Tag Archives: Alaska

Economics

With friends like these . . .

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Reading How Obama’s plan to raise the minimum wage will hurt young black men reminded me of how counterproductive so many Liberal policies are for blacks.

The abortion rate is three times higher for blacks than whites, and Liberal dreams of taxpayer-funded abortions will deliberately take that higher.  Yet they are the ones claiming to have the long term best interests of blacks at heart?  Planned Parenthood kills more blacks in a week than the evil KKK did since their inception (and ironically enough, the KKK is pro-life).

They support teacher’s unions without fail and oppose charter schools, yet they are the ones claiming to have the long term best interests of blacks at heart?

They assume that poor blacks will always be poor and set up the welfare to perpetuate that, yet they are the ones claiming to have the long term best interests of blacks at heart?

Now here’s part of the post about how minimum wage increases hurt young black men.  I encourage you to read it all.

Moderate economist Gregory Mankiw of Harvard University lists the policies that are accepted by virtually all economists.

Here’s Greg’s list, together with the percentage of economists who agree:

  1. A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available. (93%)
  2. Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce general economic welfare. (93%)
  3. Flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement. (90%)
  4. Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)
  5. The United States should not restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. (90%)
  6. The United States should eliminate agricultural subsidies. (85%)
  7. Local and state governments should eliminate subsidies to professional sports franchises. (85%)
  8. If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the business cycle rather than yearly. (85%)
  9. The gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged. (85%)
  10. Cash payments increase the welfare of recipients to a greater degree than do transfers-in-kind of equal cash value. (84%)
  11. A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. (83%)
  12. A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers. (79%)
  13. The government should restructure the welfare system along the lines of a “negative income tax.” (79%)
  14. Effluent taxes and marketable pollution permits represent a better approach to pollution control than imposition of pollution ceilings. (78%)
All this makes the race-baiting of false teachers like Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie and the Leftist media so galling.  Tea Party members love people like Herman Cain because his ideas are so superior to those on the Left.  Yet they are the ones claiming to have the long term best interests of blacks at heart and that Tea Partiers are racist?  Leftists like that have no shame.
Christian worldview

“I’m from Australia and I’d really like some insight into why there is this visceral hatred of Palin from left liberals – it’s complete bizarre”

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The title of this post was a comment left on someone else’s Facebook post on Sarah Palin.  Here’s one response I liked:

As one female caller to a talk radio show said the other day, “She is smart, she is athletic, she loves the outdoors, she hunts, she fishes, she raises kids, she is on TV, she has been a governor of a state, she writes books, she blogs, AND she is pretty. What’s not to hate?”

Here was my answer:
‎90% of people abort Down Syndrome children, but she gave birth to hers. Her pro-life position makes Liberals absolutely hate her. You could agree with radical feminists on literally every issue possible except unrestricted abortion and they will hate you with a passion. Seriously.
On a different Palin post on my FB page, someone noted this:
 SP [Sarah Palin] is a stupid moron.
How eloquent, and how right off the the mainstream media script.
Update: Turns out she writes like most CEOS, and better than the expert who was hoping she’d come off as illiterate.
Politics

A really bad weekend for Palin-haters

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Update: Instead of finding evidence for her alleged stupidity, a writing analysis confirmed that she is anything but: Turns out she writes like most CEOs —  and at a higher level than a language expert who admits he wishes she would have come across as illiterate.  It was a huge backfire for the haters, but will they admit their years of mistakes?

Just a couple days ago Huffington Post followers and many other Palin-haters were practically in pants-wetting mode over the release of 24,000 pages of her emails. Oh, if only they had shown such passion for investigating the domestic terrorist connections and other issues with the Community Organizer they elected President!

So how many links does the HuffPo main page have on the emails as of this writing (June 12)? Precisely zero. Why is that? Probably because of this: Palin emails show engaged leader who sought VP nod.

There are no bombshells, no “gotcha” moments.

The emails of Sarah Palin — more than 24,000 pages of them released Friday by the state of Alaska from her first two years as governor — paint a picture of an image-conscious, driven leader, closely involved with the day-to-day duties of running the state and riding herd on the signature issues of her administration.

She angled for the vice presidential nomination months before John McCain picked her — and hinted at presidential aspirations.

Eek! A politician angling for a greater role? That’s never happened before.

