Operation Gunwalker: ATF Armed Sinaloa Cartel ?

Phineas - Oh, my. I think the fuse has been lit on blowing this fiasco wide open, and the spark is headed right for the White House:

At a lengthy hearing on ATF’s controversial gunwalking operation today, a key ATF manager told Congress he discussed the case with a White House National Security staffer as early as September 2010. The communications were between ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office, Bill Newell, and White House National Security Director for North America Kevin O’Reilly. Newell said the two are longtime friends. The content of what Newell shared with O’Reilly is unclear and wasn’t fully explored at the hearing.
It’s the first time anyone has publicly stated that a White House official had any familiarity with ATF’s operation Fast and Furious, which allowed thousands of weapons to fall into the hands of suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels in an attempt to gain intelligence. It’s unknown as to whether O’Reilly shared information with anybody else at the White House.
Congressional investigators obtained an email from Newell to O’Reilly in September of last year in which Newell began with the words: “you didn’t get this from me.”
“What does that mean,” one member of Congress asked Newell, ” ‘you didn’t get this from me?’ “
“Obviously he was a friend of mine,” Newell replied, “and I shouldn’t have been sending that to him.”
Newell told Congress that O’Reilly had asked him for information.

So now we are certain that someone senior at the White House knew about Operation Fast and Furious (aka “Gunwalker”) in late 2010, yet as late as this last spring, Holder and Obama were claiming they had learned of it only much later.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told Issa that he did not learn about Fast and Furious until this spring. President Obama said that Holder told him he would not have allowed guns to go into Mexico.

Hmmm… We’ve already established that it’s about as likely as the Sun rising in the West that Holder didn’t know, but what about Obama? If this org chart (PDF) is still accurate (1), then NSC staffers with regional responsibilities report to the Deputy National Security Adviser, who reports to the National Security Adviser, who reports to… the President of the United States.
Very suggestive, but not proof-positive.
As Ed Morrissey asks, why did O’Reilly want to know, and why did Newell feel compelled to say “You didn’t get this from me?”
Either O’reilly was attending a meeting of peers and wanted to be brought up to speed — it is in his purview, after all, but then why the “cloak and dagger” stuff? — or was he briefing those above him? And how high did the briefing go?
Let’s keep in mind that this debacle has cost the lives of at least one US federal agent and roughly 150 Mexican civilians, federal agents, and soldiers. Agencies of the US government supplied weapons to criminal cartels that threaten the stability of our large southern neighbor and then lost track of nearly 2,000 of those guns. It is a monument to gross stupidity and incompetence — and very possibly criminal, what Rep. Darrell Issa has called “felony stupid.”
With the revelation that people on the President’s national security staff knew about Gunwalker, it’s about time for subpoenas.
Footnotes:
(1) While O’Reilly’s office doesn’t appear on this org chart, I think it’s reasonable to assume that, whether it’s new or renamed from “Western Hemisphere Affairs,” he too would report to the Deputy NSA.
UPDATE: “The ATF armed the Sinaloa Cartel. It’s disgusting.”

Job Growth Concentrated In Lower Paying Occupations

WASHINGTON -- The Great Recession destroyed all kinds of jobs, but the not-so-great recovery has so far replaced the lowest-paying jobs at a much faster pace than higher-paying ones, according to a new analysis of Census Bureau data.
Workers navigating the current labor market are facing a "significant good jobs deficit," said the National Employment Law Project, the worker advocacy group that crunched the Census numbers.
Low-wage occupations saw job growth of 3.2 percent from the beginning of 2010 to the beginning of 2011, while mid-wage jobs only grew by 1.2 percent, according to NELP. During the same time period, higher-wage jobs fell by 1.2 percent. In other words, there are more new jobs for retail salespeople, office clerks, cashiers and food prep workers than for machinists, managers, nurses and accountants.
To make matters worse, low-paying jobs pay even less than they used to, according to the report.
The skewed job growth comes after unbalanced job losses during the Great Recession.
"Of the net employment losses between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2010," NELP said in its report, "fully 60 percent were in mid-wage occupations, 21.3 percent were in lower-wage occupations and 18.7 percent were in higher-wage occupations."
The analysis confirms of one of the "new rules" workers have faced since the onset of the recession: Don't expect to make more money at your next job.

Obama Trying To Create Another Crisis

Phineas - And if so, why? According to Jennifer Rubin, Boehner, McConnell, and Reid agreed on the framework for a deal over the weekend: a short-term debt increase with cuts larger than that increase, followed by a committee to find further cuts before any additional debt increase was considered. Reid then went to Obama for approval, and Obama humiliated the head of his party’s caucus in the Senate, the Majority Leader, and rejected the deal:

If this is accurate the president is playing with fire. By halting a bipartisan deal he imperils the country’s finances and can rightly be accused of putting partisanship above all else. The ONLY reason to reject a short-term, two-step deal embraced by both the House and Senate is to avoid another approval-killing face-off for President Obama before the election. Next to pulling troops out of Afghanistan to fit the election calendar, this is the most irresponsible and shameful move of his presidency.

I wonder. At first I thought this was some mad Cloward-Piven-like plan to create a crisis that would leave the people seeing no other solution than greater government control over the economy through higher taxes and regulation (i.e., “soft” Socialism), but that would make no sense. Even President Narcissus has to see that the vast majority of the people want the debt controlled, want a balanced budget amendment, want a smaller federal government, and don’t want significantly higher taxes — in other words, they want those things that are anathema to a Leftist. So, should a crisis hit, he and his party are likely to take as much or even more of the blame than the Republicans, who are acting more in concert with the will of the electorate and have at least tried to deal with the problem, something Obama and the Democrats have failed to do.
Maybe Rubin is right? Is The One taking this to the (supposed) brink because he’s desperate to push the next vote on the debt limit to after the election? So desperate that he’s willing to alienate his own caucus, which is itself in fear of 2012?
According to Rubin in a later article, the House and Senate are back to crafting separate plans. Not surprisingly, but tellingly and in the face of President Pouty-Face’s demands that his bluff not be called, Harry Reid’s contains no new taxes. We may actually be witnessing the national legislature begin to do the function for which it exists, which is to put the nation’s finances in order — with or without cooperation from the White House.
And if that happens and a bipartisan bill is sent to the Oval Office, Obama either signs it, lets it pass without his signature after ten days, or vetoes it and takes full ownership of whatever train wreck occurs. That surely wouldn’t help his reelection chances, which makes me think he will sign whatever they send up.
The threat to create a crisis is itself a bluff.

Norway Killings Prompts Crackdown On British Organizations opposed To Immigration

On Sunday, The Telegraph reported that Scotland Yard is searching for a shadowy network of Brits who allegedly hosted Norway’s accused mass murderer, Anders Behring Breivik, prior to his killing spree last week.
Officials say Breivik claimed that he was just one of up to 80 “solo martyr cells” recruited throughout Western Europe who were ready to follow his example of trying to overthrow governments tolerant of Islam, according to the newspaper.
The “far right” and the “clash of civilizations.”
Breivik supposedly considers himself a successor to the medieval Knights Templar. He said he was recruited at a meeting in London in April 2002 hosted by two English extremists and attended by eight people.
In his massive manifesto that lifts entire sections of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s treatise against modern civilization, Breivik said he had communicated with the English Defense League.
The EDL is at best a marginal political group consisting of around 300 dedicated members. It counters Muslim demonstrations against the occupation of Afghanistan, rallies against supporters of the Palestinian cause, and has clashed with socialists.
In February, the group reportedly formed a coalition with anti-immigration groups from Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, as well as other more established groups from France, Germany and Denmark.

