Saturday, June 2, 2012
The Chronicles of Blunder Boy
NOBAMA 2012
The man started his presidency off with a bang by botching his oath of office.
For good measure, he set the tone for it by blaming Chief Justice John Roberts for the error.
Obama promises on the campaign trail to immediately shut down Guantanamo Bay. The detention facility is open three years later and counting.
In the same breath, he promises to restore habeus corpus. Three years into his term, he signs the National Defense Authorization Act, which leaves open the possibility of indefinite detention of American citizens.
President Obama ordered the assassination of an American citizen.
As Senator, Obama spoke out against but voted for the Patriot Act.
As President, he extended it, with an auto-pen, while he was in France.
Obama continues the “Bush practice” of extraordinary rendition.
As a candidate, Obama promises to end the War in Iraq and bring all troops home within 16 months. He even says in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do in office, and that “you can take that to the bank.” As president, he announces all troops would be withdrawn by the end of 2011 (34 months later).
Obama states the Afghan War would conclude in June 2011, but projections now have us running into 2014.
As Senator, Obama opposes the surge in Iraq. He claims that increasing troop levels by 20,000 would actually increase sectarian violence.
When pulling troops out of Iraq, Obama tries to claim success for ending the war, without giving credit to Bush or the troops for any “victory.” The Bush surge was what turned the tide in the war.
Sectarian violence is up sharply since Obama pulled troops out of Iraq in December 2011.
President Obama refuses to say “victory” is necessarily the goal in Afghanistan. Obama reasons the U.S. should not project the image of Emperor Hirohito being forced to sign a treaty of surrender before Macarthur to end the war against Japan.
Emperor Hirohito did not sign the treaty of surrender ending the war against Japan. It was his foreign minister Shigemitsu.
Obama plans to ease travel restrictions to communist Cuba in 2009. And in 2011.
The president pledges a “new beginning” with the Cuban dictatorial regime.
A glance at a Cuban-U.S. relations timeline running to December 2011 shows nothing changed.
President Obama greets Venezuela’s socialist dictator Hugo Chavez warmly at the Summit of the Americas.
Earlier that month, Chavez calls Obama an “ignoramus.”
At the same summit, President Obama sits patiently through a 50 minute diatribe against the United States delivered by socialist strongman Daniel Ortega, only scribbling notes instead of walking out with his diplomatic team.
President Obama meets a grinning Daniel Ortega at the same summit.
When asked later by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper what he thought of the anti-American tirade, President Obama replies, “It was 50 minutes long. That’s what I thought.”
The attempted subversion of the rule of law in Honduras by the socialist president Zelaya, which would have unconstitutionally put him on the ballot for a third term, prompts his judicial removal from office. Obama condemns the supposed “coup” as “not legal.”
President Obama directs his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to cut off $30 million in aid to Honduras.
More
H/T to Big Fur Hat
The man started his presidency off with a bang by botching his oath of office.
For good measure, he set the tone for it by blaming Chief Justice John Roberts for the error.
Obama promises on the campaign trail to immediately shut down Guantanamo Bay. The detention facility is open three years later and counting.
In the same breath, he promises to restore habeus corpus. Three years into his term, he signs the National Defense Authorization Act, which leaves open the possibility of indefinite detention of American citizens.
President Obama ordered the assassination of an American citizen.
As Senator, Obama spoke out against but voted for the Patriot Act.
As President, he extended it, with an auto-pen, while he was in France.
Obama continues the “Bush practice” of extraordinary rendition.
As a candidate, Obama promises to end the War in Iraq and bring all troops home within 16 months. He even says in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do in office, and that “you can take that to the bank.” As president, he announces all troops would be withdrawn by the end of 2011 (34 months later).
Obama states the Afghan War would conclude in June 2011, but projections now have us running into 2014.
As Senator, Obama opposes the surge in Iraq. He claims that increasing troop levels by 20,000 would actually increase sectarian violence.
When pulling troops out of Iraq, Obama tries to claim success for ending the war, without giving credit to Bush or the troops for any “victory.” The Bush surge was what turned the tide in the war.
Sectarian violence is up sharply since Obama pulled troops out of Iraq in December 2011.
President Obama refuses to say “victory” is necessarily the goal in Afghanistan. Obama reasons the U.S. should not project the image of Emperor Hirohito being forced to sign a treaty of surrender before Macarthur to end the war against Japan.
Emperor Hirohito did not sign the treaty of surrender ending the war against Japan. It was his foreign minister Shigemitsu.
Obama plans to ease travel restrictions to communist Cuba in 2009. And in 2011.
The president pledges a “new beginning” with the Cuban dictatorial regime.
A glance at a Cuban-U.S. relations timeline running to December 2011 shows nothing changed.
President Obama greets Venezuela’s socialist dictator Hugo Chavez warmly at the Summit of the Americas.
Earlier that month, Chavez calls Obama an “ignoramus.”
At the same summit, President Obama sits patiently through a 50 minute diatribe against the United States delivered by socialist strongman Daniel Ortega, only scribbling notes instead of walking out with his diplomatic team.
President Obama meets a grinning Daniel Ortega at the same summit.
When asked later by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper what he thought of the anti-American tirade, President Obama replies, “It was 50 minutes long. That’s what I thought.”
The attempted subversion of the rule of law in Honduras by the socialist president Zelaya, which would have unconstitutionally put him on the ballot for a third term, prompts his judicial removal from office. Obama condemns the supposed “coup” as “not legal.”
President Obama directs his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to cut off $30 million in aid to Honduras.
More
H/T to Big Fur Hat
Full Focus Photos of the week Our top photos from the past week. See more Images of May Follow Reuters Facebook Twitter RSS YouTube Read Louisiana's bold bid to privatize schools 01 Jun 2012 Medical marijuana legalized in Connecticut 01 Jun 2012 U.S. publishes satellite images of Syria 01 Jun 2012 NY mayor blasts sugar ban critics: "That's a lot of soda" 01 Jun 2012 Top Italy banker says risk of euro breakup growing 01 Jun 2012 Discussed 278 NY mayor blasts sugar ban critics: ”That’s a lot of soda” 213 Romney’s birth certificate evokes his father’s controversy 156 Romney tells vets dangerous world demands powerful military Watched A look at the UK’s most beautiful face Thu, May 10 2012 France, Russia at odds over Syria Fri, Jun 1 2012 Cruise ship crunch Sat, May 26 2012 Pictures Reuters Photojournalism Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography. See more | Photo caption Long live the Queen Britain gets ready to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee. Slideshow The autistic mind Scenes from a home with two autistic children. Slideshow U.S. will put more warships in Asia: Panetta
Friday, June 1, 2012
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Ed Schultz: If Romney wins this election, there’ll never be another Democratic president
I’m torn between posting this for the sheer joy of laughing at a leftist blowhard who’s struggling to cope with looming defeat in Wisconsin and wondering if anyone can really be so stupid, including him, as to believe it.
This is basically the liberal-hack version of a religious prophesy. If Scott Walker isn’t sacrificed to appease the gods then, yea, a thousand years of darkness shall fall upon the land.
This is basically the liberal-hack version of a religious prophesy. If Scott Walker isn’t sacrificed to appease the gods then, yea, a thousand years of darkness shall fall upon the land.
Chris Christie taxes the internet: imposes "Amazon Tax" on New Jersey by fiat
Governor Christie has decided to tax the internet. Because conservatives love new taxes........
Obama is a Big Black Cloud, says Ed Schultz
This video from Breitbart.tv (h/t Larry O’Connor) shows one of the most blatant, race-baiting moments in recent memory. But not from the person MSNBC wants you to think it came from.
Oxfam: Sale of ammunition 'must be regulated'
It comes ahead of a United Nations summit in July on bringing in a new arms trade treaty to regulate the sale of arms.
Oxfam is arguing that any treaty must also regulate ammunition trade or the treaty "doesn't make sense".
The World's Second Biggest IPO This Year Could Be This Little-Known Commodities Giant
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysian palm oil giant Felda said Thursday its initial public offering this month could raise up to 10.5 billion ringgit ($3.3 billion), making it the world's second-biggest IPO this year after Facebook....
Public Pensions and Free Speech
On May 25, 2012 I videotaped a judicial proceeding in New Jersey Superior Court having to do with the state elimination of cost-of-living adjustments for pensions.
Today this letter went out to the judge in that hearing with copies to the lead attorneys from Jean P. Reilly, Deputy Attorney General:
Today this letter went out to the judge in that hearing with copies to the lead attorneys from Jean P. Reilly, Deputy Attorney General:
20,000 Apply for 877 Jobs
Auto Jobs: Sign of the Times
It should not come as a surprise with unemployment over 8% that good paying jobs in manufacturing are harder than ever to land.
At the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Alabama more than 20,000 people have applied for one of the 877 job openings.
The surge of people applying may seem unusual, but it's not.
Take a look
It should not come as a surprise with unemployment over 8% that good paying jobs in manufacturing are harder than ever to land.
At the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Alabama more than 20,000 people have applied for one of the 877 job openings.
The surge of people applying may seem unusual, but it's not.
Take a look
White House defends drone attacks, 'kill list'
The White House responded Tuesday to criticism of the Obama administration’s use of drone attacks and a so-called “kill list,” saying President Obama will do what is necessary to protect Americans from harm.
Who Was Causeway Cannibal Rudy Eugene?
Police, relatives and friends are still trying to figure out what would cause Rudy Eugene, 31, to attack a homeless man, a complete stranger, and devour 75-percent of his face before getting shot and killed by a Miami police officer.
Why Jeremiah Wright Matters -- Still, Part II
Once upon a time, analysts, pundits and historians explored the relationship between a given subject and his father. We do so for possible insight into the subject's values, character, decision-making process, biases, interests, fears, etc. You know -- acorn, tree.
But the standard intellectual inquiry, for some reason, does not apply to the long, intimate relationship between Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who called himself a "second father" to young Barack..............
But the standard intellectual inquiry, for some reason, does not apply to the long, intimate relationship between Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who called himself a "second father" to young Barack..............
Obama broadens term 'civilian' in drone wars
Report: Obama embraces disputed definition of 'civilian' in drone wars
Two U.S. reports published Tuesday provide significant insights into President Obama’s personal and controversial role in the escalating covert U.S. drone war in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
Two U.S. reports published Tuesday provide significant insights into President Obama’s personal and controversial role in the escalating covert U.S. drone war in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
One of Obama’s Earliest Supporters Defects
Artur Davis is an impressive guy. Here is how Howard Fineman of Newsweek described him in the course of a 2008 article hailing Barack Obama as “a symbol of a new generation of leadership.”
Where's George W Bush? How a two-term president became the quiet man of US politics
George W Bush returns to the White House on Thursday for the unveiling of his official portrait. But where has the lesser-spotted 43rd President been hiding? Jon Swaine visited Dallas to find out more.....
Bloomberg to Outlaw Large Soft Drinks
Is it possible for New York city Mayor Michael Bloomberg to be considered both a fascist and a national laughing stock? We're about to find out...
Elizabeth Warren challenged by Cherokee group
A group of Cherokees have organized and launched a website disputing Elizabeth Warren’s claims to Native American heritage.
Some 150 people purporting to be “concerned” members and descendants of three Cherokee tribes have put up a new website called “Cherokees Demand Truth From Elizabeth Warren.”
Some 150 people purporting to be “concerned” members and descendants of three Cherokee tribes have put up a new website called “Cherokees Demand Truth From Elizabeth Warren.”
Poll Shows Overwhelming Support For Sarah Palin to be Mitt Romney’s Vice President
Poll Shows Overwhelming Support For Sarah Palin to be Mitt Romney’s Vice President: What it Means
Barack Obama—Friend of Jews, Scholar of Judaism
Earlier Tuesday afternoon, Obama and White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew met about 20 Conservative Jewish community leaders. ...
I'm not going to tell you again how I even feel about Israel.......
I'm not going to tell you again how I even feel about Israel.......
Barrett Can't Name Any Schools Hurt by Walker's Collective Bargaining Reforms
Milwaukee
Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is facing a recall election on June 5 because of the law he signed last spring to limit the collective bargaining power of public employee unions--a reform his opponents said would be a "disaster" and destroy public education in the state. Walker's Democratic challenger, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, acknowledged this morning that the collective bargaining issue was the "flame that started this" recall election, but Barrett couldn't point to a single public school that has been harmed by Walker's reforms.
Here's a transcript from a press conference at Barrett's campaign headquarters in Milwaukee Wednesday morning:
Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is facing a recall election on June 5 because of the law he signed last spring to limit the collective bargaining power of public employee unions--a reform his opponents said would be a "disaster" and destroy public education in the state. Walker's Democratic challenger, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, acknowledged this morning that the collective bargaining issue was the "flame that started this" recall election, but Barrett couldn't point to a single public school that has been harmed by Walker's reforms.
Here's a transcript from a press conference at Barrett's campaign headquarters in Milwaukee Wednesday morning:
Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Were Tortured With Sesame Street
Guantanamo Bay prisoners were reportedly tortured with the sounds of children’s Sesame Street songs, in an attempt to get them to talk.
Al Jazeera reports that Thomas Keenan, a human rights researcher, explained that:
Al Jazeera reports that Thomas Keenan, a human rights researcher, explained that:
North Korea declares itself nuclear state in new constitution
North Korea is known to have officially declared itself a nuclear state in a constitutional revision made last month.
The amendment also replaced an article on the post of chairman of the National Defense Commission that had been held by the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il with one on the new position of first chairman for his son and successor Kim Jong Un.
The Stalinist country on Wednesday released the full text of its constitution for the first time on the North`s propaganda website "Naenara (My Nation)."
