DesertExile

You can't fix stupid

2012-01-08T15:05:00.000-07:00

Granted, DNC Chair Rep Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is not the sharpest crayon in the box, in fact she is not the sharpest crayon in the dull crayon box. But her time on today's Fox News Sunday will go into the dumb politician hall of fame. She was lead into a logic trap by host Chris Wallace and can almost see smoke come out of her ears from her overworked underdeveloped brain as she attempted to free herself.

At issue was her criticism of GOP Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. According to Ms Schultz, as CEO of Bain Capital, Romney was responsible for layoffs made by companies which received Bain investment dollars. Following that logic Wallace asked Schultz if the CEO of the United States, President Obama was responsible for the layoffs at Solyndra

You see says Dumb, Dumb Debbie ""The decisions that were made at Solyndra that ultimately led to their bankruptcy were those of people who worked at Solyndra." The CEO of the investment company, the United States of America bears no responsibility. But the layoffs made at companies Bain invested in, were not because of decisions made by the people who worked at those companies, those were the fault of the CEO of the investment company.

The video below is almost comical the way Schultz tries to get out from under her own words.

A standard phrase of Ron White, one of my favorite comedians is "You can't fix stupid." Sometimes I wonder if he came up with that phrase to warn us about Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. She may not be the dumbest person in congress, she competes with Barbara Boxer and Sheila Jackson Lee for that title, but may very well be the biggest simpleton ever to hold a leadership position in either major political party.

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2012/01/chris-wallace-makes-dumb-dumb-debbie.html

"FREE" Medical Care

2012-01-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

When you get a chance, put EMTALA in GOOGLE.

This was a "gift" from Teddy Kennedy and the other Senator from Massachusetts
It says
IF you have a hospital that offers Emergency Treatment-- YOU MUST
accept all comers, and treat them
YOU CAN'T
extract payment from them
transfer them to another hospital (ALTHOUGH--This was what Michelle Obama did before he became president)

Michelle Obama's Patient-Dumping Scheme

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/michelle_obamas_patientdumping_1.html

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/blog/id.9240/blog_detail.asp

But they keep telling us that illegal aliens don't cost the nation anything...that they actually add to the economy!

Hundreds of patients have been languishing for months or even years in New York City hospitals, despite being well enough to be sent home or to nursing centers for less-expensive care, because they are illegal immigrants or lack sufficient insurance or appropriate housing. As a result, hospitals are absorbing the bill for millions of dollars in unreimbursed expenses annually while the patients, trapped in bureaucratic limbo, are sometimes deprived of services that could be provided elsewhere at a small fraction of the cost. “Many of those individuals no longer need that care, but because they have no resources and many have no family here, we, unfortunately, are caring for them in a much more expensive setting than necessary based on their clinical need,” said LaRay Brown, a senior vice president for the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation. Under state law, public hospitals are not allowed to discharge patients to shelters or to the street.Medicaid often pays for emergency care for illegal immigrants, but not for continuing care, and many hospitals in places with large concentrations of illegal immigrants, like Texas, California and Florida, face the quandary of where to send patients well enough to leave. Officials in New York City say they have many such patients who are draining money from the health system as the cost of keeping people in acute-care hospitals continues to escalate …

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/nyregion/nowhere-to-go-patients-linger-in-hospitals-at-a-high-cost.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

By SAM ROBERTS

As a result, hospitals are absorbing the bill for millions of dollars in unreimbursed expenses annually while the patients, trapped in bureaucratic limbo, are sometimes deprived of services that could be provided elsewhere at a small fraction of the cost.

“Many of those individuals no longer need that care, but because they have no resources and many have no family here, we, unfortunately, are caring for them in a much more expensive setting than necessary based on their clinical need,” said LaRay Brown, a senior vice president for the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation. Under state law, public hospitals are not allowed to discharge patients to shelters or to the street.

Medicaid often pays for emergency care for illegal immigrants, but not for continuing care, and many hospitals in places with large concentrations of illegal immigrants, like Texas, California and Florida, face the quandary of where to send patients well enough to leave. Officials in New York City say they have many such patients who are draining money from the health system as the cost of keeping people in acute-care hospitals continues to escalate.

But even if Medicaid pays for some care, taxpayer dollars are ultimately being consumed by patients who could be cared for in nursing homes or other health facilities, and even at home if supportive services were available. Care for a patient languishing in a hospital can cost more than $100,000 a year, while care in a nursing home can cost $20,000 or less.

Patients fit to be discharged from hospitals but having no place to go typically remain more than five years, Ms. Brown said. She estimated that there were about 300 patients in such a predicament throughout the city, most in public hospitals or higher-priced skilled public nursing homes, though a smattering were in private hospitals.

One patient, a former hospital technician from Queens, has lived at the city’s Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility on Roosevelt Island for 13 years because the hospital has no place to send him, Ms. Brown said. The patient, who is in his mid-60s, has been there since an arterial disease cost him part of one leg below the knee and left him in a wheelchair. The city’s public health system declined to provide the names of any long-term patients or make them available for interviews, citing confidentiality laws.

Five years ago, Yu Kang Fu, 58, who lived in Flushing, Queens, and was a cook at a Chinese restaurant in New Jersey, was dropped off by his boss at New York Downtown Hospital, a private institution in Manhattan, complaining of a severe headache. Mr. Yu was admitted to the intensive-care unit with a stroke.

Within days, he was well enough for hospital personnel to begin planning for his release, but as an illegal immigrant (he had overstayed a work visa a decade ago), he was ineligible for health benefits. And no nursing home or rehabilitation center would take him. Neither would his son in China nor the Chinese government, although the hospital volunteered to fly him there at its expense.

Mr. Yu’s protracted hospital stay was first chronicled in an article in The New York Times in 2008 about the treatment of uninsured immigrants.

Mr. Yu remained in the hospital for over four years until he was transferred last spring to the Atlantis Rehabilitation and Residential Health Care Facility, a private center in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, after the federal government certified him as a “permanent resident under color of law,” essentially acknowledging that he could not be returned to China and qualifying him for medical benefits.

“This gentleman cost us millions of dollars,” said Jeffrey Menkes, the president of New York Downtown. “We try to provide physical, occupational therapy, but this is an acute-care hospital. This patient shouldn’t be here.”

Mr. Yu said that the hospital had treated him well, but that he had made enormous progress in regaining his ability to walk through his rehabilitation regimen at Atlantis. He hopes to return to China when he is well enough to be discharged.

“Here, I am very happy,” he said. “This is very nice — No. 1.”

New York Downtown serves a largely immigrant population, and many patients have no insurance or proof that they are in the United States legally, which is necessary for discharge purposes and eventual reimbursements, said Chui Man Lai, assistant vice president of patient services at the hospital.

“These patients often arrive in the emergency room acutely ill and unaccompanied, and we have to treat them until they can be discharged safely,” Ms. Lai said. “The hospital is required, by law and its mission, to care for these patients.”

Health professionals refer to them as “permanent patients,” trussed in red tape and essentially living in hospitals already operating on thin margins. In some cases, health care professionals say, grown children leave ailing parents at the hospitals and go on vacation. Officials call that practice a “pop drop.”

Though the problem is particularly severe in the municipal hospital system, longtime patients place a financial burden wherever they end up.

New York Downtown spends about $2 million annually for such patients out of an operating budget of about $200 million. An acute-care patient can cost the hospital more than $1,500 a day.

Hospitals are reluctant to complain publicly about such patients for fear of being perceived as callously seeking to dump nonpaying patients. Elected officials are generally loath to be seen as encouraging illegal immigrants by changing reimbursement formulas. The issue was never addressed during the debate over national health care legislation.

Longtime patients, meanwhile, risk getting sicker because they are exposed to diseases that fester in hospitals.

“At times there is a fine line regarding who meets the criteria to be admitted to a hospital, but if there’s no way to immediately contact a family member and the patient needs nonmedical help or is homeless, you’re obligated to provide shelter,” said Dr. Warren B. Licht, who recently retired as New York Downtown’s chief medical officer after seven years to return to full-time clinical practice in the wellness and prevention center that he founded there. “You can’t kick a patient out of the hospital.”

New York Downtown, Dr. Licht said, has offered to pay for nursing home care for patents who are uninsured and are illegal immigrants, but care facilities are reluctant to risk taking patients for fear that they would be saddled with unexpected and unreimbursed expenses.

“If the patient does not have or cannot obtain health insurance to pay for the next level of care, other non-acute-care health facilities won’t routinely accept a patient,” Dr. Licht said.

New York Downtown has four or five patients out of a total of 180 who have no place to go, he said, adding, “It cost us several million dollars a year in a hospital struggling to keep its head above water.”

Where ever you are- The beginning

2011-12-26T11:44:00.001-07:00

Another Copy-Wherever you are

2011-12-26T11:37:00.002-07:00

Where Ever You Are-Brit song sells 556,000 copies /week

2011-12-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Rarely has a song that's hit the top of the charts provoked more tears and admiration than today's runaway winner, Wherever You Are.

This charity single is sung by the Military Wives Choir, the wives and girlfriends of British servicemen fighting in Afghanistan who were brought together by choirmaster Gareth Malone for the BBC2 series The Choir.

Having sold 556,000 copies in just over a week, the song has become a phenomenon - the fastest-selling single since 2008, outselling the rest of the Top 20 combined. And it's outsold by six to one the song originally tipped to top the charts by The X Factor winners Little Mix.

Really, how could it not have done so? Wherever You Are is composed from letters between these wives and their men - Britain's heroes - as they served on the battlefield. By comparison, Little Mix's Cannonball - of all titles! -- seems quite exquisitely tasteless and inappropriate.

This triumph of The Choir over The X Factor represents the victory of courage over celebrity and endurance over inanity.

The X-Factor song stands for wannabes - however winsome - dazzled by the prospect of fame and money. The Choir's song stands for courage, patriotism and true, enduring love.

As a TV programme, The Choir shone out from the dross of reality TV and all the tawdry and vulgar shows that pass for entertainment on the box. Yet this three-part series was broadcast only as a niche programme on BBC2.

And even now the BBC doesn't seem to appreciate quite what a gem it has created, by tucking away a condensed 90-minute version late last Thursday evening. Surely it should have been elevated instead to the Christmas or Boxing Day schedules.

For what this series showed us was something really remarkable and uplifting - the power to enable people to transform their own lives.

We saw these military wives at first too shy even to perform in front of each other.

Purely through his blazing faith in the transformative power of song, the absurdly

youthful Malone coaxed them first to sing in front of him, then each other, then soldiers on the base, then in a local market, then at Sandhurst and finally at the Remembrance concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

Whereupon there was not a dry eye among the viewing audience. It was not just that we saw these timid women grow in confidence and blossom in hitherto unsuspected talents - and then have the guts to display those talents in public which previously none of them would have dreamed possible.

What made it all so deeply poignant was the situation they were thus transcending through song. For this was an aspect of military life that no one ever sees - the terrible anxiety and dread under which military wives and partners routinely live, terrified of the knock on the door bearing the news that their menfolk have been killed or injured in battle.

Worse still, these women were revealed to be so very alone. Even on the base where they lived they knew very few others in the same situation.

With their status and social circle defined by their husband's rank, they lived in virtual isolation alongside women afflicted by the very same loneliness, dread and other pressures.

