Political Elite Losing Touch With America on Global Warming

Global warming policy can sound pretty good one sound byte at a time. But as Americans learn more, they are buying it a lot less.

That is because Americans are beginning to understand that a cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is nothing more than a regressive tax that will raise energy prices and cost Americans jobs – all for little, if any, environmental gain.

It is shaping up that if Congress passes any version of a cap-and-trade bill, just like the stimulus spending, it will come with large public dissent. In fact, a recent Gallup pole announced that

Although a majority of Americans believe the seriousness of global warming is either correctly portrayed in the news or underestimated, a record-high 41% now say it is exaggerated. This is up from just 30% in 2006.

And maybe that is why we are starting to see a ramp up in the rhetoric from the global warming alarmists. The numbers don’t lie; support for global warming policies are eroding, faster than polar ice caps, as it turns out.

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[Shades of 2007, when a surge of science refuting AWG was successfully countered with massive PR stunts and fawning media coverage - ergo...


"The Age of Stupid" Cometh

"What frame of mind were we in to face extinction and simply shrug it off?"

That powerful question is central to "The Age of Stupid," a climate change 'documentary' that aims to hit every viewer (and they're hoping for 250 million of them) where it hurts, and turn them into climate change activists.

The film premieres in London on March 15, then in the U.S. in May, by which time its makers hope to have started a global movement.

The filmmakers have their sights set squarely on the upcoming climate change summit in Copenhagen, and they've joined the umbrella campaign group "Not Stupid".

The European Parliament, the Dutch Parliament, the British Parliament have already seen the film, and the United Nations has requested a screening. Director Franny Armstrong isn't shy about her determination to influence the U.S.

"In terms of climate change, the U.S. is the most important, both politically and in terms of emissions," ... "Obama can radically change the U.S. approach to climate change in Copenhagen, so our focus is definitely on him."

But can a film really rally public opinion enough to compel politicians into taking significant environmental action?

[The campaign intensifies]

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[HT:RT]

image toon - grn - Serious about carbon = drop Pelosi air

Darkening days in Juarez

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — In this carnage-racked border city of 1.3 million, more than 80 murders have been clocked in the past three weeks, and kidnappings, extortions, robberies and rapes further bedevil an already rattled population. So far, the new year looks to be bringing as much, if not more, havoc than the last.

“Walking in the streets of Juarez is an extreme sport,”

said political scientist Tony Payan.

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79% Support U.S. Troops on the Border to Fight Drug Violence
Seventy-nine percent (79%) of U.S. voters now say the military should be used along the border with Mexico to protect American citizens if drug-related violence continues to grow in that area.

This marks a 21-point jump in support for the use of the U.S. military along the border in just two months.

Only 10% now say the military should not be used in that fashion, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.

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One-Party Classroom

Are American college students being indoctrinated in their classrooms?

Closed Minds? is a survey of 1270 professors conducted by authors associated with the Brookings Institution. The survey asked these academics what their political persuasion was and whether they let politics influence their classroom presentations. The overwhelming majority of respondents said they were on the political left, but ninety-five percent denied that they used their classrooms to influence their students politically. This encouraged the Brookings experts to conclude

“The idea that the elite universities are rife with leftist politics, or any politics for that matter, is at odds with the evidence.”

We beg to differ. In researching our new book One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America’s Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy, we didn’t ask professors what they thought of themselves.

Instead, we looked at the courses they actually teach -- courses like Community Studies 100P at the University of California Santa Cruz, which is described in the university catalogue in these words:

“The goal of this seminar is to learn how to organize a revolution. We will learn what communities past and present have done and are doing to resist, challenge and overcome systems of power including (but not limited to) global capitalism, state oppression and racism.”

This is clearly a training course in radical politics – an exercise in indoctrination, not a scholarly inquiry designed to examine its subject matter in a critical, academic manner. [snip]

... we examine doctrinaire syllabuses and one-sided reading lists, which leave no doubt that their purpose is to instill radical prejudices and recruit students to radical causes. Literally. At the University of Arizona , for example, students can take a course in “Social Movements” whose official catalogue description announces:

“Here it is, activism for credit. Give four hours to a social movement and I’ll give you 200 points.”

The instructor then provides students with a list of social movements, which are all far left groups.

The evidence presented in our book that indoctrination is a real problem and one that is widespread is irrefutable. It is time to stop denying the obvious and start taking steps to remedy.

[Highly Recommeded > ]

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Last night, "Indoctrinate U" director Evan Coyne Maloney appeared on
CNN with Lou Dobbs, who said the film was was "terrific." Dobbs
added,

"I can't recommend it highly enough" and he urged viewers to
"get this documentary. It's extraordinary."

Video of the interview is available here.

Also, the Documentary Channel has a few more
screenings of "Indoctrinate U" coming up:

Tuesday, March 17th: 9:00PM - 10:30PM

Wednesday, March 18th: Midnight - 01:30AM
(after midnight Tuesday)

Wednesday, March 25th: 5:00PM - 6:30PM

Monday, March 30th: 2:00AM - 3:30AM

(All times Eastern U.S.)

For more information, visit:

http://indoctrinate-u.com/pages/welcome.html#docu-channel

Of course, as always, the film is available on DVD or as a download
at the "Indoctrinate U" online store:

http://store.indoctrinate-u.com/

.

ACORN to Play Role in 2010 Census

The U.S. Census is supposed to be free of politics, but one group with a history of voter fraud, ACORN, is participating in next year's count, raising concerns about the politicization of the decennial survey.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now signed on as a national partner with the U.S. Census Bureau in February 2009 to assist with the recruitment of the 1.4 million temporary workers needed to go door-to-door to count every person in the United States...

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image toon - othr fnn - Dept of Commerce taken leave of Census

Letter to Congress Regarding the Latest Obama Outrage Against Veterans

.
Dear Senator Feinstein/Senator Boxer/Rep. Jane Harmon,

I am writing you today regarding President Obama’s recent proposal to charge U.S. combat veterans (through their insurance carriers) for treatment received as a result of injuries suffered on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan...

