Parteibuch Aggregator Feed

Tom Fitton: Newt Gingrich Releases Freddie Mac Docs, Now It’s Obama’s Turn

Tom Fitton — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:38:12 +0000

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has come under fire, including from Judicial Watch, for his controversial relationship with mortgage giant Freddie Mac in the years after the former House Speaker left Congress. The issue is especially sensitive in Florida, which has been described as “ground zero” of the housing crisis. Voters take to the polls in the “sunshine state” today in the Republican primary. Judicial Watch does not endorse or oppose candidates for office.

Gingrich initially said in debates and press interviews that Freddie Mac paid his company as much as $25,000 per month for his services as a “historian.” He has since switched that term out for the more standard “consultant.” But the documents released by the Gingrich campaign suggest he may have been more than a “consultant.”

Politico reports:

New details from Newt Gingrich’s contracts worth $1.6 million with Freddie Mac show that the Republican hopeful wasn’t just a boardroom consultant, but served as a high-profile booster for the beleaguered organization. He even gave a rallying speech to dozens of the group’s political action committee [PAC] donors in the spring of 2007.

Shortly after the “rah, rah” speech, as one source described it, Gingrich gave an interview for the Freddie Mac website, where he supported the group’s model at length. The interview is no longer on Freddie’s site.

Gingrich said in the interview that Freddie has “made an important contribution to home ownership and the housing finance system,” even though many Republicans revile it.

And so these records seem to suggest that Gingrich, who described the Freddie Mac business model “insane” on the campaign trail, had a different tale to tell when Freddie Mac was filling his corporate bank account.

Regarding Freddie’s political contributions, Politico reports, “Freddie Mac’s PAC contributed $327,000 to federal candidates in the 2006 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Nearly 130 employees and spouses of employees contributed $330,000 over that same time period.” Overall, according to Opensecrets.org, Fannie and Freddie contributed $4.8 million dollars to candidates over a 20-year period 1989-2008 . The top three recipients: Former Senator Chris Dodd D-CT , President Barack Obama during his service in the U.S. Senate, and Senator John Kerry D-MA .

Importantly, Gingrich’s “consulting” arrangement was in force right up until the Federal Housing Finance Agency seized control of the beleaguered enterprise and its sister organization Fannie Mae three years ago.

Now Gingrich has sustained fire for artfully dodging questions about his relationship with Freddie Mac and for taking so long to release records related to this relationship. The public and the press can have the debate as to what this relationship means politically. But at least he has turned on the spigot and the documents are starting to flow into the public domain.

We can’t say the same about the Obama administration.

JW has been engaged in a battle with the Federal Housing Finance Agency FHFA over documents related to the political contributions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We want these records for precisely the same reason the media is so feverishly interested in Newt Gingrich’s Freddie Mac records.

We want to know everything there is to know about the well-lubricated political relationships that enabled Fannie and Freddie to conduct their questionable activities with virtually no oversight, ultimately leading to the demise of the housing market and the ensuing financial crisis. We already uncovered documents proving members of Congress ignored corruption inside the two Government Sponsored Enterprises for years.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, says these records are none of the public’s business. They made the shocking argument in court that Fannie and Freddie, which are now wholly owned by the federal government, are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act FOIA . JW countered that FHFA has custody over these records and they should be released: “There is nothing contingent, hypothetical, indefinite, or limiting about this plain statutory language vesting the FHFA with both legal custody and lawful control over the records.”

A federal district court agreed in large part with JW’s legal argument, but nonetheless concluded the FHFA did not control the records because the records in question weren’t being “used”! We filed an unsuccessful appeal, so the court-endorsed government cover-up continues for now. These very records would have included documents about Gingrich’s “rah rah” speech to the Freddie Mac PAC!

We’ve asked the FHFA again for documents, this time about Newt Gingrich, and we’re still getting stonewalled. It is unbelievable – though so typically “Washington” – that Obama protects his campaign opponent Gingrich through unprecedented assertions of government secrecy. I bet you we will get the “secret” Osama bin Laden photos before Obama disgorges anything on the Freddie/Fannie racket that has cost taxpayers over $150 billion and counting.

Here’s the takeaway on the Gingrich/Freddie relationship and any other politician tied to either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac: The public deserves to know the details of these relationships. The Obama administration has records that can clear the air. But it refuses to release them.

Could it have something to do with the fact that President Obama, in only three years in the U.S. Senate, shot up the list of Fannie/Freddie beneficiaries all the way, relatively speaking, to number one?

By the way, not one of the presidential candidates has bothered to answer any of our questions about government secrecy and other important policy matters. The AP has a good expose on the bipartisan hypocrisy here.

Fast and Furious Breaking News: With Zero Hour Approaching, It’s Revealed the DOJ Suggested Gun Running

Fast and Furious Breaking News — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:35:03 +0000

February 2nd is fast approaching for Attorney General Eric Holder, who is set to appear before the House Oversight Committee for questioning on Fast and Furious. This will put him in the hot seat in front of Congressman Darrell Issa R-CA and other congressional members like Paul Gosar R-AZ , who have been steady on Holder’s trail since details of Fast and Furious became public.

Holder’s last appearance before a congressional committee was on December 8, when Issa made it clear how irritated he was over the changing timeline, Holder’s perceived arrogance, and the ongoing refusal to turn over subpoenaed DOJ documents. In one of the best exchanges on Dec 8, Issa looked at Holder and asked, “Have you no shame?” That was also the hearing in which Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner R-WI , expressed his outrage over the fact that Holder’s DOJ had submitted inaccurate testimony then withdrawn it in an attempt to avoid being charged with providing false testimony.

But a lot has changed since that early December hearing. Most recently, the last minute release of subpoenaed documents which show that Holder learned about Border Agent Brian Terry’s death on the day it happened: a point Holder has heretofore denied. Emails between Dennis Burke, former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, and Holder’s then-deputy chief of staff prove this. Additionally, other emails in the recently released DOJ documents show that the head of DOJ’s “criminal division, Lanny Breuer, suggested letting some illicit ‘straw’ weapons buyers in the U.S. [to] transport their guns across the border into Mexico where they could be arrested.”

Then there’s Patrick J. Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, who was subpoenaed to appear for testimony on January 24, but pleaded the 5th in order to avoid being “compelled to be a witness against himself.” As a result, a determined Congressman Issa has demanded that Cunningham’s underling, Michael Morrissey, Assistant United States Attorney, “speak with Committee investigators about his role in and knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious.”

All this to say, as I watch the hearings this Thursday I hope to see the committee place Holder under oath and then ask tough, pointed questions about these and other recently revealed matters. For example, in light of the emails, Holder needs to give a clear and binding answer regarding when he found out about Terry’s death. He needs to explain how the DOJ can claim ignorance regarding “gun running” while their own man, Lanny Breuer, was pushing it as a means making arrests. He needs to explain what, if any, interaction he or other DOJ officials/affiliates had with Patrick J. Cunningham between the time Cunningham was subpoenaed and the time his attorney announced he would plead the fifth. And he needs to describe what, if any, interaction he or other DOJ officials/affiliates have had with Michael Morrissey at this time regarding the testimony Morrissey is expected to give when he speaks with investigators.

One more thing: The question on Breuer’s push for gun running could easily be tied to Holder’s April 2, 2009 speech in Mexico wherein he bragged about the implementation of “Project Gunrunner.” Perhaps Issa can ask Holder if he and Breuer worked out the details of that speech together?

Tuesday Open Thread: Slavery Edition

Tuesday Open Thread — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:01:22 +0000

Today, in 1865, the U.S. Congress passed the 13th Amendment, outlawing slavery. It was sent to the states for ratification.

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro: White House Backs US Park Police in Occupy Conflict–Calls Tolerance of Protestors ‘Appropriate’

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:01:05 +0000

During a White House press conference earlier today, a reporter confronted White House Press Secretary Jay Carney about Occupy Wall Street protestors “taking things too far.”

Carney supported the US Park Police’s USPP decision to continue balancing First Amendment concerns with public safety and health concerns.

