---This is how much our President respects those dying and fighting for us
President
Obama has told Congress he will cap next year's pay raise for U.S.
military personnel at 1 percent instead of boosting pay by 1.8 percent
as called for by a federal law.
The president's move will negatively impact American combat troops scheduled to remain in Afghanistan through 2014.
The federal
law says military pay raises must be based on the Employment Cost Index
compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which ties military raises
to private sector pay growth. Under that formula, military personnel
should be getting a 1.8 percent pay raise beginning in January 2014, CNS
News reported.
But the law
also states that the president can inform Congress of an alternative pay
adjustment "if because of national emergency or serious economic
conditions affecting the general welfare, the president considers the
pay adjustment which would otherwise be required by this section in any
year to be inappropriate."
Obama wrote
to congressional leaders: "I am strongly committed to supporting our
uniformed service members, who have made such great contributions to our
nation over the past decade of war. As our country continues to recover
from serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare,
however, we must maintain efforts to keep our nation on a sustainable
fiscal course." (WHO IS HE KIDDING!!!)
He also
asserted that his decision "will not materially affect the federal
government's ability to attract and retain well-qualified members" of
the military.
The House
passed a bill in July authorizing the 1.8 percent raise, but the Senate
has set the raise at 1 percent as recommended by Obama.
Military pay rose 1.7 percent this year and 1.6 percent in 2012.
Retired Air
Force Col. Mike Hayden, director of government relations for the
Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), calculated that the
reduced pay raise could cost an officer with 10 years of service about
$52 a month next year, or $8,000 over the remaining years of his or her
career. It would also cost a service member $20,000 in retirement pay.
Hayden wrote
on the MOAA website: "Over the past 12 years, Congress worked hard to
fix the 13.5 percent pay gap (and resulting retention problems) caused
by repeatedly capping military raises below private-sector pay growth in
the 1980s and 1990s.
"History
has shown that once Congress starts accepting proposals to cap military
pay below private-sector growth, pay caps continue until they have
weakened retention and readiness."
Editor's Note:
2. Labels on Modified Foods Would Boost Prices
Connecticut
and Maine recently passed bills requiring labels identifying all foods
made from genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and similar legislation
is pending in at least 20 states.
But labels on GMO foods would have unforeseen consequences and would be a "bad idea," Scientific American warns.
First of
all, the publication points out, farmers have been tinkering with our
food to boost production since the dawn of agriculture, and for the past
20 years Americans have been eating plants that have been modified to
help crops tolerate drought and resist herbicides. About 70 percent of
processed foods in America contain genetically modified ingredients.
"Instead of
providing people with useful information, mandatory GMO labels would
only intensify the misconception that so-called Frankenfoods endanger
people's health," Scientific American (SA) asserts, noting that the Food
and Drug Administration has tested all the GMOs on the market and found
that they are neither toxic nor allergenic.
The European Union provides a telling example. In
1997, the E.U. began requiring labels on GMO foods. By 1999, major
European retailers, fearful that consumers would shun these foods, had
removed genetically modified ingredients from their products.
But because conventional crops need more water
and pesticides than GMOs do, the unmodified products are usually more
expensive, so "we would all have to pay a premium on non-GMO foods — and
for a questionable return," SA observes.
A research firm estimated that Proposition 37, a
labeling initiative that was narrowly rejected by California voters last
year, would have raised the average family's food bill by up to $400 a
year.
Indeed, a seven-year study in India showed that
farmers growing a genetically modified crop boosted their yield per acre
by 24 percent.
German scientists have engineered so-called
Golden Rice to produce beta-carotene, which is converted in the body to
the active form of vitamin A. Every year, about half a million children
go blind as a result of vitamin A deficiency, and 70 percent of those
die within a year of losing their sight.
But Greenpeace and other GMO opponents have
managed to delay the introduction of Golden Rice to the Philippines,
India, and China.
The Insider Report noted in December that
prominent experts claimed opposition to GMOs was coming from
anti-science, anti-technology groups.
