Military to conduct training on ‘proper handling’ of Koran

Wrap in bacon, grill, feed to starving dogs in Kabul, no?

Washington Examiner (h/t Weasel Zippers) – Military personnel stationed in Afghanistan will undergo training over the next two weeks in the “proper handling of religious materials,” after the burning of Qurans at Bagram Air Force Base sparked a protest by local Afghans today.

“Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen, ISAF commander, today ordered that all coalition forces in Afghanistan complete the training by March 3,” the International Security Assistance Force announced today. An angry crowd gathered after local Afghan workers found partially-burnt copies of Qurans in a trash heap at Bagram, according to Reuters.

Gen. Allen said the burning of the Qurans was accidental. “We are thoroughly investigating the incident and we are taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again,” he said, adding that ”this was not intentional in any way.”

American marriage rate lowest in history

Another example of American culture on the rocks. Fewer Americans are marrying, down 21% since 1960. They are marrying later, and having fewer kids. As David Goldman, aka Spengler, points out in How Civilizations Die, and Mark Styen in After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, historically, this is a sign of a nation in crisis.

ABC – [...] In 1960, 72 percent of U.S. adults age 18 and older were married compared with 51 percent today. The median age when adults decide to finally take that big step is also the highest its ever been for both men and women — 26.5 and 28.7 respectively.

The most dramatic decline in marriage occurred among those 18-29. Just 20 percent of them are now married; 59 percent were married in 1960.

Wilcox said that people felt more comfortable postponing marriage until their late 20s and early 30s these days. He said the 20s were viewed as the “odyssey years,” and a time to “find yourself.”

For many, Wilcox added, marriage is still viewed as an economic institution, not just about love and living happily ever after.

“People are looking for a soul mate but also a person with a decent job,” he said today. “The bar has been raised.  Expectations are higher.”

Pew, which examined U.S. Census data, said that other living arrangements — including cohabitation, single-person households and single-parents households –  were becoming more prevalent. The number of new marriages fell by 5 percent between 2009 and 2010.

Wilcox said that while U.S. adults without college degrees were marrying less, they increasingly were having children in nonmarital situations.

“In the minds of Americans, getting married and becoming parents are two different things,” he said. “Their top priority is being a parent, second to having a successful marriage. People have separated the two things. Years ago, they were closely linked to one another.”

“The bottom line is that kids are experiencing more instability and more hardship because the adults are less likely to get and stay married,” Wilcox said.  (more >>>)

50-man strong ‘flash mob’ storms, rips off Silver Spring, MD 7-Eleven

Another mob of youths descended upon a convenience store. This is all ‘quite normal’ in the Obama new normal. Can the youths really be blamed? They are just emulating what the Obama Administration does to the country every single day.

Once again, the youths all have something in common, but I just can’t put my finger on what it is…

Inside

NBC (via Drudge) – About 50 people simultaneously shoplifted from a Silver Spring, Md., 7-Eleven Saturday night.

Officers arriving at the store in the 12200 block of Tech Road after 11:20 p.m. saw several people gathered in surrounding parking lots and on side streets, police said. They began to disperse when police arrived.

The shoplifters — described as teens and young adults — took items including snacks and drinks, police said

Police stopped a group of six people ages 16-18 near Tech Road and Broadbirch Drive. Each had items from the 7-Eleven but no receipts, police said.

Detectives are investigating whether the shoplifters had attended a birthday party in the area, police said.

A few previous Obama-inspired flash mobs

• Flash robbing gang go violent in Dallas, attack clerk
• Flash mobsters strike Maryland 7-Eleven
• ‘Flash Mob’ hits Philly Sears, steals thousands in merchandise

Flash robbing gang go violent in Dallas, attack clerk

How many does this make since peacemaker and uniter Barack Obama became president? It’s in the dozens. Yet, other than local news stations, and occasionally on Fox, few get much if any attention.

Again, like all the other flash mobs, all these youths have something in common, but I still can’t put my finger on it. Have a look at more of Obama’s hope and change.

“At first, I thought I would be able to get back into the store, and once they got me on the ground, I thought they were going to kill me.”

WFAA, via GWP – It was an ordinary night, August 26, at the Exxon Tiger Mart at South Polk Street and Interstate 20 in Dallas.

C.J. Thomas, the store’s clerk, was behind the counter when a rush of customers came through the door at 10:12 p.m.

“There was more coming in than going out,” Thomas said. “Once they realized how many were in there, one of the students started throwing stuff and screamed out. Everything after that went crazy.”

Store surveillance cameras from different angles show bottles being thrown.

Seconds later, Thomas ran to the front door. He tried to close it, but he couldn’t hold back the crowd.

Some of them grabbed drinks, chips, and other items and began pushing their way out. Thomas said he tried to stop some people from stealing.

“In the process of them walking out, tried to stop a student with a lot of things in his hands and when I tried to do that, he shoved me out into the parking lot and swung at me,” Thomas said.

Thomas then says several men then pulled him to the ground and started kicking and punching him.

“I was terrified,” he said. “At first, I thought I would be able to get back into the store, and once they got me on the ground, I thought they were going to kill me.”

