Saturday, April 21, 2012
President Obama: “Dog Eater,” the Music Video
DOGEATER
Music: Hall/Oates
Lyrics: Made possible by a grant from the Lolo D. and Catherine T. Soetoro Foundation
He only comes out at night
To find a tasty bite
Nothing is new, I’ve seen his gaze before
Watching and waiting
He’s sitting with you but eyeing some Basset Hounds
So many to taste and see
Chihuahua fricasse
Dear Leader is wild, but he’s tamed by the taste of a puppy’s tail
Served up on a platter
The school lunches are sure gonna get bizarre
Oh here he comes
Watch out Bo he’ll chew you up
Oh here he comes
He’s a dogeater
Oh here he comes
Watch out Bo he’ll chew you up
Oh here he comes
He’s a dogeater
I wonder if Michelle approves
Fried puppy just won’t do
Poached poodle flan, the One will really rip their fur apart
Mind over matter
TelePrompTer glaze but a beast is in his heart
Oh here he comes
Watch out Bo he’ll chew you up
Oh here he comes
He’s a dogeater
Oh here he comes
Watch out Bo he’ll chew you up
Oh here he comes
He’s a dogeater
Posted at 10:48 am on April 20th, 2012 by PJTattler
Censorship by mob rule is still censorship
Posted by Scott Tibbs • April 21, 2012
A man who was arrested in Martinsville for distributing Ku Klux Klan literature last summer (the charges were dropped on free speech grounds) staged a one-person “rally” on the Monroe County courthouse square on April 7. He was met with two hundred people who showed up to counter-protest him.
This could have been a powerful statement of solidarity against the sinful racism of the KKK. But it degenerated into a farce when Leftist radicals could not control their emotions and managed to humiliate themselves. What is sad is that the extremists do not even realize how badly they lost in the arena of ideas with their shameful behavior. Instead of a peaceful protest to show how much in the minority this one dude is, Leftist terrorists snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Some Leftists whine that this was not a free speech issue because both Buhls and his opponents spoke and were heard. They are wrong. This absolutely is a free speech issue. Violent extremists surrounded Buhls, destroyed his sign, stole his property, physically assaulted him, threatened him with weapons, and followed him down the street after his protest was over. You can see pictures of the near-riot on this Flickr photo stream. It is genuinely disturbing.
The difference between these Leftists and Osama bin Laden is only one of degree – same basic mentality. Both Osama bin Laden and the Leftist extremists who behaved so shamefully on April 7 use violence and threats of violence to frighten people into doing what they want.
I shudder to think what would have happened had the police not been there to intervene. But not nearly enough was done. Censorship by mob rule is still censorship, especially when accompanied by violence and threats of violence. The police should have stepped in to put some space between Buhls and his opponents, because no one should expect to be put in danger for his free speech. Government must not permit this shameful and anti-American behavior.
Speaking against Buhls is completely appropriate, but there is simply no excuse for this. A loud but peaceful protest would have been infinitely more effective to show how much in the minority his views are. It was 200 to 1, for crying out loud!
Buhls got exactly what he wanted. Had no counter-protesters shown up at all, he would have been completely ignored and no one would have even known he was there. Had this been a peaceful protest, he would have been embarrassed. But the “Occupy Bloomington” idiots simply could not leave well enough alone. They could not control their emotions and threw a childish temper tantrum. They had to surround him, destroy his sign, steal his property and physically intimidate him. Now the KKK can claim a public relations victory, as a peaceful KKK member was accosted by an angry mob.
None of this, of course, can excuse Buhls’ wickedness. Man was made in the image of Almighty God and hatred against someone because of his skin pigmentation is therefore a direct insult against our Father in Heaven. Since the KKK specifically claims the name of Jesus Christ, it is important to note that Jesus was almost certainly dark-skinned.
This incident was a black eye for our community. The Bloomington City Council, the Monroe County Council, the Monroe County Commissioners and the Mayor of Bloomington should in no uncertain terms denounce this shameful behavior and make it very clear that this is not welcome in a “save and civil” community where all views will be respected and no one has to fear for his safety because he espouses unpopular ideas.
Scott Tibbs blogs at ConservaTibbs.com.
SOURCE: Hoosier Access
A man who was arrested in Martinsville for distributing Ku Klux Klan literature last summer (the charges were dropped on free speech grounds) staged a one-person “rally” on the Monroe County courthouse square on April 7. He was met with two hundred people who showed up to counter-protest him.
This could have been a powerful statement of solidarity against the sinful racism of the KKK. But it degenerated into a farce when Leftist radicals could not control their emotions and managed to humiliate themselves. What is sad is that the extremists do not even realize how badly they lost in the arena of ideas with their shameful behavior. Instead of a peaceful protest to show how much in the minority this one dude is, Leftist terrorists snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Some Leftists whine that this was not a free speech issue because both Buhls and his opponents spoke and were heard. They are wrong. This absolutely is a free speech issue. Violent extremists surrounded Buhls, destroyed his sign, stole his property, physically assaulted him, threatened him with weapons, and followed him down the street after his protest was over. You can see pictures of the near-riot on this Flickr photo stream. It is genuinely disturbing.
The difference between these Leftists and Osama bin Laden is only one of degree – same basic mentality. Both Osama bin Laden and the Leftist extremists who behaved so shamefully on April 7 use violence and threats of violence to frighten people into doing what they want.
I shudder to think what would have happened had the police not been there to intervene. But not nearly enough was done. Censorship by mob rule is still censorship, especially when accompanied by violence and threats of violence. The police should have stepped in to put some space between Buhls and his opponents, because no one should expect to be put in danger for his free speech. Government must not permit this shameful and anti-American behavior.
Speaking against Buhls is completely appropriate, but there is simply no excuse for this. A loud but peaceful protest would have been infinitely more effective to show how much in the minority his views are. It was 200 to 1, for crying out loud!
Buhls got exactly what he wanted. Had no counter-protesters shown up at all, he would have been completely ignored and no one would have even known he was there. Had this been a peaceful protest, he would have been embarrassed. But the “Occupy Bloomington” idiots simply could not leave well enough alone. They could not control their emotions and threw a childish temper tantrum. They had to surround him, destroy his sign, steal his property and physically intimidate him. Now the KKK can claim a public relations victory, as a peaceful KKK member was accosted by an angry mob.
None of this, of course, can excuse Buhls’ wickedness. Man was made in the image of Almighty God and hatred against someone because of his skin pigmentation is therefore a direct insult against our Father in Heaven. Since the KKK specifically claims the name of Jesus Christ, it is important to note that Jesus was almost certainly dark-skinned.
This incident was a black eye for our community. The Bloomington City Council, the Monroe County Council, the Monroe County Commissioners and the Mayor of Bloomington should in no uncertain terms denounce this shameful behavior and make it very clear that this is not welcome in a “save and civil” community where all views will be respected and no one has to fear for his safety because he espouses unpopular ideas.
Scott Tibbs blogs at ConservaTibbs.com.
SOURCE: Hoosier Access
North Carolina execution blocked on racial grounds in landmark ruling
Published April 21, 2012
Associated Press
April 20, 2012: Defendant Marcus Robinson, left, sits with his lawyers during the final day of his hearing under the Racial Justice Act at the Cumberland County Courthouse in Fayetteville, N.C. (AP)
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – A condemned killer's trial was so tainted by the racially influenced decisions of prosecutors that he should be removed from death row and serve a life sentence, a judge ruled Friday in a precedent-setting North Carolina decision.
Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks' decision in the case of Marcus Robinson comes in the first test of a 2009 state law that allows death row prisoners and capital murder defendants to challenge their sentences or prosecutors' decisions with statistics and other evidence beyond documents or witness testimony.
Only Kentucky has a law like North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, which says the prisoner's sentence is reduced to life in prison without parole if the claim is successful.
"The Racial Justice Act represents a landmark reform in capital sentencing in our state," Weeks said in Fayetteville on Friday. "There are those who disagree with this, but it is the law."
Race played a "persistent, pervasive and distorting role" in jury selection and couldn't be explained other than that "prosecutors have intentionally discriminated" against Robinson and other capital defendants statewide, Weeks said. Prosecutors eliminated black jurors more than twice as often as white jurors, according to a study by two Michigan State University law professors Weeks said he found highly reliable.
Robinson's case is the first of more than 150 pending cases to get an evidentiary hearing before a judge. Prosecutors said they planned to challenge Weeks' decision, and District Attorney Billy West declined further comment.
Weeks ruled race was a factor in prosecution decisions to reject potential black jurors before the murder trial of Robinson, a black man convicted of killing a white teenager in 1991. The jury that convicted Robinson had nine whites, two blacks and one American Indian.
Robinson and co-defendant Roderick Williams Jr. were convicted of murdering 17-year-old Erik Tornblom after the teen gave his killers a ride from a Fayetteville convenience store. Tornblom was forced to drive to a field, where he was shot with a sawed-off shotgun.
Robinson came close to death in January 2007, but a judge blocked his scheduled execution. Williams is serving a life sentence.
Nearly a dozen members of Tornblom's family left the courtroom without commenting. Robinson's mother, Shirley Burns, said she would advocate for the law, which a new Republican majority in the state's General Assembly is trying to eliminate.
"Everybody is not guilty, everybody is not innocent, but at least be fair," Burns said after the ruling. "It wasn't all about Marcus. It's about anyone who suffers discrimination."
Central to Robinson's case was the Michigan State University study. It reported that, of almost 160 people on North Carolina's death row, 31 had all-white juries, and 38 had only one person of color.
Study co-author and Michigan State professor Barbara O'Brien told a North Carolina legislative panel last month the review of more than 7,400 potential capital jurors couldn't find anything other than race to explain why potential black jurors were rejected by prosecutors more than twice as often as whites.
Robinson defense attorney James Ferguson of Charlotte told Weeks, who decided the case without a jury, that the study showed race was a significant factor in almost every one of North Carolina's prosecutorial districts as prosecutors decided to challenge and eliminate black jurors.
"This case is important because it provides an opportunity for all of us to recognize that race far too often has been a significant factor in jury selection in capital cases," Ferguson said when the hearing opened in January.
Union County prosecutor Jonathan Perry, who helped the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office argue the case against Robinson, said the study was untrustworthy because it was based on a too-limited sample of death penalty cases to provide meaningful results. The study also failed to detect numerous nonracial reasons that a person might be struck from a jury, Perry said.
The Republican-led Legislature tried to repeal the Racial Justice Act earlier this year, but lawmakers failed to override a veto by Gov. Beverly Perdue, a Democrat.
In 1998, Kentucky was the first state to enact a similar law. But the American Bar Association said in a report it was unclear exactly how often it has been used except for during the 2003 trial of an African-American man accused of kidnapping and killing his ex-girlfriend, who was white. In that case, the defendant's lawyers used the Kentucky Racial Justice Act during jury selection to include questions that would address the issue of racial discrimination. The defendant, Nathaniel Wood, was convicted of wanton murder and other crimes and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Associated Press
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – A condemned killer's trial was so tainted by the racially influenced decisions of prosecutors that he should be removed from death row and serve a life sentence, a judge ruled Friday in a precedent-setting North Carolina decision.
Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks' decision in the case of Marcus Robinson comes in the first test of a 2009 state law that allows death row prisoners and capital murder defendants to challenge their sentences or prosecutors' decisions with statistics and other evidence beyond documents or witness testimony.
Only Kentucky has a law like North Carolina's Racial Justice Act, which says the prisoner's sentence is reduced to life in prison without parole if the claim is successful.
"The Racial Justice Act represents a landmark reform in capital sentencing in our state," Weeks said in Fayetteville on Friday. "There are those who disagree with this, but it is the law."
Race played a "persistent, pervasive and distorting role" in jury selection and couldn't be explained other than that "prosecutors have intentionally discriminated" against Robinson and other capital defendants statewide, Weeks said. Prosecutors eliminated black jurors more than twice as often as white jurors, according to a study by two Michigan State University law professors Weeks said he found highly reliable.
Robinson's case is the first of more than 150 pending cases to get an evidentiary hearing before a judge. Prosecutors said they planned to challenge Weeks' decision, and District Attorney Billy West declined further comment.
Weeks ruled race was a factor in prosecution decisions to reject potential black jurors before the murder trial of Robinson, a black man convicted of killing a white teenager in 1991. The jury that convicted Robinson had nine whites, two blacks and one American Indian.
Robinson and co-defendant Roderick Williams Jr. were convicted of murdering 17-year-old Erik Tornblom after the teen gave his killers a ride from a Fayetteville convenience store. Tornblom was forced to drive to a field, where he was shot with a sawed-off shotgun.
Robinson came close to death in January 2007, but a judge blocked his scheduled execution. Williams is serving a life sentence.
Nearly a dozen members of Tornblom's family left the courtroom without commenting. Robinson's mother, Shirley Burns, said she would advocate for the law, which a new Republican majority in the state's General Assembly is trying to eliminate.
"Everybody is not guilty, everybody is not innocent, but at least be fair," Burns said after the ruling. "It wasn't all about Marcus. It's about anyone who suffers discrimination."
Central to Robinson's case was the Michigan State University study. It reported that, of almost 160 people on North Carolina's death row, 31 had all-white juries, and 38 had only one person of color.
Study co-author and Michigan State professor Barbara O'Brien told a North Carolina legislative panel last month the review of more than 7,400 potential capital jurors couldn't find anything other than race to explain why potential black jurors were rejected by prosecutors more than twice as often as whites.
Robinson defense attorney James Ferguson of Charlotte told Weeks, who decided the case without a jury, that the study showed race was a significant factor in almost every one of North Carolina's prosecutorial districts as prosecutors decided to challenge and eliminate black jurors.
"This case is important because it provides an opportunity for all of us to recognize that race far too often has been a significant factor in jury selection in capital cases," Ferguson said when the hearing opened in January.
Union County prosecutor Jonathan Perry, who helped the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office argue the case against Robinson, said the study was untrustworthy because it was based on a too-limited sample of death penalty cases to provide meaningful results. The study also failed to detect numerous nonracial reasons that a person might be struck from a jury, Perry said.
The Republican-led Legislature tried to repeal the Racial Justice Act earlier this year, but lawmakers failed to override a veto by Gov. Beverly Perdue, a Democrat.
In 1998, Kentucky was the first state to enact a similar law. But the American Bar Association said in a report it was unclear exactly how often it has been used except for during the 2003 trial of an African-American man accused of kidnapping and killing his ex-girlfriend, who was white. In that case, the defendant's lawyers used the Kentucky Racial Justice Act during jury selection to include questions that would address the issue of racial discrimination. The defendant, Nathaniel Wood, was convicted of wanton murder and other crimes and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Illinois’ Disinformation Push Against Scott Walker, Plus a Site Note on Links
By Dan Collins – April 21, 2012
Posted in: Featured Stories
Last time I mentioned Tamara Holder, she was complaining that Hannity wouldn’t let her get away with saying, falsely, that Obama had improved the jobs situation from what he inherited (to use his language) thirty-nine months ago. She was also deeply incensed that Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch were permitted to address Illinois TEA Party folks in Chicago and at the capitol in Springfield, insisting that Walker had to go home.
