Local Ill. Library Board Wants ‘People Feeling Pain’ to Vote Tax Hikes for New Building

-By Warner Todd Huston

Even left-wing Morton Grove, Illinois is feeling the pinch of Tea Party principles as new town library board members begin revealing the perfidy of past board members that violated the state’s open meetings laws where they were found to be scheming to fool the taxpayers into hiking taxes for unnecessary new library building projects and other wasteful spending.

You might remember back in 2008 that Morton Grove was one of the first towns in American history to ban the Second Amendment within its jurisdiction, an action that went counter to the Supreme Court’s Heller decision. But despite the law city fathers tried to violate the Constitutional rights of their citizens until the threat of lawsuits forced the city to reverse course.

Morton Grove’s left leaning city officials, though, kept at their agenda in other ways after the change to their handgun ban in 2008. During 2010 library board meetings, for instance, it appears Morton Grove library board members violated Illinois open meetings laws by holding closed door meetings called executive sessions that they did not properly record and/or did not conduct approved business.
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Local Ill. Library Board Wants ‘People Feeling Pain’ to Vote Tax Hikes for New Building”


Illinois Activist, Writer, Ralf Seiffe, RIP‏

I met Mr. Seiffe many times, though I never interacted much with him. Still, he was a staple around Republican politics for years here in the Chicagoland area. Mr. Seiffe passed away this week from a heart attack.

John Tillman worte a great little memorial of Seiffe, so instead of me fumbling my way through an accounting of his great work, I’ll Joh Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute speak to the matter…

The liberty movement lost a great friend when Ralf Seiffe died unexpectedly yesterday morning. Ralf was truly of one life’s unique characters that come along all too rarely. Ralf was a joyful lover of life, people, history, culture and, of course, liberty. Ralf was a fountain of creativity. He always had a breadth and depth of knowledge on his many brainstorms, but what was so amazing to me was that he always knew more pertinent and interesting information about my crazy ideas than I did. Not only that, he could add value to the idea of the guy on the bar stool sitting next to us on a Friday afternoon at Hackneys.

One day, Ralf’s business partner, Richard Lorenc, a friend of mine and former colleague, came to me and said, “I was thinking of starting a business that would bring people of modest means together who love liberty and help them aggregate their giving power to create an impact on the liberty movement.”
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Illinois Activist, Writer, Ralf Seiffe, RIP‏”


Teachers Unions Happy to Say Goodbye to August

-By Larry Sand

The Dog Days of summer are making teachers unions sweat as they get caught being, well, teachers unions

August has been a bad month for teachers unions. And looking at things objectively, it would appear that every one of their hot flashes has been well deserved. In no particular order:

The SOS March was a dud. It was supposed to be a teacher-led event, but the unions were really behind it. The small turnout had its share of angry, mostly leftist teachers whining and shouting about this and that. No one paid much attention. The speakers were just what you’d expect. Jonathan Kozol, forty years later, is still railing about poverty causing ignorance. (No, actually ignorance causes poverty.) Then the marchers were treated to former reformer and current union mouthpiece Diane Ravitch who chirped about how wonderful they all were. And then the big gun, Matt Damon, who if nothing else showed what a great actor he is. The guy who played a convincing genius in Good Will Hunting demonstrates that without a good script he’s about as sharp as a marble.

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Teachers Unions Happy to Say Goodbye to August”


WWII Hero Sparky Songer Tells His Remarkable Story: At OH-IL’s 2nd Annual Black & White Night Gala

-By Warner Todd Huston

WWII veteran Sparky Songer — captured in 1944 at the Battle of the Bulge — shared his remarkable story of heroism last Saturday, September 24th, at Operation Homefront Illinois 2nd Annual Black & White Night Gala.

Sparky shared his life story with more than 100 supporters of the brave men and women of our armed forces who attended the gala event. The proceeds from the 2nd Annual Black & White Night Gala go to support Operation Homefront Illinois’ service mission to provide emergency assistance to the families of active duty deployed members of the military, as well as wounded warriors in the process of transitioning back to civilian life.
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WWII Hero Sparky Songer Tells His Remarkable Story: At OH-IL’s 2nd Annual Black & White Night Gala”


Hultgren Statement on August Jobs Report

From the office of Rep. Randy Hultgren (Ill. 14th District)…

Geneva, IL – U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren (IL-14) today released the following statement regarding the August unemployment report released by the U.S. Department of Labor.

