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"Read Their Lips

Latest portrait of Pelosi, Rangel, Dingell.  Only thing they forgot was the little red star. 

                     

"Read Their Lips

By Mallory Factor

Source TechCentralStationDaily

"So what would the Democrats actually do in power? Voters are starting to ask, as polls suggest that Democratic control of the U.S. House is more and more possible.

 

For starters, take Nancy Pelosi, who would be Speaker of the House if the Democrats win. She has cut through a San Francisco fog of obscurity about the Democrats' intentions and spoken clearly: Last week she said that President Bush's tax cuts would have to be rolled back for those above "a certain level," with details to be worked out later. To parse this statement, recall that the Democrats' definition of "rich" is pretty broad; in 2001, before the Bush tax cuts were enacted, the 36% income tax rate kicked in at $166,500 for married couples filing jointly. Not content to stop at the usual "soak the rich" Democratic rhetoric, Pelosi also noted that middle-class tax relief would have to take a backseat (and maybe the caboose) to not increasing the deficit. So if the Democrats win, you will have no idea what your taxes will be next year.

 

Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York would be in charge of writing the nation's tax legislation. He would determine what rates you and your business will pay. Singing the same tune as Pelosi, Rangel recently said that if the Democrats win, "Everything is on the table." In fact, when he was asked if he would consider across-the-board income tax increases on everyone, including the middle class, he said "No question about it."

 

If top Democrats talk this way now before they're elected, what can we expect them to do afterwards?

 

Next, let's look at spending. One has to admit that the Republicans have given into the spending temptation, too, in the last few years. But the answer is structural reform to fight Congressional earmarks, not a change in party control. Rep. Pelosi suggests that most new spending would be "pay as you go." At first, this sounds good, with its hint of not adding new government programs until we can afford them. But "pay as you go" really means "pay before passing go"—and certainly don't collect any $300 tax refund checks as with the Bush tax cuts in 2001. Rep. Pelosi would be much more convincing on spending if her party had not already proposed $90 billion in new government spending, even before it takes control of the House. The only way to "pay as you go" and fund these programs is for "you" (the taxpayer) to "pay" more. That's why Rep. Rangel has to say that middle class tax increases have to be considered, too—just raising taxes on the rich won't pay for everything.

 

With $90 billion in spending proposals, and 12 years out of power, can we really believe that Democrats will turn on a dime to become the party of spending restraint? Instead, let's hope that this year's near-death experience for the Republicans will help keep them focused on cutting government spending and keeping taxes low.

 

Rep. Pelosi says she believes in the marketplace. But who knows what Rep. John Dingell of Michigan will want to regulate when he gets back to being Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee? When Dingell was chairman of the committee in the 1980s, the inside-the-Beltway political magazine National Journal described his jurisdiction as "anything that strikes Dingell's fancy."

 

Oh, and Rep. Pelosi says she'll pass five major bills (dealing with lobbying reform, homeland security, the minimum wage, the student loan program, and changing Medicare drug pricing rules) in the first 100 hours of the House's year. So much for debate on these important issues. Members of the House won't have time to read the bills, much less engage in open debate. Not a promising start.

 

The scent of impending power is evidently a truth serum for Democrats like Reps. Pelosi and Rangel. With their comments, the verdict is in: the economy simply can't afford a Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Rangel, or Chairman Dingell.  "

 

Mr. Factor is Chairman of the Free Enterprise Fund. "   

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=101806C

Entry #623

Gargoyle caved thanks to Bush Policy

China's real interest in stabilizing this situation via getting the Gargoyle under control is they don't want North Korean citizens invading China which would happen due to the fact that North Korean citizens are starving, many already crossing the border.

Wonder what part of the Gargoyle's anatomy the Chinese said they'd hand him if he didn't comply?????????

"THE NORKS' MEA CULPA

"North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il now says he's sorry about his nation's first nuclear test.  Why the sudden change of heart?  Because North Korea's biggest neighbor, China, has turned up the heat.  Essentially China sent a delegation to meet with The Gargoyle and told him to come back to the six-party talks and stop testing nuclear weapons.  The result was Kim Jong-Il caved.  China is his enabler.  He had no real choice.  So we probably won't see anymore nuclear tests north of the DMZ for awhile.

All of  this proves one thing......the Bush administration's way of dealing with North Korea actually works, whereas the Clinton administration's policy of appeasement and bilateral negotiations does not.  If Clinton had been in office --- or if the Democrat Appeasement Party had its way, we would have rushed in there with money and promises, and the Gargoyle would be sitting fat and happy, the toast of America-haters everywhere.

All The Gargoyle did with his agreement with the Clinton White House was violate it immediately.  It wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.  Requiring Kim Jong-Il to negotiate with his neighbors in the six-party talks is proving much more effective.  What's The Gargoyle going to say to China?  No?  I don't think so...especially since China could squash North Korea like a bug.

Of course, the mainstream media won't report the story this way.  They'll project Kim Jong-Il in a positive light for his reversal, and never mention that it is the result of the Bush policy and Bush administration diplomatic efforts with China, South Korea and Japan.  And they won't go solicit comment from people like The Poodle, who think we should be negotiating with North Korea directly. "

http://boortz.com/nuze/200610/10202006.html#nkorea 

Entry #622

"House Intel Chair suspends staff member

Now we're getting somewhere ..... we've known about leaks so perhaps the loop is closing around them. 
"House Intel Chair suspends staff member
Associated Press

By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer Thu Oct 19, 9:31 PM ET

<excerpt>

"WASHINGTON - House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra has suspended a Democratic staff member because of concerns he may have leaked a high-level intelligence assessment to The New York Times last month.

In a letter obtained by The Associated Press Thursday night, Rep. Ray LaHood (news, bio, voting record), R-Ill., a committee member, said that an unidentified staffer requested the document from National Intelligence Director John Negroponte three days before the Sept. 23 story about its conclusions.

The staffer received the National Intelligence Estimate on global terror trends on Sept. 21.

"I have no credible information to say any classified information was leaked from the committee's minority staff, but the implications of such would be dramatic," LaHood wrote Hoekstra, R-Mich., late last month. "This may, in fact, be only coincidence, and simply 'look bad.' But coincidence, in this town, is rare."

A spokesman to Hoekstra, Jamal Ware, confirmed that a committee staff member was suspended this week. He said the staff member is being denied access to classified information pending the outcome of a review."
Entry #621

"Keith Ellison's terror-loving friends ~ Minnesota

Taken directly as written by Powerlineblog.com. 

They've written extensive highly detailed articles with substantiating links embedded

(  http://www.powerlineblog.com/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=Keith+Ellison  )

about Keith Ellison which the news media is glossing over or omitting his support by various groups which have ties to terror.

"Keith Ellison's terror-loving friends

 

For those with eyes to see, the mask has long since fallen from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Even such stalwart Democrats as Senators Dick Durbin and Charles Schumer have come to recognize CAIR's "association with groups that are suspect," its "ties to terrorism" and its "intimate links with Hamas."

In fact, in the words of Anti-CAIR, since its founding in 1994, CAIR, its employees and its officials have worked with third parties including the Islamic Association for Palestine, the Holy Land Foundation, and the Global Relief Foundation to provide material support to known terrorist organizations, to advance the Hamas agenda and to propagate radical Islam. See generally "CAIR: Islamists fooling the establishment" by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha and "CAIR backs down from Anti-CAIR" by Daniel Pipes.

Is CAIR still fooling the establishment? For a while after 9/11, it certainly did so. The subsequent convictions of CAIR officials and employees for terror-related activities have made it increasingly difficult for CAIR to continue its charade with the same high level of success.

No such difficulty confronts CAIR at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which has proved itself a willing dupe. The Star Tribune's blinkered view of CAIR was prominently on display in Sharon Schmickle's September 17 Ellison-related story on CAIR, discussed here in "Ellison's excuse brigade: Exposed and at work."