Hannity’s censoring me! Shut up, Walker! I think the woman is rhetorically retarded.
It was never part of Walker’s plan to spend an inordinate amount of time in Illinois, in contrast to the Fleebaggers who hid out in Rockford rather than vote on Walker’s Budget Repair bill. What really set me off about her snottiness, though, was the deep involvement of Illinois politicians, such as ethically-challenged Representative Jan Schakowsky, who was put in charge of the Democrats’ national push to oust Walker. All of this goes on as Obama brings Chicago Way politics to the entire nation.
So, when Illinois Democrats tell us that Illinois’ economy is actually faring better than Wisconsin’s, take it with a boulder sized grain of salt:
NBC’s Edward McClelland wrote an op-ed piece published today titled “Illinois Beats Wisconsin In Job Creation.” McClelland quoted Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (a Democrat) as saying earlier this week that “Since Governor Walker took office, Wisconsin is dead last among the 50 states in job growth.”
Bloomberg’s headline today, “Republican Whipping-Boy Illinois Beats Wisconsin on Jobs,” caps a piece written by Tim Jones. Jones quoted Quinn as saying this about Wisconsin and Gov. Walker: ““They have the worst job record in the whole country, dead last,” and “We certainly don’t want to follow his [Walker's] prescriptions when it comes to economic growth.”
Both Jones and McClelland were, of course, referring to today’s jobs numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But let’s look at those numbers. They are not difficult to understand, unless you’re a liberal buying into the lies of the Democrats and their allies in the media. Here are the unemployment rates (as percentages) for Illinois and Wisconsin for March 2012, February 2012 and March of last year:
Illinois
March 2012 …. 8.8
Feb. 2012 ……. 9.1
March 2011 ….9.3
Wisconsin
March 2012 …. 6.8
Feb. 2012 ……. 6.9
March 2011 …. 7.6
Look at the numbers. Both states have had a decrease in unemployment. Illinois went from a nightmarish 9.3 percent a year ago down to a still-nightmarish 8.8 percent, a decrease of 0.5 percent. In the same period, Wisconsin went from an awful 7.6 percent down to a still-bad 6.8 percent.
Compare Wisconsin’s lowered unemployment drop of 0.8 to that of 0.5 percent in Illinois and you have to wonder what the hell the media – and geniuses like Gov. Quinn – are talking about when they say that Wisconsin is sucking tailpipes. Wisconsin’s drop in its unemployment rate has been, over the past 12 months, faster that in Illinois (0.8% versus 0.5% as shown above). The latest numbers show that Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is a full two points lower than in Illinois. Illinois is called “the Greece next door” by its neighboring states. Nobody is comparing Wisconsin to Greece. Not yet anyway.
The truly struggling part of Wisconsin’s overall economy is Milwaukee, led by Mayor Tom Barret, who wishes to replace Scott Walker in June’s recall elections. And the hilarious and frightening part about that candidacy is that it is not nearly hard left enough for many of the state’s Progressive Democrats, because he won’t promise unions the moon.
I don’t recall Tamara being bent out of shape that Rahm Emanuel was in Milwaukee a couple of weeks ago, and I don’t recall her outrage that Jesse Jackson brings his crap up here, either. Nor, for that matter, do I recall Tamara Holder ever tut-tutting over Stratfor’s Wikileaked memos concerning Democrat ballot stuffing in Ohio and Pennsylvania in 2008:
John McCain’s 2008 campaign staff allegedly had evidence that Democrats stuffed ballot boxes in Pennsylvania and Ohio on election night, but McCain chose not to pursue voter fraud, according to internal Stratfor emails published by WikiLeaks.
Allegedly.
The latest news from the Milwaukee County Prosecutor’s politically-motivated John Doe investigation into former Walker staffers is this:
[Andrew] Jensen was arrested last December in relation to the probe, known as a John Doe investigation, but released without any charges being filed. His attorney at the time, Pat Schott of Brookfield, said Jensen was arrested for not cooperating with the investigation. Schott said prosecutors were targeting Jensen because he “wouldn’t adopt their (prosecutors’) version of events.”
Jensen, a past president of the Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin, donated $850 to Walker’s campaign from 2008 to 2010. In all, employees of the Boerke Co. gave $12,150 to Walker’s campaign, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, an elections watchdog.
A profile of Jensen on the company website lists Jensen’s biggest client as Michael Best & Friedrich, a major law firm with ties to Walker and Republican leadership.
But you know what’s ‘draconian’? Walker’s budget reforms.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it would have been nice, especially for public employees, had Wisconsin’s progressive experiment succeeded. It did not, because of the greed of those granted the privileges. It failed because those privileged were unable or unwilling to prevent themselves becoming parasites on the body politic and the taxpayers of the state. They screwed up, and now they’re angry that those privileges have been revoked. If they were more reasonable, they would look at the state of unfunded liabilities just to our south, on which Meep has here written often and eloquently, and realize that they are in fact fortunate. But they won’t, becaus they are used always to having had more, and they believe there is an infinite store of more to which they are entitled.
Screw them. And while I’m on the subject, screw also the ‘everybody projects but me’ amateur psychologists of both the left and the right. The linked one thinks that allusions to pot use are racist, if the to-alluded happens to be black, whereas all that lefty talk about Breitbart having died from cocaine use? That was fair game, and who cares what some dumb coroner says, anyway.
Why is alluding to Obama using pot racist? Because it is manifestly racist. QED. The laugh over his silver spoon comment this week that was caused by his own autobiographical account of having used cocaine? Surely racist. Then again, one (at least) of Obama’s autobiographies claims that he ate dog in Indonesia as a lad, but PolitiFact cannot say one way or the other whether that’s true, which demonstrates that on this subject at least PolitiFact maintains a healthy skepticism.
Here’s a similar example of this logic: Irish are often portrayed as drunkards, which is stereotyping; that person portrayed a particular Irishman as a drunkard; therefore, he is prejudiced. *Hic* semper *hoc.*
If someone smoked a jay, or ate a dog . . . so what? Just so long as they aren’t trying to run my life on the authority of their self-evident (to themselves) moral superiority, or putting down other people’s lesser foibles in person or through proxies, I don’t care. But . . . Jon Corzine is still bundling for Obama when he ought to be in jail? Now that grinds my beans.
Thanks to Theo Spark for yesterday’s link, too.
Source: The Conservatory
Posted in: Featured Stories
Last time I mentioned Tamara Holder, she was complaining that Hannity wouldn’t let her get away with saying, falsely, that Obama had improved the jobs situation from what he inherited (to use his language) thirty-nine months ago. She was also deeply incensed that Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch were permitted to address Illinois TEA Party folks in Chicago and at the capitol in Springfield, insisting that Walker had to go home.
Hannity’s censoring me! Shut up, Walker! I think the woman is rhetorically retarded.
It was never part of Walker’s plan to spend an inordinate amount of time in Illinois, in contrast to the Fleebaggers who hid out in Rockford rather than vote on Walker’s Budget Repair bill. What really set me off about her snottiness, though, was the deep involvement of Illinois politicians, such as ethically-challenged Representative Jan Schakowsky, who was put in charge of the Democrats’ national push to oust Walker. All of this goes on as Obama brings Chicago Way politics to the entire nation.
So, when Illinois Democrats tell us that Illinois’ economy is actually faring better than Wisconsin’s, take it with a boulder sized grain of salt:
NBC’s Edward McClelland wrote an op-ed piece published today titled “Illinois Beats Wisconsin In Job Creation.” McClelland quoted Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (a Democrat) as saying earlier this week that “Since Governor Walker took office, Wisconsin is dead last among the 50 states in job growth.”
Bloomberg’s headline today, “Republican Whipping-Boy Illinois Beats Wisconsin on Jobs,” caps a piece written by Tim Jones. Jones quoted Quinn as saying this about Wisconsin and Gov. Walker: ““They have the worst job record in the whole country, dead last,” and “We certainly don’t want to follow his [Walker's] prescriptions when it comes to economic growth.”
Both Jones and McClelland were, of course, referring to today’s jobs numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But let’s look at those numbers. They are not difficult to understand, unless you’re a liberal buying into the lies of the Democrats and their allies in the media. Here are the unemployment rates (as percentages) for Illinois and Wisconsin for March 2012, February 2012 and March of last year:
Illinois
March 2012 …. 8.8
Feb. 2012 ……. 9.1
March 2011 ….9.3
Wisconsin
March 2012 …. 6.8
Feb. 2012 ……. 6.9
March 2011 …. 7.6
Look at the numbers. Both states have had a decrease in unemployment. Illinois went from a nightmarish 9.3 percent a year ago down to a still-nightmarish 8.8 percent, a decrease of 0.5 percent. In the same period, Wisconsin went from an awful 7.6 percent down to a still-bad 6.8 percent.
Compare Wisconsin’s lowered unemployment drop of 0.8 to that of 0.5 percent in Illinois and you have to wonder what the hell the media – and geniuses like Gov. Quinn – are talking about when they say that Wisconsin is sucking tailpipes. Wisconsin’s drop in its unemployment rate has been, over the past 12 months, faster that in Illinois (0.8% versus 0.5% as shown above). The latest numbers show that Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is a full two points lower than in Illinois. Illinois is called “the Greece next door” by its neighboring states. Nobody is comparing Wisconsin to Greece. Not yet anyway.
The truly struggling part of Wisconsin’s overall economy is Milwaukee, led by Mayor Tom Barret, who wishes to replace Scott Walker in June’s recall elections. And the hilarious and frightening part about that candidacy is that it is not nearly hard left enough for many of the state’s Progressive Democrats, because he won’t promise unions the moon.
I don’t recall Tamara being bent out of shape that Rahm Emanuel was in Milwaukee a couple of weeks ago, and I don’t recall her outrage that Jesse Jackson brings his crap up here, either. Nor, for that matter, do I recall Tamara Holder ever tut-tutting over Stratfor’s Wikileaked memos concerning Democrat ballot stuffing in Ohio and Pennsylvania in 2008:
John McCain’s 2008 campaign staff allegedly had evidence that Democrats stuffed ballot boxes in Pennsylvania and Ohio on election night, but McCain chose not to pursue voter fraud, according to internal Stratfor emails published by WikiLeaks.
Allegedly.
The latest news from the Milwaukee County Prosecutor’s politically-motivated John Doe investigation into former Walker staffers is this:
[Andrew] Jensen was arrested last December in relation to the probe, known as a John Doe investigation, but released without any charges being filed. His attorney at the time, Pat Schott of Brookfield, said Jensen was arrested for not cooperating with the investigation. Schott said prosecutors were targeting Jensen because he “wouldn’t adopt their (prosecutors’) version of events.”
Jensen, a past president of the Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin, donated $850 to Walker’s campaign from 2008 to 2010. In all, employees of the Boerke Co. gave $12,150 to Walker’s campaign, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, an elections watchdog.
A profile of Jensen on the company website lists Jensen’s biggest client as Michael Best & Friedrich, a major law firm with ties to Walker and Republican leadership.
But you know what’s ‘draconian’? Walker’s budget reforms.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it would have been nice, especially for public employees, had Wisconsin’s progressive experiment succeeded. It did not, because of the greed of those granted the privileges. It failed because those privileged were unable or unwilling to prevent themselves becoming parasites on the body politic and the taxpayers of the state. They screwed up, and now they’re angry that those privileges have been revoked. If they were more reasonable, they would look at the state of unfunded liabilities just to our south, on which Meep has here written often and eloquently, and realize that they are in fact fortunate. But they won’t, becaus they are used always to having had more, and they believe there is an infinite store of more to which they are entitled.
Screw them. And while I’m on the subject, screw also the ‘everybody projects but me’ amateur psychologists of both the left and the right. The linked one thinks that allusions to pot use are racist, if the to-alluded happens to be black, whereas all that lefty talk about Breitbart having died from cocaine use? That was fair game, and who cares what some dumb coroner says, anyway.
Why is alluding to Obama using pot racist? Because it is manifestly racist. QED. The laugh over his silver spoon comment this week that was caused by his own autobiographical account of having used cocaine? Surely racist. Then again, one (at least) of Obama’s autobiographies claims that he ate dog in Indonesia as a lad, but PolitiFact cannot say one way or the other whether that’s true, which demonstrates that on this subject at least PolitiFact maintains a healthy skepticism.
Here’s a similar example of this logic: Irish are often portrayed as drunkards, which is stereotyping; that person portrayed a particular Irishman as a drunkard; therefore, he is prejudiced. *Hic* semper *hoc.*
If someone smoked a jay, or ate a dog . . . so what? Just so long as they aren’t trying to run my life on the authority of their self-evident (to themselves) moral superiority, or putting down other people’s lesser foibles in person or through proxies, I don’t care. But . . . Jon Corzine is still bundling for Obama when he ought to be in jail? Now that grinds my beans.
Thanks to Theo Spark for yesterday’s link, too.
Source: The Conservatory
‘The Food Stamp President’
SNAP rolls up 70 percent since 2007, and growing
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff - April 20, 2012 11:03 am
Food stamp enrollment has increased dramatically since 2007 and is still growing, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday.
From the Wall Street Journal:
The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a 70% increase from 2007. It said the number of people receiving the benefits, commonly known as food stamps, would continue growing until 2014.
Spending for the program, not including administrative costs, rose to $72 billion in 2011, up from $30 billion four years earlier. The CBO projected that one in seven U.S. residents received food stamps last year.
In a report, the CBO said roughly two-thirds of jump in spending was tied to an increase in the number of people participating in the program, which provides access to food for the poor, elderly, and disabled. It said another 20% “of the growth in spending can be attributed to temporarily higher benefit amounts enacted in the” 2009 stimulus law.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has repeatedly referred to President Obama as a “food stamp president.”
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff - April 20, 2012 11:03 am
Food stamp enrollment has increased dramatically since 2007 and is still growing, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday.
From the Wall Street Journal:
The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a 70% increase from 2007. It said the number of people receiving the benefits, commonly known as food stamps, would continue growing until 2014.
Spending for the program, not including administrative costs, rose to $72 billion in 2011, up from $30 billion four years earlier. The CBO projected that one in seven U.S. residents received food stamps last year.
In a report, the CBO said roughly two-thirds of jump in spending was tied to an increase in the number of people participating in the program, which provides access to food for the poor, elderly, and disabled. It said another 20% “of the growth in spending can be attributed to temporarily higher benefit amounts enacted in the” 2009 stimulus law.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has repeatedly referred to President Obama as a “food stamp president.”
Is It Too Late to Save the Constitutional Republic?
April 21, 2012
Is It Too Late to Save the Constitutional Republic?
By Kerem Oner
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll has some alarming news. It appears that the more the American public finds out about the Tea Party, the more they dislike it.
