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Welfare State at its Finest

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 9:15:33 PM

Single mother-of-six finds £2m mansion on the net... and then gets YOU to pay £7,000 a month rent

By Emily Andrews and Stephen Wright

Last updated at 1:08 PM on 15th February 2010

A single mother-of-six is getting more than £80,000 a year from the taxpayer to live in a £2million mansion in an exclusive London suburb.

Essma Marjam, 34, is given almost £7,000 a month in housing benefits to pay the rent on the five-bedroom villa just yards from Sir Paul McCartney's house and Lord's cricket ground.

She also receives an estimated £15,000 a year in other payouts, such as child benefit, to help look after her children, aged from five months to 14.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250993/Single-mum-finds-mansion-net-gets-YOU-pay-7-000-month-rent.html
Tags: welfare  
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Kennedy Miniseries

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 9:12:11 PM

Kennedy Miniseries Stirs Controversy

By DAVE ITZKOFF
Published: February 16, 2010

A new mini-series about John F. Kennedy’s presidency that is being prepared by the History channel does not yet have a cast or a premiere date. Not a frame of footage has been shot. It does, however, have prominent critics who want it brought to a halt.

The critics, including Theodore C. Sorensen, a former Kennedy adviser, say they have read the scripts for the project and that those contain errors of fact and emphasis. But like a similar controversy over a 2003 television film about Ronald Reagan, the dispute over the embryonic Kennedy series seems to say as much about the enduring place of the Kennedys as a battleground in the culture wars as it does about history itself.

The mini-series, called “The Kennedys,” is the brainchild of Joel Surnow, a creator of the Fox action show “24” and an outspoken political conservative. That raised alarms among Kennedy partisans when the History channel said in December that it would pick up the project.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/arts/television/17kennedy.html


Tags: Media   Kennedy  
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'Driving while Distracted'

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:51:17 PM

Driving While Distracted

Ray LaHood, government guy, targets our ­cell phones.

BY Andrew Ferguson

February 22, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 22

If you want to know why it may soon be illegal for you to use your cell phone when you drive your car, you have to remember that Ray LaHood, the secretary of transportation, is a government guy. It’s all he knows.

As a young man LaHood taught for six years in a private school, but since then it’s been government all the way—a few years as a planner for the state planning commission, a term in the Illinois legislature, nearly 20 years as a congressional aide, and 14 years in the big time, as a Republican congressman, piping federal grants into a derelict district in central Illinois. Though he’s driven many automobiles and ridden in countless airplanes, he has no particular expertise in the nation’s transportation systems, and some kibitzers wondered aloud why President Obama appointed him secretary. But the kibitzers miss the point: As a government guy LaHood doesn’t need any expertise beyond being a government guy.

This is where you and your cell phone come in. Over the last several months LaHood has mobilized his vast and lavishly funded ($70 billion) department behind a high-minded goal: “to put an end to distracted driving.” Those are his words—not curtail, not discourage, not even reduce by 50 percent. No: Put an end to. In its ambition and method, LaHood’s initiative is a kind of textbook example of how government guys create work for themselves, manage to keep themselves busy, and put the rest of us on our guard. 

The government guy’s first step, always, is to raid the language of epidemiology and declare a problem—any problem, from anorexia to obesity—an “epidemic.” And so: “Distracted driving is a serious, life-threatening epidemic,” LaHood said at one of his big events last month. (By definition, of course, epidemics are serious and life-threatening, but since distracted driving isn’t really an epidemic, the adjectives are needed to juice it up.)

http://weeklystandard.com/articles/driving-while-distracted


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'The Mount Vernon Statement'

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:44:17 PM
Nation’s Top Conservatives Will Sign Philosophical Declaration of War against Big Government
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) - The nation's top conservative leaders will gather Wednesday at Collingwood in Alexandria, Va.—a property that was once the site of George Washington’s River Farm—to sign a document organizers are calling the Mount Vernon Statement. It is designed to signal that a united and resurgent conservative movement is declaring philosophical war against the big government and moral relativism advanced by the nation’s liberal cultural, academic and political establishments.

The statement emphatically says no to the type of "change" pushed by political leaders who ignore the Constitution's limits on government power.

“In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics,” says an excerpt from the statement. “The self-evident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.

“Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new,” says the statement. “But where would this lead--forward or backward, up or down? Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?”

