Political Correctness and National Security

Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angles Times, etc. should be very careful about how closely they align themselves with political parties, political personalities, and political issues in their effort to be politically correct.

As politicians and bureaucrats obtain more and more centralized planning they will, as Friedrich Hayek believes, employ more and more censorship and coercion.  It will be more common place to prevent the free flow of information   It will begin in benign and insignificant ways and then more and more pressure will be applied to FREE press to comply with political correctness.

This same approach will be used to control the usage and content of the Internet.  Laws will be passed and regulations written to limit the use of the Internet with national security being the excuse for such a move.  More and more surveillance of content on the Internet will happen and it will travel down this road to total control.

Historically the press has been the fourth estate that kept the government and politicans honest.  With the decline of objectivity and honest reporting of facts our country is heading down a long and dusty road to a terrible ending with some brutal consequences.

Free press cannot remain free if it tries to be politically correct and does not question the legitimacy of national security propaganda.

Budgetary Magic: Funding of Obamacare

From reading and listening to all the learned pundits it seems remarkable that no one has really ever tried to show in some concrete way how the 111 Congress and the Obama Administration were able to say with a straight face that they passed ObamaCare and balanced the budget all at the same time.  Remember they wanted to give 43 million people health insurance and not increase the federal deficit...  the problem was how to pay for it.

Here is how they were able to do it:

• Make the drug companies reduce the prices of their drugs by $80 billion (coercision?)
• Take $500 million from Medicare and Indian health service (deception?)
• Force 300 million buy health insurance for $900 million (constitutional?) (tax)
• Increase payroll taxes
• Force 50 states to use Medicaid to subsidize the future regional health pools (constitutional?)
• Regulate the insurance industry to force them to reduce costs 
• Force the insurance industry to accept more people

The CBO was able to certify that the budget would not be busted because ObamaCare was going to push all the costs to the states and citizens of this country which meant the cost to the federal government would not result in a deficit..  The only thing that the federal government will now pay is the cost of regulating the insurance industry and the enforcement efforts by the IRS.

The consequences of this White House and Congressional shell game was to shift the cost burden onto the shoulders of the citizens and the states.  They did not reduce costs -  they just rearranged the cost pools until the burden was off Uncle Sam.  We will either pay for this legislation through payroll taxes, income taxes, or being forcibly required to pay for federally mandated health insurance's coverage which the consumer will have no choice except to write the check.  The federal government will dictate everything - the cost of insurance, what will be covered by insurance policies, etc.

Eventually the insurance industry will no longer exist; we will be left with only the federal government selling us our insurance policies.  I am not looking forward to the day that we have to stand in line to buy insurance policies like we have to purchase car tags.

Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

ObamaScare - a distillation of the law

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass the law so we could find out what is in it,.  Facts and consequences of the law have come out in dabs and dribbles.  I will try to lay out the facts and consequences as gathered from pundits, editorials, and studies by the States.  Please feel free to correct me with any errors of fact.  Notably this task is a work-in-progress to find out about the consequences of ObamaScare.

Facts (ObamaScare is a minefield full of taxes for every citizen, loopholes, conundrums, and "gotchas")

• The Congressional Budget Office predicts ObamaScare (Affordable Care Act) will cost taxpayers $2 trillion when fully implemented
• The vast majority of the un-insured are being dumped into Medicaid
• Employees at small firms will face an individual tax of as much as $2,085 per family if they do not have the government-sanctioned level of coverage
• Based on Oklahoma Employment Security Commission statistics, 5.67% of Oklahoma employers , who employ 57.9% of the workforce in Oklahoma,  will have to comply with ObamaScare and will likely drop health coverage and possibly downsizing to avoid the high cost of health insurance
• The federal government will provide worker subsidies, by only if you buy a policy through a state exchange (not through a federal exchange)
• Like several other states, Oklahoma is considering not establishing a state exchange because of the high cost to the states.
• If employers raise worker pay too much the employer faces a tax hit coming or going
• Starting in 2014, Americans must report on the income tax return whether they have "qualified" health insurance.  If you do not have a "qualified" plan you have to pay the higher of $95 or 1% of taxable income.  In 2015 the tax rises again, to $695 or 2.5% of taxable income.  
• The IRS will become Big Brother
• Qualified plans will be graded bronze (cover 60% of cost), silver, gold and platinum (cover 90% of cost) - reflecting how much of health care costs are covered by the plan
• Tennessee estimates that ObamaScare will cost them $716 million dollars the first year
• Whether a person/family needs immunizations, mammograms, autism screening, or cholesterol screening, they will be paying for them anyway

