Scouring the Internets this morning I bumped into two articles. One shows something good, the other something not so good.
Michael Barone wrote this article posted on RCP which says the college bubble is finally starting to burst. The cost of university has not been tied to market forces since about 1986, which helps to explain the ridiculous costs facing undergraduates over the last decade. These universities have had to give scholarships and discounts in order to be competitive. Barone states that data over the last few years indicates that tuition rates have finally succumbed to market forces. Rates may even decrease over the next few years.
Then I read this which comments on Peter Schiff’s new book. It’s total pessimism porn. In sum, the Federal Reserve’s money pumping is inflating the market and slowly tearing apart the dollar. One day the game will stop and craziness will ensue! Read the article, it’s pretty interesting. Unfortunately, Schiff has been really prescient on these kinds of things.
The IRS admitted to improperly targeting groups looking for tax-exempt status if the words “tea party” or “patriot” were in their names. From 2010 to 2012, roughly 75 Tea Party groups were subjected to “additional review” which delayed their acceptance. Hmm… just in time to stymie the political activities of groups opposed to the administration around election time. This is sketchy as hell.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wants a “government-wide review” to make sure that this kind of abuse was not widespread (let me save him some time, it wasn’t!).
Lois Lerner, the person in charge of the tax-exempt branch of the IRS, admitted today that this targeting “was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. The IRS would like to apologize for that.”
You can bet that apologies won’t be enough for groups targeted for their political beliefs who are already upset at this Administration.
In real numbers, last year China’s GDP was around $8 trillion, while ours was about $15.7 trillion. Based on that pattern many believe that statistically China’s economy will surpass the size and scope of United States by 2017… but something may get in the way of that forecast: China itself!
This article comes to the conclusion that China’s 30-year boom is exhausting itself, and that without serious free market reforms or risky American-style credit and debt experiments, it will soon face serious hard times. Add in the demographic changes surrounding an aging population in China and the future for China looks smaller, not bigger. Plus, there are fewer peasants to force into the factories and less demand during the current world-wide economic slump. The Chinese Politburo also believes that the September 2008 crash validates the high levels of state control on the China’s economy, stymieing any chance for real reforms.
I would feel a lot better about a rising China if they were more like us — free markets and all. It seems that from at least one person’s perspective, in order for China to take the world’s economic mantle China will have to be more like us.
No one should be surprised that the Benghazi scandal dominates the headlines once again, this time with whistle-blowers. The Obama Administration has stone-walled, subverted, intimidated, and just plain lied about that they knew and when they knew it.
The outrage isn’t new and isn’t going away. This isn’t Watergate or Iran-Contra or Zippergate. Four people are dead including US Ambassador Chris Stevens. They were killed during a sustained two-part terrorist attack on our consulate on September 11 of all days, and in its aftermath the Administration purposefully misled the nation for weeks during the run-up to a Presidential election! This ain’t going away.
That being said, the MSM (who many are calling the “Praetorian Media” lately) is shrugging off all the new testimony and inconsistencies. White House Spokes-puppet Jay Carney is calling the fuss political regarding something that happened a long time ago. If his response weren’t so Alinksy-like, I’d be disappointed. It obviously signals that the Administration is uncomfortable about where this is going. And where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Today’s testimony was intriguing. Here’s a poignant clip from whistle-blower and regional security officer Eric Nordstrum:
Here’s Representative Gowdy nailing it (much of the revelations by Greg Hicks here are contrary to the Administration’s position):
Wow. It’s unfortunate that any of this needs to happen, but it’s too late now — we have to know the truth. We’re closer to that today than at any time since the attack.
The summer movie season usually kicks off the first weekend of May. So, the film industry usually saves a film they think will open the busiest season of the movie-going year with a bang. This year’s anticipated opening blockbuster is Iron Man 3. “Certified Fresh” by Rotten Tomatoes, Iron Man 3 delivers on what our expectation of a summer movie should be — big, loud, funny, and generally entertaining all-around. Here’s the trailer:
SPOILER FREE. While called Iron Man 3, it’s really the fourth part of the Tony Stark universe. If you haven’t seen The Avengers (last year’s big summer movie debut), then you will be out of the loop. Plus, in the post-LOTR sci-fi fanboy mold, one needs to be somewhat familiar with the first two Iron Man films as well — there is not a lot of time spent explaining the past to get the casual movie-goer caught up.
