Policy Archives - Page 1751 of 1772

City of Port St. Lucie, FL withdraws from Seven50 Regional Plan

January 28, 2014/in Environment, Must Read, News, Policy/by Dr. Rich Swier

A growing movement consisting of Florida citizens is pushing back against any effort to regionalize Florida under the banner American Coalition 4 Property Rights (AC4PC). This is part of new urbanism promoted across Florida as the Seven50 Plan. The Florida Seven50 Plan includes the counties of Indian River, St. Lucie, Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe. Indian River, Martin and St. Lucie Counties have since dropped out of the Seven50 Plan. Florida Seven50 is one of eleven plans to create “mega regions” in America.

The intent is to blur city and county boundaries and place control for land use and zoning decisions into the hands of unelected regional committees and their staffs.

The Port St. Lucie City Council voted a unanimous approval on January 27th to withdraw from the Seven50 Regional Plan. Item 11(i) on the meeting agenda read:

RESOLUTION 14-R20, PROVIDING FOR THE REPEAL OF THE CITY OF PORT ST. LUCIE RESOLUTION 10-R41; PERTAINING TO THE FEDERAL SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES INITIATIVE; PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE.

The actual approved resolution is at this link: http://psl.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=&event_id=769&meta_id=96769

Leigh Lamson in an email states, “Special thanks goes out to Bert Shadowen, Emil Viola and the AC4PR. Sorry if I left out any others.”

According to Leigh Lamson, “The Florida Seven50 plan is supported by Michael Busha and his wife who live in Stuart, FL. Stuart is the home of the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council (TCRPC), one of the 2 sponsors of the Seven50 Regional Plan. Michael is the Executive Director of the TCRPC. Both are strong proponents of sustainable development, and one of them is even on the Martin County School Board. Seven50 is ALL based on the false science of global warming and rising sea levels. Their livelihood is based on advancing all of it. But guess what, the Busha’s live out on Sewell’s Point in a million dollar home on the water and drive expensive SUVs.”

Video below is of Andres Duany speaking to Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council meeting on May 17, 2013 about the “mega regions”:

On June 16th, 2009 the US Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Transportation (DOT) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a new partnership to “coordinate federal housing, environmental protection and transportation planning and investment.” The goal to “better align their national funding programs and to promote the creation of comprehensive investment plans to strengthen the economy and promote the environment of the Nations regions.”Funding was authorized by Congress in 2009 and was provided to the HUD Sustainable Communities Office. According to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and the HUD website:

The mission of the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities is to create strong, sustainable communities by connecting housing to jobs, fostering local innovation, and helping to build a clean energy economy.

In order to better connect housing to jobs, the office will work to coordinate federal housing and transportation investments with local land use decisions in order to reduce transportation costs for families, improve housing affordability, save energy, and increase access to housing and employment opportunities. By ensuring that housing is located near job centers and affordable, accessible transportation, we will nurture healthier, more inclusive communities which provide opportunities for people of all ages, incomes, races, and ethnicities to live, work, and learn together.

Florida AG Pam Bondi Says “No” To Marijuana Measure

January 27, 2014/in Courts & Law, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics/by Javier Manjarres

Florida’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, continues to say no to pot, as she continues to press the left-leaning Florida Supreme court to scrap the legalization of medical marijuana measure that will be on the November ballot.

The initiative would allow marijuana to be used in several specified conditions. But it also includes a part that says it could be used for “any other conditions for which a physician believes that the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient.”

Bondi, a Republican elected in 2010, said that language is too broad and will allow greater use of marijuana than the public has been told by supporters. She cited a scenario of a 15-year-old boy being able to get a marijuana prescription for a minor pain through a chiropractor as a possibility. She said voters are not getting a clear explanation of what they are being asked to approve.

“They need to know what they are voting for,” Bondi said during a joint meeting with the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women Voters of Sarasota.

The Republican-led Florida legislature is open to the idea of legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes, and are trying to find a balance with the controversial issue.

Word to the legalizing marijuana lobby, quit smoking your own issue, and work with the legislature to find a solution that will benefit everyone.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Shark Tank.

Study: Fatal Car Crashes Involving Marijuana Have Tripled – Now 1-in-9

Cruz: Obama Should Apologize to Nation in State of the Union

January 27, 2014/in Healthcare, News, Policy, Politics, Video/by Dr. Rich Swier

By Andrew Johnson.

With the bungled launch of HealthCare.gov and the Affordable Care Act causing millions to lose their health-care coverage, Ted Cruz urged the president to use Tuesday’s State of the Union address to apologize to the American people.

“For the State of the Union, one of the things President Obama really ought to do is look in the TV camera and say to the over 5 million Americans all across this country who’ve had their health insurance canceled because of Obamacare, to look in the camera and say, ‘I’m sorry — I told you if you like your health-insurance plan, you can keep it…’”

[youtube]http://youtu.be/oD7oDpFh5WY[/youtube]

A Very Cold Reality

January 27, 2014/in Commentary, Energy, Environment, News, Policy/by Alan Caruba

It’s not as if those in the Northeast have not experienced bone-chilling cold or that it is predicted to extend from the Midwest down into our southern States. There may possibly be a snow storm that will require the National Football League to reschedule the Sunday, February 2nd Superbowl at the MetLife stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. Crews spent 18 hours working to remove the snow from last week’s storm.

A visit to IceAgeNow.info yielded headlines of news stories last week that included “Record Cold—Millions of Americans hit by Propane Shortage”, “Ice and Snow Closed Texas highways This Morning”, “Ice-cover Shuts Down Work on New Hudson River Bridge”, and so you understand this is a global phenomenon, “Kashmir—Heaviest January Snowfall in a Decade”, “Heavy Snowfall Sweeps Eastern Turkey”, “Romania—Heavy Snowfall and Blizzard”. And “Bangkok Suffers Coldest Night in Three Decades—Death Roll Mounts.”

Meteorologist Joe D’Aleo of WeatherBell Analytics and editor of IceCap.us says that, as the President addresses the nation on Tuesday, every State will have freezing temperatures and parts or all of 27 States will be below zero.