Flash mobsters strike Maryland 7-Eleven

Yet another ‘flash mob’ attack. This one struck at a 7-Eleven in Montgomery County, Maryland. It took place at 1:30 AM. Mothers, fathers, okay, mothers anyway, don’t you care where your kids are at 1:30 AM?

Gee, all these youths have something in common, but I just can’t put my finger on it.

Watch the fearless, shameless way they steal. It’s as if they believe it all belongs to them anyway. Gosh, I wonder which political party gives them that idea…

From the video: A 7-11 in Montgomery County, Maryland was hit by a flash mob on August 13, 2011. The clerk activated a silent alarm, but police waited until the mob left the store before responding. Further, according to the video, the officer refused to investigate the crime, and only viewed this incident as shoplifting.

Germantown Patch – (h/t Gateway Pundit) – Montgomery County Police are investigating a flash mob theft Saturday at a 7-Eleven in Germantown.

More than 20 young people simultaneously entered the convenience store at around 1:30 a.m., leaving with snack items such as candy, soda pop and chips, said Germantown 5th district Cmd. Luther Reynolds.

Apparent surveillance footage obtained by NBC Washington shows a stream of young people — some of the smiling and laughing — entering the convenience store and leaving with out paying.

“To have that many people descend on a store, like a mob mentality, like it’s some kind of joke, I cannot say I’ve ever seen anything like that before,” Reynolds told Patch. “It’s embarrassing to our community.”

Denver now boasts more medical marijuana dispensaries than Starbucks

Rocky Mountain high indeed.

Hopefully the city will be too stoned to remember to vote in 2012.

DENVER (h/t Weasel Zippers) — The Mile High City is getting higher all the time.

There are now more medical marijuana dispensaries in Denver than there are Starbucks. Glossy guidebooks list nearly 300 locations where Colorado’s 125,000 residents who have been prescribed medical marijuana can get their “medicine.”

Many offer a free joint to new customers, allowing them to sample exotic strains like Jah Kush, Golden Goat and Romulan Cotton Candy.

California to require the teaching of gay history in public schools

Because, you know, America would never have become the greatest country the world has ever known without all those great homosexuals of 1776 making history.

It’s not enough that kids are being indoctrinated to believe that America is nothing but a racist, sexist, homophobic country, and the curse of mankind.

No, kids who graduate school unable to read or write or do basic math, must at least know that whatever good might have accidentally occurred in the country, must have been do to the heroic struggles of America’s noble yet unsung multitudes of gay men, women, and  transgenders.

Shortest textbook ever?

Reuters (h/t Weasel Zippers) - A bill to require California public schools to teach the historical accomplishments of gay men and lesbians passed the state Legislature on Tuesday in what supporters call a first for the nation.

Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has not said publicly whether he supports the bill, which he has 12 days to sign or veto once it reaches his desk later this month. If he takes no action, the measure would become law automatically.

The bill gained final passage from the state Assembly on a vote of 49-25, without a single Republican supporting it. The measure cleared the state Senate in April.

California already requires public schools to teach the contributions made to society by women and by racial and ethnic groups that were historically discriminated against, such as blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.

Supporters of the latest bill said it would simply include gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender individuals in that existing requirement, making it part of the curriculum in history and other social studies classes.

“It’s unfair to leave out or exclude an entire portion of our population from history,” said Carolyn Laub, executive director of San Francisco-based Gay-Straight Alliance Network.

NYC so broke it has begun rationing toilet paper

'Obama squares'

More of the Obama new normal. It won’t be long before they start charging for it.

It begins with squares of toilet paper, but will end with slices of bread.

The New York Post (h/t Gateway Pundit) - Hey buddy, can you spare a square?

The city is so hard up for cash that it’s rationing toilet paper in women’s public restrooms — to the point where bathroom attendants are doling out a few measly squares per patron — along the world-famous Coney Island boardwalk.

The Post witnessed stone-faced Parks Department employees leave toilet-paper dispensers empty last week and instead force astonished female beachgoers to form “ration lines” in the bathrooms.

Regina Ballone, 25, of Brooklyn visited a boardwalk bathroom at West 16th Street Wednesday and was “grossed out” at the thought of someone else handling her toilet paper.

“Never in my life have I experienced anything like this,” she said. “I walked toward a stall, and a bathroom attendant stopped me by shouting, ‘Hey, mami! There’s no toilet paper here,’ and she whipped out a big roll for me to grab some.”

Beachgoers also have been forced to line up for their paltry allotment of the city’s cheap, single-ply toilet paper at the boardwalk’s other women’s restroom at Stillwell Avenue.

Benedikte Friis and Ann Damgaard, both 22, from Denmark, said they enjoyed visiting Coney Island last week — except when it came to the bathrooms.

“It’s very weird that someone decides how much paper you get because they don’t know what situation you’re in,” said Friis, 22, laughing in disbelief. “You might need more!”

Zombie Americans no longer know what the 4th of July means

It’s the new normal.

No wonder Barack Obama is President. Thanks teachers! Thanks Dept. of Education! Thanks mainstream media!

