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«Updated Daily« |
Sunday July 15, 2012
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Made in the USA since 1998
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Republican officials in several states say they are trying to combat voter fraud. Democrats accuse Republicans of cynical efforts to suppress voting by people in lower socio-economic groups who tend to vote Democrat.
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DHS, Obama Administration OK
Florida's Access to 'Citizens List'
AP/FOX News
In a victory for Republicans, the federal government has agreed to let Florida use a law enforcement database to challenge people's right to vote if they are suspected of not being U.S. citizens. The agreement, made in a letter to Florida Gov. Rick Scott's administration that was obtained by The Associated Press, grants the state access to a list of resident noncitizens maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. The Obama administration had denied Florida's request for months, but relented after a judge ruled in the state's favor in a related voter-purge matter. Voting rights groups, while acknowledging that non-citizens have no right to vote, have expressed alarm about using such data for a purpose not originally intended: purging voter lists of ineligible people. They say voter purges less than four months before a presidential election might leave insufficient time to correct mistakes stemming from faulty data or other problems. Republicans count it as a victory nonetheless in their broad-based fight over voter eligibility, an issue that could play a big role in the White House race. That's especially true in pivotal states such as Florida, Colorado, Nevada and North Carolina. |
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And Where Did Syria’s Chemical
Weapons Come From?
Frank Salvato, Managing Editor
As the news stories mount regarding Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s decision to move his chemical weapons stockpile from storage to areas closer to rebel locations, there is one thing the mainstream media is not commenting on: How Syria acquired what is reported to be one of the world’s largest arsenals of bio-chemical WMD? More to the point, what they are not reporting is this: From where did the Assad regime acquire their bio-chemical WMD? In 2006, former Iraqi general, Georges Sada, who served under Saddam Hussein before he defected, wrote a comprehensive book detailing how the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria, before the US-led action to eliminate Saddam Hussein’s WMD threat, by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed. If – and many of us believe when – the Assad regime decides to use these bio-chemical weapons; these WMD, against the rebels, and if the spent shells are found to possess Iraqi markings of manufacture, anti-war Democrats and Progressives here in the United States will have been complicit in what is tantamount to genocide.
Don’t Blame SCOTUS,
It Was the Obama ‘Bait and Switch’
Frank Salvato, Managing Editor
I have become increasingly depressed about the fact that “truth” has become subservient – if not non-existent – in our culture today, and especially in our political culture. The recent US Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare – or the Affordable Care Act, if you will – is a perfect example. While many on the Right, and people who I respect greatly, condemn the SCOTUS – and especially Chief Justice John Roberts – for their decision to uphold the individual mandate, not under the Commerce Clause but as a tax, they misdirect their ire. SCOTUS ruled constitutionally and honestly on the argument presented to them. The Right’s anger – the American people’s fury – should instead be directed at the Obama Administration and its Progressive minions for executing one of the most egregious “bait and switch” schemes ever perpetrated on the American people.
Europe Is in More Danger Than
at Any Time Since the 1930s
Thomas Pascoe
Ours is a complacent continent. Despite impending events that would have precipitated a revolution in almost any other place at almost any other time in history -- either a collapse of the currency or the complete secession of budgetary control to a supra-natural body in the EU -- we expect the fabric of European society to endure without major changes. I think we are wrong. There is a presumption of perpetual peace in Europe which rests in turn on a presumption of the perpetuity of our existing capital structures. Once the latter are undermined, the former is called into question. The great wars of the secular age have all been fought between ideologies which seek to restructure the relationship between capital and the people. As popular support grows for such plans, Western Europe is entering its most dangerous phase since the 1930s.
This Youth Movement
Has Women Covered
Mark Steyn
Media types like to talk about "the narrative": News is just another form of storytelling, and certain plot lines grab you more than others. The easiest narrative of all is anything involving young people. "I believe that children are our future," as the late Whitney Houston once asserted. And, even if Whitney hadn't believed it, it would still, as a point of fact, be true. Any media narrative involving young people presupposes that they are the forces of progress, wresting the world from the grasping clutches of mean, vengeful old men and making it a better place. In the West, young people actually believe this. Thus, in 2008, Barack Obama, being the preferred choice of America's youth, was, by definition, the candidate of progress and the future. In humdrum reality, his idea of the future doesn't seem to be any more futuristic than the pre-Thatcher statist wasteland of Britain in the Seventies, but that didn't stop the massed ranks of fresh-faced youth chanting "We are the Hopeychange!" in adoring if glassy-eyed unison behind him at every campaign rally. Four years later...
