Saturday, July 28, 2012
The Tobacco Pirates
Earlier this year we took a brief look at Illinois Governor Patt Quinn’s inspired and sure-fire plan to ease his state’s fiscal woes on the backs of smokers by raising the taxes on cigarettes. Estimates as to how much money this would bring in ranged from modest sums in the mere millions to roughly the national debt. It couldn’t miss...
Don’t be told your vote won’t count
Voter registration form, Absentee ballot application, Voted Absentee Ballot
By all indications, the forthcoming presidential election on November 6, 2012 will be the most crucial election, to date, in the history of the United States.
If you are a civilian or military American citizen who will be out of the country and therefore absent from your legal place of residence on that date, you need to act now to protect your voting privilege if you haven’t already done so.
Assuming you want to exercise your right to vote in this year’s presidential election, it is vitally important that you follow specific steps to insure that you not only obtain an absentee ballot, but that you receive it, complete it, and return it within the time frame allowed by the voting requirements of the state where you make your permanent residence.
Time is running short in which to do this.
Voting rules are established by the election officials of each state and they vary widely from state to state. They can be confusing and should be carefully studied.
Websites that may be helpful to you are listed at the end of this article.
Here are typical examples of the variety of rules for just three states:
Voter registration form:
Alabama: Postmarked at least 11 days before the election.
Kentucky: Postmarked at least 29 days before the election.
Ohio: Postmarked at least 30 days before the election:
Absentee ballot application:
Alabama: Received at least 5 days before the election.
Kentucky: Received no later than the close of business 7 days before the election.
Ohio: Received by noon on the 3rd day (usually the Saturday) before the election.
Voted Absentee Ballot:
Alabama: Postmarked by the day before the election and received by noon on election day (mailed); received by 5pm on the day before the election (hand delivered).
Kentucky: Received by 6:00 PM on election day.
Ohio: Postmarked no later than the day before the election and received by the board of elections no later than 10 days after the election.
The history of American voting is rife with stories of “uncounted” or “lost” ballots, many of which could conceivably affect the results of an election. During the presidential election of 2008, six million American citizens, civilian and military, who were eligible to vote, were out of the country. Of these, some 98,000 were military voters whose ballots were sent back to the United States, only to have them “overlooked” or “lost”. In any event, they were not counted.
Unfortunately, there are many instances where dishonest officials have lied to voters or in some way illicitly gained votes for their own candidate. Such activity, of course, constitutes a crime. Not only is it repugnant; consider that whenever a ballot goes uncounted, an American citizen is denied a legal voice in a government that is meant to serve everyone.
Here are two web sites that may help you “Make Certain Your Vote Will Count”.
longdistancevoter.org/
canivote.org/
Tom Doenges is a freelance writer living in northwest Ohio. He can be contacted via e-mail at: awaywithwords@metalink.net
By all indications, the forthcoming presidential election on November 6, 2012 will be the most crucial election, to date, in the history of the United States.
If you are a civilian or military American citizen who will be out of the country and therefore absent from your legal place of residence on that date, you need to act now to protect your voting privilege if you haven’t already done so.
Assuming you want to exercise your right to vote in this year’s presidential election, it is vitally important that you follow specific steps to insure that you not only obtain an absentee ballot, but that you receive it, complete it, and return it within the time frame allowed by the voting requirements of the state where you make your permanent residence.
Time is running short in which to do this.
Voting rules are established by the election officials of each state and they vary widely from state to state. They can be confusing and should be carefully studied.
Websites that may be helpful to you are listed at the end of this article.
Here are typical examples of the variety of rules for just three states:
Voter registration form:
Alabama: Postmarked at least 11 days before the election.
Kentucky: Postmarked at least 29 days before the election.
Ohio: Postmarked at least 30 days before the election:
Absentee ballot application:
Alabama: Received at least 5 days before the election.
Kentucky: Received no later than the close of business 7 days before the election.
Ohio: Received by noon on the 3rd day (usually the Saturday) before the election.
Voted Absentee Ballot:
Alabama: Postmarked by the day before the election and received by noon on election day (mailed); received by 5pm on the day before the election (hand delivered).
Kentucky: Received by 6:00 PM on election day.
Ohio: Postmarked no later than the day before the election and received by the board of elections no later than 10 days after the election.
The history of American voting is rife with stories of “uncounted” or “lost” ballots, many of which could conceivably affect the results of an election. During the presidential election of 2008, six million American citizens, civilian and military, who were eligible to vote, were out of the country. Of these, some 98,000 were military voters whose ballots were sent back to the United States, only to have them “overlooked” or “lost”. In any event, they were not counted.
Unfortunately, there are many instances where dishonest officials have lied to voters or in some way illicitly gained votes for their own candidate. Such activity, of course, constitutes a crime. Not only is it repugnant; consider that whenever a ballot goes uncounted, an American citizen is denied a legal voice in a government that is meant to serve everyone.
Here are two web sites that may help you “Make Certain Your Vote Will Count”.
longdistancevoter.org/
canivote.org/
Tom Doenges is a freelance writer living in northwest Ohio. He can be contacted via e-mail at: awaywithwords@metalink.net
Dem Election Offical Vows Not To Enforce PA Voter ID Law
Even as the fate of Pennsylvania's new voter-identification law plays out in a Harrisburg courtroom, an election official in Delaware County is vowing not to enforce it.
Christopher L. Broach, a Democratic inspector of elections in the tiny borough of Colwyn, said he would not ask voters to prove who they are on Election Day.
"To ask me to enforce something that violates civil rights is ludicrous and absolutely something I am not willing to do," Broach said Thursday in an interview.
An IT consultant, Broach was elected inspector of elections but has recently acted as judge of elections to fill a vacancy. He called the law a ploy by the Republican-controlled legislature, "a wholly unethical decision that violated civil rights for the sake of getting Mitt Romney elected."
It gets even better further on, when he starts comparing himself to Rosa Parks.
Never mind, of course, that he was a elected to enforce the state's laws and took an oath to do so. That means nothing compared to aiding and abetting voter fraud to get Barack Obama re-elected.
You see, illegal aliens, convicted felons and dead people are a Democrat constituency. Just ask Eric Holder.
The Supreme Court has already weighed in on Pennsylvania's law by upholding an Indiana law that it mirrors, but the idea here is to get to a friendly, Democrat appointed judge and delay things until after the election.
Photo ID's are free for the asking to those who need them, and the odd, occasional sob story used by Democrat friendly media lackeys is just that.
Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, anyone too stupid or incompetent to obtain a photo ID doesn't belong in the voting booth anyway.
Attitudes like Broach's are a disgrace both to the office he holds and to our democracy. And his twaddle about 'civil rights concerns' pales, no pun intended, when you examine how the Obama Administration has suppressed the active military vote and how Obama's Department of Justice has refused to intervene in blatant cases of voter fraud involving whites.
Feds Nab Occu-Perv in NTC on Kiddie Porn Charges
The NY Post reports that US Marshals arrested a fugitive Occupier from Wisconsin who was hiding out on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen in the Big Apple.
Preston Laska, 23, was wanted on kiddie-porn charges in Wisconsin, which he fled after being convicted of similar charges.
The Jawas’ updated their Tea Party VS Occupy Compare and Contrast chart to mark the occasion:
How Barack Obama “Pays Down the Debt”
Contrary to popular belief, politicians are not, as a rule, particularly dishonest people. But there are exceptions. On the current scene, it would be hard to find another politician as dishonest as Barack Obama. Currently, he is running an ad that says he has a plan to “pay down the debt in a balanced way.” He also tries to justify his call for a tax increase on the ground that the increased revenues will reduce the deficit.
But where, exactly, is Obama’s plan to “pay down the debt”? It is a figment of his imagination; or, rather, a convenient lie that he thinks will help him politically. The only plan Obama has authored is a budget so outrageous that no one–not one Republican, not one Democrat, in either the House or the Senate–will vote for it. Today Obama complied belatedly with federal law by submitting his mid-year budget update, which is required to be submitted to Congress every year no later than July 16. So, does Obama’s updated budget finally disclose his “balanced plan to pay down the deficit”? Of course not. Like every other budget Obama has proposed, it would leave America deeper in the hole than ever. Senator Jeff Sessions said today:
President Obama is currently running a campaign ad saying he has a plan to ‘pay down the debt in a balanced way.’ He has made this claim in public remarks as well. But his updated budget—submitted two weeks after the legal deadline—reveals just how dramatically false this claim is. These ads ought to be pulled down.
His updated budget proposes a $10.6 trillion increase in gross debt through 2022, with debt remaining permanently above 100 percent of GDP. The picture in the out-years looks even bleaker. No change is proposed to our dangerously unsustainable debt course.
The President’s claim his tax hikes are for deficit reduction is shown to be false as well. His budget proposes to spend $46.2 trillion over ten years—an increase of nearly one-and-half trillion dollars above the current law baseline and a 57 percent increase above today’s spending levels. The President’s $1.8 trillion tax increase is not used to reduce the deficit but to fund this massive increase above what we are currently planning to spend.
Meanwhile, the President’s party in the Senate has refused to even produce a budget plan at all for three straight years.
Barack Obama is a liar of truly epic proportions.
But where, exactly, is Obama’s plan to “pay down the debt”? It is a figment of his imagination; or, rather, a convenient lie that he thinks will help him politically. The only plan Obama has authored is a budget so outrageous that no one–not one Republican, not one Democrat, in either the House or the Senate–will vote for it. Today Obama complied belatedly with federal law by submitting his mid-year budget update, which is required to be submitted to Congress every year no later than July 16. So, does Obama’s updated budget finally disclose his “balanced plan to pay down the deficit”? Of course not. Like every other budget Obama has proposed, it would leave America deeper in the hole than ever. Senator Jeff Sessions said today:
President Obama is currently running a campaign ad saying he has a plan to ‘pay down the debt in a balanced way.’ He has made this claim in public remarks as well. But his updated budget—submitted two weeks after the legal deadline—reveals just how dramatically false this claim is. These ads ought to be pulled down.
His updated budget proposes a $10.6 trillion increase in gross debt through 2022, with debt remaining permanently above 100 percent of GDP. The picture in the out-years looks even bleaker. No change is proposed to our dangerously unsustainable debt course.
The President’s claim his tax hikes are for deficit reduction is shown to be false as well. His budget proposes to spend $46.2 trillion over ten years—an increase of nearly one-and-half trillion dollars above the current law baseline and a 57 percent increase above today’s spending levels. The President’s $1.8 trillion tax increase is not used to reduce the deficit but to fund this massive increase above what we are currently planning to spend.
Meanwhile, the President’s party in the Senate has refused to even produce a budget plan at all for three straight years.
Barack Obama is a liar of truly epic proportions.
The Day Old Media Died
I'd be hard-pressed to pick an exact date, but suffice it to say that shortly after the inauguration of Barack Obama, vintage media committed suicide.
Thanks to Tom Blumer, who spotted the seminal admission in The New York Times, we have confirmation that journalism is as dead as Francisco Franco.
Put simply, the administration refuses to allow old media to report on any White House discussions without quote approval. And these former journalists go along to get along, compromising their principles and ethics to stay in good graces with this ludicrous regime.
• "[T]he (Obama campaign’s) press office has veto power over what statements can be quoted and attributed by name.”
• “Quote approval is standard practice for the Obama campaign, used by many top strategists and almost all midlevel aides in Chicago and at the White House.”
• “From Capitol Hill to the Treasury Department, interviews granted only with quote approval have become the default position.”
• “It was difficult to find a news outlet that had not agreed to quote approval, albeit reluctantly.” Ratner believes that the Associated Press and McClatchy are exceptions; I’m less than convinced.
• “Many journalists spoke about the editing only if granted anonymity, an irony that did not escape them.”
Blumer predicts, however, that vintage media could make a comeback someday.
If the Times, with what remaining power and influence it has, began to document and report every instance where a sycophantic administration flunky demanded quote approval and it firmly refused, I’ll bet things would change — and quickly. But either [they don't] have the stones to try, or for the time being would prefer not to.
Perhaps the day [those] in this sadly compromised calling will find the nerve to be journalists again will arrive on about January 21, 2013 — but only if someone other than Barack Obama begins to occupy the White House.
It's worth repeating early and often. This administration is as lawless as any in U.S. history. From shipping assault weapons to Mexican drug cartels; to declaring the Senate in recess when it clearly was not; to bribing Senators to pass Obamacare; to failing to prosecute a single Wall Street executive related to the financial crash, co-mingling of client funds or outright fraud; to publishing "enemies lists" of those who dare to contribute to their opponents' campaigns; to actively promoting vote fraud; to ordering the "DREAM Act" by executive fiat, when it couldn't pass Congress; to disabling credit-card security in order to accept illegal campaign contributions; and the list goes on and on and on.
There's not much in the Constitution this administration likes, and the First Amendment -- whether through its attack on the Catholic Church or its virulent hatred of free speech -- is a primary target.
Hat tip: Instapundit.
Thanks to Tom Blumer, who spotted the seminal admission in The New York Times, we have confirmation that journalism is as dead as Francisco Franco.
Put simply, the administration refuses to allow old media to report on any White House discussions without quote approval. And these former journalists go along to get along, compromising their principles and ethics to stay in good graces with this ludicrous regime.
• "[T]he (Obama campaign’s) press office has veto power over what statements can be quoted and attributed by name.”
• “Quote approval is standard practice for the Obama campaign, used by many top strategists and almost all midlevel aides in Chicago and at the White House.”
• “From Capitol Hill to the Treasury Department, interviews granted only with quote approval have become the default position.”
• “It was difficult to find a news outlet that had not agreed to quote approval, albeit reluctantly.” Ratner believes that the Associated Press and McClatchy are exceptions; I’m less than convinced.
• “Many journalists spoke about the editing only if granted anonymity, an irony that did not escape them.”
Blumer predicts, however, that vintage media could make a comeback someday.
If the Times, with what remaining power and influence it has, began to document and report every instance where a sycophantic administration flunky demanded quote approval and it firmly refused, I’ll bet things would change — and quickly. But either [they don't] have the stones to try, or for the time being would prefer not to.
Perhaps the day [those] in this sadly compromised calling will find the nerve to be journalists again will arrive on about January 21, 2013 — but only if someone other than Barack Obama begins to occupy the White House.
It's worth repeating early and often. This administration is as lawless as any in U.S. history. From shipping assault weapons to Mexican drug cartels; to declaring the Senate in recess when it clearly was not; to bribing Senators to pass Obamacare; to failing to prosecute a single Wall Street executive related to the financial crash, co-mingling of client funds or outright fraud; to publishing "enemies lists" of those who dare to contribute to their opponents' campaigns; to actively promoting vote fraud; to ordering the "DREAM Act" by executive fiat, when it couldn't pass Congress; to disabling credit-card security in order to accept illegal campaign contributions; and the list goes on and on and on.
