Monthly Archives: March 2011
IT IS on! Michelle Obama vs Jell-O
Michelle Malkin takes a look at what the FLOTUS is up to
The busybody hand of Michelle Obama looms large. New target: Jell-O, Fruit Loops, and that evil of evils…Minute Maid Lemonade. Via the NYTimes, meet the war (or rather, kinetic action — h/t chap) on dyed foods:
After staunchly defending the safety of artificial food colorings, the federal government is for the first time publicly reassessing whether foods like Jell-O, Lucky Charms cereal and Minute Maid Lemonade should carry warnings that the bright artificial colorings in them worsen behavior problems like hyperactivity in some children.
The Food and Drug Administration concluded long ago that there was no definitive link between the colorings and behavior or health problems, and the agency is unlikely to change its mind any time soon. But on Wednesday and Thursday, the F.D.A. will ask a panel of experts to review the evidence and advise on possible policy changes, which could include warning labels on food.
And how will the geniuses FIX their MADE UP problem? Michelle knows
The food police’s regulatory solution: More government-imposed labels, of course.
Can someone please slap a health hazard warning label on junk science queen Michelle Obama?
Scott Brown might not even be Republican enough to call a RINO!
Really irritating, and I say that knowing it’ll damage my cherished RINO cred. From his letter tonight to Reid and McConnell:
I am disappointed that despite passing six different FY 2011 Continuing Resolutions, each with the understanding that passage would move bi-partisan negotiations further along, that we are once again faced with the likelihood of a government shutdown. A government shutdown absolutely serves no purpose and is in no one’s best interests. I stand ready to work with each of you, to do what it takes—and to put politics aside—and work on behalf of a greater good to ensure that Congress reach a bi-partisan compromise for FY 2011 and avoid a government shutdown.
Our collective work begins by having a clear understanding of the seriousness of our budget crisis and what is at stake if we fail to address it. We can all agree that we simply cannot continue on this reckless, unsustainable course. Reducing and eliminating needless spending and programs are appropriate, but a wholesale reduction in spending, without considering economic, cultural, and social impacts is simply irresponsible. We must also be mindful that many of the proposed spending reductions would disproportionately affect the neediest among us, including housing and heating assistance. Likewise, some of the proposed cuts would be economically counterproductive, negatively impacting our ability to innovate and invest in research and development.
Deficit reduction is a necessary goal for our country. But deficit reduction should not be achieved in isolation of our priorities as a government and a society.
AP at Hot Air sees what Brown is doing, playing politics over principles
Translation: “Dear Massachusetts voters — just a reminder that I’m basically an independent now.” I don’t know what annoys me more, the sheer vacuousness of the let’s-cut-but-let’s-be-reasonable bromides or his suggestion that GOP deficit hawks are blindly slashing spending without regard for how it’ll affect people. The baseline Republican demand of $61 billion in cuts would remove a bucketful of red ink from a giant reservoir; even a fiscal conservative as stalwart as Rand Paul is limiting himself to cuts of $500 billion, just a third of this year’s deficit alone. If you’re going to blanch at “cultural impacts” when the GOP breaks out its safety scissors, what’ll happen when Ryan and company break out the scalpel and go after entitlements?
Another gutless wonder who spits in the faces of those who helped get his ass elected!
And how about protecting children from the dangers of Marxism, and Nanny statists Senator Durbin?
Dick Durbin is a great example of the type of person that cannot be trusted with any power whatsoever!
Political Correctness protecting us from being offended, even BEFORE we can be offended!
Doug Powers calls it pre-emptive PC
These days people aren’t even necessarily waiting for complaints from anybody, but instead implementing pre-emptive PC:
MUNSON, Ohio — A Northeast Ohio community is taking the “Easter” out of the egg hunt.
As the White House prepares for its annual Easter Egg Roll — a tradition dating back to 1878 — some in the community of Munson Township are asking if it’s okay in Washington, how could the word “Easter” offend someone in this small rural community?
Still, township trustees are opting to call this year’s Easter weekend event “The Spring Egg Hunt.”
[...]
Munson homebuilder Enzo Perfetto is putting up the $600 to put the sponsorship in private hands and the Easter back in the egg hunt.The decision to have the egg hunt privately sponsored is under review by the county prosecutor.
Perfetto said township trustees have already agreed to calling the event an Easter egg hunt as long as taxpayers aren’t footing the bill.
The most over the top statement ever?
