HEALTH CARE - AN EXPLANATION

Health Care – Interactive Video

http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/prescribed/?roi=echo3-16205873560-13600280-8155546e35a1b42a3995a40f0c1e10e6&mod=e2tw&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Wall Street Journal – 3 minutes

WSJ has posted an interactive video on line explaining ObamaCare and what its impacts might be on the insured and the uninsured.

 

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PUBLIC WORKERS MAKE MORE THAN PRIVATE SECTOR

WI Public sector workers earn nearly $12K more than private sector

http://watchdog.org/94453/wage-gauge-wis-public-sector-earns-nearly-12000-more-than-private-sector/

Wisconsin Reporter – M. D. Kttle – 7/9/2013

Click the link above for the entire article – it compares the public workers vs private workers in surrounding states. 

With federal, state and local governments paying out almost $1.5 trillion in employee compensation in 2012, the pay scale isn’t a trivial fact, Biggs and Richwine wrote.

The U.S. Census’ Survey of Income and Program Participation found the average federal worker shifting to a private sector job accepts a small salary reduction, about 3 percent. On the other side, private sector workers who move into federal jobs on average received a 9 percent pay hike in their first year on the job, “well above the raise other workers get when they switch jobs within the private sector,” Biggs and Richwine noted.

While the BLS wage data includes bonuses, stock options and vacation pay, it doesn’t factor in a big eventual income source in the public sector: The employee pension. Defined benefit plans are the domain of the public sector, and they can mean a lot of income down the road for the public employee.

The Congressional Budget Office, in a wage comparison of private sector and federal employees in similar occupations and with similar experience, found:

• Federal civilian workers with no more than a high school education earned about 21 percent more, on average, than similar workers in the private sector.

• Workers whose highest level of education was a bachelor’s degree earned roughly the same hourly wages, on average, in both the federal government and the private sector.

• Federal workers with a professional degree or doctorate earned about 23 percent less, on average, than their private-sector counterparts.

Factoring in employee benefits, the CBO found:

• Average benefits for federal workers with no more than a high school diploma were 72 percent higher than for their private-sector counterparts.

• Average benefits for federal workers whose education ended in a bachelor’s degree were 46 percent higher than for similar workers in the private sector.

• Workers with a professional degree or doctorate received roughly the same level of average benefits in both sectors.

Marty Beil, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 24, complained that the $90 million total raise for rank-and-file employees is a “token” raise.

“In dollar terms, the average Wisconsin state worker after Act 10 receives total compensation including benefits equal to $81,637 versus $67,068 for a similarly skilled private worker, a difference of $14,569,” according to AEI’s Biggs, the study’s author.

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IRISH LAWMAKER ON BARACK OBAMA

Obama ‘hypocrite of century’ video goes viral

http://www.wnd.com/2013/07/obama-hypocrite-of-century-speech-goes-viral/

WND – Joe Kovacs – 7/9/2013

ARTICLE AND 12-MINUTE VIDEO

A speech by an Irish lawmaker scorching Barack Obama as a “war criminal” and “hypocrite of the century” as well as lamenting the “unprecedented slobbering over the Obama family” has become a global sensation on YouTube, collecting well over a million views in just three weeks.

Clare Daly, a member of the United Left Alliance in Parliament representing Dublin North, went on a no-holds-barred mission to flay Obama following the conclusion of the G8 summit last month in Northern Ireland.

“Is this person going for the hypocrite of the century award?” Daly asked of Obama. “Because we have to call things by their right names, and the reality is that by any serious examination, this man is a war criminal.”

  

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FEDERAL GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS MAY COST $130 BILLION A YEAR

Obama’s planned 2013 regs would cost more than $130B, study says

http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/pending-regs/309797-obamas-planned-2013-regs-would-cost-over-130-billion-study-says#ixzz2YYu3AiKF

The Hill – Ben Goad – 7/9/2013

THIS IS A SUMMARY ARTICLE:

The Obama administration’s newly detailed rule-making agenda for the coming year would cost in excess of $130 billion to implement, according to a conservative-leaning group that tracks regulations.

