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Selected News For Feb 14 – Feb 20

This thread is for the busy bees of S&L to post news items we might otherwise miss.

If you do post an article, please follow these guidelines as much as possible:

  • In order to make the articles as readable as possible, please try to stick to the format described in the first of these weekly editions here.
  • Do not just post a link without noting the source, giving the headline and a brief excerpt from the article.
  • Remember to link to the original source for each item you post.
  • Avoid articles from blogs or hugely popular sites like the Drudge Report, since most people will presumably see such material elsewhere.
  • Any articles that fit under the topic of a recent thread should be posted there.
  • Remember to excerpt heavily. Posting less than a third of the article, is a good rule of thumb.

Thank you!

Related Articles:

 

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

107 Responses to “Selected News For Feb 14 – Feb 20”

  1. brad
    February 14, 2009 at 8:22 am

    This is truly shocking from Drudge: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/i.....geId=88851

    However, it is an ongoing track record that shows the government has never, nor currently, or will ever be accountable to the will of the people. 65 trillion $ in “vote-for-me” money. We expected these clowns to manage our money and our country. If this isn’t a white collar crime, I don’t know what is.

    Disgraceful, both parties, all involved……

    • Steve
      February 14, 2009 at 11:49 am

      Brad, thanks for posting. But do try to follow the guidelines at the top of the thread.

      (And as a side note, Jerome Corsi is far from a reliable source.)

  2. sheehanjihad
    February 14, 2009 at 9:51 am

    “The Federal Government is Bankrupt”……what? Try, “The Federal Government is MORALLY Bankrupt”. This is what we get for allowing both parties to stay in power. I am afraid that there is only one solution to this entire debacle…..and start from scratch.

    2012….that is the year that prophets worldwide and centuries ago have pegged as the “end of the world”. They couldnt have dreamed up the scenarios that are making it come true if they tried. Not the apocalypse….nah. but the end of society, and the Darwinian theory of survial.

    Ironic how the first “black” president is forcing all of us into his welfare program. Ye shall reap what ye hath sown….and our harvest is going to be bitter, and without any nutritional value whatsoever. We will starve ourselves gorging at the government trough.

    • brad
      February 15, 2009 at 4:37 am

      Yeah, I always looked at prophecy and the magic number 2012, and think to myself, “Am I dreaming? How is it possible that events match up closely with this date?” However, I think that many occasions in my life could have been matched up with end time prophecy.

      Besides, I also don’t think it is literally the end of the world because I have understood that the world will never end. There is some sort of 1000 year reign by Jesus or God or something, and then after that time, there is the final judgement day—something like that. Also, I think the end times will be so much worse than it is now, and for it to be worse, would take many years, so 2012, in 3 years seems like an unlikely time for a world police state controlled by 1 anti-Christ, as the Bible predicts.

  3. proreason
    February 14, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    Another way the ruling oligarchy enriches themselves at your expense:

    California’s Napolitano Makes $220,000 From 1998 Campaign Loan

    Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) — During a decade in Congress, California Representative
    Grace Napolitano has pocketed more than $200,000 of political contributions by charging as much as 18 percent interest on money she loaned to her own campaign.

    The suburban Los Angeles Democrat made the $150,000 loan in 1998, when she was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Through Dec. 31, her campaign committee has used donations to pay Napolitano $221,780 of interest while reducing the principal by just $64,727, a review of her Federal Election Commission filings shows.

    As recently as June 2008, Napolitano held a fundraiser asking supporters and political action committees for money to pay down the 1998 debt. Napolitano, her spokesman and her campaign’s lawyers didn’t respond to requests for comment. …

    The Federal Election Commission in 1999 ruled the loan and its 18 percent rate were allowed by U.S. election laws, after a complaint by Napolitano’s 1998 Democratic primary opponent. The commission agreed with Napolitano’s explanation that the interest charges were justified because Napolitano had to pay penalties for taking the money from a retirement account. …

    “This is unbelievable — it really is extraordinary,” said Michael Toner, a former Republican member of the FEC who was general counsel for George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign. …

    The debt is the biggest asset listed in Napolitano’s financial-disclosure filings, which don’t include personal residences. A former Ford Motor Co. secretary, Napolitano withdrew $150,000 for the loan from an employee-stock retirement plan. Ford shares, which traded for about $45 in May 1998, closed yesterday at $1.79. …

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/.....refer=home

    If you are a member of the oligarchy, there are many perfectly legal cons and scams you can employ to enrich yourself.

    In fact, the entire tax code is written to protect the wealth of the ruling oligarchy. The highest tax rates paid by ANYBODY are people earning $100K to $150K annually. But if you had billion dollars, you would pay virtually nothing in taxes.

    Grace, of course, is simply collecting what she is owed for graciously deigning to rule us. By the standards of her congress mates, she is a piker.

  4. eaglewingz08
    February 14, 2009 at 4:05 pm

    The Obama Administration not only is lifting sanctions against Syria but will also lift sanctions against Iran without preconditions. This is reported by gatewaypundit. That will show our good faith but will speed up the destruction of Israel (oops, the Zionist entity).

  5. proreason
    February 14, 2009 at 6:28 pm

    New Welfare in Depression Stimulus will approach 1 Trillion. From the indispensable Heritage Foundation:

    Welfare Spendathon: House Stimulus Bill Will Cost Taxpayers $787 Billion in New Welfare Spending

    The recently passed U.S. House of Representatives stimulus bill contains $816 billion in new spending and tax cuts. Of this sum, $264 billion (32 percent) is new means-tested welfare spending. This represents about $6,700 in new welfare spending for every poor person in the U.S.

    But this welfare spending is only the tip of the iceberg. The bill sets in motion another $523 billion in new welfare spending that is hidden by budgetary gimmicks. If the bill is enacted, the total 10-year extra welfare cost is likely to be $787 billion.

    The claim that Congress is temporarily increasing welfare spending for Keynesian purposes (to spark the economy by boosting consumer spending) is a red herring. The real goal is to get “the camel’s nose under the tent” for a massive permanent expansion of the welfare state.

    In the first year after enactment of the stimulus bill, federal welfare spending will explode upward by more than 20 percent, rising from $491 billion in FY 2008 to $601 billion in FY 2009. This one-year explosion in welfare spending is, by far, the largest in U.S. history. But spending will continue to rise even further in future years. The stimulus bill is a welfare spendathon, a massive down payment on Obama’s promise to “spread the wealth.”…
    Even without the extra spending in the stimulus bill, means-tested welfare spending is already at a historic high and growing rapidly. In 2008, federal, state, and local means-tested spending hit $679 billion per year. Without any legislative expansions, given historic rates of growth in welfare programs, federal, state, and local means-tested welfare spending over the next decade will total $8.97 trillion. The House stimulus bill adds another $787 billion to this total, yielding a 10-year total of $9.8 trillion. The total 10-year cost of means-tested welfare will then amount to $127,000 for each household paying federal income tax.
    …
    The federal government runs over 50 means-tested welfare programs, including Temporary Assistance to Needy Families; Medicaid, food stamps; the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); the Women, Infants, and Children food program; public housing; Section 8 housing; the Community Development Block Grant; the Social Services Block Grant; and Head Start….
    The House stimulus bill overtly increases federal welfare spending by $264 billion. Most of this spending will occur in the first two years after passage. For example, if enacted, the House stimulus bill will spend an additional $88 billion in means-tested welfare aid in FY 2009, an increase of more than 20 percent above prior spending levels. Federal welfare spending (including small increases built into existing law) will rise from $491 billion in FY 2008 to $601 billion in FY 2009. This one-year spending explosion (by far the largest in U.S. history) will not be a byproduct of unemployment generated by the recession but the result of a deliberate expansion of welfare eligibility and benefits by President Obama and Congress….

    Hidden Welfare Spending

    There are another six welfare expansions in the stimulus bill that will almost certainly become permanent if the bill is enacted. …

    The claim that these welfare expansions in the stimulus bill will lapse after two years is a political gimmick designed to hide their true cost from the taxpayer. If these welfare expansions are made permanent–as history indicates they will–the welfare cost of the stimulus will rise another $523 billion over 10 years.[3] The total 10-year cost of welfare increases in the bill will not be $264 billion but $787 billion. The overall 10-year fiscal burden of the bill (added to the national debt) will not be $814 billion but $1.34 trillion.
    …

    http://www.heritage.org/Resear.....wm2276.cfm

    Henrietta should do just fine after she destoys her gift house.

  6. proreason
    February 14, 2009 at 6:32 pm

    Heritage Foundation say true cost of the stimulus will be 3.27 Trillion:

    True Cost of Stimulus: $3.27 Trillion

    All of the major news outlets are reporting that the stimulus bill voted out of conference committee last night has a meager $789 billion price tag. This number is pure fantasy. No one believes that the increased funding for programs the left loves like Head Start, Medicaid, COBRA, and the Earned Income Tax Credit is in anyway temporary. No Congress under control of the left will ever cut funding for these programs. So what is the true cost of the stimulus if these spending increases are made permanent?

    Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) asked the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the impact of permanently extending the 20 most popular provisions of the stimulus bill. What did the CBO find? As you can see from the table below, the true 10 year cost of the stimulus bill $2.527 trillion in in spending with another $744 billion cost in debt servicing. Total bill for the Generational Theft Act: $3.27 trillion.
    …

    http://blog.heritage.org/2009/.....-trillion/

    Somehow, one suspects that 3.27 trillion is understated.

    But hey, what’s a factor of 5 among friends?

    I feel so bi-partisany, I could just sing.

    • mybrotherkeeper
      February 15, 2009 at 4:49 pm

      I’m sorry to bring more bad news, but Drudge showed we are basically bankrupt already. To the tune of about 65 trillion dollars in debt. And this isn’t even counting the latest ‘kool-aid.’ What it amounts to is our government is doing funny accounting. All the Social Security-type monies going in to the government are counted as government income. All the Social Security-type outlays the government is pledged to honor are not figured in. In other words, they go on an accrual basis when it comes to income, but on a cash basis when it comes to outlays. This is illegal for other entities, obviously.

    • proreason
      February 15, 2009 at 5:18 pm

      mybother, I didn’t see that Drudge article, I might not agree with the probable premise.

      Usually what they are talking about is the total of future obligations (which I do myself to make a point sometimes). But that is just another form of funny accounting.

      If you did that, you could easily prove that you are bankrupt even if you are completely solvent. After all, your future medical obligations are probably in the hundreds of thousands, and you will need to eat, so that is many tens of thousands, and you may have kids whose shelter, school, food will cost you hundreds of thousands.

      So that fact that the government has 53 or something trillion in future obligations is scary, but remember, the national income is about 12 trillion, so it’s 4 and a half time the national income. YOU certainly have future obligations that exceed that ratio.

      Now I hope what I’m about to say isn’t read by any liberals, although I’m sure the smart ones know it.

      The denominator for the ratio should be the tax base….and that is about 2.4 trillion. So what we really have to face is that we have taken on obligations something like 20 to 25 times what the country currently collects in taxes. Those obligations are “unfunded” in the sense we don’t have the money to pay them now. But they can be paid if the country continues working.

      Now, relate that to real life obligations. The average taxpayer in this country is about 45. He will live to about 80, so he has about 35 years of his current income in obligations. That tells you that the 53T +/- in future government obligations is manageable. Not easy, but manageable.

      But adding 3 trillion here and 3 trillion there is certainly not a burden we need to be adding.

    • pdsand
      February 17, 2009 at 8:22 pm

      Of course, this is all good news to the radical left in this country, which never likes to be short-sighted. What this really means for the future is that by borrowing a few trillion dollars a year, inflation will skyrocket, meaning that the dollar will be worth pennies compared to today. Of course for a big time borrow/tax/spender, this is all gravy, because it means that the intially shocking 10 trillion dollar national debt won’t be that big of a deal when the average annual budget is 450 trillion dollars. The hardest hit, of course, will be the elderly and minorities, who will have to rely on big government aid more than ever, thus helping the democrats.
      The second big zinger for the left is that smart, sensible and thrifty middle class Americans will see the real value of their life savings become worthless. It’s about the same as if someone who worked for $5,000 a year in 1950 had put away 10 percent of his pretax dollars. Sure it’s smart and he would have been doing the right thing, but in 2008, his $500 isn’t looking too comforting, even with interest. So a little revenge against the group that had the audacity to oppose them lo these many years.
      Of course the currency exchange rate will tilt heavily against the dollar, encouraging hefty foreign investment. This will spur economic growth in places that liberals like most (anywhere other than the U.S. or the West generally). As a bonus we might come to see ourselves as more dependent on foreigners, and maybe a little more pliable in terms of foreign policy. Heck, we’ll probably even reverse roles completely and start letting some foreign power influence our internal affairs as we diminish in the world. Democrats have always dreamed of something like that happening since at least the cold war.
      Of course the welfare state is getting ready to expand, and with all the havoc being wreaked by the economic policies of liberals, more and more people will fall into its grasps, thus helping the democrats.

      So while we look at this boondoggle and see doom and gloom, the left is looking at current affairs and everything is going just as planned.

  7. proreason
    February 14, 2009 at 6:53 pm

    Sep 4, 1998, Clinton’s government brags about how it is forcing banks to loan to deadbeats.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr1M1T2Y314

    They admit they know it will increase the default rate, but they are forcing the “affirmative action” anyway.

    Bonus, The Moron brags about his role. In 2007, “The original idea was a good one…..loans to people who otherwise couldn’t affort them.”

    How do YOU feel about that “good idea” now?

    • pdsand
      February 17, 2009 at 7:41 pm

      These people don’t blame themselves for this mess, they see no connection between the two. They can honestly say that they think the idea of forcing the loans was good because racist underwriters had intentionally strict and unreasonable standards just so that historically oppressed minorities would not qualify for loans even though they were hard-working middle class citizens who just needed a break in this life. So they forced them to make the loans against the conventional wisdom of “will they be able to repay the money?” and righted a historical injustice. I guess at this point the racists should have just tweaked their rules to allow the hard working middle class minority men and women to get the reasonable loans they should have been getting all along, but hadn’t because of redlining.
      Then the greedy bastards went way out of line making loans by finding poor oppressed minorities who could afford perhaps a 50k home, but they wanted higher interest income, so they convinced them out of their own blind greed to apply for and be approved to buy a 500k home just so that the unscrupulous lender could make a quick buck.

    • proreason
      February 17, 2009 at 7:55 pm

      pdsand,

      you blame the lenders.

      But stange isn’t it how after being the most conservative industry in the world for 60 years, mortagage lenders woke up in unison one day in the 90’s, took stupid pills and booked tickets for the Las Vegas Mortgage Express.

      The “greed” came into it when the government made it perfectly clear to the bankers that Big Uncle Sam would stand behind all the crackpot loans. Moreover, Big Uncle ENCOURAGED the banks to hide the crackpot loans in derivatives……which Big Uncle figured would hide the trash from the market.

      Whoopsie……little miscalculation………economy destroyed……retirment savings nuked…….millions unemployed……teetering on the bring of a Global Depression.

      But it’s ok, they meant well. Nothing illegal with finding a new little scheme to take from the “rich” (i.e., you and me), and giving it to the “poor” (i.e., voters willing vote for the crooked beaurocrats).

    • pdsand
      February 17, 2009 at 8:27 pm

      I edited heavily, my original post went all the way round about how the greedy bastards had the nerve to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley, then basically forced the democrats into having to spend our billions buying up the assets they cleverly hid in bundled mortgage backed securities, just so that the originally intended loans to hard working middle class minorities wouldn’t dry up in a final racist revenge from the vast right wing conspiracy.

