RadioActive with Steve Mitton: September 2010

Monday, September 27, 2010

Stop the Internet Blacklist

When it really matters to them, Congressmembers can come together -- with a panache and wry wit you didn't know they had. As banned books week gets underway, and President Obama admonishes oppressive regimes for their censorship of the Internet, a group of powerful Senators -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- have signed onto a bill that would vastly expand the government's power to censor the Internet.

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced just one week ago, but it's greased and ready to move, with a hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee this Thursday. If people don't speak out, US citizens could soon find themselves joining Iranians and Chinese in being blocked from accessing broad chunks of the public Internet.

Help us stop this bill in its tracks! Click here to sign our petition.

COICA creates two blacklists of Internet domain names. Courts could add sites to the first list; the Attorney General would have control over the second. Internet service providers and others (everyone from Comcast to PayPal to Google AdSense) would be required to block any domains on the first list. They would also receive immunity (and presumably the good favor of the government) if they block domains on the second list.

Stop the Internet Blacklist!

Stop the Internet Blacklist! Sign the petition

Just the other day, President Obama urged other countries to stop censoring the Internet. But now the United States Congress is trying to censor the Internet here at home. A new bill being debated this week would have the Attorney General create an Internet blacklist of sites that US Internet providers would be required to block.

This is the kind of heavy-handed censorship you'd expect from a dictatorship, where one man can decide what web sites you're not allowed to visit. But the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to pass the bill this week -- and Senators say they haven't heard much in the way of objections! That's why we need you to sign our urgent petition to Congress demanding they oppose the Internet blacklist.

PETITION TO THE SENATE: Censoring the Internet is something we'd expect from China or Iran, not the U.S. Senate. You need to stop this Internet blacklist in its tracks and oppose S. 3804.

Add your name and we'll deliver your message to Washington.

Read more about the bill: COICA Fact Sheet.

In the news: BoingBoing, Daring Fireball, Reddit.

"We all use the web now for all kinds of parts our lives, some trivial, some critical to our life as part of a social world," says Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web. "In the spirit going back to Magna Carta, we require a principle that: No person or organization shall be deprived of their ability to connect to others at will without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty. Neither governments nor corporations should be allowed to use disconnection from the Internet as a way of arbitrarily furthering their own aims."

SIGN THE PETITION

Sunday, September 26, 2010

The Battle for the Future

For most of the life of America, and when it grew fastest, government spent just a few hundred dollars per person. Today, the federal government alone spends $10,000. Politicians talk about cuts, but the cuts rarely happen. The political class always needs more.

I see the pressure. All day, Congress listens to people who say they need and deserve help.

The cost of any one program per taxpayer is small, but the benefits are concentrated on well-organized interest groups. It's tough for a weak politician to say no.

But maybe things are changing. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., believes that "more and more people in America are beginning to wake up to the fact that this thing is coming unglued."

ObamaCare: The Used Car Contract of Lawmaking

After 20 years taking care of patients, I’d like to think my life in medicine doesn’t bear much resemblance to working as a used car salesman. Now, though – six months after the passage of President Obama’s behemoth health care law – I’ve been forced to reconsider.

In America circa 2010, it’s all about the fine print, whether you’re talking about reforming the health insurance industry or buying the automotive equivalent of ObamaCare, a 1997 Chevy Cavalier.

Buried deep in the 2,400 pages of the President and Democrats’ health care bill, under layers of bureaucratic and legal language, is a “no cost sharing” provision for preventative health services. That piece of the new health care law, which goes into effect September 23rd, drastically curtails patients’ ability to spend their own money for legal health care services.

“No cost sharing” is yet another way ObamaCare seizes control of health care decisions away from patients, families and their doctors and places it in the hands of obscure, unelected bodies often staffed by bureaucrats who have never cared for patients like those over whom they now wield such power.

Rush: Obama thinks people 'got screwed' when U.S. founded

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Radio giant Rush Limbaugh says President Obama holds the attitude that the original residents of America "got screwed" when the United States was officially founded.

The allegation came during the top-rated host's program today, as he analyzed Obama's speech last Wednesday at the Congressional Hispanic Congress.

The key section that has become controversial has Obama discussing the days before the American Revolution, which can be viewed at the 21:36 mark on this YouTube video:

Obama stated:

Long before America was even an idea, this land of plenty was home to many peoples: to British and French, to Dutch and Spanish, to Mexican – (applause) – to countless Indian tribes. We all shared the same land. We didn't always get along. But over the centuries, what eventually bound us together – what made us all Americans – was not a matter of blood, it wasn't a matter of birth. It was faith and fidelity to the shared values that we all hold so dear. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights: life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The actual quotation from the Declaration of Independence is:

A new lawsuit has been filed by Judicial Watch, the Washington watchdog organization, seeking documents that may reveal possible White House political influence over the decision to abandon large portions of the 2008 New Black Panther voter intimidation case.

The move comes on the heels of revelations that a longtime Democrat operative was involved in a series of e-mail exchanges with the Department of Justice at the time the decision to drop most of the case was being made.

A summary of e-mails obtained under an formal information request revealed that Democratic election-lawyer Sam Hirsch was involved in the DOJ decision to dismiss the voter intimidation counts against several New Black Panther Party members.

(Story continues below)

The revelation appeared to contradict the earlier Department of Justice testimony that such connections to political figures were not a part of the case.

