By Carol D. Leonnig and and Joe Stephens, Published: October 5
Newly released e-mails show the Obama administration’s Energy Department was poised to give Solyndra a second taxpayer loan of $469 million last year, even as the company’s financial situation grew increasingly dire.
The department was still considering providing the second loan guarantee to the solar-panel manufacturer in April and May 2010, at a time when Solyndra’s auditors were already warning that the company was in danger of collapsing.
Details of the plan are revealed in e-mails released this week by Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the original loan. On Wednesday, the probe intensified as committee Republicans requested that the White House provide all documents, dating back to President Obama’s inauguration, that would show communications between staff members and other officials regarding Solyndra’s original $535 million federal loan guarantee.
Republican leaders said that documents obtained in recent weeks show that Obama’s “closest confidantes” monitored the loan, and that his campaign donors offered advice on the company.
“Documents reveal a startlingly cozy relationship between wealthy donors and the president’s confidantes, especially in matters related to Solyndra,” Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the committee’s investigations panel, said in a statement.
E-mails already made public in the eight-month investigation have kept the White House and the Energy Department on the defensive for weeks, showing in part that Valerie Jarrett and Lawrence H. Summers, top Obama advisers at the time, took part in discussions about Solyndra.
The Energy Department provided Solyndra with its first taxpayer-backed loan guarantee in September 2009. Documents released this week show that White House career staffers, who first questioned the loan that fall, by April 2010 were using gallows humor to describe the prospect of giving Solyndra a second round of help. That spring, industry analysts were publicly questioning how the Silicon Valley start-up could be spending cash so quickly from the federal loan and $933 million in private capital.
“Apparently the loan size for Phase II is $469 million,” one analyst at the Office of Management and Budget wrote. “I’ve been told we should expect [to] see that project soon for conditional commitment.”
Another joked: “Possible to close and default on one before closing on a second??? Could be a new record.”
The agency didn’t drop plans for a second loan until October 2010, an Energy Department spokesman has confirmed. That was the month Solyndra executives and investors first warned the government that the company faced the threat of liquidation without emergency cash.
Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said Wednesday that OMB staffers were wrong in describing the agency as actively pushing to provide the second loan.
“In fact, the career staff at the department had only barely begun to do the due diligence that would have been required for a second loan,” LaVera said. “This application would have had to undergo many more months of analysis before being approved,” but that was rendered moot when the company reported severe financial problems.
Solyndra, which suddenly shut down Aug. 31 and sought bankruptcy protection, has left taxpayers on the hook for repaying that first half-billion-dollar loan. It also has left many lawmakers questioning why the Obama administration was so supportive of the start-up. Some Republicans have charged that the administration favored Solyndra because it was backed by investment funds linked to George Kaiser, a major Obama fundraiser.
Obama cited Solyndra as a showcase of his effort to boost the clean-energy industry. He visited Solyndra’s California headquarters in May 2010, after being warned not to go by a venture capitalist who feared the company could fail.
Even in May 2010, Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s top advisers — his senior adviser on stimulus , Matt Rogers, and his chief of staff, Rod O’Connor — were telling the White House not to worry about auditors’ warnings about Solyndra’s finances.
O’Connor told a top White House adviser to Vice President Biden that the warnings were exaggerated, when a venture capitalist and Obama donor had flagged the company’s finances as a reason why the president shouldn’t visit Solyndra as scheduled on May 25. O’Connor also raised the issue of more financial support for Solyndra.
Rogers, who had been a senior consultant at McKinsey before joining the administration and returned to that company last fall, told the White House that such auditors’ warnings were typical for start-ups.
Solyndra applied for a second loan days after receiving the first one in September 2009. The agency had put Solyndra’s request for a second loan guarantee on a fast-tracked priority list, two sources familiar with the company’s application told The Washington Post. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because the probes of the loan are ongoing.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Herman Cain to protesters: If you're not rich 'blame yourself'
BY Aliyah Shahid
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, October 5th 2011, 1:49 PM
Unemployed Wall Street protesters only have themselves to blame for lacking a job, so says Herman Cain.
The Republican presidential candidate insisted that the demonstrations were being "orchestrated" to help President Obama.
"I don't have the facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama Administration," Cain told the Wall Street Journal.
The Tea Party favorite then argued that the plight of the unemployed was their own fault.
"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself. It is not someone's fault if they succeeded, it is someone's fault if they failed," the ex-Godfather's Pizza CEO declared.
The fiery remarks come as protest organizers plan for their biggest demonstrations yet -- at least 2,000 people are expected to gather in lower Manhattan Wednesday.
Last week, 700 protesters who spilled onto the streets near the Brooklyn Bridge were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct.
Cain acknowledged that the banking industry played a role in the 2008 economic meltdown, but argued they were no longer responsible.
"They did have something to do with the crisis that we went into in 2008, but we're not in 2008, we're in 2011," Cain said."...These demonstrations, I honestly don't understand what they're looking for. To me, they come across more as anti-capitalism."
Cain's campaign has been picking up steam since he won Florida's straw poll last month.
And in a recent Rasmussen Reports poll, Cain trails Obama by just five points in a head-to-head matchup.
SEE IT, beginning at 9:40:
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, October 5th 2011, 1:49 PM
Unemployed Wall Street protesters only have themselves to blame for lacking a job, so says Herman Cain.
The Republican presidential candidate insisted that the demonstrations were being "orchestrated" to help President Obama.
"I don't have the facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama Administration," Cain told the Wall Street Journal.
The Tea Party favorite then argued that the plight of the unemployed was their own fault.
"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself. It is not someone's fault if they succeeded, it is someone's fault if they failed," the ex-Godfather's Pizza CEO declared.
The fiery remarks come as protest organizers plan for their biggest demonstrations yet -- at least 2,000 people are expected to gather in lower Manhattan Wednesday.
Last week, 700 protesters who spilled onto the streets near the Brooklyn Bridge were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct.
Cain acknowledged that the banking industry played a role in the 2008 economic meltdown, but argued they were no longer responsible.
"They did have something to do with the crisis that we went into in 2008, but we're not in 2008, we're in 2011," Cain said."...These demonstrations, I honestly don't understand what they're looking for. To me, they come across more as anti-capitalism."
Cain's campaign has been picking up steam since he won Florida's straw poll last month.
And in a recent Rasmussen Reports poll, Cain trails Obama by just five points in a head-to-head matchup.
SEE IT, beginning at 9:40:
‘Darn Tooting!’ Obama Brags About HHS Reg Catholic Bishops Call Attack on Liberty
By Terence P. Jeffrey
October 5, 2011
(CNSNews.com) - Bantering with the audience at a fundraiser in St. Louis yesterday, President Barack Obama bragged about a new regulation, proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services, that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has denounced as an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty.”
"Darn right!" an audience member at the fundraiser shouted as Obama described the regulation.
“Darn tooting!” Obama said back.
The proposed regulation, designed to implement part of Obamacare, will require all private health plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives--including those that cause abortions—without charging any fees or co-pay. These regulations were drawn to implement a provision in Obama’s health-care law that calls for all health-care plans to cover “preventive services.”
Combined with Obamacare’s mandate that all individuals must buy health insurance, the “preventive services” regulation would require all American Catholics to buy health care plans that pay for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortions--all of which violate Catholic moral teaching.
A “religious exemption” in the regulation is so narrowly drawn that it does not include any lay Catholics, or any Catholic hospitals, charitable organizations, or colleges or universities. Thus, many major Catholic institutions in the United States would be forced to choose between dropping health insurance coverage for their employees and students or violating the moral teachings of their own church.
In comments on the regulation submitted to HHS last month, the Catholic bishops called for the regulation to be “rescinded in its entirety” and described the proposal as “government coercion of religious people.”
"Indeed, such nationwide government coercion of religious people and groups to sell, broker, or purchase 'services' to which they have a moral or religious objection represents an unprecedented attack on religious liberty," the bishops said.
At a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at the Renaissance Hotel in St. Louis last night, Obama touted the “preventive services” regulation to an appreciative audience.
“And, yes, we passed health care reform because no one in America should go bankrupt because somebody in their family gets sick,” said Obama, according to the official White House transcript of his remarks.
“Insurance companies can’t drop your coverage for no good reason,” said Obama. “They won’t be able to deny your coverage because of preexisting conditions. Think about what that means for families all across America. Think about what it means for women.”
At that point, an audience member shouted: “Birth control.”
“Absolutely. You’re stealing my line,” said Obama.
“Breast cancer, cervical cancer, are no longer preexisting conditions,” Obama continued. “No longer can insurance companies discriminate against women just because you guys are the ones who have to give birth.”
At this point, a member of a laughing audience shouted out: “Darn right!”
“Darn tooting,” Obama answered back—to laughter. “They have to cover things like mammograms and contraception as preventive care, no more out-of-pocket costs.”
Last week, the Catholic bishops distributed an insert for placement in church bulletins all across the country. It called on Catholics to contact HHS to object to the regulation. On their website the bishops are now asking Catholic to write Congress to urge members to support legislation that would overturn the regulation.
October 5, 2011
(CNSNews.com) - Bantering with the audience at a fundraiser in St. Louis yesterday, President Barack Obama bragged about a new regulation, proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services, that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has denounced as an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty.”
"Darn right!" an audience member at the fundraiser shouted as Obama described the regulation.
“Darn tooting!” Obama said back.
The proposed regulation, designed to implement part of Obamacare, will require all private health plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives--including those that cause abortions—without charging any fees or co-pay. These regulations were drawn to implement a provision in Obama’s health-care law that calls for all health-care plans to cover “preventive services.”
Combined with Obamacare’s mandate that all individuals must buy health insurance, the “preventive services” regulation would require all American Catholics to buy health care plans that pay for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortions--all of which violate Catholic moral teaching.
A “religious exemption” in the regulation is so narrowly drawn that it does not include any lay Catholics, or any Catholic hospitals, charitable organizations, or colleges or universities. Thus, many major Catholic institutions in the United States would be forced to choose between dropping health insurance coverage for their employees and students or violating the moral teachings of their own church.
In comments on the regulation submitted to HHS last month, the Catholic bishops called for the regulation to be “rescinded in its entirety” and described the proposal as “government coercion of religious people.”
"Indeed, such nationwide government coercion of religious people and groups to sell, broker, or purchase 'services' to which they have a moral or religious objection represents an unprecedented attack on religious liberty," the bishops said.
At a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at the Renaissance Hotel in St. Louis last night, Obama touted the “preventive services” regulation to an appreciative audience.
“And, yes, we passed health care reform because no one in America should go bankrupt because somebody in their family gets sick,” said Obama, according to the official White House transcript of his remarks.
“Insurance companies can’t drop your coverage for no good reason,” said Obama. “They won’t be able to deny your coverage because of preexisting conditions. Think about what that means for families all across America. Think about what it means for women.”
At that point, an audience member shouted: “Birth control.”
“Absolutely. You’re stealing my line,” said Obama.
“Breast cancer, cervical cancer, are no longer preexisting conditions,” Obama continued. “No longer can insurance companies discriminate against women just because you guys are the ones who have to give birth.”
At this point, a member of a laughing audience shouted out: “Darn right!”
“Darn tooting,” Obama answered back—to laughter. “They have to cover things like mammograms and contraception as preventive care, no more out-of-pocket costs.”
Last week, the Catholic bishops distributed an insert for placement in church bulletins all across the country. It called on Catholics to contact HHS to object to the regulation. On their website the bishops are now asking Catholic to write Congress to urge members to support legislation that would overturn the regulation.
DNC Chair: 'Anyone' Can See Economy's Improving
We've Begun To Turn The Corner,' Democrat Says'
By Craig Bannister
October 5, 2011
DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz insisted to CNSNews.com yesterday that “anyone’ can see that the economy is improving and sought to interpret what Pres. Obama really meant when he admitted Monday that Americans were not better off today than four years ago.
“Well, what President Obama said was that certainly since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, that Americans are not better off,” Wasserman Schultz told CNSNews.com. “That was specifically the president’s comment. I thought. And I think anyone who looks at the economy knows we have come a long way.
“We are certainly no longer dropping like a rock like we were in the months leading up to President Obama taking office,” Wasserman Schultz continued. “And now we’ve begun to turn the corner.”
“Anyone” can see that we’ve turned the corner? Really?
Even the 115,730 people who lost their jobs last month (the most in more than two years), or the American Airlines workers faced with the danger that their employer is going to have to file for bankruptcy?
And, how about the person at the pump fretting over the cost of filling his gas tank, or the young couple trying to sell their home?
I guess these aren’t the “anyones” the DNC chair was referring to.
By Craig Bannister
October 5, 2011
DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz insisted to CNSNews.com yesterday that “anyone’ can see that the economy is improving and sought to interpret what Pres. Obama really meant when he admitted Monday that Americans were not better off today than four years ago.
“Well, what President Obama said was that certainly since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, that Americans are not better off,” Wasserman Schultz told CNSNews.com. “That was specifically the president’s comment. I thought. And I think anyone who looks at the economy knows we have come a long way.
“We are certainly no longer dropping like a rock like we were in the months leading up to President Obama taking office,” Wasserman Schultz continued. “And now we’ve begun to turn the corner.”
“Anyone” can see that we’ve turned the corner? Really?
Even the 115,730 people who lost their jobs last month (the most in more than two years), or the American Airlines workers faced with the danger that their employer is going to have to file for bankruptcy?
And, how about the person at the pump fretting over the cost of filling his gas tank, or the young couple trying to sell their home?
I guess these aren’t the “anyones” the DNC chair was referring to.
Republicans Advance a Bill Defunding U.N. Population Control Agency
By Patrick Goodenough
October 6, 2011
(CNSNews.com) – U.S. House Republicans fired another shot across the bow of the United Nations Wednesday, advancing a bill to defund a U.N. agency accused of complicity in China’s coercive population control policies.
By a 23-17 vote along party lines, the House Foreign Relations Committee approved a bill, introduced by freshman Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), that would save $400 million over ten years in funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).
The 1985 “Kemp-Kasten amendment” prohibits federal funding for any agency that “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” Citing the amendment and China’s “one-child” policy, President Bush defunded the UNFPA from 2002 to 2008. President Obama restored funding soon after taking office.
“Whether or not you believe the U.S. should be borrowing money from China to fund U.N. projects in China, U.S. taxpayers should not be forced to fund programs that violate provisions of the Kemp-Kasten amendment,” Ellmers said during the markup hearing for H.R. 2059.
“If the Chinese wish to do such things, they should not expect funding from the United States taxpayer.”
The hearing was characterized by impassioned debate demonstrating a gulf between supporters of the bill, who focused on forced abortion and other violations taking place under the one-child program; and opponents, who pointed to UNFPA programs around the world which they said would be adversely affected by a U.S. funding freeze.
UNFPA supporters insisted that the agency cannot be blamed for what takes place in Chinese counties where coercive population control measures are enforced; detractors quoted senior UNFPA officials praising China’s family planning policies.
“The State Department has repeatedly found that UNFPA refuses to provide detailed information on its activities in China,” House chairwoman Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) told the hearing.
“In December of 2010, the vice-minister of China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission thanked UNFPA for ‘its constant support to China’s population and family planning undertakings during the past thirty years and more,’” she continued. “UNFPA continues business as usual, and last year, it approved another five-year operational plan for China.”
Ros-Lehtinen implicitly tackled the charge that depriving the UNFPA of U.S. funding would harm its programs elsewhere.
“UNFPA clearly does not need U.S. funding,” she said. “Reports indicate that UNFPA has built up reserves and unspent funds of 500 million dollars. UNFPA’s annual report for 2010 indicated that its budget totaled 870 million dollars – a record amount.
“So why, when Americans face a struggling economy, skyrocketing deficits, and crushing debt, should our taxpayer dollars go to an organization that supports coercive abortion and is flush with cash? Again, there are much better uses for taxpayer funds than sending millions to UNFPA.”
Ranking minority member Rep. Howard Berman (Calif.) asserted that H.R. 2059 would harm poor women and children in developing countries suffering the effects of disease, war and rape.
