EPA’S CLEAN POWER PLAN HAMMERS REPUBLICANS, SPARES DEMOCRATS

The EPA’s final Clean Power Plan, released on August 3, financially hammers coal-dependent states compared to the Obama Administration’s 2014 draft proposal. Nine months after the loss of Kentucky Democrat Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes and the retirement of West Virginia Democrat Jay Rockefeller, the EPA’s attack on coal country is all about going after Republicans.

After the Democrats aligned with the United Mine Workers in the early 20th Century, “coal-country” counties that stretch through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, Southern Indiana, Southern Indiana and Alabama had been some of the most reliably Democrat bastions in the nation. A number of coal-country counties voted Democrat in every Presidential election from 1932 to 2004.

But Democrats suffered huge losses in the region due to Bill Clinton’s regulations and Al Gore’s environmentalism, coupled with cultural issues like gun control. The impact crippled a key Democrat advantage. George Bush’s 2000 victory in West Virginia cost Al Gore the U.S. Presidency.

Barack Obama only lost Knott County, KY by 8 percent in 2008. But his cap and tradeproposal, along with his enthusiasm for EPA regulation of coal-fired plants, caused him to lose the county by 48 percent in 2012.

With hopes of salvaging some of the Democratic base in June 2014, the EPA’s Clean Power Plan proposed rule under the Clean Air Act was unveiled as the centerpiece of the Obama Administration’s strategy to address climate change. The proposal had a complicated set of formulas “explicated” in dense bureaucratese in a series of technical support documentsthat varied dramatically from state to state.

Despite huge criticism from coal-country Democrat Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes and the Republicans about the EPA harming their states, the effect of the proposed “disparate treatment” would have allowed much more moderate enforcement of coal-countryCO2 emissions. According to an analysis by the Brookings Institute of the 2014 proposed EPACO2 emissions reductions, the “states that emitted the most were generally asked to do the least.”

Despite easier proposedCO2 treatment in 2014, Jay Rockefeller, the West Virginia incumbent Senate Democrat and chairman of the powerful House Commerce Committee, decided not to run for re-election. Five months after the proposed EPA regulations were released, outstanding Democrat Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes lost by 16 percent against Senate Majority Leader 

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

52%

. Coal-country strength helped give Republicans control of the Senate for the first time since 2006.

The final EPA rule is 1,560 pages of complex typeset. But Brookings finds the basic structure is now much more straightforward:

Basically, the EPA has set carbon emissions standards for two types of plants: for fossil fuel-fired steam generating units, 1305 lbs CO2/MWh, and for stationary combustion turbines, 771 lbs CO2/MWh. Now each state’s target is set by looking at a weighted average of their current (2012) fossil fuel-fired electrical generating units and imposing those emission standards.

Where the EPA came up with its CO2-per-megawatt emission standards is sure to be both legally and politically controversial. It is also interesting that nuclear energy seems almost exempt. But it is Republican-controlled states of Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming that will be financially hammered.

The Democrat-controlled states of California and the Northeast are tasked by the EPA with much smaller CO2 reductions, because they supposedly embraced renewables and natural gas.

Via: Brietbart

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GOP leaders say erratic attacks hurt Trump, but he vows to fight and win

Republican leaders who have watched Donald Trump’s summer surge with alarm now believe that his presidential candidacy has been contained and may begin to collapse because of his repeated attacks on a Fox News Channel star and his refusal to pledge his loyalty to the eventual GOP nominee.

Fearful that the billionaire’s inflammatory rhetoric has inflicted serious damage to the GOP brand, party leaders hope to pivot away from the Trump sideshow and toward a more serious discussion among a deep field of governors, senators and other candidates.

They acknowledge that Trump’s unique megaphone and the passion of his supporters make any calculation about his candidacy risky. After all, he has been presumed dead before: Three weeks ago, he prompted establishment outrage by belittling the Vietnam war service of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), only to prove, by climbing higher in the polls, that the laws of political gravity did not apply to him.

