Saturday, July 23, 2011

The United States of Unions

From my Wednesday's Boyne City Gazette Commentary: 

   Over 400,000 people demonstrated in central London, decrying their government’s cuts in its budget.  UK newspapers reported that although some were there to peacefully demonstrate, unions used 600 coaches and 9 trains to take union members to the scene, ala Madison, Wisconsin, where they created havoc.  The UK Telegraph described the planning group as a “ragtag army of anarchists, squatters, student militants, environmental activists and radical academics”.  They broke windows and followed their leader’s statement that their anger “needs to find release”.
   A speech was recently given at a Pace University Forum in NYC by SEIU member Steven Lerner, who has had personal meetings at least twice at the White House.  Stating that unions and community organizations are by and large dead, he declared that destabilizing America is the only hope for redistribution of wealth and a transfer of power.  He suggested doing so by hoping that one million mortgage-holders stop paying their mortgages, sending banks to the edge of insolvency.  He contends that this will aid in his plan to ruin our stock market as well, seemingly not understanding that union members also own stocks.  A shareholder meeting was infiltrated by SEIU workers on March 4, another ploy suggested by Mr. Lerner.  On March 21 a group of union members stormed the lobby of a bank in Pennsylvania, demanding that union membership and dues be mandatory at a hospital on whose board the bank president sits.  The UAW staged a protest at a Detroit bank, demanding a stop to mortgage foreclosures.  Attorney General Eric Holder has been asked by Congressman Jason Chaffetz to investigate this group for domestic terrorism.
"I know how much more we can accomplish as partners in an Obama administration," Obama told the Service Employees International Union as a candidate. "Imagine having a president whose life work was your work." 
   The President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board has two labor representatives on the 17-person panel, one being AFL-CIO President  Richard Trumka.  Trumka has admitted being in the White House 2 or 3 times a week, speaking to the White House every day, providing a high degree of influence into Obama’s agenda.  Trumka recently declared, “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.”  I assume he expects this to occur whether earned, deserved, or financially feasible.
   Our President said during his campaign that he had it “in his gut” to work with SEIU; has a track record of helping unions organize for power; helped build political power in Chicago; would not be a Senator without SEIU’s support; failed to call for calm in the face of legitimate but controversial laws passed in Wisconsin; and is on video during his campaign chanting, “SEIU, SEIU, SEIU”. Vice-President Biden recently spoke to a large group of union members, saying that if they don't vote Democrat - "You are on your own, Jack!" 
   President Obama supports those in unions over the 90% of Americans who are not members of a union – a “fundamental change” for sure.  He has remained silent while his Federal Labor Board sues a private American company, Boeing, because they built and plan to do business in South Carolina, running it with no union labor.  Obama’s  Executive Order of 2009 forces companies which wish to receive government funding for a construction project to sign a Project Labor Agreement first, thereby giving our taxpayer dollars only to those companies which are unionized.  Recently the Republicans failed to pass legislation which would remove that stipulation from the law.  His NLRB is currently working to fast track union elections, making an employer’s resistance to unionization futile. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner cut pensions only for salaried non-union employees at a GM spinoff in order to expedite GM’s emergence from bankruptcy.
   Many Americans didn’t question what Obama’s “transformations” would be, and our media refused to question him, to investigate his past, or to provide information – a transformation which a modest amount of research provided.  Obama’s mission as President should be to represent all Americans, not just those who are unionized.  He proclaimed how great America is while at the same time calling for a “fundamental transformation”.  His plans are progressing and progressive, and Americans should at least have the right to know the details.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Obama's Civilian National Security Force and the Marshals Service; Opposition to sale of tanks to Egypt; Big Brother database causes alarm in MA; Taxpayer funds for Ground Zero mosque, damaged church ignored; U.S. government is biggest impediment to new jobs; Bipartisan plan does away with tax breaks for charitable donations, home mortgage interest and retirement savings; Rep. Brooks DOES have an economics degree; Redford movie glamorizes the Weather Underground; DHS warns of white middle aged men;

