ACORN Housing Boom
As ACORN gears up to use your tax dollars to influence future elections, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is conducting a "massive" probe of ACORN Housing Corp., a source familiar with the ongoing investigation says.
A spokesman for HUD's inspector general refused to confirm or deny whether ACORN Housing was being investigated.
ACORN Housing is essential to ACORN's member recruitment program. The housing affiliate strongly encourages its clients to pay ACORN $120 a year to be part of the class struggle. Many of the ACORN employees Americans saw on the undercover prostitution sting videos last fall are actually ACORN Housing employees. ACORN Housing's website boasts that from 1986 to 2008 it counseled 338,025 clients, and originated 104,867 mortgages worth $15.5 billion.
The HUD probe comes as ACORN Housing, the best-funded of ACORN's affiliates, participates in the ACORN network-wide rebranding aimed at duping funders and the public and allowing ACORN to continue to devour government grants.
Although ACORN is now converting state chapters into new shell corporations operated out of the same old ACORN offices and staffed by many of the same people, ACORN Housing opted simply to change its name.
ACORN's latest public relations ruse may give it an opportunity to take in untold millions of taxpayer dollars under cover of darkness just in time to cause trouble during the 2012 election cycle.
The ruse consists of ACORN's effort to pass off various state chapters as "new" groups supposedly independent of ACORN. In this rebranding charade state chapters are pretending to break away from the national ACORN group and reincorporate themselves as independent organizations.
But ACORN Housing is rebranding itself a little differently. In a marketing-savvy move, ACORN Housing has been rechristened Affordable Housing Centers of America Inc., which allows the entity to continue using AHC as an acronym.
ACORN Housing is a key component of the far-flung ACORN empire of activism which has long used its housing affiliate as a piggy bank -- so it's too important to be allowed to collapse.
Although the congressionally chartered nonprofit NeighborWorks, which serves as a weigh station for HUD grants, is reportedly not setting aside any 2009 funds for ACORN Housing, in 2008 alone it awarded ACORN Housing $25,050,939 in federal funding.(The 2008 grant documents are here, here, and here.)
The $25 million-plus figure for 2008 is more than ACORN Housing took in from the federal government in a 10-year span ending in 2007. In its tax returns ACORN Housing reported taking in $23,965,756 in government funding from 1997 through 2007.
This federal funding is a problem because ACORN Housing funnels funds -- possibly including government funds -- to ACORN and other affiliates in the ACORN network. The network is notorious for its commingling of funds and it has used government resources previously for partisan political activity.
During the Clinton administration ACORN and ACORN Housing used AmeriCorps resources to give partisan speeches and assist the Clinton White House in preparing a press conference in support of legislation.
In 2007, when ACORN Housing reported taking in $5,205,527 from the government, it also made a $119,509 loan to ACORN. The same year it also paid out $496,615 to the shadowy ACORN affiliate Citizens Consulting Inc. (CCI) for "administrative services."
CCI is an essential part of the Louisiana attorney general's current investigation into ACORN. CCI is also where Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, worked while he embezzled $948,000 from ACORN.
Former ACORN officials describe CCI as a vortex into which money disappears never to be seen again. According to Michael McCray, former ACORN member, CCI "is basically the financial nerve center for ACORN and all its entities."
From 2000 to 2006, ACORN Housing also gave $3,803,948 in grants to the American Institute for Social Justice (AISJ), which trains budding young community organizers to go forth and agitate the proletariat. If AISJ used the money for partisan activities, federal law may have been violated.
Meanwhile, ACORN's rebranding effort will make it even more difficult than it is now to hold the left's favorite organized crime syndicate accountable.
Initially it will be a challenge to track the flow of tax dollars to the new ACORN satellites because government grants and grants distributed to sub-grantees are often difficult to trace. It may take up to two years before the newly created entities' IRS form 990s (tax returns), which disclose revenue sources and expenditures, begin to appear in publicly accessible databases such as guidestar.org.
Of course members of the public are legally entitled to appear at the offices of any nonprofit and demand copies of its 990, but brand new nonprofits don't even have to put together the tax return until they have completed their first year in operation. Moreover, many nonprofits are lax in complying with the law and short of organizing an ACORN-style sit-in in their offices to demand to see the 990 forms, the new nonprofits will be able to take their time making the required public disclosures and there will be very little anyone can do about it.
In other words, the fraudsters at ACORN may have a two-year window of opportunity to take in government money before the public finds out about it. It's probably too late for the newborn spawn of ACORN to take in much government money before this year's congressional elections, but it will have plenty of time to seek out grants before the 2012 presidential election.
ACORN is engaging in the current rebranding subterfuge because it needs the money. ACORN feels rebranding, which allows ACORN to keep tax dollars and foundation grants flowing into its coffers, is necessary because adverse publicity has dried up its revenue streams. Much of the bad ink ACORN got came as a result of the hidden camera videos last fall that showed ACORN employees helping activists who claimed they were planning to set up a brothel staffed by underage illegal aliens. The public backlash forced Congress to cut off funding to ACORN and its affiliates and scared away many high-dollar donors.
ACORN is now manufacturing new nonprofits that it falsely claims are not connected to it. Four dummy nonprofit corporations have emerged from the rebranding process so far this year.
They are Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, New York Communities for Change, New England United for Justice (Massachusetts), and Arkansas Community Organizations. All four groups operate out of ACORN offices and are run by ACORN staffers. The president of New England United for Justice, Maude Hurd, just happens to be the 20-year national president of ACORN, as the new group's articles of incorporation show.
For decades ACORN has maintained tight control over its supposedly independent network of affiliates through interlocking directorates and massive intra-network financial transfers. There is every indication it plans to use the same top-down management techniques under the new organizational arrangement.
ACORN veteran Marcel Reid, who also heads a reform group called ACORN 8, told me in an interview that she doesn't believe ACORN's recent claims that the breakaway groups aren't being controlled by ACORN.
"The folding of ACORN isn't happening because it's simply going to restructure," she said. "In the meantime they'll give all of these new community organizations in the states an opportunity to flourish without ACORN's legal baggage."
Reid is a whistleblower who was expelled from ACORN's national board in 2008 for asking too many uncomfortable questions about a million-dollar embezzlement perpetrated around 2000 by the brother of ACORN's founder and covered up by management for eight years.
A leaked email now posted at BigGovernment.com from ACORN's online director confirms Reid's fears. It indicates the national group will probably run out of money and shut down by year's end.
In coming days a dozen ACORN state chapters will change their names in an effort to trick the public into believing ACORN has dissolved, writes Nathan Henderson-James, director of ACORN's online campaigns.
In the email Henderson-James explains the sleight-of-hand ACORN will use to lead Americans to believe ACORN is breaking apart.
"It is definitely true that over the next week or so we should see a dozen or more organizations launched on the state level by staff who used to work for ACORN and leaders who developed their skills as ACORN members. These are not just simple name changes, but reimaginings of how best to organize low and moderate income constitiuencies [sic] without any of the legal problems and funding issues dogging ACORN, not to mention the brand damage."
It is a "tactically smart…reaction to the global situation that helps the work of building power for poor people to continue," writes Henderson-James, an ACORN employee since 1997.
"The truth is that it is hard for us to forsee [sic] any scenario where ACORN continues beyond the end of 2010 and some of us think it might not last that long," he writes in an apparently authentic Feb. 22 message. "Last one to leave turn out the lights and wipe the server," he writes at the end of the message.
The message from Henderson-James was forwarded to me by various sources who obtained it from the Google listserv "Townhouse." According to Salon.com, Townhouse is an invitation-only discussion forum run by Matt Stoller, senior policy advisor to progressive hero Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.).
My sources advise me that the hundreds of high-level Democratic operatives, liberal activists, and journalists who subscribe to the listserv are furious that the Henderson-James email was leaked to a conservative media outlet. Listserv members are said to be angrily accusing each other of being the leakers.
This breach of security could be the end for Townhouse, one of the members reportedly said.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
See my previous posting about Gita Sahgal and the evil NGO's
Salman Rushdie has done something good — and I don’t mean a new novel. He has spoken up for Gita Sahgal and against Amnesty International. Who is Sahgal? She is an official of Amnesty International who has now been suspended. She had opposed, publicly, an alliance between Amnesty and a man named Moazzam Begg. He is a former Guantanamo detainee who has a group called Cageprisoners. He is a major supporter of the Taliban — in fact, an Islamist. His shtick, apparently, is that terror detainees and their ilk are human-rights victims. Sahgal finds it all obscene, and so do others.
...for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes
New accomplishments for the Obama administration every day:
The so-called "Great Recession" has left Americans depending on the government dole like never before.
Without record levels of welfare, unemployment and other government benefits as well as tax cuts last year, the income of U.S. households would have plunged by an astonishing $723 billion — more than four times the record $167 billion drop reported last month by the Commerce Department.
Moreover, for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes.
The figures show the devastating results of the massive job losses last year and indicate that the economic recovery that began last summer is tenuous and has a long way to go before many Americans resume life as normal, analysts said.
Economic growth typically depends on consumer spending, which is fed by wages, rents, interest and other forms of income. But the tentative revival of consumer spending in the second half of last year appears to have been fed largely by an extraordinary flood of government spending, as growth in other kinds of income has disappeared.
"Governmental support was critical in keeping the economy, particularly consumer spending, from completely collapsing during the crisis," said Harm Bandholz, an economist at Unicredit Markets. He said he is concerned that so much of the economic rebound is a result of government spending rather than a revival of private income and jobs. That situation is unsustainable, he said, because the government has had to borrow massively to prop up the economy and cannot continue that binge for long.
While wages and other job-related income fell by a record $206 billion last year to $7.84 trillion, transfer payments from the government such as unemployment checks and Social Security burgeoned by $231 billion to $2.1 trillion. Meanwhile, the amount of taxes that individual Americans paid plummeted by $325 billion to $2.1 trillion as a result of middle-class tax cuts and because nearly 6 million people were thrown out of work and are no longer paying payroll taxes.
Commerce economists said last year's unprecedented drop of $256 billion in private wages — the mainstay of consumers in ordinary times — was particularly dramatic, and was more than 40 times larger than the drop in wages during the entire 2001 recession.
Equally dramatic, a measure of income that closely tracks the ravages of the recession also plummeted by an unprecedented $384 billion. That measure excludes transfer payments and adjusts for inflation. It has stabilized at $9.1 trillion since the middle of last year, in a sign that the worst of the job and income losses are over.
While most of the government benefits — including Social Security, welfare, Medicaid, food stamps and regular unemployment benefits — are sent automatically to those who qualify, Congress is debating an extension of some benefits enacted as part of the stimulus package last year. Those include jobless benefits and health insurance subsidies for the unemployed.
It's an Insult to Germany For Israel Not To Release Murdrers of Jews?
Der Spiegel has an unbelievable headline, "An Israeli Affront Against Germany". Check out what Der Spiegel considers an affront:
So because Israel has not released scores of murderous terrorists, that frustrated the German negotiator. He got even more frustrated when the Israelis killed a murderer. So friggin what? I don't think Israel has the responsibility to make anyone happy other than their own people. And certainly not German negotiators.The Mossad operation is a particular affront to the Germans. Since last summer, current BND head Ernst Uhrlau has been acting at the behest of the Israeli government as a liaison between Jerusalem and Hamas. He sought the release of roughly a thousand Palestinian prisoners held by the Israelis and, in return, Hamas was to set free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was abducted by Palestinian militants in 2006.
The BND official was in Israel just a few days before Jan. 19 to discuss the next steps in the negotiations. By then the hit squad must have been already on its way to Dubai.
The BND negotiator also returned to the region following the murder in Dubai, but neither before nor after the assassination did his colleagues in Israeli intelligence brief him on their risky plot.
This marks the second time that the Germans have been snubbed. In late December, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected at the last moment a detailed agreement that his negotiator Hagai Hadas had hammered out with Hamas via the German intelligence agency. BND head Uhrlau has admitted internally that he currently sees no chance of reaching an agreement in the Shalit case.
This sentiment was also echoed by Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar. He said it's impossible to make an agreement with the infidels, and cited a line from the second Surah of the Koran: "Is it not so that every time they made a promise, some of them cast it aside?"
Zahar said it had been difficult to convince Khalid Mashaal, the exiled political leader of Hamas in Damascus, Syria, to approve the deal. Netanyahu's subsequent rejection seriously damaged his reputation within Hamas, says Zahar. "I have suffered a lot internally," he adds. "I am not ready to negotiate anymore."
Democrat corruption hidden for political gain
Walpin update: New charges of political motive in IG firing; prosecutor who aided Obama ally sought job from Obama
By: Byron York
One of the mysteries of President Obama's abrupt June 2009 firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin concerns the dispute at the bottom of it all: Walpin's aggressive investigation of the misuse of AmeriCorps dollars by Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, California and an Obama political ally. Johnson was accused of misusing federal grants for St. HOPE, the nonprofit educational organization he founded. Walpin found that Johnson and St. HOPE had failed to use the federal money for the purposes specified in their grant, and had also used federally-funded AmeriCorps staff for, among other things, "driving [Johnson] to personal appointments, washing his car, and running personal errands." Walpin's investigation led to Johnson being banned from receiving any more federal dollars.
But then the acting United States Attorney in Sacramento, Lawrence Brown, came to Johnson's aid. Brown made a deal with Johnson, cut Walpin out of the process, helped lift the ban on Johnson receiving federal money, and then attacked Walpin, filing an ethics complaint against him. Without Brown's actions, it's possible that Walpin's investigation might have led to significantly more trouble for Johnson.
What was going on? We now have some new clues. Republican investigators for the Senate Finance Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have released a supplement to the 62-page report on the Walpin case they filed last November, and it shows that, at the same time he was blocking Walpin, Brown was seeking an appointment from the Obama White House as the permanent U.S. Attorney. In other words, when Brown let Obama ally Kevin Johnson off the hook, he was hoping to get a job from the Obama White House.
