Thursday, September 16, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Stealth Immigration Bill; Poverty Increases Under Obama; Severence Clause Not in Healthcare Bill; Black Panther Investigation; Mother Earth; Oil-and-gas Drilling Bans
The decision means the defense bill, which often passes with bipartisan support, will be home to two major, thorny political issues – the other being the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Reid called the DREAM Act "really important" and said it should be passed because it provides a path to citizenship for young illegal immigrants who go to college or serve in the military. DREAM is an acronym for Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/14/reid-adds-controversial-immigration-measure-to-defense-bill/
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Yahoo News reports: The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Barack Obama's watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100911/ap_on_bi_ge/us_poverty_in_america
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American Thinker writes: Virginia is asserting that certain portions (that is, personal mandate) of ObamaCare are unconstitutional. If Virginia prevails, it leaves the question of what happens to the rest of the ObamaCare statute? This is where the concept of severance comes in. Normally all comprehensive laws contain a boilerplate severance clause; it says that if any portion of the law is found to be unconstitutional that portion is severed from the rest of the law, that is, the rest of the law stands.
But ObamaCare contains no severance clause. Virginia is asserting that if it prevails on its substantive claims, the whole law is unconstitutional. (If Virginia does not prevail, any one of the 20 plus legal challenges have the same severance argument available.)
If a severance clause is normal boilerplate, why does not ObamaCare contain one? This is where Scott Brown's election enters. Recall the House passed its version of ObamaCare. On Christmas Eve, after much horsetrading and bribing, the Senate passed its version. The Senate version was not drafted to be in its final form; it was drafted to get 60 votes. Normally, these bills would be reconciled in a conference committee and the final version would have to be voted on again with 60 votes in the Senate. However, before it could be sent to conference and reconciled, Scott Brown won in Massachusetts -- a reconciled bill could no longer get 60 votes! That is why the House had to vote up or down on the Senate bill which was basically a draft without the normal boilerplate inserted.
As Virginia argued in its Memorandum (Pages 24 to 28), the presence of a severance clause raises a presumption that Congress did not intend the whole statute to depend on the constitutionality of any particular clause. But with no severance clause, they are not entitled to that presumption. A court cannot sever the offending clause on its own if the statute would not function as Congress intended. http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/09/obamacares_fatal_flaw_1.html
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From the Washington Times: The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division — in the wake of the New Black Panther Party case — is being investigated by the department's office of inspector general to determine whether voting section employees have been harassed for participating in specific investigations or prosecutions.
In an end run around policy barring IG investigations of Justice Department litigators, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said his office will review what types of cases are being investigated, whether there have been changes in enforcement policies and procedures, and whether the civil rights laws are being enforced in a non-discriminatory manner. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/13/justice-ig-probing-black-panther-case/
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CNN reports: Paris, France - The French senate approved Tuesday a law banning any veils that cover the face -- including the burqa, the full-body covering worn by some Muslim women -- making France the first European country to plan such a measure. The law passed by a vote of 246 to 1, with about 100 abstentions coming essentially from left-leaning politicians. The legislation was overwhelmingly approved by the lower house of parliament in July and will go into effect next spring. http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/14/france.burqa.ban/index.html?hpt=T2
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From Newsweek: The cover of The American Scholar quarterly carries an impertinent assertion: “The Earth Doesn’t Care if You Drive a Hybrid.” The essay inside is titled “What the Earth Knows.” What it knows, according to Robert B. Laughlin, co-winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics, is this: What humans do to, and ostensibly for, the earth does not matter in the long run, and the long run is what matters to the earth. We must, Laughlin says, think about the earth’s past in terms of geologic time.
amaging this old earth is, Laughlin says, “easier to imagine than it is to accomplish.” There have been mass volcanic explosions, meteor impacts, “and all manner of other abuses greater than anything people could inflict, and it’s still here. It’s a survivor.”
From the Washington Times: The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division — in the wake of the New Black Panther Party case — is being investigated by the department's office of inspector general to determine whether voting section employees have been harassed for participating in specific investigations or prosecutions.
In an end run around policy barring IG investigations of Justice Department litigators, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said his office will review what types of cases are being investigated, whether there have been changes in enforcement policies and procedures, and whether the civil rights laws are being enforced in a non-discriminatory manner. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/13/justice-ig-probing-black-panther-case/
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CNN reports: Paris, France - The French senate approved Tuesday a law banning any veils that cover the face -- including the burqa, the full-body covering worn by some Muslim women -- making France the first European country to plan such a measure. The law passed by a vote of 246 to 1, with about 100 abstentions coming essentially from left-leaning politicians. The legislation was overwhelmingly approved by the lower house of parliament in July and will go into effect next spring. http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/14/france.burqa.ban/index.html?hpt=T2
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From Newsweek: The cover of The American Scholar quarterly carries an impertinent assertion: “The Earth Doesn’t Care if You Drive a Hybrid.” The essay inside is titled “What the Earth Knows.” What it knows, according to Robert B. Laughlin, co-winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics, is this: What humans do to, and ostensibly for, the earth does not matter in the long run, and the long run is what matters to the earth. We must, Laughlin says, think about the earth’s past in terms of geologic time.
amaging this old earth is, Laughlin says, “easier to imagine than it is to accomplish.” There have been mass volcanic explosions, meteor impacts, “and all manner of other abuses greater than anything people could inflict, and it’s still here. It’s a survivor.”
