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They just aren't quite so vocal about it, according to one new study. Despite what they may claim, geniuses are no less likely than their denser peers to be racist, according to a new study from the University of Michigan. While intelligent white Americans were more likely to support the ideals of racial tolerance, their subsequent responses to specific, race-based policies did not bear out those claims, the study found. "High-ability whites are less likely to report prejudiced attitudes and more likely to say they support racial integration in principle," said Geoffrey Wodtke, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Michigan...

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The junior senator has the support of Republican colleagues Rand Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz on a measure to overhaul how the military handles sexual assault allegations. Her work has garnered praise from GOP members as a Democrat they’d like to work with and is helping her own set of issues in Washington.,/i> WASHINGTON — It was a head-turning sight on Capitol Hill. There was Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, standing with firebrand Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to showcase their support of her measure to overhaul how the military handles sexual assault allegations....

--snip-- Detroit is hardly the first city to think of having ObamaCare subsidize its retirees. Chicago, which is in financial difficulty but not bankruptcy, announced a similar plan even before Detroit. Other cities — some not even financially distressed — are contemplating doing the same thing. And why not? ObamaCare imposes no penalties on governments that offload their retirees — in contrast to large employers who offload their active employees.

National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent endorsed the conspiracy theory that President Obama's birth certificate is a forgery in his regular column for conspiracy website WND. Riffing on a recent claim by Obama that his critics promote "phony scandals" involving his administration, Nugent wrote in his July 31 column that "more of us believe in the American hero Sheriff Joe Arpaio's thorough investigation into your phony birth certificate and phony history than the phony media's smoke and mirrors." In July 2012 Arpaio, a controversial Arizona sheriff, announced that a "Cold Case Posse" under his direction determined that Obama's "long-form...

Maybe it is something we should have known all along: Right-wing rocker Ted Nugent is a ‘birther!’ Last week, during one of his many anti-Obama rants, Nugent referred to President Obama’s “phony birth certificate” and then implied that Obama is a Muslim. Nugent was reacting to President Obama suggesting that some Republicans are spending too much time on what Obama called, the “phony scandals” of his administration. Ted Nugent’s top reference to the claim that Barak Obama is not a U.S. citizen is Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio was one of the most outspoken public figures in suggesting that Obama’s...

Since Canadian born Ted Cruz has emerged on the scene in Washington as a future presidential candidate for 2016, attention has turned to whether he is Constitutionally eligible for Article 2 Section 1, the presidential qualification clause. This is what we know. Ted Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Many say that disqualifies him to be eligible for the presidency. Enter former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. She was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I came across an interview she did with Fox News's Chris Wallace in February of 2010. During the interview Wallace brought up the fact that...

The Detroit area remains one of the top 10 metros for foreclosed and vacated homes. Its abandoned residences often become hideouts for drug users and prostitutes, and occasionally scenes of murder. So it's no wonder that government officials want to simply tear down many of these homes. But in the community of Highland Park, Mich., several of the homes recently demolished were nearly new and never owned after a neighborhood revitalization project turned disastrous. And even the wreckers hired to do the job expressed shock at the waste. "The project was supposed to transform a derelict section of Highland Park...

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Cascade Township, is being pressured to stay out of the race for retiring Sen. Carl Levin's seat by libertarian power brokers Ron and Rand Paul. That's according to a National Journal article published Wednesday that examines the potential candidacies of Amash and fellow Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Howell. According to the article, rumors are flying that Amash — branded in several national media articles as the "next Ron Paul" — is being cautioned against a run by the elder Paul and Rand Paul, a Kentucky senator: But perhaps most illustrative of the tension...

“I’m proud of Detroit.” On the other end of the line was Sen. Tupac Hunter (D-Detroit), who is a member of the Mike Duggan inner circle. He was calling to remind everyone of what the senator said last week in the midst of a media story line that somehow his candidate for Mayor of Detroit could not win an uphill write-in campaign. So much for that story line. “You said you would save that tape,” he chuckled as he basked in a very impressive victory for his guy for mayor. Mr. Duggan defied the experts and finished fir - not...

