America’s Economic Freedom Ranking Nosedives to No. 18 in the World Due to Obama’s Policies

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Canada has taken its place among the Top 5 countries with the most economic freedom, according to a new Fraser Institute report — now leaps and bounds ahead of the United States thanks to the gradual shrinking of the Canadian government since the mid-1990s as America’s just got bigger.

The annual Economic Freedom of the World report, released Tuesday, has Canada tied in fifth place with Australia — up one spot from last year. Hong Kong remains at the top, Singapore’s next, then New Zealand.

Meanwhile, the United States, once a “standard bearer” of economic liberty among industrial nations, spiralled 10 spots from the 2011 rankings to 18th place — its lowest position ever, and a huge drop from its second place spot in 2000.

And as the size of Canada’s government continues to slightly shrink due to slowed growth in government spending post-recession and America’s continues to expand, this indicator could eventually make us the industrialized world’s new leader on economic freedom, said Fraser Institute president Niels Veldhuis.

“What we have in front of us is a marked opportunity,” he said. “We can significantly exceed the U.S. in economic freedom over the course of, I would say, the next five to 10 years. The question for Canadians is are we going to seize the opportunity or are we going to let the opportunity go by?’’

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Will EPA Regulate Hamburgers Now? Study Shows They Pollute More Than Semi-Trucks

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Photo credit: ginnerobot

A UC Riverside study found that commercially cooked hamburgers cause more air pollution than diesel trucks.

The study, which focused on commercial charbroilers found in burger restaurants, said the equipment generates grease, smoke, water vapors and combustion products, which emit a large amount of particulate matter into the air.

“For comparison, an 18-wheeler diesel engine truck would have to drive 143 miles on the freeway to put out the same mass of particulates as a single charbroiled hamburger patty,” said Bill Welch, the principle engineer.

Researchers at UCR, who found few regulations for the restaurant emissions, said they’re developing a contraption to trap the particulates.

“Our goal is to find something cost-effective and technically feasible to reduce the smoke,” said Welch.

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More Pentagon Incompetency: West Pointer Relieved of Duty for Teaching Truth about Islam

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The Thomas More Law Center announced today that it is representing U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley, a 1994 Graduate of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. In April 2012, LTC Dooley, a highly decorated combat veteran, was publically condemned by General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and relieved of his teaching assignment because of the negative way Islam was portrayed in an elective course entitled, Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism.

The actions against LTC Dooley, an instructor involved with this elective, follow a letter to the Department of Defense dated October 19, 2011 and signed by 57 Muslim organizations, demanding that all training materials that they judge to be offensive to Islam be “purged” and instructors “are effectively disciplined.”

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center commented, “We are privileged to represent Lieutenant Colonel Dooley. He has honorably served his Nation for 18 years and effectively carried out every assigned mission with distinction. He served as Aide-de-Camp to three different General Officers and deployed to Bosnia, Kuwait, and Iraq for a total of six operational and combat tours. During that time he received numerous awards and decorations. Now after a lifetime of service to his country, he is being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and expediency by the Army he so loyally served . . . and loves.”

Thompson observed, “In order to appease Muslims and the White House, General Dempsey and the Department of Defense rushed to punish LTC Dooley. In the process, they violated not only our Nation’s core principles of free speech and academic freedom guaranteed by our Constitution, but also, a number of the military’s own regulations dealing with academic freedom and non- attribution policies of the National Defense University (NDU) to which LTC Dooley was assigned. They violated the right to due process of law and even by-passed the University’s Provost, who under NDU’s own rules has primary responsibility for adjudication of this matter.”

While serving as an instructor at the Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC) , a branch of the National Defense University established by Congress, LTC Dooley took on the herculean task of guiding students through one of its most vibrant but controversial elective courses. In grappling with the most dangerous aspects of radical Islamist ideology, students in the elective were encouraged to debate and affirm or dismiss a number of notions regarding Radical Islam as well as confront what strategic U.S. actions were feasible or infeasible. Dooley assumed his instructor position within the National Defense University with an understanding that years of prior-approved course content, established guest speakers, and doctrinal teaching methodologies were still safe to discuss.