“August’s dismal jobs report is disappointing, but unsurprising, so long as this Administration continues to pursue its anti-jobs agenda of burdensome regulations, taxes, and out-of-control spending,” said Hultgren. “Despite his claims to be cutting red tape, the reality is that President Obama and his appointed bureaucrats are proposing even more regulations that threaten to do enormous damage to our fragile economy.”

“Before he comes to Congress next week, I urge President Obama to study the commonsense pro-growth agenda Republicans will be adopting this fall. More taxes and spending won’t get our economy moving and put Americans back to work; that requires fostering a pro-growth economic climate; lessening intrusions by unaccountable bureaucrats; and providing certainty about what Washington will do in the future.”

http://hultgren.house.gov/


Newt Gingrich’s Illinois Fundraiser

-By Warner Todd Huston

As I sit down to craft this report I just this moment returned from a fundraiser for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich held in a small town called Lake Barrington in the western suburbs of Chicago.

It was a nice, congenial scene unfortunately held on one of Chicago’s hottest evenings with temperatures reaching the upper 90s. Despite the steamy weather, though, at least 150 guests paid $25 a head to come sit, socialize, eat dinner, and ultimately meet Newt and Callista Gingrich and hear him speak. An undisclosed number of higher donors met with the Gingrich’s inside the home of the hosts prior to Newt’s address to those gathered.

After a BBQ dinner, the Gingrich’s emerged from the home of Keith and Stephanie Hanson and began to mix with the crowd signing books, shaking hands, and posing for photos with the excited donors.
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Newt Gingrich’s Illinois Fundraiser”


Fast and Furious Investigation Expands

-By Warner Todd Huston

Senator Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa) and Rep, Darrell Isa (R, Calif) promised to continue their investigation into Obama’s disastrously murderous program of selling guns illegally to Mexican Narco-terrorists and now they are stepping up their efforts after the Dept. of Justice tried to shuffle around to other departments those officers responsible for the program likely in an effort to make the investigation harder.

Grassley and Isa have announced that they are expanding their investigation into the Arizona district office involved in Operation Fast and Furious, the failed program that has spread illegally trafficked guns to Mexican Narco-terrorists, guns have ended up in the hands of criminals back here in the U.S., and have already been a tool used to kill a federal border agent.…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Proof: Obama WAS Trying to Use Joint Speech One-Upmanship As Political Ploy

-By Warner Todd Huston

The American left and its handmaidens in the Old Media spent 24 hours desperately trying to spin Obama’s attempt to schedule a joint session of Congress on the same day as the GOP debate as an example of how the GOP is refusing to work with him. These leftists categorically deny that Obama was simply engaging in political brinkmanship, using his selection of Sept. 7 as a political ploy. But the very night that Obama was shot down by Speaker Boehner on the date he chose for his jobs address, Obama’s campaign sent out a fundraising letter that pretty much proves that Obama intended the whole episode to be the very political ploy his pals in the Old Media tried to deny was happening.

On Aug 31, President Obama announced as if it were set the date of Sept. 7 for his jobs speech to a joint session of Congress. Of course, he and his staff knew that Sept. 7 was the date scheduled months ago for the next GOP presidential debate. It was clearly an attempt by Obama to overshadow the debate, the first one that Texas Gov. Rick Perry would be a part.

One problem here is that the protocol of scheduling a joint session of Congress was not observed by this White House. The fact is a president cannot schedule a joint session of Congress on his own hook. He simply does not have that power Constitutionally. He must ask the Senate majority leader and the speaker of the House of Representatives if the date he is requesting will work. Such a date has to be agreed upon by Congress before announcements are made. Obama did not do this. He simply tried to decree on what date the speech would be held and announced that date as if it were settled.

