Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Pentagon orders soldier fired for challenging prez

Pentagon orders soldier fired for challenging prez

The Department of Defense has compelled a private employer to fire a U.S. Army Reserve major from his civilian job after he had his military deployment orders revoked for arguing he should not be required to serve under a president who has not proven his eligibility for office.

According to the CEO of Simtech Inc., a private company contracted by the Defense Security Services, an agency of the Department of Defense, the federal government has compelled the termination of Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook.

Cook's attorney, Orly Taitz, wrote in her blog that Simtech CEO Larry Grice said he would try to find another position within the company for Cook, but nothing is currently available.



The Department of Defense does contracting in the general field of information technology/systems integration, at which Cook, a senior systems engineer and architect, was employed until taking a military leave of absence on July 10 in preparation for his deployment to Afghanistan.

"Grice told plaintiff, in essence, that the situation had become 'nutty and crazy,' and that plaintiff would no longer be able to work at his old position," Taitz wrote.

Grice made clear that it was Defense Security Services that had compelled Simtech to fire Cook, Taitz wrote.

According to the report, Grice told Cook "there was some gossip that 'people were disappointed in' the plaintiff because they thought he was manipulating his deployment orders to create a platform for political purposes."

The Simtech CEO then discussed Cook's expectation of final paychecks, without any severance pay, and wished the soldier well.

Messages left with Grice's office had not been returned at the time of this report.

"A federal agency (such as the Department of Defense, acting through the Defense Security Services Agency) clearly violates the Whistleblower Protection Act if it takes or fails to take (or threatens to take or fail to take) a personnel action with respect to any employee or applicant because of any disclosure of information by the employee or applicant that he or she reasonably believes evidences a violation of a law, rule or regulation; gross mismanagement; gross waste of funds; an abuse of authority; or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety," Taitz wrote.

"What has happened in the present case of Stefan Frederick Cook is that a federal agency appears to have taken action against Stefan Frederick Cook's private employer, Simtech, Inc., which is a closely held corporation owned and operated by members of a single family, who are as much victims of the Department of Defense's heavy-handed interference with plaintiff Cook's private-sector employment as is plaintiff Cook himself."

As WND reported, Taitz confirmed to WND the military rescinded Maj. Cook's impending deployment orders.

"We won! We won before we even arrived," she said with excitement. "It means that the military has nothing to show for Obama. It means that the military has directly responded by saying Obama is illegitimate – and they cannot fight it. Therefore, they are revoking the order!"

She continued, "They just said, 'Order revoked.' No explanation. No reasons – just revoked."

A hearing on the questions raised by Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, an engineer who told WND he wants to serve his country in Afghanistan, is still scheduled for July 16 at 9:30 a.m.

Join the petition campaign to make President Obama reveal his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate!

"As an officer in the armed forces of the United States, it is [my] duty to gain clarification on any order we may believe illegal. With that said, if President Obama is found not to be a 'natural-born citizen,' he is not eligible to be commander-in-chief," he told WND only hours after his case was originally filed.

(Story continues below)

"[Then] any order coming out of the presidency or his chain of command is illegal. Should I deploy, I would essentially be following an illegal [order]. If I happened to be captured by the enemy in a foreign land, I would not be privy to the Geneva Convention protections," he said.

The order for the hearing in the federal court for the Middle District of Georgia from U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land said the hearing on the request for a temporary restraining order would be held Thursday.


Cook said without a legitimate president as commander-in-chief, members of the U.S. military in overseas actions could be determined to be "war criminals and subject to prosecution."

He said the vast array of information about Obama that is not available to the public confirms to him "something is amiss."

"That and the fact the individual who is occupying the White House has not been entirely truthful with anybody," he said. "Every time anyone has made an inquiry, it has been either cast aside, it has been maligned, it has been laughed at or just dismissed summarily without further investigation.

"You know what. It would be so simple to solve. Just produce the long-form document, certificate of live birth," he said.

Cook said he was scheduled to report for duty today to deploy to Afghanistan as part of President Obama's plan to increase pressure of insurgent forces there.

He told WND he would be prepared for a backlash against him as a military officer, since members of the military swear to uphold and follow their orders. However, he noted that following an illegal order would be just as bad as failing to follow a legal order.

Before news of the orders being revoked were reported, MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann tonight called Cook a "jackass" and Taitz a "conwoman," as he labeled both of them the "worst persons in the world." He flayed the soldier as "an embarrassment to all those who have served without cowardice."

Named as defendants in the case are Col. Wanda Good, Col. Thomas Macdonald, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Obama, described as "de facto president of the United States."

According to the court filing, Cook affirmed when he joined the military, he took the following oath: "I, Stefan Frederick Cook, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the president of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

However, he later took the following officer oath: "I, Stefan Frederick Cook, having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of Major do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."

According to the claim, "Plaintiff submits that it is implicit though not expressly stated that an officer is and should be subject to court-martial, because he will be derelict in the performance of his duties, if he does not inquire as to the lawfulness, the legality, the legitimacy of the orders which he has received, whether those orders are specific or general."

The military courts offer no option for raising the question, so he turned to civilian courts to consider "a question of paramount constitutional and legal importance: the validity of the chain of command under a president whose election, eligibility, and constitutional status appear open to serious question."

"Barack Hussein Obama, in order to prove his constitutional eligibility to serve as president, basically needs only produce a single unique historical document for the Plaintiff’s inspection and authentication: namely, the 'long-form' birth certificate which will confirm whether Barack Hussein Obama was in fact born to parents who were both citizens of the United States in Honolulu, Hawaii, in or about 1961," explains the complaint.

Taitz said she will attend the hearing to amend the temporary restraining order to an injunction because more members of the military have joined the cause.

"We are going to be asking for release of Obama's records because now this completely undermines the military. It revoked this order, but it can come up with another order tomorrow. It can come up with orders for other people," she said. "Am I going to be flying around the country 1,000 times and paying the fees every time they issue an order?"

Defendant Col. Wanda Good filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiff's action for a temporary restraining order "for lack of jurisdiction" today.

"This case no longer presents a live case or controversy, nor does Major Cook have standing to pursue his claim," it states, "therefore, the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over his claims and they should be dismissed."

It continued, "The Commanding General of SOCCENT has determined that he does not want the services of Major Cook, and has revoked his deployment orders. .. Without mobilization orders, Major Cook lacks standing to pursue his claims."

But Taitz said the issue "must be resolved immediately," and she will continue working to ensure Obama proves he is eligible for office.

"We're going to be asking the judge to issue an order for Obama to provide his vital records to show he is legitimately president," she said. "We're going to say, we have orders every day, and we'll have revocations every day. This issue has to be decided."

She said there cannot be any harm to the president if he is legitimately holding office.

"If he is legitimate, then his vital records will prove it," Taitz said. "If he is illegitimate, then he should not have been there in the first place."

Asked what this decision means for every other serviceman who objects to deployment under a president who has not proven he is eligible for office, Taitz responded:

"Now, we can have each and every member of the military – each and every enlistee and officer – file something similar saying 'I will not take orders until Obama is legitimately vetted.'"

Multiple questions have been raised about what that would mean to the 2008 election, to the orders and laws Obama has signed and other issues, including whether he then is a valid commander-in-chief of the military.

The mystery letter

Obama has maintained he was born in Hawaii, and at least one hospital, Honolulu's Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children, claims it received a letter from the president declaring his birth there.

As WND reported, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to confirm that the letter which was used by the hospital to solicit donations is, in fact, a real correspondence.

When WND exposed doubts about the authenticity of the letter because it was created with HTML computer code and had no presidential or White House seal, the hospital which for nearly six months proudly declared Obama was born at its facility commenced an active cover-up, hiding that White House letter from its original webpage and refusing to confirm such a letter actually exists.

WND also reported that just within the last week, at least two reports have cited Obama's birth in Kenya. Wikipedia also was found to have been reporting on Obama's birth in Kenya, before a series of scrubs placed his birth in Honolulu.

And that came on the heels of several online information sites changing the president's supposed birthplace from one hospital in Hawaii to another, after WND broke the news of the letter said to be from the White House.


Barack Obama states in this purported letter from him on what appears to be White House stationery that he was born at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu. The letter was posted by the medical center for nearly six months on its website and used for fundraising before electronically hidden once WND disclosed it was not an actual paper letter, but merely HTML coding. The hospital and White House now refuse to confirm that a real document even exists.

The question over Obama's eligibility now also is being raised on billboards nationwide.




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Israeli navy in Suez Canal prepares for potential attack on Iran - Times Online

Israeli navy in Suez Canal prepares for potential attack on Iran - Times Online

Two Israeli missile class warships have sailed through the Suez Canal ten days after a submarine capable of launching a nuclear missile strike, in preparation for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The deployment into the Red Sea, confirmed by Israeli officials, was a clear signal that Israel was able to put its strike force within range of Iran at short notice. It came before long-range exercises by the Israeli air force in America later this month and the test of a missile defence shield at a US missile range in the Pacific Ocean.



Israel has strengthened ties with Arab nations who also fear a nuclear-armed Iran. In particular, relations with Egypt have grown increasingly strong this year over the “shared mutual distrust of Iran”, according to one Israeli diplomat. Israeli naval vessels would likely pass through the Suez Canal for an Iranian strike.

“This is preparation that should be taken seriously. Israel is investing time in preparing itself for the complexity of an attack on Iran. These manoeuvres are a message to Iran that Israel will follow up on its threats,” an Israeli defence official said.

It is believed that Israel’s missile-equipped submarines, and its fleet of advanced aircraft, could be used to strike at in excess of a dozen nuclear-related targets more than 800 miles from Israel.

Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, said that his Government explicitly allowed passage of Israeli vessels, and an Israeli admiral said that the drills were “run regularly with the full co-operation of the Egyptians.”

Two Israeli Saar class missile boats and a Dolphin class submarine have passed through Suez. Israel has six Dolphin-class submarines, three of which are widely believed to carry nuclear missiles.

Israel will also soon test an Arrow interceptor missile on a US missile range in the Pacific Ocean. The system is designed to defend Israel from ballistic missile attacks by Iran and Syria. Lieutenant-General Patrick O’Reilly, the director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defence Agency, said that Israel would test against a target with a range of more than 630 miles (1,000km) — too long for previous Arrow test sites in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Israeli air force, meanwhile, will send F16C fighter jets to participate in exercises at Nellis Air Force base in Nevada this month. Israeli C130 Hercules transport aircraft will also compete in the Rodeo 2009 competition at McChord Air Force base in Washington.

“It is not by chance that Israel is drilling long-range manoeuvres in a public way. This is not a secret operation. This is something that has been published and which will showcase Israel’s abilities,” said an Israeli defence official.

He added that in the past, Israel had run a number of covert long-range drills. A year ago, Israeli jets flew over Greece in one such drill, while in May, reports surfaced that Israeli air force aircraft were staging exercises over Gibraltar. An Israeli attack on a weapons convoy in Sudan bound for militants in the Gaza Strip earlier this year was also seen as a rehearsal for hitting moving convoys.

The exercises come at a time when Western diplomats are offering support for an Israeli strike on Iran in return for Israeli concessions on the formation of a Palestinian state.

If agreed it would make an Israeli strike on Iran realistic “within the year” said one British official.

Diplomats said that Israel had offered concessions on settlement policy, Palestinian land claims and issues with neighboring Arab states, to facilitate a possible strike on Iran.

“Israel has chosen to place the Iranian threat over its settlements,” said a senior European diplomat.


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Report: Stokes County NAACP President Arrested on Sex Charges - WGHP

Report: Stokes County NAACP President Arrested on Sex Charges - WGHP

The president of the Stokes County NAACP chapter was arrested Monday and charged with several sex crimes, the Stokes County News reported.

Larry Lash, 54, of Walnut Cove, was taken into custody at his residence on Old Highway 65 and charged with six counts of statutory rape or sexual offense, two counts of intercourse and sexual offense, two counts of first-degree sexual offense and two counts of incest.



Larry Lash

Larry Lash (July 15, 2009)



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Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

Another Ethics Complaint Rejected

July 15, 2009, Anchorage, Alaska - The Alaska Personnel Board has rejected another ethics complaint lodged against Governor Sarah Palin.

The complaint alleged that the governor misused state time by accepting media interviews. The complaint also alleged that Governor Palin was paid for television and radio interviews. Governor Palin has not been paid for media interviews.

This complaint was filed by Raymond Alvin Ward on July 9. It was rejected in part because it was not properly notarized. In addition, Personnel Board Chairman Debra English said the board had already determined media interviews did not violate the Ethics Act. Ward lacked evidence to support his allegation that the governor received any payment for media interviews.



Governor Palin's attorney, Thomas Van Flein, responded to the dismissal saying, "The board has appropriately determined that a complaint must have a factual basis of some type and that complaints based on pure speculation are not proper. This most recent complaint demonstrates the problem with the system, and the manner in which it can be abused."

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OBAMA WILL REPEAL MEDICARE at DickMorris.com

OBAMA WILL REPEAL MEDICARE at DickMorris.com

Obama’s health care proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program as we know it. The elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the least access. Indeed, the principal impact of the Obama health care program will be to reduce sharply the medical services the elderly can use. No longer will their every medical need be met, their every medication prescribed, their every need to improve their quality of life answered.

It is so ironic that the elderly - who were so vigilant when Bush proposed to change Social Security - are so relaxed about the Obama health care proposals. Bush’s Social Security plan, which did not cut their benefits at all, aroused the strongest opposition among the elderly. But Obama’s plan, which will totally gut Medicare and replace it with government-managed care and rationing, has elicited little more than a yawn from most senior citizens.

It’s time for the elderly to wake up before it is too late!


In our new book, Catastrophe, we explain - in detail and in depth - the consequences the elderly of Canada are feeling from just this kind of program. Limited colonoscopies have led to a 25% higher rate of colon cancer and a ban on the use of the two best chemotherapies are part of the reason why 42% of Canadians with colon cancer die while 31% of Americans, who have access to these two medications, survive the disease.

Overall, the death rate from cancer in Canada is 16% higher than in the United States and the heart disease mortality rate is 6% above ours’.

Under Obama’s program, there will be a government health insurance company that gets huge subsidies of tax money. It will compete with private insurance plans. But the subsidies will let it undercut the private plans and drive them out of business, leaving only the government plan - a single payer - in effect.

Today, 800,000 doctors struggle to treat adequately the 250 million Americans who have insurance. Obama will add 50 million more to their caseload with no expansion in the number of doctors or nurses. Indeed, his plan will likely reduce their number by lowering reimbursement rates and imposing bureaucrats above them who will force medical decisions down their throats. Fewer doctors will have to treat more patients. The inevitable result will be rationing.

And it is the elderly who rationing will most effect. Who should get a knee replacement a 40 year old or a 70 year old? Who should get a new hip, a young person or an old person? Who should have priority in the operating room a seventy year old diabetic who needs bypass surgery or a younger person? Obviously, it is the elderly who will get short shrift under his proposal.

But the interest groups that usually speak up for the elderly, particularly AARP, are in Obama’s pocket, hoping to profit from his program by becoming one of its vendors. Just as they backed Bush’s prescription drug plan because they anticipating profiting from it, so they are now helping Obama gut the medical care of their constituents.

It is high time that the elderly of America realized what the stakes are in this vital fight to preserve Medicare as we know it and keep medical care open, accessible, and free to those over 65. It is truly a battle for their very lives.


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YouTube - BAAAMM!!—Fox News Covers Obama's Citizenship and Birth Certificate Issue

YouTube - BAAAMM!!—Fox News Covers Obama's Citizenship and Birth Certificate Issue

BAAAMM!!—Fox News Covers Obama's Citizenship and Birth Certificate Issue

Video 1:45





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YouTube - Fred Thompson on SCOTUS hearings

YouTube - Fred Thompson on SCOTUS hearings

Fred Thompson on SCOTUS hearings
Fred Thompson is 100% correct.

audio 2:40





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SOMALIA: Mogadishu battle "marks turning point"

SOMALIA: Mogadishu battle "marks turning point"

NAIROBI, 15 July 2009 (IRIN) - Al-Shabab, Somalia's Islamist opposition group, has suffered its first serious military setback in fighting in the capital, Mogadishu, giving the government a much-needed morale boost, say analysts.

"Whether the tide has turned against them is too early to tell but they have taken a beating [in fighting on 12 July]," a Somali observer, who requested anonymity, said.

Clashes between the Islamist insurgents and the forces of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, backed by African Union (AU) peacekeeping troops, known as AMISOM, reportedly left at least 51 people dead and injured 212, locals said.

"Most of those who died [on 12 July] were combatants,” Ali Sheikh Yassin, deputy chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Organization, told IRIN.

Other sources said the insurgents lost significant territory. "They have been pushed from a number of neighbourhoods in north Mogadishu which they had controlled," said one.



“Silver lining”

The Somali observer said groups such as Al-Shabab were not known to care how many [fighters] they lost in a given battle, but the setback may have “a silver lining to bring to the fore differences of strategy and approach within them and between them and their allies Hisbul-Islami [led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a former ally of President Ahmed]”.

The observer said some parts of the opposition had argued that since they controlled most of the country, the fighting should stop to allow people to return home.

“This group favours dialogue with the government from a position of strength,” he said, adding that “there are some who even want to talk, not only to the government, but to the international community”.

The more radical elements insist they could remove the government by force “within days”.

“Sunday [12 July] reinforces the position of those who favour some sort of dialogue," the observer said. "How the government uses this opportunity is a different matter."

He said if the government were to take advantage of the opposition's setback it needed to put its house in order. "The first it [the government] must do is bring its forces under one command. There are at least three or four militia fighting on the government side with no central command."

The government must also restart dialogue with those in the opposition willing to talk, he added.

Labour Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayir, who is also acting Minister of Information, said the government “never wanted more fighting but was forced into it. While [Sunday's] fighting was regrettable, it was necessary. For over two months, we have been under attack. We must deal with these anti-peace elements."

Jaw-jaw not war-war

However, Hayir said the government would still pursue reconciliation.

"We are still open to dialogue with those willing to talk," he said. "Any grievances they have can be and should be resolved through dialogue. We are hopeful that after Sunday many will realize they will never achieve anything through the barrel of the gun.

“This was an opportunity for them [some of the opposition] to re-evaluate their positions.”

However, Timothy Othieno, a regional analyst at the London-based Overseas Development Institute, told IRIN the fighting and reported capture of foreign combatants “may not drastically change the situation”.

He said the reported involvement of AU troops could complicate “AMISOM's position as an impartial player in Somalia and it will be interesting to see how they [AMISOM] rectify their position”.

Othieno said there was always a question over AMISOM's neutrality and it was just a matter of time before it was drawn into the war with the militant groups.

"Therefore, this latest situation does actually highlight the precarious position AMISOM peacekeepers in Somalia find themselves in," he added.

However, a Somali journalist in Mogadishu said the fighting was "a turning point for AMISOM, the government and the insurgents”.

For the government, the journalist said, AMISOM's involvement showed that with a little help, "they can actually push back these guys [Al-Shabab]", adding that Al-Shabab now knows that "the international community was serious when it said it will support the government”.

He added: "I think there is going to be a lot of re-evaluation by all sides."

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Russia outwitted U.S. strategic defenses with missile test

Russia outwitted U.S. strategic defenses with missile test

13:3315/07/2009 MOSCOW, July 15 (RIA Novosti) - The United States was unable to detect the presence of Russian strategic submarines in the Arctic before they test-launched two ballistic missiles, a Russian intelligence source said on Wednesday.

Russia carried out test launches of two Sineva intercontinental ballistic missiles from two Delta IV class nuclear-powered submarines, located near the North Pole, on July 13-14.

"The American radars certainly detected the missile launches but their location took them by surprise," the source said.



The first missile, flying a ballistic path, hit its designated target at the Kura testing grounds on the Kamchatka Peninsula, while the second, fired with a flat trajectory, destroyed a target at the Chizha testing site on the White Sea.

The source said that the launch area, covered by ice floe, was heavily patrolled by Russian attack submarines and the Americans were unable to detect the arrival of two strategic submarines before the launch.

"At the same time, U.S. reconnaissance satellites are unable to detect submarines under thick ice floe in the Arctic," he said.

The region around the North Pole is a perfect place for launches of ballistic missiles because it allows the submarines to arrive in a designated area undetected and to shorten the missile flight time to the target.

The RSM-54 Sineva (NATO designation SS-N-23 Skiff) is a third-generation liquid-propellant intercontinental ballistic missile that entered service with the Russian Navy in July 2007. It can carry four or 10 nuclear warheads, depending on the modification.

Russia plans to equip its Delta IV class submarines with at least 100 Sineva missiles.

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Video: Senator Graham grills Sotomayor over “wise Latina”

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Iran's nuclear program : 'They can set off a bomb within six months' - Politik - STERN.DE

Iran's nuclear program : 'They can set off a bomb within six months' - Politik - STERN.DE

It is one of the central questions for Western governments dealing with Iran: How close is the regime to a nuclear bomb? According to stern magazine they have nearly reached their aim. Experts from the Bundesnachrichtendienst, the German Foreign Intelligence Service, claim that Iran will be able to set off an atomic bomb within a few months.



Iran will soon be able to produce atomic bombs and to perform underground nuclear testing, just as North Korea has done, experts in the German Foreign Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND) have told the weekly, Hamburg-based news magazine stern. "If they want to, they will be able to set off a uranium bomb within six months," a BND-expert is quoted in the latest edition of stern magazine to be published on Thursday. Picking up the stern-report, Reuters on Wednesday reported falsely, the BND had denied the claims. The BND did not deny the stern report.

Iran has by now mastered the entire nuclear enrichment technology and also possesses enough centrifuges to produce weapons-grade uranium, reports the BND according to stern. "Nobody would have thought this possible some years ago," an expert said. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria, Iran has installed more than 7000 centrifuges at the nuclear power plant in Natanz. The 4290 of them in operation at the beginning of June had enriched at least 1.3 tons of uranium - enough for one to two nuclear bombs.

As reported by stern, Iran is focussing on building missiles capable of transporting nuclear bombs to targets as far as Europe. According to a senior BND official, these efforts are pursued "with massive intensity". The German Foreign Intelligence Service has "no doubt" that the missile program in Iran is "exclusively" aimed at the production of atomic warheads. However, it is said be another three years before Teheran will be capable of producing suitable ballistic missiles.

Research conducted by stern magazine shows that the necessary missile components are being obtained through a massive network of dummy companies. According to the BND, it is headed by "one of the most wanted men of the world" - the Iranian Said Mohammad Hosseinian. The magazine reports that several German companies are also involved.
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My Way News - Budget deficit tops $1 trillion for first time

My Way News - Budget deficit tops $1 trillion for first time

WASHINGTON - The federal deficit has topped $1 trillion for the first time ever and could grow to nearly $2 trillion by this fall, intensifying fears about higher interest rates, inflation and the strength of the dollar.

The deficit has been widened by the huge sum the government has spent to ease the recession, combined with a sharp decline in tax revenues. The cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also is a major factor.

The soaring deficit is making Chinese and other foreign buyers of U.S. debt nervous, which could make them reluctant lenders down the road. It could also force the Treasury Department to pay higher interest rates to make U.S. debt attractive longer-term.

"These are mind-boggling numbers," said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at the Smith School of Business at California State University. "Our foreign investors from China and elsewhere are starting to have concerns about not only the value of the dollar but how safe their investments will be in the long run."



The Treasury Department said Monday that the deficit in June totaled $94.3 billion, pushing the total since the budget year started in October to $1.09 trillion. The administration forecasts that the deficit for the entire year will hit $1.84 trillion in October.

Government spending is on the rise to address the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and an unemployment rate that has climbed to 9.5 percent.

Congress already approved a $700 billion financial bailout for banks, automakers and other sectors, and a $787 billion economic stimulus package to try to jump-start a recovery. Outlays through the first nine months of this budget year total $2.67 trillion, up 20.5 percent from the same period a year ago.

There is growing talk among some Obama administration officials that a second round of stimulus may eventually be necessary.

That has many Republicans and deficit hawks worried that the U.S. could be setting itself up for more financial pain down the road if interest rates and inflation surge. They also are raising alarms about additional spending the administration is proposing, including its plan to reform health care.

President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner have said the U.S. is committed to bringing down the deficits once the economy and financial sector recover. The Obama administration has set a goal of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office.

In the meantime, the U.S. debt now stands at $11.5 trillion. Interest payments on the debt cost $452 billion last year - the largest federal spending category after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security and defense.

The overall debt is now slightly more than 80 percent of the annual output of the entire U.S. economy, as measured by the gross domestic product. During World War II, it briefly rose to 120 percent of GDP.

The debt is largely financed by the sale of Treasury bonds and bills.

Many private economists say the administration had no choice but to take aggressive action during the financial crisis.

"We have a deep recession hammering tax revenues and forcing the government to provide a lot of help to the economy," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "But without this help, the downturn would be even more severe."

History shows the dangers of assuming too soon that economic downturns have ended.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt made that mistake in 1936. Believing the Depression largely over, he sought to reduce public spending and to balance the federal budget, but that undermined a fragile recovery, pushing the economy back under water in 1937.

Japanese leaders made a similar mistake in the 1990s when they temporarily withdrew government stimulus spending, prolonging Japan's recession into one that lasted a full decade.

Republicans in Congress are seizing on the deficit - and the persistence of the recession - to attack Democrats.

"Washington Democrats keep borrowing and spending money we don't have," said House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

So far, interest rates have remained low.

This is partly because the Federal Reserve has kept a key short-term rate at a record near zero. Also, all the economic troubles in housing and the rest of the economy have depressed demand for credit by the private sector, meaning the government's borrowing costs are relatively low.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury security has risen by about a percentage point in recent weeks, but analysts note it is still trading at historically low levels of around 3.35 percent.

Geithner travels later this week to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where he is expected to face questions about the U.S. deficit. As he did during a visit to China last month, Geithner will try to reassure investors in the Middle East that their U.S. holdings are safe from a calamitous bout of inflation.

The deficit of $1.09 trillion so far this year compares to an imbalance of $285.85 billion through the same period a year ago. The deficit for the 2008 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, was $454.8 billion, the current record in dollar terms.

Revenues so far this year total $1.59 trillion, down 17.9 percent from a year ago, reflecting higher unemployment, which cuts into payroll taxes and corporate tax receipts.

Under the administration's budget estimates, the $1.84 trillion deficit for this year will be followed by a $1.26 trillion deficit in 2010, and will never dip below $500 billion over the next decade. The administration estimates the deficits will total $7.1 trillion from 2010 to 2019.

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The Tax Foundation - If Health Surtax Is 5.4 Percent, Taxpayers in 39 States Would Pay a Top Tax Rate Over 50%

The Tax Foundation - If Health Surtax Is 5.4 Percent, Taxpayers in 39 States Would Pay a Top Tax Rate Over 50%

If Health Surtax Is 5.4 Percent, Taxpayers in 39 States Would Pay a Top Tax Rate Over 50%

by TF Staff

Fiscal Fact No. 178

Introduction
New taxes to fund the federal government's plan for higher health insurance spending continue to be debated in Washington. According to a new Bloomberg report, the top surtax rate will be 5.4 percent in the House plan.[i] That will be the top rate in a three-tiered surtax aimed at high-income tax returns:

1 percent surtax on AGI between $350,000 and $500,000 (singles between $280,000 and $400,000)

1.5 percent surtax on AGI between $500,000 and $1,000,000 (singles between $400,000 and $800,000)

5.4 percent surtax on AGI beyond $1,000,000 (singles beyond $800,000)

States have been raising taxes on this same group, leading to concern over how high the combined tax rates would be in each state, especially in the growing number of states with double-digit tax rates. Some commentators merely sum the rates at the federal, state and local level to give a statutory total tax rate. A more accurate method is to calculate the effective marginal tax rate, which takes into consideration deductions and adjustments.

