Gerrymandering 101

by Zombie

Gerrymander: It’s a dirty word. Everyone knows it’s a political insult, but not everyone understands exactly what it means. And even many of those who know what gerrymandering is don’t fully grasp how it completely dominates American politics.

Welcome to Gerrymandering 101.

Pundits across the political spectrum are now noting that the 2010 Republican tsunami was bigger and more significant than it might appear on the surface, because the Republicans not only won a record number of federal races, they also utterly crushed the Democrats in local races, winning at least 675 seats in state legislatures. This spells doom for the Democrats because next year the states will re-draw the congressional district lines to accommodate the results of the 2010 census:

When the 2010 Census results are announced next month, the 435 House seats will be reapportioned to the states, and state officials will draw new district lines in each state. … Republicans look to have a bigger advantage in this redistricting cycle they’ve ever had before.

“Advantage”? Advantage in what? Isn’t drawing little squiggly lines on a map the most boring and least consequential job imaginable?

Think again. Remember this motto: He Who Draws The Lines Determines The Winners.

Yes, it’s that simple. If you can’t quite visualize how gerrymandering can possibly succeed — after all, the number of voters stays the same no matter how you group them, and if you exclude opposition voters from one district, you necessarily must include them in an adjacent district — keep reading. This essay explains in no uncertain terms how manipulating district boundaries can lead to a complete subversion of true representative government.

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Liberals Urging Obama to Ignore Voters and Congress

by Ed Morrissey

Former President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff John Podesta, now the head of the Center for American Progress, called on President Obama to push forward with his agenda using federal agencies and executive branch power Tuesday, even though Democrats were dealt a blow in the recent midterm elections. Podesta said the American people want the president to move forward with his agenda.

“I think most of the conversation since the election has been about how President Obama adjusts to the new situation on Capitol Hill,” Podesta said. “While that’s an important conversation, it simply ignores the president’s ability to use all levels of his power and authority to move the country forward.”

Citing his experience in Clinton’s White House after the GOP House takeover of 1994, Podesta said Obama’s administration “can and should take” the specific measures detailed in a report released by the Center for American Progress, utilizing all the tools at its disposal to circumvent Congress in a way to keep his agenda moving forward.

“One of the best ways for the Obama administration to achieve results of that nature, in the short term, is through substantial executive authority to make and implement policy,” Podesta said. “As noted in the Constitution and the laws of the United States give the president the ability and the responsibility to act as the chief executive using authorities granted to all presidents such as executive orders, rule-makings, agency management and public-private partnerships.”

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Woman Claims TSA Agent Violently Frisked Her

TX Gov. Perry Wants to Send Military Into Mexico

by Peggy Fikac

AUSTIN — GOP Gov. Rick Perry, who continues to insist he's not interested in the presidency, is nevertheless always ready to tell the federal government how to do a better job on such matters as border security — including indicating the U.S. should be open to sending military into Mexico to help fight the drug war.

Appearing on MSNBC on Thursday, Perry was asked, “Would you advocate military involvement in Mexico on the Mexico side of the border to help Mexico in this drug war?”

Perry answered: “I think we have to use every aspect of law enforcement that we have, including the military. I think you have the same situation as you had in Colombia. Obviously, Mexico has to approve any type of assistance that we can give them.

“But the fact of the matter is, these are people who are highly motivated with money. They are vicious. They are armed to the teeth. I want to see them defeated. And any means that we can to run these people off our border and to save Americans' lives we need to be engaged in.”

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Does ObamaCare Reduce Health Care Spending?

by Veronique de Rugy

Yesterday, former Congressional Budget Office and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag had a piece in The New York Times claiming that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is an essential element to keeping future health care costs down. Worried that Republicans will make good on Election Night vows to repeal ObamaCare, Orszag's basic argument in summed up in his commentary's headline: "To Save Money, Save the Health Care Act."

He writes: “Sure, the health care law is not perfect, but it would cut the nation’s long-term fiscal imbalance by a quarter and reduce the projected deficit within Medicare by three-quarters. That may seem fanciful, given how distorted the public discussion has become. But that’s what the projections show, as long as Congress sticks to its guns and the Obama administration does a good job carrying out the provisions of the law.”

However, Orszag's article amounts to little more than wishful thinking. Using Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data, the chart above shows that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 have left the cost curve of federal healthcare spending virtually unchanged over the next 25 years.

