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Selected News Items For Nov 14 – Nov 20

This thread is for the busy bees of S&L to post articles that demonstrate the distortions and biases of our establishment media.

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This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 12:00 am. You can leave a response.

72 Responses to “Selected News Items For Nov 14 – Nov 20”

  1. BillK
    November 14, 2009 at 2:29 am

    Analysis of how KSM will be found innocent, from their good buddies at the Associated Press:

    NYC trial of 9/11 suspects poses legal risks

    By Devlin Barrett

    In the biggest trial for the age of terrorism, the professed 9/11 mastermind and four alleged henchmen will be hauled before a civilian court on American soil, barely a thousand yards from the site of the World Trade Center’s twin towers they are accused of destroying.

    Attorney General Eric Holder announced the decision Friday to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse.

    It’s a risky move. Trying the men in civilian court will bar evidence obtained under duress and complicate a case where anything short of slam-dunk convictions will empower President Barack Obama’s critics.

    The case is likely to force the federal court to confront a host of difficult issues, including rough treatment of detainees, sensitive intelligence-gathering and the potential spectacle of defiant terrorists disrupting proceedings. U.S. civilian courts prohibit evidence obtained through coercion, and a number of detainees were questioned using harsh methods some call torture.

    Holder insisted both the court system and the untainted evidence against the five men are strong enough to deliver a guilty verdict and the penalty he expects to seek: a death sentence for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people who were killed when four hijacked jetliners slammed into the towers, the Pentagon and a field in western Pennsylvania.

    “After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice. They will be brought to New York — to New York,” Holder repeated for emphasis — “to answer for their alleged crimes in a courthouse just blocks away from where the twin towers once stood.”

    Holder said he decided to bring Mohammed and the other four before a civilian court rather than a military commission because of the nature of the undisclosed evidence against them, because the 9/11 victims were mostly civilians and because the attacks took place on U.S. soil. Institutionally, the Justice Department, where Holder has spent most of his career, has long wanted to reassert the ability of federal courts to handle terrorism cases.

    Lawyers for the accused will almost certainly try to have charges thrown out based on the rough treatment of the detainees at the hands of U.S. interrogators, including the repeated waterboarding, or simulated drowning, of Mohammed.

    The question has been raised as to whether the government can make its case without using coerced confessions. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....040S41.DTL

    Too bad they’re not being tried in San Francisco, or the charges would just summarily be dismissed.

    Holder and Obama are of course, loving this:

    Holder insisted the case is on firm legal footing, but he acknowledged the political ground may be more shaky when it comes to bringing feared al-Qaida terrorists to U.S. soil.

    “To the extent that there are political consequences, I’ll just have to take my lumps,” he said. But any political consequences will reach beyond Holder to his boss, Obama.

    also:

    But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the federal courts are capable of trying high-profile terrorism cases.

    “By trying them in our federal courts, we demonstrate to the world that the most powerful nation on earth also trusts its judicial system — a system respected around the world,” Leahy said.

    Bill Clinton must be jealous of how “intellectual” women at Wellesley must be swooning over these three already…

    • Chuckk
      November 15, 2009 at 1:43 am

      This trial will make the O.J. trial look staid and properly judicial. After the clowns have finished their work, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets off.

  2. BillK
    November 14, 2009 at 3:27 am

    The Associated Press stokes the fires of class division:

    Rich buying again, but middle class still hurting

    By Emily Fredrix

    American shoppers are splitting again: The affluent are finally starting to buy, picking up designer clothes at places like Nordstrom, while those on the lower economic rungs are still scrimping by, heading to Walmart for the basics.

    Recent earnings reports from major retailers suggest that the wealthy, who pulled back their spending the hardest during the financial meltdown last fall, are once again being enticed to open their wallets and going back to higher-end outlets.

    “It’s a good sign, but we don’t see the same across the board,” said Richard Hastings, a consumer strategist with Global Hunter Securities LLC.

    It’s still a far cry from the era of conspicuous consumption. No matter the tax bracket, people are still focused on value and trying to avoid overspending _ whatever that might mean to them.

    Luxury chains like Nordstrom Inc. and Bloomingdale’s, owned by Macy’s Inc., say shoppers are spending again on items like shoes and dresses, but still shopping for lower prices and classic pieces that get a lot of use.

    On the other hand, discounters like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are lowering prices even further to coax their less-well-off shoppers to keep spending. And it’s not on anything glamorous. We’re talking basics, like food and socks. …

    http://host.madison.com/busine.....fa89b.html

    Oooh, how dare those rich shop!

    If they can go to Nordstrom, surely they can easily afford higher taxes, right?

    • Liberals Demise
      November 14, 2009 at 8:14 am

      Baraq Hussien Opana destroyed the middle class!
      Just like I destroyed the spelling of his hideous name.

      There in “lies” the news.

  3. ptat
    November 14, 2009 at 6:54 am

    AP Headline–THIS JUST IN!!!–People who don’t have money to spare and are likely on a budget are shopping at places like Wal-Mart! SHOCKING!

    • BillK
      November 14, 2009 at 8:32 am

      I’ve got news for them – plenty of people with money are shopping Wal-Mart as well?

      Just because you can afford to pay more doesn’t mean you don’t like a bargain…

    • jobeth
      November 14, 2009 at 1:02 pm

      As a “must shop at Walmart’er” I have never understood the snooty attitudes of those who by choice pay more for the same thing in a “smart’ store. For the name? You might as well just toss money out the door.

      I’m not rich but even if I was I’m not stupid. Sorry I don’t get their mindset…at all.

    • BillK
      November 14, 2009 at 7:03 pm

      Define “same thing.”

      For the exact same product, that’s certainly true.

      But say a pair of jeans isn’t necessarily a pair of jeans.

      Then some people just want the cachet of a designer name regardless of the quality of the product itself…

  4. BillK
    November 14, 2009 at 8:21 am

    In the market for a garbage disposer? I recommend you buy an InSinkErator.

    From Bloomberg:

    Emerson’s Farr Says U.S. Is Destroying Manufacturing

    By Will Daley

    Emerson Electric Co. Chief Executive Officer David Farr said the U.S. government is hurting manufacturers with regulation and taxes and his company will continue to focus on growth overseas.

    “Washington is doing everything in their manpower, capability, to destroy U.S. manufacturing,” Farr said today in Chicago at a Baird Industrial Outlook conference. “Cap and trade, medical reform, labor rules.”

    Emerson, the maker of electrical equipment and InSinkErator garbage disposals with $20.9 billion in sales for the year ended September, will keep expanding in emerging markets, which represented 32 percent of revenue in 2009. About 36 percent of manufacturing is now in “best-cost countries” up from 21 percent in 2003, according to slides accompanying his speech.

    Companies will create jobs in India and China, “places where people want the products and where the governments welcome you to actually do something,” Farr said.

    The unemployment rate in the U.S. jumped to 10.2 percent in October, the highest level since 1983. Emerson, which Farr said employs about 125,000 people worldwide, has eliminated more than 20,000 jobs since the end of 2008 to lower expenses.

    “What do you think I am going to do?” Farr asked. “I’m not going to hire anybody in the United States. I’m moving. They are doing everything possible to destroy jobs.”

    Emerson, based in St. Louis, fell 7 cents to $41.35 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have risen 13 percent this year.

    “This attack isn’t supported by the facts,” Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, said today in an e-mail from Singapore, where they are attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings.

    “This administration has made a significant commitment to U.S. manufacturing, including reforming the country’s health insurance system to bring down costs and make American companies more competitive globally,” Griffis said. …

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/.....EbBQyskKl0

    Needless to say, the left has labeled Farr an “America hater” for moving jobs overseas instead of continuing to play the losing game of trying to manufacture products domestically.

    You’ve also got to love the doublespeak where the horrifically expensive and destructive Pelosicare program is painted as a “benefit” for businesses that will somehow make them ore competitive.

    I suppose so once all companies dump their medical plans and force their employees into the public plan…

    • Liberals Demise
      November 14, 2009 at 9:33 am

      I suppose we are the only ones who are going to pay out the a$$ for global warming when companies move to distant lands.

      Ah …… with what money are we suppose to do this with?
      No jobs …. no taxes!
      Baroque Obama has the mental capacity of a piss ant!

    • jobeth
      November 14, 2009 at 1:20 pm

      You have to assume that either Obalmy/Pelosi/Reid and crowd are the most stupid people ever to govern this nation or that they are Freedom haters and want to see America fall to the fate that all other commie nations have.

      Gosh…umm….let me see….Which is it? I vote they hate America!

      If you view Obalmy and crowd from that viewpoint…That he is out to destroy America. then you have to admit EVERYTHING he has done works beautifully into that plan. I can think of NOTHING he or his lefties have done that benefits America or Americans. From the Health scare plan, to the bail outs, to the Cap and Tax plan to his handling of the Muslim issues that go from the Git mo prisoners to Afghanistan to the creep who shot up Fort Hood for the Love of Alla.

      It’s all geared directly to tie up and destroy our monetary system, to weaken us on the world scene and to create a nation of financially needy people all looking for a hand out from the government (as in He and his buddies)

      He’s so soft on the Muslims that one might just get the idea he is one himself…ummm…what do you think?

      I’ve seen nothing to dissuade me from that idea and everything to support it.

  5. BillK
    November 14, 2009 at 8:26 am

    From Bloomberg:

    Bair Says Using TARP for Bank Capital Helped Fuel Public Outcry

    By Alison Vekshin and Joshua Gallu

    Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair said using the Troubled Asset Relief Program to pump capital into banks was “not a good idea” and helped erode confidence in the regulatory system.

    “I just see all the problems it’s created now, the horrible public outcry,” Bair said on PBS’s “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” yesterday. “It’s had a terrible, terrible impact on public attitudes toward the financial systems, toward the regulatory community.”

    The U.S. created TARP last year to remove souring assets such as subprime mortgages weighing down balance sheets and leading banks to stop lending, among steps Bair said were needed to contain the crisis. Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was forced to drop the strategy and use the $700 billion fund to inject capital into banks when the plan prompted lenders to hoard cash and failed to halt a slide in the stock market.

    “We would have tried to dissuade Treasury from making these capital investments,” Bair said. “In retrospect, that was probably not a good thing. At the time it sounded like the right thing to do.”

    TARP capital gave the U.S. stakes in the institutions, raising questions about additional steps if the firms needed further help, and put the government in the role of containing compensation at the firms getting taxpayer aid, Bair said.

    Given the urgency at the time, no one should be held accountable “for not thinking all this through,” Bair said. “I think it was not a good idea.” …

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/.....KGz8NRQipM

    Oh that’s OK, even though it was a horrible idea, and there were no shortage of people telling the Government this, “no one should be held accountable for not thinking all this through.”

    Who needs responsibility in Government or banking? We’ll just throw darts and see what sticks, and hey, we meant well…

    What’s the answer? Why give the “It wasn’t my fault” idiots even more power:

    House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd have proposed legislation that would give the FDIC the power to dissolve failing large firms whose collapse would destabilize the financial system. The FDIC already has that authority over commercial banks and thrifts.

    Yeah, that’ll work.

    The Government won’t need to actually take over firms like they did with GM, they could then just summarily dissolve them at their (blameless) whim.

  6. BillK
    November 14, 2009 at 6:56 pm

    More comment on Holder’s decision, this time via Fox News:

    Blinded Prison Guard: Don’t House Terror Suspects in NYC

    By Joseph Abrams

    The high-security prison in New York City where 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is expected to be sent to await his trial has a supermax wing to keep even the most notorious criminals quiet — but it isn’t perfect. Just ask Louis Pepe.

