The Chicago Contemporary Museum of Art features some of his work.
Good design can make life more fascinating and useful.
Some of the below design concepts are perhaps overboard. You decide:
Movie theaters with screens in the bathroom so you don’t miss anything.
Traffic lights with countdown indicators
.
 Wall outlets with USB chargers.
It should also come with a built-in night light.
And the ultimate outlet would also have extension cords built into the wall.
Small tiles you can attach to your keys, wallet, computer, or pretty much anything. If you lose anything, you can then look up their location on your smartphone.
Fresh pizza vending machines.
Benches that you can turn to always have a dry seat.
Power strips that you can expand and rotate.
Mug that catches any drips.
Parking garages with lights showing open spaces.
Stairs with slides.
Supermarkets with build your own 12-packs of soda.
How to stop littering.
Where was this when I was in school?
Device that charges your phone from hot or cold drinks.
Or this solar powered charger.
Subways where you can pay by recycling.
Device to lift the Pringles up.
I would totally love this.
A fun way to clean.
A hair brush that is easy to clean.
Earbuds that won’t tangle. |
The Gray Lady's bias shows beneath her protests! (See 1 below.)
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The plot thickens since SOTUS, as previously noted! (See 2 and 2a below.)
What does Obama have to say about the collapse of Yemen - one of our supposedly close allies and we have poured untold millions into that county to protect them from just what happened.
I believe, as a result of Obama's constant failures in The Middle East and elsewhere, it will impact our future foreign policy initiatives for decades and will result in more American withdrawal. The vacuum created will be filled by China and Jihadists and the world will become more dangerous with every passing day.
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I recently wrote an LTE (was not published) in response to a parent's complaint about class room size in the local schools as follows:
"I recently was favored with a note from a substitute teacher praising her experience at The Savannah Classical Academy. She attributed her experience, in part, to wonderful behaviour on the part of her students.
Granted class size at SCA is limited to 25 but the enforcement of good conduct also goes a long way towards making the teaching experience easier and more productive for all.
So yes, class size matters but so does student behaviour. Therefore,school administrators have a responsibility to assist when it comes to unruly students and I suspect PC'ism has tied many of their hands.
Ms. Byrne, the new president of The Chatham County School Board, cannot totally solve the 'Gordian Knot" of depleted funding."
I favored my friend and headmaster of SCA with a copy and this was the e mail he sent back: "In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years... Schools are not intended to moralize a wicked world, but to impart knowledge and develop intelligence, with only two social aims in mind: prepare to take on one's share in the world's work, and perhaps in addition, lend a hand in improving society, after schooling is done." - Jacques Barzun
I am unalterably opposed to "Common Core" because it allows the federal government to stick its nose further into the education process. Even under a positive president, subsequent presidents could/would wreak further havoc on what is taking place in education. Certainly Obama has done little to improve education and has threatened to withhold funding from States that do not embrace his concepts.
All The Department of Education, since its formation, has accomplished is the laundering of tax payer money, increased the size of its own bureaucracy and education has continued to suffer. The same thing is true of the Department of Energy and so many other government agencies etc.
America would be better off if we closed much of government, paid down our deficit and allow state governments to be responsible for serving their constituents.
Governments closer to voters are more responsive.
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Eric Erickson is a native of Macon, Ga. and hosts a talk radio show on Atlanta's WSB. He is very conservative and loves to pick on the current leadership of The Republican Party. Many liken him to Georgia's equivalent of Rush Limbaugh.
He is more conservative than I am on social matters and, I believe, his focus on and emphasis of many of these issues is why Republicans cannot win at the national level. You decide. (See 3 below.)
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1) The Gray Lady's Blind Spot
The New York Times and its Israel Bias
By Richard A. Block
False Narrative: Is there a cultural problem at the paper of record?
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not confined to the battlefield. It is also waged in the media, nowhere more prominently than in The New York Times. In “The Conflict and the Coverage,” a November column she “never wanted to write,” Margaret Sullivan, Times Public Editor, addressed “hundreds of emails from readers on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, complaining about Times coverage.” Her verdict: a “strong impression” “that The Times does everything it can to be fair in its coverage and generally succeeds.” She was wrong.
