SEIU intimidates children; Schumer vs. free speech; Mosque to be built anyway; Reigning in the EPA

1) Yes, the Gulf Spill Is Obama's Katrina Where was the White House plan, and why has it been so slow to make decisions? As President Obama prepares to return to the Gulf Coast Friday, he is receiving increasing criticism for his handling of the oil spill. For good reason: Since the Deepwater Horizon rig blew up on April 20, a lethargic Team Obama has delayed or blown off key decisions requested by state and local governments and left British Petroleum in charge of developing a plan to cap the massive leak. Now the slow-moving oil spill threatens Mr. Obama's reputation, along with 40% of America's sensitive wetlands. Critics include some of his most ardent cheerleaders, who understand that 38 days without an administration solution is unacceptable. …Initially, Team Obama wanted to keep this problem away from the president (a natural instinct for any White House). It took Mr. Obama 12 days to show up in the region. Democrats criticized President George W. Bush for waiting four days after Katrina to go to New Orleans. …Take the containment strategy of barrier berms. These temporary sand islands block the flow of oil into fragile wetlands and marshes. Berm construction requires approval from the Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (Well there‘s one of the problems! Louisiana ought to be able to construct its own darn berms without permission from the Federal Government. - comment mine). Louisiana officials asked permission on May 11. They have yet to hear back. The feds are conducting a review as oil washes ashore. The federal government was even slower on the question of dispersants, chemicals used to break up the oil and hasten its evaporation from the surface of the water. On May 8, Louisiana sent a letter to BP and the EPA begging BP not to use dispersants below the surface of the water. Subsurface use of dispersants keeps oil slicks from forming. But when it doesn't come to the surface to evaporate, the oil lingers below, gets into underwater currents, and puts at risk fisheries that supply a third of America's seafood. On May 13, EPA overruled the state and permitted BP to use dispersants 4,000 feet below the surface. (“Overruled the state”???? What happened to state’s rights? - comment mine) Then, a week after BP released 55,000 gallons of dispersants below the surface, EPA did an about-face, ordering BP to stop using the dispersant and to "find a less-toxic" one. Louisiana officials found out about this imprecise guidance in the Washington Post. BP refused, EPA backed off, and Louisiana's concerns about their marine fisheries remain. See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704717004575268752362770856.html 2) Chuck Schumer vs. Free Speech The 'Disclose' Act would make election law even more incomprehensible and subject to selective enforcement for political gain. As former commissioners on the Federal Election Commission with almost 75 years of combined experience, we believe that the bill proposed on April 30 by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Chris Van Hollen to "blunt" the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC is unnecessary, partially duplicative of existing law, and severely burdensome to the right to engage in political speech and advocacy. Moreover, the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections Act, or Disclose Act, abandons the longstanding policy of treating unions and businesses equally, suggesting partisan motives that undermine respect for campaign finance laws. …Those regulatory burdens often fall hardest not on large-scale players in the political world but on spontaneous grass-roots movements, upstart, low-budget campaigns, and unwitting volunteers. Violating the law by engaging in forbidden political speech can land you in a federal prison, a very un-American notion. The Disclose Act exacerbates many of these problems and is a blatant attempt by its sponsors to do indirectly, through excessively onerous regulatory requirements, what the Supreme Court told Congress it cannot do directly—restrict political speech. …Perhaps the most striking thing about the Disclose Act is that, while the Supreme Court overturned limits on spending by both corporations and unions, Disclose seeks to reimpose them only on corporations. …For example, while the Disclose Act prohibits any corporation with a federal contract of $50,000 or more from making independent expenditures or electioneering communications, no such prohibition applies to unions. This $50,000 trigger is so low it would exclude thousands of corporations from engaging in constitutionally protected political speech, the very core of the First Amendment. Yet public employee unions negotiate directly with the government for benefits many times the value of contracts that would trigger the corporate ban. See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703460404575244772070710374.html 3) SEIU Thugs Show up on Families’ Doorsteps, Intimidate Children (headline mine) Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that -- in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action -- makes his family fair game. Waving signs denouncing bank "greed," hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer's steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer's teenage son Jack -- alone in the house -- locked himself in the bathroom. "When are they going to leave?" Jack pleaded when I called to check on him. Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly "outed" him, and slipped through his front door. "Excuse me," Baer told his accusers, "I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened." Now this event would accurately be called a "protest" if it were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be "mob." Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might "incite" these trespassers. …After Baer's house, the 14 buses left to descend on the nearby residence of Peter Scher, a government relations executive at JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500). …Targeting homes and families seems to put SEIU in the ranks of (now jailed) radical animal-rights activists and the Kansas anti-gay fundamentalists harassing the grieving parents of a dead 20-year-old soldier at his funeral (the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on the latter). But that's not a conversation that SEIU officials want to have. When I asked Stephen Lerner, SEIU's point-person on Wall Street reform, about these tactics, he accused me of getting "emotional." Lerner was more comfortable sticking to his talking points: "Millions of people are losing their homes, and they have gone to the banks, which are turning a deaf ear." Okay, fine, then why not continue SEIU protests at bank offices and shareholder meetings-as the union has been doing for more than a year? Lerner insists, "People in powerful corporations seem to think they can insulate themselves from the damage they are doing." …Of course, HuffPost readers responding to the coverage assumed that Baer was an evil former Bush official. He's not. A lifelong Democrat, Baer worked for the Clinton Treasury Department, and his wife, Shirley Sagawa, author of the book The American Way to Change and a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, is a prominent national service advocate. In the 1990s, the Baers' former bosses, Bill and Hillary Clinton, denounced the "politics of personal destruction." Today politicians and their voters of all stripes grieve the ugly bitterness that permeates our policy debates. Now, with populist rage providing a useful cover, it appears we've crossed into a new era: The politics of personal intimidation. I heard one of the protestors on the local Sandy Rios radio show. She thinks she had a right to stay in her house even though she wasn’t paying her mortgage. Excuse me? See: http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/19/news/companies/SEIU_Bank_of_America_protest.fortune/index.htm 4) Sestak, Obama, and the Law With Rep. Joe Sestak’s (D-PA) defeat of Sen. Specter (D-PA) in the Democratic Senate primary, the controversy over the alleged job offer made to Sestak last year by someone in the Obama White House is once again heating up. After essentially ignoring this potentially serious violation of federal law for months, some members of the mainstream media are finally asking questions. Sestak was asked about it by David Gregory on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Sestak used this job offer as a campaign issue to elicit support during his primary run, but now practically refuses to talk about it and won’t say which White House staffer made the offer. The public has a right to know exactly what happened, and whether a crime was committed. …However, what is illegal and not normal practice in Washington is to promise federal employment to an individual in exchange for future political activity. 18 U.S.C. § 600 prohibits public officials from using government-funded jobs or programs to advance their partisan political interests. The statute makes it unlawful for anyone to “directly or indirectly, promise[ ] any employment, position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit” to any person as a “consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party…in connection with any primary election” (emphasis added). As the OLC opinion says, § 600 “punishes those who promise federal employment or benefits as an enticement to or reward for future political activity, but does not prohibit rewards for past political activity.” Future political activity would arguably include dropping out of a contested primary in order to benefit the White House-endorsed candidate (here, Senator Specter). Thus, if we take Sestak at his word that he was offered a position in the Obama Administration if he quit the race against Specter, then whoever made that offer in the White House has committed a violation of the law. It does not matter that Sestak did not take up the offer – the statute prohibits making such an offer in the first place – there is no requirement even for a tentative agreement. Like the crime of solicitation, the crime happens once the words trip off the mouth of the person making the statement. See: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/05/26/sestak-obama-and-the-law/ 5) Obama to skip wreath laying at Arlington for Memorial Day; makes sure not to miss Paul McCartney Last year, Obama did his duty as Commander-in-Chief and paid his respects for the fallen at Arlington National Cemetery for Memorial Day. This year, he’s sending Joe Biden in his place, because he’s got more important things to do… like go to Chicago. ‘President Barack Obama plans to spend a long holiday weekend in Chicago. The White House says Obama and his family will travel to their hometown on Thursday and stay through the weekend. It will be their first trip back home since a visit for Valentine’s Day weekend in February 2009. On Monday, Obama is scheduled to participate in a Memorial Day ceremony at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Ill. In Obama’s absence, Vice President Joe Biden will participate in the customary wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington.’ As Doug Powers noted at Michelle’s blog, he won’t be missing a visit with Paul McCartney. Nice to see where his priorities lie. See: http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/05/25/obama-to-skip-wreath-laying-at-arlington-for-memorial-day-makes-sure-not-to-miss-paul-mccartney/ 6) Morning Bell: This Congress Has No Shame On February 4, 2010, pushing for passage of her pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) legislation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on the House floor: “When I became Speaker of the House, the very first day we passed legislation that made PAYGO the rule of the House. Today we will make it the law of the land. … So the time is long overdue for this to be taken for granted. The federal government will pay as it goes.” That was the promise. But here is the reality: in the three years that Speaker Pelosi has enforced her PAYGO rule, the House has violated it by nearly $1 trillion. And now with the U.S. Debt Clock officially passing the $13 trillion milestone Wednesday, the House is set to violate their own PAYGO law yet again, this time to the tune of around $150 billion. The legislation clocks-in at almost one-fifth the size of President Barack Obama’s original $862 billion failed economic stimulus, and the leftist majority in Congress has titled it “The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act.” And it is a tax-hiking, spending-exploding, job-killing, deficit-hiking wonder. The Tax Hikes: The entire purpose of this bill was originally to extend some popular and well-established tax cuts that have been around for years but have to be re-approved every year. But being the big government lovers that they are, the left has crafted a bill that actually increases tax revenues by $57 billion over ten years. The biggest items are a job-killing tax on American corporations that compete overseas, a job-killing tax on innovation-creating venture capital partnerships, and a four-fold increase in the tax on oil production that ostensibly is supposed to go to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, but is instead being siphoned off to help pay for completely unrelated new domestic spending. See: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/05/27/morning-bell-this-congress-has-no-shame 7) Health Care Law 63% Favor Repeal of National Health Care Plan Support for repeal of the new national health care plan has jumped to its highest level ever. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 63% of U.S. voters now favor repeal of the plan passed by congressional Democrats and signed into law by President Obama in March. Prior to today, weekly polling had shown support for repeal ranging from 54% to 58%. See: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/march_2010/health_care_law 8) Poll Finds Americans Pessimistic, Dissatisfied with Washington Seven in ten Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in Washington, including 22 percent who say they are "angry" about the situation. Just 15 percent overall approve of the job being done by Congress. …The president's job approval rating has fallen to 47 percent, and, perhaps more crucially, Americans no longer say he shares their priorities for the country. See: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20005953-503544.html 9) Disapproving of EPA’s CO2 Regulations Whatever prospects lie ahead for cap and trade legislation moving through the Senate might not matter if the Environmental Protection Agency continues forward on its path to regulate carbon dioxide. The EPA’s endangerment finding, which took place earlier this year, gives the agency the authority to use Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs). New restrictions on automobiles were the first step in what could eventually be a long, economically painful set of regulations imposed by unelected government bureaucrats (emphasis mine) – unless Congress steps up to the plate and stops them. Lisa Murkowski’s (R–AK) resolution of disapproval would do just that. As Heritage Senior Policy Analyst Ben Lieberman explains, “In order to provide a means of stopping unwarranted or ill-advised regulations, Congress and President Clinton enacted the Congressional Review Act in 1996. The statute allows Congress to pass, by simple majority and with limited debate time, a resolution of disapproval against any newly promulgated federal regulation it opposes, thus revoking the regulation. It is hard to imagine a more appropriate application of the Congressional Review Act than a disapproval against the EPA’s attempt to regulate energy use in the name of addressing global warming.” Why? Because the Clean Air Act was never intended to regulate carbon dioxide. As the Clean Air Act is currently written, the endangerment finding would require that the EPA regulate sources or establishments that emit 100 or 250 tons or more of a pollutant per year. This was seen as the best way to combat smog, soot, and other air pollutants – not CO2. This means that Schools, farms, restaurants, hospitals, apartment complexes, churches, and anything with a motor—from motor vehicles to lawnmowers, jet skis, and leaf blowers—could be subject to cost-increasing restrictions. See: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/05/24/disapproving-of-epa’s-co2-regulations 10) Despite Protests, Mosque Plan Near 9/11 Site Wins Key Vote Opponents called it an "insult," "demeaning" and a "house of evil," but the angry protests did not stop an advisory board from approving plans to build a mosque and Islamic center two blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. New York debates the construction of a Muslim mosque two blocks from 9/11 scene. In a heated, four hour meeting Tuesday night, Community Board 1, which represents the area of lower Manhattan that includes Ground Zero, voted 29-1 in favor of the proposal. There were 10 abstentions. See: http://abcnews.go.com/US/mosque-plan-clears-hurdle-protests/story?id=10747570 11) Obama's Grotesque Move to Join the "Alliance of Civilizations": "the dhimmitude syndrome" Obama plans