In a strange twist to an already complicated legal situation, artist Shepard Fairey admitted today to legal wrongdoing in his ongoing battle with the Associated Press.
Fairey said in a statement issued late Friday that he knowingly submitted false images and deleted others in the legal proceedings, in an attempt to conceal the fact that the AP had correctly identified the photo that Fairey had used as a reference for his "Hope" poster of then-Sen. Barack Obama.
"Throughout the case, there has been a question as to which Mannie Garcia photo I used as a reference to design the HOPE image," Fairey said. "The AP claimed it was one photo, and I claimed it was another."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2009 09:02 ||
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Apparently Obama-worship ends when there's money involved.
Although large majorities of House and Senate Democrats have voted to cut off funding for ACORN, this rebuke could be reversed as soon as November 1st.
This is a point that has been overlooked in press coverage of the besieged left-leaning community action group. Moreover, even if ACORN (the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now) does lose out on public funding it continues to receive support from foundations, corporations and individual donors, including George Soros.
Despite the scope and magnitude of ongoing scandals that have ensnared ACORN officials, there remains a certain slyness to the news coverage in that the focus is on "conservative firestorms" and "McCarthyite tactics" , as opposed to potential felonies that have been captured on tape, to say nothing of voter fraud registration allegations and financial misappropriation.
Only four Democrats joined with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) in opposing legislation that would allow organizations with a criminal history to receive federal funding back in April.
Thanks to the videos that show ACORN staffers telling undercover investigators how they falsify documents, obtain illegal loans and set up brothels congressional Democrats were finally persuaded to go on record and vote against continued funding. But here's the rub.
ACORN is only defunded from now through Halloween.
"This is the biggest trick or treat," Bachmann observed during a bloggers conference held at Heritage Foundation. "On November 1 the prohibition will lift."
As it turns out, there are seven U.S. Senators and 75 House members who remain insufficiently scandalized to join with other Democrats in casting a vote that may in long run turn out to be mere window dressing.
In reality, ACORN's public funding represents just a relatively small percentage of its financial base, Matthew Vadum, a senior editor and analyst with the Capital Research Center (CRC), points out.
"Even without federal taxpayer dollars ACORN will remain well-funded because it receives support from liberal foundations, high-dollar donors such as Herb and Marion Sandler, and from annual membership dues," he said. "Also we really don't know how much they have already gotten from their aggressive corporation shakedown campaigns. So much of ACORN's finances are hidden from public view."
The lead ACORN organization registered in Arkansas and New Orleans has received $3 million from the Marguerite Casey Foundation, $821,000 from the Robin Hood Foundation, $595,000 from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and $65,000 from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, according to CRC.
Other foundations have contributed to ACORN's affiliates.
Project Vote has received $4,047,500 from the Rockefeller Family Fund and $1,460,801 from the Tides Foundation, financial records show. ACORN's American Institute for Social Justice (AISJ) has received almost $30 million in foundation grants, since 2000, according to CRC.
AISJ has received $5,125,000 from the Marguerite Casey Foundation, $4,130,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and $265,000 from the Needmor Fund.
The Woods Fund of Chicago, where President Barack Obama and former Weather Underground leader William Ayers sat as board members, has donated about $190,000 to the ACORN network, according to CRC.
Obama and Ayers served on the Woods Fund board from 1999 to 2001, when two of the ACORN grants were made.
Soros's Open Society donated $25,000 to ACORN, while his Democracy Alliance steered a grant of "unknown size" to the community group back in 2006, according to CRC.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2009 00:00 ||
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Scorn is just the tip of the oak tree. The work of cleaning up the corruption has barely begun.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
10/17/2009 12:18 Comments ||
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Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros said on Thursday that the U.S. economy is going to act as a drag on world growth.
Speaking at conference sponsored by the Economist magazine, Soros, who runs Soros Fund Management, said "The world economy is going to have some growth, but we are bound to be flat."
He also said the U.S. is going to be a drag.
Investors around the world listen closely to Soros' comments as his hedge fund makes big bets on currencies, interest rates and stocks.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2009 00:00 ||
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He also said the U.S. is going to be a drag.
Then if Blofeld would stop funding the people out to kill the economy maybe it wouldn't be a drag. If you acknowledge that it is fundamental to a healthy world economy, then you'd make sure that it remained healthy. Funding soci@list and neo-communist fronts isn't the solution. Guess he was off on his timing in trying to kill it, now he's grasping the implication. If anyone finds him, turn the manipulator over to the French who have an outstanding warrant on him.