A prime reason is the limited evidence Sullivan considered. “This column,” she wrote, “is restricted to news coverage and does not consider the opinion side offerings.” This ill-advised, self-imposed constraint doomed her effort from the outset. The Times’ “worldview” of the conflict is also revealed in its editorial page, headlines and storylines, and the Op-Ed columns it chooses to run.
During last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas, Times Op-Eds, with rare exceptions, supported the Palestinian narrative: ““Israel’s Puppy, Tony Blair;” “Israel’s Bloody Status Quo;” “How the West Chose War in Gaza;” “Darkness Falls on Gaza;” “Israeli Self-Defense Does Not Permit Killing Civilians;” “Israel Has Overreacted to the Threats it Provoked;” “Zionism and Its Discontents;” “U.S. Should Stop Funding Israel, or Let Others Broker Peace;” “Israel’s Colonialism Must End;” “Unwavering Support of Israel Harms U.S. Interests, Encourages Extremism;” and “Eight Days in Gaza: A Wartime Diary: Life and Death in the Gaza Strip.” This is anything but fair.
Times headlines were likewise revealing. When Hamas broke yet another ceasefire and resumed firing missiles at Israeli civilians, Israel defended itself. The Times declared obtusely, “Hamas Rockets and Israeli Response Break Ceasefire.” Others: “As Israel Hits Mosque and Clinic, Air Campaign’s Risks Come Home;” “Israelis Watch Bombs Drop on Gaza From Front-Row Seats;” “Questions About Tactics and Targets as Civilian Toll Climbs in Israeli Strikes;” “Foreign Correspondents in Israel Complain of Intimidation;” “Israeli Shells are Said to Hit UN School;” “Military Censorship in Israel;” “A Boy at Play in Gaza, a Renewal of War, A Family in Mourning;” “Israel’s Supporters Try to Come to Terms with the Killing of Children in Gaza;” “Israel Braces for War Crimes Inquiries on Gaza;” and “Resisting Nazis, He Saw Need for Israel. Now He Is Its Critic.” In failing to account for these and ignoring their cumulative effect, Sullivan’s assessment is hopelessly flawed.
Sullivan defers meekly to senior editor, Joseph Kahn, on the charge of unbalanced coverage. “I hear that claim a lot” he said, from “people who are very well informed and primed to deconstruct our stories based on their knowledge…The Times does not hear this complaint from readers who are merely trying to understand the situation.” In other words, the lack of complaints of bias by people unequipped to perceive it invalidates criticism by readers who are informed!
Sullivan’s statement, “Even something as seemingly objective as death tolls can become contentious” is naive. Most journalists credulously accepted Hamas’ claims as factual, reporting them without substantiation. Others, fearing reprisal, followed Hamas’ dictate: that all Palestinian casualties be described as “civilians,” teenage combatants as “children,” and every death as Israel’s fault. Again, Sullivan is silent.
She misses the main point of Matti Friedman’s critiques in Tablet and The Atlantic, that “Most reporters in Gaza believe their job is to document violence directed by Israel at Palestinian civilians…The story mandates that they exist as passive victims…The international media’s Israel story is a narrative construct that is largely fiction.” Nonetheless, Sullivan implicitly confirms this by urging The Times to “Strengthen the coverage of the Palestinians.” Perhaps she had in mind an exchange between Times Opinion Page staff editor, Matt Seaton, and a pro-Israel media critic. After Tweeting out a link to a Times Op-Ed by an Arab citizen of Israel accusing it of institutionalized discrimination, Seaton was asked when the paper would report racism among Palestinians. He replied, “soon as they have sovereign state to discriminate with.”
Thus, it comes as no surprise that, as Sullivan laments, many readers mistrust the motives and efforts of Times editors and reporters. But by ignoring editorial misjudgments in framing headlines and stories, Op-Ed publication decisions, and evidence of endemic bias against Israel in the media in general and The Times in particular, her suggestions are modestly helpful at best. Her assertion that The Times needs to do a better job of providing historical and geopolitical context is laudable, as is her suggestion that it should “find ways to be transparent and direct with readers about [its] mission in covering this area.”
