Morning Bell: Don’t Give In To North Korea Demands

from The Foundry: Conservative Policy News. by Conn Carroll


Morning Bell: Don’t Give In To North Korea Demands: "At 2:43 PM local time today, North Korea fired artillery rockets at the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong setting dozens of residential homes ablaze, wounding three civilians and fifteen soldiers, and killing two South Korean Marines. South Korea responded with artillery fire of their own but while they placed fighter planes on alert none took [...]"

Group of 10 Islamists detained in Europe

from Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday ...


Group of 10 Islamists detained in Europe: "Ten alleged Islamists have been detained in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany suspected of plotting an attack in Belgium, according to the prosecutor's office."

Castro Calls Obama the 'Best Snake Charmer' Who Has Ever Existed

from JammieWearingFool by JammieWearingFool


Castro Calls Obama the 'Best Snake Charmer' Who Has Ever Existed: "Is he really the best? Considering his anemic approval ratings I have to believe even snakes are down on Obama.NATO is a "military mafia," the war in Afghanistan is "genocidal" and US President Barack Obama deserves the prize for the "best snake charmer" who ever lived, Cuba's Fidel Castro said Monday.In an article published in response to the Western alliance's weekend summit in Portugal, the"

Airport "Security"? for 11/23/2010

Thomas Sowell from Creators Syndicate »


Airport "Security"? for 11/23/2010: "

No country has better airport security than Israel— and no country needs it more, since Israel is the most hated target of Islamic extremist terrorists. Yet, somehow, Israeli airport security people don't have to strip passengers naked electronically or have strangers feeling their private parts.

Does anyone seriously believe that we have better airport security than Israel? Is our ...

Updated: Tue Nov 23, 2010

"

It’s Official – The FCC Will Vote to Take Over the Internet in December

from - Big Government by Seton Motley


It’s Official – The FCC Will Vote to Take Over the Internet in December: "

Just this past Friday, we warned you that a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) December Internet power grab was probably coming.

Well, we now know that it is – and it may be even worse than we thought.

Details have been sketchy, and successive reports often contradictory, but what follows is what seems to be looming over us in December. (We will know for sure on Wednesday, November 24 – if the FCC maintains its current December 15 meeting date.)

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski appears to be preparing to dramatically increase the FCC’s regulatory role over the Internet (in TWO ways; more on that later).

He is doing so without the necessary Congressional authority – which he himself acknowledges he doesn’t have. And he is doing so by torturing and twisting the regulatory language he is drafting – so as to keep this extraordinary dictatorial seizure within the current Title I confines.

The latter is for The Chairman merely an optical effort. If he can feign the appearance of remaining within Title I, he avoids Reclassification to Title II – against which many of us have long been rightly fighting. He will then portray his fealty to Title I as testament to the alleged “moderation” of his (un)modest proposal.

This will be a totally bogus assertion, but he will make it – and the media will inparrot-esque fashion repeat it. The Chairman should bring crackers to the press conference.

Free Press and the Media Marxists – who have long cried for Title II Reclassification – will on cue rail against The Chairman’s “sell-out.” This will further “bolster” his claim that he has found the magical, mystical Third Way – winding a path between the leftist Open Internet absolutists and the evil telecom companies.

The Chairman should also bring nuts to the press conference – in case Free Press & Co. show up.

(An aside: How are the telecom companies “evil” – when they have invested hundreds of dollars in building the Internet infrastructure? Which has resulted in the free speech, free market Web Xanadu we consumers all currently enjoy. Free Press and the Media Marxists haven’t invested a dime – yet they somehow successfully lay claim to the mantle of “consumer advocates.”)

Of course, this attempted sleight of regulatory hand does not get The Chairman past one glaring problem – the D.C. Circuit Court has already unanimously ruled that the FCC doesn’t have the authority to regulate the Internet under Title I – at least as far as enforcing Network Neutrality is concerned. (Which is why Free Press & Co. have been clamoring for Title II Reclassification.)

And Net Neutrality is why The Chairman has engaged in – and forced us all to endure- this one year-plus kabuki dance. Testimonium – The Chairman now looks poised to have the FCC again attempt to enforce Net Neutrality – under his now stretched-beyond-all-recognition Title I. What a short, selective memory he has.

And most economically destructive of all – it appears The Chairman will try to impose Net Neutrality not just on wired broadband Internet service – but on wireless “smart phones” as well.