All this is occurring as President Barack Obama is anticipated to talk about “climate change”, a warming Earth, during his Tuesday State of the Union speech. He will be speaking to the idiots who still think the Earth is warming because they are too stupid or lazy to ask why it is so cold.

Michael Bastasch, writing for The Daily Caller on Saturday, confirmed D’Aleo’s and other meteorologist’s forecasts. “The bitter cold that has hit the U.S. East Coast is expected throughout February, and on Jan 28—the day of the address—the Mid-Atlantic region is expected to be hit with freezing cold air that could drive temperatures below zero in big cities among the I-95 corridor.”

Washington, D.C. will be one of those cities, but as Bastasch reported, “Environmentalists and liberal groups are urging Obama to use the speech to reaffirm his commitment to fighting global warming. ‘President Obama should rank the battle against climate change as one of his top priorities in his State of the Union speech next week’, said Center for Clean Air Policy president Ned Heime.”

For environmentalists, it does not matter if the real climate is a deep cold. They committed to the lies about global warming in the late 1980s and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel and Climate Change (IPCC) has maintained the hoax ever since. Along the way we learned that the computer models on which it based its assertions and predictions were rigged and bogus, but that has not deterred the IPCC which is now referring to a “pause” in global warming. This is lying on a global scale.

It was the environmental group Greenpeace that put out a television advertisement featuring a Santa Claus telling children that he might have to call off Christmas because the North Pole was melting. How malicious can they get? When a group of global warming scientists and tourists took a ship to the Antarctic to measure the “melting” ice down there, the ship got caught in the ice which also resisted the efforts of two icebreaker ships to rescue them.

We are dealing with environmental groups, the IPCC and government leaders like Obama for whom the telling of huge and blatantly obvious lies about global warming is nothing compared to the billions generated by the hoax for the universities and scientists that line their pockets supporting it and industries that benefit by offering ways to capture carbon dioxide or conserve energy by first banning incandescent light bulbs.

The “pause” has lasted now for seventeen years and, as is the case with all climate on the Earth, the reason is the Sun.

A report published by CBN News noted that “The last time the sun was this quiet, North America and Europe suffered through a weather event from the 1600s to the 1800s known as ‘Little Ice Age’ when the Thames River in London regularly froze solid, and North America saw terrible winters. Crops failed and people starved.”

Jens Pedersen, a senior scientist at Denmark’s Technical University, said that climate scientists know the Earth stopped warming 15 years ago. But the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of which Pedersen is an expert reviewer, suppressed a recent report from its own scientists that the U.N.’s climate model has been proven wrong.

“Global warming is nowhere to be found,” said David Deming, a geophysicist at the University of Colorado, in a January 16 commentary in The Washington Times. “As frigid conditions settled over the nation, global-warming alarmists went into full denial mode”, adding that “weather extremes also seem to bring out the lunatic fringe” and that is why the public is being told that cold weather has been caused by global warming!

Whatever the President has to say about “climate change” should be taken as just one more example of five years of lies to advance policies that have nothing to do with the welfare of Americans needing jobs or the execrable Obamacare attack on the U.S. healthcare system.

The cold reality may well be a Superbowl played on another day and a President for whom the truth is incidental to his shredding of the U.S. Constitution, the increase in the nation’s ever-growing debt, a lagging economy, and his intention to by-pass Congress rather than working with it.

That kind of thing will put a chill up any American’s spine if you think about it.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) calls Nancy Pelosi “Mind-Numbingly Stupid”

January 26, 2014/in News, Policy, Politics, Video/by Dr. Rich Swier

The 2012 video interview on Fox News Greta Van Susteren with Rep. Trey Gowdy is re-circulating on the internet. In the interview Rep. Gowdy questions former Speaker Pelosi’s comments accusing Republicans of using Congressional investigations to suppress the vote. As 2014 is an election year and ongoing Congressional investigations into activities of the IRS, NSA, DOJ, EPA, Benghazi and others, it is expected that Democrats, like Pelosi, may play the 2 of Clubs again? Or the race card?

The Blaze reported in 2012, “Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) responded to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s claims that Republicans were only going after Attorney General Eric Holder in the ‘Fast and Furious’ investigation in order to further an imaginary GOP agenda of voter suppression, calling the assertion ‘mind-numbingly stupid.’”

[youtube]http://youtu.be/S9CiTTVLh3g[/youtube]

The Blaze states:

“You know my friend Allen West said the race card was the last card in the deck. I think former Speaker Pelosi has opened up a new deck and has found the 2 of clubs. I could not believe it when I heard her saying that. Is that all you have to come back with?” Gowdy told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Thursday night.

“Is that the best you can come up with, is that we got together in this grand scheme to suppress votes and I’m sure she didn’t say southern states but that’s what she meant,” he added.

At this point, Gowdy was letting it fly and saying exactly what he, and likely many others, think about Pelosi’s bizarre claim.

He went on: “It’s really beneath the office of a member of Congress to say something that outrageous and the fact that she was once the Speaker is mind numbing. I honestly, and I have heard a lot in my 16 years as a prosecutor, I couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. But keep in mind, Greta, this is the same woman who said she could have arrested Karl Rove any day she wanted. So I don’t know what was wrong with her yesterday or today or whenever she said that, but I would schedule an appointment with my doctor if she thinks that we are doing this to suppress votes this fall. That is mind-numbingly stupid.”

RELATED COLUMN: Obama’s Race-Baiting Harms Black Youths

The Cyber Attacks are coming, the Cyber Attacks are coming!

January 26, 2014/in Cyberwarfare, Featured, News, Policy/by Dr. Rich Swier

If you Google the words “cyber attacks” you will get 164 million results. So where is our government on defending you and me against this growing peril? According to experts like John Jorgenson, CEO and founding partner of the Sylint Group, our government is woefully behind the times in capability and capacity to deal with the threat of cyber attacks let alone the cyber warfare being conducted on a global scale by nation states such as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.

