No Shutdown Here
The Federal government may be shut down, but Washington’s home remains open. Mount Vernon has remained a private non-profit for more than 150 years.
Husted's latest trick is in violation of Ohio law. Specifically, Ohio Rev. Code § 3505.181(B)(6) which states that "the appropriate local election official" verifies that the proper identification is provided when casting a provisional ballot. Husted's directive puts that burden on the voter. In his new order given at 6 p.m. on Friday, "the Secretary is now ordering that county boards of election must reject provisional ballots when the identification information contained in Step 2 of the ballot affirmation form 12-B is incomplete."This is complete nonsense. Requiring that voters comply with the law in order to have their vote is not a violation of the law. Nor is the Secretary's directive that big of a deal. The voter fills out the form. You absolutely do NOT want the pollworkers filling in information for you. It is YOUR vote so it is YOUR responsibility.
Step 2 requires you to enter the last four digits of your social security number or your entire driver's license number. The third option is to show the precinct worker an additional form of ID such as your military ID card or a current utility bill.
The protesters popping up at Mitt Romney's rallies throughout Michigan Tuesday look like run-of-the-mill grassroots liberals — they wave signs about "the 99 percent," they chant about the Republican's greed, and they describe themselves as a loosely organized coalition of "concerned citizens."
They're also getting paid, two of the protesters and an Obama campaign official told BuzzFeed.
At the candidate's afternoon stop outside a bakery in DeWitt, a group of about 15 protesters stood behind a police barricade, a few of them chanting in support of Obama. Asked why he was protesting, a man dressed in a grim reaper costume pointed a reporter to a pair of "designated representatives" standing in the shade.
"I can't talk, you gotta get one of those people over there to talk to y'all," he said. "They're the ones who can talk to reporters."
Neither of the representatives agreed to give their names, but two protesters said they were getting paid to stand outside of the rally, though their wage is unclear: one said she was getting $7.25 per hour, while another man said they were being paid $17 per hour.
68 years ago today was one of the most significant days in America's history - D-Day. But 79 years ago today, the first drive in movie theatre opened. Google picked, as it always does, the fun and light hearted even to celebrate with a special Google logo, aka Doodle.
During the Belmont County Democratic Party's annual summer gathering Sunday, Ohio House of Representatives Minority Leader Armond Budish attacked SB 5. Budish, D-Beachwood, said the law "contains horrible cuts to education, local governments and law enforcement, and leaves our communities less safe."
No, it does not. Though state legislators are considering budget measures that reduce support of public schools and local governments, they are not included in SB 5. The law says nothing about how much money Columbus will dole out for education or local governments. Nothing.
SB 5 relates only to collective bargaining by public employees, along with how their pay and benefits are handled. Budish knows that, yet chose - as have many critics of the law - to misrepresent the situation.
"We're seeing an unprecedented attack on the middle class coming from Columbus," Budish continued.
Again, no. Unless Budish believes public employee union members are the only members of the middle class in Ohio, he's not being candid. In fact, public employees are a tiny fraction of the Buckeye State's middle class.
As far as collective bargaining limits in SB 5, there are some. But the new law does permit public employee unions to continue negotiating their members' pay, the most important item in most contracts.
Among other provisions of the law are one requiring public employees to pay at least 15 percent of the cost of their health insurance, another outlawing strikes by public employees, and a third requiring teachers' pay raises be awarded on merit, not seniority.
Far from attacking the middle class, SB 5 gives their elected representatives on school boards and other local entities the ability to curb the ever-increasing cost of government. That will help, not hurt, the overwhelming majority of middle-class Ohioans.
Again, Budish knows all this. His philosophy and that of public employee union leaders is simple: Misleading Ohioans worked well in the past, so why shouldn't it now?
But there is a difference this year: Buckeye State residents have seen the harm done by liberal, special interest politics in the past. They're not going to fall for it again.