In Table 1 below we present calculations of the effective marginal tax rate on top earners. We assume that the current state and local income tax rates will remain through 2011, the top federal taxable income rate will rise as scheduled to 39.6 percent, and a new House plan for 5.4 percent surtax on AGI earned at very high-income levels will become law.



Table 1
Top Effective Marginal Rates under Proposed Health Care Surtax by State
Sorted by Combined Top Tax Rate in 2011

State

Avg. Local Rate

Top
State Rate (2011)

Top Federal Ordinary Rate

New
Surtax

Medicare
Tax

Combined
Top Rate

Rank

Oregon

0.36%

11.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

57.54%

1

Hawaii

0.00%

11.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

57.22%

2

New York^

1.70%

8.97%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

56.92%

3

California

0.00%

10.30%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

56.58%

4

Rhode Island

0.00%

9.90%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

56.22%

5

Vermont

0.00%

9.40%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

55.77%

6

Maryland

2.98%

6.25%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

55.61%

7

New Jersey

0.09%

8.97%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

55.46%

8

Minnesota

0.00%

7.85%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

54.36%

9

Idaho

0.00%

7.80%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

54.32%

10

North Carolina

0.00%

7.75%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

54.27%

11

Wisconsin

0.00%

7.75%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

54.27%

11

Ohio

1.82%

5.93%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

54.27%

13

Delaware

0.16%

6.95%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

53.69%

14

Arkansas

0.06%

7.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

53.65%

15

South Carolina

0.00%

7.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

53.59%

16

Maine

0.00%

6.85%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

53.46%

17

Nebraska

0.00%

6.84%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

53.45%

18

Kentucky

0.76%

6.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

53.37%

19

West Virginia

0.00%

6.50%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

53.14%

20

Kansas

0.00%

6.45%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

53.09%

21

Missouri

0.12%

6.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

52.79%

22

Georgia

0.00%

6.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

52.69%

23

Virginia

0.00%

5.75%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

52.46%

24

Oklahoma

0.00%

5.50%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

52.23%

25

Massachusetts

0.00%

5.30%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

52.05%

26

Connecticut

0.00%

5.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

51.78%

27

Mississippi

0.00%

5.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

51.78%

27

Utah

0.00%

5.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

51.78%

27

New Mexico

0.00%

4.90%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

51.69%

30

North Dakota

0.00%

4.86%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

51.65%

31

Iowa

0.30%

8.98%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

51.61%

32

Michigan

0.44%

4.35%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

51.59%

33

Colorado

0.00%

4.63%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

51.44%

34

Indiana

1.16%

3.40%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

51.38%

35

Arizona

0.00%

4.54%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

51.36%

36

Pennsylvania

1.25%

3.07%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

51.16%

37

Montana

0.00%

6.90%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

50.48%

38

Louisiana

0.00%

6.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

50.05%

39

Illinois

0.00%

3.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

49.97%

40

Alabama

0.19%

5.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

49.67%

41

Alaska

0.00%

0.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

47.25%

42

Florida

0.00%

0.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

47.25%

42

Nevada

0.00%

0.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

47.25%

42

New Hampshire

0.00%

0.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

47.25%

42

South Dakota

0.00%

0.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

47.25%

42

Tennessee

0.00%

0.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

47.25%

42

Texas

0.00%

0.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

47.25%

42

Washington

0.00%

0.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

47.25%

42

Wyoming

0.00%

0.00%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

47.25%

42


District of Columbia

0.00%

8.50%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

54.95%

New York City^

3.65%

8.97%

39.6%

5.4%

2.9%

58.68%

Source: Tax Foundation calculations, State Individual Income Tax Rates

Note: The rightmost column, Combined Top Rate, is the top effective marginal rate, taking into account deductions and adjustments, and therefore does not equal the sum of the first four rates.


Technical Notes
To calculate marginal effective tax rate, we add the weighted average of local tax rates in the state based upon 2009 State Business Climate Index to top state tax rate and to the top federal rate as scheduled to be in effect in 2011 under current law and under Obama's budget (39.6 percent), plus a 5.4 percent surtax and the top Medicare tax rate for the self-employed. We allowed for a deduction of the state and local tax rate (20 percent thereof assuming limitation on itemized deduction returns and taxpayer is outside the phase-out range) and the adjustment allowed against income from 1/2 self-employment tax (on both state/local and federal returns). For those few states that allow federal deductibility at high income levels, such a deduction was included in the calculation as well. New York City's rate merely includes the state rate plus the city rate. Maine, New Jersey and California currently have top state tax rates higher than the 2011 scheduled rate in the table above. For some other states that have recently enacted temporary increases to the top rate (e.g. Oregon), the rate would fall after 2011.

The Washington Post article explicitly said that the 1 percent surtax would kick in for singles on AGI higher than $280,000. That is 80 percent of the married threshold, so although we have no documented source for singles' thresholds for the 1.5 and 5.4 percent brackets, we assume they are also 80 percent of the married threshold.

These are not the highest possible marginal tax rates that a taxpayer can face. Our local rates are weighted averages, so in some towns and counties, the local rates can be significantly higher. Also, at some income levels for different types of taxpayers, due to the phase-outs of various tax credits, exemptions or deductions, effective marginal tax rates can be extremely high. Also, if one wanted to include the fact that many low-income transfer programs are means-tested and have phase-out ranges (or in some cases mere cliffs), the marginal disincentive to work can be very high. For more on this issue, see Kotlikoff and Rapson


[i] The Tax Foundation released an initial Fiscal Fact on Friday, July 10, using a 4% surtax rate, which would have put 33 states over the 50% total tax rate threshold. A revision late Friday used a 3% rate, per an announcement by the Ways and Means Committee, which put 24 states over the 50% level.



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Rangel Health Care Surtax Would Push Top Tax Rates Over 50% in 24 States | Editorial

Rangel Health Care Surtax Would Push Top Tax Rates Over 50% in 24 States | Editorial

Three-Tiered Surtax Targets Couples Earning More Than $350,000, Singles Over $280,000

TaxFoundation.org

Washington, DC- An updated Tax Foundation analysis shows that 24 states would see top tax rates exceed 50% under a health care funding plan introduced over the weekend by House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY).


The latest proposal being debated on Capitol Hill would impose a surtax of 1 percent on married couples with adjusted gross incomes (AGI) between $350,000 and $500,000 (individuals with incomes between $280,000 and $400,000); 1.5 percent on couples with incomes between $500,000 and $1 million (singles earning between $400,000 and $800,000); and 3 percent on couples earning more than $1 million (singles beyond $800,000).


The Tax Foundation released an initial report Friday based on another plan that had been floated that included a 4 percent surtax.

"Nearly half of all states
will face top tax rates over 50%," Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge said. "That means government would be taking more than half of every additional dollar from high-income taxpayers. The lowest top tax rate would be about 45% - and that's in the nine states that don't tax wages."

Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 176, "If Health Surtax Is 3 Percent, Taxpayers in 24 States Would Pay a Top Tax Rate Over 50%," may be found online at http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/24848.html.


The hardest-hit states would be Oregon (55.2%), Hawaii (54.9%), New Jersey (54.7%), New York (54.6%), California (54.4%), Rhode Island (53.9%), Vermont (53.4%), Maryland (53.3%), Minnesota (52.0%), and Idaho (52.0%). Washington, DC, and New York City both would see their top effective marginal rates rise to 52.6%. The effective marginal tax rate takes into consideration deductions and adjustments in order to present a truer measure of an individual's rate.

Top tax rates in the other 26 states range from 44.9% to 50%.

Tying federal health care expansion to unstable sources of funding such as these so-called 'millionaires' taxes' is a recipe for revenue disaster," Hodge said. "As we have seen time and again, boom-time revenue explosions inevitably give way to budget-shortfall busts."

The Tax Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has monitored fiscal policy at the federal, state and local levels since 1937.

###

Fiscal Fact No. 176 can be found

at http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/24848.html.

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Family Security Matters » Publications » Don’t Shoot Back at Taliban Terrorists! Obama’s First Military Order.

Family Security Matters » Publications » Don’t Shoot Back at Taliban Terrorists! Obama’s First Military Order.

Don’t shoot back!

Don’t pick the poppies!

And don’t bother the women and men in burkas!

These are the new rules of engagement for leathernecks in Afghanistan.

Sound incredible?

They’re true.

Welcome to the modern Marine Corps under Commander-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama.



On July 1st, the U.S. military initiated Operation Khanjar or “Strike of the Sword,” an invasion of the Helmand Province by 4,000 Marines and 650 Afghan soldiers.

“Strike of the Sword” represents the first military operation to be ordered by President Obama.

The purpose of the campaign is to flush out Taliban operatives from southern Afghanistan in order to safeguard the re-election of Afghan President Hamid Karzai on August 20th.

The military initiative is being conducted by the insistence of Kharzai, who fears that a strong Taliban presence will produce unfavorable results for him on election-day.

To accomplish this objective, President Obama remains determined to deploy 68,000 additional U.S. troops to southern Afghanistan within the next six weeks.

But the Marines, thanks to Mr. Obama, are conducting this mission with their hands tied.
The first order from America’s new commander is that the Marines must not return enemy fire for fear of killing an Afghan non-combatant.

ABC Correspondent Mike Boettcher, who is embedded with Golf Company, reports that the young Marines, when ambushed by Taliban forces with automatic weapons, were ordered to shoulder their rifles. Their command, Boettcher writes, warned them that “one civilian casualty could negate the No. 1 objective of this operation – winning the trust and respect of the farmers of the Helmand River Valley.”

How are the Marines expected to win the trust and respect of the farmers?

By not disturbing the opium poppy fields which remain in full bloom.

The Marines of Bravo’s Company 1st Platoon sleep beside groves of poppies Troops of the 2nd Platoon walk through the fields on strict orders not to swat the heavy opium bulbs. The Afghan farmers and laborers, who are engaged in scraping the resin from the bulbs, smile and wave at the passing soldiers.

The Helmand province is the world’s largest cultivator of opium poppies – the crop used to make heroin.

Afghanistan grew 93 percent of the world’s poppy crop last year, with Helmand alone responsible for more than half of the opium production in the country, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Heroin, as it turns out, represents the only staple of the Afghan economy. The country manufactures no domestic products for exportation and the rocky terrain yields no cash crops – except, of course, the poppies.

The poppies fuel the great Jihad against the United States and the Western world. More than 3,500 tons of raw opium is gleaned from the poppy crops every year, producing annual revenues for the Taliban and al Qaeda that range from $5 billion to $16 billion.
Destroying the fields could very well put an end to terrorist activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But the Obama Administration remains intent upon protecting the poppies so that the Afghan farmers and local drug lords can reap the benefits of what purports to be a bumper crop.

Many Marines in the field are scratching their heads over the situation.

Jason Striuszko a journalist embedded with the U.S. Marines in Garmser, reports that many of the leathernecks are scratching their heads at the apparent contradictions — calling in airstrikes and artillery on the elusive Taliban while assuring farmers and drug lords that they will protect the poppies.

“Of course,” Striuszko says, “those fields will be harvested and some money likely used to help fuel the Taliban, and the Marines are thinking, essentially, ‘huh?’”

“It’s kind of weird. We’re coming over here to fight the Taliban. We see this. We know it’s bad. But at the same time we know it’s the only way locals can make money,” said 1st Lt. Adam Lynch, 27, of Barnstable, Mass.

Richard Holbrooke, the Obama Administration’s top envoy in Afghanistan, says that poppy eradication – for years a cornerstone of U.S. and UN anti-drug efforts in the country – has only resulted in driving Afghan farmers into the hands of the Taliban.
The new approach, Holbrooke maintains, will try to wean the farmers of the lucrative cash crop by giving them help to grow other produce, like wheat, corn and pomegranates.

Fat chance.

Most of the 33,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan operate in the east, where the poppy problem is not as great. But the 2,400-strong 24th Marines, have taken the field in this southern growing region during harvest season.

An expert on Afghanistan’s drug trade, Barnett Rubin, complained that the Marines are being put in such a situation by a “one-dimensional” military policy that fails to integrate political and economic considerations into long-range planning.

“All we hear is, not enough troops, send more troops,” said Rubin, a professor at New York University. “Then you send in troops with no capacity for assistance, no capacity for development, no capacity for aid, no capacity for governance.”

Staff Sgt. Jeremy Stover, whose platoon is sleeping beside a poppy crop planted in the interior courtyard of a mud-walled compound, said the Marines’ mission is to get rid of the “bad guys,” and “the locals aren’t the bad guys.”

“Poppy fields in Afghanistan are the cornfields of Ohio,” said Stover, 28, of Marion, Ohio. “When we got here they were asking us if it’s OK to harvest poppy and we said, ‘Yeah, just don’t use an AK-47.’”

And the third order from Commander Obama, who has never spent a day in uniform (not even as a Boy Scout), is that no enlisted man must ever question or detain, let alone stop and search, any Afghani in a burka.

Even glancing at a Muslim woman, the young Marines are told, is a grievous offense in the Islamic world.

This order has resulted in Taliban militants escaping from the clutches of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade on July 8th.

Members of the Brigade had managed to trap the Taliban fighters in a mud compound within the village of Khan Neshin, about 60 miles north of the Pakistani border.

With the help of a translator and a village elder, the Marines, under orders from their commanders, persuaded the trapped insurgents to free the women and children in their custody.

Within minutes, according Afghan Army Commander Mahaiddin Ghorr, 30 to 40 figures in full burkas emerged from the mud – some holding the hands of children – and sauntered off into the hills.

When the Marines entered the compound an hour or so later, the place was empty.
The latest military operation has resulted in the relocation of Taliban fighters to the western and northern provinces.

This has prompted complaints from German and Italian commanders who now must deal with hundreds of enemy combatants.

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PRUDEN: Franken, a clown for all seasons, arrives in time - Washington Times

PRUDEN: Franken, a clown for all seasons, arrives in time - Washington Times

We've never had an Official U.S. Senate Pornographer before, though pornographic behavior is frequently the entertainment provided to the public by the world's oldest deliberative body. So Al Franken, the answer to Harry Reid's prayer, should fit right in.

Some of the Democrats can't wait to see what mischief they can do. "With the Minnesota recount complete," Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said after the Minnesota robbery was completed, "it is now clear that Al Franken won the election."

Actually, it wasn't clear at all, but clarity is never valued among thieves. The Democrats in the Senate were eager to get Al seated quickly, both for crucial Senate votes coming up and because once seated among his equals, a bum is difficult to throw out.

There's honor among the members of our only native criminal class, similar to the honor among robbers, burglars and other servants of the night. The difference, and it's only a slight one, is that robbers, burglars and thieves often hold themselves to higher standards than members of Congress.



Given their handsome majority in the Senate, the Democrats shouldn't have trouble confirming Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, regardless of whether the senorita is "wiser" than white folks, as she assures us she is, or not quite ready for prime time, as her record on the appeals court suggests.

The first day of hearings on her nomination was the expected partisan patty-cake, full of the hot air and empty bravado that makes July in Washington such a treat. Democratic senators spoke of her as the incarnation of John Marshall and Learned Hand, or at least the equal of David Souter. Republican senators weren't so sure, but made it clear they have no stomach for making the hearings "a teaching moment." The Constitution is such a bore for so many of our congressional worthies.

Patty-cake or not, it's nice to have the pornographer's 60th vote at the ready. Harry Reid will need Sen. Franken's vote first for the global-warming legislation, only narrowly passed by the House. The 20-vote margin is nice but cannot necessarily prevent a Republican filibuster, provided the Republicans in the Senate could even find the grit and gumption to mount one. As many as 15 Democrats are thought to be wary of voting for the cap-and-trade tax, fearing retribution from constituents who are waking up to a monumental scam. They're not at all eager to say "yes, ma'am" and fall in line just because Barbara Boxer of California warns that if the Senate doesn't pass the bill "there will be dire results: droughts, floods, fires, loss of species, damage to agriculture, worsening air pollution and more." It's difficult to imagine what "more" there could be after all those droughts, floods, fires and such. More lady senators like Mzz Boxer, perhaps.

After that, if any of us are still alive, there's the health care legislation to consider. The White House wants a vote in September, and you can understand the hurry. Like the global-warming legislation, the health care plan, whatever its dire details turn out to be, will evaporate under the glare of close examination.

The theft of Norman Coleman's Senate seat was remarkably brazen for the way it was done in broad daylight. The techniques of such thievery are peculiar to the various states. Mary Landrieu stole her seat in Louisiana, but authentic fraud shock is rare in Louisiana, and Huey Long didn't bother to roll to either right or left in his grave. Lyndon Johnson got to the Senate on the strength of a single ballot box in remote Jim Wells County, where he kept going back for more votes until he had the 87 ballots he needed to steal the election from Gov. Coke Stevenson.

But Minnesota imagines itself to be more high minded than Louisiana or Texas, even if the rest of us don't. One member of the Minnesota canvassing board, a state Supreme Court justice, conceded that some ballots were probably counted twice, but he said there was not much anybody could do about it. In more than 25 precincts, officials counted more ballots than actual voters; this was put down to well-meant enthusiasm. If everyone has a duty to vote, who could scold a voter for going above and beyond the call of duty?

Al Franken's vote is not likely to be the margin of victory for any of the schemes now being dreamed up by the Democrats, but the way he got to Washington, and the easy acceptance of fraud, will be remembered as typical of the times, an era when avarice reigned, and the clever swindle was a joke to be played by a clown.

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NWV News - Sarah Foster -- Climate Bill Spells "Skyrocketing" Energy Rates, Unemployment, Less Freedom

NWV News - Sarah Foster -- Climate Bill Spells "Skyrocketing" Energy Rates, Unemployment, Less Freedom

WASHINGTON – It was close, but late Friday, June 26, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the highly controversial H.R. 2998 (originally H.R. 2454): The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) -- called informally the “Waxman-Markey Global Warming Bill” after its cosponsors Henry Waxman, Calif., and Ed Markey, Mass., both Democrats. The bill now awaits action by the Senate.



This was the first time either house of Congress had approved legislation designed to curb “greenhouse gases” that many believe contribute to “global warming” and climate change. The vote was 212-219. Forty-four Democrats voted No, and without the Yes-votes of eight Republicans it would have gone down in defeat.

President Obama hailed the historic passage, as did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who led the charge in ramming the bill through the House, determined to secure approval by July 4.

“We passed transformational legislation, which will take us into the future,” Pelosi boasted at a press conference following the roll call.

And in a derisive slap at the grassroots opposition that bombarded congressional offices with emails, faxes and phone calls, she declared: “For some it was a difficult vote because the agents of the status quo were out there full force, jamming the lines in their districts and here [in D.C.], but [the representatives] withstood that.”

It would definitely be “transformational.” Waxman-Markey is arguably the most sweeping, far-reaching measure Congress has ever considered in terms of its impact on the U.S. economy, industry and standard of living – and the most costly.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio called it “the biggest job-killing bill that has ever been on the floor of the House of Representatives.”

Myron Ebell, Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), describes it as “a massive tax hike that would vastly expand the federal government’s power over the economy. Indeed, [Waxman-Markey] would be the largest tax increase in world history, [would] transfer vast wealth from consumers to big-business special interests.

“And it would put Washington in charge of people’s lives in a way not seen since the Second World War – which was the last time Americans needed ration coupons to buy gasoline, food and other commodities,” he warned.

Yet despite its magnitude, the Democrat-controlled House voted to allow just three hours of debate for the bill itself, plus half an hour for a 309-page Manager’s Amendment (H.R. 2998) by Waxman that was dropped in the hopper at 3 a.m. that morning.

Nobody had read the entire measure, let alone the amendment, when they voted: copies weren’t even available. Moreover, it had grown from about 950 pages to an eyeball-glazing 1,510 in the five days before the vote (that’s including the amendment).

“Unfortunately, this is the New World Order,” said Andrew Moylan, Director of Government Affairs at the National Taxpayers Union (NTU). “Where we have bills that are written in secret, are debated in no time at all, get passed into law – and we find out what little cookies are in there for us after the fact.”

(For lists of some of the hundreds of “cookies” in the Manager’s Amendment click here and here.)

The High Cost of Going Green

The goal of Waxman-Markey is to decrease the level of carbon dioxide and five other “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere. These gases occur naturally (CO2, in particular, is necessary for plant life), but levels are said to be increased by the burning of carbon-based fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas) during energy production that provides 85 percent of U.S. electricity.

That increase is alleged to contribute to “global warming” – though this is widely disputed, as is the theory that there’s any global warming at all. Contrary to claims of Waxman-Markey supporters, such as former Vice President Al Gore, the scientific community is divided over whether there is global warming and if there is, what causes it and what to do about it.
[Read: "Global Warming Challenged" by Willian Hunt]

The bill mandates that 20 percent of U.S. electricity comes from “renewable” sources. Electric and gas utilities, refineries, cement plants, steel foundries and other companies would be required to lower the amount of CO2 emitted from their smokestacks 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and down to 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.

This will be done through an elaborate permitting process called cap-and-trade that requires companies to have one emission permit – in effect, a ration coupon -- for every ton of CO2 emitted from their smokestacks. The government will set a cap for the maximum amount of CO2 emission, and ratchet the cap down over time -- in theory, forcing companies to invest in lower-carbon technologies such as wind and solar.

Critics predict huge hikes in the cost of lighting, heating, air cooling, and transportation – any activity that depends on electricity or gasoline – plus increases in the price of food and consumer goods and serious unemployment. Overall costs are estimated to range anywhere from $2 trillion to $9 trillion.

“We’re talking about adding hundreds of billions of dollars per year in added costs to energy,” Moylan told NewsWithViews. “That’s something that people are not going to have a choice about if they want to keep the lights on, drive to work and get the kids to school.”

Just before the vote the Congressional Budget Office released figures purporting to show that the cost to the average household would be only $175 a year by 2020. An earlier estimate by CBO had set the tab at $1,600 a year.

Except for this conveniently released report by the CBO, there are virtually no one is claiming that Waxman-Markey is going to be cheap – not even the president for whom it’s a top priority measure.

Obama: “Electricity Rates Will Skyrocket”

In a famous interview with editors of the San Francisco Chronicle (Jan. 17, 2008), then-Senator Obama admitted the price of electricity would go up. Way up. In his words:

“Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket … because I’m capping greenhouse gases -- coal power plants, natural gas, you name it -- whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money; they will pass that [cost] on to consumers.”

Obama further explained how it would be necessary to persuade the American people that although there would be “some increase” in electricity rates, “over the long term -- because of combinations of more efficient energy usage, and changing light bulbs, more efficient appliances, but also technology in proving how we can produce clean energy -- the economy will benefit.”

He did not promise that rates would eventually come down or even that it would be possible to develop the necessary technology. He only said that the economy would “benefit” and the argument must be made “persuasively enough” for Americans to accept the plan.

At the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, researchers crunched numbers and came up with some specifics about the first 23 years of a project that’s planned to go on for the next 90 years.

According to Heritage findings, under Waxman-Markey the cost of electricity will soar 90 percent between 2012 and 2035; gasoline prices will rise 58 percent; and residential natural gas, 55 percent. A family of four can expect its annual energy bill to be raised by $1,241. (Figures are adjusted for inflation, and assume a 36 percent cut in energy use by consumers trying to adjust to escalating costs.)

That $1,241 yearly energy bill is just the direct increase in energy prices. As energy prices go up, the costs of making consumer goods will follow and businesses will pass these along in the form of higher prices. From the Heritage Foundation's analysis:

“As the higher production costs ripple through the economy, household pocketbooks get hit again and again. When all the direct and indirect energy tax impacts have been added up, family-of-four costs will rise by $2,979 per year on the average over the 2023-2035 timeframe. In 2035 alone, the cost is $4,609.”

With the slowing of the economy, unemployment will go up on average 1,145,000 a year in lost jobs, with peak years seeing unemployment of over 2.4 million jobs gone.

Then there’s the national debt: “By 2035 Waxman-Markey will have driven the national debt 26 percent above what it would be without the legislation, and that represents an additional $28,728 per person, or $114,915 for a family of four.”

Energy Rationing Ahead?

Steve Milloy, co-director of the Free Enterprise Project at the National Center for Public Policy Research and publisher of JunkScience.com, foresees a particularly bleak future of contrived shortages, a higher cost of living, and less personal freedom.

“Worse than the increased cost of energy, perhaps, is that the Waxman-Markey bill will essentially result in artificial limits on energy production and, ultimately, electricity rationing,” Milloy predicts. “The bill will create a permanent energy crisis.”

This will necessarily lead to restrictions on personal activities. “A nation’s standard of living is ultimately based upon the use of energy, be it for work or play,” writes naturalist William Hunt, in a piece for NewsWithViews.

Cooking, heating one’s house, mowing the lawn, cooking, driving to the grocery store, going to the beach on the weekend – “All of these represent freedoms, both nationally and personally. The ability to get into a car and drive is an incredible freedom that most of the world does not have,” Hunt observes.

If the price of gasoline is artificially increased 58 percent, low-income families and individuals would be hard-pressed to pay for it and forced to change their driving habits, perhaps giving up driving altogether.

“These, and indeed all other measures suggested by politicians, regulators and NGOs to deal with global warming [cap and trade, carbon taxes] are about controlling what you do with your life by controlling energy,” says Hunt. “All such things do is to raise the price consumers have to pay for basic needs. They harm the poor most of all by hitting them by raising the costs for basic costs like heat, light, water, sewer, food, gasoline for commuting to work, and every consumer good— clothes, soap, cars, everything.”

Waxman-Markey vs. the Laws of Thermodynamics

“What they’re doing is raising the cost of traditional energy so high that it would be feasible to invest in alternate technologies,” says Andrew Moylan.

“Today, alternative technologies – as great as they may seem to people – are very expensive. It’s not that people desperately want to destroy the environment that they’re not investing in them. They don’t invest in them because they’re extremely expensive. So if you raise the cost of traditional energy so high that it makes other technologies more palatable in terms of cost, there’s going to be more investment in those.”

Whether these will work or not is another question.

Keith Rattie, CEO of Utah-based Questar Corp., is one of the many global-warming skeptics who doesn’t think they will, and he explained why in a talk he gave to the graduating class of Utah Valley University this April.

Said Rattie: “Why has my generation failed to develop wind and solar? Because our energy choices are ruthlessly ruled, not by political judgments, but by the immutable laws of thermodynamics. In engineer-speak, turning diffused sources of energy such as photons in sunlight or the kinetic energy in wind requires massive investment to concentrate that energy into a form that’s usable on any meaningful scale.

“What’s more, the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. Unless or until there’s a major breakthrough in high-density electricity storage – a problem that has confounded scientists for more than 100 years – wind and solar can never be relied upon to provide base load power.”

The Fundamental Question

And in the end, will it be worth it?

“That’s the issue,” said Moylan. “I’m no climate expert, but the folks who are say that even if everything goes according to their plan – which is unlikely – global temperatures might be reduced by one-tenth of one degree by the year 2050.

“I guess that’s the fundamental question: Is one-tenth of one degree reduction in temperature under the best of circumstances worth $2 trillion in costs? I would say no. I would hope that most rational people say the answer is no. But it seems symbolism has been elevated above science in the debate.”

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The New Media Journal | Liberal-Islamist Alliance by Amil Imani

The New Media Journal | Liberal-Islamist Alliance by Amil Imani

Presently, fanatical Islamists are lashing out with mad fury before their own final demise. The “infidel” world has been complicit in the surge of Islamism through its mistakes, complacency, and greed.



