Right Mind

Stop Al Gore Before He Lies Again..and Again…and Again!

What if Republicans take the Senate and force him to testify?  

From the Canada Free Press:

The New York Times once again is Al Gore’s “enabler”, publishing a February 28 opinion editorial, “We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change”, despite the mounting evidence that global warming was and is a complete fabrication.

In November 2009, the Telegraph, a British newspaper, carried a story, “Al Gore could become world’s first carbon billionaire”, so let us disabuse ourselves of the notion that Gore just wants to save the world.

Heavily invested in the “carbon credits” scam and technologies whose success depend on people believing fairy tales about “clean energy” alternatives such as wind and solar energy, Gore has enriched himself by trumpeting the biggest hoax of the modern era.

It is no surprise that The New York Times published his latest collection of lies. The reportorial record of the Times has been decades of lies about global warming. Whatever patina of respectability it once had has been eroded by its participation in the fraud. Why should it stop now?

There is increasing discussion of whether testimony before Congress by Gore and other global warming advocates constitute criminal behavior that begins with lying under oath.

…

Dr. S. Fred Singer, president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a leader in the effort to reveal the vast global warming fraud, on February 27 wrote that “this apparent (global warming) consensus misled not only the media and the public, but also the wider scientific community, which had remained largely unaware of the ongoing debate and of the work of many reputable climate experts who disagreed with the IPCC.”

Dr. Singer summed up the entire global warming hoax as based on “temperature data (that) had been manipulated.”

When you use bad data you get bad results. When you use it to enrich yourself, you are engaged in an activity worthy of a criminal investigation.

It was unworthy of The New York Times to lend itself to the continuing lies of Al Gore, but neither it is surprising since the credibility of this once respected newspaper has been trashed by its appalling biases and a succession of reporters who have been found to be plagiarists and fantasists.

HT: Bill J.

The Left Should Think Twice Before Charging ‘Racism’

From Bill Hallowell:

Without Noah Webster’s knowledge, the definition of a “racist” has been diluted and redefined to mean “a person who disagrees with a liberal,” or in more explicit terms, “any individual who uses logic to divulge evidence of liberal malfeasance.”  For years, the left has used race as a bully tactic to smear and debunk those on the receiving end of the label.  This desperate and exploitative attempt at winning political arguments comes at a great cost to democracy, interpersonal relations and our nation’s internal progress.

A collection of 2005 statements about reconciliation by (among others) Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

From the horse’s mouth.

But what was wrong when the Dems were in the minority is fine when they are in the majority.

Hypocrisy at its best.

And, of course, the long-term ramifications by the Dems is a whole lot more significant than what the Republicans were trying to do.

HT: Peter Suderman

I'm All Ears

Maxine Waters: Dumber than Dirt?

Check out this exchange between Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke during today's testimony before the House Committee on Financial Services.

Rep. Waters, a member of the House Committee on Financial Services since 1990, doesn't understand the difference between the federal funds rate and the discount rate.

CBS follows up with this question:

"Is Maxine Waters really as dumb as she seems?"

Apparently.

Hating Bureaucrats

An anonymous customer complaint to the county brought health inspectors to the store, who determined its tradition of more than 15 years of offering coffee and doughnuts to customers violated food-handling regulations...

Inspectors told Collins that unless he was willing to install stainless-steel sinks with hot and cold water and have a prep kitchen to handle the food, he was violating the law.

Cross-posted from John Stossel

Magnitude 8.8 Chile quake one of strongest ever recorded

From KREM News in Spokane:

One of the largest earthquakes ever recorded tore apart houses, bridges and highways in central Chile on Saturday and sent a tsunami racing halfway around the world. Chileans near the epicenter were tossed about as if shaken by a giant, and the head of the emergency agency said authorities believed at least 300 people were dead.

The magnitude-8.8 quake was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil -- 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the east. The full extent of damage remained unclear as dozens of aftershocks -- one nearly as powerful as Haiti's devastating Jan. 12 earthquake -- shuddered across the disaster-prone Andean nation.

…

The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the same area of Chile on May 22, 1960. The magnitude-9.5 quake killed 1,655 people and left 2 million homeless. It caused a tsunami that killed people in Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines and caused damage along the west coast of the United States.

Saturday's quake matched a 1906 temblor off the Ecuadorean coast as the seventh-strongest ever recorded in the world. 

Pelosi: Lawmakers Should Sacrifice Jobs for Health Care

This is a standard, unspoken, Democrat talking point.

From Fox News:

House Speaker Pelosi says lawmakers aren't in Washington for job security but 'to do the job for the American people.'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged her colleagues to back a major overhaul of U.S. health care even if it threatens their political careers, a call to arms that underscores the issue's massive role in this election year.

Lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the moment, will help the public, Pelosi said in an interview being broadcast Sunday the ABC News program "This Week."

"We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress," she said. "We're here to do the job for the American people."

