Welfare Dependence Keeps Growing

Kevin Reagan
October 31, 2011 at 5:45 pm

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article citing 2010 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly half (48.5 percent) of America’s population now lives in households that receive some sort of government benefit. That is nearly a 10 percent increase over the middle of the recession in 2008, when that number was 44.4 percent.

The above graph illustrates the alarming rate at which Americans are becoming more dependent on government. It serves as a nice complement to this graph, showing the explosion of government spending since the “War on Poverty” was declared 47 years ago. Since that time, the steady expansion and implementation of new government welfare programs has cost trillions of dollars.

Unfortunately, government welfare spending shows no sign of slowing down. Means-tested welfare spending is the fastest-growing element of government expenditures, and government spending on welfare is projected to cost taxpayers $10.3 trillion over the next decade. These numbers highlight the urgency of further welfare reform.

Those in favor of comprehensive reform have history on their side. The Republican Congress of 15 years ago demonstrated that welfare reform works. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) replaced the failed Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, inserting time limits and work requirements into the largest cash assistance program. Subsequently, millions of Americans left welfare for jobs. Seven years after the reforms were passed, 3.5 million fewer individuals were living in poverty, and employment among the most disadvantaged sections of the population had rapidly increased. However, while the reforms implemented at that time were successful, they were not truly “the end of welfare as we know it.” The 1996 reforms touched just one welfare program, yet the federal government operates more than 70. The successful policies of the1990s have been significantly watered down since that time, and further reform is needed.

Katherine Bradley and Robert Rector have proposed a number of ways to curb the welfare state:
Restoring welfare spending to pre-recession levels. Once unemployment levels drop to 6.5 percent, the government should cap welfare spending at fiscal year 2007 levels.

Eliminating marriage penalties and encouraging marriage among low-income communities. Statistics show that more than seven in 10 poor families are supported by unwed heads of household. It is no coincidence that poverty rates are reaching unprecedented heights at the same time as out-of-wedlock births.
Emphasizing work and promoting personal responsibility. During the previous round of reforms, very few government benefits (such as food stamps) were tied to work requirements. Since those programs were successful in promoting work over dependence, they should be applied on a larger scale.

Practical reforms like these will help put the United States back on course financially by promoting the principles of self-reliance and personal responsibility.

Kevin Reagan is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm

CNN Hosts Former Communist Party Candidate to Praise OWS

By Matt Hadro
October 31, 2011 | 12:51

CNN's Don Lemon hosted radical leftist and former Communist Party member Angela Davis on Sunday night's Newsroom for what he called a "blast from the past." Davis hit President Obama from the left and praised the Wall Street protests as a continuation of the movement that swept "a black president who identified with a black radical tradition" into office.

CNN labeled Davis as a "political activist" but did not report that she was a prominent Communist Party member and twice its vice presidential candidate in the 1980s. As a professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz, she was urged by the state's then-Governor Ronald Reagan not to be allowed to teach at the state's universities because of her Communist Party membership. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]


Lemon teed Davis up by asking her to analyze the meaning of the protests and the upcoming elections. When she touted the need to hold Democrats accountable, the liberal CNN anchor urged her to "Follow up on that."

"Obama was elected largely because of an upsurge of young people, such as the upsurge of the Occupy Wall Street movement," Davis argued. "It was because young people refused to believe that it was impossible to elect a black president, a black president who identified with a black radical tradition."

She added that "it seems to me that this is the continuation of that movement. This is what should have happened in the immediate aftermath of the election, and perhaps we wouldn't be where we are today three years later."

So Davis tied the Wall Street protests to a movement that swept a president "who identified with a black radical tradition" into office. Lemon, meanwhile, tried to color her leftist critique of the President as a genuine criticism of Obama.

"And while Davis is clearly ideological about her party affiliation, she lets no one, including President Obama off the hook," Lemon argued.



A transcript of the segment, which aired on October 30 at 10:51 p.m. EDT, is as follows:

DON LEMON: And tonight, we focus on the Occupy Movement that started on Wall Street and spread around the world. While they say they're focusing on banks, they, their supporters and detractors are finding it hard not to insert politics. Tonight, we hear from a blast from the past, someone who's no stranger to sit-ins and civil disobedience – 1960s and 70s political activist Angela Davis.

(Video Clip)

LEMON: We can't ignore the fact that we have a presidential election coming up in 2012. We're in the middle of it right now. What do you – what does this mean for you, do you think, or for the country, in political terms? Does it benefit either party?

ANGELA DAVIS, political activist: Well, I think we have to guarantee that the Republicans aren't elected but we also have to put pressure on the Democrats. We have to put pressure on the Obama administration, so that, you know, some of the needs of the people of this country can be met.

LEMON: Yeah. I think some people may be surprised that you said, you know, we have to put pressure on the Obama administration and on Democrats. Follow up on that.

DAVIS: Well, as I was saying to the people who are involved in the occupation here in New York, Obama was elected largely because of an upsurge of young people, such as the upsurge of the Occupy Wall Street movement. This is why a president was elected, a candidate was elected, whom most people thought could never have a chance of achieving that goal.

It was because young people refused to believe that it was impossible to elect a black president, a black president who identified with a black radical tradition. They said that it was possible when everyone else felt it was impossible.

And so it seems to me that this is the continuation of that movement. This is what should have happened in the immediate aftermath of the election, and perhaps we wouldn't be where we are today three years later.

(End Video Clip)

LEMON: And as you heard, Davis is transparent about being a liberal and doesn't want a Republican to win the White House, but says pressure must be put on Democrats. And while Davis is clearly ideological about her party affiliation, she lets no one, including President Obama off the hook. And that is the "No Talking Point" segment tonight.

If Cain Was a Democrat, the Women Accusers Would be Under Assault

October 31, 2011


BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here's Connie, Monroe, Louisiana. Great to have you on the program. I'm glad you waited.

CALLER: Thank you so much, Rush. Rush, I don't know where to start. I've been hearing people saying that the Tea Party is the party of, "Get the 'N' out of office," and how that they want to lynch Obama. Now we're getting the high-tech lynching of a beautiful man, Herman Cain. You just think about Clarence Thomas and how the Democrats did him, how the liberals did him, and it saddens me that so many blacks looove liberals. They love the Democrats who want to give you something. WIC, Pampers, give you a house, give you a telephone. I think all of them need to -- a lot of people need to -- look at, Remember the Titans with Denzel and he had a line in there where he was telling one of the assistant coaches. When Denzel's character would come down on this players, the black players and he would go there and coddle 'em, and you told 'em, "Stop it! You're crippling 'em," and that's what's happening with all these handouts, and now we're gonna get diapers?

RUSH: (laughing)

CALLER: It's just ridiculous, Rush. It's ridiculous. We have a beautiful man like Herman Cain. Now he's going through the high-tech lynching, the same exact thing that they did to Clarence Thomas. It saddens me.

RUSH: Yup, they're out to destroy him. There's no question.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush.

RUSH: You bet. I'm glad you called. Thanks, Connie. This is Ray in Chattanooga. Ray, thank you for calling. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Rush how you doing?

RUSH: Good. Thank you.

CALLER: Listen, I have a little bit different take on this whole Herman Cain thing. You alluded to it earlier. That is, first of all we shouldn't be surprised that they're coming after him because he is now officially in the NFL. Secondly, every campaign has an opportunity to respond to these kinds of things, and the way he responds will define his campaign. So in one sense, I think The Politico has given him a golden opportunity to show what this guy is made of.

RUSH: Well, I'll tell you what he did at the National Press Club today.

CALLER: What?

RUSH: He sang Amazing Grace.

CALLER: Well, that is just like the character of the man that we all want to be president -- and, in fact, you know he can actually take a lesson from you, which you may -- I'm sure you remember. But do you remember the "phony soldiers" incident?

RUSH: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

CALLER: Somebody came after you and your program, tried to get a negative, and what did you do? You handed them their ass.

RUSH: Every day for a month.

CALLER: Now, Herman Cain it kind of like that. I know you're an NFL fan. He's like a defensive back right now. The quarterback has not thrown the ball in his direction all game. He now has a chance to catch the ball and run it in. We need to know: "Who are these women? What did they do? What's their background? What are their families like?

RUSH: Well, let me tell you something: If this were a Democrat, if Herman Cain were a Democrat, that's all we would know is who the women are.

CALLER: That's right.

RUSH: The media would already have destroyed them.

CALLER: That's right.

RUSH: They'd have plastered their pictures all over. They woulda been trashed and called sluts and hos and who knows what else.

