Progressives Win Again On CR : The Republicans & The People Lose Again

Is it possible for Republicans to find anything that is objectionable in the progressive democrat Continuing Resolution spending bill that they can agree to? Why is it that the Republicans have the control of the Senate and the House and yet the lose and lose and lose to the democrats!!??

Little wonder the approval rating for the Senate and House members is so low - the democrats are  driven soldiers of atrocious unscrupulous deceit, and the Republicans are hand winging, back peddling and abysmally unprincipled in their failure to do their job of protecting the needs of the people. All the Republicans seem to want to do is 'go along to get along'.

I wonder at what point will the Republicans find their collective spines to take a stand to stop the insanity the is progressive liberal socialism? Sadly so far there doesn't seem to be any limit to the acquiescence.

3 Reasons New Flint Spending Will Make Things Worse
Sondra Clark / @SondraClark / September 28, 2016    

Liberal lawmakers held a liberal spending bill hostage this week until the Republican-controlled Congress agreed to even more big government priorities.

Here’s what happened: For the past few weeks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., worked with Democrats to propose a 10-week government funding bill, commonly referred to as a continuing resolution. That bill failed to include countless conservative priorities.
It failed to keep spending levels within the reasonable levels set by the Budget Control Act.
It failed to protect life by opening the door for more taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood.
And it failed to do anything positive through the addition of conservative policy riders like stopping the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers transfer in the interest of protecting internet freedom, requiring a more stringent vetting process for refugees, or blocking the Labor Department’s new overtime rule.

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and his fellow Senate Democrats defeated a key procedural vote on this continuing resolution because it was not liberal enough—it did not include federal taxpayer money for the water problems in the city of Flint, Michigan.

With government funding set to expire at midnight Friday, House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi agreed to add $170 million in federal aid for Flint’s water issues in a water infrastructure bill that was under consideration in the House.
There are three major problems with the Flint spending bill:

1. It uses federal tax dollars for something that should be appropriated at the state level.
2. It authorizes federal dollars at a time when the nation is nearly $20 trillion in debt.
3. It sets the precedent of allowing liberal lawmakers to take bad spending bills hostage until they receive even more.

State, Not Federal Funding
State, not federal, funds and resources should be used to solve Flint’s crisis. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, made this point repeatedly when objecting to the inclusion of Flint spending in an earlier version of the Senate version of the Water Resources Development Act, speaking to The Daily Signal:

If we create a precedent that suggests any time there’s a significant problem with a locally operated utility that operates entirely intrastate, I would ask, where’s the stopping point? What’s the limit?

Unnecessarily Additions to National Debt
America’s spending is out of control. Every penny counts when our nation is nearly $20 trillion in debt. Earlier this year President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency for Flint, authorizing more than $80 million in aid to help in the cleanup effort.

There are additional funds built into the state budget to help provide for local clean up and rehabilitation. Flint has already squandered federal funding sources, as The Daily Signal reported earlier this year: “Michigan has squirreled away $386 million in an emergency fund and collected a $575 million surplus in 2015. Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, has already requested $200 million in relief funds from the state legislature for Flint.”

Bad Precedent for Capitulation
After Senate Democrats blocked the liberal continuing resolution, the Republican-controlled Congress could have moved forward with a conservative bill. Instead, Republican leaders looked at Reid, Pelosi, and Obama and asked which additional bad funding provisions should be added.
If these lawmakers won’t stand up for the principles of their constituents before an election, we shouldn’t expect them to in a post-election lame-duck session, either.

Tax Reform Proposals Examined : Republican & Progressive Democrat

Tax form is abut ideology. Who and what you believe has to dictate outcomes you want to see instituted and imposed on the population that furthers that ideology.

If you control the populations access to options as individuals to obtain prosperity and therefore the individual freedom to chose, the populations future will be in decline until pride in 'a job well down' is no longer a requirement for success.

All that will remain is capitulation to a centralized government that will do all things for all people.

The State of Tax Reform in 2016
Curtis Dubay / @CurtisDubay / September 27, 2016    

Tax reform remains a central issue in Washington because of its overwhelming necessity. Tax reform is badly needed to revive the slow-growing economy and increase job creation and wages for American families. The current tax system is a large weight holding the economy back from growing as strongly as it could, thereby suppressing opportunity for Americans at all income levels.

To free the economy to grow larger, tax reform must lower marginal tax rates for families, businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs. Lower rates would increase their incentives for working, saving, investing, and taking risks. These activities are the basic elements of economic growth. When more of them occur, the economy grows faster.

The right kind of tax reform also would need to eliminate the multiple layers of tax on saving and investment. The current system applies these multiple layers, raising the marginal tax rate on these economically crucial activities and consequently stunting job creation and wage growth.

Lastly, tax reform should make sure the tax code does not pick winners and losers in the marketplace.
The business side of the tax code is most badly in need of repair. The U.S. has the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world, as defined by the countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The U.S. is also one of only a few countries that taxes its businesses on their foreign income. Under the tax code’s cumbersome system of depreciation, businesses must deduct the cost of capital over many years.

Tax reform would need to abandon worldwide taxation and move to a territorial system of taxing only businesses on the income they earn domestically. It also would need to allow businesses to fully deduct, or expense, the cost of capital when they make such purchases. If Congress constructed a plan that adhered to these principles, it could increase economic growth by as much as 15 percent over 10 years.

To achieve these aims, conservatives generally favor a system that eliminates multiple levels of taxation levied on saving and investment, which can be accomplished through a consumption tax.

There are four ways to establish such a system:
• A flat fax, either the traditional method or a consumed income method.
• A national retail sales tax.
• A business transfer tax.
• A hybrid of these approaches.

House Republicans’ Tax Reform Plan
Whether tax reform becomes a reality depends on its status in Congress and whether the president has a plan and makes that plan a prominent part of his or her agenda. In the House of Representatives, Republicans released a tax reform blueprint earlier this year that adhered to many of the principles outlined above.
The blueprint would lower tax rates for everyone, reduce taxes on saving and investment, create a territorial system, and establish expensing. It also would abolish the estate tax, better known as the death tax. It could benefit, however, from a better treatment of interest.

House Republicans’ blueprint bodes well for tax reform. Should the House follow through and write a bill that follows the blueprint, it would create a tax plan that would grow the economy more than 9 percent over a decade.

Donald Trump’s Tax Reform Plan
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has a tax reform plan too. His plan would reduce rates for families to the same levels as the House blueprint. The Trump plan also would reduce rates on saving and investing. It would lower the rate for businesses to 15 percent, although it remains unclear to which businesses the rate applies. It would allow more businesses to expense their capital purchases. It would maintain a worldwide tax system. And it too would eliminate the death tax.

The plan is strongly pro-growth, although not as much so as the House blueprint. It would grow the economy between 6.9 percent and 8.2 percent, depending on how it treats pass-through businesses.
The Trump plan would benefit strongly from greater clarity on what tax rate pass-through businesses pay. The combined rate for C corporations, after accounting for the 15 percent corporate rate and the 20 percent capital gains rate, is 32 percent. The pass-through rate, if the 15 percent business rate does not apply to them, is 33 percent.

A separate rate for pass-throughs in the 25 percent range, such as the House blueprint calls for, could be an agreeable middle ground. The plan also could be improved by granting all businesses expensing and by moving to a territorial system.

The Trump plan would reduce revenues by between approximately $1 trillion and $2.5 trillion over 10 years, depending on the treatment of pass-through businesses, after accounting for the economic growth it would foster,  according to the Tax Foundation’s analysis. This is a reasonably-sized tax cut considering revenues are set to exceed their historical average as a share of the economy each year over the next decade.

