For the third year in a row, California is the worst-run state in America.

◼ Best- and worst-run states: Survey of all 50 - USA Today

...The states that were well-managed also tended to have lower unemployment rates. Eight of the 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates ranked as the best-run states. California, Illinois, and Nevada — the states with the highest unemployment rates as of 2012 — were among the five worst-run states....

WORST-RUN STATES

50. California

> Debt per capita: $3,990 (20th-highest)
> Budget deficit: 27.8% (3rd-largest)
> Unemployment: 10.5% (2nd-highest)
> Median household income: $58,328 (11th-highest)
> Pct. below poverty line: 17.0% (18th-highest)

For the third year in a row, California is the worst-run state in America. California faced a nearly $24 billion in budget shortfall in fiscal 2012, including a mid-year shortfall of $930 million and $8.2 billion carried over from the year before. California carries an A credit rating from Standard & Poor's, and an A1 from Moody's — both worse than any other state except for Illinois. Explaining its rating, Moody's pointed to the state's history of one-time solutions to resolve its budgetary gaps. It also noted the state's "highly volatile revenue structure," due to its over reliance on wealthy taxpayers. The Golden State was also among the worst states in the nation for educational attainment, health coverage, and unemployment.

Core-speak is peculiarly riddled with such stunning Orwellian-inspired ditties like change agent, change maker, education pioneer, thought leader, thought merchant, groupwork, groupthink and mindshift.

◼ ORWELLIAN ‘NEWSPEAK’ COMING TO COMMON CORE CLASSROOMS EVERYWHERE - Merrill Hope/Breitbart

In fact, the whole precise words movement is creepy and it's attributed to David Coleman, the Common Core's English Language Arts (ELA) chief architect, who also is president of the College Board. Coleman was appointed to the post by President Obama. It is has been reported that he has never taught an elementary school class in his life, yet he is redesigning a century's worth of college entrance exams. He is aligning the ACT, PSAT, SAT and AP to the Common Core State Standards. He's even got the high school equivalency test, the GED, covered. In his spare time, apparently, he's rewriting the English language.

◼ Common Core expert Dr. Sandra Stotsky told Connecticut grassroots activists against the Common Core standards that the latest “tactic” of their state legislature was to suppress debate about the standards by refusing to hear any bills whatsoever on Common Core. - Dr. Susan Berry/Breitbart

...Stotsky told about 200 Stop Common Core in Connecticut activists on Saturday that Connecticut, Colorado, and Massachusetts are among the states in which lawmakers are stifling any discussion or debate on the standards.

For example, on Wednesday, Connecticut state House Republican Leader Larry Cafero issued a news release calling for a public hearing on the Common Core standards.

“We have heard from thousands of educators and parents outside the legislature on these matters,” Cafero said. “As lawmakers and their elected officials, we owe the public the chance to address these issues in a formal setting within the General Assembly.’’

Cafero went on to question why, despite being deluged from the public, not a single bill regarding Common Core or teacher evaluations was raised by the legislature’s Education Committee. Cafero criticized the plan to hold an “informal hearing’’ in which only invited speakers will be allowed to speak.

House Democratic Chairman Andrew Fleischmann confirmed on Wednesday that no bills will be raised regarding Common Core.

“This is exactly why teachers, administrators, parents and their children find themselves in the situation they are in now: Common Core was adopted outside of the legislative process which meant that too many voices were left out of the debate,’’ Cafero wrote....

Let’s be clear: Terrorists ejected America from Libya that day, ushering in anarchic rule that persists to this day

◼ Obama’s Benghazi cover-up - Paul E. Vallely/Washington Times

Let’s cut to the chase: 34 Americans were attacked by terrorists in two well-planned waves. Obama cowered in indecision while national heroes died. Now, 31 survivors, rescued through incredible bravery, are being intimidated into silence. Obama has muzzled them...

The sobering reality now is, rather than praising the 31 survivors for their bravery, the Obama administration has muzzled them through extraordinary harassing measures, including nondisclosure agreements and repeated polygraphs vis-a-vis the Benghazi attacks....

This is America, where we have a system of checks and balances. When the cover-up is big enough, an industrial strength congressional response is needed; namely, a select committee such as the one employed to get answers to the Watergate scandal.

After shrieking that rich conservatives are hijacking the 2014 elections, it turns out that 13 of the 20 richest donors are giving their millions to Democrats -- donating how much?

◼ EDITORIAL: Kochs vs. Steyer: When ‘evil’ campaign cash is OK - By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Conservative contributors bad, Democratic donors good

Democrats love to throw mud balls at the Koch brothers — David and Charles — because they’re successful entrepreneurs, and they’re generous with groups that promote the free-market values that enabled them to succeed.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee even sponsors a website, StoptheKochBrothers.com. The Brothers Koch are accused of “planning a GOP takeover in 2014” by spending $27 million on political campaigns around the country.

