…Emanuel said Thursday that he doesn’t want the revenue a casino would bring for city coffers, but would rather divert it to schools.
“As I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, if we were to get a casino, I’d like to direct all the resources to school modernization and school improvement so our kids will be in modern school buildings with a full school day and full school year,” Emanuel said…
Haven’t seen anything like this since, well, this…
From Market Watch:
Late summer is when parents bring their children to college. As they drive to campus they’re worried about tuition increases, the burden of student debt and whether their children will find jobs when they graduate.
Some parents and high-school students are beginning to question the value of a four-year college degree in this post-Great Recession world. And you can certainly understand why they have these concerns…
…The job market for recent college grads is grim and incomes are down. The unemployment rate for all college graduates over 25 years old is currently 4.1%, less than half of the national unemployment rate of 8.3%. But a recent Economic Policy Institute study reports that the unemployment rate is 9.4% for college grads ages 21 to 24 (not currently seeking a post graduate degree), and the underemployment rate for this group is 19.1% (this includes part-time workers who want full-time jobs). In 2011, those grads lucky enough to have a full-time job earned an average of $35,000 a year, a 5.4% inflation adjusted decrease from 2000 average income. Finally, it is estimated that nearly 4 of 10 grads are working in fields that don’t require a college degree (the college-grad barista syndrome)…
The article details far more than that about what is wrong with getting a college degree – and then, in typical (for modern times) Alice-In-Wonderland mode, still goes on to claim that getting a degree is worth it. I hold, though, that it is only worth it if you are going for a degree in medicine or one of the hard sciences (I don’t even count law school as worth it any longer as we have a glut of lawyers in the United States). We have, in our higher education system, far too many people pursuing far too many degrees of doubtful immediate utility and the whole thing is financed with a trillion dollars (and growing) of student debt which is increasingly impossible for the college grads to repay. What happened?
Government happened. Government (lobbied by the education establishment) decided that everyone should go to college and so set up education systems designed to feed colleges as opposed to educate kids. Government then set up a student loan program (initially via the private sector under government control, not entirely under government control) which provided easy funding (literally, an 18 year old with no income and no credit rating can borrow tens of thousands of dollars to go to college) for anyone who is willing to put his butt in a college seat. Colleges love this because they get the money up front so it doesn’t matter if the kid ever graduates or whether the kid learns a marketable skill. Colleges additionally love it because by providing loans the government allows the colleges to continually hike tuition rates outside of market variable – the kids aren’t thinking of having to pay that back four years later (four years to an 18 year old is forever in the future) and so aren’t actually calculating the loan cost against possible future returns; they are just told by guidance counselors that a college education will allow them to make more money than a non-college education. No one ever tells them that there are college educations and then there are college educations…and education in medicine will immediately allow you to make a bucket of money per year while an education in post-feminist studies not so much. As is typical whenever government gets in involved a tiny elite profits (in this case the education system) while the people get screwed.
In addition to that, except for those learning a hard science (in other words, those who are really in nothing more than a high-grade trade school), the kids aren’t even being educated. 100 years ago, a college education included learning Latin and Greek, just to tip-of-the-iceberg what isn’t being done in schools any longer. We’ve massively dumbed-down college education to the point where I hold it mostly in contempt – because after all that time and money in the class room, I see no ability of a college graduate which is superior to my abilities. I don’t know Latin or Greek, either…and I’d stack my non-college education knowledge of history, economics, philosophy and theology against anyone who graduated college in the last 50 years. For most kids, it would be better if they went to a trade school rather than college – it would be cheaper and, for instance, if you are a tool and die maker you are in massive demand, even in this down economy.
When Obama talks about how he wants to spend more on education all he’s really saying is “I want to subsidize this massive failure because it provides campaign funds for me”. The Education people know which side butters their bread – they know that as long as they keep the donations flowing to the Democrats the Democrats will keep the money flowing to the education system, no matter how lousy the product is and no matter how many poor kids are burdened with massive debt (nothing like starting out in life as a debt slave, huh?). Its all a crock, a scam and a national disgrace – end the student loan program and you’ll pull the lynchpin out from under this rotten edifice. It’ll collapse in a heap if there’s not a flow of loan money in to colleges – they’ll have to cut staff (and the staff most likely to be cut is the heavily liberal areas, such as the aforementioned feminist studies), cut tuition and start offering a more meaty education program which provides something you can’t get in high school or trade school. We’ll also cut off a huge source of funds for the Democrat party and the larger left. There’s no downside to eliminating student loans – certainly not for the kids who won’t be $30,000.00 in debt for a useless degree.
