Conservative Watchdog

Government Bureaucrats Steal Basketball Hoops

2011-04-03T18:04:00.002-04:00

As the founders knew, without property rights we are slaves. If the right to property is denied, all other rights fall by the wayside. “The right to property is rooted in the right we have to the free use of our own mind and talents, which it is government’s job to protect,” James Madison wrote. In Delaware, the state has demonstrated its utter contempt for property rights and the individual, as the following video reveals. DelDOT forcibly removes a man’s basketball hoop and a state bureaucrat tells the man – as armed agents of the state stand nearby – to go back in his house. He no longer has the right to his property or his liberty. He is a slave at the mercy of the state.

Billions in Bloat Uncovered in Beltway

2011-03-02T20:34:00.005-05:00

The U.S. government has 15 different agencies overseeing food-safety laws, more than 20 separate programs to help the homeless and 80 programs for economic development.

These are a few of the findings in a massive study of overlapping and duplicative programs that cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year, according to the Government Accountability Office.

A report from the nonpartisan GAO, to be released Tuesday, compiles a list of redundant and potentially ineffective federal programs, and it could serve as a template for lawmakers in both parties as they move to cut federal spending and consolidate programs to reduce the deficit. Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.), who pushed for the report, estimated it identifies between $100 billion and $200 billion in duplicative spending. The GAO didn't put a specific figure on the spending overlap.

The GAO examined numerous federal agencies, including the departments of defense, agriculture and housing and urban development, and pointed to instances where different arms of the government should be coordinating or consolidating efforts to save taxpayers' money.

The agency found 82 federal programs to improve teacher quality; 80 to help disadvantaged people with transportation; 47 for job training and employment; and 56 to help people understand finances, according to a draft of the report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Instances of ineffective and unfocused federal programs can lead to a mishmash of occasionally arbitrary policies and rules, the report said. It recommends merging or consolidating a number of programs to both save money and make the government more efficient.

"Reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation could potentially save billions of tax dollars annually and help agencies provide more efficient and effective services," the report said.

There have been multiple efforts to cull the number of federal programs in recent years, but they often run into opposition from lawmakers in both parties who rush to defend individual spending provisions. In fact, GAO's recommendations are often ignored or postponed by federal agencies and lawmakers, particularly when they could require difficult political votes.

The report says policy makers should consider creating a single food-safety agency because of a number of redundancies. The Food and Drug Administration makes sure that chicken eggs are "safe, wholesome, and properly labeled" while a division of the Department of Agriculture "is responsible for the safety of eggs processed into egg products."

Spokespeople for the Department of Agriculture and FDA pointed to the Obama administration's creation of the Food Safety Working Group, which works to better coordinate the government's regulators.

The report says there are 18 federal programs that spent a combined $62.5 billion in 2008 on food and nutrition assistance, but little is known about the effectiveness of 11 of these programs because they haven't been well studied.

The report took particular aim at government funding for surface transportation, including the building of roads and other projects, which the administration has made a major part of its push to update the country's infrastructure.

The report said five divisions within the Department of Transportation account for 100 different programs that fund things like highways, rail projects and safety programs.

One program that funnels transportation funds to the states "functions as a cash-transfer general-purpose grant program, rather than as a tool for pursuing a cohesive national transportation policy," the report said. Similarly, it chided the government over encouraging federal agencies to purchase plug-in hybrid vehicles while having policies that agencies reduce electricity consumption. It said government agencies have purchased numerous vehicles that run on alternative fuels only to find many gas stations don't sell alternative fuels. This has led government agencies to turn around and request waivers so they didn't have to use alternative fuels.

A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation said the president's budget for fiscal year 2012 "proposes to cut waste, inefficiency and bureaucracy by consolidating over 55 separate highway programs into five core programs, and by merging six transit programs into two programs."

On teacher quality, the report identified 82 programs that often have similar descriptions and goals and are spread across 10 federal agencies, including the Department of Education, the Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Nine of these programs are linked to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Fifty-three of the programs are relatively small, receiving $50 million or less, "and many have their own separate administrative processes."

The GAO highlighted 80 different economic development programs at the Department of Commerce, HUD, Department of Agriculture and Small Business Administration, that spent a combined $6.5 billion last year and often overlapped. For example, the four agencies combined to have 52 different programs that fund "entrepreneurial efforts," 35 programs for infrastructure, and 26 programs for telecommunications. It said 60% of the programs fund only one or two activities, making them "the most likely to overlap because many of them can only fund the same limited types of activities."

The report took aim at several military programs, which could prove thorny because many lawmakers from both parties are wary to cut defense spending. It said there were 130,000 military and government medical professionals, 59 Defense Department hospitals and hundreds of clinics that could benefit from consolidating administrative, management and clinical functions.

For example, it said the government "may have developed duplicate" programs to counter improvised explosive devices, with the Marine Corps and the Army paying to develop similar "mine rollers." The Marine mine roller costs $85,000, and the Army mine roller costs $77,000 to $225,000. "Officials disagree about which system is most effective, and [the Pentagon] has not conducted comparative testing and evaluation of the two systems," the report said. The Pentagon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The GAO study was required by a provision inserted by Sen. Coburn into a law that raised the federal borrowing limit last year. This report is the first produced in response to the provision.

UAW Says Anti-Union Automakers Violate Human Rights

2011-01-15T21:51:00.002-05:00

United Auto Workers President Bob King said the union will label companies as human-rights violators if they disrupt efforts to organize workers.

“If a company makes the bad business decision to engage in anti-union activity, suppress the rights of freedom of speech and assembly, we will launch a global campaign to brand that company a human-rights violator,” King said today during a speech in Detroit. “We do not want to fight, but we will not run from a fight.”

King, 64, elected president of the union in June, is seeking to organize the U.S. factories of Asian and German automakers such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Daimler AG. King has said he expects to organize at least one non-union automaker this year and today added that he has begun “preliminary discussions” with some of them. He declined to identify which companies or how many.

“We just have to convince them that we’re not the evil empire,” King told reporters following his speech at the Automotive News World Congress.

To persuade foreign automakers that it makes “business sense” to allow the UAW to organize their workers, the UAW is highlighting the cooperative relationships it has with General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC, King said.

“We want to encourage the kind of relations we have, which is not to beat each other up or hold each other hostage,” King said.

Not Honda

Honda Motor Co. said today it is not talking to the UAW.

“Honda has had no dialogue with the UAW and has no interest in a discussion with them,” Ed Miller, a Honda spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement. “The issue of union representation is ultimately one for our associates to decide and, for more than three decades, Honda associates have spoken loudly and clearly by choosing to reject UAW outreach efforts.”

To help the U.S. automakers survive, the union surrendered raises, bonuses and cost-of-living adjustments. The UAW also agreed to a two-tier wage system, in which new hires earn about $14 an hour, half the amount paid to senior production workers. King estimates members gave up $7,000 to $30,000 in concessions since 2005.

King said workers at the U.S. automakers should be rewarded for their sacrifices now that the companies are gaining sales and profits. He wouldn’t say what specific compensation the union will ask in contract talks with GM, Ford and Chrysler this year. The union’s pact with the three automakers expires in September.

“You’re not going to make it up overnight,” King said. “But what’s important is that both through profit-sharing checks and through collective bargaining, the members feel they are being respected and that they’re getting their fair share of the upside.”

Comprehensive List of Tax Hikes in Obamacare

2011-01-15T19:43:00.014-05:00

Next week, the U.S. House of Representatives will be voting on an historic repeal of the Obamacare law. While there are many reasons to oppose this flawed government health insurance law, it is important to remember that Obamacare is also one of the largest tax increases in American history. Below is a comprehensive list of the two dozen new or higher taxes that pay for Obamcare’s expansion of government spending and interference between doctors and patients.

Individual Mandate Excise Tax(Jan 2014): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the higher of the following:

......................................1 Adult................2 Adults.....................3+ Adults
2014............................1% AGI/$95......1% AGI/$190..............1% AGI/$285
2015...........................2% AGI/$325.....2% AGI/$650...............2% AGI/$975
2016 +......................2.5% AGI/$695...2.5% AGI/$1390.........2.5% AGI/$2085

Exemptions for religious objectors, undocumented immigrants, prisoners, those earning less than the poverty line, members of Indian tribes, and hardship cases (determined by HHS)

Employer Mandate Tax(Jan 2014): If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2000 for all full-time employees. This provision applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer).

Combined score of individual and employer mandate tax penalty: $65 billion/10 years

Surtax on Investment Income ($123 billion/Jan. 2013): This increase involves the creation of a new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income:

...............................Capital Gains..................Dividends.................Other*
2010-2012.......................15%...........................15%......................35%
2013+ (current law)..........23.8%........................3.4%.....................3.4%
2013+ (Obama budget)....23.8%.......................23.8%...................43.4%

Other unearned income includes (for surtax purposes) gross income from interest, annuities, royalties, net rents, and passive income in partnerships and Subchapter-S corporations. It does not include municipal bond interest or life insurance proceeds, since those do not add to gross income. It does not include active trade or business income, fair market value sales of ownership in pass-through entities, or distributions from retirement plans. The 3.8% surtax does not apply to non-resident aliens.

Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans($32 bil/Jan 2018): Starting in 2018, new 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans ($10,200 single/$27,500 family). For early retirees and high-risk professions exists a higher threshold ($11,500 single/$29,450 family). CPI +1 percentage point indexed.

Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax($86.8 bil/Jan 2013): Current law and changes:

..........................................First $200K ($250K Married)Employer/Employee......All Remaining WagesEmployer/Employee
Current Law.....................................1.45%/1.45%..................................................................1.45%/1.45%
.....................................................2.9% self-employed.........................................................2.9% self-employed
Obamacare Tax Hike.............1.45%/1.45%2.9% self-employed..........................1.45%/2.35%3.8% self-employed

Medicine Cabinet Tax($5 bil/Jan 2011): Americans no longer able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin)

HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike($1.4 bil/Jan 2011): Increases additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.

Flexible Spending Account Cap – aka“Special Needs Kids Tax”($13 bil/Jan 2013): Imposes cap of $2500 (Indexed to inflation after 2013) on FSAs (now unlimited). . There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education.

Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers($20 bil/Jan 2013): Medical device manufacturers employ 360,000 people in 6000 plants across the country. This law imposes a new 2.3% excise tax. Exemptions include items retailing for less than $100.

Raise "Haircut" for Medical Itemized Deduction from 7.5% to 10% of AGI($15.2 bil/Jan 2013): Currently, those facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction for medical expenses to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). The new provision imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI; it is waived for 65+ taxpayers in 2013-2016 only.

Tax on Indoor Tanning Services($2.7 billion/July 1, 2010): New 10 percent excise tax on Americans using indoor tanning salons.

Elimination of tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D($4.5 bil/Jan 2013).

Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike($0.4 bil/Jan 2010): The special tax deduction in current law for Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies would only be allowed if 85 percent or more of premium revenues are spent on clinical services

Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals(Min$/immediate): $50,000 per hospital if they fail to meet new "community health assessment needs," "financial assistance," and "billing and collection" rules set by HHS

Tax on Innovator Drug Companies($22.2 bil/Jan 2010): $2.3 billion annual tax on the industry imposed relative to share of sales made that year.

Tax on Health Insurers($60.1 bil/Jan 2014): Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year. The stipulation phases in gradually until 2018, and is fully-imposed on firms with $50 million in profits.

$500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives($0.6 bil/Jan 2013)

Employer Reporting of Insurance on W-2(Min$/Jan 2011): Preamble to taxing health benefits on individual tax returns.

Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting($17.1 bil/Jan 2012): Requires businesses to send 1099-MISC information tax forms to corporations (currently limited to individuals), a huge compliance burden for small employers

Black liquor tax hike(Tax hike of $23.6 billion).This is a tax increase on a type of bio-fuel.

Codification of the “economic substance doctrine”(Tax hike of $4.5 billion). This provision allows the IRS to disallow completely-legal tax deductions and other legal tax-minimizing plans just because the IRS deems that the action lacks “substance” and is merely intended to reduce taxes owed.

Obama Administration's New Proposed Gun Regulation for Border States Met With Bipartisan Dissent

2011-01-15T19:28:00.004-05:00

The Obama administration's plan to force new reporting requirements on thousands of gun dealers near the Mexico border is under fire from members of his own party.

At least three Democrats in the Senate and several more in the House are voicing opposition to a proposed regulation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that would require about 8,500 gun dealers in four states – California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas – to report gun sales of two or more high-powered rifles sold within five consecutive business days.

The proposal isn't connected in any way to the mass shooting in Arizona last weekend that left six people dead and 14 others wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., because the suspect used a handgun, which is already covered under these reporting requirements.
The new regulation would cover semiautomatic rifles greater than .22 caliber with detachable magazines.

Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, has asked the ATF to withdraw its request to the White House for emergency authority to enact the regulation.

"While I understand the importance of cracking down on violence and gun trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border, this wide-reaching regulation would punish law-abiding American gun owners and impede their Second Amendment rights," Begich wrote in a letter last week to ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson. "Instead, we must secure our border and target Mexican drug cartels, as well as participating offenders in the United States."

The proposal also faces opposition from Montana's two Democratic senators, Max Baucus and Jon Tester, as well as 36 House members in both parties who say the regulation would subject gun dealers to burdensome requirements.

They want the administration to enforce the agency's existing power to ensure gun dealers are in compliance with the law.

In a letter to President Obama last month, House members, including Reps. Dan Boren, D-Okla, Nick Rahall, D-W. Va., Mike Ross, D-Ark., Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., and Ron Paul, R-Texas,said the regulation should be reviewed by Congress first.

"While Congress has authorized multiple sales reporting for handguns, we have never extended this authority to other types of firearms," they wrote. "Expanding this power by executive decree would be an end run around Congress."

Other Republicans who have expressed opposition are Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyle.
The White House did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

The controversy over the proposal comes as the Tucson shooting renews debate on gun control laws and Obama struggles to get Senate confirmation for his choice to run the ATF, Andrew Traver. The agency has not had a director for more than four years.

Obama resubmitted the nomination last week after it died in the last session of Congress. But Traver still faces fierce opposition from groups such as the National Rifle Association.
"Traver has been deeply aligned with gun control advocates and anti-gun activities," the NRA said in a statement last week. "This makes him the wrong choice to lead an enforcement agency that has almost exclusive oversight and control over the firearms industry, its retailers and consumers."

The ATF announced the new proposed regulation last month. The agency was expecting approval from the Office of Management and Budget last week but the White House is still reviewing the request.

"Review of this ATF information is proceeding expeditiously," an OMB spokeswoman said in an e-mail to FoxNews.com.

