Self-reliance the key to strengthening Americans
In these days of deep division, of pitting one American against another in hatred, and of Presidential words of blame, the following words (in bold type) of William J. H. Boetcker, a Presbyterian minister, are as true today as when he wrote them in 1943:
“You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift”. For example, our government actually required mortgage lenders to extend mortgages to those who could never repay them.
“ You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer, nor help the poor man by destroying the rich”. Corporations taxed at one of the highest rates in the world, and not given long-term regulations upon which they can depend, keep their profits and stop hiring and expanding. Some move jobs overseas or find legal ways around taxation, as has GE. Unemployment increases. Libertarian Wayne Allen Root, Obama’s classmate at Columbia, describes the book Atlas Shrugged, wherein “the rich were going on strike to teach that civilization cannot survive when people are slaves to government; that without a productive class of innovative business owners willing to risk their own money and work 16-hour days, weekends and holidays, there are no jobs and no taxes to pay for government. If you punish the wealthy, the risk-takers, the innovators, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.” Inciting class hatred does not lead to jobs, rational discussion or compromise. It surely does not produce net government revenues.
“You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money”. President Obama added more to our national debt in his first 19 months than all presidents from Washington through Reagan – combined. He is spending at a rate more than 3 times that of President Bush. Because of Baseline Budgeting mandates, funds for discretionary spending in government programs increase automatically by 8% per year with no regard to inflation. The current baseline is enormously inflated because of Obama’s Stimulus and various new programs he signed into law in his first two years. In the recently passed bill, there are only cuts to the automatic 8% increase on this inflated spending, not on last year’s expenses. Our debt and deficits will continue to go higher.
“ You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred”. We must stop name-calling, limiting ourselves to debating issues. We see in London what has transpired due to class hatred and an entitlement mentality.
“You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence”. Welfare life begets continued generations of Americans on welfare, effectively telling many capable people they are not smart or good enough to take care of themselves. Welfare has become a way of life for millions. A recent Presidential order in 3 states including Michigan, for instance, directs that if 40% of school children in a district qualify for free meals at school, then all of them shall get it –to “eliminate the stigma of getting a free lunch”, thereby putting more people on government programs – an effective agenda for bankrupting our government.
President Obama has appointed Cabinet members, heads of many government departments and panels, and Czars who are “progressive” thinkers displaying beliefs quite the opposite of Boetcker. For decades our government has weakened the weak by not effectively expecting and assisting able citizens in becoming wage earners, permitting many to continue to receive government funds with no expectations of conduct to qualify for them. Unwed Mothers in America are empowered by our laws to receive more government funds for each child they have, and many fathers abandon their children to enable this government income, for instance. Government continues to redefine poverty so that higher incomes qualify as the poverty-stricken. For many decades our country’s anti-poverty spending has not lead to less poverty.
Creative ideas and expectations are required to enable success. Perhaps those who are able to should do volunteer work, promote schooling for their children, or learn to read to qualify for welfare, or as in Florida take a drug test to assure that our taxes are not simply supporting their habit. Work ethics, self-assurance and the drive to excel is not promoted by permanently doing for some what they can and should do for themselves.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Boyne City Gazette column;
| I am reposting this, as the first attempt left words running off the page so that you could not see them...... Self-reliance the key to strengthening Americans - My latest column in the Boyne City Gazette In these days of deep division, of pitting one American against another in hatred, and of Presidential words of blame, the following words of William J. H. Boetcker, a Presbyterian minister, are as true today as when he wrote them in 1943. "You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift". For example, our government actually required mortgage lenders to extend mortgages to those who could never repay them. "You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer, nor help the poor man by destroying the rich." Corporations taxed at one of the highest rates in the world, and not given long-term regulations upon which they can depend, keep their profits and stop hiring and expanding. Some move jobs overseas or find legal ways around taxation, as has GE. Unemployment increases. Wayne Allen Root, Obama's classmate at Columbia, describes the book Atlas Shrugged, wherein “the rich were going on strike to teach that civilization cannot survive when people are slaves to government; that without a productive class of innovative business owners willing to risk their own money and work 16-hour days, weekends and holidays, there are no jobs and no taxes to pay for government. If you punish the wealthy, the risk-takers, the innovators, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.” Inciting class hatred does not lead to jobs, rational discussion or compromise. It surely does not produce net government