office of Evaluation and Inspections

Office of Investigations

Office of Counsel to the Inspector General

The report explains why the agency did the review–the review was part of a series of reviews of establishment grants for State marketplaces across the Nation. You can read the details if you choose, but the details are not what is important here–what is important is that the Federal and State governments never work as well as the free market.

This is the list of what the review found:

1. The Colorado marketplace did not expend $9,678,635 of Federal establishment grant funds in accordance with Federal requirements. Specifically, the Colorado marketplace:did not adequately document $4,398,333 in costs that it charged to the establishment grants;

2. charged the establishment grants $4,504,799 for unallowable hardware and software operational support and maintenance contract costs whose periods of benefit occurred after December 31, 2014;

3. improperly transferred costs totaling $312,449 from one establishment grant to another without demonstrating that these cost transfers were performed to correct bookkeeping or clerical errors;

4. did not efficiently and effectively administer establishment grant funds totaling $463,054 consisting of improperly awarded executive and employee bonuses, overpayments to subgrantees, unallowable promotional giveaway items, excessive and unreasonable tips, vendor rebates that were received but not credited to the establishment grants, and unallowable social activities;

5. drew down establishment grant funds that it did not immediately use;

6. entered into contracts with consultants and other contractors that did not conform to Federal and State requirements and the Colorado marketplace’s own policies on contract administration, including approval procedures and required contract information; and

7. engaged in a number of procedures and practices that, contrary to Federal requirements and cost principles and, in some cases, to the Colorado marketplace’s own  policies, (1) required the use of personal credit cards to purchase equipment, supplies, and services for the marketplace, (2) permitted self-approval of purchases on behalf of the previous executive staff, (3) permitted incomplete and inadequate disclosure of possible conflicts of interest, (4) did not properly document inventory of equipment, and (5) allowed the use of establishment grant funds to purchase equipment for a previous Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who kept it for personal use when the CEO left the organization.

These findings were caused by a lack of adequate stewardship of Federal funds. Specifically, the Colorado marketplace had not developed, finalized, and implemented policies and procedures to ensure that it expended and accounted for establishment grant funds in accordance with Federal, State, and Colorado marketplace requirements.

This is a chart showing the bonuses given:

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article about this report today.

The article concludes:

Later in the report, the IG explains that this was spent on a holiday party, with “cake, punch, holiday cards, and decorations.” Why the Colorado exchange felt it necessary to charge the federal government for those expenses will be one of the more interesting explanations we’ll hear … if we ever do hear it. At any rate, such expenses are explicitly prohibited from federal grants, as the IG points out in the report.

The whole report is damning for the arrogance of the bureaucracy when it came to spending federal grant money, especially on a flop like ObamaCare. One has to wonder just how many other states have used their federal grant money in such a cavalier manner, and for little purpose in the end.

It might be a good idea to note at this time what the planned future of ObamaCare actually was. Had Hillary Clinton been elected as President, the Democrats in Congress would have acknowledged that ObamaCare had failed and suggested a single-payer (read that ‘government run’) healthcare program similar to what Canada and the U.K. have to replace ObamaCare. When Donald Trump was elected, things got complicated for the Democrats. As I write this, they are fighting to preserve ObamaCare long enough so that it can fail and be replaced by single-payer healthcare. Hopefully the Republicans will not let that happen and will repeal ObamaCare quickly.

Let’s get the government out of healthcare.

 

 

 

 

Here Comes The Race Card Again

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The nomination of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General is a serious threat to the status quo, so the status quo is doing everything it can to block his confirmation. For the political left, that means playing the race card, and they have promptly done that.

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about Jeff Sessions prior history as a U.S. Attorney in Alabama.

The article reports a statement made by Albert Turner, Jr., the son of a farmer who became Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s field director in Alabama and one of his closest associates:

“I have known Senator Sessions for many years, beginning with the voter fraud case in Perry County in which my parents were defendants,” he said. “My differences in policy and ideology with him do not translate to personal malice. He is not a racist.”

“As I have said before, at no time then or now has Jeff Sessions said anything derogatory about my family,” he continued. “He was a prosecutor at the federal level with a job to do. He was presented with evidence by a local district attorney that he relied on, and his office presented the case. That’s what a prosecutor does.”

“I believe him when he says that he was simply doing his job,” he added.

Sessions, while serving as a U.S. attorney in Alabama in 1985, charged both of Turner’s parents and another civil rights activist with tampering with absentee ballots cast by mostly elderly black voters to favor the activists’ preferred candidates in a campaign where both leading contenders were black.

The one thing the political establishment in Washington does not want is an Attorney General who actually enforces the law.