Climate change over geologic time is, Laughlin says, something the earth has done “on its own without asking anyone’s permission or explaining itself.” People can cause climate change, but major glacial episodes have occurred “at regular intervals of 100,000 years,” always “a slow, steady cooling followed by abrupt warming back to conditions similar to today’s.”
Six million years ago the Mediterranean dried up. Ninety million years ago there were alligators in the Arctic. Three hundred million years ago Northern Europe was a desert and coal formed in Antarctica. “One thing we know for sure,” Laughlin says about these convulsions, “is that people weren’t involved.” http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/12/george-will-earth-doesn-t-care-what-is-done-to-it.html?from=rss
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The Hill writes: The Interior Department spending bill slated for markup Thursday in the Senate Appropriations Committee will re-impose oil-and-gas drilling bans off the Pacific Coast that lapsed after decades in 2008, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said. Obama administration offshore leasing plans do not contemplate oil-and-gas development off the coasts of California, Oregon or Washington. But Feinstein — who chairs the subcommittee that crafts Interior spending bills — said in the Capitol Tuesday that the measure would re-instate the bans to provide extra protection. http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/118651-feinstein-senate-interior-spending-bill-block-west-coast-drilling
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[In the I'm not kidding you category]: (CNSNews.com) – The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), spent $823,200 of economic stimulus funds in 2009 on a study by a UCLA research team to teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex.
The genitalia-washing program is part of a larger $12-million UCLA study examining how to better encourage Africans to undergo voluntary HIV testing and counseling – however, only the penis-washing study received money from the 2009 economic stimulus law. The washing portion of the study is set to end in 2011. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/75198
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Breitbart reveals: Bank of America will charge clients new monthly fees if their accounts do not meet a minimum balance, the bank's CEO Brian Moynihan said on Tuesday. "We will increase the account balance minimums or charge monthly fees in lieu thereof, which is the choice of the customer," Moynihan said at a Barclays Capital conference in New York.
These and other measures will allow the bank to compensate for revenue lost due to new regulations put in place following the 2008 financial crisis that led the US government to salvage many banks with massive bailouts, he said. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.bb54d137200b27d4f18a20472252604a.10b1&show_article=1
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The Hill writes: The Interior Department spending bill slated for markup Thursday in the Senate Appropriations Committee will re-impose oil-and-gas drilling bans off the Pacific Coast that lapsed after decades in 2008, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said. Obama administration offshore leasing plans do not contemplate oil-and-gas development off the coasts of California, Oregon or Washington. But Feinstein — who chairs the subcommittee that crafts Interior spending bills — said in the Capitol Tuesday that the measure would re-instate the bans to provide extra protection. http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/118651-feinstein-senate-interior-spending-bill-block-west-coast-drilling
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[In the I'm not kidding you category]: (CNSNews.com) – The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), spent $823,200 of economic stimulus funds in 2009 on a study by a UCLA research team to teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex.
The genitalia-washing program is part of a larger $12-million UCLA study examining how to better encourage Africans to undergo voluntary HIV testing and counseling – however, only the penis-washing study received money from the 2009 economic stimulus law. The washing portion of the study is set to end in 2011. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/75198
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Breitbart reveals: Bank of America will charge clients new monthly fees if their accounts do not meet a minimum balance, the bank's CEO Brian Moynihan said on Tuesday. "We will increase the account balance minimums or charge monthly fees in lieu thereof, which is the choice of the customer," Moynihan said at a Barclays Capital conference in New York.
These and other measures will allow the bank to compensate for revenue lost due to new regulations put in place following the 2008 financial crisis that led the US government to salvage many banks with massive bailouts, he said. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.bb54d137200b27d4f18a20472252604a.10b1&show_article=1
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Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Ideas For Changes in American Government Policies
BRAINSTORMING IDEAS FOR CHANGE IN AMERICA: [My latest Guest Commentary published in the local liberal newspaper]
As the election approaches, along with our chance to make our votes count toward changes we desire, I am considering changes many might like to see.
Our country’s government should learn to live within its budget, just as we families must do. An end to earmarks, and a cut in government spending nearly across the board, not just a decrease in the planned increases, would be beneficial. If Americans saw our government cut spending in times of economic woe, we would know that our grandchildren will not be saddled with enormous debt. If government would cut its creation of yet more government jobs as an answer to job losses, and instead put its focus on what would inspire private small businesses to hire, Capitalism would have a chance to be the amazing creator of jobs it has always been. That would not only raise employment but inspire Americans.
