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Disregarding Their Promise To Focus On Jobs, Republicans Aim To Abolish Job Training Programs

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 25-01-2011

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House Republicans rode into the majority on campaign promises to “focus on jobs.” “I got to tell you, when I’m home in Muncie, Indiana, people are asking the question, ‘Where are the jobs?’” said Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), parroting the popular Republican refrain.

However, once in office, the GOP has all but ignored the issues of job creation and the economy. Their very first bill was a symbolic repeal of the Affordable Care Act that is destined to languish in the Senate or fall to Obama’s veto pen, while their second bill had to do with restricting the rights of private health insurers to cover abortions.

Not only are Republicans completely ignoring job creation, but they are also actively trying to undermine important efforts to boost employment. For instance, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who is delivering the Tea Party response to President Obama’s State of the Union tonight, suggested in a list of proposed spending cuts that the government “eliminate federal job training programs.”

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said on MSNBC today that he also has his eye on job training programs, which were on his list of items that he claims he can “whack from this budget and [have] nobody feel it.” Watch it:

It seems fitting that, while paying lots of lip-service to job creation, Republicans would actively abandon programs meant to help people find jobs. Particularly at a moment when long-term unemployment is sky high (with 44.3 percent of the unemployed having been out of work for six months or more) it is critical that people be aided in learning new skills that might enable them to transition into a new industry.

But there are plenty of valid criticisms regarding current job training programs, which seem to be almost universally terrible. The main avenue for these programs — the Workforce Investment Act — was written in 1998 when, as the New York Times put it, “simply teaching jobless people how to use computers and write résumés put them on a path to paychecks.” Current programs are too short, and don’t give workers real technical skills, leaving them in a thankless cycle of low-paying, low-skill jobs.

But, contrary to the GOP’s wishes, the answer isn’t to abolish these programs and leave unemployed workers to the wolves, but to find successful programs and emulate them. The I-BEST program in Washington state, for instance, is doing good things providing unemployed workers with technical skills for higher-paying jobs. Louis Soares explains how training programs at community colleges can be a successful model here, while Liz Weiss explains how to make training programs more effective for women workers here.

Wonk Room

MSNBC’s O’Donnell Slams ‘Merchants of Death’ Who ‘Buy Their Political Protection from the NRA’

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 24-01-2011

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 On Monday’s the Last Word show, in its new 8:00 p.m. time slot, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell referred to the manufacturers of high-capacity magazines as "merchants of death" who purchase "their political protection from the NRA." As he continued his push for a ban on magazines with 30 bullets in light of the Tucson shootings, O’Donnell dismissed a statement from the NRA which argued that such magazines are useful in self-defense, and went on to make his latest attack the manufacturers:

So the merchants of death are buying their political protection from the NRA and leave us to stare at our children and wonder: Who among them will be the next nine-year-old their high-capacity magazines unload on? The next Christina Taylor Green.

He went on to plead with President Obama to talk about gun control in the State of the Union Address, or otherwise "become part of the problem." O’Donnell:

If the President follows Republican and Democratic tradition tomorrow night and says not a word about gun and ammunition control, if he does not use this moment of his increasing popularity, if he does not believe he has the communication skills to convey the necessity to control the capacity of automatic weapons, then I, for one, will become disappointed in him for the first time. And he will become part of the problem.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of MSNBC’s the Last Word from Monday, January 24:

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Time for tonight's "Rewrite." On the eve of President Obama's State of the Union Address, he is facing mounting pressure to grab onto one this nation's political third rails in tomorrow’s speech – gun control. In those first days after the Tucson massacre, the calls for reform started right here on this network, particularly when it comes to outlawing the previously banned high-capacity magazines like the one Jared Loughner is suspected of using on January 8. Then, Senator Frank Lautenberg and Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy announced they would introduce legislation to renew the ban on high-capacity magazines. On the Web site of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, a statement refers to that sensible reform as, "one of several schemes," and goes on to say, "These magazines are standard equipment for self-defense handguns and other firearms owned by tens of millions of Americans. Law-abiding private citizens choose them for many reasons, including the same reason police officers do: to improve their odds in defensive situations."