• 
  
• 

Recent polls reveal a majority of Europeans oppose immigration from outside the EU. According to a Guardian survey conducted in March, a large number of Europeans believe unrestricted immigration is the first or second most serious problem they face.
A poll by Populis showed that 48 percent of Britons would consider supporting a new anti-immigration party. Around 52 percent agreed with the proposition that “Muslims create problems in the UK.”
(Side note: In fact, many of the problems created by Muslims are encouraged or provocateured by British intelligence.)
Opposition to immigration from Muslim countries is considered a “right-wing” political attitude by European governments and the corporate media.
British PM David Cameron has chaired a National Security Council meeting with top security advisers to discuss Britain’s supposed vulnerability to a Norway-style terrorist attack, according to Sky News.
Sky News, which is partially-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, reports there is pressure on the Cameron to put more resources into the alleged problem of so-called far-right groups in Britain – in other words, the British government will step up surveillance of disfavored political groups and expand its already sizable police state apparatus.
Unrestricted immigration is a cornerstone of corporate globalization. In Europe and the United States, the globalists are exploiting illegal immigration to push their agenda of a borderless, one-world state where workers along with other commodities move without restriction.
In addition to promoting globalization, open and unrestricted immigration – especially from Muslim and other non-Christian nations – is designed to foster order out of chaos. A prime example of this occurred in France. In 2005, a state of emergency was declared in the country after north African Muslims rioted. The corporate media exacerbated the situation by declaring native French citizens are hopelessly plagued by racism, xenophobia and classism.
The global elite are setting the stage for more terror attacks in Europe, Britain, and eventually the United States. Cameron’s meeting indicates Britain may be the next target, followed by the United States.


In the recent past, terror was portrayed as arriving from Islamic terrorists in distant caves. The next phase of propaganda insisted the terror threat was from “homegrown” Muslim terrorists. Now the Muslim element has been subtracted from the equation and the threat is from white “right-wing extremists” who are violently opposed to Islam as the manufactured clash of civilizations plays itself out on the international stage.
The new enemies of the state are not violent Muslims who want to impose sharia law on westerners – as the corporate media insisted ad nauseam – but Europeans and Americans opposed to wide open immigration policies and the refusal of the state to enforce national borders and stop illegal immigration. Opposition to a tidal wave of immigrants and a dilution of national culture and language is now considered “right-wing extremism” by the state.
“Solo martyr cells” of violent white people have replaced al-Qaeda as the new threat. The propaganda effort has commenced in Britain as Scotland Yard searches for a shadowy network of white supremacists dedicated to murder and mayhem.

DHS Video Characterizes White Americans As Likely Terrorist

Paul Joesph Watson - A new promotional video released by the Department of Homeland Security characterizes white middle class Americans as the most likely terrorists, as Big Sis continues its relentless drive to cement the myth that mad bombers are hiding around every corner, when in reality Americans are just as likely to be killed by lightning strikes or peanut allergies.

The video is part of Homeland Security’s $10 million dollar “See Something, Say Something” program that encourages Americans to report “suspicious activity,” which in every case throughout history has been a trait of oppressive, dictatorial regimes.
In the course of the 10 minute clip, a myriad of different behaviors are characterized as terrorism, including opposing surveillance, using a video camera, talking to police officers, wearing hoodies, driving vans, writing on a piece of paper, and using a cell phone recording application.
Despite encouraging viewers not to pay attention to a person’s race in determining whether or not they may be a terrorist, almost all of the scenarios in the clip proceed to portray white people as the most likely terrorists. Bizarrely, nearly every single one of the “patriotic” Americans who reports on their fellow citizen is either black, Asian or Arab. Imagine if the video had portrayed every terrorist as an Arab and every patriotic snoop as white, there’d be an outcry and rightly so, but this strange reversal must have been deliberate on the part of the DHS, but why? Is this merely political correctness taken to the extreme or is something deeper at work?
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the DHS’ own internal documents list predominantly white conservative groups as the most likely terrorists, such as Ron Paul supporters, gun owners, gold bullion enthusiasts, and a myriad of other comparatively banal political interests that are largely the domain of white middle class Americans.
This has little to do with the color of a person’s skin, and everything to do with the fact that white, middle class Americans are the biggest roadblock when it comes to Big Sis expanding its control over every facet of American society.
It’s plain to see that very little of the budget for this video went towards paying for decent actors, but perhaps it’s fitting that the participants were about as believable as Santa and his elves, because the notion that terrorists are hovering around every underground parking lot waiting to blow up federal buildings is demonstrably false.
As Ohio University’s John Mueller has documented, the likelihood of actually being a victim of terrorism is infinitesimally small, and only highlights how such threats are hyperbolically exaggerated for political purposes.
Figures collected by Mueller clearly show that Americans are just as likely to be killed by lightning strikes, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reactions to peanuts.
But the facts don’t matter for a federal agency whose primary function is to manufacture fear to keep Americans under control and submissive to the fact that their economic futures and their constitutional rights are being torn to shreds by their own government while it points to a contrived outside threat as a convenient distraction.
“At its core, the video is filled with scenes of ordinary citizens spying on each other and alerting the authorities to their compatriots’ suspicious deeds,” writes Simon Black. In my favorite scene, a woman calls the police after snooping over the shoulder of a young man typing away on his smartphone.”
Black notes that such videos are solely aimed at reinforcing ignorance, hate and fear for those who still live in darkness and are completely unaware of the real agenda behind Homeland Security’s “see something, say something” charade.
But what is that agenda?
No matter where you look, from East Germany, to Communist Russia, to Nazi Germany, historically governments who encourage their own citizens to report on each other do so not for any genuine safety concerns or presumed benefits to security, but in order to create an authoritarian police state that coerces the people into policing each other’s behavior and thoughts.
As Robert Gellately of Florida State University has highlighted, Germans under Hitler denounced their neighbors and friends not because they genuinely believed them to be a security threat, but because they expected to selfishly benefit from doing so, both financially, socially and psychologically via a pavlovian need to be rewarded by their masters for their obedience.
At the height of its influence around one in seven of the East German population was an informant for the Stasi. As in Nazi Germany, the creation of an informant system was wholly centered around identifying political dissidents and those with grievances against the state, and had little or nothing to do with genuine security concerns.
This is the kind of society the Department of Homeland Security is, whether deliberately or inadvertently, recreating in 21st century America. It is about as far removed as you can possibly get from the vision the founders of the nation had in mind when they created the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.

PPP Poll: Romney Tied Obama And Losing Independent Voters

**Written by Doug Powers
There’s a long time to go until the 2012 election and plenty can happen, but if President Obama is going to keep saying things like “job killing tax cuts,” things are only going to get worse.
Washington Times:

A Democratic polling firm said President Obama’s already weak job-approval numbers are “worse than they appear” and he likely would lose the election if it were held today.
For the first time in a year, Mr. Obama does not lead former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in Public Policy Polling’s monthly national poll on the 2012 presidential race. They are tied at 45 percent, and Mr. Obama is losing among independent voters by a margin of 49 percent to 44 percent.
Worse for Mr. Obama, PPP said, the “vast majority” of undecideds disapprove of the president’s performance. The survey of registered voters was conducted July 15-17.
“There’s a very good chance Barack Obama would lose if he had to stand for re-election today,” said Dean Debnam, president of PPP. “This is his worst poll standing in a long time, and he really needs the economy to start turning around.”

As far as the economy goes, Obama still blames Bush — which might help Obama avoid a Jimmy Carter-like defeat provided he can convince the GOP to nominate Bush again.
What can Obama do to bring his numbers up even though the economy is still foundering? Is there a political Carpathia that he can attempt to summon to the rescue? Leading the charge to repeal Obamacare might help (now there’s a job killer), but Allen West will send an “I’m sorry” teddy-gram to Debbie Wasserman Schultz before that ever happens.
And about that “affordable” health insurance…
**Written by Doug Powers

Gallup Poll: Finds Joblessness Rising In July 2011

Ed Morrissey - Gallup’s latest measure of US unemployment shows joblessness rising through the first part of the month, with underemployment remaining at exactly the same level as 2010.  The mid-month survey provides a leading indicator for the official jobless report that will come in the next two and a half weeks, and so far it doesn’t look like it will bring much good news to the White House:

Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, is at 8.9% in the middle of July — up from 8.7% at the end of June. Unemployment was at 9.3% at this same time a year ago.
The percentage of part-time workers who want full-time work is 9.4% in mid-July — down from 9.6% at the end of June. However, more Americans are working part time but seeking full-time work in mid-July 2011 than was the case in mid-July 2010 (9.0%).
Underemployment, a measure that combines the percentage of unemployed with the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work, is at 18.3% in mid-July — precisely the same as at the end of June and in mid-July 2010.

