Saturday, July 2, 2011

VA bans God at funerals; Obama gives money to ACORN against Congressional will; Some prisoners choose Gitmo over release; Wisconson schools are flush with money now; Race and gender choices now legal in Michigan; Media Matters might lose tax exempt status; Cincinnati Appeals Court approves Obamacare; Rubio creates a buzz; Texas defunds Planned Parenthood; Zeitlin Option being considered; Obama, NATO, and Libya

Reuters reports: VA Forbids Mention of God at Funerals for Veterans and Requires Families to Submit Prayer for Approval to the Government:  For 30 years, the VFW District 4 burial team, at the request of the family of the deceased, has honored veterans by performing the VFW burial ritual during private burial services at the Houston National Cemetery. For 20 years, The American Legion Post 586 has honored our veterans by performing its burial ritual for fallen veterans. On at least four separate occasions, government officials told the burial teams that prayer and religious speech could no longer be included in the burial ritual unless the family submits a specific prayer or message in writing to Director Ocasio for her approval.  Government official Jose Henriquez also told the VFW Honor Guard Commander, Junior Vice Commander and Chaplain that the word "God" is forbidden.
VA instructs the VFW and a Private Funeral Home that they may not present the option of prayer to familieshttp://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/28/idUS245137+28-Jun-2011+PRN20110628
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American Spectator writes:Judicial Watch discovered that the Obama administration is flouting the will of Congress by giving federal taxpayer money to ACORN.
Obama's Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave a $79,819 grant to the largest branch of the ACORN tree, ACORN Housing Corp. (AHC). AHC filed papers last year legally changing its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA). It's the same old organization with a brand new ACORN-free name.
Worse yet, the grant funds a political agitation and indoctrination program. http://spectator.org/blog/2011/06/30/obama-gives-new-grant-to-acorn#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(CNSNews.com) - Former Army Gitmo prosecutor Kyndra Rotunda told CNSNews.com that some prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have asked to stay there in U.S. custody rather than be released to return to their home countries.
“Interestingly, some detainees were offered release, and asked to stay in Gitmo. They prefer captivity in Gitmo to freedom in their own countries!” Rotunda told CNSNews.com by e-mail. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/former-army-prosecutor-some-prisoners-as
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The Detroit News writes: Michigan's ban on using race and gender as a factor in admission to public colleges and universities was overturned today by a federal appeals court, which said the voter-approved measure harms minorities and is unconstitutional.
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Detroit News: Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said today he will appeal a court ruling that overturned the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which bans the use of race and gender preferences in college admissions and government hiring and contracting.
Schuette said he will make a formal request for a rehearing with the appeals court, a move that will keep the civil rights initiative — known as Proposal 2 — in place at least temporarily.
"MCRI embodies the fundamental premise of what America is all about: equal opportunity under the law," Schuette said in a statement. "Entrance to our great universities must be based upon merit, and I will continue the fight for equality, fairness and rule of law."
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Fox News writes: Recent questions about Media Matters' activities stem from a campaign against Fox News that founder David Brock described in an interview this year as "guerilla warfare and sabotage." By its own admission, the group is conducting "opposition research" against certain executives and producers. It also features a link on its website called "Drop Fox" which helps users contact advertisers and urge them to boycott the network.
"The terminology that they're using .... is very dangerous if you're trying to keep your tax-exempt status," said Jordan Sekulow, director of policy and international operations for the American Center for Law and Justice.
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The Columbus Dispatch reports: A federal appeals court in Cincinnati handed President Barack Obama a major victory yesterday when a Democrat-appointed judge and a Republican-appointed judge combined to uphold last year's controversial health-care law. In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Congress has the authority to not only require Americans to buy health insurance but impose financial penalties on people who refuse to get insurance. http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/national_world/stories/2011/06/30/court-upholds-obamas-health-mandate.html
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National Review reports: Look for the Marco Rubio buzz to continue. In an interview with National Review Online, he says that he will take to the Senate floor for his second speech this week — and this time he will have President Obama in his crosshairs.
Rubio tells us that he will respond to Obama’s recent press conference, where the president reveled in class-warfare bluster. “Quite frankly, I am both disappointed for our country and shocked at some of the rhetoric,” he says. “It was rhetoric, I thought, that was more appropriate for some left-wing strong man than for the president of the United States.”  “When does it start to get better?” Rubio asks. “When does the magic of this president start to happen?” http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270862/rubio-blasts-obama-left-wing-strong-man-robert-costa
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One News Now reports: Texas has passed a bill defunding Planned Parenthood, making it the seventh state to do so. The bill sends $47 million in tax funds to other organizations that provide medical services to poor women.
Jonathan Saenz of Liberty Institute calls Monday's vote in Austin a "defining moment" in Texas for the pro-life movement. http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=1382112
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The New Republic writes: Ryan Grim has been doing a great job at the Huffington Post tracking how Senate Democrats are starting to consider the constitutional option when it comes to the debt ceiling. The constitutional option, what Chait calls the “Zeitlin Option,” is for Obama to instruct Treasury to ignore the debt ceiling and continue to honor the government’s obligations to creditors and to fund appropriations and entitlements, arguing that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional under the 14th amendment. In a piece from today, Grim writes that Chuck Schumer thinks this option “is a strategy worth considering should a debt-ceiling deal remain elusive.”
 Grim then explains the legal issues surrounding a possible suit to stop the President from exceeding the debt limit:
Legal scholars, however, argue that the courts couldn’t get involved because no party would have standing to sue. In order to have standing, a plaintiff needs to demonstrate that they have been harmed. Only Congress would have a plausible complaint, and the Senate would not agree to go along with such a suit. http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/91211/congress-really-could-not-stop-obama-ignoring-the-debt-ceiling
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National Journal writes: Each day for the last three months, NATO has issued a classified order dividing the ongoing air war in Libya—uhh, let’s call it “mission”—into offensive and defensive operations.
The latter category is America’s job, and it is huge. It includes Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, which consists mainly of U.S. jets “loitering” in Libyan air space to watch for surface-to-air missiles that might threaten the “offensive” part of the mission: the French, British, Canadian, Norwegian, and Danish planes attacking Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces.
The United States is also supplying most of NATO’s intelligence-gathering, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability in Libya, along with air-to-air refueling for NATO strike forces. By NATO’s own evidence, President Obama was somewhat disingenuous in claiming at his Wednesday news conference that U.S. forces were not “carrying the lion’s share of this operation.” U.S. planes, in fact, “represent the majority of aircraft within the theater, and they have done so from the beginning,” NATO spokesman Tony White told National Journal on Thursday. “The U.S. role continues to be fundamental to the mission” and is “supremely important in every strike sortie.” http://nationaljournal.com/how-obama-has-perfected-the-art-of-not-saying-war-20110701?page=1

