DeMint Takes Parting Shot at Boehner (+video)

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Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who shocked Washington on Thursday with the announcement that he would resign his Senate seat in January to become president of the the Heritage Foundation, sent a parting shot at Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) over the “fiscal cliff” negotiations.

“I’m not with Boehner,” DeMint said on CNN’s “The Situation Room.” “This government doesn’t need any more money, this country needs less government.”

House Republican leaders on Monday proposed a counteroffer to President Obama in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations. The proposal would reduce spending by $2.2 trillion through a combination of spending cuts and entitlement reforms, and would produce $800 billion in new revenue without raising tax rates, although the plan doesn’t specify how.

Two high-profile conservative groups lashed out at the GOP offer, one of which was the Heritage Action for America, a sister organization to the Heritage Foundation.

“Republicans were reelected in the House to stop Pres. Obama’s agenda, not figure out creative ways to fund it,” Heritage Action for America communications director Dan Holler told The Hill in an email.

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New York Times Cairo Bureau Chief: Muslim Brotherhood Is ‘Moderate, Regular Old Political Force’

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The New York Times Cairo bureau chief David K. Kirkpatrick insists that the Muslim Brotherhood is a “moderate, regular old political force,” despite Muslim Brotherhood-backed Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi’s recent power grab and the Islamist organization’s radical views.

Kirkpatrick called into Hugh Hewitt’s radio show Wednesday from Egypt as the Brotherhood’s supporters battled opponents who feared a return to dictatorship on the streets of Cairo. When asked by Hewitt whether the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi, a former top ideological enforcer in the movement, were consolidating power in Egypt to pursue an undemocratic Islamist agenda, Kirkpatrick said he thought such criticism was “misplaced.”

“The Brotherhood, they’re politicians,” he said.

“They are not violent by nature, and they have over the last couple of decades evolved more and more into a moderate — conservative but religious, but moderate — regular old political force. I find that a lot of the liberal fears of the Brotherhood are somewhat outside. That said, you know, you don’t know what their ultimate vision of what the good life looks like. But in the short term, I think they just want to win elections.”

Founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, the Brotherhood’s slogan is the not-so-moderate “Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.”

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Michigan Republicans Approve Right to Work Amid Protests

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LANSING, Mich. – Republicans rushed right-to-work legislation through the Michigan Legislature Thursday, drawing raucous protests from hundreds of union supporters, some of whom were pepper-sprayed by police when they tried to storm the Senate chamber.

With six-vote margins in both chambers, the House and Senate approved measures prohibiting private unions from requiring that nonunion employees pay fees. The Senate was debating a similar bill, with Democrats denouncing it as an attack on worker rights and the GOP sponsor insisting it would boost the economy and jobs. Separate legislation dealing with public-sector unions was expected to come later.

Because of rules requiring a five-day delay between votes in the two chambers on the same legislation, final enactment appears unlikely until next week. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who previously had said repeatedly that right-to-work was “not on my agenda,” told reporters Thursday he would sign the measures.

A victory in Michigan would give the right-to-work movement its strongest foothold yet in the Rust Belt region, where organized labor already has suffered several body blows. Republicans in Indiana and Wisconsin recently pushed through legislation curbing union rights, sparking massive protests.

Even before the Michigan bills surfaced, protesters streamed inside the Capitol preparing for what appeared inevitable after Snyder, House Speaker Jase Bolger and Senate Minority Leader Randy Richardville announced at a news conference they were putting the issue on a fast track.

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George Zimmerman Sues NBC for Defaming Him as a ‘Racist’ in Trayvon Martin Reporting

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Lawyers for George Zimmerman filed suit today against NBC Universal Media over a well-publicized editing error that portrayed their client in racist terms in his pursuit of Trayvon Martin on a drizzly evening in February.

“NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so to set about the myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain,” states the civil complaint in its opening salvo against NBC.

NBC’s editing of the 911 audiotape in the Martin case became a public fixation after the media-monitoring Web site NewsBusters.org noted editing oddities on a “Today” show broadcast March 27. Here’s how NBC News portrayed the audiotape: Zimmerman, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”

The full tape went like this: Zimmerman, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.” Dispatcher, “OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?” Zimmerman, “He looks black.”

Zimmerman thus didn’t volunteer a racial profile of Martin; he was asked to provide it, a point that the lawsuit makes in colorful fashion: “NBC created this false and defamatory misimpression using the oldest form of yellow journalism: manipulating Zimmerman’s own words, splicing together disparate parts of the recording to create illusions of statements that Zimmerman never actually made.”

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Study: Childless Couples Have Higher Risk of Dying Prematurely

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Most parents have claimed at one stage that their children will be the death of them – but the reverse could be true.

A new study suggests being childless may increase the risk of dying prematurely, especially in women.

Scientists say the study throws new light on the age-old question of whether life fulfilment provided by children can actually extend your years.

The answer appears to be yes – but only compared with people who want children and are unable to have them.

In these circumstances, adoption may reduce the risk of early death, according to Danish scientists.

But their investigation did not look at whether couples who choose to be childless are likely to have shorter lives as a result.

Among possible reasons for early death rates are risky behaviours, such as more drinking and drug abuse, depression and psychiatric illness, and physical illness linked to their infertility.

Professor Esben Agerbo, of Aarhus University, who led the research, said the study was a ‘natural experiment’ because it only analysed data from parents who wanted a child and were actively seeking to do so using IVF treatment.

He said it found an ‘association’ between being childless and dying prematurely but no link with higher rates of mental illness.

He said ‘Mindful that association is not causation, our study suggests that the mortality rates are higher in the childless.

Read more from this story HERE.

Economic Poison: The Obama-Buffet Idea Destroys Communities

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Economic patriotism – President Barack Obama’s newest tax-the-rich agitprop – reminds me of an old rapport between two conservatives: The story begins in the 18th century when Samuel Johnson averred, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” To which stalwart Roscoe Conkling, a century later, would reply, Johnson “ignored the enormous possibilities of reform.” Obama’s latest platitude blends both patriotism and reform, providing refuge for the greatest scoundrel – the Scoundrel in Chief – and his refuge has been bulwarked by a slightly less scurrilous scoundrel, billionaire Warren E. Buffett.

To begin with, this economic patriotism thing is only new in the sense that it has been dug out of old social progressive tombs and rebranded as a glossy idea worth considering in 21st century America. The germ of this economic patriotism, to be sure, has inhabited the core of the American progressive movement since it arrived at the dawning of the 20th century. Progressive statists like Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt brought about the practical enlargement of federal prerogative, but it was the early progressive philosophers, like Herbert Croly, who articulated the transcendent impetus for disinterested devotion to Big Government – a.k.a. economic patriotism. In contrast to conservative thinkers like our Founding Fathers or French writer Alexis de Tocqueville, who saw the Republic’s national good as the aggregation of individuals pursuing self-interest rightly understood, the progressive thinkers sought to redirect the energy of the democracy toward a unifying national idea.

In his 1944 State of the Union Address, FDR said that the nation had recognized a new understanding of rights and ought to adjust our Constitution accordingly. He argued that the mere constitutional rights had “proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.” Thus spreading the wealth to become not just a sometimes legitimate means for social amelioration, but a desirable end unto itself. FDR’s rights reformulation included guaranteed employment with a livable wage, education, freedom from unfair competition and monopolies, social security, housing and medical care. This paternalistic vision of American government has largely come to fruition since the New Deal, and President Obama’s legacy may well be having brought the progressive vision to its apogee vis-à-vis Obamacare. But Obama’s economic patriotism, which is required to fund his legacy, goes far beyond FDR’s economic rights, striking at the very core of what it is to be a good American.

According to Obama’s economic patriotism, Americans have a transcendent duty to the state that commands economic sacrifice for the greater good of the whole – which ostensibly is equality of wealth. Yet whereas every American is able to aspire to and achieve regular ole flag-waving, troop-venerating, Uncle Sam-loving patriotism, only those with piles of untaxed treasure can become true economic patriots. For according to Obama’s perverted patriotism, your contribution to the self-governing experiment that is America depends on whether you are poor or rich; for only the well-off are really capable of attaining the sacrifice this new patriotism commands. Obama’s patriot, then, is less like WWII General George Patton and more akin to bloviating billionaire Warren Buffett, as seen in his apparently self-sacrificial desire to volunteer more of his wealth for federal confiscation.

However, Mr. Buffett is far more averse to taxation than he pretends. While he purports taxation does not deter investors from doing the type of things that lead to economic growth, his handling of the now-defunct Maine-based Dexter Shoe Co. demonstrates the contrary. Indeed, the case of Dexter Shoes demonstrates not only Mr. Buffett’s tax-sensitive investing strategy, but also the deleterious impact high taxes have for America’s small businesses, entrepreneurs and workers. For after Mr. Buffett was through with Dexter Shoes the company and the community it supported were left in ruins. Indeed, as one of Dexter’s native sons whose father and grandfather worked at Dexter Shoes, I know all too well that Mr. Buffett’s brand of economic patriotism is not only self-interested and tax-evasive, but ultimately poisonous for American communities.

Mr. Buffett purchased Dexter Shoe Co. in 1993 from Harold Alfond for $433 million in Berkshire Hathaway shares. Those shares are now worth $1.5 billion. Perhaps this is why Buffett tells all who inquire that buying Dexter Shoe was one of his worst investments. “To date, Dexter is the worst deal that I’ve made,” Buffett has said.

After purchasing Dexter Shoe, Buffett, being the economic patriot that he is, relocated its operations to Puerto Rico because of a competitive advantage derived, in large part, from the territory’s lower tax rates in comparison to Maine’s. Although Buffett believed that he had found a profitable model in shifting the world renowned shoe-making operation into Puerto Rico’s lower tax environment, in 2001 he cut his losses and ran, closing, selling or rebranding all U.S. and Puerto Rican operations.

“What I had assessed as durable competitive advantage vanished within a few years,” Buffett said. “By using Berkshire stock, I compounded this error hugely. That move made the cost to Berkshire shareholders not $400 million, but rather $3.5 billion. In essence, I gave away 1.6 percent of a wonderful business — one now valued at $220 billion — to buy a worthless business.”

However terribly Buffett suffered from his decision to buy, dismantle and outsource a decade’s old flourishing shoe factory in northern Maine – in his words, “a worthless business” – the thousands of Mainers who lost their jobs as a result of Buffett’s business practices surely suffered more. While some of Dexter Shoe’s old stores still operate under the name Super Shoes, the factories in Dexter would never again produce shoes—or fruitful opportunities—for thousands Mainers set adrift by Buffett’s, er, economic patriotism. And Dexter never really recovered, as evidenced by the steadily declining population and the fact that the largest employer in the town is the public school system.

Fast forward to 2012 and this same Buffett patriot says taxes have zero impact on America’s competitive advantage. In a January 2012 interview with Time Business’s Rana Foroohar, Buffett brushed aside the suggestion that taxes affect businesses. “The idea that American business is at a big disadvantage against the rest of the world because of corporate taxes is baloney in my view.” In stating the foregoing, Buffett either betrayed his geriatric brain’s nascent dementia or else he lied. I lean toward the former. The reason a successful businessman like Buffett would make such a foolish and asinine statement has to do with President Obama, the Key Stone XL pipeline, and Buffett’s large stake in Genesee & Wyoming – the largest short line and regional rail operator in the North America.

Genesee & Wyoming ships petroleum and related products all over the continent. As such, the Keystone pipeline would seriously threaten the value of G&W and Buffett’s shares therein. Buffett has an obvious interest in preventing the pipeline from being built. Obama has an obvious interest in securing Buffett’s allegiance. (Honestly, who better to champion Obama’s tax-the-millionaires-and-billionaires campaign shtick and now agenda than one such billionaire? A semi-celebrity billionaire to boot!) So in return for a few interviews, public statements and Wall Street Journal op-eds from Buffett defending redistributive tax policy, Obama blocks Keystone, effectively protecting his billionaire pal’s interest in Genesee & Wyoming.

But while both Obama and Buffett get their backs scratched, the American people get the shaft: The hundreds of thousands of jobless Americans who could be constructing the Keystone pipeline right now remain needlessly unemployed, not unlike the thousands of Mainers whose lives were cast asunder, whose communities irrevocably destroyed, by the Buffet-Obama brand of economic patriotism.
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S.E. Robinson, a Maine native and graduate of Bowdoin College, is an investigative reporter with a passion for fishing, firearms and freedom. His work has been featured in Human Events, National Review Online, and TheBlaze. A version of the column was originally posted at TheBlaze.

The Return of the Murkowski-Young Sealaska Earmark

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The spirit of Ted Stevens is alive and well, and the Alaskan delegation’s renewed efforts to smuggle Juneau-based Sealaska Corporation’s earmark through the unaccountable lame duck Congress is powerful testimony to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rep. Don Young’s (R-Alaska) dogged loyalty, not to their constituents or the nation, but to the powerful corporate interests responsible for their elections.

Sealaska Corporation, a native-owned corporation that has thrived on government handouts since its formation in 1971, is back at the government trough, seeking to renegotiate long-settled native land claims at tremendous loss to the tax-paying public. Eager to satiate the desires of their most generous campaign supporters, Murkowski and Young have championed Sealaska’s land-grab legislation as a righteous resolution of legitimate cultural grievances. But a candid review of the Southeast Alaska Native Land Entitlement Finalization and Jobs Protection Act and the political circumstances surrounding it reveals a taxpayer-funded quid pro quo in the making.

Sealaska’s bill is nothing if not an earmark, and while conservatives in Congress have a lot on their dinner plates, principle demands taking a stand against a scheme so emblematic of the abuse of public trust all too pervasive in today’s America. Despite the Republican ban on earmarks, a version of the Sealaska land bill (HR.1408) passed the House of Representatives in June, but only because it is a tremendously complicated, quite subtle earmark that was bound up with several conservative constituent-pleasers including an NRA-backed proposal. While the bill is unlikely pass as part of the original House conglomeration, Sealaska’s policy in particular is gaining traction, thanks, in part, to a pile of aging land-use bills Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would like to see passed as soon as possible. King Reid’s will usually prevails, and the Sealaska bill is perfect bait to charm Murkowski’s ostensibly Republican vote in his favor, not only for his Nevada-centric bills, but for whatever garbage winds up in the eventual cliff-averting grand bargain.

Although Young wants the Sealaska bill to pass as badly as Murkowkski, the bill is singularly important to the latter Alaskan lawmaker because the corporation coughed up $1.7 million for her 2010 reelection campaign. In a particular egregious instance of purchasing political clout, Sealaska Corporation generously funded—and , in large part, operated—Murkowski’s write-in campaign after she lost to Tea Party favorite and Fairbanks-based attorney Joe Miller. Despite the Alaskan GOP’s clear rejection of the Murkowski Monarchy, she remained in power because Miller, wishing to represent Alaskans rather than merely Sealaskans, opposed the corporate land grab. Executives of the corporation abhorred the thought of being weaned off the public teat, and so they collaborated with Murkowski and her lackeys, ultimately jointly executing the single most effective write-in campaign victory in American political history, bar none.

Despite the open and obvious will of the Alaskan GOP, Murkowski was welcomed back into the national Republican apparatus because a single senate vote was critically important in the pre-Obamacare days. Having retained power for at least another six years, Murkowski’s top priority was to attend to her financier’s desires. So Sealaska’s landgrab legislation, which had languished in various forms in Congress for the past decade, was reintroduced with renewed vigor in 2011. And Murkowski was joined in the effort by Don Young…

According to proponents of the Sealaska bill, the legislation is needed to finalize native land claims. In truth, Sealaska’s executives want the bill because it will significantly enrich the company’s top executives by transferring to their ownership more than 70,000 acres of public owned land including extensive infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and log transfer sites. But the true value of the land is neither real estate nor taxpayer-funded roadways, but old-growth trees that started growing before the Revolutionary War. Sealaska does not conceal the fact that it wants to clear-cut ancient stands in the Tongass National Forest – they have done so on prior land claims – and sell the timber in Asia. Where, presumably, it will be turned into chairs and tables and sold back into America.

So while lawmakers and the media fret endlessly over cliffs and chasms, behind the closed doors of Congress a bipartisan cadre is quietly plotting on how best to sneak through pet legislation for their corporate cronies. Murkowski is hardly the only lawmaker following the oft-repeated mantra of Rahm Emanuel – never let a crisis go to waste. Sadly, the Sealaska land-grab threatens to destroy the communities and livelihoods of voiceless Alaskans whose wishes are unimportant to representatives beholden only to the overlords who allow them to remain in power.
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S.E. Robinson, a Maine native and graduate of Bowdoin College, is an investigative reporter with a passion for fishing, firearms and freedom. His work has been featured in Human Events, National Review Online, and TheBlaze.

Nicole Brown Simpson Disagrees with Bob Costas

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By now, many of you reading this have already heard much opinion pro and con regarding NBC sportscaster Bob Costas’ anti-Second Amendment remarks during last Sunday night’s football game.

But just in case you missed it, Costas (using sportswriter’s Jason Whitlock column as a human shield) said: “If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.” If Costas were really serious about having a conversation about our culture of death and truly did his homework on the issue, rather than rushing to politicize a tragedy, he could’ve looked very close to home to find out just how silly this entire argument is.

As a witness to the contrary I present Nicole Brown Simpson, who clearly disagrees with Costas. At least she would if she could. Unfortunately, she’s been dead for almost 20 years now because of the crazed NFL player in her life, who was also her former husband and the father of her children. He was also a former close colleague of Costas at NBC.

Most of you know him as O.J.

If Nicole Brown Simpson were here today, she could testify that the gun which former Kansas City Chief Jovon Belcher used to commit murder-suicide recently isn’t any guiltier of a crime than is the knife O.J. used to stab her to death. Both are inanimate, morally-neutral, tools. Thus, they’re each only as dangerous or useful as the person wielding them.

The same could be said of rope.

See, Eric Eucker is the tragic death in the NFL you probably haven’t heard about for two reasons. One, he was a Cleveland Browns’ groundskeeper and not a starting player for a NFL team as Belcher was. Two, he committed suicide at Browns’ headquarters by hanging himself on the same day of Belcher’s apparent murder-suicide.

The way Eucker chose to take his own life doesn’t fit the preferred narrative of Costas and others that think they know better than our Founding Fathers, who gave us a Second Amendment as both a check and balance against government tyranny and also as a means of self-defense.

But don’t just take my word for it. Costas’ NBC co-worker Ice-T said recently the right to keep and bear arms was “the last form of defense against tyranny.”

Gun control isn’t a check on what’s wrong with the human condition any more than rope control would’ve saved Eucker’s life or knife control would’ve saved Nicole Brown Simpson. When someone is hell-bent, literally, on doing harm to his self and/or others he will find a means to do so. At that point rules and regulations aren’t a deterrent, which is why we all have a God-given right to self defense.

For example, alleged Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes disregarded multiple laws and prohibitions against firearms when he shot those people in cold blood back in July. Researcher John R. Lott notes that almost every single shooting involving multiple victims in the last 50 years of American history took place in a location where firearms were already prohibited.

I’m guessing Jay Rodney Lewis, from my home state of Iowa, is glad he has a God-given right to self defense. Lewis wrongly went to jail for 112 days before a jury of his peers acquitted him on the grounds of self defense when he used his gun to defend himself against two attackers. While defending himself against these charges, which would’ve made him hero in a more sane age, Lewis lost everything and was living in his car until a local church came to his aid.

Lewis’ story is similar to that of former Auto Zone employee Devin McLean, who ought to be an American hero but instead is just another unemployed American worker during the Obama years.

McLean and his store manager were about to close the AutoZone in York County, Va. when a gunman barged into the store. McLean, a 23-year-old Air Force veteran, escaped through the side door to run to his truck for his weapon to make it a fair fight. When he returned he pointed his gun directly at the armed robber.

“I told him to freeze and to drop his weapon,” McLean told Fox News, noting the would-be perp took off instead. “I watched him run down the street. I came back inside and made sure my manager was okay and he called the police.”

Police believe this is the same criminal responsible for as many as 30 robberies in the area. Sheriff J.D. Diggs considers McLean to be a hero.

“He did a very brave thing,” the sheriff said. “He put himself in jeopardy in an attempt to make sure his friend was safe. He did a very brave thing.”

Two days after the attempted robbery Auto Zone fired McLean for violating its no firearms policy. Regardless, I’m guessing McLean’s manager, who credited McLean with saving his life, is eternally grateful that McLean put the Second Amendment ahead of his company’s flawed policy.

What these sorts of tragedies, or near tragedies, really speak to isn’t the need for more restrictions on liberty but an American culture growing increasingly dark morally and spiritually. A culture where the gory equivalent to pornography is celebrated in our movies, assassins and mob hitmen are the heroes in our video games, and we kill 4,000 of our own children every day.

Until Costas and his ilk start speaking to those deeper issues, and not just politicizing the death of others when it’s expedient to do so, they shouldn’t be taken seriously. The last thing a culture of death needs is the further exploiting of the loss of life.

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You can friend “Steve Deace” on Facebook, or follow him on Twitter @SteveDeaceShow.

Sen. Jim DeMint To Resign From US Senate, Become Head of Heritage Foundation

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South Carolina U.S. Senator Jim DeMint will replace Ed Feulner as president of the Heritage Foundation. Mr. DeMint will leave his post as South Carolina’s junior senator in early January to take control of the Washington think tank, which has an annual budget of about $80 million.

Sen. DeMint’s departure means that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, will name a successor, who will have to run in a special election in 2014. In that year, both Mr. DeMint’s replacement and Sen. Lindsey Graham will be running for reelection in South Carolina.

Mr. DeMint was reelected to a second term in 2010. The 61-year-old senator had announced earlier that he would not seek a third term.

Mr. Feulner, who is 71 and planned to step down, is to be named chancellor of Heritage, a new position, and will continue in a part-time capacity as chairman of the foundation’s Asian Studies Center.

Read more from this story HERE.

Unbalanced Approach: Government Workers Work Less and Earn More

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Analysis of government versus private sector pay and work hours suggests bureaucrats get more money for less work.

Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute and Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation have recently taken a look at two issues related to public sector pay, compensation and hours worked. What they find is that government workers work about one month less in a given year and earn more than comparably skilled workers in the private sector.

A summary of their findings on compensation were published by the Washington Post last month. Biggs and Richwine were responding to claims that public sector employees earn 35 percent less than their private sector counterparts. However, these comparisons are badly misleading.

“All five outside studies reviewed this year by the Government Accountability Office found that federal pay is equal to or higher than those of comparable private-sector workers. This is consistent with three decades of academic research. According to our analysis of Census Bureau data last year, the typical private-sector worker who shifts to a federal job receives a salary increase, while federal workers who leave for the private sector tend to get a salary cut.”

Read more from this story HERE.