The ATF has rejected the notion that its regulation will violate Second Amendment rights or impose burdensome paperwork on gun dealers.

"These reports will give ATF real-time leads for the investigation of gun trafficking," Melson said in a webcast last month announcing the proposal.

"ATF's experience in these source states proves that multiple purchases of the described rifles are strong indicators of firearms trafficking to Mexico," he said. "By obtaining information about these multiple sales, ATF increase the likelihood of uncovering and disrupting trafficking schemes before the firearms make their way into Mexico."

Melson called the gun dealers who would be affected by the regulation "good citizens who share ATF's interest and commitment in keeping guns out of criminal hands."

"Working together, we can do that without infringing on the rights of law abiding citizens," he said.
Mexico's drug war has claimed more than 30,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on the powerful drug cartels shortly after assuming control in late 2006. ATF tracks the weapons found in Mexico and has linked tens of thousands of recovered guns to U.S. dealers.

Scott Thomasson, the chief spokesman for ATF, told FoxNews.com that the agency is pushing for this new regulation now because since 2004, there's been a 100 percent increase by Mexican drug cartels using rifles, which are not covered by any reporting requirements.

"This move by the ATF to capture this information is a direct result in the cartel shift in weapon of choice and in our attempt to stem the flow of violence," he said.

"We seem to be losing sight of the fact that this simple requirement, and it is a simple requirement, is one of the greatest tools we have as investigators in stopping and stemming violence before it happens and identifying those who put guns in the hands of people who shouldn't have them," he said.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence strongly supports the proposal.
"It makes sense that law enforcement should be alerted if someone is buying five, 10 or 100 assault weapons, when it's likely that those guns could be headed to drug cartels in Mexico," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign.

"It will give ATF the same amount of information about people who buy military-style assault weapons in bulk that they already have had for more than 40 years about people who buy handguns in bulk," he said in a statement. "It's the kind of crime-fighting information that our law enforcement officials ought to have if we want to reduce the number of assault weapons being trafficked illegally to Mexico, as well as to American cities."

The NRA, which says it is keeping a close eye on the ATF, has vowed to make every effort possible to block the proposal.

"ATF doesn't have the authority to unilaterally impose this new requirement," the group said on its website. "If the Obama administration is going to run roughshod over the statutory limitations of the ATF in this regard, what other restrictions on their authority will they attempt to undermine or ignore?"

Sarah Palin Is Right About 'Blood Libel'

2011-01-15T19:15:00.008-05:00

The term "blood libel"—which Sarah Palin invoked this week to describe the suggestions by journalists and politicians that conservative figures like herself are responsible for last weekend's shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz.—is fraught with perilous meaning in Jewish history.

The term connotes the earliest accusations that Jews killed Jesus and enthusiastically embraced responsibility for his murder, telling Pontius Pilate, "His blood be upon us and our children" (Matthew 27:25). Thus was born the legend of Jewish bloodlust and of Hebrew ritual use of Christian blood for sacramental purposes. The term was later used more specifically to describe accusations against Jews—primarily in Europe—of sacrificing kidnapped Christian children to use their blood in the baking of Passover matzos.

The term "blood libel"—which Sarah Palin invoked this week to describe the suggestions by journalists and politicians that conservative figures like herself are responsible for last weekend's shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz.—is fraught with perilous meaning in Jewish history.
The term connotes the earliest accusations that Jews killed Jesus and enthusiastically embraced responsibility for his murder, telling Pontius Pilate, "His blood be upon us and our children" (Matthew 27:25). Thus was born the legend of Jewish bloodlust and of Hebrew ritual use of Christian blood for sacramental purposes. The term was later used more specifically to describe accusations against Jews—primarily in Europe—of sacrificing kidnapped Christian children to use their blood in the baking of Passover matzos.

Jews did not kill Jesus. As the Roman historian Tacitus makes clear, he was murdered by Pontius Pilate, whose reign of terror in ancient Judea was so excessive, even by Roman standards, that (according to the Roman-Jewish chronicler Josephus) Rome recalled him in the year 36 due to his sadistic practices. King Herod Agrippa I, writing to the Emperor Caligula, noted Pilate's "acts of violence, plunderings . . . and continual murder of persons untried and uncondemned, and his never-ending, endless, and unbelievable cruelties, gratuitous and most grievous inhumanity."

Murder is humanity's most severe sin, and it is trivialized when an innocent party is accused of the crime—especially when that party is a collective too numerous to be defended individually. If Jews have learned anything in their long history, it is that a false indictment of murder against any group threatens every group. As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Indeed, the belief that the concept of blood libel applies only to Jews is itself a form of reverse discrimination that should be dismissed.

Judaism rejects the idea of collective responsibility for murder, as the Hebrew Bible condemns accusations of collective guilt against Jew and non-Jew alike. "The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him" (Ezekiel 18).

How unfortunate that some have chosen to compound a national tragedy by politicizing the murder of six innocent lives and the attempted assassination of a congresswoman.

To be sure, America should embrace civil political discourse for its own sake, and no political faction should engage in demonizing rhetoric. But promoting this high principle by simultaneously violating it and engaging in a blood libel against innocent parties is both irresponsible and immoral.

Rabbi Boteach is the author of "Honoring the Child Spirit: Inspiration and Learning from Our Children" (Vanguard, 2011). He will shortly publish a book on the Jewishness of Jesus and his murder at Roman hands.

Bill Maher to tea partiers: The Founding Fathers would’ve hated your guts

2011-01-15T16:51:00.003-05:00

Talk show host Bill Maher once again displayed his ignorance for America’s history and founding by telling Tea Partiers that the Founding Fathers would have “hated” their “guts.”

As you’d come to expect from Maher he constantly referred to members of the Tea Party as “teabaggers” – which would probably be an insult coming from virtually everybody else. When Maher uses this word, however, the Tea Party should wear it as a badge of honor.

Next he told Tea Partiers that the Founding Fathers were “nothing like them.” No, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, George Washington and all the others were profoundly different. How? Here comes Maher:

Now, I want you teabaggers out there to understand one thing: while you idolize the Founding Fathers and dress up like them, and smell like them, I think it’s pretty clear that the Founding Fathers would have hated your guts. And what’s more, you would’ve hated them. They were everything you despise. They studied science, read Plato, hung out in Paris, and thought the Bible was mostly bullshit.

I hate to break it to you, Bill, but the majority of the Founding Fathers were religious. And those who weren’t orthodox in their beliefs, at least had a healthy respect and appreciation for religion. They didn’t want to force others to believe as they did – certainly – but they respected religion, and the Bible, nonetheless. Even those more critical, such as Thomas Jefferson, believed the Bible contained important lessons – lessons wise men should take to heart. There may have been a few, like Thomas Paine, who held religion in less high esteem, but they were the minority, not the majority.

Furthermore, unlike what Maher seems to believe, the Founding Fathers weren’t big fans of a welfare state. At all. In fact, they considered the government the greatest potential threat to freedom. They understood that an intrusive, activist state always limits a people’s freedom. That’s why they wrote the Constitution in the first place: they wanted to guarantee Americans specific rights, the government could not take away.

The Tea Party continues this tradition. They too stand for individual liberty, over collectivism and social engineering. They want the government to get out of the people’s business – out of their health care and out of their pockets. If there’s one thing they demand, it’s to be left alone to live their lives as they please. Not as it pleases Maher and other cocky liberals who mess up their own lives in virtually every respect, but who nonetheless believe it’s up to them to tell others how to live.

Perhaps that Maher can do what he seems to value so much – get a good education – before spouting his mouth off again about things he has little to no knowledge of. If not, he’d do us all a favor if he’d just keep his deliberately humiliating mouth shut.

Anti-Drilling Policies Costing Federal Government Billions in Lost Revenue

2011-01-15T11:28:00.000-05:00

Billions of dollars in potential oil revenue that could help close the federal deficit is being lost as a result of President Obama’s anti-drilling agenda.

Production in the Gulf of Mexico — which normally accounts for about 30 percent of all U.S. production — is expected to drop this year by 220,000 barrels per day, according to projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

With oil currently at $90 a barrel and the royalty rate at 18.75 percent, that equals $3.7 million in lost revenue each day.

If the agency projections hold over the course of the year, the federal government would lose more than $1.35 billion from Gulf royalty payments this year.

The number grows even larger when coupled with a lack of Gulf lease sales and fewer rental payments. Those three components — royalties, leases and rent — make up a sizeable amount of government revenue.

The looming shortfall is raising red flags on Capitol Hill. Sen. David Vitter, R-LA, an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s drilling moratorium and the subsequent slowdown in permitting, first called attention to it in September.

“It’s not only about job loss along the Gulf Coast — the federal government is losing revenue as a result of the administration’s misguided moratorium,” Vitter explained.“I’ve been attacking the moratorium from multiple angles and will continue to do so until drilling can fully resume.”

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled a Gulf lease sale last October. He postponed another in the central Gulf of Mexico, originally scheduled for March, until 2012. One planned for October 2011 in the western Gulf also could be delayed until 2012. That would make 2011 the first year since 1965 that the federal government has failed to hold a lease sale in the Gulf.

Bonus bids from lease sales averaged about $1 billion in 2009 and 2010, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE).
The lack of lease sales ultimately means the government will collect less in rent payments by lease holders. Offshore rents currently generate more than $200 million per year.

The Gulf revenue decline comes as Obama’s oil spill commission is recommending new fees for oil companies – a scenario that could be avoided if the government removed barriers to exploration and production.

“Over the years, offshore production royalties have provided billions of dollars to the U.S. government,” said National Ocean Industries Association President Randall Luthi, former director of the Minerals Management Service, which predated BOEMRE. “Now, at a time when Congress is looking to maximize efficiency without raising taxes, there sits millions of dollars per day uncollected,” he said.

The Obama administration has dismissed the financial impact. The revenue loss would be “negligible,” Rebecca Blank, under secretary for economic affairs at the Department of Commerce, told a Senate committee in the fall.

“It is difficult to speculate now on the specific impact the moratorium would have over the five- or 10-year budget window, but one would expect the impact on the deficit to be negligible,” Blank wrote to the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship in September.
“Revenues may be higher or they may be lower depending on future years’ oil prices and the time profile of production,” Blank said.

Energy experts said the administration’s policies are certain to have long-term consequences for the industry.

“You continually need new discoveries and new production coming online to replace what’s being depleted,” said Andy Radford, senior policy adviser at the American Petroleum Institute. “These wells taper off over time — the ones that are producing now — so without a continual flow of new discoveries and new production, the number will continue to decrease.”

A report from the economic forecasting firm IHS Global Insight estimated that federal, state and local taxes related to the Gulf, combined with royalty payments, totaled $19 billion in 2009.
Royalties, bonus and rent payments made up more than $6 billion of that number. That pot of money could go a long way toward deficit reduction. And that’s from the Gulf alone.

Significant additional revenues would be generated if the federal government opened access to exploration and production in areas currently closed to development such as the eastern Gulf of Mexico, portions of the Rocky Mountains, ANWR, and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

A recent study conducted by Wood Mackenzie for the American Petroleum Institute estimated that increased access to those areas would bring $150 billion into federal coffers by 2025.
Why leave so much money uncollected, especially in a time of rising deficits?

Arizona Shooter's Leftist Connections To Ayers, Obama

2011-01-13T13:10:00.001-05:00

Far from being a tool of the right, it appears as if Jared Loughner, the notorious mass murderer who killed six persons last week in Arizona, was schooled in a program hatched by that American terrorist par excellence, Bill Ayers. World Net Daily reports that Loughner was a student in one of Ayers' radical education projects. And the man who ran the program, WND adds, is "a former top communist activist who is an associate of Ayers."

By now, everyone knows Loughner (left). Last week, he mowed down 18 persons outside a shopping center in Tucson, Ariz. Six people died, including federal judge John M. Roll and a 9-year-old girl. Critically wounded was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a sometime conservative Democrat.
Police had barely put the cuffs on Loughner when the leftist media and its commentators, such as former Enron advisor Paul Krugman, a columnist at the New York Times, quickly blamed conservatives for inciting Loughner's mad attack.

Turns out, however, he went to a high school associated with radicals and communists — most notably, Ayers. The school program to which the high school was attached was funded by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, whose chairman at the time was Barack Obama.
We all know who he is.

Bill AyersFor those unschooled in the history of American radical politics, Bill Ayers was a Weather Underground terrorist from the 1960s. He is the likely culprit behind the murder of San Francisco policeman Brian McDonnell. As this website described the crime in its article on Ayers:
That grim day in 1970, the Park Police station was busy with officers coming and going at a watch change, as former officer James Pera described it at a press conference held by America's Survival. Unbeknownst to Sgt. Brian McDonnell and his comrades in blue, the Weathermen planted a bomb on a window ledge just outside the station.

The murderers hoped that setting the bomb to detonate at a shift change would obliterate dozens of cops. Fortunately, it exploded a few minutes too early, but unfortunately for McDonnell, it was timed perfectly to catch him in the blast. Just across the room from the window, McDonnell was checking teletypes when the bomb exploded, sending fence staples and lead bullets into McDonnell's neck, eyes, face, and brain. Another officer lost an eye. Others retired on disability because of damaged hearing.

Police believe the Weathermen planted the bomb and murdered McDonnell. Informant Larry Gratwohl, who testified before a committee of the U.S. Senate, remembers Ayers' comments in the aftermath of the bombing:

It was a success. But it's a shame when someone like Bernadine [Dohrn] has to make all the plans, make the bomb and then place it herself. She should have to do only the planning.

To this day, Ayers avers that he never hurt anyone — a flat-out lie. Of course, the mainstream media believe Ayers, either from gullibility or sympathy, but in more candid moments Ayers flatly admits that he did, indeed, perpetrate bombings. As he told the New York Times on September 11, 2001, ironically enough, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Then there is his book, Fugitive Days, where he admits his role "in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972," or his simple rendition of what radicals must do: "Kill all the rich people.... Kill your parents." Beyond that, he admitted to David Horowitz, a former comrade in the radical revolution, that he was, indeed, guilty. "I interviewed Ayers ten years ago," Horowitz writes at his website, Front Page magazine, "in a kindergarten classroom in uptown Manhattan where he was employed to shape the minds of inner city children. Dressed in bib overalls with golden curls rolling below his ears, Ayers reviewed his activities as a terrorist for my tape recorder. When he was done, he broke into a broad, Jack Horner grin and summed up his experience: 'Guilty as hell. Free as a bird. America is a great country.'"

Free as a bird is right. Ayers and Dohrn went underground in 1970 after the failed Fort Dix plot, hiding from the police until they finally surfaced and surrendered in 1980.

