Tom Robertshaw – Page 15

Little Sisters of the Poor Say “Yes” to the Court

The above title is from an article in the WSJ by Loraine Maguire. The Little Sisters are in court to protest offering abortion benefits to their employees. The Supreme Court asked the Order if there was a way to provide these benefits outside of the health plan of the Order. The Order said yes.

Wow, a solution that both sides can accept. Those who want the benefits can get them, the sisters don’t have to include them in their plan. But wait? The government, meaning the Obama administration, said NO WAY! In other words, you must fall in line with us or we will absolutely punish you. You must think like us, or else!

This is the epitome of arrogance and abuse of power. No wonder Congress is deadlocked. The job of a leader is to bring opposing sides together, not actively separate them. That is called totalitarianism, fascism, etc. I have the power, I will force you to fall in line even if there is a compromising solution available.

Pope Francis took time out of his trip to the U.S. to visit the facility of the Little Sisters of the Poor to commend their work. Maybe the Justice Department will take the hint?

Lord Acton, “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” 1887. Let’s not let absolute power happen. We are trending in that direction.

5/17/2016

The Supreme court has sent the case back down to the lower court, http://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/supreme-court-sends-birth-control-case-back-lower-courts?utm_name=newsletters&utm_source=rollcallnewsalerts&utm_medium=email.

According to the article, it appears that both sides are willing to reach an agreement. The LIttle Sisters won’t be fined, the government will accept a change in its’ position. I spoke too soon, sense has prevailed?

Sanders Proposes Raising CO2 Levels!

That’s right! Bernie Sanders, who says Global Warming (Oops, I mean climate change, since warming isn’t) is the largest global threat (he agrees with President Obama) is proposing to INCREASE the United States CO2 emissions!

Our emissions of CO2 have been falling as a percent of GNP for a couple of decades, and in actual tons for the last ten years, https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/usinventoryreport.html. China and India continue to rise and the former is the largest emitter now. The recent Paris accords allows them to continue to increase a couple of decades into our globe’s future.

Yet, Bernie wants to reverse the trend of reducing U.S. emissions! No you say! Tell me it isn’t true! How can that be! Bernie is my buddy! Well, Bernie is a science non believer, wait, science is the basis for progressive thinking I thought! Only when convenient.

Bernie wants to ban fracking. Fracking produces natural gas, a much cleaner source of electricity and industrial heating. Fracking has NEVER been associated with water table pollution, after many studies. Fracking does however involve roads where there are none today, and does involve drilling mud that has to be taken care of. But again, no long term affects.

Bernie also wants to eliminate nuclear. He has proposed as president he will not renew any licenses. Nuclear has ZERO emissions to produce electricity. Roughly a third of our emissions come from electricity. Think of that, no emissions for all our electricity. We can send our coal to China and India since they are allowed to use it. Maybe in twenty years we will figure out a way to burn coal cleanly, since we have the worlds’ second largest reserves of the stuff (http://www.worldenergy.org/data/resources/resource/coal/). France produces most of their electricity from nuclear, even they think it is a good idea. A new technology, molten salt reactors (fuelhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor), is now being put into a test reactor that will use the fuel currently stored at our nuclear facilities as its’ fuel. Instead only using 5% of the fuel and storing the other 95% for 10,000 years as we currently do, this new technology will use almost all of that stored fuel requiring a “short” 100 years or so of storage. Maybe Harry Reid will have passed on by then and the many billion dollar site we have paid for can be utilized for that short period.

Well, science loses again to fuzzy headed populist politicians.

Settled Science, Huh?

“Curt Schilling the Science Guy” is the title of an editorial by William McGurn in a recent WSJ. He said that “a man is a man no matter what they call themselves” in response to bathroom hoopla. He has been chastised by ESPN and the “nattering nabobs..”

The article goes on to say the progressive movement loves to use science when convenient. Climate change (no longer global warming, since it isn’t) is science based. Your gender isn’t anymore.