Simply mind-blowing that anyone could make the following statement, or expect anyone to actually believe such a statement! Via The Daily Caller
As the battle over budget cuts continues on Capitol Hill, the head of one federal agency told lawmakers the budget cuts Republicans are fighting for would result in the deaths of 70,000 children.
During his testimony before the House Appropriations State and Foreign Ops subcommittee, the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Rajiv Shah said “We estimate, and I believe these are very conservative estimates, that H.R.1 would lead to 70,000 kids dying.”
“Of that 70,000, 30,000 would come from malaria control programs that would have to be scaled back specifically. The other 40,000 is broken out as 24,000 would die because of a lack of support for immunizations and other investments and 16,000 would be because of a lack of skilled attendants at birth,” Shah said.
I think we grasp why this walking brain donor made the statement, he wants to panic Americans, and demonize Republicans, but really is there anyone in America stupid enough to buy this load of steaming dung? OK, there are those who listen to Progressive radio, and watch MSNBS’s line up every night, but anyone else? Good grief this might be the most pathetic statement I have ever heard. Someone call the barrel makers the Democrats have busted through the bottom of theirs.
The Blog of the Day is A Conservative teacher
A fairly new addition to our blogroll, A Conservative Teacher dishes out fine posts like this one concerning the suckage of anti-smoking laws
n June 23, 2009 I wrote a post against attempts to regulate smoking, but apparently at that time I did not write a post stating my views on the local Michigan smoking ban. I did call in to some local radio shows then and express my view that the smoking ban would likely lead to less patrons visiting bars and resulting less tax revenue and more unemployment, but most of the radio hosts and other people in the state ignored that sort of advice, and so our Democratic Governor and Democratic Legislature went ahead and passed a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants.
One year later the results are coming in, and like most attempts by Democrats to govern our society, the result is a society that is less richer, prosperous, and free (and although the data would be hard to come by, I would also contend that since smokers now are forced to smoke in their own homes now, there are more home fires caused by smoking and so more losses of life). And as business has fallen and sales of food and liquor have fallen due to this smoking ban, that has meant less revenue to the state to support police, fire, education, and libraries, all things that liberal Democrats pretend that they support.
From story Bar Owners Plan Smoking Ban Protest — With Taxes:
…the group Protect Private Property Right in Michigan is proposing some pretty drastic measures to get lawmakers to take a second look at it. They want bar owners to stop paying taxes completely until the smoking issue is brought back up. And some bar owners TV5 spoke with didn’t think that’s a bad idea…
“It’s hurt us. I don’t know anybody in the small bar industry that it’s helped,” said (Co-owner of the Red Horse in Saginaw Chris) Adams. Just down the street from the Red Horse, bar owner Jerry Baleck at Patty Flemings feels the same way.
“I’m against it. I think it’s private property here, and I should be allowed to say whether I want to smoke or not,” said Baleck.
That’s why a growing number of business owners are taking matters into their own hands. They love their bars and hate the smoking ban law, so some are trying to get Lansing’s attention where it hurts — right in the wallet. A group of Michigan bar owners said they’ll set up private escrow accounts and hold off on paying their taxes. “Maybe they ain’t got enough money to pay their taxes in the first place with the smoking ban,” said Baleck.
“If we’re not making money, why should we give them money?” said Adams. At least 200 bar owners have pledged to stop paying their taxes. It’s a drastic step and owners TV5’s Liz Gelardi spoke with aren’t sure if they’re ready to go that far. “I don’t know. I’d have to know the ins and outs and know all the particulars before I would jump in and do something so drastic,” said Adams. “But yeah, I probably will consider it.”
“Are you going to keep paying your taxes?” Gelardi asked Baleck. “Well, yeah, [I] don’t need no tax problems,” responded Baleck.
“Hopefully we can get more numbers,” said Adams. “Hopefully we can double that, you know, so we can get twice as many people together and make a statement to the state and tell them we’re tired of being pushed around.”
There you have it, these absurd actions by Nanny Statists do nothing positive for anyone, accpt the egos of the Nanny Statists of course!
Choice? Liberals only care about one choice
They love the word, but boy, do liberals hate the concept of choice, as in real choices freely made by individuals and families:
The House passed a measure Wednesday to revive a school-voucher program for the District of Columbia despite opposition from the mayor, the District’s congressional delegate, teachers and the White House.
Of course they’re all in thrall to the teachers unions. But regardless, why would they want to loosen their death-grip on their near-monopoly? What would be in it for them?