Hillary Clinton’s Tax Hike
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton proposes several tax increases. A sample of them includes:

• A 4 percent surcharge on adjusted gross incomes (AGI) over $5 million.
• A 30 percent minimum tax for AGIs over $1 million (the so-called Buffett rule).
• Limiting the value of itemized deductions to 28 percent.
• Increasing capital gains tax rates.
• Capping the size of Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).
• Raising the death tax rate to 65 percent for estates over $1 billion and reducing the exemption amount from $5 million to $3.5 million per person.
• Assessing an exit tax on businesses that invert.

These assorted tax increases combined do not create a tax reform plan that will lessen the impediment the tax code creates for economic growth. Instead, the Clinton plan would hurt economic growth by reducing incentives for working, saving and investing, and taking risks. The death tax proposal would be particularly harmful. The confiscatory rate would strongly deter investment, reducing job creation and wage growth.

Tax Reform Hinge on Who Wins in November
Tax reform will have a chance of becoming law in 2017 because of the House’s commitment to it.
If Trump becomes president, he and the House can work to meld their plans. The prospects of a strong pro-growth plan in that scenario are high.
If Clinton becomes president, tax reform would become less likely. Instead, Congress would need to stop her desired tax increases, much as they worked against President Barack Obama’s tax hikes for many of his years in office.
That effort would deter time and focus from the primary goal of reforming the nation’s outdated tax code.

NAACP Fights To Destroy School Choice : Florida Black Woman Fights Back

If  black Americans wish to save their entire culture, as I'm sure they do, as this author so aply points out about the dishonorable behavior of the NAACP, they have to stop being political rubber stamps as a group for those that wish to do them harm by making them slaves again to the progressive socialist liberal ideology of destruction.

And it's not only the destruction of a culture, but the destruction of our entire civil society as it was birthed by our forefathers which resulted in our Constitution. This document has directed us for the last 240 years making us the greatest nation on earth, ever.

But now it is under assault by those that want to ''fundamentally transform'' the nation and our Constitution to better serve their personal beliefs as to how we must live our lives.

That the NAACP would side with those that defend, at all costs, a totally failing school system begs the organization has a new direction that was born of Martin Luther King himself to server the needs of the black population and for that matter all people of this nation, is being compromised for power rather then the interests of those in need. 


 You can ignore the obvious, but by doing so we all lose. The choice is yours. Stand now or for ever remain on your knees.

I’m a Black Woman Whose Relatives Fought for Civil Rights. I’m Disappointed in NAACP’s War on School Choice.
Virginia Walden Ford / September 28, 2016    

Thanks to a lawsuit, over 92,000 kids, many of them children of color, from low-income families are at risk to lose their privately funded scholarships to attend the private schools of their choice. And to add insult to injury, the NAACP is one of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit.

Last week, the Florida Education Association—the state’s largest teachers’ union—along with the Florida NAACP and other plaintiffs made a third attempt to challenge Florida’s tuition tax credit scholarship program, which allows individuals and companies to receive tax credits if they donate to a scholarship fund that helps low-income students attend the school of their choice.

After losing in trial court and then again in the 1st District Court of Appeals, the Florida Education Association and NAACP, along with other parties, appealed to the state Supreme Court on Sept. 14. Their lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the 15-year-old education choice program.

In January, over 10,000 people rallied in Tallahassee, Florida, in support of the scholarship program and heard Martin Luther King III declare that this fight “is about freedom—the freedom to choose for your family and your child.”

The NAACP, which was started to support the rights of black people, is now taking a position that, in my opinion, only hurts black children and other children of color’s chance of getting a quality education in this country through access to school choice. Involving itself in lawsuits against the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program seems counter to their mission.

I have been involved in advocating for school choice for the last 20 years and I still don’t understand why anyone, especially the NAACP, would oppose families having a choice in education. As a young mother raising kids in Washington, D.C., when I found my son failing in school and honestly needing to be in a different kind of educational environment, I had no choice but to continue sending him to a public school that was not in his best interest. Had it not been for the generosity of a neighbor who saw something special in my son and provided a scholarship for him to attend a school that better met his needs, I shudder to think where my son would be now.

Because of that scholarship, he was able to be successful and graduate and move forward with his life.  This is what I’ve seen over the years with the children who have had access to school choice, including public charter schools and private and public scholarship programs like the tuition tax credit scholarship program in Florida.

I’ve watched them succeed when most people expected them to fail. I’ve seen children go on to college when this possibility had never even been discussed with them. I’ve seen entire communities come out and support the families whose children were thriving in schools that their parents chose. It’s been incredible seeing low-income families obtaining the American dream because their children were able to obtain a quality education.

My cousin Rev. Joseph C. Crenchaw was a civil rights leader with the NAACP and the president of the Little Rock, Arkansas, chapter during the Little Rock Central High School crisis in the ’60s—a crisis about children of color having access to equal, quality education. My father, William Harry Fowler, was the first black assistant superintendent of the Little Rock School District and a member of the NAACP.

Both my cousin and my father were adamant about making sure black children were able to receive the best education possible. I was a beneficiary of that fight and attended Little Rock Central High School myself and know that it made a difference in my life and the lives of my classmates.
But now the NAACP, who fought so hard for us to get the education we deserved in the ’60s, is trying to make it harder for parents to make the same decisions our parents did then on behalf of their children.

Threats to school choice options like the Florida tuition tax credit scholarship program create unnecessary limitations for families who can’t get access to quality education simply because they live in the “wrong ZIP code” or don’t have resources to attend quality private schools.

This is exactly why I, and so many others, continue to fight for school choice options. When I look at the changes in the lives of the families I serve, I know that I will continue to do whatever I can do to empower them to determine the direction of their children’s future.

My hope is that the NAACP and other leaders in the African-American community who support these lawsuits in Florida will spend a moment talking to the parents and children who have been touched by school choice.

Ms Clinton (DNC) Directs Media : Media Falls Into Line

I wonder what else the democrat national committee(DNC) can do to prop up Ms Clinton as it's not only her history of decades long crime and pestilence, but literally have to prop her up as she will fall over on her face.

Her health is of no consequence.

But it's not really about her history or crime or her physical condition here, this is about getting Hillary into the White House, and after that the DNC won't care what happens to her.

If she can't perform as she is directed, she will be kicked to curb.

It is the White House that is important as they, the DNC can mode anyone to do the bidding of their collective.

Republicans Lose Again On CR : GOP Folds As Usual

What ever happened to representative government? Why does it seem not matter what the issue is, Republicans are always left holding the disgusting bags of excrement called a spending bills or budgets?

Is it just me or is it a fact that no matter how many Republicans are elected to congress, the democrats always seem to run the show. Many Republicans are always willing to give up their principles to be inclusive, included.  That is, they want to be liked and not have bad things said about them.  -  - sigh - -

GOP-Controlled Senate Passes Spending Bill Without Conservative Policy Riders
Philip Wegmann / @PhilipWegmann / September 28, 2016    

Three days before the federal government’s spending authority expired, the Senate advanced a 10-week continuing resolution by a 72-26 vote, putting spending on autopilot and avoiding a looming government shutdown.

The makeshift spending agreement allows lawmakers in the upper chamber to skip Capitol Hill for the campaign trail with barely a month before the November elections.   The package was scheduled for a 1 a.m. vote Thursday morning in the House and was expected to pass with Democrat support.
The stopgap measure freezes spending at the current $1.07 trillion level for 69 days until Dec. 9. That requires Congress to revisit the issue after the November election but before the next Congress convenes, during the so-called lame-duck session.

