EXCLUSIVE by Steve Lewis and Gemma Jones The Daily Telegraph November 16, 2011 3:00PM
SENSITIVE details of US Secret Service agents and preparations for President Barack Obama's visit have been stored in an old van parked at a Canberra hotel.
On the day the President arrives in Canberra, The Daily Telegraph can reveal timesheets detailing travel of US agents and officials have been left in the white Mazda parked at the rear of the Hyatt hotel.
Roads will be closed today, guards were yesterday stationed at aviation fuel terminals at the airport and the President's attack-proof limousine, the Obama-mobile, has already arrived in Canberra. Yet hire car drivers working on the President's visit have been asked to deposit their time sheets in the van, which was unmanned when visited by The Daily Telegraph on Friday.
One driver said they folded up the documents as they were concerned about leaving them unattended in a carpark. Another claimed he was sacked for refusing to send timesheets, showing where a US Secret Service agent from the Presidential Protection Division of the US Department of Homeland Security had been, unaccompanied in a taxi to the hotel carpark.
The timesheet detailed suburbs and buildings visited last Tuesday, when the agent went to a Canberra primary school.
It is understood advance work was done at the school but it was not chosen for a visit by President Obama and Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Planning for the school visit has been the most closely guarded secret in the President's itinerary.
The timesheets the driver said he refused to send in a taxi showed the Secret Service agent had been to various places President Obama will visit around Canberra.
The driver was sacked in an email and the woman who sent it declined to comment.
The Secret Service agent also declined to comment when contacted on Monday.
"I don't have any comment on that," he said.
A spokesman for the company contracted to drive the US officials around Canberra admitted using the van as a collection point but denied there had been a major security breach.
The US Embassy in Canberra said any questions about presidential security were a matter for the Secret Service.
The President has meetings with Ms Gillard later today ahead of his address to a joint sitting of parliament at 10.15am tomorrow.
He will then visit a primary school with Ms Gillard.
The president is also due to lay a wreath at the Canberra War Memorial.
Mr Obama will spend Friday in Darwin.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
CABLE NEWS RACE - MON., NOV. 14, 2011
CABLE NEWS RACE
MON., NOV. 14, 2011
FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,185,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,207,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,104,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,969,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,669,000
MSNBC SCHULTZ 907,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 866,000
MSNBC MADDOW 814,000
MSNBC O'DONNELL 766,000
MSNBC SHARPTON 734,000
CNN COOPER 565,000
CNN PIERS MORGAN 544,000
MON., NOV. 14, 2011
FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,185,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,207,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,104,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,969,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,669,000
MSNBC SCHULTZ 907,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 866,000
MSNBC MADDOW 814,000
MSNBC O'DONNELL 766,000
MSNBC SHARPTON 734,000
CNN COOPER 565,000
CNN PIERS MORGAN 544,000
Obama in Hawaii: 'Here in Asia'...
President Obama Holds a Press Conference at the APEC Summit
President Obama makes remarks and takes questions about progress made at the 19th annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation leader's summit. November 13, 2011.
President Obama makes remarks and takes questions about progress made at the 19th annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation leader's summit. November 13, 2011.
Obama Nominee for Social Security Board Favors Rationing Health Care
4:17 PM, Nov 15, 2011 • By JEFFREY H. ANDERSON
Is it just a coincidence that the people that President Obama nominates to fill high-level governmental posts tend to favor government-directed health care rationing? Last year, Obama nominated Donald Berwick to head Medicare and Medicaid. Now he’s nominated Henry J. Aaron to head the Social Security Advisory Board.
Berwick, to whom Obama issued a dubious recess appointment to circumvent the usual Senate confirmation, has become notorious for statements like, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open” — and, in progressive-speak, “The social budget is limited.”
Aaron, a recent Obama nominee, has expressed similar views. He wrote a piece earlier this year called, “The Independent Payment Advisory Board — Congress's ‘Good Deed.’” The grisly IPAB, one of the most underreported of Obamacare’s myriad of liberty-sapping features, would have the power to cut Medicare spending each year — if Obamacare isn’t repealed first. The dictates of its 15 unelected members would effectively become law. In fact, Congress couldn’t even overturn the IPAB’s decrees with a majority vote in each house and the President’s signature.
Obama has since doubled-down on the IPAB, seeking to grant it even more power to cut Medicare spending than Obamacare would grant it. To be clear, this is in addition to the nearly $1 trillion that the Congressional Budget Office says would be siphoned out of Medicare and spent on Obamacare during the overhaul’s real first decade (2014 to 2023).
Aaron praises the IPAB, although he does admit to having a few problems with it. He thinks that its largely unchecked power isn’t unchecked enough, as the board should be able to order payment reductions for other aspects of medical care that have so far escaped its statutory grant of power. He writes,
“I admit that the provisions governing the IPAB are less than optimal. For example, recommendations regarding payments to acute and long-term care hospitals, hospices and inpatient rehabilitation and psychiatric facilities are off-limits until 2020; and those to clinical laboratories are off-limits until 2016. These politically motivated restrictions should be repealed as early as possible so the IPAB’s recommendations can comprehend the delivery system as a whole.”
Aaron says that “the survival and strengthening of the IPAB is of critical importance.” In a sense, this is unsurprising, given his earlier views, which were captured in a Washington Post story published during the Reagan administration (when Aaron was in his late 40s). The Post article reads,
“If Americans are serious about curbing medical costs, they’ll have to face up to a much tougher issue than merely cutting waste, says Brookings Institution economist Henry J. Aaron.
“They’ll have to do what the British have done: ration some types of costly medical care — which means turning away patients from proven treatments.
“Cutting billions worth of ‘pure waste’ — in needless hospitalization, surplus beds, Cadillac-model machinery and superfluous tests — would only temporarily slow the growth in health spending, which now tops 10 percent a year, Aaron told a symposium sponsored by the American Academy of Physician Assistants last week in Reston.
“Eventually the ‘cornucopia of technology’ and America’s aging population will combine to drive up health costs by 6 or 7 percent a year anyway unless something else is done, he said.
“That ‘something else’ is what Aaron calls the ‘second stage’ of cost control. It’s a much more complex step, requiring choices that no one — doctor, patient or politician — likes to make.
“Aaron and Dr. William B. Schwartz, professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, recently completed a study of how these choices are made in Britain, a country which spends half as much per person as the United States on health care.
“Some medical services widely available in the United States are strictly rationed in Britain, Aaron and Schwartz report in their book, ‘The Painful Prescription.’ For example, British doctors order half as many X-rays per capita as their American counterparts, and use half as much film per X-ray. They do one-tenth as much coronary artery bypass surgery. British hospitals have one-sixth as many CAT scanners and less than one-fifth as many intensive care unit (ICU) beds....
“Half the patients with chronic kidney failure in Britain are left untreated — and die as a result….
“The key to the British system, they contend, lies not in regulation but in a different attitude toward medicine, mortality and the scarcity of resources.
“Unlike their American counterparts, who tend to believe in saving lives at all cost, British doctors define ‘what is best’ in terms of ‘what is available,’ Aaron said.
“As the director of a tiny 10-bed ICU in an 800-bed London hospital put it: ‘Yes, this would be too small in America. But if you took this unit and set it down in Sri Lanka or India, it would stick out like a sore thumb. It would be an obscene waste of money.’
“The burden of enforcing medical rationing in Britain falls mainly on doctors, who act as ‘gatekeepers’ in the system. They know funds for kidney dialysis are limited, so they simply don’t refer older patients for the life-saving treatment.
“Asked how he could turn away over-55 kidney patients from life-saving dialysis, one doctor told Aaron and Schwartz: ‘What you don’t seem to understand is that everybody over the age of 55 is a bit crumbly.’…
“It will be ‘a lot harder to move into this second stage of rationing in the U.S.,’ Aaron warned.
“The American public has not yet begun to understand what is being asked of it when it comes to limiting the growth in hospital spending.”
Indeed.
Is it just a coincidence that the people that President Obama nominates to fill high-level governmental posts tend to favor government-directed health care rationing? Last year, Obama nominated Donald Berwick to head Medicare and Medicaid. Now he’s nominated Henry J. Aaron to head the Social Security Advisory Board.
Berwick, to whom Obama issued a dubious recess appointment to circumvent the usual Senate confirmation, has become notorious for statements like, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open” — and, in progressive-speak, “The social budget is limited.”
Aaron, a recent Obama nominee, has expressed similar views. He wrote a piece earlier this year called, “The Independent Payment Advisory Board — Congress's ‘Good Deed.’” The grisly IPAB, one of the most underreported of Obamacare’s myriad of liberty-sapping features, would have the power to cut Medicare spending each year — if Obamacare isn’t repealed first. The dictates of its 15 unelected members would effectively become law. In fact, Congress couldn’t even overturn the IPAB’s decrees with a majority vote in each house and the President’s signature.
Obama has since doubled-down on the IPAB, seeking to grant it even more power to cut Medicare spending than Obamacare would grant it. To be clear, this is in addition to the nearly $1 trillion that the Congressional Budget Office says would be siphoned out of Medicare and spent on Obamacare during the overhaul’s real first decade (2014 to 2023).
Aaron praises the IPAB, although he does admit to having a few problems with it. He thinks that its largely unchecked power isn’t unchecked enough, as the board should be able to order payment reductions for other aspects of medical care that have so far escaped its statutory grant of power. He writes,
“I admit that the provisions governing the IPAB are less than optimal. For example, recommendations regarding payments to acute and long-term care hospitals, hospices and inpatient rehabilitation and psychiatric facilities are off-limits until 2020; and those to clinical laboratories are off-limits until 2016. These politically motivated restrictions should be repealed as early as possible so the IPAB’s recommendations can comprehend the delivery system as a whole.”
Aaron says that “the survival and strengthening of the IPAB is of critical importance.” In a sense, this is unsurprising, given his earlier views, which were captured in a Washington Post story published during the Reagan administration (when Aaron was in his late 40s). The Post article reads,
“If Americans are serious about curbing medical costs, they’ll have to face up to a much tougher issue than merely cutting waste, says Brookings Institution economist Henry J. Aaron.
“They’ll have to do what the British have done: ration some types of costly medical care — which means turning away patients from proven treatments.
“Cutting billions worth of ‘pure waste’ — in needless hospitalization, surplus beds, Cadillac-model machinery and superfluous tests — would only temporarily slow the growth in health spending, which now tops 10 percent a year, Aaron told a symposium sponsored by the American Academy of Physician Assistants last week in Reston.
“Eventually the ‘cornucopia of technology’ and America’s aging population will combine to drive up health costs by 6 or 7 percent a year anyway unless something else is done, he said.
“That ‘something else’ is what Aaron calls the ‘second stage’ of cost control. It’s a much more complex step, requiring choices that no one — doctor, patient or politician — likes to make.
“Aaron and Dr. William B. Schwartz, professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, recently completed a study of how these choices are made in Britain, a country which spends half as much per person as the United States on health care.
“Some medical services widely available in the United States are strictly rationed in Britain, Aaron and Schwartz report in their book, ‘The Painful Prescription.’ For example, British doctors order half as many X-rays per capita as their American counterparts, and use half as much film per X-ray. They do one-tenth as much coronary artery bypass surgery. British hospitals have one-sixth as many CAT scanners and less than one-fifth as many intensive care unit (ICU) beds....
“Half the patients with chronic kidney failure in Britain are left untreated — and die as a result….
“The key to the British system, they contend, lies not in regulation but in a different attitude toward medicine, mortality and the scarcity of resources.
“Unlike their American counterparts, who tend to believe in saving lives at all cost, British doctors define ‘what is best’ in terms of ‘what is available,’ Aaron said.
“As the director of a tiny 10-bed ICU in an 800-bed London hospital put it: ‘Yes, this would be too small in America. But if you took this unit and set it down in Sri Lanka or India, it would stick out like a sore thumb. It would be an obscene waste of money.’
“The burden of enforcing medical rationing in Britain falls mainly on doctors, who act as ‘gatekeepers’ in the system. They know funds for kidney dialysis are limited, so they simply don’t refer older patients for the life-saving treatment.
“Asked how he could turn away over-55 kidney patients from life-saving dialysis, one doctor told Aaron and Schwartz: ‘What you don’t seem to understand is that everybody over the age of 55 is a bit crumbly.’…
“It will be ‘a lot harder to move into this second stage of rationing in the U.S.,’ Aaron warned.
“The American public has not yet begun to understand what is being asked of it when it comes to limiting the growth in hospital spending.”
Indeed.
Fruits of Obama's preaching: Envy now a virtue
KRAMER: Occupy envy
Covetousness is morphing from sin to virtue
By John E. Kramer
The Washington Times
Friday, November 4, 2011
There is a deeply disturbing message coming out of the Occupy Wall Street movement - one of the few consistent messages thus far. It is the same message President Obama and his political allies have hammered home for much of his administration. Simply put, it boils down to this: We must punish success; we must organize envy.
Envy used to be condemned as one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It was something to be avoided and discouraged. Consider that at least two of the 10 Commandments explicitly discourage envy in one form or another. Now envy is held up as a virtue not only by the occupiers but by members of the left’s political class in a bold but transparent move to gain greater power over those with the means to challenge their authority.
Our response to them should be equally simple: Envy isn’t an American value.
In this nation, we are aspirational. We don’t just hope for a better life and seek to take it from others by force; we work for it. When we work for it, we hope and expect to gain the fruits of our labor. The messages preached by the occupiers and the president are more representative of the kind of European values our forbearers fled by the millions to come to the United States in hopes of forging a better lives for themselves and their families, a hope based on individual freedom rather than government-directed redistribution. Don’t take my word for it. Consider the words of rock star Bono, who said, “In America, the guy looks up at a mansion on a hill and says, ‘One day, if I work really hard, I’m going to live in that mansion on the hill.’ In Dublin, they look at the mansion on the hill and they say, ‘One day, I’m going to get that bastard.’ “
That’s the message the occupiers and those on the left are trying to sell to Americans - that it’s OK to take from the 1 percent because they are successful. We outnumber them, so that makes it acceptable.
Count me among those who don’t begrudge the rich what they own. Merely because someone is rich doesn’t make me poor. It is not consistent with the freedoms that we value and the rights that are enshrined in our Constitution that we should seek to use government power to punish success and limit the accumulation of wealth. I despise McMansions, for example. I think they are ugly and a waste of resources, and I would never live in one. But if some rich fool wants to build one as a boast and live in it on his own land, that is his business. He should have the freedom to do that and keep what he has earned. I’ll remain content in my humble brick rambler. If a person is not harming another, he should be left alone to do or to accumulate as he wishes. Remember that old expression: “It’s a free country.”
If you don’t like McMansions, don’t buy one. If you don’t like a corporation that outsources its work overseas to rake in big profits, don’t do business with that company. Better yet, start your own business that doesn’t do that. What you shouldn’t be calling for is punishing the successful who have broken no law but are merely working to make the world a better place as they see it.
America’s greatest value is that we aspire - we want better for ourselves and others. But that “better” we seek must be earned through private negotiation, not through government force. Occupy Wall Streeters need to be reminded that organized envy has no place here in our land.
John E. Kramer is vice president of communications for the Institute for Justice.
© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC
Covetousness is morphing from sin to virtue
By John E. Kramer
The Washington Times
Friday, November 4, 2011
There is a deeply disturbing message coming out of the Occupy Wall Street movement - one of the few consistent messages thus far. It is the same message President Obama and his political allies have hammered home for much of his administration. Simply put, it boils down to this: We must punish success; we must organize envy.
Envy used to be condemned as one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It was something to be avoided and discouraged. Consider that at least two of the 10 Commandments explicitly discourage envy in one form or another. Now envy is held up as a virtue not only by the occupiers but by members of the left’s political class in a bold but transparent move to gain greater power over those with the means to challenge their authority.
Our response to them should be equally simple: Envy isn’t an American value.
In this nation, we are aspirational. We don’t just hope for a better life and seek to take it from others by force; we work for it. When we work for it, we hope and expect to gain the fruits of our labor. The messages preached by the occupiers and the president are more representative of the kind of European values our forbearers fled by the millions to come to the United States in hopes of forging a better lives for themselves and their families, a hope based on individual freedom rather than government-directed redistribution. Don’t take my word for it. Consider the words of rock star Bono, who said, “In America, the guy looks up at a mansion on a hill and says, ‘One day, if I work really hard, I’m going to live in that mansion on the hill.’ In Dublin, they look at the mansion on the hill and they say, ‘One day, I’m going to get that bastard.’ “
That’s the message the occupiers and those on the left are trying to sell to Americans - that it’s OK to take from the 1 percent because they are successful. We outnumber them, so that makes it acceptable.
Count me among those who don’t begrudge the rich what they own. Merely because someone is rich doesn’t make me poor. It is not consistent with the freedoms that we value and the rights that are enshrined in our Constitution that we should seek to use government power to punish success and limit the accumulation of wealth. I despise McMansions, for example. I think they are ugly and a waste of resources, and I would never live in one. But if some rich fool wants to build one as a boast and live in it on his own land, that is his business. He should have the freedom to do that and keep what he has earned. I’ll remain content in my humble brick rambler. If a person is not harming another, he should be left alone to do or to accumulate as he wishes. Remember that old expression: “It’s a free country.”