‘Flash Mob’ hits Philly Sears, steals thousands in merchandise

All these ‘flash mobs’ around the country have something in common, but, gee-whiz, I just can’t put my finger on it.

A group of people enter the Sears on 69th Street in Upper Darby on Thursday afternoon. Police say about 40 members of flash mob from Philadelphia stole thousands of dollars of merchandise in minutes.

The Delco Times (h/t Gateway Pundit) - A mob of about 40 people stormed into the Sears department store on 69th Street Thursday, and in a flash stole thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, officials said.

Police were able to round up 15 juveniles and one adult, 19, all from West Philadelphia.

“They came in on the El train and hit Sears,” police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said. “They stole sneakers, socks, watches, whatever they could get their hands on, and left.

“Imagine the guts of this gang of young hoodlums. One was 11 years old. The others arrested ranged from 12 to 16 years old. They planned this out earlier in the day on a social networking site. It was pre-planned. They got on the El, got off at 69th Street Terminal and walked up the hill to Sears.”

Kyree Marsh, 19, the oldest member

Kyree Marsh, 19, of the 5500 block of Spruce Street, Philadelphia, was arrested and charged with retail theft, conspiracy to retail theft and corruption of minors.

Police recovered some of the stolen sneakers and socks that were in the backpack of one of the individuals arrested and in the pockets of others taken into custody.

According to the affidavit, the Sears loss-prevention officer saw the mob enter the store at 7:09 p.m. on Thursday.

The group then began taking merchandise off the shelves.

“He watched the group enter the store together from the 69th Street entrance,” Chitwood said. “It was fast. They ran out, leaving empty shoeboxes and store tags behind. Fortunately, no customers or store employees got hurt.

Meanwhile: Another flash mob strikes in Obama’s home town of Chicago. Chicago, in fact, is a leading flash mob town. Mob. Chicago. No surprise there.

CHICAGO (CBS) — The teenage robbery mobs are at it again on North Michigan Avenue.

Some 50 young people barged into a Walgreens at Michigan and Chicago on the Magnificent Mile on Tuesday afternoon. They took bottled drinks and sandwiches off the shelves, then ran off, CBS 2′s Suzanne Le Mignot reports.

A police report says authorities were able to nab three of the thieves.

Walgreens says the store is working with police, helping investigators with video from the store security camera.

The Mag Mile earlier this year was hit by similar mobs of young thieves. Attacks on commuters and bicyclists have become violent, and police have stepped up patrols.

Maryland makes junk science indoctrination mandatory for high school graduation

They can’t read. They can’t do basic math. They can’t name 3 Founding Fathers. But they will know that Al Gore saved the world from man-made global warming.

This is how dumber becomes dumber.

The PJ Tatler (h/t Gateway Pundit)

Well, the least Free State — literally — is outdoing itself in the idiocy department.

In an historic vote today, the Maryland State Board of Education provided specific guidance to all public schools to require that each student be environmentally literate before he or she graduates from high school. The vote cements Maryland as the first state in the country to approve a graduation requirement in environmental literacy, a credit to Governor O’Malley, to board members, and to Dr. Nancy Grasmick, State Superintendent of Schools.

In other words, despite the growing evidence of fraud within the global warming/climate change debate, Maryland schools will, by law, force feed enviro-propaganda in the classroom. And your kid will swallow it whole, or not graduate.

The state school board vote clarifies for schools that each child must receive a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary environmental education that meets the approval of the State Superintendent of Schools. Regulations given final approval by the board provide critical flexibility and oversight for school systems as they develop effective environmental literacy programs aligned with the Maryland State Environmental Literacy Standards.

What this will up doing, is take time away from the basics, which students will actually need in order to get a job and function in life, and put time into digesting political propaganda.

USDA demands gay-sensitivity indoctrination for all federal departments, says “heterosexism” = racism

Political correctness will be the end of America.

The militant gay agenda knows no bounds, and won’t be satisfied until every American grabs his ankles and submits to their radical platform. The federal government is already broken, but now it wants to be Brokeback Government.

The country is hanging on by a thread. The greatest, freest nation the world has ever known is on the verge of a great depression, mired in 4 wars, up to its eyeballs in debt and unemployment; illegals continue to pour across its borders, nearly every week yet another Muslim is caught trying to kill hundreds or thousands of civilians, and the issue most on the minds of Democrats is the rapid inculcation of gay ‘values’ into American society.

Oh America, we hardly know thee anymore.

Relatedly, if Liberals can fall for this, they will fall for anything.

Washington Times - U.S. Department of Agriculture activists want to impose their intense brand of homosexual sensitivity training governmentwide, including a discussion that compares “heterosexism” – believing marriage can be between only one man and one woman – to racism.

Sounds good to me!

If accepted by the Obama administration, that move could mean more sessions for military service members already undergoing gay-sensitivity indoctrination. Critics fear additional gay-oriented training would add an unnecessary burden for combat troops and encourage some to leave.

USDA officials have asked the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which oversees all federal employee policies, to impose its gay-awareness programs on all federal departments, according to an internal newsletter. The training includes a discussion of “heterosexism” and compares it to racism. It says people who view marriage as being between only one man and one woman are guilty of “heterosexism.”

