Greece Starts Firing Civil Servants for First Time in a Century

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Photo Credit: John KolesidisPushed by its European creditors amid its crippling economic crisis, Greece began this week to do something it hasn’t done in more than 100 years: fire public-sector workers en masse.

Following weeks of tough negotiations with its lenders – the “troika” of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the European Central Bank – the Greek government started laying off public-sector workers in an effort to implement the austerity that the troika has demanded. The first two civil servants were let go on Wednesday under a new law that speeds up the process – one, a policeman, for stealing debit cards, and the other for 110 days of unexcused absence.

The mass layoffs were announced last week in a televised address by the Greek prime minister himself, Antonis Samaras. Despite the massive unemployment in Greece, the goal of the government has become the laying off of 180,000 civil servants by 2015. “This is not a human sacrifice,” said Prime Minister Samaras. “It’s an upgrading of the public sector and it’s one demand of Greek society.”

Samaras though, promised new positions to be created: “An equal number [of employees] will be hired on merit,” he added.

A century without layoffs

Civil servants’ jobs have been protected by a law that dates back to the 1880s, which became enshrined in the century-old Greek constitution. Until that provision became law, each newly elected government would sack the civil servants hired by the previous government to replace them with their own party members, creating civil unrest and a dysfunctional state.

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Study: OPEC is Engaging in Price Fixing

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Photo Credit: APThe president and chief executive officer of one of the world’s largest corporations called for reform of America’s role in global energy markets during a Thursday speech at the Cato Institute.

“[We] did some very careful analysis of the energy situation, and we came to the conclusion that the oil market is indeed not a free market,” said Fred Smith, the president and CEO of FedEx Corporation. “More importantly, the dependence of the United States on imported petroleum from unstable and in many cases unfriendly parts of the world had created, after nuclear proliferation and biological weapons, probably our largest single economic and national security risk.”

Speaking at the Cato Institute hosted event “Monopolistic Global Oil Market,” Smith recommended a three-pronged approach to shifting American use and production.

“First and by far the most important was to maximize United States and western hemisphere oil and gas production to reduce the dependency of our economy on oil from these unfriendly and unstable parts of the world,” Smith said. “The second recommendation … was to use less petroleum, to reduce the amount of petroleum as a percentage of our GDP. … The third recommendation was to the extent it was economically feasible to do so, try to develop cost effective alternative power systems to diversify the U.S. transport sector away from petroleum.”

His speech coincides with the release of the study “Competition in Global Oil Markets: A Meta-Analysis and Review.”

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Immigration Bill Guts E-Verify For Years

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Photo Credit: J. Scott ApplewhiteThe Senate’s complex immigration bill would instantly gut the popular E-Verify system that is widely used to exclude illegal immigrants from jobs, and then create an enforcement gap for several years before the arrival of a replacement system.

“There’s no doubt that the bill eliminates E-Verify immediately upon signing,” said Kris Kobach, secretary of state of Kansas, told The Daily Caller.

“If there’s no statutory authority for E-Verify, there’s no E-Verify,” said Kobach, a lawyer trained at Harvard, Oxford and Yale universities, and a prominent advocate for reduced immigration.

The claim is vehemently disputed by the bills’ advocates, including staffers working for Sen. Marco Rubio.

However, Rubio staffers were unable to show TheDC any text in the legislation that gives the current E-Verify system legal backing until the new system is mandated in several years.

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Obama's Borrowed More Per Household ($53,616) Than Median Household Earns ($50,502)

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Photo Credit: APUnder President Barack Obama, the federal government’s debt has increased by an amount per household that exceeds the annual median household income.

Since Obama’s first inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009, the federal debt has climbed $6,167,472,778,984.22. That equals about $53,616 for each of the 115,031,000 households the Census Bureau currently estimates are in the country.

By contrast, the Census Bureau’s most recent estimate of the median household income was $50,502 (for 2011).

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Family Makes Unexpected Find in Can of Green Beans (+video)

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Photo Credit: ABC When checking the St. Joseph County Health Department complaint reports, what turned up in some foods at local stores was surprising. The most disturbing case concerns a can of green beans – and what one family found inside will keep them from ever eating canned green beans again.

“We eat a lot of green beans, we do, we did. Nobody wants anymore now,” said Gloria Chubb of South Bend.

Chubb, a retired nurse’s aide, is disgusted by what she served up at the dinner table. “It was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans,” said Chubb.

It was what was in the can of Meijer green beans that made them both lose their appetite.

“My son put some on his plate and said, ‘What is that?’ I thought maybe it was a piece of moldy bacon or something– because they have bacon in them sometimes,” said Chubb. “I and I took it out of there and it wasn’t moldy bacon, it was a toad with parts of his little legs all in the green beans. Other than that he was fully intact.”

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Anchorage Daily News 'Mocks' Profound Texas Tragedy; Gov. Perry Attacks

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This week, the Anchorage Daily News published a cartoon that mocks the tragic explosion of the fertilizer plant in Texas that killed and injured dozens.