Today the cry across America is the cyber attacks are coming, the cyber attacks are coming! But no one is taking action. No one that is except those few who, like Jorgenson, truly understand the catastrophic nature of the threat.

The most recent cyber attack was against our federal court system. Politico’s Tony Romm reports, “Unidentified hackers took aim at the federal court system Friday [January 24, 2014], blocking access to its public website while preventing lawyers and litigants from filing legal documents online. The incident affected uscourts.gov the federal court’s public hub, as well as most if not all federal court sites — not to mention the federal court system’s electronic filing system and its access page, PACER, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said Friday.” The site remained down when this column was posted.

John Jorgensen, CEO and a founding partner of the Sylint Group.

Jorgenson notes, “Since President Obama created a White House ‘cyber czar‘ position in 2009 there have been six appointed and then leave the position. The reason is a lack of support and funding for the program.”

In an email Jorgenson states, “The Cyber Czar count is difficult to do because of the people who temporarily held the post and the ‘Cyber Czar’ post being identified with the Obama Administration and DHS both. It is not easy to find the names of those who resigned. The press makes it out that there has been only one Cyber Czar under Obama, Schmidt. You have to really search to find the others.” The players since President Obama first took office are:

Rod Beckstrom – Resigned/Replaced, White House
Melissa Hathaway – Resigned. Hathaway was said to have been temporary, White House. But was she temporary because she resigned so quickly after making negative comments about the administration?
Howard Schmidt – Retired (Stated at RSA, 2010 or 2011, that there is no Cyber Warfare), White House.
Unknown – There was talk of a woman who took Schmidt’s place but soon resigned and Schmidt stayed on, White House.
Mark Weatherford – DHS / resigned.
Bruce McConnell – DHS / Temporary.
Michael Daniel – Current, White House.

“At issue is that a post as important as this, has had enormous turnover and turmoil, and we are only five years into the administration ‘leadership’. Nothing of substance to protect commercial industry, the countries infrastructure, or the citizen has come out of the White House. From the attacks being made on the United States on the Cyber Battlefield our advisories are taking Cyber Warfare seriously while we can’t find a credible Field Marshall let alone decide what needs to be done,” notes Jorgenson.

John Kelly from HowStuffWorks.com wrote, “In 2009, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared that the U.S. ‘is under cyber-attack virtually all the time, every day’ [source: Farrell]. He wasn’t joking. That year, computer spies gained access to files about the Pentagon’s $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project, intruders breached the Air Force’s air-traffic-control system, Chinese hackers penetrated computers at Google, and Russian cyber-thieves stole tens of millions of dollars from Citibank.”

On June 23, 2009, the Secretary of Defense directed the Commander of U.S. Strategic Command to establish a sub-unified command, United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). Full Operational Capability (FOC) was achieved Oct. 31, 2010. The command is located at Fort Meade, Maryland.

NextGov.com reports, “In the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act passed by House lawmakers last week, Congress required the Defense Department appoint a high level Principal Cyber Advisor with a broad oversight portfolio that includes offensive and defensive cyber missions, resources, personnel, acquisition and technology. A Senate vote on the bill is expected this week. The new cyber advisor will have ‘overall supervision’ of all Defense cyber operations and will oversee a team that will integrate the cyber expertise of the four services, combatant commands and Defense agencies.”

Jorgenson believes that “major government systems have been compromised, including the US electrical grid.” Jorgenson stated that other systems such as health care, hospitals and our food supply systems are targets of cyber attacks. These attacks are dangerous because according to Jorgenson, “they place malware on corporate and government computer systems with the intent of controlling manufacturing, distribution and information system processes.”

The danger is real, clear and present. However, it appears the federal government and Congress is less concerned with the threat as it is with making political points over the dysfunctional HeathCare.gov website. Which by the way has been compromised!

Why the U.S. Has Been Losing Wars

January 26, 2014/in Featured, National Security, Policy/by Alan Caruba

It is typical of the media that it concentrated on a few observations of Obama when reporting on Robert M. Gates new book, “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War”, while ignoring the main themes of the 600-plus page book.

Suffice to say, this is not light reading. It reads much of the time like a daily record of endless meetings—because there were endless meetings—and it is filled with the details of personnel changes and much else that went with a job he took on during the last two years of the Bush administration and was requested to remain on by Obama.

He did so for another two years and he describes the frustrations of being in the inner circle of the handful of people to whom all the problems, domestic and international, came to for decisions. As Gates notes, “while the national security apparatus to deal with such problems is gigantic, ultimately they all had to be addressed by just eight people: the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of State, the director of national intelligence, the director of CIA, and the national security advisor.”

One cannot come to any conclusion other than the fact that Gates, a former Director of the CIA, a position he rose to after years in the spy agency, is a patriot for whom partisan politics is of little importance compared to the range of enemies the U.S. had to address when he served as the Secretary of Defense. What kept him on the job was literally his love of the troops who serve in our armed forces.

If one reads the book looking for juicy revelations about those for whom and with whom he served, you won’t find any. He is uniformly sympathetic to all of them, understanding the immensity of the pressures, no matter their experience and judgment.

What also comes through, however, is the way the bulk of the people whom we elect to high office in the White House and Congress, or who serve in various appointed offices are rarely extraordinary intellects, but rather fairly ordinary individuals who are in these positions often largely due to their personal ambitions.

The military, based on merit, does a good job of selecting men—and now women—to rise to flag rank, but the Pentagon as a whole, as Gates reveals, is a massive inefficient bureaucracy filled with people who are mostly detached from the fact that the U.S. has been at war since 2001 in Afghanistan and, until we were forced to withdraw, in Iraq since 2003. Even worse, for those in Congress these wars were more about how much to fund the Pentagon and the political ramifications of conflict’s success or failure than about the young men and women sent to fight them.

It gets worse. Military budgets are based on five-year plans and most procurements of the hardware needed to fight a war represented programs that could take years, even decades, from the decision to the delivery. The wars the Pentagon remains focused on are not the insurgencies led by non-state actors like al Qaeda, often unpredictable conflicts, but those more related to World War Two and the Cold War when major adversaries faced off against one another.