In a January 5, 2009 letter to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Brown's home-state senator and a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Brown wrote, "I write to express my interest in appointment as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California" -- a presidentially-appointed position. In the letter, Brown took care to highlight his Democratic credentials. "As this is a political appointment," Brown wrote:
I will note that for the past two years, I have been registered as Decline to State. From 1988-2007, I was a registered Democrat and from 1982-1988, a Republican. As may be evident, I am not a rigid ideologue and discovered that I simply did not fit neatly within either party. I chose to ultimately become an independent because I felt that in my line of work, namely the administration of justice, neither party has a monopoly and its handiwork must be performed in non-partisan fashion. I count myself in the ranks of those who have grown weary of the overly-simplistic "red state/blue state" debates over complex issues and enthusiastically embrace President-elect Obama's call to abandon such labels and become the united states [sic] of America.
The Republican report says that Brown's letter "raises new questions about his potential motivations. It would be reasonable for an already skeptical public to wonder whether Brown excluded Inspector General Walpin from negotiations and settled the St. HOPE matter with Johnson in order to curry favor with the White House because Brown wanted the president to appoint him U.S. Attorney."
The investigators also discovered emails between Brown and Matthew Jacobs, who was Kevin Johnson's attorney. The Johnson camp was obviously unhappy with Walpin's investigation, and the report cites emails showing Brown apparently agreeing with Jacobs' complaints.
On March 24, 2009, Jacobs wrote an email to Brown which Jacobs headlined, "Reasons You Should Either (1) Call out Walpin Publicly, or (2) Tell Him to Take His Case Back Home." "Larry, I expressed my outrage over Walpin's letter to the editor to Ken, who I'm sure has communicated it to you," Jacobs told Brown, "but that did not have the fully cathartic effect I desired, so I must try another tack." Jacobs then launched into a series of complaints about Walpin's investigation ending with "WTF is wrong with this guy! First, he tried to effect [sic] the election; now he's messing around with the entire region's federal funding! Over this case?!" Jacobs urged Brown "to stand up and say this isn't right."
Less than ten minutes later, Brown responded: "Message heard loud and clear, Matt. I am at a complete loss and do in fact plan to speak to Gerald." The next day, Brown wrote to Jacobs again: "Off the record, as they say, I have spoken w/Mr. Walpin this morning and expressed my views in no uncertain terms. I am not going to get into details of what was said."
Brown later wrote a long and accusatory complaint against Walpin to an organization called the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE). He accused Walpin of conducting a biased investigation and seeking "to act as the investigator, advocate, judge, jury and town crier." When Walpin was fired, the White House cited Brown's complaint to CIGIE as proof of problems with Walpin's investigation. "The Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California, a career prosecutor who was appointed to his post during the Bush Administration, has referred Mr. Walpin’s conduct for review by the Integrity Committee of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE)," then-White House counsel Gregory Craig wrote in a June 2009 letter to Republican Sen. Charles Grassley. "We are aware of the circumstances leading to that referral and of Mr. Walpin’s conduct throughout his tenure and can assure you that that the President’s decision was carefully considered."
Walpin was later cleared of all the charges against him. In the end, Brown did not get the U.S. Attorney job. He is now a judge on the Sacramento Superior Court.
The new report concludes that, "In light of these emails, it now appears that Brown was actually parroting to CIGIE supposed grievances first presented to him by Kevin Johnson's attorney&hellip.Together with his efforts to obtain a political appointment from the president, Brown's communications with Johnson's attorney contribute to the appearance that Walpin's removal was more about his vigorous pursuit of the St. HOPE matter than about any other legitimate, unrelated factors."
By: Byron York
One of the mysteries of President Obama's abrupt June 2009 firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin concerns the dispute at the bottom of it all: Walpin's aggressive investigation of the misuse of AmeriCorps dollars by Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, California and an Obama political ally. Johnson was accused of misusing federal grants for St. HOPE, the nonprofit educational organization he founded. Walpin found that Johnson and St. HOPE had failed to use the federal money for the purposes specified in their grant, and had also used federally-funded AmeriCorps staff for, among other things, "driving [Johnson] to personal appointments, washing his car, and running personal errands." Walpin's investigation led to Johnson being banned from receiving any more federal dollars.
But then the acting United States Attorney in Sacramento, Lawrence Brown, came to Johnson's aid. Brown made a deal with Johnson, cut Walpin out of the process, helped lift the ban on Johnson receiving federal money, and then attacked Walpin, filing an ethics complaint against him. Without Brown's actions, it's possible that Walpin's investigation might have led to significantly more trouble for Johnson.
What was going on? We now have some new clues. Republican investigators for the Senate Finance Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have released a supplement to the 62-page report on the Walpin case they filed last November, and it shows that, at the same time he was blocking Walpin, Brown was seeking an appointment from the Obama White House as the permanent U.S. Attorney. In other words, when Brown let Obama ally Kevin Johnson off the hook, he was hoping to get a job from the Obama White House.
In a January 5, 2009 letter to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Brown's home-state senator and a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Brown wrote, "I write to express my interest in appointment as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California" -- a presidentially-appointed position. In the letter, Brown took care to highlight his Democratic credentials. "As this is a political appointment," Brown wrote:
I will note that for the past two years, I have been registered as Decline to State. From 1988-2007, I was a registered Democrat and from 1982-1988, a Republican. As may be evident, I am not a rigid ideologue and discovered that I simply did not fit neatly within either party. I chose to ultimately become an independent because I felt that in my line of work, namely the administration of justice, neither party has a monopoly and its handiwork must be performed in non-partisan fashion. I count myself in the ranks of those who have grown weary of the overly-simplistic "red state/blue state" debates over complex issues and enthusiastically embrace President-elect Obama's call to abandon such labels and become the united states [sic] of America.
The Republican report says that Brown's letter "raises new questions about his potential motivations. It would be reasonable for an already skeptical public to wonder whether Brown excluded Inspector General Walpin from negotiations and settled the St. HOPE matter with Johnson in order to curry favor with the White House because Brown wanted the president to appoint him U.S. Attorney."
The investigators also discovered emails between Brown and Matthew Jacobs, who was Kevin Johnson's attorney. The Johnson camp was obviously unhappy with Walpin's investigation, and the report cites emails showing Brown apparently agreeing with Jacobs' complaints.
On March 24, 2009, Jacobs wrote an email to Brown which Jacobs headlined, "Reasons You Should Either (1) Call out Walpin Publicly, or (2) Tell Him to Take His Case Back Home." "Larry, I expressed my outrage over Walpin's letter to the editor to Ken, who I'm sure has communicated it to you," Jacobs told Brown, "but that did not have the fully cathartic effect I desired, so I must try another tack." Jacobs then launched into a series of complaints about Walpin's investigation ending with "WTF is wrong with this guy! First, he tried to effect [sic] the election; now he's messing around with the entire region's federal funding! Over this case?!" Jacobs urged Brown "to stand up and say this isn't right."
Less than ten minutes later, Brown responded: "Message heard loud and clear, Matt. I am at a complete loss and do in fact plan to speak to Gerald." The next day, Brown wrote to Jacobs again: "Off the record, as they say, I have spoken w/Mr. Walpin this morning and expressed my views in no uncertain terms. I am not going to get into details of what was said."
Brown later wrote a long and accusatory complaint against Walpin to an organization called the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE). He accused Walpin of conducting a biased investigation and seeking "to act as the investigator, advocate, judge, jury and town crier." When Walpin was fired, the White House cited Brown's complaint to CIGIE as proof of problems with Walpin's investigation. "The Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California, a career prosecutor who was appointed to his post during the Bush Administration, has referred Mr. Walpin’s conduct for review by the Integrity Committee of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE)," then-White House counsel Gregory Craig wrote in a June 2009 letter to Republican Sen. Charles Grassley. "We are aware of the circumstances leading to that referral and of Mr. Walpin’s conduct throughout his tenure and can assure you that that the President’s decision was carefully considered."
Walpin was later cleared of all the charges against him. In the end, Brown did not get the U.S. Attorney job. He is now a judge on the Sacramento Superior Court.
The new report concludes that, "In light of these emails, it now appears that Brown was actually parroting to CIGIE supposed grievances first presented to him by Kevin Johnson's attorney&hellip.Together with his efforts to obtain a political appointment from the president, Brown's communications with Johnson's attorney contribute to the appearance that Walpin's removal was more about his vigorous pursuit of the St. HOPE matter than about any other legitimate, unrelated factors."
Spend Now, Pay Later
Irwin Stelzer explains the official Obama economic policy:
Now I don't think there's much government can do to create jobs except get out of the way, so I'm not looking for some huge "job creation" bill to replace the trillion+ healthcare bill, I want to see both dropped and actual pro-growth policies such as reduced regulations, corporate and capital gains tax cuts, accelerated depreciation, allowing corporations to repatriate foreign capital without enormous taxes, etc... but this administration will implement those when pigs fly. The curreent policy of unfettered spending and money creation can only lead to disaster.
“WATCH what we do, not what we say,” President Richard Nixon’s attorney-general told the press. Unfortunately for both men, the press eventually did that, and we got the first of the “gates” — Watergate. The consequences for President Barack Obama of watching what he does rather than what he says will be less dire, but nevertheless revealing.
Americans overwhelmingly say their main concern is jobs, and that they are satisfied with their present healthcare arrangements. In response, an allegedly chastened Obama “pivoted”, and said his primary concern from now on will be job creation, which will take priority over his controversial plan to radically change the nation’s healthcare system.
Yet last week he backed a $15 billion job-creation bill, which passed the Senate, and a $1 trillion healthcare bill. Since the federal balance sheet is already under huge pressure, this set of priorities tells us that the Obama administration intends to concentrate its resources on transforming the economy — a permanent restructuring of the healthcare and energy sectors that was planned long before the failure of Lehman Brothers triggered the financial mess Obama inherited.
Not that the president will try to rein in stimulus spending: more is in the pipeline. Which is why Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Board chairman, warned Congress last week that, although it is too soon to turn off stimulus spending, it must address the structural deficit — the red ink that will continue to flow even when the economy has recovered. Bernanke said that structural deficit will run somewhere between 4% and 7% of GDP, well above the sustainable level of 2.5%-3% or less. He also said that if Congress and the president don’t soon plan to attack the structural deficit, the market might decide that enough is enough, and interest rates would rise.
Investors are watching not only the size of the federal deficit, but of state deficits as well, since they are guessing that in the end the federal government will not allow state governments to go bust. Instead, if the states can’t satisfy their creditors, the federal government will take their $146 billion of debts on to its own balance sheet, raising its deficit to 11.6% of GDP. And that doesn’t count the $1,000 billion funding gap in state pension reserves.
But austerity is for later. Now, policymakers and politicians worry that the economic recovery is showing signs of weakness. New home sales fell in January to an all-time low annual rate of 309,000 units. Mortgage applications plummeted. The number of loan payments overdue by at least 30 days is the second highest on record. In short, the important housing sector is still struggling.
Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, doesn’t see the American economy hitting its full stride until 2013. Bernanke is predicting “low rates of resource utilisation” — econospeak for high unemployment and idle factories — and “an increasing incidence of long-term unemployment” for some time to come. And he worries that duff commercial property loans will bring down more small and medium-sized banks. The number of banks on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s “problem” list stood at 702 at the end of last year, up from 252 a year earlier.
Given news of this sort, it should come as no surprise that consumer confidence is plunging — it is at its lowest level in 27 years. Add to this banks that don’t want to lend, businesses that are reluctant to hire, and an anti-business government, and there is reason enough for worry. Obama spent part of last week trying to reassure business leaders that he is not a socialist and that his plans to raise taxes on foreign earnings, on banks, on “the wealthy” were merely a rebalancing of inequities introduced by his predecessor. One top White House economist tells me that he spends a lot of energy damping down the president’s anti-business rhetoric.
Any hope for an export-led recovery seems to be receding as European growth stalls, several countries are being forced to impose austerity programmes, and turmoil in the market for sovereign debt drives interest rates higher. Even China, long seen as a huge potential market for American products, is reining in credit to cool the economy, and persists with policies that discourage imports.
All of this has produced an important change in policies. Scrooge has become Lady Bountiful: the International Monetary Fund, long famous for prescribing austerity as the medicine for ailing economies, now warns that it is too soon to start cutting budget deficits. Bernanke more or less agrees, although he wants America to begin formulating plans to reduce the structural deficit once anti-recession spending winds down. This is music to the ears of such as Obama and Gordon Brown, both presiding over enormous deficits, both facing elections (congressional in the US, a general election in the UK), both unwilling to cut spending just yet.
The rating agencies and investors in sovereign debt are less enchanted with the newly blessed profligacy, and it may well be that in the end the bond markets will dictate policy by forcing up interest rates to growth-stifling levels unless the government cuts its deficit. Recall that one of President Bill Clinton’s advisers, frustrated at his inability to get his spending programmes adopted, lamented: “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the Pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”
For now, it is safe to assume that the government will keep on spending, deficits will continue rising, and the Fed will keep interest rates low. That delicious cocktail of loose fiscal policy — Congress is busily drafting more stimulus bills as you read this — and easy monetary policy will, Bernanke said, produce growth of 3%-3.5% this year, and 4% next year. With little inflation. It’s rather like the old airline slogan: “Fly now, pay later”.
Now I don't think there's much government can do to create jobs except get out of the way, so I'm not looking for some huge "job creation" bill to replace the trillion+ healthcare bill, I want to see both dropped and actual pro-growth policies such as reduced regulations, corporate and capital gains tax cuts, accelerated depreciation, allowing corporations to repatriate foreign capital without enormous taxes, etc... but this administration will implement those when pigs fly. The curreent policy of unfettered spending and money creation can only lead to disaster.
Another racist charge debunked
Student: Noose in UCSD library a ‘stupid mistake’
By Steve Schmidt, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 12:02 a.m.
LA JOLLA — In an anonymous letter circulated on campus yesterday, the University of California San Diego student who hung a noose in the school library last week apologized for what she called a “mindless act and stupid mistake.
“I know what I did was offensive — regardless of my intentions — I am just trying to say I’m sorry,” read the letter, which was published in the student newspaper, the UCSD Guardian. “As a minority student who sympathizes with the students that have been affected by the recent issues on campus, I am distraught to know that I have unintentionally added to their pain.”
