Saturday, June 4, 2011

Obama's Certificate of Live Birth Forgery; Herman Cain Quotes Martin Luther King; Obama Still Takes Money from Special Interers PACs, his Protests Nothwithstanding; Republican Candidate Must Focus on Jobs; National Popular Vote Would Undo Constitution; Obama Given Stunning Rebuke by House; Federal Reserve Bank Flies American Flag Along With Homosexual Flag; President's Big Government Experiment a Dangerous Failure

World Net Daily reports: The author of the best-selling "Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible To Be President" charged today the resignation of White House counsel Bob Bauer is the result of his participation in the release of Barack Obama's "Certificate of Live Birth," which he fears would not stand up to the scrutiny of any serious investigation by the FBI, Congress or the media.

Corsi said he's convinced that now top White House operatives such as Daley and Bauer believe there is no document in the Hawaii Department of Health that can withstand forensic analysis.
He said the legal challenges to a specific document that has been made public could be harder to deflect than a lawsuit generally alleging an ineligibility on Obama's part.
Corsi also said he believes top operatives in the Democratic Party "have concluded that if Obama does not kill the birther issue soon, he may have to resign – with the likelihood that Hillary Clinton will be elevated into the DNC presidential candidate in 2012."
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The New Republic reports: Among the many striking features of Georgia-based radio talk show host Herman Cain’s presidential announcement speech in Atlanta on May 21, the most surreal was to hear an African-American in front of a heavily white audience of hard-core conservatives, at a site within shouting distance of the Martin Luther King Center, end his remarks by declaring, “When Herman Cain is president, we will finally be able to say, ‘Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, America is free at last.’”  http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/89364/herman-cain-republican-president-tea-party-popular
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Commentary Magazine reports: Back during the last round of Democratic presidential primaries in 2008, the Obama campaign disseminated the completely disingenuous claim that that it didn’t take money from special interest groups and lobbyists. Even after this was debunked time and time again, Obama continued to stand by it.
And now his campaign is pushing this falsehood yet again, according to a mass email it sent me this afternoon:
“We’re not just gathering donations here. We’re gathering people,” reads the email. “We didn’t get this far by doing things the usual way. Our campaign doesn’t take money from Washington lobbyists or special-interest PACs. We’re doing this the right way — with a whole lot of people like you taking the lead.”
This is complete nonsense. As anyone can see from Obama’s public disclosures, PACs were some of his top individual donorshttp://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/06/02/obama%E2%80%99s-donor-charade-begins-again/
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The Wall St. Journal opines: To win the presidency in 2012, the Republican candidate will require certain strengths. Among them, a credible passion for ideas other than cost-cutting and small government.  
The Republican who wins will have to know, and show that he knows, that most Americans aren't sitting around worried to death about big government—they're worried about jobs and what they have in savings.
The candidate would do well to give time and all due detail—the material is rich—on the activities of the Justice Department under President Obama, the most ideologically driven one in U.S. history. He would make the connection between the nature of this Justice Department and the president's view of the American nation.
The Republican candidate might bear in mind, for use on the campaign trail, the grand irony in the spectacle of candidate Obama holding forth on the stump about our friends and allies whom the United States had so alienated under George W. Bush—allies who would have to be won back. Fast forward to September 2009, when the Obama administration virtually overnight cancelled the planned missile defense system that was to be established in Poland and the Czech Republic—a shock to both allies but a gift to the Russians. The Kremlin was indeed grateful.   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303745304576359841146126376.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
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The Washington Times opines: Shawn Street, a former chairman of the California Republican Party, is so worried by the support building for the so-called “National Popular Vote Compact” that he is organizing an effort to put the Republican National Committee on record against the idea at its August meeting in Tampa, Fla.
“This is a very clever idea that bypasses the orderly process of amending the Constitution,” said Mr. Steel, who is now an RNC member from California. “It’s an extraordinarily radical idea, and we need to get some rollback going.”
