Tip of the hat to my friend (since elementary school!)
Sandy Smith... who shared this link posted by a mutual friend since middle
school friend, James Callahan:
* * *
* * *
What do the networks consider vital information for their
viewers?
ABC, NBC and CBS again on Thursday offered the latest
about the "firestorm" engulfing the National Football League.
Yet, these same outlets have ignored a shocking act of
domestic terrorism within the United States.
* DO TELL!
Ali Muhammad Brown allegedly murdered 19-year-old Brendan
Tevlin on June 25th. According to CNN,
he told police: "My mission is vengeance for the lives, millions of lives
are lost every day. Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, all these places where innocent
lives with being taken every single day."
* NOPE. I WAS NOT AWARE OF THIS.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
He chillingly added, "So, a life for a life."
Brown apparently gunned down Tevlin in New Jersey,
shooting the college student multiple times. ABC, CBS and NBC have, thus far,
not uttered a word on this act of terrorism. What have they been covering
instead? In addition to obsessing over the NFL, Good Morning America devoted a
minute and a half on Thursday to Prince Harry's birthday party and how raucous
it would be. CBS This Morning offered four and half minutes to Madam Secretary,
a new show about a female Secretary of State (airing, naturally, on CBS). NBC's
Today allowed four minutes on how to "sick-proof your home from
germs."
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* SOME GOOD NEWS...
Although MSNBC has unsurprisingly avoided the Tevlin
murder, CNN and Fox News have been covering it regularly.
On Monday's CNN Tonight, Pamela Brown recounted the
shocking details - PAMELA BROWN: Police say the man seen here in handcuffs is
29-year-old Ali Muhammad Brown, the prime suspect in a killing spree stretching
from New Jersey to Washington State, one allegedly motivated by his hatred of
U.S. foreign policy. Brown's alleged victims, all adult males with no known
connection to him. Police say between April and June of this year, he killed
three people in Washington State, allegedly shooting them late at night in
quiet locations, execution-style. A few weeks later in New Jersey, 19-year-old
college student Brendan Tevlin was found dead inside his SUV from multiple
gunshot wounds.
* AND THIS WENT ON UNDER MY RADAR!
A transcript of the September 15 CNN Tonight segment -
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Listen to this story. A man accused of a killing spree that
targeted strangers across the country says he was avenging Muslim deaths in the
Middle East. So why aren't prosecutors calling him a terrorist? CNN's Pamela
Brown has more.
PAMELA BROWN: Police say they traced the gun used in all
of the killings to Brown. Court documents show he confessed and told
investigators he strictly follows the Muslim faith and had become angry with
the, quote, "evil the government was allowing to take place in the
U.S." Brown allegedly telling police, "My mission is vengeance for
the lives, millions of lives are lost every day. Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, all
these places where innocent lives with being taken every single day. So a life
for a life." Sources say Brown was born in the U.S. and has family living
in New Jersey. He was convicted of bank fraud in 2004 and served time in jail.
At the time, reports said, the FBI tried unsuccessfully to link the case to
fundraising for terrorists in Africa. Authorities say one of Brown's
co-defendants later fled to Somalia to fight with the terrorist group al
Shabaab. And while authorities aren't labeling Brown a terrorist or charging
him under federal terrorism statutes, the allegations of his bloody crusade to
kill Americans are now raising questions.
* FOLKS... "AUTHORITIES AREN'T LABELING BROWN A
TERRORIST... OR CHARGING HIM UNDER FEDERAL TERROR STATUTES...?!?!"
* AND REMEMBER... THE TWO FT. HOOD MASSACRES (BOTH ON
OBAMA'S WATCH) WERE LABELED "WORKPLACE VIOLENCE."
Instead of investigating this story, Today's Matt Lauer
on Thursday fretted about football, trumpeting: "New Day, new scandal. Yet
another NFL player involved in a domestic abuse case." ABC's Good Morning
America looked at the NFL "firestorm."
* AMAZING, ISN'T IT, FOLKS? AMAZING... DISGUSTING... BUT
NOT SURPRISING.
* NOT SURPRISING IN THE LEAST...
* ANYWAY... AS ALWAYS... "REGULAR" NEWSBITES
CAN BE FOUND WITHIN THE COMMENTS SECTION.
6 comments:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/tompor/2014/09/21/susan-tompor-tax-refunds-will-be-cut-for-some-who-get-health-credits/15958211/
A significant benefit of the Affordable Care Act is the opportunity to receive money-saving tax credits up front to cut the overall cost of health insurance, but now hundreds of thousands of consumers could owe back some of that money next April.
* "BENEFIT...?!?!" MORE DEFICIT SPENDING IS NOT A BENEFIT! MORE DEBT IS NOT A BENEFIT! EXPANDING THE UNFUNDED WELFARE STATE IS CERTAINLY NOT A BENEFIT!
