How to demean your dog

read the original here.

Calling animals 'pets' is insulting, academics claim
Animal lovers should stop calling their furry or feathered friends “pets” because the term is insulting, leading academics claim.

By John Bingham 8:30AM BST 28 Apr 2011

Domestic dogs, cats, hamsters or budgerigars should be rebranded as “companion animals” while owners should be known as “human carers”, they insist.

Even terms such as wildlife are dismissed as insulting to the animals concerned – who should instead be known as “free-living”, the academics including an Oxford professor suggest.

The call comes from the editors of then Journal of Animal Ethics, a new academic publication devoted to the issue.

It is edited by the Revd Professor Andrew Linzey, a theologian and director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, who once received an honorary degree from the Archbishop of Canterbury for his work promoting the rights of “God’s sentient creatures”.

In its first editorial, the journal – jointly published by Prof Linzey’s centre and the University of Illinois in the US – condemns the use of terms such as ”critters” and “beasts”.

It argues that “derogatory” language about animals can affect the way that they are treated.

“Despite its prevalence, ‘pets’ is surely a derogatory term both of the animals concerned and their human carers,” the editorial claims.

“Again the word ‘owners’, whilst technically correct in law, harks back to a previous age when animals were regarded as just that: property, machines or things to use without moral constraint.”

It goes on: “We invite authors to use the words ‘free-living’, ‘free-ranging’ or ‘free-roaming’ rather than ‘wild animals’

“For most, ‘wildness’ is synonymous with uncivilised, unrestrained, barbarous existence.

“There is an obvious prejudgment here that should be avoided.”

Prof Linzey and his co-editor Professor Priscilla Cohn, of Penn State University in the US, also hope to see some of the more colourful terms in the English language stamped out.

Phrases such as “sly as a fox, “eat like a pig” or “drunk as a skunk” are all unfair to animals, they claim.

“We shall not be able to think clearly unless we discipline ourselves to use less than partial adjectives in our exploration of animals and our moral relations with them," they say.

Freedom of Speech vs. Political Correctness

I know it's in the UK, but still. Read the original here.

Cops To Quiz Kung Fu Fighting Singer

Simon Ledger was arrested in a Chinese restaurant after a complaint was made to police.

The singer is set to be interviewed by cops at 8pm tonight after his bail comes to an end.

Simon, 34, often performs the song in Sandown, Isle of Wight. He said: "I hadn't even seen these two."

Now he fears he could get a criminal record.

Cops sprang into action and arrested Simon despite the fact that he regularly features the 1974 No1 in his act at a seaside pub.

Simon, who has performed on TV with Michael Barrymore, was doing a spot with a pal at the town's Driftwood Beach Bar on Sunday afternoon.

All went well until he began the Carl Douglas disco classic, with its famous Chinese-sounding riff.

Simon said: "We were performing Kung Fu Fighting, as we do during all our sets. People of all races were loving it. Chinese people have never been offended by it before.

"But this lad walking past with his mum called us w*****s and did the hand sign before taking a picture on his mobile phone.

"We hadn't even seen them when we started the song. He must have phoned the police.

"They phoned me when I was in a Chinese restaurant that night. They arranged to meet me and I was arrested.

"I thought it was a joke but they were serious. They seemed pretty amazed but said the law is the law and it was their duty. It's political correctness gone potty."

Simon added: "There are plenty of Welsh people at our shows - does it mean I can't play any Tom Jones?"

Bar owner Sean Ware said: "The song is in no way racist and nor is Simon. There is no way he would abuse anyone.


"He didn't start the song just because Chinese people were walking past. He had already started playing it."

Simon, who is on bail until today, wrote on Facebook: "If the lad who phoned the police is reading this, WHAT IS WONG WITH YOU? Sorry, what is wrong with you?"

A police spokesman said a 32-year-old man of Chinese origin had claimed he was subjected to racial abuse.

He added: "Police are investigating an allegation of racially-aggravated harassment. A man from Shanklin was arrested on suspicion."

j.pyatt@the-sun.co.uk[1]

References
^ j.pyatt@the-sun.co.uk (www.thesun.co.uk)

Double Standards

So it's cost saving when Dems do it and Fascism when Republicans do it. I got it now. Read the original here.

House Votes To Restrict Unions

“It’s pretty stunning,’’ said Robert J. Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “These are the same Democrats that all these labor unions elected. The same Democrats who we contributed to in their campaigns. The same Democrats who tell us over and over again that they’re with us, that they believe in collective bargaining, that they believe in unions… . It’s a done deal for our relationship with the people inside that chamber.’’

“We are going to fight this thing to the bitter end,’’ he added. “Massachusetts is not the place that takes collective bargaining away from public employees.’’

The battle now turns to the Senate, where President Therese Murray has indicated that she is reluctant to strip workers of their right to bargain over their health care plans.

DeLeo said the House measure would save $100 million for cities and towns in the upcoming budget year, helping them avoid layoffs and reductions in services. He called his plan one of the most significant reforms the state can adopt to help control escalating health care costs.

“By spending less on the health care costs of municipal employees, our cities and towns will be able to retain jobs and allot more funding to necessary services like education and public safety,’’ he said in a statement.

Last night, as union leaders lobbied against the plan, DeLeo offered two concessions intended to shore up support from wavering legislators.

The first concession gives public employees 30 days to discuss changes to their health plans with local officials, instead of allowing the officials to act without any input from union members. But local officials would still, at the end of that period, be able to impose their changes unilaterally.

Under the legislation, mayors and other local officials would be given unfettered authority to set copayments and deductibles for their employees, after the 30-day discussion period with unions. Only the share of premiums paid by employees would remain on the health care bargaining table.

Geoff Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, said that, even if the bill becomes law, municipal workers would still have more bargaining power over their health care plans than state employees. “It’s a fair, balanced, strong, effective and meaningful reform,’’ he said.

Unions lobbied to derail the speaker’s plan in favor of a labor-backed proposal that would preserve collective bargaining, and would let an arbitrator decide changes to employee health plans if local officials and unions deadlock after 45 days. Labor leaders initially persuaded 50 lawmakers, including six members of DeLeo’s leadership team, to back their plan last week. But DeLeo peeled off some of the labor support in the final vote.

Representative Martin J. Walsh, a Dorchester Democrat who is secretary-treasurer of the Boston Building Trades Council, led the fight against the speaker’s plan. In a speech that was more wistful than angry, he recalled growing up in a union household that had health care benefits generous enough to help him overcome cancer in 1974. He said collective bargaining rights helped build the middle class.

“Municipal workers aren’t the bad guys here,’’ he said. “They’re not the ones who caused the financial crisis. Banks and investment companies got a slap on the wrist for their wrongdoing, but public employees are losing their benefits.’’

The timing of the vote was significant. Union leaders plan today to unleash a major lobbying blitz with police officers, firefighters, and other workers flooding the State House. Taking the vote last night at 11:30 allowed lawmakers to avoid a potentially tense confrontation with those workers, and vote when the marble halls of the House were all but empty.

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.

Good Job South Carolina

Read the original here.

Amazon Packing After South Carolina Tax Vote
Never miss a McClatchy story


By Tim Flach | The State (Columbia, S.C.)

Amazon all but told South Carolina goodbye Wednesday after the online retailer lost a legislative showdown on a sales tax collection exemption it wants to open a distribution center that would bring 1,249 jobs to the Midlands.

Company officials immediately halted plans to equip and staff the one million-square-foot building under construction at I-77 and 12th Street near Cayce.

“As a result of today’s unfortunate House vote, we’ve canceled $52 million in procurement contracts and removed all South Carolina fulfillment center job postings from our (Web) site,” said Paul Misener, Amazon vice president for global public policy.

The decision came shortly after state representatives rejected the tax break 71-47.

