China’s Worst Self-Inflicted Environmental Disaster


Benghazi Drama – Here Are the Facts Without The Politics

With all of the claims of scandal surrounding the Benghazi attacks of 2012 it is easy to lose sight of the actual facts of the case.

While our political leaders are focused on finger-pointing and enthralled in the blame game, any lessons learned from the incident are quickly being forgotten or even worse not even being brought to light.

Our political leaders need to be less concerned about saving face and more concerned about saving Americans. If our political leaders cannot understand the difference, then it is our duty as Americans to oust those politicians and replace them with those who are in touch with reality. It is time to look past the politics and start putting Americans first.

When news broke of the Benghazi attacks, a flurry of information began to be reported by the media. Some of it was speculation; while some of it was corroborated by the U.S. government.

Then, there was information that was speculated AND corroborated by the government. One such example is the idea that the attack was spontaneous and erupted out of demonstrations protesting the film “Innocence of Muslims”.

However, later evidence supported the idea that the attack was planned. This misinformation has been seen by some as a deliberate attempt by the current administration “cover-up” a terrorist attack.

Two weeks after the attacks, U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Georgia, stated:

“I do not understand the continuance of the president to look the other way and not admit the fact that this was obviously a terrorist attack.” (1)

 

E-mails and Talking Points

Read it all at Top Secret Writers.

###

liberal logic and life and art

###

What psychiatry’s new diagnostic manual means for people on the autism spectrum.

The autism community is a fractious bunch. We argue over the causes of autism, the best treatments, or even if it should be treated at all. But we do share a common anxiety: the DSM-5. This latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, released by the American Psychiatric Association this month, officially eliminates many familiar autism spectrum diagnoses. Asperger’s syndrome (typically applied to those with no intellectual disability or language deficit); pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified (generally given to higher-functioning individuals who may not meet all the criteria for autism); and childhood disintegrative disorder (attached to kids who develop typically and then experience severe regression after the age of 3) are now incorporated into the single diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. This anxiety ranges from a mild concern on the part of some parents to angry protest: More than 8,000 people signed an online petition circulated by the Global and Regional Asperger’s Syndrome Partnership; another petition sponsored by Asperger’s Association of New England received 5,400 signatures.

The logic behind the changes seems sound. “There wasn’t any evidence after 17 years that [the DSM-IV diagnoses] reflected reality,” says Bryan King, director of Seattle Children’s Autism Center, who served on the APA task force charged with revamping the diagnosis. “There was no consistency in the way Asperger’s or PDD-NOS was applied.” In fact, a 2011 study by Catherine Lord (another member of the task force) and more than 35 colleagues reported, “In these 12 university-based sites, with research clinicians selected for their expertise in ASD and trained in using standardized instruments, there was great variation in how best-estimate clinical diagnoses within the autism spectrum (i.e., autistic disorder, PDD-NOS, Asperger’s disorder) were assigned to individual children.” In other words, the diagnoses children received depended largely on where they were diagnosed.

Yet those diagnoses had serious implications. Certain states provide services for children diagnosed with autism but not for those diagnosed with Asperger’s. “It was difficult to get kids with Asperger’s services because their deficits can be subtle, so they were left on their own to some degree,” says Matthew Siegel, director of the Developmental Disorders Program at Spring Harbor Hospital in Maine. And it’s not just those with Asperger’s who have been shortchanged by the current system, says Stewart Newman, who treats kids from all parts of the spectrum at Mind Matters PC in Oregon. He has spent many hours advocating for his patients with educators who had “a lack of clarity about what the diagnosis of PDD-NOS in particular meant, and how the children should be characterized for special services.” Newman says the DSM-5 criteria “will create a common language we can use when we talk with school systems, parents, and other doctors, and it will mean the same thing for everyone, which will be really helpful.”

But outside the psychiatric field, many people defend the current diagnostic distinctions. Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Center at Cambridge University, wrote in a 2009 editorial in the New York Times that Asperger’s may be a biologically distinct syndrome; his team identified 14 genes that might be associated with the condition. A 2012 study of more than 540 Australian health and education professionals found that 93 percent thought there was a real difference between autism and Asperger’s. Just over half of the respondents were opposed to the consolidation of the diagnoses, while less than a quarter supported it.

