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| Nicholas Maduro, el President of the "Fifth Republic" of Venezuela, guaranteeing free quality health care, free education through college, a clean environment and protection of the rights of all minorities and indigenous people. The country is mired in a long term economic slump. Real incomes are plummeting. |
CARACAS, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday blamed Washington for the slump in global oil prices.
Washington is "flooding" the market with cheaper shale oil to bring down prices and ultimately impact Russia and other oil-producing nations, Maduro said at a televised Cabinet meeting.
"The U.S. and its allies want to affect oil prices to harm Russia, which produces around 10 million barrels per day, and that is the vital income of their economy," said Maduro.Yet your President, Barack Obama, preaching to his legions of ignorant believers, has famously said "We can't drill our way to lower gas prices." If you are wondering why he can't get hardly anything right, it is because the President of the United States is immune to the realities of commerce and economics. He is no better on matters of national security and disease control. Barack Obama is the most non-empirical president ever, a fellow who is delusional to the point of thinking he makes things true by his mere utterances.
Now, thanks to the re-election of Barack Obama as President of the United States of America, the Keystone XL pipeline remains in limbo, years after it should have gotten whole-hearted support. We have a president who fails to comprehend the importance of energy to a prosperous economy, and the key role that energy independence plays in our national security. 
Someone summarized Barack Obama in three words -- "educated," "smart" and "ignorant." Unfortunately, those same three words would describe all too many of the people who come out of our most prestigious colleges and universities today.Sewell recounts the collapse and destruction country states and regimes over the centuries whose overarching goal is economic equality. He points out that
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| President Barack Obama awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the richest of Americans, Warren Buffett. |
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| North Dakota's 19 story art deco Capitol tower completed in 1934, photo January 24, 2014. |
BISMARCK, N.D. — North Dakota had the largest percentage growth of population in the latest U.S. Census Bureau release of such numbers.
The agency says the state grew by 3.1 percent from July 2012 to July 2013.
Just a decade ago, North Dakota held the dubious distinction of being the only state to lose population. But its strong economy, led by the booming oil patch in the western part of the state, has attracted thousands of new residents in the past few years, reversing a decades-long trend of outmigration, where more people were going than coming, said Kevin Iverson, manager of the Census Office at the state Commerce Department.
"Obviously, the reason people are migrating here is for economic opportunity," he said. "The economy in the rest of the country isn't very good, and if the rest of the country wasn't helping us out, we wouldn't be where we are at."
North Dakota has gone from the nation's ninth-biggest oil producer in 2006 to the second, behind only Texas. The state has thousands more jobs than takers and the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, at less than 3 percent, Job Service North Dakota data show.
"After years of out-migration and population decline, it's great to see that our economic growth continues to keep North Dakotans home and that we are attracting new residents throughout the state," Gov. Jack Dalrymple said in a statement.
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| North Dakota Black Gold theme hat, January 2014. |
North Dakota's loss of young people between the ages of 25 and 39 was the highest outmigration rate of that age group in the United States from 1995 to 2000. The state's population is now getting younger. Census data show that the median age of North Dakota residents increased between 2000 and 2008, to 37.3 years of age. Since 2008, the median age of North Dakota residents has declined to 36.1 years of age, data show.
Iverson said people have moved from all states to North Dakota.
"Oil is the engine," he said. "It's just opportunity. People are realizing this is where the future is at."
For more than 15 years, New York state has led the country in domestic outmigration: For every American who comes here, roughly two depart for other states. This outmigration slowed briefly following the onset of the Great Recession. But a recent Marist poll suggests that the rate is likely to increase: 36 percent of New Yorkers under 30 plan to leave over the next five years. Why are all these people fleeing?The drivers are clear.
For one thing, according to a recent survey in Chief Executive, our state [New York] has the second-worst business climate in the country. (Only California ranks lower.) People go where the jobs are, so when a state repels businesses, it repels residents, too.
Indeed, the poll also found that 62 percent of New Yorkers planning to leave cited economic factors — including cost of living (30 percent), taxes (19 percent) and the job environment (10 percent) — as the main reason.
Upstate, a big part of the problem is extraordinarily high property taxes. New York has the country’s 15 highest-taxed counties, including Nassau and Westchester, which rank Nos. 1 and 2.Most of the property tax goes toward paying the state’s Medicaid bill — which is unlikely to diminish, since the state’s most powerful lobby, the alliance of the hospital workers’ union and hospital management, has gone unchallenged by our new governor, Andrew Cuomo.North Dakota yes, New York state no.
The duo also wrote the blue-grass classic "Rocky Top," a tribute to the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee that the singer pines for, including the moonshine.
"Corn won't grow at all on Rocky Top, dirt's too rocky by far. That's why all the folks on Rocky Top, get their corn from a jar," one verse goes.
A jar is one place where corn belongs. Another place is on a cob. A third place is in a pig or a cow where the corn can eventually become bacon or a steak.
Corn does not belong in an automobile.
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| Rural ethanol plants, one of the"green" consequences of the political influence of corn state senators. Young corn plants grow next to the Guardian Energy ethanol plant in Janesville, Minn (NPR). How about scheduling the first Presidential primary in 2016 somewhere other than Iowa? |
Congressman Steve DainesKTVQ story on my meeting with Crow Tribe leaders yesterday-- it's exciting to see the potential that exists on the Crow Reservation for responsible, job-creating energy development. Now it's time for Washington to get out of the way and allow the Crow Tribe to develop its resources and create good jobs for the Crow people.Crow leaders tell Congressman tribe needs jobs | KTVQ.com | Q2 | Billings, Montana
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CROW AGENCY - Congressman Steve Daines visited the Northern Cheyenne and Crow reservations, on Saturday.Unlike · · Share · 1421 · about an hour ago ·