    Ten months before Al Qaeda in 2001 struck a deathblow in the heart lower Manhattan, one of the terrorist group’s founding members plunged a sharpened comb through Pepe’s left eye and into his brain, blinding the 42-year-old prison guard and causing severe brain injuries that plague him to this day.

    Pepe told FoxNews.com he worries that sending Mohammed and four of his alleged fellow 9/11 conspirators to New York could compromise the safety of the guards at the MCC prison. Keeping the prisoners in one location, he said, was especially dangerous.

    “Could you imagine over there what they’re gonna do, God forbid?” asked Pepe, now 52, who lost feeling in the right side of his body and most of his ability to speak. “After all these years, you’d think they should know.”

    On Nov. 1, 2000, Pepe was ambushed in the cell of Mamdouh Mahmud Salim — an alleged top aide to Usama bin Laden. Salim’s cellmate, another Al Qaeda suspect, joined in the attack, which prosecutors say was an attempt to steal Pepe’s keys to the cell block to free other prisoners and take hostages.

    The two had been granted permission by a federal judge to purchase hot sauce, says Pepe’s sister, which they then stored in a honey jar and used to create a blinding mace. Teaming up against Pepe, they beat and blinded him, covering the floor in his spattered blood. They then tried to rape him as he waited an entire hour for fellow guards to come to his aid, his sister said.

    “They wanted to discredit the badge and what he stood for,” Eileen Trotta told FoxNews.com. “After they plunged him in the eye with that makeshift knife, they did the sign of the cross on his chest.”

    Trotta said it would be like “deja vu” to see more Al Qaeda detainees shipped into New York for trial, where their court hearings will be just blocks from Ground Zero

    “There’s no reason why everything has to be in New York, especially after 9/11 and what happened to Louis,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense — why bring them into the hotbed of the city?” …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575133,00.html

    Why indeed except to gain favor with their farthest left supporters?

    Security and respect for law enforcement is absolutely last on this administration’s list of concerns.

  7. Petronius
    November 14, 2009 at 10:00 pm

    Bloomberg

    Gold Futures Rise to Record on Speculation Dollar Will Decline

    By Pham-Duy Nguyen and Nicholas Larkin, 11 Nov 2009.

    Gold surged to a record $1,119.10 an ounce in New York on speculation a decline in the dollar will spark demand for the precious metal as an alternative asset.

    The metal climbed for the eighth straight session, the longest rally since January 2006. Before rebounding today, the dollar extended a slump to a 15-month low against a basket of currencies. India’s central bank bought [200 metric tons of] gold last month to diversify reserves.

    . . . The price [of gold] has jumped 7.1 percent this month, while the dollar dropped 1.5 percent against the currency basket. . . .

    . . . “People are selling dollars and putting it in higher-yielding assets. All commodities are going higher” [said Matt Zeman, metals trader in Chicago].

    . . . Governments in the U.S. and other nations have … boosted spending …, spurring some investors to buy bullion as a hedge against inflation.

    “What’s the value of paper money?” said John Hathaway . . . the manager of the Tocqueville Gold Fund. “It depends on what happens in the next three years to the efforts of the Federal Reserve and other world central banks to bring about an economic recovery.”

    “Would they be able to retract the liquidity they put into place?” Hathaway said today in a Bloomberg Television interview. “If they have a hard time doing it, I think we’ll see inflation, and gold will go much higher.”

    . . . Silver futures for December delivery climbed 31.5 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $17.537 an ounce. The metal has surged 55 percent this year after declining 24 percent in 2008.

    Palladium futures climbed to a 15-month high today.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/.....xZX59vB8k0

    Res ipsa loquitur.

    This robust action in gold, silver, and other commodities against the dollar is unprecedented. The closest thing to it is the experience under Jimmy Carter, when inflation peaked at over 20 percent and gold at about $850 per ounce in 1980.

    There are good economic reasons why the central banks of India and other foreign countries are swapping US dollars for gold. Chief among these are deficit spending in the trillions of dollars, looming inflation, and the destruction of private wealth by the robber gangs currently running the US government.

    • Jason Gillman
      November 15, 2009 at 12:23 am

      Indeed, “this thing does speak for itself.”

      as an aside FYI.. Note the precious metals used in the manufacture of Carbon suppressing systems, and indeed fuel cells… (so important for hybrid and electric vehicle dreams.. Some are quite rare.. like Palladium)

      Expect the dollar to decline further against these metals, not only because of the rolling presses, but because of the environmental concerns which will limit any new expansion in mining of our metals.

      In Michigan… http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=11290

      The wealth created by our raw resources has helped to keep the dollar in check.. Wait till it is all shut down.

  8. canary
    November 15, 2009 at 1:34 am

    AP: In Asia, Obama talking climate, arms control
    By White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven Nov 15 2009

    SINGAPORE – …, Obama talked of the need to limit greenhouse-gas emissions “in Copenhagen and beyond.”

    …. giving the American president little to show in Copenhagen.
    It was unclear Sunday whether he would make the trip.

    …. the annual 21-nation APEC summit that had begun without him early that morning.

    …, Obama reached out by announcing that he would host the 2011 gathering in his native Hawaii.

    His chief focus, though, was more on side meetings, including one later Sunday with Russian President

    … a new treaty, which might be signed during Obama’s travels to Europe in early December to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

    Obama also was sitting down with Indonesia’s Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, president of the world’s largest Muslim nation and Obama’s home as a boy.

    … joining a larger meeting… includes the leader of military-ruled Myanmar, also known as Burma. Obama is sure to face criticism at home…

    A U.S. president has never met with a leader of the Burmese junta, one of the world’s worst human-rights offenders.

    But the leaders’ statement does not make any mention of political prisoners — including Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the last 20 years in detention.

    The omission is glaring, given the U.S. had insisted on the inclusion of the clause in a previous draft.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....5ic3BzdG9y

    • canary
      November 15, 2009 at 1:42 am

      Can you believe he was late for that meeting. He should be fired, to include failure to follow U.S. order to mention Burma’s holding prisoner, a former Obama rival for the Noble Peace Prize. Obama is a Jackass.

  9. Gila Monster
    November 15, 2009 at 10:40 am

    Obama’s cheerleaders at the NY Times try “deflection” to cover their messiahs foot dragging on the Afghan war.

    High Costs Weigh on Troop Debate for Afghan War
    By CHRISTOPHER DREW
    Published: November 14, 2009
    While President Obama’s decision about sending more troops to Afghanistan is primarily a military one, it also has substantial budget implications that are adding pressure to limit the commitment, senior administration officials say.

    The latest internal government estimates place the cost of adding 40,000 American troops and sharply expanding the Afghan security forces, as favored by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, at $40 billion to $54 billion a year, the officials said.

    Even if fewer troops are sent, or their mission is modified, the rough formula used by the White House, of about $1 million per soldier a year, appears almost constant.

    So even if Mr. Obama opts for a lower troop commitment, Afghanistan’s new costs could wash out the projected $26 billion expected to be saved in 2010 from withdrawing troops from Iraq. And the overall military budget could rise to as much as $734 billion, or 10 percent more than the peak of $667 billion under the Bush administration.

    Such an escalation in military spending would be a politically volatile issue for Mr. Obama at a time when the government budget deficit is soaring, the economy is weak and he is trying to pass a costly health care plan.

    So let me get this straight, it’s OK to spend a trillion dollars to provide dubious health care to perhaps 20 million likely liberal voters but now we’re worried about spending 45 billion to keep our country safe?

    Senior members of the House Appropriations Committee have already expressed reservations about the potential long-term costs of expanding the war in Afghanistan. And Mr. Obama could find it difficult to win approval for the additional spending in Congress, where he would have to depend on Republicans to counter defections from liberal Democrats.

    One senior administration official, who requested anonymity in order to discuss the details of confidential deliberations, said these concerns had added to the president’s insistence at a White House meeting on Wednesday that each military option include the quickest possible exit strategy.

    “The president focused a lot on ensuring that we were asking the difficult questions about getting to an end game here,” the official said. “He knows we cannot sustain this indefinitely.”

    Sending fewer troops would lower the costs but would also place limitations on the buildup strategy. Sending 30,000 more troops, for example, would cost $25 billion to $30 billion a year while limiting how widely American forces could range. Deploying 20,000 troops would cost about $21 billion annually but would expand mainly the training of Afghans, the officials said.

    The estimated $1 million a year it costs per soldier is higher than the $390,000 congressional researchers estimated in 2006.

    Military analysts said the increase reflects a surge in costs for mine-resistant troop carriers and surveillance equipment that would apply to troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But some costs are unique to Afghanistan, where it can cost as much as $400 a gallon to deliver fuel to the troops through mountainous terrain.

    Some administration estimates suggest it could also cost up to $50 billion over five years to more than double the size of the Afghan army and police force, to a total of 400,000. That includes recruiting, training and equipment.

    At a stop at a military base in Alaska on Thursday, Mr. Obama told a gathering of soldiers that he would not risk more lives “unless it is necessary to America’s vital interests.” He added during his visit to Tokyo on Friday that he wanted to avoid taking any step that could be seen as an “open-ended commitment.”

    The administration said Friday that it planned to cut up to 5 percent at domestic agencies in fiscal 2011 as part of an effort to reduce the federal budget deficit, which rose to $1.4 trillion with the economic stimulus and financial bailouts.

    Several leading Republicans have criticized Mr. Obama’s willingness to spend more freely on domestic programs and urged him to provide General McChrystal with the resources he is seeking in Afghanistan.

    “Keeping our country safe: Isn’t that the first job of government?” said Senator Christopher S. Bond, a Republican from Missouri and the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “If we have just a minimalist counterterrorism strategy, the Taliban will come back over the mountains from Pakistan, and they will be followed by their co-conspirators from the Al Qaeda organization.”

    Cost is far from the only concern about escalating the war. The debate intensified last week amid disclosures that the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl W. Eikenberry, had sent cables to Washington expressing his reservations about deploying additional troops, citing weak Afghan leadership and widening corruption.

    That kind of doubt could also make some in Congress hesitant to support an expansion of the war, especially with the midterm elections coming next year.

    Representative David R. Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin who heads the House Appropriations Committee, said recently that sending more troops to Afghanistan could drain the Treasury and “devour virtually any other priorities that the president or anyone in Congress had.”

    Unknowingly, I think, the Times has let the cat out of the bag concerning liberal-socialist reasoning on the Afghan war. No spending increases to keep us safe from terrorism, no open-ended commitment to combat terrorism and we might lose our voter base if we “escalate” this war, to hell with keeping our country safe from terrorism.

    And then we get this gem from Murtha:

    Representative John Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania and chairman of a subcommittee on defense appropriations, said in an interview that because of concerns about President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, he thought a majority of the 258 Democrats in the House would vote against any bill to pay for more troops. “A month ago, I would have said 60 to 70,” he said.

    “Can you pass one?” Mr. Murtha said. “It depends on the Republicans.”

    http://tinyurl.com/ylmjoot

    You see, it’s all so simple. It’s the budget we’re worried about and it’s all really the Republicans fault.

  10. canary
    November 15, 2009 at 4:36 pm

    King: Dunn Departure A Coincidence? Nov 9 2009

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Steve King made the following statement and issued this release regarding the resignation of White House communications director Anita Dunn.

