The Right Lane Update 2.05.13

The lies that our government tells us & We choose to believe Walter E. Williams
Let’s expose presidential prevarication. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama warned that Social Security checks would be delayed if Congress fails to increase the government’s borrowing authority by raising the debt ceiling. However, there’s an issue with this warning. According to the 2012 Social Security trustees report, assets in Social Security’s trust funds totaled $2.7 trillion, and Social Security expenditures totaled $773 billion. Therefore, regardless of what Congress does about the debt limit, Social Security recipients are guaranteed their checks. Just take the money from the $2.7 trillion assets held in trust.

Which is the lie, Social Security checks must be delayed if the debt ceiling is not raised or there’s $2.7 trillion in the Social Security trust funds? The fact of the matter is that they are both lies. The Social Security trust funds contain nothing more than IOUs, bonds that have absolutely no market value. In other words, they are worthless bookkeeping entries. Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, meaning that the taxes paid by today’s workers are immediately sent out as payment to today’s retirees. Social Security is just another federal program funded out of general revenues.

If the congressional Republicans had one ounce of brains [which they do not], they could easily thwart the president and his leftist allies’ attempt to frighten older Americans about not receiving their Social Security checks and thwart their attempt to frighten other Americans by saying “we are not a deadbeat nation” and suggesting the possibility of default if the debt ceiling is not raised. In 2012, monthly federal tax revenue was about $200 billion. Monthly Social Security expenditures were about $65 billion per month, and the monthly interest payment on our $16 trillion national debt was about $30 billion. The House could simply enact a bill prioritizing how federal tax revenues will be spent. It could mandate that Social Security recipients and interest payments on the national debt be the first priorities and then send the measure to the Senate and the president for concurrence. It might not be a matter of brains as to why the Republican House wouldn’t enact such a measure; it likes spending just as the Democrats.

I believe our nation is rapidly approaching our last chance to do something about runaway government before we face the type of economic turmoil seen in Greece and other European nations. Tax revenue has remained constant for the past 50 years, averaging about 18 percent of gross domestic product. During that interval, federal spending has risen from less than 20 percent to more than 25 percent of GDP. What accounts for this growth in federal spending? The liberals like to blame national defense, but in 1962, national defense expenditures were 50 percent of the federal budget; today they are 19 percent. What accounts for most federal spending is the set of programs euphemistically called entitlements. In 1962, entitlement spending was 31 percent of the federal budget; today it is 62 percent. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security alone take up 44 percent of the federal budget, and worse than that, it’s those expenditures that are the most rapidly growing spending areas.

Our federal debt and deficits are unsustainable and are driven by programs under which Congress takes the earnings of one American to give to another, or entitlements. How long can Congress take in $200 billion in revenue per month and spend $360 billion per month? That means roughly 40 cents of every federal dollar spent has to be borrowed. The undeniable fact of business is that a greater number of people are living off government welfare programs than are paying taxes. That’s what’s driving Europe’s economic problems, and it’s what’s driving ours. The true tragedy is that just to acknowledge that fact is political suicide, as presidential contender Mitt Romney found out.  We can’t blame politicians. It’s the American people who will crucify a politician who even talks about cutting their favorite handout.

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The NRA is Winning the Battle

In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting we all knew that an impending gun debate would be a hard fought battle. Just after this week’s hearing on Capitol Hill, a new Forbes study finds that the NRA is winning the influence battle over gun control. In the new study performed by Forbes Insights, an independent and unbiased organization, they found that the “NRA and the pro-gun rights voices are winning the influence battle and will continue to be strong and more influential if the pro gun control voice remains fragmented”. The data was compiled from the week before the school shooting and follows the trends over the following 5 weeks. There are some important pieces of information gathered from this study that are important to note:

1. The Republican politicians are not part of this debate. Instead, many solely have their eyes on the NRA and its president, Wayne LaPierre. Of the top 25 stakeholders in the gun control debate, only one is a Republican politician, Chris Christie.

2. The pro-gun rights voice is gaining influence while the gun-control voice is losing influence. The shifting platform is favoring those who support gun rights and the gun-control advocates are losing their influence.