Rather than talking about what the law actually does, like a broken record We Are Ohio continues to rely on exaggerations, distortions and class warfare.
From the ad, you’d think Ohio’s elected leaders made sure they didn’t have the same health care and pension contribution requirements as they ask of everyone else.
Except Politifact states:
As for benefits, state lawmakers already pay health insurance costs and contribute toward their pension in line with SB 5’s provisions. Medical coverage rates and required pension fund contributions for lawmakers mirror those of unionized state workers. Therefore, they typically pay at least 15 percent of their medical insurance premiums and, if enrolled, must contribute 10 percent of their salary to the retirement system.
Don’t let We Are Ohio win just because they yell the loudest.
The commercial, which began airing on Sept. 27, raises questions about how SB 5 impacts nurses – a group of workers less commonly associated with SB 5 than others, such as police officers and teachers. PolitiFact Ohio decided to check the ad’s claim.
We started by checking how many nurses belong to public unions and, therefore, will be affected by SB 5.
There are about 160,000 registered nurses in the state and between 6,000 and 10,000 of those are public employees, according to the Ohio Nurses Association. That means SB 5 would affect between 4 percent and 6.25 percent of Ohio nurses.
The Ohio Nurses Association represents about 3,000 public-sector nurses, chief executive officer Gingy Harshey-Meade said. The Ohio Civil Service Employees Association and the Service Employees International Union also represent Ohio nurses. These nurses work at places such as prisons, city or county hospitals and public health departments.
When the nurse in the commercial says the new law will make it harder for nurses to provide care, the following text appears on the screen: "Source: Senate Bill 5; p229, Section 4117.08 (B)."
That section of the law specifies a handful of subjects that cannot be collectively bargained. Among those topics is "the number of employees required to be on duty or employed in any department."
In an email, We Are Ohio spokeswoman Melissa Fazekas said the restriction on bargaining staffing relates to patient care because "it is more difficult for a nurse to provide quality care when he/she is working short-staffed."
Jason Mauk, spokesman for the pro-SB 5 group Building a Better Ohio, sought to minimize the idea that SB 5 bans workers from negotiating staffing. He said management can discuss the issue if it chooses. As evidence, he has pointed to a different provision in SB 5 that lists "the number of persons required to be employed or laid off" under topics that can be negotiated at management’s discretion.
It is unclear how this provision would mesh with the ban cited in We Are Ohio’s commercials about nurses and firefighters. Certainly, however, management has no obligation to discuss staffing and unions do not have the right to collectively bargain the issue.
The current collective bargaining agreement that covers Turner, the nurse featured in the commercial, gives some insight into how SB 5 would affect nurses working conditions.
Turner, who works at the Ohio State University Ross Heart Hospital, is represented by the Ohio Nurses Association. The union’s contract with the university contains a clause that gives management the right to set staffing levels.
ONA’s contract with OSU says management has the right "to determine staffing and staffing patterns including, but not limited to the assignment of nurses as to the numbers employed, duties to be performed, qualifications required, and areas worked."
That sounds a lot like the rule that SB 5 would impose.
there are some critical facts on which the ad is silent.
First, it is impossible to say whether public employers will cut nursing staffs. The ad assumes that with staffing non-negotiable, management will cut staffs or not provide adequate staffing to a point that it will have an impact on the quality of care.
That’s where this claim differs from the claim in the previous ad involving firefighters, which specifically focused on the inability to bargain over staffing. This claim goes one step further, saying it will make patient care harder to provide.
Even more significantly, though, the commercial makes no distinction between nurses who are public employees and those who are non-public employees, and as such implies all nurses will suffer if Issue 2 passes. But only a tiny fraction of Ohio nurses are public employees - just four to six of every 100.
A listener knowing those critical facts would have a different impression of the claim.
On the Truth-O-Meter, the claim rates Mostly False.
