Saturday, May 19, 2012

BOMBSHELL REPORT: Jamie Dimon Personally Approved The Concept Of The Disastrous Trade, Losses Could Total $5 Billion

Sam Ro
May 17, 2012, 11:36 PM

Business Insider:

Details continue to emerge regarding JP Morgan's shocking multi-billion trading losses.


However, the biggest behind-the-scenes report so far was just published by The Wall Street Journal and written by Monica Langley.

Here's how Dimon first found out about the losses:

On April 30, associates who were gathered in a conference room handed Mr. Dimon summaries and analyses of the losses. But there were no details about the trades themselves. "I want to see the positions!" he barked, throwing down the papers, according to attendees. "Now! I want to see everything!"

When Mr. Dimon saw the numbers, these people say, he couldn't breathe.

Here's the loss estimate the Langley reports:

Those trading positions have produced losses that could total as much as $5 billion...

Langley's sources appear to be very close to Dimon. Her story includes an exchange between Dimon and his wife and also references an evening fueled by vodka.

More on those trades:

Mr. Dimon personally approved the concept behind the disastrous trades, according to people familiar with the matter. But he didn't monitor how they were executed, triggering some resentment among other business chiefs who say the activities of their units are routinely and vigorously scrutinized.

Langley's report includes a play-by-play of the drama that ensued after Dimon found out about the losses.

Read the whole article at WSJ.com.

Nebraska Senate: Republican Fischer 56%, Marxist Kerrey 38%

Election 2012: Nebraska Senate

Thursday, May 17, 2012
Rasmussen Reports:

State Senator Deb Fischer holds an 18-point lead over Democrat Bob Kerrey in the first Rasmussen Reports survey of the Nebraska U.S. Senate race since her upset win in this week’s state Republican primary.

A new telephone survey of Likely Voters in Nebraska shows Fischer with 56% support to 38% for Kerrey who is trying to reclaim the Senate seat he retired from in 2001. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate in the race, and three percent (3%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

This Nebraska survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted May 16, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Fieldwork for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Media Springs Into Action – Defends Obama For His ‘Born in Kenya’ Lie

Posted by Jim Hoft
May 17, 2012, 8:00 PM

The Gateway Pundit:

Barack Obama was either born in Kenya or he lied about it for years.
Breitbart.com
published a 1991 booklet by Barack Obama’s literary agent today that says Obama was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”

Here’s the clip from the booklet:



Well, the Breitbart report must have stunned the media because it took them several hours to jump to Obama’s defense.
The media blamed the publisher, not Obama for giving the publisher the information.


The Ticket reported:

A possible source of the so-called “birther” issue–or at least a potential cause of the rumors that have dogged President Barack Obama–has been identified.

Obama’s former literary agency misidentified his birthplace as Kenya while trying to promote the then-Harvard Law grad as an author in 1991.

According to a promotional booklet produced by the agency, Acton & Dystel, to showcase its roster of writers, Obama was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”

Miriam Goderich edited the text of the bio; she is now a partner at the Dystel & Goderich agency, which lists Obama as one of its current clients.

“This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me–an agency assistant at the time,” Goderich wrote in an emailed statement to Yahoo News. “There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more.”

A copy of the booklet was published on Breitbart.com, under the headline: “Obama’s Literary Agent in 1991 Booklet: ‘Born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii’”–part of the “vetting” of the president the site’s late founder, Andrew Breitbart, had promised.


The publisher was using the bio for years. Obama never had the publisher correct the information.
It must have served him at the time.

More…
The New York Times sprung into action on Friday morning with their attempt to make this latest devastating news all about “racial politics”:
Racial Politics, 2012-Style

WI: Walker Opponent Awarded No-Bid Contract


May 17, 2012 3:05 pm
Washington Free Beacon Staff:

Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, who is running against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in the upcoming state recall election, allegedly awarded illegal no-bid contracts to a campaign donor, according to two metal recycling firms who are threatening to sue the city.

The two firms claim they were shut out of business by a third company that obtained exclusive contracts through the city. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:

A lawyer for Mill Valley Recycling and Waukesha Iron & Metal filed a notice of claim Tuesday, saying they will sue if the city doesn’t rescind its ongoing contract with Miller Compressing and offer other companies the opportunity to bid on the work. …

A contract was awarded to Miller [...] after bidding in 1990 and 1994. The latter was “privately extended” through 2000 without competitive bidding, according to the claim notice. In 2001, when the contract had expired, it was extended “in secret and without public bid” on a month-to-month basis to October 2003, when the parties entered a contract until 2005, and then until 2009.

The other firms contend that the public works commissioner has never made a formal determination that it was best to go without a contract.


In 2010, Miller Compression gave $10,500 to Barrett in campaign contributions immediately after the company was awarded another no-bid contract in 2009.

Republican Party of Wisconsin Communications Director Ben Sparks said in a statement that the arrangement “reeks of pay-to-play politics.”

“Tom Barrett giving away lucrative no-bid contracts to his campaign donors, all while increasing wasteful government spending by $300 million, simply highlights his gross mismanagement of the City of Milwaukee,” Sparks said.

The Barrett campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

53,000 Dead Voters Found in Florida

May 16, 2012 - 5:03 pm
by J. Christian Adams

PJMedia.com:

I have learned that Florida election officials are set to announce that the secretary of state has discovered and purged up to 53,000 dead voters from the voter rolls in Florida.

How could 53,000 dead voters have sat on the polls for so long? Simple. Because Florida hadn’t been using the best available data revealing which voters have died. Florida is now using the nationwide Social Security Death Index for determining which voters should be purged because they have died.

Here is the bad news. Most states aren’t using the same database that Florida is. In fact, I have heard reports that some election officials won’t even remove voters even when they are presented with a death certificate. That means that voter rolls across the nation still are filled with dead voters, even if Florida is leading the way in detecting and removing them.

But surely people aren’t voting in the names of dead voters, the voter fraud deniers argue. Wrong.

Consider the case of Lafayette Keaton. Keaton not only voted for a dead person in Oregon, he voted for his dead son. Making Keaton’s fraud easier was Oregon’s vote by mail scheme, which has opened up gaping holes in the integrity of elections. The incident in Oregon just scratches the surface of the problem. Massachusetts and Mississippi are but two other examples of the dead rising on election day.

Florida should be applauded for taking the problem seriously, even if Eric Holder’s Justice Department and many state election officials don’t.

Arizona Rep. Ben Arredondo, D-Tempe, has been indicted on bribery


May 17, 2012 11:35 am
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff:

An Arizona Democrat has been slapped with a slew of corruption charges, relating to his attempt to squeeze thousands of dollars of sports tickets out of undercover FBI agents posing as real estate developers. According to the Phoenix Business Journal:

Arizona Rep. Ben Arredondo, D-Tempe, has been indicted on bribery, fraud, extortion and other federal charges for allegedly improperly receiving $6,000 worth of sports tickets while serving on the Tempe City Council. The tickets were from undercover FBI agents who were posing as real estate developers. …

That includes $1,200 worth of tickets to the 2009 American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim; $2,400 worth of tickets to 18 Arizona Diamondbacks games; $300 worth of tickets to an Arizona Cardinals game and $1,200 worth of tickets to a Duke-Michigan State basketball game.

Arredondo has previously found himself in hot water for receiving tickets to the Fiesta Bowl game. His niece now holds a seat on the City Council.

A Literary Agent Screwed Up Obama’s Bio For 18 Years. Really?

Posted on May 17, 2012 by TheTamminator

Hillbuzz:

The media can spin this all day long, but Obama’s literary agent listed him as BORN IN KENYA from 1991 to 2007. Breitbart has the evidence and they are not backing down.

Come on, mainstream media. Do your damn job and investigate this. You blame the Bush administration for every wrong on the planet, but you won’t even take a look at the man who is now Commander in Chief. Where is the Washington Post, who uncovered Watergate? Where are the true journalists, and not the journOlists?