CALLER: So I think that those of us that are Cain supporters and conservative supporters now is the time for us to send dollars in to Herman Cain and on the ledger write, "Politico."

RUSH: (laughing) Speaking of Politico, this is from the website: "In a surreal moment at the end of Herman Cain's appearance at the National Press Club, the Republican candidate agreed to sing a few bars to share his faith. He sang Amazing Grace. 'Amazing Grace will always be my song of praise, for it was grace that brought me liberty. I'll never know why Jesus came to love me so. He looked beyond all my faults.'" That's what Herman Cain said today, as he sang Amazing Grace at the National Press Club. Of course The Politico thinks that's "surreal." (Oh, my God, what's this guy doing? We got him dead to rights and he's not giving up! We got him dead to rights and he's not admitting that he did it. We got him dead to rights and he's not begging us for forgiveness!) At some point, you know, folks, this stuff backfires. A lot of people gonna be hearing Herman Cain for the first time now, and he doesn't come off as a serial sexual harasser. Democrats, by the way, have been going to this playbook for so long, back in their monopoly days when there wasn't an alternative media to blow smoke and a hole through it all.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We have some sound bites here of Herman Cain at the National Press Club. The president, Mark Hamrick said, "I understand you addressed these allegations at American Enterprise Institute and your appearance here. Can you now confirm that these allegations were made and that there was in fact a settlement of any kind?"

CAIN: I have never sexually harassed anyone. While at the restaurant association I was accused of sexual harassment, falsely accused, I might add. I was falsely accused of sexual harassment and when the charges were brought, as the leader of the organization, I recused myself and allowed my general counsel and my human resource officer to deal with the situation. And it was concluded after a thorough investigation that it had no basis. As far as a settlement, I am unaware of any sort of settlement. I hope it wasn't for much, because I didn't do anything.



RUSH: Well, there he is again, "I hope they didn't settle for much, I didn't do anything." Here's more discussion of the settlement.

CAIN: But the fact of the matter is I'm not aware of a settlement that came out of that accusation. I would draw your attention to the three people mentioned near the end of your article that were at the restaurant association as past chairmen, chairman, and incoming chairman of the board who would have known about this if it had turned out in fact to be a charge with some validity. But it was not. As a result, I have never sexually harassed anyone and those accusations are totally false. (applause)

RUSH: And then the National Press Club president, Mark Hamrick, said, "Do you think this came from rivals, might have helped put it out there?"

CAIN: I told you this bull's-eye on my back has gotten bigger. (laughter) I have no idea, we have no idea the source of this witch hunt, which is really what it is. We have no idea. We've been busy trying to get my message out.

RUSH: That's Herman Cain today at the National Press Club. Note the difference. Back in the Monica Lewinsky days, the bimbo eruption days of Bill Clinton, they invented the nuts and sluts defense. Remember, it was Clinton who went and told Sidney Blumenthal, (imitating Clinton) "Hey, you know what, that b-i-itch, she came at me and she's the one that made a sexual demand at me. You tell him that, Sidney. That's what happened. I was minding my own business and here comes this woman delivering a pizza, and she delivered it right there in the Oval Office. And she was making runs that -- I never had -- I never had sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky, not a single time, never, and I never lied, not a single time."

And then Carville started with the dragging the dollar bill through the trailer park comments and so forth, and they went out and they started destroying all these women. Kathleen Willey, doesn't matter who they are, every one of them. Now, if Herman Cain had any Clinton-like tendencies at the press club, he woulda launched into these women today, or he would have his aides. It would have been cool if the aide that smokes the cigarette in the ad would do another ad while smoking, talking about nuts and sluts trying to take down his candidate. That would really tick 'em off. Well, we're just following the lead of Bill Clinton, the former president of the United States has written a book on how to deal with these kinds of allegations. I'm just kidding. I'm not advocating it. It would be entertaining to see.

And then it was after Clinton told Sidney Blumenthal that Lewinsky was stalking him that Blumenthal started referring to her as a stalker. And so in the early days of the Lewinsky story, it was that she was a stalker and the media ran with that interpretation, and then they started going with the interpretation that Ken Starr was sex pervert and they had to destroy him. (interruption) I know, if she hadn't saved the blue stained dress we would have never gotten the truth out of that at all if she hadn't saved the dress as a souvenir. That is ever so true. It's like I said in the first hour of the program. If this story were out there about Obama, they would be out there already identifying these women, their pictures would be up there, they'd be sluts, ho's, you name it, money-grubbers, and Obama, the essence of innocence. That's how they would do it. They'd be out attacking the women.

And they said Clinton was a great president. Clinton was a great, great, great president. Serial sex abuser. Great president. His serial sex abusing didn't keep him from being a great president. In fact, they said it's none of your business. Didn't stop him from doing his job, everybody does it. Note the difference. I maintain to you the American people know this. I maintain to you now that times are different. I maintain to you that this kind of stuff is not automatically believed like it was 20 years ago. A lot of people think it is. A lot of people think the Democrats win every one of these things, every one of these attempts because the Republicans never fight back, and the reason they don't is this: They don't want to have happen to them what's happening to Herman Cain.

You call here and constantly ask me over 23 years, "Rush, why don't the Republicans say, and why don't the Republicans do." This is why. They don't want any part of this. Don't want any part of it. They're content to let Herman Cain twist in the wind out there all by himself. And if he can survive it, get out of it himself, that's fine. (interruption) Snerdley will not let this go. The phony soldier thing. Well, but you're biased. You love me so you want all this to be about me. He keeps yelling in my ear about the phony soldier business how we had a caller who said I handed them their ass when they tried to take me down with this phony soldier business, that I turned it right around on 'em and so forth. Yeah, but the thing I know is, nobody else is going to do that. Everybody lives in fear, everybody lives and cowers in fear on the Republican side. They're not gonna do that. I doubt that Herman Cain's even going to do it. Two different worlds. This is not politics here, this show. Maybe a fine line to some people, but it isn't.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Have you noticed, by the way, folks, that all of these terms, like Borked, Palined, Thomased, there are never any Democrats' names that describe being personally destroyed by the media? Only Republican names, somebody got Borked. But nobody ever said, "Yeah, somebody got Kennedyed." Nobody ever said somebody got Weinered. Of course the waitresses did get Kennedyed, you know, at La Brasserie with Chris Dodd.

END TRANSCRIPT

Carney: Obama will ‘continue' to act ‘independently' without Congress

By Nicholas Ballasy
Updated: 6:44 PM 10/31/2011

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said President Barack Obama will “continue” to act “administratively” without congressional authorization to “benefit the American people” as part of the White House’s “We Can’t Wait” campaign.

“He [Obama] fully understands that the kinds of things that are contained within the American Jobs Act require congressional action, require laws being passed, and that’s why he’s pressing for Congress to take action legislatively,” Carney told reporters on Monday at the White House.

“But he can also act independently or, rather, administratively, and exercise his executive authority to benefit the American people in other ways. And he will continue to do that.”

Carney dismissed House Speaker John Boehner’s disapproval of the president acting unilaterally.

“I was asked about this concern, which I would just suggest is misplaced, because the president is acting well within his authority, well within his constitutional authority,” Carney said.

“He is simply acting to help the American people, whether it’s with their mortgages, their student loans, their access to vital drugs, assisting businesses to speed up the process by which they get a, you know, contracts, with their payments from the federal government. These are all measures he can take administratively, and he will continue to take them.”

Carney also said Boehner “could certainly assist in the effort by allowing the provisions of the American Jobs Act, for example, to be voted on by the House of Representatives.”

Famed Member of the 1% and Obama Bundler Runs Brokerage Firm Into Bankruptcy

Looks like Jon Corzine has done for his firm what he did for the State of New Jersey.
Besieged broker MF Global is expected to file for bankruptcy today after a frantic effort over the weekend by CEO John Corzine to strike an out-of-bankruptcy appeared to come up came up short, The Post has learned.

The embattled broker dealer run by the former New Jersey governor is expected to sell some of the company’s assets in a complicated transaction to rival Interactive Brokers Group, a move that must receive the blessing of a bankruptcy judge, according to people familiar the situation.

It is expected that MF Global’s holding company will file for bankruptcy while other units, including one that clears fixed-income trades, will open its doors for business this morning, sources added. Early this morning, MF shares were halted in trading, with news pending.

A number of terms were still being hammered out early this morning and elements of the deal could still change.

The bankruptcy and planned sale to a rival would end one of the most harrowing weekends on Wall Street since Lehman Brothers on Sept. 15, 2008 imploded on worries that it was choking on toxic mortgage debt.

