1) Tea Party Spells KKK, Rights Leader Says
A civil rights activist and former congressman equated the Tea Party with the Ku Klux Klan today as he blasted a conservative rally planned in Washington, D.C., this weekend.
The Rev. Walter Fauntroy, the non-voting delegate who represented the District of Columbia from 1971 to 1991, called on African-Americans to organize a "new coalition of conscience" to rebut the rally scheduled for Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial featuring Fox News pundit Glenn Beck and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
"We are going to take on the barbarism of war, the decadence of racism, and the scourge of poverty, that the Ku Klux -- I meant to say the Tea Party," Fauntroy told a news conference today at the National Press Club. "You all forgive me, but I -- you have to use them interchangeably."
See: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tea-party-compared-kkk-rev-walter-fauntroy/story?id=11489233
1a) Beck: Help us restore traditional American values
WASHINGTON – Conservative commentator Glenn Beck and tea party champion Sarah Palin appealed Saturday to a vast, predominantly white crowd on the National Mall to help restore traditional American values and honor Martin Luther King's message. Civil rights leaders who accused the group of hijacking King's legacy held their own rally and march.
A predominately white crowd.” And which side of the political spectrum is always calling attention to race? Hmm?
While Beck billed his event as nonpolitical, conservative activists said their show of strength was a clear sign that they can swing elections because much of the country is angry with what many voters call an out-of-touch Washington.
Palin told the tens of thousands who stretched from the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the grass of the Washington Monument that calls to transform the country weren't enough. "We must restore America and restore her honor," said the former Alaska governor, echoing the name of the rally, "Restoring Honor."
Palin, the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008 and a potential White House contender in 2012, and Beck repeatedly cited King and made references to the Founding Fathers. Beck put a heavy religious cast on nearly all his remarks, sounding at times like an evangelical preacher.
"Something beyond imagination is happening," he said. "America today begins to turn back to God."
Beck exhorted the crowd to "recognize your place to the creator. Realize that he is our king. He is the one who guides and directs our life and protects us." He asked his audience to pray more. "I ask, not only if you would pray on your knees, but pray on your knees but with your door open for your children to see," he said.
…Clarence B. Jones, who served as King's personal attorney and his speechwriter, said he believes King would not be offended by Beck's rally but "pleased and honored" that a diverse group of people would come together, almost five decades later, to discuss the future of America.
Jones, now a visiting professor at Stanford University, said the Beck rally seemed to be tasteful and did not appear to distort King's message, which included a recommitment to religious values.
See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100829/ap_on_en_tv/us_dc_rally
2) Economy Caught in Depression, Not Recession: Rosenberg
Positive gross domestic product readings and other mildly hopeful signs are masking an ugly truth: The US economy is in a 1930s-style Depression, Gluskin Sheff economist David Rosenberg said Tuesday.
Writing in his daily briefing to investors, Rosenberg said the Great Depression also had its high points, with a series of positive GDP reports and sharp stock market gains.
But then as now, those signs of recovery were unsustainable and only provided a false sense of stability, said Rosenberg.
Rosenberg calls current economic conditions "a depression, and not just some garden-variety recession," and notes that any good news both during the initial 1929-33 recession and the one that began in 2008 triggered "euphoric response."
"Such is human nature and nobody can be blamed for trying to be optimistic; however, in the money management business, we have a fiduciary responsibility to be as realistic as possible about the outlook for the economy and the market at all times," he said.
The 1929-33 recession saw six quarterly bounces in GDP with an average gain of 8 percent, sending the stock market to a 50 percent rally in early 1930 as investors thought the worst had passed.
1930. Ah, yes. That would be before the Hebert Hoover and later FDR “fixes” went into effect and ruined the recovery. Those who don’'t understand history are doomed to repeat it.
See: http://www.cnbc.com/id/38831550
2a) Morning Bell: Liberalism is Failing
On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors reported that July sales of existing homes fell by 27% from June of this year and by 25.5% compared to July 2009. This annual sales rate of 3.83 million homes was the lowest since NAR began keeping track of sales in 1999. Then yesterday, the Commerce Department reported that July sales of new homes fell 12.4% from June and by 32.4% compared to July 2009. This annual rate of 276,000 new units sold is the lowest since 1963, when government records were first kept. The source of the plunge is no secret: July’s numbers reflect the first month when existing home sales received no boost from the home buyer tax credit.