Friday, July 1, 2011

Untreated manure as fertilizer; Obama refuses to meet with McConnell; Obama class warfare that of a third world leader; Right to work states score high on workforce; The 4th of July and Republicans; Maryland citizens against in-state tuition for illegals; Insanity at the UN - again

New Scientist writes: One area where organic production systems might pose a higher health risk is through the use of untreated manure as fertiliser. Studies carried out on organic and conventional produce by Minnesota farmers in 2004 found that E. coli contamination was 19 times greater on organic farms which used manure or compost less than 12 months old than on farms which used older materials.
Another extra risk factor in organic production is the avoidance of fungicides, which can lead to the growth of moulds and increased risk of mycotoxins such as aflatoxin and ergot in crops.
The real tragedy of the E. coli incident in Germany is that the outbreak could have been prevented if the organic industry had been willing to irradiate their produce. The bean sprout crop that was the source of the outbreak requires a warm and humid environment to grow, which increases the risk of contamination by E. coli and other disease-causing bacteria. The only certain means of reducing this risk is to irradiate the bean sprout seeds, which effectively kills 99.999 per cent of E. coli. There is no evidence that food irradiation is harmful to consumers, and also no evidence that it affects the nutritional quality of food. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028186.200-irradiating-organic-food-would-save-lives.html?full=true
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Reuters - The White House effectively turned down an invitation by Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell for President Barack Obama to visit his members on Capitol Hill on Thursday to discuss raising the debt limit.
White House press secretary Jay Carney, while not directly saying the invitation had been rejected, said Obama did not need to hear Republicans tell him what they would not support.
That, Carney said, was "not a conversation worth having." http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/30/us-usa-debt-whitehouse-idUSTRE75T4T920110630
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[Regarding Barack Obama's recent speech, about which MSNBC's Mark Halperin called our President a terrible name and was then suspended comes news of just how the President's divide the Americans scheme is working.]  RedState reports: But another problem is shaping up on the floor of the United States Senate. Marco Rubio, who is rapidly becoming one of the most impassioned champions for opposing the debt ceiling increase, said that Barack Obama’s class warfare soliloquy was not the rhetoric of the President of the United States, but of a third world leader. http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/07/01/the-third-world-oscar-mayer-weiner/
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RedState writes: This may just be a coincidence but, out of the 50 states, there are 22 states that do not force people to pay union dues as a condition of employment. Workers in these states are often viewed derisively by union extremists as being somehow inferior to their union counterparts. However, a new study published by CNBC may blow that myth out of the water.
When it comes to America’s Top States for Business 2011, when it comes to a quality workforce, 18 out of the top 20 states are Right-to-Work states. Moreover, all 22 Right-to-Work states are in the top 25 states for having the best workforceshttp://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/06/30/best-workforces-are-in-right-to-work-states-survey-finds/
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RedState writes: I suspect that the Democratic party probably doesn’t want to ever see this sentence from a Harvard statistical survey appear in a news story:
“Taken together, the results indicate that Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation’s political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican party.”  http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2011/06/30/fourth-of-july-republican-breeding-ground/
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The Washington Post reports: Opponents of Maryland legislation to allow in-state tuition for certain illegal immigrants said Thursday night they are confident they have gathered enough signatures to put the measure on the 2012 ballot for a referendum.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/opponents-of-md-bill-allowing-in-state-tuition-for-illegal-immigrants-to-submit-petitions/2011/06/30/AGuQV4rH_story.html
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The NY Post reveals: The United Nations this week tabbed North Korea to head its Conference on Disarmament.
That would be the North Korea that:
* Was building a nuclear site in Syria before Israeli warplanes put an end to it.
* Was caught by the US Navy smuggling missile parts to Burma's junta.
* Is in constant violation of UN mandates regarding its own nuke program -- and was accused by the UN in May of trading missile know-how with Iran.
So, Pyongyang is fueling a nuclear arms race from the Persian Gulf to the China Sea -- but is now tasked by the United Nations to run a body dedicated to the "cessation of the nuclear arms race and . . . prevention of nuclear war."
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Thursday, June 30, 2011