The exchange was as follows:

Reporter: Occupy Wall Street protestors are making headlines again as you know over the weekend. Four hundred protestors were arrested in Oakland and now today the NPS are expected to clear out protestors potentially as we speak… here in DC. What is your reaction? Is the administration concerned that some of these protestors are taking things too far?

Carney: Well, in regard to Oakland, that’s obviously that’s a local law enforcement matter. Here in Washington uh, I would refer you for specifics to the US National Park Service and the US Park Police. And uh, our position has been and continues to be that we need balance First Amendment concerns of the right to demonstrate, the right to speak freely, and with public safety concerns and public health concerns and we understand that whether that… whether that… local law enforcement as well as in the case, in this case you have the National Park Service and the US Park Police are weighing those considerations and that’s appropriate.

The USPP’s decision to consider the Occupy movement’s First Amendment concerns came under fire by House Republicans last week when representatives drilled National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis in a Congressional hearing last Tuesday.

When Jarvis explained that the federal police considered it their job to uphold citizens’ First Amendment rights, Republican lawmaker Darrel Issa from California fired back that he thought it was the police’s job to uphold the law.

“Camping is not a First Amendment activity. It is a violation of the law. Sleeping in a national park is not a First Amendment activity, it is a violation of law,” he retorted to Jarvis. Issa then added, “I believe the National Park Service has allowed protestors to camp indefinitely for ideological reasons.”

The current position of the US Park Police has also come under fire by the District of Columbia Council and Mayor Vincent Gray who asked to have the McPherson Square and Freedom Park sites cleared for public health reasons.

Conflicts about governance and law enforcement between the District of Columbia government and federal government have been contentious ever since the Home Rule Act of 1973 was passed by the federal legislature. The act granted DC citizens some legislative power while also enabling the District to have more control over their own law enforcement agencies even though it still falls under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.

Federal law enforcement officials, however, still retain control over federal properties such as the White House perimeter, U.S. Capitol, other federal buildings such as the FBI and federal parks such as the ones Occupy protestors are currently camped out in.

The act provides that Congress can revoke the District’s home rule charter at any time or pass legislation that effects the District without the approval of DC government or residents.

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro: Martin Luther King’s Family Halts Occupy Event at Atlanta Memorial Center

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:27:54 +0000

Martin Luther King’s family asked US Park Police to eject a group of 32 Occupy Wall Street protestors from an Atlanta based memorial center that was named after the civil rights leader on Sunday.

The OWS protestors, who left New York City November 9 to march roughly 880 miles to Atlanta through Washington, and through the south, planned on holding a press conference at the Atlanta based Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change “to honor Dr. King.” The press conference was scheduled for 2 p.m., but within minutes, private security for the center asked the demonstrators to leave the outside area that was part of the MLK center.

According to the center’s online page, it was established in 1968 by Coretta Scott King, and is the “official, living memorial dedicated to advancing the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Our programs and partnerships educate the world about his life and his philosophy of nonviolence, inspiring new generations to further his work.”

“The police want us to leave?” an OWS protestor asked.

“The King family is asking you to leave,” the security officer said.

“Why?” the protestor asked.

“They don’t want the center to be used for any kind of outside event or press conference for your group,” the security officer explained.

Shortly after that exchange, two armed federal U.S. Park Police officers from across the street came over at the apparent request of the King family. The federal police told Big Government they sometimes voluntarily assist the King family at the center at their request since they are based across the street at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Historical Site, which is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service.

According to various OWS protestors who were interviewed, the group had planned to hold a press conference at the King center. The group’s designated leader for the day–Tim Franzen–who was Atlanta based told the federal police he was disappointed in their decision to stop the so-called press conference.

Tim Franzen, Occupy activist flanked by U.S. Park Police after being told the King family did not want an Occupy Wall Street press conference held there

“This is just ridiculous,” he said. “This is just sad, you know that? It’s pathetic. What about the First Amendment? Have you heard of that? The First Amendment?”

One of the US Park Police patiently explained the law to the demonstrator.

“The US Supreme Court says that local jurisdictions can pass laws that allow police to breakup events with 25 people or more when they don’t have a permit. You have 32 people, and this is what the King family wanted.”
Franzen sought another avenue to remain.

“What if there’s no actual press conference?” he asked the officers. “I mean right now it’s just people hanging out and talking.”

“As long as there are no news trucks or professional media photography going on,” you can probably stay. The King family just didn’t want an actual press conference or official event held on this property.”

“Well, the news trucks aren’t here anymore,” Frantz complained. “You guys chased them all away.” Big Government arrived at the King Center at 1:30 p.m. and no news trucks or other professional media except two other lone reporters showed up.

US Park Police allowed the activists to remain as a group, but no press conference occurred. One OWS activist from Atlanta who left the city to join the movement in Manhattan last year told Big Government the next phase will be nationwide marches see Big Government tomorrow for further details .

When the federal police were asked questions about the protestors rights and the King family wishes, one of the officers explained, “We work across the street for the Martin Luther King Historical Site, which is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. Occasionally, the King family asks us to intervene when something happens over here at the Center and we always do what we can to help them out. They didn’t want this happening here today and that was their decision so we’re here now–end of story.”

Kevin L. Martin: Adbusters Tells Occupiers to Take to the Streets of Chicago a la 1968

Kevin L. Martin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:05:48 +0000

This past weekend Occupy Wall Street protesters engaged in violent protest that led to the arrest of some 300 protesters, just as Adbusters now calls for protestors to descend upon Chicago this summer in the tradition of the 1968 riots.

The City of Oakland found itself griped in domestic terrorism as Occupy protesters took to the streets in violent rampages that included breaking into city hall, burning an American flag, and pelting police officers with rocks at the Henry Kaiser Convention Building as the protestors tried to take over the vacant center by tearing down perimeter fencing.

Police officers in riot gear were forced to use smoke and tear gas to disperse protesters, which led to hundreds being arrested at City Hall and the convention center. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan denounced the unholy acts of pure violence and terrorism, calling on the protesters to stop using Oakland as their personal playground.

The violence in Oakland follows the recent warning by the U.S. Park Police to Occupy protesters here in Washington D.C. that they have until 12:00 Monday to remove their tents from both McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, which are federally owned parks. Some protesters interviewed have vowed in the local media to violently resist any attempt by U.S. Park Police to remove their tents temporary structures , kitchen, and other creature comforts from both parks as the noon time Monday deadline draws closer.

The U.S. Park Police were finally forced to take action against the protesters after numerous complaints from city residents and officials about rodent infestations and health concerns. The Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa R-CA wanted to know “why the Department of Interior, which has control of the U.S. Park Police, was being so lenient with Occupy DC Protesters until called before the committee.”

Occupy DC Protester arrested arrested by U.S. Park Police Officers

Those cities that have been gripped by Occupy Wall Street protests have not only lost millions of dollars in revenue as protesters have taken up residence in high tourist areas, but many cash-strapped cities have found themselves having to pay out overtime to overworked polices officers, city officials, and contractors to combat the crimes, health concerns, and antics of these protesters.

Adbusters, the radical Vancouver-based magazine that many on the left have credited for the ideas behind Occupy Wall Street, put out an ad this past week calling for more than 50,000 protesters to descend upon Chicago in May to disrupt the G-8. Adbusters has calls upon protesters to engage in a level of civil disobedience not seen since the now famous riots at the 1968 Democrat Convention, which was hosted by the same city.

The magazine called on protesters to flock to the city, set up tents, kitchens, and peaceful barricades, then occupy the city for the month. Adbusters threatened the city with flash mobs in the streets, shutting down stock exchanges, campuses, and corporate headquarters worldwide if the demands of the protesters are not met.

Adbusters Tactical Briefing #25 calls for mass Chicago protest in the tradition of 1968

Many of those same Democrat leaders such President Obama and Nancy Pelosi, who have actively embraced Occupy Wall Streets as an alternative to the Tea Party Movement, have gone silent on the movement’s actions that have included violence, anti-semitism, property destruction and general mayhem.