There's not much in the Constitution this administration likes, and the First Amendment -- whether through its attack on the Catholic Church or its virulent hatred of free speech -- is a primary target.
Hat tip: Instapundit.
Six Shot, Five Fatally, Over 12 Hour Span Last Night in Chicago, the Gun Control Capital of the U.S.
The Second City, with gun control laws so outrageous that the Supreme Court struck them down, basically prohibits law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves with firearms.
Which doesn't seem to be working out too well, if the last -- oh -- 50 or 60 years are any indication.
Six people were shot and five of them died during a bloody 12-hour period between 4 p.m. Thursday and 4 a.m. Friday, according to Chicago police....
Which doesn't seem to be working out too well, if the last -- oh -- 50 or 60 years are any indication.
Six people were shot and five of them died during a bloody 12-hour period between 4 p.m. Thursday and 4 a.m. Friday, according to Chicago police....
I think I found the real 57 states. ( 7th paragraph.)
..But they were not the only ones appalled by Israel's latest provocation. In an unusually swift response Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), an umbrella body of 57 states, condemned the Israeli affront. He called on Muslim ambassadors to UNESCO to act immediately to stop Israeli aggression against the sacred Islamic and world heritage sites in occupied Jerusalem...
The American Solution: Reach for the Guns
While the Left looks for more reasons to restrict our right to self defense every time an infamous shooting occurs, the standard reaction of the general population in Colorado is to stock up on guns and ammo in self defense.
It’s a reaction that’s uniquely American, where every man’s a captain. But it’s also a reaction that has a long history in the West, a history we should be proud of..
It’s a reaction that’s uniquely American, where every man’s a captain. But it’s also a reaction that has a long history in the West, a history we should be proud of..
Obama's Islamophilia Week
While he wages a culture war on Christians, the president tells Americans not to worry about global Islam.
Md. attorney general seeks stay on gun ruling
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler is asking a federal appeals court to delay the implementation of a judge's ruling that Maryland's gun permit law is unconstitutional, pending an appeal by the state.
Gansler made the request with the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., on Friday.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Benson Legg decided to lift a stay effective Aug. 7, pertaining to his ruling that will allow Maryland residents to carry handguns without having to show a "good and substantial reason."
The Maryland attorney general's office is appealing the judge's March ruling. The state wants the stay to be in effect until the court has decided on the state's appeal.
The case was brought by the Second Amendment Foundation in 2010.
Gansler made the request with the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., on Friday.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Benson Legg decided to lift a stay effective Aug. 7, pertaining to his ruling that will allow Maryland residents to carry handguns without having to show a "good and substantial reason."
The Maryland attorney general's office is appealing the judge's March ruling. The state wants the stay to be in effect until the court has decided on the state's appeal.
The case was brought by the Second Amendment Foundation in 2010.
Ethics panel dismisses 2010 claim about Rubio
The Florida Commission on Ethics dismissed a long lingering complaint against U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio on Friday, clearing him of wrongdoing in questions surrounding his use of a state GOP-issued credit card.
"This was a politically motivated and frivolous complaint from the start, and Sen. Rubio is pleased that the commission dismissed it on all counts," spokesman Alex Burgos said..
"This was a politically motivated and frivolous complaint from the start, and Sen. Rubio is pleased that the commission dismissed it on all counts," spokesman Alex Burgos said..
Axelrod Decries GOP Negative Campaign
Senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod accused the GOP of running ads that “cast a negative pall over the campaign.” Axelrod said he had a particular beef over the use of the “you didn’t build that” quote.
“The GOP is playing on the egotism and greed of every small businessman in America,” Axelrod complained. “These self-centered twits congratulate themselves on their brilliance and hard work, but the fact of the matter is that the President is right on this issue.”
“The business owner may think ‘I took the risk,’ or ‘I put in the 14-hour days’ and conclude that he deserves the profit,” Axelrod elaborated. “What he overlooks is that the government allows him the freedom to take risk and to work hard when it could just as easily take everything he has, as many governments throughout history have done. Every atom used by every business was in existence long before it opened its doors. Therefore, everything a business makes is built from the common inheritance of humankind. All the President is trying to do is ensure that the benefits of this common inheritance are fairly distributed.”
Axelrod dismissed recent polls showing that business owners prefer Romney to Obama by a two-to-one margin. “Romney may capture the constituency of the greedy, but we’re far ahead with the constituency of the needy,” he boasted. “Our figures show that among the far larger cohort of those on food stamps the President enjoys a ten-to-one margin of support.”
“The GOP is playing on the egotism and greed of every small businessman in America,” Axelrod complained. “These self-centered twits congratulate themselves on their brilliance and hard work, but the fact of the matter is that the President is right on this issue.”
“The business owner may think ‘I took the risk,’ or ‘I put in the 14-hour days’ and conclude that he deserves the profit,” Axelrod elaborated. “What he overlooks is that the government allows him the freedom to take risk and to work hard when it could just as easily take everything he has, as many governments throughout history have done. Every atom used by every business was in existence long before it opened its doors. Therefore, everything a business makes is built from the common inheritance of humankind. All the President is trying to do is ensure that the benefits of this common inheritance are fairly distributed.”
Axelrod dismissed recent polls showing that business owners prefer Romney to Obama by a two-to-one margin. “Romney may capture the constituency of the greedy, but we’re far ahead with the constituency of the needy,” he boasted. “Our figures show that among the far larger cohort of those on food stamps the President enjoys a ten-to-one margin of support.”
Unreported deaths of minorities?
Group claims dead people voted in Maryland
Critics say real aim is to disenfranchise minorities
A Maryland group with loose ties to a tea party organization in Texas says it has found evidence of ballots cast at polling places in the state long after the voters were listed as deceased, but has not decided what to do with the information.
Election Integrity Maryland has turned over information to state and county election board officials on 9,000 people listed on voter rolls in Montgomery and Prince George's counties and Baltimore city who, it says, are deceased or have an improper address....
Critics say real aim is to disenfranchise minorities
A Maryland group with loose ties to a tea party organization in Texas says it has found evidence of ballots cast at polling places in the state long after the voters were listed as deceased, but has not decided what to do with the information.
Election Integrity Maryland has turned over information to state and county election board officials on 9,000 people listed on voter rolls in Montgomery and Prince George's counties and Baltimore city who, it says, are deceased or have an improper address....
Jesse Jackson Jr. in Mayo Clinic being treated for depression
ROCHESTER, Minn. – Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., whose whereabouts haven't been disclosed since he mysteriously took a medical leave several weeks ago, is being treated for depression at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., according to a statement Friday from the hospital..
Md. Lt. Gov. Brown donates campaign funds from troubled D.C. contractor
Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown is donating $17,000 in contributions his campaign received from a D.C. contractor now at the center of a fundraising scandal in Washington embroiling D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray..
ATTENTION SHERIFF JOE! "ILLEGAL BUS" COMING YOUR WAY! A Bus Ride to Show the Cracks in Immigration
PHOENIX — The route they will take on their cross-country trek resembles a slithering snake — up, down and around in a series of intentional detours that are equal parts political strategy and provocation. Their bus leaves from this sprawling city in the desert at sunrise on Monday, carrying 30 men and women who say they have chosen to live in the shadows no more....
Cowardice: Boehner Indicates GOP House May Fund Obama's 'Attack on Religious Liberty'
(CNSNews.com) – Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) indicated Thursday that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives that he leads may go ahead and provide the Obama administration with the funding it needs to implement a regulation that earlier this year Boehner himself called "an unambiguous attack on religious freedom in our country."
BFD: A Biden Fabulist Dud
As usual with White House class-warfare demagoguery, reality doesn't fit the wealth-bashing narrative..
Misunderstanding
The wife left a note on the fridge . . . . . . . . "It's not working!! I can't take it anymore: I've gone to stay at my mothers!" I opened the fridge, the light came on and the beer was still cold . . . . . . What the hell is she talking about?!!
The Obama Deception HQ Full length version
The Obama Deception is a hard-hitting film that completely destroys the myth that Barack Obama is working for the best interests of the American people.
The Obama phenomenon is a hoax carefully crafted by the captains of the New World Order. He is being pushed as savior in an attempt to con the American people into accepting global slavery.
We have reached a critical juncture in the New World Order's plans. It's not about Left or Right: it's about a One World Government. The international banks plan to loot the people of the United States and turn them into slaves on a Global Plantation.
Covered in this film: who Obama works for, what lies he has told, and his real agenda. If you want to know the facts and cut through all the hype, this is the film for you.
Watch the Obama Deception and learn how:
- Obama is continuing the process of transforming America into something that resembles Nazi Germany, with forced National Service, domestic civilian spies, warrantless wiretaps, the destruction of the Second Amendment, FEMA camps and Martial Law.
- Obama's handlers are openly announcing the creation of a new Bank of the World that will dominate every nation on earth through carbon taxes and military force.
- International bankers purposefully engineered the worldwide financial meltdown to bankrupt the nations of the planet and bring in World Government.
- Obama plans to loot the middle class, destroy pensions and federalize the states so that the population is completely dependent on the Central Government.
- The Elite are using Obama to pacify the public so they can usher in the North American Union by stealth, launch a new Cold War and continue the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://www.infowars.com
http://www.prisonplanet.tv
Obama being made out to be hero for the right?
Obama blamed for failure of international arms treaty
The United Nations indefinitely suspended action on an international arms trade treaty Friday after the United States and several other countries asked for more time.
The decision sparked angry reactions from human rights groups often allied with the Obama administration, who believed a treaty to regulate the export of deadly weapons to rogue regimes was within reach. The UN had spent the entire month of July hammering out a deal, and Friday was the deadline for an agreement on a treaty that has met with the staunch opposition of the National Rifle Association and bipartisan concerns in the Senate.
“This was stunning cowardice by the Obama administration, which at the last minute did an about-face and scuttled progress toward a global arms treaty, just as it reached the finish line,” said Suzanne Nossel, the executive director of Amnesty International USA. “It’s a staggering abdication of leadership by the world’s largest exporter of conventional weapons to pull the plug on the talks just as they were nearing an historic breakthrough that would have required all nations to deny arms export licenses where there was an overriding risk that the weapons would be used to facilitate serious crimes against humanity.”
And Scott Stedjan, Oxfam America’s senior policy advisor, called the failure “a tremendous loss for thousands of innocent civilians around the globe who die each year from armed violence fueled by the unregulated transfer of arms.”
U.S. allies also expressed their frustration.
"We came to New York to achieve a strong and robust Arms Trade Treaty. We had expected to adopt such a draft Treaty today. We believe we were very close to reaching our goals,” a group of 90 countries – including the U.K., France and Germany – said in a statement read at the end of the conference. "Compromises have had to be made, but overall the text you put forward yesterday has the overwhelming support of the international community as a base for carrying forward our work. We believed that this would have been possible with extra work today and only very reluctantly now see that this is not possible."
The group held out hope that the UN could still reach consensus on a treaty this year.
Even then, the treaty would almost certainly fail to get the two-thirds majority needed for ratification by the U.S. Senate, where 51 senators have already signed on to a letter raising their objection to any treaty that would regulate “small arms" or "light weapons," as the draft treaty does. Proponents of the treaty, which include the National Association of Evangelicals, say there is nothing in the treaty that is incompatible with Second Amendment gun rights.
The United Nations indefinitely suspended action on an international arms trade treaty Friday after the United States and several other countries asked for more time.
The decision sparked angry reactions from human rights groups often allied with the Obama administration, who believed a treaty to regulate the export of deadly weapons to rogue regimes was within reach. The UN had spent the entire month of July hammering out a deal, and Friday was the deadline for an agreement on a treaty that has met with the staunch opposition of the National Rifle Association and bipartisan concerns in the Senate.
“This was stunning cowardice by the Obama administration, which at the last minute did an about-face and scuttled progress toward a global arms treaty, just as it reached the finish line,” said Suzanne Nossel, the executive director of Amnesty International USA. “It’s a staggering abdication of leadership by the world’s largest exporter of conventional weapons to pull the plug on the talks just as they were nearing an historic breakthrough that would have required all nations to deny arms export licenses where there was an overriding risk that the weapons would be used to facilitate serious crimes against humanity.”
And Scott Stedjan, Oxfam America’s senior policy advisor, called the failure “a tremendous loss for thousands of innocent civilians around the globe who die each year from armed violence fueled by the unregulated transfer of arms.”
U.S. allies also expressed their frustration.
"We came to New York to achieve a strong and robust Arms Trade Treaty. We had expected to adopt such a draft Treaty today. We believe we were very close to reaching our goals,” a group of 90 countries – including the U.K., France and Germany – said in a statement read at the end of the conference. "Compromises have had to be made, but overall the text you put forward yesterday has the overwhelming support of the international community as a base for carrying forward our work. We believed that this would have been possible with extra work today and only very reluctantly now see that this is not possible."
The group held out hope that the UN could still reach consensus on a treaty this year.
Even then, the treaty would almost certainly fail to get the two-thirds majority needed for ratification by the U.S. Senate, where 51 senators have already signed on to a letter raising their objection to any treaty that would regulate “small arms" or "light weapons," as the draft treaty does. Proponents of the treaty, which include the National Association of Evangelicals, say there is nothing in the treaty that is incompatible with Second Amendment gun rights.
Judge orders Fire Department to hire black and Hispanic applicants who failed “racist” written test
Here’s a situation which reminds me of the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand:
The following quote is from this article:
“A federal judge is ordering the New York City Fire Department to implement racial quotas to address grievances from minorities who failed entrance exams. On July 5 in Brooklyn, Nicholas G. Garaufis, a Clinton-appointed judge for the Eastern District of New York, issued a ruling that requires two of every five newly hired fireman to be black and one of every five, Hispanic — until the department has fulfilled the court-ordered quota of 186 black and 107 Hispanic hires. The ruling allows back pay — totaling an estimated $128.7 million — for minorities who failed written tests.”
The test can be read here.
The judge is wrong to claim that the test is “racist.” The test makes no mention whatsoever of race. The same test is given to all applicants, regardless of their race. There is nothing “racist” about the test.
In addition, the test is incredibly easy. The test actually contains the answers within the questions. Here is a question from the test:
Answer question 15 based solely on the following information:
Firefighters primary means of protection against a hostile fire environment are their protective clothing and equipment. Before getting on their fire apparatus at the firehouse, firefighters must put on their protective gear in the order given:
1. Pants and boots
2. Handie-talkie radio
3. Hood
4. Coat
5. Gloves
6. Helmet
7. Prior to exiting the fire apparatus at the fire scene, firefighters put on their SCBA (Self Contained Breathing Apparatus), which is the air tank they use to breathe.
