I’ve Earned A Say About Social Insecurity

I’ve Earned A Say About Social Insecurity | The Arts Mechanical:
"I ran into a brochure from AARP recently. 
The brochure is advocating, as should be no surprise that the elderly “Keep Social Security Strong.” 
Unfortunately while it get some of the facts right, the brochure doesn’t contain the most import fact of all.
That is that there is no more money for the Ponzi Scheme anymore.
That’s  the problem with all pyramid, schemes, whether it’s Bernie Madoff, Multi Level marketing or Social Security. 
The big difference being that the government put Madoff in jail and points guns at people’s heads to make them pay ever higher taxes until things collapse."

AM Fruitcake

History for April 27

History for April 27 - On-This-Day.com:
Edward Gibbon 1737 - Historian, author, Samuel F.B. (Finley Breese) Morse 1791 - Inventor (electromagnetic telegraph), Ulysses S. Grant 1822 - 18th U.S. President, Lt. General in command of all Union armies during the U.S. Civil War, nickname: Hero of Appomattox


Wallace Hume 1896 - Chemist, inventor, credited with invention of nylon, Walter Lantz 1900 - Animator, creator of Woody Woodpecker, Casey Kasem (Kemal Amin Kasem) 1932 - Radio announcer, DJ, host ("American Top 40), character voice of Shaggy from Scooby Doo, actor ("Hawaii Five-O")


1521 - Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed by natives in the Philippines.


1805 - A force led by U.S. Marines captured the city of Derna, on the shores of Tripoli.


1813 - Americans under Gen. Pike capture York (present day Toronto) the seat of government in Ontario.


1861 - U.S. President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus.


1960 - The submarine Tullibee was launched from Groton, CT. It was the first sub to be equipped with closed-circuit television.


1965 - "Pampers" were patented by R.C. Duncan.


1978 - Pro-Soviet Marxists seized control of Afghanistan.






2005 - The A380, the world's largest jetliner, completed its maiden flight. The passenger capability was 840.

Obama Hails ‘Most Progressive Era in Human History’ - Breitbart

Obama Hails ‘Most Progressive Era in Human History’ - Breitbart:

“We are fortunate to be living in the most peaceful, most prosperous, most progressive era in human history,” Obama boasted during a speech in Germany today.

He admitted that his observation was counter to the media narrative that highlighted bad news in the world, but continued to take the long view of his place in human history.
“If you had to choose a moment in time to be born, any time in human history, and you didn’t know ahead of time what nationality you were or what gender or what your economic status might be, you’d choose today,” he said confidently.

He cited the growth of democratic government, wealth, health and education around the globe combined with a “global economy” that lifted more people out of poverty. He also cited a more “tolerant” planet of different races and sexual preferences."

Navel gazing about gender while the world burns

Navel gazing about gender while the world burns | Intellectual Takeout:
"...Today’s college students
“They have no sense of the great patterns of world history, the rise and fall of civilizations like Babylon and Rome that became very sexually tolerant, and then fell.
If you’ve had no exposure to that, you can honestly believe that ‘There is progress all around us and we are moving to an ideal state of culture, where we all hold hands and everyone is accepted for what they are … and the environment will be pure…’ – a magical utopian view that we are marching to perfection. 
And the sign of this progress is toleration – of the educated class – for homosexuality, or for changing gender, or whatever.
“To me it’s a sign of the opposite, it’s symptomatic of a civilization just before it falls: ‘we’ are very tolerant, not passionate, but there are bands of vandals and destroyers circling around the edge of our civilization who will bring it down.”"...