If Oakland is any indication of what Adbusters is calling for in Chicago, then it is all too clear that Occupy Wall Street protesters and those who have embraced them seek to use violence to effect the change that they have not been able to obtain in the last 40+ years as well as under the Obama Presidency.

MRC TV: Occupy Oakland Burns American Flag While Reciting Anti-Semitic ‘Pledge of Allegiance’

MRC TV — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:15:25 +0000

As an American flag burns at Occupy Oakland, the man capturing the videos recites the following:

“I pledge allegiance to a flag of the imperialistic, capitalistic dictatorship. And to the plutocracy for which it stands, privately owned central bank, under the Jews. With inequality and injustice for the 99.” h/t Moonbat Tracker

In late October, we at MRCTV went to Zuccotti Park in New York City and ran into this guy.

During the time videos were coming out left and right showing their true feelings of Jewish people, they claimed it was just ‘isolated incidents’.

Clearly, it wasn’t.

Lee Stranahan: Race Baiting in South Carolina Primary Politics? Just Ask Hillary Clinton

Lee Stranahan — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:07:33 +0000

If the Juan Williams race baiting debate attack on Newt Gingrich somehow leaves you with any doubt that there’s something about the South Carolina primaries that seems to bring out the worst in this sort of political behavior, you need look no further than the 2008 Democratic primary to see just how down and dirty things can get in the Palmetto State.

Four years ago, the Democratic primary was split with Sen. Barack Obama winning the Iowa caucuses and Hillary Clinton pulling out a comeback victory in New Hampshire. The political tag team of Bill and Hillary Clinton felt secure about the South Carolina black vote because of President Clinton’s persistent high approval ratings among African-Americans, but they were about to get their first real taste of Sen. Obama’s Chicago-style political game. Sen. Obama and his team were able to take a couple of innocuous statements by the Clintons and twist them into a race related controversy.

It started when Hillary Clinton said to an interviewer on Fox News;

I would point to the fact that that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the President before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done.

That’s the complete quote but the New York Times ran no less than three separate stories that shortened it to;

“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Mrs. Clinton said in trying to make the case that her experience should mean more to voters than the uplifting words of Mr. Obama. “It took a president to get it done.”

They omitted Mrs. Clinton’s reference to JFK, which, combined with remarks from a Clinton supporter caused some initial drama with Ted Kennedy, who went on to endorse Barack Obama. The Clintons were about to come down with a dose of press bias karma. On January 9, 2008 the New York Times editorial board set the race-baiting table.

Why Mrs. Clinton would compare herself to Mr. Johnson, who escalated the war in Vietnam into a generational disaster, was baffling enough. It was hard to escape the distasteful implication that a black man needed the help of a white man to effect change. She pulled herself back from the brink by later talking about the mistreatment and danger Dr. King faced. Former President Bill Clinton, who seems to forget he is not the one running, hurled himself over the edge on Monday with a bizarre and rambling attack on Mr. Obama.

A few days later, here’s Bob Herbert bringing the dessert, writing in his The New York Time column;

I could also sense how hard the Clinton camp was working to undermine Senator Obama’s main theme, that a campaign based on hope and healing could unify, rather than further polarize, the country.

So there was the former president chastising the press for the way it was covering the Obama campaign and saying of Mr. Obama’s effort: “The whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”

But – it wasn’t true. Watch Bill Clinton’s entire remarks and it’s 100% clear as to what he’s referring to as “the biggest fairy tale” and it’s not Obama’s candidacy. Nor is it the notion, as Herbert claims, that “a campaign based on hope and healing could unify.” No, the “fairy tale” is the idea that Obama was consistently opposed to the war in Iraq. Clinton points out speeches that Obama made and votes he cast as a Senator. His comments strike me as neither bizarre nor rambling, as the Times had claimed.

No matter. When Hillary Clinton appeared on Meet the Press just prior to the South Carolina primary, the late Tim Russert led with the race card attack against Clinton, including the quote from Herbert’s New York Times piece. Russert even plays a selectively edited clip of Clinton’s comments, where he cuts out every single part of what Clinton says leaving only ‘this whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”

Russert follows this butchered video clip with the quote from South Carolina Senator and Congressional Black Caucus member James Clyburn that had also appeared in the Times; “To call that dream a fairytale, which Bill Clinton seem to be doing, could very well be insulting to some of us.” Hillary Clinton tries to point out that Russert is not playing the entire clip, but he shuts her down and plays a quote from Donna Brazil expressing disappointment in Bill Clinton and his “tone.” Russert continues to filibuster relentlessly for a couple of minutes, quoting the New York Times

In their book Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin fill in some of the backstage detail.

A few days after New Hampshire, a memo surfaced, produced by Obama’s South Carolina operation, that grouped together MLK/LBJ and “fairytale” along with other race-freighted incidents — including Billy Shaheen’s and Penn’s invocations of Obama’s youthful cocaine use — to suggest that the Clintons were playing the race card. Then there was Illinois congressman and Obama campaign cochair Jesse Jackson, Jr., who went on MSNBC and noted that while Clinton had teared up in New Hampshire, she never cried over Hurricane Katrina. “Those tears also have to be analyzed,” Jackson said, “particularly as we head to South Carolina, where 45% of African-Americans will participate in the Democratic contest.”

To Bill, the picture was all too clear. By accusing him and Hillary of slapping the race card on the table, the Obama campaign was doing exactly that itself. And though it infuriated him, he couldn’t help but respect the artfulness of the play. The Obama’s were tough; they weren’t just sitting back and letting the nomination slip away.

On Meet the Press, Clinton tries to take the high road against the charge, referring to Senator Obama as an extraordinary person and candidate. A few days later, Hillary Clinton was trounced in the South Carolina primary.

If that’s how the Obama campaign treated a fellow Democrat and “the first black president,” just imagine the GOP candidate — and the American people — are in store for come this fall.

Education Action Group: Neshaminy Teachers End Strike… for Now

Education Action Group — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:28:26 +0000

Pennsylvania’s Neshaminy Federation of Teachers has agreed to end its nearly two-week strike, and members will return to the classroom Friday morning. But that doesn’t mean the nastiness is over.

The school board had refused to continue contract negotiations while the union was on strike, which means the disagreements about future pay raises, health insurance contributions and retroactive pay are still unresolved.

State law requires that a three-member arbitration panel be brought in to help assist negotiations, reports PhillyBurbs.com. The panel will make its non-binding recommendations by spring. If the district and the union still cannot agree, the NFT has the legal option of going on strike a second time this school year.

School board President Ritchie Webb said that a second strike would prompt the district to file an injunction with the state, asking that the teachers be ordered back to work.

“Teachers need to understand that you can strike until the cows come home, but it doesn’t create more money in the district,” Webb said. “We have limited resources.”

The community seems to have had enough of the NFT’s selfish behavior, too.

“I think what the teachers are doing is greedy and insulting to us – the taxpayers,” said Tony Brillhart, according to LowerSouthhampton.Patch.com. “We pay them to do a job, not walk in front of the schools with posters.”

“They went to strike over greed and my daughter’s education is forced to suffer because of it,” said Shawna Frey, a sergeant in the National Guard who served in Iraq.

Like we said, the strike might be over, but the dissension and hard feelings remain.

Dr. Susan Berry: Connecticut Governor’s Failure to Confront Union Mandates Leaves State Slated for Deficit

Dr. Susan Berry — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:51:20 +0000

Dannel Malloy, Connecticut’s Democratic and Working Families Party Governor, told citizens of his state last year that the highest tax increase in the history of Connecticut, including a retroactive state income tax hike, would balance his state’s budget. It appears he was wrong. Bloomberg has reported that Connecticut will have a $94.9 million revenue shortfall in fiscal year 2012. In addition, official estimates indicate that the state’s revenues will trail by $139 million in fiscal year 2013.

Minimizing the significance of the shortfall, Gov. Malloy said in a press release:

All today’s announcement means is that, as is the case in other states with high wage earners, fourth quarter revenue is coming up short of expectations. That’s why today, I’ve instructed Secretary Barnes to pare back on current year expenses. But let there be no confusion – we will end the current fiscal year in the black, and in a more stable fashion than this state has seen in many years.