READ MORE

Then >


"OPPOSE BILLING FOR SERVICE INJURIES"


Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
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 as always, pass it on...

.

Generic Congressional Ballot

Support for the Democratic Congressional candidates fell to a new low over the past week, allowing the GOP to move slightly head for the first time in recent years in the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 41% said they would vote for their district’s Republican candidate while 39% would choose the Democrat.

Democrats began the year holding a six or seven point lead over the GOP for the first several weeks of 2009. Over the past month, the gap has been smaller, with Democrats holding a two-to-four point lead.

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Bush refuses to criticize Obama in Canada

CALGARY, Alberta - Former President George W. Bush says he won't criticize President Barack Obama because Obama "deserves my silence," and says he plans to write a book about the 12 toughest decisions he made in office. Bush's speech Tuesday at a luncheon in Calgary, Alberta was his first since leaving office.

[The unpolished cowboy does have his own brand of class. Handled it just like Jimmy Carter - but different.]

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mage photo - fnn - No hunting slow children

image toon - 1st fnn mny - Obey portrait in cubism on issues

Just 27% See Need for Another Stimulus Package

Just 27% of voters nationwide favor passage of a second economic stimulus package. The latest Rasmussen Reports nationwide telephone survey found that 55% are opposed and 19% are not sure.

Despite the public opposition, 74% say it’s likely that Congress will try to pass another stimulus plan before the year is out.

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No Cost Stimulus Act a bipartisan solution

If Obama truly wants to provide solutions that would help America's economic situation and move Congress forward towards a greater spirit of non-partisan cooperation, he will support the No Cost Stimulus Act.

The No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009, recently introduced by Congressman Rob Bishop (R–UT) and Senator David Vitter (R–LA), would create an expected two million new jobs. Not "save or create," (designed to claim success for the original stimulus plan no matter what happens) but "create."

The No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009 would do this by expanding domestic energy supply and streamlining burdensome, unnecessary environmental review processes that have placed a stranglehold on access to reliable U.S. energy sources for decades.

It would do so by opening up offshore drilling, utilizing a small strip of ANWR for our energy needs and streamline regulations. As the Heritage Foundation notes, not only would easing the offshore drilling restrictions create jobs, it would also provide some much-needed short term energy security:

An estimated 19 billion barrels of oil—nearly 30 years of current imports from Saudi Arabia—as well as substantial natural gas reserves are estimated to lie beneath these restricted areas.

Bishop and Vitter compare this to the earlier stimulus attempt:

The last “stimulus” was 1,071 pages, cost $787 billion and is already at the receiving end of criticism for its potential effectiveness. Our legislation doesn’t cost a dime...

The bill is not perfect. It requires a significant portion of the revenue from ANWR to be used for new energy research, research that presumably would already be happening if it were likely to be profitable any time soon.

But the bill is designed to be agreeable to both parties and congressional democrats will find that aspect of it heartwarming. The extension of state boundaries to expand offshore drilling should be very attractive to democrats from coastal states. There ought to be more than enough here to make a real, bipartisan difference.

If President Obama meant what he said during the campaign, he will forcefully back this bill and urge Congress to get it done for the good of America.

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Then >


"SUPPORT The Bishop-Vitter No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009"


Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
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 as always, pass it on...

.

image toon - 1st mny - Oby 51 strikes on economy

In Safer and More Optimistic Iraq, Support for Democracy Climbs

Iraqis are significantly more optimistic about the future, less concerned about security and increasingly supportive of democracy, according to a new poll gauging Iraqis’ attitudes six years after the U.S.-led invasion...
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Iraqis fear U.S. pullout of volatile Mosul
[HT:MH]
Grenades lie unattended next to a west Mosul bazaar. Garbage bags throughout the city are searched daily for bombs. (Snip) President Barack Obama is ending all American combat operations after August 2010.

The Iraqi security forces are not sure they'll be ready.

''If you don't have the Americans, this is not going to be good,''

said an Iraqi army captain who gave his name only as Ahmed...

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Cheney says Obama endangers U.S.

Asked Sunday on CNN if President Obama’s policies are making the U.S. less safe, former Vice President Dick Cheney said: “Yes.”

Looking slimmer and relaxed, Cheney told John King on “State of the Union” that Bush administration policies on detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists – some of which were immediately modified by Obama — “were absolutely essential” to preventing another 9/11-style attack...

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White House: Cheney almost as popular as Limbaugh
The White House says former Vice President Dick Cheney is the second most popular member of the "Republican cabal," behind only talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Monday brushed off Cheney's criticism of President Barack Obama's new administration.

Cheney said Sunday that Obama's decisions are threatening the nation's safety. Obama reversed many of his predecessor's executive orders, including how the country treats suspected terrorists.

[So the White House's response to a deadly-serious policy question is to attack Cheney personally - evidently for not being 'popular'.]

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Taliban in dress, 52 others killed in Afghanistan

Gunbattles and airstrikes by NATO and Afghan troops killed 53 militants in Afghanistan, including a wanted Taliban commander who tried to hide from soldiers under a woman's burqa, officials said Saturday.

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Talking to Taliban is Pointless and an Act of Surrender
By Dr. Sami Alrabaa

Is it really possible to appease the Taliban? Hillary Clinton described Obama’s wish as “naïve and irresponsible”.

Thus far, the Taliban has violated all agreement reached with the NATO forces in Afghanistan. The latest was with the British. After promising not to attack a girls’ school in southern Afghanistan, the Taliban did assault the school and killed 12 students and three English language teachers.

In 2007, an inmate in Guantanamo with number 008 and called Abdulrasul was released. Back in southern Afghanistan, he rejoined the Talibans and is coordinating insurgence against the Afghan army, police, and Western forces.

The Taliban has no interest whatsoever in negotiating with the West and to live in peace. A peace agreement would mean an end to them and the flow of money...