(CNSNews.com) - Weaknesses in the economy and financial markets--and the government's response to them--have helped boost federal budget deficits, which reached a record level in fiscal year 2009, the General Accountability Office reported on Thursday.
The situation probably won't improve any time soon: "While a lot of attention has been given to the recent fiscal deterioration, the federal government faces even larger fiscal challenges that will persist long after the return of financial stability and economic growth," the report says.
The GAO says the nation's fiscal challenges are driven by the growth in health care costs as well as demographic trends. It also notes that without reform, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will account for a growing share of the economy in coming years.
The GAO has been publishing long-term fiscal simulations since 1992, in response to a bipartisan request from Congress. According to the GAO, lawmakers asked for the projections because they were concerned about the long-term effects of fiscal policy.
Lawmakers were right to be concerned, the latest report indicates: "GAO's simulations continue to show escalating levels of debt that illustrate that the long-term fiscal outlook remains unsustainable," the August-October 2009 assessment said.
Under one GAO scenario that looks ten years ahead, debt held by the public as a percent of Gross Domestic Product is projected to exceed the historical high reached in the aftermath of World War II and grow at a steady rate after that.
The GAO says the nation's fiscal challenges are driven by the growth in health care costs as well as demographic trends. It also notes that without reform, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will account for a growing share of the economy in coming years.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2009 00:00 ||
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Unemployment officially at 9.8%. The administration warned at the beginning of the year that it'd be 9% if the stimulus wasn't in place.
#3
Gee no shit, spending more than you make is bad ya think?
In this little microcosm I know for a fact lowering the cost of living (taxes) increases trade (business), which spreads wealth (wages) and increases civic and state revenue (sales tax). The only loser is the Federal level - surprise, is it starting to make sense now?
California posted higher-than-expected job losses in September, a sign that the state's employment woes continue even amid indications of a broader economic recovery. Prob'ly because they don't have enough Democrats in their legislature...
Employers cut 39,300 workers from their payrolls last month. That's nearly six times the number of jobs the state now says were lost in August, led by cuts in construction and government.
Employers cut 39,300 workers from their payrolls last month, according to figures released this morning by the state Employment Development Department. That's nearly six times the number of jobs the state now says were lost in August, led by cuts in construction and government. They should pass a law forcing the employers not to cut their payrolls. That'd fix things.
A separate survey of joblessness showed that California's unemployment rate was 12.2% in September, down from a revised 12.3% in August. The unemployment rate in September 2008 was 7.8%. "It is discouraging," said Esmael Adibi, an economist at Chapman University. "We want to see job losses go down and the pace slow down, but we didn't see it." "Obviously we need to pass more laws!"
California's unemployment rate is well above the national rate of 9.8%. No one's quite sure why...
The state's job losses were especially pronounced in construction, which lost 14,100 jobs over the month, and government, which lost 12,700. That's 12,700 relatives and sexual partners thrown onto the dole...
Cutbacks in government employment, which includes public schools, are partly to blame for the state's lackluster performance this month, said Stephen Levy of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy. "We are disproportionately hit in the government sector because our state and local governments are having worse budget shortfalls than in other states," he said. There are some that would say that's because during the seven fat years they didn't set aside for the seven lean years, but what do they know?
Los Angeles County's unemployment rate soared to 12.7%, up from 12.2% the previous month. The county has lost 164,200 jobs over the last year. Sounds like another tax increase on the horizon...
Unemployment rates in the other four counties in Southern California all declined in August. Orange County's jobless rate was 9.4% in September, down from a revised 9.8% in August. Hard-hit Riverside and San Bernardino counties posted an unemployment rate of 14.2%, down from 14.6% in August. Ventura County's unemployment rate was 11%, down from a revised 11.3% in August. San Diego's unemployment rate dipped to 10.2% in September from 10.6% in August. Imperial County continued to have the highest rate in the state, and one of the highest in the country, in September at 30.1%. Others were Merced County at 15.7%, Trinity County at 15.9%, and Yuba County at 17.8%. They're gonna have to elect a lot more Dems to get those numbers turned around. They're just not hopey-changey enough...