Okay, NRA. It's now on you to show us a case of anyone who could not defend themselves during the 10 years these magazines were banned, anyone who could not defend themselves with 10 bullets instead of 30 bullets. Just show us those cases, and then we'll decide if it's worth it to subject everyone else in the country to the risks of the Jared Loughners who could appear with 30 bullets ready to fire in any shopping mall parking lot in America. The Center for Public Integrity published a report showing that for the past 18 years the makers of these high-capacity magazines have raised millions of dollars for the NRA. The same report also notes, "Some of these vendors of high-capacity magazines also boast executives who are board members of the NRA."

 

So the merchants of death are buying their political protection from the NRA and leave us to stare at our children and wonder: Who among them will be the next nine-year-old their high-capacity magazines unload on? The next Christina Taylor Green.

[RECOUNTS NEW YORK MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG AND MARTIN LUTHER KING, III, TAKING PART IN A NEWS CONFERENCE TALKING ABOUT GUN LAWS]

We can only hope that the President's speech writers were just taking notes. If the President follows Republican and Democratic tradition tomorrow night and says not a word about gun and ammunition control, if he does not use this moment of his increasing popularity, if he does not believe he has the communication skills to convey the necessity to control the capacity of automatic weapons, then I, for one, will become disappointed in him for the first time. And he will become part of the problem.

NewsBusters.org – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

Stephen Moore: GOP ‘Hypocritical’ For Taking Gov’t Health Care, They ‘Should Give Up Their Pension’ Too

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 24-01-2011

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Seeming to maintain a consistant position on the issue, several GOP lawmakers who campaigned on and support repealing the new health care reform law have turned down their federally subsidized health insurance plans. ABC News reports that 14 House Republicans have waived their federal plans. All 242 House Republicans voted to repeal the law last week, leaving dozens, if not hundreds, more GOPers benefiting from government subsidized health care while voting to repeal it for everyone else. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) said last week that this “could be” hypocritical. But on the online-only “Overtime” segment of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, conservative commentator and Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore went a bit further:

MAHER: Isn’t it hypocritical of Congress to repeal the health care reform bill but not their own government health care? Now, I don’t know how you can defend that as not hypocritcal.

MOORE: It’s hypocritical. … Repeal both.

MAHER: Really? Repeal both. You think they should’ve given up their health care?

MOORE: Yeah. The Congress should give up their pension, their health care, all those things.

MAHER: That’ll make you popular on Captitol Hill.

Watch it:

Today on a local radio show, freshman Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) — a fierce opponent of the new health care law — said that she will participate in the government plan because, otherwise, it’s too “expensive.” “Unfortunately, being here in Washington is very expensive,” Ellmers said, who is set to make $ 174,000 this year. “Yes we do have a salary and we do have benefits. It costs a lot of money to be here. I’ve signed on to the private plan, just like so many in America are on. The benefit is available to me. People need to understand out there it costs a lot money to be here in Congress.”

ThinkProgress

Steelers do it their way again – SportingNews.com

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 24-01-2011

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New York Times (blog)
Steelers do it their way again
SportingNews.com
How they got here: We've seen this before in the 2005 and 2008 seasons. With their star-studded 3-4 attack defense serving as the backbone and a Ben Roethlisberger-led offense grinding it out and making clutch plays, the Steelers are in position to win
Steelers Put Up Best Half Of 2010 Season In Victory Over JetsSB Nation
Injured Maurkice Pouncey says he'll play in the Super BowlUSA Today
Monday's Morning Mashup: Jets fans hold rally at Rex Ryan's houseWEEI.com
International Business Times –Pittsburgh Post Gazette –New York Post
all 5,266 news articles »

Sports – Google News

Steelers do it their way again – SportingNews.com

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 24-01-2011

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New York Times (blog)
Steelers do it their way again
SportingNews.com
How they got here: We've seen this before in the 2005 and 2008 seasons. With their star-studded 3-4 attack defense serving as the backbone and a Ben Roethlisberger-led offense grinding it out and making clutch plays, the Steelers are in position to win
Monday's Morning Mashup: Jets fans hold rally at Rex Ryan's houseWEEI.com
Steelers climb stairway to Seventh heavenPittsburgh Post Gazette
Jets denied Super Bowl spot after valiant rally vs. Steelers falls shortNew York Post
Behind the Steel Curtain –New York Times (blog) –Reuters
all 6,996 news articles »

Sports – Google News

Video: Tearing Up Over The SOTU; Obama And Biden Celebrate Their 2-Year Anniversary

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 24-01-2011

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Bill Maher thinks President Obama should try to make House Majority Leader John Boehner cry during the State of the Union by telling the story of “Old Yeller”, “The state of our union is strong, but not so good for one special dog.”

