— Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday announced a sweeping plan to change how the nation produces and uses energy in order to reduce the risk some believe accompany climate change.
No environmental legislation in America has ever attempted such wide-reaching changes.
The bill — an incomplete draft that will evolve in the months ahead — would subsidize wind, solar and other renewable energy technologies, would require efficiency improvement at homes and businesses, and would mandate the development of cars that run on biofuels and electricity.
It also would make using fossil fuels more expensive — and that will be the central issue of debate in Congress , with armies of lobbyists on both sides...
[and YOU. Read it, read others, and make your wishes known to your representitives often because no one else will...]
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"OPPOSE House Democrat Energy Bill"
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
Thursday, April 2, 2009
House Democrats unveil sweeping plan to reshape energy in America
Quick!!! While He’s Outta the Country, Let’s Change it Back to ‘America’!!!!!!!
The Prez has flown to England and there’s only one thing to do while he’s gone: Let’s get our country back.
I’m pretty sure I can take Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, and that puffball press secretary Gibbs. (Snip) Barney Frank I ain’t touchin’… I’m not a homophobe; I simply suffer from an irrational childhood fear of Elmer Fudd....
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Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Congressional Committee Passes Bill Controlling ALL Pay at US-Involved Companies
Is it okay to call them socialists yet?
With Barney Frank's help, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is trying to expand his power (and by inference that of his Dear Leader boss) well beyond that. The "Pay for Performance Act," which has already gotten out of committee, would give him veto power over any and all salaries at any company into which the government has inserted its intrusive claws.
Besides the utter outrageousness of the news itself, the story leads to the question of how the establishment media will handle it. Whitewash it? Minimize its significance? Ignore it? Given the fact that the news is over a week old, I vote for a continuation of Door Number Three.
Byron York reports the following in the DC Examiner:
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Whose Money? The New Debate About Freedom
I’ve been observing the ongoing debate about high pay for corporate executives that was kicked off by the furor over bonuses at AIG. Many ordinary people are still mad enough to get out their pitchforks, and join protest tours of wealthy Connecticut neighborhoods organized by well-funded left-wing hate groups.
But most thinking people have understood that giving the government carte blanche to rewrite private contracts retroactively is a very, very bad thing for us all...
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End Obama’s secret DOD budget tribunals
When then-First Lady Hillary Clinton convened a secret task force in 1993 to redesign and nationalize the American healthcare system, policymakers and the public were rightly outraged.
They demanded, and ultimately got, a more open and transparent decision-making process that comported with the American political tradition of self-rule by the people and not elite rule by an anointed oligarchy.
Compare that to what is now transpiring within the Department of Defense (DOD). There, uniformed military officers and civilian government employees have been forced to sign a secrecy oath while they meet privately, behind closed doors, to decide the fate of nation’s defense budget.
The problem with information being “leaked out” or shared with the public is obvious: The public may disagree with what these uniformed military officers and government civilians are deciding and that in turn may alter or disrupt their decision-making process.
After all, that’s how democracy works. Democracy can be messy and untidy, noisy and boisterous; it can disrupt the work of the ruling class, who think they know better than we the people.
That’s why media blackouts and censorship are, sadly, the norm in human history. The ruling class - the self-anointed “experts” - don’t want their perfectly laid plans disrupted.
After all, they know best.
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Obama and the Imminent North Korea Missile Launch
Now that the Dems are in charge of the national defense, North Korea's planned missile launch, which could occur sometime in the next several weeks, is a good time to recall what some leading Democrats said about this a few years ago.
The very last time we were in this situation was in the summer of 2006. Just as North Korea was fueling the missiles for test-launch, William Perry and Ashton Carter, respectively secretary of defense and assistant secretary of defense under Clinton, advocated preemptive strikes on the platforms in a striking op-ed in the Washington Post:
"Intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy,"
Whatever else one may say, the looming North Korea missile launch may be considered the first crisis of Obama's National Security Council. How he acts may be a signal of how he intends to steer U.S. foreign policy in the years ahead.
[And the world is watching...]
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Iran missile experts in North Korea 'to help with rocket launch'
Missile experts from Iran are in North Korea to help Pyongyang prepare for a rocket launch, according to reports. Amid increasing global concern over the launch, which the US and its allies consider to be illegal.
Japan's Sankei Shimbun newspaper claimed today that a 15-strong delegation from Tehran has been in the country advising the North Koreans since the beginning of March.
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Netanyahu to Obama: Stop Iran—Or I Will
In an interview conducted shortly before he was sworn in today as prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu laid down a challenge for Barack Obama. The American president, he said, must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—and quickly—or an imperiled Israel may be forced to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities itself.
“The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu told me. He said the Iranian nuclear challenge represents a “hinge of history” and added that “Western civilization” will have failed if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
In unusually blunt language, Netanyahu said of the Iranian leadership,
“You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran."
Netanyahu said he would support President Obama’s decision to engage Iran, so long as negotiations brought about a quick end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but he added that he was skeptical that Iran would respond positively to Obama’s appeals. In an hour-long conversation, held in the Knesset, Netanyahu tempered his aggressive rhetoric with an acknowledgement that nonmilitary pressure could yet work.
“I think the Iranian economy is very weak, which makes Iran susceptible to sanctions that can be ratcheted up by a variety of means.”
When I suggested that this statement contradicted his assertion that Iran, by its fanatic nature, is immune to pressure, Netanyahu smiled thinly and said,
“Iran is a composite leadership, but in that composite leadership there are elements of wide-eyed fanaticism that do not exist right now in any other would-be nuclear power in the world. That’s what makes them so dangerous.”
