US wasted more than $200 million on Iraqi police training that Baghdad didn’t want or need

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U.S. auditors have concluded that more than $200 million was wasted on a program to train Iraqi police that Baghdad says is neither needed nor wanted.

The Police Development Program– which was drawn up to be the single largest State Department program in the world — was envisioned as a five-year, multibillion-dollar push to train security forces after the U.S. military left last December. But Iraqi political leaders, anxious to keep their distance from the Americans, were unenthusiastic.

A report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, to be released Monday, found that the American Embassy in Baghdad never got a written commitment from Iraq to participate. Now, facing what the report called Baghdad’s “disinterest” in the project, the embassy is gutting what was supposed to be the centerpiece of ongoing U.S. training efforts in Iraq.

According to the report, the embassy plans to turn over the $108 million Baghdad Police College Annex to Iraqis by the end of the year and will stop training at a $98 million site at the U.S. consulate in the southern city of Basra. Additionally, the number of advisers has been cut by nearly 90 percent — from 350 to 36.

“A major lesson learned from Iraq is that host country buy-in to proposed programs is essential to the long-term success of relief and reconstruction activities. The PDP experience powerfully underscores that point,” auditors wrote in a 41-page summary of their inspection. An advance copy was provided to The Associated Press.

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New York Times: Doctor shortage to get worse under Obamacare

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In the Inland Empire, an economically depressed region in Southern California, President Obama’s health care law is expected to extend insurance coverage to more than 300,000 people by 2014. But coverage will not necessarily translate into care: Local health experts doubt there will be enough doctors to meet the area’s needs. There are not enough now.

Other places around the country, including the Mississippi Delta, Detroit and suburban Phoenix, face similar problems. The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that in 2015 the country will have 62,900 fewer doctors than needed. And that number will more than double by 2025, as the expansion of insurance coverage and the aging of baby boomers drive up demand for care. Even without the health care law, the shortfall of doctors in 2025 would still exceed 100,000.

Health experts, including many who support the law, say there is little that the government or the medical profession will be able to do to close the gap by 2014, when the law begins extending coverage to about 30 million Americans. It typically takes a decade to train a doctor.

“We have a shortage of every kind of doctor, except for plastic surgeons and dermatologists,” said Dr. G. Richard Olds, the dean of the new medical school at the University of California, Riverside, founded in part to address the region’s doctor shortage. “We’ll have a 5,000-physician shortage in 10 years, no matter what anybody does.”

Experts describe a doctor shortage as an “invisible problem.” Patients still get care, but the process is often slow and difficult. In Riverside, it has left residents driving long distances to doctors, languishing on waiting lists, overusing emergency rooms and even forgoing care.

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Video: Flash mobs, racial tension ramping up in US?

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It’s not pleasant to bring up a subject seemingly NO ONE wants to talk about. It’s even more unpleasant when you know you are opening yourself up to accusations of the filthiest kind.

So — here it goes:  America has a race problem. It is a problem that may be about to erupt into nationwide violence. In fact, some believe it has already begun.

I am seeing report after report, on the Internet, concerning the sky rocketing rise of black on white crime and yes, black on black crime, as well. But, most horrible is the black mob violence which is becoming so prevalent that even the Mainstream Media is ALMOST forced to report it. Notice: I said “ALMOST.”

There are the so-called black “flash mobs,” the “rob mobs” and, of course, the old stand-by — the out and out “riot.”

Thing is — it’s happening all across the US. This time, thankfully, my “South” will not bear the brunt of the criticism from the “Limousine liberals,” the “Guilt-Trip Lefties,” and the “Poverty Pimps.” But then, they have heaped defamation on us Southrons for so long they may just feel compelled to continue.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Obamacare comment by HHS Secretary Sebelius “mirrors Nazi Propaganda”

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In a lively panel Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute, author Robert Zubrin compared Obamacare-related comments by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to Nazi propaganda.

Zubrin slammed Sebelius for promoting mandatory contraception coverage as a cost saving measure.

“In testimony in Congress, Kathleen Sebelius actually said that Obamacare would save money — save the nation a lot of money,” Zubrin said, “because it would distribute contraceptives and thus reduce the number of births.”

“The notion that by preventing children from being born we will save the nation money, this mirrors Nazi propaganda calling for euthanasia of ‘useless eaters’ because it would save us all money, it was an incredible statement,” he continued.

Zubrin, a fellow at the Center for Security Policy and a contributing editor for The New Atlantis, did not hold back in his stinging criticism of the “anti-humanist” movement during the event to discuss his new book “Merchants of Despair.”

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Sen. Sessions: $25.4 trillion debt over next decade, proof Obama’s campaign is lying

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The White House has delivered its 10-year budget forecast to Congress, and it predicts a trillion-dollar deficit for fiscal year 2012.