But, will we? Not yet. We’re still in a cowardly phase where we’re afraid of a Democrat “Republicans hate education” attack line. But the fall of college education proceeds apace and maybe when we’ve got kids sitting under $2 trillion in worthless education debt there will come the will to change.
I have never before in my lifetime seen such divisiveness emanating from a Presidential campaign then what we are currently seeing from the Obama camp. I am offended by it and digusted by it. Romney nailed it the other day when he said Obama is hoping to tear people apart and cobble together 51%, which is quite a departure from his unity, hope and change message of just 4 years ago. Nearly everyday he, or his surrogates, are out on the stump or in the media personally attacking either the rich, people of Faith, big corporations, the republican congress, white people, or any other person, or group du jour. How anyone can get behind this campaign and vote for this fraud is beyond me.
Now of course liberals will whine and moan about the birthers, and to be fair, there was a faction on the right that went a little over the top even for me. But that IS a legitimate issue that Obama could have put to rest real quickly, instead Obama chose to play it out and allow the issue to become even a bigger issue so that he had a wedge issue he could rally his base around. Just another cause to divide people with and it certainly did divide us. In fact this country is more polarized today than at anytime I can ever remember. And it shouldn’t be. We have some serious issues to confront and it will take serious people to resolve them and one thing I have learned about Obama, is that he is anything but serious. He refuses to reconsider his policies despite obvious and proven failures. He is prepared to double down on another stimulus, is prepared to throw away more money at the green industry which isn’t even close to a mass produceable platform, is still trying to slow down fracking despite the demonstrable success in North Dakota, is still denying the Keystone Pipeline, is still standing behind the Dodd Frank Act which Is strangling the credit that use to be easily accessible by small business, and is still wanting to raise taxes which by his own previous admissions is not the right thing to do in a recession.
On the social side, if anyone has an extreme position on abortion that should be reconsidered and is outside the main stream, it is the democrats. They still support federal funding for abortion and partial birth abortion, which according to most polls is opposed by the vast majority of Americans. In fact, Obama still hasn’t backed away from his support for a live birth abortion. I wonder why the media hasn’t called him out on that? Just kidding, I think we all know the answer to that. Folks, these are serious times and we need a President that will be serious. Not a President that prefers to golf, campaign and hang out with Hollywood.
Bill O’Reilly was a guest on Glenn Beck’s radio show this morning, and in response to Beck’s question of who he thought was going to win the election, O’Reilly said, according to confidential sources of his, internal polls in BOTH campaigns indicate that, if the election were tomorrow, Romney would win. One of the main reasons for that could well be Niall Ferguson’s article in Newsweek, which is raising a lot of eyebrows this week. As Ronald Kessler noted at NewsMax yesterday, Ferguson’s devastating article could be the turning point in the campaign.
The financial crisis a few weeks before the last presidential election was enough to push Barack Obama over the top. This week’s Newsweek cover slamming President Obama could have almost as much impact.
“Hit the Road, Barack — Why We Need a New President” the cover says. “Obama’s Gotta Go” the article inside says.
Journalists are not idiots. They recognize that Obama, as the Newsweek cover story documents, has been a failure. But they are also lemmings who will not depart from their traditional support of Democrats unless given permission by their peers. The cover story in Newsweek, one of the most liberal-leaning publications in the country, does just that.
Because of support by the press, Obama became president in the first place and has held his own against Mitt Romney in polls.
Three months before the story of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.’s connection to Obama finally broke in the mainstream media, I began writing stories as chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com about Obama’s close association with his America-bashing minister.
The media, which had known generally about Wright since Obama announced his candidacy in February 2007, ignored the stories. If the media had picked them up then, Obama likely would not be president today.
According to pollsters, largely as a result of the stories the press finally ran about Wright, Obama’s double-digit lead over Hillary Clinton vanished. At the same time, John McCain shot up in the polls, and Hillary began winning the primaries. But by then, Obama was ahead, and it was too late for her to overcome his previous lead.
Indeed, David Remnick’s “The Ridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama” quotes an unidentified Clinton aide as saying, “If Jeremiah Wright had dropped in January [2008], it [Obama’s candidacy] would have been over.”