SC teacher suspended after questioning standardized tests

UPDATE: SC teacher suspended after questioning standardized tests | EAGnews.org: "WESTMINSTER, S.C. – Tracie Happel, a special education teacher in South Carolina, sent a letter to school and district officials today to explain why, exactly, she opposes Common Core national standards and associated standardized testing.
EAGnews spoke with Happel about the letter and outlined her objections – from the millions of dollars wasted on the tests and preparation to the erosive effect the testing has on her learning disabled students’ self-esteem – in blog published today.
Hours after the original story went online, Happel was summoned to the Oconee County School District administration building, where she was suspended with pay and banned from district property. 
Officials told the West Oak Middle School teacher she allegedly violated the district’s confidentiality policy for discussing her concerns about her middle school students.
“They told me that while I have a right to my opinion about Common Core and testing, what I don’t have a right to do is talk about my students,” Happel said.
“I was put on administrative leave. I’m not allowed back on school grounds pending an investigation.”
In Happel’s letter – which was sent to district superintendent Micheal Thorsland, school board chairman Andrew Inabinet, and three administrators at West Oak – the English teacher explained that her special education students struggle with reading and other academics, but are expected to perform at grade level on standardized tests.
Many of Happel’s students also struggle with self-esteem as a result of their learning disabilities, and she believes the pressure from standardized testing only amplifies their issues.
“I object to forcing children to sit through hours of bubble tests when they don’t even understand what they are doing and why they are doing it,” Happel wrote in her letter.
“This is inhumane.”...

The Green War Against the Working Class

The Green War Against the Working Class:

"There was a time in America—and it wasn’t even so long ago—that liberals actually cared about working class people. They may have been misguided in many of their policy solutions (i.e., raising the minimum wage) but at least their heart was in the right place.

Then a strange thing happened about a decade ago. The radical leftwing environmentalists took control. These are people who care more about the supposed rise of the oceans than the financial survival of the middle class. The industrial unions made a catastrophic decision to get in bed with these radicals and now they—and all of us—are paying a heavy price.

The latest evidence came last week when another coal giant in America, Peabody Energy Corp., declared bankruptcy."

AFA exposes PayPal hypocrisy with full-page newspaper ad

AFA.net - AFA exposes PayPal hypocrisy with full-page newspaper ad:
"In a recent Action Alert, I informed you that AFA is no longer using PayPal Inc. because the company chose to boycott North Carolina after the governor signed HB 2, a bill requiring people to use the restroom consistent with their biological gender.
Simply put, this law means men use men's restrooms and women use women’s restrooms. 
This law protects the privacy of women and children, and that is why AFA supports this law.
North Carolina isn't the first state that has experienced corporate bullying by companies like PayPal. Indiana, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi and many others have all experienced corporate bullying in the last year or so.
When states attempt to protect religious liberty via legislation, Fortune 500 companies threaten and bully states into submission. 
Sadly, these companies blindly take their marching orders from the homosexual activist groups like Human Rights Commission..."

Cyclists Use Tiny Motors to Cheat

Cyclists Use Tiny Motors to Cheat | Hackaday:
"Blood doping is so last decade!
The modern cyclist has a motor and power supply hidden inside the bike’s frame.
We were first tipped off to the subject in this article in the New York Times.
A Belgian cyclocross rider, Femke Van den Driessche, was caught with a motor hidden in her bike.
While we don’t condone sports cheating, we think that hiding a motor inside a standard bike is pretty cool.
But it’s even more fun to think of how to catch the cheats.
The Italian and French press have fixated on the idea of using thermal cameras to detect the heat. (Skip to 7:50 in the franceTVsport clip.).."

Lunch video-----How High Would You Make the Minimum Wage? We Asked L.A. Residents.

Noon-toon

Disturbing reality: Muslim ‘sex-grooming gangs’

Disturbing reality: Muslim ‘sex-grooming gangs’:

"In Britain, they call it “sex grooming.”
In the Netherlands, they’re called “Lover Boys.”

But the phenomenon is the same. A gang of Muslim “Asians” of mostly Pakistani descent seeks out, pursues, chats up and cultivates school girls for sex, turning them into bodies for sale.

A new book is out that the European left is trying its best to ignore. It contains research that blows away the theory, widely reported in the media, that it’s a tiny minority of Muslim men involved in the rape gangs and then only in one British town, Rotherham.

