Ghaddafi's friends

With Libya in the news I though you might want to know who Ghaddafi's biggest supporters are/were. First, we have Fidel Castro, then Hugo Chavez and thirdly, Daniel Ortega. All Communist thugs hiding their tyranny under the banner of the "people". Let's also not forget Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam who received lots of money from the beast of Tripoli.

Castro, Ortega and Chávez continue their unconditional support of Muammar Gaddafi

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110223/int/int2.html

http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/02/25/gaddafi-and-ortega-brotherhood-of-blood/

The report now that Ghaddafi's son is in Venezuela and I believe the senior will be there with him shortly.

Creepy result of do anything that feels good culture

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How the left's anti Israel positions have encouraged despotism

The Guardian Aligned Itself with the Autocrats on Israel

It's time to look at what aid accomplishes.

UK 'to end direct aid to 16 countries'

Giving aid to China and India, why? And, don't expect to get get a serious or honest accounting from any UN agency.

Another result of too much union power

Sen. Baucus said failure to approve the U.S.-Colombia trade deal has been costly

In Colombia on a trade mission, Senator Max Baucus said the United States is losing deals and prestige as the U.S. Congress allows a free trade agreement to languish.

Anyone here surprised

Fox News correspondent on disruptive Wisconsin protesters: ‘There is hate in their eyes’

Why is this going on?

1,500 teachers paid to do union business and miss class

By SUSAN EDELMAN

In the city's funny math, you get only one teacher for the price of two.

The Department of Education pays about 1,500 teachers for time they spend on union activities -- and pays other teachers to replace them in the classroom.

It's a sweetheart deal that costs taxpayers an extra $9 million a year to pay fill-ins for instructors who are sprung -- at full pay -- to carry out responsibilities for the United Federation of Teachers.

With Mayor Bloomberg calling for thousands of teacher layoffs to balance the 2012 budget, critics say it's time to halt the extravagant benefit.

CRITICS RALLY AT CITY HALL

COPS TO CAP WISCONSIN PROTEST

"In these tight fiscal times, it defies common sense to pay two different people to do one job," said Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union, a government watchdog. "It's a waste of money."

That $9 million would cover the salaries of 198 new teachers at the current annual $45,530 starting pay

The DOE lets 40 experienced teachers collect top pay and fringe benefits, but work just one class period a day.

Under a contract agreement since 2003, the DOE excuses these veterans to work for the UFT -- currently 38 as district representatives and two as union vice presidents. The UFT pays them another salary, plus expenses.

English teacher Tom Dromgoole, for instance, collects top teacher pay, $100,049 a year, from the DOE for his slot at Leadership and Public Service HS in downtown Manhattan. But he is relieved for most of the day to serve as a UFT high school rep. The UFT supplements his salary by $50,461, records show.

Dromgoole is outspoken on state budget cuts, which he blasted at a boisterous protest last March with UFT President Michael Mulgrew. Reached Friday outside his Brooklyn townhouse, Dromgoole brushed past a reporter who asked about his UFT work, saying, "No comment."

Another veteran teacher said of the lucrative gigs, "It's a plum because you're not teaching. Some principals give them little or nothing to do" because the UFT reps are powerful.

The rest of the 1,500 teachers paid for time away from students are UFT "chapter leaders," who represent faculty at each school. They get at least one class period a day "for investigation of grievances" and other union-related duties, the contract says.

The UFT reimburses the DOE only about $900,000 of nearly $10 million it spends to replace the teachers, officials said.

One principal said his school's chapter leader is helpful as a staff liaison, but he questioned why the UFT -- which collects $126 million in member dues -- doesn't cover the cost: "They have a lot of money to run TV ads. Should DOE be paying for this?"

UFT spokesman Dick Riley said such arrangements are common among city unions "and were instituted with the agreement of NYC government."

A spokeswoman for Mayor Bloomberg declined to comment.

We have made unions a sacred cow and it's time to stop worshipping the idol.

Can't wait to hear the nannies start to scream

Motorway speed limit could be raised to 80mph

Speed limits on the motorway could be increased to 80mph in a bid to increase productivity, Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, has suggested.

Yep, the government promised...

Cancer sufferers refused life-extending drugs despite Government pledge

Dying cancer patients have been refused costly life-extending drugs on cost grounds despite a Government promise to end the "scandal" forever.

Mexico

More Civilians Killed Last Year in One Mexican Border Town Than All Afghanistan

Did you know this was going on in Kansas?

Union protest can't stop bill

The Democrat legislators are not concerned about jobs or the labor market. They are concerned their paymaster unions will lose money. The money that goes to them.

Unions

Top 10 Labor Union Outrages

Every time a union is asked to make a concession so that their follow members will not have to be let go they choose not to make the deal. Union members will vote for themselves over their colleagues. Union members pay hundreds of millions each year from their paychecks to union bosses and their paid politicians cronies. Wouldn't that money be better off in the members pockets. Unions have become like Guilds of old but without the worker skills.

Just union thugs sticking together

Bogus statistic from Wisconsin union backers spreads in media despite being debunked

Does the NY Times have an anti Israel agenda? You bet they do.