They were also invisible to the outside world. When Malone asked around the nearby town, he discovered that few knew the military base was even there - and no one had had any contact with any of the wives.

What his choir did was not just to give these women a voice (literally) through an identity and role of their own. It also brought them together for the first time as a vital support group, united not just by singing, but doing something that helped combat the loneliness and the dread.

This was not the first occasion when Gareth Malone had worked his alchemist's magic through the power of song. He had made two previous series of The Choir, involving schoolchildren, which won Bafta awards.

Yet - while truly inspiring - these shows did not catch the imagination of the public in the same way as did the military wives. For the impact of this series came from the virtues it celebrated, which are now so often denigrated or sneered at, but to which so many feel the deepest and most visceral of attachments.

Virtues such as self-sacrifice, duty and stoicism - the quiet, unassuming heroism of ordinary women coping with separation and the fear of being bereaved on the battlefield. For it is not just soldiers making a sacrifice for their country but their wives and families, too.

And we were touched also because, in an age which has made a fetish of emotional incontinence and tells us that the worst thing we can do is repress our emotions, what these women showed us was the dignity and nobility of emotional restraint.

They minimise their fears and their privations in order to keep the spirits of their fighting menfolk up. In other words, this restraint is itself an act of selfless love.

Singing in the choir helps them channel and release some of that emotion. So it moves us very greatly, because only then do we see the value of such restraint - and what it has cost them.

What stirs us also is the power of people to be transformed. The ability to overcome problems or disadvantage and for potential to flower is something we too often forget.

How many of us were once also told, for example, that we were tone-deaf and couldn't sing for toffee, just like some of these military wives - and have always assumed that was so?

Yet Gareth Malone refused to accept such judgments on themselves by these women. Everyone can sing, he said. And so they did.

In so many ways, society today programmes us to despair, to assume not that we 'can do', but that we can't.

Poor people at the bottom of the social heap tend to be the most fatalistic, believing they have been dealt a bad hand by fate and unable to see how they can possibly lift themselves out of disadvantage.

Vast welfare bureaucracies and armies of well-meaning voluntary organisations all think they are helping such people. In fact, so often they do no more than pick up the pieces and try to mitigate the worst effects of criminal behaviour, drug abuse, poverty and the like.

Yet with a different attitude, such people can very often be helped to transform themselves. It all depends on somehow making them believe they can do it, that they actually have the wherewithal deep inside them.

Gareth Malone possesses precisely that transformative quality. And yes, it is exceptional.

But there are actually many who also possess it - inspirational teachers, for example, or those who have transformed slum neighbourhoods gripped by depression and inertia into orderly and thriving communities. And there are undoubtedly still more who have such a gift, but don't know that they do.

The reason for the success of The Choir and its unexpected chart-topper is surely that they have inspired unaccustomed feelings of hope and optimism and pride in values that are rooted in British identity - feelings being beaten out of us by all those sour nay-sayers and professional malcontents who have such British values in their cross-hairs.

Britain sometimes seems to be sliding beneath the weight of its own depression and sense of inexorable decline.

Here's a New Year hope - that Gareth Malone's choir is a turning point which will inspire the whole nation to sing instead.

TEBOW values

2011-12-19T08:34:00.001-07:00

What strikes me is that Tim Tebow befriended this woman. Most men would avoid her and repel simply because they would fear being jeered and derided for being with someone that has these impairments.

Tebow just added to my regard for him. Plus, I am betting that he sees a gift from God here in this woman.

Dec 18, 2011

DENVER -- For the first time in seven days, each of which I spent in Denver because of 's polarizing impact on the NFL, the Broncos' quarterback and I finally had the chance to exchange more than the daily salutations I'd come to expect from the overbearing nature of Tebowmania.

We walked toward the exit -- among the last to leave the locker room after a 41-23 loss to the Patriots on Sunday -- as I began to ask the first of what I hoped would be a series of questions.

"How is the strength of your faith impacted after a loss?" I started.

"It puts things in perspective," Tebow said. "God is still God. I still have a relationship with Christ, and a loss doesn't change anything. Win or lose, everything is still the same. What matters is the girl I'm about to see, Kelly Faughnan. If I can inspire hope in someone, then it's still a good day."

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d82533f7d/article/tebows-day-not-ruined-by-highprofile-loss-to-patriots

DEC 2009

Story link: MyFoxORLANDO.com

http://starcasm.net/archives/27411

Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow didn’t win any of the awards at the ESPNU CollegeFootball Awards in Lake Buena Vista, Florida Thursday night, but he still managed to garner some positive publicity with his date selection.

20-year-old Kelly Faughnan of Clifton, Virginia was diagnosed with a brain tumor just prior to Thanksgiving 2008 and underwent surgery in December. The huge Florida Gators fan was at Disney World this week and was hoping she would catch a glimpse of Tebow, who she knew would be in attendance at the awards show. According to NBC Sports, the couple met Wednesday and Tim Tebow made the decision to bring her to the College Football Awards as his date.

“I was really touched,” Tebow told NBC.

OK, that was pretty cool. Here are some more not-so-great pictures of the “couple:”

PROOF-The Feds did the O K City Bombing

2011-12-19T05:14:00.000-07:00

Soldier's Silent Night

2011-12-15T06:11:00.001-07:00

Hawaii Five NO ignorant of Pearl Harbor Dec 7

2011-12-14T10:49:00.001-07:00

101 Warrior Thoughts

2011-12-11T15:29:00.001-07:00

From a 30 year Mustang Marine

101 Warrior Thoughts

1. Never accept an officer as competent based on his source of commission.

2. Your right to influence the battlefield is diminished in ratio to the

distance you are from the actual arena of action.

    3. The battlefield selects its own Generals. No school or board can replace

it.

4. Never call fire on your own troops, unless you stand among them.

5. Leaders are indeed born and no military school can provide what God did

not.

6. Equipment procurement will always be compromised by not only being made by

the lowest bidder, but by attempting to make it multi-functional.

7. Attempting to lighten the warrior's load by diminishing the weight of any

given weapon, will always result in shorter range and less firepower.

8. Excellent staff officers rarely make good battlefield commanders.

    9. Outstanding commanders will surround themselves with excellent staff

officers.

10. Never make command a reward for good staff work.

11. Discipline began its decline with the demise of the swagger stick and

centralized promotion boards.

12. Outstanding NCO's may make good officers. But, rarely will a riffed

officer make a good NCO.

13. Atheists will never be trusted by their troops on the battlefield.

14. Women can do many things men do, except for a few days every month.

15. Going through the change, has nothing to do with the female senior

officer's uniform.

    16. Sexual harassment is a two-lane road.

17. Troops tell the truth about good and bad commanders. Their opinion is

the ultimate evaluation of an officer.

18. No commander was ever hated for being too hard. But, many are detested

for trying to cultivate that image, without substance.

19. The maximum effective range of any weapon is that range at which the

individual Warrior can hit his target and not an inch further.

20. Pretty females rarely feel harassed by male counterparts.

21. Plain-looking female soldiers are usually the best performers and fit in.

22. Endurance should be judged on the bayonet assault course and not on a

marathon run.

23. How far troops can run in shorts is unimportant, compared to how far

they can speed march with full equipment.

24. Pregnant females are overweight soldiers. Thus, the US Army Weight

Control program is not based on equal enforcement of the rules.

25. Tears on the cheeks of any Marine, regardless of gender, are only

acceptable on the death of a relative or comrade and when "Old Glory" passes

by.

26. Pregnancy is self-inflicted, thus abortions should be paid for by the

soldier, as a non line of duty procedure.

27. Marines are not 'sent into combat," they are led.

28. Your worth as an officer should never be judged on how well you ran with

a football in college.

29. West Point is a place of learning, as is Annapolis, Quantico, the Air Force Academy and

any college. Both produce two types of officer; Good and Bad.

30. The computer will never be able to judge the content of a Marine's

spirit, as his Sergeant can.

31. Esprit De Corps cannot be attained at the Battalion picnic or Sports Day.

It must be instilled by good leadership and belief in one's fellow Marines.

32. No new weapon or tactic will ever instill the same fear in the enemy that

one Marine with a bayonet can.

33. He who drinks at lunch is a drunken soldier in the afternoon.

34. No soldier is so smart that his physical deficiencies can be overlooked

in the Infantry.

35. Painting rocks and serving drinks to officers, have never been soldierly

functions. And golf is not a required skill for officers.

36. Consolidation of all administrative personnel at battalion level has

eroded accountability and proper reporting.

37. Anyone who thinks that future battlefields will not contain Infantrymen

knows nothing about war.

38. Indecision kills more troops than any wrong decision. One can command

his way out of a wrong decision.

    39. The only mission of the Infantry is to locate, close with and destroy the enemy.

"Humanitarian Missions" are someone else's job.

40. Only the Infantry and Armor can gain ground. Only the Infantry can hold

it alone.

41. Special Forces are not Rangers or Light Infantry and should never be

employed as such.

42. Rangers are light infantry and are not Special Forces.

43. Victory is not a limited objective. There is no other reason to engage an

enemy, except victory.

44. Never shower or apply after-shave and cologne, forty eight hours prior to

a night attack.

45. Sweat is the true lubricant of the Infantry fighting machine.

  46. No American Warrior can be managed to victory. He must be led.

47. The only color in the U.S. military ground forces is green.

48. Use of chemical weapons and biological weapons are a crime against

humanity.

49. Not training your troops to protect themselves from them is a crime

against your own troops.

  50. Any tactic written in a book is known to your enemies.

51. If short hair is truly a matter of hygiene and discipline, then all

troops must have it.

52. No member of a soldier's family is more important than the mission.

    53. No warrior can accomplish his mission if the government neglects his family.

54. Any soldier who sleeps with another soldier's wife or lover cannot be

trusted on the battlefield and should be shunned.

55. Officers are more likely to wear unauthorized awards than any NCO or

Private.

56. Any officer who claims he is accepting an individual award for the entire

unit should allow his soldiers to wear it.

57. There can be no quota for awards.

58. Any award for Valor is of more value to the Marines than any school diploma

or certification.

59. Heroism cannot be taught. But, cowardice is a communicable disease.

60. The machine gun is too important a weapon to be used as a tool for

punishing poor soldiers.

61. Precision weapons will jam, if the Commander demands communal cleaning.

62. No officer should be given a command, because, he needs one for his

career.

63. No officer should be denied a command, because, he already had one.

64. The state of the military can be evaluated by how its men look in

uniform, at any airport in the world.

65. No reporter can be trusted with operational plans. A reporter who reveals

operational plans is a traitor to his country.

66. A combat veteran of any war should be respected by all trooops.

67. American troops do not lose wars. Leaders lose wars.

68. What a fighter saw with his own eyes, cannot be ignored or changed by

higher headquarters.

69. If Special Forces are not assigned strategic missions, they are being

misused.

70. The "Hummer" is a vehicle and is the only thing of that name allowed in

the Infantry.

71. If you wish to learn about guerrilla warfare, study Francis Marion and

not Westmoreland or Giap.

72. The one night you don't dig in, will bring mortars on your position.

73. Taking the easy way will always get you killed.

74. Blank ammunition has no place in Infantry training.

75. The more you restrict Infantrymen possessing live ammunition, the more

accidents you will have.