Americans have seen this movie before. Last fall after the Obama administration’s Cash for Clunkers program dried up, new automobile sales plummeted. General Motors’ sales plunged 36 percent in September 2009 compared with August. Ford plummeted 37 percent. Chrysler dove 33 percent. And Americans are still feeling the hangover from the original car spending binge. Thanks to the destruction of traded-in cars mandated by President Obama, used car prices have soared this year. This means that the most cash-strapped Americans who are already dealing with 9.5% unemployment now are finding it harder to find an affordable car, all thanks to government intervention in the marketplace.
The problem with both of these liberal programs is the same: there is no such thing as a free lunch. In both cases the additional government spending did not create any new demand; it only shifted the time at which American consumers were going to make a purchase they had decided to make anyway. Instead of ensuring an environment where market participants could ascertain the true prices of the goods they want to purchase, these government interventions added uncertainty into the economy by making it harder for existing businesses and entrepreneurs to plan their next move. These government interventions, paid for with borrowed dollars, did not create new wealth. They just diverted capital and resources from the other places where markets would have invested it spontaneously absent government action.
See: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/08/26/morning-bell-liberalism-is-failing/
3) Max Baucus, author of Obamacare, admits he never read his own bill
During the debate over what later became the health care bill that was recently signed into law by President Obama, a number of federal representatives and senators both admitted that they had not read it. Some, including Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) even boasted of this fact. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) famously stated that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
Presumably the actual people who wrote the bill might have at least some idea what was in it. Unfortunately that isn’t the case with Max Baucus (D-Mont.), lead sponsor of the Senate bill that became law. He admitted as much Monday during a constituents meeting in the small Montana town of Libby, as reported by the Flathead Beacon, a local newspaper.
According to Baucus, the idea of him reading a bill allocating nearly $1 trillion of federal funds is “a waste of time:”
The visit by Sebelius, following a town hall-style meeting earlier that day in Missoula, was part of an effort by Baucus to show the health secretary some of the needs of rural states, and to defend and explain the controversial health care reform effort Democrats recently passed.
“We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ve made great progress here,” Baucus told the crowd of about 40 gathered at Libby City Hall. [...]
Judy Matott asked Baucus if he would work to improve Libby’s image, and then asked him and Sebelius, “if either of you read the health care bill before it was passed and if not, that is the most despicable, irresponsible thing.”
Baucus replied that if Libby residents assembled an economic development plan, he would do what he could to help, and he took credit for “essentially” writing the health care bill that passed the Senate.
“I don’t think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill. You know why? It’s statutory language,” Baucus said. “We hire experts.”
3a) Glenn Beck: Healthcare bill author hasn't read healthcare bill?
PAT: So Max says I don't…look, I don't think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the healthcare bill. You know why? It's statutory language. We hire experts. What?
GLENN: Wait.
PAT: We didn't hire experts. We elected you (emphasis mine)!
See: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/44749/
4) Little-known fact: Obama's failed stimulus program cost more than the Iraq war
…* Obama's stimulus, passed in his first month in office, will cost more than the entire Iraq War -- more than $100 billion (15%) more.
* Just the first two years of Obama's stimulus cost more than the entire cost of the Iraq War under President Bush, or six years of that war.
* Iraq War spending accounted for just 3.2% of all federal spending while it lasted.
* Iraq War spending was not even one quarter of what we spent on Medicare in the same time frame.
* Iraq War spending was not even 15% of the total deficit spending in that time frame. The cumulative deficit, 2003-2010, would have been four-point-something trillion dollars with or without the Iraq War.
* The Iraq War accounts for less than 8% of the federal debt held by the public at the end of 2010 ($9.031 trillion).
* During Bush's Iraq years, 2003-2008, the federal government spent more on education that it did on the Iraq War. (State and local governments spent about ten times more.)