Though heralded by Senate leadership as a “clean” continuing resolution, the bill includes a $1.1 billion Zika aid package that would make Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, eligible for federal funding.

“This [continuing resolution] has plenty of so-called ‘policy riders,’ but only those that received the blessing of the select few who wrote the legislation,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said in a statement.
“So it includes a provision that will give Planned Parenthood a raise, but contains nothing to delay President Obama’s reckless plan to give countries like China, Russia, and Iran more control over the internet,” the Utah senator added, referring to the fact that the bill does not prevent the end of U.S. oversight of the internet, set for Oct. 1.

Earlier in the summer, Democrats thwarted three Republican efforts to pass Zika relief packages that prohibited Planned Parenthood from receiving funds. To appease the left and avoid a shutdown, Republicans stripped that language from the bill.

The bill amounts to an across-the-board loss for conservatives in both chambers who have called for lower spending levels and a number of policy riders for over a year. Republican Study Committee Chairman Bill Flores, R-Texas, and Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, originally opposed any funding bill that exceeded the $1.04 trillion spending limits established in the 2011 Budget Control Act.

Both conservatives conceded on that point, telling leadership they could swallow the higher $1.07 trillion spending level in exchange for policy riders that would require additional screening for Syrian refugees and prevent the White House from relinquishing control of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Neither policy rider was included in the Senate version of the spending bill.  “I understand that you can’t always get everything you want in a spending bill, but this CR [continuing resolution] ignores several essential issues,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told The Daily Signal Wednesday afternoon.
The legislation almost didn’t come to fruition though.

Tuesday afternoon Senate Democrats blocked similar legislation because it didn’t include emergency relief for Flint, the Michigan city with lead-poisoned water. Failing to win the 60 votes needed to pass, the bill fell 45-55, raising the possibility of a government shutdown.  

But Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., reached a deal in the House that saved the Senate legislation by tabling the Flint issue until after the election.
The deal requires the House to move an amendment to an infrastructure bill that authorizes $170 million in emergency spending to help relieve the city that’s endured lead in its drinking water since January 2016. The promised vote on the Flint measure will come after the election.

'Wage Gap' For Women Falling : Benefits Level the Field

Still it's not about what is right for the work place, or the wage gap that supposedly makes women earn less, it's the agenda of making women victims and therefore a prime candidates for exploitation by progressive socialists.

The So-Called ‘Wage Gap’ Is Going Down. And the Numbers Don’t Tell the Full Story.
Rachel Greszler / September 26, 2016

Time to change those outdated signs, ladies. It’s no longer the case that “women only make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men.” According to this year’s annual Census Bureau report, the incomplete “wage gap” figure shows women’s earnings relative to men’s rose for the third straight year in a row, from 77 percent in 2012 to 80 percent in 2015.

But don’t re-write your sign just yet. It turns out even that apparently modest gain in women’s earnings does not take into account the full picture. Let’s be realistic. While there probably is some gender-based discrimination that still exists in the workforce today, is it really possible that women who perform the exact same jobs as a men receive 20 percent smaller paychecks? Of course not. If that level of pay-based discrimination did exist, employers could make a killing by only hiring women.

Multiple economic studies have shown that most of the so-called wage gap can be eliminated through an apples-to-apples comparison of men’s and women’s wages. The topline Census figure looks only at the median wage of all full-time wage and salary workers. In other words, it doesn’t take into account differences in education, experience, occupation, hours or non-wage benefits.

Accounting for those differences reduces the gap to about 5 to 10 cents, and more difficult-to-quantify factors such as flexible work arrangements and greater fringe benefits likely account for some of the remaining gap. Instead of bemoaning the alleged existence of a wage gap, women should be celebrating their higher rates of income growth — due in part to women’s increased prevalence in typically male-dominated occupations — and the consequent decline in earnings differences.

Another area of celebration for women — and I speak largely from observation as opposed to hard data here — is the increasing flexibility and family-friendliness that women have brought to the workplace. Many women desire something different than the typical 9 – 5 job, and many employers have responded by creating more flexible jobs and work arrangements. Without this change, many women would not be able to participate in the labor force, and others would only be able to do so in limited ways, subject to more limited earnings.

Legislation aimed at reducing the so-called pay gap would artificially equalize wages and result in one-size-fits-all jobs that fly in the face of what women desire. Women don’t need legislation to prove their worth in the workplace.

Besides, it’s already illegal to discriminate against women — or any other group — in the workplace. Instead of pushing for new laws that would likely backfire, women should celebrate their ongoing gains in earnings as well as situational job changes that don’t affect their paychecks, but do have a profoundly positive impact on their quality of life.

New Zealand's Move Away From Subsides : It Worked!

This story of government getting out of the lives of it's citizens and the successs that it brings should be sounded in national media every day. Less government can make lives better.

But the problem is, the United States is headed in the wrong direction by electing progressive socialist that believe more government is what is needed to bring success and posterity to the population. And of course along with a bigger all powerful centralized government involvement also brings more corruption of what has make America great in the first place, personal freedom and the liberty to chose your own destiny is denied.

Of course there are many other distinctions between New Zealand and the Untied Stars that would making a subside free economy work here, and that's the size and diversity of our social and economic population that has been convinced taking responsibility for ones own actions is just to scary to contemplate.

Not with standing our the last 8 years of a compliant demand for obedience from the population to the 'new world order' of one size fits all, America will have to cast aside this ideology of social welfare as being necessary to bring the disadvantaged out of poverty at the expense of the productive, will in the end making a 'responsible' life without assistance impossible.

Still there is always hope we can mend our ways and see the light of feeling the pride of taking personal responsibility for ones success like the New Zealander framers.

As this article states, it wasn't easy to make the transition 'cold turkey' in New Zealand, and would be nearly impossible here to just cut off subsides cold turkey given how far we have fallen away from our roots. Still I believe pride and America's enthusiasm for personal success can win the day despite the power to control from government.

What Happened When New Zealand Got Rid of Government Subsidies for Farmers
Josh Siegel / @SiegelScribe / September 22, 2016

In 2006, Chris Hausman, a fourth-generation Midwestern farmer long accustomed to depending on government support for survival, traveled across the world to witness a revolution in agriculture.
It had been more than 20 years since a left-leaning government in New Zealand chose to eliminate government subsidies for farmers, and Hausman was surprised at what had transpired since. “I will tell you it was a shock to their agricultural system,” says Hausman, 58, who farms corn and soybeans on a 1,500-acre plot 150 miles south of Chicago.

“You had a system dictated by government programs that was thrown out the window overnight,” Hausman adds in a recent interview with The Daily Signal. “But the farmers kind of reinvented themselves and now New Zealand is a powerhouse when it comes to agricultural production on the world stage.”

Hausman, like others in the industry, is careful not to equate New Zealand’s experience with what could happen in the U.S. He is thankful for federally subsidized crop insurance that his government provides. But those who participated in this small island nation’s grand farming experiment hold it up as a valuable case study for policymakers worldwide.

“Every country is different—that’s an important caveat to put on the conversation,” said Mike Petersen, New Zealand’s special agricultural trade envoy, during an event last week at The Heritage Foundation. “But what I can say is that we did start an incredible process of innovation, guts, and determination from those people who really wanted to make this work.”