Jay Leno, on House Republicans voting to repeal ‘Obama-care’: “Now don’t confuse that with the Republican health care plan, that’s ‘You’re sick, we really don’t care.’”

Today’s Must See Moment — Fast forward to 1:50, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden celebrate their 2nd year in the White House.

Take today’s Late Night Poll after the jump.

Hotline On Call

English Anti-Tax Haven Ideologues Are Just as Foolish and Ignorant as their American Cousins

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 23-01-2011

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By Daniel J. Mitchell

There’s a supposed expose’ in the U.K.-based Daily Mail about how major British companies have subsidiaries in low-tax jurisdictions. It even includes this table with the ostensibly shocking numbers.

This is quite akin to the propaganda issued by American statists. Here’s a table from a report issued by a left-wing group that calls itself “Business and Investors Against Tax Haven Abuse.”

At the risk of being impolite, I’ll ask the appropriate rhetorical question: What do these tables mean?

Are the leftists upset that multinational companies exist? If so, there’s really no point in having a discussion.

Are they angry that these firms are legally trying to minimize tax? If so, they must not understand that management has a fiduciary obligation to maximize after-tax returns for shareholders.

Are they implying that these businesses are cheating on their tax returns? If so, they clearly do not understand the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion.

Are they agitating for governments to impose worldwide taxation so that companies are double-taxed on any income earned (and already subject to tax) in other jurisdictions? If so, they should forthrightly admit this is their goal, notwithstanding the destructive, anti-competitive impact of such a policy.

Or, perhaps, could it be the case that leftists on both sides of the Atlantic don’t like tax competition? But rather than openly argue for tax harmonization and other policies that would lead to higher taxes and a loss of fiscal sovereignty, they think they will have more luck expanding the power of government by employing demagoguery against the big, bad, multinational companies and small, low-tax jurisdictions.

To give these statists credit, they are being smart. Tax competition almost certainly is the biggest impediment that now exists to restrain big government. Greedy politicians understand that high taxes may simply lead the geese with the golden eggs to fly across the border. Indeed, competition between governments is surely the main reason that tax rates have dropped so dramatically in the past 30 years. This video explains.

English Anti-Tax Haven Ideologues Are Just as Foolish and Ignorant as their American Cousins is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog


Cato @ Liberty

“Finally Able to Capture Their Fair Share”

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 23-01-2011

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In his inaugural address, President Obama stated that “a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.” But virtually every critical personnel choice he’s made in recent months suggests little, if any, concern about addressing the root causes of American inequality. The turn to Jeff Immelt and Bill Daley reminds me of the worldview of Larry Summers, as summarized by the president of a well-connected international advisory firm:

[While traveling in Chile,] I thought back to [a] conversation with Lawrence Summers at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Summers had suggested that the reason the most economically successful members of society are getting so much more might be that the world is actually becoming more efficient: the system is rewarding the more skilled at proportionally higher rates, giving those with access to technology greater rewards for their heightened productivity, and giving those leading enterprises of growing scale greater returns for their companies’ incremental growth. Unfettered markets are doing their job. Isn’t it possible, he was positing, the overachievers are now finally able to capture their fair share of returns given their relative talents, productivity, and contribution of valued economic outcomes? (55)

A Summersian economist might lament the mere $ 101 million earned by Verizon’s CEO over the past 5 years. Between 2006 and 2007, Mexican communications mogul Carlos Slim Helu grew his fortune by $ 19 billion, a sum equivalent to about 2.5 percent of Mexico’s GDP. Perhaps if Verizon’s CEO can make that much, he’ll finally be able to capture his fair share, too.

