op ed review 5/1
The International Monetary Fund has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China.
“Leading from behind” would normally be a damning charge made against a Commander-in-Chief at a time of war by his political opponents. But within the Obama presidency it is bizarrely worn as a badge of honor, and is the term used to describe the president’s handling of the Libya issue by one of his own advisers in an extraordinary interview with The New Yorker this week.
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke used his historic first conference to warn that the US deficit is "not sustainable" and tell political leaders they must address it "as quickly and effectively as they can".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/apr/28/ben-bernanke-deficit-not-sustainable
President Obama told a DNC gathering that federal government spending is what makes America great
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-ties-america-s-greatness-governmen
Americans depended more on government assistance in 2010 than at any other time in the nation’s history, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data finds. Wages accounted for the lowest share of income — 51.0% — since the government began keeping track in 1929.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-04-26-government-payments-economy-medicare.htm
Prominent Democratic strategists are formally launching independent committees that will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the 2012 presidential campaign.
Massachusetts. House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to strip police officers, teachers, and other municipal employees of most of their rights to bargain over health care, saying the change would save millions of dollars for financially strapped cities and towns. “Hard to pin this one on bogeymen like the Koch Brothers. The Democrats have a 128-31 majority in the MA state house…..the push….was led by Democrats…”
President Obama told Sarah Brady regarding gun control. "I just want you to know that we are working on it…..under the radar.”
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=292025#ixzz1KwKV8qPP
One in four children in the United States is being raised by a single parent - a percentage that has been on the rise and is higher than other developed countries, according to a new report.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SINGLE_PARENT_HOMES_1ST_LD_WRITETHRU?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
Forty-six percent won't vote for Obama, but about the same percentage say the same for Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll.
A Quinnipiac University survey indicates that 53 percent of Pennsylvania voters disapprove of the job the president's doing in the White House, with 42 percent saying they approve of how Obama's handling his duties. The 42 percent approval rating for the president is an all time low for Obama in Quinnipiac polling in Pennsylvania.
House Republicans are considering a plan to grant only incremental increases to the federal debt limit in a bid to extract more concessions on spending cuts and budgetary reform from the Obama administration. The idea has a champion in Grover Norquist, the conservative activist and president of Americans for Tax Reform, who says he is “building allies” in the House Republican Conference to push for extending the debt limit every two months
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/158297-house-gop-considering-plan-to-increase-debt-limit-in-steps
Here we go again: Another veteran Border Patrol officer faces a sentence of 10 to 35 years in federal prison for doing his job too enthusiastically—nabbing drug smugglers sneaking across the Mexican border.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=43217
Donald Trump may be flirting with a run for President as a Republican, but he has not discriminated with his political donations in the past 15 years. An ABC News analysis of Trump’s contributions yielded very close results between Democratic and Republican donations.
President Obama released his long form birth certificate this week, but has refused to release his Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, Illinois State Bar Association records, baptism records and his adoption records.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=291041#ixzz1KXvFI3n5
The National Labor Relations Board is seeking an unprecedented expansion of powers in a lawsuit to overturn voter-approved constitutional amendments in at least two states guaranteeing the secret ballot for union elections
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/nlrb-seeks-overturn-voter-approved-secre
Up to 30 members of a Chinese evangelical church were arrested on Sunday for trying to hold an Easter service in defiance of the officially atheist government.
Groups representing atheists and secular humanists want their own chaplains in the military. ??
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/us/27atheists.html?pagewanted=all
President Obama failed to issue either an Easter or a Good Friday greeting to the nation. By comparison, the White House has released statements recognizing the observance of major Muslim holidays and released statements in 2010 on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha. The White House . . . did release an eight-paragraph statement heralding Earth Day.
http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2011/04/25/easter-greeting/
Public-library officials in New York City have declared watching pornography on public-library computers to be permissible, protected by the First Amendment
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/265687/public-libraries-no-longer-literate-christian-schneider
The brutal crackdown by Syrian President Bashar Assad may finally be getting the attention of world leaders -- but apparently not enough to stop Syria from becoming the newest member of the U.N. Human Rights Council.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/04/26/human-rights-abuser-syria-set-join-uns-human-rights-council/
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Washington Examiner 4/21/11
Can federal bureaucrats tell a private company where to build a factory?