What is moral?; Our gread divider invites hatred for job-providers; Dick Durbin can see an illegal as our President; AP fact checks our President; Raising taxes causes pushback; Westboro Baptist Church and Klu Klux Klan at Quantico for training; Chicago Tribune admits failure to report all facts

RedState writes: The Democrats, in particular Joe Biden and Barack Obama, are out to make the moral case for tax increases. They claim the Republican position is immoral.
This is what happens when we debase morality in our American political culture.
For perspective, when Barack Obama was a state senator in Illinois, he was the only state senator to speak in opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. He stood up and made the case that if an infant is born alive in the process of an abortion, the doctor who botched the abortion should be able to finish off the kid, even though the child had exited the womb alive.  http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/06/28/on-immorality/
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National Journal opines: If President Obama's news conference accomplished anything on Wednesday afternoon, it underscored, in striking tones, his strategy for winning the debt ceiling fight with Republicans: Make it a clash of classes.
  • Rich versus Poor.
  • Us versus Them. 
  • Those who support children, food safety, medical research and, presumably, puppies and apple pie versus the rich fat cats who don't.
  • Obama stated: "If we do not have revenues, that means there are a bunch of kids out there who do not have college scholarships," Obama said. "[It] might compromise the National Weather Services. It means we might not be funding critical medical research. It means food inspection might be compromised. I've said to Republican leaders, 'You go talk to your constituents and ask them, "Are you willing to compromise your kids' safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?" [''Since a rise in the use of corporate jets means an increase in our economy, why is he now directing hatred to corporations?  I corporate taxes are raised about the current highest rate in most of the world, the corporations will stop hiring new people, will pass the cost onto purchases of products, and take their business to another country."]  http://nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/obama-it-s-kids-versus-corporate-jets-on-debt-ceiling-talks-20110629
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  • RealClearPolitics writes: After using illegal immigrants as props to push the DREAM Act, Sen. Durbin (D-IL) made the following statement at a Senate committee hearing:

    "When I look around this room, I see America's future. Our doctors, our teachers, our nurses, our engineers, our scientists, our soldiers, our Congressman, our Senators and maybe our President."  [Yes, this is on video for all to see....]

    However, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution says: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."  [ It is becoming more clear that Democrats do not believe in our Constitution.]  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/06/29/durbin_illegal_alien_could_be_our_future_president.html
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  • The AP finally does some fact checking: This column lists the ways in which the AP felt compelled to fact check President Obama's speech this week: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_FACT_CHECK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-06-29-16-09-16  
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  • The Orange County Register reports: Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law California’s tax on Internet sales through affiliate advertising which will immediately cut small-business website revenue 20% to 30%, experts say.
    The bill, AB 28X, takes effect immediately. The state Board of Equalization says the tax will raise $200 million a year, but critics claim it will raise nothing because online retailers will end their affiliate programs rather than collect the tax. http://jan.ocregister.com/2011/06/29/amazon-terminates-deal-with-25000-calif-affiliates/60971/ 
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CNN writes: A law enforcement official confirms members of the Westboro Baptist Church, known for its controversial practice of picketing military funerals, participated in training for law enforcement officials at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia. The sessions were discontinued this spring after Tom Browne, assistant director for the FBI, voiced strong opposition to bringing the group to a military facility.
The story about staff training sessions between the FBI and Westboro Baptist Church members was first reported by NPR News on Wednesday.
Other controversial groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, have taken part in similar training sessions. The purpose, according to the official, is "to expose law enforcement to these groups, see what they are about, and understand their perspective." In addition, the official says, the groups have a chance to hear law enforcement's point of view in a classroom setting. http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/06/29/fbi.westboro/index.html
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American Thinker opines: The editor of a major newspaper has just admitted that he prints propaganda.  There is no other way to describe the decision of Chicago Tribune editor Gerould W. Kern, who refuses to report on the racial aspect of recent mob attacks in Chicago.
Kern explains his paper's "approach" to concealing the truth: "We do not reference race unless it is a fact that is central to telling the story."
In fact, contrary to Kern's supine statement, there is evidence that the victims were singled out because of their race.  Trovulus Pickett, 17, traveled from the 8400 block of South Dorchester to attack and rob at the 300 block of East Chicago Avenue, which is 15 miles away from Pickett's home.  Pickett and his cohorts, who were all black, traveled long distances to attack exclusively non-black victims.  The victims were absolutely not chosen at random.  This gives rise to an inference that the attackers may have been targeted because of race -- a possibility that should be taken seriously.
There is an epidemic of racial mob violence simmering in Chicago, mirroring similar violence around the country.  Amazingly, the New York Times reported on violent mobs in Philadelphia and other cities where "[m]ost of the teenagers who have taken part ... are black and from poor neighborhoods. Most of the areas hit have been predominantly white business districts"1.  This level of honesty about basic facts is unprecedented in many newspapers.  The Chicago Tribune should take note. http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/how_race_gets_rubbed_out_of_the_story.html
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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

