How to Avoid Poverty: Lessons for Our Youth. PASS IT ON TO THEM!

 The Relationship Between Individual Initiative and Poverty Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Ron Haskins testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, June 5: I want to emphasize the importance of individual initiative in reducing poverty and promoting economic success. Young people can virtually assure that they and their families will avoid poverty if they follow three elementary rules for success—complete at least a high school education, work full time, and wait until age 21 and get married before having a baby. Based on an analysis of Census data, people who followed all three of these rules had only a 2% chance of being in poverty and a 72% chance of joining the middle class (defined as above $55,000 in 2010). These numbers were almost precisely reversed for people who violated all three rules, elevating their chance of being poor to 77% and reducing their chance of making the middle class to 4%. Individual effort and good decisions about the big events in life are more important than government programs. Call it blaming the victim if you like, but decisions made by individuals are paramount in the fight to reduce poverty and increase opportunity in America. The nation's struggle to expand opportunity will continue to be an uphill battle if young people do not learn to make better decisions about their future. A version of this article appeared June 11, 2012, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Notable & Quotable.

What's Changed After Wisconsin The Obama administration suddenly looks like a house of cards. By PEGGY NOONAN What happened in Wisconsin signals a shift in political mood and assumption. Public employee unions were beaten back and defeated in a state with a long progressive tradition. The unions and their allies put everything they had into "one of their most aggressive grass-roots campaigns ever," as the Washington Post's Peter Whoriskey and Dan Balz reported in a day-after piece. Fifty thousand volunteers made phone calls and knocked on 1.4 million doors to get out the vote against Gov. Scott Walker. Mr. Walker's supporters, less deeply organized on the ground, had a considerable advantage in money. But organization and money aren't the headline. The shift in mood and assumption is. The vote was a blow to the power and prestige not only of the unions but of the blue-state budgetary model, which for two generations has been: Public-employee unions with their manpower, money and clout, get what they want. If you move against them, you will be crushed. Mr. Walker was not crushed. He was buoyed, winning by a solid seven points in a high-turnout race. Governors and local leaders will now have help in controlling budgets. Down the road there will be fewer contracts in which you work for, say, 23 years for a city, then retire with full salary and free health care for the rest of your life—paid for by taxpayers who cannot afford such plans for themselves, and who sometimes have no pension at all. The big meaning of Wisconsin is that a public injustice is in the process of being righted because a public mood is changing. Political professionals now lay down lines even before a story happens. They used to wait to do the honest, desperate, last-minute spin of yesteryear. Now it's strategized in advance, which makes things tidier but less raggedly fun. The line laid down by the Democrats weeks before the vote was that it's all about money: The Walker forces outspent the unions so they won, end of story. Money is important, as all but children know. But the line wasn't very flattering to Wisconsin's voters, implying that they were automatons drooling in front of the TV waiting to be told who to back. It was also demonstrably incorrect. Most voters, according to surveys, had made up their minds well before the heavy spending of the closing weeks. Mr. Walker didn't win because of his charm—he's not charming. It wasn't because he is compelling on the campaign trail—he's not, especially. Even his victory speech on that epic night was, except for its opening sentence—"First of all, I want to thank God for his abundant grace," which, amazingly enough, seemed to be wholly sincere—meandering, unable to name and put forward what had really happened. But on the big question—getting control of the budget by taking actions resisted by public unions—he was essentially right, and he won. By the way, the single most interesting number in the whole race was 28,785. That is how many dues-paying members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees were left in Wisconsin after Mr. Walker allowed them to choose whether union dues would be taken from their paychecks each week. Before that, Afscme had 62,218 dues-paying members in Wisconsin. There is a degree to which public union involvement is, simply, coerced. People wonder about the implications for the presidential election. They'll wonder for five months, and then they'll know. President Obama's problem now isn't what Wisconsin did, it's how he looks each day—careening around, always in flight, a superfluous figure. No one even looks to him for leadership now. He doesn't go to Wisconsin, where the fight is. He goes to Sarah Jessica Parker's place, where the money is. There is, now, a house-of-cards feel about this administration. It became apparent some weeks ago when the president talked on the stump—where else?—about an essay by a fellow who said spending growth is actually lower than that of previous presidents. This was startling to a lot of people, who looked into it and found the man had left out most spending from 2009, the first year of Mr. Obama's presidency. People sneered: The president was deliberately using a misleading argument to paint a false picture! But you know, why would he go out there waving an article that could immediately be debunked? Maybe because he thought it was true. That's more alarming, isn't it, the idea that he knows so little about the effects of his own economic program that he thinks he really is a low spender. For more than a month, his people have been laying down the line that America was just about to enter full economic recovery when the European meltdown stopped it. (I guess the slowdown in China didn't poll well.) You'll be hearing more of this—we almost had it, and then Spain, or Italy, messed everything up. What's bothersome is not that it's just a line, but that the White House sees its central economic contribution now as the making up of lines. Any president will, in a presidential election year, be political. But there is a startling sense with Mr. Obama that that's all he is now, that he and his people are all politics, all the time, undeviatingly, on every issue. He isn't even trying to lead, he's just trying to win.   Most ominously, there are the national-security leaks that are becoming a national scandal—the "avalanche of leaks," according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, that are somehow and for some reason coming out of the administration. A terrorist "kill list," reports of U.S. spies infiltrating Al Qaeda in Yemen, stories about Osama bin Laden's DNA and how America got it, and U.S. involvement in the Stuxnet computer virus, used against Iranian nuclear facilities. These leaks, say the California Democrat, put "American lives in jeopardy," put "our nation's security in jeopardy." This isn't the usual—this is something different. A special counsel may be appointed. And where is the president in all this? On his way to Anna Wintour's house. He's busy. He's running for president. But why? He could be president now if he wanted to be. It just all increasingly looks like a house of cards. Bill Clinton—that ol' hound dog, that gifted pol who truly loves politics, who always loved figuring out exactly where the people were and then going to exactly that spot and claiming it—Bill Clinton is showing all the signs of someone who is, let us say, essentially unimpressed by the incumbent. He defended Mitt Romney as a businessman—"a sterling record"—said he doesn't like personal attacks in politics, then fulsomely supported the president, and then said that the Bush tax cuts should be extended. His friends say he can't help himself, that he's getting old and a little more compulsively loquacious. Maybe. But maybe Bubba's looking at the president and seeing what far more than half of Washington sees: a man who is limited, who thinks himself clever, and who doesn't know that clever right now won't cut it. Because Bill Clinton loves politics, he hates losers. Maybe he just can't resist sticking it to them a little, when he gets a chance.

