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- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/britains-tax-warning-for-marco-rubio-1446075061
British politics was thrown into turmoil this week when Parliament blocked David Cameron’s plan to reform family tax credits. There’s a warning here for conservatives elsewhere, especially American Presidential candidate Marco Rubio, about the dangers of social engineering through taxation.
At issue is a convoluted tax benefit developed by Tony Blair in 2003 that was supposed to reward low-income work and childbearing.
Under 2015-16 rates, low-income families can receive up to £2,780 ($4,263) in refundable credits per nondisabled child and £3,140 per disabled child, in addition to a per-family credit of £545. The per-child benefits go down as incomes rise up to £35,000 a year. Low-income workers with or without children can also earn a working tax credit on incomes below £6,420.
This policy hasn’t worked as intended.
The credits now cost some £30 billion per year in lost revenue and refunds to lower earners.
The credits also haven’t raised the birth rate.
* HOWEVER...
The tax credits have become a new entitlement for the child-rearing middle class.
* F--KING IDIOT POLITICIANS!
That’s a lesson for Americans as a debate about tax reform gathers momentum. Some Republicans are drawn to Mr. Rubio’s plan to raise the per-child tax credit to $2,500 from $1,000 on the basis that it’s pro-family, even though he admits it does nothing for economic growth.
But the most pro-family tax policies are those that do the most to boost broad-based growth and raise incomes, which means a flatter tax code with lower rates and fewer distorting credits and exemptions.
As Britain shows, the danger of using the tax code for pro-natalist social planning is that you end up with an expensive new entitlement that is merely another mechanism for income redistribution and can’t be reformed.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-closing-of-a-newsrooms-mind-1446237923
For-profit colleges have become a standard target of the progressive left (and not them alone).
My exposure to the actual business of for-profit education has made it hard to understand and adequately respond to the assault on the industry that has raged since 2009. The attack has included the drafting of impossibly rigid regulations on top of countless already existing ones; Senate hearings aimed at ruining the reputations of the entire industry; and the placement of dozens of stories with friendly news organizations.
On Oct. 13, I woke up to see this headline on the lead story in the New York Times: “For-Profit Colleges Fail Standards, but Get Billions.” The online headline used the word “fraud.” The story started with a college that had been investigated or sued by 12 states and the Justice Department; it went on to another one investigated or sued by 19 states, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Education Department. And then in the article, by God, there was Kaplan. We were lumped in with what the Times thought were the lousiest for-profit colleges—and I had no idea the story might run.
I checked everywhere at Kaplan. Had the reporter called? Nope. Had she visited a campus? The story certainly didn’t indicate that she had.
The whole article argues that for-profit colleges should be somehow eliminated from federal Title IV programs (a step that would shut down almost any college in America), although it cites no law that would permit such a thing.
I can say based on a lifetime in journalism that it is quite unusual to write about a company in a story whose headline uses the word “fraud” and not even call to get our side of the story. And I find it equally unusual to put forward a thesis that a college should be closed, but never visit it.
The Times doesn’t ask the same question of traditional colleges being investigated for similar or graver offenses, like the University of North Carolina, which has been accused of creating phantom courses and awarding high grades to 3,100 students over the years—many of them athletes who thereby remained eligible to play. Nor does the paper ask whether other organizations widely investigated for wrongdoing should be cut off from federal funds. What would the Times say if that happened to Planned Parenthood?
(*SMIRK*)
* I DO BELIEVE WE ALL KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION!
I was angry enough to write a letter to the New York Times, which it declined to run. But I left out one of the strangest parts of this story: The reporter quotes a fellow named Ben Miller, senior director at the Center for American Progress, which she describes as “a liberal research and advocacy group.” A couple of paragraphs later she quotes some figures and says they were from “a detailed analysis by Mr. Miller for The New York Times.”
So the New York Times is now having its analyses performed by advocacy groups and—surprise!—the results support the conclusion of the advocacy group. The American Enterprise Institute would, I guarantee you, have reached a different conclusion. And this is how the Times conducts its research?