As the years have gone along, I would complain that the U.S. had forgotten how to fight wars, but I too was thinking of the big ones. At the time, I swiftly came to regard Vietnam as a war in which we should have never become engaged. It had begun in 1950 with a few military “advisors”, escalated dramatically through the 1960s, and finally ended in 1973, but not before 58,220 American troops had died.

After September 11, 2001, I thought the attack on the al Qaeda in Afghanistan was an appropriate response, but I doubt anyone thought we would stay on an engage in “nation building.” This repeated itself after Iraq’s Saddam Hussein provoked action in the 1991 Gulf War to drive him out of Kuwait—a war that lasted 100 hours, but was followed by another in 2003 to remove him. What followed was more nation-building in a 4,000 year old nation that had always been run by despots and no experience with democracy.

Gates says that “all the services regarded the counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as unwelcome military aberrations, the kind of conflict we would never fight again.” We had, by then, been fighting such conflicts in Grenada, Lebanon, Libya (twice), Panama, Haiti, the Balkans and elsewhere “usually in relatively small-scale but messy combat.”

There’s a reason the subtitle of Gate’s book was about “a secretary at war.” His memoir is about a job that put him at war with Congress, with those in the Pentagon, and in conflict with those in the White House who often did not grasp the horrors of war. While Bush had confidence in the military, in the Obama White House “suspicion and distrust of senior military officers by senior White House officials—including the President and Vice President—became a big problem for me as I tried to manage the relationship between the commander-in-chief and his military leaders.”

Throughout the two years of the Obama administration there were no formal budgets and, as a result, “The world’s largest and most complex organization was being funded hand to mouth, living paycheck to paycheck to paycheck.”

This is why the Gates memoir is about a nation that has been fighting and losing wars for far too long. It is about American Presidents who “confronted with a tough problem abroad, have too often been too quick to reach for a gun—to use military force…”

War is not a video game or a technological endeavor that kills safely and at a distance. Gates quotes Civil War General William T. Sherman who said “every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.” Famously, Sherman said, “War is hell.”

The U.S. has been losing wars for a long time now. We don’t seem to be learning anything from that history.

TAKE ACTION: Republican Immigration Reform will lead to 8 million more Anti-gun Voters

January 25, 2014/in Featured, Gun Rights, News, Policy, Politics/by Dr. Rich Swier

“[A] Pew poll suggests that illegal immigrants, if given citizenship, would vote for liberal, anti-gun candidates by an 8-to-1 margin.” – GOA’s Erich Pratt, commenting on Pew poll findings as reported in The Washington Post (7/22/13)

Gun Owners of America (GOA) in an email states, “Next Wednesday, the House Republican leadership will announce a set of “principles” for immigration reform. Supposedly, if these ‘principles’ are not well-received, the House will shelve the issue for the remainder of the year. To be blunt: The health of the Second Amendment relies on demolishing these ‘principles’.”

“Immigration reform will add over 8,000,000 anti-gun voters to the voting rolls. There may be as many as 11.5 million persons illegally in the United States. And, a Pew poll from last year indicated that if illegal immigrants were given citizenship, they would vote for liberal, anti-gun candidates by an 8-to-1 margin,” notes GOA

Pratt notes, “This is exactly what happened to California — which was once a Red State. Because of the Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty bill of 1986, the state lurched violently to the left and now can’t pass gun control restrictions fast enough. If this were to happen at the national level, we would lose the ability to stop massive gun bans and gun registration schemes. And all of this occurs at a time when a Fox poll shows the American people oppose Obama’s immigration policies by a margin of 36% to 54%.”

The first reality is this: If the House passes ANYTHING, the Senate will tack on its amnesty bill and send it to conference. And the national conversation will turn off of ObamaCare and onto immigration.

And guess what? Every gun-hating institution which moved heaven and earth to pass gun control will move heaven and earth to get the House to retreat — if not to a “pathway to citizenship,” to a “pathway to legalization.”

They will have created the biggest and most motivated Obama-loving movement in the country — devoted to electing anti-gun politicians and retaining Harry Reid’s control of the Senate.

What will Republicans get, in exchange for creating an army of pro-Obama election warriors?

Very little. (Be sure to read GOA legislative counsel Michael Hammond’s analysis, which shows, in great detail, how the Republican leadership’s “principles” will end up backfiring on gun owners.)

The bottom line is that there is a reason why Barack Obama and his “puppet press” have been campaigning for a year to force the Republican House to wade into “immigration reform.” It is nothing but benefits for anti-gun politicians, and nothing but pain for pro-gun legislators.

Who would be stupid enough to inflict that level of pain on themselves?

ACTION: Contact your Representative. If he is a Republican, the pre-written letter will ask him to reject the ridiculous “immigration principles” being hawked by the leadership — principles that will eventually destroy the pro-gun movement in America. The pre-written letter for Democrats is a generic opposition letter.

ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: Remember that clicking on the first “submit” button on the GOA Engage site (where you input your name and address), only submits your information so that your correct legislators can be identified. Hence, the first “submit” button does not actually send your letter. Instead, it brings you to the next page where you can actually review the pre-written letter. The second “submit” button actually sends the letter.

Republicans ready to roll dice on amnesty…

NRA-ILA: California’s Most Ambitious Handgun Ban Now Underway

January 25, 2014/in Gun Rights, Must Read, News, Policy/by Dr. Rich Swier

In 1976, the Brady Campaign, then known as the National Council to Control Handguns, said that the first part of its three-part plan to get handguns and handgun ammunition made “totally illegal” was to “slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country.” This month, anti-gunners finally got that wish in California.

