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Good Lord man, there is no recovery and really, at what point do you stop blaming others? Do we really want the Presidential website brought down to the level of a political blog?
Some men grow into the office. As for some others, the office exposes their true nature. Marx and Lenin are dead, but our President is a true believer.
Today's News
From our esteemed President:
“My economic team is hard at work in identifying additional measures that could make a difference in both promoting growth and hiring in the short term and increasing our economy’s competitiveness in the long term,” he said in a statement at the White House. Link
He went on to say that he would be thinking of nothing else while he rested at Camp David for three day weekend.
It seems that the Secretary of Education urged all 4,000 of his employees to attend race hustler and overall bad person, Al Sharpton’s counter-protest against “all them white” people this Saturday (see this story before you say or write something stupid).
President Obama’s top education official urged government employees to attend a rally that the Rev. Al Sharpton organized to counter a larger conservative event on the Mall.
“ED staff are invited to join Secretary Arne Duncan, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and other leaders on Saturday, Aug. 28, for the ‘Reclaim the Dream’ rally and march,” began an internal e-mail sent to more than 4,000 employees of the Department of Education on Wednesday. Read more…..
Besides Obama and his administration being tone deaf, I truly think their leftist ideology requires them to alienate hundreds of thousands of people at a time.
What we have is a leftest intelligentsia in charge. While that is disturbing, what is more bothersome is that the Department of Education employees 4,000 people. Education is and should be a local prerogative and we don’t need any administration setting a national education policy.
If our dear Secretary of Education has nothing better to do than play politics with learning, than a good place to start cutting the deficit would be with the elimination of the Education Department.
The cabin is located, now in Shawnee Lookout Park, run by Hamilton County. Originally, it was located a few miles away in Elizabethtown.
The following dollar distributions are based on Recovery Act funds doled out between February of 2009 until June 30th of this year.
The inequity in the distribution of funds between our seat of government, Washington, D.C., and other parts of the nation point to a program that was only meant to “stimulate” government or Democratic objectives, rather than the economy at large.
The District of Columbia received some $3.7 billion dollars.
Now, compare that to what Oklahoma got from the Stimulus:
That’s right, the entire state of Oklahoma pulled in $2.6 billion from the Recovery Act.
Now, look at largess Indiana took in from the American Recovery Act:
The entire state of Indiana netted $4.3 billion, only a little more than the District of Columbia, which only some 68 square miles!
Just looking at the distribution of Stimulus funds, based on population, do you really think the Democrats wrote the bill based on logic, reason, need, or priority?
From the Bureau of Economic Analysis, August 27th:
Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 1.6 percent in the second quarter of 2010, (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the “second” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 3.7 percent.
The increase in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from nonresidential fixed investment, personal consumption expenditures, exports, federal government spending, private inventory investment, and residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.
Note in the second paragraph, that federal spending was part of the paltry 1.6% growth in GDP in the second quarter.
To give you an idea of how hollow GDP was, the BEA goes on to describe federal spending in Q2:
Real federal government consumption expenditures and gross investment increased 9.1 percent in the second quarter, compared with an increase of 1.8 percent in the first. National defense increased 7.3 percent, compared with an increase of 0.4 percent. Nondefense increased 12.9 percent, compared with an increase of 5.0 percent.
Compared to the 1st quarter of the year, Washington spent like a drunken sailor in the second quarter and all they got to show for it was a 1.6% growth rate.
Let the banks fail. Let business fail. Cut corporate taxes to encourage manufacturing on American soil and cut personal tax rates in one half for the next fiscal year. Finally, cut the Federal Budget so much, that we actually run a surplus.
Keynesian economics will not work. Monetary policy is out of ammo. This recession requires that we as a nation balance our books and adopt sound fiscal policies, at both the personal and governmental levels.
You’ve heard about the $578 million dollar school, built by the Los Angeles Unified School District, right? Here’s an introduction to the story, if you haven’t:
With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation’s most expensive public school ever.
The K-12 complex to house 4,200 students has raised eyebrows across the country as the creme de la creme of “Taj Mahal” schools, $100 million-plus campuses boasting both architectural panache and deluxe amenities.
At RFK, the features include fine art murals and a marble memorial depicting the complex’s namesake, a manicured public park, a state-of-the-art swimming pool and preservation of pieces of the original hotel.
Partly by circumstance and partly by design, the Los Angeles Unified School District has emerged as the mogul of Taj Mahals. Read more….