“Rather than helping these desperate people – as UNFPA seeks to do – the legislation makes them pawns in a debate over social issues that often seems divorced from reality,” he said.
“Rather than lobbing another grenade in our culture wars, this committee should be working to strengthen maternal mortality prevention efforts, improve the capacity of health systems in the developing world, and protect women from rape as an instrument of war,” Berman added.
Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) called the anti-UNFPA measure “a smear campaign” against “an easy target.”
Veteran pro-life campaigner Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) responded to the arguments about the impact on valuable work done being elsewhere by the UNFPA.
“Yes, UNFPA may do some other things – but so do other multilateral organizations, so does USAID. Our dollars ought to go where we are not in any way complicit in these crimes against women – and that is not a smear, I say to my friend [Connolly] – these are crimes against women and children. Let’s not forget, at the Nuremburg war crimes tribunal forced abortion was called – rightfully so – a crime against women and a crime against humanity. It is no less a crime today.”
Smith is the author of the China Democracy Promotion Act of 2011, a bill that provides the president with the authority to deny access to the U.S. of anyone linked to human rights violations in China, with one of the specified targets anyone who “has participated in the imposition of the People’s Republic of China’s coercive birth limitation policy.”
‘UNFPA involvement allows China to carry out forced abortions more effectively’
Wednesday’s vote came one day before the advocacy group Americans for UNFPA holds its 2011 “gala for the health and dignity of women” in New York City, an event bringing together “450 business leaders, dignitaries, activists and celebrities.”
In an earlier statement, Americans for UNFPA president Valerie DeFillipo called the Republican initiative “a result of misguided ideology and politics.”
“When U.S. funding is withheld, UNFPAs lifesaving work will unquestionably dwindle, making women the pawns in this dangerous game. We simply cannot allow this to happen in the spirit of ideological demagoguery and ultimatums,” she said.
Whenever the question of UNFPA and China’s one-child policy arises, UNFPA supporters point to the findings of a 2002 State Department investigation in China, which concluded, “we find no evidence that UNFPA has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
Critics, however, point out that the State Department’s legal analysis at the time determined that UNFPA-funded computers and data-processing equipment facilitated China’s ability to impose punitive fines or perform coerced abortions on one-child policy violators.
As cited in a Congressional Research Serve report, the State Department analysis concluded that UNFPA’s involvement in China’s family planning program “allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion.”
On July 21, 2002, then Secretary of State Colin Powell determined that U.S. funding could not continue. Notifying Congress of his decision, he wrote, “Regardless of the modest size of UNFPA’s budget in China or any benefits its programs provide, UNFPA’s support of, and involvement in, China’s population-planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion.”
Two years later, Powell said in response to written questions from senators that the administration had been urging Beijing since 2002 “to remove coercive practices from its family planning programs.”
“The [State] Department has been in consultations with China since 2002, but China has not eliminated its coercive practices,” Powell wrote. He also said the department had made various proposals to the UNFPA about its work in China “that would permit the United States to fund UNFPA consistent with Kemp-Kasten.”
U.S. funding withheld from the UNFPA during the Bush administration totaled $244 million.
October 6, 2011
(CNSNews.com) – U.S. House Republicans fired another shot across the bow of the United Nations Wednesday, advancing a bill to defund a U.N. agency accused of complicity in China’s coercive population control policies.
By a 23-17 vote along party lines, the House Foreign Relations Committee approved a bill, introduced by freshman Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), that would save $400 million over ten years in funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).
The 1985 “Kemp-Kasten amendment” prohibits federal funding for any agency that “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” Citing the amendment and China’s “one-child” policy, President Bush defunded the UNFPA from 2002 to 2008. President Obama restored funding soon after taking office.
“Whether or not you believe the U.S. should be borrowing money from China to fund U.N. projects in China, U.S. taxpayers should not be forced to fund programs that violate provisions of the Kemp-Kasten amendment,” Ellmers said during the markup hearing for H.R. 2059.
“If the Chinese wish to do such things, they should not expect funding from the United States taxpayer.”
The hearing was characterized by impassioned debate demonstrating a gulf between supporters of the bill, who focused on forced abortion and other violations taking place under the one-child program; and opponents, who pointed to UNFPA programs around the world which they said would be adversely affected by a U.S. funding freeze.
UNFPA supporters insisted that the agency cannot be blamed for what takes place in Chinese counties where coercive population control measures are enforced; detractors quoted senior UNFPA officials praising China’s family planning policies.
“The State Department has repeatedly found that UNFPA refuses to provide detailed information on its activities in China,” House chairwoman Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) told the hearing.
“In December of 2010, the vice-minister of China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission thanked UNFPA for ‘its constant support to China’s population and family planning undertakings during the past thirty years and more,’” she continued. “UNFPA continues business as usual, and last year, it approved another five-year operational plan for China.”
Ros-Lehtinen implicitly tackled the charge that depriving the UNFPA of U.S. funding would harm its programs elsewhere.
“UNFPA clearly does not need U.S. funding,” she said. “Reports indicate that UNFPA has built up reserves and unspent funds of 500 million dollars. UNFPA’s annual report for 2010 indicated that its budget totaled 870 million dollars – a record amount.
“So why, when Americans face a struggling economy, skyrocketing deficits, and crushing debt, should our taxpayer dollars go to an organization that supports coercive abortion and is flush with cash? Again, there are much better uses for taxpayer funds than sending millions to UNFPA.”
Ranking minority member Rep. Howard Berman (Calif.) asserted that H.R. 2059 would harm poor women and children in developing countries suffering the effects of disease, war and rape.
“Rather than helping these desperate people – as UNFPA seeks to do – the legislation makes them pawns in a debate over social issues that often seems divorced from reality,” he said.
“Rather than lobbing another grenade in our culture wars, this committee should be working to strengthen maternal mortality prevention efforts, improve the capacity of health systems in the developing world, and protect women from rape as an instrument of war,” Berman added.
Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) called the anti-UNFPA measure “a smear campaign” against “an easy target.”
Veteran pro-life campaigner Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) responded to the arguments about the impact on valuable work done being elsewhere by the UNFPA.
“Yes, UNFPA may do some other things – but so do other multilateral organizations, so does USAID. Our dollars ought to go where we are not in any way complicit in these crimes against women – and that is not a smear, I say to my friend [Connolly] – these are crimes against women and children. Let’s not forget, at the Nuremburg war crimes tribunal forced abortion was called – rightfully so – a crime against women and a crime against humanity. It is no less a crime today.”
Smith is the author of the China Democracy Promotion Act of 2011, a bill that provides the president with the authority to deny access to the U.S. of anyone linked to human rights violations in China, with one of the specified targets anyone who “has participated in the imposition of the People’s Republic of China’s coercive birth limitation policy.”
‘UNFPA involvement allows China to carry out forced abortions more effectively’
Wednesday’s vote came one day before the advocacy group Americans for UNFPA holds its 2011 “gala for the health and dignity of women” in New York City, an event bringing together “450 business leaders, dignitaries, activists and celebrities.”
In an earlier statement, Americans for UNFPA president Valerie DeFillipo called the Republican initiative “a result of misguided ideology and politics.”
“When U.S. funding is withheld, UNFPAs lifesaving work will unquestionably dwindle, making women the pawns in this dangerous game. We simply cannot allow this to happen in the spirit of ideological demagoguery and ultimatums,” she said.
Whenever the question of UNFPA and China’s one-child policy arises, UNFPA supporters point to the findings of a 2002 State Department investigation in China, which concluded, “we find no evidence that UNFPA has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
Critics, however, point out that the State Department’s legal analysis at the time determined that UNFPA-funded computers and data-processing equipment facilitated China’s ability to impose punitive fines or perform coerced abortions on one-child policy violators.
As cited in a Congressional Research Serve report, the State Department analysis concluded that UNFPA’s involvement in China’s family planning program “allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion.”
On July 21, 2002, then Secretary of State Colin Powell determined that U.S. funding could not continue. Notifying Congress of his decision, he wrote, “Regardless of the modest size of UNFPA’s budget in China or any benefits its programs provide, UNFPA’s support of, and involvement in, China’s population-planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion.”
Two years later, Powell said in response to written questions from senators that the administration had been urging Beijing since 2002 “to remove coercive practices from its family planning programs.”
“The [State] Department has been in consultations with China since 2002, but China has not eliminated its coercive practices,” Powell wrote. He also said the department had made various proposals to the UNFPA about its work in China “that would permit the United States to fund UNFPA consistent with Kemp-Kasten.”
U.S. funding withheld from the UNFPA during the Bush administration totaled $244 million.
“Occupy Wall Street” Revealed To Be All About Obama Front Groups
Highjacked or originally, secretly created by?
Paul Joseph Watson:
Fears expressed by some that the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement is being hijacked by the Democratic Party establishment have intensified after the official OWS website announced that it “stands in solidarity” with MoveOn.org, a lobbying group for the Wall Street-backed Obama administration.
The front page of the http://occupywallst.org/ proudly announces that numerous union groups will be present in New York today to join demonstrators in marches taking place this afternoon.
“Together we will protest this great injustice. We stand in solidarity with the honest workers of….MoveOn.org,” states the website, as well as listing numerous other organizations.
What is MoveOn.org?
MoveOn.org is a lobbying organization that routinely backs Democratic candidates. The group aggressively supported Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign and is now “Perhaps the lead lobby organization for his policies….apart from Obama’s own Organizing for America,” reports Source Watch.
When MoveOn organized an online donation drive for Obama which raised $320,000, the Obama campaign responded in kind with the legally dubious action of paying MoveOn $18,000 in “credit card processing fees”.
The group also received a $5 million dollar donation from George Soros, who is a keen supporter.
Back in 2007, many leftists spoke of their betrayal by MoveOn.org after the group advocated Nancy Pelosi’s funding bill that actually prolonged the war in Iraq and prevented the troops being brought home.
“Join us on Wednesday to create a huge show of support for anti-Wall Street actions nationwide. Together, we’ll add hundreds of thousands of voices expressing our solidarity with the protests at Occupy Wall Street and across the country targeting the bankers who wrecked our economy,” states MoveOn.org’s website.
Yes – the very same bankers – Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup prime amongst them – who financed the Obama campaign, the same campaign vehemently supported by MoveOn.org.
Why does Occupy Wall Street’s support for MoveOn.org represent a problem? Because MoveOn.org is little more than a lobbying front for the Obama administration, which itself is a creature of Wall Street.
Another group that OWS website expresses its “solidarity” with, AFL-CIO, has also announced that it will likely back Wall Street puppet Obama in 2012.
The OWS website also stands in solidarity with SEIU (Service Employees International Union), a group that spent $28 million dollars supporting Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, making it the “organization that spent the most to help Barack Obama get elected president.”
Why is the website that has positioned itself as the central hub for Occupy Wall Street activists announcing its support for groups which are little more than Barack Obama lobbying fronts? Wall Street spent millions financing Obama’s path to the White House and are supporting him to an even greater extent in 2012.
Why is a website that claims to represent anti-Wall Street demonstrators siding with groups that have aggressively supported the Wall Street-backed Obama administration?
Some have argued that it is not fair to cite postings on OccupyWallst.org as representative of the movement’s character or goals. However, this is not a forum posting by an individual, it is prominently displayed on the front page of the website claiming it represents OWS.
Either the Occupy Wall Street website represents an accurate reflection of the sentiments of the protesters, that is supportive of the Wall Street-financed Obama administration and its lobbying front groups such as MoveOn.org, or the message has been hijacked by these very groups.
Either way it represents a threat to the promise made by other OWS activists to remain non-partisan.
Who is running this website and why are they ‘standing in solidarity’ with organizations like MoveOn.org that have aggressively supported the Wall-Street backed Obama administration?
I am going to submit this question to the forum users on the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ website and write a follow up piece on their response. That way we can move a lot closer to understanding whether what is posing as the official website for this “leaderless” group is really representative of the OWS demonstrators or not.
Paul Joseph Watson:
Fears expressed by some that the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement is being hijacked by the Democratic Party establishment have intensified after the official OWS website announced that it “stands in solidarity” with MoveOn.org, a lobbying group for the Wall Street-backed Obama administration.
The front page of the http://occupywallst.org/ proudly announces that numerous union groups will be present in New York today to join demonstrators in marches taking place this afternoon.
“Together we will protest this great injustice. We stand in solidarity with the honest workers of….MoveOn.org,” states the website, as well as listing numerous other organizations.
What is MoveOn.org?
MoveOn.org is a lobbying organization that routinely backs Democratic candidates. The group aggressively supported Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign and is now “Perhaps the lead lobby organization for his policies….apart from Obama’s own Organizing for America,” reports Source Watch.
When MoveOn organized an online donation drive for Obama which raised $320,000, the Obama campaign responded in kind with the legally dubious action of paying MoveOn $18,000 in “credit card processing fees”.
The group also received a $5 million dollar donation from George Soros, who is a keen supporter.
Back in 2007, many leftists spoke of their betrayal by MoveOn.org after the group advocated Nancy Pelosi’s funding bill that actually prolonged the war in Iraq and prevented the troops being brought home.
“Join us on Wednesday to create a huge show of support for anti-Wall Street actions nationwide. Together, we’ll add hundreds of thousands of voices expressing our solidarity with the protests at Occupy Wall Street and across the country targeting the bankers who wrecked our economy,” states MoveOn.org’s website.
Yes – the very same bankers – Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup prime amongst them – who financed the Obama campaign, the same campaign vehemently supported by MoveOn.org.
Why does Occupy Wall Street’s support for MoveOn.org represent a problem? Because MoveOn.org is little more than a lobbying front for the Obama administration, which itself is a creature of Wall Street.
Another group that OWS website expresses its “solidarity” with, AFL-CIO, has also announced that it will likely back Wall Street puppet Obama in 2012.
The OWS website also stands in solidarity with SEIU (Service Employees International Union), a group that spent $28 million dollars supporting Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, making it the “organization that spent the most to help Barack Obama get elected president.”
Why is the website that has positioned itself as the central hub for Occupy Wall Street activists announcing its support for groups which are little more than Barack Obama lobbying fronts? Wall Street spent millions financing Obama’s path to the White House and are supporting him to an even greater extent in 2012.
Why is a website that claims to represent anti-Wall Street demonstrators siding with groups that have aggressively supported the Wall Street-backed Obama administration?
Some have argued that it is not fair to cite postings on OccupyWallst.org as representative of the movement’s character or goals. However, this is not a forum posting by an individual, it is prominently displayed on the front page of the website claiming it represents OWS.
Either the Occupy Wall Street website represents an accurate reflection of the sentiments of the protesters, that is supportive of the Wall Street-financed Obama administration and its lobbying front groups such as MoveOn.org, or the message has been hijacked by these very groups.
Either way it represents a threat to the promise made by other OWS activists to remain non-partisan.
Who is running this website and why are they ‘standing in solidarity’ with organizations like MoveOn.org that have aggressively supported the Wall-Street backed Obama administration?
I am going to submit this question to the forum users on the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ website and write a follow up piece on their response. That way we can move a lot closer to understanding whether what is posing as the official website for this “leaderless” group is really representative of the OWS demonstrators or not.
Melee Breaks Out Between Wall Street Protesters and NYPD
Posted on October 6, 2011 at 1:25am by Becket Adams
There are reports that things not going well for the Occupy Wall Street protests.
According to Business Insider, there have been multiple tweets that claim that Thursday evening’s protests have produced “several arrests.” And now there is a video that seems to indicate rising tensions between the protesters and the NYPD.
At this moment, it is unclear exactly where this video was shot.
Update: A TV crew for FOX 5 in New York captured the moments leading up to the altercation.
FOX reports:
In the evening, crowds surged past barriers and NYPD officers moved in to contain the protesters. By many accounts, mayhem broke out.
Officers, many wearing white shorts indicating supervisor rank, swatted protesters with batons and sprayed them with mace, video from the scene showed
…
Cops appeared to arrest dozens if not hundreds of protesters, but the final tally was not known.