The 10-paragraph letter was unsigned. In a note to readers, the newspaper said it had “verified the author’s authenticity.” Campus authorities said details in the letter are consistent with what they know about the incident, which was reported late Thursday.
Authorities would not provide the student’s ethnicity or any other details about her, saying it might compromise their investigation into the incident.
The student, who came forward on Friday, was suspended from UCSD after claiming responsibility for hanging the noose on the seventh floor of the Geisel Library. She may also face criminal charges.
The incident — the third in a rash of race-related events linked to UCSD — sparked a protracted demonstration Friday that led to a student takeover of Chancellor Marye Anne Fox’s office for several hours.
Students and administrators throughout the UC system continued to discuss the state of race relations on campus yesterday, and there are plans for a community forum tomorrow in San Diego.
The student claims in her letter that she and her friends were playing with a rope when one of them tied it into a noose.
“I innocently marveled at his ability to tie a noose, without thinking of any of its connotations or the current racial climate at UCSD. I left soon after with one of my friends for Geisel to study, still carrying the rope,” she writes. “After a bit of studying I picked up the rope to play with, and ended up hanging it by my desk. It was a mindless act and stupid mistake. When I got up to leave, a couple hours later, I simply forgot about it.”
The student said the rope was left in the library last Tuesday. It was not reported to campus police until 10:30 p.m. Thursday.
Before learning that the student had stepped forward, Fox called the incident a “dastardly” event that marked a “dark day in the history of this university.”
Outrage over the noose came on the heels of two other racially charged incidents — a recent off-campus student party that mocked Black History Month and a show on a student-run TV station that backed the party and was laced with intentionally provocative and derogatory language directed at African-American students.
In response to the fallout from the incidents, Fox and her executive staff met with members of the campus Black Student Union for several hours yesterday as they continued their dialogue over how to attract and retain more African-American, Latino and other students that are not well-represented on campus. African-American students make up 2 percent of the UCSD undergraduate population. Around midday, Fox said the talks were going “quite well.”
Similar talks unfolded in Sacramento, where UC President Mark Yudof and UC Board of Regents Chairman Russell Gould met with students yesterday to discuss ways to combat intolerance. Yudof decried the UCSD incidents, along with similar recent incidents at UC Irvine and UC Davis.
“These are the worst incidents of racism I have seen on campuses in 20 years,” Yudof told about 100 students who were staging a sit-in. “I understand that students don’t feel safe; they don’t feel comfortable on their campuses.”
Black student leaders and others believe the events are indicative of a university system that doesn’t do enough to help blacks, Latinos and others who are outnumbered and say they feel unwelcome on campuses.
By Steve Schmidt, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 12:02 a.m.
LA JOLLA — In an anonymous letter circulated on campus yesterday, the University of California San Diego student who hung a noose in the school library last week apologized for what she called a “mindless act and stupid mistake.
“I know what I did was offensive — regardless of my intentions — I am just trying to say I’m sorry,” read the letter, which was published in the student newspaper, the UCSD Guardian. “As a minority student who sympathizes with the students that have been affected by the recent issues on campus, I am distraught to know that I have unintentionally added to their pain.”
The 10-paragraph letter was unsigned. In a note to readers, the newspaper said it had “verified the author’s authenticity.” Campus authorities said details in the letter are consistent with what they know about the incident, which was reported late Thursday.
Authorities would not provide the student’s ethnicity or any other details about her, saying it might compromise their investigation into the incident.
The student, who came forward on Friday, was suspended from UCSD after claiming responsibility for hanging the noose on the seventh floor of the Geisel Library. She may also face criminal charges.
The incident — the third in a rash of race-related events linked to UCSD — sparked a protracted demonstration Friday that led to a student takeover of Chancellor Marye Anne Fox’s office for several hours.
Students and administrators throughout the UC system continued to discuss the state of race relations on campus yesterday, and there are plans for a community forum tomorrow in San Diego.
The student claims in her letter that she and her friends were playing with a rope when one of them tied it into a noose.
“I innocently marveled at his ability to tie a noose, without thinking of any of its connotations or the current racial climate at UCSD. I left soon after with one of my friends for Geisel to study, still carrying the rope,” she writes. “After a bit of studying I picked up the rope to play with, and ended up hanging it by my desk. It was a mindless act and stupid mistake. When I got up to leave, a couple hours later, I simply forgot about it.”
The student said the rope was left in the library last Tuesday. It was not reported to campus police until 10:30 p.m. Thursday.
Before learning that the student had stepped forward, Fox called the incident a “dastardly” event that marked a “dark day in the history of this university.”
Outrage over the noose came on the heels of two other racially charged incidents — a recent off-campus student party that mocked Black History Month and a show on a student-run TV station that backed the party and was laced with intentionally provocative and derogatory language directed at African-American students.
In response to the fallout from the incidents, Fox and her executive staff met with members of the campus Black Student Union for several hours yesterday as they continued their dialogue over how to attract and retain more African-American, Latino and other students that are not well-represented on campus. African-American students make up 2 percent of the UCSD undergraduate population. Around midday, Fox said the talks were going “quite well.”
Similar talks unfolded in Sacramento, where UC President Mark Yudof and UC Board of Regents Chairman Russell Gould met with students yesterday to discuss ways to combat intolerance. Yudof decried the UCSD incidents, along with similar recent incidents at UC Irvine and UC Davis.
“These are the worst incidents of racism I have seen on campuses in 20 years,” Yudof told about 100 students who were staging a sit-in. “I understand that students don’t feel safe; they don’t feel comfortable on their campuses.”
Black student leaders and others believe the events are indicative of a university system that doesn’t do enough to help blacks, Latinos and others who are outnumbered and say they feel unwelcome on campuses.
Your tax dollars at work...
http://biggovernment.com/jhoft/2010/03/02/upward-bound-is-down-radical-sexual-indoctrination-of-kids-is-in/
Recently the Obama Administration cut funding to Upward Bound, a successful educational program with a proven track record. Upward Bound provides support to participating students in their preparation for college entrance. Upward Bound serves high school students from low-income families and high school students from families in which neither parent holds a bachelor’s degree. 95% of Upward Bound graduates have entered post-secondary education and are four times more likely to earn a college degree than students from similar back-grounds who do not participate in the program. The Obama Administration will cut funding for this successful educational program.
Radical Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings will get a fat raise in funding this year.
At the same time, despite the runaway federal spending and record budget deficits, Barack Obama is including $410 million in the 2011 budget for his “safe schools” czar Kevin Jennings. This is an increase of $45 million over last year’s budget. Obviously, some things are more important than others. These funds ought to buy a whole mess of fisting kits, leather bar guides and child porn books. And, the money will come in handy for the sexual indoctrination of teens and pre-teens.Citizen Link Blog reported:
So want does Jennings intend to do with this money?
For starters, he says he’s going to make “school climate” measurement a top priority—and, in fact, he’d love for “school climate” to eventually be made part of the “Common Core” national standards movement! He plans to begin with “a new grant program coming out of this department where we’ll be providing possibly as much as $70 million for investments in school climate projects.” (He revealed all this and much more in this month’s Phi Delta Kappan magazine. Scroll down to the “Safe at School” title.)
So at this point, you might be wondering, What on earth does “school climate” really mean? I think it’s best to take that definition from Kevin Jennings–based on his record as the longtime founder and leader of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network).
Under Jennings’ leadership, GLSEN has provided students with a “school climate” continuum measurement tool. This tool reveals a lot about Jennings’ true goals: A positively rated “inclusive school,” for instance, is defined as one where “LGBT themes are fully integrated into curricula across a variety of subject areas and grade levels.”
I.e., Jennings and GLSEN want homosexual, bisexual and transgender themes taught in every subject at every grade, all the way down to the kindergarten level, maybe even preschool.
In other words Jennings will be using millions of taxpayer dollars to promote “inclusive schools” where LGBT themes are fully integrated across a variety of subject areas and grade levels. This may appear innocent enough until you take a closer look at the radical GLSEN agenda.
Kevin Jennings, the founder of the GLSEN organization, has a long history of promoting sexual material in classrooms including books that describe sex between first graders and books that promote S&M. The GLSEN group also pushes books that romanticize child rape and books that show men having sex with boy scouts in the background. Jennings’ GLSEN group also organized student-teacher seminars where instructors held fisting lectures. He sounds like just the person who deserves a fat $45 million raise, huh?
Recently the Obama Administration cut funding to Upward Bound, a successful educational program with a proven track record. Upward Bound provides support to participating students in their preparation for college entrance. Upward Bound serves high school students from low-income families and high school students from families in which neither parent holds a bachelor’s degree. 95% of Upward Bound graduates have entered post-secondary education and are four times more likely to earn a college degree than students from similar back-grounds who do not participate in the program. The Obama Administration will cut funding for this successful educational program.
Radical Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings will get a fat raise in funding this year.
At the same time, despite the runaway federal spending and record budget deficits, Barack Obama is including $410 million in the 2011 budget for his “safe schools” czar Kevin Jennings. This is an increase of $45 million over last year’s budget. Obviously, some things are more important than others. These funds ought to buy a whole mess of fisting kits, leather bar guides and child porn books. And, the money will come in handy for the sexual indoctrination of teens and pre-teens.Citizen Link Blog reported:
So want does Jennings intend to do with this money?
For starters, he says he’s going to make “school climate” measurement a top priority—and, in fact, he’d love for “school climate” to eventually be made part of the “Common Core” national standards movement! He plans to begin with “a new grant program coming out of this department where we’ll be providing possibly as much as $70 million for investments in school climate projects.” (He revealed all this and much more in this month’s Phi Delta Kappan magazine. Scroll down to the “Safe at School” title.)
So at this point, you might be wondering, What on earth does “school climate” really mean? I think it’s best to take that definition from Kevin Jennings–based on his record as the longtime founder and leader of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network).
Under Jennings’ leadership, GLSEN has provided students with a “school climate” continuum measurement tool. This tool reveals a lot about Jennings’ true goals: A positively rated “inclusive school,” for instance, is defined as one where “LGBT themes are fully integrated into curricula across a variety of subject areas and grade levels.”
I.e., Jennings and GLSEN want homosexual, bisexual and transgender themes taught in every subject at every grade, all the way down to the kindergarten level, maybe even preschool.
In other words Jennings will be using millions of taxpayer dollars to promote “inclusive schools” where LGBT themes are fully integrated across a variety of subject areas and grade levels. This may appear innocent enough until you take a closer look at the radical GLSEN agenda.
Kevin Jennings, the founder of the GLSEN organization, has a long history of promoting sexual material in classrooms including books that describe sex between first graders and books that promote S&M. The GLSEN group also pushes books that romanticize child rape and books that show men having sex with boy scouts in the background. Jennings’ GLSEN group also organized student-teacher seminars where instructors held fisting lectures. He sounds like just the person who deserves a fat $45 million raise, huh?
Global warming
Head of 'Climategate' research unit admits sending 'pretty awful emails' to hide data
By David DerbyshireLast updated at 8:34 AM on 02nd March 2010
Scientists at the heart of the Climategate row were yesterday accused by a leading academic body of undermining science's credibility.
The Institute of Physics said 'worrying implications' had been raised after it was revealed the University of East Anglia had manipulated data on global warming.
The rebuke - the strongest yet from the scientific community - came as Professor Phil Jones, the researcher at the heart of the scandal, told MPs he had written 'some pretty awful emails' - but denied trying to suppress data.
On the spot: Professor Phil Jones being grilled by the Science and Technology committee in the Commons yesterday
The Climategate row, which was first revealed by the Daily Mail in November, was triggered when a hacker stole hundreds of emails sent from East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.
They revealed scientists plotting how to avoid responding to Freedom of Information requests from climate change sceptics.
Some even appeared to show the researchers discussing how to manipulate raw data from tree rings about historical temperatures.
In one, Professor Jones talks about using a 'trick' to massage figures and 'hide the decline'.
Giving evidence to a Science and Technology Committee inquiry, the Institute of Physics said: 'Unless the disclosed emails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research and for the credibility of the scientific method.
'The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital.'
Last month, the Information Commissioner ruled the CRU had broken Freedom of Information rules by refusing to hand over raw data.
But yesterday Professor Jones - in his first public appearance since the scandal broke - denied manipulating the figures.
Looking pale and clasping his shaking hands in front of him, he told MPs: 'I have obviously written some pretty awful emails.'
He admitted withholding data about global temperatures but said the information was publicly available from American websites.
And he claimed it was not 'standard practice' to release data and computer models so other scientists could check and challenge research.
'I don't think there is anything in those emails that really supports any view that I, or the CRU, have been trying to pervert the peer review process in any way,' he said.
Professor Jones, who was forced to stand down as head of the CRU last year, also insisted the scientific findings on climate change were robust.
"In their words: "Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?" - Maurice Strong, former Secretary General of UNEP "A New World Order is required to deal with the Climate Change crisis." - Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister "No matter if the science of global warming is all phony... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world." - Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment "The data doesn't matter. We're not basing our recommendations on the data. We're basing them on the climate models." - Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research "It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true." - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace "Unless we announce disasters no one will listen." - Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC
- David, UK, 02/3/2010 12:13"
By David DerbyshireLast updated at 8:34 AM on 02nd March 2010
Scientists at the heart of the Climategate row were yesterday accused by a leading academic body of undermining science's credibility.
The Institute of Physics said 'worrying implications' had been raised after it was revealed the University of East Anglia had manipulated data on global warming.
The rebuke - the strongest yet from the scientific community - came as Professor Phil Jones, the researcher at the heart of the scandal, told MPs he had written 'some pretty awful emails' - but denied trying to suppress data.
On the spot: Professor Phil Jones being grilled by the Science and Technology committee in the Commons yesterday
The Climategate row, which was first revealed by the Daily Mail in November, was triggered when a hacker stole hundreds of emails sent from East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.
They revealed scientists plotting how to avoid responding to Freedom of Information requests from climate change sceptics.
Some even appeared to show the researchers discussing how to manipulate raw data from tree rings about historical temperatures.