Under the idea introduced in 2006 by Stanford University consulting professor John Koza, states that join the NPV compact pledge to give all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote - even if a majority of the state’s voters supported another candidate. If a group of states with an accumulated tally of 270 electoral votes - the bare majority - sign on, the practical effect would be that the popular-vote winner instantly becomes the Electoral College winner as well.  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/2/dissenters-in-gop-rethink-electoral-college/
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The Washington Times reports: Crossing party lines to deliver a stunning rebuke to the commander in chief, the vast majority of the House voted Friday for resolutions telling President Obama he has broken the constitutional chain of authority by committing U.S. troops to the international military mission in Libya.

The resolutions were non-binding, and only one of them passed, but taken together, roughly three-quarters of the House voted to put Mr. Obama on notice that he must explain himself or else face future consequences, possibly including having funds for the war cut off.  [It] sets a two-week deadline for the president to deliver the information the House is seeking.   http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/3/bipartisan-congress-rebuffs-obama-libya-mission/
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The Richmond Times Dispatch reports: The Richmond Federal Reserve Bank's attempt to show inclusiveness in the workplace by flying the rainbow flag outside its building has reignited a divisive gay-rights debate.
Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, is calling on the bank to remove the flag, terming its presence "a serious deficiency of judgment by your organization, one not limited to social issues."
In a letter to Richmond Fed President Jeffrey M. Lacker, Marshall says the homosexual behavior "celebrated" by the bank "undermines the American economy."
"What does flying the homosexual flag, or any other similar display, have to do with your central banking mission under the Federal Reserve Act passed by Congress?" writes Marshall, one of the General Assembly's most conservative members. http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/news/2011/jun/03/marshall-asks-richmond-fed-remove-rainbow-flag-hon-ar-1083565/
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The UK Telegraph writes: Today’s job figures are extremely bad news for the Obama administration.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment has risen again to 9.1 percent, with private employers adding a mere 54,000 jobs in May. That’s up from 9 percent in April, and 8.8 percent in March.  [About half of these new jobs were provided by McDonald's!]
The White House’s chief economist Austan Goolsbee has described the figures as a mere “bump in the road.” In reality they should be a massive wake-up call for an administration that refuses to acknowledge the huge damage its big government policies have done to the American economy, with 13.9 million Americans now out of work.
Years of profligate spending, massive bailouts and useless stimulus measures have made America poorer, not richer, and threaten the long-term economic foundations of this great country. President Obama’s big government experiment has been a dangerous failure, only further proof that the deadening hand of federal intervention is the last thing America needs at this time.  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100090677/after-29-months-of-the-most-left-wing-government-in-us-history-the-american-superpower-is-heading-towards-the-financial-abyss/
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Friday, June 3, 2011

We Lose $14 Billion on Auto Industry Bailout; Acting Solictor General Suggests Making Less Money in Order to Avoid Obamacare Purchase; Arkansas School Shows Bias in Agenda; Teachers Union in New York Tries to Stop Shutdown of Failing Schools; Medicare Changes Have Price Tag

Yahoo News reports: The Obama administration said Wednesday that the government will lose about $14 billion in taxpayer funds from the bailout of the U.S. auto industry. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110601/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_autos_2
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The Washington Examiner reports: President Obama's solicitor general, defending the national health care law on Wednesday, told a federal appeals court that Americans who didn't like the individual mandate could always avoid it by choosing to earn less money.
Neal Kumar Katyal, the acting solicitor general, made the argument under questioning before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, which was considering an appeal by the Thomas More Law Center. (Listen to oral arguments here.)  The three-judge panel, which was comprised of two Republican-appointed judges and a Democratic-appointed judge, expressed more skepticism about the government's defense of the health care law than the Fourth Circuit panel that heard the Virginia-based Obamacare challenge last month in Richmond. The Fourth Circuit panel was made up entirely of Democrats, and two of the judges were appointed by Obama himself.
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[In a perfect illustration as to what our children are being taught in public schools about the greatness of America comes this from News Net 5]: A middle school yearbook in Arkansas has created controversy around the country after it named Former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in a list of the "worst" people of all time.