Still, Trump’s erratic performance during and after the first Republican presidential debate last week sparked a backlash throughout the party Saturday and a reassessment of his front-running bid. The final straw for many was Trump’s comment on CNN late Friday that Fox moderator Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), a fellow candidate, said Trump was jeopardizing the GOP’s chances of winning back the White House and urged party leaders to stop “tiptoeing” around him.

“I think we’ve crossed that Rubicon where his behavior becomes about us, not just him,” Graham said in an interview.

“Donald Trump is an out-of-control car driving through a crowd of Republicans, and somebody needs to get him out of the car,” Graham said. “I just don’t see a pathway forward for us in 2016 to win the White House if we don’t decisively deal with this.”

Trump — whose strident opposition to illegal immigration helped him amass a 2-to-1 polling lead over his nearest GOP rivals — was characteristically defiant and confident in a series of phone calls Saturday with The Washington Post. He vowed to reboot his campaign amid a staff shake-up and said he could capture the White House because “millions of people everywhere” who feel alienated by the political class are standing by him.

Via: Washington Post

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Marco Rubio Speaks at #RSG15

The story of Marco Rubio is one that is tied closely to the success of the RedState Gathering. Back at the first Gathering in 2009, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 92% was a former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives drawing about 1% of the vote in a Republican primary opinion poll versus Governor Charlie Crist. He won the primary election against Mr. Crist, of course, and he won the general election. Now, he is running for the Republican nod for the Presidency, and it is easily apparent that he has a lot of support for that honor. As he has been so willing to do in the past, he stopped by this year’s Gathering to speak to everyone. Here is what he said:

Via: Red State

THOUGHTS ON BERNIE SANDERS BEING FORCED OFF STAGE BY BLACK LIVES MATTER AGITATORS - UPDATE

Bernie Sanders was forced to exit the stage of his own rally in Seattle by Black Lives Matter agitators.

They would also disrupted Sanders and Martin O'Malley during their appearance at the Netroots Convention in Phoenix last month and cut considerably into their speaking time.

What I find interesting is how The Left is gloating over the Republican Party row over Donald Trump. In his usual smug form, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone claims that Republicans, Fox News, talk radio and the conservative blogosphere have created a monster that's now turning on them. Could Taibbi please tell me exactly how many Republican presidential candidates have been forced off the stage of their own rallies?

Black Lives Matter is a creation of the Democratic Party, the mainstream media, Hollywood and the left-wing blogosphere. And when their creation can force Bernie Sanders off the stage and prevent him from speaking then it has surely become a monster. But don't expect the Democratic Party, the mainstream media, Hollywood and the left-wing blogosphere to ever describe Black Lives Matter in this manner. 

UPDATE: As a couple of readers have pointed out, the rally from which Sanders was unceremoniously evicted was one commemorating Social Security & Medicare and wasn't a Sanders for President event. Nevertheless, it doesn't change the fact he was forced off stage by outside agitators. There is a difference between that and Donald Trump having his invitation to the Red State event. While one might object to Erik Erickson's decision, I cannot imagine a scenario in which conservative activists would jump on stage uninvited and force a Republican presidential hopeful off-stage and not permit him or her speak.

Via: American Spectator

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[VIDEO] [COMMENTARY] DONALD TRUMP: STILL RIGHT ABOUT MEXICAN RAPISTS

August 5, 2015

There's a cultural acceptance of child rape in Latino culture that doesn't exist in even the most dysfunctional American ghettoes. When it comes to child rape, the whole family gets involved. (They are family-oriented!)

In a 2011 GQ magazine story about a statutory rape case in Texas, the victim's illegal alien mother, Maria, described her own sexual abuse back in Mexico.

"She was 5, she says, when her stepfather started telling her to touch him. Hand here, mouth there. The abuse went on and on, became her childhood, really. At 12, when she finally worked up the desperate courage to report the abuse and was placed in foster care, she says her mother begged her to recant -- the family needed the stepdad's paycheck. So Maria complied. She was returned home, where her stepdad continued to molest her. When she talks about it, tears stream down her face."