76. The Air Force and Navy are supporting arms.

77. Intelligence Officer is usually a contradiction in terms.

78. Inclement weather is the true Infantryman's ally.

  79. There is no special duty so important, that it takes the Infantryman

away from his squad.

80. Commanders who use the "Off Limits" authority to deny sex to combat

troops will have a high V.D. rate.

81. A Commander's morals are his own and cannot be imposed on his men.

82. Chaplains must present themselves when the soldier has time, not because

they have a schedule.

83. An officer must be judged on his ability and not on how many coffees his

wife has attended.

84. Senior officers who allow discussions about a brother officer, not

present, are not honorable men.

    85. A Commander who bad-mouths his predecessor will never be truly respected.

86. Equal opportunity is guaranteed by the law and does not require a separate

staff.

87. If a Sergeant Major suggests a unit watch, he is the supplier.

88. The quality of food went down, with the initiation of the consolidated

mess.

89. No NCO or Warrant Officer outranks a Second Lieutenant.

90. Any officer who does not listen to NCO's and Warrant Officers is a fool.

91. If you wish your subordinates to call you by your first name, go sell

shoes. There is no place for you in the Marines.

92. Any Army man who sneers at a Marine for being sharp and well turned out

is no soldier.

  93. Any Infantryman who must call higher headquarters before engaging the
enemy has a fool for a commander.

    94. Warriors respect leaders worth emulating. They cannot be "ordered" to

respect anyone.

    95. No man who refused to serve his country in war should be elected or

appointed over men and women being sent to fight.

96. The Warrior must obey the orders of all those elected or appointed over

him.

97. The "leadership genes" in famous American military families usually

become weaker as the generations roll by.

98. A Veteran should not be denied the right to wear his uniform anywhere in America,

including The White House.

99. The only truly unique headgear is the one the Army was forced to

authorize. All others are cheap copies.

100. There is only one reason to join the Marines and that is to fight and serve the

Country.

101. If a Marine or soldier says he hates combat, he is in the wrong profession.

ABOVE ALL, IF YOU ARE NOT INFANTRY, YOU ARE SUPPORT!

Internal DOJ Email: Kagan Was Brought Into Loop on Mark Levin’s Obamacare Complaint

2011-12-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

Dave's note: Read on down--There is a Lady' s name.

Every piece of responsible journalism seems to have her name on it

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/internal-doj-email-kagan-was-brought-loop-mark-levin-s-obamacare-complaint

By Terence P. Jeffrey

December 9, 2011

Then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) - Internal Justice Department email communications made just days before the House of Representatives passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act show that then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan was brought into the loop as DOJ began preparing to respond to an anticipated legal complaint that Mark Levin and the Landmark Legal Foundation were planning to file against the act if the House used a procedural rule to “deem” the bill passed even if members never directly voted on it.

In another internal DOJ email communication that same week, Kagan alerted the chief of DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel to the constitutional argument that a former U.S. Appeals Court judge was making against the use of this rule.

Then, during Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation process four months later, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked her in writing if she had “ever been asked about your opinion” or “offered any view or comments” on the “the underlying legal or constitutional issues related to any proposed health care legislation, including but not limited to Pub. L. No. 111-148 [PPACA], or the underlying legal or constitutional issues related to potential litigation resulting from such legislation?"

Kagan answered both questions: “No.”

The DOJ emails from the week before the health-care bill passed--which were released as the result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Media Research Center (CNSNews.com’s parent organization) and Judicial Watch--raise additional questions about whether Kagan should recuse herself from judging the case against PPACA when the court considers it early next year.

A federal law—28 U.S.C 455—says that a Supreme Court justice must recuse from “any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned” or if he “expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy” while he “served in governmental employment.”

In the days leading up to the March 21, 2010 House vote on the health-care bill, one underlying constitutional issue that became part of the national debate was whether the House could approve the Senate version of the bill without ever directly voting on it by using a procedural rule crafted by then-House Rules Chairman Louise Slaughter (D.-N.Y.)

On March 10, 2010, National Journal’s Congress Daily published a brief storyunder the headline, “Slaughter Preps Rule to Avoid Direct Vote on Senate Bill.”

The next morning, Washington Examiner Editorial Page Editor Mark Tapscott posted a blog entry citing the Congress Daily report. “In the Slaughter Solution,” Tapscott wrote, “the rule would declare that the House ‘deems’ the Senate version of Obamacare to have passed the House. House members would still have to vote on whether to accept the rule, but they would then be able to say they only voted for the rule, not the bill itself.”

That night on his nationally syndicated radio show, Landmark Legal Foundation President Mark Levin, who served as chief of staff to Attorney General Ed Meese in the Reagan Justice Department, gave a seven-minute presentation on the Slaughter rule. Levin explained why, in his view, use of the rule would violate Article 1, Section 7, Clause 2 of the Constitution which requires both houses of Congress to vote on a bill before it can be presented to the president for his signature.

Levin concluded his discussion by vowing to file a lawsuit against the health-care bill if House Democrats used the Slaughter rule to send it to the president without a direct vote.

“I can tell you, if they pursue this process and try to impose this kind of a law without actually passing a statute, that I will be in a race with scores of others to the courthouse to stop this,” said Levin. “I can’t think of a more blatant violation of the United States Constitution than this.”

(Click below to listen to Mark Levin's March 11, 2010 explanation of why he believed the Slaughter rule was unconstitutional and his plan to file suit against the administration if it was used on the health-care legislation:)

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Michael W. McConnell, a former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, who is now director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, concurred with Levin’s analysis of the Slaughter rule. On March 15, 2010, four days after Levin discussed it on his radio show, McConnell published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

“The Slaughter solution cannot be squared with Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution,” McConnell wrote.

“Unless a bill actually has ‘passed’ both Houses, it cannot be presented to the president and cannot become a law,” he wrote.

As solicitor general, Kagan’s job at that time was to defend the administration’s position on constitutional issues raised in federal courts. Was she aware of this serious national debate arising from an underlying constitutional issue confronting President Obama’s health-care legislation just days before the House was set to take it up?

On March 16, 2010, the day after McConnell’s op-ed ran in the Wall Street Journal, Kagan sent an email to David Barron, her former colleague at Harvard Law School, who was then the acting director of DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel. The Office of Legal Counsel, according to DOJ’s website, provides “authoritative legal advice to the President and all Executive Branch agencies.”

Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s email to acting Office of Legal Counsel Chief David Barron carried this subject line: “Health care q”

The text said: “Did you seee [sic] michael mcConnell piece in the wsj?”

Barron emailed back to Kagan: ‘YES—HE IS GETTING IT GOING.”

The following night, March 17, 2010, the Slaughter rule was featured on the CBS Evening News.

CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reported that some House Democrats did not want to vote on the Senate version of the health-care bill which included “those controversial sweetheart deals for select states, like that Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, and what some see as federal funding for abortion.”

“So,” Attkisson said, “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is considering a controversial strategy to help give cover to those vulnerable Democrats facing tough elections. Under the House self-executing rule, members vote only on the reconciliation bill, the one with the fixes. The controversial Senate version is automatically deemed to be passed--deem and pass-- without a separate vote. Republicans say it`s unconstitutional and have taken to calling the approach the Slaughter rule, named for Louise Slaughter, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee overseeing the process.”

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In the meantime, Levin and the Landmark Legal Foundation had prepared a draft legal complaint against President Barack Obama, Attorney General Holder and other Cabinet officials

The complaint argued that a health-care bill passed under the Slaughter rule would not be a law because it did not satisfy the bicameral voting requirements of Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution.

Paragraph 27 of the complaint explained that the complaint was designed to be filed as soon as the House acted on the health-care bill—if the Slaughter rule was used—and noted that Levin had discussed the rule’s unconstitutionality on his radio show as soon as its possible use had been reported. It also noted Judge McConnell’s Wall Street Journal op-ed.

“This action is brought immediately upon passage by the House of the Reconciliation Bill so that no reasonable expectations of regularity may be asserted by Defendants,” said Paragraph 27. “Nor do Plaintiffs attack any particular part of the purported law, but its entirety because it was never voted on. In fact, Plaintiffs have been diligent in bringing to public attention the very constitutional defect complained of herein. On March 11, 2010, the day that the intention to consider the Rule was first brought to public attention as the so-called ‘Slaughter Rule’ (named for the Honorable Louise Slaughter of New York being Chair of the House Rules Committee), Plaintiff Levin publicly identified and described in detail the constitutional infirmity on his radio program, which was broadcast nationwide.”

“[O]n March 15, 2010,” the complaint said, “the Honorable Michael W. McConnell, former judge on the United States Court of Appeals also adopted this view in an article published in the Wall Street Journal. Defendants have had every warning that the piece of paper they are about to enforce or are enforcing has no more validity than any other piece of paper.”

On March 17, 2010, the day after Kagan sent her email to OLC chief Barron alerting him to McConnell’s piece in the Wall Street Journal, her top deputy in the Office of Solicitor General, Neal Katyal, sent an email to Associate Attorney General Tom Perelli.

The subject line on Katyal's email was: “Health Care.”

“Tom, I recall you were going to set up a group to deal with the inevitable challenges to this legislation,” Katyal wrote. “Now that this may be coming back, I wanted to circle back and see if you still are developing such a litigation group.”

Eight minutes later, Perrelli responded to Katyal: “Neal—I tabled it when things looked bleak, but we should do it. I’ll get something together in the next week.”

The next day, March 18, 2010, Katyal extended the email chain by responding to Perrelli and carbon copying the messages to his own boss, Elena Kagan. This new email was all about the Levin-Landmark Legal Foundation draft complaint against the prospective health-care law. It noted some of Katyal’s initial analysis of the anticipated constitutional challenge.

The subject line was now: “RE: Health Care.”

“Tom, I was just looking at the draft complaint by Landmark Legal Foundation,” Katyal wrote to Perrelli and Kagan. “It is clearly written to be filed when the House approves the reconciliation bill and before the President signs it. See paras 15-17.”

The email then includes a link to the text of the complaint posted on the website of the Landmark Legal Foundation.

“Also para 27 says the action is being brought before it is signed by President so that no expectations of regularity can be asserted, etc.” wrote Katyal.

“As such we could be in court very soon,” he wrote.

“In light of this, for what its worth,” Katyal continued to Perrelli and Kagan, “my advice (I haven’t discussed this with Elena, but I am cc’ing her here) would be that we start assembling a response, [here about three-quarters of a line of text is redacted] so that we have it ready to go. They obviously have their piece ready to go, and I think it’d be great if we are ahead of the ball game here.”

What was in the redacted text of this DOJ email?

In a document that the Justice Department provided to the federal court in response to the MRC-Judicial Watch FOIA suit, DOJ gave this general description of the material that had been redacted here: “The redacted information contains a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney’s thoughts, before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed, on what categories of legal arguments may arise and should be prepared in the anticipated lawsuit referenced in the email exchange.”

Another email chain that DOJ has released to CNSNews.com as a result of the FOIA lawsuit was sent by Katyal to Kagan on June 15, 2010. That was thirteen day before Kagan appeared in the Senate Judiciary Committee for her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Approximately an entire page—apparently the text of another person's email that Katyal was forwarding to Kagan--has been redacted from this email chain.

The subject line on Katyal's email to Kagan is: “Fw: connecting you two” Here, Katyal describes for Kagan a conversation he had about her with Attorney General Eric Holder.