The Bush tax cuts should not be allowed to expire, for that would be devastating to a failing economy. It would be the largest tax increase in our country’s history. And it is “rich” people, after all, who create businesses that create jobs and attending perks, not poor people.
Businesses would be encouraged to hire once again if they knew that they will not have new and higher Business and Corporate taxes, higher energy bills thru a new Cap and Tax bill, a new VAT tax and continued increases in their obligations to pay for higher health care costs. An assurance that the Lame Duck Session will not produce onerous unpopular bills would also be a boon. Businesses are waiting for signs positive for growth, and should not be denigrated for keeping their cash on the sidelines, as Juan Williams has suggested.
Because a number of states are litigating against the new healthcare bill and the majority of Americans are against the bill as well as the incentive-ridden votes which passed it, the health care bill could be rewritten, repealed or defunded until its Constitutionality is decided. It is a model for more government intrusion into our lives. Democrats are being advised not to say the law will reduce costs and deficits, for the CBO has now admitted that it will do neither. As Nancy Pelosi actually said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it”. What we have learned is that it will harm our country, as almost daily we learn of the rising monetary and human costs of the particulars in the bill. It will not be possible to insure 30 million more people, waiting in line to be cared for by the same number of doctors, while simultaneously cutting costs. In this healthcare bill are more non-healthcare related stealth taxes on “the rich”, such as on excess profits on the sale of one's home and on income from investments. How does this pertain to healthcare?
It would save our government money if it would not prosecute the state of Arizona for actually enforcing a federal law that mandates that being illegal – is illegal!
Our President should quit shaming Americans for going to certain vacation spots while he lavishly vacations every month. His remarks about Las Vegas sent their economy plummeting, as many conventions were cancelled.
As we actually loan money to other countries for their offshore drilling endeavors, we should end the drilling moratorium in our own Gulf, restoring many thousands of jobs there.
As Ronal Reagan once said, “Government is not the solution to our problems; government IS the problem”.
Monday, September 13, 2010
No Funding for Green Jobs; Clean Energy Works coalition; Financial Transaction Tax; Build Mosque at Ground Zero or Else; Offshore Drilling; and Bush Era Tax Cuts
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The UK Guardian reveals: America's environmental groups have given up on getting climate change legislation through Congress at a time of Republican ascendancy, and have downsized to a series of more modest goals like fuel economy. In a sign of that strategy reshift, 20 environmental groups launched a new campaign yesterday to press Barack Obama to propose far more ambitious fuel efficiency and pollution standards for cars of 60mpg by 2025. Meanwhile, Clean Energy Works, a coalition of 80 grassroots groups that had 45 paid staff in Washington to lobby to get a climate change law through Congress, is shutting up shop. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/10/barack-obama-us-cars-fuel-efficiency
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Newsmax: A proposed tax on financial transactions "has a great deal of merit" and would help Congress raise needed revenue, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday.
"I believe that the transaction tax still has a great deal of merit," Pelosi said at a news conference.
The tax would have a "really minimal impact on the transaction, but a tremendous impact on helping us meet our needs," Pelosi said. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/12/03/pelosi_transaction_tax_has_great_deal_of_merit.html
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[I am sure we are not supposed to consider this a threat, of course, but] CNN reports: -- The religious leader behind plans to build an Islamic center and mosque a few blocks from New York's ground zero said Wednesday night that America's national security depends on how it handles the controversy.
"If we move from that location, the story will be the radicals have taken over the discourse," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told CNN's Soledad O'Brien on "Larry King Live."
"The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack."
But some critics decried his assessment.
