DDR

55% of likely voters favor repeal of Obamacare

2010-03-25T12:11:00.000-04:00

55% of likely voters favor repeal of Obamacare

55% Favor Repeal of Health Care Bill

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Just before the House of Representatives passed sweeping health care legislation last Sunday, 41% of voters nationwide favored the legislation while 54% were opposed. Now that President Obama has signed the legislation into law, most voters want to see it repealed.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, conducted on the first two nights after the president signed the bill, shows that 55% favor repealing the legislation. Forty-two percent (42%) oppose repeal. Those figures include 46% who Strongly Favor repeal and 35% who Strongly Oppose it.

In terms of Election 2010, 52% say they’d vote for a candidate who favors repeal over one who does not. Forty-one percent (41%) would cast their vote for someone who opposes repeal.

Not surprisingly, Republicans overwhelmingly favor repeal while most Democrats are opposed. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 59% favor repeal, and 35% are against it.

Most senior citizens (59%) also favor repeal. Earlier, voters over 65 had been more opposed to the health care plan than younger adults. Seniors use the health care system more than anyone else.

A number of states are already challenging the constitutionality of that requirement in court, and polling data released earlier shows that 49% of voters nationwide would like their state to sue the federal government over the health care bill.

Rasmussen Reports will track support for the repeal effort on a weekly basis for as long as it remains a significant issue. The next update will be released Monday morning.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

Sixty percent (60%) of likely voters believe the new law will increase the federal budget deficit. Only 19% disagree and say it will not. Twelve percent (12%) think it will have no impact on the deficit.

Throughout the legislative debate, advocates of the reform expressed frustration about the fact that voters believe it will increase the deficit. Many, including the president, pointed to Congressional Budget Office projections to argue that the plan will actually reduce the deficit. However, voters are skeptical of the official government projection, and 81% believe the actual cost of the program will be higher than projected.

Voters have consistently said that reducing the federal budget deficit is a higher priority than health care reform. They also believe that deficit reduction is the goal Obama is least likely to achieve as president.

Overall, 41% of voters believe the new health care legislation will be good for the country, while 49% believe it will be bad for the country.

While 64% of Mainstream voters think the health care plan will be bad for the country, 90% of the Political Class see its passage as a good thing.

Twenty-six percent (26%) of voters nationwide say the legislation will have a positive impact on them personally, while 43% expect a negative impact. Twenty-five percent (25%) say the massive overhaul of the health care system will have no impact on them personally.

A total of 24% believe it will be good for the country and good for them personally. Forty percent (40%) believe it will be bad for the country and bad for them personally.

Generally speaking, the partisan and demographic breakdowns have shifted little since passage of the health care bill. Those groups who opposed the bill tend to support repeal and those who supported the bill oppose repeal.

The president has enjoyed a bounce in his Job Approval ratings in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll following passage of the legislation. However, the bounce has come from increased enthusiasm among Democrats rather than increased support from Republicans and unaffiliated voters.

While some aspects of the new health care law are popular, most voters oppose the measures required to cover the nearly one trillion dollars in additional spending called for over the next decade. Fifty-six percent (56%) oppose the reductions in Medicare spending, a figure that includes 70% of those over 65.

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Dingell: Obamacare will 'control the people'

2010-03-25T08:56:00.000-04:00

Dingell: Obamacare will 'control the people'

michaelsavage.com

Link to the story

Healthy tax increases, not only on wealthy

2010-03-25T08:52:00.000-04:00

Originally published 04:00 a.m., March 24, 2010, updated 04:11 a.m., March 24, 2010

Healthy tax increases, not only on wealthy

David M. Dickson

When it comes to the taxes associated with the new health care bill, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s assessment stands: It's a big — very big — deal.

The historic overhaul of the nation's health care system that President Obama signed Tuesday, when combined with the fixes making their way through Congress, will raise taxes over the next 10 years by more than a half-trillion dollars.

The tax increases range from hundreds of billions of dollars in new Medicare levies, including one that taxes investment income such as capital gains and dividends for the first time, to a 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services that will raise less than $3 billion over the next decade.

Imposing a Medicare tax on investment income "would reduce demand for investment, which is the last thing that the economy needs right now. It would slow [economic] recovery, reduce employment opportunities and hinder wage growth," said Karen Campbell of the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Less investment, lower investment values and lower wages hinder the ability of households to build wealth."

Under a procedure that doesn't require a 60-vote majority for approval, the Senate is considering a package of changes to the new health care law to placate House members' concerns about the Senate bill, which the lower chamber approved Sunday with no Republican support. Among other things, the Senate must approve the numerous tax-law changes that the House passed in a second bill Sunday to fix the upper chamber's December proposal.

By far the biggest tax increase — more than $210 billion from 2012 through 2019 —. involves Medicare, the $500 billion federal health care program for the elderly and disabled. Medicare taxes would be raised in two ways.

First, the new law increases the Medicare payroll tax on employee wages and salaries from 1.45 percent to 2.35 percent on earnings above a certain amount — $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples who file jointly. The employer's share would remain at 1.45 percent for all wages and salaries — creating an effective 3.8 percent tax rate for income in those higher brackets.

Second, for the first time ever, the bill would apply Medicare taxes to several forms of "unearned income" — capital gains, dividends, interest, royalties and other sources besides wages and salaries — above the $200,000 and $250,000 thresholds. The individual or couple must pay the whole 3.8 percent Medicare tax because there is no employer with whom to split the bill on "unearned income."

Consider a married couple who earn $300,000, divided evenly between salaries and capital gains. Their total salary income of $150,000 would be subject to the combined 2.9 percent Medicare tax — split evenly between employee and employer. The first $100,000 in capital gains would not be subject to any Medicare tax, but the couple would have to pay a 3.8 percent Medicare tax on the last $50,000 in capital gains.

The two Medicare provisions "would improve both tax equity and economic efficiency," said Chuck Marr of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who notes that the two taxes would affect "only the 2.6 percent of U.S. households with the highest incomes." Mr. Marr reports that 91 percent of the increase in Medicare taxes would be paid by people earning more than $500,000.

Broadening the base of the Medicare tax for high-income households by extending it to capital gains, dividends and other unearned income would be "sound economically," Mr. Marr said, because it would "modestly reduce incentives for economically unproductive tax sheltering."

Today's top income-tax rate for wage-and-salary income (35 percent) is more than twice as high as the top rate for capital gains and dividends (15 percent). This big difference encourages high-income earners to pursue unproductive tax sheltering by converting salary income to capital gains, Mr. Marr said.

Although only high-income households will pay the new Medicare levies, Republicans say, billions of dollars in other new taxes will be paid by individuals earning less than $200,000 per year and married couples earning less than $250,000. That would violate a 2008 campaign pledge by President Obama, Republicans say.

Portions of a multitude of new taxes totaling nearly $250 billion over 10 years would be paid, either directly or indirectly, by workers with incomes below those levels, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee said.

For example, both the law signed by Mr. Obama and the reconciliation bill raise money by taxing generous health-insurance policies, though the numbers differ.

But even the proposal sitting before the Senate, which taxes these "Cadillac plans" less than the bill signed into law, expects to raise $32 billion during the 2018-19 period. The "fix" heavily penalizes health-insurance plans costing more than $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families — imposing a 40 percent excise tax on the value above those amounts.

Many of these "Cadillac plans" are held by union workers in the private sector and by state and local government workers. Most families of both groups earn well below $250,000.

While the excise tax will be directly paid by the insurance company, economists of all persuasions expect the costs to be passed along to policyholders.

Middle- and working-class Americans, Republicans say, also can expect to pay a big portion of the numerous fees that the health care bill will impose on the pharmaceutical industry ($27 billion from 2011 through 2019), on medical-device manufacturers ($20 billion from 2013 through 2019) and on health insurance providers ($60.1 billion from 2014 through 2019), and on indoor tanning services (a 10 percent excise tax).

The new law also limits deductions for medical care, requiring people, including middle-income households and seniors, to have spent more of their own money on health care expenses before they become tax-deductible. Currently, expenses above 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income can be deducted for tax purposes; the bill Mr. Obama signed raises that threshold to 10 percent of income.

The legislation imposes mandates on employers with more than 50 workers to provide health insurance to their workers and on individuals and families to carry health insurance. The bill would impose penalties on those employers ($52 billion from 2014 through 2019) and households ($17 billion from 2014 through 2019) who do not comply with the mandates.

In part because these penalties would be administered and enforced by the Internal Revenue Service, Republicans consider them taxes and violations of Mr. Obama's campaign pledge.

The White House declined to respond to a request for comment on the charge that the president broke his promise not to raise taxes on middle-income households.

Oops! Kids with pre-existing conditions not covered

2010-03-25T08:49:00.000-04:00

Oops! Kids with pre-existing conditions not covered

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Gap in health care law's protection for children

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR (AP) – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON — Hours after President Barack Obama signed historic health care legislation, a potential problem emerged. Administration officials are now scrambling to fix a gap in highly touted benefits for children.

Obama made better coverage for children a centerpiece of his health care remake, but it turns out the letter of the law provided a less-than-complete guarantee that kids with health problems would not be shut out of coverage.

Under the new law, insurance companies still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem, said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the main congressional panels that wrote the bill Obama signed into law Tuesday.

However, if a child is accepted for coverage, or is already covered, the insurer cannot exclude payment for treating a particular illness, as sometimes happens now. For example, if a child has asthma, the insurance company cannot write a policy that excludes that condition from coverage. The new safeguard will be in place later this year.

Full protection for children would not come until 2014, said Kate Cyrul, a spokeswoman for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, another panel that authored the legislation. That's the same year when insurance companies could no longer deny coverage to any person on account of health problems.

Obama's public statements have conveyed the impression that the new protections for kids were more sweeping and straightforward.

"This is a patient's bill of rights on steroids," the president said Friday at George Mason University in Virginia. "Starting this year, thousands of uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions will be able to purchase health insurance, some for the very first time. Starting this year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions."

And Saturday, addressing House Democrats as they approached a make-or-break vote on the bill, Obama said, "This year ... parents who are worried about getting coverage for their children with pre-existing conditions now are assured that insurance companies have to give them coverage — this year."

Late Tuesday, the administration said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would try to resolve the situation by issuing new regulations. The Obama administration interprets the law to mean that kids can't be denied coverage, as the president has said repeatedly.

"To ensure that there is no ambiguity on this point, the secretary of HHS is preparing to issue regulations next month making it clear that the term 'pre-existing exclusion' applies to both a child's access to a plan and his or her benefits once he or she is in the plan for all plans newly sold in this country six months from today," HHS spokesman Nick Papas said.

The coverage problem could mainly affect parents who purchase their own coverage for the family, as many self-employed people have to do. Families covered through employer plans typically do not have to worry about being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

Parents whose kids are turned down by an insurer would still have a fallback under the law, even without Sebelius' fix. They could seek coverage through state high-risk insurance pools slated for a major infusion of federal funds.

The high-risk pools are intended to serve as a backstop until 2014, when insurers no longer would be able to deny coverage to those in frail health. That same year, new insurance markets would open for business, and the government would begin to provide tax credits to help millions of Americans pay premiums.

An insurance industry group says the language in the law that pertains to consumer protections for kids is difficult to parse.

"We're taking a closer look at it to see what exactly the requirement will be," said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the main industry lobby.

'USE RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS TO CHALLENGE OBAMACARE'

2010-03-23T10:09:00.000-04:00

MARCH 5, 2010: SAVAGE SAID:'USE RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS TO CHALLENGE OBAMACARE'

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USE RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS TO CHALLENGE OBAMA CARE

By MICHAEL SAVAGE

(MichaelSavage.com) OBAMA IS PREPARING TO SHOVE SOCIALIZED MEDICINE DOWN OUR THROATS. AND IN ORDER TO DO SO, HE’S DECIDED TO BLOW UP THE U.S. SENATE. HE ANNOUNCED THAT RATHER THAN FOLLOW THE RULES OF THE U.S. SENATE, WHICH REQUIRE 60 VOTES TO END DEBATE ON ANY ISSUE, THE DEMONCATS WILL USE A METHOD CALLED "RECONCILIATION" TO PASS THE BILL WITH ONLY 51 SENATE VOTES. OBAMA HAS DECIDED TO USE THE NUCLEAR OPTION TO FORCE HIS WILL ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. NOW YOU KNOW THAT THE DEMONCATS ATTACKED THIS SAME METHOD WHEN THEY THOUGHT THE REPUBLICANS WERE GOING TO USE IT IN 2005. BUT THAT DOESN’T MATTER TO THEM BECAUSE THEY’RE IN POWER NOW.

ON TOP OF THAT HE’S GOING TO MAKE YOUNG PEOPLE WHO DON’T NEED HEALTH INSURANCE PAY TO SUPPORT ILLEGAL ALIENS WHO DON’T PAY FOR HEALTHCARE AT ALL. MAYBE YOU DON’T KNOW THIS, BUT MAKING INDIVIDUAL AMERICANS BUY HEALTH INSURANCE IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL. IT’S TRUE THAT ARTICLE I, SECTION 8 OF THE CONSITUTION GIVES CONGRESS THE POWER TO REGULATE INTERSTATE COMMERCE. BUT IN ORDER FOR THIS TO APPLY, CONGRESS MUST BE REGULATING SOME KIND OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY. BUT A HEALTHCARE MANDATE DOESN’T REGULATE ANY SORT OF "ACTIVITY.” JUST BEING AN AMERICAN WOULD TRIGGER IT.

THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME THAT BIG GOVERNMENT HAS TRIED TO FORCE NONSENSICAL AND DRACONIAN REGULATION ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. THIS WAS FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT’S APPROACH IN THE 1930s UNDER HIS SOCIALIST “NEW DEAL” PROGRAM. BUT HIS DICTATORIAL SCHEMES CAME INTO CONFLICT WITH FOUR JEWISH BROTHERS IN NEW YORK, THE SCHECHTER BROTHERS WHO RAN TWO KOSHER BUTCHER SHOPS IN BROOKLYN.

ROOSEVELT CREATED THE NATIONAL RECOVERY ADMINISTRATION (NRA) DURING THE DEPRESSION TO SOCIALIZE AMERICA. IT DREW UP ALL KINDS OF DETAILED CODES FOR INDIVIDUAL INDUSTRIES, TELLING HOW FIRMS HAD TO DO THEIR BUSINESS. THE SCHECHTER BROTHERS, THE KOSHER BUTCHERS FROM BROOKLYN, FELL UNDER RULES WHICH SAID CUSTOMERS COULD BUY A WHOLE OR HALF COOP OF CHICKENS, BUT COULDN’T MAKE A SELECTION OF PARTICULAR BIRDS. THIS WAS IN CONFLICT WITH JEWISH KOSHER LAWS, WHICH REQUIRED THE REMOVAL OF UNHEALTHY ANIMALS FROM THE STOCK. IT WAS A VIOLATION OF THEIR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. BUT THE COURTS FOUND THE SCHECHTER BROTHERS GUILTY OF ALLOWING THEIR CUSTOMERS TO BUY INDIVIDUAL CHICKENS INSTEAD OF WHOLE COOPS AND THEY ALL SERVED JAIL TIME.

BUT ON APPEAL, THE CASE MADE IT TO THE SUPREME COURT, WHERE THEY FOUND IN FAVOR OF THE SCHECHTER BROTHERS BY A UNANIMOUS DECSION. THE COURT HELD THAT FDR’S REGULATIONS WERE IN EXCESS OF CONGRESSIONAL POWER UNDER THE COMMERCE CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION AND INVALIDATED THEM. SPEAKING TO AIDES OF ROOSEVELT, JUSTICE LOUIS BRANDEIS REMARKED THAT, “THIS IS THE END OF THIS BUSINESS OF CENTRALIZATION, AND I WANT YOU TO GO BACK AND TELL THE PRESIDENT THAT WE'RE NOT GOING TO LET THIS GOVERNMENT CENTRALIZE EVERYTHING.” THE SAME MESSAGE SHOULD BE SENT TO OBAMA.

IT’S INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT IN THE CASE OF THE SCHECHTER BROTHERS, GOVERNMENT REGULATION CAME INTO CONFLICT WITH JEWISH DIETARY LAWS. IF THEIR LAWYERS HAD TAKEN ANOTHER TACK, THEY PROBABLY COULD HAVE WON ON THE BASIS THAT THEIR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM WAS BEING VIOLATED. BUT THIS TIME AROUND, OBAMA THE DICTATOR HAS MADE RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS FOR HEALTHCARE INSURANCE. THE AMISH WON’T BE REQUIRED TO BUY HEALTH INSURANCE. CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS WON’T BE REQUIRED TO BUY IT, AS MODERN MEDICAL CARE VIOLATES THEIR RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS.

SO HERE’S MY SUGGESTION: IF THEY CAN MAKE EXCEPTIONS FOR THESE RELIGIOUS GROUPS, LET’S FIND OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS THAT THEY’LL HAVE TO FIND EXCEPTIONS FOR UNTIL THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE EXEMPTED FROM THE SYSTEM, THAT THEY WON’T POSSIBLY BE ABLE TO PAY FOR IT. LET’S THINK ABOUT THE POSSIBILITIES:

WILL RELIGIOUS JEWS BE FORCED TO PAY FOR MEDICAL CARE ON SATURDAY, THE JEWISH SABBATH, ON WHICH THEY’RE NOT ALLOWED TO RECEIVE MEDICAL CARE?

WILL OBAMA CARE PAY FOR RELIGIOUS CIRCUMCISION IN JEWISH FAMILIES?

DEVOUT MUSLIMS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE PRESENCE OF ALCOHOL? DOES THIS MEAN THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO PARTICIPATE IN AN OBAMA CARE PROGRAM WHICH COVERS ALCOHOL SWABS?

THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS. WHAT OTHER RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS DO YOU THINK YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO USE TO AVOID OBAMA’S SOCIALIZED MEDICINE PLAN?

AMERICA MUST ACT QUICKLY ON THIS, BECAUSE OBAMA IS SHOVING THIS THROUGH THE SENATE AS WE SPEAK. OBAMA’S NUCLEAR OPTION FLIES IN THE FACE OF OVER 200 YEARS OF SENATE TRADITION. REQUIRING ONLY 51 VOTES INSTEAD OF 60 FLIES IN THE FACE OF THE INTENT OF THE CONSTITUTION. WHEN THE FOUNDERS DESIGNED THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH OF THE GOVERNMENT, THEY MADE THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES THE BODY THAT WAS MEANT TO BE DIRECTLY AND IMMEDIATELY RESPONSIVE TO THE VOTERS. THAT’S WHY THEY HAVE SHORT, TWO-YEAR TERMS. THAT’S WHY THEY REPRESENT SMALL DISTRICTS AND HAVE A MORE DIRECT RELATIONSHIP TO THE VOTERS.

THE SENATE, ON THE OTHER HAND, WAS DESIGNED TO BE A MODERATING INFLUENCE ON THE PASSIONS OF THE ELECTORATE. THAT’S WHY THEY HAVE SIX-YEAR TERMS, LONGER THAN THAT OF THE PRESIDENT, SO THEY COULD WEATHER THE STORMS OF A POPULACE STIRRED UP BY A POTENTIAL DICTATOR. THAT’S WHY THEY REPRESENT ENTIRE STATES INSTEAD OF JUST DISTRICTS. UNTIL THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY, SENATORS WEREN’T EVEN ELECTED DIRECTLY BY THE VOTERS.

EVEN GEORGE WASHINGTON UNDERSTOOD THAT THE SENATE WAS MEANT TO ACT AS A BULWARK AGAINST THE ACTIONS OF THOSE WHO WOULD TRY TO QUICKLY IMPOSE THEIR WILL ON THE NATION. IN A LEGENDARY CONVERSATION, THOMAS JEFFERSON HAD RETURNED FROM FRANCE AND WAS BREAKFASTING WITH WASHINGTON AS THE CONSTITUTION WAS BEING CREATED. JEFFERSON ASKED WASHINGTON WHY HE AGREED TO HAVE A SENATE. “WHY,” SAID WASHINGTON, “DID YOU JUST NOW POUR THAT COFFEE INTO YOUR CUP BEFORE DRINKING IT?” “TO COOL IT,” SAID JEFFERSON; “MY THROAT IS NOT MADE OF BRASS.” “EVEN SO,” SAID WASHINGTON, “WE POUR OUR LEGISLATION INTO THE SENATORIAL CUP TO COOL IT.”

THAT IS WHAT THE U.S. SENATE WAS DESIGNED TO DO – STOP BABY DICTATORS LIKE OBAMA FROM RUNNING TOO HOT AND PUSHING THROUGH THEIR RADICAL AGENDAS BEFORE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES HAD A CHANCE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS GOING ON. BUT OBAMA HAS DECIDED TO BLOW UP OVER 200 YEARS OF SENATE TRADITION, BLOW UP THE INTENT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THOMAS JEFFERSON, AND BLOW UP THE ESSENCE OF THE CONSTITUTION IN ORDER TO PASS SOCIALIZED MEDICINE WITH THE NUCLEAR OPTION.

YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS COULD BE MORE THAN JUST A DEFEAT FOR CONSERVATIVES OR REPUBLICANS. IF OBAMA SUCCEEDS IN DROPPING HIS BOMB, IT WILL DESTROY THE VERY CORE OF THE CONSTITUTION. IT’S AN ATTACK AGAINST EVERYTHING GUARANTEED BY THE BILL OF RIGHTS, EVEN THOSE CHERISHED BY LIBERALS. BECAUSE IF OBAMA CAN DESTROY ONE PART OF THE CONSTITUTION, HE CAN DESTROY ANY PART OF IT. AND DON’T THINK FOR A MINUTE THAT SOCIALIZED MEDICINE WILL BE THE LAST STOP ON THE TRAIN BOUND FOR PERDITION. © 2010 SPI

20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms

2010-03-23T08:01:00.000-04:00

Link to the story

20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms

By David Hogberg

Sun., March 21, '10 3:24 PM ET

Tags: Health Care - ObamaCare - Freedom

With House Democrats poised to pass the Senate health care bill with some reconciliation changes later today, it is worthwhile to take a comprehensive look at the freedoms we will lose.

Of course, the overhaul is supposed to provide us with security. But it will result in skyrocketing insurance costs and physicians leaving the field in droves, making it harder to afford and find medical care. We may be about to live Benjamin Franklin’s adage, “People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.”

The sections described below are taken from HR 3590 as agreed to by the Senate and from the reconciliation bill as displayed by the Rules Committee.

1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)

2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).

3. You would like to pay less in premiums by buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer such policies, even if that is what customers prefer. (Section 2711).

4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712).

5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employers’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714).

6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.

You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).

7. Do you want a plan with lots of cost-sharing and low premiums? Well, the best you can do is a “Bronze plan,” which has benefits that provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to 60% of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the plan. Anything lower than that, tough. (Section 1302 (d) (1) (A))

8. You are an employer in the small-group insurance market and you’d like to offer policies with deductibles higher than $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families? Tough. (Section 1302 (c) (2) (A).

9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 101 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513).

10. You are an employer who offers health flexible spending arrangements and your employees want to deduct more than $2,500 from their salaries for it? Sorry, can’t do that. (Section 9005 (i)).

11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i))

12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A))

13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a country where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)).

14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003)

15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company what you will pay depends on the ratio of the number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3 billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012, then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019 (Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)).

16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers. If you are a medical device maker what you will pay depends on your share of medical device sales in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2 billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)).

The reconciliation package turns that into a 2.9% excise tax for medical device makers. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405).

17. The government will extract a fee of $6.7 billion annually from insurance companies. If you are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your share of net premiums plus 200% of your administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total, you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000. In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section 1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and B).)

18. If an insurance company board or its stockholders think the CEO is worth more than $500,000 in deferred compensation? Tough.(Section 9014).

19. You will have to pay an additional 0.5% payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. What? You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9015).

That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if reconciliation passes. It will also apply to investment income, estates, and trusts. You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Like you need to ask. (Section 1402).

20. If you go for cosmetic surgery, you will pay an additional 5% tax on the cost of the procedure. Think you know how to spend that money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9017).

Nancy Pelosi is a 'coward, a bully and a hypocrite'

2010-03-18T13:01:00.000-04:00

Nancy Pelosi is a 'coward, a bully and a hypocrite'

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Updated: Wed., Mar. 17, 2010, 2:34 AM

Dems' 'deem' scheme

Last Updated: 2:34 AM, March 17, 2010

Posted: 2:12 AM, March 17, 2010

Nancy Pelosi is a coward, a bully and a hypocrite -- and Barack Obama is hiding behind her skirts.

So what does that make him?

Pelosi obviously can't find enough votes in her own party for ObamaCare, so the House speaker is preparing to approve the president's health-care bill by legislative legerdemain -- that is, by not voting on it.

And to hell with the Constitution.

Not to mention President Obama's long-abandoned vow that the health-care-reform process would be "completely open and transparent."

Indeed, Pelosi has just the opposite in mind: She intends to employ an arcane bit of backroom alchemy known as "deem and pass," in which the House would vote on a few less-controversial fixes to the Senate's health-care bill.

Then, under terms of a special rule, such passage would automatically mean that the House "deems" that the entire bill has been approved.

Say what?

Well, Pelosi says, "no one wants to vote for the Senate bill."

No kidding.

If they did, it would have become law long ago -- and now midterm congressional elections are rapidly approaching.

This would seem to be a pretty good argument for scrapping the bill and starting all over again.

Au contraire.

Instead, Pelosi plans to stand the Constitution on its head and ram through legislation that the American people overwhelmingly oppose -- and that even members of the president's own party in Congress don't want.

But what makes this even more outrageous is that Pelosi and New York Rep. Louise Slaughter, who proposed the idea, know full well just how wrong it is.

Because five years ago, they and a number of Democratic colleagues joined in a lawsuit charging that the use of "deem and pass" by the Republicans was unconstitutional.

True, they lost that case, but on procedural grounds -- the courts never ruled on the constitutionality of "deem and pass." And the Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that each house must pass the exact same text of a bill before it becomes law.

Anyway, "deem and pass" has been used in the past only for routine, non-controversial issues.

Using it to radically overhaul the nation's entire health-care system -- one-sixth of the economy -- would be a thumb in the eye to the fundamental principles governing the United States of America.

In practical terms, it most certainly would lead directly to years of litigation over its legality. How that would reduce health-care costs and help the uninsured is a mystery.

Moreover, if the ploy is successful, it won't be the last time it's employed. Not by a long shot.

Stumping for ObamaCare in Ohio on Monday, the president declared: "I don't know about the politics, but I know what's the right thing to do."

Tearing a hole in the Constitution is the "right thing to do"?

No, it's not.

Everyday terror at 'Intifada' HS

2010-03-18T12:58:00.000-04:00

Link to the story

Everyday terror at 'Intifada' HS

Last Updated: 9:52 AM, March 18, 2010

Posted: 3:41 AM, March 18, 2010

The Muslim principal who cried "bomb!" in a crowded school has left chaos and violence in the classrooms she created. And now, she's moved a step closer to returning.

It is against this tumultuous backdrop that we learn Brooklyn's Khalil Gibran International Academy -- founded in 2007 by firebrand ex-Principal Debbie Almontaser as the city's first public Arabic-themed school -- this year has suspended more than one-third of its student body for infractions ranging from hitting to weapons.

"Every day, they're fighting," said Voneeda Black, who nervously sends her 6-year-old to the elementary school with which Gibran shares a building.

"You don't see parents," she said. "Three or four times a week, there are cops here, if not more."

It may be the worst record in the city. So how did this happen?

Two and a half years ago, the hijab-wearing Almontaser invented the academy as a way to foster peace and understanding. But she was promptly removed, stuck elsewhere in the school system. She cried "unfair!"

Then, last week, Almontaser won a crucial ruling that could help bring her back. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said the school system discriminated against Almontaser's race and religion. Fired, for being an Arab.

Rubbish.

Almontaser was tossed after she proclaimed, in a detailed interview with this newspaper, that the term "intifada" -- which has led to mass murder, both downtown and in the Middle East -- does not equal bloody uprising. She defined the hot-button word as a benign "shaking off" of oppression. Particularly against girls. As if American girls are worse off than those in, say, her native Yemen.

Even accepting Almontaser's word that she's no radical, her comments suggest a tolerant, morally relativistic view of violence, for which there is no place in our schools. The commission didn't see it that way.

Almontaser has expressed utter joy to have -- finally! -- scored a victory in her claim to have been oppressed. The ruling, at the very least, will cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlement and legal fees, as it breathes life into Almontaser's lawsuit. At worst, she'll be back.

So I think it appropriate to take a hard look at Gibran -- a school founded on the flawed notion that segregating Arabists will lead to harmony.

Since it opened, the tiny school on the edge of DUMBO has had one of the city's highest rates of violence. A teacher was taunted by kids as a "terrorist" in 2008. It's gotten steadily worse.

More than a third -- one in three! -- of Gibran's 114 students, grades six through eight, have been suspended this year, according to the Department of Education.

Twenty-two were yanked from school for five days. Eight kids were considered so rowdy or dangerous, they were banned from class six to 10 days.

Nineteen fights led to student injuries or intimidation. In two other cases, weapons were used. This number has climbed from last year's 17 violent incidents and 26 suspensions.

And the school year isn't over yet.

"There's a lot of name-calling and walking around the hallways," said parent Deborah Rivers, whose sons, 11 and 13, are Gibran students.

It's scarier than parents suspect. Bedlam is a reason Gibran's latest revolving-door principal, Holly Reichert, resigned this week, leading the school to engage its fourth leader in less than three years, said a Department of Ed source.

"Those numbers [of violent incidents] are higher than they need to be," said the source. "Frankly, that is more than I want to see in a school of that size. They need to do better."

I reached out to the school, but was told the new Arab-American principal, Beshir Abdellatif, and other staff members were not available.

A bad idea has morphed into an abysmal failure. You don't get peace by segregating kids. You get weapons, pandemonium. And expensive lawsuits.

Almontaser should be grateful she was canned from her self-created disaster.

New Jersey mom has huge ambition

Chubby chasers, you have your own Cindy Crawford.

Donna Simpson is another kind of Jersey housewife. She doesn't leave the house, which provides warmth in the winter, shade in the summer. Donna says she enjoys eating sushi -- by the truckload -- and, at 600 pounds and growing, she doesn't move around much. Already the world's fattest mommy, her life's goal is to become the world's heftiest woman. She's training to reach 1,000 pounds in two years. Orca, meet your match.

Why have I devoted precious inches to this freak with feet? Donna is a living, wheezing cautionary tale for women who think fat is sexy, and a poor role model for, well, anyone. Try a new hobby, preferably one that doesn't involve pork rinds, Ding Dongs and a premature demise.

Taxi discredit where it's due

It's 2 a.m., and I'm at the mercy of a kamikaze cabdriver who gets me safely, if white-knuckled, to my home. But one glance at the meter reveals a charge that resembles a ZIP Code-plus 4. Grumbling, I fish out the fare, plus a generous tip.

As it turns out, cabbies have been tampering with meters like Prius gas pedals, overcharging customers by $8 million, and probably more. But the only hope riders have of getting refunds is if they've paid by credit card. Ha!

I've had cabbies tell me their machines were broken. When once I used a card, I was charged four times. Cash seemed the most sensible way to get around. Until now.

Thank goodness walking weather is nigh.

An Aman-poor correspondent

With Christiane Amanpour, what you see is what you get.

ABC has reportedly offered its "This Week" program to the CNN foreign correspondent, who has shown, time and again, her teeth-baring hostility to the state of Israel.

Amanpour topped even herself with her three-part "God's Warriors" series in 2007, in which she equated Israel's defense against neighbors who'd like to see the country wiped from the map with Arab attempts to wipe Israel from the map. That is wicked moral relativism -- a kindergartner can see that the rare Israeli terrorist is prosecuted and condemned by his own people. But Arab suicide bombers are celebrated and martyred, and have soccer tournaments held in their honor.

Amanpour may play well to viewers of attention-deprived CNN. But there is no place for these willful distortions on network TV.

The trampy truth

Rielle Hunter needs a nap. John Edwards' baby mama is royally steamed that whorish photos for which she posed in GQ -- without the benefit of pants or a working brain -- are too trampy. Rielle!

Repeat after me: Sleeping with a married guy on the day you meet him = trampy. Keeping your pants on during a date or photo shoot = not trampy. Try it!

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/everyday_terror_at_intifada_hs_6h6fcMyTmifBsefM1A9GpM/2#ixzz0iY3MrB71

Pelosi to 'trick' health scam into law without vote!

2010-03-17T12:59:00.000-04:00

Pelosi to 'trick' health scam into law without vote!

michaelsavage.com

Link to the story

March 16, 2010

Democrats Consider New Moves for Health Bill

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — As lawmakers clashed fiercely over major health care legislation on the House floor, Democrats struggled Tuesday to defend procedural shortcuts they might use to win approval for their proposals in the next few days.

House Democrats are so skittish about the piece of legislation that is now the vehicle for overhauling the health care system — the bill passed by the Senate in December — that they are considering a maneuver that would allow them to pass it without explicitly voting for it.

Under that approach, House Democrats would approve a package of changes to the Senate bill in a budget reconciliation bill. The Senate bill would be “deemed passed” if and when the House adopts rules for debate on the reconciliation bill — or perhaps when the House passes that reconciliation bill.

The idea is to package the changes and the underlying bill together in a way that amounts to an amended bill in a single vote. Many House Democrats dislike some provisions of the Senate bill, including special treatment for a handful of states, like Medicaid money for Nebraska, and therefore want to avoid a direct vote on it.

Republicans paraded to the House floor on Tuesday to denounce the maneuver as a parliamentary trick. Representative Ted Poe, Republican of Texas, said Democrats were using “a sneaky snake oil gimmick” to pass their bill. “Let’s have an up-or-down vote on this bill and not hide behind some procedural mumbo jumbo,” Mr. Poe said.

At the White House on Tuesday, the debate over procedural tactics proved uncomfortable for President Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs. He sidestepped numerous questions about whether Mr. Obama wanted an explicit, separate vote on the Senate bill and deferred to Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.

“The final decision is the speaker’s,” Mr. Gibbs said.

Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland and assistant to the speaker, said Republicans were trying to deceive the public about the legislation that Democrats were working on.

“They want to send a signal to the American people that the product that is going to come out of the House is the Senate bill, but the fact of the matter is we are amending the Senate bill,” Mr. Van Hollen said. “We are going to get rid of the Nebraska deal. We are going to get rid of other provisions in the Senate bill that shouldn’t have been there.”

The House Democratic leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, also defended the maneuver on Tuesday. “It is consistent with the rules,” Mr. Hoyer said. “It is consistent with former practice.”

An analysis of the procedural device prepared by Ms. Pelosi’s office says, “Some opponents of reform are objecting to the process in an attempt to kill the bill.”

But some Democrats who support the bill have expressed reservations about the maneuver and said House leaders might rethink their plans if the chorus of criticism continued to grow.

House Democratic leaders said they still expected the full House to vote on health care by this weekend, even though they are still tinkering with the text of the legislation and do not have a final cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

Democrats are trying to hold the cost of the new insurance coverage provisions in the bill to roughly $950 billion over 10 years, in keeping with a limit suggested by the president. Also, under budget reconciliation rules, they must meet goals for reducing future deficits.

To make the numbers come out right, Democrats said, they are considering bigger cuts in payments to private Medicare Advantage plans, which cover about one-fourth of the 45 million Medicare beneficiaries. And they may ask pharmaceutical companies to pay more to help close a gap in Medicare coverage of prescription drugs.

Ms. Pelosi said she had “a massive whip operation” trying to round up votes for the bill.

The ferocious floor fight on Tuesday was the opening clash in what is shaping up to be the decisive week in the yearlong battle over health care legislation.

Democrats are aiming for a vote by the weekend that would approve both the bill that the Senate adopted on Dec. 24 and a package of changes in an expedited budget reconciliation bill.

In a fusillade of one-minute speeches, the two sides argued over both substance and procedural issues.

Republicans on Tuesday accused Democrats of resorting to legislative sleight of hand by planning to approve the Senate-passed health care bill tucked into the rule that sets the parameters of debate rather than holding a stand-alone vote on the Senate measure and a separate vote on a package of revisions to be included in an expedited budget bill.

The Democrats, in turn, said the Republicans were arguing about arcane rules and procedures because they could not make a cogent, substantive case against the legislation.

Democrats said the procedures they wanted to focus on were insurance industry practices that the legislation would ban, including denying coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions, imposing annual and lifetime limits on benefits, and revoking coverage on technical grounds even when premiums have been paid in full.

“Either you want to stand up for the American people, or you want to stand up for the insurance companies,” said Representative Ben Ray Luján, Democrat of New Mexico.

Democratic leaders said they were confident that they could muster the 216 votes needed to pass the legislation, though they stopped short of claiming to have firm commitments in hand.

“I believe that we have the votes, and I am confident about our victory,” said Representative John B. Larson of Connecticut, the Democratic conference chairman.

If Mr. Larson is right, however the House approves the Senate bill — either deeming it approved as part of the rules of debate, or with a stand-alone roll call vote — President Obama would be able to declare victory on his top domestic priority.

House Republicans said Tuesday that they were intent on never letting that happen.

“The American people are appalled by what they have seen in this health care debate, but the worst is still ahead,” the Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, thundered in his speech.

Mr. Boehner added: “The majority plans to force the toxic Senate bill through the House under some controversial trick. There is no way to hide from this vote. It will be the biggest vote most members ever cast.”

His comments made clear that Republicans would hold Democrats responsible for the health care legislation regardless of the procedures used to advance it.

The campaign committee for House Republicans, the National Republican Congressional Committee, unveiled a television advertisement on Tuesday that warns wavering Democrats they will be held accountable if they vote for the health care bill.

The ad describes the legislation as “a corrupt bill” filled with pork-barrel spending and special deals for Florida, Louisiana and Nebraska.

Republicans on Tuesday also attacked a plan by Democrats to overhaul federal student loan programs that will be included in the budget reconciliation bill along with the health care revisions.

Democrats say the existing program is a giveaway to private banks, which are paid fees to make risk-free loans using taxpayer money.

5 Americans charged with planning terror attacks

2010-03-17T12:56:00.000-04:00

5 Americans charged with planning terror attacks

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

REUTERS

Pakistani policemen escort hand-cuffed men identified as Umar Farooq, (3rd L), Aman Hassan Yemer, (C front) Ramy Zamzam, (C rear) and Waqar Hussain Khan on Jan. 18 in Punjab province, Pakistan.

- AP

March 17, 2010

Pakistani Court Charges Five Americans With Planning Terror Attacks, Lawyers Says

A defense lawyer says a Pakistani court has charged five young Americans with planning terrorist attacks in the South Asian country.

ISLAMABAD -- A Pakistani court charged five young Americans on Wednesday with planning terrorist attacks in the South Asian country and conspiring to wage war against nations allied with Pakistan, their defense lawyer said.

The men -- all Muslims from the Washington, D.C., area -- pleaded not guilty to a total of five charges, the most severe of which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, defense lawyer Hasan Dastagir told The Associated Press.

"My clients were in good shape and high spirits," said Dastagir.

The men were charged by an anti-terrorism court inside a prison in Sargodha, the city in Punjab province where they were arrested in December. They were reported missing by their families in November after one left behind a farewell video showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended.

Their lawyer has said they were heading to Afghanistan and had no plans to stage attacks inside Pakistan.

The court also charged the men with planning attacks on Afghan and U.S. territory, said Dastagir. The charges did not specify what was meant by U.S. territory but could be a reference to American bases or diplomatic outposts in Afghanistan.

The men were also charged with contributing cash to banned organizations to be used for terrorism and with directing each other to commit terrorist acts.

"This last charge carries life in prison while the rest of the charges have lesser punishments," said Dastagir.

Pelosi: 'Once we kick through this door,' more reform will follow

2010-03-16T12:47:00.000-04:00

Link to the story

Pelosi: 'Once we kick through this door,' more reform will follow

By: Byron York

Chief Political Correspondent

03/16/10 1:56 AM EDT

If you have any doubt that the Democratic leadership of the House views passing the current health care reform bill as the beginning, not the end, of the process of creating a national government health care system, just note what Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a group of bloggers on Monday. "My biggest fight has been between those who wanted to do something incremental and those who wanted to do something comprehensive," Pelosi said, according to an account by Washington Post reform advocate Ezra Klein. "We won that fight, and once we kick through this door, there'll be more legislation to follow."

But since the current bill is unpopular, and Pelosi at the moment does not have enough Democratic, much less Republican, votes to pass it, the door she will be kicking through is the back door. Pelosi told the bloggers she favors using the "self-executing rule" strategy in which the House would pass the Senate health care bill without going on the record as specifically voting for it. "I like it," Pelosi said of the scheme, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill." The strategy of passing the Senate bill while avoiding a direct vote, writes Klein, "is all about plausible deniability for House members who don't want to vote for the Senate bill."

In a particularly Alice-in-Wonderland moment, Pelosi argued that the debate over health care reform can begin after the bill is passed. "Pelosi said passing the bill would allow Dems to undertake a 'debate' with Republicans over 'what is the balanced role that government should have,'" writes another pro-reform blogger at the Post, Greg Sargent. According to Sargent, Pelosi explained, "We have to take it to the American people, to say, this is the choice that you have. This is the vision that they have for your health and well being, and this is the vision that we have." Again, in Pelosi's scenario, that debate would occur after the bill is passed.

