Monday, August 27, 2012
Conservative Online America:
It didn't take long for liberals in the blogosphere to make backhanded and blatantly false accusations of racism against Congressman Paul Ryan, and you're not going to believe the rationale used for leveling the accusation. Apparently, Paul Ryan is a racist because...
Here's the scoop. Kelli Goff, the political writer for The Root, informs us that Ryan not only has a "Black sister-in-law," but that "his 'college sweetheart' was African-American" as well.
And how, in heaven's name, do those facts make Ryan a racist? They don't, but that didn't stop Goff from using convoluted and almost comical 'reasoning' to make the clear and libelous implication.
As Goff explains it: "When someone finds himself on the ropes facing an allegation of racism, the go-to reflex defense is usually something along the lines of 'But some of my best friends are black!' Translation: 'I can't possibly be racist or racially insensitive because there are black people I like and they like me.'"
Did you catch the implication, and how Goff has now lowered the bar on accusations of racism to previously unheard of depths? If someone is actually capable of offering a legitimate behavior-based defense to a false and baseless accusations of racism, then that person must be a racist.
While the accusation is only implied, my mother, when she was alive would have called it a "backhanded accusation," Goff is clearly leading the reader to believe that Ryan must be a racist because, assuming someone actually came right out and made an explicit accusation of racism against Ryan, he would then be inclined to say; 'I have a Black sister-in-law and I dated an African-American girl in college' and, as everyone knows, the fact that Ryan would be inclined to plea the but-some-of-my-best-friends-are defense, constitutes undeniable proof of his racism, prior to the fact.
If you still didn't catch Goff's implication, don't waste your time thinking too hard. While her thesis is clearly ridiculous, judging by many of the comments from the Amen-Chorus on the article, it's more than clear that Goff's liberal readers not only clearly understood the implication but also fell for it hook, line and sinker.
And if you're looking for any other evidence that Goff might be relying upon, say some quirk in Ryan's behavior or an incident in his past, to make the accusatory implication, don't bother, you won't find it, as the bulk of the remainder of Goff's article is devoted to what initially appears to be a dysfunctional and tangential hashing-up of old stories about the late-Senator Strom Thurmond, television commentator Lou Dobbs and Trayvon Martin's shooter George Zimmerman.
Later in the article it appears that Goff only went off on the tangent as a means of working up to a broader point, as she put it; that "it is possible to have a black friend, Asian friend, Hispanic friend or Muslim friend or wife and still exhibit prejudice toward that group."
However, while it would be impossible to know Goff's intentions, it is interesting that she devoted so much type to Thurmond, Dobbs and Zimmerman. Guilt by association is a powerful weapon and her tangential ramblings did supply the perfect ruse for her to interject an association between Ryan and Thurmond, Dobbs and Zimmerman, people that Goff obviously assumes that her liberal readers view as villains, even though no association actually exists between these men.
And so, in The 'World According To Goff' one should not dismiss any claims of racism against Ryan that may surface in the future because it is entirely possible that a white person can have cordial and intimate relationships with minorities and still be a racist, and should accusations be made at some future time, and Ryan refers to his personal relationships as a defense, then the statement would not only be a clear admission of guilt, but would also place him in the esteemed company of Thurmond, Dobbs and Zimmerman.
While Goff's implications are clear (and clumsy), they may also be telegraphing what is yet to come as the presidential campaign unfolds. At least the rather mendacious odor of a set-up is in the air.
Will false, and more emphatically stated, accusations of racism against Ryan come at a later date, and if so, will some other journalist actually reference Goff's 'innocent observation' to bolster the false accusation after Ryan issues the logical response?
You can almost envision some liberal writing, at a future date, 'of course, this isn't the first accusation of racism against Ryan....' Would it be paranoid to suspect that there a set-up in the works?
Crystal Wright penned an excellent retort of Goff's backhanded hit-piece for Town Hall (a highly recommended read, by the way) in which she observes: "Referencing no examples of behavior by Ryan that could be viewed racist, Goff only suggests that one day Ryan may be faced with racist allegations and use the fact that he dated a black woman in college as his defense."
Wright isn't necessarily implying that there's more to come (then again, maybe she is, but let's not put words in her mouth), but her statement does provide some reassure that suspicions, at least in this particular case, wouldn't necessarily qualify a person for membership in the tin-foil-hat club.
At the very least, Goff's accusation is deplorable and her incredulous cry of innocence toward the end of the article that she's "not calling Ryan a racist," rings hollow. Goff's implication was clear. One only need ask, if Goff didn't intend to throw out a false and baseless accusation that Ryan is a racist, then why did she write the article in the first place?
The answer, of course, is that Goff intended to place the question into the political dialogue. As to her purpose, and whether more is to come, only time will tell.
By Chris Carmouche
Monday, August 27, 2012
‘Operation Free Assange’: Anonymous take down New World Order's Policing Site (aka Interpol website)
Published: 27 August, 2012, 01:23
Edited: 27 August, 2012, 08:09
Hactivist group Anonymous claims to have taken down the websites of Interpol and a British police force as part of a campaign calling for the freedom of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Several Twitter accounts associated with the loose-knit Anonymous collective have announced that the website of International Criminal Police Organization was taken down. The site was unavailable as of 9:18 pm GMT on Sunday but resumed functioning soon after.
The hackers also claim to have taken down the website of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), a UK police unit responsible for operations against serious and organized crime.
Assange, the founder and editor of whistleblower website WikiLeaks, has been ordered by Swedish authorities to be extradited from the UK where he had been under house arrest. Two women from Sweden have accused Assange of sex crimes, although he has yet to be charged.
In fear of being sent to Sweden and then extradited to the US to be tried for his role with WikiLeaks, Assange applied for political asylum in Ecuador, which the Latin American country finally granted him earlier this month.
Regardless, British authorities have refused to give Assange safe passage out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London so that he may travel overseas.
Edited: 27 August, 2012, 08:09
Hactivist group Anonymous claims to have taken down the websites of Interpol and a British police force as part of a campaign calling for the freedom of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Several Twitter accounts associated with the loose-knit Anonymous collective have announced that the website of International Criminal Police Organization was taken down. The site was unavailable as of 9:18 pm GMT on Sunday but resumed functioning soon after.
The hackers also claim to have taken down the website of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), a UK police unit responsible for operations against serious and organized crime.
Assange, the founder and editor of whistleblower website WikiLeaks, has been ordered by Swedish authorities to be extradited from the UK where he had been under house arrest. Two women from Sweden have accused Assange of sex crimes, although he has yet to be charged.
In fear of being sent to Sweden and then extradited to the US to be tried for his role with WikiLeaks, Assange applied for political asylum in Ecuador, which the Latin American country finally granted him earlier this month.
Regardless, British authorities have refused to give Assange safe passage out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London so that he may travel overseas.
GM shuns political poster child role, bans candidate visits until after Election Day
By Nathan Bomey and Todd Spangler
Additional editing: Mine
August 26, 2012
Manchild and wannabe Emperor Barrack Hussein Obama pretends he's driving one of his failed pipedream Chevy Volts during a 2010 visit to the General Motors Hamtramck Assembly plant. Some conservatives accuse GM of creating the extended-range electric car to satisfy Obama's desire for green vehicles, though the automaker showed the Volt concept at the Detroit auto show in 2007, two years before Obama took office. / WILLIAM ARCHIE/Detroit Free Press
(Detroit Free Press) Here are two people you won't find touring a General Motors plant during the political season this fall: Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
GM, saved by federal loans a few years ago, desperately wants to avoid becoming the centerpiece of campaign rhetoric. So it has banned candidates from its plants at least until after Election Day, Nov. 6, despite the fact that the U.S. Treasury remains its largest shareholder.
The Detroit car giant wants to be viewed as a success story -- not the arm of any campaign. After all, Democrats, Republicans and independents all buy vehicles.
"We would like to put all of our energy behind selling our cars and trucks," said Bob Ferguson, GM's vice president for global public policy. "It's an understatement to say we can't wait for November to get here."
GM and experts say the company has been intentionally less visible in lobbying on some federal issues and is, in effect, taking cover until the election is over.
But the company is stuck uncomfortably in a spotlighted middle after emerging from the Great Recession and its 2009 federally financed bankruptcy. The Treasury Department, which provided $49.5 billion to bail out GM, still owns 32% of the new GM's common stock, despite getting repaid more than $23 billion so far.
Obama takes credit for GM's survival, saying in February that the auto industry had added 200,000 jobs since 2009. But Romney tries to use the bailout against the president as a poor and expensive deal for taxpayers. The candidates are expected to continue bashing each other with the auto industry bailout and the ins and outs of GM's near-death and revival.
In Detroit on Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden sounded a now-familiar campaign refrain that makes GM executives cringe: "Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive."
GM is branded "Government Motors" by Obama's critics but hailed by his supporters as a testament to his leadership in saving GM and Chrysler. The efforts began in the administration of President George W. Bush -- which GM CEO Dan Akerson is quick to point out.
The president's campaign is expected to make the auto bailout a key element of the Democratic National Convention during the first week of September in Charlotte, N.C.
Chrysler paid back all of its bankruptcy loans from the Treasury and has largely avoided becoming part of the political campaign debate, though the now-Italian-owned company did say on Thursday that it also has banned campaign visits to its facilities.
The Romney campaign has tried to turn the bailout to its advantage, accusing the president of bungling it by preserving UAW benefits at the expense of bondholders who lost billions.
His campaign also has noted the bailout wasn't good for everyone, running an ad in swing state Ohio noting that many dealers were hurt in the process by having their dealerships shut down or downsized.
But Romney has a potential bailout problem, too, ever since he penned a November 2008 op-ed for the New York Times that ran under the headline, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." Even so, some have argued that Romney did push for a similar structured bankruptcy as was implemented by the Obama administration for GM and Chrysler and that he should share any credit.
Romney, a Michigan native and former Massachusetts governor, is slated to accept the Republican nomination for president this week at the GOP convention in Tampa.
When to sell shares?
Still, there are risks in taking too much credit for GM's survival, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was economic policy adviser to Republican nominee John McCain four years ago. The danger comes with the question of how much it's costing taxpayers across the country.
GM posted North American profits of $3.66 billion in the first six months of 2012, offsetting a $617-million loss in Europe. And on Friday, Fitch Ratings upgraded its credit rating, reflecting a vote of confidence GM could weather an unexpected downturn in the market.
But the stock is down 35.8% from its November 2010 initial public offering price of $33. And judging by Friday's close of $21.18, the government would lose $15.6 billion on the bailout if it sold its 500.1 million shares.
There's no easy way at present to deal with the shares, Holtz-Eakin said: "If they don't sell them, they're not really capitalists, they're socialists; and if they do sell them, and they sell them at a loss, they're bad capitalists."
Romney has said he would sell immediately, but analysts agree that he wouldn't pull the trigger on a plan to dump shares onto the market soon after taking office, which would push the stock even lower.
Ferguson, GM's vice president of global public policy, said the company has not had discussions with Romney about his comments.
"We've read what he said in the press," he said. "Of course, we're very in favor of an orderly but quick exit on behalf of the government. It would be a better day for everybody."
Avoiding the spotlight
For its part, GM has employed a duck-and-cover strategy in Washington until at least the election is over and shifted some focus to state issues, based on comments from officials and lobbying records.
GM's spending on lobbying in Washington fell 21.6% to $4.33 million in the first half of this year from $5.52 million in the first half of 2011, according to federal reports filed each quarter.
To be sure, the automaker still is actively lobbying on various federal tax issues, tariffs, energy issues and transportation regulations, including Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirements, or CAFE standards. But it has chosen to be less vocal publicly about those issues.
"GM sees no purpose of taking on either party and just wishes the whole thing would go away and people would start treating them like a normal automobile company," said former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, who now serves as a consultant for the company.
The company faces other political stresses, such as accusations by some conservatives that the Chevrolet Volt, an extended-range electric car, was created to satisfy Obama's desire for more green vehicles. The Volt was first introduced as a concept vehicle at the Detroit auto show in January 2007, two years before Obama took office, and it hit showrooms in fall 2010.
The company is well aware of the bailout's impact on its image.
"In America, it's pretty polarized -- 50% think it's a good idea, 50% think it's a bad idea," said Joel Ewanick in June while attending a conference in France. "Well that's really not a good thing when you're trying to sell cars to have 50% of your people saying, 'I'm not going to do it; I'd rather buy a Ford because of it.' "
Ewanick was recently fired as GM's global chief marketing officer for unrelated issues.
Auto rescue tale spin
Whether GM can successfully avoid the spotlight this fall is questionable. With a sluggish economy and an unemployment rate of 8.3% in July, the auto bailout is a bright spot for Obama, and highlighting it a key campaign strategy.
"I think it will be prominent in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois," said former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard, a Democrat. He said it will serve the president nationwide as "a metaphor for how you treat people whose jobs are threatened."
The president trumpeted the auto bailout no fewer than 20 times in the first 20 days of August, according to a review of transcripts. On the day of Michigan's Republican presidential primary in February, Obama was talking up the bailout before the UAW.
UAW President Bob King said the bailout will be just part of the union's message supporting the president, saying salaried and hourly workers recognize the second chance the government gave the company.
The Romney campaign has seized on big labor's role in the bailout. Critics point out that GM's European unit has been posting annual losses topping $1 billion, which means the company's North American operations are effectively funding the losses in Europe, where German unions appear to have a stranglehold on company plants.
And the company, while pulled back from the edge, still faces major challenges: It will lose money in Europe for the 13th straight year, it must fend off resurgent Japanese competitors in the U.S. and it faces a sluggish stock price that analysts say is still being weighed down by the government ownership.
GM, for its part, still must comply with a program of executive pay restrictions, which it says has hampered retention and recruitment of the best and brightest.
Obama supporters argue that even if the Treasury has to eventually sell GM stock at a loss, a $15-billion hit is a small price for saving GM's 77,000 U.S. employees and preventing a collapse of auto suppliers that could have crippled the industry.
"Philosophically, I was absolutely opposed to the idea of the government stepping in," said David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research. "But had we seen a collapse of the industry, which was right at the edge, it would have driven the entire economy into a depression. And basically from a practical standpoint, the cost of preventing that was dramatically lower than the cost of cleaning up a depression in the economy."
Effect on sales
Whether the political rhetoric levies a direct impact on the showroom floor is unclear.
Ferguson, GM's vice president for global public policy, said the company's internal research shows the bailout's impact is still visible on sales.
"But it's much diminished," he said. "I think most Americans have seen that General Motors is back on its feet and very profitable and making good products."
Morningstar analyst David Whiston said the impact is negligible. "Of course there are consumers that are angry about it and may never buy a GM car, but I just don't think it's big enough to be impacting their sales numbers."
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said: "The honest answer is we won't know until we find out -- we'll see how the tone of it goes."
An Obama-style Recovery (More Details): U.S. Treasury Department and GM, an uncomfortable
$49.5 billion
Amount government provided to GM in 2009 for bailout
$26.2 billion
Amount still owed
500.1 million
Number of common shares owned by U.S.
32%
Percentage of GM common stock owned by U.S.
26%
Approximate percentage of GM stock owned by U.S., if all outstanding warrants were exercised
$21.18
GM stock at Friday close
$33
GM stock at initial public offering in November 2010
$52.39
Price GM stock would have to reach for government to break even
$15.6 billion
Amount U.S. would lose if it sold all GM stock today
Additional editing: Mine
August 26, 2012
(Detroit Free Press) Here are two people you won't find touring a General Motors plant during the political season this fall: Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
GM, saved by federal loans a few years ago, desperately wants to avoid becoming the centerpiece of campaign rhetoric. So it has banned candidates from its plants at least until after Election Day, Nov. 6, despite the fact that the U.S. Treasury remains its largest shareholder.