Members of President Obama's National Labor Relations Board think they can. In a decision that even the New York Times is describing as "highly unusual for the federal government," Lafe Solomon, who was appointed to the board by Obama, filed a complaint on behalf of the NLRB on Wednesday seeking to force the Boeing Co. to build an assembly line in Washington State instead of South Carolina. The NLRB action stems from Boeing's October 2009 decision to build a new factory for its new 787 Dreamliner airplane near Charleston, S.C. Boeing first sought to build the new plant near its existing facility in Puget Sound, but negotiations with the International Association of Machinists broke down when the union refused to agree to a long-term no-strike clause. The IAM had struck four times since 1989, costing Boeing at least $1.8 billion in revenue.
That's when Boeing chose South Carolina, a right-to-work state where, unlike Washington, workers are not forced to join unions. As a result of this policy, only 6.2 percent of South Carolinians belong to unions. Construction of Boeing's new Charleston factory is nearly complete, and the company has already hired more than 1,000 new employees, drawn mostly from within the immediate region. And back in Washington, Boeing has actually increased employment at its Puget Sound plant by 2,000 workers. But that isn't good enough for the IAM or the Obama White House. After suffering major defeats in Wisconsin and Ohio, the labor movement is looking for a scalp. Obama's NLRB is trying to turn Boeing into one.
The NLRB is hanging its case on a senior Boeing official's statement to the Seattle Times that "The overriding factor [in transferring the line] ... was that we cannot afford to have a work stoppage, you know, every three years." The NLRB absurdly claims this is "unlawful employer speech" that infringes on "a worker's fundamental" right to strike. But the Supreme Court has long held that firms may consider the economic effect of strikes when making business decisions. Also, Boeing's existing collective bargaining agreement with the IAM allows Boeing to build facilities at other locations. An administrative law judge will hear Boeing's objection to the NLRB's complaint June 14, so there still is hope sanity will prevail. But a decision in favor of the IAM would be a disaster not just for Boeing, but for American workers everywhere. A ruling in favor of Obama's NLRB would make it presumptively illegal for any unionized firm to invest in a right-to-work state.
At first, this would mainly hurt right-to-work states, as they would no longer be able to lure new businesses from existing unionized firms. But over the long run, this policy would hurt unions and all Americans. Why would any domestic company choose to build a factory in a forced-union state if it knew that meant it could never expand to a right-to-work state? Why would any international firm invest anywhere in this country if it knew the White House would favor political allies?
The NLRB isn't protecting workers, it is setting them up for eventual unemployment.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2011/04/federal-labor-board-seeks-ground-boeing#ixzz1KYL55maO
The former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board told FoxNews.com that a board attorney's bid to stop Boeing from opening a production line at a non-union site in South Carolina is "unprecedented" and could have serious implications for companies looking to expand.
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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"Obama's ideology tethers him to the idea that the central government should be the primary engine of economic growth and the super-arbiter of the winners and losers in our economy. He cannot countenance the possibility that Keynesian stimulus spending does not appreciably stimulate and probably does just the opposite; never mind that we can't afford it. He can't process that we cannot tax ourselves into prosperity or out of debt. He is viscerally unwilling to restructure the programs that have us committed to $88 trillion in unfunded liabilities. And he either cannot comprehend or is morally hardened to the evil and ineffectiveness involved in the government's making command-control decisions rather than free people through the invisible hand of the market, especially in health care. He cannot understand or is rebellious against the truth that capitalism is morally superior to and produces greater prosperity across the board than any other economic system, bar none. ... Obama, captured in his maximum-security class warfare prison mindset, has proposed even higher taxes on the already overburdened producers, which would further smother the economy and prevent economic recovery, growth and abatement of the national debt. His only real remedy for Medicare is to empower the Independent Payment Advisory Board to ration health care according to its one-size-fits-all lunacy. ... There can be no workable compromise with Obama because his plan could not work to retire the debt and avert our national crisis. The only solution is to retire him."