If you don’t like McMansions, don’t buy one. If you don’t like a corporation that outsources its work overseas to rake in big profits, don’t do business with that company. Better yet, start your own business that doesn’t do that. What you shouldn’t be calling for is punishing the successful who have broken no law but are merely working to make the world a better place as they see it.
America’s greatest value is that we aspire - we want better for ourselves and others. But that “better” we seek must be earned through private negotiation, not through government force. Occupy Wall Streeters need to be reminded that organized envy has no place here in our land.
John E. Kramer is vice president of communications for the Institute for Justice.
© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC
Press should occupy history books before protest coverage
By Chris Stirewalt
Published November 04, 2011
FoxNews.com
“Corporate profits on the rise, soldiers have to bleed and die!”
-- Chant from Occupy Wall Street protesters joined by 100 veterans for a march on the New York Stock Exchange, as reported by the Associated Press.
The California-as-Greece meme picked up steam this week when Oakland turned into the poor man’s Athens – clashes with police, protesters shutting down the city’s port (one of Oakland’s few remaining economic engines) and calls for a general strike.
And there is a genuine danger for California, which has come upon some very hard times. The state is utterly broke and likely past its ability to increase revenue through tax increases. Wealthy individuals and businesses are fleeing the state for spots in Texas and across the West. New taxes would only worsen the trend.
California Democrats were able to resist the Republican wave in 2010 and, thanks in large part to hugely powerful government-worker unions, managed to elect Jerry Brown governor. But penury is still forcing some austerity measures and there will be many more to come, especially as, for the first time in the modern era, California will probably lag the national economic recovery, rather than lead it.
Lots of government workers upset about austerity, 2 million unemployed, a substantial permanent protest community, under-funded law enforcement agencies further constrained by public sympathy for the resistance and unresolved racial and ethnic tensions – that’s the recipe for some real chaos if the Occupy Wall Street movement can sustain itself on the Pacific.
But it’s different Back East. Here, the winter weather is starting to roll in, making permanent encampment for the anti-corporate forces of Occupy Wall Street harder to maintain. Plus, local populations are a lot less forgiving of disruption and nuisance, which empowers police and limits the expressions of solidarity from within the government.
When the Oakland rioters called for a general strike, local government agencies volunteered to let workers use leave time to join the march. That’s not happening East of the Rockies, at least so far. There are some jurisdictions where government workers have that kind of sway – most of Maryland, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Rhode Island and a few other spots – but the annoyance expressed by many in liberal New York for the malodorous emanations from Zucotti Park are more typical of the reaction to the protest clusters.
That hasn’t stopped many on the left and the right from casting the protests as matters of major importance. But Power Play would point out that by historical standards, this is strictly chicken feed.
Leaving aside the anti-Vietnam protests and the peaceful civil-rights movement and the riots of the 1960s and 1970s, which were fueled by the specific complaints about the war or racial grievance rather than a strict focus on the alleged evils of capitalism, you have to go back to the Depression era to find real social upheaval of the kind the Occupy folks seek.
Media reports this week marveled at the presence of 100 veterans at the Occupy Wall Street encampment, with the Associated Press enthusing: “A week before Veterans Day, generations of former military men and women threw their considerable weight behind the Occupy movement born in mid-September...”
Reporters are jazzed about covering the Occupy Wall Street movement, perhaps out of ideological bent but mostly out of a desire to be covering something world-changing. Add in a lack of historical perspective, and you have a recipe for some really gooey reporting.
Having 100 veterans out of the 22 million in the nation show up to protest isn’t significant. It might be effective messaging for the protesters to put forward a military appearance to undercut the popular notion that they are a bunch of hippies, but it’s not “generations of former military men and women throwing their considerable weight” behind the movement.
If 30 percent of America’s adult population is comprised of veterans, it shouldn’t be too impressive that 5 percent of 2,000 protesters served in uniform.
Power Play would remind reporters that in the spring of 1932, an army of as many as 17,000 veterans joined by tens of thousands of like-minded marchers, invaded Washington to demand early payment of their bonuses for their World War I service, not due until 1945.
They “occupied” Washington for months before a bloody clash with police prompted President Hoover to call out the Army to break up the encampments with then-Maj. George Patton commanding tank and cavalry units to drive them out of the capital city.
Shacks burning in the shadow of the Capitol and bayonets out on Pennsylvania Ave. – now that would have been a story to cover. It was certainly more action than writing about a graduate student live blogging from a tent across from the K Street Starbucks.
The temptation to overhype Occupy events will be acute again today as pressure mounts on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to shut down the long-running protest colony in Lower Manhattan because of the complaints of local taxpayers weary of the noise, odor and disruption.
There will also be some merry prankster antics in Washington as conservative group Americans for Prosperity, which receives funds from the Koch family, a particular target of liberal outrage, holds a meeting in D.C. where Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Herman Cain will speak.
But whether Americans are now just too indifferent or if the presence of public-welfare programs has shrunk the pool of potential economic revolutionaries or if things just aren’t that bad, the press should consider taking a deep breath when it comes to coverage of the current movement.
Americans have been rebelling since day one, first for their freedom and since then over everything from whisky taxes to police brutality. And while Oakland offers a stark warning for Californians about the potential direction of their state, the current moment calls for calmer coverage.
Chris Stirewalt is digital politics editor for Fox News, and his POWER PLAY column appears Monday-Friday on FoxNews.com.
Published November 04, 2011
FoxNews.com
“Corporate profits on the rise, soldiers have to bleed and die!”
-- Chant from Occupy Wall Street protesters joined by 100 veterans for a march on the New York Stock Exchange, as reported by the Associated Press.
The California-as-Greece meme picked up steam this week when Oakland turned into the poor man’s Athens – clashes with police, protesters shutting down the city’s port (one of Oakland’s few remaining economic engines) and calls for a general strike.
And there is a genuine danger for California, which has come upon some very hard times. The state is utterly broke and likely past its ability to increase revenue through tax increases. Wealthy individuals and businesses are fleeing the state for spots in Texas and across the West. New taxes would only worsen the trend.
California Democrats were able to resist the Republican wave in 2010 and, thanks in large part to hugely powerful government-worker unions, managed to elect Jerry Brown governor. But penury is still forcing some austerity measures and there will be many more to come, especially as, for the first time in the modern era, California will probably lag the national economic recovery, rather than lead it.
Lots of government workers upset about austerity, 2 million unemployed, a substantial permanent protest community, under-funded law enforcement agencies further constrained by public sympathy for the resistance and unresolved racial and ethnic tensions – that’s the recipe for some real chaos if the Occupy Wall Street movement can sustain itself on the Pacific.
But it’s different Back East. Here, the winter weather is starting to roll in, making permanent encampment for the anti-corporate forces of Occupy Wall Street harder to maintain. Plus, local populations are a lot less forgiving of disruption and nuisance, which empowers police and limits the expressions of solidarity from within the government.
When the Oakland rioters called for a general strike, local government agencies volunteered to let workers use leave time to join the march. That’s not happening East of the Rockies, at least so far. There are some jurisdictions where government workers have that kind of sway – most of Maryland, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Rhode Island and a few other spots – but the annoyance expressed by many in liberal New York for the malodorous emanations from Zucotti Park are more typical of the reaction to the protest clusters.
That hasn’t stopped many on the left and the right from casting the protests as matters of major importance. But Power Play would point out that by historical standards, this is strictly chicken feed.
Leaving aside the anti-Vietnam protests and the peaceful civil-rights movement and the riots of the 1960s and 1970s, which were fueled by the specific complaints about the war or racial grievance rather than a strict focus on the alleged evils of capitalism, you have to go back to the Depression era to find real social upheaval of the kind the Occupy folks seek.
Media reports this week marveled at the presence of 100 veterans at the Occupy Wall Street encampment, with the Associated Press enthusing: “A week before Veterans Day, generations of former military men and women threw their considerable weight behind the Occupy movement born in mid-September...”
Reporters are jazzed about covering the Occupy Wall Street movement, perhaps out of ideological bent but mostly out of a desire to be covering something world-changing. Add in a lack of historical perspective, and you have a recipe for some really gooey reporting.
Having 100 veterans out of the 22 million in the nation show up to protest isn’t significant. It might be effective messaging for the protesters to put forward a military appearance to undercut the popular notion that they are a bunch of hippies, but it’s not “generations of former military men and women throwing their considerable weight” behind the movement.
If 30 percent of America’s adult population is comprised of veterans, it shouldn’t be too impressive that 5 percent of 2,000 protesters served in uniform.
Power Play would remind reporters that in the spring of 1932, an army of as many as 17,000 veterans joined by tens of thousands of like-minded marchers, invaded Washington to demand early payment of their bonuses for their World War I service, not due until 1945.
They “occupied” Washington for months before a bloody clash with police prompted President Hoover to call out the Army to break up the encampments with then-Maj. George Patton commanding tank and cavalry units to drive them out of the capital city.
Shacks burning in the shadow of the Capitol and bayonets out on Pennsylvania Ave. – now that would have been a story to cover. It was certainly more action than writing about a graduate student live blogging from a tent across from the K Street Starbucks.
The temptation to overhype Occupy events will be acute again today as pressure mounts on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to shut down the long-running protest colony in Lower Manhattan because of the complaints of local taxpayers weary of the noise, odor and disruption.
There will also be some merry prankster antics in Washington as conservative group Americans for Prosperity, which receives funds from the Koch family, a particular target of liberal outrage, holds a meeting in D.C. where Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Herman Cain will speak.
But whether Americans are now just too indifferent or if the presence of public-welfare programs has shrunk the pool of potential economic revolutionaries or if things just aren’t that bad, the press should consider taking a deep breath when it comes to coverage of the current movement.
Americans have been rebelling since day one, first for their freedom and since then over everything from whisky taxes to police brutality. And while Oakland offers a stark warning for Californians about the potential direction of their state, the current moment calls for calmer coverage.
Chris Stirewalt is digital politics editor for Fox News, and his POWER PLAY column appears Monday-Friday on FoxNews.com.
Anyone can vote? No I.D. needed!
WRECK THE VOTE
Voting without photo ID pushed for all 50 states
Just walk into a polling location, register, cast ballot immediately
Posted: November 04, 2011
9:10 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh © 2011 WND
A Minnesota congressman has proposed federal legislation that would impose his state's type of voter registration – which leads the nation in voter fraud cases – on the other 49 states, according to critics who have launched online campaigns to make people aware of the dangers of Rep. Keith Ellison's H.R. 3316 and its companion H.R. 3317.
"Our votes control trillions of public dollars, yet Ellison would have us believe nobody would ever steal them. We can trust everybody, right?" said a commentary posted on the Election Integrity Watch site.
"Would you keep your money in a bank that allowed people to make withdrawals without checking their identity and verifying that they are entitled to the money?" the site wondered.
In a commentary promoting his H.R. 3316, which would banish all photo identification requirements, and H.R. 3317, which would allow people to walk into a polling location, register and vote immediately, Ellison said his intent is to curb "voter suppression."
"The Same Day Registration Act would require states to provide for same day voter registration for a federal election. The Voter Access Protection Act would make sure election officials cannot require photo identification in order to cast a vote or register to vote," he said.
Get "Taking America Back," Joseph Farah's manifesto for sovereignty, self-reliance and moral renewal
He said there are 34 state legislatures that have considered bills requiring photo ID to vote.
"These are solutions in search of a problem," he said. "Statistics show an infinitesimal number of proven voting fraud cases occurring in the United States. And these few cases have been successfully prosecuted like any other criminal offense."
However, an organization that monitors elections in Minnesota and roots out fraudulent votes is warning ballot fraud is on the rise across the nation, and if unchecked, the ultimate consequences would be an electorate that simply doesn't believe the system works and refuses to participate – "a total breakdown in the cohesion of American society."
That's from Executive Director Dan McGrath of the Minnesota Majority, which advocates for traditional values in state and federal public policy through grassroots activism. The group also contributes to the work of ElectionIntegrityWatch.com to focus specifically on elections and voter fraud.
Minnesota Majority reported that its investigations of fraud allegations arising from the 2008 general election in the state so far have resulted in 113 convictions. Another 200 or so cases are being processed or are pending but might not be completed because the statute of limitations expires this month, three years after the election.
And a stunning 2,800 or more cases cannot be prosecuted because of the wording in the Minnesota state law that essentially requires voter fraud participants to admit they knew what they were doing was illegal in order for a conviction to be obtained, the organization said.
The organization's report on voter fraud said the convictions appear to be the highest number since a scheme in Jackson County, Mo., in 1936 resulted in 259 individuals convicted of voter fraud.
A more recent effort by the U.S. Department of Justice that encompassed five years resulted in just 53 convictions, the group said.
"It's mind-boggling to me that as a tiny non-profit corporation, we netted more than double the number of convictions in one year than the U.S. Department of Justice was able to find in five," said Minnesota Majority president Jeff Davis in a statement on the results.
The group identified a wide range of illegal votes, including incapacitated patients at a mental health home who have guardians and are not eligible to vote to "upwards of 2,800 ineligible felons believed to have unlawfully voted in Minnesota's 2008 general election."
"These convictions are just the tip of the iceberg," said Davis. "The actual number of illegal votes cast was in the thousands. Most unlawful voters were never charged with a crime because they simply pled ignorance. We have evidence of these people casting illegal ballots, but in Minnesota, ignorance of election law is considered to be an acceptable defense."
It's not just in Minnesota.
The organization lists reports from dozens of locations around the nation where voter fraud cases have been brought, and convictions won, by prosecutors. Among them are a 10-year prison term for an NAACP leader for vote fraud, several cases in Houston, more in Wisconsin and some in Florida.
Ellison, whose schemes are being cosponsored by Reps. Yvette Clarke of New York, Marcia Fudge of Ohio, Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Alcee Hastings of Florida, Barbara Lee of California, Gwen Moore of Wisconsin and Jose Serrano of New York, noted that such "fraud" "seems to be occurring only within historically Democratic voting blocs like minorities and students."
He said organizations critical of looser voting procedures "have no problem squashing these groups' voting rights – or the rights of elderly voters."
He continued, "Imagine an 80-year-old grandmother, who has never driven and uses a wheelchair, going through the process of getting non-drivers ID. If her Social Security card is accepted identification for her benefits, why isn't it good enough to identify her for voting?"
McGrath told WND that Ellison's proposals for the nation are very similar to the procedures now used in his home state of Minnesota, which "right now is leading the nation in convictions for voter fraud."
"He wants to take a system producing more fraud than anywhere else in the country and impose it on all states," he said.
"Voting is a right, but it's a qualified right. You have to be at least 18 years old, a citizen of our country, resident of the state and precinct, and not be a convicted felon still serving your term or mentally incompetent."
He said the system is set up with all of these qualifications, yet under Ellison's plan, "we're supposed to take people's word for it."
The 2nd Amendment also gives people the right to own a gun, but there are verifications and qualifications there, too, he said.
He said "some would argue" those with ill motives can do more damage with an illegal vote than an illegal gun, because the vote can affect "everybody in the country."
McGrath said the move is more than just an effort by Ellison, as the issue has been "brewing for awhile."
He said when voter registration and identification laws have been tightened in specific states, voter participation actually has gone up.
"It goes to that confidence that participation will make a difference," he said.
In Minnesota, he said, prosecutions are rising at least partly because of a new team of county attorneys elected in 2010 who are taking the violations of voting laws seriously.
Also posting comments on the issue was the We Want Voter ID site, which carried an image of Ellison "holding" a sign stating "Voter Fraud For All!"
"The net effect of Ellison's two bills is to allow anyone and everyone to cast a ballot on Election Day without any mechanism to verify their identity, citizenship, eligibility, or that they live in the state and precinct they are voting in," it said.
With estimates that range into the tens of millions for the number of illegal aliens inside the United States, races easily could be decided on those counts, officials noted.
Minnesota Majority notes that in 2008, the Minnesota U.S. Senate race was decided by just 312 votes.
"Never in our state's history did the words 'every vote counts' ring so true. However, a cloud of doubt still hangs over the results. Post-election analysis showed that hundreds of ineligible felons voted in the election. Over 17,000 more ballots were counted than voters accounted for as having voted in our Statewide Voter Registration System. Over 23,000 addresses provided by Election Day registrants could not be verified. Voter rolls contained the names of non-citizens and deceased individuals," the organization reported.
What that means is that Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., may not have won, although he has been casting votes from his U.S. Senate seat ever since, the group said.
"Political analysts estimate that voter fraud may account for 3 percent of the vote in any given election. Applying this statistic to Minnesota's 2006 gubernatorial election, that would mean that we would have had over 66,000 fraudulent votes. Remember that Gov. Pawlenty won this election by just 21,000 votes," the organization reported.
Sens. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota endorsed Ellison's plan, explaining, in Feingold's words, "We should constantly be looking for ways to make it easier for Americans to exercise that right [to vote]."
ElectionIntegrityWatch notes that photo ID laws in more than a dozen states have been challenged "and plaintiffs have not yet produced a single voter who would be disenfranchised by those laws."