“People who think this is a bluff don’t know Amazon,” Lexington County Councilman Bill Banning said. “Too many other states want them.”

The partly finished center probably will be completed and then “put into mothballs,” he said.

Most Midlands lawmakers supported the exemption, but opposition fanned by a coalition of small merchants, national retailers and Tea Party activists proved insurmountable, even as Misener came to lobby lawmakers Wednesday in a last-ditch bid to save the proposal.

Other measures proposing the tax break remain alive, but a loss that was unexpectedly lopsided makes it unlikely any will be considered.

Read the full story at TheState.com[1]

References
^ Read the full story at TheState.com (www.thestate.com)

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/28/113086/amazon-packing-after-south-carolina.html#ixzz1KpFBNzfx

The US Government and Corporations

Read the original here.

Government Aims To Oust Forest Labs CEO

By ALICIA MUNDY[1]

A government attempt to oust a longtime drug-company chief executive over his company's marketing violations is raising alarms in that industry and beyond about a potential expansion of federal involvement in the business world.

The Department of Health and Human Services this month notified Howard Solomon of Forest Laboratories Inc. that it intends to exclude him from doing business with the federal government. This, in turn, could prevent Forest from selling its drugs to Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Administration. If the government implements its ban, Forest would have to dump Mr. Solomon, now 83 years old, in order to protect its corporate revenue. No drug company, large or small, can afford to lose out on sales to the federal government, a major customer.

The campaign against drug-company CEOs is part of a larger Obama administration effort to pursue individual executives blamed for wrongdoing rather than simply punishing companies. The government has tried to prosecute Wall Street executives in connection with the 2008 financial crisis, but with limited success.

The Health and Human Services department startled drug makers last year when the agency said it would start invoking a little-used administrative policy under the Social Security Act against pharmaceutical executives. This policy allows officials to bar corporate leaders from health-industry companies doing business with the government, if a drug company is guilty of criminal misconduct. The agency said a chief executive or other leader can be banned even if he or she had no knowledge of a company's criminal actions. Retaining a banned executive can trigger a company's exclusion from government business.

The "action against the CEO of Forest Labs is a game changer," said Richard Westling, a corporate defense attorney in Nashville who has represented executives in different industries against the government.

According to Mr. Westling, "It would be a mistake to see this as solely a health-care industry issue. The use of sanctions such as exclusion and debarment to punish individuals where the government is unable to prove a direct legal or regulatory violation could have wide-ranging impact." An exclusion penalty could be more costly than a Justice Department prosecution.

He said that the Defense Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, have debarment powers similar to the HHS exclusion authority.

The Forest case has its origins in an investigation into the company's marketing of its big-selling antidepressants Celexa and Lexapro. Last September, Forest made a plea agreement with the government, under which it is paying $313 million in criminal and civil penalties over sales-related misconduct.

A federal court made the deal final in March. Forest Labs representatives said they were shocked when the intent-to-ban notice was received a few weeks later, because Mr. Solomon wasn't accused by the government of misconduct.

Forest is sticking by its chief. "No one has ever alleged that Mr. Solomon did anything wrong, and excluding him [from the industry] is unjustified," said general counsel Herschel Weinstein. "It would also set an extremely troubling precedent that would create uncertainty throughout the industry and discourage regulatory settlements."

The pharmaceutical industry has paid billions of dollars in civil and criminal penalties over the past decade, but the government believes they no longer have much deterrent effect.

The new use of exclusion is meant to "alter the cost-benefit calculus of the corporate executives," said Lew Morris, chief counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services's inspector general, in congressional testimony last month.

The move against Forest's Mr. Solomon—its CEO, president and chairman—brings the campaign to a new level. Lawyers not involved in the Forest case said the attempt to punish an executive who isn't accused of misconduct could tie up the industry's day-to-day work in legal knots.

"This 'gotcha' approach to enforcement runs the risk of creating a climate within organizations that is inconsistent with the spirit of innovation that is critical to the industry," said Allen Waxman of Kaye Scholer LLP in New York, who was formerly an in-house counsel at a drug maker.

Mr. Solomon became chief executive in 1977 and built Forest from a maker of vitamin tablets into a global company with more than $4 billion in annual sales.

His son is writer Andrew Solomon, who won a National Book Award in 2001 for his book about struggling with depression. Inspired by his son, Howard Solomon pushed Forest into the antidepressant market and turned Celexa and Lexapro into successes. In the year ending March 2004, the two drugs accounted for about 82% of the company's sales.

In October 2010, HHS outlined how it could use the exclusion tool on individuals without proof of personal misconduct. The first application involved the CEO of a smaller pharmaceutical maker in St. Louis. The executive stepped down. He has since pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor marketing violation and was sentenced to prison and fined.

Forest pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in connection with its marketing of Celexa as a treatment for children and adolescents before the drug won approval for pediatric use from the Food and Drug Administration. The company also paid fines over civil accusations.

Forest assumed it had put the matter behind it after the plea hearing in March. But on April 8, the Health and Human Services inspector general sent the letter declaring its intent to exclude Mr. Solomon from his roles at Forest. Mr. Solomon has 30 days to ask the inspector general to revoke the move, but if he loses and has to take his case to federal court, he may temporarily step down from his job, according to the company. The inspector general's office declined to comment; Mr. Solomon's personal attorney couldn't be reached.

The push to target executives comes in the wake of complaints in Congress that few executives bear the cost for bad corporate behavior. The U.S. has prosecuted only a handful of individuals in the Wall Street meltdown of 2008.

In November 2010, the government indicted a former attorney for GlaxoSmithKline[2] PLC related to allegations of improper marketing of the antidepressant Wellbutrin for weight loss. The lawyer has pleaded not guilty, and her defense counsel has said her actions were based on advice from Glaxo's outside counsel. The company has said it is cooperating with the government.—Scott L. Greenberg contributed to this article.

Write to Alicia Mundy at alicia.mundy@wsj.com[3]

WaPo declares Obama a Republican...

...and loses all relevance as a news media organization. Read the original here.

WaPo's Ezra Klein: Obama's Not A Socialist, He's A 'Moderate Republican'

Liberals are always trying to place themselves in the center. Washington Post business columnist Ezra Klein[1] tried out the old saw on Tuesday that just as Bill Clinton described himself pejoratively as an "Eisenhower Republican," Barack Obama isn’t a socialist, he’s a moderate Republican of the George H.W. Bush era:

Perhaps this is just the logical endpoint of two years spent arguing over what Barack Obama is — or isn’t. Muslim. Socialist. Marxist. Anti-colonialist. Racial healer. We’ve obsessed over every answer except the right one: President Obama, if you look closely at his positions, is a moderate Republican of the early 1990s. And the Republican Party he’s facing has abandoned many of its best ideas in its effort to oppose him.

If you put aside the emergency measures required by the financial crisis, three major policy ideas have dominated American politics in recent years: a plan that uses an individual mandate and tax subsidies to achieve near-universal health care; a cap-and-trade plan that attempts to raise the prices of environmental pollutants to better account for their costs; and bringing tax rates up from their Bush-era lows as part of a bid to reduce the deficit. In each case, the position that Obama and the Democrats have staked out is the very position that moderate Republicans have staked out before.

Klein has a huge "but" in this theory – if you leave out the massive stimulus program and TARP and taking over the auto industry, he’s not a socialist. But he argues that Republicans in the 1990s used to propose an individual mandate for health care, some form of a market-based "cap and trade" system, and the tax-hiking 1990 budget deal, and then claims it's the Republicans who are headed for the fringes.

