Monthly Archives: December 2013

I’ve Heard This Song Before

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About the only thing good I can say about the Congressional Budget deal is that there is a Congressional Budget deal. After that it gets a little foggy. Part of the problem was that neither side was really in a strong position to negotiate–the Republican establishment is still slamming the Tea Party for the shutdown and President Obama’s approval ratings are sinking like a stone. The establishment Republicans and the President are both desperate for a political victory. As usual, courtesy of the establishment Republicans, the Tea Party is out in the cold. The sad part of that fact is that the Tea Party is the only group in Washington that does actually represent a change from our self-destructive spending habits.

Heritage.org posted an article this morning stating three things in the budget agreement that indicate things in Washington have not changed:

The deal announced yesterday raises discretionary spending above the bipartisan spending agreement forged in 2011 as part of the Budget Control Act. Spending for defense and non-defense domestic programs would be raised by $45 billion in 2014 and by $18 billion in 2015.

… The agreement says that the increased spending is fully offset elsewhere in the budget, using a mix of spending cuts and non-tax revenue. Make no mistake, raising revenue to spend more is simply taxing and spending.

…It spends now and delays savings till later. The budget deal would spend $63 billion over the next two years—but take 10 years to make up for this splurge. This is a common Washington gimmick.

Until Americans are willing to elect people to Congress who will actually cut spending, we are going to see more of the same. It will be interesting to see who supports this deal. It is a deal that is pleasing to the Washington establishment. It may be the best deal the Republicans could have gotten, but it is not a good deal.

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Income Inequality

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Lately we have been hearing a lot about ‘income inequality.’ It’s even a Biblical concept–Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want.” So income inequality was with us in Biblical times and is still with us. It seems to be a constant thing. Other than help the poor among us, do we have the ability to change it. Well, we have a government that right now is trying.

Yesterday CNS News reported that according to a new study by the Congressional Budget Office, the top 40 percent of households by before-tax income actually paid 106.2 percent of the nation’s net income taxes in 2010. So what did the bottom 60 percent pay? That sounds like too few people pulling the wagon with too many people in it.

The article explains:

The households in the top 20 percent by income paid 92.9 percent of net income tax revenues taken in by the federal government in 2010, said CBO. The households in the fourth quintile paid another 13.3 percent of net income tax revenues. Together, the top 40 percent of households paid 106.2 percent of the federal government’s net income tax revenue.

The third quintile paid another 2.9 percent—bringing the total share of net federal income tax revenues paid by the top 60 percent to 109.1 percent.

That was evened out by the net negative income tax paid by the bottom 40 percent.

There is one aspect of the tax code that needs to be considered when viewing these statistics. When Congress has the highest percentage of millionaires per capita in America, why would they produce a tax code that is so unfavorable to the rich? Well, it’s not totally unfavorable to the rich–it is unfavorable to rich people who currently are earning their wealth. Family wealth carefully invested in tax shelters is not taxable. Previously acquired assets are not taxed unless they are sold.

The American tax code is already 13 miles long. We need to scrap it, and make it very simple–how much did you make, how much did you give to charity, how much mortgage interest did you pay? Subtract that from your gross income and pay a small percentage of what is left. The charitable deduction encourages people to support charitable works and the mortgage deduction encourages people to buy houses and form communities. End of story.

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The Super Bowl Just Won’t Be The Same

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I could start this story by questioning the wisdom of the people who scheduled the Super Bowl in New Jersey in January, but I will restrain myself. However, I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of banning tailgating at the Super Bowl. I am aware (because of a paper one of my daughters did on her way to a Master’s Degree in marketing) that there is a Commissioner of Tailgating. Was he consulted on this? I understand the need for security, but this seems a little severe.

ESPN posted some of the details of the Super Bowl arrangements on its website yesterday.

The article explains:

“You will be allowed to have food in your car and have drink in your car,” Kelly said. “And provided you’re in the boundaries of a single parking space, you’ll be able to eat or drink right next to your car. However, you’re not going to be able to take out a lounge chair, you’re not going to be able to take out a grill, and you’re not going to be able to take up more than one parking space. And it’ll all be watched very carefully.”

…There will be only three ways for the expected 80,000 ticket holders to get to the game. The committee will charter buses called the Fan Express, which will cost $51 and pick up and drop off passengers at nine locations around the region. Fans can also take N.J. Transit to the MetLife Stadium stop or be dropped off by vehicles that must have parking passes.

There will be fewer than 13,000 parking spots available for fans.

And hiring a black car, taxi or limo won’t be an option for VIPs who will spend thousands of dollars per ticket. No cars will be allowed near the stadium on game day without parking passes, and any car that drops off a passenger will have to wait at the stadium.