There are reports that things not going well for the Occupy Wall Street protests.
According to Business Insider, there have been multiple tweets that claim that Thursday evening’s protests have produced “several arrests.” And now there is a video that seems to indicate rising tensions between the protesters and the NYPD.
At this moment, it is unclear exactly where this video was shot.
Update: A TV crew for FOX 5 in New York captured the moments leading up to the altercation.
Occupy Wall Street Arrests; Fox 5 Crew and Protesters Hit by Mace, Batons: MyFoxNY.com
FOX reports:
In the evening, crowds surged past barriers and NYPD officers moved in to contain the protesters. By many accounts, mayhem broke out.
Officers, many wearing white shorts indicating supervisor rank, swatted protesters with batons and sprayed them with mace, video from the scene showed
…
Cops appeared to arrest dozens if not hundreds of protesters, but the final tally was not known.
Total US Debt Update: $14.86 Trillion; $162 Billion Increase In Three Days; 98.9% Debt/GDP
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/05/2011 16:25 -0400
Little to say here: total debt is now at, obviously, a new record high of $14,856,859,498,405.73, which is a $20 billion increase overnight, $67 billion in the past two days, and $162 billion in the last three days. We will repeat the last part: total US debt has increased by $162 billion in three days. Said otherwise, total US Debt/GDP is now 98.9%. Please carry on.
Today's debt summary.
Yesterday's Debt summary:
And from the day before:
Little to say here: total debt is now at, obviously, a new record high of $14,856,859,498,405.73, which is a $20 billion increase overnight, $67 billion in the past two days, and $162 billion in the last three days. We will repeat the last part: total US debt has increased by $162 billion in three days. Said otherwise, total US Debt/GDP is now 98.9%. Please carry on.
Today's debt summary.
Yesterday's Debt summary:
And from the day before:
Big Soros Money Linked to “Occupy Wall Street”
Written by Alex Newman
Wednesday, 05 October 2011 15:59
Labor unions, communists, “community organizers,” socialists, and anti-capitalist agitators have all joined together to “Occupy Wall Street” and protest against “greed,” corporations, and bankers. But despite efforts to portray the movement as “leaderless” or “grassroots,” it is becoming obvious that there is much more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye.
Billionaire financier George Soros’ fingerprints, for example, have been all over the anti-Wall Street campaign from the very beginning. And this week, the infamous hedge-fund boss publicly announced his sympathy for the protesters and their complaints about bailouts — despite the fact that he lobbied for even greater unconstitutional handouts to bankers in 2009.
“Actually I can understand their sentiment, frankly,” he told reporters while announcing a large donation to the United Nations. “I can sympathize with their grievances.”
But Soros’ support for the protesters goes far beyond his tepid public statements. In fact, the original call to “Occupy Wall Street” came from the magazine AdBusters, an “anti-consumerist” publication financed by, among other sources, the Soros-funded Tides Foundation.
Other Soros-backed outfits promoting big government — some with myriad ties to the Obama administration — are also publicly driving the occupation campaign. MoveOn.org, for instance, has received millions of dollars from the billionaire banker. And now, the group is urging its supporters to join the Occupy Wall Street movement as well.
“Over the last two weeks, an amazing wave of protest against Wall Street and the big banks has erupted across the country,” MoveOn said in a recent e-mail to supporters, praising the “brave” demonstrators. “On Wednesday, MoveOn members will join labor and community groups in New York City for a huge march down to the protest site — the biggest yet.”
On top of supplying activists to join the demonstrations, MoveOn is also staging what it calls a “massive ‘Virtual March on Wall Street’ online.” The Internet-based demonstrations are a collaborative effort with another radical and well-connected outfit tied to Soros called Rebuild the Dream.
Led by self-described communist and former Obama administration czar Van Jones, the “Dream” movement is a partnership between a host of Soros-financed “progressive” groups. Big Labor and even Planned Parenthood — the largest abortion provider in America, which receives hundreds of millions of tax dollars each year — are partners, too.
“Together, we'll add hundreds of thousands of voices of solidarity from the American Dream Movement for the protests across the country and show just how widespread outrage at the Wall Street banks really is,” MoveOn boasted in its e-mail.
Other groups working with Rebuild the Dream are also publicly hyping the demonstrations. And more than a few of them are on the Soros payroll as well. Some examples include People For The American Way, Planned Parenthood, Campaign For America's Future, Democracy For America, Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, Common Cause, Public Campaign, and many more.
Soros, of course, has a long history of financing organizations targeting the American system of government. He has also served on the board of the immensely influential global-governance-promoting Council on Foreign Relations.
Just last year, Soros claimed that the brutal communist dictatorship ruling mainland China should lead what he calls the “New World Order.” The Chinese tyrants, meanwhile, have also been touting Occupy Wall Street through the regime’s propaganda organs.
But Soros does not love the despots in Beijing for their commitment to “equality” or “democracy.” As The New American reported, behind Soros and his tens of billions lies even more wealth and power: the unimaginably vast Rothschild banking empire.
One of the richest men in the world today, Soros has been in legal trouble for corruption before — in France, for instance, he was fined more than $2 million for his illegal scheming. So, critics noted, it might seem ironic that the textbook example of a “corrupt financier” would finance a protest supposedly aimed at corrupt financiers. But the irony hardly ends there.
Union bosses and others intimately linked to President Obama — whose top campaign contributors included Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and other big banks — are also playing a key role in the Wall Street protests. The protesters are even recycling administration talking points such as the old “the rich should be forced to pay their 'fair share'" — despite the fact that the “Buffett rule” tax proposal being advanced would almost exclusively soak what remains of the middle class.
But that might be the point. According to reports and analysts, the whole anti-Wall Street movement has been carefully orchestrated by the Obama-linked anti-capitalist union titans and tax-funded “community organizers.” A troubling plot to essentially finish off capitalism was exposed earlier this year, and at the time it was blasted as “economic terrorism.” Even more disturbing: It was uncannily similar to the growing Wall Street demonstrations.
Community organizer Stephen Lerner of the SEIU, a regular White House guest, was caught on video in March discussing the scheme to “bring down the stock market” and "destabilize" the nation — all with the stated goal of "redistributing wealth." And while the whole conspiracy was not revealed because Lerner suspected police were present, the strategies he mentioned included civil disobedience and mass anti-banker protests.
Another conspirator said to be pulling the strings, disgraced ACORN founder and union boss Wade Rathke, was advocating massive “Day of Rage” protests targeting bankers earlier this year. And he is also closely tied to Obama, who actually used to work for Rathke’s “community organizing” outfit.
ACORN, of course, was recently exposed engaging in widespread criminal activity while receiving millions of federal tax dollars. But after the organization filed for bankruptcy, its tentacles are taking over under new names — and still receiving government handouts.
Rathke is also a founding board member of the Soros-funded Tides Foundation, a key source of money for AdBusters magazine (which first called for the Wall Street occupation) and countless other anti-business groups. And he is directly tied to more than a few unions including the SEIU.
Beyond Big Labor and Soros “front groups,” as critics call them, is also a vast collection of socialist and Marxist organizations supporting the demonstrations. The Socialist Party USA, the Marxist-oriented Workers World Party, the International Committee of the Fourth International, and the Communist Party USA-affiliated People’s World are all publicly and openly backing the movement.
While the occupation movement purports to be “leaderless,” in reality, critics say its leaders and financiers are barely concealed. According to analysts, the protests — which are quickly spreading to cities across the United States, Canada, and Europe — actually represent a well-orchestrated operation being used by the very same elite “one percent” supposedly being protested against.
The “official” goals remain murky so far, almost certainly not by chance. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that liberty and honest money are not among the demands. Rather, bigger government, higher taxes, and an end to what remains of the free market system seem to be at the top of the list.
Wednesday, 05 October 2011 15:59
Labor unions, communists, “community organizers,” socialists, and anti-capitalist agitators have all joined together to “Occupy Wall Street” and protest against “greed,” corporations, and bankers. But despite efforts to portray the movement as “leaderless” or “grassroots,” it is becoming obvious that there is much more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye.
Billionaire financier George Soros’ fingerprints, for example, have been all over the anti-Wall Street campaign from the very beginning. And this week, the infamous hedge-fund boss publicly announced his sympathy for the protesters and their complaints about bailouts — despite the fact that he lobbied for even greater unconstitutional handouts to bankers in 2009.
“Actually I can understand their sentiment, frankly,” he told reporters while announcing a large donation to the United Nations. “I can sympathize with their grievances.”
But Soros’ support for the protesters goes far beyond his tepid public statements. In fact, the original call to “Occupy Wall Street” came from the magazine AdBusters, an “anti-consumerist” publication financed by, among other sources, the Soros-funded Tides Foundation.
Other Soros-backed outfits promoting big government — some with myriad ties to the Obama administration — are also publicly driving the occupation campaign. MoveOn.org, for instance, has received millions of dollars from the billionaire banker. And now, the group is urging its supporters to join the Occupy Wall Street movement as well.
“Over the last two weeks, an amazing wave of protest against Wall Street and the big banks has erupted across the country,” MoveOn said in a recent e-mail to supporters, praising the “brave” demonstrators. “On Wednesday, MoveOn members will join labor and community groups in New York City for a huge march down to the protest site — the biggest yet.”
On top of supplying activists to join the demonstrations, MoveOn is also staging what it calls a “massive ‘Virtual March on Wall Street’ online.” The Internet-based demonstrations are a collaborative effort with another radical and well-connected outfit tied to Soros called Rebuild the Dream.
Led by self-described communist and former Obama administration czar Van Jones, the “Dream” movement is a partnership between a host of Soros-financed “progressive” groups. Big Labor and even Planned Parenthood — the largest abortion provider in America, which receives hundreds of millions of tax dollars each year — are partners, too.
“Together, we'll add hundreds of thousands of voices of solidarity from the American Dream Movement for the protests across the country and show just how widespread outrage at the Wall Street banks really is,” MoveOn boasted in its e-mail.
Other groups working with Rebuild the Dream are also publicly hyping the demonstrations. And more than a few of them are on the Soros payroll as well. Some examples include People For The American Way, Planned Parenthood, Campaign For America's Future, Democracy For America, Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, Common Cause, Public Campaign, and many more.
Soros, of course, has a long history of financing organizations targeting the American system of government. He has also served on the board of the immensely influential global-governance-promoting Council on Foreign Relations.
Just last year, Soros claimed that the brutal communist dictatorship ruling mainland China should lead what he calls the “New World Order.” The Chinese tyrants, meanwhile, have also been touting Occupy Wall Street through the regime’s propaganda organs.
But Soros does not love the despots in Beijing for their commitment to “equality” or “democracy.” As The New American reported, behind Soros and his tens of billions lies even more wealth and power: the unimaginably vast Rothschild banking empire.
One of the richest men in the world today, Soros has been in legal trouble for corruption before — in France, for instance, he was fined more than $2 million for his illegal scheming. So, critics noted, it might seem ironic that the textbook example of a “corrupt financier” would finance a protest supposedly aimed at corrupt financiers. But the irony hardly ends there.
Union bosses and others intimately linked to President Obama — whose top campaign contributors included Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and other big banks — are also playing a key role in the Wall Street protests. The protesters are even recycling administration talking points such as the old “the rich should be forced to pay their 'fair share'" — despite the fact that the “Buffett rule” tax proposal being advanced would almost exclusively soak what remains of the middle class.
But that might be the point. According to reports and analysts, the whole anti-Wall Street movement has been carefully orchestrated by the Obama-linked anti-capitalist union titans and tax-funded “community organizers.” A troubling plot to essentially finish off capitalism was exposed earlier this year, and at the time it was blasted as “economic terrorism.” Even more disturbing: It was uncannily similar to the growing Wall Street demonstrations.
Community organizer Stephen Lerner of the SEIU, a regular White House guest, was caught on video in March discussing the scheme to “bring down the stock market” and "destabilize" the nation — all with the stated goal of "redistributing wealth." And while the whole conspiracy was not revealed because Lerner suspected police were present, the strategies he mentioned included civil disobedience and mass anti-banker protests.
Another conspirator said to be pulling the strings, disgraced ACORN founder and union boss Wade Rathke, was advocating massive “Day of Rage” protests targeting bankers earlier this year. And he is also closely tied to Obama, who actually used to work for Rathke’s “community organizing” outfit.
ACORN, of course, was recently exposed engaging in widespread criminal activity while receiving millions of federal tax dollars. But after the organization filed for bankruptcy, its tentacles are taking over under new names — and still receiving government handouts.
Rathke is also a founding board member of the Soros-funded Tides Foundation, a key source of money for AdBusters magazine (which first called for the Wall Street occupation) and countless other anti-business groups. And he is directly tied to more than a few unions including the SEIU.
Beyond Big Labor and Soros “front groups,” as critics call them, is also a vast collection of socialist and Marxist organizations supporting the demonstrations. The Socialist Party USA, the Marxist-oriented Workers World Party, the International Committee of the Fourth International, and the Communist Party USA-affiliated People’s World are all publicly and openly backing the movement.
While the occupation movement purports to be “leaderless,” in reality, critics say its leaders and financiers are barely concealed. According to analysts, the protests — which are quickly spreading to cities across the United States, Canada, and Europe — actually represent a well-orchestrated operation being used by the very same elite “one percent” supposedly being protested against.
The “official” goals remain murky so far, almost certainly not by chance. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that liberty and honest money are not among the demands. Rather, bigger government, higher taxes, and an end to what remains of the free market system seem to be at the top of the list.
Daley staff forced TIF winners to give to Maggie Daley's charity, city IG charges
Posted by Greg H. at 10/3/2011 5:48 PM CDT
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration forced more than a dozen firms that received city development subsidies to kick over a share of their grant to a charity run by Mr. Daley's wife, Maggie Daley.
That's the blockbuster charge in a report being released today by Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson.
The report specifically deals with After School Matters, a much-praised but also politically connected youth program that for much of the past decade served as the unofficial charity at City Hall.
According to Mr. Ferguson, the city — often to the surprise of even grant recipients — required firms that got tax increment financing subsidies to donate a share of that money to specific non-profit groups.
Of the 27 grant agreements signed between 1985 and 2009 that directed cash contributions to private non-profits, at least 16, or 59%, specifically designated After School Matters or an affiliate.
Altogether, After School Matters received $915,000 through such "public benefits" clauses, according to the report. This is on top of more than $54.5 million in direct city grants since 2004.
Included in that figure is a $6.5-million contract that, as previously reported, was signed four days before Mr. Daley left office in in May.
Under an agreement with Mr. Ferguson's office, I haven't yet called the Daleys or After School Matters for their reaction. But I'm doing so now, and you can bet they'll have something to say.
Meanwhile, though, Mr. Ferguson isn't holding back.
"The frequent selection of After School Matters for public benefits creates the appearance of preferential treatment for an organization with close ties to the city," his reports states. "Regardless of the nature of the work performed by After School Matters, the lack of transparency in the city's public benefits program undermines the public's trust."
The report suggests Mr. Ferguson effectively stumbled on the TIF donations matter and that he had a hard time getting city employees to detail exactly how things worked.
The figures as to how many TIF deals, technically known as redevelopment agreements, required payments to After School Matters is only a "best estimate" from the city's law department, the report says.
Detailed data were not kept by the city, nor were any rules or standards established as to which groups should get the money, the report says.
The recipients — including such prominent firms as the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., LaSalle Street Capital Inc; a building in which bank ABN Amro has offices and Central Station Properties LLC — also were kept in the dark, the reports states.
In interviews with nine recipients, all but one said, "The city unilaterally chose" After School Matters as the agency to which the recipient had to make a cash donation. The recipients generally found out "during later stages of the (TIF) negotiation process."
In the ninth case, the corporation thatreceived TIF aid was headed by a former mayoral deputy chief of staff. But even in that case, the TIF contract with the city specified that TIF aid would be reduced dollar for dollar for any shortfall in required charitable donations.
One other private group actually received more money via the public-benefits clause, but only because of a $1.25-million payment to the Leland Apartments Development in one TIF project.