"The whole national security thing: that's a veiled threat," Andy Sullivan, a union construction worker who wants all New York construction workers to boycott the proposed Islamic center, said on CNN's "AC 360" Wednesday night. "He's saying 'you make me move' and, guess what, the whole radical Muslim world is coming after us. The imam, who repeatedly said his mission was to promote peace and build a bridge among faiths [It seems to me that it is in the hands of this "peaceful" Imam to prove that he was trying to, as he said, "establish a space that embodies the fundamental beliefs that we have as Jews, Christians and Muslims, which is to love our God and to love our neighbor -- to build a space where we have a culture of worship." He can do this by moving the site while making Islam see that it is the right thing to do. It's time for some "love" from the Islamics, isn't it?] shttp://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/09/new.york.islamic.center.imam/index.html?hpt=Sbin
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Despite President Obama's moratorium on U.S. deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Export-Import Bank intends to guarantee $1 billion in loans to PEMEX, the Mexican state oil company, to bolster the company's oil drilling in the region. The bank, which is the official American export credit agency, loaned more than $1 billion to PEMEX in 2009 -- when the company was the bank's largest borrower -- in support of its drilling activities. That year, the bank also guaranteed two loans totaling $300 million made by a commercial lender. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/11/backs-b-loan-mexico-oil-drilling-despite-obama-moratorium/
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Red-district Democrats are pressuring Speaker Nancy Pelosi to extend Bush-era income tax rates for all brackets, revealing a high-stakes rift between the party's vulnerable moderates and its safe liberals as the issue increasingly dominates the national debate. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42042.html
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Saturday, September 11, 2010
9/11 Rememberance
| Please spend 10 minutes today remembering the day that changed America forever. | Never Forget: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdo7aWfTRXM&feature=player_embedded |
Friday, September 10, 2010
Lou Dobbs on Dogs;
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Lou Dobbs, on Obama's comment that his critics "talk to him like a dog": Well the bad boys and girls…how awful for the president that someone be critical of this president, who was supposed to be the great savior, the post-partisan, post-racial president who has been more polarizing than any in recent memory. It starts with “treating him like a dog”… poor him.”
“We’ve moved from Harry Truman “with the buck stops here” to Barack Obama with poor me. I mean, what is next? Is he going to be sucking on his thumb in a dark corner somewhere? This is time for a President to stand up." [Responding to Robert Gibbs' assertion about all the lies being told about his President (as any American President, by the way), he went on to say: "It is not the lies that are hurting this President. It is the truth. It is critical for this President to stop whining and start leading ALL the people - not just groups and just certain entities."] http://www.mediaite.com/online/lou-dobbs-on-obama-whats-next-is-he-going-to-be-sucking-his-thumb-in-a-dark-corner/
us.mg1.mail.yahoo: The newborn tax-cutter [Obama] claims he is pro-business, floating new tax cuts allowing firms to write off 100 percent of new equipment investments for just over a year, from this week until the end of 2011. News reports vary, but Obama claims this will total $200 billion over ten years. Given his projections for the cost of ObamaCare, one should take this with a generous grain of salt.
Businesses have long sought the tax incentives Obama now disingenuously advances. But the way he has proposed them will do nothing to advance the health of the economy for several reasons. Few firms will invest in new ventures when they are not selling their current products. The proposal, like his commitment to staving genocide away from Iraq, is also time-limited. After the tax deducation expires in 2012, business will not know what to expect, and uncertainty is a greater barrier to investment than virtually any other.
Economists Left and Right oppose the plan. Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics said, “The tax breaks won’t be a game-changer.” The chief economist of the National Federation of Independent Business explained one reason why this is: “If you give a small-business guy $20,000, he’ll say, ‘I could buy a new delivery truck but I have nobody to deliver to.’ http://us.mg1.mail.yahoo.com/dc/launch?.gx=1&.rand=b0hag42ub7fe6
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Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked: If Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Fidel Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore" Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.
President Raul Castro and others have instituted a series of limited economic reforms, and have warned Cubans that they need to start working harder and expecting less from the government. But the president has also made it clear he has no desire to depart from Cuba's socialist system or embrace capitalism. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100908/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_fidel_castro
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John Hawking muses: While he was campaigning, Barack Obama promised to cut the deficit in half, but in his first 100 days alone, he quadrupled the deficit. As if that wasn’t bad enough, his budget blueprint adds more, “debt than all previous presidents — from George Washington to George W. Bush — combined.” No civilization in human history has spent like America has over the last two years of Democratic rule and unless we can get more Republicans in office, this country’s economic future is going to be deader than King Tut and uglier than a 7 day old chunk of roadkill.
[Pointing out the classiness of several of our country's congressmen:] "I wouldn’t dignify you by peeing on your leg. It wouldn’t be worth wasting the urine." -- Democratic Congressman Pete Stark to a constituent at a Townhall.
[And]:
"How about just tracking down every single person who said drill baby drill and putting them all in prison. Why don’t we do that? Starting with Michael Steele." -- Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson http://www.exposeobama.com/2010/09/08/25-reasons-to-send-the-democrats-packing-in-november/?utm_source=Expose+Obama&utm_campaign=0ea1782d25-EO_09_08_20109_8_2010&utm_medium=email
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Interpol reports: LYON, France – INTERPOL has today issued a global alert to its 188 member countries following the request of Pakistan’s Minister of the Interior, and its own determination, that if the proposed Koran burning by a pastor in the US goes ahead as planned, there is a strong likelihood that violent attacks on innocent people would follow.
Minister Rehman Malik personally contacted INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble to engage the world police body’s assistance in warning law enforcement of the increased terrorist threat if plans reported by the media to burn the holy book were carried out on Saturday’s anniversary of the September 11 attacks. http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/PressReleases/PR2010/PR069.asp
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From the Los Angeles Times: Privacy laws prevent release of individual tax delinquent's names. But we do know that as of the end of 2009, 41 people inside Obama's very own White House owe the government they're allegedly running a total of $831,055 in back taxes.
