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Information from some sites may not be reliable, or may not be vetted.
Some sources may require subscription.
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from BBC News (UK)
The largest shipment of US brigades since the fall of the Soviet Union is arriving in northern Germany. The first of the 87 tanks and 144 military vehicles were being unloaded in the port of Bremerhaven on Friday. The equipment and 3,500 US troops are to be deployed along Nato's eastern frontier. The deployment aims to allay worries of potential Russian aggression in eastern Europe.
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from CNN
The election of Donald Trump is a stinging reversal of the identity politics that academics believed had become a permanent and proper feature of the United States. It is one reason he won. He should direct that plank straight at the sphere in which identity-sensitivity has been indulged and amplified into the quite illiberal persuasion that it now is.
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from CNSNews.com (& MRC & NewsBusters)
Record 95,102,000 Americans Not in Labor Force; Number Grew 18% Since Obama Took Office in 2009
The government collects payroll taxes from Americans who work, and some of that money is spent on government programs that support people who do not work.
President Barack Obama said Friday that he would publicly support GOP efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare – and encourage Democrats to support it - if their plan is better. “I am saying to every Republican right now: if you in fact can put a plan together that is demonstrably better than what Obamacare is doing, I will publicly support repealing Obamacare and replacing it with your plan, but I want to see it first.”
Slavery was one of the worst periods in the history of the United States of America. That is why Michigan Democrat Rep. John Conyers, along with the Congressional Black Caucus, are pushing for Congress to set up a commission to decide whether black people in this country should receive reparations and an apology from the U.S. government.
Lexington, Kentucky's Fayette County School District Superintendent Manny Caulk has caved in to pressure from a local resident’s social justice warrior petition and has decided to change Frederick Douglass High School’s newly anointed mascot, the Stallion.
A new report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute reveals the abortion industry’s practice of collecting millions in fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements for improperly billed procedures and even abortion services, including more than $12 million in payments made to abortion giant Planned Parenthood.
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from Competitive Enterprise Institute
As of the first of this year, Utah joined the ranks of 32 states where Amazon collects sales tax. The e-commerce giant has a physical presence in some of those states, but the others, including Utah, are ignoring the 1992 Supreme Court decision that exempts wholly out-of-state businesses from collecting taxes for states they merely sell into.
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from Conservative Tribune
[Information from this site may not be reliable.]
BREAKING: Trump Presidency Becomes Official as Congress Certifies Electoral College Vote
Yesterday, the House certified the Electoral College vote, officially making Trump the President-elect. This is usually just a mere formality, but of course, this vote didn’t pass without more protests and histrionics from the left. It finally prompted Joe Biden to tell the wailing liberals, “It is over.”
BREAKING: Trump Presidency Becomes Official as Congress Certifies Electoral College Vote
Yesterday, the House certified the Electoral College vote, officially making Trump the President-elect. This is usually just a mere formality, but of course, this vote didn’t pass without more protests and histrionics from the left. It finally prompted Joe Biden to tell the wailing liberals, “It is over.”
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from Defense News
High-resolution imagery released on Thursday confirms what Moscow-watchers and intelligence analysts have known since March of last year: the deployment of Russian nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in Syria.
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U.N. Shipping “Non Emergency” Refugees to America
The United Nations has sent the majority of transplanted refugees, mostly Syrian, to the United States and only a small group are in actual need of “emergency” protection.
Congressman Removes Painting That Depicts Cops As Pigs
A portrait hanging in the U.S. Capital that depicts police officers as pigs made one Republican congressman so mad that he took it down and returned it to the congressman who allowed it to be displayed. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-CA, and a few of his colleagues unscrewed the portrait from the wall and personally delivered it to the office of Rep. Lacy Clay, D-Mo., the congressman who had it hung there in June.
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from EUobserver
Austria proposes to offshore EU asylum
Austria is seeking to create a new set of EU asylum rules that would offshore applications and impose entry caps for each EU state.
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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)
[Information from this site may not be reliable.]
Which Is More Accurate, Say’s Law or Keynes’s Law?
Your intuition is wrong. Eeconomies grow not because consumers demand more and are willing to go into debt, but largely because of a willingness of entrepreneurs and businesses to save and invest in new products and technologies – the supply side of the economy. Students almost always get this wrong, until it is explained
How Jesus Exorcized Ancient Collectivism
A counter-cultural force has emerged in history that produces counter-stories that are slowly eroding our dominant collectivist notions of the world. These stories leave their fingerprints on our social norms and desires regardless of our awareness of them and regardless of how collectivist groups fraudulently misappropriate them for their own violent campaigns. These stories are good news for all misfits, indeed, all persons looking for the courage to reject the lie of the crowd that is collectivism. I call it the personhood revolution and its founder is Jesus of Nazareth.
Overpaid Bureaucrats Literally Distort the Entire Economy
Excessive pay for bureaucrats forces private employers to increase pay as well, but in ways that aren’t sustainable based on underlying levels of productivity.