    “Anita Dunn left the White House earlier than expected. Not only has Dunn lavished praises on Chairman Mao and compared him to Mother Teresa, Dunn’s husband has a public record of protecting ACORN and protecting President Obama’s relationship to ACORN.”

    “ACORN’s national headquarters are now under a full attorney general investigation. Congress and Attorney General Holder need to launch their investigations and a special prosecutor needs to be named – sooner rather than later.”

    - Four days after Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell raided ACORN’s national office in New Orleans, seizing paper records and computer hard drives, White House communications director Anita Dunn – the wife of a leading ACORN defender – has resigned abruptly from her position. Dunn was the lead critic of Fox News for reporting on the ACORN prostitution scandal, which originally broke on September 10. Dunn subsequently launched a public attack against Fox News on October 11, and she even stated “let’s not pretend they’re a news network” in reference to Fox. The White House press office, likely under Dunn’s direction, blocked Fox from a press pool event on October 22 that included all other networks in their classification. The White House has since given up on its effort to discredit Fox News

    - Anita Dunn is married to Robert Bauer, who served as general counsel for Obama for America. In 2008, Bauer sent a letter to then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey arguing that Department of Justice should not investigate election-related fraud allegations against ACORN. The letter is available at http://rawstory.com/images/oth.....letter.pdf. Footnote five of Bauer’s letter complains that “In the last week, several members of Congress who are officially affiliated with the McCain-Palin campaign have written to the Attorney General and U.S. Attorneys pressuring them to investigate ACORN.” The letter also claims that Republican concerns regarding ACORN-related fraud were “manufactured.” Subsequent revelations have validated these Republican concerns and proven the existence of additional fraudulent activities. The clear message of Bauer’s letter was to tell the DOJ to back off from interfering with ACORN’s activities

    - ACORN has admitted to over 400,000 fraudulent voter registrations in the 2008 election cycle.

    http://steveking.house.gov/ind.....aa1c3cddf6

  11. canary
    November 15, 2009 at 5:25 pm

    AP: Alaska fights to reverse polar bear listing
    By Dan Joling Nov 15 2009

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell….Like his predecessor, Sarah Palin, the governor is suing the federal government to overturn the listing of the iconic symbol of the Arctic as a threatened species, a move made last year that he believes could threaten Alaska’s lifeblood: petroleum development.

    “Currently some are attempting to improperly use the Endangered Species Act to shut down resource development,” Parnell says.

    The federal agency over two years however compiled an administrative record consisting of more than 175,000 pages

    After the listing, Palin sued, saying the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision was not based on the best scientific and commercial data available as the law requires.

    …Parnell said in October that the Endangered Species Act was being used as a “land use planning tool”

    Especially troublesome, Alaska Attorney General Dan Sullivan says, is that for the first time, the federal government listed a species with high population numbers — 20,000 to 25,000 worldwide, up from 8,000 to 10,000 in the 1960s.

    “Never before has a species been listed when the population of that species is at its highest, most robust,” Sullivan said. “It’s at all-time historical highs.”

    The legal theory sets a dangerous precedent, he says, that could make Alaska the world’s largest zoo with no additional benefit to wildlife.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....0cw–

    long article, I’d guess millions of trees cut down for copies of the 175,000
    page report, and all for govt paid and job creation.

  12. Rusty Shackleford
    November 16, 2009 at 10:50 am

    The WSJ tells it like it is:

    The Rationing Commission

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....sNewsForth

    As usual, the most dangerous parts of ObamaCare aren’t receiving the scrutiny they deserve—and one of the least examined is a new commission to tell Congress how to control health spending. Democrats are quietly attempting to impose a “global budget” on Medicare, with radical implications for U.S. medicine.

    A lengthy article but well worth the read. The meat of the whole thing comes much farther down:

    In other words, the Medicare commission would come to function much like the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which rations care in England. Or a similar Washington state board created in 2003 to control costs. Its handiwork isn’t pretty.

    The Washington commission, called the Health Technology Assessment, is manned by 11 bureaucrats, including a chiropractor and a “naturopath” who focuses on alternative, er, remedies like herbs and massage therapy. They consider the clinical effectiveness but above all the cost of medical procedures and technologies. If they decide something isn’t worth the money, then Olympia won’t cover it for some 750,000 Medicaid patients, public employees and prisoners.

    So far, the commission has banned knee arthroscopy for osteoarthritis, discography for chronic back pain, and implantable infusion pumps for pain not related to cancer. This year, it is targeting such frivolous luxuries as knee replacements, spinal cord stimulation, a specialized autism therapy and MRIs of the abdomen, pelvis or breasts for cancer. It will also rule on routine ultrasounds for pregnancy, which have a “high” efficacy but also a “high” cost.

    Currently, the commission is pushing through the most restrictive payment policy in the nation for drug-eluting cardiac stents—simply because bare metal stents are cheaper, even as they result in worse outcomes. If a patient is wheeled into the operating room with chest pains in an emergency, doctors will first have to determine if he’s covered by a state plan, then the diameter of his blood vessels and his diabetic condition to decide on the appropriate stent. If they don’t, Washington will not reimburse them for “inappropriate care.”

    So while the senate deliberates on whether or not this should even exist, in the background bureaucrats are already determining the course of our lives and the most cost-effective way to let people die.

  13. BillK
    November 16, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    From the Associated Press:

    Cops Drive Mass. State Senator Home Hours Before Hit-And-Run Accident

    BOSTON — Police in Cambridge, Mass., gave state Sen. Anthony Galluccio a ride home because acquaintances told them he was too drunk to drive about 13 hours before he was involved in a hit-and-run accident.

    Police were called to a gas station in Cambridge about 4:40 a.m. Oct. 4 after receiving a call about an intoxicated man.

    The station attendant told police he believed Galluccio was too drunk to drive. Police said another man told them he was trying to drive Galluccio home but couldn’t find his house. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575315,00.html

    Now for the best part:

    About 13 hours later, a vehicle driven by Galluccio rear-ended a minivan. Galluccio has said he left the scene because he panicked.

    He’s just following the Ted Kennedy template, what’s the problem? DIdn’t he “panic” as well when he left Miss Kopechne to drown?

    I think you can guess Galluccio’s political affiliation by the fact that the AP didn’t bother to mention it; had he been a Republican it would have been in the headline.

  14. BillK
    November 16, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    Fox News explains the real reason Holder is doing what he is:

    Some Fear Bush Administration Could Become Target in 9/11 Trial

    Some critics say a civilian trial — instead of a military tribunal — for self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his accomplices could end up targeting the Bush administration and its anti-terror policies.

    The Obama administration, in deciding to try alleged Sept. 11 conspirators in a New York courtroom, has said it is setting its sights on convictions, but some critics say a civilian trial — instead of a military tribunal — could end up targeting the Bush administration and its anti-terror policies.

    One of those five defendants, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has been at the center of the debate over those Bush-era polices, in particular the harsh interrogation techniques used on Mohammed and others in an effort to obtain information on Al Qaeda and any additional attacks.

    “The government is going to try to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed on trial. Defense lawyers will try and put the government on trial,” former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Fox News.

    The Justice Department says in a 2005 memo that CIA interrogators subjected Mohammed 183 times to waterboarding, a near-drowning technique described by Obama officials as illegal torture. But others disagree with Obama, most notably former Vice President Dick Cheney, who argues that the techniques used have kept the country safe from another attack.

    Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, announced in the summer that he would investigate whether CIA officers should be prosecuted for their interrogations, setting off intense debate over the prospect of prosecuting officials from the previous administration.

    But on Friday, in announcing a civilian trial for Mohammed and four other detainees, Holder dismissed questions about whether politics was a factor in the decision.

    “My job as attorney general is to look at the law, apply the facts to the law and ultimately do what I think is in the best interests of this country and our system of justice. Those are my guides,” he said. “To the extent that there are political consequences, well, you know, I’ll just have to take my lumps, to the extent that those are set in my way.”

    “But I think if people will, in a neutral and detached way, look at the decision that I have made today, understand the reasons why I made those decisions, and try to do something that’s rare in Washington — leave the politics out of it and focus on what’s in the best interest of this country — I think the criticism will be relatively mild.”

    But Holder already has faced strong criticism from conservatives and some families of 9/11 victims.

    Karl Rove, a former top Bush adviser and now a Fox News contributor, said some attorneys in the Justice Department have tried for years to undermine the military tribunals system and “gain for these war criminals the rights that we would accord American citizens who might be accused of knocking over the local 7-Eleven.”

    “I think we make a mistake by focusing on the politics of it,” Rove said. “What we ought to do is focus on the real danger this represents to the American interest and to the American security in the years ahead.“…

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....istration/

    That’s right, it’s entirely apolitical.

  15. BannedbytheTaliban
    November 16, 2009 at 2:53 pm

    CNN continues the drum beat of growing threat of hate groups and right-wing ‘extremism’:

    Militias: Patriots or extremists?

    By Jim Acosta

    Out in the woods, 30-minutes from the nearest city, the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia meets for training once a month.

    Armed with a small arsenal of semi-automatic weapons, the question that crosses your mind at one of these exercises is: training for what?

    That depends on who you ask.

    Our visit with the militia is the first installment of our three part series on something called “the Patriot movement.”

    The members of the militia in Michigan would certainly call themselves patriots. The folks at the civil rights organization, theSouthern Poverty Law Center prefers to use the word “extremists.”

    …In part three of our series, we go to Las Vegas to go behind the scenes with an organization called “Oathkeepers.” It’s a group of ex-law enforcement officials and military veterans who say they’ve sworn an oath to the Constitution, not the president. The president they’re referring to, of course, is Mr. Obama.

    http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/200.....xtremists/

    This is their lead story. Like all of these fallacious “extremist” stories, most of their “facts” are coming from the laughably labeled “civil rights organization” the SPLC. It is becoming a lot of the same song different chorus. Of course carrying out a tradition as old as this country is extreme, but socializing the auto companies, banks, giving terrorist constitutional protections (a.k.a. giving aide to the enemy, a.k.a. treason), trillion dollar deficit spending, forced unionization, socialized medicine, etc aren’t extreme in anyway. We should be worried about the crazy republicans in the woods with semi-automatic weapons, they are the true threat to socialism, ahem, I mean democracy.

  16. canary
    November 16, 2009 at 8:36 pm

    Former incidents where muslim terrorists attacked guards & judge NYC

    AP: Security threats inside and out for 9/11 trial
    By Devlin Barrett And Larry Neumeister Nov 16 2009

    NEW YORK – …The Sept. 11 case would be the most spectacular

    At the same federal lockup…, federal prison guard Louis Pepe was attacked in late 2000 by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a former top aide to Osama bin Laden who was awaiting trial…

    Salim surprised Pepe by using a squeezable plastic honey bear container filled with hot sauce as a kind of homemade pepper spray…

    then took a plastic comb ground into the shape of a dagger and plunged it into Pepe’s left eye. The point pierced deep into his brain, causing severe permanent injury…

    papers found in the cell showed Salim’s plan had been to take hostages inside the prison and free his co-defendants…

    Salim’s lawyer in that case, Richard Lind, said he had “mixed feelings” about Holder’s decision…

    “The prison is not very secure,” Lind said. “Maybe things have improved.. .”

    Bureau of Prison spokesman Edmond Ross said: “…but I’m not aware that any particular heightened security procedures are going to be implemented.”

    …too, the last major al-Qaida trial…
    During a pre-trial hearing, al-Qaida suspect Wadih El-Hage leaped out of a jury box that held several defendants and raced toward the judge, who maneuvered his tall black chair in front of him as a shield.

