The Final Five: June 19, 2012

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Tonight's Crazy Story:
Woman Super Glued to Walmart Toilet Seat
A woman sat down on a toilet seat at a Walmart only to later discover that super glue had been placed on it.

Topic One: The Totalitarian President
Obama close to totalitarianism: "In January, the president illegally appointed a director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, along with three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, all without the approval of a Senate still legally in session, as the Constitution requires."

"The president also selectively decides which laws he'll enforce and which he won't. Regarding education, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently granted waivers to 10 states, freeing them from the strict requirements of the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act."

"In February 2011, the Justice Department announced it would not defend the Defense of Marriage Act against court challenges. Last August, Obama's DHS announced it would no longer deport the noncitizen spouses of gay Americans — a direct contradiction to DOMA as well."

"Maybe all this works in Venezuela, but it won't wash here. We still have free elections, and there's one in November when we can fundamentally restore respect for the law and the Constitution."

Time for a Laugh:
"President Obama spent about four hours on Father's Day playing golf at a country club in Chicago. It was his 100th round of golf since taking office. He's played more golf than Tiger Woods in the last four years. Actually, Obama's staff is a little concerned. They're concerned all this golf is cutting into his fund-raising."
-Jay Leno

Topic Two: Egypt
Max Boot says it is time for the military to step aside and let the elected Muslim Brotherhood leaders rule: "Egypt has had quite a wild ride since the Tahrir Square protests ousted longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Ever since, the carousel of Egyptian politics has gyrated wildly, but it seems it was spinning in a circle the whole time. Far from seeing the inauguration of a new democracy, we appear to be witnessing the transition from rule by one former general to collective rule by a bunch of active-duty generals. Egypt seems to be moving in the direction of pre-reform Burma–even the names of the two ruling juntas are remarkably similar and sinister: SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) in Egypt; SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) in Burma."

"In both cases, the generals are claiming to save the people from the messy untidiness of democracy. In Egypt, that case has been somewhat strengthened by the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood and hard-line Salafists won the vast majority of parliamentary seats and that a Brotherhood candidate, Mohamed Morsi, won this weekend’s presidential election. Even before the presidential results had been announced, the SCAF had dissolved parliament and instituted decrees that limit the new president’s power to largely ceremonial functions. All that remains to be seen is how the Brotherhood–the largest and most powerful non-governmental organization in Egypt–will react. Will the generals’ actions be quietly accepted, as they were in Turkey in 1980, or will they spark a bloody civil war, as they did in Algeria in 1992? Regardless, it is a tragedy that the will of the Egyptian people, who plainly long for Western-style democracy and not an Iranian-style theocracy or a sclerotic police state, is being thwarted."

Debt Watch:
$15,776,139,241,010.39
( As of Monday, June 18, 2012 )

Change: +$3,961,889,563
Your share as a citizen: $50,453.27
Share per household: $138,101.30
Debt since Obama inauguration: $5,149,262,192,097

Topic Three: The Costly Safety Net
How increasing the social safety net has hurt the poor: "University of Chicago Prof. Casey Mulligan, author of the soon-to-be-released The Redistribution Recession, found that without the rapid increase of the social safety net during the economic crisis, employment per capita would have fallen by 4 percentage points, half the 8 point rate the U.S. experienced."

"The less painful it is to be without a job, the less reasons employees and employers have to work together to save a job,” Mulligan said. “By making the safety net more generous, you’re going to have more businesses close up because of higher costs, and you’re going to see employees who will refuse to work if their wage is going to be less than their unemployment."

"The stimulus provided an $80 pay bump in all food stamp benefits and allowed laid-off workers to remain on unemployment insurance up to 99 weeks, 26 of which are paid in large part by employers. The impact of such policies was immediate. In 2009, the average unemployed household took in $16,000 in benefits—a 60 percent increase from the pre-recession payout, according to Mulligan."

"The benefits came at a price. The effective marginal tax rate for low-income households—the rate at which each additional dollar in income is taxed—rose from 40 percent in 2007 to 48 percent in 2009."

Tweet of the Day:
@AG_Conservative: The media thinks that Romney has to answer for everyone else's actions, but Obama doesn't even have to answer for his own. #tcot #p2

Topic Four: Student Loans
Colleges are producing underemployed graduates: "The Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that we now have 115,000 janitors, 83,000 bartenders, 323,000 restaurant servers, and 80,000 heavy-duty truck drivers with bachelor’s degrees -- a number exceeding that of uniformed personnel in the U.S. Army."

"Was college worth it? A huge part of the problem relates to federal financial-aid programs. Annual student loans, Pell Grants, tax credits and other federal assistance totaled some $169 billion a year in 2010-11 -- more than 1 percent of national output. These programs are based on two erroneous premises: that almost everyone needs higher education for vocational success, and that they reduce student costs."

"More than 25 years ago, Education Secretary William Bennett argued that federal aid programs benefited colleges more than students. Recent studies by Stephanie Riegg Cellini of George Washington University and Claudia Goldin of Harvard University, as well as by Andrew Gillen for the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, support that hypothesis. A new study by Nicholas Turner of the Office of Tax Analysis in the U.S. Treasury Department argues that when tax-based aid goes up, institutional scholarships go down, dollar for dollar."

Food for Thought - A Quote from our Founders
(Not from a founder, but great words of wisdom from a great leader of our nation)
"I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the Bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe...corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed."
-Abraham Lincoln

Topic Five: The Iranian Talks
Who is in charge at the talks? "The P5+1 talks resumed today in Moscow, and the only news filtering out of the negotiations is that Iran has been even more insistent than in past meetings about getting the West to drop the economic sanctions that have been imposed on the Islamist regime. The general assumption is that this is a sign of weakness that shows the Iranians are wearying of the pain the sanctions have imposed and are liable to abandon their nuclear ambitions. But despite the hardships the sanctions have caused the Iranian people, Tehran’s bargaining position may be stronger than some Western optimists have assumed."

"Iran has not budged from its demand for recognition of its right to right refine uranium while also continuing to increase the ongoing rate of production and stonewalling inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. So there is little doubt Iran is playing the same game in Moscow as it did in earlier negotiating sessions in Ankara and Baghdad. Far from displaying weakness, the Iranians may still be operating on the belief that both President Ob>ama and his European partners are more desperate for a deal — any deal — that will allow them to walk away from a confrontation on the nuclear issue."

Tomorrow in History
June 20, 1877 - Alexander Graham Bell installs the first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario.

Grab Bag - Interesting and Important Stories to Conclude Your Evening:
Obama raised in Singapore?

Obama's first-year amnesia

On the multitude of conservative conferences

53 attend Jesse Jackson anti-gun protest: Three protesters and fifty pro-gun counter-protesters

Nine tall tales from Obama's memoir

Dead dog receives voter registration form

Majoring in narrcissistic self-awareness?

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