The immediate question that comes to mind is, "what is to dislike about smaller, more responsible central government that is guided by our founding principles"? I am afraid that the answer to that question is one many of us constitutional conservatives do not want to face.
There are only three possible reasons for the poll results:
The poll results are skewed on purpose in an election-year attempt by partisan hacks to affect the results in their favor;
Reaction to the infighting that has taken over the Tea Party movement between the factions that want to stay above politics and those who want the movement to be more activist in nature; and
Reflection of societal transformation as a result of another three years of policies to promote ever-increasing government dependence.
I am afraid that the answer may not be as comforting as the first two possibilities.
Benjamin Franklin astutely observed that "[o]nce the people find out they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic." Thus goes the history of the greatest, most successful constitutional republic the world has witnessed.
Actually, Franklin was off in his prediction by only about a hundred years; we did not start our journey down the slippery slope of socialism until the turn of the 20th century -- the period known as the Progressive Era. The history of progressive largesse can be traced back to that great Republican -- Theodore Roosevelt -- who in the grand Northeastern Republican fashion believed in government action to mitigate social ills at any cost, as encapsulated in his Square Deal program, and in the courts to yield to the executive branch on anti-trust matters.
T.R. was the father of American progressivism, but he was by no means the only personification of the great progressive tradition that has come to undermine our constitutional republic. With the exceptions of Presidents Coolidge and, to a lesser extent, Reagan, all American presidents in the modern era have carried the water of progressivism, with the worst offenders being Wilson, FDR, LBJ, and the current resident of the White House.
Be it the New Deal, the War on Poverty, or many other ill-advised pieces of legislation passed by progressives from both parties, the great American experiment in self-governance may have finally borne its bitter fruit in conformance with human nature, which seeks security at any cost. The ultimate cost of dependence on the state, in terms of losing one's liberties, is lost on all but the few who have had the benefit of developing critical thinking skills, which our educational system has purposefully neglected thanks to the systematic implementation of cultural Marxism in schools since the 1950s. Progressive politicians realize and capitalize on this fact with policies that increase dependency on the state, thus robbing any trace of individuality left in an ever-increasing segment of the society. All the while, progressives elsewhere -- most notably in education, culture, and courts -- have been steadily eroding the traditional value system of society, which must be gradually replaced with a modern, utilitarian progressive outlook if the transformation to utopian collectivism is to be successfully implemented.
This utopian collectivist vision of what America should look like is all but reality in the eyes of the fifth column. The question is, have we really reached that critical tipping point, where welfare mentality is more prevalent than rugged individualism? Maybe, maybe not. One thing is for sure, though: constitutional conservatives have to come to the sobering realization that reversing this destructive trend toward the ever-present state in our lives will take great dedication and patience -- the type progressives have shown for over a century now. If not to Franklin and our other founding fathers, we certainly owe it to our children.
Kerem Oner blogs at http://defendourconstitution.blogspot.com.
Is It Too Late to Save the Constitutional Republic?
By Kerem Oner
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll has some alarming news. It appears that the more the American public finds out about the Tea Party, the more they dislike it.
The immediate question that comes to mind is, "what is to dislike about smaller, more responsible central government that is guided by our founding principles"? I am afraid that the answer to that question is one many of us constitutional conservatives do not want to face.
There are only three possible reasons for the poll results:
The poll results are skewed on purpose in an election-year attempt by partisan hacks to affect the results in their favor;
Reaction to the infighting that has taken over the Tea Party movement between the factions that want to stay above politics and those who want the movement to be more activist in nature; and
Reflection of societal transformation as a result of another three years of policies to promote ever-increasing government dependence.
I am afraid that the answer may not be as comforting as the first two possibilities.
Benjamin Franklin astutely observed that "[o]nce the people find out they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic." Thus goes the history of the greatest, most successful constitutional republic the world has witnessed.
Actually, Franklin was off in his prediction by only about a hundred years; we did not start our journey down the slippery slope of socialism until the turn of the 20th century -- the period known as the Progressive Era. The history of progressive largesse can be traced back to that great Republican -- Theodore Roosevelt -- who in the grand Northeastern Republican fashion believed in government action to mitigate social ills at any cost, as encapsulated in his Square Deal program, and in the courts to yield to the executive branch on anti-trust matters.
T.R. was the father of American progressivism, but he was by no means the only personification of the great progressive tradition that has come to undermine our constitutional republic. With the exceptions of Presidents Coolidge and, to a lesser extent, Reagan, all American presidents in the modern era have carried the water of progressivism, with the worst offenders being Wilson, FDR, LBJ, and the current resident of the White House.
Be it the New Deal, the War on Poverty, or many other ill-advised pieces of legislation passed by progressives from both parties, the great American experiment in self-governance may have finally borne its bitter fruit in conformance with human nature, which seeks security at any cost. The ultimate cost of dependence on the state, in terms of losing one's liberties, is lost on all but the few who have had the benefit of developing critical thinking skills, which our educational system has purposefully neglected thanks to the systematic implementation of cultural Marxism in schools since the 1950s. Progressive politicians realize and capitalize on this fact with policies that increase dependency on the state, thus robbing any trace of individuality left in an ever-increasing segment of the society. All the while, progressives elsewhere -- most notably in education, culture, and courts -- have been steadily eroding the traditional value system of society, which must be gradually replaced with a modern, utilitarian progressive outlook if the transformation to utopian collectivism is to be successfully implemented.
This utopian collectivist vision of what America should look like is all but reality in the eyes of the fifth column. The question is, have we really reached that critical tipping point, where welfare mentality is more prevalent than rugged individualism? Maybe, maybe not. One thing is for sure, though: constitutional conservatives have to come to the sobering realization that reversing this destructive trend toward the ever-present state in our lives will take great dedication and patience -- the type progressives have shown for over a century now. If not to Franklin and our other founding fathers, we certainly owe it to our children.
Kerem Oner blogs at http://defendourconstitution.blogspot.com.
Hollywood Studios Lose World’s First Major Ruling on Downloading of Copyrighted Material
Saturday, April 21, 2012
AllGov.Com:
Film industry executives lost their first major international court case involving piracy and copyright infringement, when Australia’s highest court unanimously ruled against them.
The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), representing 34 U.S. and Australian film and TV studios, took Internet service provider (ISP) iiNet to court claiming the ISP was responsible for its customers illegally sharing copyrighted material using BitTorrent. The High Court of Australia disagreed with AFACT, ruling 5-0 that iiNet “had no direct technical power” to prevent customers from breaking the law.
Had the studios won, they could have forced ISPs to actively prevent piracy on their networks.
The case, first filed in November 2008, was supported by Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox and Disney, and, behind the scenes, by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA.
According to a State Department cable released by WikiLeaks and sent by then-U.S. Ambassador Robert McCallum, “Despite the lead role of AFACT and the inclusion of Australian companies Village Roadshow and the Seven Network, this is an MPAA/American studios production…. AFACT is essentially MPAA's Australian subcontractor…. MPAA prefers that its leading role not be made public. AFACT and MPAA worked hard to get Village Roadshow and the Seven Network to agree to be the public Australian faces on the case to make it clear there are Australian equities at stake, and this isn't just Hollywood “bullying some poor little Australian ISP.’”
In February 2010, Justice Dennis Cowdroy ruled that ISPs were not responsible for their customers’ downloading habits. The studios appealed and lost again in February 2011 before making its final appeal to the Australian High Court.
AFACT and the Hollywood studios have indicated that they will now pursue legislative remedies.
-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff
AllGov.Com:
Film industry executives lost their first major international court case involving piracy and copyright infringement, when Australia’s highest court unanimously ruled against them.
The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), representing 34 U.S. and Australian film and TV studios, took Internet service provider (ISP) iiNet to court claiming the ISP was responsible for its customers illegally sharing copyrighted material using BitTorrent. The High Court of Australia disagreed with AFACT, ruling 5-0 that iiNet “had no direct technical power” to prevent customers from breaking the law.
Had the studios won, they could have forced ISPs to actively prevent piracy on their networks.
The case, first filed in November 2008, was supported by Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox and Disney, and, behind the scenes, by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA.
According to a State Department cable released by WikiLeaks and sent by then-U.S. Ambassador Robert McCallum, “Despite the lead role of AFACT and the inclusion of Australian companies Village Roadshow and the Seven Network, this is an MPAA/American studios production…. AFACT is essentially MPAA's Australian subcontractor…. MPAA prefers that its leading role not be made public. AFACT and MPAA worked hard to get Village Roadshow and the Seven Network to agree to be the public Australian faces on the case to make it clear there are Australian equities at stake, and this isn't just Hollywood “bullying some poor little Australian ISP.’”
In February 2010, Justice Dennis Cowdroy ruled that ISPs were not responsible for their customers’ downloading habits. The studios appealed and lost again in February 2011 before making its final appeal to the Australian High Court.
AFACT and the Hollywood studios have indicated that they will now pursue legislative remedies.
-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff
Your tax dollars at work: Obama’s National Institutes of Health spends millions to create homoerotic site which includes game of penis shooting at epithets
The grant money went to a team of researchers at the University of Minnesota that created a site called Sexpulse. The goal was to draw in what are termed MISM — or “men who use the Internet to seek sex with men” — in order to educate them and ultimately reduce their risk of contracting HIV. But the site used unorthodox methods to get subjects’ attention and keep them interested. The site includes pornographic images of homosexual sex as well as naked and scantily clad men. It includes several risqué interactive features, like the Space Invaders-style arcade game.
Source: FireAndreaMitchell.Com
Californians, Stop Smoking, Or Leave
Posted on April 20, 2012 1:30 pm
by Bill Quick - Daily Pundit
Media Misleads on California Prop 29 | Wizbang
Though a nice play on people’s emotions he presents a false choice, for sure. Opposition to Prop 29 is not a choice between saving lives and enriching cigarette companies. It is a choice between giving unaccountable government lackeys nearly a billion dollars of California’s tax money to waste on more government boondoggles and not having such new government waste instituted.
If passed, Proposition 29 will authorize the California Cancer Research Act to impose a further tax on cigarettes in The Golden State. This new tax money is supposed to go to new research to find a cure for cancer.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Who could be against cancer research, eh? But would that this were its chief benefit.
I wish every smoker in California would quit, or leave the state. Not because I oppose smoking – I don’t – but because it would be fun to watch all the government agencies and programs funded by cigarette taxes shrieking for help as their funding sources vanished.
by Bill Quick - Daily Pundit
Media Misleads on California Prop 29 | Wizbang
Though a nice play on people’s emotions he presents a false choice, for sure. Opposition to Prop 29 is not a choice between saving lives and enriching cigarette companies. It is a choice between giving unaccountable government lackeys nearly a billion dollars of California’s tax money to waste on more government boondoggles and not having such new government waste instituted.
If passed, Proposition 29 will authorize the California Cancer Research Act to impose a further tax on cigarettes in The Golden State. This new tax money is supposed to go to new research to find a cure for cancer.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Who could be against cancer research, eh? But would that this were its chief benefit.
I wish every smoker in California would quit, or leave the state. Not because I oppose smoking – I don’t – but because it would be fun to watch all the government agencies and programs funded by cigarette taxes shrieking for help as their funding sources vanished.
Amendment could strip press freedom in effort to curb corporate political spending
Published: 11:53 PM 04/20/2012
By Steven Nelson - The Daily Caller
Associate Editor
Twenty-five congressmen are co-sponsoring a resolution to amend the U.S. Constitution to block the rights it protects from applying to corporations, a change that could also strip newspapers of First Amendment protections.
The proposed People’s Rights Amendment is a reaction to the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision, which decreed that restrictions on corporate political spending were unconstitutional.
Although she isn’t one of the 25 co-sponsors, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday her support for amending the Constitution to prevent corporations from “oozing slime into the political system.”
UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh warned Friday that the amendment would have far-reaching and unintended consequences. Analyzing the proposal’s language, Volokh wrote that it would give the government power to “ban the speech of nonmedia business corporations [and] ban publications by corporate-run newspapers and magazines.”
The text of the amendment “makes clear that the preservation of the ‘freedom of the press’ applies only to ‘the people,’” wrote Volokh, and “expressly provides that corporations aren’t protected as ‘the people.’”
Boston College law professor Kent Greenfield agrees. In a January op-ed he wrote, “If The New York Times had no constitutional rights of its own, it could be prohibited from printing or distributing its newspapers. Its website could be shut off. Its printing presses could be seized. It could be prohibited from paying employees. The fact that individual reporters would still have rights to distribute homemade handbills or orate from a soapbox would mean little.”
Greenfield told The Daily Caller that eliminating protections for non-human entities “would be dangerous, regardless of whether you are a progressive or a conservative. Everyone organizes themselves in groups,” he explained.
Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern, a sponsor, said the amendment “would make clear that all corporate entities — for-profit and non-profit alike — are not people with constitutional rights.”
McGovern spokesman Michael Mershon told TheDC that since the bill was introduced in November, there has been “no real legislative movement, nor do we expect any in the current Congress.”
With Pelosi’s support for a constitutional amendment, however, the bill might advance if Democrats regain control of the House. The resolution has one Republican co-sponsor — North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones. A spokesman for Jones, a libertarian-leaning member, was unable to immediately comment on his support.
Amendment supporters use logic of Citizens United ruling?
Asked about objections to the amendment, Mershon directed TheDC to an article by Ben Clements, a former adviser to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. “That kind of critique has been floating around,” said Mershon. “We would point people to Ben’s post.”
Clements argues that the proposal “does not distinguish between an individual ‘natural person’ and groups of ‘natural persons.’” Therefore, he writes, “All that the People’s Rights Amendment does not protect are contrived constitutional rights of artificial government-created entities.”
Greenfield told TheDC that amendment supporters point to its affirmation of press freedom and say, “if The New York Times doesn’t have press or speech rights, at least the reporters will.” But, he said, “I don’t think that’s right given the text of the People’s Rights Amendment. … I think the press clause wouldn’t save them.”
Discussing defenses of the amendment, Greenfield said, “if the answer is The New York Times can sue to vindicate the rights of their reporters and subscribers, that’s essentially what the court said in Citizens United… that corporations are acting as proxies for their shareholders. Then we’re back to where we are now — if that’s the way that the People’s Rights Amendment is being interpreted then we’ll fight over it for a decade, and it won’t change anything.”
Greenfield, who identifies as a progressive, said that new disclosure laws would be a far better remedy for opponents of the Citizens United decision. “I think there’s a lot of disagreement among progressives,” he said, noting that “the [Republican donor] Sheldon Adelson problem won’t be dealt with by this amendment.”
For the amendment to actually become part of the Constitution, it would first need to be passed through both houses of Congress by a two-thirds vote, and would then need to be ratified by three-fourths of the states. Vermont, New Mexico and Hawaii have passed resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment.
By Steven Nelson - The Daily Caller
Associate Editor
The proposed People’s Rights Amendment is a reaction to the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision, which decreed that restrictions on corporate political spending were unconstitutional.
