Saturday, November 12, 2011
Interesting Results from Poll of nearly 10,000
11/10/11 Daily Temperature
After last night's debate, which candidate are you LEAST likely to support?
Huntsman 32%
Paul 24%
Romney 17%
Perry 11%
Cain 8%
Santorum 3%
Bachmann 2%
Gingrich 2%
Total Votes: 9221
After last night's debate, which candidate are you LEAST likely to support?
Huntsman 32%
Paul 24%
Romney 17%
Perry 11%
Cain 8%
Santorum 3%
Bachmann 2%
Gingrich 2%
Total Votes: 9221
Federal Judge Denies #Occupy St. Louis Permission to Continue Hobo Camp at Kiener Plaza
Federal Judge Denies #Occupy St. Louis Permission to Continue Hobo Camp at Kiener Plaza
Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, November 12, 2011, 12:16 AM
Yesterday, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay notified the Occupy St. Louis that they had 24 hours to remove all structures from Kiener plaza in downtown St. Louis.
The hobos will have to find another place to duke it out.
In response the local occupy goons released this nonsensical statement today on their website:
Since October 1st, we have maintained a peaceful occupation in this public space, founded on the principle that large corporations have too much influence in the actions of our government. Mayor Slay and his Senior Staff have once again validated this by bowing to pressure from the Downtown Partnership of St Louis to restrict our First Amendment Rights to peaceably assemble.
Since its inception, Occupy St Louis has been a model of cooperation and non violence, and has made Freedom Square a safer, cleaner place.… We strongly – believe that our encampment is a valid form of political speech justified by the First Amendment. Additionally this precedent has been set in other occupied cities across the nation.
Occupy St Louis hopes that Mayor Slay realizes that our freedom to assemble is not limited to one space, but guaranteed to all people, in any public space, at any time. We believe that we are engaged in a vital attempt to restore the cornerstone of American ideals: equality, unity, and social mobility.
Talk about insanity! These nuts believe they can pitch a pup tent at any place at any time. They say it’s their free speech!
The protesters also called for violence against the police.
Tonight, a federal judge denied the Occupy St. Louis protesters permission to continue their illegal squatters camp in the middle of downtown.
UPDATE: The Occupy St. Louis nuts just called for a dance party
Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, November 12, 2011, 12:16 AM
Yesterday, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay notified the Occupy St. Louis that they had 24 hours to remove all structures from Kiener plaza in downtown St. Louis.
The hobos will have to find another place to duke it out.
In response the local occupy goons released this nonsensical statement today on their website:
Since October 1st, we have maintained a peaceful occupation in this public space, founded on the principle that large corporations have too much influence in the actions of our government. Mayor Slay and his Senior Staff have once again validated this by bowing to pressure from the Downtown Partnership of St Louis to restrict our First Amendment Rights to peaceably assemble.
Since its inception, Occupy St Louis has been a model of cooperation and non violence, and has made Freedom Square a safer, cleaner place.… We strongly – believe that our encampment is a valid form of political speech justified by the First Amendment. Additionally this precedent has been set in other occupied cities across the nation.
Occupy St Louis hopes that Mayor Slay realizes that our freedom to assemble is not limited to one space, but guaranteed to all people, in any public space, at any time. We believe that we are engaged in a vital attempt to restore the cornerstone of American ideals: equality, unity, and social mobility.
Talk about insanity! These nuts believe they can pitch a pup tent at any place at any time. They say it’s their free speech!
The protesters also called for violence against the police.
Tonight, a federal judge denied the Occupy St. Louis protesters permission to continue their illegal squatters camp in the middle of downtown.
UPDATE: The Occupy St. Louis nuts just called for a dance party
Hashtag Of The Entitlement Generation
November 12, 2011
Hashtag Of The Entitlement Generation
Burning question* "Can you catch vd from peeing in a public coke bottle?"
Hashtag Of The Entitlement Generation
Burning question* "Can you catch vd from peeing in a public coke bottle?"
Need More Leverage? Change Your Accounting
Posted by Jeff Carter on November 11th, 2011
MF Global blew up because it made really dumb bets on European debt, and levered them 40:1. Lehman and Bear Stearns blew up in 2008, because they made highly levered bets on home mortgages and were levered 30:1.
Yesterday, Goldman ($GS) and Morgan Stanley ($MS) are considering accounting changes that will allow them to lever up their balance sheets.
Currently, Goldman and Morgan carry loans on their balance sheets at a mark to market value. This means that when do their books, they find the actual market price of the security and record it. This causes variation in the value of their assets, since markets fluctuate. It also causes disruptions in their operations, because as the value of their assets goes up or down, the amount of leverage they can have on those assets goes up or down.
This also affects financial results, because if during the year a loan loses value, they reflect it on their bottom line. They do this even though they will carry the loan through its entire life.
They are ruminating about changing mark to market accounting for these loans to historical cost. To be honest, if the intent is to hold the loan for the life of the loan, it’s probably more accurate to reflect the loan on their financial statements at historical cost and not mark to market. But what does this change mean?
It means that they will write up the value of most of the loans on their books. This accounting change will suddenly give them more equity. If they have more equity, they can create more leverage for themselves. More leverage means they can assume more risk.
In 2008, both Goldman and Morgan revamped their businesses and became bank holding companies. The advantage to this was they could go to the Federal Reserve window and borrow funds directly from the government, just like any other bank. Currently, they can borrow at practically 0% interest.
But what are Goldman and Morgan really? Not traditional banks. Their profits are driven by their trading activity. Being a bank gives them a huge advantage over other hedge funds in the market because their cost of capital is significantly lower. If they bring about the accounting change, they will be able to borrow even more at these low rates and fuel their trading strategies to make money.
The other fly in the ointment is that the government has deemed them too big to fail. We may get a situation where banks are levering up, borrowing at the Fed window, and if they get into trouble force a taxpayer bailout because the government doesn’t want to deal with the consequences of them going under.
Doesn’t that make you rest easy this weekend?
MF Global blew up because it made really dumb bets on European debt, and levered them 40:1. Lehman and Bear Stearns blew up in 2008, because they made highly levered bets on home mortgages and were levered 30:1.
Yesterday, Goldman ($GS) and Morgan Stanley ($MS) are considering accounting changes that will allow them to lever up their balance sheets.
Currently, Goldman and Morgan carry loans on their balance sheets at a mark to market value. This means that when do their books, they find the actual market price of the security and record it. This causes variation in the value of their assets, since markets fluctuate. It also causes disruptions in their operations, because as the value of their assets goes up or down, the amount of leverage they can have on those assets goes up or down.
This also affects financial results, because if during the year a loan loses value, they reflect it on their bottom line. They do this even though they will carry the loan through its entire life.
They are ruminating about changing mark to market accounting for these loans to historical cost. To be honest, if the intent is to hold the loan for the life of the loan, it’s probably more accurate to reflect the loan on their financial statements at historical cost and not mark to market. But what does this change mean?
It means that they will write up the value of most of the loans on their books. This accounting change will suddenly give them more equity. If they have more equity, they can create more leverage for themselves. More leverage means they can assume more risk.
In 2008, both Goldman and Morgan revamped their businesses and became bank holding companies. The advantage to this was they could go to the Federal Reserve window and borrow funds directly from the government, just like any other bank. Currently, they can borrow at practically 0% interest.
But what are Goldman and Morgan really? Not traditional banks. Their profits are driven by their trading activity. Being a bank gives them a huge advantage over other hedge funds in the market because their cost of capital is significantly lower. If they bring about the accounting change, they will be able to borrow even more at these low rates and fuel their trading strategies to make money.
The other fly in the ointment is that the government has deemed them too big to fail. We may get a situation where banks are levering up, borrowing at the Fed window, and if they get into trouble force a taxpayer bailout because the government doesn’t want to deal with the consequences of them going under.
Doesn’t that make you rest easy this weekend?
Republicans Sweep Every Elected Office in Hanover County, Va
Posted on 08 November 2011.
This was a total victory for the Republican Party in Hanover County. Hanover is a solidly Republican county and removed every vestige of blue from the area.
Sheriff, Commonwealth’s Attorney, Treasurer, Commissioner of Revenue and all 7 seats on the Board of Supervisors are now in Republican hands. Two incumbents on the board were Independents, both were replaced by Republicans.
Congratulations to the new members and returning members of the County Government!
This was a total victory for the Republican Party in Hanover County. Hanover is a solidly Republican county and removed every vestige of blue from the area.
Sheriff, Commonwealth’s Attorney, Treasurer, Commissioner of Revenue and all 7 seats on the Board of Supervisors are now in Republican hands. Two incumbents on the board were Independents, both were replaced by Republicans.
Congratulations to the new members and returning members of the County Government!
Denver HS Teacher Brings Students to Join Mob As They Storm Conservative Conference
Denver HS Teacher Brings Students to Join #OWS Mob As They Storm Conservative Conference (Video)
Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, November 11, 2011, 4:18 PM
A Denver high school teacher brought students to an Occupy Denver event for a field trip today where they joined Occupy Denver activists as they storm the BlogCon conference. The teacher said she was showing them how democracy worked.
The teacher was too ashamed to give her name or the name of the private girls school she teaches at.
Correction: A local nurse told me there was a TB outbreak recently among the homeless community in Denver. I cannot confirm this. However, there have been outbreaks of TB and pneumonia at other #OWS camps… along with sexual assault and death.
MORE… People Press Collective has more video from the Occupy Denver mob crashing BlogCon.
UPDATE: It looks like the students were from St. Mary’s Academy.
Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, November 11, 2011, 4:18 PM
A Denver high school teacher brought students to an Occupy Denver event for a field trip today where they joined Occupy Denver activists as they storm the BlogCon conference. The teacher said she was showing them how democracy worked.
The teacher was too ashamed to give her name or the name of the private girls school she teaches at.
Correction: A local nurse told me there was a TB outbreak recently among the homeless community in Denver. I cannot confirm this. However, there have been outbreaks of TB and pneumonia at other #OWS camps… along with sexual assault and death.
MORE… People Press Collective has more video from the Occupy Denver mob crashing BlogCon.
UPDATE: It looks like the students were from St. Mary’s Academy.
This would explain so much *UPDATED*
Bookworm on Nov 08 2011 at 9:29 am
Normally, if I stumbled across a political hit piece rife with unsubstantiated accusations, I wouldn’t include it in any serious discussion at my blog. Depending on its target, I might read it with a certain amount of pleasure, and I might even provide a link for you guys, along with a warning that the linked post is unreliable. Indeed, that’s what I’ll do right now: the post to which I linked, and that I’m about to discuss, contains one man’s assertion of facts, with no corroboration. Nevertheless, I’m going to discuss it here because it explains something that’s baffled me about Obama: The absence of past girlfriend; indeed, the absence of any past friends before he appeared in Chicago’s political world.
Ever since Obama emerged on the national political scene, I’ve commented on the peculiar fact that no one from his past has stepped forward to reminisce about him. No former girlfriend has talked about dating him, no college roommate has achieved his 15 minutes of fame by telling about Obama’s collegiate escapades (or lack thereof). Jack Cashill has made a fairly convincing argument that the girlfriend in Dreams is the spittin’ image of Bill Ayers’ girlfriend, meaning that, as to Obama, she’s a fictional creation. Cashill also points out that, aside from this fictional character (who has never stepped forward to identify herself), Obama apparently led a completely chaste life until he met Michelle. But did he really?
Kevin DuJan argues that the real reason Obama has no romantic past is because he’s gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that ), and that Michelle is merely his beard:
You know full well the “journalists” on sites like Politico would have spent the last three years digging relentlessly into a Republican president’s past, repeatedly asking why not a single former girlfriend has ever stepped forward to identify herself or speak on the record about her past with the man currently in the Oval Office.
Isn’t it strange that the public’s never been introduced to A SINGLE GIRLFRIEND that Barack Obama ever had in high school, college, law school, or the days before he met his beard wife Michelle?
Don’t you wonder why the “journalists” of the Left have never done any in-depth profiles of Barack Obama’s male friends from his years at Occidental College in California, talked about his “roommate” while at Columbia, or wondered about any of his social activities through the years?
I know there are endless mysteries centered around a man whose college transcripts, vital records, and other important paperwork were apparently sealed away from the public in an impregnable vault somewhere cloaked in riddles and enigma — never to be seen by human eyes again — but if Barack Obama was a Republican he would have been outed as gay many years ago.
If Barack Obama was a Republican, the agenda-driven media would have hounded him about the nature of his relationship with his “bodyman” Reggie Love.
If Barack Obama was a Republican, the Left would have somehow gotten ahold of his lifetime membership at Chicago gay bathhouse Man’s Country and would have plastered those records across Politico to destroy his political career.
If Barack Obama was a Republican, the press would have quickly interpreted the dearth of girlfriends in his past as evidence of a surfeit of boyfriends and no one at the New York Times would have slept a wink until every Tom, Dick, or Larry in Barack Obama’s little black book was awarded his own reality show to gush about their down-low adventures.
As I said, everything above (as well as everything in DuJan’s whole post) is unsourced and uncorroborated speculation. Nevertheless, it finally adds the necessary air of verisimilitude to what has always been, for me, an unconvincing narrative.
Reading DuJan’s post, I had that light bulb moment where you think, “Well, that finally answers all my questions. That explains the missing past. He’s not a Manchurian candidate hatched by George Soros in a secret lab. He’s a gay guy whose past has been neatly buried because it’s not politically expedient for it to be known.”
DuJan’s statements reminded me of Sherlock Holmes’s advice to Watson? “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”
What say you?
(Hat tip: The Radio Patriot)
UPDATE II: I have been informed that Kevin is being satirical: there have long been rumors out there about Obama’s sexuality, so Kevin is restating existing rumors, rather than making rumors up out of whole cloth, but his full-frontal attack has less to do with Obama’s sexuality than with Kevin’s frustration about the media’s stunning lack of interest in Obama’s past. I prefer my satire more light-handed, so that it’s actually recognizable as satire. As for me, I continue to believe that the best way to put to rest stories about Obama’s past is for the Obama and friends to stop hiding that same past.
UPDATE: Earl, in the first comment to this post, asks such a good question I think it deserves a full answer here, in the body of the post. You can decide whether what I write actually constitutes a good answer or if it is merely a full answer, as in full of something unsavory. Here’s what Earl wrote:
I do wonder how come you can entertain this narrative even for a single moment…..yet, doubt that Herman Cain may very well be the victim of a Chicago setup because he’s getting a bit too “uppity” for a conservative black man. Is the latter even marginally less believable than the former?
The reason I find these accusations worthy of note, although I’m fully aware that they lack support, is because, as matters now stand, they are at least as believable as the charges against Cain (and, as I’ll explain below, perhaps even more believable). I’ve already pointed out that, given the way in which the Ninth Circuit, in 1991, opened the floodgates to greenmail harassment claims, I don’t find the existence of the lawsuits themselves persuasive. There were just to many claims back then, and too many (some of which I worked on or researched) that were motivated by greed or revenge, rather than actual injury.
Having said that, if there is concrete, contemporaneous evidence that Cain is a serial harasser, I’m not going to perjure my soul by defending him. I did that once with Clinton, and still feel soiled. Currently, to the extent the charges are vague, or the accusers are so flaky it’s hard for me to take them seriously, I’m still inclined to view this as the usual liberal attack against a conservative black man. After all, we know that liberals, especially liberal journalists, will lie in defense of a greater political goal.
The looks at known and unknown facts, both about the accusations and about the media that advances those accusations. For me, though, the real issue is one of narrative: Clinton came to D.C. with a sordid reputation already well intact. The subsequent accusations were entirely consistent with the existing narrative. Both Cain and, to remind us of another black man whom the media pilloried, Clarence Thomas, did not come onto the national political scene with sullied reputations. The claims are inconsistent with their life narratives. It doesn’t mean the claims are untrue. But usually, if such claims are true, and there is a sordid past, the dominoes fall very quickly once the story finally gets out.
So that’s why I’m holding my fire re Cain. It’s not that I’m a rabid Cain supporter, because I’m not. I like him, but I have strong doubts about his ability to be president. If he’s soiled goods, I’d just as soon see him out of the game quickly and finally. That doesn’t mean, though, that I’m going to leap upon shady accusations from the MSM.
The other side of this is Obama. While Cain and Thomas had narratives inconsistent with sexual harassment, and Clinton had a narrative entirely consistent with sexual harassment, what’s been fascinating about Obama is the complete absence of a narrative. I’ve been fulminating about that black hole for years. It’s not credible that someone could have been born and raised in America (as I believe he was) and have absolutely no past beyond the snippets he grudgingly offers. The media’s lack of interest in this golden boy’s past was also incredible and offensive. To hark back to Sherlock Holmes, the media’s coverage or, more precisely, the media’s refusal to provide coverage, was the case of the dog that didn’t bark in the night. When those who are supposed to be watchdogs are completely silent, that too is suspicious.