UN Convention on Climate Change and small cities which are connected; Our "Fair Portion"; Maryland requires "environmental literacy" to graduate; Durbin proposes amnesty again; Napolitano hides the truth about illegals; Liberals show their true colors on acceptance; Obama ignored advice from military on Afghanistan; Big Brother was going to watch doctors;

Introducing the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, working with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change: ICLEI was founded in 1990 as the 'International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives'. The Council was established when more than 200 local governments from 43 countries convened at our inaugural conference, the World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future, at the United Nations in New York.
A Worldwide Movement of Local Governments
Through its international programs, and projects, ICLEI works with local governments to generate political awareness of key themes by:
           establishing plans of action to meet defined, concrete, measurable targets
  •  working toward meeting these targets through the implementation of projects
  •  evaluating local and cumulative progress toward sustainable development
International Goals
Our programs, and projects promote participatory, long-term, strategic planning process that address local sustainability while protecting global common goods. This approach links local action to internationally agreed-upon goals and targets such as:
  • Agenda 21, [look for this to be mentioned in your local cities and towns]
  • the Rio Conventions:
    • The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change,
    • The UN Convention on Biological Diversity,
    • http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=global-themes 
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    • The Blaze reports: Well, according to AFL-CIO president Rich Trumka, only the American “labor movement” is all about the “real” American Dream. I guess that means the rest of us haven’t got a clue.
      Opening with Van Jones’ “American Dream” mantra, Trumka announced his pledge of 12 million union laborers and their families to support Van Jones’ “Rebuild the Dream” movement.
      Trumka then goes on to explain: "The American Dream is not that a few of us will get to be rich, but that all of us will have a fair portion of the good things in life.”  [Here's the sticking point: just what is a FAIR portion?  We can assume that this is to be done without the requirements of having earned the fair portion, nor the requirement that we could actually afford to give it to all.]  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/afl-cio-union-chief-pledges-12-million-workers-to-van-jones-progressive-tea-party/----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
    • Fox News reports: Maryland is the first state in the country to impose a new requirement to graduate from high school -- something called environmental literacy.
      "That is not really education," says Ebell. "It's propaganda and its designed to raise up a new generation of easily led and poorly educated and misinformed students."
      And state lawmakers like J.B. Jennings note there are only so many hours in a school day, and only 180 days in a school  year. So, he wonders, what in the current  curriculum gets squeezed out?
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      Fox News reports: Sen. Dick Durbin plans to make a full-court press Tuesday to revive the debate over a controversial proposal to give illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children a path to legal status, as the Obama administration moves on a separate track to grant what some describe as "amnesty" to the same group.
      The memo issued June 17 from ICE Director John Morton instructs staff to consider 19 factors when exercising "prosecutorial discretion" -- or the discretion an ICE attorney has in deciding whether and how to pursue or dismiss an immigration case. 
      The factors include how long an illegal immigrant has been in the United States as well as their criminal history. But the list also includes factors similar to those in the DREAM Act -- like whether the suspect arrived in the U.S. as a "young child," whether the suspect is pursuing an education, and whether the suspect has served in the military. 
      "By administrative fiat, they are achieving a grand-scale amnesty for large classes of illegal aliens that they have been unable to accomplish with the stalled DREAM Act legislation," FAIR said in a statement last week. 
      But the ICE memo falls in line with an effort by the Obama administration to prioritize immigration cases, so that illegal immigrant criminals are typically deported while those not accused of serious crimes are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. ICE statistics show that during the Obama administration, the number of removals for non-criminal illegal immigrants has gone down while the number of removals for illegal immigrant criminals has gone up. 
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      Daily Caller writes: Homeland security Secretary Janet Napolitano is in the Senate spotlight today, following revelations yesterday that her deputies in Texas hid their efforts to release hundreds of illegal immigrants facing deportation.
      Napolitano is one of three high-profile administration witnesses at a Senate hearing today, which comes one day after the Houston Chronicle published emails among senior officials at Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security.
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      The Blaze reports: [Showing once again the true colors of those oh so diversity and acceptance-minded liberals, Glenn Beck wrote this]: There are those who love freedom of expression, as long as it’s not conservatives who are doing the expressing. Just ask Glenn Beck. On radio Tuesday, he told the stunning story of how he and his family were harassed during an outdoor movie in New York City’s Bryant Park.
      When Beck left near the end of the movie, the crowd applauded.
      “I don’t know what kind of victory you thought you won,” Beck said on radio in response, and later added, “I swear to you I think if I would have suggested, and I almost did, wow, does anybody have a rope, because there’s a tree here, you could just lynch me. And I think there would have been a couple in the crowd that would have.” http://www.theblaze.com/stories/beck-family-accosted-and-harassed-during-outdoor-movie-night-in-nyc-park/
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      The Weekly Standard reports: Lieutenant General John Allen told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that the Afghanistan decision President Obama announced last week was not among the range of options the military provided to the commander in chief. Allen’s testimony directly contradicts claims from senior Obama administration officials from a background briefing before the president’s announcement.
      Allen's claim, which came under oath, contradicts the line the White House had been providing reporters over the past week—that Obama simply chose one option among several presented by General David Petraeus.  http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/general-reveals-obama-ignored-militarys-advice-afghanistan_575902.html
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      Politico reports that Big Brother is watching you!  [This time it would have spied on doctors who have not been suspected of any crime....  Maybe they will just ask Americans to do the spying for them and report to them, as they attempted to have any "suspicious" info regarding Obamacare emailed to a White House email.]  The Obama administration will not move forward on a controversial proposal to have “secret shoppers” pose as patients to investigate how difficult it is for Americans to obtain primary care.
      “On April 28th, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services submitted a notice to the Federal Register regarding a proposed study that would examine access to primary care,” an HHS spokesman said in a statement.
      The program, as outlined in the Federal Register, would have a federal contractor call the offices of 4,185 doctors in nine states. The plan, which the Times characterized as a “stealth survey,” came under criticism from some physicians. As one Texas doctor said in the story, “Is this a good use of tax money? Probably not. Everybody with a brain knows we do not have enough doctors.”
      “We have deep concerns regarding the department's recent plans for a ‘stealth survey,’ its legality, notification to Congress and lack of standards for any misconduct or bad reporting by the staff hired to carry out this work on American doctors and their practice of medicine,” his letter read. “The cost and proposed clandestine method of collecting information from physician offices are questionable and, therefore, we request details of how this survey would be conducted, how investigators would be punished for misconduct or extortion and how patient/physician confidentiality would be maintained.”
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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