The Detroit car giant wants to be viewed as a success story -- not the arm of any campaign. After all, Democrats, Republicans and independents all buy vehicles.
"We would like to put all of our energy behind selling our cars and trucks," said Bob Ferguson, GM's vice president for global public policy. "It's an understatement to say we can't wait for November to get here."
GM and experts say the company has been intentionally less visible in lobbying on some federal issues and is, in effect, taking cover until the election is over.
But the company is stuck uncomfortably in a spotlighted middle after emerging from the Great Recession and its 2009 federally financed bankruptcy. The Treasury Department, which provided $49.5 billion to bail out GM, still owns 32% of the new GM's common stock, despite getting repaid more than $23 billion so far.
Obama takes credit for GM's survival, saying in February that the auto industry had added 200,000 jobs since 2009. But Romney tries to use the bailout against the president as a poor and expensive deal for taxpayers. The candidates are expected to continue bashing each other with the auto industry bailout and the ins and outs of GM's near-death and revival.
In Detroit on Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden sounded a now-familiar campaign refrain that makes GM executives cringe: "Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive."
GM is branded "Government Motors" by Obama's critics but hailed by his supporters as a testament to his leadership in saving GM and Chrysler. The efforts began in the administration of President George W. Bush -- which GM CEO Dan Akerson is quick to point out.
The president's campaign is expected to make the auto bailout a key element of the Democratic National Convention during the first week of September in Charlotte, N.C.
Chrysler paid back all of its bankruptcy loans from the Treasury and has largely avoided becoming part of the political campaign debate, though the now-Italian-owned company did say on Thursday that it also has banned campaign visits to its facilities.
The Romney campaign has tried to turn the bailout to its advantage, accusing the president of bungling it by preserving UAW benefits at the expense of bondholders who lost billions.
His campaign also has noted the bailout wasn't good for everyone, running an ad in swing state Ohio noting that many dealers were hurt in the process by having their dealerships shut down or downsized.
But Romney has a potential bailout problem, too, ever since he penned a November 2008 op-ed for the New York Times that ran under the headline, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." Even so, some have argued that Romney did push for a similar structured bankruptcy as was implemented by the Obama administration for GM and Chrysler and that he should share any credit.
Romney, a Michigan native and former Massachusetts governor, is slated to accept the Republican nomination for president this week at the GOP convention in Tampa.
When to sell shares?
Still, there are risks in taking too much credit for GM's survival, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was economic policy adviser to Republican nominee John McCain four years ago. The danger comes with the question of how much it's costing taxpayers across the country.
GM posted North American profits of $3.66 billion in the first six months of 2012, offsetting a $617-million loss in Europe. And on Friday, Fitch Ratings upgraded its credit rating, reflecting a vote of confidence GM could weather an unexpected downturn in the market.
But the stock is down 35.8% from its November 2010 initial public offering price of $33. And judging by Friday's close of $21.18, the government would lose $15.6 billion on the bailout if it sold its 500.1 million shares.
There's no easy way at present to deal with the shares, Holtz-Eakin said: "If they don't sell them, they're not really capitalists, they're socialists; and if they do sell them, and they sell them at a loss, they're bad capitalists."
Romney has said he would sell immediately, but analysts agree that he wouldn't pull the trigger on a plan to dump shares onto the market soon after taking office, which would push the stock even lower.
Ferguson, GM's vice president of global public policy, said the company has not had discussions with Romney about his comments.
"We've read what he said in the press," he said. "Of course, we're very in favor of an orderly but quick exit on behalf of the government. It would be a better day for everybody."
Avoiding the spotlight
For its part, GM has employed a duck-and-cover strategy in Washington until at least the election is over and shifted some focus to state issues, based on comments from officials and lobbying records.
GM's spending on lobbying in Washington fell 21.6% to $4.33 million in the first half of this year from $5.52 million in the first half of 2011, according to federal reports filed each quarter.
To be sure, the automaker still is actively lobbying on various federal tax issues, tariffs, energy issues and transportation regulations, including Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirements, or CAFE standards. But it has chosen to be less vocal publicly about those issues.
"GM sees no purpose of taking on either party and just wishes the whole thing would go away and people would start treating them like a normal automobile company," said former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, who now serves as a consultant for the company.
The company faces other political stresses, such as accusations by some conservatives that the Chevrolet Volt, an extended-range electric car, was created to satisfy Obama's desire for more green vehicles. The Volt was first introduced as a concept vehicle at the Detroit auto show in January 2007, two years before Obama took office, and it hit showrooms in fall 2010.
The company is well aware of the bailout's impact on its image.
"In America, it's pretty polarized -- 50% think it's a good idea, 50% think it's a bad idea," said Joel Ewanick in June while attending a conference in France. "Well that's really not a good thing when you're trying to sell cars to have 50% of your people saying, 'I'm not going to do it; I'd rather buy a Ford because of it.' "
Ewanick was recently fired as GM's global chief marketing officer for unrelated issues.
Auto rescue tale spin
Whether GM can successfully avoid the spotlight this fall is questionable. With a sluggish economy and an unemployment rate of 8.3% in July, the auto bailout is a bright spot for Obama, and highlighting it a key campaign strategy.
"I think it will be prominent in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois," said former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard, a Democrat. He said it will serve the president nationwide as "a metaphor for how you treat people whose jobs are threatened."
The president trumpeted the auto bailout no fewer than 20 times in the first 20 days of August, according to a review of transcripts. On the day of Michigan's Republican presidential primary in February, Obama was talking up the bailout before the UAW.
UAW President Bob King said the bailout will be just part of the union's message supporting the president, saying salaried and hourly workers recognize the second chance the government gave the company.
The Romney campaign has seized on big labor's role in the bailout. Critics point out that GM's European unit has been posting annual losses topping $1 billion, which means the company's North American operations are effectively funding the losses in Europe, where German unions appear to have a stranglehold on company plants.
And the company, while pulled back from the edge, still faces major challenges: It will lose money in Europe for the 13th straight year, it must fend off resurgent Japanese competitors in the U.S. and it faces a sluggish stock price that analysts say is still being weighed down by the government ownership.
GM, for its part, still must comply with a program of executive pay restrictions, which it says has hampered retention and recruitment of the best and brightest.
Obama supporters argue that even if the Treasury has to eventually sell GM stock at a loss, a $15-billion hit is a small price for saving GM's 77,000 U.S. employees and preventing a collapse of auto suppliers that could have crippled the industry.
"Philosophically, I was absolutely opposed to the idea of the government stepping in," said David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research. "But had we seen a collapse of the industry, which was right at the edge, it would have driven the entire economy into a depression. And basically from a practical standpoint, the cost of preventing that was dramatically lower than the cost of cleaning up a depression in the economy."
Effect on sales
Whether the political rhetoric levies a direct impact on the showroom floor is unclear.
Ferguson, GM's vice president for global public policy, said the company's internal research shows the bailout's impact is still visible on sales.
"But it's much diminished," he said. "I think most Americans have seen that General Motors is back on its feet and very profitable and making good products."
Morningstar analyst David Whiston said the impact is negligible. "Of course there are consumers that are angry about it and may never buy a GM car, but I just don't think it's big enough to be impacting their sales numbers."
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said: "The honest answer is we won't know until we find out -- we'll see how the tone of it goes."
An Obama-style Recovery (More Details): U.S. Treasury Department and GM, an uncomfortable
$49.5 billion
Amount government provided to GM in 2009 for bailout
$26.2 billion
Amount still owed
500.1 million
Number of common shares owned by U.S.
32%
Percentage of GM common stock owned by U.S.
26%
Approximate percentage of GM stock owned by U.S., if all outstanding warrants were exercised
$21.18
GM stock at Friday close
$33
GM stock at initial public offering in November 2010
$52.39
Price GM stock would have to reach for government to break even
$15.6 billion
Amount U.S. would lose if it sold all GM stock today
Left Wing Wackjob Arrested With Machete at RNC Protest
By Josh Rojas, Reporter
Last Updated: Sunday, August 26, 2012
(BayNews9.Com)
TAMPA --
A Republican National Convention protestor was arrested while he allegedly carried a machete strapped to his leg, according to deputies.
According to Hillsborough County Sheriff's officials, Jason T. Wilson, of Tallahassee, was arrested as he walked in the RNC Event Zone carrying a "full size" machete.
When deputies approached Wilson, they said he continued to walk away despite orders to stop.
"When deputies caught up to Wilson, he advised he did not have to stop and that he was allowed to carry whatever he wanted," HCSO spokesperson Larry McKinnon said.
When deputies attempted to physically stop him, Wilson allegedly began resisting arrest and was physically restrained.
Wilson was arrested and taken to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office on charges of prohibited items in event zone and resisting arrest with violence.
Confusion over Mitt Romney puppet
One deputy told a group of protestors carrying an oversized puppet of Mitt Romney the sticks they were using to hold up the puppet's arms were against the rules.
We captured exclusive video of that exchange.
Deputy: "I got to have the sticks."
Protestor: "No, sir. We actually measured them exactly within the code."
Deputy: "Okay, there's one of two options. I can take the sticks or people can go to jail. I don't want to do that."
A Tampa police captain took over, measured the sticks and determined that they were legal.
On the exchange between the deputy and protestor, Chief Castor said "there was just a little bit of confusion on it. Whether we should or shouldn't allow those in here and then the Captain made the decision. The right decision."
Community organizer Kelly Benjamin agreed with Chief Castor.
"We have the utmost respect for the police. They're just doing their jobs,” said Kelly Benjamin, FL Consumer Action Network. “It was a misunderstanding. I'm glad it was resolved. The puppet was well within the code, so there should be no problems."
Other protests carried out without incident
Meanwhile, other large protests were carried out without incident.
Two hundred protestors arrived at Gaslight Park in Downtown Tampa just after 12 p.m. After protesting in the park for a short time, police say the group split up, with approximately 100 protestors marching to the Bank of America building.
They entered the bank's front plaza and put stickers and were writing with chalk on the private property. Crowd management officers asked the demonstrators to leave the private property and they complied without incident.
The second group of approximately 100 protestors, marched through city streets toward the Tampa Bay Times Forum, where the convention will take place.
Bike officers rolled alongside the unplanned march closing cross streets to keep the protesters safe from traffic.
They marched to the public viewing area where they chanted and held a brief rally before loading onto buses to head to St. Petersburg for the opening event of the RNC.
POWER GRAB: FCC seeks to tax Internet service
By Brendan Sasso - 08/26/12 06:00 AM ET
The Hill:
The Federal Communications Commission is eyeing a proposal to tax broadband Internet service.
The move would funnel money to the Connect America Fund, a subsidy the agency created last year to expand Internet access.
The FCC issued a request for comments on the proposal in April. Dozens of companies and trade associations have weighed in, but the issue has largely flown under the public's radar.
"If members of Congress understood that the FCC is contemplating a broadband tax, they'd sit up and take notice," said Derek Turner, research director for Free Press, a consumer advocacy group that opposes the tax.
Numerous companies, including AT&T, Sprint and even Google have expressed support for the idea.
Consumers already pay a fee on their landline and cellular phone bills to support the FCC's Universal Service Fund. The fund was created to ensure that everyone in the country has access to telephone service, even if they live in remote areas.
Last year, the FCC overhauled a $4.5 billion portion of the Universal Service Fund and converted it into a broadband Internet subsidy, called the Connect America Fund. The new fund aims to subsidize the construction of high-speed Internet networks to the estimated 19 million Americans who currently lack access.
Julius Genachowski, the FCC's chairman, has made expanding broadband access his top priority. He argues that a high-speed Internet connection is critical for succeeding in the 21st century economy and that expanding Internet access is the country's next great infrastructure challenge.
But the money for the new Internet subsidy is still coming from the fees on phone bills.
And in recent years, with more people sending emails instead of making long-distance phone calls, the money flowing into the program has begun to dry up. The Universal Service fee has had to grow to a larger and larger portion of phone bills to compensate.
The FCC floated a number of ideas for reforming the fund's contribution system. In addition to the broadband fee, the commission also sought comments on taxing text messages, as well as levying a flat fee on each phone line, instead of the current system, which is based on a portion of the revenue from interstate phone calls.
The commission only sought input on the ideas and did not indicate whether it planned to move ahead with any of them, including the broadband fee.
When the FCC released its proposal, Genachowski issued a statement saying the current contribution system is outdated and full of loopholes.
"Today we propose three goals for contribution reform: efficiency, fairness, and sustainability," Genachowski said. "And we underscore that any reforms to the contribution system must safeguard core Commission objectives, including the promotion of broadband innovation, investment, and adoption."
In its filing, Google argued that the evidence "strongly supports expanding the [Universal Service Fund] contribution base to include broadband Internet access services."
According to Google, taxing broadband service is preferable to taxing the kinds of online services it offers, like email or Google Voice.
"Saddling these offerings with new, direct USF contribution obligations is likely to restrict innovative options for all communications consumers and cause immediate and lasting harm to the users, pioneers, and innovators of Internet-based services," Google argued.
But Turner argued that imposing a fee on broadband access, even if it is only a dollar or two, would discourage many people from buying the service—the exact opposite outcome of what the FCC is trying to achieve.
"For folks who are thinking about adopting broadband, who have much lower incomes or don't value broadband as much—that extra dollar on the margins will cause millions of people... to not adopt," Turner said.
The FCC could run into legal problems with the Internet Tax Freedom Act, a 1998 law that bans the government from taxing Internet access. But the FCC has long argued that Universal Service is a fee that the providers choose to pass on to consumers and not a tax.
Turner said it is unlikely that the FCC will make any controversial moves before November's election.
"I don't anticipate that the chairman would move to adopt a drastic overhaul ahead of the election," he said.
The Hill:
The Federal Communications Commission is eyeing a proposal to tax broadband Internet service.
The move would funnel money to the Connect America Fund, a subsidy the agency created last year to expand Internet access.
The FCC issued a request for comments on the proposal in April. Dozens of companies and trade associations have weighed in, but the issue has largely flown under the public's radar.
"If members of Congress understood that the FCC is contemplating a broadband tax, they'd sit up and take notice," said Derek Turner, research director for Free Press, a consumer advocacy group that opposes the tax.
Numerous companies, including AT&T, Sprint and even Google have expressed support for the idea.
Consumers already pay a fee on their landline and cellular phone bills to support the FCC's Universal Service Fund. The fund was created to ensure that everyone in the country has access to telephone service, even if they live in remote areas.
Last year, the FCC overhauled a $4.5 billion portion of the Universal Service Fund and converted it into a broadband Internet subsidy, called the Connect America Fund. The new fund aims to subsidize the construction of high-speed Internet networks to the estimated 19 million Americans who currently lack access.
Julius Genachowski, the FCC's chairman, has made expanding broadband access his top priority. He argues that a high-speed Internet connection is critical for succeeding in the 21st century economy and that expanding Internet access is the country's next great infrastructure challenge.
But the money for the new Internet subsidy is still coming from the fees on phone bills.
And in recent years, with more people sending emails instead of making long-distance phone calls, the money flowing into the program has begun to dry up. The Universal Service fee has had to grow to a larger and larger portion of phone bills to compensate.
The FCC floated a number of ideas for reforming the fund's contribution system. In addition to the broadband fee, the commission also sought comments on taxing text messages, as well as levying a flat fee on each phone line, instead of the current system, which is based on a portion of the revenue from interstate phone calls.