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Quantitative Easing Explained

School Choice in Canada: Lessons for America

by Mark Milke

In Canada, the province of Alberta has long encouraged school choice. Historically, Alberta has had two school systems between which parents may choose: the “public” system and a “separate” system. Other Alberta choices include charter, private, and French-language schools. Homeschooling is encouraged and supported by the provincial government, and “blended” programs are available where children can take some courses at home and others at school. This large variety of educational choice has led to positive results. International test results have placed Alberta students among the world’s top performers, including immigrant children who fare equal to or better than non-immigrant children. In Alberta, parents expect—and have—a wide variety of educational options for how to educate their children, a policy outcome that American states should emulate.

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John F Kennedy Warning America and The World

Uncertainty = Business Freeze = No Investment, No Jobs

Humanists' 'holiday' ads attack God & Bible

by Cathy Lynn Grossman

The American Humanist Association is going for the ugly -- in the name of no God.

Their newly announced 200,000 advertising campaign ditches last year's fairly benign good-without-God approach and rips into the nastiest quotes it can cherry-pick from Scripture. It's an attempt, says their web site...

"... to challenge the intolerant view that atheist and agnostic humanists can't be good without Bible derived morality. We're taking a hard look at what is included in religious texts."

So they'll contrast this passage from Hosea 13:16...

"The people of Samaria must bear their guilt because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground; their pregnant woman ripped open."

with a quote from Albert Einstein (and other "non-theist luminaries such as Katharine Hepburn and Richard Dawkins").

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the object of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is modeled after human frailty."

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Red Wave from the Nov 2010 elections

Donald Trump: I’d love a trade war with China!

More federal workers' pay tops $150,000

by Dennis Cauchon

The number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years and doubled since President Obama took office, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

The fast-growing pay of federal employees has captured the attention of fiscally conservative Republicans who won control of the U.S. House of Representatives in last week's elections. Already, some lawmakers are planning to use the lame-duck session that starts Monday to challenge the president's plan to give a 1.4% across-the-board pay raise to 2.1 million federal workers.

•Government-wide raises. Top-paid staff have increased in every department and agency. The Defense Department had nine civilians earning $170,000 or more in 2005, 214 when Obama took office and 994 in June.

•Long-time workers thrive. The biggest pay hikes have gone to employees who have been with the government for 15 to 24 years. Since 2005, average salaries for this group climbed 25% compared with a 9% inflation rate.

•Physicians rewarded. Medical doctors at veterans hospitals, prisons and elsewhere earn an average of $179,500, up from $111,000 in 2005.

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Will masses embrace electric cars despite high prices?

by Chris Woodyard

The government and the auto industry are promoting electric transportation as a way to cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil, ease the need for more U.S. oil drilling and cut carbon dioxide in the air. But the technology remains a colossal gamble, with billions invested by the industry and billions in subsidies from the government for research, factories and a direct-to-consumer rebate of $7,500 to partially offset the higher price of electrics.

Buyers still have to be convinced that being Earth-friendly is worth several trade-offs — beyond the cars' sticker prices, which can be double the cost of a similarly sized conventional car. Most prominently, most electric cars for now will have a range of about 100 miles before they need to be recharged. That process can take as few as 30 minutes with special chargers, but in most situations will take up to eight hours.

Even if you haven't paid attention to electric cars, you soon won't be able to escape hearing about them. Nissan has started its ad campaign for the fully electric Leaf. Chevrolet is about to crank up promotion for the Volt, a plug-in electric that also has an onboard generator powered by an auxiliary gas engine. Electric advocacy groups, such as Plug In America, plan their own public education campaigns.

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Soros Exposed: Research on the Progressive Puppet Master

by Glenn Beck

“Messianic Fantasies”

- “It is sort of a disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out,” (The Independent, June 3, 1993 “THE BILLIONAIRE WHO BUILT ON CHAOS - GEORGE SOROS.”)

- “I admit that I have always harbored an exaggerated view of my self-importance—to put it bluntly, I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes (each with his General Theory) or, even better, a scientist like Einstein (reflexivity sounds like relativity).” (The Alchemy of Finance, George Soros)

- According to friend Byron Wien (now with the Blackstone Group), “You must understand he thinks he’s been anointed by God to solve insoluble problems. The proof is that he has been so successful at making so much. He therefore thinks he has a responsibility to give money away,” (Time Magazine, Sept 1, 1997)

- “If truth be known, I carried some rather potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood which I felt I had to control, otherwise I might end up in the loony bin. But when I made my way in the world I wanted to indulge myself in my fantasies to the extent that I could afford.” George Soros “Underwriting Democracy: Encouraging Free Enterprise And Democratic Reform Among the Soviets and in Eastern Europe”

- George Soros 60 Minutes Interview – 12/20/98 / Transcript:

KROFT: Are you religious?
Mr. SOROS: No.
KROFT: Do you believe in God?
Mr. SOROS: No.
KROFT: (Voiceover) Soros told us he believes God was created by man, not the other way around, which may be why he thinks he can smooth out the world’s imperfections.

