The Government’s Finances Are Much Worse Than Expected…

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Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) revised their 2016 budget deficit figures and concluded that, in fact, this year’s deficit will be far worse than expected.

By a lot.

A $590 billion lot — $55 billion more than originally assumed.

This revised total comes after Obama perpetually attempts to sell the nation a narrative that he’s a fiscal champion and that his policies have reduced the deficit.

During a 2015 speech at a Michigan assembly plant, Obama bellows,

[ask] ordinary folks on the street, are the deficits going up or are they coming down, everybody automatically assumes, well, government spending and deficits must be going up. Deficits have come down by two-thirds since I took office – by two-thirds. They’re going down. [applause]

(Yes, the “applause” notation was included in the White House transcript of the speech.)

Obama’s firsts four years in office included deficits that were more than $1 trillion. Adjusted for inflation, those deficits are the largest in history — even compared to the deficits we ran during World War II. So, naturally, those deficits came down after the economy rebounded from the financial crisis. But as the chart below demonstrates, the decline in deficits is merely a hiccup — they are simply temporary. The deficit did drop (although, not even low enough to get to Bush era deficits) but will soon skyrocket.

Things are not looking much better for Obama’s fiscal record this year, either, where CBO has already had to revise this year’s budget deficit by $55 billion, for a total of $590 billion.

Sure, you might, say, what’s a $55 billion larger deficit for a government that is projected to spend nearly $4 trillion? Well, quite a bit actually. A $55 billion tab, levied on the American taxpayer, is equivalent to $450 more that you now owe, per household.

Do you have an extra $450 you’d like to send the government? Me neither.

For the most part, the increasing deficit is the result of spending. Yes, revenues are lower than CBO expected. In particular, corporate income taxes failed to meet their expected levels by $36 billion – and lagging corporate income taxes can be a sign of slowing profits and a slowing economy (more on that another time).

Meanwhile, programs like Social Security and Medicare, continue to grow faster than expected. The two combined added $35 billion more in spending that predicted. Of course, the U.S. debt isn’t helping much, either. CBO now predicts that net interest spending will be $23 billion larger than expected.

Well, you tell me: Do you think Obama’s deficits are going down? Who is applauding now?

Federal Deficits under Obama cleaned up

(For more from the author of “The Government’s Finances Are Much Worse Than Expected…” please click HERE)

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Princeton Vote Fraud Study: US Elections Can Be Easily Hacked

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When Princeton professor Andrew Appel decided to hack into a voting machine, he didn’t try to mimic the Russian attackers who hacked into the Democratic National Committee’s database last month. He didn’t write malicious code, or linger near a polling place where the machines can go unguarded for days.

Instead, he bought one online.

With a few cursory clicks of a mouse, Appel parted with $82 and became the owner of an ungainly metallic giant called the Sequoia AVC Advantage, one of the oldest and vulnerable, electronic voting machines in the United States (among other places it’s deployed in Louisiana, New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania). No sooner did a team of bewildered deliverymen roll the 250-pound device into a conference room near Appel’s cramped, third-floor office than the professor set to work. He summoned a graduate student named Alex Halderman, who could pick the machine’s lock in seven seconds. Clutching a screwdriver, he deftly wedged out the four ROM chips—they weren’t soldered into the circuit board, as sense might dictate—making it simple to replace them with one of his own: A version of modified firmware that could throw off the machine’s results, subtly altering the tally of votes, never to betray a hint to the voter. The attack was concluded in minutes. To mark the achievement, his student snapped a photo of Appel—oblong features, messy black locks and a salt-and-pepper beard—grinning for the camera, fists still on the circuit board, as if to look directly into the eyes of the American taxpayer: Don’t look at me—you’re the one who paid for this thing.

Appel’s mischief might be called an occupational asset: He is part of a diligent corps of so-called cyber-academics—professors who have spent the past decade serving their country by relentlessly hacking it. Electronic voting machines—particularly a design called Direct Recording Electronic, or DRE’s—took off in 2002, in the wake of Bush v. Gore. For the ensuing 15 years, Appel and his colleagues have deployed every manner of stunt to convince the public that the system is pervasively unsecure and vulnerable. (Read more from “Princeton Vote Fraud Study: US Elections Can Be Easily Hacked” HERE)

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China: New Discovery Supplies Evidence of Biblical Flood

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Some scientists are calling a discovery in China’s Yellow River Valley evidence that supports a biblical flood.