This would be a titanic overreach by The Chairman – and an immense blow to the economy. The uncertainty caused just by The Chairman’s prolonged flirtation with the Media Marxists and their ridiculous Internet notions has already cost us billions of dollars in private sector Web investment.

The cost in investment dollars and jobs lost when Net Neutrality is actually imposed will be cataclysmic.

These aren’t the fake “saved or created” jobs of the alleged “stimulus” – these are very real jobs denied or destroyed by the ridiculous and ridiculously damaging Net Neutrality. Imposed by an FCC and its Chairman who know in advance that they do not have the authority to do so.

What will follow will be years of litigation forced upon us by The Chairman – to undo what he knew beforehand he didn’t have the authority to do.

What will follow will be years of diminished and diminishing Web capacity, caused by an absurd policy wrongfully jammed down our throats by a dictatorial, rogue Executive Branch Commission.

What will follow will be years of stagnant or declining job growth, as investment capital rightly flees a regulation-constricted Internet which is no longer amenable to free market success.

What will follow this essay may very well determine the free market, free speech future of the Internet – are you ready to place some calls and send some emails and faxes to protest this preposterous policy proposal and demand that it never be enacted?

Stay tuned – we will soon tell you how you can be a part of the preventative solution.

"

Close Tax Loopholes? Fine, but Use the Money to Lower Tax Rates

from - Big Government by Dan Mitchell


Close Tax Loopholes? Fine, but Use the Money to Lower Tax Rates: "

There’s been a lot of heated discussion about various preferences, deductions, credits, shelters, and other loopholes in the tax code. Some of this debate has revolved around whether it is legitimate to refer to these provisions as “tax expenditures” or “subsidies.”

My Cato colleague Michael Cannon vociferously argues that subsidies and expenditures only occur when the government takes money from person A and gives it to person B. On the other side of the debate are people like Josh Barro of the Manhattan Institute, who argues that tax preferences are akin to subsidies or expenditures since they can be just as damaging as government spending programs when looking at whether resources are efficiently allocated.

Since I’m a can’t-we-all-get-along, uniter-not-divider kind of person, allow me to suggest that this debate should be set aside. After all, we all agree that tax preferences can lead to inefficient outcomes. So let’s call them “tax distortions” and focus on the real issue, which is how best to eliminate them.

This is an important issue because both the Domenici-Rivlin Task Force and the Chairmen of the Simpson-Bowles Commission have unveiled plans that would reduce or eliminate many of these tax distortions and also lower marginal tax rates. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that their plans result in more revenue going to Washington. In other words, the tax increase resulting from fewer tax distortions is larger than the tax decrease resulting from lower tax rates. To put it bluntly, the plans would increase the overall tax burden.

Some argue that this is an acceptable price to pay. They point out, quite correctly, that lower tax rates will help the economy by improving incentives for productive behavior. And they also are right in arguing that fewer tax distortions will help the economy by improving efficiency. Seems like a win-win situation. What’s not to like?

The problem is on the spending side of the fiscal ledger. The Simpson-Bowles Commission and the Domenici-Rivlin Task Force were charged with figuring out how to reduce red ink. We already know from Congressional Budget Office data, however, that we can balance the budget fairly quickly by limiting the growth of government spending. As the chart illustrates, the deficit disappears by 2016-2017 with a hard freeze and goes away by 2019-2020 if spending increases by two percent each year (and this assumes all the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are made permanent).

If tax revenue is increased, that simply means that the budget gets balanced at a higher level of spending. And since government spending, at current levels and composition, hinders economic growth by diverting labor and capital to less productive (or unproductive) uses, any proposal that enables higher levels of government spending will further undermine economic performance.

It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyhow) that this analysis is overly optimistic since it assumes that politicians actually will balance the budget. In all likelihood, as explained in today’s Wall Street Journal, any tax increase would probably be followed by even more spending. So if politicians raise the tax burden, we might still have a deficit of $685 billion in 2020 (CBO’s most-recent estimate assuming all programs are left on auto-pilot), but the overall levels of both spending and taxes would be higher. This modified cartoon captures this real-world effect.

This is why revenue-neutral tax reform, like the flat tax, is the only pro-growth way of eliminating tax distortions.