-David Limbaugh
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BOOKS, FILM
Thomas Sowell reviews Walter Williams new book: “Williams fans are in for a treat -- and people who aren't Walter Williams fans are in for a shock -- when they read his latest book, "Race and Economics." It is a demolition derby on paper, as Professor Williams destroys one after another of the popular fallacies about the role of race in the American economy.”
HBO’s adaptation of “Game Change,” — an obvious hit job on Sarah Palin that even the New York Times, Atlantic and Poynter Institute criticized for a lack of sourcing. But the Left is not about truth, they are only about tactics: Bottom line: HBO is producing a multi-million dollar in-kind contribution to the Obama 2012 campaign.
Lately, there have been dueling stories in the entertainment press about the future of ”Atlas Shrugged.” With disappointing box office returns, the producers have been asked if they will go ahead and complete the franchise and in one interview we’re being told there will be no trilogy and in another we’re being told that there will.
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LEFTIST WATCH
KING-5 reports that vandals "dressed in black clothing with hoods and masks" smashed the windows of a Seattle Chase Bank branch yesterday evening and left fliers expressing solidarity with various jailed anarchists. An anonymous poster on the website pugetsoundanarchists.org took credit for yesterday's riot: “This action was taken because banks are a clear symbol of the misery and slavery that we experience under capitalism…” Meanwhile, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post explains: "Violent political rhetoric and the threat of political violence in this country comes almost exclusively from the right".
http://www.king5.com/news/local/Seattle-bank-branch-hit-by-vandals-again-120456064.html
On the list of things that make progressives gnash their teeth and foam at their mouths, little tops an African-American of the conservative persuasion. Even more horrifying to the Left is one who makes clear: “you’re not going to intimidate me,” as Congressman Allen West (R-FL) said at a Tuesday night town hall meeting where leftists, including former Air America host Nicole Sandler (who was later arrested), tried to disrupt the event.
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/04/28/the-lefts-deranged-war-on-allen-west/
A gay activist is only the latest left-winger to launch into a verbal assault on Lt. Col. West, now a Representative from Florida’s 22nd District. Like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, Rep. West is one of the many conservatives that leftists fear the most. We know this because the left’s constant, fevered, overwrought attacks tell us so.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/35929
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ISLAM
Some marriages end in a burst of anger, others with a whimper. Marina Dodobayeva's ended with an SMS. The 33-year-old mother of two was sweeping her yard one October morning when her mobile phone vibrated with a three-word text message from her husband of 14 years. "Taloq taloq taloq," it read — divorce, divorce, divorce. With those words, Dodobayeva found herself among the growing ranks of women in predominantly Muslim Tajikistan whose husbands have used mobile phones to issue the "triple taloq," an Islamic ritual in which men can end a marriage by reciting the word for divorce three times.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/04/27/tajik-divorce-u-c/
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GLOBALONEY
Most of the human race does not see global warming as a serious threat, according to a Gallup poll released last week that surveyed individuals in 111 countries.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/gallup-majority-human-race-does-not-see
First, a Spotted Owl destroyed the timber industry of the Pacific Northwest, then a minnow turned the most productive agricultural land in the world into a dustbowl, and now, as energy prices spike and the economy sputters, they’re going after Texas with a scurrilous reptile. Specifically, the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard. That’s the latest more-important-than-people critter being used to lock-up resources in the name of planet Earth.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/35902
German scientists now warn that CFLs contain carcinogens: the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someone's head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on..."For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment. Help, Mr. King County EcoConsumer! What do I do now? Save the planet or save my own head?”
