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Commentary

New report finds that America is falling behind on international trade

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This is a good editorial on why Obama’s policies haven’t led to more exports.

Excerpt:

President Obama claims he’ll double U.S. exports in five years. But a new report from Congress shows U.S. firms losing major ground to competitors because he won’t act on free trade pacts with Colombia and Panama.

In a report titled “Losing Jobs and Alienating Friends: The Consequences of Falling Behind on Free Trade With Colombia and Panama,” the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Richard Lugar presents a bleak picture of Latin American markets and allies slipping away as the administration fails to enact the Colombia and Panama free-trade agreements.

While President Obama tries to get on the good side of business by saying he’d go forward with the U.S.-Korea free-trade deal, he’s making only vague statements of support for the other two treaties.

“What the president says matters a lot less than what he does,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday in calling for the passage of the long-languishing other two pacts.

Staffer Carl Meacham visited Colombia and Panama in late January and has returned with a long list of horror stories for the Foreign Relations Committee report to be released Tuesday. He tells of lost contracts, evaporating market share and unhappy allies writing off America as a partner in favor of new relationships with more trade-friendly partners like China.

The trend also affects other Latin states. Obama is getting ready to visit Brazil and Chile next month and will tout those new relationships. But he’s unlikely to note that both have quietly made China, instead of the U.S., their top trading partner.

In 10 years, China will also become the top trade partner of Colombia and Panama, nations that would rather have America in that spot. Without the trade pacts, however, it won’t happen.

Meacham found that the contractual losses to American companies in the absence of the pacts are already mounting. They include $5.25 billion for Panama Canal expansion, $1.5 billion for Panama City Metro construction and millions in highway contracts in both Panama and Colombia.

These contracts are going to foreigners from countries where duty-free trade has given their companies a competitive advantage as U.S. companies pay tariffs.

Meacham also found market-share losses in the same grim league, as Colombia signs off on free-trade deals with Canada (expected in two or three months), Europe (expected this summer) and South Korea (in third-stage negotiations in Los Angeles now).

Free trade is not only good for jobs, but also for foreign policy. It gives you leverage with a country because you’re more tightly coupled to them. Unfortunately, Obama is a socialist and he opposes free trade. So not only will be lose jobs, but also influence and goodwill abroad.

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North Dakota Republican Dan Ruby wants to slash tax rates and ban abortion

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Rep. Dan Ruby
Rep. Dan Ruby

Wow, this guy is perfect!

He managed to get this pro-life bill passed in North Dakota.

Excerpt:

A strong majority of lawmakers in the North Dakota House of Representatives on Friday afternoon passed a law that would make it illegal to murder any human being from the moment of their conception.

The Defense of Human Life Act, HB 1450, recognizes every human being at any stage of development as a person under state law with a right to protection.

“The overwhelming community and legislative support for HB 1450 proves that North Dakota could be the first state to recognize the value and dignity of every living human being,” stated Representative Dan Ruby. “The Defense of Human Life Act is just common sense. Of course every human being is a person, and every innocent person should receive legal protection. I am motivated to see women and children protected by HB 1450, and I look forward to its passage in the Senate in the near future.”

While the bill prohibits chemical abortifiacients such as RU-486, it does not apply to emergency contraception, or other “contraception administered before a clinically diagnosable pregnancy.” The bill also exempts legitimate medical procedures that may lead to the death of children in the womb when a woman’s life is in danger. The bill also exempts pregnant women seeking abortions from criminal prosecution.

The bill, supported by ND Right to Life, ND Life League, ND Family Alliance, ND CWFA, and the ND Catholic Conference, passed 68-25 in Friday’s vote.

“HB 1450 simply states that all human beings will be equal under North Dakota state law.  Our law would treat all children as human beings,” said Republican Rep. Gary Paur in an email to supporters.

Daniel Woodard, a legal consultant for North Dakota Right to Life and the North Dakota Life League, told LifeSiteNews.com that the bill would put the one remaining abortion clinic in the state out of business. “This bill should shut down that clinic,” said Woodard.

That’s good, but here is something that is also just as good: not taking money away from families, and not taking money away from the corporations that enable families to have money.