OK. Once that’s taken care of, Iron Man 3 is a lot of fun. The original movie beat my expectations, the second part was just the first one on steroids, but Iron Man 3 moves the story to a more personal level — Tony Stark’s personal demons, his past catching up with him, and a new bad guy reminiscent of an Osama Bin Laden-like terrorist. I don’t want to give anything away about the plot at this point, but it’s a clear improvement from Iron Man 2 and has real twists here and there.
Rotten Tomatoes scores the movie with a 78%. For entertainment value and spectacle, the movie is great, but suffers from being a sequel to a story that’s only OK, not riveting. I’d give it a B+ for the fun, the twists, and the spectacle. However, the casual movie goer may agree with RT’s C+ (not everyone’s a fanboy), but if you like the series, Iron Man 3 is a clear improvement from the second film.
I just saw this Kmart commercial for the first time yesterday and laughed pretty hard. Sorry if it’s been played out for you personally, but it’s new to me and I kind of need a low-brow sophomoric moment to end this crazy week. Enjoy:
While the jury in the Kermit Gosnell case continues to deliberate on the eight counts of murder against the “doctor,” pro-life advocate Lila Rose and her group Live Action continue to use the opportunity of the trial to draw attention to the outright infanticide taking place at Planned Parenthood (as well as other) clinics around the nation. Here is the latest undercover video:
The “doctor” and “counselor” don’t seem to taken aback by the undercover woman’s questions and readily have answers to those questions. The whole video is both disturbing and sad.
By the way, love that Arizona law requiring the “doctors” to read that blurb (at 3:25).
The jury in abortionist baby-killer Kermit Gosnell’s murder trial heard closing arguments today. Based on ridiculously scant media coverage of this trial, most wouldn’t have noticed it. Demonstrating the depth of the MSM blackout, NewsBusters revealed that in the last 42 days Good Morning America spent 109 minutes on other sensational trials, while spending NO time on this one. This lack of coverage was typical for other news outlets too.
The Washington Post posits a reason why: it’s uncomfortable to think about the idea that Gosnell might not be alone. That, and buried deep in the article is the fact that President Obama agrees with this kind of infanticide. Drawing attention to Gosnell may harm the President’s image, especially since he recently stood in stark defense of Planned Parenthood. Hence, it doesn’t fit the overall MSM narrative.
Unfortunately for the MSM and Planned Parenthood, their archenemy is at it again — Lila Rose from LiveAction has released an undercover video from New York, then another from Washington DC, of atrocious things being suggested at abortion clinics, implying the practices are common, no big deal. Pushing this story into the people’s consciousness may coerce the MSM to eventually do their job while exposing the mainstream media’s near silence on this issue.
Until the 1960s, it was assumed by all sovereign states that they had the right to choose which non-nationals were admitted within their borders. Now, to suggest such a thing risks the charge of “nativism” and to propose that, say, Swedes are easier to assimilate than Chechens is to invite cries of “Racist!” So, when the morgues and emergency rooms are piled high, the only discussion acceptable in polite society is to wonder whether those legless Bostonians should have agitated more forcefully for federally mandated after-school assimilationist basketball programs.
Here, Steyn connects the two themes after delving into Gosnell’s trial:
Maybe if we didn’t collapse the skulls of so many black babies in Philadelphia, we wouldn’t need to import so many excitable young Chechens. But that’s thinking outside the box, and the box is getting ever smaller, like a nice, cozy cocoon in which we’re always warm and safe. Like — what’s the word? — a womb.
Steyn certainly has a way of cutting through the PC nonsense. Read After America — it’s filled with refreshing straight-talk like this.
With the commercial success of The Hunger Games, it’s no surprise that three more movies are in the works — which is fine with me. A sequel based on book two of the series, Catching Fire, is set for release in November. Here’s the trailer:
Those not familiar with the books, but enjoyed The Hunger Games movie, may not be aware that the books are told completely in first person. So, even in this teaser trailer I noticed a little license-taking, but that comes with the territory. Catching Fire expands the story out of District 12, involving all of Panem and Katniss’ changing role in that world. I loved the book, and can’t wait for the film.
One really doesn’t know what to believe from our elected officials nowadays, but rest assured that any benefit they can endow on themselves will be baked into any cake. That being said, a story hit the Internets this week that apparently high-level confidential talks have been going on for months about exempting members of Congress and their staffs from Obamacare. Why? Simply — because it costs too damn much.
After the obligatory eye-rolling, however, I can’t help but be troubled. Rush had some thoughts about this kind of Ruling Class behavior earlier today:
“Folks, that kind of thing, gotta be very careful here in the choice of words. This kind of thing, the crafting of punitive legislation like Obamacare mandating that every citizen abide by it, but the elites exempting themselves from it, has caused trouble throughout world history — throughout human history. Acts like that have resulted in overthrows, have resulted in attempted overthrows.”
