Fox News’ Chris Wallace is finally treating Representative Ron Paul with the respect he deserves. Rather than try to paint him as a kook and hitting him with “gotcha” questions, Wallace gives an honest interview and allows Paul to answer his questions.
Wallace also points out a fact the mainstream media are trying to ignore: Paul has passed last month’s top flavor Michele Bachmann in the polls, is gaining ground in the GOP field and is in a dead heat with President Barack Obama.
If you say you believe in the Constitution and want a government that follows it but you don’t support Paul, I encourage you to watch this interview with an open mind. If you think you believe in the Constitution and freedom but still can’t support Paul after watching this interview, go back and reread (if you’ve ever actually read it) the document, because you certainly didn’t understand it the last time.
After watching the interview, if you still can’t support Paul, I’d like to know why. But please, don’t say it’s because he’s an isolationist, as Paul shoots down that notion in the interview. Non-interventionist is not isolationist.
This may be the most fruitful 14 minutes you spend vetting a candidate for the Republican nomination.
The Department of Justice is under fire for taking the bold step of sending armed agents into the factories of Gibson Guitar in Nashville and Memphis to seize what it believes to be illegal wood.
The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.
Unbelievably enough, this was not the first time that the Gibson factories have been raided for this same reason.
In 2009, more than a dozen agents with automatic weapons invaded the Gibson factory in Nashville. The Government seized guitars and a substantial amount of ebony fingerboard blanks from Madagascar. To date, 1 year and 9 months later, criminal charges have NOT been filed, yet the Government still holds Gibson’s property. Gibson has obtained sworn statements and documents from the Madagascar government and these materials, which have been filed in federal court, show that the wood seized in 2009 was legally exported under Madagascar law and that no law has been violated. Gibson is attempting to have its property returned in a civil proceeding that is pending in federal court.
So why has the DOJ gone crazy for wood? They believe they are complying with the Lacey Act, specifically, this provision:
Anyone who imports into the United States, or exports out of the United States, illegally harvested plants or products made from illegally harvested plants, including timber, as well as anyone who exports, transports, sells, receives, acquires or purchases such products in the United States, may be prosecuted. In any prosecution under the Lacey Act, the burden of proof of a violation rests on the government. (emphasis mine)
It doesn’t seem that the DOJ has lived up to the standard emphasized above according to Gibson. They are asserting that the Justice Department is actually trying to shut down indefinitely the civil court case that Gibson filed to have their property returned. Given that Gibson is the premier guitar manufacturer worldwide, you have to wonder where the music industry is on this issue.
Reuters is reporting that the guitar maker is being charged with illegally importing wood under a U.S. law barring importation of endangered plants and woods.
In an affidavit, agent John Rayfield of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said U.S. Customs agents in June detained a shipment of sawn ebony logs from India.
The paperwork accompanying the shipment identified it fraudulently as Indian ebony fingerboards for guitars and it did not say it was going to Gibson, the affidavit said.
Of course there will be some back and forth apparently on the legitimacy of the case and whether or not Gibson actually broke any laws, but one thing from the press release stood out to me:
The wood the Government seized on August 24 is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier and is FSC Controlled, meaning that the wood complies with the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council, which is an industry-recognized and independent, not-for-profit organization established to promote responsible management of the world’s forests. FSC Controlled Wood standards require, among other things, that the wood not be illegally harvested and not be harvested in violation of traditional and civil rights. See www.fsc.org for more information. Gibson has a long history of supporting sustainable and responsible sources of wood and has worked diligently with entities such as the Rainforest Alliance and Greenpeace to secure FSC certified supplies. The wood seized on August 24 satisfied FSC standards. (emphasis mine)
I find it fascinating that Gibson had been in compliance with a self-regulatory agency like the FSC and has also been picked on bythe government for alleged non-compliance. I’ve always believed that self-regulation is a viable alternative for many industries that currently answer to the overreaching government.
It’s hard not to see this as the government getting territorial about who gets paid to oversee American industry
Smoking bans most often stink of special interests and anti-liberty agendas. We should probably have an entire story dedicated to the debate of smoking bans as it’s a very controversial topic amongst political circles, both left and right. This particular story, though, is dedicated to a new approach to pushing back.
Small bar owners angered over losing their butts to the statewide indoor smoking ban plan to give lawmakers the boot.
A newly formed group, Protect Private Property Rights in Michigan (PPPRM), has organized an effort to ban lawmakers from their establishments in protest against Michigan’s smoking ban. This lawmaker ban is scheduled to start Sept. 1. PPPRM, which claims to have a membership of about 500 businesses, argues that the smoking ban has been disastrous for Michigan’s small bar owners and their employees.
“We’re not smoking advocates or advocates for tobacco use,” PPPRM Executive Director Stephen Mace said. “We ‘re just people who believe in private property rights and are trying to speak out against this law that’s hurting us and our employees. It has already put some of us out of business.”
This issue is a bit close to me as I have a friend in Carson City, Nevada who lost his bar to the smoking ban a few years back. His bar was within walking distance of a casino and most of his revenue came from bar top keno/poker machines. When the Nevada casino lobbyists successfully convinced Nevada voters that the ban was “for the children,” smoking was then only allowed in casinos.