McGrath said the potential ramifications are very serious for the nation, and "that's why we've been so dogged about this."
"The foundation of the country rests on the confidence of the people that they're being represented," he said. "That they have a voice in the process. If they feel they have become disenfranchised, they'll ask, 'What reason do I have to participate?'
"That's why it's so very alarming."
It was just last month that former Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan said a signature on a petition to put Barack Obama on the state's primary ballot in 2008 isn't his.
The Democrat, who had campaigned for Hillary Clinton, told the Associated Press the printing next to the signature doesn't even look like his.
He was among dozens of people contacted by the South Bend Tribune who declined to verify that their names on the petition were in their handwriting.
Officials called for a federal investigation.
WND also previously reported that a number of names among ACORN's "shock troops" have been linked to or convicted of perjury, forgery, identity theft and election fraud in recent years.
Mathew Vadum, a senior editor for the Capital Research Center, released before Obama took office a report titled "ACORN: Who Funds the Weather Underground's Little Brother?" documenting the troubled past and problems facing the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
The organization for which Obama at one point trained activists and to which he directed grants while aboard the management of the Woods Fund established a reputation for doing pretty much as it pleases, the report said.
While the election 2008 controversies over electoral fraud efforts "have been indelibly imprinted in the public consciousness," Vadum said, that work is only a "smidgen of what ACORN actually does."
While ACORN officially went out of business earlier this year, Vadum has documented how most of the people involved simply reported many times to the same offices and same work desks, just under the name of a new organization.
The issue of misbehavior at the polls caught the attention of the public in 2008 when voter intimidation by members of the New Black Panther Party was caught on video:
The Justice Department originally brought a case against the organization and several individuals who witnesses say derided voters with catcalls of "white devil" and "cracker" and told them they should prepare to be "ruled by the black man."
One poll watcher called police after he reportedly saw one of the men brandishing a nightstick to threaten voters.
"As I walked up, they closed ranks, next to each other," the witness told Fox News at the time. "So I walked directly in between them, went inside and found the poll watchers. They said they'd been here for about an hour. And they told us not to come outside because a black man is going to win this election no matter what."
He said the man with a nightstick told him, "'We're tired of white supremacy,' and he starts tapping the nightstick in his hand. At which point I said, 'OK, we're not going to get in a fistfight right here,' and I called the police."
Subsequently, former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams testified before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that the Voting Section of Attorney General Eric Holder's organization is dominated by a "culture of hostility" toward bringing cases against blacks and other minorities who violate voting-rights laws.
Further, two other former U.S. Department of Justice attorneys later corroborated key elements of the explosive allegations by Adams.
One of Adams' DOJ colleagues, former Voting Section trial attorney Hans A. von Spakovsky, told WND he saw Adams was being attacked in the media for lack of corroboration. He said he knew Adams was telling the truth, so he decided on his own to step forward.
Adams had been ordered by his superiors to drop a case prosecutors already had won against the New Black Panthers. When they were ordered to stop prosecution, Adams and the team of DOJ lawyers had already won the case by default because the New Black Panthers declined to defend themselves in court. At that point in the proceedings, the DOJ team was simply waiting for the judge to assign penalties against the New Black Panthers.
Voting without photo ID pushed for all 50 states
Just walk into a polling location, register, cast ballot immediately
Posted: November 04, 2011
9:10 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh © 2011 WND
A Minnesota congressman has proposed federal legislation that would impose his state's type of voter registration – which leads the nation in voter fraud cases – on the other 49 states, according to critics who have launched online campaigns to make people aware of the dangers of Rep. Keith Ellison's H.R. 3316 and its companion H.R. 3317.
"Our votes control trillions of public dollars, yet Ellison would have us believe nobody would ever steal them. We can trust everybody, right?" said a commentary posted on the Election Integrity Watch site.
"Would you keep your money in a bank that allowed people to make withdrawals without checking their identity and verifying that they are entitled to the money?" the site wondered.
In a commentary promoting his H.R. 3316, which would banish all photo identification requirements, and H.R. 3317, which would allow people to walk into a polling location, register and vote immediately, Ellison said his intent is to curb "voter suppression."
"The Same Day Registration Act would require states to provide for same day voter registration for a federal election. The Voter Access Protection Act would make sure election officials cannot require photo identification in order to cast a vote or register to vote," he said.
Get "Taking America Back," Joseph Farah's manifesto for sovereignty, self-reliance and moral renewal
He said there are 34 state legislatures that have considered bills requiring photo ID to vote.
"These are solutions in search of a problem," he said. "Statistics show an infinitesimal number of proven voting fraud cases occurring in the United States. And these few cases have been successfully prosecuted like any other criminal offense."
However, an organization that monitors elections in Minnesota and roots out fraudulent votes is warning ballot fraud is on the rise across the nation, and if unchecked, the ultimate consequences would be an electorate that simply doesn't believe the system works and refuses to participate – "a total breakdown in the cohesion of American society."
That's from Executive Director Dan McGrath of the Minnesota Majority, which advocates for traditional values in state and federal public policy through grassroots activism. The group also contributes to the work of ElectionIntegrityWatch.com to focus specifically on elections and voter fraud.
Minnesota Majority reported that its investigations of fraud allegations arising from the 2008 general election in the state so far have resulted in 113 convictions. Another 200 or so cases are being processed or are pending but might not be completed because the statute of limitations expires this month, three years after the election.
And a stunning 2,800 or more cases cannot be prosecuted because of the wording in the Minnesota state law that essentially requires voter fraud participants to admit they knew what they were doing was illegal in order for a conviction to be obtained, the organization said.
The organization's report on voter fraud said the convictions appear to be the highest number since a scheme in Jackson County, Mo., in 1936 resulted in 259 individuals convicted of voter fraud.
A more recent effort by the U.S. Department of Justice that encompassed five years resulted in just 53 convictions, the group said.
"It's mind-boggling to me that as a tiny non-profit corporation, we netted more than double the number of convictions in one year than the U.S. Department of Justice was able to find in five," said Minnesota Majority president Jeff Davis in a statement on the results.
The group identified a wide range of illegal votes, including incapacitated patients at a mental health home who have guardians and are not eligible to vote to "upwards of 2,800 ineligible felons believed to have unlawfully voted in Minnesota's 2008 general election."
"These convictions are just the tip of the iceberg," said Davis. "The actual number of illegal votes cast was in the thousands. Most unlawful voters were never charged with a crime because they simply pled ignorance. We have evidence of these people casting illegal ballots, but in Minnesota, ignorance of election law is considered to be an acceptable defense."
It's not just in Minnesota.
The organization lists reports from dozens of locations around the nation where voter fraud cases have been brought, and convictions won, by prosecutors. Among them are a 10-year prison term for an NAACP leader for vote fraud, several cases in Houston, more in Wisconsin and some in Florida.
Ellison, whose schemes are being cosponsored by Reps. Yvette Clarke of New York, Marcia Fudge of Ohio, Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Alcee Hastings of Florida, Barbara Lee of California, Gwen Moore of Wisconsin and Jose Serrano of New York, noted that such "fraud" "seems to be occurring only within historically Democratic voting blocs like minorities and students."
He said organizations critical of looser voting procedures "have no problem squashing these groups' voting rights – or the rights of elderly voters."
He continued, "Imagine an 80-year-old grandmother, who has never driven and uses a wheelchair, going through the process of getting non-drivers ID. If her Social Security card is accepted identification for her benefits, why isn't it good enough to identify her for voting?"
McGrath told WND that Ellison's proposals for the nation are very similar to the procedures now used in his home state of Minnesota, which "right now is leading the nation in convictions for voter fraud."
"He wants to take a system producing more fraud than anywhere else in the country and impose it on all states," he said.
"Voting is a right, but it's a qualified right. You have to be at least 18 years old, a citizen of our country, resident of the state and precinct, and not be a convicted felon still serving your term or mentally incompetent."
He said the system is set up with all of these qualifications, yet under Ellison's plan, "we're supposed to take people's word for it."
The 2nd Amendment also gives people the right to own a gun, but there are verifications and qualifications there, too, he said.
He said "some would argue" those with ill motives can do more damage with an illegal vote than an illegal gun, because the vote can affect "everybody in the country."
McGrath said the move is more than just an effort by Ellison, as the issue has been "brewing for awhile."
He said when voter registration and identification laws have been tightened in specific states, voter participation actually has gone up.
"It goes to that confidence that participation will make a difference," he said.
In Minnesota, he said, prosecutions are rising at least partly because of a new team of county attorneys elected in 2010 who are taking the violations of voting laws seriously.
Also posting comments on the issue was the We Want Voter ID site, which carried an image of Ellison "holding" a sign stating "Voter Fraud For All!"
"The net effect of Ellison's two bills is to allow anyone and everyone to cast a ballot on Election Day without any mechanism to verify their identity, citizenship, eligibility, or that they live in the state and precinct they are voting in," it said.
With estimates that range into the tens of millions for the number of illegal aliens inside the United States, races easily could be decided on those counts, officials noted.
Minnesota Majority notes that in 2008, the Minnesota U.S. Senate race was decided by just 312 votes.
"Never in our state's history did the words 'every vote counts' ring so true. However, a cloud of doubt still hangs over the results. Post-election analysis showed that hundreds of ineligible felons voted in the election. Over 17,000 more ballots were counted than voters accounted for as having voted in our Statewide Voter Registration System. Over 23,000 addresses provided by Election Day registrants could not be verified. Voter rolls contained the names of non-citizens and deceased individuals," the organization reported.
What that means is that Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., may not have won, although he has been casting votes from his U.S. Senate seat ever since, the group said.
"Political analysts estimate that voter fraud may account for 3 percent of the vote in any given election. Applying this statistic to Minnesota's 2006 gubernatorial election, that would mean that we would have had over 66,000 fraudulent votes. Remember that Gov. Pawlenty won this election by just 21,000 votes," the organization reported.
Sens. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota endorsed Ellison's plan, explaining, in Feingold's words, "We should constantly be looking for ways to make it easier for Americans to exercise that right [to vote]."
ElectionIntegrityWatch notes that photo ID laws in more than a dozen states have been challenged "and plaintiffs have not yet produced a single voter who would be disenfranchised by those laws."
McGrath said the potential ramifications are very serious for the nation, and "that's why we've been so dogged about this."
"The foundation of the country rests on the confidence of the people that they're being represented," he said. "That they have a voice in the process. If they feel they have become disenfranchised, they'll ask, 'What reason do I have to participate?'
"That's why it's so very alarming."
It was just last month that former Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan said a signature on a petition to put Barack Obama on the state's primary ballot in 2008 isn't his.
The Democrat, who had campaigned for Hillary Clinton, told the Associated Press the printing next to the signature doesn't even look like his.
He was among dozens of people contacted by the South Bend Tribune who declined to verify that their names on the petition were in their handwriting.
Officials called for a federal investigation.
WND also previously reported that a number of names among ACORN's "shock troops" have been linked to or convicted of perjury, forgery, identity theft and election fraud in recent years.
Mathew Vadum, a senior editor for the Capital Research Center, released before Obama took office a report titled "ACORN: Who Funds the Weather Underground's Little Brother?" documenting the troubled past and problems facing the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
The organization for which Obama at one point trained activists and to which he directed grants while aboard the management of the Woods Fund established a reputation for doing pretty much as it pleases, the report said.
While the election 2008 controversies over electoral fraud efforts "have been indelibly imprinted in the public consciousness," Vadum said, that work is only a "smidgen of what ACORN actually does."
While ACORN officially went out of business earlier this year, Vadum has documented how most of the people involved simply reported many times to the same offices and same work desks, just under the name of a new organization.
The issue of misbehavior at the polls caught the attention of the public in 2008 when voter intimidation by members of the New Black Panther Party was caught on video:
The Justice Department originally brought a case against the organization and several individuals who witnesses say derided voters with catcalls of "white devil" and "cracker" and told them they should prepare to be "ruled by the black man."
One poll watcher called police after he reportedly saw one of the men brandishing a nightstick to threaten voters.
"As I walked up, they closed ranks, next to each other," the witness told Fox News at the time. "So I walked directly in between them, went inside and found the poll watchers. They said they'd been here for about an hour. And they told us not to come outside because a black man is going to win this election no matter what."
He said the man with a nightstick told him, "'We're tired of white supremacy,' and he starts tapping the nightstick in his hand. At which point I said, 'OK, we're not going to get in a fistfight right here,' and I called the police."
Subsequently, former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams testified before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that the Voting Section of Attorney General Eric Holder's organization is dominated by a "culture of hostility" toward bringing cases against blacks and other minorities who violate voting-rights laws.
Further, two other former U.S. Department of Justice attorneys later corroborated key elements of the explosive allegations by Adams.
One of Adams' DOJ colleagues, former Voting Section trial attorney Hans A. von Spakovsky, told WND he saw Adams was being attacked in the media for lack of corroboration. He said he knew Adams was telling the truth, so he decided on his own to step forward.
Adams had been ordered by his superiors to drop a case prosecutors already had won against the New Black Panthers. When they were ordered to stop prosecution, Adams and the team of DOJ lawyers had already won the case by default because the New Black Panthers declined to defend themselves in court. At that point in the proceedings, the DOJ team was simply waiting for the judge to assign penalties against the New Black Panthers.
A funny thing happened on the way to Cain's lynching
By Toby Harnden
November 5th, 2011
(Uploaded by ConservativeBeltway on Nov 4, 2011)
The left tried to destroy Clarence Thomas and now are trying to do the same to another black conservative, Herman Cain.
Herman Cain’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week ended on a discordantly high note. Addressing a packed ballroom in Washington’s Convention Centre, the former pizza mogul prompted whoops and cheers when he referred obliquely to the sexual harassment storm that had at times threatened to sweep away his White House candidacy.
“You know, I've been in Washington all week, and I've attracted a little bit of attention,” he boomed. “And there was an article in The New York Times today that has attempted to attract some more attention. You know, that's kind of what happens when you start to show up near or at the top of the polls. It just happens that way.”
The article in question was one of the few that had not been about allegations that Cain, the unlikely Republican front runner in national polls, had behaved inappropriately with women while he was president of the National Restaurant Association.
Instead, the article sought to bracket Cain with the Koch brothers, the billionaire bogeymen for liberals who founded the Americans for Prosperity group and pump money into conservative and liberal causes. Rather than seek to wriggle out of the association, Cain embraced it, declaring, as the room erupted: “I am the Koch brothers' brother from another mother.”
The address by the former motivational speaker, at the Americans for Prosperity annual conference, was vintage Cain – strong on rhetoric, short on policy detail, powerfully delivered and unashamedly politically incorrect.
Hours earlier, an ABC/Washington Post poll had found that Cain’s national popularity had improved during a week that, by any conventional standards, had been disastrous.
Mitt Romney, the best-funded, most-disciplined and most experienced candidate, was stuck on 25 percent while Cain was up six points from a month at 23 percent and breathing down his neck. As every student of American politics knows, national polls matter little in a primary race. But the surveys in early-voting states like Iowa and South Carolina are also indicating that Cain has not been damaged.
There’s no way this should be happening. The 65-year-old grandfather’s response to the sexual harassment claims that have emerged out of the woodwork after a dozen years has been miserable. At least two cases were settled for a total of $80,000 after allegations were made against him.
Rather than being prepared for the inevitable disclosure of the cases, he was caught flat-footed, claiming at first not to remember what had happened and then dribbling out details and shifting explanations over the ensuing days. He fuelled more controversy by blaming Governor Rick Perry’s campaign for planting the story, lost his temper with the press and was barely able to talk about the US economy until his speech on Friday.
By any normal rules of politics, Cain should be toast. So what’s going on?
Simply put, the media and Cain’s detractors have over-played their hand. By Friday night, Politico, which broke the original story, had published 94 articles on the allegations in under six days. Every other major publication had followed suit. Every time he stepped out of a room, Cain was mobbed by reporters.
Yet despite the maelstrom, Cain’s accusers remain anonymous and the details of the allegations oddly vague. With many conservatives believing that sexual harassment lawsuits are an industry and that frivolous cases are often settled to avoid more expensive litigation, there was a growing sense that Cain was being treated unfairly.
Cain’s very amateurishness became almost endearing. Rather than mouthing slick talking points, Cain got angry with the journalists (a profession loathed by most Republican activists) and claimed that he was the victim of a “high-tech lynching”.
That was the phrase used by Clarence Thomas during the ugly confirmation hearings for his seat on the Supreme Court in 1991. Thomas had been accused by Anita Hill, a former subordinate, of making crude sexual comments.
Vilified and mocked by the Left, Thomas’s righteous anger boiled over as he condemned the hearings as “a circus” and “a national disgrace” in which “uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves” would be destroyed. “You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the US Senate rather than hung from a tree.”
Cain, of course, is also a black conservative. As such, he sends many on the Left crazy because he defies the standard categories of politics. White conservatives are eager to support conservatives of colour partly to combat allegations of racism but also because they appreciate the courage it takes for blacks to break out of the Democratic party straitjacket.