In one, Professor Jones talks about using a 'trick' to massage figures and 'hide the decline'.
Giving evidence to a Science and Technology Committee inquiry, the Institute of Physics said: 'Unless the disclosed emails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research and for the credibility of the scientific method.
'The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital.'
Last month, the Information Commissioner ruled the CRU had broken Freedom of Information rules by refusing to hand over raw data.
But yesterday Professor Jones - in his first public appearance since the scandal broke - denied manipulating the figures.
Looking pale and clasping his shaking hands in front of him, he told MPs: 'I have obviously written some pretty awful emails.'
He admitted withholding data about global temperatures but said the information was publicly available from American websites.
And he claimed it was not 'standard practice' to release data and computer models so other scientists could check and challenge research.
'I don't think there is anything in those emails that really supports any view that I, or the CRU, have been trying to pervert the peer review process in any way,' he said.
Professor Jones, who was forced to stand down as head of the CRU last year, also insisted the scientific findings on climate change were robust.
"In their words: "Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?" - Maurice Strong, former Secretary General of UNEP "A New World Order is required to deal with the Climate Change crisis." - Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister "No matter if the science of global warming is all phony... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world." - Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment "The data doesn't matter. We're not basing our recommendations on the data. We're basing them on the climate models." - Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research "It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true." - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace "Unless we announce disasters no one will listen." - Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC
- David, UK, 02/3/2010 12:13"
Obama Betrays Israel, Again
Looks like they have hit the break on Iran sanctions, now "several months" away:
Washington eased the threat of harsh sanctions hanging over Iran's head over its nuclear program at the very moment that it was beginning to take effect and Tehran was showing signs of stress. Tuesday March 2, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters on her plane to Buenos Aires: "We are moving expeditiously and thoroughly in the Security Council, I can't give you an exact date, but I would assume some time in the next several months."
This abrupt reversal of US tactics on Iran's nuclear activities took place when Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak was hardly out the door from Washington after receiving assurances from administration officials that a new round of tough sanctions would be in place by the end of March, with or without the Security Council. Clinton herself assured a Senate panel last week that stiff sanctions would be clamped down on Iran "in the next 30 to 60 days."
Clinton and defense secretary Robert Gates, when they talked to Barak last Thursday, Feb. 25, were so sure of that timeline that they fixed a date for the defense minister to return got Washington for the second time in a month after sanctions were in place.
debkafile's Iranian sources add that the Islamic Republic's leaders were also convinced last week that the US and likeminded European governments had finally made up their minds to new sanctions in the space of a month. They read the reports leaked to the US media by administration sources about plans to freeze Iran's external banking connections and cripple Revolutionary Guards businesses, and heard that the White House and a number of staunch European Union governments was ready to go ahead and sidestep the slow-moving, hamstrung Security Council.
Tehran's anxiety brought Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad running to Damascus on Feb. 25 to pull his alliance together. Brandishing his fist, he warned that Iran would not knuckle under to sanctions and the Middle East stood at the threshold of a new war.
Iran's war preparations hinged on the assignment of operational tasks to its allies and proxies, including the leaders of eleven Palestinian terrorist organizations based in Syria and Lebanon, who were summoned to Tehran Saturday, Feb. 27. They were given their instructions and treated to the most vicious anti-Israel, anti-Semitic invective from Ahmadinejad heard anywhere since World War II.
In another threat, the deputy Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami stressed Sunday, Feb. 28 that Iran controlled 50 percent of the world's fuel reserves and if sanctions were imposed, Europe would be very cold next winter.
The Obama administrations response to these threats has been to buckle.
Suddenly, Secretary Clinton announced sanctions would take a leisurely "several months," so easing Tehran's concerns and enabling its rulers to carry on its dash for a nuclear bomb, even after the new International Atomic Energy Agency director in Vienna Yukiya Amano noted that its peaceful nature could not be confirmed.
The American U-turn has left Israel high and dry with the Iranian nuclear threat looming ever closer.
Monday, March 1, 2010
America's Greek Tragedy
Mark Steyn on our unfolding Greek Tragedy:
While President Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand new, even more unsustainable entitlement at the health care "summit," thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split screen - because they're part of the same story. It's just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They're at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is further upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter 20 (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter 17 or 18.
What's happening in the developed world today isn't so very hard to understand: The 20th century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they've reached the next stage in social democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1, or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: 10 grandparents have six kids have four grandkids - i.e., the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 "lowest-low" fertility - the point from which no society has ever recovered. And compared to Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe.
So you can't borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don't have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when 10 grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around?
By the way, you don't have to go to Greece to experience Greek-style retirement: The Athenian "public service" of California has been metaphorically face-down in the ouzo for a generation. Still, America as a whole is not yet Greece. A couple of years ago, when I wrote my book "America Alone," I put the Social Security debate in a bit of perspective: On 2005 figures, projected public pensions liabilities were expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of GDP. In Greece, the figure was 25 percent. In other words, head for the hills, Armageddon, outta here, The End. Since then, the situation has worsened in both countries. And really the comparison is academic: Whereas America still has a choice, Greece isn't going to have a 2040 - not without a massive shot of Reality Juice.
Is that likely to happen? At such moments, I like to modify Gerald Ford. When seeking to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, President Ford liked to say: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." Which is true enough. But there's an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn't big enough to get you to give any of it back. That's the point Greece is at. Its socialist government has been forced into supporting a package of austerity measures. The Greek people's response is: Nuts to that. Public sector workers have succeeded in redefining time itself: Every year, they receive 14 monthly payments. You do the math. And for about seven months' work - for many of them the workday ends at 2:30 p.m. When they retire, they get 14 monthly pension payments. In other words: Economic reality is not my problem. I want my benefits. And, if it bankrupts the entire state a generation from now, who cares as long as they keep the checks coming until I croak?
We hard-hearted, small-government guys are often damned as selfish types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the socially equitable communitarianism of big government. Once a chap's enjoying the fruits of government health care, government-paid vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the rest, he couldn't give a hoot about the general societal interest. He's got his, and to hell with everyone else. People's sense of entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense.
The perfect spokesman for the entitlement mentality is the deputy prime minister of Greece. The European Union has concluded that the Greek government's austerity measures are insufficient and, as a condition of bailout, has demanded something more robust. Greece is no longer a sovereign state: It's General Motors, and the EU is Washington, and the Greek electorate is happy to play the part of the United Auto Workers - everything's on the table except anything that would actually make a difference. In practice, because Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland are also on the brink of the abyss, a "European" bailout will be paid for by Germany. So the aforementioned Greek deputy prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, has denounced the conditions of the EU deal on the grounds that the Germans stole all the bullion from the Bank of Greece during the Second World War. Welfare always breeds contempt, in nations as much as inner-city housing projects. How dare you tell us how to live! Just give us your money and push off.
Unfortunately, Germany is no longer an economic powerhouse. As Angela Merkel pointed out a year ago, for Germany, an Obama-sized stimulus was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. Over 30 percent of German women are childless; among German university graduates, it's over 40 percent. And for the ever dwindling band of young Germans who make it out of the maternity ward, there's precious little reason to stick around. Why be the last handsome blond lederhosen-clad Aryan lad working the late shift at the beer garden in order to prop up singlehandedly entire retirement homes? And that's before the EU decides to add the Greeks to your burdens. Germans, who retire at 67, are now expected to sustain the unsustainable 14 monthly payments per year for Greeks who retire at 58.
Think of Greece as California: Every year an irresponsible and corrupt bureaucracy awards itself higher pay and better benefits paid for by an ever-shrinking wealth-generating class. And think of Germany as one of the less profligate, still just about functioning corners of America such as my own state of New Hampshire: Responsibility doesn't pay. You'll wind up bailing out anyway. The problem is there are never enough of "the rich" to fund the entitlement state, because in the end, it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate. In Greece, they've run out Greeks, so they'll stick it to the Germans, like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense tab to the Americans. And in America President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and Germans. What could go wrong?
Go Gov. Christie...
Hundreds of regulatory bodies under scrutiny by N.J. Gov. Christie
BY CLAIRE HEININGER
STATE HOUSE BUREAU
Governor Christie has set his sights on the hundreds of regulatory boards whose jurisdiction is scattered throughout the state.
They run airports and regulate charity bingo. They borrow money to build schools and try to ban bikini waxes.
They provide "soft landings" — complete with fat salaries and pensions — to allies of the politically powerful. And they spend billions of public dollars every year.
Now New Jersey’s 700 boards, authorities and commissions are being dragged from obscurity into the crosshairs of Gov. Chris Christie, who has slashed their spending and ordered a broad review that could put some out of existence.
It’s a mission as wide-ranging and complicated as the entities themselves, many of them unique kingdoms with their own budgets, structures and standards.
"I’ve been involved in local politics since the mid-1970s, and I don’t have an answer to why some authorities work efficiently and why some are just dumping grounds for political hacks," said Jim Freeman, a longtime member of the Plainfield Area Regional Sewerage Authority. "I wish I did know. I would have the answer to the biggest problem in New Jersey."
Christie is not the first governor to try to rein in the state’s "shadow government," and some reforms have been made after abuses were documented by watchdogs. But Christie broke new ground last week with an executive order limiting state authorities’ ability to hire lobbyists, offer employee severance packages and pay for travel and entertainment greater than $250.
Organizations ranging from the Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority to the South Jersey Transportation Authority are clamoring to show they are in compliance. And they’re bracing for what comes next: a cabinet-level review to decide whether each authority should continue to exist, and whether paid commissioners deserve any compensation.
While many boards are unpaid, others provide members with thousands of dollars in salary or stipends for simply attending meetings — often enough to enroll or keep an appointee in the state pension system. And there are 748 authority employees who earn more than $100,000 a year — led by the $313,000 salary for the head of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, who is stepping down tomorrow amid the Republican governor’s wrath.
Meanwhile, the Democrat-controlled Legislature is considering bills to reform the pensions and health benefits of authority employees and to give the governor, who can veto the actions of some authorities, veto power over the rest, including the PVSC.
"These places have grown completely out of control, and under the radar screen," said Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen). "We can’t just take them over, but what we need to do is make them much more accountable and much more transparent."
Radical solutions have been floated by Christie’s transition team, led by one of his closest advisers, Mike DuHaime. Among them: Consider abolishing the Sports and Exposition Authority and the Highlands Council, and folding several agencies into the Economic Development Authority.
"What we’re talking about now is a paradigm shift of proportions that the state hasn’t seen," said Kris Kolluri, who served on various authorities as Gov. Jon Corzine’s transportation commissioner and later ran the Schools Development Authority. "There’s no doubt that consolidation can and will yield efficiencies. If it’s done with the Legislature and done in a very thoughtful way, I think the results will be very positive."
Christie stressed the need for a careful approach — even in bringing all authority salaries in line with the governor’s $175,000. DuHaime’s report said at least 27 authority employees earn more. "You have to do a kind of case-by-case analysis on this," Christie said.
The same goes for how each board or authority could or should be abolished, he said, depending on how it was created. Some sprouted from the governor’s office, others from the Legislature or a department. The biggest authorities, such as the Turnpike Authority, were created with the ability to raise big money to finance their operations apart from the state budget — including through bond sales — and to decide how to spend it.
Shrinking or consolidating would raise concerns about how to transfer that power to borrow money, resolve labor contracts and smooth over cultural differences between agencies — "right down to the way we painted our trucks," said Tim McDonough, who was leading the New Jersey Highway Authority, which ran the Garden State Parkway, when it merged with the Turnpike Authority in 2003. He said the merger "was not easy" but saved money on equipment, purchasing and management costs.
At the other end of the spectrum are the smallest boards and commissions, catering to limited but enthusiastic constituencies. Some are professional licensing boards that also advise state departments — such as the Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling, which became infamous last year for a failed proposal to ban Brazilian bikini waxes.
Others are an outlet to assure groups with a specific concern — for example, a particular disease — "that the government’s going to pay attention to this issue — not just at that moment, but continuing," said John Weingart, a Rutgers University professor who served on boards and wrote a study in which he called them "an unheralded success story of meaningful public participation in government."
Jim Florio was the last governor to enact meaningful changes when he eliminated about 20 percent of the commissions, Weingart said. Weingart added that Christie should be cautious when stamping out the smallest.
"There’s a noise council, and it may or may not do anything, but if you try to get rid of it, there are going to be people who say you don’t care about noise," he said.
Claire Heininger may be reached at (609) 989 - 0273 or cheininger@starledger.com.
Governor Christie has set his sights on the hundreds of regulatory boards whose jurisdiction is scattered throughout the state.
They run airports and regulate charity bingo. They borrow money to build schools and try to ban bikini waxes.
They provide "soft landings" — complete with fat salaries and pensions — to allies of the politically powerful. And they spend billions of public dollars every year.
Now New Jersey’s 700 boards, authorities and commissions are being dragged from obscurity into the crosshairs of Gov. Chris Christie, who has slashed their spending and ordered a broad review that could put some out of existence.
It’s a mission as wide-ranging and complicated as the entities themselves, many of them unique kingdoms with their own budgets, structures and standards.
"I’ve been involved in local politics since the mid-1970s, and I don’t have an answer to why some authorities work efficiently and why some are just dumping grounds for political hacks," said Jim Freeman, a longtime member of the Plainfield Area Regional Sewerage Authority. "I wish I did know. I would have the answer to the biggest problem in New Jersey."
Christie is not the first governor to try to rein in the state’s "shadow government," and some reforms have been made after abuses were documented by watchdogs. But Christie broke new ground last week with an executive order limiting state authorities’ ability to hire lobbyists, offer employee severance packages and pay for travel and entertainment greater than $250.
Organizations ranging from the Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority to the South Jersey Transportation Authority are clamoring to show they are in compliance. And they’re bracing for what comes next: a cabinet-level review to decide whether each authority should continue to exist, and whether paid commissioners deserve any compensation.
While many boards are unpaid, others provide members with thousands of dollars in salary or stipends for simply attending meetings — often enough to enroll or keep an appointee in the state pension system. And there are 748 authority employees who earn more than $100,000 a year — led by the $313,000 salary for the head of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, who is stepping down tomorrow amid the Republican governor’s wrath.