We now know that federal employees across the nation owe fully $1 billion in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.
As in, 1,000 times one million dollars. All this political jabber about giving middleclass....
...Americans a tax cut. Thousands of feds have been giving themselves one all along -- unofficially. And these tax scofflaws include more than three dozen folks who work for the president with that newly-decorated Oval Office. The Post's T.W. Farnum did some research and found that out of the total sum, just 638 workers on Capitol Hill owe the IRS $9.3 million in back taxes. As in, overdue. The IRS gets stiffed by the legislative body that controls its budget. How Washington works.
Now, back taxes have been a problem for the Obama-Biden administration. You may recall early on that Tom Daschle was the president's top pick to run Health and Human Services. But it turned out the Democratic senator, who was un-elected from South Dakota in 2004, owed something like $120,000 to the IRS for things from his subsequent benefactor that he just forgot to pay taxes on. You know how that is. $120G's here or there. So he dropped out.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/09/congress-taxes-irs.html
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The New York Post reports: A Sept. 11 first responder filed a $350 million suit against the developers of a proposed cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero, calling it a "nuisance," "a terror risk" and "an assault." The strongly worded suit, which was brought by a former volunteer firefighter from Westchester named Vincent Forras. who helped at the Trade Center site after 9/11, with the assistance of the conservative group Freedom Watch. It charges developer Feisal Abdul Rauf and Park 51, the organization behind the mosque, "are the front persons and in charge of operations for interests tied to terrorism," http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/first_responder_files_suit_against_Fs0ugfjYjDq3gMwZ4YK3oN
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Climate Matters and Lake Michigan's Asian Carp
On a conference call today with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and other congressional leaders, President Obama's Council on Environmental Quality announced the selection of John Goss to lead the near $80 million, multi-pronged federal attack against Asian carp.
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Express U.K. writes: A high-level inquiry into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found there was “little evidence” for its claims about global warming. It also said the panel had emphasized the negative impacts of climate change and made “substantive findings” based on little proof. The review by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) was launched after the IPCC’s hugely embarrassing 2007 benchmark climate change report, which contained exaggerated and false claims that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. The panel was forced to admit its key claim in support of global warming was lifted from a 1999 magazine article. http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/196642/Climate-change-lies-are-exposed
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From Human Events: One would have thought that Al Gore had learned his lesson about blaming bad weather on climate change when a British judge ruled in 2007 that his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, couldn’t be shown to British school children without a disclaimer about its many egregious errors (amounting to about 99% of the science presented in the film). One of the judicially noticed errors that Gore made was attributing individual weather events and natural disasters (like Hurricane Katrina) to climate change.
Regardless of how climate changes—and it will continue change even if humans magically vanished from the planet and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels return to the alarmist ideal of 350 parts per million—there will always be bad weather and natural disasters in whatever unpredictable proportion and frequency nature dictates.
As to the NOAA claim that now is the hottest era since recordkeeping began, let’s first keep in mind that both nature and humans began recordkeeping long before NOAA and we know that the period known as the Medieval Optimum (about 1,000 years ago when the Vikings tilled Greenland without the help of John Deere) was as warm if not warmer than today.
Not only has there been no warming since 1995, but it’s likely the alarmist-made temperature record is actually showing more warming than is actually occurring. Between temperature measurement stations being located on heat-retaining airport runways and other urban heat islands, and the Climate-gate mafia gradually removing cooler, rural weather stations from their data gathering, it must be really embarrassing for the alarmists to have to lie and cheat to keep the data from showing the real-life slight cooling that in all likelihood is actually occurring.http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=38787
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From the LA Times: Record low temperatures for the date were tied Wednesday at Los Angeles International Airport and Oceanside in San Diego County.
The temperature was 58 degrees at LAX, tying a record set in 1951, the National Weather Service said. Oceanside dropped to 66 degrees, tying a record that has stood since 1914. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/09/record-low-temperatures-lax-ocenside.html
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According to The Hill, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday a nationwide renewable-electricity standard, or RES, is "absolutely" in the mix as he tries to salvage energy legislation this year - possibly in a lame-duck session." As I have opined in these electronic pages before, Renewable Electricity Standards (RES) are the stuff of "skyrocketing" electricity prices. The effect is quite similar to Cap and Trade but without as much smoke from which to sense danger. To recap, the RES (sometimes called a Renewable Portfolio Standard ) levels an unfunded mandate on electricity generating utilities (GENCO's). http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/09/harry_reid_and_energy_legislat.html
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From Townhall: In late July, President Obama established a behemoth 27-member "National Ocean Council" with the stroke of a pen. Farr gloated: "We already have a Clean Air Act and a Clean Water Act. With today's executive order, President Obama in effect creates a Clean Ocean Act." And not a single hearing needed to be held. Not a single amendment considered. Not a single vote cast. Who gives a flying fish about transparency and the deliberative process? The oceans are dying!