The yearbook included a list titled the "Top 5 worst people of all time."  The list begins with Adolph Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, Charles Manson, but then lists Bush and Cheney. http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/national/yearbook-causes-controversy-afer-it-names-george-w-bush-in-list-of-worst-people-of-all-time
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The Washington Post reports: IT’S CLEAR WHY the teachers union in New York has gone to court to stop the city’s planned shutdown of failing schools and to block charter schools from using the public space. Jobs are in play, and the main mission of the union is, after all, to protect its members. What’s not clear is why the NAACP would join an effort to keep open schools that have failed miserably. Considering that it is mostly minority students who are affected, the NAACP’s action is almost incomprehensible.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-naacps-mystifying-decision-to-side-with-a-union-over-students/2011/06/01/AGwcBZHH_story.html
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The Oxford Club advises, on Medicare: change doesn’t come without a price tag. And this is where things get prickly. Because no one likes to hear “tax increases” or “reduced tax benefits” to fund the tab.
But this is exactly what’s happening:
  Fewer people will be able to deduct medical expenses. Currently, you have to itemize expenses on Schedule A and can deduct only the amount of medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of adjusted gross income. The threshold for medical expense deductions increases to 10% of adjusted gross income beginning in 2013. (Individuals age 65 and older do receive a break, however. The new threshold doesn’t apply to them for tax years 2013 through 2016.)
Tax-free contributions to FSAs for medical expenses will decline to $2,500 annually starting January 1, 2013. And these will increase annually by the cost of living.
•        Also going into effect in 2013: Individuals earning over $200,000 and couples earnings over $250,000 will have their Medicare tax rates on salaries and self-employment income increased from 1.45% to 2.35%.
•        And this group gets hit twice… They’ll also pay a 3.8% Medicare tax rate on unearned income (which is most investment income). This is the first time investment income has been subject to the Medicare tax.
In my view, the higher demand for medical services coupled with reimbursement cuts to doctors and hospitals will do the opposite of what was intended. It’ll actually reduce the quality of care and increase costs before things might improve. There are forecasts for doctor and medical professional shortages in years ahead. That’s why I recommend you establish a relationship with a doctor you like soon… especially before more practices close their doors to new patients.  In my view, says Oxford Club, the higher demand for medical services coupled with reimbursement cuts to doctors and hospitals will do the opposite of what was intended. It’ll actually reduce the quality of care and increase costs before things might improve. There are forecasts for doctor and medical professional shortages in years ahead. That’s why I recommend you establish a relationship with a doctor you like soon… especially before more practices close their doors to new patients.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

The Story that Just Won't Go Away; Number of Limos for Government Increases by 73% Under Obama; 150 Economists Back Boehner's Budget; Florida Demands Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients; Lots of Eye-Rolling by GOP; No Senate Budget for 762 Days and Counting; USPS Has Union-fed Troubles; Herman Cain's Star is Rising

World Net Daily reports: An international expert on scanners and document-imaging software filed a 22-page criminal complaint with the FBI, charging that the long-form birth certificate released by the White House is criminally fraudulent.
"What the Obama administration released is a PDF image that they are trying to pass off as a Certificate of Live Birth Long Form printed on green security paper by the Hawaiian Health Department," Doug Vogt writes, "but this form is a created forgery."
Get the inside details on what could be the most serious constitutional crisis in modern history, in "Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama is Not Eligible to be President," autographed by the author!
Vogt's criminal complaint asserts: "I have irrefutably proven that the Certificate of Live Birth that President Obama presented to the world on April 27, 2011, is a fraudulently created document put together using the Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator programs, and the creation of this forgery of a public document constitutes a class B felony in Hawaii and multiple violations under U.S. Code section Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 47, Sec.1028, and therefore an impeachable offense."
When the Obama birth certificate "forgery" comes to the public's attention, Vogt continues, "It will surpass all previous scandals including the Watergate scandal of the Nixon administration."