This was an unprecedented move.
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Proof: Obama WAS Trying to Use Joint Speech One-Upmanship As Political Ploy”


Spreading ‘Big Oil Subsidy’ Disinformation

-By Paul Driessen

Every American manufacturing company gets tax deductions that help it create jobs and strengthen our economy – whether it produces newspapers, furniture, cars or fuel. Eliminating those deductions would increase unemployment and further slow our nation’s desperately needed economic recovery.

Yet that is precisely what President Obama wants to do when oil companies want to use the deductions. It is one of many ways the Obama administration is undermining the oil industry and 9.2 million Americans whose jobs it supports. It is part of the administration’s strategy for replacing fossil fuels with heavily subsidized “alternatives” that taxpayers cannot afford, and consumers will not purchase on their own.

Newspapers that benefit from the same genre of tax deductions as oil companies nevertheless sometimes join attacking the oil industry, and the jobs and benefits it creates. This is rank hypocrisy.
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Spreading ‘Big Oil Subsidy’ Disinformation”


AFP: Help Advance Conservative Change

From Americans for Prosperity – Illinois…

Are you frustrated with the direction our country is going in? Are you ready for real conservative change that will get our economy moving again?

Join Americans for Prosperity, United to Restore Freedom, and the Joliet Tea Party for a special “Candidate and Campaign Management” workshop on Saturday, September 10th at 9:00 a.m. conducted by the prestigious Leadership Institute.

The campaign and candidate workshop is designed to help develop potential candidates and community activists to run for office. The campaign and candidate workshop focuses on personal and political preparation to help advance a candidate or cause of your choice.
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AFP: Help Advance Conservative Change”


Electric Cars Not In The Least ‘Green’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Margaret Wente of Canada’s Globe And Mail has found out “the shocking truth about electric cars” finding that the whole idea of electric cars being “the future” is a laughable claim. The facts she relays are the sort of truths that should doom electric cars as the harbingers of greenism. After all, the true believers in the religion of green shall not be deterred.

The purpose of Wente’s column is to highlight the silly expenditure of Canada’s treasury on electric cars, but she also went on to point out the many failings of electric cars, failings that wild-eyed proponents of electric cars refuse to notice.

“The fantasy that electric cars are right around the corner doesn’t survive even the most cursory reality check,” Wente writes. “… consumers simply won’t pay a $20,000 premium for a vehicle that doesn’t go very far, isn’t very convenient, and runs out of juice as soon as you turn on the air conditioner.”

Too true….

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Rep. Peter Roskam Starts Ball Rolling On Regulation Scale Back

-By Warner Todd Huston

I spent most of the day on Aug 30 sort of embeded with Congressman Peter Roskam, Republican of the Illinois 6th District and Chief Deputy Whip in Washington, as he toured his district talking to local businesses. The whirlwind tour of businesses in Roskam’s district — topped with a presser in downtown Chicago — was the precursor of Roskam’s next focus. Roskam wants to begin an assessment of the regulatory edifice in Washington D.C. with any eye toward making Washington more business friendly in this moribund, recessionary economy.

My chauffeur was Roskam communication director, the genial Dan Conston. He told me he was born and bred in Philly, but I assured him that I would not hold that against him. No matter that he is an Eagles fan, he knew his way around the area. Still I promised not to tattle on his driving… but I guess even saying that much is saying something!

Our first stop was Federal Signal Corporation located in Oak Brook. The folks at Federal Signal told Congressman Roskam that they were worried that new EPA rules on the engines they use in their street sweeper machines were threatening to shut down production lines and put workers out of work. And not just for them but the engines of similar styles in every industry that uses them are facing the same jobs-killing requirements.

The problem was all the “uncertainty” which is casting a pall over what Fed Sig’s Dennis Martin, President and CEO, was happy to say is a recent uptick in orders for their machines. Orders have been down for years, said Martin, but now older street sweepers are not only wearing out but are themselves long out of compliance with new EPA rules and new orders are now rolling in.
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Rep. Peter Roskam Starts Ball Rolling On Regulation Scale Back”


State Of Inebriation: PA Tries to Hold its Liquor

-By Daniel Clark

Eccentric Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky once tried to win his country’s presidency by promising cheap vodka, “at every corner, around the clock.” Despite the populist appeal of that platform, he was not elected. Perhaps he should have been running for office in Pennsylvania, instead.