"

Lema Bashir, Stealth Jihadist at Obama's DoJ, Sabotaged/Disenfranchised the Military Vote?

from Atlas Shrugs by Pamela Geller


Lema Bashir, Stealth Jihadist at Obama's DoJ, Sabotaged/Disenfranchised the Military Vote?: "

Increasingly the J in DoJ points more to jihad than to justice.

Lema Bashir was at the center of Virginia failing to mail military ballots in time in 2008. The same mistakes were repeated in 2010, and United States military voters were heavily disenfranchised because of in-actions by Bashir and DOJ throughout the year. Disenfranchising the military vote is policy. You could make a case that bad mistakes were made in 2008, but that when those same mistakes are made and made worse in 2010 by a devout Muslim who calls Israel "northern Palestine," I submit that it is no accident but deliberate policy.

Bashir is featured in this White House-produced video about all the muslims in the executive branch. Another hard-sell Obama production of those whose interests clearly diverge from proud Americans. Obama was promoting this on the White House website at the same time as his crippling submission speech to the ummah in Cairo (June '09). Notice in the video that she refers to Israel as “North Palestine." Her family comes from there and she is militantly opposed to Israel.

Of the many astounding things about this video, one is the fact that the White House allowed it to go out with the supercharged term “North Palestine.” Of course, another amazing thing is the question of what is this person doing with such a prominent role in “defending” the voting rights and strength of military voters??? Keep in mind that all through 2010, the Voting Section at DOJ had an IRAQ Navy Vet (Lt. Commander Sabatino Leo), and they refused to allow him to work on military voting cases. Holder was even asked about this omission by Senator Sessions in an oversight hearing. How does one explain the totally lackadaisical approach to military voting rights in 2010?

Previous to her seditious career at the Department of Justice, Lema Bashir was a legal adviser with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) in Washington, D.C. The ADC:

• Opposes U.S. aid to Israel


• Opposes ethnic profiling of Arab Americans


• Supports Palestinian "martyrdom" campaigns in Israel

ADC in 2004 contributed $1,000 to the congressional campaign of Cynthia McKinney (D – Georgia). Samer Khalaf (Chairman of the ADC Political Outreach Committee in New Jersey) and Hareth Raddawi (a Board member of ADC’s Chicago branch) made personal contributions to McKinney’s campaign as well.


ADC identifies five major objectives that govern its activities:

(a) “Empowering Arab Americans”: A key means of achieving this is voter registration in large numbers.

(b) “Promoting civic participation”

(c) “Supporting freedom and development in the Arab World”

(d) “Defending the civil rights of all people of Arab heritage in the United States”: After the beginning of the U.S. war on terror, a perceptible shift occurred in the orientation and activities of ADC. It suddenly became a strident voice protesting what it said were plans by the Bush administration to curtail the civil liberties of Arab Americans. It depicted all anti-terrorism efforts by the Justice and Treasury Departments as unfair persecution based on ethnic discrimination. And it endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act of 2004, which was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting civil liberties, vital national-security policies that had been adopted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

ADC was a co-plaintiff in the first major legal challenge to a section of the Patriot Act -- specifically Section 215, which allows for government access to such information as medical, educational, and library records pursuant to a terrorism investigation. The organization has also endorsed the Community Resolution to Protect Civil Liberties campaign, which tries to influence city councils to pass resolutions of noncompliance with the provisions of the Patriot Act.

ADC was a signatory to a March 17, 2003 letter exhorting members of the U.S. Congress to oppose Patriot Act II on grounds that it contained “a multitude of new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers … that would severely dilute, if not undermine, many basic constitutional rights.” Fellow signers included the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the American Library Association, the Arab American Institute, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Immigrant Defense Project of the New York State Defenders Association, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Council of La Raza, the National Immigration Law Center, the National Lawyers Guild, People for the American Way, and Women Against War.

he Georgia and San Francisco chapters of ADC were signatories to a February 20, 2002 document composed by the radical group Refuse & Resist, condemning military tribunals and the detention of immigrants apprehended in connection with post-9/11 terrorism investigations. The document accused the U.S. government of rounding up and incarcerating large numbers of Arab, Muslim and South Asian immigrants without cause.

(e) ADC's fifth major objective is “Encouraging a balanced U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East”: In effect, this means discouraging American support for Israel, which ADC views as an oppressor nation that routinely violates the human rights of Palestinians. In August 2006 ADC drew up, for its supporters to sign, a petition that read: “If the United States is to be taken seriously as a peace making nation, it cannot continue to provide the weapons being used by Israel to kill hundreds of innocent people in such brutal and inhumane ways.” In ADC's view, America has more than once been guilty of genocide against foreign populations -- sometimes directly through the use of its own military might, and in other cases indirectly, through Israel.