Despite his anti-politician message and his campaign gaffes (he did not know China had nuclear weapons, had not heard of the Palestinian right of return and suggested he would free Guantanamo Bay prisoners if terrorist hostage-takers demanded it, to name but three) Cain is a shrewd operator.
While decrying race-based politics, Cain has been happy to compare himself to Haagen Dazs black walnut ice cream, joke that he’s a “dark horse” or quip that his Secret Service codename should be “Cornbread” . By Friday, a Cain Super PAC had cut a television ad entitled: “High-tech lynching”.
Just as Barack Obama’s race was a key part of his appeal in 2008, Cain is a more attractive candidate for Republicans because he is black. Obama’s supporters responded with fury and lobbed accusations of racism when their candidate came under legitimate attack from the Clintons. Cain backers have been similarly vehement.
Sexual allegations against a black man are rightly treated with great suspicion by many Americans because they play on the kind of fears and taboos examined in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird. With the case against him thin and the accusation so incendiary, Cain’s predicament is prompting more sympathy than opprobrium.
Those who leaked the details of the 1990s sexual harassment cases might have thought that they’d destroy Herman Cain and leave his campaign dangling from a tree. But, as befits this strange and unpredictable election campaign, a funny thing happened on the way to the lynching.
Toby Harnden’s American Way column is published in the Sunday Telegraph each week.
November 5th, 2011
(Uploaded by ConservativeBeltway on Nov 4, 2011)
The left tried to destroy Clarence Thomas and now are trying to do the same to another black conservative, Herman Cain.
Herman Cain’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week ended on a discordantly high note. Addressing a packed ballroom in Washington’s Convention Centre, the former pizza mogul prompted whoops and cheers when he referred obliquely to the sexual harassment storm that had at times threatened to sweep away his White House candidacy.
“You know, I've been in Washington all week, and I've attracted a little bit of attention,” he boomed. “And there was an article in The New York Times today that has attempted to attract some more attention. You know, that's kind of what happens when you start to show up near or at the top of the polls. It just happens that way.”
The article in question was one of the few that had not been about allegations that Cain, the unlikely Republican front runner in national polls, had behaved inappropriately with women while he was president of the National Restaurant Association.
Instead, the article sought to bracket Cain with the Koch brothers, the billionaire bogeymen for liberals who founded the Americans for Prosperity group and pump money into conservative and liberal causes. Rather than seek to wriggle out of the association, Cain embraced it, declaring, as the room erupted: “I am the Koch brothers' brother from another mother.”
The address by the former motivational speaker, at the Americans for Prosperity annual conference, was vintage Cain – strong on rhetoric, short on policy detail, powerfully delivered and unashamedly politically incorrect.
Hours earlier, an ABC/Washington Post poll had found that Cain’s national popularity had improved during a week that, by any conventional standards, had been disastrous.
Mitt Romney, the best-funded, most-disciplined and most experienced candidate, was stuck on 25 percent while Cain was up six points from a month at 23 percent and breathing down his neck. As every student of American politics knows, national polls matter little in a primary race. But the surveys in early-voting states like Iowa and South Carolina are also indicating that Cain has not been damaged.
There’s no way this should be happening. The 65-year-old grandfather’s response to the sexual harassment claims that have emerged out of the woodwork after a dozen years has been miserable. At least two cases were settled for a total of $80,000 after allegations were made against him.
Rather than being prepared for the inevitable disclosure of the cases, he was caught flat-footed, claiming at first not to remember what had happened and then dribbling out details and shifting explanations over the ensuing days. He fuelled more controversy by blaming Governor Rick Perry’s campaign for planting the story, lost his temper with the press and was barely able to talk about the US economy until his speech on Friday.
By any normal rules of politics, Cain should be toast. So what’s going on?
Simply put, the media and Cain’s detractors have over-played their hand. By Friday night, Politico, which broke the original story, had published 94 articles on the allegations in under six days. Every other major publication had followed suit. Every time he stepped out of a room, Cain was mobbed by reporters.
Yet despite the maelstrom, Cain’s accusers remain anonymous and the details of the allegations oddly vague. With many conservatives believing that sexual harassment lawsuits are an industry and that frivolous cases are often settled to avoid more expensive litigation, there was a growing sense that Cain was being treated unfairly.
Cain’s very amateurishness became almost endearing. Rather than mouthing slick talking points, Cain got angry with the journalists (a profession loathed by most Republican activists) and claimed that he was the victim of a “high-tech lynching”.
That was the phrase used by Clarence Thomas during the ugly confirmation hearings for his seat on the Supreme Court in 1991. Thomas had been accused by Anita Hill, a former subordinate, of making crude sexual comments.
Vilified and mocked by the Left, Thomas’s righteous anger boiled over as he condemned the hearings as “a circus” and “a national disgrace” in which “uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves” would be destroyed. “You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the US Senate rather than hung from a tree.”
Cain, of course, is also a black conservative. As such, he sends many on the Left crazy because he defies the standard categories of politics. White conservatives are eager to support conservatives of colour partly to combat allegations of racism but also because they appreciate the courage it takes for blacks to break out of the Democratic party straitjacket.
Despite his anti-politician message and his campaign gaffes (he did not know China had nuclear weapons, had not heard of the Palestinian right of return and suggested he would free Guantanamo Bay prisoners if terrorist hostage-takers demanded it, to name but three) Cain is a shrewd operator.
While decrying race-based politics, Cain has been happy to compare himself to Haagen Dazs black walnut ice cream, joke that he’s a “dark horse” or quip that his Secret Service codename should be “Cornbread” . By Friday, a Cain Super PAC had cut a television ad entitled: “High-tech lynching”.
Just as Barack Obama’s race was a key part of his appeal in 2008, Cain is a more attractive candidate for Republicans because he is black. Obama’s supporters responded with fury and lobbed accusations of racism when their candidate came under legitimate attack from the Clintons. Cain backers have been similarly vehement.
Sexual allegations against a black man are rightly treated with great suspicion by many Americans because they play on the kind of fears and taboos examined in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird. With the case against him thin and the accusation so incendiary, Cain’s predicament is prompting more sympathy than opprobrium.
Those who leaked the details of the 1990s sexual harassment cases might have thought that they’d destroy Herman Cain and leave his campaign dangling from a tree. But, as befits this strange and unpredictable election campaign, a funny thing happened on the way to the lynching.
Toby Harnden’s American Way column is published in the Sunday Telegraph each week.
Health case raises recusal questions for Kagan, Thomas
By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Monday, November 14, 2011
The Supreme Court’s announcement Monday that it will hear challenges to President Obama’s health care law put a spotlight on Justice Elena Kagan, who worked in the administration while the law was being written and, conservatives argue, helped craft its legal defense.
“Before the Supreme Court case is heard, we need to know if Justice Elena Kagan helped the Obama administration prepare its defense for Obamacare when she was solicitor general. The Justice Department must answer serious questions about whether Justice Kagan has an inherent conflict of interest, which would demand that she recuse herself from the Obamacare case,” said Rep. John Fleming, Louisiana Republican.
At the same time, liberal groups and Democrats in Congress have been pushing for months for Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself, citing his wife’s stated opposition to the law as an indication that he cannot rule impartially.
At stake in the case is the fate of the president’s massive health care overhaul, which passed Congress on the strength of Democratic votes last year and has a checkered record in lower courts.
The case likely will be argued next spring. Although the justices could recuse themselves at any time, legal analysts doubt it will happen.
James Sample, a law professor at Hofstra University School of Law who studies recusal issues, said the outside groups’ calls are misplaced.
“I am generally one of the most pro-recusal scholars you can find, and yet I think in this instance those who are trying to argue for the recusal of Justice Kagan and Justice Thomas alike are opportunists who are trying to use a mechanism that just doesn’t fit,” he said.
The standard for recusal is whether a judge’s or justice’s impartiality can be reasonably questioned.
Mr. Sample said Justice Thomas‘ judicial approach is well-known and it’s unlikely that his wife’s associations would influence him in this case. As for Justice Kagan, he said her “extraordinarily limited exposure to the health care policy when she was in government service is, I think, just a nonissue.”
Justice Kagan was solicitor general at the time the health care legislation was signed in March 2010, and when states sued to block it.
During her confirmation process last year, Republican senators asked Justice Kagan whether she would recuse herself. She replied that she had no role in crafting the government’s response to the lawsuits.
She said she attended a meeting where the cases were discussed, but that she wasn’t involved in the government’s filings.
Outside groups have obtained documents that they say show Justice Kagan was enthusiastic about the law’s enactment during her time as solicitor general. The Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative group, argues in a white paper that the Justice Department is withholding other documents under the deliberation exemption to the Freedom of Information Act — which the Judicial Crisis Network said signals that she was involved in those deliberations.
House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee tried to obtain additional documents, but a committee aide said the Justice Department on Friday declined to turn them over.
Hans A. von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group, said the incentive for Justice Kagan to stay on the case may be great.
“If I was put in this position, there’s no question I would recuse myself,” he said. “But I suspect the White House and others don’t want her to recuse herself because they have a huge amount of politics and everything else riding on this case and having it come out the right way.”
The choice to recuse is entirely up to each justice, though public pressure can raise the profile of the decision.
In the case of Justice Thomas, several dozen congressional Democrats signed a letter this year saying that his wife’s stated opposition to the health care law and her work for the Heritage Foundation should disqualify her husband.
“Given these facts, there is a strong conflict between the Thomas household’s financial gain through your spouse’s activities and your role as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court,” the lawmakers said. “We urge you to recuse yourself from this case. If the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision is to be viewed as legitimate by the American people, this is the only correct path.”
The justices did not recuse themselves in the court’s decision Monday to hear the case.
Mr. Sample said that “hints” that there won’t be a recusal later, but that it’s not definitive because a justice can decide any time between now and when a ruling is issued in the case.
“I’m not a betting man, but, I guess I’d say I’d be very surprised if any of the justices recuse in this case,” Mr. Sample said. “It is going to be a major issue, but it’s going to be a major issue outside the U.S. Supreme Court building.”
© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC.
The Washington Times
Monday, November 14, 2011
The Supreme Court’s announcement Monday that it will hear challenges to President Obama’s health care law put a spotlight on Justice Elena Kagan, who worked in the administration while the law was being written and, conservatives argue, helped craft its legal defense.
“Before the Supreme Court case is heard, we need to know if Justice Elena Kagan helped the Obama administration prepare its defense for Obamacare when she was solicitor general. The Justice Department must answer serious questions about whether Justice Kagan has an inherent conflict of interest, which would demand that she recuse herself from the Obamacare case,” said Rep. John Fleming, Louisiana Republican.
At the same time, liberal groups and Democrats in Congress have been pushing for months for Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself, citing his wife’s stated opposition to the law as an indication that he cannot rule impartially.
At stake in the case is the fate of the president’s massive health care overhaul, which passed Congress on the strength of Democratic votes last year and has a checkered record in lower courts.
The case likely will be argued next spring. Although the justices could recuse themselves at any time, legal analysts doubt it will happen.
James Sample, a law professor at Hofstra University School of Law who studies recusal issues, said the outside groups’ calls are misplaced.
“I am generally one of the most pro-recusal scholars you can find, and yet I think in this instance those who are trying to argue for the recusal of Justice Kagan and Justice Thomas alike are opportunists who are trying to use a mechanism that just doesn’t fit,” he said.
The standard for recusal is whether a judge’s or justice’s impartiality can be reasonably questioned.
Mr. Sample said Justice Thomas‘ judicial approach is well-known and it’s unlikely that his wife’s associations would influence him in this case. As for Justice Kagan, he said her “extraordinarily limited exposure to the health care policy when she was in government service is, I think, just a nonissue.”
Justice Kagan was solicitor general at the time the health care legislation was signed in March 2010, and when states sued to block it.
During her confirmation process last year, Republican senators asked Justice Kagan whether she would recuse herself. She replied that she had no role in crafting the government’s response to the lawsuits.
She said she attended a meeting where the cases were discussed, but that she wasn’t involved in the government’s filings.
Outside groups have obtained documents that they say show Justice Kagan was enthusiastic about the law’s enactment during her time as solicitor general. The Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative group, argues in a white paper that the Justice Department is withholding other documents under the deliberation exemption to the Freedom of Information Act — which the Judicial Crisis Network said signals that she was involved in those deliberations.
House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee tried to obtain additional documents, but a committee aide said the Justice Department on Friday declined to turn them over.
Hans A. von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group, said the incentive for Justice Kagan to stay on the case may be great.
“If I was put in this position, there’s no question I would recuse myself,” he said. “But I suspect the White House and others don’t want her to recuse herself because they have a huge amount of politics and everything else riding on this case and having it come out the right way.”
The choice to recuse is entirely up to each justice, though public pressure can raise the profile of the decision.
In the case of Justice Thomas, several dozen congressional Democrats signed a letter this year saying that his wife’s stated opposition to the health care law and her work for the Heritage Foundation should disqualify her husband.
“Given these facts, there is a strong conflict between the Thomas household’s financial gain through your spouse’s activities and your role as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court,” the lawmakers said. “We urge you to recuse yourself from this case. If the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision is to be viewed as legitimate by the American people, this is the only correct path.”
The justices did not recuse themselves in the court’s decision Monday to hear the case.
Mr. Sample said that “hints” that there won’t be a recusal later, but that it’s not definitive because a justice can decide any time between now and when a ruling is issued in the case.
“I’m not a betting man, but, I guess I’d say I’d be very surprised if any of the justices recuse in this case,” Mr. Sample said. “It is going to be a major issue, but it’s going to be a major issue outside the U.S. Supreme Court building.”
© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC.
Obama: I delivered 'change you can believe in'
November 14, 2011 11:20pm
by Joel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer
To recapture some of his 2008 magic, President Obama attacked Republicans while assuring a hometown Hawaii crowd that he has delivered "change that you can believe in" during his first term in office. He acknowledged, however, that not all Americans wanted that change at the time, and that the last three years have seen some "false starts."
After greeting a crowd that included his tenth-grade teacher, Obama contrasted his campaign with the "narrow, cramped vision of an America where everybody is left to fend for themselves" that he implied Republicans hold. "That was what the campaign was about -- the belief that the more Americans succeed, the more America succeeds," Obama said. "We knew it wouldn't come easy, we knew it wasn't going to come quickly, but three years later, because of what you did in 2008, we've already started to see what change looks like."
"Let me give you some examples," Obama said, beginning to justify the claim that he has brought the change promised in his 2008 run. He repeated a litany of legistive and executive items. "Change is," Obama said, the auto industry bailout, higher fuel efficiency standards, ending "don't ask, don't tell," ending the war in Iraq., and mandating equal pay for men and women.
"Change is health care reform. After a century of trying, a reform that will finally make sure that nobody goes bankrupt in America just because they get sick," Obama told the applauding audience. "That's the kind of changes that you brought about because of the work you did in 2008."
Obama did acknowledge that not all Americans wanted this kind of change -- "it's no secret that the steps that we took weren't always politically popular" -- but put a dramatic spin on the signficance of the election that included a dig at his opponents.
"Everything we fought for in the last election is now at stake in the next election. The very core of what this country stands for is on the line," Obama warned. "The basic promise that no matter who you are or where you come from, what you look like, that you can make it in America if you try -- that vision is on the line."
"I know it’s been a tough three years," Obama said, "and I know that the change that we fought for in 2008 hasn’t always been easy," he said. "There have been setbacks. There have been false starts." But he called for his supporters to "recommit yourselves and feel just as energized about 2012 as you did in 2008."
by Joel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer
To recapture some of his 2008 magic, President Obama attacked Republicans while assuring a hometown Hawaii crowd that he has delivered "change that you can believe in" during his first term in office. He acknowledged, however, that not all Americans wanted that change at the time, and that the last three years have seen some "false starts."
After greeting a crowd that included his tenth-grade teacher, Obama contrasted his campaign with the "narrow, cramped vision of an America where everybody is left to fend for themselves" that he implied Republicans hold. "That was what the campaign was about -- the belief that the more Americans succeed, the more America succeeds," Obama said. "We knew it wouldn't come easy, we knew it wasn't going to come quickly, but three years later, because of what you did in 2008, we've already started to see what change looks like."
"Let me give you some examples," Obama said, beginning to justify the claim that he has brought the change promised in his 2008 run. He repeated a litany of legistive and executive items. "Change is," Obama said, the auto industry bailout, higher fuel efficiency standards, ending "don't ask, don't tell," ending the war in Iraq., and mandating equal pay for men and women.
"Change is health care reform. After a century of trying, a reform that will finally make sure that nobody goes bankrupt in America just because they get sick," Obama told the applauding audience. "That's the kind of changes that you brought about because of the work you did in 2008."
Obama did acknowledge that not all Americans wanted this kind of change -- "it's no secret that the steps that we took weren't always politically popular" -- but put a dramatic spin on the signficance of the election that included a dig at his opponents.
"Everything we fought for in the last election is now at stake in the next election. The very core of what this country stands for is on the line," Obama warned. "The basic promise that no matter who you are or where you come from, what you look like, that you can make it in America if you try -- that vision is on the line."