Three years later, Corzine — a former Goldman Sachs CEO — was pounding the phones this past weekend in an attempt to secure a white knight to purchase all or parts of MF Global after concerns about the broker-dealer’s exposures to some $6.3 billion in European sovereign debt decimated its shares in a wild week off trader for the firm that saw it lose three-quarters of its equity value.

Precisely how much Interactive Brokers Group would be shelling out to purchase parts of MF Global is unclear.

According to a Wall Street Journal report early this morning, it could be as much as $1 billion.

Whatever the number neither shareholders of IBG nor creditors are expected to be happy.

For Corzine, 64, a bankruptcy would be another knock on his reputation after choosing to dial up European risk at MF Global when other larger firms had grown weary.

Corzine is not expected to stay on at MF Global — an embarrassing outcome for a Wall Street titan who led Goldman Sachs before being ousted in 1999.
After that disaster he spent hundreds of millions to buy himself a Senate seat and then the governorship before being crushed by Chris Christie.

Remember, Barack Obama has been considering his for his next Treasury Secretary.
Corzine had occasionally been touted in the media as a possible Treasury Secretary in an Obama administration, perhaps replacing current incumbent Timothy Geithner, and following in the footsteps of his former Goldman rival Henry Paulson.
He's currently one of Obama's top fundraisers.

Update: Looks like Corzine will be getting a nice payday for destroying this company. Wall Street Occupiers were unavailable for comment.
DealBook reported that Corzine's severance package could allow him to walk away with around $12 million.

$12 million for joining a company and, in two years, flying it into a mountain.

Quick, someone go tell Occupy Wall Street.

Jihadists Lie in Wait for Iraq Pullout

by IPT News • Oct 28, 2011 at 9:01 am


Iran and al-Qaida appear poised to fill the power vacuum created by the U.S. decision to withdraw remaining U.S. troops from Iraq by Dec. 31. President Obama announced that the soldiers will depart by then, leaving behind a small contingent to guard the U.S. Embassy.

The American departure sets the stage for renewed efforts by Tehran and jihadist groups to expand their power inside Iraq, potentially reversing many of the security gains made by U.S. and Iraqi forces during the past four years.

A few days after the withdrawal announcement, the Justice Department provided a new reminder of the destructive role that Iran has been playing in Iraq. DOJ announced the indictment of five people and four of their companies for smuggling U.S.-made electronic components into Iran.

Some of the parts have been used in the remote controls of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) seized by U.S. forces from Iraqi terrorists. From 2001-07, DOJ said, 60 percent of all American casualties in Iraq have been caused by the bombs, and the most deadly, sophisticated ones are produced in Iran.

The Obama administration had sought to keep several thousand troops in Iraq in non-combat and advisory roles. But after Washington and Baghdad reached an impasse over legal protections for the remaining troops, the president decided to withdraw all forces by the end of the year.

"Now we're going to have zero, which means there won't be forces to help maintain checkpoints between Kurds and Arabs," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "There are not going to be specialized forces to help the Iraqis deal with the kinds of terrorism and insurgent groups they have. We're not going to have any clear contingency basing structure that will allow us to rapidly deploy if Iraq faced a threat from Iran."

Shiite terrorist organizations began stepping up attacks already this year, with more than 40,000 troops still in Iraq, wrote security analysts Frederick Kagan and Kimberly Kagan. This included IED and rocket strikes targeting Iraqi security forces and American troops "using technologies that they had tried unsuccessfully to field in 2008 but have since perfected."

Meanwhile, Thomas Joscelyn of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies has just published a disturbing new report on Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaida-affiliated group with a history of collaboration with Iran. Read the article here.

California & Mexico Give IDs To Illegal Immigrants In U.S

In a baffling development, a major U.S. county is allowing Mexico’s government to operate a satellite consular office to offer the area’s illegal immigrants identification cards that will facilitate life in the United States.

It gets better. Mexican officials kindly asked the Homeland Security agency charged with immigration enforcement not to enforce the law in the area while the cards—known as Matricula Consular—are being issued this week. One U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official claimed to be amazed that the “Mexican government has the gall to tell us what to do.”

Even more amazing is that the federal agency is obliging and that officials in the nation’s most populous county—Los Angeles—are even allowing it to happen. The Mexican consular office is operating on Santa Catalina Island, a small resort community located about 22 miles off the Southern California coast with a population of about 3,000. The majority of the residents on the L.A. County island are illegal immigrants from Mexico.

The Mexican consul's office first offered the photo identification cards to illegal immigrant workers on the island two years ago. Incredibly, the easily forged Mexican Matricula cards are widely accepted as ID in the U.S. and can be used to apply for government services, establish credit and open bank accounts. They have also been accepted to fraudulently obtain home loans from some of the nation’s top lenders.

A few weeks ago, the Mexican consular office in Los Angeles issued a flier advertising this week’s effort to issue Matricula cards to as many illegal immigrants as possible. The event was originally scheduled for the Catalina Island Country Club, but was later moved to a nearby church because a Republican congressman who represents the area warned that State Department permission is required to host a foreign government. Churches are supposedly exempt under the the Vienna Convention.

Accommodating illegal aliens is nothing new in the Golden State, which has numerous sanctuary cities and police departments with don’t-ask-don’t-tell immigration policies. Last year two California Democrats introduced legislation to make the Mexican identification cards accepted as an official form of ID, carrying the same weight as a U.S. government-issued identification for official transactions. The proposal is opposed by the National Notary Association because it would permit its 50 million members to rely solely on the Mexican cards to verify a person’s identity even though the FBI has deemed them unreliable.

King Abdallah of Jordan Says No One Trusts Obama's Government

By Barry Rubin

Earlier this week, The Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth interviewed King Abdallah of Jordan. Here’s how King Abdallah responded to Weymouth’s question, “Do you and other leaders in this area believe you cannot rely on the U.S.?"

He replied:
"I think everybody is wary of dealing with the West....Looking at how quickly people turned their backs on [Egyptian President Husni] Mubarak, I would say that most people are going to try and go their own way. I think there is going to be less coordination with the West and therefore a chance of more misunderstandings."
This is devastating. I'm not shocked that the king thinks that way but I am shocked that he says so openly. In other words he isn't afraid of Obama's being angry and thinks he has nothing to lose because things aren't going to be better. That's how far the situation has deteriorated.

Imagine that instead of going to Jordan (which is also an Arab country in addition to being a pro-American, moderate one) for advice on building the opposition leadership in neighboring Syria, the Obama Administration went to the non-Arab, Islamist Turkish regime!

Jordan is now turning to Saudi Arabia, another country that is no longer relying on Obama, to be its protector and source for financial aid.

Jordan has been the most long-term, consistent ally of the United States in the Arab world, continuously for more than 40 years. Yet the king cannot trust those in the White House any more. They dumped Mubarak, they might dump him.

Therefore, no one will stick his neck out on behalf of U.S. interests or requests. Moreover, they are going their own way. While Washington extolls Islamist forces or things that benefit them in Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, and Turkey, they don't seem to care at all about Israel, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia, the scattered survivors of recent developments and Obama's pro-Islamist policies.

Iraq's disinterest in having a continued U.S. troop presence arises from several issues but Baghdad's determination to go its own way is also connected to this situation. And in Afghanistan, the government knows that it cannot depend on a U.S. government that is not only withdrawing but has subverted the Kabul regime, proven powerless in dealing with Pakistan, and openly talks of political negotiations with the Taliban and even al-Qaida-linked terrorist groups (the Haqqani Network).

The U.S. policy formulated around 1955--allying with moderate Arab monarchies and nationalist regimes--as well as that originating in the 1970s--adding Israel to that list--has been undone by the Obama Administration. When the king of Jordan openly complains you know that U.S. credibility among pro-Western Arabs is pretty close to zero.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, will be published by Yale University Press in January. Latest books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

Obama's Secretary of Labor calls out 'Teabaggers'

by F. Vincent Vernuccio

At the Florida Democratic Party State Convention over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis insulted members of the Tea Party, referring to the activists as “teabaggers.” Teabagger is a pejorative term used to refer to a certain sexual act. Liberal talk show hosts such as Rachel Maddow brought the phrase into the mainstream in 2009, using it as a tongue-in-cheek insult.


As reported by Tallahassee Democrat and Sunshine State News, after voicing her support for large federal programs, Solis warned, “I’ll be darned if I’m going to set that aside now because a few teabaggers want to somehow muzzle my voice,” Solis said. “We don’t have to sit back and allow a minority in the Congress, known as the tea party, to dominate the discussion in our households.”

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz echoed Solis’ sentiment, telling the crowd of Democratic partisans, “the unfortunate thing is that the problem, in fact, stems from a brutally fanatic right wing group of extremists, who put politics and ideology above principles and people.”

