The Georgia Department of Transportation has denied the application of a Ku Klux Klan group to join the state’s Adopt A Highway program. The denial of the International Keystone Knights of the KKK to adopt part of Route 515 in the Appalachian Mountains raises some serious first amendment questions. While popular, the denial could could face a successful challenge under existing case law.
Category: Politics
As the Obama Administration objects to the Russian government selling attack helicopters to Syria in the midst of that civil war, another deal to buy the same Russian helicopters has surfaced: our own contract to buy Russian copters for the Afghan military from the same country. I share the disgust over Putin’s continued support for the Assad regime, but I am equally dismayed by Obama’s continuing to spend billions on the corrupt Karzai government to use in its own civil war.
There is a chilling report out from the Federal Reserve that the median net worth of families plunged by 39 percent in just three years, from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010. That returns American families to the wealth level of 1992.
The biggest hit were the middle class families. The wealthiest families actually saw a slight rise. The median for credit card debt did not materially change, however. Much of this decline is due to the decline in home values which remains the biggest investment for most families. Forty-seven percent of citizens do not pay taxes income taxes and 87 percent of those earn less than $20,000 a year.
These figures are remarkable since they parallel the Great Depression but we have not seen the same degree of displacement or social or political upheaval as a result. There are different theories from better public welfare programs to a new political dynamic with many lower and middle class families supporting either the Tea Party or GOP. It may also be that many families have experienced the decline but continue to hold on to their homes so that the diminishing in wealth does not manifest as sharply in their lives. Whatever the cause, the reduction in wealth has not produced a comparative political backlash that I can see.
Source: Washington Post
There is doubling down and doubling dumb. You will have to decide. Brooklyn principal Greta Hawkins caused a national uproar after banning Lee Greenwood’s patriotic “God Bless the USA” — including criticism on this blog about the lack of a standard given the fact that the school allowed other songs like Justin Bieber’s song “Baby” with lyrics about nailing a girl. Rather than reversing her decision to ban the first song, Hawkins responded by banning Bieber’s song as well. The kids, who have been practicing both songs for months, will now have to come up with some other choices for their end-of-the-year celebration.
Remember Terry Jones’s Dove World Outreach Center with his penchant for burning Korans? He is now turning his hate-filled message of healing to people with an Obama effigy hanging from gallows in front of his church. For those who seem to embrace religion as an excuse to hate, it is the perfect recruitment message.
Continue reading “Florida Pastor Hangs Obama In Effigy As Latest Hate-Filled Message”
Once again, I find myself reading a translation of a Muslim cleric and trying to confirm that this is not a hoax. London-based Kuwaiti Shiite Cleric Yasser Al-Habib is shown on the video below reportedly saying that Satan turns certain babies by sticking his finger in the anus of babies and that gays crave “penetration” due to a “worm.” As with the recent Christian minister calling for death camps of gays, I am often left skeptical on such hate-filled nonsense could be espoused by even the most extreme religious figures. However, this translation is appearing on various websites.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce John Bryson was cited with a hit-and-run violation over the weekend in a controversy that could cost him his cabinet position as well as his freedom. Bryson is accused of hitting one car that was waiting for a train to pass and then hitting a second car on his way home. He was found unconscious in his vehicle and hospitalized. It is standard not to arrest a suspect if he is hospitalized. There is no report of alcohol or drugs being involved in the incidents, which occurred in the early evening.
Continue reading “Commerce Secretary Accused Of Hit-And-Run In California”
This story is one of the saddest statements of the reality in our public schools. Jake Balthazor, 15, of Coon Rapids, Minnesota was told to take off a rosary that he wore as a sign of support of his cancer-ridden grandmother. The reason? No, not the separation of church and state. It is because a gang uses the rosary as a gang symbol and teachers did not want any trouble.