The city also required some TIF recipients to agree to spend money on city projects.
Mr. Ferguson's report comes at delicate time for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has vowed to reform but continue the TIF program.
Other groups want to tap hundreds of millions of dollars being held in reserve for TIF projects and instead use it to shore up the city budget and keep city employees from being laid off.
* * * 2 p.m. update -- Still no response from either the Daleys or After School Matters. I'm told a statement from the latter is coming, sometime today.
* * * 4:10 p.m. update -- After School Matters finally is out with a response.
In a statement, the schools group terms "flat-out false" any "impression" that TIF recipients "had to agree to donate to After School Matters." The organization termed that "an insult to the work that former first lady and After School Matters Chair Maggie continues to do."
The statement notes that "only" 16 of 73 TIF deals over the past 25 years directly benefitted After School Matters, and says the group has helped more than 200,000 school kids since 2003.
Neither the former mayor nor his wife will be available for questions, says the statement, which was issued by Jasculca Terman & Associates, a public relations firm.
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration forced more than a dozen firms that received city development subsidies to kick over a share of their grant to a charity run by Mr. Daley's wife, Maggie Daley.
That's the blockbuster charge in a report being released today by Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson.
The report specifically deals with After School Matters, a much-praised but also politically connected youth program that for much of the past decade served as the unofficial charity at City Hall.
According to Mr. Ferguson, the city — often to the surprise of even grant recipients — required firms that got tax increment financing subsidies to donate a share of that money to specific non-profit groups.
Of the 27 grant agreements signed between 1985 and 2009 that directed cash contributions to private non-profits, at least 16, or 59%, specifically designated After School Matters or an affiliate.
Altogether, After School Matters received $915,000 through such "public benefits" clauses, according to the report. This is on top of more than $54.5 million in direct city grants since 2004.
Included in that figure is a $6.5-million contract that, as previously reported, was signed four days before Mr. Daley left office in in May.
Under an agreement with Mr. Ferguson's office, I haven't yet called the Daleys or After School Matters for their reaction. But I'm doing so now, and you can bet they'll have something to say.
Meanwhile, though, Mr. Ferguson isn't holding back.
"The frequent selection of After School Matters for public benefits creates the appearance of preferential treatment for an organization with close ties to the city," his reports states. "Regardless of the nature of the work performed by After School Matters, the lack of transparency in the city's public benefits program undermines the public's trust."
The report suggests Mr. Ferguson effectively stumbled on the TIF donations matter and that he had a hard time getting city employees to detail exactly how things worked.
The figures as to how many TIF deals, technically known as redevelopment agreements, required payments to After School Matters is only a "best estimate" from the city's law department, the report says.
Detailed data were not kept by the city, nor were any rules or standards established as to which groups should get the money, the report says.
The recipients — including such prominent firms as the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., LaSalle Street Capital Inc; a building in which bank ABN Amro has offices and Central Station Properties LLC — also were kept in the dark, the reports states.
In interviews with nine recipients, all but one said, "The city unilaterally chose" After School Matters as the agency to which the recipient had to make a cash donation. The recipients generally found out "during later stages of the (TIF) negotiation process."
In the ninth case, the corporation thatreceived TIF aid was headed by a former mayoral deputy chief of staff. But even in that case, the TIF contract with the city specified that TIF aid would be reduced dollar for dollar for any shortfall in required charitable donations.
One other private group actually received more money via the public-benefits clause, but only because of a $1.25-million payment to the Leland Apartments Development in one TIF project.
The city also required some TIF recipients to agree to spend money on city projects.
Mr. Ferguson's report comes at delicate time for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has vowed to reform but continue the TIF program.
Other groups want to tap hundreds of millions of dollars being held in reserve for TIF projects and instead use it to shore up the city budget and keep city employees from being laid off.
* * * 2 p.m. update -- Still no response from either the Daleys or After School Matters. I'm told a statement from the latter is coming, sometime today.
* * * 4:10 p.m. update -- After School Matters finally is out with a response.
In a statement, the schools group terms "flat-out false" any "impression" that TIF recipients "had to agree to donate to After School Matters." The organization termed that "an insult to the work that former first lady and After School Matters Chair Maggie continues to do."
The statement notes that "only" 16 of 73 TIF deals over the past 25 years directly benefitted After School Matters, and says the group has helped more than 200,000 school kids since 2003.
Neither the former mayor nor his wife will be available for questions, says the statement, which was issued by Jasculca Terman & Associates, a public relations firm.
Is CBS News Silencing Fast and Furious Reporter?
3:23 PM, Oct 5, 2011 • By MARK HEMINGWAY
Yesterday, CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson told radio show host Laura Ingraham that the White House yelled and swore at her over her reporting on the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal tied to the deaths of two U.S. law enforcement agents. Attkisson also revealed that she'd also been yelled at by the Justice Department.
Today, I called CBS News in an attempt to interview Attkisson. I was told by CBS News senior vice president of communications Sonya McNair that Attkisson would be unavailable for interviews all week. When I asked why Attkisson would be unavailable, McNair would not say.
I've also heard from a producer at another media outlet that has previously booked Attkisson that they tried to book her since she made news with the Laura Ingraham interview yesterday. They were also told that she would be unavailable.
After our initial conversation earlier today, I called McNair back and left a message with her office. I also sent McNair an email asking whether Attkisson's unavailability has anything to do with reporting that the White House and Justice Department were angry at her. I further asked McNair if the White House or Justice Department contacted CBS News about Attkisson since yesterday. McNair has not responded to my inquiries.
Recall what Attkisson told Ingraham yesterday:
[The White House and Justice Department] will tell you that I'm the only reporter--as they told me--that is not reasonable. They say the Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, I'm the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I'm unfair and biased by pursuing it.
That's significant, because CBS News, and Attkisson in particular, has done more reporting to advance the Fast and Furious scandal than arguably any other media outlet.
Yesterday, CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson told radio show host Laura Ingraham that the White House yelled and swore at her over her reporting on the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal tied to the deaths of two U.S. law enforcement agents. Attkisson also revealed that she'd also been yelled at by the Justice Department.
Today, I called CBS News in an attempt to interview Attkisson. I was told by CBS News senior vice president of communications Sonya McNair that Attkisson would be unavailable for interviews all week. When I asked why Attkisson would be unavailable, McNair would not say.
I've also heard from a producer at another media outlet that has previously booked Attkisson that they tried to book her since she made news with the Laura Ingraham interview yesterday. They were also told that she would be unavailable.
After our initial conversation earlier today, I called McNair back and left a message with her office. I also sent McNair an email asking whether Attkisson's unavailability has anything to do with reporting that the White House and Justice Department were angry at her. I further asked McNair if the White House or Justice Department contacted CBS News about Attkisson since yesterday. McNair has not responded to my inquiries.
Recall what Attkisson told Ingraham yesterday:
[The White House and Justice Department] will tell you that I'm the only reporter--as they told me--that is not reasonable. They say the Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, I'm the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I'm unfair and biased by pursuing it.
That's significant, because CBS News, and Attkisson in particular, has done more reporting to advance the Fast and Furious scandal than arguably any other media outlet.
Westboro Church Announces Protest of Steve Jobs' Funeral
The fringe crazies at Westboro Church are going to protest Steve Jobs’ funeral for…well, for reasons I can’t possibly explain. As best I can tell, they believe this titan of capitalism should have done more to support their particular religious views. I don’t know. But, their tweet is delicious…
Well.
If you think Steve Jobs’ funeral is worthy of protest (!), shouldn’t you maybe not want to use his one of his products to announce it. I mean, according to them, he gave God no glory and taught sin. (!) And yet, they will use his greatest innovation to spread the word of their protest. Couldn’t they find a Droid phone for this?
Write your own joke in the comments.
Well.
If you think Steve Jobs’ funeral is worthy of protest (!), shouldn’t you maybe not want to use his one of his products to announce it. I mean, according to them, he gave God no glory and taught sin. (!) And yet, they will use his greatest innovation to spread the word of their protest. Couldn’t they find a Droid phone for this?
Write your own joke in the comments.
Obama Has Now Increased Debt More than All Presidents from George Washington Through George H.W. Bush Combined
By Terence P. Jeffrey
October 5, 2011
(CNSNews.com) - The Obama administration passed another fiscal milestone this week, according to new data released by the Treasury Department. As of the close of business on Oct. 3, the total national debt was $14,837,099,271,196.71—up about $44.8 billion from Sept. 30.
That means that in the less-than-three-years Obama has been in office, the federal debt has increased by $4.212 trillion--more than the total national debt of about $4.1672 trillion accumulated by all 41 U.S. presidents from George Washington through George H.W. Bush combined.
This $4.212-trillion increase in the national debt means that during Obama’s term the federal government has already borrowed about an additional $35,835 for every American household--or $44,980 for every full-time private-sector worker. (According to the Census Bureau there were about 117,538,000 households in the country in 2010, and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were about 93,641,000 full-time private-sector workers.)
When Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, according to the Treasury Department, the total national debt stood at $10,626,877,048,913.08.
At the end of January 1993, the month that President George H. W. Bush left office, the total national debt was $4.1672 trillion, according to the Treasury. Thus, the total national debt accumulated by the first 41 presidents combined was about $44.8 billion less than the approximately $4.212 trillion in new debt added during Obama’s term.
As of Monday, Obama had been in office 986 days—or about 32 and a half months. During that time, the debt increased at an average pace of $4.27 billion per day. Were that rate to continue until Obama’s term ends on Jan. 20, 2013, the debt would then stand at about $16.86534 trillion—an increase of more than $6.2 trillion for Obama’s four years.
That would equal nearly $53,000 for each American household or more than $66,00 for each full-time private-sector worker.
That total national debt did not exceed $6.2 trillion until 2002, when George W. Bush was president.
October 5, 2011
(CNSNews.com) - The Obama administration passed another fiscal milestone this week, according to new data released by the Treasury Department. As of the close of business on Oct. 3, the total national debt was $14,837,099,271,196.71—up about $44.8 billion from Sept. 30.
That means that in the less-than-three-years Obama has been in office, the federal debt has increased by $4.212 trillion--more than the total national debt of about $4.1672 trillion accumulated by all 41 U.S. presidents from George Washington through George H.W. Bush combined.
This $4.212-trillion increase in the national debt means that during Obama’s term the federal government has already borrowed about an additional $35,835 for every American household--or $44,980 for every full-time private-sector worker. (According to the Census Bureau there were about 117,538,000 households in the country in 2010, and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were about 93,641,000 full-time private-sector workers.)
When Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, according to the Treasury Department, the total national debt stood at $10,626,877,048,913.08.
At the end of January 1993, the month that President George H. W. Bush left office, the total national debt was $4.1672 trillion, according to the Treasury. Thus, the total national debt accumulated by the first 41 presidents combined was about $44.8 billion less than the approximately $4.212 trillion in new debt added during Obama’s term.
As of Monday, Obama had been in office 986 days—or about 32 and a half months. During that time, the debt increased at an average pace of $4.27 billion per day. Were that rate to continue until Obama’s term ends on Jan. 20, 2013, the debt would then stand at about $16.86534 trillion—an increase of more than $6.2 trillion for Obama’s four years.
That would equal nearly $53,000 for each American household or more than $66,00 for each full-time private-sector worker.
That total national debt did not exceed $6.2 trillion until 2002, when George W. Bush was president.
ACORN Behind Occupy Wall Street Protest
Last Updated: Wed, 10/05/2011 - 3:06pm
A famously corrupt leftist community organization with deep ties to President Barack Obama is largely behind the national movement to “end economic segregation” and social injustice in the United States.
Best known as Occupy Wall Street, the rowdy protests have received quite a bit of mainstream media coverage around the world. Besides New York, disruptive marches have been held in other major U.S. cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami and Boston and more are scheduled in the coming days.
Among the goals is to get major banks to stop preying on the poor and people of color, according to the organizer of a Boston offshoot of an Occupy Wall Street rally. The event, promoted as Take Back Boston, was organized by dozens of local community groups that claim big banks have a pattern of pushing “bad loans on people of color and the poor.” As a result of the “predatory lending,” foreclosures have skyrocketed in urban communities, the organizers say.
Among the Take Back Boston organizers is a spinoff of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Amid a massive fraud scandal and a series of criminal probes, ACORN supposedly dismantled but the reality is that it simply changed its name. In fact, Judicial Watch recently published a special report (“The Rebranding of ACORN”) about the organization’s transformation into various spinoffs and affiliated groups.
In this particular case, ACORN’s Boston office simply rebranded into New England United 4 Justice. Same crooked group with the same general mission and president, but a different name. Headed by Maude Hurd, the former president of ACORN and ACORN Housing, New England United 4 Justice promotes “social justice” for “low and moderate income families.” The group also seeks to educate the general public about social justice issues and the needs of poor and middle class families.
This sort of rebranding has allowed ACORN to skirt a 2009 congressional ban on federal funding, consequence of its many transgressions. A few months ago a Judicial Watch investigation found the Obama Administration gave an ACORN reincarnation called Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) a $79,819 grant to “combat housing and lending discrimination.”
A famously corrupt leftist community organization with deep ties to President Barack Obama is largely behind the national movement to “end economic segregation” and social injustice in the United States.
Best known as Occupy Wall Street, the rowdy protests have received quite a bit of mainstream media coverage around the world. Besides New York, disruptive marches have been held in other major U.S. cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami and Boston and more are scheduled in the coming days.
Among the goals is to get major banks to stop preying on the poor and people of color, according to the organizer of a Boston offshoot of an Occupy Wall Street rally. The event, promoted as Take Back Boston, was organized by dozens of local community groups that claim big banks have a pattern of pushing “bad loans on people of color and the poor.” As a result of the “predatory lending,” foreclosures have skyrocketed in urban communities, the organizers say.
Among the Take Back Boston organizers is a spinoff of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Amid a massive fraud scandal and a series of criminal probes, ACORN supposedly dismantled but the reality is that it simply changed its name. In fact, Judicial Watch recently published a special report (“The Rebranding of ACORN”) about the organization’s transformation into various spinoffs and affiliated groups.
In this particular case, ACORN’s Boston office simply rebranded into New England United 4 Justice. Same crooked group with the same general mission and president, but a different name. Headed by Maude Hurd, the former president of ACORN and ACORN Housing, New England United 4 Justice promotes “social justice” for “low and moderate income families.” The group also seeks to educate the general public about social justice issues and the needs of poor and middle class families.
This sort of rebranding has allowed ACORN to skirt a 2009 congressional ban on federal funding, consequence of its many transgressions. A few months ago a Judicial Watch investigation found the Obama Administration gave an ACORN reincarnation called Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) a $79,819 grant to “combat housing and lending discrimination.”
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Chris Matthews is Right- Maybe Its Time for Conservatives To Fess Up And Admit The Bad Things We're Going to Do
While speaking during his Hardball show earlier this week, Mr. Tinkle Down his legs, Chris Matthews waxed poetic about how wonderful the universe would be if only Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012. Well almost, what he really said was how lousy things he would be if a Republican were elected. He warned.
"Tea Partiers and neocons...celebrating the death penalty, elevating torture, ending environmental protection as we know it, breaking unions, punishing gays, starting more wars, and enacting one more giant tax cut for the rich – or worse"
Maybe Matthews has a point. While the list of horrors he mentioned are close to our agenda, Matthews is a bit off on every item he listed, but he has spurred me into thinking maybe its time for the tea partying neo-cons like me to admit what we really have in store for this country should our people get elected in 2012. Since no one else is willing to do it...I guess it will be up to me to let the world know. Below is the secret Tea Partiers list of what we will get done in the first year after we take over, its very close to what Mr. Tinkle said above.
The Death Penalty- Matthews is wrong, Conservatives celebrate life and those who believe in a death penalty feel it is a necessary evil. That being said, we plan to add two crimes to the Capital Punishment list.
--Wearing too much perfume. You know those people who always plop down next to you on a train or bus, mostly women, who smell like they basted themselves is "aire de cheapo perfume?" Sorry ladies, but that is a crime against humanity.