And the parents I spoke to all felt that the old system worked just fine. There is real mistrust on the part of some, who suspect the new criteria were designed to exclude higher-functioning kids from a diagnosis and thereby deny them services. “There are those of us who see this as a blowback to the increased awareness generated by advocates,” says Mark Olson, the father of an autistic daughter and the founder of LTO Ventures, a Nevada-based nonprofit that develops residential communities for autistic adults. Tom Hibben, father of a 10-year-old boy with Asperger’s and author of the Adventures in Asperger’s blog, agrees: “It really seems to us like they’re changing the guidelines to affect the prevalence rate.”

Read more HERE.

###

no shooting allowed

###

Oxfam claims $18.47 trillion held in ‘tax havens’ as EU leaders meet to discuss solutions

UK-linked tax havens are the biggest G8 culprits

People using tax havens are depriving the world of more than $150 billion (£100bn) in lost revenue, enough money to end extreme poverty twice over, according to new figures published today by Oxfam. 

A high proportion of this tax dodging is taking place on David Cameron and George Osborne’s watch. Of the $18.47 trillion (ÂŁ12tn) that Oxfam estimates is being held by individuals in tax havens around the globe, over a third – $7.18 trillion (ÂŁ4.7tn) – is sitting in accounts in British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. Despite the fact a deal was done earlier this month to get some of these tax havens to be more transparent and share tax information, and David Cameron’s letter to Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies this week, there is no tax deal on the table that will benefit poor countries who are struggling to reclaim the billions of pounds they are owed.

The international agency said it is a moral outrage and a scandal that this is taking desperately needed cash from poor countries as well as from citizens who are being hit by austerity measures closer to home.

Emma Seery, Oxfam’s Head of Development Finance and Public Services, said: “These figures put the UK at the centre of a global tax system that is a colossal betrayal of people here and in the poorest countries who are struggling to get by, and put the government on the side of the privileged few. If they want to get on the right side of this debate, now is the time to take action.
“Britain’s credibility is on the line; talking tough on tax, whilst continuing to usher a third of the world’s wealth into UK tax havens, risks making a mockery of David Cameron’s leadership at the G8 Summit in June.”

Today in Brussels, David Cameron will attend an EU Summit where European Heads of State and Government will turn their attention to the unfair global tax system. The EU also needs to take serious action because two thirds of offshore wealth – $12.29 trillion (over ÂŁ8 trn) – is sitting untaxed in European linked tax havens (including those linked to the UK). Oxfam is calling for a blacklist of tax havens, and agreement that EU member states will impose countermeasures sanctions against tax havens and those using them. The EU looks set to fail on this simple task.

Read it all HERE>

###

octupus stress

###

New PTSD drug may allow vets to reprogram traumatic memories

Researchers claim to have found a promising new therapy in the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the syndrome affecting thousands of U.S. military veterans. According to Wired magazine, the Pentagon has authorized $11 million in funding for trials of the drug D-Cycloserine (DCS), which appears to help wipe away the fear associated with traumatic memories.

The new funding is going to three of the top PTSD research centers in the country: Emory University, the University of Southern California and New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Doctors at the three research hubs will combine exposure therapy, an established treatment for PTSD, with doses of DCS, which is administered just prior to the exposure session, and seems to mitigate the fear and upset attached to violent, traumatic memories.

Dr. Barbara Rothbaum, the leader of the Emory team, told Wired, “We already know that exposure therapy is an effective [therapy] for PTSD, and we want to figure out how to optimize it. I really think that this study will move beyond the theoretical. We can rescue people.”

Read it all HERE.

###

why are we not moving

###

NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo: “Shame On Us” If We Elect Anthony Weiner


IRS rarely denies ‘social welfare’ applications

Michelle Obama once dated inspector general at the center of IRS investigation into anti-tea party political favoritism

###

What to say if you are audited by the IRS.

irs audit 4

###

A Keynesian Victory, but Austerity Stands Firm

To go by the statements of most mainstream economists, one would be forgiven for believing this is the best of times for Keynesian economics.

