Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Robbing Peter to pay Paul; Florida's poor may be banned from buying sweets with food stamps; Minnesota voter fraud convictions; Afghan soldiers selling our weapons; Indiana voter fraud; Obama may scale back regulations on farmers; Federal dollars for anti-sweets campaign; Egypt holds Americans hostage; They call for killing all Jews and annihilating Israel; Catholics promise to do whatever it takes; Obama may be backing down; Brothers of Mexican wanting US pardon give OBama $200,000; Illegals are not immigrants; Democrat Rhode Island votes for voter ID because they are racist

Washington Examiner opines: In today’s America, government benefits flow to large numbers of people who are encouraged to vote for politicians who’ll keep them coming.  The benefits are paid for by other people who, being less numerous, can’t muster enough votes to put this to a stop.

Over time, this causes the economy to do worse, pushing more people into the moocher class and further strengthening the politicians whose position depends on robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Because, as they say, if you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can be pretty sure of getting Paul’s vote.

But the damage goes deeper.  Sykes writes, “In contemporary America, we now have two parallel cultures:  An anachronistic culture of independence and responsibility, and the emerging moocher culture.
“We continually draw on the reserves of that older culture, with the unspoken assumption that it will always be there to mooch from and that responsibility and hard work are simply givens.  But to sustain deadbeats, others have to pay their bills on time.”

And, after a while, people who pay their bills on time start to feel like suckers.  I think we’ve reached that point now:
* People who pay their mortgages - often at considerable personal sacrifice - see others who didn’t bother get special assistance.
* People who took jobs they didn’t particularly want just to pay the bills see others who didn’t getting extended unemployment benefits.
* People who took risks to build their businesses and succeeded see others, who failed, getting bailouts.  It rankles at all levels.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2012/02/its-takers-versus-makers-and-these-days-takers-are-winning/2170511#ixzz1lX11Lb5c
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MSNBC reports: Florida's poor can use food stamps to buy staples like milk, vegetables, fruits and meat. But they can also use them to buy sweets like cakes, cookies and Jell-O and snack foods like chips, something a state senator wants stopped.
Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, also wants to limit other welfare funds, known as Temporary Assistance For Needy Families, from being used at ATMs in casinos and strip clubs and anywhere out of state. The bill comes after reports that the debit cards welfare recipients now receive were used in those places, as well as locations in Las Vegas and the Virgin Islands in a small percentage of cases, but the state does not track what items were purchased.  http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46270895/ns/us_news-life/
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PRN reports: Minnesota Majority today released a report on voter fraud convictions to date stemming from Minnesota's 2008 general election. The report finds that 113 individuals who voted illegally in the 2008 election have been convicted of the crime, "ineligible voter knowingly votes" under Minnesota Statute 201.014.
"As far as we can tell, this is the largest number of voter fraud convictions arising from a single election in the past 75 years," said Minnesota Majority president Jeff Davis, "Prosecutions are still underway and so there will likely be even more convictions." http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/minnesota-leads-the-nation-in-voter-fraud-convictions-131782928.html
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The Gateway Pundit writes: Afghan soldiers are already selling weapons and vehicles and ceding territory to Taliban.
The Vancouver Sun reported:
Afghan soldiers are selling their weapons and vehicles to the Taliban, sharing intelligence with them and signing covert ceasefires as they pre-pare for NATO forces to with-draw, according to a classified military report. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/02/thanks-barack-afghan-soldiers-already-selling-weaponsvehicles-ceding-territory-to-taliban/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Fox News reports: Indiana's top elections official has been found guilty of six of seven voter fraud-related charges and faces removal from office.
White was accused of lying about where he lived when he registered to vote in the May 2010 Republican primary. Prosecutors said he used his ex-wife's address instead of a condo he had with his fiancDee to keep his $1,000-per-month Fishers Town Council salary despite moving out of his council district.
He faced seven felony charges.
State law bars anyone convicted of a felony from remaining in office. It wasn't immediately clear how quickly White could be replaced or who might succeed him.
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Personal Liberty writes: Succumbing to angry backlash from agriculture groups and family farmers across the U.S., the Administration of President Barack Obama announced it would scale back proposed new rules that would have limited the amount of work young Americans can do on farms, The Washington Times reported.
According to the newspaper, communities across the Midwest had attacked the rules, saying that they threatened a traditional way of life for people in the American heartland and could undermine the viability of many family farming operations. http://www.personalliberty.com/news/pressure-from-farmers-leads-to-rethinking-of-youth-labor-laws-800699324/?eiid=
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Fox News reports: According to Fox News, a bill was introduced to Congress by Representative Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) that would prohibit Federal money from going toward ad campaigns in opposition to junk food and in favor of “safe” foodstuffs and beverages.
“I don’t think it’s the Federal government’s (role) to try and regulate people’s habits on products that were deemed safe by the FDA,” DesJarlais told Fox News. “The government is reaching too far into our lives in trying to regulate personal habits.”
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NY Times writes: Egypt’s military-led government said Sunday that it would put 19 Americans and two dozen others on trial in a politically charged criminal investigation into the foreign financing of nonprofit groups that has shaken the 30-year alliance between the United States and Egypt.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/world/middleeast/egypt-will-try-19-americans-on-criminal-charges.html?hp-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
World Net Daily reports: Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove “this corrupting material. It is a “‘jurisprudential justification” to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.” http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/ayatollah-kill-all-jews-annihilate-israel/
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CBS news reports: Catholic leaders are furious and determined to harness the voting power of the nation’s 70 million Catholic voters to stop a provision of President Barack Obama’s new heath car reform bill that will force Catholic schools, hospitals and charities to buy birth control pills, abortion-producing drugs and sterilization coverage for their employees.
“Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church,” said Catholic League head Bill Donohue.  “This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets,” Donohue said. http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/02/06/catholic-league-poised-to-go-to-war-with-obama-over-mandatory-birth-control-payments/
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Daily Caller reports: White House spokesman Jay Carney today hinted that the Obama administration might compromise on its Jan. 20 directive requiring religious groups to comply with federal sex-related health insurance mandates.  [Perhaps that part of Obamacare which gives unbridled power to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to write regulations is a problem.]
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NY Times writes: Two American brothers of a Mexican casino magnate who fled drug and fraud charges in the United States and has been seeking a pardon enabling him to return have emerged as major fund-raisers and donors for President Obama’s re-election campaign. When The New York Times asked the Obama campaign early Monday about the Cardonas, officials said they were unaware of the brother in Mexico. Later in the day, the campaign said it was refunding the money raised by the family, which totaled more than $200,000. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/politics/major-obama-donors-are-tied-to-pepe-cardona-mexican-fugitive.html?_r=1
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In National Review Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who is Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the Media Fairness Caucus, writes: It’s hard to imagine a worse example of media bias than the national coverage of illegal immigration. Every week, it seems there are stories across the United States that minimize the issues of illegal immigration and border security. But look at the facts and the media’s bias towards illegal immigrants is clear.
Many reporters often neglect to mention that the immigrants they write about are illegal immigrants. For example, in an article that appeared in the San Antonio Express-News last year, “Hunt for border-crossers is on ground and in air,” the reporter used the words “immigrant” and “immigration” five times but couldn’t bring himself once to use the word “illegal.”
It’s not right to gloss over the difference between legal and illegal and call them both immigrants. 
Illegal immigrants also receive huge amounts of taxpayer-funded benefits, such as health care and education. Some estimate that illegal immigrants cost taxpayers as much as $113 billion annually. All in all, if illegal immigrants are granted amnesty, one study estimates that it will cost at least $2.5 trillion in retirement expenditures, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Supplemental Security Income.
But these reporters failed to mention that 82 percent of likely voters — including 78 percent of black voters and 72 percent of other minorities, primarily Hispanics — think all U.S. employers should be required to use E-Verify.  http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/290292/media-ignores-facts-illegal-immigration-lamar-smith
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The New Republic writes: Of the eight states to pass photo ID laws in 2011, only Rhode Island had a fully Democratic legislature and a liberal governor. What’s more, black and Latino lawmakers were among the most vocal supporters of the July bill. How does this alleged voter fraud work? According to Williams, a candidate hires a “recruiter,” who obtains a list of likely non-voters, and then pays willing foot soldiers to cast ballots in their place. A large Hispanic man who calls himself “El Macho” and works for the Providence Water Supply Board is rumored to be the most prominent recruiter. George Lindsey, a prominent South Providence African American, told me that candidates have long paid El Macho five or six thousand dollars per election. “What he’ll tell you is he’s basically a hired gun.”
Whatever truth there is to these accusations, it’s difficult to ignore the pattern: The perpetrators are all Hispanic and the accusers are mostly not. This underlines what is most likely at play in Rhode Island— anxiety over the state’s changing demographics. 
The immigration boom, coupled with a 10.8 percent unemployment rate (the third-worst in the country), has contributed to the open hostility toward Hispanics. Voter ID proponents subtly capitalized on these fears. The bill’s main House sponsor, conservative Democrat Jon Brien, has “anti-immigrant credentials like no other,” says Latino activist Pablo Rodriguez. Brien has argued that illegal immigrants are usurping government resources, taking American jobs, and now, voting.  http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/100429/rhode-island-voter-id-laws-hispanic
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