Google Hires Obama’s Campaign E-Team

-By Warner Todd Huston

The hand-in-hand nature of this White House and some of the nation’s biggest corporations is seen in yet another incident as Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign data team is now moving from team Obama to team Google.

This week, Bloomberg reported that Obama’s data mining team, used to such great effect during his 2012 re-election for president, has been hired nearly wholesale to go work for Google.

This may not come as such a great surprise, however, as Google’s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, helped organize and run Obama’s re-election e-team.

Schmidt “helped recruit talent, choose technology, and coach the campaign manager, Jim Messina, on the finer points of leading a large organization,” Bloomberg reports.

Since he came onto the national political scene, Barack Obama has campaigned like a veritable David vs Goliath with evil corporations standing in for Goliath while Obama presents himself as David loading his sling shot to do battle. But the reality is not quite that cut and dried and Google has been a big recipient of Obama’s largesse.
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Google Hires Obama’s Campaign E-Team”


Obama Thuggery: Adviser Plouffe Throws False Accusations Against Issa

-By Warner Todd Huston

He’s gone from Obama’s tech-savvy wunderkind to just another administration attack dog, but to seal that transformation Obama adviser David Plouffe used long discredited attacks to smear Representative Darrell Issa.

Issa, the Chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has emerged as one of the President’s chief opponents in the House, if not the whole of the GOP. Issa has been in charge of many of the investigations into Obama’s scandals such as Fast & Furious and the IRS scandals.

During the Sunday, June 2 broadcast of CNN’s State of the Union, Representative Issa said that White House spokesman Jay Carney is just a “paid liar.” This set Plouffe off into “Joe Pesci” mode, as Politico termed it.
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Obama Thuggery: Adviser Plouffe Throws False Accusations Against Issa”


56% Of Carmakers Who Asked For Government ‘Green’ Loans Are Dead

-By Patrick George Jalopnik

What do Carbon Motors’ BMW-powered police car, Aptera Motors’ electric three wheeler, and Fisker’s luxury sedan have in common? Two things: they asked the government for loans, and they’re dead, as are more than half of the car companies who sought loans, according to documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by Jalopnik.P

Of the 18 existing or would-be carmakers we identified as having applied for loans under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program, 10 have since faded into bankruptcy or ceased operations.

Numerous car companies, startups and parts manufacturers have applied for the loans since the program was established during the Bush administration in 2008. However, most of them were turned down or simply did not receive the funds they requested. To date, about $8 billion has been doled out to just five carmakers: Tesla, Nissan, Ford, Fisker and the Vehicle Production Group. The last two have ceased production and appear headed toward bankruptcy.

The goal of the ATVM program was to use taxpayer loan money to fund the next generation of American fuel efficient vehicles, whether they came from small startups or large established automakers, all while adding thousands of new jobs.P

Unfortunately, no new loan money has been handed out since 2011, a decision critics have alleged was done in the wake of failed government-backed solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. About $16 billion remains undistributed….

Read the rest at Jalopnik.


Ill Sen. Kirk to Meet With Former Gangster Turned Congressman Over Plan to ‘Crush’ Gangster Disciples

-By Warner Todd Huston

Chicago has been one of the most dangerous places in the country to live for the last several years with gang shootings wracking the city. To address this plague of gangs, Senator Mark Kirk (R, IL) proposed that some 18,000 gang members be rounded up and prosecuted. Now several African American leaders in Chicago are lambasting Kirk for his idea and one former gang member turned Congressman is demanding a meeting with the Senator.

Early in May, Senator Kirk succumbed to utter frustration over the powerlessness of the Chicago police to stop the violence and demanded that the federal government step in and take over.

Speaking of High School cheerleader Hadiya Pendleton, a teen killed during gang violence in 2012, Kirk said of the gangs, “I would like to crush them, because they shot Hadiya.”

“My top priority is to arrest the Gangster Disciple gang, which is 18,000 people. I would like to do a mass pickup of them and put them all in the Thomson Correctional Facility. I will be proposing this to the assembled federal law enforcement: ATF, DEA and FBI,” the Senator said.

