2nd Amendment proves valid defense against black gangs

'Dude, I've got guns everywhere. I'm a very well-armed individual'

Editor’s note: Colin Flaherty has done more reporting than any other journalist on what appears to be a nationwide trend of skyrocketing black-on-white crime, violence and abuse. WND features these reports to counterbalance the virtual blackout by the rest of the media due to their concerns that reporting such incidents would be inflammatory or even racist. WND considers it racist not to report racial abuse solely because of the skin color of the perpetrators or victims.

Please be forewarned the links in the following report may contain offensive language.

Jeremy Schenkel felt safe – right up to the moment he came face to face with one of the dozens of violent black mobs that terrorized Philadelphia last summer.

Schenkel survived the ensuing assault with no major broken bones. A few minutes later, the mob’s next victim was not so fortunate: They left him beaten, bloody and unconscious.

Roger McBride and Lulu Campbell did not want to depend on luck. They used a gun. It may have saved their lives. It certainly kept them from harm.

They are just two of the more than 100,000 people who last year defended themselves with guns when luck was not enough.

Victims of black mob violence often say it was just a case of bad luck. But when the mob saw Schenkel and decided he was an easy mark, they could not contain the joy at their good fortune. A CBS affiliate tells his story:

“The kids were laughing as they beat and kicked (Jeremy,) and not only was there the attacking mob, there was also a group of kids cheering them on.

“Almost like an admiring group that was following them, just kind of ragging on people, and one of those guys said, ‘It’s not our fault you can’t fight.”

Lulu is not a fighter, either. This Atlanta grandmother is just over five feet tall. But she can shoot. As several black carjackers discovered in April after they mistakenly identified her as easy prey:

“(The suspect) shouted, ‘Give me the (blanking) money and open the (blanking) door!’” Campbell told The Telegraph, describing her ordeal. “I said, ‘Oh my God, somebody is going to rob me.’ I said, ‘Baby, you’re going to kill me anyway, so I don’t have to open it!’”

Campbell says the man fired at her, missing. The 57-year-old fired back, striking him in the chest. Her truck sustained eight bullet holes in the hood, one in the grill. Both front side windows were destroyed. The second man fled after she shot at him.

“I carry a gun all the time,” she said.

Lots of photos of Lulu’s car with lots of holes have been posted online.

Out in Kansas City, Roger McBride interrupted a mob of 40 black people – still in uniforms from a local school – while they were kicking in doors and breaking windows at his neighbor’s house.

He asked them to stop. They declined. McBride told his story to a local TV news program:

“All of a sudden, this one kid with corn rows comes out and he’s like yakety yak, (expletive), da, da, da. He’s like we’ll kick your (expletive) too you don’t (expletive) own this neighborhood, and they are like, literally, 12 of them, start running over here,” said MacBride.

MacBride says the teens surrounded his house, picking up rocks and throwing them at him. That’s when he says in his eyes, the mob stopped being a bunch of kids and became a big threat.

He says the teens were reaching for his door handle when the sight of his Soviet rifle had an instant reaction:

They ran to another neighborhood where they started all over in a more congenial environment.

From the Pitch:

“Dude, I’ve got guns everywhere. I’m a very well-armed individual,” he says. “I love my little place. I love my neighbors. I’ve got the best damned neighborhood in Kansas City, in my opinion.

“And I’ll be damned if a little bunch of f—- – I know they’ve been taught that ‘if there’s a bunch of us, people won’t fight back. … Just take what you want and run.’ Until they mess up, and I start shooting them in the head.”

If they didn’t know it then, they know it now.

An eerily similar situation took place in Philadelphia at about the same time with a different result.

A black mob descended on Mark LaVelle’s house. He hid his family upstairs. They pelted the house with rocks and bricks until finally:

the attackers pounded on his front windows and kicked his wooden door so hard, it flew open and some of them entered his house.

“The first guy hits me with a pipe. The second guy knocks me in the face. All I’m hearing is my wife and kids screaming,” said LaVelle, who feared that the next time they saw him, he would be in a casket.

He said that he was able to push the attackers out the door, but then a third man – who had a gun – tried to extend his arm. LaVelle grabbed onto the gunman’s lower arm and shoulder so he couldn’t raise the weapon. Then, police sirens screamed in the neighborhood, and the mob turned and ran.

LaVelle did not own a gun. Maybe that is why, two hours later, the mob returned to threaten even more violence if he testified.

Call it the Case of the Missing Gun.

Just a few months before, it took a gun to save a U.S. Marine and his wife from a mob. While home on leave from Iraq, Federico Freire and his wife were trying to watch the movie Little Fockers at a mall in Bradenton, Fla. A group of 20 black people sitting two rows in front of them were talking loudly.

Freire asked them to stop. They did not. After a brief ruckus, the manager kicked them out. When the Freires left the theater, this group of 20 had grown into an angry gang of 300. They attacked the family, beating them and knocking her out.

A gun owner brandishing a weapon took the fight out of that crowd. At least temporarily.

“On our way out of the movie theater, my wife gets surrounded with about 10 to 15 girls that were about to attack her,” Freire told FoxNews.com. “As soon as I saw this I immediately ran and got her out of harm’s way.”

Freire said he was kicked and punched as he and his wife tried to run from the group.

“I leaned down to grab my purse and there were literally 100 teens around us,” Kalyn Freire said, “While the manager was in the corner with his mouth open and not doing anything.”

Freire said one bystander stepped forward and told the couple to follow him to his car, saying he could scare the crowd off with a gun.

They got the gun. Saved the girl. Six people were arrested. The family went to the hospital.

What is it with Florida? In Pensacola, Jack Crawford answered his door only to get cracked on the head with a bat. Of the three intruders, one was white. Crawford shot two of them, including the white guy.

“They’re lucky to be alive,” said Crawford, with big stitches decorating his skull. “That’s it. If I wasn’t in a good mood, they would have carried them away.”

Crawford is not in danger of prosecution because of Florida’s “Stand your Ground” law. “It’s a good law,” he said. The police “cannot be everywhere to protect everybody, so you have to protect yourself. Period.”

In North Carolina, four black men broke into the home of C.L. McClure. They restrained the 76-year old man and his wife with duct tape, robbed them and took off.

McClure escaped and gave chase, gun in hand. He caught them and, thinking one of the looters was reaching for a gun, killed him. Police soon had two others in custody. After checking for the presence of anyone in the area wearing an electronic ankle monitor, they found the fourth nearby in the bushes.

Another good shoot, said local prosecutors.

In Detroit, four black men in 2011 ambushed a pizza delivery driver. He killed one. Police caught the others. The delivery man had a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Every year hundreds of delivery drivers are robbed. Most do not carry guns. That is why the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls it one of the most dangerous jobs in the country.

Back in Florida, John Lee, a father of four, was on his way to work at Sam’s Club when four black men demanded his money, and opened fire on him.

“I got my concealed weapons permit a few years ago,” he said, “Hoping I would never have to use it.”

But he did, driving the thieves away, not before taking three more rounds in his arms, leg and abdomen.

“If I didn’t have that gun on me, I would not be talking to you right now,” he told the CBS affiliate in Palmetto Bay. “They would have finished me off.” The men escaped, one bleeding.

In Avondale, Pa., a group of black men broke down the door of an apartment only to find Clyde Tucker waiting inside with a gun. He shot one. They got away, police are still looking for them.

This happened in 2009, but since the video is so clear, let’s put it on the list: Four guys break into a house. Gunfire ensues. Caught on video.

Actor and comedian Chris Tucker’s brother ruined a home invasion robbery earlier this year in Atlanta – shooting one of three black people. The other two were arrested.

In Wilmington, Del., three black men apparently set on righting ancient wrongs recently assassinated a sports leader at point blank range on the sidelines of a crowded soccer field. No one will ever know how much havoc these three gangsters intended on wreaking on the rest of the crowd. Before anyone found out, several spectators pulled out their guns and returned fire, killing one of the assassins, driving off the other two. They were soon captured. Police found shells from 14 different guns.

Curiously, of the hundreds of people at the pitch that day, not one of them got a look at the Good Samaritan gunners. Let’s just say the chances were slim they had gun permits.

No one knows how often guns are used for self defense. The Cato Institute says anywhere from 100,000 to one million times a year. But of course, the work of author John Lott is the best place to go for more of this kind of information.

Lots of journalists could use it. Like two reporters at the Fox affiliate in Philadelphia who were heartsick at the news that some suburban folks were buying guns.

The story started out as a follow up to a report that 20 black people did a flash rob at an Upper Darby department store. All on video.

Those who expected any congratulations for making their neighborhoods safer had another thing coming:

“I couldn’t believe when I heard this one earlier,” said the worried anchor. “It sounds like a ‘I’m going to get them before they get me’ mentality.”

