Knox Tea Party of 1

Lt. Governor Ramsey releases new State Senate districts in Google Maps

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:20:00 +0000

On January 27, Lt. Governor Ramsey released the new congressional district map. Although I try to avoid Google, this is a pretty cool tool. Maps can be found here.

Global Warming Proven to be Myth - Letter to Knox News

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:35:00 +0000

Arvid Pasto, Farragut

A recent letter puts forth the proposition "Warming Real, Documented." The writer states that Earth's temperature is increasing and cites some statistics from NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The writer goes on to cite the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report about warm recent years. Other parts of the global warming proposition are then stated, including glacier loss, a possible upcoming ice-free Arctic region, damage to coral reefs and extreme weather events. The writer appears to agree with the conclusion of the UN-IPCC that mankind is responsible for all of this.

As a retired scientist with more than 40 years of experience, including 24 years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, all I can say about all of this is "rubbish."

I have studied the global warming issue and have amassed a huge inventory of peer-reviewed scientific papers showing that, basically, there is not a shred of scientific evidence that mankind is causing Earth's temperature to rise because of carbon dioxide emissions. I can show, through these papers by some of the world's most knowledgeable scientists, major flaws in the global warming alarmism.

Read Full Article here

Occupy Rap Sheet

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:50:00 +0000

Now that the democrats are lining up in lock step with the protestors, wanting to imagine that the movement is a counter to the tea party, maybe there should be more honest reporting of the antics occurring at the protests. As always, the Breitbart crew has their eye on the ball. Check out this article to get a complete list of offenses to date.

Pretty scary stuff. I'm reminded of the "useful idiots" referenced by Lenin.

Flashback: Obama in 2009: Medicare and Medicaid ?Are Really Breaking the Bank?

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 21:38:00 +0000

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

By Matt Cover

(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama, in marking his first 100 days in office in 2009, said that Medicare and Medicaid were the biggest problems the government faced and that they were “really breaking the bank,” adding that the federal government needs to “tighten our belts … in an intelligent way.”

Answering a question at a town hall event in Arnold, Mo., on April 29, 2009, Obama said that Medicare and Medicaid – rather than Social Security – were the entitlement programs that posed the greatest risk to the federal budget.

“The big problem we have with entitlements is not Social Security, it's Medicare,” he said. “Medicare and Medicaid, the two health care programs that the federal government helps support, those are the things that are really breaking the bank.

“What we face long term, the biggest problem we have is that Medicare and Medicaid – health care costs are sky-rocketing, and at the same time as the population is getting older, which means we're using more health care,” said the president.

“You combine those two things, and if we aren’t careful, health care will consume so much of our budget that ultimately we won't be able to do anything else,” Obama added.

Obama also said that to deal with the long-term fiscal problems posed by Medicare and Medicaid, the government would have to trim its budget.

“We are going to have to tighten our belts, but we're going to have to do it in an intelligent way, and we've got to make sure that the people who are helped are working American families,” Obama said.

However, Obama never proposed any changes to Medicare or Medicaid, except for cutting $500 billion from the Medicare Advantage program as part of Obamacare. That move, which will save the government money, is not near enough of a cut to save the budget from the ever-growing burden of federal entitlements.

Further, the White House recently denounced the only proposal on the congressional table that would prevent Medicare and Medicaid from causing an economic crisis.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee, released a budget on April 5 that would transform Medicare and Medicaid and prevent them from causing a fiscal crisis.

The White House, however, said that Ryan’s plan “failed.”

“Any plan to reduce our deficit must reflect the American values of fairness and shared sacrifice. Congressman Ryan’s plan fails this test," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.

“The president believes there is a more balanced way to put America on a path to prosperity,” said Carney. “But despite our differences, all of us – Democrats and Republicans – have an obligation to find common ground in a way that is true to our values and meets our responsibilities to the American people.”

However, the White House did not include such a plan in its 2012 budget, nor has it proposed one in the nearly two years since Obama’s 100-day address.

GOP says 5,000 non-citizens voting in Colorado a 'wake-up call' for states

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:44:00 +0000

By Debbie Siegelbaum - 03/31/11 01:23 PM ET

Source

Republicans on the House Administration Committee want to shore up voter registration rules in the wake of a Colorado study that found as many as 5,000 non-citizens in the state took part in last year’s election.

Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), the panel’s chairman, called the study “a disturbing wake-up call” that should cause every state to review its safeguards to prevent illegal voting.

“We simply cannot have an electoral system that allows thousands of non-citizens to violate the law and vote in our elections. We must do more to protect the integrity of our electoral processes,” Harper added.