Obama’s choice of the Jeff Immelt to head the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness is only the latest concession to this mindset. As Senator Sanders reminds us, GE has all too often considered China its key target for investment, and the US a backstop for failed speculation:

[Immelt has stated that] “You can take an 18-cubic-foot refrigerator, make it in China, land it in the United States, and land it for less than we can make an 18-cubic-foot refrigerator today ourselves.” Gee. A couple of years ago when GE had some difficult economic times, and they needed $ 16 billion to bail them out, I did not hear Mr. Immelt going to China . . . . I heard Mr. Immelt going to the taxpayers of the United States for his welfare check.

Mike Konczal has much more on the bailout of GE Capital. A work called “Financialization and Strategy” describes the core GE business model, which includes “run[ning] the industrial business for earnings” while “add[ing] industrial services to cover hollowing out of the industrial base,” and “rely[ing] on large-scale acquisition to prevent like-for-like comparisons and to increase opacity and the power of narrative.” In other words, just keep the stock prices going up; pay no attention to the grander corporate strategy of shifting production to places with wage repression and minimal environmental and labor standards (or tax havens).

Suspicion of Aggregates

What explains these trends? I think the key problem is that the President can’t get reelected unless people perceive the economy to be improving. Crude and misleading measures of economic growth drive those perceptions. The media monitors every blip of the stock market, rarely if ever reporting that the richest 10% own about 85% of all outstanding stocks. Extreme inequality also goes unreflected in GDP figures. There are about 95,000 ultra-high-net-worth-individuals (UHNWI) in the world (those with financial assets in excess of $ 30 million). Imagine how many unemployed individuals would have to join the labor market to match the impact on US GDP of a 10% increase in our UHNWIs’ earnings.

Extreme inequality should make us suspicious of all aggregate figures. As the first Citibank plutonomy report put it,

[T]he top 1% of households account for 40% of financial net worth, more than the bottom 95% of households put together. . . .Plutonomy plus an asset boom equals a drop in the overall savings rate [due to more consumption at the top, which no longer has to worry about saving]. . . .Let’s look at some of the coolest figures that amplify and verify this idea. . .

In a plutonomy there is no such animal as “the U.S. consumer” . . . [T]here are rich consumers, few in number, but disproportionate in the gigantic slice of income and consumption they take. There are the rest, the “non-rich”, the multitudinous many, but only accounting for surprisingly small bites of the national pie. Consensus analyses that do not tease out the profound impact of the plutonomy on spending power, debt loads, savings rates (and hence current account deficits), oil price impacts etc, i.e., focus on the “average” consumer are flawed from the start. It is easy to drown in a lake with an average depth of 4 feet, if one steps into its deeper extremes. . . . The Plutonomy Stock Basket outperformed MSCI AC World by 6.8% per year since 1985.

The report concludes that “we think the plutonomy is here, is going to get stronger, its membership swelling from globalized enclaves in the emerging world.” When the top 5% account for 35% of consumption in the US, there is no way to improve “the economy” (as measured by stock prices and GDP) without intensifying the very inequalities that gave rise to the crisis in the first place. A weak labor market can’t bargain for the gains from productivity—they are going to the very top. Since the midterms, the President has shown little inclination to fight to tax those gains; rather, he cemented them into place with his recent tax deal. The inequality-intensifying dynamic is now self-reinforcing: those who bankrolled the fight against Obama’s modest efforts to tame inequality are more powerful thanks to their political victory in November.

Asset Price Keynesianism: Welfare for the Wealthy

As was noted earlier, the economic strategy of the US now resembles that of GE: financialized growth that primarily benefits the wealthiest. Robert Brenner (who called the finance bubble in 2003) explains the repeated resurgence of “asset price Keynesianism:”

To stop the bleeding and insure growth, the Federal Reserve Board turned, from just after mid-decade [in the 1990s], to the desperate remedy pioneered by Japanese economic authorities a decade previously, under similar circumstances. Corporations and households, rather than the government, would henceforth propel the economy forward through titanic bouts of borrowing and deficit spending, made possible by historic increases in their on-paper wealth, themselves enabled by record run-ups in asset prices, the latter animated by low costs of borrowing.

The substitution of asset price Keynesianism for the stodgy old fashioned version from 1996 was unable, any more than its predecessor, make any impression on the implacable underlying trend toward system-wide economic enfeeblement. It could not, however, but profoundly increase the system’s exposure to crisis. . . .

