Details have emerged from the Rev. Al Sharpton’s financial empire and how companies have essentially paid what many have criticized as protection money against threats of boycotts. The leading companies shelling out are some of the biggest Anheuser-Busch, Honda, Colgate-Palmolive, Macy’s, PepsiCo, General Motors, Wal-Mart, FedEx, Continental Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, Chase and Pfizer among the 50 companies who have given to Sharpton and his organizations.
Continue reading “Cash Machine: A Glimpse into the Economic Empire of Al Sharpton”
Category: Politics
Before 9-11, the rationale for expanded oil drilling was sustainable energy for an expanding economy. Then, after 9-11, it became an anti-terrorism measure. Most recently, Cheney rose the alarm that we had to start drilling because the Chinese are coming. He insisted that Chinese were drilling under contracts with Cuba 60 miles of the Florida coast. He has now admitted that that is false and his office explained that his source was George Will. I thought that was the Vice President and the President’s reigning energy expert. Yet, he gets his industry intelligence from columnists?
Continue reading “Cheney Admits that His Warning of Chinese Oil Drilling Was Wrong”
Justice Edward H. Lehner has taken the ultimate form of judicial notice. His salary is too small so he has ordered the legislature to give him and the rest of the state’s 1,250 judges a raise within 90 days.
Continue reading “Judicial Notice: New York Judge Orders Himself a Raise”
Maclean Magazine is the latest publication to be called to the dock to answer to the new speech police in Canada. The magazine is accused of hate speech and has had to answer for the publication of an article written by Mark Steyn entitled Why the Future Belongs to Islam. The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, a Robespierrean institution that reviews and punishes improper speech, held a week of hearings on the magazine and will soon issue its ruling. The tribunal is an example of an expanding crisis in various Western nations, where free speech is being sacrificed in the name of combatting intolerance.
Continue reading “Maclean’s Magazine Faces Speech Police In Canada”
A very disturbing free speech case has emerged out of Canada: another example of how the West is abandoning principles of free speech in its widening definitions of hate speech. The Alberta Human Rights Commission has punished Rev. Stephen Boission and the Concerned Christian Coalition for anti-gay speech, not only awarding damages but censuring future speech that the Commission deems inappropriate. Boission’s offense came in the form of a letter containing anti-gay language.
Continue reading “Oh Canada! Alberta Human Rights Commission Punishes and Censures Anti-Gay Speech”
The Administration has invested heavily in studies to show various health risks of marijuana use. the most recent suggests that heavy marijuana use can increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke. However, the sample group were smokers of between 75 and 350 marijuana cigarettes per week. If you are smoking 350 marijuana cigarettes per week, I expect you will have a variety of “issues,” not the least of which is remembering your name and city of origin.
Continue reading “Reefer Madness: Administration Releases New Study Showing Harm from Pot Smoking”
In the nation’s capitol, the Washington, D.C. police are closing off whole neighborhoods this weekend in a crack down on crimes — and civil liberties. No one will be allowed into areas of the Capitol unless they live their or can show that they are going things like going to church.
In a case closely watched by religious and gay rights groups, the Virginia Supreme Court has ruled that the state must enforce parental visitation rights of a mother’s former lesbian partner under a Vermont court order. The victory for Janet Jenkins over Lisa Miller is what many religious groups had feared that the full faith and credit clause and other provisions would required other states to recognize the marital and parental status of gay couples from states like Vermont and soon California.
Continue reading “Virginia Upholds Parental Rights of Non-Biological Lesbian Mother”
Talk about proving a negative. Former House Republican Leader Tom DeLay has said that “Absolutely, no doubt about it” .. . Sen. Barack Obama is a Marxist. In a sign of fairness, DeLay stressed: “hey, I have said publicly, and I will again, that unless he proves me wrong, he is a Marxist.” Of course, this is much like demanding that DeLay prove he is not a money launderer — the burden is usually on the accuser.
The Turkish Constitutional Court delivered a great victory for those fighting to preserve the country’s secular traditions. It upheld the ban on female university students wearing headscarves — despite the efforts of Turkey’s new pro-Islamic president. For secularists, it is a great victory, but it is highly problematic from a civil liberties standpoint.
Continue reading “Turkish Constitutional Court Upholds Ban on Students Wearing Scarves”
For many, it would seen like the political equivalent to a democratic dominatrix contract for a candidate to help pay off the debt of another candidate — money used in relentless campaign attacks largely targeting him for over seventeen months. Yet, for months, aides to Hillary Clinton have been insisting that Obama help pay off the more than $20 million — much of it spent attacking him and his qualifications. To the astonishment of many, Clinton adviser and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has indicated that they may just do that. There is an interesting legal reason, however, why this issue is so pressing for Clinton: if she does not pay herself back the money that she loaned to the campaign by ($11.4 million is money out of her own accounts) by August 28th, she can only be reimbursed for $250,000.
Continue reading “Daschle: Obama May Help Pay for Millions Spent Attacking Him”
What does it take to get a defense contract in the Bush Administration? After awarding a $300 million contract to a 22-year-old man, Efriam E. Diveroli, who sold defective arms to our Afghan allies, it has now been reported that the Defense Department has awarded an $80 million contract to indicted Saudi financier Gaith Pharaon. The level of sheer incompetence in such contracts is staggering.
Continue reading “U.S. Military Awards $80 Million Contract to Indicted Saudi Financier”
A friend recently sent me the new parody targeting Hillary Clinton using a scene from a film of Hitler in the bunker with his generals. It was very familiar. It is a scene from Der Untergang (The Downfall). Previously, a friend sent me the same clip dubbed to attack the Dallas Cowboys. Both clips are shown below. It seems that historical revisionism has found a voice in American politics and sports.
Continue reading “Historical Revisionism With a Bite: From the Dallas Cowboys to Hillary Clinton, Hitler Film Becomes Favorite Parody”
In a serious attack on both free speech and free press, the Singapore government has arrested a California blogger (and U.S. citizen) after Gopalan Nair, 58, criticized Justice Belinda Ang Saw Ean. Nair is a former Singapore lawyer who is now charged with insulting a public servant and has already spent a year in jail. He could be faced with one year in prison.
A Tampa case may present an ideal context to review the long-criticized pornography test and the role of community standards in the Internet age. Paul F. Little, known as “Max Hardcore,” is facing an obscenity prosecution for selling porn on the Internet. The Bush Administration could have chosen any state in the Union, but engineered an indictment in Tampa — an open case of forum shopping for the most conservative jury pool that it could find. The Supreme Court has never produced a coherent and consistent approach to obscenity and this case is the result of this long-standing judicial failure. Continue reading “James Madison Meets Max Hardcore: Florida Obscenity Case Could Force Review of Community Standards in Internet Age”