Very busy summer for Seattle-area road construction

Seattle Times [quoting]

The 520 bridge is closed this weekend and for three of the next four, but stays open June 14-15 because of that Saturday’s graduation ceremonies at the University of Washington.

[June 6-8] Some I-5 drivers will face a double shot of congestion next weekend, because one or two lanes of the northbound Ship Canal Bridge will be closed for concrete and guardrail repairs — at the same time two lanes are shut to replace expansion joints on the West Seattle Bridge.

That joint replacement was supposed to happen in April but weekend rains delayed it, said Kris Olsen, spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Transportation. The job requires dry conditions for polyester-infused concrete fillings to harden over the highway ruts and edges.

[May 31-June 2] Meanwhile, the Mercer Street Corridor in Seattle will be converted this weekend from east-only to two-way traffic on Mercer between Fifth and Ninth avenues north, a job that will require occasional closures Sunday afternoon, said project manager Eric Tweit. The nearby Broad Street underpass will permanently close by Monday morning.

[July]

Other significant projects include overnight lane closures to replace 300 concrete panels of I-5 in North Seattle, starting in July. On the Eastside, expansion-joint work will bring a seven-day, three-lane closure of the westbound East Channel Bridge of Interstate 90 from Bellevue to Mercer Island, in mid-July.

[May 31-June 2] There will also be many night closures, starting this weekend.

In Seattle, the southbound I-5 collector-distributor lanes — which lead to I-90, the stadiums, and Airport Way South — will close from 11 p.m. Saturday until 8:30 a.m. Sunday. The closure also will block the Spring Street ramp from downtown to I-5.

[All Summer]

Throughout late summer and fall, contractors will close lanes of surface Highway 99 through Sodo, to replace 81 worn-out concrete panels

All these projects add up to the most summer disruption since August 2007, when drivers on northbound I-5 experienced delays of up to three miles or 45 minutes near the I-90 junction, site of a two-week expansion-joint repair. Then in October 2011, the “Viadoom” closure for Highway 99 demolition caused widespread congestion on two of its five weekdays.

“It’s hard to predict what the backups are going to be,” Olsen said. If drivers reschedule their trips or take transit, she said, they’ll be more manageable.

I am posting this for future reference.

Palestinians versus BDS ignoramouses

Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority oppose the people who claim to be working for them. They find that the “heroic” Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) activists are harming their peace efforts and making them look bad. The idealistic American students didn’t consult with the people they are “helping.” Or else they don’t care. ?

Gatestone Institute

First, their interference: The BDSers are against ANY contact, including peace talks. And peace talks are PA policy. Second...

A PA official in Ramallah explained that BDS and its followers make the Palestinians appear as if they are all radicals who are only interested in boycotting and delegitimizing Israel. "This goes against the PLO's official policy, which is to seek a peace agreement with Israel based on the two-state solution," he said.

Bend, Oregon

On our way back from fantastic Crater Lake National Park we stopped to have an excellent meal at our friends’ restaurant.

Noi Thai Restaurant

550 NW Franklin Avenue 
(enter on Bond) in the old downtown section. It’s a very nice restaurant in a beautiful brick building in the great downtown.

On Facebook

Obama recession?

Is this the Obama Recession? The first quarter growth of the US economy was just revised to minus one per cent. A recession is two quarters in a row that are negative.

Obama’s economic spokesman Jason Furman said this was expected. Oh, does that make it good news? Or even “OK.” No.

Investors Business Daily documents how Obama’s recovery is, like little Orphan Annice, “always a day away."

• Early 2009, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the economy would "pick up steam" in 2010.
• In February 2010, Obama claimed that "we are seeing the corner turn on the economy growing again."
• In early 2011, Obama's top economist said "the economy has shifted out of rescue mode into the growth phase."
• In 2012, Obama claimed "the economy is getting stronger" and "our job now is to keep this economic engine churning."
• Early last year, Reuters reported that "signs are emerging that a more robust recovery is around the bend."
• This January, news stories told how "expectations are rising that 2014 will be the best year for the U.S. economy since the recession ended 4-1/2 years ago."

It still hasn’t happened. Please, President Obama, do the magic you say you can and get us some growth. And higher participation in the work force.

Book review: Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper

Book review: Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper

by Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute.

