By Peyton M. Craighill and Scott Clement July 22 at 7:00 AM
Liberals have won a string of victories on gay marriage and health care reform this year, but a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds a large majority of Americans are unhappy with where the nation is headed on social issues.
Sixty three percent of people say they are uncomfortable with the country’s overall direction on social issues these days; four in 10 feel “strongly” uncomfortable about the nation’s changes.
Americans uncomfortable with direction of social issues
Q: Would you describe yourself as comfortable or uncomfortable with the country’s overall direction on social issues these days?
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Karibu Kenya, President Obama. Welcome to Kenya.
For many Kenyans, the Swahili-language slogan will be more than just a polite greeting when the American president visits the country where his father was born, his first trip to Kenya since he was a U.S. senator in 2006. They see it as a homecoming for Obama, who has written with depth and emotion about his Kenyan roots but might not have time to explore them this time, enveloped as he will be by official duties and the White House security structure.
“They take it really personally,” Nelly Ngugi, customer relations manager at Cafe Deli in downtown Nairobi, said Wednesday of fellow Kenyans. Obama’s visit is like “a brother coming back,” she said.
“Welcome Home Sir…” says a message on a fake cake (made of Styrofoam) with red, white and blue icing in a display case at the cafe. A large cardboard cutout of Obama sits at the entrance. Ngugi led an Associated Press reporter to an upstairs table where she said Obama sat many years ago, before he was a public figure and when the restaurant was called Green Corner.
WHEN IS an improving fiscal situation not really an improving fiscal situation? When it’s the United States’ current one.
That’s the lesson of the White House’s annual budget update, known as the Mid-Session Review, which was published Tuesday by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Data in the report show the federal government is on course to record a $455 billion budget deficit this year, which is $128 billion less than the Obama administration had projected six months ago. Expressed as a percentage of gross domestic product, this is even more impressive: it amounts to six-tenths of a percent of GDP that we were planning to borrow this year, but won’t have to borrow after all. Well over half of this unexpected deficit reduction is due to above-forecast tax revenue, generated by the economy’s continued growth. Given the report’s forecasts for next year, it is likely that, as a share of the economy, the budget deficit at the end of the Obama presidency will be three-quarters smaller than it was at the beginning. Not too shabby.
Here’s the problem: This year’s progress is likely to get canceled out later on. The same White House report projects no real improvement in the long-term fiscal outlook, and indeed foresees a slight deterioration. In February, the OMB forecast that the public debt — the stock of accumulated annual deficits — would drift down from 75.3 percent of GDP this year to 73 percent by 2025. Now, however, the OMB sees public debt stuck at 74.6 percent in 2025. Though sustainable in the short run, no one can say for sure how long that level of debt will remain affordable; it is well above historical norms for the U.S. economy. It leaves the United States a narrower “fiscal space” to help cope with another recession, war or other emergency. And it represents the uncomfortably high base from which debt is expected to rise even more in the years after 2025, according to the Congressional Budget Office and other experts.
These stubbornly high levels of public debt, and the prospect of truly uncontrolled debt in the years beyond 2025, reflect the lack of fundamental reform to U.S. entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. President Obama may be able to boast about lower deficits on his watch, but not his avoidance of this issue.
That much is, alas, familiar; but the White House report adds sluggish economic growth to the list of reasons for the troubling long-term picture. Specifically, the OMB now expects the U.S. economy to expand only 2 percent this year, as opposed to the 3 percent it forecast at the beginning of 2015. That lower forecast, in turn, caused forecasters to downgrade growth expectations slightly for the rest of Mr. Obama’s second term; the annual rate will probably not reach 3 percent in that time.