Guess where the customers went? And guess who went out of business?
Ironically, children are allowed to walk through casinos, but not through my friend’s private bar. But I digress…
Back to Michigan. Not only is the smoking ban apparently shutting down bars, it’s also crushing state revenues. According to the PPPRM website, the ban is costing the state $80 million in revenue off of Keno alone!
So, Wednesday – while campaigning in Illinois, although I understand that we’re supposed to pretend that Obama isn’t actually campaigning, for some bizarre reason – the President of the United States faced with a technical question (the effects of new EPA’s soil and dust regulations on Illinois farmers) by a technical expert (an Illinois farmer). Despite the fact that the technical question is in fact supposedly within Barack Obama’s level of expertise, the President decided instead to make slight fun of the probably-not-voting-for-him-anyway technical expert by chiding him about believing rumors and suggesting that the technical expert call the Department of Agriculture.
Well. There was a Politico reporter who actually decided to see what would happen if s/he did precisely that. So s/he did. As near as I can tell, the original inquiry about “information related to the effects of noise and dust pollution rules on Illinois farmers” turned into a two day affair involving at least ten phone calls, seven separate, discrete offices (almost all of which also included internal phone tag), and at least twelve individuals. And as for the final answer? This is what they sent (yes, sent, via safely distancing email):
“Secretary Vilsack continues to work closely with members of the Cabinet to help them engage with the agricultural community to ensure that we are separating fact from fiction on regulations because the administration is committed to providing greater certainty for farmers and ranchers. Because the question that was posed did not fall within USDA jurisdiction, it does not provide a fair representation of USDA’s robust efforts to get the right information to our producers throughout the country.”
Shorter USDA: “I dunno. Call the President.”
Lots of people – Jonah Goldberg in particular – are going off on this, but I’d like to explain why the President made such a dunderheaded comment as this. It has to do with his rather parochial background. Obviously, nothing in Barack Obama’s life until 1996 would have had him dealing with the Department of Agriculture: from college on he was firmly implanted in the warm, comforting isolation unit that is urban liberal academia. The odds of him having to navigate the byzantine agricultural bureaucracies? Nil. In fact, he probably rarely had to interact with government bureaucracies at their worst at all. Many people manage not to – unless there’s an unique problem*.
And after 1996, when Barack Obama became a legislator – and thus a person who did deal with government bureaucracies on a regular basis? Well. That’s precisely when the power dynamic would have changed for him anyway. You see, when a regular citizen calls a government bureaucrat, the former is counting on the latter having a good day, or at least not a bad one. But when even a state senator calls a government bureaucrat, that bureaucrat is the one who has to worry about good and bad days all of a sudden. Put more explicitly: Illinois State Senator Obama could reliably expect that his calls would be well-received, and that a prompt response would be provided. US Senator Obama could reliably expect that calls made by his staffers would be well-received, and that a prompt response would be provided. President Obama is used to having every random information request that he makes be immediately jumped upon by an eager policy wonk and sent off to be answered by the relevant agency, who will of course treat that request with the highest possible priority.
So of course Barack Obama thinks that calling the USDA is not only a bright idea, but it’s such an obvious one that only the ignorant or obtuse wouldn’t get it immediately. He’s almost certainly never neither had the relevant life experiences, nor the intellectual curiosity, to discover otherwise.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the congresswoman in charge of President Barack Obama’s reelection bid, has been slammed as “a Chihuahua in high heels,” by former adversary Mark Foley.
And Foley said he can fully understand why fellow Florida Rep. Allen West got upset with her, calling her “vile” and “not a lady” after she attacked him.
“I didn’t like the way he responded to her, but I know exactly why he got mad at her, because she’s the kind who kind of sticks the finger in your chest and keeps belittling you,” said Foley, who sat with Wasserman Schultz in both the Florida House and in Washington.
Story continues below.
In a wide-ranging interview with Newsmax.TV, Foley, a Republican who resigned from the House in 2006, did not mince words over politics and the state of the country. He said:
Dozens of incumbents in Congress will be booted out next year as voters hate both parties equally;
Mitt Romney would be a better presidential candidate if he stopped running away from his record as governor of Massachusetts;
He is not sorry to see Tim Pawlenty quit the race for the GOP presidential nomination, and;
If he had still been in Congress, he would have voted in favor of raising the debt ceiling.
He also addressed his own cancer, saying he is now in recovery after the removal of his prostate gland just five weeks ago.
Foley said Wasserman Schultz has a habit of “sticking her foot in her mouth” which could come back to hurt her.
“She claims Americans don’t support the auto industry because they don’t buy American cars and she has two foreign cars,” he said.
And her latest claim that Obama is in good shape going into the next election is another example of her saying things that are not backed up by reality. “He dipped below 40 percent approval rating, the worst presidential approval rating in recorded history. If she thinks that’s a benchmark for launch, good luck to her.”
Foley said Wasserman Schultz’s role as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee involves trying to put West out of a job as a Congressman so he can understand why he got angry with her.