revenues. " You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money." President Obama added more to our national debt in his first 19 months than all presidents from Washington through Reagan – combined. He is spending at a rate more than 3 times that of President Bush. Because of Baseline Budgeting mandates, funds for discretionary spending in government programs increase automatically by 8% per year with no regard to inflation. The current baseline is enormously inflated because of Obama’s Stimulus and various new programs he signed into law in his first two years. In the recently passed bill, there are only cuts to the automatic 8% increase on t his inflated spending, not on last year’s expenses. Our debt and deficits will continue to go higher. "You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred." We must stop name-calling, limiting ourselves to debating issues. We see in London what has transpired due to class hatred and an entitlement mentality. “You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence." Welfare life begets continued generations of Americans on welfare, effectively telling many capable people they are not smart or good enough to take care of themselves. Welfare has become a way of life for millions. A recent Presidential order in 3 states including Michigan, for instance, directs that if 40% of school children in a district qualify for free meals at school, then all of them shall get it –to “eliminate the stigma of getting a free lunch”, thereby putting more people on government programs – an effective agenda for bankrupting our government. President Obama has appointed Cabinet members, heads of many government departments and panels, and Czars who are “progressive” thinkers displaying beliefs quite the opposite of Boetcker. For decades our government has weakened the weak by not effectively expecting and assisting able citizens in becoming wage earners, permitting many to continue to receive government funds with no expectations of conduct to qualify for them. Unwed Mothers in America are empowered by our laws to receive more government funds for each child they have, and many fathers abandon their children to enable this government income, for instance. Government continues to redefine poverty so that higher incomes qualify as the poverty-stricken. For many decades our country’s anti-poverty spending has not lead to less poverty. Creative ideas and expectations are required to enable success. Perhaps those who are able to should do volunteer work, promote schooling for their children, or learn to read to qualify for welfare, or as in Florida take a drug test to assure that our taxes are not simply supporting their habit. Work ethics, self-assurance and the drive to excel is not promoted by permanently doing for some what they can and should do for themselves. Creative ideas and expectations are required to enable success. Perhaps those who are able to should do volunteer work, promote schooling for their children, or learn to read to qualify for welfare, or as in Florida take a drug test to assure that our taxes are not simply supporting their habit. Work ethics, self-assurance and the drive to excel is not promoted by permanently doing for some what they can and should do for themselves. . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo reports, [confirming that conservatives have made our President back down]: Obama on Friday scrapped his administration's controversial plans to tighten smog rules, bowing to the demands of congressional Republicans and some business leaders. Obama overruled the Environmental Protection Agency — and the unanimous opinion of its independent panel of scientific advisers — and directed administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw the proposed regulation to reduce concentrations of ground-level ozone, smog's main ingredient. The decision rests in part on reducing regulatory burdens and uncertainty for businesses at a time of rampant uncertainty about an unsteady economy. A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, had muted praise for the White House, saying that withdrawal of the smog regulation was a good first step toward removing obstacles that are blocking business growth. http://news.yahoo.com/obama-halts-controversial-epa-regulation-143731156.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CNBC reports: It was the first time since World War II that the economy had a net zero jobs created for a month.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
Friday, September 2, 2011
Getting to know Michael Moore; Feds suggests Gibson Guitar ship manufacturing jobs overseas; Freddie and Fannie will file lawsuits against big banks; Tis legal for citizens to film government officials on duty; Government stonwalling info on solar panel company Solyndra; Obama finds jobs w/o input of Congress; Homes where no one has ever worked double in decade in England;
[Touchy, touchy, touchy! That is Michael Moore and his minions..... I just happened to have the occasion to be in a boat on Torch Lake this week. We slowed down as we passed the Michael Moore mansion, which is now being added to with a 3 story addition the size of about half the existing "cabin". It is an enormous home. The second we slowed down, someone started walking down the close to 50 steps to the dock with a pad and pencil in his hand. We assumed he was going to fix the boat. No - he asked us if it wasn't rather odd to be just drifting in front of a home on the lake. We exclaimed that no one owns the lake surface. One person in our boat said we wanted to see a Capitalist's home - another yelled we wanted to see a hypocrite's home. The man on the dock motioned us closer, so he could get the MC number on the boat, we presumed. You see, we were at a most respectful distance, well beyond the drop-off, and he couldn't see the number. We are still amazed at the speed with which someone came down to try to get us to leave. No - we had no camera nor any intention of taking a photo. It is still a free world, Mr. Moore, until and unless you have your way.
