.

Bowing To China

Subject: txt 1st othr 2010 libs - bdd - vals -
At the start of the Nuclear Security Summit, we see an all-too-familiar gesture from our president. Is it a matter of courtesy, an idiosyncrasy or the administration's acceptance of a new world order?

If there ever was an iconic tribute to the idea of U.S. exceptionalism, it was the fact that the American flag was never dipped during the parade of athletes at the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games. We never dipped or bowed to anybody, with the possible exception of figurehead royalty.

Now we bow to everybody — from Saudi royalty to Japanese emperors to Hu Jintao at the opening of the security summit in Washington on Monday. We also apologize to everybody from the Muslim world to the European community for any past actions or words that may have given the impression we thought America was special...

READ MORE

MSM Yawns As Leftists Openly Plot To Sabotage Tea Party, Misuse Social Security Numbers

Subject: txt 2010 lbrty msm -
Left-wingers recently unveiled a new website, CrashTheTeaParty.org, aimed at sabotaging the Tea Party movement and inflicting harm on Tea Party supporters by doing Lord-knows-what with their Social Security numbers. Michelle Malkin has identified the creator of the website as one Jason Levin of Portland, Oregon and posted a detailed account of his background and how the website came to be.

Levin told reporters his group has 65 'leaders' in major cities who are attempting to recruit members to infiltrate Tea Party events on tax filing day, April 15, when Tea Party supporters are planning rallies across the nation.

Website supporters say they plan to impersonate Tea Party movement supporters and do things at official Tea Party events aimed at discrediting the movement. They plan to act

“in ways which exaggerate their least appealing qualities (misspelled protest signs, wild claims in TV interviews, etc.) to further distance them from mainstream America and damage the public’s opinion of them. We will also use the inside information that we have gained in order to disrupt and derail their plans.”

READ MORE

.

Oops: Congress Won't Even Be Able to Keep the Plans They Have Under Obamacare

Subject: txt hcare crpt fnn libs -
"Significant unintended consequences." Who woulda thunk it?

In a new report, the Congressional Research Service says the law may have significant unintended consequences for the “personal health insurance coverage” of senators, representatives and their staff members.

For example, it says, the law may “remove members of Congress and Congressional staff” from their current coverage, in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, before any alternatives are available.

The confusion raises the inevitable question: If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?

Good to see the New York Times is now curious about that question, after the bill has passed.

READ MORE

Great Minds Think Alike, and So Do New York Times Legal Reporters

Subject: txt bbro msm -
New York Times legal reporter Charlie Savage's original online report on the long-expected retirement of liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (filed Friday afternoon) had a familiar ring to it which went beyond the usual effusiveness the paper bestows on liberal justices.

While noting Stevens held down the left wing of the Supreme Court, Savage twice emphasized the court's "increasingly conservative" nature in his original nytimes.com posting:

[It's been evenly split 4-4 with Kennedy the 'swing' justice. My, that is horrible.]

READ MORE

POLL: 39% Say Supreme Court Too Liberal, 25% Too Conservative

Subject: txt bbro libs msm -
At the same time, 45% believe that justices nominated by Obama will be too liberal, with seventy-six percent (76%) of Republicans saying the president’s nominees will be too liberal, 76% of Democrats saying Obama’s picks will be about right.

But fifty-six (56%) of those not affiliated with either major party expecting the president’s nominees will be too liberal with less than half as many (27%) say they'll be about right.

READ MORE

.

Twofer...

.
Once upon a Mattress

Great Britain is about twenty-odd years ahead of our country in the race to socialist oblivion.

More


The Coming British Non-Election

The coming British election is a total crock, being a "regional" affair only between shades of socializing liberals within an anti-democratic European Super-State.

More
.

Why work when I can get £42,000 in benefits a year AND drive a Mercedes?

Subject: txt sclm -
The Davey family's £815-a-week state handouts pay for a four-bedroom home, top-of-the-range mod cons and two vehicles including a Mercedes people carrier.

Father-of-seven Peter gave up work because he could make more living on benefits.

Yet he and his wife Claire are still not happy with their lot. With an eighth child on the way, they are demanding a bigger house, courtesy of the taxpayer.

'We can't afford holidays and I don't want my kids living on a council estate and struggling like I have."

She insists her husband would do any job 'as long as we could still afford the lifestyle we have now'.

Mrs Davey, who spends £160 a week at Tesco, says she does not intend to stop at eight children. Her target is 14.

"I've always wanted a big family - no one can tell me how many kids I can have whether I'm working or not."