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article41972739.html
* AND THIS, FOLKS, FROM THE MOST "LIBERAL" (LEFTIST) OF THE TRADITIONAL AMERICAN NEWS WIRES.
Hillary Clinton...still faces a months-long FBI inquiry into the handling of sensitive information while she was secretary of state.
Attorneys who have handled classified information cases say the bureau, initially asked to examine whether Clinton’s arrangement compromised national security secrets, ultimately will have to consider whether she and her aides failed to sufficiently safeguard sensitive information.
They disagree about whether there’s enough evidence to prosecute her or her aides for sending and receiving government messages over the personal email system. routed through a private computer server in the basement of her New York home.
But most who spoke to McClatchy say it’s unlikely the former first lady, senator and Cabinet secretary will face charges because of her high profile and the hurdle to prove she knew the emails contained classified information when she sent them to others.
“She’s too big to jail,” said national security attorney Edward MacMahon Jr., who represented former CIA employee Jeffrey Sterling in 2011 in a leak case that led to an espionage prosecution and 3½-year prison term. He cited a pattern of light punishments for top government officials who have mishandled classified information while lower level whistleblowers such as Sterling have faced harsh prosecutions for revealing sensitive information to expose waste, fraud or abuse in government.
At least 671 emails that Clinton sent or received through her private server contained classified material, according to the State Department’s latest update Friday from its ongoing review of more than 30,000 emails. Her aides also sent and received classified information.
The inspectors general of the State Department and intelligence community have said that some contained classified information when they were generated, but they were not marked that way at the time.
Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor who handles cases against local, state and federal officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, for leaking the covert identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, said Clinton’s actions may have been foolish but not necessarily illegal.
“If the emails were not marked, it would not be possible – at least not in my view – to establish that Ms. Clinton knowingly mishandled classified information,” he said. “How was she to know that this was classified if it was not marked?”
* OH... I DON'T KNOW... COMMON SENSE, PERHAPS?! GOOD JUDGMENT? CAUTION? PROFESSIONALISM?
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Legal experts say investigators could be looking into potential violations of Section 1924 of Title 18, which deals with the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material, or even the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime for anyone “through gross negligence,” to allow the loss, theft or removal of classified information or fails to promptly report such mishandling to his superior.
The pressure to act against Clinton could build if the FBI determines that her official emails were hacked by a foreign power such as Russia or China. Even then, Clinton’s lawyers might be able to ward off a prosecution by demonstrating “that she was so stupid and so busy that she didn’t have any idea what was going on” with regard to her emails, said Joseph DiGenova, an outspoken former Republican U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
* GOTTA LUV THE MSM; "OUTSPOKEN." (*SNORT*)
DiGenova dismissed Clinton’s contention that the email was not marked as classified, emphasizing that a top agency official has a duty to recognize and protect classified information.
MacMahon said that if a lower-level government employee “cooked up their own home server” and received emails containing classified information, “they would have already been arrested.”
* FOLKS... BOTTOM LINE... OBAMA WILL MAKE THE DECISION ON WHETHER HRC IS PROSECUTED - AND IF SO... WHEN THE DECISION IS ANNOUNCED.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/31/hillary-clinton-warned-not-blame-benghazi-youtube-video/
* JUST MORE BACK-UP TO WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW... AND YET THE MSM TELLS THE SHEEPLE NOT TO CARE... SO THE SHEEPLE DON'T CARE...
(*SIGH*)
Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s embassy in Tripoli, Libya, warned State Department officials in Washington, D.C., not to blame the Youtube video, Innocence of Muslims, for the Benghazi terrorist attack.
The House Benghazi Committee released a new email Saturday...
* ON SATURDAY...
(*SNORTING AS I SHAKE MY HEAD*)
...that a Tripoli embassy official sent to Clinton’s underlings in Washington, D.C., on September 14, 2012, two days before Susan Rice appeared on Sunday talk shows to use the administration’s “video” talking point.
“Colleagues, I mentioned to [redacted] this morning, and want to share with all of you, our view at Embassy Tripoli that we must be cautious in our local messaging with regard to the inflammatory film trailer, adapting it to Libyan conditions,” the official wrote.
