Obamanomics - Page 13 of 37 - THE RIDGEWOOD BLOG.

Posted on July 6, 2015July 6, 2015 by James — 1 Comment

Puerto Rican debt crisis hits Congress

By Peter Schroeder – 07/05/15 12:09 PM EDT

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.

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/246820-puerto-rican-debt-crisis-hits-congress

Posted on July 5, 2015July 4, 2015 by James — Leave a comment

U.S. Has Adopted Greece’s Formula for Success

anti-austerity-protests-in-geece_theridgewoodblog

by S. Noble • July 4, 2015

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.

https://www.independentsentinel.com/u-s-has-adopted-greeces-formula-for-success/

Posted on July 3, 2015July 2, 2015 by James — Leave a comment

Lies, damned lies and government unemployment statistics… on America’s birthday, no less!

Posted by Scott St Clair On July 02, 2015

By Scott St. Clair | The Save Jersey Blog

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?

The numbers…always look at the numbers.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

https://savejersey.com/2015/07/unemployment-statistics-obama/

Posted on July 2, 2015July 2, 2015 by James — Leave a comment

“The United States’ influence and prestige and respect in the world is probably lower now,” Jimmy Carter says.

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Obama’s ‘Minimal’ World Leadership Brings Jimmy Carter, Chris Christie Together

Ken McIntyre / @KenMac55 / July 01, 2015 /

In a rare alignment of two very different politicians, Jimmy Carter and Chris Christie agree in their belief that America is less respected in the world than it was when President Obama took office in 2009.

“I can’t think of many nations where we have a better relationship than when we did when [Obama] took over,” Jimmy Carter says.

Christie, the two-term New Jersey governor, zinged Obama on foreign policy in some of the most well-received lines of his announcement Tuesday morning that he will seek the Republican nomination for president.

“After seven years I heard the president of the United States say the other day that the world respects America more because of his leadership,” Christie said. “This convinces me it is the final confirmation that President Obama lives in his own world, not in our world.”

It was a big applause line.

Not so much when Carter, the Democrat who served one term as the 39th president, said something similar last week in a public event—video of which began to surface late Tuesday.

America’s “influence and prestige and respect in the world is probably lower” than seven years ago, he said.

“The United States’ influence and prestige and respect in the world is probably lower now,” Jimmy Carter says.

Carter, 90, seemed to stun into silence a standing-room-only crowd at an Aspen Institute gathering in Aspen, Colo., when he said he “can’t think of many nations in the world where we have a better relationship now than when we did when [Obama] took over.”

When Aspen Institute CEO Walter Isaacson asked Carter to assess Obama’s “success or failures on the world stage,” Carter replied:

On the world stage, I think they’ve been minimal. I think he’s done some good things domestically, like the health program and so forth. But on the world stage, just to be as objective about it as I can, I can’t think of many nations in the world where we have a better relationship now than when we did when he took over.

You know, if you look at Russia, if you look at England, if you look at China, if you look at Egypt, and so forth—I’m not saying it’s his fault, but we have not improved our relationship with individual countries. And I would say that the United States’ influence and prestige and respect in the world is probably lower now than it was six or seven years ago.

During his off-the-cuff announcement remarks, Christie also criticized Obama for “weak and feckless foreign policy” and warned his audience not to “turn it over to his second mate, Hillary Clinton.”

Carter reiterated that he doesn’t “blame” Obama because “it’s been circumstances that have evolved.”

The former president and Georgia governor repeated praise for John Kerry, whom Obama chose to succeed Clinton as secretary of state.

To applause, Carter called Kerry “outstanding” and “one of the best secretaries of state we’ve ever had.” He later said Kerry is “very courageous and innovative and dynamic.”

The Washington-based Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization with a mission “to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues.”