[Recommended > ]
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How will Israel survive Obama's naïveté on Iran?
As I watch as Obama appeases the Iranians I wonder if we in Israel will be able to survive.
Obama apparently believes that appeasing totalitarian regimes works.
His Nowruz address will become the classic example of such an attempt. But the history of appeasement is not very encouraging. It has not worked with the Nazis, it has not worked with Arafat's regime, and least of all has it worked with the jihadists.
For those in Europe who have for years believed that their appeasement has brought them less terror and cheap oil can only look around and see what Europe has become with the recent protests in Luton and Malmo.
The US would survive the collapse of its appeasement policy toward Iran, even the scenario of an EMP attack. Israel would not.
Israel should not be made to play the role of a victim of a failed appeasement policy, a learning curve unfortunate error in judgment of a rookie American president. For the lesson learned would have been that an Iranian-Israeli nuclear war would be a disaster not only for Israel but for the US as well. So why make the error in the first place?
As an Israeli citizen I therefore voted for those who have already experienced the futility of appeasing the jihadists in more than 15 failed peace process attempts in the last 15 years and who will in protecting Israel's survival be protecting American interests as well.
[They. Don't. Want. Peace. Any verbiage to the contrary, prior to a Western (in which I include the liberal democracy of Israel) victory, is nothing more than playing us for fools. Again.]
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THE GLOBAL TAX REVOLUTION
Dangerous movements are afoot to control and limit tax competition.
Policymakers in international organizations such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Commission and the United Nations (UN) want to create an OPEC for taxes to insulate governments from tax competition.
The good news is that the United States is uniquely situated to protect and advance global tax competition:
- Use American influence inside the OECD to kill the anti-tax competition project; the United States is the biggest funder of the OECD, providing nearly one-fourth the organization's budget.
- Reject European Union invitations to participate in cartel-like tax initiatives, such as the savings tax directive.
- Block possible UN schemes for global taxes, global tax regulations and a global tax organization.
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66% Say U.S. Should Stay in the United Nations
The head of the United Nations on Wednesday called the United States, which pays nearly one-fourth of the international organization’s $5-billion annual budget, a “deadbeat” because it doesn’t always [more accurately: ever] get the check in on time.
The United States which meets 22% of the U.N. budget is its largest contributor. [192 nations, 22% paid for by US]
In a survey taken just before the “deadbeat” flap became public, 66% of U.S. voters said America should continue to participate in the United Nations. Twenty-four percent (24%) think the United States should not stay in the international organization, and 10% are not sure.
[1 in 4 - not bad, really - and potentially noteworthy that it was prior to this latest insult]
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AP: Boos for Bush Change to 'Sustained Applause' for Obama on Global Warming
Associated Press reporter Arthur Max played up how the United States drew "sustained applause" on Sunday in Germany for joining the liberal consensus on the need for dramatic energy regulation to stop the "climate change" menace. Absolutely no one in the story questioned that consensus, and Max even downplayed how the Senate (Democrats included) voted on a resolution opposing the Kyoto climate-change treaty 95 to 0.
BONN – Once booed at international climate talks, the United States won sustained applause Sunday when President Barack Obama's envoy pledged to "make up for lost time" in reaching a global agreement on climate change....
The debut of Obama's climate change team was widely anticipated after eight years of obdurate participation in U.N. climate talks by the previous Bush administration.
Notice how Max and AP carefully negotiated around the 95-0 vote during the Clinton administration and left readers with the impression that only Team Bush stood in the way of scientific enlightenment:
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French workers take hostages at Caterpillar
Paris, France - Hundreds of French workers, angry about proposed layoffs at a Caterpillar office, were holding executives of the company hostage Tuesday, a spokesman for the workers said.
It is at least the third time this month that French workers threatened with cutbacks have blockaded managers in their offices to demand negotiations...
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Critics Decry Obama Nominee for State Department Legal Adviser
Former Clinton administration official Harold Koh, who has been dean of the Yale Law School since 2004, once wrote that the U.S. was part of an "axis of disobedience" with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Koh also has long held that the U.S. should accept international law when deliberating cases at home.
Obama nominated Koh on March 23 to become the State Department's legal adviser -- an appointment that, if confirmed by the Senate, will give Koh far-reaching influence over the extent to which international norms affect U.S. law.
"This is not a desk job. This guy will be the face of American international law around the world,"
said Steven Gross, legal expert and fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
"The top legal adviser at State travels extensively and is involved in international legal negotiations, treaties and in major United Nations conferences.
"The president should have the right to choose the most conservative or liberal legal advisers to give them advice, but this is much more than that. The concern is that he cares as much about -- if not more about -- international law and integrating that into the American judicial system than he does about protecting American prerogatives and American sovereignty,"
Gross said
"This is international imperialism. Under Koh's plan, the Constitution would become secondary and international law would take precedence regardless of what Americans said about the matter"...
[Recommended > ]
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FLASHBACK > OBAMA'S MOST PERILOUS LEGAL PICK
If he makes it through (which he will if he gets even a single GOP vote) the message to the Obama team will be: You can pick 'em as radical as you like..
"OPPOSE HAROLD KOH NOMINATION"
Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
Taking a man's castle
Jose Meza labored for 25 years building his automotive paint business from a one-man operation run out of his Wilmington home to a family company with nine shops across the Los Angeles area.