    Josh Dratel, a lawyer who represented El-Hage, said it was right… he said, “there’s nothing that makes New York more of a target” than it already is.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....l_security

  17. canary
    November 16, 2009 at 10:12 pm

    Times: Israel and Iran compete to expand influence in Latin America Hannah Strange in Caracas

    President Peres of Israel is using the first visit to Brazil by an Israeli head of state in 43 years…

    Mr Peres entreated the Brazilian Government to help to curb the Iranian nuclear programme that Tel Aviv claims is aided by Venezuela…

    … concern is Venezuela, where Iran’s critics claim that President Chávez has opened his country’s doors to militants from the Middle East.

    …hard to believe, such as terrorist camps on the tourist island of Margarita or Venezuelan uranium smuggled to Tehran on commercial flights, or even the use of Iranian bicycle and tractor factories as fronts for nuclear activity.

    Mr Chávez has deflected some of the more unlikely allegations with his bombastic wit, recently jibing on his weekly television show that he had taken delivery of his new “atomic bicycle”.

    What appears more likely is that Iran is helping Venezuela with its own nuclear ambitions. Mr Chávez has made no secret of his desire to establish Venezuela as a nuclear power.

    Colombia,… senior government source recently telling The Times that the Venezuelan-Iranian alliance, particularly on nuclear capacity, was a “serious issue”

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....913276.ece

    don’t understand why reporter Hannah Strange finds this hard to believe.

  18. canary
    November 16, 2009 at 10:53 pm

    The Times: Muslims must quit British Forces, says Iranian envoy Ayatollah Abdolhossein
    Richard Kerbaj Nov 14 2009

    The Iranian Supreme Leader’s representative in Britain has told Muslim servicemen and women to quit the Armed Forces, saying that their involvement in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is forbidden by Islam.

    The cleric, personally appointed by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to be his special envoy to the UK, also urged Muslims to defeat the opposition…

    Ayatollah Moezi, the most senior Iranian spiritual leader in Britain with thousands of followers from the Shia sect, said that it was wrong for followers of Islam to serve in the Armed Forces, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq where Muslims were being killed.

    “I believe the Islamic revolution has been absorbed to the deepest parts of our society,” said Ayatollah Moezi, who has been in Britain since 2004 after serving as the Supreme Leader’s special envoy to Vienna for four years.
    … become more involved in British society through education and employment…

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....916382.ece

  19. BillK
    November 16, 2009 at 11:28 pm

    Absolutely no one at the NYT can pass up any chance to trash Palin.

    From their television department:

    Palin Onstage, Still Moving Off Message

    By Alessandra Stanley

    There were no questions about the Bush doctrine, but Sarah Palin’s appearance Monday on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to promote her memoir looked less like a celebratory comeback than a redo of the presidential campaign.

    For all her aplomb and telegenic charm, Ms. Palin still had the hunted look and defensive crouch she wore in television interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson last year. And it would seem that the pain of those tongue-tied encounters was not exorcised by writing “Going Rogue: An American Life,” a tell-all book that blamed the McCain staff for the way it “handled” her on the trail.

    When Ms. Winfrey pressed Ms. Palin about why she would not mention the names of newspapers or magazines she read when Ms. Couric asked her to, Ms. Palin said she found the CBS anchor’s persistence “annoying.” Still looking annoyed, she recalled how she left a rally “pumped up” and aglow, only to pull back the curtain and discover Ms. Couric waiting with camera and crew, or as she put it sourly, “There’s the perky one again.”

    Ms. Winfrey, who didn’t hide her surprise at Ms. Palin’s impolitic wording, came to Ms. Couric’s defense, noting, “You’re pretty perky too.”

    It was a surprisingly unsmooth performance for a politician-celebrity who insists that the McCain campaign stifled her spirit and smothered her natural talent for communication. But there were reasons for Ms. Palin to be wary: Ms. Winfrey was one of President Obama’s most prominent supporters during the campaign.

    On the show Ms. Winfrey treated Ms. Palin the way she handled former child star and self-described incest victim Mackenzie Phillips — with guarded civility and thinly veiled skepticism.

    Questions about her decision to quit her job as governor of Alaska, her handling of the infamous Couric interview and tabloid coverage of her family seemed to unnerve Ms. Palin. When Ms. Winfrey asked about her daughter’s ex-boyfriend, Levi Johnston, who has been saying unflattering things about Ms. Palin and may be shopping a book of his own, Ms. Palin tried, and failed, to stay on message. She began by saying that “national television is not the place” to air grievances against the father of her first grandchild, then proceeded to call him “Ricky Hollywood” and say that his plans to pose for Playgirl magazine amounted to “aspiring porn.”

    When Ms. Winfrey asked if she would invite Mr. Johnston to Thanksgiving, Ms. Palin gave one of her trademark wandering answers.

    “You know, that’s a great question,” Ms. Palin said. “And it’s lovely to think that he would ever even consider such a thing.”

    She added: “He is a part of the family, and you want to bring him in the fold and kind of under your wing. And he needs that too, Oprah.”

    There was more: “I think he needs to know that he is loved, and he has the most beautiful child, and this can all work out for good. It really can. We don’t have to keep going down this road of controversy and drama all the time. We’re not really into the drama. We don’t really like that.” …

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11.....watch.html

    Really, I’m still surprised Palin decided to appear on the show at all considering what a whore for Obama Ms. Winfrey was during the campaign and continues to be.

    I love her, I love her politics, but she really does make some clearly stupid decisions when it comes to the media; somehow I doubt her interview with Barbara Walters on ABC tomorrow morning is going to be any more positive for her; Palin seems to excel in shooting herself in the foot.

    Still, the writer’s personal feelings show through clearly:

    The title of Ms. Palin’s book is “Going Rogue,” but her appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” mostly showed a politician-celebrity going for broke.

  20. canary
    November 16, 2009 at 11:33 pm

    ITN: Breaking News: Brown to host Afghan exit summit
    Nov 16 2009

    He said: “I want that conference to chart a comprehensive political framework within which the military strategy can be accomplished.

    “It should identify a process for transferring, district by district, to full Afghan control and, if at all possible, set a timetable for transfer starting in 2010.

    http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/200.....a1618.html

  21. canary
    November 16, 2009 at 11:50 pm

    The Washington Times AP: 12 Afghans killed in attack on meeting with French Nov 16 2009 by Alfred de Montesquiou

    TAGAB VALLEY, Afghanistan — Rockets slammed into a market northeast of Kabul on Monday, killing 12 civilians but missing their presumed target: a meeting between France’s top general in Afghanistan and dozens of tribal elders and senior local officials.

    Brig. Gen. Marcel Druart told The Associated Press that the meeting, known as a shura, continued despite the attack to show that the Taliban

    The rockets struck about 90 minutes after the meeting
    convened in a building next to the main market of Tagab. They landed about 200 yards away, Druart said.

    “The target was clearly the shura,” said Lt. Col. Lionel, one of the officers who witnessed the attack.

    “My priority is the population, before the insurgents,” Druart said. “… I repeat my priority is the population and improving their life. The insurgents are a problem we treat separately.”

    The French example could serve as a test case for the counterinsurgency tactics that U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal outlined this summer ….the manpower to spread deeply across Afghanistan and focus on winning the population rather than simply killing Taliban.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com.....ng-french/

    It was Obama’s idea that top priority was 1st. serve tea to the civilian population, 2nd kill terrorists only after they try and kill 3rd U.S. & NATO troops.

  22. BillK
    November 17, 2009 at 12:01 am

    The federal government shows its fiscal responsibility yet again.

    From UPI:

    Carter gas station could get national park status

    A taxpayers group is objecting to giving national park status to a gas station once owned by Billy Carter, the brother of former President Jimmy Carter.

    The U.S. House approved a measure last month to incorporate the service station in Plains, Ga., under the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. That brings the service station under the auspices of the National Park Service.

    Upgrades to the gas station and a state-run welcome center will cost an estimated $17 million, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.

    Steve Ellis, vice president of the Washington-based watchdog group, Taxpayers for Common Sense objects to the bill, the Times reported. Ellis said the gas station is “not in imminent danger of being turned into condos or something like that.

    “So you’ve got to question whether it’s the best move for the park service,” he said.

    Park Superintendent Gary Ingram said the renovated sites will entice visitors after the deaths of Plains’ most notable residents, Jimmy and Roslyn Carter. …

    http://850koa.com/pages/breaki.....le=6325596

    Note this site has nothing to do with the former President other than the fact that his brother owned it.

    This is just insane.

  23. BillK
    November 17, 2009 at 12:08 am

    Let the cutbacks begin!

    From Reuters:

    Experts question motives of mammogram guidelines

    By Julie Steenhuysen

    CHICAGO (Reuters) – Cancer experts fear new U.S. breast imaging guidelines that recommend against routine screening mammograms for women in their 40s may have their roots in the current drive in Washington to reform healthcare.

    Critics of the guidelines, issued on Monday by the U.S. Services Task Force, an independent panel sponsored by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Quality, say the new guidelines are a step backward and will lead to more cancer deaths.

    Here are some of their concerns.

    * Dr Carol Lee, chairwoman of the American College of Radiology Breast Imaging Commission, said she fears insurers — both private and public — will use them to pare back health costs.

    “These new recommendations seem to reflect a conscious decision to ration care,” Lee said in a statement.

    She said since the onset of regular mammogram screening in 1990, the death rate from breast cancer, which had been unchanged for the preceding 50 years, has decreased by 30 percent.

    * Dr Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said the influential group will not change recommendations for routine mammograms for women starting at age 40.

    But he is worried that women will become so confused by the conflicting recommendations they will stop getting mammograms altogether. “Frankly, from our point of view that would be the worst possible outcome,” Lichtenfeld said in a telephone interview.

    * Lichtenfeld and other doctors are worried that insurance companies and government insurers will seize on the recommendations as a way to control rising health costs.

    “What is going to happen is insurers are going to say, ‘The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force doesn’t support screening. We’re not going to pay for it,’” said Dr Daniel Kopans, professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School and a senior radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. …

    http://www.reuters.com/article.....OS20091116

    Merely the first sign of things to come.

  24. BillK
    November 17, 2009 at 12:12 am

    Yet another reason for the left to shower Russia in affection.

    From Reuters:

    Russia’s Medvedev warns of climate catastrophe

    By Oleg Shchedrov

    SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned on Monday that climate change posed a “catastrophic” threat in some of the sharpest comments yet on a subject the Kremlin has often seemed reluctant to confront.

    Although the United States said that the consensus amongst the 19 leaders at the weekend Asia Pacific summit in Singapore was that a climate change deal this December was unlikely, Medvedev made clear he felt it was a top priority.

    “If we don’t take joint action, the consequences for the planet may be very distressing to the point that the Arctic and Antarctic ice can melt and change ocean levels,” he said shortly before leaving Singapore.

    “All of this will have catastrophic consequences.”

    Russia signed up the Kyoto protocol after years of haggling about its implementation, but has been criticized by environmental groups for not offering more ambitious emissions cuts ahead of December’s Copenhagen summit. …

    http://www.reuters.com/article.....SU20091116

    Why this approach?

    Medvedev isn’t an idiot; he knows this will destroy America economically, given Russia has precious little of an (above-ground) economy in the first place.

    Instead, by joining with the enviros, they will do using “environmental concerns” what Russia’s military never was able to – relegate the United States to insignificance.