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The Center for Public Integrity reveals: Limousines, the very symbol of wealth and excess, are usually the domain of corporate executives and the rich. But the number of limos owned by Uncle Sam increased by 73 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration, according to an analysis of records by iWatch News.
Most of the increase was recorded in Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
Obama administration officials said most of the increase reflects an enhanced effort to protect diplomats and other government officials in a dangerous world. http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/05/31/4765/limousine-liberals-number-government-owned-limos-has-soared-under-obama
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CNBC reports: More than 150 economists back U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner's call to match any increase in the debt limit with spending cuts of equal size, according to a letter released by the Republican leader's office Wednesday.  "An increase in the national debt limit that is not accompanied by significant spending cuts and budget reforms to address our government's spending addiction will harm private-sector job creation in America," the letter said.  http://www.cnbc.com/id/43234290
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CNN reports: Saying it is "unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction," Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday signed legislation requiring adults applying for welfare assistance to undergo drug screening. "It's the right thing for taxpayers," Scott said after signing the measure. "It's the right thing for citizens of this state that need public assistance. We don't want to waste tax dollars. And also, we want to give people an incentive to not use drugs."
Under the law, which takes effect on July 1, the Florida Department of Children and Family Services will be required to conduct the drug tests on adults applying to the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.  http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/06/01/florida.welfare.drug.testing/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
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The Hill reports: Republicans attending a White House meeting on Wednesday didn’t take kindly to President Obama telling them tax rates were higher during the Reagan administration.
GOP members engaged in a lot of “eye-rolling,” according to a member who was on hand to hear Obama, who invited House Republicans to the White House for discussions on the debt ceiling.  
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) joked that during the meeting, “We learned we had the lowest tax rates in history … lower than Reagan!” 
[While true for part of Reagan's administration], in the last year of Reagan’s presidency in 1988, there were two tax rates for individuals; a 15 percent rate for those making less than $17,850 and a 28 percent rate for those making above that level.  http://thehill.com/homenews/house/164199-gop-rolls-eyes-as-obama-talks-about-lower-taxes-than-reagan
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Powerline Blog writes: Thus, we have Dana Milbank, normally a loyal Democrat, writing in the Washington Post:
The Senate is supposed to be in Memorial Day recess this week. But the chamber is so ungovernable that Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn't even have the votes to declare a recess. So he decided instead to have a few "pro forma" sessions, such as Tuesday's, allowing senators to take a vacation without voting for it.
In a sense, the Senate has been in a pro-forma session all year. ... Although there's general agreement that the most pressing issue facing the federal government is its runaway finances, the Democrat-controlled Senate hasn't passed a budget in 762 days, a new standard for dereliction of duty. ...
Now, for the first time in a decade, the Senate Budget Committee isn't even considering a budget. ...
It is just the sort of thing that offends Americans about Washington: The triumph of tactical advantage over the national interest.
Powerline adds: As the Democrats fiddle, America's economy burns. Today's bad news--private sector job creation falling, home prices dropping, food and energy costs sky-high--sent the stock market into a tailspin. One Wall Street analyst says that "[w]e're on the verge of a great, great depression." The Democrats' economic policies have failed, and pretty much everyone knows it. For them to fail even to propose a budget is, as Milbank says, a dereliction of duty. One can only hope that the voters will punish them for it. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/06/029141.php
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National Review reports: From Devin Leonard’s article on the US Postal Service in the new Bloomberg BusinessWeek: Since 2007 the USPS has been unable to cover its annual budget, 80 percent of which goes to salaries and benefits. In contrast, 43 percent of FedEx’s (FDX) budget and 61 percent of United Parcel Service’s (UPS) pay go to employee-related expenses. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the postal service’s two primary rivals are more nimble. According to SJ Consulting Group, the USPS has more than a 15 percent share of the American express and ground-shipping market. FedEx has 32 percent, UPS 53 percent.