to announce as early as this week that he will begin a formal relationship with the Alliance of Civilizations, the 5-year-old, UN-backed stealth jihad, Islamic supremacist organization. What's next? How long before Obama joins the bloc of 56 countries in the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference)? The Alliance of Civilizations is an arm of the OIC. Bat Ye'or, after hearing Obama's submission speech to Islam in Cairo last June, said this: "The president’s speech is similar to many such declarations by European leaders. The question it raises is how much the West is ready to forgo truth and its basic principles in its supplication for obtaining peace with Islam. Clearly, the full Islamization of the West is the quickest way to obtain it. Obama’s political program in connection with the Alliance of Civilizations conforms to an OIC strategy that has already been accepted by the EU. In history, this policy has a name: the dhimmitude syndrome" See: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/obamas-grotesque-move-to-join-the-alliance-of-civilizations-the-dhimmitude-syndrome.html 11a) The U.N.'s 'Alliance of Civilizations President Obama is expected to travel early next month to Istanbul, where he will attend a meeting of a United Nations-spawned outfit called the Alliance of Civilizations. Under that grand title, hundreds of worthies will gather to pursue various aspects of "engagement." Among those expected are Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, officials of Alliance co-sponsors Turkey and Spain and a former Portuguese president now heading the Alliance, Jorge Sampaio--and, though the Alliance this week would neither confirm nor deny, it's a good bet there will be representatives there from Iran. …Headquartered across the street from the U.N.'s main offices in New York, the Alliance might more appropriately be called a U.N.-approved Slush Fund for Advancing Iranian and Other Islamic Interests. Both high profile and hard to pin down, it is first and foremost an Iranian brain child, which came to the U.N. by way of an earlier venture pitched in 1998 by Iran's then-president Mohammad Khatami for a "Dialogue of Civilizations." See: http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/25/alliance-of-civilizations-opinions-columnists-obama-un.html Hal Lindsey’s comments on this: “The President may seem to be trying to make nice with Israel, but, at the same time, he has approved America's formal membership in the Alliance of Civilizations. This UN organization was founded in 2006 to bridge "the gaps between Muslim and Western civilizations." President Bush refused to join because he recognized that it would be used by hostile nations to bludgeon Israel. Sure enough, in the last four years the Alliance of Civilizations has promoted the idea that the main reason for the Muslim-Western rift is Israel, its settlement activity, and its very existence. Sounds like just the kind of organization President Obama would love. So, sign us up! Oh, that's right, he already has.” 12) US lifts sanctions against Russians linked to Iran The Obama administration on Friday removed sanctions against three Russian organizations the U.S. had previously accused of assisting Iran's effort to develop nuclear weapons. Penalties against a fourth Russian entity previously accused of illicit arms sales to Syria also were lifted. The timing of the decisions, published in Friday's Federal Register but not otherwise announced by the State Department, suggested the possibility of a link to U.S. efforts to win Russian support for a proposed new U.N. Security Council resolution expanding sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley denied that the decision to lift the sanctions was meant to win Russian support for additional Iran sanctions. He said, however, that it reflected the fact that "Russia has over time adapted its approach to Iran" and has shown restraint in certain arms deals with Tehran. "So we felt that as Russia shared our concern about Iran and was willing to support the kinds of arms restrictions that are in the draft (U.N.) resolution, we felt confident that we could remove these penalties while protecting our non-proliferation interests," Crowley said. While the U.S. did not lift the sanctions in exchange for Moscow's support in the U.N., the two actions "are connected in the sense that clearly the actions Russia has taken over time have demonstrated that they take the situation with Iran seriously," he added. I also saw this in the Federal Register, since I have to read it every day for my job. One of companies, Tula Instrument Design Bureau, lists Iran on its website as having “in service weapon systems” created by it (see: http://kbptula.ru/eng/kbp/ved.htm, scroll down to map). Furthermore, what Crowley is saying is that we lifted sanctions in exchange for…wait for it…NOTHING! See: http://wwww.examiner.com/a-2642056~US_lifts_sanctions_against_Russians_linked_to_Iran.html 12a) Red Flags on Iran In last minute deal making with Russia over sanctions on Iran, the US caved to Moscow objections over selling advanced air and cruise missile defenses to Tehran. This is a particularly disruptive retreat by Obama’s State Department, one that makes an Israeli military strike more, not less, likely. Meanwhile, Iran continues to play rope-a-dope. The speaker of Iran’s Parliament declared their deal with Brazil and Turkey was off if United Nations sanctions were on. His country would abandon plans to ship some nuclear fuel to Turkey and rethink cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency if the US insists on pushes new UN Security Council sanctions. The US needs a real policy to deal with Iran before its too late. See: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/05/24/red-flags-on-iran