DO DRONES SPY ON U.S. SOIL? FBI DIRECTOR SAYS ‘YES’ BUT IN A ‘VERY, VERY MINIMAL WAY’

Original Post: The Blaze

Liz Klimas

FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, yes, the government does use drones over U.S. soil for surveillance — but not too much.

When asked by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) about the use of unmanned aircraft, Mueller said “Our footprint is very small. We have very few,” according to Wired.

ederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller testifies during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee June 19, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Mueller confirmed that the FBI uses drones for domestic surveillance during the hearing on FBI oversight. Grassley pressed, asking about their purpose, to which Mueller said they were for surveillance. Surveillance on U.S. soil?

“Yes, in a very, very minimal way, and seldom,” Mueller said.

The Huffington Post reported Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) expressing privacy concerns over the use of drones and calling them “the greatest threat to the privacy of Americans.”

In terms of privacy protections built into the drone program at the moment, Mueller said the program itself “is very narrowly focused on particularized cases and particularized needs,” which he called “the principal privacy limitation we have.”

He did say the bureau was in the “initial stages” of developing privacy guidelines though.

In May of this year, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that the Obama administration had killed four Americans using drones in Yemen and Pakistan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also showed letters sent by Holder that said “the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”

The FAA was charged with drafting new regulations that would open up the skies of America to more private, commercial and military drone use by 2015.

Homeland Security graduates first Corps of Obama’s Brown Shirts – Homeland Youth

Original Post: From The Trenches World Report

It Makes Sense Blog October 7, 2012. Vicksburg. The federal government calls them FEMA Corps. But they conjure up memories of the Hitler Youth of 1930’s Germany. Regardless of their name, the Dept of Homeland Security has just graduated its first class of 231 Homeland Youth. Kids, aged 18-24 and recruited from the President’s AmeriCorp volunteers, they represent the first wave of DHS’s youth corps, designed specifically to create a full time, paid, standing army of FEMA Youth across the country.

On September 13, 2012, the Department of Homeland Security graduated its first class of FEMA Corps first-responders. While the idea of having a volunteer force of tens of thousands of volunteers scattered across the country to aid in times of natural disasters sounds great, the details and timing of this new government army is somewhat curious, if not disturbing.

The first problem one finds with this ‘new army’ is the fact that they are mere children. Yes, 18 is generally the legal age a person can sign a contract, join the military or be tried as an adult. But ask any parent – an 18, 20 or even a 24 year-old is still a naïve, readily-influenced kid.

The second problem with this announcement and program is its timing. Over the past two years, President Obama has signed a number of Executive Orders suspending all civil and Constitutional rights and turning over management of an America under Martial Law to FEMA. Also in that time, domestic federal agencies under DHS, including FEMA, have ordered billions of rounds of ammunition as well as the corresponding firearms. Admittedly, these new weapons and ammunition aren’t to be used in some far-off war or to fight forest fires in California, but right here on the streets of America.

Individuals around the US have begun reporting the site of strange, new, heavily-armed FEMA fighting vehicles. What would a disaster relief agency like FEMA need with 2,500 brand new GLS armored fighting vehicles? According to the agency’s own mandate, as well as President Obama’s recent Executive Order, the answer is ‘population control’ during a time of Martial Law.

One set of images made available by Rense.com shows trailer after trailer carrying these new DHS and FEMA armored fighting vehicles, complete with machine gun slots. They’re labeled with the usual backward American flag and the title, ‘Homeland Security’. Below that and the DHS logo, it also reads, ‘Immigration & Customs Enforcement’. Joining those markings, the black vehicles with white lettering also display ‘POLICE/RESCUE’ on one side and ‘Special Response Team’ on the other.

FEMA Deputy Administrator Rich Serino gave the keynote address at the ‘Induction Ceremony’ for the inaugural class of FEMA Corps members. According to the DHS website, ‘Corps members assist with disaster preparedness, response, and recovery activities, providing support in areas ranging from working directly with disaster survivors to supporting disaster recovering centers to sharing valuable disaster preparedness and mitigation information with the public.’

Serino describes what the first FEMA Corps class has accomplished so far, as well as where they’ll be going next:

‘Yesterday, we welcomed 231 energetic members into the first ever FEMA Corps class. The members just finished off their first month of training with our partners at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and are one step closer to working in the field on disaster response and recovery. They will now head to FEMA’s Center for Domestic Preparedness to spend the next two weeks training in their FEMA position-specific roles. Once they complete both the CNCS and FEMA training, these 231 dedicated FEMA Corps members will be qualified to work in one of a variety of disaster related roles, ranging from Community Relations to Disaster Recovery Center support.’

Unlike most local disaster response teams who are volunteers, training periodically and only showing up when there’s a disaster, the FEMA Corps will be a paid, full time, standing army of government youth. FEMA Deputy Administrator Sarino goes on to explain, ‘The new members, who range in age from 18-24 years old, will contribute to a dedicated, trained, and reliable disaster workforce by working full-time for ten months on federal disaster response and recovery efforts.’

In closing his announcement of the first graduating class of FEMA Corps Youth, Sarino describes his and the agency’s vision of the future, one where ‘FEMA Corps sets the foundation for a new generation of emergency managers’.

As we detailed in the August 28 Whiteout Press article ‘History of DHS Ammunition Purchases’, federal emergency management agencies are looking more and more like a military army every day.

The federal government’s procurement website actually lists DHS’ requests for bids to supply it with ammunition and military weaponry. All of the orders listed in the above article, including the orders for hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition, are publicly available at http://www.fbo.gov.

One look at a chart of DHS ammunition purchases over the past decade reveals a drastic spike in orders of bullets recently, totaling in the billions of rounds. Other charts available online show a similar drastic spike in the purchases of accompanying weaponry by the Department of Homeland Security.

What is the US federal government preparing for? And why does it feel it needs an army of brainwashed youth, millions of guns, thousands of armored fighting vehicles and literally billions of rounds of ammunition, just to provide relief to the American people during a natural disaster? Any historian will tell you it sounds more like the arming of the Hitler Youth than an army of first responders fighting forest fires and hurricanes.

Obama administration targets Fox News reporter in 'chilling' echo of AP probe

Original Post: CS Monitor

By Husna Haq

Associated Press reporters are not alone. One week after news broke that the Justice Department secretly obtained phone records from AP, more news has emerged about the Obama administration’s campaign to silence leaks.