Mayor Vincent Gray (who has wasted no time in making his administration a joke of corruption and nepotism) believes parents should sacrifice their children to this sacred institution because “the city’s public school system is improving.” Good one. Even if it is, and that’s highly debatable, real children are attending these schools now. How bad are they?
For decades, D.C. public schools have been the worst in the nation. The system ranks 51st in the nation, and is plagued by school violence. Only 14% of eighth-graders are proficient in reading. Just 55% of the students in D.C. public schools graduate. During the 2007-08 school year, 3,500 calls were placed from D.C. public schools to the Metropolitan Police Department. More than 900 of those calls were to report school violence such as assault.
It’s downright criminal. But the ruling class is unanimously lined up against school choice of any kind, all the while pretending they care about the kids of DC.
Read then rest including the goons at Planned Parent Abortionhood lying about “protecting” women’s health. Bastards! It is all about money, and power and nothing else with these miscreants.
Experts Estimate There Are Only 1,000 Rebel Fighters In Libya… And 1,000 Fighters Are Jihadists
What do you want first?… The bad news or the bad news?
Rebels guard the front line on the road between Ajdabiyah and Brega as forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi threatened to push them further away from strategic oil refineries in eastern Libya March 31, 2011. (REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly)
CNN’s Jon Lee Anderson gave Eliot Spitzer some bad news yesterday. According to Anderson there are only 1,000 rebels fighting Gaddafi forces in Libya.
During “In the Arena,” Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer for The New Yorker reporting from Benghazi, Libya, tells Eliot Spitzer that the number of opposition fighters on the front lines are fewer than anyone would think and that they are poorly armed and badly trained. Anderson says, “Effective number of fighting men, well under 1,000. Actual soldiers, who are now in the fight, possibly in the very low hundreds on the opposition side.”
Earlier it was reported that there were 1,000 Al-Qaeda members in the rebel ranks.
Former jihadist Noman Benotman, who renounced his al Qaeda affiliation in 2000, said in an interview that he estimates 1,000 jihadists are in Libya…
…Outside observers generally estimate the number of trained Libyan fighters to be about 1,000.
Hmm. That’s weird. So if there are only 1,000 rebel fighters in Libya and there are 1,000 members of Al-Qaeda fighting with the rebels in Libya, then wouldn’t that mean that the rebels are 100% jihadists?
And, the Obama Administration wants to arm them? Now does that sound like smart power to you?
Not to worry… There are at least 200 more Al-Qaeda fighters on their way to Libya from Afghanistan.
Woman Addicted To Eating Sofas
Woman Addicted To Eating Sofas – Daily Mirror
When Adele Edwards is hungry, she doesn’t bother with the kitchen. She just heads straight for the furniture. Her bizarre diet is killing her but she says she just can’t stop.
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Most people find it hard to resist their favourite food. Maybe it’ s chocolate or crisps or perhaps you can’t stay away from pizza.
But if you ever worry about your eating habits, spare a thought for Adele Edwards. The mum-of-five isn’t hooked on junk food, she has a much more unusual addiction.
Incredibly, she can’t stop eating household items, such as rubbers and elastic bands. But her favourite snack is the polyester filling from sofa cushions.
To her, man-made foam is more delicious than biscuits or cakes.
It sounds bizarre but Adele, 30, is suffering from a recognised medical condition. Having munched her way through eight sofas and five chairs, she estimates that she’s digested nearly 16st of synthetic foam in her lifetime.
She simply can’t stop and now she’s terrified of eating herself into an early grave. In recent months, she’s had emergency treatment for intestinal obstruction after eating chunks of polyester foam which she refers to simply as “cushion”.
Doctors have warned that she will leave her children motherless if she doesn’t give up, but she says she’s powerless to stop.
“I was 10 years old when I was first introduced to cushion,” explains Adele. “I was playing with my cousin when he peeled apart the sofa, picked off a piece of sponge and popped it into his mouth like it was bubble gum.
“At first, I thought it was strange but, after sucking it for a while, I came to like the texture.
“I started chewing cushion regularly and would swallow whole chunks as though it was candy floss. It sounds strange but, to me, foam tasted like sweets.”
As weeks went by, Adele found herself picking pieces of foam from the sofa whenever she fancied a snack. “Rather than foods like cookies and crisps, I just wanted to eat cushion,” she explains. “To me, it was better than regular food.”
Before long, she’d developed a full-blown addiction but she managed to keep it a secret from her family.
“From the beginning, eating cushion was my secret because I was afraid people would think I was weird,” she says.