“I’ve known Debbie a long time. I served in the state House with her,” he said. “She’s a Chihuahua in high heels. She’s nip and tuck and I can see why Allen West got mad.
“When someone’s day job is to eliminate your job, which is what she’s supposed to do, that can rile you, but he should not have responded in the way he did.”
On the presidential race, Foley, now a real estate agent and radio talk show host, said a “business-inspired candidate” such as Romney, Texas Gov. Rick Perry or former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman would have the best chance of beating Obama.
“He has presided over the worst economic mess and amplified the mess,” Foley said of the president. “He can go ahead and blame George Bush and the Republicans all he wants – we deserve some blame for the economic misfortune we find ourselves in – but there’s a point where he has to stop and play leader of the free world.
“My gut tells me Perry’s going to be a pretty quick star. He’s managed a state that’s a border state and has had to deal with immigration which will be the top tier issue facing America. He has more job starts in America than most any state and Austin, Texas is one of the most enviable places to live in the country, so most of the things he has done he seems to have done well.”
Foley made it clear he was not endorsing Perry, but added, “Someone like him, who has managed in an economic turmoil and has proven after 10 years as governor that he can lead us to the promised land and create jobs – that’s a pretty good message.”
He said front-runner Romney would be better served if he stopped trying to pretend he was not responsible for things that went on in Massachusetts when he was governor.
“If Romney would honestly own his Massachusetts record and stand up and say, ‘Yeah, I voted for those things, I was governor of the most liberal state in America and here’s why I can be president based on that notion,’ I’d admire him a lot more. But he seems to distance himself from where he was in Massachusetts.
“He was a great governor, great leader of the Olympics, a great business mind and could instantly bring credibility to the White House effort to create jobs in America.”
Foley said that Pawlenty’s withdrawal from the field was no bad thing, and suggested others struggling in the polls should soon follow. “It clears some of the wood and allows people to say, ‘hey there’s a good set of candidates we can choose from.’ “
Foley predicted that the 2012 election will be another watershed as voters express their dissatisfaction with incumbents from both parties, and the prolonged battle over raising the debt ceiling was a prime example of the malaise in Washington. “I would have voted to raise it,” with spending reforms, he said.
“People are frightened. They are frightened for their own survival. They are worried about their jobs, they’re worried about their mortgages, worried about their kids’ future.
“They look at their 401(k)s, look at their bank statements, look at job security and they’re frightened. Then they see our political leaders arguing as if they are schoolchildren in a fight. It’s permeated the psyche of people unlike I’ve ever seen before. They now hate both parties universally. They hate members of Congress be they are men or women.
“They distrust the president for not providing solutions, they are tired of him just constantly blaming someone else – if he had his way he would be blaming Reagan for the problems today. So they sense a lack of leadership, a lack of optimism and clearly a lack of focus on the direction out of this problem.”
On his cancer, Foley urged men around his age, 56, to have annual prostate checks and not make the mistake he did. “My father had prostate cancer and I should have assumed that it would be hereditary. That being said, I missed a couple of annual physicals,” he admitted.
“I feel great but there are a lot of things that had I been more aggressive at the front end, they could have planted a little seed in the prostate and it could have killed the cancer, but instead I ended up in a radical prostatectomy, which is a removal. That’s not fun.”
Foley, who quit near the end of his sixth term in Congress, said he often thinks of returning to politics.
“I enjoyed the job. I love helping people solve problems...I miss the debate. I miss helping seniors and veterans. I loved finding a problem and solving it for people.”
Gas-guzzling vehicle owners pay the lion’s share of highway maintenance, but advanced technology is paving the way for eco-friendly cars to contribute more revenue through a new tax.
By requiring cars to be equipped with odometer spyware that will report to authorities how many miles are driven, government is looking to toss out the old gas tax for a new miles-driven fee.
“The Left is always pushing for more and more regulations, and more and more taxes. Now an insatiable Washington is looking to tax so-called green vehicles in a Big Brotheresque way,” said Robert Gordon, senior adviser for strategic outreach at The Heritage Foundation.
“The green chickens could be coming home to roost, and with them, the Left may have finally met a tax it doesn’t like,” Gordon said.
Sen. Kent Conrad (D.-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, is expected to make a recommendation later this year on whether the federal government should drop the gas tax and implement the Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) tax.
During a hearing earlier this spring, The Hill reported Conrad as saying that President Obama is asking for $556 billion over the next six years to fund federal transportation projects. Money from the Highway Trust Fund is also used to support mass transit, walkways, bike paths and scenic trails.
“Do we move to some kind of an assessment that is based on how many miles vehicles go, so that we capture revenue from those who are going to be using the roads who aren’t going to be paying any gas tax, or very little, with hybrids and electric cars?” Conrad suggested.
Draft legislation put forward by the Transportation Department would create a pilot program to tax drivers by the mile, although the White House has distanced itself from the effort.
“This is not an administration proposal,” White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki told The Hill in a separate article.
"This is not a bill supported by the administration. This was an early working draft proposal that was never formally circulated within the administration, does not take into account the advice of the President’s senior advisers, economic team or Cabinet officials, and does not represent the views of the President,” Psaki said.