Isaacson’s hour-long conversation with Carter and his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, took place June 23. In this video from C-SPAN, Carter’s remarks on Obama and the world stage begin at the 19-minute mark.

https://dailysignal.com/2015/07/01/obamas-minimal-world-leadership-brings-jimmy-carter-chris-christie-together/

Posted on July 2, 2015July 2, 2015 by James — 6 Comments

Why more white-collar workers are killing themselves, literally

By Quentin Fottrell, Marketwatch

July 1, 2015 | 6:27pm

On May 28 at around 10:40 a.m., Thomas J. Hughes, 29, jumped from the 24th floor of his apartment building in Manhattan. Hughes had worked in investment banking at Moelis & Co. His father, John, said he was under pressure at work and may have used alcohol and drugs to cope. “At a time when he was under stress he probably resorted to illegal drugs, causing this incredibly poor judgment, is probably the best I can say,” he said after his son’s death. According to reports, Hughes attended the private Canterbury School in Milford, Conn., and Northwestern University in Illinois.

One month earlier, on April 16 at around 4:20 a.m., Sarvshreshth Gupta, 22, a technology, media and telecoms analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in San Francisco, was found in a parking lot beneath his apartment building. The police found an open window to the roof of Gupta’s apartment building. He had, according to an essay by his father Sunil—“A son never dies” —complained about working long hours. “I have not slept for two days, have a client meeting tomorrow morning, have to complete my presentation, my VP is annoyed and I am working alone in my office.” A police report this month ruled his death “suicide by jumping.”

Although the media does focus on people who, at least on paper, appear to have it all, experts say this is also a reminder that depression doesn’t discriminate. While suicide rates overall remain lower among those who have more education, there have been reports of a dozen such cases of suicide of white-collar workers who worked for high-profile financial firms over the last 18 months. “We want people to be aware that this can happen to anyone so people don’t say, ‘They have everything going for them, they can’t be depressed,’” says Lauren Nicholas, assistant professor of health policy and management at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

https://nypost.com/2015/07/01/why-more-white-collar-workers-are-killing-themselves-literally/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPFacebook&utm_medium=SocialFlow

Posted on June 29, 2015June 29, 2015 by James — Leave a comment

Ex-CIA head: I fear Iran ‘has the upper hand’ in nuclear talks

By Mark Hensch – 06/28/15 09:56 AM EDT

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said on Sunday that he worries Iran has more momentum than the U.S. heading into final talks over Tehran’s nuclear arms research.

“I would actually fear that the Iranians have the upper hand right now,” Hayden told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace.

“I would hope this is not the final round of talks,” he added.

Hayden argued on Sunday that the proposed deal does not do enough for preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“We get them out of the penalty box for their nuclear activities,” Hayden said.

“Then they’re free and empowered to do all their other activities in the region,” he added.

A senior U.S. official told reporters that negotiators will push back a self-imposed June 30th deadline.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/246386-ex-cia-head-i-fear-iran-has-the-upper-hand-in-nuclear-talks

Posted on June 28, 2015June 27, 2015 by James — 1 Comment

America’s post-Constitutional culture

By William Smith

Published June 26, 2015
FoxNews.com

Conservatives seem stunned that the U.S. Supreme Court ignored the plain language of the ObamaCare statute and upheld the legality of the premium subsidies that will flow indefinitely as the nation’s newest entitlement. Their surprise is similar to the shock they express every time the GOP congressional leadership passes a pork-laden spending resolution that lasts through the end of the fiscal year, essentially denying budget hawks the opportunity to trim federal spending.

This march of federal spending is an entirely predictable outcome. As foreseen by Tocqueville in 1835, America has developed a post-constitutional culture in which citizens are transformed from independent citizens into weak dependents, fully reliant upon the dispensations and “protections” of government. The Supreme Court and the Congress are now largely infirm, fatally weakened by the growth of an Executive branch that provides ever-expanding dispensations and “protections.” The entitlement state has killed the separation of powers.

The fundamental goal of the Constitution’s authors was to ensure liberty; by separating the different powers of government they barred one branch of government from having all the tools to dominate the body politic. As James Madison wrote in Federalist #47: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” Over the last 100 years, with the growth in the federal government, the Executive branch has accumulated powers so vast that Madison’s admonition has been reduced to an interesting historical artifact.