READ MORE

The Scientific Socialism of Today

Subject: txt sclm -
A certain kind of mind believes that human beings exist as objects to be experimented upon as society is perfected by the privileged class -- a utopia engineered by elites...

READ MORE

Ruled by Children

Subject: txt sclm libs - 2010 -
One of my favorite lines from the New Testament appears in Corinthians II, Chapter 13, verse 11: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, but when I became a man, I put aside childish things.” It is hard to shake the notion that Americans have voted a lot of children to serve in Congress and the greatest child of all, Barack Obama, to be our president.

Who else but children would continue to enact new programs that “entitle” Americans to receive all manner of services for which there is no money?

READ MORE

.

.

DECRYING THE UNION PENSION BAILOUT BILL

Subject: txt crpt libs mny -
Sen. Robert Casey (D-Penn.), wants Americans to bail out union pension plans underfunded by hundreds of billions of dollars. Casey's bill, the Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act of 2010, is similar to that of Reps. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), and Patrick Tiberi (R-Ohio), who seek to bail out pension plans with their proposed Preserve Benefits and Jobs Act of 2009, introduced last fall.

Under these bills, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) would, at the request of the plans, have the authority to take over the pension obligations of employers who have withdrawn from the plans, and pay the benefits out of taxpayer dollars.

By bailing out the plans, Congress would compromise the remedial provisions of the Pension Protection Act of 2006. The Act requires underfunded pension plans to put their houses in order by raising retirement ages; increasing contributions by employers, workers, or both; and lowering benefits. A bailout would remove any incentive for multiemployer pension plans to reorganize their plans responsibly.

The driving force? Unions, who want to be free of pension obligations so that they can focus on higher wages in future contracts...

READ MORE

Unions’ Big Shift to Government

[HT:CF]Subject: txt crpt trade -
Unionism is failing miserably in this age of a greater world market and an increase in competition for business across the globe. More nations than ever have left behind the 18th century and are taking bold steps into a world made smaller by technology. No longer is but a handful of nations leading the world in manufacturing while the rest wallow in abject poverty. This greater competition is increasing the standard of living in nearly every corner of the earth but because there is so much competition, unions in the U.S. are dying out.

But these antiquated, jobs killing unions won’t go quietly into the night and they’ve found their path to existence: government. Unions are growing wildly in the public sector because there are no market forces to curb their excesses.

Like a criminal racket, the taxpayers are constantly being robbed by politicians to pay unions so that unions can give donations back to politicians only to repeat the cycle. It easily invokes the old idiom of Robbing Peter to pay Paul - and the taxpayers are Peter...

READ MORE

Special Report: How the Media Have Dismissed and Disparaged the Tea Party Movement

.
So how have the supposedly objective media covered one of the biggest political stories in recent years?

The Media Research Center has a new report out today, reviewing every mention of the Tea Party on the ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening newscasts, Sunday talk shows, and ABC’s Nightline from February 19, 2009 (when CNBC contributor Rick Santelli first suggested throwing a “Tea Party” to protest government takeovers) through March 31, 2010.

Among the major findings:

■ Given its demonstrated influence, network coverage of the Tea Party has been minuscule...

■ Such coverage is piddling compared to that lavished on protests serving liberal objectives...

■ Network reporters were dismissive of the first Tea Party events in 2009: “critics on the Left say this is not a real grassroots phenomenon at all"...

■ After the September 12, 2009 rallies, the networks suggested the Tea Party was an extreme or racist movement...

■ Overall, 44 percent of network stories on the Tea Party (27 out of 61) suggested the movement reflected a fringe or dangerous quality...

■ While network reporters have strained to protect left-wing causes (such as the anti-war movement) with the outrageous acts of individual protesters, they were quick to smear the entire Tea Party based on isolated reports of poor behavior.,,

Given how the networks have provided fawning coverage and helpful publicity to far-less consequential liberal protest movements, their negative treatment of the Tea Party is a glaring example of a media double standard.

Rather than objectively document the rise and impact of this important grassroots movement, the “news” networks instead chose to first ignore, and then deplore, the citizen army mobilizing against the unpopular policies of a liberal President and Congress.

READ MORE

34% Say They Or Someone Close To Them Part of Tea Party Movement

Subject: txt 2010 lbrty -
Twenty-four percent (24%) of U.S. voters now say they consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

That’s an eight-point increase from 16% a month ago.

Another 10% say they are not a part of the movement but have close friends or family members who are.