WSJ review:

Mr. Bryce’s engrossing survey has two purposes. The first is to refute pessimists who claim that technology-driven economic growth will burn through the planet’s resources and lead to catastrophe. “We are living in a world equipped with physical-science capabilities that stagger the imagination,” he writes. “If we want to bring more people out of poverty, we must embrace [technological innovation], not reject it.”

The book’s other purpose is to persuade climate-change fundamentalists that they are standing on the wrong side of history. Instead of saving the planet by going backward to Don Quixote’s windmills, they need to take a progressive approach to technology itself, he says, striving to make nuclear power safer, for instance, and using the hydrocarbon revolution sparked by fracking and deep-offshore exploration to bridge the way to the future.

Powerline:

There are a lot of splendid passages in the book, but right now my favorite is Robert’s brutal smackdown of Bill McKibben’s infantile energy lunacy starting on page 55.

At Amazon

Global warming - Ice on Lake Superior

Ice on Lake Superior at Memorial Day, May 26. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ontario, Canada.

Michigan Live

Memorial Day

Today we remember the men (and a few women) who gave their lives to preserve our liberty.

The photo: I don’t recall where I found this years ago.

Mt Rainier in 1964

It’s the year I first climbed it with a Mountaineers group of about 60. In July or August. Nineteen years old

Now I realize the following story was on our minds, since it happened less than 3 months before. Hiding out in the steam caves of the summit crater.

Seattle Times

Tour de force on Obamacare

"They Had a Dream: Rule by experts comes a cropper"

by Noemie Emery in Weekly Standard

Sample:

Social Security had been large, but made no change in the structure of government, and the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 (signed by Bill Clinton at the Republicans’ urging) was based on successful experiments at the state level conducted by governors of both parties. The Affordable Care Act looked for advice to academics, not governors, and proposed the state takeover of an industrial complex responsible for one-sixth of the gross national product based not on what had been proved to work through experience, but on what some intellectuals had guessed might work. If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, this camel was a 2,801-page non-bestseller filled with labyrinthine riddles that nobody seemed to know how to solve. To insure approximately 18 million out of 300-plus million Americans (they confessed the plan would still leave 20 million uninsured), they proposed to spend trillions on a reengineering of the entire system that would in time cause 80 to 100 million of the currently insured to lose and to seek new insurance.

“This system requires coordination of over 288 policy options .  .  . each with three or more levels of coverage, while simultaneously calculating beneficiary income, tax credibility, subsidy levels, deductibles, not to mention protecting applicant privacy, insuring web security and managing a host of other data points,” the New York Times’s Thomas B. Edsall informed us, adding that all this had to be coordinated with numerous state and federal departments and public and private bureaus and agencies that were not well equipped to assist in these ventures. Apparently, the possibility that the agencies that these experts assumed would coordinate easily with the new health insurance bureaucracy and with each other would not in reality be able to do so did not occur to the experts...

And:

Doubtless, Obama and crew had fully expected their project to be popular, owing to two tenets of liberal theory—that a crisis always makes people more open to large and expansive federal government and that people never turn away from free stuff. But this assessment was drawn from the New Deal experience, when the crisis was much graver, government was much smaller and had more room to grow, and examples of what could occur when government became too big and expensive were not yet in anyone’s mind. Even at that, FDR waited to introduce Social Security until well after the financial panic was quelled, while Obama introduced his big, expensive, and far more complex program while the crash had not yet abated.

Memorial Day don't miss...

There are the normal memorials. Everyone should take in one each year. Men risked their lives and died to preserve our liberty and freedoms.

At Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery in Seattle there is a spectacular display of 5,000 American flags to remember our war dead. Economic Freedom

Then for something completely different!!

TankFest Northwest

Restored tanks, military vehicles and artillery displays, driving and firing demonstrations,  (Puget Sound Military Vehicle Collectors Club parade, International Plastic Modelers Society Seattle Chapter display of military-vehicle models,)

10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday, Flying Heritage Collection, 3407 109th St. S.W., Everett; $10-$14 (877-342-3404).

 flyingheritage.com

AND more...

Seattle Times 

Image from RCGroups.

This is voting fraud

Every time we try to ensure that only people eligible to vote can be registered to vote, we are told “That’s just bookkeeping. There are no cases of fraudulent voting.” Here is one. For almost 40 years; at least ten times!

A immigrant man in Florida voted in elections since 1976 and is not a citizen; indeed, he never became a legal resident! He thought he was, but applied for a passport to go on a cruise and couldn’t get one. 

