Monthly Archives: September 2013

The United States Attorney’s Office Has Seized An Iranian Skyscraper In New York City

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On Thursday, Fox News reported that the United States Attorney’s Office has seized a skyscraper in New York City allegedly secretly owned by the Iranian government.

The article reports:

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara claimed that the property owner, the Assa Corporation, was nothing more than a front for the state-run bank that financed the building.

“The Judge’s opinion upholds what was the contention of this Office from outset: ‘Assa was (and is) a front for Bank Melli, and thus a front for the Government of Iran,’” Bharara said in a statement.

The building was originally erected in the 1970s by the Phalavi Foundation, a non-profit that was operated at the time by the Shah of Iran and financed by Bank Melli, which is controlled by the Iranian Government. 

After the Iranian revolution, the loan for the building was cancelled in the 1980s and ownership was transferred to Assa and the Alavi Corporation. The U.S. alleges that Assa and Alavi were shell companies set up by the Iranian regime, with the former based in the UK’s Channel Islands to launder money back to the government.

Needless to say, the Alavi Foundation intends to appeal the court’s decision.

The article reports:

The government plans to use money from the seizure to compensate victims of Iranian–sponsored terrorism.

The building is valued at between $500-700 million and recently had $11 million in improvements.

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Where Has All The Money Gone?

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Below is a chart posted by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air today:

fred-dc-usa-medianincome

The chart above shows the median household income of the Washington, D.C., area versus the median household income of the rest of the nation.

The article at Hot Air points out a few things about the graph:

From the mid-1980s to around 2007, the median household income rise in DC remained pretty closely linked to that of the nation as a whole.  Anyone remember what happened in 2007, besides the economic slowdown that would turn into the Great Recession?  Democrats took control of Congress and federal spending shot upward ever since.  And at least according to the Fed, that disparity is actually accelerating,  at least to 2012, with DC median income skyrocketing while the rest of us stagnate.

We have a choice to make as Americans. It’s not a Democrat or a Republican choice–it’s an American choice. Do we keep spending ourselves into bankruptcy or do we begin to act like adults and live within our means? The choice is ours. We have an election coming up in about a year. Forget party labels–they really aren’t worth much right now. Find out what the candidate’s position is on spending and formulating a federal budget (we haven’t had one since 2009). Find our what the candidate’s past voting record is on fiscal matters. These things are not hard to find. Thomas.gov is an excellent source of information for votes, sponsors of legislation, and actions of past Congresses. Do your homework–your country depends on it.

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Protecting Americans From The Truth

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It isn’t news to say that the American media is biased. It is a surprise sometimes, however, to see how biased. Below are pictures of the September 16, 2013, cover of Time Magazine. The Daily Caller posted these pictures in an article about the magazine covers posted on Monday. The covers with Vladimir Putin on them are the foreign editions. The cover featuring the college athlete is the edition sold in America.

So what was the lead story in the magazines with Vladimir Putin on the cover?

The Daily Caller reports:

The foreign covers acknowledge Putin’s triumph over Obama, telling foreigners that Putin “doesn’t care what anybody thinks of him.”

The protective covers arrive as Time’s managing editor departs for a job working for one of the architects of the Syrian debacle, Secretary of State John Kerry.

In “early summer,” editor Rick Stengel was asked by Kerry, and immediately accepted, the job of running the department’s public diplomacy mission, according to Politico.

Months later, the appointment was leaked to two media outlets.

Throughout the summer, Stengel remained editor of Time while it covered U.S. politics.

Most often, the covers of Time magazine are uniform.

There is a reason the major media is dying–Americans cannot trust the major media to tell us the truth. The corroboration between Democrat politicians and the mainstream media is a scandal that the mainstream media is never going to report, but as more Americans become aware of the relationship, they will find other sources of news.

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Doing What They Were Elected To Do

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There is some serious hand wringing and semi-hysteria going on right now on the part of Democrats and establishment Republicans about the vote taken in the House of Representatives to fund the government, but not ObamaCare. First of all, I would like to point out that this whole question could have been avoided if Congress had passed a budget at some point instead of relying on continuing resolutions. But I guess that is beside the point.

I am a little concerned about the vote, but there are a few things I have noticed. First of all, two Democrats voted for the defunding and one Republican voted against it. That’s more bi-partisan than most things that happen in the House of Representatives.

