Widest Wealth Gap Ever Recorded in American History

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A Pew Research Center report shows that the wealth gap between America’s middle and upper-income families is the widest ever recorded.

In fact, the median wealth of America’s most affluent families is nearly seven times that of their middle-income countrymen. . .

The chart below shows the wealth gap between upper- and middle-income households over the last 30 years:

Photo Credit: Wall Street Daily

As if that’s not bad enough, America’s upper-income families have a median net worth that’s 70 times greater than lower-income families.

Meanwhile, net income has remained dismal for years now. It’s no surprise that most Americans aren’t feeling the effects of the economic recovery… after all, median income is still 8% lower than in 2007, just before the recession. (Read more about the widest wealth gap ever recorded HERE)

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Reporter Shayrl Attkisson Suing Feds Over Illegal Surveillance of Her Cell Phone, Computer

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Former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson has sued the Justice Department over the hacking of her computers, officially accusing the Obama administration of illegal surveillance while she was reporting on administration scandals.

In a series of legal filings that seek $35 million in damages, Attkisson alleges that three separate computer forensic exams showed that hackers used sophisticated methods to surreptitiously monitor her work between 2011 and 2013.

“I just think it’s important to send a message that people shouldn’t be victimized and throw up their hands and think there’s nothing they can do and they’re powerless,” Attkisson said in an interview.

The department has steadfastly denied any involvement in the hacking, saying in a 2013 statement: “To our knowledge, the Justice Department has never compromised Ms. Attkisson’s computers, or otherwise sought any information from or concerning any telephone, computer, or other media device she may own or use.”

In the lawsuit and related claims against the Postal Service, filed in Washington, Attkisson says the intruders installed and periodically refreshed software to steal data and obtain passwords on her home and work computers. She also charges that the hackers monitored her audio using a Skype account. (Read more about Sharyl Attkisson suing Obama Administration HERE)

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Sarah Palin Fires Back at PETA Over Dog Picture

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Sarah Palin fired another shot in her unlikely war of words with the activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) on Monday, accusing it of hypocrisy and asserting that liberals feel no compunction about attacking even special-needs children and puppy trainers.

Palin and Peta are at odds over a photo posted on the former Alaska governor’s Facebook page, which shows her six-year-old son, Trig, who has Down’s syndrome, stepping on the back of the family’s service dog, Jill Hadassah, to reach the kitchen counter.

“Kiss my okole” was Palin’s Hawaiian-tinged response to criticism from Peta and angry online onlookers. She alerted readers to what she sees as the true obsession of such critics: “They’re attacking me because, well, I’m me.”

“Where have [Peta] been all these years?” Palin asked in a statement to NBC News, before suggesting the activists were hypocrites for having praised public figures previously accused of malfeasance toward animals.

First, Palin repeated a charge about Peta’s 2009 Woman of the Year, comedian Ellen DeGeneres, over a photo of a toddler standing on a dog that appeared last year on the Facebook page for her TV show and about which Palin said Peta had not passed comment. (Read more about Sarah Palin hammering her critics HERE)

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100 Year Old Veteran Tells Anti-Cop Protesters to Show Respect (+video)

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Photo Credit: Daily Mail A senator’s town hall meeting in Portland, Oregon was called off early on Saturday after anti-police and minimum-wage-hike protesters shouted down a 100-year-old U.S. Navy veteran’s medal ceremony.

Shouting ‘Hands up, don’t shoot’ and ‘I can’t breathe,’ more than 100 mostly African-American activists jousted verbally with hecklers from the audience who were assembled for a dialog with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden – and to honor Dario Raschio.

When the ensuing chaos reached a fever pitch, the centenarian Raschio took the microphone to scold the protesters.

‘Give me a chance,’ the soft-spoken vet said. ‘Let’s show a little respect for this occasion.’

‘God bless America. And you people who are here for a cause, whatever it might be – show respect to Senator Wyden,’ he urged, bringing an eruption of applause from the audience. (Read more about what the 100 year old veteran says HERE)

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Movement to Educate Kindergarteners in Sexual Consent Underway

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Photo credit: woodleywonderworksTake Back The Campus, an activist group for college students, is trying to combat the perceived string of sexual assaults on college campuses by demanding that children be educated on the particulars of sexual consent as early as kindergarten, which is for 5-year olds.

