The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest

/4 Comments/in , , /by

Photo Credit: NYT

Photo Credit: NYT

The American middle class, long the most affluent in the world, has lost that distinction.

While the wealthiest Americans are outpacing many of their global peers, a New York Times analysis shows that across the lower- and middle-income tiers, citizens of other advanced countries have received considerably larger raises over the last three decades.

After-tax middle-class incomes in Canada — substantially behind in 2000 — now appear to be higher than in the United States. The poor in much of Europe earn more than poor Americans.

The numbers, based on surveys conducted over the past 35 years, offer some of the most detailed publicly available comparisons for different income groups in different countries over time. They suggest that most American families are paying a steep price for high and rising income inequality.

Although economic growth in the United States continues to be as strong as in many other countries, or stronger, a small percentage of American households is fully benefiting from it. Median income in Canada pulled into a tie with median United States income in 2010 and has most likely surpassed it since then. Median incomes in Western European countries still trail those in the United States, but the gap in several — including Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden — is much smaller than it was a decade ago.

Read more from this story HERE.

Intelligence Agency Fails to Report Admissions of Criminal Conduct by Employees and Contractors

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Human Events

Photo Credit: Human Events

Here’s a nasty little companion piece to today’s story about tax-delinquent employees of the Internal Revenue Service receiving big performance bonuses, courtesy of McClatchy News, which has been working on the story for years:

The nation’s spy satellite agency failed to notify authorities when some employees and contractors confessed during lie detector tests to crimes such as child molestation, an intelligence inspector general has concluded.

In other cases, the National Reconnaissance Office delayed reporting criminal admissions obtained during security clearance polygraphs, possibly jeopardizing evidence in investigations or even the safety of children, according to the inspector general report released Tuesday , almost two years after McClatchy’s reporting raised similar concerns.

Child molestation? And not just an old incident, either. It turned out that the contractor in question was still actively in contact with the victim:

In one instance, one of the agency’s top lawyers told colleagues not to bother reporting confessions by a government contractor of child molestation, viewing child pornography and sexting with a minor, the inquiry by the inspector general for the intelligence community revealed.

Read more from this story HERE.

Lawsuit: Cops Found Nothing in Raid, So They Planted Drugs to Frame Innocent Woman

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Youtube screenshot

Photo Credit: Youtube screenshot

California cops planted drugs in a woman’s home to frame her after finding nothing in their illegal search of her home, a lawsuit alleges.

Allison Ross has filed a federal lawsuit against against the Santa Clara sheriff’s department, crime lab and 12 officers that she claims participated in a conspiracy to plant drugs in her house and frame her for a crime she did not commit.

Ross was initially charged with being under the influence of methamphetamine, but the case against her was thrown out after the district attorney determined that the police made false statements about Ross’s arrest.

Most shocking of all, Ross’s lawsuit alleges that dashcam footage actually recorded the police discussing their plan to plant drugs inside her house.

Read more from this story HERE.

Justice Sotomayor and the Affirmative Action Bitter-Enders Have Lost Bigtime

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: American Thinker

Photo Credit: American Thinker

The American public has woken up to the folly of trying to end racial discrimination by practicing it, dooming affirmative action to a slow death, and the racialist left is not taking the news very well. That is the only conclusion to draw from the extraordinary dissenting opinion yesterday by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in Schuette v BAMN, the case in which the Court upheld Michigan’s law outlawing racial preferences in state-funded higher education. Sotomayor took the unusual step of reading the dissent aloud from the bench, indicating her vehemence.

Justice Sotomayor’s dissent was actually longer than all the other opinions in the case combined, so that reading took a while. But she was faced with a difficult task in explaining why refusing to treat races differently is actually racial discrimination, so of course she need a lot of verbiage, background, and pretzel twisting.

Four aspects of her argument stand out:

She attempted to re-brand “affirmative action” as “race-sensitive admissions.”

“Although the term “affirmative action” is commonly used to describe colleges’ and universities’ use of race in crafting admissions policies, Instead use the term “race-sensitive admissions policies.” Some comprehend the term “affirmative action” as connoting intentional preferential treatment based on race alone—for example, the use of a quota system, whereby a certain proportion of seats in an institution’s incoming class must be set aside for racial minorities; the use of a “points” system, whereby an institution accords a fixed numerical advantage toan applicant because of her race; or the admission of otherwise unqualified students to an institution solely on account of their race. None of this is an accurate description of the practices that public universities are permitted to adopt after this Court’s decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306 (2003).” (fn. 2)

Read more from this story HERE.

Washington Becomes First State to Lose its Waiver from No Child Left Behind

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Rachel La Corte / AP

Photo Credit: Rachel La Corte / AP

Washington state lost its waiver from implementing certain parts of the No Child Left Behind education law, an action that could lead to layoffs and program cuts, Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement Thursday.