The tasteless cartoon portrays Texas Governor Perry on the left stating that, “Business is BOOMING in Texas.” The right frame then shows a massive explosion.

The cartoon was originally published by the California-based McClatchy newspaper empire, owners of the Anchorage Daily News and other Alaska media outlets.


In response, Texas Governor Rick Perry blasted the California-based media empire, stating that it

was with extreme disgust and disappointment I viewed your recent cartoon. While I will always welcome healthy policy debate, I won’t stand for someone mocking the tragic deaths of my fellow Texans and our fellow Americans. Additionally, publishing this on the very day our state and nation paused to honor and mourn those who died only compounds the pain and suffering of the many Texans who lost family and friends in this disaster.

Despite this criticism, the Anchorage Daily News (as of the publication date of this Restoring Liberty post) has not removed the offensive cartoon.

The President of the United States Asks God to Bless an Abortion Factory (+video)

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Photo Credit: CSPANRUSH: Obama, he didn’t do the keynote last night to Planned Parenthood, but he did show up and make a speech, and his comments were the first to Planned Parenthood by a sitting president. And he lauded ’em. He praised their nearly 100 years of service to women. This makes me ill, by the way. That a president of the United States shows up at an abortion factory, essentially, and praises their work. You know what else he said? He said the opponents of abortion want to return to the 1950s…

To Planned Parenthood, every abortion is good, every pregnancy is a potential disease, every pregnancy is the result of male domination. Every abortion equals female freedom and emancipation. Every abortion equals women saying, “Screw you.” Barack Obama, who, as a senator in Illinois, actively, maybe more than any other legislation, supported the idea that a baby surviving a botched abortion should go ahead and be killed, because that was the original intention of the mother. And when we’re talking about the original intention of abortion, we should always be loyal to it. Now, the original intention of the Constitution, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. The Constitution’s a living, breathing document. The female body is not.

If the original intent is abortion. If the abortion doctor messes up, fine, bring another doctor in and complete the job. Obama actively supported such legislation. Kermit Gosnell.

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Gun Control Advocates Have Scored a Major Victory that Nobody is Talking About

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Photo Credit: YahooThis week G.E. Capital Finance announced that it would no longer finance gun purchases, becoming the latest in a string of companies that have decided to leave a large amount of money on the table rather than risk their reputations on the gun business.

It’s one of the few places where the high-profile publicity campaign in support of increased gun control has led to a real world result.

Last week advocates for gun control were dealt a humbling blow when legislation to require background checks at gun shows publicly flopped on the floor of the Senate after weeks of work.

Despite the political defeat, however, something very interesting has happened in the private sector.

GE is based in Fairfield, Conn., and several employees have children in Sandy Hook Elementary School, the site of the December mass shooting, according to the WSJ. Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE, had a meeting with employees after the shooting. This, among other reasons, led to the lender ending financing for guns.

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Guilty: Fraud Put Obama on the Presidential Primary Ballot in 2008

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A jury in South Bend, Indiana has found that fraud put President Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana in the 2008 election. Two Democratic political operatives were convicted Thursday night in the illegal scheme after only three hours of deliberations. They were found guilty on all counts.

Former longtime St. Joseph County Democratic party Chairman Butch Morgan Jr. was found guilty of felony conspiracy counts to commit petition fraud and forgery, and former county Board of Elections worker Dustin Blythe was found guilty of felony forgery counts and falsely making a petition, after being accused of faking petitions that enabled Obama, then an Illinois Senator, to get on the presidential primary ballot for his first run for the White House.

Morgan was accused of being the mastermind behind the plot.

According to testimony from two former Board of Election officials who pled guilty, Morgan ordered Democratic officials and workers to fake the names and signatures that Obama and Clinton needed to qualify for the presidential race. Blythe, then a Board of Elections employee and Democratic Party volunteer, was accused of forging multiple pages of the Obama petitions.

“I think this helped uphold the integrity of the electoral system,” the prosecutor, Stan Levco told reporters. “Their verdict of guilt is not a verdict against Democrats, but for honest and fair elections,” he said.

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Part of 9/11 Plane's Landing Gear Found in NYC Alley Near Ground Zero

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Photo Credit: NYPDA piece of landing gear from one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center towers on 9/11 has been discovered in a small alley near Ground Zero more than 11 years after the terror attacks.

The twisted metal part, jammed in an 18-inch-wide sliver of open space between the buildings, has cables and levers on it and is about 17 inches wide and 4 feet long, New York Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Friday.

“It’s a manifestation of a horrific terrorist act a block and a half away from where we stand,” he said. “So, sure, it brings back terrible memories to anyone who was here or who was involved in that event.”

Kelly edged down the narrow passageway to look at the object Friday evening, noting there is also a piece of rope intertwined with the part in what looks like a broken pulley that may have come down from the roof of the site of the planned Islamic community center, at 51 Park Place.

The piece of equipment was discovered Wednesday by surveyors inspecting the lower Manhattan site of a planned Islamic community center on behalf of the building’s owner, police said.

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