Finally, Pelosi downplayed statements from her own team that she does not yet have the votes to pass the national health care measure. On "Meet the Press" Sunday, Democratic Whip Rep. James Clyburn said, "No, we don't have them as of this morning." Meeting with the bloggers, Pelosi said, "The reason [Clyburn] said that is we don’t have

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Pelosi-Once-we-kick-through-this-door-more-reform-will-follow-87741467.html#ixzz0iMJNtXUi

Socialist N.Y. 'judge' says ACORN must be funded

2010-03-11T19:49:00.000-05:00

Socialist N.Y. 'judge' says ACORN must be funded

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Mar 10, 8:38 PM EST

NYC judge: Govt must stop blocking money to ACORN

By LARRY NEUMEISTER

Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- A federal judge who found it unconstitutional that Congress tried to cut funding to the activist group ACORN has rejected a government request to change her mind and has ordered government agencies to make it clear the funding isn't blocked.

In a written ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon made permanent her conclusion last year that the cutoff of funding was unconstitutional. She ordered all federal agencies to put the word out about it.

The Brooklyn judge said ACORN was punished by Congress without the enactment of administrative processes to decide if money had been handled inappropriately. She said the harm to ACORN's reputation continues because the government never rescinded its advice to withhold funding after it was distributed to "hundreds, if not thousands, of recipients."

ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, describes itself as an advocate for low-income and minority home buyers and residents.

Critics of the group say it has engaged in voter registration fraud and embezzlement and has violated the tax-exempt status of some of its affiliates by engaging in partisan political activities.

Last year, a series of videos filmed at ACORN offices around the country sparked a national scandal and helped drive the organization to near ruin. In one video, ACORN employees were shown apparently advising a couple posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend to lie about her profession and launder her earnings; Brooklyn prosecutors said they did not commit a crime.

In asking the judge to reconsider her December ruling, the government cited a Dec. 7 report written by Scott Harshbarger, former attorney general for Massachusetts. It said the report "reinforces Congress' purpose in preventing fraud, waste and abuse" by describing ACORN's long-standing management problems.

The report concluded that ACORN leadership at every level was thin, the government noted.

The judge, however, wrote that it was "unmistakable that Congress determined ACORN's guilt before defunding it." She said Congress is entitled to investigate ACORN but cannot "rely on the negative results of a congressional or executive report as a rationale to impose a broad, punitive funding ban on a specific, named organization."

She said the Code of Federal Regulations establishes a formal process for deciding when federal contractors can be suspended or debarred. She added that "the existence of these regulations militates against the need for draconian, emergency action by Congress."

The government planned to review the judge's ruling and consider whether to appeal, spokesman Robert Nardoza said.

The legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which says it's dedicated to protecting the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, welcomed Wednesday's decision.

"The judge's ruling is a complete rebuke to the right wing's smear tactics that unfortunately Congress fell for," legal director Bill Quigley said. "This is why we have a system of checks and balances."

La Raza (Hispanic caucus) insists illegal aliens get health coverage

2010-03-11T19:43:00.000-05:00

Is this the reform you all want... Yea sure this will bring the cost down for everyone... Give me a break.

La Raza (Hispanic caucus) insists illegal aliens get health coverage

michaelsavage.com

Link to the story

Immigration provision has Hispanic Caucus threatening ‘no’ health vote

By Jared Allen - 03/10/10 08:21 PM ET

A group of Hispanic lawmakers on Thursday will tell President Barack Obama that they may not vote for healthcare reform unless changes are made to the bill’s immigration provisions.

The scheduled meeting comes as Democratic leaders and the White House are struggling to craft a final bill that will attract 216 votes in the lower chamber.

Unlike abortion, immigration has flown beneath the radar, and almost seemed to vanish altogether as House Democrats have wrestled with how to accept a Senate healthcare bill far different from the one they passed in November.

But immigration remains just as explosive an issue and carries the same potential to derail the entire healthcare endgame, a number of Democrats said.

“It’s still one of those issues that’s out there,” said Rep. Xavier Becerra (Calif.), the Democratic Caucus vice chairman and the only Hispanic member of House leadership.

Since last fall, Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) members have kept quiet, at least publicly, about their objections to the immigration provisions in the Senate bill.

The Senate language would prohibit illegal immigrants’ buying healthcare coverage from the proposed health exchanges. The House-passed bill isn’t as restrictive, but it does — like the Senate bill — bar illegal immigrants from receiving federal subsidies to buy health insurance.

Hispanic Democrats say they haven’t moved from their stance that they will not vote for a healthcare bill containing the Senate’s prohibitions.

They claim that while it may be politically popular in some parts of the country to ban illegal immigrants from using their own money to buy coverage, it is not good policy. Illegal immigrants will, one way or another, need medical attention in the United States, and it would be cheaper and more humane to provide them coverage if they pay for it. Otherwise, they will seek treatments in the nation’s emergency rooms, effectively increasing medical costs.

“I don’t think the landscape has changed dramatically from where it was before,” Becerra said.

On Wednesday, members of the CHC privately acknowledged they’ve told their leaders that anyone who is assuming they’ve backed away from their position is in for a rude awakening.

“The [Hispanic] Caucus didn’t want to raise it as an issue too early,” one Hispanic Democrat said Wednesday. “But it’s real. It’s a problem.”

Those alarm bells have apparently been heard. CHC Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) said she and others have, on behalf of two dozen Hispanic Democrats, been in discussions with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other leaders about how to resolve the matter.

“And we will continue having discussions,” Velazquez said.

However, it is unlikely that the Senate will be able to change the immigration provisions under reconciliation rules. And even if it is deemed possible, there may not be enough support in either chamber of Congress to do it.

Not every member of the CHC would stand in the way of healthcare over the immigration issue. As a House leader, it would be unlikely for Becerra to vote against the president’s signature domestic policy priority. And centrist Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said the Senate language is “not a deal-killer” for him.

But one member of the Hispanic Caucus said that, when the issue was raised in November, Cuellar was the only Hispanic Democrat who vowed not to bring down the House healthcare bill over the Senate’s tougher treatment of undocumented workers.

On Wednesday, Cuellar said he doubted he would be alone if it happens again.

“If [the Senate language] comes up for a vote over here, I think there will be other folks who’ll be with me in not voting no over that language,” he said. “Are you going to stop the whole thing because of this provision here? I almost hate to say this, but it’s a cost-benefit analysis, a big-picture view.”

That’s the argument Cuellar said he expects to hear from Obama at Thursday’s meeting.

“If I was him, I would say ‘Look at the big picture,’” Cuellar said.

Another Democrat with ties to leadership who maintains close relationships with Hispanic Democrats said Pelosi will likely have to make a similar appeal.

“It’s still out there. And truthfully I don’t know what she’s going to do,” the member said. “But I think in the end, it’s all going to be the Senate language, on everything. And then it’s just appealing to everyone’s sense of doing the right thing.”

One Hispanic House Democrat described Thursday’s meeting with Obama as “critical to him fully understanding our thinking, our understanding his, and all of us figuring out how we go forward on both this healthcare bill and immigration reform as a whole.”

The White House recently renewed its pledge to pursue immigration reform this year, though few expect an immigration bill to pass in the 111th Congress.

At a similar meeting at the White House in early November, which occurred just days before the House voted on its healthcare bill, the CHC failed to convince Obama to reject the Senate immigration language.

The result was a bloc of solid Democratic votes that remained up in the air until a deal was reached at the last minute to address the gap between the House and the Senate immigration restrictions during “conference negotiations.”

But the healthcare bill didn’t go to conference. And CHC members could now face a difficult choice in the weeks ahead.

For a breakdown of how House Democrats are planning to vote on healthcare reform, check The Hill’s whip list here.

Source:

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/86125-hispanic-caucus-threat-to-vote-no-on-healthcare

Farrakhan blasts 'white right' for conspiring against Obama

2010-03-01T11:50:00.000-05:00

Farrakhan blasts 'white right' for conspiring against Obama

michaelsavage.com

Link to the story

Updated February 28, 2010

'White Right' Wants Obama to Be One-Term President, Farrakhan Says

Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan says the stalling of health care legislation is proof.

CHICAGO -- Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, boasting his divine stature, on Sunday predicted trouble ahead for President Barack Obama and urged him to do more to improve the lives of blacks and the downtrodden.

The 76-year-old leader said the "white right" was conspiring to make Obama a one-term president, and pointed to his stalled efforts to introduce health care legislation as proof. He said those opponents and lobbyists were trapping him into a future war with Iran that could lead to mass destruction.

"The word 'prophet' is too cheap a word. I am a light in the midst of darkness," Farrakhan said at the annual convention of the movement that embraces black nationalism. "It ain't ego, it's my love for you."

An estimated 20,000 people attended the heavily guarded Saviours' Day event at the United Center in Chicago. Followers -- men dressed in navy uniforms and women in white skirt suits with matching hijabs -- cheered on Farrakhan with shouts of "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great."

Farrakhan spent most of the fiery nearly four-hour speech recounting a 1985 vision he had in Mexico. Farrakhan has often described how he believes he was invited aboard an unidentified flying object he calls "the wheel" where he said he heard the late Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad speak to him.

He said that experience led him to inklings about future events, including the United States' 1986 bombing of Libya.

Farrakhan recounted how his divine knowledge has allowed him to recognize countless warning signs over the decades -- such as natural disasters such as the earthquake in Chile -- and said they indicate impending trouble, including for Obama.

Dressed in ornate creme robes, he addressed the president directly:

"Your people are suffering. You can't ease their plight, but you can use your bully pulpit. Speak for the poor. Speak for the weak."

He said helping the Nation of Islam, which has worked to reform black inmates for decades, would also be an answer.

"Put some money on back of us," he said. "We can reform our people."

Farrakhan has vigorously supported Obama for years and used his presidency as a call to action for blacks. That was even as Obama distanced himself from the group for Farrakhan's past comments that many considered anti-Semitic.

Supporters say Farrakhan's words are often taken out of context.

Farrakhan continued his praise of Obama Sunday, and said the nation's first black president was manipulated into disavowing Farrakhan.

He would not say if he and Obama had ever met on the issue.

"They all want to know did I ever meet with him and what did I say or what he say," Farrakhan said in the speech. "I ain't going there."

PAPER: Obama doctors recommend 'moderation of alcohol intake'...

2010-03-01T11:46:00.000-05:00

PAPER: Obama doctors recommend 'moderation of alcohol intake'...

drudgereport.com

link to the story

Doctors tell Barack Obama to quit smokingThe American president has been trying to kick the habit for sometime, apart from the smoking he is in excellent health

Ewen MacAskill, Washington guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 March 2010 01.29 GMT Article history

Barack Obama is still struggling to kick smoking, according to his first medical examination since becoming president.

Obama is sensitive about his cigarette habit and tetchy with reporters who raise it. But after his 90-minute medical at the Navy hospital outside Washington yesterday morning, his doctors confirmed he had not yet managed to conquer the habit and suggested he "continue smoking cessation efforts".

The doctors said the president used medication to try to ease the pangs, they described it as "nicotine replacement therapy, self-use".

Obama promised Michelle when he embarked on his campaign to become president he would quit, at the time he said he was smoking about eight a day.

He told reporters last year he had quit but still had an occasional cigarette, without specifying how many.

His health was described as excellent and he does not have to return for another medical until 2012. Obama, who is 48, has 20-20 vision, weighs 179 llbs in his shoes and clothes, and requires little medication. Apart from the nicotine replacement, he uses a non-steroid anti-inflammatory medication associated with physical activity: he regularly plays basketball at the White House.

The doctors also recommended "moderation of alcohol intake".

Obama Calls for Increasing Payroll Taxes on ‘Households’ Earning Less Than $250,000 Per Year

2010-02-24T08:27:00.000-05:00

Link to the story

Read His Lips: Obama Calls for Increasing Payroll Taxes on ‘Households’ Earning Less Than $250,000 Per Year

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief

(CNSNews.com) - President Obama presented a new health care plan on Monday that calls for raising the Medicare payroll tax on some households earning less than $250,000, an apparent breach of his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on families earning less than that amount. The president’s plan also calls for increasing taxes on interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents.

In a Sept. 12, 2008 campaign speech in Dover, N.H, Obama said: “And I can make a firm pledge: Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase—not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

But the new health care plan released in summary form yesterday by the White House specifically calls for increasing the Medicare payroll tax on “households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.”

Unless President Obama is prepared to say that the only type of “family” that qualifies as a “family” under his tax pledge is one that is formed around a "married couple filing jointly," then his new health care proposal violates his 2008 tax pledge on its face. The Internal Revenue Service, for example, makes clear that the “head of household” tax filing status is for “unmarried” taxpayers. A definition of the term “head of household” on the IRS Web site says: “Generally, you may claim head of household filing status on your tax return only if you are unmarried and pay more than 50% of the costs of keeping up a home for yourself and your dependent(s) or other qualifying individuals.”

The White House posted the president’s tax increase proposal as part of the summary of the new health-care reform bill he is proposing.

“Under current law, workers who earn a salary pay a flat tax of 1.45 percent of their wages to support the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund, but those who have substantial unearned income do not, raising issues of fairness,” says the summary of Title IX of the president’s proposal. “The Act will include an additional 0.9 percentage point Hospital Insurance tax for households with incomes exceeding $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. In addition, it would add a 2.9 percent tax for such high-income households to unearned income including interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents (excluding income from active participation in S corporations).”

Last August, after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers appeared on Sunday talk shows and seemed to float the possibility that Obama would violate his campaign promise by raising taxes on people earning less than $250,000, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs repeatedly and emphatically said that they president had made a commitment not to do so. At that time, Gibbs did not speak of the president’s tax pledge as if it applied only to “families,” but said the president had made a commitment not to raise taxes on “those making less than $250,000 a year.”

“Let me be precise: The president's clear commitment is not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year,” Gibbs said at the Aug. 3 White House press briefing.

When reporters pressed him on the issue, Gibbs said: “I am reiterating the president's clear commitment in the clearest terms possible, that he’s not raising taxes on those who make less than $250,000 a year.”

Obama-obsessed lef-wing prof kills 3 other profs;media buries story

2010-02-19T11:05:00.000-05:00

Obama-obsessed lef-wing prof kills 3 other profs;media buries story

michaelsavage.com

Link to the story

Survivor Recalls Panic as Ala. Professor Opened Fire in Meeting

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Seconds after faculty members at an Alabama university forced their colleague out of the cramped conference room where police said she opened fire, the survivors huddled together and braced for what they feared would come next.

All that stood between them and disgruntled professor Amy Bishop — now charged with killing three University of Alabama in Huntsville faculty members and wounding three others — was a locked door and a table they used to barricade it shut. One of the survivors said he expected Bishop to shoot her way through their meager defenses at any moment.

"I didn't think I'd come out of the room alive," said Joseph Ng, an associate professor who was one of 12 people at the meeting when the shooting broke out Friday. "I don't think any of us thought we'd come out alive."

Killed were Gopi K. Podila, the chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences, and professors Adriel Johnson and Maria Ragland Davis. Two were wounded — professor Joseph Leahy remained in critical condition and staffer Stephanie Monticciolo was in serious condition Tuesday. The third, Luis Cruz-Vera, was released from the hospital.

Bishop, a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, was arrested and charged with capital murder and attempted murder. She could face the death penalty, although the local prosecutor said he has not yet decided whether to pursue capital punishment.

Students say they complained to administrators about an Alabama professor accused of killing three colleagues and wounding three others in a shooting rampage during a faculty meeting.

The students upset with biology professor Amy Bishop told The Associated Press they went to University of Alabama in Huntsville administrators at least three times, complaining she was ineffective in the classroom and had odd, unsettling ways.

A petition signed by dozens of students was sent to the department head. But students said the complaints made a year ago didn't result in any changes in the classroom.

Bishop was denied tenure last year and was in her final semester when she was accused of shooting her colleagues to death Friday.

Since she was arrested on Friday, Bishop's case has taken several surprising twists as alarming details about her past were revealed, including that she fatally shot her brother in 1986 — a shooting that was ruled accidental at the time. On Tuesday, it was also revealed she was charged with assault in 2002.

The Alabama shootings erupted in the middle of a regular monthly faculty meeting on a quiet afternoon. Another attendee said the meeting was tranquil enough to allow him to focus on other work as he sat in the conference room that felt cramped with a dozen faculty members sitting elbow-to-elbow.

"It was an ordinary faculty meeting," said Robert O. Lawton, an ecology professor who was writing a manuscript on trees when the gunfire erupted. "And then it became unordinary."

That's when Bishop drew a gun and opened fire, Ng said. He heard a "pop-pop-pop" of a 9-millimeter handgun — it sounded like a Chinese firecracker, he'd later say — just before the room descended into a panic.

Bishop was targeting faculty members sitting closest to her, Ng said. As his injured colleagues went down, he and other survivors dived under the conference room table.

Then, within seconds, the shooting stopped, because her weapon had apparently jammed.

The lull gave the survivors an opportunity. Debra Moriarity, a biochemistry professor, scrambled toward Bishop and urged her to stop shooting, Ng said. Bishop aimed the gun directly at her and pulled the trigger, but it failed to shoot, he said.

Moriarity then led the charge that forced Bishop out the door.

"Moriarity was probably the one that saved our lives. She was the one that initiated the rush," Ng said. "It took a lot of guts to just go up to her."

The faculty members propped up the conference room table against the door and called authorities. Then they braced for her to return, but Bishop never came back — and Ng still isn't quite sure why.

"She could have killed everyone in the room," said Ng. "It could have been much worse."

The shootings in Alabama aren't the first time Bishop has been part of a criminal investigation. Authorities in Braintree, Massachusetts, said that in 1986 she killed her 18-year-old brother with a shotgun at their home. She told police she had been trying to learn how to use the gun when it accidentally discharged, and the killing was ruled an accident.

The current district attorney, William Keating, said Tuesday that newly found police reports show there was probable cause to arrest Bishop in 1986 on charges of assault with a dangerous weapon, carrying a dangerous weapon and unlawful possession of ammunition. But, Keating said, the reports do not contradict accounts that the shooting was an accident.

Bishop and her husband, James Anderson, were also questioned in 1993 by investigators looking into a pipe bomb sent to one of Bishop's colleagues, Dr. Paul Rosenberg, at Children's Hospital Boston. The bomb did not go off, and nobody was ever charged.

Then in 2002, Bishop was charged with assault, battery and disorderly conduct after a tirade at the International House of Pancakes restaurant in Peabody, Massachusetts. Peabody police Capt. Dennis Bonaiuto said that Bishop became incensed when she found out another woman had received the restaurant's last child booster seat. Bishop hit the woman while shouting, "I am Dr. Amy Bishop," according to the police report.

Bonaiuto said Bishop admitted to the assault in court, and the case was adjudicated — meaning the charges were eventually dismissed.

Some victims' relatives have questioned how Bishop was hired in 2003 after she was involved in previous criminal investigations, but university President David B. Williams and others defended the decision to hire her. He said a review of her personnel file and her hiring file raised no red flags.

Police ran a criminal background check Monday, he said, after she was charged with one count of capital murder and three counts of attempted murder.

"Even now, nothing came up," Williams said.

Five Muslim Soldiers Arrested at Fort Jackson in South Carolina

2010-02-18T20:25:00.000-05:00

Link to the story

CBN Exclusive: Five Muslim Soldiers Arrested at Fort Jackson in South Carolina

CBN News terrorism correspondent Erick Stakelbeck has learned exclusively that five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina were arrested just before Christmas and are in custody. The five men were part of the Arabic Translation program at the base.

The men are suspected of trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson.

A source with intimate knowledge of the investigation, which is ongoing, told CBN News investigators the "Fort Jackson Five" may have been in contact with the group of five Washington, D.C.-area Muslims that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas.

Coming as it does on the heels of November's Fort Hood jihadist massacre, this news has major implications.

College aquaintance: Obama was 'pure Marxist socialist'

2010-02-18T12:53:00.000-05:00

College aquaintance: Obama was 'pure Marxist socialist'

Link:

Obama, like Stalin, to seize mines, timber, coal

2010-02-18T12:51:00.000-05:00

Obama, like Stalin, to seize mines, timber, coal

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

United States Forest Service

Modoc Plateau, located in the northeast corner of California and parts of Oregon and Nevada, is one site being considered for a new national monument (United States Forest Service).

William La Jeunesse

- FOXNews.com

- February 18, 2010

EXCLUSIVE: Obama Eyes Western Land for National Monuments, Angering Some

More than a dozen pristine landscapes, wildlife habitats and scenic rivers in 11 Western states, some larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined, are under consideration by the Obama administration to become America's newest National Monuments -- a decision the administration can make unilaterally without local input or congressional approval.

According to internal Department of Interior documents leaked to a Utah congressman and obtained exclusively by Fox News, the mostly public lands include Arizona deserts, California mountains, Montana prairies, New Mexico forests, Washington islands and the Great Basins of Nevada and Colorado -- totaling more than 13 million acres.

Sources say President Obama is likely to choose two or three sites from the list, depending on their size, conservation value and the development threat to each one's environment.

"Many nationally significant landscapes are worthy of inclusion in the NLCS (National Landscape Conservation System)," according to the draft report stamped NOT FOR RELEASE. "The areas listed below may be good candidates for National Monument designation and the Antiquities Act."

Click here to view a list of the sites and a brief description of each one.

