Obama snubs Polish freedom hero Lech Walesa who fought Russian socialism & honors a US socialist union organizer
Thin-skinned Obama snubs Polish hero Lech Walesa [who 30 years ago kicked Russian socialists out of Poland] as “too political” and honors U.S. Socialist Dolores Huerta with Medal of Freedom.
Lech Walesa was once a trade-union activist. He was often arrested for speaking his mind against Communist oppression behind the Iron Curtain in Poland and for defying the Soviet Union. He was an electrician who, with no higher education, led one of the most profound freedom movements of the 20th century — Solidarity. He became president of Poland and swept in reforms, pushing the Soviet Union out of his homeland and moving the country toward a free-market economy and individual liberty. And President Obama doesn’t want him to set foot in the White House.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Polish officials requested that Walesa accept the Medal of Freedom on behalf of
Lech Walesa
Jan Karski, a member of the Polish Underground during World War II who was being honored posthumously this week. The request makes sense. Walesa and Karski shared a burning desire to rid Poland of tyrannical subjugation. But President Obama said no.
Administration officials told the Journal that Walesa is too “political.†A man who was arrested by Soviet officials for dissenting against the government for being “political†is being shunned by the United States of America for the same reason 30 years later.
Meanwhile, one of the recipients of the Medal was Dolores Huerta, the honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. union organizer Dolores Huerta
So socialist politics are acceptable, but not the politics of a man who stood up and fought socialism.
No records exist whether Elizabeth Warren was first woman while breastfeeding to take Bar Exam in New Jersey There’s no records whether Elizabeth Warren was — or was not — the first nursing mother to take the New Jersey bar exam.
In addition to her unsubstantiated distinction as Harvard’s first woman of color, it turns out that Elizabeth Warren may have also participated in a landmark event for women’s liberation. I’m of course referring to her status as the first nursing mother to take the New Jersey bar exam.
Unfortunately, Warren’s place in history as a feminist icon is in limbo because, once again, her claims can’t be substantiated. The Boston Herald reports:
“I was the first nursing mother to take a bar exam in the state of New Jersey,†Warren told an audience at the Chicago Humanities Festival in 2011, in a video posted on the CHF website. When asked how Warren knows that, her campaign said: “Elizabeth was making a point about the very serious challenges she faced as a working mom — from taking an all-day bar exam when she was still breast-feeding, to finding work as a lawyer that would accommodate a mom with two small children.â€
Winnie Comfort of the New Jersey Judiciary, which administers that state’s bar exam, said there’s no way to verify Warren’s claim. Comfort said women have been taking the New Jersey bar exam since 1895, but she’s not aware their nursing habits were ever tracked.
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Why do politicians need to bloviate so? Elizabeth Warren simply cannot know if she was or wasn’t the first woman taking the Bar while nursing a child. So why lie? JAJ48@aol.com
Obama-Care "death panels" say NO to testing for prostate cancer as too expensive Obama-Care’s “death panels” recommend no screening for prostate cancer for men. The US Preventive Service Task Force ruled last week that screening for prostate cancer is a waste of money.
The task force claims that screening all adult men with the PSA (protein-specific antigen) test doesn’t prevent death from the disease. It argues that “the number of men who avoid dying of prostate cancer because of screening after 10 to 14 years is, at best, very small.â€
Adding to the “costs†of the test are “false positives†— they tell people they have cancer when they don’t about 10 percent of the time. The task force thinks this problem makes the cost of screening higher than the tiny benefit screening generates.
It’s worth analyzing the road to this conclusion, because it tells us a lot about how ObamaCare rations medicine.
First, the task force measures the effect of testing on the death rate from any disease (all-cause mortality). That’s a bogus benchmark, because, as John Maynard Keynes famously noted, in the long run we all die. In fact, death rates from prostate cancer have dropped 57 percent among men ages 49 to 64 and 80 percent among adult men over 75. National Cancer Institute data show that prostate cancers are being detected and treated earlier and that life expectancy is rising as a result.
The task force claims there is no evidence that screening directly reduces prostate cancer. But how, then, did death rates decline, if screening doesn’t work?
It does, of course. As prostate-cancer expert William Catalano notes, PSA screening is why the horror of not diagnosing this cancer until it has metastasized (advanced and spread) has all but disappeared.
Catalano also points out that it’s regular testing — not the test being used — that has likely contributed to raising the odds against the disease.
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Who needs evidence when the Obama-Care cost cutters strike? JAJ48@aol.com
everything is affordable if someone else is paying It’s only “fair” the middle class & poor not bear, the brunt of huge down payments?