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image toon - gwot - Moderate Taliban only cut off one hand

Minister beaten after clashing with Muslims on his TV show

[UK]
A Christian minister who has had heated arguments with Muslims on his TV Gospel show has been brutally attacked by three men who ripped off his cross and warned: ‘If you go back to the studio, we’ll break your legs.’

Pakistan-born Mr Samuel, 48, who was educated by Christian missionaries and moved to Britain 15 years ago, said that over the past few weeks he has received phone-in calls from people identifying themselves as Muslims who challenged his views.

‘They were having an argument with me,’ he said. ‘They were very aggressive in saying they did not agree with me. I said those are your views and these are my views.’

He said that he, his wife Louisa, 48, and his son Naveed, 19, now fear for their safety, and police have given them panic alarms.

‘I am frightened and depressed,’ he said. ‘My show is not confrontational.’

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WHY DO WE LET EXTREMISTS MAKE US A LAUGHING STOCK?

JUST how gullible do the Islamic extremists think we are?

On the evidence from this week alone, they must think we’re compete idiots.

And quite right they are too. The week began with the charming sight of 20 angry Muslim extremists shouting abuse at a homecoming parade of British troops in Luton, while waving placards calling the soldiers baby-killers, murderers, rapists and terrorists.

The only people arrested were two who shouted abuse back at the extremists.

Free speech is all very well but since when is it a right in a democratic society to call someone a torturer or a baby-killer? If that isn’t inciting hatred or violence, what is? [snip]

There will always be extremists. The issue is not what they do but how we as a nation deal with them. Pandering to Muslim extremists’ fanatical views and demands will never placate them.

They will never be happy until our nation, democracy and way of life are destroyed.

We are at war and we have two stark choices. It’s a choice between two ways of life and, in effect, two flags.

If we don’t, as a nation, stand up for every value of liberty, equality and decency that the Union flag represents, we may as well just give up and wave the white flag. Who’s laughing

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Images on Soccer Balls Offend Muslim Sensibilities

An Islamic clerics’ group in South Africa is protesting the appearance of Koranic text in advertising and promotional merchandise for the soccer World Cup, which the country is hosting in 2010. At issue are soccer balls featuring images of flags of the world, including those of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq. All three flags include words from the Koran.

(Snip) Western business interests invariably back down.

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GOVERNORS REJECT STIMULUS MONEY FOR UNEMPLOYMENT

As money from the economic "stimulus" package begins flowing, some Republican governors are rejecting their states' share of $7 billion for enhanced unemployment benefits, saying the strings Congress attached would lead to higher business taxes. To get the money, states must expand unemployment benefits, such as covering part-time workers who lose their jobs.

"It seems really unreasonable that the federal government would require a change in state law as a condition of accepting these funds,"

Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said.

"The governor's main message is Texans who hire Texans drive our state's economic engine, and the last thing we need to do is burden them with higher taxes."

• Led by Republican Governors Association chairman Mark Sanford of South Carolina, a group of governors has rejected the unemployment money or other funding from the $787 billion stimulus package.
• Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, and Bob Riley of Alabama also have rejected the unemployment money.

Joel Sawyer, a spokesman for Sanford, said it's politically difficult to take away benefits once they're extended. Increasing the number of people eligible for unemployment would exacerbate the long-term problem the state has meeting its benefit obligations...

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image toon - sclm mny bbro - Stimulus comes with welfare strings attached


Obama White House slaps down Sanford on stimulus plan

WASHINGTON — White House Budget Director Peter Orszag on Monday rejected South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's request to use up to $700 million of his state's economic stimulus funds to pay down state government debt.

[Heaven forbid anyone reduce their debt.]

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OLD EUROPE IS RIGHT ON STIMULUS

When the European Union (EU) established the euro in 1999, it put in place strict limits on deficit spending and debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratios. Those limits have not been universally honored within the currency bloc, but there's a reason they're there.

For decades, countries like Greece, Italy and Belgium had run up huge national debts trying to pay for social-welfare programs and keep their economies afloat at the same time. The chief result of these policies was a huge pile of IOUs:

• In Italy, the national debt stood at 107 percent of GDP in 1999.
• In Belgium and Greece it was 104 percent; Greece's fiscal house was so disordered that it was excluded from the first group of euro countries.

So from its founding, the euro zone insisted that countries not respond to every economic downturn by piling up debt. Budget deficits are supposed to be limited to 3 percent of GDP, and total debt to 60 percent of GDP.

U.S. debt stood at 36 percent of GDP at the end of 2007 -- before the financial panic and stimulus started piling it on. The United States has run up $1 trillion in publicly held debt in the past six months alone -- that's 7 percent of GDP right there. [and our deficit now at 12%]

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image toon - 1st mny sclm bbro - Bear market says 'let's try stimulus plane E'

OBAMA'S GLOBAL WARMING STRADDLE

Cap and trade will be a huge tax on the productive sectors of the economy.

The "cap" is a government-imposed limit on total emissions; companies then buy permits from the government to emit pollutants up to the amount of the cap, and can then trade these permits with each other. The process of issuing and pricing the permits will be an invitation to astonishing amounts of lobbying and favor-seeking. Cap and trade, in the words of MIT's Richard Lindzen, will be a bureaucrat's dream.

According to a recently released study by the George C. Marshall Institute:

• The cost of cap and trade to the overall economy -- depending on the size and scope of the legislation -- is up to a 3 percent drop in GDP in 2015 below what it would otherwise be.
• Americans would see their electricity prices jumping up to 15 percent, natural gas prices up to 50 percent and gasoline prices up to 145 percent.

The Senate failed to pass cap-and- trade legislation in 2007 -- the Lieberman-Warner bill -- which the Marshall Institute estimates would have cost each American household $1,100 in 2008, rising to $1,437 by 2015, and $2,979 in 2050.

Obama's plan is far more ambitious, and would be a far greater burden to American taxpayers; the administration projects that the tax would raise some $650 billion for federal coffers between 2012 and 2019.