“Fyi,” Katyal writes Kagan. ““Also AG just told me that he expects a big story out shortly about whether you are recused in health care litigation. I went over the timing and that you have been walled off from Day One.”

But was Kagan “walled off” from health-care litigation on March 16, 2010, the day she sent an email to acting OLC chief David Barron, alerting him to Michael McConnell’s op-ed challenging the Slaughter Rule?

Was she “walled off” on March 18, 2010, when Katyal carbon-copied her on an email outlining his preliminary analysis of the draft Levin-Landmark Legal Foundation complaint against Obamacare?

CNSNews.com sent Barron and Katyal PDFs of their email exchanges with Kagan from the week before the health-care bill was passed--and asked them about any possible discussions they might have had with Kagan about the topics of these emails.

CNSNews.com asked Barron these questions:

--“Did you ever discuss with then-Solicitor Elena Kagan the so-called ‘Slaughter rule’—or so-called ‘deem and pass’ rule--that the U.S. House of Representatives was considering using in March 2010 to deal with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act?”

--“If you did discuss the so-called ‘Slaughter rule’ or ‘deem and pass’ with Kagan, when did you discuss it with her?”

--“If you did discuss the so-called ‘Slaughter rule’ or ‘deem and pass’ with Kagan, what did you say and what did she say?”

--“Did you ever discuss any legal or constitutional issues arising from any health-care-related bill, law or litigation with Elena Kagan while she was solicitor general?”

--“If you did discuss any legal or constitutional issue arising from any health-care-related bill, law or litigation with Elena Kagan while she was solicitor general, what was the issue, when did the discussion take place, what did you say, and what did she say?”

Barron responded to CNSNews.com’s questions via email. “I do not have a comment,” he said.

Katyal is now working at the Washington office of the Hogan Lovells law firm. CNSNews.com sent him the following questions:

--“While you were at the Justice Department, did you ever discuss with then-Solicitor Elena Kagan the so-called ‘Slaughter rule’—or so-called ‘deem and pass’ rule--that the U.S. House of Representatives was considering using in March 2010 to deal with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act?”

--“If you did discuss the so-called ‘Slaughter rule’ or ‘deem and pass’ with Kagan, when did you discuss it with her?”

--“If you did discuss the so-called ‘Slaughter rule’ or ‘deem and pass’ with Kagan, what did you say and what did she say?”

--“Other than in the March 18, 2010, email that you sent to Thomas J. Perrelli and cc’d to Elena Kagan did you ever discuss the Landmark Legal Foundation’s and Mark Levin’s draft complaint or plan to file suit if the House used the ‘Slaughter rule’ or ‘deem and pass’ to deal with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act?”

--“If you did discuss the Landmark Legal Foundation’s and Mark Levin’s draft complaint or plan to file suit if the House used the ‘Slaughter rule’ or “deem and pass” to deal with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, when did the discussion take place, what did you say, what did she say?”

CNSNews.com sent Katyal these questions via email on Nov. 22, Nov. 28, and Dec. 8. On Dec. 9, CNSNews.com left Katyal a voice mail message at his law firm, asking if he would like to answer the questions.

Katyal did not respond to any of the emails or the voice mail message.

On July 6, House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith sent a letter to Attorney General Holder asking DOJ to provide the committee with documents and interviews that the committee believes would allow it to “properly understand any involvement by Justice Kagan in matters relating to health care legislation or litigation while she was solicitor general.”

“During her Senate confirmation, then-Solicitor General Kagan answered ‘no’ when questioned about whether she had ever been ‘asked about [her] opinion’ or ‘offered any views or comments regarding the underlying legal or constitutional issues related to any proposed health care legislation … or … potential litigation resulting from such legislation,’” Smith told Holder in that July 6 letter.

“Yet, documents released by the Department in response to recent Freedom of Information Act requests raise questions about that unequivocal denial,” Smith wrote.

One of the interviews the Judiciary Committee is seeking is with Neal Katyal.

The Justice Deparment has thus far refused to comply with the Judiciary Committee’s request.

In a Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, Chairman Smith asked Holder if DOJ was asserting a legal privilege in refusing to comply with the committee’s request for the Kagan-related documents and interviews.

“Well, we have not expressed, I guess, at this point a legal privilege,” said Holder. “We have expressed, as I indicated before, constitutional concerns about the nature of the request.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Smith, “but concerns don't rise to the level of a legal privilege. We all have concerns about a lot of subjects. … But if you're not going to assert a legal privilege, then I don't see any reason why I shouldn't get those documents and conduct those interviews. Thank you for that.”

In a statement to CNSNews.com, Mark Levin asked “where is the evidence” that Kagan was in fact “walled off” from health-care matters when she was solicitor general.

“I served in the Justice Department, including as chief of staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese,” Levin told CNSNews.com. “It simply is not credible to argue that Kagan, as the top litigator at Justice and for the nation, would not have been informed about and commented on the legal strategies involving the most important constitutional and policy issue not only in the Obama administration, but in several decades of American history.

“If she had been ‘walled off’ from the matter, where is the evidence for that?” said Levin. “Who was the gatekeeper? In fact, the emails demonstrate that her subordinates were ensuring that she was kept informed about events and potential legal issues, including Landmark's draft complaint, which was prepared to challenge the Slaughter rule and then-Speaker Pelosi's attempt (albeit abandoned) to bypass the Constitution's law-making requirements. At a minimum, it does not appear that Kagan was forthright during her confirmation testimony about the extent to which she was kept apprised of Obamacare.”

California officials vow to crack down on underground economy

2011-12-09T09:03:00.001-07:00

Here's the rub:
Who is the group MOST LIKELY to work for cash--No accounting or books, No FICA, no income withheld?

Who is the group who is MOST protected by Political Correctness from serious review, investigation, or criticism?

Who is the group that the current fiscal cost outlays for the illegal alien population in California are now approaching $13.1 billion

http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=19805&security=1601&news_iv_ctrl=1741

THAT'S RIGHT! ILLEGAL ALIENS.

Who gets blamed and cut first?

Police, Fire protection, Parks.

Why?

Because politicians KNOW that will hurt everyone the worst.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-underground-economy-20111209,0,6550311.story

By Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times

December 9, 2011

Reporting from Sacramento—

A burgeoning underground economy is costing California about $7 billion annually in lost tax revenue and undercutting companies that play by the rules.

That has state officials vowing to crack down on employers who pay their workers cash under the table to avoid payroll taxes, workers' compensation insurance and other government mandates.

Agencies including the Employment Development Department and the Contractors State Licensing Board increasingly are coordinating efforts to target suspected scofflaws.

The Department of Industrial Relations is also ratcheting up efforts to find cheats, Acting Director Christine Baker said at a hearing in Sacramento this week. Computerized searches are helping the agency flag companies that file some tax and insurance documents but fail to submit other required reports.

A recent review of records from nearly 1,500 employers revealed that nearly a third lacked legally required workers' compensation insurance coverage to pay the medical bills of employees hurt on the job, Baker said.

Many of those workers seek treatment at hospital emergency rooms, a burden that ultimately falls on insured patients and taxpayers. They also seek benefits from state workers' compensation courts and money that comes from a special state fund that passes the costs along to law-abiding employers. Off-the-books laborers likewise don't pay income taxes, while their employers avoid payroll taxes to fund unemployment insurance benefits.

Bottom line: Tax-paying companies, consumers and taxpayers are stuck paying the bill for cheats.

"If everybody paid their fair share, all of us would see a reduction of 25% in our taxes," said Dan Kurttila, chief of compliance at the California Employment Development Department, who also spoke at the hearing.

California's underground economy has been growing for years, but concerns have been heightened by the economic downturn. Cash-strapped consumers and businesses increasingly have been turning to shadow operators for lower-cost roofing, cleaning, warehousing and other services.

But falling tax revenue means larger deficits for governments struggling to provide public services. And it's making it tough for legal businesses to compete.

Sacramento electrical contractor Mark Cooper said his workforce has fallen to 31 employees from a peak of 390 in 2005. Most of that reduction is due to the housing bust. But Cooper said he's now being undercut by freelance electricians who don't pay taxes or carry insurance. He estimated that he could triple his workforce if the playing field were leveled.

"There's no whistles, there's no flags, there's no penalties," he said. "Those of us playing by the rules do question why we have to play by the rules."

Unfair competition is compelling more contractors, even licensed ones, to take shortcuts to compete, according to David Fogt, enforcement chief for the California Contractors State Licensing Board.

A recent survey of 305,000 licensed California contractors showed that nearly two-thirds had filed papers with the board claiming that they should be exempt from carrying workers' compensation insurance because they had no employees. Experts said it's unusual for so many licensed contractors to have no workers on their payrolls; more likely, they said, many of those contractors are illegally misclassifying the status of their employees to avoid carrying workers' comp insurance.

State law requires that all employers carry such coverage, which is particularly important in construction, where workers are more likely to suffer injuries. In one dangerous trade, roofing, a new law mandates that small-company owners have workers' compensation insurance even if they have no direct employees.

Tax and insurance cheating is rampant in the construction, janitorial, courier, landscaping and food service fields, officials said, where cheaper shadow operators are winning business from legitimate firms.

Low-ball contracts are common in the commercial janitorial business, said Pete Conaty, an industry lobbyist in Sacramento.

"If someone walks in [to a big chain store] and says, 'I'll clean all your stores for 70% of what you currently are paying,' the chain says, 'That sounds good; let's sign a new contract,'" Conaty said.

Small-business owners support tough enforcement as long as it's aimed at the worst offenders and doesn't devolve into "gotcha" raids that harass companies for small infractions, said Scott Hauge, founder and chairman of Small Business California, a statewide advocacy group.

A survey showed that 44% of the group's members identified the underground economy as a major competitive problem.

"When I talk to small businesses, they are outraged because they see their taxes are higher because people aren't playing by the rules," Hauge said.

A variety of state agencies are coordinating efforts to target suspected underground economy employers and issue more citations.

In October and November, the state Department of Labor Standards Enforcement levied more than $1 million in fines against two labor subcontractors — Premier Warehousing Ventures and Impact Logistics Inc. — for failing to maintain employee time records and for failing to provide itemized wage statements to employees. The subcontractors provided workers to a Riverside County warehouse owned by Schneider Logistics, which distributes goods for Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Many small and medium-size business owners say they can't afford to wait too long for state action to level the playing field.

"I'll be happy if I'm here next year still in business," said Kevin Burns, a landscaper from South San Francisco. "Without enforcement it's like the wild, wild West. There won't be any legitimate contractors left to regulate."

marc.lifsher@latimes.com

Prof. Terry Lovell on BHO's Dec. 7th Socialist Speech

2011-12-09T06:38:00.000-07:00

Adams Grills Holder Over Fast and Furious Operation

2011-12-09T05:39:00.001-07:00

Congresswoman Sandra "Sandy" Adams is currently in her first term serving as the Representative of Florida’s 24th District in the U.S. House. Based in Central Florida, the 24th District includes parts of Brevard, Orange, Seminole and Volusia counties, and is home to Kennedy Space Center and the Daytona International Speedway. As true public servant, Sandy brings concrete legislative experience, a no-nonsense attitude and a commitment to bringing fiscally responsible solutions to Washington, D.C.