    • proreason
      February 17, 2009 at 8:49 pm

      pd,

      It just pisses me off that virtually the entire press, even guys like O’Reilly buy this smokescreen about greedy Wall Street.

      Frankly, it’s Wall Street’ JOB to be greedy. If they weren’t greedy, the system wouldn’t work.

      The problem was purely and simply caused by government interfering in the free markets so that politicians could get elected. The whole Community Relations act was a stealth hoax to redistribute income. It was a scam a billion times as big as the Madoff Ponzi Scheme guy.

      And it has exploded all over the world.

      And the crooks not only are walking………they have painted themselves as the white knights protecting us all. It’s the most Orwellian thing that has ever happened.

      We laugh at OJ and his relentless quest to find the real killer. But Drooling Barney Franks and Excreable Chris Dodd are writing books about how they saved us and will make millions. They should be sentenced to a life tied together.

    • Howard Roark
      February 21, 2009 at 1:31 pm

      PD, I sold mortgages for one year in 1999. What you say above is true, but it overplays the greed factor of lenders.

      Yes, there was greed from brokers who tried to fudge client documents in order to make more money on the back end of the deal, but the client him/herself had to go to the closing, where a lawyer sat and reviewed the entire loan with you (at least in Va that was the law), explaining concepts like ARM, etc. to you.

      You may be of the thinking that “greedy” lenders deserve as much blame for today’s financial collapse, but as PR said, its their job to be greedy. The truth is, they wouldn’t be able to be “greedy” if you didn’t talk to them. Period.

      You do this forum a disservice when you try to lump “greedy” lenders in on the blame. Don’t forget, you’re talking to people here who think that man’s ability to reason is king. The thinking that says, “poor people are victims” or worse, “African Americans are victims”, is EXACTLY why we’re in this problem.

      Some of us have been sounding this alarm for many years, but no one listened. We became a caricature–something to laugh at and deride. The MSM coined us, “angry white men”.

      PD, you may be caught up in that “predatory lending” thing, but too many of us here are not buying it.

      And BTW: Sarbannes-Oxley didn’t materialize until 2003, and had nothing to do with the government strongarming of lenders in the 1990’s. SO is an accounting measure that arrived after the Enron scandal of the late 90’s, then prosecuted by none other than that evil, rich, protect-your-rich-buddies GOP President we know of as George W Bush. (Funny…If Ken Lay, Enron’s CEO, was a typical Republican fat cat, why did Bill Clinton chum around with him for his 8 years [Lay was Clinton's golf partner-no lie], yet Bush prosecuted him within the first year he was in office?)

    • pdsand
      February 23, 2009 at 11:20 am

      Oh good heavens, I definitely need the sarcasm button, I was trying to make a sad comment on the tortured logic the liberals use to excuse themselves from the direct blame for this problem.

  8. caligirl9
    February 15, 2009 at 11:46 am

    From The Arizona Republic … Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is at it again. I love this man … even though he was looking for deadbeat parents and druggies, he managed to trip over 13 illegals!

    Sheriff’s has Valentine’s deadbeat parent roundup
    Dozens of people received a Valentine’s Day surprise: A sheriff’s deputy on their doorstep with a warrant for their arrest.
    The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office arrested 72 people on warrants Saturday as part of a deadbeat-parent roundup called “Operation Tough Love.”
    Out of that total, only 17 were deadbeat parents. The others were arrested for drug charges and other charges, said Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
    Despite the other charges, Arpaio said their main goal was to find deadbeat mothers and fathers. They targeted parents who have warrants out for their arrests for refusing a court order to pay child support.
    “You have to take care of the children,” he said. “That’s the main objective. It’s also economic problems – food stamps and dependent children, medical care of the children. . . . It’s a budget issue, also.”
    The top 15 offenders together owe more than $1 million to their children, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
    Teams of deputies and posse members began their search at about 8 a.m., Arpaio said. Those who were arrested were taken to a support building at 3325 W. Durango St., in Phoenix, for booking.
    Arpaio said one challenge they faced was that more than 60 percent of deadbeat parents have skipped town to avoid paying child support.
    In one search today, a team went to the home of a deadbeat mother. Arpaio said they could not find the mother and instead discovered 13 illegal immigrants at the home, in the 3100 block of North 86th Drive in Phoenix.
    Arpaio said the Sheriff’s Office has about 500 warrants for deadbeat parents.
    “The bottom line is they should have respect and surrender,” Arpaio said.

    http://www.azcentral.com/commu.....ts-ON.html

    At least Sheriff Joe is trying to make Phoenix (which is supposedly a sanctuary city) a better place. And he’s right, parents have to be responsible for the care of their children.

    We need more law enforcement officials just like him, especially in wackville California.

    • mybrotherkeeper
      February 15, 2009 at 4:42 pm

      I tell ya, I wish I was a rich man. I would send this Sheriff a blessing, just to express appreciation. “He who says to the wicked, ‘You are righteous,’ peoples will abhor him; but he who rebukes the wicked causes delight, and a good blessing will come upon him. He kisses the lips who gives a right answer.”

  9. proreason
    February 15, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    Obamy doesn’t want any reminders of Winston Churchill hanging around. From Telegraph.co.uk:

    Barack Obama sends bust of Winston Churchill on its way back to Britain

    Barack Obama has sent Sir Winston Churchill packing and pulse rates soaring among anxious British diplomats.

    A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to George W Bush from the Government’s art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back.

    The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush’s tenure.

    But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: “Thanks, but no thanks.”

    Diplomats were at first reluctant to discuss the whereabouts of the Churchill bronze, after its ejection from the seat of American power. But the British Embassy in Washington has now confirmed that it sits in the palatial residence of ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald, just down the road from Vice President Joe Biden’s official residence. It is not clear whether the ambassador plans to keep it in Washington or send it back to London.

    American politicians have made quoting Churchill, whose mother was American, something of an art form, but not Mr Obama, who prefers to cite the words and works of his hero Abraham Lincoln. Indeed a bust of Mr Lincoln now sits in the Oval Office where Epstein’s Churchill once ruled the roost.

    Churchill has less happy connotations for Mr Obama than those American politicians who celebrate his wartime leadership. It was during Churchill’s second premiership that Britain suppressed Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion. Among Kenyans allegedly tortured by the colonial regime included one Hussein Onyango Obama, the President’s grandfather.

    The rejection of the bust has left some British officials nervously reading the runes to see how much influence the UK can wield with the new regime in Washington.
    …
    A British Embassy spokesman said: “The bust of Sir Winston Churchill by Sir Jacob Epstein was uniquely lent to a foreign head of state, President George W Bush, from the Government Art Collection in the wake of 9/11 as a signal of the strong transatlantic relationship.

    “It was lent for the first term of office of President Bush. When the President was elected for his second and final term, the loan was extended until January 2009.

    “The new President has decided not to continue this loan and the bust has now been returned. It is on display at the Ambassador’s Residence.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....itain.html

    All Winston Churchill did is save civilization from one of the 3 greatest treats of all time. He was rejected by the Brits in the 1930’s because he vociferously opposed the Facists. Without a doubt, he is the individual most responsiible for saving Britain and the world from Hitler. His personal courage, eloquence, wisdom and political brilliance staved off the Nazis until the U.S. was “persuaded” to enter the war by the Japanese.

    But hey, that was then and now is now. He was obviously a racist. The money quote is how he suppressed the Kenyan revolution.

    With Mr. Obamy, it’s always about the payback.

    And besides, Mr. Churchill never properly spoke of the gifts to civilization from Africans and Muslims. Like gangsta rap and Sharia law.

  10. mybrotherkeeper
    February 15, 2009 at 4:35 pm

    If it wasn’t for Churchill the “master race” would have liquidated the Kenyans, not just tortured rebels. Maybe All-Hypocritical should have thought about that. But wait, I forgot, it’s all about power.
    His idol, Lincoln! If you believe that, you gotta be crazy!
    But he might want to cherry pick and use Lincoln as the precedent-setter. I.e. suspending Habeus Corpus and citing Lincoln for cover. But other than that: ‘I’ve read about Lincoln, and Mr. President, you’re no Lincoln.’ He had more conviction in his little toe than you have in your whole body.

  11. BillK
    February 16, 2009 at 4:01 am

    We all knew DiFi was an idiot, but wow.

    From the Los Angeles Times:

    Feinstein comment on U.S. drones likely to embarrass Pakistan

    The Predator planes that launch missile strikes against militants are based in Pakistan, the senator says. That suggests a much deeper relationship with the U.S. than Islamabad would like to admit.

    By Greg Miller

    Reporting from Washington — A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flown from an air base in that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counter-terrorism collaboration with the United States.

    The disclosure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, marked the first time a U.S. official had publicly commented on where the Predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land.

    At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise over Pakistani opposition to the campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against Islamic extremist targets along Pakistan’s northwestern border.

    “As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base,” she said.

    The basing of the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counter-terrorism matters than has been publicly acknowledged. Such an arrangement would be at odds with protests lodged by officials in Islamabad, the capital, and could inflame anti-American sentiment in the country.

    The CIA declined to comment, but former U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, confirmed that Feinstein’s account was accurate.

    Philip J. LaVelle, a spokesman for Feinstein, said her comment was based solely on previous news reports that Predators were operated from bases near Islamabad.

    “We strongly object to Sen. Feinstein’s remarks being characterized as anything other than a reference” to an article that appeared last March in the Washington Post, LaVelle said. Feinstein did not refer to newspaper accounts during the hearing.

    Many counter-terrorism experts have assumed that the aircraft take off from U.S. military installations in Afghanistan and are remotely piloted from locations in the United States. Experts said the disclosure could create political problems for the government in Islamabad, which is considered relatively weak.

    The attacks are extremely unpopular in Pakistan, in part because of the high number of civilian casualties inflicted in dozens of strikes.

    The use of Predators armed with Hellfire antitank missiles has emerged as perhaps the most important tool of the U.S. in its effort to attack Al Qaeda in its sanctuaries along the Pakistani-Afghan border. A New Year’s Day strike killed two senior Al Qaeda operatives who were suspected of involvement in the bombing of Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel.

    They were among at least eight senior Al Qaeda figures reportedly killed in Predator strikes over the last seven months as part of a stepped-up missile campaign.

    Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, said Feinstein’s comments put Pakistan’s government on the spot.

    “If accurate, what this says is that Pakistani involvement, or at least acquiescence, has been much more extensive than has previously been known,” he said. “It puts the Pakistani government in a far more difficult position [in terms of] its credibility with its own people. Unfortunately it also has the potential to threaten Pakistani-American relations.”

    As chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Feinstein is privy to classified details of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts. The CIA does not publicly acknowledge a campaign against Pakistan-based extremists using remotely piloted planes, making Feinstein’s comment all the more unusual.

    Feinstein’s disclosure came during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee by U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair on the nation’s security threats. Blair did not respond directly to Feinstein’s remark, except to say that Pakistan was “sorting out” its cooperation with the United States.

    Pakistani officials have long denied that they have even granted the U.S. permission to fly the Predator planes over Pakistani territory, let alone to operate the aircraft from within the country. …

    http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....6260.story

    Loose lips… aww, forget it. Why should anything be classified any more?

    • pdsand
      February 17, 2009 at 7:15 pm

      She obviously knew that Pakistan had shown weakness in its deal with Al-Qaeda, and now wants to give them a chance to obstruct the war on terror in a more meaningful way.

  12. BillK
    February 16, 2009 at 4:23 am

    Life in our United States (apologies to Reader’s Digest).

    From the AP:

    Florida Man Sues Wal-Mart Over In-Store Snake Attack

    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A 42-year-old man bitten by a snake in a Pembroke Pines Wal-Mart garden center is suing the company for negligence.

    Jay Richitelli says he is the third Floridian in three years to be attacked in a Wal-Mart by a pygmy rattler. Two others were bitten in 2006 at the retailer’s stores in Central Florida.

    Richitelli’s attorney says the Bentonville, Arkansas company should have taken steps to prevent the attacks after they happened before.

    Wal-Mart wouldn’t comment on the litigation filed in Broward County Circuit Court, but said customer safety is its top priority.

    Richitelli says he still has respiratory problems and scars from the 2008 bite. But he’s been back to Wal-Mart several times, saying their prices are too good to shop elsewhere.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,493248,00.html

    This is no different from the many anti-Wal-Mart folks who still shop therer because their “prices are too good.”

  13. clifcrds
    February 16, 2009 at 10:29 am

    Is this how the Commiecrats counter the 2nd Amendment?

    Was Candidate Obama’s “Civilian National Security Force” just established by Directive 1404.10?

    February 16, 2009
    http://directorblue.blogspot.c.....ional.html

    A little-publicized Department of Defense Directive (Number 1404.10) establishes a “DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce” and rescinds a prior directive dealing with the emergency use of civilian personnel.

    The new 1404.10 cancels the prior directive of the same designation (”Emergency-Essential (E-E) DoD U.S. Citizen Civilian Employees”), which was issued in 1992 under President Clinton. The 1992 directive specifically deals with overseas deployments of civilian personnel. It does not mention terms like “restoration of order” or “stability operations”, prominently featured in the new directive.

    In fact, those functions are central to the mission of President Obama’s new DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce:
    Members of the DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce shall be organized, trained, cleared, equipped, and ready to deploy in support of combat operations by the military; contingencies; emergency operations; humanitarian missions; disaster relief; restoration of order; drug interdiction; and stability operations of the Department of Defense in accordance with DoDD 3000.05…

    The 1992 directive mentions the term “overseas” no fewer than 33 times.

    The 2009 directive does not mention the term “overseas” in the body of the directive even once.

    Consider the nebulous terms used: “…contingencies, emergency operations… restoration of order… and stability operations.”

    Who will define “Contingencies”? “Restoration of order”? “Stability operations”?
    * * *

    Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m not exactly a fan of wingnut conspiracy theories.

    But could anyone tell me why the 1992 directive needed an update?

    This new directive is odd, coming as it does after campaign promises by Obama to establish a paramilitary “civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as our military. His words, not mine.

    The Democrats’ renewed push for the ill-named “Fairness Doctrine” is another harbinger of enhanced government control, far beyond what the Constitution authorized. And this directive appears to be of the same genre.

    I’ll leave the ramifications as an exercise for the reader.

    http://directorblue.blogspot.c.....ional.html

    I could see trouble comming down the pike as soon as 0bama was selected POTUS, but with all the socialist BS being shoved down our throats lately . . . I’ve got a real bad feeling about this one! I can just imagine the Political affiliation, the color of their skins, and Kool-Aid drinking indoctrinated mentality that will make up this “Civilain” security force!

    Just glad Santa left a Hungarian AK-47 and a couple cases of ammo under my tree this Christmas to go with my hunting rifles.

  14. artboyusa
    February 17, 2009 at 6:30 am

    Michelle (Ma Belle) Obama Update! More beautiful than Helen of Troy, more smarter than Mme Curie, more caring than Mother Theresa, more fertile than a lobster – let’s check in on America’s sweetheart…

    From the February 9 issue of National Review: “…The University of Chicago Medical Center hired her in 2002 to run ‘programs for community relations, neighbourhood outreach, volunteer recruitment, staff diversity, and minority contracting’. In 2005 the hospital; raised her salary from $120,000 to $317,000 – nearly twice what her husband made as a U.S. senator. Oh, did we mention that he had just become a U.S. senator? He sure had. Requested a $1 million earmark for the UC Medical Centre, in fact. Way to network, Michelle! But now that Mrs Obama has resigned, the hospital says her position will remain unfilled. How can that be, if the work she did was vital enough to be worth $317,000?…”

    The Chicago Way, huh? We’re going to see a lot more of it over the next four endless years.

    • JohnMG
      February 17, 2009 at 9:10 am

      ……”More beautiful than Helen of Troy…..”