Justice Roberts’ opinion in King v. Burwell confirms Tocqueville’s prediction. He writes that the Court must uphold the statute because, to do otherwise, “would destabilize the individual insurance market”. In other words, federal benefits must flow no matter what the law actually says. In a feat of verbal gymnastics that would make a German philosopher blush, Roberts explains over many paragraphs that the language of the law is “ambiguous” when it is actually quite plain and simple. For the Court’s majority, it appears, protecting the flow of premium subsidies is what really matters, not the law. Roberts’ opinion claimed fidelity to the congressional statute when, in fact, he was simply protecting the political reputation of the Court by avoiding an assault on the entitlement culture.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/06/26/americas-post-constitutional-culture.html

Posted on June 27, 2015June 27, 2015 by James — 1 Comment

America’s Founding Principles Are in Danger of Corruption

Gary Hart
June. 26, 2015

Welcome to the age of vanity politics and campaigns-for-hire. What would our founders make of this nightmare?

Four qualities have distinguished republican government from ancient Athens forward: the sovereignty of the people; a sense of the common good; government dedicated to the commonwealth; and resistance to corruption. Measured against the standards established for republics from ancient times, the American Republic is massively corrupt.

From Plato and Aristotle forward, corruption was meant to describe actions and decisions that put a narrow, special, or personal interest ahead of the interest of the public or commonwealth. Corruption did not have to stoop to money under the table, vote buying, or even renting out the Lincoln bedroom. In the governing of a republic, corruption was self-interest placed above the interest of all—the public interest.

By that standard, can anyone seriously doubt that our republic, our government, is corrupt? There have been Teapot Domes and financial scandals of one kind or another throughout our nation’s history. There has never been a time, however, when the government of the United States was so perversely and systematically dedicated to special interests, earmarks, side deals, log-rolling, vote-trading, and sweetheart deals of one kind or another.

What brought us to this? A sinister system combining staggering campaign costs, political contributions, political action committees, special interest payments for access, and, most of all, the rise of the lobbying class

https://time.com/3937860/gary-hart-america-corruption/

Posted on June 27, 2015June 26, 2015 by James — Leave a comment

Poll: 72% fear economic crash, concern ‘highest ever’

BY PAUL BEDARD | JUNE 26, 2015 | 11:20 AM

The ever-expanding Republican presidential field, which threatens to splinter over social issues as dark horses grab hot-button topics for attention, is being urged to stick to the economy where the real pot of voter gold sits.

“Concern over the economy is the highest I’ve ever seen,” top GOP pollster Ed Goeas told the moderate Republican Ripon Society. He said 72 percent are worried about an economic downturn.

“Republicans need to get into the game on better turf and that means talking in specifics about how we will bring the economy back and help create the jobs that go with real recovery,” added pollster David Winston.

The exit polls from the 2012 and 2008 primaries and caucuses back them up, and show that the candidate who was considered by voters to be best on the economy usually won that state’s contest.

According to Winston, the economy was the top voter concern in 45 of 46 primaries and caucuses. The only exception was the 2008 Iowa caucus when illegal immigration trumped the economy, 33 percent to 26 percent.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/poll-72-fear-economic-crash-concern-highest-ever/article/2567095

Posted on June 27, 2015June 26, 2015 by James — Leave a comment

Americans Are Delaying Major Life Events Because of Money Worries

By ANN CARRNSJUNE 26, 2015

About half of American adults have postponed a major life decision in the past year for financial reasons, mainly because they lack sufficient savings or are worried about the economy, or both, a new survey finds.

The survey, conducted for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, found that the proportion of people delaying big decisions like buying a home or getting married had risen to 51 percent, from 31 percent in a similar survey in 2007, before the start of the financial downturn.

(The telephone survey of 1,010 adults, age 18 and older, was conducted in March by Harris Poll. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.)

The change was striking, and the percentages more than doubled in some areas. Nearly a quarter said they had delayed higher education, up from 11 percent in 2007, and 18 percent said they had put off retiring, compared with 9 percent in the earlier survey. Twenty-two percent said they delayed buying a home in 2015, compared with 14 percent in 2007.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/your-money/americans-are-delaying-major-life-events-because-of-money-worries.html?_r=0

Posted on June 26, 2015June 26, 2015 by James — Leave a comment

Congress Bought and Paid For Passes Trade Promotion Authority bill

Here’s how much corporations paid US senators to fast-track the TPP bill

Robert Gibson and Taylor ChanningWednesday 27 May 2015 08.30 EDT

*Out of the total $1,148,971 given, an average of $17,676.48 was donated to each of the 65 “yea” votes.
*The average Republican member received $19,673.28 from corporate TPP supporters.