Blaming the shortfall on the “uncertainty surrounding the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts,” Mr. Malloy said that such “uncertainty at the federal level” resulted in taxpayers’ shift of capital gains and income, as well as declines in bonus levels in the financial service industry.

Last year, Gov. Malloy used the tax hike to balance his state’s budget against a public sector union concession package that actually required few concessions of unions: no layoffs for four years and no furloughs; wages frozen for two years, then followed by three annual 3 percent raises; retirement age raised by only two years, and not until after 2022; and minor changes in health benefits such as mandatory annual physician visits and mail-order prescription plans.

Regarding the budget shortfall, State Senate Minority Leader John McKinney R-Fairfield said, “When the largest tax increase in state history isn’t enough to pay the bills, I hope everyone can agree that a significant reduction in the size and cost of government is in order.”

However, House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero R-Norwalk noted that the governor’s commitments to the state unions will likely tie the state’s hands in making significant and meaningful spending cuts. “That is a very, very bad situation to be in when you have an unstable fiscal environment,” Rep. Cafero said.

According to the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, performed in September of 2011, Gov. Malloy has a negative 41 – 48 percent overall job approval rating.

By contrast, 53% of voters in New Jersey, surveyed in a Quinnipiac poll approve of their governor, Republican Chris Christie. Gov. Christie is known for his confrontation of unfunded public sector union mandates in his state and, recently, his proposal of a 10% personal income tax cut for all residents. In his State of the State address on Tuesday, Mr. Christie said that, unlike Democratic governors, like Dannel Malloy of Connecticut and Andrew Cuomo of New York, who pushed through new taxes in the past year, he instead would choose to return money to the taxpayers when New Jersey’s economy improved. “Let others choose tax increases,” Mr. Christie said. “We choose responsible tax cuts to give our overburdened citizens real relief.”

Despite the fact that Gov. Cuomo did, in fact, raise taxes last month on those earning $2 million or more, he has now come out in favor of taking on union pensions. Mr. Cuomo has proposed a $132.5 billion budget that ties an education spending hike to a new teacher-evaluation system and a raise in the retirement age for future public sector workers.

“There is a reform movement all across this nation that is shifting the focus onto the student rather than the industry,” said Gov. Cuomo. “We have to change our thinking from process to results, from the system to the individual, from salaries and pensions for people who work in the system, to the graduation rates and test results from the students.”

In this “tri-state” area of the northeast, it is Gov. Malloy who has insisted on bending over backwards to “fully fund” union mandates on the backs of middle class taxpayers. As predicted, his budget is falling apart and his attempts to “end the fiscal year in the black” will be cosmetic, at best.

Charles C. Johnson: The Real Story about Mitt Romney and Paul Tsongas

Charles C. Johnson — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:03:14 +0000

Paul Tsongas for President? Romney Ultimately Voted for Bush

After John McCain’s opposition file on Mitt Romney from 2008 was leaked, there was this curious line: ““Romney voted for Paul Tsongas in the 1992 Democratic presidential primary.” Newt Gingrich has also attacked Romney for his support of Paul Tsongas, a former Massachusetts Democratic senator who ran for his party’s nomination in 1992. Tsongas lost to political upstart, Bill Clinton, and you know the rest.

Left out of most of these analyses is this: “[Romney] added he had been sure the GOP would renominate George Bush, for whom he voted in the fall election.” Scot Lehigh and Frank Phillips, “GOP’s Romney Declares, Says Kennedy Out of Date,” The Boston Globe, February 3, 1994 .

Romney’s support of Tsongas actually proves something other than Romney’s most vociferous critics are claiming: Mitt Romney’s willingness to work across the aisle to tackle the deficit.

As a Massachusetts native-turned-refugee, allow me to explain. The late Senator Paul Tsongas was the rarest of rare, especially in Massachusetts, a Democrat who wanted to alert the country to the threat of deficit spending. The Boston Herald described Tsongas as having a “pro-growth stance.” And Romney told the Boston Globe in ‘94 that he voted for Tsongas because he “favored his ideas over those of Bill Clinton.” Romney explained in 2007 that his vote in the Democratic primary was an effort “to vote for the person who I thought would be the weakest opponent for a Republican.” This isn’t all that odd. Despite being a lifelong Republican, I myself have done it, especially when it seemed that the corrupt Massachusetts Republican Party wasn’t going to bother fielding a candidate.

Romney’s support for Tsongas was likely more personal than it was political. Romney often attended events sponsored by the Tsongas-backed Concord Coalition, a budget deficit reduction advocacy group Tsongas co-founded with former New Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman. Only at the 11th hour did Tsongas come out and endorse Ted Kennedy, and, in fact, Tsongas came to Romney’s aid early in his 1994 bid to unseat Ted Kennedy. In March 1994, the Concord Coalition graded Kennedy poorly–22%!– on votes he cast in 1993 to reduce the deficit. This irked Kennedy, prompting Tsongas to call him a “flake.” Donald Lambro, “In the Race of His Life, Kennedy Flees the Past; Romney’s Son Bores in on Spending,” The Washington Times, August 3, 1994 .

Richard Cordray: Law Breaker

Richard Cordray — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:41:42 +0000

President’s appointment of liberal former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau CFPB was a direct assault on the Constitution and the law causing constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley to remark that President Obama has surpassed Richard Nixon in “the development of an imperial presidency of unchecked executive powers.”

Cordray is well aware that the Constitution provides the president with the power of appointment when the Congress is not in session. But the Congress was not in recess when the President appointed Cordray. Adding insult to injury, the 2010 law that created the CFPB included a section that says many of the bureau’s new powers are to be held by the secretary of the Treasury “until the Director of the Bureau is confirmed by the Senate.” The Senate, obviously, never confirmed Cordray.

Despite these constitutional and legal roadblocks, Cordray has assumed the full power of the office and has started the process of regulating the economy in earnest.

In Birmingham, Alabama, Cordray held a field hearing laying the groundwork for a regulatory assault on the short-term lending industry, as well as, the mortgage and student loan industry. Cordray seems unconcerned of the constitutional and legal challenges ahead. He told the Hill newspaper, “I’m going to leave that to others … lawyers are digging into it,” when asked if his appointment would survive a legal challenge. But he added that “the position was long overdue to be filled.” “We’ve got a lot of work to do for the public to make these markets function effectively,” he said.

Cordray, in a few sentences was able to articulate the president’s view of the Constitution and the economy.

With regard to the Constitution, Cordray is ill-concerned about whether his appointment is violative. The man who swore an oath to the Constitution will “leave that to others.” The fact that liberals felt the need to fill this new position is good enough. With regard to the economy, they believe that only government intervention can allow markets to “function effectively.”

This thinking turns 236 years of American precedent on its head. America was built upon a foundation of laws and freedom. In one fell swoop, the president found the need to destroy both. We are confident that a court will find that Cordray assumed office illegally and his actions will be nullified. We hope that day comes sooner than later.

Timothy H. Lee: Foreign Internet Piracy Apologists Falsely Demonize Rep. Marsha Blackburn

Timothy H. Lee — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:15:16 +0000

It’s a curious thing, the sudden and bizarre demonization of true constitutional conservatives like Rep. Marsha Blackburn R–Tennessee by some conservative online agitants.

Most conservatives understand that Rep. Blackburn is one of the more reliably intelligent and sober figures in contemporary politics. That’s particularly true when it comes to technology policy. While most political leaders speak in simplistic talking points, Rep. Blackburn is known for developing real knowledge about, and applies her steady conservative principles to, the issues.

As the most prominent example, Rep. Blackburn remains one of the most steadfast and informed opponents of so-called “Net Neutrality,” which truly will launch governmental micromanagement of Internet service.