Kirk has noted that the law enforcement community has met his idea with skepticism but law enforcement isn’t the only sector of the city to find fault.
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Ill Sen. Kirk to Meet With Former Gangster Turned Congressman Over Plan to ‘Crush’ Gangster Disciples”


Mercatus: Illinois Ranks in Bottom Among The Least Free States in the Nation

-By Warner Todd Huston

One can’t be surprised that Obama’s home state of Illinois is one of the worst five states in the nation–like it is for most other things–in the Mercatus Center’s study of the level of freedom in each state. Naturally Illinois ranks close to the bottom of the most free states.

This is unsurprising since Illinois is situated at the bottom of all states in several different categories of what makes a successful state.

In this new Mercatus survey, Illinois has slipped two spots since last time now ranking as the 45th state on that evolving scale.

Here is how Mercatus has it…

Analysis of Ranking

Illinois is one of the least free states to live in from the perspective of regulatory policy and personal freedom, but on fiscal policy it ranks in the middle of the pack. However, there are still some fiscal issues in dire need of improvement.

Illinois’s tax burden is dead-center average, while government spending and employment are below average. Government spending has been increasing over time, however, and certain categories, such as employee retirement, are way out of line with national norms. The main fiscal problem is debt: state and local debt make up 25.1 percent of personal income.
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Mercatus: Illinois Ranks in Bottom Among The Least Free States in the Nation”


Boy Suspended Just for SAYING the Word Gun

-By Warner Todd Huston

Now we get to the height of idiocy with a school “no tolerance” policy with a boy who was suspended just for saying the word gun.

A 11-year-old boy from Northern Middle School in Owings, Maryland has told his mom and dad that he wants to be a Navy SEAL one day, but getting pout of grade school may be a problem for him if Northern authorities have anything to say about it. You see, the sixth-grader was suspended last December just because he used the word “gun” at school.

Todd Starnes reports that the boy’s father, Bruce Henkelman, found out that his son had been talking with other kids on the school bus when the incident happened.

“He said, ‘I wish I had a gun to protect everyone from the bad guys. He wanted to be the hero,” the father said of his son.

The boy’s father is himself a retired Navy veteran.

It gets worse.
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Boy Suspended Just for SAYING the Word Gun”


Gitmo Offering Creative Writing Classes and More to Inmates?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The166 detainees that are still at the Guantanamo Bay’s Camp 6 apparently have some interesting activities to keep them occupied. Among other activities the terrorists enjoy training classes in “interviewing and resume writing” as well as “writing success.”

The creative writing classes are part of instructions in art, literacy, and English as a second language.

According to reports, other classes offered are “Life Skills” class, “Computer Familiarity,” “Personal Health and Wellness,” and “Personal Finance and Business.”

The detainees are also allowed to take art classes, and language classes like Pashtu or Arabic to English translation.

Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) also recently spent $750,000 for a new soccer field for Camp 6.
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Gitmo Offering Creative Writing Classes and More to Inmates?”


Is CNN’s Wolf Blitzer About to be Put Out to Pasture?

-By Warner Todd Huston

On June 1, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer went to Twitter to crow about the success of CNN on its 33rd birthday and was razzed heartily for his enthusiasm. But even as he talks up his network, signs are pointing to Blitzer being forced out at CNN.

In his Tweet, Blitzer celebrated the 33rd anniversary of when “Ted Turner changed the way the world gets news.” He went on to promise, “and we’re only just beginning.”

But those industry watchers reading the CNN tea leaves say that Blitzer may not be around for much more of that “beginning.”
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Is CNN’s Wolf Blitzer About to be Put Out to Pasture?”


Wikipedia’s Top Hits: In America, George W. Bush’s Entry Most Controversial

-By Warner Todd Huston

A new study of the most controversial entries on Wikipedia, the crowd sourced, online encyclopedia, shows that in the English language entry the most fought over is the biography of George W. Bush.