The messages give a behind-the-scenes look at a politician who burst onto the national stage after serving as Wasilla mayor and less than two years as Alaska governor. They show a woman striving to balance work and home, fiercely protective of her family and highly sensitive to media coverage. She expressed a sometimes mothering side with aides but also was quick to demand answers or accountability.

Here’s a shocker: A politician who didn’t want to use state resources for political purposes. Yet people like Janeane Garafalo think that “rationale” people should support Anthony Weiner despite what he has done.

Palin’s scheduler sent her a note June 21, 2007, saying Gov. Mitt Romney — who was running for president — wanted to schedule a call to “catch up on things.” The aide said Mike Tibbles, her former chief of staff, said she probably wouldn’t be interested, and wondered how she should proceed.

“What is his number? Since it may be partisan, I should do this without state assistance. Thanks!” Palin replied.

. . .

Her supporters encouraged everyone to read the messages. “The emails detail a Governor hard at work,” said Tim Crawford, the treasurer of her political action committee, Sarah PAC, in a prepared statement.

Oh, and there were a bunch of death threats from her loving and tolerant critics.

Palin was the most popular governor in the country, she fought corruption in her own party, she took on oil company executives, she speaks plainly and isn’t an elitist, and more. Oh, and she was pro-life, having the audacity to bring a Down Syndrome child into the world. So the Palin-haters decided that she must be destroyed. The mainstream media was literally 18-to-1 negative on her. Unless you consume a balance of conservative and liberal media it is highly unlikely that you would think favorably of her.

Politics

Off the charts Palin Derangement Syndrome

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See Explosive e-mail revelation: Palin, staff were excited when McCain named her to the ticket « Hot Air.  The Left is going predictably nuts over the release of Sarah Palin’s emails.

A few questions: Why didn’t they expend this energy researching the Community Organizer they elected President — especially his known ties to domestic terrorists?  Maybe we wouldn’t such a moral and economic failure leading the country.

Would they marshal their resources in the same way to pour through the emails of Liberal politicians — say, hypothetically, Anthony Weiner?  Are they mad at Weiner because he got caught, or because he’s a super-creep who has no marketable skills outside of being a Congressman? (Meditate on that: This guy governs you but isn’t fit for any other employment.)

Do they realize how much power they give Palin by doing this?  (Oops!  I’ve said too much!)

False teachers, Politics

Arizona update and the danger of false teachers

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Not surprisingly, we got this update today: Judge: Ariz. shooting suspect mentally incompetent.  The guy was in no way influenced by Sarah Palin or any right-wing “extremists.”  He was a psycho that should have been institutionalized.  He loved the anti-Christian Zeitgeist movie.

But do you remember the reactions of the ghouls on the Left?  The bodies weren’t even cold but they read from the “we hate and fear Sarah Palin so she must be destroyed” playbook and blamed her.  They were completely unrepentant.  And ever since they have ignored countless examples of hate and violence from the Left.  Such consistency from the love and tolerance crowd!  Even when it was obvious that this guy wasn’t conservative, CNN and others still debated the issue as if Palin had some impact.

I wrote this at the time:

Waiting on retraction from false teacher on Giffords shooting . . .

Yeah, I know I’ll be waiting a long time, but technically it could happen.  Will false teacher Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie retract his attacks on Sarah Palin in light of the facts that the shooter was most decidedly not a TEA partier?   See U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Shot In Arizona; Supporter Of Health Care Reform (UPDATED) for the original ghoulish political opportunism, where the bodies weren’t even cold before the “reverend” used the deaths as a hit piece on Palin.

It turns out that the shooter was a liberal who doesn’t believe Jesus is the only way to salvation.  Hey, he’s got the same worldview as Chuck!

P.S. Will Chuck point out how the Daily Kos had a “target” piece on Giffords as well?  Of course not, as that wouldn’t fit in with his “we all need to be nicer — but mainly the Republicans” theme.

The shooter was a liberal whose fixation on Giffords appears to pre-date Palin’s arrival on the national scene.  Chuck must be so disappointed.

Still waiting . . .

Politics

More for the “What if Sarah Palin had said this” files

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I’m sympathetic to politicians having slips of the tongue.  The more you talk or write, the more likely it is that you’ll make a mistake and say something foolish.  So when Barack Obama wrote something today and dated it May 24, 2008 I couldn’t have cared less.  (See Obama is Stuck in a Moment | Verum Serum.)