Presidential use of the Antiquities Act is highly controversial because the White House, with the stroke of a pen, can lock up thousands of square miles of federal lands used for timber, ranching, mining and energy development without local input or congressional approval. The Act is generally interpreted to commemorate or protect a specific historical landmark, not prohibit development or deprive local communities of jobs and tax revenues.

"Any federal action that could lead to limited access should be done in an open and public manner using extraordinary caution," said Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., upon seeing the leaked report. "The fact that this administration is already circulating internal memos to bypass Congress and the public process is troubling."

In 1996, President Clinton turned 1.3 million acres of southern Utah into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument without telling the Arizona or Utah congressional delegation. Highly controversial at the time, the designation has withstood numerous legal challenges to the president's authority, and the national monument remains one of Clinton's boldest environmental accomplishments.

While Western politicians are still digesting the report, several properties stand out.

-- Otero Mesa, New Mexico: The area stretches over 1.2 million acres and is home to 1,000 native species. Gov. Bill Richardson has sought protection for Otero Mesa for years, but the Bush administration targeted it for oil and gas development.

-- Heart of the Great Basin, Nevada: Researchers call it a "globally unique assemblage of cultural, wildlife and historic values" that includes thousands of petroglyphs and stone artifacts dating back 12,000 years.

-- Owyhee Desert, Oregon: Called one of the most remote areas of the United States, the Owyhee is home to the largest herd of California bighorn sheep.

-- Bodie Hills, California: Located in the fast growing eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, Bodie contains the Golden State's best preserved ghost town. But the area is also loaded with gold, and several mining permits are pending.

-- The Modoc Plateau, California: Spanning close to 3 million acres in the northwest corner of California, the Modoc Plateau is "laden with biological and archeological treasures." Interior officials call it the second largest unprotected landscape in the state.

The list contains a number of political land mines for the president, according to a former Bush Interior Department appointee familiar with the document who asked to remain anonymous.

"Right now a number of senior officials are going over the report," he told Fox News. "When Clinton did it, most of the West was red states and he didn't have any blowback. Obama has to ask himself, if he chooses a Nevada location, will it hurt (Senator Harry) Reid's re-election. The same is true in almost every (Western) state where Democrats have made serious inroads."

The list was leaked just days after a story appeared in the New York Times outlining the administration's plans to use executive power to advance his agenda in the face of congressional opposition. "We are reviewing a list of presidential orders and directives to get the job done, across a front of issues," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told the newspaper.

Western representatives are planning a full-fledged assault on the report when Congress returns from its break next week.

Congressman Rob Bishop, R-Ut., co-founder of the Western States Coalition and now Chair of the Congressional Western Caucus, has also seen the leaked memo.

"We are taking this seriously. The tar is warming up. The pitchforks are ready. We will do what ever we need to make sure Congress is fully informed and fully aware of this action. This process should be open and transparent and President Obama should go though Congress and do it this the right way, not by presidential fiat," said Bishop.

"Outrage. In a country as dependent on foreign oil as this one, this kind of action on public lands is simply unacceptable."

Interior Department spokesman Craig Leff told Fox News late Wednesday the leaked document "reflects some brainstorming discussions within [the Bureau of Land Management], but no decisions have been made about which areas, if any, might merit more serious review and consideration."

OBAMA TO OUTSPEND FDR...

2010-02-18T12:49:00.000-05:00

OBAMA TO OUTSPEND FDR...

drudgereport.com

Link to the story

Obama Defeats FDR (in Spending Other People’s Money)

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

By Terence P. Jeffrey

Listen to Commentary Podcasts

After he signed a law last week authorizing the U.S. Treasury to borrow an additional $1.9 trillion, President Barack Obama delivered a characteristically sanctimonious speech. It was about his deep commitment to frugality.

“After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility,” he said. “It’s easy to get up in front of the cameras and rant against exploding deficits. What’s hard is actually getting deficits under control. But that’s what we must do. Like families across the country, we have to take responsibility for every dollar we spend.”

To put Obama’s Olympian hypocrisy in perspective, one need only examine the federal budget tables posted on the White House website by Obama’s own Office of Management and Budget.

They reveal these startling facts: When calculated by the average annual percentage of the Gross Domestic Product that he will spend during his presidency, Obama is on track to become the biggest-spending president since 1930, the earliest year reported on the OMB’s historical chart of spending as a percentage of GDP. When calculated by the average annual percentage of GDP he will borrow during his presidency, Obama is on track to become the greatest debter president since Franklin Roosevelt.

Obama will outspend and out-borrow the admittedly profligate George W. Bush, a man Obama and his lieutenants routinely malign for fiscal recklessness and who, when in office, was often hailed even by his allies as a Big Government Republican. Obama will even outspend—but not quite out-borrow—his fellow welfare-state liberal FDR, who had to contend with both the Depression and World War II.

In determining this was the case, I credited the presidents prior to Obama with the federal spending and borrowing that occurred during the fiscal years that started when they were in office. I credited Obama with the spending and borrowing that his own OMB estimates will occur during the fiscal years from 2010 to 2013, which are the four fiscal years starting during Obama’s four-year term. (Before fiscal 1977, fiscal years ran from July 1 to June 30. Since then, they have run from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.)

FDR was inaugurated in March 1933 and died in April 1945. He is thus responsible for the 12 fiscal years from 1934 to 1945. During those years of depression and world war, according to OMB, federal spending averaged 19.35 percent of GDP. During Obama’s four fiscal years, OMB estimates spending will average 24.13 percent of GDP. That is about 25 percent more than under FDR.

In the first eight fiscal years of FDR’s presidency, before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, federal spending as a percentage of GDP never exceeded 12 (despite the Depression). During those years, it averaged only 9.85 percent. Under Obama, annual spending as a percentage of GDP will average almost two-and-a-half times that much.

In fiscal 1942, when the U.S. started dramatically ramping up expenditures to fight World War II, federal spending equaled 24.3 percent of GDP. In 2010, the first full fiscal year of the Obama era, spending will reach 25.4 percent of GDP.

Under current estimates, Obama will not beat FDR’s overall record for borrowing, although he will nearly double FDR’s pre-World War II rate of borrowing. From 1934-41, FDR ran annual deficits that averaged 3.56 percent of GDP. Obama, according to OMB, will run average annual deficits of 7.05 percent GDP. When you include the war years of 1942-45, FDR ran average annual deficits of 9.76 percent of GDP. Even without a world war, Obama’s overall prospective borrowing is at least competitive with FDR’s.

And Obama and FDR share one historic debt-accumulating distinction. By OMB’s calculation, they are the only two presidents since 1930 to run up annual deficits that reached double figures as a percentage of GDP. Obama will run up a deficit this year of 10.6 percent of GDP. The last time the deficit hit double digits as a percentage of GDP was 1945 -- when Germany and Japan surrendered.

The U.S. won the Cold War without ever running a double-digit deficit. President Reagan’s highest deficit was 6 percent of GDP in 1983 -- and he bankrupted the Soviet Union not the United States.

So how does Obama compare with the much-maligned George W. Bush? In Bush’s eight fiscal years, annual federal spending averaged 20.43 percent of GDP, significantly less than Obama’s estimated 24.13 percent of GDP.

Bush ran annual deficits that averaged 3.4 percent of GDP—and that includes fiscal 2009, when the deficit soared to 9.9 percent of GDP and Obama signed a $787 billion stimulus bill (some of which was spent in fiscal 2009) after Bush left office. Obama, according to OMB, will run deficits that average 7.05 percent of GDP—or more than twice the average deficits under Bush.

The bottom line on Obama: He puts our money where his mouth is.

Shopping Essentials ... Scam?

2010-02-18T09:43:00.000-05:00

Ok I wanted to share this with everyone…

Apparently I ordered something online and my credit card number was given to Shopping Essentials and my credit card was charged $19.95. I never signed up for this… I did some research and most of the people were complaining that they ordered something from well known websites and the same thing happened to them.

I called Shopping Essentials and asked the operator on the phone what her company does and she forgot the word “gift-cards”… Apparently this “company” does exclusive offers with gift cards??

Below is the phone number in case you need to get a hold of this company. They do ask you again for your credit card number to look up your customer number…Obviously don’t give that to them. One more thing she said I ordered this in October 2009 and it was just charged this past week.

Phone # 877-442-5774

Link to the website…
http://www.shopping-essentials.com/SSA/(rtgzghfiudxkr545v20oxgzv)/Page/PL_Home.aspx

Link to discussions about the scam…
http://complaintwire.org/Complaint.aspx/tLOuD2dKBABnoQjKIaqHXw
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/shopping-essentials-c32320.html

Crippled boy, 4, forced to remove leg braces by TSA!

2010-02-16T12:16:00.000-05:00

Crippled boy, 4, forced to remove leg braces by TSA!

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Posted on Mon, Feb. 15, 2010

Daniel Rubin: Another case of TSA overkill

By Daniel Rubin

Inquirer Columnist

Just when I thought I was out of the Transportation Security Administration business for a few columns, they pull me back in.

Did you hear about the Camden cop whose disabled son wasn't allowed to pass through airport security unless he took off his leg braces?

Unfortunately, it's no joke. This happened to Bob Thomas, a 53-year-old officer in Camden's emergency crime suppression team, who was flying to Orlando in March with his wife, Leona, and their son, Ryan.

Ryan was taking his first flight, to Walt Disney World, for his fourth birthday.

The boy is developmentally delayed, one of the effects of being born 16 weeks prematurely. His ankles are malformed and his legs have low muscle tone. In March he was just starting to walk.

Mid-morning on March 19, his parents wheeled his stroller to the TSA security point, a couple of hours before their Southwest Airlines flight was to depart.

The boy's father broke down the stroller and put it on the conveyor belt as Leona Thomas walked Ryan through the metal detector.

The alarm went off.

The screener told them to take off the boy's braces.

The Thomases were dumbfounded. "I told them he can't walk without them on his own," Bob Thomas said.

"He said, 'He'll need to take them off.' "

Ryan's mother offered to walk him through the detector after they removed the braces, which are custom-made of metal and hardened plastic.

No, the screener replied. The boy had to walk on his own.

Leona Thomas said she was calm. Bob Thomas said he was starting to burn.

They complied, and Leona went first, followed by Ryan, followed by Bob, so the boy wouldn't be hurt if he fell. Ryan made it through.

By then, Bob Thomas was furious. He demanded to see a supervisor. The supervisor asked what was wrong.

"I told him, 'This is overkill. He's 4 years old. I don't think he's a terrorist.' "

The supervisor replied, "You know why we're doing this," Thomas said.

Thomas said he told the supervisor he was going to file a report, and at that point the man turned and walked away.

A Philadelphia police officer approached and asked what the problem was. Thomas said he identified himself and said he was a Camden officer. The Philadelphia officer suggested he calm down and enjoy his vacation.

Back home in Glassboro a week later, Bob Thomas called the airport manager and left her what he calls a terse message.

He was still angry enough last week to call me after I'd written a couple of columns about travelers' complaints of mistreatment by screeners at the airport.

"This was just stupid," he told me.

At the very least, it was not standard procedure.

On Friday, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said the boy never should have been told to remove his braces.

TSA policy should have allowed the parents to help the boy to a private screening area where he could have been swabbed for traces of explosive materials.

She said she wished Thomas had reported the matter to TSA immediately. "If screening is not properly done, we need to go back to that officer and offer retraining so it's corrected."

Davis also said TSA's security director at the airport, Bob Ellis, called Thomas last week to apologize. He gave Thomas the name of the agency's customer service representative, in case he has a problem at the airport in the future.

Afterward, Thomas said he appreciated Ellis' call. He said he had no interest in pursuing the matter further or in filing a lawsuit.

"I'm just looking for things to be done right," he said. "And I just want to make sure this isn't done to anyone else. Just abide by your standard operating procedures."

Iran's Hitler declares: 'We're a nuclear state'

2010-02-11T12:39:00.000-05:00

Iran's Hitler declares: 'We're a nuclear state'

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Iran is now a 'nuclear state' says Ahmadinejad as thousands take to the streets

By Mail Foreign Service

Iran is now a 'nuclear state', President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced this morning.

As Gordon Brown warned that the world's patience is wearing thin, Ahmadinejad told scores of cheering Iranians that the Islamic Republic is capable of producing weapons-grade uranium.

He spoke as tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Tehran to mark the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

Despite fears of violence, opposition supporters found themselves largely overwhelmed by the clerical regime and pro-government demonstrators.

The massive security clampdown appeared to succeed in preventing protesters from converging into a cohesive demonstrations.

Large numbers of riot police, members of the Revolutionary Guard and Basij militiamen, some on motorcycles, deployed in back streets near key squares and major avenues in the capital to move against protesters.

He said it had produced its first batch of 20 per cent enriched uranium - and had the capability to enrich to far higher levels at its Natanz plant.

Enriching uranium produces fuel for a nuclear power plants but can also be used to create material for atomic weapons.

The international community has warned Iran against further enrichment activities, threatening new UN sanctions.

Today Gordon Brown again reiterated the threat of sanctions.

'I believe the mood around the world is now increasingly one where, patience not being inexhaustible, people are turning to look at the specific sanctions we can plan on Iran,' Mr Brown said.

'This is a critical time for Iran's relationship with the rest of the world.'

MrBrown said the international community did not want to impose sanctions but would do so if Iran did not cooperate more fully over its nuclear plans

The Iranian leader insisted the material was not intended to produce an atomic bomb, however.

'We have the capability to enrich uranium more than 20 percent or 80 percent (the level needed to create an atomic bomb),' he said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

'But we don't enrich (to this level) because we don't need it...

'When we say we do not manufacture the bomb, we mean it, and we do not believe in manufacturing a bomb,' he told the crowd. 'If we wanted to manufacture a bomb we would announce it.'

Thousands of supporters had been brought in on buses to hear Ahmadinejad speak as security forces threatened to crush any opposition protests.

Witnesses say security forces fired paint balls to disperse anti-government protesters in one of the first clashes of the day's ceremonies.

The unrest began after protesters began to chant opposition slogans in Sadeqieh Square, which is about a half-mile (one kilometer) from a huge pro-government gathering where President Ahmadinejad delivered his speech.

Witnesses say there were no apparent injuries among the several hundred protesters.

Internet speeds around the capital dropped dramatically this morning as the government tried to foil demonstrations against the regime.

State television showed live footage of crowds carrying Iranian flags and pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei making their way to Azadi (freedom) Square in central Tehran, where the main gathering is being held.

Opposition members went on rooftops late Wednesday and shouted Allah-u-Akbar ('God is greatest') in protest - echoing similar cries after the disputed June election as well as anti-shah protests more than three decades ago.

'There is a heavy presence of security forces everywhere. Police trucks are at every major intersection,' said a witness in central Tehran. Police helicopters were flying over the city.

An opposition website, Iran Green Voice, reported large numbers of opposition supporters gathering in several cities, including Tehran and the northern city of Tabriz.

'In some parts of Tehran, opposition supporters are chanting 'Death to the Dictator'' the website said.

Security forces are equipped with water cannon to disperse opposition protests, the opposition website Jaras reported.

Other opposition websites spoke of groups of protesters in the hundreds, compared to much larger crowds in past demonstrations

One protester told The Associated Press she had tried to join the demonstrations but soon left in disappointment.

'There were 300 of us, maximum 500. Against 10,000 people,' she told an AP reporter outside Iran. She said there were few clashes.

'It means they won and we lost. They defeated us. They were able to gather so many people,' she said. 'But this doesn't mean we have been defeated for good. It's a defeat for now, today. We need time to regroup.'

Another protester insisted the opposition had come out in significant numbers, but 'the problem was that we were not able to gather in one place because they (security forces) were very violent.'

'Maybe people got scared,' he said. 'The idea wasn't to lose or win today ... But what is certain, today was not a good day.'

The opposition leaders have promised to join street rallies, including the Green movement founder and former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam said on Wednesday the Revolutionary Guards and Basij Islamic militia were ready for any incident.

'In case of any riots, public disturbance and disorder ... police will detain and keep rioters in prison until April 9,' an unnamed official told the semi-official Fars news agency on Thursday.

The Islamic state is facing its worst domestic crisis in three decades as opposition supporters have rallied round reformists who lost to Ahmadinejad in the election.

In recent months, the opposition has built its street protest strategy around days of important political or religious significance in attempts to embarrass authorities.

The tone of the rallies, however, has shifted from outrage over alleged fraud in President Ahmadinejad's re-election to wider calls against the entire Islamic system, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Neither side has shown much appetite for compromise in the eight months since the disputed June presidential vote, which the opposition says was rigged to secure Ahmadinejad's re-election.

Iran faces growing Western calls for targeted sanctions against it after Ahmadinejad ordered production of higher-grade uranium, stirring fears that Tehran aims to make nuclear bombs, not just fuel for civilian use as it says is the case.

The authorities, who say the poll was fair, have struggled to suppress the protests, and opened trials in recent weeks of people charged in connection with bloody riots on December 27.

Opposition leaders have said the trials were an attempt to deter people from taking part in protests today.

Iranian authorities again tried to squeeze off text messaging and Web links in attempts to cripple protest organisers. The opposition has used internet and text messaging as its main communication channels.

Internet service was sharply slowed, mobile phone service widely cut and there were repeated disruptions in popular instant messaging services such as Google chat.

But several Iranians reached by The Associated Press said some messenger services, including Yahoo!, and mobile phone texting were still sporadically accessible. Many Internet users said they could not log into their Gmail account, Google's e-mail service, since last week.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei yesterday promised Iran will deliver a ‘punch’ that will stun the West to mark today's celebrations

'We have heard from users in Iran that they are having trouble accessing Gmail,' said Google in a statement. 'We can confirm a sharp drop in traffic and we have looked at our own networks and found that they are working properly.'

An Iranian opposition website claimed today that security forces attacked opposition leader Mehdi Karoubi when he attended a rally.

'Karoubi was attacked by security forces in central Tehran... they shattered his car's windows ... Karoubi was not seriously injured,' Jaras website reported. The same website said security forces also attacked former president Mohammad Khatami.

The Islamic Republic has survived many challenges, not least a 1980-88 war started by Iraq's Saddam Hussein, whose forces were propped up by Gulf Arab oil money and Western weaponry.

But the national unity forged in that trauma has long given way to rifts within clerical and political elites that widened after the June election. Street protests have flared periodically ever since, sometimes around official rallies.

Attending February 11 events is a tradition for many in the country of 70 million, over half of whom have only ever known the Islamic Republic established by the revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

'If we all stay at home, our youngsters will be left alone on Bahman 22 (February 11). We should support them,' said Laleh, a 67-year-old housewife. 'I have nothing to lose.'

Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi said on Wednesday her country faced a catastrophe that would wreck peace in the whole Middle East if what she called government repression of the people were not halted.

Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Karoubi say the reform movement is alive despite pressure from the hardline rulers to disband. Karoubi predicted last month that Ahmadinejad would not be able to complete his four-year term.

'Even if he stays in power until the end of his term, he will be the weakest president since the revolution,' an Iranian analyst who did not want to be named said this week.

Security guards stand by as girl brutally attacked

2010-02-11T12:34:00.000-05:00

Security guards stand by as girl brutally attacked

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

First on KING5: Guards stand by during brutal attack

by SUSANNAH FRAME / KING 5 News

Posted on February 9, 2010 at 10:19 PM

Updated yesterday at 9:33 AM

SEATTLE - The KING 5 Investigators have uncovered a disturbing video-tape captured on five different security cameras underneath downtown Seattle.

It shows the graphic beating of a teenage girl in Seattle's Metro bus tunnel, while uniformed security guards simply look on.

The trouble started above ground around 7 p.m. on January 28.

According to police reports, a group of teenagers approached a 15-year-old girl they knew inside Macy’s. The encounter turned antagonistic and moved on to the downtown Nordstrom. The group of 10 teenagers allegedly surrounded the girl and gave her a bad time about what she was wearing. According to police, one in the group threatened her by stating, “Bitch, I’ll kill you.”

The security camera video picks up the scene as the group of teenagers are seen heading into the Metro tunnel at the Westlake Station, apparently following the girl who had been threatened. One of the girls in the group, a 15-year-old who attends McClure Middle School in Seattle, approaches and within a few seconds, without warning, she pushes the victim off the platform and into the bus lanes.

The video shows the two girls hitting each other for a few seconds. Then, the scene gets vicious. The young attacker punches the victim in the head and face 10 times.

"It looks like a very egregious assault, which in fact it was," said Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating the case along with Metro Transit Police. "The two were acquaintances, and there probably is some teenage stuff going on (before the attack) but it certainly doesn’t warrant an assault like this by any stretch of the imagination."

The video clearly shows that all of this is taking place right in front of three security guards. They are well marked with bright yellow jackets that have SECURITY written on the back. While the victim is on the ground getting punched, the guards immediately reach for their radios and call for help, but they do little else.

After the victim is punched, the attack gets worse. The suspect then kicks the girl’s face and stomps on her head six times. The guards make no attempt to get in the middle of the girls or to pull the attacker away. One guard is seen in the distance looking on. He never approaches the scene. Another guard turns his back on the assault. The third stands just inches from the girls, looking on.

