In an interview with CNBC earlier this week, economist Peter Schiff suggested that the time for austerity is now. The real danger, he says, is not going over the ‘fiscal cliff.’
In his view, continuing down the road we’re on will only make matters worse, and eventually Asia will stop loaning money to a dead-beat customer who can’t pay back its loans.
See interview below.
A 60-year old midwife who has delivered hundreds of healthy babies in California was arrested by armed agents in her home earlier this month. A local TV station reported that
Brenda Capps was booked for violation of Business and Professions Code section 2052, which is unlicensed practice of medicine.
Investigators with the Medical Board’s Operation Safe Medicine conducted an undercover investigation that led to Capp’s arrest.
The Medical Board first became aware of Capps during another investigation and successful criminal prosecution of an unlicensed person for practicing midwifery and medicine. During the initial investigation of Capps, Medical Board investigators confirmed that she was unlicensed and warned her not to practice midwifery without being properly licensed.
Following her arrest, Ms. Capps was booked in the county jail on felony charges.
Unlike other recent midwifery prosecution cases, Ms. Capps’ case did not involve any allegations of medical malpractice. Rather, the heavy hand of California’s Medical Board police (yes, they have guns) was brought to bear against Ms. Capps, apparently to send a message to other liberty-minded practitioners that unlicensed birthing will not be tolerated on the left-Coast.
Here’s what Ms. Capps’ husband, an itinerant pastor, had to say about the jack-booted arrest of his wife:
[A]fter 22 years of faithful midwifery ministry the [California] Medical Board came into our home and arrested Brenda Capps on Thursday Nov. 15th 2012 around 11 a.m. Brenda works under The Religious Exemption Clause and has every client sign the form for her care. We have obtained an outstanding attorney (David Faulkner of Bakersfield) and the Midwives all over [California] and USA and even out of the country are calling and in support. We seek your prayers. My wife is fearful. We are staying with her at all times. We will fight this to victory. All babies due are being delivered by other midwives in support of midwifery. Brenda Capps works as a Christian Domiciliary Midwife and within her rights of the law. The MB people who were all over our home with guns took $500.00 cash money from Brenda’s desk that was her birthday money.
Read more concerning this story HERE.
WASHINGTON – Robert S. Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, says it’s possible that arms and munitions paid for by the United States are finding their way into al-Qaeda hands in Syria.
It was at a panel discussion held by the Middle East Institute in Washington that he declared, “We strongly, strongly, strongly support the efforts of the Syrian opposition coalition to develop its organization….we think they are absolutely…they are a legitimate representative of the Syrian peoples’ aspiration and we will work with them, we will cooperate with them.”
But there has been evidence of growing activity by al-Qaida and Islamic extremist elements inside Syria as part of that opposition coalition, officials note. And they may be getting some of the military supplies.
Ford acknowledged that there is no way to be able to track the destinations of all of the weapons help that is going into the region, and it’s possible al-Qaeda – or other anti-American jihadist groups – could be collecting some.
Read more from this story HERE.
photo credit: gage skidmore
Bozell sent a letter to Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus on Wednesday pledging to make it his mission to counsel conservative donors to shun the party if its leaders in Congress agree to raise taxes.
Bozell, the chairman of ForAmerica Inc., has been active in conservative political circles for three decades and estimates he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for “an alphabet soup of conservative causes.”
“Reince, it pains me to say this, but if the Republican Party breaks its word to the American people and goes along with President Obama with tax increases, it will have betrayed conservatives for the final time,” Bozell wrote.
“I will make it my mission to ensure that every conservative donor to the Republican Party that I have worked with for the last three decades — and there are many and they have given tens of millions to Republican causes — gives not one penny more to the Republican Party or any member of Congress that votes for tax increases,” he warned.
Read more from this story HERE.
Somehow both the Left and the Republican Party establishment are allowed to each go through life tip-toeing through the raindrops, with each rarely compelled to defend their indefensibles.
That has again been apparent on the Ruling Class news shows following the election, as RINO after RINO and Republicrat after Republicrat strolled in front of the cameras to say that unless Republicans become more like Democrats they just can’t win elections. Of course, all of this propaganda begs several follow-up questions that almost never get asked, which is why I will ask them here.
Questions like:
• John McCain, if it’s true that Republicans need to move left on issues in order to win elections as you have (repeatedly) suggested, then why weren’t you running for re-election last month? Why did you lose in 2008?
• How come Republicans did very well in the 2010 elections and not as well in the 2012 elections? If it’s because we were too conservative, what evidence do you have that the failed campaign Republicans waged in 2012 was to the right of the successful campaign of 2010?