Consequences

• ObamaScare expands Medicaid which will likely divert State funds from schools and roads
• Work at too small a business and you might get taxed.  
• Work for a firm with more than 50 employees, you might get fired and then taxed.  
• Work for a large firm with "insufficient" coverage, you might get dumped into your state's Medicaid program or health exchange.  Unless your state does not expand Medicaid or set up an exchange, in which case you just get dumped and then taxed.
• If employers have 40+ workers they will be financially penalized for exceeding 50.  
• The IRS will expand the federal workforce by the thousands - agents, administrators, regulators, etc.

Transforming America: How long will it take? Sooner rather than Later.....

As further evidence that the transformation of America is still on-going, one should read the May 15, 2011 column of George Will.  The National Labor Relations Board [which is supposed to be independent] is continuing its assault upon Boeing and the State of South Carolina for having the audacity of wanting to build Dreamliners in a Right-to-Work state.  NLRB waited two years to attack Boeing and IS jeopardizing both jobs and BILLIONS invested in the State of South Carolina.  This is how BIG BROTHER is being imposed on citizens just to protect Unions vis-a-vis Business and state sovereignty.


It is suggested that one should read Rich Lowry's article entitled "President Obama's Program In Shambles:  Economy slip-sliding away" published May 1, 2011 to gather some background and appreciation for the opinions expressed here.

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA

In my opinion, President Obama has stayed true to his convictions he espoused during the 2008 presidential campaign:  He appears engaged and motivated to pursue the transformation of America into a vision of George Sorros's New World Order. 

Obama's transformation agenda for America is:

1. to significantly reduce reliance on fossil fuels (by whatever means necessary)
   
2. to significantly increase employee Union power and influence
   
3. to significantly redistribute wealth to the poor (by whatever means necessary)
   
4. to reduce the long-term global influence of America financially, politically, and militarily

What methods Obama intends to use to complete his agenda:

• thru legislation (ObamaCare) (Dodd-Franks) (Cap-and-Trade)  - to increase entitlements - to put financial institutions under more federal control - to increase the cost of fossil fuels
  
• thru EPA regulations (federal register) - to prevent oil and gas companies from drilling - to prevent utility companies use of fossil fules - to increase the price of gasoline
  
• thru Federal Reserve: - to weaken the dollar - to encourage asset inflation -
  
• thru NLRB - empower unions and curb corporate management's ability to control employees and costs
  
• by demonizing Republicans (there is more to come if he is re-elected) to produce fear of any changes they suggest to social entitlements or financial controls of Wall Street - to produce class envy - to discredit any effort to alter his agenda as a racist attack
  
• by taking advantage of any opportunity to promote his agenda by using stealth, and obfuscation (Middle East unrest) (lack of immigration reforms)  
  
• President Obama took advantage of the financial crisis during the Great Recession to successfully put America on the path to hopefully complete his agenda
• Increase income taxes on the most productive people
  

Evidence of his intentions and motivations to complete agenda :

• the credentials and ideological background of his czars (communists, radicals, liberation theology, etc.)
  
• the credentials and ideological background of his political advisers and associates (communists, liberation theology, etc.)
  
• his public comments about redistribution-of-wealth during the last campaign
  
• his public support of cap-and-trade legislation (raising the cost of fossil fuels)
  
• his association with Bill Ayers and Van Jones and numerous other radicals  (he openly admits to seeking out radicals in college)
• his acknowledged emotional support of SEIU and reliance upon their organizational support
  
• his professorial arrogance (he knows and understands more than anyone else and thus he does not need to consult or listen to the peasants)
• his apparent inattention to any racial issues - why does he not?
  
