Legal Insurrection - Needless to say, administration supporters will be touting that the unemployment rate released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning dropped from 9.8% to 9.4%. Politically, this is good news for Obama, at least in the short run.
Dig just a bit deeper, and you will see that 0.2% of that drop (or half the total drop) was from a decrease in the "participation rate" from 64.5 to 64.3 of the population. So half of the good news reflects that people have dropped out of the work force and have given up looking for work.
To put this in context, I ran a chart from the BLS website historical statistics database, showing the participation rate over the past 20 years, which shows that we are at a 20-year low:
The other disheartening statistic is reflected in the chart combining the unemployment, marginal and discouraged workers (in short, everyone who is not working but currently or at one time wanted to work, or who is employed part time because full time work was unavailable). Combine all those and the total is 16.6% up from 16.3% November not seasonally adjusted (seasonally adjusted it is 16.7% down from 17%). This is the highest number since 1994 (first year data available):
Here are two other charts showing the depth of the problem. The first shows the average length of unemployment (in weeks) and the second the median length of unemployment:
While the drop in the unemployment rate from 9.8% to 9.4% is good political news, it's hard to see any real improvement below the surface.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Lawmaker To Try Again For New State Militia On Arizona Border
State Rep. Jack Harper plans a new attempt to create a state-run militia to help patrol the Arizona-Mexico border.
Harper, a Republican who represents the northwest Valley, got a bill passed in 2007, but it was vetoed by then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, who moved on to become the secretary of Homeland Security.
Harper told FOX 10 News that the current system of policing the border is not sufficient. He also took a swipe at Napolitano.
"Border patrol is under Janet Napolitano and that's not really an intimidating factor, but a military uniformed person on the border makes a lot more sense," he said.
Under his plan, volunteers would be supervised by the Arizona National Guard and would have to pass a background check before qualifying.
Watch Jack Harper's appearance on FOX News:
Harper, a Republican who represents the northwest Valley, got a bill passed in 2007, but it was vetoed by then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, who moved on to become the secretary of Homeland Security.
Harper told FOX 10 News that the current system of policing the border is not sufficient. He also took a swipe at Napolitano.
"Border patrol is under Janet Napolitano and that's not really an intimidating factor, but a military uniformed person on the border makes a lot more sense," he said.
Under his plan, volunteers would be supervised by the Arizona National Guard and would have to pass a background check before qualifying.
Watch Jack Harper's appearance on FOX News:
Arizona Lawmaker Proposes State-Run Militia to Protect Border: MyFoxPHOENIX.com
EPA's New Texas Power Grab
Paul Driessen and Willie Soon - Any Texas granddaddy will tell you he’s seen it all, when it comes to weather and climate extremes. Tornadoes, hurricanes, heat waves, blizzards, droughts, flash floods, and storms that bring unique combinations of wind, dust, thunder and hail.
Any Lone Star citizen will point out that Texas is America’s leading producer of crude oil, natural gas and (heavily subsidized) wind-based energy. It has the second largest workforce and gross state product in the USA, produces more electricity than any other state, and refines one-fourth of our petroleum – for a country that is 85% dependent on fossil fuels.
Mess with Texas, and the damages will reverberate throughout our nation.
So why is the US Environmental Protection Agency sending federal agents to Texas – to arrest the state’s economy for the “crime” of emitting carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4)? Texas is also challenging EPA over other arbitrary new air pollution standards, but that’s another article.
Cowboys and cowgirls recognize CO2 as the plant-fertilizing “gas of life” and CH4 as natural gas and cow farts. Scientists will tell you carbon dioxide is 0.0387% of Earth’s atmosphere and methane is 0.000179 percent. Anyone with an eighth grade economics education or ounce of common sense knows CO2 is what results when CH4 heats homes, generates electricity, fuels cars and factories, and makes our health, welfare and living standards possible.
But EPA says they are “greenhouse gases” that cause “runaway global warming.” So the ideologues who run this agency are telling Texas to start regulating its power plants and refineries into bankruptcy or oblivion – or EPA goons will take over its air quality programs and economy.
Since few cowboys and cowgirls – or even college grads or most PhDs – are experts on “greenhouse” gases and radiation physics, let’s take a quick look at what’s behind these EPA claims.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says her agency’s actions will “protect human health and welfare” and “ensure environmental justice,” which are “threatened” by rising temperatures and “global climate disruption.” Let EPA regulate these evil greenhouse gases, she promises, and the climate will remain “stable” and average global temperatures will never be more than 2 degrees higher than now. Bunk.
Ms. Jackson willfully ignores the immense harm that driving up energy prices will have on jobs, state revenues, people’s health and welfare, and even human lives
Ms. Jackson willfully ignores the immense harm that driving up energy prices will have on jobs, state revenues, people’s health and welfare, and even human lives. But her views are supported by scientists like Dr. Richard Alley, Michael Mann’s colleague at Pennsylvania State University, all handsomely paid by EPA and other federal agencies for raising alarms about global warming.
Alley was recently extolled in the New York Times (which no real, red-blooded Texans reads) as a “major voice of climate science.” He says that under a true worst-case scenario of doubling the concentration of CO2 and methane, our planet will fry due to 18 to 20 degrees F of global warming.
This much gas of life and cow farts, the great professor insists, would result in “an addition of heat so radical that it would render the planet unrecognizable to its present-day inhabitants.” He bases this horrifying prediction on computer models that assume human CO2 and CH4 control our climate – not the sun and dozens of powerful, complex, interacting natural forces.