15. You are a firefighter at your firehouse preparing to go to a fire and are standing near your apparatus putting on your protective gear in the proper order. You have just completed putting on your gloves. The next item you should put on is your:
A) coat
B) hood
C) SCBA
D) helmet
Even if someone has never taken a firefighting class, they could still pass the test, if they are in possession of basic reading, logical, and analytical skills. A reasonably intelligent six-year-old child, who has never taken a firefighting class, should be able to pass this test. Any so-called “adult” who can’t read and understand this test well enough to pass it is not someone who should be working as a firefighter in the first place.
Think of the kind of precedent this ruling could set. Instead of hiring heart surgeons, bridge engineers, and bus drivers based on who passed the test, we could end up hiring based on who failed the test. Can you imagine the kind of world this would create?
Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis is evil for his ruling in this case – and I don’t use that word lightly. He is evil because he thinks that the lives of human beings who are trapped in burning buildings should be superseded to the politically correct whims of a political philosophy which is based on the idea that individual merit is worthless. When one accepts the idea that individual merit is worthless, it doesn’t take much more to believe that individual lives are also worthless.
The whole reason that we live so much better than the hunter gatherers of thousands of years ago is because we have valued individual merit, the human mind, rational thought, and doing things as well as possible. Judge Garaufis’s ruling isn’t just about firefighting – at its very core, his ruling is an attack on human life, and on all of the things that make civilization so wonderful.
The following quote is from this article:
“A federal judge is ordering the New York City Fire Department to implement racial quotas to address grievances from minorities who failed entrance exams. On July 5 in Brooklyn, Nicholas G. Garaufis, a Clinton-appointed judge for the Eastern District of New York, issued a ruling that requires two of every five newly hired fireman to be black and one of every five, Hispanic — until the department has fulfilled the court-ordered quota of 186 black and 107 Hispanic hires. The ruling allows back pay — totaling an estimated $128.7 million — for minorities who failed written tests.”
The test can be read here.
The judge is wrong to claim that the test is “racist.” The test makes no mention whatsoever of race. The same test is given to all applicants, regardless of their race. There is nothing “racist” about the test.
In addition, the test is incredibly easy. The test actually contains the answers within the questions. Here is a question from the test:
Answer question 15 based solely on the following information:
Firefighters primary means of protection against a hostile fire environment are their protective clothing and equipment. Before getting on their fire apparatus at the firehouse, firefighters must put on their protective gear in the order given:
1. Pants and boots
2. Handie-talkie radio
3. Hood
4. Coat
5. Gloves
6. Helmet
7. Prior to exiting the fire apparatus at the fire scene, firefighters put on their SCBA (Self Contained Breathing Apparatus), which is the air tank they use to breathe.
15. You are a firefighter at your firehouse preparing to go to a fire and are standing near your apparatus putting on your protective gear in the proper order. You have just completed putting on your gloves. The next item you should put on is your:
A) coat
B) hood
C) SCBA
D) helmet
Even if someone has never taken a firefighting class, they could still pass the test, if they are in possession of basic reading, logical, and analytical skills. A reasonably intelligent six-year-old child, who has never taken a firefighting class, should be able to pass this test. Any so-called “adult” who can’t read and understand this test well enough to pass it is not someone who should be working as a firefighter in the first place.
Think of the kind of precedent this ruling could set. Instead of hiring heart surgeons, bridge engineers, and bus drivers based on who passed the test, we could end up hiring based on who failed the test. Can you imagine the kind of world this would create?
Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis is evil for his ruling in this case – and I don’t use that word lightly. He is evil because he thinks that the lives of human beings who are trapped in burning buildings should be superseded to the politically correct whims of a political philosophy which is based on the idea that individual merit is worthless. When one accepts the idea that individual merit is worthless, it doesn’t take much more to believe that individual lives are also worthless.
The whole reason that we live so much better than the hunter gatherers of thousands of years ago is because we have valued individual merit, the human mind, rational thought, and doing things as well as possible. Judge Garaufis’s ruling isn’t just about firefighting – at its very core, his ruling is an attack on human life, and on all of the things that make civilization so wonderful.
IRS targets, slaps liens on Rep. Daphne Campbell
State Democratic Rep. Daphne Campbell faces IRS and state investigation. The state party wants her to consider resigning.
Why The IOC Will Never Memorialize The '72 Munich Massacre
Recently, new information about the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games was released by German police as a result of pressure from German investigative reporters. It was reported that the “Black September” terrorists were helped by a Nazi group in Germany to get fake IDs, weapons and access to the Olympic Village.
This was not too shocking, as the head of the IOC in 1972 was Avery Brundage, a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite. His protege, Juan Samaranch, eventually served the second longest IOC term as president, but his support of Nazis and the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco was kept a dirty secret. Most IOC members knew the truth but stayed silent because he organized a regal lifestyle for them -- with money diverted from sport.
Another interesting fact is that Abu Iyad, one of the co-founders of the PLO, has said publicly that the reason “Black September” chose the 1972 Olympics as the stage for their hostage plot was because the PLO's request to the IOC for inclusion of the Palestinian delegation at the Olympic Games was completely ignored. This snub from the IOC came at a time when tension was at a boiling point in the Middle East. Yet, having incited the PLO, the IOC denied the Israeli government's request for security for the athletes.
In 1996, I, along with other Munich orphans and three of the widows, were invited for the first time to the Olympic Games in Atlanta. Before the Opening Ceremony, we met with Alex Gilady. Gilady has been a member of the IOC's Radio and Television Commission since 1984 and has been the senior vice president of NBC Sports since 1996.
I have known Mr. Gilady since I was a kid; in fact, I grew up with his daughter. He had been supportive in the past regarding our plea for a moment of silence during the Opening Ceremonies, so we arrived with high hopes. Gilady informed us that a moment of silence was not possible because if the IOC had a moment of silence for the Israeli athletes, they would also have to do the same for the Palestinians who died at the Olympics in 1972.
My mother said, "But no Palestinian athletes died."
Gilady responded, "Well, there were Palestinians who died at the 1972 Olympics."
I heard one of the widows say to Gilady, "Are you equating the murder of my husband to the terrorists that killed him?"
Silence.
Then Ilana Romano burst out with a cry that has haunted me to this day. She screamed at Gilady, "How DARE you! You KNOW what they did to my husband! They let him lay there for hours, dying slowly, and then finished him off by castrating him and shoving it in his mouth, ALEX!"
I looked at Gilady's face as he sat there, stone cold with no emotion. This man knew these athletes personally. This man led the Israeli media delegation at the 1972 Olympics and saw this atrocity first hand. This man saw my father's dead, naked body thrown out front of the Olympic Village for all the world to see.
Without a hint of empathy, Gilady excused himself from our meeting.
That's when I understood that the IOC wasn't turning us down because of their resistance to :politics.” Rather, it was due to the specific politics the IOC apparently still embraces. Based on its history of Nazi support, greed and the blood on their own hands for inciting the PLO, they would never support Israeli athletes.
Now, I have a message to all the members of the IOC. The torture inflicted by “Black September” on the 11 Israeli athletes and their families took 48 hours. Your torture of the families and the memories of those esteemed athletes has lasted 40 years. I am not satisfied with a moment of silence in every Opening Ceremony of the Summer Games. Now I want all of you to lose your jobs and be replaced by real Olympians who care about the athletes and believe in the Olympic charter.
The threat of the IOC coming after me does not scare me anymore. When you have no more dignity, you have nothing to lose. So, members of the IOC -- my name is Guri Weinberg and I am the son of Moshe Weinberg, the wrestling coach murdered at the 1972 Olympics. And I am not going away.
This was not too shocking, as the head of the IOC in 1972 was Avery Brundage, a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite. His protege, Juan Samaranch, eventually served the second longest IOC term as president, but his support of Nazis and the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco was kept a dirty secret. Most IOC members knew the truth but stayed silent because he organized a regal lifestyle for them -- with money diverted from sport.
Another interesting fact is that Abu Iyad, one of the co-founders of the PLO, has said publicly that the reason “Black September” chose the 1972 Olympics as the stage for their hostage plot was because the PLO's request to the IOC for inclusion of the Palestinian delegation at the Olympic Games was completely ignored. This snub from the IOC came at a time when tension was at a boiling point in the Middle East. Yet, having incited the PLO, the IOC denied the Israeli government's request for security for the athletes.
In 1996, I, along with other Munich orphans and three of the widows, were invited for the first time to the Olympic Games in Atlanta. Before the Opening Ceremony, we met with Alex Gilady. Gilady has been a member of the IOC's Radio and Television Commission since 1984 and has been the senior vice president of NBC Sports since 1996.
I have known Mr. Gilady since I was a kid; in fact, I grew up with his daughter. He had been supportive in the past regarding our plea for a moment of silence during the Opening Ceremonies, so we arrived with high hopes. Gilady informed us that a moment of silence was not possible because if the IOC had a moment of silence for the Israeli athletes, they would also have to do the same for the Palestinians who died at the Olympics in 1972.
My mother said, "But no Palestinian athletes died."
Gilady responded, "Well, there were Palestinians who died at the 1972 Olympics."
I heard one of the widows say to Gilady, "Are you equating the murder of my husband to the terrorists that killed him?"
Silence.
Then Ilana Romano burst out with a cry that has haunted me to this day. She screamed at Gilady, "How DARE you! You KNOW what they did to my husband! They let him lay there for hours, dying slowly, and then finished him off by castrating him and shoving it in his mouth, ALEX!"
I looked at Gilady's face as he sat there, stone cold with no emotion. This man knew these athletes personally. This man led the Israeli media delegation at the 1972 Olympics and saw this atrocity first hand. This man saw my father's dead, naked body thrown out front of the Olympic Village for all the world to see.
Without a hint of empathy, Gilady excused himself from our meeting.
That's when I understood that the IOC wasn't turning us down because of their resistance to :politics.” Rather, it was due to the specific politics the IOC apparently still embraces. Based on its history of Nazi support, greed and the blood on their own hands for inciting the PLO, they would never support Israeli athletes.
Now, I have a message to all the members of the IOC. The torture inflicted by “Black September” on the 11 Israeli athletes and their families took 48 hours. Your torture of the families and the memories of those esteemed athletes has lasted 40 years. I am not satisfied with a moment of silence in every Opening Ceremony of the Summer Games. Now I want all of you to lose your jobs and be replaced by real Olympians who care about the athletes and believe in the Olympic charter.
The threat of the IOC coming after me does not scare me anymore. When you have no more dignity, you have nothing to lose. So, members of the IOC -- my name is Guri Weinberg and I am the son of Moshe Weinberg, the wrestling coach murdered at the 1972 Olympics. And I am not going away.
Dem proposes bill allowing some products to be labeled 'cancer-free'
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) on Wednesday proposed legislation that would allow companies to apply to the government to allow their products to bear a "cancer-free" label.
"It's time to help consumers choose safer products for themselves and for their loved ones," Deutch said on the House floor Wednesday. "That's why today I'm introducing the Cancer Free Label Act. My bill will give companies the chance to market to consumers the fact that the products that they make are free of carcinogens."
Under his bill, H.R. 6191, the Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture and Consumer Product Safety Commission would set up rules for approving the use of "cancer-free" labels. It says approved labels would state, "This product does not contain known or likely carcinogens that increase your risk of cancer."
To get approval, companies would have to send in a list of ingredients or substances used in the product. Agencies could approve the use of the label if it finds no carcinogens are used, and the company is making, storing and transporting the product in a way that does not pose a risk of cancer.
The bill also requires agencies to conduct random testing of products to ensure they are in fact composed of substances listed in the application. And, it allows agencies to charge a "reasonable fee" to administer the program.
Finally, the bill makes it illegal to label products as cancer-free without government approval, subject to a fine of no more than $100,000.
"It's time to help consumers choose safer products for themselves and for their loved ones," Deutch said on the House floor Wednesday. "That's why today I'm introducing the Cancer Free Label Act. My bill will give companies the chance to market to consumers the fact that the products that they make are free of carcinogens."
Under his bill, H.R. 6191, the Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture and Consumer Product Safety Commission would set up rules for approving the use of "cancer-free" labels. It says approved labels would state, "This product does not contain known or likely carcinogens that increase your risk of cancer."
To get approval, companies would have to send in a list of ingredients or substances used in the product. Agencies could approve the use of the label if it finds no carcinogens are used, and the company is making, storing and transporting the product in a way that does not pose a risk of cancer.
The bill also requires agencies to conduct random testing of products to ensure they are in fact composed of substances listed in the application. And, it allows agencies to charge a "reasonable fee" to administer the program.
Finally, the bill makes it illegal to label products as cancer-free without government approval, subject to a fine of no more than $100,000.
Oregon Man Sentenced to 30 Days in Jail -- for Collecting Rainwater on His Property
(CNSNews.com) – A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater.
Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property – and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.
“The government is bullying,” Harrington told CNSNews.com in an interview Thursday.
“They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies. So, we as Americans, we need to stand on our constitutional rights, on our rights as citizens and hang tough. This is a good country, we’ll prevail,” he said.
The court has given Harrington two weeks to report to the Jackson County Jail to begin serving his sentence.
Harrington said the case first began in 2002, when state water managers told him there were complaints about the three “reservoirs” – ponds – on his more than 170 acres of land.
According to Oregon water laws, all water is publicly owned. Therefore, anyone who wants to store any type of water on their property must first obtain a permit from state water managers.
Harrington said he applied for three permits to legally house reservoirs for storm and snow water runoff on his property. One of the “reservoirs” had been on his property for 37 years, he said.
Though the state Water Resources Department initially approved his permits in 2003, the state – and a state court -- ultimately reversed the decision.
“They issued me my permits. I had my permits in hand and they retracted them just arbitrarily, basically. They took them back and said ‘No, you can’t have them,’ so I’ve been fighting it ever since,” Harrington told CNSNews.com.
The case, he said, is centered on a 1925 law which states that the city of Medford holds exclusive rights to “all core sources of water” in the Big Butte Creek watershed and its tributaries.
“Way back in 1925 the city of Medford got a unique withdrawal that withdrew all -- supposedly all -- the water out of a single basin and supposedly for the benefit of the city of Medford,” Harrington told CNSNews.com.
Harrington told CNSNews.com, however, that the 1925 law doesn’t mention anything about colleting rainwater or snow melt -- and he believes that he has been falsely accused.
“The withdrawal said the stream and its tributaries. It didn’t mention anything about rainwater and it didn’t mention anything about snow melt and it didn’t mention anything about diffused water, but yet now, they’re trying to expand that to include that rain water and they’re using me as the goat to do it,” Harrington
But Tom Paul, administrator of the Oregon Water Resources Department, claims that Harrington has been violating the state’s water use law by diverting water from streams running into the Big Butte River.