“These fanatics are destroying our state and our country and the contrast between their agenda and ours has never been more stark,” continued Wasserman Schultz.

The comments coming from the head of the Labor Department are striking because of the recent attacks from heads of unions on the Tea Party—this despite the fact that many union members are also members of the Tea Party.

While opening for President Obama at a Labor Day rally, Teamsters President James P. Hoffa declared war on the movement. The union head said that the Tea Party has “got a war, they got a war with us and . . . we’re going to win that war.” He added, “President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these son [sic] of bitches out and give [sic] America back to an America where we belong.”

Earlier this year, Secretary Solis made headlines after she admitted her bias toward unions at the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting. After announcing the “fight is on” and pledging to aid unionized workers in Ohio, she told the DNC, “Admittedly, I am a little biased . . . because . . . I come from a union household.”

However, the Florida convention is not the first time prominent Democrats have gone after the Tea Party.

On August 22, Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) told supporters in California (many dressed in purple SEIU t-shirts ), “[As] far as I’m concerned, the ‘Tea Party’ can go straight to Hell.”

In August, Rep. Andre Carson (D., Ind.) told the Congressional Black Caucus, “Some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me . . . hanging on a tree.”

Vice President Joe Biden went so far as to compare the Tea Party to terrorists, and at a Labor Day speech he told a union audience that they are “the only folks keeping the barbarians from the gates.”

The Tea Party vs. unions and Democrats divide will become even more striking as the 2012 election heats up. However, insults such as the ones used by Secretary Solis have no place in civil political discourse.

** The Department of Labor was not immediately available for comment.

American Education, From Camelot to Obamaville

Posted by Andrew J. Coulson

The president has relentlessly called for a more extensive—and expensive—federal role in education. Here’s just one example:

The human mind is our fundamental resource. A balanced Federal program must go well beyond incentives for investment in plant and equipment. It must include equally determined measures to invest in human beings—both in their basic education and training and in their more advanced preparation…. Without such measures, the Federal Government will not be carrying out its responsibilities for expanding the base of our economic… strength.

And if we spend all those new federal dollars on k-12 education, the president promised that “it will pay rich dividends in the years ahead.”

But here’s the strange part: in that same speech, the president made this seemingly ridiculous claim:

Our progress in education over the last generation has been substantial. We are educating a greater proportion of our youth to a higher degree of competency than any other country on earth.

It’s actually not so ridiculous when you learn that the president who said it was John F. Kennedy, in February of 1961. Back then, we really had been making educational progress.

Aside from the ill-fated National Defense Education Act of 1958, the federal government had made no attempt to improve k-12 academic achievement or attainment in the four decades before JFK… and yet, as he noted, American education did in fact improve during that period.

But within a couple of years of JFK’s assassination, Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, now known as the No Child Left Behind Act. And in the four plus decades since, the feds have spent roughly $2 trillion trying to improve outcomes and attainment. Over that course of years, both graduation rates and academic achievement at the end of high school have been flat or declining.

Perhaps it could be argued that JFK couldn’t have known better. There was no history showing him what an expensive failure U.S. federal education spending would turn out to be. But the same cannot be said of President Obama, or of those in Congress who continue to tell the public, and presumably themselves, that fed ed. spending is a useful “investment.”

Today, we can look back at a half-century of failed federal education programs. We can think about how much better off the U.S. economy and our children would be if we hadn’t thrown $2 trillion at a calcified school monopoly that cannot spend money efficiently.

And reflecting on that history, perhaps we’ll find the wisdom not to repeat it.

Top 10 Reasons Occupy Wall Street Is a Joke

The Left was envious when Tea Party protests popped up in 2009, and now has countered with the Occupy Wall Street gathering in New York that has spread to other cities. While Tea Party enthusiasm became an effective force during the 2010 elections, #OWS will not have the same impact and here is why: The Top 10 Reasons Occupy Wall Street is a Joke.

1. Agenda: Unlike the clarity of the Tea Party message of smaller government, the Wall Street Occupiers have a potpourri of juvenile demands, from free college education and an annual living wage to “forgiveness of debt on the entire planet.” One protester mused that the solution was to do away with money altogether. Apparently these recipients of federal student loans have yet to take Economics 101.

2. Celebrities: The usual suspects of empty-headed progressive Hollywood stars are showing up at the Wall Street rally, many arriving by limo. Millionaires Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore and Roseanne Barr have all made appearances. Kanye West wore gold jewelry worth more than many protesters have made in their lifetimes. If they hadn’t noticed, these stars are part of the 1%.

3. Soros: The roster of George Soros-funded entities are aiding and abetting the Occupy movement. AdBusters, an anti-consumerist publication that sounded the initial call for the protests, is funded in part by Tides, a major recipient of Soros’ funding. Another Soros venture—MoveOn.org—has rallied support for the initiative. Soros, a billionaire several times over largely through currency manipulation, says he “sympathizes with their grievances” of those protesting corporate greed.

4. Arrests: Unlike the Tea Party rallies, there have been numerous arrests at the Occupy protests, as the crowds ignore city ordinances about overnight camping on public property. Nearly a thousand were arrested in New York for blocking the Brooklyn Bridge, snarling traffic for those who work for a living, and hundreds have been taken into custody in Chicago, Boston and other cities.

5. Politics: Democrats from President Obama on down are trying to find common ground with the Occupy Wall Streeters, hoping the protests can be the liberal equivalent of the Tea Party and breathe some life into a moribund progressive movement. The hypocrisy is ripe—the President has garnered more corporate donations than any politician in the nation’s history.

6. Unpatriotic: OWS protests routinely view the United States as the enemy. The American flag is trashed, desecrated and flown upside down. A Coast Guard female officer in uniform was harassed and spit on near the Boston rally. In Portland, Ore., a speaker said, “F**k America.” The protesters would like nothing better than to see the decline of their country.

7. Extremists: It is no small feat to be praised by both the American Nazi Party and the Communist Party USA. From aging hippies who are trying to relive the glory of the Sixties to the younger anarchists who have nothing better to do, many of the OWS protesters are extremists who show up at every left-wing demonstration.

8. Trash: After Tea Party rallies, the grounds were generally swept clean of garbage by the protesters, leaving the areas cleaner than before they arrived. In contrast, at OWS protests, piles of trash are mounting, creating a public health hazard. And after several weeks, many in the crowd are in dire need of a shower.

9. Anti-Semitic: While the mainstream media pushed a fictitious story line that the Tea Party was a cauldron of racism, the OWS rallies feature plenty of examples of outright anti-Semitism. The rallies are marrying the anti-Zionist tirades of the Left with the stereotypical view of Jewish Wall Street bankers to create an ugly atmosphere.

10. Signs: The Tea Party rallies were always full of clever signs, poking fun at Big Government and Barack Obama, and honoring the Founding Fathers and the Constitution. By contrast, the Occupy Wall Street signs are characterized by misspelled words, profanity and inane statements such as, “One day the poor will have nothing left to eat but the rich.”

Another Day, Another ‘We Can't Wait' Executive Order

By Doug Powers • October 31, 2011 04:34 PM

The “jobs bill by executive order piecemeal” initiative continues:

This afternoon, in yet another executive action intended to boost the economy, President Obama signs an executive order that addresses prescription drug shortages.

The signing marks yet another move in the president’s “we can’t wait” campaign to grow the economy through unilateral actions while his $447 jobs bill remains stalled in Congress.

The president will direct the Food and Drug Administration to take steps to further reduce and prevent drug shortages, and price gouging.

For some reason I’ve got a feeling that prescription drug prices are about to rise.

Obama, Dems Received Contributions From Failed Power Company: Beacon Power Corporation, which filed for bankruptcy

4:50 PM, Oct 31, 2011 • By MICHAEL WARREN

Beacon Power Corporation, which filed for bankruptcy late last week, was the recipient of a $43 million loan guarantee from the Energy Department. Campaign contribution information from Open Secrets shows that Beacon Power's CEO F. William Capp donated to both Barack Obama and two Massachusetts Democrats..



Capp donated $500 to to Obama's 2008 campaign, as well as $500 to Martha Coakley and $250 to congresswoman Niki Tsongas in 2009. Coakley lost against Scott Brown in the 2009 special election to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy, and Tsongas was running for reelection to the House in 2010. Beacon Power is based in Tyngsboro, a town 44 miles northwest of Boston that is located in Tsongas's Fifth Congressional District.