"I know it’s been a tough three years," Obama said, "and I know that the change that we fought for in 2008 hasn’t always been easy," he said. "There have been setbacks. There have been false starts." But he called for his supporters to "recommit yourselves and feel just as energized about 2012 as you did in 2008."
Kagan celebrated Obamacare's passage
By Terence P. Jeffrey
November 10, 2011
(CNSNews.com) - On Sunday, March 21, 2010, the day the House of Representatives passed President Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan and famed Supreme Court litigator and Harvard Law Prof. Laurence Tribe, who was then serving in the Justice Department, had an email exchange in which they discussed the pending health-care vote, according to documents the Department of Justice released late Wednesday to the Media Research Center, CNSNews.com's parent organization, and to Judicial Watch.
“I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing,” Kagan said to Tribe in one of the emails.
The Justice Department released a new batch of emails on Wednesday evening as its latest response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by CNSNews.com and Judicial Watch. Both organizations filed federal lawsuits against DOJ after the department did not initially respond to the requests. CNSNews.com originally filed its FOIA request on May 25, 2010--before Elena Kagan's June 2010 Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
The March 2010 email exchange between Kagan and Tribe raises new questions about whether Kagan must recuse herself from judging cases involving the health-care law that Obama signed--and which became the target of legal challenges--while Kagan was serving as Obama's solicitor general and was responsible for defending his administration’s positions in court disputes.
According to 28 USC 455, a Supreme Court justice must recuse from “any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The law also says a justice must recuse anytime he has “expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy” while he “served in governmental employment.”
In response to questions from CNSNews.com, Prof. Tribe said on Thursday that other than the references in his email exchange with Kagan on March 21, 2010, he never had any communications with Elena Kagan while she was solicitor general relating to pending or enacted health-care legislation or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation. Tribe also said he sees no reason to believe 28 USC 455 would require Kagan’s recusal from cases involving PPACA.
The March 21, 2010 email exchange between Kagan and Tribe was started by Tribe who addressed an email to Kagan at her Justice Department email account. Tribe also copied this message to another individual, whose name has been redacted from the version of the document DOJ released to the MRC.
The subject line on Tribe’s email reads: “fingers and toes crossed today!”—an apparent reference to the unusual Sunday vote on the health-care bill that would occur later that day in the House. In the email, Tribe reminded Kagan of a dinner meeting they had to postpone and suggested they reschedule it.
Kagan responded to the message in a return email that is addressed solely to Tribe. The subject line on this Kagan-to-Tribe email is: “Re: fingers and toes crossed today!”
Kagan punctuated the first sentence of this email to Tribe with two exclamation marks: “I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing.”
She then proposed they reschedule their dinner meeting sometime after March 31: “Let’s go wherever you want: I think you mentioned a place in the Mandarin, which would be great. Give me any dates you want after March 31.” Kagan then mentions another person (whose name is redacted) who “expressed an interest in joining as well.”
Tribe responded by return email, carbon copying an individual or individuals whose names have been redacted by the Justice Department. This message was sent at 5:06 p.m.
“So health care is basically done!” Tribe wrote to Kagan in this message. “Remarkable. And with the Stupak group accepting the magic of what amounts to a signing statement on steroids!”
The “Stupak group” is a reference to then-Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who led a group of House Democrats who had indicated they would not vote for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act if it permitted federal funds to pay for abortions. Stupak and his allies decided to vote for the bill, even though no additional language would be added to it prohibiting abortion funding, after President Obama agreed to sign an executive order the administration said would prevent federal funding from going to abortions.
Tribe’s email then goes on to discuss the proposed dinner. “Re dinner, I now remember the place you’d suggested back in December: Founding Farmers. I still like the name and don’t recall why I’d thought the place in the Mandarin would be worth trying. So how about our going to Founding Farmers with you and [name redacted]?”
The next email, marked as sent at 11:00 p.m. (23:00:58) is from someone whose name is redacted. This person says he or she “would be available on April 7 or 13.”
At 11:04 p.m., Elena Kagan sends an email to herself Tribe, an assistant at the Justice Department and someone whose name is redacted. “I can do April 12,” she said.
That same day—March 21, 2010—as PPACA was passing the House, Kagan had a separate email exchange with her top deputy Neal Katyal.
This email chain started At 6:11 p.m., when associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli sent a message to a group of DOJ lawyers, including Katyal, notifying them that there was going to be a meeting the next day to plan for the litigation expected to challenge PPACA. DOJ released this email to the Media Research Center earlier this year, after MRC sued seeking to force DOJ to comply with CNSNews.com's FOIA request seeking documents related to Kagan and the issue of recusal and related to health-care legislation and litigation.
The subject line on Perrelli’s 6:11 p.m email was: “Health care litigation meeting.”
“It sounds like we can meet with some of the health care policy team tomorrow at 4 to help us prepare for litigation,” Perelli wrote in this email. “It has to be over there. Can folks send me the waves info (full name, SSN, DOB) of everyone that should attend as soon as possible? WH wants it tonight, if possible. I know we won’t get everyone’s in tonight.
“Also,” Perrelli continued, “we need to think about the key issues/question for the agenda. [Language redacted] tops my list, but I know there are others.”
At 6:18, Katyal forwarded this email to Kagan. “This is the first I’ve heard of this,” Katyal told Kagan. “I think you should go, no? I will, regardless, but feel like this is litigation of singular importance.”
One minute later—at 6:19 p.m.—Kagan responded to Katyal: “What’s your phone number?”
Three minutes after that, Katyal sent Kagan his phone number and the email chain ended.
On Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011, CNSNews.com sent Prof. Larry Tribe the PDF the Justice Department had provided to the Media Research Center with the email exchange that Tribe had had with Kagan when they were both serving in the Justice Department on March 21, 2010.
CNSNews.com asked Tribe five questions, which he answered in writing. Here are CNSNews.com’s questions with Prof. Tribe’s responses:
CNSNews.com: “Did you ever verbally mention or discuss pending or enacted health-care legislation, or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation, with Elena Kagan when she was solicitor general or does this March 21, 2010 email exchange represent the entirety of your communications to her on those matters during her tenure in that office?”
Tribe: “No. I never ‘mention[ed] or discuss[ed] pending or enacted health-care legislation, or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation, with Elena Kagan when she was solicitor general,’ and ‘this March 21, 2010 email exchange represent[s] the entirety of [my] communications to her on those matters during her tenure in that office.’”
CNSNews.com: “Did she ever verbally mention or discuss pending or enacted health-care legislation, or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation, with you when she was solicitor general or does this March 21, 2010 email exchange represent the entirety of her communications to you on those matters during her tenure in that office?”
Tribe: “No. Elena Kagan never ‘mention[ed] or discuss[ed] pending or enacted health-care legislation, or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation, with [me] when she was solicitor general,’ and ‘this March 21, 2010 email exchange represent[s] the entirety of her communications to [me] on those matters during her tenure in that office.’”
CNSNews.com: “If you did verbally mention or discuss pending or enacted health-care legislation, or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation, with Elena Kagan when she was solicitor general, what specifically did you say and what specifically did she say?”
Tribe: “Not applicable. We had no other exchanges on those matters, and the emails in question focused on a dinner engagement we were trying to set up.”
CNSNews.com: “If she did verbally mention or discuss pending or enacted health-care legislation, or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation, with you when she was solicitor general, what specifically did she say and what specifically did you say?”
Tribe: “Not applicable. See answer to Question 3.”
CNSNews.com: “Do you believe any of the provisions of 28 USC 455 require Justice Elena Kagan to recuse herself from cases involving the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act?”
Tribe: “No. I do not have any reason to believe that any of the provisions of 28 USC 455 require Justice Elena Kagan to recuse herself from cases involving the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
On July 13, 2010, during her confirmation process, the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Kagan a letter asking her a series of questions probing her possible involvement in health care legislation or litigation during her time as solicitor general. The senators asked: “Have you ever been asked about your opinion regarding the underlying legal or constitutional issues related to any proposed health care legislation, including but not limited to Pub. L. No. 111-148, or the underlying legal or constitutional issues related to potential litigation resulting from such legislation?”
The sentors also asked Kagan: “Have you ever offered any views or comments regarding the underlying legal or constitutional issues related to any proposed health care legislation, including but not limited to Pub. L. No. 111-148, or the underlying legal or constitutional issues related to potential litigation resulting from such legislation?”
Kagan’s written response to both questions was: “No.”
November 10, 2011
(CNSNews.com) - On Sunday, March 21, 2010, the day the House of Representatives passed President Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan and famed Supreme Court litigator and Harvard Law Prof. Laurence Tribe, who was then serving in the Justice Department, had an email exchange in which they discussed the pending health-care vote, according to documents the Department of Justice released late Wednesday to the Media Research Center, CNSNews.com's parent organization, and to Judicial Watch.
“I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing,” Kagan said to Tribe in one of the emails.
The Justice Department released a new batch of emails on Wednesday evening as its latest response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by CNSNews.com and Judicial Watch. Both organizations filed federal lawsuits against DOJ after the department did not initially respond to the requests. CNSNews.com originally filed its FOIA request on May 25, 2010--before Elena Kagan's June 2010 Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
The March 2010 email exchange between Kagan and Tribe raises new questions about whether Kagan must recuse herself from judging cases involving the health-care law that Obama signed--and which became the target of legal challenges--while Kagan was serving as Obama's solicitor general and was responsible for defending his administration’s positions in court disputes.
According to 28 USC 455, a Supreme Court justice must recuse from “any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The law also says a justice must recuse anytime he has “expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy” while he “served in governmental employment.”
In response to questions from CNSNews.com, Prof. Tribe said on Thursday that other than the references in his email exchange with Kagan on March 21, 2010, he never had any communications with Elena Kagan while she was solicitor general relating to pending or enacted health-care legislation or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation. Tribe also said he sees no reason to believe 28 USC 455 would require Kagan’s recusal from cases involving PPACA.
The March 21, 2010 email exchange between Kagan and Tribe was started by Tribe who addressed an email to Kagan at her Justice Department email account. Tribe also copied this message to another individual, whose name has been redacted from the version of the document DOJ released to the MRC.
The subject line on Tribe’s email reads: “fingers and toes crossed today!”—an apparent reference to the unusual Sunday vote on the health-care bill that would occur later that day in the House. In the email, Tribe reminded Kagan of a dinner meeting they had to postpone and suggested they reschedule it.
Kagan responded to the message in a return email that is addressed solely to Tribe. The subject line on this Kagan-to-Tribe email is: “Re: fingers and toes crossed today!”
Kagan punctuated the first sentence of this email to Tribe with two exclamation marks: “I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing.”
She then proposed they reschedule their dinner meeting sometime after March 31: “Let’s go wherever you want: I think you mentioned a place in the Mandarin, which would be great. Give me any dates you want after March 31.” Kagan then mentions another person (whose name is redacted) who “expressed an interest in joining as well.”
Tribe responded by return email, carbon copying an individual or individuals whose names have been redacted by the Justice Department. This message was sent at 5:06 p.m.
“So health care is basically done!” Tribe wrote to Kagan in this message. “Remarkable. And with the Stupak group accepting the magic of what amounts to a signing statement on steroids!”
The “Stupak group” is a reference to then-Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who led a group of House Democrats who had indicated they would not vote for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act if it permitted federal funds to pay for abortions. Stupak and his allies decided to vote for the bill, even though no additional language would be added to it prohibiting abortion funding, after President Obama agreed to sign an executive order the administration said would prevent federal funding from going to abortions.
Tribe’s email then goes on to discuss the proposed dinner. “Re dinner, I now remember the place you’d suggested back in December: Founding Farmers. I still like the name and don’t recall why I’d thought the place in the Mandarin would be worth trying. So how about our going to Founding Farmers with you and [name redacted]?”
The next email, marked as sent at 11:00 p.m. (23:00:58) is from someone whose name is redacted. This person says he or she “would be available on April 7 or 13.”
At 11:04 p.m., Elena Kagan sends an email to herself Tribe, an assistant at the Justice Department and someone whose name is redacted. “I can do April 12,” she said.
That same day—March 21, 2010—as PPACA was passing the House, Kagan had a separate email exchange with her top deputy Neal Katyal.
This email chain started At 6:11 p.m., when associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli sent a message to a group of DOJ lawyers, including Katyal, notifying them that there was going to be a meeting the next day to plan for the litigation expected to challenge PPACA. DOJ released this email to the Media Research Center earlier this year, after MRC sued seeking to force DOJ to comply with CNSNews.com's FOIA request seeking documents related to Kagan and the issue of recusal and related to health-care legislation and litigation.
The subject line on Perrelli’s 6:11 p.m email was: “Health care litigation meeting.”
“It sounds like we can meet with some of the health care policy team tomorrow at 4 to help us prepare for litigation,” Perelli wrote in this email. “It has to be over there. Can folks send me the waves info (full name, SSN, DOB) of everyone that should attend as soon as possible? WH wants it tonight, if possible. I know we won’t get everyone’s in tonight.
“Also,” Perrelli continued, “we need to think about the key issues/question for the agenda. [Language redacted] tops my list, but I know there are others.”
At 6:18, Katyal forwarded this email to Kagan. “This is the first I’ve heard of this,” Katyal told Kagan. “I think you should go, no? I will, regardless, but feel like this is litigation of singular importance.”
One minute later—at 6:19 p.m.—Kagan responded to Katyal: “What’s your phone number?”
Three minutes after that, Katyal sent Kagan his phone number and the email chain ended.
On Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011, CNSNews.com sent Prof. Larry Tribe the PDF the Justice Department had provided to the Media Research Center with the email exchange that Tribe had had with Kagan when they were both serving in the Justice Department on March 21, 2010.
CNSNews.com asked Tribe five questions, which he answered in writing. Here are CNSNews.com’s questions with Prof. Tribe’s responses:
CNSNews.com: “Did you ever verbally mention or discuss pending or enacted health-care legislation, or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation, with Elena Kagan when she was solicitor general or does this March 21, 2010 email exchange represent the entirety of your communications to her on those matters during her tenure in that office?”
Tribe: “No. I never ‘mention[ed] or discuss[ed] pending or enacted health-care legislation, or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation, with Elena Kagan when she was solicitor general,’ and ‘this March 21, 2010 email exchange represent[s] the entirety of [my] communications to her on those matters during her tenure in that office.’”
CNSNews.com: “Did she ever verbally mention or discuss pending or enacted health-care legislation, or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation, with you when she was solicitor general or does this March 21, 2010 email exchange represent the entirety of her communications to you on those matters during her tenure in that office?”
Tribe: “No. Elena Kagan never ‘mention[ed] or discuss[ed] pending or enacted health-care legislation, or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation, with [me] when she was solicitor general,’ and ‘this March 21, 2010 email exchange represent[s] the entirety of her communications to [me] on those matters during her tenure in that office.’”
CNSNews.com: “If you did verbally mention or discuss pending or enacted health-care legislation, or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation, with Elena Kagan when she was solicitor general, what specifically did you say and what specifically did she say?”
Tribe: “Not applicable. We had no other exchanges on those matters, and the emails in question focused on a dinner engagement we were trying to set up.”
CNSNews.com: “If she did verbally mention or discuss pending or enacted health-care legislation, or actual or anticipated health-care related litigation, with you when she was solicitor general, what specifically did she say and what specifically did you say?”
Tribe: “Not applicable. See answer to Question 3.”
CNSNews.com: “Do you believe any of the provisions of 28 USC 455 require Justice Elena Kagan to recuse herself from cases involving the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act?”
Tribe: “No. I do not have any reason to believe that any of the provisions of 28 USC 455 require Justice Elena Kagan to recuse herself from cases involving the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
On July 13, 2010, during her confirmation process, the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Kagan a letter asking her a series of questions probing her possible involvement in health care legislation or litigation during her time as solicitor general. The senators asked: “Have you ever been asked about your opinion regarding the underlying legal or constitutional issues related to any proposed health care legislation, including but not limited to Pub. L. No. 111-148, or the underlying legal or constitutional issues related to potential litigation resulting from such legislation?”
The sentors also asked Kagan: “Have you ever offered any views or comments regarding the underlying legal or constitutional issues related to any proposed health care legislation, including but not limited to Pub. L. No. 111-148, or the underlying legal or constitutional issues related to potential litigation resulting from such legislation?”
Kagan’s written response to both questions was: “No.”
Wall Street occupied no more
BREAKING NEWS: Victory for Bloomberg as judge rules evicted Wall Street protesters CANNOT return to Zuccotti Park camp
Protesters in stand-off with police after long-time Manhattan park cleared
Zuccotti surrounded by barricades but protesters moved to Foley Square
Park cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous, say police
Activists told they can return soon but without their tents and sleeping bags
New York City councillor Ydanis Rodriguez allegedly hit on head by police
Mayor Bloomberg says clear-out was overnight to reduce confrontation
Judge had issued temporary order allowing protesters to return to park
By Mark Duell, Meghan Keneally, Richard Hartley-parkinson, Louise Boyle and Jennifer Madison
Last updated at 10:48 PM on 15th November 2011
Occupy Wall Street protesters will not not be allowed to camp in their New York tent city after a judge overturned an earlier court order, following a dramatic eviction this morning by 1,000 riot police.