“The law that he is actually violating is not the 1925 provision, but it’s Oregon law that says all of the water in the state of Oregon is public water and if you want to use that water, either to divert it or to store it, you have to acquire a water right from the state of Oregon before doing that activity,” Paul told CNSNews.com.
Yet Paul admitted the 1925 law does apply because, he said, Harrington constructed dams to block a tributary to the Big Butte, which Medford uses for its water supply.
“There are dams across channels, water channels where the water would normally flow if it were not for the dam and so those dams are stopping the water from flowing in the channel and storing it- holding it so it cannot flow downstream,” Paul told CNSNews.com.
Harrington, however, argued in court that that he is not diverting water from Big Butte Creek, but the dams capturing the rainwater and snow runoff – or “diffused water” – are on his own property and that therefore the runoff does not fall under the jurisdiction of the state water managers, nor does it not violate the 1925 act.
In 2007, a Jackson County Circuit Court judge denied Harrington’s permits and found that he had illegally “withdrawn the water at issue from appropriation other than for the City of Medford.”
According to Paul, Harrington entered a guilty plea at the time, received three years probation and was ordered to open up the water gates.
“A very short period of time following the expiration of his probation, he once again closed the gates and re-filled the reservoirs,” Paul told CNSNews.com. “So, this has been going on for some time and I think frankly the court felt that Mr. Harrington was not getting the message and decided that they’d already given him probation once and required him to open the gates and he refilled his reservoirs and it was business as usual for him, so I think the court wanted -- it felt it needed -- to give a stiffer penalty to get Mr. Harrington’s attention.”
In two weeks, if unsuccessful in his appeals, Harrington told CNSNews.com that he will report to the Jackson County Jail to serve his sentence.
“I follow the rules. If I’m mandated to report, I’m going to report. Of course, I’m going to do what it takes in the meantime to prevent that, but if I’m not successful, I’ll be there,” Harrington said.
But Harrington also said that he will never stop fighting the government on this issue.
“When something is wrong, you just, as an American citizen, you have to put your foot down and say, ‘This is wrong; you just can’t take away anymore of my rights and from here on in, I’m going to fight it.”
Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property – and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.
“The government is bullying,” Harrington told CNSNews.com in an interview Thursday.
“They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies. So, we as Americans, we need to stand on our constitutional rights, on our rights as citizens and hang tough. This is a good country, we’ll prevail,” he said.
The court has given Harrington two weeks to report to the Jackson County Jail to begin serving his sentence.
Harrington said the case first began in 2002, when state water managers told him there were complaints about the three “reservoirs” – ponds – on his more than 170 acres of land.
According to Oregon water laws, all water is publicly owned. Therefore, anyone who wants to store any type of water on their property must first obtain a permit from state water managers.
Harrington said he applied for three permits to legally house reservoirs for storm and snow water runoff on his property. One of the “reservoirs” had been on his property for 37 years, he said.
Though the state Water Resources Department initially approved his permits in 2003, the state – and a state court -- ultimately reversed the decision.
“They issued me my permits. I had my permits in hand and they retracted them just arbitrarily, basically. They took them back and said ‘No, you can’t have them,’ so I’ve been fighting it ever since,” Harrington told CNSNews.com.
The case, he said, is centered on a 1925 law which states that the city of Medford holds exclusive rights to “all core sources of water” in the Big Butte Creek watershed and its tributaries.
“Way back in 1925 the city of Medford got a unique withdrawal that withdrew all -- supposedly all -- the water out of a single basin and supposedly for the benefit of the city of Medford,” Harrington told CNSNews.com.
Harrington told CNSNews.com, however, that the 1925 law doesn’t mention anything about colleting rainwater or snow melt -- and he believes that he has been falsely accused.
“The withdrawal said the stream and its tributaries. It didn’t mention anything about rainwater and it didn’t mention anything about snow melt and it didn’t mention anything about diffused water, but yet now, they’re trying to expand that to include that rain water and they’re using me as the goat to do it,” Harrington
But Tom Paul, administrator of the Oregon Water Resources Department, claims that Harrington has been violating the state’s water use law by diverting water from streams running into the Big Butte River.
“The law that he is actually violating is not the 1925 provision, but it’s Oregon law that says all of the water in the state of Oregon is public water and if you want to use that water, either to divert it or to store it, you have to acquire a water right from the state of Oregon before doing that activity,” Paul told CNSNews.com.
Yet Paul admitted the 1925 law does apply because, he said, Harrington constructed dams to block a tributary to the Big Butte, which Medford uses for its water supply.
“There are dams across channels, water channels where the water would normally flow if it were not for the dam and so those dams are stopping the water from flowing in the channel and storing it- holding it so it cannot flow downstream,” Paul told CNSNews.com.
Harrington, however, argued in court that that he is not diverting water from Big Butte Creek, but the dams capturing the rainwater and snow runoff – or “diffused water” – are on his own property and that therefore the runoff does not fall under the jurisdiction of the state water managers, nor does it not violate the 1925 act.
In 2007, a Jackson County Circuit Court judge denied Harrington’s permits and found that he had illegally “withdrawn the water at issue from appropriation other than for the City of Medford.”
According to Paul, Harrington entered a guilty plea at the time, received three years probation and was ordered to open up the water gates.
“A very short period of time following the expiration of his probation, he once again closed the gates and re-filled the reservoirs,” Paul told CNSNews.com. “So, this has been going on for some time and I think frankly the court felt that Mr. Harrington was not getting the message and decided that they’d already given him probation once and required him to open the gates and he refilled his reservoirs and it was business as usual for him, so I think the court wanted -- it felt it needed -- to give a stiffer penalty to get Mr. Harrington’s attention.”
In two weeks, if unsuccessful in his appeals, Harrington told CNSNews.com that he will report to the Jackson County Jail to serve his sentence.
“I follow the rules. If I’m mandated to report, I’m going to report. Of course, I’m going to do what it takes in the meantime to prevent that, but if I’m not successful, I’ll be there,” Harrington said.
But Harrington also said that he will never stop fighting the government on this issue.
“When something is wrong, you just, as an American citizen, you have to put your foot down and say, ‘This is wrong; you just can’t take away anymore of my rights and from here on in, I’m going to fight it.”
Google: Didn't delete Street View data after all
LONDON (AP) -- After being caught spying on people across Europe and Australia with its Wi-Fi-slurping Street View cars, Google had told angry regulators that it would delete the ill-gotten data.
Google broke its promise.
Britain's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) received a letter from Google in which the company admits it kept a "small portion" of the electronic information it had been meant to get rid of.
"Google apologizes for this error," Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, said in the letter, which the ICO published on its website.
The ICO said in a statement that Google Inc. had agreed to delete all that data nearly two years ago, adding that its failure to do so "is cause for concern."
Other regulators were less diplomatic, with Ireland's deputy commissioner for data protection, Gary Davis, calling Google's failure "clearly unacceptable." Davis said his organization had conveyed its "deep unhappiness" to Google and wants answers by Wednesday.
Google said that other countries affected included France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria and Australia. Attempts to reach regulators in several of those countries weren't immediately successful Friday.
Google angered officials on both sides of the Atlantic in 2010 when it acknowledged that its mapping cars, which carried cameras across the globe to create three-dimensional maps of the world's streets, had also scooped up passwords and other data being transmitted over unsecured wireless networks. Investigators have since revealed that the intercepted data included private information including legal, medical and pornographic material.
The Mountain View, California-based company had been meant to purge the data, and Google chalked up its mistake to human error.
The company said it recently discovered the data while undertaking a comprehensive manual review of Street View disks. The company said it had contacted regulators in all of the countries where it had promised to delete data but realized it had not.
Fleischer's letter asks Britain's ICO for instructions on how to proceed; the ICO told Google that it must turn over the data immediately so it can undergo forensic analysis.
Friday's disclosure comes just over a month after the ICO reopened its investigation into Google's Street View, saying that an inquiry by authorities in the United States raised new doubts about the disputed program.
In April, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission fined Google, saying the company "deliberately impeded and delayed" its investigation into Street View.
It's unclear what, if any, penalties would be imposed on Google by Britain's ICO or regulators in any of the 10 other jurisdictions in which the company had wrongly retained Street View data.
"We need to take a look at the data... There's all sorts of questions we need to ask," an ICO spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity because office rules prohibit him from being named in print.
The ICO has the power to impose fines of up to 500,000 pounds (roughly $780,000) for the most serious data breaches, although penalties are generally far less severe and can involve injunctions or reprimands.
---
Shawn Pogatchnik contributed to this report.
Google broke its promise.
Britain's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) received a letter from Google in which the company admits it kept a "small portion" of the electronic information it had been meant to get rid of.
"Google apologizes for this error," Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, said in the letter, which the ICO published on its website.
The ICO said in a statement that Google Inc. had agreed to delete all that data nearly two years ago, adding that its failure to do so "is cause for concern."
Other regulators were less diplomatic, with Ireland's deputy commissioner for data protection, Gary Davis, calling Google's failure "clearly unacceptable." Davis said his organization had conveyed its "deep unhappiness" to Google and wants answers by Wednesday.
Google said that other countries affected included France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria and Australia. Attempts to reach regulators in several of those countries weren't immediately successful Friday.
Google angered officials on both sides of the Atlantic in 2010 when it acknowledged that its mapping cars, which carried cameras across the globe to create three-dimensional maps of the world's streets, had also scooped up passwords and other data being transmitted over unsecured wireless networks. Investigators have since revealed that the intercepted data included private information including legal, medical and pornographic material.
The Mountain View, California-based company had been meant to purge the data, and Google chalked up its mistake to human error.
The company said it recently discovered the data while undertaking a comprehensive manual review of Street View disks. The company said it had contacted regulators in all of the countries where it had promised to delete data but realized it had not.
Fleischer's letter asks Britain's ICO for instructions on how to proceed; the ICO told Google that it must turn over the data immediately so it can undergo forensic analysis.
Friday's disclosure comes just over a month after the ICO reopened its investigation into Google's Street View, saying that an inquiry by authorities in the United States raised new doubts about the disputed program.
In April, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission fined Google, saying the company "deliberately impeded and delayed" its investigation into Street View.
It's unclear what, if any, penalties would be imposed on Google by Britain's ICO or regulators in any of the 10 other jurisdictions in which the company had wrongly retained Street View data.
"We need to take a look at the data... There's all sorts of questions we need to ask," an ICO spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity because office rules prohibit him from being named in print.
The ICO has the power to impose fines of up to 500,000 pounds (roughly $780,000) for the most serious data breaches, although penalties are generally far less severe and can involve injunctions or reprimands.
---
Shawn Pogatchnik contributed to this report.
'NY Mag': Hitting Obama for 'You Didn't Build That' Is Racist
With Rasmussen showing Romney enjoying a five-point lead (and that's a pollster everyone in media knows is reliable, which is why they prefer juiced NBC polls), the media is now in pure panic mode. Furthermore, Obama's Media Palace Guards know that when the full context is played of Obama's revealing "you didn't build that" quote, it's absolutely devastating for Obama because the full context of those comments show the President openly ridiculing America's small business owners.
So what's a panicked media to do?
Well, at first the corrupt media lied about Obama being taken out of context. But that's a desperate lie and everyone knows it, which means the Romney campaign was comfortable to keep on keeping on with its use of the President's comments.
So NOW what's a desperate media to do?
Well, I think we all know what the media does when it's at its most desperate to protect Obama, don't we, boys and girls?
That's right, the corrupt media screams... RACISM!
Mitt Romney’s plan of blatantly lying about President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” speech is clearly drawing blood. But what makes the attack work so well is not so much the lie itself but the broader subtext of it. Watch Obama’s delivery in the snippet put together by this Republican ad[.] ...
The key thing is that Obama is angry, and he’s talking not in his normal voice but in a “black dialect.” This strikes at the core of Obama’s entire political identity: a soft-spoken, reasonable African-American with a Kansas accent. From the moment he stepped onto the national stage, Obama’s deepest political fear was being seen as a “traditional” black politician, one who was demanding redistribution from white America on behalf of his fellow African-Americans.
So desperate to reelect Obama he's unafraid to embarrass himself, that's a flailing Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine and this is the ad he's attempting to declare racist.
Sorry, Jonathan, but the only one "blatantly lying" here is you. And your vile race-baiting is equal parts hilarious, maddening, unAmerican, and just plain pathetic.
Cayman Islands proposes income tax on foreign workers
GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (Reuters) - Known as a tax haven for the mega rich around the world, the Cayman Islands is proposing the unthinkable: a direct tax on expatriates to help fix the budget woes of the British territory.
The proposal - called a "community enhancement fee" and unprecedented in the island's history - is effectively a 10 percent payroll tax on all foreign workers earning income over US$24,000 in the Cayman Islands.
Blaming the previous administration and Britain's hard line on the island's budget for the current financial problems, the premier said the measure was the least onerous approach with the Cayman Islands already one month into a new fiscal year.
"This is a tremendous step away from the normal government budget, but (London) has the upper hand," Cayman Islands Premier McKeeva Bush said.
Barely two years ago, in the face of pressure from Britain to increase the territory's revenue, Bush stated "our position is, and will continue to consistently be, that we do not believe that direct taxes are good for this country."
While foreign workers make up about 50 percent of the labor force, there are plenty of loopholes that would exclude the majority of the top earners in the county as well as civil servants, leaving the bulk of the payroll tax burden to middle- class income workers in the private sector.
The 10 percent tax proposal has shaken up the business community in the Cayman Islands, with some calling for a public protest against "taxation without representation" on Monday.
The territory, a beach-lined group of islands south of Cuba, is home to most of the world's hedge funds and has long relied on the "no direct taxation" model as a cornerstone of its lucrative financial industry.
Experts say the amount of extra revenue the new payroll tax would bring in would not be enough to overcome the government's growing deficit problems and could drive international firms to move operations out of the territory to other competitive jurisdictions with lower business costs.
Two years ago, a government-appointed commission studied the direct tax and noted the international financial sector could easily move their operations to competing jurisdictions.
Representatives from the Cayman Finance Association said the government has not done enough to rein in government spending to justify a measure such as a payroll tax.
The British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Ireland and Canada were actively enticing firms to relocate from the Cayman Islands, the report said.
(Editing by David Adams; Editing by Paul Simao)
The proposal - called a "community enhancement fee" and unprecedented in the island's history - is effectively a 10 percent payroll tax on all foreign workers earning income over US$24,000 in the Cayman Islands.
Blaming the previous administration and Britain's hard line on the island's budget for the current financial problems, the premier said the measure was the least onerous approach with the Cayman Islands already one month into a new fiscal year.