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ARTICLES
“Raise our taxes!” Can you imagine chanting such a slogan at a public rally? Neither could most Americans. There is one notable exception, however: government-union activists. They’re pretty explicit these days about their desire to see taxes go up. If that surprises you, you may be unaware of how dramatically the face of organized labor has changed over the last few decades. There’s a very good reason they’ve got your wallet in their sights -- more and more, that’s where their wages comes from.
http://townhall.com/columnists/edfeulner/2011/04/28/a_government_union_shakedown/page/full/
Back in 2008 then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) knew where she wanted to place the blame for high gas prices. “The price of oil is at the doorstep -- 4 dollars plus per gallon for oil, is attributed to two oil men in the White House,” Pelosi said in a CNN interview on July 17th, 2008. Now that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are out of the White House, Pelosi has been silent on the issue. She has made no public comments on gas prices over the past few months.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/pelosi-blamed-oil-men-white-house-gas-pr
“The Obama Lie That Drove the Birther Movement” By Jack Cashill
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/the_obama_lie_that_drove_the_b.html
“In February the minister of railways in the People's Republic of China, was arrested after investigations into cost overruns and poor performance of the ministry's showcase bullet trains, with a dash of corruption thrown in. The modern marvel he oversaw has caused his ministry to run up some $276 billion in debt, roughly five times the amount that bankrupted General Motors. The money was mostly borrowed, ironically from the same Chinese banks that are financing our debt. And the trains aren't running safely or on time. The endeavor was part of China's stimulus package in response to the 2008 global financial crisis. It would create jobs and stimulate economic growth. President Obama was so impressed he included $8 billion in his 1,000-page stimulus bill to jump-start an American counterpart. Our silver-tongued vice president, Joe Biden, recently touted the president's new $53 billion high-speed rail package with the admonition: "If we don't seize this future, how will America ever have the opportunity to lead the world in the 21st century?" Well, we could return to the moon or go to Mars, but we'll have to settle for a fast train from St. Louis to Chicago.”
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/570564/201104281905/High-Speed-Derail.htm
As you read this, about 75,000 members and friends of the National Rifle Association are streaming into Pittsburgh for the opening of the NRA’s 140th annual meeting this weekend. Few Americans know all that much about the NRA’s history, and if asked to describe the association, they probably would repeat the media description of it as “America’s gun lobby.” In fact, the NRA is the largest and arguably the most influential advocacy organization in the nation today, with 4 million members ready to step up to the plate whenever they believe their Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” is threatened.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/28/nra-the-steel-behind-american-freedom/
“…..Further up the Pacific coast, a high school sophomore explained to a local radio station that the term “Easter eggs” could no longer be used because the administration preferred “spring spheres.” Is this a joke?...No, the trend caught on elsewhere in Seattle. The parks department had several listings for “Spring Egg Hunts” all over the city. The word “Easter” has been wiped off the site. But never fear: one religion, Islam, is being protected – and in fact gaining ground – in American public schools.”
“A major law firm has caved to pressure from militant homosexual activists, and one of America’s top Supreme Court lawyers resigned from that firm rather than abandon principle. That lawyer is former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, and this is a story that everyone who values the rule of law needs to understand.”
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
This is claimed to be Obama’s long form birth certificate.
http://www.foxnews.com/interactive/politics/2011/04/27/obamas-birth-certificate/
Reasons why some might be suspicious of this document.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/barack-obama/birth-obama-certer-movement-098513
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LATE NITE
Leno: It’s the 75th anniversary of the introduction of Social Security checks. For the younger viewers who don’t know what a Social Security check is, you’ll never see one in your lifetime, so don’t worry about it…….The man who invented the teleprompter has died at the age of 91. When President Obama heard the news, he was speechless…….The price of coffee has hit a 34-year high. Except at Starbucks, where coffee has always been at a 34-year high.
posted by gary at
7:55 AM
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