Remember when we were told the bailout of the auto companies was just like a loan and we might even make money on it. Well, the President’s National Economic Council has announced that it will cost $14 billion. That is $14 billion out of the original $80 billion bailout.
Continue reading “Auto Industry Bailout to Cost U.S. Taxpayers $14 Billion”
Category: Politics
Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah is the spiritual mentor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and he is not exactly a kid person. After telling the faithful that suicide bombings are required for Muslims in fighting Israel, he declined to make an exception for children.
There is a bizarre case in Italy where Italian prosecutors have charged the country’s top seismologist with manslaughter for failing to predict a natural disaster that struck Italy in 2009. The massive earthquake killed 308 people and they blame Enzo Boschi, the president of Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology. Six other scientists and technicians are also charged.
Continue reading “Seismic Charge: Italian Prosecutors Charge Seismologists With Manslaughter For Failing To Predict 2009 Quake”
Now this is a novel citation. The Albemarle Road Presbyterian Church has been fined for “excessive pruning” of its its crape myrtles. The city is demanding fines or replacement of the trees.
Continue reading “Church Cited For Excessive Pruning of Trees In Charlotte”
There was a refreshing moment of truthful clarity last week from Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal during an interview on “CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS.” Prince Talal admitted that the Saudis want to lower oil prices to avoid moves toward other energy sources and away from oil. It is the same principle upon which drug dealers offer cut-rate narcotics to keep the addiction going for their customers.
A British author Alan Shadrake, 76, is the latest victim of a worldwide trend of attacks on free speech. Shadrake wrote a book entitled Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore’s Justice in the Dock detailing the inequities and unfairness of the Singapore justice system. The response of Singapore’s courts was to convict Shadrake and throw him in jail for contempt. The abusive case should be a rallying point for civil libertarians around the world, not to mention any Singaporeans who value free speech and the rule of law. The Singapore government compounded the abuse by banning the book.
Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) has sent a letter challenging the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s signing the Patriot Act with an autopen. I discussed this issue on CNN where I explained that, while this is not a good practice, it would likely be upheld under long-standing precedent going back to the 1600s. While obviously the autopen post-dated such precedent, the idea of signing by direction or surrogate is not new.
Continue reading “Is The Autopen Mightier Than The Sword? Rep. Graves Challenges Use of Autopen Presidential Signatures”
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Reeling from the backlash of sentiment questioning why liberals and Democrats were banned from a public town square meeting on Florida’s budget, Governor Scoot pulled an “Oops.” Apparently, it was all the work of a poor misguided staffer, Russ Abrams, a $60,000.00 a year special assistant to the Governor who has a serious First Amendment mental block. Despite newspaper notices that the meeting in the conservative retirement community was open to the public, Abrams told Sumter County Sheriff’s deputies that the event was private and that Democrats and liberals were not required. A reluctant deputy informed the banned folks that he was instructed to remove them.
Continue reading “Update: Gov. “Scoot”: Banning Dems & Liberals All A Big Mistake!”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
America likes to think of itself as a country where one’s abilities determine one’s fortune. America was founded by those fleeing European countries where upward mobility was restricted by the state.
The opportunity to obtain a good education is essential to a society that values meritocracy.
Continue reading “School Vouchers and the Death of Meritocracy”
-Submitted by David Durmm (Nal), Guest Blogger
We have previously discussed the attempt by Disney to trademark the term “Seal Team 6″, here. Disney has withdrawn its application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office “out of deference to the Navy.” Several days after Disney filed its application, the U.S. Navy filed its own application for trademarks on the phrases ‘SEAL Team’ and ‘Navy SEALs.’ The Navy had established a beachhead with its longstanding trademark of “SEALs,” which it has licensed to video game producers.
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Florida Governor Rick Scott (R-Fla) may be changing his name to Rick “Scoot” after his rousing speech at The Villages Retirement Center Town Square in central Florida. Crowing over budget cuts to programs for homeless veterans, meals for poor seniors, a council for deafness, a children’s hospital, cancer research, public radio, whooping-cough vaccines for poor mothers, and aid for the paralyzed, the tea-party darling decided the public square was the perfect place to squelch any dissent. Ordering sheriff’s deputies and that endless coterie of blonde Republican fresh-faced staffers to comb the crowd for Democrats and any other persons sporting “liberal looking pins and buttons,” the Governor banned them contending the event discussing the public’s money and re-enacting the signing of Florida’s budget was a very “private” affair among friends.
Continue reading “Florida Governor Rick Scott & The “Private” Town Square”
In a 5-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld an Arizona law imposing sanctions on businesses that hire illegal aliens. The decision (below) in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, 09-115 was long anticipated because of its implications for a possible ruling in the more controversial Arizona provision regarding the state enforcement of immigration laws — a case making its way toward the Court. I will be discussing the case Friday morning on CNN.
Continue reading “Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Immigration Law”
The Kentucky Supreme Court has handed down an important ruling (below) that Christopher Egan can make a paternity claim even if the child is the result of an adulterous affair. It is the rejection of a long-standing bar on such claims under a type of “dirty hands” rule for adulterous affairs. The court turned its back on a long line of morality based cases once called “bastardy cases.” Justice Bill Cunningham (right) in dissent accused the court of throwing the institution of marriage on the “funeral pyre of modern convenience and unanchored values.” Justice Daniel Venters (left) excellent majority decision is available below.
Continue reading “Kentucky Supreme Court Recognizes Paternity Claim From Adulterous Affair and Puts An End To The “Bastardy Cases””
In a long overdue action, the Serbian government has finally arrested accused war criminal Ratko Mladic, the highest-ranking war crimes suspect still at large from the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Mladic, 69, is accused of genocide, extermination and murder, including the deaths of over 8000 men and boys after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995.
Liu Dali is a Chinese citizen who bravely sought to petition the government over rampant corruption. The Chinese government responded by throwing him into a corrupt prison system where he did manual labor for 12 hours of day and then was forced to play online games to build up credits that were sold by prison officials for cash. If he failed to make his quota of game credits, he was beaten. This may seem like a Monty Python skit but it is deadly serious.
Continue reading “Gold Farming in The Worker’s Paradise: Chinese Prisons Forcing Prisoners To Play Online Games To Sell Credits”