While ACORN retreats across the nation, an upcoming voter registration fraud trial may reveal embarrassing information that hinders the ability of the embattled radical activist group to function.
Good. Three cheers for the great state of Nevada!
The testimony will come as soon as next month from former ACORN Las Vegas field director Christopher Edwards. Charged with election fraud by Nevada's Democratic attorney general, he cut a deal last week with prosecutors and has pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters.
ACORN allegedly enforced voter registration quotas with its employees and offered bonuses for extra registrations. Nevada law forbids the use of such incentives on the theory it encourages canvassers to file fraudulent registrations. No wonder: ACORN registers "Mickey Mouse" and various celebrities, out-of-state residents, and dead people, every election cycle.
As part of the plea deal, Edwards, whom state investigators consider to be the mastermind of the incentive program, has agreed to testify against former regional director, Amy Busefink, and against ACORN, which is a co-defendant. The Las Vegas Sun reported that Edwards acknowledged he conspired with Busefink and ACORN to create the "Blackjack" incentive program that gave canvassers an extra $5 for submitting 21 or more registration cards each day. The daily quota was allegedly 20 forms.
Five dollars? Pathetic.
If ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) happens to be convicted, it could have its status as a nonprofit corporation revoked in Nevada, which could make it very difficult for the ACORN network to operate in that key battleground state.
Not to mention everywhere else.
Such a conviction would send shock waves through leftist organizing circles across the nation and might embolden more prosecutors to take on ACORN. Until it was charged by Nevada this year, ACORN had boasted about its ability to duck prosecution for election fraud.
Amy Schur, a senior ACORN official who has been in charge of the group's national campaigns, is likely to testify in the Nevada case, said Karen Inman of St. Paul, Minnesota, a former member of ACORN's national board.
Schur's testimony might be devastating to ACORN because it could publicly air many of the group's skeletons, suggested Inman, a lawyer by training.
That's because Schur has intimate knowledge of how ACORN operates and was one member of a group within ACORN including then-chief organizer and founder Wade Rathke that covered up a nearly $1 million embezzlement by Rathke's brother, Inman said. Wade Rathke was fired by the board last summer and ordered to sever all ties with ACORN. He has failed to do so. He is still, for example, chief organizer of SEIU Local 100 in New Orleans, an ACORN affiliate he founded.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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The best part is that as soon as he cooperated, the police had their testimony, and notified other police agencies out of State. This is far more important that his testimony at trial, because it can open investigations hither and yon.
#2
So what are the chances that an unfortunate "accident" befalls Christopher Edwards preventing him from testifying?
After all, if his testimony threatens to pull back the curtain on ACORN's inner workings, I have to imagine the powers that be *cough* Wade Rathke *cough*-- not to mention the 0 administration-- have a large incentive to prevent him from talking.
Not saying it will happen. But it wouldn't shock me if it did.
#8
Serious Question.
"What if the ACORN group was proven to have faked enough votes that Obama didn't win"?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/27/2009 21:11 Comments ||
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He was the one the Electoral College chose, and then he was properly sworn in, Redneck Jim, so that makes it legal and proper. The Electoral College decides which candidate becomes president, and they do not have to respect the popular vote. But it would certainly shorten Mr. Obama's odds in the next election, given all the other complaints the pollsters are discovering.
The State Attorney's Office in Lake County will not prosecute a Clermont teenager who admitted gluing posters on light poles and other public property that depicted President Barack Obama as the Joker, Batman's villian in The Dark Knight.
Politics didn't figure into the decision, Chief Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgway said today.
"We didn't put politics into it," Ridgway said. "We looked at it as a public safety issue."
Bill Gladson, division chief for the State Attorney's Office in Lake and Sumter counties, said Clermont police presented his staff with a thorough investigation that included photographs of the poster on light poles, bridge pillars and electrical boxes.
The decision does not absolve the teen, who could be cited by the city with violating a municipal code that says it is "unlawful for any person to nail, tack, paste, paint or otherwise attach any poster, bill or other advertising material" to trees, poles and public fixtures.
Gladson said the State Attorney's Office considered Clermont's remedy to the Joker poster.
"There's an ordinance in the city that fits this issue perfectly and, on top of that, I do have limited resources that need to be focused primarily on crimes that involve public safety," Gladson said in a telephone interview with the Orlando Sentinel this afternoon.
Clermont officials could not be immediately reached.
The posters depict the president in white face with dark circles around his eyes and sloppy red lipstick around his mouth, make-up that appears similar to the villainous Joker character portrayed by Heath Ledger in the most recent film of the Batman series, "The Dark Knight."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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"We didn't put politics into it," Ridgway said. "We looked at it as a public safety issue."
