Fmr. Black Panther Warns Conservatives of 2012 Violence

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Former Black Panther and left-wing activist Brandon Darby told a packed East Orlando Tea Party this week that he left the Black Panthers because basically he loves America. He said he just couldn’t take it anymore when he happened upon a video training session by anarchist leaders showing gullible young men how to make Molotov cocktails to shut down the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis in 2008.

”Anarchists were showing videos of throwing Molotov cocktails at corporate systems,” Darby said. The ingredients were bought at a local big box and built using tampons as wicks with oil laced into the gasoline “to better stick to the skin,” like homemade napalm. Darby said something snapped in his consciousness when these radicals began openly calling for shutting down the convention by any means possible, simply because they didn’t like what the Republicans and Sarah Palin were saying.

“That’s bullying,” he said. Giving a heads-up to organizers for the August 27, 2012, GOP convention at the Tampa Convention Center, the now conservative forum speaker is warning what could happen again. He said a definite structure of planners had set up a three part division of responsibilities in the leftist camp:

The Reds, the hardcore anarchists dressed in black, whose sole aim was to fight the police;
The Yellows, who were tasked with blocking roads to the Xcel site; and
The Greens, a loosely knit collection of about 10,000 routine protestors.

“I want to get those who want to destroy our country,” he told thecConservatives in a big media event ignored by the local print outlet in a new expression of liberal bias by omission. The liberal media at the time, in typical progressive media-speak, said Darby exhibited a “hyper-masculinity” that led astray the gullible youths who had plans to lob gasoline bombs into a parking lot of cop cars. These two young men, however, received jail terms.

Darby is a great example of the virtues writers praised years ago. A runaway at an early age, he wandered through teen runaway life before getting sucked into the Black Panther Party. Darby turned FBI informant after meeting Police Major John Bryson, who was in charge of New Orleans’s famed Ninth Ward. After Bryson rescued a former Panther stranded by Katrina, he started to realize that police do care and that “not all cops are pigs.”

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Read More at Floyd Reports By Suzanne Eovaldi, Floyd Reports

Perhaps the worst constitutional defense of Obamacare you will ever read

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Now that the Supreme Court has officially taken up the question of Obamacare, we are in store for even more legal analyses attempting to predict which way the justices will rule, or argue which way they ought to rule.

A quick prediction of my own: Few, if any, of these analyses will be as worthless as the one Einer Elhauge offers in today’s New York Times.

Elhauge, a law professor at Harvard University and founding director of Harvard’s Petrie-Flom Center in Health Law Policy, makes one point that is patently — inane? specious? vacuous? let’s go with specious — and one point that unintentionally undercuts his own argument. Let’s look at each.

First, the patently specious point:

For decades, Americans have been subject to a mandate to buy a health insurance plan — Medicare. Check your paystub, and you will see where your contributions have been deducted, whether or not you wanted Medicare health insurance.

Many opponents dismiss this argument because Medicare (unlike the new mandate) requires the purchase of health insurance as a condition of entering into a voluntary commercial relationship, namely employment, which Congress can regulate under the commerce clause. Thus, they say, the Medicare requirement regulates a commercial activity, whereas the new mandate regulates inactivity.

Now, I have followed the Obamacare debate pretty closely, including attending the oral arguments at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals this summer, and I have never heard or read even a single person offering the rationale that Elhauge claims “many opponents” of the law make. However, I am willing to stipulate that the director of a center on health law policy may have been privy to more arguments than I have been, and that there may in fact have been some Obamacare opponents who have concocted such a line of reasoning.

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Read More at ajc.com By Kyle Wingfield, ajc.com

Should Illegal Aliens Be Represented in Congress? Louisiana Says No

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The state of Louisiana has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the inclusion of illegal aliens in the 2010 census count on which seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are apportioned among the states. The lawsuit asserts that Louisiana is one of five states which each lost one representative as a result of three other states gaining representation because of inclusion of such illegal aliens in the 2010 census count.