It’s not us, it’s the Chinese! Iran’s supreme leader mocks Obama with letter warning some of the ‘other’ countries that signed his nuke deal ‘are not trustworthy’
Stunning jiu-jitsu move just 8 minutes after Obama’s press conference has Ayatollah Khamenei cautioning Obama to watch the P5+1 nations carefully Most American critics of the nuclear bargain with Tehran charge that it’s Khamenei who can’t be trusted to hold up his end Russia, China, France, the UK, Germany and the European Union all inked the deal with the US and Iran Khamenei said Obama should be ‘concerned about possible violation of commitments by the other parties’ ‘You are well aware that some of the six states participating in negotiations are not trustworthy at all,’ he wrote in a letter posted on Twitter
By DAVID MARTOSKO, US POLITICAL EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 17:29 EST, 15 July 2015 | UPDATED: 17:53 EST, 15 July 2015
Just eight minutes after President Barack Obama wrapped up a White House press conference he called on Wednesday to defend a day-old nuclear deal with Iran, the Islamic republic’s supreme leader used Twitter to tweak him.
In a short letter to Obama that he posted on Twitter, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote that it’s partner nations like China and Russia who should be watched carefully – not Iran – to make sure they honor the terms of the landmark bargain.
‘You are well aware that some of the six states participating in negotiations are not trustworthy at all,’ Khamenei wrote in a stunning rhetorical act of jiu-jitsu.
The agreement, signed by Iran, the U.S., Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the European Union, seeks to limit Tehran’s aggressive nuclear program in exchange for dropping a series of crippling economic sanctions.
Hans von Spakovsky / @HvonSpakovsky / Rachel S. Landsman / July 13, 2015
COMMENTARY BY
Hans von Spakovsky@HvonSpakovsky
Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative.
Rachel S. Landsman
Rachel S. Landsman is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.
Obama’s Department of Justice may have been involved in the IRS scheme to target conservative non-profit organizations, according to newly-released documents obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act.
The documents reveal that Lois Lerner met with attorneys from the Public Integrity Section (including its chief) of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and a representative from the FBI in 2010 to discuss using campaign-finance laws to bring criminal charges against conservative non-profit organizations.
A memo prepared by Siri Buller, a tax law specialist who worked for Lerner, summarizing the meeting talks about the possibility of “a three-way partnership among the DOJ [Department of Justice], the FEC [Federal Election Commission], and the IRS” to “prevent prohibited activity by these [conservative] organizations.” Of course, the problem is that the activities that Lerner thought were “prohibited,” like expressing opinions about Obamacare, were not prohibited.
Emails between Justice Department and IRS employees also expose an attempt by the Justice Department to obtain unredacted versions of the documents IRS employees provided to Congress. One July 2013 email from a Justice Department employee to a lawyer for the IRS (the names have been redacted) says “If any of your clients have documents they are providing to Congress that you can (or would like to) provide to us before their testimony … we would like the unredacted documents.” It goes further, stating “I just know that some employees have assembled their own set [of documents], in which instance it is helpful to obtain them.”
Emails between IRS officials confirm that the IRS transmitted 21 disks containing 1.25 million pages of highly confidential tax information to the FBI. These pages included information from 2007-2010 regarding 113,000 tax returns of non-profit organizations.
The House Committee of Oversight and Government Reform was “astonished to learn…that these 21 disks contained confidential taxpayer information protected by federal law” that could not lawfully be turned over to the FBI without meeting very specific requirements for opening a criminal investigation of a particular taxpayer as outlined in 26 U.S.C. §6103. Those requirements were clearly not met by the FBI.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton notes “[t]hese new documents show that the Obama IRS scandal is also an Obama DOJ and FBI scandal … The FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama’s opponents in jail before his reelection. And this abuse resulted in the FBI’s illegally obtaining confidential taxpayer information.”
Not only did Lerner have friends in the Justice Department, it also seems she had allies in Wisconsin, where conservative non-profit groups were similarlytargeted in a secret “John Doe” investigation for publicly supporting Gov. Scott Walker’s union reforms.
Recently obtained emails show that Lerner was in contact with Kevin Kennedy, director of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, who was one of the government officials behind the investigations of conservative organizations in Wisconsin such as the League of American Voters, Wisconsin Family Action, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and several others. Those emails show them “sharing articles on topics including greater donor disclosure,” which, as The Wall Street Journal points out, is significant “because those were the years when the IRS increased in harassment of conservative groups and Wisconsin prosecutors gathered information” that led to the John Doe “Star Chamber.”
