Why We'll Leave L.A.
The business climate is worse than the air quality.
By RICK NEWCOMBE
Los Angeles
If New Yorkers fantasize that doing business here in Los Angeles would be less of a headache, forget about it. This city is fast becoming a job-killing machine. It's no accident the unemployment rate is a frightening 11.4% and climbing.
I never could have imagined that, after living here for more than three decades, I would be filing a lawsuit against my beloved Los Angeles and making plans for my company, Creators Syndicate, to move elsewhere.
But we have no choice. The city's bureaucrats rival Stalin's apparatchiks in issuing decrees, rescinding them, and then punishing citizens for having followed them in the first place.
I founded Creators Syndicate in 1987, and we have represented hundreds of important writers, syndicating their columns to newspapers and Web sites around the world. The most famous include Hillary Clinton, who, like Eleanor Roosevelt, wrote a syndicated column when she was first lady. Another star was the advice columnist Ann Landers, once described by "The World Almanac" as "the most influential woman in America." Other Creators columnists include Bill O'Reilly, Susan Estrich, Thomas Sowell, Roland Martin and Michelle Malkin -- plus Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonists and your favorite comic strips.
From the beginning, we've been headquartered in Los Angeles. But 15 years ago we had a dispute with the city over our business tax classification. The city argued that we should be in an "occupations and professions" classification that has an extremely high tax rate, while we fought for a "wholesale and retail" classification with a much lower rate. The city forced us to invest a small fortune in legal fees over two years, but we felt it was worth it in order to establish the correct classification once and for all.
After enduring a series of bureaucratic hearings, we anxiously awaited a ruling to find out what our tax rate would be. Everything was at stake. We had already decided that if we lost, we would move.
You can imagine how relieved we were on July 1, 1994, when the ruling was issued. We won, and firmly planted our roots in the City of Angels and proceeded to build our business.
Everything was fine until the city started running out of money in 2007. Suddenly, the city announced that it was going to ignore its own ruling and reclassify us in the higher tax category. Even more incredible is the fact that the new classification was to be imposed retroactively to 2004 with interest and penalties. No explanation was given for the new classification, or for the city's decision to ignore its 1994 ruling.
Their official position is that the city is not bound by past rulings -- only taxpayers are. This is why we have been forced to file a lawsuit. We will let the courts decide whether it is legal for adverse rulings to apply only to taxpayers and not to the city.
We work with hundreds of outside agents, consultants, independent contractors and support services -- many of whom pay taxes to the city of Los Angeles. This spurs a job-creating ripple effect on the city's economy. Yet I suspect many companies like ours already have quietly left town in the face of the city's taxes and regulations. This would help explain the erosion of jobs.
Regardless of the outcome of our case, the arbitrary and capricious behavior of some bureaucrats is creating a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. If we win in court, the taxpayers of Los Angeles will have lost because all those tax dollars will have been wasted on needless litigation.
If we lose in court, the remaining taxpayers in Los Angeles will have lost because their burden will continue to swell as yet another business moves its jobs -- and taxpayers -- to another city.
As long as City Hall operates like a banana republic, why is anyone surprised that jobs have left the city in droves and Los Angeles is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy?
Mr. Newcombe is president of Creators Syndicate.
Friday, July 10, 2009
How the media shapes perception
Reporter: 'We Took Sides, Straight and Simple' Against Palin
By Tim Graham
Created 2009-07-10 07:56
On AOL Politics Daily [1], long-time White House reporter Carl Cannon bluntly declared that the political press gave Sarah Palin a raw deal in the 2008 campaign, and seriously failed to scrutinize Joe Biden, especially his fact-mangling and odd statements in the vice presidential debate. Cannon summed up:
In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don't know that we played a decisive role in that campaign, and I'm not saying the better side lost. What I am saying is that we simply didn't hold Joe Biden to the same standard as Sarah Palin, and for me, the real loser in this sordid tale is my chosen profession.
Cannon suggested female journalists failed to make up for male sexism in Palin coverage because she didn’t match the kind of Hillary Clinton candidate they wanted to represent women in politics:
From the beginning, and for the ensuing 10 months, the coverage of this governor consisted of a steamy stew of cultural elitism and partisanship. The overt sexism of some male commentators wasn't countered, as one might have expected, by their female counterparts. Women columnists turned on Sarah Palin rather quickly. A plain-speaking, moose-hunting, Bible-thumping, pro-life, self-described "hockey mom" with five children and movie star looks with only a passing interest in foreign policy -- that wasn't the woman journalism's reigning feminists had envisioned for the glass ceiling-breaking role of First Female President (or Vice President). Hillary Rodham Clinton was more like what they had in mind – and Sarah, well, she was the un-Hillary.
But the most eye-opening part of Cannon’s piece looks at the vice-presidential debate. He chronicled some of Palin’s mistakes on that night, but then made a list of Biden’s egregious errors that were overlooked by a supportive media elite:
Sen. Biden, however, was in a place by himself when it came to bogus claims, absurd contentions, and flights of rhetorical fancy. He threw out several assertions that were so preposterous that – had Palin made them – they would have prompted immediate calls for McCain to dump her from the ticket.
The good senator from Delaware warmed up slowly, erroneously claiming that McCain voted with Obama on a budget resolution, and asserting wrongly that Obama wanted to return to the Reagan-era marginal income tax rates. He also embarked on an appallingly wrongheaded monologue about the constitutional history of the vice presidency. But when the talk turned to national security, presumably Biden's purported area of expertise, he went completely off the grid.
• "John McCain voted against a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that every Republican has supported," Biden stated. (Actually, in a 1999 vote in Congress, McCain sided with 50 other Republicans to kill the treaty. Only four joined the Democrats.)
• "Pakistan already has deployed nuclear weapons," Biden said. "Pakistan's weapons can already hit Israel and the Mediterranean." (Pakistan has no known intercontinental missiles. The range of its weapons is thought to be 1,000 miles – halfway to Israel.)
• "When we kicked -- along with France -- we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, 'Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't...Hezbollah will control it.'" Biden recalled. "Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel." (Except that the U.S. never kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon or anywhere else. They've been entrenched in Lebanon since 1982. Actually, Hezbollah, insofar as it was responsible for the 1983 suicide bombing at the Marine barracks that killed 241 U.S. servicemen, kicked America out of Lebanon, not the other way around.)
• "The president...insisted on elections on the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, 'Big mistake. Hamas will win. You'll legitimize them.' What happened? Hamas won," Biden said. (Only the last two words of Biden's strange soliloquy are true. The rest are false. For one thing, Fatah controls the West Bank. Biden was thinking of Gaza. Secondly, neither Biden nor Obama predicted the 2006 victory for Hamas in Gaza's legislative elections. Third, McCain and Obama – but not Biden -- signed a letter urging the president to pressure Palestinians to require that candidates adhere to democratic principles before being allowed to run for office. Fourth, Biden served as an election observer and later wrote an article expressing high praise for Bush's actions. To sum up: One factual error and three fibs in only 31 words. Pretty impressive, in its way.)
• "With Afghanistan, facts matter...we spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spend on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan. Let me say that again..." (He did say it again, but that didn't make it true. It's wildly and weirdly off the mark. Yes, facts matter. The facts here were that at the time Biden was speaking, the U.S. had spent $172 billion in Afghanistan. The Iraq War consumes between $7 billion and $8 billion every three weeks. Biden's math was off by 2,000 percent.)
• "Can I clarify this? This is simply not true about Barack Obama. He did not say (he'd) sit down with Ahmadinejad." (He most certainly did. And among those who criticized him at the time for it was Joe Biden, who told Byron York of National Review that the idea of a president meeting with the likes of the Iranian president or Hugo Chavez was "naVve.")
Those were alarming mistakes. To me Biden's most discordant claims concerned his Animal House-like history lecture about the office of the vice president. It came while Biden was dressing down Dick Cheney, who was not present, for supposedly being unfamiliar with the Constitution. "The idea (that) he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States – that's the executive branch – he works in the executive branch," Biden said. "He should understand that. Everyone should understand that. And the primary role of the vice president of the United States is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and, as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit....He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he's part of the legislative branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive, and look where it has gotten us."
Lord, would Tina Fey have had fun with this jumble of misinformation – if only Palin had said it! Article I defines the legislative, not executive, branch. The vice president is, indeed, mentioned there. What Biden finds "explicit," hasn't been so to previous vice presidents or to most constitutional scholars. Prior to the 20th century, vice presidents didn't even have offices at the White House compound – they were housed in the Capitol. The notion that a veep's constitutional authority is to provide advice to a president springs from Biden's brow; it certainly isn't mentioned, or even contemplated, in the Constitution, which doesn't even say whether the vice president should receive a salary.
Should Joe Biden have known this stuff? Since he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, you'd hope so. But even if he didn't, you'd think it would be news when he unleashed a veritable fount of misinformation to impugn Palin's knowledge of the federal system while attacking a sitting vice president. It barely rated a mention in the collective mainstream media.
Facts matter, the man said. But they didn't in 2008, not when it came to Joe Biden (our guy) against Sarah Palin (odd outsider). The ladies and gentlemen of the press were more interested in her hair, her glasses, her wardrobe, he accent, her sex life, her kids' sex lives, and her hunting habits than in whether her opponent knew anything about foreign policy, the Constitution of the United States, or the job he was running for. They still are. The relentlessly negative coverage of Palin goes on unabated -- she's the subject of a much-ballyhooed hatchet job in Vanity Fair this month -- even as Biden makes minor news from time to time by continuing his penchant for gaffes, this time while serving as the second most powerful person in the federal government.
By Tim Graham
Created 2009-07-10 07:56
On AOL Politics Daily [1], long-time White House reporter Carl Cannon bluntly declared that the political press gave Sarah Palin a raw deal in the 2008 campaign, and seriously failed to scrutinize Joe Biden, especially his fact-mangling and odd statements in the vice presidential debate. Cannon summed up:
In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don't know that we played a decisive role in that campaign, and I'm not saying the better side lost. What I am saying is that we simply didn't hold Joe Biden to the same standard as Sarah Palin, and for me, the real loser in this sordid tale is my chosen profession.
Cannon suggested female journalists failed to make up for male sexism in Palin coverage because she didn’t match the kind of Hillary Clinton candidate they wanted to represent women in politics:
From the beginning, and for the ensuing 10 months, the coverage of this governor consisted of a steamy stew of cultural elitism and partisanship. The overt sexism of some male commentators wasn't countered, as one might have expected, by their female counterparts. Women columnists turned on Sarah Palin rather quickly. A plain-speaking, moose-hunting, Bible-thumping, pro-life, self-described "hockey mom" with five children and movie star looks with only a passing interest in foreign policy -- that wasn't the woman journalism's reigning feminists had envisioned for the glass ceiling-breaking role of First Female President (or Vice President). Hillary Rodham Clinton was more like what they had in mind – and Sarah, well, she was the un-Hillary.
But the most eye-opening part of Cannon’s piece looks at the vice-presidential debate. He chronicled some of Palin’s mistakes on that night, but then made a list of Biden’s egregious errors that were overlooked by a supportive media elite:
Sen. Biden, however, was in a place by himself when it came to bogus claims, absurd contentions, and flights of rhetorical fancy. He threw out several assertions that were so preposterous that – had Palin made them – they would have prompted immediate calls for McCain to dump her from the ticket.
The good senator from Delaware warmed up slowly, erroneously claiming that McCain voted with Obama on a budget resolution, and asserting wrongly that Obama wanted to return to the Reagan-era marginal income tax rates. He also embarked on an appallingly wrongheaded monologue about the constitutional history of the vice presidency. But when the talk turned to national security, presumably Biden's purported area of expertise, he went completely off the grid.
• "John McCain voted against a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that every Republican has supported," Biden stated. (Actually, in a 1999 vote in Congress, McCain sided with 50 other Republicans to kill the treaty. Only four joined the Democrats.)
• "Pakistan already has deployed nuclear weapons," Biden said. "Pakistan's weapons can already hit Israel and the Mediterranean." (Pakistan has no known intercontinental missiles. The range of its weapons is thought to be 1,000 miles – halfway to Israel.)
• "When we kicked -- along with France -- we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, 'Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't...Hezbollah will control it.'" Biden recalled. "Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel." (Except that the U.S. never kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon or anywhere else. They've been entrenched in Lebanon since 1982. Actually, Hezbollah, insofar as it was responsible for the 1983 suicide bombing at the Marine barracks that killed 241 U.S. servicemen, kicked America out of Lebanon, not the other way around.)
• "The president...insisted on elections on the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, 'Big mistake. Hamas will win. You'll legitimize them.' What happened? Hamas won," Biden said. (Only the last two words of Biden's strange soliloquy are true. The rest are false. For one thing, Fatah controls the West Bank. Biden was thinking of Gaza. Secondly, neither Biden nor Obama predicted the 2006 victory for Hamas in Gaza's legislative elections. Third, McCain and Obama – but not Biden -- signed a letter urging the president to pressure Palestinians to require that candidates adhere to democratic principles before being allowed to run for office. Fourth, Biden served as an election observer and later wrote an article expressing high praise for Bush's actions. To sum up: One factual error and three fibs in only 31 words. Pretty impressive, in its way.)
• "With Afghanistan, facts matter...we spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spend on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan. Let me say that again..." (He did say it again, but that didn't make it true. It's wildly and weirdly off the mark. Yes, facts matter. The facts here were that at the time Biden was speaking, the U.S. had spent $172 billion in Afghanistan. The Iraq War consumes between $7 billion and $8 billion every three weeks. Biden's math was off by 2,000 percent.)