OneNewsNow.com reports that archaeologists recently uncovered bones of children in the Yellow River Valley. The children appear to have been trapped by a massive flood. The bones have been dated to around 2,000 B.C., which is consistent with when scientists and historians believe the biblical account of Noah’s flood occurred.

Prominent biblical apologist and scientist Ken Ham, who is also the head of the Creation Museum and the newly-opened Ark Encounter attraction, noted that China, like many cultures, has a story of a great flood.

“Whether it’s the American Indians or the Fijians, Hawaiians, the Eskimos, Australian Aborigines … back to the Babylonians, there are flood legends in cultures all over the world,” Ham explained.

“And this particular flood legend from China – when you read it – it talks about it was basically a global flood, the way it was described … and there was a man in particular associated with that flood,” he continued. (Read more from “China: New Discovery Supplies Evidence of Biblical Flood” HERE)

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ACLJ Wins Significant Victory in Case Against IRS

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The American Center for Law and Justice won a major victory against the Internal Revenue Service when an appeals court ruled the organization has yet to prove it’s ended discriminatory practices against conservative groups seeking tax exempt statuses.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously reversed a 2014 lower district court ruling that previously dismissed the lawsuit originally filed against the agency in 2013.

The federal court found that the IRS committed some “unconstitutional acts against at least a portion of the plaintiffs,” including numerous conservative, Tea Party, and pro-life groups.

Certain organizations were on “Be-On-The-Lookout” or “BOLO” lists where applications for tax-exempt status “were subjected to extended delay” and “were not receiving the same processing as those of other organizations,” CNN reported. (Read more from “ACLJ Wins Significant Victory in Case Against IRS” HERE)

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Whoppers, and Whopper Tellers.

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I had to laugh. Really, I had to.

I was listening to a Lisa Murkowski campaign ad and I heard this: “Her word is her bond.” I suspected this wasn’t true so I did some digging. I found that she can really tell some whoppers.

Like the one in 2010 she told to the Penninsula Clarion: When asked if she would support the winner of the Republican primary (she was running against Joe Miller for the senate seat her dad, Frank, gave her.) “Murkowski said she respects the electorate and would support whoever wins.” Well, we soon found out that wasn’t really going to happen. In fact, after losing that primary to Miller she decided to run a write-in campaign and eventually defeated him in the general election with the help of…well… a lot of Liberals. No surprise there of course since she is quite the Liberal herself. But that whopper is kinda right in your face, isn’t it?

And then there’s the whole issue about how her thoughts on things… really important things… evolve. I’m not talking about someone who in mid-life decides that Jiff is better than Skippy. I’m not even talking about someone who as a lifelong Green Bay Packer fan “evolves” into a Minnesota Vikings fan. (This is not possible of course, but I think you get the point.) No, I’m talking about marriage. You know, that institution that is the very foundation of civilized society. Well, in October of 2010, she told a newspaper from the Anchorage Archdiocese, The Catholic Anchor:

“I believe marriages should be legally defined as between one man and one woman. I have voted in support of efforts in the Senate to enact a Constitutional amendment that would have limited marriage to one man and one woman only.”

But just three years later she wrote this in an op-ed:

Like the majority of Alaskans, I supported a constitutional amendment in 1998 defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, but my thinking has evolved as America has witnessed a clear cultural shift. Fifteen years after that vote, I find that when one looks closer at the issue, you quickly realize that same sex unions or civil marriages are consistent with the independent mindset of our state – and they deserve a hands-off approach from our federal policies.

Are you starting to get the picture that when Lisa Murkowski tells us something we probably should wait at least a couple of years to see if she really means it. I mean, what is she going to “evolve” on next. Is she going to support some tax scheme on the energy sector that suggests that global climate change is caused by your SUV? Or, say the federal government under President Hillary decides that your AR-15 in the closet is a threat to national security so you had just better turn it over to your local Federales… will Senator Lisa “evolve” on the Second Amendment? We really don’t know, do we? In fact we don’t know where she will stand on anything because she is prone to telling whoppers as she “evolves.” And we all know what the Good Book says about that, and I quote; “Never trust a Whopper Teller.”