Wisconsin Watchdog describes the state’s John Doe procedure as “a grand jury investigation, without a jury.” These investigations allowed law enforcement to conduct abusive, paramilitary-type raids on the leaders of a number of nonprofits and their families, most of which were conducted before dawn.
In one case, a 16-year-old boy was home alone very early one morning when armed law enforcement officers raided his home as if they were closing in on a dangerous drug cartel or mob operation. Though he was terrified, the officers would not allow him to call his parents.
Several other victims of these nighttime raids came forward, even though they were ordered not to speak about the investigations. The targets of these raids were not criminals—they were Wisconsin conservatives who had supported Act 10, the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” and whose reputations and livelihoods have been severely damaged as a result of these unwarranted, heavy-handed raids.
In January, a judge blocked subpoenas against the conservative targets of the John Doe investigations. In May, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Randaordered that the investigations be shut down in their entirety because it was “unlawful” for the state to “target the plaintiffs for engaging in vigorous advocacy.”
These recent revelations suggest that the targeting of conservative non-profit organizations was a scheme that went far beyond the IRS and Lois Lerner alone. It was an effort that involved the coordination of several Obama administration executive agencies and supposedly non-partisan public servants.
With the discovery of the connection to the seemingly-unjustified, retaliatory investigations in Wisconsin, it seems Lerner’s efforts even extended beyond the federal government and into at least one state, threatening conservatives and chilling conservative speech at both the federal and state level.
Nearly two weeks after 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was murdered on San Francisco’s Pier 14 by an illegal alien and convicted felon who was released from prison earlier this year, President Barack Obama has failed to contact the victim’s family or mention her in public. Yet Obama took the time to write (and release) 46 personal letters this month to felons imprisoned for non-violent drug offenses whose sentences he has commuted.
Republicans seize on Planned Parenthood video
July 14, 2015, 03:10 pm
By Jesse Byrnes
“This latest news is tragic and outrageous,” GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said in a Facebook post linking to the video.
“This isn’t about ‘choice.’ It’s about profiting on the death of the unborn while telling women it’s about empowerment,” Fiorina said.
“This video is beyond disturbing,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) tweeted.
The undercover video, which surfaced Tuesday morning, shows a woman identified as Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s senior director of medical services, describing in detail procedures to retrieve body parts.
“A lot of people want intact hearts these days, because they’re looking for specific nodes,” the woman says in the video released by The Center for Medical Progress, a self-described group of citizen journalists monitoring medical ethics. The video was reportedly recorded in July, 2014 by people posing as representatives from a fetal tissue procurement company.
“Yesterday was the first time she said people wanted lungs,” the woman continues. “Some people want lower extremities too, which, that’s simple. I mean that’s easy.”
“I don’t know what they’re doing with it. I guess they want muscle,” the woman adds. “[W]e’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that.”
In a statement, Planned Parenthood described the video as “heavily edited” and said it “falsely portrays Planned Parenthood’s participation in tissue donation programs that support lifesaving scientific research.”
“The White House and President Obama himself were more than willing to comment on the particular, local cases of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, even before all of the facts were known. Apparently, Kathryn Steinle doesn’t look enough like one of his daughters for Obama to give a damn.”
Katie Pavlich: Barack Obama’s sanctuary country for criminal aliens
By Katie Pavlich – 07/13/15 05:22 PM EDT
The debate over illegal immigration erupted again recently after 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was shot and killed allegedly by seven-time felon and five-time deportee criminal alien Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez in San Francisco. During a jailhouse interview, Lopez-Sanchez said he chose San Francisco to take advantage of sanctuary city policies in order to avoid Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Before Steinle’s killing, ICE issued an arrest detainer for Lopez-Sanchez to the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department. That detainer was refused and Lopez-Sanchez was released.
The White House is refusing to comment on the case, despite the national debate surrounding the issue and the federal implications of Steinle’s death.
“For this particular case I’d refer you to [the Department of Homeland Security]. I can’t speak to the particulars of this specific case,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said at a press briefing last week.
The White House and President Obama himself were more than willing to comment on the particular, local cases of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, even before all of the facts were known. Apparently, Kathryn Steinle doesn’t look enough like one of his daughters for Obama to give a damn.