A fetus isn’t a person according to progressive science, yet people have been convicted of double murder when they kill a pregnant woman (was she a real woman, or a man who…). When a progressive woman is pregnant they talk about their new baby while in utero, shouldn’t they wait until “it” really is a person? HRC was recently criticized for saying a fetus is an unborn PERSON, heaven forbid.

Those who don’t feel science can predict our global temperature accurately, or the amount of affect man has on that temperature are now possibly in violation of the LAW, can be criminals, put in jail–Galileo must be exited to have people possibly joining him! Proposing that a different scientific view is illegal proves the adage, “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton, 1887).

Wisdom is keeping an open mind. Is The American Mind Closing?

Israel, to support or not support, that is the question.

Israel. A nation created in 1947 by the winning allies of WW2. A “homeland” for the Jewish faith. Prior to this date “Zionists” had been moving into the area from various parts of the world as the Jews were ex-pulsed (Spain 1492), persecuted (Europe for hundreds of years), slaughtered (Germany, Russia), objects of prejudice (U.S., R.O.W.), etc. Theodor Henzi is credited with formalizing the “Zionist” movement in the late 19th century.

A democratic nation, with 80% of the population of the Jewish faith, elections are hotly contested. The parliament flows between very conservative views to more liberal, peace with their Arab neighbors an elusive goal.

They have been attacked militarily numerous times, almost losing a couple of times. They continue to be attacked politically in the “United” (what a misnomer) “Nations” by Arab states and ankle biters, and increasingly in Europe by various groups. Antisemitism (another misnomer, Arabs are Semites also) is on the rise again.

Our current president has gone out of his way to weaken our relationship, maybe with good intent to improve our relationship with Arabic nations but with amazingly horrible results.

Israel’s foes are mostly totalitarian monarchies, many are theocracies that reject individual liberties, especially freedom of religion.

Has Israel done things that we should criticize, certainly. Settlements, guerrilla warfare, killing of innocents (Hotel David in 1946), etc.

But, should we as a country stand beside Israel? My view is most assuredly. If a country refuses to acknowledge our right to exist, to publicly say we should all be killed because of what we choose to believe would we rise up and resist, absolutely.

We must not be seen as supporting those who refuse to acknowledge the right for Israel to exist and call for its’ destruction. By not vehemently opposing such a view in public, and by not imposing consequences on those who say such things, we leave Israel in the wind.

We knew about the death camps and did not act. We knew about the genocide in Rwanda and did not act. Until Pearl Harbor “America First” was the majority opinion. The KKK had millions of members at one time. Leaders are called upon to remind citizens of our moral compass. We currently lack such a leader.

The Staggering Cost of Regulation

The above title is from an “Investors Business Daily” article. The Mercatus Center of George Mason University studied the cost of regulations, and put a price tag on them. In our country they cost $4 TRILLION. That cost is larger than the ENTIRE ECONOMIES of Germany, France, the U.K., Brazil, Italy…..

So what? We need regulations to protect lots of things. This is true, we shouldn’t be dumping cancerous chemicals into rivers, we should be protecting workers, we should be….. The problem is balance.

Income inequality is growing. Globalization has in fact brought much wealth to our country, it also brings challenges to a nation that has enjoyed a relatively blessed economic period since WW2. We must toughen up to compete, which we can do.

Businesses all over the world look at the practical, what can I do to compete, what must I do to compete. The “would like to” falls to the end of the line after “what I must do.”

We must evaluate the costs of regulations in the same light. What must we do is be sure those costs are reasonable so that our citizens have a chance to compete, internally and externally.

Progressive policies many times highlight needed reform. But the most progressive policy is to be sure the cost is bearable so the vast majority can find a job and have the pride of working so to raise a family.

Balance.

Raise Tax Rates, Reduce Tax Revenue!

How many times do we have to go through this? When France elected their new prime minister he raised taxes on the rich to olden days, 75% on millionaires. Tax revenue went down.

New York raised taxes on cigarettes from $2.75 a pack to $4.35, tax revenue dropped $80 million a year. Reagan lowered tax rates and revenue went up.