Here’s a picture of it:
Here’s a screenshot, from the LAUSD’s website, documenting the cost:
The school sits on 23 acres and its buildings occupy some 391,000 square feet. The following photo of the construction site will give you an idea of the size of this project:
So we know it is huge. We know it was expensive, but what else can we find out about the RFK Community Schools? From the RFKCS’s website, here is the introduction page:
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The LA school district spent almost $600 million on a school were 50% of the students are deemed “English language learners.” In other words, the area has a high concentration of illegal aliens or legal residents that have not adopted or embraced American culture. I realize that as a nation we no longer reward success, but the LA school district has abandoned the traditional role of the school as the primary source of socialization into American culture.
Think I’m exaggerating? Let’s look at some of the schools which make up the RFK Community Schools.
The Ambassador School of Global Education is pretty much what you think it is. Here’s the web page:
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In a world view, typical of the American left, we get this amoral philosophy:
ASGE is the first elementary school member of the International Studies School Network (ISSN) – a division of the Asia Society, which is the leading global and pan-Asian organization working to strengthen relationships and promote understanding among the people, leaders and institutions of the U.S. and Asia.
There is nothing wrong with appreciating, studying, or understanding foreign cultures, but the sentence above implies some moral equivalence between nations that must be accepted. Sometimes you don’t want nor should you encourage an understanding between, say communist, authoritarian, or murderous regimes and the school children of United States.
Once again, think I’m exaggerating and creating a left leaning mission statement from whole cloth? Then read a little further in screenshot above. Look the organizations this “community school” has associations with.
J.U.I.C.E or Justice United in Creative Energy describes itself this way:
Justice by Uniting in Creative Energy (J.U.i.C.E.), a project of Community Partners, is a non-profit weekly hip hop arts program that seeks to develop youth leadership and technical skills, creative expression and self-confidence through the artistic elements of hip hop which include breakdancing, urban art, deejaying, emceeing/spoken word and music recording. Link
When you think of education, I bet the first thing that jumps into your mind is hip hop. When you think global education, I bet you think hip hop. No? Raise your hands, how many of you think that break dancing or urban art is a critical ingredient in creating a well-educated student? I didn’t think so.
But then again, that one of the organizations with whom this LA school partners with. Apparently they think hip hop and break dancing will produce the next Einstein.
Empathy for things which degrade this culture is not the sign of tolerance, rather it is the sign of a group of people who have abandoned their senses and lost their ability to discern right from wrong.
KIWA or Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance is another group this school works with. Here’s snippet from their mission statement:
KIWA’s Mission: To empower Koreatown’s low-wage immigrant workers and to develop a progressive constituency and leadership in the Koreatown community that can struggle in solidarity with other underrepresented communities in and beyond Koreatown.
Our Vision: To build a multi-ethnic worker/resident “COMMUNITY UNION” with the power to transform our workplaces and communities in Koreatown and to affect broad change throughout the greater Los Angeles area.
The effects of globalization are apparent at the city and neighborhood level in Los Angeles and Koreatown—deregulation and privatization at the national and international levels have resulted in fewer well-paid skilled jobs, a drastic increase in low-paid jobs in the service sector, a general decrease in wages, fewer social services, and a lowered social wage. As we continue to cut social spending and reduce public regulation in the private sector, Los Angeles is the epicenter of the nation’s wealth-and-poverty divide. Over the last 30 years, household income has declined for 60% of Los Angeles families, cost of living increases have outstripped wages, poverty has risen, and income inequality continues to grow as the middle class shrinks. While executive salaries skyrocket, one in four working people in the city does not earn enough to be self-sufficient and 43% of Angelinos are part of the working poor.
So we have all the keywords here, such as empower, progressive, solidarity, underrepresented, transform, affect broad change, globalization…and so on. This isn’t a center or center right organization by any definition.
Here’s the kicker, KIWA offers an internship, which among other things, offers a chance to learn how to be a community organizer! Sound familiar?
Through field training and class instruction, interns will learn effective communication skills, basic housing, immigration and labor laws, and the nuts and bolts of community organizing. Link
Another group with whom this school works with is the Asia Society International Studies School Network. These screenshots really don’t need any commentary about their orientation (well, maybe one comment…the melting Himalayan glacier story was proven a hoax, yet this educational group still presents it as fact):
On to the next school, the Ambassador School of Global Leadership. Here’s a screenshot of their homepage:
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The following is from their mission statement:
At ASGL, students are challenged to step out of the familiar, and see the lessons from the perspectives of other cultures. They learn to appreciate, and understand what it means to be a global citizen, and are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills for work, college, post secondary education and life.