Finally, in another ad Senator Murkowski makes the claim she is the “Conservative Voice for Alaska.” The reality is that by any standard the good senator is the second most liberal Republican in the Senate. We have a name for these kind of Republicans, RINO (Republican In Name Only). She’s so liberal Mark Begich wanted to use her in his campaign ads the last time he ran in 2014. She didn’t like that one bit because she knew she had to run…in Alaska…in 2016…right now.

You see, the Republican Party has always stood for those principles which have made America what it is. It was created to fight slavery. It stood against the Progressivism early in the last century that Woodrow Wilson sought to impose on America. And it supported the Civil Rights Movement when nearly all Democrats held fast to Jim Crow.

Senator Murkowski doesn’t agree with most of those principles articulated in the GOP platform. Indeed, she scorns them. She fights for taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood even after we learned it was selling the body parts of aborted children. What kind of seared conscience can make that argument?

I guess she believes she is a Republican and a Conservative because she fights to have more ice-breakers built, or strives to have our natural resources developed, or advocates for a strong national defense or even because she wants the pipeline filled. Well just remember, Senator Mark Begich, the flaming Liberal that he is, fought for those very same things. At least he was always honest with us when he claimed to be a Liberal.

The problem I have here is that far too many politicians have the nasty little habit of telling us one thing when they want our vote, but then doing something completely different after we elect them. But the even greater problem is that we don’t do our job as citizens. That is, we don’t hold the Whopper Tellers to their word. We just let them tell us whoppers and then we put them back right back in office, over and over. We let them tell us they are with us…that they are somehow conservative…when they are not. We let them “evolve” when really they are just telling whoppers.

We do have a choice of course. On August 16th there is a Republican primary where we can vote for someone else who might actually be a Conservative, and who just might tell us a few less whoppers.

If that doesn’t work for you try voting for a Libertarian. Either way, it’s time to end the whoppers, and the Whopper Tellers who tell them.

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Little Girl Abandoned by Father and Drug-Addict Mother Is Adopted by Christian Texas Family, Becomes Best Athlete in the World

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“The best ever.” “The perfect 10.” “The best gymnast in history.” “Unbeatable.” “Stunning.” “Breathtaking.” “A Legend in the making.”

These are some of the ways Simone Biles has been described by her competition, even before her Olympic debut. Biles, a 19-year-old gymnast for Team USA, is already the most decorated gold medalist in gymnastics world championship history. In Rio, she is on the fast track to becoming the best in the world, again, being an odds-on favorite to bring home as many as five gold medals . . .

[Simone] Biles and her siblings were born into a fatherless, drug-abusing home and eventually were placed in foster care. According to Texas Monthly:

Biles was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1997 to drug-addicted parents who struggled to care for their children. Biles and her three siblings were shuffled back and forth between their mother’s house and a foster home. (Biles’s father had abandoned her mother and was never present in his daughter’s life.) . . .

Her upbringing was chaotic. Biles bounced back and forth between state and foster care until she was six years old. In 2001, her grandparents, Ron and Nellie Biles, officially adopted Simone and her sister and moved them to Spring, Texas. (Read more from “Little Girl Abandoned by Father and Drug-Addict Mother Is Adopted by Christian Texas Family, Becomes Best Athlete in the World” HERE)

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Veteran Assaulted in Sam’s Club for Wearing Trump Hat

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A 67-year-old Hispanic Army veteran was assaulted as a result of his choice of apparel: a “Make America Great Again” hat in support of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

The incident took place July 30 at a Sam’s Club in Brandon, Fla.

Ricardo Garcia told WTVT in Tampa that he was in the meat department of the store when he had to sneeze.

A gentleman standing to his side said, “Bless you.” Another man near him said, “I can not give you a blessing, because you’re wearing that stupid hat.”

Confused, Garcia asked, “What’s wrong with the hat?”

When the man remarked it was a Trump hat, Garcia said he jokingly told him the hat was his, not Trump’s.

WTSP reported the man said, “Ah, you go for Trump, I don’t like it.” To which Garcia responded, “Well, you can go for Hillary and I don’t like that, but that’s the way it is.”