I can’t disagree — the Ruling Class is really pushing it these days. Also, I can’t get this line out of my head while writing this post: socialism is for the people, not the socialists. DC is clearly making sure of that nowadays.
The EU is a clear political expression of a civilization’s decay as its ruling class plays its last few cards before some kind of end. Nigel Farage, an MEP from the UK who belongs to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) back home, spoke truth to power about the EU’s actions regarding the troubles in Cyprus, using the dreaded “c-word,” communism, when describing the wealth confiscation plan proposed by the EU in Cyprus. Here’s the clip:
Usually we hear such displays of truth from UK MEPs like Daniel Hannan, but Farage is great here! Yet, why do I have the feeling that the chamber is virtually empty when either man speaks, and that condescending eye-rolls pepper these men from the other side of the camera.
Roughly 24 hours after releasing the photos of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one was dead and the other in custody. Dzhokhar will face terrorism charges and ultimately be executed for his part in all of this. However unsatisfying it may be, hopefully he can answer some questions, especially for the families of the dead and wounded who need some kind of closure.
However, of all the questions which remain, none is more ominous than this one: did they act alone?
The House wants some info from the Obama Administration about Tamerlan, who the FBI was asked to approach by an undisclosed foreign government in 2011 before his trip to Russia, where many believe he was radicalized and trained. If any of that is true, then these two Chechnyans might have been part of a larger cell. The FBI is already on the case.
As the days go by, we should continue to learn more. Kudos to law enforcement for being able to bring in at least one of the suspects alive — that couldn’t have been easy.
Just before 3pm EDT a bomb exploded near the finish line of the annual Boston marathon, with a second one exploding a few blocks away only seconds later. At the time of this writing, two people are dead and 73 are being treated at area hospitals. Here was the scene:
Nonetheless, our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families at this time along with all the people of Boston, many of whom had their lives changed in an instant by this cowardly act of terror.
If you believe “rich” is considered any household earning over $250,000 a year, and if you believe that the acceptable tax rate on the top earners is 39.6%, then wouldn’t you think someone pulling in $608,611 should pay their “fair share” of taxes? Even if this person gave (and legitimately deducted) a substantial amount of money, say $150,034, to charity then they would still be in that top bracket, clearing over $450,000.
That being said, the figures above belong to the Obama’s. It turns out that the First Couple paid an effective tax rate of 18.4% in 2012 on their income.
Just for some perspective, in 2012 I personally paid a federal tax rate of 14.8% and a 3.4% New Jersey tax rate. Meaning that a person with my job and demographic data paid a combined federal and state tax rate of 18.2%! I’m in the $50,000 to $75,000 income range and I paid virtually the same percentage of taxes than the Obama’s who made over $600,000! That’s infuriating.
I wouldn’t mind all that so much if we had a flat tax (a real “fair share”), but we don’t.
Always remember Andrew Wilkow’s gem: “socialism is for the people, not the socialists.” We have a ruling class that gets to make their own rules, then takes advantage of those rules while having the nerve to try to give the rest of us a guilt trip about paying our “fair share.” This tax code doesn’t seem particularly “fair” to this pleb.
Last night against the Baltimore Orioles, the New York Yankees pulled off something quite rare — a triple play. It is so rare for the Yanks that it’s only the team’s second since 1969, and first one at home since 1968!
A new study spanning different generations over 25 years indicates that today’s young adults are 15 years less healthy than previous age groups at the same age. Meaning, the prevalence of health issues related to things like high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, etc. among 40-year-olds today is similar to the levels older groups have at age 55!
None of this is good, or unexpected. Our increasingly sedentary lives cater to these maladies. However, like those people born in the 1920s whose bodies showed in old age indications of malnutrition as children during the Great Depression, today’s young people may show something similar in their old age.
Counter-intuitively (but related), according to the National Academy of the Sciences, over time “improvements in health are negatively correlated with GDP growth and positively correlated with increases in the unemployment rate.” Weird.
Will that hold as we wade deeper into our current Obama-induced economic quagmire? I’m not sure what the impact of the ever-increasing welfare state in America may have on that. Time will tell.
Earlier today the liberal news dump Mother Jones published a story airing secret taped conversations made during Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell’s strategy sessions regarding his potential Senate race against Ashley Judd. The excerpts deal with opposition research and campaign strategy. Judd is no longer running for Senate as that trial balloon has deflated, but that doesn’t matter — who taped these conversations, who else is involved, and how did Mother Jones get them?
