Sunday, January 27, 2013

Panel discusses how to handle fiscal crisis

Panel discusses how to handle fiscal crisis | Washington Free Beacon
"Norquist blasted the illusion of economic growth created by Keynesian economics, comparing it to moving a bucket of water from one end of a pond to another.
He said liberals must know that these policies do not work.
“They’re not stupid. They’re lying,” he said.
“They may also be stupid,” Furchtgott-Roth retorted."

Obama: Tough call on letting a son play football

Obama: Tough call on letting a son play football - Yahoo! News:
" President Barack Obama is a big football fan with two daughters, but if he had a son, he says he'd "have to think long and hard" before letting him play because of the physical toll the game takes.
"I think that those of us who love the sport are going to have to wrestle with the fact that it will probably change gradually to try to reduce some of the violence," Obama tells The New Republic.
"In some cases, that may make it a little bit less exciting, but it will be a whole lot better for the players, and those of us who are fans maybe won't have to examine our consciences quite as much.""

Boomtown: Lamborghini Moves North American HQ to D.C. Region

Boomtown: Lamborghini Moves North American HQ to D.C. Region
"n a disturbing indicator of how wealthy the D.C. political class is becoming by extracting taxpayer money from the rest of the country, Lamborghini moved its North American headquarters to the D.C. region because it saw the city as having the most potential for growth."

U.S. Postal Service rate hikes take effect as agency flirts with insolvency

U.S. Postal Service rate hikes take effect as agency flirts with insolvency | MLive.com
"Starting Sunday, the following types are mail are rising in cost by one cent:

• A one-ounce letter sent with a first-class stamp is going from 45 cents to 46 cents.
• Postcard postage will rise from 32 cents to 33 cents.
• One-ounce letters to international destination are rising to $1.10, which is up from 85 cents to send a letter to Canada and Mexico, and $1.05 to other places."

EyeOnMuskegon 1-27-2013

Progressive Democratic Women's Caucus hosting forum on health care legislation

Progressive Democratic Women's Caucus hosting forum on health care legislation | MLive.com
"The forum will begin at 7 p.m. at the Louis A. McMurray Conference Center, located at 2624 Sixth St. in Muskegon Heights."

After Mike Bloomberg's rule for hospitals, FDA panel votes to restrict use of painkillers

After Mike Bloomberg's rule for hospitals, FDA panel votes to restrict use of painkillers | WashingtonExaminer.com
Federal Drug Administration advisers voted today to restrict access to certain kinds of prescription drugs  in an effort to fight drug abuse
The vote had experts divided over the risk of drug abuse as weighed against the risk of increased pain or difficulty for patients on the medication.
“It will have an impact on a lot of patients who have been receiving them for some time for legitimate purposes,” Dr. Lynn Webster, president-elect of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, said perHealth Day News ahead of the vote.
The FDA rule change is designed to implement a policy that the Senate passed last year, but the U.S. House of Representatives killed.
“Under the new rules, refills without a new prescription would be forbidden, as would faxed prescriptions and those called in by phone,”The New York Times explains in reporting that the new rules passed by 19-10 vote.
“Only written prescriptions from a doctor would be allowed, and pharmacists and distributors would be required to store the drugs in special vaults . . . advocates for nursing home patients, who said older, frail residents needing pain medication would now be required to make the arduous trip to a doctor’s office to continue using hydrocodone products.”
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who moved to restrict access to certain painkillers in city hospital emergency rooms in order to fight drug abuse, argued that it wouldn’t harm patients.
“Number one, there’s no evidence of that,” Bloomberg said.
“Number two, supposing it is really true, so you didn’t get enough painkillers and you did have to suffer a little bit. 
The other side of the coin is people are dying and there’s nothing perfect.”

