Invictus
Corrupt Civil Rights Leaders Won’t Support School Choice
So says Juan Williams:
“The civil rights challenge of this generation is education,” Williams said. “Dr. King would never allow anybody to buy his silence, to buy him off.”
He charged that unions are paying off civil rights leaders like Reverend Al Sharpton so that they will not support charter schools and education vouchers. “Poor people need better schools and you can’t make excuses at the cost of our children and our children’s future.”
via Fox News Insider. (with video.)
The editor didn’t even choose the best quotes.
“They don’t ever want those civil rights leaders to stand up and say ‘Yes.’ to charter schools. ‘Yes.’ to vouchers.” … “We need — the black community — better schools.”
This is a big story. But the MSM will not touch it. Sadly.
Poor children being denied a good education is a tragedy.
Civil rights leaders on the take not supporting educational choice for these poor children is a travesty.
Sun to Flip its Magnetic Field Soon
The sun’s magnetic field is expected to flip in the next three to four months and it could lead to changes in our climate, storms and disruption to satellites.
This solar event only happens once every 11 years and signals what physicists call the Solar Maximum – a time when the Sun’s solar activity is at its highest.
During this peak in activity the outbursts of solar energy can increase the amount of cosmic and UV rays coming towards Earth and this can interfere with radio communications, cause solar bursts of light – known as flares – and can affect the planet’s temperature.
via Mail Online.
No one tell Al Gore that it’s really the sun that affects the Earth’s temperature. Oh, let’s hope the “flip” is particularly violent, like it was in 1859.
On a cool September night in 1859, campers out in Colorado were roused from sleep by a “light so bright that one could easily read common print,” as one newspaper described it. Some of them, confused, got up and began making breakfast.
Click on the picture for a full map showing how space weather can affect the Earth.
Farther east, thousands of New Yorkers ran out onto their sidewalks to watch the sky glow, ribboned in yellow, white and crimson. Few people had ever seen an aurora that far south — and this one lit up the whole city.
At the time, it was a dazzling display of nature. Yet if the same thing happened today, it would be an utter catastrophe.
The auroras of 1859, known as the “Carrington Event,” came after the sun unleashed a large coronal mass ejection, a burst of charged plasma aimed directly at the Earth. When the particles hit our magnetosphere, they triggered an especially fierce geomagnetic storm that lit up the sky and frazzled communication wires around the world. Telegraphs in Philadelphia were spitting out “fantastical and unreadable messages,” one paper reported, with some systems unusable for hours.
Today, electric utilities and the insurance industry are grappling with a scary possibility. A solar storm on the scale of that in 1859 would wreak havoc on power grids, pipelines and satellites. In the worst case, it could leave 20 million to 40 million people in the Northeast without power — possibly for years — as utilities struggled to replace thousands of fried transformers stretching from Washington to Boston. Chaos and riots might ensue.
via. Washington Post.
Wouldn’t that be interesting?
National Debt (Strangely) Unchanged for 70 Days
The U.S. national debt for the past 70 days has been stuck at exactly $16,699,396,000,000, CNSNews.com reports, citing the Daily Treasury Statement for July 26.“That is approximately $25 million below the legal limit of $16,699,421,095,673.60 that Congress has imposed on the debt,” the report notes.Fed debt subject to the legal limits imposed by Congress first hit the $16.7B mark on May 17. The national debt has for every business day since then been exactly $16,699,396,000,000.00.“If the debt had increased by even $30 million at any time during those 70 days, it would have exceeded the statutory limit,” the report conceded.However, according to the Treasury, the debt hasn’t budged an inch. It has been stuck at exactly $16,699,396,000,000:
via TheBlaze.com.
How bizarre is that?
Can you imagine running your household and determining that you spent EXACTLY what you earned — down to the dollar — for nearly 3 months?
Or is it possible that the G is playing games with the numbers?
More Bankruptcy Coming (to a city near you)
The top 10 biggest U.S. cities on the brink of pension bankruptcy.
#1 Philadelphia – Unfunded liability of $9 billion, $16,696 per household, only 1 year before the pension accounts are empty
#2 Chicago – Unfunded liability of $44.8 billion, $41.966 per household, money runs out in 4 years
#3 Boston – Unfunded liability of $7.5 billion, $30,901 per household, money runs out in 4 years
#4 Cincinnati – Unfunded liability of $2 billion, $15,681 per household, money runs out in 5 years
#5 St Paul – Unfunded liability of $1.4 billion, $13,686 per household, money runs out in 5 years
#6 Jacksonville – Unfunded liability of $4 billion, $12,944 per household, money runs out in 5 years
#7 New York City – Unfunded liability of $122 billion, $38,866 per household, money runs out in 6 years
#8 Baltimore – Unfunded liability of $3.7 billion, $15, 420 per household, money runs out in 7 years
#9 Detroit – Unfunded liability of $6.4 billion, $18,643 per household, money runs out in 8 years
#10 Fort Worth – Unfunded liability of $2 billion, $7,212 per household, money runs out in 8 years
via Business Insider.
