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"..removed from her post Saturday, after she said the Democratic Party made black people "dependent on the government." "I'm very much afraid that the Democratic Party is going to do the same thing that they did with the African-American culture and make them all dependent on the government and we don't want that," she said.

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- The spokeswoman for the Republican Party in Nevada's most populous county was fired Saturday, after she said the Democratic Party made black people "dependent on the government." Didi Lima, the Clark County GOP communications director, also was removed from her volunteer role as a Hispanic community liaison for Republican John McCain's presidential campaign over the remarks made earlier in the day while working at a McCain campaign booth. "We don't want (Hispanics) to become the new African-American community," Lima told The Associated Press. "And that's what the Democratic Party is going to do to them, create...

A "why bother?" economy has been created in Britain which has left thousands with no motivation to work, a report published today concludes. Successive governments have encouraged a welfare culture that has left every family facing a £1,300 bill because the poor stay poor, it claims. The findings by the public services think tank Reform suggest that increased welfare dependency has made it more difficult for those on the lowest incomes to do better.

Known as the "Shameless" family among horrified neighbours, the McFaddens "boast" three generations of adults who are not working. All ten members of the clan share a council house and live off benefits amounting to around £32,000 a year. And very happy they are, too.

TAIYUAN, China - It takes five to 10 days for the pollution from China's coal-fired plants to make its way to the United States, like a slow-moving storm. It shows up as mercury in the bass and trout caught in Oregon's Willamette River. It increases cloud cover and raises ozone levels. And along the way, it contributes to acid rain in Japan and South Korea and health problems everywhere from Taiyuan to the United States. This is the dark side of the world's growing use of coal. Cheap and abundant, coal has become the fuel of choice in much of...

The U.S Comptroller General and head of the GAO, or Government Accountability Office, has described the entitlements crisis facing this country as a "tsunami" that approaches while we continue to party on the beach. What GAO head David Walker is talking about are the massive upcoming obligations under Social Security and Medicare that we have no funds to meet. Tens of trillions of dollars of supposed commitments, promises made to us by our government, that today we have no clue how we'll pay. In those rare moments when our political "leaders" screw up sufficient courage to acknowledge this dark and...

Conservative Activist Blames Poverty on LiberalismBy Monisha Bansal CNSNews.com Staff Writer September 17, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - Blaming poverty on liberalism and the federal government, a conservative activist on Friday said: "It is very sad what the liberals have done with their war on the poor in this country." "After 40 years of failure, they still insist that they want to expand this war, that they think they should pour more money into this war," said Star Parker, president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education. "Already, over $3 trillion has been spent on the war on poverty, and so...

As Fred D. Thompson moves around the country delivering his folksy stump speech, he routinely makes his way through a laundry list of top concerns: national security, immigration reform, federalism and activist judges, among others. But he seems most energized when he discusses the ballooning cost of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, and what he calls a need for more fiscal responsibility and less government in Washington. It is a recurring campaign theme of his. Mr. Thompson, a former Republican senator from Tennessee, made his greatest plea for the presidency, for instance, at the end of such remarks...

On Tuesday, retired steel worker Steve Skvara tearfully asked Democratic presidential candidates, "What's wrong with America? And what will you do to change it?" The question was, according to a reporter on the CBS Evening News, an example of when "a moment of truth breaks through a political campaign event." On MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews told Mr. Skvara, ""You're a great American to speak so well to the needs of this country." Chrissy later gushed: "Well, can I pay tribute—can I pay tribute to you, sir?" I'll not attempt to minimize Mr. Skvara's plight. When I heard his question, though,...

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem. SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa... Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.

For Aborigines, it's out with the "rights" agenda and in with mutual obligation, writes Michelle Grattan. The Howard Government is driving a revolution in Aboriginal affairs policy that is every bit as dramatic as its industrial relations agenda. Yet you'd have hardly known it from the election campaign, when indigenous affairs were not on the radar. The change in direction has been going on for half a year, but after the election it has picked up pace and it will transform the fundamentals of indigenous policy more radically than anything we've seen since the 1970s. In the Government's early years...

...To distinguish different shades, or varieties, of dependency, two psychologists, Aaron L. Pincus of Pennsylvania State and Michael B. Gurtman of the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, administered an exhaustive battery of dependency-related questionnaires to 654 psychology students. The scales rated everything from social confidence to preference for solitude to urges to please others. The psychologists’ analysis of the answers suggested that there were three distinct varieties of dependent behavior patterns. One was defined predominantly by submissiveness (“I don’t have what it takes to be a good leader” or “I am easily downed in an argument”). Another was characterized principally by...