Garcia then turned away from the man to avoid a confrontation, when he suddenly felt an impact to his head. The impact knocked the hat from his head and turned his glasses sideways.

Garcia said the man stood, staring at him, as if to say, “What do you want?”

The store manager was alerted to the incident and 911 was called.

Officers from the Hillsborough County Police Department arrived on the scene, where they located 36-year-old Patrick Marcus Mickens hiding in another aisle of the store.

After interviewing Garcia and Mickens, officers arrested Mickens and charged him with battery on an elderly person.

Mickens was later released on bond.

Garcia, who is originally from Puerto Rico, said he was privileged and honored to live in the U.S. “We should not be afraid to be in our country,” he said. (For more from the author of “Veteran Assaulted in Sam’s Club for Wearing Trump Hat” please click HERE)

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Never Trump Conservatives Find a Candidate Willing to Oppose Trump

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The Never Trump conservatives have finally found a candidate willing to enter the presidential race.

Evan McMullin, the former policy director for the House Republican Conference and a CIA staffer, announced his bid on his website Monday morning.

“In a year where Americans have lost faith in the candidates of both major parties, it’s time for a generation of new leadership to step up,” McMullin said in a statement to ABC News.

“It’s never too late to do the right thing, and America deserves much better than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton can offer us. I humbly offer myself as a leader who can give millions of disaffected Americans a conservative choice for President.”

“Evan has spent his entire career in service to our nation and today he’s continuing on that path as a candidate for president — he is running first and foremost out of a deep love for this country, and because he understands the true brand of American leadership that is required to be Commander-in-Chief,” McMullin’s campaign wrote in a message to supporters.

The deadline to file for president has already passed in more than two dozen states, according to the New York Times, so the independent bid is clearly aimed at thwarting Trump, not actually winning the White House.

McMullin, who is a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints, is likely to have the greatest impact in Utah, where Trump is currently polling at 35 percent to Hillary Clinton’s 25 percent and Gary Johnson 16 percent, according UtahPolicy.com.

Utah is a solid red state whose six Electoral College votes Republican presidential candidates have been able to count on.

McMullin is said to be backed by the group Better for America, which is funded by John Kingston, a former supporter of Mitt Romney, the Times reported. (For more from the author of “Never Trump Conservatives Find a Candidate Willing to Oppose Trump” please click HERE)

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Trump Delivers Some Good Ideas, Backed by One Huge Misconception

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In his speech on Monday to the Detroit Economic Club, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump outlined a number of proposals to restore and revitalize the American economy. He touched on tax reform, regulatory reform, energy, trade, and more, and through it all delivered some pretty good ideas. However, there’s still a concerning lack of basic economic understanding behind many of his remarks.

Taxes

Let’s start with taxes: Mr. Trump wants them to be lower, and simpler, and who can argue with that? He calls for cutting the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, reducing the number of individual tax brackets from seven to three, and eliminating some of the loopholes and deductions that make filing taxes such a time-consuming and complicated mess. So far so good, although this last point about simplicity is somewhat undermined by his calls for new deductions to cover the cost of child care. I like the idea in spirit, but how do you prove to the IRS what is and isn’t a child care cost? It seems like monitoring those deductions could end up being both extremely expensive and a huge invasion of privacy.

Trump received some energetic booing when he announced that “for many Americans, their tax rate would be zero.” This is a divisive point even among conservatives, who generally want lower taxes for everybody. There is a perception that paying no taxes leaves a person without a stake in the system, and leads to irresponsible behavior as a citizen. Personally, I’m happy whenever the government steals less money from the taxpayers, and if that means not stealing at all from some people, so much the better. Trump would also work to repeal the estate tax, an insidious form of double taxation that absolutely has to go.

Regulations

On regulations, Trump says he would issue a temporary moratorium on all new agency rules. That’s a great idea, but I’d like to know how temporary is temporary, as would all the businesses trying to plan for the future. Trump talks about the importance of certainty, and a certain knowledge about when regulations will kick back in is certainly a crucial part of that. Tell you what, let’s just make the moratorium permanent and call it a day. Then everybody’s happy, right?