Get "Taking America Back," Joseph Farah's manifesto for sovereignty, self-reliance and moral renewal

Now Judicial Watch is demanding, through the Freedom of Information Act, all records "related to meetings between Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli and White House officials regarding DOJ's decision to dismiss its voter intimidation case."

The action seeks:

Any and all records of Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli concerning meetings with the White House on the Justice Department's voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. The time frame for this request is from January 20, 2009 to June 15, 2009.

Handsome, Fit Japanese Robot Wants Your Job

Who needs people anymore?

Faced with an aging population and fewer people who can make things like Priuses and "Dance Dance Revolution," Japan has been busily building an army of robots that can take over.

And the newest of them looks like it can do "Dance Dance Revolution" while building a Prius.

Meet HRP-4, but you may as well give it your own name since it could eventually end up with your job.

Slim & Handsome Japanese Robot Wants Your Job

The HRP-4 "slim athlete" robot shows off its moves during a joint press conference by Kawada Industries and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan, in September.

(Note: Please disable your pop-up blocker)

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Slim & Handsome Japanese Robot Wants Your Job

Toshifumi Kitamura, AFP / Getty Images

Wait, What?

Seriously, look at this thing -- and then look in the mirror. Which one would you hire?

Singling out politics

Today the "gender gap" in politics, or the trend of women voting more Democratic than men, is the accepted norm. But it's a relatively recent one. So why the change?

According to the Gallup organization, the gender gap first showed up in significant terms in a presidential race in 1984. A majority of women have voted Democratic since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992.

But Gallup shows that in 1976, a majority of women backed Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter. For the dozen or so years before that, men and women had pretty similar voting patterns. Before 1964, "women actually voted Republican at higher rates than men did," Gallup shows.

Married women actually are more likely to vote Republican than single women, though they remain a true "swing group" of voters. In contrast, single women tend to be rock solid Democrats. Never-married women and/or single women with children, more Democratic still.

There is at least a correlation between women who have a man to provide, or help provide for and protect them, favoring Republicans. While women who don't have a husband are apparently more likely to look to the government to provide and protect instead.

Congressman Calls For Schools To ‘Promote The Agenda’ Of Climate Change, Population Limitation

Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) told CNSNews.com at a "Sustainability Education Summit" hosted by the U.S. Education Department on Tuesday that environmental education in schools can "promote the agenda" of climate change and population growth through the influence it has on children.

“Like I keep saying over and over again, if you get young people invested in those ideas early on, that will result in those kinds of positive policy developments," Sarbanes told CNSNews.com. "So, whether it’s climate change, whether it’s population growth, whether it’s all these factors that impact the health of our world, raising that awareness early among young people is only going to promote the agenda.”

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, AEI President Arthur Brooks and Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) discuss why America continues to have big government even though Americans consistently tell pollsters that they’d prefer smaller government. The Left answers that Americans suffer from some form of cognitive dissonance, in which they retain nominal loyalty to an outmoded view (from the Left’s perspective) of the government’s role , while in practice embracing the benefits of expansive government.

Brooks and Ryan answer that, despite Americans’ broader preferences, elected officials present the public with marginal choices in which bigger government always wins. Feed hungry children? Check. Keep grandma out of poverty? Check. Once you check enough of these boxes, you end up with big government even if you say you’d prefer something smaller. Brooks and Ryan argue that citizens need to be presented with larger, macro-oriented choices rather than incremental ones, since only with big choices do voters focus on the larger decisions that need to be made. I agree with this strategy.

Losing your religion deemed unhealthy

University Park, Pa. -- People who leave strict religious groups are more likely to say their health is worse than members who remain in the group, according to a Penn State researcher.

The percentage of people who left a strict religious group and reported they were in excellent health was about half that of people who stayed in the group, said Christopher Scheitle, senior research assistant in sociology.

"Previous research showed some association between belonging to a religious group and positive health outcomes," Scheitle said. "We became interested in what would happen to your health if you left a religious group. Would people demonstrate any negative health outcomes?"

America is more than a country.

America is an idea – an idea that free people can govern themselves, that government’s powers are derived from the consent of the governed, that each of us is endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America is the belief that any man or woman can – given economic, political, and religious liberty – advance themselves, their families, and the common good.

America is an inspiration to those who yearn to be free and have the ability and the dignity to determine their own destiny.

Whenever the agenda of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to institute a new governing agenda and set a different course.

These first principles were proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, enshrined in the Constitution, and have endured through hard sacrifice and commitment by generations of Americans.

In a self-governing society, the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent of the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent.

Parting the waters: Computer modeling applies physics to Red Sea escape route

BOULDER—The biblical account of the parting of the Red Sea has inspired and mystified people for millennia. A new computer modeling study by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) shows how the movement of wind as described in the book of Exodus could have parted the waters.

The computer simulations show that a strong east wind, blowing overnight, could have pushed water back at a bend where an ancient river is believed to have merged with a coastal lagoon along the Mediterranean Sea. With the water pushed back into both waterways, a land bridge would have opened at the bend, enabling people to walk across exposed mud flats to safety. As soon as the wind died down, the waters would have rushed back in.

The physics of a land bridge. This illustration shows how a strong wind from the east could push back waters from two ancient basins--a lagoon (left) and a river (right)--to create a temporary land bridge. New research that such a physical process could have led to a parting of waters similar to the description in the biblical account of the Red Sea. (Illustration by Nicolle Rager Fuller.)