A Venezuelan-owned oil company will warm 12,000 rural Alaska homes this winter with an enormous gift of heating fuel that some elated residents in the Bush call a godsend -- and ironic. The donation from Houston-based Citgo will buy 100 gallons of fuel for every household in 151 villages. But the gift worth roughly $5 million comes courtesy of a country whose leftist president is pals with America's enemies and supports Iran's nuclear ambitions. Hugo Chavez also calls our president mean things, such as "genocidal murderer" and "madman." Margaret Williams of Hughes in the Interior said it doesn't matter who's...

Earl Ofari Hutchinson: "... Many blacks publicly, and even more privately, groused that there was a hidden racial hand in the turgid response. Many cheered hip-hop artist Kanye West's verbal lash of [President] Bush that he hates black people. Most whites criticized the sluggish federal response, but attributed it to bureaucratic bungling, not racial malice." Now, almost a year to the date the hurricane hit, the same issues are lingering as New Orleans and other cities affected are trying to bounce back. The difference is now, that promises of aid have gone unfulfilled, there still are thousands living in temporary...

RUSH: Larry in Bourbonnais, Illinois, training location for the Chicago Bears. It's nice to have you on the program, sir. Welcome. CALLER: Hi, Rush, how you doing? Long-time listener, long time Republican, ever since Reagan was elected. RUSH: Thank you, sir. CALLER: But I have a confession to make. RUSH: Yeah? CALLER: If Hillary or any other Democrat runs for president this next time around and offers some sort of national health care, I'm voting for them. RUSH: You can't be serious. CALLER: Serious as a heart attack. You know, I'm tired -- I got the kids here at home...

Suzette Strickland, a former welfare mother herself, sees plenty of families stuck in poverty in her outreach job at End Hunger Connecticut! Inc. From her perch in a converted house on Hartford's Hungerford Street, it's clear to her that welfare reform - exactly 10 years in - has left behind the single mothers most deeply mired in the cycle of desperation. Just last week, a 35-year-old grandmother came into Strickland's office to see about food stamps, with some of her extended family in tow. "She has a 21-year-old daughter with three children, plus custody of two grandchildren from another child,"...

JENNIFER A. MARSHALL: This is the first in a series of events that will focus on the tenth anniversary of the welfare reform of 1996. One of the most impor­tant features of that reform was to establish in policy that poverty is linked to lifestyle issues like fatherless­ness, unwed childbearing, and the loss of a culture of work. In 1996, work requirements and caps on ben­efits were some of the significant changes in federal welfare policy. As a result of that reform, black child poverty fell to its lowest level in history, and 1.5 mil­lion fewer children are in poverty...

It has long been an official pretense in Britain that we have so many teenage pregnancies—the most by far in Europe—because British girls don’t know where babies come from. The answer to the problem, therefore, is yet more sex education: ever more children putting ever more condoms onto ever more bananas at ever-earlier ages. A report from the charity, the Joseph Rowntree Trust, throws doubt on the official line. Its researchers interviewed 41 teenage mothers within a year of giving birth, some as young as 13, who reported wanting to have a baby. They also interviewed ten young fathers. Although...

The United States of America has historically enjoyed self-sufficiency in times of both war and peace but in order to better assess its present place in the world as concerns its military and economic strength, it is important to reflect on its foundation. There is daily talk from Wall Street to Capitol Hill with respect to spread sheets and global policy, but it perhaps falls short when it comes down to addressing the average U.S. wage earner, and how both will ultimately affect jobs and the country’s national security and defense. It is important to note, that as our forefathers...

Leftists have devised a simple yet amazingly effective formula to engender social discord: break up the family, marginalize fathers, and then blame the whole mess on men. The pattern can be traced back to LBJ’s Great Society which spawned welfare programs that withheld benefits as long as dad was around. Then came Roe v. Wade, which disenfranchised fathers from the most fundamental decisions involving their unborn young. Next, no-fault divorce laws set the stage for widescale child custody awards to moms. And finally draconian child support programs sent low-income dads shuffling off to debtor’s prison. Judging by Census Bureau reports,...

William Beach has just written a report for the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation titled "The 2005 Index of Dependency." Between 1962 and today, American dependence on government has more than doubled and shows little sign of abatement. The growth areas of dependency examined in the report are: welfare and medical care, housing, retirement income, education, and rural and agricultural services. The budgetary impact of dependency threatens perpetual budget deficits and high taxes, but to focus only on the budgetary impact is to trivialize the more devastating aspects of dependency.