Gary Pruitt, CEO of the Associated press, told CBS's "Face the Nation" this weekend that the Justice Department’s investigation is already silencing AP sources. This time, it’s new details about a 2010 Justice Department investigation into a Fox News correspondent who reported government secrets on North Korea. The twist is that in the Fox News case, the government is suggesting that the reporter broke the law and criminal charges could result.

The news points to how the Obama administration is going to unprecedented lengths to defend secrets – prosecuting more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined.

Anecdotal evidence suggests the crackdown is having an effect, with AP saying some of its sources are falling silent. But that success could come at the expense of the newsgathering and investigative-reporting process that the Founding Fathers saw as a crucial check on federal power.

The Fox News case, in particular, suggests the “criminalization of investigative journalism,” writes Glenn Greenwald in The Guardian, a British newspaper.

According to a Washington Post report Sunday, Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen reported in June 2009 on a CIA analysis that suggested North Korea may respond to UN sanctions with more nuclear tests. The story was published online the same day that a confidential report on the matter was released to select officials in the intelligence community, including a State Department security adviser, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim.

Detecting a connection, FBI investigators built a case alleging Mr. Kim leaked information to Mr. Rosen. To do so, they used every tool in their arsenal: analyzing security badge access records to track Rosen’s comings and goings from the State Department, tracing the timing of his calls to Kim, even subpoenaing his personal e-mails. Ultimately, FBI agents concluded Kim did, in fact, leak information to Rosen using a complex, if clumsy, system of communication including aliases and coded signals.

In his report, FBI investigator Reginald Reyes said evidence suggested Rosen had broken the law, “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.”

While details on the case are forthcoming, it is not a crime for journalists to report classified information, except in rare circumstances. Furthermore, government seizure of media records is tightly circumscribed under the government’s Code of Federal Regulations.

The AP and Fox News cases renew concerns about the potential stifling effect government investigations have on reporters and their sources.

“Search warrants like these have a severe chilling effect on the free flow of important information to the public,” said First Amendment lawyer Charles Tobin in the Washington Post report. “That’s a very dangerous road to go down.”

Jane Mayer of The New Yorker goes further: “It's a huge impediment to reporting, and so chilling isn't quite strong enough, it's more like freezing the whole process into a standstill,” she told the New Republic.

As a case in point, Gary Pruitt, CEO of the AP, told CBS’s "Face the Nation" this weekend that the Justice Department’s investigation is already silencing AP sources.

“Already, officials that would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal course of news gathering are already saying to us that they're a little reluctant to talk to us,” he said. “They fear that they – they will be monitored by the government.”

Perhaps the most serious implication, however, is that the investigations threaten to jeopardize the very practice of investigative journalism, already endangered by budget cuts and the 24/7 news cycle.

“Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information,” writes The Guardian's Mr. Greenwald. “That fact, along with the First Amendment's guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ – that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for 'soliciting' the disclosure of classified information – is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself.”

IRS asked pro-life group about 'the content of their prayers'

Original Post:Washington Examiner

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing today, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., grilled outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller about the IRS targeting a pro-life group in Iowa.

“Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: ‘Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers,’" Schock declared.

“Would that be an inappropriate question to a 501 c3 applicant?” asked Schock. “The content of one’s prayers?”

“It pains me to say I can’t speak to that one either,” Miller replied.

After Schock pressed him further, Miller explained that although he couldn't comment on the specific case, it would "surprise him" if that question was asked.

The report comes from the Thomas More Society, a national public interest law firm for religious liberty.

Sign Up for the Politics Digest newsletter! From their report:

Coalition for Life of Iowa found itself in the IRS’s crosshairs when the group applied for tax exempt status in October 2008. Nearly ten months of interrogation about the group’s opposition to Planned Parenthood included a demand by a Ms. Richards from the IRS’ Cincinnati office unlawfully insisted that all board members sign a sworn declaration promising not to picket/protest Planned Parenthood. Further questioning by the IRS requested detailed information about the content of the group’s prayer meetings, educational seminars, and signs their members hold outside Planned Parenthood.

The IRS admits to targeting conservative groups but were they also leaking?

Original Post: Daily Caller

A little over a year ago, I reported that, ”It is likely that someone at the Internal Revenue Service illegally leaked confidential donor information showing a contribution from Mitt Romney’s political action committee to the National Organization for Marriage, says the group.”

Now — on the heels of news the IRS’s apology for having targeted conservative groups — NOM is renewing their demand that the Internal Revenue Service reveal the identity of the people responsible.

“There is little question that one or more employees at the IRS stole our confidential tax return and leaked it to our political enemies, in violation of federal law,” said NOM’s president Brian Brow, in a prepared statement. “The only questions are who did it, and whether there was any knowledge or coordination between people in the White House, the Obama reelection campaign and the Human Rights Campaign. We and the American people deserve answers.”

Recent reports indicate the IRS may have begun targeting conservative groups as early as 2010.

In a 2012 speech, Sen. Mitch McConnell noted, “The head of one national advocacy group has released documents which show that his group’s confidential IRS information found its way into the hands of a staunch critic on the Left who also happens to be a co-chairman of President Obama’s re-election committee. The only way this information could have been made public is if someone leaked it from inside the IRS.”

And so, the next question may be this: If the IRS was targeting conservative groups — as they now admit to doing — were they also leaking information?

UPDATE: In December of 2012, ProPublica wrote that they had obtained the application for recognition of tax-exempt status for Crossroads GPS, filed in September of 2010.

As the ProPublica story noted:

“‘As far as we know, the Crossroads application is still pending, in which case it seems that either you obtained whatever document you have illegally, or that it has been approved,’ Jonathan Collegio, the group’s spokesman, said in an email.

“The IRS sent Crossroads’ application to ProPublica in response to a public-records request. The document sent to ProPublica didn’t include an official IRS recognition letter, which is typically attached to applications of nonprofits that have been recognized. The IRS is only required to give out applications of groups recognized as tax-exempt.

“In an email Thursday, an IRS spokeswoman said the agency had no record of an approved application for Crossroads GPS, meaning that the group’s application was still in limbo.

After Benghazi, IRS tea party probe: Govt seized AP phone records

Original Post: Yahoo

By Olivier Knox

Exactly ten days ago, President Barack Obama was piously telling reporters who cover him that free speech and an independent press are “essential pillars of our democracy.” On Monday, the Associated Press accused his administration of undermining that very pillar by secretly obtaining two months’ worth of telephone records of AP reporters and editors.