World Net Daily reports: In a speech in Colorado Springs, Obama said, "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we set. We've got have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
A study by the Rand Corp. within months of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama's call for a "national civilian security force" that would be as big and as well-funded as the half-trillion dollar U.S. military confirms that there are several ways to create the suggested "Stability Police Force" so that it legally could operate inside the U.S. borders.
One of the top recommendations in the report was that the capacity and management operations of the U.S. Marshals Service be beefed up and handed the assignment.
"Given that it is unlikely that MPs [Military Police] would be permitted to perform civilian policing tasks in the United States, the Marshals Service, despite its capacity and management shortfalls, is the agency best suited to take on the SPF mission under the assumptions of this study."
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The Blaze reports: Rep. Allen West is reportedly “strongly opposed” to a planned U.S. sale of M1A1 Abrams tanks to Egypt given the growing probability that the Muslim Brotherhood could, at some point in the near future, lead the Egyptian government. Allowing the sale of such tanks, would, according to West, “seriously jeopardize the safety and security of the state of Israel.“ West added that the ”last thing” he wants to see are Egyptian M1A1 tanks “rolling through the Sinai toward Jerusalem.” http://www.theblaze.com/stories/allen-west-slams-planned-u-s-tank-sale-to-egypt-cites-muslim-brotherhood-risks-to-israel/
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The Boston Herald opines: Civil libertarians are raising the alarm over the state’s plans to create a Big Brother database that could map drivers’ whereabouts with police cruiser-mounted scanners that capture thousands of license plates per hour — storing that information indefinitely where local cops, staties, feds and prosecutors could access it as they choose.
“What kind of a society are we creating here?” asked civil rights lawyer Harvey Silverglate, who along with the ACLU fears police abuse. “There comes a point where the surveillance is so pervasive and total that it’s a misnomer to call a society free any longer.”  http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1353264
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American Thinker reports: Mayor Bloomberg is lobbying for 9/11 taxpayer funds for the Islamic supremacist grifters behind the Ground Zero mosque, but St. Nicholas Church is in purgatory ten years after the worst day in modern American history.
Perhaps St. Nicholas Church should claim that it is a mosque -- then Bloomberg and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn would probably pour the cement for its foundation.  Remember: the New York Daily News reported last December that "Mayor Bloomberg's top deputies went to great lengths to help those trying to build a mosque at Ground Zero -- even drafting a letter to the community board for them." http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/islamic_supremacism_trumps_christianity_at_ground_zero.html
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Investors.com reports: What's the single biggest impediment to job growth today?
Bernie Marcus, the founder of Home Depot: The U.S. government. Having built a small business into a big one, I can tell you that today the impediments that the government imposes are impossible to deal with. Home Depot would never have succeeded if we'd tried to start it today. Every day you see rules and regulations from a group of Washington bureaucrats who know nothing about running a business. And I mean every day. It's become stifling.  His speeches are wonderful. His output is absolutely, incredibly bad. As he speaks about cutting out regulations, they are now producing thousands of pages of new ones. With just ObamaCare by itself, you have a 2,000 page bill that's probably going end up being 150,000 pages of regulations.
 http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/578920/201107201835/Marcus-Home-Truths-On-Jobs.aspx?src=HPLNews
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Yahoo News reveals: A new bipartisan plan to reduce government borrowing would target some of the most cherished tax breaks enjoyed by millions of families — those promoting health insurance, home ownership, charitable giving and retirement savings — in exchange for lowering overall tax rates for everyone.
Many taxpayers would face higher taxes — a total of at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade, and perhaps more.
The Republican staff of the House Budget Committee issued a critique saying the revenue increase could exceed $2 trillion over the next decade, when compared with current tax policy.
"A tax increase is the wrong policy to pursue with so many Americans out of work," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.
  http://news.yahoo.com/bipartisan-tax-plan-trims-mortgage-deduction-191345875.html
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Glenn Beck reports: Another MSNBC Host humiliated by their guest:

Contessa Brewer and Alabama GOP Congressman Rep. Mo Brooks were arguing about President Obama’s stimulus plan when she arrogantly asked him if he had an economics degree – implying he lacked the authority to be speaking about these matters. Well, it turns out he not only did have an economics degree, he graduated with highest honors! http://www.glennbeck.com/2011/07/21/another-msnbc-host-humiliated-by-their-guest/
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The Blaze reports: The First Redford did a film glorifying communist and mass murderer Che Guevara called The Motorcycle Diaries - so it shouldn't come as a big surprise that he's getting set to praise another group of radical leftists. This time he's planning on portraying the domestic terrorist group Weather Underground in a positive light. Producers said, "This is an edge-of-your-seat thriller about real Americans who stood for their beliefs, thinking they were patriots and defending their country’s ideals against their government.” http://www.theblaze.com/stories/not-ready-upcoming-weather-underground-movie-to-show-real-americans-who-stood-for-their-beliefs-not-ready/
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The UK Daily Mail opines: A video released by the Department of Homeland Security urging people to report anything suspicious has caused outrage by characterising white middle class Americans as the most likely terrorists.
The promotional video is part of Homeland Security's $10million 'See Something, Say Something' programme as they believe it will help curb random acts of terrorism by individuals.
But the controversial video has angered some Americans due to the fact all the actors who play the would-be terrorists in the video are white, and the people who report them are either black, Asian or Arab.
According to infowars.com, who believe that the DHS chose white actors deliberately as a way to instil fear into American society, the department's own internal documents list predominantly white conservative groups as the most likely terrorists, such as 'Ron Paul supporters, gun owners, gold bullion enthusiasts, and a myriad of other comparatively banal political interests that are largely the domain of white middle class Americans'.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017481/DHS-video-characterises-white-middle-class-Americans-likely-terrorists.html#ixzz1Sq43tNGR
 