A proposal in the Oregon legislature to create a VMT tax stalled in committee earlier this year after opposition by environmentalists.
However, that measure would have applied the VMT tax only to hybrids and electric cars.
Environmentalists opposed the legislation because they said it would be contrary to the incentive to buy fuel-efficiency vehicles, and that the technology required to collect the mileage information is an invasion of privacy.
“The idea of imposing VMT taxes … has raised concerns about privacy because the process of assessing such taxes could give the government access to specific information about how individual vehicles are used,” the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in its March report, “Alternative Approaches to Funding Highways.”
Some conservatives say gas taxes are obsolete, and suggest fees paid by those who actually use the service as a less invasive scheme to raise revenue.
“The main concern is that we have huge shortfalls in the trust fund that need to be addressed, and Congress is either unable, or unwilling, to raise fuel taxes,” said Marc Scribner, land use and transportation policy analyst for the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).
Since 2008, the trust fund has borrowed $30 billion from the treasury to pay for road maintenance.
“The federal government spends far too much and taxes Americans to vastly excessive levels,” said Ryan Radia, associate director of technology studies at CEI.
“We don’t think the tax burden should go up, but the question is, ‘How are we going to fund the highway system?’ It’s better that those who use the highway bear the cost, not all Americans,” Radia said.
While drivers of eco-friendly cars would pay more taxes under the VMT system, it would result in lower taxes for low-income drivers who drive older car models that are not as fuel-efficient, and rural residents who drive pickup trucks, the CBO said.
Josh Culling, state affairs manager at Americans for Tax Reform, said, “Our friends on the Left are finally finding out that taxes are problematic.”
“There are a number of ways to justify fairness,” Culling said.
Also contentious is how the mileage information would be collected on individual cars. Oregon specifically rejected the use of a global positioning satellite (GPS) systems.
The CBO report said consumers might be more willing to share their travel information with a commercial source for collection, rather than a government agency.
Technology already available has the ability to collect data on location and travel time, which “could be used to reconstruct, or even monitor in real time, a vehicle’s travel,” the CBO report said.
“Government keeps trying to get more and more involved in our personal lives. In this proposal, they will be in the car with us, literally, when we drive,” said Josh Culling, state affairs manager for Americans for Tax Reform.
This is a developing story as police are still investigating the shooting of a non-union business owner, John King, by what appears to be a union assailant. With around 25 employees, John King owns one of the largest non-union electrical contracting businesses in the Toledo, Ohio area. As a non-union contractor, his business happens to be doing well at a time when unions in the construction industry are suffering. This, it seems, has made the usual animosity unions have for him even greater, making him a prime target of union thugs. So much so, that one of them tried to kill him last week at his home.
John King didn’t plan on being an enemy of unions. In fact, he says all he’s ever wanted to do is work at something he loves doing and be successful at it—something that most normal Americans would call ‘The American Dream.’
After high school and some college, Mr. King briefly worked for an IBEW contractor before being drafted into the military. Following his service in the early 70s, King became his own boss by going into business as the youngest electrical contractor in Toledo.
Over the years, King Electrical Services had always been a small business. However, during the Great Recession, King’s business has actually improved as his union competitors have priced themselves out of work.
Unfortunately, being a non-union electrical company, King has always been on the radar of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). In fact, in 2006, he won a significant case against the IBEW at the US Court of Appeals, after the union had improperly promised his electricians jobs on union sites if they voted the union into King’s company.
Since he’s been in business, in addition to the legal battles and verbal abuse, King’s company has been vandalized and threatened on numerous occasions.
“Back then, it was nothing to have to regularly buy a new set of tires.” King said during a telephone interview on Tuesday. “The ice pick was the weapon of choice.”
Until Wednesday, the worst of the union attacks on King and his business came in the mid-eighties during the UAW strike at AP Parts. During a lull during the lengthy strike, King’s business was picketed by more than 50 IBEW picketers. This was at a time when he only had eight or nine employees. One of his employees, whose car was trashed by the union picketers, was also beaten up by IBEW thugs.
Unfortunately, the vandalism has never stopped. This year alone, he’s had to report three incidents of damage to police. This doesn’t include the incidents of stalking he and his men have to go through while they’re working.
In one incident earlier this year, rocks were thrown through the front windows of his shop, one of which had the word “kill” written on it.
Last Wednesday, however, the attacks on Mr. King became much more serious when he was awakened late in the evening at his home in Monroe County, Michigan and saw that the motion lights in his driveway had come on. When he looked out his front window, he saw a figure near his SUV and went outside.
As soon as he got outside his front door, King yelled at the individual who was crouched down by King’s vehicle. As soon as King yelled, the suspect stood and, without hesitation, fired a shot at Mr. King.
Luckily for King, as he yelled, he also stumbled. If it weren’t for that, however, John King’s injuries might have been much, much worse. In fact, he might have been killed.
Upon scrambling back into his house, King got to his cell phone and called 911. However, due to the pain in his knees and shoulder from falling, King was unaware that he had been shot in the arm.
