[HT:NM]
The Washington Times is reporting that president-elect Obama's climate czar has ties to an international organization that promotes "global governance." According to the report, as recently as last week Carol M. Browner was listed as one of "14 leaders of a socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society."
The group, one of many under the umbrella group Socialist International, calls for rich countries to shrink their economies in order to combat climate change. Browner's name and biography has since been removed from the Socialist International's web page.
Ms. Browner's appointment as Obama's climate czar does not need Senate confirmation.
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Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Obama's 'climate czar'
REFORMING RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS
Teresa Ghilarducci of the New School for Social Research recently proposed a plan to require workers to trade their current 401(k) plans in for a Guaranteed Retirement Account (GRA):
- Require every worker to put a mandatory 5 percent of after-tax earnings into a GRA (the employer would contribute half of the 5 percent).
- Pay a monthly amount at retirement, similar to an inflation-indexed annuity, with a guaranteed 3 percent real rate of return on the account balance.
- They do not allow individuals to pick from an array of funds; the money would instead be pooled and invested by the government as it sees fit.
- The government would have the right to reduce the guaranteed rate of return during economic downturns [so it's not 'guaranteed'].
- The fund would be managed by an independent body, similar to the Thrift Savings Plan for federal employees; Congress has frequently attempted to require the TSP to invest in funds of dubious value [because they're politically correct].
[This is a blatant attempt to steal your 401K and let the government tax more of your money and play with the rest, plain and simple.]
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Economic Illiteracy Of The NY Times
The Times’ understanding of economics boils down to a simple formula — tax cuts, bad; spending, good. The Times thinks it’s not only possible, but desirable, to try to spend our way out of a recession caused by over-spending, deficits and misplaced priorities.
An editorial in yesterday’s Times urges President-elect Barack Obama to spend more — apparently, $800 billion isn’t enough — jettison his call for business tax breaks (which amount to less than $1 for every $5 of new spending) and forget entirely about his promise to cut taxes for those who make up to $200,000 a year.
While The Times is all for tax cuts for “low and middle-income” Americans (at least in theory), it is apoplectic at the idea of cutting taxes on the rich (a term it never defines). It reasons that while middle-class tax cuts will “stimulate the economy”, while upper-income taxpayers are more likely to save, which supposedly will result in little economic benefit.
How does The Times think the rich will save — by shoving their tax refunds into a piggy-bank?
Their tax savings will be invested in stocks, bonds and mutual funds, which will lead to more capital investment and more job creation — far more than simple spending on consumer goods. Investment, which leads to job creation, which in turns leads to long-term consumer spending, is essential to a recovery.
It’s amazing that the editorial board of America’s self-styled newspaper of record can’t grasp basic economic principles.
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FOX Business Sues Treasury for Failure to Respond to Freedom of Information Act Requests
FOX Business Network has filed a lawsuit against the United States Treasury Department over failure to provide information on the bailout funds or respond to FBN’s expedited requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA].“Despite the several requests for expedited information filed by FBN, it has become apparent that the Treasury will not cooperate without mounting legal pressure. Therefore, we have filed a complaint in the Federal Court in New York and ask the Court to make the Treasury provide the information sought by the journalists at FBN.”
FBN is asking for the Treasury Department to identify, among other issues, the troubled assets purchased, any collateral extended, and any restrictions placed on these financial institutions for their participation in this program.
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McClintock ready to just say no as he starts House term
WASHINGTON – Tom McClintock arrived in Washington last week, ready to say no.
He'll say no to President-elect Barack Obama's plan to spend roughly $800 billion to rev up the economy. He'll say no to spending billions to bail out the auto industry. And he'll say no to his home state of California and others looking to Congress to get out of their budget messes.
He said the federal government doesn't have the money and needs to spend less to avoid "the same folly" as California, which is projecting a $40 billion shortfall in the next 18 months."My state is going to hell in a handbasket, and my country's not far behind. It's incumbent upon the Republicans to sound the warning,"
McClintock said he'll oppose Obama's stimulus plan because the U.S. budget deficit is predicted to hit a record $1.2 trillion this year. He said the auto companies can file for bankruptcy. And he said California shouldn't get any federal help because the state overspent for years, causing its own troubles.
He has another big difference with Democratic leaders, opposing mandatory controls on greenhouse emissions:"We've tried that now in California, and it has been systemically shutting down California's economy."
[excuse my 'I told you so', but this is the guy I voted for governor {the wife voted for that actor guy}. Had he won we likely wouldn't be in the mess we're in - certainly it would be smaller.]
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Go East, young man? Californians look for the exit
Mike Reilly spent his lifetime chasing the California dream. This year he's going to look for it in Colorado.
With a house purchase near Denver in the works, the 38-year-old engineering contractor plans to move his family 1,200 miles away from his home state's lemon groves, sunshine and beaches. For him, years of rising taxes, dead-end schools, unchecked illegal immigration and clogged traffic have robbed the Golden State of its allure.
Is there something left of the California dream?
"If you are a Hollywood actor," ... "but not for us." [snip]
The number of people leaving California for another state outstripped the number moving in from another state during the year ending on July 1, 2008. California lost a net total of 144,000 people during that period — more than any other state, according to census estimates. That is about equal to the population of Syracuse, N.Y.
Why are so many looking for an exit?
With state government facing a $41.6 billion budget hole over 18 months, residents are bracing for yet higher taxes. Median housing prices have nose-dived one-third from a 2006 peak, but many homes are still out of reach for middle-class families.
"You see wages go down and the cost of living go up," Reilly says. His property taxes will be $1,300 in Colorado, less than 1/3 what he's forced to pay in California... [snip]
Financial adviser Barry Hartz lived in California for 60 years and once ran for state Assembly before relocating with his wife last year to Colorado Springs, Colo., where his son's family had moved.