Thursday, July 21, 2011

What poverty looks like in USA; CEO's condemn Obama; Maxine Waters wants no investigation of herself; Our US foreign aid going to enemies; Republicans are "dead-beat debtors" according to one Senator; Redefining marriage as a law; AZ taking donation to build US-Mexican border fence; State Dept.contract specialist fired; UN considering climate change enforcement troops

American Thinker opines on the new Heritage Foundation on poverty in America: What does it mean to be poor in America today?  For typical "poor" households -- as defined by the government -- it means cable television, two color television sets, and two or more cars.
 
The new poverty measure will produce very odd results.  For example, if the real income of every single American were to triple magically overnight, the new poverty measure would show no drop in poverty because the poverty income standards would also triple.  Under the Obama system, poverty can be reduced only if the incomes of the "poor" are rising faster than the incomes of everyone else.  Another paradox of the new poverty measure is that countries such as Bangladesh and Albania will have lower poverty rates than the U.S.'s -- even though the actual living conditions in those countries are extremely low -- simply because they have narrower distribution of incomes, albeit very low incomes.
Ultimately, "[t]he new measure is a public relations Trojan Horse, smuggling in a 'spread-the-wealth' agenda under the ruse of fighting significant material deprivation -- a condition that is already rare in American society," they point out. 
Most troubling, they point out that "grossly exaggerating the extent and severity of material deprivation in the U.S. will benefit neither the poor, the economy, nor society as a whole." http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/obama_redefining_poverty.html
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"Socialism only works
in two places:
Heaven where they don't
need it and hell where they already have it."
-Ronald Reagan
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Investors.com reports: Las Vegas CEO Steve Wynn drew attention for a boardroom rant denouncing the intolerable business climate fostered by the White House. He's hardly the first. What's happening is emblematic of a bigger problem.
In a Monday conference call, the casino magnate credited with revitalizing Las Vegas blasted President Obama, declaring him "the greatest wet blanket to business, progress and job creation in my lifetime."
The blast was remarkable for two reasons: Wynn has been a staunch supporter of the Obama administration from the beginning and still considers himself a Democrat. But even more remarkable, it's been out of character for CEOs such as Wynn to express their views in such blunt terms on political matters.
"A lot of people don't want to say that," he said. "They'll say, 'Oh God, don't be attacking Obama.' Well, this is Obama's deal, and it's Obama that's responsible for this fear in America".
In such a climate, it's no surprise that executive outbursts are erupting like lava from scorched earth. Wynn's remarks echo those on a lengthening list of CEOs including:
• 3M's George Buckley, who blasted Obama last February as anti-business. "We know what his instincts are," Buckley said. "We've got a real choice between manufacturing in Canada or Mexico — which tends to be more pro-business — and America," he told the Financial Times.

mp3
• Boeing's Jim McNerney, who in the Wall Street Journal last May called Obama's handpicked National Labor Relations Board's suit against his company a "fundamental assault on the capitalist principles that have sustained America's competitiveness since it became the world's largest economy nearly 140 years ago."
• Intel's Paul Otellini, who told CNET last August that the U.S. legal environment has become so hostile to business that there is likely to be "an inevitable erosion and shift of wealth, much like we're seeing today in Europe — this is the bitter truth."  There is more at:   http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/578866/201107191850/Wynns-Rant-One-Among-Many.htm
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The LA Times writes: Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) on Tuesday launched a new drive to push the House Ethics Committee to drop its long-running case against her, saying that internal committee documents show she cannot get a fair hearing from the panel.