Terrorism and the Exceptional Individual By Scott Stewart | May 17, 2012 There has been a lot of chatter in intelligence and academic circles about al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri and his value to AQAP. The disclosure last week of a thwarted AQAP plot to attack U.S. airliners using an improved version of an "underwear bomb" used in the December 2009 attempted attack aboard a commercial airplane and the disclosure of the U.S. government's easing of the rules of engagement for unmanned aerial vehicle strikes in Yemen played into these discussions. People are debating how al-Asiri's death would affect the organization. A similar debate undoubtedly will erupt if AQAP leader Nasir al-Wahayshi is captured or killed. AQAP has claimed that al-Asiri trained others in bombmaking, and the claim makes sense. Furthermore, other AQAP members have received training in constructing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) while training and fighting in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. This means that al-Asiri is not the only person within the group who can construct an IED. However, he has demonstrated creativity and imagination. His devices consistently have been able to circumvent existing security measures, even if they have not always functioned as intended. We believe this ingenuity and imagination make al-Asiri not merely a bombmaker, but an exceptional bombmaker. Read More » Comments? Send them to responses@stratfor.com

GR8 Presentation on ANWR Oil Potential

  Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 11:03:23 AM Subject: From Alaska - ANWR     From Alaska ....        My daughter and son-in-law were in L. A. last week from their home in Anchorage . He is a foreman in the oil fields at ANWR. He has to fly his own plane to get to the job where he spends months at a time in the most God forsaken place this side of Siberia .  He confirmed everything that is in this story, and brought dozens of pictures for proof. Our environmentalist friends have forced gas prices up to an impossible rate, forcing us to buy oil from our enemies, for whatever reason that simply isn't true.  There is enough oil in ANWR to supply the US at our present rate of usage for more than 200 years. The space that ANWR occupies in Alaska is equivalent to a postage stamp in the Mojave Desert .  If you won't mind paying $5.00 a gallon in the very near future try to make sense of the following:  Something you should know: Oil!!  This is the best presentation on ANWR I have seen.  I would like to add a little more information. A new pipeline across  Alaska isn't required since the location for drilling in ANWR is about  160 miles from the North Slope Prudhoe Bay pipeline where it would  be connected. I did not know this.  Second the wildlife love the pipeline since it is heated and provides a  shelter during the worst times during the winter.  Maybe another question should be asked. FIRST do you know what  ANWR is? ANSWER: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.   Now a comparison    And some perspective  NOTE WHERE THE PROPOSED  DEVELOPMENT AREA IS (it's in the "ANWR Coastal Plain")      THIS IS WHAT THE DEMOCRATS,  LIBERALS AND "GREENS" SHOW YOU WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT ANWR  and they are right these ARE  photographs of ANWR         ISN'T ANWR BEAUTIFUL? WHY SHOULD WE DRILL HERE  AND DESTROY THIS BEAUTIFUL  PLACE?  WELL THAT'S NOT EXACTLY  THE TRUTH! Do you remember the map?  The map showed that the proposed drilling area is in the ANWR Coastal  Plain. Do those photographs look like a  coastal plain to you?     WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?  THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE  THAT IS NOT WHERE THEY ARE  WANTING TO DRILL!     THIS IS WHAT THE PROPOSED  EXPLORATION AREA ACTUALLY  LOOKS LIKE IN THE WINTER         AND THIS IS WHAT IT ACTUALLY  LOOKS LIKE IN THE SUMMER       HERE ARE A COUPLE SCREEN SHOTS FROM GOOGLE EARTH AS YOU CAN SEE, THE AREA  WHERE THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT  DRILLING IS A BARREN WASTELAND.   