The American Action Forum (AAF) review follows the administration’s belated release last week of its spring Unified Agenda, a document that is traditionally issued twice annually and contains updates for hundreds of rules in the pipelines at federal agencies.

Again this year, the administration plans to pump out many new rules in financial and healthcare sectors in accordance with the landmark Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law and Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Highlights from the Administration’s spring regulatory agenda

http://americanactionforum.org/topic/highlights-administration%E2%80%99s-spring-regulatory-agenda

American Action Forum - Sam Batkins – 7/8/2013

THIS IS THE ARTICLE REFERRED TO ABOVE:

July 2013 – June 2013 – click the list to see the proposed and final rules.  Note that many rules have no cost estimate, but you know who will eventually pay for them!

 
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MARXISM HAS INFILTRATED AMERICAN POLITICS – DUH!

 How much has Marxism infiltrated America and when did it start?

http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/07/how-much-has-marxism-infiltrated-america-and-when-did-it-start/

Freedom Outpost – Fred DeRuvo – 7/25/2013

Finally, we read the words of historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. He believes the CFR is a “front organization for the heart of the American Establishment.” [7]

We either have a shadow government or we do not. It’s that simple. It would seem that Marxists have had their fingers in the dealings of America since shortly after its inception. What is fascinating is that many of the same people who were part of Jimmy Carter’s administration were also part of Clinton’s and now Obama’s. Most of Obama’s advisors are members of the CFR. It’s simply a revolving door. These individuals are the ones who bring the agenda to fruition.

It’s very possible America has been moving toward Marxism since the days of Woodrow Wilson and possibly even before. It certainly seems as though Obama has shifted things into high gear.

We cannot undo the past. The most we can do is push back against Marxism’s continued infiltration of society.

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TERRY MCAULIFFE – GREEN TECH – CRONY “CAPITALISM”

BUILD THEN REBUILD THE SAME CAR - LOOK LIKE "YOU'RE WORKING"

It was all a show – four minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhjGb-P3-9s&feature=youtu.be

Whistle-blower speaks out against Terry McAuliffe's GreenTech and its questionable dealings with cash-for-visas on MWC-TV.

"We would stand over the car with tools in our hand and look like we were doing something to the car, but we wasn't doing anything," said the former employee.

U.S. CITIZENSHIP ON SALE FOR $500,000

81 INVEST IN GREEN TECH AUTOMOTIVE

McAuliffe company pressed Homeland official on 81 investor visas

http://watchdog.org/97533/mcauliffe-company-pressed-homeland-official-on-81-investor-visas/

Watch Dog – Tori Richards – 7/24/2013

Emails between Alejandro Mayorkas and attorneys working for GreenTech Automotive show the company pressed the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director to speed processing of 81 investor applications in a federal “cash-for-visas” program after each invested at least $500,000 in the hybrid car company.

The GreenTech controversy is magnified because of its many political connections to the federal government. It’s owned by Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, who announced his resignation as company chairman in April amidst an intense investigation by Watchdog. The company’s fundraising arm, Gulf Coast, is headed by Bill Clinton’s brother-in-law Anthony Rodham. USCIS authorized the company to solicit investors through the government’s EB-5 program, which awards visas to foreign

“Undue delay by USCIS in reviewing our (petitions) has jeopardized our marketing efforts, as prospective investors are reluctant to invest in GTA without seeing our petition approval record,” wrote Simone Williams.

A week later, Rodham followed with his own email, complaining that he was inundated with questions from the USCIS seeking additional information.

The legal database Lexis/Nexis shows GreenTech and Gulf Coast are related, sharing the same McLean, Va., address through February 2013.