The USPS has stayed afloat by borrowing $12 billion from the U.S. Treasury. This year it will reach its statutory debt limit. After that, insolvency looms. …
Democrats receive the vast majority of the contributions made by postal workers’ unions, according to campaign finance records, so they tend to be sympathetic. President Barack Obama inserted a proposal in his 2012 budget to absolve the USPS of $4 billion of its retiree health-care liabilities in 2011. This would enable it to slog through another year without extraordinary changes. Meanwhile, Senator Thomas Carper (D-Del.) introduced a bill on May 17 that would relieve the USPS of its prefunding headaches. “If we do nothing, we face a future without the valuable services that the postal service provides,” Carper cautioned in a statement the same day.
The USPS has historically placed the interests of its unions first. That hasn’t changed. In March it reached a four-and-a-half-year agreement with the 250,000-member American Postal Workers Union, which represents mail clerks, drivers, mechanics, and custodians. The pact extends the no-layoff provision and provides a 3.5 percent raise for APWU members over the period of the contract, along with seven upcapped cost-of-living increases. The union is happy. “Despite the fact that the postal service is on the edge of insolvency, the union and management have reached an agreement that is a ‘win-win’ proposition,” said APWU President Cliff Guffey on the union’s website.
  http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/268608/what-does-looming-collapse-us-postal-service-tell-us-reihan-salam
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Daily Caller reports: [Although almost no one on TV mentions his name,] Herman Cain’s star is continuing to rise, according to a new Public Policy Polling poll released Wednesday that shows him tied for second place with Sarah Palin in the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa.
Cain is taking the nation by storm in terms of his polling results: following the first Republican Primary debate in Greenville, South Carolina, a focus group conducted by Frank Luntz declared him the unanimous winner. He led in the most recent Daily Caller/Conservative Home Tracking Poll, and continues to lead the pack in positive intensity score in Gallup’s polling. A CNN poll released May 27 had the supposed dark horse candidate among the top five, ahead of Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, and Tim Pawlenty.
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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Get to Know new DNC Chairman Schultz; Consumer Confidence Index in Surprise Fall; Sharia Law Fails in Dearborn; How the Left Took Over Your TV; Obama's Budget Suffers Large Defeat; Trespassers Can Sue You; Let's Drape Ourselves in the Flag; Teen Beauty Stoned to Death

CNS News introduces us to Meet Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.): chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, denounced Republicans last week for believing illegal immigration “should in fact be a crime.”
During the comments, the chairwoman referred to legislation in 2006 by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) that would increase border enforcement and make illegal immigration a criminal offense instead of a civil matter.
However, the Senate bill immunized illegal aliens from being prosecuted for document fraud, a felony, and did not stop the practice of allowing illegal aliens eventually granted legal residency to go back and claim credit with the Social Security Administration for work they did as an illegal. These provisions were in sections 601 and 614 of the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive immigration reform bill.
At the same Christian Science Monitor breakfast, Wasserman Schultz said, “If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars; they would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes.”
The Hill newspaper quickly reported that Wasserman Schultz owns a 2010 Infiniti FX35, a Japanese car whose parent company is Nissan.  http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/new-dnc-chair-faults-gop-wanting-illegal
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Yahoo! Finance writes: The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 60.8 from a revised 66 in April, a sign of the toll that high gas prices, a choppy job outlook and a moribund housing market are taking on people's psyches. Economists had expected an increase to 67. It was the lowest reading since November. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Consumer-confidence-falls-apf-1525822108.html?x=0
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The Thomas More Law Center announces: The U. S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that Sudanese Christian Pastor George Saieg has a free speech right to distribute religious literature on public sidewalks and evangelize Muslims during the Annual Arab International Festival held each year in Dearborn, Michigan.  For five years Saieg, who specifically ministers to Muslims, had been discussing his Christian faith and passing out literature on Dearborn’s sidewalks during the Festival without encountering any problems. Nevertheless, in 2009 police officials informed him he had to remain in a booth, prohibiting him from distributing his literature on the nearby sidewalks and public streets.   http://www.thomasmore.org/qry/page.taf?id=19
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The Blaze reports: Ben Shapiro’s new book, “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV,” according to it’s description “is the story—told in their own words—of how television has been used over the past sixty years by Hollywood writers, producers, actors, and executives to promote their liberal ideals, to push the envelope on social and political issues, and to shape America in their own leftist image.”