Fans of John Maynard Keynes, the renowned early 20th-century economist who developed the theory on how nations could dig themselves out of an economic downturn, have been running victory laps since the collapse last month of the claim by the Harvard economists Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff that economies tend to slow significantly after government debt reaches 90 percent of gross domestic product.

Then, as if on cue, the number-crunchers in Brussels announced last week that the economy of the euro area countries — which have been following a decidedly non-Keynesian path — shrank yet again at the beginning of the year. It was the region’s sixth quarterly contraction in a row.

The confluence of events provided further evidence of Keynes’s central proposition: when consumers and businesses set out to reduce their debt burden, and private spending and investment stall, it is the government’s job to borrow, spend and pick up the slack.

Read it all HERE.

###

Gun porn….

gun porn 5231

Elke Sommer and a Thompson.

DHS (Department of Homeland Security) to have Dictatorial Powers!

(NaturalNews) There has been a lot of rhetoric on both sides of the issue regarding the current “immigration reform bill” that the Senate has taken up, but one thing you likely haven’t heard about at all is the scope and breadth of power the massive 850-page-plus measure contains. Simply put, if it becomes law, it will give the Department of Homeland Security near-dictatorial powers.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, has entered a letter into the congressional record from law enforcement personnel around the country who are warning S.744, officially titled the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act,” would grant sweeping, discretionary powers to “political appointees” – bureaucrats – while stripping law enforcement of authority.

‘Virtually unlimited discretion’

The letter, from the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council of the American Federal of Government Employees Affiliated with AFL-CIO, states:

Congress can and must take decisive steps to limit the discretion of political appointees and empower ICE and CBP to perform their respective missions and enforce the laws enacted by Congress. Rather than limiting the power of those political appointees within DHS, S. 744 provides them with nearly unlimited discretion, which will serve only to further cripple the law enforcement missions of these agencies.

The members warn that the bill conveys to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano “virtually unlimited discretion to waiver” prohibitions on getting legal status, such as previous deportations or criminal activity:

This same section (Section 2101 of S. 744) gives the Secretary of Homeland Security virtually unlimited discretion to waive any manner of crimes that would otherwise make an individual ineligible for legal status – for such expansive reasons as family unity, humanitarian purposes, or what the Secretary believes is in the public interest.

Read it all at Natural News.

###

vote against those who reward illegal aliens

###

The last time we checked in on 3-D printing, it was being used to make print-at-home handguns. Now the hot technology is being adapted for a more benign purpose: making pizza.

NASA has awarded a $125,000 grant to a Texas company to build a food synthesizer that can mix food and print it out in layers using a 3-D printer. One of the easiest foods to print this way is pizza, because it can be created and cooked in layers.

The potential for this technology is far-reaching. NASA is interested because it could be a way to feed astronauts who spend decades in space. But the company behind the technology, Systems & Materials Research Corp., has more ambitious ideas. If this works, an engineer at the company told Quartz, every kitchen might have a 3-D printer creating meals from a base of powders.

Here’s how it works: The printer takes its ingredients from attached canisters of powdered food and oils. It combines those ingredients in a mixing chamber and uses the 3-D printer to shape the food.

With a pizza, the dough is mixed from powders and printed as the first layer. It gets cooked as it is printed, according to Quartz. Then a layer of tomato sauce is mixed and added. And so on.

We’re not talking gourmet food here. But as the world’s population grows and food becomes scarcer, perhaps a plan to mix powders into something edible isn’t so crazy.

“I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently,” the engineer behind the technology told Quartz. “So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food.”

From HERE>

###

american escalators

###

TPM:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Wednesday defended his objection to initiating House-Senate budget negotiations unless Democrats take a debt limit increase off the table, saying he doesn’t trust his party to hold the line.

“The senior senator from Arizona urged this body to trust the Republicans. Let me be clear, I don’t trust the Republicans,” Cruz said. “And I don’t trust the Democrats.”

On Tuesday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) scolded Republicans for blocking negotiations. He was backed by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).

“Unfortunately,” Cruz said, “one of the reasons we got into this mess is because a lot of Republicans were complicit in this spending spree and that’s why so many Americans are disgusted with both sides of this house. 
 And every Republican who stands against holding the line here is really saying, let’s give the Democrats a blank check to borrow any money they want with no reforms, no leadership to fix the problem.”