The amendment also replaced an article on the post of chairman of the National Defense Commission that had been held by the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il with one on the new position of first chairman for his son and successor Kim Jong Un.
The Stalinist country on Wednesday released the full text of its constitution for the first time on the North`s propaganda website "Naenara (My Nation)."
Teacher caught kissing her boy-toy student
They look like a picture-perfect young couple kissing in the park.
The problem is, she’s his high-school teacher.
Stunning global-studies instructor Julie Warning got a bit too worldly with a pupil in the middle of a Greenwich Village park after school — and the makeout session was caught on camera by one of her own stunned students.
The problem is, she’s his high-school teacher.
Stunning global-studies instructor Julie Warning got a bit too worldly with a pupil in the middle of a Greenwich Village park after school — and the makeout session was caught on camera by one of her own stunned students.
Filmmaker Fires Up Conservative Base With Breitbart's 'Two Paths' Message
In his latest "About-to-go-viral" video, filmmaker Ben Howe uses Andrew Breitbart's inspiring words at CPAC 2012 as inspiration to fire up voters hoping for change in November. "There are two paths..."
Obama celebrates Jewish petitioning of government
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- President Obama celebrated the values of communities petitioning government at a White House reception honoring Jewish American Heritage Month.
"We don’t just celebrate all that American Jews have done for our country; we also look toward the future," he said. "And as we do, I know that those of you in this room, but folks all across this country will continue to help perfect our union; and for that, I am extraordinarily grateful."
"We don’t just celebrate all that American Jews have done for our country; we also look toward the future," he said. "And as we do, I know that those of you in this room, but folks all across this country will continue to help perfect our union; and for that, I am extraordinarily grateful."
Obama Administration: $1.4 Million in Summer Jobs Spending on Watching Birds, Counting Fish
Correction: This story initially reported that this segment of the jobs program would spend $3.7 million in federal funding when, in fact, $1.4 million will be provided by the federal government and $2.3 million by private partners working with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, for a total of $3.7 million in competitive grants.
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced $1.4 million in spending as part of President Obama’s Summer Jobs+ program, saying the money will go to hire 500 young people, "particularly urban and minority youth," to work on government projects over the coming summer.
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced $1.4 million in spending as part of President Obama’s Summer Jobs+ program, saying the money will go to hire 500 young people, "particularly urban and minority youth," to work on government projects over the coming summer.
Chicago's murder rate mirrors war zone, federal data shows
With NATO summit over, city’s crime back on front-burner
If Chicago were a war zone, it would be a deadlier one for Americans than Afghanistan.
In fact, according to the Department of Defense and FBI data, the number of Chicagoans murdered is two and a half times U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
If Chicago were a war zone, it would be a deadlier one for Americans than Afghanistan.
In fact, according to the Department of Defense and FBI data, the number of Chicagoans murdered is two and a half times U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
Students Press for Action on Immigration
NYT:
Young illegal immigrants, saying President Obama has done little to diminish the threat of deportations they face despite repeated promises, have started a campaign to press him to use executive powers to allow them to remain legally in the country.
Young illegal immigrants, saying President Obama has done little to diminish the threat of deportations they face despite repeated promises, have started a campaign to press him to use executive powers to allow them to remain legally in the country.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
The Control Freak President
So Obama, like every good control freak, has this plan apparently.
Yeah. That’s the first thing that should make you wary.
It’s plan that you are probably familiar with.
Or to put it a better way, it’s another plan that will give you kind of sick, eerie feeling, like so many of his other plans that involve top-down government planning.
Remember when he combated the growing instability in world oil supplies and prices by making the price of oil go up even faster- twice?
Or that time when he ushered in a golden era for solar power by throwing money into manufacturing capacity in solar when there was no actual demand for solar products, thereby decimating the solar industry?
Or that time that he harangued us about fiscal discipline while he was spending money left and right and couldn’t even pass a budget? He called it “eating our peas.”
It’s like any one of those wonderful plans that worked out so well for all of us- and went exactly as planned for Obama, control freak.
Ok, so the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is warning that cuts in government spending along with automatic tax increases from the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will spur a recession in the first half of next year unless Congress and the president act before the 1st of the year.
Oh, their first mistake: They gave Obama a timetable. Control freaks have problems with timetables.
Does the CBO know that the president really doesn’t like timetables? They should ask Congressional Republicans about the timetable that they had with the Keystone pipeline. Or maybe ask S&P about their timetable on the debt ceiling debate last summer before S&P downgraded U.S. debt.
A control freak would rather do anything- even fail- than deal with a timetable.
“The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) fired off a warning Tuesday to our nation and its leaders in Washington,” writes Fox News’ Gretchen Hamel. “The CBO told us that the United States of America is headed toward a fiscal cliff and that if we do indeed fall off, it will have profound effects on our country and world economy. The CBO projects that if Congress does not act to prevent coming tax increases and spending cuts, a recession is certain. The CBO estimates gross domestic product would decline by as much as 1.3 percent if lawmakers don’t act.”
So here’s Obama’s plan to protect us all from an economy under assault by tax increases: more tax increases.
Yes. That’s right. Talk about control freak.
Obama wants to ensure our economic prosperity now threatened by tax increases by increasing taxes. Because, at least that way, Obama’s still in control.
This reminds me of a story from Abraham Lincoln.
An old friend from Illinois died after his disloyal comments about the Union set his neighbors against him.
“Blank is dead,” a friend informed Lincoln, “His extremely disloyal sentiments so provoked his neighbors that there was serious talk of inflicting vengeance on him, and he was found dead in bed—caused largely by fright.”
“He died, then,” replied Lincoln dryly, “to save his life, it seems.”
Like Obama, there's an example of extreme control-freakishness.
So Obama wants to save our economic life by first killing our economy through tax increases because, while it won’t help the rest of us, above all, it will give the government more control.
And it’s this repeated policy mistake that’s been killing us.
Whether it’s been Obamcare, or lack of a budget, or the debt ceiling, or a massive new regulatory schemes like Dodd-Frank- long on cost and short on benefit- the dreadful uncertainty of the control economy under Team Obama is frightening business and taxpayers to death.
Not coincidentally, consumers are reacting with peevishness.
“Americans confidence in the economy suffered the biggest drop in eight months,” reports Boston.com “as worries about the weak jobs, housing and stock markets rattled them again. The decline comes after a few months of optimism amid some positive economic news.”
The confidence index now stands at 64.9 from a bounce of 68.7 last month. Any time the measurement stands under 100, the incumbent president is going to have a hard time controlling his own destiny.
And don’t look for the economy to improve much over the summer either. Gas prices haven’t declined that much to make up for the sharp increase at the pump. While the stock market rallied a bit on good dividend news, investors have moved on from the quarterly distribution of loaves and fishes.
Government spending is certainly a component of our GDP, but it’s time we recognized that business and consumer spending are much more important components.
And time that the government stopped killing those components by seeking arbitrary control.
Because really, they're a bunch of freaks.
SOURCE: Townhall.com
Yeah. That’s the first thing that should make you wary.
It’s plan that you are probably familiar with.
Or to put it a better way, it’s another plan that will give you kind of sick, eerie feeling, like so many of his other plans that involve top-down government planning.
Remember when he combated the growing instability in world oil supplies and prices by making the price of oil go up even faster- twice?
Or that time when he ushered in a golden era for solar power by throwing money into manufacturing capacity in solar when there was no actual demand for solar products, thereby decimating the solar industry?
Or that time that he harangued us about fiscal discipline while he was spending money left and right and couldn’t even pass a budget? He called it “eating our peas.”
It’s like any one of those wonderful plans that worked out so well for all of us- and went exactly as planned for Obama, control freak.
Ok, so the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is warning that cuts in government spending along with automatic tax increases from the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will spur a recession in the first half of next year unless Congress and the president act before the 1st of the year.
Oh, their first mistake: They gave Obama a timetable. Control freaks have problems with timetables.
Does the CBO know that the president really doesn’t like timetables? They should ask Congressional Republicans about the timetable that they had with the Keystone pipeline. Or maybe ask S&P about their timetable on the debt ceiling debate last summer before S&P downgraded U.S. debt.
A control freak would rather do anything- even fail- than deal with a timetable.
“The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) fired off a warning Tuesday to our nation and its leaders in Washington,” writes Fox News’ Gretchen Hamel. “The CBO told us that the United States of America is headed toward a fiscal cliff and that if we do indeed fall off, it will have profound effects on our country and world economy. The CBO projects that if Congress does not act to prevent coming tax increases and spending cuts, a recession is certain. The CBO estimates gross domestic product would decline by as much as 1.3 percent if lawmakers don’t act.”
So here’s Obama’s plan to protect us all from an economy under assault by tax increases: more tax increases.
Yes. That’s right. Talk about control freak.
Obama wants to ensure our economic prosperity now threatened by tax increases by increasing taxes. Because, at least that way, Obama’s still in control.
This reminds me of a story from Abraham Lincoln.
An old friend from Illinois died after his disloyal comments about the Union set his neighbors against him.
“Blank is dead,” a friend informed Lincoln, “His extremely disloyal sentiments so provoked his neighbors that there was serious talk of inflicting vengeance on him, and he was found dead in bed—caused largely by fright.”
“He died, then,” replied Lincoln dryly, “to save his life, it seems.”
Like Obama, there's an example of extreme control-freakishness.
So Obama wants to save our economic life by first killing our economy through tax increases because, while it won’t help the rest of us, above all, it will give the government more control.
And it’s this repeated policy mistake that’s been killing us.
Whether it’s been Obamcare, or lack of a budget, or the debt ceiling, or a massive new regulatory schemes like Dodd-Frank- long on cost and short on benefit- the dreadful uncertainty of the control economy under Team Obama is frightening business and taxpayers to death.
Not coincidentally, consumers are reacting with peevishness.
“Americans confidence in the economy suffered the biggest drop in eight months,” reports Boston.com “as worries about the weak jobs, housing and stock markets rattled them again. The decline comes after a few months of optimism amid some positive economic news.”
The confidence index now stands at 64.9 from a bounce of 68.7 last month. Any time the measurement stands under 100, the incumbent president is going to have a hard time controlling his own destiny.
And don’t look for the economy to improve much over the summer either. Gas prices haven’t declined that much to make up for the sharp increase at the pump. While the stock market rallied a bit on good dividend news, investors have moved on from the quarterly distribution of loaves and fishes.
Government spending is certainly a component of our GDP, but it’s time we recognized that business and consumer spending are much more important components.
And time that the government stopped killing those components by seeking arbitrary control.
Because really, they're a bunch of freaks.
SOURCE: Townhall.com
Even in Coal Country, the Fight for an Industry
LOUISA, Ky. — For generations, coal has been king in this Appalachian town. It provided heat, light and jobs for the hundreds of people who worked in the nearby coal mines and the smoke-coughing Big Sandy power plant that burned their black bounty.
But now, coal is in a corner. Across the United States, the industry is under siege, threatened by new regulations from Washington, environmentalists fortified by money from Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York City, and natural gas companies intent on capturing much of the nation’s energy market.
So when the operator of the Big Sandy plant announced last year that it would be switching from coal to cleaner, cheaper natural gas, people here took it as the worst betrayal imaginable.
“Have you lost your mind?” State Representative Rocky Adkins, a Democrat and one of Kentucky’s most powerful politicians, thundered at Michael G. Morris, the chairman of the plant’s operator, American Electric Power, during an encounter last summer. “You cannot wave the white flag and let the environmentalists and regulators declare victory here in the heart of coal country.”
Coal and electric utilities, long allied, are beginning to split. More than 100 of the 500 or so coal-burning power plants in the United States are expected to be shut down in the next few years. While coal still provides about a third of the nation’s power, just four years ago it was providing nearly half.
The decline is largely because new pollution rules have made coal plants more costly, while a surge in production of natural gas through the process of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, has sent gas prices plummeting. Together, the economics of coal have been transformed after a century of dominance in Washington, state capitals and the board rooms of electric utilities.
“The math screams at you to do gas,” said Mr. Morris, whose company is the nation’s largest consumer of coal.
Environmental groups, after years of targeting coal plants as leading sources of air pollution, have moved in for the kill. “We never thought we would get to a place where coal plants are falling so fast,” said Bruce Nilles, the director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal initiative. It has been aided by $50 million from Mr. Bloomberg, who views the campaign as part of a public health effort, and $26 million from an odd bedfellow: the top official of a natural gas company.
The environmentalists figure that if they can shut down a third of the nation’s coal burning plants by 2020, emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States could be cut at least as much as they would have under a landmark 2009 climate bill that died in Congress.
But the coal industry is mustering all the weapons it can: lobbying, legislation, litigation and a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign trumpeting the benefits of “clean coal.” The fight has even become an issue in the presidential campaign, with the industry blaming President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency for the onslaught, and Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, hinting that he would roll back some of the rules.
Here in Kentucky, the intervention by Mr. Adkins and other coal industry advocates has saved coal at Big Sandy, at least temporarily. American Electric Power, which is based in Columbus, Ohio, is proposing a $1 billion retrofit to allow the plant to continue burning coal and has asked Kentucky regulators to approve a 30 percent increase in electricity rates to pay for the work.
But that request, which will come up for a vote by the state’s utility commission within the next week, has inspired resistance from some residents, large industrial companies that consume much of Kentucky’s electricity and even the state attorney general’s office.
Pressured on the domestic front, some giant American coal producers, like Arch Coal and Peabody Energy, are shifting their attention to markets overseas, where coal-fired power plants are being built faster than they are being abandoned in the United States.