Trump also intends to request lists of unnecessary regulations from each agency so that they may be repealed. The only problem with this idea is that it’s hard to imagine the agencies that passed the rules being impartial arbiters of what is or is not necessary. I expect these lists will end up being very short indeed.

In a similar vein, Trump announced that he would immediately cancel all illegal and overreaching executive orders. Again, this is extremely impressive if true, but one cannot help but wonder who is going to make the call of what “illegal and overreaching” means. Given Trump’s rhetoric on security and law and order, it’s hard to imagine him rolling back some of the worst executive orders, such as order 12333, for example, which allows for mass spying on American citizens.

Still, despite these few stumbling blocks, so far this has come across as a rather good Republican policy speech, ticking all the boxes that conservatives usually care about. But it’s when he comes to trade that Trump reveals the underlying misunderstanding of how economies work that casts doubt on whether we can rely on him to be a true champion of economic growth.

Trade

Trump’s major mistake in talking about economic policy, both foreign and domestic, is that he holds a stubborn “us vs. them” mentality regarding the rest of the world. “We are in competition with the world!” he bellows. Unless he’s thinking of the Olympics, no, we’re not. Contrary to what Michael Douglas said in a movie from the 1980s, wealth is not a zero sum game. When one country becomes richer, it doesn’t mean another must become poorer. In fact, when some of us benefit, we all benefit. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Trump doesn’t see it this way. He repeatedly claims “I want wealth to stay in America” as if there is a finite, unchanging amount of wealth. The reality is that wealth is created by specialization, trade, innovation, education, and increases in human capital. When more wealth is created, it doesn’t mean America gets a bigger piece of the pie, it means the pie itself is bigger, and everyone can have a bigger piece.

Early in his speech, Trump attacked the policies of his Democratic opponent, saying that other countries would love to see us elect Hillary Clinton, because of the economic disaster she would create. While it’s undeniably true that Clinton’s policies would be ruinous, why on Earth would other countries delight in that? The U.S. is the largest economy in the world. We trade with everybody. We buy their exports. We send them tourists. We invest in their businesses. The idea that China, Russia, or the European Union would somehow benefit if the U.S. when down in flames is not only ridiculous, it’s insane.

It’s this mindset that leads Trump to reject international trade deals out of hand and to criticize NAFTA (which on balance has been pretty good for America, not to mention for Canada and Mexico), and which has led him to threaten companies who plan to move their operations overseas. This glaring blind spot has left him unable to see that there can be mutual benefit in international cooperation.

So while Trump’s speech contains plenty of good ideas to get the economy going again, his inability to understand something as basic as the gains from trade leaves me skeptical that he will usher in the economic renaissance he promises. (For more from the author of “Trump Delivers Some Good Ideas, Backed by One Huge Misconception” please click HERE)

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‘Anti-Police’ Activist Finds New Appreciation for Cops After He’s Robbed

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A black activist who described himself as “very-anti police” has a newfound appreciation for police officers after he was robbed at gunpoint in July.

Ali Muhammad was a victim of black-on-black crime, reports TheBlaze, and because of the quick response of the police and their capture of the assailant he has a “whole new perspective” on law enforcement.

Describing the incident, Muhammad said he was approached by a young black male who told him to hand over his earrings and his backpack at gunpoint. Muhammad handed his belongings over to the thief, and then called 911.

He proceeded to follow the thief down the street from a distance and observed him rob two women as well. “One lady, she was in tears. She said she couldn’t believe it,” Muhammad told WTVT-TV. “He had the gun in her mouth.”

911 dispatchers told Muhammad to stop following the suspect and within 10 minutes of receiving Muhammad’s 911 call Tampa police officers were scouring the area for the thief.

The suspect, 18-year-old Antwan Robertson, was eventually located and captured by police.

Muhammad’s belongings were returned to him, along with some faith in law enforcement.

“I congratulated the police,” Muhammad said, telling WTVT that while he’s “very anti-police” he’s “not against police relations and community relations.”

“Police can be hostile and very belligerent,” he added to the station. “Friday night, I met some officers who [were] about business, and that was getting a bad guy off the street.” (For more from the author of “‘Anti-Police’ Activist Finds New Appreciation for Cops After He’s Robbed” please click HERE)

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