--Cell phone abusers. You are on the 6 am train into Manhattan catching a precious few extra moments of sleep, when suddenly two rows in front of you a guy rouses you out of your slumber by talking loudly into his cell phone about his "conquest" the night before. Under a GOP/Tea Party administration, US DHS Agents will be on each and every bus and train car with orders to shoot and kill the loud public phone talker.
Elevating torture. Again Matthews has the right idea but not in the way he thinks. We will not be torturing any al Qaeda terrorists, but we will be torturing people who's time has long passed, just to convince them to "go away." I am speaking about people like Al Gore and Meghan McCain to name a few. Also earning torture will be anybody who creates horrible nightmares, I am talking about the mental images that cause people to scream in their sleep forever. This law is not meant to discourage film makers who create horror films. We are talking about the real horror makers, people like Nancy Grace having a wardrobe malfunction on live TV, or 967-year-old Hugh Hefner talking about his sex life with 22-year-old playmates.
Punishing Gays. OK, Matthew has us there, once the Tea Party-NeoCons take over we will be punishing Gays. We will also be punishing African-Americans, Latinos, Jews, women, Muslims, redheads, other conservatives and anybody else who breaks the law. We wont be punishing groups but individuals and unlike the progressives we will treat everyone equally, without political correctness or regards to their race, religion, hair color and/or what kind of pre-sweetened cereal they had for breakfast.
Breaking Unions. There is one rule that the Neo-Tea Party types have which Mr. Matthews must be unaware of, "you break it, you fix it." No one wants to break anything. In fact it is because of this rule that we do not support Barack Obama for re-election, he broke the economy and instead of trying to fix it, he wants to keep breaking it.
Starting More Wars. Mr. Tinkle must have read this one wrong. The Neo-teas do not want to start wars, we want any President to get congressional approval before he starts any wars. Just like President Bush did before Afghanistan and Iraq, just as President Obama didn't before Libya.
Tax Cuts For The Rich. Yep we can own up to that one also. Those nasty conservatives do want tax cuts for the rich, they also want tax cuts for the middle class, and anybody else who fits into the 53% of Americans who pay income taxes. I will let you in on a little secret that you cannot tell people where you heard it. Those Tea Party Neo-cons believe that the tax monies paid into the government is really the tax payers money so the government should be using less of it and returning as much as possible to its original owners.
And Even Worse... Here's is something that even Chris Matthews doesn't know. There is a Tea Party plan to force Crayola Crayons to get rid of some of their crayon colors because the names sound too subversive. Among those slotted for elimination are:
-Atomic Tangerine (sounds too terroristy)
-Beaver (no sexual references)
-Cotton Candy (this recommendation came from Michelle Obama)
-Magic Mint (too druggy)
-Piggy Pink (sounds too much like Congressional earmarks)
-Tickle Me Pink (sounds too much like former Congressman Massa)
There you have it, the real agenda of the Neo-Cons and Tea Party movement. And to think if Chris Matthews didn't push the point, we never would have fessed up. No, we probably would have been hanging out looking for ways to live on the public dole, take other people's money, while looking for others to place blame. You know....just like progressives.
"Tea Partiers and neocons...celebrating the death penalty, elevating torture, ending environmental protection as we know it, breaking unions, punishing gays, starting more wars, and enacting one more giant tax cut for the rich – or worse"
Maybe Matthews has a point. While the list of horrors he mentioned are close to our agenda, Matthews is a bit off on every item he listed, but he has spurred me into thinking maybe its time for the tea partying neo-cons like me to admit what we really have in store for this country should our people get elected in 2012. Since no one else is willing to do it...I guess it will be up to me to let the world know. Below is the secret Tea Partiers list of what we will get done in the first year after we take over, its very close to what Mr. Tinkle said above.
The Death Penalty- Matthews is wrong, Conservatives celebrate life and those who believe in a death penalty feel it is a necessary evil. That being said, we plan to add two crimes to the Capital Punishment list.
--Wearing too much perfume. You know those people who always plop down next to you on a train or bus, mostly women, who smell like they basted themselves is "aire de cheapo perfume?" Sorry ladies, but that is a crime against humanity.
--Cell phone abusers. You are on the 6 am train into Manhattan catching a precious few extra moments of sleep, when suddenly two rows in front of you a guy rouses you out of your slumber by talking loudly into his cell phone about his "conquest" the night before. Under a GOP/Tea Party administration, US DHS Agents will be on each and every bus and train car with orders to shoot and kill the loud public phone talker.
Elevating torture. Again Matthews has the right idea but not in the way he thinks. We will not be torturing any al Qaeda terrorists, but we will be torturing people who's time has long passed, just to convince them to "go away." I am speaking about people like Al Gore and Meghan McCain to name a few. Also earning torture will be anybody who creates horrible nightmares, I am talking about the mental images that cause people to scream in their sleep forever. This law is not meant to discourage film makers who create horror films. We are talking about the real horror makers, people like Nancy Grace having a wardrobe malfunction on live TV, or 967-year-old Hugh Hefner talking about his sex life with 22-year-old playmates.
Punishing Gays. OK, Matthew has us there, once the Tea Party-NeoCons take over we will be punishing Gays. We will also be punishing African-Americans, Latinos, Jews, women, Muslims, redheads, other conservatives and anybody else who breaks the law. We wont be punishing groups but individuals and unlike the progressives we will treat everyone equally, without political correctness or regards to their race, religion, hair color and/or what kind of pre-sweetened cereal they had for breakfast.
Breaking Unions. There is one rule that the Neo-Tea Party types have which Mr. Matthews must be unaware of, "you break it, you fix it." No one wants to break anything. In fact it is because of this rule that we do not support Barack Obama for re-election, he broke the economy and instead of trying to fix it, he wants to keep breaking it.
Starting More Wars. Mr. Tinkle must have read this one wrong. The Neo-teas do not want to start wars, we want any President to get congressional approval before he starts any wars. Just like President Bush did before Afghanistan and Iraq, just as President Obama didn't before Libya.
Tax Cuts For The Rich. Yep we can own up to that one also. Those nasty conservatives do want tax cuts for the rich, they also want tax cuts for the middle class, and anybody else who fits into the 53% of Americans who pay income taxes. I will let you in on a little secret that you cannot tell people where you heard it. Those Tea Party Neo-cons believe that the tax monies paid into the government is really the tax payers money so the government should be using less of it and returning as much as possible to its original owners.
And Even Worse... Here's is something that even Chris Matthews doesn't know. There is a Tea Party plan to force Crayola Crayons to get rid of some of their crayon colors because the names sound too subversive. Among those slotted for elimination are:
-Atomic Tangerine (sounds too terroristy)
-Beaver (no sexual references)
-Cotton Candy (this recommendation came from Michelle Obama)
-Magic Mint (too druggy)
-Piggy Pink (sounds too much like Congressional earmarks)
-Tickle Me Pink (sounds too much like former Congressman Massa)
There you have it, the real agenda of the Neo-Cons and Tea Party movement. And to think if Chris Matthews didn't push the point, we never would have fessed up. No, we probably would have been hanging out looking for ways to live on the public dole, take other people's money, while looking for others to place blame. You know....just like progressives.
Obama waives penalties on countries that employ child soldiers – again!
Posted By Josh Rogin Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - 6:46 PM
President Barack Obama has decided to waive almost all the legally mandated penalties for countries that use child soldiers and provide those countries U.S. military assistance, just like he did last year.
The White House is expected to soon announce its decision to issue a series of waivers for the Child Soldiers Protection Act, a 2008 law that is meant to stop the United States from giving military aid to countries that recruit soldiers under the age of 15 and use them to fight wars. The administration has laid out a range of justifications for waiving penalties on Yemen, South Sudan, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all of which amount to a gutting of the law for the second year in a row.
Last year, the White House didn't even tell Congress or the NGO community when it decided to do away with the Child Soldiers Prevention Act penalties. Most had to read about it first on The Cable. Aid workers, human rights activists, and even congressional offices were shocked that the administration had gutted the law without consulting them.
The White House argued at the time that because the law was new, the offending countries didn't have time to comply. As part of their damage control effort, they put National Security Council Senior Director Samantha Power on a private conference call with NGO workers (that we eavesdropped on) to explain that these waivers would only be for one year -- but that in the second year, the administration was going to enforce the law in full.
"Our judgment was to brand them, name them, shame them, and then try to leverage assistance in a fashion to make this work," Power said at the time. "Our judgment is we'll work from inside the tent."
Apparently that plan was scuttled, because the administration has decided to waive almost all the penalties again, despite the fact that little progress has been made in any of the offender countries.
In a meeting with NGO representatives on Tuesday afternoon at the White House, State Department officials, led by Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Dan Baer, explained this year's reasons why the White House will continue to give military funding to countries that use child soldiers.
For South Sudan, State Department officials argued that since the country didn't exist when the latest report on child soldier abuse came out, that country doesn't fall under the law. Their reasoning is that the report in question, known as the 2011 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, came out June 27. South Sudan was declared independent 12 days later on July 9. They will receive $100 million in U.S. military aid this year.
"South Sudan may be a new country, but it's not a blank slate here," one attendee at the White House meeting told The Cable. "There's been two decades of child soldier use and unfulfilled promises by the [Sudan People's Liberation Army]."
For Yemen, the administration's argument is simply that counterterrorism cooperation with that country is too important to suspend. Yemen is set to receive $35 million from the United States in foreign military financing. What stunned activists in the room, however, was State Department officials' admission that they don't know who actually controls the Yemeni military these days.
"The officials said, ‘We don't even know day by day who we're even talking to,'" one attendee reported.
For the Democratic Republic of Congo, the administration issued a partial waiver, allowing military training but withholding about $1.3 million in foreign military financing. But while this may seem like a compromise, that military financing was also prohibited by another law, the Trafficking Victims Prevention Act.
Regarding Chad, the administration is arguing the country has made sufficient progress on eliminating child soldiers because they signed a U.N. action plan. Activists at the meeting were skeptical that the plan constituted an attempt by Chad to address the issue head on.
Somalia and Burma are also covered by the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, but neither received direct military assistance from the United States, so waivers for those countries were not required.
To the human rights community, today's action by the White House represents both an abandonment of efforts to protect children, and a betrayal of the NGO community, which had been promised that this year would be different from last year.
"The White House said last year that they were putting these countries on notice but now it's a year later and the U.S. is still handing over taxpayer money to countries that use child soldiers with no strings attached," said Jo Becker, advocacy director for the children's rights division at Human Rights Watch.
"President Obama's decision today to provide taxpayer funded military assistance to countries that use children as soldiers is an assault on human dignity," said Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), vice chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights. "Good citizens of this country who do not want to be complicit in this grave human rights abuse must challenge this administration."
"Our law states that America does not fund the use of child soldiers," he said. "Any exceptions must be temporary and intended to help stop this pernicious practice."
The White House's justification memo can be found here.
The White House and State Department did not respond to requests for comment.
President Barack Obama has decided to waive almost all the legally mandated penalties for countries that use child soldiers and provide those countries U.S. military assistance, just like he did last year.
The White House is expected to soon announce its decision to issue a series of waivers for the Child Soldiers Protection Act, a 2008 law that is meant to stop the United States from giving military aid to countries that recruit soldiers under the age of 15 and use them to fight wars. The administration has laid out a range of justifications for waiving penalties on Yemen, South Sudan, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all of which amount to a gutting of the law for the second year in a row.
Last year, the White House didn't even tell Congress or the NGO community when it decided to do away with the Child Soldiers Prevention Act penalties. Most had to read about it first on The Cable. Aid workers, human rights activists, and even congressional offices were shocked that the administration had gutted the law without consulting them.
The White House argued at the time that because the law was new, the offending countries didn't have time to comply. As part of their damage control effort, they put National Security Council Senior Director Samantha Power on a private conference call with NGO workers (that we eavesdropped on) to explain that these waivers would only be for one year -- but that in the second year, the administration was going to enforce the law in full.
"Our judgment was to brand them, name them, shame them, and then try to leverage assistance in a fashion to make this work," Power said at the time. "Our judgment is we'll work from inside the tent."
Apparently that plan was scuttled, because the administration has decided to waive almost all the penalties again, despite the fact that little progress has been made in any of the offender countries.
In a meeting with NGO representatives on Tuesday afternoon at the White House, State Department officials, led by Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Dan Baer, explained this year's reasons why the White House will continue to give military funding to countries that use child soldiers.
For South Sudan, State Department officials argued that since the country didn't exist when the latest report on child soldier abuse came out, that country doesn't fall under the law. Their reasoning is that the report in question, known as the 2011 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, came out June 27. South Sudan was declared independent 12 days later on July 9. They will receive $100 million in U.S. military aid this year.
"South Sudan may be a new country, but it's not a blank slate here," one attendee at the White House meeting told The Cable. "There's been two decades of child soldier use and unfulfilled promises by the [Sudan People's Liberation Army]."
For Yemen, the administration's argument is simply that counterterrorism cooperation with that country is too important to suspend. Yemen is set to receive $35 million from the United States in foreign military financing. What stunned activists in the room, however, was State Department officials' admission that they don't know who actually controls the Yemeni military these days.
"The officials said, ‘We don't even know day by day who we're even talking to,'" one attendee reported.
For the Democratic Republic of Congo, the administration issued a partial waiver, allowing military training but withholding about $1.3 million in foreign military financing. But while this may seem like a compromise, that military financing was also prohibited by another law, the Trafficking Victims Prevention Act.
Regarding Chad, the administration is arguing the country has made sufficient progress on eliminating child soldiers because they signed a U.N. action plan. Activists at the meeting were skeptical that the plan constituted an attempt by Chad to address the issue head on.
Somalia and Burma are also covered by the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, but neither received direct military assistance from the United States, so waivers for those countries were not required.
To the human rights community, today's action by the White House represents both an abandonment of efforts to protect children, and a betrayal of the NGO community, which had been promised that this year would be different from last year.
"The White House said last year that they were putting these countries on notice but now it's a year later and the U.S. is still handing over taxpayer money to countries that use child soldiers with no strings attached," said Jo Becker, advocacy director for the children's rights division at Human Rights Watch.
"President Obama's decision today to provide taxpayer funded military assistance to countries that use children as soldiers is an assault on human dignity," said Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), vice chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights. "Good citizens of this country who do not want to be complicit in this grave human rights abuse must challenge this administration."
"Our law states that America does not fund the use of child soldiers," he said. "Any exceptions must be temporary and intended to help stop this pernicious practice."
The White House's justification memo can be found here.
The White House and State Department did not respond to requests for comment.
Radical Islamic Website Asks: ‘Is the Assassination of Obama Legal?
Posted on October 4, 2011 at 11:03pm
by Tiffany Gabbay
“Muslims Against Crusades” (MAC) — a radical Islamic website that vows to “expose the enemies of Islam” — featured a front page article on Monday titled “Is the Assassination of President Obama Legal?”
The article’s closing paragraphs pose that very question to “the West,” asking if the president’s death would be “justified” given his “horrific track record against Islam and Muslims.”
The author then references the year then-President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by asking how many people would want to carry out the “horrors of 1963” all over again:
What we mean by this is, if the President of America were to be caught off-guard in Washington or St Louis, would his death be justified given his new criteria in light of his horrific track record against Islam and Muslims and his own confessions?
If the answer is no, then we ask, why not? And if the answer is, yes, then we ask how many people would be likely to want to repeat the horrors of 1963 against this very evil man?
MAC, a British, radical Islamic group that believes its adherents are not “obliged to obey the law of the land in whatever country they reside,” was founded in 2010 by Abu Assadullah. Notorious cleric Anjem Choudary, who once called for the execution of the Pope, is also associated with MAC.
You might also recall Choudary when his Islam4UK — another pro-Jihadist group that is also on the U.K’s terror watch list – protested Dutch MP Geert Wilders’ visit to the U.K.. Protesters carryed banners that reportedly read: ”Shariah is the solution, freedom go to hell“ and ”Geert Wilders deserves Islamic punishment”
In 2011, MAC proposed that Muslims set up independent emirates across the U.K. and that each emirate operate under Sharia law exclusively.
