Monthly Archives: October 2010
Camp of the Saints your Blog of the Month
Bob Belvedere does a heck of a job at his blog. Here is a look at some of his work and shows one reason he is featured this month
Daily Benefactor News – Democrats Unleash IRS, Justice On Donors To Their Political Opponents – More Articles
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Democrats Unleash IRS, Justice On Donors To Their Political Opponents – Wall Street Journal
If at first you don’t succeed, get some friends in high places to shut your opponents up. That’s the latest Washington power play, as Democrats and liberals attack the Chamber of Commerce and independent spending groups in an attempt to stop businesses from participating in politics.
Since the Supreme Court’s January decision in Citizens United v. FEC, Democrats in Congress have been trying to pass legislation to repeal the First Amendment for business, though not for unions. Having failed on that score, they’re now turning to legal and political threats. Funny how all of this outrage never surfaced when the likes of Peter Lewis of Progressive insurance and George Soros helped to make Democrats financially dominant in 2006 and 2008.
Chairman Max Baucus of the powerful Senate Finance Committee got the threats going last month when he asked Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman to investigate if certain tax exempt 501(c) groups had violated the law by engaging in too much political campaign activity. Lest there be any confusion about his targets, the Montana Democrat flagged articles focused on GOP-leaning groups, including Americans for Job Security and American Crossroads.
Mr. Baucus was seconded last week by the ostensibly nonpartisan campaign reform groups Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, which asked the IRS to investigate whether Crossroads is spending too much money on campaigns. Those two outfits swallowed their referee whistle in the last two campaign cycles, but they’re all worked up now that Republicans might win more seats. Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)(4) affiliate of American Crossroads supported by Karl Rove, is a target because it has spent millions already in this election cycle.
Last Tuesday, the liberal blog ThinkProgress, run by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had collected some $300,000 in annual dues from foreign companies. Since the money went into the Chamber’s general fund, the allegation is that it could have been used to pay for political ads, which would violate a ban on foreign companies participating in American elections. The Chamber says it uses no foreign money for its political activities and goes to great lengths to raise separate funds for political purposes.
That didn’t stop President Obama from raising the issue in a Maryland speech last week, saying that “groups that receive foreign money are spending huge sums to influence American elections.” Within hours of the ThinkProgress report, the bully boys at MoveOn.org asked the Department of Justice to launch a criminal investigation of the Chamber. In a letter to the Federal Election Commission, Minnesota Senator Al Franken expressed his profound concern that “foreign corporations are indirectly spending significant sums to influence American elections through third-party groups.” From the man who stole his Senate election in a dubious recount, this is rich.
Even Mr. Franken admits in his letter that the Chamber’s commingling of funds in its general accounts is not “per se illegal,” but apparently he thinks it’s fine to unleash federal investigators because the Chamber cash might contribute to the defeat of fellow Democrats.
The outrage over the Chamber is especially amusing considering the role of foreigners in U.S. labor unions. According to the Center for Competitive Politics, close to half of the unions that are members of the AFL-CIO are international. One man’s corporate commingling is another’s union dues.
Unions and liberal groups are hardly cash poor this year in any case. The Campaign Media Analysis Group looked at the combined spending of candidates, their parties and outside groups and found that Democrats outspent Republicans $47.3 million to $40.8 million in a recent 60-day period.
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Private Spaceship Makes First Solo Glide Flight – Star Tribune
Virgin Galactic’s space tourism rocket SpaceShipTwo achieved its first solo glide flight Sunday, marking another step in the company’s eventual plans to fly paying passengers.
SpaceShipTwo was carried aloft by its mothership to an altitude of 45,000 feet and released over the Mojave Desert. After the separation, it flew freely for 11 minutes before landing at an airport runway.
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Up To 40 States To Launch Probes Into Foreclosure Mess – CNBC
The attorneys general of up to 40 states will announce soon a joint investigation into banks’ use of flawed foreclosure paperwork.
A person briefed on the investigation said Saturday night that an announcement could come as early as Tuesday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was not yet public. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller will lead the investigation.
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Baby Born From Embryo Frozen For 20 Years – WNYW
A healthy baby boy was born from an embryo frozen for almost 20 years in what was hailed Sunday as scientific breakthrough that could allow women to start families much later in life.
The infant’s mother underwent infertility treatment for 10 years before she was given the embryo last year. She gave birth to a baby boy in May. The news of was reported in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility.
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Obama Has Book Thrown At His Head At Rally In Philadelphia – Daily Mail
A book was apparently hurled at the head of President Barack Obama during a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Sunday.