I wouldn’t mind if Obama was gay. I don’t have any problems with the fact that people, in their private lives, loving their own sex. I would never presume to direct the heart. If a gay candidate was a rock solid gay conservative, strong on national security; dedicated to individual liberty (which, really, all gays should be); a believer in free markets; proud of his country; and supportive of traditional middle-class values, I would vote for him in a New York minute. My issue with Obama isn’t is sexuality, whatever it is, but the fact that he stands for so many things that offend me as a citizen: He’s weak on national security; dedicated to subordinating individuals to the power of the state; hostile to free markets; embarrassed by his country; and consistently undermines traditional middle-class values.
To sum it up, what really bugs me is the double standard. The media refused to bark or even sniff around Obama, despite the fact that the accusations against him are worthy of inquiry, while the same media used its bully pulpit and resources to provide wall-to-wall coverage savaging Clarence Thomas and now doing the same to Herman Cain. The double-standard is especially offensive given the fact that the Cain and Thomas accusations are inconsistent with the men’s known histories, while the Obama accusations mesh quite nicely, thank you, with Obama’s entirely unknown history.
Normally, if I stumbled across a political hit piece rife with unsubstantiated accusations, I wouldn’t include it in any serious discussion at my blog. Depending on its target, I might read it with a certain amount of pleasure, and I might even provide a link for you guys, along with a warning that the linked post is unreliable. Indeed, that’s what I’ll do right now: the post to which I linked, and that I’m about to discuss, contains one man’s assertion of facts, with no corroboration. Nevertheless, I’m going to discuss it here because it explains something that’s baffled me about Obama: The absence of past girlfriend; indeed, the absence of any past friends before he appeared in Chicago’s political world.
Ever since Obama emerged on the national political scene, I’ve commented on the peculiar fact that no one from his past has stepped forward to reminisce about him. No former girlfriend has talked about dating him, no college roommate has achieved his 15 minutes of fame by telling about Obama’s collegiate escapades (or lack thereof). Jack Cashill has made a fairly convincing argument that the girlfriend in Dreams is the spittin’ image of Bill Ayers’ girlfriend, meaning that, as to Obama, she’s a fictional creation. Cashill also points out that, aside from this fictional character (who has never stepped forward to identify herself), Obama apparently led a completely chaste life until he met Michelle. But did he really?
Kevin DuJan argues that the real reason Obama has no romantic past is because he’s gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that ), and that Michelle is merely his beard:
You know full well the “journalists” on sites like Politico would have spent the last three years digging relentlessly into a Republican president’s past, repeatedly asking why not a single former girlfriend has ever stepped forward to identify herself or speak on the record about her past with the man currently in the Oval Office.
Isn’t it strange that the public’s never been introduced to A SINGLE GIRLFRIEND that Barack Obama ever had in high school, college, law school, or the days before he met his beard wife Michelle?
Don’t you wonder why the “journalists” of the Left have never done any in-depth profiles of Barack Obama’s male friends from his years at Occidental College in California, talked about his “roommate” while at Columbia, or wondered about any of his social activities through the years?
I know there are endless mysteries centered around a man whose college transcripts, vital records, and other important paperwork were apparently sealed away from the public in an impregnable vault somewhere cloaked in riddles and enigma — never to be seen by human eyes again — but if Barack Obama was a Republican he would have been outed as gay many years ago.
If Barack Obama was a Republican, the agenda-driven media would have hounded him about the nature of his relationship with his “bodyman” Reggie Love.
If Barack Obama was a Republican, the Left would have somehow gotten ahold of his lifetime membership at Chicago gay bathhouse Man’s Country and would have plastered those records across Politico to destroy his political career.
If Barack Obama was a Republican, the press would have quickly interpreted the dearth of girlfriends in his past as evidence of a surfeit of boyfriends and no one at the New York Times would have slept a wink until every Tom, Dick, or Larry in Barack Obama’s little black book was awarded his own reality show to gush about their down-low adventures.
As I said, everything above (as well as everything in DuJan’s whole post) is unsourced and uncorroborated speculation. Nevertheless, it finally adds the necessary air of verisimilitude to what has always been, for me, an unconvincing narrative.
Reading DuJan’s post, I had that light bulb moment where you think, “Well, that finally answers all my questions. That explains the missing past. He’s not a Manchurian candidate hatched by George Soros in a secret lab. He’s a gay guy whose past has been neatly buried because it’s not politically expedient for it to be known.”
DuJan’s statements reminded me of Sherlock Holmes’s advice to Watson? “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”
What say you?
(Hat tip: The Radio Patriot)
UPDATE II: I have been informed that Kevin is being satirical: there have long been rumors out there about Obama’s sexuality, so Kevin is restating existing rumors, rather than making rumors up out of whole cloth, but his full-frontal attack has less to do with Obama’s sexuality than with Kevin’s frustration about the media’s stunning lack of interest in Obama’s past. I prefer my satire more light-handed, so that it’s actually recognizable as satire. As for me, I continue to believe that the best way to put to rest stories about Obama’s past is for the Obama and friends to stop hiding that same past.
UPDATE: Earl, in the first comment to this post, asks such a good question I think it deserves a full answer here, in the body of the post. You can decide whether what I write actually constitutes a good answer or if it is merely a full answer, as in full of something unsavory. Here’s what Earl wrote:
I do wonder how come you can entertain this narrative even for a single moment…..yet, doubt that Herman Cain may very well be the victim of a Chicago setup because he’s getting a bit too “uppity” for a conservative black man. Is the latter even marginally less believable than the former?
The reason I find these accusations worthy of note, although I’m fully aware that they lack support, is because, as matters now stand, they are at least as believable as the charges against Cain (and, as I’ll explain below, perhaps even more believable). I’ve already pointed out that, given the way in which the Ninth Circuit, in 1991, opened the floodgates to greenmail harassment claims, I don’t find the existence of the lawsuits themselves persuasive. There were just to many claims back then, and too many (some of which I worked on or researched) that were motivated by greed or revenge, rather than actual injury.
Having said that, if there is concrete, contemporaneous evidence that Cain is a serial harasser, I’m not going to perjure my soul by defending him. I did that once with Clinton, and still feel soiled. Currently, to the extent the charges are vague, or the accusers are so flaky it’s hard for me to take them seriously, I’m still inclined to view this as the usual liberal attack against a conservative black man. After all, we know that liberals, especially liberal journalists, will lie in defense of a greater political goal.
The looks at known and unknown facts, both about the accusations and about the media that advances those accusations. For me, though, the real issue is one of narrative: Clinton came to D.C. with a sordid reputation already well intact. The subsequent accusations were entirely consistent with the existing narrative. Both Cain and, to remind us of another black man whom the media pilloried, Clarence Thomas, did not come onto the national political scene with sullied reputations. The claims are inconsistent with their life narratives. It doesn’t mean the claims are untrue. But usually, if such claims are true, and there is a sordid past, the dominoes fall very quickly once the story finally gets out.
So that’s why I’m holding my fire re Cain. It’s not that I’m a rabid Cain supporter, because I’m not. I like him, but I have strong doubts about his ability to be president. If he’s soiled goods, I’d just as soon see him out of the game quickly and finally. That doesn’t mean, though, that I’m going to leap upon shady accusations from the MSM.
The other side of this is Obama. While Cain and Thomas had narratives inconsistent with sexual harassment, and Clinton had a narrative entirely consistent with sexual harassment, what’s been fascinating about Obama is the complete absence of a narrative. I’ve been fulminating about that black hole for years. It’s not credible that someone could have been born and raised in America (as I believe he was) and have absolutely no past beyond the snippets he grudgingly offers. The media’s lack of interest in this golden boy’s past was also incredible and offensive. To hark back to Sherlock Holmes, the media’s coverage or, more precisely, the media’s refusal to provide coverage, was the case of the dog that didn’t bark in the night. When those who are supposed to be watchdogs are completely silent, that too is suspicious.
I wouldn’t mind if Obama was gay. I don’t have any problems with the fact that people, in their private lives, loving their own sex. I would never presume to direct the heart. If a gay candidate was a rock solid gay conservative, strong on national security; dedicated to individual liberty (which, really, all gays should be); a believer in free markets; proud of his country; and supportive of traditional middle-class values, I would vote for him in a New York minute. My issue with Obama isn’t is sexuality, whatever it is, but the fact that he stands for so many things that offend me as a citizen: He’s weak on national security; dedicated to subordinating individuals to the power of the state; hostile to free markets; embarrassed by his country; and consistently undermines traditional middle-class values.
To sum it up, what really bugs me is the double standard. The media refused to bark or even sniff around Obama, despite the fact that the accusations against him are worthy of inquiry, while the same media used its bully pulpit and resources to provide wall-to-wall coverage savaging Clarence Thomas and now doing the same to Herman Cain. The double-standard is especially offensive given the fact that the Cain and Thomas accusations are inconsistent with the men’s known histories, while the Obama accusations mesh quite nicely, thank you, with Obama’s entirely unknown history.
MSM Doesn’t Report That ‘Occupy Rose Parade’ Organizer Is Former Corporate Lawyer Busted For Theft
Posted by Susan Swift
Nov 11th 2011 at 10:30 am
We can put a face behind the Occupy movement — and it appears to be a wanna-be one percenter. Peter Thottam is the creator of Occupy Los Angeles and is also the progressive force behind Occupy the Rose Parade.
Thottam’s been planning this occupation disruption of the Rose Parade for the last six months — at least that’s how long he’s had the “Occupy the Rose Parade” Twitter feed going.
Ironically, Peter Thottam is a Goldman Sachs alum, an ivy-leaguer, and former corporate lawyer from an international mega law firm, and recent MBA grad. Yale, Boalt Hall Berkeley law and UCLA MBA. Does this sound like a community organizer or a one percenter? While Peter Thottam’s CV reeks of Wall Street elitism, his bio depicts someone grabbing for the corporate brass ring, but strangely unwilling or unable to keep a job at such elite corporate employers as Goldman Sachs or O’Melveny and Myers.
To hear the LA Times summarize Thottam’s political apoplexy, you’d think the guy was a true blue Tea Party Activist, blaming Obama for the last three years of economic misery and destruction:
“The America that’s existed during the bulk of Rose Parades has really been torn apart over the last three years by the unemployment problem, wealth polarization and the middle class shrinking,” Thottam told the Pasadena Sun. (emphasis added)
But what the LA Times and others in the Make-Believe Media apparently missed, or overlooked, are the public records: From the California Bar Journal Discipline Summaries we learn that back in 2004, while a lawyer, Peter Thottam pled guilty to the crime of petty theft. Then, in violation of ethics rules, he failed to report his criminal conviction to the state bar. Once discovered, Thottam suffered the disgrace of having his law license suspended by the California State Bar in 2008.
Thottam is a self-described “progressive attorney, and community activist and organizer” and a failed Democrat political candidate in 2010 for state assembly in California’s 53rd district. Now returned as a lawyer “seeking employment” whose “salary is negotiable,“ my guess is Thottam hopes to capitalize on the Occupy fad to deftly segue himself into politics.
Hey, it worked for Obama.
Nov 11th 2011 at 10:30 am
We can put a face behind the Occupy movement — and it appears to be a wanna-be one percenter. Peter Thottam is the creator of Occupy Los Angeles and is also the progressive force behind Occupy the Rose Parade.
Thottam’s been planning this occupation disruption of the Rose Parade for the last six months — at least that’s how long he’s had the “Occupy the Rose Parade” Twitter feed going.
Ironically, Peter Thottam is a Goldman Sachs alum, an ivy-leaguer, and former corporate lawyer from an international mega law firm, and recent MBA grad. Yale, Boalt Hall Berkeley law and UCLA MBA. Does this sound like a community organizer or a one percenter? While Peter Thottam’s CV reeks of Wall Street elitism, his bio depicts someone grabbing for the corporate brass ring, but strangely unwilling or unable to keep a job at such elite corporate employers as Goldman Sachs or O’Melveny and Myers.
To hear the LA Times summarize Thottam’s political apoplexy, you’d think the guy was a true blue Tea Party Activist, blaming Obama for the last three years of economic misery and destruction:
“The America that’s existed during the bulk of Rose Parades has really been torn apart over the last three years by the unemployment problem, wealth polarization and the middle class shrinking,” Thottam told the Pasadena Sun. (emphasis added)
But what the LA Times and others in the Make-Believe Media apparently missed, or overlooked, are the public records: From the California Bar Journal Discipline Summaries we learn that back in 2004, while a lawyer, Peter Thottam pled guilty to the crime of petty theft. Then, in violation of ethics rules, he failed to report his criminal conviction to the state bar. Once discovered, Thottam suffered the disgrace of having his law license suspended by the California State Bar in 2008.
Thottam is a self-described “progressive attorney, and community activist and organizer” and a failed Democrat political candidate in 2010 for state assembly in California’s 53rd district. Now returned as a lawyer “seeking employment” whose “salary is negotiable,“ my guess is Thottam hopes to capitalize on the Occupy fad to deftly segue himself into politics.
Hey, it worked for Obama.
Newsbusted Exclusive: DHS Trained Bellboys Groping Hotel Guests
Friday, November 11, 2011
The Department of Homeland Security is expanding, they have begun to run commercials on hotel TV networks across America. But according to to Newsbusters anchor Jodi Miller the security agency is now training hotel bell boys to spot problems. Also part of the program is they are training the hotel staff to grope you just like the TSA folks.
Other stories covered in today's edition of Newsbusted the twice weekly program from Newsbusters.org, include global warming's detrimental effect on the Flintstones, a report that one out of four airport travelers are sneaking banned liquids onto flights (but you should see what the other 75% are doing). Jersey Shore's "The Situation's" name change and much much more.
Please don't let yourself miss this special episode of Newsbusted. Last week someone forgot to push play and and the Occupy Denver Dog came and took a poop on his bed.
So make sure to watch the video, oh, and if you cant see the below click here.
The Department of Homeland Security is expanding, they have begun to run commercials on hotel TV networks across America. But according to to Newsbusters anchor Jodi Miller the security agency is now training hotel bell boys to spot problems. Also part of the program is they are training the hotel staff to grope you just like the TSA folks.
Other stories covered in today's edition of Newsbusted the twice weekly program from Newsbusters.org, include global warming's detrimental effect on the Flintstones, a report that one out of four airport travelers are sneaking banned liquids onto flights (but you should see what the other 75% are doing). Jersey Shore's "The Situation's" name change and much much more.
Please don't let yourself miss this special episode of Newsbusted. Last week someone forgot to push play and and the Occupy Denver Dog came and took a poop on his bed.
So make sure to watch the video, oh, and if you cant see the below click here.
Democrats Cry for Dictatorship
Just as Hayek Predicted
By Net Right Daily (Scribe) on October 2nd, 2011
Most Americans think that tyranny comes with the stomping of boots, secret police and a bloody takeover by brutish thugs. It is the vision of the Cold War, of the Nazi and of countless tin-horn dictators over the last fifty years. And while it is sadly true that this type of sudden move to an authoritarian regime does happen, there is a more subtle and ultimately more dangerous form.
Freedom and sovereignty can be lost by the dull, gray specter of unresponsive, unrepresentative bureaucrats cranking out their regulations with little regard to the individuals their machinery crushes. It is this type of tyranny that is growing today in America. And, without the slightest bit of shame, a top Obama aid has called for more — more control put in the hands on unelected so-called “experts” and less in the hands of the people we elect.
In a startling piece in New Republic on Sept. 14, Peter Orszag calls for “more automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions.” To make sure nobody misses the point, Orszag, Obama’s former Director of Office of Management and Budget, concludes “we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.”
Who needs elections? All we have to do is establish our soviets — my mistake, commissions — and turn everything over to them. No nasty, time-consuming representation by the masses. They don’t know what’s good for them anyway.
Seemingly on cue, on Sept. 27, North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue even called for suspending congressional elections for two years. Later, she claimed it was a “joke.” Very funny.
Orszag and Perdue’s repugnant suggestions are based on the obvious fact that the American people are angry and frustrated with a Congress that is divided. But why is Congress working the way it is? Why has the core institution of our Republic failed to meet the clear and obvious desire of the public for reduced government spending, strong moves toward a stable and strong dollar, and an aggressive America First foreign policy?
You can get a hundred answers to that question. But the root cause is simple and has been well-understood for a long time. The greater the role the government plays in the economy and the everyday lives of the citizens the greater the stakes in any given outcome. And, as the Federal Government has moved to be all things to all people, building its dependency class with every new entitlement and program, more and more facets of life are decided in Washington. Accordingly it is only natural that such decisions are then fought out on the floor of Congress which increases the chances of gridlock since no one policy on any subject under the sun will find a just application in a nation of 300 plus million people.
The source of gridlock is not that Republicans just won’t surrender like they did for decades or that Democrats refuse to reform or change even the worst government program. The problem is that the decision is being made in Washington to begin with. There will be no gridlock if the stakes are not so high and decision making power is defused and applications tailored to the community affected.