The study is intended to present a possible scenario of events that are said to have taken place more than 3,000 years ago, although experts are uncertain whether they actually occurred. The research was based on a reconstruction of the likely locations and depths of Nile delta waterways, which have shifted considerably over time.

Female Leftist Activists Routinely Raped By Palestinians Silenced By Activists

Israel National News:

Two activists have exposed a disturbing phenomenon that they say is an open secret within the “peace camp”: female “peace” activists are routinely harassed and raped by the Arabs of Judea and Samaria with whom they have come to identify. They say the phenomenon has gotten worse lately and that many foreign women end up as wives of local Arabs against their will, but cannot escape their new homes.
...It is easy, explains Bello, “to carry out a sexual crime against a foreign girl, in her first days away from her family, in a place where no police have ever visited. And this is what happens, and has happened.”

"I was told of such rape cases by women who are not Jewish: a female European leftist activist, a female Red Cross volunteer and a young Arab woman from Yafo,” he says. He says that he met these women when he carried out IDF reserve duty, and met them afterward as well. “They told me what goes on there, in the Palestinian villages, far from any prying eye.”

The War Against Iran Has Already Started

There is little doubt that the fine gradations of history will give cyber war an earlier start. But just as television news was transformed by technology before the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and politics was transformed by social networking before it appeared that Twitter would bring about a second Iranian Revolution, process and progress need crystallizing events, where the political and cultural significance of technological innovation becomes indisputable.

Such a moment came in July with the discovery of a worm known as Stuxnet, which sought out a particular version of the Siemens’ SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems that control power grids and industrial plants. According to Ralph Langner, an expert in industrial control systems who published a study of the worm last week, Stuxnet was capable of taking over SCADA controls in order to deliver a kinetic attack by causing critical systems to physically malfunction. The systems infected weren’t randomly targeted: a majority are in Iran.

Chris Coons: "I Studied Under A Marxist"

Amherst College.
May 23, 1985.
The campus newspaper: the Amherst Student.
The much dismissed article written by now Delaware Senate candidate Chris Coons that bore the title: "Chris Coons: The Making of a Bearded Marxist."
(A serious hat tip to Dan Riehl over at Riehl World View.)

Now the title of this article has been bandied about in a few media quarters, only to be laughed at and dismissed. Coons himself leads us to believe that he was just joshing.

The problem? No one is taking the time to really read the contents of the article and connect it to what's going on right this minute in American politics.

Madam President? It could happen

The first thing you notice, upon pulling up to Chuck and Sally Heath's house in Wasilla, Alaska, is the Christmas tree of moose antlers piled up next to the driveway. Step inside the ranch-style home, and you get another unmistakable sign that you're not in the Democrats' America anymore: Chuck's prized collection of skinned and stuffed animals, the spoils of his many hunting trips – a cougar, a mountain goat, foxes, birds, and snake skins spilling over the banister. Outside, a picnic table offers dramatic views of the Chugach Mountain range. It was in this setting that the Heaths, putting aside their natural wariness of press from the Lower 48 states, agreed to meet a reporter, feed her fresh snap peas from their garden-and share their thoughts about their world-famous daughter, Sarah Palin.

Should she run for president in 2012? Sarah's mother, Sally, doesn't hesitate. "It would be a tough thing to do," she starts to say, until Chuck interrupts: "It's up to her, whatever she wants to do." Sally, in a green zip-up sweatshirt, continues. "I love what she's doing now: scouting around for who would be good candidates, who honestly could stand up and speak and not be afraid to tell it like it is."

John Rockefeller (shown) is pushing to block the EPA's climate rules for two years. | AP Photo

John Rockefeller is pushing to block the EPA's climate rules for two years. | AP Photo Close

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN | 9/20/10 4:34 AM EDT Updated: 9/20/10 6:48 AM EDT

Environmentalists are bracing for a fight that would have seemed preposterous after the 2008 elections: a move to limit the government’s ability to curb greenhouses gases and global warming.

Even the proposal’s sponsor — a Democrat — cuts against the story line that predicted the Democratic takeover of Washington would finally lead to action on climate change.

But the push by West Virginia Sen. John Rockefeller to restrict the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to force reductions in carbon dioxide emissions illustrates how dramatically the environmental community’s fortunes have fallen despite the rise of allies in the White House and Congress.

Most Economists Want All Tax Cuts Extended; CNN's Roberts Sees Need to 'Bump Up' Govt's 'Revenue Stream' Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ri

A new CNN/Money survey of 31 top economists found a majority of them say the top priority — given the weak state of the economy — is for Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts for all income groups. But talking about this policy recommendation with CNN/Money’s Paul La Monica on Monday’s American Morning, co-anchor John Roberts rued the conundrum of needing to keep tax rates low for economic reasons — putting “more money in the pockets of people” — while at the same time, because of the “frightening” trillion-dollar deficits, “you’ve got to bump up your [the government’s] revenue stream.” Roberts fretted:

You want to put more money in the pockets of people, particularly when you look at unemployment over 9 percent. But then at the same time you have these deficits that are running at an absolutely frightening rate of a trillion-plus dollars a year. So, you’ve got to bump up your revenue stream but at the same time you want to keep your money coming into the economy. So how do you reconcile that calculation?

It seems not to have occurred to Roberts that the way to avoid either monstrous deficits or suffocating tax increases is to reduce government to a more affordable size.

Some people find the act of a parent kissing his or her child on the lips inappropriate.

Personally, it feels strange even writing that title.