“I’d creep to the sofa, unpick the fabric and peel off strips from the foam inside. Then I’d take it back into my bedroom or the bathroom to eat in private.
“My mum knew something was going on because she mentioned that our sofas were becoming lumpy and lopsided, but she never suspected that I was actually eating them.”
After five years, Adele’s habit had taken its toll on her health.
“I was having severe stomach pains and hadn’t gone to the bathroom in days,” she says.
She was taken to hospital and diagnosed with an extreme bowel obstruction.
The tiny pieces of polyester foam were blocking her small intestine and preventing her from digesting her food.
“I tried to deny it but X-rays showed the foam in my small intestine,” she says. “The doctors asked if I’d been eating anything spongy. I pretended that I had no idea what they were talking about but, eventually, I broke down because I was so scared.”
The doctors managed to clear the blockage in Adele’s bowel with strong laxatives and diagnosed her with medical disorder Pica.
Its name derives from the Latin word for magpie, a bird that eats almost anything.
Pica is seen in all people of all ages but is particularly common in pregnant women, small children, and those with developmental disabilities. Sufferers feel compelled to eat non-food items ranging from clay, dirt and sand to hairballs, ice or paint.
Despite the unusual symptoms, Pica is relatively common in people like Adele who suffer from anaemia.
The craving for non-food items is a response to extreme iron deficiency. The doctors told Adele, from Florida, that there was no cure for the disorder but arranged for her to have therapy. Unfortunately, it didn’t have much of an effect on her.
“My therapist suggested I was eating cushion as a reaction to my parents’ divorce but I knew I just liked the way it tasted,” she says.
“As long as I was keeping Mum happy by staying away from the sofa, I could carry on feeding my addiction behind closed doors in the bathroom or my bedroom,” she says.
“I loved eating shoulder pads because they were cleaner than a dirty sofa. But although it was disgusting, I craved the crunch I got from smelly old couches.
“So to replicate that texture I would roll Mum’s shoulder pad foam in dirt for extra crunch.
“It know that it sounds weird but I loved the way the foam and dirt felt as a combination in my mouth. To me, it was like having chocolate syrup on top of ice cream.”
Adele’s mum realised what she was doing when she found shoulder pads missing from her clothes.
“I decided that I’d have to switch to eating other items like rubber bands and pencil erasers because I knew those things couldn’t be traced back to me,” says Adele. Often, she’d eat her secret snacks at the back of the classroom at school. If she sensed anyone watching, she’d hide in the bathroom to get her fix. After a while, she even found a way to munch pieces of her beloved sofa foam again.
“I’d get up early every morning, break cushion from the sofa into bite size pieces and stuff them into my pockets so I could eat them at school,” she says. “By eating only small pieces of foam, I didn’t get the stomach aches.”
Incredibly, as she grew up, left school and got an office job, she managed to keep her habits a secret from her friends, workmates and even her boyfriend Chansey, 26, despite gradually eating through eight sofas and five chairs. But her cover was finally blown three years ago when Chansey walked in on her pulling the sofa apart.
“I lied and said I was looking for something behind the cushions,” she says.
“But then he noticed me sneaking away to the bathroom for long periods of time and I knew that I had to be honest.”
Understandably for Chansey, he was very concerned.
“It freaked him out when I admitted that I sometimes rolled the foam in dirt,” she remembers.
In the past 25 years, Adele has only stopped her bizarre eating regime during her five pregnancies.
“My condition had the opposite effect on me and I never craved cushion,” she says.
Now mum to Kalvin, 15, Krystal, 12, Kiara, eight, Kelis, four and Kamila, 21 months, Adele juggles her responsibilities to her children with her weird diet.
Early each morning, before her kids wake up, Adele pulls a long strip of foam from inside the sofa and tears it into bite size pieces that she can munch during the day.
“I have cushion cravings every 30 minutes and snack on it in the car or at my desk when no one is looking,” she explains. “I want to eat it more when I’m stressed and will lock myself in the bathroom for a 30-minute binge, swallowing one piece after another.
“Chansey begs me to stop but it’s like asking an alcoholic to stop drinking. I’ve tried going cold turkey, but I have terrible withdrawal symptoms. It consumes my mind, my mouth waters. It’s all I can think about.”
Over the years, Adele’s health has grown progressively worse. Recently, she needed emergency treatment for yet another serious obstruction in her small intestine. Doctors have warned that the foam is poisoning her, but she cannot stop.
