Yet this economic burden is falling largely on the middle class, raising the prospect of more resentment against the West and complicating the effort to deter Iran’s nuclear program — a central priority for the Obama administration in this election year…

The rising economic panic has illustrated — and possibly intensified — the bitter divisions within Iran’s political elite. A number of insiders, including members of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, have begun openly criticizing Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in recent weeks. One of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s aides indirectly accused Ayatollah Khamenei of needlessly antagonizing the West in ways that pushed down the rial’s value, the latest sign of a rift between the president and the supreme leader that is helping to define the parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for March 2…  (more)

The 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, including West Chester and Cheyney, would see their state funding cut 20 percent under Corbett’s proposed budget as of Monday, sources confirmed.

The four state-related universities – Temple, Penn State, Lincoln, and the University of Pittsburgh – would be cut 30 percent, sources said…  (more)

It is VERY hard to justify ‘penalizing’ or having additonal taxes imposed upon the hoteliers or city/county taxpayers who essentially had NO SAY in the project. Hopefully, we will be given a SAY now!!!!!

Any additional taxes should be put to a voting referendum, and let the chips fall where they may accordingly. Taxation without representation didn’t work for England, and it shouldn’t work for the ‘power elite’ here in Lancaster County.

Further, the politicians and the media keep saying that Ahmadinejad said that “Israel will be wiped off the map”. Deep in his heart he may wish for that, however he never ever uttered those words. I speak the language and what he said was not that. It has been twisted and deliberately mistranslated to further their agenda which is the justification for an attack on Iran.

(Remember yellow cake uranium from Niger and its link to Saddam Hussein, and other none sense such as Iraq and 9/11)
What he said was that the Zionist regime has to disappear. This in the worldview of the regime is in the same vein as saying apartheid must disappear. The word Israel was not even mentioned in the sentence. This made him very popular in the Arab world. Our politicians do the same here with Israel in order to get the Jewish vote.

Would he like to see Israel disappear? Maybe, but then so would more than a dozen Arab country… particularly those surrounding Israel. In fact anti-Israel sentiment is many times stronger in the Arab world than in Iran. No one talks of going to war with those Arab countries.

The regime (not the people) in Iran is very anti US. They view Israel as a proxy for the US. Hence the rhetoric against Israel.

Israel is strong enough to take care of itself. Iran is no threat to Israel. The US should not engage in a war with Iran because Israel is paranoid.

Iran, however, is of grave danger to the west. Not in military terms but in ideological terms. Iran has in the past and continues presently to spread very strong anti-West sentiments in the Muslim world. This in the long run is far more dangerous for the West than if Iran got the bomb but had a regime that was not ideological in its current form and was preferably democratic.

“Convention Center Authority Executive Director Kevin Molloy made headlines last month when he called for county commissioners to increase the county’s hotel room tax. But even before Molloy made his pitch Jan. 19, the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau had convened its “Lancaster County Convention Center Fiscal Impact and Recovery Task Force,” comprised of officials from the Convention Center Authority, Visitors Bureau and some of the heaviest hitters in the local tourism industry… checking account that would be expected to run out in mid-2013.” .. (more)

Asked if there was any chance the convention center could default on its bonds, Molloy said in an email that if the hotel room tax isn’t hiked, “On April 1, 2012, the covenant is triggered in our agreement with the bank [that] the CVB’s [Visitors' Bureau] share of the hotel room guest tax revenue is diverted to cover those obligations. The ramifications of this event include moving to the use of finite funds in the LCCCA’s

WATCHDOG: Perhaps the most notable aspect of the article was it did not repeat the falsehoods that an increase in the county hotel room sales tax would be borne by visitors rather than the hoteliers and that the de facto price increase would not discourage tourist business. Let’s hope that we have reached the point where we can have an unbiased and knowledgeable discussion of the consequences of alternate subsidies.

Conceivably, any increase funding for the convention center ‘white elephant’ should come from general revenues rather the already damaged and declining county tourist industry.  The hotels have been made to heavily subsidize a convention center that does not generate meaningful business for them, has lured away shows and meetings from the Rt. 30 East corridor, and which absorbs hotels’ earnings and reserves that otherwise would be used for modernization.

A cause for worry is the recent information that county hotels with more than 200 rooms are not doing well.  The City of Lancaster would face much worse consequences were the Marriott Hotel to default since the City has guaranteed payment of its mortgage bonds and indirectly owns the facility.

It is ironic that the hoteliers whose warnings and predictions were  falsely denied during the convention center planning stage are now invited to participate in the rescue plan.

“As [Ronald] Reagan described, quoting (who he said was) Alexander Fraser Tytle):  ‘A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasury.   From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the treasury – with the result that democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy.’” …

“When you look at the causes of the massive explosion in government debt, however, it’s hard to see ‘the masses’ as responsible for much of anything.  Instead, the overwhelming dynamic in income in America over the past two decades has been rising inequality, which ‘government taxes and benefits have exacerbated …an outcome witnessed in virtually no other nation.’ [Barack Obama].  Sure, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act was designed to help the middle class.  But Part D was a $49.3 billion gift to big PhRMA.  Sure, health care reform will help millions of uninsured, but it was also a $250 billion gift to PhRMA and the insurance industry.  Sure, Obama pledged $700 billin to save Wall Street and another $800 billion to stimulate the economy.  But it was the banks that received the vast majority of that bailout (and more important, the $9 trillion of effectively zero-interest loans from the Fed).  Few than $75 billion was ever intended to go the homeowners, and in the end, less than $4 billion actually did.

“The engine behind this spending, or at least the most horsepower, came not from the masses, but from the special interests. And these interests could leverage their power to achieve this rapaciousness because – in part at least – of the ‘self-reinforcing cycle of mutual financial dependency’ between members of Congress and the lobbyists, as the American Bar Association’s Lobbying Tax Force put it.”

Mr. Paterno was selected as the fall guy in the Penn State scandal because his legendary status cast a big shadow for irresponsible and incompetent public servants to hide behind. The fall from the mountaintop of his incredible accomplishments and honorable behavior made a better storyline for the media to captivate a large audience for the media to take down another national hero.

Time passing and the facts of the case surfacing will change the narrative. Joe Pa will rightfully be exonerated and restored to his earned status as a kind, honorable role model and father figure to many.  (more)

One  hotel with 77 rooms was adaded in the fourth quarter of 2011.    Some of the  larger (over 200 rooms) facilities are not doing very well.

…the current Department of Public Welfare wanted to give food stamps to no one under age 60 with more than $2,000 in savings or other assets, and to no one over 60 with more than $3,250. That was way too low.

Now it wants the savings cutoff for those under 60 to be $5,500 and for those older or disabled to be $9,000 — numbers that are very close to the Post-Gazette’s proposal on Jan. 11.

Exempt from the total would be a person’s home, car, household contents, burial plot, life insurance and pension plan. Counted toward the limit would be cash, bank accounts, stocks, bonds and additional vehicles…

Click here to read the full article.

That rule, however, exempted houses of worship and their employees, as well as other institutions whose primary purpose is to promote religious belief. Churches, synagogues, mosques and other places would not be required to cover contraceptives, it specified. Neither would religious organizations whose purpose is to promote belief, and that primarily employ and serve people of the same creed.

It was a different story for religious-affiliated hospitals, colleges and social agencies that serve the public broadly…

There is no mandate, however, to cover abortions…

Click here to read the full article.

EDITOR: People have a right to be advised of their options.   On the other hand, no one is required to participate in performing an abortionl.