After Detroit filed bankruptcy two weeks ago, the attention turned to America's other financially distraught cities. Think Motown is the only major U.S. city in a boatload of financial trouble? Think again. Detroit's bankruptcy filing sent shivers down the spine of municipal bondholders, government employees, and big-city urban residents all over the country. That's because many of the 61 largest U.S. cities are plagued with the same kinds of retirement legacy costs that sent Detroit into Chapter 9 bankruptcy this summer. These cities have amassed $118 billion in unfunded healthcare liabilities. These are legal promises to pay healthcare benefits...

Cities: Chicago appears to be following Detroit's lead to financial disaster, perhaps the latest victim of decades of one-party rule by Democrats eager to redistribute wealth while driving real wealth creators out of cities. Moody's Investors Service downgraded the Windy City's credit rating by three notches last week, partly the result of $19 billion in unfunded pension debt, leaving Chicago's lower than 90% of Moody's public finance ratings. Among the nation's five largest cities, Chicago has put aside the smallest portion of its looming pension obligations, according to a study issued this year by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The condition...

The Muslim terrorist group Qa’adat el-Jihad claimed responsibility Saturday for a terrorist bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria. The bombing in Bulgaria last week killed five Israelis, one a pregnant woman. The Lebanese paper El-Nashra reported that the group, which has ties to Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility in an email to the Arab press.

In a remarkable admission that is likely to rock the Internal Revenue Service again, testimony released Thursday by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp reveals that an agent involved in reviewing tax exempt applications from conservative groups told a committee investigator that the agency is still targeting Tea Party groups, three months after the IRS scandal erupted..

A Michigan family has 12 boys after welcoming another baby over the weekend — a dozen sons. Ranging in age from 19 months to 21 years, Jay and Kateri Schwandt's brood of boys now have a new addition: Tucker Ray Schwandt joins Ty, Zach, Drew, Brandon, Tommy, Vinny, Calvin, Gabe, Wes, Charlie, and Luke. "I never imagined I would be sitting here with my 12th child," Kateri Schwandt, who goes by the nickname Teri, told NBC News. "We didn't know what he would be when he was first born. We don't find out. It's always a boy, but it's always...

Soon after the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy, many blogs and news sites began running "facts" about the city. One common "fact" repeated often was that "the size of the police force in Detroit has been cut by about 40 percent over the past decade." Although it makes for interesting reading, just how much the police department has been cut is not that simple to determine and is another example of the city's dysfunction. For example, the city's 2003 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report states there were 4,810 uniform police officers that year. However, the city's 2012 CAFR lists the...

Think Motown is the only major U.S. city in a boatload of financial trouble? Think again. Detroit’s bankruptcy filing sent shivers down the spine of municipal bondholders, government employees, and big-city urban residents all over the country. That’s because many of the 61 largest U.S. cities are plagued with the same kinds of retirement legacy costs that sent Detroit into Chapter 9 bankruptcy this summer. These cities have amassed $118 billion in unfunded healthcare liabilities. These are legal promises to pay healthcare benefits to municipal workers beyond the employee contributions to finance those funds. This is a giant fiscal sinkhole—and...

Residents in a speck of a rural farm town in northern Michigan want to recall a school board member and fire several teachers who showed support for a local middle school teacher convicted of having sexual relations with an eighth-grade student. The teacher, Neal Erickson, had been a science and computer-education teacher at Rose City Middle School. He was convicted of having sex with an eighth-grade student on multiple occasions, reports The Detroit News. The criminal case against Erickson began when a seven-year-old photograph of a 14-year-old boy was sent anonymously to the school board and superintendent. Details about what...

Detroit, you're not alone. Across the nation, cities and states are watching Detroit's largest-ever municipal bankruptcy filing with fear. Years of underfunded retirement promises to public sector workers, which helped lay Detroit low, could plunge them into a similar financial hole. A CNBC.com analysis of more than 120 of the nation's largest state and local pension plans finds they face a wide range of financial burdens as aging work forces near retirement. Thanks to a patchwork of accounting practices and rosy investment assumptions, it's not even clear just how big a financial hole many states and cities have dug for...