Far from "I am woman, hear me roar," these are cultures where women help the men rape kids.

Maria dismissed the firestorm of publicity surrounding the sexual precocity of her own daughter, laughingly referring to the 11-year-old rape victim as "my wild child." She even criticized the girl's older sisters for complaining about the young girl's promiscuous clothing choices, saying -- of an 11-year-old: "Well, she's got the body, so leave her alone."

In 2013, illegal immigrant Bertha Leticia Rayo was arrested for allowing her former husband, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, to rape her 4-year-old daughter, then assisting his unsuccessful escape from the police. The rapist, Aroldo Guerra-Garcia, was also aided in his escape attempt by another woman, Krystal Galindo. (Kind of a ladies man, was Aroldo.)

That same year, the government busted up a child pornography operation in Illinois being run out of the home of three illegal aliens from Mexico, including a woman. At least one of them, Jorge Muhedano-Hernandez, had already been deported once. (Peoria Journal Star headline: "Bloomington men plead guilty to false documents.")

The Baby Hope case in New York City began when a Mexican illegal alien, Conrado Juarez, raped and murdered his 4-year-old cousin, Anjelica Castillo. His sister helped him dispose of the body. Police found the little girl's corpse in a cooler off the Henry Hudson Parkway, but the case went unsolved for two decades, because none of the murdered girl's extended illegal alien family ever reported her missing. Anjelica's mother later told the police she always suspected the tiny corpse in the cooler was her daughter's, but never told anyone.

In 2014, Isidro Garcia was arrested in Bell Gardens, California, accused of drugging and kidnapping the 15-year-old daughter of his girlfriend, then forcing the girl to marry him and bear his child. The mother had suspected Garcia, then 31 years old, had been raping her teenage daughter, but did nothing. All three were illegal aliens from Mexico, making this another case for the "Not Our Problem" file.

In 2007, Mexican illegal immigrant Luis Casarez was convicted in New Mexico for repeatedly raping a 3-year-old and an 8-year-old. During his sentencing, Casarez borrowed Marco Rubio's talking points about hardworking illegal immigrants with roots in America. "I have been here for many years," Casarez told the judge -- incongruously, through a translator. "That's why," he added, "I've been working instead of getting involved with problems." Other than that one thing.

Two weeks after Luis Casarez was indicted for child rape, his son, Luis Casarez Jr., was indicted in a separate case of child rape.

When the crime is this bizarre, it's not "anecdotal." "Child rape perpetrated by more than one family member" isn't your run-of-the-mill crime. It's rather like discovering dozens of cannibalism cases in specific neighborhoods.

How many fourth-generation American father-son child-rape duos do we have? How many American brother-sister teams are conspiring in child rape and murder? How many mothers are helping their boyfriends and husbands get away with raping their own children?

And how many 12-year-old American girls are giving birth -- to the delight of their parents?

In some immigrant enclaves, the police have simply given up on pursuing statutory rape cases with Hispanic victims. They say that after being notified by hospital administrators that a 12-year-old has given birth and the father is in his 30s, they'll show up at the girl's house -- and be greeted by her parents calling the pregnancy a "blessing."

This happens all the time, they say.

And yet, in the entire American media, there have been more stories about a rape by Duke lacrosse players that didn't happen than about the slew of child rapes by Hispanics that did because Democrats want the votes and businesses want the cheap labor. No wonder they hate Trump.

COPYRIGHT 2015 ANN COULTER

DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK 

Via: Ann Coulter

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[VIDEO] ILLEGAL ALIEN CRIME ACCOUNTS FOR OVER 30% OF MURDERS IN MANY STATES

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump deserves credit for forcing all 17 Republican candidates to talk about the social costs of illegal immigration, but it is not “Trump’s issue.” We will be making a fatal mistake if we let the media discuss it that way.