It’s true that moderate Republicans were looking for compromise bills in attempts to stave off ultraliberal Clinton proposals like HillaryCare. It's true that moderates like John McCain proposed a "cap and trade" system in his 2008 campaign. But conservatives haven’t moved to the right on these issues – they were always on the right on these issues. Obama would look more like a moderate Republican if he’d infuriated his liberal base and actually made deals with Republicans on these issues – as he did on extending the Bush tax cuts. But he passed ObamaCare by stiff-arming Republicans and couldn’t get "cap and trade" to go anywhere in a Democrat-controlled Senate.

Klein argued that usually a party changes its stance because policies don’t work – as if that’s ever stopped liberals. He argues that these "moderate Republican" ideas were hugely successful, from Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health care plan to the Clean Air Act of 1990, and "The 1990 budget deal helped cut the deficit and set the stage for a remarkable run of growth."

Klein is completely ignoring statistical reality [2]on that last claim, at least in the first few years. The deficit in Fiscal Year 1989 (which began under President Reagan) was $152 billion, and then it rose to $221 billion in Fiscal 1990. So how did the budget deal "help" cut the deficit? In 1991 and 1992, the deficits set record highs – $269 billion and $290 billion.

Remember that when pundits start talking like "moderate Republicans" on today's budget and insisting they'll raise taxes but get "two dollars of spending cuts for every dollar of tax hike." That's not the way government spenders operate.

References
^ Ezra Klein (www.washingtonpost.com)
^ statistical reality (www.cbo.gov)

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2011/04/26/wapos-ezra-klein-obamas-not-socialist-hes-moderate-republican#ixzz1KeSQ7slI

What's the opposite of Ex Post Facto....

I think this Preacher is an idiot, but what the hell is a "Peace Bond"? Read the original here.

Terry Jones Says He'll Sue Over His Arrest | Detnews.Com

Last Updated: April 25. 2011 1:00AM
Oralandar Brand-Williams and Mark Hicks / The Detroit News

The controversy over Florida pastor Terry Jones is unlikely to end anytime soon.

He said he plans to file a lawsuit against the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office and other government offices in connection with his arrest Friday following a jury trial that found he was likely to create a "breach of the peace" for plans to protest outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn.

And he still vows to conduct his protest, but it will be Friday outside Dearborn City Hall.

"We invite every American who still believes in the freedom and rights that our Constitution guarantees to come and stand with us," Jones said Sunday.

The controversial Quran-burning pastor said he is working with the Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center because "we were arrested for something we had not done."

Jones' case is unique, said Richard Thompson, the center's president and chief counsel. "There are legal experts and commentators from all sides of the political spectrum who agree that what happened to Pastor Jones was a violation of the First Amendment."

Constitutional law expert Robert Sedler said he is glad Jones is challenging the "bizarre" ruling by 19th District Judge Mark Somers requiring Jones to post a "peace bond," jailing him for refusing and ordering him to stay away from the mosque for three years — all before Jones held the demonstration.

"The Supreme Court says you cannot deny a permit because of the message," said Sedler, a Wayne State University Law School professor. "The U.S. Constitution supersedes everything, which is why this is so bizarre."

At the trial, prosecutors cited an imam's remark that some see burning a Quran as worth 1,000 lives to explain why violence might erupt.

Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini, whom prosecutors were quoting about the Quran burning, said while safety concerns were legitimate, he was referring to reaction abroad. "I had no concerns at all that our community would react violently," he said.

A Quran-burning by Jones in March was blamed for violence in Afghanistan that led to several deaths.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110425/METRO01/104250347/Terry-Jones-says-he’ll-sue-over-his-arrest#ixzz1KYQjDxxX

Who's the SuperPower?

Read the original here.

By Brett Arends, MarketWatch

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — The International Monetary Fund has just dropped a bombshell, and nobody noticed.

For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China.

The Obama deficit tour

The Wall Street Journal editorial page’s Steve Moore critiques the president's speeches attacking Republican budget plans.

And it’s a lot closer than you may think.

According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now.

Put that in your calendar.

It provides a painful context for the budget wrangling taking place in Washington, D.C., right now. It raises enormous questions about what the international security system is going to look like in just a handful of years. And it casts a deepening cloud over both the U.S. dollar and the giant Treasury market, which have been propped up for decades by their privileged status as the liabilities of the world’s hegemonic power.

According to the IMF forecast, whomever is elected U.S. president next year — Obama? Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? — will be the last to preside over the world’s largest economy.

Most people aren’t prepared for this. They aren’t even aware it’s that close. Listen to experts of various stripes, and they will tell you this moment is decades away. The most bearish will put the figure in the mid-2020s.

China’s economy will be the world’s largest within five years or so.

But they’re miscounting. They’re only comparing the gross domestic products of the two countries using current exchange rates.

That’s a largely meaningless comparison in real terms. Exchange rates change quickly. And China’s exchange rates are phony. China artificially undervalues its currency, the renminbi, through massive intervention in the markets.
The comparison that really matters

The IMF in its analysis looks beyond exchange rates to the true, real terms picture of the economies using “purchasing power parities.” That compares what people earn and spend in real terms in their domestic economies.

Under PPP, the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the size of the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take America’s share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times. China’s would reach 18%, and rising.

Just 10 years ago, the U.S. economy was three times the size of China’s.

References
^ Pentagon spending is budget blind spot (www.marketwatch.com)
^ Brett Arends (www.marketwatch.com)

WSJ on "what is poor?"

Read the original here.

By JAMES TARANTO

In 1990 the Heritage Foundation put out a report titled "How 'Poor' Are America's Poor?" Not very, concluded author Robert Rector:
"Poor" Americans today are better housed, better fed, and own more property than did the average U.S. citizen throughout much of the 20th Century. In 1988, the per capita expenditures of the lowest income fifth of the U.S. population exceeded the per capita expenditures of the median American household in 1955, after adjusting for inflation."

Among "the persons whom the Census Bureau identifies as 'poor,' " 38% were homeowners. Among "poor" households, 62% owned a car, 14% two or more cars, nearly half had air-conditioning, and 31% had microwave ovens. "Nationwide, some 22,000 'poor' households have heated swimming pools or Jacuzzis."

But cellphones aren't just ubiquitous. In what the New York Times calls "a strange twist," they've become symbols of poverty. Arkansas and Mississippi, those perennial economic laggards, "find themselves at the top of a new state ranking: They have the highest concentrations of people in the nation who have abandoned landlines in favor of cellular phones."One thing only rich people had back in 1990, though, was portable telephones. That's changed, hasn't it? If you're reading this column, you very likely have a cellular phone. You may even be reading this column on your cellular phone.

"There appear to be many reasons for this," the Times writes:
Cellular phones have become more affordable. The barrier to owning one is lower with pay-as-you-go plans. Some states allow subsidies for low-income residents to be applied to wireless bills. And increasingly, those who cannot afford both types of phones choose their cellular phone.

The irony here is too obvious to escape even the Times, which notes that "it is, of course, a long way from the days when cellphones belonged exclusively to wealthy business people."

It's an even longer way from the days when only rich people had telephones. "When I was a kid," writes reader David Hallstrom, "my friends thought we were rich because we had a dedicated phone line and they had party lines."

We're young enough never to have seen a party line, but old enough to remember when a cellphone was still a luxury good, as it was in 1990. By the turn of the century, it was a common middle-class accoutrement. Now we're expected to feel sorry for people who are so poor, they can only afford cellphones. Once again, a landline telephone--or, as it used to be called, "a telephone"--is a symbol of wealth.

Between the olden days of 1990 and today, we've heard endless complaints, including in the Times, about rising "income inequality." In a strange twist, we've even ended up with a president who has said he would like to "spread the wealth around" by heavily taxing the "rich" and increasing handouts to the "poor." The story of the cellphone shows how a free economy spreads wealth. In actual material terms, the "poor" get richer as the rich also get richer.

When IN Democrats flee the state...