“I can’t go to rehab because I’m not addicted to drugs or alcohol,” she says. “Every time I binge on cushion, I feel like a fat person shoving hamburger after hamburger down my throat. Afterwards, I’m disgusted with myself.”
Now she’s fearful for her future.
“I’m scared,” she admits. “I’ve never eaten cushion in front of my kids, I don’t want them to copy me.
“They don’t know what I’m doing to my body but I’m terrified that one day, they’ll have to tell people: ‘Mummy died from eating too many sofas’.”
The Obama Administration’s Ineptness
The Obama Administration’s Ineptness – Peter Wehner
On Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – when asked about why we’re involving ourselves in Libya but not Syria – said this about Bashar Assad: “Many of the Members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.” For understandable reasons – more about that in a moment– those comments didn’t fly very well. So it was time for a retake.
Yesterday, when asked about her statement at a press conference, Secretary Clinton said, “Well, first, Jay [Solomon], as you rightly pointed out, I referenced opinions of others. That was not speaking either for myself or for the administration.”
As walk backs go, this one was unusually clumsy and obviously untrue. Mrs. Clinton could simply have said her previous comments were wrong and she was revising them. Instead we get a response that no one believes. Of course she was speaking for herself and for the administration; that’s what secretaries of state (as opposed to, say, MSNBC commentators) do.
But what is truly disquieting is what our secretary of state said in the first place. It raises the question: Was she even remotely familiar with Syria’s record under Assad? Just for starters, had she taken the time to read her own State Department’s most recent terrorism report? If she had, she would have found several references to Syria.
For example, in Chapter 1 we read, “Syria … provided political and material support to Hizballah in Lebanon and allowed Iran to resupply this organization with weapons, and provided safe-haven as well as political and other support to a number of designated Palestinian terrorist groups, including HAMAS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC).”
In Chapter 2 we learn, “Iran and Syria, both state sponsors of terrorism, continued to play destabilizing roles in the region… Hizballah continued its acquisition of smuggled arms, primarily via Iran and Syria, in violation of UN resolution 1701… HAMAS and Hizballah continued to finance their terrorist activities against Israel primarily through state sponsors of terrorism Iran and Syria.”
And in Chapter 3 we’re told, “Syria has maintained its ties with its strategic ally, and fellow state sponsor of terrorism, Iran.”
The foreign-policy ineptness we’re seeing from the Obama administration is quite striking. Its key players are sending out contradictory messages one after the other. One day Hosni Mubarak’s regime is stable; the next day he has to go. One day Bashar Assad is a reformer; the next day he’s a butcher. The president tells Members of Congress he expects we’ll be actively involved in military action against Libya for days, not weeks; the secretary of defense, when asked how much longer we might be in Libya, says, “I don’t think anybody knows the answer to that.” The president says, Colonel Qaddafi “must step down from power and leave” immediately; the caveat is that his exit can be achieved only through non-military means.
The president is slow to get us involved in Libya, after pressure from the French, the British, the UN, and the Arab League; now that he has, Mr. Obama and his aides cannot stress often enough how eager they are to become uninvolved in Libya. “We didn’t want to get sucked into an operation with uncertainty at the end,” one senior administration official told the New York Times. “In some ways, how it turns out is not on our shoulders.”
On arming the Libyan rebels, the president helpfully tells us, “I’m not ruling it out, but I’m also not ruling it in.” We’re told it’s in America’s interest to involve ourselves in humanitarian military action under certain conditions, but no coherent rationale is provided. Apparently it’s to be done ad hoc, on the fly, based on shifting sentiments. Nor can the administration articulate to the public what our end game in Libya is. According to the most recent Quinnipiac poll, which was concluded Monday evening as President Obama was addressing the nation about Libya, voters say by a margin of 58–29 percent that he has not clearly stated U.S. goals for Libya.
Let’s stipulate that the world is a complicated place, wars are unpredictable, and foreign policy can be difficult to manage. Still, one would hope that even a community organizer could do better than this.
Biggest Find Since The Dead Sea Scrolls? Seventy Metal Books Found In Cave In Jordan Could Change Our View Of Biblical History
For scholars of faith and history, it is a treasure trove too precious for price.
This ancient collection of 70 tiny books, their lead pages bound with wire, could unlock some of the secrets of the earliest days of Christianity.
Academics are divided as to their authenticity but say that if verified, they could prove as pivotal as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947.
On pages not much bigger than a credit card, are images, symbols and words that appear to refer to the Messiah and, possibly even, to the Crucifixion and Resurrection.