Other Beacon Power employees made similar contributions. Matthew Polimeno, the company's director of government relations, donated $500 to Tsongas in 2008 and another $250 in 2009, while also donating $250 to Coakley in 2009. Beacon Power CFO James Spiezio donated $250 to Coakley in 2009.

The company's connection with Democrats does not end there. One of Beacon Power's chief federal lobbyists was Steve A. Wolfe of Cardinal Point Partners. Wolfe is a former aide to Senator Edward Kennedy, a close ally to Obama in the Senate and the man Martha Coakley was seeking to replace in the U.S. Senate.

The loan guarantee program is the same that provided $535 million in a loan guarantee to failed solar power company Solyndra.

Politico’s Jonathan Martin Won’t Divulge Details Of Cain Story

Posted by Dana Loesch
Oct 31st 2011 at 9:30 am

Via Newsbusters, Politico’s Jonathan Martin never met an Unnamed Source he didn’t like.

Incredibly, when Willie Geist asked him to describe specifically what Politico is accusing Cain of having done, Martin hemmed, hawed then ultimately said “we’re just not going to get into the details of exactly what happened with these women,” beyond the sketchy generalities in the Politico story.



Transcript:

WILLIE GEIST: Hey Jonathan, what are the allegations specifically as you understand them? There’s obviously a wide range in sexual harassment. What did he do?

JONATHAN MARTIN: We-, we-, well we have to be careful about that obviously, because we’re sensitive to –

GEIST: Of course –

MARTIN: — the sourcing involved here. And also, what actually happened to these women as well–we want to be sensitive to that, too. It includes both verbal and physical gestures. These women felt uncomfortable, they were unhappy about their treatment, and they complained to both colleagues and senior officials. In one case it involved, I think, inviting a woman up to a hotel room of Cain’s on the road. Um, but, we-, we-, we’re just not going to get into the details of exactly what happened with these women beside what’s in the story.

There were also descriptions of physical gestures that were not overtly sexual

What are “gestures?” Like this?



This story was released to affect Cain’s standing with the voters, why else would a decade-old supposedly settled, poorly sourced story be relevant now? If this is the case, we need to vet the Democrats’ candidate with the same standard, and we can start with Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Vera Baker.

Cain has a right to face his accusers and the American public has the right to know the details of a story and not be expected to rush to a judgment predicated on “unnamed sources.”

How To Speak Liberal: 20 Words And Phrases Translated

Written By : John Hawkins

Earlier this week, Jonathan Bines did a post called “How to Speak Republican“.

It was very inspirational because I have to tell you, it’s also pretty tough for most people to figure out what liberals mean sometimes. You think they’re on your side, but they’re not. You believe they’re saying “yes,” but they mean “no.” You think they’re offering you a ride home, and next thing you know, you’re at the bottom of a tidal pool and they’re swimming away.

Someone has to translate what they mean. Well, have no fear, because after studying liberals for years, I’ve got the lingo down.

Compassion: Feeling good about yourself for wanting to give away money you didn’t earn to people you hope will vote for your side.

“Conscience of the Senate”: KKK member.

Flag: Something to be burned and walked on at protests or alternately, waved close to election time.

Greed: Wanting to keep money you’ve earned instead of having it spent on Bridges to Nowhere and government loans to people who’ve contributed to Obama’s campaign.

Guns: Vicious weapons that force people to kill each other.

He’s in the pocket of big oil: He was once seen filling up the tank of his car with gas.

Jesus: Someone who shouldn’t ever be brought up in schools, other government buildings, or politics in general unless you’re claiming he was really a liberal who’d be in favor of gay marriage and abortion.

Minorities: People who are too dumb and incompetent to make it without liberal help.

Morals: Things you should avoid having so you can’t be accused of hypocrisy if you don’t live up to your own standards.

No justice, no peace: Give us money and we’ll find someone else to bother.

Our opponents refuse to compromise on this issue: The Republicans refuse to do everything we want.

Racism: A word you cry when you’re losing an argument with a conservative.

Reality-based community: People who believe that Communism could work if the right people were in charge and that George W. Bush was behind 9/11 — or the Jews, either/or.

Taxes: A limitless supply of free money to be given away to liberal special interests in return for votes.

Tolerance: Something that justifies going on hate-filled rants against people who don’t share your view of the world.

That charge is outrageous: That charge is true, but it’s embarrassing that you brought it up in public.

Unfair attack: They quoted me.

USA: Ever heard the phrase “The devil made me do it?” Replace “the devil” with “the USA” and you’ll understand every bad thing that happens in the world.

Violent rhetoric: Words like “crossfire,” “job killing,” and “crosshairs” when used by non-liberals.

We must address the root causes of this problem: We must not do anything to effectively address this problem. Instead we must raise taxes and pour dump trucks’ worth of money into whatever unrelated issue we have decided is the cause of the problem.

This originally appeared at The Huffington Post

Labor Department Rolls Back Transparency for Unions

James Sherk
October 31, 2011 at 5:15 pm

President Obama promised to run the most open and transparent Administration in history. However, his Department of Labor (DOL) just announced more regulations rolling back financial transparency for labor unions.

Congress passed the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) in 1959 following hearings documenting links between labor unions and organized crime. The act requires unions to publicly disclose how they spend their members’ money. Congress believed that this would discourage malfeasance and enable union members to hold their leaders accountable.

Until recently, however, the act did little to achieve these goals. For four decades the DOL required only aggregated financial reports that provided no meaningful disclosure while permitting large loopholes that allowed unions to avoid disclosure.

Secretary Elaine Chao made a point of fixing these problems. Under her leadership, the DOL tightened disclosure requirements and closed loopholes. One of Chao’s reforms was strengthening the LM-30 conflict-of-interest reporting forms.

The LMRDA requires union officers to disclose payments they receive from their employers. Perhaps there is a good reason for an employer to be cutting checks to union officers, but Congress reasoned that union members ought to know about it.

Unfortunately, the old version of the LM-30 excluded numerous union officers and forms of compensation. Many unions negotiate contracts that allow select employees to take paid leave to conduct union business. This is a quite valuable benefit for unions, one they are often willing to make bargaining concessions—such as lower wages—to get. Union leave can also be misused to create comfortable no-show jobs for union favorites.

Secretary Chao required union officers to disclose how much union leave they received. In the vast majority of cases, union leave use will be perfectly legitimate, but Chao believed that workers should be able to evaluate that for themselves.

Chao also required union shop stewards to file the LM-30 forms. Union stewards are employees of a company who also act as union officials. For example, stewards might represent workers in grievance complaints against the company. Previously the regulations exempted stewards. Chao reasoned that workers should know if their representatives are also getting cash gifts from their employers.

In addition, the DOL required union officers to report payments from union trust funds. Many unions operate trusts—such as worker training or strike benefit funds—for the intended benefit of their members. These funds are often run by union officers. Chao believed that payments from union trusts to union officers could pose a conflict of interest. Union officials might be tempted to help themselves to their members’ money. So the revised LM-30 form required union officers to disclose payments from union trusts. While most payments would be legitimate, the DOL wanted union members to be able to decide that for themselves.

President Obama’s DOL just rolled back these reforms. Union officers will not have to report union leave benefits or payments from union trusts. Union stewards will not have to file at all. The new regulations will leave union members in the dark about union officers’ potential conflicts of interest.

Union members want financial transparency: 89 percent of union members agree that unions should disclose their spending. In part, this is because 66 percent of union members believe their leaders mostly look out for themselves.

Union members deserve to know whether the union officials who represent them truly represent them. The President should not turn out the lights shining on the union movement’s books.

Liberals Create Video In Which They Violently Murder "Republicans" (Warning, Graphic)

Posted by Aurelius at 3:17 PM

No one believes liberals' claims they are "civil" and that Republicans are not. No one ever did.

Once again showing that their accusations are baseless, a group of liberals have created "Republican Zombie Defense." To explain their site (which slams Republicans and sells merchandise), they have created a video.

The video begins, "They're out there! Lurking, hungry to seize control! Brain-dead zombies: Republicans!" And within 15 seconds, viewers are welcomed to images like this:

But have no fear, there are Democrats who will rip the heads of Republicans off of their bodies:

And after a quick discussion about Health Care, Democrats shoot a Republican with an automatic weapon:

Then, after a blond says, "Ban divorce for straight people," she chainsaws a Republican:

While laughing hysterically:

After this, a "Latino" man (a Democrat) takes a Republican's head off with a baseball bat:

After this, a racist stereotype blows up a woman with a grenade, then happily holds up her internal organs, screaming, "Oh yes, we can:"

They then plug their merchandise.

To put it simply, this is one of the most racist, violent, and vile video I have ever seen.