Roger Koppl, reacting to the Orszag piece, points out in “Another Step Down the Road to Serfdom” posted on ThinkMarkets that this process was seen a long time ago. We were warned.
Koppl writes, “In The Road to Serfdom, F.A. Hayek pointed out that no solution could satisfy all members of a democratic public. The greater the scope of centralized planning in economic affairs, the more gridlock there will be.” Could anything better describe today’s state of affairs in Washington?
In a chilling citation, Koppl quotes Hayek, “The conviction grows that the direction (of the economy) must be ‘taken out of politics’ and placed in the hands of experts — permanent officials or independent autonomous bodies.” And as the crisis persists, as it inevitably will, Hayek predicts, “The cry for an economic dictator is a characteristic stage in the movement toward planning.”
We have entered dangerous terrain. With a close friend of a President who has already usurped broad powers and assumed wide-ranging authority over the economy calling for exactly the type of central planning dictatorship foreseen by Hayek, we are in dangerous territory. Throw in a sitting governor calling for the suspension of elections, and America is on the edge.
Can we pull back in time, return to a truly small government with strictly limited powers or will we go over the cliff into the abyss of dictatorship? Every citizen has a stake in this battle. Orszag’s call for “less democratic” policy making is the throwing down of the gauntlet by the radical, socialist Left. The battle for the future of America is joined.
Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
By Net Right Daily (Scribe) on October 2nd, 2011
Most Americans think that tyranny comes with the stomping of boots, secret police and a bloody takeover by brutish thugs. It is the vision of the Cold War, of the Nazi and of countless tin-horn dictators over the last fifty years. And while it is sadly true that this type of sudden move to an authoritarian regime does happen, there is a more subtle and ultimately more dangerous form.
Freedom and sovereignty can be lost by the dull, gray specter of unresponsive, unrepresentative bureaucrats cranking out their regulations with little regard to the individuals their machinery crushes. It is this type of tyranny that is growing today in America. And, without the slightest bit of shame, a top Obama aid has called for more — more control put in the hands on unelected so-called “experts” and less in the hands of the people we elect.
In a startling piece in New Republic on Sept. 14, Peter Orszag calls for “more automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions.” To make sure nobody misses the point, Orszag, Obama’s former Director of Office of Management and Budget, concludes “we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.”
Who needs elections? All we have to do is establish our soviets — my mistake, commissions — and turn everything over to them. No nasty, time-consuming representation by the masses. They don’t know what’s good for them anyway.
Seemingly on cue, on Sept. 27, North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue even called for suspending congressional elections for two years. Later, she claimed it was a “joke.” Very funny.
Orszag and Perdue’s repugnant suggestions are based on the obvious fact that the American people are angry and frustrated with a Congress that is divided. But why is Congress working the way it is? Why has the core institution of our Republic failed to meet the clear and obvious desire of the public for reduced government spending, strong moves toward a stable and strong dollar, and an aggressive America First foreign policy?
You can get a hundred answers to that question. But the root cause is simple and has been well-understood for a long time. The greater the role the government plays in the economy and the everyday lives of the citizens the greater the stakes in any given outcome. And, as the Federal Government has moved to be all things to all people, building its dependency class with every new entitlement and program, more and more facets of life are decided in Washington. Accordingly it is only natural that such decisions are then fought out on the floor of Congress which increases the chances of gridlock since no one policy on any subject under the sun will find a just application in a nation of 300 plus million people.
The source of gridlock is not that Republicans just won’t surrender like they did for decades or that Democrats refuse to reform or change even the worst government program. The problem is that the decision is being made in Washington to begin with. There will be no gridlock if the stakes are not so high and decision making power is defused and applications tailored to the community affected.
Roger Koppl, reacting to the Orszag piece, points out in “Another Step Down the Road to Serfdom” posted on ThinkMarkets that this process was seen a long time ago. We were warned.
Koppl writes, “In The Road to Serfdom, F.A. Hayek pointed out that no solution could satisfy all members of a democratic public. The greater the scope of centralized planning in economic affairs, the more gridlock there will be.” Could anything better describe today’s state of affairs in Washington?
In a chilling citation, Koppl quotes Hayek, “The conviction grows that the direction (of the economy) must be ‘taken out of politics’ and placed in the hands of experts — permanent officials or independent autonomous bodies.” And as the crisis persists, as it inevitably will, Hayek predicts, “The cry for an economic dictator is a characteristic stage in the movement toward planning.”
We have entered dangerous terrain. With a close friend of a President who has already usurped broad powers and assumed wide-ranging authority over the economy calling for exactly the type of central planning dictatorship foreseen by Hayek, we are in dangerous territory. Throw in a sitting governor calling for the suspension of elections, and America is on the edge.
Can we pull back in time, return to a truly small government with strictly limited powers or will we go over the cliff into the abyss of dictatorship? Every citizen has a stake in this battle. Orszag’s call for “less democratic” policy making is the throwing down of the gauntlet by the radical, socialist Left. The battle for the future of America is joined.
Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
DAVID AXELROD'S PATTERN OF SEXUAL MISBEHAVIOR
November 9, 2011
Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country -- Indiana, Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, D.C. -- but never in Chicago.
So it's curious that all the sexual harassment allegations against Cain emanate from Chicago: home of the Daley machine and Obama consigliere David Axelrod.
Suspicions had already fallen on Sheila O'Grady, who is close with David Axelrod and went straight from being former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley's chief of staff to president of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA), as being the person who dug up Herman Cain's personnel records from the National Restaurant Association (NRA).
The Daley-controlled IRA works hand-in-glove with the NRA. And strangely enough, Cain's short, three-year tenure at the NRA is evidently the only period in his decades-long career during which he's alleged to have been a sexual predator.
After O'Grady's name surfaced in connection with the miraculous appearance of Cain's personnel files from the NRA, she issued a Clintonesque denial of any involvement in producing them -- by vigorously denying that she knew Cain when he was at the NRA. (Duh.)
And now, after a week of conservative eye-rolling over unspecified, anonymous accusations against Cain, we've suddenly got very specific sexual assault allegations from an all-new accuser out of ... Chicago.
Herman Cain has never lived in Chicago. But you know who has? David Axelrod! And guess who lived in Axelrod's very building? Right again: Cain's latest accuser, Sharon Bialek.
Bialek's accusations were certainly specific. But they also demonstrated why anonymous accusations are worthless.
Within 24 hours of Bialek's press conference, friends and acquaintances of hers stepped forward to say that she's a "gold-digger," that she was constantly in financial trouble -- having filed for personal bankruptcy twice -- and, of course, that she had lived in Axelrod's apartment building at 505 North Lake Shore Drive, where, she admits, she knew the man The New York Times calls Obama's "hired muscle."
Throw in some federal tax evasion, and she's Obama's next Cabinet pick.
The reason all this is relevant is that both Axelrod and Daley have a history of smearing political opponents by digging up claims of sexual misconduct against them.
John Brooks, Chicago's former fire commissioner, filed a lawsuit against Daley six months ago claiming Daley threatened to smear him with sexual harassment accusations if Brooks didn't resign. He resigned -- and the sexual harassment allegations were later found to be completely false.
Meanwhile, as extensively detailed in my book "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," the only reason Obama became a U.S. senator -- allowing him to run for president -- is that David Axelrod pulled sealed divorce records out of a hat, first, against Obama's Democratic primary opponent, and then against Obama's Republican opponent.
One month before the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Obama was way down in the polls, about to lose to Blair Hull, a multimillionaire securities trader.
But then The Chicago Tribune -- where Axelrod used to work -- began publishing claims that Hull's second ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, had sought an order of protection against him during their 1998 divorce proceedings.
From then until Election Day, Hull was embroiled in fighting the allegation that he was a "wife beater." He and his ex-wife eventually agreed to release their sealed divorce records. His first ex-wife, daughters and nanny defended him at a press conference, swearing he was never violent. During a Democratic debate, Hull was forced to explain that his wife kicked him and he had merely kicked her back.
Hull's substantial lead just a month before the primary collapsed with the nonstop media attention to his divorce records. Obama sailed to the front of the pack and won the primary. Hull finished third with 10 percent of the vote.
Luckily for Axelrod, Obama's opponent in the general election had also been divorced.
The Republican nominee was Jack Ryan, a graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard law and business schools, who had left his lucrative partnership at Goldman Sachs to teach at an inner-city school on the South Side of Chicago.
But in a child custody dispute some years earlier, Ryan's ex-wife, Hollywood sex kitten Jeri Lynn Ryan, had alleged that, while the couple was married, Jack had taken her to swingers clubs in Paris and New York.
Jack Ryan adamantly denied the allegations. In the interest of protecting their son, he also requested that the records be put permanently under seal.
Axelrod's courthouse moles obtained the "sealed" records and, in no time, they were in the hands of every political operative in Chicago. Knowing perfectly well what was in the records, Chicago Tribune attorneys flew to California and requested that the court officially "unseal" them -- over the objections of both Jack and Jeri Ryan.
Your honor, who knows what could be in these records!
A California judge ordered them unsealed, which allowed newspapers to publish the salacious allegations, and four days later, Ryan dropped out of the race under pressure from idiot Republicans (who should be tracked down and shot).
With a last-minute replacement of Alan Keyes as Obama's Republican opponent, Obama was able to set an all-time record in an Illinois Senate election, winning with a 43 percent margin.
And that's how Obama became a senator four years after losing a congressional race to Bobby Rush. (In a disastrous turn of events, Rush was not divorced.)
Axelrod destroyed the only two men who stood between Obama and the Senate with illicitly obtained, lurid allegations from their pasts.
In 2007, long after Obama was safely ensconced in the U.S. Senate, The New York Times reported: "The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece (on Hull's sealed divorce records) later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had 'worked aggressively behind the scenes' to push the story."
Some had suggested, the Times article continued, that Axelrod had "an even more significant role -- that he leaked the initial story."
This time, Obama's little helpers have not only thrown a bomb into the Republican primary, but are hoping to destroy the man who deprives the Democrats of their only argument in 2012: If you oppose Obama, you must be a racist.
COPYRIGHT 2011 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106; 816-581-7500
Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country -- Indiana, Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, D.C. -- but never in Chicago.
So it's curious that all the sexual harassment allegations against Cain emanate from Chicago: home of the Daley machine and Obama consigliere David Axelrod.
Suspicions had already fallen on Sheila O'Grady, who is close with David Axelrod and went straight from being former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley's chief of staff to president of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA), as being the person who dug up Herman Cain's personnel records from the National Restaurant Association (NRA).
The Daley-controlled IRA works hand-in-glove with the NRA. And strangely enough, Cain's short, three-year tenure at the NRA is evidently the only period in his decades-long career during which he's alleged to have been a sexual predator.
After O'Grady's name surfaced in connection with the miraculous appearance of Cain's personnel files from the NRA, she issued a Clintonesque denial of any involvement in producing them -- by vigorously denying that she knew Cain when he was at the NRA. (Duh.)
And now, after a week of conservative eye-rolling over unspecified, anonymous accusations against Cain, we've suddenly got very specific sexual assault allegations from an all-new accuser out of ... Chicago.
Herman Cain has never lived in Chicago. But you know who has? David Axelrod! And guess who lived in Axelrod's very building? Right again: Cain's latest accuser, Sharon Bialek.
Bialek's accusations were certainly specific. But they also demonstrated why anonymous accusations are worthless.
Within 24 hours of Bialek's press conference, friends and acquaintances of hers stepped forward to say that she's a "gold-digger," that she was constantly in financial trouble -- having filed for personal bankruptcy twice -- and, of course, that she had lived in Axelrod's apartment building at 505 North Lake Shore Drive, where, she admits, she knew the man The New York Times calls Obama's "hired muscle."
Throw in some federal tax evasion, and she's Obama's next Cabinet pick.
The reason all this is relevant is that both Axelrod and Daley have a history of smearing political opponents by digging up claims of sexual misconduct against them.
John Brooks, Chicago's former fire commissioner, filed a lawsuit against Daley six months ago claiming Daley threatened to smear him with sexual harassment accusations if Brooks didn't resign. He resigned -- and the sexual harassment allegations were later found to be completely false.
Meanwhile, as extensively detailed in my book "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," the only reason Obama became a U.S. senator -- allowing him to run for president -- is that David Axelrod pulled sealed divorce records out of a hat, first, against Obama's Democratic primary opponent, and then against Obama's Republican opponent.
One month before the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Obama was way down in the polls, about to lose to Blair Hull, a multimillionaire securities trader.
But then The Chicago Tribune -- where Axelrod used to work -- began publishing claims that Hull's second ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, had sought an order of protection against him during their 1998 divorce proceedings.
From then until Election Day, Hull was embroiled in fighting the allegation that he was a "wife beater." He and his ex-wife eventually agreed to release their sealed divorce records. His first ex-wife, daughters and nanny defended him at a press conference, swearing he was never violent. During a Democratic debate, Hull was forced to explain that his wife kicked him and he had merely kicked her back.
Hull's substantial lead just a month before the primary collapsed with the nonstop media attention to his divorce records. Obama sailed to the front of the pack and won the primary. Hull finished third with 10 percent of the vote.
Luckily for Axelrod, Obama's opponent in the general election had also been divorced.
The Republican nominee was Jack Ryan, a graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard law and business schools, who had left his lucrative partnership at Goldman Sachs to teach at an inner-city school on the South Side of Chicago.
But in a child custody dispute some years earlier, Ryan's ex-wife, Hollywood sex kitten Jeri Lynn Ryan, had alleged that, while the couple was married, Jack had taken her to swingers clubs in Paris and New York.
Jack Ryan adamantly denied the allegations. In the interest of protecting their son, he also requested that the records be put permanently under seal.
Axelrod's courthouse moles obtained the "sealed" records and, in no time, they were in the hands of every political operative in Chicago. Knowing perfectly well what was in the records, Chicago Tribune attorneys flew to California and requested that the court officially "unseal" them -- over the objections of both Jack and Jeri Ryan.
Your honor, who knows what could be in these records!
A California judge ordered them unsealed, which allowed newspapers to publish the salacious allegations, and four days later, Ryan dropped out of the race under pressure from idiot Republicans (who should be tracked down and shot).
With a last-minute replacement of Alan Keyes as Obama's Republican opponent, Obama was able to set an all-time record in an Illinois Senate election, winning with a 43 percent margin.
And that's how Obama became a senator four years after losing a congressional race to Bobby Rush. (In a disastrous turn of events, Rush was not divorced.)
Axelrod destroyed the only two men who stood between Obama and the Senate with illicitly obtained, lurid allegations from their pasts.
In 2007, long after Obama was safely ensconced in the U.S. Senate, The New York Times reported: "The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece (on Hull's sealed divorce records) later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had 'worked aggressively behind the scenes' to push the story."
Some had suggested, the Times article continued, that Axelrod had "an even more significant role -- that he leaked the initial story."
This time, Obama's little helpers have not only thrown a bomb into the Republican primary, but are hoping to destroy the man who deprives the Democrats of their only argument in 2012: If you oppose Obama, you must be a racist.
COPYRIGHT 2011 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106; 816-581-7500
Report: Mother Of Obama's Murdered Gay Lover Speaks Up – With Video
November 11th, 2011
Posted By Pat Dollard
Political Velcraft:
All 3 Homosexual Members Of Obama’s Trinity Church Murdered Within 6 Weeks.
In late May, Wash. DC-based investigative journalist Wayne Madsen had a bombshell revelation about Obama’s membership in a Chicago gay club, Man’s Country. Madsen also reported on Obama’s sexual relationships with other men, including named D.C. politicians and Donald Young, the openly-gay choir-director of the church in Chicago of which Obama was a member for some 20 years — Jeremy Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ black liberation theology.
Obama’s relationship with Young was confirmed by Larry Sinclair, who claims to have had two sex-cocaine trysts with Obama.
There were two other openly gay men in Wright’s church: Larry Bland and Nate Spencer. In late 2007, as Obama began his ascent to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, in a span of 1½ months, all three men “conveniently” died:
Bland was murdered execution-style on November 17, 2007;
Young was murdered execution-style on December 24, 2007;
Spencer reportedly died of septicemia, pneumonia, and HIV on December 26, 2007. (Death certificates of Bland and Young, HERE.)
Now, Young’s elderly mother is speaking out about her suspicions that her son was murdered to protect Obama’s reputation and assure his political future as President.
MORE DETAILS BELOW, FROM HERE: fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/mom-of-murdered-obama-gay-lover-speaks-up
In late May, Wash. DC-based investigative journalist Wayne Madsen had a bombshell revelation about Obama’s membership in a Chicago gay club, Man’s Country. Madsen also reported on Obama’s sexual relationships with other men, including named D.C. politicians and Donald Young, the openly-gay choir-director of the church in Chicago of which Obama was a member for some 20 years — Jeremy Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ black liberation theology. Obama’s relationship with Young was confirmed by Larry Sinclair, who claims to have had two sex-cocaine trysts with Obama.