  25. canary
    November 17, 2009 at 1:45 am

    Chicago Sun-Times: CPS board chairman Michael Scott’s death ruled a suicide November 16, 2009 by Maureen O’Donnell, Rosemary Sobol, Fran Spielman and Frank Main

    The death of Chicago School Board President Michael Scott was ruled a suicide this afternoon by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office…

    …Scott was face down in a foot of water along the Chicago River downtown, a .380-caliber handgun under his body,…

    The 60-year-old Scott, Mayor Daley’s go-to-guy for years, had a gunshot wound to his left temple…. the family does not believe Scott committed suicide…

    Scott,…had apparently plunged about 15 feet from the ledge into the shallow water. His car — a blue Cadillac — was found about 30 feet from his body, a source said.

    An ashen Daley said he saw no indication that his close friend was troubled..“No, no. None whatsoever,” Daley said..

    … to recover the body in the loading dock area of the Apparel Center, which houses the Chicago Sun-Times among other businesses.

    Belmont Area detectives are conducting a death investigation.
    A stunned Rev. Jesse Jackson showed up…said he spoke with him last week — and Scott sounded normal to him.

    U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the former CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, issued a statement saying he was “shocked and saddened.”

    Scott was Daley’s long-time go-to guy…disclosed to the Sun-Times that he had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating how students were selected for the system’s elite selective-enrollment high schools.

    “That didn’t bother him, because I talked to him about it,” Daley said. “It didn’t bother him at all, that scrutiny.”

    Scott,…had served on the Mayor’s 2016 Olympic committee and as former head of the Chicago Park District.

    In August, he was forced to answer questions about his involvement in a development proposal near the the proposed Douglas Park Olympic site.

    “I would not profit . . . not at all,” Scott told reporters at a Chicago Board of Education press conference.

    … if the Olympics come to Chicago because he was helping a group of ministers try to turn some city-owned lots across from what could have been an Olympic site into affordable housing.

    Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) on Monday called Scott a driving force behind efforts to guarantee that neighborhood residents share in the bonanza of jobs, contracts and affordable housing that would have been generated by a 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Chicago.

    Scott owns Michael Scott and Associates, a real estate development firm.

    Carothers — who was indicted in May for allegedly accepting $40,000 in home improvements, meals and sports tickets from a West Side developer in exchange for zoning changes that netted the developer millions — spent a year secretly recording public officials and real estate developers for the feds…

    excerpts from a very long article. Go to link for entire
    story http://www.suntimes.com/news/2.....09.article

  26. BillK
    November 17, 2009 at 1:55 am

    Glad those sanctions worked.

    From a supportive Associated Press:

    UN: Once-secret Iran nuke plant to start in 2011

    By George Jahn

    VIENNA – Iranian construction of a previously secret uranium enrichment site is at an advanced stage, with high-tech equipment already in place at the fortified facility ahead of its 2011 startup, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report Monday.

    The revelation of the existence of the underground plant known as Fordo, near the holy city of Qom, has heightened concerns of other possible undeclared Iranian facilities that are not subject to IAEA oversight and therefore could be used for military purposes.

    In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the IAEA report “underscores that Iran still refuses to comply fully with its international nuclear obligations.”

    The IAEA report offered no estimate of Fordo’s capabilities, but a senior international official familiar with the U.N. agency’s work in Iran said it appeared designed to produce about a ton of enriched uranium a year
    .
    The official, as well as analysts, said that would be enough for a nuclear warhead but too little for Iran’s civilian reactors that have yet to come online, including the still unfinished plant at the southern port of Bushehr. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information he was citing was confidential.

    “It won’t (even) be able to produce a reactor’s worth of fuel every 90 years, but it will be able to produce one bomb a year,” said Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the Strategic Security Program of the Federation of American Scientists. “It does look strange.”

    The IAEA also said production at Iran’s main enrichment site at Natanz — revealed by dissidents in 2002 and under IAEA monitoring — was stagnating at mid-2009 levels.

    The report did not offer a reason. But the official suggested that experts who used to work at Natanz could be preoccupied with finishing the Fordo site.

    As early as three years ago, Iran had said immediate plans for Natanz were to install about 8,000 enriching centrifuges, and Monday’s report suggested Tehran had reached that goal.

    The IAEA summary said that as of Nov. 2, about 8,600 centrifuges had been set up, but only about 4,000 were enriching — or 600 fewer than in September. Still, the official said output had been steady since June with about 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of enriched uranium being produced a month.

    The report said Natanz had churned out nearly 4,000 pounds (1,800 kilograms) of uranium by Nov. 2 — close to what experts consider to be needed for two nuclear weapons. But for use as warhead material it would have to enriched further — it is now low-enriched uranium suitable only for fueling nuclear plants.

    Iran insists it only wants to enrich uranium to make fuel to power nuclear reactors for civilian purposes, but fears that it could at some point use the technology to make weapons has resulted in three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions meant to pressure Tehran into freezing the activity.

    The restricted document, which was obtained by The Associated Press, also noted that “for well over a year,” Iran had stonewalled IAEA efforts to investigate allegations it actively worked on a nuclear weapons program.

    Unless Tehran has a change of heart, the IAEA “will not be in a position to provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities.”

    The report’s main focus was Fordo, a highly fortified underground space. Iran told the IAEA only in September that it was building the facility, leading U.S., British and French leaders to denounce Tehran for keeping it secret. IAEA inspectors visited the plant last month and the report noted “an advanced stage of construction,” with support equipment, piping and electrical wiring for centrifuges already in place.

    The report said the revelation of Fordo’s existence “gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities in Iran which had not been declared” to IAEA.

    The senior official said that as of Monday, Iran had failed to respond to a Nov. 6 IAEA letter asking for assurance Iran was not actively planning to build any other nuclear facilities. …

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....an_nuclear

    Wow, the UN is so effective, isn’t it?

  27. canary
    November 17, 2009 at 3:40 am

    Catholics unknowingly supporting ACORN, and still may be.

    (CNN) Special Investigations Unit by Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston

    The Catholic Campaign for Human Development froze its contributions to the group in June amid allegations that Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, had embezzled nearly $1 million.

    This week, as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops met in Baltimore, Maryland, the campaign’s chairman said it was cutting all ties with the group.

    “We simply had too many questions and concerns to permit further CCHD funding of ACORN groups,” Roger Morin, the auxiliary bishop of New Orleans, Louisiana, told his colleagues in a letter to the conference.

    The CCHD has donated more than $7.3 million to ACORN-related projects over the past decade, including $40,000 to an ACORN chapter in Las Vegas, Nevada,…. the ACORN chapter submitted registration forms for members of the Dallas Cowboys football team.

    However, he said, the ban on donations to ACORN won’t be lifted “until and unless it is clear that CCHD funds will not go to an organization that has engaged in unlawful activities or voter registration fraud.”

    … ACORN Executive Director Steven Kest said his group is grateful for the church’s funding in the past.

    “We look forward to continuing discussions with CCHD officials and the bishops in the months ahead in hopes that we can continue working together on projects, …” Kest said.

    http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITI.....index.html

    • canary
      November 17, 2009 at 3:59 am

      ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) received some $7.3 million from the CCHD in 1998-2008, and even more in earlier years.
      ACORN’s direct funding from CCHD was cut off in 2008, because of poor accounting practices.

      Ralph McCloud, CCHD’s executive director, admitted to the Catholic News Service that “some of the funds that the Catholic Campaign contributed to ACORN in the past undoubtedly were used for voter registration drives and in support of politicians

      Don’t forget ACORN has way over 300 offices they use under different names.

      According to Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center, CCHD money has funded the Industrial Areas Foundation (described by its founder as a “school for professional radicals”), the Midwest Academy (which trains in left-wing confrontation and intimidation), and other related organizations such as the Direct Action and Research Training Institute, People Improving Communities through Organizing (PICO), and the Gamaliel Foundation.

      For example, ACORN, funded by CCHD, provided at least 40,000 voter registrations, both real and fraudulent, in the U.S. Senate race that Al Franken won by 312 votes.

      CCHD money was the foundation for President Obama’s political career, his role as a “community organizer” in Chicago. That job – the young Barack Obama’s first political job – was as the lead organizer for the Developing Communities Project in Chicago, a project of the Calumet Community Religious Conference, which had been created by local Catholic churches and funded by CCHD. According to The New Republic magazine, the Calumet project “aimed to convert the black churches of Chicago’s South Side into agents of social change.” (Obama discussed Catholic Church support for Calumet in his book, Dreams from My Father.) Obama started spending more time with even more radical groups.

      (In Audacity of hope, Obama wrote conservative Catholics and non-denominational Christians as a great threat to getting liberal agenda passed.

      (don’t know much about this petition) but you might talk to your pastor, give him list of other organizations, or insist on the congregation knowing exactly where the donations are going.

      Petition at http://conservativehq.com/petitions/

  28. Rusty Shackleford
    November 17, 2009 at 11:47 am

    Barry Hears A Hu:

    Obama, Hu vow cooperation but produce few deals

    From the AP:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....i_ge/obama

    By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press Writer Charles Hutzler, Associated Press Writer – 51 mins ago

    BEIJING – President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao promised a determined, joint effort to tackle climate change, nuclear disarmament and other global troubles yet emerged from their first full-blown summit Tuesday with scant progress beyond goodwill.

    Not surprising. Talk is cheap and what the boy does best.

    After two hours of talks and a separate meeting over dinner the night before, the presidents spoke of moving beyond the divisiveness over human rights, trade and military tensions that have bedeviled relations in past decades.

    Yes, those pesky human rights violations, trade tensions and military tensions. Nothing of any consequence there. Besides, Barry wanted to talk about what’s really important: Climate change.

    “The major challenges of the 21st century, from climate change to nuclear proliferation to economic recovery, are challenges that touch both our nations, and challenges that neither of our nations can solve by acting alone,” Obama said, standing with the Chinese leader in the Great Hall of the People.

    This guy….this…..(president?) truly has no core value system other than loving to hear himself talk. And the “great hall of the people”? There can be no greater honor to a fellow communist such as Obama to speak there. It is the building that was built in 10 months to “celebrate” the 10th anniversary of Mao’s China. It is where all political functions in China are held.

    From:http://www.tsquare.tv/tour/gh.html

    The Hall is the place where all major meetings, plenums, congresses and official gatherings of the Chinese Communist Party and government have been held. Chinese history, as in other socialist lands, has been delineated by plenums and congresses. History occurs within the committee room, not outside it. The Hall, therefore, is an historical site, both in its reality and its significance. The “aye” vote, symbolized by the raised hand of affirmation, is a yes to history as ordained by the party; a “nay” or abstention removes the voter from that history. In recent years, however, the once formalistic congresses held in the Hall have begun to give allow for the expression of differing views and even objections to the majority, Party-sanctioned opinions.

  29. BillK
    November 17, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    From the New York Post:

    Lou says network didn’t want to offend president

    By David K. Li

    Lou Dobbs said yesterday CNN was eager to show him the door because its top execs didn’t want to offend President Obama.

    Dobbs made the claim last night on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” saying he took on President George W. Bush’s immigration policy with equal force but didn’t draw any CNN flak then.

    “I discern more of a difference between then, which was under the Bush administration when I was criticizing, and now, when it is the Obama administration — and an entirely different tone was taken,” said Dobbs.

    He claims both Bush and Obama are soft on illegal immigration.

    CNN bosses told Dobbs — a strong opponent of illegal immigration — that the network wants to aggressively market itself as the neutral alternative to left-leaning MSNBC and conservative Fox, he said.