James Taranto at Wall Street Journal

Hernandez's case "represents a broken immigration system," his lawyer, Elizabeth Ricci, tells the Times. No doubt about that. But it represents something else, too: a broken voting system. According to the Times, Hernandez cast improper votes in "every major election" since 1976. That's at least 10 of them, twice as many if it includes midterms.

Noncitizens, including legal resident aliens, are forbidden to vote in every state. States that have sought to incorporate verification of citizenship into the voter-registration process have encountered obstacles from the Obama administration and denunciations from the New York Times

Bourgeois Dignity by Deirdre McCloskey

An interesting book on why the western world got rich in the 17th and 18th centuries while China, Africa and the Muslim world did not. U of Illinois econ historian Deirdre McCloskey says it is not what we think - innovation and markets - but rather it was simply giving the innovators and entrepreneurs respect! and freedom to operate.

At Amazon: Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World

Federal workers owe $3.3 billion in back taxes

Federal workers owe $3.3 billion in back taxes!? In two agencies over 4% of the employees are delinquent. Why are they still being paid? Being paid by non-privileged people who pay the taxes to support these “civil servants."

Tax Prof

Texans for Puget Sound oil trains?

A Northeast Texas farmer worries about the safety of the Keystone XL pipeline crossing her property. I agree that the pipeline should be built and maintained to not leak or cause other damage.

But why is she in the Seattle Times? Is she selling the use of trains? Pipelines are much, much safer than trains of oil cars. Manhattan Institute  If she is opposed to pipelines delivering oil in various forms, she should come to Puget Sound and convince us that we want more 80-car oil trains blocking crossings in Seattle and Edmonds and throughout the state.

There is concern about these trains here. Is she coming to convince us to use trains instead of pipelines?

Seattle Times

[I originally took this one step further to coal trains.]

Image: Oil train along Deschutes River in Oregon. Oregonlive.com

Senator Levin told IRS to investigate political opponents

The latest revelations about the IRS targeting conservative groups. Newley released documents show two things clearly. First, Senator Levin told the IRS to investigate his political opponents. The IRS responded that they could. And they did it.

Second, that the direction came from Washington, DC. The Cincinatti office people were doing what Obama’s DC people told them to do. A July 2012 email from IRS Attorney Steven Grodnitzky confirms that tea party group applications for exempt status were being handled in Washington.

[We are] working the Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy. We are developing a few applications here in DC and providing copies of our development letters with the agent to use as examples in the development of their cases.

Chip Hull [another lawyer in IRS headquarters] is working these cases. . .and working with the agent in Cincy, so any communication should include him as well. Because the Tea party applications are the subject of an SCR [Sensitive Case Report], we cannot resolve any of the cases without coordinating with Rob [Choi].

Powerline Blog

Credit goes to Judicial Watch for pursuing the documents. President Obama says there is “not a hint of scandal” in this. So his justice department will slow walk any half-hearted investigation they do.

Summer events in Seattle & Seattle strolls/walks

From the U District Street Fair this coming weekend, May 17 & 18 to Washington State Fair in September. (I agree with the name change; it is one of the ten largest state fairs in the country.)

Here is a guide to ten events, some of which I will resolutely miss. Seattle Times

The permanent Event Guide.

AND

Five downtown Seattle strolls/walks - Pioneer Square, International District, Pike Place Market & Olympic Sculpture Park

Seattle Times

Photo: ClimateSys.com air conditioning, etc.

Record revenues - still borrowing

The US government has record revenues - mostly taxes - this fiscal year, which started October 1. And we are still borrowing. Why?

CNS News

Federal tax revenues continue to run at a record pace in fiscal 2014, as the federal government’s total receipts for the fiscal year closed April at $1,735,030,000,000, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Despite this record revenue, the federal government still ran a deficit of $306.411 billion in the first seven months of the fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, 2013 and will end on Sept. 30, 2014.

This is not just the largest revenue, but is still the largest when adjusted for inflation.

Ophthalmologist & dermatologist stockpiling incandescent bulbs

In the UK a leading Ophthalmologist and a leading dermatologist will not allow CFL lights in their homes Because… CFLs emit ultraviolet light and cause damage. First, eyes...

… Instead of a glowing filament, low-energy bulbs have argon and mercury vapour within a spiral-shaped tube. When the gas gets heated, it produces ultraviolet light. This stimulates a fluorescent coating painted on the inside of the tube. As this coating absorbs energy, it emits light.
The concern is about some of the light rays emitted in high levels by these bulbs, says Professor Marshall. Recent scientific evidence shows these specific rays are particularly damaging to human eyes and skin.