Meanwhile, the Democrat-controlled Legislature is considering bills to reform the pensions and health benefits of authority employees and to give the governor, who can veto the actions of some authorities, veto power over the rest, including the PVSC.
"These places have grown completely out of control, and under the radar screen," said Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen). "We can’t just take them over, but what we need to do is make them much more accountable and much more transparent."
Radical solutions have been floated by Christie’s transition team, led by one of his closest advisers, Mike DuHaime. Among them: Consider abolishing the Sports and Exposition Authority and the Highlands Council, and folding several agencies into the Economic Development Authority.
"What we’re talking about now is a paradigm shift of proportions that the state hasn’t seen," said Kris Kolluri, who served on various authorities as Gov. Jon Corzine’s transportation commissioner and later ran the Schools Development Authority. "There’s no doubt that consolidation can and will yield efficiencies. If it’s done with the Legislature and done in a very thoughtful way, I think the results will be very positive."
Christie stressed the need for a careful approach — even in bringing all authority salaries in line with the governor’s $175,000. DuHaime’s report said at least 27 authority employees earn more. "You have to do a kind of case-by-case analysis on this," Christie said.
The same goes for how each board or authority could or should be abolished, he said, depending on how it was created. Some sprouted from the governor’s office, others from the Legislature or a department. The biggest authorities, such as the Turnpike Authority, were created with the ability to raise big money to finance their operations apart from the state budget — including through bond sales — and to decide how to spend it.
Shrinking or consolidating would raise concerns about how to transfer that power to borrow money, resolve labor contracts and smooth over cultural differences between agencies — "right down to the way we painted our trucks," said Tim McDonough, who was leading the New Jersey Highway Authority, which ran the Garden State Parkway, when it merged with the Turnpike Authority in 2003. He said the merger "was not easy" but saved money on equipment, purchasing and management costs.
At the other end of the spectrum are the smallest boards and commissions, catering to limited but enthusiastic constituencies. Some are professional licensing boards that also advise state departments — such as the Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling, which became infamous last year for a failed proposal to ban Brazilian bikini waxes.
Others are an outlet to assure groups with a specific concern — for example, a particular disease — "that the government’s going to pay attention to this issue — not just at that moment, but continuing," said John Weingart, a Rutgers University professor who served on boards and wrote a study in which he called them "an unheralded success story of meaningful public participation in government."
Jim Florio was the last governor to enact meaningful changes when he eliminated about 20 percent of the commissions, Weingart said. Weingart added that Christie should be cautious when stamping out the smallest.
"There’s a noise council, and it may or may not do anything, but if you try to get rid of it, there are going to be people who say you don’t care about noise," he said.
BY CLAIRE HEININGER
STATE HOUSE BUREAU
Governor Christie has set his sights on the hundreds of regulatory boards whose jurisdiction is scattered throughout the state.
They run airports and regulate charity bingo. They borrow money to build schools and try to ban bikini waxes.
They provide "soft landings" — complete with fat salaries and pensions — to allies of the politically powerful. And they spend billions of public dollars every year.
Now New Jersey’s 700 boards, authorities and commissions are being dragged from obscurity into the crosshairs of Gov. Chris Christie, who has slashed their spending and ordered a broad review that could put some out of existence.
It’s a mission as wide-ranging and complicated as the entities themselves, many of them unique kingdoms with their own budgets, structures and standards.
"I’ve been involved in local politics since the mid-1970s, and I don’t have an answer to why some authorities work efficiently and why some are just dumping grounds for political hacks," said Jim Freeman, a longtime member of the Plainfield Area Regional Sewerage Authority. "I wish I did know. I would have the answer to the biggest problem in New Jersey."
Christie is not the first governor to try to rein in the state’s "shadow government," and some reforms have been made after abuses were documented by watchdogs. But Christie broke new ground last week with an executive order limiting state authorities’ ability to hire lobbyists, offer employee severance packages and pay for travel and entertainment greater than $250.
Organizations ranging from the Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority to the South Jersey Transportation Authority are clamoring to show they are in compliance. And they’re bracing for what comes next: a cabinet-level review to decide whether each authority should continue to exist, and whether paid commissioners deserve any compensation.
While many boards are unpaid, others provide members with thousands of dollars in salary or stipends for simply attending meetings — often enough to enroll or keep an appointee in the state pension system. And there are 748 authority employees who earn more than $100,000 a year — led by the $313,000 salary for the head of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, who is stepping down tomorrow amid the Republican governor’s wrath.
Meanwhile, the Democrat-controlled Legislature is considering bills to reform the pensions and health benefits of authority employees and to give the governor, who can veto the actions of some authorities, veto power over the rest, including the PVSC.
"These places have grown completely out of control, and under the radar screen," said Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen). "We can’t just take them over, but what we need to do is make them much more accountable and much more transparent."
Radical solutions have been floated by Christie’s transition team, led by one of his closest advisers, Mike DuHaime. Among them: Consider abolishing the Sports and Exposition Authority and the Highlands Council, and folding several agencies into the Economic Development Authority.
"What we’re talking about now is a paradigm shift of proportions that the state hasn’t seen," said Kris Kolluri, who served on various authorities as Gov. Jon Corzine’s transportation commissioner and later ran the Schools Development Authority. "There’s no doubt that consolidation can and will yield efficiencies. If it’s done with the Legislature and done in a very thoughtful way, I think the results will be very positive."
Christie stressed the need for a careful approach — even in bringing all authority salaries in line with the governor’s $175,000. DuHaime’s report said at least 27 authority employees earn more. "You have to do a kind of case-by-case analysis on this," Christie said.
The same goes for how each board or authority could or should be abolished, he said, depending on how it was created. Some sprouted from the governor’s office, others from the Legislature or a department. The biggest authorities, such as the Turnpike Authority, were created with the ability to raise big money to finance their operations apart from the state budget — including through bond sales — and to decide how to spend it.
Shrinking or consolidating would raise concerns about how to transfer that power to borrow money, resolve labor contracts and smooth over cultural differences between agencies — "right down to the way we painted our trucks," said Tim McDonough, who was leading the New Jersey Highway Authority, which ran the Garden State Parkway, when it merged with the Turnpike Authority in 2003. He said the merger "was not easy" but saved money on equipment, purchasing and management costs.
At the other end of the spectrum are the smallest boards and commissions, catering to limited but enthusiastic constituencies. Some are professional licensing boards that also advise state departments — such as the Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling, which became infamous last year for a failed proposal to ban Brazilian bikini waxes.
Others are an outlet to assure groups with a specific concern — for example, a particular disease — "that the government’s going to pay attention to this issue — not just at that moment, but continuing," said John Weingart, a Rutgers University professor who served on boards and wrote a study in which he called them "an unheralded success story of meaningful public participation in government."
Jim Florio was the last governor to enact meaningful changes when he eliminated about 20 percent of the commissions, Weingart said. Weingart added that Christie should be cautious when stamping out the smallest.
"There’s a noise council, and it may or may not do anything, but if you try to get rid of it, there are going to be people who say you don’t care about noise," he said.
Claire Heininger may be reached at (609) 989 - 0273 or cheininger@starledger.com.
Governor Christie has set his sights on the hundreds of regulatory boards whose jurisdiction is scattered throughout the state.
They run airports and regulate charity bingo. They borrow money to build schools and try to ban bikini waxes.
They provide "soft landings" — complete with fat salaries and pensions — to allies of the politically powerful. And they spend billions of public dollars every year.
Now New Jersey’s 700 boards, authorities and commissions are being dragged from obscurity into the crosshairs of Gov. Chris Christie, who has slashed their spending and ordered a broad review that could put some out of existence.
It’s a mission as wide-ranging and complicated as the entities themselves, many of them unique kingdoms with their own budgets, structures and standards.
"I’ve been involved in local politics since the mid-1970s, and I don’t have an answer to why some authorities work efficiently and why some are just dumping grounds for political hacks," said Jim Freeman, a longtime member of the Plainfield Area Regional Sewerage Authority. "I wish I did know. I would have the answer to the biggest problem in New Jersey."
Christie is not the first governor to try to rein in the state’s "shadow government," and some reforms have been made after abuses were documented by watchdogs. But Christie broke new ground last week with an executive order limiting state authorities’ ability to hire lobbyists, offer employee severance packages and pay for travel and entertainment greater than $250.
Organizations ranging from the Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority to the South Jersey Transportation Authority are clamoring to show they are in compliance. And they’re bracing for what comes next: a cabinet-level review to decide whether each authority should continue to exist, and whether paid commissioners deserve any compensation.
While many boards are unpaid, others provide members with thousands of dollars in salary or stipends for simply attending meetings — often enough to enroll or keep an appointee in the state pension system. And there are 748 authority employees who earn more than $100,000 a year — led by the $313,000 salary for the head of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, who is stepping down tomorrow amid the Republican governor’s wrath.
Meanwhile, the Democrat-controlled Legislature is considering bills to reform the pensions and health benefits of authority employees and to give the governor, who can veto the actions of some authorities, veto power over the rest, including the PVSC.
"These places have grown completely out of control, and under the radar screen," said Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen). "We can’t just take them over, but what we need to do is make them much more accountable and much more transparent."
Radical solutions have been floated by Christie’s transition team, led by one of his closest advisers, Mike DuHaime. Among them: Consider abolishing the Sports and Exposition Authority and the Highlands Council, and folding several agencies into the Economic Development Authority.
"What we’re talking about now is a paradigm shift of proportions that the state hasn’t seen," said Kris Kolluri, who served on various authorities as Gov. Jon Corzine’s transportation commissioner and later ran the Schools Development Authority. "There’s no doubt that consolidation can and will yield efficiencies. If it’s done with the Legislature and done in a very thoughtful way, I think the results will be very positive."
Christie stressed the need for a careful approach — even in bringing all authority salaries in line with the governor’s $175,000. DuHaime’s report said at least 27 authority employees earn more. "You have to do a kind of case-by-case analysis on this," Christie said.
The same goes for how each board or authority could or should be abolished, he said, depending on how it was created. Some sprouted from the governor’s office, others from the Legislature or a department. The biggest authorities, such as the Turnpike Authority, were created with the ability to raise big money to finance their operations apart from the state budget — including through bond sales — and to decide how to spend it.
Shrinking or consolidating would raise concerns about how to transfer that power to borrow money, resolve labor contracts and smooth over cultural differences between agencies — "right down to the way we painted our trucks," said Tim McDonough, who was leading the New Jersey Highway Authority, which ran the Garden State Parkway, when it merged with the Turnpike Authority in 2003. He said the merger "was not easy" but saved money on equipment, purchasing and management costs.
At the other end of the spectrum are the smallest boards and commissions, catering to limited but enthusiastic constituencies. Some are professional licensing boards that also advise state departments — such as the Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling, which became infamous last year for a failed proposal to ban Brazilian bikini waxes.
Others are an outlet to assure groups with a specific concern — for example, a particular disease — "that the government’s going to pay attention to this issue — not just at that moment, but continuing," said John Weingart, a Rutgers University professor who served on boards and wrote a study in which he called them "an unheralded success story of meaningful public participation in government."
Jim Florio was the last governor to enact meaningful changes when he eliminated about 20 percent of the commissions, Weingart said. Weingart added that Christie should be cautious when stamping out the smallest.
"There’s a noise council, and it may or may not do anything, but if you try to get rid of it, there are going to be people who say you don’t care about noise," he said.
PBS in love with a communist-truther, ye gads
Is This An Interview? On PBS, Tavis Smiley Tells Van Jones He Loves Him, Would Take a Bullet for Him
By Tim Graham
How often does a network interviewer declare to the interviewee that he loves him and "would take a bullet" for him? On his self-titled PBS show on Thursday night, Tavis Smiley declared his love [1] for radical 9-11 truther/Obama adviser Van Jones: "I believe in supporting friends and you know I love you, would do anything - would take a bullet for Van Jones." He concluded the interview by oozing "Van Jones is among the best our community has ever produced."
Worse yet, Smiley attacked the Obama White House for not fighting the "absolute lies" that sunk Jones – without ever bringing specifics. Smiley raised "this notion of if what was said about you was an absolute lie, it was untrue and it was manufactured and it was just a bunch of - it was a gotcha game, to use your word from earlier, why not defend Van Jones?"
PBS is taking our tax dollars to provide a completely sympathetic platform for a radical-left scandal figure, a place where he can seek to rehabilitate his image with the kindest of collaborators. Smiley offered no skepticism whatsoever to the strange claims of Jones that he never signed the petition demanding an investigation into charges the Bush administration "deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur."
SMILEY: Let me just throw a few things at you. These 9/11 truthers - what did you make of that story that started this ruckus about Van Jones in the White House?
JONES: Yes, yes. Well, I learned a tough lesson on that. First of all, let me say what I actually believe. I believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy by al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, and nobody else, trying to hurt America.
What happened to me on that, a tough lesson learned for me, six years ago I was at a conference. Some people came up to me. They said, "Hey, we represent 9/11 families. I'm like, "Oh, okay, good to meet you." They said, "We need your help. Will you help us?" I said, "Sure, whatever you want.
Then these people - I didn't know what their agenda was - they went and put my name on some abhorrent, crazy language they never showed me, I never saw, and it just sat there on this website for years.
Somebody discovered it, and then boom. So people actually believe that I actually signed on to something I never saw, never signed on to, and that became a part of this whole firestorm.
I decided at that point that I needed to resign, because I was becoming a distraction. From my point of view, the president of the United States deserved to be able to talk not about my past and everything I either did or didn't do, but about America's future. So I chose to step down.
Instead of questioning which claims about Jones were untrue, Smiley put all his weight on how Obama’s people shouldn’t have backed down from a fight where Jones was being unfairly and dishonestly maligned:
SMILEY: But it does raise this question, though. When you said to the powers that be that I am going to step aside because I don't want to become a distraction, did anybody in the president's circle say, "Van, let's rethink this, we don't want you do this, let's fight this?" Did anybody say that?