The panel will have the power to implement "coastal and marine spatial plans" and to ensure that all executive agencies, departments and offices abide by their determinations. The panel has also been granted authority to establish regional advisory committees that overlap with existing regional and local authorities governing marine and coastal planning. http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2010/08/20/and_now_the_stealth_obama_ocean_grab
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Yahoo News carries this article: Climate: New study slashes estimate of icecap loss This is the term for the rebounding of Earth's crust following the last Ice Age. http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100908/tts-climate-warming-science-ice-c1b2fc3.html
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Ground Zero; Afghans on Obama and America; Our New Economy; Disappearing Jobs; Fighting in Baghdad
And we know, of course, that sharia will be preached there, as it is in 80% of the new mosques in America, all funded by Saudi plutocrats to spread the delightful barbarities of wahhabism. For Americans who enjoy forced child marriages, polygamy, honor killings and other brutalities against women, Jews, gays, Christians and infidels -- well, the future's so bright they've got to wear shades.
And now comes this prophetic video from Paris - which I highlighted in Saturday's blog.
Yes, the Ground Zero Victory mega-mosque will symbolize physical conquest, but it is, after all, only an inert thing. The real conquest will be the ownership of the public space around it, asserted by the fanatics from all over the world who will flock there five times a day for prayers.
They'll pray in the mosque and they'll pray in the streets, face to the ground, with a rakish tilt of their derrieres to the sky from which their blessed destruction came burning down.
They'll block off street after street, refusing passage to people who live and work there, choking off the economic bloodstream of the shops and restaurants and offices that keep the struggling neighborhood alive.
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Townhall opines: Juggling those topics and others, my default page brought me back to Ground Zero’s grand zero, Imam Rauf, the guy who said he simply wants to build a nice little Muslim YMCA on the human ashes of 3,000 Americans who were killed by self-avowed adherents of Allah. Seems like Mr. Nice Guy has been anything but good to the tenants of the low-rent apartments he and Daisy Con own. Yep, the sweet and cuddly Rauf and his charming wife charmed a cool two million dollars from taxpayers’ pockets to supposedly spruce up the digs he owns in Union City and Palisades Park; however, oddly enough, the money never made its way to the Extreme Apartment Makeover’s Muslim Edition. I know … weird, eh?
Yep, the mega-drachmas Feisal banked vanished into the ether leaving the unfortunate tenants of his abode to abide in bedbug and rat-infested squalor. http://townhall.com/columnists/DougGiles/2010/09
/04/the_slum_lord_millionaire_imam_feisal_abdul_rauf/page/full/
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KABUL, Afghanistan – Hundreds of Afghans railed against the United States and called for President Barack Obama's death at a rally in the capital Monday to denounce an American church's plans to burn the Islamic holy book on Sept. 11.
The crowd in Kabul, numbering as many as 500, chanted "Long live Islam" and "Death to America" as they listened to fiery speeches from members of parliament, provincial council deputies, and Islamic clerics who criticized the U.S. and demanded the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country. Some threw rocks when a U.S. military convoy passed, but speakers shouted at them to stop and told police to arrest anyone who disobeyed.
The Gainesville, Florida-based Dove World Outreach Center announced plans to burn copies of the Quran on church grounds to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but has been denied a permit to set a bonfire. The church, which made headlines last year after distributing T-shirts that said "Islam is of the Devil," has vowed to proceed with the burning.
"We know this is not just the decision of a church. It is the decision of the president and the entire United States," said Abdul Shakoor, an 18-year-old high school student who said he joined the protest after hearing neighborhood gossip about the Quran burning. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100906/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
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KABUL—The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the planned burning of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a small Florida church could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703713504575475500753093116.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories
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Again from Townhall: Whenever companies start hiring freely again, job-seekers with specialized skills and education will have plenty of good opportunities. Others will face a choice: Take a job with low pay _ or none at all.
Job creation will likely remain weak for months or even years. But once employers do step up hiring, some economists expect job openings to fall mainly into two categories of roughly equal numbers:
_ Professional fields with higher pay. Think lawyers, research scientists and software engineers.
_ Lower-skill and lower-paying jobs, like home health care aides and store clerks.
Not until 2014 or later is the nation expected to have regained all, or nearly all, the 8.4 million jobs lost to the recession. Millions of lost jobs in real estate, for example, aren't likely to be restored this decade, if ever. http://townhall.com/news/business/2010/09/05/future_hiring_will_mainly_benefit_the_high-skilled
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BAGHDAD (AP) - Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.
It was the first exchange of fire involving U.S. troops in Baghdad since the Aug. 31 deadline for formally ending the combat mission, and it showed that American troops remaining in the country are still being drawn into the fighting.