It is not clear what the book was, where it came from in the crowd, or why it was thrown at Mr Obama – who did not appear to notice it. But it is expected that there will be fallout from the security breach as the Secret Service investigates how close the President came to danger.
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Democrat Congresswoman Favors Terror Blindfold – American Thinker
At a forum sponsored by the American Muslim Task Force, Rep. Jan Schakowsky told the audience that she opposes FBI monitoring of mosques and “peace activists” for links to terror organizations:
“The good news is that I’m actually in a really good position to work on these issues, because I am on the Intelligence Committee,” she said, “and I am the chair of the Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee.”
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India Boat Capsizes, Killing 37 – CNN
An overcrowded boat overturned in a river stream in eastern India, killing 37 passengers, police said Monday.
The accident occurred Sunday evening in Bihar state’s Buxar district, police superintendent Upendra Kumar Sinha told CNN. Among the dead were 26 women, he said. The boat, he explained, was ferrying farm laborers and their children when it sank midstream.
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‘Robocall’ Seeks To Split Vote In Appeal To GOP Tea Partiers – My Desert
Democratic congressional candidate Steve Pougnet unleashed an automated phone call to voters Friday that attempts to split the conservative vote by touting a third-party candidate.
The call hit the same day as voters received a Pougnet mailer that says American Independent candidate Bill Lussenheide makes Republican U.S. Representative Mary Bono Mack “look like a raging liberal.”
And you thought you knew what crazy is?
Whatever you thought crazy is, you were wrong. Prince Charles is the New Green crazy!
The man whose polo ponies’ farts are responsible for more carbon emissions in a week than your car gives off in an entire year is lecturing everybody about global warming again — and his descent into eco-madness is accelerating.
Prince Charles is proof-positive that, if you’re not careful, having it so good for so long can apply a healthy amount of grease to your grip on reality:
BRITAIN’S Prince Charles has cited the Mumbai shantytown setting for the film “Slumdog Millionaire” as a role model for sustainable living in Western cities, a report said Saturday.
The 61-year-old heir to the British throne writes in a new book being published next week that the Dharavi slum is better and more instinctively organised than many Western towns, London’s Daily Telegraph said.
In the book, called Harmony, Prince Charles contrasts the “fragmented, deconstructed” housing estates of Western nations with the “order and harmony” of the dusty potters’ colony featured in the Oscar-winning movie.
“We have a great deal to learn about how complex systems can self-organise to create a harmonious whole,” he said.
Good Freaking Grief! Is he really this nutty? Could he really think that all of us should live in such depravity? Well, not ALL of us of course. Like a true Marxist, Chuckles thinks the standards he sets should only apply to some. But not to the elites like him. The elites should reside in slightly better homes.
Prince Charles has known Clarence House since he was in diapers, sleeping under quilt covers decorated with drawings of nursery rhymes in a room with chintz curtains. Now 58, he is once again calling the four-story, 40,000-square-foot town house, a five-minute walk from Buckingham Palace, his London home.
Can you say Ecopocrisy?
Before you click the link………….
Remember that you cannot unsee certain things. But, despite the questionable use of “eye candy” Robert of American and Proud makes a great point! Actually, he makes several excellent points, so go check it out.
Oh, and, American and Proud earns our Blog of the Day Award!
Global Climate Scam? YEP, that sounds right to me
And to this scientist, via Adrienne’s Corner
The following is a letter to the American Physical Society released to the public by Professor Emiritus of physics Hal Lewis of the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis
From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara
To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society
6 October 2010
Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).
Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists.
As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time.
We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?
How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.
Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it…
Follow the money, as they say, follow the money.
Looking At The NFL’s Top Teams: Installment 2 – The Packers
The Green Bay Packers played their first game of the 2010 season against the Philadelphia Eagles, a team they were expected to beat, and did by 7 points. However, the offensive squad the Pack faced in the first half of that match was not the one they were confronted with in the second, thanks to a game-ending concussion suffered by the Eagles’ starting quarterback Kevin Kolb at half-time.
Enter Michael Vick, the disgraced convicted felon and former Atlanta Falcons 3-time Pro-Bowler. The Packers’ defense – which was ranked number 1 against the run and 2nd overall in 2009 – failed to contain Vick, either on the ground or in the air, as he scrambled for over 100 yards and completed 16 of 24 passes, nearly matching Aaron Rodgers total passing yardage for the day. Still, The Packers walked away victorious, which leads us to game two.
