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Politics : How Quickly Can Obama Totally Destroy the US? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (15620)	5/17/2015 8:47:53 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 16547

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOUS AND ABC-TV (a history of sucking-up) FR THREAD Posted by STARWISE ^ \| 2/5/09 \| MEDIA BISTRO ORIGINAL STORY When Barack Obama took office in 2009....ABC-TV "Good Morning America" anchors and guests gushed at the (cough) 'sheer brilliance' of Obama's incoming cabinet, and referenced Obama's "team of economic gladiators"...which included "gladiator" Secy of the Treasuey Tim Geithner (who had a problem filing taxes). Predictably, ABC-TV journalist, George Stephanopoulos, (a onetime Clinton factotum) rhapsodized about the Obama picks: "We have not seen this kind of combination of star power and brain power and political muscle this early in a cabinet in our lifetimes," Steffie gushed. BACKSTORY Seems phone calls were being made between Obama's COS Rahm Emanuel and ABC-TV's George Stephanopoulous. Media Research President Brent Bozell, a vocal critic, made the claim that these were "strategy phone calls," and requested ABC to respond. "With each passing day, ABC's failure to speak to, and about, this issue tarnishes further the network's reputation as a legitimate news entity," Bozell writes. ABC-TV responds to Brent Bozell Dear Mr. Bozell, Thank you for your letter regarding George Stephanopoulos. To be crystal clear, George Stephanopoulos does not advise Rahm Emanuel nor anyone else in the Obama Administration. He reports on the Obama Administration. He speaks to Mr. Emanuel, a friend he has know for nearly two decades, as a source, just as he speaks to countless sources across the political spectrum each and every day. That is his job as an anchor and reporter and one that he does according to the highest standards. In your letter, and public utterances, you falsely assert that ABC News has been silent on this matter. That is simply untrue. Upon reading your press release last week, we reached out to the MRC to make it abundantly clear that you had totally mischaracterized the Politico story written by John Harris last Tuesday. Indeed, Politico posted a story last Friday by Ben Smith pointing out exactly how badly you had mangled the facts. In that post, Harris stated that, " The calls are certainly a fascinating Washington ritual, but by no means do I think that George Stephanopoulos is participating in strategy sessions. To my mind, he established his journalistic bona fides more than a decade ago, even as the Clinton administration was still underway, when he showed his willingness to report aggressively on Democrats as well as Republicans." To give further lie to your claim that ABC News has not responded to your distortions, our senior vice president was quoted in the Politico story saying, "George speaks to Emanuel, but he speaks to plenty of conservatives and Republicans every single day -- that's part of his job. The idea that there is some kind of daily conference call that George hops on is just nonsense and not true." Furthermore, last Friday, a reporter from CNS News, which was founded by you and continues to be directly affiliated with the MRC, contacted our media relations staff for a piece he'd been assigned to write on this very topic. We cooperated immediately and provided him an on the record response. We have since learned from your reporter that his story was killed. You have said, "if the charges are false, provide the evidence. We will gladly accept it and consider the matter closed." From the moment you issued your first press release on the Politico story last week - and numerous times since - we have made it clear to you and your staff that your assertions regarding Mr. Stephanopoulos and ABC News are false and based on a willful and knowing distortion of John Harris' original story. Sincerely, Kerry Smith Senior Vice President, Editorial Quality, ABC News

To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (15620)	5/18/2015 11:53:38 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 16547