Growing up in a military family, Sandy had the opportunity to travel across the United States and around the world as a child, learning first-hand about different regions and cultures. With family members having served in each of the military branches, Sandy understands what it means to serve one’s country and dedicate oneself to military service. That love of service and commitment to her country led Sandy to leave high school early and enroll in the United States Air Force at the age of 17.

During her time in the Air Force, Sandy was married to a fellow military member, which resulted with her leaving the military to start a family. While those family commitments kept her from making a career out of military service, Sandy has maintained a lifelong commitment to helping members of the Armed Forces in whatever way she can.

Years later, after her daughter was born, Sandy was faced with the difficult choice of whether or not to leave an abusive marriage and live with her daughter as a single parent. Like so many others across the nation, Sandy was now faced with the question of how to raise a child on one income while trying to make a better life for her daughter. Instead of turning to the state for help, Sandy challenged herself to work two and three jobs, all while she went back to school to get her GED.

That high school degree opened up a door for Sandy that would be life changing – working during the day and attending the police academy at night. After graduating Sandy served for seventeen years as a deputy sheriff in the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, doing everything from road patrol, foot patrol, and pawnshop oversight to intelligence and undercover work. During her time at the Sheriff’s Office, Sandy found the time to go back to school at night and earn her degree in Criminal Justice Administration from Columbia College while putting her daughter through college at the University of Central Florida. Her career as a deputy sheriff was extremely rewarding and fulfilling, allowing Sandy to continue her public service to the Orange County community.

It was while serving as a deputy sheriff that Sandy met Frank Seton, a fellow deputy on the force. The two were married, and lived happily until he died tragically on duty. It was that terrible loss that caused Sandy to become an advocate for victim’s rights in Tallahassee, testifying before the state legislature and advocating for victims and citizens rights.

That same call to service that drew Sandy to volunteering for military service and signing up to keep our streets safe as a deputy sheriff made her choose to run for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives. Beginning her service in 2002, Sandy made a name for herself as a no-nonsense conservative who was tough on criminals, strong on homeland security issues, and knew how to balance a budget. Sandy completed her service in the Florida House in 2010 and joined the U.S. House of Representatives on January 5, 2011.

Born in Wyandotte, Michigan, Sandy is an alumna of Columbia College. Today, she and her husband, Judge John Adams live in Orlando. Together they have three children.

Cardinals ride the "Teddy Bear Express" through Phoenix Children's Hospital

2011-12-08T16:59:00.001-07:00

Cardinals ride the "Teddy Bear Express" through Phoenix Children's Hospital from Natalie Rivers on Vimeo.

Attorney General Holder, Does The Buck Stop With You?

2011-12-08T11:03:00.001-07:00

Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich Speaks at Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition

2011-12-07T08:55:00.001-07:00

TEBOW wins again

2011-12-05T15:54:00.001-07:00

Things that will keep morticians, Orthopedic and neurology doctors in business

2011-12-02T14:07:00.001-07:00

2011-11-26T10:44:00.001-07:00

Hero is no ordinary New Hampshire dog.

Hers is a tale that began in war-torn Samarra, Iraq, in early 2007.

Justin Rollins, of 82nd Airborne Division, had found the tiny puppy, one of a litter of eight, living underneath an abandoned portable toilet near his base.

One man and his dog: Justin Rollins befriended a tiny puppy on the night he was killed by an IED in Iraq

Smiling and enjoying the company of the young litter, he and his team-mates took some photos to send home. Just hours later, Justin was killed by an IED.

The happy pictures he had taken and emailed home that night were the last contact he'd have with his girlfriend and family - but the start of an unlikely tale of determination.

Just two weeks later, Justin was given a military funeral in the U.S. His grieving mother, Rhonda Rollins, was asked if there was anything the U.S. military could do to help. Well, yes, she answered.

She wanted to bring the brown and white spotted dog that Justin had befriended on the night of his death back to America.

Her request was certainly an unusual one, but, with the help of Brittney Murray, Justin's girlfriend, the ball started to roll.

Animal contact: Jason Wheeler, left, and Justin took photos of their new friends and sent them home to family. They were the last images Justin sent home

Happier times: Brittney Murray, Justin's girlfriend, helped his mother Rhonda Rollins with lobbying to bring the puppy to the U.S after Justin's death

The high-school sweetheart made six phonecalls and eventually piqued the attention of former New Hampshire Congressman Paul Hodes, who took up the challenge.

Skip Rollins, Justin's father, spoke about the million-to-one chance of finding the dog - and then getting the clearance to bring it back to the U.S.

The request had to go along 'the chain of command all the way to to the top and then all the way back to the bottom,' he told Animal Planet.

Rhonda told ABC News' 20/20 show: 'They said one in a million. And I had already said, because Justin was a hero, the dog, whether it was male or female, it going to be named Hero.'

An old friend ran the story in a local newspaper and soon Operation Hero had gained the momentum it needed. With the help of the Congressman, strings were pulled within the chain of command.

Puppy lottery: Jason describes the puppy whimpering and crying after they found him. They gave him a bath in a washing machine and prepared him for the long journey to his new home

Luckiest dog in Iraq: 'No one ever expected for it to actually work' said Jason of the unusual plan to bring the Iraqi dog to the U.S.

Jason Wheeler, one of Justin's friends from 82nd Airborne, had originally found the puppies with Justin.

'No one ever expected for it to actually work...' he said of the audacious plan. But one day, 'the call came down: "Hey, we have to get this dog,"' he recalls to Animal Planet.

Against the odds, he helped find the stray puppy months after that fateful night.

'It was crying and whimpering but we were like "You won the puppy lottery and you don't even know it."

'This dog had to think "What the heck just happened to me? I was living underneath the porta-potty, now I'm in a washing machine getting the dirtiest stuff washed off me,"' he told Animal Planet's Saved programme.

New family: Hero is united with Justin's father, Skip, left, girlfriend, Brittney Murray, centre, and Rhonda, right

United at last: After three long months of battling red tape, Hero was delivered to Congressman Hodes' office

Relieved: The perfect moment was only marred by Hero 'christening' the Congressman's office carpet

On May 25, 2007, after three months of logistical battles, needle-in-a-haystack searches and swathes of red tape, Hero arrived at Congressman Hodes' office.

Skip told the ABC: 'One of the biggest decisions for wanting to get Hero out of Iraq was to honor him by saying, this is the last life that he saved, so that's the importance and the love that we have for this dog.'

His wife echoed his sentiments, describing the joy Hero brought, albeit briefly, to her son. 'She gave him the last bit of happiness, by the smiles on his face, when he was holding her, it's just beautiful.'

'We were expecting a little tiny puppy and she'd gotten so big,' Brittney told Saved. Cramped into the small room, the Rollins family, Brittney and military representatives all greeted the animal to its new home town.

'It's the perfect moment,' Brittney remembers. 'She's finally here... and she squatted and peed on [the congressman's] floor.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2066359/Their-son-came-Iraq-puppy-saved-did-The-amazing-story-bereaved-parents-rescued-dog-war.html#ixzz1epntbXWt

Ariz. Guard Squadron to Return Home from Iraq

2011-11-24T08:44:00.001-07:00

Watch for the woman at 1:30 on the Video:

Ariz. Guard Squadron to Return Home from Iraq: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

FOR FULL VIDEO, Click link at bottom of Post

Updated: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2011, 6:15 PM MST
Published : Wednesday, 23 Nov 2011, 4:57 AM MST

PHOENIX - An Arizona Army National Guard squadron of soldiers has returned home, on the eve of Thanksgiving -- the final group of Arizona guardsmen to leave Iraq.

The Phoenix-based Company F of the 1-168th Air Traffic Control Squadron returned home Wednesday to a homecoming ceremony at the Papago Park Military Reservation.

Family member and loved ones were there to welcome the returning soldiers.

"It's too much to handle right now, I'm a little freaked out," says Spc. Benjamin Gruler. "It's been a long time coming, and I can't even talk."

The 38 soldiers have been in Iraq since last December.

FOX 10's Dan Spindle has more.

http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpp/news/war_room/apx-AZSoldiers-Homecoming_62416540-11232011

Pendleton Memorial Cross Under Fire

2011-11-23T08:13:00.000-07:00

President Obama Heckled By Occupy Protesters During New Hampshire Speech

2011-11-22T14:28:00.001-07:00

Hey, all you people complaining that the Occupy protesters need to start protesting the White House in addition to the evil banks? You just got your day.

In New Hampshire just a few minutes ago,President Obama was the latest to receive the human microphone treatment. Really, though, this was probably just an attempt to invent a new human teleprompter.

Unsurprisingly, unlike some of the other protests of this kind, the protesters shouting at the President of the United States didn’t get to take the attention for that long. Shortly after they began their message (“Mr. President, over 4,000 peaceful protesters have been arrested…”), the crowd turned on them, booing and eventually drowning them out with “Obama!” chants.

Watch the clip from CNN ABOVE

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/president-obama-heckled-by-occupy-protesters-during-new-hampshire-speech/

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is absent, but her House seat is not vacant

2011-11-21T14:11:00.001-07:00

Sharyl Attkisson, Jillian Hughes

Captain Mark Kelly hugs his wife Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords after receiving the Legion of Merit from Vice President Joe Biden during Captain Kelly's retirement ceremony in the Secretary of War Suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, in Washington, D.C., Oct. 6, 2011.

(Credit: Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-57326269-10391695/rep-gabrielle-giffords-is-absent-but-her-house-seat-is-not-vacant/

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., has only cast one Congressional vote since she was shot on Jan. 8, 2011, by a deranged gunman in Arizona. On Aug. 1, she voted to increase the debt ceiling. But there's no timetable for her to return to work full time. Yet, her seat in the House of Representatives isn't considered vacant.

Gabrielle Giffords posts message: "I'm getting better"

According to a spokesman in Giffords' office, a seat is only considered vacant if the member dies, resigns, or his seat is officially declaredvacant by a vote.

So who, exactly, is representing the interests of the 8th district of Arizona while Giffords is absent? Spokesman Mark Kimble says Giffords'and her constituents' interests are being represented through other members who "have sponsored legislation on her behalf."

For example, Kimble says Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, introduced the Southern Borderlands Public Safety Communications Act at the request of Giffords' office. The bill seeks to address poor cell phone service near the border. It's in memory of a Giffords constituent who was murdered in a border area reported to have poor cell phone service.

Many members of Congress have taken extended absences over the years. Among the longest leaves we found: Nearly four years absence for Sen. Carter Glass, D-Va.. He suffered age-related illnesses beginning in 1942 but refused to resign and died in 1946. A close second is Sen. Karl Earl Mundt, R-S.D., who was absent more than three years. He, too, refused calls to resign after suffering a stroke in 1969. His wife led staff in Mundt's place, and he remained in office through the end of his term on Jan. 3, 1973.

Other notable absences include former President and then-Senator Lyndon Johnson, D-Texas. He missed five months in 1955 after suffering a heart attack. Vice President and then-Senator Joe Biden D-Del., was out seven months in 1988 after a brain aneurysm. Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla., took a month off in 2009 for alcohol addiction treatment.

Lyndon Johnson, Al Gore and Joe Biden

(Credit: Getty Images)

Read a list of other Congressional absences below.