"The saddest thing I saw was the escalation of home prices to the point our kids, when they got married, could not live in the community where they lived and grew up," ... "Some people call that progress."
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[a very high price for environmoralism. Q: how many Californian's are aware that in the Bay Area more land has been put off limits to any development than has been developed - total? I'm not kidding, BA development uses ~750K sq. acrers, while >1M sq. acres have already been 'protected' from any development. Now add NIMBY attitudes, 'hill protections' and global warming-required public-transit-friendly high-density development and single family homes skyrocket. But we can't figure out why they cost so much?
I recommend Dr. Sowell's work on this (or any other) topic: Sowell Articles
Plant farm accused of favoring foreign labor
A Maryville woman has filed complaints with three government agencies saying she was discriminated against by a Blount County nursery farm because she is a U.S.-born worker. In a complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice, Sabrina Steele alleges that Pope's Plant Farm on U.S. 411 South and Mike Pope, of the plant farm, discouraged her from accepting agricultural employment because the firm wanted to hire foreign-born workers.
[when we're ready to fix our immigration problems, we'll start with employers {we've the tools now - just not the will}]
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The answer on immigration
The U.S. routinely awards green cards to more than a million legal immigrants each year. They play by the rules, and together with those who have come before them, now comprise the largest legal immigrant population in U.S. history. But to sustain this generous legal immigration policy, we must put an end to illegal immigration.
The solution is simple: enforce current law.
Failure to enforce these laws has contributed to the more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the country. Close to one-quarter of all federal prisoners are foreign born. There are, however, some recent bright spots.
In just the past two years, the administration has begun to focus on the job magnet that attracts illegal immigrants and is also working with state and local law enforcement authorities to identify and deport criminal aliens.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stepped up its efforts against employers who hire illegal immigrants by relying on criminal prosecutions and the seizure of assets of companies that employ illegal immigrants.
Some 93,000 employers now participate in E-Verify, a program created by Congress that enables them to verify that workers are eligible to be hired...
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Any Amnesty for Illegal Migrants Is Simply Surrender
It is a cast iron principle of justice in any civilised society that nobody is above the law. Yet this does not seem to apply to the hundreds of thousands of migrants who are illegally living in Britain. a vast, swelling army of foreign lawbreakers has been allowed to settle here without the slightest interference from the authorities...
[almost as if they were living in a sanctuary ]
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[well, divisive diversity is divisive]Back With a Vengeance
England decriminalized homosexuality in 1967, a move hailed by libertarians of the day as getting the government out of bedrooms [snip]
A few years ago Home Office Minister Michael O'Brien found the Fire Service had an overly tough and masculine culture and that firemen were failing to come to terms with homosexuality. The 6,750 London brigade firemen were then presented by a questionnaire from the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, seeking to know whether they were homosexual or not.
Most recently at Brighton Pilgrim Homes, a charity that operates a care-home for elderly Christians, has been accused of institutional discrimination and has lost its grant from the Brighton and Hove Council because the residents refused to answer questions about their sexuality. [snip]
In October 2007, a Christian couple, Vincent and Pauline Matherick, who over the years had taken in 28 foster children, were forced by local authorities from Somerset County Council to give up being foster parents after they refused to promote homosexuality to children in their care if the children expressed an interest in it [which is where our schools come in].
Nothing could indicate more clearly that the side presently prosecuting and winning Britain's culture war has no interest in supporting liberty or the individual's privacy or dignity, or show up its own sometimes barely disguised viciousness...
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The Workshops Of Identity
by Bill Whittle
Part 2: The Reactor:
America is the greatest nation in the history of the world.
This sentence – verifiably true as we are about to see – fills me with a burning pride so great I cannot get through the National Anthem at Dodger Stadium without getting misty at the awe-inspiring scope and the terrible cost of it.
Consider this: Militarily, the United States is not only unmatched on the world stage, but its relative strength is unmatched in history. And without question, this juggernaut is the most benign dominant military force the world has ever seen – and by a very large margin.
Consider modern history, which many consider the time since the end of World War II. At the end of 1945, the only military force of any real substance remaining in the world was that of the Soviet Union, and while they had large numbers of troops and tanks, they had no navy and no strategic air force to speak of. The United States possessed, intact, the most awe-inspiring, battle-hardened navy the world had ever seen. It possessed sky-darkening clouds of B-29 strategic bombers. And it possessed, alone, the atomic bomb.
The United States of America could have planted its flag anywhere it wanted and no one would have been able to do a thing about it. And what did we do with this arsenal? We scrapped the ships, drove steel bars through the wings of the priceless bombers, and began the largest de-militarization in the history of the world.
And in all of the years since then, despite what Michael Moore may want you to believe from the comfort of his editing room, the United States has deployed in response to aggression – not to cause it. Berlin, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland – all of it Soviet — that is to say Communist – Leftist – aggression. Ask a 17 year old indoctrinated with Hollywood’s portrayal of America as a world-striding bully who started the War in Korea, or Vietnam, or Nicaragua or any of these places, and I will bet you a Xbox 360 Elite that they will not reply that it was in fact worldwide socialism, but rather America. Tell them that communists started Korea and Vietnam and pretty much everything else and they will likely ask “what is a communist?”
And for those who feel that such a once-noble America is dead and gone, let’s talk about the last time we heard about “Imperialism” and “a war for oil.” In 1991, after destroying the army that Saddam Hussein sent into Kuwait to steal, rape and murder, the United States sat alone and unchallenged on top of the richest oil field on the planet. What did it do? It put out the fires and went home.
And now we have spent 4000 and more lives building schools and hospitals and protecting a people against fellow Muslims who show day in and day out that they will kill as many children as they need to in order to terrorize their own people into submission.