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, a Republican, told the panel that his department’s study identified nearly 12,000 people whowere not citizens but were still registered to vote in Colorado. Of those non-citizen registered voters, nearly 5,000 took part in the 2010 general election in which Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet narrowly defeated Republican John Buck.

Colorado conducted the study by comparing the state’s voter registration database with driver’s license records.

“We know we have a problem here. We don’t know the size of it,” Gessler said in testimony to Administration’s Elections subcommittee.

He told Harper that Colorado would look to create a registration system that would allow his department to ask that some people provide proof of their citizenship in writing.

If individuals did not respond to the request, their registration as voters would be suspended.

Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas) raised doubts about the reporting, noting that the study itself said it was based on inconclusive data and that it was “impossible to provide precise numbers” on how many people who were registered to vote in the state were not citizens.

Gonzalez asked Gessler, a former prosecutor, if he would have pursued a court case on such evidence.

Gessler responded that the goal of the study was to expose voter registration issues and pursue administrative avenues to resolve them.

“We don’t have a screen for citizenship on the front end when people register to vote,” he said.

2 ex-Dem leaders charged in fake tea party scheme

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:20:00 +0000

Last Updated: March 17. 2011 1:00AM

Mike Martindale / The Detroit News

Pontiac— Two former high-ranking members of the Oakland County Democratic Party are facing various election corruption charges in a bogus tea party scheme, Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper and County Sheriff Michael Bouchard announced Wednesday.

Former Democratic Party Chairman Michael McGuinness and ex-operations director Jason Bauer, both of Waterford Township, were arraigned Wednesday before Oakland Circuit Judge James Alexander.

They face charges related to Independent Tea Party filings, false affidavits and forged documents that occurred between July 23 and July 26 last year.

Both stood mute to the charges and were released on $25,000 personal bond each, pending an April 13 hearing before Alexander.

The charges include felonies that carry up to 14 years in prison. Neither could be reached for comment.

Cooper and Bouchard announced the charges during a joint press conference conducted to discuss the findings of a one-person grand jury seated by Oakland Circuit Judge Edward Sosnick.

"The election process is sacred … this is not a partisan statement," Cooper said, noting her Democratic affiliation and that of Bouchard, a Republican. Bouchard said 23 questionable election filings across Michigan — eight of them in Oakland County — involved an effort to create the illusion of an Independent Tea Party and its candidates on November's ballot.

The goal was to woo away voters in local elections who might otherwise vote for other candidates, presumably Republicans, authorities allege.

While creating such a party in itself is not illegal, Bouchard noted that the alleged forging of documents and putting people up for political office without their involvement — including at least one "candidate" who told investigators he had no knowledge that he was on the ballot until notified — is criminal.

The scheme included bogus candidates for two County Commission seats and a state Senate race, according to a copy of a grand jury warrant released Wednesday. None of the candidates won.

"The presumed intent was to get people drawn to tea party politics and siphon votes off (from other candidates)," Bouchard said.

Bouchard said the investigation of possible election corruption is continuing and included an unnamed "party leader in Lansing." The sheriff did not elaborate.

County Executive L. Brooks Patterson petitioned for a grand jury inquiry into possible election corruption in August following complaints received by then-County Clerk Ruth Johnson and an investigation initiated by Bouchard's office at the request of Cooper.

Both McGuinness and Bauer are charged with three counts of forged records, uttering and publishing, a 14-year felony; three counts of election law, false swearing, a felony punishable by five years in prison; and one count of election law, false swearing-perjury, also a five-year felony.

Bauer is also charged with three counts of notary public violation, a one-year misdemeanor.

Both resigned their party posts following allegations in August that suspicious filings were notarized by Bauer.

Several months ago, Bauer was suspended from the Oakland Democratic Party after it surfaced that he encouraged interns to write bogus "help me" letters from nonexistent residents in support of a medical program backed by a Democratic commissioner.

mmartindale@detnews.com

(248) 338-0319

From The Detroit News

Tenn. bill would make following Shariah a felony

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:53:00 +0000

from Breitbart

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Tennessee is considering making it a felony to follow some versions of the Islamic code known as Shariah, the most severe measure yet put forth by a national movement whose members believe extremist Muslims want Shariah to supersede the Constitution. The bill—drawn up by conservatives with ties to opponents of a planned Islamic center two blocks from New York City's ground zero and efforts to expand a mosque 30 miles southeast of Nashville—would face steep constitutional hurdles if enacted.

Nevertheless, it represents the boldest legislative attempt yet to limit how Muslims worship.