Wow. I think they just sucked the fun out of the whole thing.

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If The American Economy Is Recovering Why Do We Need To Extend Unemployment Benefits?

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I am not unsympathetic to people who have lost their jobs during the recession. I know that there are a lot of them. I don’t mind paying unemployment benefits to people while they look for jobs. I just don’t understand why unemployment benefits should be paid to people for almost two years. I don’t think that encourages people to look for jobs.

The Wall Street Journal posted an editorial today about the economic impact of extended unemployment benefits. The article reminds us that according to the current unemployment numbers, the unemployment rate is 7 percent–not 10 percent rate as it was when the extension of benefits was originally passed.

The article reports:

This also ignores that states and employers are already paying for this supposed free lunch in the form of higher job-killing payroll taxes under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, or Futa. At least 24 states have been forced to raise this tax since 2010 and the Labor Department says it will rise again in 13 states to repay $20 billion in loans and interest they owe the feds for helping to finance state-funded benefits. This federal tax is applied to 0.6% of a worker’s first $7,000 of annual wages. The rate rises automatically by 0.3% for every year states fail to repay their unemployment insurance loans from Uncle Sam.

…Economist Martin Feldstein long ago proposed a better plan to create a self-insurance component of unemployment insurance with tax dollars going into an employee trust fund for each worker that could be drawn during a bout of unemployment. Workers could keep whatever money was left over at retirement, which would encourage workers to become re-employed more quickly after losing a job.

Instead the current system provides as much as two years of benefits for not working and raises payroll taxes on employers even as some 20 million Americans are still unemployed, underemployed or discouraged from looking for work. None of this will help the economy create more jobs, which is what the jobless need far more than another government check.

The American taxpayer cannot afford to pay people not to work for extended periods of time. We are in danger of losing our work ethic. There was a time in this country when a person would take any job available rather than take money from the government. Unfortunately, we have come a long way from that time. Unemployment benefits should be paid for a long enough time period to allow a person to find a job. Two years is simply too long to pay a person for not working.

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Occasionally Someone In Washington Actually Tells The Truth

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Frank Gaffney at the Center for Security Policy posted an article last Tuesday about a recent statement made on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The guests on the program were chairpersons of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI).

The article quotes Senator Feinstein’s comments on the subject of terrorism:

“There is a real displaced aggression in this very fundamentalist jihadist Islamic community, and that is that the West is responsible for everything that goes wrong and that the only thing that’s going to solve this is Islamic shariah law.”

She used some very intellectual sounding words to speak the obvious truth–the goal of Islam is a worldwide caliphate governed by Sharia Law. Unfortunately, due to the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, there are many places in our government where it would be illegal to speak those words.

The article cites an example of what happens when people in government (other than Senator Feinstein) tell the truth:

For example, on May 10, 2012, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, used a press conference to denounce a highly decorated and up-and-coming Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley, for teaching an elective course at the Joint Forces Staff College using an approved curriculum.  According to Gen. Dempsey, what prompted this extraordinary action was that a student – who it turns out had not actually been enrolled in Col. Dooley’s class – “was concerned that the course was objectionable and that it was counter to our values…our appreciation for religious freedom and cultural awareness. And the young man who brought it to my attention was absolutely right. It’s totally objectionable.”

At the core of what was so “totally objectionable” is the fact that students were exposed to information that made plain the gravity of the threat of which Sen. Feinstein warned: the supremacist, totalitarian Islamic doctrine of shariah and the jihad or holy war it obliges adherents to perform.  Col. Dooley’s promising career was cut short and the files of his institution and that of the rest of the national security community have been purged of all such information deemed by unidentified subject matters experts engaged for the purpose to be “counter to our values.”

Why isn’t the government telling us about the dangers of radical Islam? The answer to that questions can be found in a ten-part on-line series entitled, “The Muslim Brotherhood in America.” I realize that watching the entire series is time consuming, but every American should be required to watch the last part of the series–it is the part that outlines what we are Americans need to do to preserve our liberty.

Senator Feinstein spoke the truth. Is anyone out there listening?

 

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The Challenge To Union ‘Closed Shop’ Laws Moves Forward

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The Washington Examiner is reporting today that a California case challenging union ‘closed shop‘ laws is moving forward. The Center for Individual Rights (CIR) has been trying to get the case challenging those laws to the Supreme Court. Currently they will be appealing the case to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The ‘closed shop’ laws require anyone who is hired by a company where there is a union has to pay dues to that union whether they choose to join the union or not. The supposed rationale behind that is that the person hired benefits by the fact that the union has negotiated the current wage and benefits package of the company, and since the employee benefits from that negotiation, he should be required to pay union dues. In a ‘right to work’ state, that practice is prohibited.