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Our current political problems are rooted in the long and messy history of what makes politics, well, politics. The diversity of American life is an opportunity that presents more danger, and requires more courage, than what we like to admit.
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from Fox News (& affiliates)
By passing legislation repealing ObamaCare through budget reconciliation, lawmakers have an opportunity to remove nearly 20 taxes which will save taxpayers more than one trillion dollars over the next decade. Repealing these taxes is a huge win for middle class taxpayers, who were hit with an avalanche of tax increases despite Barack Obama’s “firm pledge” not to sign “any form of tax increase” on any American making less than $250,000. The trillion dollars in higher taxes have restricted health care choice, increased costs, made saving more difficult, and granted government more control over care at the expense of individual control.
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from The Heritage Foundation
New Legislation Could Open Up Health Care Options After an Obamacare Repeal
Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., has introduced a bill in the House that, if passed, will allow individuals to decide how they want their health care funds to be spent, without the influence of the government or health insurance providers. Brat said that the health savings account legislation is a way for lawmakers to prove to the American people that they have a plan to replace Obamacare after repealing it.
Ryan: Reconciliation Bill Will Block Planned Parenthood Funding
Finally, Congress has the opportunity to strip taxpayer funds from the nation's largest abortion provider. The funding would be reallocated to qualified community health care providers—which outnumber Planned Parenthood clinics 20 to 1.
How Trump’s Presidency Could Retool the Auto Industry
By encouraging investment in the U.S. and threatening tariffs on imports, Donald Trump could change the auto industry dramatically.
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from Indian Country Today Media Network
Fighting Big Oil in the Amazon
The struggle against oil in indigenous territory is one of the main themes of an upcoming documentary, Re-Imagining Progress: Voices from the Ecuadorean Amazon, by filmmakers Adam Punzano and Joe Tucker, slated for release in early 2017.
Fighting Big Oil in the Amazon
The struggle against oil in indigenous territory is one of the main themes of an upcoming documentary, Re-Imagining Progress: Voices from the Ecuadorean Amazon, by filmmakers Adam Punzano and Joe Tucker, slated for release in early 2017.
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from MarketWatch
Opinion: The rest of the story: What Obama won’t tell you about his legacy
From the economy to race relations, the president failed to deliver on his promise of hope and change
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from Miami Herald
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from Mic
In a statement Thursday, United States Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) said he is "honored" to serve as the new chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Hoeven — a former North Dakota governor and vocal supporter of both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines — was elected to lead the committee on Tuesday.
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from Mises Institute
[Information from this site may not be reliable.]The supply of US dollars accelerated during late 2016 with October's year-over-year percentage increase in the money supply hitting a 46-month high of 11.2 percent. The YOY growth rate fell slightly to 10.3 percent in November. This comes after a long period of relatively sedate growth in the money supply through most of 2013, 2014 and 2015.
Automation has become a huge concern in recent years. With computer algorithms getting more and more sophisticated, machines are becoming increasingly able to do jobs that are many people’s bread and butter. The benefit of automation is that it leads to an increase in real wages. This was true 100 years ago, and it is still true today.
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from New Statesman
"The leading voice of the British left, since 1913."
The left-right axis is no longer the most important division in politics. Six of our writers explore the new divides.
from The New Yorker
TRUMP, PUTIN, AND THE BIG HACK
How is it possible, if these declassified intelligence reports are true, to count the 2016 Presidential election as unsullied?
from New York Times
As Donald Trump Denies Climate Change, These Kids Die of It
Droughts caused by global warming have left southern Africa starved for food.
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from Republican National Committee (GOP)
Biden: Senate Democrats Should Give Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee A Vote
Last Night, Vice President Joe Biden Contradicted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's Plan To Deny President Trump A Supreme Court Nominee, Saying That Senate Democrats Should Not Refuse President Donald Trump A Confirmation Vote.
from The Seattle Times
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray on Friday announced some details of his $250,000 plan to help children from immigrant families navigate what could be a different environment after President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Sue Lani Madsen: Government regulations bedeviled small business even before minimum wage jump
Last week, a farmer told me he’s dropping his minor work permit. After years of mentoring young employees, he says no more starter jobs for unskilled high school kids. The new higher minimum wage was the last straw, but a whole haystack came first.
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from Zero Hedge
[Information from this site may not be reliable.]
Americans Couldn't Wait To Ditch These 10 States In 2016
People continue to flee the indebted, pension ponzi burdened liberal states of New England and the Midwest with New Jersey, Illinois, New York and Connecticut all ranking at the very top of the most ditched states of 2016.
City Of Dallas Looks To "Clawback" Ill-Gotten Pension Gains From Police
Almost exactly one month after taking the unprecedented step of suspending withdrawals from the Dallas Police and Fire Pension (DPFP), the Dallas city council is looking to "clawback" what it views as ill-gotten interest payments made to pensioners to the tune of roughly $1 billion.
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