This is the open news thread.

So you decide,

What’s news today?

What’s news today?

I have no idea, I’m on vacation.

🙂

So today we try something a little different.

As KBells suggested, an open News Thread.

You folks decide what’s news!

What’s news today?

There’s a lot going on…

Let’s start with this from Forbes.

“Do You Live In A Death Spiral State?”

“Two factors determine whether a state makes this elite list of fiscal (censored). The first is whether it has more takers than makers. A taker is someone who draws money from the government, as an employee, pensioner or welfare recipient. A maker is someone gainfully employed in the private sector.

Let us give those takers the benefit of our sympathy and assume that every single one of them is a deserving soul. This person is either genuinely needy or a dedicated public servant or the recipient of a well-earned pension.

But what happens when these needy types outnumber the providers? Taxes get too high. Prosperous citizens decamp. Employers decamp. That just makes matters worse for the taxpayers left behind.”

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Then to ZeroHedge for this.

“Exactly two years ago, some of the more politically biased progressive media outlets (who are quite adept at creating and taking down their own strawmen arguments, if not quite as adept at using an abacus, let alone a calculator) took offense at our article “In Entitlement America, The Head Of A Household Of Four Making Minimum Wage Has More Disposable Income Than A Family Making $60,000 A Year.” In it we merely explained what has become the painful reality in America: for increasingly more it is now more lucrative – in the form of actual disposable income – to sit, do nothing, and collect various welfare entitlements, than to work. This is graphically, and very painfully confirmed, in the below chart from Gary
Alexander, Secretary of Public Welfare, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (a state best known for its broke capital Harrisburg). As quantified, and explained by Alexander, “the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.”

We realize that this is a painful topic in a country in which the issue of welfare benefits, and cutting (or not) the spending side of the fiscal cliff, have become the two most sensitive social topics. Alas, none of that changes the matrix of incentives for most Americans who find themselves in a comparable situation: either being on the left side of minimum US wage, and relying on benefits, or move to the right side at far greater personal investment of work, and energy, and… have the same disposable income at the end of the day.”

“The punchline: 110 million privately employed workers; 88 million welfare recipients and government workers and rising rapidly.”

Say it with me now….. Unsustainable.

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Which leads us to this, which we are also unable to afford.

From TheWashingtonExaminer.

“But Obama’s liberal supporters do have a second-term agenda, and it is a far-reaching one. That agenda, laid out a new article in the liberal magazine the American Prospect, is enough to set off alarm bells among conservatives in Washington and around the country.

In the piece, author Mike Konczal summarizes the work of some influential thinkers on the left who are asking the question: Now that Obama has been re-elected, and Obamacare is safe from Republican repeal, “what’s next for the welfare state?”

They divide the answer into three parts. The first is further expansion of the social safety net. The second is an array of programs to act as a “springboard” for the poor. And the third is an “escalator” to address income inequality by giving progressively larger government grants to lower-income Americans.”

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What a difference a few years makes huh?

From CNSNews

“In 2005, then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that a plan by Republican Senate leaders to end the use of filibusters against presidential judicial nominations demonstrated “the arrogance of power.”

“Rather than changing the Senate rules, shouldn’t we be concerned  about the largest deficits in the history of the world?” Reid asked at a March 15, 2005 event entitled “Rally to Save the  Courts.”

“Reid, now the Senate Majority Leader, has said he plans to try to change the filibuster rule in the incoming Congress to stop Republicans from using a  filibuster to prevent the initial debate of a bill. But Reid says he will not try to change the rule to stop the final passage of a bill with a filibuster.”

For his opponents it’s an abuse of power. For Harry, it’s only with the best of intentions. Sure.

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The ACLU strikes again, from Reuters

“The American Civil Liberties Union and four servicewomen sued the U.S. Defense Department on Tuesday to end a ban on women in combat, calling the military the last bastion of discrimination by the federal government and saying modern warfare has already put women in the line of fire.

The civil rights group argued in a legal complaint filed in federal court in Northern California that the military policy barring women from roles primarily focused on combat solely because of their gender was unconstitutional.

Hundreds of thousands of women veterans returning from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are finding career paths off limits, sparking the challenge to a policy that has been in place officially since 1994 and unofficially for around two centuries.”

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I can’t wait to see how this plays out.

From TimesOfIsrael

“A group of 24 Americans living in Israel, some of them victims of terror, on Tuesday filed a civil action lawsuit against the United States governmentover what they claim is its funding of Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The plaintiffs were being represented by the Tel Aviv-based Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center, a legal advocacy group that combats terror organizations.

The lawsuit, which was filed in Washington, DC, contends that the State Department and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ignored Congressional safeguards and transparency requirements attached to US aid to the Palestinian Authority, thus allowing for the funneling of funds to Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Palestine Liberation Front. It also accuses the White House of not complying with the regulations and reporting obligations governing presidential waivers which facilitate emergency funding to the Palestinians.

“I just want justice,” said Stuart Hersh, one of the plaintiffs, an elderly Jerusalem resident and victim of a terror attack on Ben Yehuda Street in the same city in 1997, which caused him brain damage and left him partially disabled. “I am against the American government indirectly financing Hamas — the very people who try to kill me,” Hersh said by telephone, adding that he differentiates between “humanitarian aid for the Palestinian people and supporting political agendas.””