Taking the direct approach, the Star Tribune today opens its pages for an op-ed column by CAIR executive director Nihad Awad and CAIR chairman of the board Parvez Ahmed. I think they're talking about us here:

There has been much sound and fury in certain circles about the American Muslim community's support for Keith Ellison and his campaign to represent Minnesota's Fifth Congressional District.

A handful of right-wing bloggers, agenda-driven commentators and political operatives have used scurrilous smear tactics in an attempt to derail his campaign and to marginalize American Muslim voters. These smears and distortions send an un-American message of intolerance and bigotry.

We are proud of our personal donations to Ellison's campaign. He has proven himself to be an effective legislator and his commitment to social justice is worthy of admiration. We believe his election will send a powerful message to the world about America's commitment to religious inclusion and tolerance.

Ellison's election will certainly send a powerful message, as does the support of Ellison by the likes of Awad and Ahmed, though not the message that they note. Meet Nihad Awad:
• Nihad Awad publicly declared his enthusiasm for Hamas at Barry University in Florida in 1994: "I'm in support of Hamas movement more than the PLO."

• This same year, according to the Weekly Standard, when Mike Wallace of CBS's "60 Minutes" asked Awad if he supports the "military undertakings of Hamas," Awad stood up for the terrorist group and told him, "The United Nations Charter grants people who are under occupation [the right] to defend themselves against illegal occupation."

• In an August 19, 2006 interview on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Awad rationalized suicide terrorism by suggesting it's really about fighting injustice. He refers to the writing of author Robert Pape on the subject: "He found out that it [suicide terrorism] has more to do with occupations and fighting injustice than religion. It really responds to the myth and the known notion now that has been used by several commentators and some politicians as a cliché because it sounds maybe dramatically well but factually it is not."

• Shortly after September 11, 2001, Awad and CAIR placed on their website a picture of the World Trade Center in flames and under it a call for donations. It read, "What you can do for the victims of the WTC and Pentagon attacks," and by clicking on "Donate to the NY/DC Emergency Relief Fund" one was unsuspectingly sent directly to the website of the Holy Land Foundation. A week later, the wording of the site was changed, as visitors to the site were directly told to "Donate through the Holy Land Foundation." The link was on CAIR's website until early December 2001, when the information mysteriously disappeared.

• On December 4, 2001, the reason for the disappearance was apparent, as the Holy Land Foundation's assets were blocked by the United States government for funneling money to Hamas. According to the White House website, "The U.S.-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development [provided] millions of dollars each year that [was] used by HAMAS."

• On Sept. 16, 2000, at a Washington rally sponsored by CAIR, AMC, and MPAC, Awad declared: "They [the Jews] have been saying 'next year to Jerusalem,' we say 'next year to all of Palestine!'"

Awad is a former official of the Islamic Association of Palestine, which was a front group for Hamas. As one can infer from the items above, Awad and CAIR appear to act as voices of the "Wahhabi lobby" and as a front for supporters of Islamist terrorism. Below is a photo of Awad speaking on April 20, 2002 in Washington, D.C. on a stage bearing the flag of Hezbollah.

And who is Parvez Ahmed? Ahmed was a prominent supporter of Sami Al-Arian, the convicted terrorist financier and head of the terrorist North American branch of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The Star Tribune hits bottom today in its service as a propaganda outlet for Minnesota Fifth District congressional candidate Keith Ellison. Nevertheless, Awad's and Ahmed's utterly shameless column supporting Ellison should at least serve the purpose of alerting Ellison's prospective congressional colleagues to the rogue they are about to receive into their midst. "

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/015594.php 

Entry #620

"Liberals Gone Wild!

               

"Liberals Gone Wild!

Source RealClearPolitics.com

"Why do Republicans drive leftists so crazy these days? Liberal democrats are beginning to sound like rowdy students on spring break, shrieking and exhibiting themselves on camera.

Consider some of the recent rabid outbursts by once sober, old-guard politicians. West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller insists that the world would be better off if Saddam were still running Iraq. Crotchety Congressman John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, rushed to announce that our Marines were guilty of killing Iraqis in "cold blood" before they were tried. Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin has compared our interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis, while Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said our soldiers have "terrorized" Iraqi women and children.

Then there is the constant anger from Democratic ex-presidents. It used to be that out-of-office chief executives kept relatively hush. Presidents Ford and Bush Sr. - both voted out of office - did not bray when President Clinton had his trials, personal and otherwise.

Not so now with Presidents Carter and Clinton. They repeatedly harp about the sins of the current administration. By now, everyone has seen clips of Clinton losing his temper (complete with finger-wagging) and lashing out at the "right-wingers" on TV. He lectures on political extremism, even as one of his wife's staff members slandered John McCain by saying he broke under torture while a POW in Hanoi. And even at 82, Jimmy Carter almost daily carps over Bush's foreign policy.

Do not forget the unhinged billionaire leftist philanthropists. Ted Turner said he resented President Bush asking Americans, after 9/11, to take sides in our war against Islamic terrorists. George Soros claimed that President Bush improved on Nazi propaganda methods.

The frustration with Bush & Co. has driven a few in the media almost to the point of clinical madness. In 2004, a clueless Dan Rather imploded by airing clearly forged memos that called into question Bush's National Guard service - with the result that he was eased out by an embarrassed CBS News. More recently, Keith Olbermann, the foaming news head on the struggling cable channel MSNBC, keeps his ratings low with uncontrollable rants about Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld pushing a "new fascism."

On college campuses, the old leftist intolerance of unwelcome free speech is back with a fury. A guest spokesman for the Minutemen immigration reform group was shouted down at a recent Columbia University lecture. Earlier, Harvard's liberal president Larry Summers was forced out, after timidly questioning academic orthodoxy about the role of women in science and engineering.

What sends liberal criticism over the edge into pathological hysteria?

Is it that George Bush is a polarizing figure, not just in terms of his Iraq policy, but also because of his Christian Texan demeanor?

Or is the current left-wing savagery also a legacy of the tribal 1960s, when out-of-power protestors felt that expressions of speaking bluntly, even crudely, were at least preferable to "artificial" cultural restraint? Why should graying veterans of the barricades, then, remain "polite" when their country's less sophisticated red-state yokels are taking it in the wrong direction?

The Democrats have not elected congressional majorities in 12 years, and they've occupied the White House in only eight of the last 26 years. The left's current unruliness seems a way of scapegoating others for a more elemental frustration - that they can't gain a national majority based on their core beliefs. More entitlements, higher taxes to pay for them, gay marriage, de facto quotas in affirmative action, open borders, abortion on demand, and radical secularism - these liberal issues don't tend to resonate with most Americans.

To compensate, leftist pundits, billionaire philanthropists and politicians, from current officeholders to ex-presidents, work to ensure that isolated moments of Republican ineptness (George Bush strutting on a carrier deck in his flight suit) and wrongdoing (repulsive e-mails from a perverted Congressman Mark Foley) blare out as the only issues of the day. This distracting drumbeat, not their own agenda, is the only strategy for success in the next election.

True, reactionaries in the 1990s expressed a Neanderthal hatred of Bill Clinton. But now shouting leftists have lowered the bar. The danger, of course, is that by emulating the rhetoric of a Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore, the feral Democrats - when they come back into power again as tamed leaders who must govern - will have created Frankensteins. And, as we know, such monsters always turn on their creators. "

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com. "
Entry #619

"Hastings: American Secrets for Sale?

"Hastings: American Secrets for Sale?
By Andrew Walden
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 27, 2006

Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s possible pick of Alcee Hastings (D-FL) to become Chair of the House Select Committee on Intelligence if Democrats win control of the House in the November 7 elections is a sure sign of Democrats’ true attitude toward the War on Terror.  Pelosi is apparently planning to hand leadership and even more dangerous--access to America’s most sensitive secrets--to a man who has shown that he is a criminal who can be bought. 

 

 

The best evidence for that conclusion comes from Hastings’ articles of impeachment.  Alcee Hastings is one of only 13 Federal Judges to be impeached in the entire history of the United States.  In 1988 Nancy Pelosi joined in supporting the 413-3 impeachment vote by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.  Hastings was convicted in a Senate trial the next year —finally forcing him from the bench.

