by Austin Hill
“Is this still America?” Congressman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) asked rhetorically last Friday, as he and other members of the House Ways and Means Committee questioned IRS officials about the agency’s “targeting” scandal. With all due respect to the Congressman, here’s a rhetorical answer: this is Obama’s America, and it is unlike anything we’ve known before. And here are, perhaps, a couple of more pertinent questions that we should all be asking right now: do sufficient numbers of Americans actually see how our country has been transformed over the past four years or so, and do sufficient numbers of us care about it?
Conservative America has been ranting and raving over the past several days, as the truth of the Obama Administration’s IRS scandal slowly unfolds. “They Knew Last June” a headline at Drudgereport.Com stated, as it linked to a Wall Street Journal article suggesting that “high ranking” administration officials knew about the targeting of conservative and religious organizations last June in the midst of the President’s re-election campaign. Similarly, other groups and individuals compared the crisis to President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, and quickly concluded that Obama’s IRS scandal is far worse.
Objectively speaking, this scenario is horrific. Yet the indignant blog posts and impugning Facebook remarks quickly become irrelevant to a culture that neither understands, nor cares about the injustice of the IRS targeting certain people groups. And if you don’t think that it’s a “tough sell” to get people to actually care about this, consider these two realities:
Participation in America’s labor force is dreadfully low: The labor statistic that gets the most attention in the media on a regular basis is the unemployment rate, yet look beneath the headlines, and you’ll find a more enlightening figure known as the “labor force participation rate.” This data point offers a clear picture of what percentage of the population is working, and what percentage is – for whatever reason-not working. And for the past three years, the labor force participation rate has been just slightly over 60%, which is roughly a thirty year low.
Furthermore, over the past four years a staggering 49% of American households have been receiving some sort of monthly government welfare benefit, while President Obama has slated for a $500 billion annual expansion of direct welfare payments to households between now and 2016. Why is this relevant to the IRS scandal? It’s pretty simple. Logic would suggest that those who choose to live off of government subsistence are probably less likely to be critical of their government, even in the face of malfeasance – to do otherwise would be tantamount to biting the hand that feeds you. And, in any event, government welfare recipients are likely less inclined to either operate non-profit groups, or to donate to them. Put yourself in these shoes, and then realize that the IRS scandal is too easily dismissed as “somebody else’s problem.”
Faith-based Americans have, at least for the time being, fully embraced big government: One might think that the IRS scandal would have special relevance for American religious groups, given the discovery that an IRS agent demanded that a non-profit prolife organization reveal “the content of your members’ prayers.” The emergence of new government “prayer monitors” here in the U.S. is eerily reminiscent of things that Jews encountered in the early days of Hitler’s Germany (before he brought about the Holocaust), or that Christians and Jews alike faced in the former Soviet Union.
But try searching for news last week about Christian groups protesting this egregious new government intrusion in to private religious practice. You probably won’t find any. What you will find, however, are lots of headlines noting both Protestant and Catholic groups asking for more government.
Specifically, after the House Agriculture Committee chose to cut $2.5 billion in funding for the federal Food Stamps program last week, several Protestant and Catholic groups are stamping their feet demanding that the funding be restored. Do an online search for that, specifically, and you’ll find plenty of headlines.
History demonstrates that a government which is big enough to meet one’s need for food is a government that is big enough to strip away one’s right to worship freely, and logic suggests that you can’t credibly demand government intervention in to one area of private life while demanding that government stay out of another. But never mind history and logic. The cries of American Christians demanding more government welfare are – at least for the time being – far louder and more plentiful than Christians who are decrying the threats to their liberty.
Is the IRS scandal serious, and might it lead to criminal charges? Yes, and yes. But the root of our nation’s problems won’t be addressed until Americans abandon their ambivalence about big, abusive government.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
IRS Has Been Used As A Weapon From Day One
As Attorney General Eric Holder orders an investigation of the Internal Revenue Service after a top official admitted targeting conservative groups with extra scrutiny, an outspoken critic of Obama who claimed more than half a year ago that the administration was using the IRS to punish him is feeling vindicated.
In October, Wayne Allyn Root claimed that the order for the IRS to audit him, “must have come from the highest levels of government. I believe it came from Obama”
Mr. Root said, “I don't believe that thjis was done by rogue agents. Who would be risking their pension and careers? I feel like a million bucks. I feel absolutely vindicated. I knew this was going on.”
He added, “Obama is using the power of the IRS and other government agencies to punish his political opposition and intimidate and silence his critics,”
When Root made claims, he was calling for congressional hearings “to determine if the Obama administration is misusing its power to damage or ruin the lives, drain the finances, or just distract Obama’s critics and political opposition.”
Now, the House Ways and Means Committee has scheduled a formal hearing for Friday to probe the IRS scandal.
In March 2012 hearings before the Financial Services and the Ways and Means Oversight subcommittees, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman twice denied that the IRS had targeted conservative groups.
On Monday, Root contacted the office of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., offering to testify before Congress.
Root said that until this week, he would not have expected scrutiny of the Obama administration to get much traction, but with the news Monday that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of Associated Press journalists, he thinks the media “woke up overnight and realized this is a tyrant that we’ve got in charge.”
Root has been a relentless critic of Obama in thousands of appearances on political talk shows on TV and radio over the past four and a half years, focusing on what he calls the president’s anti-capitalist policies. He also writes columns and commentaries for many popular conservative websites.
He is the author of “The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide: How to Survive, Thrive, and Prosper During Obamageddon, which was published last month.
A pre-law and political science major in the class of 1983, like the president, Root told WND that he received an “unsettling” telephone call from an IRS agent in January 2011 who called himself a fan of his and considered it “an honor” to audit him.
Root won a complete victory last summer in tax court, which found no taxes owed in his 2007 and 2008 filings. But then, he said, he and his tax attorney were shocked when he was hit with a new audit just five days later, for 2009 and 2010.
Root told said that in he knew of many cases like his that pointed to a pattern of abuse by the Obama administration, including audits of high-profile friends who contribute to the Republican Party and GOP bundlers.
Last year, billionaire Frank VanderSloot became the target of investigations by both the IRS and the Labor Department after he gave $1 million to a super PAC that supported Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. The GOP’s biggest donor, Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, said a federal criminal investigation into his company’s business practices was politically motivated. Another casino giant, Steve Wynn, also has been investigated.
This week, Root has received many emails from people who identify as conservative and believe the IRS has been harassing them for political reasons.
He said he was contacted by a Mormon man who said everyone he knew in his small Mormon community was being audited for the first time in their lives.
The man told Root the Mormons are easy to identify because their tax forms show they give 10 percent of their income to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Root said the Mormon man told him, “Everywhere I go, I run into people who are being audited, and they have never been audited before.”
Root sees the alleged targeting of Mormons as consistent with the report Tuesday that the IRS was targeting Jewish groups that are pro-Israel.
“Who in America would be more conservative Republican and donate more to Romney than Mormons?” he asked.
Root has charged that Obama is borrowing from the radical, collectivist strategy of former Columbia professors Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.
The aim is to overwhelm the welfare system for the purpose of collapsing it and replacing it with a system of guaranteed annual income.
“I’ve been saying it since he was elected in 2008,” Root said of Obama, “his goal is the Cloward and Piven plan we learned at Columbia University – you’ve got to bankrupt your opposition and you’ve got to bankrupt the United States of America. You’ve got to bankrupt it with debts, entitlements and spending. And it’s all happening in front of our very eyes.”
The new admission by the IRS, he said, supports his contention that Obama aims to attack business owners who fund conservative candidates and causes until they have no money left.
“If you raise people’s taxes and regulate them to death, and assess IRS liens and audit them to death, eventually the people who write all the big checks to conservative causes will go bankrupt,” he said.
\Root acknowledges his assessment of Obama opens himself to charges that he is extreme, but he insists anyone who has met him “would describe him as a family man or a man of faith” who does not exaggerate or “wear a tin foil hat.”
“And yet,” he said. “I believe with every bone in my body that Barack Obama is a Marxist out to destroy capitalism and the United States of America.”
Now, he said, as Obama is hit with a perfect storm of scandals, “you tell me if anything I’ve said now appears to be extreme.”
“No,” he said, “the only extremists here are the radical Marxists sitting in the White House.”
After Obama’s inaugural speech in January, House Speaker John Boehner seemed to agree that Obama was undertaking a scorched-earth political strategy, notably declaring that he believed the president wanted to “annihilate” the Republican Party.
Boehner said the broader goal of the administration was “to just shove us into the dustbin of history.”
Recalling Boehner’s statement, Root commented: “That’s how you become a communist or socialist nation.”
In September, Root announced that he was stepping down from his positions in the Libertarian Party to focus on helping elect Republicans to office who share his small-government values. He reasoned that it’s not enough to have a “philosophical foundation rooted in liberty” if you can’t win as a third-party candidate.
Root drew wide attention as the Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate in 2008 when he contended that although he and Obama were both pre-law and political science majors in Columbia’s class of 1983, he never even heard of Obama during his time at the university. None of the classmates with whom he’s spoken knew of him either, he claimed. A 2008 Wall Street Journal article cited a Fox News survey of 400 people who were Columbia students from 1981 to 1983 and found no one who remembered Obama.