• his willingness to blame America for the ills of the world - Cairo, Egypt speech
  
• his indirect, yet continuous, inter-connectivity with George Sorros and/or George Sorros funded organizations
• his apparent inattention and leadership of the consequences of the large federal debt and budget deficits
• lawsuits filed against any state daring to interfere with his agenda
• Obama has almost tripled the amount of our national debt and about doubled the amount being spent on entitlement programs since he was elected
• he never offers a olive-branch to the other side to negotiate in-good-faith
  

Consequences to American citizens if this agenda is allowed to be fully implemented: 

• reduction of wealth and prosperity
• reduction of America's global interests
  
• less long-term investment  
• employment stagnation
  
• economic class warfare
• reduction in the standard of living
• ethnic polarization - the balkanization of America!
• ally distrust
• permanent increase in the cost of fossil fuels
  
• more regulation of personal liberties, freedoms, and speech

What We All Know About Obama Now

What We All Know About Obama Now

Why Business sits on the Sidelines

Right now, American businesses are sitting on enormous cash reserves, estimated at $1.93 trillion as of last September.  The Obama team just can’t understand why business doesn’t want to get in the game. It would sure make their lives easier.

In February, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson complained that "even a portion of the $1.93 trillion invested in developing and installing new pollution control technology would result in good jobs right here for American workers.” Jackson made those remarks at a gathering of labor unions and environmental activists at something called the BlueGreen Alliance national conference in Washington, D.C. last February.

This is the same EPA that just finalized the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule that will cause power plants to close that generate up to 17% of America's most affordable energy and will result in soaring increases in energy costs for consumers and businesses. Worse, it will cost jobs at a time when we're supposed to be adding them.

In July, the New York Times trumpeted the good news while gushing that there would be "an additional cost to utilities of less than $1 billion a year"! Imagine that.

The usually reliable Obama ally Unions for Jobs and the Environment estimates that this will lead ro a loss of a quarter of a million jobs, while others estimate the total will be much steeper: up to 2.5 million lost jobs and as much as $7 trillion decline in economic output  by 2029.

By last week, even the lap dogs at the New York Times seem to have seen the light.  An article on Thursday headlined Number of Green Jobs Fails to Live Up to Promises reported that "Federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed, government records show.

Two years after it was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes, California has spent only a little over half that sum and has so far created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter, according to the State Department of Community Services and Development."

Even Maxine Waters has come to the conclusion that the White House jobs policy is just "a lot of talk".

The worst part of it is that none of it matters. Even if the entire Western Hemisphere completely eliminated all carbon dioxide emissions, the effect on global emissions would be offset by increased emissions from China within ten years. So why are we doing it?

Get the Motor Running

Want those jobs back?  Get out of the way.

• Work with Congress to quickly slash corporate tax rates to single digits or less, and make American companies want to be American companies again and not have to take jobs and profits  offshore.
• Suspend onerous regulations (like those proposed by the EPA) for five years to ten at least, and quit trying to push socialism under the cover of green.
• Encourage real energy jobs in the oil fields of the Northwest and let the natural gas industry fulfill its potential. Leave the green job fantasy to the hippies and radical leftists.
• Quit trying to convince the voters that we need to spend more money on stimulus or raise taxes: they see through all that.
• Perhaps most importantly, commit to a sensible program that ends uncertainty and lets the indomitable motor of American enterprise begin to pull us out of the ditch.

Mr. President, if you announced a program like this, the markets would jump, unemployment would start to drop significantly within 60 days, GDP would begin to grow again.  And it wouldn’t be “unexpected”

Best of all?  You and Michelle could stay at the Vineyard until January 2013, and then everyone would be happy.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-we-all-know-about-obama-now-2011-8#ixzz1VlOzpDth
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-we-all-know-about-obama-now-2011-8#ixzz1VlOi5Qck

Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

YouTube - Ryan Condemns Divisive Class Warfare

YouTube - Ryan Condemns Divisive Class Warfare

Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

YouTube - Federally Funded NASA 'Educates' Children About Global Warming on 'Climate Kids' Web Site

YouTube - Federally Funded NASA 'Educates' Children About Global Warming on 'Climate Kids' Web Site

Propaganda of our children with our tax dollars!

Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

Is "Leading from Behind" a disassociation from leadership?

President Obama has had the tag of  "Leading from Behind" applied to him on Libya, Immigration, Health Care, Budget Deficit, etc.  Is President Obama a leader or a follower, you make the call.............

Leading from Behind affords an unlimited opportunity for "cheap shots" of critics.
Leading from Behind is positioning oneself as a "Monday morning quarterback."
Leading from Behind effectively allows one to avoid direct accountability for any decision or proposal.
Leading from Behind is jurisprudentially an intellectual dishonesty.

When has President Obama ever put himself accountable on the "front end" of any issue?  Please be specific.

What legislation has Barrack Obama ever personally proffered for debate and discussion? Please be specific.

Weather Changes Man-Made?

The Weather Isn't Getting Weirder - WSJ.com

We do know that carbon dioxide and other gases trap and re-radiate heat. We also know that humans have emitted ever-more of these gases since the Industrial Revolution. What we don't know is exactly how sensitive the climate is to increases in these gases versus other possible factors—solar variability, oceanic currents, Pacific heating and cooling cycles, planets' gravitational and magnetic oscillations, and so on. Given the unknowns, it's possible that even if we spend trillions of dollars, and forgo trillions more in future economic growth, to cut carbon emissions to pre-industrial levels, the climate will continue to change—as it always has.

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You have Got to Be Kidding!

Buzz Kill: LA County Wants You To Take Ecstasy Safely « CBS Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (CBS) —The glow-stick industry may be buzzing over the latest public service announcement from Los Angeles County, but some say it amounts to an backhanded endorsement of illicit drug use. Amid ongoing debate over safety and security measures at rave dance parties held at the Los Angeles Coliseum, county health officials have quietly launched a campaign to offer guidelines for safe use of MDMA, more popularly known as "ecstasy".

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ACLU Blasts Chicago’s Network Of Cameras « CBS Chicago

ACLU Blasts Chicago’s Network Of Cameras « CBS Chicago: "CHICAGO (CBS) – Are Chicago’s blue-light police cameras crime fighters or invasions of privacy?

As CBS 2’s Susanna Song reports, some activists say the cameras are an excuse for Big Brother to keep an eye on people in Chicago.

Blue-light cameras have been strategically placed in high-crime areas since 2003. As a whole, Chicago Police have praised the initiative, and Mayor Richard M. Daley has said it has helped authorities respond more quickly to crimes and helped make thousands of arrests.


When the program first began, many city residents were also praising the blue-light camera system. However, the main complaint for some was that gangs and criminals had transferred their activity from major streets with cameras to side streets without them.

The system has been called the most extensive and integrated camera network of any U.S. city by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

In the Bucktown neighborhood Tuesday morning, some people still said the cameras are helpful for fighting crime.

“I actually think they keep us safe,” one man said. “So long as no one’s dong anything private in the corner, no one’s invading your privacy. So as long as it’s not in my living room window, it’s OK.”

“There’s no invasion of privacy because it’s obvious that the camera is there,” another man said. “So if everybody knows that the camera is there, why don’t you operate is if the camera is there and don’t do anything illegal.”

But now, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois called for a full review of the cameras – which number at least 10,000 and are at locations from skyscrapers to utility poles – saying city officials won’t release basic information like the exact number, cost and any incidents of misuse.

Those concerns, along with city officials’ plans for expansion, put Chicago a step closer to a Big Brother invasion of privacy, the ACLU alleged.

“Chicago’s camera network invades the freedom to be anonymous in public places, a key aspect of the fundamental American right to be left alone,” the report states. “Each of us then will wonder whether the government is watching and recording us when we walk into a psychiatrist’s office, a reproductive health care center, a political meeting, a theater performance, or a bookstore.”

The network includes private cameras and those installed by city agencies, like the Chicago Transit Authority. While many of the cameras are visible – like those with flashing blue lights affixed to street poles – countless others are unmarked.