JONES: Of course. It was heartbreaking inside the building because everybody knew that this stuff, a lot of it was just manufactured. At the same time, these are serious times and the president's staff is there to protect and defend him, not the other way around. I don't think people understand that....
SMILEY: I only raise that because as you well know, we're big boys, we can handle this - I only raise that, Van, because as you know, there have been some questions, legitimate, illegitimate, we can agree or disagree, but questions about what this president and his staff truly believe in, what their principles are, what they are really willing to stand up and fight for.
That's the reason why I ask that question, because it's connected to this notion of if what was said about you was an absolute lie, it was untrue and it was manufactured and it was just a bunch of - it was a gotcha game, to use your word from earlier, why not defend Van Jones?
Jones discussed how the White House was a "dream job" and how Obama signed on to be "captain of the Titanic," and it would be rude to expect a fight. Smiley continued:
SMILEY: One other question about this, and this really isn't about your time in the White House, it is prior to that - your decision to go inside the White House. When you told me that you were going to do this - I can say this now.
JONES: Yes, sir.
SMILEY: My friend Geraldo Rivera used to host a show that said, "Now it can be told." (Laughter) I can now tell you this, since you're out of the White House.
JONES: Exactly, it's all right.
SMILEY: When you told me that you were going to go inside the White House, I didn't want you to - I believe in supporting friends and you know I love you, would do anything - would take a bullet for Van Jones.
JONES: Yes, sir, yes, sir, yeah.
SMILEY: But I'm thinking this Negro has lost his mind. (Laughter) I'm like, I know what it means to have the freedom as an advocate on the outside - I've been on the inside and on the outside - the freedom that you have on the outside to tell the truth, to speak truth to power, to side with truth over power.
That freedom - and this is not about Obama, it's just the whole political infrastructure. You know where I'm going with this.
JONES: Yes, I do.
SMILEY: When you go on the inside, your wings get clipped a little bit. You can't speak truth the way that you've been speaking it for all these years on the outside. So I'm thinking Van is one of the freest Negroes I know. (Laughter) Why does he want to bind himself up to some degree and go on the inside?
Jones talked about all the good green things he could do on the inside. Smiley then tried to spur Jones to attack Fox News and Glenn Beck for ruining him:
SMILEY : But that's my point, though. When you see what you saw on the inside that you're now describing for us so beautifully, it must really anger you, then, that the Glenn Becks of the world on the outside --
JONES: Here's the thing - I have one thousand defeats from last year, and one victory. I don't have any hatred in my heart for anybody, I'm not mad at anybody. I understand the pain of Glenn Beck's listeners; people who are wondering where are we going as a country? How am I going to get a job? All these different people are coming here, am I going to be respected?
I understand that, and I feel like what we've got to do is to answer to the pain, not respond hatred to hatred or bitterness to bitterness or add to the divisiveness, because that actually will keep us where we are.
Jones returned to more gooey statements about the wonderful Barack Obama.
Other media outlets are helping on the rehab tour. At TimesWatch [2], I reported on how John Broder of the New York Times announced his new job by referring to his charisma, and not his ideology:
"Van Jones, the charismatic advocate for environmental jobs who resigned from a White House post last September over a number of controversial past statements, has found a new job with the Center for American Progress in Washington."
He added that NAACP leader Benjamin Todd Jealous is on the Tavis Smiley wavelength, calling Jones an "American treasure."
By Tim Graham
How often does a network interviewer declare to the interviewee that he loves him and "would take a bullet" for him? On his self-titled PBS show on Thursday night, Tavis Smiley declared his love [1] for radical 9-11 truther/Obama adviser Van Jones: "I believe in supporting friends and you know I love you, would do anything - would take a bullet for Van Jones." He concluded the interview by oozing "Van Jones is among the best our community has ever produced."
Worse yet, Smiley attacked the Obama White House for not fighting the "absolute lies" that sunk Jones – without ever bringing specifics. Smiley raised "this notion of if what was said about you was an absolute lie, it was untrue and it was manufactured and it was just a bunch of - it was a gotcha game, to use your word from earlier, why not defend Van Jones?"
PBS is taking our tax dollars to provide a completely sympathetic platform for a radical-left scandal figure, a place where he can seek to rehabilitate his image with the kindest of collaborators. Smiley offered no skepticism whatsoever to the strange claims of Jones that he never signed the petition demanding an investigation into charges the Bush administration "deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur."
SMILEY: Let me just throw a few things at you. These 9/11 truthers - what did you make of that story that started this ruckus about Van Jones in the White House?
JONES: Yes, yes. Well, I learned a tough lesson on that. First of all, let me say what I actually believe. I believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy by al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, and nobody else, trying to hurt America.
What happened to me on that, a tough lesson learned for me, six years ago I was at a conference. Some people came up to me. They said, "Hey, we represent 9/11 families. I'm like, "Oh, okay, good to meet you." They said, "We need your help. Will you help us?" I said, "Sure, whatever you want.
Then these people - I didn't know what their agenda was - they went and put my name on some abhorrent, crazy language they never showed me, I never saw, and it just sat there on this website for years.
Somebody discovered it, and then boom. So people actually believe that I actually signed on to something I never saw, never signed on to, and that became a part of this whole firestorm.
I decided at that point that I needed to resign, because I was becoming a distraction. From my point of view, the president of the United States deserved to be able to talk not about my past and everything I either did or didn't do, but about America's future. So I chose to step down.
Instead of questioning which claims about Jones were untrue, Smiley put all his weight on how Obama’s people shouldn’t have backed down from a fight where Jones was being unfairly and dishonestly maligned:
SMILEY: But it does raise this question, though. When you said to the powers that be that I am going to step aside because I don't want to become a distraction, did anybody in the president's circle say, "Van, let's rethink this, we don't want you do this, let's fight this?" Did anybody say that?
JONES: Of course. It was heartbreaking inside the building because everybody knew that this stuff, a lot of it was just manufactured. At the same time, these are serious times and the president's staff is there to protect and defend him, not the other way around. I don't think people understand that....
SMILEY: I only raise that because as you well know, we're big boys, we can handle this - I only raise that, Van, because as you know, there have been some questions, legitimate, illegitimate, we can agree or disagree, but questions about what this president and his staff truly believe in, what their principles are, what they are really willing to stand up and fight for.
That's the reason why I ask that question, because it's connected to this notion of if what was said about you was an absolute lie, it was untrue and it was manufactured and it was just a bunch of - it was a gotcha game, to use your word from earlier, why not defend Van Jones?
Jones discussed how the White House was a "dream job" and how Obama signed on to be "captain of the Titanic," and it would be rude to expect a fight. Smiley continued:
SMILEY: One other question about this, and this really isn't about your time in the White House, it is prior to that - your decision to go inside the White House. When you told me that you were going to do this - I can say this now.
JONES: Yes, sir.
SMILEY: My friend Geraldo Rivera used to host a show that said, "Now it can be told." (Laughter) I can now tell you this, since you're out of the White House.
JONES: Exactly, it's all right.
SMILEY: When you told me that you were going to go inside the White House, I didn't want you to - I believe in supporting friends and you know I love you, would do anything - would take a bullet for Van Jones.
JONES: Yes, sir, yes, sir, yeah.
SMILEY: But I'm thinking this Negro has lost his mind. (Laughter) I'm like, I know what it means to have the freedom as an advocate on the outside - I've been on the inside and on the outside - the freedom that you have on the outside to tell the truth, to speak truth to power, to side with truth over power.
That freedom - and this is not about Obama, it's just the whole political infrastructure. You know where I'm going with this.
JONES: Yes, I do.
SMILEY: When you go on the inside, your wings get clipped a little bit. You can't speak truth the way that you've been speaking it for all these years on the outside. So I'm thinking Van is one of the freest Negroes I know. (Laughter) Why does he want to bind himself up to some degree and go on the inside?
Jones talked about all the good green things he could do on the inside. Smiley then tried to spur Jones to attack Fox News and Glenn Beck for ruining him:
SMILEY : But that's my point, though. When you see what you saw on the inside that you're now describing for us so beautifully, it must really anger you, then, that the Glenn Becks of the world on the outside --
JONES: Here's the thing - I have one thousand defeats from last year, and one victory. I don't have any hatred in my heart for anybody, I'm not mad at anybody. I understand the pain of Glenn Beck's listeners; people who are wondering where are we going as a country? How am I going to get a job? All these different people are coming here, am I going to be respected?
I understand that, and I feel like what we've got to do is to answer to the pain, not respond hatred to hatred or bitterness to bitterness or add to the divisiveness, because that actually will keep us where we are.
Jones returned to more gooey statements about the wonderful Barack Obama.
Other media outlets are helping on the rehab tour. At TimesWatch [2], I reported on how John Broder of the New York Times announced his new job by referring to his charisma, and not his ideology:
"Van Jones, the charismatic advocate for environmental jobs who resigned from a White House post last September over a number of controversial past statements, has found a new job with the Center for American Progress in Washington."
He added that NAACP leader Benjamin Todd Jealous is on the Tavis Smiley wavelength, calling Jones an "American treasure."
What's the opposite of E Pluribus Unum
Congress Tries to Break Hawaii in Two
A racial spoils precedent that could lead to new 'tribal' demands across the U.S.
Last week, the House of Representatives, in a largely party-line vote, passed the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act. Popularly known as "the Akaka bill," this piece of legislation might turn out to be this Congress's single most calamitous decision.
The bill creates a complex federal framework under which most of the nation's approximately 400,000 ethnic Hawaiians can organize themselves into one vast Indian tribe. It endows the tribe with the "inherent powers and privileges of self-government," including the privilege of sovereign immunity from lawsuit. It also by clear implication confers the power to tax, to promulgate and enforce a criminal code, and to exercise eminent domain. Hawaii will in effect be two states, not one.
The method used to create this tribe should make everyone squeamish. The bill delegates the delicate task of deciding who may join the tribe to a federal commission appointed by the secretary of the Interior. Ultimately, the tribe itself will have the power to expel members or invite new ones.
Earlier versions of the bill demanded that the secretary appoint only ethnic Hawaiians as commissioners. In the current version, only those with "10 years of experience in the study and determination of Native Hawaiian genealogy" and "an ability to read and translate . . . documents written in the Hawaiian language" may serve on the commission. These commissioners will examine an applicants' backgrounds to ensure that only "qualified Native Hawaiians" with the right amount of Hawaiian blood join the tribe.
To understand all of this, you have to know something about the Aloha State's racial entitlement system. The State's Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), established in 1978, administers billions of dollars generated from lands the federal government ceded to the state decades ago. These monies should be used to benefit all Hawaiians. Instead they are spent on benefits for ethnic Hawaiians, including home loans and business loans as well as housing and education programs.
The protection of these benefits is what motivates supporters of the Akaka bill. Ten years ago, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a Hawaiian law that limited the right to vote for those who oversee OHA to ethnic Hawaiians. The court ruled in that case, Rice v. Cayetano, that it violated the 15th Amendment's prohibition on racial discrimination in voting rights.
Rice set off a firestorm that has not yet subsided. If OHA's election methods were unconstitutional, then its racially-exclusive benefits were almost certainly also in violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Something had to be done.
And it was. Shortly after Rice, Hawaii's Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka introduced a bill in Congress to protect race-based benefits in his state. He did so by seeking to exploit a 1974 Supreme Court decision, Morton v. Mancari. In that case, the court found that racial discrimination on the basis of membership in "quasi-sovereign tribal entities" was constitutional. Following the logic of the ruling, Mr. Akaka and others hoped that by transforming ethnic Hawaiians from a race into a tribe they would effectively protect special benefits for ethnic Hawaiians.
Indeed, the benefits pot might even be sweetened by such a transformation. The Akaka bill provides that after the tribe is established, its leaders may negotiate with Hawaii for the transfer of land. Everyone involved understands this to refer to 1.4 million acres known as the Ceded Lands—lands that were ceded to the state by the federal government when statehood was granted in 1959. Some activists take the position that since these lands were once owned by the Hawaiian monarchy, they rightfully belong to ethnic Hawaiians. Some even argue the tribe's ultimate goal should be secession from the United States.
Nevertheless, two problems remain. First, the Akaka bill privileges what is in fact a race, not a tribe. The very act of transforming a racial group into a tribal group confers a privilege on one race and not others and is thus unconstitutional. Second, while the Constitution implicitly gives the federal government the power to recognize tribes with a long and continuous history of separate self-governance, it does not give the power to confer sovereignty on new tribes, or to reconstitute a tribe whose members have long since become part of the mainstream culture.
If it did, all manner of mischief could be accomplished, as ethnic Hawaiians will not be the last group to demand special status. Some activists argue that Southern California should be set aside as a homeland for Mexican Americans of Indian descent. Right now, that idea looks like pure fantasy. If the Akaka bill becomes law, it will suddenly become more plausible.
What's more, the Amish in Pennsylvania and the Orthodox Jews in New York could also start to see a benefit from constituting themselves as a tribe, since tribes, unlike federal and state governments, are free to establish theocratic governments. On what ground will Congress say no to these and other would-be tribes?
Mr. Akaka's supporters argue that the American government was complicit in the 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani, which they believe illegally denied not just the queen's individual right of sovereignty, but her subjects' collective right, too. They see this bill as an appropriate remedy.
This historical claim has been hotly debated. Even assuming American complicity, however, it is beside the point. The Kingdom of Hawaii was a multiracial society from its inception in 1810, when King Kamehameha united what had previously been a group of warring islands.
In the true spirit of Aloha, its rulers were welcoming of immigrants, who came from all over the world, including Portugal, China, Japan, the United States, Great Britain and Germany. The 1840 Hawaiian constitution declared that "all races" were of "one blood" and established a bicameral parliament whose members were multiracial. By 1893, ethnic Hawaiians were a population minority.
This cosmopolitan, constitutional monarchy was no kinship-based tribe. Anyone born on Hawaiian soil or swearing allegiance to the queen was considered the queen's subject and hence "Hawaiian." No single race was deprived of "its" sovereignty rights by the overthrow.