Gallup reports that this represents “an early July deterioration” in employment, but doesn’t offer much beyond speculation for the cause.  The pollster suggests that employers might be hedging their bets because of the debt negotiations and the uncertainty of whether the US might default, but initial jobless claims jumped in early April before this issue became acute — a dynamic that Gallup’s survey misses entirely, by the way.  The report also posits that a decline in demand might be driving an uptick in unemployment, and for that, there is some new corroboration from the oil markets today:

Oil prices slipped below $97 a barrel on Monday as weakening U.S. consumer confidence and more signs of financial stress in Europe renewed concerns about demand for crude.

By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark oil for August delivery was down 80 cents to $96.44 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude rose $1.55 to settle at $97.24 on Friday.

In London, Brent crude fell 52 cents to $116.74 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Considering the beating that the dollar took last week, the price drop is remarkable.  It seems that the world is bracing for another recession based on the latest economic indicators, perhaps especially the drop in consumer confidence.  It’s not exactly surprising that unemployment would rise as a result.  If Gallup’s results show up in the jobless report for July, it will further hamper Obama’s efforts to stay the course with his economic and regulatory policies.

Coming Soon 70% Marginal Tax Rate

Michael Boskin - President Obama has been using the debt-ceiling debate and bipartisan calls for deficit reduction to demand higher taxes. With unemployment stuck at 9.2% and a vigorous economic "recovery" appearing more and more elusive, his timing couldn't be worse.
Two problems arise when marginal tax rates are raised. First, as college students learn in Econ 101, higher marginal rates cause real economic harm. The combined marginal rate from all taxes is a vital metric, since it heavily influences incentives in the economy—workers and employers, savers and investors base decisions on after-tax returns. Thus tax rates need to be kept as low as possible, on the broadest possible base, consistent with financing necessary government spending.
Second, as tax rates rise, the tax base shrinks and ultimately, as Art Laffer has long argued, tax rates can become so prohibitive that raising them further reduces revenue—not to mention damaging the economy. That is where U.S. tax rates are headed if we do not control spending soon.
The current top federal rate of 35% is scheduled to rise to 39.6% in 2013 (plus one-to-two points from the phase-out of itemized deductions for singles making above $200,000 and couples earning above $250,000). The payroll tax is 12.4% for Social Security (capped at $106,000), and 2.9% for Medicare (no income cap). While the payroll tax is theoretically split between employers and employees, the employers' share is ultimately shifted to workers in the form of lower wages.
But there are also state income taxes that need to be kept in mind. They contribute to the burden. The top state personal rate in California, for example, is now about 10.5%. Thus the marginal tax rate paid on wages combining all these taxes is 44.1%. (This is a net figure because state income taxes paid are deducted from federal income.)
So, for a family in high-cost California taxed at the top federal rate, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts in 2013, the 0.9% increase in payroll taxes to fund ObamaCare, and the president's proposal to eventually uncap Social Security payroll taxes would lift its combined marginal tax rate to a stunning 58.4%.

But wait, things get worse. As Milton Friedman taught decades ago, the true burden on taxpayers today is government spending; government borrowing requires future interest payments out of future taxes. To cover the Congressional Budget Office projection of Mr. Obama's $841 billion deficit in 2016 requires a 31.7% increase in all income tax rates (and that's assuming the Social Security income cap is removed). This raises the top rate to 52.2% and brings the total combined marginal tax rate to 68.8%. Government, in short, would take over two-thirds of any incremental earnings.
Many Democrats demand no changes to Social Security and Medicare spending. But these programs are projected to run ever-growing deficits totaling tens of trillions of dollars in coming decades, primarily from rising real benefits per beneficiary. To cover these projected deficits would require continually higher income and payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare on all taxpayers that would drive the combined marginal tax rate on labor income to more than 70% by 2035 and 80% by 2050. And that's before accounting for the Laffer effect, likely future interest costs, state deficits and the rising ratio of voters receiving government payments to those paying income taxes.
It would be a huge mistake to imagine that the cumulative, cascading burden of many tax rates on the same income will leave the middle class untouched. Take a teacher in California earning $60,000. A current federal rate of 25%, a 9.5% California rate, and 15.3% payroll tax yield a combined income tax rate of 45%. The income tax increases to cover the CBO's projected federal deficit in 2016 raises that to 52%. Covering future Social Security and Medicare deficits brings the combined marginal tax rate on that middle-income taxpayer to an astounding 71%. That teacher working a summer job would keep just 29% of her wages. At the margin, virtually everyone would be working primarily for the government, reduced to a minority partner in their own labor.
Nobody—rich, middle-income or poor—can afford to have the economy so burdened. Higher tax rates are the major reason why European per-capita income, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, is about 30% lower than in the United States—a permanent difference many times the temporary decline in the recent recession and anemic recovery.
Some argue the U.S. economy can easily bear higher pre-Reagan tax rates. They point to the 1930s-1950s, when top marginal rates were between 79% and 94%, or the Carter-era 1970s, when the top rate was about 70%. But those rates applied to a much smaller fraction of taxpayers and kicked in at much higher income levels relative to today.
There were also greater opportunities for sheltering income from the income tax. The lower marginal tax rates in the 1980s led to the best quarter-century of economic performance in American history. Large increases in tax rates are a recipe for economic stagnation, socioeconomic ossification, and the loss of American global competitiveness and leadership.
There is only one solution to this growth-destroying, confiscatory tax-rate future: Control spending growth, especially of entitlements. Meaningful tax reform—not with higher rates as Mr. Obama proposes, but with lower rates on a broader base of economic activity and people—can be an especially effective complement to spending control. But without increased spending discipline, even the best tax reforms are doomed to be undone.

The Next Big hit To the American Economy?

Ethan Roth - The recovery is weak now--but it could be headed for a major hit that will leave it even weaker.
At the start of 2012, the extended unemployment benefits approved by Congress in December 2010, which cover a maximum of 99 weeks per person, will expire. Though the benefits are hardly lavish--a little more than $300 a week for most recipients--their total impact on the economy is huge, because so many Americans are currently taking advantage of them. Moody's Analytics estimates that when the benefits expire, $37 billion will be taken out of the economy, the New York Times reports. That's enough to exert a significant slowing effect--at a time when the recovery is already a long way from robust.
Government benefits that go to poorer Americans, like unemployment insurance, tend to boost consumer spending more than other kinds of stimulus, because people living paycheck to paycheck have little choice but to spend the money, rather than saving it. So the disappearance of jobless benefits will take money out of circulation when economic growth is seeking to gain some traction.
Indeed, economists say that the withdrawal of jobless benefits will create a major ripple effect on growth as a whole. Consumer spending accounts for around 60-70 percent of U.S. economic activity, economists say. But with so many Americans having lost wealth in the housing bust, spending has been tepid for a while, preventing the recovery from gaining any momentum. Now, the end of the extended benefits will likely soon put a further crimp in spending.
And that, of course, leaves out the role the benefits play on an individual level, providing a crucial lifeline to millions of struggling Americans.
On the bright side, some studies have shown that when people face the loss of their benefits, they're more likely to look for a job, and to look more aggressively. So the loss of benefits could motivate some job-seekers. But most economists appear to agree that jobless benefits have a larger stimulative impact--meaning, in other words, that the benefits likely lead to more jobs, rather than fewer.
What's more, observers note that the expiration of jobless benefits will come at around the same time that some other measures intended to create growth will also disappear: The payroll tax cut, enacted at the same time, which is scheduled to expire at the end of the year; federal aid to states; and the Federal Reserve's asset-buying program, which wound down at the end of last month.
Put it all together, and it suggests that things aren't likely to get much better any time soon.