Senate Absences

1942: Styles Bridges, R-N.H., five months after hip fracture

1942-46: Carter Glass, D-Va., three years 11 months from infirmities of old age (died before return to office)

1947-49: Robert F. Wagner, D-N.Y., one year five months with heart ailment

1949-51: Arthur H. Vandenberg, D-Mich., one year six months after two surgeries (returned briefly before dying April, 1951)

1955: Lyndon B. Johnson, D-Texas, five months after heart attack

1963-64: Clair Engle, D-Calif., absent off-and-on after brain cancer surgeries

1969-73: Karl Earl Mundt, R-S.D., over three years after stroke

1988: Joe Biden, D-Del., seven months after brain aneurysm

1989: Al Gore, D-Tenn., one month to care for injured son.

1991: David Pryor, D-Ark., five months after heart attack.

2006-2007: Tim Johnson, D-S.D., nine months after intra-cerebral bleed.

House Absences (partial list)

1961: Sam Rayburn, D-Texas, over two months for medical care.

1998: Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, two months to care for sick daughter

2000: Philip Crane, R-Ill., one month for alcohol addiction treatment

2004: Billy Tauzin, Democrat-turned-Republican, La., one month after cancer diagnosis

2007: Charlie Wilson, D-Ohio, two months after colon surgery

2007: Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., one year six months after uterine fibroid surgery

2009: John Sullivan, R-Okla, one month for alcohol addiction treatment

Obama s Great American Roundup

2011-11-21T12:00:00.001-07:00

David Letterman Asks Herman Cain If He Will Drop Out If Sexual Harassment Allegations Prove True

2011-11-20T11:15:00.001-07:00

Herman Cain appeared on The Late Show last night, and perhaps one of the highlights of the interview was when David Letterman asked the candidate about the accusations of sexual harassment threatening to damage his candidacy. Letterman sympathized with Cain, having gone through a similar situation himself, but asked the Republican candidate if he plans to drop out of the race if any new evidence emerges against him.

Cain told Letterman people are more concerned about the economy and job security than salacious details about his personal life, and he intends to keep the campaign about the issues. Letterman retorted by pointing out that since Cain does not have a previous record in political office, the American people have to judge what kind of a person he is based on the details of his business life.

The candidate then turned specifically to the allegations made against him by several women while he ran the National Restaurant Association. Cain argued that no accusations were even made until he started to dip his toes into politics. Letterman explained this is how it always works in politics, you learn more and more about candidates as they rise in the polls and make more of a national showing.

Letterman mentioned his own sexual scandal of sorts before telling Cain the different scenarios he can expect going forward in the campaign.

“One of two things will happen. You will be proven, you’ll be exonerated, they will all turn… it’ll be like Justin Bieber. All of that’s going away. Or they will prevail and there will be someone else coming forward. ‘Herman did this, this is the money I received, here’s exactly the documentation you need to prove he’s lying.’ Now what happens if that’s the case? Will you drop out of the campaign if that’s the case?”

Cain insisted there was zero evidence to back up any of the accusations, and he clarified for Letterman that there was no settlement, merely a “severance agreement.” Letterman asked Cain if he’d ever been in a situation where he did something in the presence of a woman that he later thought made them uncomfortable. Cain agreed, highlighting the importance of dealing with sexual harassment in the workplace.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/david-letterman-asks-herman-cain-if-he-will-drop-out-if-sexual-harassment-allegations-prove-true/

Wind farms are useless, says Duke (Prince Phillip)

2011-11-20T10:18:00.001-07:00

It is NOT about energy, Clean Air and Water, or possible uses of the energy.

For Obama and people like him, Solyndra demonstrated what the process is:

1. You declare you are a company that is going produce "Green " energy generating device or systems.

2. You get your buddies to invest . Your buddies are contributors to the Obama campaign.

3. You start a production line, hire 100- 400 people.

4. Since green energy producing systems do not pay for themselves, you go to the Obama Administration for a Loan (Subsidy)

5. You get that loan ( TAX DOLLARS) amounting to billions.

6. You declare bankruptcy, divide up the money in the company treasury to the "Investors", lay all them employees off and bank your share of the money

==============================================================

The Duke's views are politically charged, as they put him at odds with the Government’s policy

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones

9:30PM GMT 19 Nov 2011

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-philip/8901985/Wind-farms-are-useless-says-Duke.html

In a withering assault on the onshore wind turbine industry, the Duke said the farms were “a disgrace”.

He also criticised the industry’s reliance on subsidies from electricity customers, claimed wind farms would “never work” and accused people who support them of believing in a “fairy tale”.

The Duke’s comments will be seized upon by the burgeoning lobby who say wind farms are ruining the countryside and forcing up energy bills.

Criticism of their effect on the environment has mounted, with The Sunday Telegraph disclosing today that turbines are being switched off during strong winds following complaints about their noise.

The Duke’s views are politically charged, as they put him at odds with the Government’s policy significantly to increase the amount of electricity generated by wind turbines.

The country has 3,421 turbines — 2,941 of them onshore — with another 4,500 expected to be built under plans for wind power to play a more important role in providing Britain’s energy.

Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, last month called opponents of the plans “curmudgeons and fault-finders” and described turbines as “elegant” and “beautiful”.

The Duke’s attack on the turbines, believed to be the first public insight into his views on the matter, came in a conversation with the managing director of a leading wind farm company.

When Esbjorn Wilmar, of Infinergy, which builds and operates turbines, introduced himself to the Duke at a reception in London, he found himself on the end of an outspoken attack on his industry.

“He said they were absolutely useless, completely reliant on subsidies and an absolute disgrace,” said Mr Wilmar. “I was surprised by his very frank views.”

Mr Wilmar said his attempts to argue that onshore wind farms were one of the most cost-effective forms of renewable energy received a fierce response from the Duke.

“He said, 'You don’t believe in fairy tales do you?’” said Mr Wilmar. “He said that they would never work as they need back-up capacity.”

One of the main arguments of the anti-wind farm lobby is that because turbines do not produce electricity without wind, there is still a need for other ways to generate power.

Their proponents argue that it is possible to build “pump storage” schemes, which would use excess energy from wind power to pump water into reservoirs to generate further electricity in times of high demand and low supply.

It emerged last year that electricity customers are paying an average of £90 a year to subsidise wind farms and other forms of renewable energy as part of a government scheme to meet carbon-reduction targets.

Mr Wilmar said one of the main reasons the Duke thought onshore wind farms to be “a very bad idea” was their reliance on such subsidies.

The generous financial incentives being offered to green energy developers have led landowners to look to build wind farms on their estates, including the Duke of Gloucester, the Queen’s cousin.

Prince Philip, however, said he would never consider allowing his land to be used for turbines, which can be up to 410ft tall, and he bemoaned their impact on the countryside.

Mr Wilmar said: “I suggested to him to put them on his estate, and he said, 'You stay away from my estate young man’.

“He said he thought that they’re not nice at all for the landscape.”

The Duke’s comments echo complaints made by his son, the Prince of Wales, who has refused to have any built on Duchy of Cornwallland.

Yet a turbine will be erected opposite the Castle of Mey in Caithness, where he stays for a week every August, if a farmer succeeds in gaining planning permission from Highland Council.

While they are opposed to onshore wind farms, the Royal family stands to earn millions of pounds from those placed offshore.

Last year, the Crown Estate, the £7billion land and property portfolio, approved an increase in the number of sites around the coast of England. The Crown Estate owns almost all of the seabed off Britain’s 7,700-mile coastline.

Experts predict that the growth in offshore wind farms could be worth £250million a year. Britain has 436 offshore turbines, but within a decade that number will reach nearly 7,000. From 2013, the Royal family’s Civil List payments will be replaced, and instead they will receive 15 per cent of the Crown Estate’s profits, although the Queen, the Duke, the Prince of Wales and other members of the family do not have any say over how the estate makes its money.

Mr Wilmar was at a reception last week in Chelsea, west London, marking the 70th anniversary of the Council of Christians and Jews at which the Queen and Duke were guests of honour.

The Dutch businessman’s company describes itself as committed to preserving the planet. Infinergy, which is a subsidiary of the Dutch firm KDE Energy, is planning to build on a number of sites across the country, from the north of Scotland to Totnes in Devon.

Mr Wilmar claims that onshore turbines are less reliant on subsidies and more cost-effective than those built in the sea. “If you go offshore it costs you twice as much as being on-shore because you have to lay foundations in the sea,” he said. “It’s very expensive for very obvious reasons.”

Two-thirds of the country’s wind turbines are owned by foreign companies, which are estimated to reap £500million a year in subsidies.

A spokesman for the Duke said that Buckingham Palace would not comment about a private conversation.

Obama's secret security details found in gutter

2011-11-19T09:29:00.001-07:00

All I can say is: This is poetic justice.
This is the flim-flan man who lied to get elected, and once he did, threw away all the traditions and measures of secrecy, national security, and sovereignty.

Remember, Obama stuck up Assange, the wiki-leaks man.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/obamas-secret-security-details-found-in-gutter-6264625.html

President Obama's movements during his whirlwind trip to
Australia this week were choreographed in painstaking detail – as
an Australian journalist who found a classified copy of his
schedule in a Canberra gutter can testify.

Dylan Welch, who works for Fairfax Media, discovered the itinerary – in a 125-page booklet, Overall Program and Order of Arrangements – dumped 100 metres from the Australian parliament.

As well as minute-by-minute descriptions of Mr Obama's movements, down to which limousine door he was to enter and exit by, the document sets out seating arrangements for the presidential motorcade and gives a breakdown of the security convoy. The booklet, which is classified "in confidence", also lists phone numbers of dozens of senior US and Australian military and civilian staff.

The news will embarrass US officials and their Australian hosts. A leading security expert, Alan Dupont, told Fairfax newspapers it was a significant security breach. "If that had got into the wrong hands it would certainly put the President and some of his entourage at risk if someone could respond quickly enough to having this information," said Prof Dupont, director of the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney.

"Even if you were an ordinary crim, there would be a market for that kind of book." The degree of detail it outlines is illustrated by an entry relating to Mr Obama's arrival at the Royal Australian Air Force base in Darwin on Thursday.

"On a signal from the presidential advance agents, the Prime Minister, Beazley [Kim Beazley, the Australian ambassador to the US] and Bleich [Jeffrey Bleich, the American ambassador to Australia] alight from their vehicles," it states.

The document also catalogues the president's Secret Service teams and vehicles, including "counter-assault teams", a "comms vehicle", an "intel car" and a "hammer truck". The last, according to Fairfax, stands for "hazardous agent mitigation medical emergency response" – the team that provides emergency treatment in the event of a chemical attack.

The job of the counter-assault teams is to use heavy weapons on attackers while the president escapes with his suited Secret Service agents. Among the mobile numbers listed are those of the US deputy ambassador, Jason Hyland; the American consuls-general in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth; and three Australian Air Force wing commanders.

BIG TIME HYPOCRITES

2011-11-18T08:43:00.001-07:00

http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/17/patriotic-millionaires-demand-higher-taxes-but-unwilling-to-pay-up-video/

Washington — Two dozen “patriotic millionaires” traveled to the Capitol on Wednesday to demand that Congress raise taxes on wealthy Americans.

The Daily Caller attended their press conference with an iPad, which displayed the Treasury Department’s donation page, to find out if any of the “patriotic millionaires” were willing to put their money where their mouth is.

Another example of "Who has the Power"

2011-11-18T06:18:00.001-07:00

I am not an outwardly religious person.
I do not go to church anymore because the Clergy are selling out to popular things like Gay marraige and Islam.