So it’s especially odd and ironic that some conservatives suddenly slur her. Said RedState’s and CNN’s Erick Erickson, “I am pledging right now that I will do everything in my power to defeat her in her 2012 re-election bid.” His rationale? Erickson has joined the likes of MoveOn.org, Demand Progress, the Marxist group Free Press and others on the left in fanatically opposing legislation to stop foreign Internet piracy, H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act SOPA . In doing so, he and other generally reliable conservatives are promoting lawlessness and outright theft by foreign pirates over constitutionally protected property rights.

So what is SOPA, and why all of the fuss?

First, a personal observation: I have never witnessed an opposition campaign characterized by such misinformation, ignorance and outright dishonesty as the one waged by opponents of the legislation. To be clear, I have never met Mr. Erickson, I respect him generally and have absolutely zero ill will toward him personally. He provides, however, a perfect example of misinformation by making claims such as, “The Act intends to stop online piracy. The way the Act goes about doing this is, in large part, allowing Eric Holder to take control of the internet and shut down websites he does not like.” That is flatly, horribly false. Anyone who has actually read the bill knows how preposterous that comment is. Unfortunately, it’s all too typical of the anti-SOPA coalition.

In previous commentaries I have addressed and corrected the main anti-SOPA myths more fully, but here’s the essence of the truth people should know about it.

First, the bill targets foreign rogue websites dedicated to the theft of American intellectual property that would already be subject to seizure if located within the U.S. Such websites currently pirate hundreds of billions of dollars worth of American intellectual property, which accounts for an enormous portion of domestic jobs, exports and output.

Second, the bill incorporates exhaustive due process protections for all parties involved. This is critical, because opponents falsely claim that the Attorney General or rights holders would somehow possess arbitrary powers against innocent actors. Quite the contrary, the bill explicitly incorporates the same Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that apply to all litigation. Relief can only be granted upon such prerequisites as notice to adverse parties, specific facts that “clearly show that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage” will occur, specific details justifying relief and opportunity for adverse parties to present their rebuttal. The bill also punishes false claims, protects defendants against impossible or unreasonable burdens, allows courts to modify relief in the interests of justice and allows damages including legal fees for wronged defendants.

So when opponents of SOPA claim that it deprives anyone of due process, they are speaking either dishonestly or ignorantly. That is a simple fact.

Opponents of SOPA also falsely claim that it somehow constitutes “censorship” or a threat to “free speech.” Setting aside for a moment the sham that foreign thieves operating outside the jurisdiction of the United States somehow enjoy any First Amendment protections, otherwise illegal activity does not magically achieve sacred status or legal immunity simply because it occurs on the Internet rather than on a street corner. Moreover, this legislation and judicial orders pursuant to it would remain subject to the same judicial review applicable to any other statute.

Compounding the irony, Google, no friend to the conservative cause, constitutes the primary corporate interest driving opposition to the bill. That’s no surprise, since Google profits handsomely from the theft of others’ intellectual property online. Just last August, the search giant admitted wrongdoing and agreed to pay a $500 million fine to avoid criminal charges that it had padded its bottom line for years by knowingly accepting advertising by foreign pharmacies preying on American consumers, which led to the illegal imports of unsafe prescription drugs.

In other words, it’s no coincidence that the largest corporate interest fueling the misinformed opposition to giving domestic rights holders the tools necessary to protect their property against foreign theft online is also the company that stands to gain the most financially from SOPA’s defeat. Indeed, the legislation’s defeat should be viewed for what it is: the ultimate policy bailout for Google. And lest conservatives forget, Google furiously supports “Net Neutrality,” which actually does constitute toxic governmental encroachment against Internet freedom.

So shame on so many SOPA opponents on the right, who have curiously joined the online equivalent of Occupy Wall Street to put the interests of foreign thieves ahead of the constitutional rights of American property owners.

The fact that they can’t oppose the bill on honest, genuine bases speaks volumes. As does the fact that they demonize proven champions of freedom like Rep. Blackburn, who is among the staunchest defenders against actual threats of censorship and improper government expansion.

Brett Healy: Soros Funded Org Seeks Student Help to Build Counter to ALEC

Brett Healy — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:39:26 +0000

University of Wisconsin Professor Joel Rogers wants to build a lefty alternative to the ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. He recently hit up some of his students for help with the project, while they were waiting for their grades in his class.

This from our first article in an ongoing investigation conducted by the MacIver News Service. Future stories will focus on any official reaction we receive from the University and an indepth look at Rogers’ Center on Wisconsin Strategy.

Joel Rogers Says College Credits May Be Available to Those Who Help Build Liberal Alternative to ALEC

[Madison, Wisc…] One of the University of Wisconsin’s most renowned liberal professors attempted to recruit his students to work on an elaborate private political project while final grades in their class were pending, the MacIver News Service has learned.

At the conclusion of his end-of-the-year email to his UW Law School students, Professor Joel Rogers wrote: “I think I mentioned a little project I’m doing now — which thus far involves professors from such crummy law schools as Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Virgina [sic] and elsewhere, but thus far, beyond your lonesome, NOBODY from UW — to build a partial counter to ALEC. It’s going to involve a lot of law students. If you’re interested in helping out with that no money, but possible credit , or know of somebody else who might be, please let me, or even better, “Nate Ela” <nela@cows.org>, a lawyer and now sociology grad student, know. Project description attached.“

Rogers is the Director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, a 501 c 3 nonpartisan, educational, and charitable organization. COWS was founded in 1992 by Rogers, a professor of Law, Political Science, and Sociology at UW-Madison and a longtime commentator on economic development and democratic institutions. COWS is based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the Social Science Building.

According to its website, COWS current and past funders include: the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, theCarolyn Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Garfield Foundation, Living Cities, the Joyce Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

This last semester, Rogers taught a class titled: Law & Contemporary Problems: Public Law & Private Power to approximately a dozen students at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Coursework was completed in December, but grades had not been issued at the time he sent his email to students. Rogers’ email was provided to MacIver News Service by someone who received the email from one of Rogers’ students. The MNS has confirmed the authenticity of the email, although we have not found a student who was willing to comment on the record. Read more>>

Have UW students received credit for helping Rogers with other political projects? Do Rogers, the UW Law School or the University of Wisconsin condone such solicitations from faculty using University resources? Do they believe it is a problem to solicit help from students while their grades are pending?

We are awaiting comment from Rogers, the dean of the UW Law School and the UW Chancellor and will update this story to reflect their responses in the coming days.

Rogers, by the way, has an interesting ACORN connection.

Axelrod-Style ‘October Surprise’ Comes Early: Newt’s SuperPAC Attacks Romney From Left

Axelrod-Style ‘October Surprise’ Comes Early — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:35:44 +0000

With the New Hampshire Primary just three days away, a Super PAC affiliated with Newt Gingrich has released a devastating film attacking Mitt Romney’s days at Bain Capital labeling him “more ruthless than Wall Street.” The film, called “When Mitt Romney Came To Town,” features multiple men and women who had lost their jobs and in some cases their homes, due to the corporate decisions of Romney’s investment firm.

What is striking about the film and its style is that this attack could easily have been made by David Axelrod and the Obama re-election campaign next October. Considering Gingrich received heavy criticism last month for sharply criticizing Romney over “the money he’s earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain,” this latest attack on Romney’s successful capital ventures is a risky and audacious gambit.

The film focuses on four companies Bain acquired during Romney’s tenure: UniMac, KayBee Toys, DDI; and AmPad. According to the film, each acquisition resulted in heart-ache and despair for the employees at the companies, and riches for Bain and Romney. Relying on tried and true class warfare themes like ordinary Americans losing their homes while Romney purchased large mansions and beach-front properties, one gets the feeling that Michael Moore and Van Jones could have directed and released this film.

Will Gingrich’s gambit work with the independent minded primary voters in New Hampshire, or will this strategy backfire and remind voters that this same Newt Gingrich very recently toured the country with Al Sharpton on behalf of President Obama’s education department and famously sat next to Nancy Pelosi on a green-friendly sofa?

Clearly stung by negative ads in Iowa directed at him by Romney-friendly Super PACs, Gingrich appears to be prepared to withstand the appearance of attacking the GOP front runner in the same manner that left-wing groups like MoveOn.org would likely adopt.

