Hillary Gets $500K Jewelry, Obama Given Coke Bottle From Foreign Officials

Artwork, vases, jewelry, a basketball, books, clothing, booze, weaponry, rugs, and iPads are among the gifts government officials received from foreign dignitaries in 2012.

The annual list of gifts from foreign leaders to government officials in 2012 was released by the State Department on Thursday.

The most valuable gift was "white gold jewelry with teardrop rubies and diamonds containing a necklace, a bracelet, earrings and a ring" valued at $500,000 to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from Saudi King Abdullah.

She also received a "Mouawad Larme D'Amour 18k gold, sapphire, and diamond earrings, necklace, and bracelet," valued at $58,000 from the Queen of Brunei and a $1,750 silver tea set from the president of Algeria.

However, the value of most gifts was under $5,000.

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama received dozens of foreign gifts. The president's gifts ranged from an autographed red, white, and blue basketball from Chinese President Xi Jinping, to a $16,500 gold-plated clock from the Saudi Arabian defense minister.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon sent Obama a collection including a Coca-Cola bottle decorated with beads, two shirts, silver cuff links, and five bottles of liquor in a wooden chest. Obama also received a custom table-tennis set from British Prime Minister David Cameron and several books from various leaders around the world. 

The most popular gift bestowed upon first lady Michelle Obama was jewelry. 

Lower level officials received dozens of watches and pens, and Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates each gave Apple iPads. 

Via: Newsmax

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Heritage busts Obama gas price myths

Heritage has decided to take Obama to task and bust the lies he’s told about why gas prices are so high and also what he can do about it:

As Americans across the country gas up their cars for their Memorial Day getaways this year, their wallets will take a bigger-than-usual hit. That’s because gas prices are up $1.06 from last year according to a study by AAA. In fact prices have more than doubled since President Obama took office. And while the media has been slow to demand answers of the President, he has been busy trying to deflect attention away from his incoherent energy policy with a number of gas price-related myths. From overstating the impact of green energy to downplaying the devastating impact of his drilling moratorium, the President should spend less time trying to deflect criticism and more time working to ease pain at the pump.

Via: Heritage 
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California’s Blue Utopia

(Editor’s Note: California Political Review has been following this situation for a few years now, and we are re-releasing past articles detailing the state’s challenges.)

The Progressive wing of the Democrat Party sits at the left end of their spectrum. JFK’s liberal positions would be regarded as moderate today. Progressives have a unique vision of what a blue state utopia would look like that begins with clean air, clean water, and green energy. Over the last twenty years, with the backing of the public employee unions that control the political process in California, the Progressives have managed to neuter the Republican Party and turn California Blue, owning every elective office in the state. They did not need much help according to Dan Walters, who stated, “Even the most anti-immigrant, anti-gay marriage, anti-tax, anti-abortion Republican activist must now recognize that with the party’s wipeout in last month’s elections, continuing down its recent path is a plunge into complete irrelevance”.

In 2012, the progressive Democrats captured a super majority in both houses so that with their Progressive governor, they no longer require a single Republican vote to pass any form of legislation, leaving conservatives an “irrelevant” minority.  As an independent businessman, I have created many jobs and opportunities. But despite my contributions to society, and the taxes I have paid over the last thirty plus years, the Progressives believe I need to pay more so that I pay “my fair share.” Only when I pay my fair share can their blue vision of utopia be fulfilled.

What is my fair share? Under existing Federal and State income tax rates, I will pay 50% of my income in taxes. In California alone, my “fair share” on a million dollars of income is $133,000 each year. In exchange for my taxes, I receive little from the state. In addition, I pay gasoline taxes that pay for the upkeep of the highways. I pay airline taxes that maintain the airports I use. I pay among the highest in the nation sales tax on what I consume. I pay property taxes for the schools my grown children no longer use (they have already left California). I pay utility taxes for the upgrade of infrastructure. I pay higher health insurance rates. I already pay more than my own way.