At first, King thought that his assailant was merely trying to break into his vehicle. Little did he know, however, that the perpetrator was targeting him–because of his non-union company.
The night of the shooting, police recovered a shell casing from a small caliber handgun. In addition to the shell casing, police also found a Swiss Army knife that police say was likely going to be used to slice the tires on King’s SUV.
While neither the police, nor Mr. King can say which union was behind the attack, it is very clear by the word ‘scab’ scrawled on his SUV that it the attack was union-related.
“The police have been very thorough,” King says. “I cannot praise the Monroe County Sheriff’s department enough.”
The Monroe County Sheriff’s office is encouraging anyone with information to call 734-240-7530.
In addition, Mr. King is offering a $10,000 reward for information that will lead to the arrest and conviction of the suspect.
After winning the PGA Championship, Keegan Bradley allowed himself to think about The Presidents Cup.
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM
ATLANTA, Ga. — Keegan Bradley’s fearless performance at the Atlanta Athletic Club on Sunday has prompted the newly-crowned PGA champion to reassess his goals for the season in the space of about 24 hours.
Bradley has put himself in prime position to possibly win the FedExCup after jumping 20 spots to fourth in the standings with one week remaining in the regular season. Plus, with two victories, one of which is a major championship, he’s all-but sewn up the Rookie of the Year award — and suddenly becomes a candidate for an unprecedented sweep of Player of the Year honors with a strong performance in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup.
And what about The Presidents Cup? Bradley moved from 39th to 18th in the standings with four events remaining before the 10 automatic qualifiers are finalized and five before the U.S. Captain Fred Couples and International skipped Greg Norman make their two picks.
If he continues to play well in the Playoffs, Bradley could conceivably catapult into the top 10. And at the very least he’s in the conversation as a potential Captain’s Pick.
"Now I can almost think about playing my way onto that Presidents Cup team," the smiling Bradley said between bites of a steak at CNN Center on Monday.
The prospect left him almost speechless. "That would be, I mean, that’s … Forget it. I can’t even believe I’m saying that. I can’t believe that’s coming out of my mouth," the 25-year-old said in genuine amazement.
Bradley called Couples his "absolute No. 1 hero of all time" and the chance to be a member of his team for the matches at Royal Melbourne in November would cap what is already a phenomenal season. The two played together in Houston earlier this year, and after Bradley won his first PGA TOUR event at the HP Byron Nelson Championship, Couples was among those who paid his respects.
"When he congratulated me for winning, that was the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me in my golfing career, for sure, just because he’s my idol," Bradley said. "Just a lot of stuff that can happen now that were in my wildest dreams."
The chance to win the FedExCup was not even on Bradley’s radar screen at the start of the season, for example. Now the Vermont native and die-hard Boston Red Sox fan is a lock to play in all four Playoffs events.
"I think the PGA TOUR has done a great job and FedEx is a great sponsor," Bradley said. "The FedExCup playoffs are a huge part of our schedule and I’m looking forward to those tournaments as much as any. And I get to go into the Northeast, too, and play some tournaments, one in Boston which will be really fun. Every week on the PGA TOUR is amazing and I think these events will be as good as it gets."
JOHNS CREEK, Ga. -- It was late Saturday in the gloam and stifling heat enveloped Atlanta Athletic Club and Adam Scott had just come off the golf course after another fair but somewhat frustrating round.
"Yeah, you can make up six shots in the last four holes," Scott said with a wry smile.
But the Aussie wasn't referring to someone putting on the kind of charge that Charl Schwartzel did in the year's first major when he closed out his Masters win with four straight birdies. He was talking about someone going in the other direction.
In the case of Keegan Bradley, it was only four shots that he made up on his way to his first career major win in his first ever appearance in a major.
For 68 holes, the PGA Championship seemed to be stuck in the thick heat of the Atlanta summer. In the end, though, the final four holes played a pivotal role in determining the winner.
"They are tough holes," Jason Dufner said. "Everybody struggled on them."
Everybody except Dufner that is, until the final round anyway. He came into Sunday having played the last four at AAC in a collective 3 under. He left there having played them in 3 over with three straight bogeys on 15, 16 and 17.
Even Bradley didn't get through there unscathed. It looked like he'd blown his own chance when he chipped into the water and made triple bogey on the 15th hole.
"The course is so tough that no lead is safe," Bradley said. "And I kept trying to tell myself that because I knew that that was the case, especially if you got a big lead, you might get a little tight coming down the end."
That's exactly what happened to Dufner and so many others' whose scorecards were wrecked by AAC's final four.
So there you have it. The year's first major was all about who could make a Sunday charge while the last was decided by who could avoid a Sunday slide, and both were equally memorable for different reasons
A federal appeals court panel on Friday struck down the requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul package that virtually all Americans must carry health insurance or face penalties.
The divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the so-called individual mandate, siding with 26 states that had sued to block the law. But the panel didn't go as far as a lower court that had invalidated the entire overhaul as unconstitutional.
The states and other critics argued the law violates people's rights, while the Justice Department countered that the legislative branch was exercising a "quintessential" power.