Waters' lawyer, Stanley Brand, said the documents included allegations that there was misconduct among the committee staff members who investigated the Democratic congresswoman, and further action by the panel would be "irremediably tainted." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-maxine-waters-20110720,0,7242438.story
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From Snopes: US Foreign Aid to those that hate us:
 Egypt, for example, after voting 79% of the time against the United States , and still receives $2 billion annually in US Foreign Aid.
Jordan votes 71% against the United States and receives $192,814,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.Pakistan votes 75% against the United States & receives $6,721,000 annually in US Foreign Aid. India votes 81% against the United States & receives $143,699,000 annually. http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/unvote.asp
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Real Clear Politics reports: Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) calls Republicans "dead-beat debtors" among other things during a Democratic press conference on Wednesday morning.

"The debate and fight is not between Democrats and Republicans. It's between some Republicans and their sort of cult fringe as I refer to them out there," Harkin said. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/07/20/sen_harkin_cult_fringe_holding_up_debt_ceiling_increase.html
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Senate and House Democrats, according to the Washington Times,  urged their colleagues at a Wednesday hearing to support a bill that would repeal the federal law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, so federal benefits and rights can flow to gay couples who are legally married under a state law.
“I believe it is important that we encourage and sanction committed relationships,” said SenateJudiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, who called the hearing on the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
But Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, said that “George Orwell would have marveled at that name” of the Respect for Marriage Act. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/20/democrats-urge-doma-repeal/
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The USA Today writes: Arizona launched a fundraising website Wednesday to build fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, a newly authorized project that supporters said is needed to close gaps exploited by smugglers and illegal immigrants.
Arizona once again has to do the job the federal government isn't," said state Sen. Steve Smith, a first-term Republican who sponsored the legislation authorizing the fence project.
"I know where America stands," Pearce said. "We have a nation at risk. And why are we going to build a fence? Because you'll never get it built by the federal government."
The website, buildtheborderfence.com, received 884 online donations totaling $39,085 within its first 17 hours, said Arizona Senate spokesman Mike Philipsen. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-07-21-arizona-border-fence-donations_n.htm
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The Daily Caller reports: State Department officials have fired contract specialist Kathleen McGrade in the wake of The Daily Caller’s exclusive investigation, which discovered that she funneled more than $52 million in taxpayer money to a company her husband and daughter own and operate.  [We recently learned that government workers are far more likely to die in "office" than be fired.  So this is an unusual employee for sure, and this must be what it takes to get fired.]
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The Gateway Pundit reveals: Hide the women and children
The United Nations is considering using peacekeeping units to enforce climate change junk science policy.
The Guardian reported:
A special meeting of the United Nations security council is due to consider whether to expand its mission to keep the peace in an era of climate change.
Small island states, which could disappear beneath rising seas, are pushing the security council to intervene to combat the threat to their existence.
There has been talk, meanwhile, of a new environmental peacekeeping force – green helmets – which could step into conflicts caused by shrinking resources.
“It is too early to seriously think about council action on climate change. This is clearly not on the agenda,” Germany’s ambassador to the UN, Peter Wittig, wrote in the Huffington Post. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/07/un-may-use-peacekeeping-units-to-enforce-climate-change-junk-science-policy/
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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Progressive agenda in schools; Gang of Six calls for $1 trillion in additional revenue; Tax dollars build new neighborhood for illegals in WA

More on a former story of use of Stimulus monies in Nebraska: the board of education of the Omaha Public School district has taken another brazen leap toward brainwashing the thousands of children they hold captive. Using $130,000 of Obama stimulus money, this board has voted to buy 8,000 copies of a book called “The Cultural Proficiency Journey: Moving Beyond Ethical Barriers Toward Profound School Change.”
What exactly does that mean? Well, here are a few excerpts from their manual:
  • "The government and social institutions in the United States have created advantages that disproportionately channel wealth, power and resources to white people."  
  • Lincoln was right. It is long past time we realize that tomorrow’s leaders are in the hands of Marxists who, from top to bottom, now permeate our education establishment. Our children will one day rule this nation. God help us if we do not rescue them from those who would indoctrinate their minds and crush their spirits.
The authors of the book claim that their intent is “to prepare educators to unshackle themselves from tradition and become facilitators for reconciliation of historical injustices.”