More than 200 people were arrested today as police raided Zuccotti Park after Michael Bloomberg finally lost patience with protesters. Some of them have been there since it was set up in September.
The New York City Mayor said the park was evacuated overnight to 'reduce the risk of confrontation', but his move was undermined when a judge issued an order effectively allowing protesters to return.
However this was overturned tonight. A judge issued the temporary order allowing protesters back and many were seen marching towards the camp this morning as City officials decided what to do.
Protesters who spoke to MailOnline after the ruling had mixed feelings about today's developments.
Jordan McCarthy, 22, who has been living in the park for around six weeks, said: 'I don’t think it’s a bad thing - it's forcing us to mobilise and move to other places in the city.
'Zuccotti Park is not this movement - it's so much bigger than this now - and if they think that they’re going to end it by getting us out of Zuccotti Park they’re delusional.'
Liz Dalton added: 'I’m disappointed because it’s a pretty elastic interpretation of the law to say that we can’t protest, no matter what we bring with us, whether it’s a tarp or a tent.'
Protester Mark Marone, 46, said: 'I think this is an example of what Occupy Wall Street is fighting against, which is the restrictions of people's rights - among them, the right to peacefully assemble.'
Bystander Larry Cox said: 'I think it's definitely an attempt to damper the movement but it will continue to grow. The inequality in this country has just reached levels that these people have never seen.'
Justice Lucy Billings said until a hearing she set for earlier today that authorities would not be allowed to evict protesters or enforce rules over tent use, reported the New York Times.
Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman took over the case because Justice Billings usually handles real estate cases - but she was chosen by protesters for her civil liberties background.
Justice Stallman's ruling said the protesters' legal team did not demonstrate their right to remain in Zuccotti Park was above the owner's rights to maintain it or the public's rights to use it.
Protesters told MailOnline they held a general assembly at Canal Street and Sixth Avenue on Tuesday morning and were holding there until they decided whether to go back to Zuccotti Park.
Demonstrators gathering at Juan Pablo Duarte Square climbed over an 8ft wall nearby into a lot owned by Trinity Church, which has previously backed the protesters - and police surrounded them.
More than 20 people were arrested, and at least four journalists - two from the Associated Press, one from the New York Daily News and another from the DNA Info website - were led away in plastic handcuffs.
Some of the demonstrators then marched back down Manhattan to Zuccotti Park, but police were there guarding the site to stop them getting in. Protesters chanted: 'You are contempt of court'.
Demonstrators outside City Hall were yelling ‘Bloomberg out now’ and ‘F**k you Bloomberg’, while others chanted: ‘We are the 99 per cent / We lost our goddamn tents’.
Oscar-winning actress Frances McDormand - from Almost Famous, Fargo and Burn After Reading - was spotted at the protests today but did not want to talk to reporters.
Mayor Bloomberg has been in constant contact with park owner Brookfield Properties, which asked for help to enforce their rules. 'But make no mistake - the final decision to act was mine,' he said.
'The law that created Zuccotti Park required that it be open for the public to enjoy for passive recreation 24 hours a day. Ever since the occupation began, that law has not been complied with.'
There is now the prospect of a big legal and civil liberties battle breaking out between protesters and authorities after the National Lawyers Guild's injuction, as the City went to court itself.
In the city's opposing motion, Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway claimed 'makeshift items' that could be used as weapons, such as 'cardboard tubes with metal pipes inside', were seen among the protesters' possessions.
First daylight pictures showed the New York park that became the symbol of an international anti-capitalist movement was deserted apart from a handful of security guards.
'I'm glad they cleared the park,' said Patrick Hickey, 45, a nearby construction worker at the World Trade Center site. 'I think the point they were trying to make was made a long time ago and it got lost along the way.'
But I.T. worker Mike Szumski, 54, added: 'It was a funny little community but they will keep going because there's bigger things at stake than (losing) a couple of books or a couple of paintings.'
As police lines moved in, there were chants of 'Whose park? Our park' and 'No retreat, no surrender'. However protesters have been told they can return once the park is cleaned.
But they will not be allowed to take their tents with them - and police now fear a backlash as around 200 demonstrators regrouped a mile away at Foley Square after Zuccotti Park was cleared.
They were swiftly followed by police who formed a cordon, but most officers later left. One NYPD bus carrying arrested protesters was cheered by demonstrators as it drove by Foley Square.
An Occupy Wall Street spokesman said police used violence and claimed city council member Ydanis Rodriguez was bleeding from his head after being beaten by officers. He has supported the protest and was among those arrested outside the park.
Protesters poured milk into the eyes of those targeted with pepper spray, and more people gathered at Foley Square as the city woke up to news that the protest had moved from Zuccotti Park.
'After this we get bigger,' said protester Jennifer Sarja, 38. 'There is no question we get bigger. This is our chance to be heard.'
Justin Wedes, 25, added: 'Every single person who was forced out of the park will bring five friends and everyone who heard about it will bring themselves and their friends.'
In the early hours of this morning, helicopters swept the streets around Zuccotti Park while around 400 people were penned in on a corner around two blocks along Broadway.
They had been cordoned in by two lines of police, shoulder to shoulder with visors, helmets and brandishing batons.
The atmosphere felt volatile with hundreds of officers lined up against the vans.
There were also rumours that six people had chained themselves by the neck to a statue at the heart of the camp.
As the initial clearance of Zuccotti Park got under way, an improvised barricade made of tables and pieces of scrap wood had been set up in the kitchen area.
Demonstrators held their hands above their heads while chanting 'We are the 99 per cent' and 'peaceful protest'. At one point they tried to breach the police line, but were quickly pushed back.
Metal barriers had been set up on every corner as crowds dispersed with small protests also reported at City Hall.
Joseph Richard Carelli, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and his partner Nereida Chico, of Queens, New York, spent nearly two months in the camp.
Mr Carelli said: 'Some people were handed paper notices asking them to leave to park around 45 minutes before police started clearing.
'Batons were being used against those who stood their ground. We had to leave our tents, sleeping bags and most of our belongings, we didn’t have time to get them out.'
On the streets surrounding the park, police were moving people on and bystanders were urged to move beyond the metal barriers.
Police offered little information as to what was going on inside the park but one officer said they had been assigned to police lines surrounding the camp until they were relieved by the next shift.
At least three empty NYPD buses were seen travelling towards the square. One press photographer was was pushed back by a police officer as he tried to move closer to the park.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the evacuation was overnight ‘to reduce the risk of confrontation in the park, and to minimise disruption to the surrounding neighbourhood’.
He said after the cleaning, protesters would be allowed to return but ‘must follow all park rules’.
‘The law that created Zuccotti Park required that it be open for the public to enjoy for passive recreation 24 hours a day,’ he said.
‘Ever since the occupation began, that law has not been complied with, as the park has been taken over by protesters, making it unavailable to anyone else.’
Some protesters claimed their tents were ripped up as the eviction got under way while a police official said there had been 40 arrests.
At about 1am this morning, police handed out notices from the park's owner, Brookfield Office Properties, and the city saying that the park had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous.
They were told they could return in several hours, but they would not be allowed to bring with them their sleeping bags, tarpaulins or tents.
Minutes later, the mayor's office tweeted that the protesters saying: 'Occupants of Zuccotti should temporarily leave and remove tents and tarps. Protesters can return after the Park is cleared.'
There were also of 'The whole world is watching' while some demonstrators sang Bob Marley songs.
Police were indiscriminate in the people they evicted from the park and also moved reporters and photographers away from the area.
An NYPD spokesman said most people began filing out of the park once they received the notices and added the park was not heavily populated on Tuesday morning as the clearance got under way.
Rabbi Chaim Gruber, an Occupy Wall Street member, said policemen were also clearing the streets near Zuccotti Park. 'The police are forming a human shield, and are pushing everyone away,' he said.
Notices given to the protesters said the park 'poses an increasing health and fire safety hazard to those camped in the park, the city's first responders and the surrounding community.'
It said that tents, sleeping bags and other items had to be removed because 'the storage of these materials at this location is not allowed.'
Anything left behind would be taken away, the notices added, giving an address at a sanitation department building where items could be picked up.
The clearing out of Zuccotti Park came as protesters announced on their website that they planned to 'shut down Wall Street' with a demonstration on Thursday.
That event would mark two months since the beginning of the camp, part of a global movement that started in Kuala Lumpur with Occupy Dataran in July.
On Monday, a small group of demonstrators, including local residents and merchants, protested at City Hall.
They have urged the mayor to clear out the park because of the impact it was having on the neighbourhood and surrounding businesses.
Earlier yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg dismissed the notion that Wall Street would be shut down.
'The New York Stock Exchange will open on time. People will be able to get to work, you can rest assured,' he said.
Mayor Bloomberg reiterated his support for the protesters’ right to free speech, but said business owners have legitimate complaints.
'We’re not going to allow people to stop commerce and to stop people’s right to go around and express themselves,' he said.
'No one group has the right to protest. They all have the right to protest.'
The crackdown comes after other cities across the U.S. cleared their camps in similar large police operations.
In Oakland, California, officers dressed in riot gear and armed with tear gas cleared out an encampment early yesterday and arrested over 30 amid safety and health complaints.
The movement's website also said supporters and allies were mobilizing throughout the city and converging at Foley Square.
Eyewitnesses said hundreds of demonstrators were being barricaded by police on the sidewalks lining Zuccotti Park.
Several people left the park in handcuffs, amid chants of 'peaceful protest' and 'we are the ninety nine per cent.'
'This is the official sneaky way of our Mayor Bloomberg to invade our park at 1am,' said protester Freddy V, 25, from Queens, New York.
Protesters in stand-off with police after long-time Manhattan park cleared
Zuccotti surrounded by barricades but protesters moved to Foley Square
Park cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous, say police
Activists told they can return soon but without their tents and sleeping bags
New York City councillor Ydanis Rodriguez allegedly hit on head by police
Mayor Bloomberg says clear-out was overnight to reduce confrontation
Judge had issued temporary order allowing protesters to return to park
By Mark Duell, Meghan Keneally, Richard Hartley-parkinson, Louise Boyle and Jennifer Madison
Last updated at 10:48 PM on 15th November 2011
Occupy Wall Street protesters will not not be allowed to camp in their New York tent city after a judge overturned an earlier court order, following a dramatic eviction this morning by 1,000 riot police.
More than 200 people were arrested today as police raided Zuccotti Park after Michael Bloomberg finally lost patience with protesters. Some of them have been there since it was set up in September.
The New York City Mayor said the park was evacuated overnight to 'reduce the risk of confrontation', but his move was undermined when a judge issued an order effectively allowing protesters to return.
However this was overturned tonight. A judge issued the temporary order allowing protesters back and many were seen marching towards the camp this morning as City officials decided what to do.
Protesters who spoke to MailOnline after the ruling had mixed feelings about today's developments.
Jordan McCarthy, 22, who has been living in the park for around six weeks, said: 'I don’t think it’s a bad thing - it's forcing us to mobilise and move to other places in the city.
'Zuccotti Park is not this movement - it's so much bigger than this now - and if they think that they’re going to end it by getting us out of Zuccotti Park they’re delusional.'
Liz Dalton added: 'I’m disappointed because it’s a pretty elastic interpretation of the law to say that we can’t protest, no matter what we bring with us, whether it’s a tarp or a tent.'
Protester Mark Marone, 46, said: 'I think this is an example of what Occupy Wall Street is fighting against, which is the restrictions of people's rights - among them, the right to peacefully assemble.'
Bystander Larry Cox said: 'I think it's definitely an attempt to damper the movement but it will continue to grow. The inequality in this country has just reached levels that these people have never seen.'
Justice Lucy Billings said until a hearing she set for earlier today that authorities would not be allowed to evict protesters or enforce rules over tent use, reported the New York Times.
Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman took over the case because Justice Billings usually handles real estate cases - but she was chosen by protesters for her civil liberties background.
Justice Stallman's ruling said the protesters' legal team did not demonstrate their right to remain in Zuccotti Park was above the owner's rights to maintain it or the public's rights to use it.
Protesters told MailOnline they held a general assembly at Canal Street and Sixth Avenue on Tuesday morning and were holding there until they decided whether to go back to Zuccotti Park.
Demonstrators gathering at Juan Pablo Duarte Square climbed over an 8ft wall nearby into a lot owned by Trinity Church, which has previously backed the protesters - and police surrounded them.
More than 20 people were arrested, and at least four journalists - two from the Associated Press, one from the New York Daily News and another from the DNA Info website - were led away in plastic handcuffs.
Some of the demonstrators then marched back down Manhattan to Zuccotti Park, but police were there guarding the site to stop them getting in. Protesters chanted: 'You are contempt of court'.
Demonstrators outside City Hall were yelling ‘Bloomberg out now’ and ‘F**k you Bloomberg’, while others chanted: ‘We are the 99 per cent / We lost our goddamn tents’.
Oscar-winning actress Frances McDormand - from Almost Famous, Fargo and Burn After Reading - was spotted at the protests today but did not want to talk to reporters.
Mayor Bloomberg has been in constant contact with park owner Brookfield Properties, which asked for help to enforce their rules. 'But make no mistake - the final decision to act was mine,' he said.
'The law that created Zuccotti Park required that it be open for the public to enjoy for passive recreation 24 hours a day. Ever since the occupation began, that law has not been complied with.'
There is now the prospect of a big legal and civil liberties battle breaking out between protesters and authorities after the National Lawyers Guild's injuction, as the City went to court itself.
In the city's opposing motion, Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway claimed 'makeshift items' that could be used as weapons, such as 'cardboard tubes with metal pipes inside', were seen among the protesters' possessions.
First daylight pictures showed the New York park that became the symbol of an international anti-capitalist movement was deserted apart from a handful of security guards.
'I'm glad they cleared the park,' said Patrick Hickey, 45, a nearby construction worker at the World Trade Center site. 'I think the point they were trying to make was made a long time ago and it got lost along the way.'
But I.T. worker Mike Szumski, 54, added: 'It was a funny little community but they will keep going because there's bigger things at stake than (losing) a couple of books or a couple of paintings.'
As police lines moved in, there were chants of 'Whose park? Our park' and 'No retreat, no surrender'. However protesters have been told they can return once the park is cleaned.
But they will not be allowed to take their tents with them - and police now fear a backlash as around 200 demonstrators regrouped a mile away at Foley Square after Zuccotti Park was cleared.
They were swiftly followed by police who formed a cordon, but most officers later left. One NYPD bus carrying arrested protesters was cheered by demonstrators as it drove by Foley Square.
An Occupy Wall Street spokesman said police used violence and claimed city council member Ydanis Rodriguez was bleeding from his head after being beaten by officers. He has supported the protest and was among those arrested outside the park.
Protesters poured milk into the eyes of those targeted with pepper spray, and more people gathered at Foley Square as the city woke up to news that the protest had moved from Zuccotti Park.
'After this we get bigger,' said protester Jennifer Sarja, 38. 'There is no question we get bigger. This is our chance to be heard.'
Justin Wedes, 25, added: 'Every single person who was forced out of the park will bring five friends and everyone who heard about it will bring themselves and their friends.'
In the early hours of this morning, helicopters swept the streets around Zuccotti Park while around 400 people were penned in on a corner around two blocks along Broadway.
They had been cordoned in by two lines of police, shoulder to shoulder with visors, helmets and brandishing batons.
The atmosphere felt volatile with hundreds of officers lined up against the vans.
There were also rumours that six people had chained themselves by the neck to a statue at the heart of the camp.
As the initial clearance of Zuccotti Park got under way, an improvised barricade made of tables and pieces of scrap wood had been set up in the kitchen area.
Demonstrators held their hands above their heads while chanting 'We are the 99 per cent' and 'peaceful protest'. At one point they tried to breach the police line, but were quickly pushed back.
Metal barriers had been set up on every corner as crowds dispersed with small protests also reported at City Hall.
Joseph Richard Carelli, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and his partner Nereida Chico, of Queens, New York, spent nearly two months in the camp.
Mr Carelli said: 'Some people were handed paper notices asking them to leave to park around 45 minutes before police started clearing.
'Batons were being used against those who stood their ground. We had to leave our tents, sleeping bags and most of our belongings, we didn’t have time to get them out.'
On the streets surrounding the park, police were moving people on and bystanders were urged to move beyond the metal barriers.
Police offered little information as to what was going on inside the park but one officer said they had been assigned to police lines surrounding the camp until they were relieved by the next shift.
At least three empty NYPD buses were seen travelling towards the square. One press photographer was was pushed back by a police officer as he tried to move closer to the park.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the evacuation was overnight ‘to reduce the risk of confrontation in the park, and to minimise disruption to the surrounding neighbourhood’.
He said after the cleaning, protesters would be allowed to return but ‘must follow all park rules’.
‘The law that created Zuccotti Park required that it be open for the public to enjoy for passive recreation 24 hours a day,’ he said.
‘Ever since the occupation began, that law has not been complied with, as the park has been taken over by protesters, making it unavailable to anyone else.’
Some protesters claimed their tents were ripped up as the eviction got under way while a police official said there had been 40 arrests.