In Search of Saddam Hussein’s WMD
Scott Malensek
Have you ever noticed that it’s always politicians, media types, and either washed up or disgruntled anonymous intelligence sources who claim that there never was any WMD in Iraq? On the other hand, nearly every single commander and deputy commander of CENTCOM says that Saddam did have WMD. So too do the inspectors with the closest knowledge of before and after inspections: Dr Butler, Dr Kay, Dr Duelfer, and most of the former UN inspectors (only Dr Blix and Scott Ritter differ in this opinion). Is this subject one where the word of a former governor of Vermont is better than that of highly decorated generals and weapons inspectors who have served their country all over the world for decades? While Gov Dean’s hands were sticky with maple syrup, people like Dr. Kay and Dr. Duelfer were in 130 degree desert heat wearing plastic suits in toxic environments and being shot at. While Rep. Pelosi works to blame President Bush for things as controllable as the weather, people like General DeLong, General Franks, and so many others had their hands covered in the dirt and sands of the Middle East.
Stop Calling It ObamaCare
Adrian Murray
When Mitt Romney went before the convention of the NAACP and said that as president he would repeal “Obamacare”, he was roundly and predictably booed. In doing so, he stepped into a carefully prepared trap. Why is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act routinely referred to as “Obamacare”? Surely no one seriously believes President Obama wrote the 2,700 page bill or, for that matter, even knows what is in it. Yet the act is commonly labeled President Obama’s signature piece of legislation, the crowning achievement of his first term. Even Nancy Pelosi would not take credit for authoring the bill, famously declaring we had to pass it in order to find out what’s in it. So if the president didn’t write the Affordable Care Act and the Speaker of the House didn’t know what was in it, why is it called Obamacare?
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▪ DHS, Obama Administration OK Florida’s Access to ‘Citizens List’
▪ Reid Obstructs Request to Vote on Obama’s Tax Plan
▪ Mass. Governor Overruled on Vice Welfare Spending
▪ White House: Asking for Obama’s College Records ‘Preposterous’
▪ Teachers Union Bosses Pull in Nearly $500,000 in Salary Annually
▪ Mugabe Could Be Brought in From the Cold
▪ Report: Syria’s Assad Moving Chemical Weapons Stockpile Out of Storage
▪ Obama Administration ‘Guts’ Welfare Reform with New HHS Rule
▪ Fact Check: Romney Did Not Manage Bain Funds
▪ US Debt Increased $64,000 Per Taxpayer Under Obama
▪ Video: Heavily-Armed Texas Gunboats Now Patrolling the Rio Grande
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Mugabe Could Be Brought in From the Cold
The London Telegraph
Britain and the EU are preparing to lift sanctions on Robert Mugabe and his closest henchmen in an effort to persuade the Zimbabwean President into holding free and fair elections. A review of the measures that have banned the 88-year old Mr Mugabe, his military allies and key officials, from travel to Europe and froze bank accounts will conclude that sanctions should now be conditionally suspended. The sanctions were imposed in 2002 after Mugabe oversaw a murderous campaign to drive out white farmers that pushed the economy into a disastrous slump. European officials said there is now agreement to bring Zimbabwe back in from the cold but only if new conditions are met, including the publication of a new constitution, the adoption of human rights laws, and the conduct of free elections next year.
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Report: Syria’s Assad Moving Chemical Weapons Stockpile Out of Storage
The London Daily Mail
Syria has started to move part of its chemical weapons arsenal out of storage facilities, according to US officials. The country's undeclared stockpiles of sarin nerve agent, mustard gas and cyanide have long worried the US officials and its allies in the region, according to the Wall Street Journal. Western nations have looked for signs amid the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad's government of any change in the location of those weapons, believed to be the world's largest stockpile. American officials are divided on the reason for moving the arsenal. Some fear Assad may want to use the weapons against rebels or civilians, while others said perhaps he is trying to safeguard them from his opponents. The Syrian government denied chemical stockpiles have been moved, the Journal said.