• "Can I clarify this? This is simply not true about Barack Obama. He did not say (he'd) sit down with Ahmadinejad." (He most certainly did. And among those who criticized him at the time for it was Joe Biden, who told Byron York of National Review that the idea of a president meeting with the likes of the Iranian president or Hugo Chavez was "naVve.")
Those were alarming mistakes. To me Biden's most discordant claims concerned his Animal House-like history lecture about the office of the vice president. It came while Biden was dressing down Dick Cheney, who was not present, for supposedly being unfamiliar with the Constitution. "The idea (that) he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States – that's the executive branch – he works in the executive branch," Biden said. "He should understand that. Everyone should understand that. And the primary role of the vice president of the United States is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and, as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit....He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he's part of the legislative branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive, and look where it has gotten us."
Lord, would Tina Fey have had fun with this jumble of misinformation – if only Palin had said it! Article I defines the legislative, not executive, branch. The vice president is, indeed, mentioned there. What Biden finds "explicit," hasn't been so to previous vice presidents or to most constitutional scholars. Prior to the 20th century, vice presidents didn't even have offices at the White House compound – they were housed in the Capitol. The notion that a veep's constitutional authority is to provide advice to a president springs from Biden's brow; it certainly isn't mentioned, or even contemplated, in the Constitution, which doesn't even say whether the vice president should receive a salary.
Should Joe Biden have known this stuff? Since he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, you'd hope so. But even if he didn't, you'd think it would be news when he unleashed a veritable fount of misinformation to impugn Palin's knowledge of the federal system while attacking a sitting vice president. It barely rated a mention in the collective mainstream media.
Facts matter, the man said. But they didn't in 2008, not when it came to Joe Biden (our guy) against Sarah Palin (odd outsider). The ladies and gentlemen of the press were more interested in her hair, her glasses, her wardrobe, he accent, her sex life, her kids' sex lives, and her hunting habits than in whether her opponent knew anything about foreign policy, the Constitution of the United States, or the job he was running for. They still are. The relentlessly negative coverage of Palin goes on unabated -- she's the subject of a much-ballyhooed hatchet job in Vanity Fair this month -- even as Biden makes minor news from time to time by continuing his penchant for gaffes, this time while serving as the second most powerful person in the federal government.
ACORN now called Organizers for America
NewsChannel 15 Investigates: More about Smosska revealed
By Tonya BrownThursday, July 09, 2009 at 6:24 p.m.
NewsChannel 15 is learning more about a company that's looking to bring up to 3,000 jobs to Florence County.
This week, the Smosska Corporation has held a job fair at the Florence National Guard Armory.
Some people were concerned after learning the company is charging people $40 to take an assessment test.
That is legal, but the Better Business Bureau decided to open an investigation.
Kathy Graham with the BBB tells NewsChannel 15 she's learned Smosska is sponsored by Organizers for America, which is affiliated with ACORN.
She says Thursday night Smosska officials are holding a meeting at the old Thorney's building in Conway to discuss their company and future plans.
By Tonya BrownThursday, July 09, 2009 at 6:24 p.m.
NewsChannel 15 is learning more about a company that's looking to bring up to 3,000 jobs to Florence County.
This week, the Smosska Corporation has held a job fair at the Florence National Guard Armory.
Some people were concerned after learning the company is charging people $40 to take an assessment test.
That is legal, but the Better Business Bureau decided to open an investigation.
Kathy Graham with the BBB tells NewsChannel 15 she's learned Smosska is sponsored by Organizers for America, which is affiliated with ACORN.
She says Thursday night Smosska officials are holding a meeting at the old Thorney's building in Conway to discuss their company and future plans.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Fruits, Flakes and Nuts...
Newsom's fresh idea: mandates on healthier food
(07-08) 20:10 PDT -- He's already banned spending city money to buy bottled water and mandated composting citywide. Now, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is taking on something as basic as water and trash: food.
Newsom on Wednesday issued an executive directive he hopes will dramatically change how San Franciscans eat.
All city departments have six months to conduct an audit of unused land - including empty lots, rooftops, windowsills and median strips - that could be turned into community gardens or farms that could benefit residents, either by working at them or purchasing the fresh produce. Food vendors that contract with the city must offer healthy and sustainable food. All vending machines on city property must also offer healthy options, and farmers' markets must begin accepting food stamps, although some already do.
The mayor will send an ordinance to the Board of Supervisors within two months mandating that all food served in city jails, hospitals, homeless shelters and community centers be healthy.
And effective immediately, no more runs to the doughnut shop before meetings and conferences held by city workers. Instead, city employees must use guidelines created by the Health Department when ordering food for meetings.
Examples include cutting bagels into halves or quarters so people can take smaller portions and serving vegetables instead of potato chips.
"We have an eating and drinking problem in the United States of America," Newsom said Wednesday. "It's impacting our health, and it's impacting our economy."
The directives are the product of an "urban-rural roundtable" of food experts from around California convened by Newsom last year. The group was charged with finding ways to get more of the food grown on farms within 200 miles of San Francisco onto the plates of city residents, especially those who depend on government meals.
The idea is to decrease the need to import food, reconnect people to homegrown food rather than processed food, and to provide more options in neighborhoods like Bayview-Hunters Point that lack easy access to grocery stores.
Plan still lacks details
Many of the details have yet to be worked out, including how much it will cost. Newsom bristled when asked how it would be funded because there's no money to implement the food policy in the budget agreed to by the mayor and the board's budget committee just last week.
"We have plenty of resources," he said. "This is not a budget buster."
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, a member of the budget committee, said he likes the idea - and in fact, supervisors have been calling for the creation of an urban farm in San Francisco for years. He said that he wanted one included in the redevelopment of the former UC Berkeley Extension site on Laguna Street, but that the idea was never embraced by the mayor's administration.
"Even if it's a good idea, the timing's a little odd," Mirkarimi said of the unfunded proposal coming just days after the budget compromise. "I like the notion if we're able to get this at a very low cost."
It's also unclear how much land could be converted into community farms. The Public Utilities Commission has thousands of acres outside San Francisco that could be used, and the Real Estate Division and the Recreation and Park Department own some unused parcels in the city.
Model farm in Oakland
Newsom made the announcement Wednesday at a junkyard-turned-farm in West Oakland that could serve as a model for how land could be converted in San Francisco. A stone's throw from BART, it used to be home to old cars and one angry dog, but now is run by the nonprofit City Slicker Farms.
With a handful of staff members and scores of volunteers from the neighborhood, the nonprofit operates six small farms in West Oakland and sells the produce, along with honey and eggs, on a sliding scale to local residents at a Saturday farm stand.
The 2,000-square-foot former junkyard now produces 2,000 pounds of food every year, including lettuce, squash, tomatoes, parsley, sage, collard greens, grapes, cherries and plums.
"This speaks to people's soul," said Barbara Finnin, director of City Slicker Farms. "It's a place people can relax, be outside, and nourish themselves and their families."
Newsom toured the farm, biting off a piece of kale to taste, munching on an apricot and admiring sunflowers taller than him.
Back in San Francisco, it was apparent Newsom's idea may take some getting used to. Michael Summers, who operates a hot dog stand in Civic Center Plaza that contracts with the city, said the dogs made of tofu don't sell nearly as well as the old-fashioned meat kind. That was evidenced by the line of people ordering hot dogs just after noon - and not a tofu order among them.
New food rules
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is calling for city-funded food to be healthy and sustainable. His administration provided the following directives for what this means:
Safe and healthy: Avoids excessive pesticide use and has high nutritional value.
Culturally acceptable: Acceptable culturally and religiously to San Francisco's diverse population. An example would be providing Chinese seniors with bok choy and other vegetables they're familiar with at local farmers' markets.
Sustainable: Grown in a way that maintains the health of agricultural lands and advances self-sufficiency among farmers and farmworkers. An example would be using manure as a fertilizer rather than chemicals.
(07-08) 20:10 PDT -- He's already banned spending city money to buy bottled water and mandated composting citywide. Now, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is taking on something as basic as water and trash: food.
Newsom on Wednesday issued an executive directive he hopes will dramatically change how San Franciscans eat.
All city departments have six months to conduct an audit of unused land - including empty lots, rooftops, windowsills and median strips - that could be turned into community gardens or farms that could benefit residents, either by working at them or purchasing the fresh produce. Food vendors that contract with the city must offer healthy and sustainable food. All vending machines on city property must also offer healthy options, and farmers' markets must begin accepting food stamps, although some already do.
The mayor will send an ordinance to the Board of Supervisors within two months mandating that all food served in city jails, hospitals, homeless shelters and community centers be healthy.
And effective immediately, no more runs to the doughnut shop before meetings and conferences held by city workers. Instead, city employees must use guidelines created by the Health Department when ordering food for meetings.
Examples include cutting bagels into halves or quarters so people can take smaller portions and serving vegetables instead of potato chips.
"We have an eating and drinking problem in the United States of America," Newsom said Wednesday. "It's impacting our health, and it's impacting our economy."
The directives are the product of an "urban-rural roundtable" of food experts from around California convened by Newsom last year. The group was charged with finding ways to get more of the food grown on farms within 200 miles of San Francisco onto the plates of city residents, especially those who depend on government meals.
The idea is to decrease the need to import food, reconnect people to homegrown food rather than processed food, and to provide more options in neighborhoods like Bayview-Hunters Point that lack easy access to grocery stores.
Plan still lacks details
Many of the details have yet to be worked out, including how much it will cost. Newsom bristled when asked how it would be funded because there's no money to implement the food policy in the budget agreed to by the mayor and the board's budget committee just last week.
"We have plenty of resources," he said. "This is not a budget buster."
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, a member of the budget committee, said he likes the idea - and in fact, supervisors have been calling for the creation of an urban farm in San Francisco for years. He said that he wanted one included in the redevelopment of the former UC Berkeley Extension site on Laguna Street, but that the idea was never embraced by the mayor's administration.
"Even if it's a good idea, the timing's a little odd," Mirkarimi said of the unfunded proposal coming just days after the budget compromise. "I like the notion if we're able to get this at a very low cost."
It's also unclear how much land could be converted into community farms. The Public Utilities Commission has thousands of acres outside San Francisco that could be used, and the Real Estate Division and the Recreation and Park Department own some unused parcels in the city.
Model farm in Oakland
Newsom made the announcement Wednesday at a junkyard-turned-farm in West Oakland that could serve as a model for how land could be converted in San Francisco. A stone's throw from BART, it used to be home to old cars and one angry dog, but now is run by the nonprofit City Slicker Farms.
With a handful of staff members and scores of volunteers from the neighborhood, the nonprofit operates six small farms in West Oakland and sells the produce, along with honey and eggs, on a sliding scale to local residents at a Saturday farm stand.
The 2,000-square-foot former junkyard now produces 2,000 pounds of food every year, including lettuce, squash, tomatoes, parsley, sage, collard greens, grapes, cherries and plums.
"This speaks to people's soul," said Barbara Finnin, director of City Slicker Farms. "It's a place people can relax, be outside, and nourish themselves and their families."
Newsom toured the farm, biting off a piece of kale to taste, munching on an apricot and admiring sunflowers taller than him.
Back in San Francisco, it was apparent Newsom's idea may take some getting used to. Michael Summers, who operates a hot dog stand in Civic Center Plaza that contracts with the city, said the dogs made of tofu don't sell nearly as well as the old-fashioned meat kind. That was evidenced by the line of people ordering hot dogs just after noon - and not a tofu order among them.
New food rules
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is calling for city-funded food to be healthy and sustainable. His administration provided the following directives for what this means:
Safe and healthy: Avoids excessive pesticide use and has high nutritional value.
Culturally acceptable: Acceptable culturally and religiously to San Francisco's diverse population. An example would be providing Chinese seniors with bok choy and other vegetables they're familiar with at local farmers' markets.
Sustainable: Grown in a way that maintains the health of agricultural lands and advances self-sufficiency among farmers and farmworkers. An example would be using manure as a fertilizer rather than chemicals.
Notice how gently the WaPo treats these crooks. Of course, they're Democrats
Wife's Guilty Plea Raises Question of What Conyers Knew'No Suggestions' Lawmaker Was Involved
By Carrie Johnson and Alice CritesWashington Post Staff WritersSunday, July 5, 2009
In the snow-covered parking lot of a McDonald's in Detroit two years ago, City Council member Monica Conyers met with a waste-management consultant who slipped her an envelope stuffed with as much as $3,000 in cash.
The under-the-table payment, made shortly after she cast the swing vote on a $1 billion city sludge deal, drove Conyers's guilty plea to a bribery charge that could send the Democratic politician to prison for up to five years. Conyers emerged for her court hearing late last week in the same building where her husband, John Conyers Jr. (D), who has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1965, maintains an office.
Federal prosecutors in Detroit took pains to say that they had "no suggestions" that John Conyers knew of or was involved in the two-year-long bribery investigation, which has shaken a city already struggling to recover from a sex scandal that forced its mayor out of office. Monica Conyers, 44, appeared on a local television station this week to resign as the council's second in command, apologize to Detroit residents and denounce a former aide about whom, she said, her husband had warned her.
Questions about what the 80-year-old congressman may have known about his spouse's supplements to their finances continue to swirl, as do inquiries about how closely federal investigators examined him about the issues.