In 1959, 94.3% of Hawaiian voters cast ballots in favor of statehood. Within months, Hawaii became the 50th state. No one argued then that ethnic Hawaiians were part of a separate political system that needed special status. To the contrary, everyone acknowledged that ethnic Hawaiians were part of the political mainstream. It is now too late in the game to argue otherwise.
The U.S. Senate is expected to take up the Akaka bill in the coming weeks or months, where its opponents are insisting on a thorough debate. One reason for hope is that Hawaii's Republican Gov. Linda Lingle has finally withdrawn her support for the legislation. For years she advocated passing the bill, establishing a tribe, and then using vigilance to ensure that the tribe does not acquire undue power or resources during its negotiations with the state. She has now reconsidered.
Good for her. This is a train that needs to be stopped before it leaves the station.
A racial spoils precedent that could lead to new 'tribal' demands across the U.S.
Last week, the House of Representatives, in a largely party-line vote, passed the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act. Popularly known as "the Akaka bill," this piece of legislation might turn out to be this Congress's single most calamitous decision.
The bill creates a complex federal framework under which most of the nation's approximately 400,000 ethnic Hawaiians can organize themselves into one vast Indian tribe. It endows the tribe with the "inherent powers and privileges of self-government," including the privilege of sovereign immunity from lawsuit. It also by clear implication confers the power to tax, to promulgate and enforce a criminal code, and to exercise eminent domain. Hawaii will in effect be two states, not one.
The method used to create this tribe should make everyone squeamish. The bill delegates the delicate task of deciding who may join the tribe to a federal commission appointed by the secretary of the Interior. Ultimately, the tribe itself will have the power to expel members or invite new ones.
Earlier versions of the bill demanded that the secretary appoint only ethnic Hawaiians as commissioners. In the current version, only those with "10 years of experience in the study and determination of Native Hawaiian genealogy" and "an ability to read and translate . . . documents written in the Hawaiian language" may serve on the commission. These commissioners will examine an applicants' backgrounds to ensure that only "qualified Native Hawaiians" with the right amount of Hawaiian blood join the tribe.
To understand all of this, you have to know something about the Aloha State's racial entitlement system. The State's Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), established in 1978, administers billions of dollars generated from lands the federal government ceded to the state decades ago. These monies should be used to benefit all Hawaiians. Instead they are spent on benefits for ethnic Hawaiians, including home loans and business loans as well as housing and education programs.
The protection of these benefits is what motivates supporters of the Akaka bill. Ten years ago, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a Hawaiian law that limited the right to vote for those who oversee OHA to ethnic Hawaiians. The court ruled in that case, Rice v. Cayetano, that it violated the 15th Amendment's prohibition on racial discrimination in voting rights.
Rice set off a firestorm that has not yet subsided. If OHA's election methods were unconstitutional, then its racially-exclusive benefits were almost certainly also in violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Something had to be done.
And it was. Shortly after Rice, Hawaii's Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka introduced a bill in Congress to protect race-based benefits in his state. He did so by seeking to exploit a 1974 Supreme Court decision, Morton v. Mancari. In that case, the court found that racial discrimination on the basis of membership in "quasi-sovereign tribal entities" was constitutional. Following the logic of the ruling, Mr. Akaka and others hoped that by transforming ethnic Hawaiians from a race into a tribe they would effectively protect special benefits for ethnic Hawaiians.
Indeed, the benefits pot might even be sweetened by such a transformation. The Akaka bill provides that after the tribe is established, its leaders may negotiate with Hawaii for the transfer of land. Everyone involved understands this to refer to 1.4 million acres known as the Ceded Lands—lands that were ceded to the state by the federal government when statehood was granted in 1959. Some activists take the position that since these lands were once owned by the Hawaiian monarchy, they rightfully belong to ethnic Hawaiians. Some even argue the tribe's ultimate goal should be secession from the United States.
Nevertheless, two problems remain. First, the Akaka bill privileges what is in fact a race, not a tribe. The very act of transforming a racial group into a tribal group confers a privilege on one race and not others and is thus unconstitutional. Second, while the Constitution implicitly gives the federal government the power to recognize tribes with a long and continuous history of separate self-governance, it does not give the power to confer sovereignty on new tribes, or to reconstitute a tribe whose members have long since become part of the mainstream culture.
If it did, all manner of mischief could be accomplished, as ethnic Hawaiians will not be the last group to demand special status. Some activists argue that Southern California should be set aside as a homeland for Mexican Americans of Indian descent. Right now, that idea looks like pure fantasy. If the Akaka bill becomes law, it will suddenly become more plausible.
What's more, the Amish in Pennsylvania and the Orthodox Jews in New York could also start to see a benefit from constituting themselves as a tribe, since tribes, unlike federal and state governments, are free to establish theocratic governments. On what ground will Congress say no to these and other would-be tribes?
Mr. Akaka's supporters argue that the American government was complicit in the 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani, which they believe illegally denied not just the queen's individual right of sovereignty, but her subjects' collective right, too. They see this bill as an appropriate remedy.
This historical claim has been hotly debated. Even assuming American complicity, however, it is beside the point. The Kingdom of Hawaii was a multiracial society from its inception in 1810, when King Kamehameha united what had previously been a group of warring islands.
In the true spirit of Aloha, its rulers were welcoming of immigrants, who came from all over the world, including Portugal, China, Japan, the United States, Great Britain and Germany. The 1840 Hawaiian constitution declared that "all races" were of "one blood" and established a bicameral parliament whose members were multiracial. By 1893, ethnic Hawaiians were a population minority.
This cosmopolitan, constitutional monarchy was no kinship-based tribe. Anyone born on Hawaiian soil or swearing allegiance to the queen was considered the queen's subject and hence "Hawaiian." No single race was deprived of "its" sovereignty rights by the overthrow.
In 1959, 94.3% of Hawaiian voters cast ballots in favor of statehood. Within months, Hawaii became the 50th state. No one argued then that ethnic Hawaiians were part of a separate political system that needed special status. To the contrary, everyone acknowledged that ethnic Hawaiians were part of the political mainstream. It is now too late in the game to argue otherwise.
The U.S. Senate is expected to take up the Akaka bill in the coming weeks or months, where its opponents are insisting on a thorough debate. One reason for hope is that Hawaii's Republican Gov. Linda Lingle has finally withdrawn her support for the legislation. For years she advocated passing the bill, establishing a tribe, and then using vigilance to ensure that the tribe does not acquire undue power or resources during its negotiations with the state. She has now reconsidered.
Good for her. This is a train that needs to be stopped before it leaves the station.
The NAACP pick shows their leanings
I refuse to believe that there is not one black doctor or scientist worthy of an image award. It's simply not possible. But, what this does show is that the NAACP is radical to its core. It's not about praising important blacks but childishly poking a finger in the white man's eye.
The NAACP's Negative Image Awards
By Mark Hyman on 3.1.10 @ 6:08AM
"Van Jones is an American treasure," wrote Benjamin Todd Jealous, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Jealous attempted to justify the selection of Van Jones for the NAACP's 2010 "President's Award" at the organization's February 26th Images Award ceremony.
Among the accomplishments that merited his selection -- according to Jealous -- was Jones founded the Color of Change, a deeply partisan organization steeped in the deeply repugnant politics of fomenting the racial divide in America.
Jones' admission of his Communist beliefs should not disqualify him from consideration of a serious award. However, his racist and bigoted views, his delusional beliefs as a "September 11th truther," and his overall fringe lunacy easily isolate him as little more than a well-deserved society outcast and the punch line in a late night comedy routine.
It is a supreme embarrassment and a monumental shame that the NAACP had chosen to recognize Jones for anything other than being a truly dubious individual.
This isn't the first time the NAACP has failed its constituency by honoring downright lousy people. On occasion, the NAACP has displayed a completely schizophrenic personality when it comes to race politics.
In 2003, then-NAACP President Kweisi Mfume was apoplectic over a silly board game called Ghettopoly, a take-off of the popular board game Monopoly.
Ghettopoly was a parody of ghetto culture that was invented by 28-year old entrepreneur David Chang. A Taiwanese immigrant, Chang was doing his best to achieve financial success and realize the American dream. Chang's game played on stereotypes of blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians and Jews. Properties included Westside Liquor, Smitty's XXX Peep Show, Weinstein's Gold and Platinum, Ling-Ling's Massage Parlor and Chico's Bodega.
According to an Internet advertisement, "Buying stolen properties, pimpin' hoes, building crack houses and projects, paying protection fees and getting car jacked are some of the elements of the game." At this point, one would have to wonder who would even buy such a dumb game?
Nonetheless, Ghettopoly got Mfume so angered that he fired off a letter to Chang denouncing the game. Mfume wrote, "It is disturbing that you would choose to promote and capitalize off such negative aspects of society that cause great harm to individuals and the African-American community at large."
Yet, this is where the double standard came into play. Chang said he got the inspiration to invent the game by watching rap videos on an MTV program called "Cribs" and from playing video games. One only has to watch a few minutes of some of the most vulgar rap videos to understand how an immigrant can latch onto such stereotypes.
Chang was selling Ghettopoly the same time the Converse shoe company was marketing the "Loaded Weapon" athletic shoe and black rapper Nelly was promoting his "Pimp Juice" snack beverage.
Although Mfume was critical of Ghettopoly, he and the NAACP had an entirely different take on the rap music that had inspired the game. On more than one occasion, the NAACP gave its Image Award to rappers, some of whom had recorded songs preaching violence toward women.
This is how the NAACP website described its reasons for presenting the Image Award. "Ideas and images create the belief systems that control our individual and societal actions. When it comes to forming ideas, reinforcing stereotypes, establishing norms and shaping our thinking nothing affects us more than the images and concepts delivered into our lives on a daily basis by television and film."
With that as its guiding principles, the NAACP gave its 2002 Image Award to rapper Ja Rule for his rap song "Livin' It Up." Included among the song's disgusting lyrics was this ode of disrespect to women:
Half the hoes hate me, half them love meThe ones that hate me only hate me cause they ain't f*****d meAnd they say I'm lucky; you think I got timeto f*** all these hoes and do all these shows?
"Livin' It Up" appeared on the "Pain is Love" CD with these other stirring songs: Dial M for Murder, Down Ass Bitch, and I'm Real (Murda Mix). Another track on the CD is "So Much Pain," which includes these unforgettable lyrics:
They'll never take me alive, I'm gettin' high with my fo'-fiveCocked on these niggaz time to dieEven as a lil' nigga, you could picture me hot gun in the rainI shed the tear, cause this nigga here inherits the painAnd now I'm labeled as a thug nigga -- you know the gameSmokin weed, f***in' hoes, slangin' thangs, that's the life I liveEven if I tried to go back I'd get lost (come back)And everything I seem to love I done lostF*** the world if they can't understand me.
So glorifying the ghetto culture and perpetuating stereotypes can be good or bad depending on who is doing the glorifying and perpetuating.
It was difficult to understand how Mfume and the NAACP could be so critical of a silly board game that perpetuates stereotypes when the NAACP honored the rap music culture on which the game was based and that had provided the inspiration for those stereotypes.
This brings us back to Van Jones. There is absolutely no redeeming accomplishment the mainstream black community could proudly embrace regarding Jones. Reasonable people recognize Jones has set back race relations in some circles by perpetuating ugly stereotypes, promoting bigotry, preaching racism and advocating delusional conspiracy theories.
There are countless black Americans worthy of recognition for their remarkable deeds. For the NAACP to single-out and honor Van Jones is indeed disappointing.
Muslim Taxpayer-funded Charter School Threatens Critics with Death, Lawsuits
It is amazing that this place gets taxpayers funds AND is still open:
At one Minnesota public school, critics may be in for something more sinister. Khalid Elmasry says in an affidavit that after he criticized Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA), which his child used to attend, the school's executive director made a statement at a parent meeting that Elmasry took "as an attempt to incite violence against me and my family." Even more disturbing is what Janeha Edwards -- a former administrative assistant at the school -- says in an affidavit the director suggested after she displeased him: "We could just kill you, yeah tell your husband we'll do his job for him."
These bizarre developments are described in documents filed in a legal battle royal between TiZA -- a K-8 charter school with campuses in Inver Grove Heights and Blaine -- and the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota. Last year, the ACLU filed a federal suit claiming that TiZA impermissibly promotes religion.
In January, the ACLU sought a protective order, telling the court that intimidation by TiZA was discouraging potential witnesses from appearing. On Feb. 10, the court barred witness harassment or intimidation by either party.
Elmasry is one witness who sought such protection. In January, he testified about TiZA's financial entanglement with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota at a Minnesota Senate subcommittee hearing on charter school lease aid. Shortly thereafter, Elmasry says in an affidavit, he was informed by a friend and TIZA parent that TiZA authorities had called a parent meeting, where they showed a video of Elmasry's testimony. Then, according to the parent's account, Asad Zaman, the school's director and an imam -- or Muslim religious leader -- accused Elmasry of talking to the Minnesota Department of Education and "selling" his "Iman," meaning his Islamic faith, according to Elmasry's affidavit.
Elmasry was frightened, he says. "It is well-known in Islam that a Muslim who rejects his or her faith is committing an act punishable by death," according to his affidavit. "There are many accounts of Muslims taking matters into their own hands and killing people they believe have sold or rejected their Islamic faith or Iman."
Elmasry was worried, he says in the affidavit, because "the overwhelming majority of TiZA's enrollment is Somali, living in a community that has been troubled with many acts of random violence. I am concerned that Zaman could be exploiting this fact in the hope that word will reach a radical or unstable individual or group within the Twin Cities Muslim community that a Muslim has sold his Iman and is trying to shut down a Muslim school that serves Somalis."
TiZA denies that a threat was intended, according to documents filed with the court. "Even if the Court accepts the comment alleged by Elmasry," the school maintains, "such remarks have significance only when issued by a proper Islamic judge, of which Elmasry and Zaman are not."
Elmasry is not the only fearful witness. Edwards, who left her job at TiZA in 2009, also hesitates to testify about what she saw and heard during her years there.
