We've Crossed The Tipping Point; Most Americans Now Receive Government Benefits

Photo Credit: CarbonNYCObamacare has pushed us over the entitlements tipping point. In 2011 some 49.2 percent of U.S. households received benefits from one or more government programs—about 151 million out of an estimated 306.8 million Americans—according to U.S. Census Bureau data released last October.

Currently, around 6 million to 7 million Americans who have signed up for Obamacare are receiving taxpayer-provided subsidies (though the administration’s numbers cannot be trusted, it’s all we have to work with). There are another 3 million who have signed up for Medicaid.

That means some 10 million Americans—or a total of about 161 million—are now getting government subsidies (though the final number might be somewhat lower since some may have been receiving benefits already).

Thus, perhaps 52 percent of U.S. households—more than half—now receive benefits from the government, thanks to President Obama. And Mr. Entitlement is just getting started. If Obamacare is not repealed millions more will join the swelling rolls of those dependent on government handouts.

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Chuck Norris Addresses Lunacy Of Those Opposed To Pride In American Flag

Photo Credit: Liberty News Have you heard all of these appalling stories of people being asked to take down the American flag because someone has been offended by its presence? *puke*

Well, I know of one American who has stepped up to protect Old Glory. Maybe you’ve heard of him?

Meet: Chuck Norris

Am I missing something? Do you remember the days when Americans not only used to be proud to fly Old Glory but frowned upon neighbors who did not?

These flag-flying travesties wouldn’t be so tragic if they weren’t becoming so prevalent and symptomatic of an America gone awry from its original mission and founders’ intent.

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A Heroine for Our Times: We Now Have a Politics of Meanness and Spite, Where Hatred is a Sign of Legitimacy

Photo Credit: Chip Somodevilla / GettyThe narrative of decline is one of a slow and silent accumulation of ills. Looking backwards, we don’t remember a special moment when the evil days came, or the years drew nigh when all would be changed, but only the painful contrast between the days of our youth and the decrepitude of age. So it is with countries. We fail to see sharp breaks where we can say: There, there is where it all happened.

And yet such moments do exist, the points of inflection where the curve changes from positive to negative. We might have thought little of the changes at the time, perhaps, but they made all the difference, and it is the task of the historian to bring them to light.

I am no historian, but I have one such moment in mind. It was when The New Republic’s senior editor Jonathan Chait wrote in 2003, “I hate President George W. Bush.” TNR was always a liberal journal, but under editors such as Andrew Sullivan (before he went mad) and the restraining hand of Martin Peretz, it prided itself on its reasonableness. The magazine might have been coma-inducing boring, but by God it was reasonable.

And then came Chait’s tirade. For conservatives who seek to be loved by the Left, it was deeply painful. More cynical conservatives took it in stride. And just what was it anyway? Merely an op-ed. But then it was more than that too. It was a sea change in which the swimmer suddenly finds himself in frigid water. And Chait’s permission slip for hatred explains what has happened to American politics since then, the bitterness, the calls for revenge, the IRS campaign against the Tea Party.

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Millennials Unemployment Report: 15.2% of Workers 18-29 Out of Work – ‘More Jobs’ Needed

Photo Credit: APIn an unemployment report issued by Generation Opportunity, a Millinneal think tank, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that 15.2 percent of adults age 18-29 were unemployed in June. This percentage includes those people who are no longer looking for work.

“15.2 percent of young people are out of work,” Patrice Lee, director of outreach at Generation Opportunity, said in a statement on Thursday. “On top of not having jobs and struggling with student loan debt, young people are paying for crony government policies like the Export-Import Bank.”

“My generation needs more jobs,” Lee said, “not more spending that only ends up lining the pockets of wealthy corporations.”

The report, using non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) data, shows the actual unemployment rate for all adults age 18 to 29 is 10.5 percent.

Read more from this story HERE.

Are 'American' Cars Going Extinct?

Photo Credit: Fox News Want to buy an American car? Better get one while they last.

Only 10 vehicles qualified this year for the annual American-Made Index from Cars.com, and just three of them are from domestic brands.

The Ford F-150 pickup took the top spot for the second year in a row, while the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray came in seventh and the Detroit-built Dodge SRT Viper rounded out the list in tenth.

The other seven vehicles on the list — which disqualifies cars with less than 75 percent of their parts made in the U.S. or Canada and factors in their sales impact on the U.S. economy — were all U.S. built products from Toyota and Honda.

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Tahmooressi's Mother Makes Fourth of July Appeal to US Ambassador to Mexico

Photo Credit: Fox News On the eve of Independence Day, the mother of a Marine jailed in Mexico for three months appealed to America’s top diplomat south of the border, asking for help winning the freedom of her 25-year-old son, Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi.

Jill Tahmooressi, of Weston, Fla., sent a letter June 30 to E. Anthony Wayne, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, requesting his help in getting a Mexican federal judge to give an expedited review to her son’s case, after his representation had been botched by two previous attorneys who failed to submit any evidence for the court to review.