"This is a tremendous step away from the normal government budget, but (London) has the upper hand," Cayman Islands Premier McKeeva Bush said.
Barely two years ago, in the face of pressure from Britain to increase the territory's revenue, Bush stated "our position is, and will continue to consistently be, that we do not believe that direct taxes are good for this country."
While foreign workers make up about 50 percent of the labor force, there are plenty of loopholes that would exclude the majority of the top earners in the county as well as civil servants, leaving the bulk of the payroll tax burden to middle- class income workers in the private sector.
The 10 percent tax proposal has shaken up the business community in the Cayman Islands, with some calling for a public protest against "taxation without representation" on Monday.
The territory, a beach-lined group of islands south of Cuba, is home to most of the world's hedge funds and has long relied on the "no direct taxation" model as a cornerstone of its lucrative financial industry.
Experts say the amount of extra revenue the new payroll tax would bring in would not be enough to overcome the government's growing deficit problems and could drive international firms to move operations out of the territory to other competitive jurisdictions with lower business costs.
Two years ago, a government-appointed commission studied the direct tax and noted the international financial sector could easily move their operations to competing jurisdictions.
Representatives from the Cayman Finance Association said the government has not done enough to rein in government spending to justify a measure such as a payroll tax.
The British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Ireland and Canada were actively enticing firms to relocate from the Cayman Islands, the report said.
(Editing by David Adams; Editing by Paul Simao)
EU Plans Drone Network to Nab Illegal Immigrants
The European Commission had released a proposal to deploy drones across the Mediterranean Sea to catch illegal immigrants. The surveillance effort is part of a $410 million package to bolster EU border security.
Dubbed EUROSUR, the project proposes the use of drones, high-resolution cameras, satellites and spy planes to detect migrant vessels at sea.
EUROSUR’s stated aim is to reduce the number of migrants reaching the Schengen area undetected, preventing cross-border crime and reducing immigrant fatalities. The project has yet to be officially debated in the European Parliament and Council, but some proponents of the project are pushing for it to be implemented as early as next year.
One to three million people immigrate to EU annually, and last year’s uprisings in North Africa increased the flow of immigrants to EU, with thousands attempting to cross the region’s borders. The Mediterranean is one of the central hubs for illegal immigration: Europa Press reported that 1,037 migrants on board 44 boats have been detected arriving on the Andalusian coast from 1 January 2012 to 9 July 2012 alone. With this influx in immigration, death rates have also spiked.
The UN Refugee Agency recently reported that 1500 people “drowned or went missing last year [2011] while attempting crossings of the Mediterranean Sea.” This year’s death toll has already reached 170. Earlier this month, an inflatable boat miles off the Italian coast sunk killing 54 Eritreans fleeing their country. In May, 20 were presumed dead when a small boat sank after striking a coral reef just off the French island of Mayotte.
The proposal assures that it will save migrants’ lives by detecting them at sea. “EUROSUR will help detect and fight criminal networks’ activities and be a crucial tool for saving migrants who put their lives at risk trying to reach EU shores,” said Cecilia Malmström, the EU’s Commissioner for Home Affairs.
However, many academics and thinktanks fear this unprecedented increase in surveillance and collection of personal data, and the murky potential uses of the gathered intel.
The Heinrich Böll Foundation, a green thinktank in Germany, expressed concern in its assessment of the costs and civil rights implications of EUROSUR. The thinktank argues that the project “is likely to entail the creation of at least one centralized EU database containing biometric data, to which currently unknown number of actors could have access.”
The European Commission assures that there is no chance for abuse with EUROSUR. “The situational pictures will, as a general rule, not involve personal data but rather the exchange of information on incidents and depersonalized objects, such as the detection and tracking of vessels,” the Commission’s proposal states.
Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether this data will be stored indefinitely or deleted after a set period of time. Another concern with EUROSUR is that it will enable authorities to spot immigrants’ preparatory activities on the ground, such as a gathering of vehicles or boats on African beaches.
Critics of the plan argue that EUROSUR is a preemptive measure designed to solve the problem of illegal immigration before it reaches EU shores, rather than lowering death rates and providing humanitarian assistance.
“Drones are very expensive and they don’t help,” German member of the European Parliament Ska Keller told Global Post. “Even if a drone detects a vessel, it can’t do anything for them. You need to have actual people there, and having a drone doesn’t guarantee that.”
One possible unintended consequence of EUROSUR is that some refugees seeking asylum from their native countries could be prevented from reaching the EU.
“It’s horrendously expensive and the benefits aren’t clear,” said Keller. In her opinion, the money would be better spent on search and rescue teams: “We should save money in an economic crisis, not spend it on something with no clear benefit apart from to the defense industry.”
Just a face in a crowd? Scans pick up ID, personal data
Law, marketing tool raise privacy issues
As you scan the face on that giant billboard, it may just be scanning your face right back.
Increasingly sophisticated digital facial-recognition technology is opening new possibilities in business, marketing, advertising and law enforcement while exacerbating fears about the loss of privacy and the violation of civil liberties.
Businesses foresee a day when signs and billboards with face-recognition technology can instantly scan your face and track what other ads you’ve seen recently, adjust their message to your tastes and buying history and even track your birthday or recent home purchase. The FBI and other U.S. law enforcement agencies already are exploring facial-recognition tools to track suspects, quickly single out dangerous people in a crowd or match a grainy security-camera image against a vast database to look for matches.
Many fear that future is coming too quickly, with facial-recognition technology becoming increasingly advanced, available and affordable before restrictions on its use can be put into place. Concerns have been raised on Capitol Hill in recent weeks that FBI searches using the technology could trample Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, while some in the industry say excessive regulations could cripple cutting-edge technology.
“In our country, government shouldn’t be looking over your shoulder unless it has a reason,” said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union’s speech, privacy and technology project. “They should not be collecting data on innocent subjects.”
The potential to “data-mine” raw video or photography using facial-recognition technology is another concern, he said, but one that could clash with First Amendment rights on the right to photograph.
Facebook enters the fray
Sparking fresh concerns on the commercial front was social media behemoth Facebook’s acquisition last month of the Israeli technology company Face.com.
The acquisition enabled Facebook to implement a feature called “tag suggestions,” which lets the social networking site use facial recognition technology to make suggestions about who is in a picture. Users can opt out of this service, but the default setting is “on.”
Although there are no rules governing the use of this information, Facebook, which is estimated to have pictures and demographic information for more than 900 million users, has publicly stated multiple times that it will not allow any third-party access to its database. This includes the government, though it has cooperated with law enforcement officials in a limited manner, a company spokesman said at a July 18 Senate hearing on face-recognition technology concerns.
One proposal is for a comprehensive privacy law, similar to those in many European countries. This would provide for a “privacy commissioner” to deal with concerns raised by technological developments as well as basic rules such as a requirement to ask permission before using any pictures or videos.
“If companies take and use [my picture], that’s fine,” said Justin Brookman, director for consumer privacy at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “Just tell me about it.”
In a 2011 report, the center urged Congress to employ a mix of legislation, industry self-regulation and privacy-enhancing technologies to create an overarching privacy policy. That policy would require companies to obtain informed consent before using the technology to identify people.
But Marcus Dunn, director of government relations at the Security Industry Association, said the technology is not advanced to the point where new legislation is needed, and new regulations could end up doing more harm than good.
Before then, he said, new, cheaper or less-invasive technology may supersede facial-recognition tools, so the government should proceed with caution.
Story Continues →
As you scan the face on that giant billboard, it may just be scanning your face right back.
Increasingly sophisticated digital facial-recognition technology is opening new possibilities in business, marketing, advertising and law enforcement while exacerbating fears about the loss of privacy and the violation of civil liberties.
Businesses foresee a day when signs and billboards with face-recognition technology can instantly scan your face and track what other ads you’ve seen recently, adjust their message to your tastes and buying history and even track your birthday or recent home purchase. The FBI and other U.S. law enforcement agencies already are exploring facial-recognition tools to track suspects, quickly single out dangerous people in a crowd or match a grainy security-camera image against a vast database to look for matches.
Many fear that future is coming too quickly, with facial-recognition technology becoming increasingly advanced, available and affordable before restrictions on its use can be put into place. Concerns have been raised on Capitol Hill in recent weeks that FBI searches using the technology could trample Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, while some in the industry say excessive regulations could cripple cutting-edge technology.
“In our country, government shouldn’t be looking over your shoulder unless it has a reason,” said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union’s speech, privacy and technology project. “They should not be collecting data on innocent subjects.”
The potential to “data-mine” raw video or photography using facial-recognition technology is another concern, he said, but one that could clash with First Amendment rights on the right to photograph.
Facebook enters the fray
Sparking fresh concerns on the commercial front was social media behemoth Facebook’s acquisition last month of the Israeli technology company Face.com.
The acquisition enabled Facebook to implement a feature called “tag suggestions,” which lets the social networking site use facial recognition technology to make suggestions about who is in a picture. Users can opt out of this service, but the default setting is “on.”
Although there are no rules governing the use of this information, Facebook, which is estimated to have pictures and demographic information for more than 900 million users, has publicly stated multiple times that it will not allow any third-party access to its database. This includes the government, though it has cooperated with law enforcement officials in a limited manner, a company spokesman said at a July 18 Senate hearing on face-recognition technology concerns.
One proposal is for a comprehensive privacy law, similar to those in many European countries. This would provide for a “privacy commissioner” to deal with concerns raised by technological developments as well as basic rules such as a requirement to ask permission before using any pictures or videos.
“If companies take and use [my picture], that’s fine,” said Justin Brookman, director for consumer privacy at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “Just tell me about it.”
In a 2011 report, the center urged Congress to employ a mix of legislation, industry self-regulation and privacy-enhancing technologies to create an overarching privacy policy. That policy would require companies to obtain informed consent before using the technology to identify people.
But Marcus Dunn, director of government relations at the Security Industry Association, said the technology is not advanced to the point where new legislation is needed, and new regulations could end up doing more harm than good.
Before then, he said, new, cheaper or less-invasive technology may supersede facial-recognition tools, so the government should proceed with caution.
Story Continues →
REPORT: Russia in talks with Cuba to set up naval base
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia hopes to establish its first naval base abroad since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and is looking at Cuba, Vietnam and the Seychelles as possible locations, state-run RIA news agency quoted the navy chief as saying on Friday.
Russia has been increasing the reach of its navy in recent years, sending warships further afield as part of an effort to restore pride project power in a world dominated by the U.S. military.
"It's true that we are continuing work on providing the navy with basing outside the Russian Federation," RIA quoted Vice Admiral Viktor Chirkov as saying in an interview.
The Soviet Union had a large naval base in Communist ally Vietnam but post-Soviet Russia opted to vacate the Cam Ranh base in 2002, during President Vladimir Putin's first Kremlin term, because rent payments were a burden on state coffers.
The fate of Russia's only naval facility outside the former Soviet Union, a maintenance and supply facility in the Syrian port of Tartous, is uncertain because of the conflict in Syria.
Chirkov said Russia was "working out the issue of creating sites for material and technical support on the territory of Cuba, the Seychelles and Vietnam," RIA reported.
Chirkov's wording suggested facilities in those countries might be less extensive than full-scale naval bases. Navy officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang, who was in Russia and was to meet Putin on Friday, was quoted as telling a Russian radio station that Vietnam has "no intention of cooperating with any country with the aim of military use of the port of Cam Ranh".
However, Sang was quoted as telling Voice of Russia radio that a maintenance and service facility at the port would be open to ships from all nations and that, in the interest of furthering a "strategic partnership" with Moscow, Vietnam "will provide Russia with advantages in Cam Ranh, including with aim of developing military cooperation".
(Reporting By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya; Editing by Steve Gutterman and Alessandra Rizzo)
Russia has been increasing the reach of its navy in recent years, sending warships further afield as part of an effort to restore pride project power in a world dominated by the U.S. military.
"It's true that we are continuing work on providing the navy with basing outside the Russian Federation," RIA quoted Vice Admiral Viktor Chirkov as saying in an interview.
The Soviet Union had a large naval base in Communist ally Vietnam but post-Soviet Russia opted to vacate the Cam Ranh base in 2002, during President Vladimir Putin's first Kremlin term, because rent payments were a burden on state coffers.
The fate of Russia's only naval facility outside the former Soviet Union, a maintenance and supply facility in the Syrian port of Tartous, is uncertain because of the conflict in Syria.
Chirkov said Russia was "working out the issue of creating sites for material and technical support on the territory of Cuba, the Seychelles and Vietnam," RIA reported.
Chirkov's wording suggested facilities in those countries might be less extensive than full-scale naval bases. Navy officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang, who was in Russia and was to meet Putin on Friday, was quoted as telling a Russian radio station that Vietnam has "no intention of cooperating with any country with the aim of military use of the port of Cam Ranh".
However, Sang was quoted as telling Voice of Russia radio that a maintenance and service facility at the port would be open to ships from all nations and that, in the interest of furthering a "strategic partnership" with Moscow, Vietnam "will provide Russia with advantages in Cam Ranh, including with aim of developing military cooperation".
(Reporting By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya; Editing by Steve Gutterman and Alessandra Rizzo)
Does billboard comparing Obama to alleged shooter go too far?
CALDWELL, Idaho (KBOI) - A Caldwell billboard is raising questions in the Treasure Valley as it compares President Obama to accused Colorado killer, James Holmes.
The billboard on Franklin Road equates the actions of the president's foreign policies to the acts of Holmes, who's suspected of killing 12 people in the theater shooting.
The group that owns the board, The Ralph Smeed Foundation, says it wants to draw attention to military men and women dying overseas.
"(It's) way over the line, and I am not an Obama supporter," Lynn Davis Hathaway, said on the KBOI 2News Facebook page.
A spokesman for the group says everyone has the right to their own opinion. Additional photos of the billboard
Ashley Helton, who also wrote on Facebook, agrees with the group.
"It's a free country, this group has a right to voice their opinion no matter what anyone thinks about it," Helton said.
President Obama recently visited the Pacific Northwest - making stops in Portland and Seattle.
Say the "magic words"
Immigrants don’t have to prove they meet DREAM Act criteria to avoid charges, ICE union chief says
A top union official for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers said Thursday that President Barack Obama’s administration has ordered ICE agents to blindly — and without any evidence — believe illegal immigrants if they claim they qualify for Obama’s administrative DREAM Act.
Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, explained at a press conference on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon how the new selective immigration law enforcement policy Obama announced during a White House Rose Garden speech in June is affecting the officers he represents.
“As we still wait on detailed guidance from the administration, it’s impossible to understand the full scope of the administration’s changes, but what we’ve seen so far concerns us greatly,” Crane, said. “As one example, prosecutorial discretion for DREAMers is solely based on the individual’s claims. Our orders are: If an alien says they went to high school, then let them go. If they say they have a GED, then let them go.”