Light is made up of a spectrum of different coloured rays of light, which have different wavelengths. As he explains: 'Light is a form of radiation. The shorter the wavelength, the more energy it contains.

'The most damaging part of the spectrum is the short wavelength light at the indigo/violet end of blue. 

'Incandescent bulbs did not cause problems, but these low-energy lamps emit high peaks of blue and ultraviolet light at this wavelength.'

In the same way ultraviolet rays in sunlight can cause premature aging in our skin if we get sunburnt, there is a similar situation in the eye, says Professor Marshall. 

'You shed skin every five days, but your retina is with you for life.'

The retina at the back of the eye is vital for sight - it's made up of light-sensitive cells that trigger nerve impulses that pass via the optic nerve to the brain, where visual images are formed.

Sustained exposure to ultraviolet light wavelengths from CFLs increases the risk of two seriously debilitating eye conditions, macular degeneration and cataracts, the professor claims.

With macular degeneration, the macula, which is at the centre of the retina, becomes damaged with age. A cataract is a clouding of the lens inside the eye. These are two of the leading causes of blindness in Britain.

And skin...

… [See the article.]

There is something we can do… 

Professor Moseley [the eye professor] says that the 'single-envelope' bulbs - the low-energy bulbs where the coiled parts are visible - tend to emit the highest levels of ultraviolet light.
He believes those with a 'double' envelope - where a pearly dome like an old- fashioned lightbulb covers the coiled parts - tend to block out UV light 'much better'.
Dermatologist Professor Hawk acknowledges the efforts to improve the bulbs by providing clouded glass domes.
'But we are not sure how improved they are,' he says.

No questions allowed! This is the EU.

'The EU was trying to be green by introducing CFLs, but they did not think of the health consequences. They are very reluctant to reverse its policies.'

Meanwhile, an EU spokes- person told the Mail that 'based on scientific evidence, an EU scientific committee in 2008 and the UK's Health Protection Agency came to the conclusion that in normal use compact fluorescent lamps do not pose risks to the general public'.
However, Professor Moseley is not convinced.

He says that what's needed is better legislation from the EU on the quality and safety of low-energy lighting.
'But they are very reluctant,' he says. 'Their feeling is that it is the sufferers' problem. In Brussels, the carbon emission targets take precedence.'

Daily Mail

This is what happens when a bureaucracy is given a goal and free reign. Nothing gets in their way. Not even blinding (literally) side effects.

I am going to dig deeper on this. If the story holds I will push it. If not I will stop and delete this post.

The face of abortion

Warren Buffet has given $1.2 billion, that’s $1,200 million, to abortion groups. By calculation, Buffet has paid for 2,700,000 dead babies. That is more than ALL the abortions in the US for two years.

His foundation’s --The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation — web site tells about doing a lot of good things, but makes no mention at all about funding of abortion providers.

Fox News

ObamaCare - 4 failed states costing $474M so far

Massachusetts, Oregon, Nevada and Maryland. These states attempt to build their own exchanges for ObamaCare have failed and cost the US taxpayers $474 million. So far. 

That is how much the US gave these states to assist building their exchanges. At last two are closing their exchanges and throwing everyone on the federal exchange.. The money is wasted. Totally. Oregon never signed up a single person with its exchange.

Next, it will cost more to get each state the the insurance plans in use there on the federal system. $100 million?

Oregon has announced they are shutting down. Massachusetts has figured out a way to throw even more of our money down the hole. They want to move most people to the federal mess but also keep their exchange open - at great cost. Apparently so they don’t have to admit failure. Maryland and Nevada know they are in big trouble.

Politico

Hawaii is also a mess. Industry people there are calling for shutting it down. Yahoo/AP

Celebrating 10 years of the Koolhaus downtown Seattle Library

Let’s celebrate Seattle’s downtown library for the unique information it provides, as well as its bold architecture.

The Seattle Times tells about how in this day when everything is digital there is still need for researchers to get their hands on the original paper documents. The original papers documens often contain additional information. And sometimes the digitizing process takes away information. The article gives the example of the historic man who could not be found in searching the records, but was found in by examination of the copied newspaper obituary. Because the digitizer got his name wrong because it was hyphenated and split on two lines!