Responding to recent claims of rising sexual violence on campuses, students from the University of California Berkley, UC Santa Barbara, and San Diego State University posted a list of demands on the group’s official Facebook page in December, which included a request for “consent education in K-12.”

“College is too late for people to learn about bodily autonomy and respect,” the group claimed.

The group also demanded that all colleges and universities release statistical data on their investigations into reported cases of sex crimes, and that “all institutions of higher education must meet all federal and state recommendations and standards including mandatory consent education.”

Meghan Warner, a UC Berkley student who supports the demands, told the Huffington Post that students “get to universities and we expect them to behave like they’re supposed to without any prior understanding of what consent looks like.” (Read more about the effort to educate kindergarteners in sexual consent HERE)

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U.S. Border Apprehensions of Mexicans Falls to Historic Lows

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For the first time on record, more non-Mexicans than Mexicans were apprehended at U.S. borders in 2014 by the Border Patrol, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of more than 60 years of Border Patrol data. This shift is another sign that unauthorized immigrants from Mexico are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border significantly less often than they did before the Great Recession.

U.S. Border apprehensions of Mexicans fall to historic lowsAbout 229,000 Mexicans were apprehended by the Border Patrol in fiscal year 2014 compared with 257,000 non-Mexicans during the previous year, according to recently published Border Patrol data. Taken together, total apprehensions of Mexican and non-Mexican unauthorized immigrants (more than 486,000) were up 16% over the previous year.

These numbers are dramatically different than in 2007 when Mexican apprehensions totaled 809,000, compared with just 68,000 non-Mexicans. The number of Mexican immigrants apprehended at the border peaked at 1.6 million in 2000, the Pew Research analysis showed. The last time Mexican apprehensions were as low as they are now was in 1970 when 219,000 Mexicans were apprehended. In 1970, non-Mexican apprehensions totaled just 12,000.

The recent increase in non-Mexican apprehensions is due in part to a surge in unaccompanied Central American child migrants crossing the border without their parents. In fiscal year 2014, nearly 52,000 unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, more than double the total from the previous year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. By contrast, the number of unaccompanied Mexican children apprehended slightly declined over the same time period, from 17,000 to 16,000. (Read more about the U.S. border apprehensions of Mexicans HERE)

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China has Stepped In as World’s New Bank

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Photo Credit: Bloomberg View Thanks to China, Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund, Jim Yong Kim of the World Bank and Takehiko Nakao of the Asian Development Bank may no longer have much meaningful work to do.

Beijing’s move to bail out Russia, on top of its recent aid for Venezuela and Argentina, signals the death of the post-war Bretton Woods world. It’s also marks the beginning of the end for America’s linchpin role in the global economy and Japan’s influence in Asia.

What is China’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank if not an ADB killer? If Japan, ADB’s main benefactor, won’t share the presidency with Asian peers, Beijing will just use its deep pockets to overpower it. Lagarde’s and Kim’s shops also are looking at a future in which crisis-wracked governments call Beijing before Washington.

China stepping up its role as lender of last resort upends an economic development game that’s been decades in the making. The IMF, World Bank and ADB are bloated, change-adverse institutions. When Ukraine received a $17 billion IMF-led bailout this year it was about shoring up a geopolitically important economy, not geopolitical blackmail.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government doesn’t care about upgrading economies, the health of tax regimes or central bank reserves. It cares about loyalty. The quid pro quo: For our generous assistance we expect your full support on everything from Taiwan to territorial disputes to deadening the West’s pesky focus on human rights. (Read more about the world’s new bank HERE)

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Inept ISIS Attacking US Troops “Almost Daily”

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Photo Credit: CNS News By NBC News. Senior defense officials confirmed Monday that the al-Assad airbase in Iraq, where U.S. military are training Iraqi security forces, has been pounded almost daily by mortar attacks from ISIS militants, but claimed the attacks have been “completely ineffective.”

Col. Steve Warren described the routine barrage of mortars aimed at al-Assad as “nuisance attacks.” He said “no U.S. personnel or U.S. equipment” have come under direct fire at the base.