Thus, in San Francisco, middle class families can get $100 K money from Uncle Sam to buy a house.
There may finally be a solution to helping middle-class San Franciscans who cannot afford to buy a home of their own in the city.
Mayor Ed Lee on Tuesday will announce plans to create the city’s first dedicated funding stream for moderate-income and affordable housing, generating $20 million to $50 million a year for 30 years.
The plan not only would help provide middle-income residents with up to $100,000 in down payment assistance, but it also is designed to stimulate market-rate development and fund 4,500 units of affordable housing.
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And who will the lucky winners of this scam be? JAJ48@AOL.COM
Senator Murray worst offender in paying female staff much less than men
Five powerful women automatons (all Democrats) preach but don’t practice gender pay equality. And the worst offender is Senator Murray who pays women 35% less than her male staff.
A group of Democratic female senators on Wednesday declared war on the so-called “gender pay gap,†urging their colleagues to pass the aptly named Paycheck Fairness Act when Congress returns from recess next month. However, a substantial gender pay gap exists in their own offices, a Washington Free Beacon analysis of Senate salary data reveals.
Of the five senators who participated in Wednesday’s press conference—Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.), Patty Murray (D., Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.)—three pay their female staff members significantly less than male staffers.
Murray, who has repeatedly accused Republicans of waging a “war a women,†is one of the worst offenders. Female members of Murray’s staff made about $21,000 less per year than male staffers in 2011, a difference of 35.2 percent.
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Probably these elitists have no idea who is paid what which is of course the usual for them.
jaj48@aol.com
huge shift of solar costs to non-solar customers not good policy in CA
Solar green greed in CA will bleed the more needy non-solar electric customers. This is not good public policy.
Go solar in California with your own solar-power system & your non-solar neighbors have to pay for costs you don’t and you can force utilities to buy your solar power. This is not healthy public policy.
Further only about 14% of residences generate sufficient solar electricity to sell it back to the grid. So why engage in an expensive transaction that is costly and benefits who? Of course it benefits the solar industry. What say you?
See more in the WSJ article below.
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SAN FRANCISCO—California regulators approved a plan Thursday to expand a subsidy for rooftop solar power generated by homeowners and businesses, handing a victory to the solar industry.
The plan, adopted by the California Public Utilities Commission, allows more homeowners and businesses that install their own solar-power systems to sell unused power to their utility. The program requires utilities to buy the power.
The program, called “net energy metering” and first adopted in the mid-1990s, has attracted more than $1 billion of investment from banks such as U.S. Bancorp and large companies such as Google Inc. The program has spurred greater development of California’s rooftop solar-panel market, but developers became increasingly anxious about hitting a hard cap that was established to limit the cost of the program.
Solar firms and clean-energy proponents have pressed CPUC to increase the cap and allow more homeowners and businesses to join the program. Utilities, however, have opposed increasing the cap. They argue that the subsidy has saddled their other customers with growing costs, while the customers who sell their excess solar power aren’t contributing their fair share to the costs of maintaining and improving the state’s electric grid.
Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas & Electric utility, PG&E Corp.’s utility and Edison International’s Southern California Edison have estimated that Thursday’s decision will shift $1.3 billion a year in costs from the utilities’ solar customers to their non-solar customers.
SDG&E and PG&E said the expansion is likely to more than double the number of customers currently enrolled in the net metering program.
Because solar customers don’t pay fees that other customers pay to cover the utilities’ costs of building and maintaining transmission lines, citywide electricity systems, low-income customer assistance and other expenses, other customers end up paying more, which isn’t fair, said Dan Skopec, a vice president at SDG&E.
“If we want rooftop solar to be sustainable and grow throughout the country, we have to have a system where they pay their fair share of the cost of the grid,” Mr. Skopec said.
PG&E supports the program but is “concerned about the cost shifts from solar customers to customers who either cannot afford to or do not choose to go solar,” said Lynsey Paulo, a spokeswoman for the utility.
The solar industry group Solar Energy Industries Association hailed the decision as a “step forward for clean energy jobs, for ratepayers, and for our state,” according to a statement.
Commission members said they were sympathetic to both sides and that the state will need to resolve the dilemma in new legislation expected by 2014. Until then, commissioners said they were compelled to allow the program to continue, to support California’s clean-energy goals and the state’s solar-power industry, which employs tens of thousands of people.
“If everyone was on net metering, who would pay for the grid that we have?” CPUC member Mike Florio said Thursday at a meeting during which the commission unanimously adopted the plan. “On the other hand, it would be problematic for [net metering] to come to an end and provide a major setback to the solar industry that has flourished in this state.”