But what I do care about is the media and the Left, who would have mocked Sarah Palin until their throats were raw if she had done the same thing.  Think of the things they give Obama a pass on:

Not since his visit to 57 states has the One done something quite as guffaw-inducing. Sure, his attempt to enter the Oval Office window was a laugh and his invention of an Austrian language was telling but nothing says “out of touch” like not knowing what year it is. And he didn’t just miss it by one either . . .

His list is huge, but you never catch these repeated ad nauseum on SNL, the Daily Show, MSNBC, etc. as “evidence” of how stupid he is, but people still whale on Palin for a botched interview done several years ago.

I wish people would remember why we elect Presidents: They appoint Supreme Court and Federal.  They make decisions about war.  And so on.  We don’t need to agree with every last detail with them and we don’t have to like everything they’ve ever done.

P.S. Good timing — just saw this on a Wintery Knight comment thread by WK himself:

So we have yet to hear anything about Sarah Palin’s intelligence or policies, except the name-calling, which might have been learned from watching the Comedy Channel and listening to comedians, who also do not know anything about her intelligence or policies, but only exist to make people laugh at people who are not present to defend themselves.

In the meantime, we have the positive case for Palin’s intelligence:
http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/23/the-myth-of-sarah-palins-stupidity/

And we also know that many people who laughed at Palin voted for Obama and are no unemployed, and their children are going to be crushed by trillions and trillions of dollars of spending that actually LOST over 500 thousand jobs, according to the recent study by two economists.

Roundup

Roundup

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New study shows that children of divorce twice as likely to have a stroke – excellent commentary on where Christians went wrong in not opposing “no fault” divorce and why we should oppose it now.

Here is the second unpleasant truth: homosexuals did not destroy marriage, heterosexuals did. The demand for same-sex marriage is a symptom, not a cause, of the deterioration of marriage. By far the most direct threat to the family is heterosexual divorce. “Commentators miss the point when they oppose homosexual marriage on the grounds that it would undermine traditional understandings of marriage,” writes family scholar Bryce Christensen. “It is only because traditional understandings of marriage have already been severely undermined that homosexuals are now laying claim to it.”

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Planned Parenthood files suit against Alaska parental notification law

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, November 26, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest (PPGW) is filing suit against a law approved by Alaska voters in August that would require parents to be notified of their minor daughter’s abortion.

The abortion giant, along with two pro-abortion medical doctors, is arguing that the law violates abortion-bound girls’ right to equal protection, because girls who choose to keep their babies are not required to tell their parents.

Yeah, it is easy to hide full-term pregnancies and babies from parents.

The plaintiffs also claim the law, set to take effect December 14 of this year, violates abortionists’ due process rights.

The ACLU teamed up with Planned Parenthood for the suit.  Shocking.

It is amazing that we even have this discussion or that the votes are so close.  Once again, folks, you can’t give a teenager an Advil for their orthodontia in school without taking a note and an original bottle, but these moral freaks want your kids to be able to have a very serious medical procedure and have your grandchildren destroyed without your knowledge.

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It’s Time: The Tea Party vs. Obama’s Corporate Cronies

Taking on “the man” isn’t just for hippies anymore:

“Starting next year, the huge Tea Party organizer FreedomWorks will urge supporters to punish huge corporations like General Electric and Johnson & Johnson for backing President Obama’s progressive agenda.”

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Glasgow Humanists Unable To Mount Successful Argument Against Behe – just more recycled bad arguments.  When will they learn?

Michael Behe is currently on a speaking tour around the UK (tour websitehere), organised by the newly founded Centre for ID UK. Last night, I attended Behe’s Glasgow lecture. The evening was entitled “Darwin or Design – What Does the Science Really Say?” As is to be expected, Behe spoke both articulately and persuasively, developing a powerful cumulative positive case for design based on the nanotechnology which pervades life at the level of the cellular world. Behe is a very gifted speaker, especially when it comes to conveying his scientific ideas and concepts to an audience without a scientific background.