It took courage for Congress to pass Social Security and Medicare, which eventually became highly popular, she said, "and many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill."

It's unclear whether Pelosi's remarks will embolden or chill dozens of moderate House Democrats who face withering criticisms of the health care proposal in visits with constituents and in national polls. Republican lawmaker unanimously oppose the health care proposals, and many GOP strategists believe voters will turn against Democrats in the November elections.

Pelosi, from San Francisco, is more liberal than scores of her Democratic colleagues. But she generally walks a careful line between urging them to back left-of-center policies and giving them a green light to buck party leaders to improve their re-election hopes.

Her comments to ABC, in the interview released Sunday, seemed to acknowledge the widely held view that Democrats will lose House seats this fall -- maybe a lot. They now control the chamber 255 to 178, with two vacancies. Pelosi stopped well short of suggesting Democrats could lose their majority, but she called on members of her party to make a bold move on health care with no prospects of GOP help.

"Time is up," she said. "We really have to go forth."

Her comments somewhat echoed those of President Obama, who said at the end of last week's bipartisan health care summit that Congress should act on the issue and let voters render their verdicts. "That's what elections are for," he said.

The White House says Obama, perhaps on Wednesday, will announce a "way forward" on health care. He, Pelosi, and Senate Democratic leaders have left little doubt that they hope to pass a Democratic-crafted bill under "budget reconciliation" rules that would bar Republican filibusters in the Senate. It's unclear whether Pelosi can muster the needed votes in the House.

Billboard in Lake City, TN

Looks like cities across the country are each getting one of these.

HT: David D.

Duncan Doesn't Have a Clue What a Free Market Is

From the Washington Post:

“The president’s plan actually creates jobs and draws on free-market principles by selecting private companies through a competitive process to service student loans issued directly by the Education Department. These private companies, including Sallie Mae, compete for our business and are evaluated on the quality of their customer service and their default rates.” 

—U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

Duncan doesn’t have a clue what the words “free market” mean. For him, when the federal government decides which companies get to service loans that it completely controls, those are “free-market principles” at work.

Priceless.

Via: Neal McCluskey

Solutions

Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

CBO: Obamacare is "A Ponzi Scheme that would make Bernie Madoff Proud"

Watch Obama staring daggers at the economic observation.

And there is no comeback to the numbers.

HT: Mike Costello

Gallup Poll of Interest: Americans See U.S. Military as No. 1 Now, But Not in 20 Yrs

Recent polls of interest from the Gallup Organization:

Americans See U.S. Military as No. 1 Now, But Not in 20 Yrs: While 64% of Americans believe the U.S. is the No. 1 military power in the world today, many fewer (36%) believe that the U.S. will be No. 1 militarily in 20 years.

That’s because the US military has become an institution for social reengineering and not for doing what they are supposed to do: break things and kill people.

Bank Failures: 12,000 in the U.S. vs. 2 in Canada

Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. 

This is from his site: Carpe Diem

• Number of bank failures during the 1930s
• United States: 9,000
• Canada: 0
• Number of Bank Failures during S&L crisis (1980s-90s)
• United States: Almost 3,000
• Canada: 2
• Number of Bank Failures during the Great Recession (2007-2010)
• United States: 196
• Canada: 0
• Delinquency Rate for Home Mortgages in December 2009
• United States: 9.47%
• Canada: 0.45%
• Return on Equity for the Banking Industry in 2008
• United States: -15% (approx.)
• Canada: +10% (approx.)
• Home Ownership Rate
• United States: 67.2%
• Canada: 69%

What explains these significant differences between the U.S. and Canada? What is it about the Canadian banking system that allowed it to survive the recent worldwide slowdown without a single bank failure? What can the United States learn from Canada about sound banking? Find out here at my America.com article "Due North: Canada’s Marvelous Mortgage and Banking System." 

Rasmussen Poll: Voter Unhappiness with Congress Hits Record Level

According to the Rasmussen Report, voter unhappiness with Congress has reached the highest level ever recorded. 71% now say the legislature is doing a poor job. That’s up ten points from the previous high of 61% reached a month ago. Only 10% of voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.

Video: Obamacare is Entitlement Expansion, not Entitlement Reform

Over half of the health insurance expansion obtained by Americans through the bill is accomplished by putting them on the welfare program Medicaid.

From the Blair House health summit transcript:

And I think one of the problems, to get to this coverage issue, is that the premise of this bill is that coverage is expanded through Medicaid, welfare. Speaker Pelosi a couple of minutes ago — or a couple of hours ago, actually said that health care reform is entitlement reform.

SPEAKER PELOSI: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE ROSKAM: Yes. I would put a brighter light on that and say it’s entitlement expansion. Think about what we’re doing. The CBO when they wrote to Harry Reid — wrote to Senator Reid a couple of months ago, they said, look, there’s about 15 million people that are going to be put on Medicaid. And Medicaid is a house of cards. Medicaid is not something that is serving the public very well.