The other reason for not hurrying up with a carbon tax may well be that the science underlying climate-change alarmism has taken a beating, says the Standard.

"It's been a catastrophic year for global warming activists ... all of a sudden, the observations are very inconvenient."

says Christopher Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

[I.e., the planet is cooling - but don't expect that little factoid to put any meaningful dent in the propaganda blitzkrieg that's coming - there's simply too much money on the line not to fight for it - and you should fight back: it's your money.]

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CARBON TAX HITS ALL AMERICANS

The President's budget aims to raise $646 billion through a cap-and-trade tax on energy. Last year, Peter Orszag, who was then Director of the Congressional Budget Office and is now President Obama's Director for the Office of Management and Budget, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on a similar proposal:

• Speaking about a cap-and-trade proposal to cut carbon emissions by 15 percent, he said it would cost the average household about $1,300 a year through higher energy costs; he also noted that working class families would be hardest hit.
• President Obama's current proposal aims to cut carbon emissions by more than three times that of last year's proposal -- 83 percent.
• John Feehery, writing in The Hill's Pundits Blog last week, noted that using Director Orszag's analysis, this would mean that the average family will pay close to $4,000 a year, or $333 a month.

The White House seems to acknowledge that the costs of this tax will impact low-income families hardest and suggests a $500-a-year subsidy. But, that doesn't even cover two-months cost for the average family.

And, it doesn't take into account the increased costs for everything from groceries to school supplies that a carbon tax will also impose on everyone...

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image toon - engry - Oby plays 3-card cap & trade

SHOCKER! UNINSURED NOT JAMMING EMERGENCY ROOMS

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that hospital emergency rooms are, indeed, jammed. But it's not for the reason proponents of nationalized health care suggest.

In conducting the first study of its kind, researchers discovered that other scholarly papers on the uninsured simply assumed that they are the principal cause of emergency department (ED) overcrowding:

• Among the 127 identified articles, 53 had at least 1 assumption about uninsured ED patients, with a mean of 3 assumptions per article.
• Common assumptions include hypotheses that increasing numbers of uninsured patients present to the ED and that uninsured patients lack access to primary care.
• Available data support statements that ED care is more expensive than office-based care, and this is true for all users, insured and uninsured.
• It doesn't support assumptions that uninsured patients are a primary cause of ED overcrowding, present with less acute conditions than insured patients or seek ED care primarily for convenience.

In fact, it's not the uninsured who burden America's emergency rooms so much as it is people who are carrying government insurance policies. The low reimbursement rates mean very few will accept taxpayer-funded insurance any more, leaving those on government plans to visit ERs for care instead of primary-care physicians.

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STAGED

President Obama has used events such as community discussion groups and last week's summit to foster the impression that he is soliciting opinions from all angles of the health care debate, but the reality is a lot different. Obscured by the Administration's theatrics is the fact that it has kept at bay those who advocate free-market solutions rather than government-run health care.

The guest list to the 'summit' was a telling sign. Despite having representatives from 169 different labor, industry, and policy organizations, the White House did not invite any organizations that advocate a consumer-based free-market approach to health care.

Progressive organizations such as the Center for American Progress, Health Care for America NOW!, and Campaign for America's Future were represented, but pro-market groups such as the Cato Institute, Consumers for Health Care Choices, the Galen Institute, or the Council for Affordable Health Insurance were not.

"They brought in the health care establishment to basically divvy up the pie, and consumers were left out of it entirely,"

lamented Greg Scandlen, president of Consumers for Health Care Choices.

"This is all predetermined and orchestrated to get the result they want."

Shadegg noted that other lawmakers who weren't invited included free marketers such as Rep. Paul Ryan, Rep. Tom Price, Sen. Richard Burr, Sen. Jim DeMint, and Obama's personal friend, Sen. Tom Coburn.

By contrast, Sen. Bernard Sanders and Rep. John Conyers were on hand -- both of them advocate a socialized, or single-payer, system.

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Obama drops 'war on drugs' rhetoric for needle exchanges

The Obama administration signalled today that it was ready to repudiate the prohibition and "war on drugs" approach of previous presidents, and steer policy towards prevention and "harm reduction" strategies favoured by Europe.

David Johnson, an assistant secretary of state, said the new administration would embrace policies supporting federally funded needle exchanges.

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Obama's public support is eroding

— A new poll by the independent Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has found that President Barack Obama's popular support is eroding, with his approval rating dropping:

"President Barack Obama's approval rating has slipped, as a growing number of Americans see him listening more to his party's liberals than to its moderates, and many voice opposition to some of his key economic proposals,"

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image toon - sclm bbro reps libs - OBEY 's book = tha audacity of using crises as cover

The Obama pledge

Another polarizing move from Barack Obama. His permanent campaign is organizing a political organization loyal to him, bound by a pledge, outside the government and existing party apparatus. The historical precedents are ominous. Only this time around the Obama organization supplies YouTube videos on how to organize, and social networking software connects them.

Lona Manning points out that we were warned by Michelle Obama about this:

“Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.”

Notice that by taking the pledge, Obama believers foreclose any discussion of any issues. Barack Obama by definition is always right, once they have pledged personal loyalty.

This is not the way a democracy is supposed to operate.

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Bristol Bashing Reflects The Left’s Ongoing Fear of Her Mother

It was clear from the moment Gov. Sarah Palin appeared on the national scene as McCain’s vice-presidential choice that the Left was terrified of her charismatic appeal, effortless (and teleprompter-less) articulateness, formidable track record in political life, beautiful family, can-do American optimism, and also her success in actualizing what the largely-leftist feminist movement has advocated for since the 1960s, the notion that women could “have it all.” Palin’ genuinely self-made-woman status embodied the arch-goal of feminism – its paltry stats notwithstanding – but the tolerant feminists attacked her anyway.