      C’mon, artboy, that’s a real stretch. More beautiful than Helen Thomas, maybe, but Helen of Troy???!!!

  15. BillK
    February 17, 2009 at 7:12 am

    From a breathless Treason Times:

    Obama Gains G.O.P. Support From Governors

    By Jackie Calmes

    WASHINGTON — President Obama must wish governors could vote in Congress: While just three of the 219 Republican lawmakers backed the $787 billion economic recovery plan that he is signing into law on Tuesday, that trifling total would have been several times greater if support among the 22 Republican state executives counted.

    The contrast reflects the two faces of the Republican Party these days.

    Leaderless after losing the White House, the party is mostly defined by its Congressional wing, which flaunted its anti-spending ideology in opposing the stimulus package. That militancy drew the mockery of late-night television comics, but the praise of conservative talk-show stars and the party faithful.

    In the states, meanwhile, many Republican governors are practicing a pragmatic — their Congressional counterparts would say less-principled — conservatism.

    Governors, unlike members of Congress, have to balance their budgets each year. And that requires compromise with state legislators, including Democrats, as well as more openness to the occasional state tax increase and to deficit-spending from Washington.

    Across the country, from California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger to Florida’s Charlie Crist and New England’s Jim Douglas in Vermont and M. Jodi Rell in Connecticut, Republican governors showed in the stimulus debate that they could be allies with Mr. Obama even as Congressional Republicans spurned him.

    “It really is a matter of perspective,” Mr. Crist said in an interview. “As a governor, the pragmatism that you have to exercise because of the constitutional obligation to balance your budget is a very compelling pull” generally.

    With Florida facing a projected $5 billion shortfall in a $66 billion budget, and social costs rising, the stimulus package “helps plug that hole,” Mr. Crist said, “but it also helps us meet the needs of the people in a very difficult economic time.”

    Mr. Obama’s two-year stimulus package includes more than $135 billion for states, to help them pay for education, Medicaid and infrastructure projects. Yet even that sum would cover less than half of the total budget deficits the states will face through 2010, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research and advocacy organization.

    The states’ reliance on the federal government in times of distress will be showcased this weekend, when the governors come to Washington for their annual winter meeting. Their focus will be on infrastructure needs and home foreclosures.

    The disconnect between Republican members of Congress and governors recalls the mid-1990s, when Republicans took control of both the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years. After an initial public show of being partners in a “Republican revolution,” the partnership all but dissolved when governors strongly objected as the more dogmatic conservatives in Congress tried to cut domestic programs and then shut down the federal government in an unsuccessful showdown with President Bill Clinton.<?b.

    Recently, Governors Schwarzenegger, Crist, Douglas and Rell joined 14 Democratic governors in signing a letter to Mr. Obama lauding his economic plan. Other Republicans would have signed on, said a person familiar with the letter’s drafting, but for party pressure in their states.

    The National Governors Association sent a bipartisan letter of support to Congressional leaders of both parties, signed by its Democratic chairman, Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Douglas, its Republican vice chairman. “The combination of funds for Medicaid, education and other essential services is critical for governors as they work to manage the downturn in their states and improve government for the long term,” it said.

    Mr. Crist even campaigned last week with Mr. Obama in Florida for the recovery package.

    “Whether it’s teachers or people on road crews helping our infrastructure, those in the health care arena as it might relate to Medicaid, all of these areas are important, all of them can produce jobs,” Mr. Crist said, adding, “Regardless of what your party is, Republican or Democrat, it really doesn’t matter. We have a duty and an obligation to the people who elected us, no matter what our position happens to be, to work together to get through this thing.”

    Yet all 16 of Florida’s Republicans in Congress voted against the package. Representative Cliff Stearns condemned it during the final debate as an “unprecedented big-government grab for citizen reliance on the federal government.” Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, called the bill “a steaming pile of garbage” on his cable television talk show.

    The House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, angrily dumped the 1,073-page bill to the floor during debate. In the Senate, John McCain of Arizona called it “nothing less than generational theft.” And Republicans in both chambers derided what they described, often misleadingly, as pork spending for the likes of marsh mouse preservation.

    Many projects, however, reflected the job-creation wish lists that governors had sent in.

    Utah’s Republican governor, Jon Huntsman Jr. sought up to $14.4 billion for roads, rail and sewer projects and for construction of a prison, courthouses and veterans’ nursing homes. Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama, another Republican, came to Washington to discuss transportation projects with his state’s Congressional delegation. “He’s going to make sure Alabama doesn’t miss out on the money we’re entitled to,” a spokesman said. …

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02.....epubs.html

    I don’t think any aritcle could more clearly articulate why I no longer support the RNC, but only individual candidates.

    Any article that puts the words “Schwarzenegger” and “Republican” together today is, of course, the worst kind of joke.

    Unfortunately, what isn’t is the attitude of Governors like Riley who, apparently, just wants his piece of the big Government handout, damn the consequences.

    Thankfully, the article does not mention Palin as being on Obama’s gravy train, which means we can retain hope that she will remain the future leader of Conservative Republicans we have all hope her to be.

  16. BannedbytheTaliban
    February 17, 2009 at 11:40 am

    From CNN:

    Five places to go before global warming messes them up

    By John D. Sutter
    CNN

    Great Barrier Reef, Australia
    New Orleans, Louisiana
    Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, Colorado
    Alpine Glaciers, Switzerland
    Amazon rain forest, Brazil

    http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL.....index.html

    Perhaps more useful would be a story about something real. For instance, 5 places to hide your hard earned money before Obama redistributes it.

    • wardmama4
      February 18, 2009 at 4:52 pm

      I’m game – 5 places to hide your firearms before Obama forces the local LEOs to come take them from you.

  17. proreason
    February 17, 2009 at 2:14 pm

    No truth to rumors this story is actually about The Moron. From the indispensable dailymail.co.uk

    Drug-crazed celebrity chimp is stabbed and shot to death after he mauled a woman and attacked police officers

    drug-crazed celebrity chimp was stabbed and then shot to death after it mauled a woman and attacked two police officers.
    The 14-stone animal went on the rampage after biting the woman on the face as she visited its owner in Stamford, Connecticut.
    Sandra Herold, 70, had earlier tried to drug her 15-year-old pet – named Travis – with sedative-laced tea.
    Ms Herold stabbed the chimp several times with a large kitchen knife as she fought to save her friend, 55-year-old Charla Nash.
    Ms Nash had arrived to help get the animal back into its cage after it used a key to free himself from her house and attempted to get into her car.
    She suffered serious facial injuries, lost a ‘tremendous amount of blood’ and is in a serious condition in hospital, according to Stamford police Captain Richard Conklin.
    Police said they had no idea why the chimpanzee attacked the woman but one suggestion was the animal may have attacked Ms Nash because she was wearing her hair differently and perhaps wasn’t recognized.
    Mr Conklin said Herold wrestled with the animal, then ran inside to call emergency services.

    ‘She retrieved a large butcher knife and stabbed her longtime pet numerous times in an effort to save her friend, who was really being brutally attacked,’ he added.

    Officers set up security so medics could reach the critically injured woman lying on the ground, Mr Conklin said.
    As the woman was treated, the chimpanzee went after several of the officers, who retreated into their cars.

    Travis opened the door to one cruiser and started to get in, trapping an officer who then shot the chimpanzee several times, Mr Conklin said.
    The wounded chimpanzee fled. Mr Conklin said police followed the trail of his blood down the driveway, into the open door of the home, through the house and to his living quarters, where he had retreated and died of his wounds.
    The police captain continued: ‘He’s been raised almost like a child by this family. He rides in a car every day, he opens doors, he’s a very unique animal in that aspect.
    ‘We have no indication of what provoked this behaviour at all.’

    Mr Conklin said the chimp has been ill from Lyme disease, an infectious condition which can lead to depression.
    Police said the chimpanzee was toilet trained, dressed himself, took his own bath, ate at the table and drank wine from a stemmed glass.
    He also brushed his teeth, logged onto the computer to look at pictures and watched television using the remote control.

    The animal was well known around Stamford because he rode around in the Herolds’ towing company trucks.
    It had appeared in a number of TV commercials, a pilot for a comedy show and the Maury Povich talk show.
    Police had dealt with Travis in the past, including an incident in 2003 when he escaped from his owners’ vehicle in downtown Stamford for two hours.

    Officers used cookies, macadamia treats and ice cream in

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....icers.html

    But like Obama, the chimp brushed his own teeth, and could signon to a computer.

    Unlike Obama, he could successfuly open doors.

    The key lesson here is…..whatevery you do, don’t change your hair style around The Moron.

  18. 1sttofight
    February 17, 2009 at 4:05 pm

    I feel like such a fool, I bought a house I could actually afford.

    From CNN:

    Obama expected to announce foreclosure plan

    … Though administration officials are tight-lipped about details, one idea that has been floated is for the federal government to reduce monthly mortgage payments by modifying loans.

    Sheila Bair, the U.S. FDIC chairwoman, has advocated reducing payments to between 31 and 38 percent of a family’s gross income.

    “This crisis in housing has devastating consequences, and our government should have moved more forcefully to help contain the damage,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Monday.

    “You’re going to learn about [the administration's plan] as the rollout continues,” said Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden’s economic advisor.

    http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITI.....index.html

    • BannedbytheTaliban
      February 18, 2009 at 10:21 am

      The details of Obama’s plan (From CNN):

      The Obama plan calls for:

      Helping borrowers who owe more than 80% of their home’s value to refinance and reduce their monthly payments.
      Creating a $75 billion homeowner stability initiative to reduce monthly payments for at-risk borrowers by subsidizing interest rates. The goal would be to bring payments to no more than 31% of a borrower’s income.

      Providing multiple incentives to servicers to modify loans and to proactively help at-risk borrowers while they are still current in their payments.

      Creating a $10 billion fund to protect investors and servicers against further home price declines.
      Requiring all financial institutions receiving government funds to participate in a standardized loan modification program, while seeking to have all federal agencies that own or guarantee loans also apply the guidelines.

      Allowing judges to modify mortgages during bankruptcy, a measure the financial industry has strongly opposed.

      Providing more Treasury Department backing of Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) and expanding the number of mortgages the agencies back.

      http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/1.....2009021809

  19. Flession
    February 17, 2009 at 6:42 pm

    From a disapproving Times :

    Clinton Says Don’t Blame Him for the Economic Crisis

    … On Monday morning’s Today Show, Ann Curry’s interview with the former President — recorded over the weekend outside a Clinton Global Initiative event in Texas — addressed Clinton’s inclusion on TIME’s list of the 25 people to blame for the financial crisis. “Oh no,” he responded. “My question to them is: Do any of them seriously believe if I had been President, and my economic team had been in place the last eight years, that this would be happening today? I think they know the answer to that: No.”

    The magazine’s story, which apportioned blame widely between such figures as Countrywide co-founder Angelo Mozilo, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld and President George W. Bush, zeroed in on two specific policy decisions made during the Clinton Administration. Clinton ushered out the Glass-Steagall Act, which for decades had separated commercial banking from investment banking, and signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act — which exempted all derivatives, including the now notorious credit-default swaps, from federal regulation. His Administration also loosened housing rules, which put pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods.

    In a separate interview last weekend with CNN, Clinton allowed that his Administration could have done more to “set in motion some more formal regulation of the derivatives market,” but he vehemently denied that the repeal of Glass-Steagall or his Administration’s housing policies helped spur the financial crisis.

    http://www.time.com/time/natio.....tion-yahoo

    This wouldn’t be the first time he denied something that he was obviously lying about.

    I have to admit, during the 90’s, I would have loved to read such a article, placing blame on Clinton for one of the many, many horrible decisions he made in office. However, the times have changed and the mainstream media has a new love.

    To attack him now seems similar to putting down a lame dog who dry humps everything it can.

    Still, it’s great to see Slick Willy get what he deserves.

  20. jobeth
    February 17, 2009 at 9:11 pm

    Obama at his Stimulus bill signing in Denver;

    “But today does mark the beginning of the end.”

    Now there’s a chilling comment if I ever heard one!!

    Wonder if that was a as in a Freudian slip?

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/sto.....n=business

  21. BillK
    February 18, 2009 at 2:13 am

    Now that Obama’s Pork bill is law, it’s time for the Governors to start in.

    From the (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal:

    Budget ’shares sacrifice’ by taxing wealthy, holding school spending steady

    By Jason Stein

    Vowing that “everyone is going to have to share in the sacrifice,” Gov. Jim Doyle proposed increasing taxes on smokers and the wealthy, holding school and university spending by the state to modest increases and cutting dozens of state offices to close a more than $5.7 billion budget hole.

    Doyle on Tuesday laid out a two-year $62.7 billion spending plan that he said keeps education, health care and middle-class families from being swamped by the recession.

    To do it, the Democratic governor proposed using $2.1 billion in federal aid signed into law by President Barack Obama Tuesday, releasing some felons from prison early and raising the state’s cigarette tax by 75 cents a pack.

    In the biggest bombshell of a grim 34-minute speech, Doyle proposed creating a new tax bracket for the wealthiest 1 percent of Wisconsinites and raising their taxes by $312 million over the next two years.

    “Everyone is going to have to have some faith that, if we all work together, we get through this in a way that will make us stronger in the years ahead,” Doyle said in his last budget address before he may seek re-election in 2010. …

    http://www.madison.com/wsj/arch_local/439116

    So when small business owners – most of whom, remember, report business income as personal income – are facing more economic issues than ever, Doyle proposes this:

    Levying $1.4 billion in new taxes and fees, including a tax on oil companies of $544 million. That includes increasing the income tax rate on spring 2010 returns by 1 percentage point to 7.75 percent for single filers earning more than $225,000 a year and married filers earning more than $300,000. The proposal would also lower the state’s exemption for capital gains taxes from 60 percent to 40 percent, raising up to $95 million.

    Anyone want to bet on the number of layoffs this will provoke as business owners wisely cut their costs further “just in case” the budget goes through?

    At many small businesses, at least one employee will have to go just to pay for the tax increase.

    Good thing those “stimulus” jobs are coming to take up the slack…

    • BannedbytheTaliban
      February 18, 2009 at 10:33 am

      Most likely the increase in tax rates will decrease total tax revenues. Business will relocate to different states, cut employees, and sell fewer products. All of which will reduce tax revenues. The best way to increase tax revenues isn’t to raise rates, but find a way to increase production and consumption. Historically the best way to do that is to lower taxes. But hey, what do I know. I’m not some big shot lawyer who bought an election.

      The thing I don’t get is that they know this. An especially good example is with taxes on cigarettes which they say will lower use, but somehow bring in more money. Are they really that stupid?

    • proreason
      February 18, 2009 at 11:17 am

      “The thing I don’t get is that they know this.”

      That’s because you think there are honest people in government who actually are trying to help the citizens.

      And there may be a few.

      But the events of the last few years are much better explained by assuming that the government is controlled by criminals intent on permanently cementing their hold on power and wealth. Business is a threat to these oligarchists, and must be destroyed.

      It explains everything that has happened. When a theory fits the facts, it isn’t a theory anymore.

    • wardmama4
      February 18, 2009 at 4:59 pm

      Am I the only one who sees that a Flat Tax is the only truly fair tax that there is – cut the IRS down to almost nothing – simple you make X the tax is oh say 15% you send in Y (X x15%) – everyone who generates an income pays it – only outs I would go for are SSI and SS recipients. On welfare – so what – call it a lesson in exactly what being a citizen is really about. No deductions, loopholes etc.

  22. BillK
    February 18, 2009 at 3:24 am

    Am all too infrequent sane court judgement, as reported by a completely confused and disappointed AP:

    West Allis judge says man could carry gun

    WEST ALLIS, Wis. (AP) — A West Allis municipal judge said a resident was within his rights to carry a gun while planting a tree on his property.