###

benghazi talking points

###

Who is Judy Faulkner? Chances are, you don’t know her — but her politically connected, taxpayer-subsidized electronic medical records company may very well know you. Top Obama donor and billionaire Faulkner is founder and CEO of Epic Systems, which will soon store almost half of all Americans’ health information.

If the crony odor and the potential for abuse that this “epic” arrangement poses don’t chill your bones, you ain’t paying attention.

As I first noted last year before the IRS witch hunts and DOJ journalist snooping scandals broke out, Obama’s federal electronic medical records (EMR) mandate is government malpractice at work. The stimulus law provided a whopping $19 billion in “incentives” (read: subsidies) to force hospitals and medical professionals into converting from paper to electronic record-keeping systems. Penalties kick in next year for any provider who fails to comply with the one-size-fits-all edict.

Obamacare bureaucrats claimed the government’s EMR mandate would save money and modernize health care. As of December 2012, $4 billion had already gone out to 82,535 professionals and 1,474 hospitals; a total of $6 billion will be doled out by 2016. What have taxpayers and health care consumers received in return from this boondoggle? After hyping the alleged benefits for nearly a decade, the RAND Corporation finally admitted in January that its cost-savings predictions of $81 billion a year — used repeatedly to support the Obama EMR mandate — were, um, grossly overstated.

Among many factors, the researchers blamed “lack of interoperability” of records systems for the failure to bring down costs. And that is a funny thing, because it brings us right back to Faulkner and her well-connected company. You see, Epic Systems — the dominant EMR giant in America — is notorious for its lack of interoperability. Faulkner’s closed-end system represents antiquated, hard drive-dependent software firms that refuse to share data with doctors and hospitals using alternative platforms. Health IT analyst John Moore of Chilmark Research, echoing many industry observers, wrote in April that Epic “will ultimately hinder health care organizations’ ability to rapidly innovate.”

MORE

###

The IRS knew one year ago they “inappropriately” targeted conservatives but hid that information until after the election

###

blind eye irs

Even though 132 membersof Congress sent former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman letters about the IRS targeting of conservative groups, Shulman reiterated Wednesday that he did not have the full story until the inspector general’s report came out.

“In the two years that this targeting was taking place, did any member of Congress contact you? Write you? About this particular subject? Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan asked during a House Oversight hearing. “Did you get letters from Congress?”

“Yes,” Shulman replied.

Read it all HERE.

###

Government Execs up for Millions in Bonuses; Samsung and LG Dump Millions into Faulty Tech

Meet the Government’s Cash Cows: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (YahooFinance)

In last three months, Fannie Mae’s share price has gone up more than 400%. According to James Fenker, a long-time investor, “This year, Fannie and Freddie Mac are likely to post combined net income of over $100 billion — more than both Exxon (XOM) and Apple (AAPL).” And shares of the twin government cash cows? Well, should both government-owned agencies return to pre-2008 highs, preferred shares would probably rise another five-fold and junior-preferred, eight-fold. It is not a bad payday, if you can get it. Unfortunately, you can’t. All profits derived by the company are paid directly into the Fed. In light of the government bailing out both troubled lending entities, it seems fitting that taxpayers get a little of the money back, even if it goes to directly to debt-ridden Uncle Sam.

What Sequester Pain? Government Execs up for Millions in Bonuses (Business Journal)

Unless the law is changed quickly (not a specialty of the government), members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) will remain eligible to receive millions of dollars in bonuses during the federal government’s sequester when many of their lower-ranking colleagues face furloughs. While the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) ordered a freeze on most bonuses for federal workers during sequestration, current law provides an exemption for members of the SES, who are among the most highly-paid government employees. Legislation by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Ok.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) would close the exemption loophole to ensure both non-SES federal employees and SES employees are treated equally and do not receive bonuses during sequestration. From 2008-2011, this group of senior government executives received more around $340 million in bonuses, on top of salaries ranging from $119,000-$179,000. The three senators expressed outrage at the practice and are trying to gather support among other lawmakers to enact a change swiftly. Taxpayers likely would agree with the trio, so let’s watch if other lawmakers become backers.

