How Long Can New Jersey’s Drinking-Water Supplies Hold Out?
Environmentalists want to know why the administration is stalling on a much-needed draft of a drinking-water master plan. (Johnson/NJSpotlight)
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U.S. military social media accounts apparently hacked by Islamic State sympathizers
U.S. military social media accounts apparently hacked by Islamic State sympathizers
Hackers claiming allegiance to the Islamic State took control of the social media accounts of the U.S. military’s Central Command on Monday, posting threatening messages and propaganda videos, along with some military documents.
The command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts were eventually taken offline, but not before a string of tweets and the release of military documents, some of which listed contact information for senior military personnel. A Centcom spokesman confirmed their accounts were “compromised,” and said later that the accounts have been taken offline while the incident is investigated more.
“CENTCOM’s operation military networks were not compromised and there was no operational impact to U.S. Central Command,” a military statement said. “CENTCOM will restore service to its Twitter and YouTube accounts as quickly as possible. We are viewing this purely as a case of cybervandalism.”
White House: ‘It’s fair to say’ we were wrong on Paris unity rally #JeNeSuisPasObama
White House: ‘It’s fair to say’ we were wrong on Paris unity rally
By Justin Sink – 01/12/15 01:54 PM EST
The White House erred in not sending a higher profile representative to this weekend’s solidarity march in France following a terrorist attack on a satirical newspaper, press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday.
“It’s fair to say we should have sent someone with a higher profile to be there,” Earnest told reporters at the White House.
“Had the circumstances been a little bit different, I think the president himself would have liked to be there,” Earnest added.
The White House said planning for the march had begun only 36 hours before the event, and that the security required for the president to visit would have been “onerous and significant.”
Still, Earnest said, there should be no doubt that the administration and the American people stood in solidarity with France, nor that the United States was “committed to a strong relationship. The United States is with France and committed to the same kind of values they are.”
The White House would not discuss whether it considered sending the president at any point.
Earnest said he did not know why Attorney General Eric Holder, who was in Paris earlier Sunday for a series of high-level counterterrorism meetings, was unable to stay to attend the march. He also said he did not know what the president, who remained at the White House throughout the day, did with his time.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/229217-white-house-we-were-wrong-on-paris
How to Live a Good, Happy Life (and Not Be Tranquilized by Drugs, Sex and Mass Media)
How to Live a Good, Happy Life (and Not Be Tranquilized by Drugs, Sex and Mass Media)
Lee Edwards / January 11, 2015
These are troubling times for many Americans. The economic recovery since the Great Recession of 2008 has been the slowest in U.S. history, with millions of out-of-work Americans so discouraged they are no longer even trying to find a job. Forbes puts the real unemployment rate at 12.5 percent.
Consumer confidence about the future, according to the University of Michigan, stands at a limp 73.7, similar to past recession lows. The national exit poll taken after the November elections found that 78 percent of the people feel that you can only “sometimes” (60 percent) or “never” (18 percent) trust Washington “to do what is right.”
You can hardly blame people for being so negative about their government, given the actions of the anti–Tea Party IRS, the grievously ineffective Department of Veterans Affairs, and the overly inquisitive National Security Agency.
Most important of all, there is our culture. George Orwell was wrong, and Aldous Huxley was right: The true danger is not a totalitarian government ruled by Big Brother, but a hedonistic society tranquilized by drugs, sex, and mass media.
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We are bombarded on all sides by pernicious messages. The Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule are fusty and old-fashioned and should be cast aside. Smoking a cigarette is banned, but smoking a joint is celebrated. “Pot entrepreneurs” are pushing to make Washington the Pot Capital of the World. Same-sex marriage is protected by our legal system, while traditional brides and grooms are patronized.
Cohabitation is the new norm for young couples. In the past decade, the percentage of children born outside of marriage grew by almost 7 percent; the unwed birth rate for African Americans is over 70 percent. The proportion of twelfth-graders admitting to drug use — ranging from marijuana to cocaine to heroin — is more than 25 percent.
The number of movies that offer death and destruction tops those concerned with life and love. TV programs such as House of Cards and Scandal, whose protagonists are corrupt, violent public officials, win awards. George Clooney is more famous than George Washington among our schoolchildren.
Jon Stewart has replaced Walter Cronkite as the most trusted newsman in America. As the head of the Parents Television Council said, “In order to watch cable news, ESPN, Disney, or the History Channel, every family in America must now also pay for pornography on FX.” The smartphone is turning us into dummies, able to communicate only with our thumbs.