...they do it at the behest of the unions. Read the original here.

HoosierAccess » Blog Archive » Indiana Fleebaggers On Union Payroll?

Just when you thought the entire scenario of Indiana Democratic State Representatives fleeing to Illinois to avoid having to do their jobs couldn’t get any stranger, it just did. According to this[1] Campaign Finance Report filed by the Indiana Democratic Party, the entire $84,953.70 hotel bill at the Comfort Suites Urbana was paid for unions. Even better than that, many of those unions are out of state.

During this entire episode, Indiana Democratic Chair Dan Parker repeatedly refused to answer questions about who was footing the bill for this little vacation. Not surprisingly, Indiana Republican Chair Eric Holcomb was neither thrilled nor shocked:


“What were Democrats hiding from? The truth,” said Indiana Republican Party Chairman Eric Holcomb. “The proof is now in writing. Democrats were not only fighting for narrow special interests, but were also bankrolled by those same entities. Their walkout wasn’t focused on helping Hoosiers. Their walkout was focused on keeping the status quo.”

Here’s part of what Chairman Holcomb was referring to. See, according to Dan Parker himself, HE was personally footing the bill for the entire escapade. No really, here’s what he said[2]:

Democratic State Chairman Dan Parker says he is sponsoring the House Democrats’ stay at an Urbana, Ill. hotel. Reached by phone in Washington, D.C. Parker said he is paying $2,500 a day. He says he’s received online contributions to help pay the cost and may solicit more.

Parker says he will pay the bill for as long as it takes.

“When you’re standing on principle,” he said, “It’s worth it.”

While it’s certainly no secret that Democrats in general are bought and paid for by their various unions, we now have it on record who the Indiana Democratic Party actually works for. Let the record show that it isn’t the people of Indiana.

References
^ this (www.slideshare.net)
^ here’s what he said (indiana.onpolitix.com)

So...many....hippies

CBS Editors Refuse To Release Full Audio Of Obama Hot Mic Recording!

Read the original here. I wonder how CBS would've handled it a few years ago, especially when they were trying rationalize Dan Rather's fraudulent "documents".

» CONFIRMED: CBS Editors Refuse To Release Full Audio Of Obama Hot Mic Recording!

Last weekend, His Presidency Barack Obama was captured making potentially offensive comments to a group of big money donors who had paid large sums of money for special access to His Presidency.
We observed that CBS only released “selectively edited” moments from the raw tape.[1] We know how much the mainstream media values complete and full disclosure of recordings of this nature, so we found it curious, to say the least, that there was not one drop of intellectual curiosity from these guardians of media purity regarding the content of the full recording.

Maybe CBS’s motive has nothing to do with protecting His Presidency from potential embarrassment. Perhaps, like Nixon before them, CBS accidentally erased the portions of the recording that they have not released. Anything is possible, right?

Alas, no. John Romano, Publisher of the blog “Yes, But, However!”[2] has confirmed with CBS’s Mark Knoller (via Twitter) that CBS has decided that they are not going to release the complete recording.

@markknoller[3] Why haven’t you released all of the audio of President Obama’s “donor meeting”? If you have please link?

@markknoller[4] This is my third request. Why will you not release the full audio of Obama’s donor conversation?

@yesbuthowever[5] My editors decided against it.

People can speculate as to what their motive is, but we suspect that they do not want to jeopardize their White House access leading into campaign season by being the ones to release the audio of His Presidency referring to Americans as “slugs.”

References
^ We observed that CBS only released “selectively edited” moments from the raw tape.(bigjournalism.com)
^ Yes, But, However!” (yesbuthowever.com)
^ markknoller (twitter.com)
^ markknoller (twitter.com)
^ yesbuthowever (twitter.com)

I'm not even following their logic....

You're never more wasteful, than when it's not your money. Also, how well does a 28% job placement success rate, compare against other job placement organizations?  Read the original here.

Job Center Blasted For Giving Capes To Unemployed

ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida officials are investigating an unemployment agency that spent public money to give 6,000 superhero capes to the jobless.

Workforce Central Florida spent more than $14,000 on the red capes as part of its "Cape-A-Bility Challenge" public relations campaign. The campaign featured a cartoon character, "Dr. Evil Unemployment," who needs to be vanquished.

Florida's unemployment agency director asked Monday for an investigation of the regional operation's spending after the Orlando Sentinel published a story about the program. State director Cynthia Lorenzo said the spending appeared to be "insensitive and wasteful."

Workforce Central Florida Director Gary J. Earl defends the program, saying it is part of a greater effort to connect with the community. The agency says it served 210,000 people during its last fiscal year, placing nearly 59,000 in jobs.

Gas Prices approaching $5?

It's happening in DC. Read the original here.

Gas prices hover one tenth of a cent under five dollars per gallon at a gas station in Washington on April 19, 2011. Unrest in the Middle East and price speculation have steadily led to higher oil prices and consequently higher gas prices throughout the year so far. UPI

Read more: http://www.upi.com/News_Photos/view/f772b5b1f31e2af83d29d52d228dd553/Gas-prices-continue-to-rise-in-Washington/#ixzz1K4EjyeAW

At least they changed their minds...

Read the original here.

NY Backs Off Rules On Kickball, Tag At Day Camps

ALBANY, N.Y. – New York state health officials have yanked a set of proposed guidelines for what were initially deemed risky day camp games like tag, Red Rover and kickball.

Health department spokeswoman Claudia Hutton says the rules and lists of games and activities were sent out to municipalities and other camp operators under the previous administration.

She says that after a review spurred by a lawmaker's questions Friday and subsequent news reports, they've been judged too detailed and amount to micromanagement.

Hutton said Tuesday that the department will continue gathering information during a comment period that ends May 16 and will formulate new safety regulations that are broader.

The regulations are required under a 2009 rule meant to close a loophole in the law that allowed indoor day camps to operate without the same state oversight applied to outdoor day camps.

MI Police copying cell phone data at traffic stops?

If this is really happening, I'm not comfortable with it. Read the original here.

Police Search Cell Phones During Traffic Stops
ACLU seeks information on Michigan program that allows cops to download information from smart phones belonging to stopped motorists.

The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan last Wednesday demanded that state officials stop stonewalling freedom of information requests for information on the program.

ACLU learned that the police had acquired the cell phone scanning devices and in August 2008 filed an official request for records on the program, including logs of how the devices were used. The state police responded by saying they would provide the information only in return for a payment of $544,680. The ACLU found the charge outrageous.

"Law enforcement officers are known, on occasion, to encourage citizens to cooperate if they have nothing to hide," ACLU staff attorney Mark P. Fancher wrote. "No less should be expected of law enforcement, and the Michigan State Police should be willing to assuage concerns that these powerful extraction devices are being used illegally by honoring our requests for cooperation and disclosure."

A US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and video off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections.

"Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags," a CelleBrite brochure explains regarding the device's capabilities. "The Physical Analyzer allows visualization of both existing and deleted locations on Google Earth. In addition, location information from GPS devices and image geotags can be mapped on Google Maps."

The ACLU is concerned that these powerful capabilities are being quietly used to bypass Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

"With certain exceptions that do not apply here, a search cannot occur without a warrant in which a judicial officer determines that there is probable cause to believe that the search will yield evidence of criminal activity," Fancher wrote. "A device that allows immediate, surreptitious intrusion into private data creates enormous risks that troopers will ignore these requirements to the detriment of the constitutional rights of persons whose cell phones are searched."

The national ACLU is currently suing the Department of Homeland Security for its policy of warrantless electronic searches of laptops and cell phones belonging to people entering the country who are not suspected of committing any crime.

Quote of the Day(s)?