“We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news,” AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.

The latest revelations are sure to pour fuel on the fire of Richard Nixon comparisons in the wake of revelations that the IRS may have improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative, tea party-linked groups. This might, in order words, not be a great time to announce a groundbreaking trip to China.

And the news threatens to pile fresh political woes on a second term already burdened by a painful gun control defeat, a seemingly stalled economic agenda, and Republican rage at the botched response to the Sept. 12, 2012 terrorist attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

The revelations that the Justice Department may have sought AP phone records drew an angry response from Republican House Speaker John Boehner's office. “The First Amendment is first for a reason. If the Obama Administration is going after reporters’ phone records, they better have a damned good explanation," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.

And Laura Murphy, a top American Civil Liberties Union official in Washington, D.C., condemned "unwarranted surveillance" of the press and urged Holder to explain what transpired "so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again.”

Holder was expected to face questions on the issue when he appears Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia did not answer a question from Yahoo News on whether other news outlets had been targeted. The spokesman, Bill Miller, did not confirm the AP allegations, but insisted in a statement that "we take seriously our obligations to follow all applicable laws, federal regulations, and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations."

Pruitt, in his letter to Holder, fiercely disagreed. He said that the Justice Department had obtained telephone records for more than 20 separate phone lines assigned to the AP -- the world's largest wire service -- and its journalists. The records cover a two-month span in early 2012 and cover phones lines for AP in New York City, Washington D.C., Hartford, Conn., and one line at the AP workspace in the House of Representatives.

"This action was taken without advance notice to AP or to any of the affected journalists, and even after the fact no notice has been sent to individual journalists whose home phones and cell phone records were seized by the Department," Pruitt wrote. "There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters," Pruitt wrote. "These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know." Pruitt called it "particularly troubling" that the Justice Department "undertook this unprecedented step without providing any notice to the AP, and without taking any steps to narrow the scope of its subpoenas to matters actually relevant to an ongoing investigation."

In his statement, Miller said DoJ regulations "require us to make every reasonable effort to obtain information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of the media."

And "we must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation," he said. "Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws."

An Associated Press news story on the Justice Department's actions noted: The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

Ever since the days of his history-making 2008 presidential campaign, Obama has repeatedly cast himself as a champion of open government and reform. Aides are fond of praising "the most transparent administration in history" -- a moniker that might be accurate, but mostly because of poor standards set by his predecessors. It's like being the most powerful cricket team in Alaska.

And the Obama administration has not been shy about taking steps to deny Freedom of Information Act requests on national security grounds.

Just ten days ago, on May 3, Obama noted during a visit to Costa Rica that it was "World Press Freedom Day."

"So everybody from the American press corps, you should thank the people of Costa Rica for celebrating free speech and an independent press as essential pillars of our democracy," he said.

On Monday, Obama was scooping up cash for Democrats in New York City. His spokesman, Jay Carney, referred questions about the AP letter to the Justice Department.

Memo spells out when it's OK to kill Al Qaeda-linked Americans without trial

Original Post: The Star

WASHINGTON—The White House and its critics faced off Tuesday over the legality of drone strikes to kill U.S. citizens abroad, in a likely preview of arguments that will be raised during this week’s confirmation hearing for President Barack Obama’s choice to head the CIA.

The disclosure of an unclassified Justice Department memo laying out the legal framework for the U.S. government’s ability to attack its own citizens drew criticism from civil liberties groups. But the White House strongly defended the controversial policy as legal and ethical.

The memo, first obtained by NBC News, argues that drone strikes are justified under American law if a targeted U.S. citizen had “recently” been involved in “activities” posing a possible threat and provided there is no evidence suggesting the individual “renounced or abandoned” such activities. A top U.S. official must determine that the targeted person “poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States,” cannot be captured, and that the strike “would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney defended current U.S. drone policy, saying they are used to mitigate threats, stop plots, prevent future attacks and save American lives. “These strikes are legal, they are ethical and they are wise,” he said. Civil liberties groups expressed concerns, while lawmakers called on the White House to release more of its legal underpinning for the assertion that the president has the power to kill U.S. citizens abroad without trial.

“My initial reaction is that the paper only underscores the irresponsible extravagance of the government’s central claim,” Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union wrote on the ACLU’s blog. “Even if the Obama administration is convinced of its own fundamental trustworthiness, the power this white paper sets out will be available to every future president.”

The use of drones figures to be a prime topic for White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan when he faces the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday in a confirmation hearing on his nomination to become CIA director.

The U.S. government has dramatically increased its use of drones abroad in recent years to target Al Qaeda figures in far-flung places from Pakistan to Yemen.

The document was disclosed as a bipartisan group of U.S. senators called on the Obama administration to release to Congress “any and all” legal opinions laying out the government’s understanding of what legal powers the president has to authorize the killing of American citizens.

The senators who signed the letter, including members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the administration’s co-operation would “help avoid an unnecessary confrontation that could affect the Senate’s consideration of nominees for national security purposes.”

One national security official said the leak of the Justice Department memo may have been timed to blunt such congressional demands for the release of additional documents. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat who chairs the Intelligence Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday that she had been calling on the administration to release legal analyses related to the use of drones for more than a year. Feinstein said the document obtained by NBC had been given to congressional committees last June on a confidential basis, and that her committee is seeking additional documents, which are believed to remain classified.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday said he was concerned that the release of more documents could put sources and operations at risk.

There is “a real concern to reveal sources, to potentially reveal sources and methods and put at risk the very mechanisms that we use to try to keep people safe, which is our primary responsibility,” he said at a news conference.

The memo is drawing new attention to the 2011 strike that killed U.S.-born Anwar al Awlaki, who U.S. investigators say was a major player with Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate and linked to a botched plot to blow up a U.S. airliner with a bomb hidden in a man’s underwear on Christmas Day 2009. His teenage son was also killed in a drone strike.

Targeted killings carried out by remotely piloted unmanned aircraft are controversial because of the risks to nearby civilians and because of their increasing frequency. The United Nations recently launched an investigation into their use.

Most such attacks have been carried out by the United States, but Britain and Israel have also used drones.

Hina Shamsi of the ACLU, which has sued for more information on the drone program, called the memo “profoundly disturbing” and “a stunning overreach of executive authority.”

