By Americans for Prosperity
Instead of honestly examining all cost drivers and taking the necessary steps to lower costs for businesses and taxpayers, the Obama administration has instead simply worked with insurance companies to extend corporate welfare to protect them.
On top of the billions in subsidies and the mandate that Americans buy insurance, the health care law includes several transitional programs intended to help insurers meet their bottom lines during implementation. These companies are currently struggling too, so they are lobbying members of Congress to extend these programs and expand their scope. Increasingly, insurers are threatening to abandon the Obamacare exchanges while they receive more handouts on top of the billions of dollars they’ve received to date. Click here to read the full oped by AFP Director of Federal Affairs and Strategic Initiatives Chrissy Harbin in the Morning Consult.
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Have you not checked out the detailed list of findings in the WikiLeaks DNC email data dump yet? What are you waiting for? If you're like me, you'd rather go through the source emails by yourself and make your own determination as to their intent and content. May I suggest you start by searching emails that determine to appoint Clinton fundraisers to political positions? If you're not like me and just want to be spoon-fed an artistic mix of facts and agenda, feel free to check out the trending Twitter hashtag #DNCLeaks. Don't forget Rule #1 though, never read the internet comments... It turns out that the proposed political appointments provide more evidence that the DNC favored Clinton over her former primary challenger, Bernie Sanders. Most of the donors listed on the spreadsheet have given to Clinton’s campaign. None gave to Sanders. “Boards and Commissions” spreadsheet contained in DNC records. (Redactions added by The Daily Caller)
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I Won’t Be a ‘Servile Puppy Dog’ for Trump
Ted Cruz won't endorse Trump! Is it funny or sad when the right claims that Bernie is a 'sellout' but can't applaud Ted Cruz when he sticks by his principles? It's interesting that because he has principles he is now labeled as 'self righteous' and 'politically suicidal'. Yeah we get it, you want everyone to unify the party so you can beat the bad guys (gals)... But isn't that kinda the problem with the two-party system? You search up a bunch of bad stuff to say about each other and you speak fervently about how the other is unfit to lead. But when you're expected to fall in line at the convention it sure makes the public's view of politicians seem fake and disingenuous. Cruz gave up on any chance he had for getting a cabinet position because he's got principles. The only ones who are angry right now are the hardcore Trumpers because they have their feelings hurt this morning.
Cruz struck a chord this morning when he spoke to the TX delegates this morning.
"How many people here are frustrated by politicians who will say anything?" "It's the politically easy option to stand up and pledge your allegiance to the party nomination." "How many of you would like to see more leaders stand up to John Boehner?" Full response is here: Check out more from LibertyLOL:We wrote earlier this week concerning the banning/throttling of conservative ideas on Facebook, specifically the Being Libertarian page. We noted that as a private company, FB owns it's own servers and can ban speech it doesn't politically agree with. We concluded that as free-market believers, while no law has been broken, we should seek to expose this as much as possible so others are knowledgeable and can boycott or stop using the product if necessary. Well, it's happening again, this time with Twitter banning Conservative LGBT advocate, Milo Yiannopoulos. The context: The contretemps has been brewing all week, as Milo engaged in a barbed to and fro with embattled Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones over her Twitter feud with trolls who hated her new movie. At one point the CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey intervened himself, asking Jones to direct message him. Milo himself said nothing racist, though he joked that Jones’ grammatically challenged quips at him were “barely literate”, said America needs better schools and referred to Jones facetiously as “a black dude”. Milo has been suspended from Twitter before and also lost his verification tag. Will tonight’s suspension really be permanent? Earlier today Milo said he was not sorry for his dialogue with Jones. “No, of course, I don’t have any regrets,” Milo told Heat Street. “But feminists on the other hand should have regrets that they have taught strong women that they are victims and attacked people for having different opinions to them on Twitter.” We'll see how this ends, however, it should be noted that Ms. Jones isn't exactly the perfect angel on Twitter.