Although she isn’t one of the 25 co-sponsors, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday her support for amending the Constitution to prevent corporations from “oozing slime into the political system.”
UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh warned Friday that the amendment would have far-reaching and unintended consequences. Analyzing the proposal’s language, Volokh wrote that it would give the government power to “ban the speech of nonmedia business corporations [and] ban publications by corporate-run newspapers and magazines.”
The text of the amendment “makes clear that the preservation of the ‘freedom of the press’ applies only to ‘the people,’” wrote Volokh, and “expressly provides that corporations aren’t protected as ‘the people.’”
Boston College law professor Kent Greenfield agrees. In a January op-ed he wrote, “If The New York Times had no constitutional rights of its own, it could be prohibited from printing or distributing its newspapers. Its website could be shut off. Its printing presses could be seized. It could be prohibited from paying employees. The fact that individual reporters would still have rights to distribute homemade handbills or orate from a soapbox would mean little.”
Greenfield told The Daily Caller that eliminating protections for non-human entities “would be dangerous, regardless of whether you are a progressive or a conservative. Everyone organizes themselves in groups,” he explained.
Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern, a sponsor, said the amendment “would make clear that all corporate entities — for-profit and non-profit alike — are not people with constitutional rights.”
McGovern spokesman Michael Mershon told TheDC that since the bill was introduced in November, there has been “no real legislative movement, nor do we expect any in the current Congress.”
With Pelosi’s support for a constitutional amendment, however, the bill might advance if Democrats regain control of the House. The resolution has one Republican co-sponsor — North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones. A spokesman for Jones, a libertarian-leaning member, was unable to immediately comment on his support.
Amendment supporters use logic of Citizens United ruling?
Asked about objections to the amendment, Mershon directed TheDC to an article by Ben Clements, a former adviser to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. “That kind of critique has been floating around,” said Mershon. “We would point people to Ben’s post.”
Clements argues that the proposal “does not distinguish between an individual ‘natural person’ and groups of ‘natural persons.’” Therefore, he writes, “All that the People’s Rights Amendment does not protect are contrived constitutional rights of artificial government-created entities.”
Greenfield told TheDC that amendment supporters point to its affirmation of press freedom and say, “if The New York Times doesn’t have press or speech rights, at least the reporters will.” But, he said, “I don’t think that’s right given the text of the People’s Rights Amendment. … I think the press clause wouldn’t save them.”
Discussing defenses of the amendment, Greenfield said, “if the answer is The New York Times can sue to vindicate the rights of their reporters and subscribers, that’s essentially what the court said in Citizens United… that corporations are acting as proxies for their shareholders. Then we’re back to where we are now — if that’s the way that the People’s Rights Amendment is being interpreted then we’ll fight over it for a decade, and it won’t change anything.”
Greenfield, who identifies as a progressive, said that new disclosure laws would be a far better remedy for opponents of the Citizens United decision. “I think there’s a lot of disagreement among progressives,” he said, noting that “the [Republican donor] Sheldon Adelson problem won’t be dealt with by this amendment.”
For the amendment to actually become part of the Constitution, it would first need to be passed through both houses of Congress by a two-thirds vote, and would then need to be ratified by three-fourths of the states. Vermont, New Mexico and Hawaii have passed resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment.
‘BREITBART IS HERE’ POSTERS AND STICKERS AVAILABLE AT ANTHEM STUDIOS
Anthem Studios has the super cool ‘Breitbart Is Here‘ image available now in posters and stickers. Anthem Studios is the t shirt vendor for Angry White Dude. The good folks at Anthem has been selling ‘Breitbart Is Here’ t shirts since Andrew passed away with the profits from the shirts going to the Breitbart family. The Breitbart Is Here image was designed by Big Fur Hat of the great blog I Own The World. Here is the image once again:
AWD has a black and a white Breitbart Is Here t shirt. Think about the anger you could cause by covering your sissy little neighbor’s Obama 2012 bumper sticker with a super groovy ‘Breitbart Is Here’ sticker! You might cause him to have a little ol’ hissy fit! A hissy fit as big as the one pitched by AWD’s friend Angry Dave when he found we had stuck a Gay Pride rainbow sticker on the back bumper of his pickup which he didn’t discover until a week later. True story. Crap you negative. His name is Angry Dave! He has issues.
If you have a few shekels left over from tax day, consider helping to keep Breitbart’s legacy alive by purchasing a shirt, poster or roll of stickers. Andrew was a fighter. He didn’t mind pissing off a liberal.
AWD has some designs up at Anthem Studios and will have some more up in a week or so. I’ve been too busy doing some serious creative loafing lately to write or think up sexy AWD shirts. Sue me!
H/T Angry White Dude
AWD has a black and a white Breitbart Is Here t shirt. Think about the anger you could cause by covering your sissy little neighbor’s Obama 2012 bumper sticker with a super groovy ‘Breitbart Is Here’ sticker! You might cause him to have a little ol’ hissy fit! A hissy fit as big as the one pitched by AWD’s friend Angry Dave when he found we had stuck a Gay Pride rainbow sticker on the back bumper of his pickup which he didn’t discover until a week later. True story. Crap you negative. His name is Angry Dave! He has issues.
If you have a few shekels left over from tax day, consider helping to keep Breitbart’s legacy alive by purchasing a shirt, poster or roll of stickers. Andrew was a fighter. He didn’t mind pissing off a liberal.
AWD has some designs up at Anthem Studios and will have some more up in a week or so. I’ve been too busy doing some serious creative loafing lately to write or think up sexy AWD shirts. Sue me!
H/T Angry White Dude
CBS DC | Democrat Senator Manchin Doesn’t Know If He Will Vote For Obama
Posted on April 20 2012 - 9:00 PM
Posted by: Doug Brady
C4P:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin says he’s unsure whether he’ll vote for his party’s leader, President Barack Obama, or the likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
In a statement Friday, the West Virginia lawmaker said he had “some real differences” with both leaders, finding fault with Obama’s energy and economic policies while questioning whether Romney could understand the challenges facing ordinary people.
“I strongly believe that every American should always be rooting for our president to do well, no matter which political party that he or she might belong to,” Manchin said. “With that being said, many West Virginians believe the last 3 ½ years haven’t been good for us, but we’re hopeful that they can get better.”
More.
Posted by: Doug Brady
C4P:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin says he’s unsure whether he’ll vote for his party’s leader, President Barack Obama, or the likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
In a statement Friday, the West Virginia lawmaker said he had “some real differences” with both leaders, finding fault with Obama’s energy and economic policies while questioning whether Romney could understand the challenges facing ordinary people.
“I strongly believe that every American should always be rooting for our president to do well, no matter which political party that he or she might belong to,” Manchin said. “With that being said, many West Virginians believe the last 3 ½ years haven’t been good for us, but we’re hopeful that they can get better.”
More.
Man Attacks Reporter On Live TV… Yells “I’m That N**ger” To Viewers (Video)
Posted by Andrea Ryan
Friday, April 20, 2012, 6:00 PM
The Gateway Pundit:
By: Andrea Ryan
While reporting live on the streets of Myrtle Beach Wednesday night, WMBF news reporter, Ashley Taylor, was attacked before viewers at home ironically expecting to watch a report on escalating crime rates. One of the “four to five males lingering in the area” pushed Taylor out of the way, grabbed her microphone, and “began shouting the ‘N’ word in reference to himself”.
Via Drudge, WLBT Channel 3 has more,
MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) A Charlotte man is behind bars after shoving a WMBF News reporter, snatching her microphone, and shouting expletives on live television Wednesday night.
While standing on the sidewalk at 915 North Ocean Boulevard in the heart of Myrtle Beach, reporter Ashley Taylor was speaking live during the WMBF 11 p.m. newscast concerning the escalating crime rates across the Grand Strand, when she was violently pushed from in front of the camera.
Justin Moore, 20, of Charlotte, NC, jumped in front of the camera after nearly shoving Taylor to the ground. Donning a blue t-shirt and dark sunglasses, the man snatched the microphone from the startled reporter’s hand and began shouting the “N” word, in reference to himself.
An unexpecting audience viewing the newscast suddenly saw Moore come across their screen and scream, “I am that [‘N' word],” before the live shot ended.
In a report from the Myrtle Beach Police Department, officers state they were contacted by the victim who said while she prepared to go live on television she and a coworker noticed a group of four to five males lingering in the area.
When Taylor began talking, she told police, one of the males knocked her out of the way, nearly causing her to fall to the pavement after grabbing her microphone.
Police officers were given pictures of the suspect, who was arrested only moments later. Video of the assault was given to police who placed the recording into evidence.
Moore was placed under arrest and charged with third degree assault and battery. He was released from jail Thursday afternoon on a bond of just under $1,400.
Friday, April 20, 2012, 6:00 PM
The Gateway Pundit:
By: Andrea Ryan
While reporting live on the streets of Myrtle Beach Wednesday night, WMBF news reporter, Ashley Taylor, was attacked before viewers at home ironically expecting to watch a report on escalating crime rates. One of the “four to five males lingering in the area” pushed Taylor out of the way, grabbed her microphone, and “began shouting the ‘N’ word in reference to himself”.
Via Drudge, WLBT Channel 3 has more,
MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) A Charlotte man is behind bars after shoving a WMBF News reporter, snatching her microphone, and shouting expletives on live television Wednesday night.
While standing on the sidewalk at 915 North Ocean Boulevard in the heart of Myrtle Beach, reporter Ashley Taylor was speaking live during the WMBF 11 p.m. newscast concerning the escalating crime rates across the Grand Strand, when she was violently pushed from in front of the camera.
Justin Moore, 20, of Charlotte, NC, jumped in front of the camera after nearly shoving Taylor to the ground. Donning a blue t-shirt and dark sunglasses, the man snatched the microphone from the startled reporter’s hand and began shouting the “N” word, in reference to himself.
An unexpecting audience viewing the newscast suddenly saw Moore come across their screen and scream, “I am that [‘N' word],” before the live shot ended.
In a report from the Myrtle Beach Police Department, officers state they were contacted by the victim who said while she prepared to go live on television she and a coworker noticed a group of four to five males lingering in the area.
When Taylor began talking, she told police, one of the males knocked her out of the way, nearly causing her to fall to the pavement after grabbing her microphone.
Police officers were given pictures of the suspect, who was arrested only moments later. Video of the assault was given to police who placed the recording into evidence.
Moore was placed under arrest and charged with third degree assault and battery. He was released from jail Thursday afternoon on a bond of just under $1,400.
Air Force Two carrying Biden struck by birds, lands safely
WASHINGTON | Fri Apr 20, 2012 7:18pm EDT
(Reuters) - The Air Force Two plane carrying Vice President Joe Biden was struck by birds in California on Thursday, a spokeswoman for his office said, but it landed without problem and the vice president, passengers and crew were safe at all times.
The incident occurred on Thursday night as Air Force Two was landing in Santa Barbara, California. A person familiar with the situation said the landing felt normal to people on board.
"The vice president left Santa Barbara this afternoon as scheduled, aboard an alternate U.S. Air Force aircraft," the spokeswoman said.
Lieutenant Gregg Johnson of the 89th Airlift Wing at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, which is responsible for transporting the president, vice president and other senior U.S. officials, said the crew and passengers of Air Force Two had been "safe at all times."
"There was no emergency - no emergency landing declared," he said, adding it was not possible at this stage to characterize the level of damage, if any, that the modified Boeing 757 aircraft sustained in the bird strike.
Another bird strike on Thursday forced a Delta Air Lines flight bound for Los Angeles to make an emergency return to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
In January 2009, a US Airways flight made a successful emergency landing in the Hudson River after it struck a flock of geese shortly after take-off from New York's LaGuardia airport. All 155 passengers and crew survived.
Air safety incidents involving the U.S. president or vice president are rare, but not unprecedented.
Air Force One aborted a landing due to bad weather while carrying President Barack Obama to an event in Connecticut last May. One month earlier, an aircraft carrying first lady Michelle Obama was ordered to abandon its landing approach to Andrews Air Force Base in order to avoid another plane.
(Reporting By Alister Bull; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Child Labor and the Supreme Court, One More Time
David Bernstein
April 20, 2012 10:46 pm
Volokh Conspiracy:
It seems that liberal commenters on constitutional law just can’t resist bringing of the issue of child labor, regardless of whether what they’re saying is historically accurate. The latest offender is Dahlia Lithwick. In criticizing Judge Janice Brown’s call for a return to pre-New Deal, Lochnerish concern for economic rights Lithwick writes, “Let’s put aside the extraordinary nature of Brown’s substantive argument, which holds so little regard for ‘democratic processes’ and would gladly upend such odious regulatory regimes like child labor laws.”
So let me repeat it one more time. In the middle of the so-called Lochner era, the Supreme Court upheld state regulation of child labor by a 9-0 vote (Sturges & Burn Mfg. Co. v. Beauchamp, 231 U.S. 320 (1913)). I’ve blogged before that I’m not aware of ANY court in any American jurisdiction ever holding that child labor laws violate a constitutional right to economic freedom or “liberty of contract”, and no one has written in to correct me (for examples of state courts upholding child labor laws within a few years of the Lochner decision, see Ex Parte Weber, 149 Cal. 392 (1906); United Steel Co. v. Yedinak, 87 N.E. 229 (Ind. 1909); Bryan v. Skillman Hardware Co., 76 N.J. 45 (1908); People v. Taylor, 192 N.Y. 398 (1908); State v. Shorey, 86 P. 881 (Ore. 1906)). All fifty states passed child labor laws before 1937, when Lochner was overruled. Economic liberty concerns were not a barrier to the spread of such legislation.
For the last seventy-plus years most liberal scholars and commentators (and almost all until recently) have refused to take the pre-New Deal Supreme Court constitutional jurisprudence seriously as anything beyond an expression of “reactionary” economic ideology or class warfare. They have therefore have assumed that since the Supreme Court invalidatedfederal child labor laws 5-4 as beyond the scope of the commerce clause, this must have reflected a general “conservative” hostility to such laws, as opposed to a sincere (albeit controversial) interpretation of the Constitution. They therefore further assume, falsely, that the courts must have been hostile to state and local child labor laws, and used “economic freedom” arguments to invalidate such laws.
So let’s repeat. Federal child labor laws before FDR’s appointees took over the Supreme Court: constitutionally questionable as an exercise of the power to regulate interstate commerce. State and local child labor laws: clearly constitutional as within the police power. Doctrine did make a difference, and it’s high time that Lithwick and others stop relying on myths that could be quickly rebutted with a modicum of research.
Meanwhile, I’ve never seen ANY modern conservative or libertarian constitutional scholar argue, as Lithwick implies, that state and local child labor laws would be unconstitutional as violations of economic freedom. So if the historical “Lochner era” courts okayed child labor laws, and there’s no prospect of future Lochnerish holding that such laws violate liberty of contract, raising this particular canard doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
UPDATE: Even Christopher Tiedeman, who took many radically libertarian positions (for his day) in his late-nineteenth century works on constitutional law–he argued, for example that drug laws and laws banning interracial marriage, upheld 9-0 by the Supreme Court, were unconstitutional–acknowledged that child labor laws were constitutionally valid.