Attorney General in Mexico: 200 Murders Result of the U.S. backed "Fast & Furious"

Sunday, October 30, 2011
By Texcoco

In a conference call this morning with Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa, reporters were told the Attorney General in Mexico has confirmed at least 200 murders south of the border happened as a result of Operation Fast and Furious.

“I would be remiss if I didn’t mention, as the Attorney General in Mexico is so concerned, she’s made the point that at least 200 Mexicans have been killed with these weapons and probably countless more,” Issa said.

Eleven crimes in the United States have been linked to Operation Fast and Furious up to this point. Issa said he expects as the investigation in the operation continues, more crimes connected to Fast and Furious will come to light and be exposed. This is not surprising, considering out of 2500 weapons the Obama Justice Department allowed to “walk,” and that only 600 have been recovered, the rest are lost until they show up at violent crime scenes. The damage from Operation Fast and Furious has only started to be seen. Remember, the Mexican Government and ATF agents working in Mexico were left completely in the dark about the operation.

July 26, 2011
A new report released by Issa’s office shows ATF agents working in Mexico were left in the dark about the details of Operation Fast and Furious. The report shows that in late 2009, ATF officials in Mexico began to see increasing amounts of guns traced to the Phoenix ATF Field Division office showing up at violent crime scenes.

Former ATF Attaché to Mexico Darren Gil and ATF Acting Attaché to Mexico Carlos Canino expressed their concerns to officials in the Phoenix Field Office and in Washington D.C. but were ignored. The report shows ATF and DOJ “failed to share crucial details of the of Operation Fast and Furious with either their own employees stationed in Mexico or representatives of the Government of Mexico.” Specifically, personnel in Arizona denied ATF agents working in Mexico information directly related to their jobs and everyday operations.

Issa submitted a request to the White House for information surrounding the operation nearly two weeks ago and that request has not yet been filled. White House Officials have until the end of this week to submit documents requested before Issa takes the next step.

Documentation about what the White House knew about the operation was requested after Special ATF Agent in Charge William Newell admitted in Congressional testimony that he was in contact with White House national security advisers about the operation and after emails surfaced showing at least three White House officials were in contact with the Justice Department about the operation.

Since this scandal came to light in March 2011, the Obama Justice Department has continually stonewalled the investigation from the House Oversight Committee, and not much has changed. Issa said there is an ongoing cover-up of a pattern of ongoing mistakes and that the Justice Department continues to use petty prosecutions to limit information given to the Oversight Committee.



“People are picking their words very carefully," Issa said.

When asked what the consequences would be for DOJ or ATF officials involved in the operation, Issa said prosecutions may come at the end of this scandal to those who knowingly trafficked weapons across the border and could be held accountable for the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

“This was dumb, it was useless and it was lethal,” Issa said.

Donations To Occupy Wall Street Are Now ‘Tax Deductible’

Posted on October 30, 2011 at 8:55pm by Mike Opelka

The $500,000 in donations collected by Occupy Wall Street is drawing the attention of many people.
The “residents” of Zuccotti Park heard about the huge sum of money and during the regular “General Assembly” meetings, arguments have broken out over how the money is being allocated.
Our own Buck Sexton speculated on GBTV last Friday that the IRS might take a look at the situation. After all, this is not an official non-profit organization and they have raised over a half million in funds and accumulated untold amounts of goods (non-perishable foods, sleeping bags, goggles, etc.)

Perhaps the “leadership” at OWS realized their finances were a liability and they have formed an alliance of sorts with a Social Justice non-profit group that will collect the money for them. Enter, the Alliance For Global Justice (AfGJ).

AfGJ claims to have roots that go back to the late 1970s, but they only formally organized and were recognized back in 1998. According to their website’s mission statement;

It is the mission of the Alliance for Global Justice to achieve social change and economic justice by helping to build a stronger more unified grassroots movement.

And they also know an opportunity when they see one… also from the AfGJ mission statement;

The Alliance nurtures organizations seeking fundamental change in international and national conditions that disempower people, create disparities in access to wealth and power, poison the earth, and plunder its resources.

Occupy Wall Street seems to fit right in with the broad strokes of the Progressive movement that AfGJ claims to be a part of since 1979. And that is why it made perfect sense that this Alliance would swoop in and offer to collect money for OWS and also be able to offer “tax deductible” status to people who donate.

AfGJ, however, is not giving away their collection services. The organization takes a tidy 7% off the top of all donations they process. As of Sunday night, the Alliance for Global Justice claimed to have processed almost $200,000 on behalf of OWS.

This is a win-win for the protesters and the Social Justice crew at AfGJ. Occupy Wall Street gains significant legitimacy by associating with an established national non-profit group while adding the ability to raise funds via credit card donations with the promise of a tax deduction, and the Alliance gets an unexpected boost in donations thanks to their 7% cut.

If you are wondering if the Alliance for Global Justice is now officially and legally tied to the Occupy Wall Street movement, the answer is YES… sort of. Here is further clarification from the AfGJ website;

So what does the Alliance for Global Justice do for Occupy Wall Street (OWS)? Essentially we collect and process their donations and pass the money on to them as a project of the AfGJ. In IRS parlance we take “responsibility for all financial and programmatic matters” of OWS. We are responsible to include their financial reporting as part of our own when we file our annual tax return, which for non-profits is called a form 990. We are accountable legally and financially to prove that all expenditures by OWS are within the IRS’s tax-exempt rules. If the IRS audits us, we will have to show supporting evidence of the numbers we report. Occupy Wall Street’s obligation to us is to provide the accounting and receipts we’ll need for the IRS and to not jeopardize our tax-exempt status through any actions of theirs. (emphasis to text added by The Blaze)

This curious partnership gives AfGJ 7% of all monies donated to OWS, but could put the Alliance under the microscope of the IRS. Do they really expect the street-dwelling citizens of OWS to keep track of money spent and hang on to receipts? As someone who has visited Zuccotti Park weekly since the early days of the protest, this reporter saw little or no evidence of record keeping by those running the kitchen or any other “department” within the utopian encampment.

Lest you think that AfGJ has rushed into this marriage without a pre-nup, think again. From their website’s explanation of the partnership;

With all of our fiscally sponsored projects we are responsible for them both financially and programmatically. However, our fiscal projects act autonomously with their own decision-making structures. We do not interfere or participate in those structures except in the, so far, unknown event that one of our projects would do something to jeopardize our tax-exempt status. Under our fiscal sponsorship contract, we have the right to tell them to cease and desist if that should happen and to cancel the contract if they refuse.

Up to this point, the fund raising for OWS has been an informal combination of street begging, anonymous cash donations mailed to the park, and the rumored financial support from Unions, George Soros types, and the far Left. The ability to process donations via credit cards could bring a considerable infusion of operating capital to the movement.

The partnership also raises questions about the movement. Can you be in bed with a group that is pushing for Social Justice and Economic Justice and still claim that you do not want to tear down the Capitalist system that has been the engine of America for 235 years?

This formal, legal connection to an established, far-Left organization like AfGJ certainly gives new focus to Occupy Wall Street and the exact intentions of the movement.

Who pays for long-term care for illegals?

Practice of helping some go back home stirs debate
By TODD ACKERMAN, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Updated 12:36 a.m., Sunday, October 30, 2011

With an infant son, a common-law wife who's a U.S. citizen and a job at a Galveston bait shop, Francisco Martinez was working toward the American dream.

Then Martinez fell off the shop's roof and landed unceremoniously at the intersection of one of America's most vexing ethical, political and financial conundrums: the care of severely sick or injured illegal immigrants.

"It's a tragic, intractable problem," said Antonio Zavaleta, a professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Brownsville who specializes in health care and immigrant populations. "There's no clear solution."

Provide the long-term care and those institutions will rack up expenses that either bankrupt them or get passed on to U.S. citizens through higher charges. Don't provide the care and many of those patients won't survive, an ethical blight for a nation that prides itself on being humanitarian.

The UT Medical Branch at Galveston's solution, after saving Martinez's life, was to try to persuade the Mexican national, now paralyzed from the chest down, to return to his homeland for the special, long-term care he needs. Martinez's response, despite UTMB's offer to pay for the trip, was to tell hospital officials, "if you don't want me here, just throw me outside."

UTMB's plan was an example of medical repatriation, once little known, recently the subject of national newspaper articles, law journal reviews and medical association reports. No one tracks the exact number of illegal immigrant patients who've been transferred back to their native countries, but it's thought to occur nationally hundreds of times a year.

The Harris County Hospital District has repatriated seven such patients since 2010, but officials say all were voluntary. The controversy comes when a transfer occurs without the consent of the patient, typically because the patient no longer has family back home or fears the quality of or access to care there.