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Yahoo Finance writes: President Barack Obama and a startling number of Republican senators lauded a deficit-reduction plan put forward earlier in the day by a bipartisan "Gang of Six" lawmakers that calls for $1 trillion in what sponsors delicately called "additional revenue" and some critics swiftly labeled as higher taxes. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Debt-hope-Obama-praises-Gang-apf-120819518.html?x=0
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The National Policy Institute shows us where our tax dollars are helping illegals: Here is a development in Tacoma WA (Salishan) that was built for Illegal Immigrants! 1325 Homes created! Refugee Pay offers them $2642 per month in SSI benefits, plus Food Stamps, plus Section 8 Housing. You will see new expensive cars in this video. http://www.thenationalpolicyinstitute.org/2011/07/18/video-elaborate-welfare-housing-project/
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Fox News wrote about Ten Things We Might Not Know about America's Independence:
#5:Our Founding Fathers Were Not RadicalsAs Americans, we like to think that what we did in the American Revolution was original and that our ideas of freedom and rights were new and progressive. But the truth is our Founding Fathers were not radical new thinkers -- all of their ideas and philosophies were rooted deeply in history. Ideas of people's rights, liberty, and social contracts can be traced all the way back through our colonial history, most famously with the Mayflower Compact, and even further through British history and English common law. These ideas can even be seen at work in the medieval era with Magna Carta first established 1215. Our Founding Fathers sought independence in order to preserve their "natural-born rights as Englishmen."  Though it is true no colony had ever succeeded from the mother country before and the British were quick to call it treason, everything our Founders did was, in fact, legal. Jefferson himself explains that the Declaration was not meant to express anything new. He said it was "not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before, but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject."
#6.) We Are Not a Democracy: People often associate democracy with freedom. We hear this word used all the time by our politicians, by our neighbors, even sometimes by our educators. But the fact is we are not a democracy. We are a republic. Our Founding Fathers deemed this an important distinction to make and discussed the matter quite a bit. In the end, our Founding Fathers claimed that a democracy was both extreme and dangerous for a country as it would most assuredly result in the oppression of the minority by the majority. Take this one example from Founding Father, Elbridge Gerry: "The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy." And Thomas Jefferson said that democracy should never be practiced outside the limits of a town. Our Founders were very wary of power no matter who had it and thus limited it as much as possible -- this is why we have such a unique system of checks and balances.  http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/04/10-things-might-not-know-about-our-independence/?cmpid=cmty_email_Gigya_10_Things_You_Might_Not_Know_About_America%27s_Independence
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Snopes verifies: How they vote in the United Nations:
> Below are the actual voting records of various Arabic/Islamic States which are recorded in both the US State Department and United Nations records:
>
> Kuwait votes against the United States 67% of the time
>
> Qatar votes against the United States 67% of the time
>
> Morocco votes against the United States 70% of the time
>
> United Arab Emirates votes against the U. S. 70% of the time.
>
> Jordan votes against the United States 71% of the time.
>
> Tunisia votes against the United States 71% of the time.
>
> Saudi Arabia votes against the United States 73% of the time.
>
> Yemen votes against the United States 74% of the time.
>
> Algeria votes against the United States 74% of the time.
>
> Oman votes against the United States 74% of the time.
>
> Sudan votes against the United States 75% of the time.
>
> Pakistan votes against the United States 75% of the time.
>
> Libya votes against the United States 76% of the time.
>
> Egypt votes against the United States 79% of the time.
>
> Lebanon votes against the United States 80% of the time.
>
> India votes against the United States 81% of the time.
>
> Syria votes against the United States 84% of the time.
>
> Mauritania votes against the United States 87% of the time.
> Snopes says it is actually worse than listed above:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/unvote.asp

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Plans to destroy 4 hydroelectric dams in order to save salmon; Fish and Wildlife Service has "strong reservations" about it helping; Failure of switchgrass and sorghum as possible boiler fuel supplement ; Skiing on 4th of July at Snowbird; Catastrophic droughts in Africa are the norm; Attempting to reduce global temps by 1/4000th of a degree is disaster to economy of Australia; John Dewey's system of "progressive education" policies; National Institutes of Health's unusual and expensive taxpayer paid study; Terrorists given U.S. citizenship; Impeach Obama highway sign; O'Keefe exposes Medicaid application visit this time; 36 Lies discovered in Obama's last presser; Food and energy not counted in Bernanke's inflation numbers