The decision, penned by Chief Judge Joel Dubina and Circuit Judge Frank Hull, found that "the individual mandate contained in the Act exceeds Congress's enumerated commerce power."
"What Congress cannot do under the Commerce Clause is mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die," the opinion said.
Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus disagreed in a dissent.
The 11th Circuit isn't the first appeals court to weigh in on the issue. The federal appeals court in Cincinnati upheld the government's new requirement that most Americans buy health insurance, and an appeals court in Richmond has heard similar legal constitutional challenges to the law.
But the Atlanta-based court is considered by many observers to be the most pivotal legal battleground yet because it reviewed a sweeping ruling by a Florida judge.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson's ruling not only struck down a requirement that nearly all Americans carry health insurance, but he also threw out other provisions ranging from Medicare discounts for some seniors to a change that allows adult children up to age 26 to remain on their parents' coverage.
The states urged the 11th Circuit to uphold Vinson's ruling, saying in a court filing that letting the law stand would set a troubling precedent that "would imperil individual liberty, render Congress's other enumerated powers superfluous, and allow Congress to usurp the general police power reserved to the states."
The Justice Department countered that Congress had the power to require most people to buy health insurance or face tax penalties because Congress has the authority to regulate interstate business. It said the legislative branch was exercising its "quintessential" rights when it adopted the new law.
During oral arguments in June, the three-judge panel repeatedly raised questions about the overhaul and expressed unease with the insurance requirement. Each of the three worried aloud if upholding the landmark law could open the door to Congress adopting other sweeping economic mandates.
The arguments unfolded in what's considered one of the nation's most conservative appeals courts. But the randomly selected panel represents different judicial perspectives. None of the three is considered either a stalwart conservative or an unfaltering liberal.
Dubina, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, is not considered to be as reflexively conservative as some of his colleagues. But he's been under particular scrutiny because of his daughter's outspoken opposition to the health care overhaul. U.S. Rep. Martha Dubina Roby, a Montgomery, Ala., Republican elected in November, voted to repeal the health care law.
Marcus and Hull were both tapped by President Bill Clinton to join the court. But Marcus was also previously appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan to serve on the Florida bench after several years as Miami's lead federal prosecutor. And Hull, a former county judge in Atlanta, is known for subjecting both sides of the counsel table to challenging questions.
The only way President Barack Obama can solve the nation’s economic woes is to adopt “common-sense” Reaganomics, the policy’s architect Arthur Laffer claims in an exclusive Newsmax interview.
Laffer said the White House called him in the spring and asked him to speak to Obama’s former Council of Economic Advisors’ chairman Austen Goolsbee – and he had told him exactly the same thing.
“Reaganomics would fix any economy that’s in the doldrums,” Laffer said. “It’s not a magic sauce, it’s common sense.
“You’ve got to get rid of all federal taxes in the extreme and replace them with a low-rate flat tax on business net sales, and on personal unadjusted gross income. That’s number one.
“Number two, you have to have spending restraint. Government spending causes unemployment, it does not cure unemployment.
“Number three, you need sound money. Ben Bernanke is running the least sound monetary policy I’ve ever heard of," Laffer said.
“Number four you need regulations, but you don’t need those regulations to go beyond the purpose at hand and create collateral damage. The regulatory policies are really way off here.
“And lastly you need free trade," Laffer said. "Foreigners produce some things better than we do and we produce some things better than foreigners. It would be foolish in the extreme if we didn’t sell them those things we produce better than they do in exchange for those things they produce better than we do.”
In the interview the veteran economist said Standard & Poor’s was quite right in downgrading the U.S. credit rating – in fact it should have done so far earlier.
The agency had no choice and if the other agencies, Moody’s and Fitch, don’t do the same they won’t be doing their jobs, said Laffer, who gave his name to the Laffer Curve which demonstrates that the maximum amount of government revenue does not come at the point of maximum taxes.
“If you had a company that had revenues of $2½ million and expenses of $4 million, with no change in sight, $1½ million in losses each year as far as the eye can see and it had already borrowed $10 million, what would you rate that company? I surely wouldn’t rate it AAA.
“That is the U.S. situation today," Laffer said. "Taxes are about $2½ trillion, government spending is about $4 trillion and we have about $10 trillion in net national debt. I don’t see that as being a AAA country.
“If the S&P and the others were doing their jobs correctly, they should have downgraded a long time ago.”
Laffer said he has no doubt the country will win its top rating back, but only when economic policies are completely turned around. He said President Barack Obama’s administration’s only economic plan seemed to be to expand government ownership of the means of production.
“They have nationalized the health care industry pretty extensively. They’ve done that with home building as well. They’ve tried it with the auto industry as well. So they have moved very, very deliberatively and purposefully toward extending the government ownership of the means of production.
“That to me, if you read the tealeaves, is what they are doing. It is not what they are saying they are doing, but that is what they actually are doing.
“People don’t work to pay taxes, people work to get what they can after taxes. It’s that very private incentive that motivates them to work. If you pay people not to work and tax them if they do work, don’t be surprised if you find a lot of people not working.”