Root said, "It’s telling that still no one from his Columbia days has come forward and declared any knowledge of Obama during that time."
“Every kid I went to school with was a liberal, trending toward Marxist. They all said it. They all said they were proud Marxists,” Root said. “You would think they would defend the president, and you would have students saying, ‘I knew him, and Wayne Root is wrong.’ No one has.”
"There’s just dead silence."
“Nobody saw him there. There is something wrong with the story, I am telling you.”
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
In October, Wayne Allyn Root claimed that the order for the IRS to audit him, “must have come from the highest levels of government. I believe it came from Obama”
Mr. Root said, “I don't believe that thjis was done by rogue agents. Who would be risking their pension and careers? I feel like a million bucks. I feel absolutely vindicated. I knew this was going on.”
He added, “Obama is using the power of the IRS and other government agencies to punish his political opposition and intimidate and silence his critics,”
When Root made claims, he was calling for congressional hearings “to determine if the Obama administration is misusing its power to damage or ruin the lives, drain the finances, or just distract Obama’s critics and political opposition.”
Now, the House Ways and Means Committee has scheduled a formal hearing for Friday to probe the IRS scandal.
In March 2012 hearings before the Financial Services and the Ways and Means Oversight subcommittees, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman twice denied that the IRS had targeted conservative groups.
On Monday, Root contacted the office of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., offering to testify before Congress.
Root said that until this week, he would not have expected scrutiny of the Obama administration to get much traction, but with the news Monday that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of Associated Press journalists, he thinks the media “woke up overnight and realized this is a tyrant that we’ve got in charge.”
Root has been a relentless critic of Obama in thousands of appearances on political talk shows on TV and radio over the past four and a half years, focusing on what he calls the president’s anti-capitalist policies. He also writes columns and commentaries for many popular conservative websites.
He is the author of “The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide: How to Survive, Thrive, and Prosper During Obamageddon, which was published last month.
A pre-law and political science major in the class of 1983, like the president, Root told WND that he received an “unsettling” telephone call from an IRS agent in January 2011 who called himself a fan of his and considered it “an honor” to audit him.
Root won a complete victory last summer in tax court, which found no taxes owed in his 2007 and 2008 filings. But then, he said, he and his tax attorney were shocked when he was hit with a new audit just five days later, for 2009 and 2010.
Root told said that in he knew of many cases like his that pointed to a pattern of abuse by the Obama administration, including audits of high-profile friends who contribute to the Republican Party and GOP bundlers.
Last year, billionaire Frank VanderSloot became the target of investigations by both the IRS and the Labor Department after he gave $1 million to a super PAC that supported Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. The GOP’s biggest donor, Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, said a federal criminal investigation into his company’s business practices was politically motivated. Another casino giant, Steve Wynn, also has been investigated.
This week, Root has received many emails from people who identify as conservative and believe the IRS has been harassing them for political reasons.
He said he was contacted by a Mormon man who said everyone he knew in his small Mormon community was being audited for the first time in their lives.
The man told Root the Mormons are easy to identify because their tax forms show they give 10 percent of their income to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Root said the Mormon man told him, “Everywhere I go, I run into people who are being audited, and they have never been audited before.”
Root sees the alleged targeting of Mormons as consistent with the report Tuesday that the IRS was targeting Jewish groups that are pro-Israel.
“Who in America would be more conservative Republican and donate more to Romney than Mormons?” he asked.
Root has charged that Obama is borrowing from the radical, collectivist strategy of former Columbia professors Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.
The aim is to overwhelm the welfare system for the purpose of collapsing it and replacing it with a system of guaranteed annual income.
“I’ve been saying it since he was elected in 2008,” Root said of Obama, “his goal is the Cloward and Piven plan we learned at Columbia University – you’ve got to bankrupt your opposition and you’ve got to bankrupt the United States of America. You’ve got to bankrupt it with debts, entitlements and spending. And it’s all happening in front of our very eyes.”
The new admission by the IRS, he said, supports his contention that Obama aims to attack business owners who fund conservative candidates and causes until they have no money left.
“If you raise people’s taxes and regulate them to death, and assess IRS liens and audit them to death, eventually the people who write all the big checks to conservative causes will go bankrupt,” he said.
\Root acknowledges his assessment of Obama opens himself to charges that he is extreme, but he insists anyone who has met him “would describe him as a family man or a man of faith” who does not exaggerate or “wear a tin foil hat.”
“And yet,” he said. “I believe with every bone in my body that Barack Obama is a Marxist out to destroy capitalism and the United States of America.”
Now, he said, as Obama is hit with a perfect storm of scandals, “you tell me if anything I’ve said now appears to be extreme.”
“No,” he said, “the only extremists here are the radical Marxists sitting in the White House.”
After Obama’s inaugural speech in January, House Speaker John Boehner seemed to agree that Obama was undertaking a scorched-earth political strategy, notably declaring that he believed the president wanted to “annihilate” the Republican Party.
Boehner said the broader goal of the administration was “to just shove us into the dustbin of history.”
Recalling Boehner’s statement, Root commented: “That’s how you become a communist or socialist nation.”
In September, Root announced that he was stepping down from his positions in the Libertarian Party to focus on helping elect Republicans to office who share his small-government values. He reasoned that it’s not enough to have a “philosophical foundation rooted in liberty” if you can’t win as a third-party candidate.
Root drew wide attention as the Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate in 2008 when he contended that although he and Obama were both pre-law and political science majors in Columbia’s class of 1983, he never even heard of Obama during his time at the university. None of the classmates with whom he’s spoken knew of him either, he claimed. A 2008 Wall Street Journal article cited a Fox News survey of 400 people who were Columbia students from 1981 to 1983 and found no one who remembered Obama.
Root said, "It’s telling that still no one from his Columbia days has come forward and declared any knowledge of Obama during that time."
“Every kid I went to school with was a liberal, trending toward Marxist. They all said it. They all said they were proud Marxists,” Root said. “You would think they would defend the president, and you would have students saying, ‘I knew him, and Wayne Root is wrong.’ No one has.”
"There’s just dead silence."
“Nobody saw him there. There is something wrong with the story, I am telling you.”
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Friday, May 10, 2013
The NLRB's Unfair And Criminal Labor Practice
The Washington Times (5/10/2013)
The impish lexicographer Ambrose Bierce defined a lawyer as someone “skilled in the circumvention of the law.” By that reckoning, the lawyers at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are among the most experienced lawyers in town.
Last week was to be the deadline for businesses to begin posting pro-union posters in the workplace. The NLRB had ordered this done, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit intervened, determining the board had no legal authority to do so. The judges rejected the argument that businesses promote “unfair labor practices” simply by refusing to promote a cause with which they strongly disagree.
Judge A. Raymond Randolph pointed out that “freedom of speech includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all.” The ruling corrects a clear-cut violation of the First Amendment.
The Court of Appeals reiterated the concern it had raised in January over the fundamental problem that the board itself is not validly constituted. The case, Canning v. National Labor Relations Board, concluded that President Obama violated the Constitution when he appointed board members while the Senate was in session without the advice and consent of the Senate.
Of course, anyone trying to circumvent the Constitution won’t be troubled by ignoring the ruling of the second-highest court in the land. Board Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce has been proceeding as if the ruling had never been made. “We keep our eye on the prize,” the chairman recently said, and he promoted a rule requiring employers to turn over private employee information including home addresses, emails and phone numbers to union organizers. The board has tried to punish companies for opening production facilities in right-to-work states. The board is now trying to cut in half the required time between the union filing for an election and the actual election. The change would set up an “ambush election” preventing employers from fully making their case. This would serve the interest of union bosses, not the employees and not the public.
Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee, hit it on the head when he said, “The Obama NLRB is determined to make union-organizing campaigns as one-sided as possible and to stifle the rights of employees who may oppose bringing a union into their workplace.”
The courts have done an effective job of telling the NLRB to stop what it’s trying to do to skew the process. If the NLRB won’t follow the law, Congress could consider citing an unfair labor practice, abolish the agency, and save taxpayers $300 million a year. The National Labor Relations Board is a New Deal relic that has outlived its purpose.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog.
.
The impish lexicographer Ambrose Bierce defined a lawyer as someone “skilled in the circumvention of the law.” By that reckoning, the lawyers at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are among the most experienced lawyers in town.
Last week was to be the deadline for businesses to begin posting pro-union posters in the workplace. The NLRB had ordered this done, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit intervened, determining the board had no legal authority to do so. The judges rejected the argument that businesses promote “unfair labor practices” simply by refusing to promote a cause with which they strongly disagree.
Judge A. Raymond Randolph pointed out that “freedom of speech includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all.” The ruling corrects a clear-cut violation of the First Amendment.
The Court of Appeals reiterated the concern it had raised in January over the fundamental problem that the board itself is not validly constituted. The case, Canning v. National Labor Relations Board, concluded that President Obama violated the Constitution when he appointed board members while the Senate was in session without the advice and consent of the Senate.