Califorina Pension System: A $108,000 Pension For Lifeguards?

Doubleace - It's been a tough year for the iconic beach lifeguards of Southern California.

Lionized -- and trivialized -- by movies and TV shows, especially the long-running "Baywatch," they too have been hit by the tsunami against public employees with six-figure paychecks and pensions.


If cops and firefighters are reviled for retiring at age 50 or 55 with a guaranteed yearly income of more than $100,000, imagine the riptide sucking at those drawing a similar check -- with a cost-of-living adjustment and lifetime medical benefits -- after years of doing what the public envisions as nothing more than working on a tan and flirting with the eye candy. 
"I supervised 13, 14 engineers when I was working and I was making $111,000 when I retired three years ago with an MBA and a technical engineering degree," wrote Leonard Musgrave, 69, who, in his letter to the Orange County Register, said he doesn't have a pension. "I mean, come on! All you have to do is look at good-looking women at the beach. I mean, they shouldn't even get paid! I'd do it for 10% of that pay." Post continues after video.
The uproar focused on the lifeguards of Newport Beach, a city just south of Los Angeles. Wrote The Associated Press:

Base salaries for Newport Beach lifeguards range from $58,000 for the lowest-paid officer to $108,492 for the top-paid battalion chief, according to a 2010 city report on lifeguard pay.

With overtime, more than half of the 13 full-time lifeguards cleared $100,000, while the rest made between $59,500 and $98,500. Adding in pension contributions, medical benefits, life insurance and other pay, two battalion chiefs earned more than $200,000 in 2010, while the lowest-paid officer made more than $98,000.

Full-time lifeguards currently have a contract that makes them eligible for retirement at age 50 with 30 years of service. They would receive 90% of their salary.

A lifeguard there recently retired with a yearly pension of $108,000 at age 51, a City Council member told the Los Angeles Times.

Faced with public outrage, and layoffs, the lifeguards quickly negotiated a deal that cut pensions for new hires by as much as 50%, and increased their pension contributions, to 9% of their pay from 3.5%.

So how do fit young men and women in red bathing suits end up being compensated like firefighters and police?

They are needed. Newport Beach is a city of 85,000, but its 8.7 miles of ocean and bay sands and waters attracted more than 7 million people in 2010, despite a cooler-than-usual summer. That means a bundle of money coming in from outside the community, and it means it is best not to let them drown.

According to city figures, the lifeguards made 2,190 water rescues in 2010, responded to more than 5,000 medical calls and issued more than 76,000 warnings about rip currents or high tides. Two people died.

These are pros. The people getting these wages and benefits are not just summer fill-ins, armed with a good swimming stroke and CPR and first aid training. "Full-time professional lifeguarding is a well-respected profession that requires education, extensive training and experience," Newport Beach said in a statement on its website, adding that "lifeguards are paid and compensated in a manner in line with professional lifeguarding in Southern California."

According to AP:

Those whose salaries are in question point out that they hold management roles, have decades of service and are considered public safety employees under the fire department, the same as fire captains and battalion chiefs. The full-time guards train more than 200 seasonal lifeguards who make between $16 and $22 an hour (and) run a junior lifeguard program that brings in $1 million a year.

Their duties, in many cases, include a lot more than just patrolling. About 90 miles south of Newport Beach lies San Diego, one of the top tourist destinations in America and home of 24 miles of beach. Here is a lifeguard's job description in that city, according to B. Chris Brewster, former San Diego lifeguard chief and president of the U.S. Lifesaving Association:

The full-time lifeguard staff are all peace officers, though not armed with firearms, and EMTs (emergency medical technicians). They staff a 24-hour, 9-1-1 dispatch center. A minimum of four are on duty 24 hours a day.

They handle dozens of cliff rescues each year, staff the fire-rescue boats for Mission Bay, respond to offshore emergencies, partner with the San Diego Police Department to form the city's Dive Team (including underwater search, recovery, and evidence gathering), and staff the city's renowned River Rescue Team. That team is part of the national Urban Search and Rescue team network and was dispatched to Hurricane Katrina.

The AP reports that while lifeguard pay is pretty standardized along the Southern California coast, the pensions have been quite a bit higher in Newport Beach. In Los Angeles County, lifeguards can retire at 50 for 60% of pay, and in San Diego, retire at 55 at 75%.

Commented "phdinresidence," writing to ABC News:

Amazing. I grew up in Newport Beach and lifeguards were considered beach bums and a big joke. It was great when they rescued someone, but that only took 15 minutes away from flirting with the underage girls and catching rays. ... Who knew they were being paid a fortune for being part of the scenery most of the time. California seems to have been mismanaged for an awful long time if these dizzy dolts are retiring now and cashing in big time.

Obama Is Establishing A Dictatorship

Paul Joesph Watson - President Barack Obama is rapidly advancing an executive dictatorship that threatens to completely nullify the US Constitution if left unchecked, with his administration hastily eroding every other branch of government as the White House crosses the rubicon to push through its political agenda on every front, from the war in Libya to domestic gun control.
WAR ON LIBYA
Obama has displayed open hostility to the rule of law and the Constitution when asked why he has failed to obtain Congressional approval for the war on Libya.
Obama has ignored his own constitutional lawyers on the legality of the conquest, claiming that Congressional approval is not needed because the legitimacy of the UN supersedes Congress and that the bombardment, which has included over 800 bombing runs flown by US warplanes, is not a war.
Obama has used word games and mental gymnastics to claim he hasn’t violated the War Powers Resolution. Even as universities, apartment blocks and marketplaces are bombed, killing innocent civilians, communications are blocked, and even as top admirals now admit that the scope of the mission is all about regime change, the Obama administration still clings to the ludicrous fallacy that the bombardment of Libya is not a war.
Indeed, the White House itself characterized the goal in Libya as “installing a democratic system,” a euphemism for regime change, acknowledging that the agenda goes far beyond “protecting civilians,” as Obama claimed during his March 19 speech.
GUN CONTROL
As part of its bid to eviscerate the Second Amendment by stealth, or “under the radar” as Obama himself called it, the White House is about to launch a new gun control offensive that will bypass the necessity of passing legislation in Congress and instead rely on “only executive orders or administrative actions.”
According to a Huffington Post story on the issue, Obama is likely to have more success pushing through gun control if he circumvents Congress on the issue. “Executive actions offer something that legislation doesn’t: guaranteed results. And as one gun control advocate told the Huffington Post, there are ways to “use these administrative changes to obtain similar results,” writes Sam Stein.
With the revelations surrounding Fast and Furious having blown up in their face, and the Obama administration’s ploy to blame violence in Mexico on gun rights even after they got caught shipping in the weapons in tatters, the White House is desperate to push through new gun control measures that are integral to advancing Rahm Emanuel’s May 2007 call to put people who are on a no fly list on a no gun buy list, stripping millions of Americans of their Second Amendment rights because they have been erroneously placed on a notoriously inaccurate no fly list that includes everyone from Senators to toddlers.
DEBT CEILING
As part of Obama’s charge to sink America into more debt to foreign bankers, he has dredged up a 143-year-old clause related to the Civil War in a bid to raise the debt ceiling, overtly challenging Congressional control of the budget, a development that could spark a “constitutional crisis,” reports AFP.
Obama’s attempt to use an obscure civil war clause to circumvent Congress, which is empowered to control the purse strings, is another example of his administration’s flagrant effort to nullify the separation of powers within government and give the executive branch supreme control.