Shamsi, head of the ACLU’s National Security Project, in a statement called on the Obama administration to release what she said was a 50-page classified legal document on which the 16-page summary is based.

“Among other things, we need to know if the limits the executive purports to impose on its killing authority are as loosely defined as in this summary, because if they are, they ultimately mean little,” she said late Monday.

N.Y. Times Op-Ed bashes Obama on drone strikes for assassination

Original Post:Yahoo

By Rachel Rose Hartman

"Who Says You Can Kill Americans, Mr. President?" a scathing New York Times op-ed asked Thursday.

The opinion piece, written by Vicki Divoll, former general counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and former deputy legal adviser to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, heaps criticism on the administration for the practice of using drone strikes for assassination and calls for greater transparency. Divoll writes:

Mr. Obama should declassify and release, to Congress, the press and the public, documents that set forth the detailed constitutional and statutory analysis he relies on for targeting and killing American citizens. Perhaps Mr. Obama still believes that, in a democracy, the people have a right to know the legal theories upon which the president executes his great powers. Certainly, we can hope so. After all, his interpretation might be wrong.

Divoll notes the known killings of three American citizens who were suspected terrorists: Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born Muslim cleric; Samir Khan, a naturalized American citizen who edited an English-language magazine and was with Awlaki at the time of his death; and Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who were all killed overseas.

IPAB Is Even Worse than Romney Says

Original Post: Cato

Posted by Michael F. Cannon

In Wednesday night’s presidential debate, Mitt Romney claimed that ObamaCare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board is “an unelected board that’s going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have.”

President Obama officially denies it, yet he confirmed Romney’s claim when he said, “what this board does is basically identifies best practices and says, let’s use the purchasing power of Medicare and Medicaid to help to institutionalize all these good things that we do.”

In this excerpt from his column in today’s The Washington Post, George F. Will quotes my coauthor Diane Cohen and me to show that IPAB is even worse than Romney claimed:

The Independent Payment Advisory Board perfectly illustrates liberalism’s itch to remove choices from individuals, and from their elected representatives, and to repose the power to choose in supposed experts liberated from democratic accountability.Beginning in 2014, IPAB would consist of 15 unelected technocrats whose recommendations for reducing Medicare costs must be enacted by Congress by Aug. 15 of each year. If Congress does not enact them, or other measures achieving the same level of cost containment, IPAB’s proposals automatically are transformed from recommendations into law. Without being approved by Congress. Without being signed by the president.

These facts refute Obama’s Denver assurance that IPAB “can’t make decisions about what treatments are given.” It can and will by controlling payments to doctors and hospitals. Hence the emptiness of Obamacare’s language that IPAB’s proposals “shall not include any recommendation to ration health care.”

By Obamacare’s terms, Congress can repeal IPAB only during a seven-month window in 2017, and then only by three-fifths majorities in both chambers. After that, the law precludes Congress from ever altering IPAB proposals.

Because IPAB effectively makes law, thereby traducing the separation of powers, and entrenches IPAB in a manner that derogates the powers of future Congresses, it has been well described by a Cato Institute study as “the most anti-constitutional measure ever to pass Congress.”

Lincoln Republican abolishes slavery, Obama Democrat brings it back

Original Post: ABC News

"House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., shot down the Obama administration’s compromise on contraception Sunday, discounting the plan that requires insurance companies, instead of religious hospitals or universities, provide access to free birth control under the new health care law as nothing more than an “accounting trick.” “This thing is a distinction without a difference,” Ryan told me Sunday on “This Week.” “It’s an accounting gimmick or a fig leaf. It’s not a compromise...”

There are so many things wrong with Obama here.
1)I thought Congress already wrote the bill. How can he now offer a compromise? How can the president change the terms of this bill at a whim? I thought we had a separation of powers.
2)Forcing Catholics to provide contraception is against their doctrine and clearly violates the 1st amendment.
3)The Church put out a letter coming out against this change. Obama ordered the Chaplains in the army not to read this letter. A second violation of the first amendment.
4)Obama's "compromise" requires the insurance companies to produce this product for free. What is it called when you force someone to work and you don't pay them? It's slavery. We fought a war over it.

Republican Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and Democrat Barack Obama re-instituted it.

EXCLUSIVE: GAB Investigating Democrat Allegations of Fraud From Wirch Recall

Original Post: Media Trackers

By Collin Roth

The GAB is investigating fraud in a recall effort!

But it is not an investigation into any of the of the recall efforts involving Scott Walker, Rebecca Kleefisch, or four Republican State Senators. This is an investigation into the effort to recall Democratic State Senator Robert Wirch from nearly a year ago.

On Thursday, Media Trackers learned that the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board dispatched two investigators to Kenosha to interview circulators involved in the effort to recall Senator Bob Wirch. According to sources, the investigators were asking about recall training, whether individuals were misled, and about the appearance of the late Bill Pocan’s signature on a recall petition.

Spokesman for the Government Accountability Board Reid Magney had no comment indicating that he cannot comment about ongoing investigations.

One year ago this month, the Taxpayer’s to Recall Robert Wirch launched their drive to recall Democratic State Senator Robert Wirch after he and thirteen other Democratic State Senator’s fled Wisconsin to avoid a vote on the Budget Repair Bill. The recall effort collected 17,138 valid signatures to force a recall of Senator Wirch over the 60-day period from February 24, 2011 to April 25, 2011.

During the signature gathering process, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin recklessly alleged “overwhelming evidence” of fraud in the effort to recall Senator Wirch.

The heart of the Democratic Party’s “overwhelming evidence?” A total of twenty affidavits, or 1/10 of 1% of the signatures gathered.

As a Media Trackers article from May 13, 2011 documents, the affidavits were extremely weak and lacked merit:

Of the 20 signed affidavits, five of the individuals signed recall petitions at Recall Wirch drive-thru’s, which were clearly marked by large signs. Others claimed to have been “tricked” into signing recall petitions for Scott Walker, in support of Sen. Robert Wirch, or even to “recall Sen. Wirch from Illinois.” Three of the 20 affidavits lacked a notary, and two were notarized by Heather Libbey, a staffer of Democratic Senator Mark Miller who Hunt contends, was “sent to Kenosha to thwart the recall efforts.”