* I'M PAYING FOR THIS CRAP! SO ARE MOST OF YOU! THIS IS NOTHING MORE THAN INCOME "REDISTRIBUTION" - aka: THEFT!
Those affected took advance payments of the premium tax credit for health insurance. Some married couples could owe $600 or $1,500 or $2,500 or even more.
* MISERY LOVES COMPANY... (SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... WHAT A CLUSTER F--K!)
On Monday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said at least 279,000 households reported incomes that still don't match what the government has on record. Supporting documents are needed by Sept. 30.
* OOPS...
(*SNORT*)
Premium tax credits are available to individuals and families with incomes between 100% of the federal poverty line ($23,550 for a family of four this year) and 400% of the federal poverty line ($94,200 for a family of four) who purchase coverage in the health insurance marketplace in their state.
* $94,200 - YOU'RE READING THAT, RIGHT? WE MAKE... LESS THAN NINETY-FOUR THOUSAND AND TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS... YET WE'RE EXPECTED TO KICK IN TO LOWER COSTS FOR PEOPLE EARNING MORE THAN WE DO.
* HOW DOES THAT POSSIBLY MAKE SENSE...?!?!
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://online.wsj.com/articles/paul-peterson-how-the-education-spendthrifts-get-away-with-it-1411339685
Money for schools has again become a campaign issue. In the Florida governor's race, Charlie Crist says that the "first thing [Gov. Rick Scott ] does when he comes in . . . is cut education by $1.3 billion." To which Gov. Scott replies, "The $18 billion in funding for K-12 education funding is the highest in Florida history and includes a record $10.6 billion in state funds."
Pennsylvania's Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Tom Wolf accuses Republican Gov. Tom Corbett of cutting the state's school budget by $1 billion, to which Gov. Corbett replies that spending has actually risen.
Similar claims and counterclaims have been heard in Illinois, Michigan, Florida, Kansas and elsewhere.
It's easy to see why candidates promise more money for schools. As long as taxes are ignored and no mention is made of current levels of expenditure, calling for more spending is a political no-brainer.
* BECAUSE THE SHEEPLE HAVE NO BRAINS!
In the recently released Education Next poll of a nationally representative sample of the public, for which I serve as a co-director, 60% of Americans say they want to spend more.
* F*U*C*K*I*N*G I*D*I*O*T*S
Among parents, 70% want more spending, and 75% of teachers agree.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
But if one drills down, much of that enthusiasm evaporates in a cloud of confusion and inconsistency. We discovered this by dividing respondents to our survey into three randomly selected, equally representative groups.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
The first group was asked whether they thought school spending "to fund public schools in your district should increase, decrease or stay the same?"
* JUST THAT. JUST THE QUESTION. NO BACKGROUND. NO CONTEXT.
The second group, though asked that same question, was first told the level of expenditure per pupil in their district for 2011 (the most recent year for which data is available from the Education Department).
* CONTEXT ADDED...
The third group was given that same information but was asked whether they thought "taxes to fund public schools in your district should increase, decrease or stay the same?"
* CONTEXT... AND CONSEQUENCES!
Support for more spending fell to 44% from 60% when respondents were given information on current amounts of spending.
Levels fell further to only 26% favoring more spending among the group asked if they favored tax increases to fund higher spending.
* SURVEY SAYS...
(*DING-DING-DING*)
* WHILE THE AVERAGE AMERICAN IS A BLOODY IDIOT... UNDEREDUCATED... INTELLECTUALLY LAZY... THERE IS HOPE! GIVEN THE TRUE FACTS... PUT INTO THE PROPER CONTEXT... THERE'S A CHANCE THAT EVEN THE AVERAGE "SHEEPLE" CAN END HAVING SOME CLUE AS TO WHAT HE OR SHE IS SUPPORTING (OR OPPOSING) AND WHY!
Political debates over school spending also take place in a fog because the public has the illusion that the rest of the nation's schools are expensive but their local schools are a bargain.
* NO. THAT ONE I'M NOT BUYING. EVEN THE SHEEPLE HERE KNOW THAT OUR SCHOOLS COST A FORTUNE!
When asked to estimate per-pupil expenditures nationwide, the public makes an average estimate of $10,155 — almost exactly the $10,615 per-pupil expenditure level estimated by the Bureau of the Census for school expenditures in 2012, though lower than the $12,608 per-pupil figure reported for 2011 by the Department of Education. But when asked about costs locally, Americans think their schools are giving their children an education at reasonable prices. On average, they say the cost is only $6,486 per pupil in their district, barely half the actual costs of $12,608 per pupil in 2011, according to the Education Department. Local estimates by both parents and teachers are even lower.
* AGAIN... THERE'S A REASON I USE THE TERM "SHEEPLE." (IT'S LESS BLATANTLY IN YOUR FACE THAN "F--KING DUMMIES!")
