Mark Steyn: Sequestageddon

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Photo Credit: National Review A few weeks ago, Ann Coulter announced that she was bored of American politics and was spending her days watching Turner Classic Movies. I confess that, when it comes to Beltway melodrama, I too am fighting vainly the old ennui, and minded to plump up the pillows and settle back with a bucket of bonbons and a beribboned Shih-tzu for an all-night Norma Shearer marathon. At least, unlike Washington, there’s a chance you may catch something you haven’t already seen a hundred times before. For example, I’ve a yen to see Roberta (RKO, 1935), in which Irene Dunne sings:

Yesterdays
Yesterdays
Days I knew as happy sweet sequester’d days . . .

I believe that was the last known use of this blameless and mellifluous word until it was conscripted by the political class for this month’s dreary Mayan Apocalypse of the Month thrill ride. Say what you like about those Mayan guys, but they only schedule an apocalypse once every 5,126 years. Only Washington would try to pull it off every six weeks. If I understand correctly, by the time you read this, the planes will be dropping from the skies; the drip-feeds in every emergency room will be dry; every creature on the endangered species list will have broken free from our pristine federally manned national parks to be left for roadkill in the potholed asphalt of America’s crumbling interstates; you’ll turn on your bathroom faucet only to find the town reservoir choked with fecal coliform; the Ebola virus will be rampant across Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, and other swing states, where it will nevertheless enjoy higher approval ratings than Marco Rubio and every other prospective GOP nominee. The sequester supposedly cuts $44 billion from the federal budget — or from the rate of growth of the federal budget. Whatever. $44 billion is about what the United States government borrows every nine days, so it’s not a lot. But it’s apparently responsible for everything that matters in American life.

That being so, maybe it would be easier to reinstate this critical $44 billion and cut the other $3.8 trillion, which is apparently responsible for nothing other than Harry Reid’s beloved federally funded cowboy-poetry festival and the cost of the dress uniforms for the military detachment accompanying the first lady at her Oscars appearance. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, warned of “over 170 million jobs that could be lost” thanks to the sequester. There are only 135 million jobs in America, but the sequester gods are so powerful they can eliminate every job in Canada, Britain, and Germany too. Why, because of this weekend’s looming Mayan Apocalypse, President Obama declined to deploy a carrier to the Persian Gulf, concerned that it might be left on the other side of the planet completely sequestered with no fuel to limp back home and insufficient stores in the mess-hall larder to cook up federally compliant slop. So, when the mullahs go nuclear and drop the big one on Tel Aviv, it will be the fault of the Republicans for failing to agree to a prudent, balanced, fiscally responsible plan — like the Senate’s latest deficit-reduction proposal, which, as is traditional, increases the deficit (by $7 billion).

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Detroit Will Be Run by Financial Manager

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Photo Credit: Reuters
The state of Michigan is taking on one of the most difficult turnaround projects ever attempted: a rescue of a sprawling city with $14 billion in debt, a depleted tax base, a legacy of government corruption—and very little time left to avert financial collapse.

Republican Gov. Rick Snyder said Friday he plans to appoint an emergency financial manager for Detroit, taking control of the state’s largest city out of the hands of elected leaders. The governor, who has called a revitalization of Detroit critical to sustaining the state’s nascent economic recovery, said he didn’t believe city leaders were addressing rapidly enough Detroit’s ballooning deficits and a persistent cash drought.

At an invitation-only town hall at Wayne State University, Mr. Snyder called it a “sad day” that he “wished had never happened.” But he said that the emergency manager would also bring Detroit new promise. “It’s time to say that we should be moving forward,” he said.

City and state Democratic leaders opposed the governor’s move. “I am deeply disappointed by today’s hostile takeover of Detroit. We need to trust the democratic process, not throw it out,” said Lon Johnson, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, in a statement on Friday.

The governor’s decision represents a turning point for a city that was once the industrial capital of America and an engine of its growth. Six decades ago, Detroit was a city of nearly two million people brimming with factory jobs that offered immigrants from the South and abroad a pathway into the American middle class.

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Huckabee 2016: ‘The Honest Answer Is Maybe’

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Photo Credit: KUTVHe was Mitt Romney’s political rival in the 2008 Republican presidential primaries. Like Romney, Mike Huckabee lost, but he gained an undeniably strong presence on radio and television.

Huckabee also picked up—among some people—a sense of being anti-Mormon.