The only affidavit that Hunt admitted had “relative substance” was that of Mrs. Pocan, whose deceased husband Bill Pocan, was discovered on a recall petition. Hunt went on to vouch for his organization saying “no one from Recall Wirch put that name on a petition.” A sampling of the affidavits went along these lines:

“I was mistaken when I signed the petition to recall Senator Wirsh(sic). I thought he was a Republican cronie(sic) of Scott Walker. When I found out he was Democrat I wanted to take back the signature.”- Wayne L., Kenosha County

“My neighbor stopped by my house about a month ago and he asked me to sign a petition. Had I known the petition was to recall Senator Wirch, I would not have signed the petition.”- Gertrude Z., Kenosha County

“I saw a sign and stopped. Asked if this was for Senator Wirch and they said yes. I thought that the petition was to get Senator Wirch back to Wisconsin and was not informed that the petition was to recall the Senator.”- Celia G., Kenosha County Dan Hunt, the former Chairman of Taxpayer’s to Recall Robert Wirch, told Media Trackers that special investigators from the GAB arrived on Thursday and interviewed individuals from the Recall Wirch effort concerning citizens who claimed they were “misled.” One such individual who claimed she was misled and signed an affidavit was Lisa Turner of Kenosha. Turner signed an affidavit saying:

A man came to my door and told me that they were trying to get people to sign a petition to have work done on the neighborhood park…I do not and have not supported the efforts to have a recall election held for Senator Wirch’s seat. When the Recall Wirch circulator accused of misleading Turner hired a private investigator to clear his name, the truth quickly came to light and Ms. Turner’s story fell apart. Media Trackers reported on August 12, 2011:

When the private investigator interviewed Turner, Turner stated that in April 2011, she was contacted by a representative from the Wirch campaign who asked explicitly if she had signed a recall petition against State Senator Robert Wirch. Turner responded that she had. As Prijic notes, “since Lisa Turner admitted to signing the Wirch Recall Petition, it makes no sense to claim later that it was a petition to improve a park.”

It was only after admitting she had signed the Recall Wirch petition that the representative from the Wirch campaign told Turner that “the circulators had been informing signers of the recall petition that it was for parks, neighborhood improvements, and streets etc.” When a representative from the Wirch campaign came to Turner’s door to sign the aforementioned affidavit alleging fraud, “Ms. Turner stated she did not read the affidavit or know its contentsI know I totally sign affidavits and legal all the time with out reading any it, including the title so that's an easy mistake to makes. Sarcasm.” Despite the weakness of the actual allegations and affidavits, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board has dispatched at least two special investigators to Kenosha to interview those involved in the effort to recall Senator Wirch.

Dan Hunt, organizer of the Recall Wirch effort told Media Trackers that “the timing of this investigation is rather suspect.”

“At the time of the Democratic challenges, we vigorously defended ourselves and the GAB sided with us on most of the challenges” Hunt said. “It boggles my mind that the GAB can determine at this late date that an investigation is warranted,” Hunt added.

With numerous stories fraud and errors running rampant in the four State Senate recalls, as well as the efforts to recall Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch, the timing of this investigation could not be more suspect. Just last week, an Racine man found his name four times on the petition to recall Senator Van Wanggaard without having signed at all.

Nevertheless, it appears the GAB is devoting their precious resources not to investigating fraud that could effect current recall efforts but to a witch-hunt based on trumped up affidavits gathered by the Democratic Party nearly a year ago.

My comments:
And they didn't even have to be sued to to it? What I want to know is how this investigation started. Presumably the GAB didn't launch this investigation on their own, since their only job is to review petitions. I don't think the Wirch campaign asked for this since it happened a year ago. We also know that the GAB has no possible way of accepting requests to look into fraud from anyone else so what prompted this and why do they suddenly have the resources and authority to do this when they don't for Republicans? Surely it's not a violation of the Equal Protection clause, a group of judges would know better than to violate the Constitution wouldn't they?

Liberal L.A. City Council literally mandating use of condom

Should condom use in pornography be regulated by the city or the state?

Original Post:SCPR

Everybody knows that using condoms during sexual intercourse is safer than not using them, but what the City of Los Angeles appears to be uncertain about is who is responsible for regulating this safety precaution within the adult film industry. A proposed ballot measure that would require porn actors to wear condoms while filming in the city of Los Angeles has qualified for the June ballot. However, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has filed court papers earlier this month arguing that Los Angeles voters would have no legal authority to adopt the proposed measure even if it were listed on a ballot.

Trutanich asserted that only the state — not the city — could legally implement rules requiring the use of condoms on porn sets and charge inspection fees. However, Ellen Widess, the head of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health that regulates workplace safety, claims the city could legally impose the actions necessary to uphold the proposed ballot measure. "We believe the city can use its authority to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS among people involved in the adult film industry" said Widess in a recent interview. County health officials have repeatedly stated it would be difficult to regulate the porn industry through the Department of Public Health and the county’s public health chief has said that the issue is a matter for the California Legislature.

I call the city council liberals because, they are. It's not evident from this piece but, c'mon.

Obama allows military to detain American citizens on American soil indefinably with out a trial

Military given go-ahead to detain US terrorist suspects without trial

Original Post: Guardian

Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay.

Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual rights for the duration of "a war that appears to have no end".

The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military, effectively extends the battlefield in the "war on terror" to the US and applies the established principle that combatants in any war are subject to military detention.

The legislation's supporters in Congress say it simply codifies existing practice, such as the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. But the law's critics describe it as a draconian piece of legislation that extends the reach of detention without trial to include US citizens arrested in their own country.

"It's something so radical that it would have been considered crazy had it been pushed by the Bush administration," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. "It establishes precisely the kind of system that the United States has consistently urged other countries not to adopt. At a time when the United States is urging Egypt, for example, to scrap its emergency law and military courts, this is not consistent."

There was heated debate in both houses of Congress on the legislation, requiring that suspects with links to Islamist foreign terrorist organisations arrested in the US, who were previously held by the FBI or other civilian law enforcement agencies, now be handed to the military and held indefinitely without trial.

The law applies to anyone "who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaida, the Taliban or associated forces".

Senator Lindsey Graham said the extraordinary measures were necessary because terrorism suspects were wholly different to regular criminals.

"We're facing an enemy, not a common criminal organisation, who will do anything and everything possible to destroy our way of life," he said. "When you join al-Qaida you haven't joined the mafia, you haven't joined a gang. You've joined people who are bent on our destruction and who are a military threat."