City officials have been tight-lipped about how many cameras Chicago has in place, but no one has disputed that there are at least 10,000, including more than 4,000 installed by Chicago Public Schools and at least 1,000 at O’Hare International Airport.

In its report, the ACLU outlined three specific technologies that exceed the powers of ordinary human observation and increase the government’s power to watch the public: zoom, facial recognition capacity and automatic tracking.

“Chicago’s growing camera network is part of an expanding culture of surveillance in America. Combined with other government surveillance technologies, cameras can turn our lives into open books for government scrutiny,” the report says.

“Chicago’s camera network chills and deters lawful expressive activities protected by the First Amendment, like attending a political demonstration in the public way.”

ACLU officials said the city declined to give the group information on the cameras, including a tour of its operation center, statistics on crime and cost estimates. According to the report, surrounding communities have paid hefty sums for cameras; suburban Cicero has 30 cameras which cost $580,000.

The group said that money could be better spent on adding more police officers to Chicago streets, among other things. It added that there has been little research showing the cameras deter crime.

In addition to the moratorium, the agency recommended more public input, regular audits, rules and regulation on who can view the images, public notice before installing a camera and disclosure of any abuse. The report cites cases in other cities where “male camera operators have ogled women.”

Public complaints about the cameras haven’t been widespread and are generally limited to those who get caught for a minor offense or if the cameras fail to record a violent attack.

Authorities say cameras played a prominent role in several high-profile cases. Footage from a city bus camera helped persuade a suspected gang member to plead guilty to shooting a 16-year-old high school student in 2007. Cameras helped police determine that the 2009 death of a school board president was a suicide.

Chicago Police spokeswoman Lt. Maureen Biggane said she had not seen the ACLU report. “The Chicago Police Department is committed to safeguarding the civil liberties of city residents and visitors alike,” she said in a statement.

Only an idiot would expect “privacy” outside of their home these days. The ACLU is a useless group of people with nothing better to do than attack anything that rubs them the wrong way. Why doesn’t the ACLU help out those neighborhoods riddled with crime and gangs?

I’d like to know the arrest conviction rate per dollar spent on the camera program. It’s just another indication that officials aren’t really concerned with the safety of the public, for these cameras do not deter crime. they are only of use following the commission of a crime. More officers on the streets is the better option, and while a uniform certainly can’t be there to stop all crimes, the odds are far better than that of a fixed object.


Over 181,000 arrests in 2009 alone with about 11,500 CPD uniforms. Well over 10,000 cameras and a mere 4,500 arrests in over 4 years. You do the math.

Deterrent?
I know where the cameras on the stoplights in my hometown. I can say with certainty that it is a deterrent for me when the light is yellow… I don’t push that light. I don’t want a ticket in the mail.
Just like a patrolling police officer… their presence is known. The drug dealers and thieves know they stand a higher chance of getting caught with the lights around. Chicago is mainly putting the cameras in higher crime areas… probably areas that police officers (who want to go home to their wives after their shift) are reluctant to patrol due to their safety.
Did the ACLU consult the law-abiding citizens who are affected by the cameras before they got the lawyers involved costing the city much more money than the cameras to begin with? Nope…



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Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

Tawdry details of Obamacare - Washington Times

WOLF: Tawdry details of Obamacare - Washington Times

If you would like to know what the White House really thinks of Obamacare, there's an easy way. Look past its press releases. Ignore its promises. Forget its talking points. Instead, simply witness for yourself the outrageous way the White House protects its best friends from Obamacare. Last year, we learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had granted 111 waivers to protect a lucky few from the onerous regulations of the new national health care overhaul. That number quickly and quietly climbed to 222, and last week we learned that the number of Obamacare privileged escapes has skyrocketed to 733. Among the fortunate is a who's who list of unions, businesses and even several cities and four states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee) but none of the friends of Barack feature as prominently as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

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Egypt Shows How Easily Internet Can Be Silenced - CNBC

Egypt Shows How Easily Internet Can Be Silenced - CNBC: "The move by Egyptian authorities to seal off the country almost entirely from the Internet shows how easily a state can isolate its people when telecoms providers are few and compliant.