Through a spokesman, Conyers pointed to a statement by prosecutors that "the evidence offered no suggestions that U.S. Representative John Conyers . . . had any knowledge or role" in his wife's illegal conduct.
In connection with her guilty plea, Monica Conyers acknowledged pocketing less than $10,000 in a pair of parking-lot rendezvous in 2007. At the time, she served on the City Council and on a board that controlled the city's general retirement fund. Her former aide later told reporters that she took more in cash, jewelry and meals from a Detroit mogul and other Michigan political intermediaries. Government court filings are careful to report that she pleaded guilty to "one instance" of perceived influence peddling.
Authorities say they are continuing to root out corruption in the city extending beyond the sludge deal, and state lawmakers have asked what John Conyers knew, even after prosecutors absolved him of involvement in the arrangement with the waste company.
Steve Fishman, an attorney for Monica Conyers, said, "Congressman Conyers had nothing to do with any of the activities described in the plea agreement."
A Separate Life
Allies of John Conyers, who prizes his record of jousting with the Bush administration over its approach to civil rights and national security, say that he attends to few details outside his legislative duties and largely leads a separate life from his wife of nearly two decades. Conyers chairs the House Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, but according to law enforcement officials in the city, the congressman did not "attempt to influence this investigation in any way."
"The reality on the ground is, in my 20 years, not once has anybody tried to steer me toward or against any investigation for political reasons," said Lynn Helland, the chief prosecutor in the public corruption unit in Detroit.
The office is led by acting U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg, a career lawyer who donated to the campaign of President Obama and who had expressed interest in becoming the administration's new top prosecutor in Detroit. But he is not the leading candidate, and John Conyers and the Congressional Black Caucus have thrown their weight behind another candidate, according to people in the District and in Michigan who are following the process.
Sam Riddle Jr., a Democratic political consultant who worked for Monica Conyers and has met with federal investigators to provide damaging information about her, said in an interview he thinks John Conyers is "oblivious" to happenings on the home front. Riddle said he did not field "any heavy questions, any substantive questions" about John Conyers in multiple meetings with the FBI. There also is no public signal that the FBI interviewed John Conyers, according to participants in the investigation.
Government officials declined to address their investigative strategies. But they said they stand behind their statement at the time of Monica Conyers's guilty plea without closing the door on the possibility that new information could emerge. "We're going to continue to pursue any of the leads that we receive," Berg said.
Recent attention in Detroit has focused on a 2007 letter that John Conyers wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency in support of a troubled waste-well project in the state. Conyers had previously opposed the plan on environmental grounds, according to Michigan sources, but allies of the lawmaker say his record on the issue was more ambiguous. In July 2007, he broke with a fellow Michigan Democrat, Rep. John D. Dingell, and urged the EPA to reconsider its decision rejecting a bid by area businessman Dimitrios "Jim" Papas to transfer permits that would have given new life to the project.
Papas, who controls a financial empire in Detroit, has donated money and hosted fundraisers for Monica Conyers. A year before the July 2007 EPA letter, Papas said, he hired Sam Riddle for consulting work, an arrangement that both men say was brokered by Monica Conyers. Riddle says some of those proceeds went back to her.
Through a spokesman, Papas issued a statement in which he "categorically denies any wrong-doing regarding past interactions with Monica Conyers or Sam Riddle and is outraged to have been publicly dragged into the matter."
"Retaining Riddle and the execution of the letter from Congressman Conyers were completely unrelated matters," Papas's statement continues. "At no time was there any arrangement to hire Riddle in exchange for a letter of support. . . . Mr. Papas had no knowledge that Riddle was giving Ms. Conyers a portion of his consulting fee . . . and was not aware of that activity until notified by federal investigators in 2008."
John Conyers last week e-mailed the Detroit Free Press, which first reported the letter, to say that he changed his position based on how it would affect constituents including city pension programs for firefighters and police that had invested in the waste well.
Conyers did not answer questions from The Washington Post about whether he would amend his financial disclosure forms to include money that his wife received, and experts said the process of tracing illicit assets could be complicated.
"I have no reason to believe that the congressman was aware of any financial benefit that accrued to Monica Conyers," said Riddle, who worked with Conyers on his unsuccessful bid to become Detroit's mayor in the late 1980s. "There's no question in my mind that Monica Conyers administered the household. They had money problems because the congressman is oblivious to all of that."
The marriage has been elusive from the start. The former Monica Ann Esters took a job in the lawmaker's Washington office in the late 1980s, before moving on to work on his mayoral campaign. They married in 1990, a month before their first son was born in Detroit's Grace Hospital. Conyers was marrying for the first time at age 61. Esters was 25. Her political ambitions were only beginning. Thin Bank Accounts
Their years in public service left their bank accounts thin, according to financial records and friends. The lawmaker, in fact, is among the most cash-strapped members of the House, declaring little beyond an investment property valued at between $15,000 and $50,000 that Monica Conyers inherited. In March, Wayne County sent a forfeiture notice on the property because of what a letter described as $465.25 in "delinquent taxes, penalties, interest and fees." In 2004, a Michigan business placed a $22,000 lien on the Conyerses' primary residence, a brick house at the Detroit Golf Club valued at $334,932, records say.
For longtime residents of the Motor City, they own vehicles that are hardly state-of-the-art. John Conyers has an eight-year-old Lincoln Town Car; Monica Conyers drives a 2001 Ford Expedition and a Chrysler Sebring.
By Carrie Johnson and Alice CritesWashington Post Staff WritersSunday, July 5, 2009
In the snow-covered parking lot of a McDonald's in Detroit two years ago, City Council member Monica Conyers met with a waste-management consultant who slipped her an envelope stuffed with as much as $3,000 in cash.
The under-the-table payment, made shortly after she cast the swing vote on a $1 billion city sludge deal, drove Conyers's guilty plea to a bribery charge that could send the Democratic politician to prison for up to five years. Conyers emerged for her court hearing late last week in the same building where her husband, John Conyers Jr. (D), who has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1965, maintains an office.
Federal prosecutors in Detroit took pains to say that they had "no suggestions" that John Conyers knew of or was involved in the two-year-long bribery investigation, which has shaken a city already struggling to recover from a sex scandal that forced its mayor out of office. Monica Conyers, 44, appeared on a local television station this week to resign as the council's second in command, apologize to Detroit residents and denounce a former aide about whom, she said, her husband had warned her.
Questions about what the 80-year-old congressman may have known about his spouse's supplements to their finances continue to swirl, as do inquiries about how closely federal investigators examined him about the issues.
Through a spokesman, Conyers pointed to a statement by prosecutors that "the evidence offered no suggestions that U.S. Representative John Conyers . . . had any knowledge or role" in his wife's illegal conduct.
In connection with her guilty plea, Monica Conyers acknowledged pocketing less than $10,000 in a pair of parking-lot rendezvous in 2007. At the time, she served on the City Council and on a board that controlled the city's general retirement fund. Her former aide later told reporters that she took more in cash, jewelry and meals from a Detroit mogul and other Michigan political intermediaries. Government court filings are careful to report that she pleaded guilty to "one instance" of perceived influence peddling.
Authorities say they are continuing to root out corruption in the city extending beyond the sludge deal, and state lawmakers have asked what John Conyers knew, even after prosecutors absolved him of involvement in the arrangement with the waste company.
Steve Fishman, an attorney for Monica Conyers, said, "Congressman Conyers had nothing to do with any of the activities described in the plea agreement."
A Separate Life
Allies of John Conyers, who prizes his record of jousting with the Bush administration over its approach to civil rights and national security, say that he attends to few details outside his legislative duties and largely leads a separate life from his wife of nearly two decades. Conyers chairs the House Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, but according to law enforcement officials in the city, the congressman did not "attempt to influence this investigation in any way."
"The reality on the ground is, in my 20 years, not once has anybody tried to steer me toward or against any investigation for political reasons," said Lynn Helland, the chief prosecutor in the public corruption unit in Detroit.
The office is led by acting U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg, a career lawyer who donated to the campaign of President Obama and who had expressed interest in becoming the administration's new top prosecutor in Detroit. But he is not the leading candidate, and John Conyers and the Congressional Black Caucus have thrown their weight behind another candidate, according to people in the District and in Michigan who are following the process.
Sam Riddle Jr., a Democratic political consultant who worked for Monica Conyers and has met with federal investigators to provide damaging information about her, said in an interview he thinks John Conyers is "oblivious" to happenings on the home front. Riddle said he did not field "any heavy questions, any substantive questions" about John Conyers in multiple meetings with the FBI. There also is no public signal that the FBI interviewed John Conyers, according to participants in the investigation.
Government officials declined to address their investigative strategies. But they said they stand behind their statement at the time of Monica Conyers's guilty plea without closing the door on the possibility that new information could emerge. "We're going to continue to pursue any of the leads that we receive," Berg said.
Recent attention in Detroit has focused on a 2007 letter that John Conyers wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency in support of a troubled waste-well project in the state. Conyers had previously opposed the plan on environmental grounds, according to Michigan sources, but allies of the lawmaker say his record on the issue was more ambiguous. In July 2007, he broke with a fellow Michigan Democrat, Rep. John D. Dingell, and urged the EPA to reconsider its decision rejecting a bid by area businessman Dimitrios "Jim" Papas to transfer permits that would have given new life to the project.
Papas, who controls a financial empire in Detroit, has donated money and hosted fundraisers for Monica Conyers. A year before the July 2007 EPA letter, Papas said, he hired Sam Riddle for consulting work, an arrangement that both men say was brokered by Monica Conyers. Riddle says some of those proceeds went back to her.
Through a spokesman, Papas issued a statement in which he "categorically denies any wrong-doing regarding past interactions with Monica Conyers or Sam Riddle and is outraged to have been publicly dragged into the matter."
"Retaining Riddle and the execution of the letter from Congressman Conyers were completely unrelated matters," Papas's statement continues. "At no time was there any arrangement to hire Riddle in exchange for a letter of support. . . . Mr. Papas had no knowledge that Riddle was giving Ms. Conyers a portion of his consulting fee . . . and was not aware of that activity until notified by federal investigators in 2008."
John Conyers last week e-mailed the Detroit Free Press, which first reported the letter, to say that he changed his position based on how it would affect constituents including city pension programs for firefighters and police that had invested in the waste well.
Conyers did not answer questions from The Washington Post about whether he would amend his financial disclosure forms to include money that his wife received, and experts said the process of tracing illicit assets could be complicated.
"I have no reason to believe that the congressman was aware of any financial benefit that accrued to Monica Conyers," said Riddle, who worked with Conyers on his unsuccessful bid to become Detroit's mayor in the late 1980s. "There's no question in my mind that Monica Conyers administered the household. They had money problems because the congressman is oblivious to all of that."
The marriage has been elusive from the start. The former Monica Ann Esters took a job in the lawmaker's Washington office in the late 1980s, before moving on to work on his mayoral campaign. They married in 1990, a month before their first son was born in Detroit's Grace Hospital. Conyers was marrying for the first time at age 61. Esters was 25. Her political ambitions were only beginning. Thin Bank Accounts
Their years in public service left their bank accounts thin, according to financial records and friends. The lawmaker, in fact, is among the most cash-strapped members of the House, declaring little beyond an investment property valued at between $15,000 and $50,000 that Monica Conyers inherited. In March, Wayne County sent a forfeiture notice on the property because of what a letter described as $465.25 in "delinquent taxes, penalties, interest and fees." In 2004, a Michigan business placed a $22,000 lien on the Conyerses' primary residence, a brick house at the Detroit Golf Club valued at $334,932, records say.
For longtime residents of the Motor City, they own vehicles that are hardly state-of-the-art. John Conyers has an eight-year-old Lincoln Town Car; Monica Conyers drives a 2001 Ford Expedition and a Chrysler Sebring.
Yikes...
Russia 'shot down its own planes'
By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes BBC News, Moscow
A report in a Russian military journal claims that half the planes Russia lost in its war with Georgia last year were shot down by friendly fire.
The article in the Moscow Defence Brief magazine also claims that Russia lost more military aircraft than it is admitting to.
The report is highly critical of Russian forces during the brief war.
Russian air force officials have always claimed that four planes were lost during the five-day war last August.
But this new report says the actual number is six, and that half of them were shot down by their own side.
The report was written by the respected Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategy and Technology (Cast).
Cast gives detailed information about each of the losses, including times, locations and the names of the pilots.
'No co-operation'
It is also highly critical of the Russian military.
It says there was a total absence of co-operation between the Russian army and the Russian air force, which led them to conduct completely separate campaigns.
Russian forces easily overwhelmed Georgian troops during the brief war.
But the losses sustained by the Russian side in just five days have led analysts here to question how Russian troops would fare against a bigger, better-equipped and better-trained enemy.
By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes BBC News, Moscow
A report in a Russian military journal claims that half the planes Russia lost in its war with Georgia last year were shot down by friendly fire.
The article in the Moscow Defence Brief magazine also claims that Russia lost more military aircraft than it is admitting to.
The report is highly critical of Russian forces during the brief war.
Russian air force officials have always claimed that four planes were lost during the five-day war last August.
But this new report says the actual number is six, and that half of them were shot down by their own side.
The report was written by the respected Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategy and Technology (Cast).
Cast gives detailed information about each of the losses, including times, locations and the names of the pilots.
'No co-operation'
It is also highly critical of the Russian military.
It says there was a total absence of co-operation between the Russian army and the Russian air force, which led them to conduct completely separate campaigns.