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Redstate reports: Regarding the raiding of the Gibson guitar factory by federal agents, according to CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, agents of the United States government are bluntly informing them that they’d be better off shipping their manufacturing labor overseas.So the government attacked them in the first place by citing obscure regulations that probably weren’t violated about importation of wood. Now they are suggesting that all these problems would go away if they simply exported their labor. http://www.redstate.com/aglanon/2011/08/31/doj-advises-gibson-guitar-to-export-labor/
In an interview with KMJ AM’s “The Chris Daniel Show,” Juszkiewicz revealed some startling information.: CHRIS DANIEL: Mr. Juszkiewicz, did an agent of the US government suggest to you that your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of American labor?
HENRY JUSZKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that in a pleading.
CHRIS DANIEL: That your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of our labor?
HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: Yes
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CNBC writes: The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits, which are expected to be filed in the coming days in federal court, are aimed at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, among others, according to three individuals briefed on the matter. http://www.cnbc.com/id/44367003 The suits will argue the banks, which assembled the mortgages and marketed them as securities to investors, failed to perform the due diligence required under securities law and missed evidence that borrowers’ incomes were inflated or falsified. When many borrowers were unable to pay their mortgages, the securities backed by the mortgages quickly lost value. http://www.cnbc.com/id/44367003
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Prison Planet reveals: “The filming of government officials while on duty is protected by the First Amendment, said the Court,” reports Daily Tech.
“The filming of government officials engaged in their duties in a public place, including police officers performing their responsibilities, fits comfortably within these principles [of protected First Amendment activity].,” said the Court. “Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting the free discussion of governmental affairs,” stated the ruling, adding that this has been the case all along, and that the right to film police officers is not just restricted to the press. The court ruling also made it clear that bloggers who report news based on their recordings of police have equal protection under the law as journalists.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/appeals-court-rules-it-is-not-illegal-to-film-police.html
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National Review reports: The collapse of Solyndra, the solar panel company to which the federal government extended more than half a billion in loan guarantees as part of the stimulus package, ought to be a national disgrace in and of itself. That said, there could very well be even more damning revelations on the horizon regarding the nature of the Obama administration’s involvement — through the Office of Management and Budget and Department of Energy — in the debacle. House Republicans on the Energy and Commerce committee have been seeking information from the administration regarding Solyndra since February 2011, but White House officials have repeatedly stonewalled these efforts, as illustrated by this timeline: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/276120/omb-and-solyndra-something-hide-andrew-stiles#
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The Atlantic writes: President Obama is either fed up with Congress or he's testing his own administration's mettle. Or both. On Wednesday, Obama took a now-familiar path in adopting a program--this time a jobs and infrastructure effort--that can happen entirely within his domain. Obama directed several federal agencies to identify "high-impact, job-creating infrastructure projects" that can be expedited now, without congressional approval.
One week before he will make a major address to Congress on jobs, Obama is making sure they know he plans to move forward without them. In practical terms, that means speeding up the permitting and waiver processes for green-building or highway projects to get the government out of the way.
The president has also directed the Education Department to come up with a "Plan B" updating the 2001 No Child Left Behind law in the absence of congressional action. The message to Congress is clear: Do your work or we'll do it for you. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/09/obama-rolls-out-a-jobs-plan-that-doesnt-need-congress/244420/
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UK Daily Mail reports: The number of homes where no one has ever worked has doubled in little more than a decade.
There are now nearly 300,000 homes where no one has had a job in their lives, and more than 300,000 children living in families where no one knows what it is like to go out to work.