The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution’s apportionment by population of the House of Representatives as requiring that, “as nearly as is practicable, one man’s vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s.” Since only U.S. citizens can vote, and because the illegal alien population is unevenly distributed among the states, Louisiana asserts that the inclusion of such illegal alien population in the 2010 census count deprives Louisiana voters of their rightful representation in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Louisiana seeks to have declared unconstitutional the inclusion of illegal aliens in the census count used to apportion congressional seats. Louisiana asks the Supreme Court to order the Census Bureau to exclude such persons in a revised calculation of the 2010 apportionment, and to transmit such revised calculation to the House of Representatives and to the states for implementation.

Section 2 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution provides that, “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed.”

Strict constructionists or originalists on the Supreme Court might find that constitutional language sufficient to reject Louisiana’s claim, since it clearly requires the counting of all “persons” in each state and specified the only group which was not to be counted for purposes of apportionment.

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 Read More at Floyd Reports By Jan Ting, Floyd Reports

Envelope Please: Turkey of the Year is Michael Moore

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This year, we continue a cherished Thanksgiving tradition at Ringside Politics by bestowing our annual “Turkey of the Year” award to the most deserving politician or media personality.

This is always a very spirited competition because there are so many turkeys to consider. Previous winners have included former House Speaker Nancy “Botox Buffoon” Pelosi and former New Orleans politicians Mayor Ray “School Bus” Nagin and Congressman William “Dollar Bill” Jefferson.

To win this special award, the honoree has to best emulate our favorite Thanksgiving bird, the turkey. In other words, the winner must strut around acting as stupid as possible. A turkey’s brain is smaller than a walnut, among the tiniest in the animal kingdom. The turkey, while delicious to eat, possesses fewer brain cells than a cockroach. It qualifies for true bird brain status, which is why this holiday treat reminds us of so many people in the news today.

In the world of media and politics today, there is an endless supply of foolish politicians who strut around spouting nonsense. At the top of the list is President Obama who can strut and spout nonsense with the best of them. Whether the topic is socialized medicine, the lack of “shovel ready” jobs in his stimulus bill, higher taxes, increased spending, adding trillions to the national debt or apologizing for America; he can certainly blather on endlessly, especially if he has his teleprompter. He does have credibility on some subjects, such as basketball and community organizing, but on most issues, he is clueless and woefully unprepared. In this year’s competition, he was a strong candidate, finishing as our runner-up.

Sharing runner-up status with the President was the entire Occupy Wall Street movement, who continue to sound and smell like a bunch of turkeys. Many of these protesting fools are unaware of any goals for their movement; they just want free handouts and attention. They attracted the support of the typical idiotic Hollywood crowd like Susan Sarandon and Alec Baldwin. Actors are specialists at making foolish comments, especially when they offer inane encouragement to occupiers. If these actors really wanted to show support for the movement they would pitch a tent with the protesters and move into an occupied park. Don’t hold your breath waiting for these limousine liberal stars to actually mean what they say.

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 Read More at Western Journalism By Jeff Crouere, Western Journalism

PERRY: Eric Holder must go

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Ever since the Department of Justice’s gun-running operation known as Fast and Furious became public, the Obama administration’s response has been slow and infuriating. Of particular concern is Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s lack of candor concerning what he knew and when he knew it.

This is not a typical case of bureaucratic bungling. A 40-year-old Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, and possibly a U.S. immigration agent, are dead because of a horribly ill-conceived Justice Department operation that went tragically wrong.

Hundreds of Fast and Furious firearms have been implicated in criminal activity, and another 1,400 firearms are on the street because the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives engaged in gun-walking – the selling of firearms to straw purchasers in an attempt to locate major weapons traffickers in Mexico. This controversial tactic, involving thousands of weapons, means that brave law enforcement personnel along the border remain at risk.