I’ve never seen a cover-up of this size in my lifetime. Sickening. Is our media now pravda?


© 2012, TheTamminator. All rights reserved.

Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate

Sunday, June 27, 2004

The Sunday Standard:



SOURCE: Web Archives.org

Barack Obama: A Composite Kenyan

A man happy to let others embellish his background to separate himself from his peer group to his advantage now wants to be the final arbiter on fairness in America.

Posted by Erick Erickson (Diary)
Friday, May 18th at 4:46AM EDT

Red State:

“The Breitbart Crew are kind of like illegal immigrants — doing reporting Columbia journalism grads won’t do. And doing it quite well.”


The Breitbart Crew has done the world a very valuable service in finding a 1991 biography of Barack Obama from his literary agent claiming he was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”

Our own Jeff Emanuel also pointed out a 2004 Associated Press article that began, “Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations.”

I do not believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya. I don’t think it matters even if he were born overseas because his mother was an American citizen. I’m not going to debate it with the cult of birtherism.

But the Breitbart Crew has, only a few days after the Obama White House was caught editing the biographies of other Presidents on the White House website to insert Barack Obama into their Presidential legacies, done an invaluable service in highlighting two very important issues.

First, as someone who has written a book, I find Barack Obama’s literary agent’s explanation not very credible. The literary agent explains, “This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me — an agency assistant at the time. There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii.”

It was a fact checking error based on . . . no facts? Barack Obama never gave any information . . . suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii? Well where the hell did this very huge extrapolation come from? It’s like the virgin birth of a legend — some lady and God alone were involved.

That’s laughable. Miriam Goderich had to have gotten the idea from somewhere. But what is more laughable is that Barack Obama did not know and did not approve. When I wrote my book, I had to approve my biography multiple times. But more damning, this biography went to the press in 1991 and it circulated for more than a decade.

Even the Associated Press picked it up and I cannot find anywhere suggesting Barack Obama tried to have the AP correct its reporting.

The point is not that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. The point is that Barack Obama has repeatedly been perfectly okay embellishing and having others embellish his qualifications and biography to make himself someone unique instead of just another Chicago politician. The pattern goes back to his job as a “financial reporter”. A former colleague of his and Obama fan, way back in 2005, claims Barack Obama really embellished his resume describing his financial related reporting.

Second, and the largest point, however, is that the media is yet again caught flat footed, claiming the story is no big deal, irrelevant, or that somehow the Breitbart Crew is in the wrong and peddling Birtherism.

They are not peddling Birtherism. The Breitbart Crew are kind of like illegal immigrants — doing reporting Columbia journalism grads won’t do. And doing it quite well. In 2008, the New York Times ran a big story on John McCain having an affair with a lobbyist. It got picked up all over the place. Reporters were on the trail. There was no *there* there.

It took most of the month of August in 2004 for the media to pay attention to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth — men who served with John Kerry and had real problems with both his conduct in Vietnam and his conduct after he left Vietnam. The media did not want to cover the story. For a while, it was just Fox News. The clear demonstration of bias finally forced the New York Times and the big three nightly newscasts to play catch up as dismissively as possible.

This story has been out there since Barack Obama ran for the United States Senate. Even now the media is dismissing it as frivolous. If it turned out Mitt Romney had not actually been a missionary in France, it would be headline news.

Barack Obama embellishing his biography to make himself look unique? Hardly worthy of press attention. In fact, nothing Barack Obama has done suggesting serious character flaws — and that’s what this is about — is ever worth the media’s collective attention. Why? Because some people think Barack Obama was born in Kenya, but much of the press corps is pretty damn sure he was born in Bethlehem.

One last point — a friend raised this on email. Could this be why the campaign screams bloody murder about racists and birthers every time someone asks about Barack Obama’s college transcripts? This would explain why Obama is so squirrely about the issue and waited until Donald Trump caused him measurable damage in the polls on this issue before responding. He’s not embarrassed that people will find out he lied about being born in Hawaii; he’s embarrassed they’ll find out he lied about being born in Kenya.

Illegal Immigration Costs Maryland Nearly $1.9 Billion a Year

By Cindi
on May 17, 2012

Conservative Daily News:

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A new study released by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) finds that providing education, health care, law enforcement, and social and government services to illegal aliens and their dependents costs Maryland taxpayers $1.86 billion. These costs amount to a $910 a year burden per Marylandhousehold headed by a U.S. citizen.

The report, The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Marylanders, estimates that about 295,000 illegal aliens resided in the state as of 2010 – more than five times as many as lived there in 2000. In addition, there are some 68,000 U.S.-born children of illegal aliens living in Maryland who are eligible for all means-tested programs and benefits. Though these children are U.S. citizens, they would not be in the state if not for the fact that their parents violated U.S. immigration laws.

Among the report’s key findings:

Education and special English-language instruction for an estimated 21,600 illegal alien students and 49,000 U.S.-born children of illegal aliens costs Maryland taxpayers nearly $1.4 billion annually.

Uncompensated health care for illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children costs Marylanders $231 million a year.

Law enforcement and criminal justice costs associated with illegal immigration add about $177 million a year to the state’s tab.

Means-tested social welfare services used by U.S.-born children of illegal aliens add $47.5 million in costs each year.


Illegal aliens pay about $120 million per year in payroll and other taxes. However, the report concludes that even these minimal payments do not represent a net gain for Maryland as the jobs filled by illegal aliens would likely be filled by legal U.S. workers, working at higher wages, with a much higher rate of tax compliance.

“At a time when Maryland, like most states, is struggling with severe budget constraints, the state’s rapidly growing illegal alien population is forcing the state to divert scarce resources to provide for their needs,” observed Dan Stein, president of FAIR. “Rather than act to protect the interests of citizens and public resources, many Maryland lawmakers, at the state, county and city level, offer new rewards and protections to illegal aliens.”

A glaring example of this sort of behavior, notes the report, was a 2011 bill approved by the Maryland Legislature granting taxpayer subsidized in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens who attend state-run colleges and universities, which would cost taxpayers and additional $28 million a year. Implementation of this policy was blocked by outraged Marylanders who gathered enough signatures to put the issue before the voters in November 2012.

“Maryland taxpayers are certainly victims of the Obama administration’s outright refusal to enforce the immigration law against most illegal aliens and the state’s policies accommodating those illegal aliens. But the state can reverse course and reduce burdens of illegal immigration on taxpayers,” said Stein. “We hope that by detailing the costs so that everyone can understand the burdens illegal immigration imposes on Marylanders, citizens will be spurred to action.”

The full report, The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Marylanders, can be found at http://www.fairus.org/action/the-cost-of-illegal-immigration-to-marylanders-2012.

Stimulus Fail: $22,000 Router Installed in Rural Library with Two Computers, Deemed “Economical”

By Duane Lester
May 18, 2012


All American Blogger:

More wasteful spending from the failed Stimulus Plan. This time, hundreds of enterprise grade routers, meaning routers that can handle office building computer systems of up to 500 different computers, were purchased by West Virginia with Stimulus money. One of the routers was installed in a rural library with only two computers.

Hundreds more still sit in a warehouse, waiting for a place to be installed.

What gives? Turns out there was a fire sale on $22,000 routers:

Strickling says that NTIA looked into the situation and found that the average cost of the routers was only $12,000—not the $22,600 reported by the paper. (The contract for the devices was $24 million and 1,064 were purchased; 1,064 x $22,600 = $24 million. It’s not clear how Strickling broke down the numbers.)

He explained that West Virginia actually got a good deal.


In his defense, West Virginia did get a good deal.

The rest of America got a crap sandwich, but West Virginia came out smelling like a rose.

It’s very easy to justify spending, and by spending I mean “wasting,” other people’s money. But if this guy were running a business, or better yet, trying to justify buying a HUGE television to his wife, there’s no way he would use this argument.

“Well honey, I got the Sony Jumbotron because while they usually go for $22,000, I was able to get this one for $12,000. Now I know the numbers don’t really add up, but if you think about it, we actually saved $10,000. What a great deal, right?”