As Ann Coulter has pointed out, this is the most critical issue of the 2016 race because this is the issue that will define whether or not there will even be an American nation recognizable as the “home of the free and land of the brave.”

But illegal immigration is not “Ann Coulter’s issue” any more than it is “Tom Tancredo’s issue.” It is America’s issue — not only because it will define America in the 21st Century but because it also defines American elections and who will be voting in elections in 2020 and beyond. It also illuminates the power of the mainstream media to keep issues off the national stage.

Think of illegal immigration this way: If the liberal media can keep illegal alien crime out of the “kitchen table debate,” they can keep any issue out of the debate. And they will if they can get away with it. For those reasons, illegal immigration is much more than an issue of public policy; it is the poster child for media malpractice.

The media’s attempt to suppress public awareness over illegal alien crime and the effects of illegal immigration on American workers’ jobs and wages is nothing less than censorship on a massive scale. We need to start talking about it in those terms and hold the media accountable for the lack of ethical standards.

The mainstream media – including, sadly, major segments of the presumably conservative media, like the Wall Street Journal — are working overtime to keep the American public and the American voters in the dark on the scope of illegal alien crime. The murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco exposed only the tip of a massive iceberg, and the media establishment is desperate to avoid dealing with the iceberg underneath.

Let’s look at a few numbers. You haven’t seen them in the New York Times, Atlanta Constitution, or the Miami Herald, nor have they been featured on NBC Nightly news or CNN. So, the average American is blissfully unaware of them.

• Between 2008 and 2014, 40% of all murder convictions in Florida were criminal aliens. In New York it was 34% and Arizona 17.8%.
• During those years, criminal aliens accounted for 38% of all murder convictions in the five states of California, Texas, Arizona, Florida and New York, while illegal aliens constitute only 5.6% of the total population in those states.
• That 38% represents 7,085 murders out of the total of 18,643.

That 5.6% figure for the average illegal alien population in those five states comes from US Census estimates. We know the real number is double that official estimate. Yet, even if it is 11%, it is still shameful that the percentage of murders by criminal aliens is more than triple the illegal population in those states.

Those astounding numbers were compiled by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) using official Department of Justice data on criminal aliens in the nation’s correctional system. The numbers were the basis for a presentation at a recent New Hampshire conference sponsored by the highly respected Center for Security Policy. You can view the full presentation here:

Via: Breitbart

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Mandatory Common Core tests in New York just happen to be full of corporate brand names

Across the state of New York, this year’s Common Core English tests have reportedly featured a slew of brand-name products including iPod, Barbie, Mug Root Beer and Life Savers. For Nike, the tests even conveniently included the shoe company’s ubiquitous slogan: “Just Do It.”

The brands – and apparently even some of their familiar trademark symbols – appeared in tests questions for students ranging from third to eighth grades, reports The Post-Standard of Syracuse.

Over one million students were required to take the tests.

Parents, teachers and school administrators have speculated that the kid-friendly brand names are a new form of product placement.

Education materials behemoth Pearson, which has a $32 million five-year contract to develop New York’s Common Core-related tests, has barred teachers and school officials from disclosing the contents of the tests.

Students and parents are not so barred, though, and many have complained.

“‘Why are they trying to sell me something during the test?'” Long Island mother Deborah Poppe quoted her son as saying, according to Fox News. “He’s bright enough to realize that it was almost like a commercial.”

Poppe said her eighth-grade son was talking about a question about a busboy who didn’t clean up a root beer spill. It wasn’t just any root beer, though. No sir! It was Mug Root Beer, a registered trademark of PepsiCo (current market cap: $129.7 billion).

Another question about the value of taking risks featured the now-hackneyed Nike slogan “Just Do It.”

Via: Daily Caller

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Judge: NY Teacher Exam Not Discriminatory Just Because Minorities Score Lower

A federal judge in New York has deigned to allow a teacher licensing exam which tests rudimentary academic skills and knowledge.