Russian forces easily overwhelmed Georgian troops during the brief war.
But the losses sustained by the Russian side in just five days have led analysts here to question how Russian troops would fare against a bigger, better-equipped and better-trained enemy.
Is this the way that health care will be distributed?
Billions in aid go to areas that backed Obama in '08
By Brad Heath, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year's presidential election.
That aid — about $17 billion — is the first piece of the administration's massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation.
REPORT: Cities missing out on much needed road funds
STIMULUS FUNDS: States aren't using money as intended
"There's no politics at work when it comes to spending for the recovery," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says.
Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration's $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows. That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and help students pay for college.
The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.
Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work. The imbalance is so pronounced — and the aid so far from complete — that it would be almost inconceivable for it to be the result of political tinkering, says Adam Hughes, the director of federal fiscal policy for the non-profit OMB Watch. "Even if they wanted to, I don't think the administration has enough people in place yet to actually do that," he says.
"Most of what they're doing at this point is just stamping the checks and sending them out," Hughes says.
The stimulus package Obama signed in February includes about $499 billion in new spending, and to date, the Obama administration has allocated about $158 billion to specific projects and programs. Most of that money has gone directly to state governments, which then disperse the money to prevent school layoffs, repair roads and fund social services. That contrasts with the $17 billion that Washington distributes directly to local communities.
Including the larger chunk of money given to state governments, the aid favors states that voted for Obama, which have received about 20% more per person
Not all of the money favors places that supported Obama. About a third of the $17 billion, or $5.5 billion, in contracts that the federal government has signed for projects ranging from repaving runways to cleaning up nuclear waste has gone overwhelmingly to counties that supported McCain.
Jake Wiens, an investigator with the non-profit Project on Government Oversight, says it's too soon to draw meaningful conclusions about whether the type of aid in the stimulus favors Obama's constituents.
But, he says, "it will be important to pay close attention as the data come in to ensure that political favoritism plays no role."
The imbalance didn't start with the stimulus. From 2005 through 2007, the counties that later voted for Obama collected about 50% more government aid than those that supported McCain, according to spending reports from the U.S. Census Bureau. USA TODAY's review did not include Alaska, which does not report its election results by county.
By Brad Heath, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year's presidential election.
That aid — about $17 billion — is the first piece of the administration's massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation.
REPORT: Cities missing out on much needed road funds
STIMULUS FUNDS: States aren't using money as intended
"There's no politics at work when it comes to spending for the recovery," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says.
Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration's $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows. That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and help students pay for college.
The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.
Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work. The imbalance is so pronounced — and the aid so far from complete — that it would be almost inconceivable for it to be the result of political tinkering, says Adam Hughes, the director of federal fiscal policy for the non-profit OMB Watch. "Even if they wanted to, I don't think the administration has enough people in place yet to actually do that," he says.
"Most of what they're doing at this point is just stamping the checks and sending them out," Hughes says.
The stimulus package Obama signed in February includes about $499 billion in new spending, and to date, the Obama administration has allocated about $158 billion to specific projects and programs. Most of that money has gone directly to state governments, which then disperse the money to prevent school layoffs, repair roads and fund social services. That contrasts with the $17 billion that Washington distributes directly to local communities.
Including the larger chunk of money given to state governments, the aid favors states that voted for Obama, which have received about 20% more per person
Not all of the money favors places that supported Obama. About a third of the $17 billion, or $5.5 billion, in contracts that the federal government has signed for projects ranging from repaving runways to cleaning up nuclear waste has gone overwhelmingly to counties that supported McCain.
Jake Wiens, an investigator with the non-profit Project on Government Oversight, says it's too soon to draw meaningful conclusions about whether the type of aid in the stimulus favors Obama's constituents.
But, he says, "it will be important to pay close attention as the data come in to ensure that political favoritism plays no role."
The imbalance didn't start with the stimulus. From 2005 through 2007, the counties that later voted for Obama collected about 50% more government aid than those that supported McCain, according to spending reports from the U.S. Census Bureau. USA TODAY's review did not include Alaska, which does not report its election results by county.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
We Don't Need to Read the Stinkin' Bill
There's no longer even a pretense of responsible government. In a sane world comments like these would be cause for impeachment proceedings.
Go sign the petition at 'Just Read the Bill, Already'
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.If the bill is too long and complex for the members to read, then perhaps it is too long and complex to be made into law, which the failure to comply with is a prosecutable offense. The creation of laws and regulations which are too voluminous and byzantine for any person to know, understand and comply with is nothing less than tyranny, leaving every citizen open to harrassment and imprisonment from government bureaucrats and officials. Kafka must be turning in his grave.
“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.
Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote.
In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. “I’m laughing because a) I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,” he said.
Go sign the petition at 'Just Read the Bill, Already'
Interesting question
What If It Happened Here?
Suppose, from a purely hypothetical standpoint, the crisis in Honduras was mimicked in the United States? A fictional American president, lacking the votes in Congress and the judicial nod from the Supreme Court, circumvents the constitutional process and holds an illegal national referendum to repeal the 22nd Amendment -- thus infinitely extending his potential for reelection.
The obvious legislative differences between the United States and Honduras aside, reactions would be nearly identical. Members of the Armed Forces take a solemn oath to "support and defend the Constitution," not to a specific individual. The oath further specifies an obligation to defend the Constitution and the Republic against "all enemies, foreign and domestic." This was a revolutionary concept back in the 18th century, when most of the dominant European armies mandated an oath of loyalty to their respective monarch, though it's wholly in line with the clear Platonist distinction between an organized, functional republic and the chaos of pure democracy. An American military coup in a similar Honduran scenario, against the tyranny of the majority, wouldn't just be likely -- it would be the obligation of every serviceman who swore to uphold the rule of law.
The Honduran military coup -- if it even fits that definition -- has separated itself from its South and Central American cousins in that it’s one of those rare occasions when the military stands to deny, not support, the aspirations of a dictator-in-waiting. No junta has or will be formed, and a new election is forthcoming. Not only was Honduras' action legal, it stands as a model for how a republic steels itself against internal subjugation. When you theoretically transplant that very same scenario to the United States, it’s nothing less than shameful that the Obama administration has failed to recognize the very same standards to which its own troops are bound.
Suppose, from a purely hypothetical standpoint, the crisis in Honduras was mimicked in the United States? A fictional American president, lacking the votes in Congress and the judicial nod from the Supreme Court, circumvents the constitutional process and holds an illegal national referendum to repeal the 22nd Amendment -- thus infinitely extending his potential for reelection.
The obvious legislative differences between the United States and Honduras aside, reactions would be nearly identical. Members of the Armed Forces take a solemn oath to "support and defend the Constitution," not to a specific individual. The oath further specifies an obligation to defend the Constitution and the Republic against "all enemies, foreign and domestic." This was a revolutionary concept back in the 18th century, when most of the dominant European armies mandated an oath of loyalty to their respective monarch, though it's wholly in line with the clear Platonist distinction between an organized, functional republic and the chaos of pure democracy. An American military coup in a similar Honduran scenario, against the tyranny of the majority, wouldn't just be likely -- it would be the obligation of every serviceman who swore to uphold the rule of law.
The Honduran military coup -- if it even fits that definition -- has separated itself from its South and Central American cousins in that it’s one of those rare occasions when the military stands to deny, not support, the aspirations of a dictator-in-waiting. No junta has or will be formed, and a new election is forthcoming. Not only was Honduras' action legal, it stands as a model for how a republic steels itself against internal subjugation. When you theoretically transplant that very same scenario to the United States, it’s nothing less than shameful that the Obama administration has failed to recognize the very same standards to which its own troops are bound.
Remember during the Bush administration the Democrats were warning that the President would attempt to stay in office beyond his term? It was nonsense then. But, since Democrats almost always accuse the opposition of doing exactly what they do or plan to do is it nonsense now? Obama's disdain for the Constitution has long been evident. The Democrats lust for unimpeded power should give us concern. Remember the Communist way: one man, one vote, one time (Cuba, Venezuela, etc.). Obama is already building his army of Brown-Black shirts.
Obama style of totalitarianism
Obama's mythography: An Orwellian disaster
President Barack Obama's Orwellian rhetoric has become absolutely pathological. And it's become so blatant that you can almost guarantee that the truth is the exact opposite of what he says. To wit:
The president insisted he had no intention of taking over Chrysler and General Motors.
He did.
The president calls "cap-and-trade" environmental legislation a "market-based" approach, based on "sound science."
It is not.
The president claims his health care reform plan is not "socialized medicine."
It is.
He claims it won't harm private insurance.
It will.
He claims service won't be rationed.
But to control costs as he proposes, it must be. (Even top aides concede the point.)
Mr. Obama says he supports "democracy" in Latin America.
How can he? He also supports the Marxist ways of Manuel Zelaya, legally removed from Honduras' presidency by the constitutional actions of the legislative and judicial branches.
And the examples of this president's mythography go on and on.
Some will dismiss Barack Obama's pronouncements merely as "rhetoric" and "posturing." "Everybody does it," they'll say. "It's politics."
But this is different and decidedly more dangerous: The president of the United States says one thing and does another and claims things that cannot possibly be.
Whether by delusion or by design, Barack Obama is being dishonest with the American people. And that is a harbinger of national disaster.
President Barack Obama's Orwellian rhetoric has become absolutely pathological. And it's become so blatant that you can almost guarantee that the truth is the exact opposite of what he says. To wit:
The president insisted he had no intention of taking over Chrysler and General Motors.
He did.
The president calls "cap-and-trade" environmental legislation a "market-based" approach, based on "sound science."
It is not.
The president claims his health care reform plan is not "socialized medicine."
It is.
He claims it won't harm private insurance.
It will.
He claims service won't be rationed.
But to control costs as he proposes, it must be. (Even top aides concede the point.)
Mr. Obama says he supports "democracy" in Latin America.
How can he? He also supports the Marxist ways of Manuel Zelaya, legally removed from Honduras' presidency by the constitutional actions of the legislative and judicial branches.
And the examples of this president's mythography go on and on.
Some will dismiss Barack Obama's pronouncements merely as "rhetoric" and "posturing." "Everybody does it," they'll say. "It's politics."
But this is different and decidedly more dangerous: The president of the United States says one thing and does another and claims things that cannot possibly be.
Whether by delusion or by design, Barack Obama is being dishonest with the American people. And that is a harbinger of national disaster.
Why not a Nobel prize?
Be it Resolved, Jacko a "global humanitarian"
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) has embraced the inevitable: introducing a resolution honoring global "humanitarian" Michael Jackson — certain to delight Republicans who see Jacko as a great wedge issue.
So far, she's got only a single co-sponsor: Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.).
[h/t OpenCongress]
After 1,500 words describing Jackson's charitable work and not a jot on his foibles, Jackson Lee concludes:
Resolved, That the House of Representatives(1) recognizes Michael Jackson as a global humanitarian and a noted leader in the fight against worldwide hunger and medical crises; and(2) celebrates Michael Jackson as an accomplished contributor to the worlds of arts and entertainment, scientific advances in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, and global food security.
If it comes to a vote at all, the res won't pass on a voice vote. Rep. Peter King, who cut a video calling Jacko a "pervert" and "child molester," is sure to object, and he'll get a cascade of GOP seconds calling for a roll call.
And that's a headache for Nancy Pelosi & Co., who would like to avoid having to go on the record spending legislative time dealing with the troubled, talented, oddball superstar.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) has embraced the inevitable: introducing a resolution honoring global "humanitarian" Michael Jackson — certain to delight Republicans who see Jacko as a great wedge issue.
So far, she's got only a single co-sponsor: Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.).
[h/t OpenCongress]
After 1,500 words describing Jackson's charitable work and not a jot on his foibles, Jackson Lee concludes:
Resolved, That the House of Representatives(1) recognizes Michael Jackson as a global humanitarian and a noted leader in the fight against worldwide hunger and medical crises; and(2) celebrates Michael Jackson as an accomplished contributor to the worlds of arts and entertainment, scientific advances in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, and global food security.
If it comes to a vote at all, the res won't pass on a voice vote. Rep. Peter King, who cut a video calling Jacko a "pervert" and "child molester," is sure to object, and he'll get a cascade of GOP seconds calling for a roll call.
And that's a headache for Nancy Pelosi & Co., who would like to avoid having to go on the record spending legislative time dealing with the troubled, talented, oddball superstar.
Democrat culture of corruption
Jury sees videos of La. congressman accepting cash
By MATTHEW BARAKAT
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A federal jury has seen video of a former Louisiana congressman accepting a suitcase filled with $100,000 in cash outside a northern Virginia hotel.
The videos played Tuesday are a key piece of evidence in the bribery trial of William Jefferson, a Democrat who represented parts of New Orleans. He's accused of accepting more than $400,000 in bribes to broker business deals in Africa.
The FBI recorded the pickup from four different angles, all of which were shown to the jury.
On the video, Jefferson seemed wary of accepting the money in public. When asked by an FBI informant if he wanted to peek inside the suitcase at the contents, he tersely replied, "No, I would not."
Jefferson's lawyers have said Jefferson's business deals weren't illegal.
By MATTHEW BARAKAT
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A federal jury has seen video of a former Louisiana congressman accepting a suitcase filled with $100,000 in cash outside a northern Virginia hotel.