The fact is, mankind has been emitting gas of life and cow farts since time immemorial. However, according to MIT’s Dr. Richard Lindzen, we are still only 80% of the way toward doubling the greenhouse gas levels found in our atmosphere at the start of the Industrial Revolution (0.0280%). But taking Dr. Alley’s computer models and doomsday predictions at their word, 80% of the way should mean temperatures in the great state of Texas should have warmed some 14 to 16 degrees between 1860 and 2010.
Hooo-weee … is that HOT, or what?
Something doesn’t seem quite right here. National Climate Data Center studies show Texas’ annual mean temperature fluctuates from year to year – but has generally been 65 to 71 degrees F, from 1895 through 2010. (We don’t have reliable data before 1895.) From the rear view of flatulent Texas longhorns, that’s a change of just 6 degrees, up or down, with no two years of identical weather, for 116 years!
Where in tarnation are those extra 10 to 12 degrees of warming that Professor Alley (in his generous spirit of “worst-case scenarios”) assures us are happening? Did the Grinch steal them? Or are those missing degrees just lurking out there, waiting to surprise us the instant CO2 levels hit 560 ppm (0.0560% of the atmosphere)? Does nature actually work that way: no response, no response – then, bam!?!? Disaster!
He and Professor Mann and Penn State sure did get a lot of millions from us taxpayers, to cook up all these disaster scenarios. So there must be something to them. (One of their buddies got a pile of taxpayer cash for saying dinosaur farts “may have contributed to global warming” 70 million years ago!)
But farmers and ranchers in Texas just cannot find that missing “heat” in their cows or plants or wild grasses. No one can find that “heat” in hurricane, tornado, hail or dust storm records, either. In fact, NOAA tells us, strong tornadoes, among top-three ranks in wind and damage scales, have been occurring less and less since record intensities during 1950s and 1960s.
That’s just the opposite of what the good professor, his sidekick Al Gore and their Climate Doomsday Gang say will happen. But isn’t that good news for Texas?
In fact, using their logic, we could argue that, since CO2 has been rising while tornado intensity is falling, maybe we should increase carbon dioxide even more, to eventually turn tornadoes into dust devils. Or say decreasing CO2 emissions could cause stronger tornadoes and damage to ramp up again.
Somehow, we don’t think carbon dioxide or methane has quite this power. We suspect there are a lot of other, far stronger, natural forces at work – causing all kinds of cyclical climate patterns. Ms. Jackson and Dr. Alley’s computer-created monsters might have a role in Frankenstein, raptor and blood-lusting alien movies. They should play no role in dictating Texas energy use and economic decisions.
So now the alarmists from the Climate Doomsday Gang have a new scare. Global warming from rising CO2 is going to cause more vector-borne diseases like malaria, dengue fever and West Nile Virus. Are you a-trembling in your bull-doodoo -covered boots now?
If Texas didn’t have decent history books in its classrooms, people might actually buy this scary story. But as those books show, malaria was eradicated in Texas and the USA during the 1950s, thanks to DDT, window screens and medical advances – not because the state’s climate got too hot or cold, wet or dry for anopheles mosquitoes.
Moreover, from 1980 to 1999 there were 62,514 cases of dengue fever (from mosquito bites) in northeastern Mexico. Meanwhile, just across the border, only 64 cases of dengue were counted in Texas. The disparate disease rates are clearly not due to the climate, but to differences in housing, medical care, wealth and technology.
The alarmists need to get their computer models, scenarios, scare stories and climate cops out of Texas. If they don’t, Governor Perry and his Texas Rangers should arrest them for violating Lone Star rights to energy, jobs, health and the American Dream.
Any Lone Star citizen will point out that Texas is America’s leading producer of crude oil, natural gas and (heavily subsidized) wind-based energy. It has the second largest workforce and gross state product in the USA, produces more electricity than any other state, and refines one-fourth of our petroleum – for a country that is 85% dependent on fossil fuels.
Mess with Texas, and the damages will reverberate throughout our nation.
So why is the US Environmental Protection Agency sending federal agents to Texas – to arrest the state’s economy for the “crime” of emitting carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4)? Texas is also challenging EPA over other arbitrary new air pollution standards, but that’s another article.
Cowboys and cowgirls recognize CO2 as the plant-fertilizing “gas of life” and CH4 as natural gas and cow farts. Scientists will tell you carbon dioxide is 0.0387% of Earth’s atmosphere and methane is 0.000179 percent. Anyone with an eighth grade economics education or ounce of common sense knows CO2 is what results when CH4 heats homes, generates electricity, fuels cars and factories, and makes our health, welfare and living standards possible.
But EPA says they are “greenhouse gases” that cause “runaway global warming.” So the ideologues who run this agency are telling Texas to start regulating its power plants and refineries into bankruptcy or oblivion – or EPA goons will take over its air quality programs and economy.
Since few cowboys and cowgirls – or even college grads or most PhDs – are experts on “greenhouse” gases and radiation physics, let’s take a quick look at what’s behind these EPA claims.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says her agency’s actions will “protect human health and welfare” and “ensure environmental justice,” which are “threatened” by rising temperatures and “global climate disruption.” Let EPA regulate these evil greenhouse gases, she promises, and the climate will remain “stable” and average global temperatures will never be more than 2 degrees higher than now. Bunk.
Ms. Jackson willfully ignores the immense harm that driving up energy prices will have on jobs, state revenues, people’s health and welfare, and even human lives
Ms. Jackson willfully ignores the immense harm that driving up energy prices will have on jobs, state revenues, people’s health and welfare, and even human lives. But her views are supported by scientists like Dr. Richard Alley, Michael Mann’s colleague at Pennsylvania State University, all handsomely paid by EPA and other federal agencies for raising alarms about global warming.