The official added:
Our monitoring of the Libyan media and conversations with Libyans suggest that the films [sic] not as explosive of an issue here as it appears to be in other countries in the region. The overwhelming majority of the FB comments and tweets we’ve received from Libyans since the Ambassador’s death have expressed deep sympathy, sorrow, and regret. They have expressed anger at the attackers, and emphasized that this attack does not represent Libyans or Islam. Relatively few have even mentioned the inflammatory video. So if we post messaging about the video specifically, we may draw unwanted attention to it.
“And it is becoming increasingly clear that the series of events in Benghazi was much more terrorist attack than a protest which escalated into violence,” the official continued. “It is our opinion that in our messaging, we want to distinguish, not conflate, the events in other countries with this well-planned attack by militant extremists. I have discussed this with [redacted] and he shares PAS’s view.”
According to a statement by Matt Wolking, press secretary of the House Select Committee on Benghazi:
This email shows that State Department staff privately raised serious concerns about conflating the terrorist attacks in Benghazi with a video on the Internet, even as the Secretary of State and other Obama administration officials continued to do so publicly. Furthermore, according to the former head of the CIA, intelligence “analysts never said the video was a factor in the Benghazi attacks.” So while Secretary Clinton may use the “fog of war” as a convenient excuse for why she said one thing in private and something else in public, the reality is that’s just another smokescreen.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/30/feds-say-179027-criminal-illegals-are-loose-on-us-/?
Nearly 1 million immigrants have been ordered deported but still roam free in the U.S., including nearly 180,000 who have been convicted of crimes here, the Homeland Security Department said in information released Friday by the Senate immigration subcommittee.
* OH... BY FOLKS... THERE'S MORE!
“ICE is unable to statistically report on the number of aliens who have been arrested for criminal offenses,” the agency said.
All told, there are 918,369 immigrants living in the U.S. who have been ordered deported. Some of them are here under special court rulings or administration decisions that prevent them from being sent back to specific countries, while others just aren’t deemed serious enough criminals by the Obama administration to worry about.
Of the total, 179,027 have criminal convictions.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/2-investigates-georgia-becomes-border-state-violen/npBdp/
A groundbreaking Channel 2 Action News investigation has exposed a pattern involving thousands of unauthorized immigrants convicted of violent crimes. Many are removed from the United States multiple times after committing even more crimes.
Not even broken English can hide Nepalese native Mayaa Gurung's broken heart over the murder of her daughter, Manju Poonmagar.
"Now she's not home. Not here now. Very hard," Gurung told investigative reporter Aaron Diamant.
Sergio Vera-Lula recently pleaded guilty and got a life sentence for killing Poonmagar outside her Cobb County apartment in 2013.
"I need to meet with that guy," Gurung cried. "Why you kill my daughter?"
Poonmagar emigrated legally just two years before her death. Prosecutors found her murder capped off a two-week crime spree by Vera-Lula.
Of the 386,485 unauthorized immigrants removed from the United States in 2013, 222,972 of them - 60% - had at least prior removal. Over forty thousand (42,116) of the total unauthorized immigrants removed that year had been convicted of an aggravated felony. Of those felons, 27,159 had been removed before. That's 64%.
Among the aggravated felons who had been removed at least once before were 281 killers, 178 kidnappers, 1149 sex criminals and thousands convicted on drug charges.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
* BUY GUNS, MY FRIENDS! LEARN HOW TO USE THEM! STOCK UP ON AMMO!
The data showed Georgia ranked first in deportations among all non-border states, and fourth overall behind only Texas, Arizona and California.
In Georgia, federal authorities deported 7120 unauthorized immigrants in fiscal year 2013. More than eleven-hundred (1173) of them had aggravated felony convictions. Of those, 513 (44%) had at least one prior removal. That includes 9 convicted killers, 10 kidnappers, nearly 40 sex criminals, and hundreds convicted on drug charges.
* WELCOME TO OBAMA'S AMERIKA, FOLKS! WELCOME TO PAUL RYAN'S AMERIKA! WELCOME TO "BIPARTISAN" AMERIKA, FOLKS!
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