enlarge Noted terrorist Nicky Wishart, 12, with his mother at home in Witney. Isn’t it interesting, the lengths to which “civilized” Western nations now go to stifle even the least threatening protest? This one really takes the cake: A schoolboy trying to save his youth club was hauled from class after his plan to protest outside David Cameron’s constituency office was spotted – by anti-terror police. In an astonishing over-reaction, 12-year-old Nicky Wishart was warned he faced arrest. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “The policeman asked me lots of questions about why we were having a protest and who would be there. “I said it was simply because we didn’t want our youth centre to close – it’s a fantastic place to go and there isn’t much else for us to do round here.” The full-scale security operation swung into effect days after Nicky made an innocent request on Facebook to “save our youth centre”. The surprised boy was told police were now monitoring his Facebook posts – which are mainly gossip and banter from school about lessons and friends’ haircuts. He was told he would be responsible for any “trouble” at the well-mannered picket on Friday night. Public-spirited Nicky, one of the PM’s constituents in the Oxfordshire seat of Witney, said: “All this is because Mr Cameron is our local MP and it’s a bit embarrassing for him.” He said the police arrived during an English lesson on Tuesday afternoon. “I was taken out of class – and the policeman said, ‘Are you aware that the anti-terrorist squad are looking at your Facebook account?’ He said that if anything got out of hand, they would arrest people. “Then he said that I could get arrested for organising it. I was frightened and wished my mum was with me.” Nicky, who describes himself as a “maths geek, not a rebel or rioter”, said: “Then the policeman asked, ‘Does your mum know about this?’ I said, ‘Yes, of course, she supports it.’ “But the policeman carried on, ‘Are you sure your mum wants you out protesting at night?’ He was trying to scare me off – but there was no way I wasn’t going to go.” In opposition, Mr Cameron often spoke of the need to keep youth clubs open to give youngsters a constructive way to spend their time. He said in 2007: “Before people break the law, we need strong families, we need youth clubs, we need things to divert people from crime.” But, as part of the Con-Dem cuts, Tory-run Oxfordshire County Council is axing £4million of funding for 20 clubs – including the one in Nicky’s home village, Eynsham. The council claims volunteers might take over as part of Mr Cameron’s “Big Society”.
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Did you see all the golf references in the 60 Minutes segment on Rep. John Boehner? You can thank your donations to Blue America and Americans for AmericaPac, because CBS contacted us for permission to use our “golf ads” in their program. Lesley Stahl brought up his golf game a couple of times as she gave CBS a puff piece on Boehner just in time for Christmas. I didn’t really expect too much from her, but it would have been nice to mention a little of his sordid history of handing out checks from Big Tobacco if she was going to do a personal profile. In this 1996 documentary by PBS called “The People and the Power Game ,” John Boehner is caught red-handed in an amazing act of corruption, and his biggest critics are fellow Republicans. Boehner: Mine asked me to give out a half dozen checks quickly before we got to the end of the month and I complied. I did it on the House floor which I regret and I should not have done, it’s not a violation of the House rules, but it’s a practice that’s gone on here for a long time. Were the checks from tobacco companies? Boehner: Ahh, I think if my memory serves me correctly, I think it was a tobacco company, yes. Q)….but in this case tobacco’s well timed contributions helped save its subsidy. The people that were passing out the checks won. He did say that he’s never been to a tanning salon before so I guess it’s all that golf he plays in the bright sunlight that gives him that orange hue. Lesley also got hung up on the fact that President Obama repeatedly said that the Republicans were holding America hostage. Stahl: He basically called you a hostage-taker. Boehner: Excuse me, Mr. President. I thought the election was over. You know, you get a lot of that heated rhetoric during an election. But now it’s time to govern. {} Stahl: There have been moments of disrespect shown to President Obama. Boehner: Well, there was some disrespect, I would suggest, that was shown to me yesterday by the president. Boehner repeatedly attacked the Democratic Party and the President too many times for me to recount but here’s a few: Hmmm. So let’s see now. This would be the same John Boehner who threw an hour-long hissy fit on the House floor, called President Obama a “leftist” (when you stop laughing so hard, remember that David Gregory didn’t bother to challenge him on that either), promised to do everything within his power to make it difficult to pass health care reform , advocated layoffs of police and firefighters rather than compromise on the stimulus bill, and called President Obama a socialist before lying about calling him a socialist . He’s so sensitive, or is he? One of the most alarming things in this interview was the fact that he starts crying like a baby at the drop of a hat. There’s “sensitive” and then there’s pathological . It was truly bizarre. People think that’s it’s hard for an actor to cry during a scene, but watching Boehner weep more often than Glenn Beck illustrates that it’s not very hard at all. And on election night, in his victory speech, the public saw something they probably never expected from Boehner: it was called “the sob heard round the world.” Can you imagine if Democratic politicians acted this way? FOX News would be running stories 24/7 about how al-Qaeda and all the lone wolf cells would be emboldened to terrorism because of their weakness. It would be non-stop. How serious is a man like John Boehner after all? Here’s his take on global warming with the very serious George Stephanopoulos. Boehner cites cows’ flatulence to defend his sacred carbon emissions”> Rep. John Boehner cites cows’ flatulence to defend his sacred carbon emissions STEPHANOPOULOS: So what is the responsible way? That’s my question. What is the Republican plan to deal with carbon emissions, which every major scientific organization has said is contributing to climate change? BOEHNER: George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide. And so I think it’s clear… Stahl missed that one too. His Tea Party allies will not be pleased as soon as he has to vote to raise the debt ceiling, but just think about it. He’s like the choice after VP Biden to take over the White House in case of an unforeseen emergency.
Continue reading …From the AP : A federal judge declared the Obama administration's health care law unconstitutional Monday, siding with Virginia's attorney general in a dispute that both sides agree will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson is the first federal judge to strike down the law, which has been upheld by two others in Virginia and Michigan. Several other lawsuits have been dismissed and others are pending, including one filed by 20 other states in Florida. read more
Continue reading …MSNBC and Fox News are reporting that U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson has ruled unconstitutional the portion of the new federal health-care reform law requiring individuals to purchase health insurance. Here’s a preview of the case. As it notes: But the decision will not have any immediate effect. The individual mandate portion of the law does not begin until 2014, and any decision will almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court. More details as they arrive. UPDATE: Kevin Sack at the New York Times reports: A federal district judge in Virginia ruled on Monday that the keystone provision in the Obama health care law is unconstitutional, becoming the first court in the country to invalidate any part of the sprawling act and insuring that appellate courts will receive contradictory opinions from below. Judge Henry E. Hudson, who was appointed to the bench by former President George W. Bush, declined the plaintiff’s request to freeze implementation of the law pending appeal, meaning that there should be no immediate effect on the ongoing rollout of the law. But the ruling is likely to create confusion among the public and further destabilize political support for legislation that is under fierce attack from Republicans in Congress and in many statehouses. In a 42-page opinion issued in Richmond, Va., Judge Hudson wrote that the law’s central requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance exceeds the regulatory authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The insurance mandate is central to the law’s mission of covering more than 30 million uninsured because insurers argue that only by requiring healthy people to have policies can they afford to treat those with expensive chronic conditions. The judge wrote that his survey of case law “yielded no reported decisions from any federal appellate courts extending the Commerce Clause or General Welfare Clause to encompass regulation of a person’s decision not to purchase a product, not withstanding its effect on interstate commerce or role in a global regulatory scheme.”