EPA rules questioned by Congress; UK Telegraph exposes climate change proclamations; Flint, MI Economic Recovery funds wasted; Log-rolling decried by Republican; Military worried about announced departure from Afghanistan; NJ Democrats approve public workers to pay more for benefits; Most agriculture monies go to richest 10% of farmers; EPA law skirted on wolves and lizards; Did BO illegally film campaign ad in White House?; The Prosser/Bradley assault; Connecticut unions refuse deal, will now have 7500 employees laid off

The NYT writes: U.S. EPA warned of the potential dire consequences of legislation being fast-tracked through the House that would give states final say on rules concerning water, wetlands and mountaintop-removal mining.  Proponents argue the bill would shore up what they see as the erosion of state authority under the Clean Water Act and restore a state-federal partnership on enforcement of the law.
At its core, the bill would prevent EPA from reversing or overruling previously issued approval of state water quality limits, permitting authority, or permits to dredge and fill waterways or wetlands.
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/06/23/23greenwire-epa-warns-house-bill-would-overturn-clean-wate-63901.html?amp
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The UK Telegraph writes about climate change: The media under-reports climate change. Oh yes. That will explain, for example, the recent widely reported story Decline Of Oceans Worse Than Previously Thought – given unquestioning coverage everywhere from the Sydney Morning Herald, the New York Times and Time magazine to the BBC. Yet as research from Ben Pile at Climate Resistance shows, most of these experts offering their supposed expert views on the imminence of pelagic climate doom were in fact just an ad hoc group of activists from heavily politicized organizations like Greenpeace and Pew Environment Group.
Jo Nova has estimated that the amount spent by government agencies, left-leaning charitable foundations and big business promoting “global warming” is approximately 3,500 times more than the amount spent funding climate change scepticism.   http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100093577/the-science-is-settled-us-liberals-really-are-the-dumbest-creatures-on-the-planet/
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National Review reports: The Obama administration announced [in 2009] that the Flint, Michigan Mass Transportation Authority was among the transit agencies awarded a share of $100 million in Economic Recovery Act funds for pursuing environmental technologies to lessen America’s dependence on oil and create green jobs. The MTA will use the funds to replace two diesel buses with advanced all-electric Zero-Emissions GTB-40 buses from Fisher Coachworks.
And fast forward to today where it’s been revealed that Fisher Coachworks went out of business and won’t be repaying $1.6 million in loans from the Flint MTA. It looks like Team Obama sent $2.2 million to Flint’s MTA, and the Flint MTA kicked in $400,000 of its own.  http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/270356/another-failure-obamas-mythical-green-jobs-greg-pollowitz
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The Washington Examiner opines: Political logs roll when lawmakers push through a bill that benefits their constituencies but is financed by all taxpayers -- it's a game of "you vote for my dams and bridges, and I'll vote for your housing projects and hospitals."
But Big Green practically foams at the mouth because Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. simply doesn't tolerate logrolling. I asked him how his opponents react to that. Typically, he responded with the why as well as the what: "Gone are the days of thousand-page bills being written in the dead of night, behind closed doors in Speaker Pelosi's office. Pushing through Christmas tree omnibus bills is the practice of the failed Democrat majority."
Well, what does he do, then? "Instead, Republicans will consider each piece of legislation based on their individual merits and contribution to the American economy and job creation." So far, no logs have dared to roll anywhere near Doc Hastings.
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The Washington Post opines: The entire military leadership believes the president’s decision is a mistake, and especially the decision to withdraw the remainder of the surge forces by September 2012. They will soldier on and do their best, but as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, put it, in characteristic understatement, they believe the decision will increase the risk to the troops and increase the chance that the mission will not succeed. It bears repeating that the deadline imposed by the president has nothing to do with military or strategic calculation. It has everything to do with an electoral calculation. President Obama wants those troops out two months before Americans go to the voting booth. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/military-leaders-know-obamas-decision-is-a-disaster/2011/03/04/AGgtdahH_blog.html
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WTVR reports: New Jersey's Democratic-led Legislature gave final approval on Thursday to a plan that would force public workers to pay more for benefits -- a signature issue for Republican Governor Chris Christie.
The bill, which was bitterly opposed by public-sector unions, would raise the retirement age and increase employee contributions to their pension and healthcare plans, reducing the state's burden by potentially tens of billions of dollars.