• 

CARBON TAXES
After the White House failed in its bid to implement a de facto carbon tax through cap and trade, Obama simply bypassed Congress completely and had the EPA declare CO2 to be a pollutant and a public health threat, allowing greenhouse gas emissions to be regulated and taxed through the Clean Air Act.
The EPA’s move was little more than a threat to back Congress into a corner and force them into passing legislation that would regulate CO2 for all new or expanded power plants.
The fact that this has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with fleecing American taxpayers was confirmed when Obama gave a waiver to General Electric and ensured that one of the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide on the planet, and coincidentally one of Obama’s largest campaign contributors, was exempt from the new regulations.
OBAMACARE
Having already been ruled unconstitutional by federal judges in both Florida and Virginia, Obama has also been busy handing out waivers to over a thousand corporations, including McDonalds, a clear violation of the Equal Protection clause and proof “that D.C. is now completely ignoring the rule of law“.
OBAMA’S RURAL COUNCIL
Obama’s White House has issued a new executive order mandating the creation of a “Rural Council,” another step in the move towards a centrally planned economy.
According to this new executive order, the Obama administration plans to stick its itchy little fingers into just about every aspect of rural life,” writes the Economic Collapse Blog. “One of the stated goals of the White House Rural Council is to do the following….”
“Coordinate and increase the effectiveness of Federal engagement with rural stakeholders, including agricultural organizations, small businesses, education and training institutions, health-care providers, telecommunications services providers, research and land grant institutions, law enforcement, State, local, and tribal governments, and nongovernmental organizations regarding the needs of rural America.”
This is merely a euphemism for a new layer of bureaucracy set to suffocate rural America, with federal control freaks already implementing new draconian regulations to put a stranglehold on farmer’s markets and other forms of self-sufficiency.
OBAMA’S COUNCIL OF STATE GOVERNORS
Another White House executive order that creates a council of state governors who will work with the feds to expand military involvement in domestic security has stoked fears that the administration is stepping up preparations for martial law. Rather than elected representatives being in control of states, Obama has created a body of ten lapdogs who answer to the federal government and not the American people.
The order, which is entitled Establishment of the Council of Governors (PDF), creates a body of ten state governors directly appointed by Obama who will work with the federal government to help advance the “synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States”.
The governors will liaise with officials from Northcom, Homeland Security, the National Guard as well as DoD officials from the Pentagon “in order to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State governments,” according to the executive order.
Conservatives and libertarians responded to the announcement by expressing their suspicion that Obama is preparing to give governors their marching orders in targeting “anti-government” types that have long been characterized as a terrorist threat by the feds in numerous reports stretching back over a decade.
INTERNET KILL SWITCH
The White House is aggressively advancing Chinese-style web censorship that would provide Obama with a figurative kill switch for the Internet, bypassing Congress completely as part of the federal government’s executive-level takeover of all communications.
On every front, the Obama administration is entering the final stages of a total power grab that represents a clear effort to turn the country into an executive dictatorship, another stark indication that America is quickly beginning to resemble a decaying banana republic.

U.S. Payrolls Rise 18,000: Unemployment Rate Climbs To 9.2%

Shobhana Chandra - U.S. employers added 18,000 workers in June, the fewest in nine months, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly climbed, indicating a struggling labor market.
The increase in payrolls followed a 25,000 gain that was less than half the rise initially estimated, Labor Department data showed today in Washington. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey called for a June gain of 105,000. The unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent, the highest level this year. Hiring by companies, which excludes government agencies, was the weakest since May 2010.
Stock-index futures plunged and Treasuries rose as the absence of stronger job growth caused earnings to stagnate, posing a threat to consumer spending that accounts for 70 percent of the economy. The second-quarter slowdown in hiring underscores a recovery that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said is “frustratingly slow.”
“Firms are hesitant to commit to taking on new employees when customer demand is uncertain,” Guy LeBas, chief fixed- income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia, said before the report. ‘It suggests consumer demand is sputtering. We’ll see downwardly revised third-quarter forecasts.”
Estimates of the 85 economists surveyed by Bloomberg for overall payrolls ranged from increases of 40,000 to 175,000.

Stock Futures Slump

The contract on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring in September slumped 1.1 percent to 1,337 at 8:32 a.m. in New York. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note dropped to 3.06 percent from 3.14 percent late yesterday.
The unemployment rate was forecast to hold at 9.1 percent, according to the survey median. Estimates ranged from 8.9 percent to 9.2 percent.
The jobless rate rose even as the participation rate declined to 64.1 percent, the lowest since March 1984. The household survey showed a 445,000 decrease in employment and a 173,000 increase in unemployment.
Private hiring, which excludes government agencies, rose 57,000 last month after a 73,000 gain. It was projected to rise by 132,000, the survey showed.
Factory payrolls rose by 6,000 in June after a 2,000 decline in the previous month.
Employment at service-providers increased 14,000 in June, the least since a decline in September. Construction employment fell 9,000 workers and retailers added 5,200 employees.

Government Employment

Government payrolls declined by 39,000 in June, the eighth straight decline. Employment at state and local governments declined by 25,000.
Average hourly earnings fell 1 cent to $22.99, today’s report showed. The average work week for all workers dropped to 34.3 hours, from 34.4 hours the prior month.
The so-called underemployment rate -- which includes part- time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking -- increased to 16.2 percent from 15.8 percent.
The number of temporary workers decreased 12,000. Payrolls at temporary-help agencies often slows as companies seeing a steady increase in demand take on permanent staff.
Recent figures had signaled the economy was starting to perk up after slowing in the first half of the year. Companies added twice as many workers as forecast last month, data from ADP Employer Services showed yesterday. An Institute for Supply Management report last week showed manufacturing unexpectedly accelerated in June.

‘Frustratingly Slow’

Policy makers “expect the unemployment rate to continue to decline but the pace of progress remains frustratingly slow,” Bernanke said at a news conference after the central bank’s June 21-22 monetary policy meeting.
The economy expanded at a 1.9 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, and economists surveyed by Bloomberg from June 28 to July 7 forecast second-quarter growth of 2 percent. In the final three months of 2010, the economy grew 3.1 percent.
Fed officials have said the slowdown in economic growth in the first and second quarters partly reflected temporary factors. Manufacturers were hurt by supply disruptions in the aftermath of the earthquake in Japan, at the same time the surge in gasoline expenses limited spending on non-essential items by American consumers.

Ford’s Take

“The labor market is improving slowly,” Jenny Lin, senior U.S. economist at Ford Motor Co., said on a teleconference with analysts on July 1. “The economy is facing two temporary factors, which slowed growth -- the fuel price run-up and Japan impact. Both of these are reversing now and set the stage for some improved readings in the months ahead.”
Companies reducing staff include Lockheed Martin Corp., the world’s largest defense contractor. Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed on June 30 said it plans to cut about 1,500 employees. McLean, Virginia-based Gannett Co., the publisher of 82 newspapers including USA Today, also announced last month it is eliminating about 700 jobs.
Lack of faster progress in the labor market and in the economic recovery, which started in June 2009, has taken a toll on President Barack Obama’s approval ratings. Since he took office in January 2009, unemployment has increased by about a percentage point and the economy has lost 2.5 million jobs.
By a 44 percent to 34 percent margin, Americans say they believe they are worse off than when Obama took office, according to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted June 17-20.

Gallup Poll: Obama Approval Rating 46%

Ed Morrissey - Or, to put it another way, Barack Obama has returned to the same approval levels he’s had without the short-lived bump he got from the Osama bin Laden operation.  Gallup delivers the bad news in today’s survey results, showing Obama underwater (via Jim Geraghty):

President Barack Obama’s job approval rating averaged 46% in June, down from 50% in May but similar to his ratings from February through April.
The president’s approval rating rose in May after the May 1 announcement that U.S. forces had killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. It has since subsided about equally among all major demographic subgroups, reverting nearly to April’s level.
Obama’s strongest support continues to come from blacks (86%), adults aged 18 to 29 (54%), those living in the East (53%), and Hispanics (52%). This is in addition to 81% approval from fellow Democrats (as well as 75% from liberals and 55% from moderates, not shown here).

