Friday, August 28, 2009
Does Pro-Life Mean Anti-Death Penalty?
This is a killer taking an innocent life and going to death row for it:
This is a doctor taking an innocent life (which screams from pain, but because it is in the womb you cannot hear the screams through the amniotic fluid -- ultra-sound abortion -- CAUTION.
Taxes for Dummies
Oops! Charlie Forgot This $1m House - Realty Bites Tax-Them-Not-Me Rangel
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Charles Rangel failed to report as much as $1.3 million in outside income -- including up to $1 million for a Harlem building sale -- on financial-disclosure forms he filed between 2002 and 2006, according to newly amended records.
The documents also show the embattled chairman of the Ways and Means Committee -- who is being probed by the House Ethics Committee -- failed to reveal a staggering $3 million in various business transactions over the same period.....
The Absent-Minded Chairman - Charlie Rangel wins the personal lottery.
Earlier this month the Chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee "amended" his 2007 financial disclosure form—to the tune of more than a half-million dollars in previously unreported assets and income. That number may be as high as $780,000, because Congress's ethics rules only require the Members to report their finances within broad ranges. This voyage of personal financial discovery brings Mr. Rangel's net worth for 2007 to somewhere between $1.028 million and $2.495 million, while his previous statement came in at $516,015 and $1.316 million.
When you're a powerful Congressman and working diligently to increase tax rates to pay for President Obama's health-care plan, we suppose it's easy to lose track of one of your checking accounts. That would be the one at the federal credit union with a balance somewhere between $250,001 and maybe as high as $500,000. And when you're crunched for time and pulling together bills to pass in a rush, we guess, too, that you might overlook several other investment accounts, even if some of them are sizable, such as the ones Mr. Rangel missed at JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Oppenheimer and BlackRock....
Among other issues, Mr. Rangel is currently under investigation regarding his use of four rent-stabilized apartments at New York City's tony Lenox Terrace and soliciting donations with his official letterhead for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York, which was itself built with a $1.9 million earmark. Yet another part of the probe is his failure to report $75,000 in income from a rental villa at the beachfront Punta Cana Yacht Club, in the Dominican Republic.
Mr. Rangel blamed that last one on the language barrier because he doesn't speak Spanish. We can only imagine what language he speaks with his accountants and tax attorneys.
Where is All the Outrage I Read from the Left During Bush?
Eric Holder and the Obama Department of Justice are quickly losing credibility with the American public. In the not so distant past the Democrats railed against the Bush administration for politicizing the Justice Department. The Democrats ran Alberto Gonzalez out of town. Democrats hammered away at Bush and Rove for firing prosecutors. Now we see that Holder and Obama are one sided in their view of justice and politicizing the Department is becoming the norm.
Holder has dropped prosecutions against Obama supporters and investigate alleged improprieties by the Bush administration. Last week Holder announced that he will have a special investigator for the alleged abuses of terrorist detainees. This week Holder dropped charges of “Pay to Play” schemes by Bill Richardson. Under Holder the justice department has dropped cases against “black panther” thugs for intimidating voters; yet demands investigations for CIA employees doing their jobs. Obama fired Inspector Generals for investigating and being critical of Obama donors, yet the same Obama derided Bush and Rove for firing prosecutors who were not investigated cases of Democratic voter fraud. Justice in other words is only half blind.
Justice only turns a blind eye when it is Democrats that abuse the laws and commits crimes. However, Holder and Obama Justice never turns a blind eye when it is a Republican that is accused of misdeeds. The latest news from the justice department shows the sad state of affairs that has become our justice system. Both parties have abused the system of justice and are guilty of politicizing justice. This my friends is not change but rather more of the same. Same politicians, same corrupt cronies, same crimes, the only thing different is the political party.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Dem vs Dem
Dem HQ Vandal is a former Dem State Rep. candidate campaign workerYesterday, a hammer was used to smash 11 windows at the downtown Denver Dem HQ, including the front window with a large pro-health care nationalization poster of Obama. Police immediately arrested one of two suspects fleeing the scene on bicycle.
Initially, local Democrat Party officials in Denver sought to put the blame on Republicans and Town Hallers angry at Obama Care.
Turns out the 24-year old, transgendered man/woman Maurice Schwenkler, who vandalized Democrat Party headquarters in Denver, has no ties to the Republican Party. In fact, he has rather strong ties to the Democrat Party, and more evidence is revealing that indeed he is a well-known local Democrat Party activist.
Schwenkler is described in the AP story as "a paid campaign worker for a Democratic candidate for the Legislature," for the 2008 election.
The candidate was Molly Cullom (photo). She is a former Broadway actress, and social worker, who has run for the legislative seat three times. Cullom was a Progressive Majority-backed candidate. PM is a NYC-based group that funnels money to hard leftwing Democrat candidates around the Nation, who are particularly committed to environmentalist and indigenous causes. (Source: Mole's Progressive Democrat)According the Denver Post:
Schwenkler received $500 in November 2008 to walk door-to-door in support of Democrat Mollie Cullom, who lost her race to Republican state Rep. David Balmer of Centennial.