"We are putting the people first and daring to touch the third rail of politics in order to bring reform to an unsustainable system," Christie said in a statement. [SEIU and the NEA must be busy doing something else, for they aren't making the same scene as they did in Wisconsin.] http://www.wtvr.com/sns-rt-us-newjersey-pensiotre75n0fe-20110624,0,7424021.story
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The NY Post writes: The US Department of Agriculture no longer serves as a lifeline to millions of struggling homestead farmers. In stead, it is a vast, self-perpetuating postmodern bureaucracy with an amorphous budget of some $130 billion -- a sum far greater than the nation's net farm income this year. In fact, the more the Agriculture Department has pontificated about family farmers, the more they've vanished -- comprising now only about 1 percent of the American population.
Net farm income is expected in 2011 to reach its highest levels in more than three decades, as a rapidly growing and food-short world increasingly looks to the United States to provide it everything from soybeans and wheat to beef and fruit. Yet the department this year will give a record $20 billion in various crop "supports" to the nation's wealthiest farmers -- with the richest 10 percent receiving over 70 percent.If farmers on their own are making handsome profits, why, with a $1.6 trillion annual federal deficit, is the USDA borrowing unprecedented amounts to subsidize them?
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McClatchy DC reports: But in recent months, the [EPA] law has taken an unprecedented hit from Congress. Republicans, led by Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, successfully used a budget bill signed into law by the president to return to the states of Idaho and Montana the ability to manage their wolf populations.
They were particularly alarmed by one of the first evidences of fallout: an amendment filed earlier this month by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who wants to halt the proposed listing of the dunes sagebrush lizard in New Mexico. He joins House Republicans, who've already filed legislation to stop the potential listing of the lizard and the lesser prairie chicken.
Cornyn, who has joined Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., in saying that the proposed listings could shut down oil and gas production in parts of west Texas and eastern New Mexico, called the lizard a "scaly political pawn." Its listing would "score points with radical environmentalists," he warned earlier this month.
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/06/26/116489/gop-lawmakers-take-aim-at-endangered.html#ixzz1QTRumHT9
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Real Clear Politics reveals: NRO's Jim Geraghty raises the question of whether Barack Obama filmed a video for his reelection campaign in the White House, which may possibly be a violation of federal election laws.
In the video, President Obama promotes a "Dinner With Barack" raffle. To participate in the contest you need to donate at least $5 to the president's re-election campaign and your name will be raffled off to enjoy a dinner with the President, airfare and accommodations included. In a new web video, Obama announced Vice President Joe Biden will also be attending the dinner.  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/06/27/dinner_with_obama_now_includes_joe_biden.html
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Human Events writes regarding the Prosser/Bradley event: The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism produced a report that portrayed this as Prosser assaulting Bradley.  Liberal blogs across the nation went wild, and began speculating about how quickly Prosser could be impeached and removed from office.
Then the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel got involved, and found so many contradictory sources that the WCIJ was forced to completely re-write its original piece.  The Journal-Sentinel’s new sources claim that Bradley attacked Prosser, whose hands made contact with her neck area when he raised them to defend himself.  Her assault was reportedly provoked by Prosser’s assertion that he had “lost all confidence” in the leadership of Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.  These sources relate that when Bradley started howling about her neck, one of the other justices calmly stated, “You were not choked.”
If the Judicial Commission does investigate, and concludes that Bradley is the one who initiated the physical encounter, it will be fun watching the leftists who howled for Prosser’s impeachment twist themselves into pretzels and claim this was all just a silly misunderstanding… especially considering that Governor Scott Walker would appoint the replacements for either or both judges, if they were removed from the Court.  http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44487
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Business Insider reports: Connecticut's public sector unions rejected a deal late Friday to cut $1.6 billion from the state's budget, opening the door for thousands of layoffs of state employees — and upsetting a delicate budget balance.
The results of the union vote came as a surprise rebuke to state and union leaders, who had negotiated a concessions package that would not result in any layoffs for four years in return for a two-year wage freeze. Now Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy says the state will begin laying off over 7,500 employees.
Malloy said Friday he would under no circumstances renegotiate with the unions, saying the state will send out layoff notices to affected workers immediately.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/connecticut-unions-reject-concessions-thousands-of-public-sector-layoffs-likely-2011-6#ixzz1QZThCqK5
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Monday, June 27, 2011

