Bigger than President Obama

When four out of five citizens think their government is corrupt there is a big problem. When three out of five also think their government is incompetent the problem may be of historic proportions. The very fabric of a free society begins to come apart when so many people deeply distrust their own government. This is the opposite of the “we the people” model the Founding Fathers fought for and established. Newt Gingrich outlines THREE KEY STEPS BACK TOWARD COMPETENCE AND INTEGRITY.

Read more at Gingrich Productions Read More......

If they're dead, then who voted?

Francis J. DeGregory was a World War II Army veteran who served in the Battle of the Bulge. He died in 2008 and is interred at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.  Dara Welty was an aspiring opera singer and La Jolla native who died of a blood clot during a visit to Bolivia in 1998, at 22. Both went on to vote — repeatedly — in San Diego County elections, records show. They remain registered to vote to this day, DeGregory as a Republican and Welty as a Democrat.  Amid a national debate about whether states should pass new laws to curb voter fraud, U-T Watchdog found their cases in a review of county elections data.

Read more at the San Diego Union-Tribune
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

The Problem with a National Energy Policy

By Jim Huffman (Oregon)
At least since the 1973 Oil Embargo there have been calls for a national energy policy. Most proponents of such a policy envision guidelines for the future mix of energy sources, targets for energy conservation, standards for balancing energy production against competing social needs, and recognition of foreign policy considerations.

A 2004 Congressional Research Service report to Congress concluded that over the three decades since the embargo, Congress had periodically responded to instabilities in energy markets but had failed to develop a coherent national energy policy. Now, another decade later, Congress and the President are still urged to come up with of a national energy policy.

What would such a policy look like?

Read more at InsideSources Read More......

Insurer Drops New York Medicaid Coverage For 53,000 Over Unsustainable Losses

Blue Cross Blue Shield in New York is dropping out of the state’s Medicaid program due to serious financial losses, dropping 53,000 New Yorkers from coverage.  Medicaid managed care patients in Erie, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, Orleans, Wyoming and Allegany counties of New York will have until Oct. 31 to find new coverage. Blue Cross Blue Shield is one of the top Medicaid insurers in New York.

Read more at the Daily Caller Read More......

Fabricated compassion: Democrats abandon U.S. homeless, veterans and the hungry in rush to roll out red carpet for illegals

"We are all connected. We can't just build a wall or a fence and say no more. This is America. Our doors are open." These are the words of U.S. House of Representatives John Lewis, (1) one of many democrats who seem to be stampeding over each other to see who can offer the most enticements to accelerate the flood of illegal aliens sweeping across America's border.

Those enticements include not just free housing, free health care, free food and free legal representation, they now include the federal government purchasing a massive luxury resort to house illegal children, sporting luxury swimming pools, tennis courts, fitness centers and free wi-fi.

Read more at Natural News
(Hat tip: Kristie) Read More......

How Obama is Turning Liberalism Into an Instrument of Coercion

Liberals just aren't very liberal these days. The word "liberal" comes from the Latin word meaning freedom, and in the 19th century, liberals in this country and abroad stood for free speech, free exercise of religion, free markets, free trade -- for minimal state interference in people's lives.  In the 20th-century, New Dealers revised this definition by arguing that people had a right not only to free speech and freedom of religion but also, as Franklin Roosevelt said in his 1941 Four Freedoms speech, freedom from fear and from want.

Read more at Rasmussen Reports Read More......

Concha: Two Huge Int’l Crises Can’t Alter Busy Schedule of Fundraiser-in-Chief

Jon Stewart was exactly right during the open of his Monday show this week: The world really has gone mad.  Actually, Monday now looks in retrospect downright tranquil compared to what we’re seeing on our television sets and on our phones this afternoon. A commercial airliner with 295 people on board — including reportedly 23 Americans — are killed after a plane is shot down in Ukraine. Who exactly is responsible (pro-Russian separatists are suspected) has not been confirmed. More importantly, the State Department hasn’t confirmed any Americans were on the flight.  As if this wasn’t enough, a few hours later, reports of an Israeli ground offensive being launched in Gaza broke as well.

Read more at Mediaite Read More......

Evidence Mounts of a Manufactured Border Crisis

The situation at America’s southern border is a “manufactured crisis,” one perpetuated—if not started—by the Obama administration. After all, the administration put out an ad in January 2014 asking for contractors to handle an influx of 65,000 children. “The surge to 60,000 or so children seen this year was said to catch many off guard, especially since just 6,500 children entered the U.S. as early as 2011,” reported Pete Kasperowicz for The Blaze. “But [Republican Representative Jeff] Sessions [R-AL] said the advertisement showed that the administration knew the surge would happen.” And in reality, the 60,000 children represent only about 20 percent of the total illegal immigrants who have come into this country since April. ✧ In addition, a series of new revelations this week further demolish the administration’s narrative about whether or not this is, indeed, a manufactured crisis...

Read more at Accuracy in Media Read More......

The latest on the Bailey Branch Corridor Draft Management Strategy

Benton County released the Draft of its Bailey Branch Rail Corridor Management Strategy on July 2nd.  Public hearings were scheduled for July 8^th in Monroe and July 10^th in Corvallis to get public input on the proposed strategy.  The input they got from the public was surprising.

The Strategy itself contained five options for the future of the corridor:

1.         Railroad Only

2.         Develop Hiking/Biking Trails
3.         Maintain Current Condition and Uses
4.         Transfer (move) the Corridor Location
5.         Selling, Leasing and Granting Easements

The consensus, at least at the Corvallis meeting, turned out to be a combination of these.

Public testimony was pretty much evenly divided between cyclists, hikers and nature enthusiasts and homeowners and farmers located along the Corridor.  Many of the homeowners and farmers turned out to be in favor of Option 2, but only if it could be combined with Options 4 and 5.  Many of the Hiking/Biking community agreed for some very common sense reasons:

1.         Farming is a serious industrial operation using practices, methods, chemicals and animals to produce a product.

2.         Farming is one of the ten most dangerous occupations in America.
3.         At times, certain practices or methods can produce drifting dust or chemicals.  Even though they are non-toxic, they are not pleasant.
4.         A long, straight trail through farm country and through people’s back yards is not very scenic.

Some of the families along the Bailey Corridor have proposed purchasing the portions they are adjacent to and maintaining the right-of-way as an easement for possible return to rail use in the future.  That discussion led to a discussion of the County using the funds to widen Bellfountain Road and provide a safe, hiking/biking trail connecting the Corvallis To The Sea Trail to Alpine and the east-west Hull-Oaks section of the Bailey Branch.  Nearly everyone seemed to agree this might be the best strategy for the Bailey Branch.

Hopefully the Commissioners will agree.

Read More......

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson lifts veil on Establishment GOP's Stockholm Syndrome

In what was clearly intended to be a snarky, hip rebuke of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Tea Party supporters, and other limited government advocates, the Washington Post's domesticated, in-house “conservative” Michael Gerson inadvertently exposed his true colors. By so doing, he articulated the gaping divide in the Republican ranks.  After a string of juvenile insults of various leaders of the limited government movement, Gerson bottom lined it, approvingly quoting from a recent National Affairs piece by Phillip Wallach and Justus Myers:  Tea Partiers and other limited government advocates "seek to break with the past in a very different manner – repudiating 80 years of institutional development and reinventing American[sic] as a nation that rejects the substantive role for regulation or a social safety net.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner Read More......

GT: Teen says officer saved her from sex trafficking

July 06, 2014, By Josephine Woolington — EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Bailey Gates boarded a plane from Eugene to Portland — her first time flying — on July 27, 2013. ✧ She took another flight from Portland to Los Angeles, and one more from L.A. to New York City that day. ✧ The then-17-year-old remembers the trip clearly. ✧ She was headed for New York to meet a man who she had met online. She left Eugene early in the morning without telling her family. ✧ Her mother reported her missing hours after she left for the airport. Read more at the Corvallis Gazette-Times Read More......

Medical staff warned: Keep your mouths shut about illegal immigrants or face arrest

A government-contracted security force threatened to arrest doctors and nurses if they divulged any information about the contagion threat at a refugee camp housing illegal alien children at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, sources say.   In spite of the threat, several former camp workers broke their confidentiality agreements and shared exclusive details with me about the dangerous conditions at the camp.

Read more at Fox News
(Hat tip: KimR and Jane Newton) Read More......