That story, apparently, holds no interest for today’s Hollywood...
[Recommended > ]
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House Rules Package ‘Does Not Represent Change’
House Republicans are calling on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reconsider her plan to change House rules to end term limits for committee chairs.
When Republicans were in the majority in 1995, the House adopted fairness rules written in conjunction with Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America,” which included six-year term limits for committee chairs to encourage fresh ideas and guard against strict longevity.
In a letter to Pelosi on Monday, GOP leaders said the rules package that Pelosi is considering would restrict the opportunity for members to offer alternative legislation which Republicans guaranteed to Democrats as “motions to recommit.” [snip]
“And it has grave implications for the American people and their freedom, coming at a time when an unprecedented expansion of federal power and spending is being hastily planned by a single party behind closed doors. Republicans will vigorously oppose repealing these reforms if they are brought to a vote on the House floor."
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[apologies for the tardy post, but the deed is done - and folks link Charlie Rangle, being investigated for four separate criminal acts, can keep his chairmanship indefinitely. 'The most ethical congress in history'.]
LATimes Prints Hamas Terrorist's Op Ed
Amazingly, the L. A. Times gave ample space to a Hamas terrorist to "explain" how the current Gaza action is all Israel's fault. Mousa Abu Marzook the purported "deputy of the political bureau of Hamas," the group called an "Islamic Resistance Movement," shamefacedly claims that Israel's actions shattered "any incentive by Palestinian leaders to enforce the moratorium on rocket fire."
This so-called deputy of the political bureau of the terror agency Hamas engages in one lie after another in this piece. He peels off one after another accusations of Israel's culpability after each excuse for his own people's failures.
In fact, there are so many distortions and lies in this thing it is impossible to critique each of them in turn. It would take reams of discussion and many hundreds of links to various news reports refute each of them. But that has been the Palestinian way, hasn't it? Present so many bold faced lies that your opponent simply tires of the argument.
The sad thing is that the L.A.Times has treated this terror agency as a legitimate voice among the nations of the world.
Thanks L.A.Times for giving terrorists the legitimacy they crave.
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Fashion Writer: Michelle O's a 'Goddess.' Palin is 'Worst Dressed'
It appears Obamamania has not only infiltrated British newspapers, but so has Palin Derangement Syndrome...even in the fashion section.
This month, a goddess stepped onto the world stage and made it her own.Makes you wonder if the editors intentionally made the obvious errors in the preceding paragraph because they knew it was going to make so many people sic[k].
First Lady-in-waiting Michelle Obama, who looks as chic in a chainstore’s $148 printed tank dress as she does in Narciso Rodriguez designer wear, proved that you can be tall, have unruly hair, be amother [sic] of two demanding daughters, be married to someone who is, frankly, a sex god, and come out smiling, confident and truly a style icon. [...]
WORST DRESSED
There were lots ofcontenders [sic] for thistitle [sic]. Dannii Minogue, the Geldof girls, Beyoncé, Madonna inthat [sic] dress made of grass. But the award simply has to go to Sarah Palin, who may have spent $150,000 on six suits but still resembled a hopelessly sexless, up [sic] hockey mom who buys all her clothes from Wal-Mart.
Of course, what really makes this breathtakingly silly is calling such an attractive woman -- who, by the way, has five children INCLUDING one born this year!!! -- hopelessly sexless.
Tough to believe the author missed this delicious irony...or maybe not.
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A Revealing Morning With Sarah Palin
One of the things you quickly learn when you visit the Palins is that the legend created around who they are and how they live is no myth. It appears to be absolutely real and everything about them seems 100% sincere. From the stuffed hunting trophies on the wall, to Track’s military photo by the TV set, to Piper’s crayon school projects on the refrigerator door - everything is exactly as you imagined.
What’s particularly valuable about my perspective is that I am not Charlie Gibson, Matt Lauer or Greta Van Susteren (who I understand now gets her mail delivered to the Palin home) — the conductors of the three most prominent interviews done in this Wasilla home on a frozen lake at the end of a drive with the sign “Palins” posted on a tree. I am virtually unknown nationally and there was absolutely no reason for anything to be done differently as “show” for us. We saw the genuine Sarah Palin and it is patently obvious this is the only one who exists.
She is the real deal. [snip]
I also know, with moral certitude, that the media assassination of her, her character and family, was one of the greatest public injustices of our time and that I’m totally justified in devoting my life to correcting the historical record in my forthcoming film, “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Smeared.”
[Recommended > ]
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Monday, January 12, 2009
Bay Area TV Station Notes 'Professional Protester' Influence in Riot; Other Media Silent
California
Here's something you don't see every day.
A video report about last night's riot in Oakland related to the shooting death of an unarmed man at the hands of a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer actually calls it .... a riot. What's more, the reporter notes, as is really often the case in situations such as these, how people he characterized as "professional protesters" egged others on and created the atmosphere that led to so much violence and vandalism.
CBS5 reporter Joe Vazquez filed "Inside the Oakland Riot: A First-Hand Account." It's a little too "gee whiz" to me, but it least it gets some usually unreported facts out.
Here is the full text of the video:
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Rocket hits Ashdod kindergarten
[HT:JH]
Palestinians continued to fire rockets at Israel on the 16th day of Operation Cast Lead, even during a three-hour humanitarian cease-fire. Throughout the day Sunday, Hamas gunmen fired at least 24 rockets at southern Israel...
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Obama won't deal with Hamas, 'Post' told
The incoming Obama administration will not abandon President George Bush's doctrine of isolating Hamas, the Obama transition team's chief national security spokeswoman has told The Jerusalem Post. (Snip) "The president-elect's repeated statements [about not dealing with Hamas] are accurate," Anderson said.
