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Tonight's Crazy Story:
Dutch Councilors Propose Penalties for Inaccurate Weather Reports
A councilman in a Dutch town has proposed fining weather forecasters for inaccurate weather reports.
Topic One: Voter ID
Fighting voter fraud: "Many conservatives have viewed the very real problem of voter fraud in America as a guarantee that the left will be able to use this nefarious means to steal crucial elections. There is little doubt that leftists would do this if they could, and in some cases they have succeeded (just ask former Senator Norm Coleman). The current leftist opposition to voter photo ID laws passed by a number of states on the spurious grounds of racism makes clear that the left feels that it needs to steal votes in order to win elections. Equally unsavory was the left's "Secretary of State Project" or SoPS, which was funded by George Soros to get "progressive" state officers to superintend the counting of votes."
Suppression is a false claim: "This rhetoric is nothing but divisive. I’m sure Mr. Jealous invoked this resemblance to create an emotional response to a momentous time in history. What he neglected to inform the oldest civil rights organization in the nation is that voter id prohibits voter fraud, which currently serves as the biggest hindrance to voting, (itself a sacred honor in this country that came via sacrifices and battles). It's time to rebuke the racial oratory that compels people to think that voter id is a race-driven agenda. Efforts to combat voter fraud are not meant to suppress minorities, or any ethnic group for that matter. What needs to be rejected is the notion that minorities are too simple-minded or naïve to get a government-issued ID. The liberal left claims they are defending minorities, but they are really insulting people's intelligence. They imply that minorities are incapable of completing a small task like obtaining ID."
Time for a Laugh:
"In an interview with CBS, President Obama said the biggest mistake of his first term was not telling a story to give Americans a sense of unity. In response, Americans were like, "Yeah, fixing the economy would’ve been cool too."
-Jimmy Fallon
Topic Two: Health Care
Comparing government-based and market-based health care: "Health care reformers say they have two objectives: to enable the uninsured and under-insured to consume more medical services than they consume now, and to keep the prices of those services from rising, as they have been, faster than the prices of other goods and services. Unfortunately, Economics 101 tells us that to accomplish those two things directly—increased consumption by one group and lower prices—the government would have to take a third step: rationing. The reformers are disingenuous about this last step, and for good reason. People don’t like rationing, especially of medical care."
Preserving America's medical exceptionalism: "Two defining principles at the core of American medicine are our belief that we can cure dreadful diseases by investing in high-tech medical research, and our belief that each patient in our trust deserves the best care in the world. These once-unshakable principles now seem far less secure, as we critically survey our biomedical enterprise and ask whether it has overpromised and underdelivered. The original premise was simple: advances in cutting edge medical science were supposed to bring us important new cures for diseases that threaten us, and we were willing to pay handsomely for this innovation. The life-changing therapies developed for HIV, enzyme deficiency disorders, and cardiovascular disease are notable success stories; vaccinations stand out as well. Nevertheless, medical science hasn't solved many of the serious problems in which we're most interested. We continue to struggle to understand the molecular basis of neurodegenerative diseases and most cancers, and even when we can identify a specific cause, the treatment has often proved elusive. "We fought cancer," intoned a memorable Newsweek headline, "and cancer won."
Debt Watch:
$15,871,166,712,270.85
(
As of Friday, July 13, 2012
)
Change: -$345,469,441.35
Your share as a citizen: $50,696.88
Share per household: $138,933.15
Debt since Obama inauguration: $5,244,289,663,357.75
Topic Three: Immigration
Immigration reform must be rooted in reality: "Current policy on illegal immigration is widely viewed as broken, and in some respects it is. Yet the current reality (or de facto policy) serves many of the interests involved reasonably well. Employers benefit from cheap labor and so, arguably, does the overall economy. Illegal immigrants benefit from the opportunities that come from living and working in the U.S., compared to their home country. This is true despite the absence of a path to citizenship.
"Conservatives should not be surprised that the breakdown of a regulatory regime has produced a system that meets more needs than the system designed by legislation. Indeed, conservatives understand that this is very often the case.
"I don’t mean to suggest that all is well on the illegal immigration front. The U.S. must be able to control its borders for several reasons, including national security. Moreover, the current disconnect between law and reality is itself highly undesirable."
Tweet of the Day:
David Limbaugh (@DavidLimbaugh):
This should be a wake-up call to those who supported Romney because of electability. We said they'd attack ruthlessly. He has to fight.
Topic Four: Student Loans
The scam of student loans: "Thus begins a classic upward price spiral caused by government intervention: Subsidies raise prices, leading to higher subsidies, which raise prices even more. Yet this higher education bubble, like the housing bubble before it, will eventually pop. Meanwhile, large numbers of students will graduate with more debt than they would have in an unsubsidized market. More important, taxpayers face two equally bad outcomes: They are subsidizing millions of dollars in interest for student loans that they shouldn’t have to shoulder, and they likely will pick up the tab for underpaid student loans.
"Given that President Barack Obama and his presumptive opponent, Mitt Romney, agree that the student loan rate should not rise, it is unlikely that Congress will let the rate float back up. But the whole enterprise of federally subsidized college loans is dysfunctional and should be ended. American taxpayers —especially today’s working poor—should not have to subsidize tomorrow’s big earners while pricing themselves out of a better education."
Food for Thought - A Quote from our Founders
"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired."
-Alexander Hamilton
Topic Five: Europe's Lesson
John Campbell on Europe's lesson for the United States: "The experiment of monetary union without fiscal or political union has failed. Most of the solutions European leaders are discussing will simply delay the inevitable. Using debt that you have no plan to repay in order to pay other debts that you can't repay doesn't work with mortgages and will not work with governments. And, it is hard to even describe the political challenges they have over there. Look at the gridlock we have here with one country, one culture and two political parties. Now, imagine having 17 countries, dozens of cultures and more like 100 political parties.
"Whenever the European crisis hits and however it is manifested, the U.S. will be affected. How much is impossible to predict at this point. But, there is a way that we can actually benefit from the problems in Europe."
Tomorrow in History
July 17, 1996
-
TWA Flight 800 explodes off the coast of New York on its way to Paris.
Grab Bag - Interesting and Important Stories to Conclude Your Evening:
Scary Harry cares more about Olympic uniforms than the budget
The $20 trillion timebomb
The nation of dependents
Is the heat wave being caused by global cooling?
Labor's losses are bad news for Dems
Obama echoes Warren: 'Nobody achieves success alone'
The pattern of Obama's executive orders
Israel's oil weapon
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