Opponents to Issue 2 claim that SB5, which would be repealed if Issue 2 fails, will cause harm to nurses. Quoting from the We are Ohio website, http://action.weareohio.com/page/s/issue2primer:
“Issue 2 will make our nursing shortage worse. It makes it illegal for nurses, hospital and clinic workers to demand reasonable and safe staffing levels—so nurses will juggle more patients while their salaries and benefits are cut.”
This claim is also made in a We are Ohio television ad.
The Ohio Nurses Association (ONA) summarizes their position against Issue 2 as follows:
(SB5) . . . would strip public workers of their rights to collectively bargain for fair and equitable workplace conditions. For nurses, it’s a matter of life or death (emphasis theirs) Collective bargaining allows us to advocate for protections that directly affect patient safety and care. This includes making sure nurses aren’t assigned to too many patients at once or forced to work long, overtime hours that lead to burnt (sic) out and injury, and make them unable to effectively care for patients (from http://www.nfn.org/archives/1559).
Like We are Ohio’s site, both this ONA site and the one detailing ONA’s arguments (see http://www.nursesrepealsb5.org/know-the-facts.html) are rich in talking points but devoid of supporting evidence. Given the total failure of the opposition to back up their claims with citations from SB5, we can only search the text of the law and guess at what the opponents are referring to.
After ruling out any other rational possibilities from the results of my search of the text, what apparently has the opponents exercised is Sec. 339.07 (B). This section states that the administrators of county hospitals “shall ensure that the hospital has such physicians, nurses, and other employees as are necessary for the proper care, control, and management of the county hospital and its patients.” This is repeated in Sec. 749.083 (B) in the context of non-profit hospitals.
Based on this evidence from SB5 itself, the arguments made by We are Ohio and the ONA are illogical and flawed. They claim that SB5 will result in unsafe and unreasonable staffing levels in hospitals. But the language of the bill flatly contradicts this claim, unless one is willing to believe that hospital administrators are inherently so incompetent that they are incapable of fulfilling the law’s requirement to provide proper staffing.
Moreover, this argument is also based on deceit. As noted in the Columbus Dispatch’s Campaign Ad Watch analysis of the aforementioned TV ad, nurses do not have the right to negotiate staffing levels. The Dispatch notes that, under current law, nurses’ committees can suggest staffing levels to hospitals, but the levels are not subject to collective bargaining. SB5 not only does not mandate staffing levels for nurses, as opponents suggest; it also does not change current law regarding negotiation of staffing levels. (Neither does SB5 cut salaries and benefits, nor does it restrict or ban collective bargaining; but those are broader topics for later discussions.)
The intent of this argument against SB5 is not to inform, but to induce panic among the uninformed. Please, do not take the opponents at their word. Neither do I want you to take me at mine. Do what I did: Study the bill for yourself and see what it says. SB5′s text is at http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/BillText129/129_SB_5_EN_N.pdf, and it’s fully searchable.
I am Ohio, and so is every Ohioan who favors Issue 2.
Here is the relevant text from the source identified in the ad:
Ohio’s unemployment rate was 9.1 percent in August, up slightly from 9.0 percent in July, according to data released this morning by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS). Ohio’s nonfarm wage and salary employment decreased 700 over the month, from the revised 5,117,200 in July to 5,116,500 in August.
In fact, Ohio’s economy added seasonally adjusted jobs in January, and continued to add jobs each and every month through July, until losing a “whopping” 700 in August. So far this year, the state’s economy has added 82,300 jobs, the sixth-best performance in the entire nation in terms of percentage of workforce growth. That’s in stark contrast to the 425,000 jobs Ohio’s economy lost during 2007-2009, and the paltry 31,000 it picked up during 2010.
There is no record of “continued job losses” since John Kasich took office. The above statement in the linked anti-Issue 2 ad is a lie.