These numbers have more than doubled in the years since Labour came to power.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2032599/Households-EVER-worked-doubled-297-000-14-years.html#ixzz1WnBCZ2XA
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With thanks to Lucianne for the photo:
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Federal Judge deems no public interest served by knowing about our President's fraudulent SSN; Obama says we must politicize 9/11 commemorations, must recognize world anger at our interrogations and invasion of Iraq; Obamacare secured $105 billion in spending; Illegal Obama uncle to benefit from Obama's new presidential order on illegals?; Representative Allen West considers leaving Congressional Black Caucus over Tea Party rhetoric; There's just one Presdent, many debates; Representative Carson's redefinition of cuts; Babysitter might qualify for benefits, paid vacations and a break every two hours - in CA; Dangerous Mexican trucks deep into America; A million new tempoary jobs; Guitar company raid costs company $2 million; We are being gamed
The case was filed by California attorney Orly Taitz, who has brought many of the major court challenges to Obama's eligibility based on a lack of evidence that he meets the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a president be a "natural-born citizen."
Redstate writes: The Obama regime shamelessly issued two sets of documents setting guidelines on how to commemorate the 9/11 terrorist attacks against United States.
One set of the 9/11 commemoration guidelines, entitled “9/11 Anniversary Planning,” is for domestic audiences and highlights Obama’s continuing attempts to politicize the 9/11 anniversary as a campaign propaganda tool. The second set of 9/11 commemoration guidelines is for foreign audiences
According to the New York Times, the guidelines list what themes to underscore — and the tone to set:
- Officials are instructed to memorialize those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and thank those in the military, law enforcement, intelligence or homeland security for their contributions since.
- Officials are to warn that Americans must be prepared for another attack — and must be resilient in recovering from the loss.
- Officials are cautioned that commemorations should not cast the United States as the sole victim of terrorism.
- The tone should be shaped by a recognition that the outpouring of worldwide support for the United States in the weeks after the attacks turned to anger at some American policies adopted in the name of fighting terror — on detention, on interrogation, and the decision to invade Iraq.
- The guidelines say officials are to make the point that “Al Qaeda and its adherents have become increasingly irrelevant.”
- The guidelines say the absence of Al Qaeda playing any significant role in the “Arab Spring” uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa should be cited as evidence that bin Laden’s organization “represents the past,” while peaceful street protesters in Egypt and Tunisia “represent the future.”
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Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Washington October protest has goal of shutting down the U.S. government; No Republicans in Labor Day parade, then you must pay for the parade; Unionization of nursing home workers made easier by Board's decision; Same Labor Relations Board eliminates secret ballots on union elections; Tea Party "wants to see African Americans hanging from a tree" according to Representative Carson; U.S. has exclusive rights to Arctic unless we ratify Law of the Sea Treaty
These tactics will be familiar to those who remember The Blaze exclusive report on the protest plans of SEIU’s Stephen Lerner and his plans to “swarm” Wall Street to the point of bringing down the stock market.
Swanson told Press TV’s U.S. Desk on Monday that “we are going to occupy Freedom Plaza in the middle of Washington D.C., the name of which is very similar of course to Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, and from there we are going to expand to shut down offices, buildings, streets, hallways, to nonviolently, strictly nonviolently resist what our government is doing.”
The author of “War is a lie” said “we are taking the same sort of agenda that all left, liberal and progressive groups intend to take to Washington: Tax the rich and the corporations, end the wars, cut the military spending, protect our safety net, our social security, give us Medicare for everybody, end the corporate welfare, give us clean energy and jobs and infrastructure and cleanup the system.” http://www.theblaze.com/stories/radicals-plan-cairo-style-occupation-of-freedom-plaza-in-washington-dc/
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Reuters reports: Tuesday a local labor council would have to reimburse the city up to $2,000 for a Labor Day parade if organizers exclude Republican lawmakers from attending. The move in Wausau, Wisconsin, came after a county labor official said last week that Republican politicians were not welcome at the event due to their party's stance against collective bargaining when state lawmakers voted to curtail it earlier this year.
Wausau Mayor Jim Tipple told Reuters on Tuesday that the decision to exclude elected Republicans "flies in the face of public policy."