The commission only sought input on the ideas and did not indicate whether it planned to move ahead with any of them, including the broadband fee.
When the FCC released its proposal, Genachowski issued a statement saying the current contribution system is outdated and full of loopholes.
"Today we propose three goals for contribution reform: efficiency, fairness, and sustainability," Genachowski said. "And we underscore that any reforms to the contribution system must safeguard core Commission objectives, including the promotion of broadband innovation, investment, and adoption."
In its filing, Google argued that the evidence "strongly supports expanding the [Universal Service Fund] contribution base to include broadband Internet access services."
According to Google, taxing broadband service is preferable to taxing the kinds of online services it offers, like email or Google Voice.
"Saddling these offerings with new, direct USF contribution obligations is likely to restrict innovative options for all communications consumers and cause immediate and lasting harm to the users, pioneers, and innovators of Internet-based services," Google argued.
But Turner argued that imposing a fee on broadband access, even if it is only a dollar or two, would discourage many people from buying the service—the exact opposite outcome of what the FCC is trying to achieve.
"For folks who are thinking about adopting broadband, who have much lower incomes or don't value broadband as much—that extra dollar on the margins will cause millions of people... to not adopt," Turner said.
The FCC could run into legal problems with the Internet Tax Freedom Act, a 1998 law that bans the government from taxing Internet access. But the FCC has long argued that Universal Service is a fee that the providers choose to pass on to consumers and not a tax.
Turner said it is unlikely that the FCC will make any controversial moves before November's election.
"I don't anticipate that the chairman would move to adopt a drastic overhaul ahead of the election," he said.
Egypt prosecutor probes anti-Obama-Endorsed Muslim Brotherhood critic
Aug 26, 7:38 PM EDT
By AYA BATRAWY
Associated Press
In this Tuesday Aug. 7, 2012 photo, Tawfiq Okasha holding some plants, 2nd left, rallies his supporters against Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood at the funeral of 16 Egyptian soldiers killed in the Egyptian border town of Rafah on Aug 5, 2012. He emerged as one of the most popular television personalities of post-revolution Egypt by railing against the revolution, a bombastic conservative who every night mocked the country’s “enemies” --everyone from leftists and Islamists to Freemasons and Zionists-- with rants full of abuse and earthy humor. Now Tawfiq Okasha presents himself as the country’s champion against a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood, calling protests that took place Friday. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)
CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt's attorney general has referred an outspoken anti-Islamist former lawmaker for investigation by police prosecutors over claims he called for the downfall of the regime, according to a statement Sunday.
The charge added to concerns that the government is backtracking on the democratic aims of the uprising that toppled the autocratic regime last year.
The complaint submitted against Mohamed Abu-Hamed by another former lawmaker also accuses him of trying to mobilize Egypt's minority Coptic Christians to protest and cause religious strife.
If the case is taken to court and he is found guilty, Abu-Hamed would face a maximum sentence of three years prison.
Abu-Hamed has a doctorate in Islamic theology and was the deputy leader of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, but split away to become an independent lawmaker before parliament was dissolved.
The investigation against Abu-Hamed comes two days after he led a march of around 3,000 people to the presidential palace to protest against the recently elected president, Mohammed Morsi, and his Muslim Brotherhood.
A number of other cases against critics of the Brotherhood, including TV host Tawfiq Okasha and newspaper editor Islam Afifi, who was briefly imprisoned, have stoked concerns that freedom of speech is being curbed, despite last year's uprising that called for greater rights with the downfall of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak's regime.
The Brotherhood accused Okasha and his associates of being behind arson attacks on a number of the group's offices around the country.
He faces trial for his remarks, among them telling viewers that the killing Morsi was permissible. He claimed the Brotherhood and Morsi plan to kill him and retorted, "Fine, I declare it permissible to shed your blood, too."
Despite his popularity in some segments, neither Okasha nor Abu-Hamed have the support of the youth and revolutionaries who helped engineer last year's uprising.
Youth activists launched a snide campaign last week aimed at raising money to send Abu-Hamed on a one-way trip from Egypt to Malaysia.
"We need to unite around one cause. We thought about what this cause could be: Abu-Hamed. In order to move from old Egypt to new Egypt we need to get rid of a few people: Abu-Hamed," a young man says on a YouTube video titled "Get Abu-Hamed Out of Egypt."
Many see Okasha as inflammatory and crass, and others consider Abu-Hamed an opportunist who has flip-flopped alliances since rising to fame during parliamentary elections late last year.
Although the protest march led by Abu-Hamed on Friday was relatively small, it reflects a wider feeling that the Brotherhood is power hungry after decades of being outlawed.
The Brotherhood won the most seats in parliament and then the presidency, and it has clashed with liberals over the formation of a body tasked with writing a new constitution, with secular representatives walking out.
Trying to counter the misgivings, Morsi, who is Egypt's first freely elected civilian and Islamist to take office, has reached out to a wide spectrum of groups and recently named the country's former defense minister - a holdover of the Mubarak regime - a Coptic Christian and at least two women as presidential advisers. His newly-formed Cabinet is a mix of technocrats, former ministers from the military-appointed government and Islamists.
In his first legislative decree, Morsi banned the imprisonment of journalists who face trial for inciting hatred, insulting the president, slander and other related offenses.
© 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
By AYA BATRAWY
Associated Press
CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt's attorney general has referred an outspoken anti-Islamist former lawmaker for investigation by police prosecutors over claims he called for the downfall of the regime, according to a statement Sunday.
The charge added to concerns that the government is backtracking on the democratic aims of the uprising that toppled the autocratic regime last year.
The complaint submitted against Mohamed Abu-Hamed by another former lawmaker also accuses him of trying to mobilize Egypt's minority Coptic Christians to protest and cause religious strife.
If the case is taken to court and he is found guilty, Abu-Hamed would face a maximum sentence of three years prison.
Abu-Hamed has a doctorate in Islamic theology and was the deputy leader of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, but split away to become an independent lawmaker before parliament was dissolved.
The investigation against Abu-Hamed comes two days after he led a march of around 3,000 people to the presidential palace to protest against the recently elected president, Mohammed Morsi, and his Muslim Brotherhood.
A number of other cases against critics of the Brotherhood, including TV host Tawfiq Okasha and newspaper editor Islam Afifi, who was briefly imprisoned, have stoked concerns that freedom of speech is being curbed, despite last year's uprising that called for greater rights with the downfall of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak's regime.
The Brotherhood accused Okasha and his associates of being behind arson attacks on a number of the group's offices around the country.
He faces trial for his remarks, among them telling viewers that the killing Morsi was permissible. He claimed the Brotherhood and Morsi plan to kill him and retorted, "Fine, I declare it permissible to shed your blood, too."
Despite his popularity in some segments, neither Okasha nor Abu-Hamed have the support of the youth and revolutionaries who helped engineer last year's uprising.
Youth activists launched a snide campaign last week aimed at raising money to send Abu-Hamed on a one-way trip from Egypt to Malaysia.
"We need to unite around one cause. We thought about what this cause could be: Abu-Hamed. In order to move from old Egypt to new Egypt we need to get rid of a few people: Abu-Hamed," a young man says on a YouTube video titled "Get Abu-Hamed Out of Egypt."
Many see Okasha as inflammatory and crass, and others consider Abu-Hamed an opportunist who has flip-flopped alliances since rising to fame during parliamentary elections late last year.
Although the protest march led by Abu-Hamed on Friday was relatively small, it reflects a wider feeling that the Brotherhood is power hungry after decades of being outlawed.
The Brotherhood won the most seats in parliament and then the presidency, and it has clashed with liberals over the formation of a body tasked with writing a new constitution, with secular representatives walking out.
Trying to counter the misgivings, Morsi, who is Egypt's first freely elected civilian and Islamist to take office, has reached out to a wide spectrum of groups and recently named the country's former defense minister - a holdover of the Mubarak regime - a Coptic Christian and at least two women as presidential advisers. His newly-formed Cabinet is a mix of technocrats, former ministers from the military-appointed government and Islamists.
In his first legislative decree, Morsi banned the imprisonment of journalists who face trial for inciting hatred, insulting the president, slander and other related offenses.
© 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Lawyer: 20 More Cases Similar to Brendon Raub Ongoing
Saturday, August 25, 2012
The Patriot Update:
The lawyer who helped secure the release of Brendon Raub, a former Marine forcibly incarcerated in a psychiatric ward by authorities in Virginia for political posts on Facebook, told the Alex Jones Show today that there are currently a further 20 cases in his county alone that are similar in nature to Raub’s detention.
John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute also said that he had been contacted by numerous veterans in the aftermath of Raub’s release who had encountered similar problems with authorities attempting to have them declared mentally ill.
Whitehead attributed the high number of cases involving veterans as a consequence of the Department of Homeland Security’s aggressive campaign to demonize former servicemembers as domestic extremists.
Hat tip: http://presspatrol.com/
The Patriot Update:
John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute also said that he had been contacted by numerous veterans in the aftermath of Raub’s release who had encountered similar problems with authorities attempting to have them declared mentally ill.
Whitehead attributed the high number of cases involving veterans as a consequence of the Department of Homeland Security’s aggressive campaign to demonize former servicemembers as domestic extremists.
Hat tip: http://presspatrol.com/
RNC Continues to Undo Ron Paul Delegate Wins, This Time in Maine
Friday, 24 August 2012 16:42
Written by Thomas R. Eddlem
(The New American) The Republican National Committee tentatively ruled to strip Texas Congressman Ron Paul of half of his Maine delegates to the Tampa national convention next week.
Paul came in a close second to Romney in the February/March county caucuses (the vote difference was less than 200 votes, less than two percent of the total), but Paul supporters were able to organize and gain the upper hand in the May state party convention that actually selected the delegates. Paul supporters won all 20 of the conventions' delegates on narrow votes, though Maine will also send four at-large delegates to the convention that include the governor and a few other senior elected officials.
Ron Paul supporters told the Portland Press Herald August 24 that their position was: "No compromise, no deal." Paul supporters are appealing the decision with the GOP's Committee on Contests. Ron Paul supporters who took over state conventions in Louisiana and Massachusetts agreed to compromises with the Republican National Committee earlier this month, resulting in denial of their plurality of delegates.
The RNC has produced a 26-page report on the Maine state convention that the Bangor Daily News described as “scathing” about irregularities at the convention, but it's unclear if the report details any actual party rules being broken. Some Romney supporters charged at the Maine state convention that GOP officials had not properly counted votes or credentialed delegates.
Maine Governor Paul LePage has threatened in a spokesman's Facebook statement not to attend the Tampa Convention if the Paul-aligned delegates are not credentialed in Tampa. LePage and his spokesman are both Romney supporters, but believe the convention was properly conducted. After the Maine state GOP convention in May, State Chairman Charlie Webster told the press that he was unaware of any rules that were broken by the convention. “I'm not aware of anything like that at all,” Webster told a local television station back in May. “We're going to fight to get our delegates seated in Tampa, that's our position. That's what we're ready to do.”
“Over 2500 duly elected Maine Republican delegates went to Augusta and we had a democratic election,” incoming National Committeewoman for Maine Ashley Ryan complained on a Paul-aligned website. “The RNC and the Mitt Romney Campaign cannot invalidate Maine’s voice simply because they didn’t like the outcome.”
Despite the back-room delegate wrangling, the Tampa GOP confab will toss a bouquet or two to the elder Paul, though he is not scheduled to speak at the GOP convention. Congressman Paul's son, Kentucky's junior U.S. Senator Rand Paul, is scheduled to address the convention Monday. The convention will also feature a video tribute to the retiring elder Paul on Tuesday. As in 2008, Paul is hosting his own Tampa convention across town from the RNC convention.
Regardless of the outcome of the Maine dispute, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is expected to win the nomination. The Romney campaign has been able to select about three quarters of the delegates expected to attend the Tampa convention next week.
Photo: The Tampa Bay Times Forum, lower, right, the site of the 2012 Republican National Convention: AP Images
Written by Thomas R. Eddlem
Paul came in a close second to Romney in the February/March county caucuses (the vote difference was less than 200 votes, less than two percent of the total), but Paul supporters were able to organize and gain the upper hand in the May state party convention that actually selected the delegates. Paul supporters won all 20 of the conventions' delegates on narrow votes, though Maine will also send four at-large delegates to the convention that include the governor and a few other senior elected officials.
Ron Paul supporters told the Portland Press Herald August 24 that their position was: "No compromise, no deal." Paul supporters are appealing the decision with the GOP's Committee on Contests. Ron Paul supporters who took over state conventions in Louisiana and Massachusetts agreed to compromises with the Republican National Committee earlier this month, resulting in denial of their plurality of delegates.
The RNC has produced a 26-page report on the Maine state convention that the Bangor Daily News described as “scathing” about irregularities at the convention, but it's unclear if the report details any actual party rules being broken. Some Romney supporters charged at the Maine state convention that GOP officials had not properly counted votes or credentialed delegates.
Maine Governor Paul LePage has threatened in a spokesman's Facebook statement not to attend the Tampa Convention if the Paul-aligned delegates are not credentialed in Tampa. LePage and his spokesman are both Romney supporters, but believe the convention was properly conducted. After the Maine state GOP convention in May, State Chairman Charlie Webster told the press that he was unaware of any rules that were broken by the convention. “I'm not aware of anything like that at all,” Webster told a local television station back in May. “We're going to fight to get our delegates seated in Tampa, that's our position. That's what we're ready to do.”
“Over 2500 duly elected Maine Republican delegates went to Augusta and we had a democratic election,” incoming National Committeewoman for Maine Ashley Ryan complained on a Paul-aligned website. “The RNC and the Mitt Romney Campaign cannot invalidate Maine’s voice simply because they didn’t like the outcome.”
Despite the back-room delegate wrangling, the Tampa GOP confab will toss a bouquet or two to the elder Paul, though he is not scheduled to speak at the GOP convention. Congressman Paul's son, Kentucky's junior U.S. Senator Rand Paul, is scheduled to address the convention Monday. The convention will also feature a video tribute to the retiring elder Paul on Tuesday. As in 2008, Paul is hosting his own Tampa convention across town from the RNC convention.
Regardless of the outcome of the Maine dispute, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is expected to win the nomination. The Romney campaign has been able to select about three quarters of the delegates expected to attend the Tampa convention next week.
Photo: The Tampa Bay Times Forum, lower, right, the site of the 2012 Republican National Convention: AP Images
Gun Makers May Leave if N.Y. and Conn. Pass Microstamping Laws
Saturday, 25 August 2012 11:45
Written by Jack Kenny
(The New American) Executives of the historic firearms companies on America's East Coast may not all be young men, but they might want to follow Horace Greeley's advice, anyway. They may want to go west if legislators pass laws that would limit their sales while driving up their costs.
That could be the fate of the Remington Arms Company plant in Ilion, New York, the economic lifeblood of the small New York town lying halfway between Albany and Syracuse. The company's roots in the town go back nearly 200 years, since Eliphalet Remington, Jr. forged his first rifle barrel there. Today the company employs about 1,000 workers in a town with a population of just over 8,000. But the company has suggested, none too subtly, that it may move its Ilion plant to another state if Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state's lawmakers enact gun legislation now under consideration in Albany.