 

 

As Jacob Laskin explained in a June, 2006 Front Page Magazine article: “The case involved two brothers, Frank and Thomas Romano, who had been convicted in 1980 on 21 counts of racketeering. Together with attorney William Borders Jr., Hastings, who presided over the Romanos' case, allegedly hatched a plot to solicit a bribe from the brothers. In exchange for a $150,000 cash payment, Hastings would return some $845,000 of their $1.2 million in seized assets after they had served their three-year jail terms. Taped conversations between Hastings and Borders confirmed that the judge was a party to the plot….”

 

 

The 17 Articles of Impeachment indicate why Hastings would be a perfect choice to implement the Democrat Party post-victory plan.  Article 17 explains Hastings, “(formed) a corrupt relationship” with William Borders.  Hastings “repeated false testimony” and engaged in the “fabrication of false documents which were submitted as evidence at his criminal trial….”

 

 

These are the exact skills Hastings would need to use in order to manufacture the fraudulent intelligence documents which Democrats would need as “evidence” for their planned impeachment of President Bush.  On his campaign website, Hastings prepares the ground for this, denouncing the war in Iraq as “unjustified” and accusing the Bush administration of “pre-meditated fabrication of intelligence.”  Hastings’ knowledge of impeachment procedures—having been on the receiving end--is icing on the cake.

 

 

Hastings is proud of his qualifications.  When he won election to Congress from Florida’s 23rd Congressional District in 1992 he explained, “I bring with me the added notoriety of being impeached and removed by the same body that I now get to serve in.”

 

 

Parts of Hastings’ district were at the center of the 2000 Florida Presidential election recounts.

 

 

Hastings’ proven willingness to sell himself, lie and fabricate evidence are not his only qualifications.  Hastings’ is also willing to reveal secret information in order to undermine law enforcement.  Impeachment Article XVI states:

 

 

“…Judge Hastings revealed highly confidential information that he learned as the supervising judge on the wiretap, as follows: On the morning of September 6, 1985, Judge Hastings told Stephen Clark, the Mayor of Dade County Florida, to stay away from Kevin “Waxy” Gordon, who was “hot” and was using the Mayor’s name in Hialeah, Florida.

 

 

“As a result of this improper disclosure, certain investigations then being conducted by law enforcement agents of the United States were thwarted and ultimately terminated.”

 

 

Hastings has also been reported to be the subject of ethics investigations in 2004 by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, the Florida Elections Commission and the Federal Election Commission.

 

 

Hastings is the number two Democrat on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  He also serves on the Terrorism, Human Intelligence, Analysis and Counterintelligence Subcommittee and the Intelligence Oversight Subcommittee. Members of the Intelligence Committee are often the only members of Congress briefed by the Administration on classified intelligence operations. 

 

 

While receiving classified information, Hastings has been traveling extensively overseas. 

 

 

The April 2, 2004 Miami Herald explains, “One of the top five world travelers in the past decade was our own Congressman Alcee Hastings, says PoliticalMoneyLine, a Washington-based website. The Miramar Democrat spent $152,378 in taxpayer money on 57 trips to 116 countries. (The dollar figure doesn't include costs for staff or use of military aircraft.)”

 

Hastings’ destinations include many where foreign officials may have an intense interest in buying US secrets.

 

''He's not going to garden spots,'' Alcee Hastings spokesman Fred Turner said. ``He is flying back today from a trip to the Middle East that included Baghdad, Beirut and Damascus. . . . I don't think anybody thinks going to those places constitutes a taxpayer-funded vacation.''

 

 

Hastings was elected president of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly in 2004.  He occupied the Presidency for a two year term until July, 2006.  This position offered Hastings an opportunity to meet numerous officials from dozens of countries who might have an interest in US secrets.

 

Hastings defended The New York Times when it exposed the secret US efforts to track terrorist financing through the international banking system.  On “Fox Special Report”, June 29, 2006 he said, “Find all of the leakers, prosecute them, put them in jail but let a free press stand in this nation." 

 

 

Hastings was less interested in a “free press” when fascists demanded the death of Danish cartoonists who dared to lampoon Mohammed.  Said Hastings:

 

 

“The cartoons are not only offensive and untrue, they debase the marketplace of ideas in the name of free speech. This is abhorrent and should be denounced as such. A responsible press should report the news, not incite hate or inflame hostility. In this instance, the publishers of these newspapers have failed miserably on both counts. As the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, an organization which has never failed to excoriate xenophobia in all its ugly forms, I reject totally the inferences made in these cartoons and beseech the press to stop running them."

 

If Pelosi goes through with the Hastings appointment, she would bypass Jane Harmon, currently the senior Democrat on the House Intel Committee.  Harmon, who is Jewish, is critical of the Bush Administration but believes America must finish the job in Iraq rather than surrender to al-Qaeda.  She also supports the use of wartime spying against America’s enemies abroad.  This marks her out of the Democratic leftist mainstream and targets her for demotion.

 

 

In contrast, the American Civil Liberties Union feted Hastings in May, 2005 for his opposition to the Patriot Act, the cornerstone of anti-terrorist intelligence efforts.

 

 

Hastings’ trips often include his “staff assistant”, reputed girlfriend Vanessa Griddine, who “earns” more than Hastings’ Chief of Staff.  Griddine is not the only member of Hastings’ staff rumored to be romantically linked.  Another “staff assistant” Patricia Williams is believed to “earn” as much as $129,000 per year.  Williams, who represented Hastings in the impeachment trial, was disbarred in 1992 for “mishandling client funds” – acts which occurred about the time of the impeachment hearings.  She is believed to be owed substantial legal fees by Hastings.

 

 

Hastings’ bio on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee website says: “Known to most as ‘Judge Hastings,’ he has had a distinguished career as an attorney, civil rights activist and judge. Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, he became the first African American to serve as a Federal judge in the state of Florida, and he served in that position with distinction and honor for ten years.”

 

 

Here are a few items they left out.

 

 

Although Hastings was not impeached and convicted until 1988-89, his criminal activities began very shortly after his 1979 appointment to the federal bench by President Jimmy Carter. In December, 1981 a Florida Grand jury indicted Hastings on the bribery charge for which he was eventually impeached as well as several related felony charges.  These charges made Hastings only the third federal judge to face criminal indictment in the 20th century.  In 1983 he was acquitted even as his co-defendant was convicted. 

 

 

Shortly thereafter, three federal judges took the unusual step of calling on the House of Representatives to impeach Hastings on the criminal charges as well as for claiming that the charges were racially motivated.  In 1985 Hastings revealed the secret wiretap information to the Dade County Mayor.  In 1987 a panel of 27 federal judges recommended impeachment of Hastings.  In 1988 Hastings was impeached on charges including 14 counts of perjury during his 1983 trial.  In 1989 Hastings was convicted by the Senate.  In 1991 Hastings filed suit to overturn his conviction.  In 1992, the conviction was remanded back to the Senate by a federal court ruling on a technicality.  The timing—two months before Election Day-- was perfect for Hastings.  Hastings was elected from the newly-created heavily Democratic and mostly black 23rd Congressional District in November, 1992.  In January, 1993, just before Hastings was sworn in as a Congressman, the Supreme Court ruled that courts have no authority to review Senate impeachment trials--effectively upholding Hastings’ impeachment.

 

 

He “keeps” two female companions—one a disbarred lawyer—on his staff.  He was subject to three different investigations in 2004.  Are we supposed to believe this person who so quickly fell into corruption after being named to the federal bench suddenly changed his ways in 1993? 

 

 

Hastings’ well known criminal record and his choice to travel with a paid female “companion” are unspoken invitations to any foreign intelligence official or anti-American journalist seeking access to American secrets.  His extensive foreign travels give him access to numerous such individuals.  Hastings is already very dangerous to American security as a member of several intelligence-related House committees and sub-committees as well as the OSCE.  But apparently Pelosi believes Hastings is not yet doing enough damage."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24590

Entry #618

Kansas candidate Ahner campaigning for Fair Tax

SO -- YOU WANT TO VOTE FOR A REPUBLICAN?