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3 Year-Old Girl Accosted By TSA

A New Poster Boy for Greed & Arrogance

Students riot in London over raising university fees

Melissa Ohden: An Abortion Survivor

Hillary Clinton pledges $150 million to stimulate the economy?

– the Palestinian economy...

by Suzanne Presto

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced new funding to the Palestinian Authority and held talks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Wednesday, a day before her scheduled meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York.

"It is important that we do everything we can at a particularly sensitive time in the region to try to redouble our efforts to achieve a two-state solution [to Israeli-Palestinian tensions], to help stabilize the situation in Sudan, and to work to ensure that the people of Lebanon can have accountability in the search for justice," said Hillary Clinton.

Earlier, Clinton announced that the United States has transferred $150 million in new aid to the Palestinian Authority to help close its budget gap.

"This new funding will help the Palestinian Authority pay down its debt, continue to deliver services and security to its people, and keep the progress going," she said. "It will support our work together to expand Palestinians' access to schools, clinics and clean drinking water in both the West Bank and Gaza [Strip]."

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African Americans going back to their roots...ISLAM?

Job-Killing Environmentalists

How the EPA cripples the American economy

by Jon Basil Utley

President Barack Obama seems more concerned with appeasing environmental extremists in his administration than he is with the lost jobs of poor Americans. He’s letting the environmentalists run wild with long pent-up schemes to force a change in the American way of life that includes small cars, small apartments and, for many, a return to an idealized 19th century lifestyle. It’s not China that’s responsible for American job losses; it’s Washington’s fault for shutting down whole industries and preventing new jobs from being created.

What’s happened is that Obama has given the environmental extremists the power to make some of their wish list come true. Modern measurement techniques allow scientists to measure tiny parts per million; much of the technology did not exist when the Clean Air Act was first legislated in 1990. Using these new techniques environmentalists are able to impose their fantasies upon American business and labor. For industry, removing the last parts per million is prohibitively costly. For instance, technology which could have removed the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was prohibited by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because the discharged ocean water would still contain more than 15 parts per million of oil.

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School banned a student's American flag on his bike

A California school has done a U-turn after it forced a student to remove an American flag attached to his bike, saying the Stars and Stripes could spur racial tensions on campus.

Cody Alicea,13, had been flying the flag on the back of his bicycle for almost two months to show support for veterans like his grandfather, Robert Alicea.

But just in time for Veterans Day, school officials at Denair Middle School told Cody he would no longer be allowed to display the flag, citing complaints from other students.

Now, after a public outcry, the school has decided that the grand old flag can come back.

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*****UPDATE*****

Hundreds ride with boy to show support for his

U.S.-flag-decorated bike after school banned it

Hippies memorialize those who turned their backs on troops

Memorial Day is a special day in State College, Pa.

Each year, the town's hippies, like those college hippies around the country, recall the tradition of turning their backs on the nation's fighting men and women. It's a proud tradition.

"My great-great-grandfather castigated those who served in the Union Army during the Civil War," said Karlton Fletcher. "Calling them, Butchers of Atlanta, for seeking to enforce the imperial will of the Republican government on the southern states and their unique economic needs."

Domenick Banns, a protest veteran of Desert Storm, said most Americans fail to understand that their actions do support the troops.

"We do support the troops," said Banns. "It's just that we support the troops of countries and ideologies that are fighting American troops."

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Attack of the Food Police

Why the government has no business banning Happy Meals

by Steve Chapman

The government tells us what medicines we may take and what recreational substances we may ingest, but when it comes to food, we decide what goes down our gullets. Gun-owning barbecuers coexist peacefully with Humane Society vegans. To paraphrase the old adage, your freedom ends where my stomach begins.

But not everyone is keen on emancipated eating. Public health puritans, appalled at the spread of excess weight, think the government should forcefully guide our dining choices. And when it comes to policy, they are getting a place at the table.

Last week, the San Francisco board of supervisors voted to hose the Happy Meal. No longer would McDonald's (or any other restaurant) be allowed to provide a free toy with a meal that exceeds specified amounts of fat, sugar, and calories. If the folks at the Golden Arches want to offer a Batman action figure, it will have to be flanked by fruits and vegetables.

San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar said the Happy Meal ordinance addresses "a survival issue," and proclaimed, "We're part of a movement that is moving forward an agenda of food justice." Food justice?

Now, there are many places where the government ought to be: between a citizen and a mugger, between the polluter and the sky, between us all and al-Qaida. But the space between a diner's hand and a diner's mouth is not one of them.

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