 

As The Discussion About ObamaCare Continues…

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The discussions on the repeal of ObamaCare are beginning. This is going to be interesting. The House and Senate have voted numerous times to repeal ObamaCare, but have never had to worry about the President agreeing with their efforts–so the votes really didn’t mean anything. Now the game is real.

Yahoo News is reporting today on the events surrounding the newly-elected Congress. President Obama met with the Democrats and Mike Pence met with the Republicans. President Obama wants to save ObamaCare as his legacy. Congress supports ObamaCare at its own risk.

You can find countless articles that detail the premium hikes and increased deductible for the average American, so I am going to skip those numbers. However, I want to remind anyone reading this about some of the history of how we got ObamaCare.

ObamaCare was passed in the Senate on the morning of December 24th, 2009. All the Democrats voted for it; all the Republicans voted against it. ObamaCare was signed into law on March 23, 2010. There was an election that year. The Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives, and the Democrats lost seats in the Senate. During the debate on ObamaCare, the Tea Party was formed. The political consequences of the law were all negative for the Democratic Party. (There was a serious loss of power by the Democratic Party at  the federal, state, and local level continued during the eight years of the Obama Administration).

ObamaCare was finally passed through reconciliation. That is the reason that it can be repealed through that process. Hopefully it will be. The government needs to get its nose out of healthcare and give the free market a chance to work. The private sector can find a way to attach healthcare to the person rather than the employer so that preexisting conditions will not be an issue. There are three things that are needed to make healthcare work in America–portability across state lines, tax breaks for low-income families to encourage them to get health insurance, and health savings accounts. I am sure there are other worthwhile suggestions, but those are my three.

Meanwhile, Democrats oppose the repeal of ObamaCare at their own risk!

People Vote With Their Feet

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The Albany Times Union posted a story today about states that are losing population and states that are gaining population.

The article reports:

United Van Lines reported Tuesday that nearly two-thirds of the moves involving New York households were outbound, a higher proportion than any other state except New Jersey and Illinois.

The 2016 National Movers Study by Fenton, Mo.- based United also found that almost 59 percent of the moves within the eastern United States were outbound.

Where were people moving? Mostly to western states and the Carolinas, with one exception. That exception was Vermont, which ranked second on the list of states with the highest proportion  — 67 percent — of inbound moves.

 South Dakota had the highest share of inbound moves, at 68 percent. 

New Jersey and Illinois, like New York, saw outbound moves making up 63 percent of all moves. 

The article also posted another interesting statistic:

In New York, inbound millennials were 27 percent of inbound moves and 19 percent of those moving out. But of those over 65, 26 percent were outbound and 20 percent were inbound.

So what is going on here? Millennials in many cases have limited life experience–they don’t realize how high taxes and high real estate prices will impact their standard of living. Also, many of them are in fields where they could potentially earn a large income, and they are not thinking about how much it costs to live in places like New York. The Carolinas have worked hard in recent years to lower taxes and attract businesses in order to keep the cost of living lower. South Dakota has a booming economy because of the oil industry there. As taxes increase in many northeastern states (as they tend to do under Democratic control), it will be interesting to track the migration of Americans. In recent years we have seen many companies move from California to Texas because of tax issues. It will be interesting to see if that trend continues.

Is Medicare Going Bankrupt?

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Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about the financial condition of Medicare. It seems that Medicare is really doing rather well.

The article cites some interesting statistics:

As the new Congress convenes, budget cutters are eyeing Medicare, citing forecasts the program for seniors is running out of money. But federal bean counters have erroneously predicted Medicare’s bankruptcy for decades. One reason: They don’t consider medical breakthroughs.

Another problem is medical ethicists like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who insist the elderly are a burden and that resources would be better spent on the young.

The facts prove otherwise. New medical findings give plenty of reason for optimism about the cost of caring for the elderly. According to data published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, Medicare spending on end-of-life care is dropping rapidly, down from 19 percent to 13 percent of the Medicare budget since 2000. Living to a ripe old age shouldn’t be treated like it’s a problem. It’s a bargain. Someone who lives to 97 consumes only about half as much end-of-life care as someone who dies at 68.

Dr. Emanuel has some unique ideas about aging, which are stated in the article:

Why would we emulate Zeke Emanuel, age 59, who swears that at 75, he will forego all medical care and let death come quickly? “Our older years are not of high quality,” he insists. He’ll skip them. In The Atlantic magazine, he dismissed compression of morbidity as “quintessentially American” wishful thinking, and mocked seniors for trying to “cheat death.”