Now, MAC’s latest “crusade” appears to be against President Obama.
The article, which threatens that Obama is “treading on very thin ice” accuses the president of murdering two of Islam’s most influential men — Osama bin Laden and radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The author dubs Obama a “very evil man” who justifies “murder, rape and torture.”
In fact, the image for the article features Obama with a red target on his forehead, blood spatter behind him, against the backdrop of bin Laden and al-Awlaki’s faces.
This, combined with what the author asserts are the Obama administration’s “cowardly drone strikes” has “shattered any hope of reconciliation” between Islamists and the United States.
The article, in its entirety, can be read below:
President Barack Obama is treading on very thin ice. In the space of less than half a year he has proceeded to murder what are probably two of the most influential Muslim men in modern day history: Sheikh Usamah bin Laden (rh) and the US citizen Sheikh Anwar al Awlaki (rh).
His brazen attacks and cowardly drone strikes have shattered any hope of reconciliation, for he has made it clear: America is out to shoot and kill and is taking no prisoners. No negotiations, no rule of law, no due process – nothing.
Human rights and justice have lost all relevance in Obama’s war, as assassination takes over as his preferred weapon of choice. He has managed to convince the whole world that he is right, that murder, rape and torture can be justified as long as you can be labelled as the enemy. Are his actions to be taken as an example for other US citizens to imitate?In light of this we would like to introduce a new question into the psyche of the West by asking: “Is the assassination of President Barack Obama now legal?” What we mean by this is, if the President of America were to be caught off-guard in Washington or St Louis, would his death be justified given his new criteria in light of his horrific track record against Islam and Muslims and his own confessions?
If the answer is no, then we ask, why not? And if the answer is, yes, then we ask how many people would be likely to want to repeat the horrors of 1963 against this very evil man?
Readers are then presented with two U.K.-based phone numbers for media and general enquiries. The rest of the MAC website features information on Islam — including the topics of jihad, sharia law — in addition to other anti-West messages such as, “breaking the foundations of Western civilizations.”
It goes without saying that “Muslims Against Crusades” is probably on just about every intel-community watch-list in the Western world.
by Tiffany Gabbay
“Muslims Against Crusades” (MAC) — a radical Islamic website that vows to “expose the enemies of Islam” — featured a front page article on Monday titled “Is the Assassination of President Obama Legal?”
The article’s closing paragraphs pose that very question to “the West,” asking if the president’s death would be “justified” given his “horrific track record against Islam and Muslims.”
The author then references the year then-President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by asking how many people would want to carry out the “horrors of 1963” all over again:
What we mean by this is, if the President of America were to be caught off-guard in Washington or St Louis, would his death be justified given his new criteria in light of his horrific track record against Islam and Muslims and his own confessions?
If the answer is no, then we ask, why not? And if the answer is, yes, then we ask how many people would be likely to want to repeat the horrors of 1963 against this very evil man?
MAC, a British, radical Islamic group that believes its adherents are not “obliged to obey the law of the land in whatever country they reside,” was founded in 2010 by Abu Assadullah. Notorious cleric Anjem Choudary, who once called for the execution of the Pope, is also associated with MAC.
You might also recall Choudary when his Islam4UK — another pro-Jihadist group that is also on the U.K’s terror watch list – protested Dutch MP Geert Wilders’ visit to the U.K.. Protesters carryed banners that reportedly read: ”Shariah is the solution, freedom go to hell“ and ”Geert Wilders deserves Islamic punishment”
In 2011, MAC proposed that Muslims set up independent emirates across the U.K. and that each emirate operate under Sharia law exclusively.
Now, MAC’s latest “crusade” appears to be against President Obama.
The article, which threatens that Obama is “treading on very thin ice” accuses the president of murdering two of Islam’s most influential men — Osama bin Laden and radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The author dubs Obama a “very evil man” who justifies “murder, rape and torture.”
In fact, the image for the article features Obama with a red target on his forehead, blood spatter behind him, against the backdrop of bin Laden and al-Awlaki’s faces.
This, combined with what the author asserts are the Obama administration’s “cowardly drone strikes” has “shattered any hope of reconciliation” between Islamists and the United States.
The article, in its entirety, can be read below:
President Barack Obama is treading on very thin ice. In the space of less than half a year he has proceeded to murder what are probably two of the most influential Muslim men in modern day history: Sheikh Usamah bin Laden (rh) and the US citizen Sheikh Anwar al Awlaki (rh).
His brazen attacks and cowardly drone strikes have shattered any hope of reconciliation, for he has made it clear: America is out to shoot and kill and is taking no prisoners. No negotiations, no rule of law, no due process – nothing.
Human rights and justice have lost all relevance in Obama’s war, as assassination takes over as his preferred weapon of choice. He has managed to convince the whole world that he is right, that murder, rape and torture can be justified as long as you can be labelled as the enemy. Are his actions to be taken as an example for other US citizens to imitate?In light of this we would like to introduce a new question into the psyche of the West by asking: “Is the assassination of President Barack Obama now legal?” What we mean by this is, if the President of America were to be caught off-guard in Washington or St Louis, would his death be justified given his new criteria in light of his horrific track record against Islam and Muslims and his own confessions?
If the answer is no, then we ask, why not? And if the answer is, yes, then we ask how many people would be likely to want to repeat the horrors of 1963 against this very evil man?
Readers are then presented with two U.K.-based phone numbers for media and general enquiries. The rest of the MAC website features information on Islam — including the topics of jihad, sharia law — in addition to other anti-West messages such as, “breaking the foundations of Western civilizations.”
It goes without saying that “Muslims Against Crusades” is probably on just about every intel-community watch-list in the Western world.
The Power of Weakness
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Weakness is one of the greatest forms of power imaginable in the modern West. Weakness grants irresponsibility for personal actions and more importantly in a collectivist society, it provides freedom from for the collective burdens of society and civilization.
The weak are not responsible for their actions. They can rob, kill and rape, and still be excused for it . They can blow up buildings, behead prisoners and get sympathetic nods. Because they had no choice.
Weakness is helplessness, it implies irresponsibility because the weak are not capable of making their own choices. Their choices have been made for them by the "Man", the "Patriarchy", the "Privileged" and the "Military-Industrial Complex"-- all different names for the defined power structure and the people who are responsible for it.
Since the choices have been made for them, they have no choice but to lash out. When they kill, it is not an action, but a reaction.
To the people being raped or murdered by them, the ones jumping from buildings and coming to claim the pieces of their children at the morgue afterward, they do not appear to be helpless at all. But that is only because the people being raped and murdered, and waiting to identify a small can of their child's remains are privileged. So privileged that they don't know how responsible they are for the state of affairs which caused them to be raped or murdered. Which caused their children to end up in coffee cans.
Even when they are being raped or waiting to die, they are still the strong and the responsible, and their rapists and murderers are the downtrodden and dispossessed. The weak who are so helpless that they cannot help but seek their source of strength through violence against their oppressors. And if those oppressors happen to be women and children-- well then as the left has said from France to Russia to New York to Israel- "Power to the People". The "People" being the ones doing the killing. The oppressors being the ones doing the dying.
Weakness does not always translate into such extremity. What it translates into is irresponsibility for the collective burden of guilt that the left hangs around the head of every society. The responsibility for the poverty, the bigotry and all the inequities that are said to spring from it.
There are no more personal failures, whether economic or marital or ethical, only collective ones-- and the strong are responsible for their own failures and for everyone else's, while the weak are not even responsible for their own failures.
On the collective scale, choice is nearly irrelevant. Only people with power have choices. The idea that the man waiting in the alley with a knife has a choice is a heresy because he is not a man with a knife, he is a collection of social statistics which assign him an automatic level of responsibility based on his race, gender, socioeconomic status and all the other variables. Whether or not he stabs someone with a knife, is not up to him, it's up to how society treats him.
Similarly financial troubles are not personal, they are social. Whether you can pay your bills has nothing to do with you, but with your race and class. If you succeed when the statistics say that you should fail, then you are an outlier. A rogue exception that only goes to prove the rule. Likewise if you fail when the statistics say that you should succeed. Individual actions can never disprove the collective snapshot of how society is.
If every person is wired into society like a giant bank of servers, then every individual malfunction is actually a social malfunction. If a man kills, then it's because his connection with society was bad. To understand why it was bad, the left examines the nature of the connection. If it was a privileged connection, then he was warped by his excessive access to the innate racism, sexism, classism and all the other bad "isms" of the society. If it was an underprivileged connection, then he was warped by his lack of access to the benefits that society had to offer him and being marginalized, he went off the reservation.
Since all responsibility ultimately devolves to the society, not to the individual, and since the degree of individual responsibility depends on the degree of his connection with the society-- the less the connection, the less the responsibility. The man driving to work from the suburbs is more responsible for a murder in the ghetto than the actual murderer because he has helped create the conditions that led to the murder.
The "weak" murderer is better than the "strong" murder victim because being outside society, he is not truly responsible for anything. Not for his own actions or for the ozone layer, for toxic waste, illegal wars, unrealistic portrayals by the media and the rest of the litany of guilt that the left recites every day in its ceaseless prosecution of all of society and civilization.
In a society where people are expected to feel responsibility for planetary catastrophes and local inequities alike-- weakness is the greatest form of freedom.
Weakness is moral freedom because it liberates you from responsibility for your own actions and those of society. It is political freedom, because the weak can never say or believe anything that is inherently wrong, only "unhelpful". It is political privilege because politicians are expected to pay more attention to the downtrodden. It is economic privilege because companies are expected to redress social ills by advantaging the oppressed.
This dependent-independence from the system is a paradox as the weak derive maximum benefit from the system, while taking the least responsibility for it. It is the essence of the un-citizen of the nanny state who does not need to care how things are run, so long as they appear to be run for his benefit.
When social weakness is translated globally then it leads to global weakness. The globally weak, like the socially weak, are not responsible for their atrocities and genocides. It is the strong nations that are responsible to them and for them. Even when the weak are ridiculously wealthy and powerful, they are still weak. This is true socially and globally.
The weak can never become strong because they are a permanent constituency for change. To be week is to be in need of a protector, whether it's the nanny state or the united nations. Weakness justifies the illegal exercise of power on behalf of the weak. It justifies the disenfranchisement of citizens in a nation state, the destruction of nation states and the end of all individual rights if that is what it takes to create a just society. And that is what it always takes.
The left justifies its existence and its abuses by its self-depiction as a revolutionary force dedicated to remedying inequities in a permanent cycle of reforms that ends only when it enjoys total control and wields maximum power over every aspect of life under its dominion. Since equality cannot be created through the inequity of power, and since the left's mission is to create power inequities in order to remedy power inequities, its revolutions and reforms justify a permanent totalitarian state.
Social inequity is the permanent emergency that the left uses to justify its totalitarian state and the perpetuation of social inequity is the means which the left uses to maintain a state of permanent emergency. If one form of social inequity diminishes, the left finds another. And another. This endless search leads to a deconstruction of every aspect of society and the destruction of every human system. Human ways of living are replaced with grafted on artificial modes that fail and destroy their users. And the worse the society becomes, the more the state of permanent social emergency is justified.
The left consists of the strong who challenge the strong in the name of the weak, regardless of whether the weak want the challenge or not. By conceptually dividing the strong from the weak, the left disenfranchises the weak, and then disenfranchises the strong in the name of the weak. The end again is tyranny.
The left's remedy to inequity is to convince the majority and minority that they are incapable of exercising their power in a constructive fashion. The minority is told that they are incapable of it because the majority will not allow them the freedom to do it, but will thwart every effort they make at empowering themselves. The majority is told that any exercise of their power is a form of privilege which consciously or unconsciously disenfranchises the minority.
The minority are taught that they are weak. The majority are taught that they are abusive. The weak can escape into irresponsibility, while the strong escape into grandiosity. The weak refuse to take responsibility for anything until they become amoral monsters. The strong take responsibility for everything until they fancy themselves malicious gods who are destroying the earth.
By teaching some they are unnaturally weak and others that they are unnaturally strong, both are left unable to constructively exercise their power. The weak are taught that they can't do anything and therefore they can do everything without consequences. The strong are taught that they are doing everything and therefore should do as little as possible. Both are taught to distrust their use of power and to loathe their use of it.
The weak are taught to kill and still feel helpless. The strong are taught to feel that a single twitch of their finger is disturbing the earth. While the weak are robbed of conscious power, the strong are robbed of unconscious power. The weak treat their weakness as a strength and the strong treat their strength as a weakness. This leads naturally to the welfare state, to the elevation of the unqualified and the extinction of the competent.
Lost in all this is the individual as the pivot of life and the pillar of governments, whose rights justify the society and the state. By diminishing the individual to the level of a cog in a social machine, reducing his ambitions and dreams to irrelevancies amid the socioeconomic statistics that define his life, and eliminating his responsibility for his own actions, rather than those of others, the left destroys the base of every healthy society and the transformative energy that alters social orders.
In its pursuit of equality through tyranny, or tyranny through equality, it neuters the individual as the wielder of creative and economic forces that are actually capable of setting men free.
Weakness is one of the greatest forms of power imaginable in the modern West. Weakness grants irresponsibility for personal actions and more importantly in a collectivist society, it provides freedom from for the collective burdens of society and civilization.
The weak are not responsible for their actions. They can rob, kill and rape, and still be excused for it . They can blow up buildings, behead prisoners and get sympathetic nods. Because they had no choice.
Weakness is helplessness, it implies irresponsibility because the weak are not capable of making their own choices. Their choices have been made for them by the "Man", the "Patriarchy", the "Privileged" and the "Military-Industrial Complex"-- all different names for the defined power structure and the people who are responsible for it.
Since the choices have been made for them, they have no choice but to lash out. When they kill, it is not an action, but a reaction.
To the people being raped or murdered by them, the ones jumping from buildings and coming to claim the pieces of their children at the morgue afterward, they do not appear to be helpless at all. But that is only because the people being raped and murdered, and waiting to identify a small can of their child's remains are privileged. So privileged that they don't know how responsible they are for the state of affairs which caused them to be raped or murdered. Which caused their children to end up in coffee cans.
Even when they are being raped or waiting to die, they are still the strong and the responsible, and their rapists and murderers are the downtrodden and dispossessed. The weak who are so helpless that they cannot help but seek their source of strength through violence against their oppressors. And if those oppressors happen to be women and children-- well then as the left has said from France to Russia to New York to Israel- "Power to the People". The "People" being the ones doing the killing. The oppressors being the ones doing the dying.
Weakness does not always translate into such extremity. What it translates into is irresponsibility for the collective burden of guilt that the left hangs around the head of every society. The responsibility for the poverty, the bigotry and all the inequities that are said to spring from it.
There are no more personal failures, whether economic or marital or ethical, only collective ones-- and the strong are responsible for their own failures and for everyone else's, while the weak are not even responsible for their own failures.
On the collective scale, choice is nearly irrelevant. Only people with power have choices. The idea that the man waiting in the alley with a knife has a choice is a heresy because he is not a man with a knife, he is a collection of social statistics which assign him an automatic level of responsibility based on his race, gender, socioeconomic status and all the other variables. Whether or not he stabs someone with a knife, is not up to him, it's up to how society treats him.
Similarly financial troubles are not personal, they are social. Whether you can pay your bills has nothing to do with you, but with your race and class. If you succeed when the statistics say that you should fail, then you are an outlier. A rogue exception that only goes to prove the rule. Likewise if you fail when the statistics say that you should succeed. Individual actions can never disprove the collective snapshot of how society is.
If every person is wired into society like a giant bank of servers, then every individual malfunction is actually a social malfunction. If a man kills, then it's because his connection with society was bad. To understand why it was bad, the left examines the nature of the connection. If it was a privileged connection, then he was warped by his excessive access to the innate racism, sexism, classism and all the other bad "isms" of the society. If it was an underprivileged connection, then he was warped by his lack of access to the benefits that society had to offer him and being marginalized, he went off the reservation.