Alley was recently extolled in the New York Times (which no real, red-blooded Texans reads) as a “major voice of climate science.” He says that under a true worst-case scenario of doubling the concentration of CO2 and methane, our planet will fry due to 18 to 20 degrees F of global warming.
This much gas of life and cow farts, the great professor insists, would result in “an addition of heat so radical that it would render the planet unrecognizable to its present-day inhabitants.” He bases this horrifying prediction on computer models that assume human CO2 and CH4 control our climate – not the sun and dozens of powerful, complex, interacting natural forces.
The fact is, mankind has been emitting gas of life and cow farts since time immemorial. However, according to MIT’s Dr. Richard Lindzen, we are still only 80% of the way toward doubling the greenhouse gas levels found in our atmosphere at the start of the Industrial Revolution (0.0280%). But taking Dr. Alley’s computer models and doomsday predictions at their word, 80% of the way should mean temperatures in the great state of Texas should have warmed some 14 to 16 degrees between 1860 and 2010.
Hooo-weee … is that HOT, or what?
Something doesn’t seem quite right here. National Climate Data Center studies show Texas’ annual mean temperature fluctuates from year to year – but has generally been 65 to 71 degrees F, from 1895 through 2010. (We don’t have reliable data before 1895.) From the rear view of flatulent Texas longhorns, that’s a change of just 6 degrees, up or down, with no two years of identical weather, for 116 years!
Where in tarnation are those extra 10 to 12 degrees of warming that Professor Alley (in his generous spirit of “worst-case scenarios”) assures us are happening? Did the Grinch steal them? Or are those missing degrees just lurking out there, waiting to surprise us the instant CO2 levels hit 560 ppm (0.0560% of the atmosphere)? Does nature actually work that way: no response, no response – then, bam!?!? Disaster!
He and Professor Mann and Penn State sure did get a lot of millions from us taxpayers, to cook up all these disaster scenarios. So there must be something to them. (One of their buddies got a pile of taxpayer cash for saying dinosaur farts “may have contributed to global warming” 70 million years ago!)
But farmers and ranchers in Texas just cannot find that missing “heat” in their cows or plants or wild grasses. No one can find that “heat” in hurricane, tornado, hail or dust storm records, either. In fact, NOAA tells us, strong tornadoes, among top-three ranks in wind and damage scales, have been occurring less and less since record intensities during 1950s and 1960s.
That’s just the opposite of what the good professor, his sidekick Al Gore and their Climate Doomsday Gang say will happen. But isn’t that good news for Texas?
In fact, using their logic, we could argue that, since CO2 has been rising while tornado intensity is falling, maybe we should increase carbon dioxide even more, to eventually turn tornadoes into dust devils. Or say decreasing CO2 emissions could cause stronger tornadoes and damage to ramp up again.
Somehow, we don’t think carbon dioxide or methane has quite this power. We suspect there are a lot of other, far stronger, natural forces at work – causing all kinds of cyclical climate patterns. Ms. Jackson and Dr. Alley’s computer-created monsters might have a role in Frankenstein, raptor and blood-lusting alien movies. They should play no role in dictating Texas energy use and economic decisions.
So now the alarmists from the Climate Doomsday Gang have a new scare. Global warming from rising CO2 is going to cause more vector-borne diseases like malaria, dengue fever and West Nile Virus. Are you a-trembling in your bull-doodoo -covered boots now?
If Texas didn’t have decent history books in its classrooms, people might actually buy this scary story. But as those books show, malaria was eradicated in Texas and the USA during the 1950s, thanks to DDT, window screens and medical advances – not because the state’s climate got too hot or cold, wet or dry for anopheles mosquitoes.
Moreover, from 1980 to 1999 there were 62,514 cases of dengue fever (from mosquito bites) in northeastern Mexico. Meanwhile, just across the border, only 64 cases of dengue were counted in Texas. The disparate disease rates are clearly not due to the climate, but to differences in housing, medical care, wealth and technology.
The alarmists need to get their computer models, scenarios, scare stories and climate cops out of Texas. If they don’t, Governor Perry and his Texas Rangers should arrest them for violating Lone Star rights to energy, jobs, health and the American Dream.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Ron Paul: Recipe For A Successful 2011
Ron Paul - The year 2011 brings in a host of opportunities and challenges to America. Will we accelerate toward economic insolvency by continuing the policies that have created this crisis, or will a new Congress elected on the energy of the Tea Party movement find the courage to change course?
With the new Republican majority in the House I will have the opportunity as a subcommittee chairman to take a careful look at our domestic monetary policy. I am excited by the prospect of real oversight of the Federal Reserve, but I also hope to focus on the important ways in which our foreign policy and monetary policy are related. Just last week the Financial Times reported that the limited oversight of the Federal Reserve allowed by the passage of a watered-down version of my Audit the Fed bill revealed that approximately 55 percent of the loans made available under the largest Federal Reserve bailout program, the Term Auction Facility, went to foreign banks! This is but one example of the real cost to Americans of maintaining its empire overseas, and it cries out for more transparency and oversight.
This is why it is key for us to understand that our foreign policy and current economic crisis go hand in hand. Some have promised to lead us back to fiscal responsibility while asserting that any reduction in our foreign and military spending is off the table. They would like us to believe that we should not only continue spending as much on the military as the rest of the world combined, but they actually call for an even more aggressive US policy abroad. They believe we should continue to bomb Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and elsewhere; that we must impose even more crippling sanctions on countries like Iran while moving steadily on to yet another Middle East war that is not in our interest. They represent the failed policies of the past and they would like to lead us down a dead-end street. We must resist the temptation of their neo-con inspired scare-mongering.