Fine.  Here's one that merits your consideration.  His name is Chuck Ahner, and he's running for the 3rd Congressional seat from the state of Kansas.

Ahner has several things going for him.  First, he's not an incumbent.  He hasn't been sitting up there in Washington voting for record budgets and growing the size of the Imperial Federal Government.  He didn't vote for the anti-free speech McCain Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Monstrosity.  He hasn't been complicit in turning a blind eye to the Mexican invasion.

Plus ... Chuck Ahner is campaigning on the FairTax! 

A lot of you are asking what you can do to give the FairTax a boost in this election.  Well here's a chance if you happen to live in Kansas' 3rd Congressional District.  You can replace a Democrat with a Republican who will push for passage of the FairTax once he arrives on Capitol Hill.  Here's his website ... give it a look.

http://www.ahnerforcongress.com/

http://boortz.com/nuze/200610/10182006.html#republicans

Entry #617

"Decorated Scientist Defects From Belief in Global Warming

Global warming = cottage industiries making huge profits from generated fear.  Many scientists receiving huge government grants to create these cottage industires of fear.

Global warming solution = the sun is burning warmer in this cycle heating our entire solar system and there's nothing we can do about it except wait for a cooling cycle.

They seem to nail it.  $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and political agendas.

"Decorated Scientist Defects From Belief in Global Warming - Caps Year of Vindication for Skeptics

October 17, 2006

"Washington DC - One of the most decorated French geophysicists has converted from a believer in manmade catastrophic global warming to a climate skeptic. This latest defector from the global warming camp caps a year in which numerous scientific studies have bolstered the claims of climate skeptics. Scientific studies that debunk the dire predictions of human-caused global warming have continued to accumulate and many believe the new science is shattering the media-promoted scientific “consensus” on climate alarmism.

Claude Allegre, a former government official and an active member of France’s Socialist Party, wrote an editorial on September 21, 2006 in the French newspaper L'Express titled “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” detailing his newfound skepticism about manmade global warming. See: http://www.lexpress.fr/idees/tribunes/dossier/allegre/dossier.asp?ida=451670 Allegre wrote that the “cause of climate change remains unknown” and pointed out that Kilimanjaro is not losing snow due to global warming, but to local land use and precipitation changes. Allegre also pointed out that studies show that Antarctic snowfall rate has been stable over the past 30 years and the continent is actually gaining ice.

“Following the month of August experienced by the northern half of France, the prophets of doom of global warming will have a lot on their plate in order to make our fellow countrymen swallow their certitudes,” Allegre wrote. He also accused proponents of manmade catastrophic global warming of being motivated by money, noting that “the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!”

Allegre, a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences, had previously expressed concern about manmade global warming. "By burning fossil fuels, man enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Allegre wrote 20 years ago. In addition, Allegre was one of 1500 scientists who signed a November 18, 1992 letter titled “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity” in which the scientists warned that global warming’s “potential risks are very great.” See: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~sai/sciwarn.html

Allegre has authored more than 100 scientific articles, written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States.

Allegre's conversion to a climate skeptic comes at a time when global warming alarmists have insisted that there is a “consensus” about manmade global warming. Proponents of global warming have ratcheted up the level of rhetoric on climate skeptics recently. An environmental magazine in September called for Nuremberg-style trials for global warming skeptics and CBS News “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley compared skeptics to “Holocaust deniers.” See: http://www.epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=264568 & http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2006/03/22/publiceye/entry1431768.shtml In addition, former Vice President Al Gore has repeatedly referred to skeptics as "global warming deniers."

This increase in rhetorical flourish comes at a time when new climate science research continues to unravel the global warming alarmists’ computer model predictions of future climatic doom and vindicate skeptics.

60 Scientists Debunk Global Warming Fears

Earlier this year, a group of prominent scientists came forward to question the so-called “consensus” that the Earth faces a “climate emergency.” On April 6, 2006, 60 scientists wrote a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister asserting that the science is deteriorating from underneath global warming alarmists.

“Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future…Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary,” the 60 scientists wrote. See: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=3711460e-bd5a-475d-a6be-4db87559d605

“It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas,” the 60 scientists concluded.

In addition, an October 16, 2006 Washington Post article titled “Climate Change is Nothing New” echoed the sentiments of the 60 scientists as it detailed a new study of the earth’s climate history. The Washington Post article by reporter Christopher Lee noted that Indiana University geologist Simon Brassell found climate change occurred during the age of dinosaurs and quoted Brassell questioning the accuracy of computer climate model predictions.

“If there are big, inherent fluctuations in the system, as paleoclimate studies are showing, it could make determining the Earth’s climatic future even harder than it is,” Brassell said. See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/15/AR2006101500672.html

Global Cooling on the Horizon?

In August, Khabibullo Abdusamatov, a scientist who heads the space research sector for the Russian Academy of Sciences, predicted long-term global cooling may be on the horizon due to a projected decrease in the sun’s output. See: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060825/53143686.html  

Sun’s Contribution to Warming

There have also been recent findings in peer-reviewed literature over the last few years showing that the Antarctic is getting colder and the ice is growing and a new 2006 study in Geophysical Research Letters found that the sun was responsible for up to 50% of 20th-century warming. See: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL027142.shtml

“Global Warming” Stopped in 1998

Paleoclimate scientist Bob Carter has noted that there is indeed a problem with global warming – it stopped in 1998. “According to official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK, the global average temperature did not increase between 1998-2005. “…this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” noted paleoclimate researcher and geologist Bob Carter of James Cook University in Australia in an April 2006 article titled “There is a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998.” See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/09/ixworld.html

“Global”? Warming Misnamed - Southern Hemisphere Not Warming

In addition, new NASA satellite tropospheric temperature data reveals that the Southern Hemisphere has not warmed in the past 25 years contrary to “global warming theory” and modeling. This new Southern Hemisphere data raises the specter that the use of the word “global” in “global warming” may not be accurate. A more apt moniker for the past 25 years may be “Northern Hemisphere” warming. See: http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/09/southern-hemisphere-ignores-global.html

Alaska Cooling

According to data released on July 14, 2006 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the January through June Alaska statewide average temperature was “0.55F (0.30C) cooler than the 1971-2000 average.” See: http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2006/jul06/noaa06-065.html

Oceans Cooling

Another bombshell to hit the global warming alarmists and their speculative climate modeling came in a September article in the Geophysical Research Letters which found that over 20% of the heat gained in the oceans since the mid-1950s was lost in just two years. The former climatologist for the state of Colorado, Roger Pielke, Sr., noted that the sudden cooling of the oceans “certainly indicates that the multi-decadal global climate models have serious issues with their ability to accurately simulate the response of the climate system to human- and natural-climate forcings.“ See: http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/2006/09/

Light Hurricane Season & Early Winter

Despite predictions that 2006 would bring numerous tropical storms, 2006’s surprisingly light hurricane season and the record early start of this year’s winter in many parts of the U.S. have further put a damper on the constant doomsaying of the global warming alarmists and their media allies.

Droughts Less Frequent

Other new studies have debunked many of the dubious claims made by the global warming alarmists. For example, the claim that droughts would be more frequent, severe and wide ranging during global warming, has now being exposed as fallacious. A new paper in Geophysical Research Letters authored by Konstantinos Andreadis and Dennis Lettenmaier finds droughts in the U.S. becoming “shorter, less frequent and cover a small portion of the country over the last century.” http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/10/13/where-are-the-droughts

Global Warming Will Not Lead to Next Ice Age

Furthermore, recent research has shown that fears that global warming could lead to the next ice age, as promoted in the 2004 Hollywood movie “The Day After Tomorrow” are also unsupportable. A 2005 media hyped study “claimed to have found a 30 percent slowdown in the thermohaline circulation, the results are published in the very prestigious Nature magazine, and the story was carried breathlessly by the media in outlets around the world…Less than a year later, two different research teams present convincing evidence [ in Geophysical Research Letters ] that no slowdown is occurring whatsoever,” according to Virginia State Climatologist Patrick Michaels, editor of the website World Climate Report. See: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/10/13/overturning-ocean-hype

‘Hockey Stick’ Broken in 2006

The “Hockey Stick” temperature graph’s claim that the 1990’s was the hottest decade of the last 1000 years was found to be unsupportable by the National Academy of Sciences and many independent experts in 2006. See: http://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=257697

Study Shows Greenland’s Ice Growing

A 2005 study by a scientist named Ola Johannessen and his colleagues showed that the interior of Greenland is gaining ice mass. See: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V8/N44/C1.jsp that Also, according to the International Arctic Research Institute, despite all of the media hype, the Arctic was warmer in the 1930’s than today.