America Discredited 06.08.2013 America Discredited. 50771.jpeg Paul Craig Roberts As Washington loses its grip on the world, defied by Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and now Russia, the US government resorts to public temper tantrums. The constant demonstration of childishness on the part of the White House and Congress embarrasses every American. Washington's latest outburst of childish behavior is a response to the Russian Immigration Service granting US whistleblower Edward Snowden asylum in Russia for one year while his request for permanent asylum is considered. Washington, having turned the US into a lawless state, no longer has any conception of legal procedure....

Downtown Detroit’s housing market was hit hard by the recession, as well the collapse of manufacturing and the long-term exodus of people. Currently one of the nation’s worst housing markets, the prices of homes have plummeted, while foreclosures continue to skyrocket. While the city is struggling to recover, China’s real estate-hungry buyers see an investment opportunity. While many people in the United States aren’t looking to purchase homes, a new craze has hit Chinese investors hoping to cash in on Detroit’s woeful housing economy. After announcing that the city filed for bankruptcy on July 18, Detroit property has been a...

Chicago — Having just been downgraded three notches by Moody’s, Chicago is suddenly hearing the uncomfortable shifting of deck chairs, as people wonder if the nation’s third-largest city is about to slam into the same debt-and-pensions iceberg that sank the SS Detroit last month. It was once inconceivable that the Motor City would become the setting for post-apocalyptic visions of burned out, abandoned neighborhoods, a corrupt and incarcerated city government, and all-but-nonexistent public services. Yet Detroit’s collapse took but a few decades. Now, the same disbelief and denial about Chicago is being heard, yet the evidence for the inescapable bill...

Detroit, you're not alone. Across the nation, cities and states are watching Detroit's largest-ever municipal bankruptcy filing with great trepidation. Years of underfunded retirement promises to public sector workers, which helped lay Detroit low, could plunge them into a similar and terrifying financial hole. A CNBC.com analysis of more than 120 of the nation's largest state and local pension plans finds they face a wide range of burdens as their aging workforces near retirement. Thanks to a patchwork of accounting practices and rosy investment assumptions, it's not even clear just how big a financial hole many states and cities have...

For the open-borders crowd, immigration is a patent medicine, able to cure whatever ails you. The latest pitch is that requiring immigrants to live in Detroit is the solution to that city's many ills -- see here and here, for instance. The second link, from National Journal, is aptly titled "A Modest Proposal", because it's no more real than Jonathan Swift's 18th century essay by the same name calling for the Irish to escape poverty by selling their children as food to the rich. The problem is that the Detroit suggestions do not seem to be intended as satire. And...

On 19 July 2013, Martin E. Dempsey, the Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered an unclassified letter to Senator Carl Levin concerning the risks of US military intervention in Syria. While the letter is was ostensibly delivered to the Senate, it actually delivered the equivalent to ten American thermonuclear bombs hitting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem simultaneously. While the letter was supposedly written by Dempsey, it was surely approved and intensely vetted by President Obama himself. So while the letter had Dempsey’s signature, it was Obama’s policy. The Dempsey/Obama letter outlined all the catastrophic effects which would...

Detroit’s bankruptcy and the problems facing its pension funds offer two important lessons to other communities. One is that state and local governments need to do a much better job managing retirement funds. The other is that they should not pre-emptively reduce hard-earned benefits at the first sign of trouble. Several state and local pension systems around the country are under serious stress. Not surprisingly the hardest hit retirement funds are in places devastated by global economic forces like Detroit, as well as inland cities in California like Stockton, which was battered by the real estate collapse and has also...

Police arrested a 43-year-old Detroit man who attempted to break into Kid Rock's home. The man, who has not been identified, was arrested at his home north of Detroit after the singer offered a $5,000 reward to anyone who could provide information on him. Prior to his arrest, Kid Rock posted surveillance images of the suspect  - who was notably wearing crutches during the attempted burglary - on his website and stated that he is an 'avid hunter and marksman' and 'will not hesitate to shoot anyone' who threatens his family. 'Don't mess with a mother****** like me,' the singer,...