And the beating isn’t over. The attacker comes back without anyone trying to restrain her and stomps on the motionless girl’s head one final time.

The attacker and her crew of 10 others - eight boys and young men, and two girls - run up the tunnel escalators.

One of them is clutching the purse he stole from the unconscious teen. Two others have stolen her cell phone and iPod.

A woman who witnessed the entire ordeal from her seat in a bus parked in the tunnel talked to KING 5.

"All of the passengers, we were all up against the side looking, like, who is going to do something? Do something, do something!" said the witness. "Why on earth are there three security guards standing there watching it? And actually allowing her to come back and kick her in the head again!"

When the beating is over, you see on the tape that not one guard bends down to see if the victim is breathing or needs help.

"Really? You've got three male security guards and there's a young girl getting kicked in the head, lying on the ground, motionless? And they couldn't do anything? Doesn't seem like security," said the witness.

The guards are not trained police officers or Metro Transit employees. They're contract workers from Olympic Security Services out of Tukwila. KING 5 attempted to reach them today but didn’t receive a return phone call.

According to their contract, the guards are to "observe and report" problems, not to get involved. Metro Transit General Manager Kevin Desmond says that policy is now out of date.

"You look at what's happening to the victim and you say something got to be changed," said Desmond. "That's just not going to be acceptable. We've had that ‘observe and report’ for years in our contract and this incident clearly shows that we need to change that."

Metro Transit has launched a review to see what powers they should give the guards. They’re working with the King County Sheriff's Office to figure out how best to change the protocols.

"You don't see that kind of thing in Seattle. But it does happen. The question is how do we respond and how do we prevent it from happening in the future?" said Urquhart.

People who’ve seen the tape say common decency, not contract language, should have prevailed in this case.

"If you're not there to help out in these circumstances, then why are you there?" said the witness.

Metro Transit Police and King Co. Sheriff’s deputies worked around the clock to track down the suspects. School yearbooks, MySpace pages and Facebook helped lead them to those involved. Four people have been arrested so far, including the female attacker. A 17-year-old male is still at large.

Police say that amazingly the victim is going to be OK.

Dem popularity at historic lows

2010-02-10T19:03:00.000-05:00

Dem Popularity At Historic Lows

February 10, 2010 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (37) | Share This

By Reid Wilson

For the first time since '02, GOPers lead the Washington Post's generic congressional ballot, giving Dems reason to worry about their electoral prospects this Fall.

48% of registered voters picked the GOP candidate when asked who they would cast a ballot for this year, while 45% said they would choose a Dem. That's the first time a GOP candidate has led among likely or registered voters since Oct. 27, '02, when the GOP sported a 49%-47% lead among likely voters.

Two years ago, just days before the '08 elections when Dems picked up 21 GOP-held seats, Dems led the generic ballot by 10 points among registered voters and by 6 points among likely voters. Voters still trust Dems to do a better job solving problems the country faces, by a 43%-37% margin, but that's well below even the margin by which the public backed Dems in Nov. '09, when they picked Dems by a 47%-31% margin.

A paltry 36% of voters said they would vote to re-elect their own members of Congress, while 56% said they would "look around" for someone new. That's the lowest level of support incumbent members of Congress have had since '97. And just 26% approve of the way Congress is doing its job, up from the 23% who said they like what Congress is doing in Jul. '08 but on par with how Americans felt about the Dem-controlled Congress just before they lost the majority in '94. That year, days before Election Day, only 21% of Americans viewed Congress favorably.

And, like '94 and '06, both years in which the party out of power picked up enough seats to caputre the majority, voters say they are becoming anti-incumbent. 48% now say they are against those who hold office at the moment, 6 points short of the percentage who felt that way in '94 and 5 points short of the mark in '06.

Voters have a 50% favorable/46% unfavorable view of the Dem party, its lowest rating in the same poll since '84, when Ronald Reagan won 49 states in a record-breaking landslide. Voters actually have a worse opinion of GOPers -- only 44% view the party favorably, compared with 52% who see them unfavorably. But the GOP has added 8 points to their popularity since the last time the question was asked, in Jun. '09.

Dems have done their best to characterize the convince their members to make the election a choice between the 2 parties, and voters would still pick Pres. Obama's agenda over the GOP's. A plurality say they trust Obama more than GOPers to handle the economy, health care reform, the federal budget deficit, the threat of terrorism and to create jobs.

But voters overwhelmingly see checks and balances in DC as a good thing. 57% said it is a good thing that GOPers now have 41 seats in the Senate, enough to sustain a filibuster and block controversial nominees and legislation. Just 36% said it was a bad thing the GOP could obstruct legislation.

'Imam' who served 14 years for murder caught smuggling razors into prison

2010-02-09T20:42:00.000-05:00

'Imam' who served 14 years for murder caught smuggling razors into prison

michaelsavage.com

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Prison imam released without bail

By LAURA ITALIANO

Last Updated: 5:05 PM, February 9, 2010

Posted: 10:43 AM, February 9, 2010

He's out the door, but still on the hook.

A Correction Department chaplain with a murderous past was released without bail this afternoon, after Manhattan prosecutors failed to meet a deadline for winning a felony indictment on charges he smuggled three razor blades and a pair of scissors into a downtown lock-up where he works.

Imam Zulqarnain Abdu-Shahid, 58, can now remain free pending his next court date, April 27, by which time a grand jury may have voted on his case.

Abdu-Shahid had been incarcerated -- in a Suffolk County jail, to avoid his mingling with local inmates -- since his arrest last week, unable to post $50,000 bail.

Officials say they found the sharp objects in his duffel bag when he arrived at work at the Manhattan Detention Complex -- also known as "The Tombs."

The items were found after an X-ray machine alerted correction officers to the presence of metal in the bag, according to prosecutors.

His lawyer, James McQueeney, insisted the blades are not the kind of straight razors found in barbershops. Instead they are "some kind of small little razor things," as the lawyer described it to reporters this morning.

Abdu-Shahid intends to testify before the grand jury, and tell them that he had no idea the blades were in his bag, McQueeney said this morning.

While still not indicted, he remains charged with four counts of first-degree promoting prison contraband -- a felony carrying a maximum seven-year prison term. He served 14 years for a murder he committed during a robbery in the '70s.

Correction officials did not immediately return phone calls seeking information on Abdu-Shahid's work status.

D.C. snow will continue 'until Gore cries uncle'

2010-02-09T20:37:00.000-05:00

D.C. snow will continue 'until Gore cries uncle'

michaelsavage.com

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Sen. Jim DeMint twitters: D.C. snow will continue 'until Al Gore cries uncle'

By Jordan Fabian - 02/09/10 01:24 PM ET

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) on Tuesday used the D.C. snowstorm to make a political jab, saying that it provides evidence for global warming skeptics.

The conservative senator took to Twitter on Tuesday amid reports that the area is due to receive another 10 to 20 inches of snow this week:

It's going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries "uncle"

Some conservatives have echoed DeMint's sentiments that the snowstorm should poke holes in evidence backing global warming.

DeMint took direct aim at the former vice president, who is one of the foremost proponents of government action to counter global warming.

Reports of more snow caused the House of Representatives to call off the rest of its votes scheduled for this week. The Washington, D.C. area was blanketed with about two feet of snow last weekend, causing the Senate to adjourn Thursday earlier than expected on Thursday.

The South Carolina senator was not the first Republican to use the snowstorm to make a political point. Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kansas) said that absence of votes in the House is a plus for taxpayers.

Money for victims disappears from politicians' Katrina charity

2010-02-09T11:19:00.000-05:00

Money for victims disappears from politicians' Katrina charity

michaelsavage.com

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DOESN'T WASH: An appeal on behalf of '05 New Orleans flood victims by Gregory Meeks (left) and Malcolm Smith remained on the Web last week -- even though they can't account for cash they've already raised.

Updated: Mon., Feb. 8, 2010, 5:16 PM

Queens pols stiffed Katrina victims

By MELISSA KLEIN and ISABEL VINCENT

Last Updated: 5:16 PM, February 8, 2010

Posted: 3:27 AM, February 7, 2010

It's the Big Sleazy.

Devastated Hurricane Katrina survivors from New Orleans were left high and dry by a charity set up to help them by state Sen. Malcolm Smith and Rep. Gregory Meeks of Queens.

Only $1,392 of at least $31,000 raised to help Katrina families was paid, tax records show, and just about everybody involved with the charity -- including the two Democratic pols -- claim ignorance as to where the rest of the money went.

Meeks said in a statement that "the funds were utilized to help sustain displaced evacuees," but refused to provide further detail. He said money was administered by an unidentified director and that "a committee of community representatives functioned as advisers to the fund."

SLOTS BIG A TAX DEADBEAT

HEFTY $1M TAKE FOR FLAKE

But three of those advisers said they had no idea whether cash was given out by the group, New Yorkers Organized to Assist Hurricane Families, or NOAH-F.

"I had nothing to do with any disbursement of any funds," said the Rev. Edward Davis, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of St. Albans in Queens. "I can't tell you. I don't know."

Another advisory board member, Candace Sandy, said she volunteered to help Katrina refugees living temporarily at a hotel near Kennedy Airport, but did not distribute money.

Sandy, who works for Meeks, said another advisory board member, Claude Stuart, was in charge of the money. Stuart did not return phone calls for comment.

Pamela Moore, chief-of-staff to Assemblywoman Barbara Clark, was listed as a member of the advisory board but said that it was a position in name only.

"I never attended any board meetings," she said, adding that she did not know if board meetings were even held.

Clark, a Queens Democrat, said she was upset about the charity's lack of accountability. "I'm very, very disturbed and disheartened," she said.

The lawmaker said she helped set up a gospel concert that raised $11,210 after Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005.

"We turned this money over to the congressman [Meeks]," Clark said. "I don't know exactly how it was given out."

A source familiar with the charity's operation and books in 2005 said he was unaware of any money going to Katrina victims that year, and called the failure to help victims "disgusting."

"How could they take money that was supposed to go to those poor people?" the source said.

The NOAH-F group sprung up after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 people -- 1,577 of them in Louisiana. Tens of thousands of people were left homeless. Some ended up in New York, holed up in hotels or with relatives.

Montiec Sizer, head of the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps, which is still helping Katrina victims, said charities that don't do what they're supposed to do make it harder for legitimate groups to raise money. "It makes the general public that much more skeptical when resources are not applied to their intended purpose," he said.

The Post reported last week that NOAH-F was under the auspices of a charity called New Direction Local Development Corp., based in Springfield Gardens, Queens, which was started with the help of Meeks and Smith.

The New Direction Web site says the mission of NOAH-F was to raise $270,000 for hurricane evacuees. Donations were directed to the offices of Meeks, Smith or Clark, whose photos still appeared on the site last week.

"NOAH-F plans to provide up to 30 families with full rent and utility payments for six months," it says.

The organization raised at least $31,000 and perhaps more.

The money included a $10,000 donation from the Hindu Temple Society in Queens and $5,000 from the Rent Stabilization Association of New York. The rent group made the donation after its director received a letter from Smith asking to help displaced families.

Meeks' congressional campaign gave NOAH-F two $5,000 donations in 2005, but canceled one of those contributions the next year.

The only accounting of any money spent on Katrina is a $1,392 grant paid in 2006 for "hurricane victim expense," according to New Direction's tax return.

Smith, through his spokesman, Austin Shafran, also washed his hands of any distribution of money to Katrina victims.

"He wasn't involved in any of the day-to-day operations of the group," Shafran said.

The Post revealed last week that Smith attempted to direct at least $105,000 in pork-barrel money to New Direction, whose mission was community development in the Far Rockaway area. Of that, the charity received $56,500 in state money from 2001 to 2006, according to the state Comptroller's Office. Most of those funds also are unaccounted for.

The charity's federal tax forms provide scant information on how it spent its money. No details were reported on who received grants and the only expenses listed were items such as funding for a senior appreciation week, basketball and double-dutch tournament -- plus $11,000 for "meals and entertainment."

The group also paid $9,004 in IRS penalties for late filing.

melissa.klein@nypost.com

U.N. 'global warming' report filled with even more errors

2010-02-09T11:15:00.000-05:00

U.N. 'global warming' report filled with even more errors

michaelsavage.com

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New errors in IPCC climate change report

The United Nations panel on climate change is facing fresh criticism today as The Sunday Telegraph reveals new factual errors and poor sources of evidence in its influential report to government leaders.

By Richard Gray and Ben Leach

Published: 9:00PM GMT 06 Feb 2010

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report is supposed to be the world’s most authoritative scientific account of the scale of global warming.

But this paper has discovered a series of new flaws in it including:

The publication of inaccurate data on the potential of wave power to produce electricity around the world, which was wrongly attributed to the website of a commercial wave-energy company.

Claims based on information in press releases and newsletters.

New examples of statements based on student dissertations, two of which were unpublished.

More claims which were based on reports produced by environmental pressure groups.

They are the latest in a series of damaging revelations about the IPCC’s most recent report, published in 2007.

Last month, the panel was forced to issue a humiliating retraction after it emerged statements about the melting of Himalayan glaciers were inaccurate.

Last weekend, this paper revealed that the panel had based claims about disappearing mountain ice on anecdotal evidence in a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

And on Friday, it emerged that the IPCC’s panel had wrongly reported that more than half of the Netherlands was below sea level because it had failed to check information supplied by a Dutch government agency.

Researchers insist the errors are minor and do not impact on the overall conclusions about climate change.

However, senior scientists are now expressing concern at the way the IPCC compiles its reports and have hit out at the panel’s use of so-called “grey literature” — evidence from sources that have not been subjected to scientific scrutiny.

A new poll has revealed that public belief in climate change is weakening.The panel’s controversial chair, Rajendra Pachauri, pictured right, is facing pressure to resign over the affair.

The IPCC attempted to counter growing criticism by releasing a statement insisting that authors who contribute to its 3,000-page report are required to “critically assess and review the quality and validity of each source” when they use material from unpublished or non-peer-reviewed sources. Drafts of the reports are checked by scientific reviewers before they are subjected to line-by-line approval by the 130 member countries of the IPCC.

Despite these checks, a diagram used to demonstrate the potential for generating electricity from wave power has been found to contain numerous errors.

The source of information for the diagram was cited as the website of UK-based wave-energy company Wavegen. Yet the diagram on Wavegen’s website contains dramatically different figures for energy potential off Britain and Alaska and in the Bering Sea.

When contacted by The Sunday Telegraph, Wavegen insisted that the diagram on its website had not been changed. It added that it was not the original source of the data and had simply reproduced it on its website.

The diagram is widely cited in other literature as having come from a paper on wave energy produced by the Institute of Mechanical Engineering in 1991 along with data from the European Directory of Renewable Energy.

Experts claim that, had the IPCC checked the citation properly, it would have spotted the discrepancies.

It can also be revealed that claims made by the IPCC about the effects of global warming, and suggestions about ways it could be avoided, were partly based on information from ten dissertations by Masters students.

One unpublished dissertation was used to support the claim that sea-level rise could impact on people living in the Nile delta and other African coastal areas, although the main focus of the thesis, by a student at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, appears to have been the impact of computer software on environmental development.

The IPCC also made use of a report by US conservation group Defenders of Wildlife to state that salmon in US streams have been affected by rising temperatures. The panel has already come under fire for using information in reports by conservation charity the WWF.

Estimates of carbon-dioxide emissions from nuclear power stations and claims that suggested they were cheaper than coal or gas power stations were also taken from the website of the World Nuclear Association, rather than using independent scientific calculations.

Such revelations are creating growing public confusion over climate change. A poll by Ipsos on behalf of environmental consultancy firm Euro RSCG revealed that the proportion of the public who believe in the reality of climate change has dropped from 44 per cent to 31per cent in the past year.

The proportion of people who believe that climate change is a bit over-exaggerated rose from 22 per cent to 31per cent.

Climate scientists have expressed frustration with the IPCC’s use of unreliable evidence.

Alan Thorpe, chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, the biggest funder of climate science in the UK, said: “We should only be dealing with peer-reviewed literature. We open ourselves up to trouble if we start getting into hearsay and grey literature. We have enough research that has been peer-reviewed to provide evidence for climate change, so it is concerning that the IPCC has strayed from that.”

Professor Bob Watson, who chaired the IPCC before Dr Pachauri and is now chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, insisted that despite the errors there was little doubt that human-induced climate change was a reality.

But he called for changes in the way the IPCC compiles future reports.

“It is concerning that these mistakes have appeared in the IPCC report, but there is no doubt the earth’s climate is changing and the only way we can explain those changes is primarily human activity,” he said.

Mr Watson said that Dr Pachauri “cannot be personally blamed for one or two incorrect sentences in the IPCC report”, but stressed that the chairman must take responsibility for correcting errors.

Another row over the IPCC report emerged last night after Professor Roger Pielke Jnr, from Colorado University’s Centre for Science and Technology Policy Research, claimed its authors deliberately ignored a paper he wrote that contradicted the panel’s claims about the cost of climate-related natural disasters.

A document included a statement from an anonymous IPCC author saying that they believed Dr Pielke had changed his mind on the matter, when he had not.

Obama caves, Iran Hitler raves

2010-02-09T11:09:00.000-05:00

Obama caves, Iran Hitler raves

michaelsavage.com

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Visiting enrichment laboratory

Limp Western- Israeli response to Iran's uranium enrichment hike

DEBKAfile Special Report February 8, 2010, 10:52 AM (GMT+02:00)

Tehran's decision to raise its uranium enrichment level to 20 percent - taking it weeks away from weapons-grade production - in the teeth of international objections, has raised no cries of outrage in Washington or Jerusalem. Asked Monday, Feb. 7, whether president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement brought military action any closer, US defense secretary Robert Gates said noncommittally: "If the international community will stand together and bring pressure to bear on the Iranian government, I believe there is still time for pressure and sanctions to work."

Gates pretended not to notice that the "international community" is deeply divided on this issue, with China and some European governments rooting against sanctions and Russia likely to join them. Tehran can therefore safely move forward without fear of the international community standing together on pressure.

The reaction from Jerusalem was even more flaccid: The Prime minister's office stated that that when Binyamin Netanyahu travelled to Moscow next week, he would raise the Iranian nuclear issue and sanctions and ask the Russians to continue to withhold the S-300 defense missile from Iran.

No comment was heard on Tehran's leap onto a higher level of uranium enrichment, or the fact that the fuel rods Moscow delivered two years for Iran's atomic reactor at Bushehr enabled the Islamic Republic to go into home-production of high-grade uranium fuel.

The West had plenty of time to do - or at least, say something, because Ahmadinejad gave advance warning of the enrichment hike three weeks ago. On Jan. 14, he promised "good news" about 20 percent enriched uranium to mark the celebrations of Iran's revolution Feb. 1-11.

Not only was nothing done to deter the Iranian president, but he was allowed to infer that Washington, Jerusalem and the Western powers no longer stand in the way of Iran's progress step by accelerated step towards a nuclear weapon, or challenge its president's posture as nuclear hero of the Muslim world, brave enough to defy America.

53% of Democrats have positive view of socialism

2010-02-05T12:25:00.001-05:00

53% of Democrats have positive view of socialism

michaelsavage.com

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Socialism

Socialism had the lowest percentage positive rating and the highest negative rating of any term tested. Still, more than a third of Americans say they have a positive image of socialism.

Exactly how Americans define "socialism" or what exactly they think of when they hear the word is not known. The research simply measures Americans' reactions when a survey interviewer reads the word to them -- an exercise that helps shed light on connotations associated with this frequently used term.

There are significant differences in reactions to "socialism" across ideological and partisan groups:

■A majority of 53% of Democrats have a positive image of socialism, compared to 17% of Republicans.

■Sixty-one percent of liberals say their image of socialism is positive, compared to 39% of moderates and 20% of conservatives.

FLASHBACK: Pelosi: Where Are the Jobs, Mr. President?

2010-02-05T12:18:00.000-05:00

FLASHBACK: Pelosi: Where Are the Jobs, Mr. President?

drudgereport.com

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Pelosi: Where Are the Jobs, Mr. President?

August 1, 2003

Washington, D.C. -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' announcement that 470,000 people abandoned their job searches in July and that 3.2 million private sector jobs have been lost since President Bush took office:

“The fact is that President Bush’s misguided economic policies have failed to create jobs. Since President Bush took office, the country has lost 3.2 million jobs, the worst record since President Hoover. And today we learned that in July nearly half a million people gave up looking for a job.

“Job losses are taking a real toll on the financial security of American families. While Democrats are fighting for opportunity, jobs, and economic security for working families, Republicans continue to focus on helping those who need help the least.

“According to today’s survey, while the national unemployment rate dropped slightly, it still stands at a near record high. In addition, the unemployment rate for African Americans was still over 11 percent in July, and the unemployment rate for Hispanics was 8.2 percent in July.

“It is time for President Bush and the Republicans to get to work for all Americans, not just the elite few.”