During her tenure, she says in an affidavit, she saw "no real distinction" between the operations of TiZA and the Muslim American Society, with which the school shares a building. For years, "I watched [school officials] lash out in order to control those around them, and to retaliate against anyone who spoke poorly of the school, or otherwise challenged their authority." According to her affidavit, Zaman suggested that "we could just kill you" after becoming upset when she "challeng[ed] his authority."
Zaman has no recollection of making such a statement, he said in an affidavit.
According to the ACLU, the alleged pattern of intimidation extends to any "who might speak publicly about events at TiZA and its use of public funds." Even Chuck Samuelson, the ACLU's executive director, has been a target. In July 2009, the school filed a defamation claim in excess of $100,000 against the ACLU, citing Samuelson's simple statement that "[TiZA is] a theocratic school ... as plain as the substantial nose on my face."
Alan Dershowitz, a noted Harvard law professor, has described TiZA's defamation claim as "lawfare -- the use of law as a weapon of warfare." Controversial Islamic organizations "sue their critics for defamation, not with the intent to win the case, but with the hope of imposing an unaffordably high cost on criticism of their actions," he and Elizabeth Samson wrote in the British newspaper the Guardian.
In December, the court dismissed TiZA's defamation claim against the ACLU.
Dissecting liberalism as practiced in Marin county
Liberal arrogance on display. You also cannot get any pro-Israel speaker through the Lefty's protective screen.
'Seditious' Conservatives Attacked in Marin County
Sally Zelikovsky
"I don't agree with what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it" is no longer in vogue for some Mill Valley (Marin County, California) residents.
Ryan White recently wrote an excellent piece in the Mill Valley Herald about the upcoming "GroupaPalooza" at the Mill Valley Recreation Center -- a private gathering that will bring together conservative groups, candidates and the conservative community.
Yet, a former AP reporter, Deborah Phelan, has asked city officials to cancel the GroupaPalooza. The former AP reporter told White that "our local government has to make a stand against this movement, which I view as seditious."
By movement, she is referring to the Tea Parties. By seditious, she is just plain wrong. Tea Parties have been popping up across the land to protest an ever-expanding government that is taxing more, spending more and intruding more on individual liberties. The Tea Party movement is not about subverting the Constitution but restoring constitutional governance.
Phelan has asked the city to target a select group of citizens and deny them the right to assemble peaceably simply because they do not share her political beliefs. This former reporter obviously missed the lecture in journalism school about the First Amendment's protection of speech and right to assemble peaceably-I'm confident that the absurdity of a journalist seeking to squelch the speech of others, while exercising her own, will not be lost on the reader. These rights exist irrespective of the form of government and cannot be applied selectively or abridged by the government. No matter how determined Phelan is to have the city silence conservatives, thankfully, she will fail.
A glance through Phelan's Looking-Glass reveals a distorted reality where conservative calls for individual liberty, constitutionally limited government, free markets and lower taxes are characterized as sedition. I can just hear the Queen in Phelan's Wonderland screaming "off with your head" when the Founding Fathers denounced the King and wrote the seditious Declaration, Federalist Papers and Constitution.
The Founding Fathers were aware that they might be hung for their crimes against the Crown and intentionally crafted an America where that could not happen. When citizens took down Nixon, impeached Clinton and eviscerated Bush--all in the name of the First Amendment--no one was silenced or accused of sedition.
Phelan is also concerned about the signs children might see passing through the center. She could turn this into a teaching moment: "Although I don't agree with conservatives, I will defend their right to speak freely. In countries like Iran, China and North Korea, people have been shot and imprisoned for voicing their opinions. Many of the event's participants come from countries where they could not speak against the government. This is called "dissent" and, in America, even if you criticize the President, that dissent is patriotic!"
Ms. Phelan is invited to RSVP and witness the Constitution in action. It is not a protest so there won't be any signs. Only people with reservations can enter and children must be accompanied by a parent.
Follow the link below to the story in the Mill Valley paper. If you want to see real intolerance of different views, creating absurd caricatures of opponents and outright hatred read the comments below the article:
http://www.marinscope.com/articles/2010/02/25/mill_valley_herald/news/doc4b8599f627371622249352.txt
Mugabe is soon to run out of pockets to pick.
Zimbabwe moves on foreign firms
A new Zimbabwean law that forces foreign-owned companies to sell a majority stake in their businesses to indigenous people has come into effect
A new Zimbabwean law that forces foreign-owned companies to sell a majority stake in their businesses to indigenous people has come into effect
Former AP Reporter Tries to Silence Conservatives in Marin County
I bet if the Communist Party or an organization which is actually seditious was having a meeting, she would have no problem with it, as long as she viewed it as "progressive":
Ryan White recently wrote an excellent piece in the Mill Valley Herald about the upcoming "GroupaPalooza" at the Mill Valley Recreation Center -- a private gathering that will bring together conservative groups, candidates and the conservative community.
Yet, a former AP reporter, Deborah Phelan, has asked city officials to cancel the GroupaPalooza. The former AP reporter told White that "our local government has to make a stand against this movement, which I view as seditious."
By movement, she is referring to the Tea Parties. By seditious, she is just plain wrong. Tea Parties have been popping up across the land to protest an ever-expanding government that is taxing more, spending more and intruding more on individual liberties. The Tea Party movement is not about subverting the Constitution but restoring constitutional governance.
...
Phelan is also concerned about the signs children might see passing through the center. She could turn this into a teaching moment: "Although I don't agree with conservatives, I will defend their right to speak freely. In countries like Iran, China and North Korea, people have been shot and imprisoned for voicing their opinions. Many of the event's participants come from countries where they could not speak against the government. This is called "dissent" and, in America, even if you criticize the President, that dissent is patriotic!"
Hugo Chavez and his terrorist friends. But, Obama and Hollywood will still support him.
Venezuela 'helped Eta and Farc'
A Spanish judge has accused the Venezuelan government of assisting two rebel groups which plotted to kill Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe.
Judge Eloy Velasco charged six members of Basque separatist group Eta and seven members of Colombian rebel group Farc with various offences.
He said he believed Farc had asked for Eta's help in a plot to kill Colombian officials in Spain, including Mr Uribe.
He said the two groups benefited from "Venezuelan government co-operation".
In a 26-page indictment Mr Velasco said an investigation launched in 2008 has turned up evidence "that demonstrates Venezuelan governmental co-operation in the illicit collaboration between Farc and Eta".
Both groups are listed as terrorist organisations by the US and EU.
Bomb courses
The judge said Eta and Farc had been collaborating since 1993, and accused Arturo Cubillas Fontan of being a key link.
Mr Fontan lives in Venezuela and has held a job in the government of President Hugo Chavez - and may still have one - the judge wrote.
He is also a key member of Eta, running its operations in Venezuela and the region, Mr Velasco's indictment said.
It said Mr Fontan "co-ordinated relations between Farc and Eta and the participation of Eta members in courses on explosives and urban guerrilla warfare".
The judge charged Mr Fontan, along with two Farc members, Edgar Gustavo Navarro Morales and Victor Ramon Vargas Salazar, with conspiracy to commit terrorist murders.
His investigation found that Farc members travelled to Spain to try to kill former Colombian President Andres Pastrana and to stage an attack on the Colombian embassy.
A Farc member reported that "it would not be difficult to carry out an attack on those two targets as long as they could count on the help of Eta", the indictment said.
Later the target list was allegedly expanded to include Mr Uribe and other Colombian officials.
Left-wing ideology
The investigation was launched after links to Spain came to light when a computer used by Farc leader Raul Reyes was seized during a Colombian military raid on a Farc camp in Ecuador in March 2008.
Both Eta and Farc claim to be rooted in left-wing ideology.
Eta has been blamed for more than 820 deaths during its 41-year campaign for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain.
Farc has been fighting even longer, mounting a major insurgency intended to topple the Colombian government and establish a Marxist-style state.
There have long been allegations of links between Farc and President Hugo Chavez's left-wing government in Venezuela.
In 2008 a major diplomatic dispute arose after Colombia accused Venezuela of running arms to Farc. Mr Chavez has strenuously denied any such links.
Story from BBC NEWS:
A Spanish judge has accused the Venezuelan government of assisting two rebel groups which plotted to kill Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe.
Judge Eloy Velasco charged six members of Basque separatist group Eta and seven members of Colombian rebel group Farc with various offences.
He said he believed Farc had asked for Eta's help in a plot to kill Colombian officials in Spain, including Mr Uribe.
He said the two groups benefited from "Venezuelan government co-operation".
In a 26-page indictment Mr Velasco said an investigation launched in 2008 has turned up evidence "that demonstrates Venezuelan governmental co-operation in the illicit collaboration between Farc and Eta".
Both groups are listed as terrorist organisations by the US and EU.
Bomb courses
The judge said Eta and Farc had been collaborating since 1993, and accused Arturo Cubillas Fontan of being a key link.
Mr Fontan lives in Venezuela and has held a job in the government of President Hugo Chavez - and may still have one - the judge wrote.
He is also a key member of Eta, running its operations in Venezuela and the region, Mr Velasco's indictment said.
It said Mr Fontan "co-ordinated relations between Farc and Eta and the participation of Eta members in courses on explosives and urban guerrilla warfare".
The judge charged Mr Fontan, along with two Farc members, Edgar Gustavo Navarro Morales and Victor Ramon Vargas Salazar, with conspiracy to commit terrorist murders.
His investigation found that Farc members travelled to Spain to try to kill former Colombian President Andres Pastrana and to stage an attack on the Colombian embassy.
A Farc member reported that "it would not be difficult to carry out an attack on those two targets as long as they could count on the help of Eta", the indictment said.
Later the target list was allegedly expanded to include Mr Uribe and other Colombian officials.
Left-wing ideology
The investigation was launched after links to Spain came to light when a computer used by Farc leader Raul Reyes was seized during a Colombian military raid on a Farc camp in Ecuador in March 2008.
Both Eta and Farc claim to be rooted in left-wing ideology.
Eta has been blamed for more than 820 deaths during its 41-year campaign for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain.
Farc has been fighting even longer, mounting a major insurgency intended to topple the Colombian government and establish a Marxist-style state.
There have long been allegations of links between Farc and President Hugo Chavez's left-wing government in Venezuela.
In 2008 a major diplomatic dispute arose after Colombia accused Venezuela of running arms to Farc. Mr Chavez has strenuously denied any such links.
Story from BBC NEWS:
NGO's and terrorism. I wonder how much they get from the Saudis
Until two weeks ago, Gita Sahgal led Amnesty International's gender-affairs unit and was considered an exemplar of human-rights activism. Now she's suspended from her job and in need of an attorney willing to confront a venerable nongovernmental organization that is celebrated by the likes of Bono and Al Pacino.What happened? Ms. Sahgal tried to get her Amnesty colleagues to cease their partnership with Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who is, as Ms. Sahgal rightly describes him, "Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban."Mr. Begg is a British citizen who was captured in Pakistan in 2001 as an enemy combatant and sent to Guantanamo. He was released without charge in 2005. Mr. Begg claims he was tortured and threatened with execution. He has since become a minor celebrity in the Western human-rights community. He is currently the director of Cageprisoners, a group that bills itself as an organization that exists "solely to raise awareness of the plight of prisoners . . . held as part of the War On Terror." Amnesty describes Cageprisoners as a "leading human rights organization." Yet one of its senior members, Asim Qureshi, spoke at a 2006 London rally sponsored by extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which promotes the idea of a renascent Islamic caliphate. Mr. Qureshi took the occasion to glorify terrorism in Iraq, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Kashmir. Mr. Begg does not hide his own Islamist convictions. In his memoir, "Enemy Combatant," he recalls his interrogation at Guantanamo, in which he credits his emigration to Afghanistan to his desire "to live in an Islamic state—one that was free from the corruption and despotism of the rest of the Muslim world." The Taliban, Mr. Begg insists in his book, were "better than anything Afghanistan has had in the past twenty-five years." Elsewhere he has cited and sold the works of the "charismatic scholar" Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, erstwhile mentor to Osama bin Laden.Despite all of this, Amnesty has provided Mr. Begg with numerous speaking platforms. He has toured Europe with Amnesty officials as part of a campaign to urge Western governments to offer safe haven to Gitmo detainees. A recent stop was 10 Downing Street, where they petitioned Prime Minister Gordon Brown to push for the release of Britons still held at the prison. Amnesty says it associates with Mr. Begg because he experienced first-hand the human-rights violations at Guantanamo.Enter Ms. Sahgal, a longtime Amnesty employee who believed that her organization's support for Mr. Begg betrayed its core principles. She went public with her concerns in a Feb. 7 interview with London's Sunday Times in which she called the collaboration "a gross error of judgment" that posed a serious threat to human rights and to Amnesty's reputation. Amnesty suspended Ms. Sahgal from her job, claiming it didn't want her opinion of Mr. Begg to be confused with its own.Amnesty continues to defend its affiliation with Mr. Begg and Cageprisoners. Last week, on a Canadian radio program, Amnesty's interim Secretary General Claudio Cordone described Mr. Begg's politics as benign, saying there was so far no evidence to suggest that the organization should sever ties with him. This is nonsense, says Ms. Sahgal via telephone in her home in London. "Amnesty has messaged him as a human-rights advocate . . . He was in Taliban Afghanistan. He was not a charity worker."Especially galling for Ms. Sahgal is the fact that she only accepted her job after insisting to Widney Brown, senior director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty, that she be allowed to address the Begg alliance."I told her, 'If you don't give me the power to clean up this Begg situation, I won't take on the gender affairs assignment. Widney encouraged me to write a memo on it and even came past my office late one night while I was writing to discuss it. There was no internal resistance against this. So I was promoted with full support. Then, when the Sunday Times story broke, everything I uncovered was deemed 'innuendo.'" For Ms. Sahgal, her case is not simply a minor lapse in judgment. She thinks the problem is systemic. "This is a very peculiarly ideological approach to human rights, which misses the point." Novelist Salman Rushdie had harsher words. In a public statement, he said that Amnesty had "done its reputation incalculable damage" by allying with Mr. Begg. "It looks very much as if Amnesty's leadership is suffering from a kind of moral bankruptcy, and has lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong."Mr. Weiss is a contributing editor at Tablet Magazine and a blogger for The New Criterion.
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