*The average Democrat received $9,689.23 from those same donors.
*The amounts given rise dramatically when looking at how much each senator running for re-election received.

Critics of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership are unlikely to be silenced by an analysis of the flood of money it took to push the pact over its latest hurdle.
A decade in the making, the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is reaching its climax and as Congress hotly debates the biggest trade deal in a generation, its backers have turned on the cash spigot in the hopes of getting it passed.

Barack Obama given ‘fast-track’ authority over trade deal negotiations

“We’re very much in the endgame,” US trade representative Michael Froman told reporters over the weekend at a meeting of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum on the resort island of Boracay. His comments came days after TPP passed another crucial vote in the Senate.

That vote, to give Barack Obama the authority to speed the bill through Congress, comes as the president’s own supporters, senior economists and a host of activists have lobbied against a pact they argue will favor big business but harm US jobs, fail to secure better conditions for workers overseas and undermine free speech online.

Those critics are unlikely to be silenced by an analysis of the sudden flood of money it took to push the pact over its latest hurdle.

Fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments, was only possible after lots of corporate money exchanged hands with senators. The US Senate passed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) – the fast-tracking bill – by a 65-33 margin on 14 May. Last Thursday, the Senate voted 62-38 to bring the debate on TPA to a close.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/27/corporations-paid-us-senators-fast-track-tpp

Posted on June 25, 2015June 26, 2015 by James — Leave a comment

Star-Ledger Ed Board Accused of McCarthyism

Star-Ledger Ed Board does McCarthyism better than McCarthy

June 25,2015

By Scott St. Clair (https://savejersey.com/ )

The Star-Ledger hit a new low of innuendo and guilt-by-association smear tactics in editorially trying to link racists to the Republican Party. You get an A+ in McCarthyism and dirty tricks, but an F in integrity and respect for any point of view other than your own.The editorial’s not-so subliminal message is that Republicans who disagree with the paper’s editorial board or President Obama on policy do so for racially-motivated reasons.

Why not consider that maybe, just maybe, those who disagree do so because the policies are horrible, not in the national interest and complete failures?

Despite the insistence of some, it’s not a tautology that considering Obamacare a waste of money and a failure is racist. Wanting to secure our borders and control who comes into the country isn’t ipso facto bigotry. And maybe those of us who don’t want to see Medicaid expanded believe it’s too expensive and fiscally irresponsible.

Small and insecure thinking slaps the race card to cripple what should be legitimate debate.To paraphrase the words of attorney Joseph Welch in 1954 when he rebuked McCarthy: “You’ve done enough, Star-Ledger. Have you no sense of decency, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

The True History of the Democratic Racist Party

https://theridgewoodblog.net/the-true-history-of-the-democratic-racist-party/

Posted on June 25, 2015June 24, 2015 by James — 2 Comments

WHITE HOUSE BLAMES WHITE MALE RESENTMENT FOR OBAMA FAILURES ON GUNS, RACE

It is perfectly emblematic of the empty, hashtagging political era that the primary role of government after a mass murder would be as a semiotic interpreter for the nation.

As governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton celebrated his state’s Confederate heritage with a special star in his state’s flag. Now his wife is running for president as an ardent foe of Confederate remembrance. The GOP consensus of 20 years ago was that the display of the Confederate battle flag was up to the ones displaying it. Now they are falling over each other to denounce its public display.

None of it makes much difference in the lives of Americans or on the question of good governance.

These are things that politicians do not as part of leadership but of followership – public cues intended to show voters that a candidate is “one of them.” But they do not do much to shape outcomes. Quite the opposite. These are things you do when you can’t do anything real.

Is racism a problem in America? Not nearly what it was, but of course it is. Is it something that the federal government is going to be able to remedy? Not a chance. Are mass killings, regardless of the ideological fixation of the killer, an ongoing problem? America ranks fourth in the world for mass-shooting fatalities, so there’s certainly a problem. Is it likely to be fixed by legislation? Almost certainly not.