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DETROIT AND OTHER BANKRUPT CITIES

Eight New cities on the verge of bankruptcy

http://moneymorning.com/2013/07/23/eight-new-cities-on-the-verge-of-bankruptcy/

Money Morning – Frank Marchant – 7/23/2013

 

Washington DC

Camden, NJ

Cincinnati, OH

San Diego, CA

San Jose, CA

San Francisco, CA

Los Angeles, CA

Baltimore, MD

City bankruptcies have the potential to roil municipal bond markets. Read what the Detroit bankruptcy means for municipal bonds.

 

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BENGHAZI INVESTIGATION DEMANDED BY SPECIAL FORCES VETERANS

Special Forces veterans, members of Congress demand special Benghazi investigation

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/23/Special-forces-veterans-members-of-Congress-join-together-in-effort-to-circumvent-Boehner-for-real-Benghazi-investigation

Breitbart – Matthew Boyle – 7/23/2013

Several members of Congress joined representatives of the special forces military veterans and grassroots organizations on Tuesday to launch an effort to force the House to have a thorough, public investigation into the terrorist attack at Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) has introduced legislation to create a special select committee to investigate both the terrorist attack and subsequent actions by President Barack Obama’s administration and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department. Wolf's bill has 161 co-sponsors. House GOP Leadership has not scheduled a vote on the bill. 

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) plans to harness the support for Wolf's bill into a "discharge petition" that would force a floor vote on the bill. The petition would need to be signed by 218 members of the House. 

“I’m going to describe what a discharge petition is because a lot of people have asked me questions exactly what it is,” Stockman said at the Tuesday press conference outside the U.S. Capitol building. “It’s to ask our leadership or actually demand from our leadership that we have a vote on Frank Wolf’s bill. [Wolf is] a congressman from Virginia who has a long history of being here and is articulate in demanding that we have an independent investigation.”

“We can’t be silent any more,” he said. “It’s been a year going by that we haven’t had justice. These folks demand justice. They cry out for justice. Silence is not an option any more. We’re going to challenge them. We’re going to have a discharge petition. I encourage you to contact your congressman to sign the discharge petition.” 

At the press conference, Brauer’s group unrolled an enormous scroll of a petition that includes the signatures of about a thousand special forces veterans joining the call for this investigation. “What you see on my left is a one of a kind. I don’t think it’s ever been done before: a four-foot-by-sixty-foot copy of the Special Operations Speaks petition that we sent to the House of Representatives on the Eighth of April asking for this select committee with subpoena power,” Brauer said. “The scroll is signed by nearly 1,000 special operations veterans, from the rank of Lieutenant General Three Stars down to every other rank you can imagine, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, all of them passionate about what we’re trying to do.”

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), a congressman who supports the discharge petition, said at the press conference that he was asked by a reporter recently about Benghazi: “Gee, that was so long ago. Do we really want to pursue this now?”

“I told the reporter that when I was a judge handling felony cases, I had defendants ask me that question – ‘that was so long ago, do we really need to get into all this now?’ I can tell you when the blood of American patriots cries out, when the blood of individuals who were sent there into harm’s way, knowing how dangerous it was in Benghazi, and especially two former SEALs who were even told to ‘Stand Down’ but they wouldn’t have it,” Gohmert said. “They went to save lives and that’s exactly what they did. They even recruited another State Department man, a former army ranger, to go up there on the rooftop with them. What they knew from the first moment mortars were fired was that this was an organized, well-prepared attack on our people. We need to get to the bottom of it. Their blood cries out for that.”

But today only one person really stands in the way of a full and public investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attack in Benghazi. It’s not President Obama. It’s really not even Hillary Rodham Clinton, or Eric Holder. That one person is none other than House Speaker John Boehner.”

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GOD BLESSED THE MENTOR WHO FOLLOWED HIM

Mentoring our Future Leaders

http://www.worldhistoryinstitute.com/2013/04/25/mentoring-our-future-leaders/

World History Institute – Dr. Marshall Foster - 4/25/2013

John Witherspoon, as the head of the College of New Jersey, became the teacher of those future leaders. He combined a deep faith in the Biblical Christianity of the Reformation with an understanding of how to apply that faith to every academic discipline, including nation-building.