America’s two largest handgun manufacturers–Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger–have announced that they will stop selling new semi-automatic handguns in California, rather than comply with the state’s “microstamping” law. The law applies not only to entirely new models of handguns, but also to any current-production handgun approved by the state’s Roster Board, if such handgun is modified with any new feature or characteristic, however minor or superficial.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the law was “intended to help police investigators link shell casings found at crime scenes to a specific gun.” That’s pure spin, however. In reality, the law, signed in 2007 by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, is intended to terminate semi-automatic handgun sales and, over time, semi-automatic handgun ownership in the state. “Microstamping” will solve few, if any crimes and it is only a matter of time before a proposal to expand the law to include other firearms will follow.

Meanwhile, the National Shooting Sports Foundation has announced that it and the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute have filed suit against the law in Fresno Superior Court “seeking both declaratory and injunctive relief against this back-door attempt to prevent the sale of new semiautomatic handguns to law-abiding citizens in California.”

Anti-gun activists often refer to California as the test bed for gun control laws they would like to have imposed throughout the country. Thus, it goes without saying that gun owners outside California should anticipate “microstamping” efforts in their states, and do what it takes to elect pro-Second Amendment governors and state legislators to deny the anti-gunners additional victories.

However, making sure that what has happened in California doesn’t happen elsewhere is not the only reason to step up our election year efforts. California accounts for 12 percent of the nation’s population and approximately eight percent of its handgun owners. We owe it to our fellow countrymen–our Second Amendment brothers and sisters–to elect a pro-Second Amendment president and senators who will approve that president’s nominations to the federal courts, where California’s “microstamping” law might one day be challenged. What is true in football is also true in the effort to keep America’s most popular type of handguns legal and affordable: the best defense is a good offense.

FairTax Friday: “No idea of the [tax code] benefits”!

January 24, 2014/in Must Read, News, Policy, Politics, Taxes/by Cynthia Canevaro

It’s January and Americans are looking for receipts and lost documentation in their annual quest to prepare their yearly tax return. Arguments will ensure, relationships will sour and health will decline. Are you having fun yet?

Have you started dealing with the significant changes that went into effect for 2013? Not to worry though, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson said, “The complexities of the tax code are only affecting those of us trying to read it. Tax software makes a lot of those complexities invisible to the average taxpayer.” I’m comforted, aren’t you?

She went on to say, “As a result, taxpayers might not realize they’re being helped by a wide array of deductions and credits. “They have no idea of the benefits they are getting through the tax code.”

Wow, now we are getting benefits from the tax code!

I’m continually amazed at the way Washington “spins” tax code changes. First, Congressional leaders point to the code’s growing complexity. Congress then passes changes (you’ll have to read the legislation to know what’s in it because they are too busy to read it themselves), followed by the executive branch spinning the “benefits”.

You know better, though, don’t you? After all, you are FairTax® smart. You know the only benefits in the tax code are those carved out by special interests. You know that taxpayers are always the perennial losers when it comes to America’s income tax code.

That’s why a group of dedicated FairTax supporters are on their way to Washington this weekend to meet with Members of Congress and their staff. For two days, they plan to further educate them about the benefits of HR 25, the FairTax Act of 2013.

That’s also why the Letters to the Editor/Opinion Editorial team, led by Glen Terrell, has redoubled their efforts in making sure that the FairTax message is spread far and wide in newspapers, magazines and bogs.

Members of the House Ways and Means Committee will soon vote on tax reform. We await their vote on HR 25. It is imperative that every member of Congress knows the magnitude of support the FairTax has across America.

Have you contacted your elected representatives to share with them where you stand on the FairTax? If so, did you only contact their Washington office?

We know that Member’s district directors (DD’s) also report on what issues constituents are contacting them about at the local level. Some DD’s have told us they rarely hear about the FairTax, yet we know you are contacting the Representative’s Washington office.

Have you gone on your Member’s Facebook page and weighed in on the “benefits” you derive from the tax code versus why you support the FairTax plan? Please take 5 extra minutes and call your Representative’s Washington and district offices.

Is President Obama questioning the loyalty of American Jews?

January 24, 2014/in Commentary, News, Policy, Politics/by Jerry Gordon

The Jerusalem Post published an article with a comment allegedly attributable to an Obama White House senior official that has caught the ire of American Jews and Israelis, “US perceives Israel as encouraging anti-Obama backlash among Jews”. The JP article noted:

A US official close to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry said both men are disturbed over what is being perceived in their inner circle as “Jewish activism in Congress” that they think is being encouraged by the Israeli government, Israel Radio reported on Thursday.

The official has informed Israeli government figures that the president and secretary of state are disappointed over repeated attacks made against them by leading members of the Jewish community in the US.

According to Israel Radio, Israeli diplomats and foreign officers have warned against this trend. According to officials based in foreign missions, the Israeli government is increasingly being viewed as fanning the flames among American Jews by encouraging them to promote the official government position while making no room for opposing viewpoints.

Earlier this month, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon apologized after it was reported that he called Kerry “obsessive” and “messianic.”

In response to this JP report Stuart Kaufman sent an email to me and other colleagues with this comment:

This is dangerously close to the old anti-Semitic accusation of dual loyalty. We are now on seriously perilous ground. The rulers of the land are beginning the effort to isolate Jews – to set us apart. I can’t stress how dangerous this is. We Jews and those who are our friends must strike back hard. This serpent can’t be permitted to grow without a major response.

What Kaufman was referring to was the emergence in 19^th Century Europe of die Judenfrage, the Jewish question, criticizing Jewish subjects or citizens of being disloyal because of conflicts between nationalism and Zionism; the return of the Jewish people to what is now Israel. It was from this well of hatred that anti-Semitism arose in the Vienna of the Habsburg Empire, Wilhelmine Germany and the fin de siècle France during the Dreyfus Affair. It would become transformed into the international Jewish conspiracy forgery of the Czarist secret police, The Elders of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Later it becomes embedded in Hitler’s anti-Semitic tract Mein Kampf that lit the match for the Holocaust of Six Million European Jewish Men, Women and Children during World War Two. Mein Kampf is today one of the most popular books in the Arab Muslim world promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood, whose founder Hassan al Banna was an acolyte of Hitler.