The proposals, the New York Times reported Friday, include a limit in firearms sales of no more than one per month to any one person and a background check of anyone purchasing ammunition. Most troubling to the manufacturers, however, is a plan to require, for the purpose of ballistics identification, the microstamping of every semiautomatic pistol sold in the state. The law would require manufacturers to laser-engrave the gun's make, model, and serial number on the firing pin of each handgun so the information is imprinted on the cartridge casing when the gun is fired. Gun makers say the method is flawed, could easily be defeated, and would require a retooling of the industry that would add what Remington executive Stephen P. Jackson, Jr. called "astronomical sums" to the cost of manufacturing.
"Mandating [f]irearms microstamping will restrict the ability of Remington to expand business in the Empire State," Jackson, the company's chief strategy and acquisition integration officer, wrote in a March 16 letter to Governor Cuomo. "Worse yet, Remington could be forced to reconsider its commitment to the New York market altogether rather than spend the astronomical sums of money needed to completely reconfigure our manufacturing and assembly processes. This would directly impact law enforcement, firearms retailers and consumers throughout New York — if not the entire country.
"Of course, passage of microstamping would also hurt New York taxpayers, who would be forced to foot the bill for expensive scanning electron microscopes and software necessary to read the firearms make, model and serial number," Jackson added. "Hurting businesses and tax payers to support a concept that has been proven flawed is ill-conceived."
The firearms industry in Connecticut succeeded in its efforts to defeat similar legislation when it was proposed in that state in 2009. Manufacturers, lawyers, and union and trade group representatives all took aim at the proposed microstamping mandate in a press conference in March of that year, warning that the bill could threaten the livelihood of some 1,750 workers employed by the gunmakers.
"This feel-good legislation will do more harm than good," said Carlton Chen, vice president and general counsel with Colt's Manufacturing Company. "Let us not make a mistake, with the unintended consequences of driving businesses and jobs out of Connecticut." Industry spokesmen also cited studies they said proved that the microstamping technology is unreliable as well as costly.
"Further studies are needed on the durability of microstamping marks under various firing conditions and their susceptibility to tampering, as well as on the cost impact for manufacturers and consumers," according to a report from the National Academy of Sciences, one of two studies cited by the firearms manufacturers and supporters. Another, done at the University of California at Davis, found the technology "flawed" and not suited to all guns and ammunition. "Further testing, analysis and evaluation is required," the researchers concluded.
The studies "further validate our longstanding concerns that this technology is unreliable, that it simply does not work as advertised and can and will be easily defeated by criminals in seconds using common household tools," said Lawrence Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Gun makers may be looking west at opportunities in Montana, South Dakota, and Idaho, or South to Alabama, all states that are said to be making efforts to persuade gun manufacturers in the East and Midwest to relocate or expand operations in environments where there are fewer gun laws and a more gun-friendly culture. That possibility is being taken seriously in the Mohawk Valley of New York, an area that has lost 11,000 manufacturing jobs since 1990, the Times reported. Ilion is one town in the valley that has seen job growth as Remington has increased production there.
If Remington goes away, "Ilion goes away," said Rusty Brown, a furnace technician at the plant. Diana Bower, who runs a small engineering business with her husband, told the Times that backers of the proposed gun laws don't really understand what that could mean to the town.
"If you don't live here and work here," she said, "you really don't know what it means to say, 'Pass this,' or, 'Pass that.'" But Gov. Cuomo, in an apparent reference to recent deadly shooting sprees in Colorado and Wisconsin, spoke of "current events that have really shaped the psyche of this state." While the state already has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation, "I think there's an appetite for reform, and I think that's a good thing," Cuomo said.
"I think it's ridiculous for [Remington] to argue that they would leave New York," said Jackie Hilly, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, which supports a microstamping requirement. "Look, frankly, if we really want to keep jobs in New York, let's invest more money in yogurt," she added, referring to one of the state's growing industries.
That argument does not go down well with state Senator James L. Seward, a Republican whose district includes Ilion. Passing new gun laws "would send a bad signal to this gun manufacturer that they're in a state that's hostile to gun ownership and gun manufacturing," he said.
"It may make people feel good to think they've done something," Seward said, "but at the end of the day, the criminal element and those that go out and do these horrible things, they're going to get their weapons. And the cost could be great for a community like Ilion."
Written by Jack Kenny
(The New American) Executives of the historic firearms companies on America's East Coast may not all be young men, but they might want to follow Horace Greeley's advice, anyway. They may want to go west if legislators pass laws that would limit their sales while driving up their costs.
That could be the fate of the Remington Arms Company plant in Ilion, New York, the economic lifeblood of the small New York town lying halfway between Albany and Syracuse. The company's roots in the town go back nearly 200 years, since Eliphalet Remington, Jr. forged his first rifle barrel there. Today the company employs about 1,000 workers in a town with a population of just over 8,000. But the company has suggested, none too subtly, that it may move its Ilion plant to another state if Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state's lawmakers enact gun legislation now under consideration in Albany.
The proposals, the New York Times reported Friday, include a limit in firearms sales of no more than one per month to any one person and a background check of anyone purchasing ammunition. Most troubling to the manufacturers, however, is a plan to require, for the purpose of ballistics identification, the microstamping of every semiautomatic pistol sold in the state. The law would require manufacturers to laser-engrave the gun's make, model, and serial number on the firing pin of each handgun so the information is imprinted on the cartridge casing when the gun is fired. Gun makers say the method is flawed, could easily be defeated, and would require a retooling of the industry that would add what Remington executive Stephen P. Jackson, Jr. called "astronomical sums" to the cost of manufacturing.
"Mandating [f]irearms microstamping will restrict the ability of Remington to expand business in the Empire State," Jackson, the company's chief strategy and acquisition integration officer, wrote in a March 16 letter to Governor Cuomo. "Worse yet, Remington could be forced to reconsider its commitment to the New York market altogether rather than spend the astronomical sums of money needed to completely reconfigure our manufacturing and assembly processes. This would directly impact law enforcement, firearms retailers and consumers throughout New York — if not the entire country.
"Of course, passage of microstamping would also hurt New York taxpayers, who would be forced to foot the bill for expensive scanning electron microscopes and software necessary to read the firearms make, model and serial number," Jackson added. "Hurting businesses and tax payers to support a concept that has been proven flawed is ill-conceived."
The firearms industry in Connecticut succeeded in its efforts to defeat similar legislation when it was proposed in that state in 2009. Manufacturers, lawyers, and union and trade group representatives all took aim at the proposed microstamping mandate in a press conference in March of that year, warning that the bill could threaten the livelihood of some 1,750 workers employed by the gunmakers.
"This feel-good legislation will do more harm than good," said Carlton Chen, vice president and general counsel with Colt's Manufacturing Company. "Let us not make a mistake, with the unintended consequences of driving businesses and jobs out of Connecticut." Industry spokesmen also cited studies they said proved that the microstamping technology is unreliable as well as costly.
"Further studies are needed on the durability of microstamping marks under various firing conditions and their susceptibility to tampering, as well as on the cost impact for manufacturers and consumers," according to a report from the National Academy of Sciences, one of two studies cited by the firearms manufacturers and supporters. Another, done at the University of California at Davis, found the technology "flawed" and not suited to all guns and ammunition. "Further testing, analysis and evaluation is required," the researchers concluded.
The studies "further validate our longstanding concerns that this technology is unreliable, that it simply does not work as advertised and can and will be easily defeated by criminals in seconds using common household tools," said Lawrence Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Gun makers may be looking west at opportunities in Montana, South Dakota, and Idaho, or South to Alabama, all states that are said to be making efforts to persuade gun manufacturers in the East and Midwest to relocate or expand operations in environments where there are fewer gun laws and a more gun-friendly culture. That possibility is being taken seriously in the Mohawk Valley of New York, an area that has lost 11,000 manufacturing jobs since 1990, the Times reported. Ilion is one town in the valley that has seen job growth as Remington has increased production there.
If Remington goes away, "Ilion goes away," said Rusty Brown, a furnace technician at the plant. Diana Bower, who runs a small engineering business with her husband, told the Times that backers of the proposed gun laws don't really understand what that could mean to the town.
"If you don't live here and work here," she said, "you really don't know what it means to say, 'Pass this,' or, 'Pass that.'" But Gov. Cuomo, in an apparent reference to recent deadly shooting sprees in Colorado and Wisconsin, spoke of "current events that have really shaped the psyche of this state." While the state already has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation, "I think there's an appetite for reform, and I think that's a good thing," Cuomo said.
"I think it's ridiculous for [Remington] to argue that they would leave New York," said Jackie Hilly, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, which supports a microstamping requirement. "Look, frankly, if we really want to keep jobs in New York, let's invest more money in yogurt," she added, referring to one of the state's growing industries.
That argument does not go down well with state Senator James L. Seward, a Republican whose district includes Ilion. Passing new gun laws "would send a bad signal to this gun manufacturer that they're in a state that's hostile to gun ownership and gun manufacturing," he said.
"It may make people feel good to think they've done something," Seward said, "but at the end of the day, the criminal element and those that go out and do these horrible things, they're going to get their weapons. And the cost could be great for a community like Ilion."
Democrat Platform Doesn’t Exclude Infanticide
August 23, 2012 by Tim Brown
(Freedom Outpost) Infanticide. The word should make your skin crawl just to hear it said and know what it means. The killing of a child born into the world. Our society has become accustomed to the term abortion, which is nothing more than killing the child in the mother’s womb, and it is no better than infanticide. However, with the GOP moving for a “Pro-Life” platform, it seems the Democrats are going with a “pro-death” platform and that doesn’t exclude infanticide.
Earlier this year I wrote about two Melbourne University “ethicists” who were promoting infanticide and how it is gaining a huge following in Europe. But the following and endorsement of infanticide is not specific to Australia or Europe. In fact, for some, it may come as a shock to know that Barack Obama fully supports infanticide.
A newly uncovered video from when Obama was a senator in Illinois has emerged in which he supports abortion at all stages, including late term abortion. In case that wasn’t enough, an audio segment that is about eight minutes long, has then Senator Obama very calmly discussing the murder of a child born while an abortionist is trying to kill it. Though the child is alive and moving, bureaucrats such as Obama want to make sure that a second attendant would come in and verify the child was viable. They don’t want to use the term ‘alive.’
While former President Bill Clinton believed in abortion, he stated it should be “rare, safe, and legal.” Obama completely disagrees with even Clinton’s assessment. He also stands against Clinton’s work requirement for welfare.
John Nolte points out that the 2008 Democrat Party’s platform on abortion read as follows:
The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.
Andrew McCarthy, writing for National Review, made this observation of Obama’s statements as an Illinois Senator:
There wasn’t any question about what was happening. The abortions were going wrong. The babies weren’t cooperating. They wouldn’t die as planned. Or, as Illinois state senator Barack Obama so touchingly put it, there was “movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead.”
No, Senator. They wouldn’t go along with the program. They wouldn’t just come out limp and dead.
They were coming out alive. Born alive. Babies. Vulnerable human beings Obama, in his detached pomposity, might otherwise include among “the least of my brothers.” But of course, an abortion extremist can’t very well be invoking Saint Matthew, can he? So, for Obama, the shunning of these least of our brothers and sisters — millions of them — is somehow not among America’s greatest moral failings.
No. In Obama’s hardball, hard-Left world, these least become “that fetus, or child — however you want to describe it.”
Most of us, of course, opt for “child,” particularly when the “it” is born and living and breathing and in need of our help. Particularly when the “it” is clinging not to guns or religion but to life.
Well I think I can speak to the issue even more than Mr. McCarthy. As a father of ten I can affirm I have referred to the child growing inside my wife as just that, a child. I have never once heard a woman reference that she is pregnant with a fetus. The baby is not born yet and yet I declare myself to be that child’s father. I am to protect both the mother and the baby. Why is it that if she were attacked and the baby killed the person could be charged with murder? Our society has such a screwed up moral compass that the only answer they can give it that “it wasn’t the mother’s choice.” The issue is not choice. The issue is what is taking place and it is nothing more than cold blooded murder.
Dr. Ron Paul demonstrated the fact that the baby is indeed a real live person as he stated that when he practiced medicine, he assumed that when he had a pregnant patient that “he had two patients.”
There’s probably something else you have not heard in regards to Barack Obama’s abortion extremism and that is what the Weekly Standard points out in a recent article by John McCormack:
Obama’s 2008 endorsement of late-term abortion bans also appeared to be in conflict with his support for the Freedom of Choice Act. In 2007, Obama cosponsored the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which would strike down restrictions on abortion at the state and federal level. The bill stated that all abortions must be legal before “viability” for any reason and that abortions must be legal until birth if a woman’s health is at risk. FOCA does not contain a definition of “health,” therefore “anything an abortionist says is related to ‘health’ is sufficient,” according to Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. “A state would not be able to adopt any limiting definition (for example, defining ‘health’ to exclude emotional distress), because that would be to narrow and infringe on the federally guaranteed right which FOCA would establish. The entire purpose of FOCA is to prohibit any narrowing of the federally guaranteed right — for example, by requiring parental notification, or by refusing to fund abortions.”
Now that we understand clearly the path that Barack Obama is on, do we really think his party is going to abandon that? More than likely they will be embracing more of the culture of death in September when they meet in Charlotte, North Carolina for their convention.
It is my conviction that since the Republicans have elected to have a ‘pro-life’ plank in their platform that they stop pussyfooting around with just rhetoric and turn back the tide against abortion and against funding organizations with federal dollars that promote or perform abortions.
May God have mercy on us.
(Freedom Outpost) Infanticide. The word should make your skin crawl just to hear it said and know what it means. The killing of a child born into the world. Our society has become accustomed to the term abortion, which is nothing more than killing the child in the mother’s womb, and it is no better than infanticide. However, with the GOP moving for a “Pro-Life” platform, it seems the Democrats are going with a “pro-death” platform and that doesn’t exclude infanticide.
Earlier this year I wrote about two Melbourne University “ethicists” who were promoting infanticide and how it is gaining a huge following in Europe. But the following and endorsement of infanticide is not specific to Australia or Europe. In fact, for some, it may come as a shock to know that Barack Obama fully supports infanticide.
A newly uncovered video from when Obama was a senator in Illinois has emerged in which he supports abortion at all stages, including late term abortion. In case that wasn’t enough, an audio segment that is about eight minutes long, has then Senator Obama very calmly discussing the murder of a child born while an abortionist is trying to kill it. Though the child is alive and moving, bureaucrats such as Obama want to make sure that a second attendant would come in and verify the child was viable. They don’t want to use the term ‘alive.’
While former President Bill Clinton believed in abortion, he stated it should be “rare, safe, and legal.” Obama completely disagrees with even Clinton’s assessment. He also stands against Clinton’s work requirement for welfare.
John Nolte points out that the 2008 Democrat Party’s platform on abortion read as follows:
The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.
Andrew McCarthy, writing for National Review, made this observation of Obama’s statements as an Illinois Senator:
There wasn’t any question about what was happening. The abortions were going wrong. The babies weren’t cooperating. They wouldn’t die as planned. Or, as Illinois state senator Barack Obama so touchingly put it, there was “movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead.”
No, Senator. They wouldn’t go along with the program. They wouldn’t just come out limp and dead.
They were coming out alive. Born alive. Babies. Vulnerable human beings Obama, in his detached pomposity, might otherwise include among “the least of my brothers.” But of course, an abortion extremist can’t very well be invoking Saint Matthew, can he? So, for Obama, the shunning of these least of our brothers and sisters — millions of them — is somehow not among America’s greatest moral failings.
No. In Obama’s hardball, hard-Left world, these least become “that fetus, or child — however you want to describe it.”
