Monthly Archives: October 2009
Obama’s war on Fox escalates
Pundit & Pundette have the story. Obama is desperate here. And, in my view making a huge mistake in the long run. Of course, he might be and likely is, trying to distract from other issues, like health care…
Unbelievable and chilling. Any guesses on what they might do next?
Unprecedented: White House tries to ban FOX from press pool
Today the White House stepped up its attack on Fox News, announcing that the network would no longer be able to conduct interviews with officials as a member of the Press Pool. The Pool is a five-member group consisting of ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC organized by the White House Correspondents Association. Its membership is not subject to oversight by the government.
Before an interview with “Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg, the administration announced that Fox News would be banned from the press pool. This marks the first time in history that an administration had attempted to ban an entire network from the press pool.
It is of note that the other networks protested this. Credit them for that! I wonder if Obama pushes TOO hard on this, if the other networks might, turn on him, make him pay? HMMMM
Leftist Lookalike Book Designed To Dupe Conservatives And Hurt Sarah Palin’s Memoir Sales
Attention, Sarah Palin bashers: Lookalike book ‘Going Rouge’ is coming! – EW’s Shelf Life
We know that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin can hunt, and even field-dress a moose, but how will she take to poachers on her book sales?
Start-up publisher OR Books has announced plans to publish Going Rouge: Sarah Palin An American Nightmare, a collection of essays about the maverick Republican with a title — and cover design — remarkably similar to Palin’s upcoming memoir. What’s more, OR’s paperback tome will be released on Nov. 17, the same day that Palin’s own Going Rogue: An American Life hits shelves — and one day after Palin’s just-announced, first-ever appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s show.
Ohio Teens Forced To Sleep In Cages Sue Adoptive Parents – Fox News
Two Ohio teenagers forced to sleep in cages have sued their adoptive parents and caseworkers who arranged the adoptions.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in Cleveland on behalf of 18-year-old Sharen Gravelle and 17-year-old Michael Gravelle.
Their adoptive parents, also named Michael and Sharen, are now serving two-year prison terms for abusing some of their 11 adopted special-needs children.
The suit also targets caseworkers and the Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services in Cincinnati. The suit says the Gravelles were unfit to be parents and should never have gotten custody of the children.
The prosecutor’s office, which handles legal matters for the county agency, had no immediate comment Thursday.
Sue Big Oil Over Global Warming? Court Tells Katrina Victims, Yes You Can! – BNET
Landowners along the Mississippi Gulf Coast are blaming a mishmosh of oil, coal and chemical companies for property damage caused by Hurricane Katrina as a result of global warming. Yes, that’s right, the specter of global warming lawsuits has come to call and thanks to a recent federal appeals ruling, the plaintiffs have earned their day in court.
The plaintiffs argument in Comer v. Murphy Oil USA goes like this. Fossil fuel and chemical companies emitted greenhouse gases that contributed to an increase in air and water temperatures, which caused sea levels to rise and as a result created a more powerful and damaging Hurricane Katrina. We know what happened next: property damage caused by hurricane-force winds and water.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans issued a favorable ruling and reversed an earlier decision to dismiss the case. The three-judge panel said the plaintiffs have standing to bring forward a number of claims including public and private nuisance, trespass and negligence.
Obama’s Safe-Schools Boss Sponsors Radical Porn – WorldNetDaily
The chief of President Obama’s Education Department Office of Safe Schools, homosexual activist Kevin Jennings, is being credited for helping sponsor a Harvard University display honoring the work of the radical homosexual organization Act Up.
WND reported just days ago when Mass Resistance, a pro-family organization in Massachusetts that has battled over homosexual agenda points there, reported that Jennings was a part of that organization, known for its aggressive badgering of those who don’t support the homosexual lifestyle.
A YouTube video revealed Jeff Davis, Jennings’ “partner,” addressing a banquet and saying of Jennings, “He was a member of Act Up. Act Up! So it’s like – you know – here’s a big gay activist. BIG gay activist!.”
The video was pulled down shortly after the WND report appeared.
Now the advertising for the Harvard exhibition: “Act Up New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987-1993,” credits Kevin Jennings with others including Fred P. Hockberg and Tom Healy, Open Gate and the Barbara Lee Family Foundation for “gifts and grants” used for the project.
The display included dozens of “politically-charged posters, stickers, and other visual media that emerged during a pivotal moment of AIDS activism in New York City,” according to a website promoting the effort.