3. The fragmented voice of the gun-control advocates is hurting their cause.

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Gallup: Conservatives Outnumber Liberals In 48 Out Of 50 States…

The percentage of individuals who identify as conservative in 2012 outnumber those who identify as liberal in 47 out of the 50 states, in addition to the District of Columbia (D.C.) according to a Gallup poll released on Feb. 1. Nationally, the amount of self-identified conservatives (38 percent) still outnumbers liberals (23 percent). The disparity between conservatives and liberals has remained consistent since Gallup began its tracking in 2008. The top three conservative states in the U.S. were Alabama, with 50.6 percent of its citizens identifying as conservative followed by North Dakota and Wyoming, which both had 48.6 percent. Two states—Massachusetts and Rhode Island—along with the District of Columbia were the only places where there were more self-identified liberals than conservatives.

So, you may ask, why can't Republicans win an election?  Maybe they are not conservative enough - running Rhino candidates?

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Obama Okay: Eliminates Breakfast for US Troops in Afghanistan

If only American soldiers in Afghanistan were unemployed Democratic voters in Chicago, then they might be getting three square meals a day from the government. But the military is the one place that Obama feels comfortable slashing expenses. While spending at an uncontrollable rate unseen since the last days of the Roman Empire in every other area, Obama has been cutting “waste” in the military like 20,000 Marines, Tricare healthcare for veterans and breakfast for soldiers serving in areas where he would only venture accompanied by heavy firepower. Warren Buffett and other crony capitalists can pig out on Obama’s trillion dollar deficits. As for the troops. Let them ear MRE’s. The Army has stopped serving cooked breakfasts to some of the U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan as part of its drawdown, a move that prompted troops to write home asking their families and friends to send care packages with cereal, breakfast bars and other foods.

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GOP Senator: Obama ‘High on His Own Power’

Republican senator Ted Cruz of Texas said Thursday that Barack Obama is “high on his own power” with regard to the president’s announced efforts on gun control. Speaking on Laura Ingraham’s radio talk show, Cruz, who was just elected to the Senate last November, said “this is a president who has drunk the Kool-Aid.” “He is feeling right now high on his own power, and he is pushing on every front, on guns,” Cruz said. “And I think it’s really sad to see the president of the United States exploiting the murder of children and using it to push his own extreme, anti-gun agenda. I think what the president is proposing and the gun control proposals that are coming from Democrats in the Senate are, number one, unconstitutional, and number two, they don’t work. They’re bad policy.”

Cruz told Ingraham that he does not believe Obama will be successful in passing gun control legislation and that the political ramifications of pursuing such laws could be bad for Democrats.

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The price of moral grandstanding

Politics becomes amusing when liberalism becomes theatrical with high-minded gestures. Chicago’s government, which is not normally known for elevated thinking, is feeling so morally upright and financially flush that it proposes to rise above the banal business of maximizing the value of its employees’ and retirees’ pension fund assets. Although seven funds have cumulative unfunded liabilities of $25 billion, Chicago will sacrifice the growth of those assets to the striking of a political pose so pure it is untainted by practicality. Emulating New York and California, two deep blue states with mammoth unfunded pension liabilities, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has hectored a $5 billion pension fund into divesting its holdings in companies that manufacture firearms. Now he is urging two large banks to deny financing to such companies “that profit from gun violence.” TD Bank provides a $60 million credit line to Smith & Wesson, and Bank of America provides a $25 million line to Sturm, Ruger & Company. The hypocracy of the left is unrelenting and the plebeians are not to notice.  Sure!

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Joe Biden: Gun Control Laws Won’t Work, But We’ve Got To Do Something by Tim Brown

Ah yes, the wisdom of liberal Uncle Joe Biden, who also happens to be our Vice President. Biden made a statement to reporters on Thursday afternoon after having lunch with Democrat Senators at the Capitol. He basically said that even though they knew that nothing that they do will alter or even eliminate mass shootings, that they would have to still try and do something, ie. implement more gun control laws. “Nothing we’re going to do is going to fundamentally alter or eliminate the possibility of another mass shooting or guarantee that we will bring gun deaths down to 1,000 a year from what it is now,” he told the group of reporters. “But there are things that we can do, demonstrably can do, that have virtually zero impact on your Second Amendment right to own a weapon for both self defense and recreation that can save some lives,” he said. What’s makes Biden’s comments somewhat hilarious is the fact that Politico reported that a staffer tried to stop the gaffe master. “As a staffer tried unsuccessfully to cut Biden off repeatedly, the vice president argued to reporters that none of the proposals would infringe on constitutional rights.”