If that were all there was to our society, many citizens, intent only on self-gratification, might not even bother to answer the question, “Is life worth living?” They would simply keep on surrendering to the impulse of the moment. But we are not yet at such a state of mindless, endless pleasure-seeking. A solid majority of Americans believe in God and go to church. Americans remain the most charitable and connected people on earth. They belong to countless voluntary associations — social, religious, educational, racial — that solve problems without government prodding or regulation.
So the bothersome question, “Is life worth living?” is bothersome because it forces us to consider not only our own life but the lives of others.
Aristotle, described by St. Thomas Aquinas as simply “The Philosopher,” said that happiness is the purpose of human existence. But happiness is not simply pleasure or self-gratification — it is the daily exercise of the classical virtues, led by prudence. Happiness, Aristotle said, is the sum of our whole life, “for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.” And since man is a rational animal, Aristotle said, human happiness depends on exercising reason, not being ruled by fleeting passions.
But Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who lived some 2,300 years ago. What do modern American thinkers say about what constitutes a good life, a worthwhile life?
Mary Rice Hasson of the Ethics & Public Policy Center counsels against despair. We have not yet lost the culture wars, she insists. For example, only 7 percent of Americans say that abortion is morally acceptable, only 4 percent say extramarital affairs are morally acceptable, and 50 percent think that homosexual activity is a sin. Overall, 72 percent of adults are still married to their first spouse. The sinews of a good society are there, if atrophied.
According to the conservatives’ favorite president, Ronald Reagan, “Every individual is unique, but we all want freedom and liberty, peace, love and security, a good home, and a chance to worship God in our own way; we all want the chance to get ahead and make our children’s lives better than our own.” Above all other places, Reagan wrote, America “gives us the freedom to reach out and make our dreams come true.” Note there is no mention of the government guaranteeing a job or a minimum wage or first place at the finishing line.
Best known for his political writing, William F. Buckley Jr. suggested in his book “Nearer, My God,” that work and prayer were the real stuff of a good life. “However routine,” he wrote, “work is a fortifying experience, your intimate sense of your own productivity.” Of his visit to the French town of Lourdes, the site of a thousand miracles, the Roman Catholic Buckley said that the pilgrims who visited Lourdes did so out of a conviction that “the Lord God loves his creatures, healthy or infirm; that they — we — must understand the nature of love, which is salvific in its powers.”
The Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Holocaust, reflected on how his experience in the concentration camps shaped his understanding of a meaningful life. “The more [someone] forgets himself,” he wrote, “giving himself to a cause or another person — the more human he is . . . the more he really becomes himself.”
An enduring memory from the camps, he said, was the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. While few in number, they offered “sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms . . . to choose one’s own way.”
In his 1985 message to the youth of the world, Pope John Paul II addressed directly the many temptations surrounding young people, such as “the fantasy worlds of alcohol and drugs . . . short-lived sexual relationships without commitment to marriage and family,” cynicism, and even violence. The secular consumer-dominated world suggested that man would find fulfillment in such fantasies, a suggestion firmly rejected by John Paul, who quoted Christ: “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
And what does it mean to be free? the pope asked. It does not mean “doing everything that pleases me, or doing what I want to do. . . . To be truly free means to use one’s own freedom for what is a true good . . . to be a person of upright conscience, to be responsible, to be a person ‘for others.’”
On a less elevated plane, the social scientist Charles Murray offered five rules for a happy life, ranging from marrying young to not worrying about fame and fortune, and he included this arresting advice: Watch the movie “Groundhog Day” repeatedly. Without preaching, Murray wrote, “the movie shows the bumpy, unplanned evolution of [the] protagonist from a jerk to a fully realized human being — a person who has learned to experience deep, lasting and justified satisfaction with life even though he has only one day to work with.”
In the final pages of his autobiography, “The Sword of Imagination,” the historian and man of letters Russell Kirk reflected that he had sought during his lifetime three ends: (1) to conserve a patrimony of order, justice, and freedom, a tolerable moral order, and an inheritance of culture; (2) to lead a life of decent independence; and (3) to marry for love and rear children (he and his wife, Annette, raised four daughters) who would come to know that the service of God is perfect freedom. Through the grace of God and his own talents, Kirk achieved all three goals and provided a raison d’être for those who reject the modern existential argument that life is without meaning.