The authors of The most controversial topics in Wikipedia, a study that looked at the most controversial pages by language group, finds some topics stir passions in all cultures–such as matters of religion, God, Jesus, and Muhammad–while others are dependent on more localized matters–such as ages old ethnic conflicts and local politics.

The study looked at the pages that are fought over the most by constant behind the scenes editing by users. The most debated pages undergo what the study terms “edit wars,” which is the back and forth of “reverts,” the action of undoing what another editor added. The goal of the study was to find what subjects were most controversial by language, but also to see what topics straddled cultures.

Maybe unsurprisingly, in the English language Wiki, which is visited most heavily in the United States, the bio of George W. Bush still elicits hot controversy. Bush’s entry appears at the very top among the top ten most edited pages in English. Anarchism comes in second and Muhammad third.
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Wikipedia’s Top Hits: In America, George W. Bush’s Entry Most Controversial”


IRS Spent $50 Million in Two Years on ‘Conferences’

-By Warner Todd Huston

A report to be released on Tuesday investigating expenditures by the Internal Revenue Service will reveal that $50 million was lavished on some 220 conferences for employees between 2010 and 2012.

In one case alone, the report finds that the IRS spent $4 million on a conference for 2,600 IRS employees held in Anaheim, California in August of 2010.

According to Rep. Darrell Issa (R, CA) this is an “abuse of taxpayer dollars.”

The website of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reports that, “contrary to established government contracting practices, the outside event planners did not negotiate lower room rates and instead focused on ‘perks’ for IRS employees. Several IRS employees stayed in presidential suites, which rate at $1,500-$3,500 per night. Moreover, 15 outside speakers were paid $135,000 – including one speaker who lectured on “leadership through art” for $17,000.”
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IRS Spent $50 Million in Two Years on ‘Conferences’”


152 New Sex Abuse Allegations in BBC Jimmy Savile Scandal

-By Warner Todd Huston

152 new sex abuse allegations have been made against dozens of BBC employees as well as its most famous TV presenter. The new allegations have been brought in the Jimmy Savile sex scandal that erupted last year. About 40 of the accused BBC employees still work for the broadcasting giant.

Early in 2013, four years after he died at age 84, hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse of teens and young people were lodged against one of the BBC’s most famous and long-standing TV and radio presenters, Jimmy Savile. The scandal rocked the British Isles, as Savile was a popular entertainer, radio disc jockey, charity representative, and TV personality from the 1960s up until his death in 2009.

The scandal roiled for months as steady stream of new people came forward claiming that Savile and his cohorts at the British Broadcasting Corporation had abused them when they were young.
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152 New Sex Abuse Allegations in BBC Jimmy Savile Scandal”


TSA Finally Dumps Full-Body Airport Scanners

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) has officially closed the books on the controversial “naked-image” full-body scanners being used at security checkpoints at America’s airports.

The TSA announcement comes after a Congressional mandate to make major changes to the devices and after a multitude of complaints from the privacy advocates and civil rights activists who opposed them.

The TSA rolled the scanners out to great fanfare in 2007 claiming that the intrusive images would prevent any sort of contraband imaginable. Along with the “naked-image” scanners, the TSA also initiated a “pat down” policy for anyone who refused to be scanned, a policy that included touching of genitals, breasts, and buttocks of travelers.
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TSA Finally Dumps Full-Body Airport Scanners”


Obama Solutions: ‘Rogue IRS Agent’ Promoted

-By Warner Todd Huston

Instead of being reprimanded, one of the so-called “rogue” operatives at the Cincinnati IRS office is getting a big promotion.

Expressing his “anger” in May when the IRS targeting scandal broke, President Obama promised to “hold the responsible parties accountable” at the IRS. On the heels of that claim, Obama’s IRS chief called the guilty IRS operatives “rogue” employees.

From such rhetoric one might expect heads to roll at the IRS.