Author Peter McLaughlin argues in his exhaustive study, “Easy Meat: Inside Britain’s Grooming Gang Scandal,” that it’s at least 300 Muslim men who were preying on girls in Rotherham over a 16-year period. And the same type of gangs have been operating in dozens of cities across the United Kingdom, as well as in Muslim areas of the Netherlands and Sweden."

Pushing businesses out of Michigan-----Michigan commission authorizes natural gas rate hike for Consumers Energy

Michigan commission authorizes natural gas rate hike for Consumers Energy - Crain's Detroit Business:
"The MPSC said Consumers' residential customers will see a 1.6 percent rate increase from the last such increase.
General service customers would see an average increase of 4 percent, records show.
Yet Consumers will refund customers a portion of a rate increase it implemented on its own in January, which was $20 million more than what the commission approved Thursday, according to the MPSC. The refund amount will be decided later."

How the ‘New Math’ is Ruining Education

How the ‘New Math’ is Ruining Education | Intellectual Takeout
"By now, you’ve probably seen some of the complaints on the internet about the “new math” being promoted by the Common Core Standards.
Many grade-school children—including, for instance, comedian Louis CK’s children—have come home with math homework that is virtually indecipherable to their parents.
The goal behind the new math, it seems, is to encourage children to not just solve their basic arithmetic problems, but to understand the concepts underlying them.
But according to a fascinating article by educator Martin Cothran titled “Why Johnny Can’t Add,” this approach is wrong-headed, and may even be causing America’s students to regress. 
As Cothran points out, the “old math” worked just fine, and was the basis for many innovations in the past two centuries.
...And where was Cothran’s father taught the math that paved the way for his career in aerospace engineering?
At a poor, one-room schoolhouse in the hills of South Carolina.
There, the students did not spend time learning why 10 + 5 = 15 or 9 – 7 = 2, and they had no fancy textbooks. 
According to Cothran’s father, “We just learned how to figure,” and left it at that. 
As was the experience of many of us, Cothran explains, “They memorized their addition and subtraction facts and their multiplication tables, and mastered long division through repeated drill and practice.” 
They simply memorized these things so that they would have a solid basis for the more conceptual math in later years.
...Now, with the new math, young students are being made to philosophize about 1+1 rather than simply memorizing that it equals 2. 
But as Cothran reminds us, the “new math” isn’t that new. 
He includes this other anecdote of his father:
“I told my dad once about the kind of math they were doing in the early 1990s in schools in Kentucky where I lived. ‘
That sounds like what they were doing in California in the 1950s,’ he said. 
‘In fact, if you give me a report from one of my engineers and told me he was educated in California, I’ll tell you how old he is.’ 
These engineers, he said, would use computers to compute complex calculations, but would make basic mistakes that no good mathematician should make.”
[Current proficiency levels in math for the nation and selected cities as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.]

Corrupt Feedback Loops: Public Employee Unions

Corrupt Feedback Loops: Public Employee Unions | Jeb Kinnison
"Civil Service rules insulated government employees from political demands, but also made firing the incompetent more difficult.
The final barrier to accountability was the addition of another layer of employee empowerment, the public employee union.
Private-sector unions are not the enormous political force they once were, but public-sector unions have continued to grow until they now control one of the two US political parties and have driven many state and local governments to near-bankruptcy, with underfunded pension and medical coverage for retirees taking a larger and larger share of local government revenues.
How did we get here?..."

Table 1: Public Sector Unions: Top Contributors to Federal Candidates, Parties, and Outside Groups, 2014 Election Cycle. Source: Open Secrets.org Center for Responsive Politics

			To Candidates and Parties			To Outside Spending Groups
Rank	Contributor	Total Contribs	Total	Dem%	Repub%	Total
1	National Education Assn	$24,961,199	$2,183,752	91.1%	8.8%	$22,787,447
2	American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees	$10,002,495	$2,288,816	99.2%	0.3%	$7,717,155
3	American Federation of Teachers	$4,797,032	$2,484,870	98.8%	0.8%	$2,312,162
4	American Federation of Govt Employees	$4,072,005	$1,019,250	94.3%	5.6%	$3,052,755
5	International Assn of Fire Fighters	$2,184,303	$1,948,946	84.4%	15.6%	$235,357
6	National Assn of Letter Carriers	$2,113,796	$1,688,360	94.9%	4.9%	$425,436
7	American Postal Workers Union	$1,007,341	$988,950	98.8%	1.2%	$18,391
8	National Rural Letter Carriers Assn	$735,500	$735,500	76.8%	23.0%	$0
9	National Treasury Employees Union	$681,550	$631,550	96.1%	3.9%	$50,000

Read on!