There will be much work for us to do in the next year and in the next Congress. We need look no further than the grossly unconstitutional and immoral policies of the Transportation Security Administration – demanding that we either be irradiated or fondled to travel in our own country – to see that those who would deprive us of our civil liberties on the empty promise of full security will not be giving up easily. We must continue standing up to them and we must not compromise. We must not allow the out-of-control Department of Homeland Security to impose an East German-like police state in the US, where neighbors are encouraged by big brother or big sister to inform on their neighbors. We must not accept that government authorities should hector us via television screens as we go about our private lives like we are living in Orwell’s 1984.
I am optimistic that the incoming Members of Congress understand the importance of what they have been entrusted with by the American people. But I do hope that those who elected them will watch their actions — and their votes in Congress – carefully. An early indication will be the upcoming vote on re-authorization of the anti-American PATRIOT Act. Defeat once and for all of this police-state legislation will be a great way to start 2011 and the 112th Congress. We must move ahead with confidence. Our numbers are growing. Happy New Year!
With the new Republican majority in the House I will have the opportunity as a subcommittee chairman to take a careful look at our domestic monetary policy. I am excited by the prospect of real oversight of the Federal Reserve, but I also hope to focus on the important ways in which our foreign policy and monetary policy are related. Just last week the Financial Times reported that the limited oversight of the Federal Reserve allowed by the passage of a watered-down version of my Audit the Fed bill revealed that approximately 55 percent of the loans made available under the largest Federal Reserve bailout program, the Term Auction Facility, went to foreign banks! This is but one example of the real cost to Americans of maintaining its empire overseas, and it cries out for more transparency and oversight.
This is why it is key for us to understand that our foreign policy and current economic crisis go hand in hand. Some have promised to lead us back to fiscal responsibility while asserting that any reduction in our foreign and military spending is off the table. They would like us to believe that we should not only continue spending as much on the military as the rest of the world combined, but they actually call for an even more aggressive US policy abroad. They believe we should continue to bomb Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and elsewhere; that we must impose even more crippling sanctions on countries like Iran while moving steadily on to yet another Middle East war that is not in our interest. They represent the failed policies of the past and they would like to lead us down a dead-end street. We must resist the temptation of their neo-con inspired scare-mongering.
There will be much work for us to do in the next year and in the next Congress. We need look no further than the grossly unconstitutional and immoral policies of the Transportation Security Administration – demanding that we either be irradiated or fondled to travel in our own country – to see that those who would deprive us of our civil liberties on the empty promise of full security will not be giving up easily. We must continue standing up to them and we must not compromise. We must not allow the out-of-control Department of Homeland Security to impose an East German-like police state in the US, where neighbors are encouraged by big brother or big sister to inform on their neighbors. We must not accept that government authorities should hector us via television screens as we go about our private lives like we are living in Orwell’s 1984.
I am optimistic that the incoming Members of Congress understand the importance of what they have been entrusted with by the American people. But I do hope that those who elected them will watch their actions — and their votes in Congress – carefully. An early indication will be the upcoming vote on re-authorization of the anti-American PATRIOT Act. Defeat once and for all of this police-state legislation will be a great way to start 2011 and the 112th Congress. We must move ahead with confidence. Our numbers are growing. Happy New Year!
Howard Dean Says Tea Party Has A Serious Problem With The Younger Generation...
NiceDeb - Howard Dean shared his thoughts on the Tea Party with reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast, this morning.
Among other things, he said that it is “the last gasp of the 55-year-old generation,”and argued that “the Tea Party has a problem with the younger generations”.
“You all have friends of different races, different religions, and different sexual orientations, and you all date each other,” he said to hypothetical members of the “new” generation. “Well that’s not how I grew up, and that’s not how the Tea Party grew up. The Tea Party is almost entirely over 55 and white. And the country has changed dramatically as a result of what happened in 2008.”
Howard Dean himself, born November 17, 1948, is 62 years old, which, according to Michael Barone’s piece in the DC Examiner, is slightly older than the average age of Dems in the House:
…the average age of House Democrats has risen, from 58 to 60.2. That can be explained partly by the high turnover in the 2010 election. Many younger Democrats, first elected in 2006 or 2008, fell by the wayside. The old bulls from 65 percent-plus Democratic districts survived.
So those new Tea Party Republicans must be positively ancient, right? White, and geriatric, these new Republicans must be positively stymied by confusing “new” concepts like acceptance of “different races, different religions and different sexual orientations”.
-
Wait…
The average age of Republican House members in the new Congress convening today is 54.9, younger than the Republicans’ average age in the previous Congress, 56.5.
A difference of 5.3 years between Republicans and Democrats in the 112th Congress.
-
It turns out that the old school, Big Government Dem Socialists are the ones who are out of touch with the young whippersnappers in the tea party.
Barone cites scholar Walter Russell Mead:
“The core institutions, ideas and expectations that shaped American life for the sixty years after the New Deal don’t work anymore, and the gaps between the social system we’ve inherited and the system we need today are becoming so wide that we can no longer paper them over or ignore them.”
Mead is looking back on the America of World War II and the postwar decades, when American life was dominated by the leaders of what I have called the Big Units — big government, big business, big labor. The assumption was that these units would grow ever bigger, to the benefit of ordinary people.
That assumption was shared by the Democratic leaders of the just-departed 111th Congress, who grew up in Big Unit America. They passed a $787 billion stimulus package on the assumption that big government would put people to work. They passed the health care bill on the assumption that centralized experts in big government could provide better care at lower costs.
The voters in November 2010 rejected those assumptions.
Howard Dean needs to work on his talking points.