Today, the media largely ignore Obama’s daily distortions and record of failure, all documented in the Newsweek article. In contrast, after President Bush gave his 2003 State of the Union address, the press attacked him mercilessly for weeks over his 16-word statement that the British government had learned that Saddam Hussein sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
In fact, the statement was true. After the British House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee reviewed the MI6 intelligence about the claim involving Niger, it concluded in September 2003 that the British intelligence service was justified in continuing to say that Hussein had tried to obtain uranium from that country. The press then ignored the report showing that Bush’s statement was indeed accurate.
But when Obama says the private sector of the economy is doing fine, belittles success, claims the Supreme Court cannot overrule a law passed by Congress, says he is not divisive even as he attacks Republicans, gratuitously injects race into his comments, or claims Romney and Paul Ryan would end Medicare as we know it, the press gives the president a pass.
None of this is lost on the public.
A recent Rasmussen poll found that 59 percent of likely U.S. voters believe Obama has received the best treatment from the media so far. Just 18 percent think Mitt Romney has been treated better.
Having been a reporter for the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, I know how susceptible journalists are to the herd instinct. The Newsweek cover story in effect tells journalists it’s OK to begin telling the truth about Obama and expose his presidency as the failure Newsweek says it is. For that reason, it could be a turning point in the election.
Our liberals have been running with a meme which goes “Ryan’s budget plan is anti-Catholic” – the basis of the liberal argument is that a letter was written under the letter head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops which condemned the Ryan plan when it was first presented. Without getting in to the intra-Catholic weeds on this, the mere existence of such a letter does not either indicate Catholic doctrine nor how the Bishops, if pressed on the matter, would rule. Lots of liberals reside on the staff of the USCCB and they do take their opportunities to help liberal Democrats.
The letter, itself, held that the alleged cuts to social spending in the Ryan plan violated Catholic teaching as it relates to helping the poor. Of course, Catholic teaching is that the poor have an absolute moral claim upon the wealthy for sufficient housing, clothing, food and health care – there can be and is no argument about that. If you’ve got the means, you are morally obligated to help out the less fortunate. On the other hand, how you are to help out is not set out with precision – because it can’t be. Circumstances are so varied among both the haves and the have-nots that no one person can figure out exactly what one person should do for another in all circumstances. The bottom line is that there can be a great deal of different opinion on the best means to the end – and Ryan’s bishop, Robert C. Morlino, has written an article clarifying the Catholic view – first laying out what is required:
…It is the role of bishops and priests to teach principles of our faith, such that those who seek elected offices, if they are Catholics, are to form their consciences according to these principles about particular policy issues.
However, the formation of conscience regarding particular policy issues is different depending on how fundamental to the ecology of human nature or the Catholic faith a particular issue is. Some of the most fundamental issues for the formation of a Catholic conscience are as follows: sacredness of human life from conception to natural death, marriage, religious freedom and freedom of conscience, and a right to private property.
Violations of the above involve intrinsic evil — that is, an evil which cannot be justified by any circumstances whatsoever. These evils are examples of direct pollution of the ecology of human nature and can be discerned as such by human reason alone. Thus, all people of good will who wish to follow human reason should deplore any and all violations in the above areas, without exception. The violations would be: abortion, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, same-sex marriage, government-coerced secularism, and socialism…
So, we can say, “politician A is in favor of elective abortion and as that is an intrinsic evil, I must not vote for politician A”. But outside of the area of intrinsic evil, there is a lot more flexibility – and it becomes a matter of prudential judgement on the part of Catholics (and, indeed, everybody) to decide as best they can.
Recently on the other thread one of our resident liberals tried to define one of our regular conservative posters as typifying conservative thought. Ironically this liberal has never been able to define conservatism despite many calls from conservatives for him to do just that, so allow me to define what conservatism is to me on just four issues. Of course this is just me, I do not speak for any other conservative poster here but I would like to hear from the other conservatives on their thoughts, as well as the liberals. so here goes:
Government – I would like to see a more limited and a more constitutional federal government, with as many programs as possible pushed down to the state level, this would include Medicare, Medicaid, education, etc. In fact I would be open to discussing the possibility of having nearly every entitlement program administered at the state level. I would also like to means test social security and Medicare. Means testing would mean less benefits for the rich, allowing more aid for the poor, and if that aid were administered at the state level, it would be more efficient and effective. I would then like to evaluate every federal program and determine first the need, then the size and scope. In my opinion, we could eliminate many programs altogether and then trim every other department by a minimum of 10% without sacrificing a thing.