The Social Justice Lovin' NYT covers the behavior by noting:
For years, one of the main grievances among Twitter users has been the ability of anonymous trolls to send abusive comments to other people on the service. But on Tuesday, Twitter barred one of the most egregious and consistent offenders of its terms of service, Milo Yiannopoulos, in an attempt to show that it is cracking down on abuse. The NYT emotionally tear-jerking story ends with some contrived sympathy towards Ms. Jones and sets her up as a victim: On Monday evening, Ms. Jones quit using Twitter with a final message of exasperation after days of near-nonstop abuse. “I leave Twitter tonight with tears and a very sad heart,” Ms. Jones tweeted. “All this cause I did a movie.” On Monday evening, Ms. Jones quit using Twitter with a final message of exasperation after days of near-nonstop abuse. “I leave Twitter tonight with tears and a very sad heart,” Ms. Jones tweeted. “All this cause I did a movie.” We're still waiting for our ban. It's really our only goal at this point.
Associates Degree utilizing FREE MOOC Structure - An Open Letter to the Secretary of Education
To all of my friends who have already begun dividing themselves from their family and friends due to politicians, please allow me to provide clarification regarding Obama's Free Associates program. And heck, even a solution.
First, this idea was never supposed to pass. His intent was never to give you free college. If that was the President's intent, he'd have done it when he had control of both sides of congress. No, he proposed this because he knows that the Republicans will oppose it. And he hopes this forces the youth vote to go to the Democrats in 2016 (It didn't). If for some reason the Rs don't take the bait and a version of the idea passes, he wins because he's once again increased the size of government in our lives and created more wealth spreading. ACTUAL SOLUTION: If Obama actually wanted to give a free education he'd have a professional educator within the Dept of Education (assuming there is one) develop an Associates of Arts and Associates of Science curriculum completely consisting of ALREADY FREE courses that you can take online. People completing the curriculum are awarded an Obama Associates Degree. It took me about 45 minutes yesterday to find 60 hours of English, math, history, arts, physical science and elective courses taught by Ivy League schools such as MIT, George Washington Univ, Harvard, Univ Texas, Rice, Stanford, Brown... For more info on these free courses start at www.coursera.org, www.mooc-list.com, www.edx.org, www.oeconsortium.org, heck even iTunes U! If you're a politician and actual education of the population is your goal, there's no excuse. Do it now. These courses are online with little to no overhead. Don't let politicians sweet talk you into stealing money from all in order to send more people toward an ever-decreasingly valuable college degree! Here is my open letter to the Secretary of Education: Honorable Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, According to College Board, since 1990 college tuition and fees have ballooned nearly 160% (after adjusting for inflation) and have doubled yet again since 2007, amassing more than $1 trillion in debt [1] [2]. The average college graduate now completes a Bachelor’s Degree encumbered with $26,000 in student debt. Additionally, U.S. is experiencing a swelling of student loan defaults, wage garnishments, credit score impairments and higher fees associated with failure to repay loans. Higher costs are the culmination of three primary conditions. Firstly, the recent economic downturn has squeezed funding to colleges creating budget shortfalls. These shortfalls have been mitigated by shifting the burden onto the students, thus resulting in tuition rates increasing at 8% per year and doubling every nine! [3] Figure’s 1-4 reveal the decrease in federal funding during post-recessionary years compared with the increases in tuition costs. Figure 5 reveals how recessionary pressures force governments to reduce their spending and increasingly shift the burden to students.
Furthermore, colleges have experienced the ‘Third-Party Payer Problem’ where users of a service aren’t directly paying the bills. Since guaranteed federal student loans and grants are not capped at logical rates, but instead, based on any price set by universities, the institutions have little incentive to cut costs or curb excessive spending. Aware that students will just borrow more, colleges solve budgetary issues by increasing tuition perpetually. Demonstrating a similar abuse is the example where a university was incentivized to pay homeless individuals a small $2,000 stipend in order to receive a guaranteed $20,000 from government coffers.