Even if Big Sandy continues to eat up nine rail cars of coal a day, the industry’s decline is evident here. Sales to Midwestern power plants have slumped, as has the market price of coal, dropping so suddenly that many local mines are cutting back hours or closing. A warm winter, decreasing demand, only made matters worse.
“I call it the imperfect storm,” Mr. Adkins said. “And it is breaking the back of our local economy.”
A Coordinated Effort
The anger toward Washington is palpable in this impoverished corner of Eastern Kentucky, where miners display bumper stickers or license plates on their pickup trucks with slogans like “Coal Keeps the Lights On” or “If Obama Is the Answer, How Stupid Was the Question?”
It is hard to find anyone here who does not feel affected by the fate of Big Sandy. Just as the smokestack at the plant towers over the countryside, Big Sandy dominates much of life here.
Danny Sartin, 61, a barrel-chested heavy equipment operator at the plant, said his father, grandfathers and uncles all worked in local mines that feed Big Sandy. “Coal and the coal mining industry, it’s all we have ever known,” Mr. Sartin said.
Some of that coal comes from the Licking River mine, about 50 miles south of Big Sandy, where miners rip apart hillsides to reach vast seams just below the surface.
Chris Lacy, 41, an executive at Licking River Resources Inc., said layoffs among his 350 miners — in a county where unemployment is already 17.5 percent — are inevitable if the coal furnaces at Big Sandy go cold. Even the garden supply company that Mr. Lacy’s father-in-law owns and where his two sons work indirectly relies on Big Sandy, because mines are required to plant grass over the scarred earth they leave behind. “It is the ripple effect that comes right through us,” Mr. Lacy said.
Channeling the animosity toward Washington and fears about their livelihoods, coal producers, union leaders, landowners and railroads came together to pressure American Electric Power to back down on its plan to close the coal furnaces at Big Sandy. They have leaned on county judges, state legislators and other politicians to attempt to silence public criticism of the 30 percent electricity rate increase and to pressure the Kentucky Public Service Commission to approve the retrofit project.
Saving coal, they argued, justified the rate increase, which would cost the average residential customer about $472 a year in addition to the typical $1,580 annual bill today.
“I will grant you it is going to cost a lot of money to retrofit that plant,” said Nick Carter, the president of a company that represents landowners whose properties hold billions of tons of coal reserves. “But how many teachers will be laid off and how many churches will have to close if Big Sandy stops burning coal?”
At Dee’s Drive Inn Restaurant, a fixture on Main Street in Louisa, the patrons are split.
Fred Klinebriel, 58, a disabled former steelworker, said his father was a mine worker and his brother a trucker who moved coal. But if keeping coal means an even bigger electric bill, he is not sure it is worth it. “I am up against the wall right now as it is,” he said. “I guess you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t — or at least we are here in coal country.”
Environmental Issues
What went largely unspoken in the dozens of pages of e-mails, letters and other pitches these players have churned out in the fight to keep the plant open were the perils of coal, which extend far beyond mine accidents and black lung disease.
The Big Sandy plant spews tens of thousands of tons of pollutants each year into the region’s air, including sulfur dioxide and smaller amounts of mercury, which can cause health problems like respiratory illnesses and possibly developmental disabilities among children. Many of these pollutants would be significantly reduced with the retrofit, but the plant would continue to be a major source of carbon dioxide, which is blamed for global warming.
Big Sandy also maintains a sprawling coal ash pit near the plant, created to store waste ash after the coal is burned, that the E.P.A. recently listed as one of 45 “high hazard” pits nationwide. That means it “will probably cause loss of human life,” the E.P.A. says, if a serious accident occurs. In Tennessee in 2008, a billion gallons of slurry from a coal ash pit washed out area homes and streams, though no deaths resulted.
Meanwhile, federal regulators have accused the owners of Licking River of dumping debris, known as spoil, from another nearby mine into a local valley, harming wildlife and an intermittent local stream.
Mr. Lacy, the Licking River executive, says such concerns are overblown. Instead, he talks of a conspiracy by environmentalists and the Obama administration to destroy the way of life here in Kentucky.
“I at least have to give them some credit,” he said. “It has been well played on their part, very methodical, step by step.”
Some of the regulations the industry finds objectionable, though, had their origins in a Republican administration. In 1990, President George Bush proposed and Congress approved sweeping revisions to the Clean Air Act, authorizing the E.P.A. to regulate emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxic airborne chemicals. The agency determined in 2000 that it had the power to limit such emissions from power plants, but a weak rule issued under the second Bush administration was successfully challenged in court by environmental advocates.
The Obama administration, acting under court order, issued new standards in December that would require more emissions reductions by all but the top-performing plants. Gina McCarthy, the director of the Office of Air and Radiation at the E.P.A., said that accusations of collusion between the agency and environmental advocates were unfounded.
“Coal will continue to be a large part of electric generation in this county for a long time,” Ms. McCarthy said in an interview. “I just hope it is cleaner.”
Mr. Lacy is hardly convinced. As he drove through the Licking River mine during a shift change one recent afternoon, his face reddened.
“If they keep this up, the people who live here are going to have to move somewhere else, like during the Depression,” he said. “This place is suffering in a bad way.”
Unlikely Allies
Tacked up on the wall in a cramped office in Columbus, Ohio, that serves as the Midwest headquarters for the Sierra Club is a map of the United States with the headline “Coal Plants Under Target.” Dozens of color-coded pins form a giant U shape — from Minnesota, south to Missouri, east to Kentucky and then up to Ohio — with each marking a plant that the Sierra Club is determined to shut down.
For years, the group filed lawsuits to try to force utilities or federal regulators to comply with pollution-control laws and organized public opinion campaigns to try to block the construction of plants. But the change in the energy marketplace has given the environmentalists an extraordinary new weapon: the pocketbooks of consumers.
“The coal industry used to be able to get away with murder, here in Ohio and throughout Appalachia,” said Nachy Kanfer, 27, a Sierra Club organizer. “Not anymore.”
In late April, Mr. Kanfer and other Sierra Club staff members traveled to Kentucky to testify before the Kentucky Public Service Commission. They argued that American Electric Power should not be allowed to retrofit Big Sandy — an argument they are making in many states — because there are less expensive alternatives to deliver power.
Elsewhere, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups are also pressing local officials in metropolitan areas to help shut down coal-burning power plants. In Chicago, for example, Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently announced that the city’s last two coal-fired plants would close in 2014, four years earlier than expected.
One of the most important early allies in this fight was Aubrey K. McClendon, the chief executive of Chesapeake Energy, who donated $26 million starting in 2007 to help the Sierra Club with its campaign.
The company also donated millions of dollars more to the American Lung Association, which used the money, in part, to run “Fighting for Air” television commercials. Some of the most recent ads in the campaign feature a baby coughing, wheezing and then crying while sitting outside a coal-fired power plant.
The Sierra Club came under attack from other environmental activists for accepting money from Mr. McClendon, whose company has a financial interest in killing off its competition but burns a fossil fuel itself. Mr. Nilles, the director of Beyond Coal, now views it as a mistake. “We would not do it again,” he said.
Other deep-pocketed donors have stepped in, including Mr. Bloomberg, whose intervention has infuriated Kentucky officials like Mr. Adkins, the legislator.
“Mayor Bloomberg should stay in that high-rise condo or his mansions,” Mr. Adkins said, “and eat his caviar while we keep his lights on in New York City.”
Big Coal has hardly conceded defeat in this multifront war.
The industry has increased political campaign contributions in the last four years to historic levels, with 80 percent of those donations going to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Companies like Arch Coal, which used to spend only about $100,000 a year on lobbyists in Washington, invested $5.7 million to push its case during the first three years of the Obama administration.
And even as American Electric Power plans to close 5 of its 21 coal-burning plants and rely much more on natural gas, it still intends to retrofit 12 plants. That means it will be burning coal for years to come. A rise in natural gas prices could also slow the decline of coal as a power source. So the company has joined with old allies in Washington to try to delay the new rules and block any future ones.
The industry and its supporters have also gone to court, filing lawsuits challenging E.P.A. rules that limit pollution from coal-burning plants from crossing state lines and the mountaintop mining rules that are holding up new permits in Kentucky and West Virginia — legal fights that the industry has had some success with so far.
But the regional agency that coordinates electric power delivery in the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest cannot wait for the battles to be resolved. This month, it auctioned off the rights for utility companies to supply electricity that will be needed to make up for what is lost through coal plant retirements. Most of the new power is fueled by natural gas.
“It’s an unprecedented transition,” said Michael J. Kormos, senior vice president for operations at PJM Interconnection, the regional group that coordinates power delivery for 60 million people in 13 states. “But whatever happens, we have to make sure we keep the lights on.”
John M. Broder contributed reporting from Washington.
SOURCE: Yahoo Finance
But now, coal is in a corner. Across the United States, the industry is under siege, threatened by new regulations from Washington, environmentalists fortified by money from Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York City, and natural gas companies intent on capturing much of the nation’s energy market.
So when the operator of the Big Sandy plant announced last year that it would be switching from coal to cleaner, cheaper natural gas, people here took it as the worst betrayal imaginable.
“Have you lost your mind?” State Representative Rocky Adkins, a Democrat and one of Kentucky’s most powerful politicians, thundered at Michael G. Morris, the chairman of the plant’s operator, American Electric Power, during an encounter last summer. “You cannot wave the white flag and let the environmentalists and regulators declare victory here in the heart of coal country.”
Coal and electric utilities, long allied, are beginning to split. More than 100 of the 500 or so coal-burning power plants in the United States are expected to be shut down in the next few years. While coal still provides about a third of the nation’s power, just four years ago it was providing nearly half.
The decline is largely because new pollution rules have made coal plants more costly, while a surge in production of natural gas through the process of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, has sent gas prices plummeting. Together, the economics of coal have been transformed after a century of dominance in Washington, state capitals and the board rooms of electric utilities.
“The math screams at you to do gas,” said Mr. Morris, whose company is the nation’s largest consumer of coal.
Environmental groups, after years of targeting coal plants as leading sources of air pollution, have moved in for the kill. “We never thought we would get to a place where coal plants are falling so fast,” said Bruce Nilles, the director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal initiative. It has been aided by $50 million from Mr. Bloomberg, who views the campaign as part of a public health effort, and $26 million from an odd bedfellow: the top official of a natural gas company.
The environmentalists figure that if they can shut down a third of the nation’s coal burning plants by 2020, emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States could be cut at least as much as they would have under a landmark 2009 climate bill that died in Congress.
But the coal industry is mustering all the weapons it can: lobbying, legislation, litigation and a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign trumpeting the benefits of “clean coal.” The fight has even become an issue in the presidential campaign, with the industry blaming President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency for the onslaught, and Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, hinting that he would roll back some of the rules.
Here in Kentucky, the intervention by Mr. Adkins and other coal industry advocates has saved coal at Big Sandy, at least temporarily. American Electric Power, which is based in Columbus, Ohio, is proposing a $1 billion retrofit to allow the plant to continue burning coal and has asked Kentucky regulators to approve a 30 percent increase in electricity rates to pay for the work.
But that request, which will come up for a vote by the state’s utility commission within the next week, has inspired resistance from some residents, large industrial companies that consume much of Kentucky’s electricity and even the state attorney general’s office.
Pressured on the domestic front, some giant American coal producers, like Arch Coal and Peabody Energy, are shifting their attention to markets overseas, where coal-fired power plants are being built faster than they are being abandoned in the United States.
Even if Big Sandy continues to eat up nine rail cars of coal a day, the industry’s decline is evident here. Sales to Midwestern power plants have slumped, as has the market price of coal, dropping so suddenly that many local mines are cutting back hours or closing. A warm winter, decreasing demand, only made matters worse.
“I call it the imperfect storm,” Mr. Adkins said. “And it is breaking the back of our local economy.”
A Coordinated Effort
The anger toward Washington is palpable in this impoverished corner of Eastern Kentucky, where miners display bumper stickers or license plates on their pickup trucks with slogans like “Coal Keeps the Lights On” or “If Obama Is the Answer, How Stupid Was the Question?”
It is hard to find anyone here who does not feel affected by the fate of Big Sandy. Just as the smokestack at the plant towers over the countryside, Big Sandy dominates much of life here.
Danny Sartin, 61, a barrel-chested heavy equipment operator at the plant, said his father, grandfathers and uncles all worked in local mines that feed Big Sandy. “Coal and the coal mining industry, it’s all we have ever known,” Mr. Sartin said.
Some of that coal comes from the Licking River mine, about 50 miles south of Big Sandy, where miners rip apart hillsides to reach vast seams just below the surface.
Chris Lacy, 41, an executive at Licking River Resources Inc., said layoffs among his 350 miners — in a county where unemployment is already 17.5 percent — are inevitable if the coal furnaces at Big Sandy go cold. Even the garden supply company that Mr. Lacy’s father-in-law owns and where his two sons work indirectly relies on Big Sandy, because mines are required to plant grass over the scarred earth they leave behind. “It is the ripple effect that comes right through us,” Mr. Lacy said.
Channeling the animosity toward Washington and fears about their livelihoods, coal producers, union leaders, landowners and railroads came together to pressure American Electric Power to back down on its plan to close the coal furnaces at Big Sandy. They have leaned on county judges, state legislators and other politicians to attempt to silence public criticism of the 30 percent electricity rate increase and to pressure the Kentucky Public Service Commission to approve the retrofit project.
Saving coal, they argued, justified the rate increase, which would cost the average residential customer about $472 a year in addition to the typical $1,580 annual bill today.