The Ayers-Loughner Connection

Despite the terrorist acts on his résumé, Ayers landed a job teaching at the University of Illinois, from which he retired on a taxpayer-subsidized pension. There, instead of planting bombs, he planted his radical ideas. His targets in some cases were children who attended member schools of his Small Learning Community. One of those kids was Loughner, whose Mountain View High School participated in Ayers’ radical consortium.

The man running those “communities” is a Red named Mike Klonsky, WND reports. Klonsky directs what is called the Small School Workshop, of which the Smaller Learning Community is a part.

Mountain View was part of the Smaller Learning Communities throughout Loughner's entire attendance there, from 9th grade until he withdrew without graduating before his senior year.
The high school received grants to research the concepts of Smaller Learning Communities and work to implement them. ...

Smaller Learning Communities had its conceptual genesis in 1991, when Ayers founded a group, Small Schools Workshop, which provides training and resources to teach schools on how to implement the Smaller Learning Communities. ...

Ayers' Small Schools Workshop has the stated goal of providing support for teachers who want to create smaller learning environments. Ayers reportedly recruited a radical activist, Mike Klonsky, to head the Workshop. Klonsky still serves as director. ...

In 1995, with Obama as its chairman, the newly formed Chicago Annenberg Challenge, or CAC, a school reform organization, gave the Workshop a grant of $175,000. The CAC provided another $482,662 to the Workshop over the next few years.

Ayers was on a working group of five that originally founded the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Correspondence shows Ayers was instrumental in recruiting Obama to serve as the CAC's first chairman.

The Maoist communist Klonsky is a longtime associate of Ayers and his terrorist wife, Bernardine Dohrn, WND reports. “In the 1970s, Klonsky became a top communist activist and leader of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party. He reportedly identified as a Maoist, and traveled in 1977 to Beijing, where he held friendly meetings with the Chinese leadership.”

Two of Loughner's favorite books, according to his YouTube channel, are The Communst Manifesto and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

One of Loughner school friends, WND reports, said he was "quite liberal" and "more left."
"As I knew him," Caitie Parker wrote at her Twitter account, "he was left wing, quite liberal and oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy."

Loughner's roots are in the radical left.

Arizona Shooter's Leftist Connections To Ayers, Obama

2011-01-13T13:08:00.000-05:00

Gratwohl, who testified before a committee of the U.S. Senate, remembers Ayers' comments in the aftermath of the bombing:

It was a success. But it's a shame when someone like Bernadine [Dohrn] has to make all the plans, make the bomb and then place it herself. She should have to do only the planning.
To this day, Ayers avers that he never hurt anyone — a flat-out lie. Of course, the mainstream media believe Ayers, either from gullibility or sympathy, but in more candid moments Ayers flatly admits that he did, indeed, perpetrate bombings. As he told the New York Times on September 11, 2001, ironically enough, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."

Then there is his book, Fugitive Days, where he admits his role "in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972," or his simple rendition of what radicals must do: "Kill all the rich people.... Kill your parents." Beyond that, he admitted to David Horowitz, a former comrade in the radical revolution, that he was, indeed, guilty. "I interviewed Ayers ten years ago," Horowitz writes at his website, Front Page magazine, "in a kindergarten classroom in uptown Manhattan where he was employed to shape the minds of inner city children. Dressed in bib overalls with golden curls rolling below his ears, Ayers reviewed his activities as a terrorist for my tape recorder. When he was done, he broke into a broad, Jack Horner grin and summed up his experience:

'Guilty as hell. Free as a bird. America is a great country.'"

Free as a bird is right. Ayers and Dohrn went underground in 1970 after the failed Fort Dix plot, hiding from the police until they finally surfaced and surrendered in 1980.

The Ayers-Loughner ConnectionDespite the terrorist acts on his résumé, Ayers landed a job teaching at the University of Illinois, from which he retired on a taxpayer-subsidized pension. There, instead of planting bombs, he planted his radical ideas. His targets in some cases were children who attended member schools of his Small Learning Community. One of those kids was Loughner, whose Mountain View High School participated in Ayers’ radical consortium.
The man running those “communities” is a Red named Mike Klonsky, WND reports. Klonsky directs what is called the Small School Workshop, of which the Smaller Learning Community is a part.

Mountain View was part of the Smaller Learning Communities throughout Loughner's entire attendance there, from 9th grade until he withdrew without graduating before his senior year.
The high school received grants to research the concepts of Smaller Learning Communities and work to implement them. ...

Smaller Learning Communities had its conceptual genesis in 1991, when Ayers founded a group, Small Schools Workshop, which provides training and resources to teach schools on how to implement the Smaller Learning Communities. ...

Ayers' Small Schools Workshop has the stated goal of providing support for teachers who want to create smaller learning environments. Ayers reportedly recruited a radical activist, Mike Klonsky, to head the Workshop. Klonsky still serves as director. ...

In 1995, with Obama as its chairman, the newly formed Chicago Annenberg Challenge, or CAC, a school reform organization, gave the Workshop a grant of $175,000. The CAC provided another $482,662 to the Workshop over the next few years.

Ayers was on a working group of five that originally founded the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Correspondence shows Ayers was instrumental in recruiting Obama to serve as the CAC's first chairman.

The Maoist communist Klonsky is a longtime associate of Ayers and his terrorist wife, Bernardine Dohrn, WND reports. “In the 1970s, Klonsky became a top communist activist and leader of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party. He reportedly identified as a Maoist, and traveled in 1977 to Beijing, where he held friendly meetings with the Chinese leadership.”
Two of Loughner's favorite books, according to his YouTube channel, are The Communst Manifesto and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

One of Loughner school friends, WND reports, said he was "quite liberal" and "more left."
"As I knew him," Caitie Parker wrote at her Twitter account, "he was left wing, quite liberal and oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy."
Loughner's roots are in the radical left.

Finally: Dupnik releases police reports on Loughner, family

2011-01-12T23:28:00.000-05:00

There were no missed red flags as far as I can tell. The Arizona Republic has brief summaries of 12 reports, the most damning of which involve him being drunk at school and being caught with pot paraphernalia while driving with his friend. See the Smoking Gun for more details. In fact, until the morning of the shooting, when he was stopped for running a red light but behaved unsuspiciously with the officer, Loughner had no run-ins with county police since 2008 — which at first blush seems surprising but makes sense in light of what his friends have said about him becoming more withdrawn as his illness progressed. It may be that, aside from going to class at community college, he spent much of his time over the past few years in his room, online, hallucinating.

Speaking of community college, the campus police released their reports too. There are red flags in those, but then we already knew that given what his classmates have said about fearing for their lives. A taste:

The final report was taken in September and led to the school serving Loughner a “notice of immediate suspension” after he disrupted another class.

The officer who took the report noted that “there might be a mental health concerns involved with Loughner,” according to the documents.

Later, when an officer served Loughner with the suspension notice at the family’s home in Tucson, the officer wrote, “While inside the garage, I spoke with Jared who held a constant trance of staring as I narrated the past events that had transpired,” the report states.

As the officer left, Loughner broke his silence and said, “I realize now that this is all a
scam.”

And of course, there were red flags galore missed by Loughner’s friends. Big, bright, wavy red flags:

“He would ask me constantly, ‘Do you see that blue tree over there?’ He would admit to seeing the sky as orange and the grass as blue,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “Normal people don’t talk about that stuff.”…

“He would call me at 2 a.m. and asked, ‘Are you hanging out in front of my house, stalking me?’ He started to get really paranoid, and said he did not want to see us anymore and did not trust us,” Mr. Gutierrez said, referring to himself and another friend.
“He thought we were plotting to kill him or steal his car.”

A lingering question mark: If this is all there is to the file, what did Dupnik mean when he referred to death threats (to some unspecified person(s), not necessarily Giffords) that Loughner had made? Were those outside the county’s jurisdiction? The odd thing about the detail regarding threats — and yet another blow to the left’s narrative about tying this somehow to the threats made against congressmen during the health-care debate — is that truly dangerous nuts typically don’t contact their targets. In fact, according to a 1999 study cited by Ronald Bailey in his piece yesterday for Reason, not a single one of the 83 would-be assassins they looked at made threats to the target or to police before the attack. Which, again, makes sense per the point above about psychological withdrawal. As these guys retreat further into fantasyland, they may simply drift away from communicating with people even to the point of forgetting to harass their hate object.

Exit question: On the morning of the shootings, Loughner did something that alarmed his father enough for the old man to chase him into the desert before giving up. What was it?

They Couldn’t Help It… Team Obama Hands Out T-Shirts at Memorial?

2011-01-12T23:18:00.004-05:00

T-Shirts and Standing O’s

Really? Free T-Shirts being handed out and worn by Team Obama at a memorial service? I feel so horrible for the victim’s family members. This had a Pep-Rally feel instead of a Memorial feel and the T-Shirts don’t help.

Via Ace of Spades-Gateway Pundit
Memorial (?) Thread

And: A White House Spokesman Assured ABC’s The Note That Obama Would Not Sully This Solemn Occasion With Shabby Politics

This has nothing to do with photo-ops. All memorial services and funerals have their own slogans and t-shirts these days. Didn't you know that?

Apparently even liberals thought the T-shirt idea was strange.

Here's the program. No word if additional merch will be available after the show.

Unfair: Actually, I don't have any evidence the t-shirts were put out by Obama's people. I suspect they were, but it could have been Brewer's people. It could also have been Giffords' family or supporters.
For all I know Obama is just going along with this and might even have objected himself by saying, "T-shirts? Really?"
But while I have no evidence it's Obama's fault I'm sure he is just the same.

Mall to Christians: God talk banned!

2011-01-11T22:18:00.003-05:00

Arguments have moved to the appellate court level in a California case in which a man talking to two willing strangers in a shopping mall was arrested because the subject of the conversation was God.

The case developed several years ago when a youth pastor was arrested at the Galleria Mall in Roseville, Calif., for having a conversation about religion with two other people.
Matthew Snatchko, who works with youth at his church, was interrupted in the middle of a conversation by a security guard. A second guard joined the confrontation and told Snatchko he was being placed under citizen's arrest for "trespassing."

The pastor said he agreed to leave but instead, the guards grabbed him, roughly shoved him against a storefront window and handcuffed him tightly enough to draw blood. Snatchko later was taken to the police station where he was booked on charges of battery and trespassing.
A short time later the charges were dropped, but officials with the Pacific Justice Institute decided to pursue a case against the mall over the impact of the policy on free speech.
After a Placer County Superior Court judge in 2008 affirmed the mall's regulations, an appeal was launched to the 3rd Appellate District in Sacramento, and the briefs have just now been completed for that court's review.

"It's surprising that mall owners think they can arrest patrons for engaging in casual conservations," said PJI Staff Attorney Matthew McReynolds. "While a 'don't talk to strangers' rule may be good for kids, enforcing it against adults is absurd, and we think it violates California's free speech guarantees."

The case is being pursued under the state's constitutional provision for free speech, which extends protections to private locations, because the 1st Amendment to the Constitution deals directly with government restrictions.

McReynolds said had the case been argued in federal court, it would have had to focus on the discriminatory nature of the mall's restrictions.

"Singling out religious speech for punishment violates our most basic principles of free expression," said PJI President Brad Dacus. "If anyone can be arrested for wearing a Christian T-shirt or mentioning God in a shopping mall, we have lost not only our freedom, but our sanity as a society."

PJI affiliate attorney Timothy Smith, of the Sacramento firm McKinley & Smith, served pro bono as Snatchko's lead counsel in the trial court and continues to serve as part of the appellate team.

McReynolds told WND the case focuses on the "draconian" limits set by the mall that were used to arrest the youth pastor. While those charges were dropped, the result of that case wasn't a court-adjudicated precedent that could be used to protect others.

He said while reasonable regulations certainly are allowed, such as volume limits, targeting speech for banishment because of its subject is not.

"What they cannot do and did in this case [is target] political and religious speech," he said. "They originally chose to arrest the youth pastor for striking up a casual conversation. Since then, they've dug in their heels and are standing firm in their belief they can do whatever they want."

Oral arguments haven't been scheduled by the court in the case, and there's no time frame available yet for when a decision might be reached, McReynolds said.
But PJI's brief to the court explained the issue.

"The underlying interest of defendants clearly relates to content. While the act of speaking is not generally prohibited, the act of speaking a particular message without a permit is," the brief said. "Defendants argue that if they do not disagree with the message of the speech, and if the applications are accepted on a first come, first selected basis, the regulation is content neutral."
"Even if the defendants determined that the recipients of the speech might be uncomfortable due to the speech, such a basis for restricting plaintiffs speech is not content neutral."
The mall's regulations, besides disallowing commercial speech and speech about religion or politics, also include an exception for those subjects if a speaker knew the other person previously.

"Under the exemption, the plaintiff would have been allowed to have the same conversation in the same exact place if only he had previously met the people with whom he was speaking," the brief challenged.

"The notion that an individual is not allowed to speak with a stranger about a non-commercial topic without first having their speech examined is preposterous, and is truly silencing in every sense of the word," the brief said.

The mall's rules require "a submission of the subject matter of the spoken or written speech," the brief continued. "Defendants' licensing process as a whole has a great deal to do with speakers' message. Not only does the application process require an examination of the subject matter, but plaintiff was actually referred to the licensing application process only after the security guard listened to the content of plaintiff's speech."

Officials with Westfield Group, the corporation that owns the mall, did not respond to a WND message requesting comment.

The company's website says it entered the U.S. market in 1977 by purchasing a single shopping center, and today has 55 centers across the U.S. in key markets such as northern California, Chicago, southern Florida, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York, San Diego and Washington.
"The Westfield Group is the world's largest listed retail property group by equity market capitalization. The Group has interests in and operates a global portfolio of 119 high-quality regional shopping centers in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, valued at more than $62 billion. Westfield works with over 23,600 retailers across more than 10 million square meters of retail space," it boasts.

Pacific Justice said Snatchko originally was confronted during a casual conversation with two other shoppers about faith when a store employee listened to the conversation and alerted mall security guards.

Besides the ban on conversations with strangers about religion or politics, the mall also bans any clothing with religious or political messages.

Mall to Christians: God talk banned!

2011-01-11T22:18:00.002-05:00

Arguments have moved to the appellate court level in a California case in which a man talking to two willing strangers in a shopping mall was arrested because the subject of the conversation was God.

The case developed several years ago when a youth pastor was arrested at the Galleria Mall in Roseville, Calif., for having a conversation about religion with two other people.
Matthew Snatchko, who works with youth at his church, was interrupted in the middle of a conversation by a security guard. A second guard joined the confrontation and told Snatchko he was being placed under citizen's arrest for "trespassing."