Larry Bland
There were two other openly gay men in Wright’s church: Larry Bland and Nate Spencer. In late 2007, as Obama began his ascent to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, in a span of 1½ months, all three men “conveniently” died:
Bland was murdered execution-style on November 17, 2007;
Young was murdered execution-style on December 24, 2007;
Spencer reportedly died of septicemia, pneumonia, and HIV on December 26, 2007. (Death certificates of Bland and Young, HERE.)
Nate Spencer (r)
Now, Young’s elderly mother is speaking out about her suspicions that her son was murdered to protect Obama’s reputation and assure his political future as President.
~Eowyn
White House ramps up damage control over Obama Chicago gay history
An exclusive Wayne Madsen Report – July 19, 2010
The story about President Barack Obama’s bi-sexual past will not go away. Now, in an exclusive interview with The Globe, Norma Jean Young, the 76-year old mother of the late Trinity United Church of Christ choir director Donald Young, has spoken out and declared that persons trying to protect Obama murdered her son at the height of the 2007 Democratic presidential primary to protect Obama from embarrassing revelations about his homosexual relationship with her son. Donald Young’s bullet-ridden body was found in his Chicago apartment on December 23, 2007, in what appeared to be an assassination-style slaying.
Norma Jean Young revealed to The Globe that her son Donald, who was openly gay, was a “close friend” of Obama. Mrs. Young also believes the Chicago Police Department has not placed a high priority on finding the killers of her son. Mrs. Young, who is, herself a former employee of the Chicago Police Department, told The Globe that, “There is more to the story,” adding, “I do believe they are shielding somebody or protecting someone.”
The Globe’s revelations are consistent with information obtained by WMR during a May investigation conducted in Chicago. On May 24, WMR reported:“President Obama and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel are lifetime members of the same gay bath house in uptown Chicago, according to informed sources in Chicago’s gay community, as well as veteran political sources in the city.” The report added, “WMR spoke to several well-placed sources in Chicago who reported that Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of Obama’s former church of 20 years, Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC) on Chicago’s south side, ran what was essentially a matchmaking service for gay married black professional members of the church, including lawyers and businessmen, particularly those with children. The matchmaking club was called the ‘Down Low Club’ but references to it over the phone and email simply referred to the group with the code phrase ‘DLC.’ The ruse, according to our sources, was to make anyone who was eavesdropping on the communications [FBI wiretaps in the Rod Blagojevich case likely contain such references] believe that the references were to the Democratic Leadership Council, also known as the DLC . . . Among the members of the gay ‘DLC’ were Obama and TUCC’s choir director, Donald Young, an openly gay man who reportedly had a sexual relationship with Obama. Two other gay members of the church were Larry Bland and Nate Spencer. Young and Bland were brutally murdered, execution style, in late 2007. Bland was murdered on November 17, 2007 and Young on December 24, 2007. The latter was killed by multiple gunshot wounds. Spencer reportedly died on December 26, 2007, official cause of death: ‘septicemia, pneumonia, and HIV.’”
Larry Sinclair, the gay man who claimed to have had two sexual encounters with Obama in Chicago in 1999, wrote a book, “Cocaine, Sex, Lies & Murder,” in which he states that Obama was linked to Young’s murder. Sinclair wrote that he was in contact with Young shortly before his murder and Young revealed his relationship with Obama. At the time of his revelations about Obama at a National Press Club news conference, WMR doubted the veracity of Sinclair’s story due to the absence of corroborating evidence coupled with a bizarre news conference. However, since that time, WMR has received corroboration from a number of sources in a number of locations, including Chicago, Alabama, Georgia, and Washington, DC. WMR has received information that various competing camps, including the Hillary Clinton and John McCain campaigns, attempted to co-opt Sinclair and his revelations for their own political purposes. Sinclair, it should be noted, has not deviated from his original story or charges against Obama.
On June 19, 2008, WMR reported: “WhiteHouse.com held a news conference following Sinclair’s at which a video of Sinclair’s polygraph was to be shown. After experiencing technical difficulties with the video presentation, Parisi abruptly canceled the news conference and took no questions.” The aborted news conference was as bizarre as Sinclair’s. Sinclair was arrested by Washington, DC police following his news conference based on a warrant from Delaware issued by Vice President candidate Joseph Biden’s son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden. The Delaware charges against Sinclair were later dropped.
Sinclair’s book is now the subject of a defamation lawsuit [Daniel Parisi, et al v. Lawrence W. Sinclair a/k/a "Larry Sinclair," et al] brought by Dan Parisi, the proprietor of the website, Whitehouse.com, who is mentioned in Sinclair’s book with regard to his involvement in polygraphs administered to Sinclair after he made his allegations against Obama public during the 2008 presidential campaign. The lawsuit is being handled by the politically powerful Patton & Boggs law firm, the same firm that represented George W. Bush’s top political adviser Karl Rove in the Valerie Plame Wilson/CIA leak, and has been filed against Sinclair, his publishing company, and distributors, including Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Sinclair is currently a resident of Florida.
The lawsuit against Sinclair has been assigned to Judge Richard Leon, the Republican deputy chief minority counsel on the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, aka, the Iran-contra scandal. From 1988 to 1989, he served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General and from 1992 to 1993 was the Republican chief minority counsel on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s October Surprise Task Force investigating the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign’s secret dealings with Iran to ensure the defeat of President Jimmy Carter. Leon Leon was nominated for the federal bench by President George W. Bush on September 10, 2001. Leon’s involvement in so many high-level cover-ups of White House misconduct makes him an illogical choice to hear a case involving serious allegations against President Obama.
Note: Blagojevich’s defense in his federal corruption trial is slated to begin today in Chicago. Judge James Zagel has denied the defense’s request for all the government’s wiretaps to be played. The tapes, as previously reported by WMR, contain some earthy references to Obama’s and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s homosexual habits.
Sinclair has told WMR that he believes the Obama White House is trying to have his book withdrawn from circulation to avoid any further embarrassments about Obama’s homosexual past and the possible involvement of his top lieutenants in Young’s murder. The Globe reported in May 2008 that a top Chicago private detective said he believed Young was “rubbed out” because of his relationship with Obama. Sinclair has echoed the private eye’s beliefs about Young and Obama. The Globe reports that before his death, Young was planning to flee to Africa to teach. The information was provided to The Globe by Young’s mother, who also now fears for her life and plans to leave her Peoria, Illinois home for a secret location. Mrs. Young said the Chicago police have warned her that her life is in danger.
Posted By Pat Dollard
Political Velcraft:
All 3 Homosexual Members Of Obama’s Trinity Church Murdered Within 6 Weeks.
In late May, Wash. DC-based investigative journalist Wayne Madsen had a bombshell revelation about Obama’s membership in a Chicago gay club, Man’s Country. Madsen also reported on Obama’s sexual relationships with other men, including named D.C. politicians and Donald Young, the openly-gay choir-director of the church in Chicago of which Obama was a member for some 20 years — Jeremy Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ black liberation theology.
Obama’s relationship with Young was confirmed by Larry Sinclair, who claims to have had two sex-cocaine trysts with Obama.
There were two other openly gay men in Wright’s church: Larry Bland and Nate Spencer. In late 2007, as Obama began his ascent to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, in a span of 1½ months, all three men “conveniently” died:
Bland was murdered execution-style on November 17, 2007;
Young was murdered execution-style on December 24, 2007;
Spencer reportedly died of septicemia, pneumonia, and HIV on December 26, 2007. (Death certificates of Bland and Young, HERE.)
Now, Young’s elderly mother is speaking out about her suspicions that her son was murdered to protect Obama’s reputation and assure his political future as President.
MORE DETAILS BELOW, FROM HERE: fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/mom-of-murdered-obama-gay-lover-speaks-up
In late May, Wash. DC-based investigative journalist Wayne Madsen had a bombshell revelation about Obama’s membership in a Chicago gay club, Man’s Country. Madsen also reported on Obama’s sexual relationships with other men, including named D.C. politicians and Donald Young, the openly-gay choir-director of the church in Chicago of which Obama was a member for some 20 years — Jeremy Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ black liberation theology. Obama’s relationship with Young was confirmed by Larry Sinclair, who claims to have had two sex-cocaine trysts with Obama.
Larry Bland
There were two other openly gay men in Wright’s church: Larry Bland and Nate Spencer. In late 2007, as Obama began his ascent to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, in a span of 1½ months, all three men “conveniently” died:
Bland was murdered execution-style on November 17, 2007;
Young was murdered execution-style on December 24, 2007;
Spencer reportedly died of septicemia, pneumonia, and HIV on December 26, 2007. (Death certificates of Bland and Young, HERE.)
Nate Spencer (r)
Now, Young’s elderly mother is speaking out about her suspicions that her son was murdered to protect Obama’s reputation and assure his political future as President.
~Eowyn
White House ramps up damage control over Obama Chicago gay history
An exclusive Wayne Madsen Report – July 19, 2010
The story about President Barack Obama’s bi-sexual past will not go away. Now, in an exclusive interview with The Globe, Norma Jean Young, the 76-year old mother of the late Trinity United Church of Christ choir director Donald Young, has spoken out and declared that persons trying to protect Obama murdered her son at the height of the 2007 Democratic presidential primary to protect Obama from embarrassing revelations about his homosexual relationship with her son. Donald Young’s bullet-ridden body was found in his Chicago apartment on December 23, 2007, in what appeared to be an assassination-style slaying.
Norma Jean Young revealed to The Globe that her son Donald, who was openly gay, was a “close friend” of Obama. Mrs. Young also believes the Chicago Police Department has not placed a high priority on finding the killers of her son. Mrs. Young, who is, herself a former employee of the Chicago Police Department, told The Globe that, “There is more to the story,” adding, “I do believe they are shielding somebody or protecting someone.”
The Globe’s revelations are consistent with information obtained by WMR during a May investigation conducted in Chicago. On May 24, WMR reported:“President Obama and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel are lifetime members of the same gay bath house in uptown Chicago, according to informed sources in Chicago’s gay community, as well as veteran political sources in the city.” The report added, “WMR spoke to several well-placed sources in Chicago who reported that Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of Obama’s former church of 20 years, Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC) on Chicago’s south side, ran what was essentially a matchmaking service for gay married black professional members of the church, including lawyers and businessmen, particularly those with children. The matchmaking club was called the ‘Down Low Club’ but references to it over the phone and email simply referred to the group with the code phrase ‘DLC.’ The ruse, according to our sources, was to make anyone who was eavesdropping on the communications [FBI wiretaps in the Rod Blagojevich case likely contain such references] believe that the references were to the Democratic Leadership Council, also known as the DLC . . . Among the members of the gay ‘DLC’ were Obama and TUCC’s choir director, Donald Young, an openly gay man who reportedly had a sexual relationship with Obama. Two other gay members of the church were Larry Bland and Nate Spencer. Young and Bland were brutally murdered, execution style, in late 2007. Bland was murdered on November 17, 2007 and Young on December 24, 2007. The latter was killed by multiple gunshot wounds. Spencer reportedly died on December 26, 2007, official cause of death: ‘septicemia, pneumonia, and HIV.’”
Larry Sinclair, the gay man who claimed to have had two sexual encounters with Obama in Chicago in 1999, wrote a book, “Cocaine, Sex, Lies & Murder,” in which he states that Obama was linked to Young’s murder. Sinclair wrote that he was in contact with Young shortly before his murder and Young revealed his relationship with Obama. At the time of his revelations about Obama at a National Press Club news conference, WMR doubted the veracity of Sinclair’s story due to the absence of corroborating evidence coupled with a bizarre news conference. However, since that time, WMR has received corroboration from a number of sources in a number of locations, including Chicago, Alabama, Georgia, and Washington, DC. WMR has received information that various competing camps, including the Hillary Clinton and John McCain campaigns, attempted to co-opt Sinclair and his revelations for their own political purposes. Sinclair, it should be noted, has not deviated from his original story or charges against Obama.
On June 19, 2008, WMR reported: “WhiteHouse.com held a news conference following Sinclair’s at which a video of Sinclair’s polygraph was to be shown. After experiencing technical difficulties with the video presentation, Parisi abruptly canceled the news conference and took no questions.” The aborted news conference was as bizarre as Sinclair’s. Sinclair was arrested by Washington, DC police following his news conference based on a warrant from Delaware issued by Vice President candidate Joseph Biden’s son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden. The Delaware charges against Sinclair were later dropped.
Sinclair’s book is now the subject of a defamation lawsuit [Daniel Parisi, et al v. Lawrence W. Sinclair a/k/a "Larry Sinclair," et al] brought by Dan Parisi, the proprietor of the website, Whitehouse.com, who is mentioned in Sinclair’s book with regard to his involvement in polygraphs administered to Sinclair after he made his allegations against Obama public during the 2008 presidential campaign. The lawsuit is being handled by the politically powerful Patton & Boggs law firm, the same firm that represented George W. Bush’s top political adviser Karl Rove in the Valerie Plame Wilson/CIA leak, and has been filed against Sinclair, his publishing company, and distributors, including Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Sinclair is currently a resident of Florida.
The lawsuit against Sinclair has been assigned to Judge Richard Leon, the Republican deputy chief minority counsel on the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, aka, the Iran-contra scandal. From 1988 to 1989, he served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General and from 1992 to 1993 was the Republican chief minority counsel on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s October Surprise Task Force investigating the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign’s secret dealings with Iran to ensure the defeat of President Jimmy Carter. Leon Leon was nominated for the federal bench by President George W. Bush on September 10, 2001. Leon’s involvement in so many high-level cover-ups of White House misconduct makes him an illogical choice to hear a case involving serious allegations against President Obama.
Note: Blagojevich’s defense in his federal corruption trial is slated to begin today in Chicago. Judge James Zagel has denied the defense’s request for all the government’s wiretaps to be played. The tapes, as previously reported by WMR, contain some earthy references to Obama’s and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s homosexual habits.
Sinclair has told WMR that he believes the Obama White House is trying to have his book withdrawn from circulation to avoid any further embarrassments about Obama’s homosexual past and the possible involvement of his top lieutenants in Young’s murder. The Globe reported in May 2008 that a top Chicago private detective said he believed Young was “rubbed out” because of his relationship with Obama. Sinclair has echoed the private eye’s beliefs about Young and Obama. The Globe reports that before his death, Young was planning to flee to Africa to teach. The information was provided to The Globe by Young’s mother, who also now fears for her life and plans to leave her Peoria, Illinois home for a secret location. Mrs. Young said the Chicago police have warned her that her life is in danger.
Slandering the Red States, Part III: She Was Promised There Would Be No Math
Posted on November 11, 2011 by John Hinderaker
I am investigating a three-part series by NPR on South Dakota’s Department of Social Services; specifically, the work that DSS’s Child Protection Services division does with Native American children. In a nutshell, NPR reporter Laura Sullivan charged that South Dakota’s agencies “kidnap” Indian children off reservations so that they can make a profit by placing them in white foster homes. In Part I, I introduced the series and wrote about the hostility that liberal media manifest toward red states like South Dakota. In Part II, I rebutted Ms. Sullivan’s absurd claim that Child Protection Services “kidnaps” Indian children.
This post will address NPR’s claim that the State of South Dakota makes a profit by stealing Native American children from their homes. First, let’s be clear about what NPR said. The claim that South Dakota profits by putting Indian children into foster care was made repeatedly:
The state receives thousands of dollars from the federal government for every child it takes from a family, and in some cases the state gets even more money if the child is Native American. The result is that South Dakota is now removing children at a rate higher than the vast majority of other states in the country.
State officials say they’re doing everything they can to keep native families together. Poverty, crime and alcoholism are all real problems on South Dakota’s reservations and in the state’s poorest areas. But, state records show there’s another powerful force at work — money. The federal government sends the state thousands of dollars for every child it takes. …
A close review of South Dakota’s budget shows there’s a financial incentive for the department as a whole to remove more children.
Every time a state puts a child in foster care, the federal government sends money. Because South Dakota is poor, it receives even more money than other states – almost a hundred million dollars a year. …
“They make a living off of our children,” said Juanita Sherick, the tribal social worker for the Pine Ridge reservation.
But the state has a financial incentive to remove children from their homes only if the amount of money the state gets from the federal government exceeds the total cost of foster care, etc., to the state. Otherwise, every time the state removes a child from its home it costs the state money. That cost is reduced, obviously, by the federal contribution, but it is still a cost, not a profit. So, what are the actual facts?
First, Sullivan’s claim that the federal government pays South Dakota “almost a hundred million dollars a year” for foster care is ridiculous. Kim Malsam-Rysdon, who heads the Department of Social Services, says that the entire budget for all programs and services in the Division of Child Protection Services totals only $59 million. Of that, only a small portion–$8 million in FY 2011–goes to foster care. So the idea that the federal government subsidizes South Dakota’s foster care programs to the tune of $100 million a year is ludicrous; Ms. Sullivan just made that number up.