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[but he will meet with Iran, who is the state behind Hamas...]
Wrong Story
Below, Michael Ledeen does a good job of describing the nature of the current proxy war between Israel and Iran, and he points out that the strategic failure is not just Israel's, but America's: the failure to recognize that Iran is at war with the civilized world and that we need to win that war.
"Wrong Story," Michael Ledeen, National Review Online, December 30It's a hell of a position to be in, and discussions of tactics and methods in Gaza address only a small part of the problem. The real problem isn't even being discussed.
Everyone in the Middle East knows that the serious component of the Battle of Gaza is all about Iran. The Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, recently warned that Iran is trying to "devour" the Arab world. Mohammed Abdallah Al Zulfa, of the Saudi Arabian Shura Council, reminded Alhurra's viewers that "Iran is the big threat in today's world, supporting all the terrorists from Hamas to Hezbollah to some other terrorists that we don't know their names yet," and that "Iran destabilized the region by supporting all the illegal activities and activists such as Hamas." Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian foreign minister, in a press conference in Anakara, ranted against Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah, saying that the Iranian-run terror organization had "practically declared war on Egypt."…
The Israelis know all this, just as they know that the mullahs are building an atomic bomb destined for Israeli territory. But Israel is a small country, despite the paranoid visions of some Western ideologues who think the Israelis run the world through espionage and lobbying. Iran is more than ten times the size of Israel, and even the most feisty Israeli shrinks from the thought of an open war with Tehran. So they are left to contend with the tentacles of the terrorist hydra, while the main body remains untouched. They may chop off a piece of Hamas or Hezbollah, but it will regenerate and grab them again….
Thus, the best Israel can hope to accomplish is to buy time, praying that somehow or other the Iranian regime will fall before the mullahs launch their promised genocidal attack, or that the Israelis will find a way to destroy the atomic weapon before it is used against them, or that the West will, at the eleventh hour, recognize that Iran is a global threat and find a way to thwart it.
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Former Pentagon chief predicts Iran crisis soon
Washington - William Perry, who headed the Pentagon during a 1994 nuclear standoff with North Korea, predicted on Thursday that President-elect Barack Obama will soon face a nuclear crisis with Iran. Iran is ''moving inexorably toward becoming a nuclear power,'' with ominous implications for the Middle East.
''It seems clear that Israel will not sit by idle while Iran takes the final steps toward becoming a nuclear power''
[and when Israel acts to secure its survival the West's idiots who refused to prevent it these past decades will condemn Israel's 'aggression']
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Useful Idiots
The unspoken truth about the fighting in Gaza, which began on December 19 2008 when Hamas rockets broke a voluntary truce, is that this is the frontline of a much larger war. This war began thirty years ago with the Islamic Revolution in Iran and is now global in scope. Its agenda is the extermination of the Jews and the destruction of the West.
Their allies in the West are either stupendously ignorant or morally blind. Here is the self-revealing declaration of the Associate Director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Wisconsin:
“The state terror unleashed from the skies and on the ground against the Gaza Strip as we speak has nothing to do with Hamas. It has nothing to do with ‘Terror.’ It has nothing to do with the long-term ‘security’ of the Jewish State. What it has to do with is the evil Jews and their evil American supporters
In the midst of the global war that radical Islam has declared on the West, the conflict in Gaza has revealed the presence of a fifth column in the West so detached from its own communities and civilized values that it now constitutes a clear and present danger to our survival...
[Recommended > ]
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GUTTING SECURITY
PRESIDENT-elect Barack Obama's appointments to Homeland Security, the Justice Department and now the CIA indicate a virtual abandonment of the War on Terror.
As Homeland Security chief, he's named a governor whose only experience has been with the US-Mexican border. His attorney general pick, meanwhile, took the lead in pardoning FALN terrorists. Now he has rounded out his national-security and Justice Department teams by naming ultraliberals.
Leon Panetta, his choice for CIA chief, is as liberal as they come he long ago embraced the left with the fervor of a convert and brings these values to the CIA.
As President Bill Clinton's chief of staff (a tenure that coincided with my own work with Clinton), he was a dedicated liberal, opposing accommodation with the Republicans who ran Congress and battling hard against a balanced-budget deal. After winning re-election, Clinton jettisoned Panetta for the more moderate Erskine Bowles in order to reach a deal with the GOP... [snip]
Bush's legacy shows one clear achievement: He kept us safe after 9/11. Now his successor's policies are about to eradicate that singular achievement. The liberals will, of course, all cheer these appointments and the policies they'll pursue once in office, but these appointments make it frighteningly more likely that we will, indeed, be hit again.
[it's hard to give the new guy 'the benefit of the doubt' when so much is on the line, but we've little choice at this point other than to pay close attention. The immediate point made by this piece is that the media's mantra of 'moderate' appointments is sheer fabrication - let's hope the weight of their positions brings some degree of responsibility]
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Obama completes national security team
Obama picked retired Adm. Dennis Blair as the national intelligence director and Leon Panetta to head the CIA [snip]Obama said he has given the men the clear charge to restore the United States' record on human rights...
[so the focus of our intelligence organizations, at time of war, is to be restoring our 'reputation' on human rights?]
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Cold War Lite
[HT:BN]
Vladimir Putin's ambition of re-establishing Russia's Cold War empire ought to have been curtailed by the precipitous economic collapse of his country's oil-centered economy. Instead, as is so often the case with dictators, failure has made him more desperate and hence more belligerent.
Hence Russia's decision to cut off supplies of natural gas to Europe. As the article below explains, the target isn't Western Europe but the middle-man, Ukraine, through which the natural gas pipelines pass. Ukraine is the last of the former Soviet Republics (not counting tiny Georgia) to have a relatively free system of government and to align itself with the West, and Putin wants to destabilize it.