Instead, the White House is focused on blaming Republicans for failing to comply with the president’s open-border, lawless illegal immigration agenda.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) issued the following statement on the nuclear arms agreement with Iran:
“As I’ve said since the beginning of these negotiations, any agreement that allows Iran to acquire, build, or proliferate nuclear weapons—now or in the future—is a threat to the United States and its allies. The Iranian regime has done nothing to prove that it has earned the trust or respect of the international community, and therefore should not be rewarded with good faith gestures or sanctions relief.
“With this deal, a timetable is set where Iran can organize, increase military capabilities, raise funds, and prepare for deadlines where they will be able to acquire ballistic weapons and continue their nuclear proliferation. This could create a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and further destabilize an increasingly volatile region. Congress must ensure the terrorist state of Iran never has a chance to threaten the world with nuclear weapons.”
Hans von Spakovsky / @HvonSpakovsky / July 09, 2015
There has been a fiery debate over the past few weeks about illegal aliens and crime, which has intensified with the murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco by a seven-time felon and five-time deportee as the direct result of the city’s sanctuary policy.
What seems to have been overlooked in the back and forth on this is some of the very disturbing, actual data on crimes committed by illegal aliens, which should concern every American—particularly those who live in sanctuary cities like New Orleans or San Francisco that release criminal aliens rather than turning them over to the Department of Homeland Security.
As Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studyoutlines, Department of Homeland Security records show that in just one eight-month period in 2014, more than 8,100 deportable aliens were released by sanctuary jurisdictions. Three thousand of them were felons and 62 percent had a prior criminal record. Nineteen hundred were later rearrested a total of 4,300 times on 7,500 different offenses.
Thus, these sanctuary policies directly victimized thousands of the residents of these sanctuary cities who were subjected to assaults, burglaries, sexual assaults, thefts and even murdersthat would not have occurred except for these sanctuary policies.
But there is more. In 2005, at the request of several members of Congress, the Government Accountability Office prepared two reports on criminal aliens—legal and illegal—in prison for committing crimes in the United States. Those reports are very revealing. For example, the first report (GAO-05-337R) released on April 7, 2005, found that:
The percentage of federal prisoners who are criminal aliens is about 27 percent;
In 2004, there were 49,000 such prisoners in federal jails;
In 2002, the federal government gave reimbursements to the 50 states under the “State Criminal Alien Assistance Program” (SCAAP) for incarcerating another 77,000illegal aliens in state prisons; and
At the local level in 2002, the federal government reimbursed 750 local governments under SCAAP for incarcerating an additional 138,000 criminal illegal aliens, which jumped to 147,000 prisoners in 2003.
It is important to note that these reported numbers “represent only a portion of the total population of criminal aliens who may be incarcerated at the local level,” since the federal government does “not reimburse localities for all criminal aliens” and some states don’t submit requests for reimbursement. So where were all of these criminal aliens from? According to the GAO report, the breakdown was as follows:
Federal prisons: Mexico (63 percent); Colombia (7 percent); the Dominican Republic (7 percent); Jamaica (4 percent); Cuba (3 percent); El Salvador (2 percent); Honduras, Haiti and Guatemala (each 1 percent), and the remaining 11 percent from 164 other countries.
State prisons: In the five states (Arizona, California, Florida, New York and Texas) incarcerating about 80 percent of SCAAP criminal aliens, the prisoners were from Mexico (58 percent); Cuba (5 percent); Dominican Republic (5 percent); El Salvador (4 percent); Jamaica (3 percent); Vietnam (2 percent); and the remaining 22 percent from 148 other countries.
Local jails: In the five local jails with the largest criminal illegal alien populations, the prisoners were from Mexico (65 percent); El Salvador (6 percent); Guatemala (3 percent); Honduras (2 percent); South Korea, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic and the Philippines (each 1 percent); and the remaining 20 percent from 193 other countries.
Thus, it is clear that criminal aliens already represent more than a quarter of all of the prisoners in federal prisons and are present in large numbers in state and local jails.