Most of us, of course, opt for “child,” particularly when the “it” is born and living and breathing and in need of our help. Particularly when the “it” is clinging not to guns or religion but to life.
Well I think I can speak to the issue even more than Mr. McCarthy. As a father of ten I can affirm I have referred to the child growing inside my wife as just that, a child. I have never once heard a woman reference that she is pregnant with a fetus. The baby is not born yet and yet I declare myself to be that child’s father. I am to protect both the mother and the baby. Why is it that if she were attacked and the baby killed the person could be charged with murder? Our society has such a screwed up moral compass that the only answer they can give it that “it wasn’t the mother’s choice.” The issue is not choice. The issue is what is taking place and it is nothing more than cold blooded murder.
Dr. Ron Paul demonstrated the fact that the baby is indeed a real live person as he stated that when he practiced medicine, he assumed that when he had a pregnant patient that “he had two patients.”
There’s probably something else you have not heard in regards to Barack Obama’s abortion extremism and that is what the Weekly Standard points out in a recent article by John McCormack:
Obama’s 2008 endorsement of late-term abortion bans also appeared to be in conflict with his support for the Freedom of Choice Act. In 2007, Obama cosponsored the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which would strike down restrictions on abortion at the state and federal level. The bill stated that all abortions must be legal before “viability” for any reason and that abortions must be legal until birth if a woman’s health is at risk. FOCA does not contain a definition of “health,” therefore “anything an abortionist says is related to ‘health’ is sufficient,” according to Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. “A state would not be able to adopt any limiting definition (for example, defining ‘health’ to exclude emotional distress), because that would be to narrow and infringe on the federally guaranteed right which FOCA would establish. The entire purpose of FOCA is to prohibit any narrowing of the federally guaranteed right — for example, by requiring parental notification, or by refusing to fund abortions.”
Now that we understand clearly the path that Barack Obama is on, do we really think his party is going to abandon that? More than likely they will be embracing more of the culture of death in September when they meet in Charlotte, North Carolina for their convention.
It is my conviction that since the Republicans have elected to have a ‘pro-life’ plank in their platform that they stop pussyfooting around with just rhetoric and turn back the tide against abortion and against funding organizations with federal dollars that promote or perform abortions.
May God have mercy on us.
"My Brother's Keeper"? Obama's impoverished brother 'ashamed' of name
by: Benny Johnson
Friday, August 24, 2012
The Blaze
(Times247.com) In an exclusive interview with the Blaze, author Dinesh D’souza ("Obama’s America: Unmaking The American Dream”) spoke about the shame felt by the president’s impoverished relatives and how hypocritical the tense situation is for the left.
D‘souza made national attention this summer for bringing the plight of the president’s brother to light. George Obama lives in a tiny shack in a Nairobi slum and gets by on just a few dollars a month. ... D’souza juxtaposes the abject poverty and condition of a number of Obama’s direct relatives, including his aunt that sells coal on the street in Kenya, with Obama’s life. And it’s humiliating.
In fact, George “does not even use the name Obama,” the author alarmingly notes. George said to him, “I’m ashamed, because the moment people find out my name they want to know ‘Well aren’t you related to Barrack Obama? How come you are living in the slum?’ And of course there is no answer.”
Hat tip: Press Patrol
Friday, August 24, 2012
The Blaze
D‘souza made national attention this summer for bringing the plight of the president’s brother to light. George Obama lives in a tiny shack in a Nairobi slum and gets by on just a few dollars a month. ... D’souza juxtaposes the abject poverty and condition of a number of Obama’s direct relatives, including his aunt that sells coal on the street in Kenya, with Obama’s life. And it’s humiliating.
In fact, George “does not even use the name Obama,” the author alarmingly notes. George said to him, “I’m ashamed, because the moment people find out my name they want to know ‘Well aren’t you related to Barrack Obama? How come you are living in the slum?’ And of course there is no answer.”
Hat tip: Press Patrol
Society in a Collapsing Empire
by Jorge Gato
The Dollar Vigilante
Morris Berman is a prolific writer on the social decline of the American Colossus and a fellow expat to Mexico. In Dark Ages America and Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline, he details the sordid mess the empire finds itself in. His conclusion is true; there will be no happy ending. At least, not for the indoctrinated, self-centered, materialist masses who failed to note the writing on the wall.
Indeed, without valiant role models, today's youth have degenerated into a pack of animals, not surprisingly since they are taught that they are animals. Not unlike how the US Government uses social networking to overthrow foreign regimes, teenagers trash and rob businesses by the hundreds in coordinated Facebook fashion.
Quoting social scientists before him, Berman establishes a theory of a hustler mentality of the average American and the solitary goals of self-indulgence and compulsive consumerism. Where once there were family, friends and culture now resides a "technopoly" or a "totalitarian technocracy" which "eliminates everything else". Where people are treated like machines and cultural life forms bequeathed to the "sovereignty of technology." Where if one is not very careful, the virtual world and (social) network lead one to isolation "because if you are at home alone with a screen, that's where you are." Where brain function takes on the characteristics of the telecommunication device. Where the Internet teaches malleable users to skim read and not contemplate, permanently fragmenting the thought process and ability to attach oneself to a thought or idea.
Yes, we are all guilty at times of being sucked into the Internet Matrix. Nevertheless, this study points out the obvious: "people who are constantly online can develop mental disorders".
Essentially, we get a nation of aggressive, rude, zombie, techno-boor buffoons. Berman contrasts the clash-of-civilizations between the Civil War North and South. One can spot the same differences between a place like the USSA and Mexico today, although even that is rapidly in a state of flux. The Northerner robot is "coldly burning spirit, tenacious, egotistic, cold" and with "frozen imagination."
Considering this mentality, I recall passing through O'Hare Airport recently. I asked a food stand operator and her co-worker, who had the register open and was counting currency, if she would give me a dollar's worth of change so I could make a phone call the old fashioned way. She immediately went into an incoherent rant, something about "no authorization...manager" and that I had to make a purchase. Conversely, in Mexico I recall a $2.50 taxi ride I once took to work where the driver so enjoyed our conversation on life in America that he waived the cab fare – which I of course paid nevertheless.
Americans today eye one another with dollars signs, asking what's in it for them. True compassion and care for the other can be a rarity. You get fired from your job for saving lives, such as this lifeguard on a Florida beach. I have also witnessed immigrants from traditional societies convert to this ruthless religion of money worship. Instead of giving freely or accepting gifts without thought, they would in all seriousness ask: "Why is this person giving me this? What is it they really want?"
Berman notes how "social gatherings in the North invariably have an agenda" with an "ulterior motive lurking behind it and that motive is business." Down here in the Mexican South, we're just happy to break bread with one another, no strings attached.
The future belongs to those who are civilized, honorable, and practical, like this young teenager who is building his own home with his own two hands. It also belongs to the benevolent. Go buy that troubled man on the street a hot meal and have a chat with him. Remember to do something nice for someone every day – it will bring joy, laughter, and add an extra day to your life. Demonstrate to the state that private charity beats out government handouts, especially when a country like the USSA decides in its usual grand inept fashion to do stupid things like "promote American food assistance programs among Mexican nationals."
Reprinted with permission from The Dollar Vigilante.
August 25, 2012
Jorge Gato [send him mail] lives in Mexico and is a social sciences educator who is in the trenches daily, warding off severe cases of cognitive dissonance, mass indoctrination and unhealthy reasoning. He writes at http://dissidentthinker.wordpress.com/.
Copyright © 2012 The Dollar Vigilante
Source: LewRockwell.Com
Hat tip: Press Patrol
The Dollar Vigilante
Morris Berman is a prolific writer on the social decline of the American Colossus and a fellow expat to Mexico. In Dark Ages America and Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline, he details the sordid mess the empire finds itself in. His conclusion is true; there will be no happy ending. At least, not for the indoctrinated, self-centered, materialist masses who failed to note the writing on the wall.
Indeed, without valiant role models, today's youth have degenerated into a pack of animals, not surprisingly since they are taught that they are animals. Not unlike how the US Government uses social networking to overthrow foreign regimes, teenagers trash and rob businesses by the hundreds in coordinated Facebook fashion.
Quoting social scientists before him, Berman establishes a theory of a hustler mentality of the average American and the solitary goals of self-indulgence and compulsive consumerism. Where once there were family, friends and culture now resides a "technopoly" or a "totalitarian technocracy" which "eliminates everything else". Where people are treated like machines and cultural life forms bequeathed to the "sovereignty of technology." Where if one is not very careful, the virtual world and (social) network lead one to isolation "because if you are at home alone with a screen, that's where you are." Where brain function takes on the characteristics of the telecommunication device. Where the Internet teaches malleable users to skim read and not contemplate, permanently fragmenting the thought process and ability to attach oneself to a thought or idea.
Yes, we are all guilty at times of being sucked into the Internet Matrix. Nevertheless, this study points out the obvious: "people who are constantly online can develop mental disorders".
Essentially, we get a nation of aggressive, rude, zombie, techno-boor buffoons. Berman contrasts the clash-of-civilizations between the Civil War North and South. One can spot the same differences between a place like the USSA and Mexico today, although even that is rapidly in a state of flux. The Northerner robot is "coldly burning spirit, tenacious, egotistic, cold" and with "frozen imagination."
Considering this mentality, I recall passing through O'Hare Airport recently. I asked a food stand operator and her co-worker, who had the register open and was counting currency, if she would give me a dollar's worth of change so I could make a phone call the old fashioned way. She immediately went into an incoherent rant, something about "no authorization...manager" and that I had to make a purchase. Conversely, in Mexico I recall a $2.50 taxi ride I once took to work where the driver so enjoyed our conversation on life in America that he waived the cab fare – which I of course paid nevertheless.
Americans today eye one another with dollars signs, asking what's in it for them. True compassion and care for the other can be a rarity. You get fired from your job for saving lives, such as this lifeguard on a Florida beach. I have also witnessed immigrants from traditional societies convert to this ruthless religion of money worship. Instead of giving freely or accepting gifts without thought, they would in all seriousness ask: "Why is this person giving me this? What is it they really want?"
Berman notes how "social gatherings in the North invariably have an agenda" with an "ulterior motive lurking behind it and that motive is business." Down here in the Mexican South, we're just happy to break bread with one another, no strings attached.
The future belongs to those who are civilized, honorable, and practical, like this young teenager who is building his own home with his own two hands. It also belongs to the benevolent. Go buy that troubled man on the street a hot meal and have a chat with him. Remember to do something nice for someone every day – it will bring joy, laughter, and add an extra day to your life. Demonstrate to the state that private charity beats out government handouts, especially when a country like the USSA decides in its usual grand inept fashion to do stupid things like "promote American food assistance programs among Mexican nationals."
Reprinted with permission from The Dollar Vigilante.
August 25, 2012
Jorge Gato [send him mail] lives in Mexico and is a social sciences educator who is in the trenches daily, warding off severe cases of cognitive dissonance, mass indoctrination and unhealthy reasoning. He writes at http://dissidentthinker.wordpress.com/.
Copyright © 2012 The Dollar Vigilante
Source: LewRockwell.Com
Hat tip: Press Patrol
Cleavage Now a Security Risk?
DAVID KOENIG, AP Airlines Writer
Updated 8:43 p.m., Sunday, August 26, 2012
In this Spring 2012 photo provided by a woman identified as Avital and made available to the blog Jezebel, Avital poses for a picture at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, showing what she was wearing after she says a Southwest Airlines gate agent approached her, alleging she was showing too much cleavage. Airlines give many reasons for refusing to let you board, but none are stirring as much debate in 2012 than how a passenger is dressed. Photo: Courtesy Of Avital / AP
DALLAS (AP) — Airlines give many reasons for refusing to let you board, but none stir as much debate as this: How you're dressed.
A woman flying from Las Vegas on Southwest this spring says she was confronted by an airline employee for showing too much cleavage. In another recent case, an American Airlines pilot lectured a passenger because her T-shirt bore a four-letter expletive. She was allowed to keep flying after draping a shawl over the shirt.
Both women told their stories to sympathetic bloggers, and the debate over what you can wear in the air went viral.
It's not always clear what's appropriate. Airlines don't publish dress codes. There are no rules that spell out the highest hemline or the lowest neckline allowed. That can leave passengers guessing how far to push fashion boundaries. Every once in a while the airline says: Not that far.
"It's like any service business. If you run a family restaurant and somebody is swearing, you kindly ask them to leave," says Kenneth Quinn, an aviation lawyer and former chief counsel at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
The American Airlines passenger, who declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press, works for an abortion provider. Supporters suggested that she was singled out because her T-shirt had a pro-choice slogan.
A spokesman for American says the passenger was asked to cover up "because of the F-word on the T-shirt." He says that the airline isn't taking sides in the abortion debate.
Last week, Arijit Guha, a graduate student at Arizona State University, was barred from a Delta flight in Buffalo, N.Y., because of a T-shirt that mocked federal security agents and included the words, "Terrists gonna kill us all." He says the misspelled shirt was satirical and he wore it to protest what he considers racial profiling.
"I thought it was a very American idea to speak up and dissent when you think people's rights are being violated," Guha says. The pilot thought it scared other passengers.
American and Delta are within their rights to make the passengers change shirts even if messages are political, says Joe Larsen, a First Amendment lawyer from Houston who has defended many media companies.
The First Amendment prohibits government from limiting a person's free-speech rights, but it doesn't apply to rules set by private companies, Larsen says. He notes that government security screeners didn't challenge Guha; private Delta employees did.
In short, since airlines and their planes are private property and not a public space like the courthouse steps, crews can tell you what to wear.
In the early years of jet travel, passengers dressed up and confrontations over clothing were unimaginable. They're still rare — there aren't any precise numbers — but when showdowns happen, they gain more attention as aggrieved passengers complain on the Internet about airline clothing cops. It's unwelcome publicity for airlines, which already rate near the bottom of all industries when it comes to customer satisfaction.
Critics complain that airlines enforce clothing standards inconsistently. The lack of clear rules leaves decisions to the judgment of individual airline employees.
Last year, a passenger was pulled off a US Airways jet and arrested at San Francisco International Airport after airline employees say he refused to pull up his low-hanging pants. The local prosecutor declined to file charges against Deshon Marman, a University of New Mexico football player.
Marman's lawyer complained that the same airline repeatedly allowed a middle-age man to travel wearing women's underwear and not much else.
"You can't let someone repugnant like that (the cross-dresser) on the plane and single out this kid because he's black, wearing dreadlocks, and had two or three inches of his underwear showing," says the lawyer, Joseph D. O'Sullivan. "They can't arrest him for what someone perceives to be inappropriate attire."
1 2 Next »
Updated 8:43 p.m., Sunday, August 26, 2012
DALLAS (AP) — Airlines give many reasons for refusing to let you board, but none stir as much debate as this: How you're dressed.
A woman flying from Las Vegas on Southwest this spring says she was confronted by an airline employee for showing too much cleavage. In another recent case, an American Airlines pilot lectured a passenger because her T-shirt bore a four-letter expletive. She was allowed to keep flying after draping a shawl over the shirt.
Both women told their stories to sympathetic bloggers, and the debate over what you can wear in the air went viral.
It's not always clear what's appropriate. Airlines don't publish dress codes. There are no rules that spell out the highest hemline or the lowest neckline allowed. That can leave passengers guessing how far to push fashion boundaries. Every once in a while the airline says: Not that far.
"It's like any service business. If you run a family restaurant and somebody is swearing, you kindly ask them to leave," says Kenneth Quinn, an aviation lawyer and former chief counsel at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
The American Airlines passenger, who declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press, works for an abortion provider. Supporters suggested that she was singled out because her T-shirt had a pro-choice slogan.