“Officers have been told that there is no burden for the alien to prove anything,” he continued. “Even with the greatly relaxed policies, the alien is not required to prove that they meet any of the new criteria.”
ICE officers are often called in after local and state law enforcement officials arrest a person and find that he or she is an illegal immigrant. ICE officers also conduct their own investigations and detain suspected illegal immigrants independent of other law enforcement. Normally, if the immigrant is found to be in the country illegally, ICE would bring federal charges against him, possibly leading to deportation.
Under the new orders, however, illegals can escape federal charges simply by claiming — whether it’s the truth or not — that they meet the DREAM Act rule’s requirements issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Crane did not specify who has given his officers these new orders.
The new directive would contradict Homeland Security’s own words in announcing the policy, which said that “only those individuals who can prove through verifiable documentation that they meet these criteria will be eligible for deferred action.
Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, explained at a press conference on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon how the new selective immigration law enforcement policy Obama announced during a White House Rose Garden speech in June is affecting the officers he represents.
“As we still wait on detailed guidance from the administration, it’s impossible to understand the full scope of the administration’s changes, but what we’ve seen so far concerns us greatly,” Crane, said. “As one example, prosecutorial discretion for DREAMers is solely based on the individual’s claims. Our orders are: If an alien says they went to high school, then let them go. If they say they have a GED, then let them go.”
“Officers have been told that there is no burden for the alien to prove anything,” he continued. “Even with the greatly relaxed policies, the alien is not required to prove that they meet any of the new criteria.”
ICE officers are often called in after local and state law enforcement officials arrest a person and find that he or she is an illegal immigrant. ICE officers also conduct their own investigations and detain suspected illegal immigrants independent of other law enforcement. Normally, if the immigrant is found to be in the country illegally, ICE would bring federal charges against him, possibly leading to deportation.
Under the new orders, however, illegals can escape federal charges simply by claiming — whether it’s the truth or not — that they meet the DREAM Act rule’s requirements issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Crane did not specify who has given his officers these new orders.
The new directive would contradict Homeland Security’s own words in announcing the policy, which said that “only those individuals who can prove through verifiable documentation that they meet these criteria will be eligible for deferred action.
Five arrested in Pennsylvania for terrorizing Jewish camp
Charges include terroristic threats, assault and vandalism; suspects allegedly chased campers in pickup, shot them with paintball gun
Three adults and two juveniles were arrested this week after they allegedly terrorized a Wayne County Jewish camp for boys and teenagers, WNEP TV News reported. The five were charged with menacing children at Camp Bonim on three separate occasions.
Police made arrests after a separate incident in which one of the suspects, while off camp grounds, hit a camp counselor with his truck and was subsequently stopped by authorities in New York state.
According to the report Wednesday, the attacks occurred during the early morning hours. The accused allegedly entered the camp grounds in a white pickup truck, chased campers and damaged property.
Wayne County District Attorney Janine Edwards said that the suspects also “yelled ethnic slurs that are unspeakable and…shot a paintball gun at some campers, hitting one with the paintball gun.”
“It`s unfortunate that people might come in here, and because we might be slightly different from everybody else that gives them the right to do things that are just incorrect,” head elementary counselor Isaac Pearl was reported as saying on the WNEP website.
“It’s certainly upsetting, but thank God things were really taken care of very quickly. It makes me feel a lot better having the responsibility of all these boys in camp. It was a little unsettling,” Michael Verkowitz, head high school counselor said. “We pray every day. We pray every day for peace in the whole world and that includes every area of the world.
Tyler Cole of Tennessee and Mark Trail and Cassandra Robinson of Pennsylvania were all charged, along with two juveniles. The charges included assault, vandalism and terroristic threats, the report said.
Three adults and two juveniles were arrested this week after they allegedly terrorized a Wayne County Jewish camp for boys and teenagers, WNEP TV News reported. The five were charged with menacing children at Camp Bonim on three separate occasions.
Police made arrests after a separate incident in which one of the suspects, while off camp grounds, hit a camp counselor with his truck and was subsequently stopped by authorities in New York state.
According to the report Wednesday, the attacks occurred during the early morning hours. The accused allegedly entered the camp grounds in a white pickup truck, chased campers and damaged property.
Wayne County District Attorney Janine Edwards said that the suspects also “yelled ethnic slurs that are unspeakable and…shot a paintball gun at some campers, hitting one with the paintball gun.”
“It`s unfortunate that people might come in here, and because we might be slightly different from everybody else that gives them the right to do things that are just incorrect,” head elementary counselor Isaac Pearl was reported as saying on the WNEP website.
“It’s certainly upsetting, but thank God things were really taken care of very quickly. It makes me feel a lot better having the responsibility of all these boys in camp. It was a little unsettling,” Michael Verkowitz, head high school counselor said. “We pray every day. We pray every day for peace in the whole world and that includes every area of the world.
Tyler Cole of Tennessee and Mark Trail and Cassandra Robinson of Pennsylvania were all charged, along with two juveniles. The charges included assault, vandalism and terroristic threats, the report said.
Colorado killer was a psychiatric patient
(CNN) -- Colorado shooting suspect James Holmes was a patient of a University of Colorado psychiatrist before last week's attack at a movie theater that killed 12 people and wounded scores, according to a court document filed Friday by his public-defense lawyers.
The disclosure was in a request by Holmes for authorities to immediately hand over a package he sent to Dr. Lynne Fenton at the university's Anschutz Medical Campus.
According to Holmes' request, the package seized by authorities under a July 23 search warrant was a protected communication... FULL STORY>>
The disclosure was in a request by Holmes for authorities to immediately hand over a package he sent to Dr. Lynne Fenton at the university's Anschutz Medical Campus.
According to Holmes' request, the package seized by authorities under a July 23 search warrant was a protected communication... FULL STORY>>
Friday, July 27, 2012
Point NOT taken well! A Susquehanna Valley church faces criminal charges after a staged kidnapping terrorized children, officials say.
DA files charges against church in staged kidnapping
Masked men with guns part of scenario
MIDDLETOWN, Pa. - The Dauphin County district attorney has filed charges against a church and a youth pastor in connection with a staged kidnapping.
The kidnapping scenario at Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church in Middleton included masked men with semi-automatic rifles.
During the March incident, students were tied up and others had bags put over their heads.
One of the teens involved has filed a civil lawsuit, claiming physical and emotional injuries.
The district attorney filed charges against the church and its youth pastor, Andrew D. Jordan.
Masked men with guns part of scenario
MIDDLETOWN, Pa. - The Dauphin County district attorney has filed charges against a church and a youth pastor in connection with a staged kidnapping.
The kidnapping scenario at Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church in Middleton included masked men with semi-automatic rifles.
During the March incident, students were tied up and others had bags put over their heads.
One of the teens involved has filed a civil lawsuit, claiming physical and emotional injuries.
The district attorney filed charges against the church and its youth pastor, Andrew D. Jordan.
Winston Churchill’s Bust. And Team Obama’s Lies.
So Mitt Romney said he was looking forward to returning the bust of Winston Churchill to the White House. If you recall, it had been loaned to the White House and Obama sent it back. Romney, visiting the UK, said he would bring it back. Everyone had a few laughs at the jab and all went back to normal.
But then, the White House got involved. White House spokesman, Dan Pfeiffer, wrote on the White House website that the bust had never left the White House.
Now, normally we wouldn’t address a rumor that’s so patently false, but just this morning the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer repeated this ridiculous claim in his column. He said President Obama “started his Presidency by returning to the British Embassy the bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office.”
This is 100% false. The bust still in the White House. In the Residence. Outside the Treaty Room.
That settles it, right?
Wrong.
You see, the claim is not 100% false. It’s actually true. Says who? Why Media Matters, of course.
A British Embassy spokesman said: “The bust of Sir Winston Churchill by Sir Jacob Epstein was uniquely lent to a foreign head of state, President George W Bush, from the Government Art Collection in the wake of 9/11 as a signal of the strong transatlantic relationship.
“It was lent for the first term of office of President Bush. When the President was elected for his second and final term, the loan was extended until January 2009.
“The new President has decided not to continue this loan and the bust has now been returned. It is on display at the Ambassador’s Residence.“
Emphasis mine.
So, who’s lying? Obviously, the bust did leave the White House, went on display at the Ambassador’s Residence, and then made its way back to the White House.
Oh, Team Obama. Why must you lie so much?
UPDATE: Oh, there’s more.
Diplomats were at first reluctant to discuss the whereabouts of the Churchill bronze, after its ejection from the seat of American power. But the British Embassy in Washington has now confirmed that it sits in the palatial residence of ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald, just down the road from Vice President Joe Biden’s official residence. It is not clear whether the ambassador plans to keep it in Washington or send it back to London.
Poor Team Obama. Can’t keep the lies straight.
But then, the White House got involved. White House spokesman, Dan Pfeiffer, wrote on the White House website that the bust had never left the White House.
Now, normally we wouldn’t address a rumor that’s so patently false, but just this morning the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer repeated this ridiculous claim in his column. He said President Obama “started his Presidency by returning to the British Embassy the bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office.”
This is 100% false. The bust still in the White House. In the Residence. Outside the Treaty Room.
That settles it, right?
Wrong.
You see, the claim is not 100% false. It’s actually true. Says who? Why Media Matters, of course.
A British Embassy spokesman said: “The bust of Sir Winston Churchill by Sir Jacob Epstein was uniquely lent to a foreign head of state, President George W Bush, from the Government Art Collection in the wake of 9/11 as a signal of the strong transatlantic relationship.
“It was lent for the first term of office of President Bush. When the President was elected for his second and final term, the loan was extended until January 2009.
“The new President has decided not to continue this loan and the bust has now been returned. It is on display at the Ambassador’s Residence.“
Emphasis mine.
So, who’s lying? Obviously, the bust did leave the White House, went on display at the Ambassador’s Residence, and then made its way back to the White House.
Oh, Team Obama. Why must you lie so much?
UPDATE: Oh, there’s more.
Diplomats were at first reluctant to discuss the whereabouts of the Churchill bronze, after its ejection from the seat of American power. But the British Embassy in Washington has now confirmed that it sits in the palatial residence of ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald, just down the road from Vice President Joe Biden’s official residence. It is not clear whether the ambassador plans to keep it in Washington or send it back to London.
Poor Team Obama. Can’t keep the lies straight.
Dems Sneak Gun Control Amendment Into Cybersecurity Bill
Democratic senators have offered an amendment to the cybersecurity bill that would limit the purchase of high capacity gun magazines for some consumers.
Shortly after the Cybersecurity Act gained Senate approval to proceed to filing proposed amendments and a vote next week, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a sponsor of the gun control amendment, came to the floor to defend the idea of implementing some “reasonable” gun control measures.
The amendment was sponsored by Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Bob Menendez (N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Schumer and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.). S.A. 2575 would make it illegal to transfer or possess large capacity feeding devices such as gun magazines, belts, feed stripes and drums of more than 10 rounds of ammunition with the exception of .22 caliber rim fire ammunition.
The amendment is identical to a separate bill sponsored by Lautenberg. Feinstein was the sponsor of the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.
The proposed amendment would only affect sales and transfers after the law took effect.
Schumer defended the Brady law and assault weapons ban on the floor Thursday evening, perhaps in preparation for the coming fight with Republicans and gun rights activists.
Schumer suggested that both the left and right find common ground.
“Maybe we could come together on guns if each side gave some,” Schumer said.
He suggested that Democrats make it clear that their goal is not to repeal the Second Amendment.
“The basic complaint is that the Chuck Schumers of the world want to take away your guns,” Schumer said of the argument made by gun lobbies. “I think it would be smart for those of us who want rational gun control to make it know that that’s not true at all.”
Schumer also pointed out that it would be reasonable for the right to recognize that background checks on those buying guns is necessary — as called for in the Brady law. He also said average Americans don’t need an assault weapon to go hunting or protect themselves.
“We can debate where to draw the line of reasonableness, but we might be able to come to an agreement in the middle,” Schumer said. “Maybe, maybe, maybe we can pass some laws that might, might, might stop some of the unnecessary casualties … maybe there’s a way we can some together and try to break through the log jam and make sure the country is a better place.”
Next week the Senate is expected to debate and vote on proposed amendments to the cybersecurity bill.
Updated at 9:30 p.m.
Shortly after the Cybersecurity Act gained Senate approval to proceed to filing proposed amendments and a vote next week, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a sponsor of the gun control amendment, came to the floor to defend the idea of implementing some “reasonable” gun control measures.
The amendment was sponsored by Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Bob Menendez (N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Schumer and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.). S.A. 2575 would make it illegal to transfer or possess large capacity feeding devices such as gun magazines, belts, feed stripes and drums of more than 10 rounds of ammunition with the exception of .22 caliber rim fire ammunition.
The amendment is identical to a separate bill sponsored by Lautenberg. Feinstein was the sponsor of the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.
The proposed amendment would only affect sales and transfers after the law took effect.
Schumer defended the Brady law and assault weapons ban on the floor Thursday evening, perhaps in preparation for the coming fight with Republicans and gun rights activists.
Schumer suggested that both the left and right find common ground.
“Maybe we could come together on guns if each side gave some,” Schumer said.
He suggested that Democrats make it clear that their goal is not to repeal the Second Amendment.
“The basic complaint is that the Chuck Schumers of the world want to take away your guns,” Schumer said of the argument made by gun lobbies. “I think it would be smart for those of us who want rational gun control to make it know that that’s not true at all.”
Schumer also pointed out that it would be reasonable for the right to recognize that background checks on those buying guns is necessary — as called for in the Brady law. He also said average Americans don’t need an assault weapon to go hunting or protect themselves.
“We can debate where to draw the line of reasonableness, but we might be able to come to an agreement in the middle,” Schumer said. “Maybe, maybe, maybe we can pass some laws that might, might, might stop some of the unnecessary casualties … maybe there’s a way we can some together and try to break through the log jam and make sure the country is a better place.”
Next week the Senate is expected to debate and vote on proposed amendments to the cybersecurity bill.
Updated at 9:30 p.m.
Will Obamacare Raise the Price of a Big Mac?
In exchange for lower health premiums under Obamacare, experts say shoppers could pay higher prices on everything from printer paper to French fries.
Complying with the Affordable Care Act will cost as much as $420 million annually, McDonald’s CFO Peter Bensen said during a conference call Monday, according to CFO Journal. And when the new law goes fully into effect in 2014, it’s possible menu prices will be raised to cover the health costs.