‘Drastic Action’
New Zealand’s jump to a handout-free policy for agriculture was born out of necessity. Facing a budget crisis in 1984, the incoming Labour government took the first step in implementing a long list of market reforms when it eliminated about 30 different agricultural production subsidies and export incentives. “I’ve talked to diplomats serving New Zealand at that time, and they were paying the country’s expenses on personal credit cards,” says Petersen, who is a practicing farmer in Waipukurau and not considered a government official. “The government at that time had to take drastic action, and they looked at the pieces they thought would be easiest and quickest.”
But this was no small decision.

New Zealand’s economy is more dependant on agriculture than the U.S. economy is. New Zealand is a country of about 4.6 million people without much of a domestic market for products such as milk, meat, and wool. However, New Zealand produces enough food for 40 million people, Petersen says, and, unlike the U.S., exports about 90 percent of its production. Officials predicted at the time that the complete and sudden cutoff of government aid—without much of a support system to ease the transition—would cause a mass exodus of farmers walking off their land.

“There was minimal financial assistance from the New Zealand government to assist farmers making the transition to an unsupported market,” says Nick Clark, general policy manager of the Federated Farmers of New Zealand.

In response to emailed questions from The Daily Signal, Clark says the government provided a “exit grant” to farmers who wanted to leave their jobs, amounting to about two-thirds of their previous annual income. In addition, he says, low-income farmers were entitled to social welfare support.
The government also contributed funding to a trust established to advise farmers on whether it made financial sense to stay in business. “Overall, though, there was no substantive government effort to soften the effect of change,” Clark says.

By 1987, falling commodity prices and rising costs depressed incomes and exacerbated the debt problems of many farmers, who already were paying high interest rates due to inflation.

The price of land, which had been “artificially inflated due to subsides,” Clark says, plummeted.
Still, the sudden removal of government support had less impact than expected. Only about 800 farms, or about 1 percent of total farms at that time, took the exit grant, he says. Much of the dislocation happened in rural communities, some of which made sure to expose their pain to the government.

Maurice McTigue, a member of New Zealand’s parliament in the 1980s, recalled in an interview with The Daily Signal that thousands of farmers protested on the capital, Wellington, cutting sheep loose on government property to make a point. The decision to embrace dramatic change was personal for McTigue and others in government. About 40 percent of the members of parliament were farmers, including himself, McTigue says.

“I’ve got bruises and bumps still to show from it,” says McTigue, now vice president of outreach at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, a research organization that describes itself as bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. “It’s easy to look back at it and say this was a good decision and farming benefited, but to actually live through it was a very difficult experience,” McTigue says.

‘How Good They Are’
Today, New Zealand’s farmers are some of the world’s most productive and innovative. Removing government assistance completely, New Zealand officials say, freed farmers to produce what people really want, and to do so in an efficient way that could turn a profit. Since the reforms, New Zealand farmers have cut costs, diversified their land use, and developed new products, Clark says.

Additionally, productivity in agriculture has grown faster than the New Zealand economy as a whole.
“Having been through pain, we can say going cold turkey was the right thing—although frankly I don’t think any other country would do that and I wouldn’t expect them to either, because the social pain would be too much to bear,” Petersen says. “But here, we’ve developed a newfound sense of resourcefulness that has encouraged farmers to look after their own interests. For many farmers, I think they underestimate just how good they are, just how successful they can be without government support.”

The New Zealand government has encouraged innovation, enacting legislation allowing groups representing different agricultural sectors to vote every six years on whether their members want to pay a levy to fund research and development. New Zealand’s dairy farmers today produce 2,200 products from milk, compared to about 35 before the reforms, McTigue says, including antibody milk and chocolate cheese.

The country also has a thriving wine industry that barely existed prior to the reforms. Despite these successes, New Zealand’s dairy industry has experienced tough times in the last three years, as farmers face persistently low milk prices.

While the lessons America can learn from New Zealand are debatable, New Zealanders seem to know what they want. “In our experience, farmers do not want subsidies back,” says Clark, the Federated Farmers of New Zealand official. “Most farmers want government out of their lives and do not want to be beholden to it.”

Petersen frequently travels the world to tell the New Zealand story—and to advocate free trade. Though he claims not to be comfortable making policy recommendations, he says he has an obligation to share his country’s successes. “The reality is the demand for food in the world, particularly for high quality food we can produce, is growing like never before,” Petersen says. “We have a responsibility to see if we can encourage production of food as efficient as possible for the sake of the world and its future.”

Virginia Noncitizens Voting by The Hundreds : Democrats Stonewalling Law Suits

The un-natural law for elections for democrats is, if you can't cheat we can't win. Of course, Virginia's stonewalling the release of information is a piker operation when it comes to voter fraud and intimidation like what transpired in Wisconsin. Democrats used SWAT teams in the middle of the night raids attacking Conservative families and children under a unscrupulous and immoral law called a ''John Doe'' law.

The Milwaukee DA's actions, John Chisholm, a democrat, would have made Marx and or Stalin proud! For John Chisholm, the Constitution and the First Amendment is something that you show total contempt for. 

But know this, he's just the new face of the democrat collective. There are no limits to what they will do to win.

Hundreds of Noncitizens on Voting Rolls in Swing State of Virginia
Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH / September 26, 2016    

The 2012 presidential race in Virginia was decided by just 3 percentage points, as was the next year’s race for governor. In both 2005 and 2013, fewer than 1,000 votes decided contests for Virginia attorney general. Against this backdrop, watchdog groups have pushed local election officials in seven Virginia jurisdictions to reveal hundreds of noncitizens who are registered to vote. So far, they have found more than 550. Potentially more could be found on the voters rolls, as the Public Interest Legal Foundation pursues a total of 20 counties and cities in the Old Dominion—a sampling of its 95 counties and 38 independent cities.

However, leaders of the group say the Virginia State Board of Elections has resisted release of information on ineligible voters.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation represents the Virginia Voters Alliance in a lawsuit filed earlier this year against the city of Alexandria. The city prompted its suspicion after the alliance  determined that more people were registered to vote in the city than eligible voters who lived there, said Noel Johnson, litigation counsel for the legal foundation. “These records that we are trying to get should all be available through the National Voter Registration Act,” Johnson told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “Every ineligible voter on the rolls could end up being an eligible vote that cancels out the vote of other, eligible voters. So these are high stakes.”

In most cases, Johnson said, counties respond by saying the Virginia State Board of Elections informed them not to provide information about noncitizens who are registered to vote.
Alexandria General Registrar Anna Leider, who is in charge of elections and voter registration there, said the city’s reading of Census Bureau information showed the number of voting-age adults surpassed the number of registered voters. So, city officials disagreed with the Virginia Voters Alliance on that point, she said. “We provided them with all of the information they have requested,” Leider told The Daily Signal in a phone interview, referring to the alliance. In Alexandria, election officials have removed 70 noncitizens from the voter rolls since January 2012, Leider said.
Separate from the Alexandria lawsuit, the legal foundation obtained voter information from seven of the 20 counties it is investigating.

Of the data available, the largest number of noncitizens registered to vote was in Prince William County, about 400 since 2011, before officials removed them from the rolls, Johnson said.
Other jurisdictions providing information to the Public Interest Legal Foundation were the city of Fairfax and the counties of Bedford, Hanover, Roanoke, and Stafford, which combined had about 150 noncitizens registered to vote.

Virginia has moved from being a reliably Republican state in presidential elections to twice voting for President Barack Obama. This shift has prompted Democrats and Republicans to contest it as a swing state. In June, U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia, who was appointed by resident Bill Clinton, dismissed the Virginia Voters Alliance lawsuit against Alexandria.