Economy – I am firm believer in competition. Competition improves people, product and service every time and brings prices down. Government stifles competition so naturally I would like to see as little government involvement as possible in the private sector. Obviously some industries need more regulation than others, but the best and most effective regulation government can exact, is the justice department. As long as the government ensures that everyone plays by the rules, the private markets will work just fine.
Abortion – life begins at conception, period. Therefore abortion is manslaughter, however, I do agree that this detestable practice should be made available in the event of rape, incest, or provable physical harm to the mother. Aside from that, I wish our society would stop glorifying this practice as a “choice” and start stigmatizing it, and educating both men and women on the numerous ways to prevent it. It is not a choice.
Gay Marriage – I fully support civil unions with all the legal rights therein, and not only for same sex couples, but for many other unions as well. I believe marriage should be reserved for the time honored tradition of the one man and one woman union. This is a union that is universal, and pre dates nearly all other institutions including many governments, so it should be left alone. Besides, marriage is not a right.
So this is just where I stand on these four issues. I invite everyone to comment on my positions, and include their own on not just these topics but others as well. Have fun.
It’s been a week, but I am sure the Democrats feel like it has been quite a bit longer, as Paul Ryan has completely changed the course of the campaign and possibly the election by coalescing the conservatives. Ryan is a solid conservative, and is not afraid to take on the once unspeakable entitlement reform issue which has Democrats in a panic because not only is he openly talking about reform, he is winning the conversation. In fact Obama has had to distort and lie about Romney and Ryan’s plan while at the same time trying to deflect the issue back to Romney’s taxes.
Let’s take a quick look at each individual issue and how the Democrats are trying to spin it. The fact is, the Medicare reform that Romney and Ryan are calling for DOES NOT impact anyone over 55 years of age. One more time for the liberals out there – the Romney/Ryan plan does not affect anyone over the age of 55 – got that? For those under 55, the reform plan offers a CHOICE. Liberals always pride themselves on being pro choice, so here’s a big moment for them. People under 55 will have the choice to remain on the current medicare program, or receive a voucher to use those funds in helping them buy other private insurance. That’s it – it’s pretty simple, and nothing like the big scary reform Obama and the Democrats are trying to paint it as, so keep that in mind the next time you see that smarmy David Axlerod on TV lying through his teeth.
Now on to Romney’s taxes. Mitt and Ann Romney have released the legally required tax returns and financial disclosures which have proven to be above board and in compliance with every tax obligation. There is no reason why they should be required to release any more, and further calls for them to do so, are tantamount to a witch hunt. If the Democrats and Obama were concerned that the Romney’s evaded taxes, or failed to submit in any given year, well then that can be found out quite easily by one phone call to Douglas Shulman, Commissioner of the IRS, who reports to Timothy Geitnner, who is ironically an admitted tax evader. If any irregularities are found in Romney’s tax returns, and no action is taken, well then we have much larger issues to concern ourselves with, but as it stands now, Romney does not have any “secret” tax returns as recently described by the aforementioned smarmy Axelrod. Do the liberals understand that? Have I dumbed this down enough for them? We will see.
In moments of solitude, which are few these days, I often contemplate the state of our union and where we find ourselves not just politically, but socially and morally as well. And one over arching concept keeps coming to mind, and that is, we as a society, particularly our younger generation, have forgotten how to fail. Failure is a very important part of a successful life. It builds character, it strengthens resolve, it teaches caution, and most importantly it builds self reliance. Throughout history, failure has been instrumental in not only shaping the lives of great people, but in shaping the direction of this great country. General Washington lost many a battle in the early days of the revolution before honing his strategic skills and ultimately winning the war. It would have been very easy for Washington to simply give up, after all it was bone chilling cold in many of those of important battles and many men died, yet Washington learned from his mistakes and his failures and pressed forward. But maybe above them all was President Lincoln, whose resolve was only steeled by his failure. In fact I have the following list of Lincoln’s failures posted in my office:
How many of us can honestly say we would have kept going? Yet President Lincoln is to this day regarded as one of, if not the greatest President this country has ever elected. Americans need to learn how to fail again, but our politicians win elections by promising to not let anyone fail. Corporations receive bail outs, farmers receive subsidies, and the poor receive an ever growing list of entitlements to the point that failure is becoming a lost concept. We all need to learn that failure is not the end of the world, in fact, it is often times a new beginning. There are many great historical quotes on failure, one of course is “Failure is not falling down, it is not getting back up”, but two of my favorites have always been:
– “Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure” – William Saroyan.