The state controller in Illinois — and we all come from states with real trauma — the state controller in Illinois recently wrote that as bond rating agencies continue to downgrade Illinois rankings to the lowest in the nation, the state can’t afford further jeopardizing.

This bill, section 2001 of the Senate bill, takes away all of the flexibility as it relates to changes in Medicaid. That is making our states I think ultimately hidebound in how they approach these things. This is something that in my view isn’t sustainable.

Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana said — let me give you a quick quote — “One of the least effective programs in terms of health care in the history of the country is called Medicaid. About 20 percent of America is on a Medicaid program and they would like to shift” — “they” meaning Washington — “would like to shift it and grow it to somewhere around 25 or 30 percent.”

Now, Medicaid is a system that isn’t working. Almost everyone agrees. But what Congress intends to do is to increase the number of people on Medicaid so that they can do it on the cheap. It isn’t working for anybody.

Look, the foundation of the expansion is Medicaid. And in my view, and I think the view of folks in my district and I think many, many people across America, it is a flawed foundation. And we can do much, much better. A Republican proposal that’s out there would reduce the number of uninsured by 3 million people.

So, look, you heard it today in many, many forms — this — you remember the old — in closing, you remember the old game you used to play as a kid, Etch A Sketch, and you’d start out with the Etch A Sketch, that little thing where you try and draw something and you dial the dials and over a period of time the more you dialed the more crazy it looked and then finally you’d say, oh, let’s just go like that and do the Etch A Sketch.

I’ll tell you what, a year’s worth of work and this is what has come up with? The American public, as far as the ones that I have heard from, are vehemently opposed to this. And they say, look, take the Etch A Sketch, go like this, let’s start over, let’s do incremental things where there’s common ground. I yield back.

Via Heritage Fountation

Video: The Four-Minute Guide to the Seven-Hour Summit

What Transparency Looks Like to the Obama White House

I do not understand how the government can withhold scientific data on global warming? Is this a national security issue?

From the Heritage Foundation:

Things that are transparent: Saran Wrap, glass, water. Things that aren’t transparent: brick walls, mountains, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

Or so it would seem, if you take a look at the CEQ’s response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request issued by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in which the Chamber asked for the release of documents relating to agency records on global warming.

As the Chamber notes, “CEQ had identified 87 documents totaling 759 pages that were responsive to our request. HOWEVER, they could not release most of the documents because they ‘originated’ with another agency.”

So what did CEQ produce? An entirely blacked-out, redacted, Sharpie-markered e-mail, pictured above. (You can also take a look at a PDF of the document, courtesy of the Chamber.)

The Chamber says the response to their FOIA is astonishing, given President Barack Obama’s call for transparency beginning with day one in office:

On his very first full day in office, President Obama sent a memorandum to his executive agencies extolling the virtues of transparency and open government and directing them to facilitate public access to information. To further that directive, Obama issued a second memorandum encouraging agencies to “adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure” when responding to public requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA):

“The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. …In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public. All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.”

National Journal's Vote Rankings: The Top 10

From National Journal:

The 10 Most Liberal Senate Dems   Most Conservative Senate GOPers
1. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)           1. Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
1. Roland Burris (D-IL)           2. Jim DeMint (R-SC)
1. Ben Cardin (D-MD)              3. Jim Bunning (R-KY)
1. Jack Reed (D-RI)               4. Tom Coburn (R-OK)
1. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)      5. Jim Risch (R-ID)
6. John Kerry (D-MA)              6. John Thune (R-SD)
6. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)        7. John Ensign (R-NV)
8. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)        8. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
9. Chris Dodd (D-CT)              9. Richard Burr (R-NC)
9. Dick Durbin (D-IL)             10. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

The 10 Most Liberal House Dems    Most Conservative House GOPers
1. Rush Holt (D-NJ)               1. Trent Franks (R-AZ)
1. Gwen Moore (D-WI)              1. Doug Lamborn (R-CO)
1. John Olver (D-MA)              1. Randy Neugebaurer (R-TX)
1. Linda Sanchez (D-CA)           1. Pete Olson (R-TX)
1. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)          1. John Shadegg (R-AZ)
1. Louise Slaughter (D-NY)        1. Mac Thornberry (R-TX)
1. Mel Watt (D-NC)                7. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
1. Henry Waxman (D-CA)            8. Mike Pence (R-IN)
9. Kathy Castor (D-FL)            9. Steve King (R-IA)
10. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL)      9. Tom McClintock (R-CA)

The 10 In The Middle              In The Middle Of The House
(Most liberal to Most conserv.)   (Most liberal to Most conserv.)