Meanwhile, the film may provide Romney with an opportunity to neutralize these inevitable attacks in a safe state like New Hampshire where he holds a double-digit lead over his closest rival, Rep. Ron Paul. The DNC and the Obama Campaign have already hinted that Bain Capital’s history will be an integral part of their strategy in running against Romney in 2012. This early preview is a good chance for Republican voters to see if Romney is capable of pushing back against a populist attack from the left.

Ironically, the leftist attack in this case is coming from Newt Gingrich

If there was any doubt that this film was designed to paint Romney in the worse possible light, one only need to watch the final sequence where a polished and impeccably dressed Mitt Romney speaks fluent French. Considering many pundits have unfavorably likened this Massachusetts politician to Senator John Kerry, this final sequence may be the deepest cut of all.

Union President: Time to Make Charter Schools ‘Ours’

Union President — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 14:03:28 +0000

MINNESOTA — Charter schools are popping up all across the nation, with 41 states offering families access to the alternative public schools.

Because the large majority of charter schools are not unionized, they can focus solely on serving students instead of pacifying the financial demands of school employee unions.

The unions know they cannot stop the spread of charter schools, so they have decided to take them over.

Late last year, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers decided to authorize its own charter schools. An email written by MFT President Lynn Nordgren and posted on Eduwonk.com explains the union’s decision.

“ … [C]harter schools are not going away despite 20 years of protesting,” Nordgren writes. “Because of this, it is time to figure out how to… stop the de-professionalization of teaching, the bleeding out of our unions and the miseducation of too many students… It is time to ‘get in the game’ and make it ours.”

We all know that “the miseducation” of students is really the unions’ specialty, and they guard it jealously.

Nordgren writes that the MFT’s decision to open charter schools will “keep our union responsibilities and rights as an option, and make sure teachers are respected and have a voice in the schools in which they work.”

Translation: the unions want charter schools to choke on all their rigid work rules, pay schedules and adult-centered demands which will render the alternative public schools no different than their government-run counterparts.

The union’s new philosophy about charter schools is simple: if you can’t beat ‘em, infiltrate and destroy them from within.

Former AG Meese: Obama’s ‘Recess’ Appointments Are a ‘Constitutional Abuse of a High Order’

Former AG Meese — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 12:45:50 +0000

In a Washington Post editorial Thursday, Edwin Meese, the former U.S. Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan, and Todd Gaziano, Director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, wrote that President Obama’s unilateral appointment of three individuals to the National Labor Relations Board, and of Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, while the Senate was not in recess, is a “breathtaking violation of the separation of powers and the duty of comity that the executive owes to Congress.”

The authors asserted:

…never before has a president purported to make a “recess” appointment when the Senate is demonstrably not in recess. That is a constitutional abuse of a high order.

The beauty of this editorial is that Mr. Meese and Mr. Gaziano provide instruction to handle this rogue president who continues to thumb his nose at the Constitution. They continue:

President Obama’s flagrant violation of the Constitution not only will damage relations with Congress for years to come but will ultimately weaken the office of the presidency. There eventually may be litigation over the illegal appointments, but it will be a failure of government if the political branches do not resolve this injustice before a court rules…Congressional leaders of both parties must vigorously though thoughtfully defend their prerogatives. Senators could filibuster all presidential nominations, as Sen. Robert C. Byrd did in 1985 over a lesser recess appointment issue, until Obama rescinds these wrongful appointments. The House or Senate could condition all “must-pass” legislation for the remainder of 2012 on an agreement to rescind these appointments. The House also could require the attorney general to produce legal justification and testify at oversight hearings.

The authors conclude:

If Congress does not resist, the injury is not just to its branch but ultimately to the people.

As if we were not already aware, “Congress” includes Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who, naturally, praised the president for trampling over her branch of government. Regarding Mr. Obama’s power grab, Mrs. Pelosi said, “…we’re glad that the president took the lead, went out there, it was bold and made the appointments.” Translation: How else can I get the things I want since I’m no longer Speaker?

But, “Congress” also includes Speaker John Boehner, whose response to the bird he was just flipped was that the president’s action is “bad for jobs.” Mr. Boehner said, “This action goes beyond the President’s authority, and I expect the courts will find the appointment to be illegitimate.”

So that’s it? Just file a lawsuit and get back to the business of the day? No defense of the Constitution, of the separation of powers? No conditions placed on future legislation? No talk of impeachment?

Below are some of the Republican presidential candidates’ responses, that were available to date, to the president’s heinous actions:

Ron Paul: “By making ‘recess’ appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Board CFPB and the National Labor Relations Board NLRB when Congress is not actually in recess, President Obama has acted in clear disregard of the Constitution…And the President must be called to account for his actions.”

Newt Gingrich: “The answer to an imperial president is a Congress which stands on its own rights. And the correct response to what the president just did would be for the Congress to zero out and refuse to fund the National Labor Relations Board. The National Labor Relations Board now has a majority of members who were never confirmed by the U.S. Senate. This is a clear violation of the spirit of the law, and Congress has an obligation to defend our rights, and the correct way is the power of the purse.”

Mitt Romney: “Just back from vacation, President Obama has wasted no time in returning to one of the top items on his agenda: doling out favors to his big labor political allies and giving them a dangerous level of power over businesses and workers. His recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board give this unaccountable and out-of-control agency the authority to continue acting in ways that create uncertainty for businesses, drive up their costs, and discourage hiring or investment. President Obama’s preference for partisan politics over economic growth will only hurt the millions of middle class families across the country who lose out every time the union bosses win. As president, my focus from day one will be on getting our economy turned around by pursuing policies that strengthen rather than stifle job creation.”

Rick Santorum: “I hope that the United States Senate does what they’re supposed to do, and they should go and even take the president to court. This is not something that the president should get away with.”

I know “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” But, for whatever it’s worth, the major issue of the upcoming election is whether our Constitution, and the nation as we know it, endures. In my book, presidents and members of Congress who violate the Constitution, or fail to uphold their oaths to defend it, are, in a word, unelectable.

Saturday Open Thread: Bataan Edition

Saturday Open Thread — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:01:05 +0000

Today, in 1942, the Japanese began the attack on Bataan. Our grandfather’s brother died on the Death March from Bataan.

Pamela Geller: Hamas-linked CAIR in Your Kid’s Classroom

Pamela Geller — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:03:39 +0000

Why is a Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood organization given entrée in public schools? In the American Thinker December 19, I asked: “Why is a representative of a terror-linked organization, a defender of jihad terror groups and an apologist for Islamic supremacism welcome to speak in public schools?”

I was referring to Hassan Shibly, a representative of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations CAIR , who spoke at Tampa’s Steinbrenner High School in November. After I broke the story at my website Atlas Shrugs on December 4, giving specifics of where and when the CAIR rep spoke, and then published the article in the Thinker, “Hamas High School in Florida?,” patriots made hundreds of calls and sent hundreds of letters, emails, Tweets and Facebook messages in protest to Steinbrenner school officials.

The main person responsible was Kelly R. Miliziano, a teacher in the Social Studies Department at Steinbrenner. And she announced Wednesday that the school has scheduled additional religious speakers to balance the CAIR operative — a Hindu priest or a Christian pastor.

The problem with that is that Shibly is a political speaker. A Hindu priest or Christian pastor won’t counter the poisonous propaganda that Shibly spews to our impressionable young minds. An informed counter-jihad speaker such as Robert Spencer, Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan or I myself must be given a chance to speak, so as to counter the lies of Hamas-tied CAIR.

Hamas-linked CAIR should not be speaking at all, but if the public school shills insist on presenting jihadi views, they must provide freedom lovers with the same opportunity. Further, political speakers should be off limits on school grounds.

Meanwhile, the email exchanges between CAIR and Steinbrenner High School are revealing. Miliziano wrote this in a November 14 email: “Every year I invite a representative from CAIR to speak to our AP World History Students.” After CAIR-Tampa responded favorably, Miliziano wrote again: “Over the years I have had many speakers from CAIR come to my classes, and it has been such a good learning experience for the students.”