RELATED:
71 year old Steny Hoyer (born June 14, 1939) has his own take on the tea party: Tea Party People Come From Unhappy Families.
There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don’t want any compromise. My presumption is they have unhappy families. All of you have been in families: single-parent, two-parents, whatever. Multiple parent and a stepfather. The fact is life is about trying to reach accommodation with one another so we can move forward. That is certainly what democracy is about. So if we are going to move forward compromise is necessary.
These Dem hepcats are all about compromise, now, aren’t they?
Among other things, he said that it is “the last gasp of the 55-year-old generation,”and argued that “the Tea Party has a problem with the younger generations”.
“You all have friends of different races, different religions, and different sexual orientations, and you all date each other,” he said to hypothetical members of the “new” generation. “Well that’s not how I grew up, and that’s not how the Tea Party grew up. The Tea Party is almost entirely over 55 and white. And the country has changed dramatically as a result of what happened in 2008.”
Howard Dean himself, born November 17, 1948, is 62 years old, which, according to Michael Barone’s piece in the DC Examiner, is slightly older than the average age of Dems in the House:
…the average age of House Democrats has risen, from 58 to 60.2. That can be explained partly by the high turnover in the 2010 election. Many younger Democrats, first elected in 2006 or 2008, fell by the wayside. The old bulls from 65 percent-plus Democratic districts survived.
So those new Tea Party Republicans must be positively ancient, right? White, and geriatric, these new Republicans must be positively stymied by confusing “new” concepts like acceptance of “different races, different religions and different sexual orientations”.
-
Wait…
The average age of Republican House members in the new Congress convening today is 54.9, younger than the Republicans’ average age in the previous Congress, 56.5.
A difference of 5.3 years between Republicans and Democrats in the 112th Congress.
-
It turns out that the old school, Big Government Dem Socialists are the ones who are out of touch with the young whippersnappers in the tea party.
Barone cites scholar Walter Russell Mead:
“The core institutions, ideas and expectations that shaped American life for the sixty years after the New Deal don’t work anymore, and the gaps between the social system we’ve inherited and the system we need today are becoming so wide that we can no longer paper them over or ignore them.”
Mead is looking back on the America of World War II and the postwar decades, when American life was dominated by the leaders of what I have called the Big Units — big government, big business, big labor. The assumption was that these units would grow ever bigger, to the benefit of ordinary people.
That assumption was shared by the Democratic leaders of the just-departed 111th Congress, who grew up in Big Unit America. They passed a $787 billion stimulus package on the assumption that big government would put people to work. They passed the health care bill on the assumption that centralized experts in big government could provide better care at lower costs.
The voters in November 2010 rejected those assumptions.
Howard Dean needs to work on his talking points.
RELATED:
71 year old Steny Hoyer (born June 14, 1939) has his own take on the tea party: Tea Party People Come From Unhappy Families.
There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don’t want any compromise. My presumption is they have unhappy families. All of you have been in families: single-parent, two-parents, whatever. Multiple parent and a stepfather. The fact is life is about trying to reach accommodation with one another so we can move forward. That is certainly what democracy is about. So if we are going to move forward compromise is necessary.
These Dem hepcats are all about compromise, now, aren’t they?
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
New Health Care Freedom Act Introduced In South Carolina
A flurry of Health Care Freedom Acts – both as bills and resolutions for state constitutional amendments – have been prefiled for the 2011 legislative session in South Carolina. As of this writing, there are currently 4 that have been introduced. The following are the bill numbers, links to the full text, and a brief overview of the direction of the legislation:
House Bill 3011 (H3011)
A resident of this State, regardless of whether he has or is eligible for health insurance coverage under any policy or program provided by or through his employer, or a plan sponsored by the State or the federal government, must not be required to obtain or maintain a policy of individual insurance coverage. No provision of this title renders a resident of this State liable for any penalty, assessment, fee, or fine as a result of the resident’s failure to procure or obtain health insurance coverage.”
Senate Bill 5 (S0005)
A citizen of this State has the right to purchase health insurance or refuse to purchase health insurance. The government may not interfere with a citizen’s right to purchase health insurance or with a citizen’s right to refuse to purchase health insurance. The government may not enact a law that would restrict these rights or that would impose a form of punishment for exercising either of these rights. Any law to the contrary shall be void ab initio.”
House Bill 3269 (H3269)
It is proposed that Article I of the Constitution of this State be amended by adding:
Section 26. (A) To preserve the freedom of South Carolinians to provide for their health care:
(1) A law, regulation, or rule may not compel, directly or indirectly, any individual, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system.
Senate Bill 244 (S0244)
Must Article I of the Constitution of this State, relating to the Declaration of Rights, be amended to preempt any federal law or rule that restricts a person’s choice of private health care providers or the right to pay for medical services?
That’s it – so far. You’ll notice that while a step in the right direction, they all address just the mandated coverage of health care, and none go to the core issue – that the federal government is not authorized by the constitution to be in the health care business. period. A good start for South Carolina, nonetheless. We hope to see a courageous legislator in S.C. take up the banner of the Federal Health Care Nullification Act, as has already been done in Texas.
House Bill 3011 (H3011)
A resident of this State, regardless of whether he has or is eligible for health insurance coverage under any policy or program provided by or through his employer, or a plan sponsored by the State or the federal government, must not be required to obtain or maintain a policy of individual insurance coverage. No provision of this title renders a resident of this State liable for any penalty, assessment, fee, or fine as a result of the resident’s failure to procure or obtain health insurance coverage.”