Keep in mind that Dr. Emanuel was one of the people behind ObamaCare who espoused the idea of limiting medical care for older Americans. That is one of the reasons it was so surprising that the AARP supported Medicare. They betrayed their own members.

The article concludes:

Too often, Congress treats Medicare as a piggy bank — raiding it when money is needed elsewhere. In 2010, Democrats in Congress paid for over half of ObamaCare’s spending by cutting Medicare. This year, Republican lawmakers eager to control federal health spending should avoid that error and instead focus on fixing Medicaid, the money pit program for the poor, where spending per capita is growing twice as fast as for Medicare. (I added the italics to this quote.)

Medicaid spending now tops $8,000 per recipient. That’s thousands more than is spent on people in private plans. And for all that money, studies show Medicaid isn’t improving patients’ health.

By contrast, Medicare is a success story. It has transformed aging, enabling older Americans to lead longer, more independent lives than our grandparents did. The average man turning 65 today will live five years longer than in 1970. Not just more years. Quality years. What a gift.

Medicare is partially paid for by payroll deductions from both the employee and the employer totaling about 2.9 percent, so Medicare is at least partially paid for. Medicaid is a gaping hole in our pockets that does not guarantee quality care to anyone. Healthcare in America is a problem that ObamaCare has made worse. Hopefully Congress and President Trump can come up with something that provides care for everyone who needs it, but also allows free market competition to keep the costs down for everyone.

A Lesson From History

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I will admit to being young and stupid in 1972. I read the papers and watched the news and decided that Richard Nixon was a crook. I voted for George McGovern because he wasn’t a crook. For me it was that simple. I was quite satisfied with myself until about a year ago. I heard a discussion from some people I respect that caused me to revisit the situation. I am now reading a book called The Secret Plot to Make Ted Kennedy President by Geoff Sheppard. I’m not big on conspiracy theories, but there are some basic facts in this book that are hard to ignore.

The book explains the relationship between the Kennedy family and the media and details some of the ruthlessness of the Kennedy family. The book reminds us that after the accident at Chappaquiddick that resulted in the death of a young woman, there were some strange turns in the pursuit of justice. On July 18, 1969, Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick and Mary Jo Kopechne, a passenger in his car drowned. The accident was not reported to the authorities when it happened. Ted Kennedy was interviewed by the police (and press) the following day when fishermen discovered the car and the body and the car was traced to the Kennedy family. When the case came to trial, Judge James Boyle sentenced Kennedy to two months’ incarceration, the statutory minimum for the offense, which he suspended. In announcing the sentence, Boyle referred to Kennedy’s “unblemished record” and said that he “has already been, and will continue to be punished far beyond anything this court can impose.” Sometimes it pays to be a Kennedy.

Watergate was a simple burglary which was stupid, dishonest and unnecessary. From what I have read, Richard Nixon was not aware of the burglary ahead of time and was not aware of the cover-up until very late in the game. By then it was too late. When John Dean realized that he was in trouble, he hired a lawyer—a lawyer very close to the Kennedy family. Behind the scenes, Ted Kennedy was directing the Senate Committee and the investigation. Dean’s testimony was carefully scripted to have the most impact. The media was in on the deal. It is telling that when Archibald Cox was sworn in as the Special Prosecutor in the Watergate Case, at least ten members of the Kennedy family attended the swearing in. Somehow the media overlooked that fact.

I realize that this is old news, but I bring it up for one reason. Ted Kennedy wanted to be President, and Watergate was a distraction from the baggage of Chappaquiddick. He was able to enlist (either verbally or non-verbally) the help of the media in a ‘get-Nixon campaign’ that would clear the way for a Kennedy Presidential victory in 1976. He made sure the Watergate Investigation dragged on, the indictments were delayed, and the testimonies had the maximum impact. The goal was to permanently destroy the Republican Party and clear the way for another Kennedy to become President. It didn’t matter what the truth was—it mattered what the American people were told and expected to believe. Because there were only three network news sources at the time, all moving in the same direction, it worked.

I believe we are going to see the same kind of coordinated attack on Donald Trump when he becomes President. We have a few things going for us that we didn’t have then—we have alternative news sources. The left is currently trying to discredit those sources as ‘fake news’, but many Americans are not fooled. There may be an attempt to shut down or totally discredit internet news (Facebook is already hiring fact checkers with liberal political connections). There is also the fact that Donald Trump is not inclined to claim that he is perfect. He has an ego, and he will tout his business success, but I haven’t heard him claim to be perfect. Be prepared to tune out a lot of the attacks on Donald Trump and his administration that you hear. I am sure he will make mistakes, but I can guarantee that he is not capable of doing all the things the Democrats will accuse him of—there are not enough hours in the day!