Here in the Keystone State, the sale of liquor has been the function of “state stores,” controlled by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, ever since the end of prohibition. It’s an arrangement Zhirinovsky might have designed himself, resembling as it does the punch line to a Yakov Smirnoff joke: “In Russia, government drive you to get drunk; in Pennsylvania, you drive to government to get drunk.” Over the past several decades, governors from both parties have repeatedly tried to get the state out of the booze business, but have been consistently thwarted.

The latest effort is being led in the state legislature by Allegheny County Republican Mike Turzai. The PLCB and the United Food and Commercial Workers oppose his plan, contending that privatizing the liquor business would result in alcoholic beverages becoming more expensive and less accessible to consumers.
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State Of Inebriation: PA Tries to Hold its Liquor”


Infant Tyro: Obama’s One-Upmanship of GOP Debates Clearly a Power Play

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Obama wants to give us his jobs plan. Yeah, three years after he got elected saying he was all about jobs. It isn’t the speech that is important, here, though — he won’t say anything new or important in it. It is the fact that he’s trying to bury the GOP debate that is being held on the same night he suddenly wants to issue his speech. This is childish, one-upmanship of the highest order.

Worse, when his press mouth, White House Press Sec. Jay Carney, was asked about the date question, Carny haughtily told the GOP to go ahead and change the timing of the debate they had scheduled months ago.

Obama suddenly announced today that he wants to appear at a joint session of congress so that he can present his jobs plan. He then announced, without fully confirming the date with congress, that the date of the speech would be September. Sept. 7, of course, is the date that the next GOP debate had been scheduled for, a date that had been announced many months ago.
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Infant Tyro: Obama’s One-Upmanship of GOP Debates Clearly a Power Play”


Finally: Gov’t Official Resigns Over Obama’s Arming of Mexican Narco-Terrorists

-By Warner Todd Huston

There is more on the story of Obama’s woefully murderous program of selling guns to Mexican narco-terrorists, the operation called Fast and Furious (also called Gun Walker). We’ve been reporting on this widening scandal for months, now and the latest is that two officials are either removed from their high place of influence or have resigned over the disastrous policy.

We already saw BATF agent Vince Cefalu was fired after he blew the whistle on Obama’s gun running program. But now U.S. Attorney for Arizona, Dennis Burke has offered his resignation

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Illinois Ranks Bottom of States With Worst Government Unions Accountability

-By Warner Todd Huston

A new study finds that Illinois ranks at the bottom of states with the worst climate of government union accountability in the nation. The Land of Lincoln ranks 47th in the nation of out of control, unaccountable government unions says the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s new “Big Labor vs. Taxpayers Index.”

The index ranks every state on “23 individual aspects to determine the degree to which states favor organized labor and which favor taxpayers.”

The Index provides a national narrative on labor policy. Analyzing 1,150 labor laws and regulations throughout the country, it allows state-level policy makers to learn from the successes and mistakes of their neighbors, and therefore adopt labor policies that are in the best interest of their citizens.

CEI ranks the top most taxpayer friendly states as Tennessee, Utah, Idaho, Texas and Florida. The worst states, areas where unions control the debate and constantly push legislators for ever more favorable laws and rules favoring government unions at the expense of taxpayers and good government are Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York.

The study looks at such things as the strength of collective bargaining, the lack of or strength of secret ballot protection laws, the adherence to open meetings laws, project labor agreement laws and the like to determine how the states measure up against each other.
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Illinois Ranks Bottom of States With Worst Government Unions Accountability”


GE Stabs the US in the Back

-By Alan Caruba

In 1876 Thomas Alva Edison opened a laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey for the purposes of exploring how to produce and distribute electricity. History records that he invented the incandescent electric light bulb there. By 1890, he had established the Edison General Electric Company, now know simply as GE.