Finally, the higher education sector suffers from ‘administrative bloat’. As budgets expanded in prosperous times, universities invested in greater infrastructure and expansive services to attract new students. Equally, the pace of associated administrators and non-professorial staff has exponentially outpaced actual educators, and in some cases, educators having actually diminished. This administrative expansion creates greater bureaucratic complexity and requires more funding spent on wages, benefits and pensions. [6] President Obama outlined a plan in his 2016 Budget to provide matching federal grants to states that waive the cost of tuition for students seeking an Associate’s Degree. This renewed national focus on the increased cost of postsecondary education and associated political will to curb costs has created an environment ripe for policy change. A Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) is a model seeking to augment educational institutions by using simple widespread-technology such as smartphones. These courses consist of lectures that have been prerecorded for convenient offline viewing along with forum discussions, assignments and quizzes taking place online. There are currently over 4,000 courses from hundreds of prestigious universities (even University of Dayton!) that offer free MOOC classes. In 2013, the University of Maryland was among the first wave of schools to begin accepting these transferrable credits toward a degree. With companies like Udacity and StraighterLine already producing accredited courses, high scalability has been proven as costs of course development are quickly returned by iterating the courseware to class sizes of upwards to 225,000 registrants. [7]
DOE has the unique ability to solve this issue. This policy recommendation simply advances that DOE reprogram a small cadre of educators with the mission of aggregating and accrediting the full spectrum of free and near-free courses which comprise a standard Associate of Arts/Science degree. Students are then provided variety of which ENGL 1302 or which HIST 1301 they enroll in and therefore bypass the monopolistic relationship that befalls a student enrolling in a traditional university. Additionally, free-market principles would force universities and course providers to keep costs low while also demanding greater innovation in delivery and content. At a time when more students than ever must maintain full-time employment while attending school, this added flexibility is exceedingly valuable.
Costs associated with this policy would be offset by federal Pell Grant savings not being paid out during the student’s first two educational years. Pell money was initially created to ensure poorer citizens had equal opportunity to afford higher education, however it has ballooned into much, much more. The Congressional Pell expansion of 2007 “expanded eligibility and funding for the program, which resulted in a doubling of the number of Pell recipients since 2008.”[8] Consequently, Pell spending now eclipses $33 billion amongst all undergraduates, easily the largest share of DOE’s budget. Significant savings can be achieved when two of a student’s four-to-five years of undergraduate education require no subsidization at all. Shifting Pell funding from mandatory to discretionary would furthermore allow greater Congressional oversight on a year-to-year basis. We are currently in a unique “education pre-bubble” phase where decisive action can provide the flexibility the higher education industry and its budgets need. Millions of Americans can complete their Associate's Degree without the ill redistributive effects of taxes, subsidies or increased bureaucracies. "Get the equivalent of a Ph.D. in libertarian thought and free-market economics online for just 24 cents a day."
References
1. Donna M. Desrochers and Rita Kirshstein, “Labor Intensive or Labor Expensive? Changing Staffing and Compensation Patterns in Higher Education,” Delta Cost Project, February 2014. 2. Judah Bellin, “Tuition Will Keep Increasing as Long as Washington Bases Loans on College Costs,” Washington Examiner, August 23, 2013. 3. Naked Law, “Eight Reasons College Tuition is the Next Bubble to Burst,” National Center for Policy Analysis, June 08, 2010. 4. Phil Oliff, Vincent Palacios, Ingrid Johnson and Michael Leachman, “Recent Deep State Higher Education Cuts May Harm Students and the Economy for Years to Come,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, March 19, 2013. 5. Jon Marcus, “New Analysis shows Problematic Boom in Higher Ed Administrators,” New England Center for Investigative Reporting, February 6, 2014. 6. Anne Ryman, “GOLDWATER INSTITUTE: Nation’s Universities Suffer from Administrative Bloat,” The Arizona Republic, August 17, 2010. 7. Kathryn Pandes, “Online Course Advances Understanding of Retirement Planning and Pension Policy,” Stanford Graduate School of Business, February 3, 2014. 8. Lindsey Burke, “4 Key Reforms That Could Make Colleges More Affordable,” The Heritage Foundation, September 15, 2014. 9. Angelica Gonzalez, Courtney O’Sullivan, “Why is College so Expensive?” National Center for Policy Analysis, No. 726, September 30, 2010.
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Please share this story to help our friends at Being Libertarian get their page back. They’ve worked arduously to build a loyal following of more than 90,000 fans who enjoy their daily content, and would appreciate if you could give them a helping hand.
Liberty Hangout reports that Facebook has shut down "Being Libertarian" a FB page with over 90,000 followers due to the following post:
Liberty Hangout reports:
"Being Libertarian has reached out to Facebook in hopes of receiving a media inquiry about the deletion of their page. After Facebook was recently caught tailoring their news towards liberal sources, it was believed that their relationship with non-liberals would improve. But this week’s turn of events indicate that things aren’t getting any better. We know that conservatives are being censored by Facebook, but the censorship of libertarians is even worse."
