Our #1 story points out the real ideologue in the country today are not on the right, but on the left. #2 is an explanation of why the youth vote is so unreliable. #3 is an excellent look at the Democrats and their opposition to voter ID checks. #4 is just another little bit of liberty that is being sucked away from us by the nanny state. #5 shows us a new kind of arithmetic, the kind they use in Washington to demonstrate how a 3% increase is a cut in spending. #6 and #7 are good news. It appears aspirin can help stop Cancer from spreading and it appears global warming is magically not happening.
1. Ideology vs Practicality
…Here’s pretty much all you need to know about Obamanomics: In 2011, the Obama White House suggested raising the top dividend tax rate to 20 percent from 15 percent. Keeping the dividend rate at a relatively low level, the White House said, “reduces the tax bias against equity investment and promotes a more efficient allocation of capital.” Makes sense, right? Basic economics.
Yet in his brand-new, 2013 budget, Obama calls for taxing dividends as ordinary income, essentially raising the top rate all the way to 39.6 percent. And then when you tack on the 3.8 percentage point Obamacare surtax — and an additional 1.2 percentage point itemized deduction phase-out for high-end taxpayers — the rate rises to 44.6 percent.
So apparently Obama is now in favor of a greater bias against equity investment (and in favor of debt) and promoting less efficient allocation of capital.
Liberals of late have been working round the clock to convince the country that the difference between liberalism and conservatism is that liberals follow the empirical evidence and conservatives mindlessly follow ideology. No one has done more to refute this than Obama himself. It began before he was even elected. In an April 2008 debate with Hillary Clinton, Obama made remarks that instantly became famous. Moderator Charlie Gibson asked Obama if history shows cutting capital gains taxes increases revenues and raising capital gains taxes decreases revenues–and Gibson read Obama the history of raising and cutting capital gains taxes to demonstrate this was so–would he still want to raise capital gains taxes?
“Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness,” Obama answered. That is, not only does the evidence against his plan not deter him from instituting it, but the facts were never even a part of the calculation. He was not concerned with economics or history; ideology was his only consideration….
The real ideologues are the left. As Ann Coulter said: “the history of liberalism consists of replacing things that work with things that sounded good on paper.”
2. The Youth Vote
For many, the 2008 election wasn’t just a victory for Democrats—it was also the long-awaited return of young adults to the voting booth. Now Obama supporters are hoping that, come Election Day 2012, young adults will once again turn out in droves. But 2008 probably didn’t signal a permanent resurgence of the youth vote. In fact, there are good reasons to believe that young people will vote in significantly lower numbers this time around.
It has long been a puzzle why so many young adults do not vote—and why their already low voting rate has generally fallen over the decades. In 1972, 53 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds went to the polls. By 2000, the figure had fallen to just 36 percent, a historic low. (In contrast, the voting rate among people aged 65 or older rose five percentage points during those years, to 68 percent.) There is no doubt that the Obama campaign of 2008 energized the under-30 crowd, boosting their voting rate to 46 percent. But even then, fewer than half of 18-to-29-year-olds went to the polls compared with more than two-thirds of people aged 65 or older, according to the Census Bureau.
So why don’t young adults vote? That’s a vexing question political campaigns have been asking for decades. The most likely answer is that young adults do not vote because many are still—in a sense—children, without adult commitments or responsibilities. The data suggest that three factors consistently make a difference in voting rates: money, marriage, and homeownership. Those are the adult commitments that give people a stake in society; to protect and expand their stake, they vote. Take a look at money and voting: The gap in voter participation between the highest and lowest income groups is a stunning 26 percentage points. For marriage and homeownership, the gaps are 16 to 17 percent.
Recent years have seen Americans in their twenties delay starting careers, getting married, and buying homes—and as the road to adulthood has lengthened, voting rates among the young have generally fallen (the notable exceptions are 2004 and 2008). Now, the bad economy is exacerbating these trends. For the nation’s young, the Great Recession has turned money, marriage, and homeownership into an impossible dream….
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/100774/young-voters-election-2012
This article is an interesting explanation as to the question of turnout by the young. In 2008, Obama benefited from a much larger turnout than normal but he was compared to a “rock star” which does cause young people to camp out for tickets for. Obama is no longer a rock star.
3. Why Do Democrats Want to Protect Voter Fraud?
Suffrage: A new study finds that nearly 2 million dead people remain on voter registration rolls. So tell us again why Democrats oppose voter ID laws that would help prevent these errant registrations from being exploited?
The Pew Center on the States study found that our country's voter registration system is "plagued with errors and inefficiencies." That's putting it mildly.
As many as 24 million registrations are invalid or contain significant errors, including almost 3 million who are registered in two or more states and 1.8 million dead people still listed as active voters….
….Just as important is how this flawed system highlights the need for tougher voter ID laws. After all, if 2 million dead people are on the active voter rolls, how difficult would it be to use those registrations to illicitly tip a close election?
Yet Democrats are pummeling states trying to impose picture ID laws to protect against this kind of fraud. They vetoed such laws in Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and North Carolina.