"That's not part of his power, but this is part of the whole theory of George Bush that he can make laws as he goes along. I disagree with that. I taught the Constitution for 10 years. I believe in the Constitution and I will obey the Constitution of the United States. We're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress."

-Sen. Barack Obama 2008
view the original here.

"His concern was with what he saw as an abuse of the signing statement by the previous administration. So that the positions he took in signing statements on the budget bill entirely consistent with that position, you need to retain the right to, as president, to be able to issue those signing statements, but obviously they should not be abused,"

-White House press secretary Jay Carney, April 2011
view the original here.

This probably isn't so good...

Read the original here.

'London Taliban' Is Targeting Women And Gays In Bid To Impose Sharia Law

By Daily Mail Reporter[1]
Last updated at 12:17 PM on 18th April 2011

Women who do not wear headscarves are being threatened with violence and even death by Islamic extremists intent on imposing sharia law on parts of Britain, it was claimed today.

Other targets of the 'Talibanesque thugs', being investigated by police in the Tower Hamlets area of London, include homosexuals.

Stickers have been plastered on public walls stating: 'Gay free zone. Verily Allah is severe in punishment'.

Posters for H&M which feature women in bikinis and a racy poster for a Bollywood film have been defaced.

It is believed Muslim extremists are behind a spate of attacks being investigated by police, according to the Sunday Times.

An Asian woman who works in a pharmacy in east London was told to dress more modestly and wear a veil or the shop would be boycotted.

When she went to the media to talk about the abuse she suffered, a man later entered the pharmacy and told her: 'If you keep doing these things, we are going to kill you'.

The 31-year-old, who is not a practising Muslim, said she has since been told to take holiday by the pharmacy owners and now fears she may lose her job.

She said: 'Why should I wear a hijab (headscarf) or burqa? I haven't done anything wrong.'

Other incidents reported include the placing of stickers across the white-minority borough which state it is a 'gay-free zone' and the daubing of paint on posters for clothing shop H&M featuring women in bikinis.

Ghaffar Hussain, of the anti-extremism think-tank the Quilliam Foundation, told The Sunday Times that the intimidation was the work of 'Talibanesque thugs'.

He added: 'This minority think they have the right to impose their fringe interpretation of Islam on others.'

Three men have been charged with religiously-aggravated criminal damage in connection with some of the incidents, which have mirrored crude attempts at censorship in Birmingham.

Borough Commander of Tower Hamlets, Paul Rickett, said: 'I am saddened that there are a small minority of people who do not wish to respect the lifestyle choices of others.

'I would like to reassure the people of Tower Hamlets that we are investigating these incidents.


'At this stage there is no information to suggest any of the incidents are linked. Anyone found committing such criminal acts will face criminal proceedings.

'We work closely with faith leaders in the community, the Tower Hamlets interfaith forum, our partner agencies and the local community to ensure that people feel safe in the borough.'

Khalid Mahmood, MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, said he had seen posters vandalised in Birmingham but was not aware of threats being made.

He said: 'I have seen posters defaced in Birmingham and it's just complete nonsense.

'If people choose to follow the religion they should be free to do so and we don't want to go down the route that the French have done, but these people have to accept other people.

'If it's about the freedom to do what you want, others should have the freedom to do what they want to do.

'It's the actions of a very small minority, and in Birmingham we have not seen people threaten women who are not wearing the burqa - if someone were to do that the police should be informed.'

Firebrand Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary said that he was aware of individuals who would speak up if they saw a Muslim woman without a headscarf, but insisted they were only giving advice about their views of Islam.

He said no threats would be made and described the allegations of threats of death as 'completely ridiculous'.

He said: 'There are groups who propagate Islam, and if they see a Muslim woman without a hijab they may say "sister, it's obligatory that you cover your hair".

'It's an individual intervention to propagate Islam. For non-Muslims, they may point out to them that women are being exploited in the West.

'It's about telling people about the preference of covering up, but nobody's going to say "you are going to be killed".'

Tower Hamlets has a reputation for being a centre of Islamic extremism in London.

Recently it was revealed that Rich Dart, a middle-class former BBC worker, had converted to Islam and was living in Bow, east London in a £300,000 flat paid for by benefits.

Despite being unemployed, Mr Dart regularly attends Muslim rallies in which he was recently heard to say: 'When the Taliban defeat the allies we will establish sharia law and take the fight to the enemy.'

Before Christmas posters appeared in the borough claiming the religious festival was 'evil'.

The campaign's organiser was 27-year-old Abu Rumaysah, who once called for sharia law in Britain at a press conference held by hate preacher leader Anjem Choudary, the leader of banned militant group Islam4UK.

Mr Rumaysah said: 'Christmas is a lie and as Muslims it is our duty to attack it.

'But our main attack is on the fruits of Christmas, things like alcohol abuse and promiscuity that increase during Christmas and all the other evils these lead to such as abortion, domestic violence and crime.

'We hope that out campaign will make people realise that Islam is the only way to avoid this and convert.'

References
^ Daily Mail Reporter (www.dailymail.co.uk)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377780/London-Taliban-targeting-women-gays-bid-impose-sharia-law.html#ixzz1Jt92N4Xi

The New Civil Discourse

Read the original here.

Republicans Will Make US 'Third World' Nation: Obama

CHICAGO (AFP) – US President Barack Obama accused Republicans of wanting to turn the United States into a "Third World" country as he rallied support for his reelection campaign.

The attack came a day after Obama savaged Republican budget plans and unveiled his $4-trillion deficit reduction drive that aims to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans in order to preserve key social services.

The debate over fiscal policy will prove critical to the 2012 campaign and Obama sought to frame it as a "stark choice" between investing in the future or watching the country fall apart.

"Under their vision, we can't invest in roads and bridges and broadband and high-speed rail," Obama told a select group of the Democratic faithful at the second of three fundraising events in his hometown of Chicago.

"I mean, we would be a nation of potholes, and our airports would be worse than places that we thought -- that we used to call the Third World, but who are now investing in infrastructure."

Republicans plans to shrink the reach of government is "not a vision that's impelled by the numbers" but a "choice" to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the rich rather than ask those who've been "blessed" to "give a little more."

Obama said his vision is of an ambitious, compassionate, and caring America "where we're living within our means but we're still investing in our future."

"If we apply some practical common sense to this, we can solve our fiscal challenges and still have the America that we believe in," Obama told supporters at Chicago's N9ne restaurant.

"That's what this budget debate is going to be about. And that's what the 2012 campaign is going to be about."

The events in Chicago were Obama's first fundraisers since he officially launched his bid for a second term on April 4 and were expected to raise about two million dollars.

Analysts predict Obama -- who raised a record $750 million ahead of the 2008 election -- will build a billion-dollar war chest this time around.

Money won't be enough to win, senior advisor and 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe told a crowd of 2,300 supporters gathered in a ballroom at Navy Pier ahead of Obama's speech.

"If only the people who normally vote in presidential elections vote in this election it will be too close," Plouffe said as he urged supporters to get more people involved in the campaign.

"You've got to get these people to get involved and to vote so we can make sure that we succeed in this election."

Obama established his 2012 campaign headquarters in Chicago, the first time a presidential reelection campaign was not based in Washington.

He told supporters it was so the campaign would be "rooted in your hopes and rooted in your dreams" instead of influenced by Washington pundits and powerbrokers.

Obama reminded the cheering crowd of the sense of hope and possibility they felt when they celebrated his election as the first African American US president in Chicago's Grant Park.

"And yet, even as we celebrated -- you remember what I said back then? I said our work wasn't ending, our work was just beginning," Obama said.

"We've still got business to do. We are not finished.

"We've got to reclaim the American dream for all Americans. That's the change we still believe in."

Barring a dramatic turn, no major adversary from within his party is likely to challenge Obama, who turns 50 in August.