Of course, anyone trying to circumvent the Constitution won’t be troubled by ignoring the ruling of the second-highest court in the land. Board Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce has been proceeding as if the ruling had never been made. “We keep our eye on the prize,” the chairman recently said, and he promoted a rule requiring employers to turn over private employee information including home addresses, emails and phone numbers to union organizers. The board has tried to punish companies for opening production facilities in right-to-work states. The board is now trying to cut in half the required time between the union filing for an election and the actual election. The change would set up an “ambush election” preventing employers from fully making their case. This would serve the interest of union bosses, not the employees and not the public.
Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee, hit it on the head when he said, “The Obama NLRB is determined to make union-organizing campaigns as one-sided as possible and to stifle the rights of employees who may oppose bringing a union into their workplace.”
The courts have done an effective job of telling the NLRB to stop what it’s trying to do to skew the process. If the NLRB won’t follow the law, Congress could consider citing an unfair labor practice, abolish the agency, and save taxpayers $300 million a year. The National Labor Relations Board is a New Deal relic that has outlived its purpose.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog.
.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
"Common Core" And The All-Too-Common Tendencies Of Heavy-Handed Government
by Austin Hill
Is President Obama taking-over our nation’s public schools? Is a United Nations agenda infiltrating America’s K-12 classrooms? No, not exactly. Not Yet. But the so-called “Common Core” public education agenda could be paving the way for some serious trouble.Here are a few basic assumptions that people are making about Common Core – along with the facts of the matter.
Assumption # 1 : “Common Core” is a set of educational curriculum requirements being imposed on the states by the Obama Administration. Technically speaking, this is false. “Common Core,” whose official name is the “Common Core State Standards Initiative,” is not, itself, about curriculum. It is a set of academic standards that students in the various grade levels are expected to achieve. It has not been created by the Obama Administration, but rather, it is actually an effort that first emerged at the state level, undertaken by state governors and state superintendents of education nationwide. The official sponsoring organizations of the initiative are the National Governor’s Association (“NGA”), and the Council of Chief State School Officers (“CCSO”).
Attempts to impose academic standards on public educators date back to the early 1980’s. In the 1990’s it became a state-driven matter, while The federal No Child Left Behind Act, signed in to law by President George W Bush in January of 2002, required the states to create their own academic standards, and then to achieve them, in order to receive federal education funds.
During the past decade, state Governors and state education Superintendents began to collaborate in an effort to bring uniformity to their respective states’ academic standards, and today, there are three primary organizations that advance the Common Core agenda. The NGA and the CCSO, as noted above, remain as the official sponsoring organizations of the initiative. Separately, a group called Common Core, Inc., a non-profit, 501 (c) 3 organization based in Washington, D.C., writes curriculum (not academic standards) that is intended to help educators comply with Common Core Standards.
Assumption #2: The Common Core State Standards Initiative receives bipartisan support around the country. This is true. Both right-leaning and left-leaning individuals and groups across the U.S. support the Common Core initiative. The left-leaning American Federation of Teachers and the Fordham Institute, both champion the Common Core effort, as does the Foundation for Excellence In Education, an organization headed-up by the Republican former Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush. Similarly, both Republican and Democrat Governors - including Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter (R-Idaho), Governor Jerry Brown (D-California), and Governor Duval Patrick (D-Massachusetts), all support the Common Core effort.
Yet just as Common Core receives bipartisan support, it is also subject to bipartisan opposition. The conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation, along with libertarian leaning groups like the Pioneer Institute of Boston, opposes the Common Core effort. Glenda Ritz, a Democrat who currently serves as Indiana’s State Superintendent of Education, also opposes the Common Core initiative.
Ritz’ election in the heavily Republican state of Indiana is often cited as evidence of Common Core’s unpopularity. In November of 2012, Ritz unseated Indiana’s incumbent Republican State Superintendent, Dr. Tony Bennett, in part by campaigning against the Common Core initiative and claiming that Indiana’s adoption of the Common Core standards would result in a loss of state sovereignty. Ritz ended up receiving more votes in that election than did the new (and popular) Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence.
Assumption #3: The Common Core Initiative allows the U.S. Federal Government to directly control educational content nationwide. This is false. However, a scenario like this could come about indirectly.
Federal law prohibits the federal government from dictating educational curriculum content to the nation’s public schools. In fact, according to independent legal research conducted by the Pioneer Institute, no less than three separate statutes prohibit this from happening.
Yet on President Barack Obama’s watch, there has been a concerted effort within his administration to control public education with the Common Core agenda. Back in 2009 and 2010 when the administration was distributing so-called “stimulus” funds, the U.S. Department of Education devised what was called the “Race To The Top” initiative. Public schools could apply for and receive the stimulus money, but they had to meet specific criteria.
One of the criteria was for schools to adopt teacher evaluation procedures (this was a good thing, despite the outrage to the idea from teachers’ unions). Another criteria was for school districts to adopt higher “college and career standards” for students. And it just so happened that, in order to qualify for the stimulus funds, many states chose at that time to adopt the “Common Core” academic standards as a means of qualifying for the funds.
Interestingly, when the state of Massachusetts first applied for the “Race to the Top” stimulus funds in the first round of funds disbursements, the state had not yet officially adopted the Common Core standards, and ended up ranking only 13th among the 17 states that qualified for the “extra” funds. Later, after Massachusetts officially adopted the Common Core academic standards, the state received a #1 ranking when it next applied for the funds.
The lesson from Massachusetts was pretty clear. Adopt Common Core standards, and you’ll get more money from Washington. The Obama Administration could technically and legally mandate educational content to the states, but it has successfully used a “third party entity,” of sorts – the Common Core initiative – to have its way with the states. Given this precedent, it’s not difficult to see how the feds could eventually begin requiring certain types of curriculum for kids nationwide.
Many of the nation’s Governors and state school Superintendents who support Common Core still like to remind their constituents that the initiative is a “state thing,” not a “federal thing” – and, therefore, it’s a good thing. For them, to reject the agenda is to ignore their brilliance.
But all Americans should heed the warning: when a majority of the states begin to all do the same thing in terms of public policy, we, the people, become an easier target for federal control.
Comments are invited
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Is President Obama taking-over our nation’s public schools? Is a United Nations agenda infiltrating America’s K-12 classrooms? No, not exactly. Not Yet. But the so-called “Common Core” public education agenda could be paving the way for some serious trouble.Here are a few basic assumptions that people are making about Common Core – along with the facts of the matter.
Assumption # 1 : “Common Core” is a set of educational curriculum requirements being imposed on the states by the Obama Administration. Technically speaking, this is false. “Common Core,” whose official name is the “Common Core State Standards Initiative,” is not, itself, about curriculum. It is a set of academic standards that students in the various grade levels are expected to achieve. It has not been created by the Obama Administration, but rather, it is actually an effort that first emerged at the state level, undertaken by state governors and state superintendents of education nationwide. The official sponsoring organizations of the initiative are the National Governor’s Association (“NGA”), and the Council of Chief State School Officers (“CCSO”).
Attempts to impose academic standards on public educators date back to the early 1980’s. In the 1990’s it became a state-driven matter, while The federal No Child Left Behind Act, signed in to law by President George W Bush in January of 2002, required the states to create their own academic standards, and then to achieve them, in order to receive federal education funds.
During the past decade, state Governors and state education Superintendents began to collaborate in an effort to bring uniformity to their respective states’ academic standards, and today, there are three primary organizations that advance the Common Core agenda. The NGA and the CCSO, as noted above, remain as the official sponsoring organizations of the initiative. Separately, a group called Common Core, Inc., a non-profit, 501 (c) 3 organization based in Washington, D.C., writes curriculum (not academic standards) that is intended to help educators comply with Common Core Standards.
Assumption #2: The Common Core State Standards Initiative receives bipartisan support around the country. This is true. Both right-leaning and left-leaning individuals and groups across the U.S. support the Common Core initiative. The left-leaning American Federation of Teachers and the Fordham Institute, both champion the Common Core effort, as does the Foundation for Excellence In Education, an organization headed-up by the Republican former Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush. Similarly, both Republican and Democrat Governors - including Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter (R-Idaho), Governor Jerry Brown (D-California), and Governor Duval Patrick (D-Massachusetts), all support the Common Core effort.
Yet just as Common Core receives bipartisan support, it is also subject to bipartisan opposition. The conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation, along with libertarian leaning groups like the Pioneer Institute of Boston, opposes the Common Core effort. Glenda Ritz, a Democrat who currently serves as Indiana’s State Superintendent of Education, also opposes the Common Core initiative.
Ritz’ election in the heavily Republican state of Indiana is often cited as evidence of Common Core’s unpopularity. In November of 2012, Ritz unseated Indiana’s incumbent Republican State Superintendent, Dr. Tony Bennett, in part by campaigning against the Common Core initiative and claiming that Indiana’s adoption of the Common Core standards would result in a loss of state sovereignty. Ritz ended up receiving more votes in that election than did the new (and popular) Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence.