“It really hurts me to hear that,” said Huckabee, in an exclusive interview with 2News Thursday. “Anybody who knows me knows the respect I have for the Mormon Church is extraordinary, because there has been moral clarity from the Mormon Church on such issues as Prop 8 in California, and pro-life issues.”

The former Baptist minister, former Governor of Arkansas, was in Salt Lake to speak at a convention for a company known as Express Employment Professionals at the Grand America. He also did his daily radio show from Salt Lake, a program aired on nearly 200 stations around the country.

“So this notion that I am somehow anti-Mormon is absolutely not true, never has been,” said Huckabee, who counts former Utah governors Mike Leavitt and John Huntsman—both LDS—as friends. Huckabee said he supported and campaigned “all over the country” for Romney in 2012, and thought Romney would win.

Romney’s political career seems over, but Huckabee said he might make another run for the White House, as soon as 2016. “I’m not ruling it out. The honest answer is maybe,” he told 2News. “I know a little bit of the depth of the water I’d be diving into, so I’ve got to make that decision very carefully and prayerfully.”

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Glenn Beck: Obama Trying to Incite Civil War

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photo credit: gage skidmoreThe Obama Administration has repeatedly engaged in behavior that is inexplicable from the perspective of the conventional American horizon. But the latest episode with respect to the release of criminal aliens takes it to another level.

In this video, Glenn Beck alleges that Barack Obama is acting out with ill intent, trying to elicit a response. And Undoubtedly, Americans will be endangered by the government’s reckless behavior.

Let’s hope Beck is wrong, and that our president has some reasonable explanation for this. Though one must admit, it’s hard imagine one that is satisfactory.

See video:

Al Qaeda On The Warpath

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Al Qaeda affiliates have spread throughout the Middle East and Africa, transforming al Qaeda into an increasingly dangerous global network, research analysts at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) said during a panel Wednesday.

“Al Qaeda is stronger at an operational level than it has been for many years” and the prospects of al Qaeda strengthening are more likely, AEI senior research analyst Katherine Zimmerman said.

Even though the United States successfully found and killed Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda movement has spread to Yemen, North Africa, Syria, Somalia, and other areas in the Middle East.

Al Qaeda is “not defeated or on the verge of defeat,” Zimmerman said.

With the outbreak of the Arab Spring, local affiliated al Qaeda groups have infiltrated unstable locations in the Middle East.

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Shouting Match Erupts in Senate Hearing on Gun Ban

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During a scheduled hearing today of the Senate Judiciary Committee, senators clashed over the proposal of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would ban hundreds of types of firearms, including the popular AR-15 rifle and semiautomatic handguns.

The bill would also ban magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

The Democrat-controlled Senate apparently made sure that the room where the hearing was held was packed with supporters of the gun ban. Attendees cheered witnesses who testified in favor of the ban, particularly when they clashed with Republicans on the committee.

At one point U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn if his department was currently enforcing laws already on the books regarding background checks. The question elicited a sharp response from Flynn who exploded into a tirade about the fact that his department is focused on catching criminals rather than engaging in pencil-pushing.

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Teachers Outnumbered In Schools By Administrators, Support Staff In Many States, Study Shows

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Photo Credit: APEach day, students in 21 states will see more librarians, bus drivers, coaches and cafeteria workers than teachers, according to a new study that examined school hiring patterns over the past two decades.

The report, released Thursday by the Friedman Foundation For Educational Choice, found that Virginia, Ohio, Oregon, Maine, Indiana and a number of states- and the District of Columbia- employ more non-classroom personnel than teachers, some by a wide margin.

Virginia came in at the top of the list, with 60,737 more non-teaching staff than instructors, according to the study. Ohio was No. 2, with a disparity of 19,040.

“Taxpayers should be outraged [that] public schools hired so many non-teaching personnel with such little academic improvement among students to show for it,” said Robert Enlow, president and CEO of the foundation, which was founded by the late Nobel laureate Milton Friedman and is among the most vocal proponents of school choice.

“This money could have been better invested in areas that have proved to benefit children,” Mr. Enlow added. But the study’s findings surely will be challenged. Critics have taken aim at previous Friedman Foundation reports, including last fall’s “School Staffing Surge,” which showed that states’ and school districts’ hiring rates have far outpaced the growth of student populations.

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Poll: Internet Edges Networks As Public’s Source For News

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Photo Credit: APBye bye Walter Cronkite, Brian Williams and Scott Pelley. Hello Google, Yahoo and Drudge.