The videos played Tuesday are a key piece of evidence in the bribery trial of William Jefferson, a Democrat who represented parts of New Orleans. He's accused of accepting more than $400,000 in bribes to broker business deals in Africa.
The FBI recorded the pickup from four different angles, all of which were shown to the jury.
On the video, Jefferson seemed wary of accepting the money in public. When asked by an FBI informant if he wanted to peek inside the suitcase at the contents, he tersely replied, "No, I would not."
Jefferson's lawyers have said Jefferson's business deals weren't illegal.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
To the Obamathugs the ends justify the means
Is it beginning to look enough like Venezuela yet.
EDITORIAL: Return of the Black Panther
Rarely does the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights vote unanimously on anything.
A partisan divide has made the commission contentious in recent years. Yet the Department of Justice's decision to forfeit its voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and three individual defendants drew a 6-0 vote with one abstention by the commission. What unified the commission was outrage at the Justice Department for letting the Black Panthers off the hook.
The Civil Rights Commission has sent two letters -- on June 16 and June 22 -- to Loretta King, acting assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, asking for an explanation, but it has not received a response. Rep. Frank R. Wolf, Virginia Republican, sent a June 8 letter demanding an explanation, but the congressman told us he has yet to receive an answer from the department one month later.
The Civil Rights Commission's first letter expressed its "great confusion" over the department's decision. After all, "defendants were caught on video blocking access to the polls, and physically threatening and verbally harassing voters during the November 4, 2008 general election." The video showed "one of them actually brandished a nightstick in plain view of voters and poll observers ... defendants 'made statements containing racial threats and racial insults.' "
The commission's letter quoted "Veteran of the civil rights movement, Bartle Bull" calling the defendants' actions "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I have encountered in my life in political campaigns in many states, even going back to the work I did in Mississippi in the 1960s."
The commission summed up the case in its June 16 letter to Ms. King: "Though it had basically won the case ... the [Department of Justice's Civil Rights] Division took the unusual move of voluntarily dismissing the charges .... In its notice of dismissal, the Division cites as its rationale only the fact that defendants failed to appear and respond ... the Division's public rationale would send the wrong message entirely - that attempts at voter suppression will be tolerated and will not be vigorously prosecuted so long as the groups or individuals who engage in them fail to respond to the charges leveled against them."
Lenore Ostrowsky, a commission spokesman, told us, "It is rare for a letter from the commission over the last four years to be sent out without any dissent." There's good reason for today's unanimity. One of the Black Panther defendants, Jerry Jackson, is an elected member of Philadelphia's 14th Ward Democratic Committee and was a credentialed poll watcher for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party when the intimidation occurred. We agree with the concern at the Civil Rights Commission. The Justice Department needs to explain why it is not pursuing charges against these thugs.
The nightmare goes on...
U.S. House May Include Surtax on Wealthy in Health-Care Package
New climate strategy: track the world's wealthiest
New climate strategy: track the world's wealthiest
You know government employees and UN functionaries will be exempt
Monday, July 6, 2009
A Thug's Primer
Victor Davis Hanson offers advice to would-be thugs and dictators on how to become enamoured by the Left.
Follow the link for the rest.
How strange that our rather nondescript, sober friends abroad do not garner attention from the current administration, yet overt enemies in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Venezuela, and the West Bank most certainly do. Is there some covert code of conduct known to these dictators that allows them to win a pass from supposedly liberal Americans, who profess to value human rights, religious tolerance, and consensual government?
Here’s a tutorial for up-and-coming thugs abroad, who wish to ingratiate themselves with Western elites, not worry about “legitimacy,” and not have someone meddle in their affairs.
DRESS MATTERS
Remember: Wear anything but a suit and tie. (Look at the drab Western wannabes Maliki and Netanyahu, and see what their suits got them.) The Iranian no-tie look impresses a lot of Americans, as it “makes a statement” that you are not part of a global conformist class, but instead deliberately challenge the norms of bourgeois dress.
The full-length robe works too, given the Western image of the Gandhian Holy Man (the one-bare-shoulder look is preferable to the Saudi trailing style). Better still is the Mao-style wardrobe that allows you to appear as if you just left an organizing rally on the shop floor.
If you must go the touchy military route, please avoid the four-star-general look, with gold braid, sunglasses, and high-crested, bronze-starred hat. Remember, you are still a private in spirit. If you insist on braid and medals, then no higher than a colonel’s: a man of the barracks who leads the rank-and-file in a global war against capitalism.
Best of all are camouflage, boots, and a baseball-type cap, in the manner of Castro and Chávez. The olive-drab jump suit of Kim Jong Il doesn’t cut it. If one insists on the caudillo persona, then do it with wacky flair, as did Qaddafi — that is, be more a goofy, braided Michael Jackson moonwalker than a grim-peacock shah or Pinochet.
DON’T FORGET GROOMING
Try the perpetual three-day beard, Arafat-style, as if you’re always shaving in the field with your comrades. Next best is mangy facial hair, à la Ahmadinejad, which suggests you once were an artist, novelist, or dissident of some sort. Castro’s bushy beard and curls also convey an admirable defiance of the man in the gray flannel suit. In South America and the Middle East, the black moustache alone will do. Che-style hair and beard do well for the revolutionary phase, but they should be tamed to the Daniel Ortega half-bad look once you’ve taken over the government.
Again, watch the sunglasses: They evoke a Greek colonel or South American strongman. Go instead with the nerd look of a 1950s intellectual: plastic rims on top, bare glass on the bottom. The more studious, the more bookish — the more you can jail. Think Allende or Trotsky, not Somoza.
SPEECH CODES
Don’t use the hobgoblin word Communism: It’s always socialism when you nationalize, steal property, take over businesses, shoot protestors, and shut down newspapers. Stay on message: The enemy is “globalization,” capitalism, imperialism, racism, sexism, and always the United States. Be sure to use the buzz words “democracy” or “republic” in all your briefings, as in “The People’s Republic of . . . ” or “The Democratic Federation of . . . ” Throw in “rule of law” and “constitution” anytime you shoot more than 100; evoke an Egyptian novelist, Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela when you send out the tanks. Abu Ghraib cannot be overused.
If in doubt about what resonates in the West, pick up a course catalogue online from UC Santa Cruz or Vassar, and just cut and paste some course descriptions into your next communiqué. Always play offense: It is Mossadeq, Bay of Pigs, United Fruit, Exxon, Vietnam, and Guantanamo all the time.
Don’t be afraid to dig up any fossil you can. One stale My Lai reference still gets you a pass for 1,000 jailed; an Abu Ghraib is worth 5,000 in your gulag. Play full-court press until the U.S. cracks and turns it over with, “I’m sorry for slavery, the Native American genocide, the A-bomb, Dresden, ethnically profiled airport security, the Klan, the Greek coup . . . ” Once the Americans start blabbering, they won’t stop — and you can step up the killing, jailing, and torturing without much worry.
Follow the link for the rest.
Boortz on the Economy
Excellent Boortz post on the state of the economy (both financial and political):
Well now. Our economy is really lunging forward, isn't it? What a ride! Are you holding on?
We're billions of dollars further in debt (trillions?) and the economy is still stagnant. TARP, the stimulus bill, massive debts our children and grandchildren will have to pay .. and what has this all brought us? Banks aren't lending, businesses aren't hiring - let along expanding - and consumers aren't buying. Oh, to be sure, the malls are crowded. Turn up the thermostats and see how long that lasts. Those aren't shoppers, they're just your neighbors trying to stay cool while watching the latest absurd teen fashion and freak shows.
Do what the initials SNAFU mean? That word was created to define government action, or inaction as the case may be. In 1942 Time magazine carried this revelation: "Last week U.S. citizens knew that gasoline rationing and rubber requisitioning were snafu." Well .. if there was ever a SNAFU, our economy would fit the description. To fully understand this, you have to know what the acronym stands for. Go ahead ... Google it
So ... after hundreds of billions of dollars, government seizures of GM, Citigroup and others, imminent bank nationalization, massive favors handed to unions at the expense of private investors, and a pantload of new czars in the White House ... all done to kick start our economy ... what do we have. SNAFU, that's what. Or TAUFU, if you like.
Look ... I'm just a talk show host. What the hell do I know? I've been sitting behind a microphone for 40 years now sparring with hundreds of thousands of callers who generally knew a helluva lot more than the hundreds of politicians I've interviewed over that time. Having said that ... I'm betting that this particular talk show host can, in just a few hundred words, give you some better ideas for kick starting our economy than you've heard from Obama and his Democrat sycophants over the past four months. Oh, and throw in most of the Republicans as well.
It's not all that hard, really. All you have to do is recognize and acknowledge the true goal of the political class. It's summed up in one word: POWER. You think they actually give a flying Krispy Kreme about you? What? I know you were born at night, but was it last night? They may care about your vote .. but that's it. It's power, my friends. Power and little else. Politicians will spout some lofty rhetoric about public service and wanting to leave this country a better place when they leave office; but, with few exceptions, that changes rather quickly. Once they get used to the privileges and the perks that go with their exalted positions their mindset changes. These people don't name research centers, bridges, parks, sports stadiums, university buildings, highways and office buildings after themselves because of their dedication to public service.
Where does that leave us? It leaves us in a situation where the people in power, the people who make the rules and decide how our economy is going to be fixed, are going to worry first about preserving and expanding their power and secondly (if they have time) about putting us back on a track to prosperity.
The basics: What does it take to get our economy moving again? Spending. If nobody is spending nobody needs to produce. You aren't going to gather the raw materials and personnel together to spend time and money creating a product or service unless you have some degree of confidence that there are people out there who either have or can borrow the money to buy it. Our economy is a constant day-by-day election process. The products and services put into the marketplace are the candidates. Consumers are the voters. Dollars are the ballots. If a candidate gets no votes, the candidate either reinvents himself or just simply goes away. The whole process slows down or grinds to a halt if the voters don't have ballots to cast.
Clearly, to stimulate our economy money had to be spent. That's basic. The question, then, was who gets to spend the money? If the American public gets to make the choices as to when and where the money is spent, that equates to power for the people. If, on the other hands, those decisions are made by the political class, it means no power to the people - the power goes to the elected elite. Now would someone please try to explain to me why these politicians, as completely immersed as they are in building their individual power bases, would ever want to turn over the power that goes with spending these huge sums of money to the great unwashed? How in the world is that going to benefit a politician? How do you generate a campaign ad for radio telling the voters that you deserve reelection because the private consumers in your district kept the local hardware store and a few clothing shops in business with their spending? Better you should be able to lay claim to a few road widenings and resurfacings and a new rehearsal hall for the local high school band.
Do you remember how much that stimulus bills was? Let's just call it $750 billion. For the sake of argument let's accept that this $750 billion had to be borrowed and spent to get our economy cranking again. Once you've accepted the $750 billion figure we're going to borrow, you then have to decide just who gets to spend that money and what they get to spend it on.
Here's an idea from Texas congressman Louis Gohmert (R 1st Dist.). Gohmert wanted a tax holiday. I've taken his idea and expanded it a bit. Last year Gohmert was floating an idea of allowing the American people to go one full month without paying any federal income or payroll taxes. The idea was that they would then spend this money and stimulate the economy. When Obama started talking about the $750 billion dollar stimulus price tag I did some quick calculations. It seems that $750 billion is almost exactly equal to the amount of federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld from American paychecks over a six-month period.
Are you following me? How about not a one-month tax holiday, but six months? How about letting people keep almost their entire paychecks for one-half of a year?
So -- here are the two possible scenarios our politicians had to work with:
- Borrow the $750 billion and let the politicians (the looters) decide how it is going to be spent to stimulate our economy.
- Give the producers a six month period in which they owe no federal income or payroll taxes. For these six months they get to keep their checks. This puts $750 billion into the hands of American workers - American producers - to spend and invest.
Either way you are going to have to borrow $750 billion. If you give the people a six-month tax holiday the money will have to be borrowed to replace the lost revenue.
You see it, don't you? There is one huge difference between the two plans. Under the government spending scenario the politicians get to decide how the money is spent. In other words, they get the power. Remember ... power is the goal. It's everything to the political class. Politicians wanted to decide which road is built, which park is refurbished, and which research project gets additional funding. Every one of these decisions would be made based on the political capital it will generate.
Under the tax holiday plan the people, not the politicians, get to cast the ballots/dollars. Spending choices would not be made on the basis of political expediency, but on the free choices of the people. Businesses that delivered a good product and good customer service would get the votes, not politicians who delivered a pork project to their districts.
A dollar spent on a new lawnmower at the hardware store does not generate a single vote. A dollar spent on a new job mowing grass along an Interstate highway does.
So ... there was a decision to be made. Massive amounts of money were going to be borrowed and spent to stimulate our economy (or so the storyline went). But just who would get to spend the money?
Do you remember that famous Bill Clinton line? It was January of 1999. The place was Buffalo, New York. The federal government had actually collected more tax money that it needed. There was a surplus. Someone asked Clinton if, considering the surplus, there might be a tax cut. His response: "We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right... But ... if you don't spend it right, here's what's going to happen." He then went on to describe the gloomy future of Social Security when more people are collecting benefits than paying taxes.
Sure .. it's your money. You worked for it; you earned it. That money actually represents the expenditure of a portion of your life ... and here's this politician telling you that even though he doesn't actually need that money right now, he's going to go ahead and keep it because if he returns it to its rightful owner - you - then you won't "spend it right." Now excuse me, but don't you get to decide what would be the right way and the wrong way to spend your money?