NY Times Uses Rescued Chilean Miners' Pilgrimage to Holy Land to Score Points Against Israel

By Leo Rennert

Twenty-five of the rescued Chilean miners have arrived in Israel for a week-long pilgrimage to sacred Christian sites. They are there with spouses and other relatives as invited guests of the Israeli government. Given extensive media interest, it's obvious that their high-profile visit is apt to boost tourism to Israel. But first and foremost, this is a good-news, feel-good event -- miners of deep religious faith who consider their rescue nothing short of a divine miracle are in the Holy Land on a pilgrimage to places where their Savior performed his miracles.

However, that's not how Isabel Kershner, a Jerusalem correspondent of the New York Times, reports this visit. Her article is peppered with anti-Israel digs. The miners' own focus may be a religious one. But Kershner merely uses these pilgrims as pegs to engage in not-so-subtle Israel bashing. ("Chilean Miners, in Israel, Count Blessings Amid Media Glare" page A4, Feb. 25).

Here's how Kershner begins her lead paragraph -- an immediate signal that hers is a political agenda aimed against Israel with scant interest in matters of religious faith:

"With revolts toppling governments across the Middle East and peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians suspended, 25 of the Chilean miners rescued after more than two months underground......"

So even before the miners are introduced to NY Times readers, Kershner feels compelled to inject a stalemate in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

When she gets around to the miners' itinerary, her article is sprinkled with pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel inferences. After mentioning stops at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, the Dead Sea, Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee, Kershner points to the Church of the Nativity, which she describes as located "in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, which is governed by the Palestinian Authority." Another stop is in the "Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war."

Another major focus of Kershner's article is on Israel's use of the miners' visit to promote tourism.. "The trip," she writes, "was clearly intended as good public relations. Israel was clearly hoping that its gesture to the miners would help promote the area as a religious tourism destination." Of course, with Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity on the miners' itinerary, the Palestinian Authority also is apt to share any tourism benefits that may accrue from the miners' pilgrimage -- a dividend for Palestinian tourism not mentioned by Kershner.

As she proceeds to twist and warp the miners' visit,, Kershner is offended by the failure of fellow journalists to politicize this pilgrimage the way she does "There was a conspicuous absence of any talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," she bemoans. "Reporters mostly focused their questions on the men's emotions upon visiting Christian and other holy sites." Only a reporter for the New York Times would find it startling that other journalists would depict the miners' visit without injecting their own political slants.

But undeterred by fellow reporters' failure to toe the NY Times' line, Kershner soldiers on. So, when she brings up some of the miners' stops in the Old City of Jerusalem, she immediately interjects that "The Old City is in East Jerusalem, in territory annexed by Israel after the 1967 war and coveted by the Palestinians as the capital of a future state. Israel's claims of sovereignty in East Jerusalem have not been internationally recognized."

I could point out that neither have Palestinian claims of sovereignty received international legal status, since this remains a task notable for its very slow progress. But I desist from engaging in a debate about disputed claims to the Holy Land when the topic is a thanksgiving visit by Chilean pilgrims to places where miracles abound, then and now, as a reborn Jewish state rolls out a welcome carpet to 25 Chilean miners.

Israel-American relations

Playing Israel's Good Hand

Destroying democracy by any means necessary

Progressivism Has Been “Outed”