With that kind of hard-earned entrepreneurial success, Meza could have bought a home almost anywhere. Instead, he chose to stay in the community he loves, where he and his children went to high school - largely low-income Wilmington.
"I said, `I want to build a dream home for my family close to my business,"' Meza said. "I built it thinking this is going to be my house forever, until I die, thinking of my grandkids."
Meza bought empty land in a residential area bordering Wilmington's downtown a decade ago and slowly began to construct his castle - a five-bedroom home with six bathrooms, a pool, a guest house and a five-bay garage for his classic cars.
His dream didn't last long.
Less than six years after it was completed, the home is now vacant, encircled by a padlocked metal fence and fortified with plywood behind its windows. Meza, forced out by a court order, is battling an eminent domain lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles Unified School District...
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DOUBLING DOWN ON PRESIDENT BUSH'S ECONOMIC POLICIES
President Obama has framed his budget as a break from the "failed policies" of the Bush Administration. Actually, his budget doubles down on President George W. Bush's borrow, spend and bail out policies, says Brian M. Riedl a researcher with the Heritage Foundation. [snip]
President Bush ran budget deficits averaging $300 billion annually. After harshly criticizing Bush's budget deficits, President Obama proposed a budget that would run deficits averaging $600 billion even after the economy recovers and the troops return home from Iraq.
The President's tax policy is the only sharp break with Bush's economic policy.
President Bush reduced taxes by approximately $2 trillion; President Obama has proposed raising taxes by $1.4 trillion. In doing so, President Obama has rejected the most successful Bush fiscal policy.
In the 18 months following the 2003 tax rate cuts, economic growth rates doubled, the stock market surged 32 percent, and the economy created 1.8 million jobs, followed by 5.2 million more jobs in the next 27 months.
Not until the housing bubble burst several years later did the economy finally lose steam. Pro-growth lawmakers should embrace tax relief policies that have proven successful, while rejecting the runaway spending that has been business as usual in Washington.
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IN DEFENSE OF TAX 'HAVENS'
A new form of "tax protectionism" is infecting Washington -- several serious proposals are being floated in the nation's capital that would penalize Americans for investing in low-tax rather than high-tax jurisdictions.
Proponents say the measures are needed to catch tax cheats -- but ignore the fact that most of the low-tax jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, etc., already have tax information exchange agreements with the United States.
Nevertheless, Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Bryon Dorgan (D-N.D.), and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), as well as officials of the Obama Treasury, want to make it more onerous and costly for American companies to do business around the world and for Americans to invest elsewhere. They would even make it more difficult for non-Americans to invest in the United States.
The so-called tax havens are for the most part no more than way-stations to temporarily collect savings from around the world until they are invested in productive projects, such as building a new shopping center or semi-conductor plant in the United States. This enables a better allocation of world capital, leading to higher, not lower, global growth rates.
Indeed, to the extent tax competition between jurisdictions holds down the increase in the growth of governments, citizens of all countries experience more job opportunities and higher standards of living.
And to the extent that businesses and individuals are discouraged by regulations from investing outside their own jurisdictions, they may simply choose to work and save less, period.
[Again, the 'cheating' argument only applies if you first subscribe to the notion that it's the government's money to begin with.
Its not, it's individuals, and our government competes with all other jurisdictions to be a part of its use.
As always, the socialistic reaction to competition is to kill it with legislation - are you listening, socialized-medicine proponents?]
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Liberal Authoritarianism and Earth Hour
This streak of leftist authoritarianism manifests itself most noticeably in the debate over AGW.
Stifling debate by threatening to try as criminals people who disagree with them, declaring an end to the scientific method by saying that the debate about AGW is "over," spreading lies about skeptics by positing the notion that they are all being paid by oil and coal companies, attempting to ruin the careers of scientists who disagree with them, and seeking to censor scientific studies that challenge AGW orthodoxy -- all point to a desire by AGW advocates to control minds by not allowing any dissent.
The fact that these tactics are generally supported by liberals is indicative of their own doubts about the efficacy of climate change and their desire to close their own minds to any information that would cause them to doubt, or otherwise alter their perception about the debate over AGW. This makes leftists not only authoritarians but stupid ones at that -- a very dangerous combination that the United Nations appears to be counting on in order to make their plan a reality.
Personally, I am agnostic on the issue. Free people deciding freely to reduce CO2 levels while the jury is still out on climate change is fine with me. We should rely on the scientific method, one of the crowning glories of the western world: observation, hypothesis, predictions, experimentation.
To date, the authoritarian left has prevented this from dominating the global warming discussion. Perhaps it is due to so many of their observations proving to be wrong, or their hypotheses not panning out, or their experiments blowing up in their faces, or their predictions not coming true.
In that case, it is understandable why the left has taken to doing everything in their power to stifle free speech and debate over global warming.
[Highly Recommended > ]
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Charter Schools Get Big Fat Zero In Spending Plan
Despite a state budget that includes $405 million more in school funding than last year, charter schools aren't slated to get an extra dime in state aid come July, critics charge. Advocates yesterday said a provision that freezes the next fiscal year's charter funds at this year's levels would slice as much as $30 million from city charters -- akin to an 8.5 percent cut.
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Obama's shameful silence
President Obama's huge stimulus bill includes about $100 billion for education. And he insists his criteria for supporting reforms is not ''whether an idea is liberal or conservative, but whether it works.'' Applauding, Randi Weingarten, powerful head of the American Federation of Teachers (1.4 million members), calls Mr. Obama the ''education president.''