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Week after week we have our media pushing the idea that right wing ideology is somehow “centrist” with Bill Kristol’s hackery here on Fox News Sunday just being another recent example. Even though Kristol admits that every one of the policies he’s praising President Obama for embracing are all Republican ideas, he paints it as being a pivot to the center. Sorry Bill, but it’s a hard turn to the right in the under the guise of “compromise”. WALLACE: The subtext in all this Bill is after his midterm shellacking, the president moved to the center and won reelection. Is that what Obama began to do this week, making his deal with Republicans to pivot to the center and how do you think that will work for him? KRISTOL: Yes. That’s exactly what he did. We predicted this I think right at the Sunday, right after this show everyone was like oh, he’s such an ideologue, he’ll never move to the center, he can’t do what Clinton did. Remember that debate that took place a couple of weeks after this election? Could Obama pull a Clinton? Obama’s literally pulled a Clinton… he’s standing there with Bill Clinton and they’re accepting… Barack Obama and Bill Clinton stood up there and defended the Bush tax rates and the Republican estate tax proposal. Now just think about that for a moment. They weren’t defending the Clinton tax rate. They weren’t defending the Obama tax… LIASSON: They were defending the payroll tax cut and… KRISTOL: They were defending the payroll tax cut which is something Republicans have liked for a long time. Anyway, I’m saying this is from a policy point of view, this is a big move to the center by President Obama, following incidentally on his symbolic little freeze for government workers pay which is something Republicans have been for. The South Korean free trade agreement, something Republicans have been for. He’s going to stay in the surge in Afghanistan. Remember that December review where Obama was going to begin pulling out. No way, no how. David Petraeus is in charge of Aghanistan. So the president has pivoted to the center which is good for the country. It’s good for conservatives. I do think it helps his reelection prospects some because being you know, moderate conservative… WILLIAMS: That’s what I was saying… KRISTOL: There’s still enough things he’s on the left on that I think Republicans will be fine.
Continue reading …I caught this over on TalkLeft last night . If this is true, it certainly seems to indicate something rather nefarious might be happening. Looks like they just want an excuse, any excuse, to indict him and hold him in American custod y: Via CBS News , Mark Stephens, attorney for Wikileaks’ Julian Assange, appears on David Frost’s al Jazeera TV show and says they’ve received word a grand jury has been empaneled in Alexandria, VA to investigate criminal charges. “We have heard from the Swedish authorities there has been a secretly empaneled grand jury in Alexandria…just over the river from Washington DC, next to the Pentagon,” Stephens said. “They are currently investigating this, and indeed the Swedes we understand have said that if he comes to Sweden, they will defer their interest in him to the Americans. Now that shows some level of collusion and embarrassment, so it does seem to me what we have here is nothing more than holding charges…so ultimately they can get their mitts on him .
Continue reading …Every year a panel of leading conservative media observers and experts picks the most-biased media quotes for the Media Research Center's annual awards for the year's “worst reporting.” And these judges have done so again this year to decide the 2010 award “winners” with the choices to be announced on Monday, December 20. But now you too can participate via a separately-compiled Web ballot!
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Compare and contrast.
Continue reading …That taxpayer-funded leftist sandbox called National Public Radio promoted the latest work/wreck of “progressive art” on Saturday morning's Weekend Edition . In San Francisco, they're twisting the classic ballet The Nutcracker into a radical-left jeremiad. Anchor Scott Simon announced nonchalantly: “'Tis the season for The Nutcracker. One production in San Francisco is decorated with a grab-bag of liberal political causes. In the Revolutionary Nutcracker Sweetie, the ice caps melt during the dance of the snowflakes and Clara is an undocumented Latina maid.” Liberal reporters think liberals aren't at all noteworthy so they get no label. When the media elite announces something has “liberal causes,” it's extremely leftist. Reporter April Dembosky interviewed the show's writer and director, Krissy Keefer, about her twisted take on Tchaikovsky: KEEFER: We are a political dance company in that we try to make work that is socially relevant, that is responding to the real ideas and real needs of people today in the community. read more
Continue reading …Many thanks and much love to the bloggers who guested here while I was running around Europe for the past ten weeks. And… HERE THEY ARE! Vagabond Scholar : The Rich and Wealthy (Now in Video!) The Reaction : Yes, Nixon was a bigot. What else is new? Mock, Paper, Scissors : Happy Zappadan, um, like what day is it? The Satirical Political Report : John Boehner Breaks ‘Breakdown Record’ on 60 Minutes PERRspectives: Palin Endorses Medicare Rationing : More than a little ironic: Palin Endorses Medicare Rationing My friend Swimgirl also chipped in with two weeks of stellar service, and the mutitalented Blue Gal was, as always, indispensable.
Continue reading …