During his tenure there were 478 graduates of his college. With only three professors including himself, John was able to mentor all who came to his school using the tutorial method in six academic fields. He was then able to preach to them each Sunday in the campus chapel. Until 1902, every President of Princeton was a minister. America’s youth were largely mentored by ministers like Witherspoon until the 20th century.

Of his graduates, at least 86 became active in civil government and included: one president (James Madison), one vice-president (Aaron Burr), 10 cabinet officers, 21 senators, 39 congressmen, 12 governors, a Supreme Court justice, and one attorney general.

Nearly one-fifth of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, one-sixth of the delegates of the Constitutional Convention, and one-fifth of the first Congress under the Constitution were graduates of the College of New Jersey. It can truly be said that John Witherspoon discipled his new nation by training the leaders, just as his ancestor John Knox had done in Scotland 200 years before.

Along with leading a college, and serving in the Presbyterian Church, Witherspoon threw his efforts into the political drive for freedom. He was elected to the Continental

Congress and sat on 100 different committees. As the debate over independence raged in Philadelphia on July 2, 1776, John stood to his feet and declared, “We are ripe for independence and in danger of becoming rotten for want of it, if we delay any longer!” He was the only formal minister to sign the Declaration of Independence (22 others had ministerial training.)

John Witherspoon was an indispensable leader used by God to help found this freest and most blessed of all nations. His words on the National Day of Prayer in 1776 still ring with the spiritual power of his relative, the fiery reformer of Scotland. “While we give praise to God, the supreme disposer of all events, for His interposition on our behalf, let us guard against the dangerous error of trusting in, or boasting of an arm of flesh [human power]…If your cause is just, if your principles are pure, and if you conduct is prudent, you need not fear the multitude of opposing hosts.”

  

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DID IRS SCANDAL ORIGINATE IN THE WHITE HOUSE?

When will Jeffrey Zients return from South Africa?

http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/23/when-will-jeffrey-zients-return-from-south-africa/

Daily Caller – Patrick Howley – 7/23/2013

Amid new revelations about the IRS targeting scandal, the Obama administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said Tuesday that former OMB head Jeffrey Zients’ extended absence from the United States is due to a family vacation.

OMB’s former leader Jeffrey Zients met at the White House with key figures at the Internal Revenue Service just before news broke that the IRS was targeting conservative nonprofit groups for abusive audits and delays.

Zients has still not returned from an overseas trip that began after his departure from the Obama administration in April, two weeks before the IRS scandal broke.

As The Daily Caller reported, Zients met with then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and Shulman’s political aide Jonathan Davis and spokesman Frank Keith at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House complex on April 24, 2012.

Only Zients, who was in charge of OMB at the time, and the three men from the IRS attended the meeting, according to White House visitor logs. Their appointment ended more than eight hours after it began, according to the logs.

The next day, April 25, the IRS’s chief counsel’s office — led by William Wilkins, who met with Obama at the White House that same week — sent Washington-based IRS officials “additional comments on the draft guidance.” These guidelines covered approving or denying tea party tax-exempt applications, according to a report on the IRS scandal compiled by Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George.

It remains unclear why Shulman’s political and press aides were present at the meeting.

After a Senate vote confirming his successor — Sylvia Mathews Burwell — Zients left his post at OMB on April 24, 2013.

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VOTER FRAUD LEADS TO JAIL TIME AND FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS

How to stop the next Melowese Richardson

http://www.truethevote.org/news/how-to-stop-the-next-melowese-richardson

True the Vote – Catherine Engelbrecht – 7/22/2013

America has three big problems that prevent us from improving the state of our elections: an apathetic electorate, a lax electoral process, and chronic political correctness.  Stated another way, most American voters don’t really value their vote.  This is evidenced by our abysmal rate of voter turnout.  In fact, our voter turnout rate ranks dead last when compared to any other industrialized nation in the world. 