By Arnold Ahlert Many Americans, perhaps for the first time in their lives, are beginning to recognize the contemptible nature of progressivism. How does one defend the total abandonment of the democratic process, occurring first in Wisconsin and then in Indiana, where Democrats legislators have literally run away from their responsibilities? One can’t—without revealing the bankruptcy of one’s own convictions. The most satisfying aspect of it all? Americans are getting a daily dose of progressivism’s only unalterable tenet: the ends justify the means. For those of us who have long been paying attention, this isn’t news. Yet plenty of Americans scoffed at the idea that those who have long engaged in class warfare, stoked racial divisiveness, and fanned the flames of national self-loathing were anything more than people expressing a different viewpoint. When push came to shove, the Constitutionally-founded restraints of the rule of law would eventually prevail, right? Wrong. Public sector workers have willingly abandoned the jobs they’re paid to do. Unscrupulous doctors have written notes filled with lies to protect them. The mainstream media has referred to runaway, anarchist legislators as heros, and deliberately ignored the same hate-filled rhetoric directed at Republicans they declared unseemly and dangerous after the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. Rhetoric that reached a low point on Wednesday, when Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) told a group of union supporters that “[E]very once in awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary.” Really, Mr. Capuano? Doing battle with whom, the taxpayers who underwrite union wages and benefits? Shame on you. None of it is flying. It’s not flying because most Americans are finally beginning to understand the unholy relationship between the Democrat party and their union benefactors. Benefactors who contribute well over ninety percent of their campaign contributions—funded almost exclusively by mandatory dues required of union members—to Democrats. How unholy is this relationship? Perhaps nothing speaks to it better than a unionized New York school system in which “passing” a 2009 third grade math test constituted getting 11 points out of a possible 39—which is a score of 28%. Was anyone fired for such child-abusing, blatant corruption? Quite the contrary. New York City paid $100 million in bonuses to teachers and administrators for their fine work in “raising” test scores. The kids? 75% of them need remedial instruction if they choose to attend college. New York is not alone. Union-controlled public schools across the country, especially those in inner-city America, have been cheating kids for decades, and the Democrat party has defended them at every turn. Consigning millions of innocent kids to lives of under-educated mediocrity? A small price to pay for “solidarity.” A solidarity which has turned one of the finest educational systems in the world into a worldwide laughingstock. How many American parents know their own children have been sacrificed to subsidize such an arrangement? Perhaps more now than ever before. Every day the teachers in Wisconsin stay at the demonstrations in Madison—illegally—is another reminder that some group of children is being short-changed. Every day these public sector unionists whine about having to shoulder more of their own benefit costs—even as private sector Americans struggle to get by on far less—another dark corner of progressivism is illuminated for all to see. Every day Democrat legislators demonstrate their unbridled contempt for the rule of law and the foundations of our democratic process, more Americans are witnessing the end game of an ideology which can no longer hide its corruptive, anti-democratic foundation. In short, progressivism has been “outed.” That’s a good thing. For far too long these socialist/marxist wealth-redistributors have cloaked themselves in a media-abetted mantle of “social justice,” which is now revealing itself to be little more than an organized shake-down racket in which any taxpayer resistance is characterized as “mean-spirited” or “heartless.” They have sold entitlement as a right, even as that “right” crushed the housing market, destroyed state and federal budgets, and created a subset of Americans without an ounce of dignity or remorse—on both ends of the class spectrum. Even now, most Americans would be completely surprised to discover that the crony capitalists in the banking industry and on Wall Street, are as progressive as their union counterparts. The legal profession? Ask yourself why a 2700 page health care bill passed exclusively by Democrats contained not a single word about tort reform. The walls are crumbling. Americans are beginning to grasp the insidiousness by which one part of government negotiates with another part to fleece the public without restraint or remorse. They are beginning to understand that the self-anointed “party of the people” is really the party of the “special interest people” and everyone else be damned. And, as the sordid episode in Wisconsin repeats itself in state after state, more and more decent Americans will reject a fundamentally indecent ideology which reveals that while all Americans are “equal,” some, such as gimme-more public service unions, those “waived” from healthcare requirements, crony capitalists, trial lawyers and thoroughly compromised community organizing groups, are “more equal” than others. As more and more Democrat legislators abandon their posts, more and more Americans will reject a political party which has been hijacked by radicals who have now revealed that power is their sole ambition, even if the bedrock principles of our democratic republic must be sacrificed to achieve it. The ash heap of history awaits. It’s only a matter of time.

You just have to accept that Obama is royalty, thats all

From Obama To Khaddafi, A Tale Of Two Tyrants

Obama just hasn't done enough damage to our oil industry yet.

No date yet for deepwater Gulf permits-US officials

* Libya will not hurry issuance - Interior Secty Salazar

* Still reviewing drilling plans - BOEM's Bromwich

By Kristen Hays

HOUSTON, Feb 25 (Reuters) - U.S. officials on Friday could not offer a firm date when deepwater permits to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico will be issued, as crude posted its highest weekly close in more than two years.

"We are carefully and rigorously reviewing drilling plans," Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the offshore drilling regulator, said at a news conference. "I am quite confident we will again get to the point where we approve deepwater permits."

A drilling ban put in place after BP Plc's (BP.N) (BP.N) disastrous well blow out last year in the Gulf was lifted in October, but but no new deepwater drilling permits have been approved yet.

U.S. crude oil futures posted their highest weekly settlement in almost 2-1/2 years on Friday on supply disruptions due to the revolt in Libya. [ID:nN25116777]

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar told reporters the situation in Libya was "not changing at all what we do" and the government felt no pressure to hurry its permitting process.

Bromwich and Salazar were in Houston to peruse a pair of rapid-response systems designed to stop or contain a future Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a requirement for companies under new U.S. drilling regulations. (Writing by Anna Driver in Houston; Editing by Walter Bagley)

The race card, oh no.

MSNBC’s O’Donnell Suggests ‘Racist Message’ in RNC Ad Linking Obama to Labor Unions

Does this not tell you a lot about the man's intelligence? They keep throwing the same crap against the wall hoping it sticks with their mind-numbed robots.

Stealing from the State, it's the Chicago Democrat way

Member of Emanuel transition team resigns

A member of Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel’s transition team is resigning over an ethics violation at a previous job.

Judy Erwin told the Chicago Tribune Friday she plans to resign to avoid any “distractions” for Emanuel.

Erwin was executive director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education. She’s admitted using her office phone and e-mail while working for President Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008.

The state’s Executive Ethics Commission says in a report filed Feb. 16 that Erwin cooperated with investigators, paid a $4,000 fine and promised never to work for the state again. She resigned in August.

Erwin says she never told Emanuel about the violation.

Emanuel spokesman Ben LaBolt says the campaign didn’t know about the ethics report when Emanuel named Erwin to his transition team on Thursday.