The downtown library holds 748,000 books. And, of course, other documents are also essential - maps, journals, legal records, and genealogy records. And records in book form, but are not books, such as the directory of city businesses. Example: one guy transcribed 399,096 entries to “Genealogical Abstracts of Revolutionary War Pension Files.” !

Many of us doubted the practicality of the bold architecture by Rem Koolhaus. But - it works! I like it. I especially like that the stacks are a continuous spiral for - guessing - seven floors. You can wander into the next section as you follow the spiral up or down. Versus when you are exploring one floor you have no reason to go to the next floor.  (Yes, I am a serendipity guy. I use a paper dictionary in my Spanish study, partly because I encounter the neighboring words.) When I am there I take the escalators to the top public floor and walking all the way down the spiral.

Photo by Les Osterhout.

Some Seattle-area public art

I was following the description of a walk with historic sites along the way - along the Green River from south of Boeing Field through Tukwila. It went past an interesting pumping station. Interesting pumping station? It is a combination of the function and an installation by the street that is “art.” From what I see I like it.

It is called, prosaically, Interurban Pumping Station. Here is its page at 4 Culture.

Here is a page with four King County pumping stations with art, including it. King County But they don’t give useful locations.

And Laura Blinderman photographs interesting architecture in the Seattle area.

Obama's increased minimum wage killed jobs in Bernerton

President Obama's increased minimum wage already killed jobs in Bernerton. Obama announced that he - on his own - with his pen - could sign the order to require federal contractors to pay $10.10. And his Secretary of Labor Perez bragged that both pay would be higher and customer service would be better. Obama signed the order on about Feb. 12, 2014. CNN Money

Obama and Perez did not mention that jobs would be killed. Indeed they said that all effects would be positive.

In Bremerton, WA, a MacDonalds adjacent to the Navy Puget Sound Shipyard closed on March 31,  2014. But… you say... but the higher wage requirement doesn’t start until 2015. And only for new contracts. And… 

The MacDonalds had to close now. Their their lease with the Navy was up, so they had to sign a new lease. But the new lease required them to commit to paying $10.10 when it started.  So the owner’s choice was either sign a lease with conditions they knew they could not keep or close the restaurant; so they had to close. And they had to close early this year, due to the timing of the lease.

Obama, tell us again…  News alert for Obama. Businesses cannot keep their doors open if you raise their costs and other restrictions. Some with higher margins can, but some cannot.

Kitsap Sun

Via Generic Freedom Foundation. They also quote sources saying hundreds of fast food outlets will close due to the $10.10 and jobs will be lost in other businesses on military bases.

Remittances to Mexico fuel corruption

The areas of Mexico receiving more monthly money from expatriates in the US are better off. Right? Maybe not.

The states that have higher levels of remittance money have more official corruption. Because… the officials receive less pressure from the resident citizens because there is plenty of money. In the states that receive less the pressure is on to do things right. For example:

… Tabasco's former chief executive Andrés Granier Melo (2006-12), who bragged in a recorded conversation that in forays to Fifth Avenue and Rodeo Drive, he had purchased 400 pairs of pants, 300 suits, 1,000 shirts, and 400 pairs of shoes — with footwear costing $650 or more. How strange that he could not account for the "disappearance" of 900 million pesos ($69.3 million) at the same time that his family's bank accounts got fatter and fatter.

Center for Immigration Studies

The article goes into great detail on the states of Mexico’s states - debt, etc. - the expensive habits of officials and the corruption of those who have been caught - so far. State and local officials are better able to hide their crimes, because the national media follow federal officials, but there is little public oversight of of the states and locales. The section just before the conclusion tells how governors and local officials control journalists through direct payments and directing advertising.

For a broader view see Mexican Emigration and a Failed State about the need for citizen self-defense groups = at CIS.

Hollywood takes a stand against Sharia law

A rare bold action by Hollywood. 

The “night before Oscars” party will not be held at the Beverly Hills Hotel, because it is owned by Dorchester Collection which is owned by Hassanal Bolkiah the Sultan of Brunei and Brunei has instituted the harshest Sharia law. A boycott by “Hollywood”? Looks like it.  Hollywood Reporter

The Brunei news at Wall Street Journal.

Corporal punishment, such as whipping and amputation of limbs for crimes such as theft, will not be enforced until the second phase, while the death penalty will come into force in the third phase, the [Brunei Times] added.

