‘Extortion’: Why Did the Labor Department ‘Drop the Hammer’ on Oregon Farmers?

Oregon farmers and state officials are furious with the U.S. Labor Department after federal authorities in July put a hold on thousands of dollars worth of blueberries, citing “widespread” record-keeping and minimum wage violations, Eric Mortenson reports for The Oregonian.

“[T]he department invoked a “hot goods” provision of labor law that prohibited shipment of the berries. Labor officials also notified wholesalers that berries from the farms would be subject to the order and should not be processed or shipped,” according to the report.

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UK doctors told to try and talk women giving birth out of having epidurals to save NHS money

Family doctors are being told to try to talk women out of having Caesareans and very strong painkillers during birth to save the NHS money.   New guidelines drawn up for GPs urge them to encourage women to have natural labours with as little medical help as possible.   But for many women the prospect of giving birth without the painkillers is unthinkable.   And critics have said the move has been made without any thought for the women themselves.   The guidelines also remind doctors to tell women to consider having their babies outside hospital in midwife-run units or in their own homes.

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Heritage/Morning Bell: How Obamacare Robs Medicare and Hurts Seniors

The rhetorical Medicare wars have heated up this week, after President Obama declared in his Saturday radio address that his proposed reforms "won't touch your guaranteed Medicare benefits. Not by a single dime." ✧ This is incorrect. Obamacare cuts $716 billion from Medicare over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and uses these "savings" from Medicare to fund other entitlement expansions mandated by Obamacare. Medicare becomes a cash cow for Obamacare, and the Medicare "savings" from payment cuts are not put back into making Medicare solvent. Such massive payment cuts do impact Medicare benefits, as well as seniors' access to those benefits. Read more at Heritage/Morning Bell... Read More......

Venezuela’s Amuay Refinery Explosion Shows Why Hugo Chavez's Socialism Is A Powder Keg

Energy: Oil is rising sharply from two disasters in the Caribbean region — one, a fierce storm, and the other a massive blast at the world's second-largest refinery in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Only one was perfectly preventable.

When the strongman cracked the whip on Venezuela's oil industry in 2003, firing 20,000 experienced oil managers from state-owned Petroleo de Venezuela (PDVSA) to break a strike he admitted he had provoked, he insisted that merit didn't matter anymore, only political loyalty. "There will be no more meritocracy," he told his cheering red-shirts.

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New documents reveal Obama administration ‘cooking the books’ to achieve record deportation numbers

Internal documents obtained by the House Judiciary Committee show that the Obama administration has been “cooking the books” in order to reach their “record” number of deported illegal immigrants, chairman Rep. Lamar Smith said Friday.  Based on the internal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) document,s the number of removals are actually down, the opposite of what the administration has been claiming.  According to the committee’s review, in 2011 officials at the Department of Homeland Security began including the number of individuals removed through the Alien Transfer Exit Program (ATEP) in its annual removal numbers. ATEP is a program which moves apprehended illegal immigrants to another point along the border.

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Sowell: A Powerful Movie

Thomas Sowell - "Dinesh D'Souza's 2016 is must viewing."
[Excerpt:] This D'Souza attributes to Barack Obama's great talents in rhetoric, and his ability to project an image that resonates with most Americans, however much that image may differ from, or even flatly contradict, the reality of Obama's own ideological view of the world.  ✧ What is that ideological view?  ✧ The Third World, or anti-colonial, view is that the rich nations have gotten rich by taking wealth from the poor nations. It is part of a much larger vision, in which the rich in general have gotten rich by taking from the poor, whether in their own country or elsewhere.  ✧ Whatever its factual weaknesses, it is an emotionally powerful vision... Read more at The American Spectator...

2016 is playing Friday, August 24th at Carmike 12 Theater, 750 NE Cirlce Boulevard in Corvallis. Showtimes are: 1:00 | 3:20 | 5:40 | 8:00 Read More......

George F. Will: The sky, apparently, continues to fall

 Sometimes the news is that something was not newsworthy. The United Nations’ Rio+20 conference — 50,000 participants from 188 nations — occurred in June, without consequences. A generation has passed since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, which begat other conferences and protocols (e.g., Kyoto). And, by now, apocalypse fatigue — boredom from being repeatedly told the end is nigh. Read more at the Columbus Dispatch...

(Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) Read More......

You didn’t build that: Obama says wealthy are ‘lucky,’ ‘blessed,’ ‘fortunate’

One month to the day after his infamous ‘you didn’t build that’ speech, President Obama’s description of wealthy people did not include “smart” or “hardworking,” as he instead ascribed their success to good luck.

“If you’re lucky enough, and fortunate enough, and been blessed enough to be in the other two percent, the top two percent, you still get a tax cut for your first $250,000 of income,” Obama said during a campaign stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa. “All we’re saying is after that, maybe you can do a little bit more to help pay down this deficit and invest in things like education that help our economy grow.”

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WSJ: UN Ends Arms Trade Treaty Talks Without Deal

[Excerpts]  Talks at the United Nations over a potential treaty limiting the illicit flow of weapons ended last week without a deal. [...] For the deal to be struck, all 193 U.N. nations had to agree on the text of the agreement. The New York Times reported that the U.S. faced internal pressure from gun-rights groups to walk away from the talks.  Read more at the Wall Street Journal Blog by Samuel Rubenfeld...

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