In 1994, then-ADC President Hamzi Moghrabi said, “I will not call [Hamas] a terrorist organization. I mean, I know many people in Hamas. They are very respectable … I don’t believe Hamas, as an organization, is a violent organization.” Two years later, his successor, Hala Maksoud, defended Hamas’ partner in Mideastern terrorism, Hezbollah. “I find it shocking,” Maksoud said, “that [one] would include Hezbollah in … [an] inventory of Middle East ‘terrorist’ groups.” In 2000, new ADC President Hussein Ibish characterized Hezbollah as “a disciplined and responsible liberation force.” James Abourezk called Hamas and Hezbollah “resistance fighters.”

ADC was a signatory to a MAY 20, 2004 Joint Muslims/Arab-American Statement on Israeli Violence in Gaza, which "strongly condemn[ed]" Israel's "indiscriminate killings of innocent Palestinians, including many children," and its "demolition of Palestinian homes." The organization has also expressed its view that Israel’s security barrier in the West Bank is an illegal "apartheid wall." As noted by Debbie Schlussel, when Israel released hundreds of Hezbollah prisoners in early 2004, Imad Hamad, ADC’s Midwest Regional Director, openly celebrated the freedom of "the Heroes." This sentiment was consistent with ADC's longstanding pattern of praising both Hezbollah and Hamas.

ADC formerly ran ads in its publication ADC Times for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which in 2001 President Bush shut down for funneling millions of dollars to Hamas.

ADC is composed of five major departments:

(a) The Legal Department is staffed by a team of full-time attorneys who provide advice and referrals “whenever Arab Americans face discrimination.” “Since the attacks of September 11,” ADC laments, “our … community is becoming increasingly vulnerable. The documentation of hate crimes or discrimination based on ethnicity, nationality or religion is important to our community as a collective.”

In an article back in September 2006:

Lema Bashir, a legal adviser with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) in Washington, D.C., said the group sees spikes in employment discrimination not only after events such as Sept. 11, but also when violence occurs in the Middle East, inflammatory stories appear in the media or even certain movies gain popularity.

[...]

In the years since the attacks, Bashir said, the types of complaints filed with the ADC have changed.

"The more common types of employment discrimination reported immediately after Sept. 11 were verbal and physical harassment, and termination because of race, religion or national origin," Bashir said.

Fast forward to Barack Hussein Obama's crusade to install devout Muslims in senior positions in his administration and all branches of government, and enter Lema Bashir.

Bashir is very active in subversive, anti-American efforts:

CHRGJ at NYU Law: Racial Profiling and Counter-Terrorism

Lema Bashir at launch of report Americans on Hold: Profiling, Citizenship, and the "War on Terror" -- yes, it's an America-bashing report by the usual suspects, including CAIR.

Disgrace: DOJ Fails to Protect Military Voting Rights PJM

In 2008, some 17,000 servicemen and servicewomen mailed home completed ballots that were never counted. The DOJ barely lifted a finger to prevent or prosecute this travesty. What will happen in 2010?

In the 2008 presidential election, 17,000 soldiers, sailors, and Marines mailed home completed ballots that were never counted.

Usually these ballots didn’t get home in time, mostly because they weren’t sent overseas early enough. One cause of this catastrophe is the Keystone Cops routine the Department of Justice Voting Section uses to enforce federal laws protecting the rights of military voters. Unfortunately, all signs point to a comic sequel in the upcoming November elections.

Congress tried to fix the problem last year by mandating that all ballots must be sent overseas at least 45 days before the election. But Military Voter Protection Project Director M. Eric Eversole has accused Justice Department officials of encouraging states to seek an exemption to the law. The law indeed grants states the right to ask the Pentagon to opt out of the law. Even worse, Eversole says the Department is telegraphing to states that it doesn’t want to pursue litigation to enforce the law.

Some voting rights are more important than others, it seems. Where have we heard this before?

Exemptions to the 45-day mailing mandate were supposed to be rare, and granted only for the most extreme emergencies. States had plenty of time to amend their laws to comply with the new 45-day window. Many states did nothing. Instead of aggressively enforcing the new protections, Justice has told states that the waiver provisions are ambiguous and encouraged waivers in numerous ways.