That’s not going to work.

Trust me.

I’ve tried it.

Image Credit: Niko Vermeer

Immigration issues at center of labor shortage for Washington State farmers

By Dan Springer
Published May 17, 2012




FoxNews.com:

Asparagus growers in eastern Washington State are scrambling to find enough workers to cash in on their crop’s rising popularity without much success. “We have a labor shortage, pure and simple,” says Dan Fazio of the Washington Farm Labor Association.

Farmers are being forced to leave 10 percent of this year’s crop uncut, which is costing them, according to the state’s asparagus commissioner, a combined $200,000 a day. But one place growers are not looking for labor is the unemployment office -- even though the jobless rate in Franklin County, where most of the asparagus is grown, is 10.7 percent.

“I’m pretty confident that if the average unemployed citizen in Franklin County came out and cut asparagus, it would be an unmitigated disaster,” says Alan Schreiber. “It’s hard work and you’ve got to be productive.”

Growers say the answer is immigration reform that would allow people who are in the country illegally to stay and work toward legal status. But opponents of illegal immigration blame the farmers for their labor shortage, accusing them of relying for decades on a cheap, illegal workforce and refusing to pay a wage acceptable to native-born residents. “For some reason agribusiness seems to think they’re exempt from paying a living wage or from providing suitable conditions for workers,” says Eric Ruark of FAIR, Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform. “And they think that because they’ve been able to get away with it.”

Still others say state lawmakers are partially responsible for the farm worker labor shortage. Washington has among the country’s most generous unemployment benefits. Out-of-work people can receive up to $583 a week for 73 weeks. It’s an amount that covers, on average, 42.3 percent of the person’s weekly wage when employed. “The state has created a disincentive to work,” says Erin Shannon of the Washington Policy Center, “with our generous benefits, with the weekly maximum and the duration of benefits.”

Dan Fazio, who represents growers across the state, says farm owners have been trying to match the unemployed with jobs in the fields. “There’s over 2,000 ads under state employment listings for farm workers,” says Fazio, “the vast majority of those go unfilled.”

Yet employment officials argue agribusiness isn’t trying hard at all. Michelle Mann, who manages the Franklin County Work Source office, tells Fox News an asparagus grower who recently let 100 acres go uncut never advertised with her office.

Growers fear if they paid more for labor, they’d further lose market share to foreign competition in Peru and Mexico. The Washington crop, which ranks behind only California, is valued at $23 million. Last year imports from Peru and Mexico totaled $161 million and $146 million respectively.

“We’re competing in a global marketplace,” says Alan Schreiber. “We’re competing against Peru, where they pay $5 a day, and Mexico, where they pay $10 a day.”

Former Citi Chairman: JP Morgan's Trading Disaster 'Could Happen To Anyone'

Sam Ro
May 17, 2012, 9:40 PM

Business Insider:

Sir Winfred Bischoff, the Chairman of Lloyds, spoke at Lloyds annual shareholder meeting yesterday.


He addressed JP Morgan's recent $2 billion (or $3 billion) trading loss. From The Guardian's Simon Neville:

"I'm a great fan of Jamie Dimon [JP Morgan chief executive]. But my concern is if it can happen to JP Morgan, which has such a good risk culture, it could happen to anyone."

Bischoff previously served as the Chairman of Citigroup board of directors from 2007 to 2009.

Study Proves Banning Abortion Doesn’t Hurt Women’s Health

by Michael New, Ph.D.
Washington, DC
5/17/12 5:09 PM

LifeNews.com:

A new study which demonstrates that abortion restrictions in Chile have improved maternal mortality outcomes has received a lot of attention from pro-life blogs and websites. Quality research that highlights the positive public-health impact of pro-life laws is always welcome. However, this study which appeared in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE is more important than many people realize. It is the most rigorous study of its kind, and it could have a significant impact on future public-health research.

Countless public-health professionals and researchers reflexively assume that expanded access to abortion improves public-health outcomes for reproductive-age women. However, there is relatively little quality academic research that supports this assertion. For instance, the literature review of the Chilean maternal mortality study only cites five studies that have analyzed the impact of abortion policy on maternal-mortality rates. Only two of these five studies have appeared in peer-reviewed journals and both have methodological shortcomings.

A 1998 study, which appeared in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, identified several countries where maternal-mortality rates decreased after abortion was legalized. However, it failed to analyze the trends in maternal mortality prior to abortion legalization. It also failed to consider that maternal health-care facilities, sanitation, and educational opportunities for women were all likely improving in these countries. This study also cites the decline in maternal mortality after abortion was legalized in Romania in 1989. However, the authors fail to consider that access to quality health care doubtless improved after the fall of Communism.

Similarly, a 2006 study, which appeared in The Lancet, simply compared maternal-mortality rates in countries where abortion is legal to maternal-mortality rates in countries were abortion is restricted. However, the researchers fail to consider the fact that most of the countries where abortion is illegal are in Africa and the Middle East. These countries have much higher poverty rates and offer lower quality health care. These factors doubtless contribute to high maternal mortality rates.

The Chilean study improves on this research for a couple reasons. First, Chile has reliable data on maternal mortality dating back until the 1950s. Second, Chile is one of the few countries that placed legal restrictions on abortion after a period of legalization. In many other countries, both improvements in maternal health-care facilities and better educational opportunities for women occurred during an era of greater access to abortion. As such, it was difficult for researchers to determine whether falling maternal-mortality rates in these countries were due to the increased availability of legal abortion or to these other trends.

The evidence from Chile, however, clearly indicates that maternal mortality continued to fall even when abortion became more restricted. This provides very solid evidence that increases in the educational level of women and improvements in maternal-health facilities are responsible for the decline in the maternal mortality rate. Furthermore, Poland, Malta, and Ireland, where abortion is restricted, have among the lowest maternal-mortality rates in Europe. All in all, this research provides very good evidence that access to abortion has had little to do with improved public-health outcomes for women.

LifeNews.com Note: Dr. Michael New is a political science professor at the University of Michigan–Dearborn and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is a fellow at Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey.

A 'Fact Checking Error'--Again, and Again, and Again...


by Breitbart News

Miriam Goderich, who helped edit a 1991 booklet for Barack Obama's then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, which erroneously stated that Obama had been born in Kenya, has issued a press release--first reported by her own client at Political Wire:

"You're undoubtedly aware of the brouhaha stirred up by Breitbart about the erroneous statement in a client list Acton & Dystel published in 1991 (for circulation within the publishing industry only) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me -- an agency assistant at the time. There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more."

Political Wire is run by Taegan Goddard, a client of Goderich's agency, Dystel & Goderich.

Goderich's statement fails to explain why the "fact checking error" persisted for sixteen years, through at least three different versions of Jane Dystel's website, and through at least four different versions of Obama's biography.

It persisted, in fact, more than two years after Obama became a United States Senator, and until after Obama had declared his campaign for the presidency in 2007.

In addition to the 1991 biography above (#1), here, via archive.org, is a screen shot of Obama's biography (#2) on the Dystel.com website in June 1998, in which the text has been updated but the birthplace error has been repeated:


Here, again via archive.org, is a screen shot of Obama's updated biography on the Dystel & Goderich website in February 2005 (#3), updated to reflect the fact that Obama had become a U.S. Senator--but not corrected as regards his birthplace:


Breitbart News attempted to contact Goderich and senior partner Jane Dystel several times over several days prior to publishing our original story. They chose not to respond.

The real mystery is not where Obama was born--which has long been settled--but why Goddard failed to ask her agent a single relevant follow-up question about how the 'fact checking error' occurred in the first place.

Van Jones’s Advice: ‘Cute’ Obama Needs To Buck Up, Parallel ‘Most Liberal President Ever, LBJ’

Posted on May 17, 2012 at 6:43pm
by Benny Johnson

The Blaze:


Van Jones gave a talk at Google HQ earlier this month, where he had some sound advice for his former boss: Obama needs to start acting like “most liberal President ever” — LBJ.