Before he had a chance to explain why an attitude of self-defense was bad for anyone but the predators, the reporter in the field started talking about “how afraid people are about getting caught up in one of these flash mobs. And they want to be ready. It sounds unbelievable. But law enforcement says believe it. It is a nightmare in the making.”

Please note: The nightmare they are talking about is people protecting themselves.

“I talked to a number of private citizens tonight who said they used to keep their guns near them,” said the reporter. “Now they take it with them everywhere they go.”

Steve Kates knows the issue firsthand.

This Phoenix area talk show host and gun safety instructor says more and more people are taking personal responsibility for their own safety – and that is the way it should be.

“Every state has its own laws regulating how you can carry and use a weapon when you feel threatened,” Kates said. “So you have to know what they are. But having said that, a lot more people are feeling a lot less safe. With good reason. So having a firearm and knowing how to use it is more important today than ever.”

All over the country, states are reporting record surges in concealed carry permits and gun sales. Sturm Ruger gun company is selling so many guns that three months ago it had to stop taking orders until it cleared its backlog.

For some, getting a concealed carry permit is not an option. One Philadelphia area homeowner made do with what she had when she was (almost) a victim of a wave of black-on-Asian home invasion robberies over the last two years.

The invaders had already tied up one of the occupants and were holding a gun on the other.

The men were then confronted by the 43-year-old woman in the house, who chased them out with a broom as they started to make their way upstairs.

Mark Landsbaum: Some inadvertent truths about Obama

President Obama's innocuous campaign pronouncements collectively reveal much of his intentions.

"The private sector's doing fine." – President Barack Obama, June 2012.

When politicians talk enough, their meaningless platitudes eventually reveal nuggets of truth, giving a glimpse behind the curtain. President Obama, the mainstream media's acclaimed Orator in Chief, recently spilled the beans.

"Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that," he said.

Since uttering those words at a Virginia campaign stop, there has been much backtracking and excuse-making by Obama supporters, scrambling to explain that the president really didn't mean what you heard, that he meant something sort of like that, but different.

They complain that critics took his words out of context. The president supposedly didn't mean that business owners didn't build their businesses. He allegedly meant business owners didn't build bridges and roads. But for that to be true, the golden tongued Harvard Law Review president had to have trampled English grammar and mangled sentence construction.

As the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto noted, "that" necessarily referred to "a business," not to "roads and bridges."

"...[N]ot only because 'business' is more proximate to the pronoun 'that' and therefore its more likely antecedent. The [Obama] Truth Team's interpretation is ungrammatical. 'Roads and bridges' is plural; 'that' is singular. If the Team is right about Obama's meaning, he should have said, 'You didn't build those.'

"... [H]is campaign asks us to believe he is not even competent to construct a sentence."

Nevertheless, as the Register editorialized, "Whether you take his words at face value or prefer to infer he simply meant government can help businesses by building bridges and roads, the president's speech was troubling. Implicit in the president's message is that private individuals and privately held companies are not sufficient. Big Government is the engine that pulls the train, in his view."

Perhaps the plain meaning of Obama's words is insufficient. Let's examine his remarks in the larger context of his political philosophy.

The president recently told a campaign gathering that, "[W]e tried our plan – and it worked."

"Worked" apparently means something different to Obama than to, say, working Americans. Did the president mean that it "worked" when U.S. business startups dropped from 554,109 in 1987 to 394,623 in 2010?

When Obama took office, unemployment was 7.8 percent. It is now 8.2 percent. Perhaps Obama's plan worked in the way a U.S. major meant during the Vietnam War when he said, "It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."

What are we to make of a president who proclaims with the certainty of a sunrise that, "If I don't get the unemployment rate under 7 percent, I deserve to be a one-term president," then runs for a second term even though unemployment has been above 8 percent his entire tenure? Did he not mean what he said? Or did he mean it in a way we simply don't understand?

Here's more context: Four years ago Obama told an interviewer that even if raising the capital-gains tax rate resulted in less tax collected, as it has in the past, it's only "fair" to raise the rate because he believes "the rich" should pay more, period. Therefore, taxes aren't to pay for necessary government functions. Taxes "work" when they dish out punitive "fairness," at least in Obama-ese.

The president plainly speaks a different language when he insists we must "invest" to stimulate the economy. Most people consider investing to be voluntary, such as deciding to buy Facebook stock or to sink their life's savings into starting a new business.

When the president says "invest," he means the government should take money from people whether they want to give it or not, to pay for things they already have decided are not worth their voluntary investment. Think Solyndra.

The president considers such involuntary wealth transfers "investments." But what rational private enterprise operates on such a self-destructive understanding of capital investment? Can you imagine a CEO telling his board of directors that despite their objections, he will sink their bankroll into questionable "investments" they already have rejected?

In that same Virginia speech, the president described government "permitting" private-sector growth. Permitting? We have turned a significant corner when the government must permit private economic growth. It's yet a sharper left turn when we accept that not only is government permission required, but government subsidies and financing, too.

"I guess shovel-ready jobs weren't quite as shovel-ready as we thought," Obama quipped to the amusement of his jobs czar, Jeffrey Immelt.

The Obama rhetorical trail is littered with inadvertent truths such as that, spoken either from arrogance or at other times with the assumption they never would reach the ears of those who disagree.

We might have expected this considering Obama's early foot-in-the-mouth experience. Remember his first campaign for president when Obama told a private gathering of presumed like minds how difficult it was to persuade working-class voters? "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Not all his out-of-the-mainstream views have been spoken in presumed confidentiality. In 2010 Obama let it be known that "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money."

In retrospect, we suspect that inadvertent truism is one the president would prefer not to have uttered. Covetousness being what it is, there probably are people who think some others make "enough money," however much that may be. But how many Americans are comfortable when their government presumes to tell them they've made "enough"?

Even the most redistribute-the-wealth-minded among us don't have to think too long or hard to understand that the line of demarcation between haves and have-nots, or rich and nonrich, if you prefer, is entirely arbitrary. It should be obvious that government is the least-capable and least-desirable choice to draw such lines.

If government may impose punitive taxes and engage in crony capitalism, each of us is vulnerable. As the Wall Street Journal's Taranto recently wrote, "If you 'didn't build that,' then you have no moral claim to it, and those with political power are morally justified in taking it away and using it to buy more political power."

Early warning signs were plentiful. But apparently people read something else into even Obama's bluntest confessions of faith. For example, Obama's memorable explanation of his fiscal philosophy to the man dubbed Joe the Plumber: "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

What should we have inferred from those words? Probably not what came to pass. He probably didn't mean that, four years later, poverty would be "spreading at record levels across many groups from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor," as Newsday recently reported. Or that, "More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out."

Surely he didn't mean that. Or did he?

Then again, he warned us early that, "We cannot pretend somehow that because Barack Hussein Obama got elected as president, suddenly everything is going to be OK."

Those were words we could have bet the farm on.

As the economy tilts toward the second recession of Obama's four-year term, the meaning behind his verbiage seems to be getting clearer, despite his doublespeak.

As the president himself said, "Americans ... still believe in an America where anything's possible - they just don't think their leaders do."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Biden to government union workers: Romney doesn't see value in education

DETROIT (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden, in a speech Sunday to the nation's second largest teachers unions, said Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney doesn't treat public education as a priority and distrusts the hardworking teachers who struggle to create opportunity for the nation's young people.

Biden addressed 2,500 delegates at the American Federation of Teachers national convention in Detroit on Sunday.

Biden painted Romney as planning to gut education funding to finance tax breaks for the wealthy.

From what Romney and his GOP rivals said during the primary debates, "it looks like they don't think public education is worth the investment," Biden said.

A spokesman for Romney's campaign accused Biden — and President Barack Obama — of kowtowing to teachers unions. "Instead of putting students first, this administration has put the union bosses that fund their political campaigns ahead of what's best for our children," said spokesman Sean Fitzpatrick.

"Mitt Romney has the plan and record to put students first and make sure that they have a job waiting for them when they graduate," Fitzpatrick said.

Overall, Biden told the teachers, the GOP has made a significant move to the right. "This is not your father's Republican Party," he said. "I am not questioning their motives, but I am questioning their judgment."

Biden said Romney backs Republican budget plans to slash spending on the Head Start preschool program, as well as grants and loans for college students.

The AFT represents 1.5 million teachers, second in membership to the 3.2 million-member National Education Association.

Phony document gives birth to cover-up

I’m sorry to report that the substantive findings of the latest press conference held by Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse will not be appearing on Fox, on CNN or in The Washington Post. They will not be appearing in the media, period. I guess the nation’s press corps is too busy submitting its work to Obama and Romney campaign officials for “quote approval” — as The New York Times recently confessed, in an outbreak of candor — to report on anything.

To remain a free people, a new kind of do-it-yourself journalism is in order. For starters, I recommend every American seek out and watch the two Cold Case Posse press conferences on YouTube. You report and you decide. It’s better that way.