Senator John Cornyn, upon learning of the DOJ’s wobbly view of the new law, made it clear to the Pentagon in a recent meeting with Undersecretary Clifford Stanley that the Pentagon — which has the power to grant waivers — calls the shots. Cornyn’s message was the Pentagon should ignore any milquetoast attitudes emanating out of the Voting Section at Justice. Expect Senator Cornyn’s office to watch this issue like a hawk, which thankfully he is when it comes to military voting.

But Senator Cornyn has more reasons to worry than he knows. The investigative methods used by Justice in military voting matters are wholly inadequate. And even when the bureaucracy stumbles across violations, the Voting Section is timorous, and reluctant to aggressively litigate disenfranchisement of military voting rights.

One need only look at 2008 for proof. That year the Justice Department set up no telephone hotline for military voters to complain if they didn’t receive their ballot in time. No email address for the armed services was in use either. No outreach via military email, such as the daily “Early Bird,” took place. In fact, on the DOJ webpage devoted to military voting, all complaints are referred to the Pentagon. Naturally, after being detoured to the Pentagon, the aggrieved solider will learn the Pentagon has no enforcement power at all! Justice does.

[....]

A document filed in the military voting case of McCain v. Cunningham makes plain the disinterested enforcement system at DOJ for military voters. In 2008, the McCain campaign learned that the Commonwealth of Virginia was sending ballots out far too late for them to ever be successfully returned before the election. The campaign responded by immediately commencing a lawsuit.

Think about that: the very day before a historic election, a presidential campaign — with the distracting whirlwind of activity and bustle — was able to do what the bureaucrats at DOJ are paid to do, and didn’t: figure out Virginia was breaking federal law and file a lawsuit.

An affidavit of Voting Section attorney Lema Bashir in the case tells you all you need to know about how ineffective the DOJ investigative methods are during election season. It can be read here.

[...]

“On September 30, 2008,” Bashir notes, “I spoke with Vickie Williams” at the Virginia State Board of Elections. Williams was in charge of monitoring the mailing of military ballots. You’ll note this conversation occurred only 35 days before the election.

Until Congress stepped in last year, the statute set no mailing deadline, and DOJ was only requiring ballots to be mailed 30 days in advance. The Military Postal Service Agency had recommended 60 days, but bureaucrats inside DOJ were stuck in their ways and refused to budge from the 30-day tradition despite calls from all quarters to do so. In a rebuke to the bureaucrats, the new law now requires 45 days.

And what was the extent of the DOJ’s efforts to figure out if the thousands of Virginians serving overseas had their ballots mailed in time? On September 30, “Ms. Williams assured me that all of Virginia’s localities had sent absentee ballots to all UOCAVA voters who had requested an absentee ballot up until that date. She told me that she would send a follow-up email to [the Pentagon] with the specific dates when each locality had mailed such ballots,” the affidavit states.

Ms. Williams assured that all was well. Except it wasn’t. Actually, many ballots in Virginia were mailed overseas just a couple of weeks before the election. There was no chance they would ever be returned in time to be counted.

On Halloween 2008, the DOJ learned they had gotten a trick courtesy of the Virginia State Board of Elections when Ms. Williams called back with some bad news. She told the DOJ that her system never really could “provide the information requested” such as “the specific dates when each locality in Virginia had mailed such ballots.” Nobody actually knew what was going on — not Virginia, and obviously not the Justice Department either. The election was just four days away and the witches brew of electoral catastrophe was boiling.

One wonders what was happening from September 30 until October 31. Will the DOJ use this same broken system again in 2010? I’d suggest the DOJ look outside the bureaucracy, to the private sector, where experts on systems management exist that can fix this mess and prevent it from happening again. Turning inward to the bureaucracy for answers is likely to yield the same sorry results. But I’ll bet virtually nothing changes because a bureaucrat’s first instinct is to deny that a problem exists.

On November 3, the day before the election, the McCain campaign — unable to convince the DOJ it needed to act, and fast — filed a lawsuit to protect military voters. And not until November 14, 2008, did the DOJ do what it should have done weeks before — file papers in court to protect Virginia voters serving overseas in the military. Eventually the United States took the place of the McCain campaign and litigated the case.

Remember, this same mess played out all over the country, but the whip-smart investigative methods of the DOJ never could detect it. Seventeen thousand trashed military ballots prove it.