This list was put together using data from 2010-12. So Detroit is on the list… and not at the top. So how was Detroit the first to go? Because the tax base fled in mass. The constant media attention to Detroit didn’t help either. But kudos to them for filing early and getting it out of the way. The longer you wait the worse it is for everybody.
Chicago sadly has the highest debt per capita. The debt per household is approaching the average annual household income. Who’s going to pay that off? How many will participate in paying? As Obama would say, will be make sure that everyone pays their fair share?
Feds Ask Web Firms For Account Passwords
The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users’ stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.
If the government is able to determine a person’s password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused. …
Some of the government orders demand not only a user’s password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.
via CNET News.
Well this sure has gotten ridiculous.
Welfare-Funded Groceries Shipped to Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Haiti
Food stamps are paying for trans-Atlantic takeout — with New Yorkers using taxpayer-funded benefits to ship food to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Welfare recipients are buying groceries with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and packing them in giant barrels for the trip overseas, The Post found.
The practice is so common that hundreds of 45- to 55-gallon cardboard and plastic barrels line the walls of supermarkets in almost every Caribbean corner of the city.
The feds say the moveable feasts go against the intent of the $86 billion welfare program for impoverished Americans.
via NYPOST.
Can we now admit that the system is broken?
Why is this not national news? When are the taxpayers going to wake up and start demanding better?
IRS Chief Met with Obama 2 Days Before New Targeting Rules
The Obama appointee implicated in congressional testimony in the IRS targeting scandal met with President Obama in the White House two days before offering his colleagues a new set of advice on how to scrutinize tea party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
IRS chief counsel William Wilkins, who was named in House Oversight testimony by retiring IRS agent Carter Hull as one of his supervisors in the improper targeting of conservative groups, met with Obama in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on April 23, 2012. Wilkins’ boss, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, met with Obama on April 24, 2012, according to White House visitor logs.
On April 25, 2012, Wilkins sent Hull and fellow Washington-based IRS official Lois Lerner “additional comments on the draft guidance” for approving or denying tea party tax-exempt applications, according to the IRS’ inspector general’s report.
via The Daily Caller.
Really! Where’s the rest of the media on this?!
Someone should be going to jail over this. It’s simply not going to go away. When a government uses its power to intimidate and harass its opponents that is an abuse of power. It’s tyranny and cannot be tolerated.
That the MSM has not carried this is an affront to every American.
Da Mare’s Private Road to McCormick Place
A $43 million busway built to whisk conventioneers between downtown hotels and McCormick Place has turned into “the mayor’s road” and should be opened to taxicabs in exchange for a surcharge, Ald. Robert Fioretti, 2nd said Monday.
Fioretti suggested turning the 2.5-mile busway into a money-maker after Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg lifted the veil on a shortcut politicians and contractors enjoy, but everyday Chicagoans know little or nothing about. …
“I was told by some of the people in Planning that it was a good idea. But then, they came back and said, `No. It’s the mayor’s road.’ That’s what I was hit with,” [Fioretti] said without identifying the city planners by name.
Fioretti said when he argued that Chicago could not afford to maintain a “clout road” for VIP politicians, he was told there were “security reasons” for keeping the road closed to other vehicles. But he was never told precisely what those “security reasons” were.
In Monday’s column, [Chicago Sun-Times columists] Steinberg talked about his ride with County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on the road Mayor Rahm Emanuel calls the “Bat Cave” and Preckwinkle calls the “Magic Road.”
It is accessed only by those fortunate enough to be issued a plastic card that opens a steel gate to the busway that runs along Illinois Central right of way parallel to Michigan Avenue.
Built in 2002 by the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the 2.5-mile roadway was billed as a speedy shortcut for conventioneers staying in downtown hotels and attending McCormick Place conventions.
As Steinberg noted, a trip that takes 25 minutes in traffic up Lake Shore Drive can be completed in just eight minutes.
via Chicago Sun-Times.
I’ve known about this “road” since forever as I used to walk by the entrance regularly. There are a few “secret” entrances in the South Loop where the gates are almost always up. I’m surprised folks on bikes are not on this thing all the time.
Regardless, nice to see the mayor serving no one but himself.
IL Public Pension Debt at $133 Billion
Ten U.S. states have public pension liabilities that are at least as big as their annual revenues, according to a Moody’s Investors Service report released on Thursday that found the Illinois pension bill was equal to 241 percent of its revenues. …
According to Moody’s, Illinois has the largest net pension liability in the country, $133 billion, equal to $10,340 per person in the state. The liability is equal to 19.8 percent of the state’s gross domestic product.
via Reuters.
It’s worth nothing that the $133 billion owed for the pensions does NOT include the over $45B in state issued bonds or over $8B in unpaid bills sitting on the Treasurer’s desk. (Source.)
The reality is every man, woman, and child in Illinois owes the state at least $14,400.
Every man, woman, and child in the U.S. owes the G $53,400.
So if you live in Illinois add up your net worth and subtract $67,800. Of course, if your a taxpayer you actually owe about 2x this amount… but that’s another story.