Let’s face it, to refer to the Buffalo Bills as a sub-par team would be and insult to the consistently mediocre. The Bills are a terrible team, and so it was no surprise when the Packers treated them like $20 hookers during their second game of the season. Beating the Bills by a 34-7 margin was no big shock to me, but doing so did help to dispel the rumors that the Green Machine was losing its defensive prowess.
A hard-fought, low-scoring loss to the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field in game 3 didn’t cause me to question whether or not Green Bay still had one of the league’s most effective defenses, even though Jay Culter managed to scramble for 37 yards against it. Nobody on either side was able to run during that game (besides Culter) and nobody really even tried. Like many Bears/Packers matches before it, the difference in this one came down to penalties, special teams play, turnovers and heart, and the Pack lost the battle on all of those fronts, even though Rogers outgunned Culter by nearly 100 yards.
The Detroit Lions roared into Green Bay… *cough* Okay, so they didn’t so much “roar” as show up, but show up they did, and they gave the packers a headache they didn’t expect during this remarkably challenging bout. The Lions’ quarterback, Shaun Hill, ended up throwing for well over 300 yards against a Green Bay defense that should have held him to 200 yards or less. Hill also ran for over 50 yards, something that white, relatively slow quarterbacks just shouldn’t do… unless they’re possessed by the spirit of Fran Tarkenton. The Pack’s Aaron Rodgers threw for only 181 yards and ran for diddly, but he did complete three touchdown passes, and that was enough to hand them their 3rd win of the season.
Bottom line – The Packers’ defense is less consistent than it was last year, no doubt, but it’s still damned good, and don’ let the statistics trick you into thinking otherwise. The Green Machine may only be rated 10th overall right now, but I’d be shocked stupid if that didn’t change in their favor soon. Beyond that, Aaron Rogers is perhaps the most underrated quarterback in the NFL by most sports pundits who, let’s be honest, tend to know less about football than they do about drinking heavily.
Look for the Packers to go 9 and 7 this (regular) season, and with a little luck, 11 and 5.
By Edward L. Daley (aka DarcPrynce)
Click HERE To Read Installment 1.
Donald Douglas is a rum swilling perv!
But, I must admit, he is a damned fine blogger. I mean honoring the hotness of Marisa Miller? Nice! Kudos to Douglas for standing up for hot women in bikinis!
National Organization of Women: Meg Whitman is a Whore
NOW is supposed to be all about defending women right? Unless of course a woman dares to be Conservative. Then she is a whore!
The National Organization for Women had a choice between a strong female candidate, who is pro-choice, and a male candidate who approved calling that woman a “whore.” You already know who the hypocrites at NOW chose to endorse in the California Governor’s race. NOW has been officially outed as an organ of the Democratic Party.
The LA Times reported:Jerry Brown announced he has received the endorsement of the National Organization for Women, less than 24 hours after the emergence of a recorded message in which Brown can be heard in a conversation with advisors in which someone calls Whitman a “whore.” Coincidence? You be the judge
See how this works? Meg Whitman dared to think for herself, she forgot her place, and so, under the bus of Feminism she goes!
Ya know, I can not say that I blame her
Did she succumb to her sinful nature or did she act most righteously?
FoxNews reports, you decide:
A Montana woman has been charged with criminal mischief after allegedly taking a crowbar to a controversial art museum display in Colorado that critics say portrays Jesus Christ receiving oral sex from another man.
Why does anyone need waivers from the greatest pieceof legislation ever?
Obamacare is so awesome, at least that is what we were told, that it just HAD to be passed, no matter what we wanted. It was a miracle, it was a blessing, it was for our own greater good! So why, should anyone be granted waivers to protect them from this wonderful bill?
Obamacare for me, but not for thee?
The New York Times reports that the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been busy granting selective waivers to Obamacare’s mandates, restrictions, and requirements. The Times reports that, “To date, the administration has given about 30 insurers, employers and union plans, responsible for covering about one million people, one-year waivers on the new rules that phase out annual limits on coverage for limited-benefit plans, also also known as ‘mini-meds,’” and that “[a]mong those that administration officials hoped to mollify with waivers were some big insurers, some smaller employers and McDonald’s, which went so far as to warn that the regulations could force it to strip workers of existing coverage.”
How convenient, eh? HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius can more or less unilaterally decide to whom the law applies and to whom it doesn’t — and when, where, and under what circumstances
Yes, how convenient indeed!