It is columnist Wesley Pruden, however, who sums it up hilariously:

“Not only was she bereft of an Ivy League credential…she didn’t have a master’s degree in women’s studies from Harvard, nor had she ever taken a course in art appreciation at Stanford. She didn’t have a doctorate from Yale in the poetry of Nineteenth-Century Romania, nor had she written a learned paper for the Council on Foreign Relations on the politics of the Third Ten-Year Plan for Agricultural Reform in Uzbekistan. She was begging feminists with fancy credentials who had never accomplished anything to hate her, and they did.”

Yes, the Left’s snobbish fealty to the Ivy League was on full display during the 2008 campaign. But while the Ivy Leaguer ultimately won, the public cast a thunderous “no” vote against the so-called mainstream media’s blatantly biased – indeed, fawning – coverage, which can now be seen in the current demise of major liberal media.

Meanwhile, the lovely, modest, well-spoken, intelligent, humble, and well-brought-up Bristol Palin, and her mother, blithely ignore the rabid ravings of The Huffington Post, The Daily Kos, and the shrikes on “The View”.

The harder they try, the clearer it is that Gov. Palin’s popularity and clout is impervious to their efforts. And their dread is sure to increase as the truth of Ruth S. King’s words finally sink in:

“We have not seen the last of her."

[And that's what scares them most. Recommended > ]

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Palin to Keynote Senate-House GOP Dinner

The chairs of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee today announced that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will deliver the keynote address at the annual Senate-House Dinner. The dinner will be held on June 8 at the Washington Convention Center.

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Formerly Useful Idiots

Lenin famously said of liberals in the West that they were "useful idiots."

A number of really smart (go ahead, ask them) people endorsed Obama only to find out that they were hoodwinked. He's not the guy they fell in love with. It's the morning after, and they've been forced to confront the fact that he's a fraud. A forgery.

In John LeCarre's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" master spy George Smiley points out that "the more one has paid for a forgery, the more one defends it in the face of all the evidence to the contrary." And, these people have paid plenty for their forgery.

They fell in love with the idea of Obama and that blinded them to the reality of the man Obama. The hard leftist. The man with no management skills. The man with no knowledge of history. The man who insults our allies. Now, as the reality of what they have done is hitting them in the face, they are painfully coming to grips with their colossal gullibility.

Alec Guinness brilliantly portrayed the moment of clarity when he contemplated the bridge he had built for the Japanese over the River Kwai and said,
"What have I done?"

READ MORE

[HT:DT]

Hundreds attend global warming protest.

image photo - grn fnn - HT:SL = Hundreds Attend Global Warming Protest

image toon - 1st mny sclm - OB = Mission Accomplished re economy = spend

GOP to Provide Alternative Budget to Obama's

The No. 2 House Republican says the president's budget plan doesn't address the needs of small businesses and that the GOP will put forward an alternative.

Rep. Eric Cantor is warning that President Barack Obama's spending proposal would raise taxes on every American by $800 -- the result of new taxes on polluting energy companies and manufacturers.

Cantor says the administration's long-term view ignores the country's immediate needs...

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'For the Top Earners, There Will Be Blood'

Daniel Henninger’s Thursday column in The Wall Street Journal – "The Obama Rosetta Stone" – suggested all Americans should read Obama’s budget document, 141 pages, printed by the Government Printing Office. Henninger instructed:

Turn to page five of Mr. Obama's federal budget, and one may read these commentaries on the top 1% datum:

"While middle-class families have been playing by the rules, living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not."

"Prudent investments in education, clean energy, health care and infrastructure were sacrificed for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected."

"There's nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few. . . . It's a legacy of irresponsibility, and it is our duty to change it."

....Mr. Obama made clear in the campaign his intention to raise taxes on this income class by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. What is becoming clearer as his presidency unfolds is that something deeper is underway here than merely using higher taxes to fund his policy goals in health, education and energy.

The "top 1%" isn't just going to pay for these policies. Many of them would assent to that. The rancorous language used to describe these taxpayers makes it clear that as a matter of public policy they will be made to "pay for" the fact of their wealth -- no matter how many of them worked honestly and honorably to produce it. No Democratic president in 60 years has been this explicit.....

The White House says its goal is simple "fairness." That may be, as they understand fairness. But Figure 9 makes it clear that for the top earners, there will be blood.

This presidency is going to be an act of retribution.

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Obama Adviser: U.S. Is in 'Economic War'

A top presidential adviser says the U.S. is in an "economic war" -- one that is not being won yet.

Economic aide Christina Romer says she agrees with investment mogul Warren Buffett, who used the "economic war" phrase last week to describe the nation's economic woes.

In Romer's words, "We haven't won yet. We have staged a wonderful battle."

Romer heads the president's Council of Economic Advisers. She says the White House believes the fundamentals of the economy are strong.* Romer says the administration is looking at the long-term view, not the daily ups and downs on Wall Street.

[*Was this not the phrase the MSM (and Obama) bludgeoned Bush with again and again when our economic situation was unquestionably better than it is now?

Sand by for a 24/7 MSM-storm over this administration's identical claim. Right?]

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image toon - 1st mny - OB hitching economy to huge spending cars

Beijing raises stakes with tit-for-tat deployment in South China Sea

[HT:BM]
Beijing - Beijing has increased tension in a disputed part of the South China Sea by sending a patrol ship to protect fishing boats after the United States deployed a destroyer in the area. The American move was in response to alleged Chinese harassment of one of its surveillance vessels.

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Russia weighs Cuba, Venezuela bases: report

Russia could use bases for its strategic bombers on the doorstep of the United States in Cuba and Venezuela to underpin long-distance patrols in the region, a senior air force officer said Saturday.

"This is possible in Cuba," General Anatoly Zhikharev, chief of the Russian air force's strategic aviation staff, told the Interfax-AVN military news agency.

The comments were the latest signal that Moscow intends to project its military capability in far-flung corners of the globe [snip]

Zhikharev said Cuba had a several air bases equipped with the long runways needed by the heavy bombers and said the facilities there were "entirely acceptable" for use by the Russian aircraft during long-distance patrols.