Sadly, this is one of many self-evident lies, misleading statements and deceptions in the ad, as seen in the follow analysis of its script (referencing screen graphics where necessary):
John Kasich promised to make Ohio great again. [1] But he gave over $100 million of our tax dollars to big corporations. [2] Meanwhile, Ohio continues to lose jobs. [3]
Now Kasich is using Senate Bill 5 to destroy collective-bargaining rights [4] for Ohio workers. [5] (with an on-screen reference to SB5, page 229, 4117.08)
Kasich and other politicians took over $3 million in campaign contributions from corporate special interests [6] who could profit from Senate Bill 5. (on-screen graphic reads “profit from Senate Bill 5″) [7]
It doesn’t have to be this way. We can stop Senate Bill 5 by voting “No” on Issue 2.
Notes:
[1] — Well, over 80,000 jobs added is a start towards “making Ohio great again.” What we’ve seen through August of this year beats the heck out of any full year Ohio has seen since 1999.
[2] — Show me the checks, guys. If you want to argue that Kasich and the state agreed to $100 million in tax breaks, fine. But that’s not what the ad says. It says he GAVE them $100 million in the recent past. It hasn’t happened as described. Therefore, this statement in the ad is a lie.
[3] — This statement has already been shown to be a lie.
[4] — SB5 does not (as implied) “destroy (all) collective-bargaining rights.” Specifically, “All matters pertaining to wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment are subject to collective bargaining between the public employer and the exclusive representative, except as otherwise specified …” After that, numerous items are listed as exceptions, but there are still items subject to collective bargaining. Thus, this portion of the statement is extremely misleading.
[5] — Then there is the reference to “Ohio workers.” The implication is that SB5 affects all Ohio workers. It doesn’t. It only affects unionized Ohio state, county, municipal, and school-district public-sector employees. It does not affect private-sector workers. This portion of the statement is also extremely misleading.
[6] — “And other politicians”? What other politicians? Lefties? Righties? Indies? This is a deliberately inflammatory non-statement which communicates absolutely nothing of substance.
[7] — “Could profit”? Could? Wow, that’s powerful (/sarc). It’s closer to the truth to assert that the vast majority of Ohioans will probably be better off if Senate Bill 5 stays in place, because taxes won’t have to go up, more resources can be dedicated to Ohio’s classrooms, and government entities will have the flexibility to do what they must to keep their costs under control. Note that the gutless graphic omits the word “could,” presumably in the hope that viewers won’t realize how deliberately misleading this statement is.
The ad demonstrates that the WeAreOhio.org folks believe that they can’t win without lying to, misleading and deceiving Ohioans at every step of the way.
Solyndra, a major manufacturer of solar technology in Fremont, has shut its doors, according to employees at the campus.
"I was told by a security guard to get my [stuff] and leave," one employee said. The company employs a little more than 1,000 employees worldwide, according to its website.Shortly after it opened a massive $700 million facility, it canceled plans for a public stock offering earlier this year and warned it would be in significant trouble if federal loan guarantees did not go through.
The company has said it will make a statement at 9am California time, though it's not clear what that statement will be. An NBC Bay Area photographer on the scene reports security guards are not letting visitors on campus. He says "people are standing around in disbelief." The employees have been given yellow envelopes with instructions on how to get their last checks.
Solyndra was touted by the Obama administration as a prime example of how green technology could deliver jobs. The President visited the facility in May of last year and said "it is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world. And you guys all represent that. "
The federal government offered $535 million in low cost loan guarantees from the Department of Energy. NBC Bay Area has contacted the White House asking for a statement.
Some Republicans have been very critical of the loans. "I am concerned that the DOE is providing loans and loan guarantees to firms that aren't capable of competing in the global market, even with government subsidies" Florida Congressman Cliff Stearns told the New York Times.
President Obama faces political catastrophe in the form of Solyndra -- a San Francisco Bay area solar company that he touted as a gleaming example of green technology. It has announced it will declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy. More than 1,100 people will lose their jobs.