"This is not a political rally, it's a parade, for God's sake," Tipple said, noting that taxpayer money is used by the city to pay for staging the event. Tipple's office is nonpartisan, and he claims no affiliation with either political party. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/30/us-labor-day-wisconsin-idUSTRE77T64220110830
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The NYT wrote: The National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday released a decision that would make it easier to unionize nursing home workers.
It is the latest in a flurry of moves favorable to unions that the board completed before the term of its chairwoman, Wilma B. Liebman, expired on Sunday. The board released two other pro-union decisions on Tuesday, both reversing decisions issued under President George W. Bush.
In the nursing home decision, the board ruled that the union, the United Steelworkers, could organize just the 53 certified nursing assistants at a nursing home in Mobile, Ala., as part of one bargaining unit, without including the home’s 33 other nonprofessional workers, including janitors, cooks and file clerks.
Groups representing businesses and nursing home operators attacked the decision, fearing it would make the homes more vulnerable to unionization drives.
“This ruling makes it easier for unions to gerrymander who is in a bargaining unit to help them be successful in organizing,” said Michael J. Eastman, executive director of labor law policy at the United States Chamber of Commerce. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/business/economy/nlrb-eases-unionizing-at-nursing-homes.html?_r=3&smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto
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Big Government reports: Outgoing NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman and the of the Obama Appointed NLRB Board members, Craig Becker & Mark Pearce, voted to eliminate secret ballot election protections. Now, when employers make secrets deals with a union bosses agreeing to recognize a union without allowing his employees a secret ballot vote; employees no longer have the right to force an NLRB secret ballot election and allow workers to decide if they want the union or not.
Unable to pass EFCA, Card Check Forced Unionism, through a Democrat-controlled congress, Obama is paying off Big Labor through his handpicked NLRB Board. He is doing all this at the expense of worker freedoms and worker paychecks. And, the NLRB Decision is applied retroactively to bar even elections that have already been held but not counted. http://biggovernment.com/dloos/2011/08/30/obama-nlrb-eliminates-secret-ballot-elections-making-card-check-forced-unionism-a-reality/
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Mediate writes: The various ways many on the left describe their distrust of the Tea Party seem to be growing ever more graphic– so argued Bill O’Reilly tonight in response to Rep. Andre Carson’s comment that the Tea Party “wanted to see us [African Americans] hanging from a tree.”
“What good does this do to have a sitting Congressman say the Tea Party wants to see us hanging from a tree?” Bruce countered that it is “indicative of the chaos and panic in Congress,” and of polls showing that Democrats’ approval ratings are falling, and argued that it demonstrated an attitude that went all the way up to the White House. http://www.mediaite.com/tv/oreilly-panel-takes-on-congressional-black-caucus-anti-tea-party-race-rhetoric/
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Accuracy in Media opines: “In a multinational race to seize the potential riches of the formerly icebound Arctic, being laid bare by global warming, Russia is the early favorite.” So says the Christian Science Monitor. “At stake is an estimated one-quarter of all the world’s untapped hydrocarbon reserves, abundant fisheries, and a freshly opened route that will cut nearly a third off the shipping time from Asia to Europe.”
What the paper neglected to note is that the U.S. has exclusive rights to this region because Americans were the first to the North Pole. There is no Russian advantage, despite their planting a flag there in 2007. There is also a dispute, of course, whether the “warming” is man-made or not.
“Within the next year,” the paper went on, “the Kremlin is expected to make its claim to the United Nations in a bold move to annex about 380,000 square miles of the internationally owned Arctic to Russian control.”
In fact, the Arctic is not “internationally owned” and the U.N. has no jurisdiction over the area unless and until the U.S. gives up its rights by ratifying the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Treaty. http://www.aim.org/aim-column/media-prepare-russian-treaty-trap-for-the-u-s/
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Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Switching from Wisconsin Education Association's health insurance product saves nearly $700,000; Obama's illegal uncle has magically reappeared and gets DUI; Obama's uncle has had dummy SSN for 20 years; WST asks for suspension of EPA rules; Obama's labor specialist pick for economic adviser; Government protection for the ugly?; Economic downturn, smaller tax revenues, causes more spending on "income security"; Former justice officials call for investigation of hiring only liberals in Civil Rights Division; WikiLeaks outs names of those who spoke confidentially to American diplomats; Climate changes causes mental illnesses?; Justice Dept. refuses to release memos; Cover-up of fact that flash mob violence being done by blacks against whites
The contract required the school district to purchase health insurance from a company called WEA Trust. The creation of Wisconsin's largest teachers union -- "WEA" stands for Wisconsin Education Association -- WEA Trust made money when union officials used collective bargaining agreements to steer profitable business its way.