Laffer said the current economic woes started to form under President George W. Bush but have been made worse by Obama’s policies.
“There’s a wedge driven between wages paid and wages received and that wedge is the tax/government spending wedge,” he said.
“That wedge has grown dramatically in the last 4 ½ years…under W and a Republican administration and…under Obama. Bipartisan ignorance has led us to this very disastrously desolate state.”
Laffer had high praise for the role the tea party has played in bringing the problem of the deficits to the fore.
“The tea party is not the problem, the tea party may well be the solution,” he said. “They are critical to the future of the country in a positive way. They are the only fiscally sound people I know out there all the time.
“I don’t know that I would go as far as they go on a lot of issues but I surely respect their movement very much.”
And he said any one of the group of Republicans vying for the party’s nomination for the White House would make “ a great president.”
“Tim Pawlenty is spectacular. Newt Gingrich knows more about issues than anyone you’ve ever seen. Michele Bachmann is out-of-sight wonderful,” he said.
“Rick Perry is second to no one in this stuff. If you look at Herman Cain, he’s phenomenal.
“Oh and (Jon) Huntsman was a great governor of the state of Utah and is a phenomenally experienced intellectual competent man.
“When you look at the Republican candidates, you see a group of people who are absolutely outstanding in attributes.”
Thursday, at an Aspen Institute media forum, former Vice President Al Gore gave a heated speech against corporations paying “pseudo-scientists” to muddy the waters in the climate change debate.
Former Vice President Al Gore spoke at an Aspen Institute media forum on Thursday, discussing a subject with which he has become synonymous: global warming.
According to Real Aspen, Gore referenced the book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, which discusses how corporate lobbyists have influenced the climate change debate.
Gore reportedly said tobacco companies “succeeded in delaying the implementation of the surgeon general’s report for 40 years — 40 years! In every one of those 40 years the average number of Americans killed by cigarettes each year exceeded the total number of Americans killed in all of World War II: 450,000 per year. My sister was one of them… It was evil, evil, evil.”
Gore then said that a similar lobbying model “was transported whole cloth into the climate debate. And some of the exact same people — I can go down a list of their names — are involved in this. And so what do they do? They pay pseudo scientists to pretend to be scientists to put out the message: ‘This climate thing, it’s nonsense. Man-made CO2 doesn’t trap heat. It may be volcanoes.’ Bulls–t! ‘It may be sun spots.’ Bulls–t! ‘It’s not getting warmer.’ Bulls–t!”
According to the blog, then “Gore lamented the diminished role that reason and fact-based analysis play in modern U.S. politics.”
There really isn’t anything exciting about batting practice, unless it includes four perfectly placed trampolines and an incredibly accurate hitter. If the sound of that doesn’t excite you, it probably means you haven’t watched anything close to what you are about to see in the video below.
I couldn’t tell you if this clip is real or not, but one thing I can tell you is that after watching it you may never think about batting practice the same way again.
(New York, NY August 9th 2011) GBTV, Glenn Beck’s live streaming video network announced today that former CNN contributor and independent conservative Amy Holmes will be The News Anchor For The Blaze, joining a previously announced line-up for Glenn’s show including S.E. Cupp, Brian Sack and Raj Nair.
In her new role with the network, Holmes will anchor news and information segments during Glenn Beck’s two-hour program from 5p to 7p on GBTV, as well as, news and information updates throughout the day. The Blaze will provide branded content for GBTV. The Blaze recently announced that July was TheBlaze.com ’s best traffic month ever with 54 million page views and over 4 million unique visitors.
Holmes previously was a contributor to CNN and co-host of Talk Radio Network’s nationally syndicated “America’s Radio News.” Holmes covered the 2006 and 2008 political seasons for CNN appearing on AC360, Larry King Live, Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room and CNN’s Election Center primary and election night coverage. Throughout her career, she has interviewed a diverse range of news makers including senators, 2012 presidential candidates, celebrities, authors, and journalists — from Donald Rumsfeld to John Legend to Christopher Hitchens to Michelle Bachmann. She has also guest-hosted ABC’s The View, News Now and WNYC’s The Takeaway with John Hockenberry and has appeared on CBS Early Morning Show and Evening News, NBC Dateline and Nightly News and provided commentary for “E!” channel specials. Holmes, who was named to People Magazine’s 50 most beautiful people list, has written for The Washington Post, National Review and USA Today.
Joel Cheatwood, President of President of Programming for GBTV said: “Amy is the perfect addition to the growing line-up of talent at GBTV. She combines an award-winning experienced pedigree with a fresh and unique approach to the news. We are excited about Amy becoming a key part of Glenn’s new two hour show.”
Amy said: “Being a part of the launch of a major new venture is thrilling — especially one powered by the tremendous energy, creativity, and positive entrepreneurial spirit of Glenn Beck. The Blaze has assembled an impressive team of experienced editors and journalists who I look forward to working alongside to deliver thoughtful and compelling news coverage everyday on GBTV.”
Conservatives reacted with anger on Monday after Newsweek featured a “wild-eyed” picture of tea party favorite Michele Bachmann on its cover, over the line “The Queen of Rage.”