As details come to light, a larger shadow has been cast on Mr. Holder. When initially asked under oath to say when he first knew about Fast and Furious, Mr. Holder told the House Judiciary Committee on May 3, “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”

But the evidence casts serious doubt over that claim. First, President Obama had commented publicly on the operation, noting on March 22 – more than a month before Mr. Holder’s sworn statement – that an inspector general had been assigned to investigate the matter.

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Solyndra Is Symptomatic of a Larger Obama Energy Problem

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United States Secretary of Energy Steve Chu did not exactly distinguish himself while testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee about Solyndra, the so-called “green energy” company that received more than half a billion dollars in loan guarantees from the federal government.

That these same loan guarantees were refused by the Bush Energy Department in the waning days of that administration is only part of the story. That Solyndra is connected to major Obama donors and was permitted by the government to undertake a restructuring that allowed for private investors to be paid back before the U.S. taxpayers when the company went bust has made matters worse—and certainly increased interest in what happened—but that too is only part of the story.

There are lots of people in Washington who have identified Solyndra as part of a regime based on “crony capitalism” that has become the hallmark of the current administration. If that were all there was to it, things would be reasonably simple to sort out. In fact what happened at this one California-based company is only a symptom of a larger problem, one that threatens to grow over the next year and which reflects a fundamental flaw in the Obama energy policy: It is not based on anything reasonable.

The rush to create “green jobs” relies on technologies that have not been fully developed, have not proven their worth in the commercial sector and which, frankly, are more pie in the sky than anything else. That is not to say there is absolutely no role for solar and wind energy in the U.S. economy, but that the emphasis on these so-called renewables has come at the expense of traditional forms of energy. It also overlooks the very real fact that, as former Bush Energy Secretary Sam Bodman used to say, the most readily abundant source of new energy in the United States is that which everyday is wasted through inefficiency.

The Nobel prize-winning Chu and his associates would do well to consider that. Rather than try to create whole new industries using the tools of “crony capitalism” they might want to focus on ways to better utilize the energy the nation already produces. They would do well to take a look at what companies like Multistack, a Wisconsin-based privately held firm does.

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 Read More at cnsnews.com

MICHELE BACHMANN TALKS WITH BECK: ‘TABLE HAS BEEN SET FOR A WORLDWIDE NUCLEAR WAR AGAINST ISRAEL’

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Presidential candidate and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann stopped by Glenn’s NYC radio studio Monday for a talk that spanned national security, the possibility of economic collapse, and the implications of a second Barack Obama term.

Congresswoman Bachmann laid out her expansive policy knowledge, foreign affairs acumen, and expressed her deep concerns about the future of the country.

Among her most stark analytic points was that “The table has been set for a worldwide nuclear war against Israel.”

Rep. Bachmann also added that “We can’t think we are invincible just because we are the United States of America.”

When Glenn pushed her on the possibility of civil war, Bachmann responded ominously: ’We Are Headed For Harder Times Than People Realize.’

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Read More at The Blaze By Buck Sexton, The Blaze

Obama ‘Actively’ Made Supercommittee’s Job ‘More Difficult,’ Toomey Says

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(CNSNews.com) – Not only did President Barack Obama refuse to help the supercommittee as it attempted to reach an agreement on reducing the federal budget deficit — the president complicated things for the committee, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said on Tuesday.

“The president actively made our jobs more difficult,” Toomey told Fox & Friends. “He issued veto threats. He said…Obamacare had to be off the table, despite the fact that over time, that’s a multi-trillion-dollar, extraordinary waste of money — a very ill-conceived program. He came in and said that we ought to — in addition to everything else we were working on — we ought to find a way to pay for his latest $500-billion stimulus bill. The president was not helpful.”

Toomey was one of 12 lawmakers on the panel that announced Monday it had failed to come up with $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction — a failure that will trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts in 2013.

Supercommittee Democrats refused to consider Republican spending cuts unless Republicans agreed to a trillion-dollar tax hike, Toomey said.