Adding to the intrigue, many of the books are sealed, prompting academics to speculate they are actually the lost collection of codices mentioned in the Bible’s Book Of Revelation.
The books were discovered five years ago in a cave in a remote part of Jordan to which Christian refugees are known to have fled after the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. Important documents from the same period have previously been found there.
Initial metallurgical tests indicate that some of the books could date from the first century AD.
This estimate is based on the form of corrosion which has taken place, which experts believe would be impossible to achieve artificially.
If the dating is verified, the books would be among the earliest Christian documents, predating the writings of St Paul.
The prospect that they could contain contemporary accounts of the final years of Jesus’s life has excited scholars – although their enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that experts have previously been fooled by sophisticated fakes.
David Elkington, a British scholar of ancient religious history and archeology, and one of the few to have examined the books, says they could be ‘the major discovery of Christian history’.
‘It is a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church,’ he said.
But the mysteries between their ancient pages are not the books’ only riddle. Today, their whereabouts are also something of a mystery. After their discovery by a Jordanian Bedouin, the hoard was subsequently acquired by an Israeli Bedouin, who is said to have illegally smuggled them across the border into Israel, where they remain.
However, the Jordanian Government is now working at the highest levels to repatriate and safeguard the collection. Philip Davies, emeritus professor of biblical studies at Sheffield University, said there was powerful evidence that the books have a Christian origin in plates cast into a picture map of the holy city of Jerusalem.
‘As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck,’ he said. ‘That struck me as so obviously a Christian image. There is a cross in the foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb [of Jesus], a small building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city.
‘There are walls depicted on other pages of these books too and they almost certainly refer to Jerusalem. It is a Christian crucifixion taking place outside the city walls.’
The British team leading the work on the discovery fears that the present Israeli ‘keeper’ may be looking to sell some of the books on to the black market, or worse – destroy them.
But the man who holds the books denies the charge and claims they have been in his family for 100 years.
Dr Margaret Barker, a former president of the Society for Old Testament Study, said: ‘The Book of Revelation tells of a sealed book that was opened only by the Messiah.
‘Other texts from the period tell of sealed books of wisdom and of a secret tradition passed on by Jesus to his closest disciples. That is the context for this discovery.’
Professor Davies said: ‘The possibility of a Hebrew-Christian origin is certainly suggested by the imagery and, if so, these codices are likely to bring dramatic new light to our understanding of a very significant but so far little understood period of history.’
Mr Elkington, who is leading British efforts to have the books returned to Jordan, said: ‘It is vital that the collection can be recovered intact and secured in the best possible circumstances, both for the benefit of its owners and for a potentially fascinated international audience.’
*British scientists have uncovered up to eight million mummified dogs, thought to have been sacrificed to Anubis, the god of the dead, 2500 years ago after excavating tunnels in the ancient Eygptian city of Saqqara.
Daily Benefactor News – DHS Accused Of Witness Tampering And Attempted Document Theft
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DHS Accused Of Witness Tampering And Attempted Document Theft – Fox News
A key congressional committee on oversight is accusing the Department of Homeland Security of non-cooperation, witness tampering and even attempted theft of committee documents.
The 152-page report comes on the eve of hearings on transparency about DHS by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The accusations were met with a swift condemnation from a DHS spokesman, who accused Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., of reaching conclusions before the hearing got under way.
“While the Committee’s report spends a good deal of space making allegations of politicization and obstruction, the facts simply do not support these claims. Ironically, the report itself is full of selective omissions and redactions that appear to have been made to support these allegations,” said DHS spokesman Amy Kudwa.
Kudwa also noted that the findings reach an entirely different conclusion than DHS’s Inspector General did in a separate report.
The release coincided with Fox News obtaining an e-mail exchange written to and by political appointees at the agency.
The e-mails appear to suggest a resistance to releasing documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
In one e-mail, a career DHS FOIA specialist asks political appointees to search for documents pertaining to the BP oil spill “using a time frame of April 20th, 2010, to May 13, 2010.”
When one employee asks, “What is my search term on this?” a third political appointee responds, “I used oil spill from 4/20 -4/30, when the request was sent in.”
That response leaves unexamined a two-week period of e-mails that were sought in the original FOIA request.
Chairman Issa believes the e-mail exchange is but a small part of a larger pattern of intentional obfuscation by political appointees at DHS.
“We’ve found that there has been politicization of FOIA – that instead of documents flowing more quickly and with the bias being towards openness – there’s been a tendency to evaluate everything in a political light,” Issa said.