During a visit to the Fremont facility in spring of 2010, the President said the factory "is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world. "
It's not his statements the administration will regret; it's the loan guarantees. The President was celebrating $535 million in federal promises from the Department of Energy to the solar startup. The administration didn't do its due diligence, says the Government Accountability Office. "There's a consequence if you don't follow a rigorous process that's transparent," Franklin Rusco of GAO told the website iWatch News.
The President touted the federally back money as a way to create jobs. The President's opponents immediately jumped on the deal as Solyndra made its first layoffs.
Republican Congressman Cliff Stearns of Florida warned, "I am concerned that the DOE is providing loans and loan guarantees to firms that aren't capable of competing in the global market, even with government subsidies."
Another critic, Fred Upton of Michigan: "The unfortunate reality is that loan guarantee highlights many of the systemic flaws associated with the stimulus in the mad dash to spend hundreds of billions of dollars."
Ohio is 700 miles from Vermont, but it seems a lot closer when you look at Sherrod Brown's pals.
Sherrod Brown was recently rated by National Journal as one of the most liberal members of the U.S. Senate. In fact, Brown received the same liberal vote score (two years in a row) as the self-described socialist Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders. While Brown's voting record is clearly outside of the mainstream, it's his affiliation with another highly controversial Vermonter which is particularly noteworthy.
Howard Dean has not gone away; in fact he is headlining a private $1,000 per plate fundraiser this evening to benefit Brown's reelection to the U.S. Senate. Some of the words Howard Dean has used to describe Republicans are "evil," "bad for democracy," "selfish," "self-absorbed," and "brain-dead." In fact, Howard Dean went so far as to say that he "hates Republicans, and everything they stand for."
Ouch! That's a pretty scathing attack on 1.6 million Ohioans.
What's so disturbing about these comments is that many Democrats have proactively, and very publicly, distanced themselves from Howard Dean's disturbing rhetoric - however, Sherrod Brown is not among their ranks.
Seeing that Howard Dean is coming to Columbus to fundraise for Brown, and endorse his reelection campaign, shouldn't Brown provide some insight as to whether or not he agrees with Howard Dean's long history of controversial comments?
In fact, just three weeks ago, the former Vermont Governor actually claimed that the U.S. credit downgrade was a "good thing." A GOOD THING? SERIOUSLY?
Liberal Howard Dean and socialist Bernie Sanders may share some pretty extreme viewpoints with Sherrod Brown, but they are not from Ohio. They don't have to face Ohio voters next year, or even be held to account for their records or radically extreme rhetoric. Sherrod Brown does, and Ohioans deserve to know if he embraces Dean's rhetoric as much as the campaign dollars the former governor brings in for his reelection campaign.
Does Sherrod Brown Agree With Howard Dean That the U.S. Credit Downgrade Was a Good Thing?
"The firebrand Democrat and former Vermont governor said the Standard & Poor's downgrade of the nation's credit is 'a good thing' because it underscores the need to raise revenue to address the nation's fiscal crisis." (Julie Mason, "Dean: What's the tea party smoking?," Politico, 8/7/11)
Does Brown Agree with Howard Dean's Divisive Views On the Republican Party?