Polar Bears Not Going Extinct

Despite Time Magazine and the rest of the media’s unfounded hype, polar bears are not facing a crisis, according to biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor from the Arctic government of Nunavut. “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present,” Taylor wrote on May 1, 2006. See: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146433819696&call_pageid=970599119419

Media Darling James Hansen Hypes Alarmism

As all of this new data debunking climate alarmism mounts, the mainstream media chooses to ignore it and instead focus on the dire predictions of the number-one global warming media darling, NASA’s James Hansen. The increasingly alarmist Hansen is featured frequently in the media to bolster sky-is-falling climate scare reports. His recent claim that the Earth is nearing its hottest point in one million years has been challenged by many scientists. See: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V9/N39/EDITB.jsp Hansen’s increasingly frightening climate predictions follow his 2003 concession that the use of “extreme scenarios” was an appropriate tactic to drive the public’s attention to the urgency of global warming. See: http://naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-16/ns_jeh6.html Hansen also received a $250,000 grant form Teresa Heinz’s Foundation and then subsequently endorsed her husband John Kerry for President and worked closely with Al Gore to promote his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” See: http://www.heinzawards.net/speechDetail.asp?speechID=6 & http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/dai_complete.pdf

American People Rejecting Global Warming Alarmism

The global warming alarmists may have significantly overplayed their hand in the climate debate. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll this August found that most Americans do not attribute the cause of any recent severe weather events to global warming, and the portion of Americans who believe that climate change is due to natural variability has increased over 50% in the last five years.

Senator Inhofe Chastises Media For Unscientific & Unprincipled Climate Reporting

Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, commented last week on the media’s unfounded global warming hype and some of the recent scientific research that is shattering the so-called “consensus” that human greenhouse gas emissions have doomed the planet.

“The American people are fed up with media for promoting the idea that former Vice President Al Gore represents the scientific ‘consensus’ that SUV’s and the modern American way of life have somehow created a ‘climate emergency’ that only United Nations bureaucrats and wealthy Hollywood liberals can solve. It is the publicity and grant seeking global warming alarmists and their advocates in the media who have finally realized that the only “emergency” confronting them is their rapidly crumbling credibility, audience and bottom line. The global warming alarmists know their science is speculative at best and their desperation grows each day as it becomes more and more obvious that many of the nations that ratified the woeful Kyoto Protocol are failing to comply,” Senator Inhofe said last week. See: http://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264616

“The mainstream media needs to follow the money: The further you get from scientists who conduct these alarmist global warming studies, and the further you get from the financial grants and the institutions that they serve the more the climate alarmism fades and the skepticism grows,” Senator Inhofe explained.

Eco-Doomsayers’ Failed Predictions

In a speech on the Senate floor on September 25, 2006, Senator Inhofe pointed out the abject failure of past predictions of ecological disaster made by environmental alarmists.

“The history of the modern environmental movement is chock-full of predictions of doom that never came true. We have all heard the dire predictions about the threat of overpopulation, resource scarcity, mass starvation, and the projected death of our oceans. None of these predictions came true, yet it never stopped the doomsayers from continuing to predict a dire environmental future. The more the eco-doomsayers’ predictions fail, the more the eco-doomsayers predict,” Senator Inhofe said on September 25th. See: http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759

Related Links:

For a comprehensive review of the media’s embarrassing 100-year history of alternating between promoting fears of a coming ice age and global warming, see Environment & Public Works Chairman James Inhofe’s September 25, 2006 Senate floor speech debunking the media and climate alarmism. Go to: (epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759)

To read and watch Senator Inhofe on CNN discuss global warming go to: (http://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264308 )

To Read all of Senator Inhofe’s Speeches on global warming go to: (http://epw.senate.gov/speeches.cfm?party=rep)

“Inhofe Correct On Global Warming,” by David Deming geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (ocpathink.org), and an associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. (http://epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=264537)

 

 

 

 http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777

 
Entry #616

"Carter Blames Bush For Korean Crisis

Carter ....typical socialist failure at everything while in office.  When payola Carter gave the Gargoyle back during Clinton didn't continue to work  .... just as ALL of Carter's foreign policy decisions resoundingly FAILED ..... go for the tried and true socialist mantra .... re-write history for the short attention span crowd and ..... blame Bush.

Carter's mind has to be gone .... he continues with typical socialist/communists strategy of re-writing verifiable, recorded history FAILING to realize we're in the information age where his BS lies are being flushed out and flushed on a daily basis.

Failure as the Governor of Georgia double failure as President.  Never met a dictator he didn't love and never misses a chance to spew anti-American rhetoric. 

A total disgrace to this nation and all it represents.

Kim Jong crumb trail

https://blogs.lotterypost.com/konane/2006/10/kim-jong-crumb-trail.htm

"Carter Blames Bush For Korean Crisis


Keith Whitney reports

 

Reported By: Keith Whitney
Web Editor: Michael King
Last Modified: 10/18/2006 8:13:12 AM


Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday night that an agreement he brokered 12 years ago for North Korea to halt nuclear weapons development is "in the wastebasket." Carter contends the Bush administration turned its back on the deal and labeled the isolated nation part of an "axis of evil."

But Carter, speaking at a previously scheduled panel discussion on his 1994 mediation, said he does not foresee the current dispute over North Korea's test of a nuclear bomb leading to war.

Carter said that in 1994, war "appeared to be imminent" if the Clinton administration had pushed sanctions against North Korea through the UN Security Council. But he said it is less likely now. Although North Korea branded sanctions imposed by the security council as an act of war, Carter said they are not as stringent as those proposed by the Clinton administration 12 years ago.

Laney said it appeared that war was certain before Carter's trip, which demonstrated to him that every opportunity for peaceful resolution of a crisis must be used."
http://www.11alive.com/specials/local/decision2004/decision_article.aspx?storyid=86210

Entry #615

Todd, this one's for you

 

"Why Vote Republican

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJmbomyq0fc

_________________________________________

"But God, what must it be like to live behind Democratic eyes? They live in a world that is three days wide: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Anything more than a day in past or future is beyond the Democratic event horizon and ceases to exist."
Hatched by Dafydd on this day, October 12, 2006, at the time of 04:29 AM 
In response to Dafydd's post above a poster by the handle 'Infidel' added:
___________________________________________

..........."Back in the 1960s, a conservative sociologist named Edward Stanfield wrote a book on urban policy called The Unheavenly City. It was influenced, he told me, by the Austrian School, as shown by his analysis of social classes according to time horizons.

The more upper-class people are, he said, the more they care about their posterity and their society. Even if they have no children, they're future oriented. These people are the opposite of the Keynesians and their "in the long run we're all dead." Like Mises, they uphold the good and true, for the long term.

These are the savers and investors, the entrepreneurs and producers who make a capitalist economy hum. They're also the generous givers, people who make charitable contributions to preserve what's right, and change what's not, over the long term.

Further down the class scale, said Banfield, people are more present-oriented. And at the lower end, they are more likely to be on welfare or criminals. Those on the dole have little concern for tomorrow. As to the outlaws, when they want money, there's no thought of working for it. They grab your wallet.