Companies’ reduced prospects for making profits by means of capital accumulation only enhanced their motivation to pay out their surpluses to their stockholders, rather than invest them in new plant and equipment or new hiring. While Greenspan, Bernanke, and Paulson sought to outdo one another in touting the economy’s health, corporations expressed their own appreciation of their economic prospects by making dividend payouts as a percentage of gross profits (net profits plus depreciation), that were entirely unprecedented. Meanwhile, they engaged in an historic splurge of financial investment.

There is now no necessary relationship between corporate profits and US growth, or between executives’ salaries and those of their employees. The President has just appointed as chief of his Jobs Council one of the people who exemplified the breaking of that connection. Expect more “compulsory technology transfer” from the Chinese government, and more blaming of American workers for failing to be “competitive enough.” No one will ask whether America’s superclass will make itself more competitive by cutting its own wages and benefits.

I believe that the President’s economic team will continue to suffer a crisis of credibility so long as no one in it appears to have a real, substantial, personal interest in US growth. Those with tens of millions of dollars in the bank have very little to lose if ever more US citizens are unemployed. In fact, their companies will probably make higher profits to the extent they can drive a harder bargain with an increasingly desperate workforce. Can Jeff Immelt responsibly serve his shareholders if he chooses any other course?

Balkinization

The Moonbat LEFT Losing Their Collective Minds Over the Loss of MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 23-01-2011

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THE FAR LEFT IS IN MOURNING

The loony LEFT is not taking the demise of Keith Olbermann well. It has been just been a couple of  days since Olbermann said farewell from MSNBC and the LEFT is still reeling with over the top, histrionic crazy talk. Moonbattery has some more tweets that will make you shake your head with the LEFT’s silliness.

What is most interesting about the “hue and cry” throughout moonbatland is the fact that so many feel that Keith Olbermann’s speech has been silenced as if he could never get another gig. Or cant he? If Olbermann is such a hero of the LEFT, I am sure some liberal media outlet would hire him on his merits. There are certainly enough liberal MSM outlets in the industry, if he adds any thing to the conversation.

What is lost in all the over the top histrionics of the LEFT claiming to have lost their “progressive” voice and the squelching of free speech is that Keith Olbermann left MSNBC because he wanted more money. Simply speaking, Olbermann wanted more money, MSNBC disagreed and Keith Olbermann departed.

The Gateway Pundit has many other notable Olbermann quotes that made Olbie a hero among the loons on the LEFT.

Even more at the Daily Caller of the LEFT some how pretending that Olbermann fell on his sword for some honorable reason. Hey LEFT, he said goodbye because he did not get money, not because his free speech was being squelched.

Fear not, There might be a future for Keith Olbermann after all …

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Scared Monkeys

Pakistan: Christians converting to Islam out of fear for their safety

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 22-01-2011

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Blasphemy law-related persecution, mobs in the streets chanting “Death to the Christians,” and it’s only getting worse. “Some Christians in Pakistan convert fear into safety,” by Rick Westhead for The Toronto Star, January 20 (thanks to Ken):

[…] At least 20 to 25 former Christians adopt Islam each week by pledging an oath and signing a green and white document in which they accept Islam as “the most beautiful religion” and promise to “remain in the religion of Islam for the rest of my life, acknowledging that blessings are only from God.” […]

Last autumn, politician Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s most prosperous province, began to campaign on behalf of a Christian woman named Asia Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy. On Jan. 4, with debate over the future of Pakistan’s blasphemy law at a fever pitch, Taseer was gunned down by one of his personal security guards.

Public reaction to Taseer’s assassination was stunning.

Pakistan’s lawyers, praised just three years ago for saving this country’s independent judiciary, showered Taseer’s assassin with rose petals on his way into court. A rally to celebrate his death attracted 40,000 in Karachi and thousands more posted tributes to the killer on their Facebook accounts.

“To be honest, I felt good when I heard he was dead; we got rid of him,” said Raghib Naeemia, an iman at Jamia Naeemia. “It’s very clear in the Holy Qur’an that if you say something nasty and harsh about the Holy Prophet, then you become a maloun (cursed) person. And we are supposed to round up those people and kill them very harshly.” […]

One of the results of this wave of anti-Christian activity unfolded on a sunny afternoon this week. Azra Mustafa, a 45-year-old housemaid, shuffled into the Jamia Naeemia and asked to speak to an imam. A recent convert to Islam, the housemaid and mother of six needed to get the proper documents to prove to her neighbours that she was no longer a Christian.