Assumption #3: The Common Core Initiative allows the U.S. Federal Government to directly control educational content nationwide. This is false. However, a scenario like this could come about indirectly.
Federal law prohibits the federal government from dictating educational curriculum content to the nation’s public schools. In fact, according to independent legal research conducted by the Pioneer Institute, no less than three separate statutes prohibit this from happening.
Yet on President Barack Obama’s watch, there has been a concerted effort within his administration to control public education with the Common Core agenda. Back in 2009 and 2010 when the administration was distributing so-called “stimulus” funds, the U.S. Department of Education devised what was called the “Race To The Top” initiative. Public schools could apply for and receive the stimulus money, but they had to meet specific criteria.
One of the criteria was for schools to adopt teacher evaluation procedures (this was a good thing, despite the outrage to the idea from teachers’ unions). Another criteria was for school districts to adopt higher “college and career standards” for students. And it just so happened that, in order to qualify for the stimulus funds, many states chose at that time to adopt the “Common Core” academic standards as a means of qualifying for the funds.
Interestingly, when the state of Massachusetts first applied for the “Race to the Top” stimulus funds in the first round of funds disbursements, the state had not yet officially adopted the Common Core standards, and ended up ranking only 13th among the 17 states that qualified for the “extra” funds. Later, after Massachusetts officially adopted the Common Core academic standards, the state received a #1 ranking when it next applied for the funds.
The lesson from Massachusetts was pretty clear. Adopt Common Core standards, and you’ll get more money from Washington. The Obama Administration could technically and legally mandate educational content to the states, but it has successfully used a “third party entity,” of sorts – the Common Core initiative – to have its way with the states. Given this precedent, it’s not difficult to see how the feds could eventually begin requiring certain types of curriculum for kids nationwide.
Many of the nation’s Governors and state school Superintendents who support Common Core still like to remind their constituents that the initiative is a “state thing,” not a “federal thing” – and, therefore, it’s a good thing. For them, to reject the agenda is to ignore their brilliance.
But all Americans should heed the warning: when a majority of the states begin to all do the same thing in terms of public policy, we, the people, become an easier target for federal control.
Comments are invited
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Friday, May 3, 2013
UN Report Wants Moratorium On Killer Robots
by Peter James Spielmann, AP
Killer robots that can attack targets without any human input "should not have the power of life and death over human beings," a new draft U.N. report says.
The report for the U.N. Human Rights Commission posted online this week deals with legal and philosophical issues involved in giving robots lethal powers over humans, echoing countless science-fiction novels and films. The debate dates to author Isaac Asimov's first rule for robots in the 1942 story "Runaround:" ''A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."
Report author Christof Heyns, a South African professor of human rights law, calls for a worldwide moratorium on the "testing, production, assembly, transfer, acquisition, deployment and use" of killer robots until an international conference can develop rules for their use.
His findings are due to be debated at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on May 29.
According to the report, the United States, Britain, Israel, South Korea and Japan have developed various types of fully or semi-autonomous weapons.
In the report, Heyns focuses on a new generation of weapons that choose their targets and execute them. He calls them "lethal autonomous robotics," or LARs for short, and says: "Decisions over life and death in armed conflict may require compassion and intuition. Humans — while they are fallible — at least might possess these qualities, whereas robots definitely do not."
He notes the arguments of robot proponents that death-dealing autonomous weapons "will not be susceptible to some of the human shortcomings that may undermine the protection of life. Typically they would not act out of revenge, panic, anger, spite, prejudice or fear. Moreover, unless specifically programmed to do so, robots would not cause intentional suffering on civilian populations, for example through torture. Robots also do not rape."
The report goes beyond the recent debate over drone killings of al-Qaida suspects and nearby civilians who are maimed or killed in the air strikes. Drones do have human oversight. The killer robots are programmed to make autonomous decisions on the spot without orders from humans.
Heyns' report notes the increasing use of drones, which "enable those who control lethal force not to be physically present when it is deployed, but rather to activate it while sitting behind computers in faraway places, and stay out of the line of fire.
"Lethal autonomous robotics (LARs), if added to the arsenals of States, would add a new dimension to this distancing, in that targeting decisions could be taken by the robots themselves. In addition to being physically removed from the kinetic action, humans would also become more detached from decisions to kill - and their execution," he wrote.
His report cites these examples, among others, of fully or semi-autonomous weapons that have been developed:
— The U.S. Phalanx system for Aegis-class cruisers, which automatically detects, tracks and engages anti-air warfare threats such as anti-ship missiles and aircraft.
— Israel's Harpy, a "Fire-and-Forget" autonomous weapon system designed to detect, attack and destroy radar emitters.
— Britain's Taranis jet-propelled combat drone prototype that can autonomously search, identify and locate enemies but can only engage with a target when authorized by mission command. It also can defend itself against enemy aircraft.
— The Samsung Techwin surveillance and security guard robots, deployed in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, to detect targets through infrared sensors. They are currently operated by humans but have an "automatic mode."
Current weapons systems are supposed to have some degree of human oversight. But Heyns notes that "the power to override may in reality be limited because the decision-making processes of robots are often measured in nanoseconds and the informational basis of those decisions may not be practically accessible to the supervisor. In such circumstances humans are de facto out of the loop and the machines thus effectively constitute LARs," or killer robots.
Separately, another U.N. expert, British lawyer Ben Emmerson, is preparing a special investigation for the U.N. General Assembly this year on drone warfare and targeted killings.
His probe was requested by Pakistan, which officially opposes the use of U.S. drones on its territory as an infringement on its sovereignty but is believed to have tacitly approved some strikes in the past. Pakistani officials say the drone strikes kill many innocent civilians, which the U.S. has rejected. The other two countries requesting the investigation were two permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China.
In April, an alliance of activist and humanitarian groups led by Human Rights Watch launched the "Campaign to Stop Killer Robots" to push for a ban on fully autonomous weapons. The group applauded Heyns' draft report in a statement on its web site.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Killer robots that can attack targets without any human input "should not have the power of life and death over human beings," a new draft U.N. report says.
The report for the U.N. Human Rights Commission posted online this week deals with legal and philosophical issues involved in giving robots lethal powers over humans, echoing countless science-fiction novels and films. The debate dates to author Isaac Asimov's first rule for robots in the 1942 story "Runaround:" ''A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."
Report author Christof Heyns, a South African professor of human rights law, calls for a worldwide moratorium on the "testing, production, assembly, transfer, acquisition, deployment and use" of killer robots until an international conference can develop rules for their use.
His findings are due to be debated at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on May 29.
According to the report, the United States, Britain, Israel, South Korea and Japan have developed various types of fully or semi-autonomous weapons.
In the report, Heyns focuses on a new generation of weapons that choose their targets and execute them. He calls them "lethal autonomous robotics," or LARs for short, and says: "Decisions over life and death in armed conflict may require compassion and intuition. Humans — while they are fallible — at least might possess these qualities, whereas robots definitely do not."
He notes the arguments of robot proponents that death-dealing autonomous weapons "will not be susceptible to some of the human shortcomings that may undermine the protection of life. Typically they would not act out of revenge, panic, anger, spite, prejudice or fear. Moreover, unless specifically programmed to do so, robots would not cause intentional suffering on civilian populations, for example through torture. Robots also do not rape."
The report goes beyond the recent debate over drone killings of al-Qaida suspects and nearby civilians who are maimed or killed in the air strikes. Drones do have human oversight. The killer robots are programmed to make autonomous decisions on the spot without orders from humans.
Heyns' report notes the increasing use of drones, which "enable those who control lethal force not to be physically present when it is deployed, but rather to activate it while sitting behind computers in faraway places, and stay out of the line of fire.
"Lethal autonomous robotics (LARs), if added to the arsenals of States, would add a new dimension to this distancing, in that targeting decisions could be taken by the robots themselves. In addition to being physically removed from the kinetic action, humans would also become more detached from decisions to kill - and their execution," he wrote.
His report cites these examples, among others, of fully or semi-autonomous weapons that have been developed:
— The U.S. Phalanx system for Aegis-class cruisers, which automatically detects, tracks and engages anti-air warfare threats such as anti-ship missiles and aircraft.
— Israel's Harpy, a "Fire-and-Forget" autonomous weapon system designed to detect, attack and destroy radar emitters.
— Britain's Taranis jet-propelled combat drone prototype that can autonomously search, identify and locate enemies but can only engage with a target when authorized by mission command. It also can defend itself against enemy aircraft.
— The Samsung Techwin surveillance and security guard robots, deployed in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, to detect targets through infrared sensors. They are currently operated by humans but have an "automatic mode."
Current weapons systems are supposed to have some degree of human oversight. But Heyns notes that "the power to override may in reality be limited because the decision-making processes of robots are often measured in nanoseconds and the informational basis of those decisions may not be practically accessible to the supervisor. In such circumstances humans are de facto out of the loop and the machines thus effectively constitute LARs," or killer robots.
Separately, another U.N. expert, British lawyer Ben Emmerson, is preparing a special investigation for the U.N. General Assembly this year on drone warfare and targeted killings.