"You know, the Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. They're a pretty monolithic party. Pretty much, they all behave the same, and they all look the same. ... It's pretty much a white Christian party.'' (Carla Marinucci, Dean: The mouth that won't stop roaring," The San Francisco Chronicle, 6/8/05)
Dean: "I hate Republicans and everything they stand for." (Dana Milbank, "Dean's Past As Prologue To DNC Future," The Washington Post, 1/29/05)
Dean: "The Republican Party is a party of self-absorption and selfishness ..." (Susan McDonough, "Dean, In Oakland, Invokes Morality," Oakland Tribune, 4/2/06)
Dean: "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good." (Joel Mathis, "Dean Roars Into Town," Lawrence [KS] Journal-World, 2/26/05)
Dean: "You think the RNC could get this many people of color into a single room?" [Dean] marvels. "Maybe if they got the hotel staff in there." (Mark Leibovich, "The Special-Interest Group Hug," The Washington Post, 2/12/05)
Dean: "These guys [Republicans] are bad for democracy. They are not interested in ideas but interested in power and they are not interested in the best interest of the American people." (MSNBC's "Hardball," 10/6/05)
Dean: "[R]epublicans ... a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives." (DNC Chairman Howard Dean, Remarks at Campaign for America's Future "Take Back America Conference," DC, 6/2/05)
Dean: "Republicans are all about suppressing votes ..." (DNC Chairman Howard Dean, Remarks At Campaign For America's Future "Take Back America Conference," DC, 6/2/05)
Dean Called Republicans "Brain-Dead." (Peter Gorrie, "Spreading the Message," Toronto Star, 3/20/05)
Does Brown with Howard Dean's Views on National Security?
Dean: "I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials. So I'm sure that is the correct sentiment of most Americans, but I do think if you're running for president, or if you are president, it's best to say that the full range of penalties should be available. But it's not so great to prejudge the judicial system.'" (Lisa Wangsness, "Dean's Secure In His View Of Saddam," Concord Monitor, 12/26/03)
Dean: "We've gotten rid of him [Saddam Hussein], and I suppose that's a good thing" (William Saletan and Avi Zenilman, "The Gaffes of Howard Dean," Slate.com, 9/25/03)
Does Brown Agree with His Fellow Democrats on Howard Dean?
"Republicans and Democrats alike have criticized Dean for the unnecessary harshness of his comments. Democratic senator Joe Biden distanced himself from the comments, saying that Dean 'doesn't speak for me with that kind of rhetoric and I don't think he speaks for the majority of Democrats.'" ("Republicans "Never Made An Honest Living In Their Lives" Says Howard Dean," LifeSiteNews.com, 6/8/05)
"On Wednesday, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said that while Dean was 'doing a great job' as party chairman, 'I don't think the statement that the governor made was a helpful statement.' She later added that it 'is not a fair assessment to characterize the Republicans' the way Dean did." ("Dean defends view of GOP as 'Christian party'," Associated Press, 6/8/05)
"Democratic New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Tuesday that Dean is doing a good job, but is not the party's spokesman." ("Dean defends view of GOP as 'Christian party'," Associated Press, 6/8/05)
"[Joe] Biden, asked about Dean Wednesday during an interview on the Don Imus radio show ... said that Dean 'has views that are slightly different than mine ... But look, he's a lightning rod. ... It's probably good that there's a guy out there that's a lightning rod ... .' Biden, however, added that he thinks 'the rhetoric is counterproductive.'" ("Dean defends view of GOP as 'Christian party'," Associated Press , 6/8/05)
Paul Krugman recently argued that a fake threat from space aliens would be good for the economy because the people of earth would waste a bunch of money building unnecessary defenses.
That was a bit loopy, as I noted a few days ago, but other Keynesians also have been making really weird assertions. Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture (another department that shouldn’t exist) just said that food stamps are a great form of stimulus (video at the link, for those who think this can’t possibly be true).
Makes me wonder if they’re having some sort of secret contest for who can say the strangest thing on TV. And if that’s the case, Nancy Pelosi has to be in the running for her claim that you create jobs by subsidizing joblessness.
“We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”
Biden, driven by his Democratic allies’ misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: “They have acted like terrorists,” according to several sources in the room.
Biden’s office declined to comment about what the vice president said inside the closed-door session.