Muslim groups fear the measure would outlaw central tenets of Islam, such as praying five times a day toward Mecca, abstaining from alcohol or fasting for Ramadan.

"This is an anti-Muslim bill that makes it illegal to be a Muslim in the state of Tennessee," said Remziya Suleyman, policy coordinator for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

The bill's sponsor, Republican Sen. Bill Ketron of Murfreesboro, said the proposal exempts the peaceful practice of Islam but seeks to condemn those "who take Shariah law to the other extreme." He said it would give state and local law enforcement officials "a powerful counterterrorism tool."

Ketron, who has successfully pushed through bills tightening restrictions on illegal immigrants, said he expects the Shariah measure will become law.

For now, supporters of the measure are working to bolster it against any constitutional challenges, which may be an impossible task, said First Amendment Center scholar Charles Haynes, who called it a "really distorted understanding of Shariah law."

"It's unconstitutional to even suggest that such legislation should be passed," he said. "Trying to separate out different parts of Islamic law for condemnation is nonsensical. Shariah law, like all religious law, is interpreted in a great many different ways."

Shariah is a set of core principles that most Muslims recognize as well as a series of rulings from religious scholars. It covers many areas of life and different sects have different versions of the code they follow.

At least 13 states have bills pending that would bar judges from considering Shariah in legal decisions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, but none of those proposals is as strict as what Tennessee is weighing.

Ketron said he and House Speaker Pro Tempore Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, were given the bill by the Tennessee Eagle Forum.

Eagle Forum state President Bobbie Patray said it was drafted by David Yerushalmi, an Arizona-based attorney who runs the Society of Americans for National Existence, a nonprofit that claims following Shariah is treasonous.

Yerushalmi has written for years in conservative media about what he calls the danger of Shariah and its central role in Islam. He has represented Pamela Geller, who leads the group Stop Islamization of America and is one of the most vocal critics of a planned Islamic center two blocks from New York City's ground zero.

Yerushalmi also represented Stop The Madrassa, a group that opposed a public school in Brooklyn established to teach Arabic language, culture and history. He is one of the contributors to the report "Shariah: The Threat To America" by the Center for Security Policy, a think tank led by Frank Gaffney, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration.

Last year Gaffney testified at a court hearing on the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. The hearing was intended only to determine if local officials violated the state's open meetings law in approving the site plan, but the mosque's foes used the opportunity to argue it was part of a plot to expand Shariah law in the U.S.

Yerushalmi said the legislation in Tennessee is clear about who's being targeted.

"The legislation simply states that Shariah that follows the law of jihad, which calls for the violent overthrow of the Tennessee and U.S. government, is the Shariah that is at issue," he said.

Sarah Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Islamic Society of North America, disagreed.

"The way that it's worded makes the assumption that any practice of Islam is a practice of terrorism," she said. "And that's a dangerous line to walk. It excludes the millions of Muslims that are practicing peaceably from the ability to do so."

Online:

Read SB1028/HB1353 at: http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/

Tennessee Eagle Forum: http://www.tneagleforum.org/

Society of Americans for National Existence: http://www.saneworks.us/indexnew.php

Center for Security Policy: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.xml

Unions Can Bargain on Behalf of Airport Security

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:57:00 +0000

By ERIC LIPTON Published: February 4, 2011

WASHINGTON — Seeking to end a debate that has brewed for nearly a decade, the director of the Transportation Security Administration announced on Friday that a union would be allowed to bargain over working conditions on behalf of the nation’s 45,000 airport security officers, although certain issues like pay will not be subject to negotiation.

The question of whether unions can negotiate on behalf of airport security workers has been a repeated topic of partisan debate on Capitol Hill, at times threatening to hold up major pieces of legislation or even the Senate confirmation of the agency’s director.

John S. Pistole, the former deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who has served as head of the transportation agency since last June, announced Friday that he would used the power granted to him by Congress to authorize collective bargaining by airport security personnel on a limited set of topics, including rules governing who gets priorities for vacation time and shift assignments, how workplace transfers take place and how employees are recognized for commendable work. The negotiations will take place on a national level, not with state or local union affiliates.

The nation’s security officers are tentatively scheduled to vote in early March for one of two unions that have competed for the right to represent them, or not to have a union at all. But if they choose a union, they will not be able to turn to it to bargain on their behalf for such traditionally negotiated topics as pay, retirement benefits, job qualification rules, disciplinary standards or issues related to security procedures, like what security equipment they must use or when and where they are deployed.

This would allow the agency — a division of the Department of Homeland Security — to rapidly reassign security officers in response to a particular threat or to change security procedures or equipment without having to consult collective bargaining rules, an agency official said.