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Egypt Islamists Demand Legalization of ‘Sex-Slave’ Marriages
InvestigativeProject.org
While world attention has been focused on the political faceoff between the Egyptian military and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated President Muhammad Morsi, away from the cameras Islamists continue pushing to consolidate power. Egyptian Salafists are demanding the legalization of Islamic "sex-slave" marriages and are calling on Morsi to expel all Shi'ite Muslims and Bahai from Egypt. Prominent Muslim clerics are demanding the destruction of Egypt's Great Pyramids. Morsi, whose ascension to the presidency ended 60 years of military rule, several months ago advocated violent jihad and establishing an Islamic theocracy in Egypt. While the Brotherhood reportedly wants to institute a caliphate in Egypt, it can appear almost moderate when compared to the Salafists.
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115 Christians Killed, 50 Burned Alive in Central Nigeria
ZeeNews.India.com
At least 115 people, including a federal senator and a state parliamentarian, have been killed in central Nigeria in the last two days with herdsmen from the Fulani tribe besieging and raiding Christian villages near conflict-prone Jos city, prompting violent clashes. Those killed today were attending the funeral of 63 other people killed earlier yesterday in Karkuruk village in Barkin Ladi local government area when the assailants returned to kill more people with guns and machetes. After the attack on funeral attendees, some 50 bodies were also discovered burnt in the house of a pastor of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) in Matse village in Riyom Local Government Area of the state. The discovery of the bodies brought the total number of deaths since yesterday to 115 including that of the lawmakers.
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Reid Obstructs Request to Vote on Obama’s Tax Plan
The Hill
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) rejected a Republican request to vote on Pres. Obama’s income tax plan amid defections within his caucus on tax policy. Reid appeared exasperated by the GOP request to vote on extending the Bush-era tax rates when Democrats would prefer to focus on a small-business tax package. “When I came here this morning, I repeat for the third time, I asked what business was before this body. Small-business jobs bill,” Reid said. “There has been a direct attack on that legislation by saying, 'Let’s do something else. Let’s not do this right now.'" Reid was responding to a request by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to vote on Obama’s tax plan, which would extend the Bush tax rates for families earning less than $250,000.
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White House: Asking for Obama’s College Records ‘Preposterous’
CNS News
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dismissed a reporter’s question about President Barack Obama’s college transcript as “preposterous,” even comparing it to questions about the long form birth certificate raised by some Obama detractors. Obama has yet to release college transcripts from Occidental, Columbia and Harvard Law. He released a long form birth certificate last year, and a shorter version of the birth certificate long before showing he was born in Hawaii. A reporter asked during the press briefing, “One thing that people, his opponents continue to bring up is the college records.” Carney responded, “This is the Donald Trump question.” Carney did not directly talk about the college records and moved quickly to resurrect the birth certificate issue.
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Mass. Governor Overruled on Vice Welfare Spending
The Washington Times
Massachusetts state legislators have made it harder to spend welfare dollars on goods like alcohol and beauty supplies over the objections of their governor. The state House and Senate agreed on provisions prohibiting the expenditure of cash benefits, via a credit card-like EBT card that also holds food stamps, on certain items, like tattoos, and at certain establishments, like liquor stores, in late June, but Gov. Deval Patrick objected and amended the bill. “I’ve had to drag our governor kicking and screaming all the way...He took out all the items we prohibited: guns, jewelry. We also prohibited it at those stores. He took out nail shops,” said Shaunna O'Connell, a House Republican on the Ways & Means Committee who has led calls for, and has been repeatedly frustrated in, reforming the way welfare money is handed out.
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US Debt Increased $64,000 Per Taxpayer Under Obama
CNS News
The national debt has now increased by more than $64,000 per federal taxpayer since Barack Obama was inaugurated. At the close of business on Jan. 20, 2009, according to the US Treasury, the total debt of the federal government was $10,626,877,048,913.08. By the close of business on July 10, 2012, that debt had climbed to $15,885,854,755,351.47, an increase of $5,258,977,706,438.39. In “Statistics of Income: 2009 Individual Income Tax Returns,” published this year and is the IRS’s most recent statistical report on individual income tax data, there were 81,890,189 tax returns filed in 2009 that reported taxable income. If each of these federal taxpayers were given responsibility for paying off an equal share of the new federal debt added since Obama was inaugurated, they would each need to pay about $64,219.88.