The article reports:

CIR’s case argues that unions should not be able to get “security clauses” in the contracts they negotiate management. These clauses, also called “closed shop” rules, say that anyone hired must either join the union or at least pay dues to one. The rationale is that the clauses prevent economic “free riders” since all workers theoretically benefit from union collective bargaining.

Such clauses have long been a standard feature of union contracts, though 24 states have “right to work” laws that prohibit the practice.

CIR’s case argues that the practice should be prohibited even in those states without right to work laws because they violate the individual rights of workers. “These fees do nothing but cause ongoing and irreparable injury to their First Amendment rights,” Pell (CIR  President Terry Pell) said.

If this case goes to the Supreme Court and the right of the individual not to pay union dues if he chooses, all states will become ‘right to work’ states. Obviously, the unions are trying to prevent that from happening.

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Environmental Disasters Don’t Matter If They Are Caused By Liberals

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The liberal viewpoint on the environment has always been interesting. It is generally more about feeling good that actually accomplishing anything. I am not in favor of dirty air or dirty water, but I am in favor of common sense, and sometimes that puts me at odds with some environmentalists.

The most recent example of the environmental double standard is related to wind farms. Steven Hayward posted an article at Power Line yesterday about wind farms and eagles.

The article quotes the Associated Press:

An investigation by The Associated Press earlier this year documented the illegal killing of eagles around wind farms, the Obama administration’s reluctance to prosecute such cases and its willingness to help keep the scope of the eagle deaths secret. President Barack Obama has championed the pollution-free energy, nearly doubling America’s wind power in his first term as a way to tackle global warming. .

“This is not a program to kill eagles,” said John Anderson, the director of siting policy at the American Wind Energy Association. “This permit program is about conservation.”

This may not be a program to kill eagles, but unfortunately, that will be the result of this program.

The article continues:

There’s a basic rule of PR crisis communications: you don’t use the phrase “this is not,” because that’s a sure tip off that it is.

All of this is worth remembering the next time an offshore oil spill kills a large number of birds, which occurs about once every 20 years.  The total annual bird kill from windmills is likely orders of magnitude higher than the number of birds killed from oil spills.  There’s a reason I’ve referred to windmills as “Cuisinarts of the Sky.”

The article further reports that Congress may consider letting wind energy tax subsidies expire rather than being renewed. This would end the discussion about the eagles–wind energy cannot exist without subsides. The subsidies to wind energy are another example of the government attempting to pick winners and losers and actually only picking losers. I am not opposed to wind energy, but we need to let the marketplace decide what works and what doesn’t–not Congress and the President.

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About Those Jobs Numbers

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John Crudele at the New York Post has posted a few articles raising questions about how the Obama Administration is calculating unemployment numbers. He posted one yesterday. Mr. Crudele has pointed out that unemployment numbers are coming from the Census Bureau and that in 2010 one of its enumerators was caught fabricating interviews.

The article reports:

The Census Department surveys that went into the November jobless rate actually took place during the week that included Nov. 5 instead of the normal Nov. 12 week.

The Labor Department did put in a note about the survey week change in its November report.

But it should also have included another line that said: “The data for the unemployment rate may have been compromised. Lots of people are looking into the matter right now. We’ll get back to you on whether you should believe these numbers or not.”

John Hinderaker posted a story about the jobs numbers at Power Line today.

The article at Power Line includes the following chart:

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The chart shows what has happened to the labor participation rate since 2008–it dropped like a rock and stayed there.

The article at Power Line quotes James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute:

    1. There are still 1.1 million fewer employed Americans today than right before the recession started, despite a potential labor force that’s 14 million larger. And there are 3.6 million fewer full-time workers than back in 2007.

    2. The employment rate, the share of Americans with a job, is 58.6% — exactly where it was in November 2009.

    3. If the labor force participation rate were where it was a year ago, the jobless rate would be 7.9%, not 7% (and 11.3% if the LFPR were at prerecession levels, though closer to 9% if demographics-adjusted).

The article at Power Line concludes:

Back in the heady days of 2008 and 2009, the Democrats were universally confident that the economy would improve dramatically, as it always does after a recession, regardless of the policies the Democrats followed. All they would need to do was take credit when the time came. The bitter lesson of the last five years is that federal policies do matter. The American economy is diverse and resilient, but if our government’s policies are stupid enough, they can blight the prospects of an entire generation.