Why wouldn't parents kiss their kids on the lips? Isn't that what all parents do? You know, kiss their kids on the lips to show their love? Apparently, some people find the idea of a parent kissing his or her son or daughter on the lips deranged and disgusting. But who?

One is a reader of the advice column penned by Margot Howard (daughter of Eppie Lederer, who once wrote an advice column as the famous Ann Landers) who wrote in under the name "Want My Husband's Lips for Myself" to complain that her husband regularly gives a peck on the lips to his 5-year-old daughter.

America: Love it or (if you're rich enough) leave it?

Glen Esnard, a Newport Beach executive for real estate services firm Grubb & Ellis, went to bat in the Wall Street Journal last week for high-income-earners who believe it’s unfair that their tax rates should rise on Jan. 1, as President Obama proposes.

Esnard also suggested that the answer might be for the better-heeled to find a new country.

In a letter to the newspaper, Esnard wrote that although he includes himself in the population earning more than $250,000 a year:

My family isn't wealthy. I have no funded retirement plan save Social Security, if it is there when I need it. I have no guarantee of permanent health care. I am paying off school loans for our three children. A meaningful number of my friends have lost their jobs, and all who are still employed, including my family, have taken significant pay reductions. . . . This is a classless recession, at least in my experience. It is hitting everyone.

Yet those of us who make $250,000 or more are vilified and held accountable for solving our government's penchant for spending more than it takes in so that politicians can buy votes. We already pay more in taxes than 98% of the population, particularly the nearly 50% of eligible voters who pay no federal income tax. The president wants us to pay more, and he frames it in a way that casts us as not yet carrying our fair share of the burden.

He then goes on to say that the $250K+ class might just vote with their feet:

Apparently our president thinks that living in America is so wonderful that we will never leave, despite being directly attacked and held responsible for the political class's inability to constrain its desire to buy votes with our money. He should think again.

"I'm one of your middle class Americans. And quite frankly, I'm exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for," a woman told President Obama at a town hall.

Koch Industries Lawyer to White House: How Did You Get Our Tax Information?

Lately, the White House and its allies have been drawing attention to the political activities of libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. In an August 9 speech, President Obama singled out Americans for Prosperity, a free-market political group founded by David Koch in 2004. In the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, Obama said:

Right now all around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates all across the country. And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation. You don't know if it’s a big oil company, or a big bank. You don't know if it’s a insurance company that wants to see some of the provisions in health reform repealed because it’s good for their bottom line, even if it’s not good for the American people.

"Using a great deal" of research by the left-wing Center for American Progress, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer reported in the magazine's August 30 issue that the Kochs are "waging a war against Obama." Reason's Nick Gillespie argued that Mayer's report was nothing more than "sly innuendo and revelations as lame as they are breathless," but that hasn't stopped top Democrats from blasting the Kochs for funding the Democrats' political opposition.

UK Proposes All Paychecks Go to the State First

The UK's tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer.

Sharon Lorimer

The proposal by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) stresses the need for employers to provide real-time information to the government so that it can monitor all payments and make a better assessment of whether the correct tax is being paid.

Currently employers withhold tax and pay the government, providing information at the end of the year, a system know as Pay as You Earn (PAYE). There is no option for those employees to refuse withholding and individually file a tax return at the end of the year.

10 Reasons Why Obama’s Is The Most Failed Presidency In Modern Times

On November 2008, Barack Obama was elected 44th President of the United States. His election was a truly historic moment, not only because he was the first African-American elected to the nation’s highest office, but also because Obama promised so much during the campaign.

Obama promised to be a post-partisan, post racial president. He promised hope, change, and a new era of transparency. Obama and his supporters insisted that he was entirely qualified to lead the country, despite his lack of leadership experience and the vague substance of his campaign promises. His entire campaign was based on the idea that he was completely different from anyone who served in the Oval Office before.

The reality is that the Obama presidency has fallen far short of the high expectations. In generally every area, the new administration has failed to deliver on its lofty promises. Obama has proven himself to be quite tone deaf to the needs — and will — of the American electorate. Never before have arrogance and inexp

Why Conservative Women May Save the Country

A fellow blogger recently told me how encouraged he was that so many strong conservative women were running for office this year. He said he believed it would most likely be conservative women who saved the country. That is the first time I had heard it said that directly, but the more I thought about it, the more I agreed.

He asked me why I thought so many women were running for office this year. It would be really easy to attribute it to the example of Sarah Palin -- and I believe that is part of it -- but that is just one piece of the puzzle.

Sarah Palin has been an inspiration. Many women watching Palin in the 2008 presidential race saw themselves. They might not be former beauty queens or Alaskan hunters. They have not served as governor of a state. But they saw a woman who came to hold office not by being born into privilege or being a Rhodes scholar, but by working her way up from the local level. They saw a woman who became involved in her community -- starting on a small city council, then as a small town mayor, then as governor.

They saw in Palin, unlike some other female politicians, a woman who did not see her femininity as a weakness, but instead embraced it. They saw someone who wasn’t a Harvard law school graduate or a policy wonk. They saw a politician who looked at the world from the perspective of a wife and a mother.

They saw the mother of a son serving in the armed forces, a pregnant teenage daughter and a young son with Down syndrome.

House Democrats Pass Bill to Grill School Children about Sexual Preference

t the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing last Thursday, Democrats passed a bill to require federal health officials to question anyone seeking services from Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) community health centers or other programs about their sexual orientation and “gender identity.”