Fasten your seat belts! Get out the popcorn! Pray for America!

 

Who’s Who On The United Nations Human Rights Council

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Townhall.com posted a list today of the countries elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The article posted the list with a few comments about some of the members:

  • Saudi Arabia Expertise in human rights: Death sentences for apostasy and adultery; corporal punishment including flogging and amputation; judiciary controlled by regime; beheading more peoeple than ever before; arbitrary arrests of dissenters and minorities; no freedom of speech; jails blogger Raif Badawi.
  • Venezuela Expertise in human rights: Widespread arbitrary detention; imprisonment of opposition leaders; intimidation of journalists; torture; policies causing mass hunger and health catastrophe.
  • China Expertise in human rights: Denial of freedom of speech, religion, and association; extrajudicial killings; repression of civil society; discrimination against Tibetans and other minorities.
  • Cuba Expertise in human rights: Systematic violation of freedom of speech, assembly, press; elections are neither free nor fair; threats and violence against dissidents.
  • Iraq Expertise in human rights: Pro-government militias commit widespread human rights abuses, including assassinations, enforced disappearances, property destruction.
  • Qatar Expertise in human rights: Inhuman conditions for 1.4 million migrant workers; women denied basic rights to equality, denied right to be elected to legislative council; finances ISIS and Hamas.
  • Burundi Expertise in human rights: Police killings of peaceful protesters; government forces commit summary executions, targeted assassinations, enforced disappearances; arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence; genocide warning.
  • Bangladesh Expertise in human rights: Extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, killing of secular bloggers by Islamist groups, restrictions on online speech and the press, early and forced marriage, gender-based violence, abysmal working conditions and labor rights.
  • United Arab Emirates Expertise in human rights:No political parties, no option to change government; restrictions on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association; arrests without charge, incommunicado detentions, lengthy pretrial detentions; police and prison guard brutality; violence against women; anti-gay discrimination; mistreatment and sexual abuse of foreign domestic servants and other migrant workers.

Somehow I don’t think the United Nations is serving the purpose it was intended to serve.

The thing to keep in mind as you read this list is the fact that one of the main power blocs in the United Nations is the 57-country bloc called the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. The members of the bloc share the definition of free speech that is accordance with Sharia Law–speech that in any way reflects negatively on the Prophet Mohamed is not allowed. This is the belief now being held by a number of members of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Let’s quickly ask the U.N. to leave New York City and pay their parking tickets!

What Borders?

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MRCTV posted an article today about the number of children who arrived in America illegally in the month of November.

The article reports:

In fact, strung out over the entire 30-day period, the Obama administration processed and turned loose an astonishing 6,623 illegal alien kids who’d recently crossed the U.S.-Mexico border unlawfully, averaging more than 220 kids per day. The administration released about 600 more kids in November than they did during the month of October, when 6,051 children were sent to live with sponsors in the U.S. pending their day in immigration court. FY2016 data reveals the vast majority of these children are teens claiming to be between 15 and 17 years of age.

The incoming flood of illegal aliens, including unaccompanied minors, ramped up during the final few months of FY2016 and into the first days of the new fiscal year, and has yet to slow down. While border agents have apprehended another 14,128 unaccompanied kids at the Mexican border between October and November, the administration’s Office of Refugee Resettlement turned loose 12,674 UACs in that same time frame.

There are a number of problems with this other than the obvious concerns about cost and impact on American society. The children are assumed to be between the ages of fifteen and seventeen. There is very rarely any proof of their age. We need to keep in mind that in some Islamic countries children as young as seven or eight are trained for terrorist operations. We also need to consider that most of these children have not had the healthcare or vaccinations that American children receive. We could be importing diseases into our country that we previously eradicated. There are already reports of outbreaks of tuberculosis in areas of the country where these refugees have been settled.

The article further explains:

Data from the federal immigration court system shows that more than a third of these children won’t show up for their court date, including about 90 percent of those children who are ordered removed from the country. Additionally, recently released information from the Department of Health and Human Services shows the administration only conducts home studies for about six percent of the illegal alien children released, failing to follow up on the vast majority who are left to disappear into communities across the country.

This is not a workable immigration system–this is a disaster–for the children involved, for their parents, and for America.

Looking Past The Obvious

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HB2 is a controversial piece of legislation passed in accordance with the North Carolina Constitution. Efforts to repeal it recently failed. Actually, the Democrats in the North Carolina legislature (yes, I said Democrats) have blocked repealing it four times.