MORE

###

Hypocrisy Runs Deep in the Oval Office

NYT: U.S. Formally Admits Killing 4 Americans In Drone Strikes

What better example of Obama’s profound hypocrisy than how he had sought to provide apprehended terrorists detained at Guantanamo with constitutional rights, even as he now summarily executes American citizens abroad.

Did a scumbag like Anwar al-Awlaki need killing? Obviously, the answer is a resounding yes. Despite any American citizenship, terrorists like al-Awlaki clearly meet the definitions of treason. Yet, to identify anything remotely connected with Islam—even so reprehensible a character as al-Awlaki—as being treasonous would openly equate Muslims with sedition and betrayal. That, of course, would utterly contradict Obama’s Herculean efforts to portray Islam as the happy clappy Religion of Peace. [spit]

So, it’s better to just quietly go about killing Americans with overseas drone strikes while adamantly refusing to name the real enemy. But don’t think for one minute that devoutly anti-American scum being detained at Gitmo shouldn’t be given every last constitutional protection and benefit of the doubt.

There is an old Confucian maxim:

“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”

If there is one thing that Obama obstinately denies Americans, it is the rightful naming of Islam as the undying enemy of liberty and freedom. This continues to go on, even though he has sought to mantle our nation’s dire enemies with constitutional protections like habeas corpus. Yet, when it comes to something so disturbing as our government’s summary execution of American citizens abroad the sole response is, “Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.”

###

The IRS scandal means House Republicans can defund Obamacare for good.

The IRS scandal provides Republicans and conservatives with the opportunity to repeal and replace Obamacare now. The House Republican majority should refuse to fund the expansion of the IRS necessary to manage Obamacare. Without that funding, and hiring thousands of additional agents, the IRS cannot even begin to manage Obamacare.

President Obama may throw a fit. He may refuse to sign funding bills to keep the federal government open. No matter. Let him close his government down if he wants. Nobody wants the IRS playing political games with their health care and health records, like it did with the constitutional rights to freedom of speech and Equal Protection of Tea Party and conservative organizations. Contribute to the Republican Party? Attend a Tea Party protest? Good luck getting your Obamacare health insurance tax credit application approved. Good luck finding a doctor the government will pay to do that operation your kid needs.

Obama can flail away all he wants. The public will now back the Republicans in this fight, just as it did in the sequester battle. But won’t the public feel that the Republicans would be irresponsible to just refuse to fund Obamacare, leaving the health system in chaos?

That is why the Republicans need to back up their IRS Obamacare chokehold with legislation proposing free market, Patient Power health care reforms to replace Obamacare. (A comprehensive, free-market health reform plan to replace Obamacare has already been proposed by John Goodman and myself in our NCPA paper, “Health Care for All Without the Affordable Care Act.”)

Going for the Jugular of Obamacare
President Obama sold Obamacare to the 40% of the nation that supports it on the grounds that it would provide universal health insurance. But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scores the legislation as still leaving 30 million uninsured 10 years after full implementation.

It will be much worse than even that, however. In fact, for the reasons I explain below, it is quite possible there will be more people uninsured after Obamacare goes into effect than before. That is the exposed jugular of Obamacare. Those who’ve been supporting it have done so because they believe in universal health care. If Obamacare is going to make the problem worse rather than better, for all of its costs, then public support for replacing it with a better plan will explode. As I will also explain, the free market, Patient Power plan that Republicans should now advance would assure universal health care for all, with no individual mandate, and no employer mandate, at a cost savings of at least $2 trillion over the next 10 years, as compared to current law.

MORE

###

“A pen in the hand of this president is far more dangerous than a gun in the hands of 200 million law-abiding citizens.”

Camille Sanchez
Toluca

 link

###

the three stooges

 

Support IowaDawg

Something to always keeps in mind on my blog, any and all links I put into the posts, DO CLICK ON THEM AND GO TO THE BLOG/SITE the article/story/graphic came from and read them! Support them as I do.
And pass on your favorite posts of mine using one or more of the social services (like twitter, facebook, google, etc) found at the end of each post.


Thank you!

Buy A Book

Click HERE for other things we like. Plus our Books For Patriots store. Many thanks for your purchases from Amazon.

Best Selling E-Readers

Follow Me