The issue that will not die; Obama oddly disengages; Army following Sharia Law begs a question; Children taught to question our history and laws; Oil released by Obama because of his coziness with the International Energy Agency; 95 year old woman assailed by TSA; Stossel and ABC News failed to cover ACORN; Obama is a Monarch; Journalist arrested for taping open meeting;

ExposeObama reports: When Congressman Allen West was asked in 2010 what question he would ask our President if he had the opportunity to sit down with him now, he responded:  I would ask President Obama: "What passport did you use when you went to Pakistan?  That would tell me what I need to know."
http://www.exposeobama.com/2011/06/26/video-allen-west-wants-obamas-passport-records/?utm_source=Expose+Obama&utm_campaign=7dfd243537-EO_06_26_20116_26_2011&utm_medium=email
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The Washington Examiner reports: Sometimes it seems he's president of the AFL-CIO, not the USA. The man who said he wanted to double exports in five years has nothing to say about his National Labor Relations Board appointee's attempt to shut down a $1 billion plant being built by the nation's No. 1 exporter.
And don't forget the enviro types. Obama is releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but his appointees are barring drilling in the Gulf and Alaska and refusing approval for a natural gas pipeline from Canada.
On all these issues Obama seems oddly disengaged, aloof from the hard work of government, hesitant about making choices.
That doesn't sound like Lincoln. Or Roosevelt. Or even Carter. More like "then we have fall and winter."
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National Review reports: The secretary of the army has just granted “conscientious objector” status to Pfc. Nasser Abdo, a Muslim American soldier who refused to deploy to Afghanistan. Heeding the admonitions of CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood operatives, the Pentagon accepts the claim that sharia forbids Muslims from assisting infidels in a war against Muslim forces in an Islamic land.
The operating theory of the American counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy in Afghanistan is that the hearts and minds of the population of this tribal sharia society will side with us non-Muslims in a war against their fellow Muslims, most of whom are also their fellow Afghans.
There’s just one problem with it. Okay, there’s a ton of problems, but let’s get to the big one: If we acknowledge that sharia is a valid reason not to send an American Muslim to fight against his fellow Muslims in Afghanistan, what on earth makes us think the Afghan Muslims are going to fight their fellow Afghan Muslims in furtherance of American national-security interests?  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/270484/our-sharia-compliant-afghan-war-andrew-c-mccarthy
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The Daily Interlake opines: Actually we spend billions of dollars every year to teach our young people to question the value of our society; to doubt the legitimacy of our history; and to mistrust our leaders, our traditions and our laws.It wasn’t always so.
Education has not always worked against the values of America.
Essentially, the mission of education was intentionally shifted from what it always had been — a means to pass information, values and traditions from one generation to the next — into a system which encouraged students of each generation to insist on inventing anew everything it believed. Ironically, therefore, although this new pedagogy was called by the name of progressive education, it had the actual effect of making progress not just unlikely, but impossible.
As noted previously, the primary blame for this unfortunate transition falls on John Dewey, the socialist educator and philosopher who wrought a revolution by insisting that we teach children what they want to learn instead of what they should learn. His influence on American culture was immense and surprisingly immediate. Just a few years after his experimental elementary school opened at the University of Chicago, he was being imitated and lionized throughout the culture.
Essentially, what the progressive education movement wanted to accomplish — and largely did accomplish — was to jettison traditional values and replace them with transient values (those which each generation or even each student adopted individually). http://dailyinterlake.com/opinion/columns/frank/article_15a2cea0-9f9d-11e0-86ff-001cc4c002e0.html
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Preoria Chronicle reports on another flash mob, the growing trend:  [When a President incites hatred of white men, by his statements and actions]:
Tonight, around 11 p.m., a group of at least 60-70 African American youth marched down one of the side streets (W. Thrush) to the 4 lane main drag (Sheridan). They were yelling threats to white residents. Things such as we need to kill alll the white people around here. They were physically intimidating anyone calling for help from the police. They were surrounding cars. Cars on the main drag had to slam on their brakes to either avoid the youth blocking not only all four lanes, but a large section of the side street as well. fights were breaking out among them. They were rushing residents who looked out their doors, going on to porches, yelling threats to people calling the police for help.
Cars were doing U turns on the streets just to avoid the mob, mostly male. One youth stated his grandfather was white and several assaulted him on the spot. One police officer answered the call. The youth split into two large groups, one heading north, the other south. They were also yelling racial threats to the police officer but he was outnumbered. Another police car did not show up until after the youth finally dispersed and the patty wagon (van) also eventually showed up.
Residents are very shaken, both black and white alike. This is the fifth large mob action in about a month with smaller groups of 10-12 are out threatening children and adults a few evenings a week or later into the night.