Since all responsibility ultimately devolves to the society, not to the individual, and since the degree of individual responsibility depends on the degree of his connection with the society-- the less the connection, the less the responsibility. The man driving to work from the suburbs is more responsible for a murder in the ghetto than the actual murderer because he has helped create the conditions that led to the murder.
The "weak" murderer is better than the "strong" murder victim because being outside society, he is not truly responsible for anything. Not for his own actions or for the ozone layer, for toxic waste, illegal wars, unrealistic portrayals by the media and the rest of the litany of guilt that the left recites every day in its ceaseless prosecution of all of society and civilization.
In a society where people are expected to feel responsibility for planetary catastrophes and local inequities alike-- weakness is the greatest form of freedom.
Weakness is moral freedom because it liberates you from responsibility for your own actions and those of society. It is political freedom, because the weak can never say or believe anything that is inherently wrong, only "unhelpful". It is political privilege because politicians are expected to pay more attention to the downtrodden. It is economic privilege because companies are expected to redress social ills by advantaging the oppressed.
This dependent-independence from the system is a paradox as the weak derive maximum benefit from the system, while taking the least responsibility for it. It is the essence of the un-citizen of the nanny state who does not need to care how things are run, so long as they appear to be run for his benefit.
When social weakness is translated globally then it leads to global weakness. The globally weak, like the socially weak, are not responsible for their atrocities and genocides. It is the strong nations that are responsible to them and for them. Even when the weak are ridiculously wealthy and powerful, they are still weak. This is true socially and globally.
The weak can never become strong because they are a permanent constituency for change. To be week is to be in need of a protector, whether it's the nanny state or the united nations. Weakness justifies the illegal exercise of power on behalf of the weak. It justifies the disenfranchisement of citizens in a nation state, the destruction of nation states and the end of all individual rights if that is what it takes to create a just society. And that is what it always takes.
The left justifies its existence and its abuses by its self-depiction as a revolutionary force dedicated to remedying inequities in a permanent cycle of reforms that ends only when it enjoys total control and wields maximum power over every aspect of life under its dominion. Since equality cannot be created through the inequity of power, and since the left's mission is to create power inequities in order to remedy power inequities, its revolutions and reforms justify a permanent totalitarian state.
Social inequity is the permanent emergency that the left uses to justify its totalitarian state and the perpetuation of social inequity is the means which the left uses to maintain a state of permanent emergency. If one form of social inequity diminishes, the left finds another. And another. This endless search leads to a deconstruction of every aspect of society and the destruction of every human system. Human ways of living are replaced with grafted on artificial modes that fail and destroy their users. And the worse the society becomes, the more the state of permanent social emergency is justified.
The left consists of the strong who challenge the strong in the name of the weak, regardless of whether the weak want the challenge or not. By conceptually dividing the strong from the weak, the left disenfranchises the weak, and then disenfranchises the strong in the name of the weak. The end again is tyranny.
The left's remedy to inequity is to convince the majority and minority that they are incapable of exercising their power in a constructive fashion. The minority is told that they are incapable of it because the majority will not allow them the freedom to do it, but will thwart every effort they make at empowering themselves. The majority is told that any exercise of their power is a form of privilege which consciously or unconsciously disenfranchises the minority.
The minority are taught that they are weak. The majority are taught that they are abusive. The weak can escape into irresponsibility, while the strong escape into grandiosity. The weak refuse to take responsibility for anything until they become amoral monsters. The strong take responsibility for everything until they fancy themselves malicious gods who are destroying the earth.
By teaching some they are unnaturally weak and others that they are unnaturally strong, both are left unable to constructively exercise their power. The weak are taught that they can't do anything and therefore they can do everything without consequences. The strong are taught that they are doing everything and therefore should do as little as possible. Both are taught to distrust their use of power and to loathe their use of it.
The weak are taught to kill and still feel helpless. The strong are taught to feel that a single twitch of their finger is disturbing the earth. While the weak are robbed of conscious power, the strong are robbed of unconscious power. The weak treat their weakness as a strength and the strong treat their strength as a weakness. This leads naturally to the welfare state, to the elevation of the unqualified and the extinction of the competent.
Lost in all this is the individual as the pivot of life and the pillar of governments, whose rights justify the society and the state. By diminishing the individual to the level of a cog in a social machine, reducing his ambitions and dreams to irrelevancies amid the socioeconomic statistics that define his life, and eliminating his responsibility for his own actions, rather than those of others, the left destroys the base of every healthy society and the transformative energy that alters social orders.
In its pursuit of equality through tyranny, or tyranny through equality, it neuters the individual as the wielder of creative and economic forces that are actually capable of setting men free.
Don't Let the Left Pick Our Nominee
October 03, 2011
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: No, we don't have the audio of what Herman Cain said to Christiane Amanpour. I just want to tell you what he said 'cause I got some e-mails, "Why are you getting so exorcised about this?" The reason I'm getting so exorcised about it is -- and I will admit I'm exorcised about it -- is not to criticize Herman Cain. Our guys are gonna have to learn at some point how to deal with these people. We're gonna have to stop going on their shows if we're not gonna know how to deal with them. When you are a Republican presidential candidate, I understand, they call from you ABC, the Sunday show, you go, you don't say no. You better figure out what they're trying to do by having you on.
It's just like I told the Republican freshmen back in 1994. Cokie Roberts is gonna call you, she's gonna bat her eyes at you, but she's ticked off that you're there. The media is not happy that you are gonna be running Congress. Their objective is gonna be to get rid of you. They're never gonna treat you like the winners. Their buddies, their friends are the Democrats. They invite you on these shows and every moment is a "gotcha." And our people are gonna have to learn to figure this out if they're gonna go on these shows. What Herman Cain said, the question about the rock at Perry's family hunting ground that they leased in '83 I think. They started leasing it and the name on the rock identifying this hunting ground, the N-word. And so the Perry family painted over the rock, and then they eventually turned the rock over. It embarrassed 'em. The Washington Post has this story about just the opposite. No sources, no named sources, no evidence whatsoever.
The point of the Washington Post story is that Rick Perry's a racist because he chose a place that was named with the N-word in it to go hunting. Now, how stupid and absurd is the allegation? Here it is 2011 and the media still think that they can convince readers that Republicans are institutional racists. Imagine, Rick Perry and his family went to a place to hunt in Texas in the early eighties, had the N-word in it, and that's why they chose it. Yeah, 'cause they're racists. It's laughable that they think this is 30 years ago, and people are automatically gonna believe this stuff. So Herman Cain said, "My reaction is that it's very insensitive. There are some words that do not basically inspire the kind of negativity like that particular word. I know that you are refraining from saying that word so I'm going to say what the word was on the rock -- the name of the place was called..." I'm not gonna say it. It was the N-word followed by the word "head."
Herman Cain says, "That is very insensitive and since Gov. Perry has been going there for years to hunt, I think it shows a lack of sensitivity for a long time not taking that word off of that rock and renaming the place. It's just basically a case of insensitivity." Well, Perry did. They tried to paint over it; they turned the rock upside down. Perry had taken the name off the rock, or his father had, back in 1983, if not earlier, and Christiane Amanpour knew that since it was in the Washington Post story. Here was the question that she asked to Herman Cain that resulted in the answer I just read you. "And it's been -- it's been painted over. But the report raises questions about whether this rock, this stone, with that word on it, was still on display even quite recently in the last several years. What is your reaction to that?"
Now, I understand Cain wants to beat Perry in the Republican presidential primary, and I understand how he might have interpreted the question as an opportunity to nail Perry. But wasn't it just last week that somebody called Herman Cain some epithet? I forget what it was, but he was called a name along the lines of an Uncle Tom because he's a Republican black. But what was obvious was that Christiane Amanpour was unable to figure out the Washington Post had no evidence whatsoever to make the claim that the name had been on display on that rock over the last several years because no one whatsoever except for a bunch of anonymous sources who the Washington Post claims, by the way, were big Perry supporters who just worried about this hurting him, but nobody will go on record.
Now, the reason for harping on this is that it's time now that every Republican running for the presidency know what they're dealing with when they go on ABC, CBS, or NBC. And it's about time they understand one thing. They are not being invited on these shows to be assisted. They are not being invited on these shows because these shows are interested in them. They're not being invited on these shows because anybody related to this show wants to see them succeed. They're being invited on these shows so that perhaps the media can destroy any and all of the Republican nominees or candidates for the nomination. So I cringe when a Republican candidate falls prey to this.
The correct answer would have been to tell Christiane Amanpour it's a nonstory and can we talk about the loss of jobs in this country and the attack on the private sector. This is a nonstory. The Washington Post has no evidence for it and it's time you people stopped in the media, it's time you stopped with your little template here of trying to tag every one of us racist, sexist, bigoted homophobes. It's called offense. But, folks, I'm telling you our side is still deathly afraid of making those people mad. They're just deathly afraid of it. "Mr. Limbaugh, they're deathly afraid of making you mad, too, it said so right there in the Associated Press." Well, yeah, but that's for good reason. No reason to be afraid of these people. These people in the media are one-third as smart. They're not the wizards of smart, they're not the grand pooh-bahs. They could be easily outrun or outsmarted here.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Who's next? Susie in Pittsburgh, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I'm so excited. You have no idea how long I've been listening to you and I'm one of your biggest fans and I'm just so excited to talk to you. I wanted to talk about the incident at the debate where the soldier was supposedly booed. I don't think that he was booed. I think it was the question that was booed. Being a Pennsylvanian and knowing what Senator Santorum has had to put up with when he was up for reelection for the Senate, I think it might have been too frustrated Pennsylvanian supporters of his in the audience who heard this question and just knew they're just trying to stick it to him once again and were upset about the question aimed at the Senator. And I mean in Pennsylvania he was just constantly pilloried by the left on --
RUSH: Sadly, it worked.
CALLER: Oh, it did. I mean they were just brutal to him, and he's one of the most honest, respectable men, and truly a statesman, and this brings me to a question I have for you, too, is that I've noticed that Senator Santorum and Newt Gingrich have been just so marginalized in these debates, and they're two of the smartest people up there. I mean they have done so much already in the Congress and the Senate --
RUSH: All right, what's the question?
CALLER: Well, I'm just wondering why they're being so marginalized even by the Fox people with questions and why they just aren't being heard?
RUSH: Look, I don't pretend to understand how the host or the moderators go about deciding who's gonna be asked what. They don't consult me on that. But I can explain, I think, why both of those guys are having trouble getting traction. You're not gonna like it, but you call me and you ask a question and I think I can answer it. In the case of Rick Santorum -- I don't know this, I'm gonna tell you what I think it is, two things. The endorsement -- remember, we're talking about Republican primary vote, the endorsement of Senator Specter and the fact -- and Susie, you may think this is fleeting but it's not, it's really important. It's not just that Senator Santorum lost his reelection bid. He lost it by 20 points. People remember that.
It may be unfair, but you're asking me for reasons why no traction. And I need to tell you, I love Rick Santorum, he's a friend of mine, and my comment here has nothing to do with whether or not he'd be a good president. I think he'd be a great one, in fact. You ask me why he's not getting traction. Tell you what I think. With Newt, the same thing. You're dealing with 80% of the time a genius. But in that other 20% you get TV commercials on a couch with Nancy Pelosi on climate change, and then you get a joint appearance with Hillary Clinton on health care which kind of dilutes the 80%. His numbers are coming up. Newt's in double digits now, which means that his performances in these debates have been consistent enough and powerful enough that people are focusing on the 80% or 90% that's Newt genius.
I'm fairly confident that my answers to you are correct, but I can't say it with ontological certitude. But as to why the Fox people structure the debate the way they do and who gets questions and how much time, not my job and they have yet to consult me at Fox on this. All I can tell you is they're not debates. They are enlarged press conferences with time limits, and so the skills required here -- that's why Romney's doing well. He's done this for two or three cycles now. You get good at it with practice. I've told you, brevity is the soul of wit. These people are gonna have to learn to say what they think with persuasion and convincibility in 30 seconds. If they can't they're gonna come off as looking incoherent. It's the nature of the beast.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I think what's going on here, folks, is the regime and the State-Controlled Media want Romney to be our nominee. That's what they want. They think Romney is beatable. This Perry stuff... You should read this Washington Post story. We'll have it linked to at RushLimbaugh.com. It's written as though Rick Perry painted the N-word on the rock himself, and I will bet you that a Democrat put that word on this rock way back then.
I'll bet you that a Democrat named this hunting place that name. So what you have in the Washington Post story is they're trying to shape the field, they're trying to pick our nominee. Michele Bachmann: disabling migraines! Sarah Palin: stupid! Paul Ryan: pushed grandmother off a cliff in a wheelchair! And take your pick if any other nominees fit the bill. That's why I think our people either need to be schooled how to behave when they go on these shows or punt and just don't go on these shows.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Lance, Gulf Breeze, Florida, you're next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi, sir.
CALLER: How you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Very well. Actually I'm ticked off here. I've been doing a slow burn all day, but --
CALLER: So am I.
RUSH: -- you wouldn't have known it had I not told you, right?
CALLER: (chuckling) Well, I'm angry, too. I'm an asthmatic, an inhaler-using asthmatic. So dittos.
RUSH: You use Primatene Mist?
CALLER: No, I have an albuterol inhaler.
RUSH: Oh.
CALLER: I don't know what the difference is, but, you know, if that --
RUSH: Well, I don't know about albuterol, but Primatene with epinephrine is gonna be banned in January and you're gonna be wheezing out there unless you cough up prescription inhalers for three times the money. Is that what's got you ticked off?
CALLER: No. (chuckles) I just heard that when I was waiting to get on the phone here.
RUSH: Everyday. Everyday the regime is launching assaults on public freedom, privacy, you name it.
CALLER: Yeah, I know, it's a new thing every day. What I was really calling about to start with was this soldier asking the question at the convention down in Orlando. I was a delegate down there last weekend, not this last but the weekend before last, and during the debate when this happened, everything I've heard about it since then is totally distorted. Of course, I'm not surprised by what Obama is saying. He distorts everything anyway. But what happened was two or three people -- I can't be sure exactly and nobody knows; but it wasn't many, just two or three people out of about 5,500 people --
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: -- who were in that auditorium booed, but they didn't boo -- like your audiotape showed -- 'til after the guy finished asking the question and they weren't really... So obviously they weren't booing him and nobody around me thought that. What they were booing about was the fact that that was a loaded question, and everybody there knew that it was a loaded question, and anybody who listens to that sound bite knows it's a loaded question for a GOP candidate, and that's what they were booing about. You know, two or three people. The rest of the people just sat there and were silent. That's what bothers me. They mischaracterized it.
RUSH: Yeah, no matter how you slice it they're booing the question.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: They were not booing the guy because he was gay.
CALLER: Right. They weren't. They were booing the question because it was a loaded question and they didn't like it.
RUSH: Right. Well, I'm gonna tell you what this is. This is no different than the Duke lacrosse case. You have stereotypes that fit in liberal holes. In the Duke lacrosse case you had "a poor, out of luck, put upon, disadvantaged, bright, intelligent young African-American woman so victimized (growing angry) by the unfairness of this country that she had to trick, she had to show up and do parties taking her clothes off and act like a slut in order to earn a living in this unfair, rotten-to-the-core country -- and who hired her? Oh-ho, yeah! A bunch of rich, white lacrosse players. Lacrosse! An elite sport! Rich white parents and rich white guys hiring this poor, brilliant single mother who's victimized by this country! So whatever she says happened had to be the truth. If she says they raped her, then the seriousness of the charge is all we need. We don't need any evidence!"
Same thing here. What do you have?
A gay soldier stands up, asks a question about "don't ask, don't tell," two people in an audience of 5,000 boo. The liberal stereotypes kick into gear, full speed: "Republicans, who are homophobes, were booing this brave, courageous soldier who showed up in the midst of the enemy -- the Republican Party, at a Republican Party debate! Yeah. They were booing him because they're a bunch of homophobes." So that's exactly what's happening here. "Nature of the evidence? Irrelevant. Seriousness of the charge, all we need!" They are doing essentially the same thing with Rick Perry and this death penalty question at the CNN debate.