The pastor said he agreed to leave but instead, the guards grabbed him, roughly shoved him against a storefront window and handcuffed him tightly enough to draw blood. Snatchko later was taken to the police station where he was booked on charges of battery and trespassing.

A short time later the charges were dropped, but officials with the Pacific Justice Institute decided to pursue a case against the mall over the impact of the policy on free speech.

After a Placer County Superior Court judge in 2008 affirmed the mall's regulations, an appeal was launched to the 3rd Appellate District in Sacramento, and the briefs have just now been completed for that court's review.

"It's surprising that mall owners think they can arrest patrons for engaging in casual conservations," said PJI Staff Attorney Matthew McReynolds. "While a 'don't talk to strangers' rule may be good for kids, enforcing it against adults is absurd, and we think it violates California's free speech guarantees."

The case is being pursued under the state's constitutional provision for free speech, which extends protections to private locations, because the 1st Amendment to the Constitution deals directly with government restrictions.

McReynolds said had the case been argued in federal court, it would have had to focus on the discriminatory nature of the mall's restrictions.

"Singling out religious speech for punishment violates our most basic principles of free expression," said PJI President Brad Dacus. "If anyone can be arrested for wearing a Christian T-shirt or mentioning God in a shopping mall, we have lost not only our freedom, but our sanity as a society."

PJI affiliate attorney Timothy Smith, of the Sacramento firm McKinley & Smith, served pro bono as Snatchko's lead counsel in the trial court and continues to serve as part of the appellate team.

McReynolds told WND the case focuses on the "draconian" limits set by the mall that were used to arrest the youth pastor. While those charges were dropped, the result of that case wasn't a court-adjudicated precedent that could be used to protect others.

He said while reasonable regulations certainly are allowed, such as volume limits, targeting speech for banishment because of its subject is not.

"What they cannot do and did in this case [is target] political and religious speech," he said. "They originally chose to arrest the youth pastor for striking up a casual conversation. Since then, they've dug in their heels and are standing firm in their belief they can do whatever they want."

Oral arguments haven't been scheduled by the court in the case, and there's no time frame available yet for when a decision might be reached, McReynolds said.
But PJI's brief to the court explained the issue.

"The underlying interest of defendants clearly relates to content. While the act of speaking is not generally prohibited, the act of speaking a particular message without a permit is," the brief said. "Defendants argue that if they do not disagree with the message of the speech, and if the applications are accepted on a first come, first selected basis, the regulation is content neutral."
"Even if the defendants determined that the recipients of the speech might be uncomfortable due to the speech, such a basis for restricting plaintiffs speech is not content neutral."

The mall's regulations, besides disallowing commercial speech and speech about religion or politics, also include an exception for those subjects if a speaker knew the other person previously.

"Under the exemption, the plaintiff would have been allowed to have the same conversation in the same exact place if only he had previously met the people with whom he was speaking," the brief challenged.

"The notion that an individual is not allowed to speak with a stranger about a non-commercial topic without first having their speech examined is preposterous, and is truly silencing in every sense of the word," the brief said.

The mall's rules require "a submission of the subject matter of the spoken or written speech," the brief continued. "Defendants' licensing process as a whole has a great deal to do with speakers' message. Not only does the application process require an examination of the subject matter, but plaintiff was actually referred to the licensing application process only after the security guard listened to the content of plaintiff's speech."

Officials with Westfield Group, the corporation that owns the mall, did not respond to a WND message requesting comment.

The company's website says it entered the U.S. market in 1977 by purchasing a single shopping center, and today has 55 centers across the U.S. in key markets such as northern California, Chicago, southern Florida, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York, San Diego and Washington.
"The Westfield Group is the world's largest listed retail property group by equity market capitalization. The Group has interests in and operates a global portfolio of 119 high-quality regional shopping centers in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, valued at more than $62 billion. Westfield works with over 23,600 retailers across more than 10 million square meters of retail space," it boasts.

Pacific Justice said Snatchko originally was confronted during a casual conversation with two other shoppers about faith when a store employee listened to the conversation and alerted mall security guards.

Besides the ban on conversations with strangers about religion or politics, the mall also bans any clothing with religious or political messages.

.Exposed--documentation of Leftwing hate, threats

2011-01-11T17:50:00.002-05:00

The concerted effort by the Leftwing, the mainstream media, and high-profile Democrats to blame conservatives for the Tuscon shooting continues this afternoon.

Senators Patrick Leahy and John Kerry alluded to the 'need to curb rightwing rhetoric.' Liberals in Congress have stated they wish to pass legislation to curb certain forms of free speech.
One Congressman in particular stated this afternoon on Fox News that Sharron Angle, GOP candidate for Senate in Nevada, was partly responsible for the shooting due to her suggestions that citizens should use their Second Amendment rights to seize control of the government.

Angle, by the way, threatened no one.

Yet a Democratic Pennsylvania Congressman called for the murder of a Florida candidate for Governor during the 2010 political campaign. Rep. Paul Kanjorski stated that newly-elected Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Republican, should be 'lined up against a wall and shot.'

During former Vice-President Dick Cheney's heart surgery a while back, numerous liberal posters at Daily Kos and the Huffington Post called for Cheney's death. And when former Fox newsman Tony Snow announced he had cancer, Leftwing activists posted messages to the effect that they hoped he would die a horrible, painful death.

Hollywood got into the hate-fest during the administration of George W. Bush by releasing a movie depicting his assassination.

In addition, the following comments were captured on Twitter by The Graph just after the Tuscon shooting, which immediately engaged in the blame-game against Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Michelle Bachmann.

Warning, graphic language:
birthday__girl: Kill every single #tcot member. Shoot every single one in the head. Kill their children. #teaparty

kathygriffin (Kathy Griffin D list celebrity in Los Angeles CA): Watching the news? Congresswoman in AZ,who is ON Sarah Palin’s crosshairs map was SHOT in the head 2day. Happy now Sarah?

pigeon_assassin: Tea Party = American Taliban

danylkalinz (Danyl Kalinz): sara palin is largely responsible for this spread of tea-bagger-party lunatic movement- and for this mass killing

Bobusurp: Why does no one ever shoot Rush Limbaugh? Or Glenn Beck? Only the good die young. And fat bigots live foreverBadalaladab: Fuck Glenn Beck. And fuck Sarah Palin.

JoeMyGod (anonymous troll claiming to live in NY): And the teabaggers score their first literal assassination.

rickerje (Jeffrey Ricker, St. Louis MO): Maybe Sarah Palin should change her name to Lady Macbeth. Good luck washing the blood off your hands, lady.JoeMyGod: Congratulations, .@SarahPalinUSA. Your rifle crosshairs totally worked.

#TeaParty #AmericanTaliban.#TCOT #P2

MWM4444 (Mary Matthews, St. Petersburg FL): Guns don’t kill people.#TeaBigots who believe the lies they hear from Palin, Angle, Beck, Limbaugh, & Co. kill people. #p2 azarus0530 (Dan Engle): Plane and simple I dislike anyone in the#teaparty preach your hate. And hide. Hide behind the flag you say you love.

ryder_bike: @Janefonda @SarahPalinUSA that’s all right wing fuck nuts do all day is spew hatred.rush hamburg beck etc.

lisamarieblaski (Lisa Marie Blaskie, Palm Springs CA): Right wing hate mongers kill 5 people Inc Dem State Senator Extremists fueled by Limbaugh & Tea PartyLovelyDame6 (makeup artist): I really don’t like to use the word HATE but I hate #SarahPalin #teaparty ignorant fucks!!!!!! If you were just offended by my tweet , Good!

garak99: @truth4at @glennbeck Fuck Beck he as responsible as Palin & Angle for this shooting said this will lead to violence he was right.

DrunkMacGyver: @SarahPalinUSA YOUR violent rhetoric is to blame for shootings like you and Beck. Both should be locked the fuck up!

#palin #p2 #gopfail agoraphobeblog: @autopsy4 Fuck you. Not only is Palin to blame, but Michele Bachmann Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh. All of you can kiss my fat black ass

Zoeytrope: Trying to keep a nuanced view, but it’s getting harder by the second. Fuck you Palin, fuck you Beck, fuck you Angle, and fuck you gunman.TheBoyWhoLived7 (Mark Jackson): I hate the #teaparty

GeniusDeferred: Kill. Bang. Marry. => Rush Limbaugh. Tucker Carlson. Michael Steele.

Taboo1099 (Eileen): I am so afraid that there are more angry troubled ppl out there who listen to @GlennBeck, Limbaugh & @SarahPalinUSAwho are ready to kill.

Dreamer9177: If Charles Manson can be proven guilty of convincing others to kill as a legal precedent, can that be applied to Palin, Beck, Limbaugh???

Chaapai: Sarah Palin sends her condolences to Congwmn Giffords. Fuck you Sarah Palin. Fuck you Glenn Beck and the rest of the Reich Wingers!

dcmoon3001 (D.C. Moon, Alabama): Fox & Palin are responsible for the massacre in Arizona. Tea Party racist assholes will do even more damage in the future.

Ryanberit: Sickening we live in a country where quasi Journalists like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck instill such fear people kill the opposing view

edpnyc (Ed Fish, NYC): @foxnews YOUR ORGANIZATION and message of hate and intoleranceI are RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS TRAGEDY. YOU HAPPY?

SikkCaden: I want to take an opportunity to say fuck Glenn Beck & Fuck Sarah Palin. You have blood on your hands and I hope karma kisses your forehead.

connecticutbob (Bob, CT): Sarah Palin and FoxNews just as responsible for the assassination as the shooter.

tylerwarren (Tyler Warren, Bethalto, IL): It’s sad that we have to see this, but this is the inevitable outcome of #TeaParty hate. R.I.P.#RepGiffords.Abungle: RT @thecoalthief arrest beck,limbaugh and koch brothers as accessories #giffords//fuck arrest i want there heads

paulfreed: Watch the pussy Glenn Beck try to weasel out of any responsibility! FUCK HIM!!#tcot #teaparty #p21 #p2 #palin #progressive TheFreshBrew: Conservative and Teabagger rhetoric finally results in a mass shooting. Fuck You, @SarahPalinUSA , Glenn Beck and #tcot MrXex: EVERYBODY – and I mean EVERYONE says “I would have killed Hitler…” How the FUCK is Glenn Beck still standing much less on TV?

dufus: I’d fuck George Soros if he could kill Glenn Beck!

JonRSantiago (Jon Santiago, Anaheim CA): Guns, People. Both are responsible for the attempted harm and murder of people. Get that through your mindless tea party head Rand Paul

seminolesteve: @kgun9 Kyl, Palin, Bachmann, Boehner, McConnel, Beck, Hannity, et al are responsible. All guilty, pushing the buttons of the foxnews drones

ArkCowboy: Why do the good ones die young and the assholes like Beck, Limbaugh and Cheney get to live into old age? (via @SopranoAlison) good question!

BrianFinifter: Fuck you, Tea Party. Fuck you, Sarah Palin. Fuck you, Glenn Beck. Fuck you, NRA.

Halibutron (Hal, Toronto CA): YOU @SarahPalinUSA @GlennBeck @FoxNews #teaparty ARE responsible for #Giffords #assassinationattempt YES YOU ARE #hate PaulHarperUK: @billmaher Palin should be charged with incitement to murder, Beck and Limbaugh as accessories.

public_uni: @leninology @alphabetofbeing The Tea Party have to held responsible for the climate of fear and hatred being generated across the States

Shoq (Matt Edelstein, Arlington VA): So now cops are seeking a white male in his 50s who might have been an accomplice? How old is Glenn Beck?

#p2 jpmorex: @Rep_Giffords From STGO CHI my better desires recovery your health after fascist attempt of murder committed by Tea Party fanatical follower

JamesPMorrison: Violent, hateful rhetoric is all in a day’s work for Palin, Limbaugh et al until people die then it’s just all in a days work.

wshanese (Shanese W., San Diego CA): 22 year old murder says he is inspired by the Tea Party and Sarah Palin #nuffsaid tonybalogna (Anthony Kraljic, Knoxville TN): If anyone doubt the Tea Party is a group of anti-American traitorous slime, they can dismiss it today with the murder of Judge John Roll.

glovedbabycubb (Phillip Bozarth, Portland OR): Agreat moment in history is now a moment in terror and murder thanks Tea Party Republican assholes

LawyerBetty: SOOO @sarahpalinusa how do u feel now that your Tea Party nut jobs have committed murder?? Your nothing but a new age Hitler!

JulesAGray (Julia Gray, Chicago IL): RT @Symbolman: Dear GOP, this Blood in on Your Hands. You created, promoted, groomed this Tea Party. Burn in Hell.Double_Olv7: This sound like a Killer mission and you kill the killer so he don’t talk. Another failed mission by the TeaParty

derekbradley (Derek Bradley, Adelaide): US Republican #teapartyextremists are terrorists and murderers exactly the same as the Taliban and other savages

Varuka: Was looking forward to tweeting some good things that happened today. Thanks #teaparty Fucking happy now you fucking MURDERERS!Kdiddy757 (krystal smith): the #teaparty has added to their resumes..racist, prejudice,and now MURDERERS

whisper1111: guns don’t kill, teapartiers dockarami: @RANKIS How many more more are going to die before#FOX and the #TEAPARTY stops their hate speech

In addition, William Ayers, who funded Barack Obama's first political campaign in Illinois, called for violent revolution and the shedding of blood, leading both Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, to be charged with murder in the death of a police officer. The couple has also bragged about the bombing of federal buildings and stated they wish they had done more.

Saul Alinsky, the man both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton refer to as a 'mentor' also called for vitriolic rhetoric and even violent revolution.

A common ploy used by the guilty to divert attention away from their own horrific words and actions is to blame someone else, falsely accusing them of doing the very same things the guilty party has done.

The Left wrote the book on death threats, violent revolution, and vitriolic rhetoric.

Twitter Users Wish Death on Sarah Palin

2011-01-11T16:08:00.001-05:00

After the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Twitter users wish death on Sarah Palin.

Jared Loughner is a product of Sheriff Dupnik’s office

2011-01-11T15:25:00.000-05:00

This is the report that Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been dreading since the tragic event on Saturday January 8.

The sheriff has been editorializing and politicizing the event since he took the podium to report on the incident. His blaming of radio personalities and bloggers is a pre-emptive strike because Mr. Dupnik knows this tragedy lays at his feet and his office. Six people died on his watch and he could have prevented it. He needs to step up and start apologizing to the families of the victims instead of spinning this event to serve his own political agenda.

