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Politics : BuSab -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SmoothSail who wrote (5384)	11/16/2010 6:51:42 PM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 23934

The Ant and the Grasshopper, revised edition Remember the ant and the grasshopper? OLD VERSION . . . The ant works hard, in the withering heat, all summer long. He builds his house and stores supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks that the ant is a fool. He laughs, dances and plays the summer away, preparing nothing for the coming winter. Winter comes, the ant is safe and warm. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. The moral to the story being: BE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOURSELF! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NEW VERSION . . . The ant works hard, in the withering heat, all summer long. He builds his house and stores supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks that the ant is a fool. He laughs, dances and plays the summer away, preparing nothing for the coming winter. Winter comes, the ant is safe and warm. The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and fed, while others are cold and starving! CBS, NBC, ABC & CNN show up to provide pictures of shivering grasshoppers, next to a video of an ant in his comfortable home, with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast! How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer this way? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah, with the grasshopper. Everyone cries when they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green". Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house, where the news stations film the group singing "We Shall Overcome". Jesse then has the group pray for the grasshopper's sake, and reminds the group to contribute to his group, so that he can "continue the fight" for grasshoppers, everywhere! Ted Kennedy & John Kerry exclaim, in an interview with Tom Brokaw, that the ant has gotten rich, off the back of the poor grasshopper! Both call for an immediate tax hike, to make the ant pay "his fair share"! Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity For Grasshoppers Act", retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire the proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his house is confiscated by the government. Hillary Clinton gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper, in a defamation suit against the ant. The case is tried in federal court, with a jury comprised of unemployed welfare recipients. Surprise! The ant loses the case! The story ends, as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food, while the government house he lives in (which happens to be the ant's old house) crumbles around him, due to lack of maintenance. The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found, dead, in a drug-related incident. The house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders, who terrorize this once-peaceful neighborhood.

To: SmoothSail who wrote (5384)	11/16/2010 9:49:00 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23934

Author of DOJ report targeting NJ Governor Chris Christie has history of using position for political purposes, sources say By Amanda Carey - The Daily Caller 11/16/2010 dailycaller.com Excerpt: The Daily Caller has learned that the author behind the recent report from the Department of Justice that targeted five former U.S. attorneys for excessive travel expenses has had, according to our sources, a troubled history in the DOJ and attempted in the past to use her position to smear conservatives. When the report surfaced last week, the investigation’s timing and targeting especially of New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie, who has steadily been raising his national profile, raised red flags. According to the DOJ report, Christie — favored by many conservatives to run against President Obama in 2012 — spent a total of about $2,000 more than his budget allowed on 23 trips he took between 2007 and 2009. Almost immediately after the report’s release, conservative media and the blogosphere lit up with accusations that the report was politically motivated and meant to malign a rising star in the Republican Party. Tom Fitton, the president of DOJ watchdog organization Judicial Watch, agreed with that sentiment, telling TheDC that his first instinct was that the report was nothing more than a hit job from an “ideological and hostile Justice Department that leaked the report.” New information obtained by TheDC shows that that narrative may be true. The report’s author, Maura Lee, began her DOJ career in the civil rights division, but now works in the DOJ Office of Inspector General. Hans von Spakovsky, former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, supervised Lee and told TheDC that he was “astonished” when he found out she was the author of the report. According to von Spakovsky, Lee was “one of the most belligerent, unprofessional lawyers” he encountered during his time at the DOJ. “Because of her,” he said, “we had to completely change our security protocol.” Another former senior DOJ official who asked not to be named confirmed Lee’s involvement in strategizing to leak information to the Washington Post, saying that she was not a trustworthy person and had major political motivations. Von Spakovsky described one case where Lee was caught breaking into the e-mail of a colleague, Joshua Rogers, specifically because Rogers was conservative and Christian. “Lee was radically left. She made it plain that she didn’t like Rogers,” von Spakovsky said. He went on to call Lee’s efforts at DOJ a “major security breach.” “She was one of the most partisan career people I ever met,” von Spakovsky told TheDC. So partisan, in fact, that he describes Lee as someone who would encourage other DOJ lawyers not to pursue cases so that the Bush administration would not be able to take credit for being progressive on voter and civil rights issues. When asked, von Spakovsky said Lee is “so biased, there is no way she could investigate and write an objective report. I can’t imagine anyone more inappropriate to be working on this kind of report in the IG office.” According to another former DOJ employee who worked closely with Lee, Lee first got into trouble while working in the Voters Rights Division during the Bush administration. There, according to the former coworker, Lee was caught breaking into other employees’ e-mail accounts and spreading around personal information. The former coworker also alleges that Lee sent out e-mails to the more “left-leaning DOJ employees,” suggesting that they leak sensitive information to the Washington Post. According to this former DOJ employee, once Lee was found out, the entire security system within the Voters Rights Division had to be revamped. Not only that, but according to this source, Lee’s superiors – including von Spakovsky – were authorized by the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility to search her e-mails. They found evidence of Lee’s attempts to leak information to the Washington Post on, among other things, the Texas redistricting issue in 2005 when a handful of DOJ attorneys argued the new plan was unconstitutional because it unfairly favored Republicans.

To: SmoothSail who wrote (5384)	11/17/2010 12:08:12 AM
From: joseffy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23934

Bullying dispute erupts at Wayne school over ‘Taliban’ comment Friday, November 12, 2010 BY ANDREA ALEXANDER THE RECORD STAFF WRITER northjersey.com WAYNE — On one side, a Wayne Valley High school student claims that his use of the word “Taliban” was innocent, mentioned in a conversation about a video game, according to his mother. But to a Muslim student who overheard it at school on Thursday, it was upsetting. And she had perceived that he had looked at her when he said it, Principal Robert Reis said. Now the boy is facing a one-day suspension on Monday, because, Reis said, he continued to talk about the incident and it got back to the girl and upset her. Reis said she felt the boy was boasting that he’d gotten away with something. “This has nothing to do with the fact that the boy used a word,” Reis said. “This has everything to do with the boy hurt a girl’s feelings.” And after the boy was told by administrators not to discuss what happened, Reis said, “He went back and hurt her feelings a second time.” But the boy’s mother, Rosa Giordano, said the incident “is totally being blown out of proportion” and she plans to fight the disciplinary action. The incident has unfolded during a time of heightened sensitivity about bullying in schools. Reis said the school takes a “no nonsense” stance and coincidentally had been planning a December forum to discuss the issue. Giordano said her son was not being a bully and is himself bi-racial. “He never saw this girl before,” she said. “It was an innocent thing. How does she know he was not talking about a newspaper story?” She said she plans to go to the district offices early Monday morning to fight for her son to be allowed to attend school that day. “I don’t want this on his record as a racial slur and bullying,” she said. “I am sorry the girl got offended by the world ‘Taliban.’ I will make sure my son never says the word again … the poor kid is so upset he doesn’t want to go to school.” Reis said administrators had planned to treat the situation as a teachable moment and meet simultaneously with both students to talk about it. The boy was suspended after the girl came to Reis upset a second time. Giordano claims her son was embarrassed by the incident. She said he told a friend “nothing happened” because he didn’t want to talk about it, not to brag that he got away with anything. “It would have been good,” Reis said of the planned meeting between the students. “Somebody would have learned something. Instead it had to go to this, and that is unfortunate.”