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And the last one, from TheWashingtonTimes.

“Moving to try to steal the immigration spotlight from Democrats, top Senate  Republicans on Tuesday introduced their own version of the Dream Act to grant  young illegal immigrants legal rights — though it wouldn’t give them a special  path to citizenship.

Sens. Jon Kyl, John McCain and Kay  Bailey Hutchison, all senior Republicans, introduced the bill as a way to  restart the immigration debate and to carve out a middle ground between sending  illegal immigrants home or granting them green cards, which is the intermediate  step to citizenship.

“We have got to get this ball rolling,” Mr.  Kyl said. “We have to have a discussion that is sensible, that is calm.”

Their bill would give young illegal immigrants a chance at legal status as  long as they are earning a college degree, serving in the military or, having  completed those steps, are holding down a job.”

What’s news today?

First the Senate, and now the UN too?

From TheWallStJournal

“Who runs the Internet? For now, the answer remains no one, or at least no government, which explains the Web’s success as a new technology. But as of next week, unless the U.S. gets serious, the answer could be the United Nations.

Many of the U.N.’s 193 member states oppose the open, uncontrolled nature of the Internet. Its interconnected global networks ignore national boundaries, making it hard for governments to censor or tax. And so, to send the freewheeling digital world back to the state control of the analog era, China, Russia, Iran and Arab countries are trying to hijack a U.N. agency that has nothing to do with the Internet.”

“Having the Internet rewired by bureaucrats would be like handing a Stradivarius to a gorilla. The Internet is made up of 40,000 networks that interconnect among 425,000 global routes, cheaply and efficiently delivering messages and other digital content among more than two billion people around the world, with some 500,000 new users a day.”

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Looks like we have a major public school cheating scandal. But it’s not the students.

From TheDailyCaller

“It was a brazen and surprisingly long-lived scheme, authorities said, to  help aspiring public school teachers cheat on the tests they must pass to prove  they are qualified to lead their classrooms.

For 15 years, teachers in three Southern states paid Clarence Mumford Sr. — himself a longtime educator — to send someone else to take the tests in their  place, authorities said. Each time, Mumford received a fee of between $1,500 and  $3,000 to send one of his test ringers with fake identification to the Praxis  exam. In return, his customers got a passing grade and began their careers as  cheaters, according to federal prosecutors in Memphis.

Authorities say the scheme affected hundreds — if not thousands — of public  school students who ended up being taught by unqualified instructors.”

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Egypt’s new President says he stands by his overreaching decrees.

From Times Of Israel

“Egypt’s president told the country’s top judges Monday that he did not infringe on their authority when he seized near absolute powers, setting up a prolonged showdown on the eve of a mass protest planned by opponents of the Islamist leader.

An aide to President Mohammed Morsi said the decree was limited to “sovereignty-related issues,” but that did not satisfy his critics.

The uncompromising stance came during a meeting between Morsi and members of the Supreme Judiciary Council in a bid to resolve a four-day crisis that has plunged the country into a new round of turmoil with clashes between the two sides that have left one protester dead and hundreds wounded.”

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The White House says they are concerned but…….

From NationalReview

“Asked whether the White House was forewarned about President Morsi’s power grab, Jay Carney said today that the administration has “expressed and raised concerns” about it. He also said that the power grab is part of Egypt’s “transition to democracy”:

Our interest in the development and transition to democracy in Egypt is one that reflects what the Egyptian people demanded through their revolution, and continue to demand, which is a government that reflects the will of the people. And we will continue to work towards that goal, because it reflects what the Egyptian people want.”

Sure. What the people want. I guess he thinks all the new protests in the streets are over The Video, just like with the Embassy attack.

🙄

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They say this will only be on “Rich” people, but I don’t trust them.

From the NYTimes

“A tax break that has long been untouchable could soon be in for some serious scrutiny.

Many home buyers deduct their mortgage interest when assessing their tax bill, a perk that has helped bolster the income of millions of families — and the broader housing market.

But as President Obama and Congress try to hash out a deal to reduce the budget deficit, the mortgage interest deduction will likely be part of the discussion.”

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This one is a new low, even for Democrats. I’m hoping it’s not true, yet fearful that this is exactly what they would do to win.

From Breitbart

“But even knowing this, I was not prepared for a conversation I had at Thanksgiving dinner today with my brother-in-law, Henry, who has lived most of his life in a home for the mentally disabled, and though now in his forties has the intelligence level of a six-year-old.

“Obama saved me,” he said to me out of the blue.

“What do you mean?”

“I voted for him for president and now he’s saving me.”

I was taken aback by these words, since Henry had no idea who Obama was, or what a president might be, and would be unable to fill out a registration form let alone get to the polling place by himself. So I asked him how he knew that and how he had registered and cast his vote. In halting, impeded speech he told me that the people who take care of him at the home filled out “the papers” to register him to vote, told him how Obama cared for him, even taught him the Obama chants, and then took him to the polling place to vote. They did the same for all of the mentally disabled patients in their care, approximately sixty in all.”

Wow. Just wow.