Jared Loughner, pronounced by the Sheriff as Lock-ner, saying it was the Polish pronunciation. Of course he meant Scott or Irish but that isn’t the point. The point is he and his office have had previous contact with the alleged assailant in the past and that is how he knows how to pronounce the name.

Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation. My sympathies and my heart goes out to her and the rest of Mr. Loughner’s family. This tragedy must be tearing them up inside wondering if they had done the right things in trying to manage Jared’s obvious mental instability.

Every victim of his threats previously must also be wondering if this tragedy could have been prevented if they had been more aggressive in pursuing charges against Mr. Loughner. Perhaps with a felony conviction he would never have been able to lawfully by the Glock 9mm Model 19 that he used to strike down the lives of six people and decimate 14 more.

This was not an act of politics. This was an act of a mentally disturbed young man hell bent on getting his 15 minutes of infamy. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department was aware of his violent nature and they failed to act appropriately. This tragedy leads right back to Sherriff Dupnik and all the spin in the world is not going to change that fact.

Palin Derangement Syndrome

2011-01-11T09:04:00.004-05:00

Facebook page with obvious violent rhetoric.

Flashback — pointing a fake gun at the head of a Sarah Palin likeness sitting next to a cardboard cutout of her daughter in a museum display:

Getty has since yanked the photo, but as one commenter who saw the photo at Getty’s site before it was yanked noted: “To see that image presented as if it were completely normal and purchasable was shocking.”

For Over Three Months This has Appeared on Facebook and the US Marxist propaganda media organs have said nothing

Carolyn McCarthy said nothing but now she readies a gun control bill

There is a double standard and that is just the problem

[1] US Marxist propaganda media organs and [2] Democrats and [3] Congress have one set of rules for themselves and another for you and me [the others]

Violence and politics merge in Arizona

2011-01-09T16:51:00.001-05:00

The references to the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 echoed in other ways. That horror, which killed 168 people including many children, helped then-President Bill Clinton stigmatize extreme anti-government rhetoric and re-energize his presidency at a time when Newt Gingrich and conservative Republicans were riding high in Congress.
One veteran Democratic operative, who blames overheated rhetoric for the shooting, said President Barack Obama should carefully but forcefully do what his predecessor did.

“They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” said the Democrat. “Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.”

Another Democratic strategist said the similarity is that Tucson and Oklahoma City both “take place in a climate of bitter and virulent rhetoric against the government and Democrats.”

This Democrat said that the time had come to insist that Republicans stand up when, for example, a figure such as Fox News commentator Glenn Beck says something incendiary.

Conservative intellectual William F. Buckley denounced the conspiracy theories and darker rantings of the John Birch Society, this Democrat said, “but these guys don’t seem to be willing to do that.” Not long after the shooting, at about 10:10 a.m. in Arizona, some took to Twitter to note that Sarah Palin had targeted Gifford in symbolic crosshairs—plainly intending to target her for political defeat, not for physical violence. By the end of the day Saturday, a website showing a gunsight on Giffords’ and 19 other Democratic districts had been taken off line, though a Google cache showed that it was still posted as late as 2:00 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday.

Some Republicans have scrambled to portray alleged shooter Jared Lee Loughner as an unbalanced loner, and pointed to a high school classmate’s account that, four years ago, he had left-wing views. Democrats are framing his attack as the tragic-but-inevitable end result of a right-wing political culture that has become radicalized since President Obama’s election.

“Today we have seen the results” of “irresponsible and dangerous rhetoric,” former Democratic senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart wrote on Huffington Post. “Those with a megaphone, whether provided by public office or a media outlet, have responsibilities. They cannot avoid the consequences of their blatant efforts to inflame, anger, and outrage.” No politician – not even the most strident partisan on the left – is suggesting that any mainstream conservative feels anything but horror over the Tucson shootings. Yet assassinations are by definition a political act, and solo actors in the past have shaped American history on many occasions.

Loughner, it seems, was a deeply agitated, even paranoid, 22-year-old, not a tea party radical. But he was also politically aware – he referred on his MySpace page to Giffords’ 8th District –and acted in a district and state that have been defined over the last two years by the bitter immigration debate and against a backdrop of incendiary rhetoric and images of firearms at town hall meetings. This context guaranteed that this act of violence would not be viewed in isolation. Liberal commentators such as MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, who on a special Saturday evening show said he was sometimes guilty of over-the-top rhetoric, made an impassioned plea for more restraint and civil debate.

But he also guaranteed that the political temperature would rise by devoting most of the show to the still-undocumented assertion that conservative political rhetoric helped send someone with a predisposition to violence over the edge. He called on a long roster of politicians like Palin and defeated Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle (who once spoke of “Second Amendment remedies” for conservatives to rein in Congress) to “repudiate” past rhetoric and demanded that commentators like Beck and Bill O’Reilly offer “solemn apologies” for giving “oxygen to those deep in madness to whom violence is an acceptable solution.”

Breaking: Democrats Plotted to Blame Tea Party for Slaughter

2011-01-09T16:46:00.003-05:00

A rescue helicopter lifts off as first responders evacuate victims from a “Congress on Your Corner” event in Tucson, Arizona, where U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) among others were shot and seriously wounded. (Reuters)
Democrats plotted to blame the tea party patriots for yesterday’s slaugher in Arizona.

A democratic operative admitted this to The Politico.

Of course, Politico buried it in their story.

One veteran Democratic operative, who blames overheated rhetoric for the shooting, said President Barack Obama should carefully but forcefully do what his predecessor did.

“They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” said the Democrat. “Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.”

Another Democratic strategist said the similarity is that Tucson and Oklahoma City both “take place in a climate of bitter and virulent rhetoric against the government and Democrats.”

This Democrat said that the time had come to insist that Republicans stand up when, for example, a figure such as Fox News commentator Glenn Beck says something incendiary.

The shooter was a pro-Marxist, anti-flag, anti-Constitution, anti-religious crackpot.He was hardly a tea partier.

So… Is this why DHS is going after a hate group that just happens to have Gadsden Flags ads on their website?… And, the media is trying to link the pro-Marxist lunatic to the tea party?

Six other cases when the media incorrectly blamed conservatives for liberal violence

2011-01-09T16:41:00.001-05:00

Former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” The liberal corollary seems to be “Never let a tragedy go to waste.”

Photo of assassin Jared Loughner from his MySpace profile

The liberal media rushed to judgment after the tragedy in Tucson and without any information to back their assertions declared that assassin Jared Loughner was a conservative, that he was influenced by Sarah Palin or by Rush Limbaugh or by Glenn Beck or by the Tea Party. Or by all of the above.

When the facts came out, it turned out that he’s a left wing lunatic.

Legal Insurrection put together a good list of similar tragedies and similar inaccurate
accusations:

Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have seen this type of reaction. The meme that opponents of Obama are crazy and dangerous has been an explicit Democratic Party campaign strategy for over two years. Here is just a partial list of events in which the left-wing and Democratic Party media operation has immediately blamed right-wing rhetoric, only to be proven wrong when the facts finally came out: Bill Sparkman, Amy Bishop, The Fort Hood Shooter, The IRS Plane Crasher, The Cabbie Stabbing, and The Pentagon Shooter.

Congressman Who Lied About “N-Word” Incident Is Calling For “Something To Be Done About The Rhetoric”

2011-01-09T16:26:00.002-05:00

Congressman Cleaver, who manufactured an incident of racial tension in order to stifle the opposition on Health Care Debate, has the onions to call for a ratcheting back on rhetoric and name calling. All of this blather is taking place while the left used a tragedy to score political points against, and shut down, their opposition – EVEN WHEN THE SHOOTER WAS ONE OF THEIR OWN!

Attention Liberal Palin Bashers: Democrats (Daily Kos) Had Their Own "Target" Maps

2011-01-09T16:12:00.005-05:00

Insane liberals are using the tragic shooting in Tucson, AZ today to attack Sarah Palin and claim she is an accomplice in the shooting of Democrat Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and the deaths of five.
They're using this map to make the absurd leap that Palin was physically "targeting" the Congresswoman.

But the Democrat Leadership Council had their own "target" map in 2004, thanks to Verum Serum.

J.D. Hayworth's Democrat opponent in 2006, Harry Mitchell, ran an ad showing Hayworth in the crosshairs of a rifle scope.

Even the Daily Kos, who is blaming Sarah Palin for the shooting "targeted" Giffords back in 2008. Kevin at HillBuzz got a screenshot of it.

The text at the bottom reads:
Not all of these people will get or even deserve primaries, but this vote certainly puts a bulls eye on their district.

Another Kos kid wrote two days earlier that Giffords was "dead to her," because she voted against Nancy Pelosi.

Sorry libs, your tactic just backfired on you.

According to Stars & Stripes, the Army has no record that the alleged shooter was a member. Jonn at This Ain't Hell also has that info, as well as no info the guy was a Marine as well.

Democrat Linda Lopez owes Americans an apology…

2011-01-09T10:52:00.004-05:00

was driving force behind Left’s attempt to blame Tea Party for assassination attempt on Gabrielle Giffords.

Want to do something productive with all the emotions you are feeling today?

How about using the upcoming week to put immense pressure on Democrat Linda Lopez to apologize to all Americans for turning the tragic assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords into a partisan political attack by Democrats on the Tea Party movement.

Arizona state representative Lopez was a high profile driving force behind the immediate effort on the Left to blame the Tea Party for the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords and the murder of 6 bystanders yesterday (with scores more injured). Without having a single piece of information, Lopez took to the airwaves condemning the Tea Party and conservatives for the murder spree.

Jared Lee Loughner, the would-be assassin, is a confirmed Leftist Democrat upset with Congresswoman Giffords for being a conservative Democrat who was not Leftist enough for his tastes.

Blackfive.net has suggested directing attention and energy toward Lopez to let her know how Americans feel about Democrats taking the advice of Rahm Emanuel to “never let a good crisis go to waste” and politicizing a tragedy into an assault on opponents.

If you have a fax machine, fax Linda Lopez and tell her what you think of her.

Be polite, professional, and curse-free…but be honest. It is a challenge to write an effective and compelling letter of scorn and contempt, but this woman deserves it, and I know you have it in you if you apply yourself.

If you can’t fax, then email. Write a snail mail letter too.

On Monday, when her office opens again, call her nonstop on the telephone to tell her staff what you think of her.

Let’s see if this Democrat does the right thing and owns up to doing the Left’s bidding so recklessly.

BRACE YOURSELVES: Democrat Fred Phelps and Westboro Hate Group announce plans to picket 9-year-old shooting victim Christina Greene’s funeral.

2011-01-09T10:34:00.010-05:00

A new low for Democrat hate groups. The Left does some truly despicable things in this world, but this is a new low for Democrats.

Former three-time Democrat gubernatorial candidate Fred Phelps Jr. (commonly called just “Fred Phelps”) and his Westboro Hate Group have announced plans to disrupt the funeral of 9 year-old shooting victim Christina Greene.
Christina was murdered by Jared Lee Loughner yesterday in his assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The little girl was born on September 11th, 2001, so her parents have been cursed with a horrific trifecta of high profile trauma: their daughter born on the worst day in our generations’ lives, their daughter murdered in an assassination attempt on a member of Congress, and Democrat Fred Phelps aiming his hate machine at their family during their daughter’s funeral.

Democrat Phelps (an enormous supporter of Al Gore’s, though the media conveniently leaves off that he’s a Democrat and instead likes to imply he’s a conservative, which he is not…he’s a Democrat, and ran repeatedly on the Democrat ticket unsuccessfully for several elected offices) disrupted the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards last month, because it is what he does.

On a day when a family is hurt the most it could possibly imagine being hurt, this horrible man makes things just a little worse for all involved.

There are no printable words for what I imagine we all think of Phelps and Westboro.
Below the fold, there’s the video of Phelps making the announcement that he’s going to disrupt little Christina Greene’s funeral and traumatize her family. It’s like watching a video of Osama bin Laden or Dracula talking about the evil things they are going to do next. Watch it if you must, but it’s stomach turning. It’s the most horrible thing I have ever seen, frankly.
Do not click “More” if you do not want to see the Phelps video…it’s really, really bad.

AZ SHOOTER: Left-Winger JARED LOUGHNER

2011-01-08T18:40:00.009-05:00

He Likes Watching US Flags Burn & Favorite Book is Communist Manifesto

He is definitely NOT a tea partier….Killler identified: Jared Loughner. He is 22. Born September 1988. Here’s a photo of Jared at a book fair.

According to Loughner’s YouTube channel his favorite books are a mixture of fantasy and radical politics:
I had favorite books: Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.

Apparently this nut job had a problem with the way America deals with its currency.

His Nickname Classitup 10 comes from Section 1 Article ten of the Constitution:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

Louchner's rantings are all about mind control, hatred of religion, the gold standard and the abuse of the English language. Read/Watch the ranting of this man--he is not political, just SICK

He posted this on a friends site

If there's no flag in the constitution then the flag in the film is unknown.

There's no flag in the constitution.

Therefore, the flag in the film is unknown.

Burn every new and old flag that you see.

Burn your flag!

I bet you can imagine this in your mind with a faster speed.

Watch this protest in reverse!

Ask the local police; "What's your illegal activity on duty?".

If you protest the government then there's a new government from protesting.

There's not a new government from protesting.

Thus, you aren't protesting the government.

The Associated Press reports that the shooter of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, along with 17 others, was a reported (though unconfirmed) 22-year-old Afghanistan War veteran named Jared Laughner. Here’s some info I pulled from what appears to be his MySpace page: Name: Jared Lee Loughner Channel Views: 271 Joined: 25 October 2010 Website:

http://Myspace.com/fallenasleep About Me: My name is Jared Lee Loughner!...(Click for the whole version)

'Mother,' 'Father' Changing to 'Parent One,' 'Parent Two' on Passport Applications

2011-01-07T23:09:00.000-05:00

The words “mother” and “father” will be removed from U.S. passport applications and replaced with gender neutral terminology, the State Department says.

“The words in the old form were ‘mother’ and ‘father,’” said Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services. "They are now ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two.’"

A statement on the State Department website noted: “These improvements are being made to provide a gender neutral description of a child’s parents and in recognition of different types of families.” The statement didn't note if it was for child applications only.

The State Department said the new passport applications, not yet available to the public, will be available online soon.

Sprague said the decision to remove the traditional parenting names was not an act of political
correctness.

“We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago,” she said.

Gay rights groups are applauding the decision.

“Changing the term mother and father to the more global term of parent allows many different types of families to be able to go and apply for a passport for their child without feeling like the government doesn’t recognize their family,” said Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality Council.

Her organization lobbied the government for several years to remove the words from passport applications.