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DHS Raids Gun Collector – Confiscates Nearly 1,500 Guns – No Charges Filed by Tim Brown

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security, along with a SWAT team and Bernalillo County sheriff’s deputies raided the home of Robert Adams in Albuquerque, New Mexico and, according to a federal search warrant affidavit the raid seized nearly 1,500 firearms from the man’s home and business. However, no charges have been filed against him, despite the fact that court documents reveal that agents had been watching Adams for years. Neighbors say that he was a firearms collector and some indicated that he was also a licensed gun seller. No confirmation of that has been forthcoming. While having been watched for years and no charges filed as they seized Adam’s firearms, Federal investigators are saying that they are investigating him for gun smuggling, tax evasion, violating importation laws. Something seriously smells here. How can you be investigated for years, yet upon serving a search warrant you don’t put forth any charges against a man when you confiscate nearly 1,500 firearms? I wish they had taken this kind of approach to the Obama Justice Department’s gun-walking program that trafficked nearly 2,500 firearms across the border into Mexico that has left hundreds dead. No one is claiming that the firearms that Adams had were used in any crime! So much for the Obama administration’s claims that they aren’t against gun collectors. Sports shooters and hunters, you’re up next.

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Poll: 53% Say Govt Threatens Freedoms

According to a new Pew Research poll, Americans are increasingly worried about the federal government violating their rights. The survey, conducted January 9-13, showed that 53 percent of Americans believe that the federal government “threatens their own personal rights and freedoms,” with 43 percent disagreeing. That is a significant uptick from March 2010, when just 47 percent said that the government threatened their freedom, with 50 percent disagreeing. This may explain the intuitive reaction to "universal background checks" - the government will know exactly who and where every gun resides!  So, does the second amendment have a true meaning/Value?

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Evolution and inconvenient facts
In this series you may have been wondering, why I would take so much time to focus on some bones? Well, the answer is because these bones are being used to create doubt about the Word of God. And the only reason they can be used with such success is because Christians:

1. Don’t know what the actual evidence is!
2. Don’t critically evaluate what the evidence!
3. Think it doesn’t matter!

This is why we’re spending so much time on this. This is real world evangelism and Christians must take this seriously. By the way, when it comes to point number 3 above, it absolutely does matter! Remember, 50% to 88% of young folks raised in the church are walking away at age 18! Our heart is to reduce that number and we’re trying to accomplish this by educating Christians on what the Word of God teaches and training them to use critical thinking when evaluating current issues.  So, with that intro, let’s move onto the teaching. We’ve covered Lucy’s skull reconstruction and her supposed humanlike “eye’s”.  We’ve also discussed the supposed humanlike hips and knees.  Using secular information we’ve shown that regardless of the big claims made about Lucy being an apelike ancestor to humans the observational evidence doesn’t quite back that up. In this article we’ll deal with the hands and the feet! Now, since we don’t want to be accused of using Christian/creationist sources, I’ll make my case by showing you a picture from Vanderbilt University (there’s another picture of Lucy’s remains here if you’d like to check it out).

Have you noticed that the observational evidence for Lucy’s hand and feet is . . . . nothing? That’s correct, nothing! Please remember, Lucy is a single specimen within the Australopithicus afarensis “kind” and they did not find any hand or foot bones for the specimen called Lucy. Consider the reconstruction below.

Pretty loving couple, don’t you think?  The human characteristics are always added in the artwork and reconstruction.  The only problem is that it’s just not found in reality. Now, notice the human hands and human feet on not only Lucy, but on her mate as well! And take a look at the reconstruction of Lucy at the London Natural History Museum below.

 Another example. Look below at the way the hands are depicted at the St. Louis Zoo exhibit entitled the Living World.