“I will grant you it is going to cost a lot of money to retrofit that plant,” said Nick Carter, the president of a company that represents landowners whose properties hold billions of tons of coal reserves. “But how many teachers will be laid off and how many churches will have to close if Big Sandy stops burning coal?”
At Dee’s Drive Inn Restaurant, a fixture on Main Street in Louisa, the patrons are split.
Fred Klinebriel, 58, a disabled former steelworker, said his father was a mine worker and his brother a trucker who moved coal. But if keeping coal means an even bigger electric bill, he is not sure it is worth it. “I am up against the wall right now as it is,” he said. “I guess you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t — or at least we are here in coal country.”
Environmental Issues
What went largely unspoken in the dozens of pages of e-mails, letters and other pitches these players have churned out in the fight to keep the plant open were the perils of coal, which extend far beyond mine accidents and black lung disease.
The Big Sandy plant spews tens of thousands of tons of pollutants each year into the region’s air, including sulfur dioxide and smaller amounts of mercury, which can cause health problems like respiratory illnesses and possibly developmental disabilities among children. Many of these pollutants would be significantly reduced with the retrofit, but the plant would continue to be a major source of carbon dioxide, which is blamed for global warming.
Big Sandy also maintains a sprawling coal ash pit near the plant, created to store waste ash after the coal is burned, that the E.P.A. recently listed as one of 45 “high hazard” pits nationwide. That means it “will probably cause loss of human life,” the E.P.A. says, if a serious accident occurs. In Tennessee in 2008, a billion gallons of slurry from a coal ash pit washed out area homes and streams, though no deaths resulted.
Meanwhile, federal regulators have accused the owners of Licking River of dumping debris, known as spoil, from another nearby mine into a local valley, harming wildlife and an intermittent local stream.
Mr. Lacy, the Licking River executive, says such concerns are overblown. Instead, he talks of a conspiracy by environmentalists and the Obama administration to destroy the way of life here in Kentucky.
“I at least have to give them some credit,” he said. “It has been well played on their part, very methodical, step by step.”
Some of the regulations the industry finds objectionable, though, had their origins in a Republican administration. In 1990, President George Bush proposed and Congress approved sweeping revisions to the Clean Air Act, authorizing the E.P.A. to regulate emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxic airborne chemicals. The agency determined in 2000 that it had the power to limit such emissions from power plants, but a weak rule issued under the second Bush administration was successfully challenged in court by environmental advocates.
The Obama administration, acting under court order, issued new standards in December that would require more emissions reductions by all but the top-performing plants. Gina McCarthy, the director of the Office of Air and Radiation at the E.P.A., said that accusations of collusion between the agency and environmental advocates were unfounded.
“Coal will continue to be a large part of electric generation in this county for a long time,” Ms. McCarthy said in an interview. “I just hope it is cleaner.”
Mr. Lacy is hardly convinced. As he drove through the Licking River mine during a shift change one recent afternoon, his face reddened.
“If they keep this up, the people who live here are going to have to move somewhere else, like during the Depression,” he said. “This place is suffering in a bad way.”
Unlikely Allies
Tacked up on the wall in a cramped office in Columbus, Ohio, that serves as the Midwest headquarters for the Sierra Club is a map of the United States with the headline “Coal Plants Under Target.” Dozens of color-coded pins form a giant U shape — from Minnesota, south to Missouri, east to Kentucky and then up to Ohio — with each marking a plant that the Sierra Club is determined to shut down.
For years, the group filed lawsuits to try to force utilities or federal regulators to comply with pollution-control laws and organized public opinion campaigns to try to block the construction of plants. But the change in the energy marketplace has given the environmentalists an extraordinary new weapon: the pocketbooks of consumers.
“The coal industry used to be able to get away with murder, here in Ohio and throughout Appalachia,” said Nachy Kanfer, 27, a Sierra Club organizer. “Not anymore.”
In late April, Mr. Kanfer and other Sierra Club staff members traveled to Kentucky to testify before the Kentucky Public Service Commission. They argued that American Electric Power should not be allowed to retrofit Big Sandy — an argument they are making in many states — because there are less expensive alternatives to deliver power.
Elsewhere, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups are also pressing local officials in metropolitan areas to help shut down coal-burning power plants. In Chicago, for example, Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently announced that the city’s last two coal-fired plants would close in 2014, four years earlier than expected.
One of the most important early allies in this fight was Aubrey K. McClendon, the chief executive of Chesapeake Energy, who donated $26 million starting in 2007 to help the Sierra Club with its campaign.
The company also donated millions of dollars more to the American Lung Association, which used the money, in part, to run “Fighting for Air” television commercials. Some of the most recent ads in the campaign feature a baby coughing, wheezing and then crying while sitting outside a coal-fired power plant.
The Sierra Club came under attack from other environmental activists for accepting money from Mr. McClendon, whose company has a financial interest in killing off its competition but burns a fossil fuel itself. Mr. Nilles, the director of Beyond Coal, now views it as a mistake. “We would not do it again,” he said.
Other deep-pocketed donors have stepped in, including Mr. Bloomberg, whose intervention has infuriated Kentucky officials like Mr. Adkins, the legislator.
“Mayor Bloomberg should stay in that high-rise condo or his mansions,” Mr. Adkins said, “and eat his caviar while we keep his lights on in New York City.”
Big Coal has hardly conceded defeat in this multifront war.
The industry has increased political campaign contributions in the last four years to historic levels, with 80 percent of those donations going to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Companies like Arch Coal, which used to spend only about $100,000 a year on lobbyists in Washington, invested $5.7 million to push its case during the first three years of the Obama administration.
And even as American Electric Power plans to close 5 of its 21 coal-burning plants and rely much more on natural gas, it still intends to retrofit 12 plants. That means it will be burning coal for years to come. A rise in natural gas prices could also slow the decline of coal as a power source. So the company has joined with old allies in Washington to try to delay the new rules and block any future ones.
The industry and its supporters have also gone to court, filing lawsuits challenging E.P.A. rules that limit pollution from coal-burning plants from crossing state lines and the mountaintop mining rules that are holding up new permits in Kentucky and West Virginia — legal fights that the industry has had some success with so far.
But the regional agency that coordinates electric power delivery in the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest cannot wait for the battles to be resolved. This month, it auctioned off the rights for utility companies to supply electricity that will be needed to make up for what is lost through coal plant retirements. Most of the new power is fueled by natural gas.
“It’s an unprecedented transition,” said Michael J. Kormos, senior vice president for operations at PJM Interconnection, the regional group that coordinates power delivery for 60 million people in 13 states. “But whatever happens, we have to make sure we keep the lights on.”
John M. Broder contributed reporting from Washington.
SOURCE: Yahoo Finance
Louisiana Set to Pass Landmark Pro-Gun Constitution Changes
The Louisiana House is backing a plan to rewrite the state constitutional protections in such a way that would give Louisiana the strongest pro-gun protection laws in the country. The objective of the plan is to protect the Second Amendment from judges who might want to tamper with Louisiana gun laws.
Sen. Neil Riser received backing from the NRA as he pushed the bill through the House, earning a 77-22 vote. A supporter of the bill, Rep. Jay Morris, stated, "The right to bear arms is something that's fundamental. We just need to make sure it stays that way."
So, what would the bill do, exactly? Right now the Louisiana Constitution reads, "The right of each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on the person." Basically, this bill would take an eraser to everything after the word "infringed."
Opponents of the bill fear that it would give grounds to question every single existing gun law in the state. Rep. Patricia Smith is concerned that Louisiana will become a newer version of "the wild, wild West." Opponents also aren't sure why the bill is even necessary. They argue that there have been no threats against gun rights, so rewriting the Constitution now is simply unnecessary.
The bill will still need to undergo some minor revisions and receive the backing of voters in the Nov. 6 statewide election before it could be enacted.
SOURCE: Guns.com
White House: Obama 'misspoke' over Nazi death camp
White House tries to avoid diplomatic spat with Poland after president mistakenly calls Nazi transit camp 'Polish death camp'
The linguistic faux pas overshadowed President Barack Obama's posthumous award of America's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to Jan Karski, a former Polish underground officer who provided early eyewitness accounts of the Nazi purge against Jews.
"Before one trip across enemy lines, resistance fighters told him that Jews were being murdered on a massive scale, and smuggled him into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself," Obama said.
The Polish government keenly watches the global media for descriptions of former concentration camps as "Polish" because it says the term - even if used simply as a geographical indicator - can give the impression that Poland bore responsibility for Nazi Germany's World War II genocide.
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama's National Security Council, said that the president "misspoke."
"He was referring to Nazi death camps in Poland.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony on Tuesday (Photo: AFP)
"We regret this misstatement, which should not detract from the clear intention to honor Mr Karski and those brave citizens who stood on the side of human dignity in the face of tyranny."
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, recalled that Obama visited the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial during his visit to Poland last year and had repeatedly paid tribute to the bravery of Poles during World War II.
On several other occasions, Obama has also paid tribute to Poles who perished in Nazi camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, near the Polish city of Krakow, and said the victims must never be forgotten.
In his remarks on Tuesday, Obama noted that Karski had taken his testimony about the horror of Nazi death camps and the Warsaw ghetto to wartime US president Franklin Roosevelt.
As a young man, Karski, who was a clandestine officer of the Polish government-in-exile in London, witnessed scenes of starvation and death after infiltrating the Warsaw Ghetto.
Dressed as a Ukrainian guard, he also went to a Nazi transit camp near Warsaw where he saw Jews beaten and stabbed and loaded onto train cars treated with quicklime for transit to the gas chambers.
Karski, who died in Washington aged 86 in 2000, later became a professor of history at Georgetown University.
The majority of the six million Jews who perished during the Holocaust were murdered in death camps set up and entirely controlled by Germany in occupied Poland.
A million of them died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which has become the era's most enduring symbol.
Poland was home to Europe's largest pre-war Jewish population, some 3.5 million people. Polish Jews represented around half the Nazis' victims.
Around three million non-Jewish Poles were also killed over the six years that followed the Nazis' 1939 invasion, many of them in death camps.
SOURCE: YNet
The linguistic faux pas overshadowed President Barack Obama's posthumous award of America's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to Jan Karski, a former Polish underground officer who provided early eyewitness accounts of the Nazi purge against Jews.
"Before one trip across enemy lines, resistance fighters told him that Jews were being murdered on a massive scale, and smuggled him into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself," Obama said.
The Polish government keenly watches the global media for descriptions of former concentration camps as "Polish" because it says the term - even if used simply as a geographical indicator - can give the impression that Poland bore responsibility for Nazi Germany's World War II genocide.
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama's National Security Council, said that the president "misspoke."
"He was referring to Nazi death camps in Poland.
"We regret this misstatement, which should not detract from the clear intention to honor Mr Karski and those brave citizens who stood on the side of human dignity in the face of tyranny."
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, recalled that Obama visited the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial during his visit to Poland last year and had repeatedly paid tribute to the bravery of Poles during World War II.
On several other occasions, Obama has also paid tribute to Poles who perished in Nazi camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, near the Polish city of Krakow, and said the victims must never be forgotten.
In his remarks on Tuesday, Obama noted that Karski had taken his testimony about the horror of Nazi death camps and the Warsaw ghetto to wartime US president Franklin Roosevelt.
As a young man, Karski, who was a clandestine officer of the Polish government-in-exile in London, witnessed scenes of starvation and death after infiltrating the Warsaw Ghetto.
Dressed as a Ukrainian guard, he also went to a Nazi transit camp near Warsaw where he saw Jews beaten and stabbed and loaded onto train cars treated with quicklime for transit to the gas chambers.
Karski, who died in Washington aged 86 in 2000, later became a professor of history at Georgetown University.
The majority of the six million Jews who perished during the Holocaust were murdered in death camps set up and entirely controlled by Germany in occupied Poland.
A million of them died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which has become the era's most enduring symbol.
Poland was home to Europe's largest pre-war Jewish population, some 3.5 million people. Polish Jews represented around half the Nazis' victims.
Around three million non-Jewish Poles were also killed over the six years that followed the Nazis' 1939 invasion, many of them in death camps.
SOURCE: YNet
7 Anti-Gun Bills You Didn’t Know About
Remember the good old days when we generally knew which politicians were bad on gun rights? Bill Clinton had foolishly convinced his colleagues that you could vote for a gun ban and remain in office or even win political favor. How wrong they turned out to be. In the wake of the Clinton “assault weapons” ban, a pro-gun revolution swept both houses of Congress. Even Clinton acknowledged the role of the NRA and gun owners in turning the tide, and he’d later credit them with Al Gore’s defeat.
The anti-gunners had learned their lesson. Now they quite literally camouflage their views by calling themselves “lifelong hunters.” They claim to respect the Second Amendment, but just want to impose a few “common sense restrictions” — you know, like bans on semi-auto rifles, right-to-carry permits and gun shows. They are cautious in their approach, and even when they push overtly anti-gun bills, they often do so quietly, in an attempt to avoid drawing unnecessary attention from those of us who value our rights.
But this piece exposes them. Here are the top seven anti-gun bills that you’ve never heard of.
FULL STORY HERE
The anti-gunners had learned their lesson. Now they quite literally camouflage their views by calling themselves “lifelong hunters.” They claim to respect the Second Amendment, but just want to impose a few “common sense restrictions” — you know, like bans on semi-auto rifles, right-to-carry permits and gun shows. They are cautious in their approach, and even when they push overtly anti-gun bills, they often do so quietly, in an attempt to avoid drawing unnecessary attention from those of us who value our rights.
But this piece exposes them. Here are the top seven anti-gun bills that you’ve never heard of.
FULL STORY HERE
Obama Awards Medal of Freedom to Socialist?