But, I was raised by a father that could recite--verbatim--whole chapters of the Bible.
Mainly, because his father was a Methodist preacher.

Down through the recorded history in the Bible, you have people who were expected to LOSE.
David vs Goliath
Joshua and his troops at Jehrico
Daniel in the Assyrain lion cage

Tim Tebow
http://www.timtebow.com/

Is not the biggest NFL quarterback, not the fastest, and many Football aficianados proclaimed when Tebow was drafted that,"He will never make it in the NFL", "He can't throw a pass", etc.

Tebow has been "Making it" since he was born. Tebow was born in Makati City in the Philippines, the son of Pamela Pemberton Tebow, daughter of a U.S. Army colonel, and Robert Ramsey Tebow, a pastor, who were serving as ChristianBaptist missionaries at the time. While pregnant, his mother suffered a life-threatening infection with a pathogenic amoeba. Because of the drugs used to rouse her from a coma and to treat her dysentery, the fetus experienced a severe placental abruption. Doctors had expected a stillbirth and recommended an abortion to protect her life, but she remained undaunted and refused having an abortion.

"The Tebow Rule"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Tebow

In 2010, a new rule for the next NCAA football season, dubbed "The Tebow Rule] by media because it would have affected him, banned messages on eye paint. During his college football career, Tebow frequently wore biblical verses on his eye black. In the 2009 BCS Championship Game, he wore John 3:16 on his eye paint, and as a result, 92 million people searched "John 3:16" on Google during or shortly after the game. Additionally, later, when Tebow switched to another verse, there were 3.43 million searches of "Tim Tebow" and "Proverbs 3:5-6" together. Tebow stated of the searches "It just goes to show you the influence and the platform that you have as a student-athlete and as a quarterback at Florida".

The NFL already has a rule like this in prohibiting players from wearing messages on eye black; so, Tebow would not be able to continue the practice in the NFL.Despite the media labeling it as the Tebow rule, the NCAA denies the rule was influenced by Tebow particularly, since many other notable players (Reggie Bush and Terrelle Pryor for example) wear or have worn messages on eye black.An NCAA spokesman said "When this rule was proposed the committee did not focus on any one team or student athlete. That measure reinforces what the intended use of eye black is, which is to shade the eyes from the sun.

*To his most fervent supporters — and there are many — Tebow was never just a quarterback. He was a champion of Christianity in shoulder pads, a wholesome, fearsome football player who loved God and touchdowns, in that order. If detractors found Tebow preachy, if he seemed too good to be true, he still won two national championships and a Heisman Trophy at the University of Florida, securing his legend as one of the greatest college players ever.*

================================================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/sports/football/in-tebow-debate-a-clash-of-faith-and-football.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
Drafted last year by the Broncos, he played sparingly his rookie season. Now, his struggles to adapt to the N.F.L. have changed the tenor of the debate around him, made it nastier, more personal, more intense. Supporters have reacted to criticism of Tebow as an indictment on religion, while detractors seem to delight in every wayward pass.

Just last year, Tebow drew national attention for his antiabortion commercial broadcast during the Super Bowl. In the past three weeks, he has become the most discussed and most polarizing figure in sports, strange territory for a replacement player on a last-place team. Opponents mocked his celebration pose — kneeling, in prayer, which became an Internet meme known as Tebowing — and his coach offered a lukewarm vote of confidence.

One columnist in Denver called Tebow the worst quarterback in football. Another columnist in Canada labeled Tebow the “Kim Kardashian of sports,” for the intense reaction he elicited. Online, the torrent of mockery and criticism has been fierce. Blog posts included “God explains why he let Tim Tebow fail” and Twitter exploded in hateful vitriol, to which the Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski mused: “I believe Tim Tebow isn’t an N.F.L. starter and I want him to prove me wrong because I believe he’s a great guy. Is that allowed?”

“The role religion plays here is enormous,” said Kurt Warner, the former N.F.L. quarterback and a similarly outspoken Christian athlete. “When somebody professes their faith, and I was that guy for a long time, people automatically think when you praise God it’s because He makes passes go straighter or helps win games. When you lose, they say, your faith doesn’t belong here. Your God’s not helping you win.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

NOTE: Kurt Warner was the same as Tebow--Not the biggest, fastest, etc, but he has two Super Bowl rings.

In my view, Tebow and Warner both have God's help. In this day of athiests and pagan worshippers, it is great to see a mna demonstrate the power of the Lord

Below is the video from last night. Denver was not picked to win.

Published: Nov. 18, 2011 at 12:34 a.m.

125,913 Views
Tags: Tim Tebow

01:36 – It didn't look good for the Broncos. Down a field goal, with 95 yards to go, chances of victory were bleak. But Tim Tebow led his team down the field to beat the Jets 17-13

http://www.nfl.com/videos/auto/09000d5d8243b64f/Tebow-s-game-winning-drive

U.S. Sheriffs Rise Up Against Federal Government: Sheriff Threatens Feds With SWAT Team ~ Grass Roots Take Charge!

2011-11-16T10:10:00.001-07:00

Sheriff Threatens Feds With SWAT Team
http://politicalvelcraft.org/2011/11/14/u-s-sheriffs-rise-up-against-federal-government-sheriff-threatens-feds-with-swat-team/

As more people became dissatisfied with federal government controls and land grabs, it was inevitable that local law enforcement would eventually see the bigger picture. At the northern California fairgrounds of Yreka last month, seven California sheriffs and another from Oregon gathered with a large group of citizens to say that they are finally going to do something about it.

“A giant has been awakened,” said Plumas County, Calif. Sheriff Greg Hagwood, “and they didn’t count on that,” speaking of the federal bureaucracy.
With exposure of the Emergency Management Center in San Luis Obispo a few decades ago, California began to offer the rest of the nation some evidence of the psychological conditioning aimed from the federal level at state, county and city law enforcement.

Nevada Sheriff Tony DeMeo Stops Federal Government: Feds Engaging In Illegal Confiscation Of Cattle And Water Rights Of County Property Owner.
Oregon Sheriff Gil Gilbertson Gives Federal Agents The Boot: Feds Have No Jurisdiction!
Dean Wilson, sheriff of Del Norte County (Sacramento), is a great example of this great awakening. He received the loudest and longest applause for his candor in confessing past faults after apologizing for not understanding the central government assault and land grab being committed against the people and what he should have been doing about it. Only in the past year has he done a turnaround and begun to behave as a county sheriff instead of an extension of federal law enforcement.

Obama’s Federal Stooges Beginning To Understand The Power Of Sheriffs: Sheriff Warns Federal Agents They Will Be Arrested If They Interfere!

Arizona Sheriff: ‘If Decapitating Police Officers Is Not Terrorism, What is?’: More Troops At Korean Border Than Deadly U.S. Mexican Border.

“I had spent a good part of my life enforcing the penal code, but not understanding my oath of office,” he told the audience. “I was ignorant and naïve, but now I know of the assault against our people by the federal government.”

Host sheriff John Lopey of Siskiyou County,(Former California Highway Patrol Captain) speaking about the federal environmental intervention, said: “I have told federal and state officials over and over that, yes, we want to preserve the environment, but you care more about the fish, frogs, trees and birds than you do about the human race. When will you start to balance your decisions to the needs of the people?” Later he told the audience, “We are right now in a fight for our survival.”

Glenn Palmer, sheriff of Grant County, Oregon, said, “If an elected official has not taken an oath of office, he does not belong in office.”
AFP readers are familiar with the work of former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack, who has spent the latter half of his life teaching sheriffs that they are the top law enforcement officers in their counties despite continuing federal intervention attempts. The ears that were deaf for so long may finally be starting to hear.
States Of The Republic: Correcting Their Wayward Child ~ New Laws Constraining The Federal Government.
Stop Homeland Security Agents Cold In Tennessee: McNairy County Sheriffs!
“It’s becoming a national movement now,” Mack told AFP, citing Immigration and Naturalization Service failure at the Mexican borders, the phony drug war, plus IRS and other unconstitutional intervention within these states.
His plans to take this movement national will be launched at a January meeting, where he anticipates 200 sheriffs will be in attendance.
“The county sheriff is the last line of defense guarding our people’s liberty,” he said.
Retired USAF Col. Richard Niemela of Reston, Va. has been exposing the federal monster for years.
He told AFP: “It’s the surreptitious domination by international globalists insidiously using unauthorized and illegal tactics to render null and void those historic and unique powers of the sheriff.”
American Free Press
Police Lock Down Bank Of America: Florida Homeowner Forecloses On Bank Of America ~ Police, Movers, & Lawyer Orders Furnishing To Be Removed From Bank For Auction!

U.S. District Federal Judge Aleta Trauger Orders Police To Stand Down: Orders Tennessee Police To Stop Arresting Occupy Protesters!

High Noon Sheriffs In America: Battle Against Rothschild’s Richest 1% ~ The International Wall Street Banking Cartel.

Arizona Sheriff Babeu: ATF, DOJ Accomplice to Murder – Holder Had Knowledge Of Project Gunrunner In 2009.

The States Nullify Unconstitutional Federal Laws, Even When Endorsed By Supreme Court: Public Opinion & Support Make It Easy To Resist Federal Tyranny.

Nullification 10th. Amendment

Rothschild’s Obama ~ Establishes Domestic Terrorism Group By Signing His 86th. Executive Order #13575 : U.S. Farmers & Landowners Stripped Of Their Liberty & Given To Communist RURAL “Stake Holders”. Agricultural Dams Being Removed In The USA U.N. Agenda 21

Obama’s Natural Born Status To Enter Senate Ethics Committee!

BREAKING => “April 2, 2009″ DOJ Document Condemns Eric Holder: Brags At Mexican Conference In 2009 ABOUT Obama’s Stimulus Funding Of 2009 Gunrunner Project.

If you are corrupt and unabler to do your job, you should resign

2011-11-15T18:55:00.001-07:00

The Media has been hyping for and generating sympathy for Gabrielle Giffords ever since she was shot by a dope-smoking psycho.

Giffords was a Democrat tool from Tucson. She took orders from Nancy Pelosi, and voted FOR everything Pelosi and Obama wanted passed

In my longest occupation, if you were physically unable to do your job, they released you to
a medical retirement

Gabrielle Giffords talks to Diane Sawyer

Scottsdale police arrest man (Defense Attorney) in fatal road rage shooting

2011-11-15T18:38:00.001-07:00

SCOTTSDALE, AZ (KPHO) -

http://www.kpho.com/story/16017501/police-arrest-man-in-fatal-scottsdale-road-rage-shooting
A judge set bond Monday at $500,000 for a Scottsdale lawyer in a fatal road-rage shooting in north Scottsdale.

Police said 59-year-old David Ross Appleton was arrested and booked into the Fourth Avenue Jail in Phoenix on a charge of second-degree murder.

RELATED: 1 dead in Scottsdale road rage shooting

RELATED: David Appleton makes court appearance
Officers said they found inconsistencies with the physical evidence, witness interviews and his account of what led to the shooting death of 50-year-old Paul "Tom" Pearson on Thursday night.

Appleton told police another motorist was tailgating while he was northbound on Pima Road about 7 p.m. Thursday so he pulled into a shopping center parking lot behind a CVS pharmacy at Pima and Pinnacle Peak roads.