However, when congressional Democrats recently doomed the Opportunity Scholarship Program for poor children in the District, the 'education president' didn't say a word...
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Spy Network Gave Washington Victory
[History]
George Washington defeated the British empire, not with his "ragtag Army," but with his extensive network of spies. That's according to Eugene Poteat, a retired senior CIA executive who began to research the history of espionage decades ago.
''Washington had his spies everywhere,'' said Poteat, who helped establish the International Spy Museum in Washington. ''He set up the most effective intelligence operation this country has ever seen.''
[Then he retired. Damn.]
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The Next Enemy
Having undergone training by students of Saul Alinsky, President Obama knows the value of a good enemy. By stirring up fear and hatred toward a key figure on the other side of the battlefield, Alinsky taught, organizers can fill their war chests and rally their troops. In the 1990s, the Democrats’ designated demon was Newt Gingrich. For the past several years, they counted on President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Now that Bush and Cheney are out of power, who is next?
Democrats won’t find profitable enemies in the GOP congressional leadership. Unlike Gingrich, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell do not have a habit of making incendiary comments. And because the Democrats have such strong majorities in both chambers, they cannot claim that the minority leaders wield terrifying power.
So is there anybody left for the Democrats to boo and hiss? Yes, there is one figure in Washington whom liberals really do hate and fear, because he could help thwart their policy goals, especially on social issues.
That person is Chief Justice John Roberts...
[Recommended > ]
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A Nast-y Take on Governor Palin
Portfolio is sure of one thing: Sarah Palin is the villain.
Joe McGinniss’s cover story in Conde Nast’s Portfolio on Gov. Sarah Palin is almost too well-researched to be dismissed as a hit piece. Over six pages, McGinniss, who covered Alaska’s oil boom in 1975, takes us deep into the world of the state’s oil-and-gas industry, the challenging terrain, the murky politics, and the Byzantine relationship between politics and big business. A reader who comes to the topic with no familiarity with the issue comes away more knowledgeable, and for that McGinniss deserves credit.
But the article’s argument doesn’t always mesh with the details. To many readers of Conde Nast’s other publications — The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ — the Republican star Palin is, ipso facto, a villainess.
the Portfolio piece follows a simple tune: Whatever decisions Governor Palin makes about this massive, complicated project, she is always wrong...
[The fear isn't abating. Wonder why.]
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McCain: People voted 'mostly for Sarah Palin' last year
"Over 50 million people voted for me and Sarah Palin - mostly for Sarah Palin,"
McCain said.
[It's why the press continues to attack her; fear.]
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Decorated Fmr. Staff Sergeant Fires Back at Bill Maher for Rapist Joke About Soldiers
It might be par for the course, but liberal cable talk show host Bill Maher has once again launched into a rant, on his March 27 HBO show about American soldiers still stationed in Germany and Japan and insinuated they were rapists.
"Forget about bringing the troops home Iraq - we need to get the troops home from World War II," Maher said. "Can anybody tell me why in 2009, we still have more than 50,000 troops in Germany and 30,000 in Japan? At some point these people are going to have to learn to rape themselves."
Former Army Staff Sergeant and author of "House to House" David Bellavia, who has been recommended for the Medal of Honor and is a recipient of the Silver Star and the Bronze Star didn't take Maher's criticism lightly.
"While Democrats want to accuse the right in America of being hijacked by the talking points of Rush Limbaugh and talk radio, it is more than a little odd to me that the greatest minds on the left today are community organizers, washed up former sports commentators and stand up comedians,"
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Name That Party: Spanking Judge Edition
MSNBC's Web site reports "Former Judge Herman Thomas Indicted on Sex, Ethics Charges." The piece begins:
Former Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas has bonded out of the Mobile County Metro Jail after he was arrested Friday afternoon. Before his arrest, Thomas was indicted by a grand jury on 57 felony counts, accusing him of, among other things, sexually abusing Mobile County inmates in exchange for favors in his courtroom.
Other news outlets covering the story included the Montgomery Advertiser, the Press-Register, SunHerald.com, and WKRG TV 5 in Mobile.
None identified the judge as a Democrat.
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I’m an American. This has always been my favorite label, but of late even that has seemed to mean less and less. Being called an American used to carry with it a certain pride and esprit de corps that now apparently is dated and passe. How else can one explain the rash of America-haters in our midst who only claim pride in America if a Leftist resides in the White House, and can only back a war effort if the decision to go to war was that of a Democrat.
I’m told I’ll hurt my career if I continually spout off about Liberalism — which I see as a growing cancer in our society. Worldwide, I’ve seen Liberalism metastasize into virulent incarnations of Socialism, and, left unchecked, even into its malignant cousin, Communism. Only the arrogant or the somnambulist would think such a thing could never happen here. It’s a matter of increment. Once a group organizes into a coalition, it’s a short step to claiming the right to the property of another group. All that is necessary is for an individual’s right to personal property to become a secondary concern. The ‘needs’ of the group must supercede, dontcha know. It’s a vicious cycle – wants become needs become rights. The fact that the thievery is done at the behest of a ‘civilized’ government does not sanitize the crime.
At least the highwayman has the decency to wear a mask. [snip]
I was asked by the founder of this site to write an article… an ‘opening salvo’. Considering who might read it, and who in Hollywood might be incensed, the temptation to parse words and couch my opinions was strong. But the guy in the mirror counsels me the loudest. I was always impressed with John Hancock, when, reminded that signing one’s name to that Declaration in Pennsylvania could very well lead to their deaths…solemnly stepped forward and with grand flourish signed his name in huge, legible script. In that grand spirit…
I hereby declare my independence…from the small-minded, America-hating, race-bating, Christian-bashing, class-warfare-waging, politically-correct, collectivist, Liberal Hollywood establishment.