The state has lost 732,700 jobs over the last year, with 144,000 of those losses occuring in construction. California's construction sector has shed more than 300,000 jobs since its pre-recession peak in early 2006.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2009 00:00 ||
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Taxed and regulated them out of existence, or at least out of the state.
Problem is, that sends lots of Caliphornios to neighboring states to follow their fleeing jobs, which means they're voting in Nevada and Arizona like they did back in Fresno and Milpetas.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2009 9:44 Comments ||
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A lot of the people who lose their jobs, particularly those in construction, will probably go back to Mexico. Did I tell you about the time I was looking for a leak in my roof and found a Tijuana newspaper under the tiles? I also found some pretty damn slipshod workmanship. Here's a tip if you plan to buy a house in southern Kaliphornia: buy one that was built in the 1960's or earlier when people in the construction industry were US citizens who still had some pride.
I feel sorry for people losing their jobs. I've been there, done that, and I know how bad it can be.
But I'm actually enjoying the lighter traffic on the freeway. And if we get to the point where we don't have to ration water anymore I'll enjoy that too.
Part of the reason for Kaliphornia's skyrocketing growth was a result of good old Bawney Fwank and his perverted policies WRT to exotic, sup-prime mortgages. People were told that they could afford to buy houses here even if the prices were astronomical. That led to even more housing price inflation and a totally unrealistic building boom. I'm glad it's slowed down a little but I'm afraid they'll just ratchet it back up in a year or so. Call me selfish if you want but I don't think it was healthy for anybody.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/17/2009 12:43 Comments ||
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"It is discouraging," said Esmael Adibi, an economist at Chapman University. "We want to see job losses go down and the pace slow down, but we didn't see it."
Yes professor. You seemed to be qualified now to be the next President of the United States because you sound like one other former Professor, Obama. Plus, Arabs and other third world types are now in voque per the American voter.
Besides, who needs jobs. Obama is about to "spread the wealth" any way!
#5
You know what would help? An increase in the FUTA, SUTA, and an addition to SS/MED for federal health mandates. Might as well increase the sales tax as well, and hike the gas tax because people gotta drive to go shop. And a ginormous fine for people who drive and cell phone, or own black vehicles, or TVs larger than 10", or do not seperate their garbage, or are unsympathetic to the dry vally gobbler trout, flush a toilet when its mellow yellow, kick a tenant out for not paying rent, blah blah blah f^k it you're all guilty and owe fines; its a joke. And not a ha ha funny one.
Thats right Fred, a reverse Grapes of Wrath if ya will.
#7
"We are disproportionately hit in the government sector because our state and local governments are having worse budget shortfalls than in other states"
That's because, since the 1920s, the government sector was the main recipient and spender of money in California. Business went along with the 'progressivism' because the improved infrastructure and education system helped them.
That started going downhill in the 60s; the business sector and other groups that could have been a credible opposition either stood mute or were too enmeshed in the system, or left the state.
Some of the television ads in the New Jersey governor's race may look familiar to viewers with long memories.
In the 1988 Pennsylvania treasurer's race between Democrat Catherine Baker Knoll and former U.S. Rep. Phil English, Knoll's campaign deliberately portrayed English as overweight.
"We were doing focus groups showing negative headlines about Phil," said Neil Oxman, who worked on Knoll's campaign. One woman saw a photo of English and said, "Is that him? Oooooh."
Oxman hired a still photographer and told him: "I want you to take the fattest pictures of this guy you can."
This year, in New Jersey, Democratic Gov. Corzine's campaign denies it is stressing Republican challenger Christopher J. Christie's weight in his ads, but analysts say it's pretty obvious that it is.
In a pair of television ads, Corzine questions Christie's ethics while running footage of him. In one, an announcer says Christie was "throwing his weight around" when he went the wrong way down a one-way street and did not get a ticket.
"It is not as subtle as perhaps they hoped it would be," said Sam Bradley, a Texas Tech University advertising professor who has studied the effects of political television ads.
"The videography focuses on portraying him as looking overweight with the camera focused on the midsection. There's a really huge fat prejudice that exists," he said. "It's pretty clear the words call into question the ethics but the visuals make him seem undisciplined and all the negative stereotypes that go with being overweight: lazy, slob, eat too much, no self control."
Though neither ad is running now, an almost daily stream of mail to voters shows the same unflattering images of Christie.