Rather than surrender to despair, we should strive to enlighten those around us, to live as best we can a life of ora et labora, to further conservatism as the philosophy most consistent with the American founding and the idea of ordered liberty. And we must love not only those who love us but also those who do not, and be prepared to go gentle into the night, believing in the permanent things of faith, hope, and charity.
Originally appeared in the National Review.
https://dailysignal.com/2015/01/11/how-to-live-a-good-happy-life-and-not-be-tranquilized-by-drugs-sex-and-mass-media/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
POLITICO’s list of Top 100 donors of disclosed money tilts leftward
George Soros
Blue billionaires on top
POLITICO’s list of Top 100 donors of disclosed money tilts leftward.
By Kenneth P. Vogel
1/11/15 8:04 AM EST
Democrats spent much of the 2014 campaign castigating Republican big money, but, it turns out, their side actually finished ahead among the biggest donors of 2014 – at least among those whose contributions were disclosed.
The 100 biggest donors of 2014 gave nearly $174 million to Democrats, compared to more than $140 million to Republicans, according to a POLITICO analysis of reports filed with the Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service.
Donors who gave mostly or exclusively to Democrats held down 52 of the top 100 spots, including that of the biggest by far – retired San Francisco hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer, who spent $74 million helping Democratic candidates and groups.
Of course, that edge doesn’t take into account contributions to deep-pocketed non-profit groups that don’t disclose their donors. They heavily favored Republicans, with reports showing conservative secret money non-profits outspending liberal ones $127 million to $33 million. While that’s just a fraction of the overall undisclosed money spent in 2014, it’s indicative of a dramatic imbalance in a type of big money spending that likely would close the gap between Democratic and Republican top donors, if not put Republicans ahead.
For instance, the network of mostly secret-money non-profit groups helmed by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers was on pace to spend $290 million in 2014. Yet David and Charles Koch, who Democrats worked to vilify as the very personifications of the corrupting effect of big money in politics, ranked as only the 10th and 29th biggest givers of disclosed cash in POLITICO’s analysis.
Nonetheless, the analysis suggests that rich liberals have gotten over any lingering qualms about writing huge checks to unlimited-money groups like those made legal under a pair of 2010 federal court decisions – including Citizens United vs. FEC – that liberals including President Barack Obama had blasted asundermining American democracy.
POLITICO’s analysis is the most comprehensive assessment to date of elite donor spending in the first full midterm election cycle following Citizens United. The analysis relies on FEC data processed by the Center for Responsive Politics (a non-partisan non-profit group), supplemented by IRS data aggregated and made available for downloading by Political Moneyline, covering donations made during the 2014 cycle, including reports filed last month that detail contributions through the final days of the race. The analysis incorporates checks written by donors, their spouses and closely controlled corporations to federal candidates’ campaigns and national party committees, as well as to political action committees and super PACs registered with the FEC. The analysis also covers donations to national non-profit groups established under a section of the tax code – 527 – that allows organizations like the Democratic and Republican governors associations and EMILY’s List to accept unlimited contributions for political spending, provided they disclose their donors to the IRS.
The list contains some familiar names in the world of big political spending from across the political spectrum, including the hawkish Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson (who ranked No. 3; with $13.2 million in disclosed donations, but who also donated another $10 million or more in undisclosed money), as well as the liberal financier George Soros and his son Jonathan Soros (Nos. 16 and 38, respectively, giving a combined $5.6 million).
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/blue-billionaires-on-top-114151.html#ixzz3OYai4zh8emocrats spent much of the 2014 campaign castigating Republican big money, but, it turns out, their side actually finished ahead among the biggest donors of 2014 – at least among those whose contributions were disclosed.
The Union-Driven Crisis That Could Be Coming to a City Near You
The Union-Driven Crisis That Could Be Coming to a City Near You
Stephen Moore / @StephenMoore / January 11, 2015
For “Outrageous Government Scam of 2014,” it’s hard to compete with the news of the supersized public employee pensions in California. If you haven’t already heard: In 2013, an assistant fire chief in Southern California collected a $983,319 pension. A police captain in Los Angeles received nearly $753,861.
Talk about a golden parachute. And the report on Golden State government pensions contains a list of hundreds of “public servants” who have hit the jackpot with annual pensions of a half million dollars a year. It’s like they’re playing the game “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” with taxpayer money.
By some estimates, the unfunded public-sector pension liabilities in California have eclipsed $750 billion, which means in a few years residents will be paying their already-highest-in-the-nation income and sales taxes not for roads, bridges, schools and public safety, but for retired employees living like Daddy Warbucks.