In an attempt to stop the frenzied online spread of dissent against President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule, not only Facebook and Twitter but the entire Internet was shut down overnight, leaving some 20 million users stranded.


Daniel Karrenberg, chief scientist at RIPE NCC, a European not-for-profit Internet infrastructure forum, says immature markets with few providers can achieve such shutdowns relatively easily.

'The more simple the topology is and the fewer Internet services providers there are, the easier it is for any government or the telco themselves to control access into any geographical area,' he said.

'If you have a relatively diverse telecoms market and a very much meshed Internet topology then it's much more difficult to do than if you have the traditional telecoms structure of two decades ago and they control all the international connections. Obviously that creates a choke point,' he said.

Despite the rapid transformation of the Web during its short history, and the unprecedented freedom of expression it has enabled, the Internet still has vulnerable points that can be exploited by governments or for commercial interests.

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Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

Renewed Push to Give Obama an Internet "Kill Switch" - Tech Talk - CBS News

Renewed Push to Give Obama an Internet "Kill Switch" - Tech Talk - CBS News: "A controversial bill handing President Obama power over privately owned computer systems during a 'national cyberemergency,' and prohibiting any review by the court system, will return this year.

Internet companies should not be alarmed by the legislation, first introduced last summer by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), a Senate aide said last week. Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

'We're not trying to mandate any requirements for the entire Internet, the entire Internet backbone,' said Brandon Milhorn, Republican staff director and counsel for the committee.

Instead, Milhorn said at a conference in Washington, D.C., the point of the proposal is to assert governmental control only over those 'crucial components that form our nation's critical infrastructure.'

Portions of the Lieberman-Collins bill, which was not uniformly well-received when it became public in June 2010, became even more restrictive when a Senate committee approved a modified version on December 15. The full Senate did not act on the measure.

The revised version includes new language saying that the federal government's designation of vital Internet or other computer systems 'shall not be subject to judicial review.' Another addition expanded the definition of critical infrastructure to include 'provider of information technology,' and a third authorized the submission of 'classified' reports on security vulnerabilities.

The idea of creating what some critics have called an Internet 'kill switch' that the president could flip in an emergency is not exactly new.

A draft Senate proposal that CNET obtained in August 2009 authorized the White House to 'declare a cybersecurity emergency,' and another from Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) would have explicitly given the government the power to 'order the disconnection' of certain networks or Web sites. House Democrats have taken a similar approach in their own proposals.

Lieberman, who recently announced he would not seek re-election in 2012, said last year that enactment of his bill needed to be a top congressional priority. 'For all of its 'user-friendly' allure, the Internet can also be a dangerous place with electronic pipelines that run directly into everything from our personal bank accounts to key infrastructure to government and industrial secrets,' he said.

Civil libertarians and some industry representatives have repeatedly raised concerns about the various proposals to give the executive branch such broad emergency power. On the other hand, as Lieberman and Collins have highlighted before, some companies, including Microsoft, Verizon, and EMC Corporation, have said positive things about the initial version of the bill.

But last month's rewrite that bans courts from reviewing executive branch decrees has given companies new reason to worry. 'Judicial review is our main concern,' said Steve DelBianco, director of the NetChoice coalition, which includes eBay, Oracle, Verisign, and Yahoo as members. 'A designation of critical information infrastructure brings with it huge obligations for upgrades and compliance.'

In some cases, DelBianco said, a company may have a 'good-faith disagreement' with the government's ruling and would want to seek court review. 'The country we're seeking to protect is a country that respects the right of any individual to have their day in court,' he said. 'Yet this bill would deny that day in court to the owner of infrastructure.'

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Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

Advocate of Violence - WSJ.com

Advocate of Violence - WSJ.com: "In a unanimous unsigned opinion, the justices overturned Brandenburg's conviction: 'The constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.'

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Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

How the Happy Meal ban explains San Francisco - Page 1 - News - San Francisco - SF Weekly

How the Happy Meal ban explains San Francisco - Page 1 - News - San Francisco - SF Weekly: "In August 2010, San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar decided that city intervention was needed to help him raise his daughter.