Other senators supported the new powers on the grounds that al-Qaida was fighting a war inside the US and that its followers should be treated as combatants, not civilians with constitutional protections.

But another conservative senator, Rand Paul, a strong libertarian, has said "detaining citizens without a court trial is not American" and that if the law passes "the terrorists have won".

"We're talking about American citizens who can be taken from the United States and sent to a camp at Guantánamo Bay and held indefinitely. It puts every single citizen American at risk," he said. "Really, what security does this indefinite detention of Americans give us? The first and flawed premise, both here and in the badly named Patriot Act, is that our pre-9/11 police powers were insufficient to stop terrorism. This is simply not borne out by the facts."

Paul was backed by Senator Dianne Feinstein.

"Congress is essentially authorising the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge," she said. "We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge."

Paul said there were already strong laws against support for terrorist groups. He noted that the definition of a terrorism suspect under existing legislation was so broad that millions of Americans could fall within it.

"There are laws on the books now that characterise who might be a terrorist: someone missing fingers on their hands is a suspect according to the department of justice. Someone who has guns, someone who has ammunition that is weatherproofed, someone who has more than seven days of food in their house can be considered a potential terrorist," Paul said. "If you are suspected because of these activities, do you want the government to have the ability to send you to Guantánamo Bay for indefinite detention?"

Under the legislation suspects can be held without trial "until the end of hostilities". They will have the right to appear once a year before a committee that will decide if the detention will continue.

The Senate is expected to give final approval to the bill before the end of the week. It will then go to the president, who previously said he would block the legislation not on moral grounds but because it would "cause confusion" in the intelligence community and encroached on his own powers.

But on Wednesday the White House said Obama had lifted the threat of a veto after changes to the law giving the president greater discretion to prevent individuals from being handed to the military.

Critics accused the president of caving in again to pressure from some Republicans on a counter-terrorism issue for fear of being painted in next year's election campaign as weak and of failing to defend America.

Human Rights Watch said that by signing the bill Obama would go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.

"The paradigm of the war on terror has advanced so far in people's minds that this has to appear more normal than it actually is," Malinowski said. "It wasn't asked for by any of the agencies on the frontlines in the fight against terrorism in the United States. It breaks with over 200 years of tradition in America against using the military in domestic affairs."

In fact, the heads of several security agencies, including the FBI, CIA, the director of national intelligence and the attorney general objected to the legislation. The Pentagon also said it was against the bill.

The FBI director, Robert Mueller, said he feared the law could compromise the bureau's ability to investigate terrorism because it would be more complicated to win co-operation from suspects held by the military.

"The possibility looms that we will lose opportunities to obtain co-operation from the persons in the past that we've been fairly successful in gaining," he told Congress.

Civil liberties groups say the FBI and federal courts have dealt with more than 400 alleged terrorism cases, including the successful prosecutions of Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber", Umar Farouk, the "underwear bomber", and Faisal Shahzad, the "Times Square bomber".

Elements of the law are so legally confusing, as well as being constitutionally questionable, that any detentions are almost certain to be challenged all the way to the supreme court.

Malinowski said "vague language" was deliberately included in the bill in order to get it passed. "The very lack of clarity is itself a problem. If people are confused about what it means, if people disagree about what it means, that in and of itself makes it bad law," he said.

Obama is tempted by dictatorial power

Education Department says it doesn’t send SWAT teams after loan defaulters

Original Post: Yahoo

By Liz Goodwin

A Stockton, Calif., man says a SWAT team broke his door and dragged him out of his house during an unexpected 6 a.m. raid targeting his estranged ex-wife.

Kenneth Wright, who has no criminal record, told ABC News 10 he complained to the local cops about the raid. But according to Wright, the Stockton police denied ordering the raid, saying instead it was the handiwork of the federal Department of Education.

Wright told the station that the Education Department was after unpaid federal loans owed by his ex-wife. "They busted my door for this," Wright says. The claim has been repeated by numerous news outlets who picked up the story, including Fox News, The Huffington Post, and Gawker. (UPDATE: The station has replaced the story with a newer version that does not make the claim the raid was for late loan payments.)

But Education Department Press Secretary Justin Hamilton said in a statement to The Lookout that the department "does not execute search warrants for late loan payments." He said the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) "conducts about 30-35 search warrants a year on issues such as bribery, fraud, and embezzlement of federal student aid funds." Hamilton said the department cannot comment on this particular case until the investigation is over, but did add that the claim the warrant was executed for late loan payment is untrue. The raid was related to a criminal investigation of Wright's wife.

The OIG lists some of its recent investigations on its website, including the case of a Boston man who was sent to prison last month for lying on a federal student aid form.

About 8.9 percent of all federal loan recipients (about 330,000 people) defaulted between 2008 and 2010, the highest percentage in more than a decade. Unlike students who have some types of private student loans, borrowers with federal loans can't declare bankruptcy as a way to get out of repayment, no matter how dire their financial situation.

Still, Wright was not the subject of the agency's investigation, and he is demanding an apology for being treated like a criminal in his own home. He animatedly explains in this video that he was handcuffed while still in his underwear and was made to wait in a police car for several hours with his three young children while the 15 law enforcement officers searched his house.

Wright says he wants an apology and for the Department of Education to fix his door. "Please pay your bills, take care of your credit," he says. "If you don't believe me, this could be you one morning, 6 o'clock in the morning."

Election Panel puts hold only on Democrat recalls

Original Post: Big Government
by Brett Healy

If someone wrote this as fiction, they’d be laughed at. As the liberal special interests adjust noisily to being out of power in Wisconsin, events have now gone beyond parody. The latest from the “You can’t make this stuff up” file:

The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board has delayed action regarding the potential recalls of three Democrat State Senators. Since the GAB moved swiftly to certify the recalls of six Republican State Senators, some are reasonably raising the claim that the GAB is showing partisan favoritism.

They had publicly stated a desire to hold all the recall elections on the same day, however, because of the lack of action on the part of the GAB, the Republican Senators are scheduled to face the voters on July 12th. The earliest the Democratic Senators would be on the ballot would be July 19th, if at all.

As it stands now, none of the fleeing 14 are facing a recall. Six Republicans who did their jobs, albeit in a manner not to the liking of Big Labor, are on the ballot next month.

read the email I just received..shame on these teachers.