“The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles,” it says.

The full document will be posted online at www.themountvernonstatement.com after 3 p.m. Wednesday.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/61365
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Another Person Obama Nominates Just Means Another Person with a Disgusting Past

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:35:26 PM

Obama's Islamic Envoy Quoted Defending Man Charged With Aiding Terrorists

FOXNews.com

President Obama's new envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference, Rashad Hussain, is at the center of a controversy over remarks attributed to him defending a man who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a terrorist group

The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs quoted Hussain in 2004 as calling Sami al-Arian the victim of "politically motivated persecutions" after al-Arian, a university professor, was charged in 2003 with heading U.S. operations of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The United States has designated the Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a foreign terrorist group as far back as 1997. At the time of al-Arian's arrest, then Attorney General John Ashcroft called it "one of the most violent terrorist organizations in the world."

Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to aid Palestinian Islamic Jihad and was sentenced to more than four years in prison.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/16/obamas-islamic-envoy-disputes-report-quoting-defending-terror-convict/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fpolitics+%2528Text+-+Politics%2529

Tags: Islam   obama  
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'Rachel Maddow Throws a Cheap Shot at an Honest Vote'

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:32:15 PM

Rachel Maddow throws a cheap shot at an honest vote

By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
February 16, 2010

It started with President Obama's much-praised appearance before House Republicans on Jan. 29. Discussing last year's $787 billion stimulus bill, Obama accused the GOP of hypocrisy, saying lawmakers are returning to their districts to take credit for federal spending they opposed in Washington. "A lot of you have gone to appear at ribbon-cuttings for the same projects that you voted against," Obama said.

Fast-forward to Sunday's "Meet the Press." Illinois Republican Rep. Aaron Schock was taking part in a discussion that included the lefty MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow. When Schock denounced pork-laden federal spending, Maddow hit him with Obama's talking point.

"Just this week you were at a community college touting a $350,000 green technology education program, talking about how great that was going to be for your district," she said to Schock. "You voted against the bill that created that grant. And so that's happening a lot with Republicans sort of taking credit for things that Democratic bills do, and then Republicans simultaneously touting their votes against them and trashing them.

...

But what point had Maddow really made? Perhaps that it's cheap and easy to criticize a lawmaker's vote, but harder to actually deal with the issues it presents.

The spending to which Maddow referred was a grant to Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield, Ill. It was to buy equipment for training students to install cutting-edge environmental technologies required in new home construction.

The original $350,000 request was placed in the Education Department's appropriations bill last year by none other than Schock. (He was working with another GOP congressman, John Shimkus, who represents the district next to Schock's.) It turns out Lincoln Land asked Schock for help in getting the money. Schock thought it was a worthy project and wrote a request for inclusion in the education bill.

But the bill never passed. As it often does, Congress put off approving major spending measures until the end of the year. As December approached, Democratic leaders wrapped the education appropriation into a giant $447 billion omnibus spending bill that also included funding for the Transportation, Housing, Justice, State, Labor, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services departments, among others. The bill contained, in the words of a Washington Post report, "thousands of earmarks and double-digit increases for several cabinet agencies." It also included, deep inside its 2,500 pages, Schock's request for Lincoln Land Community College.

...

So Schock voted no. But what about the request for Lincoln Land? How did Schock reconcile voting against the omnibus bill when it contained money for his own district?

"I have two responsibilities," Schock explains. "The first is to advocate for responsible federal spending, and the second is to advocate for my district's fair share of that federal spending. I don't see those responsibilities as mutually exclusive."


http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Rachel-Maddow-throws-a-cheap-shot-at-an-honest-vote-84414382.html


 


Tags: york   Media  
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No Tort Reform Says Surprise Surprise the Trial Lawyers

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:26:18 PM

Trial lawyers to Obama: Don’t deal on tort reform in healthcare neogtiations

By Jeffrey Young - 02/14/10 04:56 PM ET
President Barack Obama wants a bipartisan deal on health reform, but trial lawyers don’t want him to deal on a top Republican priority: tort reform.