“Our government needs to recognize that the family structure is changing,” Chrisler said. “The best thing that we can do is support people who are raising kids in loving, stable families.”
But some conservative Christians are outraged over the decision.

“Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News Radio. “This is clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex ‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act.”

Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, agreed. “It’s part of an overall attempt at political correctness to diminish the distinction between men and women and to somehow suggest you don’t need both a father and a mother to raise a child successfully,” said Jeffress. “(This decision) was made to make homosexual couples feel more comfortable in rearing children.”

Chrisler recounted the day she and her female partner tried to get her twin sons passports.

“Even though my partner was their legal mother, had adopted them after I gave birth to them, she still had to put her name in the father field, and that is both discriminatory and makes us feel like second-class citizens,” she said.

Sprague said she would not use the word discriminatory to describe the old passport form.

“I would prefer to use the word imprecise,” she said. “It just didn’t capture the reality of their situation. Clearly, we want to be sensitive to the feelings of other people, but we are also very conscious of our need to introduce the greatest degree of precision to the process.”

Perkins, meanwhile, accused the State Department of disrespecting the law and called on Congress to “take their oversight rule very seriously and intervene in both these circumstances.”

The new gender-neutral passport application will be rolled out in February.

Listen, I'm all for gay rights, civil unions whatever, but this smacks of yes trying to destroy core family values, poltical correctness and I'm sorry, a ton of money. Do we really need to spend the money for crap like this to appease a very small percentage of people out there that this would apply to?

ABC Allows Jeremiah Wright to Spin Himself as Victim of Media

2011-01-06T21:38:00.002-05:00

"Good Morning America" co-host Diane Sawyer on Friday uncritically highlighted an address given by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright on Thursday and parroted his talking points about being a scapegoat. In a tease for the segment, she recited, "Reverend Jeremiah Wright is now speaking out again. He says he was turned into a weapon of mass destruction."

Regarding his speech, given in a church in Milford, Connecticut, Sawyer blandly added that Senator Barack Obama "distanced himself from Reverend Wright during the campaign and labeled some of his sermons divisive." She then proceeded to play a 47 second long clip of Wright complaining that the media intended to use his sermons to destroy Obama. An ABC graphic almost apologetically read, "First Comments From Rev Wright: Media's 'Weapon on Mass Destruction'"

And yet, it was shows like "Good Morning America" that largely ignored many of Wright's more extreme sermons, such as in April of 2003 when he erroneously asserted, "The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color!"

DIANE SAWYER: And now, last night, President-elect Obama's controversial former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, reemerged, debating race, religion and American history at a Connecticut church. Senator Obama, of course, had distanced himself from Reverend Wright during the campaign and labeled some of his sermons divisive. Last night, Wright reflected on that and how the coverage of him affected, he says, his family.

ABC GRAPHIC: First Comments From Rev Wright: Media's "Weapon on Mass Destruction"
REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT: My youngest child came home from school and said to me, "Are you and Barack cool? I said, "Of course, we are. Why do you ask that?" "I just had kids talking in school." I said, "Now, that's a media thing." 90 percent of people sitting in church do not agree with everything their pastor is saying. What I say or don't say, it is not an index in terms of what Senator Obama believed or believes. The media did not want that sermon heard. Their intention was to use me as a weapon of mass destruction to destroy that man's candidacy. Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Barack Obama, their successes individually should not lull us to sleep to think this is now it's all over. Everything is solved. There are some serious structural problems that keep people locked into poverty.

SAWYER: And, so, we hear from Reverend Wright once again.

The ACLU's untold Stalinist heritage

2011-01-04T19:23:00.004-05:00

Noted author Paul Kengor has unearthed declassified letters and other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives linking early leaders of the ACLU with the Communist Party.

Kengor found a May 23, 1931 letter in the archives signed by ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, written on ACLU stationery, to then American Communist Party Chairman William Z. Foster asking him to help ACLU Chairman Harry Ward with his then-upcoming trip to Stalin’s Russia.
The letter suggests Ward intended to visit the Soviet Union to find “evidence from Soviet Russia” that would undermine the capitalist profit motive.

Baldwin wrote the letter at a time when Stalin was deporting 1.8 million Ukrainian peasants to Siberia under his policy of the forced collectivization of agriculture, which resulted in the deaths of up to 10 million Ukrainians in the two years that followed.

The Ukrainian government considers this to have been an act of genocide.

Foster was a key figure in the early years of the American communist movement who belonged to the ACLU’s National Committee in the 1920s, according to FBI documents. He later wrote a book titled “Toward Soviet America” in 1932 and also testified under oath before Congress that he opposed American democracy.

Another letter on ACLU letterhead Kengor found in the Soviet archives dated Sept. 2, 1932 asks the Communist Party of America for a schedule of Foster’s trips around the country and offers to help keep the police at bay. It also asks for the names and addresses of Communist Party representatives in the cities where Foster was speaking.

Kengor also found a flier from 1933 advertising ACLU board member Corliss Lamont as the headline speaker for “Soviet Union Day,” which its organizers hoped would “answer lies and slanders of enemies of the Soviet Union.”

The documents found their way into the Soviet archives because the Communist Party sent all of its correspondences to the Comintern in Moscow for safekeeping, according to Kengor.
Other documents released in the 1990s by KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin show the American Communist Party was under the Moscow’s direct control until 1989.

“These guys were advocating a regime that arguably was the biggest mass murderer in all of human history,” Kengor said. “Where is the moral authority in that?”

Kengor told The Daily Caller he found numerous other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives that also show a close relationship between the Communist Party and the ACLU.
These documents corroborate rumors that have circulated about the ACLU’s founders and early leaders dating back to the 1920s.

The ACLU would not comment on Kengor’s research, but the ACLU’s official history describes its founders as a “small group of idealists” who began the organization amid the “Palmer Raids” of late 1919 and early 1920 against “so-called radicals”.

“The problem here is what is being left out of the narrative,” Kengor said. “Palmer, who was attorney general to Woodrow Wilson, the great progressive’s progressive, understood, as did the Wilson administration, that many of these radicals were American communists who were literally devoted to the overthrow of the U.S. government and its replacement with a ‘Soviet-American republic.’

“American communists actually stated such things in their proclamations, documents, and fliers.”

Kengor catalogs many of these in his book “Dupes.”

“If you look at a lot of things about the ACLU’s early history, you will see a lot of things that are pro-communist,” Kengor said. “What I’m trying to say about this group is that from the outset was on the farthest extremes of the left.

“It was atheistic. Certain members were pro-communist, and would argue that the ACLU itself in the 1920s was pro-communist, as defined by the writings and the beliefs of its founders, key officials and board members.”

Kengor, however, does not believe today’s ACLU is communist, but he argues it still pushes its founders’ militant atheism.

Kengor said a conservative group would not receive the same sort of a pass from the press and the left were it to be discovered its founders had Nazi or fascist ties during the same time period.

Baldwin’s writings and public comments along with those of Ward, Lamont and longtime board members such as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and John Dewey, show they looked to Soviet Russia for inspiration, according to Kengor.

“It’s not like they were outside of a bar and blurted out something stupid about the Soviets after a few drinks,” Kengor said. “These guys actually went to the Soviet Union … and came back and wrote whole books gushing about the brave new world they found in the Soviet Union.

“But [most people] don’t even know any of this stuff today.”

Baldwin was a complex figure among them because he initially sympathized with the communists in the 1920s and 1930s, but later backed away after the extent of Stalin’s evil became apparent.

He never joined the Communist Party as a formal member, but evidence shows he sympathized with the Soviet cause, Kengor said.

“The Red Web”, a 1925 book written by Justice Department official Blair Coán, describes Baldwin as having been a “red” and a communist.

Baldwin’s radicalism caught the eye of the FBI, which quoted him in a 1924 report as having said: “The right to advocate a violent revolution, assassination, and proletarian Red guard, are all clearly within scope of free speech …”

The ACLU founder traveled to Stalin’s Russia in 1927 and wrote a book titled “Liberty Under The Soviets” the following year, which defended the Lenin’s and Stalin’s repression of dissent because they “are weapons in the transition to socialism.”
Baldwin later repudiated what he wrote in this book as “naïve” in the 1950s after he became an anti-communist.

The ACLU’s founder was active in numerous pro-Soviet fronts throughout the 1930s, but experienced a change of heart following the signing of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, according to Robert Cottrell’s biography of Baldwin.

Baldwin pushed through a measure in 1940 banning open communists from being part of the ACLU’s National Committee that led to Ward’s resignation. Ward had served as chairman of the ACLU’s board of directors since its founding in 1920.

Ward, a Methodist minister, later penned a book in 1944 praising Stalin’s Russia for having abolished private property and for having diminished individualism in a book titled “The Soviet Spirit.”

Baldwin’s push to rid the ACLU of open communists also led to Gurley Flynn’s ouster in 1940 because of her open Communist Party membership. She would die in the Soviet Union and receive a Soviet state funeral.

Lamont, who coincidentally was 2006 Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont’s uncle, clashed with Baldwin over his effort to purge the ACLU’s National Committee of known communists because he believed it was a betrayal of civil. He remained on the ACLU’s National Committee until 1951 when he resigned to protest being asked to take an anti-communist oath.

Although Lamont never formally joined the Communist Party, he was active in numerous pro-Stalin fronts throughout his ACLU tenure, such as the Friends of the Soviet Union, according to Kengor.

Lamont never acknowledged the truth behind Stalin’s atrocities, and his 1933 book, “Russia: Day By Day,” which details his 1932 trip to the Soviet Union, Lamont praises Stalin’s destruction of churches and glosses over the atrocities being committed against Ukraine’s peasants at the time of his trip.

His book also claims the communists had brought an era of “happiness” and that “the new world of the twentieth century is the Soviet Union.”

Lamont later defended Stalin’s show trials during the Great Purge of 1938-39 and his installation of communist governments in Eastern Europe.

Kengor considers Lamont one of the worst among the ACLU’s early leaders because he never repented of his support for Stalin even after the extent of his crimes became apparent.
“The narrative today is that they were all noble liberals and progressives, but it’s never considered that they were actually pro-Soviet or pro-communist,” Kengor said. “These guys were terrible because they gave support to a totalitarian regime that arguably was the greatest mass murderer in all of human history.”

New York city workers 'drank beer during blizzard instead of clearing snow'

2011-01-04T19:15:00.001-05:00

Allegations that a group of New York sanitation workers sat drinking beer instead of clearing snow left by last week's blizzard are being investigated by the city's sleaze watchdog.
The workers are said to have abandoned their snow plough and bought two six-packs of beer at a grocery shop in Kensington, Brooklyn, last Monday evening.

It is claimed they sat drinking them in a car while a bus and three other snow ploughs were trapped by snow just blocks away.

The city is still recovering from the Boxing Day storm, which left roads buried under about two feet of snow. Three people died amid severe delays to emergency vehicles.

Witnesses told The New York Post that passersby shouted at the men as they bought their packs of Heineken Light and Corona Light. "How can you do this?

You should be outside," they reportedly said.

Keith Schwam, an assistant commissioner at the Department of Investigation, which looks into allegations of misconduct by city employees, said: "We're looking into what happened." The department is also investigating claims that some sanitation department workers deliberately undermined the clear-up effort in revenge at public spending cuts.

Dan Halloran, a city councilman in Queens, the New York borough worst affected by the blizzard, claimed he was approached by five whistle-blowers unhappy at the actions of their colleagues.

NBC's "Today" Cheers Cross-Dressing Children's Book "My Princess Boy"

2011-01-04T19:10:00.004-05:00

The answer is, there is no such thing as cultural rock bottom. This book, declares author and mother of the Princess Boy, stands for hope and acceptance. She forgot to tell us that she hopes it will fundamentally change America.The "Today" show opens and closes with a cherry on top: The real Princess Boy twirls in his pink and purple dress/tutu to the delight and adoration of Meredith Vieira and his mother. Charming.

As much as I'm a supporter of gay rights, transgendered etc...this borders on child abuse. Look at how uncomfortable this poor child is. He's much to young to know if he really wants to dress like a girl. It's no wonder children are confused with liberal parents and schools that teach social justice.

Pelosi: If All Americans Loved H'care, We'd Still Take It Over; Repealing Is "Very Serious Violence"

2011-01-04T19:05:00.002-05:00

Democrats sharing their core beliefs on government control and leaving no hyperbolic stone unturned.BTW: This is Pelosi's last day as Speaker. Hopefully, her last public words as one too.

Frances Fox Piven Rings in The New Year By Calling for Violent Revolution

2010-12-31T16:28:00.000-05:00

She’s considered by many as the grandmother of using the American welfare state to implement revolution. Make people dependent on the government, overload the government rolls, and once government services become unsustainable, the people will rise up, overthrow the oppressive capitalist system, and finally create income equality. Collapse the system and create a new one. That‘s the simplified version of Frances Fox Piven’s philosophy originally put forth in the pages of The Nation in the 60s.
Now, as the new year ball drops, Piven is at it again, ringing in 2011 with renewed calls for revolution.

In a chilling and almost unbelievable editorial again in The Nation (”Mobilizing the Jobless,” January 10/17, 2011 edition), she calls on the jobless to rise up in a violent show of solidarity and force. As before, those calls are dripping with language of class struggle. Language she and her late husband Richard Cloward made popular in the 60s.

“So where are the angry crowds, the demonstrations, sit-ins and unruly mobs?” she writes. “After all, the injustice is apparent. Working people are losing their homes and their pensions while robber-baron CEOs report renewed profits and windfall bonuses. Shouldn’t the unemployed be on the march? Why aren’t they demanding enhanced safety net protections and big initiatives to generate jobs?” [Emphasis added]

Those are the questions that frame what can best be called a roadmap for revolution. And it’s not long before those questions give way to directions. The first instruction: get angry.

“[B]efore people can mobilize for collective action, they have to develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that identity,” she writes. “They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and indignant.”

And along with anger must come a denunciation of personal responsibility. Instead, workers must realize that others have put them in their current, uneasy situation: “[T]he out-of-work have to stop blaming themselves for their hard times and turn their anger on the bosses, the bureaucrats or the politicians who are in fact responsible.”

Only then, once their rage has been properly stoked, can the angry take action. And when they do, she says, the “protesters need targets.”

For Piven, the best “targets” are the people or organizations “capable of making some kind of response to angry demands.” Regular demands, notice, just won’t do. No, people must be fired up and not easily deterred. Angry and not quickly placated. It’s a concoction Piven has seen recently in other countries — countries such as England and Greece, which she uses as models for American unrest:

An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like
the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the
austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like
the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in
response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees. [Emphasis
added]

What exactly do those strikes and riots look like? They’re violent and bloody, like the one in Greece, where rioters firebombed police and beat bloody a former government official.

