Median Income of Women Dropped 4%–In First 3 Years of Recovery

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The real median income of American women dropped a little more than four percent in the first three full years after the end of the last recession, according to data published by the Census Bureau.

The last recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 2007, according to the Census Bureau, American women 15 and older had a median income of $23,169 in constant 2012 dollars. That is the highest median income American women have ever achieved.

REAL MEDIAN INCOME OF WOMEN DOWN 4 PERCENT-PHOTO

By 2009, the year the recession ended, the median income of American women (in constant 2012 dollars) had dropped to $22,434—a decline of $735, or about 3.2 percent, from 2007.

As of 2012, the most recent year for Census Bureau income data, the median income of American women was $21,520 in constant 2012 dollars. That was down $914 dollars—or about 4.1 percent—from 2009.

The median income of American women has not recovered in the current recovery. It has continued to decline from its pre-recession high.

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‘God’ is Banned from Disney Films, Say Frozen Songwriters

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Photo Credit: Mgortz/AP

Photo Credit: Mgortz/AP

By Andrew Pulver.

The Oscar-winning songwriters behind Let It Go, the hit song from the blockbusting Disney cartoon Frozen, have revealed that the word “God” is banned from Disney movies.

Speaking to Terry Gross on the National Public Radio (NPR) show Fresh Air, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez explained that Disney was not a “sanitized” corporate environment but that “one of the only places you have to draw the line at Disney is with religious things, the word God”. Lopez went on to say: “You can say it in Disney but you can’t put it in the movie.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Rev. Graham: ‘Christians Are Being Attacked’ by Hollywood & Some ‘News Media’

By Michael W. Chapman.

Anti-Christian actions are occurring in America and much of it is “coming out of the entertainment industry” and some segments of the “news media,” said Rev. Franklin Graham, who added that “Christians are being attacked” and this is on the rise globally, along with increasing incidents of anti-Semitism.

Franklin Graham, who heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the international Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse, is the son of the world-renowned Christian preacher Billy Graham.

In an interview on Newsmax TV’s “America’s Forum” on Good Friday, April 18, Franklin Graham was asked, “Are we at a point now, that maybe is unparalleled in history, about the amount of anti-Christian behavior and activity and anti-Semitism rising around the globe?”

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North Korea Says it’s Detained an American Tourist for Improper Behavior

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Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

North Korea says it has detained an American for what it called improper behavior while the man was being processed to enter the country as a tourist.

The official Korean Central News Agency identified the man as Miller Matthew Todd, 24, and said he entered the country on April 10 with a tourist visa, but tore it up and shouted that he wanted to seek asylum.

It said the man is being investigated after authorities detained him for “gross violation” of North Korea’s legal order.

State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters Friday that the U.S. is aware of reports that an American was detained in North Korea, but could not comment on any specific case.

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NRA’s LaPierre: Country ‘Slipping Away,’ Gun Owners ‘Willing to Fight’ for Control

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Photo Credit: Screenshot

Photo Credit: Screenshot

National Rifle Association executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre said Friday that the country is on edge like he’s never seen it before, and that it’s up to attendees at the group’s annual meeting and like-minded individuals to fight for its future.

“NRA, this organization, is about giving a voice to all the people like all of us in this room today and everyone else in the country that feels like we do,” he told the crowd at an opening event at the group’s annual meetings.

“I love it because corporations can’t control it, politicians can’t control it, the media can’t control it,” he said. “By gosh, there is an organization … that says ‘this is what we stand for, and we’re willing to fight for it.’ And that’s what I love about it. And that’s what it’s about.

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Rebuilding Limbs with Ingenuity and a 3-D Printer

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Photo Credit: Timoteo Freccia / Not Impossible

Photo Credit: Timoteo Freccia / Not Impossible

Mick Ebeling arrived in Sudan with little more than a toolbox, rolls of plastic and two microwave-size 3-D printers.

He had endured a weeklong journey from Los Angeles, with stops in London, Johannesburg and Nairobi before reaching Juba, the capital of South Sudan. From there, he flew on a small twin-engine plane to Yida, where at a refugee camp he found Daniel Omar.