CPUC ordered the net-metering program to be closed to new customers on Jan. 1, 2015, unless the commission issues new policy rules.
The commission also ordered a study on the costs of the net-metering program versus the benefits provided by electricity generated by program participants.
Write to Cassandra Sweet at cassandra.sweet@dowjones.com
government union pays $65 K a year compared to $15 K for private sector Social Security
The average public sector retiree gets $65 K a year compared to the average private sector social security benefit of $15 K. It’s an accurate statement to say that taxpayers are enslaved to the public sector unions and why collective bargaining by government employees must be limited. See article that appeared on the web site.
Government Employees – The True “1%â€
By Wayne Allen Root, on March 6th, 2012
Editor’s Note: The claims made in this commentary by Wayne Allen Root are incendiary. But they are true. We are on track in the United States to pay more money to 20 million public sector retirees – at an average pension of $65,000 we will pay these retirees $1.3 trillion per year, then we will be paying in social security to 80 million private sector retirees – at an average social security benefit of $15,000 per year that will cost less, about $1.2 trillion per year. Providing a level of retirement security to government workers that only the wealthiest 1% can enjoy in the private sector is not “protecting the middle class,†it is economic enslavement by government unions over the taxpayer. This article originally appeared on FoxNews.com and is republished with permission by the author.
How did America become broke and insolvent? How did we build up an unimaginable $115 trillion in debt and unfunded liabilities? How did we allow the American Dream to become a nightmare?
All we need do is look at the primary demand the Eurozone and IMF are placing on hopelessly bankrupt Greece to get their new $170 Billion bailout — Greece has agreed to cut 150,000 government employees. Even Cuba’s leader Raul Castro recognizes too many government employees are at the root of economic destruction, as he is cutting over 2 million of them to save Cuba from bankruptcy.
The truth is that government employees are the true 1%. We have far too many of them (21 million), many of them are paid too much, and their union demands are straining taxpayers to the breaking point.
They have become a privileged class that expects to be treated superior to the taxpayers — the same folks who pay their salaries and pensions. But it is their obscene pensions that are the big problem moving forward for America.
How would you like to retire with $6 million? $8 million? $10 million? All you have to do is become a government employee to hit the jackpot.
You don’t believe me? Do the math.
I recently talked with a retired New York City toll taker. His salary averaged about $70,000 per year over 20 years. But in his last few years he worked loads of overtime and added in accumulated sick days to get his salary in those final years up to $150,000.
His pension is based on his final years’ salary. This is a common pension-padding ploy.
He bragged that he will now get a taxpayer funded pension of $120,000 a year for the rest of his life. He’s only 50 years old.
The average 50-year old male has a life expectancy of almost 80. With automatic cost of living increases, that’s a bill to taxpayers of $5 million for the next 30 years –for not working. THREE TIMES WHAT HE EARNED WHILE WORKING.
And, of course, we’re also paying his medical bills.
No country, no budget, and no taxpayers anywhere in the world can afford this. Ask Greece.
But here’s a frightening question- what if he lives to 90? Or 100? His pension could rise to $8 million or higher.
Multiply this times 21 million government employees (on the federal, state and local level) and you now get a sense of what is bankrupting America.
Are these stories the exception, rather than the rule? Over 77,000 federal government employees earned more than the governor of their state.
On the federal level, it was just reported by USA Today that the average federal civil servant compensation is $123,049 per year.
That’s more than double what private sector workers earn (average of $61,051). Since 2000, federal government employee compensation has grown by 36.9% versus 8.8% for private sector employees.
In Las Vegas (Clark County) the average firefighter earns $199,678 per year.
When he retires at age 45 or 50, we owe his pension based on that obscene salary. But here’s the clincher –when he finally dies, the taxpayer has to continue paying the pension to his spouse. Add up the damage to the economy. It is catastrophic. Talk about a 1 per center — a single firefighter could retire with $8 to $10 million for not working for the rest of his life.
This is madness.
Now it’s true that policemen and firefighters are heroes. But they make up a small portion of government employees.
Recent studies prove the average janitor that works for government makes over $600,000 more in his career than a private sector janitor. Are janitors heroes too?
Again, this is madness.
Three stories on the same day in this past Sunday’s Las Vegas newspapers sum up this national outrage.
Let’s start with the Las Vegas teachers union. It was reported that more than a third of the union’s entire $4.1 million annual budget went to pay just nine union leaders.
The Teachers Union Executive Director received $632,546, while the CEO of the union-created Teachers Health Trust was paid $546,133.
So next time you hear educators scream that we must spend more money on education, because “it’s for the kids,†you’ll know the truth. It’s for the unions.