Our academia leftists even engage in willful misinformation and deception when it suits them. Terms such as “Political Islam,” or “Radical Islam,” for instance, are contributions of our leftist intellengtsia. These terms do not even exist in the native parlance of Islam itself, simply because they are redundant. Even a cursory study of Islam and its charter—the Quran—will clearly reveal that it is a radical political movement. It is the socialist leftists and paid-for-media and politicians who sanitize Islam and misguide the populace by saying that the “real Islam” constitutes the main body of the religion; and, that this main body is non-political and moderate.



Our liberal professors claim that Islam is inherently good, the majority of Muslims are good and only a small minority has hijacked the good faith of Muhammad by engaging in acts of intolerance, hatred and violence. I agree, it is not uncommon to observe Muslims, anywhere in the world, who are indeed exemplary in many ways. They are kind, generous and much more. But these are the Cultural Muslims who are, in effect, only part Muslim.



The question is: why is it that the good Islam is not ruling in the world and the bad Islam is engulfing it in fire? Some clear instances of the rule of the real Islam are seen in places such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, parts of Pakistan, Sudan, and Somalia. Iranians are completely suffocated by the real Islam and that is one reason they are revolting against the rule of Sharia (Islamic Law) and that is why they are being butchered by the representative of Allah on earth, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who considers himself the shadow of “Allah.”



Human nature is also the culprit, in part. We humans are attracted to hate like flies are to honey. Hate is an easy sell. It is appealing and little effort is required to hate. Hate gathers up the person’s or the group’s frustrations, anxieties, fears, paranoia and many other negative emotions in one handy bundle and hurls it at a convenient target. History is replete with instances of hate energizing the masses into commitment of small and large scale atrocities.



All one has to do is to read the history of Islam and find out the truth for himself. Mainstream Islam has been outright genocidal from inception. Their own historians record that Ali, the first imam of the Shiite and the son-in-law of Muhammad, with the help of another man, beheaded 700 Jewish men in what is known as “massacre of the Banu Qurayza” in the presence of the Prophet himself. The Prophet of Allah and his disciples took the murdered men’s women and children in slavery. Muslims have been, and continue to be, the most vicious and shameless practitioners of slavery. The slave trade, even today, is a thriving business in some Islamic lands where wealthy, perverted sheiks purchase children of the poor from traffickers for their own sadistic gratification.



The Islamist, with the help of our liberal leftists, take advantage of the provisions of the most benign system known to humanity, democracy, to implode it from within. Islamists, by sheer numbers, will soon be in a position to vote out democracy in many countries. They will elect Muslims to all positions of local influence, who will create and enforce policy according to the Quran. Once they have control over a town, they will begin to establish informal Sharia, and there’s nothing the government can (or will want to) do about it.



Sharia is the brutal means by which Islam controls its populations by force, intimidation, and punishments for offenses against Allah. Already, in many European countries, national governments have, out of fear, given Islamofascists the right to establish their own shadow governments within the borders of countries like Sweden and England and Netherlands where they can control their own populations without accountability. Proposals for Sharia are being taken seriously by Canada. Politicians, hungry for votes and devoted to the practice of political correctness, bend backward to accede to Islamists’ demands.



At the same time, Muslims will ally with Leftist politicians who will gladly cede some of their power to this group of enforcers, so conservative politicians and Christians who advocate self defense and sane social policies are kept out of office. Money that was once used to build mosques will now be used to buy politicians. On university campuses, Islam will be portrayed as righteous and peaceful, while Christianity will be associated with evil Western and American values. The rebellious American youth will eat it up.



Leftist politicians will continue to hold the Bill of Rights over anyone who dares to accuse this religion of wrongdoing. While crime and threats skyrocket, Islamacized citizens will ignore the wrongdoing. They will look the other way for fear of retribution, honor killings, and punishments from those who uphold the Islamic requirement to seek revenge on anyone who dishonors or disagrees with Islam.



Don’t our liberal leftists assure us not to worry about Islamization of our country, the United States? After all, Muslims are about a minority of 6-7 million in a population of nearly 300 million, you reason. Even a smaller number of these Muslims are hothead radicals, while the majority is just like everyone else. But small minorities can overwhelm the majority by use of coercion and deadly force. Islamists are notorious for their dedication to the use of force for achieving their aims. The Taliban were a very small minority in Afghanistan, the Islamists were a tiny faction in the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran. Both overwhelmed the masses and imposed their reign of terror. The terrorist Hamas is also a “minority” in number, yet it rules the Palestinian Territory. Hizbollah of Lebanon is a minority, yet it has taken the country to the verge of destruction.



Wait! Should average Americans keep listening to self-styled expert liberal professors and politicians who have aligned themselves with the Islamists?



▪ Aren’t these the same experts who told us Hitler could not possibly be crazy enough to attack Russia or Britain?



▪ Aren’t these the same “experts” who tried to cover up Mao Tse Tung’s reign of terror in China, or Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia?



▪ Isn’t this the same “expertise” that assured us in the 1970’s that inflation was good, and could never be accompanied by a recession?



▪ Aren’t these the same folks who tell us the Saudis are our best friends in the Middle East, that the Titanic was unsinkable, that we should not succumb to our racist impulses by reporting suspicious Muslim men who are learning to fly jumbo jets?



▪ Didn’t ultra liberal Jimmy Carter call Ayatollah Khomeini, a holy man figure? And his ambassador to Iran, William Sulivan, said, "Khomeini is a Ghandi-like figure." (Khomeini turned Iran into one of the biggest terror states ever and took American diplomats as hostage for 444 days. This "Ghandi-like" figure executed hundreds of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.)



▪ Aren’t these the same folks that told us goods imported from China are perfectly safe? Or that if we just “open up dialogue with our enemies,” we can create peace?



Hmmm...It seems we have much to worry about when the “authorities” begin to disseminate their collective wisdom. And don't bank on the politicians either. They are the master practitioners of the art of the politically correct.



Shaming the devil incites the devil, calling the USSR an “evil empire” did not win Ronald Reagan points for diplomacy, but nonetheless, it was an evil empire. Calling Nazis evil did not help endear the Americans to the Germans either, but they were slaughtering the Jewish Poles down to the last child. Calling Islam an evil empire, most likely doesn’t sit well with “moderate Muslims,” but at least in the end will save lives.



This is also why liberal appeasers in 1938, who refused to call Hitler “evil,” got the world into so much trouble by creating a similar confused intellectual forum about the Nazis. They tried to build bridges to the “moderate” Nazis; they lectured clear thinkers about the dangers of inciting German hatred by pointing out the truth. They accused conservatives of being “just as fascist” as the Nazis (Napolitano called conservatives “right-wing extremists”), they sent ambassadors and made treaties and trusted that the moderates would come out and “reform” their zealous leadership. And they were wrong



Fascism is exactly what Political Islam was crafted to be. It is no coincidence that Islamism has historically been so cozy with the fascist left. The left habitually underestimates the intelligence of the American people. The left is chronically unhappy about America, because it is looking in the mirror and rightfully sees its own miserable reflection. Any time anyone arises to serve this great nation and aims to keep it on its course toward its glorious destiny, the left recoils.



In the West, an unholy coalition of mentally-deranged suicidal-homicidal liberals, together with self-aggrandizing Islamic apologists, are doing their level best to assist the Islamists in the destruction of the existing order of freedom and liberty.



To make matters worse, a vociferous clique of local leftists, “useful idiots,” with a suicide wish, are doing all they can to take the country with them to the grave they so earnestly seek. These self-appointed squatters of the higher-ground are riding so high on their high horse that they are blind to the realities down on earth. The leftists don’t realize that the opponents of Islamism demonize Islamism with Muhammad’s own words and deeds. You cannot be a serial murderer and complain that it is unfair for the DA to constantly harp about all those people you killed!



The liberal left vows that we cannot win the war on terror only on the battlefield. Yes, but tell that to the Viennese who in 1632 defeated the marauding Muslims to save Christian Europe from slaughter and annihilation. Explain that to the Sudanese Christians of 2007. How about the Coptic Christians in Egypt? Does anyone know where all the Christians and Hindus in Pakistan went? Ask the French and Spanish how Charlemagne and Castile unceremoniously removed the Moors from Spain and France. And what happened in 1948, the day Israel was legally declared a nation? Oh, the battlefield is an ugly place, but it seems to have been the only way militant Islam has been repulsed. Most loving Christians believe that “love conquers all.” Well, rest assured that love does not conquer Islamism.



I have asserted in the past there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim, but we have Muslims who have become Cultural Muslims. This truth is not escaping intellectual blogs because politically correct media cannot bring themselves to rank religions or admit that some things are truly good or bad. They do not want to offend their liberal or Islamic audiences. But in this great argument, they are way behind the curve. The people are anxious for the truth. The people must know the truth so that they can defend themselves against a deadly and powerful adversary.



I believe this is the most important argument facing us right now, but as long as fence-sitters feel capable of condemning “all forms of extremism” unchecked, most people will not take sides. Only when it is clear that (whether or not people will admit it overtly) Islamism is unjust and dangerous. Will we get support for a number of tough measures that should send Islamism back to its cage where it belongs?



It is constructive to note how Islamists engage others in discussion. When they don't like what they hear, they resort to ridicule, accusations and name-calling. Wouldn't it be wonderful if these people would, for once, abandon their primitive mindset and use a civilized method of dialogue?



Muslims must be encouraged to reject, if not Islam itself, one of its deadly derivatives, Islamism, which has become a sharp thorn, inflicting huge pain in our civilized society. They must be encouraged to combat radicalism. They must know that the free people of the world eagerly embrace them with open arms once they rise to the occasion and defeat Islamism



We, in the United States of America must resist Islamism while it is still gathering momentum, unless we wish to end up in the same fix as the Europeans.

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CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Wind farms will be a monument to an age when our leaders collectively went off their heads | Mail Online

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Wind farms will be a monument to an age when our leaders collectively went off their heads | Mail Online

Let us be clear: Britain is facing an unprecedented crisis. Before long, we will lose 40 per cent of our generating capacity.

And unless we come up quickly with an alternative, the lights WILL go out. Not before time, the Confederation of British Industry yesterday waded in, warning the Government it must abandon its crazy fixation with wind turbines as a way of plugging this forthcoming shortfall and instead urgently focus on far more efficient ways to meet the threat of a permanent, nationwide black-out.

There are a few contenders for the title of the maddest thing that has happened in our lifetime.






But a front-runner must be the way in which politicians of all parties have been seduced by the La-La Land promises of the wind power lobby.

If you still haven't made your mind up about wind power, just consider some of the inescapable facts - facts which the Government and the wind industry do their best to hide from us all.

So far we have spent billions of pounds on building just over 2,000 wind turbines - and yet they contribute barely one per cent of all the electricity that we need.

The combined output of all those 2,000 turbines put together, averaging 700 megawatts, is less than that of a single, medium-sized conventional power station.

What's more, far from being 'free', this pitiful dribble of electricity is twice as expensive as the power we get from the nuclear, gas or coal-fired power stations which currently supply well over 90 per cent of our needs - and we all pay the difference, without knowing it, through our electricity bills.

But despite its best efforts to conceal the fact that wind turbines expensively and unreliably generate only a derisory amount of electricity, the Government keeps on telling us of its megalomaniac plans to build thousands more of them - at a cost of up to £100billion.

The prime reason for this is that we are legally obliged by the European Union to generate 32 per cent of our electricity from 'renewable' sources by 2020.

And with just 11 years to go until that deadline, we hope to meet the target by building highly-subsidised wind turbines.

But this is a farce. In fact, as the Government is privately well aware, there is not the faintest hope that we can do anything of the kind - even if we wanted to.

Gordon Brown talks airily of building 4,000 offshore turbines by our target date - plus another 3,000 onshore. But this would mean sticking two of these 2,000-ton monsters, each the height of Blackpool Tower, into the seabed every day for the next 11 years.

Nowhere in the world has it proved possible to install more than one of them a week. The infrastructure simply isn't there to build more than a fraction of that figure.

Furthermore, such are the weather conditions around Britain's coasts that it is only possible to work on these projects for a few months every summer.

Then there are the 3,000 promised onshore turbines - many of which are to be erected in the most beautiful stretches of Britain's countryside.

These are meeting with so much local hostility that the Government has continually had to bend the planning rules in order to force them through over the wishes of local communities and the democratic opposition of local councils.

But wind power is not just the pipedream of deluded politicians. As the CBI was trying to warn yesterday, the real disaster of this great wind fantasy is that it has diverted attention from the genuine energy crisis now hurtling towards us at breakneck speed.

For while the Government is trying to force a scattering of useless wind turbines through the planning offices, the truth is that the rest of us will lose 40 per cent of our power stations within as little as seven years.

If this happens, and we don't have an alternative, our kettles won't boil, our computers won't work and our country will face economic meltdown.

There is little hope now of an 11th hour reprieve. Eight of our nine nuclear power stations - which presently supply 20 per cent of our electricity needs - are so old they will have to close.

Nine more large coal and oil-fired power plants will also be forced to shut down under an EU anti-pollution directive.

But more alarming still is the astonishing naivete of almost all our politicians when it comes to working out how we are going to fill the 40 per cent shortfall left in their wake. Very belatedly, the Government has said that it wants to see a new generation of nuclear reactors.

Yet there is little hope that any of them can be up and running earlier than 2020. What's more, they will have to be built by foreign-owned companies because, as recently as October 2006, the Government sold off our last world-class nuclear construction company, Westinghouse, to the Japanese at a knockdown price.

At the same time, our Energy And Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, now says he will not allow any new coal-fired power stations to be built unless they have 'carbon capture' - piping off CO2 to bury it in holes in the ground.

This technology not only doubles the price of electricity but hasn't even yet been properly developed. And so the only hope of keeping the lights on will be to build dozens more gas-fired power stations - at a time when North Sea gas is fast running out.

And then we will be forced to rely on imports from politically unreliable countries such as Russia, at a time when gas prices are likely to be soaring.

In any event, over the past 20 years, our politicians have made an even more unholy shambles of Britain's energy policy than they have of our economy - and the cost, when the chickens come to roost in a few years' time, will be almost unimaginable.

The causes of Britain's impending energy crisis are manifold. Michael Heseltine's 1992 'dash for gas', when he closed down most of our remaining coal mines because North Sea gas was still cheap and abundant, and because its CO2 emissions were only half those of coal, was one of them.

But nothing has done more to take the politicians' eye off the ball, egged on by environmentalist groups such as Friends Of The Earth and Greenpeace, than their quite incomprehensible obsession with windmills.

For these white elephants can never produce more than a fraction of the electricity we need, and by no means always when we need it - as we saw last winter when, for weeks on end, they were scarcely turning at all.

Do politicians never look outside the windows of their centrally-heated offices to see how often the wind is not blowing?

The Government has now shovelled so much money in hidden subsidies into the pockets of the turbine companies that the 'wind bonanza', promoted on a host of fraudulent claims, has become one of the greatest scams of our age.

But if and when our lights do go out, it will be important to remember just why we got carried away by such a massive blunder.

Left with a land blighted with useless towers of metal, we shall look on those windmills as a monument to the age when the politicians of Britain and Europe collectively went completely off their heads.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1199535/CHRISTOPHER-BOOKER-Wind-farms-monument-age-leaders-collectively-went-heads.html#ixzz0LMEt0dKo&C




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NewsBusters: Is NYT Encouraging Old Folks to Give up and Die to Help Pay for Obamacare? :: Political News and commentaries :: Hyscience

NewsBusters: Is NYT Encouraging Old Folks to Give up and Die to Help Pay for Obamacare? :: Political News and commentaries :: Hyscience

Sounds to me like the NYT is indeed pushing healthcare rationing and the withdrawing of end-of-life care for the elderly, and the summary dispensement of patient choice:

Hey, grandma, hurry up and die so that Obamacare can pay for healthcare for more worthy, younger folks. That seems to be the message that The New York Times is selling in order to smooth the waters for the nationalized healthcare system that president Obama is trying to peddle to us all.

The Times is running a series titled "Months to Live" in order to help spread the sort of end of life issues that are helpful to Obama's healthcare agenda, one of which seems to be the idea that elderly should forgo any sort of heroic measures to keep them alive so as not to waste those resources that might be able to go to younger, more vital patients.



Even the socialists aren't happy about Obama's rationing of care for the elderly. On June 9 of this year, World Socialist reported that President Obama had called for cuts in funding for Medicare and Medicaid, the federal health insurance programs for the elderly and the poor, including the elimination of subsidies for hospitals that treat uninsured patients:
... The proposal, combined with plans to limit medical tests and treatments, underscores the reactionary, anti-working class character of Obama's proposed "reform" of the health care system.

is becoming increasingly clear that the essence of the administration's health care policy, under the guise of universal coverage, is a downgrading of care for the majority of the population so as to cut health care costs for business and the government.

Administration spokesmen have also indicated that Obama is receptive to the idea of taxing workers for the health benefits they receive from their employers--something for which he denounced his opponent, Senator John McCain, during last year's presidential election campaign.

Interestingly, Obamacare is, according to Obama himself, not good enough for his own family (although he has no problem with his own grandmother being denied surgery in order to save money), but he wants it for the rest of us. As Dick Morris recently wrote: "Obama's health care proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program as we know it. The elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the least access."

If our country cannot provide proper care for the elderly, how is it ever going to pay for quality medical care for the rest of the nation under nationalized healthcare?



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American Thinker: Protecting Pelosi, not America

American Thinker: Protecting Pelosi, not America

Democrat Jan Schakowsky of Illinois proved last week why President Barack Obama was right to threaten to veto a bill that could give more politicians access to classified briefings about covert CIA operations.

Schakowsky took to the airwaves to accuse the CIA of misleading Congress on the orders of former Vice President Dick Cheney. According to Schakowsky and a handful of other Democrats, CIA director Leon Panetta told them at a classified briefing last month that the agency had practiced "systematic deception" for years. She demanded an investigation and suggested that charges could be brought against CIA officials.




But the CIA denied Panetta had made any such admission -- and even Schakowsky had to allow that Panetta's briefing concerned "one occasion." That occasion was a program, conceived in 2001 but never implemented, to track and target Al-Qaeda terrorists around the world.

Not only did Congress know about the program, according to Panetta's predecessor Michael Hayden, but Congressional leaders apparently supported it. Indeed, President Obama made the hunt for Al-Qaeda a repeated theme of his 2008 election campaign, scolding Bush for diverting resources from the "real" war on terror. "We will kill bin Laden," he vowed in the second presidential debate in October. "We will crush Al-Qaeda."

So why the outrage from Schakowsky and her colleagues?

It appears that the controversy has less to do with protecting America than protecting Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi was embarrassed several weeks ago by revelations that she not only knew about the CIA's use of waterboarding in terror interrogations, but failed to object when briefed about it. At first, Pelosi accused the CIA of lying, but information about the briefings she attended proved that she, and not the CIA, had misled the nation.

Schakowsky and other Pelosi allies pounced on Panetta's briefing as a chance to defend their boss: "It certainly confirms her characterization of the level of openness the intelligence community and the CIA have given to Congress," Schakowsky claimed.

Ironically, it was only a few weeks ago that Schakowsky slammed her Republican counterparts for commenting on what Pelosi had learned in intelligence briefings: "I am absolutely shocked that members of the Intelligence committee who attended a closed-door hearing...characterized anything that happened in that hearing."

She even suggested they had broken the law: "My understanding is that's a violation of the rules. It may be more than that."

Now, Schakowsky has rushed to reveal to the media what she learned in a classified briefing. Worse, she distorted what she and her colleagues were told-all to settle old political scores and to force President Obama into an investigation of the Bush administration that he initially, and wisely, resisted.

Another Democrat who joined Schakowsky's accusations was Senator Diane Feinstein of California, who accused the CIA of acting "outside of the law." Her claims were picked up by the international media, which ran sensational stories about Cheney and the CIA. A Pakistani news service claimed that the program "may have involved torture and possibly assassinations."

It was not the first time Feinstein had caused an uproar in Pakistan and damage to America's image in the Middle East. In February, she revealed that the U.S. was operating Predator drones from a base in Pakistan. Not only did her comments put America's enemies on notice, but they deeply embarrassed U.S. allies in a country fighting to keep its government-and its nuclear weapons-out of Islamist hands.

The incompetence and opportunism of Schakowsky and Feinstein reveal just how politicized intelligence oversight has become during Pelosi's tenure. Recall that one of Pelosi's first decisions-belatedly aborted-was to put Rep. Alcee Hastings in charge of the House intelligence committee. Not only did Hastings have no intelligence experience, but he had also been impeached and convicted for taking a bribe as a federal judge.

The fact that a close Pelosi lieutenant like Schakowsky has been given the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is cause for alarm. Not only has Schakowsky put politics ahead of national security, but her left-wing views on foreign policy are out of sync with the mainstream of the country, her party, and even her constituents.

One of the suburbs Schakowsky represents is Skokie, a community uniquely sensitive to the threat of terror, where Jewish Holocaust survivors and Arab refugees from Iraq live side-by-side. For several years after 9/11, a billboard near the expressway proclaimed: "U.S. And Israel: United Against Terror."

Re-elected thanks to the Chicago machine, Schakowsky has rarely been held accountable for her views on foreign policy. But after her performance in Washington last week, more Americans will begin to ask why a politician who abuses classified information to pursue political vendettas should have access to it at all.

She and her colleagues tried to cover up for Pelosi's lies about waterboarding. Now they have distorted the truth about what the CIA director told them in a classified briefing about efforts to destroy Al-Qaeda.

Trembling with purported outrage, Schakowsky faced the cameras last week and declared: "I know that I've been lied to."


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Media Spin Wrong on Wiretap Report - HUMAN EVENTS

Media Spin Wrong on Wiretap Report - HUMAN EVENTS

An independent federal investigation into President Bush's warrantless intercepts of al Qaeda communications found that intelligence agencies followed the program's procedures, did not spy on innocent Americans and gleaned valuable information on the terror network.

Contrary to claims by the political left that Bush wanted to listen in on private citizens, the report by five federal agency inspectors general did not report any such transgressions.

While these points were missed in Washington news media stories when the report was released Friday, the congressionally mandated document is replete with accounts of how well the eavesdropping was operated.



At issue is Bush's "terrorist surveillance program" started after the September 11 attacks to listen in on suspected al Qaeda telephone and e-mail communications coming intoor out of the country without court approval. The president signed orders authorizing the intercepts after becoming convinced that the cumbersome process of obtaining warrants might result in critical phone call might be missed.

[HUMAN EVENTS has been told that in Iraq, when intelligence gained the cell phone number of a terror suspect, the military spent hours trying to get court approval for a wire tap because the call was routed from Iraq to the U.S. and back to Iraq. That was one of the reasons the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had to be -- and was -- amended last year.]

Referred to in the IG report as the President's Surveillance Program, or PSP, the operation involved intercepting communications from suspected terrorists going into and out of the country.

The IG report refers to the intercepts as the President's Surveillance Program, or PSP. The New York Times disclosed its existence in 2005 and it was ended in 2007.

Why was it ended? Because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington issued orders authorizing some of the intercepts conducted under the PSP. In other words, the judges agreed the streamlined process was needed to protect the country.

A year later, Bush won a legislative battle -- over the protests of Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- to update a 1978 law giving the executive branch more freedom to conduct national security intercepts.

In other words, the program continues to this day, blessed by judges and then Congress, and is being used by President Obama.

Here is one report passage on how the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) handled information:

"NCTC analysts told the ODNI [inspector general] that the PSP-derived information was subject to stringent security protections. The NCTC analysts said that they received training regarding the proper handling of [intelligence community] signals intelligence, and they reported that they handled all such information, including PSP-derived information, consistent with standard rules and procedures."

And here is what the IG at the National Security Agency, which actually did the intercepts, reported on how the NSA administered PSP.

"NSA employees involved in the program received tailored training and their work was overseen to ensure that all activities were consistent with the letter and intent of the authorization and with the protection of civil liberties. The NSA OIG report concluded it found no evidence of intentional misuse of the PSP."

So much for screams from the left that Bush wanted to listen to people's bedtime conversations. The joint IG report found the opposite: that the Bush administration put vigorous safeguards in place and followed them, as it desperately tried to prevent another attack on the United States.

Moreover, the Bush administration briefed members of Congress (including Pelosi in some meetings) 49 times. The briefings began the same month the program started and were delivered personally by Michael Hayden, the head of the NSA who went on to become CIA director.

"Hayden told us that during the many PSP briefings to members of Congress no one ever suggested that NSA should stop the program," the IG report said.

The CIA's IG found that analysts relied on the intercepts. "Senior IC officials believed that providing IC analysts access to increased signals intelligence could lead to the discovery of terrorists in the U.S. and planned terrorist attacks," the report said.

Besides the CIA IG, the report was co-authored by inspectors general from the Pentagon, Justice Department, NSA and director of national intelligence.

Did the intercept program help protect the country? In a July 10 story, the New York Times reported that the IG’s report said that the “program’s effectiveness in fighting terrorism was unclear.” However, the FBI did a "comprehensive" survey in 2006 and found the information "of value."

The CIA IG quoted an agency official as saying, "The PSP was a key resource, and without it there would have been a missing piece of the picture." Another officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee that "PSP reporting was rarely the sole basis for an intelligence success, but that it frequently played a supporting role."

One problem in assessing its value is that the NSA would often send out reports on PSP intercepts without noting that the information came from that program, in order to protect its highly classified nature. As a result, government officials who acted on such information never knew it resulted from PSP. It did not get the credit it deserved.

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World pirate attacks more than double this year - Yahoo! News

World pirate attacks more than double this year - Yahoo! News

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Pirate attacks worldwide more than doubled in the first half of 2009 amid a surge of raids on vessels in the Gulf of Aden and the east coast of Somalia, an international maritime watchdog said Wednesday.

The number of attacks rose to 240 between January and June, up from 114 incidents in the same period a year ago, according to a report released by the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur.



Ships were boarded in 78 cases and 31 vessels were hijacked, with 561 crew taken hostage, 19 injured and six killed, the bureau said in its quarterly report. The attackers were heavily armed with guns or knives in most of the cases, it said.

The higher attacks were due mainly to increased Somali pirate activity off the Gulf of Aden and east coast of Somalia, which combined accounts for 130 of the cases, the report said.

Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991 when the overthrow of a dictatorship plunged the country into chaos. Besides frequent land battles, the power vacuum has also allowed pirates to operate freely around Somalia's 1,900-mile (3,060-kilometer) coastline.

The International Maritime Bureau said Somali attacks peaked in March and April, with no attacks recorded in June. The recent decline was largely because of monsoon-related poor weather that is expected to continue through August, the report said.

"Vigilance should nevertheless remain high during this period," the center said.

International navy patrols in the gulf have also helped to thwart pirate activity, though military vessels are hard-pressed to cover the vast expanse of ocean along Somalia's coastline.

Among other nations that reported significant attacks in the six months, Nigeria had 13, Peru reported 10, Malaysia had nine and India had six.

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Family Security Matters » Publications » Two Scientists, Two Standards

Family Security Matters » Publications » Two Scientists, Two Standards

The New York Times recently warned its readers about a wacky scientist in the Obama administration. But the fish wrap of record let the real nut job off the hook.

Reporting last week on the president's choice to head the National Institutes of Health, Times writer Gardiner Harris noted that praise for Dr. Francis S. Collins "was not universal or entirely enthusiastic." The geneticist is causing "unease," according to the Times, because of "his very public embrace of religion." Stomachs are apparently churning over a book Collins wrote describing his conversion to Christianity.