The ultimate question is whether The Times will transform its culture, given systemic problems that Sullivan, and senior editors she takes at face value, fail to acknowledge. Her most problematic recommendation is that The Times stop trying to show both sides of each story, creating the impression of “running scared“ or exhibiting “an excess of sensitivity.” Rather, its reporting should reflect “the core value of news judgment.” However, in covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict poor news judgment is The Times’ essential deficiency.
In her widely praised book, “Buried By The Times,” Northwestern University Professor Laurel Leff excoriated “America’s most important newspaper” for its scandalously negligent coverage of the Holocaust. Max Frankel, Times Executive Editor from 1986 to 1994, called it “the century’s most bitter journalistic failure.” Someday, historians will render a similar judgment on its coverage of the Jewish State and will discern a clear connection between the two colossal miscarriages of justice.
Richard A. Block is Senior Rabbi of The Temple – Tifereth Israel and President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.
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2)- Israel intrigue: What happened since the SOTU
By Jennifer Rubin January 22 at 10:38 AM
It has been a fascinating 48 hours in U.S.-Israeli relations.
The president in his State of the Union issued a veto threat concerning Menendez-Kirk sanctions legislation. The next day, Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the administration’s talking points sounded as though they came from Tehran. The administration also admitted it was no longer committed to preventing Iran’s nuclear breakout, a fundamental component of U.S. policy.
Next, House Speaker John Boehner announced that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be coming to address a joint session of Congress. The White House went into a snit, complaining this violated “protocol” because the visit wasn’t cleared by the administration. This was odd since “protocol” would normally prohibit a foreign leader such as British Prime Minister David Cameron from lobbying Congress on the matter. It would also not permit the administration to repeatedly promise Congress that it would have a vote on any final deal and then do a complete reversal, claiming the administration could enter into any agreement without Congress.
Last night a story broke suggesting Mossad and the CIA were both telling lawmakers that sanctions would wreck negotiations. This “leak” would be another breach of protocol. Secretary of State John Kerry repeated the accusation about Mossad today, strongly suggesting that this all came from the administration spin machine. Mossad in turn issued an unprecedented denial:
On 19 January 2015, Mossad Chairman Tamir Pardo met with a delegation of American Senators. The meeting took place at the Senators’ request, and with the Prime Minister’s approval.
Contrary to the report, the Mossad Chairman did not say that he opposes additional sanctions against Iran. In the meeting, the Mossad Chairman emphasized the unusual effectiveness of the sanctions imposed on Iran a number of years ago in bringing Iran to the negotiating table.
The Mossad Chairman pointed out that the negotiations with Iran must be conducted using ‘carrots and sticks,’ and the ‘sticks’ are currently missing. The Mossad Chairman pointed out that without strong pressure, it will not be possible to bring about significant compromises on the Iranian side.
The Mossad Chairman did not relate to the use of the term ‘hand grenade’ with respect to the imposition of sanctions, because in his eyes, these are the ‘sticks’ that will help to obtain a good agreement. He used this term to describe the possibility of creating a temporary breakdown in the talks, at the end of which the negotiations will be restarted under better conditions.
The Mossad Chairman explicitly pointed out that the agreement that is being reached with Iran is bad, and may lead to a regional arms race.
To top it off, the speaker announced Netanyahu will now speak in March when he comes to speak at AIPAC’s annual gathering. Sources on the Hill and familiar with planning of the AIPAC meeting claim no knowledge that the prime minister’s rescheduling is related to any of this. One knowledgeable source speculates that in light of the ongoing election campaign in Israel, Netanyahu only wanted to make one trip.
All of this suggests a quiet diplomatic war behind the scenes. The administration, contrary to the wishes of Israel and Middle East allies, refuses to put more pressure on Iran. Our allies and many observers in the U.S. as well as a bipartisan majority of lawmakers fear the president is giving away the store and that Iran is gaining a nuclear weapons capability, all with the blessing of the West. This is “containment” by another name.
In the last day or so, reports suggest that many Democrats are losing nerve on sanctions. As is invariably the case, Democrats such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) who fancy themselves as great defenders of the Jewish state are above all partisans who will not cross the president. There is no significant benefit for them to stand up to him in a party that is increasingly indifferent to Israel.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in a move that would undermine the rest of the Senate Republicans and Democrats like Menendez, is running to lefty Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to come up with an alternative measure. With that exception, Republicans are virtually unanimous in their support for conditional sanctions and for demanding a say in the final agreement.