Daily Benefactor News – Judge Approves ‘One Of The Most Oppressive Measures In History’ – More Articles
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Judge Approves ‘One Of The Most Oppressive Measures In History’ – WorldNetDaily
A federal judge has concluded Congress can demand that Americans buy government-approved health insurance in the first ruling of its kind on Obamacare, but he also has opened a door for people to challenge the plan in court.
The ruling means the Supreme Court eventually could have the opportunity to decide whether Obamacare is constitutional and to redefine the scope of the Commerce Clause, which Washington now interprets as allowing such government requirements.
Since the Roosevelt administration, controversial Supreme Court interpretations of the clause have been used to broadly expand the powers of the federal government.
Detroit Federal District Judge George Caram Steeh ruled today that four Michigan plaintiffs and the Thomas More Law Center have standing to challenge the Health Care Reform Act, popularly known as Obamacare.
The TMLC brought suit on behalf of itself and four Michigan residents on the grounds that the Commerce Clause does not give the federal government any power to compel citizens to purchase health insurance.
Steeh rejected, however, the plaintiffs’ request to place an injunction on current enforcement of the Health Care Reform Act, which was signed into law by President Obama in March.
TMLC’s senior trial counsel, Rob Muise, said, “This decision is ripe for appeal, which we intend to do expeditiously.”
According to the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based law center, Steeh’s ruling means that the Supreme Court eventually will have the opportunity to decide whether the Commerce Clause grants the government the power to take control over the health care industry, a massive chunk of the American economy.
The law will impose at least 20 new taxes on the American public beginning Jan. 1, 2011. Starting in 2014, the act will require all Americans to purchase health care insurance policies whether they want health insurance or not.
Creating a single-payer national health care system remains a major agenda item for liberal Democrats, President Obama’s base of political support. The act does not create a single payer system immediately, but critics argue that some of its provisions are designed to induce private employers to terminate health coverage for their employees, forcing them to purchase health care through the federal government.
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Rubio Jumps To Two-To-One Lead Over Crist – Rasmussen Reports
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Florida shows Rubio with 50% of the vote, up nine points from just over a week ago and his best showing in the race to date.
Support for Crist, the state’s current GOP governor, has fallen to a new low of 25%, while Meek captures 19%. Three percent (3%) like another candidate in the race, and three percent (3%) more are undecided.
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California Board Overestimated Pollution By 340 Percent To Pass Landmark Air Standards – Fox News
California regulators reportedly are planning to significantly weaken the state’s landmark clean air standards after discovering they miscalculated pollution levels by 340 percent.
The estimate played a vital role in the creation of 2007 regulation that forced businesses to make costly upgrades to off-road vehicles with diesel engines in order to cut diesel emissions.
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Democrat Congressman Recruited Fake Tea Party Candidate To Confuse Conservatives – Courier Post
Congressman John Adler’s campaign and the Camden County Democratic Committee recruited “J Tea Party” candidate Peter DeStefano to confuse conservative voters and hurt Adler’s Republican challenger this fall, Democratic operatives say.
“The goal was to take 5 percent of (Republican Jon) Runyan’s vote,” said a Democrat with direct knowledge of the Adler campaign.
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Harry Reid’s Son Says Obamacare Could Hurt Nevada – The Hill
During a televised debate, Rory Reid said he does not support the legal challenges against Obamacare. Yet, he does believe that Obama’s signature achievement could negatively affect Nevada.
“I don’t deny, however,” Rory Reid said, “that Nevada needs to be vigilant on this issue… there is potential for it to put significant pressure on states because Medicaid rates could go up significantly.”
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Obama Heckled At Bowie State: “You’re A Liar!” – Gateway Pundit
President Obama came to Bowie State University and was met by a student who spoke out against his speech concerning how Republicans are the reason for today’s economic condition.
The courageous student screamed out, “You’re a liar”, causing the president to pause his speech. Then the student was physically beaten up by supporters, cursed down, and thrown side to side.
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Joe Biden To Supporters: “You’re The Dullest Audience I’ve Ever Spoken To” – Right Pundits
Speaking to a group of democrats in Wisconsin, Joe Biden said, “You’re the dullest audience I’ve ever spoken to.” He was talking about the amount of manufacturing jobs that Wisconsin has lost and seemed surprised that the crowd wasn’t more upbeat.
Gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett made the mistake of having the Vice President campaign for him in Madison when he [Biden] made the remark.
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Gov. Christie To Kill N.J.-N.Y. Rail Tunnel Project – NJ
Two senior officials say Gov. Chris Christie today will kill the controversial $8.7 billion Hudson River rail tunnel project, which he says the state cannot afford to build.