The bottom line is this: The posse investigation has amassed extensive computer forensics and other evidence that the Barack Obama birth certificate posted on the White House website is a forgery. Again, I urge readers to review the case for themselves. What I want to focus on today is something at least as bad as document fraud. I want to focus on document fraud cover-up.

Listening to posse lead investigator Mike Zullo describe the investigation’s itinerary during the posse’s recent trip to Hawaii, a picture of statewide stonewalling emerges. Dead ends guarded by hunkered-down public officials. The same nonanswers to the simplest questions. Canned responses. If CNN, Chris Matthews, Obama press secretary Jay Carney, Rachel Maddow, The Huffington Post and the Los Angeles Times all didn’t know so much better, a neutral observer might say it sounded like a conspiracy — an agreement between at least two people to do something shifty.

Kapi’olani Medical Center was the first stop for Zullo and detective Brian Mackiewicz. That’s where the birth certificate says Obama was born. Why visit? A retired doctor told the posse that when he was a medical resident at Kapi’olani in 1970, it was common practice for a nurse to record by hand the name of every expectant mother as she entered the delivery room. After the register was filled, it was filed in the hospital library archives. Those archives are open to the public — with permission from Kapi’olani.

One thing Zullo makes shockingly clear in his recent presentation is the legal flimsiness of a Hawaiian birth certificate under the best of circumstances. A Hawaiian birth certificate is evidence only of information on file with the state; it is not evidence that this information is true. Hawaiian law spells this out by categorizing its state-issued birth certificates as “prima facie” evidence. This makes corroborating evidence — such as infant vaccine records, scene-setting baby pictures or, in this particular case, a delivery-room entry log — essential. There is zero such corroborating evidence in our Obama files. All we have is that posse-disputed online image floating before our eyes.

Now, imagine the laurels that would come to the hospital librarian who brandished a maternity log with Stanley Ann Dunham’s name inscribed in 1961 in the investigators’ faces — the follow-up high-fives on “Good Morning America,” the round of applause on David Letterman’s “Late Show,” maybe even a thank-you note from Barack and Michelle for finally putting Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse on ice.

Instead, the reply to the posse’s request from Kapi’olani was: The hospital wasn’t in the business of investigating birth certificates but was in the business of saving lives. (How unrehearsed.) “They all but threw us out,” Zullo recalled.

It was a similar story at the Hawaii Department of Health, where two uniformed policemen were called in after the investigators showed their credentials and asked to speak to state registrar Alvin Onaka. (The cops looked quite irritated at having been called, noted Zullo.) “Mr. Onaka doesn’t speak to the public,” the investigators were told. Translation: Mr. Onaka was hiding in his office. Fortunately, Deputy Attorney General Jill Nagamine deigned to give the posse 15 minutes.

Were the two certified copies of the birth certificate that Obama’s personal attorney is said to have brought back to Washington identical to the image posted at the White House website? Nagamine wouldn’t answer the question, repeatedly invoking a Hawaiian statute that she said prevented her from talking about the copy of the White House birth certificate Zullo had with him.

He tried a different tack. Say, for instance, he had to release his driver’s license, Zullo said. And that Nagamine scanned his license into a computer. Before the public could view it, however, she changed or added information. “Is that still my driver’s license?” he asked Nagamine.

Hawaii’s deputy attorney general replied: “But you still have a driver’s license.”

No, you don’t. You have a forgery.

So what do we have in Hawaii — and in the White House?


West is the author of “The Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization.”

Bill Clinton to have high profile role at Democratic convention

Barack Obama is said to have asked Clinton to speak at the convention in Charlotte, North Carolina in September

Bill Clinton will have an up-front role in this summer's Democratic national convention, where he will make a forceful case for Barack Obama's re-election and his economic vision for the country, several Obama campaign and party officials have said.

The Obama campaign will be keen to take advantage of the former president's immense popularity and remind voters that a Democrat was in the White House the last time the American economy was thriving.

Clinton's prominent role at the convention will also allow Democrats to embrace party unity in a way that is almost impossible for the Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.

Obama personally asked Clinton to speak at the convention and place Obama's name in nomination, and Clinton enthusiastically accepted, officials said on Sunday. George Bush, the last Republican to hold the White House, remains politically toxic in some circles. While Bush has endorsed Romney he is not involved in his campaign and has said he does not plan to attend the Republican convention.

Clinton will speak in prime-time at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, on 5 September, the night before Obama formally accepts the party nomination. While the number two on the ticket often speaks that night, the Obama campaign has instead decided that Obama and the vice-president, Joe Biden, will speak on the same night.

Biden will introduce Obama on 6 September before more than 70,000 people expected to fill an outdoor stadium in Charlotte and millions more on television.

The vice-president's speech will focus on outlining many of the challenges the White House has faced over the past four years and the decisions Obama made to address them, officials said.

"To us it's about deploying our assets in the most effective way," Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod said. "To have President Clinton on Wednesday night laying out the choice facing voters, and then having vice-president Biden speak right before the president in prime time on Thursday, giving a testimony to the decisions the president has made, the character of his leadership and the battle to rebuild the middle class that's so central to our message."

Clinton's role at the convention is expected to be formally announced on Monday. It was first reported by the New York Times.

Clinton spoke at the 2008 convention, part of a healing process for the Democratic party following the heated primary battle between Obama and the former president's wife, Hillary.

Since then the ties between Obama and Bill Clinton have strengthened significantly and the two have appeared together this year at campaign fundraisers for Obama's re-election bid.

As Hialeah absentee-ballot probe continues, voter regrets accepting help

An illiterate senior citizen said she trusted the woman at the center of an absentee-ballot investigation to fill out her ballot. Now it’s out of her hands.

Matilde Galindo, who is 75 and illiterate, has no clue who she voted for last week.

She said that late in June, Daisy Cabrera, an acquaintance of a distant relative, offered to help her register as a Miami-Dade County voter. Then, on July 22, Cabrera dropped by the Hialeah home that Galindo shares with her husband, Basilio, 78.

“She filled out the ballot and asked me to sign it,” Galindo said Saturday. “On that long ballot, she made little marks and told me, ‘This one and this one, that’s how you should vote.’ ”

Galindo and her husband said they told Cabrera they wanted to vote for the Republican Party. But they don’t know a single candidate for county mayor, the School Board or the state Legislature.

“I don’t know. She chose them all,” Galindo said, adding that Cabrera took the ballot when she left.

Authorities are investigating Cabrera, 56, after finding her in possession of dozens of absentee ballots last week in Hialeah. It is the first case of its kind since a new county ordinance took effect this month that makes it a misdemeanor to possess two or more ballots belonging to someone else.

Cabrera did not respond to multiple visits to her Hialeah apartment last week seeking comment.

Her supporters say she is simply a campaign volunteer and not just a so-called “ boletera,” the Spanish term for those who get paid by campaigns to collect absentee ballots in their favor. But on Friday, a state representative as well as the father of a former Hialeah City Council member said Cabrera had approached them with an offer to deliver ballots in exchange for money.

“She offered me her services, but I turned her down,” said state Rep. Carlos López-Cantera, now running for Miami-Dade property appraiser. “The vote is something sacred, and we have to do everything possible to keep the process clean.”

López-Cantera refused to say how much money Cabrera asked for.

Julian Miel, whose daughter Cindy is a former Hialeah councilwoman, said Cabrera offered last year to collect absentee ballots for $1,500.

Cabrera has not been charged. Authorities say they are deepening their investigation.

Sources familiar with the case have said that Cabrera had at least a dozen absentee ballots in hand Wednesday when she and another woman, Matilde Martinez, 73, were pulled over in a traffic stop in Hialeah. Miami-Dade police detectives had been following Cabrera since the previous day, when she was also documented with ballots in hand.

At least one activist has criticized the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office for not charging Cabrera.

“Why wait?” asked Vanessa Britto, who headed an effort last year to recall some county commissioners. “Now is when it matters most because it could send a message to other boleteros that, if they do this kind of thing, they will be arrested.”

For the past decade, Cabrera and Martínez have volunteered for a variety of Hialeah political campaigns. Friends and supporters say call and visit absentee voters to promote their candidates.

“She is not a boletera,” said community activist Rafael Pérez, who helped run Rudy Garcia’s failed bid for Hialeah mayor last year. “She only picks up ballots from her friends to help them out. This has been taken out of proportion.”

One of the voters she has helped is Raúl Coto, 50. He said they met at a political event in Hialeah and that Cabrera offered to take his absentee ballot to the post office. Coto accepted.

“The lady did me the favor because I don’t have the time,” said Coto, who is unemployed.

Cabrera is disabled, unable to drive and struggles to climb the stairs to her second-floor apartment. Martínez is a widow who once sold clothes out of a van in Hialeah.

The case was first investigated by a private detective who has declined to say who he works for. Joe Carrillo taped Cabrera as she visited various voters’ homes, a post office and the Hialeah campaign headquarters of county Mayor Carlos Giménez, who is running for reelection against County Commission Chairman Joe Martinez. Giménez has denied that the women work for his campaign.