As a result, the Europeans are going to learn a lesson about allowing themselves to become so dependent on Russian fuel supplies. Putin has put the "cold" into Cold War Lite, and millions of Europeans will spend a dangerously cold winter as a result.
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Russia declares gas monitoring deal void
MOSCOW - President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia considers an EU-mediated deal to monitor gas flow across Ukraine void because of changes made by Ukraine. Moscow has said it will not restart gas supplies to Europe until it has a valid deal. Supplies have been halted since Wednesday.
[now what could Russia possibly have against simply monitoring the actual {vs. claimed} flow of gas?]
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Gas crisis has to power EU reforms
The European Union has rightly put top priority on trying to secure an early end to the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute that has left millions of EU citizens short of fuel. It must now put the same effort into implementing much-discussed energy reforms to limit the risks of a future supply shock again threatening the health and even the lives of its people.
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[then again, maybe not...]
Slovakia to restart nuclear plant
BRUSSELS: Starved of gas following Russia's dispute with Ukraine, Slovakia has announced plans to restart a Soviet-era nuclear reactor in defiance [?] of the European Union... [snip]
The decision, made late Saturday, is expected to provoke sharp criticism at a meeting of European energy ministers in Brussels on Monday, and was condemned by the Austrian government on Sunday as "completely unacceptable."
[better that people freeze]
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Politicians, power and a new religion
Since this is the moment in the year when forecasts are demanded, I shall pick a sad certainty. Parliament will create more offences, lots of them. The Government, astonishingly, has apparently created a new imprisonable offence every four days for the past decade. Curiously little row has been made about this, least of all by what passes for the parliamentary Opposition. Many of the new offences in the coming year are sure to stem from the new religion: global warming.
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Global Warming Update: 'Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age'
A possibly inconvenient truth has just been presented to the international community:"The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science."
Additionally, the entire bogus manmade global warming theory that climate alarmists and their surrogates have been forcing down the throats of the citizenry"is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change."
Such was reported by Russia's Pravda Sunday, and it not only goes quite counter to the junk science being espoused ... but which has also been regularly proffered by many of the real scientists and climatologists around the world that global warming loving media not only refuse to cite and/or interview, but also disgracefully ridicule as deniers and flat earthers.
According to Pravda, it is Gore, Hansen, Schmidt, and all their sycophant devotees that are the flat earthers who are distracting the world from a much more serious climate threat (emphasis added throughout):
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Plasma television screens set to be banned under new energy legislation
The plasma screen television is set to become the next victim of the battle against climate change. Giant energy-guzzling flat screens are expected the be banned under legislation on TV energy use expected to be agreed by the EU this spring. Plasma screens, which are popular in pubs and supermarket, as well as in homes, have been nicknamed the '4x4s' of the living room because they use up to four times as electricity as traditional cathode ray sets.
["battle against climate change" - insane.]
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House Democrats Push Bills to Extend Limits on Pay Discrimination Lawsuits
House Democrats expect to pass two anti-pay discrimination bills Friday that Republicans charge will not only increase the number of lawsuits but virtually end the statute of limitations for filing claims against employers.“This should be the highest priority to us,” [?] “This means economic security of our country. [?] Tomorrow, Congress passes serious civil rights legislative reforms that prove our commitment to equality in this country.”
Supporters of the legislation point to Census Bureau statistics that show, on average, women earn 77 cents for every $1 earned by men in the workforce. While serving as a senator, Obama paid women 78 percent of what he paid men.“The Paycheck Fairness Act would increase government’s role in how wages are set,” ... “Their view is that wages are incorrectly determined by the marketplace, and this would be a politicization of wages in the workforce.”
Both Census and the Secretary of the Senate statistics are without regard to education, experience or job position.
[equality of result - regardless of reason.]
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Obama's Choice: FDR or Reagan
FDR's answer: vast federal spending, tough new regulations on business and higher taxes -- like Herbert Hoover before him, only more so.
The Depression lasted until war orders from the Allies brought U.S. industry back to life. Before 1940, not once did unemployment fall below 14 percent. In May 1939, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau testified:"We are spending more money than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. ... I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt, to boot."
But politically, the New Deal was a smashing success*, with FDR's landslides in 1932, 1934 and 1936 virtually wiping out the GOP.
Yet, economically, the New Deal was a bust, failing utterly to restore prosperity. Despite the indoctrination of generations of schoolchildren in New Deal propaganda, that is the hard truth.
Consider, now, how Ronald Reagan responded to the economic crisis of 1980, the worst since the Depression. In the "stagflation" of that Jimmy Carter era, interest rates had reached 21 percent and inflation 13 percent.
Reagan's answer was a tight money policy and across-the-board tax cuts of 25 percent, while slashing the highest rates from 70 percent to 28 percent. While unemployment hit 10 percent in 1982 and Reagan lost 26 House seats, in 1983 the tax cuts kicked in.
From there on out, it was boom times until Reagan rode off into the sunset, having created 20 million new jobs. "The Seven Fat Years," author Robert Bartley called them. Reagan had followed the lead of Warren Harding and Cal Coolidge, who had cut Woodrow Wilson's wartime tax rates of near 70 percent to 25 percent, resulting in "The Roaring '20s," a time of unrivaled prosperity.
The JFK tax cuts of the 1960s, also a Reagan model, were equally successful.
Harding, Coolidge, JFK and Reagan all bet on the private sector as the engine of prosperity. All succeeded. Franklin Roosevelt bet on government. And the New Deal failed. It was World War II that pulled the United States out of the Depression ditch of the 1930s.
[* but politically, it buys politicians indentured voters - and I fear Obama will have the same 'success' FDR did - and failure.]