The news weekly “barely struggles against its bias towards conservative women to view them with anything other than contempt,” wrote Dana Loesch, editor in chief of Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism.
The main criticism was aimed at editor in chief Tina Brown, who took over the helm at the financially strapped magazine in November.
Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin attacked Brown’s picture choice for the Republican Minnesota congresswoman and presidential candidate. “You’ve resorted to recycling bottom-of-the-barrel moonbat photo cliches about conservative female public figures and their enraged ‘crazy eyes?’ Really?”
Jonathan Capehart wrote on the Washington Post Web page, “There’s no denying that Bachmann firmly believes what she believes. Some might think she’s crazy because of it. Cover photos like this one help to cement that image.”
Bloggers leapt in to criticize the magazine. Jedediah Bila called Newsweek “an absolute joke,” while Ed Morrissey said of the Queen of Rage line “Yeah, that’s keeping it classy.”
Freedom’s Lighthouse blog asked, “Can anyone really say with a straight face that the Mainstream Media is not totally biased against conservatives?”
Even the left was outraged. “I hate it when Michele Bachmann makes me defend her,” wrote Slate’s Jessica Grose. “The Newsweek cover was unnecessarily unflattering. I doubt Newsweek would portray a male candidate with such a lunatic expression on his face.”
And showbiz blog The Frisky added, “I’m sure Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Tea Party candidate who is running for president, was thrilled when she heard she’d be on the cover of Newsweek. I am also sure her campaign is freaking out right now over this picture.
“Could the magazine have possibly found a photo that makes her look more nuts?”
WASHINGTON — Standard & Poor's Managing Director John Chambers said Sunday there is a 1-in-3 chance of a further U.S. credit rating downgrade over the next six months to two years.
"We have a negative outlook . . . from six months to 24 months," he said on ABC's "This Week."
"And if the fiscal position of the United States deteriorates further or if the political gridlock becomes more entrenched, then that could lead to a downgrade. The outlook indicates at least a one in three chance of a downgrade over that period."
Chambers said that it would take some time for the United States to recover its AAA rating.
"It would take a stabilization of the debt as a share of the economy and eventual decline. And it would take, I think, more ability to reach consensus in Washington than what we're observing now," he said.
Meanwhile, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said he expects the stock market slide to continue in the wake of a decision by S&P to downgrade the U.S. credit rating.
Appearing Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Greenspan said markets will take time to bottom out and that he expects a negative reaction on Monday to the S&P action.
But Greenspan also said he doesn't see any risk in investing in the United States and says that S&P's downgrade won't change that.
The former Fed chairman said the downgrade "hit a nerve" and is damaging to the psyche of the country. But he said he can't foresee a scenario in which the U.S. will default on its debts
If you haven’t yet heard, President Barack Obama turned 50 on Thursday. The commander-in-chief celebrated the milestone in style, heading to Chicago for two events in his honor.
While he was out relishing in the glories of presidential birthday bliss (not to mention doing some fundraising), late-night comedians were crafting well wishes — and delivering some clever birthday bashes. Here are some of the highlights:
Jay Leno: “Just a year ago, he was in his 40s and his approval rating was in the 50s. Now it’s the other way around.”
David Letterman: “He got some lovely presents…China gave him an extension on his rent…”
Colbert: “Instead of going to a birthday party, he should have been working on the economy. Now, the recession is going to last four hours longer.”
Below, see an epic montage of late-show personalities addressing the president’s birthday:
Earlier today, The Blaze reported on the odd story about a Fredericksburg, VA mom who received a $535 ticket from the State Police after her 11-year-old daughter Skylar, rescued a lost baby woodpecker from the family cat.
The story garnered considerable attention and it is possible that the media spotlight may have helped bring some sanity to the situation. MSNBC.com is reporting that the legal problems facing the Capo family over the bird rescue have evaporated.
“The citation is null and void,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Bill Butcher told msnbc.com on Tuesday. “We’ve rescinded it.”
“They [the agent and state trooper] had gone to inquire about the health of the woodpecker,” Butcher said. “At that point, they determined that no further action was necessary.”
Despite this, Butcher said, the citation was processed unintentionally. He added that the agency has apologized to Capo and will send her a formal letter explaining the clerical error.
Today’s shining example of “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished” comes from Fredericksburg, VA, where a young girl prevented the family cat from pouncing on a lost baby woodpecker and her mom ended up with a $535 ticket (and faces the possibility of jail time) for violating the Federal Migratory Bird Act.
Despite the fact that 11-year-old Skylar Capo actually saved the tiny lost woodpecker from a violent death, and then successfully released the bird back into the wild, a Virginia State Trooper was still dispatched to the Capo home where Skylar’s mom was slapped with the $535 ticket.
Why? It all has to do with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. 9News has the story:
“If you had a company that had revenues of $2½ million and expenses of $4 million, with no change in sight, $1½ million in losses each year as far as the eye can see and it had already borrowed $10 million, what would you rate that company? I surely wouldn’t rate it AAA.
The main criticism was aimed at editor in chief Tina Brown, who took over the helm at the financially strapped magazine in November.