What do northwest Washington, D.C., South Beach Miami and upper Manhattan have in common? Less than 50 years ago, the now vibrant communities didn't look much different from most of Detroit, says emergency manager Kevyn Orr—whom Gov. Rick Snyder tapped in March to revive the broken Motor City. This is what gives him hope that Detroit can stage a comeback. "D.C. in '91 was still burned out from the 1968 riots," recalls the youthful 55-year-old attorney who worked for 22 years in D.C., at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Resolution Trust Corporation, Justice Department and Jones Day law firm. "You...

Stephen Ross, the billionaire owner of the Miami Dolphins, is recruiting tax-and-spend puppet candidates to challenge fiscally conservative Florida Republican state legislators in the 2014 Republican primaries. The New York real estate investor’s actions are the latest in his campaign of personal destruction against fiscal conservatives who voted against massive taxpayer subsidies for Ross’ Sun Life Stadium. Ross, a real estate investor from Michigan who now lives in New York, owns 95 percent of the Miami Dolphins and Sun Life Stadium. Ross sought funding this year from Florida state and local taxpayers to cover much of the expenses for $350...

Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir has fingered the main culprits behind Detroit’s bankruptcy. According to him, it’s none other than Fox News host Sean Hannity and all his fellow racist conservatives who were threatened by Smokey Robinson. In his July 27 screed for Salon headlined “Why the Right Hates Detroit” O’Hehir claimed the fall of big cities like Detroit and New Orleans had less to do with longtime Democratic rule and more to do with the right’s desire, as seen in the “coded racism of Sean Hannity” to punish the cities that spawned “the worldwide revolution symbolized by hot jazz, Smokey Robinson...

Rep. David Camp (R-Mich.) will decide whether or not to run for Senate by next January. “I always knew I was going to be on the ballot. We run every two years in the House. “I just don’t know where I’m going to be on the ballot at this point,” he told Bloomberg TV in an interview airing Friday evening. “I think certainly by January, I’ll be able to know whether I’m going to do one or the other.” He said he was being encouraged to look at the race for the seat being vacated by Sen. Carl Levin (D)....

In conjunction with the observance of the 85th birthday of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. in January, the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights is organizing a community-wide conversation with the goal of ridding our justice system of racial and class bias. Representatives of police agencies and courts, together with clergy, interested citizens and community leaders, will be invited to address and find solutions to the troubling implications arising from the” not-guilty” verdict rendered in Florida’s People vs. Zimmerman case. The members of the jury seemed to believe they had little choice but to find Zimmerman not guilty, due to...

A heartwarming story came out of Northern Michigan this week involving a member of the US Marine Corps who was running a 5K race at the Venetian Festival in Charlevoix. Here’s the story from the “Seal of Honor” Facebook page: http://lite987.com/soldier-boy-5k/

Detroit declared bankruptcy a few days ago. I've written, for years, about how Detroit should serve as a stark warning to Americans who believe in liberal social policies, like highly progressive taxes and expensive social safety nets. These socialist programs don't cure income inequality. They merely destroy wealth by reducing incentives for building businesses and encouraging dependency. That's why societies with lots of government spending typically have few civil institutions and a small middle class. Here's the message our politicians on both sides of the aisle seem to miss: 50 years ago, Detroit was one of the largest and wealthiest...

So I guess going to a New York McDonald’s isn’t a good idea right now. Videographer and conservative blogger Adam Sharp of SharpElbows.net attended one such demonstration and interviewed an SEIU member, easily identifiable as such by his purple shirt. When asked whether the union member supported the $15 per hour wage increase the McDonald’s workers were demanding, he admitted, “I’m not sure.” He also said he was there to show his support for the workers rather than the company and expressed a fear that, “if they’re [the McDonald’s employees] pissed off, they could be doing something to that food.”...