Obviously, McConnell is freaked and feels like the FBI should get involved in the investigation, so he has asked for their help. This is the same kind of illegal tapping that almost happened at the Watergate Hotel in June 1972, before the “Plumbers” were caught. Following the cookie crumbs in that case brought down a President. This instance is smaller in scale, but the principle seems to be the same — cheat.
The FBI just started dealing with McConnell’s issue so it’s not likely that they’ll come up with anything soon, but heads should roll once they do. At present, though, the press is more interested in impugning McConnell’s character than getting to the bottom of the law-breaking.
“The only reason for gun control is for the Government to be protected from the Citizens.”
Amen! Since most of the high-profile proposed legislation around the nation would not stop another Sandy Hook from happening, Mr. Martinez adds a sobering and necessary point of view moving forward. It’s refreshing.
Getting one’s marketing right is important for any business, even if you’re a big box store like Target.
If you’re going to elaborate on the shade of a gray dress, please be consistent: if the skimpy one is called “dark heather grey,” then so should all the other sizes.
For example: that same dress in a plus-size shouldn’t be “manatee grey” by contrast.
Target apologized for the snafu, but c’mon! However appropriate to the actual color the word “manatee” might be, the word “manatee” should NEVER appear on a piece of women’s apparel!
As a man, I know about 10 colors on a good day. This dress in question seems kind of… um… “gray” to me. That’s the best I can do. On a woman, “Yes dear, it looks great” would be the only other comment I could imagine having — not “Wow dear, that manatee one looks best on you!”
Seriously, Target? ManateeGrey on a plus-sized dress? Whatever, man.
In a study released March 8, some climate scientists set themselves up to be the latest batch cool kids showing that the Earth still has a temperature. Their study showed the obligatory apocalyptic hockey stick in the Earth’s temperature during the 20th Century that will surely destroy us all, reaffirming the classic alarmist dogma.
However, by March 31 (Easter) that group of scientists had to recant their findings because it didn’t hold up to real peer review. Instead of an upward hockey stick graph, a slowly sloping U-shaped model indicating that the 20th Century was pretty blase ruined their day.
Great news for the planet, not great news for the climate cultists and their sycophantic politicians.
However, the President was in Colorado today in his latest push to implement useless statist gun control policies (with some old and misleading stats by the way). Well, surfing the Internets today, I came across this video and wanted to add it to the echo chamber:
Whether or not she compiled all that info herself, it’s clear that she both makes sense and believes it. With kids like her, liberty may have a future.
I wish this were an April Fools joke, but it’s not. Former Reagan economic guru David Stockman is warning that the Fed’s money-pumping is creating an unsustainable stock bubble which will inevitably come crashing down in the next few years. Worse, Stockman argues that the “Too Big to Fail” corporatist culture created over the last few decades will end only in unimaginable disaster without revolutionary political and economic change:
The way out would be so radical it can’t happen. It would necessitate a sweeping divorce of the state and the market economy. It would require a renunciation of crony capitalism and its first cousin: Keynesian economics in all its forms. The state would need to get out of the business of imperial hubris, economic uplift and social insurance and shift its focus to managing and financing an effective, affordable, means-tested safety net.
All this would require drastic deflation of the realm of politics and the abolition of incumbency itself, because the machinery of the state and the machinery of re-election have become conterminous. Prying them apart would entail sweeping constitutional surgery….
Stockman’s profile has reemerged because he has a new book on the horizon, The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, which deals with the dangers of crony capitalism. Yet, this is one area where I believe that the Tea Party and the Occupy rubes actually agree — big government and big business are a bad combination. While assuredly pessimism porn, I’m nonetheless interested in reading Stockman’s book when it becomes available tomorrow.
If it’s the first Sunday after the first full moon after the beginning of Spring, it must be Easter!
Hope you and your family have a great one!
Unfortunately for Christians nowadays, we live in perilous times. Not only is the Obamacare contraception mandate a brazen attack on religious liberty, the language all over social media lately regarding the gay rights debate is filled with anti-Christian vitriol. The well-documented War on Christmas hasn’t subsided, plus now there seems to be a budding War on Easter! Atheists promote their intolerant view of religion by attacking religious elements of the culture with which they disagree. The pop culture often engages in various forms of ridicule, even today on Easter. The attacks are incessant.
Agreeing to disagree in a pluralistic society — what a novel idea! Too bad the last remaining socially acceptable bigotry in the United States happens to be being anti-Christian. Christians are used to persecution, though, but it’s disappointing when it happens in a nation partially founded on the principles of religious freedom and expression.