The House of Representatives is elected every two years. They are expected to be responsive to the wishes of the voters and reflect the views of the voters. Well, according to Real Clear Politics (they average everyone else’s polling data), 52 percent of Americans oppose ObamaCare. Thirty-eight percent of Americans support it. (Just for the record, Real Clear Politics also reports that 44 percent of Americans approve of the job President Obama is doing and 50 percent disapprove). These are the current numbers.

So, regardless of how you feel about the vote, the House of Representatives is representing the view of the American people. So what about the Senate? The direct election of Senators by popular vote was established by the Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Before then, Senators were elected by their state legislatures. They were supposed to represent the interests of their states. Because of the role that money plays in modern politics and the role that parties play, Senators no longer represent their states (or their people for that matter). They represent lobbyists, unions, and big business. Party discipline plays a big role in how they vote (generally speaking, the Democrats are much more disciplined than the Republicans).

There is no way the continuing resolution without funding ObamaCare passes in the Senate. However, the passing of the defunding resolution in the House can be a teaching opportunity to help those who have not been paying attention learn exactly how ObamaCare will impact them. We are already seeing the impact in the reduction of work hours for many people, the loss of company healthcare plans for many people, and the higher premiums for health insurance.

I hope the government does not shut down, but I believe the Republicans in the House were doing their job of representing their constituents when they passed the law funding the government and defunding ObamaCare.

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A Little Respect Would Be Nice

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Townhall.com reported yesterday that during the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Benghazi, many Democrats left before the testimony from the families of the victims. This is unbelievable. First of all, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden lied to these families as the bodies of their loved ones were being unloaded from the plane in Delaware. Clinton and Biden stated that they would bring the creator of the video that caused the riots to justice. Well, the creator of the video was put in jail for a while, but it became apparent in later testimony that even as they said those words, they knew they were not true. Leaders in America used to have respect for the families of those who gave their lives for their country. All of the Congressmen who left should be immediately removed from office.

Below is a photograph of the hearing–the far side of the room is where the Democrats would have been sitting.

View image on Twitter

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Four Pinocchios From The Washington Post

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On Wednesday, President Obama made a speech to the Business Roundtable. Yesterday the Washington Post awarded the speech four pinocchios. So what did the President say that wasn’t true?

The President stated:

“You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt being used to extort a president or a governing party and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt.”

So what are the facts? The article cites some examples of exactly what the President claims never happened:

In 1973, when Richard Nixon was president, Democrats in the Senate, including Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Walter Mondale (D-Minn.), sought to attach a campaign finance reform bill to the debt ceiling after the Watergate-era revelations about Nixon’s fundraising during the 1972 election.

…In 1982, Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker unleashed a free-for-all by allowing 1,400 nongermane amendments to the debt ceiling legislation, which resulted in five weeks of raucous debate that mostly focused on limiting federal court jurisdiction over school payer and busing. The debt limit only passed after lawmakers decided to strip all of the amendments from the bill.

…One of the most striking examples of a president being forced to accept unrelated legislation on a debt-ceiling bill took place in 1980. The House and Senate repealed a central part of President Jimmy Carter’s energy policy — an oil import fee that was expected to raise the cost of gasoline by 10 cents a gallon. Carter vetoed the bill, even though the United States was close to default, and then the House and Senate overrode his veto by overwhelming numbers (335-34 in the House; 68-10 in the Senate).

Please see the article at the Washington Post for more examples. I understand that politicians on both sides of the aisle have been known to stretch the truth for their own purposes, but we are at a critical point right now where spending cuts are necessary for the economic survival of our country. ObamaCare represents a very large increase in government spending. We simply cannot afford it right now.

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Who Was Running The Show On This Decision?

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BBC News reported yesterday the during the shooting at the Washington, D.C. Navy Yard, Capitol Police who wanted to come to the aid of the municipal officers were told by a supervisor to stand down. The Capitol Police department will be reviewing the sequence of events.

The article reports:

Multiple sources in the Capitol Police department have told the BBC that its highly trained and heavily armed four-man Containment and Emergency Response Team (Cert) was near the Navy Yard when the initial report of an active shooter came in about 8:20 local time.

The officers, wearing full tactical gear and armed with HK-416 assault weapons, arrived outside Building 197 a few minutes later, an official with knowledge of the incident told the BBC.