The chairman suggested there was a preoccupation in DHS with the political affiliations of those seeking FOIA requests. He said, “We haven’t seen that since the Nixon Administration.”
In addition, in other newly released e-mails, one career employee at the Department of Homeland Security used words such as “crazy and meddling” to describe the scrutiny of FOIA requests by political appointees. Another e-mail indicates there was “constant stonewalling” by department lawyers to open records requests.
Still, none of these released e-mails yet indicate that political appointees at DHS were hiding some “smoking gun” or some bombshell of malfeasance.
The obfuscation appears to have been committed in the interest of political super-sensitivity, not in the interest of protecting great secrets. Whether that changes may be revealed in Issa’s hearings as they get under way Thursday morning.
In the midst of all the intense scrutiny, DHS officials maintain that the backlog of FOIA requests were largely left over from the Bush Administration. The say that under the Obama Administration, they have reduced the FOIA backlog by 84 percent and reduced the amount of time it takes to process FOIA requests from 240 days to 85 days.
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Buh-Bye Russ… MO Redistricting Map Eliminates Carnahan District
Buh-Bye Russ… MO Redistricting Map Eliminates Carnahan District – Gateway Pundit
Missouri is one of several states that will lose a representative in Congress as the result of the reapportionment process that took place after the 2010 U.S. Census. Things don’t look so good for Missouri democrats.
Ozarks First released a first look at the proposed redistricting in Missouri.
A map submitted for consideration of the House Redistricting Committee by its chair, Rep. John Diehl, R-Town and Country, shows the congressional district currently represented by Congressman Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, absorbed by the three congressional districts that currently border it…
…The map also shifts northwest Missouri congressman Sam Graves’ district to include almost every county north of the Missouri River from the western border of the state to the eastern border.
Another significant shift appears to have been made in mid-Missouri where the city of Columbia and Boone County, traditional Democratic strongholds, have been shifted out of the district represented by current Ninth District Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer and placed into the district of freshman U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Harrisonville.
Here’s a look at the current map:
And here’s the proposed map with the 8 seats that are left after redistricting.
Carnahan’s seat will be absorbed into neighboring districts. Pelosi’s poodle will likely find himself back in the private sector looking for employment.
Oh well, there’s always his brother’s wind farm. It’s a good thing brother Tom Carnahan was awarded $107 million in stimulus money for his wind farm project in Missouri. Certainly they can find a place for him somewhere after that $100 million gift.
Conservatives Now Outnumber Liberals In Deep-Blue States
Conservatives Now Outnumber Liberals In Deep-Blue States – The Blaze
That conservatives outnumber liberals nationally is not exactly news. But this is: according to a new poll from Gallup, even traditionally liberal states are drifting rightward.
……….
Business Insider explains that “Conservatives now outnumber liberals in deep-blue bastions like Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Oregon.”
Some specifics:
Mississippi is the first state with more than 50% conservative identification, with Idaho, Alabama, Wyoming, and Utah approaching that level, and Arkansas, South Carolina, North Dakota, Louisiana, and South Dakota (the rest of the top-ten conservative states) 45% or higher. Conservatives outnumber liberals in even the most liberal-leaning states (excluding the District of Columbia): Vermont, (30.7% conservative to 30.5% liberal), Rhode Island (29.9% to 29.3%), and Massachusetts (29.9% to 28.0%).
What explains this trend? Some might point to a conservative backlash against Obama’s liberal policies. And while that certainly may be part of it, Richard Florida, an urban theorist writing in The Atlantic, has a different theory. His explanation is economic:
Conservatism, at least at the state level, appears to be growing stronger. Ironically, this trend is most pronounced in America’s least well-off, least educated, most blue collar, most economically hard-hit states. Conservatism, more and more, is the ideology of the economically left behind. The current economic crisis only appears to have deepened conservatism‘s hold on America’s states. This trend stands in sharp contrast to the Great Depression, when America embraced FDR and the New Deal.
Interesting food for thought.
AARP May Get $1 Billion On ObamaCare, House Republicans Say
AARP May Get $1 Billion On ObamaCare, House Republicans Say – Bloomberg
A group of House Republicans said seniors lobby AARP will gain as much $1 billion over the next decade from the 2010 health care overhaul it supported and should have its tax-exempt status investigated.
AARP represents 37 million people ages 50 and over in the U.S. Its gains will come from insurance products it endorses and that will attract customers under the health law, a group of Republicans on the House Ways and Means committee said in a report released today.