The project, titled the Mid-Session Review, projects $42.6 trillion in spending, and will balloon the federal government’s accumulated debt to $25.4 trillion by 2022, according to an analysis from the office of Sen. Jeff Sessions, the GOP’s budget chief in the Senate. The review was released Friday, reducing the chance it will get much coverage in the media.

Last year, the national debt grew to $14.8 trillion, an increase of $5 trillion from 2008.

The river of red ink shows that President Barack Obama’s campaign-trail ads are “dramatically false,” said a statement from Sessions.

Those new ads promise to pay down the accumulated deficits in a “balanced way.”

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Obama pushing idiotic race-based discipline standards for schools

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President Barack Obama is backing a controversial campaign by progressives to regulate schools’ disciplinary actions so that members of major racial and ethnic groups are penalized at equal rates, regardless of individuals’ behavior.

His July 26 executive order established a government panel to promote “a positive school climate that does not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools.”

“African Americans lack equal access to highly effective teachers and principals, safe schools, and challenging college-preparatory classes, and they disproportionately experience school discipline,” said the order, titled “White House Initiative On Educational Excellence.”

Because of those causes, the report suggests, “over a third of African American students do not graduate from high school on time with a regular high school diploma, and only four percent of African American high school graduates interested in college are college-ready across a range of subjects.”

“What this means is that whites and Asians will get suspended for things that blacks don’t get suspended for,” because school officials will try to level punishments despite groups’ different infraction rates, predicted Hans Bader, a counsel at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Bader is a former official in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, and has sued and represented school districts and colleges in civil-rights cases.

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Another elitist donates millions to destroy traditional marriage

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Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie announced a gift Friday of $2.5 million to the campaign to defend Washington’s same-sex marriage law.

With the gift, Washington United for Marriage has raised more than $5 million for the Referendum 74 campaign. Last month Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and co-founder Bill Gates each donated $100,000 to support the law. [Publisher’s note: executives from Nike and Starbucks also donated to the effort]

Referendum 74 was certified for the November ballot in May after gay marriage opponents in the group Preserve Marriage Washington turned in more than 240,000 signatures. It seeks to overturn the gay-marriage law signed in February by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

The law was supposed to take effect June 7 but has been put on hold.

A “yes” vote on the referendum upholds the law, and a “no” vote overturns it.

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Senate votes to raise taxes on 1.2 million small businesses, over 700,000 may lose jobs

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Yesterday, the Senate narrowly voted (51-48) to raise taxes on 1.2 million small businesses, which will likely kill more than 700,000 jobs at a time when nearly 13 million Americans are out of work. Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Jim Webb (D-VA) joined all Republicans in bipartisan opposition to the tax hike.

This is President Obama’s economic plan. This is what he asked Congress to do. And he recently told a fundraising crowd that his economic plan has been working.

“Just like we’ve tried [Republicans’] plan, we tried our plan—and it worked,” he said.

But Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, said yesterday that “the economy is not growing fast enough,” acknowledging that “unemployment is very high.” “The institutions with authority should be doing everything they can to try to make economic growth stronger,” he said.

The President’s plan, now endorsed by the Democratic majority in the Senate, has little chance of going anywhere in the House of Representatives. But it has put the 51 Senators who want to raise taxes on record.

Perhaps the biggest lie in the tax debate is that this vote affects only “the rich.” That’s simply not true. Many small businesses, known as flow-through businesses, pay their taxes through the individual income tax. Ernst and Young estimates that these types of businesses “employ 54% of the private sector work force.” This tax hike squarely hits 1.2 million of these businesses that hire workers and have incomes above $200,000.

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UN Arms Trade Treaty deadline today: Revised draft gives hope to gun control advocates

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A revised draft of a new U.N. treaty to regulate the multibillion dollar global arms trade raised hopes from supporters and the British government, which has been the leading proponent, that an historic agreement could be reached by Friday’s deadline for action.

The draft circulated late Thursday closed several loopholes in the original text, though the Washington-based Arms Control Association said further improvements are still needed to strengthen measures against illicit arms transfers.

A spokesman for Britain’s U.N. Mission, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the new text is “a substantial improvement” and “an historic agreement that effectively regulates the international trade in conventional arms is now very close.”

The estimated $60 billion international arms trade is unregulated, though countries including the U.S. have their own rules on exports.

Opponents in the U.S., especially the powerful National Rifle Association, have portrayed the treaty as a surrender of gun ownership rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The issue of gun control, always politically explosive one for American politicians, has re-emerged since last week’s shooting at a Colorado cinema killed 12 people.

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Video: Congressman’s Blistering Attack on DC Receives Standing Ovation from House

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I’ve watched a number of rousing speeches on the floor of the House but have never quite seen a reaction like this.  Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) launches into an articulate, heart-felt attack on how the disconnected beltway politicians are killing business in the US.  In return, he gets a standing ovation and shouts of “USA, USA”! Please watch this video.  It will be worth your while.