Republican “Pledge to America” Fails National Security Test – The national security portion of the Republican “Pledge to America” (buried away on page 37 of the 45-page document) fails to address any of America’s immediate security challenges. Neither Al Qaeda nor Osama bin Laden even merits a mention in the Republican plan. House Republicans are also silent on how to deal with homegrown terrorists, rated as the biggest threat to the United States by Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group, the successor to the 9/11 Commission. And though they include a cliché commitment to “support our troops,” Republicans fail to provide any policies that would actually do so.
In contrast, since President Obama took office, the United States has stepped up its fight against terrorists, capturing or killing dozens of al Qaeda leaders and hundreds of al Qaeda extremists. Further, the Democratic Congress has strengthened America’s military by increasing pay for troops in the field, providing them more time between deployments and putting new and better weapons onto the battlefield.
U.S. Census Finds Record Gap Between Rich and Poor – The income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its widest amount on record. The top-earning 20 percent of Americans received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.
A different measure, the international Gini index, found U.S. income inequality at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. The U.S. also has the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations.
“Income inequality is rising, and if we took into account tax data, it would be even more,” said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in poverty. “More than other countries, we have a very unequal income distribution where compensation goes to the top in a winner-takes-all economy.”
Republican Congressmen Travel the World to Preach to Dictators Using Taxpayers’ Money – The oldest and most politically influential Christian conservative organization in Washington is known to the public, if at all, for one thing: adultery. In particular, that of three Republican politicians, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), and ex-Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.)—all caught last year in various states of moral undress, all linked to a Capitol Hill townhouse at 133 C Street SE, which the blogosphere promptly tagged “the Prayboy Mansion.” The organization behind the townhouse, which is used to provide subsidized housing for “brothers” in Congress, is known to outsiders as the Fellowship. But its leader, a quietly charismatic octogenarian named Doug Coe, calls it the Family.
The Family has also exported its philosophy overseas—by dispatching US politicians to recruit leaders abroad. Many of the “friends” targeted by these congressional missionaries are strongmen such as Omar al-Bashir, the president of oil-rich Sudan, who has been indicted for genocide in the International Criminal Court; and Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda. (The Family’s Ugandan friends also include David Bahati, the author of a murderous piece of legislation called the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which mandates the death penalty for some homosexual acts.)
What’s in it for the strongmen? Legitimacy, and a champion back in Washington. What’s in it for the US politicians? Jesus—and, sometimes, profits for themselves or the interests they favor. Many of them have had their expeditions underwritten by the Family. On other occasions, Coe’s political missionaries charge their travel to the government—putting not just the weight of their office, but the taxpayers’ money, behind an agenda, which according to one internal document, to create a “hidden structure” of “national and international world leaders.
Americans Don’t Know Much About Religion – A new survey of Americans’ knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics scored highest, with an average of 21 correct answers, while Jews and Mormons followed with about 20 accurate responses. Protestants overall averaged 16 correct answers, while Catholics followed with a score of about 15. Not surprisingly, those who said they attended worship at least once a week and considered religion important in their lives often performed better on the overall survey. However, level of education was the best predictor of religious knowledge.
The study also found that many Americans don’t understand constitutional restrictions on religion in public schools. While a majority know that public school teachers cannot lead classes in prayer, less than a quarter know that the U.S. Supreme Court has clearly stated that teachers can read from the Bible as an example of literature. “Many Americans think the constitutional restrictions on religion in public schools are tighter than they really are,” Pew researchers wrote.
Text Messaging Rip-Off – Outgoing 160-character text messages on a cell phone typically costs users 20 cents, while it only costs carriers three-tenths of a cent to process. That’s a 6,000% profit.
SMS (short message service) texts are limited to 160 characters because they, in effect, piggyback on a secondary data channel necessary to coordinate voice communications. Even if you’re paying 10 cents per text, that’s nothing to LOL about.
“Six hundred text messages contain less data than one minute of a phone call,” testified Consumers Union policy analyst Joel Kelsey at a hearing before Congress. If text data rates applied, he said, a brief cell conversation would cost customers $120.
Regards,
Jim
Andy Hailey