Opponents of Referendum C counted on voters rejecting a bigger tax bite, $3,100 for the average family in the next five years, under the pressure of high prices for gasoline, home heating, health care and housing. We appealed to people's skepticism that the Democrat-led legislature would use the new money responsibly. Polling even last weekend suggested proponents hadn't made the sale. But they surged to victory with the help of respected Republicans like Gov. Bill Owens, former party chairman Bruce Benson and University of Colorado president Hank Brown. Those heavy hitters outweighed the more numerous antitax Republican voices, including the...

Saturday, October 15, 2005 'Slave syndrome' may still affect black behavior Professor's theory set for talk today By JOHN IWASAKI SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER The troubling images of African Americans displaced by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans' impoverished neighborhoods didn't startle researcher Joy DeGruy-Leary. "All Katrina did was reveal what was already there. I wasn't confused, wasn't surprised," she said. "I knew what the 9th Ward was about. The difference was, (before the disaster) everybody was OK about it. It was business as usual." DeGruy-Leary, an assistant professor in Portland State University's Graduate School of Social Work, will discuss her theory...

Moral poverty cost blacks in New Orleans © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Say a hurricane is about to destroy the city you live in. Two questions:What would you do?What would you do if you were black? Sadly, the two questions don't have the same answer. To the first: Most of us would take our families out of that city quickly to protect them from danger. Then, able-bodied men would return to help others in need, as wives and others cared for children, elderly, infirm and the like. For better or worse, Hurricane Katrina has told us the answer to the second question....

Some years ago, about 1900, an old trapper from North Dakota hitched up some horses to his Studebaker wagon, packed a few possessions -- especially his traps -- and drove south. Several weeks later he stopped in a small town just north of the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. It was a Saturday morning -- a lazy day -- when he walked into the general store. Sitting around the pot-bellied stove were seven or eight of the town's local citizens. The traveler spoke. "Gentlemen, could you direct me to the Okefenokee Swamp?" Some of the oldtimers looked at him like he...

Juicier details will doubtless emerge -- I'm betting we'll see faked-up emergency response plans; levee repair money diverted to build fancy marinas, riverboats, and casinos; the "best and the bravest" abandoning their posts and the buses that could have carried many to safety. But it would be hard to do a better basic expose on how disastrous it proved for the residents of New Orleans to place all their faith in "government" than has already been accomplished by our friend Lew Rockwell at www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/flood.html. "Gulf Coast residents know precisely what it means to be trapped -- ostensibly by a flood...

As it quickly became clear that there was a certain demographic skew among the people stranded in New Orleans, journalists began intoning that Hurricane Katrina had stripped bare the continuing racial inequity in America. The extent to which this was hidden is unclear, actually. An awareness that a tragic disproportion of black Americans are poor has been a hallmark of civic awareness among educated Americans for 40 years now. The problem is less a lack of awareness than a lack of understanding. The publicly sanctioned take is that “white supremacy” is why 80% of New Orleans’s poor people are black....

Now I realize that private charity would do much more -- if government hadn't crowded it out. In the 1920s -- the last decade before the Roosevelt administration launched its campaign to federalize nearly everything -- 30 percent of American men belonged to mutual aid societies, groups of people with similar backgrounds who banded together to help members in trouble. They were especially common among minorities. Mutual aid societies paid for doctors, built orphanages and cooked for the poor. Neighbors knew best what neighbors needed. They were better at making judgments about who needs a handout and who needed a...

ARE BLACKS TO BLAME FOR NEW ORLEANS DISASTER? Rev. Peterson Says President Bush And Racism Not To Blame Los Angeles- Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny today harshly criticized Black elected officials and celebrities who claimed that President George W. Bush is responsible for the tragic death of thousands of mostly Black residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “This is a terrible situation and we need to have compassion. The truth is Black people died not because of President Bush or racism, they died because of their unhealthy dependence...

A black conservative leader says don't blame racism or President Bush for what happened to thousands of black people during and after Hurricane Katrina. "The truth is black people died, not because of President Bush or racism, they died because of their unhealthy dependence on the government and the incompetence of Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco," said the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of BOND (the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny). Peterson singled out the Rev. Jesse Jackson, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and rapper Kanye West, all of whom blamed President Bush for...