The wide disparity in these estimates of national versus local expenditures is bizarre, as the sum total of all local expenditures are equivalent to those nationwide. The differing estimates may be partly due to differences in news coverage. National school expenditures are a regular part of the debate between Democrats and Republicans, making the topic worthy for the national media. In 2013 The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. per-pupil expenditures in 2011 had dipped slightly to $10,560. A month later, CBS News said the "United States spent more than $11,000 per elementary student in 2010 and more than $12,000 per high-school student."
* MY LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICT SPENT $21,936 PER PUPIL ACCORDING TO THE LATEST (2011-2012) DATA.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Local school costs per pupil do not get the same coverage. For one thing, local school officials never report them, and local politicians have little incentive to do so.
* TO PARAPHRASE JAMES CARVILLE, "IT'S THE DECEITFUL, MANIPULATIVE PRACTICES, STUPID!" (COM'ON, FOLKS... EVEN IF YOU'RE RELATIVELY CONTENT WITH YOUR OWN SCHOOL SYSTEM, IN YOUR HEART YOU KNOW THEY LIE TO YOU CONSTANTLY - LIES OF COMMISSION... LIES OF OMISSION. DELIBERATE, WELL-THOUGHT OUT LIES.)
Those wanting to increase spending have a stake in obscuring local levels of expenditure...
* YEP...
...and those concerned about costs find it more worthwhile to propose tax cuts.
* WHICH LEADS TO BOND AFTER BOND AFTER BOND... DEBT FOLLOWED BY MORE DEBT FOLLOWED BY MORE DEBT...
While local school spending information can be found on the National Center for Educational Statistics website, few reporters have the incentive to dig deeply.
* NOR DO MOST WANT TO - FOR OBVIOUS REASONS!
Education expenditures may become a local issue if the school board wants to raise local taxes. But, on average, only 45% of school costs come from local revenues, with states (45%) and the federal government (10%) supplying the remainder.
* AND YET CONSIDER THIS: WHILE BETWEEN THEM THE STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ONLY "CONTRIBUTE" 55% OF THE MONEY TO OPERATE OUR SCHOOLS, WHEN IT COMES TO CONTROL... MANDATES... IT'S MORE LIKE 95% CONTROL. (AND HOW'S THAT TURNED OUT, FOLKS?)
Money coming from state and federal governments is usually treated by local politicians as "free" to the local community...
* WHO DO THE LOCAL POLITICIANS BELIEVE PAY THE STATE AND FEDERAL TAXES OF WHICH A PORTION GETS SENT BACK TO US...?!?!
* AGAIN... FOLKS... THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS INSANE!
...and thus attention given to costs target only that 45% of the total borne by the local community.
The public may also believe other school districts waste money but their local one does not.
* AGAIN... I DON'T BUY THAT THE SHEEPLE ARE THIS FRIGGIN' STUPID... BUT... NO DOUBT MORE UNDERESTIMATE THE WASTE THAN OVERESTIMATE IT!
More generally, the public may suffer a delusion that for lack of a better phrase might be labeled "buyer's delight," the tendency for people to think they "got a deal" even when an objective observer would conclude otherwise.
Buyer's delight may also explain why people think their local schools are so much better than the nation's schools: In the Education Next poll, 58% of adults with school-age children give a grade of an A or B to their local schools, but only 26% give these same two good grades to the nation's schools.
(*SNORT*)
* ANYBODY TAKE STATS IN COLLEGE? (STATS IN HIGH SCHOOL?) IN ANY CASE... THE QUIP RELATES TO "SHEEPLE MATH."
* QUESTION: ON AN "A" TO "F" GRADING SCALE... WHAT SHOULD BE THE MEDIAN GRADE?
Whatever the reasons for the misperceptions, the facts are clear: Parents, teachers and the public at large all think that local schools are giving them more for less — even when that is unlikely. That's why politicians who favor more spending deliberately sow confusion about current expenditures.
These are all reasons why transparency in spending should be part of the school-reform conversation.
* ABOUT AS NON-PARTISAN A COMMON-SENSE REQUEST AS ONE CAN IMAGINE!
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://online.wsj.com/articles/mary-ogrady-bill-clinton-spins-his-haiti-intervention-1411339321
It's tempting to try to forget about all the misery that Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Democrat friends have inflicted on Haiti. But like perpetrators who cannot resist the urge to return to the scene of the crime, the Clintons keep reminding us.
At an Iowa "steak fry" last week, Mr. Clinton bragged about his Haiti record.
* HE SHOULDN'T HAVE! FIRST OF ALL, IT WAS AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACT; SECOND, IT DIDN'T HELP THE PEOPLE OF HAITI.