Once again, I have a bachelor’s degree in International Studies, but only a post-American, far left academic could write an objective which obviously promotes global citizenship, with no mention of the benefits to America.
Now to be somewhat objective, The School for the Visual Arts and Humanities actually said this in their mission statement:
Courses in Western and world civilizations connect classes to local and global events, while Advanced Placement and college courses combined with annual visits to public and private colleges prepare students to access and succeed in higher education.
They actually mentioned Western Civilization! Additionally, some of the associated organizations seem reasonable and fairly mainstream.
I guess they had to balance the importance of hip hop and break dancing, somehow.
Overall though, we have a $578 million dollar school, of which, some of its units, have an obvious post-American point of view and they partner with leftist organizations.
Like I said before, this LA school, for the most part, has abandoned one of its primary functions, which is the socialization of the student into American culture. Instead, the students are taught to be global citizens or they are coached by far left community organizations.
Six hundred million dollars, if you ask me, just bought the LA school district, one nice building and a lot of future failure.
An F-15E Strike Eagle and P-51 Mustang perform a heritage flight Aug. 15, 2010, during the Abbotsford International Air Show in British Columbia. The F-15E is assigned to the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Larry E. Reid Jr.)
This might well be why the “Summer of Recovery” has become the “Summer of Continued Misery.” From the CBO, we learn that “tax collection of liabilities” has increased over the last three months. In plain English, that means personal tax rates are increasing.
That’s about the dumbest thing one could do during a recession. Then again, this administration is made up of only the best of the self-appointed intelligentsia.
In contrast, combined receipts from individual income and payroll taxes were about $58 billion (or 4 percent) lower than collections in the same 10-month period last year. Withheld income and payroll tax receipts fell by about $29 billion (or 2 percent), and nonwithheld receipts fell by about $37 billion (or 12 percent). In both instances, the declines occurred earlier in this fiscal year and are largely attributable to lower collections of tax liabilities incurred in 2009. Collections during the past three months were higher than those during the same months last year. Read more….
Played Hickory Sticks, which is south of Cincy, in California, Kentucky.
The course has a nice layout, with a great view of the surrounding landscape. The greens were in good shape, but the tees and most of the fairways were burned to a crisp from the hot weather. Even though it was a little rough, I played well and enjoyed the round.
Some pictures of Hickory Sticks:
From The Discourses:
Book III, Chapter I
A republic may, likewise, be brought back to its original form, without recourse to ordinances for enforcing justice, by the mere virtues of a single citizen, by reason that these virtues are of such influence and authority that good men love to imitate them, and bad men are ashamed to depart from them. Those to whom Rome owed most for services of this sort, were Horatius Cocles, Mutius Scaevola, the two Decii, Atilius Regulus, and divers others, whose rare excellence and generous example wrought for their city almost the same results as might have been effected by ordinances and laws. And if to these instances of individual
worth had been added, every ten years, some signal enforcement of justice, it would have been impossible for Rome ever to have grown corrupted. But when both of these incitements to virtuous behavior began to recur less frequently, corruption spread, and after the time of Atilius Regulus, no like example was again witnessed. For though the two Catos came later, so great an interval had elapsed before the elder Cato appeared, and again, so long a period intervened between him and the younger, and these two, moreover, stood so much alone, that it was impossible for them, by their influence, to work any important change; more especially for the younger, who found Rome so much corrupted that he could do nothing to improve his fellow-citizens.
In other words, don’t lose hope. As bad as the far left is, if we elect a person dedicated to our founding principles, the neo-communist statist philosophy can be pushed aside.
In fact, it has happened in recent memory:
From The Dicourses:
CHAPTER XXIV.–_That well-ordered States always provide Rewards and Punishments for their Citizens; and never set off Deserts against
MisdeedsAnd this because no well-ordered State ever strikes a balance between the services of its citizens and their misdeeds; but appointing rewards for good actions and punishment for bad, when it has rewarded a man for acting well, will afterwards, should he act ill, chastise him, without regard to his former deserts. When these ordinances are duly observed, a city will live long in freedom, but when they are neglected, it must soon come to ruin. For when a citizen has rendered some splendid service to his country, if to the distinction which his action in itself confers, were added an over-weening confidence that any crime he might thenceforth commit would pass unpunished, he would soon become so arrogant that no civil bonds could restrain him.
Equality before the law is a requirement for a long-lived republic. Yet, as you well know, often fame, position, or lineage mitigates punishment.