    The Post reported that CNN paid Dobbs an $8 million severance to leave 1½ years before his contract expires.

    Dobbs said he found CNN’s drive to the middle oddly timed to the beginning of Obama’s term.

    “I don’t know whether that was the distinction that triggered any sort of response or a difference in perspective on the part of CNN’s management, but it is the only difference between the way I was conducting myself under this administration and the previous administration,” said Dobbs, who did his last show for CNN on Wednesday. …

    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/n.....ODWENUE6GK

    “Middle” being the new definition of being a lap dog network for Obama.

    I mean free health care, amnesty, cap and trade, only radicals could be against those policies…

  30. canary
    November 17, 2009 at 9:42 pm

    from reporters, joking and sympathizing with 9/11 terrorists.
    AP:First US trial of 9/11 case was full of surprises
    By Matthew Barakat And Michael J. Sniffen, Nov 18 2009

    ALEXANDRIA, Va. – … Moussaoui was surprisingly tame when tried for the 9/11 attacks — never turning the courtroom into the circus of anti-U.S. tirades that some fear Mohammed will create at his trial in New York.

    Skeptics who feared prosecutors would be hamstrung by how much evidence was secret were stunned at the enormous amount of classified data that was scrubbed, under pressure from the judge,

    Prosecutors were surprised when they failed to get the death penalty — by the vote of one juror.

    Moussaoui said in an appeal deposition taken after he was sentenced to life in prison. “… I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial.”

    U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who presided over Moussaoui’s trial — “I’ve reached the conclusion that the system does work,” she said in 2008.

    Moussaoui was charged in December 2001…churned through…2005, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiring… sentencing trial was held in 2006

    During the long run-up to trial, Moussaoui’s abusive tirades in handwritten motions and outbursts in hearings created concerns…

    In military tribunal hearings at Guantanamo, Mohammed also showed a propensity for grandstanding. …

    One of Moussaoui’s lawyers, Edward MacMahon, “Federal judges deal all the time with defendants who try to disrupt cases..”.

    On the other hand, there was no allegation Moussaoui was tortured into confessing, but coerced confessions or statements might be significant at Mohammed’s trial. … which could exclude what Mohammed told investigators after, as the Justice Department has acknowledged, he was waterboarded 183 times.

    But there are also statements Mohammed made much later bragging about his role, and statements by others subjected to less harsh interrogation methods…

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....al_lessons

  31. BillK
    November 18, 2009 at 3:40 am

    There’s just no limit to the number of new jobs Obama will create.

    From the (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal:

    Madison activist Hannah Rosenthal to join Obama team as special envoy

    Hannah Rosenthal, a leader in the Jewish community and vice president at WPS Health Insurance in Madison, has told friends she will become the U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy for Global Anti-Semitism.

    The envoy is charged with monitoring and combating anti-Semitism and preparing an annual report on anti-Jewish activities worldwide.

    In an e-mail Thursday, Rosenthal said she was “thrilled” with the impending appointment.

    “In the next few days, President Obama will announce that he has appointed me as Special Envoy for Global Anti-Semitism. I will serve as an ambassador-at-large in the State Department,” Rosenthal wrote. …

    http://host.madison.com/wsj/ne.....03286.html

    Just what we need – yet another Government employee tasked with “preparing an annual report on anti-Jewish activities worldwide.”

    Yes, Obama is creating jobs – they’re all Federal jobs that have nothing to do with our economy.

    I guess this means all those private groups that monitor anti-semitism can now go do something else…

  32. canary
    November 18, 2009 at 3:45 am

    Obama’s Chinese tea causing bizarre behavior & accusing Israel of being possessed by the devil. Photo’s appearing of Obama staring at this hand and dancing. Prehaps Obama is distressed over wives former employer’s best friends unusual death following the Obama defeat of losing Chicago olympics. Takes anger out, striking against America’s best friend Israel.
    Obama’s venom towards Israel, stronger than any words or actions against any other country in the entire world. Only Obama can permit a home to be built on the earth.

    AP: White House: Israeli housing plans dismaying
    By Steven R. Hurst Nov 18 2009

    WASHINGTON – The White House rebuked Israel with heavy criticism Tuesday after the Jerusalem city government moved toward the construction of 900 additional housing units in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem,

    which Palestinians claim for the capital of their future state.

    President Barack Obama has…demanded that Israel cease building ….existing Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

    Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordanian control in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed it.

    In criticizing the Israeli housing plan, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said: “We are dismayed,”

    Netanyahu’s office quickly fired back that the Jerusalem neighborhood in question, Gilo, has continued unabated for decades, and there is nothing new….”

    Gibbs statement issued as he was traveling with Obama in China.

    Associated Press writers in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091118/ap_on_
    go_pr_wh/us_us_israel;_ylt=ApZTWXS25WwXmHBJ4BOsV.is0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTJxMGNkNTdkBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkxMTE4L3VzX3VzX2lzcmFlbARjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzIEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA3doaXRlaG91c2Vpcw–

  33. canary
    November 18, 2009 at 4:12 am

    The Wall Street Journal:East Jerusalem Settlement Plan Deepens Rift With Washington By JAY SOLOMON Nov 18 2009

    WASHINGTON — Mr. Netanyahu has committed to significantly limiting new settlement activity in the West Bank but has refused any curtailment of building in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

    Middle East analysts said the White House statement was one of the strongest rebukes of Israeli activities in the disputed territories in recent years.

    The Jerusalem Planning Committee said Tuesday that it was submitting a plan to build the 900 units in Gilo, ….

    Earlier this month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he won’t seek re-election, in protest of the U.S. failure to secure an Israeli settlement freeze.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....lenews_wsj

    I guess all that Hindu spells, Lolo taught Obama, and these things Obama did where you tell the bad spirits to leave a body, and he belief in Kenya nightwalkers, voo doo and all, hasn’t quite left Obama yet.

  34. canary
    November 18, 2009 at 4:30 am

    AFP: Outrage in Washington over Obama’s Japan bow
    by Stephanie Nov 16, 2009

    WASHINGTON (AFP) – …. Washington’s punditocracy was still weighing whether or not the US president had disgraced his country two days earlier by having taken a deep bow at the waist while meeting Japan’s Emperor Akihito.

    Another conservative voice, Bill Bennett, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program: “It’s ugly. I don’t want to see it.”

    “We don’t defer to emperors. We don’t defer to kings or emperors. The president of the United States — this coupled with so many apologies from the United States — is just another thing,” said Bennett.

    The gesture appears to have touched a particularly raw nerve among Obama critics who said the president has hastened America’s decline as a world superpower by being too apologetic

    Meanwhile, an unnamed, senior Obama administration official told the Politico.com news site that the president had simply been observing protocol.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20.....yasiaobama

  35. canary
    November 18, 2009 at 4:52 am

    Obama’s half-brother, adds to name, and plans meetings together China.
    TIME: Obama’s Half Brother Mark Ndesandjo Speaks Up in China
    By Ling Woo Liu / Guangzhou Nov 17 2009

    Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo …, the half brother of U.S. President Barack Obama, has appeared on television in Hong Kong, and his picture has been splashed on the front pages of the China Daily, the South China Morning Post and other regional newspapers.

    Tall and slim like the President, Ndesandjo had avoided any association with the Obama name…., but he’s now added Okoth, a word from the language of his father’s Kenyan tribe, the Luo, as well as his original surname, Obama.
    “I am an Obama, and a large part of my life was a repudiation of that,” Ndesandjo tells TIME…. (Ndesandjo is still reticent about detailing his personal life beyond the fictionalized account, saying he may save that for a second book, a true autobiography.)

    Soon after 9/11, he was laid off from his marketing job at telecommunications-equipment maker Nortel Networks in Atlanta.

    Ndesandjo says he plans to introduce his wife, a native of Henan province whom he married last year, to his brother before he leaves China

    “I’m so happy my brother is coming to China because I’ve experienced the warmth and the graciousness of the Chinese people,” he says. “If we can continue seeing the mutual positive points in these two great cultures, I think it’ll be good for the world in general.”

    The two brothers have met a handful of times in their lives, ….

    [to Kenya]. Just another poor African country,” Ndesandjo says

    He has refused to tell reporters his age,..

    “He’s a very private person and he wanted to continue to live his modest lifestyle,” says Seyedin.

    As a Kenyan-American in China, Ndesandjo is part of a growing community of Africans…

    View this article on Time
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2.....9500/print

  36. canary
    November 18, 2009 at 5:20 am

    AP: Tour of Obama’s NYC visits Columbia area, Harlem
    By Beth J. Harpaz Travel Editor Nov 16 2009

    NEW YORK – Jeremiah Miller calls the time Barack Obama spent in New York “the lost years,”…. Miller offers a tour of Upper Manhattan called “Obama’s New York.”

    The two-hour $25 walking tour includes stops at… the street where the man who now sleeps in the White House once slept in an alley.

    “…this was a pivotal time for him,” said Miller, 27, who uses proceeds from the tour to supplement his income as a struggling actor.

    Miller pauses on a sidewalk while leading the tour to narrate that dramatic opening passage from the book, and his talents as an actor shine through as he reads aloud Obama’s recollection

    Miller reads another passage from the memoir while standing on 109th Street near Amsterdam Avenue, where, Obama wrote, “I spent my first night in Manhattan curled up in an alleyway.”

    After several other stops,…. Here Obama worked for NYPIRG, organizing students…”It was where Barry the boy became Barack the man,” Miller said.

    OBAMA’S NEW YORK: Two-hour walking tour, offered Saturday afternoons, of neighborhoods in Upper Manhattan around Columbia University and City College where Barack Obama lived, worked and studied. Led by Jeremiah Miller; http://www.obamasnewyork.com or 917-309-6956. Reservations required; private tours available. Tickets, $25 ($15 for children 12 and under).

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_tra....._obama_nyc

  37. canary
    November 18, 2009 at 12:20 pm

    The Washington Post: Hasan’s ties to radical cleric raise issues for law enforcement – Imam’s rhetoric on Web fell short of triggering legal action, officials say
    By Spencer S. Hsu Nov 18, 2009

    Three weeks before Maj. Nidal M. Hasan purchased the semiautomatic pistol allegedly used in the Fort Hood attack, a radical Yemeni American cleric whom he frequently e-mailed gave a broad religious blessing to Muslims who attack “government armies….”

    “…. Anwar al-Aulaqi wrote in English on his Internet site July 15 from Yemen, according to the NEFA Foundation, a private South Carolina group that monitors extremist sites. “Blessed are those who fight against them and blessed are those shuhada [martyrs] who are killed by them.”

    … In December 2005, several youths listened to Aulaqi’s “Constants on the Path of Jihad” speech on a laptop, …a group known as the “Toronto 18,” which was accused of planning to blow up downtown Toronto and military targets…

    In February and March 2007, a man later convicted of conspiring with a group of Muslim immigrants to kill soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., instructed colleagues to download Aulaqi’s lectures. “He gave the fatwa,”….

    Last year, Somali American youths listened to the imam’s lectures before leaving Minnesota to join an Islamist insurgency in Somalia linked to al-Qaeda. In December, Aulaqi wrote a note of congratulations to the al-Shabab insurgency,…

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....03830.html

  38. canary
    November 18, 2009 at 12:39 pm

    SLATE: Hard Evidence:Seven salient facts about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.
    By Christopher Hitchens Nov 16 2009

    ….The admonition not to rush to judgment or jump to conclusions might sound fair and prudent enough, perhaps even statesmanlike when uttered by the president,… the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan should not be assumed in any meaningful way to be related to his Muslim faith.