#5
It would be interesting for someone to glue pro-Obama posters on "light poles and other public property" and see if anyone does a "thorough investigation" and refers it to the State Attorney's office.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/27/2009 19:18 Comments ||
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Reflecting on "How Ted Kennedy Found Himself," Time's Joe Klein today let readers in on an encounter with the Massachusetts senator in the 1970s when he was stoned and Kennedy drunk. The occasion: Klein receiving an "honorable mention" journalism award from the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial foundation in 1974.
Klein explained how their conversation at the reception centered around an earlier incident in which Sen. Kennedy had been pelted with tomatoes by angry constituents:
I spent a fair amount of time with him in the 1970s, and most of the circumstances involved pain or awkwardness.... I was beginning to feel sorry for the guy.
And no more so than the day we walked through Boston's City Hall Plaza together and got pelted with tomatoes thrown by some of his most loyal and mythic constituents -- the aggrieved Celts of South Boston, whose children were about to be bused into a black neighborhood. Afterward, in his office, he offered me a towel to wipe the tomato off my ruined khaki suit and disappeared. But we talked again about that day soon after, and memorably so, since neither of us was sober. It was at a cocktail reception at Ethel Kennedy's home, for recipients of the Robert F. Kennedy journalism awards, one of whom happened to be me. In celebration, before the ceremony, a Kennedy who shall remain nameless took me down to the barn for an intense herbal experience. When I returned to the house, there was Teddy -- and it was immediately apparent that he was as shiffazed as I was stoned. We greeted each other like old comrades in arms, sat in a corner and talked about how he wasn't angry about the tomatoes, about how sad and unfair it was that the Irish of Southie and the blacks of Roxbury had to endure busing while the rich kids out in the suburbs got off the hook. It was the first actual conversation we'd ever had. A picture was taken of him handing me the award, which has somehow, sadly, been lost. We were both smiling.
Klein then went on to describe how, a few months later, he lied to Kennedy about rampant drug use at Ethel Kennedy's home:
A few months later, I was back at Ethel Kennedy's house -- living there as the deputy to Richard Goodwin, the J.F.K. speechwriter who had been tapped as the Rolling Stone Washington bureau chief. On July 4 weekend, Hunter Thompson showed up, and I don't remember much else after that, except that a fair number of Ethel's children were involved. Word spread quickly, as word will do in Washington. That Monday, by coincidence, I had an appointment with Kennedy to talk about a story I was working on, and he said, "Joe, before we get started, can I ask you something off the record?" I said sure, and he continued. "What on earth is happening at that house?"
"Why nothing, Senator," I said, summoning all the false gravity in my tiny arsenal. He smiled, raised an eyebrow. "O.K., O.K.," he said. "I asked."
The thing is, Mr. Klein is proud of that, one of the few times Mr. Kennedy was trying to do the right thing as the paterfamilias. This is why I don't ever want to be rich -- it can lead to moral debilitation in those who think of themselves as friends.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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Outside of his family, his Washington cronies and some aging journalists, not many seem to care very much. Th tribute to him last night on tv got abysmal ratings. He came in last among the major networks, behind two reruns. I watched, but only because my wife wanted to for some reason. I didn't ask why. Some things my wife does, I don't need to know the reason why.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/27/2009 18:14 Comments ||
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The Cash For Clunkers program is adding to the activity at treasurers' offices all around South Dakota. First, people were asking for proof of ownership, so they could show they owned their vehicle for a full year, allowing them to cash it in. Now, they'll be returning to register their new vehicle. And when they do, new owners need to bring every bit of paperwork provided to them by their dealer.
"That means they need their title, their damage disclosure, their bill of sale and the dealers have 30 days to get that to them," Minnehaha County Treasurer Pam Nelson said.
But many of those cashing in on the clunkers program are surprised when they get to the treasurer's office windows. That's because the government's rebate of up to $4500 dollars for every clunker is taxable.
"They didn't realize that would be taxable. A lot of people don't realize that. So they're not happy and kind of surprised when they find that out," Nelson said.
For now, the biggest impact of the program hasn't hit this office yet, as most of the paperwork is still in the hands of the dealers. But Nelson expects to see move activity in her office in the next month.
"I'm anxious to see what it's going to be like. I have no idea how many people we're going to see. Hopefully the dealers can process their paperwork in 30 days," Nelson said.
And that's when the line at this office will give some indication of how many cars the government program moved off of local lots.
Nelson adds that if you did recently purchase a vehicle, ensure your dealer gets you the paperwork in time because if they don't you could pay extra interest and penalties.
By drinking the Kool-Aid they believed it wouldn't cost them somehow?
Wait until the VAT taxes and other proposed 'fees' hit.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/27/2009 11:03 Comments ||
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Why are these folks surprised?
But it's free stuff from the government! Shouldn't it be, like, free?