It's called -- gasp! -- "The Language of God." Harris intoned: "Religion and genetic research have long had a fraught relationship, and some in the field complain about what they see as Dr. Collins' evangelism."

And … that's it. Yes, the “mere profession” of Collins' faith is enough to warrant red flags and ominous declamations. A quarter of all Americans identify themselves as evangelical Christians and "publicly embrace their religion." But to the Times, Collins' open affiliation with 60 million American believers in Christ is headline news.

The rationality police in the newsroom have not, however, seen fit to print the rantings of a radical secular evangelist now serving as the White House "science czar." John Holdren, Obama's director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, co-authored the innocuously titled "Ecoscience" in the 1970s with population control extremists Paul and Anne Ehrlich.

Earlier this year, Ben Johnson at the online publication FrontPage Magazine provided quotes shedding light on Holdren's embrace of "compulsory abortion" for American women "if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society." In "Ecoscience," Holdren and the Ehrlichs also outlined their desire for "a comprehensive Planetary Regime (that) could control the development, administration, conservation and distribution of all natural resources."

Johnson outlined the book's ugly eugenics plan and neo-Malthusian vision of enviro-crats engineering the population. Yet, there was scant mention of Holdren's stomach-churning proposals during his confirmation hearings in February. Holdren's defenders might have comforted themselves by claiming that the quotes were taken out of context. But last week, another online investigative journalist scanned copious pages from the book to show that his words had been unedited and accurately transcribed. The disturbing documents can be found at http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/.

There, you'll find Holdren musing about how to infect the nation's water supply to make women infertile for the benefit of Mother Earth:

"Adding a sterilant to drinking water
or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. … No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: It must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets or livestock."

Holdren's planetary regime would also breed out undesirables "who contribute to social deterioration" and "insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption -- especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone."

Single mothers
who wanted to keep their children would be "obliged to go through adoption proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and care for it."

If a conservative blogger or Republican political candidate had published such lunatic claptrap, the Department of Homeland Security would have him on a watch list. Instead, Holdren is Overlord of Science Policy. "Ecoscience" remains on his curriculum vitae. Obama is still perceived as the champion of reason. And the national media, so concerned about the dangers posed by a born-again Christian scientist, have responded to a secular extremist's wild blueprints for forced abortions and mass sterilizations with a collective shrug. Scary.

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Family Security Matters » Publications » Exclusive: TelePrompter, Trusted Aide to the President, Dies in Freak Accident; Nation Mourns

Family Security Matters » Publications » Exclusive: TelePrompter, Trusted Aide to the President, Dies in Freak Accident; Nation Mourns

Americans are in a state of shock after the sudden death of TelePrompter, the close friend and confidante of President Barack Hussein Obama.
During a speech on urban and metropolitan policy in the Eisenhower Executive Building on Monday afternoon, the small glass screen came crashing down unexpectedly, shattering into tiny pieces at the president’s feet.




Keeping his usual aplomb, Obama said, “Oh, goodness. Sorry about that, guys,” and finished the speech by relying on the remaining screen and some notes on his podium. But according to a source who asked to remain anonymous for fear of Chicago-style retribution, the president was inconsolable afterward, sobbing and crying for a good ten minutes, in between puffs of his cigarette. “He wasn’t nearly this upset when his grandmother died,” our source said. “This has really been a blow.”
An official investigation is underway, but initial findings indicate that TelePrompter suffered a fatal collapse due to strain on its wires and circuits, brought on by constant use. Forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee, who first rose to national prominence for his work in the infamous woodchipper murder in Connecticut in 1986, has agreed to take on the case.
Frank Smith, president of Digital Speeches, Inc., the company that provides teleprompters to the White House, said that the units had not been designed for such heavy use, and that the wear and tear was bound to take its toll. “Previous presidents have used teleprompters, yes,” he said, “but not for every single speech and press conference. Based on Obama’s heavy reliance on the technology, I’m surprised it’s taken this long for this tragedy to occur.”
After the president concluded his speech, he was rushed from the room by his Secret Service detail while a janitorial team cleaned up, carefully placing each shard of glass in an evidence bag for further examination. Reporters spoke in hushed tones, stunned by the emotional scene. A few even had tears in their eyes.
Speaking on his show Hardball on MSNBC, Chris Matthews summed up the feelings for many in Washington and around the nation. “The tingle that’s usually running up my leg whenever I talk about this administration has turned to a chill. This disaster nearly matches that of Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 – which makes me ask the question so many Americans are thinking: what was George W. Bush’s part in all of this? Does he hate teleprompters as much as he hates black people? I think it’s time for an official investigation into the former Bush administration with regard to their complicity in this incident.”
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs noted that TelePrompter had been with the president since he first ran for the U.S. Senate back in 2004. “They were inseparable,” said Gibbs. “Everywhere Obama went, so did TelePrompter. Yes, even to the bathroom.”
A memorial service is being planned for next week in Grant Park, Chicago, where Obama celebrated his Messiah-like ascension to the White House. “It’s a fitting place – this is where the power grab really began for all of us,” said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel. When asked if the city of Chicago would end up footing the bill like they did for the November bash, he declined to comment. Rumor has it that the memorial service will outstrip that of Michael Jackson’s, which was attended by thousands and cost the city of Los Angeles $1.4 million. Celebrities already slated to attend are John Mellencamp, who believes that free speech is a “collective” thing, and Oprah Winfrey, who dubbed Obama “The One” during the campaign.
A national day of mourning is also being planned, with speculation that it could be turned into a national holiday. Postal stamps are also said to be in the works, giving race huckster Al Sharpton hope that Michael Jackson will be similarly honored.
What will the president do now? Well, there are other teleprompters, and he’ll certainly have to establish a relationship with a new one. “But just like a family member, TelePrompter cannot be replaced,” said Gibbs. “We lost one of our own.”


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Family Security Matters » Publications » Judge Sonia Sotomayor: Liar?

Family Security Matters » Publications » Judge Sonia Sotomayor: Liar?

Here is what Judge Sotomayor said in her opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday. She said, “my judicial philosophy... is simple: fidelity to the law. The task of a judge is not to make the law – it is to apply the law.”

On seven occasions, one by example in an opinion, she made clear an opposite opinion – that the outcome of a case decided by a judge of her style of decision-making, can and should be varied according to the “experience” of the judge. She wrote and published, “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion that a while male who hasn't lived that life."



Although the White House has mounted the defense that the second quote is “taken out of context,” that is a false defense. People in the position of Judge Sotomayor of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, do not give off-the-cuff speeches. Her speech was prepared, written out, and supports the quote. If that were not enough, the speech was published in a journal later – another opportunity for Sotomayor to correct it, were any of its statements wrong.

These two quotes from the same person cannot be squared with one another. Has Sotomayor had a foxhole conversion, changing her philosophy of judging at the last moment, on the verge of becoming a Justice of the Supreme Court? Her supporters on the Committee in their opening statements all supported the breadth and excellence of her judicial experience.

So, it is highly unlikely that at this precise moment that Sotomayor has honestly reversed her theory of judging to the opposite of what it was, before.

That leaves two possibilities. Either Sotomayor was lying when she made her many previous comments about a judge controlling the law, rather than merely applying it. Or, she spoke the truth then and is lying now, when she wants the Committee and the whole Senate to approve her for her final, ultimate position.

Anyone who has worked in a courtroom, lawyers and judges alike, have dealt often with witnesses who contradict themselves. Whenever a flat-out contradiction appears, the critical question is which statement is true, and which is false.

People trained in the law would apply three major understandings to the task of finding the truth. First, where are the benefits from one statement as true, rather than the other? Second, what are the circumstances of one statement than the other? And lastly, what is the demeanor of the witness in making the two statements?

Take those in reverse order. Sotomayor was most emphatic in her statement to the Judiciary Committee on Monday. But anyone who intends to sell a falsehood would know to be emphatic, and perhaps add appropriate gestures. In the two taped and televised contrary statements, she was relaxed and casual. At Duke University, she even turned her confession of “making policy” as a judge, a joke that worked very well with her audience of law students.

Demeanor suggests that Sotomayor is lying now, not then.

The circumstances of the statements is that all were prepared for delivery, though the Duke statement was blurted out, the Ricci (New Haven fireman) case, her appellate decision was the most prepared of all. Here, numbers matter. It is seven against one. This again suggests that Sotomayor is lying now, not then,

Finally, what are the stakes? If she was lying before, there is almost no payoff of any kind for the lie. But if the lie is now, the gain is a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

Two conclusions seem to follow. First, Sotomayor is clearly lying, either then or now. Second, the logical conclusion is that she is lying now in order to gain an appointment to the US Supreme Court. The idea that anyone can lie his/her way onto the Supreme Court is reprehensible, but it needs to be faced.

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Michael McCray: "No one knows how much ACORN is worth"

Michael McCray: "No one knows how much ACORN is worth"

Q: Michael, how did you first become involved with ACORN?

A: I have been actively involved with ACORN for over 10 years. I have been aware of ACORN nearly all of my life because I grew up in Arkansas (the birth place of ACORN) and was always active with community service organizations like ACORN. I became active nationally in an effort to fight predatory lending and mortgage fraud in Georgia from 1999 to2009 And I became a National Board Delegate for Georgia ACORN from 2006 – 2007. However, my chapter was dissolved when we started to ask questions about ACORN’s organizational structure and financial records. ACORN’s by-laws don’t allow them to remove board members but it does allow for an “administrative dissolution” of a chapter affiliate.



Q: Tell us a little about your background and what attracted you most to ACORN?

A: Community service is a family value. My family has always been active in education and community service organizations – including, community action groups like ACORN, NAACP, SCLC, Habitat for Humanities and Amnesty International. I continued my career in public service nationally, by working for the Federal Empowerment Zone Initiative with the Clinton Administration. Consequently, I have spent my entire professional career by working with faith-based and community organizations across the country.

ACORN is the most effective advocate for low and moderate income families in America. The appeal of ACORN is it is a “fearless” advocate and action oriented organization. What do I mean by fearless? There are many different types of neighborhood and community organizations; all of which exercise various levels of influence for their constituency. More importantly, these various organizations have inherently different tolerance levels for conflict. Some pray, some write letters, some make phone calls but ACORN goes to “war,” they will engage in immediate direct action for the benefit of low and moderate income families.

In a way ACORN is like the “Marines”. ACORN will go into areas where few (if any) traditional organizations will go and organize chapters. ACORN will protest, demonstrate and fight institutions which more traditional organizations shy away from – like banks, corporations and high ranking politicians. So if you are a poor or working class person and you have a serious grievance against the “establishment” but you can’t call Johnnie Cochran – you better call ACORN. They are the only chance you have.

Q: The promise of ACORN was compelling; how did you see it meet its goals?

A: ACORN is the most effective advocate for low and moderate income families in America. It has a long list of legislative victories, successful direct action campaigns, etc. Also the first pre-requisite for a local chapter to join ACORN is proof of a successful direct action campaign. I have personally participated in local, state and national direct action campaigns. ACORN is highly effective; my problem is that its leadership has become corrupt.

Q: Where did it fall short?

A: In my opinion, the biggest shortfall is that ACORN has become unaccountable to the needs and desires of its membership; while purporting to be (and claiming benefits from) being a membership organizations. I believe ACORN has been hijacked by a cabal of individuals who are acting in their own financial and political best interest.

Voter Fraud, Voter Registration Fraud, Census Contracts, etc are all red herrings. The real problem is lack of accountability and poor governance. If “Mickey Mouse” registered to vote – who supervised the canvasser who filed out that application. And what senior staff member supervised the team leaders? And how did the board of directors supervise the senior staffers? We believe that the majority of ACORN’s problems could be solved with –Truth, Transparency, Accountability and Governance. These are the real issues, the others are red herrings.

Q: At some point, you and others became disillusioned with top management. What was the ideological split between the two groups?

A: The ideological split is simply this – we believe that ACORN is / should be controlled by its membership and operated for the benefit of its membership; they believe that ACORN should be operated and controlled by staff with merely incidental benefits accruing to its membership.

Q: One of the complaints we've heard related to funding among all of the various ACORN-related entities. What were some of the more egregious activities you saw perpetrated by top management?

A: Well the multi-million embezzlement and 8 year cover up has to lead the list of egregious illegal conduct. The embezzlement was publicly reported to be $1 million, however the board was notified that the true number was at least $5 million.

Senior Staff and the Executive Committee knew about the embezzlement and covered it up for eight years.

We believe that any participated in, benefited from or knew about and withheld information about the embezzlement from the board should be terminated and/or removed from any association with ACORN. We demanded a forensic examination and independent financial audit of ACORN and all of its related entities to ferret out the wrongdoers.

Q: Mixing of non-profit funds with those of the for-profit entities has been mentioned repeatedly as an ACORN theme. How bad is or was this situation and where do you see it leading?

A: Our position is simply this – we do not believe that the national board of directors has ever been given access to ACORN’s corporate books and financial records. Thus, no one really knows how much ACORN is actually worth and how much non-profit –vs– for profit funding has flown through ACORN unless and until there is a forensic examination and independent audit. We know that all funding flowed through Citizen’s Consulting Inc. (CCI). But CCI claims to be a private company – but it is really the financial management division of ACORN.

Ultimately, their must be a forensic examination and audit of ACORN. Otherwise know one will ever know for sure how much went into ACORN, how much money was co-mingled at ACORN or how much money was embezzled from ACORN. It’s just that simple.

Q: Any closing thoughts about ACORN?

A: The ACORN 8 is an organization of ACORN leaders; current and former board members who are struggling to reform the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now following the discovery of a multi-million dollar embezzlement.

ACORN is not living up to its original mission; and that is to give meaningful voice and empower low and moderate income members of society. ACORN has been corrupted from its original purpose by senior management and an organizational structure that exploits the low and moderate income membership ACORN was founded to serve.

Voter fraud, voter registration fraud, unpaid taxes, unfair labor practices, etc, while tantalizing are not the problem, but merely symptoms of ACORN’s corrupt leadership. The real problem with ACORN is its governance – and the lack of transparency and accountability of that leadership.

We are NOT trying to Destroy ACORN. We are ACORN, we love ACORN and are only attempting to reform the association and return it to its original mission and purpose.

We are NOT disgruntled ACORN employees or GOP / Republican operatives. Thus, we do not have a partisan axe to grind or a political agenda to support.

We demand an immediate suspension of all federal, state and local funding of ACORN until after an independent audit and Congressional hearings on ACORN and its related entities. And all members should BOYCOTT ACORN until after a forensic examination of ACORN and its related entities.

Whe believe America must support the ACORN 8. The ACORN 8 is America’s last, best chance to empower low and moderate income members of society through Integrity in Community Organizing.

If you love ACORN and its original mission; you should support the ACORN 8. If you hate ACORN and its corrupt practices; you should support the ACORN 8. If you are an ACORN member and tired of being ignored; you should support the ACORN 8. If you are an ACORN employee and tired of being sacrificed for senior management; you should support the ACORN 8. If you are an ACORN donor and want to be sure you were not a victim of funder fraud and that your contributions are not being used for illegal political activities; you MUST support the ACORN 8. If you are a taxpayer and want to be sure your tax dollars are not funding a corrupt organization; you MUST support the ACORN 8.


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Children and Pregnant Women Targeted in U.S. Swine Flu Mass Vaccination Program by Mike Adams the Health Ranger

Children and Pregnant Women Targeted in U.S. Swine Flu Mass Vaccination Program by Mike Adams the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) The U.S. government is about to unleash a sweeping new vaccination program that claims to protect people from swine flu. The vaccines, which are of course completely useless against any mutated strain of the H1N1 influenza virus, are nevertheless quite useful at suppressing the immune function of those who receive them. Well-designed medical studies conducted over the years have consistently shown that the people who catch the flu (influenza) with the greatest frequency are precisely those who get the most flu shots.

To those who know anything about the immune system, vaccines and influenza, it may seem shocking to learn that the U.S. influenza vaccine program will first target those with the weakest immune systems to begin with: Toddlers as young as six months old, pregnant women and adults with degenerative disease. This is precisely what Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...)



Why is the swine flu vaccine targeting those least likely to need it?

It's all quite fascinating from a public health point of view, of course, especially since the U.S. government already announced the swine flu was "mild" and that it only really attacked those with healthy immune systems, not weak immune systems. So why is the first wave of vaccines now targeting the very children and adults who are least likely to be impacted by swine flu infections in the first place?

The answer, of course, is that swine flu vaccines have nothing to do with public health and everything to do with generating billions of dollars in profits for Big Pharma. For the drug companies to rake in all this money manufacturing vaccines, they obviously have to give the shots to somebody -- just to create the illusion that something productive might be going on in order to justify the government expenditures. It's a lot like war budgets: You gotta drop bombs on somebody in order to justify making new ones.

So the vaccines are dropping little viral bombs on precisely those citizens least able to fend for themselves: Children, pregnant women, senile seniors and adults suffering from chronic disease... these are the new "targets" of the U.S. government's mass vaccination program.

Note that they have deliberately avoided targeting the people most capable of speaking out and saying no to dangerous vaccines: Healthy young couples and middle-aged individuals who aren't victims of modern medicine.

Baxter inserts live flu viruses into vaccine materials

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical factories are churning out huge doses of the swine flu vaccine: 100 million doses will reportedly be available for injection into victims by mid-October.

Curiously, one of the companies being contracted to manufacture this vaccine is Baxter International, the very same company that was caught late last year inserting live influenza viruses into vaccine materials distributed to 18 countries. Apparently, this company has already perfected the techniques for infecting vaccines with live viruses, and now the U.S. government has contracted with Baxter to help manufacture hundreds of millions of doses of swine flu vaccines to be injected into infants, pregnant women and chronically diseased adults.

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The Greater Evil, Political Blog, Conservative Bloggers, Republican Blogspot, Political Blogs

The Greater Evil, Political Blog, Conservative Bloggers, Republican Blogspot, Political Blogs

It's Official! Hawaii never issued Obama's 2007 Certification of Live Birth

Today is July 14, and in the space of less than two months, Obama's Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, has acknowledged, for a second time, that Obama had posted a copy of his Certification of Live Birth (COLB) on the Internet and one that Gibbs alleges is a real certificate sent by Hawaii.

The big problem for Gibbs here, and for Obama, is that what was posted on the Internet and on Obama's website, (which has now been scrubbed) is a fabricated and forged "scan image." Furthermore, the document object shown in photos taken by Factcheck staffer, Jess Henig, and alleged to be the same document shown in the "scan image," is also a fabricated forgery. I documented it all in my final report, Obama's Born Conspiracy, and in my recent post, "Why Obama will never show his birth certificate."

But, the real killer of this birth certificate scam is that Hawaii never made a 2007 Certification of Live Birth for Obama, never issued a 2007 COLB for Obama, and never confirmed anything about this bogus 2007 COLB that Obama, his staff, and Factcheck have insisted is a real document.

Last year, while working on my final report, Obama's Born Conspiracy, I called Hawaii's DOH and asked to speak directly to Dr. Alvin Onaka, the Hawaii State Registrar and Head of the Office of Health Status Monitoring (OSHM), of which Vital Records is a part. I posed as a writer doing geneology research, knowing that if I portrayed myself as yet another investigator seeking information on Obama's birth records, that I would be immediately shot down. Strictly speaking, I was collecting vital record information on Obama's heritage, after all.

I proceeded to ask Dr. Onaka questions about the COLB that only he, or a manager in Vital Records, would know. These are questions that Communications Officer, Janice Okubo does not know or anyone else not connected with Vital Records. I did this as a way to corroborate my conversation with him.

(BTW, I noted this conversation in an earlier comment, on FreeRepublic.com).





I asked Dr. Onaka if the COLBs are stamped using a machine or by hand. He said, "Both." Hawaii uses a machine that applies the Seal and stamps electronically and simultaneously. That's why they appear to be placed in the same position, from year to year - except in years where the large Seal design is used. He said that they use a desktop Seal embosser, similar to what notaries use, but much longer, so as to place the Seal higher up on the paper.

I asked him, "Why is the border on 2007 COLB different from the 2008 COLB, why is the Seal larger, and why is your signature stamp located off to the side instead of directly under the Seal? He told me that they alternate the Seal design and border design, and when the Seal (the larger one) doesn't leave enough room to place the signature stamp below it, it's put off to the side. Evidentally, this larger Seal is what is applied by hand, as in every case where it has been used, the Seal impression appears in a different spot on the paper.

Then, I slipped in the the following question. I asked him if Janice Okubo had confirmed that his office produced a 2007 Certification of Live Birth, date-stamped June 6, 2007, with Obama's birth information on it, and he quickly replied:

"Absolutely not. No one in our office confirmed it."

That promptly ended the conversation as Dr. Onaka was not going to respond to any more questions from me. Since then, Hawaii has not answered anymore questions about Obama's birth record from anyone.

To me, it's rather ironic, or maybe a matter of my experience, that everyone and his brother was calling and quoting Janice Okubo, who is a knowledgeable Communications Officer, but who does not know anything about the technical details of the COLB, such as why do the borders change. I also suspect that some of the sources quoting her - especially Factcheck and their sister site, Politifact - put words in her mouth. For instance, I believe that she said, in response to viewing the "scan image" posted online, that "It looks like my birth certificate." I also believe that these two overzealous sources, Factcheck and Politifact, added the word, "exactly" to her statement so as to make it, "It looks exactly like my birth certificate" - a more definative statement, but false, nontheless.

Politifact reporter, Amy Hollyfield, also made a number of other questionable entries in her article, "Obama's birth certificate: final chapter." At the midpoint of her article she said that "When the birth certificate arrived from the Obama campaign it confirmed his name as the other documents already showed it. Still, we took an extra step: We e-mailed it to the Hawaii Department of Health, which maintains such records, to ask if it was real."

"'It’s a valid Hawaii state birth certificate, ' spokesman Janice Okubo told us."

Yeah, get real. She never asked Okubo if it was "real," and an electronic image is not a valid anything. Only a real certified, stamped paper certificate is valid. There's no way that she could have said, by looking at just a front-side image, that it was a "valid Hawaii state birth certificate." She might have said that "It looked like a "Hawaii state birth certificate," or it that "It looked like my birth certificate,: but there is no way for her to know anything about the validity of an image. She even indicated that Hawaii does not send birth certificates electronically. So, was Politfact exaggerating, or intentiionally misleading? Probably both.

As forensic document examiner, Sandra Lines, noted, the only way to tell if a document is authentic is to examine the actual paper document, and not an image of it. However, much to the chagrin of my critics, you can tell when an image or photo has been altered, irrespective of its subject. You can make an authentic image of a forged document just as you can make a forged image look like an authentic document (although Obama's COLB forgery was hardly authentic-looking).

If the image is bogus, and this "scan image" was, then the document depicted in is also bogus: either it was fabricated or it does not exist. As it turned out, both of these are true: Obama's COLB does not exist and the images that people claim were made of a real COLB, are also, totally bogus.

To that, Janice Okubo might agree, as the last statement she made was to say that "I don’t know that it’s possible for us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents."

On the other hand, how can she say that the DOH would not know what that image represents? The DOH is the one who could have said, "Yes, it's a copy of a real COLB we produced for Obama," or they could have said what Onaka indicated to me, that "We didn't produce this document."

In her conversation with Factcheck, on two separate occassions, Okubo said that “Someone had requested it [Obama’s COLB] in June 2008,” which would be impossible if it were a real COLB since it has a production date of June 6, 2007, stamped onto it. Since this document, in reality, does not exist, then the only evidence that a document image provides is that the image is a self-evident forgery. Likewise, anything purporting to be a reproduction or representation of this nonexistent document, is itself a forgery.

When DOH Director Chiyome Fukino announced to the press, on October 31, 2008, that “Hawaii has Obama’s original birth certificate on record,” this ahould have been the time for Hawaii to also confirm the exisence of the COLB posted online, since that is what prompted hundreds of phone calls to Ukubo and company in the first place. The fact that she didn't only reinforces the fact that his COLB does not exist.

If the birth information on that COLB matched the birth information in his birth record, then why not say so? It would have stopped them from being bombarded with phone calls, and may have ended the quest for his long-form birth certificate.

Conversely, if the birth information on that COLB did not match the info on his birth record, then they would be dancing around the issue and dodging all questions about it - which is exactly what they did.

As you now know, and hopefully everyone else will begin to know, there never was a 2007 Obama COLB to copy or to photograph. It was a BIG FAT LIE! It was nothing more than a fabricated image made to look like a COLB image -- an image unlike any other. The fact that this COLB does not exist effectively silences all of Obama supporters, apologists, and members of his Administration who, despite this harsh reality, continue to insist that this COLB is a real document, and with an avowed distain for those who question it.
Although the bulk of my COLB research and report writing was finished in November of last year, I continued to investigate the COLB to cover all possible bases of criticism that anyone could ever make about the image and photos. From the very beginning, more than a year ago, the crux of my empirical research was always to determine if it was even possible to naturally produce a "scan image" that looked like the one Obama posted on the Internet. What I learned from a year's worth of investigations, is that, not only is it impossible to create this "scan image" naturally from a real paper COLB, it is also impossible to create a "scan image" at all as the image shown on the Internet was fabricated from two different sources and two different media!

Study this image carefully:

The left half of this image is the upper right corner of Factcheck's copy of the "scan image." The right half of this image contain the upper right corner of a real 2007 COLB. The short, vertical border piece is also from the same COLB. What I tried to do here was to duplicate the pattern and color of the "scan image" border through the use of color controls and sharpening techniques found in most advanced image editors. Of the two borders on the right side, I feel that the short, vertical border most closely matches the vertical part of the Factcheck border (although it is a little bit wider than the Factcheck border).

If you agree with me, then you will be surprised to learn that this vertical border piece came from a digital photograph of the 2007 COLB border, while the upper right corner came from a digital scan of the 2007 COLB border. I firmly believe that the forger used a photo of a 2007 COLB to manufacture the border as shown on this bogus "scan image."

From the first time I saw it (when the Daily Kos posted it on June 12, 2008), I thought it looked "really wierd." For months, I was unable to figure out how it was made although I knew how to duplicate the color. Then, I went back to my folder of images and found the one photo I had of the same 2007 COLB scan.

I thought, "What if the forger used a photo like this?" Sure enough, the theory fit.

As for the "green thatched" background (which looks more bluish than green), I know that it came from a scan of someone else's COLB - whose COLB doesn't matter - because the border pattern (the actual "security" paper used for all COLBS), remains the same from year to year. In fact, it is the one thing that remains constant for all COLBs and what allows me to take accurate measurements of the COLB's features, like the width for the borders, the size of the embossed Seal, location of the folds, and so on.
As for how the forger produced the black text, that was the easy part. Simply take a full color COLB, reduce the number of color channels to two, that is, simply make it a black and white image. The black text and the black masthead remain, while the background goes white. Select the white background, click CUT, and presto, it's like printing the black parts on a sheet of clear plastic, except that the forger is using a graphics program to create individual layers. The text is put on one layer, just the green thatched background on another layer, and then a layer containing the made-to-order border.
Then, by merging these individual layers into one composite image, and doing some touch-ups to the image to hide the signs of layering, you have a finished product that looks like an image made directly from, let's say, a digital scanner.

Then, when all was done, the next step would be to merge all of the layers together into one composite image, adjust the colors of the image, alternate between smoothing and sharpening to hide the signs of alteration, and then save the original image and send copies of it by email to the Daily Kos, Factcheck, Politifact, et al.
As they say, "The rest is history." A very sordid history, in my opinion.