In England they look like, mobs of angry students attacked the future British King and his wife and shouted “Off with their heads!” while jabbing the Duchess with a stick.

“What she is calling for is nothing less than the chaos and violence engulfing Europe,” writes Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Ron Radosh on his blog. “Disgruntled leftist unionists, students who expect an education without cost, and citizens of social-democratic states cannot accept that the old terms of the social contract they thought would last forever have worn out their welcome. The European welfare-state governments can no longer function with the kind of social programs that now far exceed their nation’s budgets and hence are moving their countries to the precipice of total collapse.”

But violence has always been Piven’s preferred method of collapse. In 2004, she admitted as much, saying that violence is condoned as long as it is part of a grand plan:

What may be new is the brazen way in which Piven is now making her intentions known. No longer do her and people like her have to hide in the shadows. Now, they feel comfortable enough with the political climate to espouse their views openly, freely, unabashedly. It’s a phenomenon Radosh believes has to do with the current administration: leftists see a renewed opportunity now that Obama is in power.

“Now, as President Barack Obama is beginning the mid-point of his first and possibly only term in office, the Left is again trying to advance a new form of the old strategy,” he writes. And “as our national economy and many state and city budgets again are at the breaking point,” he adds, “Frances Fox Piven has issued a new call to repeat and build upon the ruinous strategies that she and her late husband advanced decades ago.”

In 1966 when Cloward and Piven published their first manifesto in The Nation, Americans were spell bound — especially poorer Americans who sucked up the couple’s call like a dying desert cactus. The New Republic’s John McWhorter writes:

But when Piven and Cloward published a manifesto in The Nation, there were 30,000 reprint requests. One thousand neighborhood service centers nationwide encouraged people to go on welfare who would not have otherwise. In the ’60s, one-third of the people whose incomes made them eligible for AFDC were on the rolls. By 1971, 90 percent were.

An old strategy for a new year. Let‘s hope it doesn’t have the same effect.

Sacramento-area pilot punished for YouTube video

2010-12-24T00:36:00.003-05:00

SACRAMENTO, CA - An airline pilot is being disciplined by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for posting video on YouTube pointing out what he believes are serious flaws in airport security.

Update: Whistleblowing pilot explains why he did it

The 50-year-old pilot, who lives outside Sacramento, asked that neither he nor his airline be identified. He has worked for the airline for more than a decade and was deputized by the TSA to carry a gun in the cockpit.

He is also a helicopter test pilot in the Army Reserve and flew missions for the United Nations in Macedonia.

Three days after he posted a series of six video clips recorded with a cell phone camera at San Francisco International Airport, four federal air marshals and two sheriff's deputies arrived at his house to confiscate his federally-issued firearm. The pilot recorded that event as well and provided all the video to News10.

At the same time as the federal marshals took the pilot's gun, a deputy sheriff asked him to surrender his state-issued permit to carry a concealed weapon.

A follow-up letter from the sheriff's department said the CCW permit would be reevaluated following the outcome of the federal investigation.

The YouTube videos, posted Nov. 28, show what the pilot calls the irony of flight crews being forced to go through TSA screening while ground crew who service the aircraft are able to access secure areas simply by swiping a card.

"As you can see, airport security is kind of a farce. It's only smoke and mirrors so you people believe there is actually something going on here," the pilot narrates.

Video shot in the cockpit shows a medieval-looking rescue ax available on the flight deck after the pilots have gone through the metal detectors. "I would say a two-foot crash ax looks a lot more formidable than a box cutter," the pilot remarked.

A letter from the TSA dated Dec. 6 informed the pilot that "an administrative review into your deputation status as a Federal Flight Deck Officer has been initiated."

According to the letter, the review was directly related to the discovery by TSA staff of the YouTube videos. "The content and subject of these videos may have violated regulations concerning disclosure of sensitive security information," the letter said.

The pilot's attorney, Don Werno of Santa Ana, said he believed the federal government sent six people to the house to send a message.

"And the message was you've angered us by telling the truth and by showing America that there are major security problems despite the fact that we've spent billions of dollars allegedly to improve airline safety," Werno said.

The pilot said he is not in trouble with his airline, but a supervisor asked him to remove public access to the YouTube videos.

He does, however, face potential civil penalties from the TSA. He said he would likely go public when it becomes clear what the government plans to do with him.

Treatment of Governor Palin Sparks Change in Alaska's Ethics Rules

2010-12-24T00:25:00.001-05:00

After the 2008 election, Governor Palin returned to the state of Alaska and was greeted by a plethora of partisan, frivolous, bogus ethics complaints. This abuse of the ethics system cost the state of Alaska and the Palin family reams of money. These antics tied up the Governor's office, forcing her administration to have to deal with this sick game instead of being free to fully focus on the business she was elected to perform. There was no end in sight; the complaints kept coming--for things as silly as the type of jacket Governor Palin wore.

Alaska law made it easy for people to get away with this nonsense. Those filing a complaint didn't have to pay a dime, while the accused had to pay to defend him or herself. These ridiculous complaints against the Governor were consistently dismissed, as there was no substance to them. Still, much damage was done--and that was the plan. To disarm the haters, who purposely and maliciously abused the system with no regard for neither the Palins nor their state, Governor Palin sacrificially stepped down from a job she loved in a state that loved her, as evidenced by the incredible approval rating she enjoyed prior to the media malpractice of 2008.

As a result of what Governor Palin endured, the state of Alaska realized that their approach to ethics complaints had to be changed. They have now adopted new ethics rules, which took effect yesterday. The Associated Press "reported" on this. As usual, they did a backassward job filling in the people as to what triggered this change.

Stacy Drake writes about this anemic coverage:

The Associated Press published an article about the new rules back on December 8th. As usual, the AP dropped the ball when it came to performing their standard journalistic function of providing their readers with the “five W’s” of the story. This time, they completely omitted the “why” part. C4P readers understand the context and origin of the new rules, but unfortunately many people not familiar with our site, rely on one of the news outlets that release AP stories such as that one, as is. The AP is biased and lazy, but thankfully more Americans realize this than ever before.

In the end, it is good to know that no other governor in the state of Alaska will ever have to endure what Governor Palin and her family went through in those months following the 2008 presidential campaign. Given the conspicuous timing of the frivolous claims (after the 2008 campaign) and the sudden disinterest of the Democrat party machine in the comings and goings of Alaska’s Governor, I think it’s safe to say that use of the new rules will be minimal.

Unions continue to intimidate citizens at private homes

2010-12-23T18:19:00.008-05:00

The unions are continuing their assault on private homeowners' property. Union members of Roquette America in Keokuk, Illinois (h/t Dana Loesch at Big Journalism) stood outside of Roquette executives' homes on Wednesday night and sang "carols" while shouting profanities to the residents inside. WGEM reported Roquette workers "have been off the job for almost three months now.

Roquette locked them out on September 28th, and contract negotiations have pretty much stalled ever since." Ms. Loesch provides a transcript of some the lyrics from the songs union members sang:

“God bless ye very wealthy men,we’re here so you can see. The workers who helped make you rich are now out on the street. You locked the doors while profits soared, how greedy could you be? Oh tidings of capital gains, oh what a shame, all you care about it capital gains.”

The unions tactics have gone from picketing outside of businesses to outside of private homes recently. Back in June of this year, a Maryland Bank of America executive found that his home was the target of screaming union protesters (video below). His fourteen-year old child was inside of the house at the time.

In early June, I asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, who was critical of the toxic protest group the Westboro Baptist Church for their harassment of families at military funerals, if he had any thoughts on public union members who harass private citizens at their homes:

During a press conference last Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, told reporters about a bipartisan amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting the right of military families to bury the remains of their loved ones without being protested. I asked Mr. Reid if the same right to privacy should extend to private citizens whose homes are protested by public unions. Mr. Reid dodged the issue saying, "I don't know anything about lawns and Bank of America executives." (video below)

In other words, do not expect a recipient of union kisses like Senator Reid to ride to the rescue on union member harassment of private citizens at their homes. As far as he is concerned. it is business as usual.

Heh: Actor Who Made $12.5 Million for ‘Gigli’ Says Corporate CEOs are Overpaid

2010-12-22T00:56:00.001-05:00

**Written by Doug Powers

It’s the holidays, which means the Hollywood limo libs just keep on delivering the gifts — unintentional laughs that is.

From Newsbusters:

On Tuesday’s Morning Edition, actor Ben Affleck was selling his new movie about corporate layoffs, Company Men, and anchorman Steve Inskeep carefully led the left-wing actor onto a soapbox to lecture about the immorality of American capitalism and financiers who do nothing but “move money back and forth”:

INSKEEP: There’s a line in Company Men that’s staying with me. Tommy Lee Jones is at a corporate conference table. Someone else at the conference table is discussing their plans to lay off a bunch of workers. And nearly all the workers being laid off are older, which could be construed as being wrong or illegal. Someone at the table says: “Oh, no. This is going to pass legal scrutiny.” And Jones responds: “I always thought we aimed for a little higher standard than that.”

AFFLECK: That speaks so perfectly to people’s feelings about our country. It’s like it’s just about getting by, or people can like let people go if they can get away with it, that there’s no deeper sense of right or wrong. The banks shouldn’t — people shouldn’t make such a giant profit off just moving money back and forth. And CEOs’ pay shouldn’t be 200 times the average worker. It used to be nine times.

Let’s throw Gigli, the disastrous movie that Affleck received $12.5 million to make, out of the mix and use a lower figure for comparison. Affleck reportedly earned a paltry $10 million for The Sum of All Fears. Let’s consider other “average workers” in that field. For example, according to Salary.com, the median salary for a camera operator in the television & motion picture industry in Los Angeles is just over $80,000 per year.

Affleck makes in the neighborhood of 125 times more than that on one movie. Factor in an entire year and he probably earns in the neighborhood of 500 times the “average worker” in his industry — maybe a lot more.

Before we start regulating CEO pay, maybe we should start with actors. The Hollywood left likes the idea of creeping socialism, just as long as it doesn’t creep any farther west than San Bernardino.

But I’ll say this for Affleck: He does a great Olbermann impression.

EPA to double down on climate

2010-12-21T00:22:00.000-05:00

The Obama administration is expected to roll out a major greenhouse gas policy for power plants and refineries as soon as Wednesday, signaling it won’t back off its push to fight climate change in the face of mounting opposition on Capitol Hill.

The Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to a schedule for setting greenhouse gas emission limits, known as “performance standards,” for the nation’s two biggest carbon-emitting industries, POLITICO has learned.

Under the schedule agreed to by EPA, states and environmental groups, the agency will issue a draft greenhouse gas performance standard for power plants by July 2011 and a final rule by May 2012. The agreement – which comes after states and environmentalists challenged the George W. Bush administration’s failure to set the standards – requires EPA to issue a draft limit for refineries by Dec. 2011 and a final rule by Nov. 2012.

The White House Office of Management and Budget has signed off on the schedule, according to a litigant in the legal fight.

The standards are part of a series of climate rules from the Obama administration that have faced fierce opposition from industry groups and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. And while the policies won’t go final for more than a year, the political ramifications will come immediately.
They will come as welcome news to environmentalists who want the administration to flex its regulatory muscle following the death of climate legislation this year, but EPA can expect its foes on the right to blast the move as another example of regulatory overreach.

GOP lawmakers slated to claim the gavels of powerful House committees next year have already vowed to launch probes into a host of EPA regulations – including the administration’s suite of climate change rules – arguing that the regulations will further damage the already ailing economy.

Starting Jan. 2, EPA will begin regulating large stationary sources of the heat-trapping emissions, but those requirements only apply to new and upgraded facilities and will be determined on a case-by-case basis, so it’s unclear how deeply they will slash emissions. The forthcoming standards would set industry-specific standards and could require some of the oldest, dirtiest facilities to clamp down on carbon dioxide.

The agreement doesn’t specify what type of requirements EPA will impose on the industries, but environmentalists say the rules have the potential to require substantial emission reductions in existing facilities while offering industry the type of regulatory certainty it’s been calling for.
EPA’s schedule could also likely impact a high-profile climate lawsuit pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. In the case American Electric Power v. Connecticut, power companies are challenging a lower court ruling that allowed states and environmental groups to move ahead with a public nuisance lawsuit seeking to force the utilities to slash their greenhouse gas emissions.

Obama administration attorneys asked the court in August to vacate the appeals court's judgment, arguing that in part that EPA was already moving forward with efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which undercut the need for nuisance lawsuits. The attorneys said EPA was “evaluating” whether to include greenhouse gases in performance standards.

States and environmental groups involved in the case argued that EPA’s evaluation wasn’t good enough because the agency hasn’t formally taken action to limit emissions from existing sources. However, they said their claims for relief under nuisance lawsuits would be displaced if such rules were finalized.

It’s unclear how EPA’s announced schedule will affect the Supreme Court case, which is expected to be argued before the rules go final.

EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy said, "We have nothing to announce at this time. But as we have made clear any regulatory decisions will be guided by sound science and stakeholder input, and encourage deployment of clean technology, while cutting greenhouse gas pollution and providing certainty to key industries in this country.

Barney Frank: Death Tax Not Punishment; Heirs Didn’t Do Anything to Deserve Inheritance

2010-12-20T19:33:00.001-05:00

Funding cuts leave many without home heating assistance in Macon

2010-12-18T14:38:00.002-05:00

When Eugene Jenkins showed up at St. Paul AME Church at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, he didn’t know he would be one of the last people to get a ticket for assistance with his heating bill.

Take a good luck behind this woman. A plasma TV and game system. Lady if you can afford those things, you can pay your own damn electric bills.

He waited in line until 7 a.m., when officials started to hand out the tickets, then went home for a few hours before returning at 10 a.m. By the time he had finished up his paperwork, it was 1:15 p.m., making for a long day.

Jenkins was one of the lucky ones in Macon, though. Other people were turned away because the Macon-Bibb County Economic Opportunity Council, which distributes the federal money, had its share of funding for the program cut by 44 percent this year.

“I don’t know what I was going to do without it,” Jenkins said. “It’s something that needs to get taken care of.”

Jimmie Samuel, executive director of the agency, said the need for assistance in Bibb County has spiked, while the available funds to fill those needs have been slashed.

“We’re close to being out of money,” Samuel said. “We’re going to assess to see what we can do, to see if we can do any more.”

That’s left people such as Raymeica Kelley frustrated. Kelley said she, her mother and her sister arrived at the church about 3 a.m. Wednesday, only to get turned away.
“We were already too late,” she said. “It’s like impossible (to get a ticket). It gets in the way of people who need it. ... If we’re there at 3 a.m. and it’s already too late, what time are you supposed to go?”