American Lens has the story and reports:

May 2016
The Charlotte Observer reported that a bipartisan group of Charlotte City Council (CLTCC) members went to Raleigh to meet with House Speaker Tim Moore to try to facilitate a deal where the council would repeal their ordinance in exchange for the state making significant changes to HB2.

In response, the Democrat-controlled council, led by Mayor Jennifer Roberts – and after heavy-duty lobbying by liberal LGBT groups – refused to put on the table the possibility of repealing the city’s controversial non-discrimination ordinance, which passed in February. The ordinance included a ban on sex-segregated facilities like showers, locker rooms, fitting rooms, and bathrooms in both public and private businesses.

June/July 2016
Charlotte’s WBTV News reported that a bipartisan deal to broadly amend HB2 was axed after political strong-arming from then-candidate-for-governor Roy Cooper (emphasis added):

…September 2016
The NC Restaurant and Lodging Association said in a press release they had “received assurances this week from legislative leadership” that they were ready to move on a repeal of House Bill 2 provided that the Mayor Jennifer Roberts and the CLTCC agreed to repeal their ordinance

…December 2016
In a surprise flip-flop from their September stance, the CLTCC voted on Monday the 19th – over a month after the election- to repeal their February ordinance as part of an alleged deal “brokered” by Gov.-Elect Cooper in an effort to motivate the NCGA for a HB2 repeal.

A special session was called by Gov. McCrory in response and Republican members of the House and Senate began informally caucusing on Tuesday in advance of the Wednesday special session.

One small problem blew everything up, though. As it turns out, Mayor Roberts and the CLTCC did not repeal the February NDO in full as they’d previously announced.

So why did the Democrats vote against repeal? Because that keeps the issue on the table to be used to sway voters who do not truly understand the implications of the Charlotte ordinance.. Do North Carolina parents of high school girls want high school boys in their daughters’ locker rooms? Do North Carolina women using locker rooms at fitness facilities want men in their locker rooms? Keep in mind that the non-exclusive locker room part of the Charlotte ordinance that HB2 eliminated did not distinguish as to what private parts a person actually had. A fully equipped male (if he claimed to be transgender) was allowed to use the women’s locker room and women’s showers. I am not sure that every women in North Carolina would be happy to find a man in her gym locker room.

The purpose of leaving HB2 in place was to continue to bring outside money into the coffers of Democratic candidates in North Carolina. It’s not about rights–it’s about politics.

Turning A Blind Eye Or Taking Action?

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According to CBN News:

The Center for Global Christianity reports that around 90,000 Christians were killed for their faith in 2016.

Release says many of those deaths came in Islamic countries. The ministry says persecution of Christians has been increasing from Islamic militants, and from the governments in Islamic countries as well.

“Around the world Christians face an increasing array of violent persecutors. These include the brutal Islamic State in the Middle East, heavily armed militants in Nigeria and Hindu extremists in India,” warns Release Paul Robinson.

Recorded attacks from Hindu militants increased dramatically in India in 2016.

And the trends don’t look good in China either, where the communist regime has been cracking down on unregistered churches.

There is no reason to believe that persecution against Christians will decrease in 2017.

The Washington Examiner posted an article today with a few suggestions as to how various nations could make a difference:

A few actions nations are, or should be, pursuing in 2017 include:

  • Persuading countries such as Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands and others who have previously voted against genocide declarations to recognize the situation of Christians in Iraq and Syria as genocide.
  • Prosecuting members of the Islamic State (especially those returning to Europe and North America) for being a member of a terrorist organization, as well as for the genocidal crimes they have participated in.
  • Prioritizing Christian and other victims of genocide in their respective refugee programs.
  • Supporting the creation of a semi-autonomous safe haven for religious and ethnic minorities in the Nineveh Plain region of Iraq. In the U.S., this idea is being supported through Congressional Resolution 152.

These are just a few meaningful ways nations can get involved in supporting the persecuted in Iraq and Syria. Opportunities exist to do the same in other areas of the world.

The article at The Washington Examiner concludes:

Ignorance of the situation faced by Christians and other religious minorities is no longer an excuse for inaction. The time for debate is over. As Nuri Kino, journalist and founder of A Demand for Action, an international organization that advocates on behalf of Assyrian Christians, asked of the Dutch Parliamentarians we testified before last month, “Will you help us or will history only record your silence?”

The United Nations has largely ignored the genocide of Christians in the Middle East. Part of the reason for this is the fact that one of the largest voting blocs in the United Nations is the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). One of the goals of that organization is to implement Sharia Law worldwide (including its application in non-Muslim countries). Since part of Sharia Law includes the killing of infidels, the OIC would not have a problem with the killing of Christians. This is one of many examples of reasons why the UN has outlived its usefulness.