The Justice Department blocked South Carolina's new photo ID law. And NAACP President Benjamin Jealous attacked the reforms as "the greatest assault on voting rights ... since the dawn of Jim Crow."
Democrats make two bogus arguments. First, that ballot fraud isn't "widespread" enough to merit the new requirement, as though there's such a thing as a tolerable level of fraud. Second, that picture ID laws would suppress voter turnout among minorities.
In fact, states with picture ID laws go out of their way to make sure everyone who needs an ID can get one. Plus, turnout in Indiana and Georgia swelled after their laws went into effect, and the Supreme Court already ruled that picture ID laws don't infringe on anyone's right to vote.
Given this, it's hard to escape the conclusion that Democrats count on exploiting an inept and tattered registration system to help them win close elections. If that isn't the case, they should prove it by backing a reform that would do much to protect the sanctity of the ballot box.
http://news.investors.com/Article/601209/201202141851/voter-registration-flaws-expose-elections-to-fraud-.htm?src=IBDDAE
When this issue is brought up, the arguments used by the Democrats remind me of a magician who is trying to divert attention so he can work his magic. The third argument you get is that it costs money. I guess that is the one area besides military spending that the left is a deficit hawk.
4. Mom’s lunch doesn’t pass the test for HHS
A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.
The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day.
The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs — including in-home day care centers — to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.
When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones.
The girl’s mother — who said she wishes to remain anonymous to protect her daughter from retaliation — said she received a note from the school stating that students who did not bring a “healthy lunch” would be offered the missing portions, which could result in a fee from the cafeteria, in her case $1.25….
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/homemade-lunch-replaced-with-cafeteria-nuggets.html
The left isn’t stopping our freedom? LOL. That’s all they want to do.
5. Never Trust Government Numbers
President Obama said in his State of the Union speech, “We’ve already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings.”
That was reassuring.
The new budget he released this week promises $4 trillion in “deficit reduction” — about half in tax increases and half in spending cuts. But like most politicians, Obama misleads.
Cato Institute economist Dan Mitchell cut through the fog to get at the truth of the $2 trillion “cut.”
“We have a budget of, what, almost $4 trillion? So if we’re doing $2 trillion of cuts,” Mitchell said, “we’re cutting government in half. That sounds wonderful.”
But what the president was talking about is not even a cut. The politicians just agreed that over the next 10 years, instead of increasing spending by $9.48 trillion, they’d increase it by “just” $7.3 trillion. Calling that a “cut” is nonsense…
And in Obamaese a tax increase is paying your fair share, new spending is an investment normally to win the future. Language is something that doesn’t hold up well with politicians.
Good News!
6. Aspirin: Stopping the Spread of Cancer
THE humble painkiller aspirin could be the secret weapon to beat cancer after scientists discovered it can stop tumours spreading.
The revolutionary finding solves the mystery of how the over-the- counter wonder drug works to halt the disease in its tracks.
The breakthrough by experts in Australia will now pave the way for new treatments which may even help cure the disease for good.
Lead researcher Dr Tara Karnezis, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, said: “I hope this information is one bit of the puzzle that will lead to a cure for cancer.”
Aspirin, a non-steroid anti-inflammatory drug – or NSAID – has long been known to slash the death rates from a range of common cancers including those of the stomach and bowel, oesophagus, pancreas, lungs, prostate, bladder, breast and kidneys.
Now the Australian team have discovered that cancer tumours secrete proteins and compounds called growth factors. These attract blood and lymphatic vessels to their vicinity and allow the cancer to flourish and spread…
…The growth factors have also been shown to encourage these lymphatic vessels – or “supply lines” – to widen, allowing the spread of cancer.
But Dr Karnezis said NSAID drugs can stop this widening, therefore hindering the spread of the disease. She said: “A group of drugs reverse the widening of the supply line and make it hard for the tumour to spread. At the end of the day that’s what kills people….
Excuse me while I take my aspirin. This is terrific news and we all can hope that more is done about it. Go faster….
7. Snowfall over Sierras consistent for last 130 years
Snowfall in the Sierra Nevada has remained consistent for 130 years, with no evidence that anything has changed as a result of climate change, according to a study released Tuesday.
The analysis of snowfall data in the Sierra going back to 1878 found no more or less snow overall - a result that, on the surface, appears to contradict aspects of recent climate change models.
John Christy, the Alabama state climatologist who authored the study, said the amount of snow in the mountains has not decreased in the past 50 years, a period when greenhouse gases were supposed to have increased the effects of global warming.
The heaping piles of snow that fell in the Sierra last winter and the paltry amounts this year fall within the realm of normal weather variability, he concluded.
"The dramatic claims about snow disappearing in the Sierra just are not verified," said Christy, a climate change skeptic and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. "It looks like you're going to have snow for the foreseeable future." …
The alarmists don’t seem to be able to get a break. First we learn the glaciers in the Himalayas aren’t receding and now the snows in the Sierras haven’t changed.