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Can Media Be Legally Liable For Worsening Economic Crisis?
If exaggerated reports of global economic distress act to further dampen consumer confidence and actually worsen the situation, can press outlets be held legally liable?
Such was espoused by a corporate lawyer Thursday in response to a poll that found 77 percent of Americans
"think the financial press is making the economic crisis worse by projecting fear into people's minds."
As reported by Breitbart New Years day (h/t Hot Air headlines):
Richard L. Scheff, a national expert on corporate liability and white collar crime issues, warns media that they could potentially be exposed to liability despite apparent constitutional protections:
"Although statements by the media are protected by the First Amendment, the survey results demonstrate that the public believes that the press bears some responsibility for the lack of confidence in the economy. One would hope that the media would act less out of self-interest in these times of national crisis,"
said Mr. Scheff, vice chairman and partner with Philadelphia-based law firm Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads.
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Seniors: Economy's nothing like Great Depression
CEDAR LAKE, Ind. - Indiana seniors in their 80s and 90s who've heard comparisons of the nation's current financial woes to the Great Depression say today's crisis can't compare to the hardship that followed the 1929 stock market crash. Joseph A. Furman, a 93-year-old from Cedar Lake, said he's fed up with people calling today's economic troubles a depression.
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Universal coverage? First, look at the disaster in Massachusetts
To much fanfare from both right and left in 2006, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to require all residents to buy health insurance. A new state health insurance clearinghouse was created, with taxpayers subsidizing those who couldn’t afford to buy coverage. (Snip) 43 mandatory benefits — including those that many people did not want or need, such as invitro fertilization — raised the costs of coverage for Massachusetts residents by as much as 56 percent
[how many examples of abject failure must be created before folks get the message that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and government involvement in health care will inevitably ruin it to the degree we allow it in]
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Obama pledges schools upgrade in stimulus
Washington - Barack Obama probably cannot fix every leaky roof and busted boiler in the nation's schools. But educators say his sweeping school modernization program — if he spends enough — could jump-start student achievement. More kids than ever are crammed into aging, run-down schools that need an estimated $255 billion in repairs, renovations or construction.
[interesting; we spend more of our state income tax dollars on education than everything else combined - plus federal and lotto funds - yet they whole system's in shambles coast to coast? So why don't we change the system instead of throwing yet more money at it?]
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The Workshops Of Identity
by Bill Whittle
Part 1: The Heartbeat:
Step back with me for a minute. Back out of Hollywood, out of America, out of the Western Tradition. Sit in the middle of a darkened crater at the south pole of the Moon. Sit back, look down and back into time, and watch the rise and fall of Civilizations on the Big Blue Ball.
If you could see human activity and genius, if you could watch poetry and medicine as points of golden light in the darkness of fear and superstition, you would soon detect a rhythm: a pulse, a heartbeat – the Heartbeat of Civilization.
It would begin in the Land Between the Rivers – a place known only in the last instant by the inhabitants down there as “Iraq,” but for almost the entire beating EKG before that it was called “Babylon” and then “Mesopotamia.”
That culture grew brighter, flourished and then suddenly winked out. Then, a little to the west, the Nile delta slowly blossomed, peaked, and fell. Then Greece. Rome. Constantinople. Arabia. Italy. Spain. France. Britain – and with Britain, that spark of medicine and architecture and government married to science and steam literally remade the world.
And from your perch on the frozen, bone-dry lunar sand you would see the same pattern, the same pulse, the same heartbeat: a slow, steady rise, followed by a precipitous, shockingly quick fall… and then centuries, or even millennia of darkness, fear, superstition, disease and ignorance before the spark took hold again elsewhere.
One thing in common these patterns bear: the rise slow, the fall seemingly precipitous, and in every case we find the loss of nerve and strength and will comes not from the bottom, not from the common people at all, but from the rulers, the philosophers, the most affluent and educated who, in their comfort and Narcissism, abandon duty for self-absorption and self-gratification and who in boredom or self-loathing decide to fling open the gates of the city to the barbarians beyond, while the common man still stands at the walls prepared to die for the people in his charge.
And now here stands America...
[Recommended > ]
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PETA's latest idiotic demand - fish are 'sea kittens'
RADICAL international animal rights group PETA has launched its most bizarre campaign yet, demanding fish be renamed "sea kittens". PETA - People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals - believes calling fish sea kittens will make sea food less appealing. It wants to change the image of fish as slimy and slithery creatures by claiming they are similar to cuter, more popular animals.
[you can't make this stuff up]
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Friday, January 9, 2009
CNN to Broadcast I.O.U.S.A.
The public has spoken, and we've listened. In response to demand for information about our country's financial challenges, CNN/U.S. will air the broadcast premiere of the acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A. on on
THIS...
Saturday, January 10 at 2:00 p.m. EST,
Sunday, January 11 at 3:00 p.m. EST.
Tivo time.
Sunday, January 11 at 3:00 p.m. EST.
Tivo time.
Accompanying the documentary will be an unscripted panel discussion with policy leaders about various economic solutions currently under consideration.
This exclusive televised event will air only on CNN, and will be hosted by Ali Velshi and Christine Romans, co-anchors of CNN's Your $$$$$, the network's weekend business roundtable program.Learn more about the film at www.IOUSAtheMovie.com. And be sure to spread the word about the U.S. broadcast premiere!
The Federal Department of Economic Recovery
I have to say it: the "small-government conservatives" deserve this one. For years, I have railed against the ineffectual advocates of "small government" who direct all of their anger toward "earmarks"—which in total constitute less than one tenth of one percent of the federal budget.
Earmarks are small government;
it's the rest of the budget that's big.