The lawsuit argued that Leider, the registrar, violated the National Voter Registration Act by not releasing records about city procedures for maintaining voter rolls, which the group said should be available for public inspection under the federal voter registration law. The alliance also asked that the rolls be cleaned up, in compliance with that law.

Martin Mash, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Elections, the agency supervised by the Board of Elections, at first told The Daily Signal that the department wouldn’t comment on pending litigation. When The Daily Signal noted that the lawsuit had been dismissed, Mash again declined to comment. He referred questions on the matter to the office of Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, which did not respond to phone and email inquiries. Herring is a Democrat.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation also has sought to know if these noncitizens voted in past elections, but said local governments haven’t provided the information. “That is not done for any canceled voter registration, not for deceased [voters], not for people who have moved out of the state,” Leider said. “Past activity is not something we routinely check.”

It is a federal crime and a violation of Virginia law for noncitizens to vote.

The federal penalty for an ineligible voter found to have cast a vote could be a fine or imprisonment for no more than one year. Under Virginia law, it is a Class 6 felony for an ineligible voter to vote, punishable by not less than one year of imprisonment and not more than five years “We have had conversations with the [Alexandria] commonwealth’s attorney, but those conversations are between us and the commonwealth’s attorney,” Leider said.

In Virginia, a commonwealth’s attorney is equivalent to a district attorney or local prosecutor.
The federal voter registration law requires state and local election officials to “make available for public inspection and, where available, photocopying at a reasonable cost, all records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters.”

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow with The Heritage Foundation, is a former member of both the election board in Fairfax County, Virginia, and the Federal Election Commission.
“Not a single one of those noncitizens, who committed a felony under federal law, has been prosecuted,” von Spakovsky said at a forum on voter fraud at The Heritage Foundation, referring to the findings of the legal foundation. “In fact, there is no indication that any of this information was ever turned over to law enforcement officials for investigation or prosecution.”

Von Spakovsky recently wrote that the Virginia State Board of Elections was engaged in a “cover-up”:

Numerous other Virginia counties have refused to provide this information to the Public Interest Legal Foundation, apparently based on instructions from the State Board of Elections and individuals working for the state Department of Elections, which the board supervises. This is what a cover-up directed by state election officials looks like. They are trying to hide hundreds, if not thousands, of instances of voter fraud that occurred on their watch.
If thousands of aliens are registered or actually voting, it would obviously undermine the national narrative that voter fraud is a myth. This would be particularly disturbing in a state like Virginia, in which statewide elections for attorney general have been decided by fewer than 1,000 votes in the last decade.

Who IS Hillary Clinton? : She Has A History!

I think this has been around awhile, but it still resonates a message that has been recorded by several different people that seem to have some inside knowledge of just who and what Hillary Clinton is. One of the authors was a Secret Service agent that has direct contact with Ms Clinton.

This specific note, of course, has not been sourced for any specific author, but given the number of times this same message has made the rounds explaining the volatility of Ms Clinton, one begins to understand, and with good reason, she isn't a good person to represent our nation or be commander and chief.

Old saying of "Don't trust anyone who doesn't love dogs" is good enough for me. Or a good judge of a person is how they treat their support staff. Helps to separate people with class from the white trash. 

 

 Eric Bonner, a military K9 handler, posted the following on his Facebook page. His comments have gone viral. His military working dog, “Suli,” sniffs for bombs.  

"I’m not voting for Clinton. It has nothing to do with her views. It really doesn’t even matter about all the laws she broke. It’s because she actually talked to me once! Almost a sentence.

Being a K9 handler in the military, I got to do a few details involving distinguished visitors... mostly Generals, DOD officials and Secretaries of Defense. I was lucky enough to pull two awesome details... Presidents George W. Bush and Obama.

GWB looked at me and smiled, then he said, “Man, who would piss you off?” Then he high-fived me and continued on. I was climbing down from a catwalk I had stood on for 4 hours with nothing but dust and a radio to keep me company. The radio died early on. It was pretty sweet.

Barack Obama, as he was walking out to his plane in Turkey, said to me, “What the hell kind of dog is that?” in reference to Suli.

One of my last details was for Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State. She was in Turkey for whatever reason. I helped with bomb sweeps of her DV Quarters and staff vehicles. Her only words to me were, “Get that f---ing dog away from me!”

Then she turned to her security detail and berated them up and down about why that dog was in her quarters. For the next 20 minutes while I sat there waiting to be released, she laid into them, slamming the door in their faces when she was done. The security detail lead guy walked over to apologize and released me. I apologized to him for getting him in trouble. His reply was, “Happens every day, brother!”

 

Hillary Voter Mum On Accomplishments : Well, I'm Just A Democrat!

Okay, explain for me what is it about Hillary that makes you want to vote for her?

What? I can't hear you.

Has America Been Transformed? : Millions of Citizens Willingly Accept?

How cool is this - someone actually deciding to take action to save out country. But sadly, given how bad Mr Ogbjma's religious jihad for his fundamentalist transformation of our society has been effective, little is left to understand our country has forever been changed.

But where millions of citizens are unaware, fooled as they have been chained and forced to their collective knees accepting a promised government security blanket of welfare of all kinds. And at the same time, all the while the treansformation is taking place, Mr Ogbjma smiles telling us how he fixed all of Americas problem, our country continues into increased civil chaos.

Everything is going well Mr Ogbjma explains. He says all you have to do is believe he is telling the truth.

Home Schooling IS Working : Ed. Secretary In Denial

The attack on home schooling is just another tool that the teachers union and the national educational organizations use to demonize them like they do Charter schools and vouchers to aid in the education of the young.

It's unacceptable to the unions and others that rely on massive organizations like the National Education Association(NEA) to make the important decisions that guide the nations schools and the process for education, to allow individuals to take this responsibility away from them. Having the federal government and huge money and power driven organizations do the thinking for the individuals, parents is why the people are angry with the status quo.

Maybe this is why the public school system is failing, and therefore the people have decided to get a good education for the children they will do the heavy lifting and educate their kids themselves. That the home schooling is working and working well, along with Charter schools has the public school system that is failing scared their grip on the money and control is slipping away.

What Obama’s Education Secretary Got Wrong About Homeschoolers
Lindsey Burke / @lindseymburke / September 21, 2016    

Homeschooling has been growing in popularity in recent years, and now accounts for about 3.4 percent of the school-age population. That’s more than double the percentage (1.7 percent) of homeschooling families in 1999. That’s great news for families who have chosen to give a customized, tailor-made education to their children, and for the millions of families across the country whose children are thriving as a result of choosing to homeschool.

Yet, in remarks Wednesday to reporters at a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor, Education Secretary John King—although he conceded that there are homeschooling families who are doing well—told the audience he worries that homeschooled students aren’t “getting the range of options that are good for all kids.” According to Politico:

King said he worries that ‘students who are homeschooled are not getting kind of the rapid instructional experience they would get in school’—unless parents are “very intentional about it”.
King said the school experience includes building relationships with peers, teachers and mentors—elements which are difficult to achieve in homeschooling, he said, unless parents focus on it.

King’s statement that he is concerned that homeschooled students are not getting the “rapid instructional experience they would get in school” is problematic on several fronts.
First, it assumes homeschooled students are not in school. As Milton Friedman famously quipped in “Free to Choose,” “not all ‘schooling’ is education and not all ‘education’ is schooling.”

Many homeschooled students attend some of the most rigorous and intellectually challenging schooling there is. Many families pursue a rigorous classical curriculum. Others choose to homeschool because their children wanted more challenging options than their assigned public school provided.

