Gary Johnson for President Update: Budget, and our coming Financial Collapse

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From Eric Dondero:

Johnson discusses his recent trips to New Hampshire and Iowa. He praises the recent actions of US Senator Rand Paul. He also talks about Federal Reserve buying up our debt, and balancing the budget through spending cuts.

Johnson touches on entitlements:

"I would propose that the federal government give Medicare, Medicaid back to the States. Block grants to the States..."

Get an ‘F’ on your Entrance Exam; Become a Dayton City Police Officer

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AFFIRMATIVE ACTION MADNESS!!

From Eric Dondero:

From ABC News DaytonNewsSource.com "Civil Service Board Announces Police Recruit Scores":

The Dayton Police Department is lowering its testing standards for recruits.

It's a move required by the U.S. Department of Justice after it says not enough African-Americans passed the exam.

The D.O.J. has forced other police departments across the country to lower testing standards, citing once again that not enough black candidates were passing.

The Dayton Firefighter recruit exam is coming up this summer. The chief said it’s likely the passing score for that test will be lowered as well.Civil Service Board Announces Police Recruit Scores

Under the previous requirements, candidates had to get a 66% on part one of the exam and a 72% on part two.

The D.O.J. approved new scoring policy only requires potential police officers to get a 58% and a 63%. That's the equivalent of an ‘F’ and a ‘D’.

“It becomes a safety issue for the people of our community,” said Dayton Fraternal Order of Police President, Randy Beane. “It becomes a safety issue to have an incompetent officer next to you in a life and death situation."

Still unclear from media reports, whether the lower standard would apply to all applicants, or just African Americans?

H/t Weasel Z...

Surprise! Illinois "temporary" Tax Hikes now likely to be "Permanent"

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From Eric Dondero:

The massive increase in corporate and income taxes passed through the Democrat-controlled legislature in January, and signed into law by ultra-liberal/statist Dem Governor Pat Quinn, will now likely be permanent. They were sold to the public as a "temporary measure."

But Republicans in the State, the few that are in the Legislature, are fighting back.

From NewLennoxPatch.com "Illinois Income Tax Hike Will Be Permanent Without Deeper Cuts, Warns Sen. Christine Radogno":

Republican leaders will present a package of cuts this week designed to erase the $5 billion-dollar hole in the state budget and prevent a $22 billion-dollar deficit by 2016. Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno (R-Lemont), who represents a swath of southwest suburbs, said the governor's budget plan will also force the 67 percent tax hike to become a permanent one.

She said the Republican cuts will be presented this week. The governor's office expressed doubt the GOP could find that much to cut.

Japan’s Nuclear Problem After Tsunami

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Rolling blackouts are beginning this week in Japan after their devastating earthquake and tsunami. The energy situation there is dire as several of their nuclear plants have been shut down and two are having much more serious problems. A potential meltdown is an ongoing threat at the second reactor on Japan’s east coast. “Tokyo – A Japanese public broadcasting station reports three people randomly chosen from a hospital that’s located near the damaged nuclear power plant Fukushima Daiichi have tested positive for exposure to radiation. NHK World is reporting that the three patients, who were chosen from the ninety hospital patients awaiting airlift from a local high school, were exposed to radiation and will undergo decontamination. The remaining eighty-seven patients have not been tested for radioactivity. “The hospital is located in Futaba Town about 3 kilometers north of the Fukushima Number One Nuclear Power Plant. It is within 10 kilometers of the quake-damaged plant,” said NHK, citing a statement from Fukushima Prefecture. “They have not yet shown any reaction or physical signs of the radioactive exposure.” The designated evacuation area surrounding Fukushima Daiichi has been increased to 20 kilometers following today’s explosion at the Toyko Electric Power Plant. “Fukushima Prefecture [...]

Genetic Modification for More Fuel

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A genetically modified (GM) switchgrass that's easier to digest could give a big boost to ethanol production. The transgenic switchgrass produces less lignin, which serves to simplify processing, lower pretreatment costs, and increase biofuel output by 38%. Could this be a bonus for bio-ethanol prod

Can Aluminum Do the Work of Copper in Cars?

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Developers are looking at using aluminum for automotive wiring if creep-with-heat issues can be overcome with good design. You may remember the household fires caused by the use of aluminum wiring, so do you think it would be a practical idea for automotive design?