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Teachers Union Bosses Pull in Nearly $500,000 in Salary Annually
FOX News
Teachers across the country face pay freezes and possible layoffs, but the heads of the two biggest teachers unions saw their pay jump 20 percent last year, to nearly half a million dollars apiece. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten's pay jumped to $407,323 between 2010 and 2011, while her counterpart at the National Education Association, Dennis Van Roekel, got a raise to $362,644. Factor in stipends and other paid expenses and Weingarten took in $493,859 and Van Roekel $460,060 for 2011. The big salaries drew jeers from many educators and their advocates, where the average nationwide salary for teachers is a scant $44,000 a year. By contrast, nearly 600 staffers at the NEA and AFT are raking in six-figure salaries, according to Assoc. of American Educators Exec. Dir. Gary Beckner.
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Riot Police, Occupy Protesters Clash in Los Angeles
MSNBC.com
Police clad in riot gear skirmished with protesters, including Occupy demonstrators, in downtown Los Angeles late Thursday, leaving two officers injured and an estimated dozens of people arrested, local media reported. At least one man, who said he was not part of the protest, reported being struck by a rubber bullet. A woman who said she was an Occupy member told the Los Angeles Times that protesters attended the monthly “ArtWalk” on Thursday to give support to those who had previously been arrested for writing on the sidewalk with chalk. The demonstration started at about 8:40pm Thursday, when protesters began taking over the intersection of Fifth and Spring streets. At times during the first hours of the protest, crowds and police could be seen running from the area.
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Video: Chicago Police Call It 'Tribal Warfare'
CBS News
Chicago is in the grips of a deadly gang war. At least 275 people have been killed in the city so far this year and many more have been shot, many of them innocent bystanders to the gang violence. Among the latest victims were 12- and 13-year-old girls shot Tuesday night. They survived. Sgt. Matt Little leads one of the teams in Chicago's Gang Enforcement Unit, said, "Almost all the violence we're seeing now is from the gangs. Instead of a bullet with somebody's name on it, we have a bullet that reads 'To whom it may concern." The result is a spate of shootings that have killed or wounded young children, even toddlers." It's "tribal warfare," he said, "and as it continues to build unless we manage to interdict it, and manage to stop it long enough for the blood to stop boiling, the heat to die down."
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Video: Jordanian MP Pulls Gun
on Critic During Live TV Debate
TimesOfIsrael.com
A Jordanian member of parliament pulled a gun on a political activist during a furious debate live on Jordanian TV on Thursday. The MP, named in a YouTube clip of the confrontation as Mohammed Shawabka, was debating a political activist named in the clip as Mansour Sayf al-Din Murad, discussing aspects of Jordanian politics including attitudes surrounding the uprising in Syria. As the Jo Sat TV station discussion became more heated, each of the men accused the other of various crimes and deviancies. Theincident escalated until the MP pulled a gun -- a silver pistol -- out of his waistband and briefly brandished it toward the activist, who walked toward him. The two men struggled while the panicked host circumnavigated the strewn furniture to try to break up the fight.
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InFocus Origins of Commerce Clause Objections to the Individual Mandate
Democrats in Congress essentially ignored plausible constitutional objections to the ACA's individual mandate, and therefore have only themselves to blame if the law is declared unconstitutional. A counter-meme has spread on the liberal/left that constitutional objections to the ACA's individual mandate were somehow invented circa late 2009, whereas previously all mainstream constitutional commentators, including conservatives, would have conceded that such mandates were constitutional. Of course, there was little reason for anyone to have written about a mandate before such a mandate was being actively considered by Congress, given that President Obama had promised NOT to enact a mandate in his 2008 campaign.
The Briefing Updated July 12, 2012
Earlier this week Egypt’s new President reinstated the Egyptian Parliament which had recently been dissolved by order of Egypt’s Constitutional (Supreme) Court. The President’s position is that the dissolved, now reinstated legislative body should continue to function until a new Parliament is elected. He has now convened the Parliament. Thereafter Egypt’s Supreme Court ruled that the President’s decree is null and void and reiterated that the former Parliament is no longer in existence. In office approximately a week, the Moslem Brotherhood President is challenging the Egyptian Supreme Court’s authority.
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