    Judge Paul Murphy found Brad Krause not guilty Tuesday of disorderly conduct in a case that has drawn the interest of gun rights advocates.

    “The reason people are upset about this is it’s not about guns. It’s about civil liberties. And we obviously have a property issue,” Krause said after the hearing. “There was no warrant issued, no exigent circumstances, no permission to enter the property, yet the police stormed in with guns drawn and put my life at risk.

    “My wife was very worried that she would be a widow in short order because I was planting a tree.”

    A message left for West Allis Police Chief Mike Jungbluth by The Associated Press was not immediately returned. West Allis City Attorney Scott Post declined to comment.

    Police responded to Krause’s home in August after a neighbor called to ask about the legality of him openly carrying a hand gun in a holster on his property. Police arrested Krause, ticketing him for disorderly conduct. Police also seized his gun.

    “The big overarching issue is whether open carry is legal,” Krause’s attorney Steven Cain said. “The law in Wisconsin really only limits concealed carry. The law in Wisconsin, as we see it, is that open carry is absolutely legal, protected, and should be.”

    Krause declined to explain why he was carrying a gun to plant a tree.

    “There’s no requirement to justify why you’re able to exercise constitutional rights,” Krause said. “I and everyone else are able to go to church, they’re able to vote, they’re able to speak their mind. Even though the city might not like it, we have that right.”

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s.....DICT_WIOL-

    This is where we’ve arrived at? If a neighbor sees you with a gun on your own property, you should expect to be visited by the Police and the SWAT team?

  23. BillK
    February 18, 2009 at 3:30 am

    Big shock, GM and Chrysler need more cash.

    From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    GM, Chrysler seek billions more in federal aid

    By Thomas Content

    In their bid to stop bleeding cash and avert bankruptcy, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC told the federal government Tuesday they could need $14billion more than they said they would need just two months ago.

    A deteriorating economy and bleaker forecasts for auto sales over the next several years are to blame, the automakers said as they warned in restructuring plans unveiled late Tuesday that taxpayers would be on the hook for at least $122 billion if both companies fail.

    The restructuring plans came with pledges by the companies to continue cutting costs, closing factories and beefing up the introduction of more fuel-efficient vehicles being sought by government officials to meet fuel economy mandates Congress enacted in 2007.

    GM said it could need up to $30 billion from the Treasury Department, up from a previous estimate of $18 billion. That includes $13.4 billion the company has already received. The world’s largest automaker, which has just a few dozen people left working at its factory in Janesville, said it could run out of money by March without new funds. It now plans to close five more factories than the nine it announced when it submitted its restructuring plan in December and envisions cutting a total of 47,000 jobs.

    Chrysler requested $5 billion in new loans on top of the $4 billion it received in December. That’s $2 billion more than expected.

    Chrysler plans to trim 3,000 hourly jobs this year, Vice Chairman Jim Press said, and phase out three models: the Aspen, Durango and PT Cruiser.

    Chrysler executives said in a conference call that they are still undecided about whether to move forward with a $450 million investment in Wisconsin’s Kenosha Engine Plant. Chrysler employs about 630 hourly workers in Kenosha.

    That investment was designed to keep Kenosha viable through the production of more fuel-efficient engines. Those engines remain a priority for the company, but sales are so low that the company won’t know for several months whether the Kenosha plant investment will proceed, said Tom LaSorda, Chrysler president and vice chairman.

    During the conference call, LaSorda said the company remains committed to building the more fuel-efficient engines at factories in Trenton, Mich., and Saltillo, Mexico. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/business/39762667.html

    Of course, proving that it’s not impossible:

    Ford, which borrowed billions from private sources before credit markets tightened, has said it can make it through 2009 without government help.

    Note also despite Greenies’ claims that if only automakers had gone “green” earlier, Ford’s best selling product has been and remains the F-150 pickup truck.

  24. BillK
    February 18, 2009 at 7:57 am

    What happens to Hollywood celebrities when they aren’t hired to act anymore?

    First she went on an attack against Palin and wolf hunting in Alaska that is done to protect moose and caribou (albeit so those animals can be hunted by Indians as part of their historical lifestyle).

    Now?

    From the AP:

    Ashley Judd calls for end to mountaintop mining

    FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) – Ashley Judd is calling for an end to the mining practice known as mountaintop removal.

    The Kentucky native was among some 500 people who gathered outside the Kentucky state Capitol on Tuesday for a rally in support of legislation that would essentially end the practice of blasting away mountaintops to unearth coal.

    The 40-year-old actress, a two-time Golden Globe nominee whose screen credits include “De-Lovely” and “Kiss the Girls,” says she visited mountaintop removal sites last September and was unprepared for the destruction she saw. She described “barren moonscapes” and “nothingness” where Appalachian peaks once rose skyward.

    Kathy Stein, a Democratic state senator from Lexington, is sponsoring legislation that would bar coal companies from filling valleys with the soil and rock from the mountaintops. …

    http://www.9news.com/life/ente.....;catid=151

    This of course is the kind of woman who would visit an OR in the middle of an operation and see nothing but “blood everywhere and destruction of bodily tissues” yet supports a woman’s right “to choose.”

    She has no clue how mining works, not to mention how mining is just about the only available employment in many of these areas.

    But she doesn’t care, she’s too busy flying over them and noticing it looks “ugly.”

  25. BillK
    February 18, 2009 at 1:05 pm

    Bristol Palin is apparently too horny to control herself.

    From an absolutely ecstatic AP:

    Bristol Palin Says Abstinence ‘Not Realistic at All’

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s 18-year-old daughter, an unwed mother, says teenagers should avoid having sex.

    However, Bristol Palin acknowledges that abstinence is “not realistic at all.” She commented during a two-part interview recorded for FOX News Channel.

    Just days after the governor was named John McCain’s running mate on the Republican presidential ticket last year, she announced her daughter was pregnant. Bristol Palin gave birth Dec. 27 to a boy named Tripp.

    Bristol Palin said her son brings her so much joy that she doesn’t regret having him at all. She’s engaged to the baby’s father, Levi Johnston, and said her fiance sees their son every day. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,495244,00.html

    See? If even Sarah Palin’s daughter knows abstinence is “not realistic at all,” that’ll show those stupid right-wing religious nuts that they’re crazy.

    Maybe we can get Bristol on record attacking her mom and Ann Coulter too, then it will be a perfect trifecta.

  26. BannedbytheTaliban
    February 18, 2009 at 3:47 pm

    From the BBC:

    Is it selfish to have more than two children?

    By Margaret Ryan
    BBC News

    Is having more than two children selfish? The future of the planet rarely plays a part when planning a family, but that’s got to change, say environmental campaigners.

    Parents who have more than two children are “irresponsible” for placing an intolerable burden on resources and increasing damage to eco-systems, says a leading green campaigner.

    Curbing population growth through contraception must play a role in fighting global warming, argues Jonathon Porritt.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_.....884138.stm

    I don’t think the Muslims got the memo. What is remarkable is the ’selected comments’ section, such as this gem:

    I am very passionate about this issue! I personally have chosen not to have any children, as I believe it is simply unethical to do so considering the disastrous environmental state of our planet, and the vast numbers of children who already exist that do not have homes. I may have selfish hormonal desires to procreate at times, but values and ethics are vastly more important. Anyone who considers themselves environmentalists should strongly consider doing the same.
    Elyse Kleidon, Bellingham WA, United States

    Perhaps all the eco nuts will stop germinating and no longer be able to pass on their ideology to succeeding generations. Thus all the eco nut trees will go extinct. I can only hope. Oh, and that king nut above is from the US in case you missed it.

  27. Consilience
    February 18, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    Finally, a lawmaker “gets it”. Sucession is being discussed in NH:

    From: http://www.examiner.com/x-2698.....ly-gets-it

    “New Hampshire state House Representative Daniel Itse has stirred the political pot with his bill, House Concurrent Resolution 6: “A RESOLUTION affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles”, under which New Hampshire would secede from the United States if the federal government attempts additional usurpation of power under five specific circumstances, including “Further infringements on the right to keep and bear arms including prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition…””

    Rep Itse is reacting in part to HR 45 (find an outline below). Liberty trumps Union and just ask yourselves what impact the thug messiah’s mortgage announcement will have on the mortgage banking industry. “Just words”—maybe, but obama is no friend of Liberty.

    This comes courtesy of:

    http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h45/show

    Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009
    To provide for the implementation of a system of licensing for purchasers of certain firearms and for a record of sale system for those firearms, and for other purposes.
    current 111st session of congress Other Bill Titles (2 more)Hide Other Bill Titles
    Short: Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009 as introduced.
    Official: To provide for the implementation of a system of licensing for purchasers of certain firearms and for a record of sale system for those firearms, and for other purposes. as introduced.
    1/6/2009–Introduced.
    Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009 – Amends the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act to prohibit a person from possessing a firearm unless that person has been issued a firearm license under this Act or a state system certified under this Act and such license has not been invalidated or revoked. Prescribes license application, issuance, and renewal requirements.
    Prohibits transferring or receiving a qualifying firearm unless the recipient presents a valid firearms license, the license is verified, and the dealer records a tracking authorization number. Prescribes firearms transfer reporting and record keeping requirements. Directs the Attorney General to establish and maintain a federal record of sale system.
    Prohibits:
    (1) transferring a firearm to any person other than a licensee, unless the transfer is processed through a licensed dealer in accordance with national instant criminal background check system requirements, with exceptions;
    (2) a licensed manufacturer or dealer from failing to comply with reporting and record keeping requirements of this Act;
    (3) failing to report the loss or theft of the firearm to the Attorney General within 72 hours;
    (4) failing to report to the Attorney General an address change within 60 days; or
    (5) keeping a loaded firearm, or an unloaded firearm and ammunition for the firearm, knowingly or recklessly disregarding the risk that a child is capable of gaining access, if a child uses the firearm and causes death or serious bodily injury.
    Prescribes criminal penalties for violations of firearms provisions covered by this Act.
    Directs the Attorney General to:
    (1) establish and maintain a firearm injury information clearinghouse;
    (2) conduct continuing studies and investigations of firearm-related deaths and injuries; and
    (3) collect and maintain current production and sales figures of each licensed manufacturer.
    Authorizes the Attorney General to certify state firearm licensing or record of sale systems.

  28. proreason
    February 18, 2009 at 4:32 pm

    I’d rather pull out my nose hairs with pliers than click on NYT, but I couldn’t resist this one:

    Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes

    Prof. Marshall Grossman has come to expect complaints whenever he returns graded papers in his English classes at the University of Maryland.

    Prof. Ellen Greenberger studied what she found to be an increased sense of entitlement among college students.
    “Many students come in with the conviction that they’ve worked hard and deserve a higher mark,” Professor Grossman said. “Some assert that they have never gotten a grade as low as this before.”

    He attributes those complaints to his students’ sense of entitlement.

    “I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C,” he said. “That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A.”

    A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.

    ….

    Professor Greenberger said that the sense of entitlement could be related to increased parental pressure, competition among peers and family members and a heightened sense of achievement anxiety.

    Aaron M. Brower, the vice provost for teaching and learning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, offered another theory.

    “I think that it stems from their K-12 experiences,” Professor Brower said. “They have become ultra-efficient in test preparation. And this hyper-efficiency has led them to look for a magic formula to get high scores.”
    …
    Jason Greenwood, a senior kinesiology major at the University of Maryland echoed that view.

    “I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade,” Mr. Greenwood said. “What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”

    “If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?” he added. “If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher’s mind, then something is wrong.”
    …
    At Vanderbilt, there is an emphasis on what Dean Hogge calls “the locus of control.” The goal is to put the academic burden on the student.

    “Instead of getting an A, they make an A,” he said. “Similarly, if they make a lesser grade, it is not the teacher’s fault. Attributing the outcome of a failure to someone else is a common problem.”
    …
    “College students want to be part of a different and better world, but they don’t know how,” he said. “Unless teachers are very intentional with our goals, we play into the system in place.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02.....odayspaper

    Say boss, I read all your emails, and I typed on my computer all day……where’s my giant raise??

    One gets numbed to all of the mind-blowing crap in Obamy’s world, but this one looks like a root cause.

    Notice that there isn’t even the eensiest tiniest hint of the gorilla in the closet….affirmative action.

    When somebody is the Law School editor because his skin is mocha and 15 years later he’s confiscating trillions of dollars from people who earned it, why shouldn’t I get an A for staying awake in class most of the time?

  29. caligirl9
    February 18, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    Some lighter fare for you all …

    From the SF Chronicle, not a political story per se but a perfect illustration of the liberal elitist attitude that permeates California and in particular the San Francisco Bay Area.

    Fowler finds 15 minutes of infamy after TV show

    Less than a week after a controversial appearance on the ABC reality television show “Wife Swap,” San Francisco resident Stephen Fowler was forced to resign from the boards of two nonprofits, allegedly received e-mailed death threats and stood on the sidelines as his wife, Renee Stephens, issued a public statement condemning his behavior and asking him to get “professional help…

    Since the Jan. 30 episode in which the Noe Valley resident was filmed verbally demeaning Gayla Long, the Missouri woman assigned to live with his family for two weeks, an anonymous viewer has started a vitriolic Web site, StephenFowlerSucks.com, and Fowler’s cell phone number and e-mail and home addresses have been published online. The online clip from the show built so much momentum that last week it hit a mainstream peak, appearing on the front page of Yahoo.com with the headline “Husbands Behaving Badly.”

    Meanwhile, critics of reality TV have questioned whether Fowler’s outlandish performance was for the cameras or if the cameras had captured a man at his worst. Many viewers are conscious that such shows are actually highly scripted, filmed in contrived scenarios and appear only after heavy editing.

    “I don’t know if (producers) asked him to do that or not,” said Faith Whitfield, editor of the Web site Reality Roll Call, which covers the genre. “But if in fact he was as intelligent as he said he is, he would’ve realized it was bad for his career.”

    In “Wife Swap,” families exchange wives for two weeks… In this case, Fowler was cast as the elitist, self-satisfied San Francisco liberal, and his visitor, Long, was the slow-minded Midwesterner. During the episode, Gayla mispronounces the word “agenda,” a flub for which Fowler is quick to humiliate her.

    He later calls her, “Undereducated, over-opinionated and overweight.”

    … The backlash toward Fowler and his family has ended some promising business relationships, the friend said, leaving the family “overwhelmed and a little stunned by all of this.”

    …Fowler has already published a statement on his wife’s Web site, renee.personallifemedia.com, apologizing for the “terribly insulting way I treated Gayla,” and admitting that “my comments were just stupid and made me look like the one who is undereducated…”

    To view the Jan. 30 episode of “Wife Swap,” go to links.sfgate.com/ZGEB.
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....15T2OH.DTL

    Seriously, take the time to check out the videos of this pig. I never watch “Wife Swap” and I’m not about to now, but there is so much wrong with the Fowler family. I feel sorry for their children. Even worse, they are very much what is wrong with San Francisco. Between people like this, the gangs that permeate and SF’s absentee mayor who promotes SF’s sanctuary city status and is otherwise is busy campaigning to be governor of California (God help us!) you can better understand what is wrong with California. May I suggest you not consider San Francisco for your next vacation?