It is true that the federal government provides funding for foster care to the states under Title IV-E. In FY 2011, the federal government contributed $6.4 million in Title IV-E funding to South Dakota, but that contribution must be matched by state funds. (In the world of government transfer payments, “match” does not mean 50-50, it simply means that some state money must be contributed.) Here, South Dakota paid the remaining $1.6 million for foster care–which means that the more children there are in foster care, the more it costs the state. The idea that South Dakota somehow profits from having children in foster care is simply false.
Ms. Sullivan compounds her fantasy by by talking about “bonus money,” which some states receive when they move children out of foster care and into adoption. This “bonus money” is portrayed as yet another way in which South Dakota profits from kidnapping Indian children. But there is no punch line to this story: Ms. Sullivan concludes that “In 10 years, this adoption bonus program has brought South Dakota almost a million dollars.” In other words, less than $100,000 a year–it was just over $60,000 in 2010–which does not alter the fact that removing children from their homes is a net cost to the state, not a profit center.
Ms. Sullivan’s inability to deal with basic arithmetic is a consistent theme of her three-part series. One of her tricks is to quote friendly sources for purported statistics when, in fact, the claims made by those sources are demonstrably false. Which means that Ms. Sullivan either was too lazy to check the claims made by the sources who said what she wanted to hear, or else knew they were not telling the truth but quoted them uncritically anyway. Here are two examples:
Bill Napoli was on the state Senate Appropriations Committee until he retired three years ago. He says he remembers when the state first saw the large amounts of money the federal government was sending the Department of Social Services in the late 1990s.
“When that money came down the pike, it was huge,” Napoli says. “That’s when we saw a real influx of kids being taken out of families.”
Of course, records are kept. If Ms. Sullivan had wanted to report the truth, rather than serve her sensational liberal agenda, she could have looked them up. Here is what she would have found:
Average Monthly Number of Children In Foster Care
FY 94 — 487
FY 95 — 456
FY 96 — 427
FY 97 — 469
FY 98 — 520
FY 99 — 540
So the increase from 1994 to 1999 was a whopping 11%, hardly a “huge…influx.”
Then we have Ms. Sullivan’s cozy relationship with Peter Lengkeek, her favorite source. It is Lengkeek, Tribal Treasurer of the Crow Creek reservation, who accuses Child Protection Services of “kidnapping,” with Sullivan’s evident approval. Lengkeek is Sullivan’s primary source for the claim that Indian children are nearly always placed in white foster homes:
The Crow Creek tribe has lost more than 33 children in recent years. The reservation only has 1,400 people. Last year Lengkeek asked social service officials to tell him where the children were and who they were placed with.
Seven months later, he received a list. Lengkeek says every single child was placed in a white foster home.
So, did Sullivan ask to see the list? Apparently not. In fact, on February 23, 2011–the day after the request was made, not seven months later–Virgena Wieseler, Director of the Division of Child Protective Services, sent Mr. Lengbeek an email with the data he asked for. This was her response to his inquiry. Note that 29 of 33 children were under the supervision of the Crow Creek Tribal Court:
Children from Crow Creek Tribe in Tribal Court out of the Chamberlain Office — 29
* Trial Reunification = 1
* Relative Placement = 8
* Foster Care with Relative = 3
* Foster Care off the Reservation = 8 (2 are in Native American homes)
* Boarding School = 3
* Group Care Center = 1
* Residential Treatment Center = 5
Children from Crow Creek Tribe in State Court out of the Chamberlain Office = 4
* Relative Placement = 1
* Foster Care off the Reservation = 3
So it appears that Mr. Lengbeek was simply lying, and Laura Sullivan either was too lazy to check out his claim, or knew he was lying and deliberately deceived NPR’s listeners.
All things considered, NPR’s series on South Dakota’s child welfare system is one of the worst examples of biased–and not just biased, but outright false–journalism we have come across in a long time.
I am investigating a three-part series by NPR on South Dakota’s Department of Social Services; specifically, the work that DSS’s Child Protection Services division does with Native American children. In a nutshell, NPR reporter Laura Sullivan charged that South Dakota’s agencies “kidnap” Indian children off reservations so that they can make a profit by placing them in white foster homes. In Part I, I introduced the series and wrote about the hostility that liberal media manifest toward red states like South Dakota. In Part II, I rebutted Ms. Sullivan’s absurd claim that Child Protection Services “kidnaps” Indian children.
This post will address NPR’s claim that the State of South Dakota makes a profit by stealing Native American children from their homes. First, let’s be clear about what NPR said. The claim that South Dakota profits by putting Indian children into foster care was made repeatedly:
The state receives thousands of dollars from the federal government for every child it takes from a family, and in some cases the state gets even more money if the child is Native American. The result is that South Dakota is now removing children at a rate higher than the vast majority of other states in the country.
State officials say they’re doing everything they can to keep native families together. Poverty, crime and alcoholism are all real problems on South Dakota’s reservations and in the state’s poorest areas. But, state records show there’s another powerful force at work — money. The federal government sends the state thousands of dollars for every child it takes. …
A close review of South Dakota’s budget shows there’s a financial incentive for the department as a whole to remove more children.
Every time a state puts a child in foster care, the federal government sends money. Because South Dakota is poor, it receives even more money than other states – almost a hundred million dollars a year. …
“They make a living off of our children,” said Juanita Sherick, the tribal social worker for the Pine Ridge reservation.
But the state has a financial incentive to remove children from their homes only if the amount of money the state gets from the federal government exceeds the total cost of foster care, etc., to the state. Otherwise, every time the state removes a child from its home it costs the state money. That cost is reduced, obviously, by the federal contribution, but it is still a cost, not a profit. So, what are the actual facts?
First, Sullivan’s claim that the federal government pays South Dakota “almost a hundred million dollars a year” for foster care is ridiculous. Kim Malsam-Rysdon, who heads the Department of Social Services, says that the entire budget for all programs and services in the Division of Child Protection Services totals only $59 million. Of that, only a small portion–$8 million in FY 2011–goes to foster care. So the idea that the federal government subsidizes South Dakota’s foster care programs to the tune of $100 million a year is ludicrous; Ms. Sullivan just made that number up.
It is true that the federal government provides funding for foster care to the states under Title IV-E. In FY 2011, the federal government contributed $6.4 million in Title IV-E funding to South Dakota, but that contribution must be matched by state funds. (In the world of government transfer payments, “match” does not mean 50-50, it simply means that some state money must be contributed.) Here, South Dakota paid the remaining $1.6 million for foster care–which means that the more children there are in foster care, the more it costs the state. The idea that South Dakota somehow profits from having children in foster care is simply false.
Ms. Sullivan compounds her fantasy by by talking about “bonus money,” which some states receive when they move children out of foster care and into adoption. This “bonus money” is portrayed as yet another way in which South Dakota profits from kidnapping Indian children. But there is no punch line to this story: Ms. Sullivan concludes that “In 10 years, this adoption bonus program has brought South Dakota almost a million dollars.” In other words, less than $100,000 a year–it was just over $60,000 in 2010–which does not alter the fact that removing children from their homes is a net cost to the state, not a profit center.
Ms. Sullivan’s inability to deal with basic arithmetic is a consistent theme of her three-part series. One of her tricks is to quote friendly sources for purported statistics when, in fact, the claims made by those sources are demonstrably false. Which means that Ms. Sullivan either was too lazy to check the claims made by the sources who said what she wanted to hear, or else knew they were not telling the truth but quoted them uncritically anyway. Here are two examples:
Bill Napoli was on the state Senate Appropriations Committee until he retired three years ago. He says he remembers when the state first saw the large amounts of money the federal government was sending the Department of Social Services in the late 1990s.
“When that money came down the pike, it was huge,” Napoli says. “That’s when we saw a real influx of kids being taken out of families.”
Of course, records are kept. If Ms. Sullivan had wanted to report the truth, rather than serve her sensational liberal agenda, she could have looked them up. Here is what she would have found:
Average Monthly Number of Children In Foster Care
FY 94 — 487
FY 95 — 456
FY 96 — 427
FY 97 — 469
FY 98 — 520
FY 99 — 540
So the increase from 1994 to 1999 was a whopping 11%, hardly a “huge…influx.”
Then we have Ms. Sullivan’s cozy relationship with Peter Lengkeek, her favorite source. It is Lengkeek, Tribal Treasurer of the Crow Creek reservation, who accuses Child Protection Services of “kidnapping,” with Sullivan’s evident approval. Lengkeek is Sullivan’s primary source for the claim that Indian children are nearly always placed in white foster homes:
The Crow Creek tribe has lost more than 33 children in recent years. The reservation only has 1,400 people. Last year Lengkeek asked social service officials to tell him where the children were and who they were placed with.
Seven months later, he received a list. Lengkeek says every single child was placed in a white foster home.
So, did Sullivan ask to see the list? Apparently not. In fact, on February 23, 2011–the day after the request was made, not seven months later–Virgena Wieseler, Director of the Division of Child Protective Services, sent Mr. Lengbeek an email with the data he asked for. This was her response to his inquiry. Note that 29 of 33 children were under the supervision of the Crow Creek Tribal Court:
Children from Crow Creek Tribe in Tribal Court out of the Chamberlain Office — 29
* Trial Reunification = 1
* Relative Placement = 8
* Foster Care with Relative = 3
* Foster Care off the Reservation = 8 (2 are in Native American homes)
* Boarding School = 3
* Group Care Center = 1
* Residential Treatment Center = 5
Children from Crow Creek Tribe in State Court out of the Chamberlain Office = 4
* Relative Placement = 1
* Foster Care off the Reservation = 3
So it appears that Mr. Lengbeek was simply lying, and Laura Sullivan either was too lazy to check out his claim, or knew he was lying and deliberately deceived NPR’s listeners.
All things considered, NPR’s series on South Dakota’s child welfare system is one of the worst examples of biased–and not just biased, but outright false–journalism we have come across in a long time.
Denver Occupiers fail in effort to occupy BlogCon11
Posted by Dan Spencer
Friday, November 11th at 6:24PM EST
Nearly 200 Conservative bloggers were in the middle of a training session on data visualization when Occupy Denver launched their “surprise” effort to occupy the conference. The protest was a major fail in no small part because the Occupiers announced the “surprise” occupation attempt on Twitter.
When the Occupiers showed up they were met at the conference room door by dozens of cameras wielded by experienced bloggers.
The attempted failed occupation attempted after a brief and very one sided debate. The Occupiers were outnumbered, outclassed and totally incapable of articulating what was the point of their so-called protest. After about five minutes of chaos the Occupiers retreated from the conference facility with only one of their sorry group being arrested.
You can watch raw video of the chaos below:
Friday, November 11th at 6:24PM EST
Nearly 200 Conservative bloggers were in the middle of a training session on data visualization when Occupy Denver launched their “surprise” effort to occupy the conference. The protest was a major fail in no small part because the Occupiers announced the “surprise” occupation attempt on Twitter.
When the Occupiers showed up they were met at the conference room door by dozens of cameras wielded by experienced bloggers.
The attempted failed occupation attempted after a brief and very one sided debate. The Occupiers were outnumbered, outclassed and totally incapable of articulating what was the point of their so-called protest. After about five minutes of chaos the Occupiers retreated from the conference facility with only one of their sorry group being arrested.
You can watch raw video of the chaos below:
Sorry AP… Murdered Oakland Man Was Indeed an Protester (Video)
Sorry AP… Murdered Oakland Man Was Indeed an #OccupyOakland Protester (Video)
Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, November 11, 2011, 5:37 PM
Earlier today the Associated Press covered the fatal shootings at two different Obama-endorsed Occupy camps last night. The AP reported that the Oakland shooting was not linked to #OccupyOakland.
Police are investigating a fatal shooting just outside the Occupy From the AP: Oakland encampment that protesters say was unrelated to the movement. Meanwhile police say a 35-year-old veteran fatally shot himself at an Occupy Wall Street encampment in Burlington, Vermont.
Sorry AP.
The murdered man was indeed an Occupy Oakland protester.
PJ Media reported:
The victim was indeed an Occupier:
Slaying victim slept at Occupy Oakland camp
The man who was shot to death near the Occupy Oakland camp Thursday had spent a few nights there, his cousin said, as city officials and the police union renewed their calls for the camp to pull up stakes.
Madea Williams, who said she was the shooting victim’s cousin, said he had shared a tent with her at the camp.
Police have not released the man’s name, but said he appeared to be in his 20s. Williams said his first name was Alex.
Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, November 11, 2011, 5:37 PM
Earlier today the Associated Press covered the fatal shootings at two different Obama-endorsed Occupy camps last night. The AP reported that the Oakland shooting was not linked to #OccupyOakland.
Police are investigating a fatal shooting just outside the Occupy From the AP: Oakland encampment that protesters say was unrelated to the movement. Meanwhile police say a 35-year-old veteran fatally shot himself at an Occupy Wall Street encampment in Burlington, Vermont.
Sorry AP.
The murdered man was indeed an Occupy Oakland protester.
PJ Media reported:
The victim was indeed an Occupier:
Slaying victim slept at Occupy Oakland camp
The man who was shot to death near the Occupy Oakland camp Thursday had spent a few nights there, his cousin said, as city officials and the police union renewed their calls for the camp to pull up stakes.
Madea Williams, who said she was the shooting victim’s cousin, said he had shared a tent with her at the camp.
Police have not released the man’s name, but said he appeared to be in his 20s. Williams said his first name was Alex.
Michelle to Serve as NASCAR Grand Marshal
Pandering to the, bitter folks clinging to their guns and religion.
Via WHD:
The White House is dispatching Michelle Obama to serve as Grand Marshal of the Nov. 20 season-ending NASCAR Ford 400, a move that seems clearly designed to woo NASCAR voters while also burnishing the first lady’s credentials as a regular gal.
Mrs. Obama, who has incurred some bad publicity for taking luxurious jaunts to South Africa and Spain while often being photographed in expensive clothing and accoutrements, has lately been spotted shopping at Target and hanging out at the baseball park, attending the first game of the World Series.
The NASCAR appearance is billed as part of the first lady’s “Joining Forces” initiative for military families, and Mrs. Obama’s Joining Forces co-chair, “Second Lady” Dr. Jill Biden, will also serve as Grand Marshal.
The Ford 400 is held at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida. Florida is perhaps the most critical presidential battleground state in the country.
But Mrs. Obama’s presence at one of the biggest NASCAR events of the year will surely be noticed throughout the region where the sport if popular, which includes many other critical swing states like Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Missouri and Missouri.
Keep reading…
Via WHD:
The White House is dispatching Michelle Obama to serve as Grand Marshal of the Nov. 20 season-ending NASCAR Ford 400, a move that seems clearly designed to woo NASCAR voters while also burnishing the first lady’s credentials as a regular gal.
Mrs. Obama, who has incurred some bad publicity for taking luxurious jaunts to South Africa and Spain while often being photographed in expensive clothing and accoutrements, has lately been spotted shopping at Target and hanging out at the baseball park, attending the first game of the World Series.
The NASCAR appearance is billed as part of the first lady’s “Joining Forces” initiative for military families, and Mrs. Obama’s Joining Forces co-chair, “Second Lady” Dr. Jill Biden, will also serve as Grand Marshal.
The Ford 400 is held at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida. Florida is perhaps the most critical presidential battleground state in the country.
But Mrs. Obama’s presence at one of the biggest NASCAR events of the year will surely be noticed throughout the region where the sport if popular, which includes many other critical swing states like Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Missouri and Missouri.
Keep reading…
Obama Caves to Insatiable Wing of Party, Delays Keystone Pipeline
Obama would rather appease base than create hundreds of thousands of jobs
Over the past six months, the Keystone XL Pipeline’s prospects have oscillated between probable and unlikely. The current rumors surrounding this project suggest that Obama is going to bow to the insatiable wing of his Party, the Greens, and delay the Keystone pipeline until after the 2012 election.
This is a huge mistake.
TransCanada has said they will scrap the desperately needed construction project if it is delayed another year—the pipeline has already been pending for three years. With unemployment lingering around nine percent, the country can ill afford to scuttle this economic stimulus.
Drawing an arbitrary line in the sand, environmentalists threatened to Al Gore (support a third party candidate or sit out the election) Obama if he doesn’t kill this project. Bucking the facts and the American public, preliminary reports suggest that Obama has caved to pressure from the far Left.
The three false claims environmentalists are making about the Keystone Pipeline are easily refuted.
Claim 1: Building the pipeline will increase global emissions and harm the environment. The State Department has said that constructing the Keystone pipeline will result in “no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed Project corridor.” Furthermore, it is now possible that TransCanada will simply build a different pipeline to the Canadian coast and ship the crude Alberta oil to be refined in China. Whether or not Obama allows this pipeline to be built, the Canadian oil will be extracted, transported, and used.
Claim 2: The pipeline endangers the public. America is literally covered in pipelines. The easiest way to transport the enormous amount of oil needed to power our economy is through an infrastructure of pipelines. Trucks and boats, while utilized, cannot carry nearly as much oil or gasoline and are also susceptible to accidents. Until America has moved to a fully electric fleet (don’t hold your breath), pipelines are here to stay.