Sierra Club, union: Right-to-work laws threaten the environment, working families

Sierra Club, union: Right-to-work laws threaten the environment, working families (Guest column) | MLive.com
"States with right-to-work laws have lower wages — for both union and nonunion workers alike — by an average of $1,500 per year.
Right-to-work laws decrease the likelihood that employees get either health insurance or pensions through their jobs, for everyone.
Also there’s no correlation that shows right-to-work laws bring businesses and economic activity to the state.
Better jobs mean a safer, cleaner environment.
Union workers serve as the front line of defense against harmful pollution, chemical spills and other accidents that can devastate communities.
Union workers are generally better trained to know about the health and safety risks of dangerous chemicals and have greater protections if they blow the whistle on hazardous practices in the workplace.
They have that training and enjoy those protections because of strong collective bargaining rights.
Michigan’s history is as rich with major events from the conservation movement as it is with regard to advances with regard to workers’ rights."

Communists Cheer On Obama’s Gun Grab

Communists Cheer On Obama’s Gun Grab Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!
"In a January 18 article, People’s World, an official publication of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), declared that “the ability to live free from the fear or threat of gun violence is a fundamental democratic right — one that far supercedes any so-called personal gun rights allegedly contained in the Second Amendment.”"

Cultural Defense Accepted as to Nonconsensual Sex in New Jersey Trial Court, Rejected on Appeal

The Volokh Conspiracy » Cultural Defense Accepted as to Nonconsensual Sex in New Jersey Trial Court, Rejected on Appeal
"While recognizing that defendant had engaged in sexual relations with plaintiff against her expressed wishes in November 2008 and on the night of January 15 to 16, 2009, the judge did not find sexual assault or criminal sexual conduct to have been proven.
He stated:
This court does not feel that, under the circumstances, that this defendant had a criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault or to sexually contact the plaintiff when he did.
The court believes that he was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited.
After acknowledging that this was a case in which religious custom clashed with the law, and that under the law, plaintiff had a right to refuse defendant’s advances, the judge found that defendant did not act with a criminal intent when he repeatedly insisted upon intercourse, despite plaintiff’s contrary wishes."

Did Government Meddling Cripple The Dodge Dart?

Did Government Meddling Cripple The Dodge Dart? | The Truth About Cars
"Just over a year ago, UAW members at the plant had just authorized a strike at the Dundee plant over a change in shift schedules – despite an apparent agreement not to strike, as another condition of the bailout. The FIRE engine, widely panned in the Dart, seems to exist solely to satisfy the requirement that Fiat build a 40 MPG car in America – a requirement that TTAC summarily exposed as bogus, since the agreement stated that the car must get 40 MPG “unadjusted”, or roughly 30 MPG combined in the “real world” fuel economy figures that everyone is familiar with.
But without the 40 MPG Dart, the diminutive FIRE engine and U.S. production of the FIRE engine, Fiat would not have received their 20 percent stake in Chrysler, along with the option to increase their share in 5 percent increments once these milestones (the third being Fiat recording $1.5 billion in revenue outside the NAFTA Zone)."

The Crisis of the Black Middle Class

The Crisis of the Black Middle Class | Via Meadia

...factors that systematically prevented Blacks from building up and passing on wealth: exclusion from social security and GI bill benefits, challenges in getting market-rate mortgages, and marginalization in neighborhoods with depreciating housing values.
The Clinton and Bush administrations set policies to encourage Black home ownership, but these made things worse:
But around the turn of the twenty-first century, there also grew up a huge new industry of predatory lenders that targeted members of minority groups, including those who already owned their homes and were persuaded to refinance on what turned out to be usurious terms.
So when the real estate bubble burst, it hurt Blacks much more than whites: 25 percent of African-Americans who purchased or refinanced homes from 2004 to 2008 have lost or are losing them, compared to 11.9 percent of white Americans. According to Sugrue, “the median black family today holds only $4,955 in assets.”
Insightful as it is, the piece underestimates the crisis. Government jobs have historically been an important source of security for the Black middle class, and many of those jobs are disappearing. Neither party is addressing this urgent issue. It isn’t even on the GOP’s radar, and the blue policies of the past 30 years, which the Obama administration would like to perpetuate, are no longer working.