Since November of last year, I learned something else that was very important, something about a group of photos that I initially pegged as being Photoshopped. I debated as to whether or not to admit my mistake. However, to be true to my research, and to be honest to myself, I need to admit my mistakes, and change my theories accordingly as to how something was made.

Since November of last year, I have conducted a number of sophisticated image analyses using new software that was not available to me last year. One is called, JPEGSnoop, which analyses the digital signatures and compression algorithms in an image and compares them to a database of values for a particular digital camera, scanner, or image editing software like Photoshop. This software allows the user to see if original images have been altered in any way. So, as a result of doing these analyses on Factcheck's photos, which were taken by Jess Henig, I concluded these photo images were not altered in any way.

This is not to say that these photos were not edited in any way, because the Exif data had been changed. The Exif data is the information found inside a photo that describes the camera used and all of the camera's settings used to take the photo.

I proved this to myself by buying the same make and model camera as Jess Henig used and I took my own photos in an effort to replicate hers. I also re-examined the photos with a software program called JMicrovision, which allowed me to make measurements of the objects shown in the photos with respect to size, angle, color, intensity, saturation, pixel point counts, and so forth. Basically, I used this program to compare the document object as shown in the "scan image" with the photos of what Factcheck claims is the same document object. Guess what? They do differ.

All techniques aside, even a child can see that there is no way that the heavily embossed Seal and pronounced second fold line in the document object shown in the photos would NOT show up in a scan of it. As you know, the "scan image" -- the one and only image to which all people refer -- had a barely visible Seal impression, and absolutely and unequivocally, NO 2nd FOLD LINE. The Seal impression on the real 2008 COLB, that I have used to scan and photograph, is much flatter than in Factcheck's document object - yet my scans clearly show it every time.

Given that the "scan image" is unquestionably bogus, and that the Obama COLB does not exist, then by extension, whatever was photographed by Factcheck, has to be bogus, too.

It also means that we have another forgery! It means that, although the photos are not bogus, the document object shown in them surely is, as I had noted in my final report. The difference now is that the document object - what is shown in the front side photos - is a constructed document object, using thicker paper than regular security paper, and having printed on it the original forged image that was posted online.

With the assistance of a few FReepers looking at the Factcheck photos under magnification, what we have seen are letters that appear to "float" above the paper as opposed to being "burned in" by a laser printer. If you have ever used what's called "dry transfer lettering," then you would know what I mean. Except that, for this forgery, instead of applying letters individually, the entire forged image was printed onto a special type of self-adhesive, clear film that was peeled off its backing and attached to the front of either a sheet of photo paper imprinted with the green background, or a sheet of blank security paper, and then stamped with a Seal similar to what is used in Hawaii's DOH.
Look at this photo comparison between the first seven letters of the word, "CERTIFICATION NO." in a real 2007 COLB (top) versus the bogus 2007 COLB in Factcheck's photo #5 (bottom). The arrows on the bottom photo are pointing to the shadows cast by the letters:

Normal laser print is "burned" into the paper, and you can see the crinkly-edges along the outside of each letter in the top photo. The letters in the bottom photo have shadows under them and they look like they were printed on a sheet of clear plastic and laid on top of a patterned piece of paper.
It also looks like that someone within Hawai's DOH may also be involved in constructing this forged document object by either smuggling out a few sheets of pre-stamped security paper to an Obama aide when he was in Hawaii on August 9, or who took the constructed document object from an aide, stamped it and embossed it, and gave it back to him or her.

The timing for this scenario is just right. Obama was in Hawaii during the week of August 9, and then twelve days later, Factcheck produces these suspicious-looking photos.

There is one more "fly in the ointment" regarding Factcheck's photos. Remember to keep in mind that they were taken to "validate the scan image," and not to directly verify the existence of a real COLB. This pesky fly is that the Seal impression on the reverse side, or rather 2/3 of a Seal impression on the reverse side, that appears in two photos (#7 and #8), does NOT match the Seal impression as shown from the front. I mentioned this in my final report, that this Seal was not the same one used for the front-side photos. I also mentioned that this is the reason why the top 1/3 of the Seal was deliberately cropped ou of the photo.

Taken as a whole, what all of these findings mean are the following:

  1. There is not, nor has there ever been, a real paper 2007 COLB produced for Obama that contains his actual birth information on record.
  2. Hawaii has never produced a copy of Obama's original Birth Certificate or a Certification of Live Birth that was allegedly scanned and posted online, as claimed by the Obama Administration, Factcheck, Politifact, and others.
  3. Obama, members of his administration, and cohorts at Factcheck, are responsible for producing, not one, but two falsified government documents, thus committing document fraud in violation of Federal laws.
  4. Obama, members of his campaign organization, Obama for America, ,and cohorts at Factcheck, are responsible for producing, not one, but two falsified government documents used for the purposes of soliciting funds via the Internet, thus committing Internet fraud in violation of Federal laws.
  5. Obama, members of his campaign organization, Obama for America, and cohorts at Factcheck, are responsible for producing, not one, but two falsified government documents used for purposes of soliciting votes for Obama as President, thus committing voter fraud in violation of Federal laws.
  6. Obama, members of his campaign organization, Obama for America, and his cohorts at Factcheck, are responsible for producing, not one, but two falsified government documents for the purposes of deceiving Americans, members of Congress, and members of the justice system, that Obama was born in Hawaii and is a US citizen, and for obstructing justice by using it as an excuse to prevent the release of his real long-form birth certificate.

The next questions that Les Kinsolving needs to ask Press Secretary Gibbs is why did the Obama Administration create a forged birth certificate image and post it online? Why are there two hospitals listed as Obama's place of birth? Why has the Obama Administration gone about scrubbing all this incriminating evidence from the Internet?



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Taxes Sought to Fix Aged Infrastructure - WSJ.com

Taxes Sought to Fix Aged Infrastructure - WSJ.com

WASHINGTON—A bipartisan group of lawmakers is proposing to raise about $10 billion a year to fix aging water and sewer systems by taxing the biggest users.

The legislation, which has sparked significant opposition from industry, is expected to be unveiled Wednesday at a news conference on Capitol Hill.

The bill calls for a 0.15% tax on any corporation earning a profit of more than $4 million a year. Manufacturers of any water-based beverages, excluding alcohol, would see a four-cent tax per container. Soaps, detergents, toiletries, toilet tissue, water softeners and cooking oils would face a 3% tax on wholesale prices. Pharmaceuticals would be taxed at 0.5% of the wholesale price.



Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D., Ore.), the main sponsor of the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act, said he believed the bill was necessary to repair an aging system used by all Americans. The taxes, he said, would target some of the biggest users of water and companies that have the biggest stake in the efficiency of the system. He called the fees modest and fair.

The federal government has paid an average of $2.3 billion each year since 2000 to help maintain the water system. A spokeswoman for Mr. Blumenauer said the trust fund created under the bill would bring in about $10 billion a year.

Concerns about the safety and integrity of water systems is a perennial concern, particularly in older cities. Recent water-main breaks in New York City have disrupted traffic and transit.

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce representative, Janet Kavinoky, said: "Anytime there's a broad base of general taxes being used to fund infrastructure, the chamber is going to take a close look at how that affects our members."

The chamber also has concerns that a federal subsidy for infrastructure repair could send a signal to local municipalities that they don't need to charge the real cost of providing water.

Representatives of the industries that would be hardest hit by the proposed fees said they feel unfairly targeted.

Joe Doss, president and chief executive of the International Bottled Water Association, said the proposal singled out one product category, while other water users wouldn't see tax increases.

Kevin Keane, senior vice president of the American Beverage Association, said beverage companies would almost certainly raise their prices to help compensate for the tax. This is just another example of "raising taxes on the middle class," Mr. Keane said. [It] would just add to the burden of taxpayers at a time they are already facing economic struggles," he said.

A representative from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said they have not yet developed an opinion on the legislation.

Mr. Blumenauer is set to testify on the legislation Wednesday in front of a panel of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

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SAF Press Release :: DALEY’S BODYGUARD CATCHES KILLER; ‘WE SHOULD ALL BE SO LUCKY,’ SAYS SAF

SAF Press Release :: DALEY’S BODYGUARD CATCHES KILLER; ‘WE SHOULD ALL BE SO LUCKY,’ SAYS SAF

BELLEVUE, WA – The capture of a convicted killer Monday near the Michigan vacation home of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley proves that guns in the right hands are necessary for personal safety, the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

“Mayor Daley is protected by an armed guard,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “but what about the citizens of his city, who have no such luxury? The mayor is a world class hypocrite, who has bodyguards with guns to protect him from escaped killers like Charles Smith. Yet he is continuing to stubbornly fight against average citizens who are willing to protect themselves, but unable to because of Daley’s deranged double standard about firearms and personal protection.”



The Second Amendment Foundation is challenging Chicago’s handgun ban and the case may be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Smith broke out of prison with two other men, a rapist and another murderer, in Michigan City, Indiana. At last report the other two were still at large, and one is believed to be in the Grand Beach, MI area where Daley’s summer home is located. Authorities there have been warning residents to stay inside.

“While Daley can lounge in the protective shadow of armed bodyguards even when he is out of state,” Gottlieb added, “average citizens in Chicago and all over Illinois must contend with the mayor’s elitist attitude about gun ownership. Most people can’t afford armed bodyguards.

“So long as Daley fights to keep his fellow citizens unarmed,” he observed, “he does not deserve the protection of men with guns. Daley’s self-importance is of little interest to the single mom who worries about an ex-boyfriend, or the shop keeper trying to make an honest living in a neighborhood ruled by gang bangers and drug users.

“Richard Daley’s arrogance has been revealed by this incident,” Gottlieb concluded. “Take away his bodyguards and just tell him to dial 9-1-1 like the rest of us. No public official should place his own safety above that of his constituents.”

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nations oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.

-END-
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Glenn Beck - Interviews - Glenn Beck: Put that Constitution away!

Glenn Beck - Interviews - Glenn Beck: Put that Constitution away!

GLENN: Helen Glover is with us from our affiliate in Providence, Rhode Island, 920 WHJJ. Helen, tell me about the tea party that happened this July 4th?

CALLER: Good morning, Glenn. Well, you know, the tea party movement's growing across the country and certainly here in Rhode Island, one of the most liberal states in the union, there's really been a real grassroots effort to get this tea party going. One April 15th and another one in June and then we put together a float for the Bristol Fourth of July parade which by the way is the oldest parade in the country. And it was pretty much made clear to the Rhode Island tea party association that they weren't wanted in the parade to begin with and

GLENN: Why?

CALLER: Well, because apparently we're a subversive group, Glenn. We're on the terror watch list.


GLENN: Hang on, I'm looking at the picture. I'm looking at the picture. This is from the HJJ website. Is that the picture of everybody dressed in colonial clothes that looks like a giant boat?

CALLER: Yeah, it's actually the British slip the beaver that was ransacked by the colonists they Boston tea party in 1773. Now, we were told that we could not dress as Indians. I don't know why because the original colonists dressed as Indians. They said we could not do that. So we said, fine, we'll dress as patriots.

GLENN: Hold it, hold it. Is there a possibility that I mean, let's take a wild guess here on why you couldn't because it would be offensive to Native Americans?

CALLER: Well, I'm sure that was the reason. However, there were other floats with other people in the parade that were dressed as Indians. Some of them are legitimate Native Americans but others were not. But that, you know, the stipulation was only put on our float.

GLENN: Huh.

CALLER: Oh, it gets better.

GLENN: Okay.

CALLER: I asked for a PA system. I said, you know, because let's face it, they are looking for a reason to kick is out of the parade. So let's just have a PA system on the boat and play on the float and pay patriotic music because you can't go wrong with that, right? I thought.

GLENN: Right.

CALLER: Then we were told we couldn't have a PA system on the boat.

GLENN: Why?

CALLER: No reason given, but

GLENN: I'm sure all of the other floats, none of them had a PA system.

CALLER: All of the other floats if they wanted them had them.

GLENN: That's a different parade. I'm sure you are thinking of a different parade.

CALLER: That's right. Well, of course, we were also told we couldn't throw tea bags off the float because that's dangerous. It could put an eye out.

GLENN: Well, if they had knives in the tea bags. They don't know. Maybe you had some of those Chinese death stars.

CALLER: Exactly.

GLENN: They were and you were throwing the tea bags out like that. They didn't know.

CALLER: Even wet a tea bag's not going to cause bodily harm.

GLENN: Hang on just a second because I know that I have been in parades before where you are not supposed to throw out candy because it's dangerous because people run to the street and then they, you know, get hit by a, you know, a giant float.

CALLER: Completely understandable. Completely understandable and that is in the regulation that the tea party, the application that they signed and agreed to those rules, that's fine. We adhere to those rules.

GLENN: Okay. So did anybody else throw things at them?

CALLER: Of course they did. Of course they did. Lollipops off one float, flyers announcing a roller derby schedule. There were flyers to and again I can understand if they don't want somebody soliciting during a parade but there was one dairy that was allowed to hand out information if you want to sign up for home delivery of milk, eggs and the like. Apparently that was okay.

GLENN: What wasn't okay? Did you throw the tea bags at people?

CALLER: No. We didn't know.

GLENN: What was the problem?

CALLER: Glenn, I'm a rule follower and I made that very clear when I got involved with the parade and the float. I said, I don't want to be the reason you are thrown out. I obey the rules. That's just one of those quirks I have. So I said I'm not going to do anything that's against the rules. So we didn't throw anything off that float.

GLENN: And you didn't dress as Indians.

CALLER: I didn't dress as an Indian

GLENN: And you didn't have a sound system.

CALLER: But they gave us a bullhorn. And that was my other fear, Glenn, because I tend to be, kind of like you, I sometimes am not politically correct, especially on my show.

GLENN: Sure.

CALLER: So I said, you know what, maybe the safest thing is for me not to use that bullhorn. So I gave it to a few other people but they really

GLENN: That was a mistake.

CALLER: Well, they thought maybe reading some quotes from the founding fathers. But, you know, you are going along a parade route with a bullhorn. That's not the same as a PA system. You are not going to be able to understand, you know, something that Ben Franklin said that's maybe a couple of sentences long. So I thought, okay, maybe simply reciting the "Pledge of Allegiance" keeping out the subversive line one nation under God. And I thought, you know what, I'm just going to stick to real quick bullet points. You are going by in a parade, people only have a couple of seconds to absorb something. So I said something that came from the house of parliament when one of the British politicians said, "Quite frankly, sir, you've run out of our money." I thought that's a good one, no more taxes, we've been taxed enough, hold your elected officials to a higher standard, make them accountable. That was the kind of stuff I said.

GLENN: This is crazy. Stu, crazy. I mean, Helen is crazy.

CALLER: Radical stuff.

PAT: Crazy talk.

GLENN: How are you not in handcuffs?

CALLER: Well, strange as it seems when I found out we were kicked out of the parade the first thing I said was oh, no. And Marina Peterson who was the first one who got the call on this was told it wasn't because of something I said which I'm relieved at although, you know, I can stand behind anything I said. I made sure it was not political. We were thrown out of the parade because a gentleman who was not on the float, by the way, had been walking up and down the parade route for about an hour and a half with his 10 year old, 11 year old son handing out little pocket you've probably seen them, little pocket guide of the Constitution Bill of Rights.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh!

CALLER: Yes.

GLENN: What, are you crazy? That thing is so ancient and distorted. I mean, it was an updated version of the Constitution, wasn't it? It wasn't like I didn't include, like, the preamble and all the other stuff.

CALLER: No, unfortunately it was the whole shebang, the Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

GLENN: Oh, jeez.

STU: That's extremism. Do we have a warrantless wiretap?

GLENN: Hold on just a second. Are we tracing the call? We are tracing the call? Just stay on the line with me. Just talk to me. So what else is happening?

CALLER: I think the Secret Service are at the door right now.

GLENN: So they kicked you out because you were handing out the Constitution.

CALLER: I believe, Glenn, the words were, "Don't even bother wasting the stamp for an application next year. You are..." and not just kicked out, Glenn. We are banned for life. It's like double secret probation in Animal House. We are banned.

GLENN: The oldest parade in the country.

CALLER: You got it.

GLENN: For the Fourth of July.

CALLER: Banned for life.

GLENN: You are banned for life.

CALLER: Yep.

GLENN: For handing out... the Fourth of July parade... the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

CALLER: Yeah. They said

GLENN: What is the name of the organization that does this little parade?

CALLER: It is the Bristol Fourth of July parade committee. And believe me, that is a group that you know what, that is ironclad. Apparently they can make law, enforce it and you have no recourse.

GLENN: Stu, could you get a hold of the I tell you what

CALLER: Good luck.

GLENN: Have one of the producers at Fox get a hold of them and let them know that we would love to hear the explanation of this.

CALLER: Yeah, good luck. Good luck.

GLENN: Oh, no, no, no. Make sure they know if they don't appear on the show, somebody will appear for them.

CALLER: (Laughing).

GLENN: Can you do that?

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: And report back to me tomorrow. Hopefully they can find it in their schedule in the next couple of days. Helen, thank you for bringing this to our attention. You stay in touch with me and I'll let you know. I'll let you know because we'll open up the show at any time they can be on to tell us because they must have had a good excuse.

CALLER: Oh, absolutely, yes.

GLENN: And I'm sure America would love to hear it and I sure would because I can't trust you, Helen.

CALLER: Oh, no.

GLENN: You are a crazy woman.

CALLER: Absolutely.

GLENN: You were dressed up in colonial garb on a big boat in a Fourth of July parade, you know. Next thing you know, you'll be dressing up like an Indian. We can't trust you. So we'll get a hold of the parade people and we'll keep you up to speed on this.
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As President Travels to Detroit, Motor City Newspapers Slam "Stimulus" Plan That Isn't Working | Republican Leader John Boehner

As President Travels to Detroit, Motor City Newspapers Slam "Stimulus" Plan That Isn't Working | Republican Leader John Boehner

With Unemployment Rising, Boehner and Camp Warn Dems' Small Business Tax and Mandates Will Destroy Millions More American Jobs

Washington, Jul 14 - President Obama travels to Detroit today, in an attempt to continue selling the Democrats’ “stimulus” spending plan that isn’t working. If the reactions from the city’s two newspapers are any indication, he has a tough job ahead in Michigan. While national unemployment has risen far beyond the level predicted by Washington Democrats, Michigan is facing more than 14 percent unemployment, even though the Administration promised immediate job creation after the stimulus became law. That’s led both the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press to publish editorials this morning underscoring the “stimulus” bill’s complete lack of success in fulfilling the Administration’s promises on the economy:





Detroit News: “President Barack Obama’s plan to attack the recession through massive deficit spending is not producing the results the president promised in February when he convinced the American people to go deep into hock in the name of creating jobs and boosting economic growth. Obama is well into spending the $787 million approved by Congress for his stimulus programs, and yet the unemployment rate is still climbing and economic recovery remains elusive. Administration economists projected that the huge influx of borrowed federal dollars would keep the national unemployment rate from breaking through the 8 percent mark. It stands at 9.5 percent today and is still rising.”

Detroit Free Press: “Seems that Obama might do better to focus on encouraging folks here about how his policies – the stimulus package, in particular – are going to actually put people back to work... Obama will surely try to offer solutions, but he can’t afford to sugar-coat anything in front of a Michigan audience. If it’s a teachable moment, it may be more of one for the president than for those he’s visiting.”

According to a new CBS News poll, 75 percent of Americans believe the “stimulus” has either had no impact or made the economy worse, leading middle-class families and small businesses in Michigan and across the country to ask, Where are the jobs? And the job losses may not be over yet, according to House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Ways & Means Committee Ranking Republican Dave Camp (R-MI). In an op-ed published in today’s Detroit News, in advance of the President’s visit to the Motor City, Boehner and Camp warned that the Democrats’ government takeover of health care could cost more jobs, as a result of the small business tax and mandates that Democratic leaders are planning to use to bankroll the plan:

“[T]he centerpieces of the House Democrats’ government takeover of health care are a new small business tax and a slew of new mandates on employers. These are on top of the president's budget that included even more taxes on small businesses. Small businesses are accustomed to the difficult choices they must make when business costs rise. Equipment purchases are shelved. Health care and retirement benefits are cut. Hiring is put off, and some employees are let go. The result is even more Americans out of work and, yes, fewer with access to quality health care.”

“The Democrats’ health care plan also includes a flurry of new employer mandates that will raise the costs of doing business even higher. By penalizing employers – including millions of small businesses – who cannot afford to pay for health care, these new mandates will mean even fewer jobs. According to a methodology developed by the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, Christina Romer, the mandates could cost 4.7 million jobs during the next 10 years. The National Federation of Independent Businesses recently warned that they could cost one million small business jobs alone.”

Boehner and Camp noted that the House GOP’s health care reform alternative gives small businesses better options to make health care available and affordable for employees and their families. Small business health plans, a cornerstone of House Republicans’ health care reform proposal, allow smaller firms to band together through associations and purchase high-quality health insurance at lower costs, just like large corporations do.

Indeed, if Washington Democrats are serious about creating more jobs and getting the economy moving again, they should scrap the job-destroying agenda they’re bringing to the floor of the House this summer. Their national energy tax will raise costs for families and small businesses across America and send millions of jobs overseas to competitors like China and India. And their small business tax and mandates, which Democrats reportedly plan to pay for a government takeover of health care, will strangle even more small businesses and destroy millions more jobs. That’s not what middle-class families want – in Michigan or anywhere else in America. Isn’t it time for Washington Democrats to work with Republicans on better solutions to create jobs?



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Will Dem Leaders "BTU" Their Members on New Small Business Tax the Senate Plans to Ignore? | Republican Leader John Boehner

Will Dem Leaders "BTU" Their Members on New Small Business Tax the Senate Plans to Ignore? | Republican Leader John Boehner

Boehner: "It is Criminal Malpractice for Democrats to Push a Government Takeover of Health Care & a New Small Business Tax That Will Destroy More American Jobs"



Washington, Jul 14 - Many Democrats who walked the plank and voted for the Speaker’s unpopular national energy tax faced a blistering reaction back home, and the Senate looks unlikely to act on the legislation – meaning House Democrats got “BTU-ed” all over again. Will it happen again on health care too?

The Wall Street Journal reported that rank-and-file Democrats are concerned about another tough vote on a small business tax, and that House Democratic leaders relayed that concern to the White House at a meeting yesterday:

“In the [White House] meeting, House [Democratic] leaders voiced concerns that their members would take a politically risky vote for higher taxes only to see the Senate fail to act, according to people familiar with the meeting.”

Rank-and-file Democrats are right to be worried, since news reports find little enthusiasm for Speaker Pelosi’s national energy tax in the Senate, and Democratic Senators have also pointedly criticized their new small business tax as well. That didn’t stop House Democratic leaders. Today they made it official: they want to impose a massive new small business tax hike in the midst of a severe recession on American families and small business to finance their government takeover of health care. House Republican Leader John Boehner (D-OH), who has been asking the Democrats “Where are the jobs?” responded with a statement:

“During a deep economic recession, it is criminal malpractice for Democrats to push a government takeover of health care and a new small business tax that will destroy more American jobs. After the Democrats’ trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ did not fulfill the Administration’s promises to create jobs immediately, a small business tax will make matters worse for middle-class Americans looking for real solutions to help put them back to work and give them better access to quality health care. Washington cannot afford to make the same mistake now that Democrats made earlier this year on the ‘stimulus.’”

Of note, President Obama released a statement in support of the House Democrats’ bill. What the President DOESN’T say in his statement, however, on the House Democrats health care bill speaks much more loudly than what he actually DOES say. Consider what he doesn’t mention, and it’s no wonder why:

  1. Nothing on the job-killing small business tax to fund their government takeover of health care that the Senate refuses to take up.
  2. Nothing about whether people will be able to keep their health plan, as the President has repeatedly claimed.
  3. Nothing on the burdensome job-killing employer mandates.
  4. Nothing on costly junk lawsuits that increase health care costs.
  5. Nothing on the overall cost of the bill.

House Republicans have put forward a better plan to reduce health care costs, expand access, and increase the quality of care in a way Americans can afford – without a job-killing small business tax. The plan also will ensure that patients and doctors, not government bureaucrats, continue to make critical and personal medical decisions. More information on the plan is available HERE. With rank-and-file Democrats expressing opposition to small business taxes and mandates to finance this government takeover of health care, isn’t it time for Democratic leaders in Congress and the Administration to join Republicans at the table to craft a commonsense plan to give Americans better access to affordable health care?


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Small Business Sucker Punch: Dems' Small Business Tax Kills Jobs | Republican Leader John Boehner

Small Business Sucker Punch: Dems' Small Business Tax Kills Jobs | Republican Leader John Boehner

Washington, Jul 15 - Democrats are singing their same old tune, “tax the rich” to pay for their government takeover of health care. But small business owners pay their businesses’ taxes on their individual tax returns (as opposed to the corporate income tax). So the Democrats’ bill places a new and stifling tax – up to an additional 5.4 percent – on the engine of economic growth in our economy: small businesses. In a deep recession and nearing double-digit unemployment, that’s the last thing our country needs.



As reported in The Detroit Free Press, among others, House Republicans made clear that a small business tax will cost jobs and hurt our economy:

“‘During a deep economic recession, it is criminal malpractice for Democrats to push a government takeover of health care and a new small-business tax that will destroy more American jobs,’ House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement.”

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) commissioned a survey of small business owners with total household income likely in excess of $250,000 and found that the more employees a firm had the more likely it was to be affected. In other words, the Democratic small business tax doesn’t hit every small business, it targets those with the most employees. That is bad news for the 33.5 million workers – 28 percent of the private-sector workforce - employed by small businesses with 20 – 299 employees. These employers added more than 2 million jobs between 2001 to 2006; jobs directly threatened by this tax hike.

The Democrats’ Talking Points Miss the Point – It’s About Jobs

Proponents of the small business tax will argue that relatively few small businesses will be impacted by this tax increase. But the point isn’t the number of small businesses – it’s the number of jobs.

According to data compiled by the Tax Policy Center from IRS data, 50.3 percent of all filers in the top bracket (with income over $372,950) earn at least 25 percent of their income from business activities. Proponents of this tax increase deliberately use estimates of a relatively small number of firms impacted to hide the negative impact of this tax hike on jobs. Both NFIB and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) have proven that these low estimates are misleading. NFIB tax counsel Bill Rys said, “The businesses that are most likely to be hit by this tax increase employ about a quarter of the U.S. work force.” And, according to NAM’s data, 196,000 manufacturers – a full 68 percent of all American manufacturers – file taxes as individuals; these taxpayers had an average taxable of income well above $250,000, suggesting a large negative impact on manufacturers as well.

Small business owners strive to make investments to grow their businesses and hire new workers. The Democrats’ newly proposed small business tax, however, will prove to be a small business sucker punch that stifles economic growth and kills jobs.


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Memo to Congress: Check this before voting for 2nd stimulus

Memo to Congress: Check this before voting for 2nd stimulus

A new poll reveals a strong majority of Americans oppose the idea of a second stimulus – and many voters say they would throw their own lawmakers out of office if they dared support another stimulus package.

A Zogby/O'Leary Poll conducted Jue 10 to June 13 asked 4,420 voters, "Some members of Congress have said we need to jumpstart the economy with a second stimulus package. Do you favor or oppose Congress passing a second stimulus package?"

A full 63.2 percent of Americans said they would oppose a second stimulus while 46.6 percent said they would "strongly oppose" the idea. Only 29 percent favor a second stimulus round.



Likewise, a full 54 percent of voters aged 18 to 29 and 74.3 percent of independent voters oppose the idea.

Even a significant number of people who voted for Obama say they object to a second stimulus (38.2 percent).