Watch this Youtube video of Julius Streicher, the notorious publisher of the Nazi tabloid Der Sturmer, ranting about Anti-Semitic judenfrage:

In light of that, how callous was this alleged comment from the Senior White House aide in the Administration. Is the White House really questioning the loyalty of American Jews? Or are the President and Secretary of State simply complaining about Israeli cabinet members and some “American Jews” criticizing them? Are the President and Secretary of State really against Americans, Jews and others, supporting Israel defending its hard won sovereignty against people who would destroy it?

Yesterday, we saw clear evidence of that threat with the World Economic Forum interview of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani by Fareed Zakaria of CNN. We heard translations of Rouhani saying he would neither destroy 15,000 centrifuges nor stop building or swap plutonium producing heavy water reactors at Arak for energy producing light water ones. He was also telling the West that sanctions were illegal. The Obama White House Press Spokesman Jay Carney said , in response to reporters’ questions about President Rouhani’s CNN interview, that Rouhani’s comments were for domestic consumption back home in Tehran. AIPAC didn’t think so. They sent out a blast email containing a link to the CNN interview with Rouhani for its members and others to view.

Rouhani’s CNN interview was a deliberate poke in the eyes of the P5+1 and the denizens of the West Wing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. To warn American Jews they better not defend their Jewish cousins in Israel from this threat was both dangerous and a blatant display of ingratitude towards an ally protecting our assets in the Middle East. Some thanks for Shin Bet saving Amb. Dan Shapiro and his striped pants and skirts brigade in Tel Aviv at the US Embassy and others at the Jerusalem conference center from Al Qaeda attacks orchestrated by Ayman al-Zawahiri’s local henchman in Gaza. Even peace mongering nonagenarian Israeli President Peres at Davos in response to Rouhani’s interview called for a boycott of Iran.

Perhaps Members of Congress concerned about these White House follies, both domestic and foreign can express their disdain for accusations like this from the Administration. They could politely sit on their hands and not applaud at the President’s State of the Union Address next Tuesday, the 28th when the President inevitably will do a victory lap about engagement with Iran over its nuclear program. That would send a visual rebuke captured on national and international TV. An image that would convey a message that even Iran’s President Rouhani, Foreign Minister Zarif and Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Khamenei wouldn’t require a Farsi translation. The more courageous among US Senate members in the audience of the Joint Session could immediately take up the Nuclear Weapons Free Iran Act, S. 1881 and pass it resoundingly next Wednesday.

After this episode we can understand former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ criticism of the mind numbing political apparatchiks in the West Wing inner circle portrayed in his memoir, Duty. Gates has been unfairly maligned by the liberal media reviewers for betraying his trust with the Obama team while Secretary of Defense by releasing his book prior to the end of the President’s term. In sharp contrast Thomas Ricks published a praiseworthy review of Gates’ memoir, “In Command”, in the New York Times Sunday Book Review. Note Ricks’ conclusion that provides a measure of the author:

But Gates is doing far more than just scoring points in this revealing volume. The key to reading it is understanding that he was profoundly affected by his role in sending American soldiers overseas to fight and be killed or maimed. During his four years as defense secretary, he states twice, he wept almost every night as he signed letters of condolence and then lay in bed and meditated on the dead and wounded. He was angry and disappointed with White House officials and members of Congress who appeared to him to put political gain ahead of the interests of American soldiers. Fittingly, he concludes the book by revealing that he has requested to be buried in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, the resting place of many of those we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More than 10,000 American Jews serve in our military. American Jewish servicemen and women have fought and died in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps they are buried in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery that Secretary Gates wrote about in his memoir. Watch this Forward Vimeo video about two valiant American Jews who served honorably and fell in Iraq and Afghanistan.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.

Friedman Foundation ranks America’s School Choice programs

January 24, 2014/in Education, Must Read, News, Policy/by Dr. Rich Swier

Paul DiPerna, Research Director, Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, and the Friedman Foundation team have ranked every U.S. school choice program based on eligibility and purchasing power in conjunction with today’s release of the 2014 edition of The ABCs of School Choice.

Which types of school choice programs offer the broadest eligibility for students and greatest financial flexibility for families? Choose your favorite color below to access the matched rankings. We’d be interested to know what you think of our new publication.

Comprehensive list of States that have pulled out of Common Core

January 24, 2014/in Education, Featured, News, Policy/by Dr. Rich Swier

Stephanie Zimmerman of Idahoans for Local Education provides a complete list of all the states that have pulled out of either Smarter Balanced or PARCC, as well as, states that are considering it. Visit Idahoans for Local Education for future updates.

States that have pulled out of their Assessment Consortium:

Utah (Smarter Balanced) – http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/mobile/54627081-68/utah-state-standards-consortium.html.csp
Oklahoma (PARCC) – http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-assessments/oklahoma-pulls-out-of-parcc/ (the Tulsa World article is no longer on the website).
Georgia (PARCC) – http://www.ajc.com/news/news/breaking-news/georgia-decides-against-offering-common-core-stand/nYzDr/
Alabama (Smarter Balanced & PARCC – they were an advisory state) –http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2013/02/alabama_withdraws_from_both_te.html
Indiana (PARCC) – http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-assessments/pence-pulls-indiana-out-of-parcc/ andhttp://indianapublicmedia.org/stateimpact/2013/07/29/gov-pence-signals-intent-to-withdraw-from-common-core-consortium-parcc/ As of December PARCC still had them listed though – http://hoosiersagainstcommoncore.com/indianas-withdraw-parcc-real-show/
Kansas (Smarter Balanced) – http://m.cjonline.com/news/2013-12-10/kansas-opts-create-its-own-common-core-tests
Pennsylvania (Smarter Balanced & PARCC) –http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2013/06/pennsylvania_signals_departure_from_test_consortia.html
Alaska (Smarter Balanced) – http://www.newsminer.com/news/education/alaska-changes-school-testing-consortium/article_05509298-7d77-11e3-9606-001a4bcf6878.html
Florida (PARCC) – http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-assessments/rick-scott-pulls-florida-out-of-parcc/

States Actively Considering Withdrawing

Michigan (Smarter Balanced) –http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2013/12/consortium_watch_kansas_drops_.html
Kentucky (PARCC) –http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2013/12/consortium_watch_kansas_drops_.html
North Carolina (Smarter Balanced) –http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/01/02/3502892/common-core-backlash-casts-shadow.html
Iowa (Smarter Balanced) – The Iowa Legislature actually has to approve its use –http://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2013/05/iowa-puts-common-core-assessments-on-hold/

States that never joined.