When you don’t value something there’s no incentive to improve it; so there it sits, weaknesses plainly on display for the all the Meloweses of the world.  Increasingly lax standards in our election process inevitably produce increasingly unreliable results.  And the few conversations that are had about how to shore up these weaknesses are immediately seized upon by certain politicians and special interest groups as fuel to further divide us based on drummed up race and class based narratives, stifling communication and leading to further voter disconnect.  It’s a vicious cycle, but it can be fixed if citizens wake up, stand up, and refuse to settle for a broken system.

The first, easiest, most meaningful fix is to volunteer; to serve inside the polls, or help review absentee ballots, or help register voters.  A study conducted by Pew Research in 2008 showed that our country had only half the necessary number of election workers.  Since then things have only gone downhill.  Add to that the fact that the average volunteer is 72 years old

Does photo voter ID help prevent election fraud crimes?  Absolutely.  Are voter ID laws critically necessary?  Absolutely.  But they wouldn’t have stopped Melowese. Her crimes were made possible by gaining the absentee ballot system; yet another weak link in our elections. 

  

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WISCONSIN ABORTION FACILITIES – SHOULD THEY BE INSPECTED?

Wisconsin:  Advancing a culture of life – calling for inspection of all abortion facilities

http://blog.wifamilyaction.com/2013/07/17/wisconsin-advancing-a-culture-of-life-calling-for-inspection-of-all-abortion-facilities/

Wisconsin Family Voice – Julaine Appling – 7/17/2013

As the stories broke about the Kermit Gosnell abortion horror, one thing we learned was that the state of Pennsylvania had not inspected his abortion facility for seventeen years.  Considering this was a place that purported to be a “clinic” and claimed it dealt with “women’s health” and performed surgical procedures that generally required some form of anesthesia that seems to be an outrageous amount of time with no state inspection.

So, how long do you think it’s been since any of the four remaining Wisconsin abortion facilities have had an inspection?  Surely it can’t be as long as 17 years, can it?  The answer to that question is, who knows how long it has been?  Apparently, there are no records available that clearly tell us when any of these abortion facilities was last inspected.  As ridiculous as that may sound, it’s the truth.  And the bottom line is we have no idea what really goes on in those abortion places.

Rep. Andre Jacques, a Republican from De Pere. has authored Wisconsin’s personhood amendment.  This proposed legislation corrects a problem with Wisconsin’s constitution which, when written, used the word “born” in relationship to who qualifies to be the beneficiaries of human rights.  That means the preborn do not have even the most basic of human rights in Wisconsin, life.  The proposed amendment removes the word “born” and leaves just the word “people,” a term that is later in the amendment clearly declared to mean every human being at any stage of development.

This personhood amendment is designed to end abortion in Wisconsin.  

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CHURCH BY-LAWS - PROACTIVE STEPS TO TAKE

Seven things all churches should have in their bylaws

http://www.speakupmovement.org/Church/Content/userfiles/Resources/church_seven_bylaws.pdf

Speak Up Movement

Proactively protecting the Church’s right to be the Church

 

Alliance Defending Freedom prepared a five-page PDF for churches encouraging Churches to take proactive steps to define who they are, what they stand for, and church discipline.

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IRS SCANDAL – DID IT ORIGINATE IN THE WHITE HOUSE?

Jeffrey Zients is out of the country

http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/22/jeffrey-zients-is-out-of-the-country/

Daily Caller – Patrick Howley – 7/22/2013

Zients met with then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and Shulman’s political aide Jonathan Davis and spokesman Frank Keith at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House complex on April 24, 2012.

Only Zients, who was in charge of OMB at the time, and the three men from the IRS attended the meeting, according to White House visitor logs. Their meeting ran for just under eight and a half hours into the night, the logs reveal.