The security officers are also not allowed to strike or have any work-related slowdowns as a form of union demonstration. There will be set limits on how long negotiations on topics subject to union bargaining can drag on. And the officers will not be required to join a union or pay dues.

The security officers already have the right to join a union, and about 13,000 are dues-paying members of the American Federation of Government Employees or the National Treasury Employees Union, the two unions competing for the exclusive right to represent them this spring. But these unions cannot now collectively bargain on behalf of the workers, representing them instead only as individuals, in certain situations, like if an employee is subject to a disciplinary action.

The question of whether a union should be allowed to bargain on the workers’ collective behalf continues to roil Congress, with Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, as recently as this week introducing legislation — as other Republicans have before — that would formally prohibit such a step.

Reaction from lawmakers came along predictable party lines, with Democrats, along with union leaders, praising Mr. Pistole’s decision, while Republican lawmakers condemned the move, suggesting that they will push ahead with efforts to legislatively terminate the collective bargaining rights.

“This will be President Obama’s biggest gift to organized labor,” Representative John L. Mica, Republican of Florida, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee said in a statement, adding that it was “all bad news for the traveler, the taxpayer and aviation security,” because it would limit the flexibility of the agency, despite assurances from Mr. Pistole that it would not.

Read more here

Obama issues global warming rules in January, gives GE an exemption in February

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:30:00 +0000

By: Timothy P. Carney 02/02/11 4:50 PM

Senior Political Columnist

U.S. in Contempt Over Gulf Drill Ban, Judge Rules

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:25:00 +0000

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) - - The Obama Administration acted in contempt by continuing its deepwater drilling moratorium after the policy was struck down, a New Orleans judge ruled.

Interior Department regulators acted with “determined disregard” by lifting and reinstituting a series of policy changes that restricted offshore drilling, following the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, U.S. District Judge, Martin Feldman of New Orleans ruled yesterday.

“Each step the government took following the court’simposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance,”Feldman said in the ruling.

“Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence ofthe government’s contempt,” Feldman said.

President Barack Obama’s administration first halted offshore exploration in waters deeper than 500 feet in May, after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off the Louisiana coast sparked a subsea blowout that spewed more than 4.1 million barrels of oil into the Gulfof Mexico.

Overly Broad

Feldman overturned the initial ban as overly broad in June,after the offshore-drilling industry and Gulf Coast politicaland business leaders challenged it. Almost immediately, U.S.Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar announced he’d find another way to block offshore exploration until the industry beefed updrilling safety and oil-spill response capabilities in reaction to the Gulf oil spill.

Salazar instituted a second drilling ban in July, which was also challenged by an industry lawsuit that claimed the ban wa sdevastating the Gulf Coast economy, which is heavily dependant on deepwater drilling activities. That ban was rescinded in October, before Feldman could rule on its validity.

Feldman later ruled that enhanced drilling safety rules Salazar imposed to permit companies to resume offshore exploration violated federal law, and he struck those down as well. The offshore industry and Gulf Coast interests complained to Feldman that regulators were continuing to block theresumption of drilling activity despite his rulings.

More here

SOTU - Fact Check

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:27:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The ledger did not appear to be adding up Tuesday night when President Barack Obama urged more spending on one hand and a spending freeze on the other.

Obama spoke ambitiously of putting money into roads, research, education, efficient cars, high-speed rail and other initiatives in his State of the Union speech. He pointed to the transportation and construction projects of the last two years and proposed "we redouble these efforts." He coupled this with a call to "freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years."

But Obama offered far more examples of where he would spend than where he would cut, and some of the areas he identified for savings are not certain to yield much if anything.

For example, he said he wants to eliminate "billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies." Yet he made a similar proposal last year that went nowhere. He sought $36.5 billion in tax increases on oil and gas companies over the next decade, but Congress largely ignored the request, even though Democrats were then in charge of both houses of Congress.

A look at some of Obama's statements Tuesday night and how they compare with the facts:

OBAMA: Tackling the deficit "means further reducing health care costs, including programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are the single biggest contributor to our long-term deficit. Health insurance reform will slow these rising costs, which is part of why nonpartisan economists have said that repealing the health care law would add a quarter of a trillion dollars to our deficit."

THE FACTS: The idea that Obama's health care law saves money for the government is based on some arguable assumptions.

To be sure, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the law will slightly reduce red ink over 10 years. But the office's analysis assumes that steep cuts in Medicare spending, as called for in the law, will actually take place. Others in the government have concluded it is unrealistic to expect such savings from Medicare.