Original Post: Vicki McKenna

by Vicki McKenna on Monday, March 21, 2011 at 9:51am

I have asked for the letter, and will post it here as an update when I receive it. ALSO, if you have something like this happen, PLEASE call Sen. Grothman's office. He's cataloging these inane teachers politicizing their classrooms. AND contact the principal of your school IMMEDIATELY and demand a meeting with the principal AND the teacher. Demand that your child not be exposed to one sided political indoctrination. Get that assurance in writing, and an assurance your child will not be punished because of mom and dad's politics. That you all even HAVE to deal with this is outrageous.

You can all send me any info YOU have on teachers doing this in class. But please contact Sen. Grothman AND your child's princpal and teacher.

Here is the mail (and yes, I've edited out identifying info--too bad unionistas!):

I had a good friend call me last night upset over an issue that I believe is wrong and so will you.

Here daughter attends a school in the MPS system.

Last week, they were given an assignment to write an essay on How the Budget Repair Bill effects Teachers and students. Her teacher stood up in front of the class and of course ripped into Governor Walker and all disadvantages that this bill will have against their teacher and classroom. She did finish stating of course, this is just my opinion.

Yesterday, my friends 4th grader asked her Mother to read what she had started and she had written how the budget was going to be bad because of more students in the classroom and the students will not be able to learn properly, etc. My friend asked her daughter if she actually know what the bill was about and to explain it to her. Of course, she could only repeat the talking points of the teacher and my friend said that she Mommy and Daddy don't believe this way and you need to write an essay on a different subject since you don't know all the facts. Her daughter started crying and said that this was the only subject they could write their essay on, they would be graded and the essays would be sent to Governor Walker to ready.

My friend told her daughter that she could write the essay, but it would be how your mother and father believe it should be written. More tears as she's afraid of receiving a failed grade as that is not what she was taught in the classroom. I did suggest that she goes to the school and talk to the councilor, but also told her that if we can, this needs to get out into the public and of course, that is where you come in.

My friend is willing to give more details and even share the letter, just so her daughters name is not made public.

I also have a niece who was needing a ride to school. Her Mother grabbed the keys to the Van and my niece asked if they could use a different car because she was afraid to have her teachers see her in the Van that had a Scott Walker sticker on it. She's not embarrassed by Scott Walker, she's afraid she will get poor grades because she supports Scott Walker. This is also the same niece that was told by her teacher, "don't waste the staples because of Scott Walker, we won't have anymore staples when these are gone". By the way, no worries about the Scott Walker sticker anymore, someone actually ripped it off the car, although my sister is trying to find a new one to replace it.

Ralph Nader: Impeach Obama for Libya, Crimes

Original Post: newsmax

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader is calling for President Barack Obama's impeachment, saying he is responsible for war crimes in the Ralph Nader, Barack Obama, Impeach, War Crimes, Middle East,Middle East, The Hill reports.

In an interview with the anti-war group Democracy Now!, Nader said Obama was as much a war criminal as former President George W. Bush.

"Why don't we say what's on the minds of many legal experts; that the Obama administration is committing war crimes; and if Bush should have been impeached, Obama should be impeached," Nader said.

"[Bush officials] were considered war criminals by many people. Now, Barack Obama is committing the same crimes," the former presidential candidate said. "In fact, worse ones in Afghanistan. Innocents are being slaughtered, we are creating more enemies, he is violating international law."

The difference is Bush got Congressional approval. Obama told them as an after thought. Yet he has to wait for the U.N. to take action? I didn't realize that the U.N. was duly elected by us and had legislative authority where Congress does not. Learn something new every day.

White House to monitor children's conversations under guise of anti-bully policy

Original Post: Daily Caller
White House seeks child-speech oversight

By Neil Munro

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama speak at a conference on bullying prevention in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, March 10, 2011.

Roughly 150 various advocates — lobbyists for gays and lesbians, legislators, White House officials, at least one cabinet secretary and the first lady — gathered around President’s Obama’s bully pulpit in the White House Thursday to cheer for increased government monitoring and intervention in Facebook conversations, in playgrounds and in schoolrooms around the country.

No officials at the televised East Room roll-out of the White House’s anti-bullying initiative suggested any limits to government intervention against juvenile physical violence, social exclusion or unwanted speech. None mentioned the usefulness to children of unsupervised play. None suggested there were any risks created by a government program to enforce children’s approval of other children who are unpopular, overweight, or who declare themselves to be gay, lesbians or transgender.

“It breaks our hearts to think that any child feels afraid every day in the classroom, on the playground, or even online,” first lady Michelle Obama said.

“We’re going to prevent bullying and create an environment where every single one of our children can thrive,” the president said, as he announced a series of government actions intended to fund, guide and pressure state and local officials to adopt regulations and programs that would shield children from insults or social-exclusion as well as from physical harm.

But the lethal risks of additional federal school-yard regulation will be underlined May 2 in a California courtroom. Brandon McInerney was 19 days past his 14th birthday, and living with his divorced father, when he murdered Larry King, by shooting him dead in a classroom, said McInerney’s lawyer, Scott Wippert.

In the pending trial, “the evidence we will introduce is that [King] was bullying and sexually-harassing” McInerney, with the tacit approval of school officials who excused the harassment as legitimate expression of a female “gender identity,” Wippert said. The approved sexual-harassment took place on the schoolyard, in front of other kids, and it included offers of sexual favors and precipitated taunts from other boys. “It was outrageous,” said Wippert. When school officials refused to discipline King, McInerney shot him in front of a teacher who had given him the dress he was wearing, he said.

If the situation turned out differently and McInerney had killed himself, the “focus would have been on the school [officials] for allowing the [sexually themed] bullying,” Wippert argued. But that’s not what happened, and the local district attorney is now trying McInerney as an adult and charging him with first-degree murder for shooting and killing King, which could put him away for the rest of his life, Wippert said.

Gay advocacy groups, principally the New York-based Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, argue that kids who may be gay or lesbian need protection from taunts and insults, as well as from already-illegal violence, and that schools should promote acceptance of homosexuality. “GLSEN envisions a world in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression [and it] seeks to develop school climates where difference is valued for the positive contribution it makes to creating a more vibrant and diverse community,” according to a statement from GLSEN, whose founder, Kevin Jennings, now heads the anti-bullying program at the Department of Education.