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Political Correctness Run Amok: Dad-Daughter Dances Axed for ‘Gender Discrimination’

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Father-daughter dances and mother-son ballgames — those cherished hallmarks of Americana — have been banned in a Rhode Island school district after they were targeted by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU, the self-proclaimed guardian of the nation’s liberty, says such events violate the state’s gender-discrimination law. The organization challenged their existence following a complaint from a single mom who said her daughter was prevented from attending a father-daughter dance in the Cranston Public Schools district.

The story has created a furor both online as well as in Cranston, a community located south of Providence and considered one of the safest places in America.

The phones at Cranston City Hall were already ringing off the hook bright and early Tuesday morning when staffers unlocked the doors. The outrage prompted a reaction from Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, even though he has no control over the schools.

“I am utterly disappointed to have such a time-honored tradition under attack,” Fung said in a statement that urged parents to turn their fury on the school district. “I implore the Cranston School Committee to review this decision and find a way to make this work for the children and their parents. I encourage all parents that are upset with this decision to contact their school committee members and make their voices be heard.”

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Judge: Police May Begin Enforcing Ariz. Immigration Law

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A judge has ruled that police in Arizona can immediately start enforcing the most contentious section of the state’s immigration law, marking the first time officers can carry out a requirement that officers, while enforcing other laws, question the immigration status of those suspected of being in the country illegally.

The decision on Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton is the latest milestone in a two-year legal battle over the requirement. It culminated in a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June that upheld the provision on the grounds that it doesn’t conflict with federal law.

Opponents who call the requirement the “show me your papers” provision responded to the Supreme Court decision by asking Bolton to block the requirement on different grounds, arguing that it would lead to systematic racial profiling and unreasonably long detentions of Latinos if it’s enforced.

Other less controversial parts of the law have been in effect since July 2010, such as minor changes to the state’s 2005 immigrant smuggling law and a ban on state and local government agencies from restricting the enforcement of federal immigration law. But those provisions have gotten little, if any, use since they were put into effect.

Arizona’s law was passed in 2010 amid voter frustration with the state’s role as the busiest illegal entry point into the country. Five states — Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah — have adopted variations on Arizona’s law.

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Erick Erickson: If Election Were Held Today, Obama Would Win

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Contra Dick Morris, Mitt Romney is not winning this election. At least Mitt Romney is not winning the election right now. Conservatives are obsessing over every poll, the turn out models used, and the media bias that is on ful display. Yes, some of the polling models seem screwy, though we all forget the pollsters apply a secret sauce known only to them on top. Yes, reporters are fully beclowning themselves to get their god-king re-elected. But while we may be focused there, the fact is the Romney campaign isn’t functioning well. Lucky for you and me the election is not today. But something needs to happen in Boston and I am less and less hopeful anything will happen.

It would be easy to dismiss me by saying I never cared for Romney or I’m somehow actually rooting against him. So let me put it to you this way: Jenn Rubin and I are on the same page. That’s either a sign of the apocalypse or there is something really dysfunctional happening within the Romney campaign.

Having refused to get on the “campaign shake up” bandwagon when Rupert Murdoch and Jack Welch were claiming a shake up needed to happen, count me in now. Like it or not, spin it or not, put your head in the sand or not, attack me as the messenger or not, the very simple truth is that Mitt Romney has failed to close any deal with the voters and his message is so muddled no voter really knows what they are getting.

Consider last Friday’s economic news. The Romney campaign has let every North African nation distract them from reminding voters of that data. Even the North African mess has rendered the Romney campaign a rudderless messaging mess. His message is not selling. His ads are not very good. He has hundreds of staffers in Boston and I’m guessing too many cooks in the kitchen.

Several weeks ago, based on conversations with people more attuned to Team Romney than myself, I suggested Stu Stevens might be in over his head or too busy selling himself to sell Mitt Romney. In the past few weeks, I’ve confirmed that more and more Republican donors are also concerned with Stu Stevens.

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White House Press Corps Ignores Obama’s Muslim Outreach Policy Meltdown

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The press corps asked no questions during Monday’s White House press conference about the meltdown of President Barack Obama‘s high-profile Muslim outreach policy.