According to the sources, the governor plans to announce other transportation initiatives that would allow New Jersey to keep the $3 billion in federal money already earmarked for the tunnel project.
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Woman Mistakes Super Glue For Eye Drops – Stuff
A woman accidentally glued an eye shut when she mistook super glue for her eye drops. Irmgard Holm of Glendale, Arizona had cataract surgery a year ago.
She was reaching for what she thought was one of her eye drop medications. The burning sensation told her immediately something was seriously wrong. Holm says the eye drops and the super glue bottles are nearly identical.
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ESPN Producer Caught Masturbating Outside Woman’s Window – Weekly Vice
Neil Goldberg, a senior producer at ESPN was arrested after he was caught standing on a bar stool outside a woman’s window – masturbating as he watched her get dressed.
He was arrested after a woman out walking her dog, caught him masturbating while standing outside a woman’s window. Goldberg reportedly stopped and went back inside his home after he noticed the woman had seen him.
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Wheelchair Man Plunges To His Death Down Elevator Shaft After Ramming Lift Doors – Daily Mail
A wheelchair-bound man plunged to his death down an elevator shaft after he deliberately rammed the lift door in a fit of anger. The Korean man just misses a lift in a shopping centre after the woman inside pressed the button to go down.
As the doors closed a split-second before he reached the lift, the man, known only as Mr Lee, slammed his vehicle into them.
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Man Stabbed For Refusing Blood-Sucking Request – Arizona Republic
A Chandler man was stabbed in the arm after refusing to let two vampire-crazed friends suck his blood, police said. The man, Robert Maley, 25, had let the pair suck his blood before.
But on Monday, he refused, and was stabbed in the left arm, police said. He was living with Aaron Homer, 24, and Amanda Williamson, 21. The pair are “into vampire stuff and paganism,” the stab victim said.
Rangers whip Rays again lead ALDS 2-0
How about my Texas Rangers folks?
Two dominating pitching performances and a long home run by playoff neophyte Michael Young have the Texas Rangers on the verge of winning a postseason series for the first time.
Young hit a three-run homer one pitch after keeping a fifth-inning at-bat alive with a disputed check-swing, helping C.J. Wilson and the AL West champions beat the Tampa Bay Rays 6-0 Thursday for a 2-0 lead in their AL division series.
Texas is the only current major league franchise that’s never won a playoff series. After taking two games on the road, that can change when the best-of-five matchup shifts to Rangers Ballpark for Game 3 on Saturday.
Yeah Baby!
Daily Benefactor News – Treasury Watchdog Launches Probe Into Whether Administration Spied On Conservative Billionaires’ Taxes – More Articles
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A Treasury Department watchdog has launched an investigation into whether the Obama administration improperly snooped around the tax records of the mega-conglomerate that has poured millions into Republican campaigns.
J. Russell George, Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, wrote in a brief letter Sept. 28 to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, that he will launch a “review” of the allegation at the request of Grassley and six other Republican senators.
The controversy concerns the multibillion-dollar oil company Koch Industries, a major political contributor to conservative causes and a major target this year of Democrats trying to stoke voter outrage over the funding behind those causes.
President Obama publicly called out the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity at an early August fundraiser in Texas – that incident, in turn, helped fuel suspicion after an administration official was quoted later in the month speaking in unusual detail about Koch finances.
Coinciding with the release of a report on corporate tax reform, the official was quoted saying Koch, described as a “really giant firm,” was set up as a pass-through company – in other words, a company structured to escape corporate taxes by allowing income to flow directly through it.
But a Koch attorney questioned where and how the administration found that information – while at the same time denying the suggestion that it does not pay corporate income tax – and Grassley subsequently called for a probe into whether officials breached tax privacy law.
In a Sept. 24 letter, Grassley and other senators urged George to investigate the “very serious allegation” that the administration may have violated the IRS code that protects federal tax return privacy. The senators noted that the Koch website does not reveal anything about being a “flow-through entity.”
“Thus, the statement that Koch is a pass-through entity implies direct knowledge of Koch’s legal and tax status, which would appear to be a violation,” they wrote. “The statement is also troubling because it was made shortly after the president highlighted the advocacy work of certain tax-exempt organizations funded by Koch Industries, Inc.”
A company spokesman told FoxNews.com said Koch Industries is “cooperating fully” with the investigation, adding that the firm is “grateful that our concerns appear to be taken seriously.”
Koch Industries has been an increasingly popular topic of political conversation after The New Yorker published a lengthy article on the “war against Obama” being waged by the company’s owners, David and Charles Koch.