Introduced by Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), H.R. 6109 requires HHS to obtain, retain and analyze sexual identity information from patients who seek healthcare, including children.

“This bill is about collecting data, no more, no less,” Baldwin said.

According to Baldwin, the current “lack of cultural competency” among federal officials means that “we are left with gaping holes in our knowledge on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) policy” resulting in “significant health disparities.”

Baldwin is the first openly-declared lesbian elected to Congress.

Does President Obama Think Our Rights Come from Our Creator?

The most famous words in the Declaration of Independence — and almost surely the most famous words ever written by an American — read, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

On Friday evening, when President Obama addressed the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, he quoted that passage as follows (on the clip at 22:30): “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal [pause], endowed with certain unalienable rights: life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

In Obama’s version, there is no “Creator.”

Only two plausible explanations spring to mind. One is that President Obama isn’t very familiar with the most famous passage in the document that founded this nation; that even when plainly reading from a teleprompter, he wasn’t able to quote it correctly. The other is that President Obama doesn’t subscribe to the Declaration’s rather central claim that our rights come from our “Creator” (also referred to in the Declaration as “Nature’s God” and “the Supreme Judge of the World”).

Energy Department Says It Has ‘Mandate’ to Force ‘Market Transformation’ for Household Appliances

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Assistant Energy Secretary Cathy Zoi said Thursday that the U.S. Department of Energy has a “mandate” to issue regulations to determine what household appliances are available to Americans in the future.

Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi (CNSNews.com photo/Penny Starr)

Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the recently reestablished Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB), Zoi pointed to four tactics the Obama administration intends to use to advance the “deployment of clean energy.”

The first three include government subsidies for private-sector green energy projects; special tax incentives for green energy projects; and low-interest government-backed loans for green energy projects.

“The fourth one, which the secretary and I love,” said Zoi, “is where we have a mandate. Where we can actually just issue regulations and do market transformation.”

Harry Reid’s illegal alien student bailout

The open-borders lobby is out in full force, launching a week-long campaign yesterday to pass another illegal alien amnesty-by-another-name. DREAM Act activists and Hispanic lawmakers strategized with President Obama at the White House. The “undocumented students action and resource network” has been activated. How about you?

Keep track of where your lawmakers stand at NumbersUSA. As I noted the other day, several open-borders Republicans have supported the DREAM Act illegal alien student bailout in the past. Make sure they know where you stand.

The so-called DREAM Act would create an official path to Democrat voter registration for an estimated 2 million, college-age illegal aliens. Look past the public relations-savvy stories of “undocumented” valedictorians left out in the cold. This is not about protecting “children.” It’s about preserving electoral power through cap-and-gown
amnesty.

Government Believes It Has A Right To The Wealthy’s Income

During his recent speech in Ohio, President Obama made it clear his administration will soon raise taxes on those in the top marginal income tax bracket. While not surprising given the administration’s penchant for redistribution, the manner in which President Obama made his declaration brings cause for concern: “This isn’t to punish folks who are better off – it’s because we can’t afford the $700 billion price tag.” Not only will such tax-the-rich policy hamper U.S. economic growth, principally among small businesses, but the statement itself is a clear indictment of the president’s broader philosophical belief: Earned income is the Government’s, not the Peoples’.

Practically, the looming tax increase will hamper the already-struggling recovery. The wealthiest earners spend the most, especially on the margins. Their spending helps fuel demand, drive profits, and thus create jobs. This group also invests more, providing capital to companies seeking cash and driving long-term growth. But the debate over trickle-down economics has been well documented.

Clinton Falsely Claims He Reduced National Debt, Gregory Doesn't Challenge Him

It must be nice to know you can go on a nationally televised political talk show and not be challenged when you make an historically inaccurate claim, especially when it's about yourself.

Such happened Sunday when former President Bill Clinton was interviewed by David Gregory on NBC's "Meet the Press."

The host began the discussion by asking his guest about "pretty significant developments...inside the Republican Party after this turbulent primary season."

Clinton responded by saying members of the Tea Party have "good impulses" concerning the size of government adding, "They believe those in the Republican Party believe that they've talked a good game about balancing the budget, but the debt was quadrupled in the 12 years before I became president and then we paid down the debt for four years, paid down $600 billion on the national debt."

Is Obama a socialist? No, he’s worse than that Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1312527/Is-Barack-Obama-socialist-No-hes-worse-th

Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express have roared right through the latest round of Republican Party primaries this week, rattling the party establishment and terrifying the Democrats.

For those of you who are trained in the fastidious ways of the British ‘liberalism’ and are therefore shocked and can’t think why the American Right is gaining such strength, here’s the reason: Barack Obama.

President Barack Obama delivers remarks on the economy earlier this month

Star-spangled: President Obama delivers a speech on the economy this month

Americans are waking up to the fact that they have elected a man as president who is every inch an exotic creature. Which was rather fun at first.

The problem is, America is discovering that Mr Obama has brought more than just a foreign name and an interesting racial mix to the White House. He has brought a whole foreign way of thinking. And Americans don’t like it.

Showdown over Islam looming for SBOE

AUSTIN — Texas public school children risk getting tainted with a pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias in their textbooks, according to a resolution the State Board of Education will consider next week that's likely to fan emotions already running high across the country.

“If Christians and Judaism gets pushed aside, parents and people don't like it because it's not accurate. It's not true,” said Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, one of the board members supporting the resolution.