Excerpt:

Under the Republican governor’s proposal, the lowest individual income tax rate would decline from 1.84 percent to 1.63 percent, while the top rate would fall from 4.86 percent to 4.65 percent. The cuts would save North Dakotans about $50 million in income tax payments over two years.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers have offered alternatives. Rep. Jerome Kelsh, D-Fullerton, the House minority leader, has introduced a bill to exempt a person’s first $40,000 of income, and a couple’s first $50,000, from the state income tax entirely.

Kelsh said he wanted to focus the tax break on lower-income North Dakotans.

“I don’t think (state) income tax, to the top level of income earners in North Dakota, is really a problem,” Kelsh said in an interview. “Maybe their federal is different, but North Dakota income tax is not very burdensome to anyone.”

Reps. Dan Ruby, R-Minot, and Jim Kasper, R-Fargo, have proposals that offer larger income tax cuts than the governor’s proposal.

Ruby’s legislation would slash corporate and individual income taxes by 60 percent. The state Tax Department estimates it would reduce income tax collections by $634.7 million over two years. It would also cut taxes on so-called “pass-through” income that individuals receive from partnerships and limited liability companies.

Ruby’s bill would cut the top corporate tax rate from 6.4 percent to 2.56 percent, and reduce all five of North Dakota’s individual income tax rates below 2 percent. The top income tax rate would fall from 4.86 percent to 1.94 percent.

Oh, and I should note that he is NOT a poet. He is a small business owner and a father of 10!

News

Obama administration covers up political correctness that led to massacre

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From Hans Bader, at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Excerpt:

Discrimination and politically-correct blinders can be deadly. It was obvious in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings that the killer was inspired by Islamic extremism. Obvious, that is, to anyone but officials in the Obama administration, who continue to cling tightly to a culture of political correctness and preferential treatment that helped make the shootings possible.

Nidal Hasan shot dead 12 soldiers and a civilian at Fort Hood, while shouting “Allahu Akbar.”  But the Obama administration’s inquiry into the shootings falsely suggested Islamic extremism was not a factor in the shootings.  Its report on the Fort Hood massacre did not even “mention the words ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslim’ once,” referring to the killer simply as the “alleged perpetrator.” Instead, it claimed the tragedy resulted from “bureaucratic shortcomings” in the “sharing of information.”

[…]The shooter’s Islamic extremism was obvious.  Prior to the shooting, he had said that Muslims should rise up against the military, “repeatedly expressed sympathy for suicide bombers,” was pleased by the terrorist murder of an army recruiter, and engaged in hate-speech against non-Muslims, publicly calling for the beheading or burning of non-Muslims, and talking “about how if you’re a nonbeliever the Koran says you should have your head cut off, you should have oil poured down your throat, you should be set on fire.”  “In addition, Hasan openly had suggested revenge as a defense for the 9/11 attacks, defended Osama bin Laden, and said his allegiance to his religion was greater than his allegiance to the constitution.”

But the military did nothing to remove him from a position where he could harm others. Although his views were common knowledge, “a fear of appearing discriminatory . . . kept officers from filing a formal written complaint,” the Associated Press noted. Moreover, “a key official on a review committee reportedly asked how it might look to terminate a key resident who happened to be a Muslim,” as NPR noted.  Instead, the military effectively exempted Hasan from rules of conduct that apply to everyone else, in order to promote its conception of “diversity.”

As military attorney Thomas Kenniff notes, there was a climate of “obsessive political correctness” in the military. As Major Shawn Keller pointed out, in a column entitled “An Officer’s Outrage Over Fort Hood.” “There was no shortage of warning signs that Hasan identified more with Islamic Jihadists than he did with the US Army. . .But just like September 11, those agencies and individuals charged with keeping America and Americans safe failed to connect the dots that would have saved lives. Jihadist rhetoric espoused by Hasan was categorically dismissed out of submissiveness to the concepts of tolerance and diversity. . . . the leaders in Hasan’s chain-of-command failed to act . . . out of fear of being labeled anti-Muslim and receiving a negative evaluation report.”

Indeed, even after the shootings, government officials worried more about the fate of “diversity” than about the lives of their troops:  “Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength,” Army Chief of Staff George Casey told NBC’s Meet the Press. “And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse,” Casey said.

Can you trust the Democrats on national security? I don’t see why.

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