Anybody got a problem with that, I’ll mapquest you directions to my front door, we’ll settle it like men.
Signed,
GARY GRAHAM
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Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Obama takes over General Motors
Of all the economic teams beavering away in Washington, any ranking of the least likely to produce credible results would have put the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry high on the list.
Headed by a former journalist turned investment whiz, the task force also includes a union industrial strategist, three climate change experts, a smattering of economists and a former legislative assistant to Hillary Clinton...
[And we'll all be shocked and surprised when it ends badly.]
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A Whiff of Fascism from the White House
There is a whiff of Fascism emanating from the Obama White House. Reports say that the head of GM is quitting under duress from the Obama administration: General Motors chairman and chief executive G. Richard Wagoner is resigning at the request of the White House, clearing the way for the Obama administration to offer the company more federal aid...
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Hero's welcome for GI injured in Afghan blast
With horns blaring, a six-car caravan packed with well-wishers sped up Lotus Street in Jefferson Park on Saturday to welcome home a hero. One by one, members of Warriors' Watch Riders hugged National Guard Staff Sgt. Nate Rivera, who returned last week from Afghanistan where he survived a roadside bombing."These soldiers make us proud to be Americans, We're honored to welcome them home."
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.
Talking ourselves to death: Obama must get tough on an increasingly dangerous Iran
Iran is making fools of everyone.
Even as it lies about its closeness to acquiring nuclear missiles, it continues to menace the political order throughout the Middle East, pressing on with rocketry and rearming Hamas and Hezbollah. And that mischief is nothing compared to what it will do if it is allowed to become a nuclear power.
President Obama's tentative video overture to the Iranians on Friday must not become an opportunity to let them buy more time for their nuclear program.
Nuclear Iran will be a threat to U.S. national security, worldwide energy security, the efficacy of multilateralism and the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Having defied the world so brazenly, it will be emboldened to use terrorism to threaten or subvert others in the area.
And Iran, through its support for Hezbollah and Hamas and the Ba'ath Party in Iraq, has the capacity to put direct pressure on Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinians and the Iraqis. Tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands would join radical Islamist groups in the belief that Islamism is on the march.
Fundamentally, a nuclear Iran represents a unique threat. The fear of mutually assured destruction has long restrained other nuclear powers.
But there is a real risk that [the leadership of] Iran is not rational...
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Apologies Just Tell Our Enemies We’re Weak
First, President Obama sends a message to the Muslim world, effectively apologizing for the policies of George W. Bush. Excuse me, but shouldn’t the Muslim world be apologizing to America for their contributions to the radicalization of their brethren that led them to kill 3,000 Americans on 9/11?
Then, Secretary of State Clinton criticizes the country she represents and does it on Mexican soil, no less. She blames the demand for drugs in America for the drug cartel wars being waged against each other and the Mexican government.Great nations don’t apologize unless they are guilty of a serious moral affront (The Holocaust, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor are two that come to mind as worthy of apologies).
But if an apology or confession is to be made, it should be delivered in private, not in public. Besides, what good does it do? Unless explicit policies accompany such confessions or apologies, I fail to see how it lowers the level of violence in Mexico or reduces the continuing threat of Islamic extremism - just the opposite in fact...
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Leading Iranian Official Ridicules Obama’s Overture
Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, on Wednesday criticized the United States in harsher terms than any other leading Iranian figure has done since President Obama extended his videotaped olive branch to Iran last week.
''“The problems will not be solved by them altering the words or selecting the terms they use,''
Mr. Larijani said, apparently a reference to Mr. Obama’s praise of Iran’s culture and history.
[I couldn't agree more.]
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Iran Clenches Its Fist
The danger is that direct talks may facilitate, not reduce, threats to U.S. interests
The State Department recently named Dennis Ross, a seasoned Middle East negotiator, as a "special adviser" to the Gulf region -- a bureaucratic but important prerequisite for direct talks with Iran. Unfortunately, a new envoy and a new diplomatic tone cannot disguise the ongoing substantive collapse of U.S. policy and resolve in the teeth of the Islamic Republic's growing challenge.
First, diplomacy has not and will not reduce Iran's nuclear program. Ironically, European leaders are belatedly feeling hollow in the pits of their diplomatic stomachs, now that their failed diplomacy has left us with almost no alternatives to a nuclear Iran. Imagine their dismay that President Obama is now "opening" to Iran, thus eviscerating their tentative efforts to "close" the diplomatic cover under which Iran has almost achieved the worst-case outcome, deliverable nuclear weapons.
Second, dealing with Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria as though they are unrelated to Iran's broader threat is exactly backwards. Mr. Obama is again following Europe's mistaken view that ending the Arab-Israeli conflict will help to resolve other regional problems. But concentrating on Gaza only increases Hamas's leverage, just as negotiating with Syria only enhances its (and thereby Iran's) bargaining power.
We should deal instead with diseases, not symptoms...
[Recommended > ]
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Gates prefers sanctions
Washington - Defence Secretary Robert Gates says that he thinks economic penalties rather than diplomacy are more likely to bring success to US efforts on Iran. Gates says that if enough economic pressure is placed on Iran, diplomacy might provide what he calls ''an open door'' for Iranians if they choose to change their policies. Gates says economic penalties are likely to get the Iranians to the table...
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Sudan's wanted president welcomed at summit
DOHA, Qatar–Sudan's president, who is sought by an international court on charges of war crimes in Darfur, received a warm welcome Sunday in Qatar, where he will attend this week's Arab League summit.
President Omar al-Bashir was greeted with hugs and kisses by Qatar's emir in a red-carpet welcome at Doha's airport on Sunday. He later had coffee with the emir and the head of the Arab League. The summit begins Monday.
The 22-country Arab League has already said it would not enforce the International Criminal Court's arrest order for al-Bashir issued on March 4 and the Sudanese leader visited Eritrea, Egypt and Libya over the past week in a show of defiance
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Islamist Hate Exposed By Traditional Values Coalition
The Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in Fairfax, Va. went before the local planning commission Wednesday night to seek an expansion of their controversial and secretive school funded and controlled by the Saudi government.
A large group of residents near the school asked the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) for help in organizing and strategizing against the expansion, which has seen raids by local police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and used anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and anti-American textbooks.
The school is operated by the government of Saudi Arabia and there has been some confusion over whether federal or local officials should take jurisdiction over the extremist Wahhabi teaching and clandestine activities which have marked the ISA’s history... [snip]
The campus of the Islamic Saudi Academy operates under the principles of Shariah law.
The principal who was arrested for not reporting the sexual abuse of the five year-old student because he was following Shariah law when he turned the child back to her abusive father and suggested he “get control” of her.
Under brutal Shariah law, children do not have basic human rights and neither do women. [snip]
Local residents were astonished at the treatment they received from the commissioners as compared to the deferential and preferred treatment given to Islamic Saudi Academy proponents.
Virginians who expect fair treatment from their government are being outbid by the Saudi extremists who pump money and illegal grassroots support into the campaigns of the liberal Congressman and Board of Supervisor candidates’ campaigns...
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No more US dictating to Latin America: Biden
SANTIAGO: US Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday that the United States would no longer “dictate unilaterally” to Latin America, and that it had entered a new era in the historically troubled relationship. “The time of the United States dictating unilaterally, the time where we only talk and don’t listen is over,” Biden said in Santiago...
[Like with Columbia?]
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Canada passes Colombia, Peru trade deals
The House of Commons has passed the legislation needed for Canada's free trade agreements with Colombia and Peru to come into effect, improving conditions for the Canadian exporters looking to break into the South American market.
Stockwell Day, the Minister of International Trade, said Thursday the agreements would open new doors for Canadian companies doing business in the two countries by expanding market access in key sectors...
[Meanwhile in the U.S., nothing. {same reason: unions}]
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OBAMA'S MOST PERILOUS LEGAL PICK
JUDGES should interpret the Constitution according to other nations' legal "norms." Sharia law could apply to disputes in US courts. The United States constitutes an "axis of disobedience" along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq.
Those are the views of the man on track to become one of the US government's top lawyers: Harold Koh.
President Obama has nominated Koh -- until last week the dean of Yale Law School -- to be the State Department's legal adviser. In that job, Koh would forge a wide range of international agreements on issues from trade to arms control, and help represent our country in such places as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.
It's a job where you want a strong defender of America's sovereignty. But that's not Koh.
He's a fan of "transnational legal process," arguing that the distinctions between US and international law should vanish... [snip]
Even though he's up for a State Department job, Koh is a key test case in the "judicial wars." If he makes it through (which he will if he gets even a single GOP vote) the message to the Obama team will be: You can pick 'em as radical as you like.
[Recommended > ]
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Then >
"OPPOSE HAROLD KOH NOMINATION"
Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
Hazards rooted in Sept. 11
With the financial meltdown in full force across the globe, finger-pointing for the problem has become a national preoccupation. Easy credit, low interest rates, mismanagement and political interference are often mentioned as culprits.
Overlooked in this heated debate, however, is Sept. 11, 2001, the day the Earth shook with horror. In addition to the more than 2,800 people who lost their lives on that fateful day, the world economy took a financial hit that accumulated to somewhere between $1 trillion and $3 trillion. By contrast, the terror operation cost about $200,000, a destructive leverage of at least 5 million to 1.
But that wasn't the end of it. The post-Sept. 11 trauma in the Middle East and fragile world economies reliant on oil inexorably put pressure on world oil supplies. U.S. failures to develop offshore oil resources and other non-oil and non-gas energy increased pressure on oil prices. These pressures climaxed with oil at $140 a barrel and caused the transfer of about $7 billion a day in liquidity from industrial economies to oil-producing nations.
Yet it is curious that this seemingly obvious point was not made by the Bush administration, nor was it raised during the recent presidential campaign. In fact, had this issue been addressed, it would have moderated the Obama claim that economic exigency was due to the bungling of the Bush economic team.
What turns out to be most noteworthy is that the events that preceded the economic downturn have been ignored or forgotten. Only eight years after Sept. 11, the nation seems to suffer from historical amnesia...
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Obama's energy policy will INCREASE dependence on foreign oil
President Obama’s energy policy is to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil imports by eliminating oil and replacing oil with alternative renewable “clean” biofuel. That sounds good in speeches. It is quite impressive to all those who know little about oil or biofuels, which includes the majority of the public. The devil, of course, is in the details which no one seems to have investigated.
Ethanol subsidies began in 1979. Ethanol has had 30 years of taxpayer-assisted experience. Ethanol is the only “feasible” alternative renewable biofuel in the competition. All other biofuels lack the production potential that ethanol has. [snip]
According to Professor Chris Hurt of Purdue, in 2006 the US had about 79 million acres of corn. Professor Richard Meilan of Purdue estimates that one acre of corn will produce 450 gallons which is 10.7 barrels of ethanol. Using all of the corn crop land in the US for ethanol — no movie popcorn, no corn syrup sweetener, no bourbon, no tortillas, no grits, no corn to eat at all — ethanol production can reach only 845 million barrels in 2022, or 2.31 million barrels per day.
Department of Energy data shows that the US is producing 4.95 million barrels of oil per day and importing 9.00 million barrels of foreign oil per day. Including the 0.60 million barrels of ethanol per day, our current oil demand is 14.55 million barrels per day... [snip]
US oil production has been declining since 1985. This decline is almost ruler straight.
By 2022, it is estimated that US oil production would be approximately 3 million barrels per day. In 1972, foreign oil imports were 811 million barrels, 19% of demand, the year before the devastating Arab Oil Embargo. Currently, foreign oil imports are at a rate of 3.3 billion barrels annually, 62% of current demand, and are expected to increase in the future... [snip]
Everything is not going to be fine in the future under President Obama’s biofuel and oil policy. President Obama’s biofuel and oil policy is on a collision course to a national catastrophe. Among a great many other critical problems, it will cause an increase in our dependence on foreign oil.
[Difficult to 'brief' as looks at the facts from several angles {including the increased emission of CO2 ethanol use generates} - all of them seemingly no-brainers that we're handling exactly wrong - Highly Recommended > ]
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FACTS ABOUT AMERICAN HEALTH CARE
Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers and academics alike are beating the drum for a far larger government role in health care. Much of the public assumes their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex.
However, before turning to government as the solution, some unheralded facts about America's health care system should be considered, says Scott W. Atlas, a professor at the Stanford University Medical Center.
Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers:
- Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom*.
- Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom* and 457 percent higher in Norway.
- The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British* men and women is about 40 percent higher.
- Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease.
- By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them.
Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report "excellent" health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent).
Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as "fair or poor."
Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom:
- Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long -- sometimes more than a year -- to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer.
- All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada.
- In England*, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.
[* Highlighted Britain's NHS throughout piece because it's the world's oldest government run health care system. So it's had the longest to learn how it's done, yet consistently ranks at or near the bottom of every category. What's that tell us?]
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WHAT BIG MISTAKE ARE WE MAKING?
The National Journal recently asked health policy experts what health care issue they would look back upon 10 years from now and really wish we had paid more attention to in 2009?
They said that in the current health care debate, we are making three very big mistakes:
- Believing that we can control health care costs without having anyone choose between health care and other uses of money.
- Believing that we can improve quality without having providers compete for patients based on quality.
- Believing that we can improve access by inducing people to drop their private coverage and join public plans that pay providers below market rates.
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Clinton, Drugs, and Clinton
A story in Reuters is headlined, “U.S. to blame for much of Mexico violence: Clinton.”
“Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the death of police officers, soldiers and civilians. I feel very strongly we have a co-responsibility.”
Let’s stipulate that drug use in America is a factor in what is happening in Mexico, even as we stipulate that Mexico is largely responsible for what happens within its own borders.
Perhaps it’s worth pointing out, then, that under Republican presidencies — Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush — drug use went down significantly (drug use dropped among high school seniors every year from 1985 through 1992).
During the Clinton presidency, drug use went up. Under President Clinton’s watch, more than 50 percent of our high school seniors experimented with illegal drugs.
During the 2nd Bush presidency, illegal drug use by American teens again dropped - by 25 percent (and methamphetamine use dropped by 50 percent).
In order to make Secretary Clinton’s life easier — and life for both Americans and Mexicans better — let’s hope that President Obama follows the lead of his predecessor...
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Quincy Tax Day Tea Party this Saturday
An event coming up this weekend will be reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party more than two hundred years ago. It's all part of the Quincy Tax Day Tea Party this Saturday.
Thousands of people from all over Quincy, Western Illinois and Northeast Missouri are expected to crowd into Clat Adams Park in Quincy to protest the massive federal spending in stimulus projects and bail-outs...
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Tea Parties And Thugs
Media Bias: The press need not support every protest it covers. But when it ignores a grass fire movement against government spending while its favored politician watches closely, then there's dereliction of duty.
Five more "tea parties" took place last weekend to protest runaway congressional spending. The weekend protests were held in Orlando, Fla.; Raleigh, N.C.; Solomon's Island, Md.; Lexington, Ky., and Ridgefield, Conn.
Showing up with hand-lettered signs were people not often seen at protests.
Bloggers and local press do cover these events, but the national TV and print media are conspicuous by their absence. Some big news outlets see these events as atomized and unlikely to lead the nightly news.
But the real reason the major media aren't interested in these protests is that they don't agree with them. In the final analysis, these affairs are really taking issue with the political party they helped elect with overt bias in the last election.
That's why a small scrum of Acorn-financed wackos on a bus tour to intimidate AIG execs last weekend made the news while the tea parties didn't... [snip]
Another 150 tea parties are set for tax day April 15.
[Including one in Pleasanton, for those interested]
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No 'Tea Party' in NY Times, But Room for Leftist 'Bus Tour' of AIG Homes
A left-wing "bus tour" protest prowled the affluent neighborhoods of Fairfield, Conn. on Saturday afternoon, looking for AIG execs to harass. The protest, run by a group sponsored by unlabeled leftists ACORN, were railing against the bonuses paid out to employees of the struggling insurance giant.