  30. gipper
    February 18, 2009 at 6:48 pm

    From MarketWatch:

    UBS to pay $780 million in tax conspiracy case: Swiss bank admits helping US clients avoid taxes; agrees to reveal identities

    By Alistair Barr, MarketWatch
    Last update: 6:19 p.m. EST Feb. 18, 2009

    Switzerland’s largest bank also agreed to turn over the identities and accounts of some of its U.S. clients to the American government, in an unprecedented move that could shine a light into the country’s secretive banking industry, the DOJ added…

    …”A veil of secrecy has been pulled aside,” John DiCicco, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, said in a statement. “We will continue to aggressively pursue those who shirk their federal tax obligations or assist others in doing so…”

    …Some of UBS’s 20,000 U.S. clients knowingly concealed roughly $20 billion in assets held in accounts at the bank and “willfully” evaded U.S. taxes due on income earned on these secret accounts, Federal prosecutors alleged in court documents unsealed on Wednesday.

    “These taxpayers should note that today’s agreement states that the U.S. Government will continue to seek enforcement of the summons,” IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said in a statement. “If the bank fails to comply with a final order to produce the information, the U.S. government may deem UBS to be in violation of the agreement.”

    “People who have hidden unreported income off shore need to get right with their government,” he added.

    http://www.marketwatch.com/new.....AE28C69%7D

    And here’s how the U.S. government will help pay for the “stimulus” bill. The Government will find more money to tax, that is, unless you’re a well-known Democrat or George Soros. The IRS will sniff the money out. I guess I’d better start burying my money in the backyard.

    • proreason
      February 18, 2009 at 7:10 pm

      “Some of UBS’s 20,000 U.S. clients knowingly concealed roughly $20 billion ”

      This is pocket change. only 1 million per head.

      It’s probably a smoke-screen to take the heat of the real crooks. Originally, the UBS amount was reported as 300 billion, not 20.

      The real amount for the top 100,000 U.S. scam artists is certainly in the trillions, possibly more than 10 trillion.

  31. BigOil
    February 18, 2009 at 11:30 pm

    From the Treason NY Times:

    E.P.A. Expected to Regulate Carbon Dioxide

    By JOHN M. BRODER
    Published: February 18, 2009

    WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials.

    The decision, which most likely would play out in stages over a period of months, would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. It could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change legislation in Congress and form a basis for the United States’ negotiating position at United Nations climate talks set for December in Copenhagen.

    The environmental agency is under order from the Supreme Court to make a determination whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant that endangers public health and welfare, an order that the Bush administration essentially ignored despite near-unanimous belief among agency experts that research points inexorably to such a finding.

    Lisa P. Jackson, the new E.P.A. administrator, said in an interview that she had asked her staff to review the latest scientific evidence and prepare the documentation for a so-called endangerment finding. Ms. Jackson said she had not decided to issue such a finding but she pointedly noted that the second anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. E.P.A., is April 2, and there is the wide expectation that she will act by then.

    “We here know how momentous that decision could be,” Ms. Jackson said. “We have to lay out a road map.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02......html?_r=1

    As if The Won hasn’t done enough already to destroy our economy. Regulating CO2 as a pollutant could end up serving as the knockout punch.

    Why wait until April 2 to hand down the regulation when April 1 would be the appropriate date.

  32. BillK
    February 19, 2009 at 1:52 am

    No conflict here, nope.

    From the AP:

    Judge Crabb ruling would allow judges to join political parties, endorse candidates

    Wisconsin judges can join political parties, endorse partisan candidates for office and solicit campaign donations after a federal judge struck down rules prohibiting those activities.

    In a decision released Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb found the rules do little to advance an independent judiciary and violate judges’ First Amendment rights to free speech.

    Wisconsin Judicial Commission executive director Jim Alexander said the decision means the rules cannot be enforced. He said he was disappointed and consulting with Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen — who has called the case “a defining moment in Wisconsin’s history” — on whether to appeal.

    Judicial elections in Wisconsin have been nonpartisan since 1913. The Wisconsin Supreme Court amended the judicial code in 1968 to prohibit judges from joining parties. In 2004, the court prohibited judges from making partisan endorsements and personally soliciting donations. Fundraising must be done through campaign committees.

    Lawyers representing the state argued the rules kept judges from being influenced by party affiliations, promoted confidence in the judiciary and kept donors from feeling coerced into giving money to judges.

    But in her 65-page decision, Crabb said partisanship wasn’t as much of a threat to judicial independence in Wisconsin as were special interest groups spending big money to get judges elected.

    She said rules barring party membership and partisan endorsements don’t eliminate bias, they only hide it from voters and litigants. A number of Wisconsin judges likely have strong political preferences but those in their courtrooms have no way to know that, she said.

    “The best way to eliminate potential bias is to shine a light on it, not cover it up,” she said. …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/news/439281

    I thought judges were at least supposed to project an image of impartiality.

    Nah…

  33. BillK
    February 19, 2009 at 1:55 am

    The latest hit piece from the left, because never forget he also must be destroyed.

    From the so left it’s horizontal Slate:

    The Two Reagans

    Which version of the Gipper would Republicans like Obama to emulate?

    By Fred Kaplan

    When President Barack Obama starts stepping out on the world stage, trying to strike deals with foreign leaders, a chorus of Republicans and right-wing pundits will implore him to take his cues from Ronald Reagan, who—the popular history has it—brought the Soviet Union to its knees through military strength and iron will.

    In anticipation of these urgings, everyone should read the excerpt in this month’s Vanity Fair (online edition only) from James Mann’s forthcoming book The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan, which reveals that the hard-liners’ hero was, in fact, a babbling nut job who was lucky that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, a genuine reformer desperate for Western assistance, was on the receiving end. Mann also shows conclusively that, in the end, Reagan won the Cold War not by standing tough but by offering a gesture of peace.

    The lesson that Obama and his team ought to take away from the tale is that Reagan should not be regarded as a model of any sort—and that his Republican champions continue to distort his true legacy. …

    http://www.slate.com/id/2211165/

    That was about all I could read without throwing up.

    • proreason
      February 19, 2009 at 1:58 pm

      Their hatred knows no bounds

    • caligirl9
      February 19, 2009 at 5:00 pm

      Maybe 100+ years from now Reagan’s legacy will be properly understood by everyone, even those liberals with an IQ of over 70 … much like it took 100+ years for history to say that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest president ever …

  34. proreason
    February 19, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    Your Gov’t has lost $86.5 billiion in the Stock Market since Oct:

    Govt.’s TARP losses $86.5B since October

    The U.S. government has lost $86.5 billion in the stock market since the end of October courtesy of the Wall Street bailout, according to the nonpartisan research think tank Ethisphere.

    …

    http://thehill.com/leading-the.....02-17.html

    But don’t worry about Social Security. That money is in a lockbox.

  35. 12 Gauge Rage
    February 19, 2009 at 5:11 pm

    So what does TARP really mean? Is it Tax All the Rich People?

  36. caligirl9
    February 19, 2009 at 5:25 pm

    Another example of San Francisco lunacy. At least I don’t live there …it’s a tiny bit less loony 45 miles to the south.

    Republicans obsessed with “Healthy Penis” campaign?

    We know there are plenty of San Francisco issues, programs and policies that will come up as Mayor Gavin Newsom campaigns for governor. Same-sex marriage, sanctuary city, municipal ID cards for undocumented immigrants. But who knew the “Healthy Penis” campaign would be on the list?
    Mark Bogetich, a self-described “political vulnerability researcher,” apparently saw our item about the Department of Public Health’s campaign to promote syphilis testing by having staffers wear giant penis costumes at public events around town.
    Bogetich, who has worked for various Republican candidates and campaigns around the state, recently sent a public information request to the health department asking for a wealth of “Healthy Penis” information.
    He wants “a summary of all costs” including the price of the costumes themselves, a list of events the penises have attended, and total labor costs for public health officials wearing the costumes “including separate totals for regular and for overtime costs.”
    Bogetich wouldn’t tell us why he wants the information or who his client is. “We don’t discuss our projects,” he said. “It is an interesting story, and that’s all I can say.”http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/logout?blogid=55&entry_id=35997

    So when one guy who has worked for Republican candidates asks for public information, all Republicans are interested?

  37. jobeth
    February 19, 2009 at 6:27 pm

    I heard this on today’s (2-19-09) Rush Limbaugh show.
    I couldn’t believe my ears! Even Putin has more smarts than O’Balmy

    Rush Telling What Putin Thinks About What Obama Wants To Do
    “RUSH: You want some irony? Remember the Davos forum, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland? It’s held every year in early February. I just found out about this yesterday. Vladimir Putin was over there, and in his remarks to the World Economic Forum in Davos: “Putin Warns US About Evils Of Socialism.” Putin said: Don’t do it. We tried it. It led to our demise. He said the US “should take a lesson from this pages of Russian history and not exercise excessive intervention and economic activity in blind faith in the omnipotence of the government. … In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,’ Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. ‘In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.’” Vladimir Putin warning the United States!

    He has a being ignored, by the way. Barack Obama, Larry Summers, all of them in the Obama administration are ignoring the KGB. Ha! Of all the things I thought I would hear in my life, I never thought that I would hear a communist warn us against doing what they tried. I never thought I would see this! This is how out of whack we are. Putin warning us! Putin has got this guy right where he wants him. I’m convinced. I’m convinced that Chavez, all these guys, I think they are as happy as they can be. I think they are ecstatic that Obama’s running this show. They look at him as in over his head. They look at him as lazy.

    But anyway, holy cow, folks, it’s not just Vladimir Putin and the KGB warning us against socialism, now the ChiComs are getting in the act. The ChiComs are warning us not to go socialist — and Obama’s not listening to them. ”

    Third story down.
    http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/ho.....guest.html

    • proreason
      February 19, 2009 at 6:34 pm

      “Putin has got this guy right where he wants him. I’m convinced. I’m convinced that Chavez, all these guys, I think they are as happy as they can be. I think they are ecstatic that Obama’s running this show.”

      Of course they’re happy. They lost trillions to tank the market to get him elected…the chicoms primarilly. They viewed it as a good investment.

      And they were right.

  38. MinnesotaRush
    February 19, 2009 at 6:46 pm

    Whatha ….

    “OKC Officer Pulls Man Over for Anti-Obama Sign on Vehicle”
    By McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
    Published: February 19, 2009

    “An Oklahoma City police officer wrongly pulled over a man last week and confiscated an anti-President Barack Obama sign the man had on his vehicle.

    The officer misinterpreted the sign as threatening, said Capt. Steve McCool, of the Oklahoma City Police Department, and took the sign, which read “Abort Obama, not the unborn.” ”

    Yes .. the officer took the sign and informed the man he was under investigation. The Secret Service called the man and performed a “walk thru” at his home.

    Here’s a link for an interview with the “offender” ..
    http://newsok.com/okc-officer-.....nes_widget

    Again, .. whatha …. ????

    • JohnMG
      February 19, 2009 at 7:32 pm

      Nowhere, nowhere at all was it mentioned the ethnicity of the officers making the traffic stop. Why IS that.

      Here’s what I see coming.
      First, kiss your Second Amendment rights goodbye.
      Second, kiss your First Amendment rights goodbye.
      Next, kiss your ass goodbye, because without the first item on this list you don’t stand a chance at keeping the other two!

  39. BillK
    February 19, 2009 at 7:00 pm

    An interesting piece from the widely variable African-American columnist Eugene Kane at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Wealthy blacks will also need to be wise

    By Eugene Kane

    For most people, a millionaire’s lifestyle is always a Powerball dream away.

    That’s particularly true in the African-American community, where approximately one-third of black families live in poverty even in the best of times. Despite the dire times, however, some black people are doing quite well, thank you.

    Lee Hawkins, an African-American journalist with The Wall Street Journal and correspondent for CNBC financial cable news channel in New York City, addresses the issue of black wealth in an upcoming book called “NEWBOs: The Rise of America’s New Black Overclass” along with a companion TV special to be aired next week as part of Black History Month.

    Hawkins, a former business reporter for the Journal Sentinel, researched the impact of great wealth on a select group of black entertainers, athletes and entrepreneurs. He wanted to determine whether this new generation of affluent black celebrities can have a positive effect on ordinary black Americans.

    It’s an interesting premise for a city like Milwaukee, where a millionaire philanthropist named Joe Zilber is donating $50 million over 10 years to benefit central-city neighborhoods. It makes you wonder what could get done if a comparable black millionaire stepped up to the plate.

    Hawkins told me the idea about writing about a new generation of wealthy African-Americans came after considering the implications of millions of dollars suddenly bestowed on people raised in low-income households.

    “For most of them, they are the first generation of their family to have come into this kind of wealth,” Hawkins said. “Many times, they are from single-parent households with little or no money. Financial literacy is an issue because they’ve never had this before.”

    Hawkins managed to gain access to an impressive list of names for his book and TV special. He interviewed basketball great LeBron James, baseball player Torii Hunter, football star Terrell Owens and black billionaire Bob Johnson, founder of BET cable entertainment and owner of the Charlotte Hornets NBA team.

    Hawkins spent time with many of the subjects in his book to gain a close look at their lifestyles, which often revolved around being a steady source of income for a multitude of relatives and friends. Hawkins said that kind of fast ride to wealth often ended up badly for people who weren’t educated about how to hold onto their money.

    “When I sat down to do my book, I found most of the wealth for black people in America was concentrated around a few areas – sports, entertainment, media and selling goods and services to other black people,” he said. But the success of a select group of blacks needs to be kept in perspective, he said, noting: “Black workers still only make 74 cents for every dollar a white worker makes.”

    Hawkins believes there’s a need for more mentoring of young black millionaires on how to handle their financial affairs and use their money to improve struggling black communities. He also thinks having a black president should be the perfect impetus to redefine the image of black wealth.

    “It’s time to take it to the next level,” Hawkins said. “It’s an opportunity to be seized.” …

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/m.....18662.html

    So while Kane points out that there is indeed a lack of philanthropy on the part of wealthy Black Americans (particularly those in the entertainment field), he rehashes old mantras about Blacks and comparative pay just as feminists do.

    • wardmama4
      February 20, 2009 at 11:31 am

      Just like the feminazi’s, this is a bald faced lie and I can prove it:

      Black workers still only make 74 cents for every dollar a white worker makes

      The business model is the bottom line and the bottom line must be black which means that the end result for all business decisions must be toward making a profit. Thus if it were true that _____ (fill in the blank – women, blacks, minorities etc) make X amount of cents for every dollar a white worker makes – the business model would require all businesses to employ _____ (fill in the blank – women, blacks, minorities, etc) to ensure that their bottom line would be black (i.e. profit) no matter what.

  40. BillK
    February 19, 2009 at 7:07 pm

    State in the red? Trying to figure out how to save money?

    Why, let’s make sure that projects aren’t done economically.

    While the Federal Government has acted that way for years, why should states be left out of the fun?

    From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Doyle budget would eliminate balancing test for state contractors

    Madison – As Wisconsin prepares to receive billions of dollars in federal aid, Gov. Jim Doyle is trying to eliminate a law that requires a determination of whether it is cheaper to do work with state employees or contractors before outsourcing projects.

    “Apparently, they just don’t want to be accountable,” said Sen. Rob Cowles (R-Green Bay), who helped write the law. “I’m just sort of amazed by the whole thing.”

    The provision eliminating the balancing test is tucked into the 1,743-page budget Doyle unveiled Tuesday. Lawmakers will now debate and amend his spending plan, which raises taxes and cuts spending to resolve a two-year shortfall of more than $5 billion.

    Doyle may have a tough time getting what he wants. Sen. Julie Lassa (D-Stevens Point), who sits on the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, said she will try to remove the measure in committee.

    “I really do think the cost-benefit analyses, when they’re followed, really do help to save taxpayer money,” Lassa said.

    Doyle’s budget relies on more than $2 billion in federal economic stimulus money. If Doyle succeeds in changing the law, some of that money could be passed onto contractors with less scrutiny.