Analysts say businesses with a large number of hourly wage workers, who traditionally had minimal or no health insurance—from fast food joints to retailers—may have to adopt a similar strategy. “I would expect prices at McDonald’s (MCD) to go up,” says Les Funtleyder, who manages a health care fund at Poliwogg, a hedge and venture capital firm. (A McDonald’s spokeswoman says the company doesn’t set prices for its franchised restaurants, which represent about 90% of its 14,000 U.S. outposts, and that “it would be premature and inaccurate to speculate on raising menu prices to offset these costs.”)
But experts say the price hikes could extend beyond chicken McNuggets. Some analysts believe companies may use health care as an excuse to raise prices, even if the added costs don’t warrant the increase. Peter Saleh, a restaurant analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, expects sit-down diners at restaurants like The Olive Garden, owned by Darden Restaurants (DRI), and The Cheesecake Factory (CAKE), which own a greater proportion of their locations than some fast food chains, to eventually pay at least 2% more to eat there. But Saleh says it’s too soon to know how the companies will cope with the new mandates: “A lot of them at this point aren’t willing to give us estimates about it.”
Complying with the Affordable Care Act will cost as much as $420 million annually, McDonald’s CFO Peter Bensen said during a conference call Monday, according to CFO Journal. And when the new law goes fully into effect in 2014, it’s possible menu prices will be raised to cover the health costs.
Analysts say businesses with a large number of hourly wage workers, who traditionally had minimal or no health insurance—from fast food joints to retailers—may have to adopt a similar strategy. “I would expect prices at McDonald’s (MCD) to go up,” says Les Funtleyder, who manages a health care fund at Poliwogg, a hedge and venture capital firm. (A McDonald’s spokeswoman says the company doesn’t set prices for its franchised restaurants, which represent about 90% of its 14,000 U.S. outposts, and that “it would be premature and inaccurate to speculate on raising menu prices to offset these costs.”)
But experts say the price hikes could extend beyond chicken McNuggets. Some analysts believe companies may use health care as an excuse to raise prices, even if the added costs don’t warrant the increase. Peter Saleh, a restaurant analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, expects sit-down diners at restaurants like The Olive Garden, owned by Darden Restaurants (DRI), and The Cheesecake Factory (CAKE), which own a greater proportion of their locations than some fast food chains, to eventually pay at least 2% more to eat there. But Saleh says it’s too soon to know how the companies will cope with the new mandates: “A lot of them at this point aren’t willing to give us estimates about it.”
Fireworks: CNBC's Bartiromo vs. Barney Frank On Banks
Real Clear Video: Barney Frank vs. Maria Bartiromo on CNBC, July 26, 2012.
Highlights:
Barney Frank to Bartiromo: "Maria, if you want to have a serious conversation without mocking me ..."
Frank: "I don't take kindly to being called a non-adult. You know, you remind me sometimes of what your colleague Joe Kernan said when I tried to get the conversation more thoughtful -- he said, 'Oh this is cable TV, not C-SPAN.' I want to talk seriously about the issues. You keep changing the subject."
Highlights:
Barney Frank to Bartiromo: "Maria, if you want to have a serious conversation without mocking me ..."
Frank: "I don't take kindly to being called a non-adult. You know, you remind me sometimes of what your colleague Joe Kernan said when I tried to get the conversation more thoughtful -- he said, 'Oh this is cable TV, not C-SPAN.' I want to talk seriously about the issues. You keep changing the subject."
Furious protests expose Anaheim's deep racial divisions
Latino residents struggle with crime and unemployment in neighborhoods where tourists are scarce.
POLL: Less than half of voters think president is Christian
Of voters surveyed, 19 percent said they were uncomfortable with Mr. Obama’s religion and 13 percent said the same for Mr. Romney.
Justice Department employees accused of nepotism, ethical lapses
WASHINGTON -- Eight senior Department of Justice administrative employees should be disciplined for seeking jobs for their children and other relatives, and the department needs to tighten its employment guidelines after three nepotism incidents in recent years, the Inspector General’s Office said Thursday...
Obama's Destroyed American Dream: Only 46% Believe Buying A Home A Good Thing, Down from 73% in '08
Scott Rasmussen discusses the latest housing numbers.
REVEALED: Corzine’s MF Global Was Client of Eric Holder’s Law Firm
Those wondering why the Department of Justice has refused to go after Jon Corzine for the vaporization of $1.6 billion in MF Global client funds need look no further than the documents uncovered by the Government Accountability Institute that reveal that the now-defunct MF Global was a client of Attorney General Eric Holder and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer’s former law firm, Covington & Burling.
There’s more.
Records also reveal that MF Global’s trustee for the Chapter 11 bankruptcy retained as its general bankruptcy counsel Morrison & Foerester--the very law firm from which Associate Attorney General Tony West came to DOJ.
And more.
As Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer explains in the Washington Times Thursday, the trustee overseeing MF Global’s bankruptcy is former FBI Director Louis Freeh. At Holder’s Senate confirmation hearing Freeh served as a character witness for Holder and revealed that Holder had previously worked for Freeh. “As general counsel,” Freeh said, “I could have engaged any lawyer in America to represent our bank. I chose Eric.”
Until now, the conventional wisdom for why Holder wouldn’t throw the book at Corzine was that Corzine is an Obama campaign bundler. Indeed, as Breitbart News reported, four of the top officials at the Department of Justice--Eric Holder, Thomas Perrelli, Karol Mason, and Tony West--were also big money bundlers for Obama.
But the newly understood crony connections reveal conflicts of interest that extend well beyond mere political support for a common candidate--they go to a tangle of prior business dealings that further underscore the need for a special prosecutor in the Corzine case.
At least 65 members of Congress have already signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting that he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate MF Global’s collapse and the loss of $1.6 billion in customer money. What’s more, even progressives have begun to wonder whether Holder’s Covington & Burling connection explains why the Department of Justice has not charged, prosecuted, or jailed a single Wall Street executive after the biggest financial collapse in American history.
As Richard Eskow of the Huffington Post recently wrote:
More and more Washington insiders are asking a question that was considered off-limits in the nation's capital just a few months ago: Who, exactly, is Attorney General Eric Holder representing? As scandal after scandal erupts on Wall Street, involving everything from global lending manipulation to cocaine and prostitution, more and more people are worrying about Holder's seeming inaction -- or worse -- in the face of mounting evidence.
This isn’t going away.
Both the left and the right are onto Holder’s Wall Street head fake. With the revelation of the new crony connections, the time for Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor in the Corzine/MF Global case is now.
'Muslim Brothers plotting overthrow of Gulf states'
Dubai police chief warns of "international plot" against Gulf states, says Iran, Syria and MB must know Gulf is a red line.
Dubai Police Chief: 'Muslim Brothers plotting overthrow of Gulf states'
Dubai police chief warns of "international plot" against Gulf states, says Iran, Syria and MB must know Gulf is a red line.
Forced Government Dependency: Child invests $1,200 in City Hall approved hot dog cart to help disabled parents, only to be shut down later by city hall
City shuts down hot dog stand boy opened to help disabled parents
This summer, 13-year-old Nathan Duszynski wanted to make some money to help out his disabled parents—his mom has epilepsy and his dad has multiple sclerosis. So he decided to open a hot dog stand. He saved $1,200, mostly money made by mowing lawns and shoveling snow. He checked with the city to make sure he didn't need any licenses or permits, even going to city hall in person with his mom. And then he bought a cart. (Yep, that's hot dog's from Nathan's, for those who are keeping score at home.)
He arrived to set up shop on his first day and 10 minutes later, a zoning official arrived to shut him down. The problem: The cart, which is in the parking lot of a sporting goods store, is on the edge of official downtown commercial district of Holland, Michigan. The city bans food carts in that area in order to minimize competition for the eight tax-paying restaurants a couple of blocks away.
As it happens, I've been to Holland. It's a lovely town, but not exactly a booming metropolis. And frankly (ha!), after an evening of Blue Motorcycles Butch's Dry Dock, a hot dog would really have hit the spot. The city says it is willing to work with Nathan, but keeping food carts out of the small, walkable downtown area is pretty much the same thing as banning food carts altogether. Nathan and his family obviously know that: The hot dog cart is now for sale.
The Mackinac Center has made a nice little video about the ridiculous story:
This summer, 13-year-old Nathan Duszynski wanted to make some money to help out his disabled parents—his mom has epilepsy and his dad has multiple sclerosis. So he decided to open a hot dog stand. He saved $1,200, mostly money made by mowing lawns and shoveling snow. He checked with the city to make sure he didn't need any licenses or permits, even going to city hall in person with his mom. And then he bought a cart. (Yep, that's hot dog's from Nathan's, for those who are keeping score at home.)
He arrived to set up shop on his first day and 10 minutes later, a zoning official arrived to shut him down. The problem: The cart, which is in the parking lot of a sporting goods store, is on the edge of official downtown commercial district of Holland, Michigan. The city bans food carts in that area in order to minimize competition for the eight tax-paying restaurants a couple of blocks away.
As it happens, I've been to Holland. It's a lovely town, but not exactly a booming metropolis. And frankly (ha!), after an evening of Blue Motorcycles Butch's Dry Dock, a hot dog would really have hit the spot. The city says it is willing to work with Nathan, but keeping food carts out of the small, walkable downtown area is pretty much the same thing as banning food carts altogether. Nathan and his family obviously know that: The hot dog cart is now for sale.
The Mackinac Center has made a nice little video about the ridiculous story:
Dept. of Education Worker Taken Into Custody After Professing James Holmes Obsession: Sources
Police found photos of the Colorado massacre suspect at the employee's work desk and, when asked about them later, the man said he's obsessed with the alleged killer..
Harvey Weinstein Calls for Filmmaker Summit on Violence in Movies After Colorado Shooting
Weinstein, an avid Obama supporter, cites lack of gun control as the real culprit behind the Colorado theater shooting and says it's time for Hollywood to examine its part in perpetuating real-life events.
Harvey Weinstein -- the man behind some of the most violent movies to ever hit the big screen -- says it's time for Hollywood to address how violence in movies influences people..
Harvey Weinstein -- the man behind some of the most violent movies to ever hit the big screen -- says it's time for Hollywood to address how violence in movies influences people..
GOOGLE Unveils Superfast Internet in Kansas City
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Encouraging residents here to rally each other, Google on Thursday unveiled the highly anticipated details of its new ultrahigh-speed Internet network, which is supposed to run 100 times faster than typical broadband connections..
Hollywood's War on Chicken
The latest solid proof that Hollywood really can't stand traditional Christianity has arrived in an unfolding boycott of Chick-fil-A, a Georgia-based fast-food chain that's rapidly spreading franchises across America.
Chick-fil-A demonstrates a public faith by closing all its stores on Sundays and on Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's something the left ridicules but something anyone of any faith respects.
It's the company's donations through its WinShape Foundation that have launched the intolerant gay left into action. Chick-fil-A has dared to donate their profits to groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (Horrors!) and the Marriage and Family Foundation (No!).
Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy told the Baptist Press that, "We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that." This man just has to cut it out. Who does he think he is?
But what really infuriated the left was Cathy's comments on a radio show that "I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.'"
One of Hollywood's first moves came from The Jim Henson Co., the iconic family entertainment group that invented the Muppets. They issued a statement on Facebook proclaiming they were withdrawing any association through kid's-meal toys with the chain. "The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors," they declared. "Lisa Henson, our CEO is personally a strong supporter of gay marriage and has directed us to donate the payment we received from Chick-fil-A to GLAAD."
In other words, they're suggesting that they'll be better corporate citizens by giving their Chick-fil-A kiddie-meal money to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a group that fervently seeks to censor all traditional Christians from being allowed to say anything "anti-gay" on television news or entertainment programs. Even the Muppet people are in thrall to speech-squashing political correctness.
Other critics emerged on Twitter. "Chick-fil-A doesn't like gay people? So lame," actor Ed Helms (of "The Hangover" movies) tweeted. "Hate to think what they do to the gay chickens! Lost a loyal fan." Several other bold-type Hollywood moralists -- Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian -- also backed a Chick-fil-A boycott.
PAGE TWO>>
Chick-fil-A demonstrates a public faith by closing all its stores on Sundays and on Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's something the left ridicules but something anyone of any faith respects.
It's the company's donations through its WinShape Foundation that have launched the intolerant gay left into action. Chick-fil-A has dared to donate their profits to groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (Horrors!) and the Marriage and Family Foundation (No!).
Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy told the Baptist Press that, "We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that." This man just has to cut it out. Who does he think he is?
But what really infuriated the left was Cathy's comments on a radio show that "I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.'"
One of Hollywood's first moves came from The Jim Henson Co., the iconic family entertainment group that invented the Muppets. They issued a statement on Facebook proclaiming they were withdrawing any association through kid's-meal toys with the chain. "The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors," they declared. "Lisa Henson, our CEO is personally a strong supporter of gay marriage and has directed us to donate the payment we received from Chick-fil-A to GLAAD."
In other words, they're suggesting that they'll be better corporate citizens by giving their Chick-fil-A kiddie-meal money to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a group that fervently seeks to censor all traditional Christians from being allowed to say anything "anti-gay" on television news or entertainment programs. Even the Muppet people are in thrall to speech-squashing political correctness.
Other critics emerged on Twitter. "Chick-fil-A doesn't like gay people? So lame," actor Ed Helms (of "The Hangover" movies) tweeted. "Hate to think what they do to the gay chickens! Lost a loyal fan." Several other bold-type Hollywood moralists -- Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian -- also backed a Chick-fil-A boycott.
PAGE TWO>>
Illegal immigrants hurt by new law
President Barack Obama's health care law is putting new strains on some of the nation's most hard-pressed hospitals, by cutting aid that they use to pay for emergency care for illegal immigrants, which they have long been required to provide.
The federal government has been spending $20 billion annually to reimburse these hospitals — most in poor urban and rural areas —for treating more than their share of the uninsured, including illegal immigrants. The health care law will eventually cut that money in half, based on the premise that fewer people will lack insurance after the law takes effect.
But the estimated 11 million people now living illegally in the United States are not covered by the health care law. Its sponsors, seeking to sidestep the contentious debate over immigration, excluded them from the law's benefits.
As a result, safety-net hospitals said the cuts would deal a severe blow to their finances.
The hospitals are coming under this pressure because many of their uninsured patients are illegal immigrants, and because their large pools of uninsured or poorly insured patients are not expected to be reduced significantly under the Affordable Care Act, even as federal aid shrinks.
The hospitals range from public ones, like Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan, to neighborhood mainstays like Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn and Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego. They include small rural outposts like Othello Community Hospital in Washington state, which receives a steady flow of farmworkers who live in the country illegally.
No matter where they are located, all hospitals are obliged under federal law to treat anyone who arrives at the emergency room, regardless of their immigration status.
''That's the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and not just in New York — in Texas, in California, in Florida," said Wendy Z. Goldstein, Lutheran's chief executive.