Obama Awards Medal of Freedom to Democratic Socialists of America Chair
Lachlan Markay
President Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday to Dolores Huerta, an 82-year-old labor activist and co-founder of the United Farm Workers union.
Huerta is also an honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America.
DSA describes itself as “the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International.”
Watch The Ceremony Below
SOURCE: Fox News
Ted Cruz forces runoff against David Dewhurst in Texas Senate race
Former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz (R) has forced a runoff election with Texas Lieutenant Gov. David Dewhurst (R), a victory for the Tea Party candidate against a better-known and much better-funded foe.
Dewhurst led Cruz by 46 to 32 percent with 44 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press. Former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert (R) was in third place with 13 percent of the vote.
Cruz entered the race with almost no name identification but a bevy of conservative star-makers rallied to his side to help him into a runoff against Dewhurst, the longtime front-runner. Among Cruz's endorsers include the deep-pocketed, fiscally conservative Club for Growth, which spent $2.5 million on his behalf and helped him raise $750,000 more, according to the group.
"The Club for Growth PAC congratulates Ted Cruz on making the runoff election in Texas," Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said in a statement released shortly after the AP called the race for Cruz. "Despite millions of dollars of desperate and negative attacks, David Dewhurst must now face true conservative Ted Cruz one-on-one…and that’s David Dewhurst's worst nightmare. Ted Cruz is a champion of economic freedom and the Club for Growth PAC strongly supports his candidacy."
Other key backers include former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Dewhurst has the support of Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), his former running mate, as well as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R). Besides his much higher name recognition, he was able to self-finance in a big way — he and the super-PACs backing him topped $10 million on the race, tripling the amount Cruz and his allies spent on the race.
The race has gotten nasty in recent days, with Dewhurst running ads attacking Cruz for being a member of Hispanic business organizations he falsely said supported amnesty for illegal immigrants and blasting him for being the lead attorney on a case that defended a Chinese company that had stolen designs from an American manufacturer. The runoff is likely to stay just as hostile.
The runoff will be in late July. While Dewhurst once again starts off with a big advantage Cruz and his allies hope that a low-turnout, mid-summer election will play in their favor.
SOURCE: The Hill
Dewhurst led Cruz by 46 to 32 percent with 44 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press. Former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert (R) was in third place with 13 percent of the vote.
Cruz entered the race with almost no name identification but a bevy of conservative star-makers rallied to his side to help him into a runoff against Dewhurst, the longtime front-runner. Among Cruz's endorsers include the deep-pocketed, fiscally conservative Club for Growth, which spent $2.5 million on his behalf and helped him raise $750,000 more, according to the group.
"The Club for Growth PAC congratulates Ted Cruz on making the runoff election in Texas," Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said in a statement released shortly after the AP called the race for Cruz. "Despite millions of dollars of desperate and negative attacks, David Dewhurst must now face true conservative Ted Cruz one-on-one…and that’s David Dewhurst's worst nightmare. Ted Cruz is a champion of economic freedom and the Club for Growth PAC strongly supports his candidacy."
Other key backers include former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Dewhurst has the support of Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), his former running mate, as well as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R). Besides his much higher name recognition, he was able to self-finance in a big way — he and the super-PACs backing him topped $10 million on the race, tripling the amount Cruz and his allies spent on the race.
The race has gotten nasty in recent days, with Dewhurst running ads attacking Cruz for being a member of Hispanic business organizations he falsely said supported amnesty for illegal immigrants and blasting him for being the lead attorney on a case that defended a Chinese company that had stolen designs from an American manufacturer. The runoff is likely to stay just as hostile.
The runoff will be in late July. While Dewhurst once again starts off with a big advantage Cruz and his allies hope that a low-turnout, mid-summer election will play in their favor.
SOURCE: The Hill
Obama ad suggests girls cannot succeed in life without the HHS mandate [Video]
The Obama campaign has released a new ad suggesting that little girls will never be able to live full lives unless the government subsidizes their birth control.
The YouTube video titled “Letters to the President: The Dreams of Our Daughters” features a mother talking about her two young daughters, six-year-old Daisy and nine-year-old Caroline, in a letter to President Obama.
She thanks him for the HHS mandate, which requires all religious institutions and other businesses to include free coverage for birth control, sterilization and abortifacient drugs even if it violates their deeply held religious beliefs.
While no overt mention of the Catholic Church is made, the mother in the ad complains that she is “upset” that birth control is still controversial in 2012 – making no reference to the fact the president picked the fight with the Catholic institutions.
The mother then compares birth control with using cough medicine.
“This is just one reason why I am so passionate about getting you re-elected this year,” the mother says. “We need a president who will stand up for women’s health … The dreams of all our daughters are at stake.”
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, herself a mother of young girls, was appalled by the Obama campaign’s implication that her daughters’ success depends on the president being involved in her sex life.
“What mother looks at what she wants for her daughter and think the best thing she can do is do guarantee that she can have a happy sex life and a protected sex life,” Dannenfelser said. “Providing contraception to underage girls arms them for a sex life that will destroy them.
“Men will take advantage of them. Contraception sets you up to be a sexual pawn. Most girls just do not know how men think.”
According to Dannenfelser, this factor is precisely why Susan B. Anthony and other early feminists objected to abortion because it allows a man to get away without having to face any consequences.
“This is not the fundamental freedoms that women fought for, not even close,” Dannenfelser said.
Dannenfelser sees this ad as an effort by the Obama campaign to throw a red herring to distract attention from the president’s hostility to religious freedom and to the Catholic Church in particular.
It is also telling, she said, that the ad omits reference to sterilization and the coverage of abortion drugs.
By John Rossomando /// May 29, 2012
Red Alert Politics
Drunk Driving Illegal Immigrant Released on Bail after Hit & Run that Injures Mother & Daughter
Authorities say a drunken driver injured two women in a head-on collision in Metairie on Saturday, then fled the scene. Deputies later arrested Jesus Guzman-Gomez, 22, of Metairie, an arrest report said.
Jesus Guzman-Gomez arrested in hit-run
The wreck occurred just after 10:30 a.m. in the 3600 block of Cypress Street in Metairie, said Col. John Fortunato, spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. Guzman-Gomez was headed westbound in a maroon Jeep Cherokee when he veered inexplicably into the eastbound lanes, an arrest report said.
Guzman-Gomez's vehicle crashed head-on into a red Jeep Cherokee being driven by an unidentified 49-year-old woman, Fortunato said. He then drove off without stopping or identifying himself, the report said.
The driver of the red Jeep Cherokee suffered head, neck and back injuries, the arrest report said. The woman's 21-year-old daughter was in the passenger seat and suffered severe injuries to her right side, the report said.
The woman's daughter was taken by ambulance to Ochsner Medical Center in Old Jefferson. Their conditions were not available Tuesday, but their injuries were not life-threatening, Fortunato said.
Based on descriptions given by the victims, deputies caught up with the suspect three blocks away on Cypress Street at Cleary Avenue, Fortunato said. Guzman-Gomez performed poorly on a field sobriety test. His blood alcohol was .135%, over the .08% legal limit, the report said.
Guzman-Gomez, of 8114 Buras St., Metairie, was booked Saturday with DWI, hit and run, two counts of vehicular negligent injuring, reckless operation of a vehicle, driving with no license and operating a vehicle with no legal presence in the United States. Bond was set at $7,650, but he was released Monday without bond because crowding at the jail.
SOURCE: nola.com
Jesus Guzman-Gomez arrested in hit-run
The wreck occurred just after 10:30 a.m. in the 3600 block of Cypress Street in Metairie, said Col. John Fortunato, spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. Guzman-Gomez was headed westbound in a maroon Jeep Cherokee when he veered inexplicably into the eastbound lanes, an arrest report said.
Guzman-Gomez's vehicle crashed head-on into a red Jeep Cherokee being driven by an unidentified 49-year-old woman, Fortunato said. He then drove off without stopping or identifying himself, the report said.
The driver of the red Jeep Cherokee suffered head, neck and back injuries, the arrest report said. The woman's 21-year-old daughter was in the passenger seat and suffered severe injuries to her right side, the report said.
The woman's daughter was taken by ambulance to Ochsner Medical Center in Old Jefferson. Their conditions were not available Tuesday, but their injuries were not life-threatening, Fortunato said.
Based on descriptions given by the victims, deputies caught up with the suspect three blocks away on Cypress Street at Cleary Avenue, Fortunato said. Guzman-Gomez performed poorly on a field sobriety test. His blood alcohol was .135%, over the .08% legal limit, the report said.
Guzman-Gomez, of 8114 Buras St., Metairie, was booked Saturday with DWI, hit and run, two counts of vehicular negligent injuring, reckless operation of a vehicle, driving with no license and operating a vehicle with no legal presence in the United States. Bond was set at $7,650, but he was released Monday without bond because crowding at the jail.
SOURCE: nola.com
Memorial Day ‘propaganda’ posters glorify Michelle Obama at Labor Dept.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has authorized new posters featuring first lady Michelle Obama to be placed in elevators throughout the Department of Labor headquarters in Washington, D.C.
These new posters feature a large photo of Michelle Obama and a picture of Solis, along with a few choice quotes about Memorial Day.
“In January, First Lady Michelle Obama joined Secretary Solis to announce proposed revisions to the FMLA that will expand military family leave provisions to support caregivers,” the poster reads. “Through our work, we honor our service members, veterans and military families every day.”
The poster then quotes the first lady saying, “We all have an obligation to serve our troops and veterans as well as they’ve served us.”
Rick Manning, the communications director for conservative group Americans for Limited Government told The Daily Caller that Memorial Day is supposed to be about honoring veterans and remembering fallen American soldiers, not about highlighting the Obama administration’s political agenda.
“Memorial Day is dedicated to honoring those American servicemen and women who have died in the defense of freedom around the world, it is stunning that the wartime Obama Labor Department would choose to ignore the ultimate sacrifice these fallen warriors have paid and instead have tried to make this day of remembrance about them,” Manning said in an email.
Solis’ decision to place posters featuring Michelle Obama throughout DOL headquarters comes as Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch has called for an investigation into what he calls an “overtly political message” with her “poster campaign.”
Hatch said he thinks it’s “vital” to make sure “American taxpayers are not subsidizing partisan political messages, particularly during this contentious election season.” He said it’s also important to “ensure that federal government employees are not subjected [to] political propaganda in the workplace.”
In early April, TheDC first reported that Solis had placed posters in elevators throughout her building featuring a photo of Solis marching in protest alongside Rev. Jesse Jackson and MSNBC television host Rev. Al Sharpton, among others. She was acting as an emissary of the Obama administration protesting against Alabama’s strict new law combating illegal immigration. Solis had her arms locked with Sharpton, and Jackson is a few feet away.
The poster also carried a message for federal government employees — who are traditionally expected to be apolitical in the performance of their duties.
“Whether we take to the streets or simply do our work with integrity and commitment here at the U.S. Department of Labor,” the poster read, above Solis’ signature, “We are all marching toward the same goals: safer workplaces, fair pay, dignity on the job, secure retirement and opportunities to make a better life. I believe in the power of collective action.”
That report sparked Hatch to write to the Labor Department’s Deputy Inspector General Daniel Petrole, asking him to “investigate this matter thoroughly to determine whether the insertion of these posters violates any federal laws, including the Hatch Act, and whether the Secretary’s message has created a hostile work environment for any federal employees who might have differing political views.”
SOURCE: The Daily Caller
No mistake! Obama backs Muslim Brotherhood again
U.S.-supported Syrian protesters press for open ties with Islamist group
JERUSALEM – In the latest “Arab Spring” uprising, the U.S. is backing protesters, many of whom, informed Middle Eastern security officials tell WND, are now pressing to openly announce an affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Syrian opposition has been plagued by infighting, with competing divisions sparring with each other even since the movement began in September of last year.
Just last week, Syrian National Council leader Burhan Ghalioun announced his resignation after divisions within his council reached a climax only two days after the coalition voted to renew his term. Ghalioun has faced criticism from some opposition members for being too close to the Muslim Brotherhood and of trying to monopolize power within the SNC.
“I will not allow myself to be the candidate of division,” he said. “I am not attached to the position, so I announce that I will step down after a new candidate has been chosen, either by consensus or through new elections.”
The Muslim Brotherhood elements within the opposition want the SNC to declare it is aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and its goals for the larger Middle East.
Such a declaration is being supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two major backers of the opposition, the informed Middle Eastern security officials said.
Already the Brotherhood has made gains in Egypt, Libya and other nations where the White House worked to back popular and violent uprisings in what has been called the “Arab Spring.”
The Syrian opposition has stepped up its rhetoric after its government was accused of a massacre last week in the town of Houla, where human rights groups say at least 92 people, a third of them children, were killed.
Syria has denied responsibility, saying instead it was the opposition that opened fire on civilians and army outposts.
Ghalioun yesterday threatened a “battle of liberation” against Bashar Assad’s regime unless the United Nations takes action under Chapter Seven, which allows for international military intervention.
“I call on the Syrian people to lead a battle of liberation and dignity, relying on its own forces, on the rebels deployed across the country and the Free Syrian Army brigades and friends,” he told a news conference in Istanbul.
Ghalioun said such a “battle” would be taken “unless the international community assumes its responsibilities under Chapter Seven” of the U.N. charter.
Spokesman for the Syrian Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ministry, Jihad Makdissi, meanwhile, squarely blamed the opposition for the deaths of the civilians in Houla, saying opposition fighters are using more advanced weaponry, including mortars.