FLINT, MI -- A group of protestors operating under the banner of Anonymous -- a multi-faceted, underground activist group known for hacking computers of U.S. government offices and those of foreign countries -- took to downtown Flint Wednesday, July 31, to support a range of social and political issues. Led by Flint resident Adam Gerics, founder and co-director of New Market Fire Station Compassion Center of Greater Flint and a candidate for Flint City Council, protestors stood outside U.S. Rep Dan Kildee's Flint District Office, 801 S. Saginaw St. "A major part of this action is that we want to...

TRAVERSE CITY, MI (AP)-- A proposal to draw natural gas from as many as 500 wells in Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula by using hydraulic fracturing is attracting attention from environmentalists. The Detroit News reports Monday that Calgary, Alberta-based Encana Corp. proposed the wells. Spokesman Doug Hock says the company is "in the early stages" of new drilling in Michigan.

Freepers...Please check out the details of this HSA meets Concierge Service State Based Proposal as an Alternative to Obama's Exchanges..Courtesy of Rattle With Us Tea Party in Plymouth Michigan...http://api.ning.com/files/Ox8Vn1ZQGO97DhgWb9cud0XvPc5Cj84uFIYJXERAiVssBMfKIEOoehUCOjmv0fDZ8elhMhAC1FMO6AdUlE0X3DhMZsXMNCsw/Bill2.pdf http://api.ning.com/files/Ox8Vn1ZQGO-txHmmr1Hvr57R6WwvCsECYPNn-F9r14ZN*WoGVXXSNFjY6h2gGuvwutMuon86RN5ry4aEwEI66Rm17aly-lyX/PCCSGovernmentOps.pdf http://api.ning.com/files/Ox8Vn1ZQGO*1EvV62XCoTXz9AItgn93Y-u8OUbMEFOWYCr11djWUu5DwnV-XCBakUynBwgQNGin-0hK0v64Pqlrf8RamxxvY/PatientCenteredHealthcareSolutionsHandout.pdf http://api.ning.com/files/Ox8Vn1ZQGO8G4QE2eSoW8FLerQ2sAlhdkNGGapwk*khNTBDojF*4GCd6CI4rlemFymiuwRYi5x9O2ZsjI0stkCKV9lv2Nl4y/SB459PatientCenteredCareAct.pdf

Liberals incessantly claim fealty to “science,” while falsely caricaturing libertarians and conservatives as the ones stubbornly ideological and averse to real-world facts. Scientific method, however, involves objective observation and testing beliefs against results. In that vein, it is liberals who prove habitually impervious to facts and the disastrous real-world results of their philosophies. Take gun control as one recurring example. Liberals persist in their anti-Second Amendment crusade despite irrefutable data that America’s murder rate has been cut in half over the past three decades even while gun possession has reached record highs and firearms restrictions have drastically receded across America....

**SNIP** Usually, they vote with their feet and leave. But in extreme cases like Detroit, they simply fail to pay them: Nearly half of the owners of Detroit's 305,000 properties failed to pay their tax bills last year, exacerbating a punishing cycle of declining revenues and diminished services for a city in a financial crisis, according to a Detroit News analysis of government records. ... "Why pay taxes?" asked Fred Phillips, who owes more than $2,600 on his home on an east-side block where five owners paid 2011 taxes. "Why should I send them taxes when they aren't supplying services?...

Detroit could be looking to ObamaCare for a bailout as city leaders try to cut back on retiree health costs as they enter bankruptcy proceedings. The New York Times reported Monday that the city is proposing a plan aimed at reducing its $5.7 billion in outstanding retiree health costs. In short, they want to take those retirees too young to qualify for Medicare and send them into the ObamaCare insurance markets -- which are scheduled to launch next year. Doing so would ease the burden on the Detroit coffers by taking them off city coverage. But it would inevitably increase...

Under the cover of Obama’s campaign to sell his budget .. it is no coincidence that his visit is occurring at the same time Volkswagen is being pressured to accept the UAW into its Chattanooga factory. The United Auto Workers have tried every other option at this point including calling in a favor with the union that resides in Volkswagen’s home plant in Germany. ... it doesn’t look like the UAW’s normal campaign of propaganda seems to be succeeding; therefore, it’s time to call in the big dog himself and hope their investment of $148,967 into the reelection of President...