Subj: FW: Worth the Read !! This (unfortunately) hits it right on the head. Well worth the read. Welfare State by Robert Tracinski Sep 02, 2005 It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster. If this is just a natural disaster, the response for...

Government Dependency Exposed Diana M. Poranski The aftermath of hurricane Katrina though devastating and tragic has unearthed a more disturbing human concern. The horrific images and stories post Katrina exposes the dirty little secret of government dependency. Disguised as compassion for the downtrodden, decades of government assistance have resulted in the poorest among us lacking basic human survival skills. It appears these people have lost the ability to help themselves. The great social experiment of welfare is a fraudulent failure; it’s disheartening to see the affects of this failed system played out on national television. Through psychological conditioning, those American’s...

45 Years on the Federal Plantation - the Long Term Effects of Direct Deposit As I watched the remorseful scenes unfold in and around the Super Dome, my mind wandered to the civilian victims of WWII. Countless millions were displaced by the horrors of colliding armies. Probably because I was born shortly after WWII started, I've always had a keen interest in the war from an historical aspect. I've watched quite a number of videos and movies concerning almost every major campaign. Invariably, the film maker includes scenes of displaced civilians and the suffering they endured. One favorite scene included...

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."--Thomas Jefferson Ever wonder how dependent the American people have become on the federal government compared to, say, a generation ago? Now, thanks to The Heritage Foundation's new study, "The 2005 Index of Dependency," we can answer that question -- but be forewarned; the data doesn't paint a pretty picture. This informative study explores the degree, nature and effects of our dependence on government, examining five broad categories of socio-economic federal intervention: housing assistance, healthcare and welfare assistance, retirement income, post-secondary education...

WASHINGTON, JUNE 13, 2005— Americans depend on the federal government more than ever for funding for their education, health care and housing, yet more Americans than ever pay nothing in federal income tax, according to a new study from The Heritage Foundation. Federal spending has climbed 150 percent on higher education, 48 percent on health care and 27 percent on housing since 2000, the report says. The Index of Dependency, which measures the increased dependence on government, increased by 1 percent in 2004, the smallest increase in four years. The Index jumped at least 5 percent in each of the...

Being a conservative political writer is so blasted easy these days. Subjects to delve into are never lacking as there appears to be nary a single issue that Democrats and Republicans can agree upon. Like failed marriages, donkeys and pachyderms seem to have irreconcilable differences on virtually everything. Here are a ‘few fresh pickings from the political grapevine‘….taxes, tort reform, health care, homeland security, right to life issues, social security reform, war on terror, foreign policy, the deficit, judicial nominations, immigration, and, oh yes, the energy policy. That’s my pick of the day. Energy. I got energized when Congress rejected...

There's an old story worth retelling about a band of wild hogs which lived along a river in a secluded area of Georgia. These hogs were a stubborn, ornery, independent bunch. They had survived floods, fires, freezes, droughts, hunters, dogs, and everything else. No one thought they could ever be captured. One day a stranger came into town not far from where the hogs lived and went into the general store. He asked the storekeeper, "Where can I find the hogs? I want to capture them." The storekeeper laughed at such a claim but pointed in the general direction. The...

Fighting hunger By Shelly Oddo / The Citizen Children will soon be out of school, and while that may mean no more school work, for many it can also mean no more breakfast and lunch. School districts provide free and reduced lunch for low income students throughout the school year, but when summer comes, some financially strapped parents find providing the extra two meals a day a burden they can not meet. While summer lunch programs are available, only about a fifth of the students getting free or reduced meals during the school year take advantage of what's available when...

<p>Feminists have fostered an attitude of victimhood among American women, says Carrie L. Lukas, director of policy for the Independent Women's Forum. In a report, "Dependency Divas: How the Feminist Big Government Agenda Betrays Women," Ms. Lukas argues that rather than helping women achieve independence, the feminist movement promotes dependence on government as a substitute for dependence on men.</p>

Twenty years ago, Star Parker was a single mother living on welfare. She had been through four abortions and had a history of drug abuse, promiscuity, and burglary. Today, Star Parker is the president and founder of the nonprofit Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education. She is a popular author and a committed Christian. In her latest book, UNCLE SAM'S PLANTATION: HOW BIG GOVERNMENT ENSLAVES AMERICA'S POOR AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT, Parker recalls the words that helped turn her life around. Having gone to church at the invitation of some Christian friends, Parker heard the pastor challenge...