Carrillo delivered the evidence to Miami-Dade public corruption detectives, who ran their own investigation. Carrillo also shared a video with AmericaTeVe-Channel 41, which aired details of the investigation on Wednesday. It was because of that show that Galindo learned the woman who she says filled out her ballot is known as a boletera in Hialeah.

Now Galindo, who first told her story to Telemundo-Channel 51 on Friday, says that she feels deceived.

“This was a sham. She has no shame,” she said. “I even fed her flan pudding and served her coffee in my kitchen.”

Fake online editorial fools New York Times

The New York Times, which famously insists on the accuracy of its reports, was red faced Sunday after being fooled by a hoax online editorial posted under the name of ex-boss Bill Keller.

The editorial, titled "WikiLeaks, a Post Postscript," was purportedly published over the weekend by the Times and in every way appears to be the real thing from Keller, who until last September was the paper's executive editor.

The article appeared on a web page built to replicate the Times' popular website, right down to perfectly working links to the rest of the site.

It was so realistic that none other than the newspaper's technology editor Nick Bilton posted the link on his Twitter account, calling the apparent defense of Julian Assange's controversial organization an "important piece."

Not so.

"THERE IS A FAKE OP-ED GOING AROUND UNDER MY NAME, ABOUT WIKILEAKS. EMPHASIS ON 'FAKE.' AS IN, NOT MINE," Keller, now a writer on the paper, tweeted to set the record straight.

Bilton followed up, tweeting: "I just deleted a tweet sent late last night that was from a fake NYT Bill Keller account."

One of the few clues to the forgery was the web address of http://www.opinion-nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/keller-a-post-postscript.html,since the real website's URL begins with www.nytimes.com.

There was no immediate word on the identity of the pranksters, though the global hacking movement Anonymous has notched up high-profile hits on American institutions over the last year.

The New York Times is certainly no stranger to WikiLeaks: the US daily has been one of the principal outlets for Assange's mass dumping of hitherto secret government information from around the world.

Embarrasing! CNN Plays 'Stupid Girls' Before Story About Sarah Palin Visiting Chick-Fil-A

Remember last November when Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) was disgracefully greeted with the song "Lyin' A-- B--ch" during her appearance on NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon?

On Sunday, Pink's "Stupid Girls" was played before a CNN Sunday Morning piece about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin visiting a Chick-fil-A restaurant to show support for the embattled company (video follows with transcript and commentary):



[Music and lyrics]: Aha, aha. Stupid girl, stupid girls, stupid girls. Maybe if I act like that…

RANDI KAYE, ANCHOR: Sarah Palin is apparently hungry for chicken and controversy. She posted this on Twitter and Facebook: “Stopped by Chick-fil-A in the Woodlands to support a great business.” That is her and her husband Todd. Chick-fil-A has come under fire after, we were just telling you, after its president Dan Cathy came out in opposition to same-sex marriage. Several communities now trying to block Chick-fil-A from coming into their cities. Fellow Republican Mike Huckabee has organized that Chick-fil-A appreciation day scheduled for Wednesday.

Imagine such a song being used to introduce any female Democrat. The outrage would be deafening.

On the other hand, Hot Air's Jazz Shaw, who first reported the incident via Twitter, observed Sunday:

[I]t’s my understanding that the hosts of these shows on the 24 hour cable news channels generally have nothing to do with the selection of the bumper music. That’s usually handled by the production staff, and a specific individual is frequently assigned to do nothing but select the musical cuts. CNN can – and probably will – easily say that it was all a coincidence and it might be hard to prove otherwise.

CNN may say that, but it's no excuse for such sexism and misogyny from America's self-described "most trusted name in news."

As such, will CNN and Kaye be asked to apologize?

Stay tuned.

In Obama era, have race relations improved?

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Ask Americans how race relations have changed under their first black president and they are ready with answers.

Ashley Ray, a white woman, hears more people debating racial issues. "I know a lot of people who really thought we were OK as a nation, a culture, and now they understand that we're not," she says.

Karl Douglass, a black man, sees stereotypes easing. "White people deal with me and my family differently," he says.

Jose Lozano, who is Hispanic by way of Puerto Rico, believes prejudice is emerging from the shadows. "Now the racism is coming out," he says.

In the afterglow of Barack Obama's historic victory, most people in the United States believed that race relations would improve. Nearly four years later, has that dream come true? Americans have no shortage of thoughtful opinions, and no consensus.

As the nation moves toward the multiracial future heralded by this son of an African father and white mother, the events of Obama's first term, and what people make of them, help trace the racial arc of his presidency.

Shortly before the 2008 election, 56 percent of Americans surveyed by the Gallup organization said that race relations would improve if Obama were elected. One day after his victory, 70 percent said race relations would improve and only 10 percent predicted they would get worse.

Just weeks after taking office, Obama said, "There was justifiable pride on the part of the country that we had taken a step to move us beyond some of the searing legacies of racial discrimination."

Then he joked, "But that lasted about a day."

Or, rather, three months.

By July 2009, the black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested for yelling at a white police officer who questioned whether Gates had broken into his own home. Asked to comment, Obama said he didn't know all the facts, but Gates was a personal friend and the officer had acted "stupidly."

The uproar was immediate. Obama acknowledged afterward, "I could've calibrated those words differently."

Ed Cattaneo, a retired computer training manager from Cape May, N.J., points to that episode as evidence of how Obama has hurt race relations.

"He's made them terrible," says Cattaneo, who is white. He also sees Obama as siding against white people through actions such as his Justice Department's decision to drop voter intimidation charges against New Black Panthers and in a program to turn out the black vote called "African-Americans for Obama."

Larry Sharkey, also white, draws different conclusions from the past four years.

"Attitudes are much better," Sharkey says as he slices raw meat in a Philadelphia butcher shop. He remembers welcoming a black family that moved next door to him 20 years ago in Claymont, Del. A white neighbor advised him not to associate with the new arrivals, warning, "Your property values are going to go down."

That kind of thing would never happen today, Sharkey says.

As Obama dealt with fallout from the Gates affair during the summer of 2009, the tea party coalesced out of opposition to Obama's stimulus and health care proposals. The vast majority of tea partyers were white. A small number of them displayed racist signs or were connected to white supremacist groups, prompting the question: Are Obama's opponents motivated by dislike of the president's policies, his race - or both?

As that debate grew, Obama retreated to the race-neutral stance that has been a hallmark of his career. An October 2009 Gallup poll showed a large drop in racial optimism since the election, with 41 percent of respondents saying that race relations had improved under Obama. Thirty-five percent said there was no change and 22 percent said race relations were worse.

The president has discussed race in occasional speeches to groups such as the National Urban League or the National Council of La Raza, and in interviews with Hispanic and African-American media outlets. But he usually walks a careful line, allowing the nation to get used to the idea of a black president without doing things to make race seem a central aspect of his governance.

"There is a totally different psychological frame of reference that this country has never had," says William Smith, executive director of the National Center for Race Amity at Wheelock College.

He cites evidence of progress from the mindset of children in his programs to new history curriculums in Deep South schools.

"To me, that's a quantum leap," Smith says.

Douglass, a real estate agent from Columbus, Ga., says white people seem less surprised to see him with his wife and daughter in places such as an art museum or a foreign language school.

"I think white people deal with me and my family differently since an African-American man is leader of the free world and a nuclear black family lives in the White House," he says.

But Steven Chen, an Asian-American graduate student in Philadelphia, points to racial rhetoric he has heard directed toward Obama, in person and online, as proof that race relations have deteriorated.

He also has observed a more visible sign of division: fewer Obama T-shirts.

"When he was elected, it was an American thing. People of all races wore them," says Chen. "Today it's a distinctly black phenomenon."

Ray, a graduate school administrator from Chicago, is uncertain whether race relations have remained the same or gotten worse.

It's good that people are talking about race more, she says, "but I know quite a few people who are sick of those discussions and blame him for all of it."

In the summer of 2010, race and politics collided again when Arizona Republicans passed an immigration law that critics said would lead to racial profiling of Hispanics.

Lozano, the police sergeant, remembers that when Obama visited Arizona and met with the governor, who supported the law, she wagged an angry finger in the president's face.

"That was ugly, I've never seen anything like that," says Lozano, who also is vice president of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers. "There's no way that would have ever happened to a white president."

By the fall of 2010, Republicans had triumphed in the midterm elections and made history by electing Hispanic and Indian-American governors in New Mexico, South Carolina, and Nevada. Two black Republicans also went to Congress, from South Carolina and Florida.

Less than a year later, an August 2011 Gallup poll showed a further decline in racial optimism: 35 percent said race relations had improved due to Obama's election, 41 percent said no change, and 23 percent said things were worse.

Around this time, some African-American lawmakers and pundits openly complained about the president's refusal to specifically target any programs at high black unemployment. An interviewer from Black Entertainment Television asked Obama why not.