The Corzine campaign has "no interest in Christie's appearance," and relies on footage taken by trackers with video cameras who have been following Christie for months, said communications director Sean Darcy.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2009 00:00 ||
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Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime friend and ally of Sen. John McCain, is now going a step further, Democrats say, and actually becoming the new McCain.
Senior members of the majority party say the South Carolina Republican has displaced his Arizona mentor as the dealmaker on two big agenda items of the Obama administration: climate change and immigration.
As McCain, on the heels of his presidential election defeat, has distanced himself from Democrats, Graham has moved in to fill the vacuum. And Graham's decision to pick up the mantle of the maverick has been noticed and not always appreciated by conservative Republicans. Hecklers at a town hall meeting in Greenville, S.C., on Monday night accused their senator of abandoning conservative principles, to which he replied that he loved the GOP too much to let it become "the party of angry white guys."
Sen. John Kerry (Mass.), one of the chief Democratic sponsors of climate change legislation, has invited Graham to be his principal Republican partner on the issue.
Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), vice chairman of the Senate Democratic Conference, is in talks with Graham about teaming up to pass major immigration reform.
"I'm trying to use my time up here to solve problems," Graham told The Hill. "The Republican Party needs to be seen as a center-right party that will solve hard problems.
"We have an energy independence problem and I think the planet's got a [climate] problem. So I'd like to be a Republican who can bring good business practices to solving this problem.
"If the administration wants to embrace immigration reform, I will try to be helpful."
Graham stunned Republicans in Washington and South Carolina by agreeing to team up with Kerry to pass climate change legislation this Congress.
In a New York Times op-ed titled "Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation)," Kerry and Graham wrote: "Our partnership represents a fresh attempt to find consensus that adheres to our core principles and leads to both a climate change solution and energy independence."
McCain has sounded more pessimistic about Kerry's bill, unveiled two weeks ago with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). He had "huge problems" with it, he told The Hill, and has decided to work instead with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).
Schumer said he is even discussing immigration with Graham, even though McCain led efforts to pass immigration legislation with the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).
"Sen. Graham is the guy," Schumer said bluntly.
Democrats thought McCain would serve as the chief Republican dealmaker on climate and immigration. President Barack Obama reached out to him soon after defeating him in the 2008 election, inviting him in November to his Chicago transition office. But McCain soon positioned himself as an outspoken critic of Obama's policies. He led Senate GOP opposition to Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package, which attracted only three Republican votes.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2009 00:00 ||
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Sheesh. it's really past time to clean the GOP stable if Grahamnesty's the leading light.
Mattis/Airpaio 2012, anybody?
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
10/17/2009 4:01 Comments ||
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can't even muster more contempt for, say a person like. Rev. Wright or Sharptone, than Graham. At least one knew where they stood.
The Senate has more than one way to get to agreement on the controversial public option, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said Friday.
Though Harkin insisted he continues to support a "robust" public option, his comments underscored how Senate Democrats are trying to leave themselves adequate wiggle room to approve something smaller in scale.
During a conference call hosted by the liberal activist group Families USA,
Harkin indicated that Senate Democrats had narrowed their choices to a full public option, a proposal that would allow states to opt out of the program and Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) idea of creating a "trigger" that would launch a public option in any state where insurers fail to meet residents' needs.
Harkin indicated that Senate Democrats had narrowed their choices to a full public option, a proposal that would allow states to opt out of the program and Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) idea of creating a "trigger" that would launch a public option in any state where insurers fail to meet residents' needs.
Harkin's committee passed a bill that would create a nationwide government-run health insurance public option program that would compete with private insurers, the approach that remains the favorite of liberals. But in an attempt to appease wary centrist Democrats and Snowe, Senate Democrats have been eyeing several compromise proposals.
As he has on previous occasions, Harkin offered a strong defense of the public option in his committee's bill and made clear that he intends to keep pushing for it to be included in the final Senate bill, which must be combined with a Finance Committee measure without a public option.
"As the chairman of the HELP Committee, I'm advocating for what we have in our bill," Harkin said. "Quite frankly, I think we got it right."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2009 00:00 ||
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The committee's Democrats simply failed to appear. Republican staffers say they caught them on tape leaving by a back door at 2:35
Faced with a promised vote to subpoena documents on Countrywide Financial's "Friends of Angelo" program, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee fled a scheduled 2 p.m. markup today.
Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the Ranking Republican on the Oversight Committee, had promised to call for a vote at today's markup on whether to subpoena documents involved in the program that gave sweetheart mortgages to at least four Democratic government officials, including two senators.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the program might have also benefitted the chairman of House Oversight, Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y.
