VoteKansas.org

Crowds enjoy a picnic at Buckingham Palace

haaretz.com | "The IDF has been engaged in cyber activity consistently and relentlessly."

MADISON, Wisc. — “I’m voting against Walker!” fumed a waitress at a steakhouse in downtown Madison late Sunday night, referring to Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his bid to survive a recall election Tuesday against Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.  She went on to explain that the Republican governor “was a big reason I had to leave the University of Wisconsin when I was a junior last year.  My professors were canceling classes so often to go out in the square [site of the State Capitol] to protest his program [requiring some public employee workers to contribute about six percent of their salary and 12 percent to their health insurance premiums], that it just wasn’t worth it for me to go to college anymore.”

Gosh! While one was tempted to suggest to the waitress that her anger should be vented on the professors themselves for choosing to protest rather than teach, it is simply not worth it — not in Madison, capital of Wisconsin and a university town, long considered a hotbed of American leftism.  There are reports of numerous barfights at local establishments stemming from the mere mention of the name “Scott Walker.”

On the Monday before the nationally-watched vote on Walker’s fate, supporters of both the governor and Barrett are out early brandishing placards along the John Nolen Highway that goes through Madison.

With less than 24 hours to go before the voting, both sides are fully engaged and enthusiastic.

However, with even left-leaning polls giving Walker a slight lead and unaffiliated polls a larger advantage, state and national Democrats are beginning to repeat the mantra that even if the conservative GOP governor wins Tuesday, it won’t matter in terms of national politics or the November chances of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

“It’s a Wisconsin-specific moment, not a national referendum,” veteran Wisconsin Democratic strategist John Lapp, told the Wisconsin State Journal Monday.

In Washington, Democratic National Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said recently that “[b]asically, there aren’t going to be any repercussions nationally, if Wisconsin voters decide to stick with Walker.”

Asked about Wasserman-Schultz’s remarks, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters: “ I think that there are issues obviously unique to that state and issues unique to the spending that’s happened in that particular matter that would suggest that she’s right, but I haven’t discussed it with the president.”

Unlike Bill Clinton, who recently came into the Badger State to stump with Barrett, President Obama has yet to appear with the Democratic nominee.  Asked whether Obama has so much as endorsed Barrett, Carney replied that he has not talked about it with him and “you’ll have to contact the [Obama re-election] campaign.”

The Vatican sharply criticises a book on sexual ethics written by a US nun and theologian, saying it poses "grave harm" to the faithful.

The Vatican sharply criticises a book on sexual ethics written by a US nun and theologian, saying it poses "grave harm" to the faithful.

presstv.com | Britain is planning to set up refugee camps inside Syria under pretext of saving civilian lives but in reality to help armed rebels fighting against the government.

The degeneration of Greece into fiscal ruin and political anarchy is heartbreaking, but Spain is the real nightmare country for European investors and ministers.  Spain is far larger than Greece – in fact, it’s the fourth-largest economy in the Eurozone – and its impending collapse is literally unbearable for the European Union.

Oh, and the third largest economy in the Euro?  That would be Italy, which is almost as shaky as Spain.  The second largest economy, France, has launched a crusade against “austerity” under its new socialist president.  The Number One economy, Germany, is getting mighty sick and tired of financing the welfare states of Europe.  Gulp.

Lifeboats are already hitting the water.  A good $80 billion (in U.S. dollars) worth of investment fled Spain over the past month, pulling $40 billion out of local banks on their way across the border.  The New York Times reports that Spain will try selling 2 billion euros (about $2.5 billion U.S.) worth of bonds this coming Thursday.  “The sale is expected to include 10-year bonds,” notes the Times.  “There are doubts that banks, in the current environment, will jump to buy such long-term paper, given the increased risks in holding Spanish debt.  Even yields nearing 7 percent may not lure them.”  7 percent is the meltdown point for bond sales.  Beyond that point, the nuclear financial reactors powering big governments go super-critical.

The meltdown may already be in progress, as it appears government officials and investment analysts across Europe are quietly preparing for not just the expected Greek exit in two weeks, but the end of the Euro.  There’s no way to bail out Spain without also bailing out Italy, even if Greece floats out to sea without consuming another euro, and the European Union simply cannot afford to bail out both Spain and Italy.  The weak American economy totters on the verge of recession, and will pull Europe down with it… unless Europe tumbles first, and tugs America over the brink.