Most Liberal House Delegations    Most Conservative Delegations
1. MA                             1. ID
2. HI                             2. KY
3. VT                             3. SC
4. CT                             4. TX
5. RI                             5. GA

US senator warns of ‘financial meltdown’ risk

From the Financial Times:

The US is heading for a debt-driven “financial meltdown” within five to seven years, according to Judd Gregg, the outgoing Republican senator for New Hampshire.

In a robust and at times testy video interview for the Financial Times’s View from DC series, Mr Gregg also complimented China for showing rising alarm about the US’s mounting levels of public debt.

“We have had China say that they are looking for other places to put their reserves and that is probably a smart decision on their part,” said Mr Gregg, who will not seek re-election in November. “So the warning signs are pretty clear and the path is unsustainable and, at this point, unless we take different actions, unavoidable.”

 

CNN Poll: Majority says government a threat to citizens' rights

From CNN:

A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

Is it a “partisan divide” when 63% of the independents agree with 70% of the Republicans?

It would seem rather that the Democrats are either in denial or enjoy having the federal government remove rights and freedoms.

According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken - though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what's broken can be fixed.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted February 12-15, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the overall survey.

Obama signs one-year extension of Patriot Act

Do you remember how the Democrats spent 8 years rightfully complaining about the Patriot Act? This was one of their planks: to overturn the over-reaching federal government.

But now that they are in power, that’s OK. They just wink at the civil liberty violations.

I couldn’t be more sick and tired of the political games from the evil and stupid parties.

From MyWay:

President Barack Obama has signed a one-year extension of several provisions in the nation's main counterterrorism law, the Patriot Act.

Provisions in the measure would have expired on Sunday without Obama's signature Saturday.

The act, which was adopted in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, expands the government's ability to monitor Americans in the name of national security.

Three sections of the Patriot Act that stay in force will:

• Authorize court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones.
• Allow court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations.
• Permit surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.

Obama's signature comes after the House voted 315 to 97 Thursday to extend the measure.

The Senate also approved the measure, with privacy protections cast aside when Senate Democrats lacked the necessary 60-vote supermajority to pass them. Thrown away were restrictions and greater scrutiny on the government's authority to spy on Americans and seize their records.

JP Morgan Chief: California is a greater risk than Greece

From the U.K. Telegraph:

Mr Dimon told investors at the Wall Street bank's annual meeting that "there could be contagion" if a state the size of California, the biggest of the United States, had problems making debt repayments. "Greece itself would not be an issue for this company, nor would any other country," said Mr Dimon. "We don't really foresee the European Union coming apart." The senior banker said that JP Morgan Chase and other US rivals are largely immune from the European debt crisis, as the risks have largely been hedged.

California however poses more of a risk, given the state's $20bn (£13.1bn) budget deficit, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is desperately trying to reduce.

Earlier this week, the state's legislature passed bills that will cut the deficit by $2.8bn through budget cuts and other measures. However the former Hollywood film star turned politician is looking for $8.9bn of cuts over the next 16 months, and is also hoping for as much as $7bn of handouts from the federal government.

Earlier this week, John Chiang, the state's controller, said that if a workable plan to reduce the deficit and increase cash levels is not reached soon, he will have to return to issuing IOU's, forcing state workers to take additional unpaid leave and potentially freezing spending.

Last summer, California issued $3bn of IOU's to creditors including residents owed tax refunds as a way of staving off a cash crisis.

I think I mentioned before that companies who were issued those IOU’s had to pay taxes on that “income” they never received.

TEA Party Held To Unreasonable Standards

The following commentary by Michael Costello ran in today's Lewiston Tribune. Costello is always well worth reading.

You can find a copy on his website: The Pajamahadin.

Dianne Capps' story should be a cautionary tale for all Tea Party activists. At the Asotin Tea party rally a couple of weeks ago, Capps made what she believed was a clever allusion to the movie "Lonesome Dove." She laughingly said U.S. Sen. Patty Murray should be hung. It was clumsy, but no reasonable person seeing the video could seriously believe Capps was actually trying to incite a lynch mob. But that's the impression that those who feel threatened by the Tea Party are trying to promote.

If you have 10,000 Tea partiers at a demonstration and one person shows up with a sign that might be interpreted as racist, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post will all highlight that one sign and use it to smear the entire movement. It's not hard to imagine media-savvy leftists infiltrating a rally with just such a sign knowing full well the prominence it will be given. And so what happened to Dianne Capps should have been predictable.

To gain a sense for just how threatening elite opinion finds the Tea Party, one need only look at the news media treatment of Joe Stack, the anti-IRS kamikaze pilot who rammed his plane into an IRS office in Austin, Texas. Even though he left behind as a suicide note a manifesto that could have been plagiarized from a Nancy Pelosi speech, he was assumed to be a Tea Partier. According to New York Magazine, "a lot of his rhetoric could have been taken directly from a handwritten sign at a Tea Party rally." The Washington Post's Jonathon Capehart said he was "struck by how [Stack's] alienation is similar to that we're hearing from the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement."