"If the will of the two states is there, the political will, then we are prepared to fly there" to the bases in Cuba, the agency quoted Zhikharev as saying.

Last July however, a top US air force officer warned that Russia would cross "a red line" if it were to base nuclear capable bombers in Cuba.
"If they did, I think we should stand strong and indicate that is something that crosses a threshold, crosses a red line for the United States of America," said General Norton Schwartz said on July 23.

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image toon - nsec = Dem lumberjerks re cutting defense spending

Bolton: Obama Turns on Israel

Bolton writes in an opinion column appearing in the New York Post that U.S. pressure to find a solution to the decades-old conflict will be the greatest on Israel, because it is an ally.

"How will diplomatic pressure work to change Hamas or Hezbollah, where even military force has so far failed? If anything, one can predict coming pressure on Israel to acknowledge the legitimacy of these two terrorist groups, and to negotiate with them as equals"

"Why would America subject a close ally to this dynamic, playing with the security of an unvarying supporter in world affairs? For America, Israel's intelligence-sharing, military cooperation and significant bilateral economic ties, among many others, are important national-security assets that should not lightly be put at risk."

Bolton argues that America's focus should instead

"be on Iran and the manifold threats it poses to Israel, to Arab states friendly to Washington and to the United States itself."

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United States can’t ignore Iran’s genocidal incitement

The enduring lesson of the Holocaust and that of the genocides that followed is that they occurred not simply because of the machinery of death, but because of the state-sanctioned incitement to hatred.

As international tribunals have recognized, the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers; it began with words. These are the chilling facts of history...

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Kudos to those who will not embrace annual hate fest

For the past week, events marking Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) have taken place at virtually every major university in Canada. Among the noteworthy exceptions are the University of Calgary and the University of Western Ontario.

Students and faculty on these campuses have distinguished themselves by unanimously refusing to take part in this festival of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

Israel Apartheid Week was initiated five years ago by the Arab Students' Collective at the University of Toronto. Since then, the annual hate fest has spread to universities in more than 40 cities around the world. [snip]

At the Muslim Al Quds University near Jerusalem, IAW has been extended for a full month, during which the university's students' council is urging a boycott of Israeli goods on campus and seeking international support for the alleged right of Palestinian refugees to return in overwhelming numbers to Israel.

How ironic. Here we have students living in Israeli-Palestine openly advocating a policy that would spell the end of Israel as an independent state. Imagine the fate of any Jew in Gaza who dared to speak out against Islamist terrorist attacks on innocent Israeli civilians... [snip]

Incidentally, out of 15,000 students at Ben-Gurion, 1,000 are Arabs, including many low-income Bedouin on full scholarships. Is that the generosity one would expect of a government-funded institution in a real apartheid state?

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image toon - bdd edu - William Ayers - EDUCATOR

Venezuela's Chavez takes over opposition-run ports

CARACAS - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday ordered the military to take over the country's ports and airports, a move aimed at gaining control of installations run by opposition-ruled state governments.

The self-styled revolutionary in recent months has removed regional leaders' control of services such as hospitals and police forces, sparking accusations he is undermining opposition elected officials and concentrating his hold on power.

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My Socialist Past

Anyone who has lived inside the demoralized, unproductive, gray prison of a communist state, as I did in the mid-1980s, knows to what depths of impoverishment the egalitarian fantasies of socialism inevitably lead. They lead to decades of frustrated poverty and lifetimes of untreated illness culminating in early death. I remember the columns of death notices for men and women in their forties and fifties that appeared in the local newspaper. Gradually I learned to associate those death notices with the lack of fresh foodstuffs, the travesty of state health care, and the pervasive demoralization of an enslaved population... [snip]

Socialism always stifles talent and ambition, and the more it does so, the more squalid things get. It is no accident that socialism always fails. It fails because of its fundamental assumption that self-interest can be suppressed in human relations. Socialism fails every time because of the arrogant lie upon which it rests. The reality is that it is free market capitalism that has been responsible for the explosive increases is wealth and productivity in America during the past two hundred years. This explosive growth could never be achieved in a society of utopian social planners because the goals of socialist planners do not correspond with the actual motives of human beings in the real world. [snip]

All socialist experiments, from the high-minded 19th-century utopianism of Robert Owen or Charles Fourier to the vicious authoritarian nightmare of Mao Tse-tung or Pol Pot, have been the product of middle- or upper-class fantasies, the underlying feature of which is the megalomaniac intention to "save" the working class from its own bad habits. Paul Johnson observed in his superb book, Intellectuals, that saving the working classes from themselves has been the ruinous ambition of middle- and upper-class intellectuals for over two hundred years, and the result has - in every case - been calamitous.

[Very long - but very good at conveying the seemingly benign but inescapably causative effects overtime of socialist experiments - as well as their relevance to our current situation -- Highly Recommended > ]

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Something Wicked This Way Comes

[HT:JV]
The darkest times in human history have all begun when someone decided "not to let a serious crisis go to waste". In fact, it is in times of economic crisis that folks are most susceptible to the ideas of tyrants. We look for an answer, any port in a storm that will shield us from the unknown.

And in our desire to be safe, we open ourselves up to things that we would never have dreamed of allowing in normal times...

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image toon - libs sclm - OB's stairway to heaven

Reason #1287 why you're a chump if you pay your mortgage responsibily

We were promised when the Democrats took over the White House and the Congress that a new era of transparency, honesty, openness was upon America.

Not true.

The Democrats are seemingly intent on destroying the financial system of America through a variety of ill-considered steps. One is giving bankruptcy judges the ability to “cramdown” mortgages (allowing bankruptcy courts to unilaterally cut the value of mortgages held by financial companies, thereby damaging their balance sheets, capital ratios and ability, and willingness, to lend in the future).
That at least is reasonably visible and has led to opposition.