Two decades after using the U.S. military to restore deposed Haitian tyrant Jean Bertrand Aristide to power, five years after becoming the U.N.'s special Haiti envoy, and three years after taking charge of the post-earthquake Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, Mr. Clinton is persona non grata in much of the country due to the dismal results of his involvement.
Yet bringing up Haiti now, even in such an unlikely venue, may come to serve a purpose. Mr. Aristide was put under house arrest in Port-au-Prince earlier this month in connection with an investigation into allegations of money laundering and corruption. If he decides to talk and remembers things differently than Mr. Clinton...
(*SHRUG*)
Speaking after his wife addressed the Iowa crowd, Mr. Clinton explained his 1994 Haiti intervention: "The military dictator down there was putting tires around people's necks and setting them afire, in an affectionate policy called necklacing," he recalled satirically. "I was told that nobody gave a rip about Haiti." But "we did it and no shot was fired. Nobody got hurt."
That's some tale. But as any Haitian knows, it was Mr. Aristide who championed Haitian "necklacing," aka "Père Lebrun" after a domestic tire merchant.
* YEP!
Governing a democracy with a national assembly was more difficult than he had anticipated and he urged his followers to give Père Lebrun to his opponents, as an Oct. 1993 Congressional Research Service report documented.
* YEP...
On Sept. 29, 1991, the military stepped in and kicked him out. It employed its own paramilitary, which also practiced repression — but guns, not necklacing, were its weapon of choice.
* YEP...
Mr. Aristide fled to Washington, where President George H.W. Bush released Haiti's international telephone and airline revenues to him as the government-in-exile.
* FOLKS... NEVER FORGET: PAPPY BUSH - GEORGE H.W. BUSH - WAS A DOCHEBAG. (LIKE SON, LIKE FATHER; LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON.)
There was never any accounting for those funds but they reportedly topped $50 million. Mr. Aristide lived the high life in Georgetown and mounted an aggressive and costly lobbying campaign for U.S. military intervention to restore his presidency.
* IN OTHER WORDS, FOLKS, ARISTIDE SPREAD HIS ILL-GOTTEN LOOT AROUND... WHICH BOUGHT MANY DEMOCRAT AS WELL AS REPUBLICAN "FRIENDS."
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Once Mr. Clinton put Mr. Aristide back in the palace in Port-au-Prince, his supporters picked up where they had left off. Opponents were hacked with machetes, set on fire and gunned down. Money disappeared.
The Clinton administration did nothing to contain these abuses.
Instead, a company called Fusion, run by Democrats — including Joseph P. Kennedy II, Mack McLarty, who had been Clinton White House chief of staff, and Marvin Rosen, a former finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee — went into the long-distance telephone business with Haiti Teleco, the government-owned monopoly.
* ALL THREE OF THESE SCUM SHOULD BE NECKLACED THEMSELVES!
In 2000, several Haitians, fearing for their lives, surreptitiously approached me to ask for help in exposing this arrangement, which they said was destroying Haiti-Teleco. Fusion clammed up, but with the help of the Freedom of Information Act I eventually uncovered the sweetheart deal between the friends of Bill and the Haitian despot. (See the Oct. 27, 2008, Americas column.) Fusion has denied any wrongdoing.
* AND OF COURSE THE UN NEVER INVESTIGATED...
* AND OF COURSE "DUBYA" - GEORGE W. BUSH - AND THE RINOs NEVER INVESTIGATED...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Since 2012, Haiti's judges no longer answer to the executive branch and their independence could reverse decades of impunity. Former dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier is currently under investigation for numerous allegations of human-rights violations during his rule in the 1970s and '80s. Sources familiar with the investigation of Mr. Aristide conducted by Judge Lamarre Belizaire tell me that the potential charges include money laundering, drug trafficking and the illicit use of state funds. One credible source told me by telephone from Port-au-Prince last week that the court also is looking at corruption inside Haiti Teleco.
It would be reasonable to expect U.S. authorities to cooperate since they have prosecuted several Haitians for telecom kickback schemes and drug trafficking during Mr. Aristide's rule. My sources say that the Aristide Foundation for Democracy also is being investigated and that some well-known Americans are involved.
Last week Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), who has been a vocal supporter of Mr. Aristide...
* THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS HAVE ACTED AS ARISTIDE CHEERLEADERS ALL ALONG!
...and has served on the U.S. board of directors of the Aristide Foundation for Democracy, sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry expressing concern that there might be an "effort to illegally arrest" Mr. Aristide and that his supporters might react violently. She asked the U.S. to "intervene immediately."
* NO ONE HAS EVER DENIED THAT WATERS HAS BALLS!
Ms. Waters did not mention the importance of setting a precedent in Haiti that no one is above the law.
Nor did she show concern for the safety of Judge Belizaire, who according to multiple reports is receiving death threats.
Funny that...
Just as strange as the unexpected Haiti spiel from Mr. Clinton in Iowa.
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