Storing Nuclear Waste In America

In the Wall Street Journal November 15, 2016, an article discussed the political stonewalling of a number of issues including how do we store nuclear waste. The following article describes the issue over the years and the need to make policy decisions. This is one of many issues that languished in an era that doing nothing was preferable to making important decisions.

Wired.Com - Storing Nuclear Waste

Where Does One Vote Have the Greatest Impact on The Electoral College?

Courtesy of Tim Spinner - Decatur IL
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So the results are in. If you had to choose a state where your vote would have the greatest impact on the Electoral College where would you go? To determine this I took a look at each individual states, how many votes were cast for President - including all the candidates, major and 3rd parties - and divided that total by the number of Electoral College votes each state received. The fewer votes it takes to get one electoral college vote, the greater the impact the voters of that state have on the Electoral College.

Charter Schools Do Make a Difference - New York Times

"Charter schools — public schools that operate outside the normal system — have become a quarrelsome subject, of course, alternately hailed as saviors and criticized as an overrated fad. Away from the fights, however, social scientists have quietly spent years analyzing the outcomes of students who attend charter schools.

The findings are stark. And while they occasionally pop up in media coverage and political debates about charter schools, they do not get nearly enough attention. The studies should be at the center of any discussion of educational reform, because they offer by far the clearest evidence about which parts of it are working and which are not.

The briefest summary is this: Many charter schools fail to live up to their promise, but one type has repeatedly shown impressive results."

New York Times - Charter Schools that Work

Rulers of Democracy - Convention of the States

Tax Credit Scholarship Programs Generate Taxpayer Savings

From the Ed Choice; New Research Report

Tax-credit scholarship programs allow individuals and businesses to reduce their state tax liability by making a private donation to a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships for children to attend private schools of their choice.

What You’ll Learn

Tax-credit scholarship programs have generated at least $1.7 billion in taxpayer savings since the first program was implemented in 1997. The savings could be as much as double that. More than 1.2 million tax-credit scholarships have been awarded to and used by students to attend private schools in the nearly two decades since such programs have been available.

School choice programs generate savings, but it’s up to lawmakers to reallocate that funding. We don’t have a good idea where the savings are going. The 10 programs studied for this report are all different. We took a detailed look at how each one operates, how many students are enrolled and how much taxpayers are saving.

Ed Choice - Tax Credit Scholarships Save Taxpayers

Scientists say 'Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming' is a Science Lie

"On top of those "inconvenient truths," the White House's assertion that 97 percent of scientists agree that global warming is real has been completely debunked. Several independently-researched examinations of the literature used to support the "97 percent" statement found that the conclusions were cherry-picked and misleading."

"A 2008 survey by two German scientists, Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, found that a significant number of scientists were skeptical of the ability of existing global climate models to accurately predict global temperatures, precipitation, sea-level changes, or extreme weather events even over a decade; they were far more skeptical as the time horizon increased."

Link to Article on the Growing Evidence of a Science Hoax

Actual and Reliable Info on Gun Violence

Simple Truth on guns and gun homicides. Deaths from guns is down.

“Gun violence” is not “becoming” anything. Rather, it’s down — and dramatically: National rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s, paralleling a general decline in violent crime, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data.


Federalists - Gun Violence is Down

Knowledge Governs Ignorance - James Madison

Was Bernie Right? And the Need for Campaign Finance Reform

Typically, Simple Facts and Simple Truths avoids advocating for or against any one politician or party. The purpose here is to inform the reader about issues. And where we occasionally agree with a candidate, does not mean we endorse them.

But, there are issues that are being flushed into the open in the current political process. One common campaign theme is that "there is too much money in politics"... and.... "our political system should work for everyone and not just Wall Street.." Bernie Sanders is someone that talks often about these issues. In fact, one candidate's stump speech resonates with many Americans when he says "I am not taking money from anyone."

US Senate Calls Out Iran and US about Agreement

Secretary of State Kerry has expressed outrage over the recent open letter from 47 US Senators to Iran regarding the lack of standing of an "executive agreement" that Kerry and President Obama are trying to negotiate with Iran. 

A few Simple Facts:

• The stated purpose of the agreement is to contain and limit Iran's capacity to construct a nuclear weapon.
• Iran has been a major antagonist to the US and its allies in the Middle East and throughout the world. (Leaders of Iran have called for "death to America". Iran recently has been known as a source of many American deaths in Iraq and also discovered to be in direct support of Osama Bin Laden.)
• Iran has been processing nuclear fuel for years. Iraq has amassed significant nuclear processing equipment. Many believe that the only purpose of this capacity is to create many nuclear weapons. Iran has rejected proposals for being supplied nuclear fuel by other countries for domestic energy production (i.e. power plants)
• President Obama has not disclosed many details about the agreement. He has stated that he does not intend to ask the Senate to ratify a possible agreement. The constitution is clear that "a treaty" must be ratified by the Senate to be binding on the US beyond the term of the current President (less that two years).

Here is the Simple Truth

Iran has a long record of attempts to undermine US interests in the world. Many report Iran as a major supporter of terrorist activities throughout the world. They have proven over and over to be untruthful and unreliable as a foreign state. These negotiations have went on for years and been extended several times.

As with most major treaties, the Senate is called on to ratify treaties. If is not a treaty, then a negotiated agreement has little lasting effect as defined in the US Constitution.

If Iran is not restrained in constructing nuclear weapons, it is an "existential threat" to the US and its allies. The President has acknowledged as much. Yet, an "executive agreement" is meaningless without Senate ratification. The "Simple Truth" is that if "advice and consent" and ratification of the Senate was sought, the effect would be:

i.) build political support for negotiated agreements,
ii.) improve the terms of the agreement,
iii.) increase negotiating leverage with Iran, and,
iv.) the result being a meaningful and long standing agreement.

Otherwise the executive agreement is meaningless and the protests from supporters of the President are SPECIOUS!