Critics of the resolution contend the bias perceptions either are inflated or invalid. And they point out the lack of objections seven years ago when the social studies books were updated, albeit during a time when Islam attracted less attention in this country.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Two years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it seems safe to say that there is still a lot of resentment toward the financial sector.

Lehman's bankruptcy set into motion a chain of events that ultimately led to the creation of the government's controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. But some banks avoided bailout rage.

Meet the TARP refusers who said no to government support. Two years later, they remain elated that they never had to accept a dime from Washington.

Money Is Not What Schools Need

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently claimed: "Districts around the country have literally been cutting for five, six, seven years in a row. And, many of them, you know, are through, you know, fat, through flesh and into bone ... ."

Really? They cut spending five to seven consecutive years?

Give me a break!

Andrew Coulson, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom, writes that out of 14,000 school districts in the United States, just seven have cut their budgets seven years in a row. How about five years in a row? Just 87. That's a fraction of 1 percent in each case.

Duncan may be pandering to his constituency, or he may actually be fooled by how school districts (and other government agencies) talk about budget cuts. When normal people hear about a budget cut, we assume the amount of money to be spent is less than the previous year's allocation. But that's not what bureaucrats mean.

Shock Audio: Facing ‘Obligations’ From Leadership, Democrat Congresswoman Leaves Voicemail for Lobbyist Cash

A couple weeks ago, House Member Eleanor Holmes Norton made a fundraising call to a lobbyist. The lobbyist wasn’t available, so Holmes Norton left a voicemail.

We have been given a copy of that message. The audio is below.

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By way of background, with their prospects for November quickly deteriorating, Congressional Democrats are scrambling to assemble the financial resources they hope can stave off their electoral armageddon. Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team are putting a lot of pressure on Democrat members to pony up campaign contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In the article linked above, Politico noted:

In August, Pelosi and other top leaders wrote members, saying, “We need to know your commitment is to maintaining a strong Democratic majority now” and pleading with them to call “to let us know what you are able to do and when.”

Election 2010: Senate Balance Of Power

New polling in Washington has moved that state's senate race to Leans Democratic from Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports Senate Balance of Power rankings.

Polling done last night, one day after Christine O'Donnell's upset primary victory over Mike Castle has moved Delaware's senate race from Leans Democrat to Solid Democrat.

Current projections suggest that the Democrats would hold 49 seats after Election Day while the Republicans would hold 45. Six states are in the Toss-Up category (California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. All seven Toss-Ups are seats currently held by Democrats

Titanic Arrogance: Obama Is Sinking America

The United States of America is racing towards ruin at breakneck speed and her captain, President Barack Obama, seems blissfully ignorant of the peril he is piloting the nation towards.

As Obama traveled the country to beg Americans to vote Democrat last week, new images of the RMS Titanic’s wreck were published. Taken from three miles deep in the Atlantic, the photographs are further testament to a time when technological arrogance and Edwardian pride believed that government and industry could surmount all challenges.

When completed in 1911 the Titanic was considered the Eighth wonder of the World. Its captain, Edward J. Smith, boasted that the ship was unsinkable.

“I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that,” Smith said.

Obama’s Plan to Raise Tax Rates

President Obama wants to raise the top two individual income tax rates for 2011. The top rates will rise from 33% to 36% and from 35% to 39.6%, unless the president and Congress agree to extend the current rate structure.

Before taking action on this issue, policymakers should consider the following facts and data. (All information is cited in my related congressional testimony).

President Bush cut the top federal tax rate by 5 percentage points, but the average top rate in the 30 OECD nations has also fallen by 5 percentage points since 2000.
Unless policymakers extend current tax relief, the combined U.S. federal-state top rate will increase from 41.9% to about 46.5%, based on OECD data. That will give us about the tenth highest rate among the 30 OECD nations.
The chart shows that the average top OECD rate fell from 46.7% in 2000 to 41.5% in 2009. If we let the Bush tax cuts expire, we won’t be simply going back to our situation in 2000—the world has changed since then as other countries have adopted more competitive tax rates.

President Obama’s proposed top federal rate of 39.6 percent is 41-percent higher than the 28-percent top income rate achieved in the late 1980s after the bipartisan Tax Reform Act of 1986.

**FILE** Members of the New Black Panther Party walk toward the U.S. Capitol for the Million More Movement rally to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March on October 15, 2005. (J.M. Eddins Jr./The Washington Times)

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division — in the wake of the New Black Panther Party case — is being investigated by the department's office of inspector general to determine whether voting section employees have been harassed for participating in specific investigations or prosecutions.

In an end run around policy barring IG investigations of Justice Department litigators, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said his office will review what types of cases are being investigated, whether there have been changes in enforcement policies and procedures, and whether the civil rights laws are being enforced in a non-discriminatory manner.

Harry Reid is shown at a news conference with Hispanic lawmakers in Nevada. | AP Photo

'I think it is really important that we move forward on this legislation,' Sen. Harry Reid said. M EDT

In a strategy shift on immigration reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced Tuesday that Democrats will try to pass a bill legalizing the status of young, undocumented immigrants if they attend college for two years or join the military.

Reid will offer the DREAM Act as an amendment next week to the Defense Department authorization bill – thrusting the thorny, contentious issue of immigration reform back into the spotlight as Democrats struggle to blunt a Republican surge ahead of the November midterm elections.

CNN Poll: Only quarter of public trusts government

Washington (CNN) – A new poll indicates that only one in four Americans say they trust the government to do what is right always or most of the time, one explanation for the anti-incumbent sentiment in the country today.