In 2011, Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE and the chairman of President Obama’s “Jobs Council” is eliminating jobs for American employees of GE at a furious pace. To add insult to injury, in 2010 GE paid no federal taxes at all despite worldwide profits of $14.2 billion. GE claimed a tax benefit of $2.3 billion.

From an America corporate icon to an American disgrace, GE epitomizes how federal policies, cronyism, and rent seeking is destroying America from within by avoiding taxes and shipping jobs overseas. Keep in mind, none of this is illegal. It is, however, unconscionable.
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GE Stabs the US in the Back”


Hultgren, Illinois Representatives, Call On Illinois Legislature To Enact Concealed-Carry Legislation

From the office of Rep. Randy Hultgren (Ill. 14th)…

Geneva, IL – U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren (IL-14) today released the following statement regarding a letter he recently sent to Illinois leaders, including Governor Quinn, Attorney General Madigan, and legislative leaders from both parties, calling on them to join every other state in the nation and enact concealed-carry legislation.

“I was dismayed to learn that Illinois is now the only state in the nation that does not recognize its citizens’ Second Amendment right to concealed carry,” said Rep. Hultgren. “The Supreme Court has twice affirmed self-defense as a fundamental right in recent years, and it past time that Illinoisans enjoy that right as every other American does. I hope Governor Quinn and the legislature will pass concealed carry legislation in a timely manner so that Illinoisans can enjoy the legal right to protect themselves.”

In the letter, Hultgren detailed recent Supreme Court decisions from The District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010). In the case from 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to possess a firearm. In the second case, from 2010, they ruled that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for self defense in one’s home is fully applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
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Hultgren, Illinois Representatives, Call On Illinois Legislature To Enact Concealed-Carry Legislation”


Colin Powell: Big Fat Liar

-By Warner Todd Huston

Colin Powell’s reply to what he called a “cheap shot” in former Vice President Dick Cheney’s new book, “In My Time,” is little but an example of “dishonesty” that is “quite stunning,” as far as Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post is concerned.

Powell was upset over the way Cheney described the supposed leak of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. The former Sec. of State said that the former VP delivered a “cheap shot” to say that the outing of Plame was Powell’s fault and the fault of his underling at the State Dept., Richard Armitage.

Then Powell goes on to offer his own version of the incident. Sadly, what he proffered is filled with inaccuracies. Truthfully, there is no other way to characterize Colin Powell’s version of the Valerie Plame affair but as an outright lie…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Illinois GOP Powerbrokers Taking Even More Power from GOP Voters

-By Warner Todd Huston

Recently, an anonymous piece at BigJournalism.com was posted attacking Ill. State Treasurer Dan Rutherford for objecting to proposed changes in the state’s process of choosing delegates to the GOP nomination convention. This article is misguided and misses some important facts.

Rutherford released an open letter urging the GOP State Central Committee, the party’s governing body, not to change the way Illinois arrives at delegates to the national party convention. BigGovernment.com claims that Rutherford is only taking this action because he is a Romney man. I’ll not speculate on Rutherford’s motives re the candidates as it really is irrelevant to the point in this particular case. In other words, BigGovernment.com is wrong in its attack not to mention in its support for the rules change.

Before I get into who said what and who is doing what, we need to describe the rules change, of course. Call this the “fine print” part of the story.
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Illinois GOP Powerbrokers Taking Even More Power from GOP Voters”


Warren Buffet Tax Shirker and Hypocrite

-By Warner Todd Huston

Why is it that every time we meet yet another socialist-loving, left-winger he ends up being an utter hypocrite? This time it’s tax-whiner — and now known tax shirker — Warren Buffet, the investment giant that has been telling anyone that will listen that “the rich” don’t pay enough in taxes.

Well, apparently, he’s right, the rich don’t pay enough in taxes. Well, not in general, just in his specific case, anyway. The New York Post has discovered that his famous company, Berkshire Hathaway, has unpaid back taxes going back to 2002 and have even more recent taxes left unpaid.

This cretin has been going around in his Obama-infused stupor insisting that “the rich” need to be destroyed because they don’t pay enough taxes, and he, himself hasn’t even paid what he owes?