Senate Bill 5 (S0005)
A citizen of this State has the right to purchase health insurance or refuse to purchase health insurance. The government may not interfere with a citizen’s right to purchase health insurance or with a citizen’s right to refuse to purchase health insurance. The government may not enact a law that would restrict these rights or that would impose a form of punishment for exercising either of these rights. Any law to the contrary shall be void ab initio.”
House Bill 3269 (H3269)
It is proposed that Article I of the Constitution of this State be amended by adding:
Section 26. (A) To preserve the freedom of South Carolinians to provide for their health care:
(1) A law, regulation, or rule may not compel, directly or indirectly, any individual, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system.
Senate Bill 244 (S0244)
Must Article I of the Constitution of this State, relating to the Declaration of Rights, be amended to preempt any federal law or rule that restricts a person’s choice of private health care providers or the right to pay for medical services?
That’s it – so far. You’ll notice that while a step in the right direction, they all address just the mandated coverage of health care, and none go to the core issue – that the federal government is not authorized by the constitution to be in the health care business. period. A good start for South Carolina, nonetheless. We hope to see a courageous legislator in S.C. take up the banner of the Federal Health Care Nullification Act, as has already been done in Texas.
Court Ok's Searches Of Cell Phones Without A Warrant
Bob Egelko - The California Supreme Court allowed police Monday to search arrestees' cell phones without a warrant, saying defendants lose their privacy rights for any items they're carrying when taken into custody.
Under U.S. Supreme Court precedents, "this loss of privacy allows police not only to seize anything of importance they find on the arrestee's body ... but also to open and examine what they find," the state court said in a 5-2 ruling.
The majority, led by Justice Ming Chin, relied on decisions in the 1970s by the nation's high court upholding searches of cigarette packages and clothing that officers seized during an arrest and examined later without seeking a warrant from a judge.
The dissenting justices said those rulings shouldn't be extended to modern cell phones that can store huge amounts of data.
Monday's decision allows police "to rummage at leisure through the wealth of personal and business information that can be carried on a mobile phone or handheld computer merely because the device was taken from an arrestee's person," said Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, joined in dissent by Justice Carlos Moreno.
They argued that police should obtain a warrant - by convincing a judge that they will probably find incriminating evidence - before searching a cell phone.
The issue has divided other courts. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of San Francisco ruled in May 2007 that police had violated drug defendants' rights by searching their cell phones after their arrests. The Ohio Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion in a December 2009 ruling in which the state unsuccessfully sought U.S. Supreme Court review.
The Ohio-California split could prompt the nation's high court to take up the issue, said Deputy Attorney General Victoria Wilson, who represented the prosecution in Monday's case.
"This has an impact on the day-to-day jobs of police officers, what kind of searches they can conduct without a warrant when they arrest someone," she said. "It takes it into the realm of new technology."
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that a police department did not violate an officer's privacy when it read text messages he had sent on a department-owned pager.
Although the court has never ruled on police searches of cell phones, Wilson argued that it has signaled approval by allowing officers to examine the contents of arrestees' wallets without a warrant.
The defense lawyer in Monday's case was unavailable for comment.
Monday's ruling upheld the drug conviction of Gregory Diaz, arrested in April 2007 by Ventura County sheriff's deputies who said they had seen him taking part in a drug deal.
An officer took a cell phone from Diaz's pocket, looked at the text message folder 90 minutes later, and found a message that linked Diaz to the sale, the court said. Diaz pleaded guilty, was placed on probation and appealed the search.
Under U.S. Supreme Court precedents, "this loss of privacy allows police not only to seize anything of importance they find on the arrestee's body ... but also to open and examine what they find," the state court said in a 5-2 ruling.
The majority, led by Justice Ming Chin, relied on decisions in the 1970s by the nation's high court upholding searches of cigarette packages and clothing that officers seized during an arrest and examined later without seeking a warrant from a judge.
The dissenting justices said those rulings shouldn't be extended to modern cell phones that can store huge amounts of data.
Monday's decision allows police "to rummage at leisure through the wealth of personal and business information that can be carried on a mobile phone or handheld computer merely because the device was taken from an arrestee's person," said Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, joined in dissent by Justice Carlos Moreno.
They argued that police should obtain a warrant - by convincing a judge that they will probably find incriminating evidence - before searching a cell phone.
The issue has divided other courts. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of San Francisco ruled in May 2007 that police had violated drug defendants' rights by searching their cell phones after their arrests. The Ohio Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion in a December 2009 ruling in which the state unsuccessfully sought U.S. Supreme Court review.
The Ohio-California split could prompt the nation's high court to take up the issue, said Deputy Attorney General Victoria Wilson, who represented the prosecution in Monday's case.
"This has an impact on the day-to-day jobs of police officers, what kind of searches they can conduct without a warrant when they arrest someone," she said. "It takes it into the realm of new technology."
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that a police department did not violate an officer's privacy when it read text messages he had sent on a department-owned pager.
Although the court has never ruled on police searches of cell phones, Wilson argued that it has signaled approval by allowing officers to examine the contents of arrestees' wallets without a warrant.
The defense lawyer in Monday's case was unavailable for comment.
Monday's ruling upheld the drug conviction of Gregory Diaz, arrested in April 2007 by Ventura County sheriff's deputies who said they had seen him taking part in a drug deal.
An officer took a cell phone from Diaz's pocket, looked at the text message folder 90 minutes later, and found a message that linked Diaz to the sale, the court said. Diaz pleaded guilty, was placed on probation and appealed the search.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Brett Farve Sued By Christina Scavo And Shannon O' Toole For Sexual Harassment
NEW YORK -- Two massage therapists say in a lawsuit that complaining about sexually suggestive text messages from Brett Favre cost them their part-time jobs with the New York Jets.