“If any consideration can be made to expedite the reviews before the federal judge so that he will be closer to probable freedom, those actions would be much appreciated,” Jill Tahmooressi wrote Wayne.

Her son has been held in Mexico since March 31, when he was arrested after accidentally crossing into Mexico with three legally-purchased guns in his pickup truck. Fox News has highlighted how poor signage, as well as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Tahmooressi got from serving two tours in Afghanistan, could have contributed to his mistake.

Tahmooressi hopes to have her son’s case fast-tracked, but according to attorney Fernando Benitez, the Mexican judicial system will have to run its course, regardless of efforts made by the Marine’s supporters.

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Rick Perry Calls for National Guard to Defend the Border

Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreThe situation at the Texas border is getting worse by the day, and the federal government, who should be providing adequate resources to solve the issue is nowhere to be found.

Texas has seen an astronomical increase in unaccompanied children flooding across the border since October. Emergency stations have been converted to house the kids and resources to provide care are starting to dwindle.

In response to the situation, Texas created their own border security patrol units that have been working tirelessly to prevent illegals from coming across the border, but more help is needed.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is calling on the government to send National Guard troops down to the border to militarize the area in order to reduce the number of illegals entering the country.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ranchers Told "Look the Other Way or Face the Consequences"

Photo Credit: KRGVRanchers along the Rio Grande say immigrant smugglers threaten them constantly.

One Cameron County rancher said smugglers ordered him to look the other way or face the consequences.

The landowner said smugglers are using trails on his property to bring illegal immigrants into the country.

The rancher said he fears for his safety.

“You don’t see anything; you don’t talk to anybody,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Vet Dies Waiting 30 Minutes for Ambulance from Hospital Five Minutes Away

Photo Credit: APWhile it is just a tragic anecdote, the latest story surrounding the chronic and too often fatal inefficiency of Veterans Affairs hospitals is illustrative of a much larger problem.

“A veteran who collapsed in an Albuquerque Veteran Affairs hospital cafeteria, 500 yards from the emergency room, died after waiting 30 minutes for an ambulance,” the Associated Press reported on Thursday. “Officials at the hospital Thursday confirmed it took a half an hour for the ambulance to be dispatched and take the man from one building to the other, which is about a five minute walk.”

VA spokeswoman Sonja Brown defended the VA’s conduct in this case, telling reporters that the staff “followed policy in calling 911 when the man collapsed on Monday.” She added, however, that this policy is now under review.

It is unclear why the ambulance took so long to reach this veteran in need, and blaming the VA system in this instance may be entirely unfair. That said, it is also just another example that serves to reinforce the narrative that the VA system is hopelessly broken.

And the impression that the VA system is broken is anything but unfair.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Whistleblower Fights Back Against VA Hospital Over Secret Waiting Lists

By Michael Volpe.

Despite denials by the Department of Veteran Affairs, a whistleblower is standing by his claim that a Louisiana VA hospital maintained a secret waiting list for patient care.

According to a hospital employee named Shea Wilkes and internal emails leaked to the media, there have been wait times of up to fifteen months for appointments in the mental health department of the Overton-Brooks VA Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Stephanie Alexander, a nurse in the hospital, emailed James Patterson, the department’s chief of staff, and Ruthie McDaniel, the operations manager, to request overtime so that employees could catch up on scheduling the backlog.

“There are multiple lists, excel sheets, papers that contain names of patients that need to be scheduled- just a few at approximately 2400 existing patients- some have not been seen in as long as 12-15 months,” said Alexander in the email.

Wilkes told The Daily Caller that 620 veterans still need appointments.

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Iran Opposition Compares its Struggle to the American Revolution

Photo Credit: Fox News The leader of the Iranian opposition likens its goal to overthrow the regime in Tehran to the war for American independence from Britain, the struggle to abolish slavery in the U.S. and the birth of the civil rights movement in the 1960’s.

“I am confident that the Iranian resistance, which seeks the proven values of advanced societies, will reach its goal of a free, prosperous, democratic, just and non-nuclear Iran,” declared Maryam Rajavi, the head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, in an exclusive Fox News interview.

“The experience is out there, including in the history of the United States, such as George Washington and the people of America who decided to stand up to colonialism to gain independence, such as Abraham Lincoln and the price he paid and the war he waged to abolish slavery and the price the people of America paid during the time of Dr. Martin Luther King for civil rights and the struggle of the people of America for the freedom of women,” she says.

“These are all historical experiences and I am, therefore, confident. My experience and that of the Iranian people tell us that when a people, a nation, decides to fight and pay the price for the rights it deserves, such as democracy, freedom and equality, when it decides to fight for these and pay the price, for values which shine in history of all human societies and in the progress of human society, it will certainly achieve it.”

Rajavi, based outside of Paris, is the leader of the largest Iranian resistance group that opposes the current Tehran regime. She is calling for regime change, free, democratic elections, and a non-nuclear Iran. The group held a massive hours-long rally last week, in which a variety of speakers, including many prominent former U.S. government officials, also called for a democratic Iran and tougher restrictions on Tehran in advance of the looming July 20 nuclear agreement deadline.

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