As Mar later told reporters, he was shocked to discover a trove of toys from McDonald's Happy Meals stashed in her room. Mar was the one taking his daughter to McDonald's and buying the food — but he said that the 'pester power' of a preteen was simply too much for him to withstand on his own. So he proposed that the city ban restaurants from including toys with meals of more than 600 calories that lack agreed-upon amounts of fruits and vegetables.

Mar's 'Healthy Meal Incentive Ordinance' subsequently passed in November by an 8-3 vote in the Board of Supervisors — a veto-proof majority. Barring legal action, the Happy Meal as we know it will be verboten in San Francisco come Dec. 1. Eric Mar's daughter has been saved.

Both conservative blowhard Bill O'Reilly and left-leaning comedian Lewis Black — and many, many people in-between — were left to wonder 'What the hell?' in the wake of San Francisco's ban. It's not the first time. In recent years, San Francisco government has passed numerous laws to make us healthier, greener, and — in the city's eyes — all-around better people. Whether we like it or not. This includes banning the sale of cigarettes in drugstores, and, later, supermarkets; banning plastic bags in large chain stores; banning bottled water in City Hall, and the sale of soft drinks on government property; banning the declawing of cats; making composting mandatory; and forbidding city departments from doing business with companies that were involved in the (pre–Civil War) slave trade, yet haven't publicly atoned.

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Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

John Kerry Invokes Giffords’ Shooting to Push For “Clean Energy” Legislation…

Weasel Zippers » Blog Archive » John Kerry (D-Lurch) Invokes Giffords’ Shooting to Push For “Clean Energy” Legislation…: "Congresswoman ‘s Gabrielle Giffords’ (D-Ariz.) shooting in Tucson, Ariz., last weekend has brought up several questions about the partisan nature of our current political climate. But today Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said in a speech at the left-leaning policy think tank Center for American Progress that working in a bipartisan manner on infrastructure and clean energy could help overcome the “divisive political rhetoric” in the wake of the Tucson tragedy.

“In the weeks and months ahead, the real issue we need to confront isn’t just what role divisive political rhetoric may have played on Saturday — but it’s the violence divisive, overly simplistic dialogue does to our democracy every day,” Kerry said

“The frustrating reality is that our American political system is increasingly paralyzed and Balkanized into a patchwork of narrow interests that have driven the larger ‘national good’ far from the national dialogue altogether,” he said.

He added that while building and investing in America has always been a bi-partisan issue, currently “partisan paralysis” has kept us from rebuilding the infrastructure investment made through the years from politicians on both sides of the line.

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Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

Woman fights bank fees, missed final house payment - Yahoo! News

Woman fights bank fees, missed final house payment - Yahoo! News: "PHILADELPHIA – An elderly New Jersey woman billed $5,800 after missing the final payment on her 30-year mortgage can pursue her lawsuit against the debt collectors.

Lawyers for 85-year-old Dorothy Rhue Allen say the fees charged by two banks and a law firm violate consumer-protection laws.

The suit says LaSalle Bank and Cenlar Federal Savings Bank started foreclosure proceedings in 2007 after the hospitalized Allen missed the last $432 payment on her Deptford, N.J., home.

The banks advised her lawyers she could pay $5,800 to avoid foreclosure. But her lawyers instead sued over the fees, and the foreclosure action was dropped.

A U.S. appeals court this week says Allen can pursue her case, reversing a federal judge who threw it out.

A lawyer for the Trenton, N.J.-based banks declined to comment.

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Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

Talk radio under siege - On Media - POLITICO.com

Talk radio under siege - On Media - POLITICO.com:



As ... reported on the main site today, conservative media figures’ fears that the left will use Tucson to clamp down on them are not entirely unfounded.

Rep. Jim Clyburn wants to bring back the Fairness Doctrine – a move aimed directly at talk radio – while Media Matters CEO David Brock asked Rupert Murdoch to rein in or possibly even fire Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.

It’s hard not to read today’s news that Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee plans to ban state employees from appearing on talk radio during work hours within the same frame, though Ben Smith points out that likely has more to do with local beef than the current national debate about 'tone.'

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