Even if it had been ruled out of Order, Issa's motion would have received a vote.
The committee's Democrats simply failed to appear. Republican staffers say they caught them on tape leaving by a back door at 2:35.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2009 00:00 ||
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Something important is happening when even the BBC is compelled to ask, as it did this week, "What happened on global warming?" The British news organization has heretofore insisted that the scientific consensus was cemented long ago that global warming is real and is mainly caused by human use of carbon-based fossil fuels. Put simply, what has happened is global temperatures have dropped every year since 1998, recent peer-reviewed research has uncovered the decisive influence of hot and cold cycles in the oceans on land temperatures, and growing numbers of scientists with unquestioned credentials are stepping forward to question the conventional wisdom.
But reaching a new consensus will be exceedingly difficult because the raw data on which the landmark 1996 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based its conclusion has been destroyed. The University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit acknowledged in August that it discarded data that, in addition to the IPCC report, has been cited by other international studies as the main justification for severe restrictions on carbon emissions worldwide. This development raises more troubling doubts about global warming just as scientists and policymakers are expected to call for harsh new limits on energy use in its name when they meet in December in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Every schoolchild knows that the last step in the scientific method is independent reproduction of results. But lost climate data cannot be reproduced, which is a huge problem for everybody. "Every time CRU massaged the temperature data, they were getting more warming from the same numbers. It's incumbent upon scientists to find out why, but you can't find out if you don't have the data," Dr. Patrick Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, told The Examiner. "The data needed to verify the gloom-and-doom warming forecasts have disappeared."
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has formally requested that the Environmental Protection Agency, which helps fund CRU, "reopen the record" and allow CEI and others to submit newly uncovered information regarding the East Anglia data destruction. The conservative think tank also wants to submit information about flaws in other data EPA is using as it devises stringent new anti-global warming regulations. Congress should also investigate the dumping of data partially paid for by U.S. taxpayers and other suspicious global warming anomalies, such as the temperature readings taken from "ghost weather stations" like the one at Maine's Ripogenus Dam. It was officially closed in 1995 but allegedly is still transmitting climate data 14 years later. Such questionable data sources must be eliminated if credible policy decisions are ever to be reached.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2009 00:00 ||
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These problems lead into the real issue, which is that pre-satellite era the measurements and data just aren't good enough to say whether the 20th century warmed or cooled.
For most of the planet (the oceans) and for most of the 20th century, the main way temperatures were measured was to throw a bucket over the side of a ship, haul it up on deck and stick a thermometer in it. Clearly, such a method will be subject to many large influences. Much larger than the claimed temperature increases.
Yet this data goes into the climate models that confident predict temperatures a 100 years in the future.
There are similar sampling issues with land based temperatures.
#5
> Yet this data goes into the climate models that confident predict temperatures a 100 years in the future.
It wouldn't matter if that data was 100% accurate. You cannot model the future accurately. The amount of error grows exponentially until it swamps any signal.
At 95% model accuracy (an over-estimate) it will take 13-14 "loops" to have a 50% chance of accuracy.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
In a strange twist to an already complicated legal situation, artist Shepard Fairey admitted today to legal wrongdoing in his ongoing battle with the Associated Press.
Although large majorities of House and Senate Democrats have voted to cut off funding for ACORN, this rebuke could be reversed as soon as November 1st.
Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros said on Thursday that the U.S. economy is going to act as a drag on world growth.
California posted higher-than-expected job losses in September, a sign that the state's employment woes continue even amid indications of a broader economic recovery.
Some of the television ads in the New Jersey governor's race may look familiar to viewers with long memories.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime friend and ally of Sen. John McCain, is now going a step further, Democrats say, and actually becoming the new McCain.
The Senate has more than one way to get to agreement on the controversial public option, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said Friday.
Something important is happening when even the BBC is compelled to ask, as it did this week, "What happened on global warming?" The British news organization has heretofore insisted that the scientific consensus was cemented long ago that global warming is real and is mainly caused by human use of carbon-based fossil fuels. Put simply, what has happened is global temperatures have dropped every year since 1998, recent peer-reviewed research has uncovered the decisive influence of hot and cold cycles in the oceans on land temperatures, and growing numbers of scientists with unquestioned credentials are stepping forward to question the conventional wisdom.