Miliziano said that she “regularly asks” Shibly to speak. This is despite the fact that Shibly has a track record of defending jihad terrorist groups and acting as an apologist for the worldwide jihad and Islamic supremacism. Following the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War, Shibly granted legitimacy to the jihad terrorist group Hezb’allah by characterizing it as a “resistance movement” that provides valued social services to the Lebanese people. “They’re absolutely not a terrorist organization,” Shibly said, and “any war against them is illegitimate.”

Yet Miliziano refused to respond to parents’ requests to vet the notorious Mr. Shibly. Instead, she attacked the parents who complained. She even called parents’ concerns about CAIR “baseless and Islamophobic.” Yet although it presents itself as a civil rights group, CAIR actually has many links to Islamic supremacist and jihad terror groups. CAIR’s cofounders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad attended a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they conspired with Hamas operatives to raise funds for Hamas. And several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various jihad-related crimes.

This should be grounds for Miliziano’s immediate dismissal. Freedom lovers should urge Steinbrenner’s principal, Brenda Grasso, to fire Miliziano at once demand equal time for freedom fighters, while calling upon Steinbrenner High cease and desist from inviting Muslim Brotherhood groups to speak to public school students. Call for Ms. Miliziano’s removal. Demand equal time for freedom fighters. Brenda Grasso’s email is brenda.grasso@sdhc.k12.fl.us.

One parent of a Steinbrenner student, whose child went through Shibly’s indoctrination, wrote me that his daughter told him that Shibly said that “only 4% or 6% of Muslims were terrorists,” and that his presentation was so positive toward Islam as to be “borderline proselytizing.”

This parent went to Steinbrenner the morning of December 5 and spoke to Kelly King, the Assistant Principal for Curriculum. King confirmed that the speaker who addressed his daughter’s class was indeed a representative from Hamas-linked CAIR. “I explained to Ms. King,” wrote the parent, “that I strongly objected to CAIR being involved in the school, and recited some of CAIR’s more infamous highlights. She replied that the presentation was part of a history of religion unit in their history class. I told her that I have no problem with students being taught the history of Islam, but if the school was going to have a speaker do that, they should invite an Imam, not a representative from a religious based political organization, particularly one with such a dubious history.”

In response, King equated “a Christian pastor to a PAC” and ultimately referred the parent to Miliziano, who said that she regularly invited Shibly to give presentations, and “that the statements I had made about CAIR were baseless and Islamophobic,” even though the parent had expressly told her that he had no problem with the school bringing in an imam to discuss the history of Islam. When the parent tried to explain to her that “the school was associating itself with a religious-based political organization that propagandizes for Islam & Sharia, and are terrorist apologists,” Miliziano “completely dismissed these concerns.”

And despite Miliziano’s assurances that a Hindu priest and a Christian pastor would address the class, so far only Shibly has done so.

This is unconscionable. Freedom lovers must demand equal time.

Pamela Geller is the publisher of AtlasShrugs.com and the author of the WND Books title “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance” and The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster .

Jason Bradley: A Word on Santorum’s ‘Compassionate Conservative’ Earmark Legacy

Jason Bradley — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:41:35 +0000

I wouldn’t say its been a well kept secret, but Santorum’s previous level of obscurity for the GOP nomination prevented his legacy of earmarks from getting its due mention. Senator Santorum’s career in Congress was during the heyday of big government conservatism.

I once wrote a spending bill thiiis big.

With GOP colleagues like Tom Delay and Dennis Hastert, Rick Santorum was very much apart of that infamous class. For Delay, he was then ,just as he is now, an outspoken supporter of earmarks. When the new GOP class promised to curb earmark spending, Delay was quick to voice his opposition.

“I am not one of those guys. The purse strings belong to the House of Representatives, and earmarks are one of the ways to keep the executive-branch honest,” DeLay said. “Why would you give up your responsibility and your authority to the executive branch?”

As for Dennis Hastert, the former longest serving speaker in Republican history left a long legacy of earmarks and questionable deals but not illegal from Congress’s exemption to insider trading laws that netted both him and his associates major profits. The story goes that Hastert owned some land that was of minimal worth, so he used appropriated funds stuffed inside a transportation bill that funded a highway project near the property. The new access road caused the value to increase. Hastert then later sold the property for a substantial profit, clearing $2 million. That seems easier than bending down to pick up a quarter on a sidewalk.

These were the dark days of “compassionate” conservatism, where wild discretionary spending was available for anyone in Congress with a pen. For Rick Santorum, he used his pen towards the sum of at least $1 billion in pork-barrel projects.

In the 2003-2004 session of Congress, Santorum sponsored or cosponsored 51 bills to increase spending, and failed to sponsor or co-sponsor even one spending cut proposal. In his last Congress 2005-2006 , he had one of the biggest spending agendas of any Republican — sponsoring more spending increases than Republicans Lisa Murkowski, Lincoln Chafee and Thad Cochran or Democrats Herb Kohl, Evan Bayh and Ron Wyden Club for Growth .

His Senate career lasted from 1995 to 2007, and the Club for Growth estimated during that time Santorum “requested billions of dollars for pork projects” National Review .

Santorum’s remarks addressing his earmark legacy sounds exactly like Tom Delay’s defense of the practice.

“We appropriate funds,” Santorum said about Congress’s role in an interview Wednesday with CNN’s John King. “And as Ron Paul did, as Jim DeMint did, as just about, I think, every single member of Congress did, when you go to Congress, you make sure that when taxes go from your state to Washington, D.C., you fight to make sure you get your fair share back.”Later on in the interview, he added, “I also said that when earmarks got abusive, that we should end them.”

And in 2009, he said, “I’m not saying necessarily earmarks are bad. I have had a lot of earmarks. In fact, I’m very proud of all the earmarks I’ve put in bills. I’ll defend earmarks.”

Nothing is abusive to the fox guarding the hen house. It’s always open season, and as long as Congress removes itself from legalities preventing insider trading and misappropriation of funds, there will never be a standard on when the practice becomes abusive. There are no better angles on Capitol Hill. Just ask Congressman Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Wynton Hall: Online Petition for STOCK Act Gathering Steam

Wynton Hall — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:53:24 +0000

An online petition to ban congressional insider trading has collected 4,488 online signatures.

The petition was started by Rick Smith, a financial writer for the popular investing website The Motley Fool.

For years, Mr. Smith has been championing legislation that would stop members of Congress from profiting off of private information. Given the head of steam his online petition supporting the STOCK Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge Act appears to be gathering, that’s a message that’s beginning to break through.

Even if the STOCK Act or similar bills on the issue pass, Mr. Smith thinks members of Congress should go farther to ensure public transparency:

We’ve said for years here at the Fool that investing in the stock market is the best way to build individual wealth. I would not deny members of Congress that privilege, just because they choose to pursue public service for the modest sum of $174,000 per year plus pensions in perpetuity. But even the STOCK Act doesn’t go far enough. Although most members of Congress balk at the modest requirement of disclosing their trades once per quarter, that doesn’t come close to what we should demand of them. In my humble, Foolish view, members of Congress should take a page from what we do here at the Fool. Rather than disclose their stock trades once per year, or even once per quarter, after the fact, they should do what our real-money portfolio services do: Announce their intent to trade beforehand. Make it public.

Currently, Mr. Smith is 512 signatures away from hitting his petition goal of 5,000 signatures. To follow the progress of his STOCK Act petition drive, go here.

Publius: Right-to-Work Law Advances in Indiana; House Dems Again No-Shows

Publius — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:17:00 +0000

INDIANAPOLIS AP – A Republican-dominated Indiana Senate committee endorsed the right-to-work bill that has prompted a three-day standstill in the Indiana House.

The Senate labor committee voted 6-4 to send the bill to the full Senate, where the GOP holds a 37-13 majority and the party’s leader has made its passage a top priority. The bill would prohibit contracts between companies and unions that require workers to pay representation fees.

Minutes after that vote, the House again was unable to convene as most Democrats stayed away in protest of the proposal.

Read more here.

Warner Todd Huston: Albany Police Chief Slams ‘Occupy’-Supporting Councilmen

Warner Todd Huston — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:09:49 +0000

Albany Police Chief Steven Krokoff came under heavy criticism by fans of the Occupy “movement” after he ordered the clearing of their downtown encampment pursuant to a court order. The arguments over the actions by police have raged since the December 23 conflagration with Chief Krokoff getting savaged repeatedly by the media and some city councilmen alike. But this week Krokoff confronted his critics, and he wasn’t gentle about it!

Chief Steven Krokoff Image Credit: The Troy Record

The big criticism arose when officers used pepper spray when the Occupiers became violent. Since then, several Councilmen, such as Anton Konev, have criticized the police, saying that their actions were unnecessary. Konev, for instance, has announced that he has no confidence in the Chief and is angling to have him fired. Naturally, Konev has been an open agitator for and supporter of Occupy Albany.

But on January 6, Chief Krokoff came before the city council with a strong defense of his and his officers’ actions, delivering a withering blast to some of the councilmen that have come to the defense of the lawless Occupiers.

In what the Albany Times Union called a “scorching offensive,” Chief Krokoff scolded members of the City Council for supporting the criminal element of the Occupiers instead of supporting their own police department.

Chief Krokoff also went to the unusual extreme of slamming several of the councilmen by name for supporting the Occupy Whatevers:

Shame on Councilman Konev and Councilman Freeman, who at every turn, seem so willing to distort the truth of any situation, no matter how tragic, and use it for their own personal gain. Shame on you both for mattering so little to yourselves and your community that you have to create hate and further half-truths just to feel some sense of relevancy. This entire city has seen the content of your character, and I pity you both.

The chief may be about to become a hero to the law and order set with this spirited defense of his actions.

Albany political blogger Rusty Weiss is one of those cheerleading for Chief Krokoff. Weiss wonders why the media are not pointing out that some of the city councilmen that have been criticizing the chief “were vociferously participating in the Occupy Albany assembly.”

Good question.

Since some of the chief’s critics on the council have been involved in the Occupy movement, wouldn’t that make their criticism heavily biased and lacking credibility?

Worse, these Occupiers are hardly innocent bystanders. After the pepper spraying incident, Occupiers began circulating posters identifying one of the policemen involved and advertising his home address where he and his family live. The officer has received numerous threats from Occupiers since.

It’s no wonder that the Chief has about had enough of the harassment. After all, when we compare what happened to protesters in Albany to that of other countries, we see how silly the Occupiers look claiming that they were victims of a brutal police raid. A few spurts of pepper spray on the Occupy Albany folks are hardly the totalitarian oppression of the real bullets sprayed on Egyptian protesters, after all.

Dan Mitchell: New Studies Show the Middle Class Is Held Back by Government-Distorted Healthcare, Not Income Inequality

Dan Mitchell — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:13:10 +0000

I did a debate on income inequality for PBS but haven’t written much about the issue because I think it is a misguided diversion.

One frustrating aspect of this debate is that folks on the left genuinely seem to think the economy is a fixed pie and that rich people get money by impoverishing others.

This is utter nonsense. Just look at this chart comparing North Korea and South Korea, or this chart comparing Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela. With the right policies, countries can get much richer over time, yielding enormous benefits for the average household.

More rational leftists understand this data, so they change the argument by asserting that the rich are getting richer faster than the poor are getting richer and that politicians should “solve” this alleged problem with class-warfare tax policy and more redistribution.

They even cite numbers from the biased bureaucrats at the Congressional Budget Office to supposedly prove their point.

There are all sorts of methodological problems with this kind of research, including the fact that people move up and down the income ladder over time, so it is very sketchy to compare, say, the top 20 percent in 1990 with the top 20 percent in 2010.

But even if you incorrectly assume that all households are locked into their current income levels, the data used by the left is deeply flawed.

My colleague, Peter van Doren, reviewed two studies for one of Cato’s in-house journals. Here some of what he culled from the scholarly publications.*

Increasing inequality in the distribution of earnings has become one of those stylized facts that everyone “knows.” The nightly news reminds viewers that ordinary workers have not fared well in the labor market over the last 25 years, while corporate executives have. Many professional economists and a recent CBO report have supported this view as well. While it is true that the cash explicitly paid to employees has become more unequal over the last generation, the…more benign explanation for the change in cash compensation over a generation is the dramatic increase in health insurance costs. …inequality in total compensation has not increased because the fixed costs of health insurance are a much larger percentage of the total compensation of lower-earnings workers. Burkhauser and Simon explore this explanation. They add the value of employer-provided health insurance as well as Medicaid and Medicare to the pre-tax, post-cash-transfer household income data and find that the bottom three income deciles actually exhibit higher growth than the top seven deciles from 1995 to 2008. …Warshawsky makes a similar discovery. Using unpublished BLS total compensation data, including employer health insurance expenditures, from 1999 to 2006, he finds that the growth in compensation by earnings decile from the 30th to the 99th averages 35 percent, with 41 percent growth at the 30th percentile workers earning $10–$14 an hour and only 35.8 percent growth at the 99th percentile workers earning $59–$80 an hour .

Translating all this into simple English, it turns out that the rich are getting richer slower than the rest of us are getting richer.

By the way, even though I’m glad total compensation is growing more rapidly for the non-rich, these studies should not be interpreted as good news. As noted in the excerpt above, much of the additional money is diverted into a rather inefficient healthcare system.

This is the problem, not inequality. As I’ve explained before, American healthcare suffers from a third-party payer crisis caused by too much government intervention.

And because this distorted system leads to ever-higher costs, the increase in total compensation for lower-income and middle-income people does not translate into an increase in their living standards. Ordinary people feel like they’re on a treadmill.

In other words, while assertions of rising income inequality are dubious, there is a real issue of stagnation.

But as is often the case, the left’s answer is completely wrong. Class warfare and redistributionism are terribly misguided, as illustrated by this Walter Williams column and this Margaret Thatcher video.

If we want to help people live better lives, restoring a free market to health care would be a good first step, as explained in this video.

============================================

*“Can the Rapid growth in the Cost of employer‑Provided Health Benefits explain the Observed increase in earnings inequality?” by Mark J. Warshawsky. september 2011. ssRn #1932381. And “Measuring the impact of Health insurance on Levels and Trends in inequality,” by Richard V. Burkhauser and Kosali i. simon. March 2010. nBeR #15811.

Rick Santorum: Iowa’s Conservative Choice

Rick Santorum — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:07:29 +0000

The last few votes are still being counted, and as of this writing Sen. Rick Santorum is on the verge of a stunning upset victory over Gov. Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses, leading by a margin of just several dozen votes.

Update: The lead has changed hands yet again, with a few results still out. Update: And again! Now Santorum’s 5 votes up. Update 1:34 a.m. CST: Romney has now won by only 8 votes. What a ride.

Yet regardless of who finds more votes in the final boxes, it seems clear that Iowa’s conservatives have chosen Santorum.

The maps below say it all.

The upper map is from the Des Moines Register, and shows the county-by-county results in tonight’s caucuses. The red counties are those where Santorum has won or is leading; the blue counties are going for Romney, and the yellow counties to Paul. Two counties in pink went to Perry; Gingrich, who bested Perry statewide, did not win any counties.

The lower map is from the New York Times, and shows the county-by-county election results from November 2008.

It’s clear that while Romney and Paul have largely won in areas that went for Barack Obama, Santorum’s wins have tended to come in areas that voted for John McCain.

That result suggests that while Romney is still in the best position to win the Republican nomination, he has not yet sealed the deal with the conservative base. With several of the campaigns likely to shut down in the next few weeks–or days–Santorum could quickly cement his support as the conservative alternative to Romney.

The close match between Romney/Paul counties and Obama 2008 counties also complicates Romney’s argument that he is the most electable Republican. He may do better among moderate Republicans, independents, and crossover Democrats, but if he cannot motivate the party’s core supporters, he may not be able to prevail against Obama.

The Republican Party may be closer to finding its nominee after tonight–but it may have a long way to go before it finds its winning formula.