Absent two significant and brief spikes, the trend line on Obama’s approval has been nearly flat for more than a year.  The first spike occurred in January after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), and the second was just a few weeks ago after OBL’s sudden adoption of room temperature courtesy of the Navy SEALs.  Otherwise, Obama’s approval ratings have remained in a narrow range of 44-47% since May 2010 — which is almost certainly related to the lack of change in economic conditions during that period.
The demographic results are mildly interesting but hardly a surprise.  Obama lost ground in almost all categories, but in most cases simply returned to the old trend lines.  In looking at the annual averages, most of the damage to Obama’s standing came in 2010, and probably most of it in the first half of the year.  While this suggests that Obama may be reaching a floor for his approval rating, it also suggests that he may be close to his new long-term ceiling as well.  It didn’t take long after such a singular event as the OBL mission for voter assessments to return to their year-long level.
What does this mean to Obama’s re-election effort?  The 44-47% range is not a slam-dunk re-elect number, but it’s also not a slam-dunk loss level, either.  The re-election campaign will have to focus on a big base turnout (not unlike the 2004 campaign for Bush, actually), which means that Obama needs to go more to his left over the next several months.  That’s why we’re seeing the red-meat political rhetoric about corporate jet owners and the usual class-warfare arguments, while Obama attempts to shift his optics to the center by talking about spending cuts and entitlement reform.  That’s a very difficult balance to maintain, and if the economy continues to stagnate, it probably won’t pay off.

Operation Project Gunrunner Was Funded By Stimulus Package

Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2011 1:06:47 PM by Domandred
Something about Project Gunrunner (gunwalker, fast and furious) has been bugging me but I just couldn't put my finger on it.
This morning when I woke up I remember seeing Project Gunrunner in a bill that was discussed here. The original thread about it was a rumor thread that HR45 had been rolled into the stimulus package.
In that thread I scanned the text of H.R.1 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for gun, firearm, etc and came up with a hit.
I posted in the thread: "Only time “gun” or “firearm” appears is in the part that give $10,000,000 to the ATF for Project Gunrunner. That was H.R. 495, asking for 15,000,000 for Gunrunner".
H.R. 495 that I mentioned never made it out of committee, but it looks as it was to specifically fund Gunrunner.
Instead portions of it were rolled into the stimulus package a month later. That text found in H.R.1 is:
For an additional amount for ‘State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance’, $40,000,000, for competitive grants to provide assistance and equipment to local law enforcement along the Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the Southern border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred to ‘Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses’ for the ATF Project Gunrunner.
Notice that's $40,000,000 for Southern border enforcement, $10,000,000 of which specifically for Project Gunrunner. What does $10 million pay for here? It didn't hire any new agents that I am aware of.
What this tells me is that several congressmen also had knowledge of what Gunrunner was going to entail. This isn't just the ATF and DOJ. This is all levels and areas of government. Even members of the House and Senate knew what Project Gunrunner was.

The New Christian Feminism Of Bachman And Palin

Marie Griffith - Is evangelical feminism an oxymoron?
A slew of writings has recently emerged about the "evangelical feminism" represented by women like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. Since I studied women like these for my first book, "God's Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission," I've been on a few reporters' call lists for commentary. A lot of confusion remains, however, and I hope I can contribute something more substantial to this discussion.
First, everyone should realize that the version of evangelical feminism we're witnessing in current Republican politics is a far cry from this term's original meaning. As Pam Cochran has written in her important study, "Evangelical Feminism: A History," the movement in its earlier form emerged in the 1970s. Its promoters were Christian women who believed that Jesus was a thoroughgoing egalitarian and that Christian principles were perfectly compatible with the ideals of equality emerging from the Women's Liberation Movement. While evangelical feminism has taken a number of different directions since then, it typically leans moderately left on most political issues, which is one reason why it has captured the wrath of hardline complementarians like Wayne Grudem and John Piper. ("Complementarianism" is the view that God designed men and women not to be equal but to be complementary, with men as the leaders and women as helpmeets.)
Palin and Bachmann decidedly do not lean left. What is "feminist" about them, for those who want to use that descriptive, is their belief that God calls women no less than men to fight His battles against Satan on earth. Women hold awesome power as spiritual warriors, in this worldview; they're not doormats, nor should their godly duties be confined to the domestic sphere. This is its own sort of egalitarianism, to be sure, but it is one far more compatible with the complementarian theology of arch-conservative Protestantism than with the feminism of liberal religion. After all, Bachmann and Palin have both made much of their roles as wives, mothers and churchgoers in a way meant to show that their political leadership will not upend the gender hierarchy so crucial in the conservative evangelical home and church sanctuary.
To the feminists who make their homes in secular or religiously liberal circles -- such as member of the National Organization for Women, the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Center for Women's Global Leadership, the International Alliance of Women, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights -- women like Palin and Bachmann represent a dangerously regressive form of womanhood: a sort of capitulation to the hierarchical gender norms of yore. Even to hear them called feminist feels anathema, especially since their politics show a willingness to execute policies that do nothing to empower individual women, men and children on earth. And I expect that many of the earlier evangelical feminist pioneers (the late Nancy Hardesty, Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, etc.) have been just as unhappy to see the media now using this term with no apparent recognition of its origins.
The more interesting phenomenon here is to see how surprised so many pundits continue to be at the fact that so many American women and men actually LIKE newfangled evangelical feminists such as Bachmann and Palin. Of course they do! These women embody that combination of conventional beauty (with a wink of sex appeal), earnestness, piety, accessibility and steely certitude of their own godliness that comprises the highest ideal of white conservative evangelical womanhood today. They're like those pretty, popular girls at church camp by whom awkward girls like me hoped to be acknowledged, or even (gosh) befriended. Always, the boys liked them best, but you felt cooler just basking in their aura. If these girls accepted you, you knew you were OK.
Palin and Bachmann are also excellent at embodying the female victim: a woman who works hard to make it on her smarts and hard work but who gets criticized for her looks and scorned as a dumb girl, over and over again. Liberals may scoff at Palin's criticisms of the lamestream media's obsessive derision, but she's frankly got a point. I am no fan of the political programs of either woman, and yet -- I'll admit it -- the appallingly sexist mockery of them has more than once inspired me to identify with them against their smug denigrators. For me, raised by a feminist mother and a feminist myself since adolescence, that's saying something.
Even today, many American women from all walks of life experience feelings of degradation that stem from the socialized devaluation of their femaleness. Conservative and liberal women alike endure subtle forms of misogyny every day. In my experience, sharing these war stories is one practice that bridges women across many other kinds of social divides. For evangelicals, to be persecuted is to be blessed; and the more Palin and Bachmann are belittled (rather than civilly debated), the greater their popularity. Surely, we are smart enough to understand that.
Perhaps we should take heart that the evangelical feminism represented by Palin and Bachmann is so wildly popular among segments of conservative Americans. Even if its appeal is as much about style as about substance, a door has opened that will not be easily shut. There's no reason why feminists of another, more progressive sort couldn't take a lesson here, if we pause to consider what it may be.

California Lawmakers Demand Schools Teach "Gay History In America"

Bob Unruh - A bill devised by a homosexual California lawmaker, Mark Leno, requiring schools to promote homosexuality and other alternative sexual lifestyles to children without parental permission or even knowledge has been approved by the legislature and is on its way to Gov. Jerry Brown.
Critics say the vote to approve SB48 could create a vast new opportunity for indoctrinating children into such roles.
"May this brash attack upon children's innocence finally motivate parents to remove their children from the government school system, and get them into the safe havens of church schooling and homeschooling," said Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, a leading statewide pro-family organization promoting moral virtues for the common good.


Thomasson outlined how the new law effectively will require textbooks and instructional materials to positively promote "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans" as role models. It also will provide for teaching children as young as 6 years old to admire homosexuality, same-sex "marriages," bisexuality and cross-dressing, as well as "sex change" medical operations.
Thomasson's analysis says, "Children will be taught to support the political activism of 'Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Questioning' (LGBTIQ) political groups, as the bill requires 'particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society.'"
Teachers also will be required to portray homosexuality positively, "because to be silent can bring the charge of 'reflecting adversely' or 'promoting a discriminatory bias.'" School boards will have to adopt textbooks and other materials based on their positive advocacy for homosexuality and parents – because the teachings are a part of the state's core curriculum – will be neither notified nor given the option of withdrawing their children from the teachings, he said.