The preceding article is a "sneak

What Price Security?

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For the industrial security industry, Stuxnet — a computer worm that targets industrial control systems - has been a gift: users of programmable controllers have been warned that there may be viruses and worms lurking about on the Internet, and now they have a real case to point to. But just h

Pedestrian Alerts for EVs, Hybrids

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The new 2012 Infiniti M35h is claimed to be the first hybrid with a built-in pedestrian warning sounds system. It can't be turned off by the driver. On the other hand, electric vehicles usually include the option to turn warning sounds on and off. While it's safer for higher risk pedestrians like th

Letter Writer compares libertarianism to "Dog eat Dog" Naziism

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libertarian Tea Party takeover of GOP caused him to leave the Party

From Eric Dondero:

A rather absurd featured letter to the editor at The Daily Herald, Maury County, TN, (excerpted) March 10:

I am a Kentucky native, a former tobacco man... now a historian.

I am writing this letter to every tobacco market town where I worked, because nearly everyone that I met on the tobacco markets were good people, with a highly developed Christian sense of right and wrong and concern for their fellow human beings.

I am 52 years old, and for 33 of those years I was a Republican. I quit the party in disgust after the Tea Party hijacked it. Most thinking people who have analyzed it agree that the Tea Party is a bizarre mix of the fundamentalist Christian Right and Libertarianism. Christians’ support for the Tea Party is inexplicable; unless it is that they do not know what its core Libertarian values really are.

In a “free” Libertarian society, there would be no Social Security, no unemployment compensation, and no tax funded public schools. In short there would be no “welfare” of any kind; every individual, no matter what their age, disability or hard luck, would be left to fend for themselves.

Though masked with rhetoric that proclaims a commitment to personal freedom and individual responsibility, Libertarian socio-economic philosophy is vicious in concept, predicated on brutal dog-eat-dog Social Darwinism. It is morally indefensible.

If this seems chillingly familiar, it should: Rothbard merely reformulated the logic used by the Nazis to justify the killing by starvation of several thousand handicapped German children into Libertarian terms. Good people in Germany failed to see the Nazis’ true colors until it was too late. Many who supported the Nazis’ rise to power later claimed that they thought what Hitler said in Mein Kampf was merely rhetoric, and did not think that the Nazis really intended to put it into practice. Americans dare not make the same mistake with the Tea Party.

Ricky-Dale Calhoun,

Manhattan, Kan.

Workers Rally in Wisconsin

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There was a massive workers rally on Saturday, March 12th, in Madison, Wisconsin in response to the governor’s signing of a bill that takes away public workers’ rights to collective bargaining. Unfortunately, most media coverage ignored this important story until the following morning. Even then, not a lot of media coverage occurred due to the constant obsession with one or two topics that our corporate media continues to display — in this case, the tsunami in Japan. Sure, that is a massive news story, but it should not drown out all other news. The fear is that it will over take all other important news all week long and Americans will be even less informed than usual. More coverage should be granted to other news, such as the recent inhumane budget cuts at all levels, and the losing of the legal and civil rights of public workers in Wisconsin. As a result of the ‘government takeover’ of workers rights in Wisconsin, Saturday’s rally crowd in Madison was estimated to be about 100,000 or even more. The Wisconsin 14 state senators also returned to Wisconsin on Saturday and received a “hero’s welcome”. Here’s a video of the size of the crowd, [...]

Top Liberal website slams Michele Bachmann for historical mistake: Major typo in their report

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It's New Hampshire with a 'P'

From Eric Dondero:

Jeff Neumann, Editor of Gawker titles his article: "Michele Bachmann Doesn’t Know Much About History." But Neumann doesn't appear to know much about the correct spelling of one of the 50 States.

Jeff Neumann — No one has ever accused Tea Partiers of being especially bright, but Michele Bachmann blew it pretty hard today in New Hamshire. She was speaking to the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire when she got some important Revolutionary War facts wrong:

"What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty," the potential GOP presidential candidate said. "You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord. And you put a marker in the ground and paid with the blood of your ancestors the very first price that had to be paid to make this the most magnificent nation that has ever arisen in the annals of man in 5,000 years of recorded history."

Ironically, the Republican Liberty Caucus has received a great deal of major web media over this flap, on a number of top liberal sites.

Right Guy contributed to this report.