I suspect people would be quite surprised to see what the numbers are after their original income taxes and the federal, state, and local taxes on this transaction, plus however much the dealer bumped the cost all get taken into account.
Some people, including Medicare recipients, will have to give up some current benefits to truly reform the nation's health-care system, Rep. Betsy Markey told a gathering of constituents in Fort Collins on Wednesday.
Markey has repeatedly said during the August congressional recess that Medicare spending needs to be reined in to help pay for reforming the broader health-care system. "There's going to be some people who are going to have to give up some things, honestly, for all of this to work," Markey said at a Congress on Your Corner event at CSU. "But we have to do this because we're Americans."
About 275 people attended Wednesday's meetings, split into two groups. About 1,300 people have attended Markey's health-care meetings over the past eight days, and another 10,300 participated in a telephone town hall earlier this week, Markey spokesman Ben Marter said.
The audience at Wednesday's gathering appeared largely supportive of Democratic reform plans, with a number of people arriving with signs prepared by Organizing for America, a spinoff of Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
At her Colorado State University event Wednesday, Markey repeated many of the themes she's stressed throughout the August recess - she believes the health-care system needs a significant overhaul that focuses on reducing costs, but the proposal crafted by House Democratic leaders is too high. She stressed at both gatherings that the status quo wasn't an option.
"I do think that our health- care spending is directly tied to the economic health of this country," the Fort Collins Democrat said.
However, one of the nation's leading political analysts said it appears increasingly unlikely that the Democrats will be able to pass any sort of comprehensive reform this year. The president over-reached by trying to push through major initiatives on health care and climate change in the midst of an economic catastrophe, said Charlie Cook, publisher of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
"The public trust in government to get this right may have been eroded enormously by what's happened in the last year" to the economy, Cook said Tuesday at a Denver health-care discussion organized by the American Association of Retired Persons. "Under the best of circumstances this would have been hard, but it's just a lot harder right now."
The Obama administration has committed strategic and tactical blunders on health-care reform that make it difficult, if not impossible, to pass any reform plan this year, Cook said.
"I think the mistakes they made weren't stupid mistakes, but just because they weren't stupid doesn't mean they weren't mistakes," he said.
Cook said a key mistake was leaving the drafting of the specific plan to Congress. He said that amounted to "outsourcing domestic policy" to congressional leadership. "There are institutions that are hated more than Congress, but not many," Cook said.
#1
Markey an honest politican? Is that something like the corectness of a broken clock?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/27/2009 18:00 Comments ||
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The audience at Wednesday's gathering appeared largely supportive of Democratic reform plans, with a number of people arriving with signs prepared by Organizing for America, a spinoff of Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
#1
The Donks have a very serious memory hole when it comes to their antics and methods used during Trunk initiated Social Security reform efforts. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. The only difference is theirs was largely manufactured and funded by them which makes it nearly unfathomable to them that this is actually a real prairie fire they've set off without formal Trunk coordination.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former high-ranking members of his administration won't be criminally charged in a federal investigation into pay-to-play allegations. "Relax, Muggsy! Da fix is in!"
Via InstaPundit
A month after they voted to punish some corporate executives for taking hefty bonus payouts, members of the House of Representatives quietly gave their own staffers a new potential bonus by making even their top-earning aides eligible for taxpayer dollars to repay their student loans. Money buys loyalty...
The change, which took effect in May, means House employees earning up to $168,411, or the top level, are now eligible for government-funded subsidies to help pay down their student loans.
House officials defend the change as a job-related benefit necessary to keep the government competitive in the hiring market - the same argument corporate chieftains used to defend their own pay scales. And they get to ride around in luxury private jets on our tax dollars
Posted by: ed ||
08/27/2009 08:08 ||
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One set of rules for me, another set of rules for thee.
#2
House officials defend the change as a job-related benefit necessary to keep the government competitive in the hiring market
That argument would have made sense when unemployment was down around 4-5% - you know, when Bush was president.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/27/2009 19:30 Comments ||
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benefit necessary to keep the government competitive in the hiring market
I doubt that. Avg Compensation (wages and benefits)
Federal Civilian: $119,982
Private Industry: $59,909
Posted by: ed ||
08/27/2009 19:48 Comments ||
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Money buys loyalty...
And silence.
Posted by: ed ||
08/27/2009 19:49 Comments ||
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(CNSNews.com) -- Mark Lloyd, chief diversity officer of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), called for a "confrontational movement" to combat what he claimed was control of the media by international corporations and to re-establish the regulatory power of government through robust public broadcasting and a more powerful FCC.
Another one wants to copy the British/European model, with guaranteed employment for the vans that catch illegal satellite dishes and untaxed televisions.