The push for the training is coming from Agriculture Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack, former governor of Iowa. The Democrat has launched a departmentwide “cultural transformation” that includes a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Special Emphasis Program.

Respect it!

The USDA’s senior training coordinator, Bill Scaggs, has developed a sensitivity program far more extensive than the Pentagon’s training for the anticipated lifting of the ban on open homosexuals in the ranks. His training program, which OPM calls “groundbreaking [and a] model for other agencies,” delves more into gay issues and terminology. It also justifies pro-homosexual political positions.

Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness and opposes the repeal of the military’s ban on acknowledged gays, said it would be a mistake for the administration of President Obama to impose the USDA sensitivity training program on the Pentagon.

“There are disturbing implications for national defense in the USDA’s development of a ‘groundbreaking’ training program that is to become a model for other federal agencies,” she told The Washington Times.

She predicted that, once the ban is lifted, “training programs similar to the USDA’s LGBT Special Emphasis Program will become a growth industry within the Department of Defense.”

“This would drive out thousands of experienced troops, starting with chaplains and people of faith who do not support LGBT ideology and activism,” she said.  (more >>>)

Obama’s Green-Car Mandate adds $10K to vehicle and elimates 260,000 jobs

Everything Obama touches turns to crap.

Obama’s CAFE mandate that vehicles average 62 MPG by 2025 “could force vehicle prices up by nearly $10,000, reduce sales by 5.5 million vehicles annually, and eliminate more than 260,000 jobs.”

Bye-bye car industry, or what’s left of it anyway.

Americans can’t afford cars anymore as is, but if Obama gets his way, they never will again.

He hates you. He really, really hates you.

(Pondering Principles)
The Detroit News’ David Shepardson has unearthed a study that reveals that President Obama’s radical CAFE mandate “could force vehicle prices up by nearly $10,000, reduce sales by 5.5 million vehicles annually, and eliminate more than 260,000 jobs.”

The National Review (h/t Gateway Pundit) The purpose of federal fuel-economy mandates is to keep the agenda of green pols hidden lest the public awaken to their enormous costs. Want to make cars fuel efficient? Tax gas. And commit political suicide. So instead we get the stealthy Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) laws, which forces automakers to compromise cars to government standards, not those of customers.

But sometimes those costs still leak out.

The Detroit News’s dogged David Shepardson has unearthed a study by one of world’s most respected automotive research firms that reveals that President Obama’s radical CAFE mandate that vehicles average — average! — 62 MPG by 2025 “could force vehicle prices up by nearly $10,000, reduce sales by 5.5 million vehicles annually, and eliminate more than 260,000 jobs.”

Shepardson is quoting from the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research and the 260,000 job loss figure (consistent with past job losses from CAFE rule hikes) is another dent in White House’s propaganda that Green creates jobs.

The CAR study also reveals that Obama’s NHTSA and EPA have been gaming the figures when it comes to the cost of their new rules. The center’s study predicts it will cost between $3,744 and $9,790 per vehicle, while the agencies have low-balled the figure at $770 to $3,500 per vehicle.

The resulting costs would shrink the new-car market, with 5.5 million potential buyers disappearing (and manufacturing jobs with them) by 2025. That assumes that the auto fleet can even be built to meet such an absurd spec. Currently, no car — much less the average — meets 62 mpg. Indeed, only a handful of small vehicles meet the 35-mpg fleet-wide standard mandated in just five years.

As a result, there is more gaming of the system, as automakers pour lobbying money into D.C. to effect regulatory agency rules handing credits to electric cars — whether customers buy them or not.

This is change, Obama-style: More rules, more lobbyists, more corruption of government standards. It all adds up to more jobs for Washington bureaucrats, and fewer for the rest of the country.

Tens of thousands protest Greek austerity measures

Coming to a city year you.

SF Examiner - Tens of thousands of protesters angry about the government’s austerity policies demanded Sunday that the heavily indebted country stop paying its creditors.

Many protesters carried signs and wore stickers reading “we don’t owe, we won’t sell, we won’t pay” in the demonstration outside parliament. The signs referred to planned privatizations that the government has agreed to speed up in order to make up for a shortfall in projected revenue.

Greece was saved from default in May 2010 with a €110 billion ($160 billion) bailout package of loans from the International Monetary Fund and European Union. In return, it imposed strict austerity measures last year, including public salary cuts, pension reductions and broad tax hikes.

The measures have angered ordinary Greeks, sparking frequent protests.

In the latest one, demonstrators chanted “thieves, thieves” while pointing at the parliament building. Several banners and placards called for a referendum on an updated bailout package the government is said to have agreed with its creditors.

The protest was the 12th in as many days, and was modeled after the demonstrations that took place in Spain last month.

Police officials said there were an estimated 60,000 protesters, while participants said there were many more. There is no central organization to the protests, which rely on scattered groups to spread the word through social media.

The crowds at recent protests have steered clear of partisan affiliations and at one, the protesters booed union members from the state electricity company who tried to raise their own banners. In general, the protests have been peaceful.