– “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up” – Thomas A Edison
I posted this under the category of “Conservative Values” because in my opinion, the concept of failure is lost on most liberals. They are aghast when conservatives suggest that failure is the best option when speaking of auto companies, financial industries, and those individuals who over reach financially. It’s not that we want them to be down and out, it’s that we know what promise failure can bring.
Well…What DO we got?
To answer in short– a hell of a lot.
The problem is that there are a bunch of spineless wimps running the RNC. They don’t understand that the DNC is willing to do ANYTHING, lie, cheat, steal to get their people elected. All we have to do is hit them with the TRUTH– but when you’re a democrat, the TRUTH is ugly and hurts like a sonofabitch– in fact, any truth telling is considered an all-out assault against them–like a cross against a vampire. The RNC, though, always wants to play “nice.” They don’t want to go into the gutter– but at the same time, they don’t realize that they don’t have to go in the gutter– they just need to tell the TRUTH. Until they realize that, we’re in for a long, upward battle. Like During WWII, which was ended with the dropping of two atomic bombs, the simple telling of the TRUTH are the atomic bombs the Republicans have in their arsenal that for some reason known but to God they are unwilling to use!
For Heaven’s sake, they won’t even allow two conservative superstars, Sarah Palin and Colonel Allen West- to speak at the convention!
With the dismal outcomes of Obama’s empty promises he made in 2008, his administration’s direct connection to the murder of Brian Terry, his squandering of our taxpayer dollars for no other reason than to benefit his Union and “green job” campaign benefactors, his stonewalling on energy, his total irreverence for the First Amendment and freedom of Religion and of conscience; his de facto increase in the size of the Dependency Class in America; his administration’s extended use of drone technology to target American citizens; his administration’s selective administration of the law (i.e., their refusal to prosecute the Black Panther voter intimidation case); not to mention his wholesale complicity with the destruction of the unborn; we not only have a Cuisinart- we have the most powerful weapon known to man on our side–the TRUTH– and it’s high time the RNC uses it.
Though this might be “What Attacks on Mormonism?, Part 1”, depending on how you look at it – from Warner Todd Huston over at Breitbart:
As the race for the White House heats up, Reuters suddenly realized that the massive Mormon Church has a lot of money in its bank accounts. The news service went on to needle the Church, saying if it were a business “wealthy adherents like Mitt Romney would count as its dominant revenue stream.”
Reuters took the if-it-were-a-business theme even farther in its opening paragraphs.
“It would also likely attract corporate gadflies protesting a lack of transparency. They would call for less spending on real estate and more on charitable causes to improve membership growth — the Mormons’ return on investment.”
Of course, a religion is not a “business” proposition. A religion does not operate like a company does, it has far different goals. But assessing a religion wasn’t Reuters’ goal here. Making Mormons out to be “rich” elitists that act suspiciously and are pushing a snobbish presidential candidate on the nation was Reuters’ goal…
This from the same MSM which essentially went all “Reverend Wright, who?” in 2008. I don’t recall any stories about how Wright’s organization was financed – and that leaves aside anything more than a glance at the fact that Obama attended a racist, anti-American church for 20 years.
One might want to think that there would be only one trip in to the gutter for our Democrats and their lapdog MSM in 2012 – forget it; they’ll troll in every gutter there is. They will attack Romney because he’s rich. They’ll attack him because he’s white. They’ll attack him because he’s Mormon. They’ll attack him as a war monger and they’ll attack him because he had college and missionary deferments during the Vietnam War. They will lie. They will launch whispering campaigns claiming all sorts of horrors about Romney’s past. They will attack his wife. They will attack his children. They will attack his friends. They will try to intimidate people in the right blogosphere who are favorable to Romney. This will be the dirtiest political campaign in human history and the MSM will be right there in the trenches with the DNC, doing what they can to help Obama.
So, just get ready for it – it will get nauseating but the payoff will be the crestfallen looks on MSM faces on November 6th.
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