    Linda Barth, a spokeswoman for the Department of Administration, said Doyle had dramatically cut back on contracts over six years. State employees spend hundreds of hours a year performing the analyses, she said.

    “This is an efficiency measure for us,” Barth said.

    Doyle signed the contracting law three years ago, after the Journal Sentinel identified problem-plagued contracts.

    In one case, the Department of Transportation tripled its costs when it handed over the management of its road sign inventory to HNTB Corp. The department canceled that $165,000 contract in 2004 amid public criticism.

    In another case, state auditors discovered officials never independently analyzed a claim by Crowe Chizek & Co. that consolidating computer servers would save $15.6 million. The state hired Crowe in 2004, but fired the company in 2007 when it realized none of the savings would be realized.

    That work is now being done with state employees, but is taking years longer than originally planned.

    Situations like those led Cowles and other Republicans who controlled the Legislature at the time to write a bill requiring the state to conduct cost-benefit analyses before contracting for any service that costs $25,000 or more.

    The bill passed with broad bipartisan support, passing 33-0 in the Senate and 88-7 in the Assembly. Doyle, a Democrat, signed it in January 2006.

    The Legislature is now controlled by Democrats. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/s.....58377.html

    While the article of course focuses on situations where contractors overcharged, this is, unsurprisingly, the way most Americans think.

    For example, if you ever actually compared prices at Wal-Mart with some other stores, you’ll find quickly that Wal-Mart is not the cheapest source for every item, but thanks to public perception, people just buy “everything” there because “Wal-Mart has low prices.”

    The same here, of course – it takes too much time to compare prices, so why not just either use state employees or certain “favored” contractors for everything, regardless of their prices?

    • U NO HOO
      February 19, 2009 at 8:45 pm

      Ah, the old grinch who says, “Outsource, Outsource,…” or does he say we can do it cheaper in house and we’ll be in control and we can react quickly….

      My opinion, if government wants to save money, STOP DOING SO MUCH!!!!

      PA’s Ed Spendwelll wants to make video poker machines legal and tax the proceeds at 50%.

      Now a PA legislator is already wanting to use the new tax to help fill the expected deficit in the next budget.

      Did I say Rendell wanted to use the new tax to help students go to junior/community cllleges?

      Better change the tax to 100%.

      Can’t make this up.

  41. BillK
    February 19, 2009 at 7:18 pm

    But I thought Obama said this too would be a “disaster” unless Congress acted?

    Hmmm, anyone getting the feeling Obama is a bit of a drama queen?

    From Television Week:

    DTV Switch: Help Calls to FCC Decreasing

    By Ira Teinowitz

    The Federal Communications Commission said calls to its digital-TV transition help lines decreased Wednesday, the day after 417 stations switched away from analog signals.

    The decline may suggest that more viewers were concerned about the prospect of the DTV transition than actually had problems with the conversion. The FCC numbers don’t take into account calls to local stations, and the National Association of Broadcasters estimated that most stations received an average of 50-200 calls each.

    The NAB said the number of calls “paled in comparison to the 12.4 million over-the-air only households that were in affected markets.”

    Some markets, including Oklahoma City, noted higher call volume than that average.

    Most stations that chose to switch on Feb. 17 made the switch at midnight Tuesday night, though Some did the switch earlier in the day. They had stuck with the original date set for the DTV switch, before Congress delayed the national switchover to June 12.

    The FCC today said there were 27,764 calls to its call centers Tuesday, when relatively few stations switched during the day. On Wednesday, when most viewers would have started wrestling with their TVs, the agency reported 25,320 calls.

    Informal surveys conducted before Congress changed the official switch date to June indicated nine out of 10 TV industry workers opposed the delay. The Obama administration argued that lack of readiness in some markets and an ineffective coupon program to fund purchases of analog-to-digital converter boxes necessitated the delay.

    Acting FCC Chairman Michael J. Copps suggested that any disruption this week may have been minimized because most stations in larger markets pushed back their switchover.

    “Thanks to the movement of the deadline, we did not have anything like the extent of disruption we would have experienced had every station in the country gone completely digital on Tuesday,” he said. …

    http://www.tvweek.com/news/200....._fcc_d.php

    Anyone else see Copps as one of those who, when food stamp enrollment goes down, increases ad spending because they’re convinced any drop means that obviously not enough people know they are eligible?

  42. proreason
    February 19, 2009 at 7:37 pm

    Rush has about had all he can take:

    The Pulse of Revolution Has Begun

    RUSH: Could it be, ladies and gentlemen, could it be the pulse of revolution began today? Perhaps even yesterday in Mesa, Arizona. What is apparent to me, ladies and gentlemen, your loyal, devoted host, is that President Barack Obama cannot kill the spirit of America. It cannot be silenced. It’s great to be with you as we kick off another three hours of broadcast excellence from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. We are loaded today. And so let’s just get right to it. Obama spoke at Dobson High School in Mesa, Arizona. All the kids were kept in their classrooms. They got to watch it on closed-circuit TV. There is an advanced placement government class taught by a man named Jeff Sherrer, and a story here from Mesa Arizona News, the eastvalleytribune.com suggest that these students in Dobson High School weren’t buying any of what Obama had to say. This is a giant media mistake. How in the world this ever made it into print is beyond me, but it did, and now the nation is going to know about it.

    Earlier this morning on CNBC reporter Rick Santelli reporting from the Chicago Board of Trade, I don’t even need to describe this for you. I’m just going to let you hear the audio sound bites. It was on the program Squawk Box. The coanchors Becky Quick and Joe Kernen, Carl Quintanilla talking with reporter Rick Santelli on the Chicago Board of Trade floor. Here is Santelli’s message for President Obama…

    http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/ho.....guest.html

    Personally, I’ve never hear Rush so impassioned. You could hear his voice crack several times in his show today.

    Sorry Steve for posting from Rush, but some here may not know you can read his transcripts on his site, and he is conservatisms greatest spokesman.

    • caligirl9
      February 19, 2009 at 8:22 pm

      One child/young person at a time … there might be hope for us.

      Certainly somewhere within those 51 percent (or whatever it was) of kool aid drinkers who voted for “change” will come to understand that the only change they might see is that in their hands when they are using public transportation because they can’t afford to buy gas or pay for their insurance.

  43. pdsand
    February 19, 2009 at 7:51 pm

    I guess when they’re not spreading the lie that we’re all going to die of obesity, the CDC occasionally has to follow up on the lie about what was going to kill us all two decades ago in order to continue to qualify for temporary emergency funding.

    From a dismayed Reuters:
    “U.S. AIDS cases cluster in cities, report finds
    Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:11pm EST

    WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Most Americans infected with the AIDS virus live in cities, with 10 states accounting for 71 percent of cases…

    The CDC breakdown shows that 85 percent of all reported cases of HIV infection were in large U.S. metropolitan areas, up from 82 percent in 2007…

    That included 37,041 new cases in 2007…

    Nearly half, 48 percent, were men who have sex with other men.”

    http://www.reuters.com/article.....SN19505665

    Aren’t we all supposed to be dying of AIDS in small town USA by now, anyway? What happened?

  44. sheehanjihad
    February 19, 2009 at 8:07 pm

    FYI…if you are planning on forming or joining an organization that is in total disagreement with our current state of the union…..DO NOT ANNOUNCE IT PUBLICLY!!!!! Two reasons, one, it will give the Obamashirts a reason to shut S&L down for subversion or lacking diversity or some stupid ass reason, but the other is that you dont want some of the more nefarious lurkers here discovering what you have in mind, which they are tasked to do by the administration. Just trust me on this one, will ya? I know what I am talking about. I think. Maybe not…or do I? Just be careful…there are those who wish to do us harm.

  45. caligirl9
    February 19, 2009 at 8:49 pm

    Opinion: Free speech endangered on campuses, including San Jose State

    Few rights are dearer to the American people than freedom of speech. But there are rational and legal limits. Incitement to violence, to unlawful activity, or to the violent overthrow of the American government are not protected as free speech; neither is slander, nor defamation. Free speech does not require that anyone listen, nor that an institution provide a podium for speech it finds objectionable.
    I assert that this precious freedom should not extend to those who would exploit it in order to interfere with the free speech of others.

    I witnessed that interference at San Jose State University on Feb. 5.

    The guest speaker was Israeli Consul General Akiva Tor. The lecture hall was almost full 30 minutes before the event began. Women wearing Muslim head coverings and men and other women sporting the traditional Palestinian neck scarves had come early to pack the room. Some brought anti-Israel posters and Palestinian flags. During Tor’s presentation there were hostile interruptions from these early arrivals; but when the consul general attempted to respond, politely and thoughtfully, he was vociferously shouted down.

    The threat is real

    It became clear that these disruptive elements had come with the express purpose of interfering with the presentation. Their well-organized, vociferous, choreographed tactics hijacked the event. Campus police refused to take action because they feared instigating a riot. Ultimately, Tor was escorted out of the room for his own safety in a phalanx of officers.

    Other campuses have suffered similar egregious behavior by what appear to be Muslims or other anti-Israel elements. Campus demonstrations by Muslim and anti-Zionist groups throughout the U.S. and Canada have forced universities to cancel speakers for security reasons. Some demonstrations have become violent and destructive — including, just days ago, an assault by a mob on Jewish students in the Hillel House at York University in Canada. Yet anti-Israel groups need no security for their own speakers.

    Such behavior poses a grave and long-term threat to the very raison d’etre of the university: the ultimate bastion of free speech, marketplace of ideas and arena for civil discourse and debate. If such hostile forces are allowed to act unrestrained, they will destroy the university as we know it.

    It appears that governance at San Jose State and across the country has not perceived the urgency of this threat. There is a critical and pressing need to enforce limitations on groups whose intent is to violate the free speech of others.
    Such strategies may include:

    • Prohibiting lending the university’s name to, or approving the use of university facilities for, events sponsored by groups related to those who perpetrate such disturbances.

    • Escorting demonstrators to public areas where their demonstrations cannot interfere with an event.

    • Giving notice to audiences that security forces will physically remove disrupters.

    Action is needed

    University governance must decide where it wants the casualties: either take actions now which may employ security forces to keep order, and perhaps involve lawsuits against offenders; or stand idly by as the forces of chaos hijack our universities and impose their will upon anyone who arouses their ire. The casualties in the former case are the events which may require police action to quell disturbances. The casualties in the latter are ultimately the universities themselves.

    University governance must display the courage to protect our freedom of speech from those who seek to curtail it, and to defend our universities from those who wish to usurp them.

    David Meir-Levi is a lecturer in the History Department at San Jose State University. He wrote this article for the Mercury News.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_11733641

    It does my heart good to see a faculty member at SJSU (albeit a lecturer which means he has no job security whatsoever) bring this up. I’m all for First Amendment Rights, but the pro-Palestinian students (and I wonder how many really were students …) had no right to clog up an event and prevent truly interested students in attending this event. The anti-Israel group had every right to “protest” outside of the event or elsewhere on campus.

    I saw nothing about this in the local politically-correct liberally-inclined local newspaper.

    However, I wish the writer had better defined “forces of chaos,” because in this liberal wacko hotbed, one could argue they’d find a bunch of Young Republicans on campus to be chaotic … simply because they refuse to step in line with the university’s liberal administration.

    • wardmama4
      February 20, 2009 at 11:40 am

      caligirl – go to an Ann Coulter event on a campus – the Left does the same thing – buy up/obtain as many tickets as possible and then fill the question line she establishes to question her, her comments (if they have not booed, hooted, and called out during the presentation part) and just plain disrupt the entire event.

      Free Speech is being attacked at all points possible and about to be totally declared War upon with the revival of the ‘fairness doctrine’ as this time with Congress and the WH strangleheld by extreme leftist – they will insure that that this time – it is once and for all secured and enscounced in America forever.

  46. spiffyw
    February 19, 2009 at 9:09 pm

    Ann and Joy B on cnn now WoW
    Ann is awesome as usual

  47. BillK
    February 20, 2009 at 1:57 am

    Who said a recession is bad?

    From the blog LA Observed:

    ACLU making biggest cuts in decades

    By Kevin Roderick

    The economic downturn is hitting the pro bono legal sector hard, with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California imposing layoffs for the first time, today’s L.A. Daily Journal says. From reporter Gabe Friedman:

    Among those hit hard is the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which is confronting the worst budget crisis in at least three decades. For the first time ever in January, it laid off two staff members – an organizer and a fund raiser – according to Ramona Ripston, its executive director since 1972.

    Ripston said the group’s senior management team of about seven people took salary cuts of five to 10 percent for the first time since 1979. Staff members, who previously received full health coverage at no cost, have also agreed to begin paying $50 per month for their insurance, she added.

    “People come to me on a daily basis and say, ‘Will I have a job next week?’” Ripston said. “I just don’t know.”

    …

    http://www.laobserved.com/arch.....t_cuts.php

    Perhaps there is a very small amount of justice in the world – though I’m sure there’s going to be a major cash infusion for these folks shortly, if not from the Feds then from Soros and his pals, let alone Hollywood.

  48. JohnMG
    February 20, 2009 at 8:30 am

    …..”it laid off two staff members – an organizer and a fund raiser…..”

    I’m surprised that the fund-raiser was laid off. Who is going to raise the funds to pay the rest who weren’t terminated? And an organizer?? Just wait until Obama & Co. hear about that! What we haven’t heard about is the pay cut that the lawyers will be taking. You know, the ones that work ‘pro bono’. (Yeah, right. Ever hear of a lawyer working for nothing? Me either!)

  49. BillK
    February 20, 2009 at 8:47 am

    Wisconsin’s Governor Jim Doyle continues to do all he can to destroy his state before Obama can do the same for the country as a whole.

    From the (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal:

    Tax on richest Wisconsinites would tie for 11th highest in nation

    By Jason Stein

    Gov. Jim Doyle’s proposed higher income tax rate on Wisconsin’s wealthiest residents would leave the state with one of the highest top tax rates in the country — tied for 11th.

    But that rate would only kick in for married couples making more than $300,000 a year – making that single bracket one of the most progressive in the country.

    That contrast will provide fodder both for conservatives who are already attacking the tax as a jobs killer and for liberals who say the tax is only asking those with the most means to pay their fair share.

    Besides the income tax, Doyle’s budget includes $257 million in arcane new corporate taxes that weren’t broken out in his budget address Tuesday. And Doyle’s budget raises taxes and fees by at least $272 million more than the $1.4 billion his administration announced Tuesday, for a total of at least $1.6 billion, a Wisconsin State Journal review found.

    Doyle proposed the new taxes and spending cuts as part of a package to close a $5.9 billion state budget shortfall. Conservatives reacted with outrage Tuesday, saying the moves would strike a blow to a state economy that is already struggling.

    “The totality of all this stuff is breathtaking,” said Jeff Schoepke, director of tax policy for business lobby Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

    But Democrats like Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, co-chairman of the Legislature’s budget committee, said that Doyle’s taxes — mainly aimed at corporations and higher-income residents — were overdue.

    “Our goal has been to provide whatever fairness we can through the tax code so working families won’t feel as much pain,” said Pocan, who has advocated for many of the measures.

    Doyle’s budget proposal included a range of tax increases and some tax decreases, including:

    • $272 million in taxes over two years on oil companies. That’s less than the $544 million over two years that Doyle aides mistakenly told reporters yesterday.

    • $95 million more on Wisconsin residents by lowering the state’s exemption for capital gains taxes from 60 percent to 40 percent. That exemption would remain among the largest in the country.

    • $93.2 million over two years by using all of certain sales that companies make to figure their corporate income taxes. The state currently counts only a portion of these “throwback” sales in figuring corporate taxes.