There are currently 320 Marines located at al-Assad airbase north of Baghdad to train, advise and assist Iraqi security forces. The Marines are also training some 200 Sunni tribesman who have joined the fight against ISIS. The total number of American military on the ground is expected to reach 3,000, as authorized by President Obama, by early spring. (Read more about the attacks from ISIS HERE)

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ISIS Mounts ‘Regular’ Attacks Against Anbar Airbase Where US Troops are Based

By Patrick Goodenough. American troops training Iraqi recruits at a key airbase in Anbar province face “regular” but “completely ineffective” gunfire from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters, according to the Pentagon.

They don’t shoot back, spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said Monday.

Since last month some 320 U.S. troops have been training and advising Iraqi soldiers at the Ein al-Asad airbase about 100 miles north-west of Baghdad. Mostly U.S. Marines, they include advisors, support personnel and a security contingent. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Medicaid Payment Crisis Highlights Major Flaws in Obamacare

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By Jennifer Popik. The Medicaid program, which provides insurance coverage for lower income Americans, has expanded under the Obama Health Care law and now covers over one-fifth of Americans. Yet it is now set to face big cuts in the new year . . .

The Obama Health Care law (Obamacare) contains a self-contradictory approach to both increase the number of Americans with health insurance, but also to limit the amount of money allowed to be spent on health care . . .

To increase coverage, one approach the Administration used was initially to funnel large amounts of money into state Medicaid programs so that states could expand who they covered–but then cut back on the funds . . .

According to the Pear article, “The impact will vary by state, but a study by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research organization, estimates that doctors who have been receiving the enhanced payments will see their fees for primary care cut by 43 percent, on average.” (Read more about the major flaws in Obamacare HERE)

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Obamacare Architects Furious Over Not Being Exempt from Obamacare

By Tyler Durden. The brain incubator at Harvard, the place which according to legend, and certainly the US News and World Report’s annual paid college infomercial, is the repository for some of the smartest people in the world, is furious.

The reason – Harvard’s illustrious faculty has learned that they too will be subject to their own policy recommendations as relates to Obamacare, which they themselves helped conceive. As the left-leaning NYT reported earlier today, “for years, Harvard’s experts on health economics and policy have advised presidents and Congress on how to provide health benefits to the nation at a reasonable cost. But those remedies will now be applied to the Harvard faculty, and the professors are in an uproar.”

Because Harvard’s brilliant ivory tower economists and public policy wonks know precisely how to fix the world… as long as said fix never applies to them.

And sure enough, the faculty did everything in its power to make sure it never had to suffer the consequences of its own brilliance… (Read more from this story HERE)

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Civic Virtue in Decline, Expert Says “No Recovery” for US

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Photo Credit: The Patriot Post As we enter 2015, it’s worth looking back on some key cultural indicators from 2014. Here is one bad omen: According to a 2014 Associated Press-GfK poll, Americans’ sense of civic virtue is in serious decline. “I don’t see any recovery,” said Rutgers University Professor Cliff Zukin. “The people who were 40 two decades ago aren’t as engaged as the people who were 60 two decades ago. This generational slippage tends to continue.”

The poll was a reprise of questions asked in 1984, and it focused on six civic-oriented activities: voting, volunteering, jury service, reporting crimes, knowing English and keeping on top of news and public issues. . .Only 28% of Americans consider volunteering a “very important obligation.” And while 75% characterize voting a central obligation of citizenship, talk is cheap: Voter turnout in the last presidential election dipped to 57.5% of eligible citizens compared to 62.3% in 2008. Voter turnout in 2014? The 36.4% of eligible citizens who bothered to vote represented the lowest turnout in any election cycle since World War II.

Most Americans do feel some sense of duty to the nation, with 90% characterizing the reporting of a crime one has witnessed, voting in elections, knowing English and serving on a jury when called as “somewhat important” obligations of citizenship. And a majority of Americans consider them “very important” obligations. Yet with an exception for voting, those majorities have declined by an average of approximately 13 percentage points over the last three decades.

Leading the pack are adults under 30 years of age. In every category except volunteering, they were less likely than elder generations to see any obligation, and also felt less obligated than young people of the past. Even more ominously, nearly one in four feel no obligation to keep informed, volunteer or speak English.

. . . Ronald Reagan made it clear[] in his inaugural address as California governor: “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Civic virtue and the obligations of citizenship cannot be separated from the preservation of freedom. We allow their continued deterioration at our own peril. (Read more about U.S. civic virtue in decline HERE)

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