“AARP operates in direct opposition to the needs of their senior membership,” said Representative Wally Herger, a California Republican who chairs the House Ways and Means Health subcommittee. “We think they ought to know what we’ve uncovered.”
House Republicans are preparing an overhaul of Medicare and Social Security, the U.S. government health insurance and income security programs for the elderly. The AARP has been critical of past Republican attempts to change the programs, mobilizing its 37 million members to stop reductions in benefits.
The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on April 1 to discuss the report, co-written by Representative Dave Reichert of Washington, a Republican.
Tax Target
Representative Charles Boustany, a Louisiana Republican, said that the Internal Revenue Service should investigate AARP’s not-for-profit tax status, which exempts the group from corporate income taxes. “AARP’s non-profit tax status is now in question and the appropriate authorities, the IRS,” should investigate, he said at the press conference.
The report says that AARP’s activities aren’t in the best interests of members, citing executive salaries higher than other large nonprofits. AARP Chief Executive Officer Bill Novelli reported $1.6 million from the organization in 2009, according to tax documents.
The group also spent on first-class travel, a Nascar racing team sponsorship, and luxury resort stays, Herger said.
“These are very troubling findings,” he said at the press conference in the U.S. Capitol.
That doesn’t mean its nonprofit status is at risk. AARP’s structure is similar to that of other nonprofits, and its organization and operations is based on clear rules and court precedents, said Doug Varley, an attorney at Caplin & Drysdale in Washington who specializes in the taxation of not-for-profit organizations.
“From a tax point of view, from an IRS perspective, I think that the report describes some facts, but the facts don’t add up to a disqualification for their tax status,” said Varley, who reviewed the report at the request of Bloomberg News.
AARP Insurance
Boustany also said that AARP was an insurance company, or at least acting like one. The report makes the same claim, comparing AARP’s revenue from health insurance to profits by health insurers. The report does not include insurer revenue.
Of AARP’s $1.09 billion in 2009 revenues, $657 million was from royalties from products licensed by AARP, according to the tax documents. That includes insurance products sold by Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH); New York- based MetLife Inc. (MET); Richmond, Virginia-based Genworth Financial Inc. (GNW); and Hartford, Connecticut-based Aetna Inc. (AET) UnitedHealth had revenues of $87.1 billion in 2009.
While it endorses insurance products, AARP doesn’t underwrite risk, have salesmen, or administer benefits, said AARP spokesman Drew Nannis. Most insurers fulfill some or all of those functions.
“AARP is no more an insurance company than we are a travel company, or an online photography company,” Lee Hammond, AARP President, said in a conference call with reporters.
Lobbying Efforts
The AARP is one the largest lobbying groups in the U.S., with $1.09 billion in revenue in 2009, according to documents filed with the IRS.
AARP lobbied for policies that would benefit its bottom line, not its members, according to the report. Cuts to Medicare Advantage, the private version of Medicare run by health insurers, would push more people into the program’s supplemental products such as one provided under AARP’s brand, which offers extra coverage on top of the government’s Medicare program.
David Certner, AARP’s top lobbyist in Washington, said that the group supported the cuts to Medicare and Medicare Advantage in the health law as a way to extend the life of the program, which provides health coverage to Americans ages 65 and over. “We’re concerned about the long-term solvency of Medicare and its financial condition. We want to make sure Medicare is paying out proper rates,” he said during a conference call with reporters discussing the report.
Law Not Beneficial
Certner said that supporting the health-care law ran counter to his organization’s financial interests. The law will eliminate the need for a product AARP offers with Aetna, called AARP Essential Premier, Certner said. AARP Essential Premier is a comprehensive insurance policy targeted at people ages 50 to 64, according AARP’s Website.
The law sets up insurance “exchanges” where people can buy subsidized coverage in 2014. Certner said AARP’s top officials haven’t decided whether to work with an insurer to sell a product through the marketplaces.
Aetna spokesman Fred Laberge didn’t immediately return an e-mail requesting comment.
AARP spent $22 million — the sixth-most of all advocacy organizations — on lobbying the federal government in 2010, according to the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a representative of American business interests and an opponent of the health-care overhaul, spent the most at $132 million.
This isn’t the first time Republicans in Congress have focused on the AARP. In 1995, Senator Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican who led the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, conducted a similar line of inquiry.
In his 1995 hearing, Simpson said that the organization wasn’t deserving of its nonprofit status, spent large sums on lobbying, and made a profit on licensed products, such as supplemental health insurance, sold to its members.
Gatordoug
darcprynce
Dave C