During the speech, Jones seemed disillusioned. He once referred to himself as a “post-hope Democrat.” His major issue was with Obama and his vaulted expectations. Once referring to the president as “MLK,” Jones lamented the failure of the president to listen to the grassroots, as super liberals FDR and LBJ had done before him. Jones also condemned the leftist movement for being overshadowed by the Tea Party in its effectiveness.

Watch a segment of Jones’s advice to the President below:



Some Key Jones Quotes:

“Think about the most liberal president ever, right? LBJ, right? I think we all have to agree that LBJ is probably the most liberal president: war on poverty – not the other war [laughs] — like two big civil rights bills, probably the high point of American liberalism.”


“Did LBJ lead the civil rights movement? No, not at all. In fact, there was a vigorous civil rights movement in the streets, grassroots people, and there was a head of state, LBJ. LBJ was willing to listen to and respond favorably to the movement, but there had to be a movement to do the moving.”


“I think what happened to some of us was, Obama kind of looks like a social movement leader. You think he’s cute. Talks good. Um, you know? And I think there was this, there where, this is MLK and he’s President, right? How cool is that?! And so you kind of sit and you kind of wait for him to do what a social movement leader would do, which is to go and challenge the consensus, disrupt everything and stick up for the … but that’ not what any US president has done.”


“LBJ didn’t lead the civil rights movement. The people had to do that. FDR didn’t lead the labor strikes that led to the New Deal. We the people did that. Lincoln wasn’t even an abolitionist. That was Frederick Douglas, John Brown, a bunch of other people. Nixon — you thought I was just making funny — but Nixon, famously, didn’t lead the environmental movement, but he signed into law the EPA, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act. So you can have an arguably crappy president, but if you have a strong enough movement, the environmental movement, you can actually get a lot of good things done.“


“So, really, we thought we had all we needed when we got to Washington DC. We had the House, with Nancy Pelosi — best Speaker ever. We had 60 votes in the Senate. And we had Barack Obama as president. We thought we had all we needed. It turned out, that’s 1/3rd. That’s the big takeaway. That’s only 1/3rd of what you need.”


“You also have to have popular movements — the Tea Party was out there as a popular movement. They had a big impact event though they didn’t have governmental control. And you have to have Big Media coordination. Fox and the rightwing bloggers played a huge role in impacting policy — even though they had none of those levers or power.”

Since Obama Took Office Federal Government Has Spent Nearly $70 Billion On “Climate Change Activities”…


No wonder we’re broke.

Via Daily Caller:

The Congressional Research Service estimates that since 2008 the federal government has spent nearly $70 billion on “climate change activities.”

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe presented the new CRS report on the Senate Floor Thursday to make the point that the Obama administration has been focused on “green” defense projects to the detriment of the military.

The report revealed that from fiscal years 2008 through 2012 the federal government spent $68.4 billion to combat climate change. The Department of Defense also spent $4 billion of its budget, the report adds, on climate change and energy efficiency activities in that same time period.

Inhofe, the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued that the expenditures are foolish at a time when the military is facing “devastating cuts.”

Keep reading…

Posted by ZIP @ Weasel Zippers on Thursday, May 17, 2012, at 9:36 pm

Whoa, Baby – U.S. Selling Weapons to Chavez That Are Capable of Hitting the U.S.

May 17, 2012
By Sara Noble

Independent Sentinel:


If you wanted to destroy the United States or if you were an airhead Socialist, wouldn’t you send weapons to our commie “allies” who can attack us later with our own weapons?



How about this next one to add to the entire insane idea that Obama should appease a country that seeks our demise – Iran just shipped missiles to Venezuela. These greatly endanger our airliners. WHY AREN’T WE WORRIED? WHERE IS THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA ON THIS??? (Source: PJ Media)

We must vote Obama out before he disables all our weaponry and makes us more vulnerable to these types of threats.

As an aside, Venezuela is sending fuel to that lunatic Assad in Syria and has had close ties to Iran for years.

Obama’s pal Jamie Dimon reportedly approved concept of disastrous trade, JP Morgan losses could total $5 Billion!

BOMBSHELL! Obama’s BFF JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon is reportedly responsible for the concepts of the recent bad trades, that was reported to cost shareholders of JP Morgan $2 billion. Turns out that total could be more like $5 billion and Jamie Dimon’s finger prints are all over it according to Business Insider and the Wall Street Journal.

First, lets review some recent associations between Obama and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon:
After the news of JP Morgan’s $2 billion trading loss came out, Obama went on The View and prasied Jamie Dimon as “one of the smartest bankers we got.”
Jamie Dimon has paid at least 18 visits to the Obama White House since 2009
Obama just so happens to have a $1 million “checking account” with JP Morgan
GAO report says JP Morgan Chase could also have benefited Jamie Dimon’s position on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Jamie Dimon was rumored to be Obama’s choice to replace Tim Geither as U.S. Treasury Secretary when rumors swirled around that he would resign last November

Mr. Dimon personally approved the concept behind the disastrous trades, according to people familiar with the matter. But he didn’t monitor how they were executed, triggering some resentment among other business chiefs who say the activities of their units are routinely and vigorously scrutinized.

SOURCE: FireAndreaMitchell.Com

Friday, May 18, 2012

Nebraska Senate race poll: Deb Fischer (R) 56% – Marxist Bob Kerrey (D) 38%

No wonder Cornhusker Kickbacker Ben Nelson didn’t want to run for re-election this year. He’s get absolutely slaughtered. The first poll on the Nebraska Senate race from Rasmussen shows little known Deb Fischer absolutely crushing former Bob Kerry. Wait until the ads start running Kerry could lose by 25-30%!

A new telephone survey of Likely Voters in Nebraska shows Fischer with 56% support to 38% for Kerrey who is trying to reclaim the Senate seat he retired from in 2001. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate in the race, and three percent (3%) are undecided.

SOURCE: FireAndreaMitchell.Com

A New Chance to Stop the NDAA – Act NOW!

By Dave Nalle - May 17, 2012 at 10:06 PM

You may remember all the work we did last December to try to stop the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act because of provisions it contained which allowed for the indefinite detention of US citizens by the military in violation of due process and posse comitatus. Supporters of that act tried to hide the offending parts of the bill by changing the section numbers and they denied the intent and the significance of the wording of the problem sections, and they managed to pass it through the House and Senate despite the heroic efforts of leaders like Rep. Justin Amash and Sen. Rand Paul.

Today we have a rare second chance to fix that mistake.

The proof that we were right about the NDAA became conclusive this week. The Federal District Court in New York granted a temporary injunction against the use of the provisions in the bill which allow for indefinite military detention. Apparently the legal experts on the federal bench read the language the same way that we and dozens of pro-liberty groups did. The problem is that the injunction is only temporary.

The permanent solution to this problem is the Smith-Amash amendment (HR4192) which is being debated in the House right now. It will remove the sections from the bill which allow indefinite military detention of our citizens and guarantee the right to a trial and due process. It’s buried among other amendments to the NDAA, some of which make a pretense of fixing this problem, but none of them actually remove military detention from the bill except the Smith-Amash amendment.

The challenge here is that the vote on the Smith-Amash amendment will take place some time Friday, so we need to take action right now. Use our tool to email your Congressman and tell them you want them to stand up for liberty and the Constitution and pass the only amendment which genuinely fixes the problems with the NDAA.

Make sure to customize the language of the email to make it unique and in your own words.



SOURCE: RLC.ORG

CONGRESS MUST FULLY INVESTIGATE OBAMA’S BIRTHPLACE! NOW!

May 17, 2012


Today’s latest revelation of Obama’s Kenyan birth reported on Breitbart.com (doing the work the propaganda media won’t do) screams out for Congressional action! Now is the time and Americans must DEMAND that Congress use all its vast resources to uncover, once and for all, if Obama is constitutionally eligible to be the President of the United States! Anything short of a full and complete investigation is dereliction of the oath of office each elected official swore to protect the Constitution of the United States when taking office.