If you were planning to break out the champagne because of the 7 per cent unemployment rate, you might want to hold off for a little bit. If you want to turn this around, think before you vote.

 

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A Moment To Be Carefree

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To be carefree is a wonderful thing. It’s one of the first things cancer patients give up when they are diagnosed with the disease.  The Mimi Foundation decided that it would change that for some cancer patients. Please read the article at the Business Insider to understand the whole story and to see some wonderful pictures.

Meanwhile, YouTube posted the video:

Enjoy.

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The Cost Of Ignoring The Lessons Of History

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I am part of the generation that graduated from high school during the ramp up of the war in Vietnam. The boys in my high school graduating class went to college or Vietnam. There were no other choices. That was a time in the history of this country where everyone was not expected to go to college. My husband served in the Navy during that time. We lost friends in Vietnam, and we have friends who physically came home but never mentally came home. Vietnam was a striking example of what happens when politicians take over a war. The military wins wars when they are allowed to do so. Politicians fight with one hand tied behind their backs so that they don’t risk offending anyone. That is the place we have come to (again) in Afghanistan.

On Thursday, the Washington Times posted an article about the increase in casualties in the war in Afghanistan. Although it is difficult to prove statistically, the author of the article believes that the increase in casualties is directly related to the rule of engagement set by the Obama Administration.

The article reports:

“In Afghanistan, the [rules of engagement] that were put in place in 2009 and 2010 have created hesitation and confusion for our war fighters,” said Wayne Simmons, a retired U.S. intelligence officer who worked in NATO headquarters in Kabul as the rules took effect, first under Army Gen. Stanley M. McChrystal, then Army Gen. David H. Petraeus.

“It is no accident nor a coincidence that from January 2009 to August of 2010, coinciding with the Obama/McChrystal radical change of the [rules of engagement], casualties more than doubled,” Mr. Simmons said. “The carnage will certainly continue as the already fragile and ineffective [rules] have been further weakened by the Obama administration as if they were playground rules.”

As President Obama’s troop surge began in 2009, so did new rules of engagement demanded by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was responding to local elders angry over the deaths of civilians from NATO airstrikes and ground operations.

Please read the entire article to get the full picture. I posted it simply to bring up the concept. We need to allow our young men to fight, or take them out of harm’s way. What we are doing now is slowly killing off the future leaders of our country for no apparent reason. We made that mistake in Vietnam. Let’s not make it again.

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Some Good Advice From A Senior Democrat

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On Thursday, The Atlantic posted an article written by Ted Van Dyk, a Democrat campaign strategist who once worked for Hubert Humphrey. The article examines what the current Democrat party needs to do to maintain its power in the 2016 election. He is obviously not happy with the direction his party is currently taking.

He points out that the Barack Obama that is President today is very different than the Barack Obama that campaigned in 2008. (Actually, I disagree with that statement–Barack Obama has not changed–he has just behaved the way a community organizer would behave. Barack Obama had no administrative experience. Some Americans understood that–many Americans ignored that fact.)

Mr. Van Dyk notes:

Before 2008, Obama looked like a liberal of moderate temperament. He had the bad luck to take office at a time of financial and economic crises overshadowing everything else. He has said since that he underestimated at the time the depth of the crises. That no doubt led him, before growth and stability had been restored, to undertake in 2009 a remake of the entire health sector. Both his stimulus package and healthcare proposal were mainly designed by House Democratic leaders and the interest groups that supported his 2008 campaign. There was no serious attempt, in formulating either program, to draw Republicans into participation, as LBJ had done in 1965. Provisions allowing the sale of health-insurance products across state lines, and providing for meaningful tort reform, could have done that without forfeiting Democratic support. Trial lawyers would have objected but not jeopardized the bill’s passage.

This is spin. The depth of the crisis had nothing to do with ObamaCare. ObamaCare was the result of lack of leadership on the part of the President–he didn’t write it, and I doubt that he has read it–he simply let the old Democrat guard in Congress put together their dream package for special interests–that is why there are so many Democrat supporters excluded from many of the regulations, e.g. union plans that are grandfathered in.

Mr. Van Dyk further notes:

Obama’s 2012 reelection is little comfort for Democrats. His total vote was smaller than in 2008, and it did not constitute a mandate for any particular agenda. It instead depended on two things: first, an unprecedentedly skillful identification and mobilization of key Obama voter groups that had grown in importance over the previous four years; and second, highly effective scare campaigns designed to convince those groups that Mitt Romney and Republicans were heartless plutocrats, servants of wealth, and enemies of women, Latinos, African Americans, and the middle class.

