Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.— Frederic Bastiat, The Law
In his last State of the City address, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg bragged about his huge taxpayer investments in education. “Now, let me ask you: is there anyone who still believes that New York City can’t get big things done? Since we’re here in Brooklyn, I’ll say it again: Fuhgeddaboudit.”
Bloomberg was right about one thing only: forgetting about it. Because not only are big things not getting done in New York City on education, even small things aren’t getting done. According to officials from City University of New York, a full 80 percent of high school graduates in New York City can’t read when they graduate. As CBS Local reports, “They had to re-learn basic skills – reading, writing, and math – first before they could begin college courses.”
And that’s for the students who graduate. New York City has the lowest graduation ratefor black and Hispanic male students in the nation, with only 37 percent graduating. But teachers start off making $45,530 with benefits, and max out at over $100,000.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He is an unlawful enemy combatant, captured on foreign soil while engaged in hostilities against the United States. He belongs in the military justice system and detention facility established by Congress in accordance with the Constitution and the Supreme Court. Yet President Barack Obama has brought Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, to face a civilian trial on U.S. soil in federal court in New York City.
In so doing, President Obama has defied the express will of Congress, which already refused to transfer foreign terror suspects from the Guantánamo Bay prison to the U.S. at the beginning of Obama’s first term. The decision to bring Abu Ghaith to New York is just the latest in a series of executive actions taken by President Obama that contradict the explicit intent of the legislature. It is also an action in pursuit of a policy doomed to fail.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lisa Jackson otherwise to be known now apparently as the German Josef Rudolf Mengele the Angel of Death during Nazi Germany, faded abruptly into the sunset post-haste a month ago. Perhaps now know why.It was learned that she had been using e-mail addy's under a fictious name and there were those who wanted to read them.. She was conducting medical experiments that harken back the a dark period from the last century. We do know where this playbook goes don't we. Even more disturbing is the ruling in the case. Not because of the horrendous action, but some small legal point. Wait until we have Obamacare. Let the chilling video below be a reminder and a warning what happened just decades ago.“This is a complete link between the Windsor email address and Jackson,” a source with direct knowledge of the agency said in an email.
Last week, The Daily Caller News
Foundation reported that Jackson was allegedly using a secret “alias” email account under the name “Richard Windsor.” On Monday, The DCNF confirmed that the Windsor account was in use, citing an email released by a liberal group from earlier this year Daily CallerA federal judge decided to shut down the lawsuit rather than the government’s human experimentation program.
To Judge Trenga, however, the important thing apparently was to nitpick to death the effort to stop the experiments with a narrow reading of the federal rules of civil procedure.
Judge Trenga determined that the EPA’s decision to endanger the lives of its study subjects, including inducing them to sign a fraudulent consent form, did not constitute a “final agency action” under the Administrative Procedures Act. Judge Trenga also determined, as the American Tradition Institute was not being harmed by the experiments, it didn’t have standing to pursue the case. Now the story:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If our officers can spend less time looking for small pen knives and more time looking for explosive devices, we’re better at doing our job of protecting the safety of the American people,” TSA spokesman David Castelveter said Thursday. “A small knife will not enable a terrorist to bring down an airplane.”Castelveter said aviation agencies have added new levels of security to prevent the type incidents that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists hijacked three planes using box cutters. Cockpit doors are now heavily fortified, and the TSA now uses behavior-detection officers to help identify potential attackers, he said.
But labor groups say the new policy is dangerous.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/airline-workers-criticize-new-tsa-policy-on-small-knives/2013/03/07/7eae22d8-8776-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394_story.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In January, pretty much all of respectable Washington had a sense of where President Barack Obama’s second term was headed. His approval ratings were sky high. His liberalism was pure and untroubled by thoughts of post-partisanship. His second-term agenda of immigration reform, gun control, climate change, and tax reform was clear. He would roll over the opposition. The dawn of a liberal age—a permanent majority, perhaps—was at hand. Stinking Republicans? Obama didn’t need them.
The president, wrote Politico’s Glenn Thrush, had “a new mandate—achieving bipartisan results through force, not conciliation.” Obama was “armed with an approval rating in the 50s.” He had “decided the only way he can defeat hill Republicans is to muster public opinion against them.”
John Dickerson of Slate and CBS News wrote, “Obama’s gambit in 2009 was to build a new post-partisan consensus. That didn’t work.” The president would have to go around the Republicans because “they cannot be unchained by schmoozing.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Tuesday, the nation — or at least the part that’s still paying attention — learned that President Barack Obama’s administration, in what can only be seen as an incredibly petty and virulently vindictive response to spending “cuts” imposed by sequestration (properly described in most cases as “reductions in projected spending increases”), decided to cancel all tours of the White House beginning March 9.
As a result, to name just one of what are surely many examples, sixth graders at an Iowa elementary school which had received approval to take a March 16 tour learned, barring what would seem to be a quixotic effort to change White House minds via Facebook, that it’s not going to happen. They’re reportedly going to make their trip to Washington anyway, because, according to the school’s principal, it’s an important opportunity for them to “find out more about how the government works.” They’ve clearly already learned quite a bit.
So have we.
The tours are run by volunteers. According to an estimate worked up by ABC News on Wednesday, the White House will save $18,000 per week by not utilizing 30 Secret Service agents during the tours. Even that savings figure is suspect, as original reports about the tours’ cancellation claimed that “Uniformed Division Officers assigned to the public tours will be reassigned to other security posts,” which “will reduce overtime costs as well as potential furloughs that could have been required.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The U.N. Security Council unanimously passed tougher sanctions against North Korea Thursday targeting the secretive nation's nuclear program hours after Pyongyang threatened a possible "preemptive nuclear attack."
"These sanctions will bite, and bite hard," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said after the vote.
China, North Korea's key ally, could have used its veto power to block the sanctions. Instead, after weeks of negotiating, it signed on to the final draft.
"China is a country of principle," China's U.N. Ambassador Li Baodong said. "We are firmly committed to safeguarding peace and stability on the Korean peninsula."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Barack Obama’s half-brother, Abong’o Malik Obama, won’t be the second member of his family to launch a political career. Mr. Obama was defeated in his bid to be governor of Kenya’s Siaya County this week by what seems to have been a very large margin.
Mr. Obama is the eldest child of President Obama’s father. They have different mothers. Mr. Obama served as the best man at the president’s wedding to Michelle Obama in 1992.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A top U.S. Treasury Department official promised Congress his department would pressure the European Union to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and force European banks to stop ongoing transactions with Iran.
Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) pressed Treasury undersecretary David Cohen to make the commitment during a Thursday hearing held by the Senate Banking Committee.
Cohen’s promise to get tough with the Europeans is being viewed as a victory for Kirk, who has pushed the EU to act on both issues.
No comments:
Post a Comment