Judge Kimba M. Wood issued her ruling Friday, reports The New York Times.

In June, Wood had struck down another test of basic knowledge used by New York City to vet potential teachers. Wood concluded that the test illegally discriminated against racial minorities because members of racial minorities scored lower on it.

Members of racial minorities also score lower on the test Wood has allowed but, she reasoned, the low scores on the new test of basic knowledge are totally different than the low scores on the old test of basic knowledge.

Wood, a judge in the Southern District of New York, ruled that the two tests are different because the new one more accurately evaluates the skills needs for teaching successfully.

The teaching licensure exam Wood has allowed is called the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST). It focuses on reading and writing skills and is aligned with the national Common Core standards for English.

Education materials behemoth Pearson, which has a $32 million five-year contract to develop New York’s Common Core-related tests, developed the literacy skills test. (RELATED: Mandatory Common Core Tests In New York Just Happen To Be Full Of Corporate Brand Names)

Prospective teachers seeking certification in the state of New York must take the literacy test as well as three others.

The Academic Literacy Skills Test first appeared in the 2013-14 school year.

In education departments are universities, would-be black and Hispanic teachers have failed New York’s Academic Literacy Skills Test at a considerable clip. Just 41 percent of black teacher candidates passed the test on the first attempt. Just 46 percent of Hispanic teacher candidates passed on their first try.

The first-time pass rate for white teacher candidates on the test has been 64 percent.

Over 80 percent of America’s current teacher workforce is white.

In a court filing, former New York State deputy commissioner of education Ken Wagner asserted that the literacy test and the other three teacher licensing tests “ensure that each newly certified teacher entered the classroom with certain minimum knowledge, skills and abilities.”

New York State Education Department spokesman David Tompkins lauded Wood’s ruling.

“Our students need and deserve the best qualified teachers possible, and the ALST helps make sure they get those teachers,” Tompkins said, according to the Times.

Critics of testing academic skills as a way to license teachers argue that tests of basic literacy can only measure how well someone can speak and write.

“The question is, is that one of the criterion for determining who will be a good teacher?” Alfred S. Posamentier, former education dean at Mercy College in the swanky suburbs north of Manhattan, told the Times. “My sense is that the answer is no.”

Due to complaints from professors and officials in university education departments, soon-to-be teachers don’t actually need to pass the literacy exam until June 30, 2016. If they fail the literacy test, they can display their English language prowess through coursework.

At issue in Wood’s Friday ruling and her previous ruling is the concept of disparate racial impact. The basic rule when disparate racial impact occurs as the result of an employment test is that proponents of the test must show that the test assesses skills specifically necessary for the job.

Via: Daily Caller

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Toxic mine water accidentally released by EPA in Colorado river flows south

A cloud of orange-brown, toxic mine water and sludge accidentally released by the US Environmental Protection Agency is flowing down the Animas River through the hearts of towns in Colorado and New Mexico, and ultimately toward a lake in a national park.

The water, described as an “unnatural” orange color and loaded with heavy metals, was flowing through a stretch of wilderness as of Friday afternoon from Durango, Colorado toward Farmington, New Mexico. It is flowing toward the western edge of the Navajo Nation and along the Glen Canyon national recreation area in Utah.

The same area of wilderness in Utah contains well-known red rock cliffs and terraces in Utah, such as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

“It’s awful, it’s awful,” said San Juan County undersheriff Stephen Lowrance. “It’s [a] horrible, horrible accident.”

“It’s, like I said, an orange-ish brown. You wouldn’t want to drink it – that’s for sure,” said Lowrance. Lowrance and another sheriff’s deputy were at the site of the spill almost instantly when an estimated 1m gallons of mine wastewater was released into Cement Creek north of Silverton, Colorado, a tiny town with just more than 600 people.