For years, liberals have ridiculed and bullied anyone who questioned the massive questions and evidence surrounding Obama’s birthplace! Even conservative champions such as Andrew Breitbart refused to investigate or question this topic. AWD had little interest because Obama was already in office and no Republican had the cojones to propose an investigation, even though I’ve always believed it was likely Obama was not born on US soil. Today’s revelation on Breitbart.com of a 1991 literary agent’s book promoting Obama is just another large piece of evidence that Obama was born in Kenya. This on top of fake, Photoshopped birth certificates from Hawaii, testimony of his family members and over $10 million spent on legal fees to hide his school records long suspected of proving Obama was a foreign student. IT IS TIME FOR THE TRUTH!

If Obama’s birthplace is not fully investigated, he will have succeeded in totally destroying our Constitution. He certainly has ripped the corners in his three years of skirting the law with the compliance of a corrupt Democrat Party and the fecklessness of the wussypants Republicans. Are we a country that believes in the rule of law anymore? It appears none of our elected officials believe that! If Republicans do not demand and begin hearings and investigations into Obama’s birthplace, they are no better than those who have hidden the facts and perpetuated the myth that Obama was born in Hawaii!

If Congress…yes, Democrats and Republicans…do not investigate this potential con man’s eligibility to lead our nation, it is time for Americans to begin considering our alternatives while we still have them! Without the Constitution and strict allegiance to the rule of law, America is no better than some third-rate banana republic.

What would our Founding Fathers say? It’s contained in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Call your Congressman and Senator. Demand action! The months leading up to November could decide whether this country survives as a constitutional republic or will suffer under the reign of a cruel, communist dictator!

It is time we all consider Henry’s sacred words:

Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

If Obama is found to have hidden his foreign birth, he and all who have perpetuated this lie must go to prison. All of them!

IT IS TIME FOR THE TRUTH! The future of America hangs in the balance!

SOURCE: AWD

Democrats outraged: `Smart money' fleeing U.S. since Obama took office

May 17th, 2012 by TMH

By: Jeffrey Klein
Political Buzz Examiner

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said it best, during a TV interview on February 5, 1976, “…and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.”

When you combine that with President Obama’s ceaseless, socialist “class warfare” tactics, open condemnation of anything big banks, insurance, oil, Wall Street and capitalism, and demonizing those who have earned success with the ‘Buffet Rule’ flag–something has got to give.

Enter, or more accurately, “exit,” Eduardo Saverin, a 30 year old Brazilian, who become a U.S. citizen in 1998, and then along Harvard buddy Jeff Zuckerberg co-founded Facebook, whose $118 billion IPO is scheduled for tomorrow.

It is expected that Saverin will reap a tidy $4 to $5 billion for his shareholdings, which would have meant about a $100 million capital gains tax windfall for the U.S. Treasury.

However, Saverin, along with 1,800 other Americans last year alone, renounced his citizenship in September 2011, paid the IRS the customary “exit tax” on assets–including his Facebook stock at a far smaller appraised valuation, then promptly moved to Singapore–before the Facebook IPO was announced, according to a May 12, 2012 ABC News article.

There have been over 4,000 Americans who have renounced their citizenship between 2005 and 2010–with the pace of renunciations increasingly rapidly in recent years, according to a FOXNews article today.

Who are these people, and why are they going to the extreme point of renouncing their U.S. citizenship–especially when 20 million illegal aliens have done the exact opposite?

Because, the United States has allowed in influx of 20 million illegal aliens, has a Liberal government that is hell bent on turning the United States into a socialist country, transferring wealth from the productive sources to the unproductive sources at a rate beyond which is sensible or sustainable.

And, so the very wealthy and mobile smart money is pulling up stakes and moving to countries which admire success and treat capital like gold–pardon the pun.

Chief among these countries is Singapore, one of the cleanest and most desirable cities in the world–a very orderly society that doesn’t tolerate street gangs, drugs or addicts, out-of-control illegitimate birth rates, open borders, illegal immigration, extensive public assistance programs and anything or anyone that is anti-capitalism.

It has the highest GDP per capita rate in the world, and an unemployment rate that has not been above 4% in over a decade.

Singapore has the fifth largest port in the world, the only AAA debt rating by all three rating agencies and also possesses the world’s tenth largest foreign reserves, with China 1st, Japan 2nd, Russia 4th, Brazil 6th and the U.S. 17th.

Singapore attracts a lot of foreign direct investment because of its location, corruption-free environment, skilled workforce, low tax rates and advanced infrastructure.

In fact, Singapore is consistently rated one of the least corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International.

The legal system of Singapore is based on English common law, albeit with substantial local differences. Trial by jury was entirely abolished in 1970 leaving judicial assessment performed wholly by judgeship. Singapore has penalties that include judicial corporal punishment in the form of caning for rape, rioting, vandalism, and some immigration offences. There is a mandatory death penalty for murder, and for certain drug-trafficking and firearms offences.

Acute poverty is rare in Singapore; the government has rejected the idea of a generous welfare system, stating that each generation must earn and save enough for its entire life cycle.

Singapore has the world’s highest percentage of millionaire households, with 15.5 percent of all households owning at least one million US dollars. Despite its relative economic success, Singapore does not have a minimum wage, believing that it would lower its competitiveness.

Interestingly, it also has one of the highest income inequality levels among developed countries, coming in just behind Hong Kong and in front of the United States.

The formerly great state of California and Detroit, Michigan, the birthplace of the auto industry and middle class, are unequivocally on the road to bankruptcy, for the exact same reasons as Greece, and as such they provide laboratory proof of what happens every time a city, state or nation is run by Liberal Democrats–in their Marxist attempt to create the perfect “equal outcome” society.

The finale is always the welfare state-oriented Democrats, like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who want to raise taxes on the wealthy to extraordinary levels–in order to maintain the wealth redistribution to the increasing number of unproductive people receiving government benefits, and chase people like Mr. Saverin around the world to bleed them dry, according to a FOXNews article today.

Except for “Limousine Liberals,” the smart money didn’t make these idiotic decisions, and they don’t intend to underwrite them with their hard-earned money.

So, like Barack Obama and Joe Biden are fond of saying … ‘The American people will have a clear choice in November 2012:’

1. Mitt Romney and the Conservatives: Restoring America to its former greatness, the re-birth of the American Dream, and finally purging the terminal cancer of the Liberal/Progressive ideology from our nation once and for all time; or,

2. Barack Obama and the Democrats: Using total “flexibility” to implement a Socialistic society, eliminating individual liberty and self-determination, and being chained forever to a mediocre “equal outcome” society, from which to witness the last breath of the American Dream.

SOURCE: NoisyRoom.Net

Birds of a Feather, Flock Together: Dems Show True Colors by Financially Supporting Convicted Terrorist

Posted on May 17, 2012
by Stacy McCain

Convicted Terrorist Brett Kimberlin Received $70,000 From Tides Foundation, $10,000 From Streisand, $20,000 from John Kerry’s Wife

* * ‘Speedway Bomber’: Criminal terrorist Brett Kimberlin was convicted in 1981 * *

Investigative journalist Matthew Vadum reports a blockbuster: Brett Kimberlin, the convicted felon who terrorized an Indiana town during a weeklong 1978 bombing spree, has received funding from influential “progressive” foundations:

“Speedway Bomber” Brett Kimberlin . . . is a director and founder of the Justice Through Music Project, a seven year old Bethesda, Maryland-based 501c3 nonprofit entity. . . .
Kimberlin is the business partner of leftist blogger Brad Friedman … They are both involved with a group called Velvet Revolution which also receives funding from the Tides Foundation.
JTMP has received at least $70,000 in grants from the far-left Tides Foundation since 2006.
Another noteworthy donor is . . Barbra Streisand who has given JTMP at least $10,000 through her Barbra Streisand Foundation since 2006 . . .
Yet another is Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts). Mrs. Kerry is CEO of the Heinz Family Foundation which has given JTMP at least $20,000 since 2006 . . .