Makdissi stated: ”It has been confirmed that hundreds of gunmen gathered at 2:00 o’clock on Friday afternoon, using pick-up cars loaded with up-to-date and heavy weapons, like mortars, machineguns and anti-tank missiles, which are newly used in the confrontation with the state forces.”
”The gunmen headed to al-Houla area,” he continued, “which is guarded by the government forces at five points where law-enforcement members and security are positioned, which lie outside the places where the massacres happened.”
‘U.S. arming opposition’
Reports of protesters obtaining more sophisticated weapons come after claims the Obama administration is coordinating arms shipments to the opposition.
U.S. officials have stated the White House is providing only nonlethal aid to the Syrian rebels, yet Middle Eastern security officials told WND the U.S. has been working with Arab countries to ensure the opposition in Syria is well armed.
Then last week, the Washington Post reported the U.S is helping to bring more and better weapons to Syria’s rebels, including anti-tank weaponry.
The Post report claimed the U.S. has been coordinating the weapons shipments, with Persian Gulf nations picking up the tab.
In response to the report, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland denied that Washington was playing a role in arming the rebels.
“With regard to any assertions with regard to lethal (aid), we are not involved in that,” she said.
“The United States has made a decision to provide nonlethal support to civilian members of the opposition. This is things like medical equipment. This is communications, things to help them, first of all, deal with the humanitarian aspects but also to help them to communicate better so that they can plan and be ready for the period of transition that we expect and want to see in Syria,” Nuland said.
White House spokesman Jay Carney seemed to confirm knowledge that other countries are sending weapons to the opposition.
“We continue to provide nonlethal support to the opposition,” he told reporters. “And while I can only speak for the United States, we know that others are pursuing different types of support, and I’d refer you to them to characterize the nature of their actions.”
Egyptian security officials, however, outlined to WND what they said was large-scale international backing for the rebels attacking the embattled regime of Assad – including arms and training from Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia being coordinated with the U.S.
Several knowledgeable Egyptian and Arab security officials claimed the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country’s northern desert region.
The security officials also claimed Saudi Arabia was sending weapons to the rebels via surrogates, including through Druze and Christian leaders in Lebanon such as Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, Saudi-Lebanese billionaire Saad Hariri, who recently served as Lebanon’s prime minister, and senior Lebanese opposition leader Samir Farid Geagea.
Al-Qaida, opposition collaborating?
One Egyptian security official told WND last week there is a growing collaboration between the Syrian opposition and al-Qaida, as well as evidence the opposition is sending weapons to jihadists in Iraq.
An Egyptian military attaché detailed the alleged collaboration between al-Qaida and the U.S.-aided opposition in Syria that operates under the banner of the National Free Army.
The purported cooperation extends to recent suicide attacks and bombings in Damascus and in the embattled Syrian city of Homs. The deadly attacks have been targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The military official told WND that Egypt has reports of collaboration between the Syrian opposition and three al-Qaida arms:
Jund al-Sham, which is made up of al-Qaida militants who are Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese;
Jund al-Islam, which in recent years merged with Ansar al-Islam, an extremist group of Suuni Iraqis operating under the al-Qaida banner;
Jund Ansar al-Allah, an al-Qaida group based in Gaza linked to Palestinian camps in Lebanon and Syria.
The Egyptian military official said there is evidence the Syrian opposition is transferring some weapons to jihadist allies in both northern Lebanon and Iraq. Any weapons transfers to Iraq could potentially be used against the Iraqi government and U.S. or international interests in that country.
SOURCE: World Net Daily
The Syrian opposition has been plagued by infighting, with competing divisions sparring with each other even since the movement began in September of last year.
Just last week, Syrian National Council leader Burhan Ghalioun announced his resignation after divisions within his council reached a climax only two days after the coalition voted to renew his term. Ghalioun has faced criticism from some opposition members for being too close to the Muslim Brotherhood and of trying to monopolize power within the SNC.
“I will not allow myself to be the candidate of division,” he said. “I am not attached to the position, so I announce that I will step down after a new candidate has been chosen, either by consensus or through new elections.”
The Muslim Brotherhood elements within the opposition want the SNC to declare it is aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and its goals for the larger Middle East.
Such a declaration is being supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two major backers of the opposition, the informed Middle Eastern security officials said.
Already the Brotherhood has made gains in Egypt, Libya and other nations where the White House worked to back popular and violent uprisings in what has been called the “Arab Spring.”
The Syrian opposition has stepped up its rhetoric after its government was accused of a massacre last week in the town of Houla, where human rights groups say at least 92 people, a third of them children, were killed.
Syria has denied responsibility, saying instead it was the opposition that opened fire on civilians and army outposts.
Ghalioun yesterday threatened a “battle of liberation” against Bashar Assad’s regime unless the United Nations takes action under Chapter Seven, which allows for international military intervention.
“I call on the Syrian people to lead a battle of liberation and dignity, relying on its own forces, on the rebels deployed across the country and the Free Syrian Army brigades and friends,” he told a news conference in Istanbul.
Ghalioun said such a “battle” would be taken “unless the international community assumes its responsibilities under Chapter Seven” of the U.N. charter.
Spokesman for the Syrian Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ministry, Jihad Makdissi, meanwhile, squarely blamed the opposition for the deaths of the civilians in Houla, saying opposition fighters are using more advanced weaponry, including mortars.
Makdissi stated: ”It has been confirmed that hundreds of gunmen gathered at 2:00 o’clock on Friday afternoon, using pick-up cars loaded with up-to-date and heavy weapons, like mortars, machineguns and anti-tank missiles, which are newly used in the confrontation with the state forces.”
”The gunmen headed to al-Houla area,” he continued, “which is guarded by the government forces at five points where law-enforcement members and security are positioned, which lie outside the places where the massacres happened.”
‘U.S. arming opposition’
Reports of protesters obtaining more sophisticated weapons come after claims the Obama administration is coordinating arms shipments to the opposition.
U.S. officials have stated the White House is providing only nonlethal aid to the Syrian rebels, yet Middle Eastern security officials told WND the U.S. has been working with Arab countries to ensure the opposition in Syria is well armed.
Then last week, the Washington Post reported the U.S is helping to bring more and better weapons to Syria’s rebels, including anti-tank weaponry.
The Post report claimed the U.S. has been coordinating the weapons shipments, with Persian Gulf nations picking up the tab.
In response to the report, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland denied that Washington was playing a role in arming the rebels.
“With regard to any assertions with regard to lethal (aid), we are not involved in that,” she said.
“The United States has made a decision to provide nonlethal support to civilian members of the opposition. This is things like medical equipment. This is communications, things to help them, first of all, deal with the humanitarian aspects but also to help them to communicate better so that they can plan and be ready for the period of transition that we expect and want to see in Syria,” Nuland said.
White House spokesman Jay Carney seemed to confirm knowledge that other countries are sending weapons to the opposition.
“We continue to provide nonlethal support to the opposition,” he told reporters. “And while I can only speak for the United States, we know that others are pursuing different types of support, and I’d refer you to them to characterize the nature of their actions.”
Egyptian security officials, however, outlined to WND what they said was large-scale international backing for the rebels attacking the embattled regime of Assad – including arms and training from Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia being coordinated with the U.S.
Several knowledgeable Egyptian and Arab security officials claimed the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country’s northern desert region.
The security officials also claimed Saudi Arabia was sending weapons to the rebels via surrogates, including through Druze and Christian leaders in Lebanon such as Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, Saudi-Lebanese billionaire Saad Hariri, who recently served as Lebanon’s prime minister, and senior Lebanese opposition leader Samir Farid Geagea.
Al-Qaida, opposition collaborating?
One Egyptian security official told WND last week there is a growing collaboration between the Syrian opposition and al-Qaida, as well as evidence the opposition is sending weapons to jihadists in Iraq.
An Egyptian military attaché detailed the alleged collaboration between al-Qaida and the U.S.-aided opposition in Syria that operates under the banner of the National Free Army.
The purported cooperation extends to recent suicide attacks and bombings in Damascus and in the embattled Syrian city of Homs. The deadly attacks have been targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The military official told WND that Egypt has reports of collaboration between the Syrian opposition and three al-Qaida arms:
Jund al-Sham, which is made up of al-Qaida militants who are Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese;
Jund al-Islam, which in recent years merged with Ansar al-Islam, an extremist group of Suuni Iraqis operating under the al-Qaida banner;
Jund Ansar al-Allah, an al-Qaida group based in Gaza linked to Palestinian camps in Lebanon and Syria.
The Egyptian military official said there is evidence the Syrian opposition is transferring some weapons to jihadist allies in both northern Lebanon and Iraq. Any weapons transfers to Iraq could potentially be used against the Iraqi government and U.S. or international interests in that country.
SOURCE: World Net Daily
Live Action Undercover Bombshell: Planned Parenthood Aids Gender-Selective Abortion
Live Action: Today, Live Action released a new undercover video showing a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Austin, TX encouraging a woman to obtain a late-term abortion because she was purportedly carrying a girl and wanted to have a boy. The video is first in a new series titled “Gendercide: Sex-Selection in America,” exposing the practice of sex-selective abortion in the United States and how Planned Parenthood and the rest of the abortion industry facilitate the selective elimination of baby girls in the womb.
SOURCE: Breitbart-TV
China condemns U.S. gun ownership as human rights violation
A report issued by the State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China has included U.S. gun ownership among a list of human rights violations, Law Enforcement Examiner Jim Kouri reported yesterday. "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011" was published last Friday on the PRC’s Consulate General in New York website.
“The United States prioritizes the right to keep and bear arms over the protection of citizens' lives and personal security and exercises lax firearm possession control, causing rampant gun ownership,” the report claims. “The U.S. people hold between 35 percent and 50 percent of the world' s civilian-owned guns, with every 100 people having 90 guns [and] 47 percent of American adults reported that they had a gun.”
The conclusion that gun bans will result in enhanced protection of lives and personal security flies in the face of both the American and Chinese experience. Predictably, the report presents many of the same cherry-picked arguments used by “leading” U.S. and international “gun control” organizations that totally ignore the protective benefits of arms in private hands. And, as typical with advocates of a centralized monopoly of violence, Chinese-style genocide, which resulted in government-caused deaths of unknown tens of millions of defenseless human beings in the 20th Century, and the current brutal occupation and tyrannical suppression of Tibetan sovereignty, is left unacknowledged. Left unsaid is the inconvenient truth that rendering captive populations unable to resist makes such monstrous crimes against humanity not only possible, but inevitable.
Also left unquestioned: What is the motivation and agenda of any American who advocates Chicom-style citizen disarmament, knowing full-well its blood-drenched historic record?
SOURCE: Examiner.com
“The United States prioritizes the right to keep and bear arms over the protection of citizens' lives and personal security and exercises lax firearm possession control, causing rampant gun ownership,” the report claims. “The U.S. people hold between 35 percent and 50 percent of the world' s civilian-owned guns, with every 100 people having 90 guns [and] 47 percent of American adults reported that they had a gun.”
The conclusion that gun bans will result in enhanced protection of lives and personal security flies in the face of both the American and Chinese experience. Predictably, the report presents many of the same cherry-picked arguments used by “leading” U.S. and international “gun control” organizations that totally ignore the protective benefits of arms in private hands. And, as typical with advocates of a centralized monopoly of violence, Chinese-style genocide, which resulted in government-caused deaths of unknown tens of millions of defenseless human beings in the 20th Century, and the current brutal occupation and tyrannical suppression of Tibetan sovereignty, is left unacknowledged. Left unsaid is the inconvenient truth that rendering captive populations unable to resist makes such monstrous crimes against humanity not only possible, but inevitable.
Also left unquestioned: What is the motivation and agenda of any American who advocates Chicom-style citizen disarmament, knowing full-well its blood-drenched historic record?
SOURCE: Examiner.com
Why We Need the British Freedom Party
In the spring of 2012, the British Freedom Party officially began working together with the English Defence League (EDL) street protest movement. Two senior EDL leaders, Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll, joined the Executive Council of British Freedom. The two organizations will cooperate, but nevertheless remain separate.
As British Freedom declares in its mission statement, “The objectives of the British Freedom Party shall be to defend and restore the freedoms, traditions, unity, identity, democracy and independence of the British people, to establish full sovereignty over all our national affairs by restoring the supremacy of the British Parliament, to withdraw from the European Union, to promote democratic British patriotic principles, to promote the social, economic, environmental and cultural interests of the British people and to preserve and promote the ancestral rights and liberties of the British people as defined in the British Constitution.”
At the website Gates of Vienna, British Freedom leader Paul Weston, a brave and eloquent English patriot, picked a random week in May 2011 to provide a detailed description of the utter financial, moral, legal and cultural rot that is modern British life. Law-abiding citizens are fleeced by thugs as well as their own government, while immigrant gangs spread fear in the streets. The UK, like most Western countries today, has virtually abandoned its border controls and is being flooded by a tsunami of global mass migration. Britain has become a place where real crime goes nearly unpunished whereas thought crimes against the Multicultural order are dealt with harshly.
Paul Weston warned back then that, “Although it is just a snapshot, it outlines a country, a government and a people whose civilisational timeline is now measured in years rather than decades or centuries. We are no longer serious about the serious matter of survival. We have nowhere to turn and no one to realistically represent us. Britain, as Lawrence Auster constantly reminds us, is a nation of the living dead.”
In the UK, dozens of predominately Muslim men have sex with underage white native girls, vulnerable teenagers targeted because of their ethnic and religious background. In May 2012 nine men from South Asia were jailed for a total of 77 years for raping and abusing up to 47 girls, some as young as 13. The men all come from Pakistan, apart from one failed asylum-seeker from Afghanistan, and have names such as Kabeer Hassan, Abdul Aziz, Abdul Rauf, Mohammed Sajid, Adil Khan, Mohammed Amin, Abdul Qayyum and Hamid Safi.