The huge amount of water nearly flooded Cement Creek as it flowed into the Animus River, after breaking free from a shoddy dam at the Gold King Mine. EPA officials said that a blockage of loose soil and little more was holding in the bright orange wastewater at Gold King, a former gold mine, when water broke loose. An EPA official estimated that 200 gallons of wastewater per minute was still flowing out of the mine as of Friday afternoon.

The EPA was working at the property as part of a plan to remediate the superfund site and stop a longtime flow of acidic, heavy metal-laden wastewater from the nearby Red and Bonita mine, all near the abandoned Gladstone mining town. The work would have installed a bulkhead, or massive plug, at the end of the inactive mining tunnel.

The EPA’s initial tests of the wastewater and sediment in Animus found substances known to be harmful to be human health, including lead, arsenic, cadmium, copper, calcium and other heavy metals “at varying levels,” though at concentrations enough for officials to warn people away from the river. The PH of the water near the mouth of the mine was found to be 4.5,roughly that of beer. Lake water typically ranges from 6.5 to 8.5 on the PH scale.

EPA officials later told reporters that the impact on human and environmental health was not immediately clear, because toxicologists are still analyzing data from water samples.

“First off, I’d like to just say I’m sorry for what’s happened,” David Ostrander, the EPA’s head of emergency management told a standing-room-only crowd in Durango, Colorado Friday afternoon. “This is a huge tragedy, and it’s hard being on the other side of this, in terms of being the one who caused this incident.”

“We usually respond to emergencies, we don’t cause them,” said Ostrander.

The wastewater is the vestige of gold rush mining of more than 100 years ago. Though the mine still has an owner it appears to have been all but abandoned.

As the wastewater moves downstream it will enter the hearts of towns along the way – Silverton, Colorado; Durango, Colorado and Farmington, New Mexico among others. Many of the towns along the way have water-recreation-centric tourism industries. The US Parks Service raves about water recreation activities in Glen Canyon in particular.

As of Friday, people were warned away from the water for an indefinite period of time. Farmers have been asked not to use the water. Durango was using a backup water supply and asking residents to conserve. The Federal Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water supplies in the western United States, has warned strongly against any contact with the water, and is doubling the flow of water from the Navajo dam near the San Juan to try to dilute the toxic waste.

Via: The Guardian

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Clinton campaign Abedin's history at State Department poses liability for Clinton White House bid

Huma Abedin -- a close aide to Hillary Clinton at the State Department and now a top campaign official -- is facing more questions about her activities at the agency, causing potential problems for Clinton’s presidential bid.

A federal judge ordered the State Department to have Clinton, Abedin and Cheryl Mills, another Clinton aide when she was secretary of state, confirm they have turned over all government records and describe how they used Clinton’s private server to conduct official business.

They had until Friday to turn over the information “under penalty of perjury.”

Clinton is already facing questions about using the server and private email accounts while she was the country’s top diplomat from 2009 to 2013.

The former secretary of state has turned over about 55,000 pages of private emails but deleted those she deemed personal, resulting in voters increasingly doubting her trustworthiness, according to recent polls.

Some emails show the extent to which Clinton's closest aides managed the details of her image. Abedin, for example, sent her an early-morning message in August 2009 advising Clinton to "wear a dark color today. Maybe the new dark green suit. Or blue."

Clinton later held a joint news conference with the Jordanian foreign minister. She wore the green suit, according to The Associated Press.

Abedin has for months been facing scrutiny about being part of a controversial State Department program that allowed her to work part time at the agency and have a private sector job.

She went from full-time deputy chief of staff for Clinton to a part-timer, then started working for Teneo, a consulting firm led by former President Clinton aide Douglas Band.  

The agency’s inspector general’s office this spring confirmed an investigation on the matter and on email exchanges between Abedin and Clinton.

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has since 2013 led the effort to learn more about Abedin’s time at the State Department.