In the northern city of Thessaloniki, an estimated 20,000 took part in a peaceful march. There was a minor scuffle when a group of anarchists went to a nearby book fair and tossed European Union publications to the street. Crowds gathered in several other Greek cities, such as Patras in western Greece and Iraklio on the island of Crete.

The protesters vow to keep up the pressure indefinitely, although many have set June 25 as the crucial date, when parliament will vote on an updated fiscal austerity program covering 2012-2015. The provisions of the program will be discussed at a Cabinet meeting Monday.

Obama proclaims June as ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month’

Brokeback-in-Chief proclaimed June as ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.’

Hey, what about the cross-dressers!

Maybe he’ll proclaim July ‘Bitter Americans Who Cling to Their Guns and Religion Month’?

(h/t Weasel Zippers) - Presidential Proclamation–Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION

The story of America’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community is the story of our fathers and sons, our mothers and daughters, and our friends and neighbors who continue the task of making our country a more perfect Union. It is a story about the struggle to realize the great American promise that all people can live with dignity and fairness under the law. Each June, we commemorate the courageous individuals who have fought to achieve this promise for LGBT Americans, and we rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Since taking office, my Administration has made significant progress towards achieving equality for LGBT Americans. Last December, I was proud to sign the repeal of the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. With this repeal, gay and lesbian Americans will be able to serve openly in our Armed Forces for the first time in our Nation’s history. Our national security will be strengthened and the heroic contributions these Americans make to our military, and have made throughout our history, will be fully recognized.

My Administration has also taken steps to eliminate discrimination against LGBT Americans in Federal housing programs and to give LGBT Americans the right to visit their loved ones in the hospital. We have made clear through executive branch nondiscrimination policies that discrimination on the basis of gender identity in the Federal workplace will not be tolerated. I have continued to nominate and appoint highly qualified, openly LGBT individuals to executive branch and judicial positions. Because we recognize that LGBT rights are human rights, my Administration stands with advocates of equality around the world in leading the fight against pernicious laws targeting LGBT persons and malicious attempts to exclude LGBT organizations from full participation in the international system. (the whole salami >>)

77,000 federal employees make more than their governors

Once upon a time, the government worked for the people, but now the people work to provide for government workers.

This is Barack Obama’s new normal, and part of what he meant when he promised to “fundamentally transform America.”

He really does think money grows on trees.

The Obama Administration is the most pro-big government, pro-union, anti-business, anti-private sector president in history. He makes FDR look like Ayn Rand.

Government workers increased their salaries by over $30,000 in Obama’s first year of office.

The federal compensation advantage has grown from $30,415 in 2000 to $61,998 last year. (USA Today)

This trend is unsustainable, unhealthy, and will lead to fiscal and moral bancruptcy.

A generation raised to see working for the government as the best way to earn a livelihood is a generation that values security over freedom, complacency over daring, and torpidity over creativity. Civil service used to be a kind of calling; more and more, it’s all that’s left.

The Washington Times (h/t Gateway Pundit) - More than 77,000 federal government employees throughout the country — including computer operators, more than 5,000 air traffic controllers, 22 librarians and one interior designer — earned more than the governors of the states in which they work.

The findings, from a Congressional Research Service report requested by Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, were released at a time when public workers’ salaries and benefits are under scrutiny across the country as governments try to streamline.

CRS reviewed 2009 salary figures, the most recent available, and found 77,057 employees who earned more in annual pay than their respective governors. Of those workers, 18,351 were doctors — the highest percentage. The second-highest total was for 5,170 air traffic controllers — likely both front-line controllers and their supervisors.

In Maryland, 7,283 federal employees — about 7 percent of all full-time federal employees in the state — earned more than Gov. Martin O’Malley’s $150,000 salary. Maryland was topped by Colorado, which in 2009 had 10,875 employees who made more than the $90,000 salary of the governor, Bill Ritter.

$2 million lottery winner still demands his food stamps

Leroy Fick: parasite

Thanks to decades of Liberalism, Americans’ sense of entitlement knows no bounds.

A guy wins $2 million in the lottery and insists he deserves to remain on food stamps.

“If you’re going to … try to make me feel bad, you aren’t going to do it.”

The government agrees with him.

Via Michellemalkin –  AUBURN, Mich. — A man who won $2 million on a Michigan lottery show has told TV5 that he still uses food stamps.

Leroy Fick of Bay County admitted he still swipes the electronic card at stores, nearly a year after winning a jackpot on “Make Me Rich!” He told TV5′s Bill Walsh that more than half the prize went to taxes.

Fick said the Department of Human Services told him he could continue to use the card, which is paid with Michigan tax dollars.

“If you’re going to … try to make me feel bad, you aren’t going to do it,” said Fick.
[...]
DHS spokeswoman Gisgie Gendreau said under federal guidelines, if a person receives a lump-sum payment, the winnings are not counted as income.

Obama to flush gobs of taxpayer money down the Arab toilet

I predicted this eventuality from day one. Hillary already promised Egypt $2 billion on top of what the Egyptian ingrates already receive, and then Obama added a $1 billion in debt forgiveness.

And, of course, all the money that Obama wants to waste on these anti-American countries won’t buy America a drop of good will. Rather, as always, it will be confiscated by the corrupt bureaucracies and funneled into the spread of Islam and anti-American and anti-Israel policies.