His probe was requested by Pakistan, which officially opposes the use of U.S. drones on its territory as an infringement on its sovereignty but is believed to have tacitly approved some strikes in the past. Pakistani officials say the drone strikes kill many innocent civilians, which the U.S. has rejected. The other two countries requesting the investigation were two permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China.
In April, an alliance of activist and humanitarian groups led by Human Rights Watch launched the "Campaign to Stop Killer Robots" to push for a ban on fully autonomous weapons. The group applauded Heyns' draft report in a statement on its web site.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
The High Cost Of Zero
New EPA regulations will cost billions with no detectable results
by Paul Driessen
The count is 1,920, and rising. That’s how many regulations President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has promulgated since his 2009 inauguration. Many, if not most, will bring few health or environmental benefits — but will impose high economic and unemployment costs, often to advance the administration’s unabashedly anti-hydrocarbon agenda.
The Heritage Foundation calculates that the EPA’s 20 “major” rule-making decisions to date (costing $100 million or more annually) alone could cost the United States more than $36 billion per year.The latest in this regulatory tsunami involves a third layer of rules that the agency claims will further improve air quality by forcing refineries to remove yet more sulfur from gasoline. The so-called Tier 3 rules need to be examined in the context of U.S. air-pollution history.
Since 1970, America’s cars have eliminated 99 percent of pollutants that once came out of tailpipes. “Today’s cars are essentially zero-emission vehicles, compared to 1970 models,” says air pollution expert Joel Schwartz, co-author of “Air Quality in America.”
Recent models start out cleaner and stay cleaner throughout their lives, he adds. “As a result, fleet turnover has been reducing on-road emissions by an average of about 8 [percent] to 10 percent per year.” Over time, that has brought tremendously improved air quality, and continues to do so.
Since 2004 under Tier 1 and 2 rules, refiners have reduced sulfur in gasoline from an average of 300 parts per million to 30 ppm — a 90 percent drop. By 2022, existing emission-reduction requirements will slash volatile organic pollutants by an additional 62 percent, carbon monoxide by another 51 percent and nitrous oxides 80 percent — on top of reductions achieved between 1970 and 2004.
Even this doesn’t satisfy federal regulators. Now the EPA wants sulfur levels slashed to 10 parts per million — even though the agency’s own computer models demonstrate that Tier 3 rules would yield essentially no air quality or health benefits, when earlier and ongoing reductions are factored in.In fact, Tier 3 improvements would reduce monthly ozone levels by barely 0.5 parts per billion on average to 1.2 parts per billion at peak levels, according to estimates by Environ International Corp., using EPA models. To illustrate how tiny a cut this is, it’s equivalent to saving 5 to 12 cents out of $100 million. These reductions could not even have been measured by equipment existing a couple decades ago. The improvement to human health would be essentially zero.
However, the new Tier 3 standards would cost $10 billion in upfront capital expenditures and an additional $2.4 billion in annual compliance expenses, the American Petroleum Institute and other industry experts say. They will raise the price of gasoline by 6 to 9 cents a gallon, on top of new state fuel-tax hikes and gasoline prices that have rocketed from $1.79 to $3.51 per gallon of regular unleaded under Mr. Obama.
These costs ripple throughout the economy, affecting job creation and retention, the price of goods and services, commuting costs and the price tag on family vacations. They kill jobs and harm poor families most of all.Moreover, these Tier 3 rules are loaded on top of carbon-dioxide, mercury, particulate, water-quality and numerous other rules that are being imposed to address risks and achieve benefits that exist only in EPA and environmental-activist computer models, press releases and fear campaigns. They are an integral part of the administration’s war on coal and other fossil fuels.Another serious problem is that the EPA always assumes there is no safe threshold level for pollutants and that they must constantly be ratcheted downward, eventually to zero. This flies in the face of what any competent epidemiologist knows: The dose makes the poison.
There is a point below which a chemical is not harmful. There are even chemicals that at low or trace quantities are essential to proper operation of our muscular, brain and other bodily functions but at higher doses, can be poisonous. There are also low-level chemical, radiation and pathogen exposures that actually safeguard our bodies from cancer, illness and other damage, in a process known as hormesis.
The EPA thinks the additional pollution reductions demanded by its Tier 3 sulfur rules and thousands of other regulations are technologically possible. The prevailing attitude seems to be: If it can be done, the agency will require it, no matter how high the costs or how minimal the benefits.
Coal, oil and natural gas provide 84 percent of the energy that powers America and makes our health and living standards possible. Wind, solar and biofuel sources provide less than 4 percent — and have serious health and environmental problems of their own.The enormous air- and water-quality improvements to date are adequate for now, absent clear and convincing evidence that further pollution reductions are needed to safeguard human health. We have other crucial health, environmental, employment and economic problems to solve, which also affect human health and welfare.
The EPA’s actions are forcing us to expend vast financial, human and technological resources to achieve minimal, or even zero, quantifiable health benefits. We need science-based standards and common-sense regulations. Scrapping the unnecessary Tier 3 rules is a good place to start. Citizens and lawmakers need to make certain the EPA and the president get the message.
Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and author of “Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death”.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
by Paul Driessen
The count is 1,920, and rising. That’s how many regulations President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has promulgated since his 2009 inauguration. Many, if not most, will bring few health or environmental benefits — but will impose high economic and unemployment costs, often to advance the administration’s unabashedly anti-hydrocarbon agenda.
The Heritage Foundation calculates that the EPA’s 20 “major” rule-making decisions to date (costing $100 million or more annually) alone could cost the United States more than $36 billion per year.The latest in this regulatory tsunami involves a third layer of rules that the agency claims will further improve air quality by forcing refineries to remove yet more sulfur from gasoline. The so-called Tier 3 rules need to be examined in the context of U.S. air-pollution history.
Since 1970, America’s cars have eliminated 99 percent of pollutants that once came out of tailpipes. “Today’s cars are essentially zero-emission vehicles, compared to 1970 models,” says air pollution expert Joel Schwartz, co-author of “Air Quality in America.”
Recent models start out cleaner and stay cleaner throughout their lives, he adds. “As a result, fleet turnover has been reducing on-road emissions by an average of about 8 [percent] to 10 percent per year.” Over time, that has brought tremendously improved air quality, and continues to do so.
Since 2004 under Tier 1 and 2 rules, refiners have reduced sulfur in gasoline from an average of 300 parts per million to 30 ppm — a 90 percent drop. By 2022, existing emission-reduction requirements will slash volatile organic pollutants by an additional 62 percent, carbon monoxide by another 51 percent and nitrous oxides 80 percent — on top of reductions achieved between 1970 and 2004.
Even this doesn’t satisfy federal regulators. Now the EPA wants sulfur levels slashed to 10 parts per million — even though the agency’s own computer models demonstrate that Tier 3 rules would yield essentially no air quality or health benefits, when earlier and ongoing reductions are factored in.In fact, Tier 3 improvements would reduce monthly ozone levels by barely 0.5 parts per billion on average to 1.2 parts per billion at peak levels, according to estimates by Environ International Corp., using EPA models. To illustrate how tiny a cut this is, it’s equivalent to saving 5 to 12 cents out of $100 million. These reductions could not even have been measured by equipment existing a couple decades ago. The improvement to human health would be essentially zero.
However, the new Tier 3 standards would cost $10 billion in upfront capital expenditures and an additional $2.4 billion in annual compliance expenses, the American Petroleum Institute and other industry experts say. They will raise the price of gasoline by 6 to 9 cents a gallon, on top of new state fuel-tax hikes and gasoline prices that have rocketed from $1.79 to $3.51 per gallon of regular unleaded under Mr. Obama.
These costs ripple throughout the economy, affecting job creation and retention, the price of goods and services, commuting costs and the price tag on family vacations. They kill jobs and harm poor families most of all.Moreover, these Tier 3 rules are loaded on top of carbon-dioxide, mercury, particulate, water-quality and numerous other rules that are being imposed to address risks and achieve benefits that exist only in EPA and environmental-activist computer models, press releases and fear campaigns. They are an integral part of the administration’s war on coal and other fossil fuels.Another serious problem is that the EPA always assumes there is no safe threshold level for pollutants and that they must constantly be ratcheted downward, eventually to zero. This flies in the face of what any competent epidemiologist knows: The dose makes the poison.
There is a point below which a chemical is not harmful. There are even chemicals that at low or trace quantities are essential to proper operation of our muscular, brain and other bodily functions but at higher doses, can be poisonous. There are also low-level chemical, radiation and pathogen exposures that actually safeguard our bodies from cancer, illness and other damage, in a process known as hormesis.
The EPA thinks the additional pollution reductions demanded by its Tier 3 sulfur rules and thousands of other regulations are technologically possible. The prevailing attitude seems to be: If it can be done, the agency will require it, no matter how high the costs or how minimal the benefits.
Coal, oil and natural gas provide 84 percent of the energy that powers America and makes our health and living standards possible. Wind, solar and biofuel sources provide less than 4 percent — and have serious health and environmental problems of their own.The enormous air- and water-quality improvements to date are adequate for now, absent clear and convincing evidence that further pollution reductions are needed to safeguard human health. We have other crucial health, environmental, employment and economic problems to solve, which also affect human health and welfare.