Yet, now, one of those “rogue” IRS officials, Exempt Organization Specialist Stephen Seok , is getting a new job. Instead of a mere department specialist, now Seok is being promoted to “supervisor IRS agent.”
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Obama Solutions: ‘Rogue IRS Agent’ Promoted”


Marshall University Professor Suggests Using Military to Kill NRA Members/Conservatives

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Charlestown Gazette recently published the editorial by a Marshall University professor who advocated using an “M1A Abrams tank, supported by an F22 Raptor squadron with Hellfire missiles” to kill NRA members, Republicans, Conservatives, and those who support the Second Amendment.

In an anti-gun piece that could best be described as a foaming-at-the-mouth tirade, Professor Christopher Swindell employs incredibly overheated rhetoric, punctuated by constant name calling, spiced with grammatical errors and out right lies to expound upon his hate for those with whom he disagrees.

Early in his piece, for instance, Swindell describes the rhetoric of supporters of the Second Amendment as “knuckle-dragging Cretan talk.” Yes, he wrote “Cretan talk.” A twofer that is both misspelled and needlessly capitalized.

Would it surprise you to learn that Christopher Swindell is a professor of journalism in Marshall University’s journalism and mass communications department? (swindell@marshall.edu)
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Marshall University Professor Suggests Using Military to Kill NRA Members/Conservatives”


Soledad O’Brien to Grads: Don’t Take Anyone’s Advice

-By Warner Todd Huston

Former CNN on-air anchor Soledad O’Brien was chosen by students to deliver Harvard’s 2013 Class Day speech–an address delivered to seniors the day before graduation. O’Brien had two important bits of wisdom to pass on to the graduates: “Most people are idiots” and “don’t take anyone’s advice.”

O’Brien said that the “idiots” advice was passed on to her from her own Cuban-born mother. The former CNNer, who was fired by the cable network late in February, said that with time she found her mother was right, most people are idiots because, “instead of building you up, they will tell you why you will fail.”

Following that line of thought, O’Brien then went on to further build graduate’s self-esteem saying that they should follow their “hearts” instead of taking advice from others.
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Soledad O’Brien to Grads: Don’t Take Anyone’s Advice”


Illinois Tops Nation in Growth of Food Stamp Recipients

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Obama’s home state of Illinois has gained a new distinction: it tops the nation in the growth of the number of its citizens on food stamps.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 15.7 percent of the Land of Lincoln’s population are now enrolled in the food stamp program.

As Joe Schoffstall points out: “The USDA’s latest data shows 2,023,635 Illinoisans were enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in February 2013. In February of 2012, 1,831,898 people took part in the program. That’s an increase of 10.5 percent in just one year.”

Schoffstall further notes that, “Illinois was the only state to see a double-digit increase of the number of residents enrolled in the SNAP program from the same time period last year.”

This should come as no surprise. Illinois consistently ranks in with the bottom worst states in nearly every metric used to measure a successful state.
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Illinois Tops Nation in Growth of Food Stamp Recipients”


Faux Transparency: How is the White House Visitors Log Like a Sideview Mirror?

-By Warner Todd Huston

So, after news first came out that the White House visitors log showed that IRS chief Douglas Shulman visited the White House a whopping 157 times between 2009 and 2012, the left has come out enforce to poo-poo this report saying that the claim is false. Shulman only visited 11 times, they claim.

But wait… isn’t Shulman listed 157 times on the White House visitors log? I mean, did smart people somehow mistake 157 entries for only 11? How is this possible?

Well, no, there was no mistake. Shulman does appear in the log for 157 visits.

OK, you say, so what’s the deal?

After all, we are trusting that Obama is living up to his (mostly absurd) claim to be running the most transparent administration in history, right? Why, he’s voluntarily releasing these visitor records, isn’t he? This is good, right?

So, if his logs say 157 times… why can’t we trust that?
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Faux Transparency: How is the White House Visitors Log Like a Sideview Mirror?”


Congressmen Urge AG Holder to Grant Asylum to Homeschooling German Family

-By Warner Todd Huston

A coalition of 27 Congressmen have joined together to sign a letter urging the Department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder to rescind an order to deport a German family whose only crime was to homeschool their children.