Research suggests homeschooled students are better prepared for college. Colleges likes Hillsdale and Grove City have become renowned for their rigor and high proportion of homeschooled matriculates. Contrary to King’s analysis, homeschooled students are in “school,” and they’re doing great. Second, let’s examine what King refers to as the “rapid instructional experience” students receive in the aggregate in K-12 education today.

According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, administered by the U.S. Department of Education, just one-third of all eighth-graders in public schools can read proficiently. Roughly two out of 10 students don’t graduate high school at all. The United States ranks in the middle of the pack on international assessments such as the Program for International Student Assessment.

In short: There is significant room for improvement in the traditional public education system. Third, homeschooling families have amazing networks to ensure children build relationships with peers and mentors—another concern of King’s. Homeschooling co-ops and sports leagues are just a few examples. And homeschool networking is becoming more sophisticated.

Former quarterback Tim Tebow was able to play football as a homeschooled student in Florida because the state allows homeschooled students to play on public school sports teams. Tebow went on to become the first homeschooled student to win the coveted Heisman Trophy.

The ubiquity of the internet means parents who homeschool have a wide world of academic content available at their fingertips, including everything from online college prep courses to computer coding academies, as well as a means of connecting with other homeschooling families.

One of the catalysts behind the growth in homeschooling is a sense among many parents that public education is not meeting the needs of their children.

Recent federal efforts to establish national standards and tests through Common Core have heightened concerns among many parents that they no longer have a seat at the table when it comes to what is taught in their child’s public school. And math and English language arts scholars have repeatedly voiced concerns that Common Core fails to prepare students for college.

Government education bureaucrats are right to worry about homeschooling—but not for the reasons King set forth. It is more likely they are worried that parents—whether empowered to homeschool or to select from the some 59 education choice programs now in place—will choose something other than a government education provider.

Connecticut's Financial Spirial Into Detroit : Tax Everything for Everyone

A poster child for a progressive agenda where the people are seen as puppets on a string where government officials are making them dance to the demand for more social programs and projects that feed on themselves for ever more tax dollars.

The spending of tax dollar at the state or federal level to solidity the politicians desires for reelection and the never ending need to project an image of the socialist agenda of providing everything for everyone as a workable solution to problems, is a self fulfilling nightmare that leads to corruption of the system and ultimately collapse.

As this article so vividly points out, Connecticut is rapidly becoming Detroit, a 60 year history of progressive socialist liberal democrat corruption of public policy resulting in moral and financial disaster.

What Happened After This Blue State Introduced an Income Tax to Balance Its Budget
Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH / September 16, 2016

In 1991, Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker decried the state’s “orgies of spending,” and said his income tax proposal—which would include fiscal discipline—would balance the books.

Connecticut recently marked the 25th anniversary of the income tax, which has resulted in little to no spending restraint. State spending grew 71 percent faster than inflation from 1991 to 2014 and most of that went toward debt services payments and state employee benefits—which combined grew 174 percent over the rate of inflation, according to a report by the Yankee Institute for Public Policy, a Connecticut think tank. The tax has raised $126 billion in revenue for the state.

Weicker, a one time Republican senator who won the 1990s governor’s race as an independent, was praised by the left and won the Profiles in Courage Award in 1992 from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. However, even Weicker publicly said the state didn’t remain in strong shape, but he blamed the state Legislature and his successors, former Gov. John G. Rowland and current Gov. Dan Malloy, for lack of fiscal discipline.

“After I became governor and we enacted the income tax, the state was in the black,” Weicker told WTNH of New Haven last month. “All of those who cursed me, including … the representatives, John Rowland, everybody went ahead and spent all the money … When Dan Malloy became governor, they kept on spending and then they were right back in the red, which is where we were back in 1990.”

Part of Weicker’s reform was a state constitutional spending cap that passed with 80 percent of the vote in 1992. However, the spending cap was never procedurally implemented by the Legislature.
After public pressure prompted in part by the anniversary, a bipartisan commission of state lawmakers is working on the implementation of the spending cap. Before the income tax, Connecticut had a competitive advantage to other states in the region, said Yankee Institute spokesman Zachary Janowski.

“The state of Connecticut had a very volatile tax base in the 1980s and the gamble stopped paying off,” Janowski told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “The state could have made reforms to government or raise taxes. They chose to raise taxes. The tax advantage Connecticut once had with neighboring states is now a tax disadvantage. This was sold as if it would solve the problem. Gov. Weicker said this time it would be different.”

According to the Tax Foundation, 43 states impose individual income taxes on resident. Of those, 41 tax wage and salary income, while New Hampshire and Tennessee exclusively tax dividend and interest income. Seven states have no income tax at all. “If income taxes were part of an overall well designed tax structure, they could be more effective and more pro-growth,” Jared Walczak, policy analyst with the Center for State Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “But many states lean on the revenue from an income tax will can discourage labor, drive down wages, and drive business to relocate.”

Dependency on the income tax revenue is a significant problem for Connecticut, the Yankee Institute report says. “In 2014, because the income tax accounted for 54 percent of tax revenue, even moderate fluctuations cause significant disruption to the budget,” the report says. “By 2002, the income tax overtook the sales tax as the primary source of state revenue. When the 2001 recession struck, revenue from the income tax fell by 14 percent, whereas sales tax revenue fell at half that rate. In 2009, the Great Recession had a similar result.

In both cases, the majority of the revenue lost compared to the previous year can be attributed to the large drops in income tax revenue.”

Connecticut’s income tax rate isn’t as high as some nearby states, such as Maine, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont, which have income tax rates of between 7 percent and 8.5 percent.
Some of the higher taxes in nearby states is all Connecticut has going for it, said Curtis Dubay, research fellow for taxes and economic policy with The Heritage Foundation.

“The income tax has led to a big expansion [of] state government, it wasn’t used to pay for existing spending,” Dubay told The Daily Signal. “The bottom line is that it was the wrong decision for the state that is bleeding talent and companies. It’s leading Connecticut into a Detroit-style death spiral.”
The Hartford Courant said, “Overall, Connecticut had the second-highest income tax per capita, at $2,161 from every man, woman and child, just $25 less per capita than New York.” The state’s largest newspaper editorialized, “the state is utterly dependent on the tax … In 1991-92, the state budget was $7.6 billion. This year, it’s $19.76 billion.”

In the 1980s, Connecticut attracted northeasterners with a relatively tax-friendly environment, relying primarily on corporate and capital gains taxes that could be volatile with the economy. However, after the new revenue from the income tax, spending increases began. Behind debt payments and public employee costs, prisons and corrections was the next biggest cost. The next biggest cost was welfare programs, according to the Yankee Institute report.

Major Media Is A Closed Advocacy : Inbreed, Committed And Corrupt

Isn't this just what you wanted to see and understand on a Monday. What a way to begin the week to be remained that the progressives are everywhere and coordinated in the defeat of the very institutions that a majority of Americans believe are theirs by right.

How foolish is that?

In reality, the rights guaranteed by our Constitution under the first amendment, in this case freedom of the press, is prostituted by the progressive liberal democrats to gain control of all information that is available to the general public, it is inbreed and ceases to be free of influence. But it doesn't end here.

If you have been awake over the last 8 years, and have had independent information about how Face Book, Yahoo News, Google and others have used their 'private' enterprises to 'weight' information that is contained in their social media outlets to side with the progressives in this apparent coordinated effort, along with nearly all federal government agencies and departments, to bring the ''new world order'' of centralized control into a much sharper focus.

Are the people now seen as ''enemies of the state'' by the third rail of politics?