Human Events reports: In the name of saving salmon, radical environmentalists in Northern California have concocted a $1.4 billion plan to destroy four hydroelectric dams and dramatically restrict water to hundreds of thousands of acres of prime farmland.  However, an independent panel of scientists hired by the federal government to review the proposal has determined the primary goal of the deconstruction project is based on junk science.
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Human Events reports: According to the just-released 350-page assessment, funded by the Fish and Wildlife Service, experts expressed “strong reservations” that the expensive effort could significantly increase the Chinook salmon population in the Klamath River system.
As usual, the environmentalists were caught ginning up their case to destroy the dams using phony data.  In this case they concocted an imperfect computer-generated model to cast the dams as evil salmon-killers. http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44554
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Redstate writes: Back in 2009, NRG Energy Inc. hatched a plan to “go green” using switchgrass and sorghum as boiler fuel supplement. It was hoped that it might replace up to 10% of the coal which fires its Big Cajun II power plant in New Roads, LA.
All the elements were in place: land near the plant (up to 30,000 acres of fertile Mississippi River floodplain — you can’t afford to transport biomass very far), plus the help of California-based Ceres Inc., a recently-IPO’d specialist in switchgrasses.
The project was to start up this year.
The effort failed when the crops yielded only a fraction of the expected biomass, a company spokesman said.
“We planted a warm-weather variant of switchgrass, a cold-weather variant of switchgrass and the sorghum. The result was we did not get a usable crop,” NRG spokesman David Knox said. http://www.redstate.com/vladimir/2011/07/04/its-not-easy-going-green/
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Desert News reports: LITTLE COTTONWOOD CANYON — A few thousand mostly red-and-blue-clad skiers celebrated the Fourth of July on the white slopes at Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort.
"This is unbelievable," said Salt Lake City resident Melissa Witman, who wore a red, white and blue bikini top Monday on the resort's final day of the ski season. "It's summer skiing!"
Temperatures in the 50s and 60s made swimsuits and shorts popular choices for skiers who decided to take advantage of the longest ski season in Snowbird's 39-year history. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705375684/Snowbird-caps-longest-season-with-holiday-skiing.html
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The UK Telegraph reports: Catastrophic droughts in Africa such as the those which devastated the Continent in the late 20th century are the norm and not due to human activity, claim scientists. 

Researchers believe the drought that struck parts of Northern Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing millions more, may have been the result of a natural climate cycle.
In the past, many scientists thought the drought in the Sahel zone – a band that runs just below the Sahara – was caused by humans overusing natural resources in the region.
But a new study in the journal Science shows that they are a natural part of weather pattern of the area for the last 3,000 years.
If anything the droughts were less severe than those seen historically, with previous periods without rain lasting more than a century. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/5165168/Catastrophic-droughts-in-Africa-are-the-norm-claim-scientists.html
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The UK Telegraph reports:  Australians will have had a good three months to reflect on the disasters which have been inflicted on their economy in the name of “combating climate change.” They’ll have noticed the $25 billion shaved off the share markets in a spectacular vote of investor confidence in Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s new carbon tax; they’ll have started to feel the effects of the blackouts caused by the needless (and uncosted) closure of 2000 mega watts worth of “dirty” brown coal power stations; and above all, they’ll have done their calculations – as the mighty Andrew Bolt has done – and come to a robust Aussie conclusion:
$24.5 billion is too bloody much, too bloody much by far, for Australia to pay for the privilege of reducing the world’s temperature, by 2020, by 1/4000th of a degree. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100096578/australia-counts-the-cost-of-environmental-lunacy-and-plots-its-sweet-revenge/
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The Daily Interlake writes: Hoover, the director of the FBI during five pivotal decades, wrote in the Elks Magazine in August 1956, “We must now face the harsh truth that the objectives of communism are being steadily advanced because many of us do not recognize the means used to advance them... The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a Conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst.”
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted,” Lenin famously declared.
Syndicated columnist George Sokolsky, in an article about education in 1952, asked: “Are Marxists to start our children’s careers with their environmentalist doctrines which exclude religion as superstition, patriotism as chauvinism, morals as comparative and ethics as a bourgeois notion?”
He no doubt thought that the question was merely rhetorical, but the answer now seems obvious. Yes, yes, yes and yes! Marxists, or their innocent dupes, did control the education system to a remarkable degree, and thanks to the long lever of John Dewey’s system of “progressive education,” which started before 1900, and the fulcrum of the collapse of American certainty that happened sometime in the 1950s, we were entirely open to all of the elements of indoctrination that Sokolsky tried to warn us against.  http://dailyinterlake.com/opinion/columns/frank/article_74a44fb8-afe8-11e0-9656-001cc4c03286.html
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Patriot Update reveals: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) subsidized a study attempting to find out if a gay man’s penis size has any correlation with his sexual health.
The researchers at Hunter College Center for HIV/AIDS Educational Studies Training (CHEST) got taxpayer money as part of an NIH grant that went to Public Health Solutions and the National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. (NDRI).
NDRI has received taxpayer money since 1985 for “behavioral science research on drug abuse, AIDS and crime.” NIH records show that NDRI has received more than $15 million since 2000.
The gay men penis-size study falls under the NDRI’s drug abuse, AIDS and crime research category. In 2006, the year the organization started funding the penis-size research, it received $899,769 in taxpayer money. http://patriotupdate.com/9724/feds-pay-for-study-of-gay-men%E2%80%99s-package-sizes
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CNS News reports: Three people convicted of crimes as a result of a terrorism-related investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) were later naturalized as U.S. citizens by the Obama administration, according to federal auditors. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/3-persons-convicted-terrorism-related-ca
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Expose Obama reports: The North Carolina Department of Transportation called for Barack Obama’s impeachment —at least for one day.
Over the weekend,someone hacked into an electronic highway sign and changed its message to a huge,blinking,“Impeach Obama.”
The sign —which is located at the intersection of Unionville-Indian Trail and Ridge roads in Union County,North Carolina —attracted drivers’attention but apparently no complaints to the state. WSOC-TV reports it notified the NCDOT about the sign’s message on Sunday,and an engineer corrected the sign that evening. http://www.exposeobama.com/2011/07/18/charlotte-highway-roadsign-hacked-to-read-impeach-obama/?utm_source=Expose+Obama&utm_campaign=4312f775b4-EO_07_18_20117_18_2011&utm_medium=email
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Politico reveals: James O'Keefe has released a new sting video targeting the Medicaid program in the spirit of his earlier attacks on Planned Parenthood and ACORN.
In this video, two men apparently present themselves at the offices of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services as Russian drug dealers seeking advice on applying for benefits.
In one encounter in the heavily edited video, the men disclose their work as selling "Bob Marley pharmaceuticals" that they hide under their floorboards. The case worker appears to coach them to call their occupation "babysitting" and informs them that they are not at risk of having their homes searched as part of their Medicaid application.
"We're not police," she says.