GLSEN and Jennings are anathema to D.C.-based Family Research Council, which argues that children, parents, local governments and clerics are best able to counter episodes of bullying. “Bullying violates the Christian’s obligation to love our neighbor as we love ourselves [but] some homosexual activists are using this issue as a way to silence legitimate and respectful moral disagreement with homosexual conduct,” according to a statement from the Family Research Council. “Using the bureaucratic machinery of the federal government to promote homosexuality in the schools is precisely what Family Research Council and many others warned about when GLSEN founder Kevin Jennings was appointed to the Department of Education,” continued the statement.

Congressional opposition from social-conservatives and libertarians will likely bottle up several GLSEN-backed bills pending in Congress. To promote their cases, both factions showcase speakers, as well as dead children, including those who committed suicide after bullying, or after expulsion from school for minor offenses.

But federal officials can push the initiative forward with many other tools, including agency employees, federal grants to advocacy groups, agency regulations, cooperation from companies such as Facebook, and the White House’s bully pulpit. In the next few weeks, Facebook is set to announce new steps that could allow kids to highlight online conversations and insults for subsequent inspection by adults, school officials and regulators.

This expanded adult oversight of juvenile interactions was welcomed by invited speakers at the White House event.

A “greater effort to monitor [kids’ interactions] is a good thing,” said George Sugai, at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education in 2005. “We have to encourage the children not to fight back” against insults and online harassment, but instead to call for help from adults, said Catherine Bradshaw, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence.

Joel Burns, councilman in a Fort Worth, Texas, applauded the president’s focus on kids who say they are gay or lesbian. “The president did not shy away from LGBT as a topic,” he said. Also, the president endorsed “enumeration,” which is especially important, he said. Enumeration is the specific inclusion of gay, lesbian and transgender categories as deserving of regulatory protection.

GLSEN’s spokesman Ryan Schwarz declined to comment about the initiative, saying “the sensitivities abut lobbying on this issue are deep.” However, he added, White House officials “have been really great on taking full leadership.”

The White House’s East Room meeting did not include any children who spoke out for or against federal oversight. Two grade-school kids who attended, however, were Ryan Thompson and Eric Kanchuger, who have established Channel 6 News. Federal policies intended to help parents tracks their kids’ Facebook conversations is “a bit too much,” said Kanchuger. “It would intrude on our privacy.”

It appears that at least one of the president’s daughters may agree with this criticism. “Barack and I also know that sometimes, maybe even a lot of the time, it’s really hard for parents to know what’s going on in our kids’ lives,” the first lady told the East Room audience. “We don’t always know, because they don’t always tell us every little detail. We know that from Sasha. Sasha’s response [to our question] ‘What happened at school today?’ [is] ‘Nothing.’ That’s it.”

Unions vs. the Right to Work

Original Post: WSJ

By ROBERT BARRO

How ironic that Wisconsin has become ground zero for the battle between taxpayers and public- employee labor unions. Wisconsin was the first state to allow collective bargaining for government workers (in 1959), following a tradition where it was the first to introduce a personal income tax (in 1911, before the introduction of the current form of individual income tax in 1913 by the federal government).

Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state—or even across states—can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty.

In fact, labor unions were subject to U.S. antitrust laws in the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which was first applied in 1894 to the American Railway Union. However, organized labor managed to obtain exemption from federal antitrust laws in subsequent legislation, notably the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

Remarkably, labor unions are not only immune from antitrust laws but can also negotiate a "union shop," which requires nonunion employees to join the union or pay nearly equivalent dues. Somehow, despite many attempts, organized labor has lacked the political power to repeal the key portion of the 1947 Taft Hartley Act that allowed states to pass right-to-work laws, which now prohibit the union shop in 22 states. From the standpoint of civil liberties, the individual right to work—without being forced to join a union or pay dues—has a much better claim than collective bargaining. (Not to mention that "right to work" has a much more pleasant, liberal sound than "collective bargaining.") The push for right-to-work laws, which haven't been enacted anywhere but Oklahoma over the last 20 years, seems about to take off.

The current pushback against labor-union power stems from the collision between overly generous benefits for public employees— notably for pensions and health care—and the fiscal crises of state and local governments. Teachers and other public-employee unions went too far in convincing weak or complicit state and local governments to agree to obligations, particularly defined-benefit pension plans, that created excessive burdens on taxpayers.

In recognition of this fiscal reality, even the unions and their Democratic allies in Wisconsin have agreed to Gov. Scott Walker's proposed cutbacks of benefits, as long as he drops the restrictions on collective bargaining. The problem is that this "compromise" leaves intact the structure of strong public-employee unions that helped to create the unsustainable fiscal situation; after all, the next governor may have less fiscal discipline. A long-run solution requires a change in structure, for example, by restricting collective bargaining for public employees and, to go further, by introducing a right-to-work law.

There is evidence that right-to-work laws—or, more broadly, the pro-business policies offered by right-to-work states—matter for economic growth. In research published in 2000, economist Thomas Holmes of the University of Minnesota compared counties close to the border between states with and without right-to-work laws (thereby holding constant an array of factors related to geography and climate). He found that the cumulative growth of employment in manufacturing (the traditional area of union strength prior to the rise of public-employee unions) in the right-to-work states was 26 percentage points greater than that in the non-right-to-work states.

Beyond Wisconsin, a key issue is which states are likely to be the next political battlegrounds on labor issues. In fact, one can interpret the extreme reactions by union demonstrators and absent Democratic legislators in Wisconsin not so much as attempts to influence that state—which may be a lost cause—but rather to deter politicians in other states from taking similar actions. This strategy may be working in Michigan, where Gov. Rick Snyder recently asserted that he would not "pick fights" with labor unions.

In general, the most likely arenas are states in which the governor and both houses of the state legislature are Republican (often because of the 2010 elections), and in which substantial rights for collective bargaining by public employees currently exist. This group includes Indiana, which has recently been as active as Wisconsin on labor issues; ironically, Indiana enacted a right-to-work law in 1957 but repealed it in 1965. Otherwise, my tentative list includes Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maine, Florida, Tennessee, Nebraska (with a nominally nonpartisan legislature), Kansas, Idaho, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The national fiscal crisis and recession that began in 2008 had many ill effects, including the ongoing crises of pension and health-care obligations in many states. But at least one positive consequence is that the required return to fiscal discipline has caused reexamination of the growth in economic and political power of public-employee unions. Hopefully, embattled politicians like Gov. Walker in Wisconsin will maintain their resolve and achieve a more sensible long-term structure for the taxpayers in their states.