But when Democrats take steps that are all but invisible that could have hugely damaging consequences, they should be called on the carpet. This is especially true when provisions are slipped into bills that become law. Laws are very hard to overturn or to change and by the time they can be altered, vast damage has often occurred.

The Democrats (which ones, one might ask) slipped into the House bill dealing with mortgages a sneaky, near invisible provision, that would allow failing borrowers the right to outright own a house for a fraction of the purchase price if the lender makes even minor errors in federal disclosure rules :

[T]he American Bankers Association on Friday raised alarms about a little-noticed part of the bill, saying it would let a borrower end up owning a house for a fraction of the purchase price if the lender breaches certain federal disclosure rules.

The industry said the House version of the bill would force judges to invalidate a lender's claim in bankruptcy for committing minor and accidental errors, such as understating a finance charge by as little as $36.

Wonderful. Small, innocent errors can lead to a homeowner-who may have decided not to meet his debt obligations-to own a home, free and clear of any debts.

So everyone else has to pay their mortgages responsibly but if someone can find an innocent error made by a bank employee-a typo, for example-they can win a house?

The Truth In Lending Laws are important laws and have helped protect borrowers. They need to be strengthened.

How about a Truth in Legislating Law?

Source

55% Say Government Mortgage Help Rewards Bad Behavior

Fifty-five percent (55%) of American adults say the federal government would be rewarding bad behavior by providing mortgage subsidies to financially troubled homeowners. Among investors, 65% hold that view.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that, among all adults, just 32% disagree.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans and 60% of those not affiliated with either major political party believe the mortgage help subsidizes bad behavior. Most Democrats (51%) disagree.

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Nobody listens to the real climate change experts

The minds of world leaders are firmly shut to anything but the fantasies of the scaremongers [because it's in their intere$t]

Considering how the fear of global warming is inspiring the world's politicians to put forward the most costly and economically damaging package of measures ever imposed on mankind, it is obviously important that we can trust the basis on which all this is being proposed. Last week two international conferences addressed this issue and the contrast between them could not have been starker.

The first in Copenhagen, billed as "an emergency summit on climate change" and attracting acres of worldwide media coverage, was explicitly designed to stoke up the fear of global warming to an unprecedented pitch. As one of the organisers put it,

"this is not a regular scientific conference: this is a deliberate attempt to influence policy".

What a striking contrast this was to the second conference, which I attended with 700 others in New York, organised by the Heartland Institute under the title Global Warming: Was It Ever Really A Crisis?. In Britain this received no coverage at all, apart from a sneering mention by the Guardian, although it was addressed by dozens of expert scientists, not a few of world rank, who for professional standing put those in Copenhagen in the shade. [snip]

Led off with stirring speeches from the Czech President Vaclav Klaus, the acting head of the European Union, and Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, perhaps the most distinguished climatologist in the world, the message of this gathering was that the scare over global warming has been deliberately stoked up for political reasons and has long since parted company with proper scientific evidence.

Far from rising with CO2, as the models are programmed to predict they should, the satellite-measured temperature curve has flattened out and then dropped. If the present trend were to continue, the world in 2100 would not in fact be hotter but 1.1C cooler than the 1979-1998 average... [snip]

...there seems little doubt that global warming is leading the world towards an unprecedented catastrophe. But it is not the Technicolor apocalypse promised by the likes of Al Gore.

The real disaster hanging over us lies in all those astronomically costly measures proposed by politicians, to meet a crisis which in reality never existed.

[More, Highly Recommended > ]

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California's Wet Dream

I live in a state managed by a pack of damned lunatics. Not only have the spendaholics who comprise the California legislature submerged us with an unsustainable budget deficit and then swamped us with the largest combined tax increase in the Golden state's history to attempt to pay for it -- now they have spent money on gawd-awful 'research' which proclaims the state is about to go under water -- literally.

According to yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle:

"Driven by global warming, the ocean is expected to rise nearly 5 feet along California's coastline by the end of the century, hitting San Francisco Bay the hardest of all, according to a state study released Wednesday."

"Rising seas, storms and extreme high tides are expected to send saltwater into low-lying areas, flooding freeways, the Oakland and San Francisco airports, hospitals, power plants, schools and sewage plants. Thousands of structures at risk are the homes of low- and middle-income people, the study said."

This so-called "study" was concocted by the Pacific Institute (www.pacinst.org), a nonprofit propaganda outfit in Oakland. The hogwash was paid for by the California Energy Commission, Caltrans and the state Ocean Protection Council. The Pacific Institute's mission statement says,

"We envision a world where the basic needs of all people are met, where resources are managed sustainably and the natural world protected, and where conflicts over resources are resolved in a peaceful and democratic fashion."

Wonderful. My beloved California is purchasing purposefully misleading goo-goo eco-doctrine from a leftist group. It gets even worse. On the Pacific Institute's Board of Directors is Anne Ehrlich, wife of Paul Population Bomb Ehrlich...

[Yet there it is in the The SF Comical without a word of background on its source.]

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image toon - grn - record snow in Spokane on TV

Justice Dept. Investigates Arizona Sheriff for Enforcing Immigration Law

- The Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Arizona following requests by congressional Democrats and allegations by liberal activists that the department has violated the civil rights of illegal aliens.

Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), and Robert Scott (D-Va.) requested the investigation, and activists groups such as National Day Laborer Organizer Network and ACORN launched petition drives and rallies in support of the probe. [snip]

"The investigation will focus on alleged patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures conducted by the MCSO, and on allegations of national origin discrimination, including failure to provide meaningful access to MCSO services for limited English proficient (LEP) individuals." [snip]

The press release goes on to say that 20 percent of inmates in the Maricopa County Jail are illegal aliens and that of those, 2,000 illegal aliens - 70 percent - were arrested for felony crimes.

Those felony crimes committed included the following: forgery, 12 percent; kidnapping, 10 percent; aggravated assault, 7 percent; driving under the influence, 7 percent; drug charges, 27 percent; robbery, 3 percent; murder, 3 percent; and theft, 4 percent.