A self-described “associate” of Democrat political consultant Neal Rauhauser, Kimberlin’s recent activities are under increased scrutiny because of his alleged harassment of blogger Aaron Worthing.

UPDATE: The disclosure of Kimberlin’s funding from prestigious liberals matters, because of this convicted criminal’s apparently close connections to other key figures in the progressive online community, not only his business partnership with Brad Friedman, but also his claims to be an “associate” of Democrat political consultant Neal Rauhauser.

In October 2010, conservative blogger Patrick Read documented how “Rauhauser was soliciting some of the worst provocateurs he could find in an effort to deliberately elicit angered responses from the Tea Party.” The online activists alleged to have been part of Rauhauser’s network made conservative blogger Greg W. Howard an especial target for vicious Twitter harassment. (Warning: Extremely graphic language.)


Rauhauser’s “Beandogs,” as he called them, all operated under aliases. The Rauhauser-Friedman-Kimberlin nexus therefore suggests at least the possibility that funding from major progressive non-profits helped enable this vicious campaign of online harassment.

UPDATE II: In October 2010, Big Journalism’s Mandy Nagy extensively documented the heinous history of “Speedway Bomber” Brett Kimberlin — a must read — and the question now to be considered is asked by Matthew Vadum:

Do the people at the Tides Foundation, Barbra Streisand Foundation, and Heinz Family Foundation know that they have given money to an organization run by a litigious, violent, radical felon who appears to delight in intimidating people whose views he disagrees with?

SOURCE: The Other McCain

Great Recession: Minorites on Government Dole Now Outbreed Working Class

Published May 17, 2012

FoxNews.com


America hit a demographic milestone last year, with new census figures showing for the first time more than half the children born in the U.S. were minorities.

That percentage just barely eked over the halfway mark, with minorities making up 50.4 percent of U.S. births in the 12-month period ending July 2011. But it marks a steady trend -- minorities represented 37 percent of births in 1990.

As a whole, the nation's minority population continues to rise, following a higher-than-expected Hispanic count in the 2010 census. Minorities increased 1.9 percent to 114.1 million, or 36.6 percent of the total U.S. population, lifted by prior waves of immigration that brought in young families and boosted the number of Hispanic women in their prime childbearing years.

The numbers also serve as a guide to where taxpayer dollars could be going in the coming decades. With minority populations growing faster than white populations, robust minority population centers are sure to increase in electoral heft in the coming decades.

"This is an important landmark," said Roderick Harrison, a former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau who is now a sociologist at Howard University. "This generation is growing up much more accustomed to diversity than its elders."

But a recent slowdown in the growth of the Hispanic and Asian populations is shifting notions on when the tipping point in U.S. diversity will come -- the time when non-Hispanic whites become a minority. After 2010 census results suggested a crossover as early as 2040, demographers now believe the pivotal moment may be pushed back several years when new projections are released in December.

The annual growth rates for Hispanics and Asians fell sharply last year to just above 2 percent, roughly half the rates in 2000 and the lowest in more than a decade. The black growth rate stayed flat at 1 percent.

The report comes as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the legality of a strict immigration law in Arizona, with many states weighing similar get-tough measures.

Of the 30 large metropolitan areas showing the fastest Hispanic growth in the previous decade, all showed slower growth in 2011 than in the peak Hispanic growth years of 2005-2006, when the construction boom attracted new migrants to low-wage work. They include Lakeland, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; Atlanta; Provo, Utah; Las Vegas; and Phoenix. All but two -- Fort Myers, Florida, and Dallas-Fort Worth -- also grew more slowly last year than in 2010, hurt by the jobs slump.

Pointing to a longer-term decline in immigration, demographers believe the Hispanic population boom may have peaked.

"The Latino population is very young, which means they will continue to have a lot of births relative to the general population," said Mark Mather, associate vice president of the Population Reference Bureau. "But we're seeing a slowdown that is likely the result of multiple factors: declining Latina birth rates combined with lower immigration levels. If both of these trends continue, they will lead to big changes down the road."

William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who analyzed the census data, noted that government debates over immigration enforcement may now be less pressing, given slowing growth. "The current congressional and Supreme Court interest in reducing immigration -- and the concerns especially about low-skilled and undocumented Hispanic immigration -- represent issues that could well be behind us," he said.

In all, 348 of the nation's 3,143 counties, or 1 in 9, have minority populations across all age groups that total more than 50 percent. In a sign of future U.S. race and ethnic change, the number of counties reaching the tipping point increases to more than 690, or nearly 1 in 4, when looking only at the under age 5 population.

According to the latest data, the percentage growth of Hispanics slowed from 4.2 percent in 2001 to 2.5 percent last year. Their population growth would have been even lower if it weren't for their relatively high fertility rates -- seven births for every death. The median age of U.S. Hispanics is 27.6 years.

Births actually have been declining for both whites and minorities, as many women postponed having children during the economic slump. But the drop since 2008 has been larger for whites, who have a median age of 42. The number of white births fell by 11.4 percent, compared with 3.2 percent for minorities, according to Kenneth Johnson, a sociologist at the University of New Hampshire.

Asian population increases also slowed, from 4.5 percent in 2001 to about 2.2 percent. Hispanics and Asians still are the two fastest-growing minority groups, making up about 16.7 percent and 4.8 percent of the U.S. population, respectively.

Blacks, who comprise about 12.3 percent of the population, have increased at a rate of about 1 percent each year. Whites have increased very little in recent years.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Establishment Republican Romney Chooses NOT to use REAL and Necessary Ammo in Fight to Save America



May 17, 2012, 10:16 am
Romney Rejects Using the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Against Obama
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

WSJ:

12:48 p.m. | Updated Mitt Romney condemned efforts to use President Obama’s former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, in ads attacking the president, as reportedly planned by a “super PAC” working toward electing Mr. Romney in November.

“I repudiate the effort by that PAC to promote an ad strategy of the nature they’ve described,” Mr. Romney said during an interview with the conservative Townhall Web site. “I would like to see this campaign focus on the economy, on getting people back to work, on seeing rising incomes and growing prosperity — particularly for those in the middle class of America.”

Mr. Romney used the opportunity to accuse Mr. Obama of running a “campaign is a campaign of character assassination” but said of the PAC that “I repudiate what they’re thinking about.”

Earlier, Mr. Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, said that “Gov. Romney is running a campaign based on jobs and the economy, and we encourage everyone else to do the same.”

The Times’s Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg reported Thursday morning on a plan by a group of Republican strategists to run ads linking Mr. Obama to his former pastor. A copy of the group’s detailed advertising plan, obtained by The Times, suggests using Mr. Wright’s “black liberation” rhetoric against the president, who attended Mr. Wright’s church for years.

In a statement issued Thursday afternoon, a spokesman for Joe Ricketts, the billionaire to whom the super PAC proposal was made, said Mr. Ricketts had no interest in financing the plan.

“Joe Ricketts is a registered independent, a fiscal conservative, and an outspoken critic of the Obama Administration, but he is neither the author nor the funder of the so-called “Ricketts Plan” to defeat Mr. Obama that The New York Times wrote about this morning,” said Brian Baker, the president of the Ending Spending Action Fund.

“It reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects and it was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take,” Mr. Baker said.

The disavowal from Mr. Ricketts did not address whether he had given preliminary approval to the plan, as suggested in the proposal. In an interview on Wednesday evening, Mr. Baker did not reject the contents of the proposed ad.

As Mr. Romney’s campaign confronts the story about the super PAC’s plans, its response may be constrained by the forceful denunciation of that very tactic by the Republican Party’s former presidential nominee.

In 2008, Senator John McCain forbade his advisers from using Mr. Obama’s association with Mr. Wright in campaign commercials. But his direction was not only made in private. Mr. McCain spoke forcefully — and publicly — in defense of his Democratic rival.