…According to a Capitol Police source, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Washington DC’s main municipal force, told the Capitol Cert officers they were the only police on the site equipped with long guns and requested their help stopping the gunman.

When the Capitol Police team radioed their superiors, they were told by a watch commander to leave the scene, the BBC was told.

It seems as if this administration has a problem with ‘stand down’ orders.

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Using The Justice System As A Political Weapon

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USA Today is reporting today that the criminal conviction of Tom Delay, former House majority leader, has been overturned by a Texas court.

The article reports:

The documents were released Thursday by the Texas 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin.

“The evidence was legally insufficient to sustain DeLay‘s convictions,” the documents said. The judges said they “reverse the judgments of the trial court” and acquit DeLay, once one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress, of all charges.

The acquittal means DeLay cannot be retried and the money laundering case is over.

This case has been a sham from the beginning. Tom Delay was a very successful House majority leader, and the Democrats worked very hard to remove him from office. It is wonderful to see that justice has finally been served.

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Connections Americans Need To Know About

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Yesterday the Washington Free Beacon posted a story about Gehad El-Haddad, a former employee of the William J. Clinton Foundation. Mr. El-Haddad was arrested in Cairo on Tuesday and charged with inciting violence.

The article reports:

Gehad el-Haddad served as one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s top communications officials until Egyptian security forces seized him as part of a wider crackdown on officials loyal to ousted former President Mohamed Morsi.

Before emerging as a top Brotherhood official and adviser to Morsi, el-Haddad served for five years as a top official at the Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit group founded by former President Bill Clinton.

…He was raised in a family of prominent Brotherhood supporters and became the public face of the Islamist organization soon after leaving his post at the Clinton Foundation.

However, much of his official work with the Brotherhood took place while he was still claiming to be employed by the Clinton Foundation.

“It was only a matter of time before Gehad el-Haddad was arrested,” Egypt expert Eric Trager told the Washington Free Beacon. “Many of the other Muslim Brotherhood spokesmen have been apprehended, and in addition to decapitating the organization, the military-backed government has been specifically targeting the Brotherhood’s media wing, including by shutting down its T.V. stations at the time of Morsi’s ouster on July 3.”

This is not the only connection between the Clintons and the Muslim Brotherhood. Huma Adedin, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s top adviser, has strong family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The article further reports:

El-Haddad represented the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Climate Initiative in Egypt during his overlapping tenure, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He additionally “setup the foundation’s office in Egypt and managed official registration,” “supervised policy-making workshops & presented foundations views,” and “presented projects to high-level government officials,” among many other duties.

El-Haddad left the Clinton Foundation in August 2012, two months after Morsi assumed the Egyptian presidency.

He was appointed a “senior adviser and media spokesman” to the Muslim Brotherhood in January 2013 and served in that role until his arrest.

It seems as if the military rulers in Egypt are more aware of the threat to democracy represented by the Muslim Brotherhood than our own elected officials.

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What Did Your Child Learn In School Today?

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Today’s Daily Caller posted an article about a quiz given to a ninth-grade Health Class in New Canaan, Connecticut. The quiz is entitled, “How WELLthy Are You?”

Some of the statements in the quiz:

“I vote for pro-environmental candidates in elections” is one of the statements.

“I write my elected leaders about environmental concerns” is another one.

Still other statements in the section include “I report people who intentionally hurt the environment” and “I try not to leave the faucet running too long when I brush my teeth, shave, or bathe.”

For example, the “Spiritual Health” section contains this hopelessly confused religious statement: “I have faith in greater power, be it a God-like force, nature, or the connectedness of all living things.”

The article further reports:

A score of 35-40 points in each category allegedly indicates that New Canaan ninth-graders are “practicing good health habits” and “setting an example” for “family and friends to follow.” It is mathematically impossible for ninth-graders to achieve this score in the “Environmental Health” section if they “rarely, if ever” vote for “pro-environmental candidates” or write to “elected leaders about environmental concerns.”