With the news that Face Book was a willing participant in the advocacy, and that it's CEO said that this would change as he wasn't aware of it. But in reality, nothing has changed, the organization still shades it information, and the IRS continues to target Conservative organizations. As a result, this only strengthens the fact that nearly all media, along with most government departments of any kind, are partially or wholly committed to the progressive advocacy and agenda.

 And that the once progressive news and social media organizations had been operating in the shadows for decades, but are now openly advocates for a  progressive socialist liberal agenda and socialist ideology, is disturbing and freighting.

Worse, it appears the Amerian general public is ready to accept what I call the "free security'' mentality where government promises all things, and for too many among us their collective thumbs still operate and their little screens don't go dark, all is well. They are happy.

Mr Ogbjma's Legacy : Radical Islam's Transformation

This will be the legacy of Mr Objma and his friends that have corrupted our government and placed our country at risk.

But not to worry, nothing to see hear. When our domestic civil society is in melt down, and the world is virtually on fire, the progressive socialist liberal democrats, especially Mr Ogbjma as he pushes his religious jihad for a fundamentalist transformation of our society that he deems flawed and ready for his ideology of obedience to a higher power.

If historians are honest when they write his accomplishments prior to becoming president and then during his 8 years as president, they will be forced to identify him with his unwavering love affair with his need for personal power, and his affection with those that have ultimate power like the former communist chief in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, the communist Castro brothers in Cuba, and the Imams in Iran, especially his affection for Iran's religious power over life and death.

He believes he is 'the One the world has been waiting for'.

Black Ed. Leaders Fight NAACP On Charter Schools : Can Common Sense Win?

What is happening here is a 'mind set' that will not allow common sense, logic and out right reality to enter the decision making process. It's the over powering ideology that has been main stream, not only for the progressive liberals , but for the black community leaders as well and for decades, convincing them they have no chance to succeed without the help of liberal democrats that are in charge of government.

It doesn't surprise anyone that the NAACP would stand with the NEA in opposition to Charter Schools. The teachers union will not relinquish their power to control public education without a fight and as it appears the NAACP is taking the low road of capitulation.

That new and aggressive community leaders are making a move to change the direction of systemic failure in educating the young is a great place to start that shows real promise for the up-coming generation of blacks. The present generation is left to struggle to survive as best they can.

Black Education Leaders Fight NAACP on Charter Schools
Kelsey Harkness / @kelseyjharkness / September 22, 2016    

A group of 160 black education and community leaders from across the country are pushing back against an attempt by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to halt all future charter school growth.

The coalition, organized by the Black Alliance for Educational Options and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, sent a letter to NAACP board members on behalf of “700,000 black families choosing to send their children to charter public schools, and the tens of thousands more who are still on waiting lists.”

The letter came in response to a resolution drafted by the NAACP that calls for a “moratorium on the proliferation of privately managed charter schools,” arguing that charter schools have “weak oversight” and put schools in low-income communities “at great risk.” A NAACP staffer provided a copy of the proposed resolution but was unable to comment.

 

In the response letter, dated Sept. 21, the coalition of 160 black education and community leaders wrote:

A substantial number of black parents want to have the option of enrolling their children in high-quality charter schools. For many urban black families, charter schools are making it possible to do what affluent families have long been able to do: rescue their children from failing schools. The NAACP should not support efforts to take that option away from low-income and working-class black families.

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are required to follow state standards such as Common Core. They do not charge tuition but instead of being run by the government, charter schools are operated by private nonprofit or for-profit organizations.

Typically, local and state school boards are in charge of granting private or nonprofit organizations the ability to launch a new charter school. If charter schools do not meet strict achievement standards, the organization’s charter is revoked and given to a new organization to operate.
In exchange for that responsibility, charter schools generally have more autonomy over their daily operations, including hiring, firing, budgeting, and instruction decisions.

The NAACP’s proposed resolution accuses charter school operators of “targeting low-income areas and communities of color,” and said their privately-appointed school boards “do not represent the public.” They also compared charter school expansions in low-income communities to “predatory lending practices.”

The response letter from the group of 160 education leaders, clergy, and public servants addressed many of the NAACP’s “cherry picked” and “debunked” claims, arguing that charter schools have been particularly beneficial to black and low-income families. They wrote:

The notion of dedicated charter school founders and educators acting like predatory subprime mortgage lenders—a comparison the resolution explicitly makes—is a far cry from the truth. In reality, charter schools generally receive less per-pupil funding than traditional district public schools and often receive little or no funding to purchase buildings or maintain classrooms. Despite these hurdles, charter schools are helping students achieve at higher levels than traditional district schools.

The coalition also cited a study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University:

According to the most thorough and respected study of charter school results, conducted by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, black students learn more when they attend charter schools. Black students in charter schools gained the equivalent of 14 extra days of learning in reading and 14 extra days of learning in math per year compared with their black peers in traditional district schools. For low-income black students attending charter schools, the learning gains were even more dramatic—the equivalent of 29 extra learning days in reading and 36 extra learning days in math.

The NAACP’s resolution will not be made final until board members meet mid-October. The 160 co-signers of the pro-charter school letter are hopeful to convince the board to change its mind, requesting a meeting to “discuss the very serious implications the proposed resolution will have for black families who want and deserve high-quality educational options for their children.”

Progressive Liberals Attacking / Killing Free Speech : ENTERPRISE CORP. Folds

If you are interested in just how deceptive, unscrupulous, sinister and immoral the progressive socialist liberal democrats are in a war with any opposition to their agenda and ideology socialist tyranny, read Kimberley Strassel book ''The Intimidation Game'', (How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech). Believe me this book explains everything, names, places and events history can prove actually took place and at the hands of the democrats.

The bottom line here is to understand what the progressive socialist liberal democrats are doing is a coordinated attack on free speech, from the White House and virtually every agency and department of the federal government is infested with obedient, delusional and subservient soldiers of the neurological disease that is liberalism. It's genetic.

Know this, the liberal democrats are scared to death that the opposition to their personal and collective ideology of an entire nation that will not capitulate to them and their agenda might begin to register on the minds of the public as being legitimate, and that the democrats have been lying to them about everything and, oh my god even about climate change.

This is totally unacceptable. All opposition must be brought to heel or be destroyed.

Attacks From Left Drive Enterprise Out of Legislative Reform Group
Ken McIntyre / @KenMac55 / Kevin Mooney / @KevinMooneyDC / September 22, 2016    

The car-rental giant Enterprise has capitulated to liberal pressure groups and withdrawn from a network of lawmakers, researchers, and business leaders that advocates limited government and free markets.
The decision by Enterprise Holdings Inc. to leave the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, follows a month long campaign conducted online and in social media by labor, environmental, and other left-leaning groups.
Referring to that pressure, Enterprise spokeswoman Laura Bryant told The Guardian newspaper Wednesday that “we have been carefully listening to those customers and partners who have expressed sincere concern about our ALEC membership.” “In fact, after thoughtful consideration, we have decided to resign our membership,” Bryant said.

In an email Thursday afternoon to The Daily Signal, ALEC spokesman Bill Meierling said:

I think the most important thing here is to recognize that it isn’t so much of a capitulation on the part of Enterprise. They stood strong. They did good and fought the good fight. The reality is there is a sustained and large-scale campaign by the progressive outrage machine to silence the speech of companies, organizations, and individuals with whom they do not agree.
Enterprise worked with ALEC specifically on eliminating discriminatory excise taxes levied on rental car customers. That’s good for ALL people, including union members. The reality is, the unions want to bleed ALEC for completely different (POLITICAL) reasons, and will stop at nothing to do so.