April 20, 2012 10:46 pm
Volokh Conspiracy:
It seems that liberal commenters on constitutional law just can’t resist bringing of the issue of child labor, regardless of whether what they’re saying is historically accurate. The latest offender is Dahlia Lithwick. In criticizing Judge Janice Brown’s call for a return to pre-New Deal, Lochnerish concern for economic rights Lithwick writes, “Let’s put aside the extraordinary nature of Brown’s substantive argument, which holds so little regard for ‘democratic processes’ and would gladly upend such odious regulatory regimes like child labor laws.”
So let me repeat it one more time. In the middle of the so-called Lochner era, the Supreme Court upheld state regulation of child labor by a 9-0 vote (Sturges & Burn Mfg. Co. v. Beauchamp, 231 U.S. 320 (1913)). I’ve blogged before that I’m not aware of ANY court in any American jurisdiction ever holding that child labor laws violate a constitutional right to economic freedom or “liberty of contract”, and no one has written in to correct me (for examples of state courts upholding child labor laws within a few years of the Lochner decision, see Ex Parte Weber, 149 Cal. 392 (1906); United Steel Co. v. Yedinak, 87 N.E. 229 (Ind. 1909); Bryan v. Skillman Hardware Co., 76 N.J. 45 (1908); People v. Taylor, 192 N.Y. 398 (1908); State v. Shorey, 86 P. 881 (Ore. 1906)). All fifty states passed child labor laws before 1937, when Lochner was overruled. Economic liberty concerns were not a barrier to the spread of such legislation.
For the last seventy-plus years most liberal scholars and commentators (and almost all until recently) have refused to take the pre-New Deal Supreme Court constitutional jurisprudence seriously as anything beyond an expression of “reactionary” economic ideology or class warfare. They have therefore have assumed that since the Supreme Court invalidatedfederal child labor laws 5-4 as beyond the scope of the commerce clause, this must have reflected a general “conservative” hostility to such laws, as opposed to a sincere (albeit controversial) interpretation of the Constitution. They therefore further assume, falsely, that the courts must have been hostile to state and local child labor laws, and used “economic freedom” arguments to invalidate such laws.
So let’s repeat. Federal child labor laws before FDR’s appointees took over the Supreme Court: constitutionally questionable as an exercise of the power to regulate interstate commerce. State and local child labor laws: clearly constitutional as within the police power. Doctrine did make a difference, and it’s high time that Lithwick and others stop relying on myths that could be quickly rebutted with a modicum of research.
Meanwhile, I’ve never seen ANY modern conservative or libertarian constitutional scholar argue, as Lithwick implies, that state and local child labor laws would be unconstitutional as violations of economic freedom. So if the historical “Lochner era” courts okayed child labor laws, and there’s no prospect of future Lochnerish holding that such laws violate liberty of contract, raising this particular canard doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
UPDATE: Even Christopher Tiedeman, who took many radically libertarian positions (for his day) in his late-nineteenth century works on constitutional law–he argued, for example that drug laws and laws banning interracial marriage, upheld 9-0 by the Supreme Court, were unconstitutional–acknowledged that child labor laws were constitutionally valid.
How Tech Can Render Regulations Uber Obsolete
Posted by Julian Sanchez
Cato @ Liberty:
In the most recent issue of The Atlantic, Megan McArdle looks at the regulatory travails of Uber, the innovative smartphone-enabled car service that has found itself in the crosshairs of competition-averse taxi commissions from D.C. to San Francisco. For the uninitiated, Uber is the answer to the question that has occurred to every harried commuter with a smartphone at some point: If these things have GPS chips, and cabs have GPS, shouldn’t I be able to use my phone to find a cab, rather than just hoping I’m in the right place when one passes? In other words, it’s the Electronic Thumb from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Uber’s plush sedans come at a premium price, but for those in need of a pickup outside a high-traffic area, it’s the convenience factor that justifies the markup. Users register their credit cards with the service in advance, and when they need a ride, fire up a slick app that shows all the Uber cars in service on a realtime map, with an estimate of how long the closest free driver will take to reach your location. At the end of the journey, the fare and gratuity are charged automatically, with a receipt and travel map delivered via email, and the app gives passengers an opportunity to rate each driver—allowing the company to ensure that it only contracts with those who are consistently safe, reliable, and courteous. By most accounts, users adore it.
Naturally, regulators hate it. DC Taxi Commissioner Ron Linton has condemned the company as a scofflaw—and seems hell bent on finding some rule they’re violating, even though his initial complaint against Uber seems to have been legally confused. Most of Linton’s public comments on the matter leave the distinct impression that these are secondary details for him: What’s outrageous is that some upstart would dare to do something new without first coming to kiss the Don’s ring and beg permission. There’s also the inevitable element of regulatory capture: Conventional cab companies would rather not face an innovative competitor, so they’re asking the government to ensure consumers don’t have the option of taking their business elsewhere. So far, a familiar story that could be told about dozens of industries. What even many of Uber’s defenders seem slow to recognize, however, is that the company’s business model doesn’t just require regulators to catch up with the tech and the times: It eliminates the rationale for having a regulator.
The default in a free society is that you can start most kinds of business, and charge whatever rate the market will bear for your services, without the approval of some municipal bureaucrat. The argument for treating cabs differently rests on the idea that, on the conventional model, they’re not as effectively regulated by normal market pressures. Comparison shopping isn’t particularly feasible when you hail a cab the old fashioned way: You just flag down the first one that happens to pass, with the understanding that when the ride’s over, you’re unlikely to ever do business with that particular driver ever again. If you’re from out of town, odds are you won’t ever do business with the company again either, and barring an exceptionally unpleasant experience, most passengers aren’t going to take the time to call the dispatcher with a review. The opportunistic, one-off nature of traditional cab transactions, in short, makes a standardized price structure more attractive, and diminishes the reputation-based incentives to compete on price and quality. So goes the usual argument, anyway.
Uber—or rather, the Uber model—changes all of that. You accept a price structure in advance, when you sign up for an account, and can be clearly notified of any price changes. The app’s review system makes it easy for the company to monitor driver quality without demanding too much effort from passengers. Customers automatically get a full and instantaneous accounting of when and where they were picked up and dropped off, and how much they paid. Because the company expects, and strives for, lots of repeat business—and on word of mouth from satisfied customers as a growth strategy—all the normal market forces and incentives that apply to any other online business are in full effect. Which means the question isn’t whether the regulations need to be updated to accommodate a new kind of cab service: It’s why this kind of service needs a regulator at all.
Judging by Linton’s own assessment of the conflict in the Washington Post, the commissioner at least vaguely understands that Uber makes him superfluous. His attempt to justify a continuing need for regulation—for consumers to be “protected” from a company they’re overwhelmingly flocking to defend—is a small masterpiece of incoherence:
[A Post contributor] suggest that taxis or limousines arranged for via smartphone technology be allowed to charge whatever they want in an all-out price war. He should be careful what he wishes for. It isn’t just riders and drivers who would be affected if such a system became the norm. Given the congestion, confusion and pedestrian hazards likely to result, those using private vehicles, buses, bicycles, trucks and even sidewalks to move about the city would be sure to share their unhappiness with public officials, leading us right back to what? Regulation, of course.
To which the sane reader can only say: What? At the risk of stating the obvious: What Linton calls “all-out price war” to make it sound radical and anarchic is what the rest of us call “competitive pricing,” and is the normal way businesses operate in this country. Absent extraordinary circumstances, which smartphones obliterate here, it turns out it works pretty well. As for congestion, confusion, and pedestrian hazards… what, exactly, makes these likely to result? And how does Linton know? Is there even one scintilla of evidence that this has happened in other cities where Uber operates? Why would anyone think professional drivers—especially ones being rated on each ride—create more “pedestrian hazards” than other motorists? Why would buying a service online at clearly posted rates yield more “confusion” when the service is transport than it does for every other type of service people can purchase online? Wouldn’t greater adoption of smartphone-enabled cabs yield less congestion by efficiently matching drivers with fares?
The answers to these questions are obvious enough: On the Uber model, any rationale for subjecting driving services to a special regulatory regime—beyond the rules that apply to every business—simply evaporates. With smartphones on a fast track to the kind of ubiquity cell phones already enjoy, that model seems likely to become the norm rather than the exception over time. But as Upton Sinclair famously said, “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it,” which means bureaucrats like Linton are sure to keep clutching at any pretext to justify their jobs.
Julian Sanchez • April 17, 2012 @ 8:55 am
Cato @ Liberty:
In the most recent issue of The Atlantic, Megan McArdle looks at the regulatory travails of Uber, the innovative smartphone-enabled car service that has found itself in the crosshairs of competition-averse taxi commissions from D.C. to San Francisco. For the uninitiated, Uber is the answer to the question that has occurred to every harried commuter with a smartphone at some point: If these things have GPS chips, and cabs have GPS, shouldn’t I be able to use my phone to find a cab, rather than just hoping I’m in the right place when one passes? In other words, it’s the Electronic Thumb from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Uber’s plush sedans come at a premium price, but for those in need of a pickup outside a high-traffic area, it’s the convenience factor that justifies the markup. Users register their credit cards with the service in advance, and when they need a ride, fire up a slick app that shows all the Uber cars in service on a realtime map, with an estimate of how long the closest free driver will take to reach your location. At the end of the journey, the fare and gratuity are charged automatically, with a receipt and travel map delivered via email, and the app gives passengers an opportunity to rate each driver—allowing the company to ensure that it only contracts with those who are consistently safe, reliable, and courteous. By most accounts, users adore it.
Naturally, regulators hate it. DC Taxi Commissioner Ron Linton has condemned the company as a scofflaw—and seems hell bent on finding some rule they’re violating, even though his initial complaint against Uber seems to have been legally confused. Most of Linton’s public comments on the matter leave the distinct impression that these are secondary details for him: What’s outrageous is that some upstart would dare to do something new without first coming to kiss the Don’s ring and beg permission. There’s also the inevitable element of regulatory capture: Conventional cab companies would rather not face an innovative competitor, so they’re asking the government to ensure consumers don’t have the option of taking their business elsewhere. So far, a familiar story that could be told about dozens of industries. What even many of Uber’s defenders seem slow to recognize, however, is that the company’s business model doesn’t just require regulators to catch up with the tech and the times: It eliminates the rationale for having a regulator.
The default in a free society is that you can start most kinds of business, and charge whatever rate the market will bear for your services, without the approval of some municipal bureaucrat. The argument for treating cabs differently rests on the idea that, on the conventional model, they’re not as effectively regulated by normal market pressures. Comparison shopping isn’t particularly feasible when you hail a cab the old fashioned way: You just flag down the first one that happens to pass, with the understanding that when the ride’s over, you’re unlikely to ever do business with that particular driver ever again. If you’re from out of town, odds are you won’t ever do business with the company again either, and barring an exceptionally unpleasant experience, most passengers aren’t going to take the time to call the dispatcher with a review. The opportunistic, one-off nature of traditional cab transactions, in short, makes a standardized price structure more attractive, and diminishes the reputation-based incentives to compete on price and quality. So goes the usual argument, anyway.
Uber—or rather, the Uber model—changes all of that. You accept a price structure in advance, when you sign up for an account, and can be clearly notified of any price changes. The app’s review system makes it easy for the company to monitor driver quality without demanding too much effort from passengers. Customers automatically get a full and instantaneous accounting of when and where they were picked up and dropped off, and how much they paid. Because the company expects, and strives for, lots of repeat business—and on word of mouth from satisfied customers as a growth strategy—all the normal market forces and incentives that apply to any other online business are in full effect. Which means the question isn’t whether the regulations need to be updated to accommodate a new kind of cab service: It’s why this kind of service needs a regulator at all.
Judging by Linton’s own assessment of the conflict in the Washington Post, the commissioner at least vaguely understands that Uber makes him superfluous. His attempt to justify a continuing need for regulation—for consumers to be “protected” from a company they’re overwhelmingly flocking to defend—is a small masterpiece of incoherence:
[A Post contributor] suggest that taxis or limousines arranged for via smartphone technology be allowed to charge whatever they want in an all-out price war. He should be careful what he wishes for. It isn’t just riders and drivers who would be affected if such a system became the norm. Given the congestion, confusion and pedestrian hazards likely to result, those using private vehicles, buses, bicycles, trucks and even sidewalks to move about the city would be sure to share their unhappiness with public officials, leading us right back to what? Regulation, of course.
To which the sane reader can only say: What? At the risk of stating the obvious: What Linton calls “all-out price war” to make it sound radical and anarchic is what the rest of us call “competitive pricing,” and is the normal way businesses operate in this country. Absent extraordinary circumstances, which smartphones obliterate here, it turns out it works pretty well. As for congestion, confusion, and pedestrian hazards… what, exactly, makes these likely to result? And how does Linton know? Is there even one scintilla of evidence that this has happened in other cities where Uber operates? Why would anyone think professional drivers—especially ones being rated on each ride—create more “pedestrian hazards” than other motorists? Why would buying a service online at clearly posted rates yield more “confusion” when the service is transport than it does for every other type of service people can purchase online? Wouldn’t greater adoption of smartphone-enabled cabs yield less congestion by efficiently matching drivers with fares?
The answers to these questions are obvious enough: On the Uber model, any rationale for subjecting driving services to a special regulatory regime—beyond the rules that apply to every business—simply evaporates. With smartphones on a fast track to the kind of ubiquity cell phones already enjoy, that model seems likely to become the norm rather than the exception over time. But as Upton Sinclair famously said, “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it,” which means bureaucrats like Linton are sure to keep clutching at any pretext to justify their jobs.
Julian Sanchez • April 17, 2012 @ 8:55 am
We are Ted Nugent
Apr 20th, 2012
by TMH - NoisyRoom.Net
Hat tip: Doug and Teresa
A reader sent this to us and I respect Dr. Manning. His is a viewpoint that is widely held and is worth listening to. You may not entirely agree, but he makes some good points.
by TMH - NoisyRoom.Net
Hat tip: Doug and Teresa
A reader sent this to us and I respect Dr. Manning. His is a viewpoint that is widely held and is worth listening to. You may not entirely agree, but he makes some good points.
Choices, not Geography
open rebellion?
Myth? Busted:
There are 23.5 million Americans – including 6.5 million children – who live in rural and urban areas across the country that lack stores likely to sell affordable and nutritious foods, like fresh fruits and vegetables. These areas are called food deserts and earlier this year, USDA launched an interactive tool that lets you find these locations on a map.
Studies show that communities with greater access to supermarkets consume more nutritious foods which is why the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity identified access to healthy, affordable foods as one of the key pillars to solving the childhood obesity epidemic.