All abortion is the vicious killing of an innocent human being whose life deserves to be protected by the law. Public opinion may be divided on that statement, but the one thing that even pro-lifers and those who are pro-choice could agree on is that a baby is entitled to protection once it is born. Well, no more.
According to Planned Parenthood lobbyist Alisa LaPolt Snow, even the life of a baby who has been born and is struggling for dear life on a table is subject to the heartless whims of a formerly pregnant woman and her “doctor” post-birth abortion.
This really is turning into a sick, sad world. Many people are rightly decrying the attitude held by people like Ms. Snow because she is arguing for the legalization of killing a child we all see. But it is important to remember that our society already allows the killing of children just minutes before the hypothetical situation Snow condones just because they are in the womb. Ms. Snow may be extraordinarily cruel for supporting the slaughter of humans we all see, but those we can’t see are just as deserving of legal protection. Let’s not forget that.
The top five most free states are: North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma.
Rounding out the bottom five are: Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Jersey, California, and the Nanny State herself, New York. The President’s home state of Illinois was #45, keeping it just out of the bottom five! Generally, there were no surprises aside from Massachusetts being a bit high at #30.
My state of New Jersey is awful. Governor Pop-n-Fresh may still be popular in NJ, but a real look at his policies in action will not warrant my vote this November — the tolls have gone up, the state’s economy is stagnant, our debt problem is dire, plus he’s an awful Republican and not a conservative given all the one-size-fits-all dictates from Trenton on education and property taxes. So, I’m not surprised that NJ’s rank hasn’t changed since GMU’s last survey.
President Obama, deeply committed to dealing with Mideast peaceSequester cutsgay marriageimmigration reform gun control, tried to “shame” Congress into action by using mothers of slain children in the Sandy Hook Massacre as props to promote his political agenda. Hot Air deals quite well with the brazen and cynical sideshow the President put on today.
What bugged me, though, was how the press used the release of details from the Sandy Hook massacre to push the President’s agenda. ABC Radio news today even implied that it was Lanza’s own guns along with NRA pamphlets which enabled the massacre! Talk about shameful.
First of all, Lanza didn’t own any guns, his mom did. Second, he killed her, stole her guns, then went on his rampage. Third, nothing about his medications or other details about his specific mental condition are mentioned in the data released today — that’s an uncomfortable subject. Yet, those details matter, especially when policy is being formed to punish millions of law-abiding citizens because of the actions of a mentally ill individual. And shame on Obama for using people involved in a tragedy as political human shields.
Since 2009, I’ve heard the term “Fabian socialist” thrown around now and then, but wasn’t too sure who they were. What makes them “fabian” and not regular socialists?
Well, I looked it up. In the Second Punic War (218-202 BC), there was a Roman general (and brief dictator) named Quintus Fabius Maximus, commonly known as “the Delayer” for avoiding direct attacks with Hannibal’s forces, preferring to wear-out the armies of Carthage by being “consistent and unchangeable.” Fabius was usually successful.
Well, in 1884 a faction of Britain’s socialists believed that evolution, not revolution would be more effective in achieving their goals. These socialists would be consistent and unchangeable in their desire for, as Jerry Bowyer of Forbes wrote, the:
“gradual nationalization of the economy through manipulation of the democratic process. Breaking away from the violent revolutionary socialists of their day, they thought that the only real way to effect ‘fundamental change’ and ‘social justice’ was through a mass movement of the working classes presided over by intellectual and cultural elites.”
So, they called themselves the “Fabian Society” to describe their approach to worldwide socialism. They are still around today.
Bowyer’s article, written the day before President Obama was elected, seems to imply that this “fabian” tradition is alive and well in the hearts of progressives like Obama. That revelation adds another layer of understanding about this administration’s goals and policies.
Pope Francis was only elected two weeks ago and he has already captured the attention of the world. In these two weeks, one thing I’ve noticed among people I know is that some Catholics who don’t accept the teachings of the Catholic Church have cited Pope Francis’ humility and willingness to put faith into action as a rhetorical weapon to bludgeon the more academically-oriented Pope Benedict XVI. But as the Anchoress points out in today’s outstanding post, those who use some of Pope Francis’ strengths as a weapon against his predecessors and the church itself as well as those who fixate on Pope Francis are missing the point of his early pontificate, which is to renew and clarify the church so the modern world can see what it’s really about and then be challenged.
Of course, she says it better than I ever could so I’m about to say something I don’t say that often, but probably should: read the whole thing. Trust me. If you want to learn about Pope Francis, Pope Emeritus Benedict, and the church itself, click the link.