America is BROKE. Where will the billions come from? We don’t have a nickel to our name. We’re $14 trillion in debt! And what about the rich oil States? Why can’t they fork it over?

America never learns. Never. It follows the same failed policies again and again.

Wall Street Journal - President Barack Obama will announce this week a new aid plan for the Middle East and North Africa that U.S. officials say will be far bolder than previous American economic assistance to the region.

Mr. Obama will outline the plan, which could include debt cancellation and a reprogramming of financial aid the U.S. already provides to countries like Egypt, in a speech he is scheduled to deliver Thursday at the State Department.

Whatever aid he announces, though, is unlikely to assuage Arab governments, which had been hoping the White House would push forcibly for a resumption of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. The president’s aides say his speech will focus only briefly on the issue.

[...] The president’s goal, officials said, is to give a financial boost to the political change sweeping the Mideast and North Africa, where dashed economic aspirations have fed unrest.

Senior U.S. officials are particularly alarmed by the deterioration in Cairo’s finances since the street revolt that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February. The Egyptian government has been forced to spend between $3 billion and $3.5 billion of its foreign-exchange reserves a month to pay for food and other commodities as tourism has plunged and overseas remittances have dried up.

Egypt’s government has been seeking relief on around $1 billion in debts tied to wheat purchases in the 1970s, according to officials involved in the talks. Cairo has paid off the principal on these loans, but continues to service interest payments.

[...] Mr. Obama may struggle to win over skeptics in Congress. The U.S. already provides Egypt with roughly $1.3 billion a year, and lawmakers are pushing the White House for deep spending cuts.

Additionally, a number of lawmakers have raised concerns in recent weeks about Egypt’s post-Mubarak foreign policy, particularly its warming relations with Iran and militant Palestinian group Hamas, which the U.S. and the European Union designate as a terrorist entity.

[...] In the speech, Mr. Obama will seek to connect the death of Osama bin Laden with the popular uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa.

“The Arab Spring represents a real and organic repudiation of the things bin Laden stood for in the region and among the people he claimed to represent,” a senior administration official said Tuesday, previewing one of the speech’s themes.  (more >>>)

American skies in chaos after 3 different passenger security threats

Was it her?

A Yemeni man rushed the cockpit of an American Airlines plane and was wrestled to the ground by crew and passengers. This was the 3rd in-flight disturbance in one day.

In other incidents, a Continental flight to Chicago was diverted to St. Louis after a passenger tried to open a door. And elsewhere, a Delta Airlines flight was diverted to Albuquerque, N.M. after a note was found in a bathroom with the word “bomb” written on it.

Gee, I wonder what religion the perpetrators belong to…

NY Daily News – Travelers aboard an American Airlines flight were forced to subdue an out-of-control passenger who began pounding on the cockpit door and screamed unintelligibly, police said.

The terrifying episode ended when flight attendants and passengers wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him as the plane approached San Francisco late Sunday.

Mayber her...?

The flight – which was headed from Chicago - was carrying 162 people.

The suspect was identified as Rageit Almurisi, a 28-year-old Yemeni national.

He faces federal charges of interfering with a flight crew.

The chilling incident followed two other mid-air meltdowns on the same day.

In one, a Continental flight to Chicago was diverted to St. Louis after a passenger tried to open a door.

It must be her.

The second episode involved a Delta Airlines flight that was diverted to Albuquerque, N.M. after a note was found in a bathroom with the word “bomb” written on it.

The plane was searched and no explosives were found.

Youths swarm-rob Vegas convenience store

Another swarm attack at a convenience store. Don’t worry, though. In Barack Obama’s new normal, this is merely the redistribution of wealth.

All these teens seem to have something in common besides an attitude of shamelessness and a complete disregard for the law. Can’t quite put my finger on it, though…

I guess 1 in 7 people in America on food stamps just isn’t doing the trick in Barack’s Omerika.

fox5vegas - Grabbing everything in sight, a group of about 35 young men and women poured into a Las Vegas convenience store near Sunset and Pecos roads early Saturday morning, ready to take whatever they wanted.

Store owner Jon Athey said his lone worker could only do one thing: sit back and watch as the teens stole alcohol, snacks and whatever else they could carry out the door.

“Once he realized what was going on, he just stepped back, closed the cash register door, and watched everything he could until he had the chance to call (for help),” Athey said.

Athey said the teens stole about $600 in merchandise.

Las Vegas Metro police described the three minute swarm burglary as “group thug mentality” and said the type of burglary wasn’t uncommon.

CA lifeguards receive millions in retirement

Lifeguards in Newport, CA get to ogle bikini-clad babes until they retire at age 50, whence they sit back the rest of their bronzed lives collecting generous benefits.

Some lifeguards can retire at age 50 with full medical benefits and receive a government retirement of over $108,000 per year—for the rest of his life.

Not a bad job if you can get it!

Biggovernment.com – Public outrage over lavish government employee compensation and pensions is becoming more heated as new revelations about excesses seem to crop up every week.  The latest: Newport Beach, California, where some lifeguards have compensation packages that exceed $200,000 and where these “civil servants” can retire with lucrative government pensions at age 50.