As for who might run against him from the Republican Party's ranks, uncertainty reigns.

Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney have taken the first official steps toward candidacy, while conservative former House speaker Newt Gingrich and even real estate mogul Donald Trump have hinted at challenging for the Republican nomination.

In less than a month, the 64-year-old Trump has jumped from 10 to 19 percent support among Republican voters, tying with former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, according to a CNN poll released this week.

Republican officials worry that the crowded field of possible White House hopefuls could end up helping Obama, who could be vulnerable as the US economy sputters its way out of its worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

OpinionJournal (from WSJ) piles on....

read the original here.

Waste, Fraud and Abuse
Obama's speech was replete with all three.

By JAMES TARANTO

Even by the standards of the World's Greatest Orator, yesterday's was a dreadful speech. We observed recently that Barack Obama's reputation as the WGO rests largely on his talent for the insubstantial--for reciting "poetry" as opposed to expounding "prose," in Mario Cuomo's terms. Few subjects are more prosaic than the federal budget, the topic of the president's talk yesterday.

Obama said he was going to start "by being honest about what's causing our deficit." It's hard to cut spending: "You see, most Americans tend to dislike government spending in the abstract, but like the stuff that it buys." It's hard to raise taxes: "My finely honed political instincts tell me that almost nobody believes they should be paying higher taxes." And politicians are selling voters a bill of goods when they "feed the impression that solving the problem is just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse."

What's needed, he claimed, is "a serious plan" that will "require tough choices." He then outlined a four-step "approach"--it wasn't detailed enough to achieve planhood--that showed his promise of honesty to be an utter fraud.

The first step is "to keep annual domestic spending low." Wait, it's low? He then adds this qualification:
I will not sacrifice the core investments that we need to grow and create jobs. We will invest in medical research. We will invest in clean energy technology. We will invest in new roads and airports and broadband access. We will invest in education. We will invest in job training. We will do what we need to do to compete, and we will win the future.

So when he said of government spending that Americans "like the stuff that it buys," he was referring to himself. He seems less than determined to "keep" spending low, much less actually to reduce it considerably, which is what will be required.

The second step is "to find additional savings in our defense budget." He promises he will "never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America's interests around the world," which is certainly a relief. How then?

"Secretary Bob Gates has courageously taken on wasteful spending, saving $400 billion in current and future spending." Wait, didn't the president just say the promise to cut waste and abuse was an empty one? Also, "we're going to have to conduct a fundamental review of America's missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world."

Which is in sharp contrast to the third step, the one dealing with entitlement spending. Domestically, Obama absolutely will not conduct a fundamental review of the federal government's missions, capabilities and role in a changing world.

In fact, in a scene reminiscent of the president's attack on the Supreme Court in the 2010 State of the Union Address, he heaped abuse on Rep. Paul Ryan, whom he had invited to sit in the front row, for being willing to think about "changing the basic social compact in America." In a grotesque display of left-wing jingoism, he equated the welfare state to America itself:
The America I know is generous and compassionate. . . . This is the America that I know. We don't have to choose between a future of spiraling debt and one where we forfeit our investment in our people and our country. . . . We do not have to sacrifice the America we believe in.

So how does he propose to prevent entitlements from eating the economy? He proposes "to further reduce health care spending in our budget. . . . Our approach lowers the government's health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself." Here's how:
We will reduce wasteful subsidies and erroneous payments. We will cut spending on prescription drugs by using Medicare's purchasing power to drive greater efficiency and speed generic brands of medicine onto the market. We will work with governors of both parties to demand more efficiency and accountability from Medicaid.

Waste and abuse again!

The fourth step is to raise taxes on "millionaires and billionaires." From Obama's past proposals and the new taxes in ObamaCare, we know that the cutoff for "millionaire" status is $250,000, less for unmarried taxpayers. But don't worry, the president assures us that "most wealthy Americans would agree with me. They want to give back to their country, a country that's done so much for them. It's just Washington hasn't asked them to."

So were his "finely honed political instincts" wrong when they said "almost nobody believes they should be paying higher taxes"?

Obama's attack on Ryan deserves a bit more attention. Jake Tapper, ABC News's White House correspondent, damningly contrasts a pair of Obama quotes. The first was from the president's appearance at the Republican House retreat in January 2010, when he was still trying to sell ObamaCare:
We're not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterize whatever proposals are put out there as, "Well, you know, that's--the other party's being irresponsible. The other party is trying to hurt our senior citizens. That the other party is doing X, Y, Z."

And here he is yesterday:
One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party's presidential candidates. . . . This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone's grandparents who wouldn't be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down's syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we'd be telling to fend for themselves.

After this demagogy, he pivoted and concluded his speech with a call to compromise. At one point he echoed this column in exhorting fellow Democrats:
To those in my own party, I say that if we truly believe in a progressive vision of our society, we have an obligation to prove that we can afford our commitments. If we believe the government can make a difference in people's lives, we have the obligation to prove that it works--by making government smarter, and leaner and more effective.

It's not clear what the distinction might be between, on the one hand, making government smarter, leaner and more effective and, on the other, eliminating waste and abuse. But the real problem here, as we saw most vividly in Wisconsin recently, is that today's "progressives" are politically, and perhaps also ideologically, committed to preserving the labor monopolies that produce stupid, bloated and ineffective government.

Why did Obama give this appalling speech? A pair of articles give a partial answer. The first one appeared at TheHill.com early yesterday morning, before the speech:
Anxiety over President Obama's shift to the political center is threatening to alienate the White House's liberal base. . . .
The concerns have surfaced after the White House rankled lawmakers on the left by agreeing to a 2011 spending bill that slashes funding for a number of programs long favored by Democrats and embracing a controversial trade agreement with Colombia. . . .
The criticisms highlight the problem facing Obama, who is trying to lead from the center without alienating his political base. The White House strategy could help the president with independents, but risks leaving liberals at home in the fall of 2012.

The second, by Salon.com's Joan Walsh, was a glowing review of the speech:
The president came out fighting with firmness, and with a rhetoric of social justice and equality, that I haven't seen enough of these last two years. . . . That's the president I voted for. . . . After the speech, pundits called it the opening salvo of the Obama 2012 reelection campaign, as though there was something wrong with that. If these are the founding principles of the president's 2012 campaign, Democrats and the country will be better off than we've been in a while.

Mickey Kaus notes that "Obama tends to defend the welfare state in ineffective paleolib terms. It's mostly 'compassion' and taking "responsibility for . . . each other,' whether we work or not." It seems to us, though, that the speech was meant for the left, not the center, and paleolib terms are effective with a paleolib audience.

The optimistic reading of this speech is the cynical one: Obama knows he is going to have to compromise with congressional Republicans and is buying himself some goodwill with the base. If he was speaking from the heart, though, we're in for a long 2012, though his may be even longer.

The WSJ did not like the President's Speech

Read the original here.

Review & Outlook: The Presidential Divider

Did someone move the 2012 election to June 1? We ask because President Obama's extraordinary response to Paul Ryan's budget yesterday—with its blistering partisanship and multiple distortions—was the kind Presidents usually outsource to some junior lieutenant. Mr. Obama's fundamentally political document would have been unusual even for a Vice President in the fervor of a campaign.

The immediate political goal was to inoculate the White House from criticism that it is not serious about the fiscal crisis, after ignoring its own deficit commission last year and tossing off a $3.73 trillion budget in February that increased spending amid a record deficit of $1.65 trillion. Mr. Obama was chased to George Washington University yesterday because Mr. Ryan and the Republicans outflanked him on fiscal discipline and are now setting the national political agenda.