The same poll also asked, "Would you vote for or against your congressman in the next election if they are in favor of a second stimulus package, or does it make no difference in your vote?"

Among all American voters, 44.7 percent said they would vote against their congressman if he or she supported a second stimulus package. A full 52.4 percent of independents agreed.

According to the poll, lawmakers who support a second stimulus bill would also lose the vote of 56 percent of small business owners, and gain support of only 14.7 percent.

Only 10 days before Obama took office, his top economic advisers predicted unemployment would stay below 8 percent through the year if the first stimulus won Congress' approval. But now, the unemployment rate is set to break into double-digit territory. Nonetheless, Obama has said his $787 billion stimulus bill "has worked as intended."

Laura D'Andrea Tyson, economic adviser to the White House, made headlines July 7 when she promoted plans for a second stimulus.

"We should be planning on a contingency basis for a second round of stimulus," she said, according to a Reuters report.

Tyson said she believes the first $787 billion package did not go far enough and that a second one should focus primarily on infrastructure.

But Robert Nabors, deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget,called Tyson an "outside economic adviser" whose opinions do not reflect the White House position, Fox News reported.

"No one is talking about a second stimulus at this point," he said.

However, ABC News reported that more than a dozen top labor leaders met with Obama at the White House Monday to push for a second stimulus package.

The National Labor Coordinating Committee said in a statement, "Since the onset of the recession, this country has lost an astounding 6.5 million jobs and $14 trillion in wealth. We support the president's recovery and reinvestment program, and we believe it should be substantially reinforced with more stimulus, creating millions of good jobs that cannot be outsourced."

With unemployment nearing 10 percent, many Americans say they will help lawmakers join the ranks of the jobless if another spending package passes.

"These poll results provide the perfect blueprint for any congressman seeking early retirement," said O'Leary Report publisher Brad O'Leary. "The results also indicate that Americans have not forgotten the original stimulus bill and are still very unhappy with it. Were they happy with the first stimulus, they would not be so vehemently opposed to the mere notion of a second stimulus."

Sick and tired of the way Washington plays with your hard-earned money? Sign WND's petition to audit the Fed right now!

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'Documents' show Obama birthplace in Hawaii?

'Documents' show Obama birthplace in Hawaii?
Another newspaper reports that President Obama was born in Hawaii – and, for skeptics, it cites unidentified "documents" that can prove it.

In a story WND first reported July 11, the Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus, Ga., published the account of an Army Reserve officer who claims he should not have to obey deployment orders to Afghanistan, because Obama has not provided proof of his eligibility for office.

In an earlier version of the story, the daily newspaper published by McClatchy followed Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook's eligibility concerns with a statement claiming the president was born in Hawaii.

"Actually, Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, two years after it became a state," it stated, unequivocally.

A screenshot of the original story follows, with the birth statement outlined in red:




Ledger-Enquirer publishes statement about alleged Obama birth in Hawaii

But within hours, the statement was bumped down the article. A screenshot of the new version shows that the story now states, "Documents show Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, two years after it became a state."


Ledger-Enquirer adjusts report, citing unidentified 'documents' as evidence for birth claim

The article was featured on the Drudge Report. The Ledger-Enquirer did not respond to WND's questions about the alleged "documents" it cites.

The report also failed to identify the plaintiff's well-known attorney, Orly Taitz, as female. Instead, the story indicated Maj. Cook was "his" client.

As WND reported, Maj. Cook is scheduled to have a hearing on the matter July 16 at 9:30 a.m., according to Taitz, who is handling the claim.

Cook told WND he's ready, willing and able to carry out the military needs of the United States, but he raised the challenge to Obama's eligibility to be president because if he would be captured by enemy forces while serving overseas under the orders of an illegitimate president, he could be considered a "war criminal."

"As an officer in the armed forces of the United States, it is [my] duty to gain clarification on any order we may believe illegal. With that said, if President Obama is found not to be a 'natural-born citizen,' he is not eligible to be commander-in-chief," he told WND hours after the case was filed.

"[Then] any order coming out of the presidency or his chain of command is illegal. Should I deploy, I would essentially be following an illegal [order]. If I happened to be captured by the enemy in a foreign land, I would not be privy to the Geneva Convention protections," he said.



The order for the hearing in the federal court for the Middle District of Georgia from U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land said the hearing on the request for a temporary restraining order will be held Thursday.

Cook told WND he is prepared for a backlash against him as a military officer, since members of the military swear to uphold and follow their orders. However, he noted that following an illegal order would be just as bad as failing to follow a legal order.

"What I want to do is deploy to Afghanistan, do my job as an Army officer, engineer. I do not want to subject myself to the possibility that I might be violating the [Uniform Code of Military Justice]," he said.

Named as defendants in the case are Col. Wanda Good, Col. Thomas Macdonald, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Obama, described as "de facto president of the United States."

The question over Obama's eligibility now also is being raised on billboards nationwide.


"Where's The Birth Certificate?" billboard in Pennsylvania

The billboard campaign follows an ongoing petition campaign launched several months ago by WND Editor and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Farah.

The billboards are intended to raise public awareness of the fact that Obama has never released the standard "long-form" birth certificate that would show which hospital he was born in, the attending physician and establish that he truly was born in Hawaii, as his autobiography maintains.

Send a contribution to support the national billboard campaign that asks a simple question: "Where's the birth certificate?"

WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.

The "Certification of Live Birth" posted online and widely touted as "Obama's birth certificate" does not in any way prove he was born in Hawaii, since the same "short-form" document is easily obtainable for children not born in Hawaii. The true "long-form" birth certificate – which includes information such as the name of the birth hospital and attending physician – is the only document that can prove Obama was born in Hawaii, but to date he has not permitted its release for public or press scrutiny.

Oddly, though congressional hearings were held to determine whether Sen. John McCain was constitutionally eligible to be president as a "natural born citizen," no controlling legal authority ever sought to verify Obama's claim to a Hawaiian birth.

Although Obama officials have told WND all such allegations are "garbage," here is a partial listing and status update for some of the cases over Obama's eligibility:

  • New Jersey attorney Mario Apuzzo has filed a case on behalf of Charles Kerchner and others alleging Congress didn't properly ascertain that Obama is qualified to hold the office of president.

  • Pennsylvania Democrat Philip Berg has three cases pending, including Berg vs. Obama in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a separate Berg vs. Obama case alleging he wasn't qualified even to be U.S. senator and Hollister vs. Soetoro a/k/a Obama, (now dismissed) brought on behalf of a retired military member who could be facing recall to active duty by Obama.

  • Leo Donofrio of New Jersey filed a lawsuit claiming Obama's dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president. His case was considered in conference by the U.S. Supreme Court but denied a full hearing.

  • Cort Wrotnowski filed suit against Connecticut's secretary of state, making a similar argument to Donofrio. His case was considered in conference by the U.S. Supreme Court, but was denied a full hearing.

  • Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes headlines a list of people filing a suit in California, in a case handled by the United States Justice Foundation, that asks the secretary of state to refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office. The case is pending, and lawyers are seeking the public's support.

  • Chicago lawyer Andy Martin sought legal action requiring Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle to release Obama's vital statistics record. The case was dismissed by Hawaii Circuit Court Judge Bert Ayabe.

  • Lt. Col. Donald Sullivan sought a temporary restraining order to stop the Electoral College vote in North Carolina until Barack Obama's eligibility could be confirmed, alleging doubt about Obama's citizenship. His case was denied.

  • In Ohio, David M. Neal sued to force the secretary of state to request documents from the Federal Elections Commission, the Democratic National Committee, the Ohio Democratic Party and Obama to show the presidential candidate was born in Hawaii. The case was denied.

  • Also in Ohio, there was the Greenberg v. Brunner case which ended when the judge threatened to assess all case costs against the plaintiff.

  • In Washington state, Steven Marquis sued the secretary of state seeking a determination on Obama's citizenship. The case was denied.

  • In Georgia, Rev. Tom Terry asked the state Supreme Court to authenticate Obama's birth certificate. His request for an injunction against Georgia's secretary of state was denied by Georgia Superior Court Judge Jerry W. Baxter.

  • California attorney Orly Taitz has brought a case, Lightfoot vs. Bowen, on behalf of Gail Lightfoot, the vice presidential candidate on the ballot with Ron Paul, four electors and two registered voters. She also has brought forward several other cases and has conducted several public campaigns to generate awareness of the issue.
  • In Texas, Darrel Hunter vs. Obama later was dismissed.

  • In Ohio, Gordon Stamper vs. U.S. later was dismissed.

  • In Texas, Brockhausen vs. Andrade.

  • In Washington, L. Charles Cohen vs. Obama.

  • In Hawaii, Keyes vs. Lingle, dismissed.

In addition, other cases cited on the RightSideofLife blog as raising questions about Obama's eligibility include:

  • In Texas, Darrel Hunter vs. Obama later was dismissed.

  • In Ohio, Gordon Stamper vs. U.S. later was dismissed.

  • In Texas, Brockhausen vs. Andrade.

  • In Washington, L. Charles Cohen vs. Obama.

WND has reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama includes his kindergarten records, his Punahou school records, his Occidental College records, his Columbia University records, his Columbia thesis, his Harvard Law School records, his Harvard Law Review articles, his scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, his passport, his medical records, his files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records, and his adoption records.


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Obama Announces $12 Billion Community College Initiative - washingtonpost.com

Obama Announces $12 Billion Community College Initiative - washingtonpost.com

WARREN, Mich., July 14 -- President Obama came to this economically struggling state Tuesday with a sobering message about its vanishing jobs and a promise of renewal through a new federal investment in community colleges.

But that message was up against rising unemployment -- 14 percent -- and rising frustration. A Detroit newspaper welcomed Obama to the state with a scathing editorial, calling the administration's stimulus package a "failed experiment."



Obama refused to concede that point during his speech at Macomb Community College, where he said part of the answer to recovery is also in a new focus on community colleges. His proposed American Graduation Initiative would pump $12 billion into community colleges and add 5 million new graduates by 2020. The program, he said, would offer training to millions of students who cannot afford four-year universities and opportunity to older workers who need new skills.

"The hard truth is that some of the jobs that have been lost in the auto industry and elsewhere won't be coming back," Obama said. "If you haven't lost a job, chances are you know somebody who has: a family member, a neighbor, a friend, a co-worker."

Education is the way forward, the president told his audience in this Detroit suburb.

"Time and again, when we have placed our bet for the future on education, we have prospered as a result -- by tapping the incredible innovative and generative potential of a skilled American workforce," the president said.

As the national unemployment rate has steadily risen, the White House has come under increasing pressure to explain why the president's economic policies are not translating into better news for workers.

Before Obama's arrival in Michigan, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) issued a statement that said Democratic economic policies "will strangle even more small businesses and destroy millions more jobs. That's not what middle-class families want -- in Michigan or anywhere else in America."

Earlier, in the White House, Obama defended the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, saying: "We've made investments that early on have allowed a state like Michigan to lay off fewer teachers, fewer cops, fewer firefighters. Those are all jobs that would have been lost in the absence of the recovery package."

In Michigan, Obama hit back at critics, such as Boehner, who he said "carp and gripe" from the sidelines.

"I love these folks who get us in this mess and then suddenly say it's Obama's economy," he said. "That's fine. Give it to me. I welcome the job."

Obama's new higher-education initiative includes $2.5 billion for construction and renovation at the nation's community colleges, $500 million to develop new online courses and $9 billion for "challenge grants" aimed at spurring innovation at the colleges.

The heart of the program, White House officials said, is the grants, which will require colleges to compete by designing innovative new programs or revamping their existing curricula. The grants are similar to the "Race to the Top" funding that Education Secretary Arne Duncan has proposed for the K-12 school systems.

"We're going to take a careful look at how well these things work, and only the ones that demonstrate results will receive continued funding," said James Kvaal, a special assistant to the president for economic policy.

Administration officials said the construction money would be used to kick off capital fundraising campaigns at colleges, sparking billions more to repair aging and dilapidated buildings. The money for new courses would be used to develop Internet-based lessons that could be used by schools all over the country to reach more students.

Obama aides said the money for the program would come from savings generated by changing the way the college loans are made and will be submitted with the Pell Grant changes in the next several months. If passed, they said the money would start flowing next year.

The funds would support what White House officials say would be a 40 percent to 50 percent increase in the number of people who graduate from a community college or go on to a four-year university. Currently, about 1 million students graduate from community colleges each year.

George Boggs, president of the American Association of Community Colleges, said Obama's proposal would be the largest federal investment in community college history.

But he said the money cannot come soon enough to deal with the most pressing problems: a lack of money, staff and classroom space to serve students this fall. Many colleges have already mapped out their plans for the fall semester.

There is a question, too, of whether colleges will be permitted to use the new federal funds for their most urgent needs in faculty and teaching space.

"It's going to be very focused money," Boggs said -- with the focus more on building capacity in the system over the long term than plugging holes in this year's budget.

Surging enrollment and dwindling funds heading into the fall semester are forcing Washington area community colleges to face the prospect of turning students away.

Montgomery College projects record enrollment exceeding 60,000 in fall, a 5 percent increase, with a flat operating budget of $215 million. Northern Virginia Community College has had its funding cut 10 percent in two years but has seen enrollment spike 12 percent, with another 11 percent bump expected in fall.

"We're just being swamped at the very moment that our capacity is being called into question," said Bob Templin, the Northern Virginia college's president, adding that Obama's proposed funds "changes the equation substantially."

Templin said he will immediately begin leasing classroom space and hiring faculty to one-year teaching contracts, spending $1 million to $2 million in anticipated federal money.

Some critics of the president's economic proposals predict the cash infusion will do little to spark the economic recovery that places like Michigan are demanding.

"More and more money has been pushed into higher education, both the schools' and the students', for decades," said Neal McCluskey, an education scholar at the Cato Institute in the District. "Most of what that's translated into is waste. So you've seen tuitions skyrocket, you've seen these building arms races on campus."

McCluskey said community college training is a costly and ineffective proxy for on-the-job training, which is what many high-growth careers require.

"Just looking at the statistics, the data, it seems that we don't want to push more people into community colleges," he said.

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Bombshell: Orders revoked for soldier challenging prez

Bombshell: Orders revoked for soldier challenging prez

A U.S. Army Reserve major from Florida scheduled to report for deployment to Afghanistan within days has had his military orders revoked after arguing he should not be required to serve under a president who has not proven his eligibility for office.

His attorney, Orly Taitz, confirmed to WND the military has rescinded his impending deployment orders.

"We won! We won before we even arrived," she said with excitement. "It means that the military has nothing to show for Obama. It means that the military has directly responded by saying Obama is illegitimate – and they cannot fight it. Therefore, they are revoking the order!"

She continued, "They just said, 'Order revoked.' No explanation. No reasons – just revoked."

A hearing on the questions raised by Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, an engineer who told WND he wants to serve his country in Afghanistan, was scheduled for July 16 at 9:30 a.m.



"As an officer in the armed forces of the United States, it is [my] duty to gain clarification on any order we may believe illegal. With that said, if President Obama is found not to be a 'natural-born citizen,' he is not eligible to be commander-in-chief," he told WND only hours after the case was filed.

"[Then] any order coming out of the presidency or his chain of command is illegal. Should I deploy, I would essentially be following an illegal [order]. If I happened to be captured by the enemy in a foreign land, I would not be privy to the Geneva Convention protections," he said.

The order for the hearing in the federal court for the Middle District of Georgia from U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land said the hearing on the request for a temporary restraining order would be held Thursday.

Want to turn up the pressure to learn the facts? Get your signs and postcards asking for the president's birth certificate documentation here.

Cook said without a legitimate president as commander-in-chief, members of the U.S. military in overseas actions could be determined to be "war criminals and subject to prosecution."

He said the vast array of information about Obama that is not available to the public confirms to him "something is amiss."

"That and the fact the individual who is occupying the White House has not been entirely truthful with anybody," he said. "Every time anyone has made an inquiry, it has been either cast aside, it has been maligned, it has been laughed at or just dismissed summarily without further investigation.

"You know what. It would be so simple to solve. Just produce the long-form document, certificate of live birth," he said.

Cook said he was scheduled to report for duty tomorrow, on July 15, to deploy to Afghanistan as part of President Obama's plan to increase pressure of insurgent forces there.

He told WND he would be prepared for a backlash against him as a military officer, since members of the military swear to uphold and follow their orders. However, he noted that following an illegal order would be just as bad as failing to follow a legal order.

Before news of the orders being revoked were reported, MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann tonight called Cook a "jackass" and Taitz a "conwoman," as he labeled both of them the "worst persons in the world." He flayed the soldier as "an embarrassment to all those who have served without cowardice."

Named as defendants in the case are Col. Wanda Good, Col. Thomas Macdonald, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Obama, described as "de facto president of the United States."

According to the court filing, Cook affirmed when he joined the military, he took the following oath: "I, Stefan Frederick Cook, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the president of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

According to the claim, "Plaintiff submits that it is implicit though not expressly stated that an officer is and should be subject to court-martial, because he will be derelict in the performance of his duties, if he does not inquire as to the lawfulness, the legality, the legitimacy of the orders which he has received, whether those orders are specific or general."

The military courts offer no option for raising the question, so he turned to civilian courts to consider "a question of paramount constitutional and legal importance: the validity of the chain of command under a president whose election, eligibility, and constitutional status appear open to serious question."

"Barack Hussein Obama, in order to prove his constitutional eligibility to serve as president, basically needs only produce a single unique historical document for the Plaintiff’s inspection and authentication: namely, the 'long-form' birth certificate which will confirm whether Barack Hussein Obama was in fact born to parents who were both citizens of the United States in Honolulu, Hawaii, in or about 1961," explains the complaint.

Taitz said she will attend the hearing to amend the temporary restraining order to an injunction because more members of the military have joined the cause.

"We are going to be asking for release of Obama's records because now this completely undermines the military. It revoked this order, but it can come up with another order tomorrow. It can come up with orders for other people," she said. "Am I going to be flying around the country 1,000 times and paying the fees every time they issue an order?"

Taitz said the issue "must be resolved immediately," and she will continue working to ensure Obama proves he is eligible for office.

"We're going to be asking the judge to issue an order for Obama to provide his vital records to show he is legitimately president," she said. "We're going to say, we have orders every day, and we'll have revocations every day. This issue has to be decided."

She said there cannot be any harm to the president if he is legitimately holding office.

"If he is legitimate, then his vital records will prove it," Taitz said. "If he is illegitimate, then he should not have been there in the first place."

Asked what this decision means for every other serviceman who objects to deployment under a president who has not proven he is eligible for office, Taitz responded:

"Now, we can have each and every member of the military – each and every enlistee and officer – file something similar saying 'I will not take orders until Obama is legitimately vetted.'"

Multiple questions have been raised about what that would mean to the 2008 election, to the orders and laws Obama has signed and other issues, including whether he then is a valid commander-in-chief of the military.

The mystery letter

Obama has maintained he was born in Hawaii, and at least one hospital, Honolulu's Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children, claims it received a letter from the president declaring his birth there.

As WND reported, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to confirm that the letter which was used by the hospital to solicit donations is, in fact, a real correspondence.

When WND exposed doubts about the authenticity of the letter because it was created with HTML computer code and had no presidential or White House seal, the hospital which for nearly six months proudly declared Obama was born at its facility commenced an active cover-up, hiding that White House letter from its original webpage and refusing to confirm such a letter actually exists.

WND also reported that just within the last week, at least two reports have cited Obama's birth in Kenya. Wikipedia also was found to have been reporting on Obama's birth in Kenya, before a series of scrubs placed his birth in Honolulu.

And that came on the heels of several online information sites changing the president's supposed birthplace from one hospital in Hawaii to another, after WND broke the news of the letter said to be from the White House.


Barack Obama states in this purported letter from him on what appears to be White House stationery that he was born at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu. The letter was posted by the medical center for nearly six months on its website and used for fundraising before electronically hidden once WND disclosed it was not an actual paper letter, but merely HTML coding. The hospital and White House now refuse to confirm that a real document even exists.

The question over Obama's eligibility now also is being raised on billboards nationwide.


"Where's The Birth Certificate?" billboard in Pennsylvania

The billboard campaign follows an ongoing petition campaign launched several months ago by WND Editor and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Farah.

The billboards are intended to raise public awareness of the fact that Obama has never released the standard "long-form" birth certificate that would show which hospital he was born in, the attending physician and establish that he truly was born in Hawaii, as his autobiography maintains.

Send a contribution to support the national billboard campaign that asks a simple question: "Where's the birth certificate?"

WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.

The "Certification of Live Birth" posted online and widely touted as "Obama's birth certificate" does not in any way prove he was born in Hawaii, since the same "short-form" document is easily obtainable for children not born in Hawaii. The true "long-form" birth certificate – which includes information such as the name of the birth hospital and attending physician – is the only document that can prove Obama was born in Hawaii, but to date he has not permitted its release for public or press scrutiny.

Oddly, though congressional hearings were held to determine whether Sen. John McCain was constitutionally eligible to be president as a "natural born citizen," no controlling legal authority ever sought to verify Obama's claim to a Hawaiian birth.

Although Obama officials have told WND all such allegations are "garbage," here is a partial listing and status update for some of the cases over Obama's eligibility:

  • New Jersey attorney Mario Apuzzo has filed a case on behalf of Charles Kerchner and others alleging Congress didn't properly ascertain that Obama is qualified to hold the office of president.

  • Pennsylvania Democrat Philip Berg has three cases pending, including Berg vs. Obama in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a separate Berg vs. Obama case alleging he wasn't qualified even to be U.S. senator and Hollister vs. Soetoro a/k/a Obama, (now dismissed) brought on behalf of a retired military member who could be facing recall to active duty by Obama.

  • Leo Donofrio of New Jersey filed a lawsuit claiming Obama's dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president. His case was considered in conference by the U.S. Supreme Court but denied a full hearing.

  • Cort Wrotnowski filed suit against Connecticut's secretary of state, making a similar argument to Donofrio. His case was considered in conference by the U.S. Supreme Court, but was denied a full hearing.

  • Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes headlines a list of people filing a suit in California, in a case handled by the United States Justice Foundation, that asks the secretary of state to refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office. The case is pending, and lawyers are seeking the public's support.

  • Chicago lawyer Andy Martin sought legal action requiring Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle to release Obama's vital statistics record. The case was dismissed by Hawaii Circuit Court Judge Bert Ayabe.

  • Lt. Col. Donald Sullivan sought a temporary restraining order to stop the Electoral College vote in North Carolina until Barack Obama's eligibility could be confirmed, alleging doubt about Obama's citizenship. His case was denied.

  • In Ohio, David M. Neal sued to force the secretary of state to request documents from the Federal Elections Commission, the Democratic National Committee, the Ohio Democratic Party and Obama to show the presidential candidate was born in Hawaii. The case was denied.

  • Also in Ohio, there was the Greenberg v. Brunner case which ended when the judge threatened to assess all case costs against the plaintiff.

  • In Washington state, Steven Marquis sued the secretary of state seeking a determination on Obama's citizenship. The case was denied.

  • In Georgia, Rev. Tom Terry asked the state Supreme Court to authenticate Obama's birth certificate. His request for an injunction against Georgia's secretary of state was denied by Georgia Superior Court Judge Jerry W. Baxter.

  • California attorney Orly Taitz has brought a case, Lightfoot vs. Bowen, on behalf of Gail Lightfoot, the vice presidential candidate on the ballot with Ron Paul, four electors and two registered voters. She also has brought forward several other cases and has conducted several public campaigns to generate awareness of the issue.
  • In Texas, Darrel Hunter vs. Obama later was dismissed.

  • In Ohio, Gordon Stamper vs. U.S. later was dismissed.

  • In Texas, Brockhausen vs. Andrade.

  • In Washington, L. Charles Cohen vs. Obama.

  • In Hawaii, Keyes vs. Lingle, dismissed.

In addition, other cases cited on the RightSideofLife blog as raising questions about Obama's eligibility include:

  • In Texas, Darrel Hunter vs. Obama later was dismissed.

  • In Ohio, Gordon Stamper vs. U.S. later was dismissed.

  • In Texas, Brockhausen vs. Andrade.

  • In Washington, L. Charles Cohen vs. Obama.

WND has reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama includes his kindergarten records, his Punahou school records, his Occidental College records, his Columbia University records, his Columbia thesis, his Harvard Law School records, his Harvard Law Review articles, his scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, his passport, his medical records, his files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records, and his adoption records.

Note: Members of the news media wishing to interview Chelsea Schilling, Joe Kovacs, Joseph Farah, Jerome Corsi, Les Kinsolving or Bob Unruh on this issue, please contact WND.

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Previous stories:

Now White House joins 'birth hospital' cover-up

Soldier won't serve without proof Obama eligible

Wikipedia says Obama born in Kenya

Just who delivered baby Barack Obama?

Obama's 'birth hospital' in astonishing cover-up

New reports cite Obama's African 'home'

Obama's birth letter: Is this thing for real?

U.S. hospitals 'wouldn't have to disclose Hitler'

News sites swap Obama's birthplace like magic

Obama birth mystery: More than 1 hospital

Hospital won't back Obama birth claim

THE FULL STORY: See listing of more than 200 exclusive WND reports on the eligibility issue



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Mexican state awash in recent violence - CNN.com

Mexican state awash in recent violence - CNN.com

(CNN) -- In recent days, Michoacan, the home state of President Felipe Calderon, has become a flashpoint of violence in Mexico's deadly war against drug cartels. Since Calderon went after the drug cartels shortly after coming into office in 2006, more than 10,000 people have died across Mexico, about 1,000 of them police.



In the latest incident, 12 bodies of federal police officers were found on the side of a remote highway, said Monte Alejandro Rubido Garcia, technical secretary for Mexico's national security council, at a news conference Tuesday. The bodies showed evidence of torture.

The officers were "ambushed while they were off duty by an armed group," Rubido said. One of the 12 officers was a woman.

The bodies were found in a pile near the town of La Huacana, he added.

Rubido said the slain officers had been doing "investigative work" in the city of Arteaga in Michoacan, one of the states most affected by the government's offensive against drug cartels.

Rubido announced the arrest of Francisco Javier Frias Lara, known as "El Chivo," in connection with the killings of the officers.

Frias is a member of La Familia Michoacana, one of the region's most powerful drug cartels, Rubido said.

Federal police around the country will redouble security measures for its agents, Rubido said.

The sudden spike in violence followed the arrest Saturday of Arnoldo Rueda Medina, who authorities described as a high-ranking member of La Familia Michoacana.

Cartel members first attacked the federal police station in Morelia to try to gain freedom for Rueda, authorities said. When that failed, the drug gangs attacked police installations in at least a half-dozen Michoacan cities. Coordinated attacks in eight cities over the weekend left three federal police officers and two soldiers dead.

It was the federal police who arrested Rueda, and the current spate of attacks appear aimed at them in revenge.

On Tuesday, two federal police officers were killed and four wounded in an ambush in Michoacan, the state-run Notimex news agency reported.

Also Tuesday, a federal police station in the Michoacan city of Maravatio was attacked, news reports said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

A local Michoacan newspaper put the body count in recent days at 32.

La Familia Michoacana emerged in the 1990s as a conservative paramilitary group designed to insulate the state from the large drug cartels, said Bruce Bagley, a professor at the University of Miami and expert on drug trafficking.

But over the years, the group evolved into a drug trafficking operation itself, forging strategic alliances with warring cartels to raise its own profile.

This week's violence solidifies the cartel as a major and violent player in Mexico's drug wars, Bagley said.

"This represents the third evolution of the Familia Michoacana," he said.