Continue reading “Minnesota Student Ordered To Remove Rosary As Gang Symbol”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the commonlaw of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
~John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, Ch. III, (kudos to Bron)
On the night of February 13th, 773 RAF Avro Lancaster bombers swept in low and fast on the Saxony railway town of Dresden. It was early 1945, The Third Reich was collapsing and some 600,000 people had taken refuge in the city to avoid the Allied onslaught. The presumed target was the military complex on the outskirts of town known as the Albertstadt. Dresden, itself, was riddled with military garrisons intermingled among the civilian population. In two waves, the RAF dropped 650,000 incendiaries and 8,000 lbs of high explosives and hundreds of 4,000 pounds bombs on the city center, all with little to no resistance. The entire city was ablaze. RAF crews reported smoke rising to a height of 15,000 ft. Fires were seen 500 miles away from the target.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
My father had a favorite saying with which was to excoriate me on the many occasions when I had misbehaved. “The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions”. He used this to chastise me for some bad behavior, but more importantly to give me guidance of the “slippery-slope” that I was on when I behaved badly. Although it’s been 50 years since his death his words have remained with me even though I’ve aged into a man who’s lived far longer than he had. It’s been my observation that there is truth to this cliche, yet it does represent a form of logic, the “slippery-slope”, which can often also be specious. When I read this New York Times Article: “Slippery-Slope Logic, Applied to Health Care” by Economist Richard H. Thaler, Published: May 12, 2012http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/economy/slippery-slope-logic-vs-health-care-law-economic-view.html , I was again reminded of my Father’s admonitions and began to think about the use of “slippery-slope” logic. As it relates to SCOTUS and health care Mr. Thaler’s critique of the “slippery-slope” logic being applied by Justice Scalia did ring true:
“Consider these now-famous comments about broccoli from Justice Antonin G. Scalia during the oral arguments. “Everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food,” he said. “Therefore, everybody is in the market. Therefore, you can make people buy broccoli.” ”
“Justice Scalia is arguing that if the court lets Congress create a mandate to buy health insurance, nothing could stop Congress from passing laws requiring everyone to buy broccoli and to join a gym.”
“Please stop! The very fact that a slippery slope is being cited as grounds for declaring the law unconstitutional — despite that “significant deference” usually given to laws passed by Congress — tells you all that you need to know about the argument’s validity. Can anyone imagine Congress passing a broccoli mandate law, much less the court allowing it to take effect?”
These are excepts from Mr. Thaler’s article. His short column is well worth reading for his examples of the problem with “slippery-slope” logic. My piece though, is neither about health care, nor SCOTUS. I’d like to explore the question of the validity of “slippery-slope” arguments that have been commonly used in public discourse and whether we would be better off as a society if we ignored them. Continue reading “The Slippery Slope”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
In a 2007 report, entitled Underlying Reasons for Success and Failure of Terrorist Attacks (pdf) and prepared for Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate by Homeland Security Institute (and recently scrubbed from their web site, here) notes: “a favorite tactic of Hamas, the “double tap;” a device is set off, and when police and other first responders arrive, a second, larger device is set off to inflict more casualties and spread panic.”
It has been documented that this terrorist tactic has been embraced by President Obama.
An antiquated system and poor management in China may have created a potentially disastrous epidemic for the world: a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis. A combination of poor testing and treatment appears to have created both a multidrug-resistant or MDR tuberculosis. Of million TB patients, 110,000 now have MDR TB.
Continue reading “China Reports New Epidemic Of Drug-Resistant TB”
In May 2009, a mentally disturbed man, James Bayliss, then 21, was beaten at a traffic stop in Warren County, New Jersey. While the family and other demanded answers, the police said little. Now, a long withheld police video has surfaced that shows troopers severely beating Bayliss who was thrown to the ground and pummeled by multiple officers. Critics are now demanding to know why the film was withheld and why the actions taken by the police was also withheld from the public.
In a letter sent last night, the Director of the Idaho State Liquor Division agreed to lift the ban on special orders of Five Wives Vodka after barring sales of the product by Ogden’s Own Distillery as offensive to Mormons. In the letter below, John Anderson apologizes for his past statements and those of his agency in an effort to avoid the litigation announced by my office earlier. We will be watching the reconsideration of the general listing application closely in July. We will keep the team intact during this period. In the meantime, bars in Idaho can order the product through special orders — an inconvenient but hopefully a temporary process.
Continue reading “Idaho Lifts Ban On Five Wives Vodka And Apologizes For Prior Statements”
For years, the United States has danced around the fact that it has repeatedly enter the sovereign territory of other countries with drone attacks and in some cases small unit attacks without the permission of countries like Pakistan. Such acts violate international law and would be viewed by the United States as an act of war if committed on U.S. territory. This week,Defense Secretary Leon Panetta finally responded directly to those objections and said that the attacks would continue unabated. Panetta essentially stated that we can invade other nations because we can and that countries will have to come to accept that — using the same concept as “floggings will continue on ship until morale improves.”
Continue reading “Panetta: The Drone Strikes Will Continue Until Morale Improves”