The next day, April 25, the IRS’s chief counsel’s office — led by William Wilkins, who met with Obama at the White House that same week — sent Washington-based IRS officials “additional comments on the draft guidance.” These guidelines covered approving or denying tea party tax-exempt applications, according to a report on the IRS scandal compiled by Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George.

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TRAYVON MARTIN, GEORGE ZIMMERMAN AND FACTS

The Lynching

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=56&load=8689

Afterburner – Bill Whittle – 7/19/2013

10 minutes

Bill Whittle gives Americans the facts that were ignored by “main stream media”.  Watch this to find out what journalists did not report regarding the recent trial of George Zimmerman.  What wasn't reported are called FACTS!

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MARK TWAIN: WHEN YOU REWARD SLOTHS, YOU GET MORE SLOTHS

Mark Twain on the Entitlement Mentality

http://patriotupdate.com/articles/mark-twain-on-the-entitlement-mentality/

Patriot Update - David L. Goetsch – 7/22/2013

In his autobiography Twain comments that “Any man who is satisfied to be fed by another man rather than by the honest sweat of his own brow should be shot.”  . . .  This situation should sound familiar to anyone aware of what has happened to America during the Obama administration.

Twain, never one to treat politicians gently, would have much to say about President Obama and so-called progressive liberals who not only condone the entitlement mentality, but promulgate it as a political strategy for gaining and retaining power. I am sure he would also have a word or two to say about Americans who think the government—that is to say the American taxpayer—owes them a living.  

Twain’s was a more self-reliant America in which those who were truly down on their luck looked to charity for help, not the government, and those who could work did.

Mark Twain and people of his era knew instinctively that to allow a man to live off the earnings of others was to rob that man of his dignity, ambition, and self-worth, not to mention robbing the giver of his hard-earned income. 

They also knew that when dealing with people you get more of what you reward. 

Reward sloth through government entitlements or any other means and you will get more sloth.   The entitlement mentality is more addictive than cocaine and it can spread faster than a virus.  Allow a man to get used to being idle and he will want to be idle forever.  Reward idleness with government entitlements and people will make a living from being idle.

People who will not exert even an ounce of initiative, drive, or energy to take care of themselves will exert enormous effort, motivation, and innovation when it comes to playing the system to get the most for doing the least.  These entitled individuals then sire large numbers of entitled youngsters—usually out of wedlock.

 

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FREE MARKETS GIVE BIRTH TO FREEDOM – NOT GOVERNMENT CONTROL

Why business matters:  Entrepreneurial Capitalism in the age of omniscient government

http://townhall.com/columnists/carlschramm/2013/07/22/why-business-matters-entrepreneurial-capitalism-in-the-age-of-omniscient-government-n1645925/page/full

Townhall – Carl Schramm – 7/22/2013

Fascinating speech given to graduating class of UC Davis to entrepreneurs:

To understand why business is so important to the American saga we should start at the beginning.  The Declaration of Independence announced that freedom was at the heart of the incomprehensible daring of those who started a revolution in a weak, loosely affiliated group of colonies against the strongest empire on Earth.  They wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”  It is clear that as the founders saw liberty it involved the freedom to determine how anyone could apply himself or herself to making a living, trading, making things, and inventing new products and ideas.  In many ways it was this quest for the freedom of individuals to advance their economic condition as they saw fit that required inventing a new country!

The protection of “business freedom” was even more important eleven years later when the Constitution was ratified.  Recall that the father of economics, Adam Smith, had written The Wealth of Nations in 1776, the same year as the Declaration.  Hamilton and Franklin understood Smith’s powerful argument that countries prosper when individuals operate in their own self-interest.  They saw, unlike Jefferson who believed that America’s experiment with democracy would only succeed if it formed itself as an agrarian utopia, that the idea of self-governance could succeed only if it showed that it produced expanding economic welfare for its citizens.  In its pre-constitutional years, the United States were flourishing because a diverse economic base was emerging that already revealed that freedom had unleashed new levels of human inventiveness. That the Constitution reflected the innovative potential of the new nation’s commercial life is evident in its unprecedented and explicit protection of new ideas as a form of individual property in its patent clause.