    On his business card, he described himself as “SOA” or “slave,” or possibly, “soldier of Allah.” Neither would be especially reassuring in this context.

    He had, in spoken and written communications, demonstrated a fascination with the love of death and the concept of suicide martyrdom

    …—a core belief of the Islamic purists who use the dogma of takfir to excommunicate such Muslims and render them liable, along with many other kind of infidel, to holy slaughter.

    7) He seems to have been especially obsessed with the Quranic injunction that forbids devout Muslims to make alliances with Christians and Jews.

    The above list is not exhaustive, but I would submit that five of the seven items (the first and the last four) would have been grounds to have had him either put under close surveillance or dismissed from the service.

    Proselytizing in uniform, for example, is already banned by a general order. To be “inclusive,” the United States armed forces must exclude or discipline those who oppose inclusion…

    A paranoid or depressive person—of whom we have many millions in our midst—does not have to end up screaming religious slogans while butchering his fellow creatures.
    But a paranoid or depressive person who is in regular touch with a jihadist “spiritual leader” is presented with a ready-made script that offers him paradise in exchange for homicide.

    http://www.slate.com/id/2235760/

  39. canary
    November 18, 2009 at 1:23 pm

    White House changing bold statements on internet WH site, Obama’s
    continues his propaganda endangering Israel.

    The Jerusalem Post ” Israel won’t accept restrictions in Jerusalem
    By HERB KEINON, HILARY LEILA Nov 19 2009

    Obama told Fox News in an interview that additional settlement building does not make Israel safer. He said such moves make it harder to achieve peace in the region, and embitters the Palestinians in a way that he said could be very dangerous.

    In this case, though, the condemnation was primarily leveled at building in a Jewish Jerusalem neighborhood.

    It is highly unusual for the US to criticize construction in Gilo, a neighborhood straddling the Green Line in the city’s south and considered noncontroversial among Israelis.

    Initially the White House statement was titled a response to “the approval of settlement expansion in Jerusalem.”

    But the version of the statement the White House later posted on its Web site had different wording. It does not use the word “settlement” in reference to Jerusalem, and is instead titled a comment “on Jerusalem.”

    One senior government official said that Netanyahu was “willing to show the greatest possible restraint concerning building in the territories, and has even received praise for that restraint. But that is in the West Bank. Gilo is in Jerusalem, and that is the capital.”

    Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin lashed out on Tuesday against the American demands, saying that “new demands of the type that the Americans are airing now, pushes us toward a red line that we cannot allow ourselves to cross, and is not legitimate.

    “The American demands are misguided, and if Israel accepts them, it could constitute the beginning of a principle that would prohibit Israel from building in west Jerusalem altogether. Jerusalem has not been the capital of Israel since Camp David, but rather since King David,” Sheetrit told The Jerusalem Post.

    Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said that he refused to be part of a halt to Jewish or Arab construction in west or east Jerusalem.

    “Israeli law does not discriminate between Arabs and Jews, or between east and west of the city,” he said in a statement. “The demand to cease construction just for Jews is illegal, also in the US and any other enlightened place in the world.”

    “It is inconceivable that the US government would demand a construction freeze in the US based on race, religion or sex, and the attempt to demand this from Jerusalem constitutes a double standard and is unacceptable,” continued the statement.

    http://www.jpost.com/servlet/S.....e/ShowFull

  40. proreason
    November 18, 2009 at 1:40 pm

    Meet a brilliant person:

    http://econlog.econlib.org/arc.....ative.html

    “The bill I would propose would be one that encourages experimentation at the state level.”

  41. proreason
    November 18, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    Uuuh, remember the $790 billion dollar TARP bail-out that we were told prevented the collapse of civilization, and just coincidentally of course, blew open the door of the presidency to a college sophomore who has since demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is either (pick one) the stupidest person to ever hold high office in this country, or a Marxist sent from Satan to ruin the country.

    Yeh, you remember.

    Well, it was useless.

    “the Fed did in fact avert a financial meltdown and an economic depression by flooding the financial system with liquidity, and by lowering the federal funds rate to zero. I believe that all the efforts to deal with the financial crisis by the White House and Congress–including TARP, PPIP, and ARRA-were counterproductive and offset some of the effectiveness of the Fed’s responses. On PBS NewsHour last Friday, Sheila Bair, the level-headed head of the FDIC, said that TARP was a huge mistake”

    Well to be precise, Obamy’s ticket to 4 years of Date Nights was worse than useless for us (but not for him).

    But hey, Goldman Sachs came out with a few dozen billions, so it’s really ok.

    And your kids will be paying the bills anyway.

    And their kids.

    And their kids.

    And….

    http://blogs.reuters.com/james.....-bernanke/

  42. BillK
    November 18, 2009 at 2:44 pm

    From Nation’s Restaurant News:

    Paid sick leave takes center stage in NYC

    By Elissa Elan

    NEW YORK (Nov. 17, 2009) Small business owners rallied on the steps of City Hall Tuesday to voice their opposition to a measure mandating paid sick leave for employees in New York City, one of several states and municipalities across the country weighing such legislation.

    Employers argue that paid sick leave would increase operating expenses and further hamstring businesses already struggling in the down economy, leading to reduced economic and job growth.

    If the measure passes, New York would become the third city behind San Francisco and Washington, D.C., to require businesses to offer paid sick leave to employees. Similar measures have been introduced in 15 states, including Connecticut, New Jersey, Maine and Ohio, although none have passed into law. At the federal level, the Healthy Families Act, which would provide up to seven days of paid sick leave, was introduced earlier this year in the House and Senate, and has garnered support from President Obama.

    In New York, businesses gathered at City Hall to protest the proposed legislation, which is now under deliberation by the New York City Council and supported by about three-quarters of its 51 members.

    “This bill is bad legislation for a good cause,” said Linda Barron, president of the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce. “Two-thirds of our business membership surveyed said they already allow a generous amount of paid sick days. Mandating paid time off would cost a minimum of $2 billion to $3 billion a year across all of the [New York] boroughs.”

    The bill would require all New York City businesses with more than 10 workers to provide up to nine paid sick days for every employee, whether they work full- or part-time. Any business owner that does not adhere to the regulation would face a $1,000 fine per violation, the bill proposes.

    “We will be forced to reduce salaries, cut benefits and lay off employees,” Barron said. “Passage of this bill would force many of us to move to more affordable locations and hamper job creation in this city. It makes no sense.”

    For the restaurant industry, enforcing paid sick leave would be fiscally challenging, especially for operators already seeing slowed sales that cannot cover increased costs, said Marc Murphy, chef-owner of New York City’s Anvil Group, which operates the upscale Landmarc and Ditch Plains restaurants.

    “If this thing passes, with 320 employees it would cost me $199,000 a year,” he said. “That’s a lot of money, even for me. It would hurt my business and maybe even cause me to have to close one of my smaller restaurants.”

    Murphy said he’d rather take that money and spend it on his company’s growth with new locations, which he said would result in creating more jobs and helping landlords fill open spaces.

    “I’d like to hire some more people, and there’s a lot of real estate available here in New York,” he said. “That $199,000 is a lot of seed money with which to start a new business.” …

    http://www.nrn.com/breakingNews.aspx?id=376078 (may require a subscription after a few days)

    Remember, Rush also predicted this would happen when FMLA was passed, and everyone said “No, no, that’ll never happen.”

    Sort of like going after SUVs.

    But who needs jobs when it’s the “right thing to do?”

  43. proreason
    November 18, 2009 at 3:13 pm

    You know you’re in deep liberal doo-doo when the dean of HARVARD medical school flunk PelosiObamiCare.

    “In effect, while the legislation would enhance access to insurance, the trade-off would be an accelerated crisis of health-care costs and perpetuation of the current dysfunctional system—now with many more participants. This will make an eventual solution even more difficult. Ultimately, our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all.”

    Let me rephrase the dean’s oh-so-delicate PC language, because he is much to educated to be blunt:
    “Millions of people will die unnecessarilly, and we won’t ever be able to get out of the nightmare.”.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....54014.html

  44. BillK
    November 18, 2009 at 4:40 pm

    I’m sure the left will say this was just because people wanted to watch a “train wreck.”

    From Broadcasting & Cable:

    Palin Scores for ‘Oprah’

    By Paige Albiniak

    Oprah Winfrey’s interview with former Alaska governor vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin scored The Oprah Winfrey Show its best ratings in two years.

    The CBS Television Distribution talk show hit a 7.2 rating/18 share weighted-metered-market average for primary runs on Monday, Nov. 16. That’s up 36% from last year’s 5.3/13 time period average.

    The last time Oprah did as well was when the entire Osmond clan appeared on Nov. 9, 2007. The Palin episode also was the highest rated since this year’s season premiere featuring a tell-all interview with Whitney Houston and last year’s post-presidential election episode.

    http://www.broadcastingcable.c.....Oprah_.php

  45. canary
    November 18, 2009 at 6:11 pm

    Bombs And Circuses In New York
    International Business Daily Nov 17 2009

    Terrorism: “Live from New York,”… Worse, it will provide al-Qaida with national secrets…

    …America could then be faced with this choice: Let the terrorists serve as their own lawyers and be allowed reams of national security material — or deny them that right and risk the case being thrown out on Sixth Amendment grounds…

    McCarthy warns that Khalid and the others “can and will demand discovery of mountains of government intelligence. They will demand disclosures about investigative tactics; the methods and sources by which intelligence has been obtained; the witnesses from the intelligence community, the military, and law enforcement who interrogated witnesses, conducted searches, secretly intercepted enemy communications, and employed other investigative techniques.”…

    … asked: Why are other terrorists like USS Cole bombing mastermind Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri being tried by military tribunals —

    Why will we let the biggest terrorists in history get the finest in legal representation at taxpayer expense?…

    Obama administration so wants to embarrass its immediate predecessor…

    Considering the secrets that Eric Holder’s Justice Department has already revealed to the world this year…
    Does the Holder Justice Department want to see George W. Bush convicted of war crimes by some foreign court?

    Congress has the power to stop all this… simply by refusing to fund trials for 9/11 terrorists on U.S. soil…

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20.....U4NTI3OTcz

    Reminds me of the muslim terrorist that represented himself after he opened fire killing and wounding passengers on a NYC subway in mid 90’s. He literally stood in front of his victims drilling them.

  46. Laree
    November 18, 2009 at 7:18 pm

    Media Matters Goes For The TWOFER
    Imus And Levin Exposed Criticizing Obama…

    Chuckling, all he needs is a microphone.

    http://imustimes.wordpress.com.....nce-again/

    I was watching this morning this is a good interview of Levin.

    Levin: He was visiting the regimes he likes GRIN.

  47. caligirl9
    November 18, 2009 at 7:49 pm

    A big fat “duh” from the Associated Press! Wow, this is all news to us, isn’t it?

    Obama warns of a ‘double dip’ recession

    BEIJING—President Barack Obama says he’s worried that spending too much money to help revive the economy could undermine a fragile U.S. recovery and throw the economy into a double-dip recession.
    That’s when the economy begins to recover briefly from a recession only to be dragged back under. Obama told Fox News in an interview Wednesday that his administration is weighing tax breaks that could encourage businesses to begin hiring again.
    But he added that it’s important to recognize that if the nation keeps adding to deficit spending through tax cuts or more stimulus spending, at some point people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy and that could “lead to a double-dip recession.”

    http://www.mercurynews.com/nat.....ck_check=1

    • proreason
      November 18, 2009 at 8:06 pm

      who knew?