Christina Scavo and Shannon O'Toole sued the Minnesota Vikings quarterback, the Jets and a Jets massage coordinator Monday in a Manhattan court. The lawsuit comes days after the NFL fined Favre $50,000 for not being candid in an investigation into allegations that he sent lewd text messages and photos to a Jets game hostess.
Favre's agent didn't immediately return a telephone call. The Jets declined to comment.
The lawsuit says Favre send a third, unidentified massage therapist a 2008 text message asking whether she and Scavo "want to get together" and suggesting he had "bad intentions."
Christina Scavo and Shannon O'Toole sued the Minnesota Vikings quarterback, the Jets and a Jets massage coordinator Monday in a Manhattan court. The lawsuit comes days after the NFL fined Favre $50,000 for not being candid in an investigation into allegations that he sent lewd text messages and photos to a Jets game hostess.
Favre's agent didn't immediately return a telephone call. The Jets declined to comment.
The lawsuit says Favre send a third, unidentified massage therapist a 2008 text message asking whether she and Scavo "want to get together" and suggesting he had "bad intentions."
Jobs Are Coming Slowly, But Millions Have Given Up Looking For Work
Reuters - U.S. private employers have recorded 11 consecutive months of job gains, yet the number of people who are so discouraged that they have given up searching for work stands at an all-time high.
Friday's employment report is expected to show the pace of payroll growth accelerated last month after a disappointing showing in November. However, consumers' assessment of the job market deteriorated in December, according to the Conference Board's latest consumer confidence survey.
This disconnect is symptomatic of the state of the labor market. Yes, it is recovering, but at a pace that can hardly keep up with population growth, let alone quickly bring down the 9.8 percent unemployment rate.
Private employment increased by an average of 106,000 per month through November. At that rate, it would take more than 6 years just to replace the jobs lost during the latest recession.
There is reason to believe hiring will pick up in 2011.
Many economists have raised economic growth forecasts, in part because of a tax deal that keeps in place lower rates enacted under President George W. Bush, and planned job cuts are down 60 percent from a year ago.
However, that may not make job hunting much easier, said John Challenger, chief executive of job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in Chicago.
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"The job market could be even more competitive as improving job prospects entice people who abandoned their job searches out of frustration to re-enter the labor pool," he said.
The labor pool looks like it has sprung a leak. In a civilian labor force 154-million strong, only 64.5 percent were either working or looking for a job in November, a rate that matched October as the lowest since the early 1980s.
If workers come pouring back into the labor market more quickly than employers want to hire, the jobless rate will rise. The Labor Department counts people as unemployed only if they are actively looking for work, so those discouraged workers -- nearly 1.3 million of them as of November -- are excluded.
A look at the gender breakdown offers some signs that the dropout rate could stay high even if hiring improves.
Nearly two-thirds of the discouraged workers were men, perhaps a reflection of sharp declines in male-dominated industries such as construction and manufacturing, where jobs are expected to remain scarce.
Ethan Harris, an economist with Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, said the economic healing process will be faster for women than for men, in part because women are more likely to go to college and obtain the skills needed to find a job.
Among 18- to 24-year-olds, about 41 percent were enrolled in college or graduate school, according to Census data. Broken down by gender, 45.3 percent of women in that age group were enrolled, compared with just 36.7 percent of men.
STALL SPEED
The slow-healing labor market arguably poses the biggest threat to U.S. economic recovery and the biggest headache for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Bernanke said in early December it would take four to five years for the unemployment rate to come down to what he called more "normal" levels of around 5 percent to 6 percent.
He is scheduled to testify on monetary and fiscal policy before the Senate Budget Committee on Friday, one hour after the employment report is released. He no doubt will face questions on what more can be done to speed up the recovery.
Bernanke and his fellow Fed officials think economic growth will come in around 3 percent to 3.6 percent in 2011, which would be a step up from 2010's expected 2.6 percent rate.
Andrew Busch, a currency and public policy strategist at BMO Capital Markets, said he remains optimistic about the U.S. economy's 2011 prospects. But he also has compiled a list of reasons why growth might fall short of expectations.
The potential trouble spots include a renewed housing slump, tax hikes from budget-pinched states and a congressional battle over whether to raise the debt ceiling to allow the Treasury Department to borrow more.
Busch's biggest concern is that the economy manages just 2.5 percent economic growth, too slow to spur much hiring, triggering a Japan-esque deflation cycle.
"If you hit stall speed at 2.5 percent (growth), you've got a major problem," Busch said.
Friday's employment report is expected to show the pace of payroll growth accelerated last month after a disappointing showing in November. However, consumers' assessment of the job market deteriorated in December, according to the Conference Board's latest consumer confidence survey.
This disconnect is symptomatic of the state of the labor market. Yes, it is recovering, but at a pace that can hardly keep up with population growth, let alone quickly bring down the 9.8 percent unemployment rate.
Private employment increased by an average of 106,000 per month through November. At that rate, it would take more than 6 years just to replace the jobs lost during the latest recession.
There is reason to believe hiring will pick up in 2011.
Many economists have raised economic growth forecasts, in part because of a tax deal that keeps in place lower rates enacted under President George W. Bush, and planned job cuts are down 60 percent from a year ago.
However, that may not make job hunting much easier, said John Challenger, chief executive of job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in Chicago.
Story continues below
Advertisement
"The job market could be even more competitive as improving job prospects entice people who abandoned their job searches out of frustration to re-enter the labor pool," he said.
The labor pool looks like it has sprung a leak. In a civilian labor force 154-million strong, only 64.5 percent were either working or looking for a job in November, a rate that matched October as the lowest since the early 1980s.