This same scandal – only on a slightly smaller scale – is happening in most states. The crisis dates back 20 to 30 years ago, when public employee unions negotiated fat pension deals with state and local politicians that were like ticking time bombs in municipal budgets. The politicians who bought union votes didn’t care much. They’d be long gone when these grenades detonated, and the fiscal carnage began.
Americans know instinctively that this is no way to run a city or state, and that the enormous pensions border on larceny from public treasuries. This will eventually cause rip roaring problems for state and local budgets. But now we have a story from middle America of what happens when the crisis hits a financial boiling point. Look no further than Scranton, Pa.
Scranton is a middle-class, blue-collar town of 76,000 with severe financial problems. The city recently raised its property taxes for 2014 by more than 50 percent, and those taxes are expected to rise by another 20 percent in 2015. The city had to also raise various fees, such as the charge for garbage collection, by two-thirds. It’s becoming a tax hell.
These taxpayer costs are skyrocketing because the city’s auditors calculate that the police and fire pension funds will be completely depleted in three to five years. The local Times-Tribune newspaper reported last week that “pensions increased by as much as 80 percent” after a court order in 2011 awarded millions of dollars of added pensions to firefighters and police officers.
This is a town that has already been struggling for years to pay its bills. The Times-Tribune reports: “The increased pensions come at a time when Scranton, in distressed status since 1992, is struggling to survive [and faces] a $20 million deficit.” City officials admit that to pay these lucrative pensions will mean less money for school children, public safety and infrastructure needs.
Finances are so tight in this town that, late last year, the city auditor put out an advisory memo to city agencies: “Only in the event of an extreme emergency can a purchase be made. … This is a serious matter and your cooperation is expected.”
So, now, homeowners are getting squeezed on basic city services as they pay ever escalating property taxes. What a deal. Don’t be surprised as more leave Scranton, further depleting the tax base. And who would want to move there now?
When the mayor requested that the unions help keep the city afloat by renegotiating these soaring pension costs, the answer from these militant “public service” union leaders was, Hell no.
One option is for Scranton to take the Detroit route and declare bankruptcy. This is also what several California cities – such San Bernardino and Stockton – have had to do.
The California Policy Center notes that this option has the virtue of “forcing the unions to renegotiate and take a haircut.” If that doesn’t happen, cities like Scranton, and many more working-class towns, will continue to raise taxes at a time when families are already walking a financial tight rope.
The Left loves to talk about “fairness” and “inequality,” but where the inequities really exist are in towns like Scranton. Middle-class private-sector workers pay higher and higher taxes to fund public-sector pensions that, as the Manhattan Institute has shown, are often twice as generous as what most workers will receive themselves. The money for supersized pensions isn’t going to come from millionaires and billionaires like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. It is coming right out of the paychecks of working-class America.
The crisis isn’t going away. Nationwide, public employee pensions are running $1 trillion to $5 trillion in the red, depending on the rate of return expected on stocks and bonds. This could be the next housing bubble to burst. Some states like Utah have smartly moved to head off this crisis by closing down open-ended pensions and putting public sector union members in 401(k) plans that won’t bankrupt the state or municipalities. The unions are fighting this reform everywhere.
If something isn’t done quickly, the crisis in Scranton will soon be coming to a town near you.
Originally appeared in the Orange County Register.
NEW JERSEY TRANSIT OFFERS SYSTEMWIDE CROSS HONORING IN ADVANCE OF WINTER STORM
NEW JERSEY TRANSIT OFFERS SYSTEMWIDE CROSS HONORING IN ADVANCE OF WINTER STORM
Customers advised to check njtransit.com before traveling
January 11, 2015
NEWARK, NJ — NJ TRANSIT operations, customer service and police personnel are taking steps to minimize delays, and ensure service reliability and safety due to the approaching winter storm. All customers are strongly advised to check njtransit.com before traveling for up-to-the-minute service information before starting their trip.
Customers are strongly urged to exercise extreme caution traveling in and around all transit facilities and when boarding or exiting buses and trains due to the expected icy conditions.
Systemwide Cross-Honoring in Effect on January 12: To give customers additional travel options during the expected winter weather conditions, NJ TRANSIT will offer full systemwide cross-honoring on Monday, January 12, enabling customers to use their ticket or pass on an alternate travel mode—rail, light rail or bus—including private bus carriers.