Mr. Obama did not deign to propose an alternative to rival Mr. Ryan's plan, even as he categorically rejected all its reform ideas, repeatedly vilifying them as essentially un-American. "Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America," he said, supposedly pitting "children with autism or Down's syndrome" against "every millionaire and billionaire in our society." The President was not attempting to join the debate Mr. Ryan has started, but to close it off just as it begins and banish House GOP ideas to political Siberia.

Mr. Obama then packaged his poison in the rhetoric of bipartisanship—which "starts," he said, "by being honest about what's causing our deficit." The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards.
***

The great political challenge of the moment is how to update the 20th-century entitlement state so that it is affordable. With incremental change, Mr. Ryan is trying maintain a social safety net and the economic growth necessary to finance it. Mr. Obama presented what some might call the false choice of merely preserving the government we have with no realistic plan for doing so, aside from proposing $4 trillion in phantom deficit reduction over a gimmicky 12-year budget window that makes that reduction seem larger than it would be over the normal 10-year window.

Mr. Obama said that the typical political proposal to rationalize Medicare's gargantuan liabilities is that it is "just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse." His own plan is to double down on the program's price controls and central planning. All Medicare decisions will be turned over to and routed through an unelected commission created by ObamaCare—which will supposedly ferret out "unnecessary spending." Is that the same as "waste and abuse"?

Fifteen members will serve on the Independent Payment Advisory Board, all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. If per capita costs grow by more than GDP plus 0.5%, this board would get more power, including an automatic budget sequester to enforce its rulings. So 15 sages sitting in a room with the power of the purse will evidently find ways to control Medicare spending that no one has ever thought of before and that supposedly won't harm seniors' care, even as the largest cohort of the baby boom generation retires and starts to collect benefits.

Mr. Obama really went off on Mr. Ryan's plan to increase health-care competition and give consumers more control, barely stopping short of calling it murderous. It's hardly beyond criticism or debate, but the Ryan plan is neither Big Rock Candy Mountain nor some radical departure from American norms.

Mr. Obama came out for further cuts in the defense budget, but where? His plan is to ask Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen "to find additional savings," whatever those might be, after a "fundamental review." These mystery cuts would follow two separate, recent rounds of deep cuts that were supposed to stave off further Pentagon triage amid several wars and escalating national security threats.

Mr. Obama rallied the left with a summons for major tax increases on "the rich." Every U.S. fiscal trouble, he claimed, flows from the Bush tax cuts "for the wealthiest 2%," conveniently passing over what he euphemistically called his own "series of emergency steps that saved millions of jobs." Apparently he means the $814 billion stimulus that failed and a new multitrillion-dollar entitlement in ObamaCare that harmed job creation.

Under the Obama tax plan, the Bush rates would be repealed for the top brackets. Yet the "cost" of extending all the Bush rates in 2011 over 10 years was about $3.7 trillion. Some $3 trillion of that was for everything but the top brackets—and Mr. Obama says he wants to extend those rates forever. According to Internal Revenue Service data, the entire taxable income of everyone earning over $100,000 in 2008 was about $1.582 trillion. Even if all these Americans—most of whom are far from wealthy—were taxed at 100%, it wouldn't cover Mr. Obama's deficit for this year.

Mr. Obama sought more tax-hike cover under his deficit commission, seeming to embrace its proposal to limit tax deductions and other loopholes. But the commission wanted to do so in order to lower rates for a more efficient and competitive code with a broader base. Mr. Obama wants to pocket the tax increase and devote the revenues to deficit reduction and therefore more spending. So that's three significant tax increases—via higher top brackets, the tax hikes in ObamaCare and fewer tax deductions.

Lastly, Mr. Obama came out for a debt "failsafe," which will require the White House and Congress to hash out a deal if by 2014 projected debt is not declining as a share of the economy. But under his plan any deal must exclude Social Security, Medicare or low-income programs. So that means more tax increases or else "making government smarter, leaner and more effective." Which, now that he mentioned it, sounds a lot like cutting "waste and abuse."

Mr. Obama ludicrously claimed that Mr. Ryan favors "a fundamentally different America than the one we've known throughout most of our history." Nothing is likelier to bring that future about than the President's political indifference in the midst of a fiscal crisis.

Why not to stomp a spider in Bolivia...

And hopefully not be restricted around the world...read the original here.

UN Document Would Give 'Mother Earth' Same Rights As Humans

UNITED NATIONS — Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving "Mother Earth" the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country.

The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to "dominate and exploit" — to the point that the "well-being and existence of many beings" is now threatened.

The wording may yet evolve, but the general structure is meant to mirror Bolivia's Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, which Bolivian President Evo Morales enacted in January.

That document speaks of the country's natural resources as "blessings," and grants the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clean air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities; and the right to be free from pollution.

It also establishes a Ministry of Mother Earth, and provides the planet with an ombudsman whose job is to hear nature's complaints as voiced by activist and other groups, including the state.

"If you want to have balance, and you think that the only (entities) who have rights are humans or companies, then how can you reach balance?" Pablo Salon, Bolivia's ambassador to the UN, told Postmedia News. "But if you recognize that nature too has rights, and (if you provide) legal forms to protect and preserve those rights, then you can achieve balance."

The application of the law appears destined to pose new challenges for companies operating in the country, which is rich in natural resources, including natural gas and lithium, but remains one of the poorest in Latin America.

But while Salon said his country just seeks to achieve "harmony" with nature, he signalled that mining and other companies may come under greater scrutiny.

"We're not saying, for example, you cannot eat meat because you know you are going to go against the rights of a cow," he said. "But when human activity develops at a certain scale that you (cause to) disappear a species, then you are really altering the vital cycles of nature or of Mother Earth. Of course, you need a mine to extract iron or zinc, but there are limits."

Bolivia is a country with a large indigenous population, whose traditional belief systems took on greater resonance following the election of Morales, Latin America's first indigenous president.

In a 2008 pamphlet his entourage distributed at the UN as he attended a summit there, 10 "commandments" are set out as Bolivia's plan to "save the planet" — beginning with the need "to end capitalism."

Reflecting indigenous traditional beliefs, the proposed global treaty says humans have caused "severe destruction . . . that is offensive to the many faiths, wisdom traditions and indigenous cultures for whom Mother Earth is sacred."

It also says that "Mother Earth has the right to exist, to persist and to continue the vital cycles, structures, functions and processes that sustain all human beings."

In indigenous Andean culture, the Earth deity known as Pachamama is the centre of all life, and humans are considered equal to all other entities.

The UN debate begins two days before the UN's recognition April 22 of the second International Mother Earth Day — another Morales-led initiative.

Canadian activist Maude Barlow is among global environmentalists backing the drive with a book the group will launch in New York during the UN debate: Nature Has Rights.

"It's going to have huge resonance around the world," Barlow said of the campaign. "It's going to start first with these southern countries trying to protect their land and their people from exploitation, but I think it will be grabbed onto by communities in our countries, for example, fighting the tarsands in Alberta."

Ecuador, which also has a large indigenous population, has enshrined similar aims in its Constitution — but the Bolivian law is said to be "stronger."

Ecuador is among countries that have already been supportive of the Bolivian initiative, along with Nicaragua, Venezuela, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda.

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Senate Democrat proposes Internet Sales Tax

Read the original here.

Democratic Senator Wants Internet Sales Taxes | Privacy Inc.

A Democratic senator is preparing to introduce legislation that aims to end the golden era of tax-free Internet shopping.

The proposal--expected to be made public soon after Tax Day[1]--would rewrite the ground rules for Internet and mail order sales by eliminating the ability of Americans to shop at Web sites like Amazon.com and Overstock.com without paying state sales taxes.

Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second most senior Senate Democrat, will introduce the bill after the Easter recess, a Democratic aide told CNET.

"Why should out-of-state companies that sell their products online have an unfair advantage over Main Street bricks-and-mortar businesses?" Durbin said in a speech in Collinsville, Ill., in February. "Out-of-state companies that aren't paying their fair share of taxes are sticking Illinois residents and businesses with the tab."