There are currently nineteen programs from the Departments of Treasury, Health and Human Services and Agriculture available to support the development of sustainable projects and strategies to increase access to healthy, affordable foods and eliminate food deserts.
Many types of organizations are eligible for assistance including businesses, local governments, non-profit organizations and more. We know that the federal government cannot tackle the problem of food deserts alone and we encourage those who are interested to form partnerships and develop sustainable projects and strategies in their communities.
I checked the USDA interactive tool *cough* for my area and found a “food desert.” In that area are CostCo, Target [with full supermarket], Trader Joes, a huge Mexican market, two or three smaller Asian markets, and several small corner markets. Check your own area; see what you find…
So the idea seems to be that if you don’t have a car and you chose to move to a place that is farther than your idea of “walking distance” from a supermarket, you live in a “food desert.” And, of course, the gub’t oughta kick in and force some markets to be built across the street from you.
Ridiculous, right?
So says the NYT — yes, the New York Times.
But two new studies have found something unexpected. Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents.
…[Another study found] no relationship between what type of food students said they ate, what they weighed, and the type of food within a mile and a half of their homes.
…[Yet another study found] no consistent relationship between what the students ate and the type of food nearby. Living close to supermarkets or grocers did not make students thin and living close to fast food outlets did not make them fat.
Poor neighborhoods, Dr. Lee found, had nearly twice as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as wealthier ones, and they had more than three times as many corner stores per square mile. But they also had nearly twice as many supermarkets and large-scale grocers per square mile.
So, again, we’re back to choices made by individuals.
Here’s your Statement of Teh Day:
Some experts say these new findings raise questions about the effectiveness of efforts to combat the obesity epidemic simply by improving access to healthy foods.
Source: SondraKistan.Com
Myth? Busted:
There are 23.5 million Americans – including 6.5 million children – who live in rural and urban areas across the country that lack stores likely to sell affordable and nutritious foods, like fresh fruits and vegetables. These areas are called food deserts and earlier this year, USDA launched an interactive tool that lets you find these locations on a map.
Studies show that communities with greater access to supermarkets consume more nutritious foods which is why the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity identified access to healthy, affordable foods as one of the key pillars to solving the childhood obesity epidemic.
There are currently nineteen programs from the Departments of Treasury, Health and Human Services and Agriculture available to support the development of sustainable projects and strategies to increase access to healthy, affordable foods and eliminate food deserts.
Many types of organizations are eligible for assistance including businesses, local governments, non-profit organizations and more. We know that the federal government cannot tackle the problem of food deserts alone and we encourage those who are interested to form partnerships and develop sustainable projects and strategies in their communities.
I checked the USDA interactive tool *cough* for my area and found a “food desert.” In that area are CostCo, Target [with full supermarket], Trader Joes, a huge Mexican market, two or three smaller Asian markets, and several small corner markets. Check your own area; see what you find…
So the idea seems to be that if you don’t have a car and you chose to move to a place that is farther than your idea of “walking distance” from a supermarket, you live in a “food desert.” And, of course, the gub’t oughta kick in and force some markets to be built across the street from you.
Ridiculous, right?
So says the NYT — yes, the New York Times.
But two new studies have found something unexpected. Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents.
…[Another study found] no relationship between what type of food students said they ate, what they weighed, and the type of food within a mile and a half of their homes.
…[Yet another study found] no consistent relationship between what the students ate and the type of food nearby. Living close to supermarkets or grocers did not make students thin and living close to fast food outlets did not make them fat.
Poor neighborhoods, Dr. Lee found, had nearly twice as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as wealthier ones, and they had more than three times as many corner stores per square mile. But they also had nearly twice as many supermarkets and large-scale grocers per square mile.
So, again, we’re back to choices made by individuals.
Here’s your Statement of Teh Day:
Some experts say these new findings raise questions about the effectiveness of efforts to combat the obesity epidemic simply by improving access to healthy foods.
Source: SondraKistan.Com
Flashback: Obama authorizes the slaughter of horse for human consumption
Already more than 100,000 American horses are slaughtered each year,
including 10,000 Thoroughbreds.
SOURCE: FireAndreaMitchell.Com
Tear Gas at the Dairy Queen
U.S. service members stationed in Bahrain are struggling to adjust to the new normal as the country enters the second year of its uprising.
BY GEOFF ZIEZULEWICZ
APRIL 20, 2012
Foreign Policy:
JUFFAIR, Bahrain – The U.S. naval base in Bahrain looks like any of the other fenced-in little Americas that denote an overseas military community.
Inside a mall complex known as the "Freedom Souq," a food court features Taco Bell and an A&W American Grill. The Navy Exchange -- basically a Target for overseas military communities -- sells American flat-screen TVs, Nike sneakers, Dawn dish soap, pleated Dockers and Right Guard deodorant. Like every other base, vendors hawk the kind of local tchotchkes found in any airport, everything from hookah pipes to carved wooden camels, belly dancing costumes, and genie lamps.
But despite all the reassuring touches of Americana, the Arab Spring often erupts just down the road. The confrontation between Bahrain's Sunni ruling family and the predominantly Shiite protest movement seems, if anything, to be getting worse. The decision by Formula One authorities to go forward with the popular Grand Prix race on the island this weekend has sparked a renewed bout of protests against the decision -- and despite the Formula One chief's remarks that Bahrain is "quiet and peaceful," policemen were recently injured by homemade explosives thrown at them by protesters. Meanwhile, Bahraini security forces detained two Human Rights Watch officials on April 15 for observing a protest against the Grand Prix decision.
Some newly arrived sailors, civilians, and family members are nervous about being stationed in a far-flung locale like Bahrain, nestled in a region not known for its hospitality toward Americans. But when members of this 6,200-strong community pass the double layer of security at the gates of Naval Support Activity Bahrain and head out into "the economy," military-speak for a host nation, the comforts of home are not far away.
Hook your first left, past the taxi stand, and you are strolling along American Alley, a strip in the upscale Juffair neighborhood, a 10-minute drive east of Manama, that is replete with a Macaroni Grill, Starbucks, and Burger King.
"They get here and are a little frightened," one Navy wife told me. "Then they look and see there's a Dairy Queen. It does help."
But these days, community members don't go past the Mega Mart grocery store at the end of American Alley after 8 p.m. They are officially banned from doing so by Navy leadership.
Clashes are a regular part of the evenings, as Shia youth engage the Bahraini police a few blocks away. And while Americans stationed here might not witness the violence firsthand, a night's battle is often felt. It's not for nothing that the country has come to be called "The Kingdom of Tear Gas": Sailors working late on base, a family stopping at TCBY for dessert, or single guys heading to JJ's Irish Bar or Club Buffalo are subject to the indiscriminate sting of the Bahraini police's weapon of choice for crowd dispersal, delivered via big-barreled guns that pop canisters into the night sky, blazing orange before they hit the ground and engulf everything, spreading with the wind.
As the tiny island enters year two of its uprising, this is the new normal for Americans stationed in Bahrain: a slightly askew existence, with plenty of Western comforts, occasionally punctured by the tumult simmering around them.
The base here, headquarters of the Navy's 5th Fleet, is the cornerstone of the U.S.-Bahrain relationship -- a critical facility that spearheads the Navy's power projection across the Persian Gulf as it attempts to curb the ambitions of Iran, whose port city of Bushehr -- home to the country's first nuclear power plant -- sits roughly 190 miles away. The physical manifestation of America's awkward courtship with the kingdom's rulers, military life here generally means a series of inconveniences: heading inside if the tear gas wafts into your neighborhood, and sticking towels under the door to prevent it from seeping into homes. The Internet slows down when the largest clashes are underway. Drives are planned to avoid demonstrations, and trips to the mall sometimes mean passing burning tire piles.
Base and State Department officials do what they can, sending emails and text messages warning Americans about the latest protests to avoid. A typical message sent out last month by the Navy warns to avoid the Sharakkaan area from 2:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. due to a funeral procession.
"Spontaneous demonstrations may occur any time," a message from the base's force protection officer reads. "Use caution as you drive and plan additional time to arrive at your destination. Always keep current With (sic) media coverage of local events and be aware of your surroundings. If you encounter a large public gather or demonstration, stay calm and depart the vicinity."
It also urges continued caution about traveling to the area west of American Alley and around the site of the now-demolished Pearl Roundabout. Politely show identification to officials, but never hand over an ID to someone not in uniform. If you come across any other demonstrations, "see something, say something!"
Primarily concerned with the latest tit-for-tat with Iran, Navy leadership conscientiously avoids saying anything controversial about the political unrest on the island. But the quality of the relationship between Bahrain and the Navy is something repeatedly parroted by the base's public affairs officers.
"We have a longstanding relationship with the Kingdom of Bahrain and they are an important partner in the region," base spokeswoman Jennifer Stride wrote in an email when I requested an interview with the base commander. (Perhaps she was cutting and pasting from a template: "It is important to note that we have a long-standing relationship with Bahrain," 5th Fleet spokeswoman Lt. Rebecca Rebarich wrote in an email about a separate story earlier this year. "They are an important partner in the region.")
The U.S. Embassy in Manama did not respond to numerous requests for an interview. Capt. Colin S. Walsh, the base's commanding officer, was unavailable for an interview due to "a scheduled regional exercise and extensive engagements with distinguished visitors," Stride said in an email.
Americans affiliated with the Navy in Bahrain are also prohibited from photographing or taking part in demonstrations, according to the base security emails and community members.
The knowledge of the average American military community member living in Bahrain about the political upheaval around them varies. Many are more than content to live in the bubble of normalcy -- or something close to it -- that the Navy provides them.
"The average housewife out and seeing things going on, if they don't know the politics ... it's a bunch of thugs running around fighting the police," the Navy wife, who asked not to be identified because the command warns community members not to speak with the media, said. "When they're affected, they complain about it. Not to sound cold, but they're concerned with their family, their home, their school."
After arriving in Bahrain, her family settled in an expat compound near the Pearl Roundabout in a predominantly Shia neighborhood, where they bore witness to last year's chaos. She recalls walking to the roundabout after the protests began on Feb. 14, 2011, and seeing a peacefully assembled sea of people. Soon after, the government crackdown started, the neighbors chanted from the rooftops all night long, and the gas seeped into their home for months on end, leaving them with burning faces.
One day during last year's upheaval, her husband and a neighbor went for a walk to check out the roundabout. Suddenly, gunfire rang out. She tried to call her husband's cell phone, but there was no service. Soon he came sprinting back to the compound, a wave of panicked protesters not far behind.
The family requested to be moved, but the command denied the request, saying they were not in danger because the protests were not directed at Americans.
U.S. officials would eventually warm up to the risks American personnel faced in Bahrain. At the height of last year's unrest in March, right after Saudi-led military forces rolled onto the island to help the government restore order, the Defense Department enacted a voluntary evacuation plan for family members and non-essential civilian personnel.
The American Bahrain School, a Defense Department-run school for military kids, the scions of wealthy Bahrainis, and other international students, shut down at the same time, mainly due to transportation problems and what a State Department travel warning characterized as "sectarian groups patrolling areas throughout Bahrain and establishing unofficial vehicle checkpoints."
"We didn't want a whole bunch of high-schoolers getting stuck somewhere," a Navy spokesman told me at the time.
Like other pillars of the 60-year old American military presence here, the school has close ties with the ruling Al Khalifa family. The crown prince is a graduate, and the school's official Web page praises "the judicious leadership" of King Hamad Bin Isa al Khalifa, "his wise government," and his "steering of the country towards prosperity, glory and success."
Principal Douglas McEnery played down the uprising's impact on the school, which is now open as normal.
"The only times it has impacted our operations at all was after hours," McEnery said. "The winds were blowing in an unfortunate direction to bring tear gas into our campus. We brought in all the students. That has only happened three times."
It's anyone's guess how Bahrain's uprising will end. Anti-government protesters in the kingdom say there is no way they can turn back now -- the rift between the two sides has only been widened by the case of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a prominent activist whose hunger strike recently entered its second month. The Khalifa family, rulers of the island since the 18th century, views any substantive democratic reform as an existential threat. The return of peace to this island seems, at this point, to be little more than a distant dream.
In the meantime, U.S. troops and their families will continue to report for duty in Bahrain, adjusting themselves to the new normal as best they can.
"I just tell them not to be frightened," the Navy wife said of the advice she gives to recent arrivals. "Either side is not out to get you in your car with your children. But you don't want to get stuck in the middle of them."
BY GEOFF ZIEZULEWICZ
APRIL 20, 2012
Foreign Policy:
JUFFAIR, Bahrain – The U.S. naval base in Bahrain looks like any of the other fenced-in little Americas that denote an overseas military community.
Inside a mall complex known as the "Freedom Souq," a food court features Taco Bell and an A&W American Grill. The Navy Exchange -- basically a Target for overseas military communities -- sells American flat-screen TVs, Nike sneakers, Dawn dish soap, pleated Dockers and Right Guard deodorant. Like every other base, vendors hawk the kind of local tchotchkes found in any airport, everything from hookah pipes to carved wooden camels, belly dancing costumes, and genie lamps.
But despite all the reassuring touches of Americana, the Arab Spring often erupts just down the road. The confrontation between Bahrain's Sunni ruling family and the predominantly Shiite protest movement seems, if anything, to be getting worse. The decision by Formula One authorities to go forward with the popular Grand Prix race on the island this weekend has sparked a renewed bout of protests against the decision -- and despite the Formula One chief's remarks that Bahrain is "quiet and peaceful," policemen were recently injured by homemade explosives thrown at them by protesters. Meanwhile, Bahraini security forces detained two Human Rights Watch officials on April 15 for observing a protest against the Grand Prix decision.
Some newly arrived sailors, civilians, and family members are nervous about being stationed in a far-flung locale like Bahrain, nestled in a region not known for its hospitality toward Americans. But when members of this 6,200-strong community pass the double layer of security at the gates of Naval Support Activity Bahrain and head out into "the economy," military-speak for a host nation, the comforts of home are not far away.
Hook your first left, past the taxi stand, and you are strolling along American Alley, a strip in the upscale Juffair neighborhood, a 10-minute drive east of Manama, that is replete with a Macaroni Grill, Starbucks, and Burger King.
"They get here and are a little frightened," one Navy wife told me. "Then they look and see there's a Dairy Queen. It does help."
But these days, community members don't go past the Mega Mart grocery store at the end of American Alley after 8 p.m. They are officially banned from doing so by Navy leadership.
Clashes are a regular part of the evenings, as Shia youth engage the Bahraini police a few blocks away. And while Americans stationed here might not witness the violence firsthand, a night's battle is often felt. It's not for nothing that the country has come to be called "The Kingdom of Tear Gas": Sailors working late on base, a family stopping at TCBY for dessert, or single guys heading to JJ's Irish Bar or Club Buffalo are subject to the indiscriminate sting of the Bahraini police's weapon of choice for crowd dispersal, delivered via big-barreled guns that pop canisters into the night sky, blazing orange before they hit the ground and engulf everything, spreading with the wind.