"Activism
intended to delay progress toward life-saving products and technologies
is irresponsible and despicable," according to an article co-written by
Henry I. Miller, the Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy and
Public Policy at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Miller is
also the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology at the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration.
The debates
over GMO labeling "are about so much more than slapping ostensibly
simple labels on our food to satisfy a segment of American consumers,"
SA noted. "Ultimately we are deciding whether we will continue to
develop an immensely beneficial technology or shun it based on unfounded
fears."
3. Approval of Congress Drops Even During Recess
Congress
went into recess in August and many members spent time at home talking
to constituents, but public opinion of their performance still dropped
during the month.
Just 7
percent of likely voters think Congress is doing a good or excellent
job, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
That's down from 10 percent a month ago.
When asked to rate Congress' performance as excellent, good, fair, or poor, 62 percent said poor.
Just 23 percent of respondents believe their
representative in Congress is the best possible person for the job.
Nearly twice as many, 44 percent, disagree, while 33 percent are not
sure.
One-third of those polled think their local
representative deserves re-election, but 38 percent believe their
representatives do not deserve another term.
Only 15 percent of voters believe that most
members of Congress care what their constituents think, and 64 percent
disagree. But 27 percent say their own representative cares what they
think, while 49 percent disagree.
Other findings of the Rasmussen survey:
- 67 percent of voters
continue to believe most members of Congress are re-elected because the
election rules are rigged to benefit them.
- Among voters who say
they are members of the tea party, 15 percent give Congress a good or
excellent rating, compared to 6 percent who are not tea party members.
- 78 percent of
Republican voters think it is at least somewhat important for their
leaders in Congress to work with the tea party, including 45 percent who
believe it is very important.
- Only one quarter of voters believe the debt ceiling should be raised without any significant spending cuts.
4. Afghanistan Poised to Be 'World Leader' in Minerals
Newly mapped
deposits of minerals in Afghanistan — most significantly rare earth
elements — could prove to be the "silver lining" in the war-torn
nation's recent struggles.
Afghanistan remains a ravaged land as members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) prepare to depart.
"However, the resources Afghanistan's land holds —
copper, cobalt, iron, barite, sulfur, lead, silver, zinc, niobium, and
1.4 million metric tons of rare earth elements (REEs) — may be a silver
lining," according to The American, the online magazine of the American
Enterprise Institute.
U.S. agencies estimate Afghanistan's mineral
deposits to be worth as much as $1 trillion, and a classified Pentagon
memo called the country the "Saudi Arabia of lithium." Lithium is
technically not one of the REEs, but it shares some of their uses.
Using new technologies deployed by aircraft, U.S.
military and geological experts have been able to peer beneath the
surface to map the nation's vast mineral wealth.
Jim Bullion, who heads a Pentagon task force on
Afghanistan's postwar development, has said these maps reveal that the
country could "become a world leader in the minerals sector."
REEs are crucial to the world economy. They are
17 chemical elements, such as cerium, erbium, and ytterbium, that are
used in the manufacture of a wide range of items, including cellphones,
televisions, computer components, lasers, fiber optics, and
superconductors. And they are crucial to tank navigation systems,
missile guidance systems, satellites, and fighter jet engines.
China, which produces 97 percent of the world's REEs, has tried to manipulate the market by slowing or even halting exports.
The United
States, Australia, and others stopped mining their own deposits a decade
ago because it was cheaper to buy Chinese ores, Newsmax reported
earlier.
Afghanistan's REEs could be part of a long-term
solution to the supply of the elements and help the country recover
after decades of war.
But China has won exploration rights for lithium
and some other minerals in Afghanistan, The American reports, adding:
"Given China's stranglehold on the REE market, and the West's commitment
in blood and treasure to Afghanistan's future, allowing China to stroll
in and harvest Afghanistan's rare earth riches seems both unwise and
unfair."
The article by Alan W. Down, a senior fellow with
the Fraser Institute, suggests that before ISAF nations withdraw, "they
should use their considerable leverage to ensure a level playing field
for any company willing to take a risk in developing Afghanistan's
mineral wealth."
Editor's Note:
5. 150 Million Would Move To The US
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