Representatives from the Scottish Humanist Society were also in attendance, and took the liberty to hand out anti-ID literature outside the venue. Nothing wrong with that, of course. ID has nothing to fear from people listening to both sides and critically evaluating the strength of the respective cases. Unfortunately, however, the literature was disappointing – it recycled, in large measure, material from the NCSE and from Wikipedia: hardly your most reliable sources of information when it comes to ID. Many of the objections presented therein were, in fact, addressed during the course of the presentation. Tellingly, when it came to the Q&A, the humanists were seemingly unable to articulate a reason why we ought to reject Behe’s arguments, and it was somewhat of an anticlimax.

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From Sarah Palin’s response to the media’s double standards on whose verbal gaffes they highlight:

My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate – from the FBI’s 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight to halt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. And let’s face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian for that…

Barack Obama said all those things (click the links for proof).  How many times did you see those highlighted on the news and on Saturday Night Live and such?

More Palin Derangement Syndrome noted at Hot Air, reminiscent of her critics jumping on her for correctly noting the date of the Boston Tea Party:

The Twittersphere lit up after the publication of Ms Palin’s message, with critics jumping on her mention of 57 states – clearly not realising it was her joke aimed at Mr Obama.

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Charlotte PD chaplains resign over gay clergy

These men are to be applauded for standing on their convictions. The “silence equals consent” trick is one of the main tactics used by the gcm. As we reported to you, everywhere gcm clerics show up, division is inevitable. Gay christian clerics shouldn’t be accepted as legitimate Christian representatives anywhere, because their fundamental belief system is antithetical –even hostile in some cases— to the Bible. For examples look here,here and here.

I’m not sure what to say about the police chief who’s best excuse for putting these false teachers in positions of influence is “tolerance and gay-versity”.

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How many ACORN employees have been convicted of voter fraud this year? – Uh, all of them?  Well, not quite.  Only 15.

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From my other blog:  Jim Wallis of Sojourners: Hypocrite. Race Baiter. False teacher – Jim “the Gospel is all about wealth redistribution” Wallis is busy telling the world why Tea Partiers are racist and more . . .

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Politics

Weekly roundup

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kool-aidCheck out Timothy’s post on global warming proponents.  It continues to be an unprecedented, unlimited political power grab.  Some good news:

It’s been a bad year for global warming alarmists. Record cold periods and snowfalls are occurring around the globe. The hell that the radicals have promised is freezing over.

A poll found that 60% of them doubt the claims that global warming is both man-made and urgent. 

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The Cop and the Call Girl – here’s a guy who is living out his faith!  Pray for her, and those in similar situations.

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Palin helped McCain in many ways.  I hope she comes back.

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Barack “Lay off my wife” Obama’s wife used her pro-partial birth abortion views to raise funds for him.

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Fellow bloggers – Is it me, or is troll activity much higher than usual?  They seem to be out in volume and are most persistent in sharing their love, tolerance and just overall classy natures.  One guy must be on his 8th IP address.  Perhaps he’s at a public library? 

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My librarian wife found this quote.  And I thought I knew all the good Monty Python lines!

You see, I don’t believe libraries should be drab places where people sit in silence, and that’s been the main reason for our policy of employing wild animals as librarians.

Monty Python

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Carlotta at Christocentric is one of my favorite bloggers – she is very well informed and always gracious yet doesn’t put up with nonsense.  I especially like one element of her comment policy:

For Believers – An intentionally different standard applies to those who name themselves followers of Christ: persons who claim to be believers in Jesus Christ, yet bring manifestly false teaching on basic doctrines of the faith, and/or promote evil acts, are not welcomed into discussion here.

I realize that is basically what I’ve done here, even though I haven’t documented an official policy.  We obviously have lots of different views here, but I’m with her on not tolerating false teachings on the basics and/or promoting evil acts.

I worked hard with many folks – hundreds of comments worth – then realized that it was a waste of time.  Now I’m quicker to pull the trigger on Christians (whether really false or just really confused) who write such things.  At some point it becomes dust shaking / pearl holding time.

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Oil up nearly 11 percent on Saudi supply cuts– Now wait a minute . . . are you telling me that the laws of supply and demand are still in force?  Hmmm . . . I wonder what would happen if we increased the supply of oil – say, by drilling off shore or in Alaska – maybe the price would go down?

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This election was all about race, but only for the Democrats. We would love to support a black candidate, provided that he or she held views roughly the opposite of Obama’s.  We supported Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice, J.C. Watts, etc. long before Obama came along, and not because of their skin color.

As conservatives clearly showed, we aren’t anti-women at all, even though we are accused of that. Just look at the reaction to Sarah Palin. We aren’t anti-black either.