The second GAO report (GAO-05-646R), released on May 9, 2005, looked at the crimes committed by 55,322 aliens who “had entered the country illegally and were still illegally in the country at the time of their incarceration in federal or state prison or local jail during fiscal year 2003.”
The path of destruction weaved by these 55,322 illegal aliens was truly shocking. According to GAO, these criminal aliens:
Were arrested a total of 459,614 times, averaging about eight arrests per illegal alien;
97 percent had more than one arrest, while 26 percent had over 11 arrests;
Committed almost 700,000 criminal offenses, averaging 13 offenses per illegal alien;
10 percent of these illegal aliens were arrested for committing 26 or more offenses;
Out of all of the arrests, 12 percent were for violent crimes such as murder, robbery, assault and sex-related crimes; 15 percent were for burglary, larceny, theft and property damage; 24 percent were for drug offenses; and the remaining offenses were for DUI, fraud, forgery, counterfeiting, weapons, immigration and obstruction of justice; and
80 percent of the arrests occurred in just three states: California, Texas, and Arizona
Of course, these statistics reflect the criminal histories of aliens who were in prison. Unfortunately, in fiscal year 2013, the Obama administration released over 36,000 convicted criminal aliens awaiting the outcome of deportation hearings upon an unsuspecting public, and another 30,558 in fiscal year 2014 according to the House Judiciary Committee.
The offenses for which they were convicted involved “dangerous drugs, assault and domestic violence, stolen vehicles, robbery, sex offenses, sexual assault, kidnaping, voluntary manslaughter, and even homicide.” As the House Judiciary Committee outlined, more than a quarter of these aliens “were so called ‘level 1s’ according to the administration—the worst of the worst.” And in 2013 alone, the administration didn’t even bring removal proceedingsagainst an additional 68,000 criminal aliens convicted of everything from homicide to sexual assault.
If the over 134,000 aliens released by the administration in just the past two years follow the pattern of those aliens studied by the GAO in 2005, they will commit hundreds of thousands of more crimes, victimizing countless innocent Americans in crimes that could have been prevented.
How many Americans have to be assaulted, injured, raped or killed, or have their homes, cars and personal property burglarized, stolen or damaged before both the federal government and local governments like San Francisco will finally do what is necessary to lock up criminal aliens who are a danger to the safety and lives of the public?
Following the influx of illegal immigrant minors from Central America, an official at the federal agency charged with protecting public health describes Barack Obama as “the worst pres we have ever had,” an “amateur” and “Marxist,” according to internal emails obtained by Judicial Watch.
JW got the records as part of an investigation into the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) activation of anEmergency Operations Center (EOC) to deal with the barrage of illegal alien minors last summer. Tens of thousands of Central Americans came into the United States through the Mexican border and contagious diseases—many considered to be eradicated in the U.S.—became a tremendous concern. The CDC, which operates under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), responded by opening an emergency facility designed to monitor and coordinate response activities to eminent public health threats.
This special emergency division was created after the 2001 terrorist attacks and has responded to more than 50 public health threats, including hurricanes, food borne disease outbreaks, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic and the Haiti cholera outbreak. Scientists from across the CDC are brought together to analyze, validate, and efficiently exchange information during a public health emergency and connect with response partners. The EOC also coordinates the deployment of CDC staff and the procurement and management of all equipment and supplies that agency responders may need during their deployment.
It’s a major and costly operation that can stick American taxpayers with a huge tab. That’s why JW launched a probe when the Obama administration took in the illegal immigrants, initially coined Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), with open arms last summer. JW has sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for planning records involving the border crisis as well as information relating to the solicitation of “on-demand escort services” for the 65,000 UACs that remain in the U.S. Last year JW also reported that the illegal immigrant minors have brought in serious diseases, including swine flu, dengue fever, possibly Ebola virus and tuberculosis.
The CDC records obtained by JW this week include email exchanges between agency officials directly involved in the activation of the EOC to handle the health threats created by the influx of illegal alien minors last summer. In an email dated June 9, 2014, CDC Logistics Management Specialist George Roark wrote to CDC Public Health Advisor William Adams that “no country in the world would allow” the influx. Adams replies that “in ten years or less, they’ll all be voting…Commander’s intent…” Roark fires back by describing Obama as “the worst pres we have ever had…he truly is ‘the amateur’ but a Marxist too.”