What happens to an ideologue when the president in whom he invested enormous hope is increasingly seen as a failure? For one answer, see the lead “Talk of the Town” item in The New Yorker, where Hendrik Hertzberg writes this:
Invoking the Fourteenth Amendment has always been a long shot, a last refuge. But Obama’s seeming refusal to hold it in reserve … is emblematic of his all too civilized, all too accommodating negotiating strategy–indeed, of his whole approach to the nation’s larger economic dilemma, the most disappointing aspect of his Presidency. His stimulus package asked for too little and got less. He has allowed deficits and debt to supercede mass unemployment as the emergency of the moment.
Translation: Barack Obama, the most liberal president in generations, hasn’t been liberal enough. His problem hasn’t been profligacy but frugality. During the last two-and-a-half years, as $3.7 trillion has been added to our national debt, it turns out Obama has spent too little. Despite his efforts to slander and misrepresent the proposals of his opponents, Obama turns out to be too civil, too accommodating, too darn decent. And the man Democrats considered their Great Communicator just three years ago is suffering from a “communications problem,” unable to educate the public to the wisdom of post-Herbert Hoover economics.
This is sheer nonsense, of course. But Hertzberg’s comments are instructive. Rather than take into account the economic (and empirical) failure of Obama’s Keynesian approach, those who take a dogmatic, faith-based approach to American politics engage in intellectual contortions in order to try to innoculate their ideology from damage. People like Hertzberg begin from what is, for them, an unassailable proposition: liberalism is right because it is right and so it can never be wrong. And what happens when, by any objective standard, liberal policies fail? The problem is, they weren’t sufficiently liberal.
Those whose minds are obdurate and canonical –regardless of the philosophy they hold — don’t need to grapple with inconvenient facts. They have a reflexive response to every set of facts that challenges their worldview: ignore the facts. This doesn’t help one ascertain the truth. But it does avoid the hard work of facing up to the false assumptions on which their intellectual structure rests. Call it the comforting life of an ideological fanatic.
“One of the things we could do about it is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principle ways of doing that is to empower and educate girls and women,” Gore said. “You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children have, the spacing of the children.
“You have to lift child survival rates so that parents feel comfortable having small families and most important — you have to educate girls and empower women,” he said. “And that’s the most powerful leveraging factor, and when that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices.”
We own the economy. We own the beginning of the turnaround and we want to make sure that we continue that pace of recovery, not go back to the policies of the past under the Bush administration that put us in the ditch in the first place,
for the nine economic quarters that Obama has been in office (including the first quarter of 2009, during which President Bush held office for 19 of the 90 days), real annual growth in GDP has been just 1.5 percent. That’s less than half the annual GDP growth during the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s. Even more striking is that the rate of growth under Obama has been only slightly higher than during the 1930s — which, of course, was the decade of the Great Depression. In the 1930s, real annual GDP growth was 1.3 percent — just 0.2 percent less than under Obama.
Obama is already responsible for $4.4 trillion in actual or projected deficit spending, which amounts to deficit spending at a rate of 9.7 percent of GDP. To put that into perspective, the only deficits in more than 200 years of American history that have exceeded even 6.0 percent of GDP have all involved either the Civil War, World War I, World War II, or Obama.
Housing
prices fell in March to their lowest point since the downturn began,
erasing the last little bit of recovery from the depths plumbed two
years ago, according to data released Tuesday.
The Standard &
Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index for 20 large cities fell 0.8
percent from February, the eighth drop in a row. Prices are now down
33.1 percent from the July 2006 peak.
“Home prices continue on
their downward spiral with no relief in sight,” said David M. Blitzer,
chairman of the S.& P. index committee.
Housing is in
persistent trouble, industry analysts say, not only because so many
people are blocked from the market — being unemployed, in foreclosure or
trapped in homes that are worth less than the mortgage — but because
even those who are solvent are opting out.
The desire to own your
own home, long a bedrock of the American Dream, is fast becoming a
casualty of the worst housing downturn since the Great Depression.
Citing his own brush with sexual scandal, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Tuesday that he's in no position to judge the lurid actions of colleague Anthony Weiner.