The Democratic message is that wealthy Republicans should stay out of politics. When Tom Steyer, the billionaire onetime hedge-fund manager, promised the other day to spend up to $50 million of his own money and to raise another $50 million for Democrats, the critics of “too much money in politics” fell silent. Silence is said to be golden, but this time the silence is only brass.

...Hypocrisy doesn’t even stop there. Mr. Steyer made his enormous fortune as a hedge-fund manager, the demonized trade that Democrats blame for the 2008 market collapse. That was then, and this is now. Political survival sometimes requires “situational ethics.”

◼ REMINDER: Universities in planned FCC Newsroom Probe Got $1.8 million from Mega-Left-Wing Manipulator, George Soros... - CNS News

While Julie Boonstra of Dexter, Mich., struggles to survive leukemia, she now also has to cope with being called a liar by the Democrat who wants to be her next senator.

◼ Michigan Democrat Rep. Gary Peters threatens TV station licenses over Obamacare ad - Charles Hoskinson/Washington Examiner

While Julie Boonstra of Dexter, Mich., struggles to survive leukemia, she now also has to cope with being called a liar by the Democrat who wants to be her next senator.

And the campaign of Rep. Gary Peters is also going after television stations airing ads in which her story is featured, threatening their licenses.

...Media organizations investigating the ad's claims note that Boonstra was able to find comparable new insurance under the law; the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" blog gave the ad "two Pinocchios" (as compared to four for President Obama's claim that people could keep their insurance under the law).

But Boonstra, in response, told the local Dexter Leader newspaper that though she has no idea whether she will break even with her new plan, as the fact-checkers claim, the uncertainty of having to restructure her health care while coping with a deadly disease is damage enough.

"People are asking me for the numbers and I don't know those answers -- that's the heartbreak of all of this. It's the uncertainty of not having those numbers that I have an issue with, because I always knew what I was paying and now I don't, and I haven't gone through the tests or seen my specialist yet," she said.

◼ Cancer, Obamacare Victim at Center of Political Storm - Washington Free Beacon

Boonstra, who says she is now struggling to pay out of pocket for her rising healthcare costs, told the Washington Free Beacon she is stunned by Peters’ efforts to censor her story.

“I’m appalled. I’m appalled as a mom, as a woman, and as a cancer patient, as someone living with cancer … who has stood before this nation to say, ‘I cannot afford that out of pocket expense,’” said Boonstra, who said she was given a 20 percent chance of surviving her disease. “As a Michigan resident, to silence my voice, I’m absolutely appalled.”

”In the end it was not only Hurwitz and the enviros who got what they wanted from the demise of PALCO,...It was our county government as well.”

◼ The Headwaters Fund -- a story of desertion and betrayal - Tim Martin/Here's a Thought/Times-Standard

The bankruptcy of PALCO and the sale of Headwaters cost Silva and many other timber workers their jobs. As part of the settlement and purchase agreement the state and federal governments awarded Humboldt County $18 million as compensation. In March of 2007 then-Rep. Virginia Strom-Martin and then-Gov. Gray Davis posed for a photo on the steps of the Humboldt County Courthouse, holding a giant check for $12 million. On the memo line it read: “For jobs and job retraining for displaced workers.”

That check offered ex-PALCO workers and their families a glimmer of hope, at least for a short time. Then it became a nightmare.

At the recommendation of Supervisors Bonnie Neely and John Woolley, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors adopted a Headwaters Fund Charter to outline its purpose and structure and to justify the emptiness of their impending actions. The money would be used to “support the growth of industry clusters; to increase the number of sustainable jobs that pay at or above the median income; and to enhance the quality of life for residents of Humboldt County through projects that promote healthy communities and protect and enhance the natural environment.”

In other words it was going into a private slush fund. This seemed to be a good all-purpose way for local representatives and moneyed nobility to tell PALCO workers and gyppo loggers, “We're taking your money. Deal with it or don't.”

...Headwaters funds have since been spent on an upgrade at Buckhorn Summit on State Route 299, an expansion of air service from the Arcata-Eureka Airport to Los Angeles, and loans to various local businesses. $750,000 went to a Forestry Products Initiative aimed at convincing California residents to choose redwood over wood-plastic composite lumber when building decks. What about job retraining for displaced PALCO employees? Why, that money was being used to “offset job losses.”

...Humboldt County Economic Development Coordinator Jacqueline Debets also told (Bert Silva of Rio Dell) that Headwaters money had never been reserved for jobs and job retraining. Evidently, there were more important places for it, like the Orick rodeo grounds restroom facility ($50,000), Internet access for the Hoopa Valley Tribe ($35,000), and septic improvement for Willow Creek ($35,000)....