In 2008 German citizen Uwe Romeike, his wife, and five young children fled Germany and took up residence in Tennessee because in their homeland, homeschooling children is a crime. The penalties are so stiff that the Romeikes faced having the government take away their children.

So, the Romeikes moved to Tennessee to escape this oppression and in 2010 were awarded political asylum by a federal judge in the Volunteer State.

But this wasn’t good enough for Barack Obama’s Department of Justice. Eric Holder and his DOJ fought the awarding of political asylum for the Romeikes and took the case back to court.
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Congressmen Urge AG Holder to Grant Asylum to Homeschooling German Family”


Longtime Democrat Consultant: Obama’s White House is Incompetent Like Carter

-By Warner Todd Huston

Bob Shrum, a longtime Democrat operative, has decided that President Obama’s handling of the White House during this IRS scandal is bad. Maybe not “Nixonian” bad, but is instead a sort of Carteresque incompetence because of the way the President has handled these recent crises.

Shrum is a high powered, Democrat operative of the first order. He was a speech writer for such Democrat luminaries as George McGovern and Jimmy Carter, and worked on campaigns for Dick Gephardt, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bob Kerry, and John Kerry and more, so when he speaks a lot of folks in the media pay attention.

For The Daily Beast, Shrum starts his piece denying that Obama did anything wrong with the IRS targeting of conservatives. He insists that Obama didn’t direct these attacks on his enemies and claims he had no idea it was going on. Shrum is going with blaming the “low level operatives in Cincinnati” explanation.

“For the White House, there is no crime here, there is no scandal, no matter how feverishly, irresponsibly, or demagogically the GOP labors to concoct one,” Shrum insists.

But once he gets past that disclaimer, he warms to his Obama-as-incompetent theme.
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Longtime Democrat Consultant: Obama’s White House is Incompetent Like Carter”


Esquire Mag’s Charles P. Pierce: Author of ‘Idiot America’ Proves to be an Idiot

-By Warner Todd Huston

Charles P. Pierce of Esquire once wrote a book titled Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, but after his latest blog post it seems clear that he first learned of those idiots in America a little closer to home: himself.

The dyspeptic Mr. Pierce who is so concerned with fingering those stupid Americans thought he found another example of the same to highlight in his May 28 blog post at Esquire.

Pierce discovered a blog post on Examiner.com mentioning a “conservative gay political analyst” who thought that Barack Obama was out of sight during the attacks at Benghazi, Libya because the president had slipped away to indulge a cocaine binge.

That is likely a pretty stupid conspiracy theory granted. But what got Pierce was less the theory than where he thought it was coming from. Here is what he said about that:
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Esquire Mag’s Charles P. Pierce: Author of ‘Idiot America’ Proves to be an Idiot”


President’s Obamacare Chief Fending Off Criticism From All Corners

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Obama chose former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency most involved in implementing the Affordable Care Act. But Sebelius is under heavy criticism for her efforts thus far to break out the “train wreck” that is Obamacare.

The Orwellian named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is causing heartburn all across the political spectrum and for many HHS Secretary Sebelius’ missteps are making matters worse.

things have been sour from the beginning. One of the law’s principal authors, Democrat Senator Max Baucus of Montana, has called Obamacare a “huge train wreck.”

“I’m very concerned that not enough is being done so far–very concerned. Small businesses have no idea what to do, what to expect,” Baucus warned on April 17.

Baucus isn’t the only one worried. Polling still shows that more oppose the law than favor it.
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President’s Obamacare Chief Fending Off Criticism From All Corners”


Criminal Unions: The Perfect ‘Government Union Fat Cat’ Story

-By Warner Todd Huston

Today’s example of why government unions should be outlawed is a union chief who ostensibly “works” for the people of New York. He has a grueling two-hour-a-day “work” schedule and spends that time eating lunch, then sleeping.