    • $112 million by eliminating a state match for a federal deduction for companies that do manufacturing or processing in the United States, but not necessarily in Wisconsin, and another measure to increase some sales taxes for companies

    • A decrease of $46 million in taxes because of technical changes

    • A decrease of $12 million in tax credits for investors in high-tech companies and for companies’ research and development, along with $2 million in tax credits for dairy and meat processing businesses and several other tax deductions that would take effect in future budgets.

    The most attention so far has focused on the 1 percentage point increase in the state income tax for individuals making more than $225,000 and for couples making more than $300,000 a year. That’s about 30,400 of the 2.8 million income tax filers in Wisconsin, or a little more than 1 percent.

    For those individuals and families, their highest tax rate would rise from 6.75 percent to 7.75 percent, raising $291 million over two years. That would put Wisconsin in a tie for the 11th highest state rate in the top bracket, up from 16th now, according to figures from the Federation of Tax Administrators.

    That would include people like David Locke, the long-time chairman and chief executive officer of McFarland State Bank, who expects to be affected by both the capital gains and the income tax changes. Locke said the possible tax increase would be one factor among many in deciding where he might one day retire.

    “That would obviously be in the minus column,” Locke said.

    Julie Bogle, lawyer and tax manager at accounting firm Smith & Gesteland, said many local owners of small businesses such as electricians and manufacturers could be affected by the proposal. Bogle said those business owners may report income above $300,000 but may not actually be taking that cash out of their businesses because they are reinvesting it in new equipment or other costs that can not be totally expensed immediately.

    But Doyle said that the alternatives to the income tax would have been unacceptable cuts to schools and health care programs or a sales tax increase that would have hit working and middle-class families. …

    http://www.madison.com/wsj/top.....tid=439408

    Of course those families will be hurt even more as their employers flee the state or close…

  50. BillK
    February 20, 2009 at 9:00 am

    The PC police strike again.

    From the (Denver) Rocky Mountain News:

    South High boots Rebel, adopts griffin as mascot

    By Nancy Mitchell

    Denver South High School is changing mascots after students rallied to shed the Johnny Rebel image of a Confederate soldier that has long adorned the historic school.

    Instead, the mascot will be a griffin, a beast with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.

    It resembles the 3.5-foot gargoyle perched on the roof above the main entrance, built with the school in 1924 as its symbolic protector.

    “The times have changed and so must the mascot,” South student Donovan Hilton told school board members on Thursday, after presenting them with petitions signed by hundreds of students and staff members.

    “People say the times have changed, and no one thinks of it negatively,” said Hilton, 16, who is president of his junior class. “But when typed into a Google search engine . . . the name is synonymous with images of the Ku Klux Klan and other images that are completely and unacceptably racist.”

    Hilton, who is of mixed ethnicity, was among those leading a student walkout last spring to protest the symbol of the Confederate South in the Civil War, an image inlaid in the foyer of the school across from Washington Park.

    That means the school’s nearly 1,400 students walk across Johnny Rebel every time they enter the building.

    Nearly 70 percent of those teens are minorities.

    South Principal Bill Kohut, who has been at the school for 22 years, said student concerns about the Johnny Rebel image have surfaced every year. After the spring walkout, he allowed students to hold a contest to design a new image.

    Student Council members selected three from among the 25 entries and asked for their classmates to vote on the winner.

    Thursday, Hilton and other students, along with Kohut, presented the new image to board members and asked for funding to cover the Johnny Rebel images on the school floor and in the auditorium. They also asked to replace the Johnny Rebel images that hang in Denver’s 10 comprehensive high school gyms. Total estimated cost is $15,000.

    “We cannot get rid of this racist symbol on our own,” Hilton said. “We don’t plan on erasing the history of South. . . . We simply feel it is time to move on.” …

    http://www.rockymountainnews.c.....el-mascot/

    Ah, Denver taxpayers’ dollars at work.

    Will one of the local rich libs like Jared Polis or Tim Gill step up to fund the change?

    Of course not – not when you can stick the taxpayers with the bill.

  51. BillK
    February 20, 2009 at 9:10 am

    Note: This is a “Republican.”

    From the (Denver) Rocky Mountain News:

    GOP lawmaker calls Caldara, Hillman, ‘losers’ and ‘has beens’

    By Ed Sealover

    A prominent GOP lawmaker has gone rogue and will attempt to do away with a decades-old spending limit without any support from his party, the top House Republican said Wednesday.

    Rep. Don Marostica shot back, however, that legislative leaders are being influenced by “has- beens” and “losers” within the party and that he is going ahead with his efforts.

    Marostica, R-Loveland, will introduce a measure today to remove the 6 percent general-fund spending limit, known as Arveschoug-Bird, that has been in place since 1991. He will sponsor it with Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs.

    The law was passed to restrain government growth in boom years, but critics say that when the budget shrinks during recessions, Arveschoug-Bird ensures departments like higher education and human services can never recover. Some legal opinions say it can be repealed by statute, but others say it can only be changed by a vote of the people.

    Marostica said at an event two weeks ago that he would push for repeal of the limit. At the time, Minority Leader Mike May said it would be tied to another bill that would dedicate a specific percentage of the budget to transportation. But that road- funding bill appears doomed, and May, R-Parker, had hoped Marostica would pull his support for the spending-limit repeal. …

    http://www.rockymountainnews.c.....ng-limits/

    Here’s the good bit:

    According to Marostica, May came under pressure from conservatives including Independence Institute President Jon Caldara and former state Treasurer Mark Hillman to oppose the bill and called Marostica in for two meetings Tuesday. He denied that May threatened to yank him from his position on the powerful Joint Budget Committee if he didn’t drop the bill, but he said he was told that GOP Senate leaders were furious.

    “There’s great concern whenever you’re in a leadership position (like Marostica) and this happens,” May said. “To head off without the rest of your troops is not a wise action.”

    Marostica acknowledged that he might not get support from another legislative Republican but said he’s going to move ahead with the bill. He questioned why May was taking advice from people like Caldara and Hillman.

    “They’re has-beens. They’re losers,” Marostica said.

    Nice.

    Of course, he’s since apologized, but is still going ahead with his budget-busting spending bill:

    Marostica sorry for calling GOP leaders ‘losers’ and ‘has-beens’

    Lawmaker pushes measure to repeal 6% spending limit

    By Ed Sealover

    Rep. Don Marostica will apologize to Republican leaders he called “losers” and “has-beens” but will push forward with a spending bill that has turned some in his caucus against him.

    The Loveland Republican appeared at a Thursday news conference with Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, to announce the duo’s sponsorship of Senate Bill 228, which would repeal Colorado’s 6 percent general fund spending limit.

    Known as Arveschoug-Bird, it restrains the growth of budgets for departments such as higher education and human services.

    Marostica’s appearance at the news conference came one day after he was pulled into two meetings with House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker, to discuss GOP opposition to the bill.

    Upon learning that prominent Republicans – including Independence Institute President Jon Caldara, former Senate president John Andrews and former treasurer Mark Hillman – were exerting pressure to kill it, he told the Rocky Mountain News: “They’re has-beens. They’re losers.”

    That remark earned the second-term legislator a meeting with state GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams, at which Marostica got their phone numbers and agreed to apologize.

    Despite rumors of a push to strip Marostica of his post on the Joint Budget Committee, party leaders did not punish him.

    “They’re still fellow Republican Party members,” Marostica said of Caldara and the others after the meeting. “We’ve got to agree to disagree and move on.” …

    http://www.rockymountainnews.c.....-pressure/

    Nice, another toothless move from Republicans, once again guaranteeing that the GOP will never recover until the party finds some cojones.

  52. BillK
    February 20, 2009 at 9:20 am

    Harry thinks it’s time to destroy the economy further.

    From a loving AP:

    AP Interview: Reid pushing for climate change bill

    By H. Josef Hebert

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Saying it’s time to “take a whack” at climate change, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he plans to push for Senate action on global warming by the end of summer.

    The Nevada Democrat in an interview with The Associated Press said the Senate will take up energy legislation in a couple of weeks “and then later this year, hopefully late this summer do the global warming part of it.”

    Climate legislation will be among the most complex and contentious issues facing Congress.

    While there is widespread agreement among both Democrats and Republicans – as well as across the business community – that global warming must be addressed, there remains a sharp divide over the details of a climate package and how best to limit the cost.

    Nevertheless, Reid said he is convinced many senators want to move on the issue this year, ahead of international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.

    “We have to take a whack at it,” Reid said in a telephone interview late Thursday. He said failure to act “would be neglectful.”

    Along with climate, Reid, who is up for re-election next year, has assumed a high profile on the need to promote “clean energy” such as wind, solar and biomass that do not produce carbon dioxide, the predominant greenhouse gas. These are also energy projects popular in Reid’s home state, where several major solar projects are under way or planned.

    Next week, Reid will participate in a “clean energy” forum being convened by the Center for American Progress. Others participating will include former President Bill Clinton, possibly former Vice President Al Gore,and senior Obama administration officials.

    Reid said the energy legislation expected to be taken up in the coming weeks will be limited largely to promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency – priorities of the Obama White House.

    It is expected to say nothing about offshore oil development, or address the growing debate over whether the federal government should wield greater power in locating high-voltage transmission lines – an area of conflict between Washington and the states. …

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s.....ID_CLIMATE

    I know, Harry.

    First step, tell your constituents they need to shut off the lights on their casinos or install windmills and solar panels all over their precious artifices.

    Let’s see how long you last then.

  53. BillK
    February 20, 2009 at 9:26 am

    Seriously, he should just tell Cuomo to take a flying leap.

    From the AP:

    BofA’s CEO Lewis subpoenaed by Cuomo

    By Ieva M. Agustums and Stephen Bernard

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Ken Lewis has received a subpoena from the New York state attorney general’s office in connection with Merrill Lynch’s payment of employee bonuses before the companies combined on Jan. 1.

    Former Merrill CEO John Thain, who was subpoenaed last month, also was questioned by investigators on Thursday about the bonuses that were paid in late December, just days before Bank of America completed its purchase of New York-based Merrill, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The person requested anonymity because of the ongoing nature of the matter.

    Bank of America spokesman Robert Stickler on Friday declined to comment directly on the matter, adding “we do not comment on questions about subpoenas.”

    Bank of America shares dropped 64 cents, or 14 percent, to close at $3.93 Thursday. They fell 23 cents, or nearly 6 percent, to $3.70 in premarket trading Friday.

    New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has been investigating $3.6 billion in bonuses Merrill Lynch & Co. executives received, and whether investors were properly informed about Merrill’s finances.

    Last week, Cuomo said in a letter sent to U.S. House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank that the bonuses were irresponsible.

    The payments came as Merrill was on the brink of reporting a more than $15 billion fourth-quarter loss. The bank was among the hardest hit by the ongoing credit crisis.

    Cuomo said in the letter to Frank that Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America was apparently complicit in the move to award bonuses before Merrill’s fourth-quarter loss was announced.

    Last week, Bank of America spokesman Scott Silvestri said in a statement that Merrill Lynch was an independent company last year, and its board of directors had ultimate approval over how much to pay employees.

    Cuomo has already subpoenaed Thain and Bank of America’s chief administrative officer, J. Steele Alphin, as he investigates the timing of the bonuses. Cuomo is likely to seek testimony from other executives at the banks, according to the letter.

    North Carolina’s Attorney General Roy Cooper also has made a request for documents from Bank of America about the bonuses. The state’s Department of Justice earlier this month issued an “investigative demand” seeking records, including a list of Merrill employees who received bonuses. Bank of America is required to respond by March 4, according to the 11-page demand. …

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s.....CH_BONUSES

    Remind me again why anyone would want to run a business in this country?

    Why would the Feds need to go through the motions to actually socialize the banks when they can pull this crap?

    What business will next be the target of the Government’s salary dictates?

  54. sheehanjihad
    February 20, 2009 at 9:57 am

    Here’s a chilling example of what is being foisted on us by the “uber transparency” administration. I kid you not. Read this, and then question whether it’s high time to put a stop to this before lots of people get hurt.

    New York Times Editorial Covers Up Book Ban

    By Amy Ridenour (Bio | Archive)
    February 19, 2009 – 19:55 ET

    A New York Times editorial published this week has been excoriated by Walter Olson, proprietor of the popular “Overlawyered” blog and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and justly so.

    The subject is the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), a law that went into effect earlier this month and which even now is causing libraries, thrift shops and used book stores to throw away large volumes of used children’s clothes and toys and any children’s books published before 1985.

    http://newsbusters.org/blogs/a.....s-book-ban This is in case some of you missed it…this is serious.

    • 1sttofight
      February 20, 2009 at 10:12 am

      You think that is bad , check this out.

      Lead Ban Stops Youth ATV and Motorcycle Sales
      A deadline is fast approaching on February 10 that could potentially be deadly for the youth motorcycle and ATV market. In less than two weeks, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, enacted August 14 of last year, will go into effect and ban all products designed for children ages 12 or under which contain lead over specified limits. The Specialty Vehicle Institute of America and Motorcycle Industry Council are attempting to get an exemption for ATV and motorcycle parts.

      I don’t know of any children who put ATV parts in their mouth or lick the paint.

      http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/.....Sales.aspx

    • JohnMG
      February 20, 2009 at 10:17 am

      No, 1st, but I do know of several inner-city kids suffering 3rd degree burns to the mouth from trying to blow up some rival’s vehicles.

    • 1sttofight
      February 20, 2009 at 10:21 am

      ROTFLMAO.

    • pdsand
      February 20, 2009 at 11:31 am

      It seems to me that if you were to ponder a safe guess that all children’s books published after year X were written with an unabashedly liberal perspective, 1985 would work very well.

      Although the thought safety police would never leave something like that to chance, so I’m sure much research was done on the subject.

    • Liberals Demise
      February 20, 2009 at 11:13 pm

      That explains the bandages and white ointment around the lip area, JMG!
      Tears in my eyes from laughter!!

  55. wardmama4
    February 20, 2009 at 11:56 am

    Is this the

    “But today does mark the beginning of the end.”

    that The One ™ was talking about?

    ACORN Trains Citizens To Protest Home Foreclosures
    Derek Valcourt
    BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
    A community organization breaks into a foreclosed home in what they are calling an act of civil disobedience.

    The group wants to train homeowners facing eviction on peaceful ways they can remain in their homes.
    http://tinyurl.com/bxzv2e

    *************
    This is illegal and these ACORN people should be arrested and in jail. It is the start of anarchy if they are not arrested and put in jail – as it is government acceptance/tolerance of crime to justify a government program. Take a look just about all of these definitions apply:
    * “No rulership or enforced authority.”
    * “Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder.”
    * “A social state in which there is no governing person or group of persons, but each individual has absolute liberty (without the implication of disorder).”
    * “Absence or non-recognition of authority and order in any given sphere.”
    * A society free from coercive authority of any kind is the goal of proponents of the political philosophy of anarchism (anarchists).
    * Independent from rule or authority.