The vote in the Democrat-controlled Assembly was 49-25, with Democrats endorsing the idea and Republicans opposing it. It passed the state Senate several weeks earlier. "This sexual brainwashing bill would mandate that children as young as 6 years old be told falsehoods – that homosexuality is biological, when it isn't, or healthy, when it's not," he said.
"Parents don't send their sons and daughters to school to learn to admire homosexuality, bisexuality, cross-dressing, 'sex change' operations, homosexual 'marriages,' or to support legal persecution of people who disagree," Thomasson said. "There's already a raft of school sexual indoctrination laws on the books. Impressionable children are already being sexual indoctrinated, but SB48 would be the most in-your-face brainwashing yet. We urge Gov. Brown to respect parents, remember basic academics, and basic family values, and veto this bad bill when it reaches his desk."
Thomasson explained that SB48 can be interpreted to make it illegal for teachers to tell students negative effects of homosexuality, such as that male homosexuality is the largest transmitter of HIV, along with higher cancer rates and earlier deaths.
He said California government schools no longer are morally safe for impressionable children.
"Because of the raft of sexual indoctrination laws already in force, which promote homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality under the guise of 'discrimination' and 'harassment,' the social engineers are already having their way with more than six million boys and girls, with or without SB48," Thomasson said. "That's why we strongly urge loving parents to rescue their children by permanently removing them from government schools and placing them in the safe havens of church schools or homeschooling."
His organization runs the Not Born this way website, which documents facts about homosexuality, as well as RescueYourChild.com, which advocates for parents to withdraw their children from public schools in favor of homeschooling, religious school or other private instruction.
The bill is sponsored by state Sen. Mark Leno, who boasts on his website of founding a business with his "life partner, Douglas Jackson," who later died of AIDS complications.
"S.B. 48 is intolerant. It would force – much more than recommend – all local school boards, public school teachers, and history textbooks to teach children as young as kindergarten to admire 'lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans' as their personal role models," Thomasson wroter earlier about the plan.
"Fathers and mothers who love their children and want moral values for their children cannot trust Democrat legislators, homosexuals or teacher unions, all of which conspired to push forward this perverse bill," he told WND.
Thomasson's SaveCalifornia.com was a key player in the battle in the state in 2007 and 2008 over a variety of laws that now forbid any "adverse" portrayal of alternative sexual choices in school, class, curriculum and by teachers.
On his state website, Leno expressed his worry: "Most textbooks don't include any historical information about the LGBT movement, which has great significance to both California and U.S. history."
Over protests from families and family organizations, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law Senate Bill 777 and Assembly Bill 394 several years ago. The measures institutionalized the promotion of homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism and other alternative lifestyles by banning any "adverse" references in schools.

Homosexual former San Francisco leader Harvey Milk

At the time, officials said SB 777 "functionally requires public school instructional materials and school-sponsored activities to positively portray cross-dressing, sex-change operations, homosexual 'marriages,' and all aspects of homosexuality and bisexuality, including so-called 'gay history.'"
The second bill, AB 394, "requires public schools to distribute controversial material to teachers, students, and parents which promotes transexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality, all under the guise of 'anti-harassment' training."
California also has mandated that public schools honor Harvey Milk, a homosexual activist and reported sexual predator, as well as an advocate for Jim Jones, leader of the massacred hundreds in Jonestown, Guyana.
In honoring Milk, Thomasson organization notes, schools are advocating for the acceptance of what Milk sought: the entire homosexual, bisexual and cross-dressing agenda, a refusal to acknowledge sexually transmitted diseases spread by the behavior, his behavior as "a sexual predator of teenage boys, most of them runaways with drug problems," advocacy for multiple sexual relationships at one time, and "lying to get ahead."
A 1982 biography of Milk tells of a 16-year-old named McKinley, who "was looking for some kind of father figure."
"At 33, Milk was launching a new life, though he could hardly have imagined the unlikely direction toward which his new lover would pull him," the book says.
It also states, "It would be to boyish-looking men in their late teens and early 20's that Milk would be attracted for the rest of his life."
The consequences of refusing to accept the state's beliefs about homosexuality can be devastating, SaveCalifornia documents.
In a report from Thomasson, he said got an email from a parent whose daughter had objected to attending a "gay straight alliance rally to honor Harvey Milk at Moreno Valley High School."
Said the email, according to Thomasson, "You were right our daughter was told she had to attend a gay straight alliance rally to honor Harvey Milk. … She shared she was a christian with the teacher and only after she saw Lauren was clearly upset about going to this rally did she issue her a hall pass. She was persecuted by another student but made it out of the class. I picked up her and she was very upset. How many other Christians were forced to go to this rally?"
The account from 16-year-old Lauren provided more details, Thomasson reported.
"When she walked into her U.S. History class Monday, May 23, she saw the words 'Gay-Straight Alliance Assembly – Harvey Milk' on the blackboard. Her teacher, obviously a pro-homosexuality agenda sympathizer, told Lauren and every other student walking in to go to the assembly. Lauren protested, but the teacher didn't listen to her at first. Lauren again said she didn't want to go, and finally the teacher exempted her, but only her," he said.
"Lauren got out of that one, but her fellow students were corralled into the brainwashing assembly, like cattle going to slaughter, where the homosexual sponsor of the on-campus Gay-Straight Alliance told them how they must support the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda of Harvey Milk. Later, a Muslim classmate told Lauren she wished she had refused to go to the assembly, too."
The report described how the teacher, several days earlier, had "played several minutes of the R-rated Milk film, which showed two homosexual men in bed together."
"Parents, realize there was NO advance parental notification of this happening or the opportunity to opt out your children. Even more, realize there was no parent permission sought, no opt-in form to sign. No, Harvey Milk sexual indoctrination, and other sexual indoctrination implemented, because of other perverse laws are being done behind parents' backs and despite parents' objections," Thomasson's report said.
WND previously reported what happened to one irate parent who found out about a public school's sexual indoctrination of his children and demanded changes – he spent the night in jail.
David Parker, who brought a case against Estabrook Elementary school in Lexington, Mass., several years ago, eventually ended up withdrawing his children from the school because of the harassment they endured because of the dispute.
An appellate court said the indoctrination was appropriate because same-sex "marriages" are legal in Massachusetts following the work of former Gov. Mitt Romney and others, and the refusal of the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene.
That left the school district not only teaching behaviors the Parker family considered immoral but deliberately refusing to tell them when it would be taught, so they could keep their children home.
Parker noted the ruling says teachers "have a constitutional right to coercively indoctrinate little children [into whatever they choose to teach]."
A WND/Wenzel Strategies poll just weeks ago revealed an overwhelming majority of Americans say elementary school is no place to promote the homosexual lifestyle. Even among liberals there is the strong belief that such lessons should be left outside the door of the classroom.
"Whether they object on moral grounds or simply out of concern that many U.S. schools are failing in their core missions of teaching basics doesn't really matter – the vast majority of American adults want this type of curriculum kept out of the classroom," Wenzel chief Fritz Wenzel said.
The scientific telephone survey was done April 19-21, and had a margin of error of 3.23 percentage points. It found that 65 percent of all respondents objected to teaching elementary school children that homosexuality is a "normal alternative lifestyle."
The question was, "Do you believe elementary school children should be taught that homosexuality is a normal alternative lifestyle?"
Only 22 percent said yes, and 13 percent were unsure.

Is A U.S. Default On $14 Trillion Debt Inevitable?