This stuff sticks. One of the dimmer bulbs in the Washington state Legislature is Geoff Simpson (D-47th District). He cited both of the above news stories when he claimed that Joe Stack was a Tea Party activist: "I don't think it's patriotic to fly airplanes into buildings as one of your Tea Party members recently did."

This is how elite opinion works.

When Gregory Girard was arrested on explosives charges in Massachusetts, it quickly got out that he was a Tea Party member and a Sarah Palin fan. Amy Bishop, the woman arrested for shooting up a faculty meeting at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, was reportedly a fanatical Barack Obama fan. But I've not yet seen her described in a headline as "Obama supporter Amy Bishop."

Until it was conclusively proven to be a suicide, Tea Partiers were accused of responsibility for the death of a census worker in Tennessee. He wrote the word "FED" on his own chest and hanged himself. That was enough for Tea Party enemies to attack the whole movement.

This is not an evenly applied standard. There are Democratic members of Congress who believe that Ronald Reagan peddled crack cocaine in black neighborhoods to raise money for the anti-communist insurgency in Nicaragua. Members of Congress accused Ronald Reagan of creating the AIDS virus in a laboratory for the specific purpose of exterminating African-Americans and homosexuals. A former Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives initiated an investigation into the crackpot accusation that George Bush the Elder had, in 1980 while Jimmy Carter was still president, boarded a CIA-operated SR-71 spy plane and flown to Iran to convince the mullahs to hold American hostages prisoner until after the 1980 election. The last two series of Democratic primary presidential debates featured a congressman whose agenda includes outlawing space-based mind-control weapons. A former frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination and the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee once said it was entirely reasonable for people to suspect that George Bush the Younger was complicit in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Every single one of the people mentioned above either holds or did hold a prominent position in the Democratic Party. And yet not one of these idiots is ever held up as an example of what a collection of nutcases composes the Democratic Party.

Dianne Capps' faux pas is already being exploited by the senator she would like to retire. Murray's campaign is using video of Capps' comments to raise campaign cash. Don't give ammunition to your enemy.  

Idaho Senate approves medical conscience bill: Supporters say health care workers' moral and ethical beliefs should be protected

From the Associated Press:

After long and emotional debate, Idaho senators on Friday voted 21-13 to allow pharmacists, nurses and other health care workers to opt out of providing assistance for abortions, stem-cell therapy, emergency contraception or end-of-life care, if they tell their employers first the procedures violate their conscience.

The measure now goes to the House, where a similar bill aimed at giving pharmacists conscience protections passed 48-21 last year before stalling in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. This year's measure, written by anti-abortion activists, bypassed that committee and went to the Senate State Affairs panel where it passed on a 6-3 vote.

Backers, including Sen. Chuck Winder, R-Boise, said this wasn't a "right-wing scheme" brought by a "bunch of religious fanatics," rather a heartfelt effort to provide all health care workers with protections against having to do something against their moral or ethical beliefs. It won't absolve nurses or pharmacists of their duty to provide the best care possible, added Sen. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian.

"It was never the intent of the authors and sponsors of this bill to try to change in any way what licensed health care professionals disclose," Fulcher said. "That hasn't been touched. The only thing this does is it allows non-physicians and other licensed health care professionals to have the same (rights) that physicians currently have."

Doctors in Idaho already have similar protections.

Creature could worm its way onto endangered list: Palouse farmers hear latest status report on exotic native species

The following article ran in the Lewiston Tribune.

Whether farmers and the giant Palouse earthworm can coexist amicably is a hard question to answer, particularly since no one is sure if the earthworm even exists today.

Speaking before the Latah County and Whitman County farm bureaus, Michael Bogert talked about the status of two petitions to put the giant Palouse earthworm on the endangered species list. 

…

Farmers didn't seem much happier about alternatives to listing, such as creating conservation districts or critical habitat designations, which could encroach onto private property, Bogert said.

"There are some pretty high stakes there," said Mike Friddle, a member of the Latah County Farm Bureau. "It does affect farming."

Moscow farmer Wayne Olson said he was concerned about the effect that listing the giant Palouse earthworm as endangered would have on the agricultural community.

"There's no other place in the world that can produce what we can," he said.

David Hall, a member of the Palouse Prairie Foundation, said he was one of the petitioners and didn't believe saving the giant Palouse earthworm meant destroying farms, since none of the worms were ever reported found on agricultural land.

"I don't see that it's going to affect their farming," he said. "I think it's good to have the discussions and get everyone talking."

Here’s the problem. Environmental groups in the past have planted evidence after the fact in order to shut down that which they do not like. So it would take just one environmental wacko to plant a giant earthworm on farmland to shut down all farming on the Palouse.  

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" for 2009

From Judicial Watch. The full text is archived here for posterity.