Virginia
Texas
Nebraska
Minnesota

Photo credit: Barbara Day

Credit: Stephanie Zimmerman of Idahoans for Local Education put the original list together in an email. Shane Vander Hart from Truth in American Education expanded Zimmerman’s list and added some additional news stories.

State Budget Solutions’ Releases “Fourth Annual State Debt Report”

January 24, 2014/in Budget and Finance, Economy, News, Policy/by Dr. Rich Swier

State Budget Solutions’ (SBS) fourth annual State Debt Study reveals that state governments face a combined $5.1 trillion in debt. This total equals roughly $16,178 per capita, or 33 percent of annual gross state product. Another telling way to view the problem – state debt is equal to 469% of all fiscal year state general and other fund expenditures.

Since 2010, SBS has conducted a comprehensive examination of debt facing the 50 state governments. These reports have repeatedly found trillions in combined debt that stand in stark contrast to officials’ proclamations of balanced budgets and belt-tightening. This year’s update, and those in the past, show unfunded public pension liabilities’ incredible contribution to state debt. In fact, these liabilities make up 79 percent of all state debt.

SBS’ unique and comprehensive approach to calculating state debt includes four separate components. The components are market-valued unfunded public pension liabilities, outstanding government debt, unfunded other post employment benefit (OPEB) liabilities, and outstanding unemployment trust fund loans. Together, these four factors present an all-inclusive view of state obligations not conventionally presented but that both lawmakers and taxpayers nonetheless must confront.

The table below shows each state’s total debt, along with details breaking down that debt into its four contributing components. Per capita details and state rankings can be found in tabs along the bottom. Click here to view the spreadsheet in a separate page.

California leads the pack with $778 billion in state debt, mostly as a result of the state’s $584 billion unfunded public pension liability. New York ($388 billion), Texas ($341 billion), Illinois ($321 billion), and Ohio ($321 billion) round out the top 5 states with the largest amounts of state debt. While each figure is staggering in its own right, this perspective does seem to highlight those states with the largest populations.

A more alarming fiscal situation is revealed when state debt totals are broken down according to a series of factors that reflect the toll that eventually reducing that debt may take on citizens, the local economy, and state budgets.

The first way to break down the data is by look at the debt on a per capita basis. Using the United States Census Bureau’s 2012 population estimates, the study reveals that combined, state debt is equal to $16,178 for every resident of a U.S. state. That figure does not adequately portray the dire situation in some states, though.

In terms of per capita, Alaska’s state debt is equal to $40,714 per person, followed by Hawaii ($33,111), Connecticut ($31,298), Ohio ($27,836), and Illinois ($24,959).

Top 5 State Debt Per Capita		Bottom 5 State Debt Per Capita
Alaska	$40,714	Tennessee	$6,358
Hawaii	$33,111	Indiana	$7,094
Connecticut	$31,298	Wisconsin	$7,863
Ohio	$27,836	South Dakota	$9,249
Illinois	$24,959	Arizona	$9,321

State debt as a percentage of gross state product is another possible measure. Across the spectrum of states, this figure varies widely. Hawaii (64 percent), Ohio (63 percent), New Mexico (62 percent), Alaska (57 percent), and Mississippi (54 percent) all face a state debt that totals more than 50 percent of their entire 2012 gross state product.

Top 5 State Debt as a Percentage of Gross State Product		Bottom 5 State Debt as a Percentage of Gross State Product
Hawaii	64%	Nebraska	13%
Ohio	63%	Tennessee	15%
New Mexico	62%	Indiana	16%
Alaska	57%	Wisconsin	17%
Mississippi	54%	South Dakota	18%

Over time, state debt will exact a toll on state budgets. Money once expected to fund vital services like education and healthcare will have to be redirected to debt service, increased contributions to public pension systems, and more. Based on this, it is illustrative to examine state debt as it relates to state expenditures.

The National Association of State Budget Officers’ annual State Expenditure Report compiles total state expenditures. Excluding bonds and federal funds from fiscal year 2012 expenditures in order to focus on state resources, total state debt is equal to 469 percent of state spending.

Nevada stands out with a state debt equal to 1,048 percent of its own spending. It is followed, albeit not too closely, by Ohio (742 percent), Illinois (727 percent), California (647 percent), and Georgia (633 percent).

Top 5 State Debt as a Percentage of FY2012 Spending		Bottom 5 State Debt as a Percentage of FY2012 Spending
Nevada	1,048%	West Virginia	141%
Ohio	742%	Wisconsin	146%
Illinois	727%	Nebraska	191%
California	647%	Wyoming	222%
Georgia	633%	North Dakota	224%

Components of Debt

SBS calculates state debt by combining four separate components. This approach marks a slight adjustment from previous years’ reports, which also included projected fiscal year budget gaps. Due to a lack of surveyed data, this figure was not factored into the current report.

Components of State Debt (thousands)
Unfunded Public Pension Liabilities		$3,900,823,389
Outstanding Debt		$618,832,092
Unfunded OPEB Liabilities		$528,787,000
Unemployment Trust Fund Loans		$19,921,682
Total		$5,068,364,163

Unfunded public pension liabilities

The largest single amount of the states’ combined $5.07 trillion in debt comes from unfunded public pension liabilities. These total over $3.9 trillion. The following table shows the 5 states with the largest total and per capita public pension unfunded liabilities.