The presidential primaries turn national this week, with states as diverse as New Mexico and Delaware voting to select their Democratic challenger. Contenders must swap the retail politics of Iowa and New Hampshire for a campaign to build national appeal. One group sure to be courted is women. Yet for advice about how to appeal to them, candidates should look beyond the self-proclaimed feminist groups. These dependency divas sell a tired mix of victimization and big government that's out of touch with most modern women. But don't take my word for it. In a recent interview, Martha Burke, chairman of...

Reflections on Martin Luther King Posted: January 19, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Men and women who have made a mark on history remain under endless scrutiny – and the writing and re-writing of their history. Were they good? Evil? Great? Petty? It's been said: "The globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has; you may survey a kingdom and note the results in maps, but all the savants in the world could not produce a reliable map of the poorest human personality." So the richest of personalities, like Martin Luther King, present a formidable challenge to historians. It...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The overhaul of welfare in America may seem complicated, but it has been simple compared with the challenge in Iraq. In the United States, the people who relied on public assistance were defined as the underclass. In Iraq, they're the entire nation. To Saddam Hussein, a culture of dependency was not a social problem but a political plus. Father Saddam, as he liked to be called, provided citizens with subsidized homes, cheap energy and, most important, free food. After international sanctions were imposed on Iraq in 1990, he started a program that now uses 300 government warehouses...

Making Room in the Inn: Why We Need the Needy September 2, 2003 by Jennifer Roback Morse The self-sufficient, autonomous individual is at the heart of America's economic and political institutions. But some people are legitimately dependent on others. Children are profoundly, if temporarily, dependent on their parents. The elderly and the sick are dependent on others. The seriously disabled, and the mentally ill are permanently dependent. The problem of the legitimately dependent can not be finessed or argued away. There is no possible reconstruction of the social, economic and political system that will eliminate the helplessness of infancy. The...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Growing dependence on foreign suppliers should concern policy makers The U.S. industrial base is eroding, and this situation has enormous national security implications. It has made the United States so dependent on foreign countries for critical components and systems that it may have lost its ability to control its supply chains. The United States is becoming dependent on countries such as China, India, Russia, France and Germany for critical weapons technology. It´s conceivable that one of these governments could tell its local suppliers not to sell critical components to the United...

12:36 PM ET BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:Now back to Medicare and the rising cost, the tax increases, substantial, long-term tax increases the Heritage Foundation says will be necessary to support this boondoggle, and boondoggle it is. Here's the bottom line. There is no amount of facts and analysis, no amount of logic that will deter the liberals on this, because, ladies and gentlemen, it is not about, this whole Medicare, prescription drug entitlement, is not about prescription drugs for "our seniors." Oh, they say it is, and they make a great case out of caring and they try to make everybody think...

HOW THE WELFARE STATE WORKS! (Societal Euthanasia!) Synopsis The Welfare State, a 180 degree reversal of concept that individual rights come not from, but are held against, Government; imposes on Federal Government role as "factional problem solver" not authorized by the Constitution and never intended by the Fathers; repudiates principles of English civilization handed down from Magna Carta; bottom feeds the gene pool; rewards sloth and anti-social behavior; destroys urban public education, neighborhoods and families; generates an explosion in the cost of health care, incidence of juvenile crime and ill will between the races; causes deterioration in the quality of...

<p>Whenever someone says that this or that government program is absolutely necessary, I always wonder, "What did people do and how did they survive before the program?"</p> <p>If someone says food stamps are absolutely necessary for poor people's survival, I wonder how America's millions of poor immigrants made it. Unless I missed something, mass starvation is not a part of our history. Was there a stealth food stamp program during the 1700s and 1800s?</p>

Americans have become so addicted to other people's money that when a new entitlement like prescription drugs for seniors is being debated in Congress and covered by the pack media, hardly anyone thinks of asking why people cannot save for their old age without the government's help. Take a trip with me to the convenience store near my house to see how easy it is to save for old age. Recent immigrant Jose Flores is 20 years old. He can be seen in the store each weekday morning before starting his day as a low-wage landscaper. He buys a bag...

Whenever someone says that this or that government program is absolutely necessary, I always wonder, "What did people do and how did they survive before the program?" If someone says food stamps are absolutely necessary for poor people's survival, I wonder how America's millions of poor immigrants made it. Unless I missed something, mass starvation is not a part of our history. Was there a stealth food stamp program during the 1700s and 1800s? Then there's the question: How did we manage to build the world's greatest cities without the help of the 1965-created U.S. Department of Housing and Urban...