At the moment, Americans who shop over the Internet from out-of-state vendors aren't always required[2] to pay sales taxes at the time of purchase. Californians buying books from Amazon.com or cameras from Manhattan's B&H Photo, for example, won't pay the sales taxes at checkout time that they would if shopping at a local mall--which is what Durbin means by giving online retailers an "unfair advantage."

On the other hand, there are some 7,500 different taxing jurisdictions in the United States, each with a set of very precise rules describing what can and can't be taxed and at what rate. That makes it challenging terrain for retailers to navigate.

In New Jersey, for instance, bottled water and cookies are exempt from sales tax (PDF)[6], but bottled soda and candy are taxable. In Rhode Island, buying a mink handbag is taxed, but a mink fur coat is not (PDF)[7].

Durbin's bill will be called the Main Street Fairness Act, which follows legislation[8] introduced last July in the House of Representatives bearing the same name. A possible co-sponsor is Sen. Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican who backed a similar proposal before[9] and did not respond to a request for comment. (See related update below.)

Making matters more difficult for the pro-tax forces is the decision[10] by Rep. William Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat, not to run for reelection last year. Delahunt was probably Congress' most enthusiastic proponent[11] of Internet sales taxes, and it's not clear a Republican-controlled House will be as eager to embrace the idea.

One early indication: Rep. Dan Lungren, a California Republican, introduced legislation[12] in February saying that allowing states to levy "onerous and burdensome sales tax collecting schemes on Internet-enabled small businesses that do not even reside in their state would adversely impact hundreds of thousands of jobs." Former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul[13] is one of the sponsors.

The Direct Marketing Association[14], which sued[15] Colorado last year to block a state tax law from taking effect, is preparing to rally opposition to Durbin's legislation.

"You're just giving the states a blank check to make changes without any congressional oversight," says Jerry Cerasale[16], the DMA's senior vice president for government affairs. "We oppose that...We think that's abrogating the authority of Congress."

In response to complexity concerns, the pro-tax forces have offered a proposal that they hope Congress can be persuaded to adopt. The concept is called the Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement[17], which was invented in 2002 by state tax officials hoping to straighten out some of sales tax laws' most notorious convolutions.

Since then, some 24 states have signed on, either wholly or partially, to the agreement, meaning they have agreed to simplify their tax codes and make them uniform. If enough states participate, proponents believe it will ease concerns about complexity and make it easier to convince Congress to make sales collection mandatory for out-of-state retailers.

Paul Misener, vice president of public policy for Amazon, says his employer isn't necessarily opposed to such legislation--as long as it's crafted very carefully. "We've long supported a truly simple, nationwide sales tax system, evenhandedly applied," he says.

The current legal and political landscape was shaped by a 1992 case called Quill v. North Dakota[18], in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled: "Congress is now free to decide whether, when, and to what extent the states may burden interstate mail order concerns with a duty to collect use taxes."

Under the Quill ruling, out-of-state retailers generally don't have to collect taxes. One exception to that rule is a legal concept called "nexus," which means a company can be forced to collect sales taxes if it has a sufficient business presence, which is why Amazon doesn't have an office in California. (Another exception is the sale of cigarettes, which is covered by the Jenkins Act.)

An important caveat is that under existing law, online purchases from sites like Amazon and eBay only seem to arrive tax-free. Legally, however, purchasers are required to pay their own state's sales tax rate--the concept is called a "use tax"--and then voluntarily report the amount owed at tax time. Few do.

Support for Durbin's forthcoming legislation is likely to come from the Alliance for Main Street Fairness[19] and like-minded companies including Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

"Big box stores love to mobilize smaller booksellers to complain about competing with Amazon," says Steve DelBianco[20], executive director of the NetChoice coalition[21], which counts eBay, Overstock.com, and Yahoo as members. "The irony is that those small booksellers have been clobbered by big box stores. The Internet's their friend."

Update 10:30 a.m. PT: I've heard back from Sen. Mike Enzi's office. It sent me e-mail this morning saying: "Senator Enzi plans to co-sponsor the Main Street Fairness bill with Senator Durbin. As far as a timeline or drafts, you'll have to check with Senator Durbin's office."

References
^ Tax Day (www.cnet.com)
^ aren't always required (news.cnet.com)
^ CNET's tax guide (www.cnet.com)
^ Taxes 2010: Four tax prep solutions compared (download.cnet.com)
^ Amazon wins fight to keep customer records private (news.cnet.com)
^ exempt from sales tax (PDF) (www.streamlinedsalestax.org)
^ is not (PDF) (www.streamlinedsalestax.org)
^ legislation (thomas.loc.gov)
^ a similar proposal before (news.cnet.com)
^ decision (www.cbsnews.com)
^ most enthusiastic proponent (news.cnet.com)
^ legislation (thomas.loc.gov)
^ Ron Paul (www.ronpaul.com)
^ Direct Marketing Association (www.the-dma.org)
^ sued (www.the-dma.org)
^ Jerry Cerasale (www.the-dma.org)
^ Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement (www.streamlinedsalestax.org)
^ Quill v. North Dakota (www.law.cornell.edu)
^ Alliance for Main Street Fairness (www.standwithmainstreet.com)
^ Steve DelBianco (www.netchoice.org)
^ NetChoice coalition (www.netchoice.org)

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20052999-281.html#ixzz1JPIpK1jb

California Teachers Union has the right priority

Read the original here.

California Federation Of Teachers Rallies To Support Cop-Killer | The Daily Caller

Between negotiating for more benefits and teaching their students, the California Federation of Teachers[1] has adopted a resolution of support for convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal[2].

At the CFT’s 2011 Convention in late March, the delegates passed 30 resolutions, from solidifying support for anti-bullying legislation to supporting transitional kindergarten. Among the resolutions largely pertaining to education and collective bargaining rights was Resolution 19 – to “Reaffirm support for death row journalist.”

“Therefore, be it resolved, that the California Federation of Teachers reaffirm its support and demand that the courts consider the evidence of innocence of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” the Committee Report reads.

Mumia Abu-Jamal was a former member of the Black Panthers who was found guilty of murdering Philadelphia police officer Daniel J. Faulkner during a routine traffic stop in 1981. Abu-Jamal was subsequently sentenced to death.

His supporters, such as the California Federation of Teachers, argue that his trial was unfair and that he is a civil rights hero.

“Mumia Abu-Jamal has for decades as a journalist fought courageously against racism and police brutality and for the human rights of all people and has taken strong stands in support of working people involved in labor struggles and in support of well-funded, quality, public education,” the resolution reads.

Daniel Flynn, author of “Cop killer: How Mumia Abu-Jamal conned millions into believing he was framed” told The Daily Caller that Abu-Jamal was the poster-child for ending the death penalty…20 – 30 years ago.

“Somebody should tell the California Teachers Federation that this is over, he is in jail, he is going to stay there,” Flynn said. “You have numerous eyewitnesses saying Mumia did it. You had ballistic evidence – Mumia’s gun at the scene was consistent with the bullet used to kill Faulkner. Mumia admitted after the fact that he did it.”

Fred Glass, CFT spokesman, told TheDC that the even though the case is 30 years old, since Abu-Jamal is still going through appeals, the issue remains relevant.

“The delegates decided it was time to reiterate that they supported him due to the irregularities that they felt had taken place during his case,” said Glass. “They see this as a civil liberties issue, it is quite common for the CFT to take positions on broad social matters like this.”

References
^ California Federation of Teachers (www.cft.org)
^ Mumia Abu-Jamal (en.wikipedia.org)

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/11/teachers-support-cop-killer/#ixzz1JKdBPdxe