The attack also made plain the kind of lapses in security that have left Iraqis wary of the U.S. drawdown and distrustful of the ability of Iraqi forces now taking up ultimate responsibility for protecting the country. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100905/D9I204T00.html
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Monday, September 6, 2010
Union Workers; When You're Holding the Hammer Song; Healthcare Bill Repeal; Ten States Support AZ's Immigration Law
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[Here's a terrific country song! I'm sure you'll think it's worth your while, and it really hits the nail right on the head! The writer is a high school coach who lost his job after posting this to his email..... He was fired because the lyrics are racist, as some parent at his school complained. The principal who fired him had not even heard the song at the time.] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfH46DTAkxo
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The Heritage Foundation, quoting Congressman King, points out the simplicity of the process [of repealing the health care act]: "Republicans just need to sign a repeal bill, bring forth a discharge petition, use the discharge petition as a litmus test against Blue Dog Democrats in the November elections, win back a majority, pass a repeal bill in the new Congress, endure Obama’s inevitable veto of it, shut off the funding for the 2011 and 2012 enactment of Obamacare, and, finally, elect a new president in 2012."
- And Michelle Bachmann has already given us that bill (H.R. 4903). Former-president Ronald Reagan once spoke of "raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors."
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Saturday, September 4, 2010
Islam in Paris - They're Already Praying in the Streets of NYC in This Way.
the video. It is difficult to recognize Paris.]
Here in part is an article by the Christian Broadcast Network: Friday in Paris. A hidden camera shows streets blocked by huge crowds of Muslim worshippers and enforced by a private security force.
This is all illegal in France: the public worship, the blocked streets, and the private security. But the police have been ordered not to intervene. The Muslims in the street have been granted unofficial rights that no Christian group is likely to get under France's Laicite', or secularism law.
But the Muslim birthrate is significantly higher than for the native French. Some Muslim men practice polygamy, with each extra wife having children and collecting a welfare check. The problem is the people who follow Islam; they're somehow in a political party, which has a political agenda, which means basically implementing Sharia and building an Islamic state." [If you watch the video, you will get a sense that it is too late for Paris, as the Islamic birthrate far outnumbers that of non-Islamics everywhere.]
We were expecting Islam to adapt to France and it is France adapting to Islam," Robin said.
But even if many government elites are in France are in denial over Islam, the people in the streets increasingly are not. Some have become fed up with what they see as the growing Islamization of France.
They've started staging pork and wine "aperitifs," or cocktail parties in the street. They're patriotic demonstrations meant to strike back against Islam. Another national demonstration is planned for Saturday, Sept. 4. [I wonder if any American news station will dare to cover this.]
The French parliament is expected to debate the burqa law in September. Jean-Francois Cope, president of the Union for a Popular Movement political party, has a warning for the West and for America.
"We cannot accept the development of such practice because it's not compatible with the life in a modern society, you see," he said. "And this question is not only a French question. You will all have to face this challenge. " The chilling video is at this website: http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2010/August/Islamization-of-Paris-a-Warning-to-the-West/
Yet, here we clearly see Muslims IN the street, BLOCKING traffic while they pray to Allah! Apparently, they do this every Friday.
Some may say, “look, what’s the big deal?” The big deal happens to be that these individuals are literally CLAIMING America for Islam! Besides, what they are doing is ILLEGAL! Why should they be allowed to do what Christian citizens cannot do in this country? [They say they have no place to pray. How about praying in their homes for a solution?]
Friday, September 3, 2010
Economy; Obama Birther Suing; ACLU; Fewer Illegals
The Washington Times reports: Lunch at the National Press Club on Wednesday caused some serious indigestion. It wasn't the food; it was the entertainment. Christina Romer, chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, was giving what was billed as her "valedictory" before she returns to teach at Berkeley, and she used the swan song to establish four points, each more unnerving than the last:
She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn't understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn't have much of an idea about how to fix things.
What she did have was a binder full of scary descriptions and warnings, offered with a perma-smile and singsong delivery: "Terrible recession. . . . Incredibly searing. . . . Dramatically below trend. . . . Suffering terribly. . . . Risk of making high unemployment permanent. . . . Economic nightmare." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/01/AR2010090106148_pf.html
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By American Patriot Foundation: Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney has supplied an affidavit in support of Army Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Lakin, who faces trial on October 13-15. The retired Air Force three-star is the highest ranking officer yet to lend public support to LTC Lakin. His affidavit acknowledges widespread concerns over the President’s Constitutional eligibility and demands the President release his birth records or the court authorize discovery.
McInerney’s sworn affidavit was filed in Court-Martial in support of Lakin’s motions for subpoenas for all of the president’s school records, and for a deposition of the custodian of Obama’s birth records in the possession of the State of Hawaii. The Judge has set a hearing in the Court Martial on these motions for....