A spokesman for American says the passenger was asked to cover up "because of the F-word on the T-shirt." He says that the airline isn't taking sides in the abortion debate.
Last week, Arijit Guha, a graduate student at Arizona State University, was barred from a Delta flight in Buffalo, N.Y., because of a T-shirt that mocked federal security agents and included the words, "Terrists gonna kill us all." He says the misspelled shirt was satirical and he wore it to protest what he considers racial profiling.
"I thought it was a very American idea to speak up and dissent when you think people's rights are being violated," Guha says. The pilot thought it scared other passengers.
American and Delta are within their rights to make the passengers change shirts even if messages are political, says Joe Larsen, a First Amendment lawyer from Houston who has defended many media companies.
The First Amendment prohibits government from limiting a person's free-speech rights, but it doesn't apply to rules set by private companies, Larsen says. He notes that government security screeners didn't challenge Guha; private Delta employees did.
In short, since airlines and their planes are private property and not a public space like the courthouse steps, crews can tell you what to wear.
In the early years of jet travel, passengers dressed up and confrontations over clothing were unimaginable. They're still rare — there aren't any precise numbers — but when showdowns happen, they gain more attention as aggrieved passengers complain on the Internet about airline clothing cops. It's unwelcome publicity for airlines, which already rate near the bottom of all industries when it comes to customer satisfaction.
Critics complain that airlines enforce clothing standards inconsistently. The lack of clear rules leaves decisions to the judgment of individual airline employees.
Last year, a passenger was pulled off a US Airways jet and arrested at San Francisco International Airport after airline employees say he refused to pull up his low-hanging pants. The local prosecutor declined to file charges against Deshon Marman, a University of New Mexico football player.
Marman's lawyer complained that the same airline repeatedly allowed a middle-age man to travel wearing women's underwear and not much else.
"You can't let someone repugnant like that (the cross-dresser) on the plane and single out this kid because he's black, wearing dreadlocks, and had two or three inches of his underwear showing," says the lawyer, Joseph D. O'Sullivan. "They can't arrest him for what someone perceives to be inappropriate attire."
1 2 Next »
Ratboy Terrorist Sues for Privilege to Pray with Other American-Hating Muslim Inmates
'American Taliban' Lindh seeks group prayer in Indiana prison
Published August 26, 2012
Associated Press
Ratboy John Walker Lindh (AP)
INDIANAPOLIS – An American-born Taliban fighter imprisoned in Indiana will try to convince a federal judge that his religious freedom trumps security concerns in a closely watched trial that will examine how far prisons can go to ensure security in the age of terrorism.
John Walker Lindh was expected to testify Monday in Indianapolis during the first day of the trial over prayer policies in a tightly restricted prison unit where he and other high-risk inmates have severely limited contact with the outside world.
Lindh, 31, a Muslim convert who was charged with supporting terrorists after he was captured by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and later pleaded guilty to lesser charges, claims his religious rights are being violated because the federal prison in Terre Haute deprives him of daily group prayer.
Muslims are required to pray five times a day, and the Hanbali school to which Lindh belongs requires group prayer if it is possible. But inmates in the Communications Management Unit are allowed to pray together only once a week except during Ramadan. At other times, they must pray in their individual cells. Lindh says that doesn't meet the Quran's requirements and is inappropriate because he is forced to kneel in close proximity to his toilet.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which is representing Lindh, contends the policy violates a federal law barring the government from restricting religious activities without showing a compelling need.
"This is an open unit where prisoners are basically out all day," said ACLU legal director Ken Falk, noting that inmates are allowed to play basketball and board games, watch television and converse as long as they speak English so the guards can understand.
"They can do basically any peaceful activity except praying," he said. "It makes no sense to say this is one activity we're going to prohibit in the name of security."
Joe Hogsett, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, said he believes decisions about prison regulations are best made by prison officials, "not by convicted terrorists and other dangerous criminals who reside there."
"Mr. Lindh is allowed to pray in his cell; he's allowed to pray wherever he happens to be as many times every day as his religion suggests to him that he should," Hogsett said. "Where the rules must draw the line is how often must prison officials allow prisoners to congregate together?"
Attorneys for the government maintain that Lindh's own behavior since he was placed in the unit in 2007 proves the risks of allowing group prayer.
The government says in court documents that Lindh delivered a "radical, all-Arabic sermon" to other Muslim prisoners in February that was in keeping with techniques in a manual seized from al-Qaida members that details how terrorists should conduct themselves when they are imprisoned.
Lindh's sermon proves "that religious activities led by Muslim inmates are being used as a vehicle for radicalization and violence in the CMU," the government claims.
Falk said Lindh's speech wasn't radical and was given during the weekly prayer that inmates are permitted. He said Lindh was not disciplined for the speech.
The self-contained unit in which Lindh resides has 43 inmates, 24 of whom are Muslim. Inmates are under open and covert audio and video surveillance, and except for talks with their attorney, all of their phone calls are monitored. Prisoners are not allowed to touch their family members when they come for their tightly limited visits. They must speak English at all times except when reciting ritual prayers in Arabic.
Without such tight security, the government claims, the prisoners would be able to conspire with outsiders to commit terrorist or criminal acts.
According to court documents, daily prayers were allowed from the time the unit opened in 2006 until May 2007, when Muslim inmates refused to stop in the middle of a prayer to return to their cells during a fire emergency.
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2009 by two Muslim inmates in the unit. Lindh joined the lawsuit in 2010, and the case has drawn far more attention since then. The other plaintiffs have dropped out as they were released from prison or transferred to other units.
Thomas Farr, a former diplomat who now teaches at Georgetown University and studies religion and terrorism, said common sense suggests that the prison's need for security would outweigh Lindh's religious rights.
Stanford University terrorism expert Martha Crenshaw said prison officials have legitimate security concerns but questioned how dangerous Lindh really was, noting that he was not a leader or an influential cleric. Even the government says Lindh is currently characterized as a minimum-security prisoner.
He had been charged with conspiring to kill Americans and support terrorists, but those charges were dropped in a plea agreement. He is serving a 20-year sentence for supplying services to the now-defunct Taliban government of Afghanistan and carrying explosives for them and is eligible for release in 2019.
"The fact that the charge of conspiring to kill Americans was dropped could be considered evidence that he was not a personally violent jihadist," Crenshaw said in an email.
"Certainly after 9/11 the pendulum has swung toward preventing terrorism at almost any cost," Crenshaw said. "I would like to think that it could be swinging back, but it swings slowly. Once established, routines are hard to change."
Hat tip: Michael Savage
Published August 26, 2012
Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS – An American-born Taliban fighter imprisoned in Indiana will try to convince a federal judge that his religious freedom trumps security concerns in a closely watched trial that will examine how far prisons can go to ensure security in the age of terrorism.
John Walker Lindh was expected to testify Monday in Indianapolis during the first day of the trial over prayer policies in a tightly restricted prison unit where he and other high-risk inmates have severely limited contact with the outside world.
Lindh, 31, a Muslim convert who was charged with supporting terrorists after he was captured by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and later pleaded guilty to lesser charges, claims his religious rights are being violated because the federal prison in Terre Haute deprives him of daily group prayer.
Muslims are required to pray five times a day, and the Hanbali school to which Lindh belongs requires group prayer if it is possible. But inmates in the Communications Management Unit are allowed to pray together only once a week except during Ramadan. At other times, they must pray in their individual cells. Lindh says that doesn't meet the Quran's requirements and is inappropriate because he is forced to kneel in close proximity to his toilet.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which is representing Lindh, contends the policy violates a federal law barring the government from restricting religious activities without showing a compelling need.
"This is an open unit where prisoners are basically out all day," said ACLU legal director Ken Falk, noting that inmates are allowed to play basketball and board games, watch television and converse as long as they speak English so the guards can understand.
"They can do basically any peaceful activity except praying," he said. "It makes no sense to say this is one activity we're going to prohibit in the name of security."
Joe Hogsett, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, said he believes decisions about prison regulations are best made by prison officials, "not by convicted terrorists and other dangerous criminals who reside there."
"Mr. Lindh is allowed to pray in his cell; he's allowed to pray wherever he happens to be as many times every day as his religion suggests to him that he should," Hogsett said. "Where the rules must draw the line is how often must prison officials allow prisoners to congregate together?"
Attorneys for the government maintain that Lindh's own behavior since he was placed in the unit in 2007 proves the risks of allowing group prayer.
The government says in court documents that Lindh delivered a "radical, all-Arabic sermon" to other Muslim prisoners in February that was in keeping with techniques in a manual seized from al-Qaida members that details how terrorists should conduct themselves when they are imprisoned.
Lindh's sermon proves "that religious activities led by Muslim inmates are being used as a vehicle for radicalization and violence in the CMU," the government claims.
Falk said Lindh's speech wasn't radical and was given during the weekly prayer that inmates are permitted. He said Lindh was not disciplined for the speech.
The self-contained unit in which Lindh resides has 43 inmates, 24 of whom are Muslim. Inmates are under open and covert audio and video surveillance, and except for talks with their attorney, all of their phone calls are monitored. Prisoners are not allowed to touch their family members when they come for their tightly limited visits. They must speak English at all times except when reciting ritual prayers in Arabic.
Without such tight security, the government claims, the prisoners would be able to conspire with outsiders to commit terrorist or criminal acts.
According to court documents, daily prayers were allowed from the time the unit opened in 2006 until May 2007, when Muslim inmates refused to stop in the middle of a prayer to return to their cells during a fire emergency.
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2009 by two Muslim inmates in the unit. Lindh joined the lawsuit in 2010, and the case has drawn far more attention since then. The other plaintiffs have dropped out as they were released from prison or transferred to other units.
Thomas Farr, a former diplomat who now teaches at Georgetown University and studies religion and terrorism, said common sense suggests that the prison's need for security would outweigh Lindh's religious rights.
Stanford University terrorism expert Martha Crenshaw said prison officials have legitimate security concerns but questioned how dangerous Lindh really was, noting that he was not a leader or an influential cleric. Even the government says Lindh is currently characterized as a minimum-security prisoner.
He had been charged with conspiring to kill Americans and support terrorists, but those charges were dropped in a plea agreement. He is serving a 20-year sentence for supplying services to the now-defunct Taliban government of Afghanistan and carrying explosives for them and is eligible for release in 2019.
"The fact that the charge of conspiring to kill Americans was dropped could be considered evidence that he was not a personally violent jihadist," Crenshaw said in an email.
"Certainly after 9/11 the pendulum has swung toward preventing terrorism at almost any cost," Crenshaw said. "I would like to think that it could be swinging back, but it swings slowly. Once established, routines are hard to change."
Hat tip: Michael Savage
Obama's Anti-Christian America: Christians victims of rising 'hostility' from gov't and secular groups, report says
Published August 26, 2012
Christians rally to show support of the Bald Knob Cross of Peace near Alto Pass, Ill. Atheists objected to the use of taxpayer money to pay for rehabbing the 11-foot cross. (AP)
FoxNews.com - A new report by the Family Research Council and the Liberty Institute claims that there's been a rising pattern of hostility toward Christians in America over the past decade.
The 140-page "Survey of Religious Hostility in America," prepared by the Liberty Institute and the Family Research Council, highlighted more than 600 examples illustrating what it characterized as religious animosity shown by judges, government bureaucrats, schools and secular groups. From ObamaCare mandates that force religious entities to pay for contraception, to children being punished for uttering prayers in school, the report's findings shocked even those who commissioned it.
“It’s a conflict of world views," Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, told FoxNews.com. "These groups want people to check their faith at the door of the public square.”
Among the examples listed in the survey:
Matthew Reynolds, valedictorian for HLV Junior-Senior High School in Victor, Iowa, was told he had to give a 'secular' speech after he wished to attribute his success to his faith in Jesus Christ during his graduation speech.
A cross was removed from a veterans' memorial in San Diego, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that the memorial was unconstitutional.
.Dr. Frank Turek, a Cisco employee, was fired for expressing his views on traditional marriage in his book, even though he never voiced his religious opinions at work.
Samantha Schulz, 8, was barred from singing "Kum Ba Yah" at a Boys and Girls Club in Port Charlotte, Fla., because the song included the words "Oh, Lord."
Catherina Lorena Cenzon-DeCarlo, a nurse at Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital, was forced to participate in a late-term abortion against her religious convictions, and was threatened with job termination and loss of license.
The goal of the report is to raise awareness of these incidents to promote the appointment of judges "who are sensitive to the Constitution," said Kelly Shackelford, president of the Plano, Texas-based Liberty Institute. The report was presented in Tampa just ahead of next week's Republican National Convention.
According to Shackelford, the hostility can lead to violence, as in the case of the Aug.15 shooting at the Family Research Council headquarters, in which a gunman allegedly said he disagreed with the group's beliefs before shooting an employee in the arm. He also cited the Aug. 5 shooting deaths of six people at a Sikh temple near Milwaukee.
"It's way beyond anything we had imagined," Shackelford told FoxNews.com."It's so much more prolific than it's ever been before."
One critic said the report is guilty of blurring the line between attacking religion and upholding the Constitution. A.J. Johnson, development director of American Atheists, Inc., said no one condones hate crimes such as the FRC shooting. But many other examples cited are simply cases in which advocates called for the separation of church and state," Johnson said.
"The Family Research Council distorts court cases upholding the First Amendment as examples of "religious hostility," she said. "In reality, they are imposing their beliefs onto others and claiming to be victims of religious persecution when they do not get unique Christian privilege."
But Perkins said the secular nation that groups like Johnson's seek was never envisioned by the Founding Fathers, and will not come to be.
"That's not the future of our country," Perkins said.
FoxNews.com - A new report by the Family Research Council and the Liberty Institute claims that there's been a rising pattern of hostility toward Christians in America over the past decade.
The 140-page "Survey of Religious Hostility in America," prepared by the Liberty Institute and the Family Research Council, highlighted more than 600 examples illustrating what it characterized as religious animosity shown by judges, government bureaucrats, schools and secular groups. From ObamaCare mandates that force religious entities to pay for contraception, to children being punished for uttering prayers in school, the report's findings shocked even those who commissioned it.
“It’s a conflict of world views," Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, told FoxNews.com. "These groups want people to check their faith at the door of the public square.”
Among the examples listed in the survey:
Matthew Reynolds, valedictorian for HLV Junior-Senior High School in Victor, Iowa, was told he had to give a 'secular' speech after he wished to attribute his success to his faith in Jesus Christ during his graduation speech.
A cross was removed from a veterans' memorial in San Diego, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that the memorial was unconstitutional.
.Dr. Frank Turek, a Cisco employee, was fired for expressing his views on traditional marriage in his book, even though he never voiced his religious opinions at work.
Samantha Schulz, 8, was barred from singing "Kum Ba Yah" at a Boys and Girls Club in Port Charlotte, Fla., because the song included the words "Oh, Lord."
Catherina Lorena Cenzon-DeCarlo, a nurse at Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital, was forced to participate in a late-term abortion against her religious convictions, and was threatened with job termination and loss of license.
The goal of the report is to raise awareness of these incidents to promote the appointment of judges "who are sensitive to the Constitution," said Kelly Shackelford, president of the Plano, Texas-based Liberty Institute. The report was presented in Tampa just ahead of next week's Republican National Convention.