The Democratic Congress members have also asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to launch an investigation into the training provided by ICE.

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Harassing A Lawman

Immigration: At a time when our border is becoming a war zone, something's a bit suspect about the Justice Department suddenly harassing a border-state sheriff who zealously enforces the law.

Last Tuesday, the Justice Department notified Joe Arpaio, the top lawman in Maricopa County, Ariz., including Phoenix, that his department is under investigation for "patterns" of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures.

The letter offered zero specifics.

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A Ph.D. in Every Pot

Obama's diploma mill.

... And as you might expect, the people who stand to receive the most money under the president's proposal are adamant in their belief that the country probably will not survive unless it is enacted at once. The president of the American Council on Education could barely contain herself.

"The education components of the new economic stimulus package prove that President Obama will back his words with resources and action,"
said Molly Corbett Broad. This is lobbyist talk for ka-ching! [snip]

The assumption here is that the way to make somebody a competitive worker is to send him to college, an idea that will astonish anyone who's ever been served in a restaurant by a waiter with a master's in art history. [snip]

When you expand the cohort to those between the ages of 25 and 65, the U.S. participation rate jumps and the United States ranks fifth among the 30 OECD countries. It turns out that lots of Americans earn their degrees after they've passed college age and even the middle years.

As a vocational matter, late learners are more likely to concentrate attention on abilities that the current marketplace needs, unlike kids who have to predict what jobs this finicky global economy of ours will be rewarding 10 years from now. And the learning is more likely to stick. Adults are smarter than teenagers. In general. [snip]

When he included four-year schools in his list of higher-ed options, the president was being very generous. (Why wouldn't he be? It's not his money.) But the traditional college was only one of four options.

In practice the three others--postsecondary education understood as job training--will be where the action is and, if we're lucky, where the students are.

[If our President was serious about expanding higher learning, he'd move it to the internet for its rudimentary baseline. Dissemination of information is exactly what the internet does - and can do so for anyone, of any age, at any time, as many times over their careers as necessary - for virtually (comparably speaking) FREE.

And that's the rub: there's not enough money to be made in 'free' - and our education system has a hammer lock on our President's party.

The vast majority of Americans aren't interested in a classic liberal arts indoctrination, they need marketable skills and (if free on the internet) probably want a fair amount of 'other' learning they find interesting (i.e., still not liberal indoctrination).

This is nothing more than yet another pay off to a special interest group that supports him - and an example of no-change-whatsoever when it comes to things liberal.

Our education challenges are overwhelming with the state-backed education industry currently highjacking it. We need to liberate it at both ends by a) universal vouchers for K-12 and b) and internet buffet for higher learning - and make it "all you can eat".]

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image toon - fnn edu - Obama girls take issue with longer school days

No choice

If consistency is really the hobgoblin of little minds, then Hilda Solis and George Miller must be America's top ghostbusters. They think the secret ballot is the cornerstone of democracy -- except for American workers deciding whether to join a labor union. [snip]

Oddly enough, Miller and Solis used to think secret ballots were the very lifeblood of democracy. In 2001, introducing himself as someone "deeply concerned with international labor standards," Miller wrote Mexican officials urging them to allow workers to vote on unionization with secret ballots.

"The secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose," Miller said, adding that the practice "will help bring real democracy to the Mexican workplace."

The American work place, apparently, is quite another matter...

[Criminal hypocrisy - which, if they're successful, you will pay for.]

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image toon - crption - Card Check goons intimidate Joe re being intimidated

LA Times Columnist Cheap Shots CNBC’s Larry Kudlow

Could this be a sign of things to come?

Now that CNBC Chicago Mercantile Exchange reporter Rick Santelli has mysteriously disappeared from the spotlight after his criticism of President Barack Obama's mortgage proposal in February and now that CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer has been marginalized after his lackluster appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" on March 12, could the new target of the Obama machine and the left and their accomplices in the media be CNBC "The Kudlow Report" host Larry Kudlow? [snip]

Rainey suggested as a credibility measuring stick, that Cramer and Kudlow should have to reveal their financial portfolios and if they weren't at least keeping pace with a major stock index, they should voted off "the CNBC island."

"I see CNBC running a bar graph with a composite of Kudlow and Cramer's portfolios (no dollar amounts necessary) right alongside a graph tracking a broad stock index," Rainey wrote. "If the TV touts fall more than 10% behind? We vote them right off the CNBC island. Then there'd be more room for me and my timeless, slightly cowardly style of money management."

Perhaps Rainey is on to something here. We could apply his standard to the entire Los Angeles Times as a business model and if his newspaper's parent company's stock, the Tribune Company (PINK:TRBCQ), wasn't keeping pace with the major indices, we could vote it off of "mainstream media island," or at least its business coverage and the analysis of business coverage.

[Again and again, don't debate the idea - attack the proponent personally. I wonder who's setting the example for such behavior?]

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California Teachers Rally as 26,000 Job Cuts Loom

California teachers organized protests in more than a dozen cities today as about 26,000 may lose their jobs because of spending cuts the Legislature approved last month to keep the state from running out of money.

School districts across the most-populous U.S. state have been warning thousands of teachers that they may be fired as a result of California’s declining tax collections.

[Blatant inaccuracy: our tax load was just raised to the highest in the country - it just didn't deliver the increases wanted, hence 'cuts' to the MSM.

Recall, we literally give our broken public education system more money from our state taxes than everything else combined.

Will we ever recognize it for the abysmal failure it is and give our children a future by privatizing it?]

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Train thief took a 120-ton joy ride

The heist from a Kendall sidetrack was revealed on a Sunday, shortly before midnight. A railroad crew came out to crank up locomotive No. 2617 -- a 120-ton blue and yellow behemoth that has snaked up and down the East Coast, hauling loads for CSX. But somehow, it had vanished. They called 911 with a most unusual and alarming request:

We need your help finding our missing locomotive.

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