Demonizing his opponent worked for President Obama. The Republicans, hopefully, have learned from that experience and will not let it happen again. The demonization began during the Republican primaries and was not answered by the Republicans at the time. By the time the charges were answered, the moment had passed and the conversation had moved on. The foundation for some of the demonization of Mitt Romney began with the question by George Stephanopoulos to Mitt Romney on birth control. That was not a ridiculous question–it paved the way for the charges that the Republicans were waging a ‘war on women.’

Mr. Van Dyk concludes:

Wedge politics and tailored political messaging can bring a campaign or even a presidency short-term success. But, for the longer run, most Americans feel they are in it together and badly want bipartisan action to keep the economy stable and growing, to keep the country safe here and abroad, and to keep American society open and fair. Americans want from Democrats what Obama promised in his 2008 campaign. Financial and economic crises diverted him, he opted for partisanship with his first-term initiatives, and the resulting gridlock leaves Democrats with three years to consider their future path.

By 2016, this veteran hopes, party leaders will conclude that the big things should be tackled first and that, because of their difficulty, they must be addressed on a bipartisan basis. May they also conclude that there is more to gain by uniting all Americans than by treating them separately as political subgroups.

I agree that bipartisanship is the solution, but I am not sure it is possible. Washington has become a snake pit of one-upmanship rather than a place where people actually work together to solve America’s problems. I suspect the only solution to that situation is to remove anyone from office who has been there for more than one term.

 

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Your Tax Dollars At Work

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Below are some of the provisions in the current farm bill being debated on by the House and the Senate. Are these really things we need to do when we are currently more than $17 trillion in debt?

Some highlights:

…provide for “Economic Adjustment Assistance” that would pay domestic manufacturers of cotton products $66 for each ton they use of “upland cotton”—the most common type of the fiber grown in the United States

…grants have included $1,055,996 to the Unison Resource Company, San Francisco Carbon collaborative, and EcoAnalytics to prevent global warming by reducing intestinal methane emissions from cattle

…transforming goat manure into “biochar” (a.k.a. charcoal) to mitigate global warming. Said biochar is buried to eliminate the greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise occur from the natural degradation of goat manure

…a tax of 15 cents per (Christmas) tree on sellers to support a marketing program for enhancing the image of the industry

…$100 million and the House $225 million for the “Rural Energy for America” program. Recipients have included the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, Arizona, which was awarded $45,263 to install a solar energy system. The center is dedicated to “whole-person enlightenment” under the direction of an ordained rabbi, “acknowledged” yogi, and four-year Native American Sundancer. (Just FYI: The body-cleansing regimen starts at $3,159.)

…subsidies for “Access to Broadband Telecommunications Services in Rural Areas.” The Senate would double the current spending—to $250 million—and include subsidies for “ultra-high speed broadband.” The House proposes to maintain spending at $125 million

Just as some of the smart phone commercials used to say, “There’s an app for that,” Americans can say in almost any case, “There’s a government program for that.” I don’t think that is a good thing.

 

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Rewriting History As You Go Along

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It has been thirteen years since the disputed 2000 election. Younger voters who voted in the 2008 and 2012 elections probably do not have a clear picture of exactly what happened in that election. Chris Matthews isn’t helping.

The Daily Caller posted a transcript of a Chris Matthews discussion with Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe on MSNBC.

Christ Matthews stated:

Obama “has had a very difficult opposition out there … who from the very beginning wanted to destroy this presidency,” he said. “And some of it is ethnic, and some is good old ideology. But they way they treated this guy is unusual in our history.”

“Al Gore accepted the fact, even though he won by 600,000 votes, that W. was president. And the Democrats accepted the legitimacy of George W. Bush 100 percent,” he added, when host Joe Scarborough tried to push back a bit.

On November 12, 2001, The New York Times stated:

A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year’s presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward.

Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. Gore if the Florida court’s order to recount more than 43,000 ballots had not been reversed by the United States Supreme Court.

Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff — filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties — Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations.

The New York Times is certainly not a conservative newspaper. They were generally not kind to George W. Bush, but they got the facts about the recount right. Either Chris Matthews is badly misinformed or he is lying. Either way, I suspect many young voters or voters who have forgotten or were not paying attention believed him. Rewriting history is a true danger to our representative republic. It is the media’s job to tell the truth. It is a shame that they have forsaken their responsibility.