For example, Shapiro quotes Mike Dann, one of Sesame Street’s founding executives, saying it “was not made for the sophisticated or the middle class.” Using the premise, the team worked in all sorts of messages, including Grover breaking bread with a hippie and Oscar the grouch who was supposed to address “conflicts arising from racial and ethnic diversity.” Dann also admitted he used the program in the wake of 9/11 to highlight peaceful alternatives to war. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/is-sesame-street-spreading-left-wing-propaganda-exec-admits-yes/
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Human Events reports: The House held an important vote tonight.  Major media outlets are calling it “symbolic,” but it’s far more important that they want to admit.
By a vote of 97-318, the House of Representatives rejected President Obama’s demand for an unconditional increase to our national debt ceiling.  Every single Republican voted against the measure, along with 82 Democrats.  Joining the Republicans were such luminaries as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.  http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=43836
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The Washington Examiner writes: "Rick assaults Sasha on a public street and snatches her purse. In the course of his escape from the scene, he climbs over the fence at Rachel's bed and breakfast and is injured by [an] uninsulated [electrical] wire."
So, can Rick the purse-snatcher sue Rachel the hotelier, whose property he violated?
This hypothetical, the sort of puzzle placed before law students each year, appears as an example in a recent installment of the prestigious American Law Institute's Third Restatement of Torts.

More than 40 years ago, ALI's Second Restatement asserted that landowners had no duty to trespassers except in very limited circumstances -- for example, when landowners create "attractive nuisances" that lure children into death or serious injury.
Otherwise, landowners and homeowners could only be held liable if they harmed trespassers through willful or reckless actions. The new Restatement, published last year, changes all that.
It imposes on property owners a new duty of "reasonable care" toward all except "flagrant" trespassers. And what constitutes "flagrant" trespass? It is not defined in the new Restatement, nor in state tort law.
But apparently, it may not include Rick the purse-snatcher in his flight from the police. "Rick's commission of the crime," the document states, "is not relevant to the determination of whether his trespass on Rachel's land is flagrant."
In just the past few months, four states -- Texas, Oklahoma, South Dakota and North Dakota -- have responded to the Restatement's pro-trespasser rules by pre-empting them, passing new statutes on trespassing.
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[Demonstrating how frightened the left is of Sarah Palin, Martin Bashir now claims she is breaking the law by having the flag on her bus! - as reported by Newsbusters: In his accusatory "Clear the Air" segment, the former ABC Nightline anchor lectured Palin that "standards of respect and etiquette" discourage using the American flag for "any advertising purpose whatsoever."
"She drapes herself in the stars and stripes and makes millions of dollars in the process," chided Bashir. "This has got nothing to do with the presidency and everything to do with filling her pockets."
The only problem: the Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that flag burning is protected by the First Amendment. If flag burning is protected speech, certainly displaying the flag on a tour bus is legal. Or do the rules not apply to Sarah Palin? In Bashir's warped sense of reality, conservatives like Palin would be arrested for flying the American flag at rallies in which they promote causes that Bashir does not support.
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The NY Daily News reports on the peaceful religion of Islam: A would-be teen beauty queen was stoned to death [in the Ukraine] after her participation in a Ukranian pageant reportedly infuriated local Muslim youths.
Katya Koren, 19, was targeted by three fellow teens who said her seventh-place finish in the beauty contest was a violation of Muslim laws, according to British newspaper reports.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Gun Control Being Done "Under the Radar", says Obama; Supremes Asked About Wisconsin's Collective Bargaining; 500,000 Central Americans Smuggled into America Each Year; Mexico Immigration Laws; Nonprofit Status Granted to James O'Keefe's Group; Misclassified Children Results in High Pay from Taxpayers; American Citizenship Not Valued by Students; Clarence Thomas Targeted for Recusal, Elena Kagan Is Not

 The Obama administration, after keeping gun control on the back burner for over two years, is prompting concern among gun rights groups that it's slowly starting to squeeze the trigger on tighter regulation.