The EPA’s actions are forcing us to expend vast financial, human and technological resources to achieve minimal, or even zero, quantifiable health benefits. We need science-based standards and common-sense regulations. Scrapping the unnecessary Tier 3 rules is a good place to start. Citizens and lawmakers need to make certain the EPA and the president get the message.
Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and author of “Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death”.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Obama: Risking Lives In The Name Of Politics
There is absolutely no reason for the “Sequestration” to have cut any government services outside of the Military.
We keep getting emails from people that do not understand why “Sequestration” was not a real cut in spending. One of the more resent emails shed some light on why people don’t grasp the situation. The author offered this, “We ordinary folks just don’t think in terms like trillions, billions and millions.”
So let’s try explaining in terms that 'ordinary folks' will understand.
Assume that you earn $500 per week and your boss has expressed his intent to increase your pay by $50 per week on May 1. May 1 arrives and your boss tells you that sales have been less than expected and you will only get an increase of $45 per week. You now have a salary of $545 per week. Not what you expected but still a nice 9% raise. You my friend have been “Sequestered”. I don’t know about you, but I would have welcomed that type of 'pay cut' every year.
The reason that services are being cut is because and only because your President is having a temper-tantrum in response to his being denied a second $800 Billion tax increase on the top 1%; less than two months after getting an $800 Billion tax increase on the same group!
Obama has ordered every agency to make “Sequestration” as “painful as possible” for everyone!
He wants you to push Congress to increase taxes and also to make you believe that it is the Republicans fault on every single issue, so that he can finish screwing the nation when you give him a Democrat controlled House in 2014!
The most insidious of these White House mandated cut backs (Sequestration was Obama’s brain child) in services is the furloughing of air-traffic controllers.
Note: An addition tidbit--It is a fact that the FAA has a larger budget than Obama had proposed for 2013.
The major problem with furloughing the flight-controllers is that an already burdened system has become dangerously more overloaded. This exposes passengers and air crews at a far greater risk than is necessary. In addition to the inconvenience of delays and cancelled flights that Mr. Obama has hoisted on the air travelers, the already fragile airlines are losing Millions of dollars per day—some airlines may not survive!
The Department of Defense (DOD) is seriously impacted by Sequestration. The DOD had a real budget cut of 11% ($50 Billion) from their 2012 budget ($455 Billion) before Sequestration. One half of the total Sequestration or $44 Billion were piled on the DOD budget. As a result DOD has real budget cuts totaling $94 Billion (21%) less than they had in 2012.
Furthermore, the White House will not permit the DOD to make the cuts in a prudent manor.
This administration is completely void of honesty, leadership, common sense, and could not care less about American citizens regardless of skin color.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
We keep getting emails from people that do not understand why “Sequestration” was not a real cut in spending. One of the more resent emails shed some light on why people don’t grasp the situation. The author offered this, “We ordinary folks just don’t think in terms like trillions, billions and millions.”
So let’s try explaining in terms that 'ordinary folks' will understand.
Assume that you earn $500 per week and your boss has expressed his intent to increase your pay by $50 per week on May 1. May 1 arrives and your boss tells you that sales have been less than expected and you will only get an increase of $45 per week. You now have a salary of $545 per week. Not what you expected but still a nice 9% raise. You my friend have been “Sequestered”. I don’t know about you, but I would have welcomed that type of 'pay cut' every year.
The reason that services are being cut is because and only because your President is having a temper-tantrum in response to his being denied a second $800 Billion tax increase on the top 1%; less than two months after getting an $800 Billion tax increase on the same group!
Obama has ordered every agency to make “Sequestration” as “painful as possible” for everyone!
He wants you to push Congress to increase taxes and also to make you believe that it is the Republicans fault on every single issue, so that he can finish screwing the nation when you give him a Democrat controlled House in 2014!
The most insidious of these White House mandated cut backs (Sequestration was Obama’s brain child) in services is the furloughing of air-traffic controllers.
Note: An addition tidbit--It is a fact that the FAA has a larger budget than Obama had proposed for 2013.
The major problem with furloughing the flight-controllers is that an already burdened system has become dangerously more overloaded. This exposes passengers and air crews at a far greater risk than is necessary. In addition to the inconvenience of delays and cancelled flights that Mr. Obama has hoisted on the air travelers, the already fragile airlines are losing Millions of dollars per day—some airlines may not survive!
The Department of Defense (DOD) is seriously impacted by Sequestration. The DOD had a real budget cut of 11% ($50 Billion) from their 2012 budget ($455 Billion) before Sequestration. One half of the total Sequestration or $44 Billion were piled on the DOD budget. As a result DOD has real budget cuts totaling $94 Billion (21%) less than they had in 2012.
Furthermore, the White House will not permit the DOD to make the cuts in a prudent manor.
This administration is completely void of honesty, leadership, common sense, and could not care less about American citizens regardless of skin color.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Profits! Hating Them When They’re High, And Panicking When They’re Low
by Austin Hill
Breaking news: some of America’s largest corporations have begun to report declining profits. For those that are offended by highly profitable corporations, this should be really great news.
But nobody is celebrating. In fact, the sagging profits reports are thought to be such a bad thing that some believe they sent the Dow sliding downward last week, for fear that a global recession has arrived.
If profits are such a terrible thing, why aren’t we relieved by their decline?
For the record, I have no idea whether or not a recession is eminent. And to the extent that economic activity is nearly impossible to predict with precision, nobody else knows either.
But regardless of whether the economy is moving up or down, Americans need to grapple with this “love-hate” attitude towards profitable enterprise. And let’s start with a couple of philosophical questions: Are profits always a good thing for a company to produce? And is it okay for one company to be really, really, profitable, even when other companies are not?
In some spheres of life – collegiate and professional athletic competitions, for example –Americans have no problem accepting the fact that with each match-up, some will succeed while others fail. Yet when it comes to business, success in producing profits is often seen as merely a necessary evil – and only acceptable if the profits aren’t “excessive.”
Part of the dilemma may well be that far too many Americans assume economics to be, as the term goes, a ‘zero-sum game.” Just as it is the case in many sporting events that one team wins and the other loses, so also it is assumed that if one individual or group is profitable, it necessarily causes somebody else’s unprofitability.
That, of course, is a false assumption. In our competitive free market economy, success with one enterprise often creates new markets in which other companies can succeed.
An easily understood example of this is the coffee house industry. In the 1980’s, Starbucks took the concept of the local coffee house where people meet and spend time together and drink beverages, and turned it in to a global business phenomena. And since the earliest beginnings of Starbucks, several other coffee house chains have been launched - Moxie Java, Tully’s Coffee, and Caribou Coffee to name a few - as an effort to capitalize on the burgeoning coffee house market. While today Starbucks remains the largest chain of its kind, these other newer and smaller companies have nonetheless benefited from Starbucks’ success, in as much as Starbucks essentially created the market for the modern-day coffee house in the first place.
But economic realities are one thing, and people’s perceptions are something different. And at present America is surrounded by an ever-present hostility towards profitable businesses – much of which emanates from the highest levels of our government.
Some of us saw this era of hostility coming. Back in 2008 while he was campaigning for the presidency, Then-Senator Obama made it a point to chastise American businesses nearly every time a robust earnings report was published. In the summer of that year, as an example, speaking to a stadium full of adoring followers, the President-to-be made it clear his disdain for the petroleum industry:
“First of all,” candidate Obama stated, “you’ve got oil companies making record profits…no… no companies in history have made the kind of profits the oil companies are makin’ right now…They..they…….one company, Exxon Mobil, made eleven billion dollars…billion, with a “b” ….last quarter….they made eleven billion dollars the quarter before that…makin’ money hand-over-fist…makin’ out like bandits…”
Imagine that! “Makin’ out like bandits” – that’s an amazing assessment of a successful business enterprise, suggesting that posting profits is tantamount to thievery. Of course at that moment in time, the early signs of a recession were appearing, and it was politically viable to send the message that “if we can’t all prosper right now, then none of us should prosper right now,” and his vitriol over the profitability of the Exxon Mobil Corporation played well with the crowd.
Yet Mr. Obama’s disdain for business “profits” has continued throughout his presidency. Fast forward to February 7th of 2011 when the President addressed an audience of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Speaking of the improving balance sheets that were emerging within many American companies at that time, President Obama stated: “The benefits can’t just translate into greater bonuses and profits for those at the top. They have to be shared by American workers, who need to know that expanding trade and opening markets will lift their standards of living, as well as your bottom line…”
Of course, we’re talking here about our Ivy League-graduate President. Surely he, of all people, understands that profits aren’t simply “shared” - they are “earned.” And surely he realizes that when a company is profitable, it’s not merely the C.E.O. that benefits (investors, employees, and customers benefit from profitability as well). Certainly the President of the United States understands these most basic concepts of free market enterprise.
But we never hear that from our President. Nor do we hear much praise at all for successful, profitable enterprise from anybody in our government. It’s usually anger and disgust when profits are good, and promises of intervention and “stimulus” when profits are bad.