Just some handy facts to recall during coming weeks as Obama and his congressional Democratic buddies get more desperate to put the blame for their spending policies on Bush and the war in Iraq.
5) Glenn Beck: Ground Zero imam -- America worse than Al Qaeda
GLENN: Cut 294, please, the moderate imam and the way he has been talking about, of course, the United States. Here we go.
IMAM RAUF: We tend to forget in the West that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non Muslims.
GLENN: Okay.
IMAM RAUF: You may remember that the U.S. led sanctions against Iraq led to the deaths of over a half a million Iraqi children.
PAT: Oh, wow.
IMAM RAUF: This has been documented by the United Nations.
PAT: It's been documented by the United Nations.
GLENN: Well, the United Nations would know.
PAT: You know it's true.
GLENN: Certainly they would know. So it's not who's it's not Saddam Hussein who took the money
PAT: No.
GLENN: That he was supposed to be using for food and medicine and building palaces.
PAT: Nope.
GLENN: It's not Saddam Hussein.
PAT: United States. And we killed those half a million Iraqi children due to our brutality and we're worse than Al Qaeda. We've killed more did you notice, innocent non Muslims than they have? Because he knows they've killed probably far more Muslims than we have. How many Muslims has Al Qaeda killed in Iraq and Afghanistan?
GLENN: I have no idea, but
PAT: Tens of thousands.
See: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/44637/
5a) Three Things You Should Know About Islam
1) Islam has not been hijacked.
…The Qur'an is not an a la carte menu, it is all or nothing; take it or leave it.
The message is clear, direct and immutable.
2) Global imposition of Islamic doctrine & practice is a religious duty.
Islam encompasses all aspects of society including:
-belief & ritual worship
-economic transactions
-contracts
-morals & manners
-crime & punishment
Democratic/representative forms of government are abominations.
Criticism of Allah, Muhammad and their system is punished by death.
3) Muslims are allowed to deceive non-Muslims to protect and advance the imposition of Islam. This concept is known as al-Taqiyya.
See: http://www.bloggersbase.com/politics-and-opinions/3-islam/
5b) Video: Holocaust Survivor Cursed Out By Ground Zero Mosque Supporter
In a stunning display at a protest over the Ground Zero mosque, a Holocaust survivor was berated by a mosque supporter. The mosque supporter spews vulgarities at the holocaust survivor and at one point even says he "didn't learn his lesson". Content warning, we did not bleep out the profanities.
6) EPA Considering Banning Lead Ammunition
NSSF is springing into action, as the public comment period opens on EPA considering a regulation that will ban all traditional lead ammunition. This would basically end the shooting sports as we know it. Remember this is a no-win situation for us, because bullets made of materials other than lead are often considered armor piercing by law. Copper is your basic material, and copper is expensive, and has much poorer performance properties than lead.
As NSSF has pointed out, there’s no real scientific basis for restricting lead ammunition. Just about all shooting ranges at this point are recycling their lead (it’s too valuable to just leave in the ground). California’s ban has not been shown to reduce lead levels in Condors, and has driven more people away from hunting. Additionally, it’s interfered with lawful self-protection in parts of California that are considered condor habitat.
See: http://www.snowflakesinhell.com/2010/08/25/epa-considering-banning-lead-ammunition
7) Venezuela, More Deadly Than Iraq, Wonders Why
CARACAS, Venezuela — Some here joke that they might be safer if they lived in Baghdad. The numbers bear them out.
In Iraq, a country with about the same population as Venezuela, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009, according to Iraq Body Count; in Venezuela that year, the number of murders climbed above 16,000.
…he photo in the paper, El Nacional, is unquestionably gory. It shows a dozen homicide victims strewn about the city’s largest morgue, just a sample of an unusually anarchic two-day stretch in this already perilous place.
While many Venezuelans saw the picture as a sober reminder of their vulnerability and a chance to effect change, the government took a different stand.
A court ordered the paper to stop publishing images of violence, as if that would quiet growing questions about why the government — despite proclaiming a revolution that heralds socialist values — has been unable to close the dangerous gap between rich and poor and make the country’s streets safer.
Violence IS a socialist value. And so is a larger gap between the rich and poor, Hugo Chavez.
“Forget the hundreds of children who die from stray bullets, or the kids who go through the horror of seeing their parents or older siblings killed before their eyes,” said Teodoro Petkoff, the editor of another newspaper here, mocking the court’s decision in a front-page editorial. “Their problem is the photograph.”
…But some crime specialists say another factor has to be considered: Mr. Chávez’s government itself. The judicial system has grown increasingly politicized, losing independent judges and aligning itself more closely with Mr. Chávez’s political movement. Many experienced state employees have had to leave public service, or even the country.
More than 90 percent of murders go unsolved, without a single arrest, Mr. Briceño-León said. But cases against Mr. Chavez’s critics — including judges, dissident generals and media executives — are increasingly common.
Coming to a country near you…
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world/americas/23venez.html
8) NRA to Reid, will give you money, but not endorsement
(Uh, isn’t giving money about the same thing as an endorsement? Is the NRA going to endorse Sharron Angle, then?)
The statement from the NRA:
"In the coming days and weeks, the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) will be announcing endorsements and candidate ratings in hundreds of federal races, as well as thousands of state legislative races. Unless these announcements are required by the timing of primary or special elections, the NRA-PVF generally does not issue endorsements while important legislative business is pending. The NRA-PVF also operates under a long-standing policy that gives preference to incumbent candidates who have voted with the NRA on key issues, which is explained in more detail here."
"The U.S. Senate recently considered a number of issues important to NRA members, including the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Out of respect for the confirmation process, the NRA did not announce its position on Ms. Kagan's confirmation until the conclusion of her testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee. Her evasive testimony exacerbated grave concerns we had about her long-standing hostility towards the Second Amendment. As a result, the NRA strongly opposed her confirmation and made it clear at the time that we would be scoring this important vote."
"The vote on Elena Kagan's confirmation to the Court, along with the previous year's confirmation vote on Sonia Sotomayor, are critical for the future of the Second Amendment. After careful consideration, the NRA-PVF announced today that it will not be endorsing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for re-election in the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Nevada."
BUT…Reid’s campaign manager Brandon Hall released the following statement:
"The NRA’s relationship with Sen. Reid has been long-standing and productive and – unlike for Sharron Angle – they’ve put their money where their mouth is this cycle. Along with their financial support, the declaration of NRA head Wayne LaPierre that Sen. Reid is 'a true champion of the Second Amendment' and that 'no one has been a stronger advocate for responsible gun ownership than him' shows beyond a doubt that the NRA believes Sen. Reid to be a strong advocate for Nevadans’ Second Amendment rights in the US Senate."
9) Wallis (Osama’s “Spiritual Advisor”) Admits to Soros Funding
Last month, Marvin Olasky asked Wallis to admit his affiliations on the left when reported on the money from Soros in World magazine.
George Soros, one of the leading billionaire leftists—he has financed groups promoting abortion, atheism, same-sex marriage, and gargantuan government—bankrolled Sojourners with a $200,000 grant in 2004. A year later, here's how Jim rebutted a criticism of "religious progressives" for being allied with Soros and MoveOn.org: "I know of no connections to those liberal funds and groups that are as direct as the Religious Right's ties to right-wing funders."
Since then Sojourners has received at least two more grants from Soros organizations. Sojourners revenues have more than tripled—from $1,601,171 in 2001-2002 to $5,283,650 in 2008-2009—as secular leftists have learned to use the religious left to elect Obama and others.
In a Patheos interview, Wallis suggested that Olasky was lying.
“It’s not hyperbole or overstatement to say that Glenn Beck lies for a living. I’m sad to see Marvin Olasky doing the same thing. No, we don’t receive money from Soros. Given the financial crisis of nonprofits, maybe Marvin should call Soros and ask him to send us money.
…Jay Richards of National Review and Olasky responded to Wallis. Here's Olasky again:
Want to see for yourself what someone apparently did not want you to see? Click here to download the PDF, go to page 225, and you’ll see the grant to Sojourners.
You can also see the 2006 grant by downloading the 990-PF for that year and going to page 125. And by the way, look at page 114 of the 990-PF for 2007: another $100,000 grant to Sojourners “to support the Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform campaign.”
See: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctpolitics/2010/08/wallis_admits_t.html
10) The Hal Lindsey Report 8-27-10: Obama gets pass on claiming Christianity
…All my life I’ve heard the story about the old preacher who challenged his congregation with these words: “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” I’ll take this a step further. What if you claimed to be a Christian and nobody believed you? Two recent polls have discovered that as many as one-quarter of all Americans believe that President Obama is actually a Muslim. This is despite the fact that during his campaign he put enormous effort into convincing the voters that he was a Christian.
I remember thinking at the time, “Why is no one on the Left howling about Senator Obama’s claims of faith in God and His Son Jesus Christ?” When George W. Bush, early in his campaign, told reporters that the person who had most profoundly affected his life was Jesus Christ, it almost derailed his campaign! Even during his presidency, I don’t remember White House spokespersons having to reassure reporters that President Bush was really a Christian. The press took his faith at face value and constantly threw it back at him.
And remember how the Left ridiculed him for appointing John Ashcroft, a devout and open evangelical Christian, as his Attorney-General? When it was discovered that Mr. Ashcroft held personal Bible studies in his DOJ office, the Left and the press demanded his resignation. Yet, when Mr. Obama’s deputy press secretary insisted to reporters aboard Air Force One last week that, indeed, the President is “obviously a Christian [because] he prays every day,” every member of the Mainstream Media was as quiet as a church mouse!
As Mister Rogers might have put it, “Can you say ‘double standard’?” But, then, that’s the modus operandi for practitioners of political correctness, social Marxism, and thought-control.
But trust our old friend, Reality, to break up the party. Because of all the controversy over the Ground Zero Mosque (Formerly called “Cordoba House,” then “Park 51 Mosque”, and now we learn it’s not really a mosque, but a community center with a small prayer space!), ‘Happy Ramadan’ dinners at the White House, and the growing suspicion that our President may be a ‘closet’ Muslim, we’ve recently heard a lot of folks give Islam some wonderful reviews. Unfortunately, the truth about Islam doesn’t quite measure up to the good press that Islam has been getting lately.
See: http://www.standingforgod.com/2010/08/the-hal-lindsey-report-8-27-10/
11) Washington Must Face the Facts of Life: Parents and Teens Favor Abstinence
A recent national study shows that the majority of U.S. parents and their teens support sexual abstinence before marriage. But the Obama Administration doesn’t want you to know this.
Early last year, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) completed the National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents: Attitudes and Opinions about Sex and Abstinence. Results show that the majority of parents favor abstinence and the abstinence message. However, while HHS released a brief summary of the results, when researcher Dr. Lisa Rue of the University of Northern Colorado requested to see the full report of the taxpayer-funded study, HHS repeatedly refused. They told her it was not public information. However, the study had been shared at two public venues.
Finally, at the beginning of this week, after pressure from the public, HHS released the full study.
Dr. Rue points out that taxpayers and citizens have a right to such information and that access to these results is necessary to aid in the designing of school and community sex education programs.
However, this may be precisely why the Obama Administration was reluctant to release the study. According to the National Abstinence Education Association:
[The study] calls into question whether recent sex education policy decisions truly reflect cultural norms or clear evidence-based trends.
Last year, President Obama eliminated all funding for abstinence education. While an amendment to the health care bill reauthorized $50 million for abstinence funding, also included in the bill was an additional $75 million funding stream for comprehensive sex education. Yet the results of the HHS study indicate that 70 percent of parents are opposed to premarital sex in general as well as for their teens. (The majority of teens also reported opposition to premarital sex.) Moreover, the study shows that 83 percent of parents support their teens receiving the abstinence message in school.
It’s no surprise that parents and teens support abstinence. Adolescents who abstain from sexual activity report greater academic achievement and lower rates of depression and are less likely to have a child outside of marriage. Furthermore, they are less likely to experience poverty or end up on welfare. A variety of abstinence education programs have shown positive benefits for youth, including at-risk youth.
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