Speaking on Fox News four years ago, Mr. McCain said that he did not believe Mr. Obama should be held accountable for the things that Mr. Wright said from the pulpit, despite Mr. Obama’s attendance at the church for years.

“When people support you, it doesn’t mean that you support everything they say,” Mr. McCain said in the interview. Noting the incendiary language that Mr. Wright used, Mr. McCain said: “Obviously, those words and those statements are statements that none of us would associate ourselves with. I don’t believe that Senator Obama would support any of those as well.”

Given repeated opportunities by Sean Hannity, the Fox host, to link Mr. Obama to Mr. Wright, Mr. McCain steadfastly defended his rival, saying “I do know Senator Obama. He does not share those views.”

Later in the campaign, Mr. McCain again said he did not believe that Mr. Obama shared Mr. Wright’s views about America, though he said Mr. Obama had acknowledged the issue was a legitimate one for people to consider.

“I don’t believe that Senator Obama shares his views in any way,” Mr. McCain said. “But he has said it’s a legitimate topic of discussion. If that’s what the American people want to discuss, that’s fine.”

Statements like that from Mr. McCain may be part of the reason Mr. Romney’s campaign quickly rejected the idea of using Mr. Wright as a way of attacking the president. Already, advisers to Mr. Obama have raised the question of whether Mr. Romney will speak out like Mr. McCain did.

“Stunning! Will Mitt stand up, as John McCaln did? Or allow the purveyors of slime to operate on his behalf?” David Axelrod, a senior campaign adviser to Mr. Obama, wrote on Twitter early Thursday morning.

Mr. Romney’s campaign may also fear shifting the conversation of the campaign away from the economy, where advisers believe the president has a weak and indefensible record. Mr. Romney has, for example, shied away from discussing the same-sex marriage issue, preferring to keep his attention focused on the economy.

Mr. Romney declined to answer a question about the report when asked about it, saying he had not read the story.

In a statement Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, slammed the super PAC’s plans and criticized Mr. Romney for not publicly condemning the effort in person.

“This morning’s story revealed the appalling lengths to which Republican operatives and SuperPacs apparently are willing to go to tear down the President and elect Mitt Romney,” Mr. Messina wrote.

He added: “It also reflects how far the party has drifted in four short years since John McCain rejected these very tactics. Once again, Governor Romney has fallen short of the standard that John McCain set, reacting tepidly in a moment that required moral leadership in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party.”

Mr. McCain, in a statement provided to The Times by his spokesman, said he stands by his opposition to using Mr. Wright against the president.

“Senator McCain is very proud of the campaign he ran in 2008,” said Brian Rogers, the spokesman. “He stands by the decisions he made during that race and would make them again today.”

Obama Requests Help to Pay for Yet Another Enemie's Army

By ANNE GEARAN
Thu, May 17, 2012


WASHINGTON (AP) — Mapping the way out of an unpopular war, the United States and NATO are trying to build an Afghan army that can defend the country after 130,000 international troops pull out.

Support for Afghanistan's military will be a focus of the summit President Barack Obama is hosting Sunday and Monday in Chicago.

The problem with the exit strategy is paying for that army in an era of austerity budgets. The problem for the United States is how to avoid getting stuck with the check for $4.1 billion a year.

That's partly why many non-NATO nations are getting invitations to the summit. About 60 countries and organizations are expected to be represented.

More than 20 nations have already agreed to help, and more are expected to do so in Chicago.

ABC covers up Kenya birth

'Born in Kenya': Obama's Literary Agent Misidentified His Birthplace in 1991

President Barack Obama speaks at a fundraiser hosted by singer Ricky Martin and the LGBT Leadership Council at the Rubin Museum of Art, May 14, 2012, in New York. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

By Dylan Stableford
May 18, 2012



A possible source of the so-called "birther" issue--or at least a potential cause of the rumors that have dogged President Barack Obama--has been identified.

Obama's former literary agency misidentified his birthplace as Kenya while trying to promote the then-Harvard Law grad as an author in 1991.

According to a promotional booklet produced by the agency, Acton & Dystel, to showcase its roster of writers, Obama was "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii."

Miriam Goderich edited the text of the bio; she is now a partner at the Dystel & Goderich agency, which lists Obama as one of its current clients.

"This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me--an agency assistant at the time," Goderich wrote in an emailed statement to Yahoo News. "There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more."

A copy of the booklet was published on Breitbart.com, under the headline: " Obama's Literary Agent in 1991 Booklet: 'Born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.' It was part of the "vetting" of the president the site's late founder, Andrew Breitbart, had promised.

Here's Obama's full bio from the 1991 brochure:

Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation. He served as project coordinator in Harlem for the New York Public Interest Research Group, and was Executive Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago's South Side. His commitment to social and racial issues will be evident in his first book, Journeys in Black and White.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Breitbart.com published a lengthy disclaimer with the brochure, saying it does not believe Obama was born outside of the United States:

Andrew Breitbart was never a "Birther," and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of "Birtherism." In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.

Yet Andrew also believed that the complicit mainstream media had refused to examine President Obama's ideological past, or the carefully crafted persona he and his advisers had constructed for him.

It is for that reason that we launched "The Vetting," an ongoing series in which we explore the ideological background of President Obama (and other presidential candidates)--not to re-litigate 2008, but because ideas and actions have consequences.

It is also in that spirit that we discovered, and now present, the booklet described below--one that includes a marketing pitch for a forthcoming book by a then-young, otherwise unknown former president of the Harvard Law Review.

It is evidence--not of the President's foreign origin, but that Barack Obama's public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times.

Despite that rationale, the publication will no doubt fuel "birthers" who refuse to believe Obama was born in the United States.

In a follow-up post, Breitbart.com noted that Obama was listed as being born in Kenya on the Dyster & Goderich website until April 2007, "just two months after then-Senator Obama declared his campaign for the presidency."

Note: Statement directly above unexplained in this article

Military Detention Law Blocked by New York Judge

By Bob Van Voris and Patricia Hurtado
May 17, 2012 12:01 AM GMT-0400

Bloomberg:

Opponents of a U.S. law they claim may subject them to indefinite military detention for activities including news reporting and political activism persuaded a federal judge to temporarily block the measure.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan yesterday ruled in favor of a group of writers and activists who sued President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Defense Department, claiming a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law Dec. 31, puts them in fear that they could be arrested and held by U.S. armed forces.

The complaint was filed Jan. 13 by a group including former New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges. The plaintiffs contend a section of the law allows for detention of citizens and permanent residents taken into custody in the U.S. on “suspicion of providing substantial support” to people engaged in hostilities against the U.S., such as al-Qaeda.

“The statute at issue places the public at undue risk of having their speech chilled for the purported protection from al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ‘associated forces’ - i.e., ‘foreign terrorist organizations,’” Forrest said in an opinion yesterday. “The vagueness of Section 1021 does not allow the average citizen, or even the government itself, to understand with the type of definiteness to which our citizens are entitled, or what conduct comes within its scope.”

Enforcement Blocked

Forrest’s order prevents enforcement of the provision of the statute pending further order of the court or an amendment to the statute by Congress.

Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan, declined to comment on the ruling.

The plaintiffs claim Section 1021 is vague and can be read to authorize their detention based on speech and associations that are protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Hedges and two other plaintiffs testified in a hearing before Forrest in March, the judge said. A fourth plaintiff submitted a sworn declaration. The government put on no evidence, Forrest said.

Forrest, an Obama appointee who has served on the Manhattan federal court since October, rejected the government’s arguments that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue over the law and that it merely reaffirmed provisions in an earlier law, the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which was passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Plaintiffs’ Activities

In her opinion, Forrest said the government declined to say that the activities of Hedges and the other defendants don’t fall under the provision. Forrest held a hearing in March at which government lawyers didn’t call any witnesses or present evidence, according to the judge. The government did cross- examine the plaintiffs who testified and submitted legal arguments.