Among those organizations displaying their work was “Fierce Pussy,” which featured a poster of a toddler labeled “Dyke.”
“Pairing text and image with penetrating anger and searing wit, ACT UP’s art collectives targeted specific individuals and institutions at the local and national level, advocated for safer sex and gay and lesbian rights, and galvanized broadband support for the AIDS activism movement,” the promotion states.
That group also was being featured as four “central members” will participate in a 3-day activism and print media workshop, the announcement said.
“The exhibit includes horrible anti-Catholic bigotry, child pornography, and various descriptions and depictions of sexual perversion. It also includes posters accusing various public officials of murder during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s and a call to terrorize offices of the National Institute of Health,” wrote Mass Resistance in its report on the event.
A Warning About “Progressivism” From A Former Soviet Citizen
Service.gov And Its Soviet Similarities – Svetlana Kunin
USSR, 1959: I am a “young pioneer” in school. History classes remind us that there is a higher authority than their parents and teachers: the leaders of the Communist Party.
The story of young pioneer Pavlik Morozov is required reading. Pavlik reported his father to the secret police for disobeying government regulations. His life exemplified the duty of all good Soviet citizens to serve their government.
From the first year in school, all of us are made aware of our ethnicity (ethnic Russian, Jewish, Asian, etc.) and class (proletariat, intelligentsia), around which society is structured. This inherent divisiveness makes it easy for the government to stir ethnic and class tension and in this way distract from economic failure.
Newspapers and TV transmit government-approved news. Any critical voice is immediately suppressed and publicly denounced.
My parents, as all citizens of the USSR, work for state-run companies. All workers are unionized — another way the state controls the citizens. There is no private enterprise in USSR.
Whatever small private farms or shops that existed before 1930 have been taken over by the state. All medical care and schools are state entities. The government regulates what kind of technology, service and compensation are allowed.
From school age through adulthood, citizens are called to public service four to five times a year. Activities such as farming, cleaning places of work, and paper/metal scrap collections are mandatory.
Religious symbols are forbidden in schools or on state property. Most old religious buildings are transformed for secular use.
The Soviet government imposes the Iron Curtain. The state has strict control over our ability to travel abroad. This prevents us from realizing the discrepancy between the media’s image of the great socialist country and the reality of our low standard of living.
USA, 2009: “Progressives” control the government. Children in some public schools sing songs about the president and study his directives.
Progressives view people not as unique individuals, but as groups. They play on class envy, or divide people by ethnicity (African-American, white, Hispanic, etc.). From early childhood they remind children of their ethnic identity. The idea of a color-blind society united under the American flag is not politically correct.
The mainstream media are aligned with the government. Those media outlets critical of government policy are publicly criticized by government officials and are in danger of suffering repercussions.
Government seizes a majority stake in two major auto companies and, through TARP money, has control over major banks. Congress discusses capping salaries in private businesses and is in the process of increasing its control over the health care industry.
Big labor union leadership is fully aligned with the progressives in government. There is strong pressure to eliminate the secret ballot in order to increase union membership.
Cap-and-trade, if passed, will drive a lot of small businesses into bankruptcy and create a fruitful soil for favoritism and government control over private entities.
Sept. 11 is declared a day of national service by the administration. It is no longer a day of remembrance for the horrific attack perpetrated by terrorists.
The American Constitution protects the separation between church and state. Atheist zealots pervert this ideal in order to force out religious symbols and traditions from public space. It is fashionable in progressive circles to ridicule religion and religious people. “Tolerance” is applied only to anti-religious values.
As a former citizen of the USSR, I heard and experienced all of this before. I listen to the speeches by the president asking people to sacrifice and serve. So what are we to sacrifice? For what? And to whom? I think I get it now.
Citizens of America, sacrifice your elders and forget your selfish aspirations of prosperity for yourself and your family! Sign onto Service.gov and serve your government!
• Kunin lived in the Soviet Union until 1980 and now lives in Connecticut. She wrote “The Perspective of a Russian Immigrant” that ran on the op-ed page Sept. 8-11.
Government Run Health Care? Sure! What Could Go Wrong?
Organized Crime’s New Target: Medicare And Medicaid – CNN
Organized crime gangs are exploiting a new target for illegal profit: Medicare and Medicaid.
Experienced in running drug, prostitution and gambling rings, crime groups of various ethnicities and nationalities are learning it’s safer and potentially more profitable to file fraudulent claims with the federal Medicare program and state-run Medicaid plans.