• If elections are all about winning over those supposedly crucial independents, then why didn’t Mitt Romney win the election? He won independents in Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado – all states McCain lost independents to Obama in 2008 – and did six points better with independents in Florida than McCain did in 2008. If you flip all those states to Romney he wins the Electoral College, yet he did what he was supposed to do with independents in those states and still lost them all. How do you explain that?
• If elections are only about the independents, should conservatives then en masse abandon their party affiliation and re-register as independents as a means of actually getting you to care about what they think for a change?
• If it’s true we’re alienating voters because of our stance in defense of marriage, then how do you explain the fact marriage out-performed Romney in every state it was on the ballot? For example, marriage performed 10 points better than Romney did in Maryland, even though it lost as well. Romney did better with evangelical turnout in Minnesota, where there was also a marriage initiative on the ballot, than McCain did four years ago. Instead of abandoning these issues, wouldn’t the smarter, more pragmatic political play be to try and link your candidates to issues more popular than your candidates? For instance, there is legitimate concern about the GOP’s status with minority voters. Yet those same minority voters are also very pro-life and very pro-marriage. If you really want to reach out to those voters, why not start with issues they already agree with you on?
• If we have to completely abandon the sanctity of life to win female voters, then how do you explain that Romney won white women by 14 points and still lost the election?
• If you’re going to abandon the sanctity of life, the defense of marriage, limited taxation, small government, out-of-control spending, and the rule of law, then what exactly makes you a Republican? Why not become a Democrat where the ideas you believe in are more popular?
• The most energized that pro-freedom and pro-liberty voters were this year was during the rally to defend Chick-fil-a prior to the Republican Convention. Did you make sure all those people were registered to vote, and ready to vote Republican for the same reasons they were standing in line for hours to get a chicken sandwich? Did you go out of your way to let that grassroots uprising of everyday Americans know which party stood with them, or did you shun them to curry favor with your ruling class friends?
• If Romney’s problems with the Republican base were just as simple as evangelicals not wanting to vote for a Mormon, then why did fewer Catholics vote in 2012 compared to 2008 despite the presence of Paul Ryan on the ticket? Furthermore, why did Romney do worse with Mormon voters than George W. Bush did in 2004?
• Why did you go scorched earth to shove Romney down our throats in the primary, only to then abandon him several times in the general election? Didn’t you tell all of us Romney was the only candidate running this time that could win?
• This week the Gallup Poll said for the first time since 2000 a majority of the American people don’t believe it’s the government’s role to provide healthcare for everybody. So then instead of funding Obamacare why aren’t you doing everything possible can to stop it?
• Do you have a plan to recover the 7 million white voters who voted in 2008 that didn’t vote in 2012? Do you know who those people are? Do you know why they didn’t vote?
Wouldn’t you love to see someone in the ruling class media ask these people these questions? Is there anyone in the “Republican media” that will ask them these questions when they get the chance?
Nah.
I mean, it’s not as if the republic is at stake or anything. Besides, it’s two-for-one martinis at the beltway’s newest trendy hangout, and Karl Rove is there laying out his latest master plan to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Gotta roll. Ta-ta.
_____________________________________________________
You can friend “Steve Deace” on Facebook, or follow him on Twitter @SteveDeaceShow.
In the early afternoon of April 18, 2012, Michael Cormier, an autopsy technician at the Los Angeles coroner’s office, drove himself to Kaiser Permanente Hospital complaining of heart and stomach pain and diarrhea. The doctors suspected a heart issue or an ulcer and recommended he follow up with his regular physician. Two days later, Cormier asked his wife to call 911. An ambulance took him Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, where he died several hours later from massive organ failure.
While he was at Providence St. Joseph, an unidentified family member called and recommended that the hospital check Cormier for poison. A screen test found a significant amount of arsenic in Cormier’s system, and the hospital contacted the Los Angeles Police Department. In the early stages of the investigation into Cormier’s death, the police wouldn’t rule out an accident, suicide, or something more nefarious, and the coroner deferred the cause of death pending further toxicology results.
In all, it was not a remarkable set of circumstances, but Cormier’s death made national news when numerous right-wing blogs linked it to the death of Andrew Breitbart, the conservative media juggernaut and Tea Party hero who had died on March 1 at the age of 43.
“According to early reports, Michael Cormier was ‘seemingly healthy,’ yet ‘suddenly stricken’ with a fatal condition—just like Andrew Breitbart,” read a post on Infowars.com.
The blogs were already speculating that Breitbart—who had announced shortly before his death that he had acquired deeply damaging video footage of President Obama—had been assassinated by the president or his supporters. When Cormier died on the day the coroner’s office announced Breitbart’s cause of death as a heart attack, the right-wing conspiracy theories became more heated. Infowars asked, “Was Cormier targeted because he knew something” about Breitbart’s death which contradicted the official findings?