Well, Barack Obama has the perfect answer to them. He has proposed a colossal $775 billion public-works bill—but he has declared that he wants to ban earmarks and find "efficiencies" in how the money is spent. Oh, and he also wants to make the spending "transparent," so we can go on the Internet and track to the last penny exactly how our money is being wasted.
But the part of this story that ought to make you really scared is Obama's pledge to create an "economic recovery oversight board." According to the article below, "Obama's proposed Economic Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board is to include members the administration deems relevant to helping the country rebound from the year-old recession."
In effect, this is a new central planning board for the American economy—
a revival of the oldest, most discredited ideas of the Left...
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THE NEXT SUBPRIME SINKHOLE
IN America's ever-more-democratic society, egalitarianism seeps into everything, even the supposedly severe meritocracy of sport. So almost every college football team that is not dreadful is "bowl eligible." That is why there are 34 bowl games, which is why you might not have noticed Tuesday's Bailout Bowl in which you could have seen your tax dollars at work. Or at play.
The game's real name was the GMAC Bowl. GMAC is known as the "financing affiliate" of General Motors. But Cerberus, the huge private-equity firm that owns 80.1 percent of Chrysler. Washington sternly said that it would allow GMAC to become a bank-holding company only if GMAC managed to increase its capital to $30 billion. When GMAC fell far short of that goal, Washington supplied the shortfall... [snip]
In 2000, the first year of its bowl sponsorship, GMAC paid $500,000. Perhaps the sponsorship makes marketing sense, even today. But though its pockets are bulging with public money, GMAC says, through a spokeswoman on Monday, that it doesn't disclose the specifics of its marketing program.
You might think that a company forfeits a right to such secrecy when it takes the public's money. You would, evidently, be mistaken. Although GMAC is now attached by an umbilical cord to the US Treasury, GMAC's position is that the sponsorship price is none of the public's business...
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The Deficit Spending Blowout
The looming red ink is unlike anything in U.S. peacetime history
Remember when Dick Cheney was pilloried for reportedly saying, earlier this decade, that "deficits don't matter"? We recall reading any number of press releases denouncing the Vice President for supporting tax cuts that contributed to short-term deficits but also helped the economy grow until the deficits shrank nearly away.
As an economic matter, it does make sense to run deficits in a recession rather than to raise taxes in a way that would delay any recovery. Borrowing money to finance a war (Reagan's aircraft carriers in the 1980s) or to pay for tax cuts that promote growth (Reagan and Bush's tax cuts) is often money well spent.
Yet somehow none of those same voices are objecting now that the government is spending* its way into deficits that are so large they dwarf any during peacetime in U.S. history... [snip]
The undeniable truth is that this money has to come from somewhere, which means that it is borrowed or taxed from the private economy. This spending blowout is all but guaranteeing huge future tax increases, and anyone who thinks only the rich will pay is living an illusion. Taxpayers need some new champions in Washington -- and fast.
[* and that's the critical caveat: Bush's initial deficits were because he reduced revenue by reducing taxes, which stimulated the economy. All current 'stimulus' proposals grow the deficit by spending more money we don't have, thereby burdening the economy (which is private) -- and delaying any real (broad, sustainable) recovery. The years of unnecessary pain caused by FDR's policies evidently taught us nothing]
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Sarkozy, Merkel, Blair call for 'new' capitalism
European leaders will meet in Berlin before the G-20 summit in London to decide a 'common approach' as global leaders gear up for a second meeting on the global financial crisis, Sarkozy said.
Merkel said the International Monetary Fund has not managed to regulate global capitalism, and she called for the creation of an economy body at the United Nations, similar to the Security Council, to judge government policy. [snip]
Sarkozy described current capitalism as:"... a system where wealth goes to the wealthy, where work is devalued, where production is devalued, where entrepreneurial spirit is devalued,"
But no more:"In capitalism of the 21st century, there is room for the state,"
he said.
['the state' to which he's referring is a UN-like global government. Make no mistake, the global financial melt down has given the one-world-government types an opening to again try and undercut the sovereignty of the United States. They're desperate to do this because, IF we can resist the wave of socialistic proposals being made, their welfare states will not be able to compete with our comparatively free market capitalism. But they can avoid the pain of undoing much of what they've done if they can bring us down to their level (example 1: global tax rates to avoid 'unfair' tax advantages - raised here to the levels there of course}. Just think about a United Nations Council 'judging' America's business structure...]
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GLOBAL WARMING: REASONS WHY IT MIGHT NOT ACTUALLY EXIST
Skeptics have long argued that there are other explanations for climate change other than man-made CO2. As Christopher Booker explains, there are many arguments put forward by those who believe that global warming is all a hoax:
• Temperatures are falling, not rising: Last winter, the northern hemisphere saw its greatest snow cover since 1966; this winter is predicted to be even worse.
• The earth was hotter 1,000 years ago: Research shows that temperatures were higher in what is known as the Medieval Warming period than they were in the 1990s.
• The earth's surface temperature is not at record levels: According to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, surface air temperature measurements show that December 2007 to November 2008 was the coolest year, and that the hottest decade was the 1930s, not the 1990s.
• Ice is not disappearing: According to the Web site Crysophere Today, Arctic ice volume was 500,000 square kilometers greater than this time last year; additionally, Antarctic sea-ice reached its highest level this year since satellite records began in 1979.
• Himalayan glaciers: The UN Environmental Program reported that the cause of melting glaciers in the Himalayas was not global warming but the local warming effect of a vast "atmospheric brown cloud" over that region made up of soot particles resulting from Asia's increased burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
• Temperatures are still dropping: NASA satellite readings on global temperatures show that August was the fourth month in 2008 when temperatures fell below their 30-year average since satellite records began.