Barack Obama's long-lost "Uncle Omar" has been arrested for alleged drink-driving outside Boston and detained as an illegal immigrant, The AustralianTimes can reveal. The arrest ends a mystery over the fate of a relative that the US President wrote in his memoir had moved to America from Kenya in the 1960s, although the circumstances of his discovery may now prove to be an embarrassment for the White House.
The Times has established from his birthdate that Mr Obama is the Uncle Omar mentioned in President Obama's best-selling memoir Dreams from My Father. In the 1995 book, President Obama writes of "the uncle who had left for America 25 years ago and had never come back".
In 2008, The Times mounted a search for Uncle Omar. Instead of finding him, we discovered his sister, President Obama's Auntie Zeituni, who was living as an illegal immigrant on a Boston housing estate. Uncle Omar and Auntie Zeituni are the children of President Obama's grandfather Hussein Onyango Obama, by his third wife Sarah, the woman President Obama calls "Granny", because she raised his father, Barack Sr, who was Hussein Obama's son by Hussein's second wife, Akumu. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/barack-obamas-uncle-has-been-arrested-and-held-as-illegal-immigrant/story-e6frg6so-1226124269032
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The Washington Times reports: Mr. Carr contacted the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles and asked spokesman at the state motor vehicle how someone Onyago Obama's circumstances could get a driver's license. He later told his audience what he discovered: (emphasis is the Times writer's)
"According to the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles he has a valid driver's license and you can't get a valid driver's license, supposedly, unless you have a social security number. And I asked them (RMV), 'Well how did he get a license if he never had a social security number? But they said that they couldn't tell me because he had the license for at least 20 years, so he had gotten it back in their pre-computer days."In President Obama's 1995 memoir "Dreams from My Father" he writes that he learned in 1988 through family members in Kenya that his Uncle Omar came to the United States 25 years prior. A number of commentators are mentioning that President Obama's uncle may have benefited from a policy from the days that go back to former Massachusetts Democratic Governor Michael Dukakis, whereby illegal immigrants were assigned identification numbers that looked similar to social security numbers. A 1989 Associated Press article with the headline "Mass. Aliens Given Fake Social Security Numbers" describe how these numbers were released: (bolding is mine)
Massachusetts welfare workers assigned hundreds of dummy Social Security numbers to illegal immigrants to enable them to receive millions of dollars in state benefits.
Onyango Obama is currently being held by ICE authorities. Interestingly his immigration case will be handled by the same Cleveland attorney who successfully represented President Obama's Aunt Zeituni when she was about to be deported back to Kenya. http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2011/aug/30/picket-questions-arise-over-onyango-obamas-drivers/
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The Wall St. Journal opines: Since everyone has a suggestion or three about what President Obama can do to get the economy cooking again, here's one of ours: Immediately suspend the Environmental Protection Agency's bid to reorganize the U.S. electricity industry, and impose a moratorium on EPA rules at least until hiring and investment rebound for an extended period.
The EPA is currently pushing an unprecedented rewrite of air-pollution rules in an attempt to shut down a large portion of the coal-fired power fleet. Though these regulations are among the most expensive in the agency's history, none were demanded by the late Pelosi Congress. They're all the result of purely bureaucratic discretion under the Clean Air Act, last revised in 1990.