The rise in Tea party support is perhaps not surprising at a time when more voters than ever (58%) favor repeal of the national health care plan just passed by Democrats in Congress and signed into law by President Obama. Most voters remain convinced that the health care plan will require an increase in taxes on the middle class as a time when 66% of voters believe America is already overtaxed.

READ MORE

.

.

Absence of key U.S. allies at summit amplifies doubts about Obama’s foreign policy

Subject: txt nsec - intl -
... but for all the hoopla, the event will be missing America’s strongest allies. As remarkable as it is, the fact that neither British Prime Minister Gordon Brown nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are attended President Obama’s nuclear security summit in Washington Monday and Tuesday is astounding, but relations with both countries — Israel in particular — have grown strained under Obama...

READ MORE

Terror plot targeted Times Square, Grand Central stations

Subject: txt gwot - Source:
New York - The three men accused of plotting to bomb the New York City subway last year planned to attack trains at Times Square and Grand Central stations, a federal law enforcement source said Monday.

Najibullah Zazi and his two co-defendants wanted to inflict maximum casualties around the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The plot was foiled when the FBI began following Zazi and police stopped him on a bridge into New York. Zazi said that prompted him to dump his bomb materials and return to Denver, Colorado, where he was working as a shuttle driver, authorities said.

Prosecutors have said they plan one or two more arrests overseas...

[GWOfT]

READ MORE

Al Pacino, Katie Holmes spark Muslim protest

Subject: txt islm -
Filming for Al Pacino and Katie Holmes' new movie sparked outrage from local Muslims who protested about their use of the Koran.

According to Page Six, local Muslims had gathered to oppose the use of a prop which referred to Islamic holy book, The Koran. Pacino was shooting scenes for the police thriller Son of No One alongside co-stars Ray Liotta and Channing Tatum in Queens when a group from a nearby mosque came together to complain about a sign mentioning the religious text...

Movie bosses are said to have immediately co-operated...

READ MORE

IF WE EUROPEANIZE, EUROPE IS IN TROUBLE

.
There's been an ongoing debate about whether America should become more like Europe. The battle lines are split almost perfectly along left-right lines ideologically. Liberals like Europe's welfare states, unionized workforces (in and out of government), generous benefits, long vacations, etc. Conservatives like America's economic growth, its dynamism and innovation. Everyone agrees that you can't have Europeanization without European-size governments.

This debate misses something. We can't become Europe unless someone else is willing to become America. Europe is a free-rider. It can only afford to be Europe because we can afford to be America. The most obvious and most cited illustration of this fact is national defense:

Europe's defense budgets have been miniscule because Europeans can count on Uncle Sam to protect them. Britain, which has the most credible military in NATO after ours, has funded its butter account with its gun account. From 1951 to 1997 the share of British government expenditure devoted to defense fell from 24 percent to 7 percent, while the share spent on health and welfare increased from 22 percent to 53 percent...


READ MORE

DID FDR END THE DEPRESSION?

[History]

The economy took off after the postwar Congress cut taxes, say Burton Folsom Jr., a professor of history at Hillsdale College, and Anita Folsom, director of Hillsdale College's annual Free Market Forum...

Congress—both chambers with Democratic majorities—responded by just saying "no."

No to the whole New Deal revival: no federal program for health care, no full-employment act, only limited federal housing, and no increase in minimum wage or Social Security benefits.

Instead, Congress reduced taxes...

READ MORE

House leaders launch program aimed at increasing racial diversity of staffers

House leaders launched a much-discussed program on Tuesday to increase racial diversity among congressional staff by intensifying recruitment and retention efforts. The initiative, launched by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), comes in the wake of a study that revealed only 13 percent of House chief of staffs were minorities.

The House initiative creates several programs to increase the hiring of top-ranking minority employees, including a diversity-oriented awareness program and a ''resume bank'' 'targeting' diverse candidates...

READ MORE

Online sites win journalism firsts at Pulitzers

ProPublica, in an historic first for online journalism, won a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for investigative reporting about controversial deaths at a New Orleans medical center following Hurricane Katrina. Its recognition marked the first time an online service won a top journalism award given annually by the Pulitzer Prize Board at Columbia University.

READ MORE

Alleged drunk driver hits judge he faced in 1998

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- A man has been charged with driving drunk and hitting the car of a retired Maryland judge who once spared him jail time in previous drunk driving case.

The suspect, 45, was scheduled to be in court Wednesday to face trial on eight charges related to the August crash where he hit a car being driven by retired Montgomery County District Judge Edwin Collier. Collier, 86...

READ MORE

-end 100414 post-