For example, customers who normally take the bus from Rutherford to the Port Authority Bus Terminal may use their bus pass or ticket on the train from Rutherford to New York Penn Station. Similarly, customers who normally take the bus between Atlantic City and Lindenwold may use the Atlantic City Rail Line instead at no additional charge. Customers using their tickets or passes to travel to a destination other than the destination printed on their original ticket will be subject to the appropriate additional fare if applicable.
NJ TRANSIT will also continue to closely monitor the crowds at New York Penn Station, Hoboken Terminal and the Port Authority Bus Terminal and make adjustments to service as necessary.
The corporation is preparing to minimize disruptions and delays to the extent possible. Rail and light rail crews and equipment are on standby to quickly respond to downed trees, power outages or other issues that may arise. In addition, NJ TRANSIT will be positioning locomotives at strategic locations across the rail system to rapidly respond in the event of a disabled train.
Customers are advised of the following:
Systemwide: NJ TRANSIT plans to operate a regular weekday schedule on Monday, January 12. Depending on the impact of the storm, it may be necessary for NJ TRANSIT to modify service as conditions change.
Bus Service: While every effort will be made to continue operating bus service throughout the state, customers may experience delays or detours on their routes in the event of extreme winter weather conditions. Customers are advised to plan accordingly and anticipate disruptions to bus service.
Travel Advice:
For the latest travel information, visit njtransit.com or access our Twitter feed at @NJTRANSIT prior to starting your trip. In the event of delays or service adjustments, NJ TRANSIT will provide the most current service information via the My Transit alert system, which delivers travel advisories for your specific trip to your cell phone, PDA or pager. (If you are not yet a My Transit subscriber, we encourage you to sign up at www.njtransit.com/mytransit) Service information is also available by calling (973) 275-5555 or from broadcast traffic reports.
Listen closely to public address announcements at stations for late-breaking service information.
Build additional travel time into your trip to a station, terminal or bus stop.
Stairs, flooring and platforms can be slippery, so please use caution when walking along wet surfaces or any outdoor surface exposed to the weather. Use extra care when boarding or exiting buses and trains.
Report slippery or unsafe conditions to bus operators, train crews or
NJ TRANSIT staff.
If you park, ensure your car is stocked with a snow brush and ice scraper so you can clear your car upon returning to the lot.
NJ TRANSIT is prepared to handle the impending winter weather:
Snow plows and salt spreaders are ready for service and snow-removal contracts are in place with outside vendors.
NJ TRANSIT is well-stocked with 16,000 bags of snow-melting supplies, and hundreds of shovels and snow blowers.
NJ TRANSIT has performed maintenance and testing on its two rail-mounted jet snow blowers in the event they are needed to help clear train tracks of snow and ice, particularly in rail yards.
More than 750 rail switches, switch heaters and overhead wires have already been inspected as part of NJ TRANSIT’s preventative maintenance program.
Onboard heating systems, thermostats, weather stripping and electronic components have been inspected on NJ TRANSIT railcars, light rail cars and locomotives.
Bus maintenance personnel have inspected and performed necessary maintenance on a fleet of nearly 2,200 buses – from the heating and airbrake systems, to the engine fluids, tires, windshield wipers and doors.
High-Ranking Democrat Sen. Robert Menendez Blasts Obama’s ‘Secret Diplomacy’ With Cuba
High-Ranking Democrat Sen. Robert Menendez Blasts Obama’s ‘Secret Diplomacy’ With Cuba
Philip Wegmann / @PhilipWegmann / January 05, 2015
President Obama will have trouble appointing an ambassador to Cuba following his decision to normalize relations with the Communist government, predicts the outgoing Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
On Sunday, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., told CNN that past actions on the part of the Obama administration would make it “very difficult to get an ambassador confirmed.”
The senior Democratic lawmaker blasted the White House for independently restarting diplomatic ties with Communist Cuba while keeping Senate leaders in the dark.
Asked if he was ever consulted about negotiations with Cuba, Menendez replied, “Absolutely not. I knew nothing about them.”
A Cuban-American himself, Menendez argues the Obama administration played into the hands of the Castro government without achieving any lasting reforms for the Cuban people.
“We exchanged one innocent American for three convicted Cuban spies, including one that was convicted for conspiracy to commit murder against U.S. citizens.”
“If you’re going to make a deal with the regime,” Menendez complained, “then get something for it.”
