Archive for the ‘National’ Category
OUTRAGEOUS: Accused Fort Hood Shooter Paid $278,000 While Awaiting Trial
Injured soldier outraged suspected shooter receives salary while his family financially struggles in recovery
The Department of Defense confirms to NBC 5 Investigates that accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has now been paid more than $278,000 since the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting that left 13 dead and 32 injured. The Army said under the Military Code of Justice, Hasan’s salary cannot be suspended unless he is proven guilty.
If Hasan had been a civilian defense department employee, NBC 5 Investigates has learned, the Army could have suspended his pay after just seven days.
Read more by Scott Friedman at nbcdfw.com
Milw North at Juneteenth Day Festival on Wed June 19
Raffling off a power washer!
9am – 6pm
between West Burleigh Street and West Center Street on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive
More details to come
A Christian Alternative to Health Insurance
Exempt from regulation, taxation, and the individual mandate, Christian collectives called health care sharing ministries are paying for the care of their neediest members — if they approve of the morality of their needs.
In 2006, Ray Carman’s health insurance jumped from $600 to $1,000 a month. The reason? His first daughter was born five weeks premature. Though there were no complications during her birth, his daughter was dubbed “high risk” by his insurance company.
Carman, who is a real estate agent and auctioneer in Lafayette, TN, said the costs were simply too high. He began looking for alternatives.
A friend recommended he join a Christian health care sharing plan, a nonprofit in which members pay for each other’s medical costs by agreeing to contribute a donation every month. After some research, he joined an organization called Medi-Share.
Read more by Kimberly Leonard at TheAtlantic.com
Federal Reserve Blows More Bubbles
Last week at its regular policy-setting meeting, the Federal Reserve announced it would double down on the policies that have failed to produce anything but a stagnant economy. It was a disappointing, but not surprising, move.
The Fed affirmed that it is prepared to increase its monthly purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities if things don’t start looking up. But actually the Fed has already been buying more than the announced $85 billion per month. Between February and March, the Fed’s securities holdings increased $95 billion. From March to April, they increased $100 billion. In all, the Fed has pumped more than a half trillion dollars into the economy since announcing its latest round of “quantitative easing” (QE3) in September 2012.
–SNIP– It is not surprising the Fed has decided to hand the American people more of the same failed policies. But it is disappointing. We know what the real solution is: allow the marketplace to work. Allow entrepreneurs the chance to create instead of stifling innovation with arbitrary regulations. Allow interest rates to rise to equal the risks in the economy. Allow bad debts to be liquidated so we can build on a firm foundation. Stop printing money to benefit the government and big banks. Restore sound money to the economy and the American people. Sound money is the bedrock for prosperity and the best check on big government and crony capitalism.
Read more by Ron Paul at the-free-foundation.org
NYC Considering Allowing Non-Citizens To Vote
New York City could soon become the first major city in the country to give non-citizens the right to vote. The proposal, which would allow certain non-citizens to vote in local elections, appears to have a veto-proof majority in the New York City Council — enough to overcome opposition by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. As hearings on the proposal get underway Thursday, supporters are optimistic it will become law by the end of the year and believe it will have an impact beyond the five boroughs.
Read more by Hunter Walker at Talking Points Memo
Priest conducts Catholic service to name 45 aborted babies found in Gosnell clinic
A Catholic priest presided over a service Thursday to give proper names to the 45 babies whose bodies were found in the West Philadelphia abortion clinic of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. He is charged with killing five people - a patient and four viable babies that prosecutors say were born alive. He has also been charged with performing late-term abortions that violate Pennsylvania’s 24-week limit on the procedure.
Read more By Jennifer Harper at The Washington Times
Data on what hospitals ‘charge’ for 100 common inpatient procedures released
But the information has no relationship to what government or commercial health plans actually pay
The Obama administration released information on Wednesday on what hospitals “charge” for 100 common inpatient procedures - without mentioning that the information has no relationship to what government or commercial health plans actually pay for the procedures.