Just for the record, President Obama has not been treated badly by the opposition. There have been people questioning the amount of secrecy surrounding his past–his education, some of his activities in Chicago, some of his campaign tactics, etc. Those are legitimate questions that should be asked of any candidate. Unfortunately, an element of practicing personal destruction instead of debating political issues has crept into our politics in recent times. We saw that element in the 2012 presidential election. Policies took a back seat to scare tactics and claims that Mitt Romney was a rich man who had no compassion for the poor. As someone who lived in Massachusetts during the time Mitt Romney was governor, I can tell you that there is no truth in that statement. However, the press worked hard to present that image. Until the media ignores those people practicing the politics of personal destruction, all Presidents will be treated badly by some element of the opposition. The mainstream media however, will continue to be cheerleaders for the Democrats and complain when anyone says anything negative about their candidates or the policies of their candidates. Unfortunately, that is where we are.

Meanwhile, we need to guard against the rewriting of history and challenge it whenever possible.

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The Death Of Nelson Mandela

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Nelson Mandela has died at the age of 95. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years as a prisoner in South Africa for opposing apartheid, then emerged to become his country’s first black president. All of the major (and minor) news outlets are posting stories about his death. As usual, I have a few observations.

In the early 1970’s my parents made a business trip to South Africa. They spent time in Johannesburg and in Durban. This was during the time that Nelson Mandela was in prison. Upon returning to America they observed that South Africa was in a place very similar to where the American south was before the civil rights movement–things were very tense and there was no harmony between the white and black populations. Something was going to explode. There were some explosions, but compared to what has happened in other Africa nations, they were relatively minor. Apartheid ended in 1994 after international sanctions and negotiations between Mandela and South African President F. W. de Klerk.

What is the lesson we can learn from the life of Nelson Mandela? I think the most important lesson is the lesson of forgiveness–this man spent 27 years in jail for opposing apartheid and was able to forgive his country for the way he had been treated. Because he was able to move forward rather than dwell on the past, Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa. If more leaders followed the example of Nelson Mandela in forgiving past wrongs and wanting to do what is in the best interests of all people in his country, the world would be a very different place.

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Crime Really Doesn’t Pay

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Today’s Washington Post posted a follow-up on the story of the theft in Mexico of a truckload of radioactive material used for the treatment of diseases. The truck has been found, and the radioactive material has been found.

The article reports:

The prospect that material that could be used in a radioactive dirty bomb had gone missing sparked an urgent two-day hunt that concluded when the material, cobalt-60, used in hospital radiotherapy machines, was found Wednesday afternoon along with the stolen Volkswagen truck. Mexican officials said no public health risk remained.

It is quite likely that the thieves had no idea what they were stealing. The article also reports that the material was removed from its protective casing, and it is quite likely that the thieves will die fairly quickly because of their exposure to the radiation. It will not be a pleasant death, and it actually seems as if their death will be a rather harsh penalty for stealing a truck.

This event brings up some interesting questions. Now that this story has been made public and it is known that the truck did not have a GPS tracking device and that it was relatively easy to hijack the truck, what happens next? Any fairly intelligent terrorist could easily duplicate the actions of these thieves (leaving the radioactive material in its casing, of course) and get it across America’s porous southern border. Not all the people coming into America across our southern border are South Americans looking for work (see rightwinggranny.com).

If America does not secure its southern border, we can expect a dirty bomb attack in one of our major cities based on things terrorists will be able to learn from this event. Let’s hope and pray that they are not paying attention.

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The REAL Answer To Race Relations

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On November 20, the Las Vegas Guardian Express posted an amazing article. It was about Daryl Davis, author of Klan-Destine Relationships: A Black Man‘s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan, published in 1997.

The article tells the story of how Davis, a black man, came to write the book. Daryl Davis, a gifted boogie woogie piano player,  is currently an integral member of The Legendary Blues Band (formerly known as the Muddy Waters Band). His odyssey with the Ku Klux Klan began in 1983 with a discussion with a Klan member about the piano playing of Jerry Lee Lewis and how Jerry Lee Lewis developed his piano style.

Please follow the link to the article and read the entire story. It is an amazing story for many reasons. First of all Daryl Davis had to courage to meet with leaders of the Klan and have honest discussions with the about what they believed. He formed close friendships with people who previously would have hated him simply on the basis of his race. In the article he talks about some of the tense moments in meeting with Klansmen and talking with them about their beliefs.

I believe that in recent years America has taken multiple steps backwards in the area of race relations. We have forgotten the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., that all men should be judged on their character–not their race. Instead we have evolved into a game of one-upmanship where races are trying to exhort payback for crimes and injustices that happened centuries ago. Until we realize that the past is the past and we cannot change it, we will never be able to move forward.

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In An Iranian Prison And Abandoned By The Iranian Government

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The agreement with Iran about its nuclear program somehow overlooked the fate of Pastor Saeed Abedini, an American citizen being held in the deadly Iranian prison, Rajai Shahr. Pastor Abedini was transferred to Rajai Shahr in November.