The senator argues that “10 million people in Cuba got a bad deal” while the United States exchanged “one innocent American for three convicted Cuban spies” and received “nothing in terms of democracy and human rights.”
Indicative of a greater problem, Menendez said the Obama administration’s “secret diplomacy” has kept Senate leaders from getting “straight answers” not only about Cuban but also Iranian negotiations.
He explained that these methods will make things “problematic for the administration when it appears before the committee again.”
How France Legitimizes Violent Responses to Offensive Speech
How France Legitimizes Violent Responses to Offensive Speech
Jacob Sullum|Jan. 8, 2015 12:08 pm
Nine years before three gunmen executed 10 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo for the crime of insulting Islam, two Muslim organizations tried to imprison the editor of the satirical French weekly for the crime of insulting Islam. Although Charlie Hebdo won that case, the fact that it was possible illustrates how French law legitimizes the grievances underlying yesterday’s barbaric attack by endorsing the illiberal idea that people have a right not to be offended.
The Paris Grand Mosque and the Union of French Islamic Organizations sued Charlie Hebdo and its editor at the time, Philippe Val, over its 2006 publication of three cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, including two that had appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten the previous year. One of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons showed Muhammad in heaven, telling a line of arriving suicide bombers, “Stop, stop, we ran out of virgins!” The other depicted Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb. The third cartoon was a cover illustration labeled “Muhammad Overwhelmed by Fundamentalists” that showed an anguished prophet with his hands to his face, saying, “It’s hard being loved by assholes.”
The complaining organizations argued that all three cartoons violated French law, which makes insulting people based on their religion a crime punishable by a fine of €22,500 and six months in jail. In March 2007 a Paris judge, Jean-Claude Magendie, concluded that two of the cartoons targeted radical Islamists, as opposed to Muslims in general. He said the third cartoon, the one with Muhammad wearing a turban-bomb, did qualify as an attack on Muslims in general. But because Val had published it in response to an earlier controversy over its appearance in Jyllands-Posten, Magendie ruled, he lacked the requisite intent to insult. An appeals court upheld the decision, although it concluded that none of the cartoons amounted to an attack based on religion.
https://reason.com/blog/2015/01/08/how-france-lends-legitimacy-to-violence
Anti-Growth Policies Continue To Slow Jobs Creation
Anti-Growth Policies Continue To Slow Jobs Creation
PETER MORICI | 01.09.2015 | WORDS OF WISDOM
The economy added 252,000 jobs in December, down from 353,000 in November. With GDP growth slowing, prospects for jobless Americans are worsening.
The unemployment rate fell to 5.6 percent, but only because so many working age Americans quit looking for work and are no longer counted in the official jobless tally. If the same percentage of adults were in the labor force today as when Presidents Obama took office, the jobless rate would be about 9.9 percent
The Administration alibis Baby Boom retirements are driving down adult participation. However, nearly one in six men between ages 25 and 54 — too old for college and too young to retire — are jobless. Many are simply sitting at home watching ESPN, playing video games and relying on relatives, friends and government benefits for support.
The Obama recovery has managed only 2.3 percent GDP annual growth, and the economy has added only 6.4 million new jobs on his watch. Whereas during the Reagan recovery, the pace of economic growth was 4.8 percent, and 9.5 million jobs were added through the end of his sixth year.
America has not lost its capacity to innovate and create new products and industries but in a globalized economy, poor government policies block Americans from playing their strengths.
The nation still enjoys strong comparative advantages in manufacturing, but President Obama refuses to confront China, Japan and Germany about exchange rate and monetary policies that purposefully undervalue their currencies and artificially underprice their exports. And now it seems the president is intent on jamming through congress new free trade agreements that would further open U.S. markets to foreign competition, while countenancing continued currency manipulation and mercantilism abroad.
Restrictions on offshore drilling and onshore pipeline construction continue unnecessary U.S. dependence on foreign oil, divert billions of consumer dollars abroad and rob Americans of millions of jobs.
The cost of hiring workers is greatly increased by Obamacare health insurance mandates, minimum wages above the federal standard in 29 states and needlessly cumbersome business regulations. Along with threats of government-inspired litigation, those accelerate automation.
Amazon recently purchased Kiva Systems, which makes robots that will permit it to eliminate thousands of jobs at its fulfillment warehouses. Those systems are already at retailers including Crate and Barrel and Gap.
Administration polices have encouraged monopolization in key industries that are major contributors to the Democratic machine — greatly slowing growth and jobs creation.