When the men disclose they need an abortion for their underage sister who performs "sexual favors" for clients when closing deals, the state employee refers them to Planned Parenthood for free abortions that do not require parental consent.

During [one] call, in which a purported caseworker dispenses similar advice, one of the men says, that in Russia, "No government employee ever help you ... thanks to hope and change, finally ... a Russian drug dealer can get Medicaid and abortion for his sisters and cousins."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59305.html#ixzz1SY9gkOot
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American Thinker opines: Obama held a press conference last Friday, July 15 which turned out to be a purely partisan effort to increase taxes and increase the American debt. His speech and the answers he gave to cherry picked questions from the press was fundamentally dishonest: in all I counted three dozen lies, deceptions and misleading statements. http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07
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Ann Coulter's article: Prices are soaring. From milk to gasoline, the things you buy every day are skyrocketing.
Yet according to Federal Reserve chairman Ben "Quantitative Easing" Bernanke, there's nothing to worry about. After all, he says, current inflation is running only about 1 percent.
One percent! How is that possible? Well, it turns out that the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which issues the government's official inflation figures, excludes food and energy costs from what it calls its "core inflation" measure.
Yes, you read that right: The government's inflation index excludes food and energy. As the Church Lady would say: How convenient!
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Monday, July 18, 2011

SEIU organizing/intimidation manual; Obama wants new programs - still; TSA's Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response task unit coming your way; Militiaman tells Congress about fed up Americans; Patriotism seen as suspect after decades of brainwashing; Only 28% know Constitution is our supreme law; Budget Director dodges SS priority payments question;