In recent years, for example, Congress has repeatedly overridden a law that would save the treasury billions by cutting deeply into Medicare pay for doctors. Just last month, the government once again put off the scheduled cuts for another year, at a cost of $19 billion. That money is being taken out of the health care overhaul. Congress has shown itself sensitive to pressure from seniors and their doctors, and there's little reason to think that will change.

OBAMA: Vowed to veto any bills sent to him that include "earmarks," pet spending provisions pushed by individual lawmakers. "Both parties in Congress should know this: If a bill comes to my desk with earmarks inside, I will veto it."

THE FACTS: House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has promised that no bill with earmarks will be sent to Obama in the first place. Republicans have taken the lead in battling earmarks while Obama signed plenty of earmark-laden spending bills when Democrats controlled both houses.

It's a turnabout for the president; in early 2009, Obama sounded like an apologist for the practice: "Done right, earmarks have given legislators the opportunity to direct federal money to worthy projects that benefit people in their districts, and that's why I've opposed their outright elimination," he said then.

OBAMA: "I'm willing to look at other ideas to bring down costs, including one that Republicans suggested last year: medical malpractice reform to rein in frivolous lawsuits."

THE FACTS: Republicans may be forgiven if this offer makes them feel like Charlie Brown running up to kick the football, only to have it pulled away, again.

Obama has expressed openness before to this prominent Republican proposal, but it has not come to much. It was one of several GOP ideas that were dropped or diminished in the health care law after Obama endorsed them in a televised bipartisan meeting at the height of the debate.

Republicans want federal action to limit jury awards in medical malpractice cases; what Obama appears to be offering, by supporting state efforts, falls short of that. The president has said he agrees that fear of being sued leads to unnecessary tests and procedures that drive up health care costs. So far the administration has only wanted to pay for pilot programs and studies.

Trial lawyers, major political donors to Democratic candidates, are strongly opposed to caps on jury awards. But the administration has been reluctant to support other approaches, such as the creation of specialized courts where expert judges, not juries, would decide malpractice cases.

OBAMA: Praised the "important progress" made by the bipartisan fiscal commission he created last year.

THE FACTS: The panel's co-chairmen last month recommended a painful mix of spending cuts and tax increases, each of them unpopular with one constituency or another, including raising the Social Security retirement age, cutting future benefit increases, raising the gasoline tax and rolling back popular tax breaks like the mortgage interest deduction. But Obama has yet to sign on to any of the ideas, even though he promised when creating the panel that it would not be "one of those Washington gimmicks."

Obama missed another chance Tuesday night to embrace the tough medicine proposed by the commission for bringing down the deficit. For example, the president said he wanted to "strengthen Social Security for future generations" -- but ruled out slashing benefits or partially privatizing the program, and made no reference to raising the retirement age. That left listeners to guess how he plans to do anything to salvage the popular retirement program whose trust funds are expected to run out of money in 2037 without changes.

OBAMA: As testament to the fruits of his administration's diplomatic efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons, he said the Iranian government "faces tougher and tighter sanctions than ever before."

THE FACTS: That is true, and it reflects Obama's promise one year ago that Iran would face "growing consequences" if it failed to heed international demands to constrain its nuclear program. But what Obama didn't say was that U.S. diplomacy has failed to persuade Tehran to negotiate over U.N. demands that it take steps to prove it is not on the path toward a bomb. Preliminary talks with Iran earlier this month broke off after the Iranians demanded U.S. sanctions be lifted.

Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Jim Drinkard, Erica Werner, Jim Kuhnhenn, Andrew Taylor, Stephen Ohlemacher and Robert Burns contributed to this report.

US Senate ratifies nuclear treaty with Russia

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:33:00 +0000

Dec 22 03:08 PM US/Eastern

The US Senate on Wednesday ratified a landmark nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, handing President Barack Obama a signal diplomatic and political victory after a months-long battle. Lawmakers voted 71-26 in favor of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), easily clearing the two-thirds majority needed to approve the pact, which Obama had made a lynchpin of efforts to "reset" relations with Moscow.

After a relentless courtship by Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and top US military commanders, a platoon of Republicans backed the treaty, bucking leaders eager to hand the president a major defeat.

"I am confident that our nation's security, and that of the world, will be enhanced by ratifying this treaty," said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, the accord's chief Democratic patron in the congress.

Kerry -- who with the panel's top Republican, Senator Richard Lugar, steered the accord through a difficult and even bitter debate -- echoed White House arguments that the pact will help efforts to confront Iran and North Korea.