One of the worst effects of the welfare state, Banfield showed, is to skew all of society's time horizons towards the lower class. Thanks to redistribution and giveaways, there is far less preparation for the future: too many people feel that the government will take care of them, and the Fed's inflation generates a live-for-the-moment attitude as well.

All this is, needless to say, extremely damaging for individuals, nations, and civilization in general. Those who can postpone consumption for the future are mature and prosperous; those who must have it now, no matter what the consequences, are childish and poor. We know where America is headed.

That puts an even greater burden on the responsible and farsighted. The struggle to push back statism, restore the free market, and rebuild a responsible society is a long-term one. It requires people who understand the value of ideas and their effect on our future.
(from: Ludwig von Mises Institute)  "

http://biglizards.net/blog/archives/2006/10/beyond_the_demo.html

Entry #614

Tennessee .... ""Pension Looters for the Left?

Live links referencing statements made.  Again if the Republicans did it ....... it would be all over the evening news.  Haven't heard a peep about this. 

"Pension Looters for the Left?
By Patrick Poole
Source  FrontPageMagazine.com | October 16, 2006

"Imagine the following scenario: during the height of election season, a high-placed Republican donor is discovered to have looted millions of dollars from the retirement funds of individuals and companies he manages, and then contributes more than $70,000 to his state GOP party. When the fraud is discovered, the state party not only refuses to give the money back to the victims, but characterizes calls from Democrats to return the ill-gotten gains as “a cheap Democratic ploy” – even as top GOP elected officials in the state demand that their party return the money.

 

Is it hard to imagine the virtual non-stop coverage that both local and national media would devote to the GOP scandal, with constant reference made by Democratic Party-linked talking heads and mainstream media “reporters” incessantly predicting how the scandal will derail Republicans' chances in the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races under way in that state?

 

The scenario described above has been unfolding for months in the Volunteer State, but it isn’t the Tennessee Republican Party on the working end of the scandal. Instead, local news reports indicate that the Tennessee Democratic Party has received $52,250 for state races and $18,000 for federal races from a major Democratic donor, Barry Stokes, who was arrested by federal officials on Friday for embezzling retirement funds from his clients – money Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Bob Tuke vowed last Friday to keep even after one of the top state Democratic Party officials, State Sen. Doug Jackson, urged his own party to return the money. In a letter to Tuke, Jackson said that keeping the money would be a “travesty.” In recent months, two Tennessee Democratic Congressional candidates have returned campaign contributions from Stokes.

 

The intramural exchange between Jackson and his Democratic Party chairman came only after the Tennessee Republican Caucus returned $1,000 earlier last week that had been donated by Stokes in 2003 – a move the Democratic Chairman Tuke described as a “cheap Republican ploy.” But in a statement, the Tennessee Republicans explained, “our Caucuses want no part in receiving stolen pension funds - or any other stolen money or goods for that matter.” Their Democratic counterparts, however, don’t seem to share their scruples.

As the scandal threatens the reelection prospects of Tennessee Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen – one of the few remaining Democratic governors in the Red State South and the only Democrat to win statewide office in Tennessee since 1992 – and potentially dashes the hopes of Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-Memphis), who Democrats nationwide hope will pick up a US Senate seat in a Republican-leaning state (the seat being vacated by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist), there has been no mention of the escalating scandal in the national mainstream media – quite unlike a similar scandal last year involving Ohio Gov. Bob Taft and a GOP supporter who has pled guilty to stealing money from an account he managed for the Bureau of Worker’s Compensation. Despite the national media blackout of the rapidly unfolding Democratic scandal, the matter is being superbly covered by local bloggers and grassroots journalists, including Bill Hobbs and Terry Frank, and by the major Nashville newspaper, The Tennessean.

Looking at the known facts so far in the Tennessee case, it is much worse than the hypothetical scenario I previously described. Not only is the Tennessee Democratic Party refusing to return the stolen retirement money to the US Bankruptcy Court trustee handling the matter (unlike Tennessee Republicans), but Barry Stokes – the man accused of embezzling the funds and who used his position within Gov. Phil Bredesen’s highest circles to pitch flexible spending accounts managed by Stokes’ company, 1Point Solutions, to the State Treasurer’s office –  is represented in the matter by Bredesen’s 2002 campaign manager and current campaign treasurer, lobbyist Stuart Brunson. Stokes’ company was also awarded a contract last year by the Tennessee Board of Regents, which oversees most of Tennessee’s colleges and universities, to manage the flexible spending accounts of 14,000 Board of Regents employees. Last week, the Board of Regents employees discovered that debit cards linked to their accounts with 1Point no longer worked.

 

Also last week, Bredesen spokeswoman Lydia Linker revealed that Stokes met with Bredesen chief-of-staff, Dep. Gov. Dave Cooley, on several dates in 2003 and 2004 seeking assistance on a custody dispute. The ties between Stokes and Gov. Bredesen continue until today. In fact, Stokes is still listed on Bredesen’s campaign website as one of the “Top Business Leaders Endorsing Bredesen.”

 

According to a September 26th article in The Tennessean, even as Stokes’ financial empire began to crumble in recent months under pressure from multiple lawsuits, his giving to the Tennessee Democratic Party continued unabated. On one day this past June, as one Nashville law firm was demanding the transfer of their employees' 401(k) and flexible spending accounts, Stokes was giving the Tennessee Democratic Party a huge $20,000 check at their annual Jackson Day fundraiser at the historic Ryman Auditorium, former home of the Grand Ole ‘Opry in downtown Nashville (Stokes had also given $20,000 to the Tennessee Democratic Party in May 2005).

 

The victims of the fraud by Stokes and his company are widespread. Among them are 1,000 Nashville Metro government employees that had accounts handled by 1Point (Nashville Metro government is controlled by Democrats). The contract was awarded even though the company had not submitted an audited financial statement and annual report, as had the other companies submitting bids.

 

According to an article in Saturday’s edition of The Tennessean, the 1Point web began unraveling in April when the New York-based Jewish Funds for Justice filed a lawsuit seeking the return of retirement funds Stokes and his company had been given to manage. That lawsuit was eventually settled, but the money used to pay off Jewish Funds for Justice came from an account that Stokes was pouring millions into from other clients to settle the claims and pay personal expenses.

 

In mid-September, an auto-parts manufacturer based in Smyrna, Tennessee, was told by one of Stokes’ attorneys that $7 million given to 1Point to manage was “gone and likely unrecoverable.” Within days, several other clients also filed claims in court against the company. With lawsuits rapidly piling up, 1Point was forced into bankruptcy last month. The bankruptcy trustee has discovered that in the weeks after the 1Point accounts had been frozen by the court, Stokes withdrew at least $40,000.

The bankruptcy trustee also announced last week his discovery that after one client had transferred $650,000 to 1Point in May and June, not only did the money never make it to the investment houses, but $100,000 of those funds were deposited into a trust account for Stokes’ father, and Stokes had pocketed $30,000 and spent another $9,300 with a Tokyo art gallery. Stokes is reputedly one of the world’s largest collectors of Japanese block prints, with a collection estimated at $2.5 million. But bankruptcy officials have discovered that at least $1 million worth of paintings have disappeared from storage.

 

Ironically, included amongst 1Point’s victims are employees of the Tennessee Democratic Party. But Democrats should have known better, notwithstanding his cozy relationship with the Tennessee Democratic elite, as indicated by Stokes’ troubled financial past, as described last week by The Tennessean:

 

Barry Stokes came onto the Nashville scene three or four years ago, spending lavishly at fundraising galas, often showcasing his valuable museum-quality Japanese print collection to raise money for social and cultural causes.

 

 

He rapidly grew his business, signing up clients such as Metro government, a local law firm and the state of Louisiana and even handling the retirement accounts for employees working for the Tennessee Democratic Party, to which he contributed nearly $50,000.

 

 

But if those businesses or agencies that contracted for his services had looked deeper into his background, they might have thought twice. A closer examination by The Tennessean revealed an earlier bankruptcy, failed computer ventures in Houston, a termination from a financial company and a string of federal and state tax liens that paint a problematic picture of the 49-year-old’s business life.