I have no problem with encouraging high school freshmen to protect the environment and to be politically aware. I do, however, have a problem with telling them what their criteria should be when they vote. The article points out that the students are told that they do not have to answer all of the questions. I would like to suggest that they not be asked to answer any of the questions, and we go back to spending health class encouraging good individual health habits. This quiz sounds more like brainwashing than a quiz.
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Don’t Get Too Excited At The Stock Market Numbers Today

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The Stock Market reached record levels today. Normally that would be cause for celebration, but if you look at the reasons behind the rise in the stock market, the news doesn’t look quite so good.

Yahoo Finance reported today that the federal government will continue putting stimulus money into the economy for the near future because the economy is not growing at a satisfactory rate.

The article reports:

The Fed predicted Wednesday that the economy will grow just 2 percent to 2.3 percent this year, down from its previous forecast in June of 2.3 percent to 2.6 percent growth.

Next year’s economic growth will be a barely healthy 3 percent, the Fed predicts.

Fed officials decided to continue their $85-billion-a-month bond purchase program, surprising most economists, who had expected a slight reduction. The bond purchases have been designed to keep long-term loan rates low to encourage spending.

So what has this got to do with the stock market? Financial people expected the Fed to begin to slow its bond purchases, which would have begun the rise of interest rates. Right now, with interest rates at record lows, and the possibility of inflation, the stock market is a logical place to invest. As the Fed begins to pull back from its bond purchases, the stock market will fall slightly, mortgage rates will increase, and we will probably begin to see some serious inflation.

The stock market is currently being propped up by the Fed. I have not heard any good guesses as to what will happen when the Fed begins to slow down the money flow.

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The Need To Balance Rights

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CBN News posted a story today about a new law passed in San Antonio, Texas, to prevent discrimination against LGBT Texans. Now before I go into exactly what the law does, I want to go on the record as saying that I do not support discrimination against anyone for any reason. However, there are certain situations where common sense needs to dictate decisions regarding people with different views on various issues. For instance, I have no problem with civil unions, but I do not support gay marriage. Why? Because as soon as the state endorses gay marriage, is it obligated to force pastors of churches who believe homosexuality is a sin to perform those marriages? I watched the Catholic adoption agencies leave Massachusetts because the state would not grant them a religious exemption to allow them to deny adoptions to gay couples. Their right to practice their religious beliefs in the adoption process were denied. If you pass a law against discrimination against LGBT people, is a pastor who holds the Biblical view on homosexuality free to state that view from the pulpit?

The article points out:

For San Antonio’s faith community there are several red flags. The ordinance criminalizes those with a biblical view of sexuality as it forbids bias against homosexuality or bi-sexuality.

Those charged and declared guilty by the city will face a Class C misdemeanor on their record and fines of up to $500 a day.

Also, the ordinance forbids appointed officials on city boards from showing any bias. 

Allan Parker, president of The Justice Foundation, a San-Antonio-based Christian legal non-profit, has worked to analyze and explain the ordinance for San Antonio’s churches.

He said the ordinance is vague and unclear but he believes it can and will be used against Christians, especially those in the business world who disagree with unbiblical sexuality.

“The leverage of the city to pressure any business to caving in is enormous under this,” he explained.

Would this law punish a bakery if it chose not to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding because of their religious beliefs? What about the rights of the bakers? Are their religious beliefs as important as the wedding participants? Where does the First Amendment (the government shall not interfere with the free exercise of religion) play into this?

As I said, I don’t support discrimination against anyone, but I do support the right of everyone to practice their religion and state their religious beliefs. This law is not in agreement with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

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The Danger Of Executive Orders

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Yesterday the Washington Examiner posted an article about a recent Executive Order signed by President Obama.

The article reports:

President Obama waived a provision of federal law designed to prevent the supply of arms to terrorist groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to “vetted” opposition groups fighting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

Some elements of the Syrian opposition are associated with radical Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, which was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa., in 2001. Assad’s regime is backed by Iran and Hezbollah.

The president, citing his authority under the Arms Export Control Act, announced today that he would “waive the prohibitions in sections 40 and 40A of the AECA related to such a transaction.”

Why are we arming the people who are killing Americans in Afghanistan while we still have troops there?

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Ignoring The Facts In Order To Pursue A Political Agenda

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Yesterday’s shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. was a tragedy. It was an incident of a mentally ill person who had anger issues who went berserk. So what happens next? Democrats in Washington start calling for gun control. Somehow they seem to have forgotten that this shooting occurred in Washington, D. C., a gun-free zone, inside the Navy Yard, also a gun-free zone. The problem was not the laws–the problem was that the laws were broken. Based on the background of the killer released by the press, this man should never had been allowed to own a gun. Two stories illustrate the fact that politicians are overlooking the fact that these murders happened in a gun-free zone.