Reprisals from drug cartels following major arrests have been reported before, but the intensity of these attacks in Michoacan are unprecedented.

La Familia Michoacana wants "to demonstrate that they have power and will not go away quietly into the night," Bagley said.

Video from the scene of the slain officers showed three signs, known as narcomensajes, left by the killers that stated the same thing: "So that you come for another. We will be waiting for you here."

But the state of Michoacan, on Mexico's southwest Pacific coast, is not alone in the wave of violence sweeping the country.

The border city of Ciudad Juarez set a record this weekend when its toll of drug-related deaths for the year topped 1,000, a distinction the Mexican city did not reach last year until September.

At this point last year, the violence-plagued city across the border from El Paso, Texas, had tallied 596 killings, El Universal newspaper said Tuesday, citing figures from the Chihuahua state attorney general's office.

Also in Chihuahua state, a mayor was shot and killed Tuesday morning while on his way to work. Ariel Meixequeiro had twice before temporarily left his post because he had been threatened by crime gangs, El Universal said.

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nefazawahiri0709.pdf (application/pdf Object)

nefazawahiri0709.pdf (application/pdf Object)

[This document is a transcript of an Arabic-language audio recording
obtained by NEFA investigators and made available on behalf of the
NEFA TerrorWatch subscription service. This transcript is provided for
educational and informational purposes only. The As-Sahab Media
Foundation is the official propaganda arm of Al-Qaida and is the
exclusive source of audio and video recordings of Bin Laden, Dr. Ayman
al-Zawahiri, and other high-ranking Al-Qaida leaders in South Asia.]



“My Muslim brothers and sisters in Pakistan, I believe that every honest and sincere Muslim in
Pakistan should seriously contemplate – at this moment – Pakistan's present state and expected
future, because the blatant American Crusader interference in Pakistan's affairs, or to be precise,
the American Crusader manipulation of Pakistan's destiny, has reached such an extent that it now
poses a grave danger to Pakistan's future and very existence.”
”It is evident that Pakistan is deeply involved in a fierce internal struggle between two forces.”
“The first one represents the Islamic values…and is defending the dignity and independence of
the Muslim Ummah; confronting – with strength and courage – the American aggression against
Pakistan and Afghanistan; and defeating the traitors who transgress against the blood, honor
and dignity of the Muslims for the sake of the invading and aggressive Crusader forces. It also
symbolizes the Muslim Ummah’s rejection of all forms of external aggression, occupation of its
territories, theft of its resources and interference in its affairs. This force is also persisting in and
carrying on the long and continuing struggle of the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent to
establish Pakistan as a political entity standing as a citadel of Islam in the subcontinent: an entity
ruled by Shariat as the supreme undisputed law and realizing by offering shelter and support to
Muslims victimized by the aggressive anti-Islamic forces; and by abstaining from providing any
form of cooperation, help or support to the infidels against Muslims. This force is the real hope for
achieving the goal of establishing a true Pakistan, a goal which, after sixty years of separation
from India, has yet to be achieved.”
“The second force comprises a clique of corrupt politicians and a junta of military officers who are
fighting to remain on the American pay list by employing Pakistan’s entire military and all its
resources in the American Crusade against Islam, and turning Pakistan’s military and security
organizations into hunting dogs in the modern Crusade.”
“Dear Muslim brothers and sisters: we shouldn't run away from confronting the real facts of the
current struggle between the Crusader West and Islam. We should realize that we are being
targeted by a new Crusade, being waged against Muslims from Algeria to East Turkistan and from
Somalia to Chechnya. And Pakistan without a doubt is at the heart of that campaign. That
campaign aims at imposing a new system of slavery and a modern form of colonialism upon the
so-called Third World in general and the Muslim World in particular.”


“The Muslim World is seen – in the eyes of the neo-Crusaders – as the natural incubator of the real
and imminent threat: the Islamic Jihad, or what the West labels Islamic terrorism, which is capable
of motivating and mobilizing the Muslim Ummah to liberate its occupied territories, reclaim its
stolen resources, [and] get rid of its corrupt, secular, and tyrannical regimes.. And because of that,
the Muslim World threatens and undermines Western hegemony, or what they call the world
order or international legitimacy.”

“This is why the Western Crusade, headed by America and served by the puppet rulers of our
countries with their armies, security organizations, media, judiciary and jails, aims at halting the
escalating jihadi tide in the Muslim World. In Pakistan in particular, the Crusade aims at
eradicating the growing jihadi nucleus in order to break up this nuclear capable country, and
transform it into tiny fragments, loyal to and dependent on the neo-Crusaders.”

“The only hope to save Pakistan from this disastrous fate is Jihad. There is no other alternative.
The current ruling class in Pakistan is lining up under the cross of the modern Crusade and
competing for American bribes. Hence, the actual ruler of Pakistan is the American ambassador,
who pays the bribes and issues the orders. So the only thing that class can be expected to do is to
fight Muslims and Mujahedeen and sacrifice Pakistan and the lives and dignity of Pakistanis in
order to achieve their dirty, greedy ambitions. They have already sold their honor and religion to
the Crusaders.”

“Meanwhile, the rest of the political institutions have either sunk in the swamp of corruption or
are too helplessly crippled and paralyzed to bring about any change which might extract Pakistan
from the miserable situation it is in and take it towards Islamic government. So the only force
capable of bringing about the changeover to the Islamic system is the Jihadi force.”

“Today, the Mujahedeen are resisting the Crusaders in Afghanistan and their bombing in
Pakistan. Meanwhile, the Pakistan army and security organizations stab them in their backs. And
in spite of all of that, the Mujahedeen are winning victories and moving from one conquest to
another. This is one of the good signs of victory and triumph, with Allah's help.”

“The scholars of Islam have unanimously agreed that if the infidel enemy enters a Muslim country,
it is the duty of all of its inhabitants – and when needed, their neighbors – to mobilize for Jihad;
and the Americans are today occupying Afghanistan and Pakistan, so it is the duty of every
Muslim in Pakistan to rise up to fight them.”

“It is the individual duty of every Muslim in Pakistan to join the Mujahedeen, or at the very least, to
support the Jihad in Pakistan and Afghanistan with money, advice, expertise, information,
communications, shelter and anything else he can offer.”

“It is also the duty of every noble person in Pakistan’s army and security agencies to give the
orders of Allah and His Messenger precedence over the orders of the Crusaders’ slaves, and to
refrain from killing, pursuing or harming in any way Muslims and Mujahedeen.”

“Today there is a solid, cohesive Jihadi nucleus taking form in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This
emerging jihadi force is resisting – by the grace of Almighty Allah – all efforts to eliminate and
extinguish it. The treasonous Pakistan army has tried much, but by the grace of Allah, it has all
been in vain.”

“The jihadi force in Pakistan and Afghanistan is not only resisting attempts to defeat it, but is also
winning military victories over the treasonous Pakistan army and the Crusader coalition, and is
liberating more land and applying Shariat in wide areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan in defiance
of the Crusaders and the corrupt puppet regimes and secular judiciaries which continue to seek
shelter under the broken wings of the American eagle.”

“Dear Muslim brothers and sisters: if we stand by passively without offering due support to the
Mujahedeen, we shall not only contribute to the destruction of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but we
shall also deserve the painful punishment of Almighty Allah.”
“May Allah guide the Muslim Ummah to the path of Jihad, and may He defeat His enemies, the
Crusaders and their agents in the Muslim countries.”

Read more!

Cheney's "Secret Counterterrorism Program" Not So Secret After All

Cheney's "Secret Counterterrorism Program" Not So Secret After All

On Sunday the Times hinted darkly about a "secret counterterrorism program" Dick Cheney concealed from Congress. Now the details are out -- and it turns out the Times reported the program (killing Al Qaeda's leaders) on its front page back in December 2002.



The Times' lead story Sunday was on a C.I.A. program allegedly hidden by Dick Cheney, and abruptly ended by new C.I.A. director Leon Panetta when he learned of it. The headline to intelligence reporter Scott Shane's story huffed: "Cheney Is Linked To Concealment Of C.I.A. Project." Democrats are of course calling for an investigation.

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

Sounds serious, yes? But the program that the conniving Cheney concealed from Congress turns out to have been not much of a secret after all, as demonstrated but not acknowledged in Tuesday's follow-up story by Shane and Mark Mazzetti: "After 9-11, C.I.A. Had Plan To Kill Al Qaeda's Leaders." (Well, one would hope so.)

Here's the front-page headline from the December 15, 2002 Times (hat tip Andrew Breitbart): "Bush Has Widened Authority of C.I.A. to Kill Terrorists." Sound familiar?

The Bush administration has prepared a list of terrorist leaders the Central Intelligence Agency is authorized to kill, if capture is impractical and civilian casualties can be minimized, senior military and intelligence officials said.

The previously undisclosed C.I.A. list includes key Qaeda leaders like Osama bin Laden and his chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, as well as other principal figures from Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups, the officials said. The names of about two dozen terrorist leaders have recently been on the lethal-force list, officials said. ''It's the worst of the worst,'' an official said.

In this instance, the Times reverses its previous intelligence-related gaffe, committed in the summer of 2006 after it revealed compromising details of SWIFT, a successful terrorist surveillance program that monitored international banking transactions. When the paper came under fire, it tried to claim that SWIFT wasn't actually a secret, even though the headline selling the paper's big scoop read : "Bank Data Sifted In Secret By U.S. To Block Terror."



Read more!

Ignoring Troubled Auto Czar's Friendship With NYT Publisher

Ignoring Troubled Auto Czar's Friendship With NYT Publisher

The friendship between Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Obama's "auto czar" Steven Rattner has not been worth mentioning ever since Rattner's old Wall Street firm first drew attention in a public pension scandal.



Tuesday's front-page piece by Michael J de la Merced and Danny Hakim, Obama Choice On Auto Woes Is Leaving Post," dealt with Steven Rattner quitting his post as Obama's chief adviser on the auto industry (his "auto czar") now that his former Wall Street firm's role in a public pension scandal has attracted the attention of prosecutors.

But the story made no mention of Rattner's long friendship with New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., which extends back to when they were both reporters for the Times (the story only mentioned the reporting job). The paper mentioned the relationship in April, before the controversy became public, in a laudatory profile of Rattner written by Louise Story, "Obama's Top Auto Industry Troubleshooter":

Although Mr. Rattner is friendly with many communications media leaders, he has been wary of the publicity his position has brought and at first resisted requests to be interviewed. He has long had a close friendship with the publisher of The New York Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr.

But a story 11 days later on Rattner and the brewing pension fund controversy left out the Sulzberger friendship, and it hasn't been mentioned in the paper since.



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CNSNews.com - GOP Says Stimulus is ‘Dismal Failure,’ Only 1 Percent of Infrastructure Money Has Been Spent

CNSNews.com - GOP Says Stimulus is ‘Dismal Failure,’ Only 1 Percent of Infrastructure Money Has Been Spent

Washington (CNSNews.com) - In a press conference Friday, several Republican members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee criticized the $787-billion economic stimulus package passed earlier this year, saying that it had failed to create jobs and failed, in particular, to build new transportation infrastructure.

The Republicans also noted a recently issued Department of Transportation report that detailed how little stimulus money had been spent on infrastructure, despite the plan becoming law in February, six months ago.



Led by Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the ranking Republican on the committee, the congressmen took turns lambasting the slow disbursement of funds in front of a backdrop that included a giant road work sign literally covered in red tape.

“The report we got from the Department of Transportation is dated July 3rd,” said Mica at the Capitol Hill press conference. “It indicates how much money of the $48 billion [allocated to the Transportation Department] they have control over has gone out -- that’s $523 million – 1 percent, approximately 1 percent. And the top 10 states of unemployment, our leading states, including the District of Columbia, only $83 million has gone out to those states.”

“This stimulus package was sold to the country as being an infrastructure bill,” said Rep. John ‘Jimmy’ Duncan (R-Tenn.), “and yet only somewhere between 7 and 8 percent of it was aimed at or provided for infrastructure in the first place.”

“And then, as others have said, only 1 percent has been spent,” Duncan said, “and in my state, Tennessee, $3.3 million, a little over three million dollars in the entire state of Tennessee is all that’s been spent so far.”

Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio), hoisting a florescent orange road worker’s vest, declared, “I want to see that all over the highway.”

“There’s a new definition for dismal failure: stimulus,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.)

“But don’t take my word for it,” Diaz-Balart said. “Remember, the stimulus promised 3.5 million jobs was being created, and yet 2 million jobs – additional lost jobs – have been lost. Dismal failure.”

“The stimulus promised,” said Diaz-Balart, “and we were told that in the budget committee and we were told that publicly by the administration, that unemployment would not go above 8 percent if that stimulus passed. Look at the numbers now.”

“The unemployment picture is bad,” said Duncan. “The underemployment picture is probably even worse because you have thousands and thousands of college graduates out there having to work as waiters and waitresses or having to work very low paying jobs.”

Diaz-Balart said that the stimulus was “at the cost of over $1 trillion on our children and grandchildren’s credit card. To do what? To lose more jobs and to spend more money on federal bureaucracy. Totally, totally unacceptable.”

“Now look,” he said, “my preference would be to not continue to borrow that money and to continue to blow it on wasteful spending. But if you’re going to spend the money, for God’s sake, let’s do it on creating jobs.”

“We have got to make some changes,” Duncan said. “We advocated, the Republicans advocated, doing away with all of these environmental restrictions that have caused the average infrastructure project to take 10 years, when they could be done in two or three years.”

“This country could boom beyond belief,” Duncan said, “if we would open this country up and go back to a free-market, free-enterprise system that that we’re too far away from at this time.”

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 passed in the Senate (61-37) and House (246-183) almost strictly on party lines. Only three Republicans voted for it in the Senate, and every Republican and seven Democrats opposed it in the House. It was signed into law by President Barack Obama on Feb. 17.

Faced with criticism and nationwide unemployment at 9.5 percent – higher than the administration forecast even without the stimulus – President Obama last week said the stimulus was working “as intended” and that it “wasn’t designed to work in four months – it was designed to work over two years.”

“We’re moving in the right direction,” Obama said. “We must let it work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity.”

Read more!

CNSNews.com - American Red Cross Petitions Public Schools to Teach Geneva Conventions

CNSNews.com - American Red Cross Petitions Public Schools to Teach Geneva Conventions

(CNSNews.com) – Because the United States plays an important role in foreign affairs, international humanitarian law should be taught in public schools to ensure that Americans “continue to understand and observe the limits of armed conflict,” the American Red Cross says.

The American Red Cross has launched an online petition drive, urging schools to teach students about the Geneva Conventions.



To help teachers do that, the Red Cross has developed a “non-partisan” program called Exploring Humanitarian Law, which “presents multiple viewpoints.” (See curriculum)

According to the Red Cross Web site, “Students learn that there are no easy answers in war and that armed conflict inevitably raises serious dilemmas and trade-offs.” It adds that the program will help students become “more civically engaged and stewards of conflict resolution.”

The Exploring Humanitarian Law project was initiated by the ICRC in late 1998 with the aim of designing core learning materials for global use among young people in the 13-18 age range. According to the American Red Cross, teachers who have used the program report that students have been engaged and inspired.

The American Red Cross petition, addressed to "School District Superintendents," reads as follows:

"We should educate students about international humanitarian law, conveying the importance of the laws and principles of the Geneva Conventions.

Adopted by 194 countries, the Geneva Conventions safeguard those who do not take part in fighting and those that can no longer fight – wounded, civilians, and prisoners of war. They protect American and foreign citizens alike.

We should incorporate a non-partisan secondary school curriculum that explains the details of humanitarian law. This curriculum will emphasize that there are no easy answers in war and that armed conflict inevitably raises serious dilemmas and trade-offs.

We ask that you integrate the Exploring Humanitarian Law program into required secondary school curriculum to ensure that students across the nation may develop a better understanding of our world."

Red Cross raps U.S.

In 2003, The International Committee of the Red Cross called it “unacceptable” for the U.S. to detain enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without charging them or bringing them to trial.

In November 2004, The New York Times reported that the International Committee of the Red Cross found that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantanamo Bay amounted to torture. The U.S. government “sharply rejected” the charges contained in that confidential report, the newspaper said.

The ICRC also reported on what it called “systematic abuses” by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

Peace education

A paper posted on the International Committee of the Red Cross Web site notes that education in humanitarian law “is not explicitly about peace, tolerance, mutual understanding, violence prevention or conflict resolution,” but the attitudes involved in any such exploration “would necessarily have links with what is broadly referred to as 'peace education.'"

The International Committee of the Red Cross says that peace education – based on a UNICEF definition --“is clearly made up of three more or less distinct components: (i) conflict prevention, (ii) conflict resolution, and (iii) creating conditions conducive to peace.

“Although education for young people in humanitarian law is not explicitly about conflict prevention, and even less about conflict resolution, it definitely helps to create conditions conducive to peace,” the paper says.

“In situations of acute social and political tension, as for example in post-conflict and social reconstruction environments, education in humanitarian law may have a potential indirect pacifying effect.”

Limiting the barbarity of war

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols are international treaties that contain rules "limiting the barbarity of war."

The ICRC has summarized the basic rules on its Web site, as follows:

The parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare the civilian population and civilian property. Neither the civilian population as a whole nor individual civilians may be attacked.

Attacks must solely against military objectives.

It is forbidden to kill or wound an adversary who surrenders for who can no longer take part in the fighting.

It is forbidden to use weapons or methods of warfare that are likely to cause unnecessary losses or excessive suffering.

The wounded and sick must be collected and cared for by the party to the conflict which has them in its power. Medical personnel and medical establishments, transports and equipment must be spared.

The red cross or red crescent on a white background is the distinctive sign indicating that such persons and objects must be respected.

Captured combatants and civilians who find themselves under the authority of the adverse party are entitled to respect for their lives, their dignity, their personal rights and their political, religious and other convictions. They must be protected against all acts of violence or reprisal. They are entitled to exchange news with their families and receive aid. They must enjoy basic judicial guarantees.

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CNSNews.com - Tax Increase on 'Rich' People Planned by House Democrats Would Strike More Than a Million U.S. Small Businesses

CNSNews.com - Tax Increase on 'Rich' People Planned by House Democrats Would Strike More Than a Million U.S. Small Businesses

(CNSNews.com) – More than a million small business owners and about two-thirds of the profits earned by U.S. small businesses would be hit by the income tax increase on the "rich" that House Democratic leaders want to enact to pay for the health-care reform plan President Obama wants passed this summer, a taxpayer watchdog says.

Ryan Ellis, director of tax policy for Americans for Tax Reform, told CNSNews.com he calculated that 1.09 million of 21.5 million small business owners would see a one- to three-percent surtax on their profits in order to fund the House of Representatives’ trillion-dollar health care reform bill.



While only about five percent of small business owners would be exposed to the extra charge, Ellis says two in every three dollars of profit made by small businesses would be subject to it.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, announced late Friday that Democrats want to enact this tax increase.

The plan reportedly would include a one percent increase in the income tax rate paid by individuals earning $280,000 or more and by households earning at least $350,000. Steeper rate increases of up to three percent would be imposed on those earning $500,000 and $1 million or more. The committee hopes these income-tax rate increases will raise about $540 billion for the federal government over a decade.

Small business owners would be subject to the income-tax rate increases because many of them report the profits of their small businesses on individual tax returns. As a result, the roughly five percent who make more than $200,000 a year would be hit with the extra tax.

Ellis said the Obama administration’s claims that only a few small businesses will be affected misses the point. “(T)hat’s what the Obama guys will always tell you. It’s a small, single-digit percentage of small businesses that would be affected by this, and that’s absolutely true. It’s probably somewhere between five and 10 percent … of all small businesses.

“But if you actually look at the small business profits being reported, two-thirds of all small business profits are reported in these households.”

Indeed, IRS figures from 2006, the most recent year reported, show that $479 billion of the $707 billion in small business profits was reported by households in the top two percent of earners, those earning more than $200,000.

Republicans went on the offensive after Rangel's Friday announcement. A spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, “In the middle of a serious recession, with unemployment nearing double digits nationwide, the last thing we need is a tax increase on small businesses, which will cost the American economy even more jobs.”

Blue Dog Democrats in the House also voiced some concern. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) told CQ Today, “I have a concern with going outside the health care system” when discussing funding options.

“I feel like the House has moved this issue so far to the left we've taken ourselves out of the discussion entirely.”

But Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) told The Washington Post that “if (the bill) works right,” the high earners who pay extra taxes will also see lowered health insurance premiums.

Ellis, however, is skeptical. “If you’re a very successful company and you’re making more than a million dollars a year,” he said, then at “a three percentage point surtax, you basically have to assume that their healthcare costs will go down by 3 percent of their profits in order to even themselves out.”

“That’s just not reasonable to expect,” he told CNSNews.com. “(T)here’s not one example of where the government is going to go in and take over something and start spending money on something and then it saves money.”

Rea Hederman, assistant director of the Center for Data Analysis at the conservative Heritage Foundation, also said small business owners will not see their money back unless they force their employees to take the proposed public health care option.

“The only way they would see reductions in health care,” he said, “is if small businesses just say we’re not going to offer health care to our employees all together, and I don’t think that’s a direction that people want to go,” Hederman said.

While the surtax for small businesses may top out at three percent, Hederman said, “in percentage terms, the tax burden is jumping somewhere between four and a half to five percent, and this is going to be combined with the expiration of some of President Bush’s tax cuts.”

The health care surtax would come in addition to the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2010, which will move the federal top rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.

In a statement, Thomas Hodge, president of the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, said total top rates, including federal taxes, could push past the 50 percent mark in some states.

“Combining top federal and state rates, and factoring in all deductions, the government would be taking over half of every additional dollar from high-income taxpayers in two-thirds of the states under this latest funding scheme.”

According to Hederman, “Unfortunately, right now, businesses are going to have trouble pricing in (these) cost increases.

“(So) businesses will continue to try to wring out as much efficiency as they can in the labor force, and that means cutting back hours and cutting back jobs,” he said.

A May 2009 survey performed by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, small business owners identified high taxes as the second biggest problem facing them, trailing only poor sales.

The tax increase, if enacted, would take effect in 2011.

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CNSNews.com - Sotomayor ‘Clearly Rejected’ Impartiality, Kyl Says

CNSNews.com - Sotomayor ‘Clearly Rejected’ Impartiality, Kyl Says

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said that Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s record indicates that she has rejected the idea of an objective legal standard by which all should be judged, instead subsituting her own feelings and biases. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) defended her, saying she represented “living proof” that the country is on the right track.

Speaking on Monday, the first day of Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, Kyl said that in his 20-year experience as a lawyer, which includes arguing before the Supreme Court, he had never once heard a lawyer rely on empathy or any other emotion.



“I practiced law for almost 20 years before every level of state and federal court, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and never once did I hear a lawyer argue that he had no legal basis to sustain his client’s position,” Kyl said, “so that he had to ask the judge to go with his ‘gut’ or ‘heart.’”

Kyl said that such a judge would endanger the judicial system’s “legitimacy,” arguing that if Judge Sotomayor actually fulfilled the empathy standard set by President Obama, she would be such a judge.

“If judges routinely started ruling on the basis of their personal feelings, however well-intentioned, the entire legitimacy of the judicial system would be jeopardized,” Kyl said.


Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) (Photo courtesy of Kyl's Web site)
“The question for this committee is whether Judge Sotomayor agrees with President Obama’s theory of judging or whether she will faithfully interpret the laws and Constitution,” Kyl added.

Kyl said that many of Sotomayor’s public statements, including one in which she said a “wise Latina” should be a better judge than a white man, showed that she had abandoned impartiality for the emotional standard set by the president.

“The ‘wise Latina woman’ quote, which I referred to earlier, suggests that Judge Sotomayor endorses a view that judges should allow gender-, ethnic, and experienced-based biases to guide her when rendering judicial opinions,” Kyl lamented.

In a 2001 speech at the University of California-Berkeley, Sotomayor said she was not sure whether she agreed with the idea that a wise man and a wise woman would “reach the same conclusion in deciding cases,” adding, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Sotomayor, Kyl charged, had “clearly rejected” the idea of impartial judging.

“Judge Sotomayor rejected the notion that judges should strive for an impartial brand of justice,” said Kyl. “She has clearly ‘accepted’ that her gender and Latina heritage will affect the outcome of her cases.”

Feingold defended Sotomayor, saying there was “no way” anyone could conclude the “wise Latina” comment was racially charged.

“This charge is not based on anything in her judicial record, because there is absolutely nothing in the hundreds of opinions she has written to support it,” Feingold said. “Instead, a few lines from a 2001 speech, taken out of context, have prompted some to charge that she is a racist.


Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.)
“I believe that no one who reads the whole Berkeley [‘wise Latina’] speech could honestly come to that conclusion,” Feingold added.

Feingold said that instead, Sotomayor’s speech indicates she is an intelligent, considerate judge whose temperament should be a model for the entire judiciary.

“[T]hose are the words of a thoughtful, humble, and self-aware judge striving to do her very best to administer impartial justice for all Americans,” Feingold said. “It seems to me that is a quality we want in our judges.”

Feingold said that, in fact, Sotomayor was “living proof” that America was making progress on issues of race.

“Judge Sotomayor is living proof that this country is moving in the right direction on the issue of race, that doors of opportunity are finally starting to open for all our citizens.”

Feingold praised Sotomayor, saying her nomination would be inspiring to children.

“Just as the election of President Obama gave new hope and encouragement to African American children all over this country, Judge Sotomayor’s nomination will inspire countless Hispanic children to study harder and dream higher, and that is something we should all celebrate,” said Feingold.

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I regret to inform you ….

The Officer Down Memorial Page Remembers . . .

 

Photograph: Deputy Sheriff Shane Thomas Detwiler Patch image: Chambers County Sheriff's Office, Texas

Deputy Sheriff Shane Thomas Detwiler
Chambers County Sheriff's Office
Texas

End of Watch: Monday, July 13, 2009

Biographical Info
Age: 31
Tour of Duty: 6 years
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Monday, July 13, 2009
Weapon Used: Gun; Unknown type
Suspect Info: Deceased

Deputy Shane Detwiler was shot and killed as he and a state trooper searched a mobile home after responding to the scene of a shooting.
The initial shooting occurred when a female occupant of the mobile home fired at a utility worker who was attempting to shut the home's water off. Deputy Detwiler and two troopers responded to the scene and took the female into custody.
Deputy Detwiler and one of the troopers then began to search the home for other occupants. When they reached the back bedroom, the woman's husband opened fire, fatally wounding Deputy Detwiler.
The trooper returned fire as he dragged Deputy Detwiler from the home.
The male subject, who was a former reserve police officer, was found dead from a gunshot wound approximately nine hours later.
Deputy Detwiler had served with the Chambers County Sheriff's Office for only two months. He had previously served as a game warden with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and as a special agent with the U.S. Army Military Intelligence while deployed to Iraq.
He is survived by his wife, three children, parents, and sister.

Agency Contact Information
Chambers County Sheriff's Office
201 North Court
PO Box 998
Anahuac, TX 77514
Phone: (409) 267-8318
Please contact the Chambers County Sheriff's Office for funeral arrangements or for survivor benefit fund information.

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5,000-pound shark washes ashore on Long Island - CNN.com

5,000-pound shark washes ashore on Long Island - CNN.com

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A 26-foot-long dying shark washed ashore Tuesday on a Long Island beach, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation said.



The male basking shark, which weighed an estimated 5,000 pounds and was measured at 26 feet, 6 inches, died shortly after authorities arrived on the scene, according to marine educator Tracy Marcus of the Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Marcus, who was at the beach at the time, said there were no outer abrasions on the shark, ruling out of the possibility of a boat strike, and the cause of the shark's death was unknown to investigators.