[I prefer 'scam' to 'hoax' as it's the money component which is truly fueling this massive deception]
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Carbon market worth up to $118 bln in 2008-report
LONDON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - The global carbon market was worth around $118 billion in 2008, rising 84 percent from the previous year. The market's value should swell to $150 billion in 2009, in spite of the gloomy backdrop of a global recession, the group forecast in a quarterly trading update.
New Carbon Finance forecast moderate growth in the EUA market in 2009, but increased liquidity in secondary certified emissions reductions (CERs), carbon offsets under Kyoto's clean development mechanism (CDM) which are directly linked to investments in clean energy project.
New Carbon Finance based its forecasts on future price predictions and permit allocations in the European, North American, Australian carbon markets as well as project-based markets such as spot trades, swaps, options and futures...
[understand any of that? You're not supposed to - it's the NEXT GREAT PONZI SCAM - ask yourself, if 2008 was the 'disaster' we've been told it was how does a 'market' go up 84%? A: it's a legislated (read: forced) market - and if Obama signs up for it you will pay for it...]
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Carbon-Offset Cowboys
In the rolling foothills of the madison range in southwestern Montana, a cabin-style house sits beside a washboard dirt road. A few horses loiter in a corral outside.
Last year Sun Ranch became the first ranch in the U.S. to cash in on a program that pays rangeland owners to help fight global warming. The ranch received a $30,000 check for the carbon dioxide its grasslands have been absorbing from the air.
[good thing: without your 30K$ I'm sure the grass could never been convinced to grow. This is government {this is the carbon offset scam}]
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"And Then We Sell to Google"
[HT:BW]
"Washington Is Killing Silicon Valley," describes the continuing effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley financial regulations imposed during the Enron hysteria in 2002.
In effect, this law has suppressed the venture capital process that serves as an engine for creating innovative new companies, particularly in high technology. Sarbox discourages independent new startups and instead solidifies the dominance of a few giant companies that are big enough to deal with the regulatory hassles imposed by government."Faced with crushing reporting costs if they go public, new companies are instead selling themselves to big, existing corporations. For the last four years it has seemed that every new business plan in Silicon Valley has ended with the statement "And then we sell to Google." The venture capital industry is now underwater, paying out less than it is taking in. Small potential shareholders are denied access to future gains. Power is being ever more centralized in big, established companies. "
Read the whole article for a lot of sobering details about the government's smothering of the "entrepreneurship-venture capital-IPO cycle." Particularly telling is the anecdote about how new venture-capital proposals all end with "and then we sell to Google"—substituting one company as the financial engine of Silicon Valley, in place of a large, vibrant financial marketplace.
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U.S. plans 'surge' if Mexican bloodshed crosses border
The soaring level of violence in Mexico resulting from the drug wars there has led the United States to develop plans for a "surge" of civilian and perhaps even military law enforcement should the bloodshed spread across the border, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, said Wednesday. Chertoff said the criminal activity in Mexico, which has caused more than 5,300 deaths in the last year, had long troubled American authorities.
[IF?!? What does Einstein think NS13 is?]
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Drug cartels allegedly bribing way into US courtrooms
McALLEN, Texas— The case of a South Texas paralegal who allegedly leaked information to members of a violent drug cartel is highlighting fears that smuggling networks are using bribes to reach into the U.S. halls of justice.
Federal authorities allege that Joel Carcano Jr., a college-educated paralegal, unlawfully provided confidential court information to the Texas Syndicate drug mafia...
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Legislators Vow to Fight Fairness Doctrine with Introduction of New Bill
GOP Sens. Jim DeMint, S.C. and James Inhofe, Okla., along with two of their House colleagues, Reps. Mike Pence, Ind. and Greg Walden, Ore., introduced the Broadcaster Freedom Act at a press conference in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 7.
DeMint, who is named on the Senate of version of the bill, the DeMint-Thune Senate bill, S. 34., told a group of reporters that he would fight any effort by the federal government to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine.
"One of the most important freedoms we have is for people to know the truth about what we're doing here and people learn more about what we're doing from talk radio than from anything else in the country today."
Rep. Greg Walden, one of the namesakes of the Pence-Walden bill, the House version of the Broadcaster Freedom Act, ,said there were instances of the use of the Fairness Doctrine as a political weapon."There is evidence in the past that administrations of both parties have used the Fairness Doctrine to go after people they oppose by threatening their licenses when those licenses were up for renewal," Walden said. "And that's the core of the issue here - is that government bureaucrats will decide whether a broadcast station owner gets his license or her license again - or is somehow punished for not having exactly the right other view on the airwaves."
The Fairness Doctrine was implemented by the FCC in 1949 in an attempt to ensure that broadcasters presented balanced and fair coverage of controversial subject matter. In 1985, the FCC determined that the Fairness Doctrine was no longer necessary due to the emergence of a "multiplicity of voices in the marketplace."
Twice Democrat-controlled Congress' have passed legislation restoring the Fairness Doctrine, but Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush vetoed the bills.
READ MORE
then > 
"Support DeMint-Thune/Pence-Walden
'Broadcaster Freedom' bills"
Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Obama Transition: http://change.gov/page/content/contact/
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
- and pass it on -
.
.
.
Vote to End Fairness Doctrine Blocked
UPDATE:
The House Democratic leadership, which controls the legislative schedule, currently has no plans to bring the Broadcaster Freedom Act – which would permanently ban the Fairness Doctrine – up for a vote.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told CNSNews.com at the Capitol on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans on Wednesday unveiled legislation identical to the Broadcaster Freedom Act...
[and there we are: the Democrats' idea of democracy is not to allow a vote. We need a 'comprehensive immigration' moment...]
again > "Support DeMint-Thune/Pence-Walden
'Broadcaster Freedom' bills"
Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Obama Transition: http://change.gov/page/content/contact/
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
- and pass it on -
.
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