 

 

As the Tennessee Democratic Party responded to calls from outsiders and members from their own party to return the stolen pension and retirement funds to the US Bankruptcy trustee, the Party spokesman, Mark Brown, dismissed concerns that they intended to keep the pilfered money, which presumably is being spent to reelect Gov. Bredesen and to send Harold Ford to the US Senate (hailed by many as “this year’s Obama”), and stated that the state party’s primary concern was for the four employees who have lost money in the 1Point scandal, instead of the thousands of employees and retirees in Tennessee and around the country who are also victims. “Our sole focus at this point is to protect the interest of the four Tennessee Democratic Party employees whose retirement funds were managed by 1Point Solutions,” Brown told the press late last week.

 

What potential impact this story might have on the races in Tennessee remains to be seen. The race for the open US Senate seat is being watched nationally as the race between Harold Ford and Bob Corker remains close, and the story is getting a lot of local coverage, which could potentially hurt Ford and Bredesen, as well as other Democrats running for office in the Volunteer State.

 

But the added scandal of the Tennessee Democratic Party keeping stolen retirement funds doesn’t seem likely to get near the national media attention as had the similar GOP scandal in Ohio, which is hurting many Ohio Republicans who had no involvement in the matter. Ohio Democrats have benefited tremendously from coverage of the Taft-Bureau of Worker’s Compensation scandal in multiple stories by the New York Times, Washington Post, and other national media outlets, and the Democratic National Committee is airing numerous campaign commercials in Ohio trying to tie unconnected Republicans to the affair.

 

But nothing in the Ohio GOP scandal can remotely compare to the Tennessee Democratic Party’s decision last week to knowingly profit from the crimes of one of its major donors and the brazen callousness of the party chairman, Bob Tuke, to the plight of thousands of Tennessee citizens who probably will not see their retirement accounts restored anytime soon. In comparing the ongoing reporting on the Ohio story with the current national coverage of the explosive Tennessee scandal that has escalated since earlier this year, the mainstream media silence on the latter has grown deafening."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=24938

Entry #613

"Starvation Is Paradise

"Starvation Is Paradise
By Hyok Kang
Sunday (London) Times | October 16, 2006

Source FrontPageMagazine.com


"Growing up in North Korea, Hyok Kang was surrounded by desperate people who ate grass and bark before they died. Yet pervasive propaganda made them feel lucky to be there.

The first time I ate chocolate was when I was five years old. My grandfather had relatives in Japan who were given exceptional permission to visit us. They came like extraterrestrials with their arms full of presents and food. I remember waving tins of condensed milk and chocolate bars under my friends' noses. I was a horrid little boy. It was 1990 and I didn't yet know what famine was. I wouldn't taste chocolate again until we escaped to China when I was 13.

In 1994, shortly before the death of Kim Il-sung, the Great Leader, the state food distribution system began to break down. Eventually, there was no more rice, no more potatoes. We moved on to vile food substitutes. Weeds, of whatever kind, were boiled up and swallowed in the form of soup. We picked these inedible leaves on the edges of the fields or the banks of the river. The soup was so bitter that we could barely keep it down.

Our neighbours collected grass and tree bark - usually pine, or various shrubs. They grated the bark and boiled it up before eating it. And much good it did them: their faces swelled from day to day until they finally perished.

Not only food was scarce. Our teachers gave each of us collection quotas: maize leaves (for paper mills), copper and other metals - and, during the winter, dung for fertiliser. We had to take six whole carts of faecal matter to the school, and not any old excrement: it had to be human. As it was frozen - the temperature fell to -20C or -30C - we used a pick or a hatchet to hack it from the back of the rudimentary outdoor toilets by each dwelling. In extremis, dog poo was tolerated as well.

My mother started selling buns and pancakes in the market. She was shattered by the sight of dozens of ragged urchins (some of them little more than toddlers) avidly watching the customers as they ate their pancakes just in case they accidentally dropped some. Then they would dart forwards to pick up scraps and stuff them into their mouths. Some adults, racked with hunger, beat the children and stole from them.

International food aid began to arrive in Onsong, our city, near the border with China. For a while the children started to get their strength back. But then the cadres reduced the rations. First the children had to make do with soup, then with nothing. Their faces were terribly thin, their cheeks were hollow and their eyes bulged with hunger.

The United Nations must have heard that the aid was not being distributed, because an inspection was organised. The party cadres, who had been alerted in advance, had rice delivered to the schools from state storehouses, which were apparently far from empty. The children were told to tell the UN inspectors that this diet was perfectly normal. On the day of the visit there were all kinds of dishes on the menu: noodles, maize soufflé. Once the UN team set off again, the cadres took back everything, including all the uneaten food from the tables where the children were still sitting.

Hunger engulfed my little universe. The poorest children lived on nothing but grass, and during class their stomachs rumbled. After a few weeks their faces began to swell, making them look well nourished. Then their faces went on growing until they looked as though they had been inflated. Their cheeks were so puffy that they couldn't see the blackboard. Some of them were covered with impetigo and flaking skin.

My classmates started dying during the summer of 1996. One girl spent her days by her dying brother's bedside, going short herself so that he would have more to eat. She died before he did.

As time passed there were fewer and fewer of us sitting at the school desks. Sometimes there were only about 10 in a class of 35. The teachers themselves no longer had enough energy to take their classes. They sat shapelessly in their chairs, cane in hand, while we repeated by heart lessons we had already learnt about the childhoods of Kim Il-sung and his son and successor Kim Jong-il, the Dear Leader.

The famine encouraged the most selfish kinds of behaviour. My grandmother sold soya dishes and soups at home, a little trade that helped her to survive. I remember one father who regularly came to my grandmother's house in secret to eat his fill far from the eyes of his family. Many parents left their homes in search of food, and most didn't come back.

People generally died at night, and every morning we counted five or six deaths in our neighbourhood. Most of them were ordinary people, because neither party cadres nor policemen nor high-ranking military officers suffered as a result of the famine. My father calculated that the district where we lived had shrunk from 4,000 to 2,000 inhabitants.

There were empty houses everywhere. We felt as though we were living in a ghost town. Nonetheless, with my boy's eyes, I found it all relatively normal. It was all I had ever known, and I thought that things abroad must be pretty much the same, or worse, as our leaders told us, assuring us that North Korea was "paradise" compared with other states. My belief in Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il remained unshakeable.

The party cadres blamed "natural disasters", the US and South Korea for the shortages. My friends and I caught frogs and cooked them skewered on bicycle spokes. We also ate grasshoppers, which are delicious fried, as are dragonflies. Grilled, the flesh of fat dragonflies tastes a bit like pork; but you can eat them raw, once the head and wings have been removed. Sparrows and quails ended up in the pot. We caught them with nets set in wooden frames. Other birds, like crows, we fried on a brazier.

The railway station was a hideout for abandoned children. The shortage of petrol and electricity had reduced the daily rail service to one departure every two weeks. So the station was filled with people waiting for trains that never came. Destitute crowds slept there night and day. Skeletal children wandered through the waiting room. Some of them were very young: I remember kids of one or two who couldn't even stand upright. They crawled on all fours on the filthy floor, picking up whatever they could with their black fingers.

People gathered for a few minutes around the body of a child who had just died, but lost interest almost immediately. A friend of my father's was in a unit responsible for their collection and burial. He told us he never rushed to pick up dead children. He waited until at least three had died before collecting their bodies because that way he only had to dig a single grave. He dug rather shallow graves so as not to tire himself, and then laid the little skeletons in the holes, sometimes without so much as a shroud.

By 1997 my school had ceased to function. I ended up joining the gangs of children who stole from the market stalls. I would distract a well-padded person's attention and then my gang of five or six would jump on them and grab their money. The misfortune of others, even your own family, leaves you completely indifferent when you have nothing in your belly. You rob ruthlessly; you would even kill.