At about 1am this morning, police handed out notices from the park's owner, Brookfield Office Properties, and the city saying that the park had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous.
They were told they could return in several hours, but they would not be allowed to bring with them their sleeping bags, tarpaulins or tents.
Minutes later, the mayor's office tweeted that the protesters saying: 'Occupants of Zuccotti should temporarily leave and remove tents and tarps. Protesters can return after the Park is cleared.'
There were also of 'The whole world is watching' while some demonstrators sang Bob Marley songs.
Police were indiscriminate in the people they evicted from the park and also moved reporters and photographers away from the area.
An NYPD spokesman said most people began filing out of the park once they received the notices and added the park was not heavily populated on Tuesday morning as the clearance got under way.
Rabbi Chaim Gruber, an Occupy Wall Street member, said policemen were also clearing the streets near Zuccotti Park. 'The police are forming a human shield, and are pushing everyone away,' he said.
Notices given to the protesters said the park 'poses an increasing health and fire safety hazard to those camped in the park, the city's first responders and the surrounding community.'
It said that tents, sleeping bags and other items had to be removed because 'the storage of these materials at this location is not allowed.'
Anything left behind would be taken away, the notices added, giving an address at a sanitation department building where items could be picked up.
The clearing out of Zuccotti Park came as protesters announced on their website that they planned to 'shut down Wall Street' with a demonstration on Thursday.
That event would mark two months since the beginning of the camp, part of a global movement that started in Kuala Lumpur with Occupy Dataran in July.
On Monday, a small group of demonstrators, including local residents and merchants, protested at City Hall.
They have urged the mayor to clear out the park because of the impact it was having on the neighbourhood and surrounding businesses.
Earlier yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg dismissed the notion that Wall Street would be shut down.
'The New York Stock Exchange will open on time. People will be able to get to work, you can rest assured,' he said.
Mayor Bloomberg reiterated his support for the protesters’ right to free speech, but said business owners have legitimate complaints.
'We’re not going to allow people to stop commerce and to stop people’s right to go around and express themselves,' he said.
'No one group has the right to protest. They all have the right to protest.'
The crackdown comes after other cities across the U.S. cleared their camps in similar large police operations.
In Oakland, California, officers dressed in riot gear and armed with tear gas cleared out an encampment early yesterday and arrested over 30 amid safety and health complaints.
The movement's website also said supporters and allies were mobilizing throughout the city and converging at Foley Square.
Eyewitnesses said hundreds of demonstrators were being barricaded by police on the sidewalks lining Zuccotti Park.
Several people left the park in handcuffs, amid chants of 'peaceful protest' and 'we are the ninety nine per cent.'
'This is the official sneaky way of our Mayor Bloomberg to invade our park at 1am,' said protester Freddy V, 25, from Queens, New York.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Seven Dead at Occupy Protests So Far
Friday, November 11, 2011
See Gateway Pundit, "Salt Lake City Occupier Found Dead in Tent – Death Toll at 7."
Also at The Salt Lake Tribune, "Death at Pioneer Park results in closure of Occupy SLC camp."
The dead include (1) a young man who passed away at the Occupy Oklahoma encampment; (2) a woman at Occupy Vancouver overdosed; (3) a protester in Bloomington, Indiana, was found dead; (4) a man was found dead in his tent at Occupy New Orleans; (5) a man shot himself in an encampment at Occupy Burlington in Vermont; (6) a protester was shot dead at Occupy Oakland; and now this death at Salt Lake City brings the grim toll to 7 deaths.
Posted by Donald Douglas at 8:40 PM
See Gateway Pundit, "Salt Lake City Occupier Found Dead in Tent – Death Toll at 7."
Also at The Salt Lake Tribune, "Death at Pioneer Park results in closure of Occupy SLC camp."
The dead include (1) a young man who passed away at the Occupy Oklahoma encampment; (2) a woman at Occupy Vancouver overdosed; (3) a protester in Bloomington, Indiana, was found dead; (4) a man was found dead in his tent at Occupy New Orleans; (5) a man shot himself in an encampment at Occupy Burlington in Vermont; (6) a protester was shot dead at Occupy Oakland; and now this death at Salt Lake City brings the grim toll to 7 deaths.
Posted by Donald Douglas at 8:40 PM
While You Were Distracted
Posted by Erick Erickson
Tuesday, November 15th at 4:46AM EST
While we’ve all been distracted by the Presidential race, there is other news out there that may give you heart burn. Way back when during a forgotten age, conservatives were treated to this:
The Hill – 6/24/11 – Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday said President Obama “must lead” if the standoff over the debt limit is going to be resolved but warned that any package with tax increases “cannot pass the House.”
ABC News – 6/23/11 – GOP Congressman – Tax Increases Can’t Pass The House
The Washington Times – 6/24/11 – “There is not support in the House for a tax increase, and I don’t believe now is the time to raise taxes in light of our current economic situation,” said Cantor (R-Va.).
The Washington Times – 6/24/11 -Speaker of the House John Boehner added today, “The president and his party may want a debt limit increase that includes tax hikes, but such a proposal cannot pass the House.”
And now?
Politico – 11/13/11 – Rep. Jeb Hensarling “we believe that frankly increasing tax revenues could hurt the economy, but within the context of bipartisan negotiations with Democrats, clearly they are a reality,” he said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Yes, the Republicans who back in June were telling us they would hold the line on tax increases have decided that they must have tax increases. Otherwise the defense budget will be cut. Except the defense budget will be cut only if the GOP actually lets the defense budget be cut. As Jim DeMint recently pointed out, Congress cannot, in fact, bind future Congresses to any cuts.
Now the question of the day: do Republicans really think if they approve these tax increases that this time, unlike every other time, Democrats will actually cut anything?
P. T. Barnum comes to mind.
Tuesday, November 15th at 4:46AM EST
While we’ve all been distracted by the Presidential race, there is other news out there that may give you heart burn. Way back when during a forgotten age, conservatives were treated to this:
The Hill – 6/24/11 – Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday said President Obama “must lead” if the standoff over the debt limit is going to be resolved but warned that any package with tax increases “cannot pass the House.”
ABC News – 6/23/11 – GOP Congressman – Tax Increases Can’t Pass The House
The Washington Times – 6/24/11 – “There is not support in the House for a tax increase, and I don’t believe now is the time to raise taxes in light of our current economic situation,” said Cantor (R-Va.).
The Washington Times – 6/24/11 -Speaker of the House John Boehner added today, “The president and his party may want a debt limit increase that includes tax hikes, but such a proposal cannot pass the House.”
And now?
Politico – 11/13/11 – Rep. Jeb Hensarling “we believe that frankly increasing tax revenues could hurt the economy, but within the context of bipartisan negotiations with Democrats, clearly they are a reality,” he said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Yes, the Republicans who back in June were telling us they would hold the line on tax increases have decided that they must have tax increases. Otherwise the defense budget will be cut. Except the defense budget will be cut only if the GOP actually lets the defense budget be cut. As Jim DeMint recently pointed out, Congress cannot, in fact, bind future Congresses to any cuts.
Now the question of the day: do Republicans really think if they approve these tax increases that this time, unlike every other time, Democrats will actually cut anything?
P. T. Barnum comes to mind.
Forget 57! We're down to 49 States.
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Wrapping up the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Hawaii on Sunday, President Obama held a presser at Ko Olina on the island of his birth in which he subtly ceded Hawaii to the continent of Asia.
When I meet with world leaders, what's striking -- whether it's in Europe or here in Asia -- the kinds of fundamental reforms and changes both on the revenue side and the public pension side that other countries are having to make are so much more significant than what we need to do in order to get our books in order.
As Member Nathaniel Wright, who sent me a tip to this story put it, "Obama is a punch in the face."
Wrapping up the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Hawaii on Sunday, President Obama held a presser at Ko Olina on the island of his birth in which he subtly ceded Hawaii to the continent of Asia.
When I meet with world leaders, what's striking -- whether it's in Europe or here in Asia -- the kinds of fundamental reforms and changes both on the revenue side and the public pension side that other countries are having to make are so much more significant than what we need to do in order to get our books in order.
As Member Nathaniel Wright, who sent me a tip to this story put it, "Obama is a punch in the face."
Congressional Insider Trading: How and Why Politico Protects the Status Quo
Posted by John Nolte Nov 14th 2011
Below is a truly astonishing piece of C-Span video with Politico reporter Jonathan Allen:
Now watch this “60 Minutes” report and tell me there’s not a story worth pursuing here.
Obviously, Jonathan Allen isn’t at all interested in how Nancy Pelosi received access to an exclusive IPO courtesy of Visa or the wild coincidence surrounding Speaker Boehner’s health care stock trades or how this legal insider trading members of Congress are using to enrich themselves might be having some sort of corrupting influence. Why would he? He knows these people.
Move along.
Nothing to see here.
Trust us.
When I first saw the 60 Minutes report, I was flabbergasted to discover that Congress is legally allowed to use non-public information in their stock and land deals. In other words, our own public servants have an advantage over those they serve when it comes to the game of winning and losing in the world of financial speculation. This, of course, manages to answer a ton of questions as to how the Mr. Smiths who go to Washington frequently return home as Daddy Warbucks.
What really concerned me, though, was how this could have a corrosive effect on legislation. It’s bad enough (and infuriating and outrageous) that our elected representatives have loop-holed themselves from insider trading laws, but what about those who angle legislation against what’s best for the country in favor of their own portfolio or whatever land is available to purchase? Other than putting pressure on Congress to end that loophole and put their portfolios in a blind trust, that’s obviously where this story should lead to next.
And note the language I’m using here. You don’t hear me talking about liberals or Democrats or the left. Because this isn’t about partisan politics. This is about a corrupt political class exempting themselves from the laws you and I are forced to abide by as they feather their own nests.
And yet, instead of being curious and skeptical and eager to do the good work of holding those in power accountable, Politico goes even further than to ignore the story. If you watched Jonathan Allen’s disgraceful appearance on C-Span above, you can see quite clearly that the memo has likely gone out to kill the story and deny it any traction by both ignoring it and wrist-flicking it away as silly.
Why?
In the vernacular of our esteemed journalist class, let me “raise some questions” as to how Politico might profit by ignoring and shooting this particular story down:
1. A high-powered Democrat (Pelosi) could get caught up in this and if you’re currently in bed and cuddling up next to MSNBC in order to increase your Web hits, that might not be such a good idea.
2. Upsetting those in power might damage your access to those in power. Therefore, in order to protect that access you protect the status quo.
3. Upsetting those in power might cost you significant advertising revenue. Who knows how many hundreds of million of dollars in political advertising is about to be spent in the upcoming election year. If Politico starts beating up the incumbents who have more money than the challengers, it could cost them dearly.
4. Politico is jealous it didn’t break the story and therefore it will pretend it doesn’t exist. Politico is infamous for their arrogance.
My guess is that Politico is motivated by a mixture of all four, and the screenshot below of Politco’s front page (taken less than 25 minutes ago) provides a very good example of how they operate:
The stories circled in red are all hits against Herman Cain. As we all know, two weeks ago it was Politico that broke what ended up being a mostly nothing story about the allegations of sexual harassment hurled at Cain over a decade ago and all centered around Chicago. Hrm?? That non-story was then followed up by another 200 or so Politico stories that raged in a frenzy against Cain with the obvious goal of taking the man out.
That wasn’t journalism–it was a political hit and no less than three left-of-center journalist watchdogs questioned the merits of Politico’s story and their bizarrely obsessive follow ups.
Now go ahead and take another look at the Politico front page posted above. You’ll notice that while there are four featured Cain stories there’s not a single one about last night’s 60 Minutes story on congressional insider trading.
This is how Politico helps the likes of the Huffington Post and Media Matters to kill a scandal they don’t want to see gain any traction.
Herman Cain and especially his 9-9-9 plan represent an existential threat to the status quo, so he must be annihilated at any cost. This is why a story about nothing more than allegations was positioned, rolled out and coordinated by Politico as though it were “Watergate 2.”
Last night’s 60 Minutes story represents the same kind of existential threat, the kind that if you start reporting and digging and following up on could cost you Beltway access, friendships, favors, and advertising dollars.
Who watches the watchmen?
Below is a truly astonishing piece of C-Span video with Politico reporter Jonathan Allen:
Now watch this “60 Minutes” report and tell me there’s not a story worth pursuing here.
Obviously, Jonathan Allen isn’t at all interested in how Nancy Pelosi received access to an exclusive IPO courtesy of Visa or the wild coincidence surrounding Speaker Boehner’s health care stock trades or how this legal insider trading members of Congress are using to enrich themselves might be having some sort of corrupting influence. Why would he? He knows these people.
Move along.
Nothing to see here.
Trust us.
When I first saw the 60 Minutes report, I was flabbergasted to discover that Congress is legally allowed to use non-public information in their stock and land deals. In other words, our own public servants have an advantage over those they serve when it comes to the game of winning and losing in the world of financial speculation. This, of course, manages to answer a ton of questions as to how the Mr. Smiths who go to Washington frequently return home as Daddy Warbucks.
What really concerned me, though, was how this could have a corrosive effect on legislation. It’s bad enough (and infuriating and outrageous) that our elected representatives have loop-holed themselves from insider trading laws, but what about those who angle legislation against what’s best for the country in favor of their own portfolio or whatever land is available to purchase? Other than putting pressure on Congress to end that loophole and put their portfolios in a blind trust, that’s obviously where this story should lead to next.
And note the language I’m using here. You don’t hear me talking about liberals or Democrats or the left. Because this isn’t about partisan politics. This is about a corrupt political class exempting themselves from the laws you and I are forced to abide by as they feather their own nests.
And yet, instead of being curious and skeptical and eager to do the good work of holding those in power accountable, Politico goes even further than to ignore the story. If you watched Jonathan Allen’s disgraceful appearance on C-Span above, you can see quite clearly that the memo has likely gone out to kill the story and deny it any traction by both ignoring it and wrist-flicking it away as silly.
Why?
In the vernacular of our esteemed journalist class, let me “raise some questions” as to how Politico might profit by ignoring and shooting this particular story down:
1. A high-powered Democrat (Pelosi) could get caught up in this and if you’re currently in bed and cuddling up next to MSNBC in order to increase your Web hits, that might not be such a good idea.
2. Upsetting those in power might damage your access to those in power. Therefore, in order to protect that access you protect the status quo.
3. Upsetting those in power might cost you significant advertising revenue. Who knows how many hundreds of million of dollars in political advertising is about to be spent in the upcoming election year. If Politico starts beating up the incumbents who have more money than the challengers, it could cost them dearly.
4. Politico is jealous it didn’t break the story and therefore it will pretend it doesn’t exist. Politico is infamous for their arrogance.
My guess is that Politico is motivated by a mixture of all four, and the screenshot below of Politco’s front page (taken less than 25 minutes ago) provides a very good example of how they operate:
The stories circled in red are all hits against Herman Cain. As we all know, two weeks ago it was Politico that broke what ended up being a mostly nothing story about the allegations of sexual harassment hurled at Cain over a decade ago and all centered around Chicago. Hrm?? That non-story was then followed up by another 200 or so Politico stories that raged in a frenzy against Cain with the obvious goal of taking the man out.
That wasn’t journalism–it was a political hit and no less than three left-of-center journalist watchdogs questioned the merits of Politico’s story and their bizarrely obsessive follow ups.
Now go ahead and take another look at the Politico front page posted above. You’ll notice that while there are four featured Cain stories there’s not a single one about last night’s 60 Minutes story on congressional insider trading.
This is how Politico helps the likes of the Huffington Post and Media Matters to kill a scandal they don’t want to see gain any traction.
Herman Cain and especially his 9-9-9 plan represent an existential threat to the status quo, so he must be annihilated at any cost. This is why a story about nothing more than allegations was positioned, rolled out and coordinated by Politico as though it were “Watergate 2.”
Last night’s 60 Minutes story represents the same kind of existential threat, the kind that if you start reporting and digging and following up on could cost you Beltway access, friendships, favors, and advertising dollars.
Who watches the watchmen?
Report: 80% of DOE Green Energy Loans Went to Obama Backers
Lachlan Markay
November 14, 2011 at 10:43 am
A new book by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer details the startling extent of the cronyism that has pervaded President Obama’s “green jobs” push. According to Schweizer, 4 out of every 5 renewable energy companies backed by the Energy Department was “run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers.”
Those companies’ “political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy,” Schweizer explains. “It brought them returns many times over.”
Such is the inevitable consequence of large government interventions in private markets. Leaving aside the losses associated with transfers of funds from self-sustaining industries to ones that rely on government support, such interventions also encourage unproductive business activities by making “subsidy suckling” far more profitable than run-of-the-mill business expansions or product improvements.