According to Shackelford, the hostility can lead to violence, as in the case of the Aug.15 shooting at the Family Research Council headquarters, in which a gunman allegedly said he disagreed with the group's beliefs before shooting an employee in the arm. He also cited the Aug. 5 shooting deaths of six people at a Sikh temple near Milwaukee.
"It's way beyond anything we had imagined," Shackelford told FoxNews.com."It's so much more prolific than it's ever been before."
One critic said the report is guilty of blurring the line between attacking religion and upholding the Constitution. A.J. Johnson, development director of American Atheists, Inc., said no one condones hate crimes such as the FRC shooting. But many other examples cited are simply cases in which advocates called for the separation of church and state," Johnson said.
"The Family Research Council distorts court cases upholding the First Amendment as examples of "religious hostility," she said. "In reality, they are imposing their beliefs onto others and claiming to be victims of religious persecution when they do not get unique Christian privilege."
But Perkins said the secular nation that groups like Johnson's seek was never envisioned by the Founding Fathers, and will not come to be.
"That's not the future of our country," Perkins said.
: One of Obama's Biggest Lies About to Come to Light for the Whole World to See
Goin’ off a cliff
How to cope with dire fiscal warnings
By GREGORY BRESIGER
Last Updated: 11:20 AM, August 26, 2012
Posted: 9:50 PM, August 25, 2012
The mother of all tax storms is heading our way. And it’s due to arrive at the end of the year, raising rates for more than 100 million Americans.
It is a storm that could sink the economy, as Congress’ number-crunchers at the Congressional Budget Office warned late last week. It said failure to act will put the economy back in recession and that unemployment will soar from 8.2 percent to 9.1 percent, or roughly 2 million more jobless on the street.
“The expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2012,” says lawyer and CPA Leon LaBrecque, “affects virtually every individual taxpayer in the United States, as well as corporations and nonprofit institutions.”
TAKING A DIVE: More than 100 million Americans will see their tax bills soar if Congress does nothing to avoid the “Fiscal Cliff” at year’s end.
And look out for your 401(k)! As the capital-gains tax rate soars to 20 percent, many investors will look to cash out of equities to pay the current 15 percent rate. That will sink the market.
If Congress and the president do nothing between now and the end of the year, LaBrecque adds, the expiration of the tax cuts “would constitute the biggest tax increase in more than 50 years.” He says the biggest misconception of the tax storm is that only the rich will be hurt.
As an illustration, he cites the example of one client. She is a single working mother making $37,000 a year. The expiration of the Bush tax cuts, he says, will also be painful for her. She will pay 76 percent more in taxes.
So tax professionals are cautioning clients to develop tax-reduction strategies now.
Chicago tax attorney David Henderson, who advises high net worth clients, says middle-class taxpayers should reverse the most common tax-planning strategies that have been used.
Forget about deferring income and paying taxes later. Taxpayers should assume that they are going to get socked in January with higher tax rates, he says.
“The tax rates you’ll pay this year will probably be the lowest rates we’ll see in our lifetimes,” Henderson predicts. That includes the capital-gains taxes that you pay when you sell an asset, such as a property or a stock.
“So look in your portfolio. And if you have long-term capital gains, now is the time to sell those,” Henderson says.
Investors should pay taxes now at what will likely be much lower rates, according to Henderson. Tax pros also say that the value of deductions, such as money given to charity, will become more valuable as tax rates zoom in 2013. “Say you’re going to make a charitable contribution late in December. Wait a week or two to write the check. The charity still gets the contribution, but the deduction will be more valuable in January,” Henderson says.
Along with a scheduled $100 billion in federal spending cuts due to go through unless Congress acts, the tax storm has the potential to do more than hurt individual pocketbooks. It could, warns the Council on Foreign Relations, drive the economy off a tax-and-spending cliff.
“The abrupt onset of such significant budget austerity in the midst of a still-fragile economic recovery has led most economists to warn of another recession in 2013 if Washington fails to intervene in a timely fashion,” according to a paper from the council.
Higher taxes and spending cuts are also spooking employers, the council said.
“Our customers are concerned,” UPS CEO Scott Davis told The Hill, a publication that covers Congress. “They’re not going to invest. They’re not going to hire people. They’re not going to stock inventory with all that uncertainty.”
But couldn’t this spending reduction and tax storm blow past us? Couldn’t Democrats and Republicans prevent the nation from going over a fiscal cliff by making a last-minute deal?
“Very unlikely,” Henderson says.
Here are some of the tax changes that automatically begin on Jan. 1, 2013, unless Congress acts.
* Social Security rate goes up from 4.2% to 6.2%
* The 10% tax bracket expires and becomes 15%
* The 25% rate rises to 28%
* The 28% rate goes to 31%
* The 33% rate goes to 36%
* The 35% rate goes to 39.6%
* The Earned Income Credit is eliminated
* The child tax credit falls from $1,000 to $500
* The Alternative Minimum Tax reverts to 2001 levels
* The long-term capital gains on middle- and upper-income taxpayers go from 15% to 20%
hat tip: michaelsavage.com
How to cope with dire fiscal warnings
By GREGORY BRESIGER
Last Updated: 11:20 AM, August 26, 2012
Posted: 9:50 PM, August 25, 2012
The mother of all tax storms is heading our way. And it’s due to arrive at the end of the year, raising rates for more than 100 million Americans.
It is a storm that could sink the economy, as Congress’ number-crunchers at the Congressional Budget Office warned late last week. It said failure to act will put the economy back in recession and that unemployment will soar from 8.2 percent to 9.1 percent, or roughly 2 million more jobless on the street.
“The expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2012,” says lawyer and CPA Leon LaBrecque, “affects virtually every individual taxpayer in the United States, as well as corporations and nonprofit institutions.”
And look out for your 401(k)! As the capital-gains tax rate soars to 20 percent, many investors will look to cash out of equities to pay the current 15 percent rate. That will sink the market.
If Congress and the president do nothing between now and the end of the year, LaBrecque adds, the expiration of the tax cuts “would constitute the biggest tax increase in more than 50 years.” He says the biggest misconception of the tax storm is that only the rich will be hurt.
As an illustration, he cites the example of one client. She is a single working mother making $37,000 a year. The expiration of the Bush tax cuts, he says, will also be painful for her. She will pay 76 percent more in taxes.
So tax professionals are cautioning clients to develop tax-reduction strategies now.
Chicago tax attorney David Henderson, who advises high net worth clients, says middle-class taxpayers should reverse the most common tax-planning strategies that have been used.
Forget about deferring income and paying taxes later. Taxpayers should assume that they are going to get socked in January with higher tax rates, he says.
“The tax rates you’ll pay this year will probably be the lowest rates we’ll see in our lifetimes,” Henderson predicts. That includes the capital-gains taxes that you pay when you sell an asset, such as a property or a stock.
“So look in your portfolio. And if you have long-term capital gains, now is the time to sell those,” Henderson says.
Investors should pay taxes now at what will likely be much lower rates, according to Henderson. Tax pros also say that the value of deductions, such as money given to charity, will become more valuable as tax rates zoom in 2013. “Say you’re going to make a charitable contribution late in December. Wait a week or two to write the check. The charity still gets the contribution, but the deduction will be more valuable in January,” Henderson says.
Along with a scheduled $100 billion in federal spending cuts due to go through unless Congress acts, the tax storm has the potential to do more than hurt individual pocketbooks. It could, warns the Council on Foreign Relations, drive the economy off a tax-and-spending cliff.
“The abrupt onset of such significant budget austerity in the midst of a still-fragile economic recovery has led most economists to warn of another recession in 2013 if Washington fails to intervene in a timely fashion,” according to a paper from the council.
Higher taxes and spending cuts are also spooking employers, the council said.
“Our customers are concerned,” UPS CEO Scott Davis told The Hill, a publication that covers Congress. “They’re not going to invest. They’re not going to hire people. They’re not going to stock inventory with all that uncertainty.”
But couldn’t this spending reduction and tax storm blow past us? Couldn’t Democrats and Republicans prevent the nation from going over a fiscal cliff by making a last-minute deal?
“Very unlikely,” Henderson says.
Here are some of the tax changes that automatically begin on Jan. 1, 2013, unless Congress acts.
* Social Security rate goes up from 4.2% to 6.2%
* The 10% tax bracket expires and becomes 15%
* The 25% rate rises to 28%
* The 28% rate goes to 31%
* The 33% rate goes to 36%
* The 35% rate goes to 39.6%
* The Earned Income Credit is eliminated
* The child tax credit falls from $1,000 to $500
* The Alternative Minimum Tax reverts to 2001 levels
* The long-term capital gains on middle- and upper-income taxpayers go from 15% to 20%
hat tip: michaelsavage.com
Sunday, August 26, 2012
1.3 Million Got Disability for ‘Mood Disorders’—Including 33% of Beneficiaries in Puerto Rico
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Patriot Update:
The Social Security Administration released its annual statistical report on federal disability insurance last month, revealing that at the end of 2011 there was a then-record of 8,575,544 workers collecting federal disability benefits and among them were 1,304,851 doing so because they suffered from “mood disorders.”
The incidence of “mood disorders” among disability beneficiaries was not proportionately distributed among the states and territories, according to the official SSA statistics. Some locations had much higher percentages of disability beneficiaries diagnosed with mood disorders than other locations.
In American Samoa, for example, only 3.1 percent of the workers collecting federal disability benefits had been diagnosed with a “mood disorder.” In Puerto Rico, by contrast, 33.3 percent of disability beneficiaries had a mood disorder.
Patriot Update:
The Social Security Administration released its annual statistical report on federal disability insurance last month, revealing that at the end of 2011 there was a then-record of 8,575,544 workers collecting federal disability benefits and among them were 1,304,851 doing so because they suffered from “mood disorders.”
The incidence of “mood disorders” among disability beneficiaries was not proportionately distributed among the states and territories, according to the official SSA statistics. Some locations had much higher percentages of disability beneficiaries diagnosed with mood disorders than other locations.
In American Samoa, for example, only 3.1 percent of the workers collecting federal disability benefits had been diagnosed with a “mood disorder.” In Puerto Rico, by contrast, 33.3 percent of disability beneficiaries had a mood disorder.
Busted: “Republican” woman in Obama ad has been a registered Democrat since 2006
Update: Another?
posted at 1:01 pm on August 25, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
Hat tip: presspatrol.com
Hot Air:
Via Drudge, the inevitable finish for an ad for a President whose track record on vetting and research has been all too vividly featured in our Obamateurism series. Earlier this week, Team Obama stepped up its War On Wimminses strategy with this ad, featuring women who identify as Republican but who intend to vote for Barack Obama in 2012. However, as the old Sesame Street song used to go, at least one of these women are not like the other:
Maria Ciano who is featured in the web video has been a registered Democrat since October 2006 according to voter registration records.
“People like me and my family have realized that the Republican Party once was inline with our views, but are no longer,” the Colorado resident says in the video.
It’s certainly possible that Ms. Ciano had at one time been Republican. Her conversion to Democrat had nothing to do with Mitt Romney, or even Barack Obama, however. And it’s difficult to ascertain exactly what about Romney would have driven the rest of them off, either. One woman cites Romney’s desire to see Roe overturned, as if she’s never heard that argument in the four decades that Republicans have been making it. George W. Bush made it just as much of an issue when running for President, if not more; every Republican nominee for President since Reagan has taken that position, as have most of the candidates who failed to get the nomination. This must be one of the most low-information groups of voters ever featured in a national campaign.
It’s easy to understand why Team Obama wants to run a Republican Women for Obama ad. Is it too much to ask that they check first to see if the women are actually Republican first?
Update: John Hinderaker delves a little deeper:
Her Facebook page is here; some of her friends congratulate her on appearing in the Obama ad. In addition to the fact that she is a registered Democrat, check out her Facebook “likes.” They make it obvious that Ms. Ciano is a devoted Democrat and a left-wing activist. Here are some of her “likes,” beginning with the earliest in time:
* Democracy For America
* Tar Sands Action
* Amy Goodman
* Barack Obama
* Costoftaxcuts.com
* Being Liberal
* MoveOn.org
* Bernie Sanders Tells You A Secret the GOP Would Rather You Didn’t Know
* Miss Piggy Delivers the Best Takedown of Fox News We’ve Seen All Month
* Think Progress
* The Best Quote From Barack Obama We’ve Seen This Week
* Dow and Monsanto Join Forces to Poison America’s Heartland
* Climate Reality
* Grist.org
* The Amazing Victory Scored With Obama That More People Should Be Talking About
* The Sierra Club
* The Buffett Rule
* Obama For America–Colorado
* UniteWomen.org
* Denver Young Democrats
* Obamacare
* Latinos For Obama
* Michelle Obama
* Veterans For Obama
* I Love It When I Wake Up In the Morning and Obama Is President
* Obama Truth Team
* Democratic Party
Yeah, I know a lot of Republicans who like to join MoveOn, Think Progress, and Climate Reality (and who listen to avowed socialist Bernie Sanders). Seriously — did Team Obama think that no one would look at Ciano’s Facebook page?
Update II: At the same link, John says another of the women — Ms. Ciano’s mother — appears to be an unlikely Republican. He’s working on checking out the rest oon Facebook.
posted at 1:01 pm on August 25, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
Hat tip: presspatrol.com
Hot Air:
Via Drudge, the inevitable finish for an ad for a President whose track record on vetting and research has been all too vividly featured in our Obamateurism series. Earlier this week, Team Obama stepped up its War On Wimminses strategy with this ad, featuring women who identify as Republican but who intend to vote for Barack Obama in 2012. However, as the old Sesame Street song used to go, at least one of these women are not like the other:
Maria Ciano who is featured in the web video has been a registered Democrat since October 2006 according to voter registration records.
“People like me and my family have realized that the Republican Party once was inline with our views, but are no longer,” the Colorado resident says in the video.
It’s certainly possible that Ms. Ciano had at one time been Republican. Her conversion to Democrat had nothing to do with Mitt Romney, or even Barack Obama, however. And it’s difficult to ascertain exactly what about Romney would have driven the rest of them off, either. One woman cites Romney’s desire to see Roe overturned, as if she’s never heard that argument in the four decades that Republicans have been making it. George W. Bush made it just as much of an issue when running for President, if not more; every Republican nominee for President since Reagan has taken that position, as have most of the candidates who failed to get the nomination. This must be one of the most low-information groups of voters ever featured in a national campaign.
It’s easy to understand why Team Obama wants to run a Republican Women for Obama ad. Is it too much to ask that they check first to see if the women are actually Republican first?
Update: John Hinderaker delves a little deeper:
Her Facebook page is here; some of her friends congratulate her on appearing in the Obama ad. In addition to the fact that she is a registered Democrat, check out her Facebook “likes.” They make it obvious that Ms. Ciano is a devoted Democrat and a left-wing activist. Here are some of her “likes,” beginning with the earliest in time:
* Democracy For America
* Tar Sands Action
* Amy Goodman
* Barack Obama
* Costoftaxcuts.com
* Being Liberal
* MoveOn.org
* Bernie Sanders Tells You A Secret the GOP Would Rather You Didn’t Know
* Miss Piggy Delivers the Best Takedown of Fox News We’ve Seen All Month
* Think Progress
* The Best Quote From Barack Obama We’ve Seen This Week
* Dow and Monsanto Join Forces to Poison America’s Heartland
* Climate Reality
* Grist.org
* The Amazing Victory Scored With Obama That More People Should Be Talking About
* The Sierra Club
* The Buffett Rule
* Obama For America–Colorado
* UniteWomen.org
* Denver Young Democrats
* Obamacare
* Latinos For Obama
* Michelle Obama
* Veterans For Obama
* I Love It When I Wake Up In the Morning and Obama Is President
* Obama Truth Team
* Democratic Party
Yeah, I know a lot of Republicans who like to join MoveOn, Think Progress, and Climate Reality (and who listen to avowed socialist Bernie Sanders). Seriously — did Team Obama think that no one would look at Ciano’s Facebook page?