It’s a very self-serving and destructive game that our politicians play. And they will keep on playing, until Americans come to terms with profits.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Breaking news: some of America’s largest corporations have begun to report declining profits. For those that are offended by highly profitable corporations, this should be really great news.
But nobody is celebrating. In fact, the sagging profits reports are thought to be such a bad thing that some believe they sent the Dow sliding downward last week, for fear that a global recession has arrived.
If profits are such a terrible thing, why aren’t we relieved by their decline?
For the record, I have no idea whether or not a recession is eminent. And to the extent that economic activity is nearly impossible to predict with precision, nobody else knows either.
But regardless of whether the economy is moving up or down, Americans need to grapple with this “love-hate” attitude towards profitable enterprise. And let’s start with a couple of philosophical questions: Are profits always a good thing for a company to produce? And is it okay for one company to be really, really, profitable, even when other companies are not?
In some spheres of life – collegiate and professional athletic competitions, for example –Americans have no problem accepting the fact that with each match-up, some will succeed while others fail. Yet when it comes to business, success in producing profits is often seen as merely a necessary evil – and only acceptable if the profits aren’t “excessive.”
Part of the dilemma may well be that far too many Americans assume economics to be, as the term goes, a ‘zero-sum game.” Just as it is the case in many sporting events that one team wins and the other loses, so also it is assumed that if one individual or group is profitable, it necessarily causes somebody else’s unprofitability.
That, of course, is a false assumption. In our competitive free market economy, success with one enterprise often creates new markets in which other companies can succeed.
An easily understood example of this is the coffee house industry. In the 1980’s, Starbucks took the concept of the local coffee house where people meet and spend time together and drink beverages, and turned it in to a global business phenomena. And since the earliest beginnings of Starbucks, several other coffee house chains have been launched - Moxie Java, Tully’s Coffee, and Caribou Coffee to name a few - as an effort to capitalize on the burgeoning coffee house market. While today Starbucks remains the largest chain of its kind, these other newer and smaller companies have nonetheless benefited from Starbucks’ success, in as much as Starbucks essentially created the market for the modern-day coffee house in the first place.
But economic realities are one thing, and people’s perceptions are something different. And at present America is surrounded by an ever-present hostility towards profitable businesses – much of which emanates from the highest levels of our government.
Some of us saw this era of hostility coming. Back in 2008 while he was campaigning for the presidency, Then-Senator Obama made it a point to chastise American businesses nearly every time a robust earnings report was published. In the summer of that year, as an example, speaking to a stadium full of adoring followers, the President-to-be made it clear his disdain for the petroleum industry:
“First of all,” candidate Obama stated, “you’ve got oil companies making record profits…no… no companies in history have made the kind of profits the oil companies are makin’ right now…They..they…….one company, Exxon Mobil, made eleven billion dollars…billion, with a “b” ….last quarter….they made eleven billion dollars the quarter before that…makin’ money hand-over-fist…makin’ out like bandits…”
Imagine that! “Makin’ out like bandits” – that’s an amazing assessment of a successful business enterprise, suggesting that posting profits is tantamount to thievery. Of course at that moment in time, the early signs of a recession were appearing, and it was politically viable to send the message that “if we can’t all prosper right now, then none of us should prosper right now,” and his vitriol over the profitability of the Exxon Mobil Corporation played well with the crowd.
Yet Mr. Obama’s disdain for business “profits” has continued throughout his presidency. Fast forward to February 7th of 2011 when the President addressed an audience of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Speaking of the improving balance sheets that were emerging within many American companies at that time, President Obama stated: “The benefits can’t just translate into greater bonuses and profits for those at the top. They have to be shared by American workers, who need to know that expanding trade and opening markets will lift their standards of living, as well as your bottom line…”
Of course, we’re talking here about our Ivy League-graduate President. Surely he, of all people, understands that profits aren’t simply “shared” - they are “earned.” And surely he realizes that when a company is profitable, it’s not merely the C.E.O. that benefits (investors, employees, and customers benefit from profitability as well). Certainly the President of the United States understands these most basic concepts of free market enterprise.
But we never hear that from our President. Nor do we hear much praise at all for successful, profitable enterprise from anybody in our government. It’s usually anger and disgust when profits are good, and promises of intervention and “stimulus” when profits are bad.
It’s a very self-serving and destructive game that our politicians play. And they will keep on playing, until Americans come to terms with profits.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
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Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Fact-Free Gun-Control Crusaders
by Thomas Sowell
Amid all the heated, emotional advocacy of gun control, have you ever heard even one person present convincing hard evidence that tighter gun control laws have in fact reduced murders?
Think about all the states, communities within states, as well as foreign countries, that have either tight gun control laws or loose or non-existent gun control laws. With so many variations and so many sources of evidence available, surely there would be some compelling evidence somewhere if tighter gun control laws actually reduced the murder rate.
And if tighter gun control laws don’t actually reduce the murder rate, then why are we being stampeded toward such laws after every shooting that gets media attention?
Have the media outlets that you follow ever even mentioned that some studies have produced evidence that murder rates tend to be higher in places with tight gun control laws?
The dirty little secret is that gun control laws do not actually control guns. They disarm law-abiding citizens, making them more vulnerable to criminals, who remain armed in disregard of such laws.
In England, armed crimes skyrocketed as legal gun ownership almost vanished under increasingly severe gun control laws in the late 20th century. (See the book “Guns and Violence” by Joyce Lee Malcolm). But gun control has become one of those fact-free crusades, based on assumptions, emotions and rhetoric.
What almost no one talks about is that guns are used to defend lives as well as to take lives. In fact, many of the horrific killings that we see in the media were brought to an end when someone else with a gun showed up and put a stop to the slaughter.
The Cato Institute estimates upwards of 100,000 defensive uses of guns per year. Preventing law-abiding citizens from defending themselves can cost far more lives than are lost in the shooting episodes that the media publicize. The lives saved by guns are no less precious, just because the media pay no attention to them.
Many people who have never fired a gun in their lives, and never faced life-threatening dangers, nevertheless feel qualified to impose legal restrictions that can be fatal to others. And politicians eager to “do something” that gets them publicity know that the votes of the ignorant and the gullible are still votes.
Virtually nothing that is being proposed in current gun control legislation is likely to reduce murder rates.
Restricting the magazine capacity available to law-abiding citizens will not restrict the magazine capacity of people who are not law-abiding citizens. Such restrictions just mean that the law-abiding citizen is likely to run out of ammunition first.
Someone would have to be an incredible sharpshooter to fend off three home invaders with just seven shots at moving targets. But seven is the magic number of bullets allowed in a magazine under New York State’s new gun control laPeople who support such laws seem to blithely assume that they are limiting the damage that can be done by criminals or the mentally ill – as if criminals or mad men care about such laws.
Banning so-called “assault weapons” is a farce, as well as a fraud, because there is no concrete definition of an assault weapon. That is why so many guns have to be specified by name in such bans – and the ones specified to be banned are typically no more dangerous than others that are not specified.
Some people may think that “assault weapons” means automatic weapons. But automatic weapons were banned decades ago. Banning ugly-looking “assault weapons” may have aesthetic benefits, but it does not reduce the dangers to human life in the slightest. You are just as dead when killed by a very plain-looking gun.
One of the dangerous inconsistencies of many, if not most, gun control crusaders is that those who are most zealous to get guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens are often not nearly as concerned about keeping violent criminals behind bars.
Leniency toward criminals has long been part of the pattern of gun control zealots on both sides of the Atlantic. When the insatiable desire to crack down on law-abiding citizens with guns is combined with an attitude of leniency toward criminals, it can hardly be surprising when tighter gun control laws are accompanied by rising rates of crime, including murders.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif. He is the author of 28 books, including "Dismantling America" and "Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy."
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Amid all the heated, emotional advocacy of gun control, have you ever heard even one person present convincing hard evidence that tighter gun control laws have in fact reduced murders?
Think about all the states, communities within states, as well as foreign countries, that have either tight gun control laws or loose or non-existent gun control laws. With so many variations and so many sources of evidence available, surely there would be some compelling evidence somewhere if tighter gun control laws actually reduced the murder rate.
And if tighter gun control laws don’t actually reduce the murder rate, then why are we being stampeded toward such laws after every shooting that gets media attention?
Have the media outlets that you follow ever even mentioned that some studies have produced evidence that murder rates tend to be higher in places with tight gun control laws?
The dirty little secret is that gun control laws do not actually control guns. They disarm law-abiding citizens, making them more vulnerable to criminals, who remain armed in disregard of such laws.
In England, armed crimes skyrocketed as legal gun ownership almost vanished under increasingly severe gun control laws in the late 20th century. (See the book “Guns and Violence” by Joyce Lee Malcolm). But gun control has become one of those fact-free crusades, based on assumptions, emotions and rhetoric.
What almost no one talks about is that guns are used to defend lives as well as to take lives. In fact, many of the horrific killings that we see in the media were brought to an end when someone else with a gun showed up and put a stop to the slaughter.