Lloyd expressed his regulatory call to arms in his 2006 book, "Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America" (University of Illinois Press). In the book, Lloyd also said that public broadcasting should be funded through new license fees charged to the nation's private radio and television broadcasters, and that new regulatory fees should be used to fund eight new regional FCC offices.
Oh goody -- eight times as much regulation!
These offices would be responsible for monitoring political advertising and commentary, children's educational programs, number of commercials, and content ratings of the programs.
Frequently referencing one of his heroes, left-wing activist Saul Alinsky,
The American Gramsci. We should be proud of our native prophet. Not every country can boast one of those.
Lloyd claims in his book that the history of American communications policy has been one of continued corporate control of every form of communication from the telegraph to the Internet.
"Citizen access to popular information has been undermined by bad political decisions," Lloyd wrote. "These decisions date back to the Jacksonian Democrats' refusal to allow the Post Office to continue to operate the telegraph service."
Clearly we should dig up President Jackson, then hang 'im high.
Lloyd claimed that neither technology nor liberal reforms have been able to overcome the damage caused when government fails to give everyone an equal voice.
I'd much rather listen to a trio of the trailing daughters and part-time daughter, accompanied by formerly temporary daughter on the piano. Not all voices were created equal, and I was the generation skipped.
Throughout history, Lloyd said, "[t]he most powerful communications tool was deliberately placed in the hands of one faction in our republic: commercial industry."
"Neither Progressive era reforms nor new communications technologies have been able to correct the problems resulting from government abdication of a responsibility to advance the equal capability of citizen discourse," Lloyd added.
"Corporate liberty has overwhelmed citizen equality," he wrote.
Government, Lloyd said in his book, is the "only" institution that can manage the communications of the public, arguing that Washington must "ensure" that everyone has an equal ability to communicate.
Really, all the voice training in the world, and all the public speaking courses in the world, will not give me singing ability equal to the trailing and part-time daughters, nor the public speaking ability of Mr. Wife. Please do not torture me by making me try. My communication skills are best exercised otherwise, and need no government ensurance.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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Lloyd claims in his book that the history of American communications policy has been one of continued corporate control of every form of communication from the telegraph to the Internet.
Yeah! private enterprise developed all the above technologies. What right do they have to use them as they see fit!
"Citizen access to popular information has been undermined by bad political decisions," Lloyd wrote.
The latest iteration just happens to be the book the above excerpt came from
This is nothing short of the creation of the Ministry of Truth.
(Or minitrue in obamaspeak newspeak.
Posted by: CrazyFool in Newport, OR ||
08/27/2009 2:12 Comments ||
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everyone has an equal ability to communicate
It's called the internet, you idiot, and it has passed you by. The FCC is an organization whose time is gone. Where do they dig up these twits?
#5
Used to be, British radio was 100% government owned & operated. The marketplace found that unacceptable and 'pirate' radio stations arose, broadcasting from ships offshore. Ship market is really depressed right now - if you have spare cash you might want to get yourself a fleet and set them up as new pirate broadcasting stations. Might need to buy yourself a nation (Nauru could use the revenue) to give you some laws to operate under.
An estimated 450 people from throughout Maine's 2nd Congressional District and beyond gathered in Brewer Tuesday night to give their elected representatives a piece of their minds. The problem was U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe and U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud were no shows.
Instead the dozens of people who traveled from such places as Washington County, Casco, Saco, East Millinocket, Orrington, the St. John Valley, Bangor, and York County, had to make due by addressing blown up photographs of the three propped up against three empty chairs that had been reserved for them at the front of the room.
*snicker* Way to win over the voters, guys.
Tuesday night's gathering at Jeff's Catering in Brewer was organized by Paul Trommer of Bangor, who got the word out largely through e-mail invitations and other means of Internet networking.
"This is about people feeling disenfranchised by their elected representatives," Trommer said just before the start of the event, which lasted at least two hours. "Our representatives are ducking us and not having any public meetings with their constituents. This has many folks not only concerned, but upset and angry," he said in his invitation, adding that the point of the session was to allow Mainers to express their views and concerns regarding their representatives' actions in Wash-ington.
In his opening remarks, Trommer said he organized the town hall-style meeting because he was sick and tired of seeing people essentially being ignored by their congressional delegation.
"This isn't a Republican event. This isn't a Democratic event. This is a people event," he said, adding that he didn't plan the event in conjunction with any particular political party and that he received no funding to host it. Jeff Ashey, owner of Jeff's Catering in Brewer, provided the use of his hall at no cost.
Oh dear. It looks like professional community organizers are being replaced. President Obama got out of the field at just the right time.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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"This isn't a Republican event. This isn't a Democratic event. This is a people event,"
That is something that still hasn't dawned on the Donk leadership or for that matter the 'formal' Trunk leadership.
There's an old saying - Lead, Follow, or Get the Hell out of the Way.