Dodd-Frank lending regulations have proven too costly for smaller banks, and many have sold out to larger banks. Deposits are even more concentrated among “too big to fail” Wall Street banks, who often are not much interested in lending to Main Street businesses and homebuyers.
Cable companies enjoy considerable freedom to raise Internet and TV rates, and have taken the profits to acquire media companies and other businesses instead of enhancing service. For example, Comcast, whose CEO often hosts Obama fundraisers, has used monopoly profits from high cable rates to purchase NBC, where it underwrites political activists like Al Sharpton, instead of investing in systems that could raise Internet speeds and support more web-based businesses.
Major airlines, which are well represented in Washington, have consolidated to individually lock up many inter-city routes. Instead of passing along lower fuel prices by trimming ticket prices and adding flights, airline shareholders and employees are feasting on windfall gains. American Airlines is urging its pilots to accept a union contract that raises pay more than 20 percent — more than arbitrators awarded.
Obama’s lax immigration enforcement and amnesty are increasing competition for jobs. A study by the Center for Immigration Studies, released last June, found foreign born workers are taking the lion share of new jobs, especially those going to prime working age adults between the ages of 16 and 65.
Those forces combine to push down wages. Average family income, adjusted for inflation, has fallen from about $57,000 in 2000 to $52,000.
Peter Morici is an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland, and a national columnist. He tweets @pmorici1
Ridgewood, fire department’s union come to terms on contract
file photo by Boyd Loving
Ridgewood, fire department’s union come to terms on contract
JANUARY 8, 2015, 8:04 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2015, 8:05 PM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD – The village and the fire department’s union have come to terms on a new four-year agreement that the council is expected to accept the agreement when it meets next week.
The new contract was agreed to by both sides on Dec. 17, said Ridgewood’s Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld, who detailed the agreement’s terms at the council’s meeting Wednesday night.
Sonenfeld said that both sides worked together during negotiations to avoid arbitration “and heavy use of lawyers.”
Under the terms of the new agreement, the council agreed to raise the starting base salary for a firefighter to $36,000 from $32,000, while creating three additional pay-scale steps, stretching the time in which a firefighter can obtain the top pay level to 13 years from 10.
The new contract eliminates longevity payments for new hires, and puts a cap on top terminal leave at $15,000 for those with at least a year of banked sick days, Sonenfeld said.
The union agreed to forgo pay raises for the first three years of the deal, with a 1.5 percent salary increase guaranteed for 2018, the final year of the contract.
“In recognition of our mutual commitment to growing staff and future leaders, we put in place an education benefit that provides for partial tuition reimbursement for job-relevant degrees and courses,” Sonenfeld said.
Sonenfeld projects the new contract will save the village approximately $170,000 per new officer over the course of their career with the fire department.
“Time’s up for denial and hypocrisy,” Le Pen
France’s Front National leader Marine Le Pen said France has to confront the beliefs of the gunmen who stormed the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo this morning. Photographer: Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images
Le Pen May Gain as Magazine Attack Strains French Divide
By Angeline Benoit, Sandrine Rastello and Caroline Alexander January 07, 2015
France’s Front National leader Marine Le Pen pinned the blame for the killing of 12 people in Paris yesterday on Islamic radicals, as mainstream leaders tried to downplay the religious dimension of the attack.
While President Francois Hollande called for national unity in an attempt to deter the public from demonizing the country’s 5-million strong Muslim community, Le Pen said France has to confront the beliefs of the gunmen who stormed the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
“Time’s up for denial and hypocrisy,” Le Pen, who has railed against immigration, said in a video posted on her party’s website. “The absolute rejection of Islamic fundamentalism must be proclaimed loudly and clearly.”
Story: How French Weekly Charlie Hebdo Became a Terrorist Target
The lessons voters draw from the deadliest attack on French soil since World War II will shape the political debate as the country looks toward the 2017 election. Hollande, the most unpopular president in modern history, is struggling to make up ground on Le Pen, who’s seen her support surge as she blames immigrants for France’s near-record unemployment and deepening inequalities.
Lamenting Liberty Lost
Lamenting Liberty Lost
Unless we have a radical change, we will continue our march toward the federal destruction of the presumption of liberty.