If workers come pouring back into the labor market more quickly than employers want to hire, the jobless rate will rise. The Labor Department counts people as unemployed only if they are actively looking for work, so those discouraged workers -- nearly 1.3 million of them as of November -- are excluded.
A look at the gender breakdown offers some signs that the dropout rate could stay high even if hiring improves.
Nearly two-thirds of the discouraged workers were men, perhaps a reflection of sharp declines in male-dominated industries such as construction and manufacturing, where jobs are expected to remain scarce.
Ethan Harris, an economist with Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, said the economic healing process will be faster for women than for men, in part because women are more likely to go to college and obtain the skills needed to find a job.
Among 18- to 24-year-olds, about 41 percent were enrolled in college or graduate school, according to Census data. Broken down by gender, 45.3 percent of women in that age group were enrolled, compared with just 36.7 percent of men.
STALL SPEED
The slow-healing labor market arguably poses the biggest threat to U.S. economic recovery and the biggest headache for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Bernanke said in early December it would take four to five years for the unemployment rate to come down to what he called more "normal" levels of around 5 percent to 6 percent.
He is scheduled to testify on monetary and fiscal policy before the Senate Budget Committee on Friday, one hour after the employment report is released. He no doubt will face questions on what more can be done to speed up the recovery.
Bernanke and his fellow Fed officials think economic growth will come in around 3 percent to 3.6 percent in 2011, which would be a step up from 2010's expected 2.6 percent rate.
Andrew Busch, a currency and public policy strategist at BMO Capital Markets, said he remains optimistic about the U.S. economy's 2011 prospects. But he also has compiled a list of reasons why growth might fall short of expectations.
The potential trouble spots include a renewed housing slump, tax hikes from budget-pinched states and a congressional battle over whether to raise the debt ceiling to allow the Treasury Department to borrow more.
Busch's biggest concern is that the economy manages just 2.5 percent economic growth, too slow to spur much hiring, triggering a Japan-esque deflation cycle.
"If you hit stall speed at 2.5 percent (growth), you've got a major problem," Busch said.
House Republicans Vote To Repeal Obamacare Set For Jan. 12
Carrie Budoff Brown - House Republicans will vote next week to repeal the new health care law, making good on a top-tier GOP campaign promise and setting up a showdown with President Barack Obama over his signature domestic policy achievement.
Majority Leader-elect Eric Cantor announced the timeline for considering the repeal legislation Monday: the bill will post on the Rules Committee website Monday night, the Rules Committee will meet Thursday, and the rule for the debate will be considered on the House floor Friday. The repeal vote will follow on Wednesday, Jan 12.
"Obamacare is a job killer for businesses small and large, and the top priority for House Republicans is going to be to cut spending and grow the economy and jobs,” Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring said in a statement. “Further, Obamacare failed to lower costs as the president promised that it would and does not allow people to keep the care they currently have if they like it. That is why the House will repeal it next week.”
The repeal effort is not expected to succeed, given that Democrats maintain control of the Senate and the president can veto the legislation. But Republicans could embarrass the White House if they persuade a number of Democrats to vote with them, and over the long term, plan to try to chip away at pieces of the law.
"We have 242 Republicans," said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, on “Fox News Sunday.” "There will be a significant number of Democrats, I think, that will join us. You will remember when that vote passed in the House last March, it only passed by seven votes."
In a sign of their strategy, the Senate Democratic leadership sent a letter to House Speaker-elect John Boehner (R-Ohio) detailing the benefits that would be lost if Republicans succeeded in repealing the law, such as closing the "doughnut hole" in the Medicare prescription drug benefit.
“This is no minor reform. But almost as soon as it has taken effect, it is already in jeopardy,” the letter stated.
“If House Republicans move forward with a repeal of the health care law that threatens consumer benefits like the ‘doughnut hole’ fix, we will block it in the Senate,” the letter continued. “This proposal deserves a chance to work. It is too important to be treated as collateral damage in a partisan mission to repeal health care.”
Majority Leader-elect Eric Cantor announced the timeline for considering the repeal legislation Monday: the bill will post on the Rules Committee website Monday night, the Rules Committee will meet Thursday, and the rule for the debate will be considered on the House floor Friday. The repeal vote will follow on Wednesday, Jan 12.
"Obamacare is a job killer for businesses small and large, and the top priority for House Republicans is going to be to cut spending and grow the economy and jobs,” Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring said in a statement. “Further, Obamacare failed to lower costs as the president promised that it would and does not allow people to keep the care they currently have if they like it. That is why the House will repeal it next week.”
The repeal effort is not expected to succeed, given that Democrats maintain control of the Senate and the president can veto the legislation. But Republicans could embarrass the White House if they persuade a number of Democrats to vote with them, and over the long term, plan to try to chip away at pieces of the law.
"We have 242 Republicans," said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, on “Fox News Sunday.” "There will be a significant number of Democrats, I think, that will join us. You will remember when that vote passed in the House last March, it only passed by seven votes."
In a sign of their strategy, the Senate Democratic leadership sent a letter to House Speaker-elect John Boehner (R-Ohio) detailing the benefits that would be lost if Republicans succeeded in repealing the law, such as closing the "doughnut hole" in the Medicare prescription drug benefit.
“This is no minor reform. But almost as soon as it has taken effect, it is already in jeopardy,” the letter stated.
“If House Republicans move forward with a repeal of the health care law that threatens consumer benefits like the ‘doughnut hole’ fix, we will block it in the Senate,” the letter continued. “This proposal deserves a chance to work. It is too important to be treated as collateral damage in a partisan mission to repeal health care.”
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