Schwenkler's only other known employment in the last couple years has been for the Colorado Citizens' Coalition, a labor rights, Democrat-connected organization.Balmer, the assistant House Majority Leader, and a US Army Reserve Lt. Col. commented:
"This sounds like the type of Democratic tactic from the left fringe trying to make Republicans look mean-spirited," Balmer said. "In this case, it blew up in their face. He was caught red-handed."The other suspect in the vandalism remains at large.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Ted Kennedy, Liberal Lion of US Politics -- Dead
(Drudge Link to Breitbart)
Senator Edward Kennedy, who died Tuesday, aged 77, was the liberal lion of US politics, a towering, controversial figure whose death ends an era when his family appeared born to rule.
Kennedy in many ways epitomized the wealthy, Ivy League-educated elite of the United States, a status detractors said enabled him to dodge fallout from scandals in his personal life.
Yet he also suffered extraordinary tragedy, with the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy in November 1963 and his other elder brother, the senator and former attorney general Robert Kennedy, in June 1968.
By the end of his life, following nearly five decades as a Democratic senator, Kennedy had won huge admiration for his dedication and his defiance of the brain cancer that ultimately killed him.
Edward Moore Kennedy, best known as Ted Kennedy, was born February 22, 1932, into the strongly Roman Catholic, Irish-American clan headed by banker Joseph Kennedy and his wife, Rose.
The Youngest of nine children, Kennedy attended Harvard University. He was expelled for cheating in an exam, but returned to earn both a degree and fame for his American football skills.
Told by the head coach of the Green Bay Packers that he might have a future as a professional football player, Kennedy quipped that he would instead enter law school then play "another contact sport: politics."
He did just that....
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
How CPSIA Impacts Small Businesses
Regulating small business out of business. We need true Conservatives that will limit the intrusion of government and some damn tort reform!
(HotAir h/t-Import)
After I wrote my post yesterday on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act and the not-so-subtle warning to private resellers at yard sales and church bazaars, I received an interesting e-mail from Suzi Lang, the owner of Star Bright Baby. Suzi hand-makes toys and teething rings for babies and toddlers, but her business is now in jeopardy, thanks to the badly-written CPSIA. Suzi explains in her e-mail:
Hi Ed-
Thanks for posting about the CPSIA. Garage Sale police aren’t the only insane parts of this law… I make and sell small stuffed teething giraffes for babies (or anyone else cutting a tooth). My giraffes are made from 100% cotton fabric, stuffing made from a synthetic fiber made from corn, and thread. That’s it. Nothing toxic about that, right? Well, according to the law, I have to lead test each batch of giraffes I make. I make them in batches of 10-12 because I’m a small time producer (and I get bored easily). That’s about $300-500 per batch. BUT I also have to test them for a plastic additive called Phthalates because the item is intended to go in a baby’s mouth. Never mind the fact that there is nothing plastic in any of the materials I use to make my giraffes. That’s about $800-1200 per batch. Now you’re talking a pretty expensive teething toy.
I testified before a subcommittee of the Small Business Committee in the house in May, and there have been some exceptions made to the law by the CPSC in how they’re going to enforce it, but the law also deputizes every single state Attorney General to go after offenders. By law I’m still not in compliance.
The sad thing is that this hits little old ladies that make blankies and lovies to give away to kids in the ER. And the little hats they knit for newborns in the hospital. It hits small potatoes businesses like mine who already make safe products. It’s sad, really. And the law does absolutely nothing to keep kids safer than they were under the original lead laws.
Oh, and the companies like Mattel who imported all the lead-tainted toys that started this fuss? They get to police themselves. Awesome, huh?
Thanks again for highlighting this stupid law on Hotair.
–Suzi Lang
Starbright Baby Teething Giraffes
www.starbrightbabyonline.comThe big manufacturers and importers get to police themselves. Suzi, on the other hand, has to pay a fortune to test her products even though she knows exactly what goes into them. Gee, I can feel my granddaughters getting safer already!
Suzi also sent me a link to her Congressional testimony from May:
Town Hall Meeting with U.S. Congressman Brian Baird vs. Marine
(HotAir h/t)
Via, er, HotAirPundit, red meat courtesy of the good folks who hijacked our last thread. The Democrat in question is Brian “Brown Shirts” Baird, thus the pounding he takes here is extra gratifying. Not sure I follow the Marine’s point about what right the feds have to tell him he can keep his insurance plan, though. Presumably he’s making a Commerce Clause argument a la Rivkin and Casey, but if growing weed on your own farm for your own use constitutes “quintessentially” economic activity, wouldn’t a program that affects 15 percent of the entire U.S. economy also qualify? If the public wants single-payer, hey — that’s democracy, red in tooth and claw.
Obama, Setting Records
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -14. These figures mark the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President. The previous low of -12 was reached on July 30 (see trends).
Prior to today, the number who Strongly Approved of the President’s performance had never fallen below 29%. Some of the decline has come from within the President’s own party. Just 49% of Democrats offer such a positive assessment of the President at this time.