"That's not how America works," Obama replied.

Then came this February's killing of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, whose father is white and mother is from Peru. Authorities initially declined to charge Zimmerman with a crime, causing a polarizing uproar.

This time, when asked about the case, Obama delivered a carefully calibrated message. He said all the facts were not known, the legal system should take its course - and that "if I had a son, he would look like Trayvon."

The comment was factual, but it still strikes Cattaneo as a coded message to black people that Obama is on their side. "A lot of people I talk to can't understand why a man who's half-white and half-black is so anti-white."

This April, in a poll by the National Journal and the University of Phoenix, 33 percent felt race relations were getting better, 23 percent said they were getting worse, and 42 percent said they were staying about the same.

So where are we now?

Four years after Obama smashed the nation's highest racial barrier, and less than four months before America will decide whether he deserves a second term, the nation is uncertain about the meaning of a black president.

Recently, Obama was asked in a Rolling Stone magazine interview if race relations were any different than when he took office.

"I never bought into the notion," Obama said, "that by electing me, somehow we were entering into a postracial period."

Spain angers feminists with plan to tighten abortion law

Spain's conservative government has provoked a storm among women's groups with plans to tighten abortion laws to make the procedure illegal in cases where the foetus is deformed.

About 100 people took part in a rally in Madrid's central Tirso de Molina square on Sunday to protest against the proposed reform which they argue will take Spain back to the era of the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

The crowd, mostly women, chanted "We give birth, we decide" and "Not one step backwards".

"It seems to us to be a throwback to the Franco dictatorship and we are not willing to accept under any circumstances measures that will take away our rights," said Justa Montero, member of the Feminist Assembly, one of the women's groups that organised the protest.

The government announced Friday it would alter an abortion law introduced by its Socialist predecessors in 2010 which gave women the legal right to abortion on demand for up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.

The 2010 law also allowed women the legal right to abort up to the 22nd week of pregnancy in cases where the mother's health is at risk or the foetus shows serious deformities.

In cases of extreme malformation of a foetus, an abortion could be carried out at any time if approved by an ethics committee.

But Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon said the law should be changed to ban abortion in cases of a deformed foetus.

"I don't understand why we should deprive a foetus of life by allowing abortion for the simple reason that it suffers a handicap or a deformity," he said in an interview published in conservative daily La Razon on July 22.

The vast majority of Spaniards, 81 percent, are against banning abortion in cases where a foetus is malformed, according to a poll published Sunday in left-wing newspaper El Pais.

The reform was rejected by 65 percent of those who said they voted for the Popular Party in a general election last year as well as by 64 percent of those who define themselves as practicing Catholics.

"The minister's proposal is totally cynical," said Montero as protesters around her chanted pro-choice slogans.

"He demonstrates a concern that then is not followed up with other measures. He makes this statement at the same time as the government is cutting funding to services for handicapped people and children with deformities."

Santiago Barambio, the head of the Spanish association of abortion clinics, Acai, and one of the authors of the 2010 abortion law, said the justice minister was appealing to his party's right wing with the proposal.

"The minister represents the extreme right and the ultra-Catholics, which are perhaps a minority but are very powerful economically, such as Opus Dei for example," he said in a reference to the conservative Roman Catholic organisation whose name in Latin means "Work of God".

Anti-abortion groups welcomed the planned abortion law reform.

Gador Joya, the spokesman for the "Right to Life" collective, said banning abortion in cases of a malformed foetus "is a step forward for the protection of the right to life."

"But it is not enough because we believe that 97 percent of the abortions carried out for other reasons are carried out under false pretences," he added.

Before the 2010 abortion reform, women could have an abortion only in cases of rape, serious deformity or when the mother's mental or physical health was threatened.

The vast majority of the 115,000 abortions carried out in 2009, the year before the reform, were performed at private clinics and were justified on the grounds that the pregnancy posed a "psychological risk" to the woman.

UPDATE: 65,000 pack Cowboys Stadium for Glenn Beck event

ARLINGTON (CBSDFW.COM)- More than 65,000 people filled Cowboys Stadium to see one of the most polarizing figures in America: conservative radio host Glenn Beck.

Thousands of Beck supporters traveled from various states to hear his message during his “Restoring Love” event.

Patricia Mosely arrived at Cowboys Stadium early. She drove from South Carolina with her entire family to see the event.

“I came up to support Mr. Beck and the conservative movement,” she said.

Hearing Beck’s message was part of the summer vacation plans for John Kensynberg and his wife.

“Restoring the love, faith, and community, we feel that it’s time we had smaller government,” he said.

But while Beck’s supporters paid to see his message about “Restoring Love,” outside the stadium, there was no love for Beck or his message from the notorious Westboro Baptist Church, known to protest soldier’s funerals.

“I think he’s a false prophet. I think we better run from him. I think he needs to shut up,” said one protester who did not want to be named.

The Westboro Baptist members drew counter protesters who shouted, “What do we want? Peace!”

Back inside the stadium, Beck supporters did the wave, sang the Star-Spangled Banner and cheered when Beck welcomed them all to the “Republic of Texas.”

In his welcoming message, he encouraged his supporters to have faith, hope and perform charity.

“The courage to stand up for what you believe in and to stand in support of those things we find dear and sacred,” he said.

He later added: “We must not become America in name only, we must always strive to be a great country. We don’t have to spend our inheritance, we can build on it, invest it, improve it, make it bigger and better. That’s your choice. It’s our choice. Our inheritance is America.”

Air Guard set to fly at drone practice range

The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jul 26, 2012 13:01:52 EDT

DEVILS LAKE, N.D. — North Dakota's Air National Guard this fall will begin operating a practice range for drone aircraft, which will give pilots more practical training than they can get from simulators, the unit's commander said.

The Federal Aviation Administration has established blocks of restricted airspace for the training, located up to 10,000 feet above a spot near Camp Grafton South, between Devils Lake and Jamestown. The airspace is above about 9,300 acres of ground area.

Col. Rick Gibney, commander of the 119th Wing of the North Dakota Air National Guard, said he expects flights to begin in late September or early October.

Operators of the Predator drones will be aiming lasers at targets on the ground. The lasers are used on the battlefield to designate targets for guided missiles and bombs.

Predators are capable of flying at high altitudes for long periods for surveillance, and they also can be equipped to carry missiles.

"People may hear airplanes flying above, but there will be no lights visible and no explosions," Gibney told the Grand Forks Herald.

The Predators are based at the Grand Forks Air Force Base. They will be flown from Fargo by the 119th Wing's 30 pilots. Gibney said there initially will be one or two drone flights a week in the restricted space, and the number is likely to increase.

"A lot of it will be dependent on real-world situations," he said.

Pilot groups, including the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, had fought the proposal to set aside the restricted space. The FAA decided, however, that the impact on private planes would be minimal because the space already is rarely used.

The agency said an average of four flights cut through the area daily, almost all of which are general aviation flights.

DHS Prepares for Civil Unrest as Obama Poised to Destroy 2nd Amendment

Breaking: United Nations Small Arms Treaty Not Dead

Surveillance drones have a new mission. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) they will be used for “public safety”. Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the DHS, told a House Committee meeting on Homeland Security that the more than 30,000 drones that will be deployed into American skies are just arbitrarily watching out for US citizens.

Napolitano stated : “With respect to Science and Technology, that directorate, we do have a funded project, I think it’s in California, looking at drones that could be utilized to give us situational awareness in a large public safety [matter] or disaster, such as a forest fire, and how they could give us better information.”

Secretly, DHS have been taking bid for contractors who can install “aerial remote sensing” which uses light detection and ranging (LIDAR) that would be part of the unmanned drone missions within domestic US territory.

“DHS believes these airborne images are essential for homeland defense missions, such as planning for National Special Security Events (Super Bowls or a national political conventions come to mind); enhancing border, port and airport security; as well as performing critical infrastructure inventories and assessments” and has spent over $50 million to employ contractors, as well as processors for images and dissemination throughout the DHS.

Coincidentally, the Federal Protective Service (FPS) has been given the responsibility to protecting federally owned property while preparing for civilian led riots expected in the near future.

Part of the preparatory measures was an order of 150 sets of riot gear that was requested to be filled exponentially – within 15 days.

The items requested were:

– 147 “Upper Body and Shoulder Protection” which are brand name or equal to “Centurion Soft Shell Riot Control System (CPX2500)”
– 152 “Thigh-Groin Protector” brand name or equivalent to “Centurion TPX200”
– 156 “Forearm Protectors” brand name or equivalent to “Centurion (FP100)”
– 147 units of “Hard Shell Shin Guards” brand name or equivalent to “Centurion (TS70)”
– 147 carry bags brand name or equivalent to Exotech (E4), 147 tactical gloves brand name or equivalent to “Damascus (DMZ333)”
– 147 riot helmets brand name or equivalent to “MaxPro (TR1000)”

The FPS is anticipating that police or military wearing the gear would encounter “blunt force trauma” to the upper torso, as well as potential beatings with “blunt objects”. To compliment these outfits, are required riot helmets with “tactical face shield” equipped with “liquid seals”.