Patrick J. Buchanan - As President Bush prepared to invade Iraq in September 2002, the head of his economic policy council, Lawrence Lindsey publicly estimated such a war could cost $100 billion to $200 billion.
Lindsey had committed candor, and the stunned Bushites came down on him with both feet.
“Baloney,” said Donald Rumsfeld. The likely cost would be $60 billion, said Mitch Daniels of the Office of Management and Budget. We can finance the war with Iraqi oil, said Paul Wolfowitz.
By year’s end, Lindsey was gone, back, in Ronald Reagan’s phrase, “testing the magic of the marketplace.”
And the cost of the Iraq War? It has passed $1 trillion.
So Lindsey is worth listening to. And he is now saving that the Obamaites may be wildly underestimating the deficits America is going to run in this decade. Here is why.
The average rate of interest the Fed has had to pay to borrow for the last two decades has been 5.7 percent. However, President Obama is projecting the cost of money at only 2.5 percent.
A return to the normal Fed rate would, by 2020, add $4.9 trillion to the cumulative deficit, says Lindsey, more than twice the $2 trillion in savings being discussed in Joe Biden’s debt-ceiling deal.
Second, Obama is estimating growth in 2012, 2013 and 2014 at 4, 4.5 and 4.1 percent. But the normal rate for a mature economy recovering from recession is 2.5 percent.
Hence, if we return to a normal rate of growth, rather than rise to Obama’s projected rate, says Lindsey, that would add $700 billion to the deficit over the next three years and $4 trillion by 2020.
Taken together, a U.S. return to a normal rate of growth of 2.5 percent, higher than today, and a normal rate of interest for the Fed could add as much as $9 trillion to the deficits between now and 2020.
New taxes on millionaires and billionaires who ride around in corporate jets can’t cover a tenth of 1 percent of these deficits.
Writes Lindsey, “Only serious long-term spending reduction in the entitlement area can begin to address the nation’s deficit and debt problems.”

• 

His conclusion is logical, but seems impossible to achieve when both parties are talking of taking Medicare and Social Security off the table. Which makes his final point all the more compelling:
“Under current government policies and economic projections, (bondholders) should be far more concerned about a return of their principal in 10 years than about any short-term delay in interest payments in August.”
Lindsey is saying that the probability of U.S. bonds losing face value through inflation or default is high, given the size of the deficits we will be running and the improbability that any deficit-reduction plan now out there can significantly reduce them.
Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s are already talking of downgrading U.S. debt if the debt ceiling is not raised by early August.
Is America then headed for an inevitable default?
One Chinese economist is already accusing us of defaulting, as the Fed’s flooding of the world with dollars has seen the dollar lose 10 percent of its value against other currencies in the last year.
Holding $1 trillion in U.S. debt, China has watched the purchasing power of that U.S. paper plummet. Understandably, Beijing fears that if we ever pay back all they have lent us, it will be in U.S. dollars of far lesser value.
What should House Republicans do?
Stick to their principles and convictions.
For the cause of the deficit-debt crisis has been the explosion in federal spending under Barack Obama to the largest share of the U.S. economy since the climactic years of World War II.
Administrations of both parties contributed to this rise in the federal share of gross domestic product. But the GOP committed itself in 2010 to rein it in, without raising taxes. On that pledge the GOP triumphed and should keep its commitment.
First, because it is a solemn undertaking with a nation disgusted with politicians who say one thing and do another. Second, because our fiscal crisis, like Europe’s, is a result of too much government, not too little revenue. Third, because there is no credible school of economic thought that says raising taxes on the productive sector when one in six workers is unemployed or underemployed is the way to prosperity.
Under Obama these past two years, the nation relied on the U.S. government to pull us out of the ditch. But Obama’s $787 billion stimulus, his three deficits of 10 percent of GDP, and Ben Bernanke’s tripling of Fed assets by buying the bad paper of big banks and $600 billion in U.S. debt all failed.
For Republicans to agree now to a tax increases that would violate their principles, their promises to the voters and their basic philosophy — and be icing on the cake of Obama’s debt-ceiling increase — would be politically suicidal.
Indeed, were the Republican Party to do this, it would raise the question of why we need a Republican Party.

Russia Calls For Cease Fire In Libya, Rebel Leader: Gadhafi Can Stay In Libya

(CNN) -- Libya's rebel leader says he does not have a problem with Moammar Gadhafi remaining in the country, once he resigns and as long as he remains under supervision, according to a television report.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil contradicted earlier opposition statements that Gadhafi's exit from the country was an absolute prerequisite to bring about the end of the months-long conflict. It signaled a possible willingness to negotiate with the Libyan leader to bring about an end to the fighting.
In a Reuters Television report Sunday, Jalil made the comments while reacting to a proposal put forward by the African Union, which rebels have interpreted to mean Gadhafi should have no further role in the country's leadership.
Jalil told Reuters once Gadhafi resigns, "At that point he can decide if he would stay in Libya or abroad."
"If he desires to stay in Libya, we will be the ones to determine the place and there will be international supervision on all his movements and communications," he said during an interview in the rebel-stronghold of Benghazi.

Jalil took the reins of the rebel movements after resigning from Gadhafi's government in February over what he saw as excessive use of force against demonstrators calling for the leader's resignation.
Libyan government spokesman Musa Ibrahim has previously said the prospect of a peace deal would be welcomed, but not one that rested on Gadhafi's departure.
The fighting in Libya is slated to take center stage Monday at a meeting between NATO nations and Russia. The meeting brings together countries who support the airstrikes targeting Gadhafi's forces and one of the biggest critics of the bombing campaign.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as part of the Russia-NATO Council meeting in Russia's Black Sea resort town of Sochi, Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing the Kremlin.
"The sole possibility of stabilizing the situation in Libya is an immediate cease-fire and the start of talks between the internal Libyan participants in the conflict with the support of, but not interference from, outside," the Kremlin said, according to RIA Novosti.
Russia has been a critic of the NATO bombing campaign that began in March after the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution for the use of force, with the exception of a ground invasion, to protect civilians. Russia, a member of the Security Council, abstained from the vote.
"Special responsibility in the search for a political-diplomatic solution to the crisis lies with regional organizations, above all the African Union, and the UN secretary general's special envoy," the Kremlin said, according to the news report.
The meeting follows reports Sunday of fierce fighting in western Libya, where Gadhafi's forces have been shelling the towns of Yefren and Kikla, east of the rebel stronghold of Zintan.
The shelling began three days ago, according to Mazigh Buzakhar, who works for an opposition media group.
Buzakhar said clashes in the western Nafusa mountains on Sunday killed two rebel fighters and wounded 11.
CNN cannot independently confirm Buzakhar's account.
Conditions in the embattled towns in the Nafusa mountains are bleak, with no electricity and a shortage of water, Buzakhar said.
Rebels have been battling Gadhafi's forces for months in an attempt to bring about an end to the Libyan leader's 42-year rule.
The rebels received a financial boost Sunday when Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu pledged $200 million in support to the opposition. Davutoglu made the pledge during a meeting with Jalil in Benghazi, the foreign ministry said.
The Foreign Ministry told CNN Monday that Turkey recognizes the opposition in Libya as legitimate representatives of the country, however, it does not mean the rebels are recognized as the sole representatives.
Turkey has not cut off its diplomatic relations with Gadhafi's government, the ministry said.
Gadhafi has been under international pressure to step down, and the International Criminal Court at The Hague issued a warrant for his arrest as well as for the arrest of his son, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi and his brother-in-law Abdullah al-Sanussi.
The warrants are "for crimes against humanity," including murder and persecution, "allegedly committed across Libya" from February 15 through "at least" February 28, the court said in a statement.
On Sunday, South African President Jacob Zuma traveled to Russia to discuss efforts to end the fighting in Libya, just days after he and other members of the African Union said would not cooperate with the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Moammar Gadhafi.
Zuma and others were attending a meeting of the International Contact Group on Libya -- a group of NATO countries, Arab nations and other countries working to bring about an end to the months-long conflict.
The African Union said its members will not cooperate with the ICC's arrest warrant for Gadhafi, arguing that the measure jeopardizes efforts to negotiate a peace deal in the war-torn nation.
The arrest warrant "seriously complicates the efforts aimed at finding a negotiated political solution to the crisis in Libya," said a statement summarizing the countries' decision at a summit in Equatorial Guinea that ended Friday.
Libya is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the international court's authority, and the court does not have the power to enter Libya and arrest the leaders.

Gadhafi has made clear he would not recognize the court's authority.