"They're doing a pretty good job ... as Obama has said, 'under the radar.' There's a lot going on under that radar," Gun Owners of America Director Larry Pratt said, referring to a remark Obama reportedly made in a private meeting with gun control advocates. "They've shown us how much they are prepared to do through regulation."
"The American public does not support gun control. ... What the American public wants is for criminals to be punished for their mistakes," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said. 
The NRA and other groups have also harshly criticized the administration for its own gun-control problem -- a Justice Department project by which hundreds of guns were allowed to "walk" across the border and into the hands of Mexican cartels.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/28/obama-administration-eyeing-gun-control-radar-groups-warn/#ixzz1Nezza9iA
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The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes: The state Department of Justice asked the state Supreme Court on Friday to immediately vacate a judge's decision that voided a plan by Gov. Scott Walker to greatly limit collective bargaining for public workers.
In its filing, the department said Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi made so many errors in a ruling Thursday that the Supreme Court should throw out her decision even before it hears oral arguments in the case June 6.
"These errors amount to a fundamental denial of due process and reveal the extent to which the circuit court was willing to exceed its jurisdiction in order to invalidate a politically controversial act of the Legislature," wrote Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John.  http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/122749469.html
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The LA Times wrote: Nearly 500,000 people from Central America and beyond traverse Mexico each year en route to the U.S., according to the Mexican government human rights office. Most now have to pay a smuggler, and increasingly, they are kidnapped, held for ransom and in the most brutal of cases, killed. Their tormentors are criminal gangs often working in cahoots with Mexican immigration and police agents, authorities say         While the vast majority of the migrants were Guatemalans, a dozen were from India and a handful from Nepal and China, as people from far-flung corners of the world look to the Mexican route for entry into the U.S. Authorities say more than 2,000 people listed as Asians were registered at migrant shelters in Mexico last year.
"As long as the United States does not have a legal framework that permits this natural flow and channels it in an orderly way," Calderon added, "migrants will continue to run the risk of becoming part of a market run by unscrupulous criminals. That is the reality."  [Actually, Calderon, America DOES have a legal framework for immigration - FAR more generous than your country's framework.]
  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-migrants-20110528,0,7733401.story
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Human Events writes about Mexico's immigration laws:  Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:
  • in the country legally;
  • have the means to sustain themselves economically;
  • not destined to be burdens on society;
  • of economic and social benefit to society;
  • of good character and have no criminal records; and
  • contributors to the general well-being of the nation.
The law also ensures that:
  • immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
  • foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
  • foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
  • foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
  • foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;
  • those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.
  • http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=14632 
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  • The NYT writes: The Internal Revenue Service has granted nonprofit status to the group that brought down two senior executives at NPR and dealt a death blow to the community organizing group Acorn with videos of its employees giving tax advice to people claiming to be a pimp and prostitute.  Project Veritas, a group founded by the videographer James O’Keefe, received the status from the I.R.S. in April, according to documents gathered by The Chronicle of Philanthropy through a Freedom of Information Act request.
    He said the money saved with the status would help Project Veritas train and equip “an army” of citizen journalists to carry out its mission: “to investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud and other misconduct in both public and private institutions in order to achieve a more ethical and transparent society.”  In its application, Project Veritas said it planned to pursue as many as a half-dozen journalism projects and conduct five two- to three-day training sessions for people interested in learning how to do such projects on their own. “I can’t tell you the secret sauce of it, but we do have a training method,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “There are many people learning this method and learning how to expose abusive power in creative ways.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/us/27veritas.html?_r=1
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    The Boston Globe writes: Given the strong possibility that children are being misclassified as disabled to make their families eligible for checks of up to $700 a month, Congress should happily pay the $10 million or so needed to fund a study of the program by the well-regarded Institute of Medicine. And then it should quickly implement any changes based on the institute’s findings before more children are misclassified.