In addition, the US military are ready to assist with local law enforcement “if called upon”.

Five hundred military police and dogs will be allocated on civilian matters, as reported by mainstream media (MSM) have included the reallocation of hundreds of military police officers being trained to “assist local authorities” in investigation, crime scene and case building. These same soliders were just stationed in combat areas like Afghantistan.

Meanwhile, the TSA have been patrolling trains stations and bus terminal s in California.



According to one whistleblower : “We’re doing patrols in the parking lot with dogs, we’re even going as far out to the train station because the train station is connected to the airport here and we have guys walking around the train station, walking around the rental cars, we’re inspecting cars coming into the parking garage, I mean we’ve fully expanded – we’re no longer just at the gate and just at the security checkpoint.”

The preparations that DHS and FPS are making for civil unrest may be tied to Article 15 of the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). This part allows foreign troops (preferably NATO forces) to offer assistance in implementing the ATT. As the ATT does not specify an adherence to the 2nd Amendment, but rather make vague definitions of who can own a gun, what type of gun and for what purpose, the Constitutional rights we take for granted now will be stripped from us once the ATT is signed.

To downplay the severity of our American right to bear arms against tyrannical dictators foreign and domestic, President Obama stated at a National Urban League meeting that: “We recognize the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation, that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage. I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals. That they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities.”



Richard Schrade, attorney and member of the Libertarian National Committee commented on the 2nd Amendment: “The Second Amendment was to protect the ability of the people to violently overthrow the government. Let’s remember that this country was formed in a violent revolution. Let’s remember that at Lexington and Concord citizen fired on and killed government soldiers sent by the central government to confiscate their weapons and arms…. When viewed in this light, it is apparent that a limitation on automatic weapons would be an infringement on the purposes of the Second Amendment.”

Wayne LaPierre, vice president of the NRA, has called out Obama as being part of “conspiracy to ensure re-election by lulling gun owners to sleep. All that first term, lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term.”

LaPierre states that upon re-election, Obama will be “busy dismantling and destroying our firearms freedom, erase the 2nd Amendment from the Bill of Rights and excise it from the US Constitution.”

Susanne Posel’s post first appeared on the Occupy Corporatism website.

DHS gears up for civil unrest prior to presidential elections

The Department of Homeland Security has ordered masses of riot gear equipment to prepare for potential significant domestic riots at the Republican National Convention, Democratic National Convention and next year’s presidential inauguration.

The DHS submitted a rushed solicitation to the Federal Business Opportunities site on Wednesday, which is a portal for Federal government procurement requisitions over $25,000. The request gave the potential suppliers only one day to submit their proposals and a 15-day delivery requirement to Alexandria, Virginia.

As the brief explains, “the objective of this effort is to procure riot gear to prepare for the 2012 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the 2013 Presidential Inauguration and other future similar activities.”

The total amount ordered is about 150 sets of riot helmets, thigh and groin protectors, hard-shell shin guards and other riot gear.

Specifically, DHS is looking to obtain:

- “147 riot helmets” with “adjustable tactical face shield with liquid seal”

- “147 sets of upper body and shoulder protection”

- “152 sets of thigh and groin protection”

- “147 hard-shell shin guards” with “substantial protection from flying debris, non-ballistic weapons, and blows to the leg” and “optimized protective design for severe riot control or tactical situations.”

- “156 forearm protectors”

- “147 pairs of tactical gloves”

The riot gear will be worn by Federal Protective Service agents who are tasked with protecting property, grounds and buildings owned by the federal government.

The urgency of the order can be explained by the fact that there is a growing anticipation that many demonstrators will travel to the Republican National Convention (RNC), scheduled for August 27-30 in Tampa Bay, Florida, and Democratic National Convention (DNC), planned for September 3-6 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The RNC itself, for example, will have free speech zones, which will serve as containment quarters for the protesters by not allowing them to leave the designated areas and cause trouble.

Another recent DHS move to gear up was back in March of this year, when it gave the defense contractor ATK a deal to provide the DHS with 450 million .40 caliber hollow-point ammunition over a five year period.

On top of that, the DHS has recently purchased a number of bullet-proof checkpoint booths and hired hundreds of new security guards to protect government buildings.

White House predicts 4th straight year of trillion $ deficits

Administration projects $1.2T 2012 budget deficit

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House predicts this year's federal budget deficit will end up at $1.2 trillion, marking the fourth consecutive year of trillion dollar-plus deficits during President Barack Obama's administration.

The bleak figures, while expected, are sure to add fuel to the already heated presidential campaign, in which Obama's handling of the economy and the budget is a main topic. Friday's release came as the government announced that U.S. economic growth slowed to an annual rate of just 1.5 percent in the second quarter of this year, as consumers cut back sharply on spending.

The White House budget office also predicts for this year that the economy will grow at a modest 2.6 percent annual rate and that the jobless rate will average 8 percent. It forecasts modest growth of 2.6 percent next year - down from the 3.0 percent it predicted in February - before rising to 4.0 percent in 2014. Unemployment would remain above 7 percent through the end of 2014, registering at 7.3 percent, the report predicts.

"The economic recovery that began in 2009 will continue at a moderate rate and unemployment will gradually decline," Jeffrey Zients, the acting White House budget director said in a blog post. "The economy still faces significant headwinds," he added.

The 2012 budget year ends on Sept. 30. The White House also predicted that next year's deficit will fall just short of $1 trillion, higher than it predicted in its February budget release. The predicted deficit for 2012 actually improved by $116 billion, but some of that was because Congress didn't enact much of Obama's jobs plan.

But the White House promises deficits will drop to about 3 percent of the size of the economy by 2017, in part through $1.5 trillion in tax increases over the coming decade.

The White House report - released Friday afternoon with the Olympics poised to distract voters for two weeks - again trumpets Obama's longstanding approach to tackling the deficit. It includes tax increases on families earning above $250,000, already enacted "caps" on agency operating budgets and modest savings from federal benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

"Since taking office, the president has worked to restore fiscal responsibility," says the OMB report.

Republicans scoffed, noting that Obama has violated his promise to wrestle the deficit in half by the end of his term.

"The president's string of broken promises on our nation's fiscal challenges weighs heavy on an anemic economy," said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. "The president's commitment to ever-higher government spending and his failure to deliver on his economic promises have resulted in the fourth-straight budget deficit in excess of one trillion dollars."

Under Obama's budget plan, the total U.S. debt would reach $16.2 trillion by the end of the year and soar to $25.4 trillion at the end of a decade's time.

"America can have robust economic growth - and avert a catastrophic debt crisis - but it requires a credible fiscal plan and the leadership necessary to achieve it," said top Senate Budget Committee Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama.

The government is likely to reach its borrowing cap - the subject of a fierce fight last summer between Obama and Republicans - late this year or early next year, which is going to require the next Congress and either Romney or Obama to act together to increase the borrowing cap. That is seen by many as an opportunity to force lawmakers to finally tackle the country's major budget problems.

Also looming is the so-called fiscal cliff, a combination of big tax increases and deep, automatic budget cuts slated to begin in January unless Obama and congressional Republicans step in to block them this fall or during a postelection session of Congress. Many economists say that if the government plunges over the fiscal cliff it could drive the economy back into recession.

Romney, for his part, offers relatively few specifics on the budget but promises to bring total government spending down to 20 percent of the U.S. economy by the end of a first term in 2016. That is roughly in line with where it was during Republican George W. Bush's presidency. Government spending now equals 24 percent of gross domestic product.

Jewish House leader: Pelosi's comments 'insulting'

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's recent suggestion that Jewish voters are “being exploited” by Republican leaders for political gain drew a sharp response Sunday from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the country's most prominent Jewish Republican, who said the remarks were “patronizing” and “insulting.”

The California Democrat suggested that Jewish voters were “being exploited” by Republican leaders trying to portray President Obama as un-supportive of Israel’s national security efforts.

Pelosi made the comment when asked during a weekend interview with Bloomberg TV whether she thought Obama would win the Jewish vote, which historically goes to Democrat candidates.

Pelosi, a Roman Catholic, first said the election would answer the question, then said yes.

"I think that he will, because the fact is when the facts get out," she said. "You know, as many of the Republicans are using Israel as an excuse.”

She suggested Republican leaders were using the Israel issue to divert attention from what they really want -- tax cuts for the wealthy.

“So Israel, that can be one reason they put forth," she said.

Canton, R-Va., said in a statement: “It is both patronizing and deeply insulting for Nancy Pelosi to suggest any Jew is 'exploited' for their political beliefs or that support for Israel is somehow an 'excuse' for anything."

During the TV interview, Pelosi agreed with the interviewer that Republican Jewish supporters are very active this political season and that Jewish voters are intelligent enough to realize the situation.