The Washington Times reveals: In the past decade, unions have become increasingly desperate to obtain new dues-paying members. An example of how desperate can be found in a 70-plus-page intimidation manual from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which only recently came to light in a pending court case.
The new union tactic is to use pressure on corporate boardrooms as a means of organizing entire companies nationwide rather than recruiting workers on a site-by-site basis; in short, to organize employers rather than employees. To create this pressure, unions attempt to push businesses to the edge of bankruptcy, with little regard for the welfare of employer and employee. They attempt to strong-arm businesses into agreeing to take away the secret ballot for employees in union-organizing elections via card check. They also try to force employers to restrict their own speech on union issues so that workers will not get both sides of the story on unionization. Among the SEIU’s demands is that employers agree to bargain only with it, to the exclusion of all other unions, regardless of what workers want.
SEIU is in federal court defending itself against charges of racketeering and extortion filed by one of its unionizing targets, the catering company Sodexo Inc.Sodexo's court discovery recently revealed an SEIU “Contract Campaign Manual” on “Pressuring the Employer.” Union pressure is nothing new, but what SEIU recommends is not limited to organizing drives and strikes. Rather, the pressure takes the form of a so-called corporate campaign, whereby the union allies itself with outside third parties to raise intimidation to a new level.  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/15/labors-new-strategy-intimidation-for-dummies/
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The Wall St. Journal reports: Maybe the most unknowing moment from President Obama's debt-limit press conference the other day was when he said that "I'd rather be talking about stuff that everybody welcomes, like new programs." Define everybody—and, please, let us know when the new programs are going to stop.  [This is a socialist's dream in a nutshell - new programs.  For once he is being honest.  New programs for future Democrat voters.] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303678704576440040365452756.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
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Free Republic writes: But recently,another of Janet Napolitano’s handmaidens of harassment has begun to make news…albeit only on the web,of course. It is the TSA’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response task force–or VIPR. Organized into mobile swat teams,VIPR has executed some 8,000 highly public searches in the past 12 months.
And what meaningful operations they have been.
In a Georgia Amtrac station,VIPR personnel “patted down”all travelers,children and adults,both entering AND LEAVING the station.
In Santa Fe,New Mexico,teams of VIPR agents were assigned to conduct searches at a high school prom.
In Texas,agents thoroughly “…searched all private and commercial vehicles entering and exiting…”the port of Brownsville. EACH AND EVERY VEHICLE was searched even though the task force was not responding to any known or reported threat!
In April,VIPR staged a raid at a Tampa bus station. Once again,the teams were not responding to any particular threat. Rather,Homeland Security official Gary Milano said the purpose of the exercise was to “…invent the wheel in advance,in case we have to,if there is ever specific intelligence requiring us to be here.”
And two months later,VIPR targeted 5,000 square miles bordering West Virginia,Ohio and Kentucky. Four hundred agents representing 70 federal agencies appeared in Black Hawk helicopters,small planes and Coast Guard craft. Once again this was a “training exercise.”As usual,no threat had been suspected or reported. TSA official Michael Cleveland stated,“…the purpose of the exercise was to have a visible presence and let people know we’re out here. IT CAN BE A DETERRENT.”
But who is being deterred,intimidated and threatened by these unnecessary shows of force- certainly not terrorists.
“Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government…Among deprivations of rights,none is so effective in cowing a population,crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart”,said Justice Robert Jackson,the chief US prosecutor at Nuremberg. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2749254/posts
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C-Span 2: African America Militiaman James Johnson Testifies Before Congress where he tells them that Americans are fed up with being treated like subjects instead of free men! Senate Terrorism subcommittee:  Increasing polarization: only thing between considered laws and armed conflict is time.  Americans are tired of confiscatory tax rates, heavy regulations lead to servitude.  Not just angry white male citizens.  Now we are armed with knowledge.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4QHAYkSOTU&feature=youtu.be
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Walter Williams opines: To be patriotic to one's own country is seen as suspect because it may turn into a militant chauvinism or a dangerous "my country, right or wrong" vision.
The ignorance about our country is staggering. According to one survey, only 28 percent of students could identify the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. Only 26 percent of students knew that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are called the Bill of Rights. Fewer than one-quarter of students knew that George Washington was the first president of the United States
The fact that Obama became president and brought openly Marxist people into his administration doesn't say so much about him as it says about the effects of decades of brainwashing of the American people by the education establishment, media and the intellectual elite.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. http://www.creators.com/conservative/walter-williams/failing-liberty-101.html
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Walter William writes: A recent Superman comic book has the hero saying, "I am renouncing my U.S. citizenship" because "truth, justice, and the American way — it's not enough anymore." Though not addressing Superman's statement, Stanford University professor and Hoover Institution senior fellow William Damon explains how such a vision could emerge today but not yesteryear. The explanation is found in his article "American Amnesia," in Defining Ideas (7/1/2011), based upon his most recent book, "Failing Liberty 101: How We Are Leaving Young Americans Unprepared for Citizenship in a Free Society."  http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=321397
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Real Clear Politics writes: White House Budget Director Jacob Lew dodged CNN's Candy Crowley's question if the administration would prioritize Social Security payments if a default occurred. Transcript of the exchange below: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/07/17/budget_director_wont_answer_if_wh_would_prioritize_social_security_payments.html
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