The emergence of revolutionary new businesses in the United States has had an enormous worldwide impact, raising living standards for billions.  The global impact of our innovations in computers, telecom, medicine and air conditioning, have had such unmitigated benefits that America should rightly think of itself in the terms President Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, urged when she called ours “the indispensable nation.”   American innovations such as the World Wide Web just might lead to the spread of participatory democracy itself.  FREE MARKETS REALLY DO BIRTH FREEDOM.

I want to emphasize that this is not a partisan observation on my part – it is entirely descriptive.  The reason I raise this question is my concern that when government intrudes upon our privacy, for whatever reason including security in an age of terrorism, there are economic consequences.  American capitalism depends of individual freedom.  With individual freedom comes the liberty to think “crazy” new thoughts about goods and services that have never been thought about before. Hamilton and Franklin saw the importance of keeping government small in just this context.  

In the end, the most disruptive part of entrepreneurship is the innovations that it begets.  It is precisely these disruptions that drive economic expansion, including the creation of most new jobs!  But for innovation to happen there must be unbridled individual freedom.

one of the glories of free-market capitalism is its vital ambiguity, its unpredictable nature, which will permit each of you and millions more like you to bring your quest for making something new or making something better or cheaper into a reality, a new product or service, a new company, that will benefit humankind.  But this freedom of action is inexorably linked to freedom of thought!  It is always going to be threatened by government advancing the idea that it can control the future and make it predictable, planned and free of economic danger.  

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DEMOCRATS AND UNIONS CAUSED DETROIT’S DOWNFALL

AMERICAN HISTORY HAPPENED IN DETROIT, MICHIGAN

Working man’s blues:  What democrats and unions have done to Detroit

http://washingtonexaminer.com/sean-higgins-what-democrats-and-unions-have-done-to-detroit/article/2533313

Washington Examiner – Sean Higgins – 7/21/2013

To the first African-American mayor of a major U.S. city, equating the police with criminals was a way of telling his overwhelmingly black constituency that he understood their concerns about police brutality and civil rights.

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To the city's white residents, it was a message that he placed those concerns above public safety and civil order. White flight, which began in the late '60s, accelerated.

In 1970, Detroit's population was 1.5 million. Forty-four percent was African-American, 54 percent was white. By 1990, the city's population had fallen to slightly more than 1 million, with African-Americans accounting for 78 percent and whites only 20 percent.

The population shift under Young cemented the Democratic Party's lock on the city. The labor organizer-turned-Democratic lawmaker would serve five terms, stepping down in 1993 at age 74 as his health worsened.

Detroit is now the most dangerous big city in America, according to FBI statistics, with a crime rate five times the national average.

The city's economy crumbled, too. Unemployment was 7.2 percent in 1970 but soared to 19.7 percent by 1990. Today it is a staggering 18.6 percent, far above the national rate of 7.6 percent.

What sets Detroit apart is that for five decades, sadly, only two hands were on Detroit's steering wheel -- those of Big Labor and the Democratic Party -- and they drove the city into the ditch. To understand why this happened, it's necessary to go back to a spring day in 1941.

 

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OBAMA’S "SON" TRAYVON'S TWEETS

Obama’s son:  20 disgusting tweets from Trayvon

http://clashdaily.com/2013/07/obamas-son-20-disgusting-tweets-from-trayvon/

Clash Daily – John Hawkins – 7/22/2013

John Hawkins, of RightWingNews.com, has plowed thru 150 pages of Trayvon’s Twitter account and grabbed twenty tweets from Trayvon that paint him as a misogynistic, weed smoking, thug. Here you go folks.  Not quite the sweet little child the lame stream media, Obama and various race-baiters have painted him to be, eh?

* WARNING: Rough language ahead.