It’s always been for the unions.
Bernie Madoff has nothing on the government employee union scam.
Article number two in Sunday’s Las Vegas Review Journal was about those highly paid Las Vegas firefighters.
It turns out they weren’t satisfied with making almost $200,000 per year. They also abused sick leave, rigged work schedules to pump up their pensions, and appear to have engaged in widespread disability fraud.
About half of all Clark County firefighters retired with work-related injuries in recent years- garnering bonus payments averaging $320,000 apiece. That’s in addition to their obscene pensions for life.
Is this also “for the kids?â€
Article number three in Sunday’s paper was about a now retired Las Vegas homicide detective and possible police brutality. It had nothing to do with pensions. But interestingly, the retired homicide detective they quote in the story is 47 years old.
He’s 47 and already retired?
Want to bet that you and I are on the hook for $5 to $10 million in pension and health benefits from now until the day he dies- for not working. Is this also “for the kids?â€
I’ll say it one more time… this is madness.
These aren’t CEO types. These are average government employees retiring with the equivalent of $5 to $10 million. These are the true 1% privileged class that are bankrupting our country and destroying the once great U.S. economy.
Something is very wrong here.
No one has a right to complain about the high incomes of business owners in the private sector (the 1%). We rarely have pensions and our compensation doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime. We risk our own money to start our businesses and often work 16 hour days, weekends and holidays.
Yet for all that risk and hard work, do you know any small business owners who retire with $5 to $10 million? They are few and far between. But that’s exactly what a private sector employee would need in the bank on the day of his or her retirement to match the $100,000 per year pensions (plus health care benefits and cost of living increases) of government employees paid out over 30 to 50 years.
Keep in mind that government employees never risk a dollar of their own money. They have lifetime job security. And they rarely work beyond 9 to 5, let alone weekends or holidays.
Yet government employees are paid millions by taxpayers to retire early, often on pensions fattened by gaming the corrupt system.
They are the true 1%.
This is a national disgrace that is bankrupting America. The gall of this scam would make Bernie Madoff blush.
But hey…â€It’s for the kids!â€
Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee. He now serves as Chairman of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee. He is the best-selling author of “The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gold & Tax Cuts.†His web site: www.ROOTforAmerica.com. This article originally appeared on FoxNews.com and is republished with permission from the author.
Florida teacher unions oppose standardized tests
The Board of Education decided in an emergency meeting Tuesday to lower the passing grade on the writing portion of Florida’s standardized test after preliminary results showed a drastic drop in student passing scores.
The results indicated only about a third of students would pass this year’s tougher Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test exam, compared with a passing rate of 80 percent or more last year.
“They’ve asked students to do more, but that’s pretty dramatic,” said Florida Education Association spokesman Mark Pudlow. “We need to examine what led to this, not just paper over the problem.”
The results provide another opening to critics of high-stakes testing. The statewide teachers union has opposed Florida’s use of standardized tests to evaluate teachers and grade schools.
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The teacher’s union is for the teachers, not the students who really don’t matter to the union.
$15 K federal fine to school for soda bought after lunch makes no sense Soda pop OK if bought before lunch but a huge federal fine if purchased after lunch. This makes no sense except harassment sense.
Davis High School has been fined $15,000 after they were caught selling soda pop during lunch hour, which is a violation of federal law.
The federally mandated law prohibits the sale of carbonated beverages after lunch is served. The program is an effort to help fight childhood obesity and to have young students make better food choices.
The mandate allows for carbonated beverages to be sold before lunch, but restricts students from buying lunch, then purchasing carbonated drinks afterward.
“Before lunch you can come and buy a carbonated beverage. You can take it into the cafeteria and eat your lunch, but you can’t first go buy school lunch then come out in the hallway and buy a drink,†said Davis High Principal Dee Burton.
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“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”
Obama's meager record on the economy About Obama’s meager record defended mightily by talk show host Letterman.
In an interview with NBC News anchor Brian Williams, Letterman asked, “What more do we want this man [Obama] to do for us, honest to God?â€
Here’s how the folks at Commentary answered Letterman’s question:
For starters, something better than the weakest economic recovery in the modern era,
the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era,
the highest sustained unemployment rate since the Great Depression,
a housing crisis worse than the Great Depression,
unprecedented deficits and debt,
a standard of living that’s fallen longer and more steeply during the past three years than at any time since the government began recording it five decades ago,
a downgrade in the United States’ credit rating for the first time in history,
and a record number of people in poverty.
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None of this means anything to Letterman, the overpaid,ignoramus who pontificates nightly.