As the tiny island enters year two of its uprising, this is the new normal for Americans stationed in Bahrain: a slightly askew existence, with plenty of Western comforts, occasionally punctured by the tumult simmering around them.
The base here, headquarters of the Navy's 5th Fleet, is the cornerstone of the U.S.-Bahrain relationship -- a critical facility that spearheads the Navy's power projection across the Persian Gulf as it attempts to curb the ambitions of Iran, whose port city of Bushehr -- home to the country's first nuclear power plant -- sits roughly 190 miles away. The physical manifestation of America's awkward courtship with the kingdom's rulers, military life here generally means a series of inconveniences: heading inside if the tear gas wafts into your neighborhood, and sticking towels under the door to prevent it from seeping into homes. The Internet slows down when the largest clashes are underway. Drives are planned to avoid demonstrations, and trips to the mall sometimes mean passing burning tire piles.
Base and State Department officials do what they can, sending emails and text messages warning Americans about the latest protests to avoid. A typical message sent out last month by the Navy warns to avoid the Sharakkaan area from 2:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. due to a funeral procession.
"Spontaneous demonstrations may occur any time," a message from the base's force protection officer reads. "Use caution as you drive and plan additional time to arrive at your destination. Always keep current With (sic) media coverage of local events and be aware of your surroundings. If you encounter a large public gather or demonstration, stay calm and depart the vicinity."
It also urges continued caution about traveling to the area west of American Alley and around the site of the now-demolished Pearl Roundabout. Politely show identification to officials, but never hand over an ID to someone not in uniform. If you come across any other demonstrations, "see something, say something!"
Primarily concerned with the latest tit-for-tat with Iran, Navy leadership conscientiously avoids saying anything controversial about the political unrest on the island. But the quality of the relationship between Bahrain and the Navy is something repeatedly parroted by the base's public affairs officers.
"We have a longstanding relationship with the Kingdom of Bahrain and they are an important partner in the region," base spokeswoman Jennifer Stride wrote in an email when I requested an interview with the base commander. (Perhaps she was cutting and pasting from a template: "It is important to note that we have a long-standing relationship with Bahrain," 5th Fleet spokeswoman Lt. Rebecca Rebarich wrote in an email about a separate story earlier this year. "They are an important partner in the region.")
The U.S. Embassy in Manama did not respond to numerous requests for an interview. Capt. Colin S. Walsh, the base's commanding officer, was unavailable for an interview due to "a scheduled regional exercise and extensive engagements with distinguished visitors," Stride said in an email.
Americans affiliated with the Navy in Bahrain are also prohibited from photographing or taking part in demonstrations, according to the base security emails and community members.
The knowledge of the average American military community member living in Bahrain about the political upheaval around them varies. Many are more than content to live in the bubble of normalcy -- or something close to it -- that the Navy provides them.
"The average housewife out and seeing things going on, if they don't know the politics ... it's a bunch of thugs running around fighting the police," the Navy wife, who asked not to be identified because the command warns community members not to speak with the media, said. "When they're affected, they complain about it. Not to sound cold, but they're concerned with their family, their home, their school."
After arriving in Bahrain, her family settled in an expat compound near the Pearl Roundabout in a predominantly Shia neighborhood, where they bore witness to last year's chaos. She recalls walking to the roundabout after the protests began on Feb. 14, 2011, and seeing a peacefully assembled sea of people. Soon after, the government crackdown started, the neighbors chanted from the rooftops all night long, and the gas seeped into their home for months on end, leaving them with burning faces.
One day during last year's upheaval, her husband and a neighbor went for a walk to check out the roundabout. Suddenly, gunfire rang out. She tried to call her husband's cell phone, but there was no service. Soon he came sprinting back to the compound, a wave of panicked protesters not far behind.
The family requested to be moved, but the command denied the request, saying they were not in danger because the protests were not directed at Americans.
U.S. officials would eventually warm up to the risks American personnel faced in Bahrain. At the height of last year's unrest in March, right after Saudi-led military forces rolled onto the island to help the government restore order, the Defense Department enacted a voluntary evacuation plan for family members and non-essential civilian personnel.
The American Bahrain School, a Defense Department-run school for military kids, the scions of wealthy Bahrainis, and other international students, shut down at the same time, mainly due to transportation problems and what a State Department travel warning characterized as "sectarian groups patrolling areas throughout Bahrain and establishing unofficial vehicle checkpoints."
"We didn't want a whole bunch of high-schoolers getting stuck somewhere," a Navy spokesman told me at the time.
Like other pillars of the 60-year old American military presence here, the school has close ties with the ruling Al Khalifa family. The crown prince is a graduate, and the school's official Web page praises "the judicious leadership" of King Hamad Bin Isa al Khalifa, "his wise government," and his "steering of the country towards prosperity, glory and success."
Principal Douglas McEnery played down the uprising's impact on the school, which is now open as normal.
"The only times it has impacted our operations at all was after hours," McEnery said. "The winds were blowing in an unfortunate direction to bring tear gas into our campus. We brought in all the students. That has only happened three times."
It's anyone's guess how Bahrain's uprising will end. Anti-government protesters in the kingdom say there is no way they can turn back now -- the rift between the two sides has only been widened by the case of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a prominent activist whose hunger strike recently entered its second month. The Khalifa family, rulers of the island since the 18th century, views any substantive democratic reform as an existential threat. The return of peace to this island seems, at this point, to be little more than a distant dream.
In the meantime, U.S. troops and their families will continue to report for duty in Bahrain, adjusting themselves to the new normal as best they can.
"I just tell them not to be frightened," the Navy wife said of the advice she gives to recent arrivals. "Either side is not out to get you in your car with your children. But you don't want to get stuck in the middle of them."
Obama Stimulus Dollars Funded Soros Empire, in Scandal that Dwarfs ACORN and GSA, Says New Report
Billionaire “philanthropist” George Soros expanded his U.S.-based empire by using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Cliff Kincaid Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Canadian Free Press:
Newly recently released tax documents, examined and analyzed by Tina Trent of sorosfiles.com, reveal how billionaire “philanthropist” George Soros expanded his U.S.-based empire by using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the Obama stimulus. Soros and Obama worked hand-in-glove through the stimulus, which has been called the largest single partisan wealth transfer in American history.
The new report has been released by America’s Survival, Inc. (ASI), publisher of the Soros Files website, and posted under the title OBAMA STIMULUS DOLLARS FUNDED SOROS EMPIRE. The release of the report coincides with an Internet advertising campaign on CanadaFreePress.com, a global source of news and information, drawing attention to how the transfers of federal funds to the Soros empire constitute a bigger scandal than ACORN. In that scandal, the House and Senate voted to cut off funds to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) after undercover videos showed ACORN officials giving advice on how to hide financial misdeeds and tax crimes. “The new and currently unfolding scandal of extravagant spending by the General Services Administration, or GSA, is peanuts compared to how Soros tapped the public till,” ASI President Cliff Kincaid said.
In 2010, tax records show that Soros, a convicted inside trader with extensive knowledge of the American financial system and government policies under Obama, deployed grantees from his Open Society Foundations to lobby for and acquire federal contracts for job training, green energy, and community redevelopment programs. By gaining control over those resources, Soros advanced his agenda for “green economics,” open borders, and increased government handouts. In short, he grew his empire, which includes much of the “progressive” movement in the U.S., as the federal government itself grew.
In the report, Tina Trent analyzes George Soros’s grants to organizations in 2010. Four powerful organizations and coalitions—The STAR Coalition, The Gamaliel Foundation, the Apollo Alliance, and Green for All – are given detailed scrutiny in this regard, with the involvement of Van Jones getting special mention. Jones is the former Obama “Green Jobs Czar” fired after information about his communist past surfaced through the work of anti-communist blogger Trevor Loudon and then-Fox News personality Glenn Beck.
Cliff Kincaid Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Canadian Free Press:
Newly recently released tax documents, examined and analyzed by Tina Trent of sorosfiles.com, reveal how billionaire “philanthropist” George Soros expanded his U.S.-based empire by using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the Obama stimulus. Soros and Obama worked hand-in-glove through the stimulus, which has been called the largest single partisan wealth transfer in American history.
The new report has been released by America’s Survival, Inc. (ASI), publisher of the Soros Files website, and posted under the title OBAMA STIMULUS DOLLARS FUNDED SOROS EMPIRE. The release of the report coincides with an Internet advertising campaign on CanadaFreePress.com, a global source of news and information, drawing attention to how the transfers of federal funds to the Soros empire constitute a bigger scandal than ACORN. In that scandal, the House and Senate voted to cut off funds to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) after undercover videos showed ACORN officials giving advice on how to hide financial misdeeds and tax crimes. “The new and currently unfolding scandal of extravagant spending by the General Services Administration, or GSA, is peanuts compared to how Soros tapped the public till,” ASI President Cliff Kincaid said.
In 2010, tax records show that Soros, a convicted inside trader with extensive knowledge of the American financial system and government policies under Obama, deployed grantees from his Open Society Foundations to lobby for and acquire federal contracts for job training, green energy, and community redevelopment programs. By gaining control over those resources, Soros advanced his agenda for “green economics,” open borders, and increased government handouts. In short, he grew his empire, which includes much of the “progressive” movement in the U.S., as the federal government itself grew.
In the report, Tina Trent analyzes George Soros’s grants to organizations in 2010. Four powerful organizations and coalitions—The STAR Coalition, The Gamaliel Foundation, the Apollo Alliance, and Green for All – are given detailed scrutiny in this regard, with the involvement of Van Jones getting special mention. Jones is the former Obama “Green Jobs Czar” fired after information about his communist past surfaced through the work of anti-communist blogger Trevor Loudon and then-Fox News personality Glenn Beck.
According to the AP, in July the FBI will stop protecting people from a malevolent computer virus
Bookworm
Apr 20 2012 at 5:45 pm
I don’t quite know what to make of this story about the FBI’s decision to stop protecting people from a computer virus. It doesn’t come through as an email rumor; it comes through as an actual AP article. Although AP is always suspect in my mind when it comes to politically charged issues, I have to assume that, as to this story, it has credibility:
For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections this summer.
Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system is to be shut down.
The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, www.dcwg.org, that will inform them whether they’re infected and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won’t be able to connect to the Internet.
You can read the rest of the story here.
Apr 20 2012 at 5:45 pm
I don’t quite know what to make of this story about the FBI’s decision to stop protecting people from a computer virus. It doesn’t come through as an email rumor; it comes through as an actual AP article. Although AP is always suspect in my mind when it comes to politically charged issues, I have to assume that, as to this story, it has credibility:
For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections this summer.
Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system is to be shut down.
The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, www.dcwg.org, that will inform them whether they’re infected and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won’t be able to connect to the Internet.
You can read the rest of the story here.
BREAKING: Bank of America Reportedly Drops Gun Company for Political Reasons
The reported reason: they simply do not want to be associated with gun companies.
by Bob Owens
April 20, 2012 - 12:30 pm
PJMedia:
Bailout recipient Bank of America has severed relations with an American company because of a reported bias against their industry. McMillan Group International released an extraordinary statement on Facebook regarding the incident:
McMillan Fiberglass Stocks, McMillan Firearms Manufacturing, McMillan Group International have been collectively banking with Bank of America for 12 years. Today Mr. Ray Fox, Senior Vice President, Market Manager, Business Banking, Global Commercial Banking came to my office. He scheduled the meeting as an “account analysis” meeting in order to evaluate the two lines of credit we have with them. He spent five minutes talking about how McMillan has changed in the last five years and have become more of a firearms manufacturer than a supplier of accessories.
At this point I interrupted him and asked “Can I possible save you some time so that you don’t waste your breath? What you are going to tell me is that because we are in the firearms manufacturing business you no longer what my business.”
“That is correct” he says.
I replied “That is okay, we will move our accounts as soon as possible. We can find a Second Amendment friendly bank that will be glad to have our business. You won’t mind if I tell the NRA, SCI and everyone one I know that BofA is not firearms industry friendly?”
“You have to do what you must” he said.
“So you are telling me this is a politically motivated decision, is that right?”
Mr Fox confirmed that it was. At which point I told him that the meeting was over and there was nothing let for him to say.
McMillan is now refusing to accept Bank of America cards from customers for payment.
McMillan is heavily involved with U.S. national security. McMillan rifle stocks are the standard for the Marine Corps’ favored M40A3 sniper rifle. McMillan products, from stocks and other accessories to complete rifles, are used by U.S. regular and special forces and by American military allies around the globe.
McMillan products are of particular import in Afghanistan and in Iraq, where snipers and designated marksmen armed with long-range precision rifles performed (and still perform) vital scouting and overwatch functions protecting maneuver units. The extended range of these weapons allows forces to engage with and destroy enemy forces before they are in range to accurately fire against American soldiers and Marines.
Per McMillan’s statement, a politically partisan bank has severed the lines of credit to a company important to our national security. This act has likely added difficulty to the company’s ability to operate, to research product improvements, and to deliver products on time. Bank of America’s stance — especially if this signals a new policy regarding dealing with all arms manufacturers — could potentially effect the readiness of American soldiers in combat zones and the operational efficiency of some of America’s most highly trained and effective units.
Bank of America was the recipient of well over 100 billion dollars in federal money. They are also one of just two vendors processing payments for Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, employing a system that disables safeguards against illegal foreign donations. Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the site of the Democratic Nation Convention in September.
This is at least the third time Bank of America has implemented a discriminatory policy against gun manufacturers. In early 2001, a scandal erupted over the bank’s attempt to discriminate against another Arizona-based company. The resulting public outrage forced a reversal of the policy.
In 2010, Bank of America attempted a similar action, and was again forced to “clarify” their position:
Bank of America does not have a corporate-wide policy to deny banking services solely on the applicant’s involvement in the firearms industry.
No other gun manufacturer or gun rights group has reacted to the McMillan Facebook post at this time.
by Bob Owens
April 20, 2012 - 12:30 pm
PJMedia:
Bailout recipient Bank of America has severed relations with an American company because of a reported bias against their industry. McMillan Group International released an extraordinary statement on Facebook regarding the incident:
McMillan Fiberglass Stocks, McMillan Firearms Manufacturing, McMillan Group International have been collectively banking with Bank of America for 12 years. Today Mr. Ray Fox, Senior Vice President, Market Manager, Business Banking, Global Commercial Banking came to my office. He scheduled the meeting as an “account analysis” meeting in order to evaluate the two lines of credit we have with them. He spent five minutes talking about how McMillan has changed in the last five years and have become more of a firearms manufacturer than a supplier of accessories.
At this point I interrupted him and asked “Can I possible save you some time so that you don’t waste your breath? What you are going to tell me is that because we are in the firearms manufacturing business you no longer what my business.”
“That is correct” he says.
I replied “That is okay, we will move our accounts as soon as possible. We can find a Second Amendment friendly bank that will be glad to have our business. You won’t mind if I tell the NRA, SCI and everyone one I know that BofA is not firearms industry friendly?”