"Given these circumstances, where I was myself engaged in activity I shouldn't have been … I just don't think it's appropriate for me to set myself up as the judge of others," Frank told reporters in the Capitol Tuesday. Frank said he wouldn't dodge the issue if it comes up for a vote in the House, "but to step up and appoint myself a judge of other people based on my own past, I just don't think it's appropriate," he said.
Weiner, a seven-term New York Democrat, acknowledged last week that he'd recently sent pictures of his underwear-clad groin to a Seattle college student less than half his age. Since then, more and more similar photos and lewd messages have surfaced on the Internet, evidently leaked by the various women with whom Weiner was communicating over social media.
HAYMARKET, Va. (WUSA) -- They call themselves the "Christmas Sweater Club" because they wear the craziest ones they can find. They also sing Christmas songs at school and try their best to spread Christmas cheer.
Now all 10 of them are in trouble because of what they did at their school.
"They said, 'maliciously maim students with the intent to injure.' And I don't think any of us here intentionally meant to injure anyone, or did," said Zakk Rhine, a junior at Battlefield High School.
The boys say they were just tossing small two-inch candy canes to fellow students as they entered school. The ones in plastic wrap that are so small they often break apart.
Skylar Torbett, also a junior, said administrators told him, "They said the candy canes are weapons because you can sharpen them with your mouth and stab people with them." He said neither he nor any of their friend did that.
Next thing they knew, they were all being punished with detention and at least two hours of cleaning. Their disciplinary notices say nothing about malicious wounding but about littering and creating a disturbance.
"It was at 7 in the morning, before school even starts, so I don't what we'd be really disrupting," said Cameron Gleason, also a junior.
Principal Amy Etheridge-Conti says she can't comment on the students' discipline but did say there was a lot more to it than handing out candy and that the discipline was warranted.
The boys admitted their incident may have caused litter since some kids dropped their candy canes on the floor. But Cameron Gleason said he spent an hour cleaning up the dropped candy.
The boys' parents think the school went overboard and maybe administrators were trying to stop their boys from spreading Christmas cheer.
Mother Kathleen Flannery said an administrator called her and explained "not everyone wants Christmas cheer. That suicide rates are up over Christmas, and that they should keep their cheer to themselves, perhaps."
Patti Gleason, the mother of Cameron Gleason says, "I am 100 percent sure they did nothing wrong. We've gotten so many different stories. It went from maiming kids with candy canes, to littering. And then when received the referral (disciplinary notice) it said 'disruption.' So nobody really knew what they were getting in trouble for, they were just making up a whole bunch of different things."
DECEMBER 6--In the days after Bristol Palin was voted into the finals of “Dancing with the Stars,” viewers from across the country wrote to the Federal Communications Commission accusing the ABC show of everything from running a “payola type program” to “encouraging and promoting teen pregnancy.”
Many of the complainants, whose letters were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, were upset that, as one Oregonian put it, “the top scores were voted off yet Sarah Palin’s daughter remained on.”
Another source of grievances was a hug delivered to the 20-year-old Palin by one of the show’s judges, Carrie Ann Inaba.
Noting that “no other dancer was called over for a hug,” one viewer claimed that the clinch was a “signal for the GOP/Tea Party supporters of Sarah Palin to ‘stuff’ the vote for Bristol Palin, who on both dates had to be dragged over the dance floor.” The writer added, “My 96 year old Mother-in-Law can dance better than Ms. Palin...I want my Government to protect me the viewer from deceptive practices.”
A Cerritos, California resident reported that the “physical contact” made by Inaba “sets the contestant up for thinking the judge will favor them. She was impartial to one and partial to the others.”
Other viewers sought an FCC probe of the show’s voting, since “people are bragging how they ‘gamed the system'.” Two other viewers (one from Indianapolis, the other a Brooklynite) were upset that Palin beat out the R&B singer Brandy for the last spot in the program’s three-person final.