You know the rest of this story. The politicians in Washington decided that they would be doing the spending, not you. You just could not be trusted to spend it "right." So President Obama sent the word to Princess Pelosi to gather together all of the spending dreams and schemes of her Democrat members of congress and compile them into a massive spending bill. The bill would be pure pork and designed for nothing more than to secure reelections; but it would be called stimulus.
Now I could waste a few thousand words here describing all of the absurd ways this money is being spent. Vice President Biden actually told us that there would be waste. He was talking to business leaders in New York in early June when he said that waste would be inevitable in spending the stimulus money. Inevitable doesn't begin to cover it.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Got to admire the Islamists use of liberal terms like "self determination"
Bomb hits Philippine church-goers
A bomb blast outside a Roman Catholic cathedral in the southern Philippines has killed five people and injured at least 26 others, officials say.
The military immediately blamed the attack in the town of Cotabato, Mindanao, on a militant group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
The group has been fighting to establish a separate Islamic state.
One of its leaders denied any involvement in the attack, saying there was no religious conflict in the south.
The bomb went off outside the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception as people were leaving Mass, the army said.
Police told AFP news agency that two of the dead were soldiers guarding the cathedral.
Militant denial
A military spokesman, Col Jonathan Ponce, said rogue MILF militants were suspected of planting the bomb.
"The rebels are getting desperate and they are no longer choosing their targets," he said.
"They are now attacking even places of worship."
But a leader of the MILF, Mohaqher Iqbal, denied his group had been involved in the attack.
"Who needs a Christian-Muslim conflict?" he told Reuters news agency in a mobile phone text message.
"There's no religious conflict in the south. We're fighting for our right of self-determination. We're only defending our people and our communities."
A bomb blast outside a Roman Catholic cathedral in the southern Philippines has killed five people and injured at least 26 others, officials say.
The military immediately blamed the attack in the town of Cotabato, Mindanao, on a militant group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
The group has been fighting to establish a separate Islamic state.
One of its leaders denied any involvement in the attack, saying there was no religious conflict in the south.
The bomb went off outside the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception as people were leaving Mass, the army said.
Police told AFP news agency that two of the dead were soldiers guarding the cathedral.
Militant denial
A military spokesman, Col Jonathan Ponce, said rogue MILF militants were suspected of planting the bomb.
"The rebels are getting desperate and they are no longer choosing their targets," he said.
"They are now attacking even places of worship."
But a leader of the MILF, Mohaqher Iqbal, denied his group had been involved in the attack.
"Who needs a Christian-Muslim conflict?" he told Reuters news agency in a mobile phone text message.
"There's no religious conflict in the south. We're fighting for our right of self-determination. We're only defending our people and our communities."
They're fighting for an Islamic state that will allow no other relgions or legal standards. It's all Sharia, all the time and for everybody. Blowing up a church pretty much sums it up.
What a low life...
Former D.C. Mayor Barry charged with stalking
WASHINGTON (AP) - Police say former Washington Mayor Marion Barry has been arrested and charged with stalking a woman.
The United States Park Police said Barry, a current D.C. Council member, was arrested Saturday in Washington after a woman flagged down an officer and complained that Barry was stalking her.
Barry was charged with misdemeanor stalking and released.
A message left seeking comment from a spokeswoman for Barry wasn't immediately returned early Sunday.
Barry served four terms as mayor. In his third, he was videotaped in 1990 in a hotel room smoking crack cocaine in an FBI sting. He served six months in prison and in 1994 regained the mayor's office.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Police say former Washington Mayor Marion Barry has been arrested and charged with stalking a woman.
The United States Park Police said Barry, a current D.C. Council member, was arrested Saturday in Washington after a woman flagged down an officer and complained that Barry was stalking her.
Barry was charged with misdemeanor stalking and released.
A message left seeking comment from a spokeswoman for Barry wasn't immediately returned early Sunday.
Barry served four terms as mayor. In his third, he was videotaped in 1990 in a hotel room smoking crack cocaine in an FBI sting. He served six months in prison and in 1994 regained the mayor's office.
Jew hatred at the Pentagon as well as the State Dept
Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin pled guilty in October 2005 to participating in a conspiracy with AIPAC officials Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman to obtain and distribute classified information. The Justice Department dropped the case against Rosen and Weissman last month as the trial approached. (I take that summary from Josh Gerstein's recent story on the AIPAC case.)
Franklin broke his silence on the AIPAC case in an interview with Nathan Guttman reported in the Forward. Guttman reports:
Franklin's narrative of his ordeal, which started off with him being described on national news as the "Israeli mole" in the Pentagon, reflects a mixture of naiveté, frustration with government bureaucracy and a deep belief that his views must be heard, even if it meant breaking the rules. In retrospect, it was a practice in humility for the devout Catholic military analyst.
"I've learned a lot by crawling on the ground," the 62-year-old father of five said in his first interview since the affair began in 2004. The lessons that Franklin has learned from his experience include the capacity by his colleagues and partners for -- as he sees it -- betrayal, and the persistence, he has concluded, of deep-rooted antisemitic sentiment in certain quarters of America's intelligence community.
"I was asked about every Jew I knew in OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense], and that bothered me," Franklin said. His superiors at the time were both Jewish: Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, and Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, whom Franklin believes was a target of the investigation. "One agent asked me, 'How can a Bronx Irish Catholic get mixed up with...' and I finished the phrase for him: 'with these Jews.'" Franklin answered, "Christ was Jewish, too, and all the apostles." "Later I felt dirty," he added.
Why the reticence regarding the name of Franklin's interrogator? Too much of the story of the AIPAC prosecution remains to be told.
(Courtesy Powerline blog)
Franklin broke his silence on the AIPAC case in an interview with Nathan Guttman reported in the Forward. Guttman reports:
Franklin's narrative of his ordeal, which started off with him being described on national news as the "Israeli mole" in the Pentagon, reflects a mixture of naiveté, frustration with government bureaucracy and a deep belief that his views must be heard, even if it meant breaking the rules. In retrospect, it was a practice in humility for the devout Catholic military analyst.
"I've learned a lot by crawling on the ground," the 62-year-old father of five said in his first interview since the affair began in 2004. The lessons that Franklin has learned from his experience include the capacity by his colleagues and partners for -- as he sees it -- betrayal, and the persistence, he has concluded, of deep-rooted antisemitic sentiment in certain quarters of America's intelligence community.
"I was asked about every Jew I knew in OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense], and that bothered me," Franklin said. His superiors at the time were both Jewish: Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, and Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, whom Franklin believes was a target of the investigation. "One agent asked me, 'How can a Bronx Irish Catholic get mixed up with...' and I finished the phrase for him: 'with these Jews.'" Franklin answered, "Christ was Jewish, too, and all the apostles." "Later I felt dirty," he added.
Why the reticence regarding the name of Franklin's interrogator? Too much of the story of the AIPAC prosecution remains to be told.
(Courtesy Powerline blog)
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
Government out to make you poorer
If you believe the cost of electricity will go up by the amount estimated you're naive. Notice how these program will cut the cost to society of health care. Although this excuse is often used has it ever been proven.
Prepare for blackouts.
Los Angeles will end use of coal-fired power
By Bernie Woodall
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles will eliminate the use of electricity made from coal by 2020, replacing it with power from cleaner renewable energy sources, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said.
Consumers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the largest city-owned utility in the United States with 1.45 million electricity customers, will see higher power bills in the fight against climate change, he added in his inaugural speech for his second four-year term as mayor on Wednesday.
California does not have any coal-fired power plants, a leading contributor to greenhouse gas pollution, but the LADWP now gets 40 percent of its electricity from coal plants outside the state.
"LADWP will deliver 40 percent renewable power, with the remainder coming from natural gas, nuclear, and large hydroelectric," said Villaraigosa.
Coal and natural gas-fired power now account for 76 percent of the electricity delivered by the LADWP. By 2020, the LADWP expects to cut its carbon emissions by up to 60 percent from 1990 levels, according to the mayor's office.
Villaraigosa said the LADWP will meet its goal of getting 20 percent of its power from renewables by 2010.
"We applaud Mayor Villaraigosa's bold decision to move Los Angeles beyond coal," said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's efforts to end coal-fired power plants. "The decision to replace coal with cleaner energy alternatives is key to boosting job creation and economic growth."
The LADWP also wants to cut overall electricity use by 1 percent a year for the next 10 years, Freeman said, through energy efficiency.
On Thursday, Deputy Mayor David Freeman said the LADWP will continue to use power from the coal-fired 2,250-megawatt Navajo Generating Station in Arizona until 2019 when its current contract expires. It takes 21.2 percent of the plant's output.
Freeman, the one-time head of the federal Tennessee Valley Authority, said negotiations have not yet begun on how and when the LADWP will leave its contract as lead owner of the 1,800-megawatt coal-fired Intermountain plant in Utah.
It takes 44.6 percent of the output of Intermountain in a contract that extends to 2026.
Together, Navajo -- 477 MW -- and Intermountain -- 803 MW -- can deliver as much as 1,280 MW of power to Los Angeles.
RATES TO RISE
Villaraigosa and Freeman said the elimination of coal-fired power will also mean higher electricity rates. LADWP customers pay an average of about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Freeman said eliminating power from coal will one day increase rates but they will remain competitive with the 15.5 cents per kwh of the average Southern California Edison customer. SCE, a unit of Edison International, has nearly 4.9 million power customers and covers Los Angeles County outside of the city of Los Angeles.
The Navajo plant can deliver power at 3 cents per kwh, and the Intermountain power is between 4 to 5 cents per kwh.
Freeman said that coal power costs will rise as rules limiting carbon dioxide, including a cap-and-trade system, are implemented.
But "costs to society" such as higher medical bills for lung-related diseases, including asthma, will drop.
"The rates are going to go up," said Freeman. "There is no way you can bring in renewable energy and not have some rate impact when you replace coal. But the value to society even aside from global warming is going to be positive."
The tyranny of the self righteous
Not long until we'll have to import refined products as well as crude. This is a slow motion suicide. A few folks get to feel powerful beyond their importance or the significance of their argument, the rest of us get hammered.
Chevron Refinery Expansion Halted; 1,000 Jobs To Be Lost
RICHMOND, Calif. -- The Chevron refinery in Richmond released 100 workers Thursday following a Contra Costa County Superior Court judge's ruling Wednesday ordering the refinery to stop construction of its Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project, Chevron spokesman Brent Tippen said.
The refinery expects to release a total of about 1000 workers over the next 60 days as it demobilizes construction activities at the plant, Tippen said.
Tippen estimated that the ruling would result in a loss of about 1 million labor hours and approximately $50 million to $75 million in income to the workforce in Richmond and the county within the next year.
The city will also lose $61 million in various community benefits, Tippen said.
Tippen did not disclose how much money Chevron is expected to lose as a result of the order, but said that construction of the hydrogen plant and hydrogen purity components had been well underway. Construction of the new cogeneration facility hadn't yet begun.
The project, which broke ground in September after a permitting process that took more than three years, included replacing the refinery's 1960s-era hydrogen plant and its 1930s-era power plant. The Richmond City Council finally approved the project by a 5-4 vote.
Judge Barbara Zuniga's order to halt construction came after a ruling in June in which she found that an environmental impact report on the project failed to disclose whether it would enable the refinery to process heavier crude oil, failed to analyze a proposed hydrogen pipeline and illegally deferred greenhouse gas mitigation plans.
Refinery officials said the upgrade would increase the refinery's flexibility to process a wider variety of crude oil and improve the plant's energy efficiency and reliability.
However, experts at Communities for a Better Environment, Asian Pacific Environmental Network and the West County Toxics Coalition -- plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to Wednesday's ruling -- said that the upgrade would enable the refinery to process heavier crude oil, which would lead to increased pollution and increased risk of upset and explosion.
Heavier crude oil can contain higher amounts of contaminants such as mercury and selenium, which can cause serious health problems, according to Communities for a Better Environment.
"The residents of Richmond do not accept letting Chevron continue to poison our community," 33-year Richmond resident and APEN senior organizer Torm Nompraseurt said in a news release from Earthjustice, the law firm representing the plaintiffs in the case. "This is a victory for the grassroots, and the people who have been suffering the health impacts of the refinery for the past 100 years."
"This is a historic environmental justice victory," said Dr. Henry Clark of the West County Toxics Coalition. "The court's decision gives our community hope and inspiration that the judicial system can work for the people."
Tippen, however, said that the physical limitations of the refinery's crude oil processing unit would not allow the refinery to process heavier crude oil.
He said the refinery would have continued to process the same types of crude after the project was completed. He also noted that harmful emissions of chemicals, such as mercury and selenium, are heavily regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
"Ironically, putting the project on hold means delaying demonstrable environmental benefits including improved refinery energy efficiency and reduced overall emissions," Tippen said.
He said refinery officials were disappointed with the court's ruling and believe the project had been properly analyzed and permitted.
Tippen also said that Chevron would continue to review its options and work with the city to decide what to do next.
Today's moment of Ewww, A social worker no less.
'YOU DON'T DO THIS TO A KID!'
It was a "horrific" plot.
A Long Island woman allegedly tried to get revenge on a 9-year-old girl who ar gued with her daughter by giving a throng of sex- seeking men the child's home phone number through a Craigslist ad.
Margery Tannenbaum, 40, alreadly accused of harassment in the sick scheme, was slapped with even more serious charges at her arraign ment yesterday -- and the young victim's mother spoke out for the first time.