What is certain is that the administration wants a deal so badly it wants no interference from anyone. Congress, the large majority of Americans, Israel (our closest ally in the Middle East) and the Sunni states understand that there will be no deal, only capitulation, unless pressure is increased on Iran. This is arguably the most serious break in U.S.-Israeli relations ever, a break that stems from a president who has the worst relationship with Israel since its founding. That it spilled over into the public tug and pull is a message of how badly relations have ruptured. Congress needs to act promptly to maintain solidarity with our allies and to stave off a catastrophically dangerous deal.
UPDATE: It is now being reported that the president will not meet with Netanyahu when he visits in March. This obvious snub typifies Obama’s attitude toward our closest ally. They are certainly pleased in Tehran.
2a)
Iran, Obama, Boehner and Netanyahu
By Caroline Glick
Iran has apparently produced an intercontinental ballistic missile whose range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and Europe.
On Wednesday night, Channel 2 showed satellite imagery taken by Israel’s Eros-B satellite that was launched last April. The imagery showed new missile-related sites that Iran recently constructed just outside Tehran. One facility is a missile launch site, capable of sending a rocket into space or of firing an ICBM.
On the launch pad was a new 27-meter long missile, never seen before.
The missile and the launch pad indicate that Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is an integral part of its nuclear weapons program, is moving forward at full throttle. The expanded range of Iran’s ballistic missile program as indicated by the satellite imagery makes clear that its nuclear weapons program is not merely a threat to Israel, or to Israel and Europe. It is a direct threat to the United States as well.
Also on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to address a joint session of Congress by House Speaker John Boehner.
Boehner has asked Netanyahu to address US lawmakers on February 11 regarding Iran’s nuclear program and the threat to international security posed by radical Islam.
Opposition leaders were quick to accuse Boehner and the Republican Party of interfering in Israel’s upcoming election by providing Netanyahu with such a prestigious stage just five weeks before Israelis go to the polls.
Labor MK Nachman Shai told The Jerusalem Post that for the sake of fairness, Boehner should extend the same invitation to opposition leader Isaac Herzog.
But in protesting as they have, opposition members have missed the point. Boehner didn’t invite Netanyahu because he cares about Israel’s election. He invited Netanyahu because he cares about US national security. He believes that by having Netanyahu speak on the issues of Iran’s nuclear program and radical Islam, he will advance America’s national security.
Boehner’s chief concern, and that of the majority of his colleagues from the Democratic and Republican parties alike, is that President Barack Obama’s policy in regard to Iran’s nuclear weapons program imperils the US. Just as the invitation to Netanyahu was a bipartisan invitation, so concerns about Obama’s policy toward Iran’s nuclear program are bipartisan concerns.
Over the past week in particular, Obama has adopted a position on Iran that puts him far beyond the mainstream of US politics. This radical position has placed the president on a collision course with Congress best expressed on Wednesday by Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez. During a hearing at the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee where Menendez serves as ranking Democratic member, he said, “The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran.”
Menendez was referring to threats that Obama has made three times over the past week, most prominently at his State of the Union address on Tuesday, to veto any sanctions legislation against Iran brought to his desk for signature.
He has cast proponents of sanctions – and Menendez is the co-sponsor of a pending sanctions bill – as enemies of a diplomatic strategy of dealing with Iran, and by implication, as warmongers.
Indeed, in remarks to the Democratic members of the Senate last week, Obama impugned the motivations of lawmakers who support further sanctions legislation. He indirectly alleged that they were being forced to take their positions due to pressure from their donors and others.
The problem for American lawmakers is that the diplomatic course that Obama has chosen makes it impossible for the US to use the tools of diplomacy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. That course of diplomatic action is anchored in the Joint Plan of Action that the US and its partners Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia (the P5+1) signed with Tehran in November 2013.
The JPOA placed no limitation on Iran’s ballistic missile program. The main areas the JPOA covers are Iran’s uranium enrichment and plutonium reactor activities. Under the agreement, or the aspects of it that Obama has made public, Iran is supposed to limit its enrichment of uranium to 3.5-percent purity. And it is not supposed to take action to expand its heavy water reactor at Arak, which could be used to develop weapons grade plutonium. THE JPOA is also supposed to force Iran to share all nuclear activities undertaken in the past by its military personnel.