They were claiming out there that the Republican Party, "The audience was bloodthirsty -- practically a bunch of vampires! The Republican audience is bloodthirsty and want the killing! They love state executions! They love putting to death innocent minority people -- the greatest people on earth, never did a thing wrong except be born in this country and they're victimized by the white-run world!" So all they're doing there is claiming that the Republican -- a bunch of bloodthirsty killers reveling in the death of others when in fact they were supporting Texas enforcing its laws. That was the reason there was cheering in that debate for Perry.
END TRANSCRIPT
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: No, we don't have the audio of what Herman Cain said to Christiane Amanpour. I just want to tell you what he said 'cause I got some e-mails, "Why are you getting so exorcised about this?" The reason I'm getting so exorcised about it is -- and I will admit I'm exorcised about it -- is not to criticize Herman Cain. Our guys are gonna have to learn at some point how to deal with these people. We're gonna have to stop going on their shows if we're not gonna know how to deal with them. When you are a Republican presidential candidate, I understand, they call from you ABC, the Sunday show, you go, you don't say no. You better figure out what they're trying to do by having you on.
It's just like I told the Republican freshmen back in 1994. Cokie Roberts is gonna call you, she's gonna bat her eyes at you, but she's ticked off that you're there. The media is not happy that you are gonna be running Congress. Their objective is gonna be to get rid of you. They're never gonna treat you like the winners. Their buddies, their friends are the Democrats. They invite you on these shows and every moment is a "gotcha." And our people are gonna have to learn to figure this out if they're gonna go on these shows. What Herman Cain said, the question about the rock at Perry's family hunting ground that they leased in '83 I think. They started leasing it and the name on the rock identifying this hunting ground, the N-word. And so the Perry family painted over the rock, and then they eventually turned the rock over. It embarrassed 'em. The Washington Post has this story about just the opposite. No sources, no named sources, no evidence whatsoever.
The point of the Washington Post story is that Rick Perry's a racist because he chose a place that was named with the N-word in it to go hunting. Now, how stupid and absurd is the allegation? Here it is 2011 and the media still think that they can convince readers that Republicans are institutional racists. Imagine, Rick Perry and his family went to a place to hunt in Texas in the early eighties, had the N-word in it, and that's why they chose it. Yeah, 'cause they're racists. It's laughable that they think this is 30 years ago, and people are automatically gonna believe this stuff. So Herman Cain said, "My reaction is that it's very insensitive. There are some words that do not basically inspire the kind of negativity like that particular word. I know that you are refraining from saying that word so I'm going to say what the word was on the rock -- the name of the place was called..." I'm not gonna say it. It was the N-word followed by the word "head."
Herman Cain says, "That is very insensitive and since Gov. Perry has been going there for years to hunt, I think it shows a lack of sensitivity for a long time not taking that word off of that rock and renaming the place. It's just basically a case of insensitivity." Well, Perry did. They tried to paint over it; they turned the rock upside down. Perry had taken the name off the rock, or his father had, back in 1983, if not earlier, and Christiane Amanpour knew that since it was in the Washington Post story. Here was the question that she asked to Herman Cain that resulted in the answer I just read you. "And it's been -- it's been painted over. But the report raises questions about whether this rock, this stone, with that word on it, was still on display even quite recently in the last several years. What is your reaction to that?"
Now, I understand Cain wants to beat Perry in the Republican presidential primary, and I understand how he might have interpreted the question as an opportunity to nail Perry. But wasn't it just last week that somebody called Herman Cain some epithet? I forget what it was, but he was called a name along the lines of an Uncle Tom because he's a Republican black. But what was obvious was that Christiane Amanpour was unable to figure out the Washington Post had no evidence whatsoever to make the claim that the name had been on display on that rock over the last several years because no one whatsoever except for a bunch of anonymous sources who the Washington Post claims, by the way, were big Perry supporters who just worried about this hurting him, but nobody will go on record.
Now, the reason for harping on this is that it's time now that every Republican running for the presidency know what they're dealing with when they go on ABC, CBS, or NBC. And it's about time they understand one thing. They are not being invited on these shows to be assisted. They are not being invited on these shows because these shows are interested in them. They're not being invited on these shows because anybody related to this show wants to see them succeed. They're being invited on these shows so that perhaps the media can destroy any and all of the Republican nominees or candidates for the nomination. So I cringe when a Republican candidate falls prey to this.
The correct answer would have been to tell Christiane Amanpour it's a nonstory and can we talk about the loss of jobs in this country and the attack on the private sector. This is a nonstory. The Washington Post has no evidence for it and it's time you people stopped in the media, it's time you stopped with your little template here of trying to tag every one of us racist, sexist, bigoted homophobes. It's called offense. But, folks, I'm telling you our side is still deathly afraid of making those people mad. They're just deathly afraid of it. "Mr. Limbaugh, they're deathly afraid of making you mad, too, it said so right there in the Associated Press." Well, yeah, but that's for good reason. No reason to be afraid of these people. These people in the media are one-third as smart. They're not the wizards of smart, they're not the grand pooh-bahs. They could be easily outrun or outsmarted here.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Who's next? Susie in Pittsburgh, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I'm so excited. You have no idea how long I've been listening to you and I'm one of your biggest fans and I'm just so excited to talk to you. I wanted to talk about the incident at the debate where the soldier was supposedly booed. I don't think that he was booed. I think it was the question that was booed. Being a Pennsylvanian and knowing what Senator Santorum has had to put up with when he was up for reelection for the Senate, I think it might have been too frustrated Pennsylvanian supporters of his in the audience who heard this question and just knew they're just trying to stick it to him once again and were upset about the question aimed at the Senator. And I mean in Pennsylvania he was just constantly pilloried by the left on --
RUSH: Sadly, it worked.
CALLER: Oh, it did. I mean they were just brutal to him, and he's one of the most honest, respectable men, and truly a statesman, and this brings me to a question I have for you, too, is that I've noticed that Senator Santorum and Newt Gingrich have been just so marginalized in these debates, and they're two of the smartest people up there. I mean they have done so much already in the Congress and the Senate --
RUSH: All right, what's the question?
CALLER: Well, I'm just wondering why they're being so marginalized even by the Fox people with questions and why they just aren't being heard?
RUSH: Look, I don't pretend to understand how the host or the moderators go about deciding who's gonna be asked what. They don't consult me on that. But I can explain, I think, why both of those guys are having trouble getting traction. You're not gonna like it, but you call me and you ask a question and I think I can answer it. In the case of Rick Santorum -- I don't know this, I'm gonna tell you what I think it is, two things. The endorsement -- remember, we're talking about Republican primary vote, the endorsement of Senator Specter and the fact -- and Susie, you may think this is fleeting but it's not, it's really important. It's not just that Senator Santorum lost his reelection bid. He lost it by 20 points. People remember that.
It may be unfair, but you're asking me for reasons why no traction. And I need to tell you, I love Rick Santorum, he's a friend of mine, and my comment here has nothing to do with whether or not he'd be a good president. I think he'd be a great one, in fact. You ask me why he's not getting traction. Tell you what I think. With Newt, the same thing. You're dealing with 80% of the time a genius. But in that other 20% you get TV commercials on a couch with Nancy Pelosi on climate change, and then you get a joint appearance with Hillary Clinton on health care which kind of dilutes the 80%. His numbers are coming up. Newt's in double digits now, which means that his performances in these debates have been consistent enough and powerful enough that people are focusing on the 80% or 90% that's Newt genius.
I'm fairly confident that my answers to you are correct, but I can't say it with ontological certitude. But as to why the Fox people structure the debate the way they do and who gets questions and how much time, not my job and they have yet to consult me at Fox on this. All I can tell you is they're not debates. They are enlarged press conferences with time limits, and so the skills required here -- that's why Romney's doing well. He's done this for two or three cycles now. You get good at it with practice. I've told you, brevity is the soul of wit. These people are gonna have to learn to say what they think with persuasion and convincibility in 30 seconds. If they can't they're gonna come off as looking incoherent. It's the nature of the beast.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I think what's going on here, folks, is the regime and the State-Controlled Media want Romney to be our nominee. That's what they want. They think Romney is beatable. This Perry stuff... You should read this Washington Post story. We'll have it linked to at RushLimbaugh.com. It's written as though Rick Perry painted the N-word on the rock himself, and I will bet you that a Democrat put that word on this rock way back then.
I'll bet you that a Democrat named this hunting place that name. So what you have in the Washington Post story is they're trying to shape the field, they're trying to pick our nominee. Michele Bachmann: disabling migraines! Sarah Palin: stupid! Paul Ryan: pushed grandmother off a cliff in a wheelchair! And take your pick if any other nominees fit the bill. That's why I think our people either need to be schooled how to behave when they go on these shows or punt and just don't go on these shows.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Lance, Gulf Breeze, Florida, you're next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi, sir.
CALLER: How you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Very well. Actually I'm ticked off here. I've been doing a slow burn all day, but --
CALLER: So am I.
RUSH: -- you wouldn't have known it had I not told you, right?
CALLER: (chuckling) Well, I'm angry, too. I'm an asthmatic, an inhaler-using asthmatic. So dittos.
RUSH: You use Primatene Mist?
CALLER: No, I have an albuterol inhaler.
RUSH: Oh.
CALLER: I don't know what the difference is, but, you know, if that --
RUSH: Well, I don't know about albuterol, but Primatene with epinephrine is gonna be banned in January and you're gonna be wheezing out there unless you cough up prescription inhalers for three times the money. Is that what's got you ticked off?
CALLER: No. (chuckles) I just heard that when I was waiting to get on the phone here.
RUSH: Everyday. Everyday the regime is launching assaults on public freedom, privacy, you name it.
CALLER: Yeah, I know, it's a new thing every day. What I was really calling about to start with was this soldier asking the question at the convention down in Orlando. I was a delegate down there last weekend, not this last but the weekend before last, and during the debate when this happened, everything I've heard about it since then is totally distorted. Of course, I'm not surprised by what Obama is saying. He distorts everything anyway. But what happened was two or three people -- I can't be sure exactly and nobody knows; but it wasn't many, just two or three people out of about 5,500 people --
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: -- who were in that auditorium booed, but they didn't boo -- like your audiotape showed -- 'til after the guy finished asking the question and they weren't really... So obviously they weren't booing him and nobody around me thought that. What they were booing about was the fact that that was a loaded question, and everybody there knew that it was a loaded question, and anybody who listens to that sound bite knows it's a loaded question for a GOP candidate, and that's what they were booing about. You know, two or three people. The rest of the people just sat there and were silent. That's what bothers me. They mischaracterized it.
RUSH: Yeah, no matter how you slice it they're booing the question.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: They were not booing the guy because he was gay.
CALLER: Right. They weren't. They were booing the question because it was a loaded question and they didn't like it.
RUSH: Right. Well, I'm gonna tell you what this is. This is no different than the Duke lacrosse case. You have stereotypes that fit in liberal holes. In the Duke lacrosse case you had "a poor, out of luck, put upon, disadvantaged, bright, intelligent young African-American woman so victimized (growing angry) by the unfairness of this country that she had to trick, she had to show up and do parties taking her clothes off and act like a slut in order to earn a living in this unfair, rotten-to-the-core country -- and who hired her? Oh-ho, yeah! A bunch of rich, white lacrosse players. Lacrosse! An elite sport! Rich white parents and rich white guys hiring this poor, brilliant single mother who's victimized by this country! So whatever she says happened had to be the truth. If she says they raped her, then the seriousness of the charge is all we need. We don't need any evidence!"
Same thing here. What do you have?
A gay soldier stands up, asks a question about "don't ask, don't tell," two people in an audience of 5,000 boo. The liberal stereotypes kick into gear, full speed: "Republicans, who are homophobes, were booing this brave, courageous soldier who showed up in the midst of the enemy -- the Republican Party, at a Republican Party debate! Yeah. They were booing him because they're a bunch of homophobes." So that's exactly what's happening here. "Nature of the evidence? Irrelevant. Seriousness of the charge, all we need!" They are doing essentially the same thing with Rick Perry and this death penalty question at the CNN debate.
They were claiming out there that the Republican Party, "The audience was bloodthirsty -- practically a bunch of vampires! The Republican audience is bloodthirsty and want the killing! They love state executions! They love putting to death innocent minority people -- the greatest people on earth, never did a thing wrong except be born in this country and they're victimized by the white-run world!" So all they're doing there is claiming that the Republican -- a bunch of bloodthirsty killers reveling in the death of others when in fact they were supporting Texas enforcing its laws. That was the reason there was cheering in that debate for Perry.
END TRANSCRIPT
Hank Williams Jr. Canned For Comparing Obama To Hitler, NFL Considers Madonna Who Compared McCain To Hitler
Rob Port • October 4, 2011
Appearing on Fox & Friends, country music icon Hank Williams Jr. compared Barack Obama to Hitler. Williams said President Obama and Speaker John Boehner’s recent golf outing “would be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli leader) Benjamin Netanyahu.”
In response, ESPN has ended Williams’ long-time association with Monday Night Football through the use of his music.
After ESPN dropped Hank Williams Jr. from opening Monday Night Football tonight after Williams’ controversial comments Monday about President Obama, the singer now says he was“misunderstood.”
Says ESPN, in a statement: “While Hank Williams Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize he is closely linked to our company through the opening to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result have decided to pull the open from tonight’s telecast.”
Meanwhile, the NFL is considering Madonna to be the halftime entertainment for the next Super Bowl. Madonna also compared John McCain to Hitler back in 2008:
Madonna kicked off her Sticky & Sweet Tour in the U.K. Saturday, and stirred up a beehive of controversy by comparing Republican presidential nominee John McCain to Adolf Hitler in a video montage during the show.
During the song “Get Stupid,” Madonna flashed images of McCain alongside photos of Hitler and brutal Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, as well as images of destruction and global warming, according to British paper The Times.
By contrast, in the next segment of the performance, she used the image of Democratic nominee Barack Obama alongside pictures of John Lennon, Mahatma Ghandi and Al Gore.
I can understand ESPN canning Hank Williams’ Jr. I don’t necessarily like it, but ESPN is a private company and can use whatever music they want in their productions. And I understand the impulse to want to avoid political controversy.
It’s just be nice if that was equally applied. It seems as those celebrities expressing the most extreme and vile political viewpoints are given a pass, whereas conservatives aren’t.
Appearing on Fox & Friends, country music icon Hank Williams Jr. compared Barack Obama to Hitler. Williams said President Obama and Speaker John Boehner’s recent golf outing “would be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli leader) Benjamin Netanyahu.”
In response, ESPN has ended Williams’ long-time association with Monday Night Football through the use of his music.
After ESPN dropped Hank Williams Jr. from opening Monday Night Football tonight after Williams’ controversial comments Monday about President Obama, the singer now says he was“misunderstood.”
Says ESPN, in a statement: “While Hank Williams Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize he is closely linked to our company through the opening to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result have decided to pull the open from tonight’s telecast.”
Meanwhile, the NFL is considering Madonna to be the halftime entertainment for the next Super Bowl. Madonna also compared John McCain to Hitler back in 2008:
Madonna kicked off her Sticky & Sweet Tour in the U.K. Saturday, and stirred up a beehive of controversy by comparing Republican presidential nominee John McCain to Adolf Hitler in a video montage during the show.
During the song “Get Stupid,” Madonna flashed images of McCain alongside photos of Hitler and brutal Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, as well as images of destruction and global warming, according to British paper The Times.
By contrast, in the next segment of the performance, she used the image of Democratic nominee Barack Obama alongside pictures of John Lennon, Mahatma Ghandi and Al Gore.
I can understand ESPN canning Hank Williams’ Jr. I don’t necessarily like it, but ESPN is a private company and can use whatever music they want in their productions. And I understand the impulse to want to avoid political controversy.
It’s just be nice if that was equally applied. It seems as those celebrities expressing the most extreme and vile political viewpoints are given a pass, whereas conservatives aren’t.
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