The Bern wants to raise taxes on the “rich”, what will be the results, lower tax revenue. If you agree with Joe Biden that paying taxes is patriotic, (I agree) then I guess then the over 50% of people in the United States who pay NO INCOME TAX are not patriotic.

The data is more than clear. We need reasonable, and globally competitive tax rates. Our governments need to live withing that revenue so not to have Greek levels of debt.

This is so simple, I guess that is why it won’t happen.

Jobs, The Key to Reducing the GINI Index

Income inequality is a hot topic. Presidential candidates go on about it. Studies are published. Programs (great, another program) are proposed. Being such a hot topic means nothing really meaningful will be done, I have little confidence in our government.

First, the wealth index, meaning the net worth of individuals, has become more even since the 1920’s. Wealth was much more concentrated then than now, home ownership-401K’s, IRA’s, savings, etc.

Income disparity has increased, rising close to its’ highs of the early 20th century; and the U.S. is higher than most of the OCED members. So what to do?

Jobs. Create more jobs.

Jobs. The U.S. has been slipping down the scale over the last couple of decades in the ranking of places easiest to business in. Regulations being the biggest cause, business taxes the next, higher government support when out of work, higher minimum wages, and so on. Sooooo, fix those problems, Duhhhhh! Our labor force participation is at all time lows, people have stopped looking for work. Smaller companies create the new jobs, not the big companies.

Educate our folks, old and young to compete in the global marketplace.

Education. Pay teachers on whether their students improve knowledge and skills. Reduce top heavy bureaucracies. Ensure kids have supportive parents. Stop talking about college for everyone-we need high skill tradespeople w ho on average make more than college graduates.

This is an easy problem, but both sides are unwilling to compromise to change the direction of our policies.

Tenure, Past Its’ Time?

At the beginning of the 20th century teacher tenure took hold in our country, with a noble thought. Teachers should be able to discuss controversial subjects and not be subject to firing for talking about such things. Today 2.3 million secondary teachers have tenure, most college professors do also.

The news is riddled with stories of teachers who speak out against something, say same sex marriage, and are suspended, or fired for having the political-or religious belief (John McAdams, Marquette University). So tenure really isn’t fulfilling its’ role. So maybe we should do away with it.

Great ideas to right a wrong usually go this way, unions are good example. A great idea to start with, protect workers from abuse. Then they get big and abuse their power. With the overwhelming tendency of teachers to support progressive political views it makes sense that they would want tenure to continue, they don’t want to be held accountable for producing outputs that benefit society.

Tenure has outlived its’ purpose, teachers should be held accountable for improving the knowledge and skills of students. The vast majority of them will do just fine when it goes away, probably get paid more also. Let the market come to education, no one deserves a job for life.

All Lives Matter

Any killing of another human is reprehensible. Why is it that the killing of a person of color is seen as different. No wait, it is different only if the person of color was killed by a person of not the same color.

According to a study by Heather McDonald (Thomas W. Smith Fellow; Manhattan Institute) released in April of 2016 the data shows the overwhelming violent deaths of black Americans are the hands of people of a similar race. Of the 987 civilians killed by police, 50% were white, 25% were black. Our problem isn’t the very low percentage of police who shouldn’t be police, but the lack of leadership and efforts in the black community to root out violence. Come on Reverend Al, step up and talk about this!

Over the last two decades murder rates have dropped precipitously across the country, NYC by 85%. Community based policing, Compstat, Stop and Frisk, etc. has worked. In NYC, if the old crime rates were still happening, 10,000 more black males would be dead. Yet, there is protest about the police!

If you ask the residents of areas plagued by violent crime they want the protection they deserve, yet, what we see on TV is protests, chants about burning pigs, looting, etc. The facts don’t matter.

The “Ferguson Effect” is a fact, and murder rates are rising.

When police department is acting in a discriminatory fashion, there are ways to fix it other than violence. Leadership is the key. When the mayor tells the police to pull away and not arrest looters, not a good deal.

Can we focus on the data please.