Newport Beach has two groups of lifeguards. Seasonal tower lifeguards cover Newport’s seven miles of beach during the busy summer months. Part-time seasonal guards make $16 to $22 per hour with no benefits.  They are the young people who man the towers and do the lion’s share of the rescues.

Another group of highly compensated full-time staff work year-round and seldom, if ever, climb into a tower. According to the City Manager, the typical Daily Deployment Model in the winter for these lifeguards is 10 hours per day for four days each week, mainly spent driving trucks around, painting towers, ordering uniforms and doing basic office work—none are actually manning lifeguard towers.

Like many communities across California, the city of Newport Beach is facing the harsh realities of budgeting with less revenue after housing values and the stock market plummeted.  Now the city’s full-time lifeguard force has finally come under scrutiny.  Next week the city council will decide if cuts are needed to the full-time lifeguard force where last year the top earner received $211,000 in pay and benefits, including a $400 sun protection allowance. In 2010 all but one of the city’s full-time lifeguard staff had annual compensation packages worth over $120,000.

Not bad pay for a lifeguard – but what makes these jobs most attractive is the generous retirements.

These lifeguards can retire at age 50 with full medical benefits for life.  One recently retired lifeguard, age 51, receives a government retirement of over $108,000 per year—for the rest of his life.

He will make well over $3 million in retirement if he lives to age 80. According to the City Manager, a new full-time guard costs less to hire than what is spent on this one retiree.  The city now spends more taxpayer dollars on retired lifeguards than it does on those who are working.  (more >>>)

Cato: Nearly half of Detroit illiterate

Welcome to Detroit’s new normal.

No wonder Mayor Bloomberg said America should populate Detroit with illegals. They’d feel right at home.

As of 2008, Detroit spent $13,000 per student, more than the national average.

Further evidence that Liberalism rots the brain.

Cato Institute – A study funded by 10 major foundations reported yesterday that 47 percent of Detroiters are functionally illiterate–unable to read a bus schedule, fill out a resume, or make sense of the directions on an aspirin bottle.

When I checked back in 2008, Detroit public schools were spending $13,000 / pupil, which was then above the national average.

The report notes that half of the illiterate population has either a high school diploma or a GED. That’s beside the point. Virtually the entire illiterate  population has completed elementary school, the level at which reading is theoretically taught. That’s seven years of schooling (k-6), at a cost of roughly $100,000, for… nothing.

The study mainly calls for adult education services to remediate the problem after it has occurred. Perhaps when the city’s illiteracy rate reaches 100 percent the recommendations will suggest replacing the failed k-12 monopoly with something more effective. Of course, by then who’ll be able to read them?

Spain turns to naked gyms

Eeyuu…

The new normal ain’t pretty.

Nothing like lifting weights and pushing and pulling at machines with fat, sweaty, naked people. But, hey, at least the gym provides towels “to prevent slippage”.

The world is certifiably insane.

UK Telegraph - Easy Gym in the Basque region is the first gym in the country to offer special exercise sessions for nudists.

The workouts were thought up as a response to the nation’s recession, which had hit gym membership, owner Merche Laseca told the BBC.

“With the crisis we noticed there were fewer people using the gym,” he said.

“I’m not a nudist myself, though I have no problem with it. But this initiative is about the money.”

During research into the popularity of naturism, the gym discovered that two local swimming pools offered monthly naked swimming sessions.

There are also at least 12 naturist beaches in the Basque region.

“We’re always interested in new activities,” Maite Vicuna, president of the Basque Naturist Association, told the BBC.

“Doing sport without clothes is natural – and much more comfy.”

However, some sceptics have voiced concerns over the safety of using exercise equipment without clothes on.

But Easy Gym has said it does provide towels for comfort and “to prevent slippage”.

Niall Ferguson schools his blame-the-west for everything foes

Niall Ferguson corrects the record on ‘Western Imperialism’ in the Middle East, and reminds the two BBC blame-the-West for everything panelists that the Turks and Islam were the Imperialists in the region for centuries before the West showed up. He also explains why democracy in the Arab world doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding.

Like Niall Ferguson’s gloomy historical realism? Here’s some more:

• Niall Ferguson discusses the West’s perilous days ahead
• Niall Ferguson: Middle East democracies unlikely, $200 oil more likely
• Historian Niall Ferguson slams Obama, mystifies Mika Brzezinski

New normal: 40% of children in U.S. now born to unwed mothers

When you are brought up to believe that Uncle Sam takes care of everything, dads become superfluous. How can we balance a Federal budget when we can’t even balance a family? Furthermore, when you see how men are constantly portrayed in TV commercials and sitcoms as absolute clods and dopes, why would any woman want one around anyway?

Despite a dip in teen births, over the last five decades, the number of unwed mothers in the U.S. has actually soared, reports the Heritage Foundation.

Gee, what changed in the 1960s? Well, LBJ’s “Great Society” and the welfare state was implemented, the universities became bastions of Liberalism, radical feminism began its ascent, and Liberals in Hollywood and the media launched their war on G-d, religion, and American values.