According to CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national survey released Tuesday, 25 percent of the public indicates that they trust the government in Washington to do what's is right most or all of the time, with 66 percent saying they trust the government to do what's right only some of the time and eight percent saying they never trust the government.

Full results [pdf]

"That lack of trust in government is not a recent phenomenon - except for a brief spike fueled by patriotism immediately after 9/11, a majority have not trusted the government since the early 1970s," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

But the recession appears to have made matters worse.

Duration of unemployment in the US, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"The labour market is in dire straits. The Great Recession has left behind a waste land of unemployment," said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF's chief, at an Oslo jobs summit with the International Labour Federation (ILO).

He said a double-dip recession remains unlikely but stressed that the world has not yet escaped a deeper social crisis. He called it a grave error to think the West was safe again after teetering so close to the abyss last year. "We are not safe," he said.

Obama: Pro-Union 'Card Check' Dread, So We'll Use Regulation

During a backyard event with some supporters in Fairfax, Va., today, President Obama conceded something that all observers of Big Labor politics in Washington have known for a while: “Card check” legislation is dead. But he told supporters of the law not to worry since the administration has other ways of doing this:

Frankly, we don’t have 60 votes in the Senate. So the opportunity to actually get this passed right now is not real high. What we’ve done instead is try to do as much as we can administratively to make sure that it’s easier for unions to operate and that they’re not being placed at an unfair disadvantage.

That’s not an idle promise. Obama has stocked the National Labor Relations Board, the federal entity that oversees labor/management relations, with pro-union lawyers, some of whom have some pretty strong views on the subject. New NRLB member Craig Becker once argued as a labor lawyer that “employers should have no right to be heard” in NRLB cases.

Retirement Fund Trillions Lure Government Grabbers

Is the government making plans to confiscate your retirement money? The Obama administration is certainly exploring the idea.

This question no longer seems far-fetched when the group-thinkers in Washington unabashedly promote a doctrine of wealth redistribution and central planning. These Keynesian socialists know they will need vast new sources of revenues to fund their relentless spending binges to "transform" this nation. A logical next step would be to legitimize the confiscation of private retirement assets -- an idea that was contemplated in the recent past by the Clinton administration.

According to the Investment Company Institute, there was $7.835 trillion in IRA, 401K, 457, and 403b accounts in 2009. That is certainly too large a sum to be ignored by the big spending social engineers in Washington. Bureaucrats and politicians have been hard at work formulating a social justice excuse to legislate an historic seizure of private assets. This would not be the first time the statists extorted wealth from U.S. citizens on a massive scale.

The public hates almost everything Congress has done Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-co

Gallup has released a new poll asking respondents to assess the major accomplishments of Congress in the last two years: the national health care bill, the stimulus, the bailout of auto companies, the bailout of major banks and financial institutions, and the financial regulatory reform bill. The pollsters found majority opposition to all those measures, with the exception of financial reform.

The numbers: Bank bailouts, 61 percent disapprove versus 37 percent approve; national health care, 56 percent disapprove versus 39 percent approve; auto bailouts, 56 percent disapprove versus 43 percent approve; stimulus, 52 percent disapprove versus 43 percent approve. Only financial reform, with 61 percent approve versus 37 percent disapprove, is a winner for the representatives and senators seeking re-election.

Although the bank bailout was passed with significant bipartisan support, the news is terrible mostly for the House and Senate Democratic leadership. It's even worse for Democrats when you single out the opinions of independents. Just 32 percent of independents approve of the bank bailouts; 35 percent approve of national health care; 38 percent approve of the stimulus; and 40 percent approve of the auto bailouts. Sixty-two percent of independents approve of financial regulatory reform.

White House: We Totally Didn't Say Recovery Summer Meant Economic Recovery...Except When We Did

Austan Goolsbee, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, tried this weekend to reel back in the economic expectations of the administration's disastrous "Recovery Summer" campaign:

Goolsbee also said the "Summer of Recovery" touted by Vice President Joe Biden was a reference to the stimulus plan, not economic recovery.

"The vice president was talking about the Summer of Recovery in reference to the recovery act — that you would see the creation of a series of infrastructure and other projects ramping up over the summer, and you did see that," Goolsbee said.

Goolsbee is right on emphasis, but dead wrong on absolutism. The Recovery Summer was focused on highlighting that the number of stimulus-funded projects was really gonna kick in this summer. But if you think that the vice president wouldn't use that opportunity to make extravagant claims about the economy, then you don't know Joe. Here he was launching the propaganda tour:

"The fact is the Recovery Act is working," Biden told a news conference as the administration kicked off a six-week series of events called "Recovery Summer," to highlight the numerous infrastructure programs funded by the 787-billion-dollar plan.

"We've gone from hemorrhaging over 700,000 jobs a month the first several months we got here and turned on the lights in the West Wing here, to adding more -- several hundred thousand jobs a month the last several months."

Obama Gets Highest Ratings from Followers of Olbermann, Maddow and NYT Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/09/13/obama-gets-hi

A new study by the Pew Research Center found that Barack Obama gets his highest approval ratings from people that watch MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, as well as from readers of the New York Times.

The numbers are rather staggering, as 84 percent of regular viewers of MSNBC's "Countdown" give the President high marks for his job performance.

This compares to 80 percent for regular viewers of "The Rachel Maddow Show" and 79 percent for regular readers of the Times.