The article detailed the Koch family’s enormous wealth; their role in setting up the conservative Americans for Prosperity and the libertarian Cato Institute; and their web of political contributions – though the political donations are difficult to pinpoint, the magazine reported that the family’s charitable foundations have spent close to $200 million over the past decade.
Campaign finance records at the Federal Election Commission show the firm’s political action committee, KochPAC, contributed about $8 million over the past decade, with much of that money going to the campaigns of top Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in September that companies like Koch are “going in and opposing Democratic candidates and supporting Republican candidates.”
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Private Sector Sheds 49,000 Jobs, ADP Says – MarketWatch
Employment in the U.S. private sector fell by 39,000 in September, the first drop since January, according to the ADP employment report released Wednesday.
In September, the goods-producing sector cut 45,000 jobs while the service sector added 6,000 jobs. Large businesses saw employment decline by 11,000 while medium-size businesses fell by 14,000.
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The disastrous folly of trying Al Qaeda enemy combatants in civilian court stands proven beyond a reasonable doubt in the case of the first Guantanamo detainee brought to New York to face justice.
There is abundantly conclusive proof that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani participated in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
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Food Stamp Recipients At Record 41.8 Million Americans In July – Bloomberg
The number of Americans receiving food stamps rose to a record 41.8 million in July as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high, the federal government has reported.
Recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program subsidies for food purchases jumped 18 percent from a year earlier and increased 1.4 percent from June, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.
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Fresh Subpoenas Issued In Edwards Hush Cash Inquiry – Newser
John Edwards’ political career is dead but the federal probe into whether he used campaign funds to keep his mistress quiet has shown public signs of life for the first time in more than a year.
Federal prosecutors have issued subpoenas for witnesses to appear before a grand jury that is deciding whether to charge Edwards with using cash from donors to provide a “love nest” for mistress Rielle Hunter.
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White House Blocked BP Oil Spill Worse-Case Estimates – Reuters
The White House in the spring blocked release of government worst-case estimates of the amount of oil spewing from BP’s well in the Gulf of Mexico, a presidential commission said on Wednesday.
The commission said government officials told its staff that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) wanted to release some of its long-term, worst-case spill models for the accident.
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New Yorkers’ Income Falls For First Time In 70 Years – CNBC
The recession put a 3.1 percent dent in the personal incomes of New York state residents, who endured their first full-year decline in more than 70 years, according to a report released Tuesday.
Paychecks or net earnings tumbled 5.4 percent, while dividends, interest and rent slid 8.4 percent, to a grand total of nearly $908 billion, the state comptroller’s report said.
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Roy Halladay Throws Second No-Hitter In Postseason History – ESPN
Roy Halladay spent his whole career waiting for this start, wondering what it would be like to pitch in the playoffs. It was better than he – or anyone else – could have predicted.
Halladay threw the second no-hitter in postseason history, leading the Philadelphia Phillies over the Cincinnati Reds 4-0 in Game 1 of the NL Division Series on Wednesday. “It’s surreal, it really is,” Halladay said.
Daily Benefactor News – Dozens More NATO Fuel Tankers Burn In Pakistan – More Articles
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Dozens More NATO Fuel Tankers Burn In Pakistan – Yahoo News
Gunmen torched more than two dozen tankers carrying fuel to NATO troops and killed a driver Wednesday, the sixth attack on convoys taking supplies to Afghanistan since Pakistan closed a key border crossing almost a week ago.
Islamabad shut down the Torkham crossing along the fabled Khyber Pass last Thursday after a NATO helicopter attack in the border area killed three Pakistani troops. The closure has left hundreds of trucks stranded alongside the country’s highways and bottlenecked traffic heading to the one route into Afghanistan from the south that has remained open.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said an investigation of the helicopter attack was expected to be concluded later Wednesday, and that he expected the spat between allies could be resolved soon.
Tension between the two countries has also been fueled by a record number of U.S. drone strikes in recent weeks, including one Wednesday that killed six militants in the North Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border.
The U.S. has played down the impact of Pakistan closing the Torkham crossing, saying it has supply routes through other countries into Afghanistan and the closure has not caused fuel problems for NATO troops.
“We don’t suspect it will, even if this were to last into the future,” said Morrell Tuesday at the Pentagon. “But we really do have a sense we’re making progress and this can be resolved soon.”
Hundreds of supply trucks still cross into landlocked Afghanistan each day through the Chaman crossing in southwestern Pakistan and via Central Asian states.