So what’s with all the focus on the flag?

We get an insight into the thinking of the president and his party from a WaPo piece on his many frustrations with his administration’s failures on gun control and race relations:

“‘If you are a white man in America, this country is changing dramatically. You have always been in charge,’ said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity [to] be candid. ‘So there is something to white men feeling like something has been taken away from them.’”

Not one in 1,000 white males cares about the presence of a Confederate war monument on the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse. Not one in 1 million would share the racist worldview of the Charleston killer. The overwhelming majority are focused on keeping themselves and their families afloat in the face of enormous challenges.

But focusing on them as villains is revealing and attributing the resistance to gun control and other issues as a personal response to Obama’s African heritage is an unintentionally damning revelation.

There’s nothing the president can do about the real issues, so finding and blaming a boogeyman becomes job one

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/white-house-blames-white-male-resentment-for-obama-failures-on-guns-race/article/feed/2176323?custom_click=rss

Posted on June 19, 2015June 18, 2015 by James — 11 Comments

OBAMA POLITICIZES CHARLESTON SHOOTING: CALLS FOR GUN CONTROL, SLAMS AMERICA

by JOEL B. POLLAK18 Jun 2015

President Barack Obama reacted to Wednesday’s horrific massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina by calling for gun control and criticizing the United States for the frequency of mass shooting events. “We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that, once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” Obama said, adding: “At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.”

Obama is wrong on both counts. Innocent people were killed because a murderer–likely motivated by racial hatred–had a gun–but guns in the right hands have stopped, or interrupted similar attacks before. In South Africa, for example–whose racist past seems to have provided gruesome inspiration for the Charleston killer–a parishoner stopped a mass shooting by a black nationalist group against a multi-racial congregation by firing his .38 revolver at the assailants, who ran away.

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/18/obama-politicizes-charleston-shooting-calls-for-gun-control-slams-america/

Posted on June 18, 2015June 18, 2015 by James — 7 Comments

To Destroy ISIS, Conscript Millennials, Says Baby Boomer Journalist

I am a millennial, get me out of here!

Robby Soave|Jun. 17, 2015 10:40 am

National Journal’s Ron Fournier has come up with a frightening, ageist approach to defeating ISIS: enslave the millennials! He explains:

I know a better way to fight ISIS. It starts with an idea that should appeal the better angels of both hawks and doves: National service for all 18- to 28-years-olds.

Require virtually every young American—the civic-minded millennial generation—to complete a year of service through programs such as Teach for America, AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, or the U.S. military, and two things will happen:

1. Virtually every American family will become intimately invested in the nation’s biggest challenges, including poverty, education, income inequality, and America’s place in a world afire.

2. Military recruiting will rise to meet threats posed by ISIS and other terrorist networks, giving more people skin in a very dangerous game.

The tone of Fournier’s column suggests that he considers mandatory national service a compromise in light of political realism—he would clearly prefer to restore the draft outright. This “compromise” idea is less horrifying than the draft, but not by a whole lot.

Disclaimer: I’m a millennial. I’m 26-years-old. I’m married and have a surprisingly steady job writing about why the government sucks. I’m supposed to just set all that aside for a year to work for causes I either don’t support, or actively oppose?

There are so many things wrong with this idea. For starters, it violates the principles upon which this nation was founded—that all men and women have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. While the Supreme Court has never held that mandatory national service violates the Constitution, the language of the Thirteen Amendment seems pretty clear to me: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”

At the root of Fournier’s plan is a more insidiously evil notion: that millennials aren’t doing anything worthwhile with their lives right now, and their time would be better spent in Teach for America, or the Army. There’s some anti-market thinking at work here, since typically, the activities that free people choose for themselves are more productive and profitable than the ones totalitarian governments assign to them. This is why the comparatively less meddlesome U.S. government is generally in better shape than, say, Venezuela. Fournier is essentially saying that in order to defeat our enemies, we have to mimic their levels of disrespect for individual freedom.

https://reason.com/blog/2015/06/17/to-destroy-isis-conscript-millennials-sa

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