Your One Minute News Digest

By Don Rae

• Local government has committed to spending millions on solar energy. The bureaucrats convince the gullible politicians that doing so will save money. It would do well for some good outside economists and CPAs to take a hard look at the fiscal realities of these contracts. The Washington Free Beacon reports that “American taxpayers spent an average of $39 billion a year over the past 5 years financing grants, subsidizing tax credits, guaranteeing loans, bailing out failed solar energy boondoggles and otherwise underwriting every idea under the sun to make solar energy cheaper and more popular. But none of it has worked.” The federal government, which has spent $150 billion in the last five years and the states subsidize the industry by offering tax breaks and 538 rebate programs. It isn’t working and the taxpayers are getting fleeced.

• Obama’s HB1 foreign worker program is adversely affecting American families in California. Computerworld has reported that “Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India. Some employees are training their H-1B visa holding replacements, and many have already lost their jobs.” The Labor Department states, “The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires that the hiring of a foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers comparably employed.” SCE will lay off around 400 and another 100 will voluntarily retire or resign.

• The UN has inadvertently admitted the truth. Investors Business Daily reports that at a recent press conference in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that “the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.” And Al Gore and Obama are in lockstep with the campaign to kill Capitalism and freedom.

• So much of our tax money goes to absolute unbelievable trash. A prime example is “What Is Love? Romance Fiction in the Digital Age,” the traveling exhibit to promote romance novels, paid for by a $914,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH).

• Howard Dean claims that if potential presidential candidates do not have a college degree they should not be considered as qualified for the job. Looking back at our nation’s history we find that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln did not have college degrees, among many other patriots. Considering the recent actions of the University of California student governments that voted to urge that UC end any investments in companies that aid in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank maybe it is a better idea to disqualify anyone who does have a college degree.

• The Sacramento Business Journal reports that State Senate leader Kevin de Leòn “plans to propose sweeping climate change legislation this week that would begin building a regulatory path for cutting vehicle gas consumption by up to 50 percent in California by 2030, according to people familiar with the plan.” When will these uneducated elected officials quit trying to destroy our lives?

• So much for freedom of religion and association. The owners of an Oregon bakery who would not make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding were found guilty of violating the state’s anti-discrimination law. The bakery owners said they were adhering to their Christian beliefs that marriage is between a man and a woman. The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries said the couple will have to pay up to $150,000 for violating the Oregon Equality Act.

• The Boy Scouts was chartered by Congress. The California State Supreme Court says judges cannot be leaders in the organization. However, the judges can belong to the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the NAACP, La Raza, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Alcoholics Anonymous, the Sierra Club, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the NRA, and even the North American Man/Boy Love Association. So much for judges upholding the Constitution’s freedom of association and freedom of speech.

• Covered California, the State’s shining implementer of Obamacare, sent out around 100K inaccurate tax forms to those who signed up for this insurance. Just another incidence of how bad Obamacare is and how untrained and illiterate bureaucrats can’t seem to get it right. Of course with a law “that we have to pass so we can find out what is in it” what else can you expect?

• Are you tired yet of hearing at the beginning of every beheading, stoning, shooting and immolation that only a tiny, infinitesimal percentage of Muslims are radicalized?