During his State of the Union address, Obama claimed that since the agreement was signed, Iran has “halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material.”
Yet as Omri Ceren of the Israel Project noted this week, since the JPOA was signed, Iran has expanded its uranium and plutonium work. And as the Eros-B satellite imagery demonstrated, Iran is poised to launch an ICBM.
When it signed the JPOA, Obama administration officials dismissed concerns that by permitting Iran to enrich uranium to 3.5% – in breach of binding UN Security Council Resolution 1929 from 2010 – the US was enabling Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Enrichment to 3.5%, they said, is a far cry from the 90% enrichment level needed for uranium to be bomb grade.
But it works out that the distance isn’t all that great. Sixty percent of the work required to enrich uranium to bomb grade levels of purity is done by enriching it to 3.5%. Since it signed the JPOA, Iran has enriched sufficient quantities of uranium to produce two nuclear bombs.
As for plutonium development work, as Ceren pointed out, the White House’s fact sheet on the JPOA said that Iran committed itself “to halt progress on its plutonium track.”
Last October, Foreign Policy magazine reported that Iran was violating that commitment by seeking to procure parts for its heavy water plutonium reactor at Arak. And yet, astoundingly, rather than acknowledge the simple fact that Iran was violating its commitment, the State Department excused Iran’s behavior and insisted that it was not in clear violation of its commitment.
More distressingly, since the JPOA was signed, Iran has repeatedly refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to access Iran’s nuclear installations or to inform the IAEA about the nuclear activities that its military have carried out in the past. As a consequence, the US and its partners still do not know what nuclear installations Iran has or what nuclear development work it has undertaken.
This means that if a nuclear agreement is signed between Iran and the P5+1, that agreement’s verification protocols will in all likelihood not apply to all aspects of Iran’s nuclear program. And if it does not apply to all aspects of Iran’s nuclear activities, it cannot prevent Iran from continuing the activities it doesn’t know about.
As David Albright, a former IAEA inspector, explained in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last May, “To be credible, a final agreement must ensure that any effort by Tehran to construct a bomb would be sufficiently time-consuming and detectable that the international community could act decisively to prevent Iran from succeeding. It is critical to know whether the Islamic Republic had a nuclear weapons program in the past, how far the work on warheads advanced and whether it continues. Without clear answers to these questions, outsiders will be unable to determine how fast the Iranian regime could construct either a crude nuclear-test device or a deliverable weapon if it chose to renege on an agreement.”
Concern about the loopholes in the JPOA led congressional leaders from both parties to begin work to pass additional sanctions against Iran immediately after the JPOA was concluded. To withstand congressional pressure, the Obama administration alternately attacked the patriotism of its critics, who it claimed were trying to push the US into an unnecessary war against Iran, and assured them that all of their concerns would be addressed in a final agreement.
Unfortunately, since signing the JPOA, the administration has adopted positions that ensure that none of Congress’s concerns will be addressed.
Whereas in early 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that “the president has made it definitive” that Iran needs to answer all “questions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program,” last November it was reported that the US and its partners had walked back this requirement.
Iran will not be required to give full accounting of its past nuclear work, and so the US and its partners intend to sign a deal that will be unable to verify that Iran does not build nuclear weapons.
As the administration has ignored its previous pledges to Congress to ensure that a deal with Iran will make it possible to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, it has also acted to ensure that Iran will pay no price for negotiating in bad faith. The sanctions bill that Obama threatens to veto would only go into effect if Iran fails to sign an agreement.
As long as negotiations progress, no sanctions would be enforced.
OBAMA’S MESSAGE then is clear. Not only will the diplomatic policy he has adopted not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons (and its ability to attack the US with nuclear warheads attached to an ICBM), but in the event that Iran fails to agree to even cosmetic limitations on its nuclear progress, it will suffer no consequences for its recalcitrance.
And this brings us back to Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu.