CBN News is reporting today that according to the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) Pastor Abedini has been repeatedly robbed and threatened at knifepoint by other prisoners.

The article reports:

“The Obama administration abandoned this U.S. citizen in Iran — releasing an Iranian nuclear scientist while refusing to even ask for Pastor Saeed’s release in return,” Jay Sekulow (ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow) said. “But I am letting our friends in Europe know the American people have not given up on this persecuted pastor. We cannot and will not leave Pastor Saeed behind.”

We are releasing Iran’s nuclear scientists, and Iran won’t even release a Christian Pastor. There is something very wrong with the lack of American influence in the world.

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Crony Capitalism And The Justice Department

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It is extremely dangerous to get on the wrong side of the Obama Administration. If you lose your health insurance and speak out about it, you could be audited (cns news), if you make major contributions to Republican candidates, your company could suddenly be inspected for all sorts of federal regulation violations (rightwinggranny.com), and if you gave to the Tea Party, you could face a partial audit (that happened to me–the first time my husband and I have been audited in 46 years). It does seem as if the government is somewhat out of control. An article at Investor’s Business Daily about the recent settlement between JPMorgan and the Justice Department provides further proof.

The article reports:

They (radical Democrat groups) stand to reap millions. The “consumer relief” portion of the deal by itself totals $4 billion.

If the government “determines that a shortfall in that obligation remains as of Dec. 31, 2017,” the agreement states, “JPMorgan shall make a compensatory payment in cash in an amount equal to the shortfall to NeighborWorks America to provide housing counseling, neighborhood stabilization, foreclosure prevention or similar programs.”

Potentially billions could be distributed to Democrat activists through NeighborWorks, a government-funded “affordable housing” group that supports a national network of left-wing community organizers operating in the same vein as Acorn.

In 2011 alone, NeighborWorks shelled out $35 billion in “affordable housing grants” to 115 such groups, according its website. Recipients included the radical Affordable Housing Alliance, which pressures banks to make high-risk loans in low-income neighborhoods.

The recession has dried up funding for such groups. But Holder’s massive bank shakedown could rebuild their war chests in a hurry.

This is not the way honest people do government.

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An Invitation To Identity Theft

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ObamaCare could have a very negative affect on my life in the coming months. My husband and I will be losing our health insurance on January 1. The questions is, “Do we go to the ObamaCare website and risk having our identity stolen, or do we go without health insurance?” How dangerous is it to type your personal information into the ObamaCare website? Well, an article posted at the CNBC website last Monday provides answers to that question.

The article reports:

It could take a year to secure the risk of “high exposures” of personal information on the federal Obamacare online exchange, a cybersecurity expert told CNBC on Monday.

“When you develop a website, you develop it with security in mind. And it doesn’t appear to have happened this time,” said David Kennedy, a so-called “white hat” hacker who tests online security by breaching websites. He testified on Capitol Hill about the flaws of HealthCare.gov last week.

“It’s really hard to go back and fix the security around it because security wasn’t built into it,” said Kennedy, chief executive of TrustedSec. “We’re talking multiple months to over a year to at least address some of the critical-to-high exposures on the website itself.”

This is not encouraging. Another online security expert stated that the ObamaCare website needs to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.

The article further reports:

Last month, a Sept. 27 government memorandum surfaced in which two HHS officials said the security of the site had not been properly tested before it opened, creating “a high risk.”

HHS had explained then that steps were taken to ease security concerns after the memo was written, and that consumer information was secure. Technicians fixed a security bug in the password reset function in late October, the agency said.

But on CNBC, Kennedy disputed those claims, saying vulnerabilities remain on “everything from hacking someone’s computer so when you visit the website it actually tries to hack your computer back, all the way to being able to extract email addresses, users names—first name, last name—[and] locations.”

It really is time for Plan B.

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An Unbelievable Labor Contract

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Yesterday Mike Antonucci at Hot Air posted a few excerpts from the current contract covering National Education Association employees.

The article reports:

About 500 people work at NEA national headquarters in Washington, DC. A handful of unions represent them, the largest being the National Education Association Staff Organization (NEASO). NEA and NEASO negotiated a 136-page collective bargaining agreement in June 2012, and it runs through the end of May 2015. I have posted the full document on EIA’s Declassified page, but to save you the energy of mining it yourself, here are a few provisions I thought were worthy of highlighting:

…NEA must assume financial liability for an employee who is prosecuted or sued “because of any act taken by him/her in the course of his/her employment.” Under these circumstances, unless the employee is guilty of “gross negligence or gross irresponsibility,” he or she “shall be paid at his/her regular hourly rate for all time spent in jail.”