Amazingly, the Virginia State Board of Elections (SBE) is continuing to advocate positions in the ongoing (yes, ongoing) litigation which are hostile to military voting rights. Those responsible for these disgraceful positions should be removed, or Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli should be allowed to assume management of the defense. Cuccinelli does not suffer fools gladly, particularly ones seeking to make it harder for soldiers and sailors to vote. No doubt he would settle the case immediately and agree to protect our servicemembers fully.

But the single Bashir affidavit, filed in the single military voting case arising out of the 2008 election where 17,000 military votes were trashed, tells you everything you need to know.

While our soldiers patrol dangerous frontiers in Korea and south Asia, looking hard for any signs of danger, the DOJ has a very different approach when it comes to detecting compliance by states with federal law. Airmen glued to radar screens and sailors listening hard to the sounds from towed sonar arrays have a right to expect better from bureaucrats in Washington. They put their lives on the line for us. The DOJ should do more than take the word of Vickie Williams at the Virginia SBE that all is well, all is quiet, no problems to report. And the DOJ should respond with overwhelming force when signs appear that states aren’t ready to comply with the new federal 45-day mailing mandate. Requests for waivers from the 45-day mandate should be denied. In fact, requests for waivers should trigger a DOJ investigation.

We owe these heroes no less.

Read the rest here.

McCain Motion to Intervene 11-14-08 ExA

The three ranking members of the House of Representatives with oversight over military voting issues and the Justice Department sent a devastating letter to Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez. The curtain has been pulled back, and the DOJ spin that they are doing everything they can to protect military voters has become a laugh line.

Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith, Armed Service Committee Ranking Member Buck McKeon, and Elections Subcommittee Ranking Member Kevin McCarthy all joined forces to describe the clownish DOJ enforcement tactics in the letter. The problem for Eric Holder is that in just a few weeks, these three will probably shed the title “ranking member” and replace it with “chairman.”

Military ballots were required to be sent by September 18 under federal law. Some states, such as New York, received an extension to October 1. Despite these hard deadlines, nearly a third of states have failed to comply with the law. Military ballots have not been sent and in some cases this means our soldiers overseas are going to lose their right to vote. The public is beginning to see why.

“Public records” and media reports, like the many here at PJM, have “painted a picture of widespread noncompliance with federal law aided and abetted by an enforcement authority that is entirely ineffective,” the congressmen say. Strong stuff, that “aided and abetted” comparison, for it is a term mostly used to describe a criminal enterprise.

The laughs keep coming in the letter: “What we find most troubling about this situation” is that the DOJ “not only failed to ensure compliance but apparently” — get ready for it — “was not even aware when widespread noncompliance occurred.” Perhaps DOJ lawyers should bookmark PJM, because we were reporting on noncompliance days before they made their first calls into places like Illinois and Arkansas!

Here’s the best part: “The only way Members of Congress, the public” and the voters learned that ballots required to be mailed by September 18 hadn’t mailed is because “private organizations took it upon themselves to inquire” — emphasis added on inquire. What the congressmen are pointing out is that the DOJ never picked up the phone. It was the Military Voter Protection Project — an organization run by Lt. Commander (Res.) Eric Eversole that organizes teams of volunteer law students to do the DOJ’s job for them. These volunteers protected our soldiers for free, while bureaucrats in Washington making more than $140,000 a year dropped the ball. Eversole knows firsthand the ineptitude of the DOJ military voting rights management — he worked at the Voting Section and saw it firsthand.

So how did private citizens learn about violations of federal law in places like New Mexico, New York, Arkansas, and Illinois before the DOJ did? That’s where the story shifts from comic to tragic.

Simply, DOJ lawyers trusted informal emails from state election officials without firsthand knowledge that ballots had mailed. The emails came days after the deadline and didn’t even certify that the ballots mailed by the deadline. They only certified they had mailed.

Certified may be too strong a word. The three ranking members note they were “vague and misleading assertions of compliance.” For example, New York’s email message that “purportedly” certifies that all ballots were mailed by the deadline says only the ballots were “transmitted.” “That ‘certification’ includes no assurance that the reports it refers to are true, and does not even purport to state that the ballots were mailed by the October 1 deadline rather than the October 5 date of the email.”

The response of the DOJ lawyer to this motley “certification”?

“Thanks very much for the update,” he wrote back.

Read the rest here.