A new Rasmussen Reports poll finds that traditional network news continues to fall as the nation’s source for news. The internet now is a bigger source of news for Americans than network TV, by a point, 25 percent to 24 percent.

Cable TV is still king, with 32 percent of the 1,000 likely voters Rasmussen polled getting their news from that source. Newspapers barely register a 10 percent, and radio is the source of news for 7 percent of the country.

The poll gauged how well the public trusted the media and if they see a bias. On both fronts, it is bad news.

Just 6 percent of the nation considers the national media “very trustworthy,” and nearly half believe reporters are more liberal than they are, said Rasmussen.

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Obama Is Setting Us Up

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In the days since the November elections, the pace of Obama’s destruction of America has increased significantly. Now that the Marxists have secured the executive branch for another four years – thanks to massive voter fraud, a cowardly Republican Party, and a couple of million self-righteous fools who refused to vote, apparently preferring a Muslim Marxist over a moderately conservative Mormon – Obama and his lawless unindicted co-conspirators have thrown caution to the wind.

Every day, new outrages are proposed, all aimed at the destruction of the Middle Class and America as a free, capitalist, constitutional republic. However, in our efforts to recognize and combat the internal attacks – the tax increases, the land grabs, the granting of citizenship to illegal invaders, the undermining of private property rights, etc. ad nauseam – we are failing to notice the external threats that Obama’s policies are abetting. The re-militarization of Russia and their much more aggressive and threatening attitude is of great concern; but there are other, much less publicized ones we need to be aware of.

China has made trillions of dollars off us, thanks to massive interest payments on the uncontrolled borrowing by the Obama administration as well as a huge and ever-increasing trade deficit, where they export to us way, way more than we export to them. During the Obama “presidency,” China surpassed America as the world’s leading economic power. They have used this money to radically increase the size and sophistication of their military to the point where it is very questionable whether we could do anything should they move to start taking over other Asian countries, like the Philippines, Japan, or South Korea.

This is not an irrational fear, either. The dispute with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands appears to be a test by China to see who will do what as they aggressively move to take territory claimed by Japan. Chinese admirals, who never speak without government direction, have threatened World War III to “protect” Iran. But ultimately, it is the good ol’ USA that is their target. Does anyone remember when Russia was selling off military equipment after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and China bought every last one of their attack subs that were specifically designed to target the US Navy? Since at least the 1990s, the Democrats have aided and abetted China in the upgrading of their military capabilities – remember the technology that Clinton sold them that allowed them to get their missiles to actually hit what they aimed at? Obama has been carrying on this tradition, allowing formerly restricted advanced technology to be sold to the Chinese military. And just a reminder: the Panama Canal, vital to our national security, is, thanks to the Democrats, run by a company – Hutchison-Whampoa – with ties to the Chinese Military, as is a port facility 50 miles off the East Coast in the Bahamas that has an 11,000 foot-long runway, capable of handling the largest of military aircraft.

Add to this the fact that the North Koreans, who have nuclear weapons, are testing missiles capable of hitting American cities. They appear to believe that the US and South Korea are gearing up to attack and invade them.

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Former Clinton Aide, Columnist Joins Woodward In Claiming White House Threat (+video)

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Photo Credit: APAnother member of the Washington political media stepped forward Thursday to claim he was threatened by the Obama White House, shortly after the White House denied reports that an adviser threatened famed Watergate journalist Bob Woodward.

The latest claim comes from Lanny Davis, who served as counsel to former President Bill Clinton and later went on to write a column for The Washington Times. In a radio interview on WMAL, Davis said that a “senior Obama White House official” once called his editor at the Times and said that if the paper continued to run his columns, “his reporters would lose their credentials.”

Davis said he “couldn’t imagine why this call was made” since he’s an Obama supporter. But he called the alleged threat “unfortunate.”

The account comes after Woodward claimed Wednesday night that a White House aide sent him an email saying he would “regret” his recent reporting on the sequester battle. The aide was not identified, but an official familiar with the exchange told Fox News it was National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling — the tone of the email was rather mixed, as it also included an apology. That was after Woodward wrote a column this past weekend claiming Obama was trying to re-write history — regarding not only whose idea the sequester was, but also how it would take effect.

Woodward wrote that based on his reporting earlier in the budget battle, the president was trying to move the goalposts by trying to replace the sequester with a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts — instead of solely spending cuts.

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