"You don't do this to a child!" the woman said at her Hauppauge home. "What she did was horrific, and hopefully the courts will take care of it."
Tannenbaum, also of Hauppauge, allegedly launched the sick plot in February, after the victim -- whose name is being withheld by The Post -- had an argument with her daughter. The two girls are in the same elementary-school class.
Tannenbaum put the ad -- which read, "Looking for a good time? W4M 21" -- on Craigslist in a section known for escort-service ads, authorities said. It directed them to an e-mail address, "lacethong23@yahoo.com."
That address was allegedly controlled by Tannenbaum. She then gave the would-be escort patrons the girl's home phone number, authorities allege.
Soon the phone was ringing off the hook with men looking for "dates." Her mom said she fielded at least 50 calls in two days before she changed her number.
She said she was shocked when she got the first call.
"She usually answers the phone, but I happened to be closer that time," she told The Post.
She said the caller started talking about her daughter's supposed physical attributes.
According to court documents, the first caller also said, "Hey, baby, is this . . .," using the girl's first name
When the mom answered, "This is her mother," the caller responded, "Oh, hot lady lives with foxy momma."
"I told him the hot lady you are referring to is 9 years old. He hung up," she said, according to the documents.
"It hard for a young girl to understand," she said. "It's hard for me to understand."
At yesterday's hearing, Tannenbaum was arraigned on charges of aggravated harassment and new charges of endangering the welfare of a child.
Tannenbaum is a social worker who lives with her businessman husband, Glenn, and their daughter.
Suffolk DA Tom Spota said his office will ask the state to review her social-work license and make her "undergo therapy."
As she left court, free on $500 bail, she faced the anger of the public.
"Shame! Shame on you!" a someone yelled.
It was a "horrific" plot.
A Long Island woman allegedly tried to get revenge on a 9-year-old girl who ar gued with her daughter by giving a throng of sex- seeking men the child's home phone number through a Craigslist ad.
Margery Tannenbaum, 40, alreadly accused of harassment in the sick scheme, was slapped with even more serious charges at her arraign ment yesterday -- and the young victim's mother spoke out for the first time.
"You don't do this to a child!" the woman said at her Hauppauge home. "What she did was horrific, and hopefully the courts will take care of it."
Tannenbaum, also of Hauppauge, allegedly launched the sick plot in February, after the victim -- whose name is being withheld by The Post -- had an argument with her daughter. The two girls are in the same elementary-school class.
Tannenbaum put the ad -- which read, "Looking for a good time? W4M 21" -- on Craigslist in a section known for escort-service ads, authorities said. It directed them to an e-mail address, "lacethong23@yahoo.com."
That address was allegedly controlled by Tannenbaum. She then gave the would-be escort patrons the girl's home phone number, authorities allege.
Soon the phone was ringing off the hook with men looking for "dates." Her mom said she fielded at least 50 calls in two days before she changed her number.
She said she was shocked when she got the first call.
"She usually answers the phone, but I happened to be closer that time," she told The Post.
She said the caller started talking about her daughter's supposed physical attributes.
According to court documents, the first caller also said, "Hey, baby, is this . . .," using the girl's first name
When the mom answered, "This is her mother," the caller responded, "Oh, hot lady lives with foxy momma."
"I told him the hot lady you are referring to is 9 years old. He hung up," she said, according to the documents.
"It hard for a young girl to understand," she said. "It's hard for me to understand."
At yesterday's hearing, Tannenbaum was arraigned on charges of aggravated harassment and new charges of endangering the welfare of a child.
Tannenbaum is a social worker who lives with her businessman husband, Glenn, and their daughter.
Suffolk DA Tom Spota said his office will ask the state to review her social-work license and make her "undergo therapy."
As she left court, free on $500 bail, she faced the anger of the public.
"Shame! Shame on you!" a someone yelled.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
For the nanny's nothing is ever good
How Safe Is Safe Enough?
By Edward NiedermeyerJuly 2, 2009
There are some seriously mixed messages coming out of the NHTSA today, which perfectly illustrate what I like to call the tyranny of safety. On the one hand, the NHTSA announced today that overall traffic fatalities dropped by nearly ten percent in 2008, hitting the lowest levels per vehicle mile traveled since 1961. Estimates for the first quarter of 2009 show the high-single digit downward trend continuing into this year. In 2008, the NHTSA logged 1.27 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. Which, based on the number of cars and the shoddy quality of driving one encounters in this country (sorry, it’s true), is a remarkable statistic. But, for safety nuts like SecTrans Ray LaHood, it’s not enough. “While the number of highway deaths in America has decreased, we still have a long way to go,” he tells his press release. And how are we going to go about protecting Americans from the lowest fatality rates since JFK was elected and the Beatles were still playing the Cavern? Gizmos, baby, gizmos.
The Detroit News reports that the NHTSA has planned a study for 2011 which will determine whether Forward Collision Warning and Lane Departure Warning Systems should be made mandatory for all vehicles. FCW uses radar to alert the driver to objects in the path of the car, and in some cases could even apply the brakes. LDWS alerts the driver to unintentional lane changes, and in some cases could automatically return the car to its original lane. Because apparently the 1.27 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled are caused by drivers being unable to see what is directly in front of them, and falling asleep and drifting across lanes.
According to the NHTSA, these features are currently available for Model Year 2008 on select Audi, BMW, Buick, Cadillac, Infiniti, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Volvo vehicles. Which means it won’t be that expensive to make them standard on all models, right? But the added cost would just be adding injury to insult. The argument that these features should exist on all cars knocks down any further impetus for improved driver training. Or paying attention to what lane you are in. Or looking out the windshield and noticing objects which may lie in the path of your vehicle.
How much intrusion and driver disengagement are we willing to endure to eliminate the last traffic fatalities? Will Secretary LaHood only feel that we no longer “have a long way to go” when drivers are as disengaged from their transportation as the patrons of his beloved rail transit? As long as busybodies try to completely eliminate danger from an inherently dangerous (yet satisfying) pursuit, the tyranny of safety will march on.NHTSA »
By Edward NiedermeyerJuly 2, 2009
There are some seriously mixed messages coming out of the NHTSA today, which perfectly illustrate what I like to call the tyranny of safety. On the one hand, the NHTSA announced today that overall traffic fatalities dropped by nearly ten percent in 2008, hitting the lowest levels per vehicle mile traveled since 1961. Estimates for the first quarter of 2009 show the high-single digit downward trend continuing into this year. In 2008, the NHTSA logged 1.27 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. Which, based on the number of cars and the shoddy quality of driving one encounters in this country (sorry, it’s true), is a remarkable statistic. But, for safety nuts like SecTrans Ray LaHood, it’s not enough. “While the number of highway deaths in America has decreased, we still have a long way to go,” he tells his press release. And how are we going to go about protecting Americans from the lowest fatality rates since JFK was elected and the Beatles were still playing the Cavern? Gizmos, baby, gizmos.
The Detroit News reports that the NHTSA has planned a study for 2011 which will determine whether Forward Collision Warning and Lane Departure Warning Systems should be made mandatory for all vehicles. FCW uses radar to alert the driver to objects in the path of the car, and in some cases could even apply the brakes. LDWS alerts the driver to unintentional lane changes, and in some cases could automatically return the car to its original lane. Because apparently the 1.27 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled are caused by drivers being unable to see what is directly in front of them, and falling asleep and drifting across lanes.
According to the NHTSA, these features are currently available for Model Year 2008 on select Audi, BMW, Buick, Cadillac, Infiniti, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Volvo vehicles. Which means it won’t be that expensive to make them standard on all models, right? But the added cost would just be adding injury to insult. The argument that these features should exist on all cars knocks down any further impetus for improved driver training. Or paying attention to what lane you are in. Or looking out the windshield and noticing objects which may lie in the path of your vehicle.
How much intrusion and driver disengagement are we willing to endure to eliminate the last traffic fatalities? Will Secretary LaHood only feel that we no longer “have a long way to go” when drivers are as disengaged from their transportation as the patrons of his beloved rail transit? As long as busybodies try to completely eliminate danger from an inherently dangerous (yet satisfying) pursuit, the tyranny of safety will march on.NHTSA »
What?????
Barney Frank: Let's spend TARP profits before taxpayers can get them
By: Byron YorkChief Political Correspondent07/01/09 9:19 PM EDT
When President Obama announced on June 9 that some financial institutions would be allowed to repay Troubled Asset Relief Program dollars, he said the massively expensive TARP bailout had made money for the federal government. "It is worth noting that in the first round of repayments from these [TARP recipients], the government has actually turned a profit," the president said. Indeed, TARP supporters have long held out the hope that the program might be profitable.But now Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers. Last Friday, Frank introduced the "TARP for Main Street Act of 2009," a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats.In exchange for receiving TARP money, financial institutions were required to hand over shares of preferred stock that paid a dividend for the government. In theory, if a financial institution paid the dividend faithfully, and then repaid the TARP money, then the government would turn a profit. Last month, the General Accountability Office (GAO) reported that, through June 12, 2009, the government had received $6.2 billion in dividend payments. The original TARP legislation required that money made from the program "shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt." Frank, however, wants to spend the money before it can be used to pay down anything. First, the "TARP for Main Street" proposal would take $1 billion "from dividends paid by financial institutions that have received financial assistance provided under&hellipthe Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and apply it to a trust fund that Frank has long wanted to create for low-income rental housing. (The measure, unfunded, was part of last year's bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.) Next, Frank would take $1.5 billion from TARP dividends for a so-called "neighborhood stabilization" fund. Republican critics have charged that both measures might allow federal dollars to be distributed to activist groups like the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN.The "TARP for Main Street" bill would also spend $2 billion, apparently from remaining TARP funds, to subsidize people who are delinquent on their mortgages, and another $2 billion to "stabilize multifamily properties that are in default or foreclosure."Frank's proposal comes at a time when Republicans, and some Democrats, are expressing concern about the continued use of TARP money. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch recently complained that TARP funds are "now being used as a go-to solution to address all of our nation's economic ills." Hatch and Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln recently introduced a bill that would require that TARP money goes back to the Treasury for debt reduction.Spending the dividend payments now, as Frank proposes, would reduce the chance that TARP might ever be a break-even deal for the taxpayers. "We don't know if TARP is going to be making any money, so taking the dividend payments going back to Treasury is pretty questionable," says one House GOP aide. Indeed, in its June report, the GAO revealed that 17 troubled institutions have not paid their dividends, much less repaid the TARP money itself. And last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that three other institutions were not paying dividends. But now, Frank is proposing that dividends be spent immediately. "It defeats the idea of taxpayer protection," says the GOP aide.
By: Byron YorkChief Political Correspondent07/01/09 9:19 PM EDT
When President Obama announced on June 9 that some financial institutions would be allowed to repay Troubled Asset Relief Program dollars, he said the massively expensive TARP bailout had made money for the federal government. "It is worth noting that in the first round of repayments from these [TARP recipients], the government has actually turned a profit," the president said. Indeed, TARP supporters have long held out the hope that the program might be profitable.But now Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers. Last Friday, Frank introduced the "TARP for Main Street Act of 2009," a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats.In exchange for receiving TARP money, financial institutions were required to hand over shares of preferred stock that paid a dividend for the government. In theory, if a financial institution paid the dividend faithfully, and then repaid the TARP money, then the government would turn a profit. Last month, the General Accountability Office (GAO) reported that, through June 12, 2009, the government had received $6.2 billion in dividend payments. The original TARP legislation required that money made from the program "shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt." Frank, however, wants to spend the money before it can be used to pay down anything. First, the "TARP for Main Street" proposal would take $1 billion "from dividends paid by financial institutions that have received financial assistance provided under&hellipthe Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and apply it to a trust fund that Frank has long wanted to create for low-income rental housing. (The measure, unfunded, was part of last year's bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.) Next, Frank would take $1.5 billion from TARP dividends for a so-called "neighborhood stabilization" fund. Republican critics have charged that both measures might allow federal dollars to be distributed to activist groups like the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN.The "TARP for Main Street" bill would also spend $2 billion, apparently from remaining TARP funds, to subsidize people who are delinquent on their mortgages, and another $2 billion to "stabilize multifamily properties that are in default or foreclosure."Frank's proposal comes at a time when Republicans, and some Democrats, are expressing concern about the continued use of TARP money. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch recently complained that TARP funds are "now being used as a go-to solution to address all of our nation's economic ills." Hatch and Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln recently introduced a bill that would require that TARP money goes back to the Treasury for debt reduction.Spending the dividend payments now, as Frank proposes, would reduce the chance that TARP might ever be a break-even deal for the taxpayers. "We don't know if TARP is going to be making any money, so taking the dividend payments going back to Treasury is pretty questionable," says one House GOP aide. Indeed, in its June report, the GAO revealed that 17 troubled institutions have not paid their dividends, much less repaid the TARP money itself. And last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that three other institutions were not paying dividends. But now, Frank is proposing that dividends be spent immediately. "It defeats the idea of taxpayer protection," says the GOP aide.
Cultural collapse
The most violent country in Europe: Britain is also worse than South Africa and U.S.
By James Slack
Britain's violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it is revealed today.
Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries.
The figures comes on the day new Home Secretary Alan Johnson makes his first major speech on crime, promising to be tough on loutish behaviour.
Britain has an even worse violence rate than South Africa (file picture)
The Tories said Labour had presided over a decade of spiralling violence.