Claim 3: Keystone codifies the U.S. “addiction to oil.” Killing the Keystone Pipeline will do nothing to supplant the amount of oil Americans consume. EIA has predicted that U.S. daily consumption will increase to 21.9 million barrels of liquid fuels (nearly all of which are oil based) by 2035, a rise from about 19 million barrels per day in 2009. With the Keystone Pipeline now gone, the U.S. will have to import more foreign oil.
Here are all the economic gains Obama is needlessly jeopardizing.
Once again, this President has put his re-election ahead of the country.
Disqus
Over the past six months, the Keystone XL Pipeline’s prospects have oscillated between probable and unlikely. The current rumors surrounding this project suggest that Obama is going to bow to the insatiable wing of his Party, the Greens, and delay the Keystone pipeline until after the 2012 election.
This is a huge mistake.
TransCanada has said they will scrap the desperately needed construction project if it is delayed another year—the pipeline has already been pending for three years. With unemployment lingering around nine percent, the country can ill afford to scuttle this economic stimulus.
Drawing an arbitrary line in the sand, environmentalists threatened to Al Gore (support a third party candidate or sit out the election) Obama if he doesn’t kill this project. Bucking the facts and the American public, preliminary reports suggest that Obama has caved to pressure from the far Left.
The three false claims environmentalists are making about the Keystone Pipeline are easily refuted.
Claim 1: Building the pipeline will increase global emissions and harm the environment. The State Department has said that constructing the Keystone pipeline will result in “no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed Project corridor.” Furthermore, it is now possible that TransCanada will simply build a different pipeline to the Canadian coast and ship the crude Alberta oil to be refined in China. Whether or not Obama allows this pipeline to be built, the Canadian oil will be extracted, transported, and used.
Claim 2: The pipeline endangers the public. America is literally covered in pipelines. The easiest way to transport the enormous amount of oil needed to power our economy is through an infrastructure of pipelines. Trucks and boats, while utilized, cannot carry nearly as much oil or gasoline and are also susceptible to accidents. Until America has moved to a fully electric fleet (don’t hold your breath), pipelines are here to stay.
Claim 3: Keystone codifies the U.S. “addiction to oil.” Killing the Keystone Pipeline will do nothing to supplant the amount of oil Americans consume. EIA has predicted that U.S. daily consumption will increase to 21.9 million barrels of liquid fuels (nearly all of which are oil based) by 2035, a rise from about 19 million barrels per day in 2009. With the Keystone Pipeline now gone, the U.S. will have to import more foreign oil.
Here are all the economic gains Obama is needlessly jeopardizing.
Once again, this President has put his re-election ahead of the country.
Disqus
Wacky Thom Hartmann: Networks Were Forbidden Since Reagan to Talk of Poverty, Inequality
By Tim Graham
November 11, 2011
Listening to liberal talk radio is sometimes like just listening to the world being turned upside down. Liberal hosts make claims that are demonstrably ridiculous, and expect listeners to lap it up.
Case in point: Thom Hartmann praised the Occupy Wall Street protesters for changing the media conversation. He claimed that ever since Reagan was elected, the media has forbidden any discussion of the maldistribution of wealth, as if the words "Decade of Greed" weren't a media favorite, as if the "three million homeless" weren't routinely on the lips of liberal media personalities:
All of a sudden, for the first time, frankly, in my recollection, since the Jimmy Carter presidency...there was a discussion on the television networks and the corporate media about inequality in the United States, about homelessness...about poverty increasing...about the ratio of wealth inequality... These are things that were verboten [in the media]...Now, because of the Occupy movement, they have become topics of discussion, and because [of that], politicians are starting to talk about them.
Rebuttal? Try network anchors with questions like this:
"Let me ask you to be an analyst for us. You've been working on behalf of children now for years and years. What happened in our country where we can watch children going hungry, pregnant women not getting the proper care. And we don't seem to care as a society. How did we get here?" -- CBS reporter Lesley Stahl interviewing Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund, September 30, 1990 Face the Nation.
Over on the Ed Schultz radio show, Big Ed was claiming (for the umpteenth time) that the Tea Party was a spent force in politics, that the latest elections meant you could stick a fork in the Tea Party and their garbage and lies:
SCHULTZ: Don't let anyone lie to you. America is not a center-right country. The Tea Party is not the driving force in American politics -- that was proven last night -- and the middle class is not the problem for our budgets in America. Last night, common-sense liberal ideas won out over right-wing lies and the garbage that has been shoved down America's throat....The Tea Party took a whippin' last night. Big time.
Schultz added "You can't trust these Republican governors...They may be talkin' the good game after the loss, but they're gonna get right back to work and they're gonna go right back after the middle class again."
And over on the Rachel Maddow show on TV, not only is an unborn baby not a human until feminists decide it's a wanted human, but abortions save lives. The loss of the Mississippi personhood initiative was a victory for "saving lives." Can you believe they keep that up? Talk about "lies and garbage."
MADDOW: Do you have an opinion about why Mitt Romney cannot make up his mind about personhood?
TERRY O`NEILL, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN: You know, I don`t understand it. And I`m really disturbed by his suggestion that this should be thrown out to the states and allow the states to make a decision. The last time I checked, a woman`s life is a life worth saving. And you are just as much worth saving if you live in the state of Mississippi if you live in the state of New York or New Jersey. So, I don`t know where he`s coming from with let`s let the state decide when a woman can actually take steps to protect her own health and when she can`t.
November 11, 2011
Listening to liberal talk radio is sometimes like just listening to the world being turned upside down. Liberal hosts make claims that are demonstrably ridiculous, and expect listeners to lap it up.
Case in point: Thom Hartmann praised the Occupy Wall Street protesters for changing the media conversation. He claimed that ever since Reagan was elected, the media has forbidden any discussion of the maldistribution of wealth, as if the words "Decade of Greed" weren't a media favorite, as if the "three million homeless" weren't routinely on the lips of liberal media personalities:
All of a sudden, for the first time, frankly, in my recollection, since the Jimmy Carter presidency...there was a discussion on the television networks and the corporate media about inequality in the United States, about homelessness...about poverty increasing...about the ratio of wealth inequality... These are things that were verboten [in the media]...Now, because of the Occupy movement, they have become topics of discussion, and because [of that], politicians are starting to talk about them.
Rebuttal? Try network anchors with questions like this:
"Let me ask you to be an analyst for us. You've been working on behalf of children now for years and years. What happened in our country where we can watch children going hungry, pregnant women not getting the proper care. And we don't seem to care as a society. How did we get here?" -- CBS reporter Lesley Stahl interviewing Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund, September 30, 1990 Face the Nation.
Over on the Ed Schultz radio show, Big Ed was claiming (for the umpteenth time) that the Tea Party was a spent force in politics, that the latest elections meant you could stick a fork in the Tea Party and their garbage and lies:
SCHULTZ: Don't let anyone lie to you. America is not a center-right country. The Tea Party is not the driving force in American politics -- that was proven last night -- and the middle class is not the problem for our budgets in America. Last night, common-sense liberal ideas won out over right-wing lies and the garbage that has been shoved down America's throat....The Tea Party took a whippin' last night. Big time.
Schultz added "You can't trust these Republican governors...They may be talkin' the good game after the loss, but they're gonna get right back to work and they're gonna go right back after the middle class again."
And over on the Rachel Maddow show on TV, not only is an unborn baby not a human until feminists decide it's a wanted human, but abortions save lives. The loss of the Mississippi personhood initiative was a victory for "saving lives." Can you believe they keep that up? Talk about "lies and garbage."
MADDOW: Do you have an opinion about why Mitt Romney cannot make up his mind about personhood?
TERRY O`NEILL, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN: You know, I don`t understand it. And I`m really disturbed by his suggestion that this should be thrown out to the states and allow the states to make a decision. The last time I checked, a woman`s life is a life worth saving. And you are just as much worth saving if you live in the state of Mississippi if you live in the state of New York or New Jersey. So, I don`t know where he`s coming from with let`s let the state decide when a woman can actually take steps to protect her own health and when she can`t.
“Your corrupt biased mainstream media” Cartoon of the Day
November 11, 2011
A gift for Occupiers everywhere and their apologists in the media
h/t William A. Jacobson
A gift for Occupiers everywhere and their apologists in the media
h/t William A. Jacobson
A surprising first amendment case
"Not Safe" to Display an American Flag in an American High School
Eugene Volokh • November 10, 2011 9:46 am
Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School District (N.D. Cal.), decided the day before yesterday, upholds a California high school’s decision to forbid students from wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. (See here and here for more on this case.)
The decision might well be correct under Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist. (1969), which allows a “heckler’s veto” in K-12 school: Schools may indeed restrict student speech when it’s likely to cause substantial disruption, even when the disruption stems from other students’ hostility to the speech. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think the speech restriction violates a California statute that gives students extra protection, but that claim wasn’t raised in this federal lawsuit.
Yet while the judge might have been right in his decision, the situation in the school seems very bad. When we’re at the point that students can’t safely display the American flag in an American school, because of a fear that other students will attack them for it — on May 5 or on any other day — and the school feels unable to prevent such attacks (by punishing the threateners and the attackers, and by teaching students tolerance for other students’ speech), something is badly wrong. Here’s an excerpt from the court opinion describing the facts that led the court to uphold the restriction:
On Cinco de Mayo in 2009, a verbal exchange and altercation arose between a group of predominantly white and a group of Mexican students. This altercation involved an exchange of profanities and threats were made. A makeshift American flag was put on one of the trees on campus. A group of Caucasian students began clapping and chanting “USA” as this flag went up. This was in response to a group of Mexican students walking around with the Mexican flag. One Mexican student shouted “fuck them white boys, fuck them white boys.” Vice–Principal Rodriguez directed the minor to stop using such profanity. The minor responded by saying “But Rodriguez, they are racist. They are being racist. Fuck them white boys. Let’s fuck them up.” Vice–Principal Rodriguez removed the minor from the area....
When Plaintiff M.D. wore an American flag shirt to school on Cinco de Mayo 2009, he was approached by a male student who shoved a Mexican flag at him and said something in Spanish expressing anger at Plaintiffs’ clothing....
On the morning of Cinco de Mayo 2010, a female student approached Plaintiff M.D., motioned to his shirt, and said “why are you wearing that, do you not like Mexicans?” Plaintiffs D.G. and D.M. were also confronted about their clothing by female students before [brunch] break....
Defendant Rodriguez was leaving his office before brunch break on May 5, 2010, a Caucasian student approached him and said, “You may want to go out to the quad area. There might be some — there might be some issues.”
During brunch break on May 5, 2010, another student called Vice–Principal Rodriguez over to a group of Mexican students and said that she was concerned about a group of students wearing the American flag and said that “there might be problems.” Vice–Principal Rodriguez took her statement to mean that there might be some sort of physical altercation. A group of Mexican students also asked Defendant Rodriguez “why do they get to wear their flag when we don’t get to wear our flag?” ...
While meeting with Plaintiffs about their attire, Defendant Rodriguez explained that he was concerned for their safety. Plaintiffs did not dispute that their attire put them at risk of violence. Plaintiff D.M. stated that he was “willing to take on that responsibility” in order to continue wearing his shirt....
Following Plaintiffs’ departure from school they received numerous threats from other students. Plaintiff D.G. received a threat of violence via text message on May 6th. He received another threatening call from a male saying he was outside of D.G.‘s home that same night. Plaintiffs D.M. and M.D. also were threatened with violence. A student at Live Oak overheard a group of male students saying that some gang members would come down from San Jose to “take care of” Plaintiffs. Based on these threats, Plaintiffs did not go to school on May 7....
Plaintiffs contend that they are entitled to summary judgment because the undisputed evidence shows that they were treated differently than students wearing the colors of the Mexican flag, and that this distinction was based on the unpopularity of their viewpoint. Defendants respond that Plaintiffs have offered no evidence demonstrating that students wearing the colors of the Mexican flag were likely to be targeted for violence, and that officials treated all students for whose safety they feared in the same manner.
When the government infringes upon protected speech in a discriminatory manner, such conduct may constitute a violation of the Equal Protection Clause as well as the First Amendment. See Police Dept. of the City of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 96 (1972). “[U]nder the Equal Protection Clause, not to mention the First Amendment itself, government may not grant the use of a forum to people whose views it finds acceptable, but deny it those wishing to express less favored or more controversial views.”
Here, for the reasons discussed above, Defendants have provided a non-discriminatory basis for asking Plaintiffs to remove their American flag attire. Defendants have put forth significant evidence demonstrating that Plaintiffs were asked to change clothes in order to protect their own safety. Plaintiffs have not offered any evidence demonstrating that students wearing the colors of the Mexican flag were targeted for violence. To the contrary, the undisputed evidence shows that Plaintiffs were the only students on campus whose safety was threatened that day, at least to the knowledge of Defendants. In addition, Defendant Rodriguez has testified that he did not see any students wearing the Mexican flag on their clothing during the day. He also testified that he did not see any students with Mexican flags displayed on their person until he saw photos in the newspaper in the days following Cinco de Mayo.
Eugene Volokh • November 10, 2011 9:46 am
Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School District (N.D. Cal.), decided the day before yesterday, upholds a California high school’s decision to forbid students from wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. (See here and here for more on this case.)
The decision might well be correct under Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist. (1969), which allows a “heckler’s veto” in K-12 school: Schools may indeed restrict student speech when it’s likely to cause substantial disruption, even when the disruption stems from other students’ hostility to the speech. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think the speech restriction violates a California statute that gives students extra protection, but that claim wasn’t raised in this federal lawsuit.
Yet while the judge might have been right in his decision, the situation in the school seems very bad. When we’re at the point that students can’t safely display the American flag in an American school, because of a fear that other students will attack them for it — on May 5 or on any other day — and the school feels unable to prevent such attacks (by punishing the threateners and the attackers, and by teaching students tolerance for other students’ speech), something is badly wrong. Here’s an excerpt from the court opinion describing the facts that led the court to uphold the restriction:
On Cinco de Mayo in 2009, a verbal exchange and altercation arose between a group of predominantly white and a group of Mexican students. This altercation involved an exchange of profanities and threats were made. A makeshift American flag was put on one of the trees on campus. A group of Caucasian students began clapping and chanting “USA” as this flag went up. This was in response to a group of Mexican students walking around with the Mexican flag. One Mexican student shouted “fuck them white boys, fuck them white boys.” Vice–Principal Rodriguez directed the minor to stop using such profanity. The minor responded by saying “But Rodriguez, they are racist. They are being racist. Fuck them white boys. Let’s fuck them up.” Vice–Principal Rodriguez removed the minor from the area....
When Plaintiff M.D. wore an American flag shirt to school on Cinco de Mayo 2009, he was approached by a male student who shoved a Mexican flag at him and said something in Spanish expressing anger at Plaintiffs’ clothing....
On the morning of Cinco de Mayo 2010, a female student approached Plaintiff M.D., motioned to his shirt, and said “why are you wearing that, do you not like Mexicans?” Plaintiffs D.G. and D.M. were also confronted about their clothing by female students before [brunch] break....
Defendant Rodriguez was leaving his office before brunch break on May 5, 2010, a Caucasian student approached him and said, “You may want to go out to the quad area. There might be some — there might be some issues.”
During brunch break on May 5, 2010, another student called Vice–Principal Rodriguez over to a group of Mexican students and said that she was concerned about a group of students wearing the American flag and said that “there might be problems.” Vice–Principal Rodriguez took her statement to mean that there might be some sort of physical altercation. A group of Mexican students also asked Defendant Rodriguez “why do they get to wear their flag when we don’t get to wear our flag?” ...
While meeting with Plaintiffs about their attire, Defendant Rodriguez explained that he was concerned for their safety. Plaintiffs did not dispute that their attire put them at risk of violence. Plaintiff D.M. stated that he was “willing to take on that responsibility” in order to continue wearing his shirt....
Following Plaintiffs’ departure from school they received numerous threats from other students. Plaintiff D.G. received a threat of violence via text message on May 6th. He received another threatening call from a male saying he was outside of D.G.‘s home that same night. Plaintiffs D.M. and M.D. also were threatened with violence. A student at Live Oak overheard a group of male students saying that some gang members would come down from San Jose to “take care of” Plaintiffs. Based on these threats, Plaintiffs did not go to school on May 7....
Plaintiffs contend that they are entitled to summary judgment because the undisputed evidence shows that they were treated differently than students wearing the colors of the Mexican flag, and that this distinction was based on the unpopularity of their viewpoint. Defendants respond that Plaintiffs have offered no evidence demonstrating that students wearing the colors of the Mexican flag were likely to be targeted for violence, and that officials treated all students for whose safety they feared in the same manner.
When the government infringes upon protected speech in a discriminatory manner, such conduct may constitute a violation of the Equal Protection Clause as well as the First Amendment. See Police Dept. of the City of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 96 (1972). “[U]nder the Equal Protection Clause, not to mention the First Amendment itself, government may not grant the use of a forum to people whose views it finds acceptable, but deny it those wishing to express less favored or more controversial views.”