 

Enterprise Holdings is the parent company of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental, Alamo Rent A Car, and Enterprise CarShare.
Although Enterprise has made support for sustainable energy projects a part of its brand, ALEC’s foes accuse the organization of being a “denier” of man-made climate change. ALEC disputes that claim, but the groups pressuring Enterprise argued, sometimes in crude terms, that the car-rental giant was tainted by the association.

As The Daily Signal reported Sept. 12, opponents of ALEC orchestrated petitions, public criticism, and threats of boycotts after drawing attention to Enterprise’s association with the legislative organization through an Aug. 22 story in The Guardian, a liberal, U.K.-based newspaper.
The newspaper credited Nick Surgey, research director at the Center for Media and Democracy and an ardent foe of ALEC, for tipping the newspaper to Enterprise’s work with ALEC to oppose excise taxes on car rentals.

In the following weeks, as The Daily Signal reported, Enterprise responded on Twitter and Facebook that ALEC was only one of many allies and involved with Enterprise only in fighting such “discriminatory and unfair” taxes. The Daily Signal sought comment from Enterprise, but did not receive a response before publication deadline.

In an email early Thursday, Politico Playbook reported this statement from Meierling, vice president for public affairs at ALEC, who said of Enterprise’s exit:

It’s true and unfortunate. They were forced to leave after sustained pressure. … It’s a clear campaign to marginalize, harass, and intimidate an effective organization of conservatives and get business out of policy. Washington, D.C., should be afraid of this new and clearly documented strategy.

Groups such as MoveOn.org, Climate Truth, Color of Change, and Stand Up to ALEC were part of the campaign conducted against Enterprise over Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms.
The last straw, Meierling indicated to Politico, came in “threats by unions to stop renting cars.”
A union of government workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, used Twitter and other digital tools to urge members to demand that Enterprise back away from ALEC. One online petition garnered more than 89,000 signatures telling Enterprise to “stop funding climate change denial.”

ALEC’s Meierling previously told The Daily Signal that the description of the legislative exchange as a climate change “denier” isn’t accurate because “ALEC does not engage on the substance” of the issue''  “We do not believe in a renewable energy portfolio standards where the federal government mandates what the energy mix should be,” Meierling said, adding:

We don’t believe that energy generation or extraction should be subsidized in any way. But because we don’t believe in mandates and we don’t believe in subsidies, these [liberal] groups have labeled us as climate change deniers. Somehow our opposition to mandates and subsidies has been conflated into climate change denial.

Virginia-based ALEC has more than 2,000 public members, all of them state legislators. It also counts more than 200 members from the private sector, including 28 companies and other organizations that joined in the past two years.

ALEC, founded in 1973, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan network of state lawmakers, policy analysts, and private sector leaders that advances model legislation with an eye toward policy solutions that limit government and encourage free markets.

In an interview with The Daily Signal’s Melissa Quinn published before news broke of Enterprise’s decision, Lisa Nelson, CEO of ALEC for the past two years, said one of her priorities has been to speak personally with leaders of member companies as the left’s attacks on ALEC escalated. Nelson said:

If business doesn’t stand up for itself in its right to engage in this debate and this dialogue, then they’re going to lose their ability to do that. It’s frustrating to see that a company could kind of lay down so easily.

Enterprise founder Jack Taylor, who started a car-leasing company in St. Louis in 1957 and built it into a rental empire, died July 2 at age 94. The Navy veteran named Enterprise after the USS Enterprise, the aircraft carrier on which he served in World War II.

 

Segregated College Housing A Failure : Walter E. Williams

Williams right on the make here. And this has been going for decades - progressive democrats have always used individuals and groups, especially blacks to persuade themselves and the population in general, that they are doing the right thing to help these same people into a life of success by giving them an easy way out of taking responsibility for their own success.

It has never worked and never will. Results are manifested in what we are seeing now in the streets of our major cites that are on fire with unrest and riots. And with unemployment and incarnation rates for black huge and rising, little is left to understand the progressive liberal ideology for 'free security' isn't working, other then to prorogate a perpetual voter base for the democrats. 

Is this by design? Of course it is. It started with FDR and society security, and then ramped up by LBJ's poverty programs. Take away the pride and purpose for living guarantees failure to succeed.

But don't worry, your government is here to help.

Segregated Housing Is Not What Black College Students Need
Walter E. Williams / September 22, 2016    

Last year’s college news was about demands for safe spaces, trigger warnings, and bans on insensitivity. This year’s college news is about black student demands for segregated campus housing and other racially segregated campus spaces and programs.

I totally disagree with these calls by black students. It’s a gross dereliction of duty for college administrators to cave to these demands, but I truly sympathize with the problems that many black college students face. For college administrators and leftist faculty, the actual fate of black students is not nearly so important as the good feelings they receive from a black presence on campus. Let’s examine some of the problem.

A very large percentage of all incoming freshmen have no business being admitted to college. According to the College Board’s 2015 report, the average combined SAT score for white students was 1576 out of a possible 2400. Black student SAT scores, at 1277, were the lowest of the seven reported racial groups.

The College Board considers an SAT score of 1550 as the benchmark that indicates a readiness for college-level work. Only 32 percent of white students scored at or above proficient in math, and just 7 percent of black students did. Forty-six percent of white test takers scored proficient in reading, and 17 percent of blacks did.

The ACT, another test used for admission to college, produced similar results. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education reports, in an article titled “A Major Crisis in College Readiness for Black Students,” that 34 percent of whites who took the ACT were deemed college-ready in all four areas—English, mathematics, reading and science. For blacks, it was only 6 percent. These are significant differences in academic preparation between white and black students. I am sure that the differences give black students feelings of inferiority and being out of place.

Black college students across the country have demanded segregated housing and other “safe spaces” on campuses designated for students of color. Students calling for segregated spaces do so because they allege their campuses are oppressive, are discriminatory, and represent institutionalized racism.
For decades, colleges have purchased peace by creating whole departments of ethnic, diversity, and multicultural studies. All too often, these “studies” are about propaganda and not serious education. Plus, they provide students with an opportunity to get an easy A.

The most pervasive form of racial discrimination at most colleges is affirmative action. In the name of helping people from groups that have suffered past discrimination, colleges admit black students whose academic preparation differs significantly with that of their white peers. Those differences are not subtle.

It should not come as a surprise that the intended beneficiaries of that “benign” discrimination feel themselves ridiculed, isolated, and treated differently. As a result, students who might be successes in a less competitive environment are turned into failures.

One faculty member at a historically black college put it this way: “The way we see it, the majority schools are wasting large numbers of good students. They have black students with admissions statistics (that are) very high, tops. But these students wind up majoring in sociology or recreation or get wiped out altogether.”

The problem of black education begins long before college. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation’s Report Card, shows that nationally in 2015, only 7 percent of black 12th-graders scored proficient in math, and only 17 percent did so in reading. This suggests that the average black 12th-grader has the academic proficiency of a white eighth- or ninth-grader.

Consider the following question: If one admits 1,000 randomly selected eighth- and ninth-graders to college and admits 1,000 randomly selected 12th-graders, who do you think is going to come out on top? Who would be surprised if the eighth- and ninth-graders felt inferiority, oppression, and insensitivity?

The academic elite feel righteous seeing blacks on campus, even if they are severely mismatched. Black people must ask: Are we going to sacrifice our youngsters so that white liberals can feel good about themselves?
Distributed by Creators Syndicate