But that's just one of the interesting findings in the Pew survey released Sunday:

Americans are spending more time with the news than was the case a decade ago. As was the case in 2000, people now say they spend 57 minutes on average getting the news from TV, radio or newspapers on a given day. But today, they also spend an additional 13 minutes getting news online, increasing the total time spent with the news to 70 minutes. This is one of the highest totals on this measure since the mid-1990s and it does not take into account time spent getting news on cell phones or other digital devices .

Only about one-in-four (26%) Americans say they read a newspaper in print yesterday, down from 30% two years ago and 38% in 2006. Meanwhile, online newspaper readership continues to grow and is offsetting some of the overall decline in readership. This year, 17% of Americans say they read something on a newspaper's website yesterday, up from 13% in 2008 and 9% in 2006.

Overall, cable news continues to play a significant role in peoples' news habits - 39% say they regularly get news from a cable channel. But the proportions saying they regularly watch CNN, MSNBC and CNBC have slipped substantially from two years ago, during the presidential election.

The 1099 Insurrection

You might not have seen it reported, but the Senate will vote this morning on whether to repeal part of ObamaCare that it passed only months ago. The White House is opposed, but this fight is likely to be the first of many as Americans discover—as Nancy Pelosi once famously predicted—what's in the bill.

The Senate will vote on amendments to the White House small business bill that would rescind an ObamaCare mandate that companies track and submit to the IRS all business-to-business transactions over $600 annually. Democrats tucked the 1099 reporting footnote into the bill to raise an estimated $17.1 billion, part of the effort to claim that ObamaCare reduces the deficit by $100 billion or so.

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Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) gestures to a copy of the Senate's health care reform legislation.

But this "tax gap" of unreported business income is largely a Beltway myth, and no less than the Treasury Department's National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson says the costs will be "disproportionate as compared with any resulting improvements in tax compliance."

Meanwhile, small businesses are staring in horror toward 2013, when the 1099 mandate will hit more than 30 million of them. Currently businesses only have to tell the IRS the value of services they purchase from vendors and the like. Under the new rules, they'll have to report the value of goods and merchandise they purchase as well, adding vast accounting and paperwork costs.

Westboro Baptist Church to burn Qurans if Dove doesn't

Westboro Baptist Church, the small Topeka, Kan., church that pickets funerals of American soldiers to spread its message that God is punishing the country for being tolerant of homosexuals, has vowed to hold a Quran burning if Gainesville's Dove World Outreach Center calls its off.

"WBC burned the Koran once – and if you sissy brats of Doomed america bully Terry Jones and the Dove World Outreach Center until they change their plans to burn that blasphemous tripe called the Koran, then WBC will burn it (again), to clearly show you some things," the church announced in a news release this week.

Protester plans to burn Quran on Capitol steps

CHEYENNE -- The founder of the Wyoming Tyranny Response Team plans to burn a copy of the Quran on the steps of the State Capitol on Saturday.

Duncan Philp said he will protest the location of a proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero in New York City. He also will protest President Barack Obama's support for the location.

"I feel Obama is being disingenuous when he pretends he supports religious liberties," Philp said. "(The Muslims) are not building that mosque out of love for my culture or love of the victims of 9-11 but for political reasons."

Meanwhile, members of Unitarian Universalist Church also plan to walk from their church to the Capitol on Saturday.

They will gather in response to a Florida pastor who plans to burn more than 200 copies of the Quran, said the Rev. Dana Lightsey of the church.

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a statement regarding the planned burning of the Quran in by a pastor in Florida.

Pastor Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville Florida plan to burn several copies of the Quran on Saturday's anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon 9 years ago.

Are Your Pants Lying to You? An Investigation

"I said, 'I do not fear those pants / With nobody inside them.'
I said, and said, and said those words. / I said them. But I lied them."
—Dr. Seuss

The devastating realization came in H&M. Specifically, in a pair of size 36 dress pants. I'd never bought pants at H&M before, and suddenly asked myself: how could a 36-inch waist suddenly be so damn tight?

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I've never been slim — I played offensive line in high school — but I'm no cow either. (I'm happily a "Russell Crowe" body type.) So I immediately went across the street, bought a tailor's measuring tape, and trudged from shop to shop, trying on various brands' casual dress pants. It took just two hours to tear my self-esteem to smithereens and raise some serious questions about what I later learned is called "vanity sizing."

Your pants have been deceiving you for years. And the lies are compounding:

The pants manufacturers are trying to flatter us. And this flattery works: Alfani's 36-inch "Garrett" pant was 38.5 inches, just like the Calvin Klein "Dylan" pants — which I loved and purchased. A 39-inch pair from Haggar (a brand name that out-testosterones even "Garrett") was incredibly comfortable. Dockers, meanwhile, teased "Leave yourself some wiggle room" with its "Individual Fit Waistline," and they weren't kidding: despite having a clear size listed, the 36-inchers were 39.5 inches. And part of the reason they were so comfy is that I felt good about myself, no matter whether I deserved it.

(CNSNews.com) - In the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan.

The U.S. Treasury Department divides the federal debt into two categories. One is “debt held by the public,” which includes U.S. government securities owned by individuals, corporations, state or local governments, foreign governments and other entities outside the federal government itself. The other is “intragovernmental” debt, which includes I.O.U.s the federal government gives to itself when, for example, the Treasury borrows money out of the Social Security “trust fund” to pay for expenses other than Social Security