 http://peoriachronicle.com/2011/06/25/peorians-living-in-fear/
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RedState writes: On Thursday, the Department of Energy announced a release of thirty million barrels of crude oil over the next 60 days from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the nation’s stockpile supposedly set aside for emergency supply disruptions.   The U.S. and its partners in the International Energy Agency have decided … .” Ach so. Our International President strikes again. Ceding control of a uniquely American asset to an international body is troubling, but par for the course in the Obama Administration.
Then I read the press release one more time.
The Administration will continue to consult closely with other consuming and producing countries in the period ahead.
 http://www.redstate.com/vladimir/2011/06/26/why-did-obama-open-the-strategic-petroleum-reserve/
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The Panama City News Herald reports: Jean Weber of Destin filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security after her 95-year-old mother was detained and extensively searched last Saturday while trying to board a plane to fly to Michigan to be with family members during the final stages of her battle with leukemia.
Her mother, who was in a wheelchair, was asked to remove an adult diaper in order to complete a pat-down search.
“It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on American soil,” Weber said Friday. “Here is my mother, 95 years old, 105 pounds, barely able to stand, and then this.”  http://www.newsherald.com/news/mother-94767-search-adult.html
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NewsBusters reveals: JOHN STOSSEL, HOST: Speaking of the mainstream media, I am a little bit ashamed of this one, but I am revealing now for the first time publicly that when I worked at 20/20, you, who I didn't know at that time, pitched me with this story about ACORN and the sting. And I didn't cover it.
Breitbart: You said that it is a story and that you would probably commit a month to a story like this because it is so blatant, but you said that the politics within ABC were just, you know, that you couldn't do it.  [As some have said, the media is dead.  It does not investigate and report - it spins and promotes Progressiveism.]
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Examiner.com reports: See the words of Jerrold Nadler, Democrat in Congress, about our President:  "Obama is becoming an absolute monarch [over Libya] and we must stop this.  "And we must put a stop to that right now, if we don't want to become an empire instead of a republic."
"There was no imminent threat from Libya.  The power of the presidency, not just of this president, is increasing and it should be diminished."
He told his colleagues on the House floor that Congress must limit funding for military action in Libya to stop what he called a 70-year trend.
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Business Insider reports: Reason.tv producer Jim Epstein was arrested for filming a fellow journalist's arrest at a Washington, D.C. Taxi Commission meeting Wednesday.
According to Epstein's account, he witnessed journalist Pete Tucker take a still photo of the proceedings with his camera phone. When Tucker was placed under arrest for taking the picture, the crowd reacted, Epstein broke out his iPhone and recorded Tucker getting hand-cuffed.
Heading out the door Epstein ignored warnings to stop and "stay put" and was surrounded by officers. When he tried to get the attention of a group of nearby cab drivers, Epstein was arrested.
He spent five hours in a basement holding cell, until a Reason.tv attorney posted his bond. He and Tucker are charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful entry and can be sentenced to nine months in jail and $1,250 in fines.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/jim-epstein-pete-tucker-dc-reporter-arrested-for-recording-public-meeting-2011-6#ixzz1QISxRpWA
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