Advocates of the change say it would resolve a technical oversight from a decades-old bankruptcy law, while skeptics warn that it could throw into question billions of dollars in debt now owned by investors across the country.
Earlier this week, Puerto Rico’s governor declared that the nation’s $72 billion pile of debt was too much for it to handle. To avoid a “death spiral,” Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla said the commonwealth would have to break its promise to pay back some money owed.
But a quirk in the nation’s bankruptcy code is throwing Congress into the middle of the matter, as lawmakers will need to quickly pass a new law if Puerto Rico is going to gain access to the nation’s bankruptcy courts.
Puerto Rico’s nonvoting representative, Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierlusi (D) is working to build support for legislation that has simmered in Congress for months, but has taken on new urgency following the governor’s declarations.
Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) are working to build support for similar legislation in the Senate.
A 1984 update to the nation’s bankruptcy laws left Puerto Rico out of the picture, apparently by accident. Chapter 9 of the bankruptcy code gives states the power to allow agencies or municipalities to declare bankruptcy, as happened most recently in Detroit. But the law is silent on territories like Puerto Rico, leaving it on the outside looking in when it comes to public bankruptcies.
“As best we can tell, it’s a typographical error in the bankruptcy code,” said John Pottow, a bankruptcy expert and legal professor at the University of Michigan. “It should be noncontroversial.”
Giving that power to Puerto Rico would allow some of its subsidiaries, like a debt-laden power utility, to enter into bankruptcy court, giving the territory some breathing room on its finances.
Lawmakers pushing to address that change say it was a simple oversight, and Puerto Rico was always supposed to have the same ability as the states.
The Greek people are in danger of having their personal accounts raided by the government. The rumor planted by The Financial Times could be true or it could be a ploy to swing the upcoming elections which will determine if they stay in the EU, but what is definitely true is that leftist policies of redistribution and social justice are at the bottom of the problem. Greece’s path is the path we now follow.
How did the Greeks get to this place?
To start, a quarter of government spending goes to paying government employees. They are top heavy with over-paid and underutilized bureaucrats. Government has overtaken the innovative private sector and all sectors for that matter.
Greece has a 25.6% unemployment rate and youth unemployment is at about 49.9%.
They owe billions and their debt to GDP is at 175%. Under Obama, we’re at 102.6%. Our debt is over $18 trillion. Donald Trump has said that when we reach about $24 trillion, we will be Greece.
“According to the economists — who I’m not big believers in, but, nevertheless, this is what they’re saying — that $24 trillion — we’re very close — that’s the point of no return. $24 trillion. We will be there soon. That’s when we become Greece. That’s when we become a country that’s unsalvageable. And we’re gonna be there very soon. We’re gonna be there very soon.”
Once an economy accumulates a mountain of debt equal to its entire, national, economic output; that economy no longer has sufficient financial/economic mass to (responsibly) “service” this mountain of debt. Every year we pass the point of no-return, we are incurring incredible harm to the economy. It’s hard to know what that point of no-return is but we should be taking steps to prevent it.
The banks, the rich, and Capitalism are easy targets when people look around for others to blame. Who, however, is forcing any of these politicians to borrow on so-called future earnings or to subsidize not knowing where the money is coming from? The constant giving in to union demands and building up of unsustainable benefits and pensions is not orchestrated by banks.
The banks are evil for loaning money and expecting it back according to the left.
Politicians run up debt to get re-elected on the promise of a pie-in-the-sky Utopia of public sector employees, few private enterprises, and lots of freebies for the “oppressed” which ends up being most people along the way. All want in on the action.
The bureaucracy in Greece grew faster than all other sectors. Once unionized, people can’t be fired and dead weight overwhelms agencies. Competition and innovation wither away.