The girls were passed around. At least one victim was forced to have sex with 20 men in one night. A Muslim leader warned that some Pakistani men “think that white teenage girls are worthless and can be abused without a second thought.” The judge jailed the 59-year-old ringleader for 19 years and eight other men for between four and 12 years, telling them they had treated their victims “as though they were worthless and beyond all respect.” Detective Inspector Michael Sanderson of Greater Manchester Police said that none of the convicted men have ever shown “the slightest bit of remorse” for the pain they inflicted upon their child victims. Many of them, not just in England or Britain but in other European countries as well, see white girls as “easy meat.”
What has angered the general public the most about this and similar cases is that these Muslim predators were largely allowed to go on with their rape and abuse for years because the police were so scared of being called “racists.” Several of the young victims felt that the authorities did not believe them when they told their stories.
Sadly, such stories are likely to increase in number as the native population is being ethnically displaced in their own country at a breathtaking pace due to the largest and fastest immigration waves in all of human history. Already today there are few English people left in certain parts of the English capital city, accurately dubbed “Londonistan” by the author Melanie Phillips due to its expanding zones of Islamic law. Ken Livingstone, a former Mayor of London for the Labour Party who recently wanted to reclaim that title, bragged that he wanted to turn it (London) into a “beacon” of Islam.
As elsewhere in the Western world, the so-called “conservatives” of the establishment may be slightly better than the left-wing parties, but not by much. One sometimes gets the impression that “conservatives” are people who implement the radical left-wing agenda at a slightly slower pace than the radical Leftists. That’s certainly how the past 50 years appear. Prime Minister David Cameron in the United Kingdom, Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy in France have all stated that Multiculturalism has failed, but none of them has done much to curtail the primary problems: open borders and mass immigration of non-Europeans.
Nicolas Sarkozy in May 2012 lost the French presidency to his Socialist rival François Hollande, partly due to his chronic unwillingness or inability to clamp down on mass immigration and the ongoing ethnic displacement of native Frenchmen. The new Socialist President Hollande crucially received about 93% of the Muslim vote in France, a percentage comparable to the immigrant votes for Socialist parties in some other Western countries.
How do the authorities react to the rise in violent crime and international mafias? By increasing surveillance of peaceful citizens. In 2012 a program is underway in the UK – no doubt complemented by related plans on a pan-European level promoted by the EU – that would give government access to personal data. British officials have given their word: “We won’t read your emails.” Yet experts say that the proposed surveillance program will gather so much data that spooks won’t have to read your messages to guess what you’re up to.
If passed in its current form, it would put a huge amount of personal data at the government’s disposal, which it could potentially use to deduce a startling amount about Britons’ private life – from sleep patterns to driving habits or infidelity. “We’re really entering a whole new phase of analysis based on the data that we can collect,” said Gerald Kane, an information systems expert at Boston College. “There is quite a lot you can learn.”
The American columnist Samuel T. Francis labeled this “anarcho-tyranny,” a toxic mix of virtual anarchy in the streets combined with near-totalitarian repression. It describes a situation where the authorities have lost any semblance of control over public safety, but try to prevent citizens from protecting their own lives and property.
The state is everywhere, and it is nowhere at the same time: useless when hostile ethnic groups move into your cities and push you out, but always eager to regulate the fat content of your yoghurt. It is totally incapable of upholding your country’s borders, which have broken down under a tidal wave of immigrants who often have no legal right to be in your country, yet still charges very high taxes in spite of its persistent failures. It is impotent when faced with violent tribes harassing your sons and daughters, but quite capable of removing your cultural heritage from the school curriculum and giving your children lessons on the sex life of transvestites.
The English author George Orwell was one of the most insightful analysts of the totalitarian mindset. When Orwell published his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949 he meant it as a warning. British ruling elites today read is as an instruction manual. That is why we need the British Freedom Party, to restore freedom to the British population.
Britain was once at the forefront of political liberty. With the help of British Freedom, it can become so once more.
SOURCE: British Freedom.org
Penn. Democratic leader defects to GOP, cites Catholic faith as reason
The defection of a prominent Pennsylvania Democrat to the Republican Party is raising some eyebrows.
Jo Ann Nardelli, a state committeewoman and founding president of the Blair County Federation of Democratic Women, has switched her political affiliation to the GOP, citing her Catholic faith and President Obama’s embrace of gay marriage as reasons.
During a press conference last week, Nardelli cited President Obama’s recent announcement in support of gay marriage as a central reason for her defection, endorsed Mitt Romney for president and changed her party registration to Republican, The Altoona Mirror reported.
“As the Democratic Party has taken the stand for same-sex marriage, then I must make a stand on my faith that marriage is between a man and a woman. God’s principles for life never change. His guidelines, given in Scripture, produce fruitful lives when you follow them,” Nardelli, a pro-life Democrat for more than 40 years, said at the Blair County Courthouse.
According to Politics PA, Nardelli continued to point to her Catholic faith as a major motivator in her letter of resignation to the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
“I respect all of you and all that I have achieved in the past. Due to personal matters and faith beliefs at this time, it is only fair to resign,” she wrote. “I will miss you all very much as you are all a part of my family; however, it is time to move forward with my life in a direction that is more in line with my faith.”
The Mirror added that Blair County Republican Party Chairman A.C. Stickel welcomed Nardelli. Stickel emphasized Obama’s, and the Democratic Party’s, disconnect with blue collar values as a big part of the story.
“She says the president has pandered to left wing ideological interests. She said that his recent flip-flop on gay marriage was the last straw for her,” Stickel said.
While Nardelli claims her faith guided her away from the blue side of the aisle, Blair County Democratic Chairman Frank Rosenhoover cited another reason: Nardelli’s loss last year in a county commissioner election to current officeholder Ted Beam by 400 votes.
“Jo Ann Nardelli lost the election because she’s Jo Ann Nardelli,” Rosenhoover said.
In an interview with the National Catholic Register, Nardelli claimed to not know any Republicans. She asserted, like the party-switching Ronald Reagan in 1962, that the Democratic Party had strayed from values with which she could agree.
“I thought I could make a difference to change our party. It didn’t work,” she said. “I noticed that it’s been going more and more to the left. This is not my father’s party. I did not leave the party; the party left me.”
SOURCE: Daily Caller
Jo Ann Nardelli, a state committeewoman and founding president of the Blair County Federation of Democratic Women, has switched her political affiliation to the GOP, citing her Catholic faith and President Obama’s embrace of gay marriage as reasons.
During a press conference last week, Nardelli cited President Obama’s recent announcement in support of gay marriage as a central reason for her defection, endorsed Mitt Romney for president and changed her party registration to Republican, The Altoona Mirror reported.
“As the Democratic Party has taken the stand for same-sex marriage, then I must make a stand on my faith that marriage is between a man and a woman. God’s principles for life never change. His guidelines, given in Scripture, produce fruitful lives when you follow them,” Nardelli, a pro-life Democrat for more than 40 years, said at the Blair County Courthouse.
According to Politics PA, Nardelli continued to point to her Catholic faith as a major motivator in her letter of resignation to the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
“I respect all of you and all that I have achieved in the past. Due to personal matters and faith beliefs at this time, it is only fair to resign,” she wrote. “I will miss you all very much as you are all a part of my family; however, it is time to move forward with my life in a direction that is more in line with my faith.”
The Mirror added that Blair County Republican Party Chairman A.C. Stickel welcomed Nardelli. Stickel emphasized Obama’s, and the Democratic Party’s, disconnect with blue collar values as a big part of the story.
“She says the president has pandered to left wing ideological interests. She said that his recent flip-flop on gay marriage was the last straw for her,” Stickel said.
While Nardelli claims her faith guided her away from the blue side of the aisle, Blair County Democratic Chairman Frank Rosenhoover cited another reason: Nardelli’s loss last year in a county commissioner election to current officeholder Ted Beam by 400 votes.
“Jo Ann Nardelli lost the election because she’s Jo Ann Nardelli,” Rosenhoover said.
In an interview with the National Catholic Register, Nardelli claimed to not know any Republicans. She asserted, like the party-switching Ronald Reagan in 1962, that the Democratic Party had strayed from values with which she could agree.
“I thought I could make a difference to change our party. It didn’t work,” she said. “I noticed that it’s been going more and more to the left. This is not my father’s party. I did not leave the party; the party left me.”
SOURCE: Daily Caller
An Imbacilic Article
May 28, 2012, 8:36 pm
Our Imbecilic Constitution
By SANFORD LEVINSON
Advocating the adoption of the new Constitution drafted in Philadelphia, the authors of “The Federalist Papers” mocked the “imbecility” of the weak central government created by the Articles of Confederation.
Nearly 225 years later, critics across the spectrum call the American political system dysfunctional, even pathological. What they don’t mention, though, is the role of the Constitution itself in generating the pathology.
Ignore, for discussion’s sake, the clauses that helped to entrench chattel slavery until it was eliminated by a brutal Civil War. Begin with the Senate and its assignment of equal voting power to California and Wyoming; Vermont and Texas; New York and North Dakota. Consider that, although a majority of Americans since World War II have registered opposition to the Electoral College, we will participate this year in yet another election that “battleground states” will dominate while the three largest states will be largely ignored.
Our vaunted system of “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” — a legacy of the founders’ mistrust of “factions” — means that we rarely have anything that can truly be described as a “government.” Save for those rare instances when one party has hefty control over four branches — the House of Representatives, the Senate, the White House and the Supreme Court — gridlock threatens. Elections are increasingly meaningless, at least in terms of producing results commensurate with the challenges facing the country.
But if one must choose the worst single part of the Constitution, it is surely Article V, which has made our Constitution among the most difficult to amend of any in the world. The last truly significant constitutional change was the 22nd Amendment, added in 1951, to limit presidents to two terms. The near impossibility of amending the national Constitution not only prevents needed reforms; it also makes discussion seem futile and generates a complacent denial that there is anything to be concerned about.
It was not always so. In the election of 1912, two presidents — past and future — seriously questioned the adequacy of the Constitution. Theodore Roosevelt would have allowed Congress to override Supreme Court decisions invalidating federal laws, while Woodrow Wilson basically supported a parliamentary system and, as president, tried to act more as a prime minister than as an agent of Congress. The next few years saw the enactment of amendments establishing the legitimacy of the federal income tax, direct election of senators, Prohibition and women’s right to vote.
No such debate is likely to take place between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. They, like most contemporary Americans, have seemingly lost their capacity for thinking seriously about the extent to which the Constitution serves us well. Instead, the Constitution is enveloped in near religious veneration. (Indeed, Mormon theology treats it as God-given.)
What might radical reform mean?
We might look to the 50 state constitutions, most of which are considerably easier to amend. There have been more than 230 state constitutional conventions; each state has had an average of almost three constitutions. (New York, for example, is on its fifth Constitution, adopted in 1938.) This year Ohioans will be voting on whether to call a new constitutional convention; its Constitution, like 13 others, including New York’s, gives voters the chance to do so at regular intervals, typically 20 years.
Another reform would aim to fix Congressional gridlock. We could permit each newly elected president to appoint 50 members of the House and 10 members of the Senate, all to serve four-year terms until the next presidential election. Presidents would be judged on actual programs, instead of hollow rhetoric.
If enhanced presidential power seems too scary, then the solution might lie in reducing, if not eliminating, the president’s power to veto legislation and to return to true bicameralism, instead of the tricameralism we effectively operate under. We might allow deadlocks between the two branches of Congress to be broken by, say, a supermajority of the House or of Congress voting as a whole.
One might also be inspired by the states to allow at least some aspects of direct democracy. California — the only state with a constitution more dysfunctional than that of the United States — allows constitutional amendment at the ballot box. Maine, more sensibly, allows its citizenry to override legislation they deem objectionable. Might we not be far better off to have a national referendum on “Obamacare” instead of letting nine politically unaccountable judges decide?
Even if we want to preserve judicial review of national legislation, something Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. believed could be dispensed with, perhaps we should emulate North Dakota or Nebraska, which require supermajorities of their court to invalidate state legislation. Why shouldn’t the votes of, say, seven of the nine Supreme Court justices be required to overturn national legislation?
Or consider the fact that almost all states have rejected the model of judges nominated by the president and then confirmed by the Senate. Most state judges are electorally accountable in some way, and almost all must retire at a given age. Many states have adopted commissions to limit the politicization of the appointment process.
What was truly admirable about the framers was their willingness to critique, indeed junk, the Articles of Confederation. One need not believe that the Constitution of 1787 should be discarded in quite the same way to accept that we are long overdue for a serious discussion about its own role in creating the depressed (and depressing) state of American politics.
Sanford Levinson, a professor of law and government at the University of Texas, Austin, is the author of “Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance.”
SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES
Our Imbecilic Constitution
By SANFORD LEVINSON
Advocating the adoption of the new Constitution drafted in Philadelphia, the authors of “The Federalist Papers” mocked the “imbecility” of the weak central government created by the Articles of Confederation.
Nearly 225 years later, critics across the spectrum call the American political system dysfunctional, even pathological. What they don’t mention, though, is the role of the Constitution itself in generating the pathology.
Ignore, for discussion’s sake, the clauses that helped to entrench chattel slavery until it was eliminated by a brutal Civil War. Begin with the Senate and its assignment of equal voting power to California and Wyoming; Vermont and Texas; New York and North Dakota. Consider that, although a majority of Americans since World War II have registered opposition to the Electoral College, we will participate this year in yet another election that “battleground states” will dominate while the three largest states will be largely ignored.