The Cato Institute estimates upwards of 100,000 defensive uses of guns per year. Preventing law-abiding citizens from defending themselves can cost far more lives than are lost in the shooting episodes that the media publicize. The lives saved by guns are no less precious, just because the media pay no attention to them.
Many people who have never fired a gun in their lives, and never faced life-threatening dangers, nevertheless feel qualified to impose legal restrictions that can be fatal to others. And politicians eager to “do something” that gets them publicity know that the votes of the ignorant and the gullible are still votes.
Virtually nothing that is being proposed in current gun control legislation is likely to reduce murder rates.
Restricting the magazine capacity available to law-abiding citizens will not restrict the magazine capacity of people who are not law-abiding citizens. Such restrictions just mean that the law-abiding citizen is likely to run out of ammunition first.
Someone would have to be an incredible sharpshooter to fend off three home invaders with just seven shots at moving targets. But seven is the magic number of bullets allowed in a magazine under New York State’s new gun control laPeople who support such laws seem to blithely assume that they are limiting the damage that can be done by criminals or the mentally ill – as if criminals or mad men care about such laws.
Banning so-called “assault weapons” is a farce, as well as a fraud, because there is no concrete definition of an assault weapon. That is why so many guns have to be specified by name in such bans – and the ones specified to be banned are typically no more dangerous than others that are not specified.
Some people may think that “assault weapons” means automatic weapons. But automatic weapons were banned decades ago. Banning ugly-looking “assault weapons” may have aesthetic benefits, but it does not reduce the dangers to human life in the slightest. You are just as dead when killed by a very plain-looking gun.
One of the dangerous inconsistencies of many, if not most, gun control crusaders is that those who are most zealous to get guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens are often not nearly as concerned about keeping violent criminals behind bars.
Leniency toward criminals has long been part of the pattern of gun control zealots on both sides of the Atlantic. When the insatiable desire to crack down on law-abiding citizens with guns is combined with an attitude of leniency toward criminals, it can hardly be surprising when tighter gun control laws are accompanied by rising rates of crime, including murders.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif. He is the author of 28 books, including "Dismantling America" and "Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy."
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Can America “Minimum Wage” Itself To Prosperity?
by Austin Hill
What happens when the U.S. Secretary of Labor visits a church in Charlotte? If an incident earlier this month is any indication, faulty political promises and destructive economic policies continue to spread.
It took place on April 3rd. Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Seth Harris made an appearance at a Baptist Church in North Carolina’s largest city, along with Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx. He was visiting to promote President Obama’s proposal of elevating the federal minimum wage requirement from the current $7.25 to $9.00 an hour.
Harris and Foxx gathered in a large room within a Baptist church building. They sat in a large circle with several “average” (which means “hand-picked, pre-screened, and pre-approved by the Labor Department”) Americans living in Charlotte who work at jobs that pay only minimum wage. As news microphones and cameras caught all the action, Harris facilitated a “discussion” with the minimum wage earning Charlottean’s, and explained how their lives would benefit from the President’s new proposed mandate.
Harris told the group participants that if the minimum wage requirement was raised to $9 an hour, a full-time worker at the current minimum wage would earn an extra $3,500 more per year. A total of 557,000 workers in North Carolina “would directly benefit from that proposal,” he said, noting that President Obama is seeking to “lift people out of poverty” by imposing this new proposed requirement.
It all sounded so good. But in reality, there were problems.
For one, mere laws don’t “lift people out of poverty” – genuine wealth creation does. Using the force of government to mandate that a business owner pays a worker a specific wage does not ensure that wealth is being created. On the contrary, such laws are coercive mechanisms of wealth redistribution, and they only ensure that an increasing amount of existing wealth is taken away from one individual or group and transferred to another.
History, even recent history over the course of our lifetimes, demonstrates this. While roughly half of the world’s population -about 3 billion people - live in measurable poverty today, the other roughly 3 billion are measurably “middle class,” and mostly facing upward mobility.
So what has happened to the more fortunate 3 billion? We have not been “minimum waged” to wealth. We’ve been fortunate to live in countries where we’ve been relatively free to privately own property and advance in the marketplace and amass wealth for ourselves.
The best examples of this have been post-World War II Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, along with the increasingly liberated economies of China and India. Many Americans seem oblivious to this capitalistic, free market transformation that has taken place over the last few decades – surely if we were aware of this we wouldn’t have elected our current crop of politicians who are taking us in the exact opposite direction – but the transformation is nonetheless real.
Another problem with Harris’ promises is that they are based on the false assumptions that government bureaucrats understand the inner-workings of a business than a business owner does, and that government mandates always produce their desired outcomes. Can every small business in Charlotte – or anywhere else in the U.S. – afford to “absorb” the increased labor costs that will ensure with a higher minimum wage mandate? Harris is frequently asked about the un-intended consequences of his policy proposals, and will frequently say “I reject the notion that this kills jobs.”
Did you hear that business owners? He “rejects” it, so it is obviously not a concern. In fact, Harris promised the minimum wage earning Charlotteans that raising the minimum wage requirement will actually improve wages overall, and stimulate job creation.
Harris, by the way, took no time at all in Charlotte to meet with the business owners that would be impacted by the proposed wage mandate. When you have degrees from elite schools, and your work experience is based exclusively in the worlds of academia and law, and you wield the power of government (these characteristics describe both Harris and Barack Obama), it’s easy, apparently, to believe in the infallibility of your ideas. There’s no sense wasting time on the “non-believers.”
For now, Americans have put their collective trust in politicians who have promised to re-distribute us all to a better, “more fair” existence. Let us hope and pray that we see the error of our ways – before the country is irreparably damaged.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
What happens when the U.S. Secretary of Labor visits a church in Charlotte? If an incident earlier this month is any indication, faulty political promises and destructive economic policies continue to spread.
It took place on April 3rd. Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Seth Harris made an appearance at a Baptist Church in North Carolina’s largest city, along with Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx. He was visiting to promote President Obama’s proposal of elevating the federal minimum wage requirement from the current $7.25 to $9.00 an hour.
Harris and Foxx gathered in a large room within a Baptist church building. They sat in a large circle with several “average” (which means “hand-picked, pre-screened, and pre-approved by the Labor Department”) Americans living in Charlotte who work at jobs that pay only minimum wage. As news microphones and cameras caught all the action, Harris facilitated a “discussion” with the minimum wage earning Charlottean’s, and explained how their lives would benefit from the President’s new proposed mandate.
Harris told the group participants that if the minimum wage requirement was raised to $9 an hour, a full-time worker at the current minimum wage would earn an extra $3,500 more per year. A total of 557,000 workers in North Carolina “would directly benefit from that proposal,” he said, noting that President Obama is seeking to “lift people out of poverty” by imposing this new proposed requirement.
It all sounded so good. But in reality, there were problems.
For one, mere laws don’t “lift people out of poverty” – genuine wealth creation does. Using the force of government to mandate that a business owner pays a worker a specific wage does not ensure that wealth is being created. On the contrary, such laws are coercive mechanisms of wealth redistribution, and they only ensure that an increasing amount of existing wealth is taken away from one individual or group and transferred to another.
History, even recent history over the course of our lifetimes, demonstrates this. While roughly half of the world’s population -about 3 billion people - live in measurable poverty today, the other roughly 3 billion are measurably “middle class,” and mostly facing upward mobility.
So what has happened to the more fortunate 3 billion? We have not been “minimum waged” to wealth. We’ve been fortunate to live in countries where we’ve been relatively free to privately own property and advance in the marketplace and amass wealth for ourselves.
The best examples of this have been post-World War II Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, along with the increasingly liberated economies of China and India. Many Americans seem oblivious to this capitalistic, free market transformation that has taken place over the last few decades – surely if we were aware of this we wouldn’t have elected our current crop of politicians who are taking us in the exact opposite direction – but the transformation is nonetheless real.
Another problem with Harris’ promises is that they are based on the false assumptions that government bureaucrats understand the inner-workings of a business than a business owner does, and that government mandates always produce their desired outcomes. Can every small business in Charlotte – or anywhere else in the U.S. – afford to “absorb” the increased labor costs that will ensure with a higher minimum wage mandate? Harris is frequently asked about the un-intended consequences of his policy proposals, and will frequently say “I reject the notion that this kills jobs.”
Did you hear that business owners? He “rejects” it, so it is obviously not a concern. In fact, Harris promised the minimum wage earning Charlotteans that raising the minimum wage requirement will actually improve wages overall, and stimulate job creation.
Harris, by the way, took no time at all in Charlotte to meet with the business owners that would be impacted by the proposed wage mandate. When you have degrees from elite schools, and your work experience is based exclusively in the worlds of academia and law, and you wield the power of government (these characteristics describe both Harris and Barack Obama), it’s easy, apparently, to believe in the infallibility of your ideas. There’s no sense wasting time on the “non-believers.”
For now, Americans have put their collective trust in politicians who have promised to re-distribute us all to a better, “more fair” existence. Let us hope and pray that we see the error of our ways – before the country is irreparably damaged.
Comments are invited!
Send feedback to: WatchDog
.
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