Via: Fox News

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The Debt Deception

The national and global discourse makes this association: Debt is to good financial practice as cancer is to good health. We’re now seeing the cancerous results of debt-centered financial practice worldwide, as countries are being eaten alive by debt, with some on the brink of collapse. We’ve been saying for decades that this day would come, and our reaping must follow our sowing.  But there’s a very personal aspect of this I have only recently realized.

We’ve all heard stories of a well-off married couple, man and wife (using an outdated definition of marriage, but sufficient for our purposes), where the man dies unexpectedly. Turns out that he had no life insurance. Turns out he had $50K in credit card debt. Turns out he mortgaged the house and wasted it all in Vegas. Turns out, after all the figures come in, the wife is now hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. We shake our heads and murmur a tsk tsk. How could he?

After all, they were living pretty well. House on the lake. Vacation home in the mountains. Beautiful children. Pretty well indeed. Tsk tsk.

This story, is, of course, an illustration of what’s happening to us as a nation, and to other peoples of other nations. Our partner, government, is doing us wrong.  We lived our lives not completely ignorant of what was going on, but lazy enough not to stop it. We heard the warnings, but were not very motivated to heed them.  We heard about the fiscal cliff a few years ago, not realizing that we sailed off the cliff in the 1950s or 1960s, maybe before, and now we are in free fall. They say it’s not the fall that kills you, but the sudden stop at the bottom, and our partner cares nary a bit.

As I look back over my fifty-plus year life in America, growing up in a medium-sized city, attending average public schools, going to public college, and working regular jobs as a regular guy, I’m realizing that a large proportion of my America was bought with borrowed money. Think about all the things that massive debt spending has, in part, purchased.

• Interstate and most other highways
• Public utilities
• Public schools
• Moonwalks and space exploration
• Agricultural advances
• Basic scientific research
• The Internet
• All things retirement

Tax revenues and borrowed money have been mixed to pay for these items, the proportions being muddled, but we can get an idea by looking at the Federal deficit over the years. Since 1930, the government has run deficits in 74 of the 87 years.  (See historical figures published by OMB.) From 2006 to 2015, the average of deficits has been 770 billion dollars, per year.

Via: American Thinker

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The Talking Head Election Debate

CNN and the New York Times loved last night’s biased presidential debate. No wonder. Fox News is now just like them

Americans, or at least roughly half of their country’s population, are looking for a miracle to drag their country back from the cliff edge after almost seven years of a president intent on destroying it.

They found out last night they’ll get no help saving the country from the media, and disappointing to many conservatives, including Fox News.

Fox is crowing today and patting itself on the back that last night’s debate, watched by 24 million people, shattered all records.

“In the estimation of many reporters who cover the political and media beats, Fox News was the winner of the first GOP debate. And with the just-released ratings we can confirm that. 

“A whopping 24 million watched the debate from 9 p.m. ET to just past 11 p.m. ET. FNC drew 7.9 million in the A25-54 demo.

“This is now the highest non-sports cable program of all time, the highest-rated cable news program of all time, and Fox News’s most-watched program ever.

“The 5 p.m. ET debate, withe the 7 lower-tier candidates did very well for Fox News too, drawing 6.1 million total viewers and 1.2 million in the demo, making it the third-highest primary debate ever on cable.”

Bully for Fox. 

But shouldn’t it have been bully for the GOP hopefuls the debate was touted to be about, and even more importantly, bully for long-suffering Americans hoping against hope for that elusive miracle?

Via: Canada Free Press

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Obama tees off on 1st full day of Martha's Vineyard vacation

OAK BLUFFS, Mass. (AP) — President Barack Obama is spending his first full day of vacation on the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard playing golf.

Obama arrived at Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs on Saturday afternoon. The White House says he is playing with actor-comedian Larry David, businessman and Obama campaign fundraiser Robert Wolf and Cyrus Walker, a cousin of top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.

Reporters traveling with Obama were given a rare glimpse of the president as he leaned back on one leg as his ball approached the first hole. It did not go in.

Obama left Washington on Friday with the first lady and daughter Sasha for a 17-day island retreat.