Lutheran Medical Center is in the Sunset Park neighborhood, where low-wage earning Chinese and Latino communities converge near an expressway. Hospitals are not allowed to record patients' immigration status, but Goldstein estimated that 20 percent of its patients were what she called "the undocumented — not only uninsured, but uninsurable."
She said congressional staff members acknowledged that the health care law would scale back the money that helps pay for emergency care for such patients, but were reluctant to tackle the issue.
''I was told in Washington that they understand that this is a problem, but immigration is just too hot to touch," she said.
The Affordable Care Act sets up state exchanges to reduce the cost of commercial health insurance, but people must prove citizenship or legal immigration status to take part. They must show similar documentation to apply for Medicaid benefits that are expanded under the law.
The Affordable Care Act did call for increasing a little-known national network of 1,200 community health centers that provide primary care to the needy, regardless of their immigration status. But that plan, which could potentially steer more of the uninsured away from costly hospital care, was curtailed by congressional budget cuts last year.
That leaves hospitals like Lutheran, which is nonprofit and has run a string of such primary care centers for 40 years, facing cuts at both ends.
On a recent weekday in Lutheran's emergency room, a Chinese mother of two stared sadly through the porthole of an isolation unit. The woman had active tuberculosis and needed surgery to drain fluid from one lung, said Josh Liu, a patient liaison.
The disease had been discovered during a checkup at one of Lutheran's primary care centers, where the sliding scale fee starts at $15. But the woman, an illegal immigrant, had no way to pay for the surgery.
Another patient, a gaunt 44-year-old man from Ecuador, had been in New York eight years, installing wood floors, one in Rockefeller Center. The man had been afraid to seek care because he feared deportation. Finally, the pain in his stomach was too much to bear.
Dr. Daniel J. Giaccio, leading the residents on their rounds, used the notches on the man's worn belt to underscore his diagnosis, severe B-12 deficiency anemia. The woodworker had lost 30 pounds in a month, and his hands and feet were numb. Reversing the damage could take months.
''This is a severe case of sensory loss," Giaccio said. "Usually we pick it up much sooner."
In some states, including New York, hospitals caring for illegal immigrants in life-threatening situations can seek payment case-by-case, from a program known as emergency Medicaid. But the program has many restrictions and will not make up for the cuts in the $20 billion pool, hospital executives said.
Groups that favor more restrictive immigration policies said they agreed that the cuts in the $20 billion fund were a burden. They said hospitals obviously had a duty to provide emergency care for everybody, including illegal immigrants.
''I kind of like living in a society where we don't let people die on the steps of the emergency room," said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of one such group, the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington.
But he said the answer lies in enforcing laws, so that illegal immigrants leave the country, not in extending health coverage.
''There is no ideal resolution to the problem, other than reducing the illegal population," he said. "Incorporating illegal immigrants into health exchanges or directly taxpayer-funded health care legitimizes their presence."
The Obama administration said the Affordable Care Act supports safety-net hospitals in other ways, pointing to measures that raise payments for primary care and give bonuses for improvements in quality.
''We are taking important steps to make health care more affordable and accessible for millions of Americans," said Erin Shields Britt, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, in an email message. "Health reform isn't the place to fix our broken immigration system."
With illegal immigration an issue in the presidential campaign, many politicians continue to steer clear of addressing the cuts.
Hospitals in New York state now receive $2.84 billion of the nation's $20 billion in disproportionate share hospital payments.
That fund starts shrinking in 2014 under the law, and drops to $10 billion by 2019.
"It is a difficult time to really advocate around this issue, because there is so much antipathy against new immigrants," said Alan Aviles, president and chief executive of the Health and Hospitals Corp.
The corporation runs New York City's public hospitals, which treated 480,000 uninsured patients last year, an estimated 40 percent of them illegal immigrants. The same worries haunt tiny Othello Community Hospital, in Washington state's rural Adams County, where it is the only hospital for miles around.
Last year, the state began requiring that participants in a basic health plan that it offers prove that they are citizens or legal residents.
As a consequence, 4,000 out of the 4,400 patients at the nearby primary care center, mostly immigrant farmworkers, lost their coverage, leaving Othello more financially vulnerable when those people need emergency care.
In central California, Harry Foster, director of the Family HealthCare Network, another primary care center, called the Affordable Care Act "a double-edged sword."
Many low-wage earning citizens now lack employer-sponsored health insurance, and the health care industry is already competing for those who will gain coverage through the law. But no one is competing to treat those it leaves out, he said.
''We will receive more and more of those patients," he said, estimating that 40 percent of the area's residents were illegal immigrant farmworkers. "But financially, we can't take on all the uninsured patients in the area, to the exclusion of all the others, and survive."
In many ways Lutheran, a century-old hospital that refurbished a defunct factory to serve as its hub in the 1960s, has been a prototype of the law's new model: coordinating primary and preventive care to improve health outcomes while curbing costs. Yet it stands to lose $25 million from the cuts.
''This is an unintended consequence of the law," said the hospital's chief executive, Goldstein. "But so far, nobody is doing anything to resolve it."
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
The federal government has been spending $20 billion annually to reimburse these hospitals — most in poor urban and rural areas —for treating more than their share of the uninsured, including illegal immigrants. The health care law will eventually cut that money in half, based on the premise that fewer people will lack insurance after the law takes effect.
But the estimated 11 million people now living illegally in the United States are not covered by the health care law. Its sponsors, seeking to sidestep the contentious debate over immigration, excluded them from the law's benefits.
As a result, safety-net hospitals said the cuts would deal a severe blow to their finances.
The hospitals are coming under this pressure because many of their uninsured patients are illegal immigrants, and because their large pools of uninsured or poorly insured patients are not expected to be reduced significantly under the Affordable Care Act, even as federal aid shrinks.
The hospitals range from public ones, like Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan, to neighborhood mainstays like Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn and Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego. They include small rural outposts like Othello Community Hospital in Washington state, which receives a steady flow of farmworkers who live in the country illegally.
No matter where they are located, all hospitals are obliged under federal law to treat anyone who arrives at the emergency room, regardless of their immigration status.
''That's the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and not just in New York — in Texas, in California, in Florida," said Wendy Z. Goldstein, Lutheran's chief executive.
Lutheran Medical Center is in the Sunset Park neighborhood, where low-wage earning Chinese and Latino communities converge near an expressway. Hospitals are not allowed to record patients' immigration status, but Goldstein estimated that 20 percent of its patients were what she called "the undocumented — not only uninsured, but uninsurable."
She said congressional staff members acknowledged that the health care law would scale back the money that helps pay for emergency care for such patients, but were reluctant to tackle the issue.
''I was told in Washington that they understand that this is a problem, but immigration is just too hot to touch," she said.
The Affordable Care Act sets up state exchanges to reduce the cost of commercial health insurance, but people must prove citizenship or legal immigration status to take part. They must show similar documentation to apply for Medicaid benefits that are expanded under the law.
The Affordable Care Act did call for increasing a little-known national network of 1,200 community health centers that provide primary care to the needy, regardless of their immigration status. But that plan, which could potentially steer more of the uninsured away from costly hospital care, was curtailed by congressional budget cuts last year.
That leaves hospitals like Lutheran, which is nonprofit and has run a string of such primary care centers for 40 years, facing cuts at both ends.
On a recent weekday in Lutheran's emergency room, a Chinese mother of two stared sadly through the porthole of an isolation unit. The woman had active tuberculosis and needed surgery to drain fluid from one lung, said Josh Liu, a patient liaison.
The disease had been discovered during a checkup at one of Lutheran's primary care centers, where the sliding scale fee starts at $15. But the woman, an illegal immigrant, had no way to pay for the surgery.
Another patient, a gaunt 44-year-old man from Ecuador, had been in New York eight years, installing wood floors, one in Rockefeller Center. The man had been afraid to seek care because he feared deportation. Finally, the pain in his stomach was too much to bear.
Dr. Daniel J. Giaccio, leading the residents on their rounds, used the notches on the man's worn belt to underscore his diagnosis, severe B-12 deficiency anemia. The woodworker had lost 30 pounds in a month, and his hands and feet were numb. Reversing the damage could take months.
''This is a severe case of sensory loss," Giaccio said. "Usually we pick it up much sooner."
In some states, including New York, hospitals caring for illegal immigrants in life-threatening situations can seek payment case-by-case, from a program known as emergency Medicaid. But the program has many restrictions and will not make up for the cuts in the $20 billion pool, hospital executives said.
Groups that favor more restrictive immigration policies said they agreed that the cuts in the $20 billion fund were a burden. They said hospitals obviously had a duty to provide emergency care for everybody, including illegal immigrants.
''I kind of like living in a society where we don't let people die on the steps of the emergency room," said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of one such group, the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington.
But he said the answer lies in enforcing laws, so that illegal immigrants leave the country, not in extending health coverage.
''There is no ideal resolution to the problem, other than reducing the illegal population," he said. "Incorporating illegal immigrants into health exchanges or directly taxpayer-funded health care legitimizes their presence."
The Obama administration said the Affordable Care Act supports safety-net hospitals in other ways, pointing to measures that raise payments for primary care and give bonuses for improvements in quality.
''We are taking important steps to make health care more affordable and accessible for millions of Americans," said Erin Shields Britt, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, in an email message. "Health reform isn't the place to fix our broken immigration system."
With illegal immigration an issue in the presidential campaign, many politicians continue to steer clear of addressing the cuts.
Hospitals in New York state now receive $2.84 billion of the nation's $20 billion in disproportionate share hospital payments.
That fund starts shrinking in 2014 under the law, and drops to $10 billion by 2019.
"It is a difficult time to really advocate around this issue, because there is so much antipathy against new immigrants," said Alan Aviles, president and chief executive of the Health and Hospitals Corp.
The corporation runs New York City's public hospitals, which treated 480,000 uninsured patients last year, an estimated 40 percent of them illegal immigrants. The same worries haunt tiny Othello Community Hospital, in Washington state's rural Adams County, where it is the only hospital for miles around.
Last year, the state began requiring that participants in a basic health plan that it offers prove that they are citizens or legal residents.
As a consequence, 4,000 out of the 4,400 patients at the nearby primary care center, mostly immigrant farmworkers, lost their coverage, leaving Othello more financially vulnerable when those people need emergency care.
In central California, Harry Foster, director of the Family HealthCare Network, another primary care center, called the Affordable Care Act "a double-edged sword."
Many low-wage earning citizens now lack employer-sponsored health insurance, and the health care industry is already competing for those who will gain coverage through the law. But no one is competing to treat those it leaves out, he said.
''We will receive more and more of those patients," he said, estimating that 40 percent of the area's residents were illegal immigrant farmworkers. "But financially, we can't take on all the uninsured patients in the area, to the exclusion of all the others, and survive."
In many ways Lutheran, a century-old hospital that refurbished a defunct factory to serve as its hub in the 1960s, has been a prototype of the law's new model: coordinating primary and preventive care to improve health outcomes while curbing costs. Yet it stands to lose $25 million from the cuts.
''This is an unintended consequence of the law," said the hospital's chief executive, Goldstein. "But so far, nobody is doing anything to resolve it."
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Election Integrity: It Matters
In 2009, Catherine Engelbrecht of Houston volunteered to be a poll watcher. From that moment forward, her life changed.
During her time as an election volunteer, she saw people come in with duplicate registrations and people coming into the polling place to vote only to find out someone else had already voted for them through the mail. This, among other reasons, is why Engelbrecht founded True the Vote, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending voter fraud. True the Vote started with the intention of working locally, but quickly expanded to more than 35 states in just three short years.
“When you just talk to average American voters, they’re concerned which is why True the Vote has become such a national movement in a short period of time,” Engelbrecht said, stressing that currently only half of the necessary poll watchers needed are available, which is why True the Vote plans to mobilize one million volunteers for Election Day 2012.
Thursday, The Heritage Foundation held a summit about voter fraud and Voter ID featuring Engelbrecht, Kansas Secretary of State Chris Kobach, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, South Carolina Secretary of State Alan Wilson and former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis.
According to Rasmussen Reports, 64 percent of voters believe voter fraud is a problem while nearly 70 percent believe the requirement of photo ID to vote makes sense, yet the Obama Justice Department headed by Attorney General Eric Holder has been attacking state based Voter ID laws for months.
“There is a disconnect between what the voters want and what the politicians want,” Engelbrecht said. “A confident, engaged electorate leads to a united America.”
Kansas Secretary of State Chris Kobach recently lead the effort to get the SAFE program or Secure and Fair Elections Act passed by both Republicans and Democrats in his state. The act was passed in April 2011 and early results of the SAFE act are already positive. In the first six months after the law went into effect, the state held 53 local elections. During those elections, 68,000 votes were cast and of the 68,000 voters just 84 people showed up at the polls without photo ID although most of those people actually had ID but chose not to bring it to the polls for one reason or another. Out of 1.6 million registered voters, only 32 people in the entire state took advantage of the free photo ID offer from Kansas' government. PAGE TWO>>
During her time as an election volunteer, she saw people come in with duplicate registrations and people coming into the polling place to vote only to find out someone else had already voted for them through the mail. This, among other reasons, is why Engelbrecht founded True the Vote, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending voter fraud. True the Vote started with the intention of working locally, but quickly expanded to more than 35 states in just three short years.
“When you just talk to average American voters, they’re concerned which is why True the Vote has become such a national movement in a short period of time,” Engelbrecht said, stressing that currently only half of the necessary poll watchers needed are available, which is why True the Vote plans to mobilize one million volunteers for Election Day 2012.
Thursday, The Heritage Foundation held a summit about voter fraud and Voter ID featuring Engelbrecht, Kansas Secretary of State Chris Kobach, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, South Carolina Secretary of State Alan Wilson and former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis.
According to Rasmussen Reports, 64 percent of voters believe voter fraud is a problem while nearly 70 percent believe the requirement of photo ID to vote makes sense, yet the Obama Justice Department headed by Attorney General Eric Holder has been attacking state based Voter ID laws for months.
“There is a disconnect between what the voters want and what the politicians want,” Engelbrecht said. “A confident, engaged electorate leads to a united America.”
Kansas Secretary of State Chris Kobach recently lead the effort to get the SAFE program or Secure and Fair Elections Act passed by both Republicans and Democrats in his state. The act was passed in April 2011 and early results of the SAFE act are already positive. In the first six months after the law went into effect, the state held 53 local elections. During those elections, 68,000 votes were cast and of the 68,000 voters just 84 people showed up at the polls without photo ID although most of those people actually had ID but chose not to bring it to the polls for one reason or another. Out of 1.6 million registered voters, only 32 people in the entire state took advantage of the free photo ID offer from Kansas' government. PAGE TWO>>