Update II: At the same link, John says another of the women — Ms. Ciano’s mother — appears to be an unlikely Republican. He’s working on checking out the rest oon Facebook.
'Free' health care flounders, proves too expensive for Cuba
Aug 25, 10:27 AM (ET)
By PETER ORSI
HAVANA (AP) - Cuba's system of free medical care, long considered a birthright by its citizens and trumpeted as one of the communist government's great successes, is not immune to cutbacks under Raul Castro's drive for efficiency.
The health sector has already endured millions of dollars in budget cuts and tens of thousands of layoffs, and it became clear this month that Castro is looking for more ways to save when the newspaper voice of the Communist Party, Granma, published daily details for two weeks on how much the government spends on everything from anesthetics and acupuncture to orthodontics and organ transplants.
It's part of a wider media campaign that seems geared to discourage frivolous use of medical services, to explain or blunt fears of a drop-off in care and to remind Cubans to be grateful that health care is still free despite persistent economic woes. But it's also raising the eyebrows of outside analysts, who predict further cuts or significant changes to what has been a pillar of the socialist system implanted after the 1959 revolution.
"Very often the media has been a leading indicator of where the economic reforms are going," said Phil Peters, a longtime Cuba observer at the Lexington Institute think tank. "My guess is that there's some kind of policy statement to follow, because that's been the pattern."
The theme of the Granma pieces, posters in clinics and ads on state TV is the same: "Your health care is free, but how much does it cost?"
The answer is, not much by outside standards, but quite a bit for Cuba, which spends $190 million a year paying for its citizens' medical bills.
Based on the official exchange rate, the government spends $2 each time a Cuban visits a family doctor, $4.14 for each X-ray and $6,827 for a heart transplant.
It's not a luxury service though. Scarcities now are common and sanitary conditions fall short of the ideal in decaying facilities where paint peels from the walls. Patients often bring their own bed sheets, electric fans, food and water for hospital stays.
One Havana-based clinical physician applauded the campaign, saying it targets a pervasive problem: Conditioned to think about health as an inalienable right, many Cubans rush to the hospital whenever they come down with a cough or the sniffles, demand expensive tests before they've even been examined and sometimes get aggressive if doctors refuse.
"Respect for doctors has entirely been lost," he said. "Some will indulge a patient for fear of how they might react."
The physician spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss health care with a foreign journalist. Interview requests were not granted by the Health Ministry, though a spokeswoman said in a brief email response that the costs in Granma were the result of careful study.
The fact that the figures were published at all suggests a sea change in conceptions about health care, said Nancy Burke, director of the Cuba Program in Health Diplomacy at the University of California, San Francisco.
"It's interesting that the health care system, which has always been touted as a basic human right, is now being put into market terms," said Burke, a medical anthropologist who makes yearly research trips to Cuba. "That says so much about Raul's market reforms and the ideology ... informing that. It's a real shift, a major shift in the way of thinking about health care."
She noted that the island's doctors are increasingly cash cows for Cuba as it sends them abroad to treat the poor in countries such as Venezuela. The international missions fulfill a humanitarian purpose but also offset a significant share of the $28.5 billion in cash and subsidized oil that the South American nation has sent Cuba since 2005, according to Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Julio Borges, who says he uses public records to track the figure.
To cut costs in Cuba, state media have urged doctors to use their "clinical eye" before ordering pricey lab tests, and target the practice of people stockpiling medicine to carry them through shortages.
In one TV spot, a woman visits a doctor and requests a long list of pills. Asked why she needs so many, she replies: "Oh, doctor, it's for my personal stash."
"I stop cold when I see that, not knowing whether to laugh or cry," blogger Greter Torres Vazquez wrote on a Cuban youth-issues website. "Maybe they've never had the experience of going to the pharmacy and asking for medicine that their aunt, their grandmother, their mother needs urgently, only for the worker to say 'Sorry, we ran out five minutes ago.'"
Some seized on the campaign to complain about corruption in hospitals.
"They should also publish the miserable salary that doctors get paid; that's an embarrassment," said Maria Soto, a 62-year-old Havana resident. "And it's serious, because it leads to the problems everyone knows about: You get bad service or, even worse, they charge you under the table."
Cuban authorities continuously brag about keeping health care free and universal despite its lightweight economy and the 50-year-old U.S. embargo.
Experts credit the government's emphasis on prevention and doctor-patient relationships for life expectancy and infant mortality rates that are on par with those of wealthy nations. Medical schools churn out huge graduating classes; every last one of Cuba's 11 million citizens is supposed to get a house call at least once a year.
Charging for care would be a dramatic and unlikely about-face, but with 15 percent of the budget devoted to health, Havana sees no choice but to make the system more efficient wherever it can.
After steadily rising over five decades to hit $206 million in 2009, health spending has dropped, slipping to $190 million last year, according to government figures. Officials hint at more cuts to come.
These days, authorities rail against "irrational expenses" and have slashed more than 50,000 less-skilled health-sector jobs, singling out overstaffed clinics and ambulances with multiple drivers.
Some Cubans say hospital wait times seem to be on the rise and medicine, equipment and soap are increasingly in short supply.
The clinical doctor consulted by the AP said neither scarcity nor complaints have worsened, though doctors still suffer heavy case loads and low pay, about $25 a month.
Cuba is walking a delicate line on health: Too much change could be seen in some camps as a betrayal of the socialist contract. Too little may not ease the burden on a strained economy, said Sergio Diaz-Briquets, a U.S.-based demographer and author of "The Health Revolution in Cuba.
"It is maybe a universal phenomenon that health care systems are expensive," he said, "but Cuba perhaps cannot afford to have the kind of services that they claim to have had in the past."
Associated Press writers Andrea Rodriguez and Anne-Marie Garcia contributed to this report.
Hat Tip: MichaelSavage.Com
By PETER ORSI
HAVANA (AP) - Cuba's system of free medical care, long considered a birthright by its citizens and trumpeted as one of the communist government's great successes, is not immune to cutbacks under Raul Castro's drive for efficiency.
The health sector has already endured millions of dollars in budget cuts and tens of thousands of layoffs, and it became clear this month that Castro is looking for more ways to save when the newspaper voice of the Communist Party, Granma, published daily details for two weeks on how much the government spends on everything from anesthetics and acupuncture to orthodontics and organ transplants.
It's part of a wider media campaign that seems geared to discourage frivolous use of medical services, to explain or blunt fears of a drop-off in care and to remind Cubans to be grateful that health care is still free despite persistent economic woes. But it's also raising the eyebrows of outside analysts, who predict further cuts or significant changes to what has been a pillar of the socialist system implanted after the 1959 revolution.
"Very often the media has been a leading indicator of where the economic reforms are going," said Phil Peters, a longtime Cuba observer at the Lexington Institute think tank. "My guess is that there's some kind of policy statement to follow, because that's been the pattern."
The theme of the Granma pieces, posters in clinics and ads on state TV is the same: "Your health care is free, but how much does it cost?"
The answer is, not much by outside standards, but quite a bit for Cuba, which spends $190 million a year paying for its citizens' medical bills.
Based on the official exchange rate, the government spends $2 each time a Cuban visits a family doctor, $4.14 for each X-ray and $6,827 for a heart transplant.
It's not a luxury service though. Scarcities now are common and sanitary conditions fall short of the ideal in decaying facilities where paint peels from the walls. Patients often bring their own bed sheets, electric fans, food and water for hospital stays.
One Havana-based clinical physician applauded the campaign, saying it targets a pervasive problem: Conditioned to think about health as an inalienable right, many Cubans rush to the hospital whenever they come down with a cough or the sniffles, demand expensive tests before they've even been examined and sometimes get aggressive if doctors refuse.
"Respect for doctors has entirely been lost," he said. "Some will indulge a patient for fear of how they might react."
The physician spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss health care with a foreign journalist. Interview requests were not granted by the Health Ministry, though a spokeswoman said in a brief email response that the costs in Granma were the result of careful study.
The fact that the figures were published at all suggests a sea change in conceptions about health care, said Nancy Burke, director of the Cuba Program in Health Diplomacy at the University of California, San Francisco.
"It's interesting that the health care system, which has always been touted as a basic human right, is now being put into market terms," said Burke, a medical anthropologist who makes yearly research trips to Cuba. "That says so much about Raul's market reforms and the ideology ... informing that. It's a real shift, a major shift in the way of thinking about health care."
She noted that the island's doctors are increasingly cash cows for Cuba as it sends them abroad to treat the poor in countries such as Venezuela. The international missions fulfill a humanitarian purpose but also offset a significant share of the $28.5 billion in cash and subsidized oil that the South American nation has sent Cuba since 2005, according to Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Julio Borges, who says he uses public records to track the figure.
To cut costs in Cuba, state media have urged doctors to use their "clinical eye" before ordering pricey lab tests, and target the practice of people stockpiling medicine to carry them through shortages.
In one TV spot, a woman visits a doctor and requests a long list of pills. Asked why she needs so many, she replies: "Oh, doctor, it's for my personal stash."
"I stop cold when I see that, not knowing whether to laugh or cry," blogger Greter Torres Vazquez wrote on a Cuban youth-issues website. "Maybe they've never had the experience of going to the pharmacy and asking for medicine that their aunt, their grandmother, their mother needs urgently, only for the worker to say 'Sorry, we ran out five minutes ago.'"
Some seized on the campaign to complain about corruption in hospitals.
"They should also publish the miserable salary that doctors get paid; that's an embarrassment," said Maria Soto, a 62-year-old Havana resident. "And it's serious, because it leads to the problems everyone knows about: You get bad service or, even worse, they charge you under the table."
Cuban authorities continuously brag about keeping health care free and universal despite its lightweight economy and the 50-year-old U.S. embargo.
Experts credit the government's emphasis on prevention and doctor-patient relationships for life expectancy and infant mortality rates that are on par with those of wealthy nations. Medical schools churn out huge graduating classes; every last one of Cuba's 11 million citizens is supposed to get a house call at least once a year.
Charging for care would be a dramatic and unlikely about-face, but with 15 percent of the budget devoted to health, Havana sees no choice but to make the system more efficient wherever it can.
After steadily rising over five decades to hit $206 million in 2009, health spending has dropped, slipping to $190 million last year, according to government figures. Officials hint at more cuts to come.
These days, authorities rail against "irrational expenses" and have slashed more than 50,000 less-skilled health-sector jobs, singling out overstaffed clinics and ambulances with multiple drivers.
Some Cubans say hospital wait times seem to be on the rise and medicine, equipment and soap are increasingly in short supply.
The clinical doctor consulted by the AP said neither scarcity nor complaints have worsened, though doctors still suffer heavy case loads and low pay, about $25 a month.
Cuba is walking a delicate line on health: Too much change could be seen in some camps as a betrayal of the socialist contract. Too little may not ease the burden on a strained economy, said Sergio Diaz-Briquets, a U.S.-based demographer and author of "The Health Revolution in Cuba.
"It is maybe a universal phenomenon that health care systems are expensive," he said, "but Cuba perhaps cannot afford to have the kind of services that they claim to have had in the past."
Associated Press writers Andrea Rodriguez and Anne-Marie Garcia contributed to this report.
Hat Tip: MichaelSavage.Com
Is Joe Biden hiding alcohol or substance abuse?
Drunk talk when allegedly not drunk. Random and bizarre facial expressions for no apparent reason. And now this....
Late Joe irks big O donors
Last Updated: 11:25 PM, August 24, 2012
Posted: 11:20 PM, August 24, 2012
(New York Post) A Hamptons fund-raiser for President Obama attended by Joe Biden turned into a long afternoon when the vice president turned up more than two hours later than guests — prompting some VIPs to leave before he took the stage.
Nathan Lan e hosted the fund-raiser yesterday at the Bridgehampton home of Ellen Chesler and Matthew Mallow. Hosts included Julianne Moore, Amy Sullivan and Jane Holzer.
One guest told us, “All attendees were told to be at the house by 2:30 p.m., for security reasons. But Biden didn’t turn up until well after 5 p.m. When everyone arrived, they were told Biden hadn’t even landed yet; his plane was too big to land nearby. This prompted some to turn around and leave. Russell Simmons was a host but walked out after 10 minutes.”
As the guests waited, they were treated to a 45-minute performance by James Taylor and speeches by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg.
VIPs who paid up to $10,000 a ticket and waited for Biden to show included Joy Behar, Roger Waters, Jay McInerney, Du Jour’s J ason Binn and wife Haley, BookHampton’s Charlene Spector and Almond Restaurant’s Eric Lemonides. They were finally allowed to wait inside Chesler and Mallow’s home. Witnesses said two other people passed out in the hot, sun-baked tent before Biden showed.
When he finally took the stage, Biden said of his lateness, “I had a speech for you, but it’s not fair of me [to talk too long] . . . I am shocked everyone stayed. In college if my professor was 20 minutes late, I’d be out of the classroom.”
He attacked Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan over their economic proposals, and joked that Republicans love bumper stickers. He said his sticker would be “Osama bin Laden is dead and GM is alive.”
While sources insisted Simmons never intended to stay all afternoon, he told us, “After seeing the GOP vice-presidential choice and hearing Romney’s and his VP’s horrible positions on education health care, taxes and especially money in politics . . . I’m so committed to getting the president re-elected.”
Late Joe irks big O donors
Last Updated: 11:25 PM, August 24, 2012
Posted: 11:20 PM, August 24, 2012
(New York Post) A Hamptons fund-raiser for President Obama attended by Joe Biden turned into a long afternoon when the vice president turned up more than two hours later than guests — prompting some VIPs to leave before he took the stage.
Nathan Lan e hosted the fund-raiser yesterday at the Bridgehampton home of Ellen Chesler and Matthew Mallow. Hosts included Julianne Moore, Amy Sullivan and Jane Holzer.
One guest told us, “All attendees were told to be at the house by 2:30 p.m., for security reasons. But Biden didn’t turn up until well after 5 p.m. When everyone arrived, they were told Biden hadn’t even landed yet; his plane was too big to land nearby. This prompted some to turn around and leave. Russell Simmons was a host but walked out after 10 minutes.”
As the guests waited, they were treated to a 45-minute performance by James Taylor and speeches by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg.
VIPs who paid up to $10,000 a ticket and waited for Biden to show included Joy Behar, Roger Waters, Jay McInerney, Du Jour’s J ason Binn and wife Haley, BookHampton’s Charlene Spector and Almond Restaurant’s Eric Lemonides. They were finally allowed to wait inside Chesler and Mallow’s home. Witnesses said two other people passed out in the hot, sun-baked tent before Biden showed.
When he finally took the stage, Biden said of his lateness, “I had a speech for you, but it’s not fair of me [to talk too long] . . . I am shocked everyone stayed. In college if my professor was 20 minutes late, I’d be out of the classroom.”
He attacked Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan over their economic proposals, and joked that Republicans love bumper stickers. He said his sticker would be “Osama bin Laden is dead and GM is alive.”
While sources insisted Simmons never intended to stay all afternoon, he told us, “After seeing the GOP vice-presidential choice and hearing Romney’s and his VP’s horrible positions on education health care, taxes and especially money in politics . . . I’m so committed to getting the president re-elected.”
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