Fast forward to October 2010:

Congress Catches On to DOJ’s Keystone Kops Show

The curtain has been pulled back, and the Department of Justice spin that they are doing everything they can to protect military voters has become a laugh line.

"

Confirmed: TSA Says It Can Fine Americans $11,000 Who Back Out of Abusive Pat-Downs

from Gateway Pundit by Jim Hoft


Confirmed: TSA Says It Can Fine Americans $11,000 Who Back Out of Abusive Pat-Downs: "

The TSA threatened today that it can fine travelers who back out of the abusive pat-downs.

ABC reported:

The day before Thanksgiving will be the pre-holiday ritual of long lines, frustration — and National Opt-Out Day, a movement calling on alrline passengers to forego the controversial new body scanning machines in favor of manual security pat-downs.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says it can fine individuals up to $11,000 for walking away from the airport security process. But will it? People in government say the fine is mostly a deterrent so that terrorists cannot back out of a security check once it starts.

The TSA said it has yet to fine a traveler for not completing the screening process, though it has levied civil penalties against passengers who have brought dangerous items to the security checkpoint.

"

NBC Names Ground Zero Mosque Developer a "Person of the Year"

from Pundit Press by Aurelius


NBC Names Ground Zero Mosque Developer a "Person of the Year": "

NBC and its affiliates have been trounced in ratings over the last several years. With stations like MSNBC under their belt and liberals such as Matt Lauer and Keith Olbermann hosting programs, NBC is clearly disconnected with the average American. Another clear sign of their mismanagement: naming Sharif El-Gamal, developer of the Ground Zero Mosque, one of their "People of the Year."



In an interview set to air on Thanksgiving Day, Matt Lauer sat down with El-Gamal and discussed the "Park 51 Project." El-Gamal, who was apparently pleased to be named one of NBC's people of the year, seemed very comfortable answering questions. The excerpt released so far shows that Mr. Lauer gave El-Gamal a decidedly softball interview. Here is a partial transcript of El-Gamal's opening statements:

"There's going to be a facility here that's going to provide aquatics, uh, uh, uh, a gym, just like a Jewish community center or, or a YMCA. It's going to provide, uh, much needed facilities to the residents of Lower Manhattan."

Lauer responds that there is "one major exception" to El-Gamal's statement, describing the 9/11 terrorist attacks. However, El-Gamal's quickly responded:

"Not once have I held my faith accountable for the horrific events of 9/11. I am an American. I am an American who has a specific belief system, and my belief system, in order to be a Muslim you have to be a good Jew and a good Christian."

After the interview, 'Park51,' a Twitter page set up in support of the Ground Zero Mosque, believed the interview went well and asked people to watch the entire interview on Thursday:

The controversy surrounding the Mosque has been drawn out and at times heated, but here is a quick summary of the events so far. As we all know, the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001 by Islamic extremists who flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, while another hi-jacked plane crashed after passengers fought back. Nine years later, the Freedom Tower, which will replace the Twin Towers, is slowly being built.



Two blocks away from what is known as Ground Zero, there are now plans to build an Islamic Mosque and community center. Controversy has thus ensued. The vast majority of Americans (over 65%) believe that the Mosque should not be built so close to where over 2,500 Americans were murdered in the name of Islam. Those in favor of the Mosque argue that the Constitution protects freedom of religion, and thus protects the construction of what they call the Park 51 Project.





Please bookmark!

"

Chavez Responds: Invites Obama to ‘Eat Socialist Arepas’ With Him

from The Blaze - Stories by Scott Baker


Chavez Responds: Invites Obama to ‘Eat Socialist Arepas’ With Him: "

A few days ago we tried to sort through President Obama’s bizarre “joke” about diverting Air Force One to go visit Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

We should you some of the tweets from bewildered reporters:

Well now Hugo Chavez is responding. In Spanish of course:

Translation comes via the Daily Caller:

“Well, Obama, if you said that,” Chávez remarked, “we’ll receive you here. I’d shake your hand again.”

The Venezuelan leader, who has abolished term limits and shut down independent media outlets, praised Obama for his charisma and invited the American leader to come to Venezuela.

“I hope you’d land in Maiquetía [Venezuela’s main airport] one day,” Chávez remarked on live television. “We would embrace you, you know.”

Chávez went on, jovially stating that, were Obama to pay him a visit, both leaders would “sit down to talk, to eat socialist arepas,” a corn-based pancake popular in the country.

"