OH... AND THEY SAY THAT THEY  ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE EFFECT  ON THE LOCAL WILDLIFE?   HERE IS A PHOTO (SHOT DURING THE SUMMER) OF THE  "DEPLETED WILDLIFE" SITUATION CREATED BY DRILLING AROUND  PRUDHOE BAY*   DON'T YOU THINK THAT THE CARIBOU  REALLY HATE THAT DRILLING?  HERE'S THAT SAME SPOT DURING  THE WINTER.    HEY, THIS BEAR SEEMS TO REALLY  HATE THE PIPELINE NEAR  PRUDHOE BAY *The Prudhoe bay area accounts for 17% of U.S.  Domestic oil production NOW, WHY DO YOU THINK THAT  THE DEMOCRATS ARE  LYING ABOUT ANWR?   REMEMBER WHEN  AL GORE SAID THAT  THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD WORK TO  ARTIFICIALLY RAISE GAS PRICES  TO $5.00 A GALLON?   WELL AL GORE AND HIS FELLOW DEMOCRATS HAVE ALMOST  REACHED THEIR GOAL!   NOW THAT YOU KNOW THAT THE  DEMOCRATS HAVE BEEN LYING,  WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO  ABOUT IT?  YOU CAN START BY FORWARDING  THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW  SO THAT THEY WILL KNOW  THE TRUTH.          

BREAKING: NLRB "Ambush Election" Rule Blocked

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia just ruled that the NLRB lacked a valid 3-member quorum to adopt its "ambush election" rulemaking in December 2011. You can read the decision here: http://lrionline.com/?p=13350 Since Member Brian Hayes refused to participate in the actual vote on the rule, the Court ruled that this prevented the Board from achieving a valid quorum. While the new NLRB can re-vote the rule (although whether this Board constitutes a valid quorum is also under question in separate litigation), the District Court denies the Board's authority to operate under the new rules. Check out the post above for more analysis on what the decision means for employers. As always, we will keep you posted on developments. Phillip Wilson Labor Relations Institute 7850 South Elm Place - Suite E Broken Arrow, OK 74011 US

Congressional Dems Introduce Amendment To Make Self Defense Illegal   Better Buy All Of Your Ammo Soon! Congressional Dems Introduce Amendment To Make Self Defense Illegal Source: frontporchpolitics

Who Killed Bin Laden? Here's a Marine's Answer!   Who killed Bin Laden? Here's a Marine's answer. America is not at war, the US Military is at war; America is at the mall." Let's be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American sailor, who Obama, just a few weeks before, was debating on whether or not to PAY, did! In fact, if you remember a little less than two years ago, his administration actually charged and attempted to court-martial three Navy Seals from Seal Team Six, when a terrorist suspect they captured, complained they had punched him during the take-down and bloodied his nose. Obama's administration further commented how brutal they were. The left were calling them Nazi's and Baby Killers. Now all of a sudden, the very brave men they vilified are now heroes when they make his administration look good in the eyes of the public. Obama just happened to be the one in office when the CIA finally found the And our sailors took him out. Essentially, Obama only gave an answer, Yes or No, to him being taken out. This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory!! Ed Schreiber Col. US MC (Ret.) "Semper Fi" OBAMA'S OWN WORDS TRAP HIM: 2008: "Navy Seal Team 6 is Cheney's private assassination team." 2011: "I put together Seal Team 6 to take out Bin Laden." 2008: "Bin Laden is innocent until proven guilty, and must be captured alive and given a fair trial." 2011: "I authorized Seal Team 6 to kill Bin Laden." 2008: " Guantanamo is entirely unnecessary, and the detainees should not be interrogated." 2011: "Vital intelligence was obtained from Guantanamo detainees that led to our locating Bin Laden." I HOPE THIS GETS SENT AROUND TO PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT THE TRUTH! Remind the people who vote, time to throw out the trash is nearly here. Those who have had freedom and lost it will never see it again!"