OBAMA TO BRITAIN On His Legacy: I Saved The World Economy, Made Deal With Iran, Stopped Ebola » 100percentfedUp.com

OBAMA TO BRITAIN On His Legacy: I Saved The World Economy, Made Deal With Iran, Stopped Ebola » 100percentfedUp.com:

"Hey Barry…you forgot to mention that time you parted the seas…oh wait, that wasn’t you. Why not tell Britain the truth? Tell them how you created the most hostile atmosphere towards law enforcement that this nation has ever seen. How your real legacy will be that of the worst racial division since the civil rights era. You also neglected to mention that you destroyed our relationship with Israel (our only true ally in the Middle East), while making “friends” with communist regimes and cutting lopsided deals with radical Islamic nations who openly advertise their hate for America for all the world to see. Don’t kid yourself Barry. Your legacy will be that of the worst President to ever occupy the White House.  

President Barack Obama boasted of his legacy during a town hall in Britain, asserting that he single- handedly saved the world during his presidency."

Senate votes to restore full taxpayer subsidies for windmills

Senate votes to restore full taxpayer subsidies for windmills - Washington Times:
"Hot air still rules on Capitol Hill, where senators voted Tuesday to restore millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for windmills, in a signal that Congress is still eager to pick winners in the emerging renewable energy sector.
A sizable number of Republicans joined most Democrats in backing the subsidy for research on wind energy which, while small in terms of dollars, is considered a major symbolic test of Congress’s commitment having alternative energy sources be part of the mix, even if they aren’t economically viable on their own yet..."

Long-term federal healthcare spending

Long-term federal healthcare spending | pgpf.org:

AM Fruitcake

History for April 26

History for April 26 - On-This-Day.com
John James Audubon 1785 - Ornithologist, naturalist, painter, Rudolf Hess 1895 - Adolf Hitler's Deputy in the Nazi Party, Carol Burnett 1933 - Actress, comedian


Bobby Rydell 1942 - Singer, Jet Li 1963 - Actor ("Lethal Weapon 4," "War", "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor"), Jessica Lynch 1983 - U.S. Army soldier, she was the first successfully rescued POW since the Vietnam War and the first ever of a woman


1514 - Copernicus made his first observations of Saturn.


1865 - John Wilkes Booth was killed by the U.S. Federal Cavalry.


1931 - New York Yankee Lou Gehrig hit a home run but was called out for passing a runner.


1941 - An organ was played at a baseball stadium for the first time in Chicago, IL.


1954 - Grace Kelly was on the cover of "LIFE" magazine.


1964 - The African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania.


1983 - Dow Jones Industrial Average broke 1,200 for first time.


1986 - The world’s worst nuclear disaster to date occurred at Chernobyl, in Kiev. Thirty-one people died in the incident and thousands more were exposed to radioactive material.

DEVELOPING: Obama Set to Sign Deal Allowing Foreign Takeover of America's Land and Resources

DEVELOPING: Obama Set to Sign Deal Allowing Foreign Takeover of America's Land and Resources:

"Once shrouded in secrecy, President Barack Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership is now becoming public, and what we’re discovering is absolutely frightening.

Apparently the deal reverses policies in place to protect national security.

Chapter 11 of the deal allows foreign investors the rights to acquire American land, businesses, ports, natural resources, infrastructure and other property."