As it happens, those 1990 amendments contain an overlooked proviso that would let Mr. Obama overrule EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's agenda. With an executive order, he could exempt all power plants "from compliance with any standard or limitation" for two years, or even longer using rolling two-year periods. All he has to declare is "that the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903327904576524423674218998.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
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Fox News reports: As President Obama prepares his jobs plan speech, he's also filling out his economics team, preparing to nominate Princeton University's Alan Krueger to be chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
"I am pleased to nominate Alan Krueger to lead the Council of Economic Advisers," Obama said in a written statement Monday. "As one of this country's leading economists, Alan has been a key voice on a vast array of economic issues for more than two decades. Alan understands the difficult challenges our country faces, and I have confidence that he will help us meet those challenges as one of the leaders on my economic team."
Krueger, 50, a labor specialist who served in Obama's Treasury Department in the first two years of the administration, returns to Washington to succeed Austan Goolsbee, who is now back at the University of Chicago.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------American Thinker writes: It's not often I read an op-ed in the New York Times and confuse it with an article from The Onion. But, I did just that Sunday with Daniel Hamermesh's piece calling for government protections for "The Ugly."
At first, I thought it was written tongue-in-cheek, but, no, the University of Texas economics professor is completely serious. He says ugly people earn between 10 and 15 percent less a year than their attractive counterparts, and thus, deserve protection. Where does it end? What sort of personal differences justify government intervention? http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201/08/should_the_ugly_be_a_protected_class.html#comments-container
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The Washington Examiner writes: There's no doubt federal spending has exploded in recent years. In fiscal 2007, the last year before things went haywire, the government took in $2.568 trillion in revenues and spent $2.728 trillion, for a deficit of $160 billion. In 2011, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the government will take in $2.230 trillion and spend $3.629 trillion, for a deficit of $1.399 trillion.
The deficits are largely the result not of entitlements but of an explosion in spending related to the economic downturn and the rise of Democrats to power in Washington. While entitlements must be controlled in the long run, Washington's current spending problem lies elsewhere.
A lot of the higher spending has stemmed directly from the downturn. There is, for example, spending on what is called "income security" -- that is, for unemployment compensation, food stamps and related programs. In 2007, the government spent $365 billion on income security. In 2011, it's estimated to spend $622 billion. That's an increase of $257 billion. http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/york-spending-not-entitlements-created-deficits
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Expose Obama reports: Former Department of Justice officials are calling for an investigation into current hiring practices,which they say have become politicized under Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama administration.
Pajamas Media conducted an analysis of the resumes of hired individuals in five Civil Rights Division sections. The conservative media outfit was only able to obtain the documents after filing a federal lawsuit in response to DOJ’s 10-month delay in responding to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Based on their investigation,the researchers found that every single new hire — 70 in all — boasted far-Left résumés. They found no conservative or apolitical new hires in the Voting Section (16 hires),the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (5 hires),the Special Litigation Section (23 hires),the Education Section (11 hires),or the Employment Section (15 hires).
“The Department’s political leadership clearly recognized that the resumes of these new attorneys would expose the hypocrisy of the Obama administration’s polemical attacks on the Bush administration for supposedly engaging in ‘politicized hiring’ — and that everyone would see just how militantly partisan the Obama Civil Rights Division truly is,” wrote former Justice official and Pajamas Media investigator Hans von Spakovsky,explaining why the Department stonewalled FOIA requests for nearly a year. http://www.exposeobama.com/2011/08/29/fmr-officials-say-investigate-political-hiring-at-doj/
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The NYT writes: In a shift of tactics that has alarmed American officials, the antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks has published on the Web nearly 134,000 leaked diplomatic cables in recent days, more than six times the total disclosed publicly since the posting of the leaked State Department documents began last November.
A sampling of the documents showed that the newly published cables included the names of some people who had spoken confidentially to American diplomats and whose identities were marked in the cables with the warning “strictly protect.”
State Department officials and human rights activists have been concerned that such diplomatic sources, including activists, journalists and academics in authoritarian countries, could face reprisals, including dismissal from their jobs, prosecution or violence. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/us/30wikileaks.html?_r=1
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The Sydney Morning Herald reports: RATES of mental illnesses including depression and post-traumatic stress will increase as a result of climate change, a report to be released today says.
The paper, prepared for the Climate Institute, says loss of social cohesion in the wake of severe weather events related to climate change could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.
As many as one in five people reported ''emotional injury, stress and despair'' in the wake of these events.
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