The accord "is not simply an agreement to address the lingering dangers of the old nuclear age. It is an agreement that will give us a crucial tool to combat the threats of this new nuclear age," he said moments before the vote.

Prior to approving the treaty, lawmakers attached non-binding amendments to the resolution of ratification technical document to recommit Washington to deploying a missile defense system, modernizing its nuclear arsenal, and seek new talks with Russia on curbing tactical nuclear weapons.

Biden presided over the session -- a vice presidential prerogative -- and US Secretary of State Clinton milled about with senators ahead of the vote.

Article at Breitbart.com

Iran Placing Medium-Range Missiles in Venezuela; Can Reach the U.S.

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 18:25:00 +0000

by Anna Mahjar-Barducci

December 8, 2010 at 5:00 am

Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil, based on western information sources[1], according to an article in the German daily, Die Welt, of November 25, 2010. According to the article, an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit o Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran on October19, 2010. The previously undisclosed contract provides for the establishment of a jointly operated military base in Venezuela, and the joint development of ground-to-ground missiles.

At a moment when NATO members found an agreement, in the recent Lisbon summit (19-20 November 2010), to develop a Missile Defence capability to protect NATO's populations and territories in Europe against ballistic missile attacks from the East (namely, Iran), Iran's counter-move consists in establishing a strategic base in the South American continent - in the United States's soft underbelly.

According to Die Welt, Venezuela has agreed to allow Iran to establish a military base manned by Iranian missile officers, soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Venezuelan missile officers. In addition, Iran has given permission for the missiles to be used in case of an "emergency". In return, the agreement states that Venezuela can use these facilities for "national needs" – radically increasing the threat to neighbors like Colombia. The German daily claims that according to the agreement, Iranian Shahab 3 (range 1300-1500 km), Scud-B (285-330 km) and Scud-C (300, 500 and 700 km) will be deployed in the proposed base. It says that Iran also pledged to help Venezuela in rocket technology expertise, including intensive training of officers.

Venezuela has also become the country through which Iran intends to bypass UN sanctions. Following a new round of UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic, for example, Russia decided not to sell five battalions of S-300PMU-1 air defence systems to Iran. These weapons, along with a number of other weapons, were part of a deal, signed in 2007, worth $800 million. Now that these weapons cannot be delivered to Iran, Russia is looking for new customers; according to the Russian press agency Novosti[2], it found one: Venezuela.

Novosti reports the words of Igor Korotchenko, head of a Moscow-based think tank on international arms trade, saying that if the S-300 deal with Venezuela goes through, Caracas should pay cash for the missiles, rather than take another loan from Russia. "The S-300 is a very good product and Venezuela should pay the full amount in cash, as the country's budget has enough funds to cover the deal ," Korotchenko said. Moscow has already provided Caracas with several loans to buy Russian-made weaponry, including a recent $2.2-mln loan on the purchase of 92 T-72M1M tanks, the Smerch multiple-launch rocket systems and other military equipment.

If Iran, therefore, cannot get the S-300 missiles directly from Russia, it can still have them through its proxy, Venezuela, and deploy them against its staunchest enemy, the U.S.

But that is not all. According to Reuters, Iran has developed a version of the Russian S-300 missile and will test-fire it soon, as declared by the official news agency IRNA, two months after Moscow cancelled the delivery to comply with United Nations sanctions[3]. Iran, in fact, has its own capabilities for constructing missiles that could carry atomic warheads. According to a study recently released by the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, Iran is presently aiming to perfect the already existing solid-fuel, medium-range missile that can carry a nuke to hit regional targets, such as Israel[4]. If a missile base can be opened in Venezuela, many US cities will be able to be reached from there even with short-medium range missiles.

Read more here

Bill blocked to let upper-income tax cuts expire

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 16:16:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Republicans have blocked legislation allowing taxes to rise on upper income taxpayers on Jan. 1. The vote Saturday was 53-36—seven short of the 60 needed to advance the measure.

Without action by Congress, all income tax cuts enacted when George W. Bush was president will expire at year's end. The legislation backed by Senate Democrats would have kept the cuts in effect except on incomes over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples.

The Senate vote is expected to clear the way for negotiations between the White House and Republicans to resume on a bill to extend the tax cuts at all levels.

Any agreement is also expected to renew expiring jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed.

Salazar: Offshore oil drilling ban to be maintained in key areas

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:00:00 +0000

By Juliet Eilperin Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Wednesday afternoon that the Obama administration will not allow offshore oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as part of the next five-year drilling plan, reversing two key policy changes President Obama announced in late March.