The lack of transparency from the Obama Administration continues as leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee continue to try and persuade the Treasury Department to hand over documents relating to the Administration's involvement in the termination of non-union Delphi retirees' pension benefits. Non-union Delphi retirees saw their benefits lost while unionized UAW retirees at the company had their benefits "topped off" and preserved with taxpayer dollars funneled through General Motors during the 2009 auto bailout process. Evidence surfaced about a year ago that the Obama Administration played a role, once again, in choosing winners and losers by...

On Friday, July 19, on the House floor, Majority Leader Eric Cantor pulled Representative Justin Amash aside, ushering him into a meeting with whip Kevin McCarthy and three of Amash’s congressional allies. Cantor pressed Amash to withdraw his amendment to stop the National Security Agency from collecting logs of every American’s phone calls and said he would work to provide a vote on the issue in a future bill. But several of Cantor’s top aides, who were also present, gave what Amash thought was a more threatening overture: There’s bound to be a procedural technicality we can use to...

Growing up in Roseville in the 1970s, by the time I reached junior high school the majority of my neighborhood friends were refugees from Detroit, those who fled at a time when the inner city was showing the earliest signs of degenerating into an urban wasteland. These suburban families represented the beginning of white flight, a massive population shift that would prove to be Detroit’s undoing over the next four decades. Once safely settled in suburbia, these whites would eventually lead the charge against cross-district busing and would congregate as an anti-Detroit voting bloc. That led to Macomb County political...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Around 50 children, adults and senior citizens on a bus from Grand Rapids to the Mexican Consulate in Detroit to process legal documents for citizenship were detained for hours Thursday. Some now fear they could be deported. It happened when the driver missed an exit and the bus wound up on the Ambassador Bridge that crosses from Detroit to Windsor, Canada. Because many of the passengers were undocumented Mexican immigrants, they were detained for hours by federal officials. "Neither the Consul or the people from the Hispanic Center told us we were in any kind...

On Sunday’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on ABC, Washington Post columnist George Will took on proponents of federal assistance for Detroit, which declared bankruptcy earlier this month. According to Will, the city isn’t undergoing a fiscal crisis, but is facing a much more serious cultural one, which is the source of its woes. “Can’t solve the problems because the problems are cultural,” Will said. “You have a city, 139 square miles. You can graze cattle in vast portions of it. Dangerous herds of feral dogs roam in there. You have 3 percent of fourth graders reading at the national...

Sina Finance reports that since the bankruptcy on July 18 was announced, the Chinese website Sina Weibo has been all abuzz about how properties can be picked up for a pittance. Caroline Chen, a real estate broker in Troy, Michigan, claims to have received numerous calls from people in China. Chen says that some people have called and said they want to buy 100 to 200 properties. She said that a colleague recently sold 30 properties to a Chinese buyer. The buyer said we don't need to see the properties just pick the good ones.

CHICAGO (CBS) – An Illinois state representative has publicly raised the possibility that Chicago police officers might be the ones responsible for the unsolved murders of black youths in Chicago. State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) was interviewed about Chicago crime Tuesday on WCHB-AM in Detroit. “I’m going to tell you what some suspicions have been, and people have whispered to me: they’re not sure that black people are shooting all of these children,” Davis said. “There’s some suspicion – and I don’t want to spread this, but I’m just going to tell you what I’ve been hearing – they suspect...

DETROIT — The bus driver made a mistake; there was no turning back. Fifty Mexican immigrants, none of them documented citizens and only three with Green Cards, were on a bus from the Hispanic Center in Grand Rapids destined for the Mexican Consulate in Detroit Thursday when they found themselves unexpectedly under the scrutiny of Canadian border officials. Ariel Moutsatsos, the minister of press for the Embassy of Mexico in Washington D.C., says the bus driver "made the wrong decision" and inadvertently took the highway onto the the Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. Once on the bridge, vehicles...