Andrew Napolitano | January 8, 2015
A British author, residing in the United States for the past 30 years, created a small firestorm earlier this week with his candid observations that modern-day Americans have been duped by the government into accepting a European-style march toward socialism because we fail to appreciate the rich legacy of personal liberty that is everyone’s birthright and is expressly articulated in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Os Guinness, the author of more than a dozen books defending traditional Judeo-Christian values and Jeffersonian personal liberty, argued that we should embrace individual liberty and personal dignity and reject the “no givens, no rules, no limits” government we now have. He went on to opine that the government today is not the constitutionally restrained protector of personal freedoms the Framers left us, but rather has become the wealth-distributing protector of collective interests the Founding Fathers never could have imagined.
Yet the problem is a deep one. The Framers believed in the presumption of liberty, which declares that we are free to make personal choices, and the government cannot interfere with our liberties unless we violate the rights of others. Stated differently, the federal government cannot interfere with our personal choices by writing any law it wants; it can only regulate behavior or spend money when the Constitution authorizes it to do so.
But for the past 100 years, the federal government has rejected the Madisonian concept that it is limited to the 16 discrete powers the Constitution delegates to it, and has claimed its powers are unlimited, subject only to the express prohibitions in the Constitution. Even those prohibitions can be gotten around since government lawyers have persuaded federal courts to rule that Congress can spend tax dollars or borrowed money on any projects it wishes, whether authorized by the Constitution or not. The courts even have authorized Congress to use federal tax dollars to bribe the states into enacting laws that Congress is powerless to enact, and Congress has done so.
https://reason.com/archives/2015/01/08/lamenting-liberty-lost
McConnell promises dramatic change , putting the Senate back to work
McConnell promises dramatic change , putting the Senate back to work
By Alexander Bolton
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told colleagues on the first full day of the new Congress to expect a dramatic change from his predecessor, Democratic leader Harry Reid (Nev.).
He pledged to decentralize power in the Senate, which had become concentrated in Reid’s office during the past eight years of Democratic rule.
“It’s time to change the business model,” McConnell said in his first lengthy speech on the floor as majority leader. “We need to return to regular order. We need to get committees working again. We need to recommit to a rational, functional appropriations process.”
He promised to “open up the legislative process” to allow senators on both sides of the aisle more opportunity to offer and vote on amendments.
That approach will mean working long weeks and later hours, he warned.
“But restoring the Senate is the right thing to do. And it’s the practical thing to do,” he said.
McConnell said the nation has lost faith in government and no longer trusts Washington.
https://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/228746-mcconnell-promises-dramatic-change
Boehner and House GOP Regroup After Tumultuous Speaker Election
Boehner and House GOP Regroup After Tumultuous Speaker Election
By Matt Fuller and Emma DumainPosted at 5:39 p.m. on Jan. 6
After the election of John A. Boehner to a third term as speaker Tuesday, House Republicans start the 114th Congress in a similar fashion to the 113th: Conservatives are unhappy with leadership and leadership’s not too pleased with some conservatives.
Tuesday’s floor vote insurrection wasn’t particularly close — Boehner won re-election with 216 of the 408 votes cast. But in a strong statement of protest, 25 Republicans voted for someone else or voted present. (On the Democratic side, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi received 164 Democratic votes, with four members of her party voting for someone other than the California Democrat.)
The 25 Boehner rebels — a mix of familiar conservative foes, some GOP freshmen and a few Republicans who typically vote with Boehner but broke rank on the speaker vote — sent a message to Boehner and Republicans in general that the conference is not unified, despite the massive gains the speaker has overseen as the House’s No. 1 Republican since 2006.
In his remarks after retaking the speaker’s gavel, Boehner expressed hope for a renewed era of cooperation and congressional productivity.
“They say nothing’s going to be accomplished here, that the division is wider than ever, and so the gridlock will be even greater,” Boehner said. “And frankly: Fair enough. Skepticism of our government is healthy, and in our time, quite understandable.
“But one problem with saying, ‘It can’t be done,’ is that it already has been done, or at least started,” he continued.
Boehner said that, as speaker, all he asked for and expected was for members to “disagree without being disagreeable.” He eventually shed some of his characteristic tears as he talked about planting seeds for congressional achievements, cultivating the ground and “tak[ing] care of the pests.”
But the proverbial pests who have long prevented Boehner’s legislative harvest had a different message: That it was time for Boehner to go. And even though they were unsuccessful in that endeavor, Republicans sent a signal to leadership — 25 dissidents was certainly more than most in the Capitol expected.
https://blogs.rollcall.com/218/boehner-and-house-gop-regroup-after-tumultuous-speaker-election/?dcz=