Politico posted an article yesterday quoting Senator Dianne Feinstein:

She (Dianne Feinstein) added: “Congress must stop shirking its responsibility and resume a thoughtful debate on gun violence in this country. We must do more to stop this endless loss of life.”

Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have spoken about trying to revive the background checks measure from Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), but that effort has yet to come to fruition.

Feinstein was the first prominent politician to draw a bright line from the shooting to the congressional gun debate on Monday, though Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) also made a less direct reference to the subject that afternoon.

CBS DC reported:

In the wake of the shooting at the Navy Yard, Obama spokesman Jay Carney said the president is implementing executive actions and reiterated his commitment to strengthening gun laws, including expanding background checks to sales online and at gun shows.

“The president supports, as do an overwhelming majority of Americans, common-sense measures to reduce gun violence,” Carney said.

Even as it was unfolding, the Washington shooting was reigniting talk about guns. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a leading advocate of gun control legislation, mourned “the litany of massacres” the country has suffered in the form of mass shootings.

There is no point in talking about changing the gun laws until we know how this killer obtained his weapons. A background check should have prevented him from obtaining guns, but the fact remains that these killings took place in a gun-free zone. If he ignored the gun-free zone, do we really believe that the killer would have had a problem obtaining the guns illegally?

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Cover-up? What Cover-up?

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Today’s Washington Free Beacon is reporting that a CIA employee has been suspended after refusing to sign a non-disclosure agreement barring him from discussing Benghazi.

The article reports:

Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) revealed at an event on Monday that his office was anonymously informed about the CIA employee, who is purportedly facing an internal backlash after refusing to sign a legal document barring him from publicly or privately discussing events surrounding the Benghazi attack.

The revelation comes about a month after several media outlets reported that CIA employees with knowledge of the terror attack had been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and submit to regular polygraph tests.

…The newly formed Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi has similar goals as congressional investigators but is not confined by rules governing the legislative body, speakers at the event said.

Retired Air Force Col. Richard Brauer, cofounder of the group Special Operations Speaks, said the committee would aim to find out why U.S. military assets were ordered to “stand down” during the Benghazi attack.

“We’re tired of the lies and the cover-up that continues to this day,” Brauer said. “Who gave the order” to stand down, “to remain in place in Tripoli and the other locations and do nothing. When was this order given and why?”

“Forces were available on that very night, likely champing at the bit, but they were told to stand down,” he said. “These are words that will live in infamy.”

There were four Americans killed at Benghazi, one of whom was an American Ambassador. Under normal conditions, the attack on the annex at Benghazi and the killing of the Ambassador would be considered an act of war. There are many questions as to why no American forces were allowed to come to the rescue and as to why this attack was not considered an act of war. The only person to go to jail because of the Benghazi attack was the person who made the video that was not responsible for the attack. He has recently been let out of jail, but the fact remains that he is the only person who has gone to jail because of what happened at Benghazi. This whole scenario reads like something out of Through the Looking Glass.

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The Entire Picture In The Middle East

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Yesterday The Blaze posted an article looking at where American forces are deployed in the Middle East. Buck Sexton, who covers national security issues for The Blaze, explained what is actually going on. Buck Sexton is an ex-CIA Agent and NYPD Intelligence Division Specialist.

Below is the video from the article. It can also be found on YouTube:

I do not believe that President Obama’s foreign policy is feckless–I believe that he is intentionally downgrading America’s influence in world events. I don’t like thinking that, but I don’t see how, in view of recent events, that conclusion can be avoided.

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Is There Really An Economic Recovery?

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Yesterday the Daily Caller posted an article on our current financial recovery from the financial crisis of 2008.

The article reports:

Less than half of Americans’ per-capita wealth that was lost in the government-boosted property bubble has been recovered by mid-2013, says a new White House report that is intended to help President Barack Obama trumpet his economic accomplishments.

“Adjusted for inflation and population growth, only 45 percent of wealth lost during the recession has been recovered, and many of the hardest hit households did not benefit as much from the rebound in [Wall Street] financial assets prices,” the report admits.