With Obama’s diplomatic policy toward Iran enabling rather than preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power, members of the House and Senate are seeking a credible, unwavering voice that offers an alternative path. For the past 20 years, Netanyahu has been the global leader most outspoken about the need to take all necessary measures to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, not only for Israel’s benefit, but to protect the entire free world. From the perspective of the congressional leadership, then, inviting Netanyahu to speak was a logical move.
In the Israeli context, however, it was an astounding development. For the past generation, the Israeli Left has insisted Israel’s role on the world stage is that of a follower.
As a small, isolated nation, Israel has no choice, they say, other than to follow the lead of the West, and particularly of the White House, on all issues, even when the US president is wrong. All resistance to White House policies is dangerous and irresponsible, leaders like Herzog and Tzipi Livni continuously warn.
Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu exposes the Left’s dogma as dangerous nonsense.
The role of an Israeli leader is to adopt the policies that protect Israel, even when they are unpopular at the White House. Far from being ostracized for those policies, such an Israeli leader will be supported, respected, and relied upon by those who share with him a concern for what truly matters.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3) Republicans Unanchored
By Erick Erickson
This past week, the national media and the Republican base both scratched their collective heads perplexed by the un-anchoring of the Republican Party. The climax came last Wednesday night, 12 hours before pro-life supporters gathered en masse in Washington, D.C. for the annual March for Life.
Republicans had promised to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. They passed the legislation in 2013, but Senate Democrats then blocked it. The legislation would prevent most abortions after five months of pregnancy because most scientists agree children can, by that point in their development, feel pain. It seems cruel to kill a child, in sometimes gruesome ways, when the child can feel it.
Very few countries permit abortions when a child is more than five months old. The few that do, e.g. North Korea and China, are not countries known for their human rights. The measure is also broadly popular. More than 60 percent of voters, including more than 60 percent of young voters, support the prohibition.
In 2008, President Obama said ending late-term abortions was the type of pro-life legislation he could support. But last week, in the run-up to the vote on the legislation, Barack Obama signaled this was another statement of his with an expiration date. He threatened to veto the legislation. Republicans had a perfect opportunity to put the President on defense on an issue upon which the GOP usually plays defense.
But last Wednesday night, House Republican leaders pulled the legislation. They did so largely thanks to Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC). In Texas, State Sen. Wendy Davis tried to stop a statewide version of the legislation through a filibuster. She became a national heroine for the pro-abortion movement and media. She ultimately failed while earning the moniker (from me) "Abortion Barbie."
Ellmers has succeeded where Davis failed and is now the Republican Party's own "Abortion Barbie." Ellmers first claimed that millennials opposed the legislation. When polling showed otherwise, she pivoted. Ultimately, she caused enough Republican moderates to walk away from the legislation that the Republicans could not get it passed. If that was not audacious enough considering Ellmers had run as a "pro-life" candidate, she then released a statement claiming she would have voted for the legislation she helped scuttle.
Mollie Hemingway, a writer at The Federalist, noted everyone should be worried by the House Republicans' action. The measure has overwhelming popular support; the GOP campaigned on the issue; Renee Ellmers herself voted for the identical legislation in 2013; but the GOP could not pull it off. That level of incompetence bodes poorly for legislation that does not have popular support.
This was the climax. Preceding it was the other issue Republicans are known for -- taxes. Not wasting any time after being sworn in, a number of Senate Republicans expressed their interest in raising taxes. Most specifically, the senators said they wanted to raise the gas tax. They are not alone.
In Nevada, citizens rejected a ballot measure that would raise taxes for education. With the start of the new year, just re-elected Gov. Sandoval has declared the legislature should do what the citizens rejected. He is floating a proposal for significant tax hikes in Nevada.
In Georgia, Republicans are waffling on passing a state version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which has bipartisan support and is hugely popular among Republican voters. At the same time, behind the scenes, members of the state legislature are angling for a tax hike to fund transportation cronyism. Rumors within the legislature are that the Republican Leadership will drag their feet on a budget and then ram through tax hikes at the last possible moment, hoping fears of a budget crisis will push wavering Republicans to support it.
If Republicans do not support the pro-life cause and are willing to both reject protections for religious freedom while raising taxes, what do they stand for anymore? Perhaps a 2016 candidate will give Republicans restored purpose. For now, the party is adrift.
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