"Well, that’s how they’re being exploited,” she said. “And they’re smart people. They follow these issues. But they have to know the facts. And the fact is that President Obama has been the strongest person in terms of sanctions on Iran, which is important to Israel. He’s been the strongest person on whether it’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling, any of these weapons systems and initiatives that relate to Israel. He has been there over and over again."

Pelosi also is facing criticism that she implied Obama as president has been to Israel "over and over again."

He has never been as president, went once during his 2008 presidential campaign and reportedly went twice as a senator.

In Israel, Romney declares Jerusalem to be capital

JERUSALEM (AP) — Standing on Israeli soil, U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Sunday declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the Jewish state and said the United States has "a solemn duty and a moral imperative" to block Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability.

"Make no mistake, the ayatollahs in Iran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object and who will look the other way," he said. "We will not look away nor will our country ever look away from our passion and commitment to Israel."

The presidential election hovered over the speech. The Old City formed a made-for-television backdrop behind Romney, while some of his campaign donors listened in the audience.

Romney's declaration that Jerusalem is Israel's capital was matter-of-fact and in keeping with claims made by Israeli governments for decades, even though the United States, like other nations, maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv.

He did not say if he would order the embassy moved if he wins the White House, but strongly suggested so in a CNN interview.

"My understanding is the policy of our nation has been a desire to move our embassy ultimately to the capital (Jerusalem)," he said, adding, "I would only want to do so and to select the timing in accordance with the government of Israel."

His remarks on the subject during his speech drew a standing ovation from his audience, which included Sheldon Adelson, the American businessman who has said he will donate millions to help elect Romney to the White House.

Romney's embrace of Israel was on display throughout the day when he met with Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and other leaders. He also visited the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, where he was mobbed by worshippers. In addition, Romney met with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

In his remarks, Romney steered clear of overt criticism of President Barack Obama, even though he said the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran "has only become worse" in the past five years.

In an unspoken rebuttal to Obama and other critics, Romney said, "It is sometimes said that those who are the most committed to stopping the Iranian regime from security nuclear weapons are reckless and provocative and inviting war.

"The opposite is true. We are the true peacemakers," he said.

The former Massachusetts governor also stepped back from a comment a senior aide made a short while before the speech.

"We recognize Israel's right to defend itself," he told the audience. Earlier, the aide, Dan Senor, previewed the speech for reporters, saying that "if Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing the capability, the governor would respect that decision."

Israel is the second of three stops on an international trip for Romney in the weeks before he claims the Republican nomination at his party's national convention in Tampa, Fla.

He flew to the Middle East from Britain, where he caused a stir by questioning whether officials there were fully prepared for the Olympic Games. A stop in Poland will complete his trip.

Four years ago, then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama also visited Israel as a candidate, part of a five-nation trip meant to establish his own foreign policy credentials.

In his speech, Romney said Syrian President Bashar Assad "desperately clings to power" in Damascus in the face of an attempted overthrow, but he did not call for his removal.

He noted that Egypt is now headed by an "Islamist president, chosen in a Democratic election. ... The international community must use its considerable influence to insure that the new government honors the peace agreement with Israel that was signed by the government of Anwar Sadat" more than three decades ago, he said.

PAGE TWO>>

Scalia Suggests SCOTUS Could Limit Second Amendment

On an appearance on FOX News Sunday, conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that “there are some limitations that can be imposed” on the Second Amendment and predicted “future” cases would come before the Supreme Court concerning gun control in which gun restrictions would have to be weighed “very carefully.”

Gun control is politically toxic for Democrats. Democrats in the Senate, despite the urging of their liberal cohorts to not let the tragic Aurora shootings go to waste in pushing for gun control, chickened out and said gun control measures will not be introduced.

President Barack Obama, a day after telling the National Urban League that he would push for a ban on assault weapons, abruptly changed his tune and flip-flopped. His White House spokesman said the Obama administration would not pursue gun control legislation last week.

Textual and originalist examinations of Scalia’s comments in the interview may suggest that Scalia, perhaps the savviest Supreme Court Justice, may be trying to bait liberals into pushing for gun control legislation during a crucial election year.

Scalia authored the opinion in the seminal and landmark Heller case that overturned a Washington, D.C. ban on handguns and has always been a staunch proponent of the Second Amendment.

In the interview, Scalia specifically said that the Second Amendment would not apply to “arms that cannot be hand-carried,” such as cannons and hand-held rocket launchers.

“Obviously, the Amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand-carried -- it’s to keep and ‘bear,’ so it doesn’t apply to cannons -- but I suppose there are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes, that will have to be decided,” Scalia said.

So based on Scalia's comments, hand-held rocket launchers which are similar to bazookas and can be used by terrorists to shoot down civilian airplanes may be subjected to reasonable limitations.

But his words and past opinions suggest anything short of that would not be subject to limitations.

His interview, though, could convince enough Democrats to pursue gun control legislation -- to their political detriment in an election year -- hoping that Scalia’s comments may signal a Justice who may go wobbly on gun control issues in the future.

GBTV: Glenn and the Global Tea Party

Van Jones’ Kid Breaks San Francisco Law

I know I know, kids should never be targeted on account of their parents’ political activities. My intent is not actually to criticize Van Jones’ child for breaking the law. My point is how this is so representative of the hypocrisy of liberals.

Van Jones is the ex-Green Jobs Czar for Obama that was ousted by the negative attention that Glenn Beck and others gave him, and who then took his Marxist trutherism to found “Color of Change”, a leftist attack non-profit targeting corporate sponsors of conservative voices in order to shut down opposition.

He tweeted this out today:

Aw, adorable, right?

WRONG. That kid is breaking the law!!

The phenomena of cops being ordered to shut down kids’ lemonade stands has been reported all across the country as one of the more salient examples of the overreach of government and the destruction of the entrepreneurial impulse that made America so prosperous.

Now, let’s try to keep up with the Jones’. Van Jones works and lives in liberal haven San Francisco. And San Francisco has laws against unlicensed lemonade stands, even when they’re run by children, like the little girl being busted above.

The lesson non-Van-Jones-kids learn is that government is there to make sure that you don’t earn money by the sweat of your brow unless they get their share. Some non-Van-Jones-kids have even learned that if they don’t do what big government says, their parents will be fined $500.

So how did the Van-Jones-Kid get away with it? Another lesson - if you’re well connected, maybe you don’t need to get a license, or pay the fine. Maybe “proud poppa” Jones made some calls when the popo came askin.

Or even better, maybe he started yelling about racism and threatened to have Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson fly down to San Fran to organize against this incredible injustice until the president is forced to declare that the SFPD “acted stupidly”, and a “lemonade summit” is had at the White House in order to discuss America’s failure to assure equality for all.

Or maybe nothing so sinister happened – maybe Van Jones paid for the license. In that case, another lesson is to be had. A kid earns $11 and wants to give $3 to the poor, but his business only works because someone else is there to pay off the government that allows him to even attempt to have a business. You cannot survive as an entrepreneur on your own if you’re competing with those that are subsidized.

Most likely Van Jones’ kid learned none of these lessons. His Proud Poppa however, has made sure to teach him that he may have made the lemonade, but “you didn’t build that! Someone else did that for you!”

And after a hard day’s work, they went inside to read their daily lesson from Mao’s Little Red Book, and pray before their icon of Obama.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t know if the kid actually broke the law, but I infer so from the articles cited. If I am incorrect, please let me know so that I can note it.

NBC Edits Out Tribute To Victims Of Islamic Terrorism

If you are watching the Olympics in the States, there's a part of the opening ceremony NBC chose to leave out. While the Olympic Committee opted not to have a moment of silence for the Israeli athletes murdered in 1972, they did have a tribute for the victims of the 7/7 Islamic terrorist attacks.

The tribute included the Christian hymn, "Abide With Me" performed by Scottish singer Emeli Sandé. NBC opted not to air it.

From Deadspin via Pat Dollard:
The major transitional element of today’s London Olympics opening ceremony was a downtempo performance of adoptive sporting anthem “Abide With Me” by Scottish singer Emeli Sandé. The song and accompanying dance were a tribute to the victims of the 7/7 terror attacks in London that claimed 52 victims days after the 2012 Summer Olympic hosts were named. (It’s also been suggested the performance was a memorial to the war dead.)

Regardless, it was a rather significant and emotional moment in the opening ceremony, coming just before the parade of nations—and it wasn’t aired in the United States. Instead, viewers were treated to a lengthy and meaningless Ryan Seacrest interview of Michael Phelps.



Here's the tribute NBC didn't want you to see:

Black Couple Says Church Refused to Marry Them

They had booked their wedding far in advance. The invitations had been sent, the programs printed. But one day before Charles and Te'Andrea Wilson were to be married at the Mississippi church they frequented, they said a pastor told them they would have to find another venue -- because they were black.