Doug Ross spotted the relevant excerpt of Schweizer’s book (h/t Ben Domenech’s Transom):
When President-elect Obama came to Washington in late 2008, he was outspoken about the need for an economic stimulus to revive a struggling economy… After he was sworn in as president, he proclaimed that taxpayer money would assuredly not be doled out to political friends…
…But an examination of grants and guaranteed loans offered by just one stimulus program run by the Department of Energy, for alternative-energy projects, is stunning. The so-called 1705 Loan Guarantee Program and the 1603 Grant Program channeled billions of dollars to all sorts of energy companies…
…In the 1705 government-backed-loan program [alone], for example, $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans granted as of Sept. 15 went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers—individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party. The grant and guaranteed-loan recipients were early backers of Obama before he ran for president, people who continued to give to his campaigns and exclusively to the Democratic Party in the years leading up to 2008. Their political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy. It brought them returns many times over.
…The Government Accountability Office has been highly critical of the way guaranteed loans and grants were doled out by the Department of Energy, complaining that the process appears “arbitrary” and lacks transparency. In March 2011, for example, the GAO examined the first 18 loans that were approved and found that none were properly documented. It also noted that officials “did not always record the results of analysis” of these applications. A loan program for electric cars, for example, “lacks performance measures.” No notes were kept during the review process, so it is difficult to determine how loan decisions were made. The GAO further declared that the Department of Energy “had treated applicants inconsistently in the application review process, favoring some applicants and disadvantaging others.” The Department of Energy’s inspector general, Gregory Friedman, … has testified that contracts have been steered to “friends and family.”
…These programs might be the greatest—and most expensive—example of crony capitalism in American history. Tens of billions of dollars went to firms controlled or owned by fundraisers, bundlers, and political allies, many of whom—surprise!—are now raising money for Obama again.
November 14, 2011 at 10:43 am
A new book by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer details the startling extent of the cronyism that has pervaded President Obama’s “green jobs” push. According to Schweizer, 4 out of every 5 renewable energy companies backed by the Energy Department was “run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers.”
Those companies’ “political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy,” Schweizer explains. “It brought them returns many times over.”
Such is the inevitable consequence of large government interventions in private markets. Leaving aside the losses associated with transfers of funds from self-sustaining industries to ones that rely on government support, such interventions also encourage unproductive business activities by making “subsidy suckling” far more profitable than run-of-the-mill business expansions or product improvements.
Doug Ross spotted the relevant excerpt of Schweizer’s book (h/t Ben Domenech’s Transom):
When President-elect Obama came to Washington in late 2008, he was outspoken about the need for an economic stimulus to revive a struggling economy… After he was sworn in as president, he proclaimed that taxpayer money would assuredly not be doled out to political friends…
…But an examination of grants and guaranteed loans offered by just one stimulus program run by the Department of Energy, for alternative-energy projects, is stunning. The so-called 1705 Loan Guarantee Program and the 1603 Grant Program channeled billions of dollars to all sorts of energy companies…
…In the 1705 government-backed-loan program [alone], for example, $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans granted as of Sept. 15 went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers—individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party. The grant and guaranteed-loan recipients were early backers of Obama before he ran for president, people who continued to give to his campaigns and exclusively to the Democratic Party in the years leading up to 2008. Their political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy. It brought them returns many times over.
…The Government Accountability Office has been highly critical of the way guaranteed loans and grants were doled out by the Department of Energy, complaining that the process appears “arbitrary” and lacks transparency. In March 2011, for example, the GAO examined the first 18 loans that were approved and found that none were properly documented. It also noted that officials “did not always record the results of analysis” of these applications. A loan program for electric cars, for example, “lacks performance measures.” No notes were kept during the review process, so it is difficult to determine how loan decisions were made. The GAO further declared that the Department of Energy “had treated applicants inconsistently in the application review process, favoring some applicants and disadvantaging others.” The Department of Energy’s inspector general, Gregory Friedman, … has testified that contracts have been steered to “friends and family.”
…These programs might be the greatest—and most expensive—example of crony capitalism in American history. Tens of billions of dollars went to firms controlled or owned by fundraisers, bundlers, and political allies, many of whom—surprise!—are now raising money for Obama again.
Internet Belatedly Notices How Much Spying Government Can Do Without a Warrant
Posted by Julian Sanchez
I’m seeing a lot of technology news sites reporting, in tones of shock and horror, on a recent court ruling holding that people generally waive their Fourth Amendment “expectation of privacy” in data collected on them by Internet sites, at least when the sites give some kind of notice (however buried in legalese) that they do collect that data. That means, in this instance, that the government can obtain detailed connection records from Twitter about users associated with Wikileaks without a full-blown Fourth Amendment warrant based on probable cause: A subpoena or a court order based on a far weaker claim of “relevance” to an investigation will suffice.
But this isn’t some shocking new precedent. It’s been the status quo since 1986, when our increasingly outdated electronic privacy laws were written, and arguably for longer than that.
There are plenty of problems with this most recent decision, to be sure. For one, as security researcher Chris Soghoian notes, the court based its opinion on the current Twitter privacy policy, even though the policy in effect at the time the targets of the investigation signed up for the site was significantly more protective. In a way, though, this seems unnecessary: Under the misguided Supreme Court decisions that established our modern “third party doctrine,” contractual promises of privacy don’t matter.
In other words, users are held to “assume the risk” that any third party might turn their information over to the government, effectively waiving their Fourth Amendment rights over that data, even if the third party explicitly promises not to do this. The one reason the privacy policy might be relevant here is that the “third party doctrine” covers information knowingly conveyed to third parties, and while it’s obvious that you “convey” a dialed phone number to the phone company when you make a call (for instance), it might not be as obvious that Web sites you visit are logging your Internet Protocol address.
Still, there’s nothing fundamentally new here: The government routinely obtains “transactional” information or “metadata” (as opposed to the contents of communication) without bothering with a search warrant. Google received nearly 6,000 government requests for user data in January–June of this year (not counting national security requests, which the company is gagged from reporting), and most experts believe the volume of requests to Internet Service Providers like Comcast or Verizon is vastly higher.
But unlike wiretaps—which totaled just over 3,000 for all criminal investigations in 2010—there’s no requirement that courts track and report aggregate numbers for such requests. That means a hugely more common form of government monitoring is effectively invisible. The only unusual thing about the demand for information from Twitter in the Wikileaks investigation is that the public has become aware of it.
A good first step toward a more sane policy—one that ought to be a no-brainer whatever one’s position on the desirable level of online privacy—would be to require statistics on these user data requests to be compiled, just as they already are for wiretaps. Perhaps Americans will be comfortable with the current levels of government spying on Internet activities, and perhaps they’ll demand change. Either way, though, citizens in a democracy surely have a right to be informed about the scope and scale of government spying on their digital activities—and the reactions to this court ruling make it obvious they aren’t.
I’m seeing a lot of technology news sites reporting, in tones of shock and horror, on a recent court ruling holding that people generally waive their Fourth Amendment “expectation of privacy” in data collected on them by Internet sites, at least when the sites give some kind of notice (however buried in legalese) that they do collect that data. That means, in this instance, that the government can obtain detailed connection records from Twitter about users associated with Wikileaks without a full-blown Fourth Amendment warrant based on probable cause: A subpoena or a court order based on a far weaker claim of “relevance” to an investigation will suffice.
But this isn’t some shocking new precedent. It’s been the status quo since 1986, when our increasingly outdated electronic privacy laws were written, and arguably for longer than that.
There are plenty of problems with this most recent decision, to be sure. For one, as security researcher Chris Soghoian notes, the court based its opinion on the current Twitter privacy policy, even though the policy in effect at the time the targets of the investigation signed up for the site was significantly more protective. In a way, though, this seems unnecessary: Under the misguided Supreme Court decisions that established our modern “third party doctrine,” contractual promises of privacy don’t matter.
In other words, users are held to “assume the risk” that any third party might turn their information over to the government, effectively waiving their Fourth Amendment rights over that data, even if the third party explicitly promises not to do this. The one reason the privacy policy might be relevant here is that the “third party doctrine” covers information knowingly conveyed to third parties, and while it’s obvious that you “convey” a dialed phone number to the phone company when you make a call (for instance), it might not be as obvious that Web sites you visit are logging your Internet Protocol address.
Still, there’s nothing fundamentally new here: The government routinely obtains “transactional” information or “metadata” (as opposed to the contents of communication) without bothering with a search warrant. Google received nearly 6,000 government requests for user data in January–June of this year (not counting national security requests, which the company is gagged from reporting), and most experts believe the volume of requests to Internet Service Providers like Comcast or Verizon is vastly higher.
But unlike wiretaps—which totaled just over 3,000 for all criminal investigations in 2010—there’s no requirement that courts track and report aggregate numbers for such requests. That means a hugely more common form of government monitoring is effectively invisible. The only unusual thing about the demand for information from Twitter in the Wikileaks investigation is that the public has become aware of it.
A good first step toward a more sane policy—one that ought to be a no-brainer whatever one’s position on the desirable level of online privacy—would be to require statistics on these user data requests to be compiled, just as they already are for wiretaps. Perhaps Americans will be comfortable with the current levels of government spying on Internet activities, and perhaps they’ll demand change. Either way, though, citizens in a democracy surely have a right to be informed about the scope and scale of government spying on their digital activities—and the reactions to this court ruling make it obvious they aren’t.
Occupy Portland Cleanup Requires 70 Dump Trucks
Rob Port • November 14, 2011
Well, I guess we can safely say now that the “occupy” movement isn’t a green movement (via Jim Hoft).
A dozen city employees today plan to finish clearing Chapman and Lownsdale squares of debris and trash so engineers and horticulture experts can survey damage to the parks’ structures and trees.
City officials expect the parks to be closed for at least one week. Weeks of camping by Occupy Portland at the two downtown parks have torn up grass and damaged plant beds.
Bob Downing, central services manager for the parks bureau, said he’s walked through the two parks periodically since the occupation began.
“I’m not really surprised,” Downing said. “It was what we expected it to be.”
Downing said about 70 dump trucks hauled trash and debris from the camps over the weekend. He said about 30 city employees worked Sunday to clear the parks.
I was going to write that this amazes me, because you’d think that picking up your own trash isn’t really an ideological thing. Except, maybe it is.
The tea partiers, for the most part, cleaned up after themselves. The occupiers? They expect someone else to clean up after them.
Which illustrates perfectly the fundamental divide between the two movements, I think.
Well, I guess we can safely say now that the “occupy” movement isn’t a green movement (via Jim Hoft).
A dozen city employees today plan to finish clearing Chapman and Lownsdale squares of debris and trash so engineers and horticulture experts can survey damage to the parks’ structures and trees.
City officials expect the parks to be closed for at least one week. Weeks of camping by Occupy Portland at the two downtown parks have torn up grass and damaged plant beds.
Bob Downing, central services manager for the parks bureau, said he’s walked through the two parks periodically since the occupation began.
“I’m not really surprised,” Downing said. “It was what we expected it to be.”
Downing said about 70 dump trucks hauled trash and debris from the camps over the weekend. He said about 30 city employees worked Sunday to clear the parks.
I was going to write that this amazes me, because you’d think that picking up your own trash isn’t really an ideological thing. Except, maybe it is.
The tea partiers, for the most part, cleaned up after themselves. The occupiers? They expect someone else to clean up after them.
Which illustrates perfectly the fundamental divide between the two movements, I think.
The Rise Of The State
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/15/2011 01:59 -0500
The ever increasing un-invisible hand of intervention, manipulation, and disintermediation by central planning regimes around the world is an oft-quoted topic among our discussions. UBS's Global Macro Team published a thoughtful piece late last week on global political issues and the rise of the state.
From Paul Donovan of UBS Global Macro Team
The Rise Of The State
Governments are encroaching into more and more areas of the world economy. This is not just through political drama (as we have seen in the Euro area), nor even through the conventional mechanisms of foreign exchange intervention. Regulation (and regulatory uncertainty), sovereign wealth funds, bond market manipulation and default risks all play a role in financial markets, and all are intensely political in their nature.
There Is No Place Like Home
A more politically nuanced world raises an interesting unintended consequence for global financial markets. Directly, as a result of increased regulation, or indirectly, as a result of increased costs associated with assessing foreign political risk, investors may feel that the rise of the state will increase the home country bias of capital flows - exactly as leaders look for global burden sharing.
The Euro
The Euro continues to represent a mass of political risks, most of which are of course divorced from conventional political assessment. The Euro area is struggling with regulatory, default, and fiscal risk of course, but also with negotiations over the de facto surrender of sovereignty for the collective good of the monetary union. The problems here are changing so frequently it seems useless to speculate on specific outcomes. However one concern is that political and economic objectives are not necessarily coinciding.
Forthcoming elections
Even amidst the specific concerns of the Euro, the electoral calendar does contain some important dates. Spain goes to the polls in November, with polls indicating a new government is likely. New Zealand also has a general election, and Egypt is supposed to begin its process of transition to democracy – albeit slowly.
UBS - The Rise of the State
UBS - The Rise of the State
The ever increasing un-invisible hand of intervention, manipulation, and disintermediation by central planning regimes around the world is an oft-quoted topic among our discussions. UBS's Global Macro Team published a thoughtful piece late last week on global political issues and the rise of the state.
From Paul Donovan of UBS Global Macro Team
The Rise Of The State
Governments are encroaching into more and more areas of the world economy. This is not just through political drama (as we have seen in the Euro area), nor even through the conventional mechanisms of foreign exchange intervention. Regulation (and regulatory uncertainty), sovereign wealth funds, bond market manipulation and default risks all play a role in financial markets, and all are intensely political in their nature.
There Is No Place Like Home
A more politically nuanced world raises an interesting unintended consequence for global financial markets. Directly, as a result of increased regulation, or indirectly, as a result of increased costs associated with assessing foreign political risk, investors may feel that the rise of the state will increase the home country bias of capital flows - exactly as leaders look for global burden sharing.
The Euro
The Euro continues to represent a mass of political risks, most of which are of course divorced from conventional political assessment. The Euro area is struggling with regulatory, default, and fiscal risk of course, but also with negotiations over the de facto surrender of sovereignty for the collective good of the monetary union. The problems here are changing so frequently it seems useless to speculate on specific outcomes. However one concern is that political and economic objectives are not necessarily coinciding.
Forthcoming elections
Even amidst the specific concerns of the Euro, the electoral calendar does contain some important dates. Spain goes to the polls in November, with polls indicating a new government is likely. New Zealand also has a general election, and Egypt is supposed to begin its process of transition to democracy – albeit slowly.
UBS - The Rise of the State
UBS - The Rise of the State
Forum post: Proposed list of Occupy demands
Forum Post: Proposed list of OWS Demands
Posted 3 weeks ago on Oct. 23, 2011, 11:21 p.m. EST by bchang1987
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act. Unionize ALL workers immediately.
Raise the minimum wage immediately to $18/hr. Create a maximum wage of $90/hr to eliminate inequality.
Institute a 6 hour workday, and 6 weeks of paid vacation.
Institute a moratorium on all foreclosures and layoffs immediately.
Repeal racist and xenophobic English-only laws.
Open the borders to all immigrants, legal or illegal. Offer immediate, unconditional amnesty, to all undocumented residents of the US.
Create a single-payer, universal health care system.
Pass stricter campaign finance reform laws. Ban all private donations. All campaigns will receive equal funding, provided by the taxpayers.
Institute a negative income tax, and tax the very rich at rates up to 90%.
Pass far stricter environmental protection and animal rights laws.
Allow workers to elect their supervisors.
Lower the retirement age to 55. Increase Social Security benefits.
Create a 5% annual wealth tax for the very rich.
Ban the private ownership of land.
Make homeschooling illegal. Religious fanatics use it to feed their children propaganda.
Reduce the age of majority to 16.
Abolish the death penalty and life in prison. We call for the immediate release of all death row inmates from death row and transferred to regular prisons.
Release all political prisoners immediately.
Immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Abolish the debt limit.
Ban private gun ownership.
Strengthen the separation of church and state.
Immediate debt forgiveness for all.
End the 'War on Drugs'.
Posted 3 weeks ago on Oct. 23, 2011, 11:21 p.m. EST by bchang1987
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act. Unionize ALL workers immediately.
Raise the minimum wage immediately to $18/hr. Create a maximum wage of $90/hr to eliminate inequality.
Institute a 6 hour workday, and 6 weeks of paid vacation.
Institute a moratorium on all foreclosures and layoffs immediately.
Repeal racist and xenophobic English-only laws.
Open the borders to all immigrants, legal or illegal. Offer immediate, unconditional amnesty, to all undocumented residents of the US.
Create a single-payer, universal health care system.
Pass stricter campaign finance reform laws. Ban all private donations. All campaigns will receive equal funding, provided by the taxpayers.
Institute a negative income tax, and tax the very rich at rates up to 90%.
Pass far stricter environmental protection and animal rights laws.
Allow workers to elect their supervisors.
Lower the retirement age to 55. Increase Social Security benefits.
Create a 5% annual wealth tax for the very rich.
Ban the private ownership of land.
Make homeschooling illegal. Religious fanatics use it to feed their children propaganda.
Reduce the age of majority to 16.
Abolish the death penalty and life in prison. We call for the immediate release of all death row inmates from death row and transferred to regular prisons.
Release all political prisoners immediately.
Immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Abolish the debt limit.
Ban private gun ownership.
Strengthen the separation of church and state.
Immediate debt forgiveness for all.
End the 'War on Drugs'.
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