Daniel Greenfield in his Front Page Magazine article, “Social Justice is the Root of All Debt,” compared the current crisis in Greece to Detroit and many of our big cities:
“Detroit had 55 residents per government employee. Half the city’s residents didn’t pay property taxeswhich were the highest of any major city. The employment rate wasn’t pretty. The third largest “industry” was education and health care, both mostly government subsidized, the fifth biggest industry was government. Fourth was manufacturing, which in Detroit has hovered around being state-owned.”
The left beats down opposition with class warfare and populist promises. Radical socialist Bernie Sanders has promised a “political revolution” to combat income inequality, curb climate change and drastically reform the campaign finance system. He also promises a top-tier tax rate of 90%, redistribution, climate extremism, and unlimited union financing of campaigns.
Fewer people are “extremely proud” to be American, according to new polling from Gallup.
The pollster finds that 54 percent are “extremely proud” to be American, which is down from around 70 percent between 2002 and 2004. The percentage may have jumped in those years after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Gallup released the new numbers just before the July 4 holiday.
Twenty-seven percent said they are “very proud” to be American, 14 percent say they are “moderately proud,” 4 percent are “only a little proud” and 1 percent say they are “not at all proud.”
Progressives, liberals, socialists, Democrats and the media (one and the same?) who crow about the current “low” unemployment rate never want to admit that the reason it’s gotten to 5.3 percent — the “official unemployment rate,” or U-3, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — is because the bureaucrats at BLS and the politicians in the White House artificially have tossed millions upon millions of long-term, out-of-work Americans off the roles by arbitrarily declaring that they’re “no longer in the labor force.”
There are lies, damned lies and government unemployment statistics. I’ve written about this before, but you can never have enough economic bad news, especially on the eve of our national birthday.
The more accurate U-6 rate, which is what economists look at for unemployment numbers and includes those marginally attached to the workforce, has the unemployment rate at 10.5 percent. But even that is too optimistic.
There are some – count John Williams at ShadowStats.com and me among them – who contend that the REAL unemployment rate has to include EVERYBODY, not just those the government wants included and did, until 1994 when they rigged the way the numbers were calculated to exclude the long-term unemployed.
That unemployment rate – the REAL rate – is 23.1 percent, a number that, unlike the U-3 and the U-6, hasn’t significantly gone down in over two years. At its highest in 1933 during the Great Depression, the unemployment rate was at 25 percent.
While Williams is not without his critics, they focus more on his terminology and harping about the edges of his calculations rather than his central thesis that a whole lot of folks who should be counted as in the labor force aren’t being counted.
Since, for statistical purposes, the U-3 only counts workers in the labor force, the measurement automatically drops whenever the labor force shrinks in size, which it does whenever the government wants it to. In theory, I can get the unemployment rate to ZERO by simply declaring all unemployed persons to be no longer in the labor force. BAM – problem solved.
Adding insult to injury, whatever job creation we’ve seen has been in low-wage and part-time positions. Mid- and higher-range positions are down some 1.2 million since 2009. When you go from making $75,000 per year on a full-time basis to making $7.50 per hour on a part time basis, most people consider that to be a severe hit, but the federal government considers it a net win – after all, you’re working, aren’t you?
A record 94 MILLION Americans are no longer considered as being in the labor force. That’s substantially greater than one in three, resulting in a participation rate — the total of Americans working or “looking” for work — of 62.6 percent, a number not seen since the worst days of the Carter administration.
To illustrate graphically, here’s a comparison of the U-3, the U-6 and John Williams’ ShadowStates Alternate rate that factors back in the workers the government has kicked off the labor force roles:
Consider: Even with a margin of three to five percent unemployment, which would encompass workers in between jobs or otherwise transitioning, which some are always doing, well over one-third of all Americans who should be working, could be working and would be working if the government had any business sense about it are not working.
Net, net, net: Continuing and accelerating economic stagnation and deterioration, zero wage growth, sluggishness and that brother-in-law of yours who’s been out of work since the fourth season of Breaking Bad will still be sleeping on your couch, eating your food and drinking your beer for as far as the eye can see.
When some left-wing loon posts one of those stupid “Obama’s so great — he’s lowered the unemployment rate” bumper-sticker memes on Facebook, show them this post and ask what other lies the administration and its lackeys and toadies are telling?