He is scheduled to return to the White House on Aug. 23.

Via: Yahoo News

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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA PERSONALLY LEAKED WORD OF CHUCK SCHUMER’S OPPOSITION TO IRAN DEAL

GOTTA LOVE IT WHEN THEY EAT THERE OWN!!!!

President Obama personally leaked news that Senator Chuck Schumer had decided to oppose his Iran deal, even after Schumer personally asked the President not to mention it until he could make an announcement Friday.

During last night’s widely-viewed GOP debate, word began to circulate that Sen. Schumer had decided to oppose President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. The leak appeared timed to make sure the high-level Democratic defection–Schumer is the 3rd highest ranking Democrat in Congress–got as little attention as possible.

A story at Politico confirms the leak was in fact timed for minimum impact, but not by Schumer himself. According to an unnamed source familiar with Schumer’s decision, the Senator called President Obama Thursday afternoon to say he had decided to oppose the deal. Schumer asked the President not to mention his decision publicly until he could make a formal announcement on Friday. Politico’s source was careful to emphasize that Schumer told no one else about his decision, meaning only President Obama himself could have made the decision to leak the story to the press.

After word leaked out, Sen. Schumer issued a lengthy statement about his opposition to the deal on his website. The statement breaks his opposition into three parts. He writes that he finds the arguments for the deal over the first 10-years “plausible” but says the inspections regime has “serious weaknesses” and that the snap back of sanctions process is “cumbersome.” In addition, Schumer believes that after 10-years Iran will have a nuclear program approved by the United States. Finally, Schumer considers the non-nuclear parts of the deal and concludes, “When it comes to the non-nuclear aspects of the deal, I think there is a strong case that we are better off without an agreement than with one.”

Congress is expected to vote against the deal when they return from the August recess. However, that decision can be vetoed by the President. Congress needs a 2/3 vote to override that expected veto. That means the President needs just 34 Senators to take his side. So far he has at least twelve.

But as a high ranking Democrat in line to become the next Senate leader of his party, Schumer’s defection has the potential to weaken the resolve of other Democrats. 

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY)

11%

 announced his opposition to the deal last night, shortly after word of Schumer’s decision broke. For this reason, the White House had urged Schumer to avoid announcing his decision until the very end of the process, or at least after enough Senators had declared themselves to make it a non-issue.

The spin coming out of the White House now is that Schumer’s defection is a clear signal that a win for their side is inevitable. The thinking goes that an insider like Schumer wouldn’t really put Obama’s foreign policy legacy at risk, therefore his planned Friday announcement must be a signal that the votes are there to prevent a veto override vote without him. As Politico frames it, “Bad news is being taken as almost good news at the White House.”

Contradicting this claim is the fact that the White House seemed to be expressing some anger at Schumer earlier in the day. White House spokesman Josh Earnest suggested Friday that Schumer’s defection could become an obstacle to his becoming Democratic leader after 

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

2%

 leaves the Senate. Other White House surrogates made similar noises.

One thing is certain. If President Obama determined it was important enough to pull the rug out from Schumer and try (unsuccessfully) to bury the news of his defection under the GOP debate, he can’t be completely confident of the outcome.

Via: Breitbart

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RED STATE GATHERING DAY 1 AND DAY 2

Via: Red State

[VIDEO] FULL AWESOME SPEECH FROM CARLY FIORINA AT ‘RED STATE GATHERING’

Carly Fiorina wowed the crowd at the Red State Gathering in Atlanta, and it’s no surprise – she is hands down one among the most brilliant speakers in our GOP bench this season.

Watch the full speech here:

I cannot say enough how much I LOVE her definition of conservatism. It’s right at the beginning of the speech if you want to just hear that portion.

Via: The Right Scoop

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[VIDEO] RedState Gathering 2015: Gov. Jeb Bush. #rsg15

The full text of Jeb Bush’s* speech, for those missed it.

Via: Red State