I suspect that part of the fact that the lost wealth has not been recovered is due to the fact that a good deal of that wealth was in the housing bubble. You can easily make the case that it was not real wealth–it was part of a bubble. However, the jobs numbers are real, and they are pathetic.

The article reports:

But Obama’s economic report has so many gaps that it fails to mention today’s unemployment rate, or even the 20 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed.

The report does declare that “over the past three and a half years, our businesses have created seven and a half million new jobs.” But the population also has grown 7 million, from 306.8 million in 2009, to 314 million in 2012, partly through the arrival of roughly 5 million immigrants.

…The report doesn’t mention the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, even though enrollment in the program has dramatically increased over Obama’s tenure, from 28 million recipients in 2008 to 47.7 million recipients in June 2013.

The labor force participation rate currently stands at 63.2 percent according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In a very odd twist of fate, the people who voted for President Obama are also the ones hit hardest by the recession and so-called recovery. In view of their own economic survival, I strongly suggest that the low-information voters become informed voters before they vote again.

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Unintended Consequences Of A Bad Law

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Investors.com posted an article today about one of the unintended consequences of ObamaCare. The law as it was explained by the Obama Administration states that if a person’s income is less than 400% above the poverty line, they are supposed to get a subsidy for their health insurance. However, there is a glitch in this law that denies that subsidy to most childless single people between the ages of 18 and 34. Unfortunately, this is the group that needs to participate in ObamaCare in order for ObamaCare to work.

The article explains the problem:

The reason for the disparity in subsidies stems from the formula ObamaCare uses to calculate the subsidy amounts. Under the law, people making less than 400% of poverty will only be required to pay a certain percentage of their income toward insurance coverage. Anything above that amount will be paid by taxpayers.

So, for example, someone making $34,470 — or 300% of poverty — would have to pay $3,275 in premiums before ObamaCare subsidies kick in.

But because most young people in this income group will be able to buy insurance in the ObamaCare exchanges for less than $3,275, they won’t get any subsidy help. That was the case in the 14 states that, along with Washington, D.C., had announced their ObamaCare rates when the study was conducted.

The article further reports:

“On balance, insurance in the exchanges will be a much better deal for older and sicker people,” said Sean Parnell, president of Impact Policy Management, who co-authored the study with Hogberg.

And that, the authors note, could lead to an insurance “death spiral,” if the young avoid paying full price for coverage while older, sicker people take advantage of the generous ObamaCare subsidies.

Further evidence that ObamaCare is not yet ready for prime time.

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About That Unequal Distribution of Wealth Thing

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When Occupy Wall Street was protesting, one of its claims was that the ‘fat cats’ on Wall Street were getting richer while everyone else was getting poorer. They claimed to be fighting for a more equitable distribution of wealth. Of course, corporations have always been charged with overpaying their executives while underpaying those in the lower levels of the work force. However, in these protests, one area of ‘unequal distribution of wealth’ has been overlooked.

Today’s Washington Examiner posted an article about the increases in the pay for union leaders that is occurring as union membership decreases.

The article reports:

The only thing keeping Big Labor from becoming an incidental factor in the American workplace is that government employees are five times more likely to be unionized than those in the private sector.

The article further states:

A total of 428 private sector union leaders were paid at least $250,000 annually, and the top 100 of those made more than $350,000, according to a study of Department of Labor data by Media Trackers, a conservative, nonprofit investigative watchdog group. The highest-paid union leaders work for organized professional athletes, with G. William Hunter, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, who received $3.2 million. The only government employee union leader in the top 10 is Gerald McEntee, international president of the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees, whose $1.2 million compensation put him fourth on the list.

I have no problem with people being compensated for what they do, but if you are going to complain about what corporate executives earn, you need to also look at what union leaders are paid.

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Eventually The Truth Comes Out

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In 1998 Matthew Shepard was murdered near Laramie, Wyoming. The press immediately dubbed it a hate crime and called for laws against hate crimes. There was much talk about homophobia, intolerance, etc. Well, not so fast. A book is coming out next week entitled, “The Book of Matt.” The book was written by Stephen Jiminez, who has interviewed over 100 people including Shepard’s friends, friends of the killers, and the killers themselves.