BRING BACK HUAC – PART 1

2010-02-04T08:58:00.000-05:00

BRING BACK HUAC – PART 1

MichaelSavage.com

Link

BRING BACK HUAC – PART 1

MANY PEOPLE ALIVE TODAY DON’T REMEMBER WHAT THE HOUSE ON UNAMERICAN ACTIVITIES WAS. HUAC WAS AN INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEE OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES THAT LOOKED INTO SUBVERSION OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT.

IT INVESTIGATED THOSE ACCUSED OF BEING COMMUNISTS WITHIN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. IT INVESTIGATED THOSE ACCUSED OF BEING COMMUNISTS WITHIN THE U.S. MEDIA, ESPECIALLY IN HOLLYWOOD. AND TO A LARGE EXTENT, IT WAS SUCCESSFUL IN EXPOSING COMMUNIST INFILTRATION. IT ROOTED OUT COMMUNIST OPERATIVE ALGER HISS. IT REVEALED THE EXTENT OF COMMUNIST INFILTRATION OF THE FILM INDUSTRY. IT SERVED AMERICA AND PROTECTED IT FROM WHAT WAS THEN THE MOST SERIOUS THREAT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – COMMUNISM.

BUT AFTER THE 1950S, A GENERATION OF LEFTISTS AND FELLOW TRAVELLERS IN ACADEMIA AND THE MEDIA CLAIMED THAT THE EFFORTS OF HUAC AND JOSEPH MCCARTHY IN THE SENATE HAD BEEN NOTHING MORE THAN A WITCH HUNT. THEY CLAIMED THAT IT HAD DESTROYED PEOPLES’ LIVES WHO HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH COMMUNISM.

BUT THEN, IN THE 1990S, THE VENONA TRANSCRIPTS OF INTELLIGENCE INTERCEPTS FROM THE FORMER SOVIET UNION PROVED THAT MOST OF THE PEOPLE THAT HUAC HAD BEEN INVESTIGATING HAD BEEN INVOLVED WITH COMMUNIST GROUPS AND MANY HAD ACTIVELY SPIED ON THE U.S. FOR THE SOVIET UNION. THE OLD LEFTIES STILL CLAIM THAT HUAC WAS JUST A BUNCH OF RIGHT-WING KNUCKLE-DRAGGERS, BUT THE TRUTH IS EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE.

Dems to tax the middle class to pay for socialist programs

2010-02-03T10:52:00.000-05:00

Dems to tax the middle class to pay for socialist programs

michaelsavage.com

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HEAVY LEVIES:

White House budget director Peter Orszag meets with press yesterday to discuss the new $3.8 trillion plan.

Updated: Wed., Feb. 3, 2010, 5:19 AM

Prez will tax rich to debt

By GEOFF EARLE, Post Correspondent

Last Updated: 5:19 AM, February 3, 2010

Posted: 2:15 AM, February 2, 2010

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's new $3.8 trillion budget plan unveiled yesterday forecasts a record deficit this year and socks the wealthy with nearly $1 trillion in higher taxes but still doesn't bring the budget close to balance within the decade.

The deficit for this year would climb to $1.6 trillion, from $1.4 trillion last year.

The biggest hit for high-earning taxpayers would be in allowing top-level Bush-era tax cuts from 2001 to expire.

Top income-tax rates, which dropped to 33 percent and 36 percent, would return to Clinton-era levels of 35 percent and 39.6 percent -- producing about $365 billion over a decade.

The boosted rates will hit individuals making more than $200,000 a year and couples earning over $250,000 and take effect next Jan. 1.

The top capital-gains rate would revert back to 20 percent from 15 percent now.

The budget would also limit the itemized tax deductions high earners can claim for charitable donations, mortgage interest and state and local taxes

All told, the taxes on top earners would total around $970 billion.

New York, with more than its share of upper-income filers, would bear an outsized share of the pain.

Obama wants to use other tax cuts to try to spur growth and hiring, and proposes giving companies $5,000 for each new worker they hire this year.

Even with the new revenue, the president's budget anticipates deficits over the next five years topping $5 trillion, while the annual deficit surpasses 10 percent of the nation's output this year.

"We do face a substantial medium-term deficit problem," said Obama's budget director, Peter Orszag. "And what we have said is we put forward proposals to get us part of the way there."

He said a new bipartisan commission on deficit reduction would "have to get us the rest of the way there."

The accumulated deficits over the decade are forecast to add up to a stunning $8.5 trillion debt.

"We won't be able to bring down this deficit overnight, given that the recovery is still taking hold and families across the country still need help," said Obama.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, called Obama's budget "a very aggressive agenda of more government spending, more taxes, more deficits, and more debt -- with just a few cosmetic budget maneuvers to give the illusion of restraint."

As in year's past, the president sprinkled his budget with new programs and new ideas for savings -- many of which Congress may ignore anyway.

The budget includes a three-year spending freeze in non-security programs, expected to save some $250 billion.

But the freeze isn't across-the-board, as some agencies like the Defense Department get increases and others sustain cuts.

And Obama wants to extend the Making Work Pay tax credit of $400 per individual and $800 per family.

Meanwhile, the budget provides $100 billion as a "placeholder" for an expected jobs bill.

geoff.earle@nypost.com

Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws | Environment | The Guardian

2010-02-02T12:10:00.000-05:00

Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws Environment The Guardian

Largest-ever federal payroll to hit 2.15 million employees...

2010-02-02T12:09:00.000-05:00

Largest-ever federal payroll to hit 2.15 million employees...

drudgereport.com

link to the story

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Largest-ever federal payroll to hit 2.15 million

Stephen Dinan

The era of big government has returned with a vengeance, in the form of the largest federal work force in modern history.

The Obama administration says the government will grow to 2.15 million employees this year, topping 2 million for the first time since President Clinton declared that "the era of big government is over" and joined forces with a Republican-led Congress in the 1990s to pare back the federal work force.

Most of the increases are on the civilian side, which will grow by 153,000 workers, to 1.43 million people, in fiscal 2010.

The expansion could provide more ammunition to those arguing that the government is trying to do too much under President Obama.

"I'm shocked that the 'tea party' hasn't focused on it yet, and the Obama administration only has a thin sliver of time to deal more directly with it, I believe," said Paul C. Light, who studies the federal bureaucracy as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at New York University. "When you talk about big government, you're talking about a big employer."

The new figures are contained in the budget that Mr. Obama sent Monday to Congress.

Mr. Obama says the civilian work force will drop by 80,000 next year, mostly because of a reduction in U.S. census workers added in 2010 but then dropped in 2011 after the national population count is finished. That still leaves 1.35 million civilian federal employees on the payroll in 2011.

From 1981 through 2008, the civilian work force remained at about 1.1 million to 1.2 million, with a low of 1.07 million in 1986 and a high of more than 1.2 million in 1993 and in 2008. In 2009, the number jumped to 1.28 million.

Including both the civilian and defense sectors, the federal government will employ 2.15 million people in 2010 and 2.11 million in 2011, excluding Postal Service workers.

The administration says 79 percent of the increases in recent years are from departments related to the war on terrorism: Justice, Defense, Homeland Security, State and Veterans Affairs.

After years of decline at the end of the Cold War, the Defense Department is restaffing. Mr. Obama estimated that the Pentagon will have 720,000 employees this year and 757,000 employees next year - up from a low of 649,000 in 2003.

The data also show that the Department of Homeland Security will grow by 7,000 a year in 2010 and 2011, and the Veterans Affairs Department will grow by 12,000 in 2010 and an additional 4,000 in 2011.

Peter R. Orszag, Mr. Obama's budget director, also said more people have been hired to oversee outside contracts.

"Over the past eight or nine years, those contracts have doubled in size. The acquisition work force has stayed constant. It's not too hard to figure out that oversight of those contracts has not kept pace with what it should be," Mr. Orszag said.

Even as the total number of federal employees rises, the ratio of employees to Americans has declined steadily, from one employee for every 78 residents in 1953 to one employee for every 110 residents in 1988 to one employee for every 155 residents in 2008.

The federal work force is older than the private-sector work force, which Mr. Light said raises the possibility of reducing the total number through retirements.

About 31 percent of the private work force is 50 or older, while 46 percent of the federal work force is 50 or older.

Mr. Obama is in a situation similar to that of Mr. Clinton, who took office when the budget deficit was at a record high and government bureaucracy was expanding, even though the Pentagon was shedding workers with the end of the Cold War.

Mr. Clinton in 1996 declared that "the era of big government is over" and took steps to work with Congress to control spending and cut the work force, which already had been trending lower.

As he left office in 2000, Mr. Clinton boasted that his administration had helped cut 377,000 government jobs, leaving the smallest civilian federal work force since 1960.

Mr. Obama, though, appears to be accepting a larger federal work force.

The administration has called for federal workers to get a 1.4 percent pay raise next year, which Mr. Orszag said, "frankly, I think to a lot of Americans, sounds pretty good."

The American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents many government workers, said it was combing through the budget and did not have a comment.

Obama's got real trouble at home

2010-02-02T12:02:00.000-05:00

Link to the story

Updated: Tue., Feb. 2, 2010, 9:22 AM

Obama's got real trouble at home

By CHARLES HURT

Last Updated: 9:22 AM, February 2, 2010

Posted: 2:27 AM, February 2, 2010

WASHINGTON -- Even in this winter of President Obama's discon tent, things appear likely to get much bleaker for him before they get any better.

The first casualties were Democratic governors who fell in New Jersey and Virginia.

Then it was Camelot, seized by the enemy in Massachusetts.

These Republican encroachments deep in Democratic territory appeared almost effortless.

Obama's pleas on behalf of Democratic candidates -- words of gold just one year ago -- fell like millstones around their necks.

Today in Illinois, voters go to the polls, poised to send another stinging message to their adopted son.

Eager to deliver a thundering rebuke to the corrupt Democratic machine from which Obama emerged in Chicago, voters are very close to booting Gov. Pat Quinn in his own party's primary.

Even more ominous for Obama today is that voters will choose which Republican and which Democrat will face off in the general election to fill Obama's old Senate seat.

If all goes as widely expected, Republicans today will pick Rep. Mark Kirk, an experienced centrist, and Democrats will pick Alexi Giannoulias, an Obama pal and state treasurer.

In a general election, Giannoulias -- who, through his family's bank, has shady ties to mob figures -- will become a seamy stand-in for Obama.

Things are so bad that even in Obama's alleged birthplace of Hawaii, Republicans are seriously talking about winning the House seat being vacated by a Democrat who wants to run for governor.

The only place where Obama has roots that doesn't seem to be sick and tired of him these days is Kenya.

Don't be surprised if Republicans start fielding candidates there soon.

churt@nypost.com

Pelosi's monumental abuse of military aircrafts

2010-02-02T08:42:00.000-05:00

Pelosi's monumental abuse of military aircrafts

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

February 01, 2010

Pelosi's monumental abuse of military aircraft privileges (Updated)

Rick Moran

Doug Ross has been on this story and broke some news yesterday about the millions of dollars - that's right, millions - that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has rung up in travel using military aircraft.

Now we learn from Doug that it appears Pelosi is using military jets to facilitate the personal travel of her children and grandchildren. No member of congress involved, just the junketing of her kids:

Since Nancy Pelosi took over as Speaker in 2006, she's rung up millions in military travel expenses

Worse still, she also appears to have requisitioned entire flights for the personal use of her children and grandchildren. That is, unaccompanied by any member of Congress, her kids, in-laws and grandchildren are utilizing entire military passenger jets for their routine travel needs.

Using the documents obtained by Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, I have discovered the following manifests and travel requests.

22-Feb-2007: A military jet is requisitioned for the sole travel needs of the Speaker's son, Paul Jr.

13-Apr-2007: A military jet is utilized for the unaccompanied travel of the Speaker's daughter, son-in-law and grandson.

30-Oct-2008: A military jet is requisitioned for the Speaker's daughter and a son-in-law, Peter Kaufman. to commute between San Francisco and Washington.

Military flights cost between $5-$20 thousand dollars per hour to operate. Pelosi only reimburses the government between $120-$400 per flight. You and I pick up the rest of the tab with our tax dollars.

It's all perfectly legal, of course - or is it? Even if it is, perhaps we should start asking why a politician's children and grandchildren should have their travel subsidized at taxpayer expense?

Update and Clarification:

I received an email from Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch whose FOIA request brought these documents to light.

He informed both Doug Ross and me that documents Judicial Watch received last year "seem to show that the Speaker was on most if not all of the flights in question."

That may be true. But as a commenter points out at Doug's site:

":Even if these were scheduled flights, the individuals are not dependents of the Speaker. While they may be her children, they are grown adults, and do not meet the eligibility requirements of DOD 4515.13-R. Her son and daughter should not be flying on military aircraft at all.

The idea that any of her adult children should be subsidized by the taxpayer for anything is ludicrous. Pelosi's husband owns real estate worth as much as $25 million:

The Pelosi family has a net worth of nearly $12.5 million as of 2008, largely from investments. In addition to their large portfolio of jointly owned San Francisco Bay Area real estate, the couple also owns a vineyard in St. Helena, California, valued between $5 million and $25 million. Pelosi's husband also owns stock, including $1 million in Apple Computer, and is the owner of the California Redwoods of the United Football League. Pelosi continues to be among the richest members of Congress.

Brown, 'conservative messiah,' supports abortion

2010-02-01T13:17:00.000-05:00

Brown, 'conservative messiah,' supports abortion

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Scott Brown talks power, abortion, nude Cosmo pose [Updated]

January 31, 2010 | 11:44 am

Scott Brown, the newly elected Republican senator from Massachusetts, says he's ready to play the role of "the 41st senator'' -- a powerful new vote for a Republican minority able to stall any legislation that Democratic leaders are advancing. But he's certainly not ready to start talking about running for president -- he "doesn't even have a business card yet.'' He'll be sworn in in February.

And he doesn't mind talking about posing for Cosmpolitan magazine as a 22-year-old.

"Everyone really is the 41st senator,'' Brown said in an interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters aired today on "This Week." "And what it means is that now there will be full and fair debate. And there will be no more closed -- behind-closed -doors actions. And make no mistake, I am a fiscal conservative. And when it comes to issues affecting people's pockets, and pocketbooks, and wallets, I'll be with the Republicans if they are in fact pushing those initiatives."

Brown said he would have voted for the confirmation of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for a second term -- the Senate voted 70-30 last week.

Asked about parlaying his newfound political celebrity status into a 2012 presidential campaign, Brown told Walters: "I have to tell you, I don't even have a business card. I haven't even been sworn in. I don't have any exploratory committees started. I don't have any -- anything -- it's -- it's overwhelming, and it's extremely humbling. I don't know how -- what else to tell you."

Asked about Republican Sarah Palin and whether she was "presidential material,'' Brown told Walters: "Well, sure. I mean, she's been a mayor, and a governor. And -- and has a lot of -- a national following. But I think the more people in a presidential race, the better. She's never contacted us, and vice versa."

He asserted his own "pro-choice'' stance on abortion: "Yes, because I feel this issue is best handled between a woman and her doctor and her family."

He said the president's proposed freeze on discretionary spending in 2011, which will be part of the federal budget that the White House proposes on Monday, is coming too late: "We need to do it immediately. We need to put a freeze on federal hires and federal raises because, as you know, federal employees are making twice as much as their private counterparts.''

Asked about "Don't ask, don't tell,'' the military policy for gays and lesbians in the armed services that President Barack Obama wants to repeal this year, Brown said he'll have to seek the counsel of the military: "Because as you know we're fighting two wars right now. And the most -- the first priority is to -- is to -- is to finish the job and win those wars. I'd like to hear from the generals in the field ... the people that actually work with these soldiers to make sure that, you know, the social change is not going to disrupt our ability to finish the job and complete the wars."

On that Cosmo pose that has been the source of some ribbing for the senator-elect from Massachusetts, Brown said: "I was 22 years old. My grandmother saw it. She laughed. You know, you have to have a sense -- have to have sense of humor about yourself.

"It wasn't Playgirl. It was Cosmo. You know ... Burt Reynolds, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Davidson, David Hasselhoff also did it. And I'm the -- the only non-, you know, famous person who did it back then."

[Corrected: An earlier version of this post spelled Burt Reynolds' first name as Bert.]

-- Mark Silva

Justice Alito's 'You lie!' moment at State of the Union speech

2010-01-28T12:18:00.000-05:00

Justice Alito's 'You lie!' moment at State of the Union speech

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

January 27, 2010

Categories:State of the Union.Justice Alito mouths 'not true'

POLITICO's Kasie Hunt, who's in the House chamber, reports that Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words "not true" when President Barack Obama criticized the Supreme Court's campaign finance decision.

"Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said. "Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong."

The shot of the black-robed Supreme Court justices, stone-faced, was priceless.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stood up behind the justices and clapped vigorously while Alito shook his head and quietly mouthed his discontent.

Schumer and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) are trying to find a way to legislate around the Supreme Court decision.

"All you have to do is read the dissent, the four justices who said this will defintely open the floodgates to big corporate special interests. Anybody who thinks that's not true is out of touch with the American political process." Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen told POLITICO he expects to unveil the package in the next 10 days to two weeks.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) was glad the president called out the Supreme Court.

"He [Alito] deserved to be criticized, if he didn't like it he can mouth whatever they want," Weiner said. "These Supreme Court justices sometimes forget that we live in the real world. They got a real world reminder tonight, if you make a boneheaded decision, someone's going to call you out on it."

But one conservative legal expert took sides with Alito -- at least on the substance of Obama's comments.

“The President’s swipe at the Supreme Court was a breach of decorum, and represents the worst of Washington politics — scapegoating ‘special interest’ bogeymen for all that ails Washington in attempt to silence the diverse range of speakers in our democracy,” said Bradley A. Smith, chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics, in The Corner blog on Nationalreview.com.

Posted by Martin Kady II 10:08 PM

AP fact-checks speech

2010-01-28T12:14:00.000-05:00

AP fact-checks speech

michaelsavage.com

Link to the story

FACT CHECK: Obama and a toothless commission

By CALVIN WOODWARD The Associated Press

Updated: 2:21 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010

Published: 8:36 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama told Americans the bipartisan deficit commission he will appoint won't just be "one of those Washington gimmicks." Left unspoken in that assurance was the fact that the commission won't have any teeth.

Obama confronted some tough realities in his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, chief among them that Americans are continuing to lose their health insurance as Congress struggles to pass an overhaul.

Yet some of his ideas for moving ahead skirted the complex political circumstances standing in his way.

A look at some of Obama's claims and how they compare with the facts:

___

OBAMA: "Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don't."

THE FACTS: The anticipated savings from this proposal would amount to less than 1 percent of the deficit — and that's if the president can persuade Congress to go along.

Obama is a convert to the cause of broad spending freezes. In the presidential campaign, he criticized Republican opponent John McCain for suggesting one. "The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel," he said a month before the election. Now, Obama wants domestic spending held steady in most areas where the government can control year-to-year costs. The proposal is similar to McCain's.

___

OBAMA: "I've called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can't be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans."

THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted — a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.

___

OBAMA: Discussing his health care initiative, he said, "Our approach would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan."

THE FACTS: The Democratic legislation now hanging in limbo on Capitol Hill aims to keep people with employer-sponsored coverage — the majority of Americans under age 65 — in the plans they already have. But Obama can't guarantee people won't see higher rates or fewer benefits in their existing plans. Because of elements such as new taxes on insurance companies, insurers could change what they offer or how much it costs. Moreover, Democrats have proposed a series of changes to the Medicare program for people 65 and older that would certainly pinch benefits enjoyed by some seniors. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted cuts for those enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans.

___

OBAMA: The president issued a populist broadside against lobbyists, saying they have "outsized influence" over the government. He said his administration has "excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs." He also said it's time to "require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress" and "to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office."

THE FACTS: Obama has limited the hiring of lobbyists for administration jobs, but the ban isn't absolute; seven waivers from the ban have been granted to White House officials alone. Getting lobbyists to report every contact they make with the federal government would be difficult at best; Congress would have to change the law, and that's unlikely to happen. And lobbyists already are subject to strict limits on political giving. Just like every other American, they're limited to giving $2,400 per election to federal candidates, with an overall ceiling of $115,500 every two years.

___

OBAMA: "Because of the steps we took, there are about 2 million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. ... And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year."

THE FACTS: The success of the Obama-pushed economic stimulus that Congress approved early last year has been an ongoing point of contention. In December, the administration reported that recipients of direct assistance from the government created or saved about 650,000 jobs. The number was based on self-reporting by recipients and some of the calculations were shown to be in error.

The Congressional Budget Office has been much more guarded than Obama in characterizing the success of the stimulus plan. In November, it reported that the stimulus increased the number of people employed by between 600,000 and 1.6 million "compared with what those values would have been otherwise." It said the ranges "reflect the uncertainty of such estimates." And it added, "It is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package."

___

OBAMA: He called for action by the White House and Congress "to do our work openly, and to give our people the government they deserve."

THE FACTS: Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign — to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN "so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it's acted upon.