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians." The list, in alphabetical order, includes:

1. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT): This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 "Ten Most Corrupt" list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him. In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat. In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against Dodd for undervaluing a property he owns in Ireland on his Senate Financial Disclosure forms. Judicial Watch's complaint forced Dodd to amend the forms. However, press reports suggest the property to this day remains undervalued. Judicial Watch also alleges in the complaint that Dodd obtained a sweetheart deal for the property in exchange for his assistance in obtaining a presidential pardon (during the Clinton administration) and other favors for a long-time friend and business associate. The false financial disclosure forms were part of the cover-up. Dodd remains the head the Senate Banking Committee.
2. Senator John Ensign (R-NV): A number of scandals popped up in 2009 involving public officials who conducted illicit affairs, and then attempted to cover them up with hush payments and favors, an obvious abuse of power. The year's worst offender might just be Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign. Ensign admitted in June to an extramarital affair with the wife of one of his staff members, who then allegedly obtained special favors from the Nevada Republican in exchange for his silence. According to The New York Times: "The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide…" The former staffer, Douglas Hampton, began to lobby Mr. Ensign's office immediately upon leaving his congressional job, despite the fact that he was subject to a one-year lobbying ban. Ensign seems to have ignored the law and allowed Hampton lobbying access to his office as a payment for his silence about the affair. (These are potentially criminal offenses.) It looks as if Ensign misused his public office (and taxpayer resources) to cover up his sexual shenanigans.
3. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): Judicial Watch is investigating a $12 million TARP cash injection provided to the Boston-based OneUnited Bank at the urging of Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. As reported in the January 22, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal, the Treasury Department indicated it would only provide funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending. Not only was OneUnited Bank in massive financial turmoil, but it was also "under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives' use." Rep. Frank admitted he spoke to a "federal regulator," and Treasury granted the funds. (The bank continues to flounder despite Frank's intervention for federal dollars.) Moreover, Judicial Watch uncovered documents in 2009 that showed that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues, even as liberals led by Rep. Frank continued to block attempts to rein in the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs). For example, during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie, Rep. Frank stated: "I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury." Frank received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 1989 and 2008. Frank also engaged in a relationship with a Fannie Mae Executive while serving on the House Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
4. Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner: In 2009, Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted that he failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes from 2001-2004 on his lucrative salary at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organization with 185 member countries that oversees the global financial system. (Did we mention Geithner now runs the IRS?) It wasn't until President Obama tapped Geithner to head the Treasury Department that he paid back most of the money, although the IRS kindly waived the hefty penalties. In March 2009, Geithner also came under fire for his handling of the AIG bonus scandal, where the company used $165 million of its bailout funds to pay out executive bonuses, resulting in a massive public backlash. Of course as head of the New York Federal Reserve, Geithner helped craft the AIG deal in September 2008. However, when the AIG scandal broke, Geithner claimed he knew nothing of the bonuses until March 10, 2009. The timing is important. According to CNN: "Although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told congressional leaders on Tuesday that he learned of AIG's impending $160 million bonus payments to members of its troubled financial-products unit on March 10, sources tell TIME that the New York Federal Reserve informed Treasury staff that the payments were imminent on Feb. 28. That is ten days before Treasury staffers say they first learned 'full details' of the bonus plan, and three days before the [Obama] Administration launched a new $30 billion infusion of cash for AIG." Throw in another embarrassing disclosure in 2009 that Geithner employed "household help" ineligible to work in the United States, and it becomes clear why the Treasury Secretary has earned a spot on the "Ten Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington" list.
5. Attorney General Eric Holder: Tim Geithner can be sure he won't be hounded about his tax-dodging by his colleague Eric Holder, US Attorney General. Judicial Watch strongly opposed Holder because of his terrible ethics record, which includes: obstructing an FBI investigation of the theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory; rejecting multiple requests for an independent counsel to investigate alleged fundraising abuses by then-Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton White House; undermining the criminal investigation of President Clinton by Kenneth Starr in the midst of the Lewinsky investigation; and planning the violent raid to seize then-six-year-old Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint in order to return him to Castro's Cuba. Moreover, there is his soft record on terrorism. Holder bypassed Justice Department procedures to push through Bill Clinton's scandalous presidential pardons and commutations, including for 16 members of FALN, a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group that orchestrated approximately 120 bombings in the United States, killing at least six people and permanently maiming dozens of others, including law enforcement officers. His record in the current administration is no better. As he did during the Clinton administration, Holder continues to ignore serious incidents of corruption that could impact his political bosses at the White House. For example, Holder has refused to investigate charges that the Obama political machine traded VIP access to the White House in exchange for campaign contributions – a scheme eerily similar to one hatched by Holder's former boss, Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The Holder Justice Department also came under fire for dropping a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. On Election Day 2008, Black Panthers dressed in paramilitary garb threatened voters as they approached polling stations. Holder has also failed to initiate a comprehensive Justice investigation of the notorious organization ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which is closely tied to President Obama. There were allegedly more than 400,000 fraudulent ACORN voter registrations in the 2008 campaign. And then there were the journalist videos catching ACORN Housing workers advising undercover reporters on how to evade tax, immigration, and child prostitution laws. Holder's controversial decisions on new rights for terrorists and his attacks on previous efforts to combat terrorism remind many of the fact that his former law firm has provided and continues to provide pro bono representation to terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Holder's politicization of the Justice Department makes one long for the days of Alberto Gonzales.
6. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)/ Senator Roland Burris (D-IL): One of the most serious scandals of 2009 involved a scheme by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to sell President Obama's then-vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. Two men caught smack dab in the middle of the scandal: Senator Roland Burris, who ultimately got the job, and Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, emissaries for Jesse Jackson Jr., named "Senate Candidate A" in the Blagojevich indictment, reportedly offered $1.5 million to Blagojevich during a fundraiser if he named Jackson Jr. to Obama's seat. Three days later federal authorities arrested Blagojevich. Burris, for his part, apparently lied about his contacts with Blagojevich, who was arrested in December 2008 for trying to sell Obama's Senate seat. According to Reuters: "Roland Burris came under fresh scrutiny…after disclosing he tried to raise money for the disgraced former Illinois governor who named him to the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama…In the latest of those admissions, Burris said he looked into mounting a fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich -- later charged with trying to sell Obama's Senate seat -- at the same time he was expressing interest to the then-governor's aides about his desire to be appointed." Burris changed his story five times regarding his contacts with Blagojevich prior to the Illinois governor appointing him to the U.S. Senate. Three of those changing explanations came under oath.
7. President Barack Obama: During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to run an ethical and transparent administration. However, in his first year in office, the President has delivered corruption and secrecy, bringing Chicago-style political corruption to the White House. Consider just a few Obama administration "lowlights" from year one: Even before President Obama was sworn into office, he was interviewed by the FBI for a criminal investigation of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's scheme to sell the President's former Senate seat to the highest bidder. (Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and slumlord Valerie Jarrett, both from Chicago, are also tangled up in the Blagojevich scandal.) Moreover, the Obama administration made the startling claim that the Privacy Act does not apply to the White House. The Obama White House believes it can violate the privacy rights of American citizens without any legal consequences or accountability. President Obama boldly proclaimed that "transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency," but his administration is addicted to secrecy, stonewalling far too many of Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act requests and is refusing to make public White House visitor logs as federal law requires. The Obama administration turned the National Endowment of the Arts (as well as the agency that runs the AmeriCorps program) into propaganda machines, using tax dollars to persuade "artists" to promote the Obama agenda. According to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the idea emerged as a direct result of the Obama campaign and enjoyed White House approval and participation. President Obama has installed a record number of "czars" in positions of power. Too many of these individuals are leftist radicals who answer to no one but the president. And too many of the czars are not subject to Senate confirmation (which raises serious constitutional questions). Under the President's bailout schemes, the federal government continues to appropriate or control — through fiat and threats — large sectors of the private economy, prompting conservative columnist George Will to write: "The administration's central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption." Government-run healthcare and car companies, White House coercion, uninvestigated ACORN corruption, debasing his office to help Chicago cronies, attacks on conservative media and the private sector, unprecedented and dangerous new rights for terrorists, perks for campaign donors — this is Obama's "ethics" record — and we haven't even gotten through the first year of his presidency.
8. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): At the heart of the corruption problem in Washington is a sense of entitlement. Politicians believe laws and rules (even the U.S. Constitution) apply to the rest of us but not to them. Case in point: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her excessive and boorish demands for military travel. Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Pentagon in 2009 that suggest Pelosi has been treating the Air Force like her own personal airline. These documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, include internal Pentagon email correspondence detailing attempts by Pentagon staff to accommodate Pelosi's numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker's 11th hour cancellations and changes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also came under fire in April 2009, when she claimed she was never briefed about the CIA's use of the waterboarding technique during terrorism investigations. The CIA produced a report documenting a briefing with Pelosi on September 4, 2002, that suggests otherwise. Judicial Watch also obtained documents, including a CIA Inspector General report, which further confirmed that Congress was fully briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques. Aside from her own personal transgressions, Nancy Pelosi has ignored serious incidents of corruption within her own party, including many of the individuals on this list. (See Rangel, Murtha, Jesse Jackson, Jr., etc.)
9. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the rest of the PMA Seven: Rep. John Murtha made headlines in 2009 for all the wrong reasons. The Pennsylvania congressman is under federal investigation for his corrupt relationship with the now-defunct defense lobbyist PMA Group. PMA, founded by a former Murtha associate, has been the congressman's largest campaign contributor. Since 2002, Murtha has raised $1.7 million from PMA and its clients. And what did PMA and its clients receive from Murtha in return for their generosity? Earmarks -- tens of millions of dollars in earmarks. In fact, even with all of the attention surrounding his alleged influence peddling, Murtha kept at it. Following an FBI raid of PMA's offices earlier in 2009, Murtha continued to seek congressional earmarks for PMA clients, while also hitting them up for campaign contributions. According to The Hill, in April, "Murtha reported receiving contributions from three former PMA clients for whom he requested earmarks in the pending appropriations bills." When it comes to the PMA scandal, Murtha is not alone. As many as six other Members of Congress are currently under scrutiny according to The Washington Post. They include: Peter J. Visclosky (D-IN.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-VA), Norm Dicks (D-WA.), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS.). Of course rather than investigate this serious scandal, according to Roll Call House Democrats circled the wagons, "cobbling together a defense to offer political cover to their rank and file." The Washington Post also reported in 2009 that Murtha's nephew received $4 million in Defense Department no-bid contracts: "Newly obtained documents…show Robert Murtha mentioning his influential family connection as leverage in his business dealings and holding unusual power with the military."
10. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): Rangel, the man in charge of writing tax policy for the entire country, has yet to adequately explain how he could possibly "forget" to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income he earned from his off-shore rental property. He also faces allegations that he improperly used his influence to maintain ownership of highly coveted rent-controlled apartments in Harlem, and misused his congressional office to fundraise for his private Rangel Center by preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company in exchange for funding. On top of all that, Rangel recently amended his financial disclosure reports, which doubled his reported wealth. (He somehow "forgot" about $1 million in assets.) And what did he do when the House Ethics Committee started looking into all of this? He apparently resorted to making "campaign contributions" to dig his way out of trouble. According to WCBS TV, a New York CBS affiliate: "The reigning member of Congress' top tax committee is apparently 'wrangling' other politicos to get him out of his own financial and tax troubles...Since ethics probes began last year the 79-year-old congressman has given campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him." Charlie Rangel should not be allowed to remain in Congress, let alone serve as Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and he knows it. That's why he felt the need to disburse campaign contributions to Ethics Committee members and other congressional colleagues.