But for the Democrats, they have far to go to fulfill Martin Luther King’s dream. It wasn’t about the content of Obama’s character (the media wouldn’t go near that!). It was all about the color of his skin.

I have a dream of a re-energized conservative movement.

Politics

The Bridge to Nowhere

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More details and commentary on the Alaskan “Bridge to Nowhere” here.  This is much more than just how Palin weighed in.  Note the date of the vote and how the views of McCain, Obama and Biden.

October 20, 2005.

Scene: The United States Senate.

Players: Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, Arizona Senator John McCain, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, Delaware Senator Joe Biden, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn.

Subject: Coburn’s amendment to remove the $223 million Alaskan “Bridge to Nowhere” from a Senate Appropriations bill and use it instead to repair the heavily damaged Interstate 10 bridge over Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain ruined by Hurricane Katrina.

Results: Intimidated by the power of Appropriations Chairman Stevens, who angrily threatens to resign if he doesn’t get his way, the Senate votes 82-15 to deny the funds to Louisiana and the Katrina victims who need the bridge.

Senator John McCain, a longtime opponent of Stevens and the Bridge to Nowhere, is not in the Senate the day Coburn brings up his amendment, but is well on record as opposing the Alaska bridge. His relationship with Stevens over the issue of earmarks has been explosive. Senators Obama and Biden vote for this Stevens earmark — against giving the Bridge to Nowhere money to the Katrina victims who need their bridge rebuilt.

Meanwhile…

Scene: Alaska. 2002-2006.

Players: Stevens ally, former Senate colleague of 22 years and current — and powerful — Republican Governor Frank Murkowski. Sarah Palin, a young Alaska mother, former mayor of a small Alaska town, ex-chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Subject: The ethics of powerful members of the Alaskan Republican Establishment.

Results: Angered by what she calls the “lack of ethics” of a fellow Commission member, the state Republican Party chairman, Palin resigns and files formal complaints against the GOP chair and Alaska’s GOP Attorney General. Both men are forced to resign, the party chairman paying a record $12,000 fine. Furious at the atmosphere of corruption, Palin turns her sights on the powerful Governor Murkowski, challenging him in a primary. She wins, and goes on to beat another Alaska insider, a Democratic former governor, to capture the governorship.

Now.

What we have here are two vivid examples of how to deal with corrupted power.

Example # 1: The Obama/Biden way. Beat your chest in public about the need for change, but when you think nobody’s watching — stick with the good old boy network. So what if you screw a few Katrina victims out of $223 million for desperately needed hurricane-induced bridge repairs for a Bridge to Nowhere? You don’t want to upset the old boy network, do you? Particularly when you are really part of it.

Example #2: The Palin way. Raise holy hell about the misbehavior of your fellow party members no matter how powerful they are. Go public. Tell the truth. File a complaint. Rattle every cage in sight. Challenge the powerful Governor head-on so you can put a stop to this kind of thing. You don’t give a flying fig about the old boy network, don’t want to be part of it and think it’s about time somebody stood up and said so. You just go do it.

Example number two is what’s known generally as reform. Change. It’s the kind of thing Obama supporter and VP vetter Caroline Kennedy’s father called a “profile in courage.” Living this value takes guts. There will be consequences for you if you fail. Which is why people appreciate you when they know you have taken the risk — and succeeded.

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All of which means the selection of the vividly and quite seriously reform-minded Governor of Alaska to run on McCain’s “maverick” ticket has the very real potential of carrying the day for the GOP in Pennsylvania as a whole if she proves to be the base energizer in November that she seemed to be in August. Already the region’s main newspaper, the Harrisburg Patriot-News, which endorsed Casey in 2006, has hailed the Palin choice as “bold.” Said the paper’s lead editorial this past Sunday: “That outsider vs. insider counterpoint has the potential to coopt the line in Sen. Barack Obama’s speech Thursday accepting his party’s nomination when he said, ‘The change we need doesn’t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington.'”

As word gets out that Obama and Biden were not only afraid to challenge Senate power Stevens over his Bridge to Nowhere, but quietly voted to deny the funds to the Katrina-struck Louisianans, the contrast between who is serious about real change and who is not will be particularly vivid in a state where voters have become very demanding of the need for the real thing. Not to mention the rest of the nation.

More . . .