Via: California Political Review

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U.S. FIGHTING MEXICAN CARTELS WITH PRIVATIZED MANNED AERIAL SURVEILLANCE

It has long been known that U.S. authorities use unmanned aerial drones to patrol the nearly 2,000-mile U.S./Mexico border. However, a recent report by FOX News’ William La Jeunesse reveals the U.S. is engaging in aerial surveillance over Mexican soil—manned surveillance flights. 

Such efforts are not new on the part of U.S. authorities. Manned surveillance flights have long been a part of U.S. efforts to break the backs of Colombian drug cartels. The Colombian mission has seen its share of catastrophe, though. Two surveillance planes went down, a pilot was killed by narco-guerrillas, and a number of Americans were held captive for years until Operation Jaque, a Colombian operation, freed them. 

A private company conducts the operations, which La Jeunesse says are daily. He was quoted Aram Roston of vocative.com as stating: "I'm told that they fly daily and as much as possible. They land, they refuel, they get their maintenance, and they get out again.” He also wrote that the planes are manned by a defense contractor named Sierra Nevada.

The privatization of U.S. border security and anti-cartel efforts are not new in the war against Mexican cartels, though they have been substantially under-reported in U.S. media. Several sources in U.S. law enforcement who work directly on such issues have acknowledged to Breitbart News that rural border counties sometimes hire privatized narcotics interdiction teams to assist in drug war efforts with boots on the ground. 

Law enforcement from Laredo, Texas to Oregon have acknowledged that a severe lack of resources exist to handle the Mexican cartels’ efforts in rural U.S. counties. Laredo Police Department’s Joe Baeza spoke to Breitbart News on multiple past occasions regarding rural Texas counties along the U.S./Mexico border that do not have internet, much less the gear, firepower, or manpower to deal with such organized criminal efforts. 

Via: Breitbart

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ObamaCare looks back on job destruction

In the course of an excellent Forbes article about the hard facts of America’s transformation into a “part-time nation,” Grace-Marie Turner drops a bombshell about the illegal delay of the ObamaCare employer mandate… which turns out to have been a cheap political stunt, in addition to a violation of the Constitution.
First, the icy statistical truth of Waiter and Waitress America:

An avalanche of “anecdotes” continues to pile up as workers across the country are having their hours cut and their health benefits slashed across a broad range of industries. 

Loren Goodridge, the owner of 21 Subway franchises, says he has no choice but to cut the hours of his employees to 29 a week to avoid the law’s penalties. 

The negative effects of the law reach the education industry as well. St. Petersburg College, a public university in Florida, is reducing the hours of 250 faculty members because the college says it cannot afford to provide them with health insurance. 

Joseph Hansen, the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union that originally supported the law, says the health law will have a “tremendous impact as workers have their hours reduced and their incomes reduced.”. 

Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that the ratio of part-time to full-time jobs has completely flipped this year from historical trends. Last year, six full-time jobs were created for every one part time job. This year, only one full-time job is being created for every four new part-time jobs.

So much for the last-ditch Obama apologist tactic of claiming this was all just over-hyped anecdotal evidence from hateful small business owners, who were either making things up, or using ObamaCare as an excuse to go on the job-killing rampage they’d been dreaming about for years. Four part-time jobs for every full-time job? Dear God.

Via: Human Events

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Appropriations apocalypse hits California Legislature

Forget floor votes and the governor's pen -- the road by which bills become law travels first through Appropriations. And with today being the final day for bills to get out of fiscal committees, we'll know by the close of business which bills march on to the next step and which ones will expire or be left to shrivel on suspense file. Some of the more significant legislation whose fate will be revealed:

Senate
-A bill that would hike California's minimum wage
-Several different gun control bills
-A bill to grant drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants
-A bill altering which agency oversees the state's drinking water fund
-This year's loudly trumpeted attempt at a so-called "Domestic Workers Bill of Rights"
-A bill tweaking CalWORKS rules to allow women who get pregnant while on welfare to claim benefits for the child
-A bill nixing the use of lead bullets
-A bill creating a new program allowing medical translators to gain union representation
-A bill expanding the time frame in which the families of fallen cops and firefighters can claim compensation


Assembly
-A bill restricting nonprofit campaign activity that has unified counties and cities in opposition
-A bill expanding what nurse practitioners can do and a scope-of-practice bill affecting pharmacists.
-A bill punishing cities whose charters exempt them from prevailing wage requirements
-Even more in this year's raft of gun control bills
-A bill to regulate hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking"
-An earthquake warning system bill
-Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's CEQA bill
-A bill restricting the use of solitary confinement for juveniles
-A bill cracking down on parolees who remove their tracking devices

VIDEO: The Legislature reaches an important milestone today, Dan Walters says.