Top 5 Unfunded Pension Liability (thousands)		Top 5 Unfunded Pension Liability Per Capita
California	$583,627,395	Alaska	$32,454
Ohio	$287,373,800	Ohio	$24,893
New York	$260,075,662	Connecticut	$20,726
Illinois	$254,872,560	New Mexico	$20,517
Texas	$244,164,239	Illinois	$19,796

SBS’ calculation of over $3.9 trillion in unfunded public pension liabilities is based on data originally published in September 2013 in the report “Promises Made, Promises Broken – The Betrayal of Pensioners and Taxpayers,” which relied on the most recent actuarial data available from over 250 state-administered defined benefit pension plans. That report took a market-valued approach to calculate plan funded levels by discounting liabilities according to a risk free rate. This approach reflects the nearly risk-free nature of public pension benefits. That is, once promised, the risk that they will not have to be paid is quite low.

The State Debt Report’s examination of unfunded public pension liabilities includes over $2.46 trillion in plan assets. Based on state-reported liabilities, the total funded ratio of these plans was 73 percent. However, discounting plan liabilities according to a risk-free rate of 3.225 percent, based on the 15 year Treasury yield reveals a funded ratio of just 39 percent and $3.9 trillion in unfunded obligations.

SBS has slightly modified the list of included pension plans in the State Debt Report to ensure that the plans are at least partially attributable to state government. To that end, included plans were based on Loop Capital Markets’ “Eleventh Annual Public Pension Funding Review.”

Outstanding Debt

This component is made up of bonds, leases, and other traditional aspects of government debt as listed in each states’ comprehensive annual financial report. This year’s report, which used figures from the latest available CAFR, shows a combined $620 billion in debt. That represents an increase of roughly $13 billion over the previous year’s report. The following table shows the 5 states with the largest total and per capita outstanding debt.

Top 5 Outstanding Debt (thousands)		Top 5 Outstanding Debt Per Capita
California	$199,680,625	Connecticut	$5,246
New York	$58,060,000	Hawaii	$5,346
New Jersey	$41,433,010	New Jersey	$4,674
Texas	$41,344,000	Massachusetts	$3,816
Illinois	$33,186,555	Washington	$3,150

Unfunded Other Post Employment Benefit Liabilities

Like unfunded pension liabilities, unfunded OPEB liabilities (mainly retiree healthcare benefits) are a threat to state finances driven by a combination of promises made to an aging public employee workforce and the states’ failure to properly fund those promises. The State Debt Report includes $529 billion in unfunded OPEB liabilities as reported by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) in a 2013 report “U.S. State OPEB Liabilities Decline Slightly, But Vary Widely.” The following table shows the 5 states with the largest total and per capita OPEB unfunded liabilities.

Top 5 Unfunded OPEB Liability (thousands)		Top 5 Unfunded OPEB Liability Per Capita
New York	$66,479,000	Hawaii	$8,408
California	$65,210,000	New Jersey	$7,206
New Jersey	$63,881,000	Delaware	$6,152
Texas	$55,436,000	Alaska	$5,533
Illinois	$33,295,000	Connecticut	$4,987

While S&P’s report did find a 2 percent decrease in unfunded liabilities, it remains both revealing and distressing that, according to their research, only Indiana, Utah, and Rhode Island made their full actuarially determined OPEB contributions in fiscal year 2012. Further, only seven states currently have an OPEB trust funded beyond 20 percent of liabilities.

Outstanding Unemployment Trust Fund Loans

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), “The Federal Unemployment Account (FUA) provides for a loan fund for state unemployment programs to ensure a continued flow of benefits during times of economic downturn.” This fund was tapped frequently and by many states during the recent economic crisis. NCSL’s reporting, based on Department of Labor data, showed that 14 states had outstanding unemployment trust fund loans as of December 3, 2013.

Top 5 Outstanding Unemployment Trust Fund Loans (thousands)		Top 5 Outstanding Unemployment Trust Fund Loans Per Capita
California	$9,400,383	California	$247
New York	$2,851,005	Indiana	$206
North Carolina	$1,894,163	North Carolina	$194
Ohio	$1,552,419	Connecticut	$160
Indiana	$1,343,674	New York	$146

State Budget Solutions’ Fourth Annual State Debt report shows staggering and growing levels of state debt. These figures should serve as a wake up call for citizens and policymakers alike.

Sources

Outstanding unemployment trust fund loans were obtained from the National of Conference of State Legislatures as of December 3, 2013. Outstanding debt figures were compiled based on figures from each state’s respective fiscal year 2012 comprehensive annual financial report. Unfunded other post employment benefit liabilities are based on figures from Standard & Poor’s 2013 report “U.S. State OPEB Liabilities Decline Slightly, But Vary Widely.” Unfunded public pension liabilities are based on data originally reported in State Budget Solutions’ “Promises Made, Promises Broken – The Betrayal of Pensioners and Taxpayers,” although modified to include those pension plans listed in Loop Capital Markets’ “Eleventh Annual Public Pension Funding Review.” Total population figures were obtained from the United States Census Bureau’s 2012 Population Estimates, and Gross State Product figures are from the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ regional economic index for the year 2012. State expenditure figures are based on those listed in National Association of State Budget Officers’ “State Expenditure Report,” and include actual expenditures from state general and other funds for fiscal year 2012.

Should We Raise the Minimum Wage?

January 24, 2014/in Economy, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics/by Dr. Rich Swier

Kelsey Harris and Amy Payne from the Heritage Foundation asked themselves this question. They created a revealing infographic to answer this important political issue. The minimum wage has little to do with helping people earn more, rather it is a progressive tool to create a conflict between classes in the lead up to the 2014 elections. It is political pandering to those who believe the government is here to help them.

It is income redistribution at best and economically destructive at the worst. The progressive ideal is “income equality” for all, except the ruling class, of course.

“In last year’s State of the Union address, President Obama called for an increase in the minimum wage. Since then, Democrats in Congress have argued that the President didn’t go far enough, proposing even more of an increase. The question is: Would this actually help the entry-level workers it is supposed to help?” ask Harris and Payne.

Check out and share our infographic.