College students urged: Trade Bible for Playboy - 'Religious texts are so appalling, you are better off having porn'

From WND:

In the lobby of the University of Texas at San Antonio's humanities building, a hand-drawn poster announces, "Free porn: Just trade in your holy books (Bible, Koran, Vedas) for porn."

A student group at the university called The Atheist Agenda is reviving its Bibles-for-porn program, called "*** for ***," for three days beginning March 1, according to a report from San Antonio's KENS-TV.

"The idea is that religious texts are so appalling," said Atheist Agenda group member Brian Talker in a 2006 interview with UTSA student publication The Independent. "They are so full of genocide, misogyny and ludicrous ideas that far overshadow any banal common-sense platitudes like loving thy neighbor, that you are better off having porn, which isn't nearly as smutty."

A current member of the group told KENS the program is also meant as a slap against religious leaders and the "hypocrisy" of their condemnations of pornography.

"They've been going and rallying against pornography for the longest time," the unidentified student said, "and the disgusting, depraved acts that are within the Bible, Koran and Vedas completely outnumber any [faults] of any pornographic image."

HT: David D.

Climate Experts say January 2010 Hottest on Record

Yea, uh-huh. Even the Brits are having a hard time swallowing this one.

From the UK’s Daily Express:

Climate scientists yesterday stunned Britons suffering the coldest winter for 30 years by claiming last month was the ­hottest January the world has ever seen.

The remarkable claim, based on global satellite data, follows Arctic temperatures that brought snow, ice and travel chaos to millions in the UK.

At the height of the big freeze, the entire country was blanketed in snow. But Australian weather expert Professor Neville Nicholls, of Monash University in Melbourne, said yesterday: “January, according to satellite data, was the hottest January we’ve ever seen.

The entire climate science data needs a good proctology exam.

Cybersecurity bill to give president new emergency powers

In my opinion, Obama can control DoD websites; but he shouldn’t have the authority to meddle in the Internet at large.

From The Hill:

The president would have the power to safeguard essential federal and private Web resources under draft Senate cybersecurity legislation.

According to an aide familiar with the proposal, the bill includes a mandate for federal agencies to prepare emergency response plans in the event of a massive, nationwide cyberattack.

The president would then have the ability to initiate those network contingency plans to ensure key federal or private services did not go offline during a cyberattack of unprecedented scope, the aide said. 

Ultimately, the legislation is chiefly the brainchild of Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, respectively. Both lawmakers have long clamored for a federal cybersecurity bill, charging that current measures — including the legislation passed by the House last year — are too piecemeal to protect the country's Web infrastructure.

Their renewed focus arrives on the heels of two, high-profile cyberattacks last month: A strike on Google, believed to have originated in China, and a separate, more disjointed attack that affected thousands of businesses worldwide.