Ailing Senator Robert Byrd, one of only two to have served longer than Kennedy, suggests in an emotional statement renaming the pending health care legislation for the late Massachusetts Senator:
In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American.
What the heck -- let's name the bill after him, so that at least his family will have that memory, should it fail. The latest numbers have something like 23% of voters liking/strongly liking the idea... about the final approval rating the Clinton health initiative achieved before being given up as a lost cause.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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I'm amazed Byrd wants to name something without the name Byrd in it.
#4
I'll also add that after a few days, this nonsense will stop, because Teddy made a hell of a lot of enemies with his arrogance and meanness. And for his part, Byrd is probably getting a lot more religious in his dotage, because he can smell the brimstone through the floorboards.
#5
The old flash animation website called Romp.com had a cartoon series called 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures', about Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy, mostly getting drunk and high and being stupid. Very funny, and still available for download as torrent files. 13 episodes.
#6
Now that Ted has passed on they can go ahead with the Nantucket wind farm.
I'd like to see it named the Mary Jo Kopechne Memorial Wind Farm in honor of Teddy efforts for both sustainable wind energy and life rescue services everywhere.
#8
It would be very appropriate to name the bill after the late Ted Kennedy. It was developed in secret backroom deals. It is huge and bloated with largess. It is not what it appears to be, i.e., it is actually a bill for grabbing power and control. It is a poison pill for the nation.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/27/2009 10:09 Comments ||
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As soon as cancer was found, it was noticed the immediate attempt to Canonize old Teddy by the mainstream media. They are saying what a "great American" he is. Let's get a couple things clear and not twist the facts to change the real history.
1. He was caught cheating at Harvard when he attended it. He was expelled twice, once for cheating on a test, and once for paying a classmate to cheat for him.
2. While expelled, Kennedy enlisted in the Army, but mistakenly signed up for four years instead of two. Oops, the man can't count to four. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, former U.S. Ambassador to England (a step up from bootlegging liquor into the U.S. from Canada during prohibition), pulled the necessary strings to have his enlistment shortened to two years, and to ensure that he served in Europe, not Korea, where a war was raging. No preferential treatment for him like he charged President Bush receiving.
3. Kennedy was assigned to Paris , never advanced beyond the rank of Private, and returned to Harvard upon being discharged. (Imagine a person of his "education" NEVER advancing past the rank of Private.)
4. While attending law school at the University , he was cited for reckless driving four times, including once when he was clocked driving 90 miles per hour in a residential neighborhood with his headlights off after dark. Yet his Virginia driver's license was never revoked. Coincidentally, he passed the bar exam in 1959, amazing!!!
5. In 1964, he was seriously injured in a plane crash, and hospitalized for several months. Test results done by the hospital at the time he was admitted had shown he was legally intoxicated. The results of those tests remained a "state secret" until in the 1980's when the report was unsealed Didn't hear about that from the unbiased media, did we.
6. On July 19, 1969, Kennedy attended a party on Chappaquiddick in Massachusetts . At about 11:00 PM, he borrowed his chauffeur's keys to his Oldsmobile limousine, and offered to give a ride home to Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign worker. Leaving the island via an unlit bridge with no guard rail, Kennedy steered the car off the bridge, flipped, and into Poucha Pond.
7. He swam to shore and walked back to the p arty, after passing several houses and a fire station. Then two friends returned with him to the scene of the accident. According to their later testimony, they told him what he already knew, that he was required by law to immediately report the accident to the authorities. Instead Kennedy made his way to his hotel, called his lawyer, and went to sleep. Kennedy called the police the next morning and by then the wreck had already been discovered. Before dying, Kopechne had scratched at the upholstered floor above her head in the upside-down car. The Kennedy family began "calling in favors," ensuring that any inquiry would be contained. Her corpse was whisked out-of-state to her family, before an autopsy could be conducted. Further details are uncertain, but after the accident Kennedy says he repeatedly dove under the water trying to rescue Kopechne, and he didn't call police because he was in a state of shock. It is widely assumed Kennedy was drunk, and he held off calling police in hopes that his family could fix the problem overnight.
Since the accident, Kennedy's "political enemies" have referred to him as the distinguished Senator from Chappaquiddick. He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, and was given a SUSPENDED SENTENCE OF TWO MONTHS. Kopechne's family received a small payout from the Kennedy's insurance policy, and never sued. There was later an effort to have her body exhumed and autopsied, but her family successfully fought against this in court, and Kennedy's family paid their attorney's bills.. a "token of friendship"?
8... Kennedy has held his Senate seat for more than forty years, but considering his longevity, his accomplishments seem scant. He authored or argued for legislation that ensured a variety of civil rights, increased the minimum wage in 1981, made access to health care easier for the indigent, and funded Meals on Wheels for fixed-income seniors and is widely held as the "standard-bearer for liberalism". In his very first Senate role, he was the floor manager for the bill that turned U.S. immigration policy upside down and opened the floodgate for immigrants from third world countries.