___

OBAMA: "The United States and Russia are completing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly two decades."

THE FACTS: Despite insisting early last year that they would complete the negotiations in time to avoid expiration of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in early December, the U.S. and Russia failed to do so. And while officials say they think a deal on a new treaty is within reach, there has been no breakthrough. A new round of talks is set to start Monday. One important sticking point: disagreement over including missile defense issues in a new accord. If completed, the new deal may arguably be the farthest-reaching arms control treaty since the original 1991 agreement. An interim deal reached in 2002 did not include its own rules on verifying nuclear reductions.

___

OBAMA: Drawing on classified information, he claimed more success than his predecessor at killing terrorists: "And in the last year, hundreds of al-Qaida's fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed — far more than in 2008."

THE FACTS: It is an impossible claim to verify. Neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has published enemy body counts, particularly those targeted by armed drones in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. The pace of drone attacks has increased dramatically in the last 18 months, according to congressional officials briefed on the secret program.

___

Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn, Jim Drinkard, Erica Werner, Robert Burns and Pamela Hess contributed to this report.

___

January 28, 2010 03:21 AM EST

Sen. Arlen Spector down 14 points in latest poll

2010-01-27T13:54:00.000-05:00

Sen. Arlen Spector down 14 points in latest poll.

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Posted on Wed, Jan. 27, 2010

Poll: Toomey over Specter by 14 points

Democrats found to lack enthusiasm

By CHRIS BRENNAN

Philadelphia Daily News

brennac@phillynews.com 215-854-5973

Former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey has opened up a 14-point lead among likely voters in his bid to deny U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter a sixth term, according to the latest Daily News/Franklin & Marshall Poll.

Poll director G. Terry Madonna said that the results reflect a growing national Republican resurgence mixed with a lack of Democratic enthusiasm as the two parties battle over issues like health care and the economy.

Specter, who switched from Republican to Democrat in April, was tied at 30 percent in a general election match-up with Toomey among registered voters, with 35 percent undecided, the poll found.

But Toomey jumped out to a 14- point lead when the poll targeted "likely voters," people who said they are certain to vote and are paying close attention to the race.

Among that group, Toomey led Specter 45-31 percent, with 20 percent undecided.

"I can't deny it's all very encouraging," Toomey said. "But I'm also very aware of the fact that the election is nine months away. A lot can happen. So I'm going to run like I'm 20 points behind."

Specter, who narrowly beat Toomey in the 2004 Republican primary, declined to comment on the poll yesterday.

Toomey, who lives near Allentown, left his congressional seat for the 2004 race.

U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, who is leaving his Delaware County congressional seat to challenge Specter in the primary, also came up a loser against Toomey in the poll. Toomey led Sestak among registered voters by 28-16 percent with 51 percent undecided.

With likely voters, Toomey's lead on Sestak grew to 41-19 percent with 37 percent undecided.

Sestak was unavailable for comment yesterday, a campaign spokesman said.

The poll found health care, the economy and jobs to be the top issues in the race.

The winner of the May 18 Democratic primary will have to deal with what Madonna calls the "enthusiasm gap."

Madonna notes that 47 percent of the registered Republicans in the poll said that they were likely to vote in the Nov. 2 general election, while only 35 percent of the Democrats felt the same way. He attributes that to national news of Democrats' struggling to implement their policies in Washington despite control of the White House and Congress.

Madonna pointed to Republican wins in races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia last year and in a U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts this month as proof that the GOP is energized and that many Democrats are staying home.

In Pennsylvania's race for governor, Madonna found the candidates so unrecognizable to voters that their current standing in the poll means little.

Seven in 10 people in the poll had no opinion on that race.

"They have no state name recognition," Madonna said of the candidates. "The fact is, the race is in a very inchoate form, a form that has yet to take shape."

The poll showed state Attorney General Tom Corbett leading state Rep. Sam Rohrer 23-5 percent in the Republican gubernatorial primary, with 69 percent undecided.

Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato led the Democrats with 10 percent while state Auditor General Jack Wagner, Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty and Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel each had 4 percent; 72 percent said that they were undecided.

The poll of 1,165 people, conducted from Jan. 18-24, has a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percent.

Number of Times Obama Refers to Himself in One Speech: 132...

2010-01-27T08:54:00.000-05:00

Number of Times Obama Refers to Himself in One Speech: 132...

drudgereport.com

Link to the story

NYC clinic probed after woman dies during abortion...

2010-01-27T08:51:00.000-05:00

NYC clinic probed after woman dies during abortion...

drudgereport.com

Link to the story

Queens clinic A1 Medicine probed after Alexandra Nunez is fatally injured while undergoing abortion

BY Michael J. Feeney, Barry Paddock and Jonathan Lemire

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Wednesday, January 27th 2010, 4:00 AM

Detectives are investigating a Queens clinic where a 37-year-old woman was fatally injured while undergoing an abortion, officials said Tuesday.

Alexandra Nuñez began bleeding heavily during the procedure at A1 Medicine in Jackson Heights on Monday, officials said.

One of Nuñez's arteries was inadvertently severed and she went into cardiac arrest, according to police sources.

She was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where she died a short time later.

Detectives have interviewed the staff at the Roosevelt Ave. clinic, but no charges have been filed, police said.

"There is an investigation going forward," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, "but as of yet, there's no indication of any criminality."

Nuñez, a single mother of four who lived in Plainfield, N.J., underwent the procedure at 3:30p.m., police said.

She had told her family that she was going to a doctor's office in Newark to have a cyst removed - and her death stunned her eldest daughter.

"I'm upset because I never got a chance to say goodbye," said Daisy Davila, 19. "She didn't want anyone to go with her. I made dinner and lunch [yesterday] hoping she would come back."

"We're not angry. We just want to know what happened," said Davila, who insisted that her mother did not believe in abortions. "She was a strong woman, always happy. I looked up to her."

An employee at the clinic - a one-stop gynecology and plastic surgery clinic that was still seeing patients yesterday - insisted that everything had gone well at the second-floor medical facility.

"The patient was transferred to the hospital, she didn't die at the clinic," said the woman, who refused to give her name. "Nothing happened here."

A1 Medicine was accredited in July to do office-based surgery that requires moderate or deep anesthesia - and that includes abortions, according to a spokeswoman for the state Health Department.

jlemire@nydailynews.com

Does everyone in Obama admin know we're at war?

2010-01-26T21:24:00.000-05:00

Does everyone in Obama admin know we're at war?

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Chairman and Ranking Republican of Senate Homeland Security Committee: Does Everyone In Obama Administration Know We’re At War?

January 25, 2010 4:02 PM

The chairman and ranking Republican of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today urged the Obama administration to transfer the Christmas Day bomber into military custody, and harged that though President Obama “has said repeatedly that we are at war, it does not appear to us that the President's words are reflected in the actions of some in the Executive branch, including some at the Department of Justice, responsible for fighting that war.”

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and the president’s top homeland security adviser, John Brennan, Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Me., urged for the immediate transfer of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab into Pentagon hands to be “held as an unprivileged enemy belligerent (UEB) and questioned and charged accordingly.”

The two senators noted that once Abdulmutallab “was in custody, federal law enforcement officials on the ground in Detroit read the terrorist his Miranda rights. According to press reports, by the time the Miranda rights were read and Abdulmutallab went silent, he had been questioned for just under an hour, during which time he had been speaking openly about the attack” as well as the role of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

They took issue with the “decision to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal rather than a UEB almost certainly prevented the military and the intelligence community from obtaining information that would have been critical to learning more about how our enemy operates and to preventing future attacks against our homeland and Americans and our allies throughout the world.”

Matthew Miller, director of the Office of Public Affairs, said that since September 11, 2001, “every terrorism suspect apprehended in the United States by either the Bush administration or the Obama administration has been initially arrested, held or charged under federal criminal law. Al Qaeda terrorists such as Richard Reid, Zacarias Moussaoui and others have all been prosecuted in federal court, and the arrest and charging of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was handled no differently.”

Miller said that those “who now argue that a different action should have been taken in this case were notably silent when dozens of terrorists were successfully prosecuted in federal court by the previous administration.”

Lieberman and Collins expressed surprise to learn in a hearing last week titled “Intelligence Reform: The Lessons and Implications of the Christmas Day Attack” that the Justice Department apparently didn’t discuss with Pentagon or intelligence leaders as to whether Abdulmutallab should be treated as a criminal, rather than a UEV, and read Miranda rights. “The Administration can reverse this error, at least to some degree, by immediately transferring Abdulmutallab to the Department of Defense,” they wrote.

Miller said that the interrogation yielded intelligence, only after which was Abdulmuttallab read Miranda rights. “Trying Abdulmutallab in federal court does not prevent us from obtaining additional intelligence from him,” Miller said. “He has already provided intelligence, and we will continue to work to gather intelligence from him, as the Department has done repeatedly in past cases.” He said that Abdulmuttallab would not necessarily divulge additional intelligence were he held according to the laws of war or referred for prosecution in a military commission.

The Justice Department statement from Miller was issued last week, though he referred a reporter to it today saying it addresses nearly every point in Lieberman’s and Collins’ letter.

“It will always be a top priority in these cases to obtain intelligence that can be used in the fight against Al Qaeda around the world,” it concludes. “We will be pragmatic, not ideological, in that fight, and we will let results, not rhetoric, guide our actions.”

- jpt

Report: Al-Qaida aims to use WMDs against U.S.

2010-01-26T21:16:00.000-05:00

Report: Al-Qaida aims to use WMDs against U.S.

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Report: Al-Qaida aims to hit U.S. with WMDs

Huge attack is top strategic goal, not ‘empty rhetoric,’ ex-CIA official says

By Joby Warrick

The Washington Post

updated 2:31 a.m. ET, Tues., Jan. 26, 2010

When al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, called off a planned chemical attack on New York's subway system in 2003, he offered a chilling explanation: The plot to unleash poison gas on New Yorkers was being dropped for "something better," Zawahiri said in a message intercepted by U.S. eavesdroppers.

The meaning of Zawahiri's cryptic threat remains unclear more than six years later, but a new report warns that al-Qaeda has not abandoned its goal of attacking the United States with a chemical, biological or even nuclear weapon.

The report, by a former senior CIA official who led the agency's hunt for weapons of mass destruction, portrays al-Qaeda's leaders as determined and patient, willing to wait for years to acquire the kind of weapons that could inflict widespread casualties.

The former official, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, draws on his knowledge of classified case files to argue that al-Qaeda has been far more sophisticated in its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction than is commonly believed, pursuing parallel paths to acquiring weapons and forging alliances with groups that can offer resources and expertise.

"If Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants had been interested in . . . small-scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so now," Mowatt-Larssen writes in a report released Monday by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Deadly strains of anthrax

The report comes as a panel on weapons of mass destruction appointed by Congress prepares to release a new assessment of the federal government's preparedness for such an attack. The review by the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism is particularly critical of the Obama administration's actions so far in hardening the country's defenses against bioterrorism, according to two former government officials who have seen drafts of the report.

The commission's initial report in December 2008 warned that a terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction was likely by 2013.

Mowatt-Larssen, a 23-year CIA veteran, led the agency's internal task force on al-Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and later was named director of intelligence and counterintelligence for the Energy Department. His report warns that bin Laden's threat to attack the West with weapons of mass destruction is not "empty rhetoric" but a top strategic goal for an organization that seeks the economic ruin of the United States and its allies to hasten the overthrow of pro-Western governments in the Islamic world.

He cites patterns in al-Qaeda's 15-year pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that reflect a deliberateness and sophistication in assembling the needed expertise and equipment. He describes how Zawahiri hired two scientists -- a Pakistani microbiologist sympathetic to al-Qaeda and a Malaysian army captain trained in the United States -- to work separately on efforts to build a biological weapons lab and acquire deadly strains of anthrax bacteria. Al-Qaeda achieved both goals before September 2001 but apparently had not successfully weaponized the anthrax spores when the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan forced the scientists to flee, Mowatt-Larssen said.

"This was far from run-of-the-mill terrorism," he said in an interview. "The program was highly compartmentalized, at the highest level of the organization. It was methodical, and it was professional."

'Not just trying to scare people'

Mowatt-Larssen said he has seen no evidence linking al-Qaeda's program with the anthrax attacks on U.S. politicians and news outlets in 2001. Zawahiri's plan was aimed at mass casualties and "not just trying to scare people with a few letters," he said.

Evidence from al-Qaeda documents and interrogations suggests that terrorists leaders had settled on anthrax as the weapon of choice and believed that the tools for a major biological attack were within their grasp, the former CIA official said. Al-Qaeda remained interested in nuclear weapons as well but understood that the odds of success were much longer.

"They realized they needed a lucky break," Mowatt-Larssen said. "That meant buying or stealing fissile material or acquiring a stolen bomb."

Bush administration officials feared that bin Laden was close to obtaining nuclear weapons in 2003 after U.S. spies picked up a cryptic message by a Saudi affiliate of al-Qaeda referring to plans to obtain three stolen Russian nuclear devices. The intercepts prompted the U.S. and Saudi governments to go on alert and later led to an aggressive Saudi crackdown that resulted in the arrest or killing of dozens of suspected al-Qaeda associates.

After that, terrorists' chatter about a possible nuclear acquisition halted abruptly, but U.S. officials were never certain whether the plot was dismantled or simply pushed deeper underground.

"The crackdown was so successful," Mowatt-Larssen said, "that intelligence about the program basically dried up."

Report: Teen abortion, birth rates increased

2010-01-26T21:12:00.000-05:00

Report: Teen abortion, birth rates increased

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Despite billions of dollars spent by national and state governments and groups like Planned Parenthood on promoting birth control and contraception, a new report issued by the Guttmacher Institute indicates teen abortion, pregnancy and birth rates all rose in 2006.

The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion group formerly affiliated with Planned Parenthood, says the rates all rose for the first time in more than a decade.

Its new report, which LifeNews.com obtained today, shows the nation’s teen pregnancy rate rose 3% in 2006 while the teen pregnancy rate rose 4 percent and the teen abortion rate was up 1 percent.

There is some speculation that the teen birth rate is up because of a decline in teen abortions and the fact that teen births rose at a higher rate than teen abortions provides some evidence of that possibility.

The overall teen pregnancy rate saw steep declines in the 1990s as abstinence education programs became popular and a subsequent plateau in the early 2000s as the morning after pill received national attention.

The teen pregnancy rate declined 41% between its peak, in 1990 (116.9 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15–19), and 2005 (69.5 per 1,000), Guttmacher noted.

Teen birth and abortion rates also declined, with births dropping 35% between 1991 and 2005 and teen abortion declining 56% between its peak, in 1988, and 2005.

But all three trends reversed in 2006, Guttmacher reports, as there were 71.5 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15–19. Put another way, about 7% of teen girls became pregnant in 2006.

Just as the long-term declines in teen pregnancy occurred among all racial and ethnic groups through 2005, the reversal in 2006 also involved all demographic groups.

State-level data are not yet available for 2006, but varied widely in 2005. The highest pregnancy rates were in New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Mississippi, and the lowest rates were in New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Minnesota and North Dakota. Teen pregnancy rates declined in every state between 1988 and 2000, and in every state except North Dakota between 2000 and 2005.

“It is too soon to tell whether the increase in the teen pregnancy rate between 2005 and 2006 is a short term fluctuation, a more lasting stabilization or the beginning of a significant new trend,' Guttmacher official Lawrence Finer said.

Guttmacher, which opposes pro-life efforts to limit or stop abortions and opposes abstinence education, blamed abstinence programs for the rise.

But Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association said that doesn't make sense because just one-quarter of all federal funding goes to abstinence programs while most goes to promote contraception and birth control.

"To me, it appears to be another opportunity to throw a barb at abstinence education," she told USA Today.

Obama's honeymoon with media is history

2010-01-26T21:09:00.000-05:00

link to the story

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Obama's honeymoon with media is history

Jennifer Harper

He has an official pre-presidential logo and a dramatic custom-built dais — with columns — even before he arrived at the White House. President Obama drew instant love from the press, who were captivated by the image before them.

Mr. Obama garnered more coverage — and more positive coverage — than former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan during their comparable times in office, according to a study released Monday by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA).

Much of the Obama coverage was breathlessly positive, even melodramatic. But then something happened.

"The press stopped covering President Obama the historical figure, and started covering President Obama the politician. It took a few months, but many journalists started returning to their old critical ways, and the coverage went negative," said CMPA Director Robert Lichter, who conducted the research in conjunction with George Mason and Chapman universities.

"Barack Obama had his honeymoon, but now the party's over. He got all the spectacular stuff when he was just beginning. Still, there's a silver lining for Mr. Obama — his coverage would be envied by other recent presidents," Mr. Lichter added.

Indeed. The analysis was based on 3,859 news stories that appeared on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts, plus in the New York Times, Time and Newsweek from Jan. 20, 2009, through Dec. 31, plus a separate analysis of 1,728 stories on the Fox News Channel "Special Report."

During the entire first calendar year of his administration, Mr. Obama's mainstream media coverage was almost "perfectly balanced" — he rated 49 percent positive and 51 percent negative evaluations by sources and reporters.

That's pretty good compared to his predecessors during their first 12 months in the White house. Previous CMPA studies found that Mr. Bush received only 23 percent positive evaluations in 2001; Mr. Clinton had 28 percent positive evaluations in 1993 and Mr. Reagan had 26 percent positive evaluations in 1981.

"Obama's balanced media coverage in 2009 was still about twice as positive as the coverage received by Bush and Reagan during comparable time periods," the study said.

The proverbial press honeymoon waned with the White House in early summer, the study found. Presidential evaluations from January through April were 59 percent positive then dropped to 46 percent positive from May through July. In the last four months of the year, Mr. Obama received 39 percent positive reviews.

Fox News was never in the Obama fan club, however. Only 22 percent of their stories on Mr. Obama were positive during the year, some of it quite pointed.

"The president's story does not make any sense," said Fox News correspondent Jim Angle on June 3.

"His quest to secure the 2016 Olympics for Chicago failed in spectacular fashion," commented Fox News' Bret Baier in October.

Relations between the network and the White House have been described as "a war" by many news analysts; the Obama administration is not shy about lobbing its own bombs at Fox by questioning its "point of view" as a news organization.

"We don't feel the obligation to treat them like we would treat a CNN, or an ABC, or an NBC, or a traditional news organization," White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer told the New York Times.

Fox News commentator Greg Gutfeld responded, "The White House has a new communications director and he's just as adorably misguided as the previous one."

As a cautionary tale to White House strategists, the CMPA study found that the press hammered on Mr. Obama's policies, though his personal leadership often escaped heavy criticism. The research found that during 2009, reviews of his policy were only 37 percent positive — and 63 percent negative.

Mideast headdress seized with weapons, map of military facility

2010-01-26T21:05:00.000-05:00

Mideast headdress seized with weapons, map of military facility

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Man Arrested After Weapons, Map of U.S. Military Facility Seized From N.J. Motel Room

Tuesday , January 26, 2010

Authorities in central New Jersey seized a cache of weapons and ammunition including rifles, a grenade launcher and a night vision scope from the motel room of a Virginia man arrested early Monday by officers responding to a report of a suspicious person, MyFoxDC.com reported.

Somerset County Prosecutor Wayne Forrest said Lloyd R. Woodson, 43, of Reston, Va., also had maps of a U.S. military facility and a town in another state.

The federal government says the map was of the U.S. Army's Fort Drum base in upstate New York.

Court papers do not say whether he was believed to be planning an attack on Fort Drum or anywhere else.

Woodson served for a time in the Navy in the 1980s or 90s, but it's not immediately clear whether he has any connection to the fort.

Forrest said Woodson was wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle concealed under his green, military-style jacket when officers encountered him at a Quick Chek store in Branchburg shortly before 4 a.m. Monday.

As officers started to question him, Woodson fled on foot toward a nearby trailer park, Forrest said. Officers found him hiding in some bushes and tackled him when he tried to run away again. The officers used pepper spray to subdue him.

Forrest said the .223-caliber assault rifle that Woodson was carrying had a defaced serial number and had been altered to fire .50-caliber ammunition.

Detectives later searched the room where Woodson had been staying at the Red Mill Inn in Branchburg. Forrest said they seized another Bushmaster .308-caliber semiautomatic rifle with a defaced serial number, a 37 mm Cobray grenade launcher, a second bulletproof vest, a Russian-made night vision scope, a police scanner, a map of a U.S. military installation and a map of an out-of-state civilian community, a Middle Eastern red and white colored traditional headdress and hundreds of rounds of .50-caliber and .308-caliber ammunition.

Woodson is being held at the Somerset County Jail on numerous charges, including unlawful possession of weapons, possession of prohibited weapons, obstruction of justice and resisting arrest.

Woodson was also convicted of a weapons offense in 1997 in New York.

Forrest said investigators from the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have joined the investigation.

The FBI issued a statement: "Presently, there does not appear to be a link to terrorism; Woodson does not appear to have a link to any known terrorist groups, nor a specific terrorist plot. However, the matter is still under investigation and these should only be considered preliminary findings. It is possible that Mr. Woodson could face federal gun charges, but that has yet to be determined. At this time, the matter is being worked as a state case out of the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office."