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From ACRU: The American Civil Liberties Union has discovered the right to life. Seriously. The ardently pro-abortion organization declares in its Aug. 30 lawsuit against the Obama Administration that the CIA's plan for targeted killings of terrorists violates the terrorists' rights.
"The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights," says ACLU lawyer Arthur Spitzer in the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
While this tack might annoy the folks in the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, it's got to be music to the ears of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born, al-Qaeda-linked Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen. Awlaki has been tied to at least two of the 9/11 hijackers and to the Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan, before Hasan slaughtered 13 of his fellow soldiers and an unborn baby on Nov. 5, 2009. After the incident, al-Awlaki pronounced Hasan a "hero."
The CIA put out a "kill" order on al-Awlaki in early 2010, according to the suit, which was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU. It asks U.S. District Judge John Bates to order the government to stop any plot to kill al-Awlaki. Which is a shame, since one of the captured e-mails that Hasan sent to al-Awlaki said, "I can't wait to join you in the afterlife." Of course, Hasan himself is still in this life, too, facing murder charges. http://theacru.org/acru/aclu_outrage_hey_terrorists_are_people_too_even_if_unborn_babies_arent/
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By Ben Johnson
The Obama administration is in overdrive to claim credit for a newly released report showing a decline in the number of illegal immigrants. The Pew Hispanic Center found that “only” 300,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States each year from March 2007 to March 2009. Since Obama took office in late January 2009, how he deserves credit is a mystery to everyone except The One. The fact is, George W. Bush does not deserve (much) credit, either. The report credits two developments with the slowing of the border invasion: greater enforcement of the law — begun by Bush to get support for an amnesty program — and something vastly more significant, the econoic downturn. With jobs scarce, there were fewer “jobs Americans won’t do.” The Pew study states this made many illegals already in the United States leave and fewer not yet here come. It also points out Texas, one of the strongest states economically, has seen virtually no decline.
She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn't understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn't have much of an idea about how to fix things.
What she did have was a binder full of scary descriptions and warnings, offered with a perma-smile and singsong delivery: "Terrible recession. . . . Incredibly searing. . . . Dramatically below trend. . . . Suffering terribly. . . . Risk of making high unemployment permanent. . . . Economic nightmare." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/01/AR2010090106148_pf.html
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By American Patriot Foundation: Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney has supplied an affidavit in support of Army Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Lakin, who faces trial on October 13-15. The retired Air Force three-star is the highest ranking officer yet to lend public support to LTC Lakin. His affidavit acknowledges widespread concerns over the President’s Constitutional eligibility and demands the President release his birth records or the court authorize discovery.
McInerney’s sworn affidavit was filed in Court-Martial in support of Lakin’s motions for subpoenas for all of the president’s school records, and for a deposition of the custodian of Obama’s birth records in the possession of the State of Hawaii. The Judge has set a hearing in the Court Martial on these motions for....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From ACRU: The American Civil Liberties Union has discovered the right to life. Seriously. The ardently pro-abortion organization declares in its Aug. 30 lawsuit against the Obama Administration that the CIA's plan for targeted killings of terrorists violates the terrorists' rights.
"The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights," says ACLU lawyer Arthur Spitzer in the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
While this tack might annoy the folks in the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, it's got to be music to the ears of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born, al-Qaeda-linked Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen. Awlaki has been tied to at least two of the 9/11 hijackers and to the Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan, before Hasan slaughtered 13 of his fellow soldiers and an unborn baby on Nov. 5, 2009. After the incident, al-Awlaki pronounced Hasan a "hero."
The CIA put out a "kill" order on al-Awlaki in early 2010, according to the suit, which was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU. It asks U.S. District Judge John Bates to order the government to stop any plot to kill al-Awlaki. Which is a shame, since one of the captured e-mails that Hasan sent to al-Awlaki said, "I can't wait to join you in the afterlife." Of course, Hasan himself is still in this life, too, facing murder charges. http://theacru.org/acru/aclu_outrage_hey_terrorists_are_people_too_even_if_unborn_babies_arent/
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By Ben Johnson
The Obama administration is in overdrive to claim credit for a newly released report showing a decline in the number of illegal immigrants. The Pew Hispanic Center found that “only” 300,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States each year from March 2007 to March 2009. Since Obama took office in late January 2009, how he deserves credit is a mystery to everyone except The One. The fact is, George W. Bush does not deserve (much) credit, either. The report credits two developments with the slowing of the border invasion: greater enforcement of the law — begun by Bush to get support for an amnesty program — and something vastly more significant, the econoic downturn. With jobs scarce, there were fewer “jobs Americans won’t do.” The Pew study states this made many illegals already in the United States leave and fewer not yet here come. It also points out Texas, one of the strongest states economically, has seen virtually no decline.
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