He’s a real life union fat cat, a perfect example of why government unions should be illegal, and the poster boy for union scumbaggery. He’s the 400-pound Mark Rosenthal, the president of Local 983 of District Council 37–New York’s largest blue-collar municipal-workers union–who earns $156,000 a year in New York’s tax dollars.

Take a look at these photos showing Rosenthal hard at “work”:

The New York Post reports that Rosenthal comes in at two, eats his lunch, takes a nap, then goes home at 4PM to “beat the traffic.”

Every day he uses union funds to buy oversized lunch orders, the leftovers of which he takes home to eat everyday.

Naturally this cretin claims he’s the victim of a “smear campaign.”

But, let’s face it, this guy is what government unions look like. Folks, while you are slaving away, paying taxes, or even finding yourself out of work, these union thieves are sponging off your tax dollars, doing little to nothing for you, and retiring at a young age to enjoy decades of an easy retirement on your dime.

Liberal hero, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, thought that government unions were a terrible idea. He was right. They should be outlawed and this morbidly obese Rosenthal is a perfect example of why.

This man is stealing from New York every day he is employed.
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Criminal Unions: The Perfect ‘Government Union Fat Cat’ Story”


The Broken Clock Principal: Illinois Does Fracking Right

-By Warner Todd Huston

For the extreme left, hydraulic fracturing (known as colloquially as fracking) is the newest bugbear. There are all sorts of false claims about what it “does” to our water and our environment. So, with this anti-fracking crusade crackling along the Internet tubes, most left-wing states are lining up against allowing the natural gas drilling practice to be used within their borders. But Illinois is bucking that left-wing trend.

This is notable because Illinois is one of the worst states in nearly every single metric of what makes a state successful. It has some of the highest unemployment, one of the worst abusive lawsuit climates, the most anti-business legislature, has the only big city that is losing population (Chicago)… in short, Illinois figures prominently with the bottom five states in nearly every measurement that makes an economically successful state.

As Sean Hackbarth writes, California is taking that anti-fracking line that doesn’t surprise considering the fact that California is the other state that consistently ranks with Illinois at the bottom of successful states.
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The Broken Clock Principal: Illinois Does Fracking Right”


Progressive ‘Village Voice’ Newspaper Circling the Drain

-By Warner Todd Huston

Troubles are growing for New York City’s venerable “alternative” weekly newspaper, The Village Voice. With multiple layoffs, ad revenue at an all time low, and resignations by key staffers over the paper’s management, the 58-year-old publication is coming to what one commenter is calling “the end times.”

In a show of protest the paper’s top two editors resigned rather than be part of initiating a new wave of layoffs. On May 23 editor Will Bourne and deputy editorJessica Lustig both quit the paper. Bourne had only been at his post for about 7 months.

The pair said they resigned over plans by the publishers to further reduce the paper’s staff. According to The New York Times, Bourne was told to layoff five of the remaining 20 Village Voice staffers.

“We are both leaving because I was summoned to a meeting and asked to get rid of five people, and we are on a short string already. When I was brought in here, I was explicitly told that the bloodletting had come to an end. I have enormous respect for the staff here and the work they have been doing, and I am not going to preside over further layoffs.”

The owner of the paper, Voice Media Group, disputed Bourne’s characterization of the changes in staff. The publishers said they were reorganizing, but would do so with “minimal staff reductions.”
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Progressive ‘Village Voice’ Newspaper Circling the Drain”


Feds Enlist Race Obsessed La Raza to Help Hire Government Workers

-By Warner Todd Huston

The federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has partnered with La Raza–a group widely believed to be racist–to encourage more Hispanics to apply for higher position within the government.

La Raza, whose name translates to “The Race,” will sponsor a workshop to help members fill jobs in the Senior Executive Services (SES). These are special management positions with salaries often exceeding $200,000 in cash and benefits annually.

A public notice from OPM makes the partnership official.

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) [The Race] is hosting a series of leadership development workshops geared towards Federal employees on July 23, 2013, in New Orleans, LA. These workshops are a part of the 2013 NCLR Annual Conference from July 20-23, 2013. The workshop topics on July 23rd will include an overview of the Senior Executive Service (SES) and instruction on how to prepare and apply for a SES position.