9. Since that time, he has been the prime instigator and author of every expansion of and increase in immigration, up to and including the latest attempt to grant amnesty to illegal aliens. Not to mention the pious grilling he gave the last two Supreme Court Nominees, as if he were the standard bearer for the nation in matters of right. Island of Virginia
10. He is known around Washington as a public drunk, loud, boisterous and very disrespectful to ladies. JERK is more appropriate than "great American."
Let's not allow the spin doctors and media make this jerk a hero -- how quickly the American public forgets what his real legacy is...
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is supporting a change in state law that would allow him to appoint an interim successor to Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat while a special election is held.
Unlike most states, a successor to a vacant U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts is chosen by special election five months after the opening, not appointed by the governor.
In a recent letter to lawmakers, Kennedy asked that the law be changed to allow the governor to appoint someone to the seat during the course of the election -- provided that person pledge not to run for the seat.
In an interview today on WBUR, Patrick called the proposal "entirely reasonable" and said he would sign the bill if it reached his desk.
Legislative leaders have not said if they support the proposal.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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If there's any question as to why union toughs turned up at recent health care town halls and got violent, consider what they were gooning for: a $10 billion bailout for their mismanaged pensions -- at our expense.
Buried on page 65 of the 1,017 pages of HR 3200, and in a Senate bill as well, stands a $10 billion entitlement to keep pensions for unions like United Auto Workers as shiny and gold-plated as the day Detroit executives signed off on them.
Buried on page 65 of the 1,017 pages of HR 3200, the House's health care reform bill, and in a Senate bill as well, stands a $10 billion entitlement to keep pensions for unions like United Auto Workers as shiny and gold-plated as the day Detroit executives signed off on them.
Steelworkers, municipal employees, teachers and other union retirees will benefit from what the bills call "Reinsurance Programs for Retirees." The $10 billion cash infusion is intended to refinance Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Associations (VEBA) insurance to continue coverage for unions' early retirees in restructurings.
It's nothing but another bailout for union-bankrupted industries that can't sustain their contracts. In most of the private sector, companies cut back. They pay for what they buy. They scrimp.
Unions are different. When things get bad, they want taxpayers to pay. And they demonize corporate profits. When profits are a dirty word, one man's wealth is another man's loss, and creating value is no longer recognized as a means of earning money.
It's no surprise that bailouts are the result.
But there's a problem with all this largesse -- the poor and middle class who don't get these fat pensions end up paying for them anyway. Back in February, President Obama praised unions for their "sacrifices" in the auto bailouts. We've yet to see taxpayers praised or thanked for their "sacrifices" in bailing out unions.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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Kinda makes you wonder what other pork is buried in that bill.
This morning, Gov. Paterson again attempted to get beyond his controversial remarks on race, admitting he "overreacted" and "shouldn't have said it - straight out" during a second appearance on the same radio talk show where he started the furor last week. "I was wrong to get into an assessment of how the media views me," Paterson said in interview on WWRL 1600AM. "I do not think that race has anything to do with my poll numbers, has anything to do with my political issues in this day and shouldn't have said it - straight out."
Despite the acknowledgment, Paterson went on to again complain about coverage of a night club party he attended last month with his 21-year-old daughter.
"To me, it leads to the notion of a stereotype of African Americanism: 'They're hanging out, they're in the club, they're drinking and they have no regard for their children,'" Paterson said. "That's the negative stereotype that I thought was being placed because there was no fact that any of these things had ever happened."
Paterson passed up the opportunity to make amends with NY1 political anchor Dominic Carter, who has demanded and apology for the governor's attack on him last week. The governor made no mention of the journalist during today's interview.
Yesterday, Paterson repeatedly denied making controversial comments that he was the victim of a racially biased media.
Paterson, whose remarks Friday were privately described by aides as politically "disastrous," insisted at a Long Island press conference that he never suggested his poor standing with the public could be traced to biased coverage by the press.
"I didn't make any references to my political problems being related to being treated differently because of race," Paterson said.
"My remarks never say that there is a race element at all. What I did talk about was some negative racial stereotyping which I think has gone on from time to time.
"But I didn't blame my problems on that, I'm not changing the remarks that I made. I'm just correcting the interpretations of my remarks," he continued.
Paterson claimed during a Friday radio interview that the allegedly unfair press treatment he had received proved "that we're not in the post-racial period."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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#2
Yeah, and Mel Gibson shouldn't have made his remarks either, but in both cases it exposed the soul of the man making them. Deeds, not excuses, please.