    • caligirl9
      November 18, 2009 at 8:09 pm

      As if there isn’t a big chunk of the population who hasn’t lost confidence in the U.S. economy … or its government.

      My mantra: I didn’t vote for him. Not my fault … I don’t get to vote for or against Pelosi … I always vote against Fenistein and Boxer … I am trying, really I am!!

  48. canary
    November 19, 2009 at 1:33 am

    Chicago muslim terrorist suspects named plot “the Mickey Mouse Project”

    AP: FBI: Terror plot suspects had ties to Pakistan
    by Mike Robinson Nov 20 2009

    CHICAGO – Two Chicago men accused of plotting an armed attack on a Danish newspaper may have been involved in planning the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, ….

    The FBI for now is saying only that it has evidence David Coleman Headley was in contact with the Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba — …Copenhagen

    Headley is a U.S. citizen who changed his name from Daood Gilani ….

    …. The two men allegedly talked of the planned attack in Denmark, which they called “the Mickey Mouse Project” and “the northern project,” ..

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....sbw–

  49. BillK
    November 19, 2009 at 2:04 am

    Criticize the UN and pay the price.

    From Fox News:

    U.N. Watchdog in ‘Kafkaesque’ Limbo After Criticizing World Body

    By Joseph Abrams

    The United Nations detained an outspoken critic and booted her from its New York headquarters in what the woman, a human rights watchdog, is calling an effort to silence her opposition to the world body.

    Anne Bayefsky claims that as retaliation for giving a two-minute impromptu speech defending Israel, her 25-year career of monitoring the U.N. is now in jeopardy — likely to be placed in the hands of a committee chaired by the genocidal regime in Sudan.

    Bayefsky gets special access to U.N. meetings in her capacity as the director of a non-governmental organization, the Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust at New York’s Touro College.

    But the longtime U.N. observer has found herself in what she calls a “Kafkaesque” gray zone, where the U.N. confiscated her credentials, then denied to reporters that her access had been blocked.

    “This is no accident,” she told FoxNews.com, arguing that she is being denied access to vital meetings concerning her prime focus: defending Israel. “This is keeping [the U.N.'s] major critic absent during the heart of the year.”

    Following a vote Nov. 5 at the U.N. General Assembly, a microphone was set up outside the UNGA chamber for delegates to tout their endorsement of the controversial Goldstone Report, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes during its invasion of Gaza last winter.

    Without an invitation, Bayefsky approached the empty podium to offer what she thought would be a counter-balance to speeches from the Libyan president of the UNGA and the Palestinian observer, who both supported the resolution.

    “I didn’t expect that there would be a problem at all,” said Bayefsky, who noted that she and other NGOs have spoken there in the past without incident. (Archived U.N. video shows an official from the NGO Human Rights Watch speaking in praise of the U.N. at the same podium in May 2007.)

    Bayefsky blasted the Goldstone Report and called the U.N. a “laughingstock” for singling out Israel and ignoring human rights violations committed by the terrorist organization Hamas against Israeli and Palestinian civilians during the three-week campaign in December and January.

    “This is a resolution that purports to be evenhanded; it is anything but,” she said of the document approved by the UNGA. “It is a travesty — it calls for accountability, and in fact what we see instead is impunity for the Palestinian side.”

    Soon after she finished speaking, Bayefsky was swarmed by four U.N. security guards, who brought her to their security office, confiscated her NGO pass and kicked her out of the building, she said.

    But the U.N. told reporters a different story at a press conference Tuesday — claiming that there has been no change in status for Bayefsky, even as she continues to sit in limbo.

    “The credentials of her organization are not changed at this stage,” said Farhan Haq, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “It’s possible in the future that there could be a review, but at this stage there’s been no removal of credentials from that NGO or from Ms. Bayefsky.”

    U.N. security officials became angered with Bayefsky after they realized she had brought an assistant to the U.N. proceedings without getting him a personal pass — a breach of protocol that led to a full-fledged investigation by the security office.

    But Bayefsky says that the content of her speech is what rubbed U.N. officials the wrong way. She says supporters of the Goldstone report “are going to do everything in their power to silence anyone who gets in their way.”

    Following her speech, the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, was informed that a pro-Israel NGO had spoken after him, and reportedly asked a member of the press, “Did we capture them?”

    Later, as she pleaded her case before being forcibly removed from the General Assembly building, a security official told Bayefsky that “the Palestinian ambassador is very upset at the statement you made,” she told FoxNews.com. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575666,00.html

    Really, is there anywhere third world dictators have more power than at the UN?

  50. JohnMG
    November 19, 2009 at 7:55 am

    The UN building is nothing more than a public housing project for the world’s welfare queens. We foot the bill while inviting this gaggle of undesirable rabble to nip at our ankles–we even foot most of the bill. If left to the American people, they would have run these thugs out of town years ago. Instead, we give them legitimacy, diplomatic immunity, and an open gate to infiltrate our country with all manner of foul creatures. It’s time for them to find another free lunch somewhere else!

  51. Rusty Shackleford
    November 19, 2009 at 3:34 pm

    From the ridiculous to the sublime

    The AP reports:

    Obama says US, allies discussing Iran sanctions

    (Wait, that’s not the funny part)

    By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press Writer Charles Hutzler, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 1 min ago

    SEOUL, South Korea – Showing impatience with Iranian foot-dragging, President Barack Obama said Thursday that the U.S. and its allies are discussing possible new penalties against Iran for defying international attempts to halt its contested nuclear program.

    THAT’s the funny part–the foot dragging thing.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....i_ge/obama

    Obama’s warning came after Iran rejected a compromise proposal to ship its low-enriched uranium abroad so that it could not be further enriched to make weapons. Talk of fresh sanctions also showed that Obama is preparing for the next phase should Iran fail to meet his year-end deadline for progress in negotiations.

    “They have been unable to get to `yes’, and so as a consequence, we have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences,” Obama said at a news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

    “Our expectation is, is that over the next several weeks we will be developing a package of potential steps that we could take that will indicate our seriousness to Iran.”

    The U.S. is meeting in Brussels on Friday with five other nations — Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany — to discuss what measures could be used against Iran, according to an EU official who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to disclose details of the gathering.

  52. spiffyw
    November 19, 2009 at 6:54 pm

    From the Associated Press:

    Hundreds Cheer Palin In Mich. For Book Tour

    ‘Going Rogue’ Released Tuesday

    KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer
    November 18, 2009

    GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — College students ditched class, employees skipped work and some huddled in the cold overnight just to make sure they get an orange wristband Wednesday that would let them meet Sarah Palin.
    A line of more than a thousand people — some sporting Palin Power stickers and Palin T-shirts — moved slowly into a Barnes & Noble store Wednesday to see the former Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor on the first stop of her “Going Rogue” book tour. During the hours they waited, some broke out in chants of “Palin! Palin! Palin!”

    Scores more who couldn’t get wristbands awaited Palin’s arrival outside, braving the cold and yelling. “USA!” and “Sarah, Sarah!” at an event that took on the feel of a political pep rally.

    http://www.wnem.com/politics/21648906/detail.html

    The AP really wanted the headline …hundreds ….not thousands ,they are so used to lying, they just cant tell the truth sometimes.

    • proreason
      November 19, 2009 at 7:09 pm

      She sold 300,000 books her first day.

      Every lib in the world is twisted into a knot with jealousy.

      She stands to make $7 million + for 129,000 words.

      And oh yes, it’s her own story. She probably has a ghost writer, but it’s not some fantasy some ex-radical created from whole cloth.

  53. canary
    November 19, 2009 at 8:02 pm

    Attorney, who aided muslim terrorists, no longer free on bail for 5 years, to finally serve prison as did her co-conspirators to include a ‘court translator & postal worker’.
    A fine example of Obama’s court is going to put this country through.

    NY ex-lawyer surrenders to serve prison term
    By Larry Neumeister Nov 20 2009

    NEW YORK – Promising “you haven’t seen the last of me,” a 70-year-old disbarred lawyer convicted in a terrorism case surrendered to U.S….

    … shaking a fist in the air to chants of “Free Lynne Stewart.”

    …. She was convicted in 2005 of charges that she let a Muslim extremist client convicted in a plot to blow up New York City landmarks communicate with followers. She was sentenced in 2006…….She had been free on bail .

    Stewart was convicted of letting her client, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, communicate with a man who relayed messages to senior members of an Egyptian-based terrorist organization. Abdel-Rahman is serving a life sentence after he was convicted 14 years ago in conspiracies to blow up New York City landmarks and assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

    ~~Mohammed Yousry, a translator who worked for her, also surrendered .

    ~~A third co-defendant, Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a former postal worker, was already serving a 24-year sentence…convicted of more serious charges.

    Stewart has remained defiant since she was arrested in 2002 on charges of conspiracy, providing material support to terrorists, defrauding the government and making false statements. She was convicted of those charges.
    … just before she went through a heavy door and into custody: “You haven’t seen the last of me.”

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....ial_lawyer

  54. proreason
    November 19, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    Surprise! Nidal Hasan particiapated in at least one of the boy king’s transition events:

    Proceedings Report of the HSPI Presidential Transition Task Force

    …..see P. 29….

    http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/old/......19.09.pdf

    Could our own little Marxist fuhrer have sought out one of his fellow esteemed Muslims for a little elbow squeeze or fist bump?

    Note: further research indicates the Task Force was not formally connected to the boy king’s transition. The Task Force was a project of an independent think tank. Other attendees with the lovelorn psychiatrist were Congressional Staffers, Homeland Security officials, and DOD officials.

    • canary
      November 20, 2009 at 4:28 am

      ProReason, good find. They have videos of Hasan attending Homeland Security meetings as far back as January 2009 when Obama took office.
      No wonder Obama & Gates won’t allow a full investigation into how Hasan slipped through the cracks.

  55. caligirl9
    November 20, 2009 at 3:33 am

    The horror! What will Nancy Pelosi do? Oh for her no big deal, just another tax to avoid. She probably writes it off anyway, her appearance is vital to her job, ya know!

    ‘Botax’ Could Nip and Tuck the Cost of Health Reform

    WASHINGTON (Nov. 19) — Looking good may soon cost more.

    Tucked away in Section 9017 on page 2,045 of the 2,074-page Senate health care reform bill is a 5 percent excise tax on elective cosmetic medical procedures. The “botax,” it’s been called.

    The levy would be charged on any aesthetic improvements that are “not necessary to ameliorate a deformity arising from, or directly related to, a congenital abnormality, a personal injury from an accident or trauma, or disfiguring disease.”

    Face lifts, tummy tucks, breast implants, nose jobs, laser hair removal and, of course, botox injections, could all be taxed. Reconstructive surgeries for children with cleft palates, burn victims and women who have undergone mastectomies would be among the procedures exempt from the tax. There were 4.9 million reconstructive plastic surgery procedures performed in 2008…

    Rumors of breast implants and collagen lips typically swirl around the likes of Britney Spears and Angelina Jolie. But Haeck said most plastic surgery patients are working women with annual household incomes of $30,000 to $90,000 and “not the ultrarich who could afford the tax.”

    Haeck noted that since New Jersey became the only state to tax cosmetic surgery, passing a 6 percent levy in 2004, it has collected far less than anticipated. He also questioned how the tax would be applied in “gray areas” such as breast reductions to relieve back pain. And he said the measure could violate patient privacy laws.

    http://www.sphere.com/2009/11/.....c-surgery/

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