COVERED CALIFORNIA: A day after California's coming-soon health insurance marketplace revealed its advertising campaign, Covered California executive director Peter V. Lee will hold a town hall on what to expect. At Sacramento City college, starting at 2 p.m.

BIRTHING DAY: Well, this adds some meaning to the term "Labor Day." On Monday, people affiliated with the organization ImprovingBirth.org will be rallying at the State Capitol building to advocate for fewer Cesarean section births. Starting at 10 a.m. on the west steps.

Via: The Sacramento Bee

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In the Fifth Year of the “Obama Recovery,” Another Discouraging Labor Day for American Workers

Economists say the 2007-09 recession officially ended in June 2009. Yet, as the fifth year of the “Obama Recovery” begins, American workers are facing another discouraging Labor Day. Let’s take a look at some of the hallmarks of the “Obama Recovery”:

1. Worst jobs recovery ever;
2. Rising part-time employment;
3. Declining wages;
4. Growing workforce dropouts; and,
5. Rapid rise in adult children living with their parents.

These data show an economy still struggling to get back on its feet, despite the President’s jobs road show, trillion-dollar stimulus plan, and continued promises that Obamacare and related policies will finally yield government-led prosperity. Given these continued disappointments now into the fifth year of the “Obama Recovery,” it is time for real solutions to stoke the engine of the U.S. economy, such as comprehensive tax reform which will strengthen our economy, create jobs, and increase wages.
1. Worst Jobs Recovery Ever
The Obama Administration promised in 2009 that their trillion-dollar stimulus plan would create 3.5 million jobs and reduce unemployment to 5 percent by now. Then in 2010, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised that Obamacare would create another 4 million jobs, declaring it “a jobs bill.” Unfortunately for the American people, none of that has actually happened. Instead, the U.S. economy continues to experience the worst jobs recovery ever – and the only one in which all the jobs lost during the recession had not been restored by this point in the recovery.

Source: Calculated Risk Blog, Percent Job Losses During Recessions.

Via: Ways and Means

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Who Benefits from Collective Bargaining in Education?

Union bosses do — at the expense of good teachers, children, their parents and taxpayers.  

In a tribute to Labor Day, the California Teachers Association has put up a slobbering web page as a paean to the labor movement. Its unintentionally humorous title is “Organized Labor – Proud and Free.”

Free?

Actually, it is very costly. Here in California, a non-right-to-work state, teachers must fork up over $1,000 a year in order to work in a public school. (They can pay a little less if they choose not to support the union’s political agenda.) And all teachers are forced to be a part of the collective bargaining (CB) unit.

Collective bargaining, a term first introduced into the lexicon by socialist Beatrice Webb in 1891, is a process of negotiations between employers and employees aimed at reaching agreements that regulate working conditions. The workers are commonly represented by a union, and the agreements reached by this arrangement set wage scales, working hours, teacher training, etc.

It sounds like a good deal for teachers, but is it?

“Exclusive representation” (more accurately, monopoly bargaining) privileges are the source of compulsory union power.

Handed to union officials by Congress in the National Labor Relations Act, monopoly bargaining gives union kingpins the leverage to herd workers into unions and then force them to pay union dues.

Under federal law, if union organizers win a representation election by even 50% plus one of those voting, they are empowered to negotiate contracts on behalf of all 100% of the workers. In fact, under some circumstances, union officials become monopoly “representatives” even when most workers are against them! And by law each and every worker loses his or her right to negotiate directly with the employer on his or her own behalf.

So problem #1 with CB is that teachers are forced to go along with the 50 percent plus one even if they would rather negotiate their own contacts.

Via: California Politcal Review

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