More that 1,200 people crowded into Weddington High School Tuesday night for a boisterous town hall meeting that evoked passionate sentiments not only about health care, but also immigration and the Obama administration. "It's not about covering the uninsured in this country, it seems to me it's all about control," Union County businessman Tony Mangum said, voice breaking. "I get emotional because I fear we're losing this country."
A crowd that filled the school auditorium and overflowed into the cafeteria came out for the first of three town halls this week hosted by U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick of Charlotte.
Myrick, a Republican, opened the gathering by outlining her own opposition to Democratic health care bills and support for alternatives, including tax credits and continued reliance on the markets.
Across the country, such meetings have evoked strong feelings, particularly among opponents of a health care overhaul.
Myrick appealed for mutual respect as dozens of people lined up to speak. For the most part, the crowd obliged. But the audience jeered one critic whom sheriff's deputies escorted out after he called the crowd "the rudest he'd ever seen."
Most speakers who came to the suburban school shared Myrick's opposition to proposals from the Obama administration and Democratic-controlled Congress.
One man described himself as part of the "silent majority."
"The alarm sounded in my head with the stimulus bill," he said, "Liberals would have you believe (the health care overhaul) is for the benefit of all. That's hogwash. It's a power grab, pure and simple."
Others said they worry about the prospect of "socialized medicine." A retired man said he was "petrified" about the direction of the country, including this week's decision to investigate CIA interrogations.
"I'm just concerned about where America's going," he said. "I'm worried that we're going to be ruled by a foreign country in 30 years."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer called on embattled Gov. Mark Sanford to step down today and renewed his pledge to bow out of the 2010 gubernatorial race should Sanford resign within a month or so. "It's time to go, Mark. Maybe to Argentina."
Bauer, in a letter to Sanford, said "we have reached a point where we ALL must put the best interests of the people of South Carolina ahead of personal or political interests. It is my opinion that the best interests of our people can no longer be served with your current administration."
Sanford has planned a 3:30 p.m. news conference to answer Bauer's call for him to resign.
By early October Bauer will formally announce his intentions to seek the GOP nomination for governor in 2010, meaning it would take Sanford resigning for Bauer not to seek the office in 2010. Bauer would not commit to that pledge if Sanford were to be impeached when the Legislature resumes in January. The Republican gubernatorial primary is in June.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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"The intersection between GE's interests and government action is clearer than ever," General Electric Vice Chairman John G. Rice wrote in an Aug. 19 e-mail to colleagues. "What's good for G.E. is good for the country!"
Rice was calling on his co-workers to join the General Electric Political Action Committee. "GEPAC is an important tool that enables GE employees to collectively help support candidates who share the values and goals of GE."
The full letter suggests that "share the values and goals of GE" really means "support policies that profit the company."
Steve Milloy, a pro-free market investor at the Free Enterprise Action Fund, obtained this e-mail and says it reveals General Electric for what it really is. "GE is lobbying to become the biggest rent seeker this country has ever seen," Milloy told this column. Rent seeking is using government legislation or regulation to generate private profits the free market wouldn't provide.
"On climate change," Rice wrote, "we were able to work closely with key authors of the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill, recently passed by the House of Representatives. If this bill is enacted into law it would benefit many GE businesses."
Most of all, Waxman-Markey would profit a GE joint venture called Greenhouse Gas Services, which deals in greenhouse gas credits, products that have value only if a cap-and-trade bill like Waxman-Markey passes.
The leaked e-mail shows how tightly GE connects PAC contributions and lobbying efforts. "Our Company is heavily impacted by a number of issues pending in Washington this fall," Rice wrote.
GE spent more on lobbying in the second quarter of this year than did any other company, according to federal lobbying files. Since 1998, GE has been the king of lobbying expenditures, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, outpacing its runner-up by 40 percent.
Last election, GEPAC spent $2.4 million, with a slim majority going to Democrats. So far this year, two-thirds of GEPAC money has gone to Democrats.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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Let this be a lesson to those who think that big business is in bed with the GOP. Their cheatin' hearts have been sleeping with the Dems for a long time.
Rep. Jim Moran's town hall meeting descended into chaos Tuesday night as protestors clashed -- in one case violently -- with supporters of a broad federal health care expansion, leading the 8th District Democrat to angrily seek to evict some of the loudest demonstrators. Whoopdy doo. He'll be reelected in November, 2010. Bet on it.
Moran and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean addressed a crowd of at least 2,500 at South Lakes High School in Reston, weathering hours of catcalls and heckling mixed with shouts from supporters.
Outside, a spillover crowd of protestors and counter-protesters shouted slogans at each other. A man in a Cato Institute T-shirt scuffled with a man wearing an Obama T-shirt, punched him in the face, and was shortly after kicked off the property by police officers.