Basking sharks can grow up to 35 feet in length and are the second-largest fish in the oceans after the whale shark, Marcus said.
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The basking shark, which is non-threatening to humans, feeds mostly on plankton and smaller fish. Video Watch shark being washed ashore »

This particular species spends the summer months off America's Northeast coast and then migrates to the warm waters off South America for summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

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House Democrats Propose Surtax on Wealth to Fund Health-Care Plan - washingtonpost.com

House Democrats Propose Surtax on Wealth to Fund Health-Care Plan - washingtonpost.com

House Democrats announced a plan yesterday that would force the richest 2 million U.S. taxpayers to shoulder much of the cost of an expansion of the nation's health-care system, by imposing a surtax of as much as 5.4 percent on income above $350,000 a year.



The House proposal aims to extend insurance coverage to 37 million Americans over the next decade, covering more people through Medicaid and providing subsidies to help others meet a new federal mandate to purchase insurance. Democratic aides said the proposal would cost more than $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years, and would ensure that 97 percent of Americans were enrolled in a health plan by 2015.

About half of the cost would be covered by reducing spending on federal health programs, primarily Medicare, which serves the elderly and the disabled. But much of the rest of the money would come from a new tax on families earning more than $350,000 a year and individuals earning more than $280,000. The taxes, which would take effect in 2011, would affect about 2.1 million taxpayers, the nonprofit Tax Policy Center projected.

The surtax would start at 1 percent and rise to 5.4 percent on income exceeding $1 million. Combined with the expiration next year of tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration, the surtax would drive the top federal tax rate to 45 percent, the highest level since lawmakers rewrote the tax code in 1986.

House leaders defended the plan by saying it targets those most able to pay -- the wealthiest 1.2 percent of households -- while honoring President Obama's pledge to protect the middle class from higher taxes.

Obama issued a statement praising the House plan. At a time when health-care costs are "crushing businesses and families and placing an unsustainable burden on governments," he said, "key committees in the House of Representatives have engaged in unprecedented cooperation to produce a health-care proposal that will lower costs, provide better care for patients and ensure fair treatment of consumers by the health-care industry."

But the plan has drawn sharp attacks from Republicans and is already creating friction with Democrats in the Senate.

"Tax is a four-letter word" with voters, said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). Even families not ranking in the top 1 percent of earners "hope they're going to be there someday," he said. "So they don't necessarily think it's fair."

Senate negotiators have all but abandoned plans to directly tax the wealthy and are focusing instead on an array of smaller, more narrowly targeted revenue measures that would raise money from drug and insurance companies, as well as individuals and corporations. A tax on employer-provided health benefits remains part of that discussion, but Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who is promoting a tax on the most generous 1 percent of private plans, conceded yesterday that such a proposal is "a very tough sell."

House leaders said the surtax on the wealthy in their plan offers their best chance to push a bill through the House by the end of the month, meeting Obama's deadline and building momentum for his top domestic priority.

"That's where the votes are," said Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Republicans criticized the surtax as a job-killing tax increase that would fall disproportionately on small businesses, whose owners often report earnings on their personal tax returns. "You can't tax the job creators and expect them to create jobs," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio).

Under pressure from the White House to complete weeks of talks aimed at crafting a bipartisan bill, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) conducted a final round of meetings yesterday in hopes of producing legislation by week's end. Conrad cautioned that combining a finance package with a separate measure written by the Senate health committee could take far longer than the three weeks remaining before the Senate begins its August recess. But senior Democrats in Congress and the White House said they are growing less concerned about passing a bill before the break, and argued that Senate Finance Committee approval would send a strong signal that health-care reform can be achieved this year.

The House plans to press ahead with its proposal with the goal of working out the differences between the two chambers in a House-Senate conference later this year. The two chambers are far apart on issues including new taxes and the creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan known as a public option, but House leaders focused yesterday on what they see as the historic achievement of crafting a health-care plan that they think can win House approval.

"This legislation is landmark legislation, and a defining moment for our country," said House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.). "We are going to accomplish what many people have felt wouldn't come in our lifetime."

The new health system envisioned by House leaders would require individuals to carry insurance and force businesses to help pay for it. It also would take an aggressive stance toward the insurance industry, prohibiting "discriminatory practices" such as refusing to sell policies to individuals who are already sick or excluding certain treatments from coverage.

While the industry has expressed a willingness to accept such restrictions, it is opposed to the public option, which would create a program to compete directly with private insurers. Under the House measure, the public option would pay hospitals at Medicare rates and doctors slightly more, which many providers say would not be enough to cover their costs.

The House bill would expand insurance coverage by increasing Medicaid eligibility and delivering tax credits to people earning as much as 400 percent of the poverty level, or about $43,000 a year for an individual. Small businesses and individuals who had trouble buying insurance would be able to shop for plans through new purchasing groups dubbed "exchanges." Individuals who did not purchase insurance by 2013 would face a penalty of 2.5 percent of their income, and employers that did not provide coverage to their workers would be fined as much as 8 percent of their payroll, a provision the CBO estimates would generate $30 billion a year.

Yesterday, the CBO estimated that the House coverage plan would cost $1 trillion over the next decade, with most major provisions taking effect in 2013. But CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf cautioned in a blog posting that the agency will not have a final cost estimate until it receives more information about changes to Medicare and Medicaid, as well details of the tax package.

The House proposes to raise about $37 billion by changing the corporate tax code, but those provisions would be dwarfed by the surtax on the wealthy, which is projected to raise $544 billion over the next decade. Initially, the surtax would add 1 percent to the tax rate on income exceeding $350,000, 1.5 percent on income exceeding $500,000 and 5.4 percent on income exceeding $1 million. But the lower rates could rise again if the cost of health-care expansion exceeded expectations, to 2 percent and 3 percent respectively.

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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Soldier balks at deploying; says Obama isn’t president - News - Ledger-Enquirer.com

Soldier balks at deploying; says Obama isn’t president - News - Ledger-Enquirer.com



U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, set to deploy to Afghanistan, says he shouldn’t have to go.

His reason?

Barack Obama was never eligible to be president because he wasn’t born in the United States.





Cook’s lawyer, Orly Taitz, who has also challenged the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency in other courts, filed a request last week in federal court seeking a temporary restraining order and status as a conscientious objector for his client.

In the 20-page document — filed July 8 with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia — the California-based Taitz asks the court to consider granting his client’s request based upon Cook’s belief that Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore ineligible to serve as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Cook further states he “would be acting in violation of international law by engaging in military actions outside the United States under this President’s command. ... simultaneously subjecting himself to possible prosecution as a war criminal by the faithful execution of these duties.”

Cook, a reservist, received the orders mobilizing him to active duty on June 9.

According to this document, which accompanies Cook’s July 8 application for a temporary restraining order, he has been ordered to report to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., on Wednesday. From there, the Florida resident would go to Fort Benning before deploying overseas.

Documents show Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, two years after it became a state.

A hearing to discuss Cook’s requests will take place in federal court here Thursday at 9:30 a.m.

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House bill to hit millionaires with 5.4 pct surtax | Markets | Markets News | Reuters

House bill to hit millionaires with 5.4 pct surtax | Markets | Markets News | Reuters
WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) - A sweeping overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system to be announced on Tuesday in the U.S. House of Representatives will include a surtax on millionaires of 5.4 percent, congressional sources said.



The tax rate is higher than the 3 percent surtax lawmakers had been discussing earlier and would be imposed on those making more than $1 million a year, the sources said.

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YouTube - The Fed Under Fire

YouTube - The Fed Under Fire

The Fed Under Fire

Video 7:58




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Political opposition is not a hate crime | Washington Examiner

Political opposition is not a hate crime | Washington Examiner

What's wrong with this picture? The federal government spends billions on homeland security, but apparently can't stop foreigners from illegally crossing the border or overstaying their visas. The Obama administration wants to bring violent terrorists captured overseas to the mainland and close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Yet in the latest bizarre twist, legislation quietly making its way through Congress would give the White House power to categorize political opponents as hate groups and even send Americans to detention centers on abandoned military bases.



Rep. Alcee Hastings - the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until her own party members rebelled - introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that gives Attorney General Eric Holder sole discretion to label groups that oppose government policy on guns, abortion, immigration, states' rights, or a host of other issues. In a June 25 speech on the House floor, Rep. Trent Franks, R-AZ, blasted the idea: "This sounds an alarm for many of us because of the recent shocking and offensive report released by the Department of Homeland Security which labeled, arguably, a majority of Americans as 'extremists.'"

Another Hastings bill (HR 645) authorizes $360 million in 2009 and 2010 to set up "not fewer than six national emergency centers on military installations" capable of housing "a large number of individuals affected by an emergency or major disaster." But Section 2 (b) 4 allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to use the camps "to meet other appropriate needs" - none of which are specified. This is the kind of blank check that Congress should never, ever sign.

It's not paranoid to be extremely wary of legislation that would give two unelected government officials power to legally declare someone a "domestic terrorist" and send them to a government-run camp. After all, the federal government has done exactly this sort of thing before. During World War II, more than 120,000 law-abiding Japanese Americans were rounded up by the government and confined for four years in ten internment camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. Joy Kogawa chronicled the trauma her family experienced firsthand under FDR's executive order: "Families were made to move in two hours. Abandoned everything, leaving pets and possessions at gun point..."

It was wrong then, and it would be doubly wrong now should members of Congress somehow fail to learn from past mistakes.
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Conservative Truth - The New Minutemen – Part II - Tom Barrett - 2009-07-13

Conservative Truth - The New Minutemen – Part II - Tom Barrett - 2009-07-13

Last week I started a three part series on the New Minutemen – the Watchmen on the Wall who are determined to warn the people of America about the dangers that face her. The first article (see LINK below) concerned the danger of America losing its identity as a Christian nation – particularly in light of Obama’s statement that America is not a Christian nation. Next week’s article will discuss the very real possibility that our nation could lose its national sovereignty. Today we will focus on the loss of religious freedom (for Christians, but curiously, not for Muslims) in America.

As I started to research this article I thought about an article I wrote five years ago about a public school in New York which banned a Bible club from meeting on school property after school hours. The club had been meeting there for decades. But school authorities continued to allow Muslim students to leave classes several times each day for prayers in the school auditorium. And it made a special “safe place” designated by a pink triangle on the door available for homosexual and lesbian students to talk about their problems. At that time I said, “It can’t get any worse than this.” I was wrong.



You see, at that time there was something of a balance of power in this country between Conservatives and Liberals – between those who stand for the values upon which this nation was founded, and those who are determined to tear down everything that is good about America. Today both Houses of Congress are completely controlled by Liberals. The White House is occupied by an anti-American Liberal who just told an audience in Russia that the United States had little to do with ending the Cold War. And for the next four years, all Supreme Court (and all federal Appeals Court) appointments will be made by a liberal administration.

Think of it! All three branches of our government firmly in the grip of a political philosophy that is as anti-Christian as the Communist Parties of Russia or Cuba ever were. Don’t ever forget that the philosophical roots of the Communists, the Socialists, the Progressives, the Liberals and – yes – the Democrats, are all in the failed, twisted maxim: Government knows best. They really, truly believe that the individual is stupid, and needs to be absorbed into the greater wisdom of the collective (remember the horror movie, “The Blob”?). I never could figure out how merging millions of stupid people into one huge collective mass would somehow make that mass wise, but that’s Liberal thinking for you.

In any case, the fact that Liberals now control the government of the United States has emboldened some to take actions that just months ago would have been political suicide. For instance, on June 30, 2009, Democrat Speaker of the Pennsylvania House Keith McCall decreed that the Name “Jesus” could not be spoken in prayer in his House. He said that the Name of Jesus was “offensive.”

Here’s how it went down. Pastor Gerry Stoltzfoos of Freedom Valley Worship Center was invited to pray at the State House, but McCall’s office insisted on censoring the prayer ahead of time. “I wrote the prayer and sent it to them and they sent back a very short rejection notice,” Rev. Stoltzfoos told reporters. “So I wrote back, ‘I’m curious as to why.’ And they said it had an offensive word. ‘Can you tell me what the word was?’ And they came back and said ‘Jesus.’”

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Once they see they can get away with an outrage like that at the state level, you will see them make their moves at the national level. Expect to see proposals by Liberals/Democrats to remove all Christian symbols from government buildings. They will try to remove “In God we Trust” from our money. You can also expect to see immoral people like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi rush to approve rules outlawing prayer in Congress. As I recounted in last week’s article, similar attempts were made in the mid 1850’s, but brave men in both the House and Senate stood up the Christian foundations and heritage of America, and refused to be bullied. Unfortunately, the brave and moral men and women are in the minority in Congress today.

But removing all Christian influence from our government is only the beginning of their plan. Like Soviet Russia, they plan to control every aspect of our lives. And they will start with our kids. Obama and Company have what they call their “Zero to Five” plan. They want to raise your children from the moment they take their first breath. (Remember the Soviet Communists’ action plan: They took the children from their parents until they were six and indoctrinated them. After that they owned the children’s minds.) Initial reports are that not only will he give incentives to parents who put their kids in government controlled day care, but he will also raise taxes on parents who refuse.

Do you like free speech? Don’t get too used to it. The Obama administration is looking closely at Canada as a model for “Human Rights Commissions” to persecute Christians for so-called “Hate Crimes” like speaking the truth about abortion, homosexuals, or violent Muslims. (Don’t get upset at the name; if they called the Hate Crimes Bill the “Persecute-Christians-for-Speaking-the-Truth-Bill” they would have a hard time passing it, even with Liberals in control.)

Liberals plan to use the IRS (big surprise!) to persecute Christians, as well. Obama says he wants to cut tax deductions for all non-profits to help pay for his huge bailouts and giveaways. But tax experts who have seen the plan say that it is clearly targeted at churches.

Obama slipped a zinger into the bailout bills, as well. Part of the money was earmarked for renovation of public schools. But one little-noticed provision precludes schools that rent space to churches on the weekends from receiving the federal funds.

Finally, if you love Christian radio, you’re not going to love this. As Obama gets rid of Conservatives in the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and replaces them with Liberals who will carry out his agenda, Christian radio will begin to come under attack. They plan to file dozens of bogus complaints against religious broadcasters and use them as the basis for shutting them down.

(They plan to do the same with Conservative talk radio, as well, using the so-called Fairness Doctrine. They will claim that the Fairness doctrine is being violated because Conservatives “own” talk radio. The Liberal shows fail, or have tiny audiences, while hosts like Limbaugh and Hannity have millions of listeners. Liberals won’t apply the Doctrine to television, because Liberal shows dominate there.)

Liberals always trot out the imaginary doctrine of “Separation of Church and State” to justify their anti-Christian actions. There is no such concept in the Constitution, not even a hint of it. If you want to see how the Founding Fathers of this nation, the men who wrote our Constitution, thought about the integration of Christianity in the life of our nation (including the government), read my column from last week.

The only place where the subject is mentioned is not in the main body of the Constitution, but in the First Amendment, which reads:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

This is a whole article in itself. For now, just let me say that in the first phrase the Founders did NOT say that religion could not be a part of our public life. They said that there should not be a State-run religion. Most of them had experienced that in England. The Church of England was run by the government. The King or Queen was considered the Head of the church, and he or she appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican equivalent of the Pope. They didn’t want our government to have that kind of power.

The second phrase makes it clear that Congress could not do what Obama’s Congress is now in the process of doing: Prohibiting the free exercise of religion. They are not doing this openly. They are very crafty about it. I have given you a few examples of things they have done in this regard, as well as things they have planned. This brings me to my final point.

Your country needs you to be Minutemen and Minutewomen. Your weapons will be words and ideas. Your battlefields will be the hearts and minds of everyone you come in contact with, especially your children. Don’t be like some of the people who write me and say, “I don’t know what happened. My kids have grown up and become people I don’t recognize, spouting all kinds of ridiculous propaganda.”

In most cases that’s because they let the public schools raise their children. They let the teachers instill values in their kids, instead of doing so themselves with the help of their church. They abdicated their responsibilities, and now they are reaping the harvest. The Bible says that if you train up your child the right way, when they are old, they won’t depart from what you taught them.

Don’t just sit around with your friends complaining about the Liberal takeover of America. Do something about it.

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Eligibility arguments to get court hearing

Eligibility arguments to get court hearing

In what ultimately could prove to be a turning point in the legal challenges to Barack Obama's eligibility to be president, a federal judge in California has planned a hearing on the merits of a federal court case raising those questions.

According to attorney Orly Taitz, who is working on multiple cases alleging Obama is a "usurper" because he doesn't meet the constitutional requirement that only a "natural born citizen" can be president, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ruled in a hearing today that her case will move forward.



The hearing was on her motion for a default order against Obama, because although Taitz said she notified him of the action, Obama's attorneys did not make an appearance.

Her complaint was filed against the president on Jan. 20, the day of his inauguration, over his actions before he became president.

Taitz has told WND if her motion for default is granted she immediately would request access to Obama's birth records and other documentation that could determine his eligibility to occupy the Oval Office.

"I have a very clear case," Taitz said. "I think they dropped the ball. They didn't figure out this case filed on Jan. 20th, on the day of inauguration.

The case was filed on behalf of former U.S. Ambassador Alan Keyes, also a contestant in the 2008 presidential race in California, and others. Taitz said the case might have been confused with another Keyes vs. Obama case filed in the state's court system, which was thrown out and now is on appeal.


"I will be asking for the release of his vital records," she has told WND.

The case, which also includes Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson as plaintiffs, names as defendant "Barack H Obama also known as Barack Hussein Obama II also known as Barack H Obama II also known as Barry Obama also known as Barry Soetoro."

"Plaintiffs respectfully submit that this Court's order finding or at least strongly suggesting that 4(e) service is insufficient, and requiring 4(i) service, regarding the subject matter of this lawsuit as against the sole served Defendant Barack H. Obama, is manifestly erroneous and plaintiffs accordingly request that the court reconsider its motion," she argued in her motion.

"In the alternative, plaintiffs move and request that this court exercise its sound discretion to certify a question for interlocutory appeal."

She told WND that at today's hearing, the judge issued no orders, but promised that the case would be moved forward and he would address the merits of the dispute. He said there would be no dismissals based on "procedural issues."

The judge said as a former Marine he recognizes the importance of having a constitutionally qualified president.

While no attorneys appeared on Obama's behalf, several members of the U.S. Attorney's office in California were in attendance, and sought to intervene on behalf of Obama over his actions before becoming president.

The judge ordered them to accept service of the lawsuit immediately and then continued the case to an unannounced date.

Taitz told WND, "For first time, we have a judge who's listening."

Multiple WND calls to various branches of the U.S. attorney's offices in California did not generate any response.

Taitz said she has some changes to make in the pleadings, but she was able to fully explain the reasons for her case.

"He [the judge] heard the whole thing," she said.

Keyes also is plaintiff in a separate case making its way through the California state court system. His opinions on the dispute have been captured on YouTube:

"We're either going to stop him, or the United States of America is going to cease to exist," he said. "That's not a laughing matter.'

Taitz' complaint cites Obama individually for his acts before he took office, specifically his refusal to provide the documentation that would show his eligibility.

The question over Obama's eligibility now also is being raised on billboards nationwide.


"Where's The Birth Certificate?" billboard in Pennsylvania

The billboard campaign follows an ongoing petition campaign launched several months ago by WND Editor and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Farah.

The billboards are intended to raise public awareness of the fact that Obama has never released the standard "long-form" birth certificate that would show which hospital he was born in, the attending physician and establish that he truly was born in Hawaii, as his autobiography maintains.

Send a contribution to support the national billboard campaign that asks a simple question: "Where's the birth certificate?"

WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.

The "Certification of Live Birth" posted online and widely touted as "Obama's birth certificate" does not in any way prove he was born in Hawaii, since the same "short-form" document is easily obtainable for children not born in Hawaii. The true "long-form" birth certificate – which includes information such as the name of the birth hospital and attending physician – is the only document that can prove Obama was born in Hawaii, but to date he has not permitted its release for public or press scrutiny.

Oddly, though congressional hearings were held to determine whether Sen. John McCain was constitutionally eligible to be president as a "natural born citizen," no controlling legal authority ever sought to verify Obama's claim to a Hawaiian birth.

Although Obama officials have told WND all such allegations are "garbage," here is a partial listing and status update for some of the cases over Obama's eligibility:

  • New Jersey attorney Mario Apuzzo has filed a case on behalf of Charles Kerchner and others alleging Congress didn't properly ascertain that Obama is qualified to hold the office of president.

  • Pennsylvania Democrat Philip Berg has three cases pending, including Berg vs. Obama in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a separate Berg vs. Obama case alleging he wasn't qualified even to be U.S. senator and Hollister vs. Soetoro a/k/a Obama, (now dismissed) brought on behalf of a retired military member who could be facing recall to active duty by Obama.

  • Leo Donofrio of New Jersey filed a lawsuit claiming Obama's dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president. His case was considered in conference by the U.S. Supreme Court but denied a full hearing.

  • Cort Wrotnowski filed suit against Connecticut's secretary of state, making a similar argument to Donofrio. His case was considered in conference by the U.S. Supreme Court, but was denied a full hearing.

  • Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes headlines a list of people filing a suit in California, in a case handled by the United States Justice Foundation, that asks the secretary of state to refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office. The case is pending, and lawyers are seeking the public's support.

  • Chicago lawyer Andy Martin sought legal action requiring Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle to release Obama's vital statistics record. The case was dismissed by Hawaii Circuit Court Judge Bert Ayabe.

  • Lt. Col. Donald Sullivan sought a temporary restraining order to stop the Electoral College vote in North Carolina until Barack Obama's eligibility could be confirmed, alleging doubt about Obama's citizenship. His case was denied.

  • In Ohio, David M. Neal sued to force the secretary of state to request documents from the Federal Elections Commission, the Democratic National Committee, the Ohio Democratic Party and Obama to show the presidential candidate was born in Hawaii. The case was denied.

  • Also in Ohio, there was the Greenberg v. Brunner case which ended when the judge threatened to assess all case costs against the plaintiff.

  • In Washington state, Steven Marquis sued the secretary of state seeking a determination on Obama's citizenship. The case was denied.

  • In Georgia, Rev. Tom Terry asked the state Supreme Court to authenticate Obama's birth certificate. His request for an injunction against Georgia's secretary of state was denied by Georgia Superior Court Judge Jerry W. Baxter.

  • California attorney Orly Taitz has brought a case, Lightfoot vs. Bowen, on behalf of Gail Lightfoot, the vice presidential candidate on the ballot with Ron Paul, four electors and two registered voters. She also has brought forward several other cases and has conducted several public campaigns to generate awareness of the issue.
  • In Texas, Darrel Hunter vs. Obama later was dismissed.

  • In Ohio, Gordon Stamper vs. U.S. later was dismissed.

  • In Texas, Brockhausen vs. Andrade.

  • In Washington, L. Charles Cohen vs. Obama.

  • In Hawaii, Keyes vs. Lingle, dismissed.

In addition, other cases cited on the RightSideofLife blog as raising questions about Obama's eligibility include:

  • In Texas, Darrel Hunter vs. Obama later was dismissed.

  • In Ohio, Gordon Stamper vs. U.S. later was dismissed.

  • In Texas, Brockhausen vs. Andrade.

  • In Washington, L. Charles Cohen vs. Obama.

WND has reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama includes his kindergarten records, his Punahou school records, his Occidental College records, his Columbia University records, his Columbia thesis, his Harvard Law School records, his Harvard Law Review articles, his scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, his passport, his medical records, his files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records, and his adoption records.



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Collins Report

Collins Report

This is really frightening.

We warned Americans Barack Obama is a Marxist who would govern through dangerous people. Obama’s new Czar, for “Green Jobs” Anthony “Van” Jones freely admits he’s a proud San Francisco Communist with an arrest record.

Because the media has no integrity and works against us, except for Fox News, we have heard little or nothing about this. The amount of damage this confirmed member of Obama’s secret “cabinet” will do as “Green Czar” is frightening to the core. With his signature this radical unelected party apparatchik will be able to crush America’s economy to help Obama’s plans to destroy our country.

Comrade Jones is Black and green on the outside but deeply red on the inside.



The East Bay Express, an Oakland area Black on line magazine reported Comrade Czar Jones, the man who will put the final nail in our coffin, became a communist when he became enchanted with “these young radical people of color — I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, … I need to be a part of[them].”
He met them in jail, how inspiring!

Jones proudly says he spent the next ten years working with the people he met in jail in April, and “by August I was a Communist.”
His website “Green for all” carries this telling quote from Comrade Jones on his new position, “… we’re going to be in an economic slowdown for a couple of years. So to take three months, four months, six months to spend this money the right way-we’re not going to get a chance to spend a trillion dollars again! Ever. So let’s do it the right way!”

Today just six months of Marxist rule has brought our national debt to one TRILLION DOLLARS!

Obama’s morons are killing us

Thank you, drooling half wits who voted for the worst most anti American president in history. The blood of America is on your hands for giving us Comrade Barack.

The stakes are as high as they can be. Each of us has to do whatever we can to peacefully but effectively regain our country. Get involved. Send Obama a message telling him you don’t support what he is doing. Write your Congressman and Senators. Have their phone numbers on your speed dial.
Stand up for America at every chance. We will never get America back if we totally lose our beloved country.

Comments on this or any other Collins Report essay can be sent to kcoachc “at” gmail.com

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YouTube - Al Gore sued by over 30.000 Scientists for Global Warming fraud / John Coleman

YouTube - Al Gore sued by over 30.000 Scientists for Global Warming fraud / John Coleman

Al Gore sued by over 30.000 Scientists for Global Warming fraud / John Coleman

Video 5:24





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New Zeal: Communist Party on Palin

New Zeal: Communist Party on Palin

The US left hates Sarah Palin. They are terrified that she could spark a new genuine conservative movement that might seriously challenge their man Obama's monopoly on power.

Sarah must be demonised at all costs.

Here's the Communist Party USA's take on the Palin phenomonon-from People's Weekly World editor Terrie Albano.

It reveals more about Obama and the movement that elected him than it does about Palin.



I think Sarah Palin is definitely going to build a national network for her presidential run in 2012. She has backing from some GOP elite, like William Kristol, for example. The GOP is desperately looking for people who can excite its base, and what we saw in 2008 is that Sarah Barracuda can do just that. But it’s the fascist-leaning part of the GOP’s base. And that is what she is going to build on. Remember those rallies during the presidential campaign? She brought the crowd to a fevered pitch where Obama was called “traitor” — and everything but a child of God – as my mother used to say.

So here is my prediction: she’s going to criss-cross the lower 48 and build up her storm troopers on a national level. Those in the GOP elite think this is the way to go. The more moderate still left in the GOP are a weak minority. The GOP has gone more and more to the far-right since the election of Obama. Witness the increasing shrillness of Rush Limbaugh — the self-proclaimed leader — of the GOP, Newt Gingrich and the others in the media blabosphere like Glenn Beck.

Why else would Obama-hater Jon Voight get such an enthusiastic response to his pseudo-religious and apocalyptic speech where he compared the president to Julius Caesar and then applauded all those bloviators who “stay on course to bring an end to this false prophet, Obama.” (Et tu Brute? Julius Caesar asks just before getting assassinated.) This is how low the GOP is stooping and Palin is gonna jump on that bandwagon. She has already greeted – as governor – a political party that wants Alaska to secede from the United States and has ties to neo-Nazi groups. Her husband is a member of that party.

Second prediction: Three areas Sarah Barracuda is going to attack the Obama administration and try to drum up support on: racism, role of government and the role of the United States i