We are adjusting our strategy in areas where there are no active leases," Salazar told reporters in a phone call, adding that the administration has decided "not expand to new areas at this time" and instead "focus and expand our critical resources on areas that are currently active" when it comes to oil and gas drilling.In March--less than a month before the BP oil spill--Obama and Salazar said they would open up the eastern Gulf and parts of the Atlantic, including off the coast of Virginia, to offshore oil and gas exploration. On both of those new areas, the administration said it would start scoping to see if oil and gas drilling would be suitable. The eastern Gulf remains closed to drilling under a congressional moratorium, but the White House indicated it would press to lift the moratorium if necessary.

Wednesday's announcement is sure to please environmentalists while angering oil and gas companies as well as some lawmakers from both parties who have pressed for continued offshore energy exploration in the wake of massive Gulf of Mexico spill.

According to multiple individuals briefed on the plan, the Obama administration will proceed with scoping for possible drilling in the central and western Gulf of Mexico and in the Arctic as part of the upcoming 2012-2017 Outer Continental Shelf program, while keeping the other areas off limits.

The administration is likely to conduct a new environmental assessment of Shell's plan to conduct drilling in the Arctic, the sources added.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who has consistently pushed to restrict drilling in the eastern gulf, welcomed the news. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called the senator Wednesday morning, according to Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin, but the two men did not speak yet because Nelson is chairing a hearing.

"Drilling off Florida's Gulf coast is banned at least until 2022, under a 2006 law passed by Senator Nelson," McLaughlin said. "The senator is pleased the White House has decided rightly to keep the area off-limits. He hopes Florida's next governor and the Legislature similarly will commit to protecting the state's tourism economy and unique environment."

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Fed Loaned Billions to Banks, Companies and Other Nations(17)

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:56:00 +0000

By: Reuters

The United States would be ready to support the extension of the European Financial Stability Facility via an extra commitment of money from the International Monetary Fund, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday.

"There are a lot of people talking about that. I think the European Commission has talked about that," said the U.S. official, commenting on enlarging the 750 billion euro ($980 billion) EU/IMF European stability fund. "It is up to the Europeans. We will certainly support using the IMF in these circumstances." "There are obviously some severe market problems," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "In May, it was Greece. This is Ireland and Portugal. If there is contagion that's a huge problem for the global economy."

The remarks foreshadow a visit to Europe this week by a U.S. Treasury envoy who is expected to visit Berlin, Madrid and Paris to hold talks on the ramifications of the debt crisis.

The developments have echoes of the pressure applied by Washington on European capitals last May to create the near $1 trillion EFSF safety net that was last week used to rescue Ireland after its banking crisis spiraled out of control.

The IMF, whose biggest single shareholder is the United States, has committed 250 billion euros to the EFSF.

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Bonds sink on this news

In a related story, the FEDS are set to release details of the $2 trillion lending programs for financial institutions and foreingn banks.

GOP Will Filibuster All Bills if Taxes, Budget Not Addressed

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:09:00 +0000

"We will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item," their letter to Reid says. By Dan Friedman

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 | 9:53 a.m

Updated at 11:10 a.m. on December 1.

All 42 Senate Republicans have signed a letter refusing to vote for cloture on any bill before the Senate until the federal government is funded beyond this week and the Bush-era income tax cuts are addressed before they expire December 31.

“We write to inform you that we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers,” said the letter, which was sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this morning.

While Congress is expected to clear a short-term extension of federal funding today or tomorrow, the letter derails chances for relatively quick passage of bills Democrats are considering taking up before addressing the tax cuts. The two most prominent are a defense authorization that includes a repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military and the Dream Act, giving some illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children a path to legal residence.

Reid was weighing action on both those bills before a final deal on the so-called Bush tax cuts. But with 42 votes, Republicans appear poised to successfully filibuster them.

“The true effect of this letter is to prevent the Senate from acting on many important issues that have bipartisan support,” Reid said this morning on the Senate floor. He said the letter codifies a GOP strategy of delaying action “on critical matters, then blaming the Democrats for not addressing the needs of the American people. Very cynical, but very obvious, very transparent.”

Reid said he is also lining up action on a labor-backed bill to guarantee collective bargaining rights to first responders, such as police and firefighters, and a bill to extend health care coverage and compensation to people who worked in the World Trade Center ruins after 9/11 and since became sick. He said he plans to file cloture on the bills and the Dream Act at the same time later this week.

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Coming: Gov't By Regulation Instead Of Law

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:10:00 +0000

By PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY Posted 11/30/2010 07:09 PM ET

Republicans are assuming that cap-and-trade (aka cap-and-tax) is dead because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lacks the votes to bring up the House-passed bill and because this issue proved a loser in the 2010 House races. Like the famous Mark Twain saying, its death may be exaggerated.