“You have to do what you must” he said.
“So you are telling me this is a politically motivated decision, is that right?”
Mr Fox confirmed that it was. At which point I told him that the meeting was over and there was nothing let for him to say.
McMillan is now refusing to accept Bank of America cards from customers for payment.
McMillan is heavily involved with U.S. national security. McMillan rifle stocks are the standard for the Marine Corps’ favored M40A3 sniper rifle. McMillan products, from stocks and other accessories to complete rifles, are used by U.S. regular and special forces and by American military allies around the globe.
McMillan products are of particular import in Afghanistan and in Iraq, where snipers and designated marksmen armed with long-range precision rifles performed (and still perform) vital scouting and overwatch functions protecting maneuver units. The extended range of these weapons allows forces to engage with and destroy enemy forces before they are in range to accurately fire against American soldiers and Marines.
Per McMillan’s statement, a politically partisan bank has severed the lines of credit to a company important to our national security. This act has likely added difficulty to the company’s ability to operate, to research product improvements, and to deliver products on time. Bank of America’s stance — especially if this signals a new policy regarding dealing with all arms manufacturers — could potentially effect the readiness of American soldiers in combat zones and the operational efficiency of some of America’s most highly trained and effective units.
Bank of America was the recipient of well over 100 billion dollars in federal money. They are also one of just two vendors processing payments for Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, employing a system that disables safeguards against illegal foreign donations. Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the site of the Democratic Nation Convention in September.
This is at least the third time Bank of America has implemented a discriminatory policy against gun manufacturers. In early 2001, a scandal erupted over the bank’s attempt to discriminate against another Arizona-based company. The resulting public outrage forced a reversal of the policy.
In 2010, Bank of America attempted a similar action, and was again forced to “clarify” their position:
Bank of America does not have a corporate-wide policy to deny banking services solely on the applicant’s involvement in the firearms industry.
No other gun manufacturer or gun rights group has reacted to the McMillan Facebook post at this time.
Bolton: Obama taking credit for killing bin-Laden is like Nixon taking credit for landing on the moon
Bolton weighs in on Obama taking credit for Bush’s successes with regard to the killing of bin-Laden, saying that the only thing Obama really did was get out of the way. The intelligence that led us to bin-Laden came from the very thing Obama railed against and thus banned when becoming president, enhanced interrogations. So for him to take credit for killing bin-Laden, Bolton says, is like Nixon taking credit for America landing on the moon.
The entire interview is great as Bolton also weighs in on much more of Obama’s foreign policy. You can watch here
The entire interview is great as Bolton also weighs in on much more of Obama’s foreign policy. You can watch here
Third smoking gun in Fast and Furious?
New book claims FBI cover up of third gun in murder of border patrol agent
BY: CJ Ciaramella
April 21, 2012 12:26 am
Washington Free Beacon:
The Department of Justice is using the liberal “watchdog” group Media Matters for America to deflect questions about the Fast and Furious scandal, including those regarding a gun that might have been used in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
A new book raises questions as to whether the FBI hid the existence of a weapon recovered at the scene of murdered U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Conservative commentator and author Katie Pavlich lays out evidence she says points to a FBI cover-up to protect a confidential informant in her recently released book, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-up
In response to an inquiry from the Free Beacon, a Justice Department spokeswoman said in an email that she “was told to direct your questions to the FBI, and also to provide you with a link to this story: http://mediamatters.org/research/201204190011”
The link was to a story at the George Soros-funded Media Matters for America supposedly refuting many of Pavlich’s claims. Media Matters is a partisan organization whose founder, David Brock, is also running a pro-Obama super PAC.
In Operation Fast and Furious, federal agents allowed more than 2,000 weapons to be smuggled across the U.S.-Mexican border and into the hand of violent drug cartels, with the intent of tracking them to learn more about the cartels.
Two weapons connected to Fast and Furious were discovered at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was gunned down in the Southern Arizona desert in 2010 by five criminals armed with AK-47s.
However, Pavlich asserts there was a third gun. The book details three separate pieces of evidence that point to a third weapon being recovered and then covered up by the FBI and the Justice Department.
Border Patrol agents, who have since been issued gag orders, were overheard at Terry’s funeral discussing the third gun.
“The idea that the border patrol agents were issued gag orders and not allowed to talk about this is very telling,” Pavlich said in an interview with the Free Beacon.
An email sent less than 12 hours after Terry’s death also mentioned the weapon.
Finally, an audio recording of a discussion between Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company, and ATF agent Hope MacAllister also references a third gun.
The investigation of Fast and Furious revealed that at least six FBI informants were involved in the operation, as well as an unknown number of DEA informants. Pavlich claims in her book that a confidential source told her the FBI hid the third gun from evidence because it was linked to a confidential informant or the brother of the informant.
“The reason they’re covering up the third gun is because it could lead to the confidential informant,” Pavlich said. “They’re protecting him at the cost of justice to Brian Terry and his family. I am not an expert on what confidential informants are allowed to get away with, but I guarantee they’re not allowed to kill federal agents.”
BY: CJ Ciaramella
April 21, 2012 12:26 am
Washington Free Beacon:
The Department of Justice is using the liberal “watchdog” group Media Matters for America to deflect questions about the Fast and Furious scandal, including those regarding a gun that might have been used in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
A new book raises questions as to whether the FBI hid the existence of a weapon recovered at the scene of murdered U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Conservative commentator and author Katie Pavlich lays out evidence she says points to a FBI cover-up to protect a confidential informant in her recently released book, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-up
In response to an inquiry from the Free Beacon, a Justice Department spokeswoman said in an email that she “was told to direct your questions to the FBI, and also to provide you with a link to this story: http://mediamatters.org/research/201204190011”
The link was to a story at the George Soros-funded Media Matters for America supposedly refuting many of Pavlich’s claims. Media Matters is a partisan organization whose founder, David Brock, is also running a pro-Obama super PAC.
In Operation Fast and Furious, federal agents allowed more than 2,000 weapons to be smuggled across the U.S.-Mexican border and into the hand of violent drug cartels, with the intent of tracking them to learn more about the cartels.
Two weapons connected to Fast and Furious were discovered at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was gunned down in the Southern Arizona desert in 2010 by five criminals armed with AK-47s.
However, Pavlich asserts there was a third gun. The book details three separate pieces of evidence that point to a third weapon being recovered and then covered up by the FBI and the Justice Department.
Border Patrol agents, who have since been issued gag orders, were overheard at Terry’s funeral discussing the third gun.
“The idea that the border patrol agents were issued gag orders and not allowed to talk about this is very telling,” Pavlich said in an interview with the Free Beacon.
An email sent less than 12 hours after Terry’s death also mentioned the weapon.
Finally, an audio recording of a discussion between Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company, and ATF agent Hope MacAllister also references a third gun.
The investigation of Fast and Furious revealed that at least six FBI informants were involved in the operation, as well as an unknown number of DEA informants. Pavlich claims in her book that a confidential source told her the FBI hid the third gun from evidence because it was linked to a confidential informant or the brother of the informant.
“The reason they’re covering up the third gun is because it could lead to the confidential informant,” Pavlich said. “They’re protecting him at the cost of justice to Brian Terry and his family. I am not an expert on what confidential informants are allowed to get away with, but I guarantee they’re not allowed to kill federal agents.”
American Power: Barack Obama's Polygamist Roots
Friday, April 20, 2012
Barack Obama's Polygamist Roots
Well, here's another instance of messaging fail from the bright lights of the Democrat Party Obama cult.
From Ben Jacobs at The Daily Beast, "Montana Gov. Democrat Brian Schweitzer: Mitt Romney's ‘Family Came From a Polygamy Commune in Mexico’." (Via Memeorandum.)
Wow! Mitt Romney's really a freak!
Oh wait. Obama's family was an African polygamist commune, according to David Maraniss:
The line of polygamists in Obama’s family can be traced back generations in western Kenya, where it was an accepted practice within the Luo (pronounced LOO-oh) tribe. His great-grandfather, Obama Opiyo, had five wives, including two who were sisters. His grandfather, Hussein Onyango, had at least four wives, one of whom, Akumu, gave birth to the president’s father, Barack Obama, before fleeing her abusive husband. Obama Sr. was already married when he left Kenya to study at the University of Hawaii, where he married again. His American wife-to-be, Stanley Ann Dunham, was not yet 18 and unaware of his marital situation when she became pregnant with his namesake son in 1961.
So, Barack Obama, Sr., was a polygamist. Now that doesn't fit the left's Romney outsider meme too well, now does it? In fact, that Schweitzer dude just scored a ridiculous own-goal.
Also at Gateway Pundit, "Oops! Dem Governor Bashes Romney for Polygamist Roots – Forgets About Obama’s Polygamist DAD." (Via Memeorandum.)
BONUS: At The Other McCain, "Drip, Drip, Drip: ‘Mormon Mitt’ Meme Keeps Popping Up in Mainstream Media."
Posted by Donald Douglas at 11:40 AM
Barack Obama's Polygamist Roots
Well, here's another instance of messaging fail from the bright lights of the Democrat Party Obama cult.
From Ben Jacobs at The Daily Beast, "Montana Gov. Democrat Brian Schweitzer: Mitt Romney's ‘Family Came From a Polygamy Commune in Mexico’." (Via Memeorandum.)
Wow! Mitt Romney's really a freak!
Oh wait. Obama's family was an African polygamist commune, according to David Maraniss:
The line of polygamists in Obama’s family can be traced back generations in western Kenya, where it was an accepted practice within the Luo (pronounced LOO-oh) tribe. His great-grandfather, Obama Opiyo, had five wives, including two who were sisters. His grandfather, Hussein Onyango, had at least four wives, one of whom, Akumu, gave birth to the president’s father, Barack Obama, before fleeing her abusive husband. Obama Sr. was already married when he left Kenya to study at the University of Hawaii, where he married again. His American wife-to-be, Stanley Ann Dunham, was not yet 18 and unaware of his marital situation when she became pregnant with his namesake son in 1961.
So, Barack Obama, Sr., was a polygamist. Now that doesn't fit the left's Romney outsider meme too well, now does it? In fact, that Schweitzer dude just scored a ridiculous own-goal.
Also at Gateway Pundit, "Oops! Dem Governor Bashes Romney for Polygamist Roots – Forgets About Obama’s Polygamist DAD." (Via Memeorandum.)
BONUS: At The Other McCain, "Drip, Drip, Drip: ‘Mormon Mitt’ Meme Keeps Popping Up in Mainstream Media."
Posted by Donald Douglas at 11:40 AM
DOJ referring reporters to Media Matters
Posted at 10:58 pm on April 20, 2012 by Twitchy Staff
When Free Beacon reporter C.J. Ciaramella requested information from the Department of Justice, he was sent a reply containing a reference to a Media Matters story about the issue in question. Apparently, the Obama Administration now considers the left-wing organization to be a standard when searching for answers. Can you imagine the outcry if a Republican administration were to refer a reporter to a right-wing platform?
When Free Beacon reporter C.J. Ciaramella requested information from the Department of Justice, he was sent a reply containing a reference to a Media Matters story about the issue in question. Apparently, the Obama Administration now considers the left-wing organization to be a standard when searching for answers. Can you imagine the outcry if a Republican administration were to refer a reporter to a right-wing platform?
Coroner’s Report: Andrew Breitbart Died of Heart Failure
As we expected. I will never stop missing him.
Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger whose posting of a sexually explicit photo of former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner led to the congressman’s downfall, died of heart failure, the Los Angeles County Coroner said in an autopsy report released Friday.
Breitbart, 43, died on March 1. The final cause of death was listed as heart failure, which was caused by Breitbart having an enlarged heart and some heart disease, said Chief Coroner Craig Harvey.
Breitbart had a small amount of alcohol in his system, but no prescription or illicit drugs were detected. No significant trauma was present and foul play is not suspected. A full report is expected to be available within two weeks.
In the event you haven’t come across this, a fund has been established for Andrew’s children. Here’s a message fro Larry Solov, Andrew’s friend and business partner:
So many of you have graciously asked what you can do for Andrew’s wife Susie, and his 4 beautiful children Samson (12) Mia (9) Charlie (7) and Will (5). We hope you will join us in preserving Andrew’s legacy by protecting his children’s futures.
Warm Regards,
Larry Solov
CEO and President
Breitbart News Network
The Breitbart Children’s Trust
149 S. Barrington Ave #735
Los Angeles, CA 90049
And the Breitbart/Bannon/Citizens United movie trailer for “Occupy Unmasked” has been released. Here it is.
SOURCE: Tammy Bruce
Friday, April 20, 2012
Worker injured during sex gets compensation payout
news.com.au
April 19, 2012 - 1:45PM
A WOMAN who was injured while having sex in her hotel room during a work trip is entitled to compensation.
In the Federal Court today Justice John Nicholas ruled that the woman was injured during her “course of employment”.
The woman’s barrister argued that sex was an “ordinary incident of life” in a hotel room, much like showering and sleeping.
The Judge ruled that “if the applicant had been injured while playing a game of cards in her motel room she would be entitled to compensation” and the fact that the woman was engaged in sexual activity rather than some other lawful recreational activity while in her hotel room does not lead to any different result.
The woman, who cannot be named, challenged the rejection of her workers' compensation claim for facial and psychological injuries suffered when a glass light fitting came away from the wall above the bed as she was having sex in November 2007.
The woman in her late thirties was required to travel to a country town by her employer, the Human Relations Section of the Commonwealth Government agency.
She arranged to meet a male friend there who lived in the town. They went to a restaurant for dinner and at about 10pm or 11pm went back to the woman’s motel room where they had sex that resulted in her injury.
The male friend said in his statement at the time that they were "going hard” and he did not know if they bumped the light or it just fell off.
“I think she was on her back when it happened but I was not paying attention because we are rolling around.”
April 19, 2012 - 1:45PM
A WOMAN who was injured while having sex in her hotel room during a work trip is entitled to compensation.
In the Federal Court today Justice John Nicholas ruled that the woman was injured during her “course of employment”.
The woman’s barrister argued that sex was an “ordinary incident of life” in a hotel room, much like showering and sleeping.
The Judge ruled that “if the applicant had been injured while playing a game of cards in her motel room she would be entitled to compensation” and the fact that the woman was engaged in sexual activity rather than some other lawful recreational activity while in her hotel room does not lead to any different result.
The woman, who cannot be named, challenged the rejection of her workers' compensation claim for facial and psychological injuries suffered when a glass light fitting came away from the wall above the bed as she was having sex in November 2007.
The woman in her late thirties was required to travel to a country town by her employer, the Human Relations Section of the Commonwealth Government agency.
She arranged to meet a male friend there who lived in the town. They went to a restaurant for dinner and at about 10pm or 11pm went back to the woman’s motel room where they had sex that resulted in her injury.
The male friend said in his statement at the time that they were "going hard” and he did not know if they bumped the light or it just fell off.
“I think she was on her back when it happened but I was not paying attention because we are rolling around.”