Our vaunted system of “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” — a legacy of the founders’ mistrust of “factions” — means that we rarely have anything that can truly be described as a “government.” Save for those rare instances when one party has hefty control over four branches — the House of Representatives, the Senate, the White House and the Supreme Court — gridlock threatens. Elections are increasingly meaningless, at least in terms of producing results commensurate with the challenges facing the country.
But if one must choose the worst single part of the Constitution, it is surely Article V, which has made our Constitution among the most difficult to amend of any in the world. The last truly significant constitutional change was the 22nd Amendment, added in 1951, to limit presidents to two terms. The near impossibility of amending the national Constitution not only prevents needed reforms; it also makes discussion seem futile and generates a complacent denial that there is anything to be concerned about.
It was not always so. In the election of 1912, two presidents — past and future — seriously questioned the adequacy of the Constitution. Theodore Roosevelt would have allowed Congress to override Supreme Court decisions invalidating federal laws, while Woodrow Wilson basically supported a parliamentary system and, as president, tried to act more as a prime minister than as an agent of Congress. The next few years saw the enactment of amendments establishing the legitimacy of the federal income tax, direct election of senators, Prohibition and women’s right to vote.
No such debate is likely to take place between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. They, like most contemporary Americans, have seemingly lost their capacity for thinking seriously about the extent to which the Constitution serves us well. Instead, the Constitution is enveloped in near religious veneration. (Indeed, Mormon theology treats it as God-given.)
What might radical reform mean?
We might look to the 50 state constitutions, most of which are considerably easier to amend. There have been more than 230 state constitutional conventions; each state has had an average of almost three constitutions. (New York, for example, is on its fifth Constitution, adopted in 1938.) This year Ohioans will be voting on whether to call a new constitutional convention; its Constitution, like 13 others, including New York’s, gives voters the chance to do so at regular intervals, typically 20 years.
Another reform would aim to fix Congressional gridlock. We could permit each newly elected president to appoint 50 members of the House and 10 members of the Senate, all to serve four-year terms until the next presidential election. Presidents would be judged on actual programs, instead of hollow rhetoric.
If enhanced presidential power seems too scary, then the solution might lie in reducing, if not eliminating, the president’s power to veto legislation and to return to true bicameralism, instead of the tricameralism we effectively operate under. We might allow deadlocks between the two branches of Congress to be broken by, say, a supermajority of the House or of Congress voting as a whole.
One might also be inspired by the states to allow at least some aspects of direct democracy. California — the only state with a constitution more dysfunctional than that of the United States — allows constitutional amendment at the ballot box. Maine, more sensibly, allows its citizenry to override legislation they deem objectionable. Might we not be far better off to have a national referendum on “Obamacare” instead of letting nine politically unaccountable judges decide?
Even if we want to preserve judicial review of national legislation, something Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. believed could be dispensed with, perhaps we should emulate North Dakota or Nebraska, which require supermajorities of their court to invalidate state legislation. Why shouldn’t the votes of, say, seven of the nine Supreme Court justices be required to overturn national legislation?
Or consider the fact that almost all states have rejected the model of judges nominated by the president and then confirmed by the Senate. Most state judges are electorally accountable in some way, and almost all must retire at a given age. Many states have adopted commissions to limit the politicization of the appointment process.
What was truly admirable about the framers was their willingness to critique, indeed junk, the Articles of Confederation. One need not believe that the Constitution of 1787 should be discarded in quite the same way to accept that we are long overdue for a serious discussion about its own role in creating the depressed (and depressing) state of American politics.
Sanford Levinson, a professor of law and government at the University of Texas, Austin, is the author of “Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance.”
SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES
Scott Walker, Romney's Running Mate?
Balance the GOP presidential ticket? Nah! That's Democrat stuff. Mitt Romney has the chance to a make a powerful statement with his V.P. choice. Governor Scott Walker -- a boring white guy's white guy -- is about to make a very powerful statement in Wisconsin. A thumbs-up by Wisconsin voters for Walker in next Tuesday's recall election would be a huge victory for bold governmental reform.
A Walker victory establishes that Republicans can enact significant reforms and survive onslaughts by public-sector labor unions, the left, and the dependent classes. For conservative reformers, a Walker recall win is the modern equivalent of the "shot heard around the world."
By picking Scott Walker as his running mate, Romney would signal that his administration is about fundamental reform. Not Mickey Mouse, nibble-at-the-edges reform. But historic, fork-in-the-road change. A Walker pick would show a lot of confidence on Romney's part and would rock liberals and the main stream media back on their heels.
Let's add that by picking Scott Walker, Romney could also greatly help galvanize conservative support for his candidacy. Conservatives are very likely to turn out to vote against Barack Obama in the autumn, but getting conservatives to work for Romney is something else. Scott Walker might be the incentive conservatives need to go the extra mile.
Mitt Romney is supposed to be Captain Cautious. The media has no problems with Romney choosing a boring white guy as his veep. In fact, they kind of expect it. The media wants it because it gives them a predictable storyline: white-bread Republicans versus rainbow-hued Democrats. Yawn.
But a boring white guy like Scott Walker who's determined to restructure his state's government and its relationship to the people...well, that's another matter. Boring white guy Republicans are supposed to check out of their corner offices at five and hit the links.
Scott Walker has proven not to be a clubby Republican eager to accommodate liberals' decades-old dominance of government. Walker has begun the process of deconstructing liberal government, and this in Wisconsin, which could be considered the cradle of "progressivism." Anyone remember Robert La Follette, Sr.? La Follette was a turn-of-the-last-century Republican, no less, and an early progressive leader nationally.
The irony is rich if a Walker recall win is the crucible from which the governor emerges all the more determined to press landmark reforms in Wisconsin favoring less government and more local control. The cradle of progressivism could wind up being the cradle of new small-government conservatism. A Walker victory undoubtedly emboldens Republican candidates and lawmakers throughout the nation.
Of course, for Scott Walker to be viable as Romney's running mate, he does have to win the recall fight next week. The polls are favoring Walker right now, but the polls may deceive.
Very few Wisconsin voters are undecided in the recall battle. The upcoming election is about turnout -- which side can get more of its voters into voting booths. In other states, summertime primaries and runoffs are notorious for low-voter turnouts. But not likely in Wisconsin, where the recall of a governor is novel and the political atmosphere is supercharged. If Walker's ground game is stronger than the Democrats' ground game, he wins.
Romney has already gone on record as wanting to fix Uncle Sam's problems in big ways. A Scott Walker pick underscores Romney's determination dramatically.
This late March account from Rush Limbaugh on what Romney told him about what can be expected from his presidency:
"If I accomplish everything I want to do, I may only be a one-term president." I said, "What do you mean?" "Because I am gonna so fix this. It's gonna be dramatic. We've gotta reverse this. We gotta stop this. Our children's future is at stake here, and I'm gonna stop the direction that we're headed, and if they throw me out after four years, fine and dandy."
If Romney is true to his word, then Scott Walker would be more than a "statement" as his vice president, come to think of it. Walker would be a political soul mate who had triumphed in the bloody fights that Romney would confront pursuing fundamental reforms in Washington. Already battle-tested, Walker could cover Romney's back better than most other veep choices.
In last week's American Spectator, Peter Ferrara recapped Governor Walker's accomplishments in Wisconsin, including implementing meaningful spending cuts instead of raising taxes to close a $3.6-billion budget deficit. Requiring state and local workers to contribute to their own benefits. Ending compulsory union dues payments for state workers. Limiting collective bargaining negotiations to salaries, not benefits and working conditions for government employees. And much more.
The Walker agenda in Wisconsin is really a blueprint for a Romney agenda in Washington. Jefferson fancied the states as laboratories of democracy. In the Wisconsin laboratory, small-government conservatism is demonstrating its superiority to worn-out liberalism.
As William Kristol writes in the current Weekly Standard:
[I]n the event of a victory for Walker on June 5, the task of today's Republicans will be similar to the challenge facing the Union forces after Gettysburg: to turn a defensive success -- halting the South's advance into Pennsylvania, preventing Scott Walker from being removed from office halfway through his term -- into a strategic victory in the broader conflict.
Kristol is dead-on about transforming a Walker victory next Tuesday into a larger strategic aim. In other words, starting the process of making the federal government smaller, leaner, and less intrusive. Returning many federal powers to the states where those powers aren't eliminated outright. Generally moving the nation away from the eighty-year deviancy that is big government. And more fully restoring citizens' rights to chart their own destinies free from government meddling.
The way things are going for Barack Obama, Romney could win in November without Scott Walker. But Walker on the GOP ticket would be a way for Romney to ask voters to give him an unambiguous mandate for dramatic reform. A mandate to start a basic overhaul of the federal government is not just what Mitt Romney needs to govern successfully, should he win in November, but what the country urgently needs to thrive.
SOURCE: American Thinker
A Walker victory establishes that Republicans can enact significant reforms and survive onslaughts by public-sector labor unions, the left, and the dependent classes. For conservative reformers, a Walker recall win is the modern equivalent of the "shot heard around the world."
By picking Scott Walker as his running mate, Romney would signal that his administration is about fundamental reform. Not Mickey Mouse, nibble-at-the-edges reform. But historic, fork-in-the-road change. A Walker pick would show a lot of confidence on Romney's part and would rock liberals and the main stream media back on their heels.
Let's add that by picking Scott Walker, Romney could also greatly help galvanize conservative support for his candidacy. Conservatives are very likely to turn out to vote against Barack Obama in the autumn, but getting conservatives to work for Romney is something else. Scott Walker might be the incentive conservatives need to go the extra mile.
Mitt Romney is supposed to be Captain Cautious. The media has no problems with Romney choosing a boring white guy as his veep. In fact, they kind of expect it. The media wants it because it gives them a predictable storyline: white-bread Republicans versus rainbow-hued Democrats. Yawn.
But a boring white guy like Scott Walker who's determined to restructure his state's government and its relationship to the people...well, that's another matter. Boring white guy Republicans are supposed to check out of their corner offices at five and hit the links.
Scott Walker has proven not to be a clubby Republican eager to accommodate liberals' decades-old dominance of government. Walker has begun the process of deconstructing liberal government, and this in Wisconsin, which could be considered the cradle of "progressivism." Anyone remember Robert La Follette, Sr.? La Follette was a turn-of-the-last-century Republican, no less, and an early progressive leader nationally.
The irony is rich if a Walker recall win is the crucible from which the governor emerges all the more determined to press landmark reforms in Wisconsin favoring less government and more local control. The cradle of progressivism could wind up being the cradle of new small-government conservatism. A Walker victory undoubtedly emboldens Republican candidates and lawmakers throughout the nation.
Of course, for Scott Walker to be viable as Romney's running mate, he does have to win the recall fight next week. The polls are favoring Walker right now, but the polls may deceive.
Very few Wisconsin voters are undecided in the recall battle. The upcoming election is about turnout -- which side can get more of its voters into voting booths. In other states, summertime primaries and runoffs are notorious for low-voter turnouts. But not likely in Wisconsin, where the recall of a governor is novel and the political atmosphere is supercharged. If Walker's ground game is stronger than the Democrats' ground game, he wins.
Romney has already gone on record as wanting to fix Uncle Sam's problems in big ways. A Scott Walker pick underscores Romney's determination dramatically.
This late March account from Rush Limbaugh on what Romney told him about what can be expected from his presidency:
"If I accomplish everything I want to do, I may only be a one-term president." I said, "What do you mean?" "Because I am gonna so fix this. It's gonna be dramatic. We've gotta reverse this. We gotta stop this. Our children's future is at stake here, and I'm gonna stop the direction that we're headed, and if they throw me out after four years, fine and dandy."
If Romney is true to his word, then Scott Walker would be more than a "statement" as his vice president, come to think of it. Walker would be a political soul mate who had triumphed in the bloody fights that Romney would confront pursuing fundamental reforms in Washington. Already battle-tested, Walker could cover Romney's back better than most other veep choices.
In last week's American Spectator, Peter Ferrara recapped Governor Walker's accomplishments in Wisconsin, including implementing meaningful spending cuts instead of raising taxes to close a $3.6-billion budget deficit. Requiring state and local workers to contribute to their own benefits. Ending compulsory union dues payments for state workers. Limiting collective bargaining negotiations to salaries, not benefits and working conditions for government employees. And much more.
The Walker agenda in Wisconsin is really a blueprint for a Romney agenda in Washington. Jefferson fancied the states as laboratories of democracy. In the Wisconsin laboratory, small-government conservatism is demonstrating its superiority to worn-out liberalism.
As William Kristol writes in the current Weekly Standard:
[I]n the event of a victory for Walker on June 5, the task of today's Republicans will be similar to the challenge facing the Union forces after Gettysburg: to turn a defensive success -- halting the South's advance into Pennsylvania, preventing Scott Walker from being removed from office halfway through his term -- into a strategic victory in the broader conflict.
Kristol is dead-on about transforming a Walker victory next Tuesday into a larger strategic aim. In other words, starting the process of making the federal government smaller, leaner, and less intrusive. Returning many federal powers to the states where those powers aren't eliminated outright. Generally moving the nation away from the eighty-year deviancy that is big government. And more fully restoring citizens' rights to chart their own destinies free from government meddling.
The way things are going for Barack Obama, Romney could win in November without Scott Walker. But Walker on the GOP ticket would be a way for Romney to ask voters to give him an unambiguous mandate for dramatic reform. A mandate to start a basic overhaul of the federal government is not just what Mitt Romney needs to govern successfully, should he win in November, but what the country urgently needs to thrive.
SOURCE: American Thinker