Kelley said she was unemployed for a year before recently landing a job. But her bills have stacked up while she was unemployed, and she needs the assistance.

Kelley and some of the others who were turned away said they thought about 350 people would get help Wednesday, but the line got cut off at No. 219.

Samuel said his agency did serve 350 on the first day, then made adjustments to the number of people they could serve based on the amount of money left.

Samuel said he’s heard the complaints from the community about the current system, but he said it’s the most efficient way the agency has found to distribute the funds during the year. That’s in terms of seeing the most people possible and in keeping records of where the money gets distributed.

“It’s been done in different ways, but this is the best way,” he said. “It serves the numbers we’re required to serve. It’s not perfect, obviously, but we’ve tried tweaking it in the past, and this is the best way. We’re open to looking at other ways of doing it.”

A few years ago, Kelley said, people who needed assistance were able to call the agency to schedule an appointment. But Samuel said his agency’s phones were overwhelmed when that system was in place, and that a third of the people who made appointments were no-shows.
The situation seems worse this year, he said, because more people need assistance, but there’s less money to go around.

City Councilman Lonnie Miley, who serves as president of the Economic Opportunity Council’s board of directors, said the agency is trying to do the best it can, given the circumstances.
“We’re trying to serve as many as we can.” he said. “It’s frustrating. We’re trying to serve as many as possible, but the need is so great.”

Samuel said his office is trying to determine if there’s enough funding left to have another session Friday. People who need assistance can call the council at (478) 738-3240 on Thursday to see if another session will be scheduled.

Sen. McConnell On 2000-Page Omnibus Bill: "No One Has Seen It"

2010-12-14T22:29:00.002-05:00

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says Democrats have not shown Republicans the almost 2000-page omnibus page.McConnell says the lame-duck Congress should pass a short-term budget and not the current $1.1 trillion bill.

Democrats' budget bill: $1.1 trillion; 1,900 pages

2010-12-14T22:26:00.004-05:00

Defying the political odds, Senate Democrats rolled out a year-end, governmentwide spending bill Tuesday that cuts more than $26 billion from President Barack Obama’s 2011 requests even as it holds firm to thousands of the appropriations earmarks so adamantly opposed by critics of Congress.

Filling more than 1,900 pages, the $1.1 trillion measure represents an increase of less than 2 percent in annual spending but makes for an easy target of ridicule — a last stand by the Senate’s old bulls before the tea party takeover. In a scene reminiscent of the movie “Casablanca,” top Republicans expressed shock, shock that there was gambling still in Rick’s Cafe even after their own members have been quietly working to write the bill and gather GOP votes for passage.

“It’s completely inappropriate; I’m vigorously in opposition to it,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who then had to admit the bill included earmarks for projects in his home state of Kentucky. Indeed, the spending levels are specifically designed to meet appropriations targets that McConnell and much of the Republican leadership espoused only months ago, and the leader’s old friend, Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah), has been active on the bill’s behalf.

Appropriations clerks in both the House and the Senate have devoted months to the effort in a last hope of salvaging something from the collapsed budget process this year. The Departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security have the greatest stake in the increases above 2010 levels, and, surprisingly, the bill also adds about $5.4 billion for new labor, education and health spending in addition to billions more to meet a shortfall in Pell grants for low-income college students.

Included is an $840 million increase for Head Start and $550 million for Obama’s signature Race to the Top education initiative. But conservatives zeroed in most on what they estimated was $1.25 billion in spending related to health care reform — a sure target in the next Congress.

The first challenge for Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) will be to get the 60 votes needed to limit debate — a test that could come as early as Saturday. He’s had little help thus far from the White House, whose costly tax deal with Republicans may have made his task harder. But the administration has a major stake in the fight, since it most fears that Republicans will insist on a short-term continuing resolution that will only set up a new fight in February.

For this reason, the House last week passed a stripped-down, yearlong continuing resolution as a buffer of sorts for the president. But pressed by House conservatives, Senate Republicans are agitating for a two-month continuing resolution to set up that spending confrontation with Obama early next year.

Even before the bill’s release Tuesday afternoon, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, jumped in to attack Democrats for ignoring, he said, the “clear will expressed by voters this past election.” And New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, a senior Republican on the Senate Budget and Appropriations committees, said a short-term CR would be preferable at this stage, given the shortness of time before the holiday recess.

That someone of Gregg’s standing is considering this option is a worry for the White House, which put its chips on the yearlong House version after salting it first with concessions for Obama’s priorities, including expansive new authority for agency heads to move money around.

Inouye is scornful of what he calls this “chief executive’s bill,” but the 86-year-old chairman risks hurting his own cause by holding so dearly to spending earmarks as a prerogative for Congress. Taxpayers for Common Sense Tuesday night estimated that it had found 6,600 such legislative provisions in the omnibus directing where $8 billion within the bill should be spent. That’s 20 percent less in dollar value from the current year. And all the provisions are publicly disclosed but still potentially fatal to the bill in today’s political climate.

Reid threatens to keep Congress into next year

2010-12-14T22:24:00.001-05:00

New spending bill totals $575.13 million per page

Forget about going quietly into the night.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a broad agenda for an end-of-session sprint that, in other years, could be a whole year's worth of activity — ranging from an arms-reduction treaty with Russia to a major immigration bill to overturning the ban on gay troops.

And that's not to mention the nearly 2,000-page, $1.1 trillion massive spending bill Senate Democrats said they'll try to push through. The bill contains hundreds of pork-barrel spending projects and new rules governing everything from airport baggage to detainees at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"We're not through. Congress ends on Jan. 4," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.

The omnibus spending bill is likely to get the most attention, spanning 1,924 pages and spending an average of $575.13 million per page.

**FILE** Sen. Harry Reid

It stands in contrast to the House, which last week passed a streamlined bill freezing fiscal 2011 government spending at 2010's level. The Senate bill, though, boosts spending by $16 billion — a tough sell at a time when deficits and debt already are dominating the policy debate in Washington.

In some cases the spending bill not only rejects President Obama's proposed cuts, it actually boosts spending. For example, Mr. Obama earlier this year told Congress to cut funding for the health and welfare package targeting Mississippi's Delta region, which in 2010 received about $26 million. But the Senate bill includes funding and actually increases it to nearly $35 million in 2011.

Senators also picked up the slack for their House colleagues, whose bill was devoid of pork-barrel earmarks, by including House lawmakers' requests in the Senate's own bill. Still, earmarks total less than 1 percent of the bill's spending.

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii Democrat, who is Appropriations Committee chairman, said that doing a full omnibus bill will help make sure spending is targeted and appropriate.

"While I appreciate the work that the House has done in producing a full-year Continuing Resolution, I do not believe that putting the government on autopilot for a full year is in the best interest of the American people," Mr. Inouye said.

Woman arrested for wearing hijab sues Georgia city

2010-12-14T22:18:00.000-05:00

DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. (AP) — A Muslim woman who was arrested after she refused to remove her headscarf in a west Georgia courthouse filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the city of Douglasville and the officers who arrested her, contending they violated her constitutional rights.

Lisa Valentine said authorities trampled on her First Amendment rights in December 2008 when she was ordered to serve 10 days in jail for contempt of court after she refused to remove her hijab at a courtroom. She was released in less than a day, but her arrest infuriated Muslim rights activists and prompted changes in Georgia's courtroom policy.

"I hope that no person of faith will ever have to experience the type of egregious treatment I suffered at any Georgia courthouse because of the expression of my beliefs," said Valentine, whose lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and its Georgia chapter.

After Valentine's arrest, a Douglasville judge ordered "special provisions" to be made for those wearing religious headwear. More sweeping changes came in July 2009, when the Judicial Council of Georgia voted to allow religious and medical headgear into Georgia courtrooms.
The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of Georgia, seeks unspecified punitive damages and attorneys' fees. It claims that the city "demonstrated reckless indifference" to Valentine's constitutional rights and forced her to violate a fundamental tenet of her faith.

Douglasville Mayor Mickey Thompson said he was caught off-guard by the lawsuit.

"This one's a surprise because I think we had worked with Ms. Valentine and I thought her concerns were addressed," said Thompson, who declined further comment until the city's attorneys could review the complaint.

Valentine's arrest came after she was accompanying her nephew to a hearing in the city about 20 miles west of Atlanta.

She said officials stopped her at the metal detector and told her she couldn't enter the courtroom with the headscarf, known as a hijab. She said when she objected and turned to leave, officers brought her before a municipal court judge who ordered her held for contempt of court. She said officer also forced her to take off the hijab when she was booked. Hijabs are intended to protect the modesty of Muslim women.

"I had no idea I was in for such a humiliating experience," she said. "This is who I am. Without it, it's like taking off my shirt. It's like being stripped of something that's part of me."
Douglasville officials at the time said they were trying to follow courtroom rules that restricted headgear, and Douglasville Police Chief Joe Whisenant characterized the incident at the time as a miscommunication.

But the city later said in a statement that the officer who detained Valentine should have sought a solution that "would preserve the spirit of the law." And the city ordered employees to undergo sensitivity training courses in the aftermath of the incident.

Earmarkers feast on pork one last time before diet

2010-12-14T22:16:00.001-05:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — The spending barons on Capitol Hill, long used to muscling past opponents of bills larded with pet projects, are seeking one last victory before tea party-backed GOP insurgents storm Congress intent on ending the good old days of pork-barrel politics.

You might call it the last running of the old bulls in Congress.

In the waning days of the lame duck congressional session, Democrats controlling the Senate — in collaboration with a handful of old school Republicans — are pushing to wrap $1.27 trillion worth of unfinished budget work into a single "omnibus" appropriations bill.

Their 1,900-plus-page bill comes to the floor this week stuffed with provisions sought by lawmakers. It contains thousands of pet projects, known as earmarks, pushed by Democratic and GOP senators alike — despite a pledge by Republicans to give up such projects next year.

"That omnibus bill will be loaded down with earmarks and pork-barrel spending, which is a direct — a direct — betrayal of the majority of voters on Nov. 2 who said 'Stop the earmarking, stop the spending, stop the pork-barrel projects,'" protested Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Altogether, the bill contains about $8 billion worth of earmarks, less than in previous years since House Republicans didn't ask for any. The earmarked funds equal less than 1 percent of the measure.

The catchall bill is designed to bankroll the operations of every Cabinet agency for the budget year that started Oct. 1, as well as $158 billion to pay for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It also challenges President Barack Obama. One administration-opposed provision would block the Pentagon from transferring Guantanamo Bay prisoners to the United States. Another would provide $450 million for a program to develop a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter despite a veto threat by the administration, which says it's a waste of money.

The architect of the measure, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, has been working with senior Republicans on the panel — Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Robert Bennett of Utah and Kit Bond of Missouri, among others — to line up the 60 votes needed to repel a filibuster promised by GOP Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and other conservatives.

"We remain cautiously optimistic," said Inouye spokesman Rob Blumenthal.

Inouye's optimism was based on earlier private conversations with Democrats and Republicans alike, but it remains to be seen whether key Republicans will stick with him in the face of fierce opposition from tea party activists. But Inouye allies like Bennett, Bond and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, are already leaving politics.

Inouye's measure would replace a slightly less expensive bill that the House passed last week. The House bill doesn't contain earmarks like road and agricultural research projects, water treatment plants and grants for local anti-drug campaigns.

House Democrats, however, would gladly accept the fatter Senate version. Its many earmarks include $80 million in grants to states and Indian tribes to preserve Pacific salmon and $13 million in clean water grants for rural and Alaska native villages.

There's also $4 million sought by Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell for the Kentucky National Guard's marijuana eradication efforts and $8 million sought by GOP Sen. John Thune of South Dakota to help maintain the B-1 bomber fleet in his state. Though their states would benefit, both Republicans oppose the bill, and McConnell said Tuesday he's asked for his earmarks to be removed.

"This is exactly what the American people said Nov. 2 they didn't want us to do," he added.
The year-end logjam continues a long tradition in which a dysfunctional Congress is unable to do its most basic job of providing money to run the government on time.

Rather than debating a dozen separate appropriations bills, the omnibus spending measure rolls all the spending bills into a single piece of legislation that is likely to be brought to the floor in a way that keeps opponents from trimming it down.

Democrats hope to pass the measure by a midnight deadline Saturday. That would give them the latest — and perhaps last — victory over conservatives who contend the annual appropriations bills spend too much money and contain too many pork-barrel projects.

Incoming House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is a long-standing opponent of doling out federal dollars for sewer projects, community development grants and the like based on special requests from lawmakers.

Boehner will become the single most powerful member of Congress next year, and he has laid down the law, promising to cut as much as $100 billion from 2011 agency budgets and ban earmarks. He signed a letter last week asking Obama to veto the omnibus bill because of its earmarks, and issued a statement Tuesday calling the legislation a "disgrace" and "a smack in the face to taxpayers."

For now, though, Boehner still is outnumbered by Democrats.

And across the Capitol, Democrats control the Senate with 58 votes. But their numbers will shrink to 53 in January, and many of the 13 incoming Senate Republicans are replacing eager earmarkers like Bond and Bennett, who follow the rich Appropriations Committee tradition of banding together, regardless of party, to beat back critics of their spending.

McConnell said he's actively working to defeat the giant spending bill. And GOP conservatives are irate over provisions that would begin to pay for Obama's overhauls of the U.S. health care system and financial services regulations.

Obama Taps Jon Bon Jovi for New Advisory Board

2010-12-14T22:14:00.002-05:00

Looks like all those years of performing for Democratic candidates has paid off: President Obama is tapping rocker Jon Bon Jovi to serve on a new presidential advisory council.

The White House announced Tuesday that Bon Jovi (or is it just Jovi?) will join the new 25-member White House Council for Community Solutions, a panel established to provide advice on "the best ways to mobilize citizens, nonprofits, businesses and government to work more effectively together to solve specific community needs."

Condoleezza Rice Smacks Down Katie Couric’s Insulting, Ignorant Depiction of Iraq War

2010-12-14T19:40:00.001-05:00

Secretary Rice gives the greatest, most thorough and intelligent response to the criticisms of the decision to go to war in Iraq that has ever been made. As an added bonus, she also makes Katie Couric look shrill and uninformed.

Rangel: "I Don't Deal In Average American Citizens"

2010-12-02T22:42:00.002-05:00

A reporter asks Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) if an average American citizen "went through similar circumstances as yourself that they may be punished in a worse way?"

Rangel lashed out at the reporter: "Please, I'm not a psychiatrist. I don't deal in average American citizens."

"I'll come back to you when you have a good question," he added. The House overwhelmingly voted to censure Rep. Rangel.