Appleton said the car followed him into the parking, the driver got out and reached into an open window of Appleton's Toyota SUV and began choking him, officers said.

Appleton said he pointed a revolver at the man to get him to let go and fired when he continued to choke him, hitting Pearson in the upper chest, according to police.

Officers said Appleton called 911 to report the shooting and was taken to the Scottsdale precinct station near Thompson Peak and Pinnacle Peak roads, where officers interviewed him.

Pearson, who officers said was found on the passenger side of Appleton's vehicle, was taken to Scottsdale Healthcare-Osborn where he was pronounced dead shortly after 8 p.m., police said.

Police said the investigation is continuing.

COMMENT:
I heard today on KPHO that "innocent, responsible" Dave was the aggressor in two previous road rage incidents. Plus the deceased in this incident was found on the passenger side of the car. That must have made choking "good ol'" Dave a bit problematic. Add to that the deceased was on the phone and the other party said no voices were raised makes Dave's claim sound a little weak.
TERRY
==================================================================
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/ariz._criminal_defense_attorney_is_charged_with_2nd-degree_murder_in_road-r/
An Arizona criminal defense lawyer was charged Friday with second-degree murder after allegedly slaying a fellow motorist in a road-rage incident the previous evening.

Police said attorney David Ross Appleton, 59, told them that victim Paul Thomas Pearson, 50, tailgated his Toyota SUV and followed him into a pharmacy parking lot, where Pearson, Appleton said, reached inside his window and began choking him. At that point, the attorney said, he pointed a revolver at Pearson and, when Pearson didn't let go, shot him once in the chest, according to KSAZ, a Fox News affiliate; Scripps Media, based on information from a local ABC News affiliate; and the Valley Fever blog of the Phoenix New Times.
However, authorities found no evidence that Appleton had been choked, and inconsistencies in his story resulted in the second-degree murder charge, the articles say.
A friend of Pearson says he was a gentle man famous for his slow driving and speculated that the incident was sparked when Pearson drove at perhaps five miles below the speed limit. A relative happened to be talking with Pearson on his cell phone at the time and gave an account to police, but it isn't immediately clear what the relative said.
The Scripps article says Appleton had several speeding violations on his driving record. He is a former president of the Phoenix Trial Lawyer's Association.
At last report, Appleton was being held in the Maricopa County jail. As many as 10 of his supporters have been picketing outside, the KSAZ article report

George Soros' Connections

2011-11-15T16:30:00.001-07:00

Move your Cursor over the map. You can move the boxes to see the box underneath

Congressman Allen West - on Herman Cain

2011-11-14T14:09:00.001-07:00

Nut Job shoots aircraft

2011-11-13T11:34:00.001-07:00

The owner of this aircraft is DOCTOR Ritland.

He uses this aircraft to to locations around the world, I'm told, to do Pro Bono medical work.

Dr Ritland just fixed my back--He is SUPER SURGEON (Neurologist) WE have met around 30 people here in our town who had their backs and/or necks corrected by Dr Ritland
THERE WERE ZERO Negative comments about the doctor or his work.

PHOENIX - May 29, 2011

The owner of a plane that was shot at as it sat parked at a Valley airport credits "extraordinary police work" with helping to catch the suspected shooter.

Around 1:30 Sunday morning, two Phoenix police officers on routine patrol near the Deer Valley airport heard gunshots.

They found shell casings on the ground and a bullet hole in a plane owned by Stephen Ritland of Flagstaff.

"The plane goes down there for six months during the winter to keep the snow off," said Ritland during an exclusive interview with ABC15.

The officers saw a car speeding from the scene and managed to write down its license plate.

A short time later they showed up at the home of 26-year-old Randon Reid where they claim to have found two guns they believe Reid used in the shooting.

"He was trying to do damage to a perfectly good airplane," said Ritland. "It's hard to have respect for people who do that."

A police spokesperson says the officers arrested Reid on charges of aggravated DUI and felony flight.

The officers say when they tried to question Reid about the shooting, he declined to talk.

"His mug shot doesn't strike you as that of a responsible, working citizen," said Ritland.

Ritland and his wife plan to travel to the Valley Monday morning to inspect the damage to their plane.

They credit the two officers for catching Reid and hauling him off to jail.

"I think that's extraordinary police work," said Ritland. "They happened to hear the shots and were able to track him down."

http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_phoenix_metro/central_phoenix/pd%3A-plane-shot-at-deer-valley-airport#ixzz1dbzjTFrr

Herman Cain Wants All Blacks to Be Free and Think On Their Own - Part 1

2011-11-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

The Accurate Story Behind the Star Spangled Banner

2011-11-12T06:37:00.001-07:00

WATCH THIS:
You will never sit your ass in a seat or talk on your cell while the National Anthem plays again.
You will also be disgusted at the One-World people (Like Obama) who refuse to stand or remove cover

Herman Cain intervied by Michail Savage Nov 11, 2011

2011-11-12T06:25:00.000-07:00

It is ABOUT TIME a Republican defended himself

2011-11-11T12:06:00.001-07:00

My comment about this: GOOD

I am SO sick and tired of seeing Democrats and RINOs getting free shots at Conservatives.AS a Law Enforcer, I learned early in that a majority of people only obey rules and laws when there is a big hammer waiting to come down on them if they fail to comply

Cain’s Lawyer on Accusing: ‘Think Twice’

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/us/politics/cains-lawyer-on-accusing-think-twice.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

L. Lin Wood, the lawyer hired by the Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain to fend off sexual harassment accusations, has warned that any other women who might be considering coming forward with similar allegations “should think twice.”

On Wednesday morning, less than 24 hours after Karen Kraushaar identified herself as one of two women who had received monetary settlements relating to harassment allegations against Mr. Cain while working for the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s, Ms. Kraushaar faced questions about a workplace complaint she filed at a subsequent job, at the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Hours later, Rush Limbaugh seized on that report to argue that Ms. Kraushaar has “a pattern of whining.”

And when another accuser, Sharon Bialek — whose last name Mr. Limbaugh has pronounced as “buy-a-lick”— appeared Wednesday on MSNBC, she faced fresh inquiries about her troubled financial history, which had been documented and publicized by Mr. Cain’s campaign under the heading, “Who Is Sharon Bialek?”
As Ms. Kraushaar continued her day-old effort to bring the other women accusing Mr. Cain of sexual harassment together for a joint news briefing, she and the others confronted the challenges of taking on a presidential candidate: intensive scrutiny of their backgrounds and motives, encouraged and amplified in this case by conservative news outlets and commentators whose support for Mr. Cain as he battles the allegations has helped him weather the crisis so far.
Ms. Kraushaar told friends she was beginning to worry that all the scrutiny might keep the other women from appearing publicly with her.
As of early Wednesday evening, she had not heard directly from Ms. Bialek. But Ms. Bialek’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, said she was willing to be part of a joint news conference. Nor had Ms. Kraushaar heard from another woman who received a settlement from the association after complaining of inappropriate advances from Mr. Cain and whose complaint against him is described by people familiar with it as among the most serious.
Keeping her own low profile on Wednesday, Ms. Kraushaar said in a brief statement to The New York Times, “Anyone should be able to report allegations of sexual harassment without fear that their lives and careers will be put on public display and laid open to public scrutiny.”
But with polls showing Mr. Cain still running at or near the front of the Republican pack and some conservatives seeing the accusations as an effort to halt his candidacy, the pressure on the accusers and the accused was intense.
Throughout the day, the political world watched to see if Ms. Kraushaar’s effort to present a united front with the other women would succeed in putting more details and possibly one or two more names behind the allegations — or if he and his supporters would undermine their credibility, keep them from making more public claims against him and proceed with his campaign.
Even as some Republican Party elders continued to criticize his handling of the accusations, Mr. Cain benefited from the support of conservative-leaning commentators and news outlets, helping him to raise money. He drew warm applause at the CNBC debate Wednesday in Michigan when he dismissed the accusations, saying, “The American people deserve better.”
The Drudge Report noted that Ms. Bialek had lived in the same building as David Axelrod, President Obama’s political strategist, and said that Ms. Kraushaar “works for Obama.” (A spokeswoman at the Treasury Department in a nonpolitical job, Ms. Kraushaar was also a spokeswoman in the immigration service under President George W. Bush.)

In The New York Post on Tuesday, the columnist Andrea Peyser called Ms. Bialek a “gold digger” who “flirted like a tart” with Mr. Cain. And Mr. Limbaugh amplified the accounts of Ms. Bialek’s financial troubles and the story, first reported on Wednesday by The Associated Press, about Ms. Kraushaar’s workplace complaint at the immigration service.
“What are these babes going to do with a panel?” Mr. Limbaugh said of Ms. Kraushaar’s proposed news briefing. “What does it prove?”
Mr. Cain’s campaign said that Mr. Wood’s services included not only legal representation, but also a research team, and that it had hired another crisis management public relations expert, though it declined to name this person.
Speaking with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mr. Wood, who is based in Atlanta, said Mr. Cain would consider legal action against other accusers, though he did not announce any actual plans to do so.
“I’m not here to scare anyone off,” Mr. Wood said, in the same interview when he warned new accusers to “think twice,” adding, “I’ve been brought in to bring an element of fairness to the accusations being brought.”
Mr. Wood has a national reputation as an aggressive advocate, having represented the family of JonBenet Ramsey and the N.B.A. star Kobe Bryant in his sexual assault case in 2004, which was settled.

Ms. Allred, who represents Ms. Bialek and has her own national reputation for representing women in high-profile sexual harassment cases, said she had prepared her client for criticism, but accused the Cain campaign of taking a “scorched-earth” approach. ( A slam for defending himself)
“He’s got millions of dollars to spend on investigators, high priced attorneys, P.R. people, political operatives, you name it, he can spend it to get what he needs to basically get the high-priced weapons of war ready and aimed at our clients,” Ms. Allred said. “The women we represent don’t have those kinds of resources, and that makes their willingness to speak out all the more heroic.”

Ms. Allred said Ms. Bialek — a former employee of the restaurant association’s education foundation who said Mr. Cain effectively offered to help her find a new job in return for sex, making a rough physical advance in the process — was not bowed by the criticism that had come her way. Much of the scrutiny has been focused on two bankruptcies in her past and a series of debts. (Ms. Bialek has said she is not seeking money to tell her story, though she has not ruled out a book at some point.)

Joel P. Bennett, the lawyer for Ms. Kraushaar, said she, too, was prepared for scrutiny, adding that her job as a spokeswoman for the inspector general for tax administration at the Treasury Department prepared her well.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that Ms. Kraushaar made a complaint at some point in 2002 or 2003 that supervisors at the Immigration and Naturalization Service were unfairly refusing to let her work from home after she was injured in a car accident, and that she had also complained about a sexually suggestive e-mail a supervisor circulated about the differences between men and women. It reported that she had requested a cash settlement, a promotion and leave time, but ultimately dropped the matter.

Mr. Bennett, who also represented her in that case, refused to comment on it, but questioned its significance, noting that in court cases generally, “If you file a complaint against employer X, and filed a complaint five years ago against employer Y, that’s not considered relevant.”
Mr. Bennett said late Wednesday that even if Ms. Kraushaar enlisted only Ms. Bialek for her briefing, she would go forward nonetheless.

Susan Saulny, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting