AFL-CIO Response to Obama Budget Posted on White House Website; Fiat Given 5% More Ownership of Chrysler; Inflation Way Up; Al-Jazeera Hosts Hillary; Baltimore May Vote on Discounted College Tuition for Illegals; AZ Governor Vetos Birther Bill; Supremes Will Revisit Obamacare This Friday; New Black Panthers "National Day of Action" This Saturday; AFSCME Union In Michigan Threatens to "Weaponize" by Shutting Services Down

Obama’s people did something rather unusual: They released press releases regarding the President’s budget deal with the GOP on the White House website by both AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka, as well as AFSCME boss Gerald McEntee.While McEntee’s press release was praising of Obama’s gimmicky budgetary “framework,” Trumka’s was a full-blown partisan attack on Republican lawmakers. Again, this was posted on the White House’s website. http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/04/18/too-late-to-ask-for-a-refund-obama-has-union-bosses-other-lefty-loons-feeling-double-crossed/
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National Review reports: Fiat just earned 5 percent more ownership in Chrysler for creating a product no one has bought yet. Payment for non-performance. If you suspect this is government’s benchmark for success, you’d be right. More precisely, this is how the Obama administration measures success.

Let’s rewind the tape. Under King Obama’s gift of 20 percent of Chrysler to Fiat in 2009, His Highness decreed that Fiat would assume another 5 percent of the company upon production of a 4-cylinder engine in the United States. Not selling it. Simply producing it.
Why? Because Obama has decreed, against all evidence, that America wants small, fuel-efficient engines. Build them and they will come.
“Fiat’s initial 20 percent share of Chrysler rose to 25 percent in January, when it met the first government benchmark: production of a fuel-efficient, four-cylinder engine at its Dundee (Michigan) plant,” reports the Detroit News. Fiat could have built anything under this condition — a windmill-powered engine — since it only had to pleasure the king.  http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/264684/obamas-stupid-car-tricks-henry-payne

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Floyd Reports: Over the last six months, crude oil, corn and cotton rose a visibly immodest 35 percent, 38 percent and 89 percent, respectively. A recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report confirms what our flattened wallets already told us: food and energy prices are on the rise. According to the report, food prices in March made the biggest gain since 1974 - with a 3.9 percent increase. In February, energy prices rose 3.3 percent and gasoline, 3.7 percent.

To be fair, Bernanke is technically correct to say that we do not have an inflation problem – because, due to their pricing volatility, the Federal Reserve does not include food and gasoline prices purchased by consumers in its calculation. But Americans aren’t much interested in federal government technicalities these days. They are instead focused on the newfound art of stretching those “non-inflated” dollars to provide for their families. http://floydreports.com/produce-aisle-sticker-shock-in-obamas-america/?utm_source=Expose+Obama&utm_campaign=a72893b895-EO_04_18_20114_18_2011&utm_medium=email 
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Expose Obama writes: Seven years after then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called the broadcaster’s reporting “vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable” and President George W. Bush joked about bombing it, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised it as “real news” in her recent Senate testimony.
Not only that, her staffers, as well as those of the CIA and the Obama White House, were attending the Congressional Correspondents’ Dinner as Al-Jazeera’s guests.
“They are a really important media entity, and we have a really great relationship with them,” said Dana Shell Smith, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for international media engagement, who speaks Arabic and has frequently appeared on the channel. “This administration has empowered those of us who actually do the communicating to be in a close relationship with Al-Jazeera. They understand that the relationship can’t consist of complaining to each other about the differences we have.”  http://www.exposeobama.com/2011/04/18/obama-appointees-are-al-jazeeras-best-pals-outside-al-qaeda/?utm_source=Expose+Obama&utm_campaign=a72893b895-EO_04_18_20114_18_2011&utm_medium=email
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Baltimore Sun reports: Gov. Martin O'Malley has not yet signed the state's new rule that gives discounted college tuition to illegal immigrants -- but it is already facing a pair of challenges.

Freshman Delegate Neil Parrott, one of the few Maryland elected officials who rode the tea party wave to victory last fall, is organizing an effort to petition the measure to referendum. If his efforts are successful, the bill would appear on the 2012 ballot and tuition breaks would be postponed until the voters determine whether the law should be put on the books. http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/2011/04/delegate_to_challenge_instate.html
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NY Daily News reports: Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a controversial 'birther' bill on Monday night that would have required presidential candidates to submit a long-form birth certificate in order to be on the ballot.  New York Daily News, by Meena Hartenstein   
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American Spectator reports: The United States Supreme Court Justices met last Friday to discuss whether or not to grant Virginia's request to expedite our healthcare case directly to the Supreme Court - thereby bypassing the 4^th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Virginia, along with many other states and companies, has been left with great uncertainty regarding the healthcare bill. Virginia alone is spending millions of dollars preparing to implement the bill - despite the fact that if Virginia's legal challenge succeeds, the bill may well be stricken before it is ever fully implemented. 
The Supreme Court did not make an announcement today on whether or not it was going to expedite the case. Instead, they relisted the case on their docket for this Friday, April 22^nd.  http://spectator.org/blog/2011/04/18/the-supreme-court-and-cuccinel
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Daily Caller writes: The New Black Panther Party – an organization known largely for their intimidation of voters outside a Philadelphia precinct- has announced plans for a “National Day of Action and Unity,” – ironically urging followers (on their day of unity) to boycott all “non-black business” on April 23. The New Black Panthers plan to protest non-black establishments and entities via “rallies, marches, demonstrations, programs, and confrontations” in over 60 cities. “Because blacks worldwide are dissatisfied at their current condition,” the Panther’s announcement explains. http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/19/new-black-panthers-to-protest-non-blacks/
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Big Government reports: It’s becoming clearer that the “public service” mentality is quickly slipping way from government employees, if it didn’t hit the exits a long time ago.
Instead of government employees serving the public, it’s clear now their belief is that the public exists to serve them.  And if the public doesn’t step up, there will be hell to pay.
Why else would a government union president threaten to “weaponize” the jobs of his members?  At the latest union protest in Lansing, Michigan, AFSCME president Herb Sanders explained to the Lansing State Journal:

If necessary, we will use the valuable public service jobs that we perform as a weapon and shut this state down.

There needs to be a real, straightforward way to deal with such behavior.  One of the signs that I laughed at most in Madison was “I am irreplaceable.”
No, you’re not.  Everyone is replaceable.  Everyone can become a liability when their perceived value outweighs reality.

The fact is, Herb Sanders’ members are very replaceable and the state of Michigan, and every other state with a union-held gun to its head, should have ways to replace them – quickly.  http://biggovernment.com/kolson/2011/04/18/afscme-union-threatens-to-weaponize-government-jobs/
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