It looks as if Lucy’s thinking about, “What’s for dinner?” These are just a few of the thousands of false reconstructions that we see in museums, on TV, in magazines, etc. — and they are deceiving people. Christians, as well as non-christians, need to know the truth so let’s address it. Now this is important, remember they did not find any hand or foot bones from Lucy — but they did find hand and foot bones from other Australopithecines. So, the real question is, “Do the fossil hand and foot bones they found from other Australopithecines support the claim that Lucy had human hands and feet?” Ahhh, that’s a very fair question so let’s see where the observational evidence takes us.

Not too long ago I had the privilege to take more than 150 young folks through the David Koch exhibit on human evolution at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. (more about that in the next article). We looked at all of the supposed evidence for human evolution. Lucy was the star, and yes, she was depicted with human hands and human feet. Of all the exhibits in the world on human evolution, the one of Lucy in the Smithsonian is supposed to be the latest, greatest and most up-to-date! And we can show that it’s inaccurate. So, what’s the truth? Below is a chart comparing the curvature of the fingers between, Bonobo (type of chimpanzee), Chimpanzee, Gorilla, Human and AL333 (the australopithecines specimen of hand and feet bones that they did find — remember, none were found with Lucy’s bones). The further to the right the dark line is, the more curved the finger.

(J. Stern & R. Susman, 1983, Am. J. Phys. Anthropology 60:279-212)

Note that the circle with the dot inside is evidence for AL333 (australopithecines specimen) and that it shows that the fingers were just as curved, if not more curved than a chimpanzee. Hmmm! That isn’t what we saw in the other pictures.

Let me give you another source showing that Australopithecine hand bones are NOT human. Take a look at the write-up beneath the picture below. (Thank you Rich for this!)

“This cast of an Australopithecus afarensis hand shows the characteristic long, curved finger bones. These are more like the hands of living apes than they are modern human hands. The cross section of the finger bones is also squarish, indicating either a partly arboreal lifestyle or that this is a primitive feature retained after they moved into a more terrestrial lifestyle.” reference: australianmuseum.net.au

Anything jump out at you?? How about the line, “These are more like the hands of living apes than they are modern human hands.”

That statement tells that observational evidence of the hand bones is most likely that of a dead ape. So, why do they show human hands and feet on Lucy when the observational evidence that they found (remember, they aren’t Lucy’s bones) were more curved than a chimp?

By the way, the exact same thing is true when it comes to the toes of Lucy. Let’s go back to the St. Louis Zoo exhibit entitled “The Living World” and take a look at how Lucy’s foot is depicted. 

Look familiar? Seriously, a little “Nair” and pedicure and it would look exactly like a human’s foot.  Well, what’s the truth? Let’s go back to the secular sources and see what we can find. Notice that the chart below shows that the toe bones they found (AL333, not Lucy) were more curved than a chimpanzee.

(J. Stern & R. Susman, 1983, Am. J. Phys. Anthropology 60:279-212) I know that some will still not agree, so I’ll give one more secular source on this issue to support the fact that Lucy did NOT have human hands and human feet.

Ian Tattersall, who is not a creationist, in his book, Extinct Humans states the following:

Did you catch that last part? “In keeping with Lucy having had long and strongly curved finger and toe bones, as do chimpanzees and orangutans”! I rest my case. If you see human hands and human feet on Lucy, you are being deceived! Well, we’re almost finished with this series on Lucy. It’s my hope and prayer that you are being encouraged to look closely at what the world is teaching and to not just blindly accept the words of man, including me. Search for the truth in all things.

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Are Teachers Teaching Our Kids to Be Violent?  by Giacomo

There is no shortage of violence in today’s society.  The most popular video games and movies are also the most violent.  Our kids are constantly watching people shooting other people and blowing each other up.  Video games teach them how to hunt and kill everyone around them. You would think that our kids would get some sort of respite from the violence while they are at school, but doesn’t seem to be the case. To begin with, they are taught that evolution is a fact and that they are the product of millions of years of death and struggle – survival of the fittest.  Only the strong and aggressive survive while the weak are weeded out and destroyed.  The strong prey upon the weak and exert their dominance.

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