But Toomey and other Republicans say a trillion-dollar tax hike would have been “devastating” to the economy. “The problem is a spending problem,” said Toomey, noting that Democrats — when they controlled all three branches of government in 2009 and 2010 — went on a spending binge.

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 Read More at cnsnews.com By Susan Jones, cnsnews.com

Newt Gingrich was a lobbyist, plain and simple

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When Newt Gingrich says he never lobbied, he’s not telling the truth.

When he was a paid consultant for the drug-industry’s lobby group, Gingrich worked hard to persuade Republican congressmen to vote for the Medicare drug subsidy that the industry favored. To deny Gingrich was a lobbyist requires an Obama-like word parsing over who is and who isn’t a lobbyist.

Gingrich stated last week on Fox News, “I do no lobbying of any kind. I never have. A very important point to make. I have never done lobbying of any kind.”

But the facts contradict that claim.

First of all, we know that Gingrich has been paid by drug companies and by the drug lobby, notably during the Medicare drug debate. A former employee of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, (the main industry lobby) told me Gingrich was being paid by someone in the industry at the time. A spokeswoman for Gingrich’s health care consulting firm, Center for Health Transformation, told me that drug companies have been CHT clients. PhRMA confirmed in a statement that they had paid Gingrich. Bloomberg News cited sources from leading drug companies Astra-Zeneca and Pfizer saying that those companies had also hired Gingrich.

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 Read More at washingtonexaminer.com By Timothy P. Carney, washingtonexaminer.com

LIST MANIA: THE TOP FIVE NEW MALTHUSIANS

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“The New Malthusians” sounds like the name of a new wave or punk band, but just as new wave is old school, there is never anything new about Malthusianism no matter how many times it gets punked. Only the band members change.

When the world’s population reached the estimated 7 billion mark a few weeks ago, the most famous Malthusian of modern times, Paul Ehrlich, made a few encore appearances for old time’s sake, but for the most part Ehrlich and his generation of Malthusian rock stars, such as Garrett Hardin, Lester Brown, and the Club of Rome, appear about a fresh as Keith Richards after a 7 am wake up call. The old guys really need to be retired (well, actually, Garrett Hardin is long dead anyway), to make room for the new kids. The criteria for making the list are simple: a winner’s Malthusianism has to be essentially unmodulated from the older kind, be relentlessly monotonic, be extremely lucrative, and/or a pretext for increased centralized political power.

The competition is fierce, but herewith the top five “New Malthusians” for a cover tribute band for the early 21st century:

1. James Hansen, NASA’s chief climate scientist. I’ve debated Hansen on a couple of occasions, the most memorable being at the New School in New York in 2006, when he let fly with the comment that his treatment at the hands of the Bush Administration, which monitored his many media interviews, was the kind of thing you expected from Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. He’s also called trains carrying coal to power plant’s “death trains to Auschwitz.” And he wonders why people think he’s an “alarmist” about climate change. The guy is a manic depressive, which comes with Malthusian territory I suppose, but as John noted here already, it’s really really lucrative. My pal Chris Horner offers more damning details here. There’s lots here to work with, but for years Hansen has been saying time is running out. The most recent I can find is a 2009 article saying Obama only has four years left to save the planet. Since Obama clearly isn’t going to make it, can we expect Hansen to shut up at the end of next year? Of course not; too many lecture fees and prizes to be had.

2. Bill McKibben, Middlebury College. His big thing these days is climate change—what a surprise—though he did write the quintessentially Malthusian book back in the 1990s entitled Maybe One: A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single Child Families. Like Hansen, he wins all the best prizes and hangs out with all the best people. I am sure the prizes look nice on the mantle. Lately he’s been leading the protests outside the White House against the Keystone pipeline, declaring that if the pipeline is built, it’s “game over” for the climate. But if Canadian oil goes to China instead of us, how would it be different? Don’t ask. That would be an inconvenient question.

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Read More at powerlineblog.com By Steven Hayward, powerlineblog.com