The Senate's environmentalism expert, Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., warns us that the Obama administration is trying to implement cap-and-trade anyway by bureaucratic regulations. Directives issued by the Environmental Protection Agency are coming down the pike to increase energy costs and kill jobs.

Last May, the EPA issued what it called a tailoring rule to govern new power plants, oil refineries and factories that yearly emit 100,000 tons or more of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons or sulfur hexafluoride. Inhofe reports that this tailoring rule will further reduce our manufacturing base and especially hurt the poor and elderly.

Inhofe predicts that the EPA standards planned for commercial and industrial boilers will cost 798,000 jobs. He also warns about the harmful effects on jobs caused by new rules on ozone emissions.

Since Barack Obama moved into the White House, the EPA has proposed or finalized 29 major regulations and 172 major policy rules. The EPA is, for the first time, simultaneously toughening the regulations on all six major traditional pollutants such as ozone and sulfur dioxide.

Before Climate-gate exposed the politics behind the "science" of global warming, a 5-to-4 Supreme Court ordered the EPA to consider regulating emissions based on that unsubstantiated and now largely discredited theory.

Despite a long record of supporting Obama stimulus and spending legislation, the expected chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., says, "We are not going to allow this administration to regulate what they have been unable to legislate."

Opposition to EPA's new rules is remarkably bipartisan. Seventeen Democrats signed a letter to EPA Director Lisa Jackson opposing them.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., was elected after running a TV ad showing himself firing a rifle to put a bullet through a copy of the cap-and-trade bill, and he promised to fight EPA attempts to curb greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. He may have a difficult task because Jackson is plotting to force mass retirements of the coal plants that provide half of U.S. electricity.

EPA's aggressive overregulation is forcing the electric industry to choose between continuing to operate while taking on major capital costs of complying with heavy new burdens or closing down and building new plants that use more expensive sources such as natural gas. The public will surely end up paying higher electric rates (aka a big tax increase).

This is a great article. Read more here

Judge tosses challenge to Obama healthcare law

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:29:00 +0000

By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON | Tue Nov 30, 2010 7:01pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge in Virginia on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the landmark healthcare law championed by President Barack Obama, upholding key provisions that require health insurance coverage.

The challenge, one of several attempting to strike down the law, was brought by the conservative Christian Liberty University and individuals who said the law would violate several parts of the U.S. Constitution.

However, U.S. District Judge Norman Moon ruled that the law requiring individuals to buy health insurance coverage as well as requiring employers to buy coverage for their employees was legal under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Moon found that without the coverage requirements in the law, the cost of health insurance would increase because the number of insured individuals would decline, "precisely the harms that Congress sought to address with the Act's regulatory measures."

Further, interstate commerce would be hurt by large employers failing to offer adequate healthcare coverage, thus "the employer coverage provision is a lawful exercise of Congress' Commerce Clause power," said Moon, who was appointed by then-Democratic President Bill Clinton.

Lawyers for Liberty University, which was founded by conservative evangelical Jerry Falwell, were not immediately available for comment.

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The Hispanic Leadership Fund Reacts to Threat of FCC Vote Next Month on 'Net Neutrality' Regulations

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:48:00 +0000

From Breitbart:

HLF President Mario H. Lopez available for interviews as FCC weighs next move on broadband policy

WASHINGTON, Nov. 30, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Hispanic Leadership Fund, a national non-partisan advocacy organization that promotes limited government and free enterprise, today reiterated its opposition to the FCC's planned vote next month on net neutrality that will impose harmful new regulations on broadband companies across the country. The organization cited negative impacts to job growth, private investment and small business growth, and urged Congress to intervene to prevent a government takeover of the internet.

"After the White House promised a renewed focus on job growth, I am appalled that it appears the FCC will move forward on their plan to forcibly reclassify broadband service in America. The FCC's expected announcement will mean a vote on a wide range of new regulations that will end the era of innovative, free-market internet growth and job creation," said Mario H. Lopez, president of the Hispanic Leadership Fund.

"Hispanics would be especially hurt by these policies that will undoubtedly discourage broadband providers from expanding access to high-speed internet in rural and urban communities, which impacts everything from new education opportunities to healthcare access to job creation. I implore the FCC to re-consider the widespread impact these policies will have on nearly every consumer in America," Lopez said.

To schedule an interview with Mario Lopez, please contact Warren Robinson at 202-870-7734.

SOURCE Hispanic Leadership Fund