“They’re hitting us and hitting us hard,” said Timothy Menke, head of investigations for the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services. “Organized crime involvement in health care fraud is widespread.”
Los Angeles is among the hot spots for health care fraud, where Russian, Armenian and Nigerian gangs have been caught by federal agents.
Crime boss Konstantin Grigoryan, a former Soviet army colonel, pleaded guilty to taking $20-million from Medicare; Karapet “Doc” Khacheryan, boss of a Eurasian crime gang, was recently convicted with five lieutenants of stealing doctor identities in a $2-million scam, and last Thursday two Nigerian members of an organized crime ring, Christopher Iruke and his wife, Connie Ikpoh, were charged with bilking Medicare of $6-million dollars by fraudulently billing the government for electric wheelchairs and other expensive medical equipment.
Watch: Organized crime hits Medicare Video HERE
The two have entered pleas of not guilty and are being held in a federal detention center. “They deny any allegations of wrongdoing,” said their attorney James Kosnett.
Defrauding government-run health care programs involves stealing two types of identities: those of doctors, who bill for services, and patients, whose beneficiary numbers entitle them to medical care and necessary equipment. Criminals are expert at collecting both.
“That information is very, very valuable to these crooks. And the doctor may work at one clinic but he won’t know about the 2nd and 3rd clinic that they’ve already set up using his identification,” said Glenn Ferry, special agent in charge of the Los Angeles Region for the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. “They are definitely well-organized, well-schooled on how to commit Medicare fraud.”
Dr. Gianfranco Burdi had his identity stolen when he was recruited to join what appeared to be a new medical practice near Koreatown in Los Angeles. After the managers failed to show a business license and proof of malpractice insurance, Dr. Burdi pulled out. Two years later the FBI came calling. Agents questioned Dr. Burdi – a psychiatrist – whether he had prescribed electric wheelchairs for Medicare patients – $800-thousand dollars worth.
“I said no. I am a psychiatrist. Why would I prescribe an electric wheelchair?” said Dr. Burdi. “It was shocking.”
A jury found Leonard Uchenna Nwafor guilty of using Dr. Burdi’s identification to bill Medicare for medically unnecessary durable medical equipment.
“I was naive enough to provide them my medical license, my other data,” said Dr. Burdi.
Patient beneficiary numbers are easy to buy along L.A.’s “Skid Row.” Impoverished residents of shelters there tell CNN they’ve accepted cash from recruiters – known as “cappers” – to go to bogus medical clinics where they share what they call their “red, white and blue,” – their tri-colored Medicare card that has a beneficiary number for billing the government.
“People down here need to eat. Somebody who comes up on a quick hustle, quick money, they going to jump on. I’m one of them, I will,” said a man who identified himself as “Scott”. “They’re just defrauding the patients, defrauding the government.”
It’s About Freakin’ Time!
Officers Swarm South LA In Gang Crackdown – NBC
More than 45 people had been arrested by 7 a.m. Thursday in a major gang crackdown in South LA.
Hundreds of police officers and federal agents served warrants on the Rolling 40s. The gang has a “vice grip” on the neighborhood, according to police.
Authorities said the operation involves about 1,100 law enforcement agents. They plan to serve warrants for 75 individuals.
The operation is part of a 16-month investigation.
Neighborhoods in which the warrants were served included Crenshaw, Jefferson Park, West Adams, Baldwin Village, University Park, Athens Park, Gramercy Park and Hyde Park.
Obama Pay Czar Open To Regulating EVERYBODY’s Salary
Click on the image below for video of Elizabeth Warren on CBS’s ‘Early Show’ with Harry Smith.
Devastating Drop In Job Approval Numbers For Obama In New Gallup Survey – Washington Examiner
President Obama’s push for health care reform during the third quarter of 2009 has seriously damaged his public standing, according to new data from the Gallup Daily tracking poll. His job approval rating dropped nine points from the second to the third quarter, from 62 percent to 53 percent.
The nine-point second-to-third quarter drop is the highest Gallup has ever measured for an incumbent president during his first year in office, and among the highest quarter-to-quarter drops measured for any president at any point:
“Obama’s 9-point slide between quarters ranks as one of the steepest for a president at any point in his first year in office. The highest is Truman’s 19-point drop between his third and fourth quarters, followed by a 15-point drop for Gerald Ford between his first and second quarters.
This Is Who Newt Gingrich Is Supporting?
Labor, Abortion Rights Groups Give To Dede – Politico
Fundraising reports for all the candidates in the New York special election are due today, but the candidates have been required to report all donations above $1,000 in the final weeks of the race.