Ebeling had read a magazine article a few months earlier about the 16-year-old, whose hands and forearms had been blown off two years ago during an airstrike launched by the Sudanese government. The boy’s plight resonated with Ebeling, who tracked down the remote hospital where Daniel had received treatment. Over Skype, Ebeling told Daniel’s doctor: I think I can help.

After meeting in Yida, Ebeling and Daniel caught an 11-hour ride in the back of a Land Cruiser to Gidel, Sudan, a volatile region in the Nuba Mountains where Daniel’s doctor tends to amputees and other victims of the civil war plaguing the country.

In a small tin shed, Ebeling connected a 3-D printer to a laptop. The printer began melting plastic to form three-dimensional pieces, which he then joined together like Legos. He worked off a design created by a carpenter friend who, after accidentally severing four fingers with a table saw, had built his own prosthesis.

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Teen Killed by Jilted Teen after She Refused to Go to Junior Prom with Him

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Photo Credit: MICHELLE MCLOUGHLIN / REUTERS

Photo Credit: MICHELLE MCLOUGHLIN / REUTERS

A jilted teen killed a 16-year-old girl in a Connecticut high school on Friday after she refused to go to prom with him, friends and witnesses said.

The violence erupted after Chris Plaskon, also 16, shoved Maren Sanchez, down the stairs and tried to choke her inside Jonathan Law High School in Milford about 7:15 a.m., friends told the Daily News.

The boy – using a kitchen knife he brought from home – then stabbed Sanchez in the neck, witnesses and cops said.

“She was screaming,” one friend, who was inside the building at the time of the attack, told The News. “There were students in the hallway when it happened. The kids who saw it are all a wreck.”

Emergency workers found the bleeding teen, a junior, in the stairwell and rushed her to Bridgeport Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

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A Legal Way To Kill?

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Photo Credit: Townhall

Photo Credit: Townhall

When President Obama decided sometime during his first term that he wanted to be able to use unmanned aerial drones in foreign lands to kill people — including Americans — he instructed Attorney General Eric Holder to find a way to make it legal — despite the absolute prohibition on governmental extra-judicial killing in federal and state laws and in the Constitution itself.

“Judicial killing” connotes a lawful execution after an indictment, a jury trial, an appeal and all of the due process protections that the Constitution guarantees defendants. “Extra-judicial killing” is a targeted killing of a victim by someone in the executive branch without due process. The president wanted the latter, and he wanted it in secret.

He must have hoped his killing would never come to light, because the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution could not be more direct: “No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

Due process has a few prongs. The first is substantive, meaning the outcome must be fair. In a capital murder case, for example, the defendant must not only be found guilty by a jury, but he also must truly be guilty.

The second prong of due process is procedural. Thus, the defendant must be charged with a crime and tried before a neutral jury. He is entitled to a lawyer, to confront the witnesses against him and to remain silent. The trial must be presided over by a neutral judge, and in the case of a conviction, the defendant is entitled to an appeal before a panel of three neutral judges.

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Harry Reid: I Call On Republican Leaders to Denounce this Hateful Racist Bundy (+videos)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Allahpundit.

Give the man his due. He may be a low-rent McCarthyite for whom no smear is too cheap. He may be an awful majority leader whose imperious tactics have hopelessly alienated the minority party. He may be dirty, having built a curiously large fortune despite working in government his entire adult life.

But he sure can troll.

“I used to live in North Las Vegas and it is home to some of the hardest-working people I have ever met – men and women who embody the American dream by working hard every day to build a better life for themselves and their families. By contrast, Cliven Bundy has spent decades profiting off government land while refusing to pay the same fair use fees as his fellow ranchers. Today, Bundy revealed himself to be a hateful racist. But by denigrating people who work hard and play by the rules while he mooches off public land he also revealed himself to be a hypocrite.

“To advance his extreme, hateful views, Bundy has endangered the lives of innocent women and children. This is not a game. It is the height of irresponsibility for any individual or entity in a position of power or influence to glorify or romanticize such a dangerous individual, and anyone who has done so should come to their senses and immediately condemn Bundy. For their part, national Republican leaders could help show a united front against this kind of hateful, dangerous extremism by publicly condemning Bundy.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Irish Central

Photo Credit: Irish Central

Hannity: Bundy’s comments on race are beyond repugnant to me

By Allahpundit.

t’s the story du jour and Hannity’s take is probably the most eagerly awaited in media given how much airtime he’s devoted to the BLM standoff lately, so here you go — a sneak preview of his (presumptive) opening segment on tonight’s Fox News program at 10 p.m. An hour later, the guy he’s been feuding with over this goes on the air on Comedy Central. I wonder if Hannity will come up in his opening segment.