Houston's major private nonprofit hospital systems - Methodist, St. Luke's and Memorial Hermann - either had no comment or didn't respond to inquiries about whether they'd arranged the transfer of any illegal immigrant patients back to their home country.

Opposing views

What is clear is that the practice stirs passionate responses on both sides of the immigration debate.

Geoffrey Hoffman, director of the University of Houston Immigration Clinic, describes it as "patient dumping" or "private deportation" and calls it "despicable." Noting deportation is the "exclusive province" of the federal government, not hospitals, he says forcing patients to "accept" repatriation back to a country where there may be no hope of follow-up care can "only reflect badly on our great nation."

By contrast, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington argues that there are "real-world limits" to the level of health care U.S. institutions should provide non-citizens. He says that it's one thing to provide the life-saving emergency care federal law requires, quite another to provide lifelong, bankruptcy-causing or premium-raising care "to people here illegally in the first place."

Beneath the rhetoric, there's no denying the cost of such care. In 2010, for instance, the Harris County Hospital District spent nearly $170 million on the care of illegal immigrants. That was up from $100 million in 2007.

From 2005 to 2008, states were able to recoup some of those costs thanks to federal funding - Texas got about $45 million a year - aimed at compensating states for the emergency care of illegal immigrants the law requires hospitals provide. The program, pushed by Texas and other states that bear the brunt of such care, was not renewed after 2008.

Still, the real problem isn't hospitals, which transfer most all patients, both U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants, once urgent care is no longer needed and the bed is needed for other patients. It's long-term care facilities, unable to afford to accept patients, like Martinez, who don't have insurance. It remains for hospitals, obligated by federal regulation to arrange post-hospital care for those who need it, to find alternatives and to provide care indefinitely if they can't.

Long-term options

Alternatives south of the border aren't terribly attractive. There are few long-term care facilities, and access to public hospitals is limited for people who left the country to live in the United States, according to some experts. "In Mexico, you go home to die," Zavaleta said.

So are there any good alternatives? The Catholic charity Casa Juan Diego provides long-term care for up to 80 illegal immigrant in Houston. In addition, a California company, MexCare, arranges transfers of consenting patients in any U.S. state to private Mexican facilities with which it works - the discharging U.S. hospital pays the bill, but it's typically a third of what it would cost it to keep the patient.

David Lopez, president of the Harris County Hospital District, argues that illegal immigrants should be able to buy health insurance, much as they're able to buy car insurance in some states. But he acknowledges that there's no single solution.

"It's going to take a multiplicity of solutions," says Lopez. "One thing is certain - the status quo is not the answer."

Occupy-ers attack cops in Denver riot

Police use rubber bullets and pepper spray on demonstrators as Occupy Denver protest turns ugly... Over 30 arrested in Portland and 38 in Austin as police crackdown

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 7:08 PM on 30th October 2011

A tense standoff between Occupy Denver protesters and authorities near the Colorado Capitol erupted Saturday with a surge of demonstrators being met with police force that included pepper spray and rubber bullets.

The clash came as Occupy Wall Street protesters and state officials in Tennessee squared off for a third consecutive night Saturday, even though a local judge has refused to jail demonstrators who have been arrested and said the state lacks the authority to set a curfew on the property.

In Denver, some supporters of the Occupy movement, marching with a group of about 2,000, tried to advance up the Capitol steps.

About eight officers scuffled with a group of protesters, according to The Denver Post, and police confirmed to the newspaper that they used pepper spray and rubber bullets or pepper balls to break up the crowd.

Denver police spokesman Matt Murray said protesters knocked an officer off his motorcycle and other officers were kicked by demonstrators.

Murray said seven protesters were arrested, including two for assault and one for disobedience, the Associated Press reports.

He said some demonstrators had received medical treatment on the scene, but no one had been taken to a hospital.

Mike Korzen, 25, said he was among the protesters whom police dispersed with rubber bullets and pepper spray.

'I was standing there with my hands behind my back,' Korzen said, using a water bottle to wash pepper spray from his eyes.

Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter of the Denver suburbs visited the protest site Saturday afternoon to try to calm protesters.

After the clash several protesters moved across the street to a park where a small encampment has been established.

A city street between the park and the Capitol was blocked by police cars and a Denver bus.

The clash came after a week of police crackdowns around the U.S. on Occupy activists, who have been protesting economic inequality and what they call corporate greed.

In Oakland, California, an Iraq War veteran was seriously injured during a protest clash with police Tuesday night.

In Atlanta, helicopters hovered Wednesday as officers in riot gear arrested more than 50 protesters at a downtown park.

In San Diego, police arrested a similar number of people who occupied the Civic Center Plaza and Children's Park for three weeks.

In Nashville, magistrate Tom Nelson has said there's no legal reason to keep demonstrators who have been arrested behind bars and he has released them after each arrest.

He has refused each night to sign off on arrest warrants for more than two dozen people taken into custody.

Protesters were galvanized by the friction between state officials and Nelson.

'My heart has been here all along, but the arrests gave me the momentum to come,' said Vicki Metzgar, 61, director of a Nashville Public Schools science and math initiative who joined the protests Saturday.

'This plaza belongs to us, not the politicians.'

Some legal experts agreed with the judge.

The arrests appeared to be a violation of First Amendment rights in the U.S. Constitution that allow for people to peacefully assemble, said attorney David Raybin, a former prosecutor.

He and others said the nature of the arrests, coupled with the judge's refusal to sign off on the warrants, could become ammunition for lawsuits.

'The government is exposing itself to serious liability here by doing this,' Raybin said.

The curfew at the Legislative Plaza, which state troopers began enforcing Thursday night, runs from 10pm to 6am.

Others questioned the timing of the curfew. The protesters had been demonstrating for about three weeks before it took effect, a point that Nelson said he factored into his decision.

'You can't pass a curfew mid-protest because you disagree with this group of protesters,' said criminal defence attorney Patrick Frogge, who is representing some of those arrested.

The state Department of Safety is carrying out the arrests. Commissioner Bill Gibbons, who until he joined the Haslam administration was the district attorney in Memphis, said he didn't have a role in developing the curfew but assured Haslam his department could enforce it.

Cecily Friday, one of the original Occupy Nashville protesters, said the administration's attempt to get rid of the demonstrators has 'completely backfired.'

'Over 1,000 people have been added to our Facebook page since the arrests,' she said.

Among those arrested Friday night was journalist Jonathan Meador, who told troopers he was a reporter covering the story for the Nashville Scene alternative newspaper.

On Saturday, the owner of the newspaper sent a letter to Haslam's staff.

'I expect the governor to publicly apologize to him for this violation of his rights and to assure the people of Tennessee that this administration will not interfere with the right to a free press that has been a fundamental right in this country since our founding,' SouthComm CEO Chris Ferrell wrote.

'I'm sure you understand that every media outlet in this country will vigorously defend our right to cover government action without fear of arrest or reprisal.'

In New York City, where the Occupy Wall Street movement began last month, a mix of snow, rain and slush made for sheer misery at the encampment in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan.

Drenched protesters hunkered down in tents and under tarps as the plaza filled with rainwater and melted snow.

Technically, tents are banned in the park, but protesters say authorities have been looking the other way, even despite a crackdown on generators that were keeping them warm.

'I want to thank the New York Police Department,' said 32-year-old protester Sam McBee, decked out in a yellow slicker and rain pants.

'We're not supposed to have tents. We're not supposed to have sleeping bags. You go to Atlanta, they don't have it. You go to Oakland, you don't have it. And we got it.'

Armed Citizen Militia Shows Up At 'Occupy Phoenix'

Group is affiliated with neo-nazi fringe

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
October 30, 2011


Armed citizen militia group US Border Guard is making its presence felt at the Occupy Phoenix demonstration to protect free speech rights, arguing that the second amendment prevents the state from abusing the first amendment.

The group has been labeled “neo-nazis” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is usually a demonization tactic, but the individual shown in the clip, “JT Ready” has attended neo-nazi rallies and is closely affiliated with the fringe National Socialist Party.

The group has also operated as a “Minutemen on steroids” outfit, organizing armed patrols of the US border with Mexico.

As we have previously highlighted, the fringe neo-nazi movement has been completely infiltrated by the FBI, right down to the level where an FBI informant actually got caught organizing a neo-nazi rally in Orlando back in 2007.

Is this a means of infiltrating the ‘Occupy’ movement, a minority fringe extremist group trying to attach itself to the protesters, or merely concerned citizens expressing their right to bear arms peaceably?