Still, Pakistan is the fastest and cheapest way to get goods to Afghanistan, and trouble with other routes in the past makes it even more vital. Uzbekistan evicted U.S. troops from a base that was used to ferry supplies into Afghanistan, and last year Kyrgyzstan threatened to do the same, though it has since backed down.
The tanker attack early Wednesday morning came on trucks on their way to the Chaman crossing.
An unidentified number of gunmen in two vehicles attacked the trucks as they sat in the parking lot of a roadside hotel on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. At least 25 trucks were destroyed by fire that spread quickly from vehicle to vehicle, senior police official Hamid Shakil said.
Of the six attacks on convoys bringing supplies in from the port city of Karachi since the Torkham closure, four were on trucks heading to that crossing and two were on their way to Chaman.
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Middle Class Slams Brakes On Spending – Wall Street Journal
Middle-class Americans made their deepest spending cuts in more than two decades, slashing spending on such discretionary items as restaurant meals and alcohol during the recession.
Households in the middle fifth of the population sliced their average annual spending to $41,150 in 2009, the Labor Department said Tuesday in its annual spending breakdown.
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Fully Equipped Firefighters Watch House Burn To The Ground – Reed Insurance
Gene Cranick and his family lost all of their possessions, and watched their family pets die as their home was engulfed in flames last Wednesday September 29th.
Orbion County Firefighters refused to respond to the scene because the homeowner hadn’t paid a required $75 annual fee. The fire began when the Cranick’s grandson was burning trash near the home.
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Coldest Winter In 1,000 Years On Its Way – RT
After the record heat wave this summer, Russia’s weather seems to have acquired a taste for the extreme. Forecasters say this winter could be the coldest Europe has seen in the last 1,000 years.
The change is reportedly connected with the speed of the Gulf Stream, which has shrunk in half in recent years. Scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic.
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3M To Drop Retirees From Medical Coverage Over Obamacare – American Pundit
Today, 3M becomes just the latest company to announce that it will be forced to drop insured retirees from its medical plan starting in 2013. The move comes in response to ObamaCare.
Retirees previously covered by the private sector will be forced onto the overloaded Medicare-backed insurance programs, shifting people from private sector coverage to government-based coverage.
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21,000 Iowans To Lose Medicare Plans – Daily Caller
About 21,000 Iowans received notice last week that their insurers would no longer provide their Medicare Advantage plans in 2011, a state agency said.
With Medicare Advantage, Iowa seniors get their health insurance through a private company, instead of directly through the government Medicare program. The plans often provide coverage such as prescription drugs.
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2,300 North Dakotans And 44,000 Minnesotans Losing Medicare Advantage Coverage – SayAnything
Five insurance companies including Minnetonka-based Medica next year will stop providing a particular type of Medicare health plan in much of Minnesota, a state official said Thursday.
That means some 44,000 beneficiaries will need to shop for new coverage. The insurers compete in the market for Medicare Advantage health plans, where some 350,000 state residents buy their coverage.
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Democrat Candidate Joe Garcia’s Donor Linked To Fidel Castro – FactReal
Joe Garcia, Democrat candidate for Congress in Florida’s 25th district, has been accepting thousands of dollars in donations from John Cabanas, friend and partner of Fidel Castro.
Reported contributions from April through August, 2010: John Cabanas $2,400 5/19/2010 – John Cabanas $2,400 5/19/2010 – Adalgiza Cabanas $2,400 5/19/2010 – Adalgiza Cabanas $2,400 5/19/2010.
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100 Drunken B.C. Women Brawl Over Male Stripper – Calgary Herald
A drunken brawl broke out among a group of women at a Vancouver Island bar over the weekend after one woman blocked another woman’s view of a male stripper.
More than 100 woman were at a fundraiser on Friday night watching a man dressed as a police officer peel off his uniform when a women who was standing on a chair refused to get down after another argued she didn’t have a clear view.
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Burglar Hangs Neighbor’s Stolen Curtains In His Own Windows – APP
A British burglar who stole his neighbor’s curtains was caught after he put them up in his own windows. Jason Williams broke into a neighbor’s home and allegedly stole tools, two ashtrays, lamb steaks and the curtains before hanging them up in his home.
The 38-year-old at first denied the crime when the victims came to his door to ask why their curtains were in his house.
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Man Shoots Teen In Buttocks For Refusing To Pull Up His Pants – Weekly Vice
Kenneth E. Bonds, 45, was jailed Saturday after he allegedly shot a teen in his buttocks because the boy refused to pull up his pants.