In the decade following the party's election in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 per cent to 1.158million - or more than two every minute.
The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show:
The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.
It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.
It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France.
But it is the naming of Britain as the most violent country in the EU that is most shocking. The analysis is based on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.
In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677.
The U.S. has a violence rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents, Canada 935, Australia 92 and South Africa 1,609.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'This is a damning indictment of this government's comprehensive failure over more than a decade to tackle the deep rooted social problems in our society, and the knock on effect on crime and anti-social behaviour.
'We're now on our fourth Home Secretary this parliament, and all we are getting is a rehash of old initiatives that didn't work the first time round. More than ever Britain needs a change of direction.'
The figures, compiled by the Tories, are considered the most accurate and up-to-date available.
But criminologists say crime figures can be affected by many factors, including different criminal justice systems and differences in how crime is reported and measured.
New Home Secretary Alan Johnson is to make his first major speech on crime today
In Britain, an affray is considered a violent crime, while in other countries it will only be logged if a person is physically injured.
There are also degrees of violence. While the UK ranks above South Africa for all violent crime, South Africans suffer more than 20,000 murders each year - compared with Britain's 921 in 2007.
Experts say there are a number of reasons why violence is soaring in the UK. These include Labour's decision to relax the licensing laws to allow round-the-clock opening, which has led to a rise in the number of serious assaults taking place in the early hours of the morning.
But Police Minister David Hanson said: 'These figures are misleading. Levels of police recorded crime statistics from different countries are simply not comparable since they are affected by many factors, for example the recording of violent crime in other countries may not include behaviour that we would categorise as violent crime.
'Violent crime in England and Wales has fallen by almost a half a peak in 1995 but we are not complacent and know there is still work to do. That is why last year we published 'Saving lives. Reducing harm. Protecting the public. An Action Plan for Tackling Violence 2008-11'.'
The timing of the Europe-wide violence figures is a blow for Mr Johnson, who will today seek to reassert Labour's law and order credentials.
In his first major speech on crime since becoming Home Secretary, Mr Johnson is expected to promise a concerted crack down on antisocial behaviour.
He wants to set up a website to allow the public to see what is taking place in their neighbourhood, such as the number of louts who have been served with Asbos.
Mr Johnson is also known to support early intervention to stop children going off the rails.
By James Slack
Britain's violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it is revealed today.
Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries.
The figures comes on the day new Home Secretary Alan Johnson makes his first major speech on crime, promising to be tough on loutish behaviour.
Britain has an even worse violence rate than South Africa (file picture)
The Tories said Labour had presided over a decade of spiralling violence.
In the decade following the party's election in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 per cent to 1.158million - or more than two every minute.
The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show:
The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.
It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.
It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France.
But it is the naming of Britain as the most violent country in the EU that is most shocking. The analysis is based on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.
In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677.
The U.S. has a violence rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents, Canada 935, Australia 92 and South Africa 1,609.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'This is a damning indictment of this government's comprehensive failure over more than a decade to tackle the deep rooted social problems in our society, and the knock on effect on crime and anti-social behaviour.
'We're now on our fourth Home Secretary this parliament, and all we are getting is a rehash of old initiatives that didn't work the first time round. More than ever Britain needs a change of direction.'
The figures, compiled by the Tories, are considered the most accurate and up-to-date available.
But criminologists say crime figures can be affected by many factors, including different criminal justice systems and differences in how crime is reported and measured.
New Home Secretary Alan Johnson is to make his first major speech on crime today
In Britain, an affray is considered a violent crime, while in other countries it will only be logged if a person is physically injured.
There are also degrees of violence. While the UK ranks above South Africa for all violent crime, South Africans suffer more than 20,000 murders each year - compared with Britain's 921 in 2007.
Experts say there are a number of reasons why violence is soaring in the UK. These include Labour's decision to relax the licensing laws to allow round-the-clock opening, which has led to a rise in the number of serious assaults taking place in the early hours of the morning.
But Police Minister David Hanson said: 'These figures are misleading. Levels of police recorded crime statistics from different countries are simply not comparable since they are affected by many factors, for example the recording of violent crime in other countries may not include behaviour that we would categorise as violent crime.
'Violent crime in England and Wales has fallen by almost a half a peak in 1995 but we are not complacent and know there is still work to do. That is why last year we published 'Saving lives. Reducing harm. Protecting the public. An Action Plan for Tackling Violence 2008-11'.'
The timing of the Europe-wide violence figures is a blow for Mr Johnson, who will today seek to reassert Labour's law and order credentials.
In his first major speech on crime since becoming Home Secretary, Mr Johnson is expected to promise a concerted crack down on antisocial behaviour.
He wants to set up a website to allow the public to see what is taking place in their neighbourhood, such as the number of louts who have been served with Asbos.
Mr Johnson is also known to support early intervention to stop children going off the rails.
The New Manchurian Candidate
I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, preferring to believe in Robert Heinlein's dictum 'Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity', however, here's a little thought experiment:
If I were a Chinese politburo member looking to expand my external trade over the next several decades and I had some money to give to US political candidates, I could, if I were shortsighted, try to influence some current trade deals in my favor or get some illegal technology transfer. If I were longsighted though, I might try to find some US pol who was already a bit nutty about environmental issues and make a deal to make him very rich by having him put on boards of companies it could influence and paying him lots of money funneled through various businesses of his in exchange for his help in putting their main competitor, the US, at an enormous trade disadvantage by imposing enormous energy costs on all of their output while at the same time making energy cheaper for the Chinese, because of the reduction in US demand. I can't imagine a plan more destructive to US interests and more helpful to Chinese interests than the Waxman-Markey bill and if I were a top Chinese official I would certainly pay a lot to make sure it gets passed.
Now I have no evidence that Al Gore or Waxman or Markey et al have ever taken a cent from the Chinese Govt (except for the documented illegal campaign contributions when he was VP, the penalty for which was a firm talking to), but it could make the plot of a fine Hollywood thriller (for which, of course, they would change the villian into an evil Republican Senator taking Chinese money to support free-trade legislation).
If I were a Chinese politburo member looking to expand my external trade over the next several decades and I had some money to give to US political candidates, I could, if I were shortsighted, try to influence some current trade deals in my favor or get some illegal technology transfer. If I were longsighted though, I might try to find some US pol who was already a bit nutty about environmental issues and make a deal to make him very rich by having him put on boards of companies it could influence and paying him lots of money funneled through various businesses of his in exchange for his help in putting their main competitor, the US, at an enormous trade disadvantage by imposing enormous energy costs on all of their output while at the same time making energy cheaper for the Chinese, because of the reduction in US demand. I can't imagine a plan more destructive to US interests and more helpful to Chinese interests than the Waxman-Markey bill and if I were a top Chinese official I would certainly pay a lot to make sure it gets passed.
Now I have no evidence that Al Gore or Waxman or Markey et al have ever taken a cent from the Chinese Govt (except for the documented illegal campaign contributions when he was VP, the penalty for which was a firm talking to), but it could make the plot of a fine Hollywood thriller (for which, of course, they would change the villian into an evil Republican Senator taking Chinese money to support free-trade legislation).
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
The bond and similarities of Jew haters
(courtesy Little Green Footballs)
McKinney Arrested By Israel, Appears on Hate Radio
Moonbats Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 10:46:53 am PDT
One of the craziest moonbat politicians in the US, Cynthia McKinney, has been arrested again for trying to break Israel’s blockade of Hamas: Israel navy intercepts boat with ex-U.S. Rep. McKinney.
JERUSALEM (CNN) — The Israeli navy took control of a boat that violated an Israeli blockade and crossed into Gazan waters Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces said, while a Gaza group said the ship was carrying humanitarian aid, a former U.S. congresswoman and a Nobel laureate.
The boat’s crew included former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, according to the Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group that sent the boat it calls “Spirit of Humanity” from Cyprus. ...
IDF said the Israeli navy contacted the boat, which it called the Arion, while it was still at sea and warned the crew they would not be allowed to enter Gazan waters “because of security risks in the area and the existing naval blockade.”
Disregarding all warnings, the boat entered Gazan coastal waters, IDF said. An Israeli navy force intercepted, boarded and took control of the boat, directing it toward Ashdod, Israel, IDF said. The boat’s crew, the military said, would “be handed over to the proper authorities.” ...
According to the Free Gaza group, McKinney said, “This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip,” before authorities confiscated cell phones.
“President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that’s exactly what we tried to do. We’re asking the international community to demand our release so we can resume our journey,” McKinney said, according to the group.
Adam Holland, meanwhile, has been tracking McKinney’s frequent appearances on antisemitic radio shows: McKinney on hate radio again.
Now McKinney has done several more interviews on another racist radio show with far-right links — this time with a better-known, and much more widely read, internet hate monger called Daryl Bradford Smith. You can read an archived version of his website’s homepage here: Zionism Research - The French Connection - Fighting Criminal Zionism. (Has McKinney read it? How did she find these people?) This webpage, on which recordings of the programs featuring McKinney can be found, features a banner headline endorsing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It reads:
The Protocols are sometimes criticized as containing nothing that had not been said previously by philosophers or statesmen; but even if that were true, it would detract little from their interest. For their importance does not lie in the aim, world domination, nor in the theory by which it is attained, exploitation of man’s baser instincts, but in the extraordinary astuteness with which the practical application of the plan has been suited to existing conditions.
Smith’s homepage links to other pages on his website devoted to the works of infamous bigots such as Charles Coughlin, Denis Fahey, Nesta Webster, and Douglas Reed. The page devoted to Fahey deals with what Smith calls the “Judeo-Bolshevist plot against Christianity”. In fact, the vast majority of the authors published by Smith on his website come from the extreme far-right of the political spectrum, and promote, as did the Nazis, the view that communism was a Jewish conspiracy. However, Smith’s website also promotes the Stalinist Doctors’ Plot myth. It seems that Smith is happy to cross ideological lines and promote myths of czarist, fascist or Stalinist origin, so long as they support his anti-Jewish agenda. Now he’s interviewed Cynthia McKinney and added her socialism of fools to the mix.
McKinney Arrested By Israel, Appears on Hate Radio
Moonbats Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 10:46:53 am PDT
One of the craziest moonbat politicians in the US, Cynthia McKinney, has been arrested again for trying to break Israel’s blockade of Hamas: Israel navy intercepts boat with ex-U.S. Rep. McKinney.
JERUSALEM (CNN) — The Israeli navy took control of a boat that violated an Israeli blockade and crossed into Gazan waters Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces said, while a Gaza group said the ship was carrying humanitarian aid, a former U.S. congresswoman and a Nobel laureate.
The boat’s crew included former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, according to the Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group that sent the boat it calls “Spirit of Humanity” from Cyprus. ...
IDF said the Israeli navy contacted the boat, which it called the Arion, while it was still at sea and warned the crew they would not be allowed to enter Gazan waters “because of security risks in the area and the existing naval blockade.”
Disregarding all warnings, the boat entered Gazan coastal waters, IDF said. An Israeli navy force intercepted, boarded and took control of the boat, directing it toward Ashdod, Israel, IDF said. The boat’s crew, the military said, would “be handed over to the proper authorities.” ...
According to the Free Gaza group, McKinney said, “This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip,” before authorities confiscated cell phones.
“President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that’s exactly what we tried to do. We’re asking the international community to demand our release so we can resume our journey,” McKinney said, according to the group.
Adam Holland, meanwhile, has been tracking McKinney’s frequent appearances on antisemitic radio shows: McKinney on hate radio again.
Now McKinney has done several more interviews on another racist radio show with far-right links — this time with a better-known, and much more widely read, internet hate monger called Daryl Bradford Smith. You can read an archived version of his website’s homepage here: Zionism Research - The French Connection - Fighting Criminal Zionism. (Has McKinney read it? How did she find these people?) This webpage, on which recordings of the programs featuring McKinney can be found, features a banner headline endorsing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It reads:
The Protocols are sometimes criticized as containing nothing that had not been said previously by philosophers or statesmen; but even if that were true, it would detract little from their interest. For their importance does not lie in the aim, world domination, nor in the theory by which it is attained, exploitation of man’s baser instincts, but in the extraordinary astuteness with which the practical application of the plan has been suited to existing conditions.
Smith’s homepage links to other pages on his website devoted to the works of infamous bigots such as Charles Coughlin, Denis Fahey, Nesta Webster, and Douglas Reed. The page devoted to Fahey deals with what Smith calls the “Judeo-Bolshevist plot against Christianity”. In fact, the vast majority of the authors published by Smith on his website come from the extreme far-right of the political spectrum, and promote, as did the Nazis, the view that communism was a Jewish conspiracy. However, Smith’s website also promotes the Stalinist Doctors’ Plot myth. It seems that Smith is happy to cross ideological lines and promote myths of czarist, fascist or Stalinist origin, so long as they support his anti-Jewish agenda. Now he’s interviewed Cynthia McKinney and added her socialism of fools to the mix.
"Walled In"
The story of the Berlin Wall.
Well wroth a look. A reminder of where Communism and totalitarianism lead. It's particularly important now that we are heading that way.
The Democrats natural totalitarian impulse.
"How do you think conservative talk radio has affected the Legislature's work?The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: "You vote for revenue and your career is over." I don't know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess it's about free speech, but it's extremely unfair."
Karen Bass, California State Assembly Speaker in an interview with the LA Times.
Karen Bass, California State Assembly Speaker in an interview with the LA Times.
Revenue = taxes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