Police ask anyone with information to contact Somerset County Crime Stoppers’ Tip Line at 1-888-577-8477.

Chavez orders TV station critical of him off the air

2010-01-25T11:50:00.000-05:00

Chavez orders TV station critical of him off the air

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Anti-Chavez channel removed from cable

Jan 24, 7:07 AM (ET)

By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuelan cable television providers stopped transmitting a channel critical of President Hugo Chavez on Sunday, after the government cited noncompliance with new regulations requiring the socialist leader's speeches be televised on cable.

Radio Caracas Television, an anti-Chavez channel known as RCTV that switched to cable and satellite television in 2007 after the government refused to renew its over-the-air license, disappeared from TV sets shortly after midnight.

RCTV was yanked from cable and satellite programming just hours after Diosdado Cabello, director of Venezuela's state-run telecommunications agency, said several local channels carried by cable television have breached broadcasting laws and should be removed from the airwaves.

Cabello warned cable operations on Saturday evening that they could find themselves in jeopardy if they keep showing those channels.

"They must comply with the law, and they cannot have a single channel that violates Venezuelan laws as part of their programming," he said.

Several channels have not shown Chavez's televised speeches when he orders all media to air them - a requirement under new regulations approved last month by the telecommunications agency, Cabello said.

RCTV did not broadcast a speech by the president to his political supporters during a rally early on Saturday.

The station's removal from cable and satellite television prompted a cacophony of protests in Caracas neighborhoods as Chavez opponents leaned out apartment windows to bang on pots and pans. Others shouted epithets and drivers joined in, honking car horns.

"They want to silence RCTV's voice," said Miguel Angel Rodriguez, the channel's most popular talk show host. "But they won't be able to because RCTV is embedded in the hearts of all Venezuelans."

The U.S. Embassy in Caracas expressed concern about the decision.

"Access to information is a cornerstone of democracy and provides a foundation for global progress. By restricting yet again the Venezuelan people's access to RCTV broadcasts, the Venezuelan government continues to erode this cornerstone," Embassy spokeswoman Robin Holzhauer said.

Venezuela's telecommunications agency has said in the past week that under new rules, two dozen local cable channels including RCTV must carry government programming when officials deem the measure necessary, just like channels on the open airwaves already do. Chavez often uses the measure to force all the country's TV channels and radio stations to broadcast his speeches.

Cabello said Saturday that other violations committed by cable channels include failing to warn viewers of sexual and violent content as well as broadcasting more than two hours of soap operas during the afternoon, which should be mostly dedicated to children programming.

He did not specify which TV channels have purportedly violated the law, but RCTV said it was the target. It accused the agency of pressuring cable providers to drop channels that are critical of the government.

The agency "doesn't have any authority to give the cable service providers this order," RCTV said in a statement. "The government is inappropriately pressuring them to make decisions beyond their responsibilities."

In denying RCTV a renewal of its over-the-air broadcast license, Chavez accused the station of plotting against his government and supporting a failed 2002 coup.

In August, Chavez's government forced 32 radio stations and two small TV stations off the air, saying some owners had failed to renew their broadcast licenses while other licenses were no longer valid because they had been granted long ago to owners who are now dead. Officials said they planned to take more stations off the air.

Government figures say that as of 2008 about 37 percent of Venezuelan homes received cable television.

Associated Press Writer Ian James contributed to this report

Pelosi, Reid plot new route to push Obamacare through

2010-01-25T11:43:00.000-05:00

Pelosi, Reid plot new route to push Obamacare through

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Updated January 23, 2010

Dems Reportedly Eyeing Companion Health Care Legislation to Win Approval

FOXNews.com

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reportedly are considering a new list of changes to the Senate health care reform bill that could be passed separately as a way to advance the suddenly stalled overhaul of the health care system.

If such changes are passed in a separate piece of legislation, it could make the current Senate health care bill acceptable to enough liberal House members to pass it, allowing Democrats to achieve their goal of sweeping health care reform, Politico reported.

But the move also could spark resentment toward the party for pushing through the same health plan that some have argued voters in Massachusetts rejected in the closely watched election of Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown, who had pledged to block the Senate bill.

The House and Senate already have passed separate versions of President Obama's reform package, but the differences would need to be reconciled and voted on again for joint legislation to become law. Brown's victory cost Senate Democrats the 60-vote majority needed to approve changes, and Pelosi said Thursday she did not have the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill as is.

Neither Reid nor Pelosi know if their members will support the separate legislation strategy, but Pelosi plans to present the list of changes to her caucus next week, sources told Politico.

Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who got health legislation through the Senate's health committee last year after the death of his friend, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, said Obama and lawmakers could "maybe take a breather for a month, six weeks."

Despite Dodd's comments, both Pelosi and Reid insist the health care legislation will go forward but haven't publicly said how.

House Republican leader John Boehner said Brown's victory has sent a loud warning to Democrats.

"For the better part of those nine months, Democrats in Washington have been focused on this government takeover of health care that working families just can't afford and want nothing to do with," Boehner said in his party's radio and Internet address Saturday.

Just a week ago the health legislation had appeared on the cusp of passage after Obama threw himself into marathon negotiations with congressional leaders to work out differences between the separate health care reform bills passed by the House and Senate.

"There are things that have to get done. This is our best chance to do it. We can't keep on putting this off," Obama said Friday at a town hall meeting in Elyria, Ohio. "I am not going to walk away just because it's hard."

Obama seemed to pull back from a suggestion he made Wednesday that lawmakers unite behind the elements of the legislation everyone can agree on. Obama said that approach presented problems because some of the popular ideas, such as new requirements on insurance companies, couldn't be done without getting many more people insured.

Obama put fixing a broken health care system at the top of his agenda in the 2008 campaign for the presidency, and once elected made it the top priority of his first term. He has faced solid opposition from the Republican minority, which has rolled over into his fellow Democrats in Congress and to growing numbers of voters.

Despite assurances from Obama and his administration, opposition to his plans have grown among people who bought into allegations of higher taxes, unbearable government deficits and serious government meddling in health care.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley told Politico that no decisions have been made but the office is "confident" they will pass health reform legislation this year.

"We are working with the White House and the House to identify our options for doing so. We anticipate further conversations with the administration, the House and our caucus," he said.

Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami had a similar response.

"Discussions are ongoing and options are being examined on the best way to move ahead on health insurance reform, but no final decisions have been made," Elshami told Politico. "It is premature to conclude anything except that staff is continuing to work on various options."

Click here to read more at Politico.com.

Bin Laden threatens more underwear bombers coming

2010-01-25T11:39:00.000-05:00

Bin Laden threatens more underwear bombers coming

michaelsavage.com

link to the story

Bin Laden claims Christmas bombing attempt

Jan 24, 7:06 AM (ET)

By SALAH NASRAWI

CAIRO (AP) - Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt in Detroit, in a audio message released Sunday, and vowed further attacks on the U.S.

The message suggests that bin Laden wants to show he remains in direct command of al-Qaida's many branches around the world.

In the short recording carried by the Al-Jazeera Arabic news channel, bin Laden addressed President Barack Obama saying the attack was a message similar to that of Sept. 11 and more attacks against the U.S. would be forthcoming.

"The message delivered to you through the plane of the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a confirmation of the previous messages sent by the heroes of the Sept. 11," he said.

"America will never dream of security unless we will have it in reality in Palestine," he added. "God willing, our raids on you will continue as long as your support for the Israelis continues."

On Christmas Day, Nigerian national Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up the Northwest Airlines flight he was sitting on as it approached Detroit Metro Airport. But the bomb he was hiding in his underwear failed to explode.

He told federal agents shortly afterward that he had been trained and instructed in the plot by al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula originally took credit for the attack, but by issuing this message, bin Laden seems to be indicating that he himself is ordering attacks, rather than just putting his seal of approval on events afterward.

Analysts had previously suggested that al-Qaida's offshoots in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and elsewhere were operated independently from bin Laden, who is believed to be somewhere in Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

There was no way to confirm the voice was actually that of Bin Laden, but it resembled previous recordings attributed to him.

In the past year, bin Laden's messages have concentrated heavily on the plight of the Palestinians in attempt to rally support across the region.

Many analysts believe that bin Laden is worried about Obama's popularity across the Middle East with his promises to withdraw from Iraq and personal background, so the al-Qaida leader is focusing on the close U.S.-Israeli relationship.

The suffering of the Palestinians, especially in the blockaded Gaza Strip where 1,400 died during an Israeli offensive there last year, angered many in the Arab world.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Andy David, dismissed the latest al-Qaida message and its attempt to link Israel with attacks on the U.S.

"This is nothing new, he has said this before. Terrorists always look for absurd excuses for their despicable deeds," he said.

The last public message from bin Laden appears to have been on Sept. 26, when he demanded that European countries pull their troops out of Afghanistan. The order came in an audiotape that also warned of "retaliation" against nations that are allied with the United States in fighting the war.

---__

Associated Press Writers Paul Schemm in Cairo and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Obama Seen as Anti-Business by 77% of U.S. Investors

2010-01-22T08:57:00.000-05:00

Link to the story

Obama Seen as Anti-Business by 77% of U.S. Investors

Heidi Przybyla Heidi Przybyla – Thu Jan 21, 6:25 pm ET

Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. investors overwhelmingly see President Barack Obama as anti-business and question his ability to manage a financial crisis, according to a Bloomberg survey.

The global quarterly poll of investors and analysts who are Bloomberg subscribers finds that 77 percent of U.S. respondents believe Obama is too anti-business and four-out-of-five are only somewhat confident or not confident of his ability to handle a financial emergency.

The poll also finds a decline in Obama’s overall favorability rating one year after taking office. He is viewed favorably by 27 percent of U.S. investors. In an October poll, 32 percent in the U.S. held a positive impression.

“Investors no longer feel they can trust their instincts to take risks,” said poll respondent David Young, a managing director for a broker dealer in New York. Young cited Obama’s efforts to trim bonuses and earnings, make health care his top priority over jobs and plans to tax “the rich or advantaged.”

Carlos Vadillo, a fixed-income analyst at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in San Francisco, said Obama has been in a “constant war” with the banking system, using “fat-cat bankers and other misnomers to describe a business model which supports a large portion of America.”

Europe, Asia

Outside the U.S., Obama continues to get high marks with three-quarters or more of investors in Europe and Asia viewing him favorably. These rankings bring his global favorability rating to 60 percent among all poll respondents.

When it comes to his ability to manage a financial crisis, 55 percent of Europeans say they are either mostly or very confident; Among Asian respondents, 59 percent say they are somewhat confident or not confident; 38 percent expressed confidence.

Unlike other recent presidents, Obama hasn’t selected a leading business executive for his cabinet or a top advisory role. One year after taking office, he is coping with a jobless rate hovering around 10 percent and a federal deficit that rose to $1.4 trillion last year. In response, he has proposed a fee on as many as 50 large financial firms and yesterday called for limiting the size and trading activities of financial institutions as a way to reduce risk-taking.

‘Near Collapse’

“While the financial system is far stronger today than it was one year ago, it’s still operating under the same rules that led to its near collapse,” Obama said yesterday at the White House after meeting with former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who has been an advocate of taking such steps.

The poll was conducted Jan. 19, before Obama unveiled the plan. Yesterday, after the announcement, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 1.9 percent, its biggest loss since Oct. 30. The S&P 500 has risen 39 percent since Obama’s Jan. 20, 2009, inauguration.

The U.S. investors’ perceptions of Obama stand in contrast to those of their European counterparts, most of whom say the president strikes the right balance when it comes to managing business interests. Europeans, however, are more confident in Obama’s leadership on financial matters than Asians.

The quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll of investors, traders and analysts in six continents was conducted by Selzer & Co., a Des Moines, Iowa-based firm. It is based on interviews with a random sample of 873 Bloomberg subscribers, representing decision makers in markets, finance and economics. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Geithner, Summers

Obama’s 71 percent unfavorable rating among U.S. investors is almost matched by two members of his economic team. Both Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Lawrence Summers, president of the National Economic Council. U.S. respondents give Geithner a 63 percent unfavorable rating and Summers 67 percent. In October, 57 percent held a negative view of Geithner and 66 percent said the same of Summers.

Like Obama, both men do better with Asian and European investors.

One financial figure to find favor among U.S. respondents is Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who garners a 68 percent approval rating, which is in line with his marks from non-U.S. investors and the rating U.S. investors gave him in the October poll.

There is one other figure U.S. and international investors agree on: former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, a potential candidate for her party’s nomination in 2012.

Palin Rating

With a net favorability rating of 15 percent among all investors, Palin does best in the U.S., where she has the support of 27 percent of respondents. In Asia, it’s 14 percent, and in Europe just 5 percent of investors view her favorably.

“She revealed a complete lack of any global awareness,” said Anthony Gibbs, an agency broker at Vantage Capital Markets in London.

Investors outside the U.S. are more unified about Obama’s approach to business, with 67 percent of Europeans saying he strikes the right balance and 56 percent of Asians who agree.

“He is managing well a position he took over under great uncertainty,” said Sivanesan Muthusamy, senior vice president of funding and investments at Alliance Bank in Kuala Lumpur. “American leadership is again guiding the global financial markets into stability.”

The U.S. investors’ overwhelming characterization of Obama as anti-business stands in sharp contrast to the results of a Bloomberg National Poll in December, when 52 percent of U.S. adults said the president had the right balance in his approach.

Geographic Divide

The January poll shows an especially dramatic divide between U.S. and global investors when it comes to Obama’s overall favorability rating.

In Europe, 81 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion of Obama. In Asia, that number is 73 percent. The polarization is far greater by geography than by occupation, the survey found. Sales executives gave Obama his highest unfavorable rating, at 53 percent, compared with 28 percent of researchers and analysts and 35 percent of traders.

Globally, other central bankers are slightly less popular than Bernanke. Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, has a 60 percent favorable rating globally, with 45 percent in the U.S. and 78 percent in Europe.

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, who gets a 42 percent favorable rating overall, gets 39 percent in the U.S. and Europe and 51 percent in Asia.

To see methodology and exact question wording, click on the attachment tab at the top of the story.

To contact the reporter on this story: Heidi Przybyla at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net

German mag: The world bids farewell to Obama

2010-01-22T08:53:00.000-05:00

German mag: The world bids farewell to Obama

michaelsavage.com

Link to the story

01/21/2010

The World from Berlin

The World Bids Farewell to Obama

US President Barack Obama suffered a painful defeat in Massachusetts on Tuesday. With mid-term elections looming, it means that Obama will have to fundamentally re-think his political course. German commentators say it is the end of hope.

US President Barack Obama has had a number of difficult weeks during his first year in the White House. Right after he took office, he had to wade through a week full of partisan bickering over his economic stimulus package combined with a tax scandal surrounding Tom Daschle, the man Obama had hoped would lead his health care reform team.

Then there was the last week of 2009, when a failed terror attack on a flight inbound for Detroit exposed major flaws in US efforts to identify and stop potential terrorists.

This week, though -- a week when Obama should have been celebrating the first anniversary of his inauguration -- may have been the president's worst yet. Scott Brown, an almost unknown Republican member of the Massachusetts Senate, defeated the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley for the US Senate seat vacated by the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. The defeat in a heavily Democratic state not only highlights Obama's massive loss of popular support during his first year in office, but it also could spell doom for his signature effort to reform the US health care system.

There were immediate calls for a suspension of health care votes in the Senate until Brown is sworn in. The loss of the Massachusetts seat means that the Democrats no longer control the 60 Senate seats necessary to avoid a filibuster. Obama's reform package, which aims to provide health insurance to most of the over 40 million Americans currently lacking coverage, may ultimately fail as a result.

More than that, though, the vote shows just how quickly the political pendulum has swung back to the right following Obama's election. The seat Brown won had been in Democratic hands for all but six years since 1926. Now, its new occupant is a man who not only opposes the health care bill, but also favors waterboarding as a method of interrogation for terrorism suspects and rejects carbon cap-and-trade as a means of limiting carbon emissions.

The omen could be a dark one for the Obama administration heading into a mid-term election year. German commentators take a closer look.

Center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung writes on Thursday:

"Obama made a serious misjudgement. Right at the beginning of his first year in office, he saved the banks, rescued the automobile industry from collapse and passed a huge economic stimulus package. He had hoped that these enormous deeds would give him the space to address those issues which are dearest to him: health care reform, climate change and investment in education."

"Those issues, however, are clearly not priorities for people in the US at the moment. Scott Brown campaigned on two promises, both of which apparently struck a nerve with the electorate. He wants to block health care reform and he wants to find ways to reduce the enormous budget deficit. It is here where the roots of dissatisfaction with Obama are to be found. His reform agenda, in its current form, is highly suspect to Americans. And they have the impression that, if he continues piling up debt, he will be gambling away the country's future."

The Financial Times Deutschland writes:

"For Obama, the election in Massachusetts means that he will have to re-evaluate his political style. He could now focus his concentration on his political base and push through his policy agenda. After all, he still has a majority in Congress -- he could back away from his strategy of bipartisanship ... which would mean giving up much of what he spent his first year in office creating."

"More likely, however, is that Obama will interpret the Massachusetts loss as a signal that he should move further toward the middle and make more concessions to the conservatives -- even if this alienates his base even further, a base which had high expectations from the 'yes we can' candidate."

"For everyone else in the world, this means that they will have to bid farewell to a candidate for whom the hopes were so high. They will have to say goodbye to the charisma they fell in love with. Obama will be staying home after all."

The left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung writes:

"In addition to health care reform, Obama's reputation has primarily been harmed by the high unemployment rate and the increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan. It will become even more difficult in the future for the president to push projects through successfully. Not just because Republicans now have a means of preventing it, but also because the Democratic camp is deeply divided. Some would like to see the party shift toward the center -- wherever that may be -- whereas others want the party to position itself to the left. Such a battle is hardly a good sign for the mid-term elections in November. Massachusetts could prove to be an omen."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Of course the president rejects the interpretation that the Massachusetts election was a referendum on his first year in the White House. But he cannot ignore the fact that his health care reform package is not popular, the situation of the country's finances is seen as threatening and many voters blame the high unemployment rate on the party in power -- on the Democrats, led by Obama. The result is a second year in office full of very different challenges than the first. To save what there is to be saved, Obama will have to be prepared to fashion a bipartisan compromise on health care -- a compromise with a Republican Party which has tasted blood and can now dream once again about a return to power."

-- Charles Hawley

another one bites the dust...Liberal talk-radio network Air America to shut down

2010-01-22T08:50:00.000-05:00

Liberal talk-radio network Air America to shut down

michaelsavage.com

Link to the story

Liberal talk-radio station Air America files for bankruptcy, will go off the air

By Paul Farhi

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, January 22, 2010

Air America, the liberal talk-radio network that helped boost the careers of Al Franken and Rachel Maddow, said Thursday that it was declaring bankruptcy and going off the air.

The company, founded in 2004 and based in New York, strove to provide left-leaning commentary and call-in programs as an alternative to such popular conservative radio talkers as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage.

It was troubled almost from the start. The company had difficulty lining up affiliates and attracting a sizable audience. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection just 30 months after its inception and was resold to an investor group in early 2007 for $4.25 million.

Charlie Kireker, one of Air America's principal owners and its chairman, said in a memo to employees Thursday that the company was done in by "a perfect storm" of plunging ad revenues, intense competition, high debt and poor prospects for new financing. A search for new investors, he said, has been fruitless. The company declined further comment.

Air America's chief executive is Bennett Zier, who previously founded and headed Redskins owner Daniel Snyder's broadcasting company, Red Zebra, and was the top executive of Clear Channel Broadcasting's cluster of eight major stations in the Washington area. The company's programming director, Bill Hess, is also a longtime Washington radio executive.

Since last summer, Air America has been heard in the Washington area on WZAA (1050 AM). Its audience has been so small that Arbitron, which compiles radio ratings, was unable to detect any listeners for WZAA during several weeks in December.

Franken was one of Air America's earliest program hosts; he left the network in 2007 to launch his successful bid for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota. Maddow, another host, made the transition to television and hosts a nightly show on MSNBC. Ron Reagan Jr., Arianna Huffington and Montel Williams have also had Air America programs.

Ana Marie Cox, who has hosted a one-hour program on Air America on Saturday and Sundays for the past year, said on Thursday that news of the network's demise took her by surprise. She said that the programming, as well as Air America's Web site, had begun to improve of late but that people hadn't caught up to it.

"I'd gotten used to people saying: 'Oh, Air America. Is that still around?'" Cox said. "One of my standard jokey responses was, 'Well, my paycheck still clears.' I guess that will stop."

The network, she said, had tried to incorporate more humor and move away from being an "angry" liberal version of conservative talk radio, which can be argumentative and aggressive. "I think the progressive or liberal audience likes a different type of discussion," she said.

Kireker said in his memo that Air America will carry reruns of earlier programs until it goes off the air at 9 p.m. Monday.