Breitbart.com posted an article about the book yesterday. The book tells a different story of the murder of Matthew Shepard than the one we were told in 1998.

The book relates the following:

But what really happened to Matthew Shepard?

He was beaten, tortured, and killed by one or both of the men now serving life sentences. But it turns out, according to Jiminez, that Shepard was a meth dealer himself and he was friends and sex partners with the man who led in his killing. Indeed, his killer may have killed him because Shepard allegedly came into possession of a large amount of methamphetamine and refused to give it up.

The book also shows that Shepard’s killer was on a five-day meth binge at the time of the killing.

So what’s the point? Whether or not it was a hate crime, Matthew Shepherd is still dead. Why do the details matter?

Another article posted yesterday at Breitbart.com tells us why the details matter:

A piece in the gay culture magazine The Advocate by Aaron Hicklin lays out the facts about the Shepherd mythology, but it also contains a line that is the Rosetta Stone to understanding how leftist narrative mythology is so pervasive in both the arts in journalism. Despite the clear evidence that the story that Shepard was done in by deadly homophobia was inaccurate and that Shepard was instead killled in a meth-fueled bender by another man who was bisexual, Hicklin states:

There are valuable reasons for telling certain stories in a certain way at pivotal times, but that doesn’t mean we have to hold on to them once they’ve outlived their usefulness.

That is an amazing statement. Unfortunately our mainstream media has lost any respect it might have had for the concept of truth. We are being fed garbage in order to evoke a particular reaction–whether or not what we are being told is true.

The second article I cited at Breitbart.com talks about other cases where the media has ignored the facts in favor of a political agenda. I strongly suggest following the link and reading the entire article. News consumers need to be aware of the aims of those reporting the news. We cannot blindly accept everything we are told.

 

 

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Speakeasy Restaurants???

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CBS 2 in New York City posted an article Wednesday about an investigation they had done into New York City’s illegal dinner parties. There are a number of underground supper clubs operating in the city, and they are as of yet, unregulated.

The article reports:

But some critics have concerns about these unregulated dinner parties.

“It definitely falls into a gray area,” said Leon Lubarsky, owner of Letter Grade Consulting.

Lubarsky’s staff of retired New York City health inspectors advises restaurants on health regulations.

When asked if the underground restaurants should be regulated, Lubarsky told Leitner, “Yes, they should be regulated by the same system that regulates every restaurant in New York City.”

The article continues:

But if caught hosting an underground dinner party, the hosts could be fined $2,000 and ordered to shut down.

The price to get into one of these underground supper clubs ranges from $40 to several hundred. Some of the hosts say they are in it simply for the love of food, while others hope to turn a profit.

I have very mixed emotions about this. In Massachusetts I was involved in a church that was offering a monthly free dinner to whoever wanted it. Our kitchen help had to be certified, all food had to be cooked on the premises, and all ingredients posted. The rules were there to protect those eating the food. My feeling is that if the hosts (or hostesses) of these dinner parties are charging for the dinners, they should be regulated–they are essentially operating a restaurant–in their homes or wherever. I also wonder what would happen if anyone got sick after one of these dinners. Would the host (or hostess) be at risk of being sued?

I am not a big fan of government regulation–I think taking salt off of the table at restaurants or banning large sodas is stupid. However, I do think that food preparation should be overseen by the Board of Health in order to protect the public.

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Somehow This Just Doesn’t Make Me Feel Safer

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CNS News posted a story yesterday that illustrates one way common sense has departed from out government. The headline of the story is “ICE Released 2,837 Convicted Alien Sex Offenders.”

The article reports:

The 2,837 sex offenders represented five percent of the 59,347 deportable aliens that have been released from detention under the supervision of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to the GAO (Government Accountability Office) report, which was released Thursday.

“There are circumstances in which criminal aliens who have been ordered removed from the United States – including those convicted of a sex offense – cannot be removed,” the report states. “For example, a criminal alien may not be removed because the designated country will not accept the alien’s return.”

The obvious question here is, “Why didn’t we just keep them is jail?”

In explaining why ICE was required to release these criminals, the GAO referred to the 2001 Supreme Court case Zadvydas v. Davis. In that case the court ruled that the indefinite detention of removable aliens for greater than six months is unconstitutional unless there is “significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.” I guess I don’t understand why the fact that the person had committed a crime might be a more important reason for detaining them than the fact that they are here illegally.