…NEA is required to provide “an appropriately furnished lounge” for employees at union headquarters. The contract specifically requires NEA to “make an ice machine available to employees in the building.”

There are many other provisions, including reserved parking spaces, valet services when traveling, and other things that most of us would never expect to see in an employment contract. Most of us would love to be covered by an employment contract that covers the items this contract does, but most of us realize that if a company wants to stay in business (and thus provide us with a job), they would probably not be able to afford a contract similar to the one that covers the NEA employees. The article unintentionally points out how big the gap has become between working in the private sector and working for an agency related to the government.

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There Is No Resemblance To Truth In These Statements

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Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article today about President Obama’s speech today regarding ObamaCare. The President is still campaigning–he is not even approaching the idea of solving problems. The speech simply repeated the idea that the only failure on the part of ObamaCare was due to the lack of support by Republicans. There was no acknowledgement of the fact that the Republicans might have some valid points or than their objections to ObamaCare might be well founded.

The article quotes the President’s speech:

Now, we may never satisfy the law’s opponents. I think that’s fair to say. Some of them are rooting for this law to fail — that’s not my opinion, by the way, they say it pretty explicitly. (Laughter.) Some have already convinced themselves that the law has failed, regardless of the evidence. But I would advise them to check with the people who are here today and the people that they represent all across the country whose lives have been changed for the better by the Affordable Care Act.

Maybe he can’t satisfy the law’s opponents because it is a bad law. If President Obama keeps up this sort of rhetoric, he will reduce the Democrats to a minority party for the foreseeable future.

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Something All Women Need To Be Aware Of

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There have been studies in the past showing a link between abortion and breast cancer. Generally those studies have not been reported in the media or have been played down in the academic community. Recently a study that was done in China has come to light that reinforces the conclusions of previous studies.

The American Thinker posted an article today about a new study from China published last week by Yubei Huang and colleagues.

The American Thinker article reports the results of the study:

The article, a meta-analysis pooling 36 studies from 14 provinces in China, showed that abortion increased the risk of breast cancer by 44% with one abortion, and 76% and 89% with two and three abortions.

This new article is another example of the recent excellent scholarship on abortion in peer-reviewed journals coming out of the People’s Republic. There is no bigger data base than China, where there are an average of 8.2 million pregnancy terminations every year, and 40 abortions for every 100 live births. Chinese researchers and physicians are unencumbered by abortion politics, and do not cover up data showing long term effects of induced abortion, as do their US counterparts in governmental, professional and consumer organizations.

This is scary information.

The article describes how studies on the link between abortion and breast cancer have been handled in America:

Huang’s study shows an even stronger increase than the 30% higher risk found in the 1996 meta-analysis by Joel Brind and colleagues on abortion as an independent risk factor for breast cancer. The Brind meta-analysis, combining the results of 23 studies, gave a more complete view than any single study. But even though it was the most comprehensive study on the topic at the time, it was disregarded by establishment medical groups.

 Brind, a professor of biology and endocrinology at Baruch College, is not unique in having experienced censorship of his findings for the past two decades, including at the notorious National Cancer Institute (NCI) workshop on “Early reproductive events and breast cancer” in 2003.  This important workshop was manipulated by its chairperson NCI epidemiologist Louise Brinton to suppress critical information on the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link. The main speaker on abortion and breast cancer, Leslie Bernstein, who  had never published on this topic, openly said “I would never be a proponent of going around and telling them (women) that having babies is the way to reduce your risk,” even though it has been an established fact, conceded by abortion proponents that this is true.

The abortion industry has become big business. Until recently it was generally not regulated the way that other medical procedures are regulated. Recently some states have passed laws to ensure that if something goes wrong during an abortion, a woman will be quickly taken to a hospital and helped. That has not always been the case. As these laws have been passed to ensure a woman’s safety during an abortion and afterward, the abortion industry  has fought the laws. Abortion is not about women’s health–it is about making  money for a small group of people involved in the industry. Because of that fact, much of the information women need to make an informed decision about abortion is being withheld from them. The way that the studies showing the link between abortion and breast cancer have been handled is an illustration of that fact.

 

After I posted the above article, I received the following note from a friend:

Regarding abortion and breast cancer I know this to be true from my
past job as a programmer in Epidemiology. We had looked at these
trends in the late 1990's but by 2002 we didn't even 'go there'
anymore. Too political of a hot bed to touch even though the
researchers I worked with were aware of it. Thank you China on this
one.
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