That takes a lot of gall, doesn’t it? Whining for more of Obama’s onerous tax schemes when he hasn’t even paid what he owes in the first place!
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Warren Buffet Tax Shirker and Hypocrite”


Children Better Behaved Than Union Thugs in Wisconsin

-By Warner Todd Huston

The MacIver Institute of Wisconsin has been doing stellar work on the situation between the unions and the rest of Wisconsin since Governor Scott Walker first entered the Governor’s mansion. The Institute has really shown the thuggery that is the unions again and again, revealing them for what they are.

Well, MacIver has done it again… or rather the unions have done it again.

Governor Walker had planned a visit to the Messmer Preparatory School in Milwaukee, a school that exemplifies what good education is. After all, 85% of the students that graduate from Messmer end up graduating from college.
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Children Better Behaved Than Union Thugs in Wisconsin”


A Blueprint for Maintaining the Status Quo

-By Larry Sand

Tom Torlakson’s panel comes up with edubabble and little else in an attempt to turn around a troubled California public school system.

Just when we thought we were safe from yet another “master plan for educational improvement,” A Blueprint for State Schools is bestowed on us. This 31 page monstrosity was unleashed by State Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Torlakson’s Transition Advisory Team. While the Teacher Quality Roadmap I wrote about in June had specific ideas about fixing Los Angeles schools, the “blueprint” is supposed to identify and address areas that are “vexing to the state’s K-12 system.”

The LA roadmap includes interviews with teachers and principals and can be summarized:

“Among other things, the report, which included interviews with over 1,500 teachers and principals, recommended changes to the current union contract and to state laws regulating staffing, evaluations, tenure, compensation and work schedules. Some of the prescriptions include using criteria other than seniority if layoffs are necessary and utilizing standardized test scores as part of a teacher’s evaluation and when making staffing decisions. Additionally, it was suggested that teachers be denied permanent status until they have been in the classroom for four years instead of the current two.”

In my June post, I commented that while the roadmap was full of good common sense prescriptions from teachers and principals, they were really nothing new and, in any event, would be blocked by the teachers unions because they are happy with the status quo, ugly warts and all.
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A Blueprint for Maintaining the Status Quo”


A Way to Temporarily Stop Obama’s Union-Helping Regulations

-By Warner Todd Huston

The folks at LaborUnionReport.com have an interesting proposal on a way to stop the destructive power of Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This is the regulatory agency best known for attacking Boeing for trying to open a manufacturing line in North Carolina, the agency trying to stop it so that Big Labor can get a win in Washington State.

The idea is to convince one of the remaining board members of the NLRB to resign so that the board won’t have enough members to conduct business. This would make the NLRB’s destructive powers lie fallow at least until next year.

Any abeyance of Obama’s ability to pay off his patrons in Big Labor and his desire to destroy the U.S. business sector is a good thing…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Obama’s Illegal Alien Uncle Busted for Drunk Driving, Hits Police Car, Media Silent

-By Warner Todd Huston

Kerry Picket had an interesting report in the Washington Times on the 28th. Apparently President Obama’s uncle Omar, an illegal alien living in Massachusetts, was arrested for drunk driving after smashing into a police car in Framingham.

Picket also reports that the 67-year-old uncle Omar tried to, or at least wanted to, call the White House to get Barack’s help with the charges after he was arrested.

Picket writes, “I spoke to Framingham Public Information Officer Lieutenant Delaney who told me that when Onyango Obama was asked at booking if he wanted to make a telephone call to arrange for bail, the Kenyan immigrant replied: ‘I think I will call the White House.'”

The president’s uncle, O. Onyango Obama, was mentioned in his book “Dreams From My Father” where Barack says that uncle Omar moved to the USA “25 years ago and never came back.” He’s been here for decades, living illegally the whole time.