“The government was given a number of opportunities at the hearing and in its briefs to state unambiguously that the type of expressive and associational activities engaged in by plaintiffs -- or others -- are not within Section 1021,” Forrest said. “It did not. This court therefore must credit the chilling impact on First Amendment rights as reasonable -- and real.”

Hedges, who testified he has been a foreign news correspondent for 20 years, said he has reported on 17 groups that are on a State Department list of terrorist groups. Hedges testified that after the law was passed, he changed his dealings with groups he had reported on, Forrest said.

“I think the ruling was not only correct, but courageous and important,” Hedges said in a telephone interview yesterday.

The case is Hedges v. Obama, 12-cv-00331, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Nonwhites, Nonreligious Support Obama; Whites, the Religious Are for Romney

May 16, 2012


Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport reveals that while voters' support is evenly split between President Obama and Mitt Romney, Obama leads among the nonwhite and nonreligious and Romney among the white and the religious.

http://www.gallup.com/fvideo.aspx?i=cqRCJi2Xq2MKIUWZcXjZ6waa&t=0

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Donna Summer, Queen of Disco, dead at 63 after secret cancer battle

Seventies icon understood to have battled lung cancer - 'diagnosed 10 months ago'
'Singer believed she contracted illness by inhaling toxic particles after 9/11 attacks'
Only told husband and three children of her diagnosis
Will be laid to rest in Nashville following funeral on Monday
Family statement: 'Celebrating her extraordinary life and her continued legacy'


By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 10:45 EST, 17 May 2012
UPDATED: 17:06 EST, 17 May 2012

UK Daily Mail:

Hot Stuff singer Donna Summer died this morning aged 63 after a battle with cancer, her family has confirmed.

The star, known as the Queen of Disco, passed away in Florida.

The Seventies icon was battling lung cancer, TMZ is reporting, with sources telling the website Donna believed she contracted the illness by inhaling toxic particles after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York.

Her family released a statement, saying Summer died on Thursday morning and that they 'are at peace celebrating her extraordinary life and her continued legacy'.

Scroll to see video of iconic songs and one of Donna's last performances...
Queen of Disco: Donna Summer, pictured in 1979, has passed away aged 63

It went on: 'Words truly can't express how much we appreciate your prayers and love for our family at this sensitive time.' She had been living in Englewood, Florida, with her husband Bruce Sudano.

Sources told TMZ she had attempted to keep the extent of her illness from fans and was recently trying to finish up her latest album.

According to Entertainment Tonight, she was diagnosed with cancer 10 months ago and only told her husband and three children.

Secret battle: This is the last picture taken of Summer in public, pictured in October last year just seven months before her death performing in Las Vegas

Hit maker: Summer is know for her popular 70s tracks including Hot Stuff and Bad Girls

ET also reports she will be laid to rest in Nashville on Monday following her funeral.

Summers, real name LaDonna Gaines, is best know for her string of 70s hits, including I Feel Love, Last Dance and Bad Girls.

She was a five-time Grammy Award winner and the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the US Billboard chart.

Diva: Summer seen on stage during performances from her heyday in the Seventies
Seventies crew: Donna takes the stage with Tom Jones, left, and Dolly Parton in 1977 on the Mac Davis: Sounds Like Home show

She was also the first female artist with four No. 1 singles in a 13-month period, according to the Rock Hall of Fame, where she was a nominee this year.

Summer came to prominence just as disco was burgeoning, and came to define the era with a string of No. 1 hits and her beauty queen looks.

Disco became as much defined by her sultry, sexual vocals - her bedroom moans and sighs - as the relentless, pulsing rhythms of the music itself.

Summers married actor Helmuth Sommer in 1973 before giving birth to the couple's daughter Mimi later that year.

Although the marriage crumbled in 1975, she kept an altered version of her ex's surname to use as her stage name. She married Brooklyn Dreams musician Bruce Sudano in 1980 and the couple went on to have two daughters, Brooklyn, born in 1981 and Amanda the following year.

In 1994, the family moved from Los Angeles to Nashville where Donna took time out from showbusiness to focus on painting but had recently returned to the recording studio.

As well has staggering career highs, Summer also endured personal lows.

She suffered serious depression in the wake of September 11 terrorist attacks in New York.

'I was really freaked out by the horrific experiences of that day,' Summer, who was at her Manhattan apartment during the 2001 attacks, once said.

'I couldn't go out, I didn't want to talk to anybody. I had to keep the blinds down and stay in my bedroom.'

Friends eventually intervened and the born-again Christian also found strength in her faith.

Paying their respects: Fans lays flowers on Donna Summer's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Remembered: Candles and a record by the late singer surround her star

'I went to church, and light came back into my soul,' she said in 2008. 'That heaviness was gone.'

Love to Love You Baby, with its erotic moans, was her first hit and one of the most scandalous songs of the polyester-and-platform-heel era.

Unlike some other stars of disco who faded as the music became less popular, Summer was able to grow beyond it and later segued to a pop-rock sound.

Family: Summer with her husband Bruce Sudano and their daughter Brooklyn in 2003. The couple also had another daughter together, Amanda. She had a daughter, Mimi, from a previous marriage
Legacy: Brooklyn with sister Amanda Sudanao in 2010 and, right, Donna in the early 70s with her then-husband Helmut Sommer, from whom she took a version of her later name Summer, and their daughter Mimi

She had one of her biggest hits in the 1980s with She Works Hard For The Money, which became another anthem, this time for women's rights.

Soon after, Summer became a born-again Christian and faced controversy when she was accused of making anti-gay comments in relation to the AIDS epidemic. Summer denied making the comments, but was the target of a boycott.

Still, even as disco went out of fashion she remained a fixture in dance clubs, endlessly sampled and remixed into contemporary dance hits.

Summer, real name LaDonna Adrian Gaines, was born in 1948 in Boston. She was raised on gospel music and became the soloist in her church choir by age 10.

Love to Love You Baby was her U.S. chart debut and the first of 19 No. 1 dance hits between 1975 and 2008 - second only to Madonna.

During the disco era she burned up the charts: She was the only artist to have three consecutive double-LPs hit No. 1, Live and More, `Bad Girls and On the Radio.

She was never comfortable with the 'Disco Queen' label. Musically, she began to change in 1979 with Hot Stuff, which had a tough, rock `n' roll beat.

Her diverse sound helped her earn Grammy Awards in the dance, rock, R&B and inspirational categories.

Dionne Warwick said in a statement that she was sad to lose a great performer and 'dear friend'.

'My heart goes out to her husband and her children,' Warwick said. 'Prayers will be said to keep them strong.'

Summer released her last album, Crayons, in 2008. It was her first full studio album in 17 years. She also performed on American Idol that year with its top female contestants.

Accolade: Posing in 1979 with the three awards she bagged at the Amerian Music Awards in Los Angeles and, right, performing later that year at the Universal Amphitheatre, also in LA

Passing of a legend: Donna's family say they are celebrating her fantastic legacy in the wake of her death, pictured here in Florida in 2008





TRIBUTES TO THE DISCO QUEEN

Dionne Warwick: 'My heart goes out to her husband and her children. Prayers will be said to keep them strong.'

Billy Ray Cyrus: "R I P #Donna Summer LEGEND!!! Your music will live forever.'

Gloria Estefan: 'Few singers have impacted music & the world like Donna Summer! It's the end of an era... Peace & prayers 2 all who loved her. I will miss her!'

La Toya Jackson: 'My condolence to #Donna Summer's family & love ones. She will be terribly missed. She was truly the #Disco Queen!'

Timbaland (music producer): 'This cant be tru. i cant believe this RIP Donna Summer. at a lost 4words.'

Russell Simmons: 'RIP Donna Summer'

Ellen DeGeneres: 'I'm so sad about the news that Donna Summer died this morning. I was a big fan. I even used one of her songs in my show that airs today.'

Quincy Jones: 'Rest in Peace dead Donna Summer. Your voice was the heartbeat and soundtrack of a decade.'

Ricky Martin: 'RIP Donna Summer :0('