    Supplemental Security Income program, which was originally meant for families of children with such disabilities as Down syndrome or cerebral palsy, has long since expanded to cover such mental conditions as attention-deficit disorder. In 1990, 8 percent of the poor children on SSI had qualified because of mental, learning, or behavioral disorders; in 2009, more than half did. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2011/05/29/mislabeling_kids_as_adhd_investigate_federal_rules/
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    [Illustrating a contention of mine that liberals and progressives have been brainwashing our children while educating them in public schools comes this, from the Weekly Standard]: a recent study conducted by Stanford education professor William Damon, in which students were asked what American citizenship means to them, some of the responses include:
    "We just had that the other day in history. I forget what it was."
    "I mean, being American is not really special.... I don't find being an American citizen very important."
    "I don't know, I figure it really shouldn't mean anything."
    "I don't want to belong to any country. It just feels like you are obligated to this country. I don't like the whole thing of citizen.... I don't like that whole thing. It's like, citizen, no citizen; it doesn't make sense to me. It's like to be a good citizen.... I don't know, I don't want to be a citizen ... it's stupid to me."
    Earlier this week, in a lunch hosted by the Hoover Institution, Damon discussed his latest book, Failing Liberty 101: How We Are Leaving Young Americans Unprepared for Citizenship in a Free Society.
  • As it turns out, the problem is us—specifically educators today who lack that commitment to teaching about America, the emphasis being on so many other cultures as opposed to stressing what it means to be an American.   http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/forgetting-who-we-are_571537.html
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  • Fox News reports: Eyeing a potential 5-4 decision on President Obama's Affordable Care health care reforms, some Democratic lawmakers are trying to pressure Justice Clarence Thomas to sit out any health care case that may come before the Supreme Court. [A 4-4 decision would leave Obamacare as the law of the land.]
    Thomas reveals that his wife, Ginni Thomas, received a salary in 2010 from Liberty Central, a group that she helped found and which supports the repeal of the health care law. 
    "We knew that Justice Thomas' family had a financial stake in opposing health care reform. Now we know even more," Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. "It's pretty clear the justice has one option here: recusal."
    Defenders of Justice Thomas note that nothing in the ethics rules compels Thomas to report the sums his wife earned on his financial disclosures. They add that it's no secret where Ginni Thomas worked. 
    Supporters of Thomas also say the effort to remove the justice from the court is an attempt to extract rulings -- 4-4 decisions at the high court leave appellate court decisions in place -- that they may not otherwise get on a divided court. 
    "If there's anyone who needs to recuse themselves from the health care cases it's Elena Kagan," said Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director for the Judicial Crisis Network. [Elena Kagen has been proven to have coordinated with the Obama administration on his Obamacare issues, as written about here recently.]
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    The UK Telegraph weighs in on Obama's 70th golf game: [In the UK], above all, it would be viewed as an act of extremely bad taste on a day when the nation remembers and mourns her war dead. I can’t imagine the PM even considering it, and I’m sure his advisers would be horrified at the idea. And if the prime minister ever did play golf on such a sacrosanct day he would be given a massive drubbing by the British press, and it would never be repeated. Contrast this with President Obama’s decision to play golf yesterday, Memorial Day, for the 70th time during his 28-month long presidency.
    The story has not been reported so far in a single US newspaper, but was made public by veteran White House correspondent Keith Koffler on his blog. Here’s Koffler’s report:
    The business of memorializing our war dead done, President Obama headed out to the Fort Belvoir golf course today, finding his way onto the links for the ninth weekend in a row.  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100090074/obamas-decision-to-play-golf-on-memorial-day-was-disrespectful-and-hardly-presidential/
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Monday, May 30, 2011

We remember and honor those who gave all....

Our nation is deeply indebted to those who gave all in order to secure and maintain our freedoms.  May the families of those fallen soldiers be held near to our hearts.