Opinions will undoubtedly be split, but one certainty is the fact that the establishment media instantly seized upon groups like this attaching themselves to the Tea Party rallies as a smear tactic to claim the whole movement was racist and violent. However, in the case of ‘Occupy’, the mainstream networks have largely ignored making such connections.

Obama Campaigning 'Like It's 1936'

While Republican presidential candidates are looking forward by proposing variations of a flat income tax, President Obama’s tax-the-rich campaign strategy is looking backward—to Franklin Roosevelt’s 1936 reelection campaign. FDR won his reelection, but the American people lost: Roosevelt’s new taxes on business and the “economic royalists” gave us the “Roosevelt recession” of 1937-38.

By August of 1935, Roosevelt had achieved some of his signature pieces of legislation: a new entitlement program known as Social Security, banking reform, pro-union reform, infrastructure expansion and massive transfers of wealth to the poor and middle classes. Sound familiar?

FDR also ran up federal spending significantly: from 6 percent to 9 percent of the economy.

However, FDR needed more revenue to support his big-government schemes. More importantly, he needed a villain to explain why, given the passage of his New Deal legislation, government spending and regulations, the economy was still struggling.

So he proposed raising taxes on the rich, which he dubbed a “Wealth Tax.” As he explained to Congress in June 1935, “Our revenue laws have operated in many ways to the unfair advantage of the few, and they have done little to prevent the unjust concentration of wealth and economic power. … Social unrest and a deepening sense of unfairness are dangers to our national life which we must minimize by rigorous methods.” President Obama couldn’t have said it better himself.

There were several components to FDR’s plan. First he wanted very high taxes on the rich—up to 79 percent—and to lower the thresholds so that more high-income earners paid more taxes. He also wanted to increase the estate tax. As for business, he wanted to close the “loopholes,” a graduated corporate income tax and a tax on intercorporate dividends.

But the bill that actually passed the Democratically controlled Congress in 1935 would not raise much money—estimated at about $250 million, which initially seemed like enough to cover budgetary shortfalls. FDR’s associates acknowledged at the time that the Wealth Tax was more about politics than policy, or as Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau put it, “it was more or less a campaign document.”

However, by 1936 Roosevelt needed yet more revenue and had apparently grown to relish his new class warfare and railing against “organized money.” So he proposed another business tax: an undistributed profits tax.

Like Obama, FDR faced what he saw as a big problem: Businesses had a lot of cash on hand but weren’t spending it. “Regime uncertainty,” the reluctance of business to hire and invest when faced with a growing onslaught of new taxes and regulations, suppressed capital spending. No one knew what the future held so businesses held on to their cash hoping to survive. Again, sound familiar?

Roosevelt believed that forcing businesses to spend that money would create jobs. So he proposed, and got, his undistributed profits tax. If the government were going to tax idle money anyway, maybe businesses would put it to work.

The irony, of course, is that the more FDR dreamed up new taxes and regulations to get the economy moving, the more regime uncertainty he created. And those efforts had a predictable effect: the economy began to turn south in 1937, resulting in the Roosevelt recession. Unemployment had fallen from a high of 24.9 percent in 1933 to 16.9 percent in 1936, the year of FDR’s first reelection—still significantly higher than the post-war high of 7.5 percent during Reagan’s 1984 reelection and the current, and likely to remain, 9.1 percent unemployment rate under Obama.

However, unemployment under Reagan and Roosevelt were dropping quickly in their reelection years, which boosted voter confidence. Not so with Obama. And Obama’s embracing of FDR’s “soak the rich” tax policies—as FDR’s critics called it—will do just as much economic harm now as they did then. While the unemployment rate fell to 14.3 percent in 1937, it rose to 19 percent in 1938 and only declined to 17.2 percent in 1939.*

If President Obama is trying to draw lessons from FDR’s 1936 reelection, he is learning the wrong ones. FDR had a huge majority in both houses of Congress, so he was able to get his class-warfare agenda passed—though his efforts expanded the growing divide between conservative and liberal Democrats. Obama may complain about the need to tax the rich; Republicans won’t let him do it.

In addition, the country leaned more to the left then, with several national demagogues—including Louisiana Senator Huey Long, Francis Townsend and Father Charles Coughlin—constantly pulling FDR leftward (whether FDR really resisted that leftward tug is a matter of opinion). There really is no strong national voice to the left of Obama, except for MSNBC and perhaps Occupy Wall Street.

The lesson Obama should be learning from the 1936 election is that FDR’s Wealth Tax and class warfare set the economic recovery back years. Obama’s effort to channel FDR’s policies and reelection success would have exactly the same impact.

Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, Texas. Follow at http://twitter.com/MerrillMatthews

* For a discussion of the best figures for pre-war unemployment rates see Robert A. Margo, “Employment and Unemployment in the 1930s,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1993.

Crony Socialism: Obama Gives $737 Million to Solar Firm Linked to the Pelosi Clan

Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 12:14 PM

It’s as if Solyndra never happened. The Obama Administration is giving $737 million to a Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve. PCG is an investment partner with SolarReserve. Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law happens to be the number two man at PCG.

Team Obama is spending $737 million to create 45 permanent jobs.
The Hill reported, via Free Republic:

The Energy Department announced Wednesday that is has finalized a $737 million loan guarantee for a Nevada solar project.

The decision comes several weeks after a California-based solar manufacturer that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration in 2009 filed for bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 workers, setting off a firestorm in Washington.

The $737 million loan guarantee will help finance construction of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a 110-megawatt solar-power-generating facility in Nye County, Nev. The project is sponsored by Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve.

Crescent Dunes is the latest solar project to receive a loan guarantee from the Energy Department in recent weeks. The department announced a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to Abengoa Solar for a solar generation project in California and a $150 million loan guarantee to 1366 Technologies for a Massachusetts solar manufacturing project earlier this month.

The Energy Department says the project will result in 600 construction jobs and 45 permanent jobs.

It looks like Rep. Allen West was right.
Obama IS trying to destroy the economy.

Constitution Study Radio: Constitutional Myth #1 - The Federal Government has 3 Co-Equal Branches

Direct link: Constitution Study Radio: Myth #1: 3 Co-Equal Branches

Scenes From Zuccotti Park: 'Pervert! Pervert! Get the F--k Out'

As the freak snow storm descended upon the Northeast Saturday, one Zuccotti Park occupier decided it would be a good idea to try and occupy one of the female protesters. There's been a lot of this going on amidst the peaceful occupiers. Apparently this time, however, the fiend was chased off, however.
Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park battened down the hatches yesterday as the early October snow turned their tents into igloos, but the close quarters also made easy pickings for one predator.

A sex fiend barged into a woman’s tent and sexually assaulted her at around 6 a.m., said protesters, who chased him from the park.

“Pervert! Pervert! Get the f--k out!” said vigilante Occupiers, who never bothered to call the cops.

“They were shining flashlights in his face and yelling at him to leave,” said a woman who called herself Leslie, but refused to give her real name.

She said that weeks earlier another woman was raped.

“We don’t tell anyone,” she said. “We handle it internally. I said too much already.”

Way to fight the man, by not reporting rapes. I guess all this crime might hurt their image.

Posted by JammieWearingFool at 7:22 AM

Occupy Wall Street - Must Read!

Recent letter to the editor of Knoxville News-Sentinel.


Jack A. Furnari, Knoxville

The current Occupy Wall Street movement is the best illustration to date of what President Barack Obama's America looks like. It is an America where the lawless, unaccomplished, ignorant and incompetent rule. It is anAmerica where those who have sacrificed nothing pillage and destroy the lives of those who have sacrificed greatly. It is an America where history is rewritten to honor dictators, murderers and thieves. It is an America where violence, racism, hatred, class warfare and murder are all promoted as acceptable means of overturning the American civil society.

It is an America where humans have been degraded to the level of animals: defecating in public, having sex in public, devoid of basic hygiene. It is an America where the basic tenets of a civil society, including faith, family, a free press and individual rights, have been rejected. It is an Americawhere our founding documents have been shredded and, with them, every person's guaranteed liberties.

It is an America where, ultimately, great suffering will come to the American people, but the rulers like Obama, Michelle Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, liberal college professors, union bosses and other loyal liberal/Communist Party members will live in opulent splendor.

It is the America that Obama and the Democratic Party have created with the willing assistance of the American media, Hollywood, unions, universities, the Communist Party of America, the Black Panthers and numerous anti-American foreign entities.

Obama has brought more destruction upon this country in four years than any other event in the history of our nation, but it is just the beginning of what he and his comrades are capable of. The Occupy Wall Street movement is just another step in their plan for the annihilation of America.


"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."
-- Thomas Sowell