And, to get a sense why conservatives have been so cool to her campaign, Republican Dede Scozzafava’s recent financial support has come primarily from abortion rights groups, labor unions and the National Education Association.
This week, Scozzafava received $1,000 from the Planned Parenthood PAC and $2,500 from the New York Choice PAC. The International Longshoreman’s Association and the United Transportation Union PAC each chipped in $2,500, while the local International Brotherhood of Electric Workers gave her $1,000. The National Education Association’s political action committee spent $5,000 for her campaign, while a renewable energy association donated $2,000.
Your Marxist Moron of the Day
No, not all the winners of this award are Democrats? Take today’s winner Can you say RINO ALERT!
It’s bad enough that the Left wants to regulate the Internet through “net neutrality” interventions. Now we have Republicans talking about regulating the Internet in order to protect “women and children.” Carly Fiorina told an audience in San Francisco that the “duality” would have to end:
She mentioned that politicians should be held accountable just the way that business managers and board members are, and that the U.S. government cannot continue to spend money without dealing with entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Fiorina criticized Boxer for successfully sponsoring only three relatively insignificant bills in her 18 years in the Senate.
“I don’t think that’s good enough,” she said.
Asked what she thought about regulation of the web, she said it was inevitable that there would be more regulation of it. Why, for instance, is there no protection of women and children on the Internet, when there is plenty in real life. She said this duality — where anything goes on the wild wild west of the Internet — would have to end.
Yep! Nanny Statists come in both parties!
Nanny Statism on steroids!
Villainous Comapny lays this outrage on us
Eric Williamson faces an indecent exposure charge after a passerby saw him in the buff in his own home making coffee. It happened at 5:30 a.m. Monday.
Channel 5 reports the woman and 7-year-old boy who saw him naked apparently had cut through Williamson’s front yard from a nearby path.
Williamson, 29, says he didn’t know anyone could see him.
By golly, if I want to make coffee naked, in my own home, then that is my right! Of course, I would never actually do that in the nude. No way I am risking burns there! But, seriously, I would bet most of us have walked around in our home naked. If someone is tresspassing on our property and see somethings they did not bargain for, then TOUGH! Try NOT GOING WHERE YOU DO NOT BELONG!
No one should have to bend over backwards to stop YOU from being offended when YOU are in the wrong! GROW THE HELL UP!
Obamacare Doctor Bribe Fails In Senate, Reid Whines – Michelle Malkin
It looked like the fix was in. The “Doc Fix,” that is. As the Heritage Foundation has been reporting, the White House and Dem leaders scurried today to try and pass a $247 billion payoff to doctors groups as an enticement to support Obamacare.
Surprise: The fix failed. The cloture voted on S. 1776 failed by 47-53. Here’s the roll call vote:
And now look who’s whining. Harry Reid blames the AMA:
Reid brought the $247 billion bill to the Senate floor this week as part of a deal to secure the support of doctors groups such as the AMA for passage of a separate, broader healthcare reform bill later this year. But the strategy has backfired.
Reid knew that he needed Republican votes because several centrist Democrats made it clear to him before this week that they would not vote for the measure if its cost was not offset. Reid though he could count on a few Republican crossover votes…
…Reid told reporters on Wednesday that he was led to believe that more than two dozen Republicans would vote for the bill, though he did not mention the AMA by name.
“I was told by various people that we would have 27 Republican votes, which was pretty reasonable to assume since one of the co-sponsors of this legislation was [Sen.] Jon Kyl [Ariz.], the assistant Republican leader.
“I was stunned when I was told by his cosponsor Sen. Stabenow after we introduced this legislation that [Kyl] couldn’t support it. Even though he is a cosponsor he couldn’t support the legislation,” Reid said, making reference to Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the lead sponsor of the 10-year doctor payment fix.
Kyl did not cosponsor the 10-year fix. Last year and in 2005 he cosponsored a measure that would have implemented a two-year freeze on the cuts to Medicare payments to doctors.
An aide to Kyl said that those measures would have indexed future payments to inflation and rising healthcare costs. The aide said that Stabenow’s bill would freeze payment levels and make no provision for rising costs.
Another factor is that the nation’s fiscal picture is much different than it was last year. The Obama administration recently estimated the federal deficit at $1.4 trillion.
The AMA pushes back against Reid here.
RedState congratulates grass-roots activists.
Gatordoug
darcprynce
Dave C