Read more by Guy Boulton of the Journal Sentinel
Gosnell ‘Story’ Not New, Babies Born Alive Left to Die for Years
Following the decriminalization of abortion by Roe v. Wade in 1973, the brutality of abortion and the unsanitary conditions of abortion clinics have remained suppressed by the media. In fact, pro-life activist Nancy Creger says that what Kermit Gosnell has been doing at his clinic in Philadelphia, had been happening for years elsewhere.
Read more by Dr. Susan Berry at Breitbart.com
Rising Health Care Costs Are Quietly Strangling the Middle Class
For the American middle class, wage stagnation has been a fact of life for over two decades. Last year, the median household earned just over $50,000—no more, adjusted for inflation, than the median household in 1996 or 1989. That’s in stark contrast to the fortunes of the richest one percent, who saw their annual income rise 50 percent in the same period, from about $592,000 to nearly $879,000.
At the same time, the total compensation received by workers has actually increased over 30 percent since 1980—a statistic frequently cited by conservative economists as proof that income inequality is somehow exaggerated. But the fact is, most middle class families haven’t seen a dollar of that extra compensation. It’s consumed before it ever reaches them by the ever-rising cost of health care—the silent killer of middle class wage growth.
Read more by Benjamin Landy at RealClearPolicy.com
Why The Gun Is Civilization
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. . . .
Read more by Marko Kloos at munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com
Democracy’s Death-by-Welfare
Is our political regime fated to whither away?
Are political regimes fated to decay and die away, as everything in nature is?
Back in the eighteenth century, men in England, France, and the United States conceived of a new type of regime that would prevent the tyranny of the absolutist monarchies that reigned at the time. They put their hopes in a balance of power between various institutions of government, and in the periodical recourse to election to purge the system of excessive corruption and entrenched power. The democratic form of government established on those principles would work wonders for over two centuries.
But now, in its third century of existence, it is producing dysfunctional and potentially self-destructive forms of governance. The United States has been deadlocked in the monumental issue of its budget deficit and entitlements, unable to cut spending or raise taxes. . . .
Read more by Camille Pecastaing at Hoover.org
Surveillance’s dark downside
What are we being asked to give up?
Admit that you were transfixed by surveillance video of Boston’s brother bombers. It was quintessential “Gotcha!” for the noblest of causes.
Testament to technology trumping wrongdoing, it gave cause for relief. Knock on wood, too, that the cops could track the cell phone left in the Mercedes SUV hijacked by one bomber. And those Google Maps aerial shots of the boat were pretty neat, right?
The same technology, of course, can catch your everyday non-terrorist running a red light, parking illegally at a Dunkin’ Donuts or smooching with someone not your spouse.
Cameras follow us like gum stuck to a shoe. But while official Washington is fixated on law enforcement efficiency in the wake of Boston, you might wonder about the precautions taken by those protecting us. That’s especially true given the rise of facial recognition, zoom technology, biometrics and the overall ability to track us from one camera to another, right across town.
Read more by James Warren at NY Daily News
National Day of Prayer event Today in Wauwatosa
12:00pm – 12:20pm
Wauwatosa City Hall 7725 W. North Avenue, Wauwatosa
(By the flagpole on the North Avenue side of the building. There is some street parking and additional parking in the rear. We will be outside)
You are invited to join local clergy and fellow citizens in prayer for our local, state and national leaders and for our country. It will last approximately 20 minutes. The sole purpose of this event is prayer. There will be no other comments made.
“The battlefield is the United States of America”
When you’ve got a guy like Senator John McCain who says “The battlefield is the United States of America,” it tells you that almost nothing is safe in the Land of the Free.
Whatever remains of civil liberties is going to feel the full brunt of the state’s boot heel.
They’re already regulating some of the most fundamental aspects of life, from how we are allowed to educate our children to what we can / cannot put in our bodies to the very nature of money.
Read more by Simon Black at SovereignMan.com