Via Breitbart California

Religion of peace - Selling the captured Nigerian girls

Religion of peace update. Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the the abduction of nearly 300 teenage school girls. Now he says he will sell the school girls his group captured. Economic Freedom Why? Because he can. He says they are slaves.

Boko Haram is an Islamist group whose name means “Western education is sinful."

Does Nigeria have a government? Does it prevent crime? Punish crime? Does it have a military? Looks like “No” answers some of these questions.

Seattle Times

DelBene pays female staff 78 per cent of males

Congresswoman Suzan DelBene took a shot in the war on women in Kirkland two weeks ago, according to the Seattle Times. She said that women are paid 77 per cent of men, claiming that gap on the “real-life consequences of the gender wage gap.” She, however, is exemplary; she pays her female employees 78 per cent of male employees.

But when you point out that her own data shows she commits the very sin she decries, her staff spokesperson says you just don’t understand. The men do different jobs - better jobs. In her office the issue is equal pay for equal work. In her politics any difference is clear evidence of discrimination.

And she is incensed that the Republican National Congressional Committee (NRCC) did the comparison using full-time employees who have been employed for at least a year. That sounds reasonable. But it comes up with a worse number - 53 per cent - so she blames the Republicans for bad math. Again, it is her own data. And the Seattle Times helps her by putting her claim in the sub headline high on its home page today, saying the Republicans' math is wrong.

The Sea Times could cover the difference in analysis in the article without helping her reelection campaign by puttiing her view high on its home page. And the difference is not math - the calculation - but is how to choose which set of employees are included. The NRCC made a reasonable choice, but it made the Times’s congresswoman look bad.

Seattle Times

The April 30 Kirkland event referred to in the first paragraph is covered here - Kirkland Reporter - but it does not contain the DelBene quote cited by the Seattle Times.

John Wilhelm gets his daughters in the strangest situations

John Wilhelm puts his three little daughters in dangerous and strange situations! Ha! by Photoshop.

At Distractify. They show a nice selection so you can enjoy one at a time.

At his own web site the home page is overload for me. "John Wilhelm is a photoholic"

Amazing sand sketches

New Zealander Jamie Harkins sketches on the sand with perspective. Amazing. Some of them trick your eye even as you can see that the lines are wobbly lines drawn in the sand.

My favorites - the sail boat and speed boat w/ water skier; wish he had left out the dock and fisherman. The simple “canyon” above it. High diver shown here - amazing!

Distractify

Drinking coffee reduces diabetes

Coffee is good for you, I mean, most people. It reduces the risk if diabetes.

Breitbart

Wedgwood Rock

What? A rock? Yes. It’s 19 feet high beside a street in the Wedgwood neighborhood of Seattle. At the corner of NE 72 St. and 28 Ave NE. It was carried there by a glacier, so it is called a “glacial erratic.” It is a type of rock found at Anacortes on Fidalgo Island.

Wedgwood History

Obamacare tax originated in the Senate - violation

Obamacare is a tax when Dinghy Harry wants it to be. But it is not a tax when inconvenient.

Chief Justice Roberts saved it by rewriting Obamacare’s penalty to be a tax. Next week the DC Circuit Court will find it unconstitutional because it originated in the Senate.

All revenue measures must originate in the House — The US Constitution.

George Will explains in Washington Post.

Graphic prepared by Joint Economic Committee Republican Staff.

Hundreds of Nigerian school girls kidnapped

Hundreds of Nigerian school girls were kidnapped from their school by Boko Haram, which is an Islamist group whose title means “Western education forbidden.” US Institute of Peace

About 50 have escaped. But it is feared/known that they are being sold to be forced to be brides - read that sex slaves. For prices as low as $12 US.

Breitbart News

Boko Haram has maintained close relations with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a terrorist group that seeks overthrow African governments and impose Islamic states in the region.

The US State Department lists Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. In the 2013 announcement, the State Department spokesman said of Boko Haram: “Boko Haram has been conducting an ongoing and brutal campaign against Nigerian military, government, and civilian targets. Among its most lethal attacks, Boko Haram carried out indiscriminate attacks in Benisheikh, Nigeria in September 2013 that killed more than 160 innocent civilians, including women and children. Boko Haram has also conducted attacks against international targets, including a suicide bombing of the United Nations building in Abuja on August 26, 2011, that killed 21 people and injured dozens more, many of them aid workers supporting development projects across Nigeria.”