Read more from this story HERE.
Sick children and even disabled newborn babies, are reportedly being discharged from NHS hospitals in England only to die slowly at home or in hospices in an unfathomable manner. The innocent children are being put on controversial “death pathways,” once only thought to have involved elderly and terminally ill adult patients.
The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), an organization that facilitates end-of-life treatment, is behind the inhumane program. The Daily Mail has learned the process of “withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies.” In other words, patients — young and old — are slowly starved and dehydrated to death.
One doctor, acting as a whistle blower, admitted to starving and dehydrating ten babies to death in the neonatal unit of one hospital in a leading medical journal. The doctor describes it as a 10-day process, during which the baby becomes “smaller an shrunken.”
Roughly 130,000 elderly and terminally ill patients reportedly die on the Liverpool Care Pathway, or “death pathways.” LCP is now being independently investigated at the orders of ministers in England.
The Daily Mail has more details on this tragic story:
“The investigation, which will include child patients, will look at whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors’ decisions. Medical critics of the LCP insist it is impossible to say when a patient will die and as a result the LCP death becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They say it is a form of euthanasia, used to clear hospital beds and save the NHS money.”
Read more from this story HERE.
Even among the distinguished company of former U.S. presidents, Abraham Lincoln’s portrait stands out. Nearly every schoolchild can pick out the 16th president, thanks his to tall, this frame, his long coat and stovepipe hat – and the distinctive beard on his chin.
The source of the president’s facial hair has been revealed as an 11-year-old girl who wrote a letter to the then-Republican presidential candidate and urged him to grow a beard because ‘all the ladies like whiskers.’
Grace Bedell of Westfield, New York, penned a letter to Lincoln in October 1860 suggesting that he would have a better chance of getting elected if he grew a beard, Mental Floss magazine reports. The story of Lincoln’s trademark beard has become a source of national interest after the release – and success – of Steven Spielberg’s newest film, ‘Lincoln.’ Daniel Day Lewis takes on the role of the battle-hardened president as he lead the nation through the brutal Civil War.
‘You would look a great deal better for your face is so thin,’ she said. ‘All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.’ Women weren’t allowed to vote at the time, and did not gain the right until 1920.
Remarkably, the Illinois Senator promptly wrote her back. ‘As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now’
He did not promise her a beard, but photographs from the era reveal he stopped shaving shortly after the letter was written.
Read more from this story HERE.
The U.S. birth rate dropped to its lowest level since the beginning of the Great Depression, led by a drop among immigrants, according to a report data released Thursday by the Pew Research Center.
In 2011, the overall birth rate was 63.2 per 1,000 women of childbearing age, the lowest since at least 1920, Pew reported, citing numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics. The birth rate reached 122.7 in 1957, the peak of the Baby Boom. After the mid-1970s, the birth rate stabilized at about 65 to 70 births per 1,000 women annually, until the beginning of the Great Recession.
Since 2007, both the U.S. birth rate (the number of live births per 1,000 women ages 15-44) and the number of births have dropped significantly, according to the report.
Overall, the birth rate declined 8 percent from 2007 to 2010. Among U.S.-born women, the birth rate dropped 6 percent. The decline among foreign-born women was 14 percent. Among Mexican women, the birth rate fell even more, to 23 percent.
Despite the recent decline, foreign-born moms continue to give birth to a disproportionate share of the country’s babies, the report said. In 2010, immigrants represented about 13 percent of the U.S. population while foreign-born mothers accounted for 23 percent of all births.
Read more from this story HERE.
CAIRO (AP) — Islamists approved a draft constitution for Egypt early Friday without the participation of liberal and Christian members, seeking to pre-empt a court ruling that could dissolve their panel with a rushed, marathon vote that further inflames the clash between the opposition and President Mohammed Morsi.
The move advanced a charter with an Islamist bent that rights experts say could give Muslim clerics oversight over legislation and bring restrictions on freedom of speech, women’s rights and other liberties.
The draft must now be put to a nationwide referendum within 30 days. Morsi said Thursday it will be held “soon.”
The Islamist-dominated assembly that has been working on the constitution for months raced to pass it, voting article by article on the draft’s more than 230 articles for more than 16 hours. The lack of inclusion was on display in the nationally televised gathering: Of the 85 members in attendance, there was not a single Christian and only four women, all Islamists. Many of the men wore beards, the hallmark of Muslim conservatives.
For weeks, liberal, secular and Christian members, already a minority on the 100-member panel, have been withdrawing to protest what they call the Islamists’ hijacking of the process.
Read more from this story HERE.