There has never been a black wedding at the First Baptist Church in Crystal Springs, Miss., since its founding in 1883. According to Pastor Stan Weatherford, some church members objected so strongly to breaking that precedent, they threatened to oust him from his pastorship.

Rather than risk his job, Weatherford, who is white, said he decided to marry the pair at a black church down the road.

"My 9-year-old was going to the church with us. How would you say to your 9-year-old daughter, 'We cannot get married here because, guess what sweetie, we're black,'" Charles Wilson told ABC's affiliate WAPT-TV.

Outrage over the wedding's forced relocation swept the Jackson suburb of about 5,000 into a media firestorm.

Te'Andrea and Charles Wilson were denied a wedding at Crystal Springs church in Mississippi.

The vast majority of Crystal Springs residents, blacks and whites alike, were "blown away" by the church's decision, said Theresa Norwood, 48, who was born in Crystal Springs and has lived there her entire life.

Norwood said she believes Weatherford should have married the Wilsons regardless of the risk to his job.

"That church was their home," she said. "What would Jesus have done? He would have married them, without a doubt, because it's the right thing to do. We're all God's children."

While the Wilsons were not members of the church, they often attended services there, and Te'Andrea's uncle is an employee of the church, and her father is a member. Charles Wilson told WAPT that the couple had planned to join as members after their wedding, which was planned for July 20.

Weatherford told WLBT-TV in Jackson that he would have liked to marry the couple as planned, but he decided to perform the ceremony elsewhere as a compromise to ensure that the Wilsons could be married while "addressing a need within our congregation."

Norwood, who is black, said her nephew came to worship at First Baptist Church while he was temporarily living with her, having been evacuated from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The church "made him feel at home," she said, but now she wonders whether he would return there when he visits Crystal Springs.

The church is now holding internal meetings to figure out how it should respond to future requests by black couples to be married there, Weatherford told WLBT-TV.

For her part, though, Norwood, who is dating a white man, said that if she and her boyfriend decide to get married, they will likely look for a different venue.

A little light reading on the Muslim Brotherhood, and their influence on the executive branch in the USA

Please take a few minutes and download this document, and read it. Then, send it to everyone who will let you.

A page of which is photographed and pasted below.

Looking forward to the comments on this one. More to come as well.

IF BIG GOVERNMENTS WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR ECONOMIC SUCCESS THEN THE USSR WOULD BE THE GREATEST NATION ON EARTH...

... INSTEAD OF A TURD FLUSHED DOWN THE CRAPPER OF HISTORY.

Russell Brand: Sarah Palin Is Popular Because 'People Want to F--k Her'

British actor Russell Brand made a disgustingly sexist and misogynistic comment about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin Saturday.

The Wrap reported moments ago that during a question and answer session at the Television Critics Association, Brand said of Palin's popularity, "People want to f--k her."

According to Entertainment weekly, Brand elaborated:

That’s why they tolerate the other stuff….OK, that is a mad thing to say about seeing Russia out your window — but the d--k don’t lie.

This is not the first time Brand went after Palin.

As NewsBusters reported, he made crude remarks about the former governor and her family while hosting the MTV Video Music Awards in September 2008. NB also reported censors required him to delete some jokes he was going to make about the Palins at that event.

He sure is a classy guy, isn't he?

Jordanian Cleric Riyadh Al-Bustanji: I Brought My Daughter To Gaza To Learn Jihad And Martyrdom-Seeking

In a recent TV show, Jordanian cleric Riyadh Al-Bustanji said:"I have brought my daughter to Gaza, so that she can learn from the women of Gaza how to bring up her children on jihad, martyrdom-seeking, and the love of Palestine."

In the show, which aired on June 22, 2012 on the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV broadcasting from Gaza, Al-Bustanji also extolled a young boy whom he said he met in Gaza and "who knows the Koran by heart and... wishes to meet Allah as a martyr in the land of Jerusalem."

Following are excerpts from the program.

Praise For Young Boy Who Yearns For Martyrdom

Riyadh Al-Bustanji: "What motivates me to visit here time and again is the fact that on the first day that I entered Gaza I was met by a child of Gaza. The Islamic world in its entirety was yearning to see the children of Gaza, to embrace them, and to kiss them.

"When I was met by this child, who I am sure was younger than ten years old..."

Anchor: "Was this on your first visit?"

Riyadh Al-Bustanji: "Yes. This visit took place a few months after the war, after much suffering."

[…]

"When I met this child, I embraced him, kissed him, blessed him, and said to him: 'I pray to Allah that He will make you know the Koran by heart.' He looked at me, and said: 'I already know the entire Koran by heart. Pray to Allah that I may meet Him as a martyr on the land of Jerusalem.'

"No matter what I have done in the service of Islam, I am dwarfed by that child. This is no child – this is one of the giants of our times. I was dwarfed by that child. Although not yet ten years of age, he knows the Koran by heart, and he wishes to meet Allah as a martyr on the land of Jerusalem."

[…]

"I Have Brought My Daughter To Gaza... To Learn To Bring Up Her Children On Jihad, Martyrdom-Seeking, And Love Of Palestine"

"Today, when we entered the home of our leader and Emir, Ismail Haniya – may Allah preserve him – I said to his wife: 'Tell the women of Gaza that I have brought my daughter to Gaza, so that she can learn from the women of Gaza how to bring up her children on Jihad, martyrdom-seeking, and the love of Palestine, Allah willing.'"

[…]

Sandra Fluke defends Sarah Palin against Russell Brand

Sarah Palin found an unexpected ally today in Sandra Fluke, who spoke out against Russell Brand’s suggestion that Palin’s popularity is due to the fact that “people want to fuck her. That’s why they tolerate the other stuff.”

Brand reportedly made the comments today at the Television Critics Association press tour, where he was promoting his FX show “Brand X with Russell Brand.”

Sharia: Justice Department official repeatedly refuses to answer whether DoJ will advance proposal to criminalize speech against any religion

Of all the terrible, horrible, frightening things to come out of this rogue administration, nothing is as shocking as this exchange. Obviously Obama's Department of Justice has plans to impose the blasphemy laws under the sharia and criminalize criticism of Islam in some manner or form.

My confidential source tells me that Thomas Perez, the Department of Justice official in this video, "has been present at Muslim conventions both as a panelist and as a speaker. During a question and answer session a Muslim audience member was hostile, and Perez literally cringed and promised that the DOJ would do better. He also asked that more Muslims join the DOJ - that he would look forward to working with them."

Justice Department official refuses to promise that DoJ will never advance proposal to criminalize speech against any religion Jihadwatch

Clearly this exchange indicates that the Obama Administration is indeed contemplating ways to circumvent the First Amendment and outlaw criticism of Islam: blasphemy laws would, if they succeed, be coming to the U.S. If this, happens, it's all over. If the U.S. adopts blasphemy laws, that would be the end of any resistance to jihad, as we will be rendered mute and thus defenseless against its advance. (I hope one of you will bake a cake with a file in it and come visit me in prison.)

Surely the First Amendment will prevent this, you say? The First Amendment does not automatically enforce itself. And if those charged with guarding and protecting it are determined to do away with it, they can hedge it around with nuances and exceptions that will render it as toothless and essentially void as the Second Amendment already is in some areas of the U.S.

"DOJ official refuses to promise that DOJ will NEVER advance an anti-blasphemy law," by Patrick Poole at PJ Media, July 26:
A stunning exchange took place today when Assistant AG Tom Perez of the DOJ Civil Rights Division refused to commit to the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution that it would never advance a law criminalizing the right to criticize any religion.

The non-committal answer by Perez was in response to a question asked by Rep. Trent Frank (R-AZ): “Will you tell us here today that this Administration’s Department of Justice will never entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion?”

Read it all.

BECK’S RESTORING LOVE EVENT SELLS MORE TICKETS TO COWBOYS STADIUM THAN PAUL MCCARTNEY

A shot of the crowd at the stadium for Restoring Love.

Exclusive Live & On Demand Coverage of Restoring Love Available Now on GBTV Plus –Click for Details.

–

Glenn Beck’s critics called him crazy for choosing Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas — the largest sports arena in the United States — to hold his historic Restoring Love event. However, not even he could have predicted just how wildly successful it would actually turn out to be.

A source familiar with the event told TheBlaze that there were more than 40,000 tickets sold to Restoring Love as of Friday afternoon. A number larger than when Sir Paul McCartney played in the same arena in 2009. McCartney sold about 36,000 tickets The numbers just goes to show how much public support Beck enjoys.

Based on the set-up of the event, a little more than 40,000 tickets would provide clear site lines and high-quality audio were made available, the source explained.

“I am very grateful for everyone‘s dedication and commitment to this weekend of service and it’s important that the spirit of the actions demonstrated this weekend are a beginning not an end,” Beck told TheBlaze.

However, ticket sales are just a small part of the overall success of Restoring Love. The weekend of service resulted in churches being rebuilt, the homeless being fed and love being spread. And that’s what it was all about in the first place.