The flashpoint for Euro disintegration is the demand by dependent nations for bailouts without controls.  Everybody wants Germany’s money, but nobody wants to listen to German theories of spending restraint.

A few Eurozone ministers have spoken of centralizing more power in Brussels, to remove control from the hands of grumpy electorates prone to voting for whoever promises to abrogate austerity agreements most quickly.  That seems like a pipe dream when even local governments can’t maintain fiscal discipline, in the face of angry crowds packing rocks and firebombs, but it does seem as if the Eurozone is no longer willing to hand over bailout cash without stripping some degree of sovereign control from its welfare clients.

Spain wants the EU to pump money directly into its banks, without preconditions.  Germany says no dice – the money has to go to the Spanish government, in exchange for a surrender of national authority to the European Union.

Meanwhile, the CEO of American International Group, Robert Benmosche, suggested from the comfort of his seaside villa in Croatia that the solution to worldwide government insolvency was simple: “Retirement ages will have to move to 70, 80 years old.  That would make pensions and medical services more affordable.  They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off the youth.”

Oh, is that all we have to do?  Well, the problem is that every Western electorate has been taxed up, down, and sideways to support the promise of retirement at far younger ages… and they’re not going to give up those promised benefits easily.

Benmosche is saying that the entire premise of the Western intergenerational entitlement state, from Greece to the United States, was a lie.  There is no way for a vast, industrialized population with growing life expectancies to subsidize a tiny 30-year working life, nestled comfortably between extended adolescence and decades of retirement.  No electorate is prepared to wake up from that dream.  All will be eager to reward politicians who offer one more slap of the fiscal snooze bar.

The essential conflict between dependency and independence is playing out in every electorate across the Western world, from the Eurozone to ever level of American government.  Politics can only blind people to economic reality for a limited time.  Smart, well-connected investors are bailing out of Spain, and the European Union, while the public is still told to view their entitlements as sacred, and promised that government has not quite run out of private-sector pockets to pick.  The same thing will happen in the United States, when our system collapses.  We’ll wake up one morning to discover the smart guys already took all the lifeboats, right before the full size of the approaching insolvency iceberg became fully apparent.

Enlightened Rogue | Statists seem to think that there is something to “fix.” Why?

Box office hit The Hunger Games beats the competition at this year's MTV movie awards, winning four of the eight prizes for which it was in contention.

Box office hit The Hunger Games beats the competition at this year's MTV movie awards, winning four of the eight prizes for which it was in contention.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- To see where the presidential candidates stand on taxing the rich, just look at how they'd tax themselves. Under his own proposal, Mitt Romney would pay half what he would under President Barack Obama's tax plan. For a man of Romney's means, that could save almost $5 million a year....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- To see where the presidential candidates stand on taxing the rich, just look at how they'd tax themselves. Under his own proposal, Mitt Romney would pay half what he would under President Barack Obama's tax plan. For a man of Romney's means, that could save almost $5 million a year....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- To see where the presidential candidates stand on taxing the rich, just look at how they'd tax themselves. Under his own proposal, Mitt Romney would pay half what he would under President Barack Obama's tax plan. For a man of Romney's means, that could save almost $5 million a year....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- To see where the presidential candidates stand on taxing the rich, just look at how they'd tax themselves. Under his own proposal, Mitt Romney would pay half what he would under President Barack Obama's tax plan. For a man of Romney's means, that could save almost $5 million a year....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- To see where the presidential candidates stand on taxing the rich, just look at how they'd tax themselves. Under his own proposal, Mitt Romney would pay half what he would under President Barack Obama's tax plan. For a man of Romney's means, that could save almost $5 million a year....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- To see where the presidential candidates stand on taxing the rich, just look at how they'd tax themselves. Under his own proposal, Mitt Romney would pay half what he would under President Barack Obama's tax plan. For a man of Romney's means, that could save almost $5 million a year....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- To see where the presidential candidates stand on taxing the rich, just look at how they'd tax themselves. Under his own proposal, Mitt Romney would pay half what he would under President Barack Obama's tax plan. For a man of Romney's means, that could save almost $5 million a year....

Mike Adams | Did one of the key informants to Rawsome Food prosecutors, Aajonus Vonderplanitz, actually hold a Ph.D.?

theagitator.com | Meet Seattle PD Capt. Donnie Lowe.

dailymail.co.uk | Officers arrested just 10 people for minor public order offenses like drunkenness.