What could possibly go wrong?-----Detroit medical marijuana shops sprout like weeds near the suburbs

Detroit medical marijuana shops sprout like weeds near the suburbs - Crain's Detroit Business
A new zoning law and suburban customer base are pushing medical marijuana dispensaries to the fringes of Detroit.
About 250 dispensaries have applied to operate under the new zoning law in Detroit, and an analysis shows clusters of retail medical marijuana shops operating along Eight Mile Road and the east side of Detroit, bordering Ferndale, Hazel Park, Eastpointe, Harper Woods and the Grosse Pointes.
"If you're looking for honey, where are all the bees?" said Grosse Pointe Park attorney Tim Dinan of Dinan and Associates PC, who represents both medical marijuana caregivers and patients.
"The bees are in the suburbs..."

One student calls mural of gun shooting flowers 'emotionally triggering' - artist paints over it

One student calls mural of gun shooting flowers 'emotionally triggering' - artist paints over it - The College Fix:
"Artistic self-censorship — over one complaint
Move over comedy — art may be the new offense on college campuses.
Case in point: A mural of a gun shooting flowers was largely covered over after it was accused by one student of being an “emotionally triggering” image that threatens black students at Pitzer College.
“My Black Mental and Emotional Health Matters.
I shouldn’t be reminded every time I leave my dorm room of how easy my life can be taken away, or how many Black lives have been taken away because of police brutality. 
This is emotionally triggering for very obvious reasons,” student senator Gregory Ochiagha had said in a mass email to students recently.
Original intent for the mural was to comment on peace movements during the Vietnam era with no intention to weigh in on police brutality.

...But student artist Selena Spier agreed to re-conceptualize her masterpiece over the one complaint.
“I spoke with Gregory earlier and we agreed on a modification that preserves the integrity of the original piece while avoiding any potentially triggering content—it’s a change I was absolutely happy to make in the interest of creating a safe and inclusive environment for everyone in my community,” Spier told the Claremont Independent.
Not everyone agreed with the decision."

Sheriff Joe FORCES King Obama to Face a Federal Judge! Joe Is Standing UP for America - The Political Insider

Sheriff Joe FORCES King Obama to Face a Federal Judge! Joe Is Standing UP for America - The Political Insider:

"Joe Arpaio is one of America’s most important defenders of America’s Southern border. But he is helpless against a President who refuses to follow the Constitution and court orders. That’s why it’s time to force Obama before the court to answer for his illegal activities."

How Democrats Win Debates by Corrupting English

How Democrats Win Debates by Corrupting English - Reason.com:
"Humans have been using euphemisms ever since Adam first "knew" Eve.
In politics especially, obfuscating and twisting the meaning of words has been going on forever.
But today's debates aren't only littered with rhetorical distortions; in some ways, many of Democrats' most potent arguments are built on corrupt language.
One word that's really getting a workout this cycle is "loophole." 
Basically, all of life is a giant loophole until Democrats come up with a way to regulate or tax it.
In its economic usage, "loophole"—probably more of a dysphemism—creates the false impression that people are getting away with breaking the law. 
It's a way to skip the entire debate portion of the conversation and get right to the accusation.
So when Hillary Clinton promises to close the loophole of corporate inversion, what she means to say is that Democrats disapprove of this completely legal thing that corporations do to shield their money from the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world.
Loopholes are like giveaways, monies that D.C. has yet to double and triple tax.
It's one thing for Democrats to try and set the parameters of a debate before the debate is even had, but it's quite another to watch the press participate.

• Here's CNN: "Clinton to push closing corporate tax loopholes." 
• Here's The Hill: "Obama calls for Congress to close corporate tax loopholes." 
• Here's how Halimah Abdullah and the Associated Press reported the issue on NBC: "President Obama on Tuesday criticized loopholes that help protect offshore tax havens and U.S. companies that move abroad for lower tax rates."
• ...Bernie Sanders..."The offshore tax haven network isn't something that we need to reform or refine. It's a form of legalized tax fraud that must end."

"Legalized tax fraud" is a revealing statement about the progressive belief system.
For progressives, taxation is moral.
So when you fail to pay an imaginary tax that doesn't exist but Democrats think should, you are by default engaged in fraud. 
The law has just to catch up with sin..."