“It feels great,” she said. “I moved to a Muslim neighbourhood and now I feel like we are one family.”

Each day, Mustafa, whose husband remains Christian and now lives separately from his wife and children, wakes up to attend 5 a.m. prayers before she leaves for work four hours later. By the time she returns home at 7 p.m. from a job that pays her 2,500 rupees ($ 28) a month, darkness has fallen over her one-room home. After dinner, a teacher comes to her home to give Mustafa and her children 90-minute lessons on Arabic and the Qur’an.

Asked if she felt safer in the wake of her conversion, Mustafa replied, “of course.”

Mustafa sat patiently as the seminary’s staff and students hustled about, preparing to attend a rally scheduled for later that afternoon — a protest that featured at least 3,000 people who at one point chanted “death to Christians and the friends of Christians” as they marched through the heart of Lahore.

As Mustafa gathered her papers together and prepared to leave, Parvaiz Masih, a 23-year-old auto rickshaw diver, walked into the office. He hoped to convert that afternoon, and had already told friends he would now be known as Muhammad Parvaiz.

“I’ve been thinking about it for two or three years,” he said, wrapped in a heavy blue shawl. “About four days ago, I decided to do it.”

A group of a dozen young men studied Parvaiz and a visitor asked if Taseer’s murder and other publicized clashes involving Christians had played a role in his decision. Parvaiz shrugged meekly and wouldn’t answer.

It wasn’t long before another Christian, 26-year-old Naseer, entered Jamia Naeemia. With a crowd of men looking on, she, too, was hesitant to elaborate on why she wanted to follow Islam, but nodded when she was asked whether she believed she would be safer as a Muslim.

Adjusting a pin on the saffron-coloured dupatta that covered her face, Naseer said she had slipped away from her parents’ home earlier in the day to make her way to the seminary. When another visitor asked again whether her personal safety played a role in her decision, Nasreen flashed a look of anger and snapped, “there’s no question.”

It was clear why Naseer and others were hesitant to speak more freely about their concerns over safety. An iman for the madrassa said he would not proceed if someone gave safety as a reason for their conversion.

Peter Jacob, executive director of an advocacy organization funded by the Catholic Church, said an average of 400 Christians annually converted to Islam between 2005 and 2010. In 2011, he expects that number to swell. “It’s going to be very different in these hostile conditions,” Jacob said. “People have no faith in the police or justice system and the kind of fear that exists now was never there before.”…

Jihad Watch

One-Fifth of House Freshmen Sleep in Their Offices

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 22-01-2011

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A CBS News survey of all freshmen members of the U.S House of
Representatives has found that at least 21 of the 96 members are
sleeping in their office — that’s 19 of the 87 new Republicans and 2 of
the 9 new Democrats.
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire

Rex Ryan: New York Jets set to play Pittsburgh Steelers, all their trophies – ESPN

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 21-01-2011

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Washington Post
Rex Ryan: New York Jets set to play Pittsburgh Steelers, all their trophies
ESPN
By Ohm Youngmisuk FLORHAM PARK, NJ — Rex Ryan and the New York Jets might as well have exchanged Valentine's Day cards this week with the Pittsburgh Steelers, considering how much praise they've had for one another. Ryan warned everyone Friday,
Jets' road warrior Sanchez set for AFC championship battleReuters
Jets' experienced help keeps Sanchez's development on lineCBSSports.com
Jets vs. Steelers: Preview & PredictionFanHouse
Deseret News –MiamiHerald.com –Gothamist
all 2,984 news articles »

Sports – Google News

Rex Ryan: New York Jets set to play Pittsburgh Steelers, all their trophies – ESPN

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 21-01-2011

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BBC Sport (blog)
Rex Ryan: New York Jets set to play Pittsburgh Steelers, all their trophies
ESPN
By Ohm Youngmisuk FLORHAM PARK, NJ — Rex Ryan and the New York Jets might as well have exchanged Valentine's Day cards this week with the Pittsburgh Steelers, considering how much praise they've had for one another. Ryan warned everyone Friday,
Jets vs. Steelers: Preview & PredictionFanHouse
NFL playoffs: Road to Dallas leads through Chicago, PittsburghOCRegister
NFL Conference Championship Games – Back the home teamsMiamiHerald.com
Atlanta Journal Constitution –NFL News
all 2,941 news articles »

Sports – Google News

Republicans Start Detailing Their “Cuts”

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 21-01-2011

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Much of the posturing the Tea Party Republicans did during the election was over the deficit. They hyperventilated about how bad it was, and vowed that they were going to do something about it, when they weren’t railing against the healthcare legislation. What a number of people noticed was that their proposals for actual cuts was remarkably lacking in detail.