Police said they were seeking to avoid arrests to help keep the crowd under control.
Inside, the scene was just as raucous. Moran -- fuming that his introduction of Dean was met with jeers -- finally lost his temper with the crowd.
"There are hundreds of people in this gymnasium who can't hear [Dean] because of a handful of people," Moran said. "These folks are not from the 8th District, they don't really belong here, and I'm going to ask them to leave."
Moran is a supporter of the $1.6 trillion House health care bill that would create a new government health option. The bill, mired in disputes among Democratic factions, has proved a lightning rod in town hall meetings across America.
The meeting hosted by Moran contrasted sharply to a town hall in Springfield held by 11th District Democrat Gerry Connolly earlier in the day.
Connolly on Tuesday told hundreds of seniors at Springfield's Greenspring Retirement Community that he would oppose any health care measure that "in any way, shape or form does any harm to Medicare."
The more than 400-strong crowd -- made up largely of highly educated, white-collar retirees -- showed little of the outsized rage seen at other town hall meetings. Many, however, expressed deep skepticism over how a public health insurance plan would be paid for, given spiraling federal deficits, or how it would interfere with existing care.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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Is now the time to remind everyone, emails KP, that Obamas babysitters Ayers and Dohrm dedicated their communist manifesto to Robert Kennedys assassin, amongst others?
The United Nations is recommending that children as young as five receive mandatory sexual education that would teach even pre-kindergarteners about masturbation and topics like gender violence.
It should prove amusing when they try to push this on conservative Muslim countries. UNESCO has lots of bright ideas, on which they spend a great deal of money, that go absolutely nowhere. In other words, they have all the power of the UN General Assembly.
The U.N.'s Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released a 98-page report in June offering a universal lesson plan for kids ranging in age from 5-18, an "informed approach to effective sex, relationships" and HIV education that they say is essential for "all young people."
The U.N. insists the program is "age appropriate," but critics say it's exposing kids to sex far too early, and offers up abstract ideas -- like "transphobia" -- they might not even understand. "At that age they should be learning about ... the proper name of certain parts of their bodies," said Michelle Turner, president of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, "certainly not about masturbation."
Turner was disturbed by UNESCO's plans to explain to children as young as nine about the safety of legal abortions, and to advocate and "promote the right to and access to safe abortion" for everyone over the age of 15. "This is absurd," she told FOXNews.com.
The UNESCO report, called "International Guidelines for Sexuality Education," separates children into four age groups: 5-to-8-year-olds, 9-to-12-year-olds, 12-to-15-year-olds and 15-to-18-year-olds.
Under the U.N.'s voluntary sex-ed regime, kids just 5-8 years old will be told that "touching and rubbing one's genitals is called masturbation" and that private parts "can feel pleasurable when touched by oneself."
#3
I remember a report years ago that stated "Men who whacked off as a child A LOT have a much lower incidence of cancer, it seems that sperm is toxic if not evacuated".
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/27/2009 19:58 Comments ||
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PROSTATE Cancer, couldn't think of the damn name.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/27/2009 20:32 Comments ||
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First, they convince people this is a good idea, then they convince people the little boys need an adult male to help them do it....
What? This is the Useless Nitwits after all.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/27/2009 21:05 Comments ||
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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.
The State Attorney's Office in Lake County will not prosecute a Clermont teenager who admitted gluing posters on light poles and other public property that depicted President Barack Obama as the Joker, Batman's villian in The Dark Knight.
Reflecting on "How Ted Kennedy Found Himself," Time's Joe Klein today let readers in on an encounter with the Massachusetts senator in the 1970s when he was stoned and Kennedy drunk. The occasion: Klein receiving an "honorable mention" journalism award from the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial foundation in 1974.
Some people, including Medicare recipients, will have to give up some current benefits to truly reform the nation's health-care system, Rep. Betsy Markey told a gathering of constituents in Fort Collins on Wednesday.
Ailing Senator Robert Byrd, one of only two to have served longer than Kennedy, suggests in an emotional statement renaming the pending health care legislation for the late Massachusetts Senator:
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is supporting a change in state law that would allow him to appoint an interim successor to Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat while a special election is held.
This morning, Gov. Paterson again attempted to get beyond his controversial remarks on race, admitting he "overreacted" and "shouldn't have said it - straight out" during a second appearance on the same radio talk show where he started the furor last week. "I was wrong to get into an assessment of how the media views me," Paterson said in interview on WWRL 1600AM. "I do not think that race has anything to do with my poll numbers, has anything to do with my political issues in this day and shouldn't have said it - straight out."
Rep. Jim Moran's town hall meeting descended into chaos Tuesday night as protestors clashed -- in one case violently -- with supporters of a broad federal health care expansion, leading the 8th District Democrat to angrily seek to evict some of the loudest demonstrators.