In a letter to the state superintendent, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that he would not renew the waiver because the state had failed to implement promised changes to how it evaluates teachers and principals. The state is the first to lose its waiver.

In February 2012, the state committed to making student learning growth a substantial factor in those reviews. Last August, it was placed on high-risk status for failing to implement that and other changes, giving the state until May 1 to produce a plan. Because that would require a legislative change and Washington’s legislature won’t reconvene until next January, Duncan said the state would be losing its waiver.

Read more from this story HERE.

When Government Looks More Like Foe than Friend

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

The Cliven Bundy case in Nevada provides many insights into the state of our nation with respect to the relationship between the people and the government.

The Bundys appear to be honorable American citizens without adequate legal counsel to help resolve a federal land issue about which they disagree with the Bureau of Land Management. Without question, they violated some of the innumerable laws and regulations that continue to entangle every aspect of American life.

Their violations certainly could have been handled through a multitude of less brutal means than those employed by our federal government, which through the mouthpiece of Sen. Harry Reid emphasizes how important it is for the government to enforce its laws.

It is quite interesting to see, though, that those same bureaucrats refuse to enforce some of our federal border-protection laws and other domestic policies with which they disagree. Perhaps Reid’s time could be better spent explaining why it is acceptable for the federal government to pick and choose which laws it wishes to enforce.

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: US Allowed Arming of al-Qaida Militants in Benghazi

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

The U.S. government was complicit in arming al-Qaida militants in Libya, according to the Citizens Commission on Benghazi, The Daily Mail reported.

The group includes former top military officers and CIA officials who say the United States is partly to blame for the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi.

“Remember, these weapons that came into Benghazi were permitted to enter by our armed forces, who were blockading the approaches from air and sea,” Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told the newspaper.

“The intelligence community was part of that, the Department of State was part of that, and certainly that means that the top leadership of the United States, our national security leadership, and potentially Congress – if they were briefed on this – also knew about this.”

The United States failed to stop a $500 million United Arab Emirates arms shipment from reaching al-Qaida militants in Libya, according to Lopez. The weapons, according to The Daily Mail, were bound for Moammar Gadhafi but allowed by the United States to go to his Islamist opposition.

Read more from this story HERE.

DOJ To Flood Streets With Felons

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Western Journalism

Photo Credit: Western Journalism

Eric Holder’s Justice Department has come under fire multiple times in recent months for embracing policies that many feel provide undue leniency toward violent felons. Under Holder’s leadership, the agency has publicly supported giving felons the right to vote, rewarding them with free phone service and transportation, and even commuting the sentences of some prisoners.

According to a new initiative announced Wednesday, a huge number of criminals currently in prison are about to receive a get-out-of-jail pass from the DOJ based on the fact that they have already served at least 10 years of their sentence.

These criminals, all convicted of drug offenses, will be able to apply for release under the policy, provided they might have gotten a lighter sentence had they committed their crime more recently.

“Older, stringent punishments that are out of line with sentences imposed under today’s laws erode people’s confidence in our criminal justice system,” said Deputy Attorney General James Cole. “I am confident that this initiative will go far to promote the most fundamental of American ideals – equal justice under the law.”

Read more from this story HERE.

America: We Support Building Keystone

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Townhall

Photo Credit: Townhall

Last week on Good Friday, the White House announced yet another delay for the Keystone XL pipeline until after the 2014 midterm elections. The White House cited the project needing “further review” before approval and DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz says the move was not political. The bright side is labor unions called the delay “gutless,” a “low blow to the working men and women of our country,” and a “cold, hard slap in the face for hard working Americans who are literally waiting for President Obama’s approval and the tens of thousands of jobs it will generate.”

A new poll from Rasmussen Reports shows 61 percent of Americans support the approval of Keystone, a new high.

Read more from this story HERE.

John Cornyn Calls for Broad Probe into Obamacare Spending, Fundraising

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is calling for a broad investigation into spending and fundraising to help promote Obamacare after a report released Monday raised new questions about the White House’s involvement in persuading private entities to donate to the effort.

The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, released a report Monday on Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ fundraising on behalf of Enroll America, a nonprofit founded by former Obama campaign and White House staffers, to help boost enrollment in the federal exchanges.

When looking into the fundraising issue, the GAO interviewed a representative from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation who said a White House aide during a discussion in 2012 sought a “significant contribution” for Enroll America and said other similar enrollment nonprofits would likely need $30 million to finance a national Obamacare promotional effort.

The White House stresses that the aide, identified only as the deputy assistant to the president for health policy, did not ask for a specific dollar donation and denies the mention of the need for $30 million to finance a private national Obamacare public-relations campaign.

Jeanne Lambrew has been serving in that position since March 2011, according to a report in the Washington Post.

Read more from this story HERE.