WaPo, incidentally, has posted more context from Bundy’s comments. A taste:

In video of the entire speech, which was obtained first by the Washington Post and shot by someone who describes himself as a Bundy supporter, Bundy said that he “hardly ever” saw a black person until he was almost a teenager and also noted that he is surrounded today by white faces.

“Where is our colored brother? Where is our Mexican brother? Where is our Chinese — where are they?” Bundy said. “They’re just as much American as we are, and they’re not with us. If they’re not with us, they’re going to be against us.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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No, I Don’t Care if Cliven Bundy Is a Racist

By Kira Davis.

Why would anyone even ask Mr.Bundy to comment on such things? As if what Cliven Bundy thinks about the state of the “Negro” in America has any bearing on property rights, or the fact that the federal government has sent S.W.A.T. teams to collect a million dollar tax bill. Even famous “Negro” Wesley Snipes was politely led off to federal prison for a tax evasion of well over 2 million dollars.

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Gen. Jerry Boykin Endorses Joe Miller for U.S. Senate

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BY12G01_NORMALFollowing Joe Miller’s successful campaign launch earlier this week in front of a crowd of over 200 supporters, Lieutenant General (Ret.) William G. “Jerry” Boykin announced his endorsement of Miller for U.S. Senate. Boykin currently serves as Executive Director of the Family Research Council and formerly served as commander of the U.S. Army’s elite “Delta Force” among his many leadership assignments during his 36 year military career.

General Boykin’s endorsement statement reads in full:

“It is a great privilege to express my sincere support for and endorsement of Joe Miller for the US Senate. At a time when America needs leaders rather than professional politicians, Joe Miller is the man that Alaskans should send to Washington. A West Point graduate, Joe has served his nation in the uniform of a United States Army officer, making him one of a dwindling number of leaders in America to have done so.

“As a dedicated father and devoted husband, Joe embraces the family values that will help keep America strong. Joe Miller is a strong conservative on issues of National Security, Smaller Government and fiscal constraint, and Social issues like life and family. On all the core issues that conservatives hold dear, Joe is rock solid. I will be doing all I can to support Joe and I will be watching the polls on election night with great anticipation of Joe Miller being chosen to represent the fine men and women of Alaska in the US Senate.”

Miller responded to the endorsement stating, “I am deeply honored and humbled to receive the endorsement of a man I respect so deeply and who has served our country with such distinction. General Boykin is at the forefront of the fight to restore our nation’s cultural foundations of faith and family.”

Ronald Reagan said nearly 50 years ago, “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”

“I thank General Boykin for his support of my candidacy, and I pledge to do all I can to steer the government back towards its core mission of securing Americans’ God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” said Miller.

How Obamacare Could Kill Your Kids, and Their Kids Too

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Photo Credit: Andrew Aliferis

Photo Credit: Andrew Aliferis

Success in the biotech industry is measured incrementally, not in big steps. It’s a cash-and-time intensive industry where success is painstaking, rare and, because of Obamacare and other regulatory burdens from the administration, likely to become even rarer, as the Valeant, Allergan battle shows.

According to Plunkett Research, Ltd in 2010 it cost $1.2 billion to develop each and every biologic drug. That’s because while the government currently tracks 124,932 trials for new drug application in 179 foreign countries, only a tiny fraction of those drugs will ever see the marketplace.

In the United States, for example, there were only about 114 FDA approvals for new drugs last year.That’s a success rate of 0.091256. If that were a batting average for a baseball player, it would belong to a player who would never see the minor leagues, yet alone the Biggies.

“That means that enormous fortunes are going to be made in the sector,” Jonathon Lach, CEO of BlueStar Capital Management, a biotech hedge fund headquartered in Westport, Connecticut told me in 2006. He pointed out, however, that the industry’s staggering failure rate makes some other long-odds stock market sectors look like safe bets in comparison. “Conversely, that means that enormous fortunes will also be lost in the sector.”

Read more from this story HERE.