It seems that uncle Omar’s time has run out, though. He’s now being held on an ICE warrant. Let’s see if he gets deported.
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Obama’s Illegal Alien Uncle Busted for Drunk Driving, Hits Police Car, Media Silent”


CBS’ Norah O’Donnell: Dan Rather Was One of ‘The Very Best Journalists in American History’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The latest issue of Capitol File magazine has a glowing feature on CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Norah O’Donnell. In it she claims that past journalists that have filled the role of chief White House correspondent for a major network have been “legendary” and “the very best” in the field. Of this “very best” she laughably elevates discredited CBS News anchor Dan Rather into that pantheon.

Capitol File is a magazine that focuses on D.C. elites, the movers and shakers, the bight lights in the City On The Hill. In it’s pages you will see all the beautiful people of Washington D.C. It is, we are told, “a place for power and politics, CAPITOL FILE chronicles and celebrates the most influential players, cultural connoisseurs, fashion sophisticates, and philanthropic leaders in the Washington, DC metropolitan region.”

Apparently Norah O’Donnell is an “influential player” now that she’s been raised up to the role of chief WH correspondent of a major network… even as those same networks have lost so much of their once all encompassing national influence.
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CBS’ Norah O’Donnell: Dan Rather Was One of ‘The Very Best Journalists in American History’”


Did Hedge Funds Throw the 2008 Election?

– By Jeff Lukens

Hedge fund traders had a great year in 2008. That year, hedge fund short sellers were instrumental in the spike in fuel prices, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the banking crisis, and the stock market collapse. While extremely wealthy hedge fund traders engineered each of these calamities, and made billions of more dollars short selling each one, the American people collectively lost trillions of dollars in the value of their homes and savings.

And, as amazing as it is, no one went to jail. Why? Well, perhaps it is because in 2007 the perpetrators had some laws changed to their liking. And perhaps it is because these people are politically connected to the Obama Administration and Congressional liberals. Our government is protecting them, and there needs to be a public investigation into this matter.

The hedge fund short sellers who were at the root of the mayhem are found primarily at the Managed Funds Association (MFA), the so-called “voice of global alternative investment community.” MFA members include George Soros, John Paulson, Jim Chanos, James Harris Simons, and others.

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Did Hedge Funds Throw the 2008 Election?”


Rep. Randy Hultgren News: The Hultgren Huddle

From the office of Rep. Randy Hultgren (ILL, 14th District)…

It’s been a great month so far back in the 14th District. I’d like to thank everyone for coming out to my town hall meetings this month. We may not agree on all of the issues, but it means so much to me that you are willing to be engaged in the process and have your opinions heard on the issues most important to you.

Please remember that I am holding another town hall meeting on Monday, August 29, in the Yorkville City Council Chambers at 6:00pm. Hope to see you there.

I’ve always said that some of my most important work is done back home in Illinois, and that’s absolutely been the case this August. While I’ve been home, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with hundreds of constituents through one-on-one meetings, speeches to different groups and organizations, and local business tours.
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Rep. Randy Hultgren News: The Hultgren Huddle”


New Mexico Officials Arrested, Likely Part of Obama’s Gun Running to Mexican Narco-Terrorists

-By Warner Todd Huston

Recently the town Mayor, the Police Chief and a Town Trustee of Columbus, New Mexico pleaded guilty to running guns to the Juarez drug cartel using city vehicles and police cars to do so. But now it looks like some of those guns illegally transferred to Mexico by these lawless city officials were connected to Obama’s gun running operation, Operation Fast and Furious.

In March, federal agents arrested former Columbus Mayor Eddie Espinoza, 51, for supplying guns to drug dealers in Mexico. In July he pleaded guilty to three counts of making false statements and three counts of smuggling firearms across the border…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


You Need ID in D.C. to Get Sandbags for Irene, But No ID to Vote?

-By Warner Todd Huston

My friend over at Alexa Shrugged (www.alexashrugged.com A great blog you should visit) made a hilarious observation about what is going on in Washington D.C. during preparations for the oncoming hurricane named Irene.

On her Twitter feed Alexa joked about a story on Fox about D.C. residents being told where and how to get sandbags for the storm.

Alexa noted this specific part:
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You Need ID in D.C. to Get Sandbags for Irene, But No ID to Vote?”