The article reports:

“According to the data that ICE-ERO provided to us,” said the GAO report, “of 4359 alien sex offenders who were removed from the country between January and August 2012, 220 of them (5 percent) had previously been removed but subsequently returned to the United States and were arrested for another offense.”

Also, about five percent of released aliens sex offenders did not register as sex offenders in the communities where they settled as required by federal law. “The risk that alien sex offenders will reside in U.S. communities without being registered is increased,” the GAO concluded.

It seems as if we are extending rights to illegal aliens that American citizens do not have.

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Balancing The Money In Political Campaigns

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Unfortunately, political campaigns in America have an awful lot to do with money. The Citizen’s United case in the Supreme Court balanced out the money to some extent, but an unbelievable amount of money still goes directly from union dues to Democrat campaign coffers.
John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about some changes that may be coming to the political landscape because of legal challenges to the role of unions. The article includes the following chart from Open Secrets:

The chart shows the overwhelming disparity between union contributions to Democrat campaigns versus Republican campaigns. Some recent events in Wisconsin may be the beginning steps toward leveling the playing field.

A website called Right Wisconsin explains:

Now that Wisconsin’s educators have been given the right to choose whether or not to belong to a labor union, the unions are struggling to attract enough members to stay afloat. Proving all along that the union leaders didn’t really represent their members, as much as sponge off of them.

Under a provision of Act 10, public employee unions are required to file for annual re-certification by August 30 if they wish to remain a recognized bargaining unit. Thursday Afternoon, Mark Belling broke the news that only 37 percent of the teachers in the Kenosha Unified School District voted to reauthorize the union in a recent vote.
 
Now, given Brey’s (Christina Brey, speaking for the Wisconsin Education Association Council) comments in the Journal Sentinel, Kenosha is a trend setter, not an outlier.

So what does this mean? Most of Wisconsin’s public employee unions have lost between 30% and 60% of their members in the past two years. Obviously this seriously limits the amount of money they will be donating to political campaigns.

The article at Power Line reports:

The time has come, I think, to end the preferential treatment under which unions have long operated. Under the law, unions get a special deal: Section 7 of the Clayton Act exempts them from the antitrust laws. Absent that exemption, labor unions would be subject to the Sherman Act’s ban on combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade. Repealing Section 7 would have one of two consequences: either unions would be deemed illegal per se as price-fixing conspiracies, or they would be subject to the Sherman Act’s Rule of Reason, under which they would have to prove that their net effect is pro-competitive rather than anti-competitive. Either way, unions would be fighting for their lives and would be in no position to dominate the political landscape.

Let’s truly level the playing field.

The Way Forward

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The whining has already started–Democrats are accusing Republicans of trying to shut down the government. The charge is based on the fact that the Republicans are trying to find a way to defund ObamaCare. Republicans don’t want to shut down the government–the Republicans don’t have the power to shut down the government–they control one quarter of Congress. The Democrats are the only ones who have the ability to shut down the government, but that won’t stop the media from blaming the Republicans.

The Daily Caller posted a story yesterday that offers a solution to this dilemma. As I said, the Republicans do not have the power to stop ObamaCare, but they are looking for ways to defund it.

The article explains:

Republican Rep. Tom Graves and 42 House cosponsors introduced a budget plan Thursday to defund Obamacare without forcing a government shutdown, placing pressure solely on the shoulders of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Graves’ Security, Stability, and Fairness Resolution is a continuing resolution budget bill that offers a fiscal year 2014 budget that keeps the government open but does not fund Obamacare. The Obama administration has already delayed the law’s employer mandate until 2015, after the 2014 midterm elections.

It makes sense for everyone to delay ObamaCare. It is becoming obvious that the law is not ready for prime time. There have already been delays on several aspects of the law, and according to Townhall.com on September 11, not a single state seems  to be completely ready for ObamaCare.

Politically there are two schools of thought on how Republicans should deal with ObamaCare. The idea of defunding the program is one, but there is another one. Some pundits have suggested that ObamaCare should be allowed to go forward because it will most likely collapse under its own weight. That is a gamble I would rather not take, but if the government does shut down, we can be assured that the media will blame Republicans. Frankly, I would like to see the House adopt Tom Graves’ plan.

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