My father worked in the local lignite mine. In the autumn of 1997 he asked the cadres for a change of employment. This was a legitimate request, because he had worked in the mine for more than 15 years, and the labour had been very hard. The cadres refused. Exasperated, my father hurled an ashtray through a window, and started insulting them. He ended up breaking all of the cadres' office windows, calling them fat pigs.

He was summoned to the penal labour colony in Onsong the following week for "re-education", but instead he escaped to China. After three months, and after saving some money, he came back to get me and my mother. But he was caught, laden with sausages and other foodstuffs, by border guards who wolfed down the food in front of him and then beat him up. Within days he was in an overcrowded cell in Onsong prison.

Eventually, after contracting typhus from infected lice, my father was granted provisional release on condition that he would go back to prison if he recovered from the illness. Depressed, he hit the bottle and one evening he suddenly started shouting at the top of his voice: "Kim Jong-il, son of a bitch . . . bastard, swine!" My mother, in a panic, jammed both hands over his mouth. Our house was under constant surveillance from neighbourhood informers, and this sort of outburst could get us all shot.

He made up his mind to smuggle us to China. For more than a month he tried everything he could think of to persuade us, but my mother wasn't convinced. "In spite of the shortages," she insisted, "North Korea is without a doubt one of the most prosperous countries in the world!" I told him I would rather be a beggar in North Korea than follow him to China. I spouted phrases that I had learnt at school: "Let us safeguard socialism . . . I will fight to the death to protect socialism and the Great Leader Kim Il-sung!" My father went on insulting Kim Jong-il in the worst possible terms. My mother finally yielded. In turn she tried to persuade me, the confused 13-year-old. She said we would spend a year in China, no more, and we would earn money and come back to North Korea.

Reluctantly, I agreed. We made our getaway from home on March 19, 1998, at 4am, because that was the time when my father was under the least amount of surveillance. We had only the clothes on our backs, because even the smallest bundle of clothing would have looked suspicious. Needless to say, we did not return after a year - nor have we ever.

This is an excerpt of Hyok Kang's book, *******  "

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=24942

Entry #612

"Study: 1 million sex crimes by illegals

Think we don't have a problem, think again. 
   
"Study: 1 million sex crimes by illegals
Researcher estimates more than 100 offenders crossing border daily
Posted: May 31, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Source WorldNetDaily.com

"Based on a one-year in-depth study, a researcher estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each.

Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants.

She found that while the offenders were located in 36 states, most were in states with the highest numbers of illegal immigrants. California had the most offenders, followed by Texas, Arizona, New Jersey, New York and Florida.

Schurman-Kauflin concluded that, based on a figure of 12 million illegal immigrants and the fact that more of this population is male than average, sex offenders among illegals make up a higher percentage than offenders in the general population.

She arrives at the figure of 240,000 offenders – a conservative estimate, she says – through public records showing about 2 percent of illegals apprehended are sex offenders.

"This translates to 93 sex offenders and 12 serial sexual offenders coming across U.S. borders illegally per day," she says.

She points out the 1,500 offenders in her study had a total of 5,999 victims, and each sex offender averaged four victims.

"This places the estimate for victimization numbers around 960,000 for the 88 months examined in this study," she declares.

Schurman-Kauflin breaks down the 1,500 cases reviewed this way:

  • 525, or 35 percent, were child molestations

     

  • 358, or 24 percent, were rapes

     

  • 617, or 41 percent, were sexual homicides and serial murders

Of the child molestations, 47 percent of the victims were Hispanic, 36 percent Caucasian, 8 percent Asian, 6 percent African American and 3 percent other nationalities.

In 82 percent of the cases, she noted, the victims were known to their attackers.

"In those instances, the illegal immigrants typically gained access to the victims after having worked as a day laborer at or near the victims' homes," she says. "Victims ranged in age from 1 year old to 13 years old, with the average age being 6."

In her examination of the sex-related homicides, Schurman-Kauflin found the most common method was for an offender to break into a residence and ambush his victims.

Not only were victims raped, she said, but some – 6 percent – were mutilated.

"The crime scenes were very bloody, expressing intense, angry perpetrator personalities," she said. "Specifically, most victims were blitzed, rendered incapable of fighting back, and then raped and murdered. The most common method of killing was bludgeoning, followed by stabbing."

She found it especially disturbing that in 22 percent of all sex crimes committed by illegal immigrants, victims with physical and mental disabilities were targeted.

The highest number of sex offenders, according to the study, came from Mexico. El Salvador was the original home to the next highest number. Other countries of origin included Brazil, China, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Russia, and Vietnam.

Nearly 63 percent of the offenders had been deported on another offense prior to the sex crime, the study showed. There was an average of three years of committing crimes such as DUI, assault or drug related offenses prior to being apprehended for a sexual offense.

In 81 percent of cases, offenders were drinking or using drugs prior to offending. Rapists and killers were more likely to use alcohol and drugs consistently than child molesters.

Only about 25 percent of offenders were found to have been stable within a community. In 31 percent of the crimes, the offenders entered into the communities where they offended within two months of the commission of their sex offenses.

But many, 79 percent, had been in the U.S. for more than one year before being arrested for a sex crime. They typically were known to the criminal justice system for prior, less serious offenses before they molested, raped or murdered, the study said.

Schurman-Kauflin concludes illegal immigrants gradually commit worse crimes and are continually released back into society or deported.

"Those who were deported simply returned illegally again," she says.

She points out that only 2 percent of the offenders in her study had no history of criminal behavior, beyond crossing the border illegally.

"There is a clear pattern of criminal escalation," she said. "

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50441

Entry #611

..... Hill Lashes out at Dubya"

Goodness, I remember "WE ARE THE PRESIDENT" so whatever happened wrong under Clinton(s) happened under her watch too.

 

"LOOK WHO'S TALKING: HILL LASHES OUT AT DUBYA

Source New York Post

...... " Has Sen. Hillary Clinton forgotten it was her husband who so generously presented the North Koreans with their nuclear reactor.....they promised to use it for peaceful purposes only. But they lied. Can you imagine the outcry if President Bush exhibited such gullibility? Name redacted Manhasset

........" President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright caved in to North Korean demands in 1994 and provided a known communist regime with nuclear reactors and tons of fuel on the premise they would be used to provide energy for Kim Jung Il's people.....Pres Clinton caved to North Korea because he wanted to be seen as the "diplomat." This utter failure, along with his failure to get Osama bin Laden multiple times, truly shows just which president's failed policies have led the world to this critical time. Think again before you elect another Clinton to any elective office, let alone the White House. East Williston

....  "what plan does Clinton and her Democratic cohorts offer to the nation as a way of lessening tensions in the Korean peninsula? Criticizing the president in everything he does, from Iraq, Iran and North Korea to socialized prescription drugs, without offering solutions, means nothing..... The Bronx

....."Stay tuned, America. As Bush actually tackles terrorism, with a booming economy to boot, more is sure to come as a result of Clinton's failed policies.

Think again before you elect another Clinton to any elective office, let alone the White House......East Williston "

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10152006/postopinion/letters/look_whos_talking__hill_lashes_out_at_dubya_letters_.htm

Entry #610

Gerry Studds dead

Read he'd been subpoenaed to testify currently.  What a bummer in timing ..... Dead

Brings back memories of Vince Foster, Ron Brown and others.

"Former U.S.-Rep. Studds Dies at 69


Oct 14, 10:21 AM (ET)

By JAY LINDSAY

BOSTON (AP) - Former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay person elected to Congress, died early Saturday at Boston Medical Center, several days after he collapsed while walking his dog, his husband said.

Studds fell unconscious Oct. 3 because of what doctors later determined was a blood clot in his lung, Dean Hara said.

Studds regained consciousness, remained in the hospital, and seemed to be improving. He was scheduled to be transferred to a rehabilitation center, but his condition deteriorated Friday and he died at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, Hara said.

Hara, who married Studds shortly after gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in 2004, said Studds was a pioneer who gave courage to gay people everywhere by winning re-election after publicly acknowledging his homosexuality. "................

 

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061014/D8KOF54G0.html 

Entry #609
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