  56. caligirl9
    February 20, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    Not from a media source… how about a nice fractured fairy tale for you all? Winning the hearts and minds of children everywhere LOL

    THE LITTLE RED HEN
    The little red hen called all of her Democrat neighbors together and said, “If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat.
    Who will help me plant it?”
    “Not I,” said the cow.
    “Not I,” said the duck.
    “Not I,” said the pig.
    “Not I,” said the goose.
    “Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen, and so she did.
    The wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain. “Who will help me
    reap my wheat?” asked the little red hen.
    “Not I,” said the duck.
    “Out of my classification,” said the pig.
    “I’d lose my seniority,” said the cow.
    “I’d lose my unemployment compensation,” said the goose.
    “Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen, and so she did.
    At last it came time to bake the bread. “Who will help me bake the
    bread?” asked the little red hen.
    “That would be overtime for me,” said the cow.
    “I’d lose my welfare benefits,” said the duck.
    “I’m a dropout and never learned how,” said the pig.
    “If I’m to be the only helper, that’s discrimination,” said the goose.
    “Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen. She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, “No, I shall eat all five loaves.”
    “Excess profits!” cried the cow. (Nancy Pelosi)
    “Capitalist leech!” screamed the duck. (Barbara Boxer)
    “I demand equal rights!” yelled the goose. (Jesse Jackson)
    The pig just grunted in disdain. (Ted Kennedy)
    And they all painted ‘Unfair!’ picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities. Then the farmer (Obama) came.
    He said to the little red hen, “You must not be so greedy.”
    “But I earned the bread,” said the little red hen.
    “Exactly,” said the farmer.
    “That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle.”
    And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, “I am grateful, for now I truly understand.”
    But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her.
    She never again baked bread because she joined the “party” and got her bread free.
    And all the Democrats smiled. “Fairness” had been established. Individual initiative had died, but nobody noticed; perhaps no one cared…so long as there was free bread that “the rich” were paying for.

    EPILOGUE
    Bill Clinton is getting $12 million for his memoirs.

    Hillary got $8 million for hers.

    That’s $20 million for the memories from two people, who for eight years, repeatedly testified, under oath, that they couldn’t remember anything.

    IS THIS A GREAT BARNYARD OR WHAT?

  57. BillK
    February 20, 2009 at 7:41 pm

    Laugh of the day from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Barrett, mayors welcome Obama’s warning on stimulus spending

    By Craig Gilbert

    Washington – Mindful of the scrutiny that awaits the biggest spending bill in modern times, President Barack Obama issued a friendly but pointed warning to the nation’s mayors today that he “will call them out” if they use the money in wasteful ways.

    “The American people are watching,” Obama said.

    Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who was in the audience, said mayors welcomed the message.

    He also said he was confident that the money received by his city – the amounts are still unknown – could be spent effectively.

    “This is going to be the most widely watched appropriations bill essentially that we’ve ever had,” Barrett said in an interview afterward. “We’re all accountable for it.”

    Barrett said much of the money spent in Milwaukee would go toward education, infrastructure, law enforcement and energy initiatives, such as weatherization.

    “Another message the president delivered was (that) ‘This is not going to continue in 2011 and 2012. That is just not going to happen. Don’t go building it into your base budget because the money is not going to be there,’ ” Barrett said.

    At today’s White House meeting, Obama was addressing a group of elected officials who are by and large political and partisan allies. Barrett suggested that this gives mayors even more incentive to make sure that local spending stands up to scrutiny.

    “One of the mayors got up and said (to the other mayors), you should be spending this money as if the president were there to announce the spending himself,” Barrett said. “The mayors are so excited to have a president who understands urban areas that they want to make sure this program works not just for themselves, but for the president.”

    While some of the stimulus money has been allocated among states and localities, much of it hasn’t. Some funding formulas still are being developed. One major issue for cities is how states are allocating money to localities. Barrett said he and other mayors are worried that early state allocations of infrastructure spending favor areas outside big cities.

    Barrett wrote a letter to the state Department of Transportation on Feb. 12 expressing his concerns that more than $40 million in Milwaukee street and bridge projects that are ready to go would not qualify for stimulus money based on the state’s guidance for spending those funds.

    Along with the president and vice president, the mayors met with five cabinet secretaries and a number of agency leaders.

    Barrett said he had one-on-one conversations with Education Secretary Arne Duncan about his interest in the Harlem Children’s Zone program (a self-styled “holistic” education, social service and community program in New York City) and with Attorney General Eric Holder. Barrett said he talked to Holder about his support for repealing a federal provision that Barrett said makes it difficult to access data from local gun dealers.

    Barrett described the mood of the mayors as almost giddy about visiting the Obama White House.

    “The feeling was almost universal that the veil has been lifted for mayors to have access to the federal government,” he said. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/m.....90732.html

    If you need it spelled out, these two sentences actually appear in the same article:

    President Barack Obama issued a friendly but pointed warning to the nation’s mayors today that he “will call them out” if they use the money in wasteful ways.

    and:

    Barrett said he had one-on-one conversations with Education Secretary Arne Duncan about his interest in the Harlem Children’s Zone program (a self-styled “holistic” education, social service and community program in New York City)

    Yeah.

    The mayors are just drooling at the prospect of suckling from the Federal teat.

  58. BillK
    February 20, 2009 at 7:46 pm

    Wah – Madison’s City Council wants a raise in pay!

    From the (far left) Madison, WI Capital Times:

    Should City Council get full-time wages for full-time work?

    By Kristin Czubkowski

    Ald. Robbie Webber will be the first to admit that she doesn’t work an average job. The former Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin employee has always had a flexible day job, and for the last two years of her six on Madison’s City Council, she has scaled down her work to conducting bicycle safety and skills classes.

    So when she realized over the past year that her “part-time” work on the City Council, which can easily range from 20 to 40 hours per week, was getting to be too much for her, she could only imagine what council candidates who work 9-to-5 schedules and have families had to weigh before seeking office.>b?

    “I’m really worried about the hours that are expected, if it’s getting to be too much for the average person,” she said.

    She noted that she has seen many people either leave the council after one or two terms — or choose not to run at all — because of the time commitment. Currently, more than half of its members are self-employed, retired or in school, which gives them more time or more flexible time to devote to council work. With an annual salary of just over $7,000, City Council members rarely have the option of not working at all, leaving many in an uncomfortable balance between full-time day jobs and full-time or nearly full-time council work.

    With 14 uncompetitive council races heading into the spring elections and fewer candidates running for office than in the last six years, Webber said she is concerned that the long hours and low pay of council work is preventing more and more qualified candidates from running. At some point, she added, Madison may have to consider making the council affordable for candidates by offering a full-time wage to go along with its full-time hours.

    “Every city has to decide if a part-time council is too much,” Webber said. “I don’t know if we’ve reached that point.”

    Officials in Tacoma, Wash., think they may have. Similar in size to Madison with a population of 196,000, Tacoma began offering its council members health care benefits in 2008 and debated whether to do so at a full or part-time level. While the council had always been considered a part-time job, a survey of members found that most worked more than 30 hours per week and some more than 40 hours. They were eventually classified as the equivalent of 90 percent of a full-time employee for benefits, sparking a discussion of when the council might become a full-time job.

    Like Tacoma, Madison is on the cusp of moving to a more intensive level of work for its City Council, according to a national survey. In a 2003 National League of Cities study, city council members in large cities, defined as more than 200,000 residents, worked an average of 42 hours per week, and only 10 percent were paid less than $10,000 annually. In medium cities, defined as between 70,000 and 199,999 residents, council members worked an average of 25 hours per week and more than half were paid less than $10,000. Madison has 223,000 residents.

    There are some tangible benefits to a full-time city council, local officials say.

    Ald. Michael Schumacher said making a council position pay a full-time wage could also require that members have no other jobs, reducing the potential for conflicts of interest and making the position more family-friendly. It would also put council members on a level playing field with each other, unlike now, where some council members have more time than others to craft proposals and do research.

    Council members could also do more work in their two-year terms, said Ald. Brian Solomon.

    >b>”If this were my job and it paid enough that I could quit my day job, there is a lot more I would be doing,” Solomon said. “There’s something enticing about the sound of that because there’s a lot more I want to do and I wish I had time to do it.”

    Still, Webber, Schumacher and Solomon acknowledge that there are enough negatives to make the idea undesirable, particularly in Madison.

    For one, a full-time council would be expensive. While current members make about $7,000 annually, that salary would likely have to multiply by five or six times, and possibly more, to make serving as a full-time council member realistic for most people.

    Without making the council’s budget skyrocket, that would likely mean shrinking Madison’s 20-person council down to as few as five or seven members, increasing the number of citizens each council member would represent.

    “I think Madisonians like the fact that their alders are so close to them,” said Mayor Dave Cieslewicz. “I don’t detect much enthusiasm on the council or the community for the idea” of a full-time council. …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/439085

    No, elected positions turning over every few years?

    Heavens, we can’t have that.

    They must be elected for life and paid full-time salaries – what’s more important than Government?

  59. caligirl9
    February 20, 2009 at 9:05 pm

    The only honorable member of the Clinton family (who was exhiled to live with the secretary after they left the White House) has gone to the Rainbow Bridge.

    Socks, the Clintons’ White House cat, dies
    Socks, the White House cat during the Clinton administration who waged war on Buddy the pup, has died. He was around 18.
    Socks had lived with Bill Clinton’s secretary, Betty Currie, in Hollywood, Md., since the Clintons left the White House in early 2001.
    Currie confirmed Socks’ death Friday evening and said she was “heartbroken.” She did not give details, referring calls to the Clinton Foundation office.
    The foundation released a statement from the Clintons:
    “Socks brought much happiness to Chelsea and us over the years, and enjoyment to kids and cat lovers everywhere. We’re grateful for those memories, and we especially want to thank our good friend, Betty Currie, for taking such loving care of Socks for so many years.”
    Socks had reached his late teens — an advanced age for a cat — when reports surfaced in late 2008 that he had cancer and Currie had ruled out invasive efforts to prolong his life…
    Socks was what feline-lovers call a tuxedo cat — mostly black with white down the front and belly and on his feet, suggesting a fashionable dandy in a black satin evening jacket with a snowy shirt peeping out. He had markings that looked a bit like a mustache and goatee.
    Chelsea Clinton’s pet first appeared in the news in November 1992 after then-Gov. Bill Clinton won the presidency and the family was the still in the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, Ark. Socks became an early symbol of privacy-vs.-media in the Clinton era when photographers got a little aggressive as he took a stroll outside.
    Life changed for Socks in the White House, when his easy access to the out-of-doors was necessarily curtailed. One official conceded that, yes, Socks was on a leash while outside.
    Things took a turn for the worse in late 1997, when then-puppy Buddy, a chocolate retriever, arrived…
    But their pairing enchanted pet lovers, especially children. In 1998, then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton put out a book of children’s letters to the two pets in “Dear Socks, Dear Buddy.”
    …In the book, the first lady wrote she had been taking daughter Chelsea to a piano lesson in spring 1991 when they spotted two kittens in the music teacher’s front yard. “The black one with white paws — Socks — jumped right into (Chelsea’s) arms,” she wrote.
    After the Clintons left in early 2001, Socks moved in with Currie. Buddy, meanwhile, made the move with the Clintons to Chappaqua, N.Y., but he was struck and killed by a car the following year.
    Socks continued to live quietly with Currie, sometimes making appearances at programs held by pet welfare groups. Landau said Socks enjoyed sitting in the sun and that Currie doted on him, cooking him special chicken dinners.
    Coincidentally, the White House cat in the Bush era, India, died Jan. 4 at 18, just weeks before Bush left office. Bush daughter Barbara, then 9, named the shorthaired black cat after former Texas Rangers player Ruben Sierra, nicknamed El Indio.
    Like Socks, India had to share the White House with the canine side: the Bushes’ Scottish terriers, Barney and Miss Beazley, who were immortalized in Internet videos.
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....059S89.DTL

    Being owned by two tuxedo cats myself (Ryan, a pound kitty rescued from ‘da hood is my avitar image), and thinking that Socks was the only good thing in the White House when the Clintons lived there, I can’t help but feel sad for this kitty’s death.

    At least he knew real love with Ms. Currie versus being Chelsea Clinton’s prop.

    • Steve
      February 20, 2009 at 9:09 pm

      “Socks brought much happiness to Chelsea and us over the years, and enjoyment to kids and cat lovers everywhere. We’re grateful for those memories, and we especially want to thank our good friend, Betty Currie, for taking such loving care of Socks for so many years.”

      So much happiness that neither Chelsea nor the Clintons could be bothered with him.

      Here are a couple of our Socks related threads:

      Dumped Cat Comes Back To Bite Hillary | Sweetness & Light
      http://sweetness-light.com/arc.....o-bite-her

      The Hillary Clinton Guide To Good Pet Care | Sweetness & Light
      http://sweetness-light.com/arc.....d-pet-care

    • Kilmeny
      February 20, 2009 at 9:20 pm

      I’m sure Socks didn’t mind being left with Ms. Curry at all.

      I mean, imagine what that poor cat saw over the years……

    • caligirl9
      February 20, 2009 at 9:23 pm

      There is no way he’d have lived to nearly 20 in either Bill &/or Hill’s care or with Chelsea.
      Isn’t the Clinton’s statement just so … heartfelt. NOT!
      On the other hand, he was far luckier than Buddy.

    • Liberals Demise
      February 20, 2009 at 9:35 pm

      The Clintons’ would have fed Socks to Mr. Shzu for a measley $20.00 contribution to Bill and Hillarys’ favorite charity……….
      ……..Bill and Hillary Clinton!
      At least Socks found something that the Clintons NEVER did……L-O-V-E!!!
      (and I’m not really what you’d call a cat lover, but I’m a clinton loather to the NTH)

  60. sheehanjihad
    February 20, 2009 at 10:41 pm

    Ok, read this and tell me what you think. If I am not mistaken, and this isnt just propaganda, this is the first “good” muslim I have ever heard of. Tell me what you think.

    From the UK’s Telegraph:

    Al-Qaeda founder launches fierce attack on Osama bin Laden

    One of al-Qaeda’s founding leaders, Dr Fadl, has begun an ideological revolt against Osama bin Laden, blaming him for “every drop” of blood spilt in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    By David Blair in Cairo
    20 Feb 2009

    Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, who goes by the nom de guerre Dr Fadl, helped bin Laden create al-Qaeda and then led an Islamist insurgency in Egypt in the 1990s.

    But in a book written from inside an Egyptian prison, he has launched a frontal attack on al-Qaeda’s ideology and the personal failings of bin Laden and particularly his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

    Twenty years ago, Dr Fadl became al-Qaeda’s intellectual figurehead with a crucial book setting out the rationale for global jihad against the West.

    Today, however, he believes the murder of innocent people is both contrary to Islam and a strategic error. “Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers,” writes Dr Fadl.

    The terrorist attacks on September 11 were both immoral and counterproductive, he writes. “Ramming America has become the shortest road to fame and leadership among the Arabs and Muslims. But what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy’s buildings, and he destroys one of your countries? What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours?” asks Dr Fadl. “That, in short, is my evaluation of 9/11.”

    He is equally unsparing about Muslims who move to the West and then take up terrorism. “If they gave you permission to enter their homes and live with them, and if they gave you security for yourself and your money, and if they gave you the opportunity to work or study, or they granted you political asylum,” writes Dr Fadl, then it is “not honourable” to “betray them, through killing and destruction”.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....Laden.html

  61. proreason
    February 20, 2009 at 10:42 pm

    But uh, didn’t you say it was a credit crisis that tanked the economy? From Professor Mark J. Perry’s Blog for Econmics and Finance

    Consumer Loan Growth: 10%

    According to monthly banking data from the Federal Reserve, consumer loans have continued to grow at close to 10% (year-to-year) during the entire recession (see bottom chart above, click to enlarge). Notice in the top chart going back to 1950 that the positive consumer loan growth during the current recession is much different than the significant declines in consumer loan growth in every of the last nine recessions except the 1982 recession.

    As much as we hear about a “credit freeze” and a “credit crunch,” the consumer loan data through January 2009 suggest a slightly different story.

    http://mjperry.blogspot.com/20.....th-10.html

    The professor is being tongue in cheek when he says “slightly different story”.

    There was robust growth in consumer credit throughout 2008, including the last few months.

    So what did tank the economy? (I kid of course. The Moron’s handlers tanked the economy to destroy middle class achievers and permanently enthrone themselves as the commisars of Amerika.)

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