According to Shelby County Police, two teens, ages 16 and 17, were walking to a candy store around 7:30 p.m. when Bonds started yelling at them to pull up their pants. He then shouted profanities at them, ordering them to “do what he told them to do.”
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Drunk Power Ranger Arrested For Trespassing – The Republic
Police who were called to a report of a prowler over the weekend at a motor home in Centralia found a “superhero” inside.
Commander Jim Rich told KITI the man in a Green Power Ranger costume appeared lost and disoriented and apparently had been drinking. Rich says the 28-year-old Centralia man apparently was dropped off by some friends at the wrong house after a party.
The Bill Gates Income Tax
The Bill Gates Income Tax – Wall Street Journal
Framed on a wall in my office is a personal letter to me from Bill Gates the elder. “I am a fan of progressive taxation,” he wrote. “I would say our country has prospered from using such a system—even at 70% rates to say nothing of 90%.”
It’s one thing to believe in bad policy. It’s quite another to push it on others. But Mr. Gates Sr.—an accomplished lawyer, now retired—and his illustrious son are now trying to have their way with the people of the state of Washington.
Mr. Gates Sr. has personally contributed $500,000 to promote a statewide proposition on Washington’s November ballot that would impose a brand new 5% tax on individuals earning over $200,000 per year and couples earning over $400,000 per year. An additional 4% surcharge would be levied on individuals and couples earning more than $500,000 and $1 million, respectively.
Along with creating a new income tax on high-income earners, Initiative 1098 would also reduce property, business and occupation taxes. But raising the income tax is the real issue. Doing so would put the state’s economy at risk.
To imagine what such a large soak-the-rich income tax would do to Washington, we need only examine how states with the highest income-tax rates perform relative to their zero-income tax counterparts. Comparing the nine states with the highest tax rates on earned income to the nine states with no income tax shows how high tax rates weaken economic performance.
In the past decade, the nine states with the highest personal income tax rates have seen gross state product increase by 59.8%, personal income grow by 51%, and population increase by 6.1%. The nine states with no personal income tax have seen gross state product increase by 86.3%, personal income grow by 64.1%, and population increase by 15.5%.
It’s striking how the high-tax states have underperformed relative to those with no income tax. Especially noteworthy is how well Washington has performed compared to states with no income tax.
If Washington passes Initiative 1098, it will go from being one of the fastest-growing states in the country to one of the slowest-growing. And passage of I-1098 will only be the beginning. Just look at Ohio, Michigan and California to see that once a state adopts an income tax, there is no end to the number of reasons that such a tax could be extended, expanded and increased.
Over the past 50 years, 11 states have introduced state income taxes exactly as Messrs. Gates and their allies are proposing—and the consequences have been devastating.
The 11 states where income taxes were adopted over the past 50 years are: Connecticut (1991), New Jersey (1976), Ohio (1971), Rhode Island (1971), Pennsylvania (1971), Maine (1969), Illinois (1969), Nebraska (1967), Michigan (1967), Indiana (1963) and West Virginia (1961).
Each and every state that introduced an income tax saw its share of total U.S. output decline. Some of the states, like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, have become fiscal basket cases. As the nearby chart shows, even West Virginia, which was poor to begin with, got relatively poorer after adopting a state income tax.
Washington’s I-1098 proposes a state income tax with a maximum rate higher than any of those initially adopted by the other 11 states. In one fell swoop, Washington would move from being one of the lowest-tax states in the nation to being one of the top nine highest. It’s economic suicide.
The states that have high income tax rates or have adopted a state income tax over the past 50 years haven’t even gotten the money they hoped for. They haven’t avoided budget crises, nor have they provided better lives for the poor. The ongoing financial travails of California, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan and New York are cases in point.
Over the past decade, the nine states with the highest tax rates have experienced tax revenue growth of 74%—a full 22% less than the states with no income tax. Washington state has done better than the average of the nine no-tax states. Why on earth would it want to introduce a state income tax when it means less money for state coffers?
What’s true for those states with the highest tax rates is doubly true for the 11 states that have instituted state income taxes over the past half-century. They too have lost huge sums of tax revenue.
A final thought for those who want to punish the rich for their success: As the nearby chart shows, those states with the highest tax rates, and those states that have introduced state income taxes, have seen standards of living (personal income per capita) substantially underperform compared to their no-tax counterparts.
If Mr. Gates Sr. and his son feel so strongly about taxing the rich, they should simply give the state a chunk of their own money and be done with it. Leave the rest of Washington’s taxpayers alone.
Gatordoug
darcprynce
Dave C