Whereas in the 1960s fewer than 10 percent of all babies were born outside of marriage, today that number is over 40 percent. And for some groups it has already reached 50 percent or far surpassed it. For example, nearly half of Hispanic children and nearly three-fourths of African-American children are born to single mothers annually.

Good grief. We are so screwed.

Way to go Liberals. Pat yourselves on the back. Mission accomplished. And no, as the study shows, birth control is not the answer.

_________________________________________

Heritage - On Tuesday, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced that U.S. teen birth rates dropped to their lowest rate in decades. According to the report, the number of teenage births has declined by nearly 40 percent in the last 20 years.

Of course, this is good news, especially considering the myriadnegative implications for children born to teen moms, such as lower school achievement and an increased risk of becoming teen parents themselves.

But there’s a flipside to this positive news. Despite the dip in teen births, over the last five decades, the number of unwed mothers in the U.S. has actually soared. Whereas in the 1960s fewer than 10 percent of all babies were born outside of marriage, today that number is over 40 percent. And for some groups it has already reached 50 percent or far surpassed it. For example, nearly half of Hispanic children and nearly three-fourths of African-American children are born to single mothers annually.

This is because fewer and fewer marriages are taking place in the United States, a trend that is especially common in low-income communities, where many of these single mothers reside. Yet it’s not that these women don’t value or desire marriage; rather, the perpetuation of single-motherhood has fueled a cycle in which unwed birth has become the norm. Instead of marriage and childbearing being a sequential process, the two have become separate, unassociated practices. And far too often, marriage never becomes part of the story.

The consequences are dire. Perhaps gravest is the significantly enhanced risk of poverty these women and children face. A child born to a single mom is more than five times as likely to live in poverty as a child born to married parents.That’s why it’s no coincidence that along with the growing rate of unwed childbearing, the U.S. has also experienced drastic increases in welfare costs over the decades.

Yet the outcomes of being raised without a father are not just economic. Children raised without fathers are also at increased risk of developing emotional and behavioral problems, participating in risky and delinquent behavior, dropping out of high school, and being abused. Furthermore, being raised outside of an intact family increases the likelihood of sexual activity for teens, thereby increasing their chances of becoming a single parent and thus perpetuating the cycle of poverty and dependence.

Unfortunately, most of the talk about lowering out-of-wedlock birth centers on increasing access to birth control. But research reveals that lack of available birth control is not the problem. Researchers find that many single, low-income women are having babies because they desire children. Although marriage has broken down, bearing children is still highly valued. (more >>)

Obama slush fund finds pockets of WaPo and CBS

We don’t call them the state-run media for nothing.

We ought to be shocked, but unfortunately less and less about the Obama Administration shocks us anymore. The meters blew a fuse a long time ago.

But of course, that is exactly what they are counting on. They are trying to wear us down, as in: Resistance is futile!

The Obama Administration is the most criminal, fraudulent, hypocritical, and mendacious administration in the history of America, but because the state-run media is in its pocket, too many Americans will never fathom its true duplicity and corruption.

(Daily Caller) — Two mainstream news organizations are receiving hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars from Obamacare’s Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (ERRP) — a $5 billion grant program that’s doling out cash to companies, states and labor unions in what the Obama administration considers an effort to pay for health insurance for early retirees. The Washington Post Company raked in $573,217 in taxpayer subsidies and CBS Corporation secured $722,388 worth of Americans’ money.

“It is fine with me if they continue covering the ObamaCare debate,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, in an e-mail to The Daily Caller. “When NBC used to cover energy issues, they identified themselves as a subsidiary of General Electric. CBS and Washington Post just have to disclose that they are subsidiaries of the Obama Administration.”

The ERRP, which Republicans call a slush fund, provides taxpayer money to Obama administration-selected states, companies and labor unions with already-in-place early retiree health insurance programs, and aims to make certain that their employees who retire early still have health insurance coverage before they reach Medicare eligibility age. Almost $2 billion of the $5 billion fund, which was supposed to last until 2014, has already been distributed to corporations. New projections expect the funding to run out before the end of 2012, if not sooner.

Keep reading…

Federal government spent over 8 times its monthly revenue in…March

According to the Treasury, the federal government paid a net of $1.0528 trillion in federal expenses for March.

March.

And yet, the Democrats continue to demagogue the issue, refusing to make any significant cuts whatsoever.

(CNSNews.com) — The U.S. Treasury has released a final statement for the month of March that demonstrates that financial madness has gripped the federal government.

During the month, according to the Treasury, the federal government grossed $194 billion in tax revenue and paid out $65.898 billion in tax refunds (including $62.011 to individuals and $3.887 to businesses) thus netting $128.179 billion in tax revenue for March.

At the same, the Treasury paid out a total of $1.1187 trillion. When the $65.898 billion in tax refunds is deducted from that, the Treasury paid a net of $1.0528 trillion in federal expenses for March.

That $1.0528 trillion in spending for March equaled 8.2 times the $128.179 in net federal tax revenue for the month.

The federal government’s cash-flow situation was summed up in Senate Budget Committee testimony by Erskine Bowles, who served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and is now the co-chair of President Barack Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility.