NBC’s “Today” show is bringing Sarah Palin on board as a co-host — for one morning, this Tuesday.
The announcement was posted Sunday on NBC’s website. It says the former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate will “reveal a different side” than viewers have seen before.
Read More at OfficialWire Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore Creative Commons
My Privacy policy, in its simplest form, consists of but three tenets.
1) Government shouldn’t have access to any data besides that to which it is Constitutionally allowed – and only what is absolutely necessary for it to execute its enumerated, limited Constitutional duties. If they want more, they should go through the proper Constitutional channels – i.e. obtaining a warrant, writing a (Constitutional) law or amending the Constitution.
This is where things like ObamaCare, of course, vastly overreach.
2) Government should never – again, save for certain isolated instances, and again only after first going through proper channels – force private companies or persons to turn over data.
3) Private companies should never unilaterally give the government our data.
Private companies compile our data because it is inordinately valuable to them – in large part because it makes them more valuable to us. The more they know about our online-technological lives, the better they can make our online-technological experience.
And that’s not a bad thing. Unless they unilaterally give the government our data – a Rule #3 violation.
We may be running into some Rule #3 problems – again – this election season. And – shocker – it involves President Barack Obama. Again.
Read More at Breitbart By Seton Motley Photo Credit: Scott Beale Creative Commons
Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney may have forgotten that Sunday was April Fools’ Day.
His staff did not.
They took Romney to a room he thought was packed with supporters gathered for a pancake brunch. It was supposed to be his first campaign stop Sunday as he courted Wisconsin voters ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
Rep. Paul Ryan introduced Romney as he waited backstage. There was some cheering, but his staff told Romney not to expect a big crowd.
Read More at OfficialWire By Steve Peoples Photo Credit: davelawrence8 Creative Commons
Despite their earlier confident pronouncements that Obamacare was on extremely sound legal footing, liberals are starting to finally realize that the medical system law which Democrats shoved through the Congress in a purely partisan fashion has a very good chance of being thrown out by the Supreme Court. That realization is giving birth to a new plan, attacking anyone who disagrees.
If the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate in Obamacare, the result will be higher insurance premiums and, “we’ll just blame Republicans for it,” says Democratic strategist Bob Beckel, appearing on the Wednesday edition of Fox News’ The Five.
Beckel’s statement hints at the blame-game Democrats will play if part or all of Obamacare is struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Another Democratic strategist, James Carville, has said pretty much the same thing, asserting that Republicans will “own” healthcare over the next few years if the court strikes down the individual mandate or even the whole Obamacare law, and will pay a political price for rising premiums.
“You know what the Democrats are going to say — and it is completely justified: ‘We tried, we did something, go see a 5-4 Supreme Court majority,’” Carville said on CNN Tuesday. “The public has these guys figured out. Our polls show that half think this whole thing is political. Just as a professional Democrat, there’s nothing better to me than overturning this thing 5-4 and then the Republican Party will own the health care system for the foreseeable future. And I really believe that. That is not spin.”
Carville’s statements edge closer to how the Left is preparing to respond if the court strikes down Obamacare. They will not stop at blaming Republicans for higher insurance premiums. They are going to try to demonize the Supreme Court itself as simply a tool of the heartless Right.
Read More at CNS News By Matthew Sheffield
There are several semi-permanent fiscal policy fights in Washington, most of which somehow are related to the big issue of whether government should be bigger or smaller.
Today, I want to focus on two of those battles, and point to developments in Japan to make the case that the left is wrong.
First, let’s look at a couple of sentences from a Wall Street Journal story about Japanese fiscal policy.
Top officials from Japan’s government and ruling party formally endorsed a revised bill to double the country’s sales tax, despite strong objections from other party members, in a sign of their determination to rein in the nation’s soaring public debt. …The legislation will double the current 5% sales tax in two stages by 2015 as a way to help pay for the nation’s growing social welfare costs as the population ages.
I realize I’m a strange person and I look at everything through a libertarian lens, but I think this story provides strong support for my viewpoint on two important issues.
1. Higher taxes lead to higher spending – Just like in the United States, politicians in Japan claim that they have to raise taxes to deal with deficits and debt. Indeed, the excerpt above includes that assertion, reporting that the VAT increase would be “to rein in the nation’s soaring debt.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) only takes action against a “small portion” of foreigners who overstay their visa—like several of the 9/11 terrorists—and allows hundreds of thousands to enter the United States without proper authorization under a provision that already relaxes scrutiny for dozens of countries.
It gets better. When congressional investigators demanded answers from the agency, officials said they had not yet completed a review of the cases to determine the extent of the risk. Your government at work! It’s as if nothing has been learned from the 2001 terrorist attacks, when security was so lax that Middle Eastern extremists slipped right through to plan their plot from inside the country.
Outlined in an investigative congressional report, these lapses are of special concern. The first involves foreigners who enter the U.S. from 36 countries that have special visa waiver agreements with Uncle Sam. They still need authorization, though the system is more lax than a typical visa process. Foreigners must comply with a special DHS Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) that requires them to submit biographical information and answer eligibility questions before traveling.
While most of the visitors comply with the requirements, an estimated 2% don’t, according to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. That translates into 364,000 travelers a year, investigators found. Additionally, only half of the countries that have visa waiver agreements with the U.S. are fully compliant. The GAO points out in this latest report that it has published five others addressing the same subject yet little has been done to improve security.
It’s almost as if the monstrous agency created after the 2001 terrorist attacks to protect the nation is blowing off Congress. This theory appears to be supported by the DHS’s handling of visa over stayers. If you recall, several of the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. with valid visas but simply never left. This should be an area of deep concern for the DHS, though it doesn’t appear to be.
A new service offered by Google is raising some eyebrows, as users now have access to monthly reports that reveal all their online activities using Google products (Gmail, YouTube, Google+ social network, online search, etc.). Called “Account Activity,” the new feature will allow users to “step back and take stock of what you’re doing online,” Google product manager Andreas Tuerk noted in a blog post. “Knowing more about your account activity also can help you take steps to protect your Google Account.”
According to Tuerk, signing up for the service will provide Account Activity subscribers with a monthly report that delivers a variety of benefits, including “transparency and control; summarized data associated with each product you use when signed in to your account; and links to change your personal settings.”
The service supplies users with information such as their website history, what sites they frequent, the number of e-mails they’ve sent and received in the past month, and other tidbits relating to accounts that are associated with their e-mail address. Further, as more reports are pulled, activity summaries will show changes in use over time.
The company’s Public Policy blog provides an example of how the program works:
For example, my most recent Account Activity report told me that I sent 5 percent more email than the previous month and received 3 percent more. An Italian hotel was my top Gmail contact for the month. I conducted 12 percent more Google searches than in the previous month, and my top queries reflected the vacation I was planning: [rome] and [hotel].
The blog post goes on to say that the feature will arm users with powerul tools to protect their accounts, as they can review their account history to identify “sign-ins from countries where you haven’t been or devices you’ve never owned.” Moreover, users can change their password immediately and, if need be, sign up for a more beefed-up level of security. “We wanted to make it easier for signed-in users to understand, manage and protect their information on Google,” said one Google spokesperson.
Read More at The New American By Brian Koenig, The New American
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The survival of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul rests with a Supreme Court seemingly split over ideology and, more particularly, in the hands of two Republican-appointed justices.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy put tough questions to administration lawyers defending the health care law during three days of arguments that suggested they have strong reservations about the individual insurance requirement at the heart of the overhaul and, indeed, whether the rest of the massive law can survive if that linchpin fails.
But Roberts and Kennedy also asked enough pointed questions of the law’s challengers to give the overhaul’s supporters some hope. In any event, justices’ questions at arguments do not always foretell their positions.
The court’s decision, due in June, will affect the way virtually every American receives and pays for health care and surely will reverberate in this year’s campaigns for president and Congress. The political effects could be even larger if the court votes 5-4 with all its Republican-appointed justices prevailing over all the Democratic appointees to strike down the entire law, or several important parts of it.
Not since 2000, when the court resolved the Bush v. Gore dispute over Florida election returns that sealed George W. Bush’s election as president, has a Supreme Court case drawn so much attention.
Read More at OfficialWire By Mark Sherman, Associated Press
Dan Riehl writes at Big Government about a Twitter account that was created named “Kill Zimmerman,” the Florida man who is alleged to have shot Trayvon Martin.
Barack Obama has remained silent as the usual suspects have been busy stirring up hate aimed at George Zimmerman, the Florida Hispanic involved in the shooting death of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin. Now the anger has taken a new twist, breaking out on Twitter with an account named “Kill Zimmerman.” It features an image of Zimmerman in crosshairs.
After the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, a political ad associated with Palin and featuring a cross-hairs focused on Gifford’s District, the issue of the ad rose to the level of national debate. See ABC for more on that previous news. Perhaps they’ll blame Palin for this latest use of a cross-hairs, as well.
Sarah Palin’s ‘Crosshairs’ Ad Dominates Gabrielle Giffords Debate
As for the Twitter account, the individual behind the account is denouncing protests as coming from racists.
Read More at American Thinker By Rick Moran, American Thinker
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As he struggles to keep up with frontrunner Mitt Romney and parries calls for him to drop out of the Republican presidential race, Rick Santorum has said in recent weeks that he has actually won more delegates than some media counts show. Those counts, Santorum says, are not taking into account Republican party rules, as well as the state-level meetings that actually determine how many delegates go to each candidate.
“Here’s one of the things that I can tell you I didn’t know,” Santorum told a small group of reporters at a breakfast in Washington Monday. “Every single state is different. Every state. Every single state is different. It’s different on how you get on the ballot. It’s different on their structure, how they allocate delegates, whether they are bound, whether they are unbound, when they’re committed, how long they committed, how they’re selected. Our math is actually based on the reality of what’s going on in the states.”
Now, the Santorum campaign is providing some numbers to flesh out the candidate’s claims. In a long conversation Wednesday evening, John Yob, the campaign’s national and state convention director, pointed out that many high-profile primaries have been little more than beauty contests, and that delegates in many key states are actually being awarded in county, district, and state conventions, which are often dominated by conservative activists. “In that process, we are doing very well,” said Yob. “The moderate candidate almost never performs better than a conservative candidate in a county, district, or state convention process.”
Many states are just now starting their conventions, and it is impossible to say precisely how many delegates each candidate will win. The Associated Press delegate count, widely cited in media stories, shows Romney with 568 delegates to Santorum’s 273, with Newt Gingrich at 135 and Ron Paul at 50. Yob’s count is significantly different: according to his estimate, Romney has 482 delegates to Santorum’s 331, with Gingrich at 158 and Paul at 91.
What accounts for the differences? First, the Santorum campaign believes that delegates from Florida and Arizona will ultimately be awarded proportionately, and not as winner-take-all contests. The AP account currently gives Romney all 50 Florida delegates and all 29 Arizona delegates. Santorum and Yob point to a recent article by Morton Blackwell, the longtime conservative activist and member of the Republican National Committee rules committee, suggesting that if the race is close, it is likely the party convention in Tampa this summer will award Florida and Arizona delegates proportionately. Doing so would not be a delegate gusher for Santorum, but it would lower Romney’s count, since Romney won both states and now has all the delegates in his column. In the end, Yob believes Romney will end up with 23 delegates in Florida and 14 in Arizona, for a combined loss of 42 delegates.
Read More at The Washington Examiner By Byron York, The Washington Examiner