Instead, they spent time asking low-impact questions, such as whether officials timed today’s announcement of a new lawsuit against Chinese auto part makers to aid the president’s two campaign stops in Ohio.

They used up the bulk of their limited time throwing softball questions.

“It was a beautiful weekend for golf and he wasn’t out on the course,” asked one reporter, according to a transcript. “Is it safe to assume maybe he was doing some preparation [for the presidential debates] at the White House?”

“Can you give us any guidance or insight into how the President is monitoring the situation in Afghanistan?” asked another reporter. The journalists’ names are not included in the transcript.

Obama’s Arab-outreach policy — dubbed “A New Beginning” in 2009 – is being shredded as Islamist governments, angry populations and jihadi groups compete to demonstrate their hostility to, or distance from, Obama’s U.S. government.

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Incompetent US Generals Say Afghan Police Murder Americans Because of GI’s “Culturally Offensive Behavior”

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Photo credit: The US Army

Afghan security forces, our supposed allies, are slaughtering American troops. Thirty-three soldiers have been killed by “green on blue” attacks this year alone. The situation is so bad that the training of Afghan forces has been temporarily suspended.

How has the Pentagon responded? By blaming our troops.

Top officials believe culturally offensive behavior is the motivation behind the killings, so it’s stepped up Islamic sensitivity training for our troops.

If you don’t want to be shot in the back by your Afghan training partners, the Pentagon advises, don’t offend their religious sensibilities. Don’t kick your feet up on a table, for instance, and never ask to see a picture of their wives and kids. “There’s a percentage [of attacks] which are cultural affronts,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said in a recent interview.

Dempsey echoes the concerns of Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, the Afghan National Army’s chief of staff, who earlier this month argued both sides need to do more to “teach” foreign troops Islamic traditions and values to reduce the chance of violent reactions to cultural slights.

“It is our duty to teach this to them. Our indifference about these issues causes the incident,” he said.

In the past three years, uniformed Afghans have murdered at least 97 US and NATO troops.

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Libya Now Claims that US had 72 Hours Advance Notice of Attack; So Much for Obama’s YouTube Excuse

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American diplomats were warned of possible violent unrest in Benghazi three days before the killings of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three members of his team, Libyan security officials say.

The claim came as the country’s interim President, Mohammed el-Megarif, said his government had information that the attack on the US consulate had been planned by an Islamist group with links to al-Qa’ida and with foreigners taking part.

However, the American ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, insisted that the killings had resulted from a demonstration against a film about the Prophet Mohamed, replicating protests in Cairo, which had been “hijacked” and got out of control.

The Independent has reported diplomatic sources who said that the threat of an attack against US interests in the region was known to the US administration 48 hours before it took place. The alert was issued by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, but not made public. A State Department spokesman maintained: “We are not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the US Mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent.”

But President Megarif told the American station National Public Radio: “We firmly believe that this was a pre-calculated, pre-planned attack that was carried out specifically to attack the US Consulate. A few of those who joined in were foreigners who had entered Libya from different directions, some of them definitely from Mali and Algeria.”

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Afghan Police Kill 4 US Soldiers Sunday, Taliban Claim Earlier Attacks Due to Anti-Mohammed Video

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Afghan police killed four American soldiers coming to their aid after a checkpoint attack Sunday, the third assault by government forces or insurgents disguised in military uniforms in as many days.

The escalating violence — including a NATO airstrike that killed eight Afghan women and girls gathering firewood — is straining the military partnership between Kabul and NATO as the U.S. begins to withdraw thousands of troops sent three years ago to route the Taliban from southern strongholds.

The attacks drew unusually strong criticism Sunday from the U.S. military’s top officer, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, who called the problem of rogue Afghan soldiers and police turning their guns on allied troops “a very serious threat” to the war effort.

This year, 51 international service members have died at the hands of their Afghan allies or those who have infiltrated their ranks. At least 12 such attacks came in August alone, leaving 15 dead.

The surge in insider attacks is a sign of how security has deteriorated as NATO prepares its military exit from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. The U.S. is days away from completing the first stage of its own drawdown, withdrawing 33,000 troops that were part of a military surge three years ago. The U.S. will remain with about 68,000 troops at the end of September.

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