The New York Times found the stunt worthy of a full story in the national section of Sunday's paper: "Carrying a Populist Message Into A.I.G. Territory." (The online headline differs from the print version.)
Reporter Manny Fernandez, while sounding supportive, remarked drily that more media than passengers were in attendance.
Also left unmentioned by The Times was that the organizer, the Connecticut Working Families Party, is merely a front group for the controversial left-wing housing group ACORN.
A Nexis search indicates the Times has yet to devote a full story to any of the grassroots "tea parties" in opposition to Obama's big-spending package that have been held in various cities -- including one held in Connecticut on Saturday in its own back yard.
[The most pervasive spin: omission]
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Justice Department to San Francisco Police: Shut Up.
Allegations that presidential pal Bill Ayers was involved in the murder of a San Francisco policeman appear to be running into something of a gag order from at the Department of Justice.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Justice Department and the San Francisco Police Department have contacted the San Francisco Police Officers Association and told them not to talk about the Ayers case.
As mentioned in the AT article of Wednesday, March 18, the Police Association had sent out a letter of support to Kincaid and his Campaign for Justice for Victims of Weather Underground Terrorism, observing:
There are irrefutable and compelling reasons to believe that Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, members of the terrorist group 'Weather Underground', are largely responsible for the bombing of Park Police Station and other police stations throughout the United States during their 'tour of terror' in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
According to the Chronicle:
Police Officers Association President Gary Delagnes confirmed that his union got a call from federal investigators telling them they had an "active investigation and should not be commenting on the case."
Exactly what did they say that would damage an "active investigation?" Are they claiming that no one knows the book is still open on that case? Are the statements above likely to compromise an "active investigation" if indeed it is truly active?
Mr. Holder, as Shakespeare said: "me thinks thou dost protest too much." So out with it! What, or who are you really trying to protect?
Friends of the President or not, Mr. Holder, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn are two career criminal psychopaths, who have cheerfully left a lifetime path of destruction in their wake.
You need to step up to the plate, Mr. Holder. All these Weather Underground cases, and the park station bombing especially, need to be solved. If the heat is too much, either get out of the fire or help solve the case.
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CNN Defines 'A Moderate Republican'
CNN Newsroom featured a segment on governors who are refusing stimulus funds because of the inevitable Federal strings. Anchor Fredricka Whitfield had this exchange with CNN deputy political director Paul Steinhauser:
STEINHAUSER: Exactly. That is very -- a very different case there, too, because Arnold Schwarzenegger is very much of a moderate Republican. He's kind of on the different end of the spectrum from Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford and Bobby Jindal.
Right. That's why:
In 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle's Washington bureau chief titled a column "Schwarzenegger's liberal views leave GOP flummoxed: Actor is pro-choice, pro-gun control and pro-gay rights." At about the same time, National Review editors determined "Schwarzenegger, it seems clear, does not merit conservative support."
The following year, columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote: "No matter what Schwarzenegger's boosters may claim, at the end of the day Schwarzenegger is a liberal Republican." Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, who knows a thing or two about matters leftist, has written the "fact is that Schwarzenegger is for all intent purposes a Democrat to the consternation of Republicans and quiet glee of Democrats in the great Golden State."
The Sacramento Bee reported in 2007 that the UK's Daily Telegraph compiled a list of America's 100 most influential liberals and conservatives. Schwarzenegger made the list - as a liberal.
Then we have today's Arnold, the one who commends Barack Obama "for the courageous leadership and the great commitment that he has displayed over these last few months." The one who calls Obama a "fantastic partner." The one who counsels fellow Republicans: "You know, you've got to go beyond just the principles."
So that's what a moderate Republican looks like. If CNN hadn't told us, we might still think Arnold Schwarzenegger is a liberal. Oh, that's right. At CNN there's no such thing.
[First: control the language.]
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FLASHBACK >
CNN Defines 'A Moderate Democrat'
Let's briefly examine the congressional voting record of the "moderate Democrat" Ellen Tauscher....
Palin won't budge on parental-consent abortion bill
JUNEAU -- State legislators are talking about compromising on a major abortion battle over parental consent, but Gov. Sarah Palin isn't interested in the deal.
The compromise under discussion would be legislation that requires parental notification but not consent. That means parents would have to be told about their teenager's plan to have an abortion but wouldn't have to give their permission for it to happen...
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'New York Times' Spiked Obama Donor Story
A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a “a game changer."
The former worker had been a “confidential informant for several months to Times reporter, Stephanie Strom...
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TEACHERS IN BID TO EXPEL UNION
Charter-school teachers to their union: Butt out.
The educators, at two city charter schools, have filed for permission from the state to cut their ties with the United Federation of Teachers.
The action, at KIPP Academy in The Bronx and KIPP Infinity in Manhattan, came after the UFT recently tried to meddle in the schools' business without consulting the staff first.
Earlier this year the teachers union filed a grievance against KIPP Academy's "at-will" employment practice and pushed for collective bargaining at KIPP Infinity without warning.
"None of that was with communication with teachers," said Matt Hureau, 28, who works at KIPP Academy. "It was the union acting and notifying the teachers afterward"...
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File this one in the "When I Need a Laugh" folder:
David Gregory, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," told this week's Parade Magazine,"I don't accept the proposition that I have an ideological point of view that comes through. I work very hard to avoid that."
As Newsbusters has documented, Gregory indeed has a habit of letting his bias "come through"... [long list...]
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