One thing that separates us from the Neanderthals is that we follow principles. The principle of Free Markey Economics tells us that while banning BEING LIBERTARIAN is quite outrageous, FB is the private property of Mark Zuckerberg and he can do with it what he wishes. A key theme of free market capitalism is that we have the ability to not use a product or support a company that acts in a way we don't agree with. Unfortunately, with FB, we're not rushing to reactivate our Myspace pages any time soon. I'd recommend sharing this article, sharing other articles that are reporting the same, and getting the word out as much as possible. It's important as we lead up to prime election season that , at the minimum, the politically illiterate are at least tapped into the fact that FB might not always be the most 'fair and balanced' place to start their research. Also, neither is Fox News...
Our politicians have no shame and they will tell us whatever we want to hear. The latest in the long list of lies was Hillary’s speech today in Illinois. During the speech, Hillary chastised Trump as a man who would never respect the separation of powers.
Don't get whiplash but Hillary Clinton said the following words: Of course now that she's won the Democratic nominee process against the ultra-left, self-described socialist Bernie Sanders, there's really no reason to position herself as a progressive. Usually a candidate will wait and slowly pivot to a new position. Maybe this new speech will appeal to those who don't follow politics but for the rest of us, it's quite laughable. No, we won't be reconsidering the Hillary ticket anytime soon... Transcript of her speech: Read more on Breitbart here: Hillary: Trump Has ‘Shown Contempt for And Ignorance of Our Constitution’ The long-classified pages detailing alleged ties of the Saudi Arabian government to the 9/11 hijackers has been released by Congress today. Unfortunately, many of the redactions are less than satisfying. Before you dive into the report, it is important to take note that Saudi Arabia is now championing this release (with redactions) while just a few months ago, they said they'd sell off our bonds if we released them. "FINDING: While in the Unites States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connect to the Saudi government. There is information, primarily from FBI sources, that t least two of those individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers. The Joint Inquiry's review confirmed that the Intelligence Community also has information, much of which has yet to be independently verified, indicating that individuals associated with the Saudi government in the United States may have other ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups." Here is the 28 pages to include the Joint Inquiry's executive summary. It can also be downloaded here. The following document is redacted to protect the guilty: As some of the redactions are necessary to prevent disclosure of CIA and FBI personnel's identity, many of the redactions fly in the face of those who expected transparency by the Joint Inquiry's release. It doesn't help that the report does unveil that quite a bit of suspicion should fall onto the Saudi government. The heavily redacted document provides information to fuel the Saudi-linked speculation but allows for just enough unknown evidence that it is almost worthless. Write your congressman/woman and demand full transparency. The United States shouldn't continue to be allied with a country that freely operates within our borders as the document infers but doesn't prove (as redacted). White House stance: This document “does not change the assessment of the U.S. government that there’s no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded Al Qaeda,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on Friday, quoting the commission’s finding word for word.
Jason Stapleton over at JasonStapleton.com released his long-awaited Recommended Reading List on the 4th of July. It spans fiction and non-fiction and covers libertarian philosophy, economy and culture as well.
Check out the episode below (57minutes):
THE LIST:
Liberty The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto by Matt Kibbe American Contempt for Libertyby Walter E. Williams Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifestoby Mark R. Levin Real Dissent: A Libertarian Sets Fire to the Index Card of Allowable Opinion by Thomas E. Woods Economics Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economicsby Henry Hazlitt Basic Economics 5th Editionby Thomas Sowell Culture Battlefield America: The War On The American Peopleby John W. Whitehead Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington by Sharyl Attkisson Fiction The Count of Monte Cristoby Alexandre Dumas père Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand The Richest Man in Babylonby George S. Clason Nero Wolfe (or anything) by Rex Stout Psychology and Markets The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violenceby Gavin de Becker The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisionsby Dan Ariely Influence: The Psychology of Persuasionby Robert B. Cialdini The 48 Laws of Power by Greene, Robert The cliffnotes version "Summary, Key Takeaways & Analysis "is free with kindleunlimited. Business Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flatby Michael Masterson How to Get Rich: One of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets by Felix Dennis Trading Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre One Good Trade: Inside the Highly Competitive World of Proprietary Tradingby Mike Bellafiore Market Wizards, Updated: Interviews With Top Tradersby Jack D. Schwager Biographies Andrew Carnegieby David Nasaw Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.by Ron Chernow The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbiltby T.J. Stiles Anything by Joseph J Ellis specifically: Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation His Excellency: George Washington The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789 Many of these titles can be downloaded FOR FREE with Amazon KindleUnlimited: More from LibertyLOL: |
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