OPM also notes that current federal employees can get paid to attend the workshop hosted by the race-based, Hispanic group.
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Feds Enlist Race Obsessed La Raza to Help Hire Government Workers”


NYTimes Weeps for the Obamacare Lobbyists

-By Warner Todd Huston

The New York Times is exasperated with the lack of progress in Congress of “fixes” to the massive and far reaching Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. This exasperation has evinced itself in an odd way as the Times seems to be expressing sympathy for lobbyists and businesses trying to make changes to the law.

In a May 26 piece by Jonathan Weisman, the Times complains of gridlock, scolds Republicans for wanting to repeal the massively intrusive law, and highlights the hard work ahead of the lobbyists campaigning for changes.

Interestingly, the paper admits that Obamacare is both deeply flawed and was passed in 2010 without due diligence by Democrats.

The paper, though, dismisses those flaws as important and points out that most laws of this size go through bouts of revisions and “technical corrections” after passage. In short order the paper goes on to express its heartfelt sympathy with lobbyists seeking those changes.

“But as they prowl Capitol Hill,” Weisman writes, “business lobbyists like Mr. DeFife, health care providers and others seeking changes are finding, to their dismay, that in a polarized Congress, accomplishing them has become all but impossible.”
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NYTimes Weeps for the Obamacare Lobbyists”


Dem. Senator Durbin Not Sure if Bloggers Deserve Constitutional Protection

-By Warner Todd Huston

In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, senior Illinois Senator, Democrat Dick Durbin, expressed his doubt as to whether bloggers deserved Constitutional protection for their work online.

On the May 26 broadcast of the Sunday show, Durbin told host Chris Wallace that he wasn’t sure if bloggers or “someone who is Tweeting” should be given protections under a media shield law.

Durbin noted that he was not prepared to ask for a special counsel to investigate Eric Holder and his snooping on the business and personal phone calls of nearly 100 reporters of the Associated Press, but he went further to question just who a media shield law would cover.

But here is the bottom line–the media shield law, which I am prepared to support, and I know Sen. Graham supports, still leaves an unanswered question, which I have raised many times: What is a journalist today in 2013? We know it’s someone that works for Fox or AP, but does it include a blogger? Does it include someone who is tweeting? Are these people journalists and entitled to constitutional protection? We need to ask 21st century questions about a provision in our Constitution that was written over 200 years ago.

Durbin did not go on to attempt to clarify what those limits should be.

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Dem. Senator Durbin Not Sure if Bloggers Deserve Constitutional Protection”


Propaganda: NPR Incorrectly Claims IRS Has Nothing to do With Obamacare

-By Warner Todd Huston

During the May 22 broadcast of National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation,” host Neil Conan repeatedly contradicted a guest by claiming that the IRS has nothing at all to do with Obamacare. NPR’s Conan is, of course, completely incorrect. The IRS is up to it’s Tea Party harassing neck in Obamacare.

The guest Conan contradicted was Kellyanne Conway, a Republican strategist and pollster. Conway was on to discuss the various scandals in which Obama is mired and close to the end of her segment she questioned how the American people can trust the IRS to implement Obamacare.

Conan initially pressed her on the claim saying that she must have “misspoken.”

“And I think you may have misspoken earlier, Kellyanne Conway, about the IRS and its role in health care,” the host claimed. “It is responsible for collecting the fine if somebody does not get healthcare, it’s not responsible whether somebody gets healthcare or not.”
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Propaganda: NPR Incorrectly Claims IRS Has Nothing to do With Obamacare”


The Declaration of Independence Opposes Obamaism

-By Warner Todd Huston

In the Declaration of Independence our forefathers wrote of King George the III that, “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”

This was posed as one of the many reasons that we separated ourselves from Great Britain and became the United States of America.

Does this complaint not sound like what King Obama is doing now?

Remember, this sort of government oppression of freemen once sparked a revolution for our founders. What might it do for us?
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.

For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.