Trial lawyers defeated President George W. Bush’s push for medical liability reform and successfully lobbied to water down tort reform provisions in healthcare reform bills this Congress. But the battle is far from over.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/81055-trial-lawyers-to-obama-dont-deal-on-tort-reform
Tags: health care  
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'Playing Freedom Cheap'

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:23:20 PM
Playing Freedom Cheap
by Thomas Sowell

If eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, incessant distractions are the way that politicians take away our freedoms, in order to enhance their own power and longevity in office. Dire alarms and heady crusades are among the many distractions of our attention from the ever increasing ways that government finds to take away more of our money and more of our freedom.

Magicians have long known that distracting an audience is the key to creating the illusion of magic. It is also the key to political magic.

Alarms ranging from "overpopulation" to "global warming" and crusades ranging from "affordable housing" to "universal health care" have been among the distractions of political magicians. But few distractions have had such a long and impressive political track record as getting people to resent and, if necessary, hate other people.

The most politically effective totalitarian systems have gotten people to give up their own freedom in order to vent their resentment or hatred at other people-- under Communism, the capitalists; under Nazis, the Jews.

http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/02/16/playing_freedom_cheap


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'Plagiarizing a War'

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:22:10 PM
Plagiarizing a War
by Cal Thomas

Plagiarism, as defined by dictionary.com, is "the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work."

In 1987, then-senator and presidential candidate Joe Biden was accused of plagiarizing from a speech by then-British Labour Party Leader Neil Kinnock. Biden eventually withdrew after a media firestorm, which was egged on by the eventual 1988 Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis.

Now Vice President Biden is involved in a more serious act of plagiarism. He is trying to take credit for progress in the Iraq war, which he, then-Senator Barack Obama and many Democrats opposed, calling it a failure.

On CNN's "Larry King Live" last week, Biden shamelessly claimed: "I'm very optimistic about -- about Iraq, and this can be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government."

http://townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2010/02/16/plagiarizing_a_war


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'Five Wacky Ways Libs Want to Fight Non-Existent Global Warming'

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:21:15 PM
Five Wacky Ways Libs Want to Fight Non-Existent Global Warming
by John Hawkins

As Americans have come to realize that the "science" behind global warming seems to mainly consist of fudging data and making doomsday prophecies in return for grant money, the wheels have started to come off Al Gore's hobby horse.

  Of course, conservatives have not been shocked by this turn of events. That's because unlike far too many liberals, conservatives are actually interested in science, while the Left looks at it as little more than another institution to march through and corrupt in an effort to push their political agenda forward.

  We've been seeing this play out for years in the debate over global warming which has featured conservatives actually asking basic questions about the science behind it that liberals have tried to dodge by screaming "scientific consensus" at the top of their lungs.

  However, when even prominent global warming advocates like Phil Jones are being forced to publicly admit what global warming skeptics have been saying for years, that there hasn't been any warming in over a decade, it's an indication that the global warming shell game has just about run its course. Soon, the global warming "true believers" will be down to environmental extremists, scientists on the global warming gravy train, and hardcore socialists with ulterior motives for promoting an increasingly ridiculous theory. With that in mind, it's worth taking a look at some of the extreme, impractical, and bizarre changes that liberals want to make to our way of life in an effort to fight a threat that's about as real as Barack Obama's campaign promises.

  1) End Short Airplane Flights. The group Plane Stupid actually wants an "end to short haul flights and airport expansion." Incidentally, in case you're wondering, a "short haul" flight runs 500-1000 miles, depending on the definition that's used. So, if these guys had their way, instead of a 3 hour flight, you'd essentially have to spend a couple of extra days on the road, each way, driving to where you are going. Maybe that sounds appealing to liberals who have nothing better to do than show up at the local "Free Mumia" protest, but the rest of us have busy schedules.

http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnHawkins/2010/02/16/five_wacky_ways_libs_want_to_fight_non-existent_global_warming?page=1


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'Terrorism is Not an Ordinary Crime'

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:20:03 PM

John Brennan On Gitmo Recidivism

Terrorism is not an ordinary crime.

BY Thomas Joscelyn

February 14, 2010 6:25 PM

President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, is once again drawing criticism. This time, Brennan’s remarks concerning the Pentagon’s latest Gitmo recidivism study have come under scrutiny. 

The Pentagon’s most recent study on Gitmo recidivism concluded that 20 percent of detainees have either been confirmed as, or are suspected of, returning to terrorism. Brennan cited the 20 percent figure in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders earlier this month. Brennan explained that this figure “includes 9.6 percent of detainees who are confirmed recidivists and 10.4 percent of detainees who the Intelligence Community suspects, but is not certain, may have engaged in recidivist activities.”

While speaking at the Islamic Center at New York University on Saturday, Brennan again cited the 20 percent figure, but downplayed its significance. “People sometimes use that figure, 20 percent, say 'Oh my goodness, one out of five detainees returned to some type of extremist activity,'” Jake Tapper of ABC News quotes Brennan as saying.

“You know, the American penal system, the recidivism rate is up to something about 50 percent or so, as far as return to crime. Twenty percent isn't that bad,” Brennan added.

As Tapper notes, Brennan’s comments led to more criticism by leading Republicans, including Senator Lindsey Graham.

The problem is that terrorism is not an ordinary crime, so comparing Gitmo recidivist rates to recidivist rates for ordinary criminals is very much like comparing apples and oranges. A serial thief, for instance, is not nearly as threatening as a former Gitmo detainee who blows himself up in Iraq, killing 13 Iraqis and wounding dozens more.
 
In addition, the 20 percent figure is just the latest estimate – which has risen dramatically in the past 18 months. As I’ve written previously:

http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/john-brennan-gitmo-recidivism
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Hayworth vs. McCain

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:03:39 PM

McCain and Hayworth: Tale of the Tape

By Randall Hoven

Who is more conservative -- John McCain, or his primary rival, J.D. Hayworth? Hayworth officially announced his candidacy for the Senate on Monday. The Arizona Republic reported that

McCain has been portraying Hayworth as one of the big-spending Republicans who, during President George W. Bush's two terms, largely squandered the party's reputation for fiscal discipline.

Both men have served in Congress for multiple terms. J.D. Hayworth was in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2007. Their voting records have been scored. So who is more conservative?

The most recent online scores from the American Conservative Union are from 2008. In that year, John McCain scored 63 and had a lifetime average of 81.43. (All scores reported here are on a scale of zero to 100, with 100 being perfectly conservative according to the scorer.) His lifetime average put him in 32nd place in the 2008 Senate, or in the top 32%.

J.D. Hayworth's last full year in Congress was 2006. His 2006 ACU score was 96, his 2005 score was 100, and his lifetime average was 97.56. His lifetime average put him in 16th place in the 2006 House, or in the top 4%.

Congressmen are also scored by the National Journal. McCain did not have enough votes in either 2007 or 2008 to qualify for a score. In 2006, his composite conservative score was 56.7, putting him in 46th place, or the top 46%. Only nine of 55 Republicans scored lower than McCain, including Arlen Specter, who later joined the Democratic Party, and Lincoln Chafee, who retired from the Senate and endorsed Barack Obama for president. McCain's economic, social, and foreign scores were 64, 46, and 58, respectively. His economic score was 36th-most conservative, his highest ranking in any category that year.

The National Journal gave Hayworth a 2006 composite score of 85, putting him in 46th place, or the top 11%. His economic, social, and foreign scores were 80, 94, and 73, respectively.  His economic score was 84th-most conservative, or in the top 20%.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/mccain_and_hayworth_tale_of_th.html

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52% of Americans Say Obama Doesn't Deserve Reelection

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 6:52:10 PM

52% say Obama doesn't deserve reelection

By Michael O'Brien - 02/16/10 01:35 PM ET
52 percent of Americans said President Barack Obama doesn't deserve reelection in 2012, according to a new poll.

44 percent of all Americans said they would vote to reelect the president in two and a half years, less than the slight majority who said they would prefer to elect someone else.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/81213-52-say-obama-doesnt-deserve-reelection-
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4 Democrat Senators are Asking Reid to Use Reconciliation for the Public Option

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 6:49:32 PM

4 Dem Senators Pressure Reid to Use Reconciliation for Public Option

Posted by Stephanie Condon

Four Democratic senators, including two facing potentially challenging election campaigns this year, are asking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to use reconciliation, a procedural maneuver requiring only 51 votes, to push for a public health insurance option.

Sens. Michael Bennet (Colo.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) signed a letter to Reid saying they support this plan for four reasons: the cost savings the public option is estimated to achieve, continued public support for the public option, the need for increased competition in the insurance market and the Senate's history of using the reconciliation process for health reform.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/16/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6213567.shtml

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Bayh: Democrats Have Not Created One Private-sector Job

Posted by Defend America on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 6:46:56 PM
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