Here, for the reasons discussed above, Defendants have provided a non-discriminatory basis for asking Plaintiffs to remove their American flag attire. Defendants have put forth significant evidence demonstrating that Plaintiffs were asked to change clothes in order to protect their own safety. Plaintiffs have not offered any evidence demonstrating that students wearing the colors of the Mexican flag were targeted for violence. To the contrary, the undisputed evidence shows that Plaintiffs were the only students on campus whose safety was threatened that day, at least to the knowledge of Defendants. In addition, Defendant Rodriguez has testified that he did not see any students wearing the Mexican flag on their clothing during the day. He also testified that he did not see any students with Mexican flags displayed on their person until he saw photos in the newspaper in the days following Cinco de Mayo.
"Runaway Dems", and the pressure of real life issues
BREAKING NEWS: DEMS WALK AWAY FROM SUPER COMMITTEE
Rand Paul: Dems walk away from table
November 09, 2011
Latest update on the lack of progress for Dems and Republicans to reach a tax deal. Yesterday Democrats of the Super Committee rejected Republicans' offer to "raise federal tax collections by nearly $300 billion over the next decade."
Senator Rand Paul exclusively has JUST told Sean that not only are Democrats rejecting offers put on the table, but now they won't even continue to negotiate and have "walked away from the table...refusing to talk to the Republicans."
Paul warns the American people that this is all about Obama's reelection, and the taxpayers livelihood is of no concern to Obama and the Democrats.
Audio verbate: Senator Rand Paul (KY) on the Sean Hannity radio show Nov. 9, 2011:
P:Sean can I make it up to you by giving you a scoop, that maybe people don't know yet?
S: Yeah what you got it
P: I have news straight from sources close to the SuperCommittee that the Democrats have walked away from the table and they're refusing to talk to the Republicans about a deal and they will not counter any offers and basically there's an impass and it's starting to look like they don't want any deal at all.
S: This was all being telegraphed by Chuck Shcumer yesterday, I am sure you saw it on TV
S: They want to say that because Republicans will not raise taxes they are rigid. THat we are not going to have a deal on teh economy.I think the democrats are just gonna be happy gutting the defense department, which is part of this deal.
P: And the truth is quite the opposite the republicans have offered tax reform that lowers tax rates and closes loopholes.The president talks about millionaires not paying their taxes, we are trying to close some loopholes, but we want to be part of tax reform. We have offered a serious credible offer, but bascially they have walked away from the table.
Rand Paul: Dems walk away from table
November 09, 2011
Latest update on the lack of progress for Dems and Republicans to reach a tax deal. Yesterday Democrats of the Super Committee rejected Republicans' offer to "raise federal tax collections by nearly $300 billion over the next decade."
Senator Rand Paul exclusively has JUST told Sean that not only are Democrats rejecting offers put on the table, but now they won't even continue to negotiate and have "walked away from the table...refusing to talk to the Republicans."
Paul warns the American people that this is all about Obama's reelection, and the taxpayers livelihood is of no concern to Obama and the Democrats.
Audio verbate: Senator Rand Paul (KY) on the Sean Hannity radio show Nov. 9, 2011:
P:Sean can I make it up to you by giving you a scoop, that maybe people don't know yet?
S: Yeah what you got it
P: I have news straight from sources close to the SuperCommittee that the Democrats have walked away from the table and they're refusing to talk to the Republicans about a deal and they will not counter any offers and basically there's an impass and it's starting to look like they don't want any deal at all.
S: This was all being telegraphed by Chuck Shcumer yesterday, I am sure you saw it on TV
S: They want to say that because Republicans will not raise taxes they are rigid. THat we are not going to have a deal on teh economy.I think the democrats are just gonna be happy gutting the defense department, which is part of this deal.
P: And the truth is quite the opposite the republicans have offered tax reform that lowers tax rates and closes loopholes.The president talks about millionaires not paying their taxes, we are trying to close some loopholes, but we want to be part of tax reform. We have offered a serious credible offer, but bascially they have walked away from the table.
Too Big to Fail Accounting Explained
By Joseph Lawler on 11.11.11 @ 5:26PM
Jon Huntsman got a chance to elaborate on his anti-big bank message during the CNBC debate:
Uploaded by ThinkProgress6 on Nov 10, 2011
Transcript:
With respect to the banks that are too big to fail, you know today we've got, as I mentioned earlier, six institutions that are equal to 60, 65 percent of our GDP, $9.4 trillion. They have an implied guarantee by the taxpayers that they will be protected. That's not fair, that's not right for the taxpayers.
HARWOOD: So you break them up?
HUNTSMAN: I say we need to right-size them. I say, in the 1990s, you had Goldman Sachs, for example. That was $200 billion in size. By 2008, it had grown to $1.1 trillion in size. Was that good for the people of this country, or --
HARWOOD: Well, how would you accomplish that? How would you right-size that?
(CROSSTALK)
HUNTSMAN: I think we ought to set up some sort of fund. I think we ought to charge some sort of fee from the banks that mitigates the risk that otherwise the taxpayers are carrying. There has got to be something that takes the risk from the taxpayers off the table so that these institutions don't go forward with this implied assumption that we're going to bail them out at the end of the day. That's not right, and it's not fair for the taxpayers of this country.
Huntsman has drawn some favorable attention for his populist proposals on the problem of too big to fail banks. He wants to implement a size tax on banks, in order to disincentize banks from growing beyond a certain point and to recompense taxpayers for, unwillingly, assuming the risk of bailing them out. Such a tax, though, would only work against the incentives created by the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, which actually subsidizes banks that are too big to fail.
Dodd-Frank mandates that regulators label any bank with over $50 billion in assets as "systemically important financial institutions" and regulate it more tightly. In other words, those banks are acknowledged by the government as too big to fail. The bill is also supposed to include mechanisms to ensure that such companies don't receive bailouts, but those measures are based on regulators' discretion and thus will probably fail when push comes to shove. The result is systemically imprtant financial institutions enjoy an implicit subsidy: the market will perceive them as backed by the government even if the feds don't say as much, meaning they will be able to raise debt and capital more cheaply than smaller banks will. In other words, the banks have the same advantages that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did before the financial crisis.
So if Huntsman wants to penalize banks that are too big to fail, the first step is getting rid of the implicit subsidy provided to them by the government through Dodd-Frank.
Huntsman has acknowledged the problem posed by Dodd-Frank in other venues. Ideas for solving the problem of too big to fail are well and good, but they are merely academic without addressing the distortions created by Dodd-Frank. Hopefully the Republican candidates will get as much time to talk about Dodd-Frank in future debates as they do, for instance, Obamacare.
Jon Huntsman got a chance to elaborate on his anti-big bank message during the CNBC debate:
Uploaded by ThinkProgress6 on Nov 10, 2011
Transcript:
With respect to the banks that are too big to fail, you know today we've got, as I mentioned earlier, six institutions that are equal to 60, 65 percent of our GDP, $9.4 trillion. They have an implied guarantee by the taxpayers that they will be protected. That's not fair, that's not right for the taxpayers.
HARWOOD: So you break them up?
HUNTSMAN: I say we need to right-size them. I say, in the 1990s, you had Goldman Sachs, for example. That was $200 billion in size. By 2008, it had grown to $1.1 trillion in size. Was that good for the people of this country, or --
HARWOOD: Well, how would you accomplish that? How would you right-size that?
(CROSSTALK)
HUNTSMAN: I think we ought to set up some sort of fund. I think we ought to charge some sort of fee from the banks that mitigates the risk that otherwise the taxpayers are carrying. There has got to be something that takes the risk from the taxpayers off the table so that these institutions don't go forward with this implied assumption that we're going to bail them out at the end of the day. That's not right, and it's not fair for the taxpayers of this country.
Huntsman has drawn some favorable attention for his populist proposals on the problem of too big to fail banks. He wants to implement a size tax on banks, in order to disincentize banks from growing beyond a certain point and to recompense taxpayers for, unwillingly, assuming the risk of bailing them out. Such a tax, though, would only work against the incentives created by the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, which actually subsidizes banks that are too big to fail.
Dodd-Frank mandates that regulators label any bank with over $50 billion in assets as "systemically important financial institutions" and regulate it more tightly. In other words, those banks are acknowledged by the government as too big to fail. The bill is also supposed to include mechanisms to ensure that such companies don't receive bailouts, but those measures are based on regulators' discretion and thus will probably fail when push comes to shove. The result is systemically imprtant financial institutions enjoy an implicit subsidy: the market will perceive them as backed by the government even if the feds don't say as much, meaning they will be able to raise debt and capital more cheaply than smaller banks will. In other words, the banks have the same advantages that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did before the financial crisis.
So if Huntsman wants to penalize banks that are too big to fail, the first step is getting rid of the implicit subsidy provided to them by the government through Dodd-Frank.
Huntsman has acknowledged the problem posed by Dodd-Frank in other venues. Ideas for solving the problem of too big to fail are well and good, but they are merely academic without addressing the distortions created by Dodd-Frank. Hopefully the Republican candidates will get as much time to talk about Dodd-Frank in future debates as they do, for instance, Obamacare.
Educating The 95 Percent
November 7, 2011 by Bob Livingston
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.” — Thomas Jefferson
According to my very unscientific analysis, only about 5 percent of the conscious American adult population (those who bother to follow issues at a minimum level and vote in national elections) truly understand inflation and how the Federal Reserve’s policies are stealing your wealth every day. Sadly, that percentage becomes frighteningly lower when combined with the rest of the American sheeple.
Remember that out of a voting age population of about 218 million people, only about 129.4 million cast votes in the 2008 Presidential election. The rest couldn’t trouble themselves enough to lay aside their bag of chips and can of Coke, turn off the idiot box, get off the couch and trudge down to the polling place to push a button on a machine or fill in a blank on a voting card.
I and many others write often of inflation’s devastating effects. Yet the hue and cry for the elimination of the Federal Reserve, the tarring and feathering of Ben Bernanke (and Alan Greenspan), the return to sound money and the elimination of fiat currency are seldom seen outside of Austrian economic blogs or heard outside of Ron Paul rallies.
Oh, yes, Rick Perry once called Bernanke “treasonous.” But he backed off because he couldn’t really explain what he was talking about. And Newt Gingrich has called for an audit of the Fed, but that didn’t resonate with his followers so it’s gone the way of his criticism of “conservative social engineering” and belief in man-caused global warming in Newt’s lexicon. Now Newt’s simply angling to be Herman Cain’s running mate.
Of the politicians on the national stage, only Congressman Ron Paul has consistently preached about the evils of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies, the dangers of inflation and the need to truly rein in government spending. Yet, if you believe the national polls, Paul is garnering only about 10 percent support from so-called conservatives.
Americans sought “Hope and Change” in 2008. Fed up with eight years of President George W. Bush’s ill-advised wars and profligate spending, they elected a Marxist who offered the vague promise that he would “fundamentally transform America.” His statement to Joe the Plumber that “we need to spread the wealth around” was either ignored, dismissed or embraced by about 60 percent of the voters.
Americans wanted change, but they didn’t get a change in direction. They got acceleration. All President Barack Obama has done is double down on George W. Bush’s policies and push us closer to European-style socialism — which is failing rapidly in Europe — and move us ever closer toward complete totalitarianism. The only difference is the rhetoric over where the wealth should come from and which special interest should get the most of it.
But this is not just about Bush and Obama. Federal spending increases year after year and Federal power grows year after year regardless of whether the President has a “D” or an “R” after his name and regardless of which party controls Congress.
America is a police state, a military state, a welfare state. It’s all made possible by the Federal Reserve and increased Federalism.
The Federal Reserve was conceived in a secret meeting at a wealthy retreat on a barrier island called Jekyll Island, Ga., in 1910. The principals involved were: Senator Nelson Aldrich, the father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr., representing Rockefeller interests and the Standard Oil crowd; Paul Warburg, a German banker representing MM Warburg of Hamburg, European banking interests (including the Rothschilds) and Kuhn Loeb in the U.S.; Henry P. Davison, partner in J.P. Morgan and chairman of Bankers Trust Company (a consortium of New York’s biggest banks); Benjamin Strong, vice president of Bankers Trust; Frank Vanderlip, chairman of National City Bank; and Charles D. Norton, president of the First National Bank.[i] Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Abraham Piatt Andrew is also reported to have attended. [ii]
Their work later evolved into the bill — the Federal Reserve Act — that formed the Federal Reserve and that was rammed through the House and Senate in 1913. The House version passed by a 287-85 margin, and most Congressmen didn’t even know what the bill was about. No amendments were allowed, and members were only given the opportunity to vote for or against. The bill was named for Representative Carter Glass of Virginia (a director of the United Loan and Trust and the Virginia Trust Company).[iii]
After passing the House, the bill went to the Senate where it took exactly four and half hours to debate and pass in the Senate by a 43-25 margin. Named the Owen Bill after Senator Robert Latham Owen of Oklahoma — a major stockholder of the First National Bank of Muskogee — the Republicans did not even see the conference report, which is normally read to the floor, and some Senators said they had no knowledge of the contents of the bill. President Woodrow Wilson signed the bill the same day it was passed.[iv]
And guess who was appointed to head the New York Federal Reserve? None other than Benjamin Strong, J.P. Morgan minion, former vice president of Bankers Trust and one of the original conspirators that met on Jekyll Island to draft the bill that would create the Federal Reserve.[v] Likewise, the Washington Federal Reserve was headed by two Morgan men, two Rockefeller minions, two men of undetermined affiliations: a prominent Alabama banker and an economist with vague family connections to Morgan family interests.[vi]
What did this law do? It established a private bank that controlled U.S. monetary policy. Although named Federal Reserve, the bank is not a part of the Federal government. It is a private for-profit entity. It holds no reserves, but lends “money” to other banks — both in the United States and abroad — and the Federal government. The loans must be paid back with interest. But the money the Fed lends is not real money. It’s simply a kited check.
It has the authority to arbitrarily set interest rates and lend money to whomever it wishes, and it has no real accountability to Congress or the President.
The Fed has a monopoly of the issue of all bank notes. National and State banks can issue only deposits, and the deposits are redeemable only in Federal Reserve Notes. All banks are forced to become members of the Federal Reserve System. The Fed is the lender of last resort, and that power allows it to inflate in order to bail out banks.[vii]
How does inflating steal your wealth? I have written before that even if you stored your dollars 40 miles deep, the money creators can steal the purchasing power of your paper money.
It is as simple a concept as supply and demand. With more money chasing fewer goods, more and more money is required to make a purchase. If you put your money in a certificate of deposit in the bank paying 1 percent interest, but inflation is running at 3.9 percent (the official tally from Washington), then your bank savings are losing money. It is like pouring water into milk. The more water you pour, the less milk is left.
Everyone is hurt, particularly those on a fixed income. The more money that is spewed out, the more worthless each one of those paper dollars is. In the past 100 years, the dollar has lost 95 percent of its value. Put another way; it now costs $1 to buy what once cost 5 cents.
This is no secret to the elites, although it is rare they will tell the truth. In 1967, long before he became Fed chairman and began dissembling, in a moment of candor Alan Greenspan wrote:
As the supply of money increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.
Now spread this message to your friends and family.
And consider this: The next election will be a referendum on the economy. Only one Presidential candidate has demonstrated an understanding of what has brought the U.S. economy to this point. Only one candidate predicted the bursting of the housing bubble long before it came. Only one candidate has been consistent for 30 years. It’s Ron Paul, and a vote for anyone else is a vote against your own pocketbook.
[i] The Federal Reserve Conspiracy, by Antony C. Sutton, p. 75.
[ii] The Creature From Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, by G. Edward Griffin, p. 5.
[iii] The Federal Reserve Conspiracy, p. 88
[iv] Ibid.
[v] A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II, Murray N. Rothbard, p. 264.
[vi] The Case Against the Fed, Murray N. Rothbard, p. 124.
[vii] Ibid. p. 119.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.” — Thomas Jefferson
According to my very unscientific analysis, only about 5 percent of the conscious American adult population (those who bother to follow issues at a minimum level and vote in national elections) truly understand inflation and how the Federal Reserve’s policies are stealing your wealth every day. Sadly, that percentage becomes frighteningly lower when combined with the rest of the American sheeple.
Remember that out of a voting age population of about 218 million people, only about 129.4 million cast votes in the 2008 Presidential election. The rest couldn’t trouble themselves enough to lay aside their bag of chips and can of Coke, turn off the idiot box, get off the couch and trudge down to the polling place to push a button on a machine or fill in a blank on a voting card.
I and many others write often of inflation’s devastating effects. Yet the hue and cry for the elimination of the Federal Reserve, the tarring and feathering of Ben Bernanke (and Alan Greenspan), the return to sound money and the elimination of fiat currency are seldom seen outside of Austrian economic blogs or heard outside of Ron Paul rallies.
Oh, yes, Rick Perry once called Bernanke “treasonous.” But he backed off because he couldn’t really explain what he was talking about. And Newt Gingrich has called for an audit of the Fed, but that didn’t resonate with his followers so it’s gone the way of his criticism of “conservative social engineering” and belief in man-caused global warming in Newt’s lexicon. Now Newt’s simply angling to be Herman Cain’s running mate.
Of the politicians on the national stage, only Congressman Ron Paul has consistently preached about the evils of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies, the dangers of inflation and the need to truly rein in government spending. Yet, if you believe the national polls, Paul is garnering only about 10 percent support from so-called conservatives.
Americans sought “Hope and Change” in 2008. Fed up with eight years of President George W. Bush’s ill-advised wars and profligate spending, they elected a Marxist who offered the vague promise that he would “fundamentally transform America.” His statement to Joe the Plumber that “we need to spread the wealth around” was either ignored, dismissed or embraced by about 60 percent of the voters.
Americans wanted change, but they didn’t get a change in direction. They got acceleration. All President Barack Obama has done is double down on George W. Bush’s policies and push us closer to European-style socialism — which is failing rapidly in Europe — and move us ever closer toward complete totalitarianism. The only difference is the rhetoric over where the wealth should come from and which special interest should get the most of it.
But this is not just about Bush and Obama. Federal spending increases year after year and Federal power grows year after year regardless of whether the President has a “D” or an “R” after his name and regardless of which party controls Congress.
America is a police state, a military state, a welfare state. It’s all made possible by the Federal Reserve and increased Federalism.
The Federal Reserve was conceived in a secret meeting at a wealthy retreat on a barrier island called Jekyll Island, Ga., in 1910. The principals involved were: Senator Nelson Aldrich, the father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr., representing Rockefeller interests and the Standard Oil crowd; Paul Warburg, a German banker representing MM Warburg of Hamburg, European banking interests (including the Rothschilds) and Kuhn Loeb in the U.S.; Henry P. Davison, partner in J.P. Morgan and chairman of Bankers Trust Company (a consortium of New York’s biggest banks); Benjamin Strong, vice president of Bankers Trust; Frank Vanderlip, chairman of National City Bank; and Charles D. Norton, president of the First National Bank.[i] Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Abraham Piatt Andrew is also reported to have attended. [ii]
Their work later evolved into the bill — the Federal Reserve Act — that formed the Federal Reserve and that was rammed through the House and Senate in 1913. The House version passed by a 287-85 margin, and most Congressmen didn’t even know what the bill was about. No amendments were allowed, and members were only given the opportunity to vote for or against. The bill was named for Representative Carter Glass of Virginia (a director of the United Loan and Trust and the Virginia Trust Company).[iii]
After passing the House, the bill went to the Senate where it took exactly four and half hours to debate and pass in the Senate by a 43-25 margin. Named the Owen Bill after Senator Robert Latham Owen of Oklahoma — a major stockholder of the First National Bank of Muskogee — the Republicans did not even see the conference report, which is normally read to the floor, and some Senators said they had no knowledge of the contents of the bill. President Woodrow Wilson signed the bill the same day it was passed.[iv]
And guess who was appointed to head the New York Federal Reserve? None other than Benjamin Strong, J.P. Morgan minion, former vice president of Bankers Trust and one of the original conspirators that met on Jekyll Island to draft the bill that would create the Federal Reserve.[v] Likewise, the Washington Federal Reserve was headed by two Morgan men, two Rockefeller minions, two men of undetermined affiliations: a prominent Alabama banker and an economist with vague family connections to Morgan family interests.[vi]
What did this law do? It established a private bank that controlled U.S. monetary policy. Although named Federal Reserve, the bank is not a part of the Federal government. It is a private for-profit entity. It holds no reserves, but lends “money” to other banks — both in the United States and abroad — and the Federal government. The loans must be paid back with interest. But the money the Fed lends is not real money. It’s simply a kited check.
It has the authority to arbitrarily set interest rates and lend money to whomever it wishes, and it has no real accountability to Congress or the President.
The Fed has a monopoly of the issue of all bank notes. National and State banks can issue only deposits, and the deposits are redeemable only in Federal Reserve Notes. All banks are forced to become members of the Federal Reserve System. The Fed is the lender of last resort, and that power allows it to inflate in order to bail out banks.[vii]
How does inflating steal your wealth? I have written before that even if you stored your dollars 40 miles deep, the money creators can steal the purchasing power of your paper money.
It is as simple a concept as supply and demand. With more money chasing fewer goods, more and more money is required to make a purchase. If you put your money in a certificate of deposit in the bank paying 1 percent interest, but inflation is running at 3.9 percent (the official tally from Washington), then your bank savings are losing money. It is like pouring water into milk. The more water you pour, the less milk is left.
Everyone is hurt, particularly those on a fixed income. The more money that is spewed out, the more worthless each one of those paper dollars is. In the past 100 years, the dollar has lost 95 percent of its value. Put another way; it now costs $1 to buy what once cost 5 cents.
This is no secret to the elites, although it is rare they will tell the truth. In 1967, long before he became Fed chairman and began dissembling, in a moment of candor Alan Greenspan wrote:
As the supply of money increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.
Now spread this message to your friends and family.
And consider this: The next election will be a referendum on the economy. Only one Presidential candidate has demonstrated an understanding of what has brought the U.S. economy to this point. Only one candidate predicted the bursting of the housing bubble long before it came. Only one candidate has been consistent for 30 years. It’s Ron Paul, and a vote for anyone else is a vote against your own pocketbook.
[i] The Federal Reserve Conspiracy, by Antony C. Sutton, p. 75.
[ii] The Creature From Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, by G. Edward Griffin, p. 5.
[iii] The Federal Reserve Conspiracy, p. 88
[iv] Ibid.
[v] A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II, Murray N. Rothbard, p. 264.
[vi] The Case Against the Fed, Murray N. Rothbard, p. 124.
[vii] Ibid. p. 119.
The Government Wants to Seize Your Vitamins
Written by Chip Wood
Friday, 11 November 2011 19:45
No matter how many times you beat back a Federal power grab, it is almost impossible to kill the monster. Like the most terrifying villain in the worst horror movie you’ve ever seen, it keeps coming back to life and threatening the townspeople.
Consider the efforts by the Food and Drug Administration to make it impossible for you to buy the vitamins you want. The FDA first tried to make many supplements illegal in the early 1990s. But its overzealous persecution of vitamin makers (I was one of them) caused millions of consumers to demand that Congress block the FDA.
As a result, in 1994 Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). While the law was far from perfect (what federal legislation ever is?), it did protect the right to take the supplements of our choice. The only way the FDA could intrude was if it could prove a supplement was unsafe. I don’t know of a single case in which that happened. So for 17 years, those of us who take vitamins to protect our health were safe from government meddlers.
Unfortunately, there was a dangerous loophole in that 1994 law. While supplements that existed at the time were protected by law, the FDA was given the authority to regulate any new ingredients that were introduced after Oct. 15, 1994.
What happened? At first, nothing did. For 17 years, the FDA took no action.
That’s been a good thing, because for 17 years the dietary supplement industry continued to innovate. It discovered new ingredients and formulations and found better ways to extract and concentrate the most effective natural ingredients. As a result, millions of consumers benefited. They protected their hearts and arteries, found relief from joint pain, improved their memory, protected their prostate, and much more.
Meanwhile, some deadly dangers did exist. Pathogens like E. coli in food kill at least 2,000 people every year. Acetaminophen, the painkiller in Tylenol and other drugs, is known to kill hundreds more. An FDA researcher estimated that there may have been more than 27,000 deaths linked to the use of Vioxx before the FDA finally took the drug off the market.
Now, the FDA wants to act like the past 17 years never happened. The agency has drafted a proposal to regulate what it calls “new dietary ingredients.” If this proposal is implemented, some of the most effective nutrients you take will be pulled from the market. Nutrients like resveratrol, ubiquinol CoQ10, bacopa, strontium and more.
That’s not all. Under these guidelines, the FDA can define almost anything as a new dietary ingredient. For example:
• If a supplement includes more of an ingredient than was used 17 years ago (even something like vitamin C), it’s new.
• If an ingredient uses a different extraction process (like baking or fermentation), it’s new.
• If a supplement uses an ingredient at a different “life stage” (such as using ripe rather than non-ripe apples), it’s new.
• If a supplement duplicates an ingredient in a laboratory rather than extracting it from the food (even though it’s chemically identical), it’s new.
• And if a probiotic formula includes a strain of bacteria that wasn’t found in yogurt 17 years ago, it’s new.
What would happen to these “new” ingredients? The manufacturers would have to take them off the market until they could prove the ingredients are safe — even if those ingredients have been safely used for 17 years.
What kind of proof is the FDA demanding? According to the guidelines, many companies would have to conduct animal studies using a dosage that’s 1,000 times the typical dose.
I’m not kidding. The FDA wants vitamin makers to do studies for a full year, at 1,000 times the typical dose.
So a fish oil manufacturer would have to conduct a one-year study in which animals are force-fed the human equivalent of 240,000 milligrams of fish oil each and every day. Do you think this outrageous overdose might injure or kill its victim? Of course it could. And that would give the FDA all the excuse it needed to outlaw any product that contained it.
But wait, it gets even worse. If one fish oil manufacturer performed such a study and it passed, it doesn’t mean that other fish oil makers can use the same data. No, sir. They are still required to go out and do their own studies before they’re allowed to sell their product.
These studies are very expensive. A study like the one above typically costs $100,000 to $200,000 to perform. Multiply that by several ingredients in several products and you get an idea of the cost.
Say a company carries six products containing six ingredients each. It would cost between $3.6 million and $7.2 million in studies before that company could even offer the products for sale. For a larger company offering 50 products or more, the costs would be astronomical.
Even if the company did all of that, every penny of those new and higher costs would be passed on to you, the consumer.
Anyone on a tight budget (and that’s almost all of us these days) would find the supplements they rely on becoming prohibitively expensive — if they were even on the market anymore.
Few supplement makers will be able to afford these studies. Many of them will be forced out of business. The ones that remain would still be at the mercy of the FDA. That’s because there are no requirements for the FDA to approve anything. It can approve or reject anything it wants. In the past, it has rejected the majority of ingredients submitted to it.
That means most of the nutrients you buy today will be pulled from the market and never return. Those that do return will be a lot more expensive — or may be available only as prescription drugs.
This is a blatant abuse of power. What the FDA is doing is performing an end-run around the existing law. According to the law, the FDA has to prove a dietary supplement is unsafe for it to be taken off the market. These new guidelines turn that on its head. They are clearly not what Congress intended.
Fortunately, these FDA guidelines have not yet been finalized. All Federal agencies are required to give the public an opportunity to comment on a draft before it is made final. In this case, the FDA has given interested parties until December 1 to comment on the draft. That means there’s a small window of opportunity for you to voice your disapproval.
Frankly, I wouldn’t bother commenting to the FDA. The process is deliberately cumbersome. Those unelected bureaucrats don’t care what you think, anyway.
Instead, please contact the people you do elect: your Congressman and your two U.S. Senators. They have the power to rein in the FDA, and they have done so before — when enough voters complained.
We may not be able to kill the monster, but we can drive it back into its cave. Whether we do is up to you.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
Chip Wood was the first news editor of The Review of the News and also wrote for American Opinion, our two predecessor publications. He is now the geopolitical editor of Personal Liberty Digest, where his Straight Talk column appears weekly. This article first appeared in PersonalLiberty.com and has been reprinted with permission.
Friday, 11 November 2011 19:45
No matter how many times you beat back a Federal power grab, it is almost impossible to kill the monster. Like the most terrifying villain in the worst horror movie you’ve ever seen, it keeps coming back to life and threatening the townspeople.
Consider the efforts by the Food and Drug Administration to make it impossible for you to buy the vitamins you want. The FDA first tried to make many supplements illegal in the early 1990s. But its overzealous persecution of vitamin makers (I was one of them) caused millions of consumers to demand that Congress block the FDA.
As a result, in 1994 Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). While the law was far from perfect (what federal legislation ever is?), it did protect the right to take the supplements of our choice. The only way the FDA could intrude was if it could prove a supplement was unsafe. I don’t know of a single case in which that happened. So for 17 years, those of us who take vitamins to protect our health were safe from government meddlers.
Unfortunately, there was a dangerous loophole in that 1994 law. While supplements that existed at the time were protected by law, the FDA was given the authority to regulate any new ingredients that were introduced after Oct. 15, 1994.
What happened? At first, nothing did. For 17 years, the FDA took no action.
That’s been a good thing, because for 17 years the dietary supplement industry continued to innovate. It discovered new ingredients and formulations and found better ways to extract and concentrate the most effective natural ingredients. As a result, millions of consumers benefited. They protected their hearts and arteries, found relief from joint pain, improved their memory, protected their prostate, and much more.
Meanwhile, some deadly dangers did exist. Pathogens like E. coli in food kill at least 2,000 people every year. Acetaminophen, the painkiller in Tylenol and other drugs, is known to kill hundreds more. An FDA researcher estimated that there may have been more than 27,000 deaths linked to the use of Vioxx before the FDA finally took the drug off the market.
Now, the FDA wants to act like the past 17 years never happened. The agency has drafted a proposal to regulate what it calls “new dietary ingredients.” If this proposal is implemented, some of the most effective nutrients you take will be pulled from the market. Nutrients like resveratrol, ubiquinol CoQ10, bacopa, strontium and more.
That’s not all. Under these guidelines, the FDA can define almost anything as a new dietary ingredient. For example:
• If a supplement includes more of an ingredient than was used 17 years ago (even something like vitamin C), it’s new.
• If an ingredient uses a different extraction process (like baking or fermentation), it’s new.
• If a supplement uses an ingredient at a different “life stage” (such as using ripe rather than non-ripe apples), it’s new.
• If a supplement duplicates an ingredient in a laboratory rather than extracting it from the food (even though it’s chemically identical), it’s new.
• And if a probiotic formula includes a strain of bacteria that wasn’t found in yogurt 17 years ago, it’s new.
What would happen to these “new” ingredients? The manufacturers would have to take them off the market until they could prove the ingredients are safe — even if those ingredients have been safely used for 17 years.
What kind of proof is the FDA demanding? According to the guidelines, many companies would have to conduct animal studies using a dosage that’s 1,000 times the typical dose.
I’m not kidding. The FDA wants vitamin makers to do studies for a full year, at 1,000 times the typical dose.
So a fish oil manufacturer would have to conduct a one-year study in which animals are force-fed the human equivalent of 240,000 milligrams of fish oil each and every day. Do you think this outrageous overdose might injure or kill its victim? Of course it could. And that would give the FDA all the excuse it needed to outlaw any product that contained it.
But wait, it gets even worse. If one fish oil manufacturer performed such a study and it passed, it doesn’t mean that other fish oil makers can use the same data. No, sir. They are still required to go out and do their own studies before they’re allowed to sell their product.
These studies are very expensive. A study like the one above typically costs $100,000 to $200,000 to perform. Multiply that by several ingredients in several products and you get an idea of the cost.
Say a company carries six products containing six ingredients each. It would cost between $3.6 million and $7.2 million in studies before that company could even offer the products for sale. For a larger company offering 50 products or more, the costs would be astronomical.
Even if the company did all of that, every penny of those new and higher costs would be passed on to you, the consumer.
Anyone on a tight budget (and that’s almost all of us these days) would find the supplements they rely on becoming prohibitively expensive — if they were even on the market anymore.
Few supplement makers will be able to afford these studies. Many of them will be forced out of business. The ones that remain would still be at the mercy of the FDA. That’s because there are no requirements for the FDA to approve anything. It can approve or reject anything it wants. In the past, it has rejected the majority of ingredients submitted to it.
That means most of the nutrients you buy today will be pulled from the market and never return. Those that do return will be a lot more expensive — or may be available only as prescription drugs.
This is a blatant abuse of power. What the FDA is doing is performing an end-run around the existing law. According to the law, the FDA has to prove a dietary supplement is unsafe for it to be taken off the market. These new guidelines turn that on its head. They are clearly not what Congress intended.
Fortunately, these FDA guidelines have not yet been finalized. All Federal agencies are required to give the public an opportunity to comment on a draft before it is made final. In this case, the FDA has given interested parties until December 1 to comment on the draft. That means there’s a small window of opportunity for you to voice your disapproval.
Frankly, I wouldn’t bother commenting to the FDA. The process is deliberately cumbersome. Those unelected bureaucrats don’t care what you think, anyway.
Instead, please contact the people you do elect: your Congressman and your two U.S. Senators. They have the power to rein in the FDA, and they have done so before — when enough voters complained.
We may not be able to kill the monster, but we can drive it back into its cave. Whether we do is up to you.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
Chip Wood was the first news editor of The Review of the News and also wrote for American Opinion, our two predecessor publications. He is now the geopolitical editor of Personal Liberty Digest, where his Straight Talk column appears weekly. This article first appeared in PersonalLiberty.com and has been reprinted with permission.
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