They’ve finally released some details, and it’s going to be interesting, because the battle lines within the Republican Party are going to start forming up.

Republicans are at work on a new resolution to fund the government through the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Ryan’s approach would require cuts of about 15 percent at agencies other than the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security. The Republican Study Committee plan, by contrast, would reduce most agency budgets by about 30 percent.

What does that mean?

According to Democratic estimates, cuts of that magnitude – if applied across the board – would require the Justice Department to fire 4,000 FBI agents and 1,500 agents at the Drug Enforcement Administration. The federal prison system would have to fire 5,700 correctional officers, the Agriculture Department would have to cut about 3,000 food safety inspectors, and the Head Start early-childhood education program would be forced to cut about 389,000 children from its rolls.

Note that they’ve taken defense spending off the table.  But the “savings” they’re looking for turn out to be even more temporary and damaging to the economy, as Ezra Klein points out:

But reading their legislation, you can see why more experienced members of their party might balk: $ 30 billion in savings comes from immediately selling off Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which would potentially throw a weak housing market into total chaos. Another $ 16 billion comes from repealing the help the federal government is giving states to handle Medicaid costs, which would potentially send a couple of states that are already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy right over the cliff. Amtrak would lose pretty much its entire federal subsidy, as would the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts. Funding for high-speed rail is eliminated, and so too is more than $ 40 billion in stimulus funds, most of which are obligated to projects that have already begun.

In other words, most of the savings are one-shots, pulling back obligated funds and bankrupting states, along with putting the the housing market right back into late 2007 status.   This is why most of the senior House Republicans have been dancing around avoiding any details, because they know what is going to happen if they actually make these cuts.  But it appears the Tea Party Republicans are going to insist, and yes, the Democrats are looking forward to this battle.  There’s deficit reduction measures, and there’s what the Republicans are doing.  It’s going to be an interesting debate.

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Blue Wave News

‘God’s Army’: Louisiana Locals Train To Protect Their Churches With Guns

Posted by admin | Posted in The Capitol | Posted on 21-01-2011

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Some Louisiana residents have recently been attending firearms training sessions so they can carry concealed weapons into churches, in accordance with a law passed over last summer.

Back in July, Gov. Bobby Jindal signed a law that allows churches, mosques, and synagogues in Louisiana to establish a “security plan” for their constituents, permitting members of the congregation with concealed weapons permits to carry guns during services. Part of the law requires eight hours of tactical training with local law enforcement before someone can begin carrying inside a house of worship.

And now, it seems, members of Bossier Parish churches have begun to take up the state on its offer, purportedly so they can protect their fellow churchgoers in the event of some kind of an attack.

Last weekend, 20 people attended the first of multiple Church Security Training Sessions at the Bossier sheriff’s gun range, Adam Duvernay of the Shreveport Times reports. There were several hours of classroom training before the group hit the gun range:

The class included lessons on physiological changes during violent encounters, lessons on control tactics like pressure points and take-downs and the justifications for a physical response to dangerous situations. On the range, they practiced controlled shooting, reload drills, drawing techniques and speed drills.

“Over the past several years, the violence has gotten worse and worse” said Jim Middleton, one trainee. “I’d rather be proactive than working after the fact. We’re all in God’s army, and you don’t see any army going to war unarmed.”

Louisiana State Rep. Henry Burns (R), who wrote the original legislation, visited the class, and told the trainees that “each and every one of you here are patriots because you care to provide protection to the innocent. We should be able to worship our Lord without fear.”

Burns told TPM last May, after the legislation passed the state House, that the law was for “those unique situations where maybe a church can’t afford law enforcement,” but churchgoers want to protect themselves.

A church is “really no safe haven,” he said.









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