 

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country - northwoodspatriotscomm@gmail.com

CLIMATE SCIENTISTS WON'T AGREE WITH OBAMA

Climate Depot Round Up of July 18, 2013 Senate Environment & Public Works Committee Global Warming Hearing:

http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/07/19/ouch-senate-global-warming-hearing-backfires-on-democrats-skeptics-roger-pielke-jr-totally-dismantled-warmism-scientifically-economically-rhetorically/

Climate Depot - Marc Morano 7/19/2013

Analysis: ‘Senate global warming hearing backfires on Democrats’ — ‘Skeptics & Roger Pielke Jr. totally dismantled warmism (scientifically, economically, rhetorically) at today’s Senate hearing’ (via JunkScience.com) 

‘Sen. Boxer’s Own Experts Contradict Obama on Climate Change’   – During Environment and Public Works hearings, Sen. David Vitter asked a panel of experts, including experts selected by Boxer, “Can any witnesses say they agree with Obama’s statement that warming has accelerated during the past 10 years?” For several seconds, nobody said a word.

After several seconds of deafening silence, global warming activist Heidi Cullen, who formerly served as a meteorologist for the Weather Channel, attempted to change the subject. Cullen said our focus should be on longer time periods rather than the 10-year period mentioned by Obama.

When pressed, however, she contradicted Obama’s central assertion and said warming has slowed, not accelerated.

Several minutes later, Sen. Jeff Sessions returned to the topic and sought additional clarity. Sessions recited Obama’s quote claiming accelerating global warming during the past 10 years and asked, “Do any of you support that quote?”

Again, a prolonged and deafening silence ensued. Neither Cullen nor any of the other experts on the panel spoke a word, not even in an attempt to change the subject.

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PRESIDENT OBAMA – LOOK AT ROME’S HISTORICAL FALL

Don’t be so arrogant, Mr. President

http://moneymorning.com/2013/07/22/dont-be-so-arrogant-mr-president/

Money Morning – Keith Fitz-Gerald – 7/22/2013

This is an interesting article – click to read the entire post – America’s leaders are doing many of the same things that lead to the eventual collapse of Rome.

America, like Rome, will cross the most dangerous lines once voters figure out that they can entitle themselves. You will go from a nation of makers to a nation of takers.

We learned the hard way as our treasury became a proxy for a handout. Our citizenship changed radically and so did our elections. Towards the end, our political process was not about who would build a better future for the Empire, but who would be least likely to take away the handouts.

Politicians who focus on surviving threats from each other lose sight of the nation they serve and their people.

One of our biggest challenges was the large rival factions operating outside the political structure to create controversy and misleading attacks on rivals. They were little more than privately funded corporations acting in the guise of public interest. Eventually, they split the people so effectively that everybody lost...any nobody won.

Our government became "at" the people instead of "for" the people; corruption became a way of life amongst our leaders.

This was particularly true when it came to stimulating the economy in an attempt to correct the progressively bad policies these actions created.

We repeatedly devalued our currencies swapping one for the other as values dropped. We printed money in the short term oblivious to the damage we were doing in the longer term.

The strongest years of our Empire were driven by the concept of a better future rather than merely by survival. Taxing our public enslaved them, creating what in the Middle Ages would come to be called serfdom.

When the cost of money is low, governments will waste it and businessmen will not invest.

READER COMMENT:  None of your analogies to the Roman Empire apply to a real example. Ancient Rome didn't certify its currency with the full faith of its government. Neither did the Weimar Republic. Nor present day Greece. In contrast, the USA holds several notes for outstanding foreign country debts to the USA that we can call at nytime we need them. Rome was a slaveocracy, a corrupt one, and not even a democracy for Roman citizens if the true history be known. Your historical analogy may be way off base, however your concerns for this country's currency are based in reality. Technological innovation, as well as innovative investment strategies, seem to be the best remedies, based on our industrial history.

 

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country - northwoodspatriotscomm@gmail.com