No More Stealing by Government? A Long-Overdue Attack on Asset Forfeiture May 15, 2014 by Dan Mitchell Since I’m a public finance economist, I realize I’m supposed to focus on big-picture issues such as tax reform and entitlement reform. And I do beat those issues to death, so I obviously care about controlling the size and power of government. But I like to think I’m also a decent human being. And this is why I get even more agitated when politicians and bureaucrats engage in thuggish behavior against comparatively powerless citizens. Some of the worst examples of government thuggery are the result of “asset forfeiture,” which happens when governments confiscate the property of people who haven’t been convicted of any crime. Heck, sometimes they’re not even charged with any crime. Such as when the government wanted to steal someone’s truck because a different person was arrested for drunk driving. Such as when the government tried to steal the bond money a family has collected to bail out a relative. Such as when the government seized nearly $400,000 of a business owner’s money because it was in the possession of an armored car company suspected of wrongdoing. Such as when the government sought to confiscate an office building from the owner because a tenant was legally selling medical marijuana. Such as when the government killed a man as part of an anti-gambling investigation undertaken in hopes of using asset forfeiture to steal other people’s cash. But we do have a bit of good news. All these horror stories seem to be causing a backlash. Fox News has a very revealing article on how this system is under assault. The story begins by explaining how asset forfeiture is an open invitation for abuse and grossly inconsistent with the Constitution. Civil forfeiture is when police and prosecutors seize property, cars or cash from someone they suspect of wrongdoing. …authorities don’t have to prove guilt, file charges or obtain a conviction before seizing private property. Critics say it is a process ripe for abuse, and one which leaves citizens little means of fighting back. “You breed a culture of ‘take first, ask questions later,’” Larry Salzman, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, told FoxNews.com. “It’s thuggish behavior.” …civil forfeitures represent a dangerous area of the U.S. justice system where, by law, a person is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty and not the other way around. The report from Fox cites a couple of reasons why asset forfeiture is misguided. One major problem is that it gives cops a budgetary incentive to steal. In Tennessee, local law enforcement agencies get to keep 100 percent of all property seized through civil forfeiture – an incentive some say can tempt police to go after property for the wrong reasons. Fortunately, people are now fighting this horrible procedure. The story explains that a former law enforcement official who is now a state lawmaker, Barrett Rich, is trying to reform Tennessee’s awful bill. And Minnesota actually has eliminated this odious tactic. Here are some excerpts from a Forbes* column. In a big win for property rights and due process, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill yesterday to curb an abusive—and little known—police practice called civil forfeiture. Unlike criminal forfeiture, under civil forfeiture someone does not have to be convicted of a crime, or even charged with one, to permanently lose his or her cash, car or home. …Now the government can only take property if it obtains a criminal conviction or its equivalent, like if a property owner pleads guilty to a crime or becomes an informant. The bill also shifts the burden of proof onto the government, where it rightfully belongs. Wyoming’s state legislature also is considering reform, so there are positive developments in many different states. For more information, click here for a very good introductory video about civil asset forfeiture. If you like videos, click here for a horrifying video about the government stealing $17,000 from an innocent man. And here’s another video, this one about the government stealing money from a family grocery store. Last but not least, if you want to get more upset, here are some additional examples of non-forfeiture related government thuggery. A story of vicious IRS persecution. A woman jailed overnight because she let her kids play outside. Threatening to send a woman to jail because someone whistled at a whale. A video about how the EPA tried – and fortunately failed – to destroy a family. A story about the Justice Department’s discriminatory attack on a hapless homeowner. The government treating child molesters more leniently than people who accidentally omit irrelevant info from forms. Bureaucrats in Indiana conducting a spite-motivated legal attack against a family that saved a baby deer. A local government in Virginia unfairly trying to destroy an organic farmer. Statists must dislike organic farms because Texas bureaucrats conducted a paramilitary raid on one of them. Park Service bureaucrats threatening a business if it allowed tourists to use bathroom facilities. Last but not least, don’t forget all the nutty – and often thuggish – examples of anti-gun political correctness in schools. danieljmitchell.wordpress.com

To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (15620)	5/18/2015 2:27:46 PM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 16547

On Poverty, Obama Shows Poor Judgment ....................................................................................... Accuracy in Academia ^ \| May 17, 2015 \| Tony Perkins. These days, it wouldn’t be a presidential appearance without some gratuitous Christian-bashing. And at yesterday’s roundtable on poverty, President Obama didn’t disappoint. During the panel discussion at Georgetown University, President Obama took the common goal of helping the poor and used it to drive an even deeper wedge between his administration and people of faith. In between swipes at Fox News, the President scolded the church for being too preoccupied with the culture war to help the needy. “I think it would be powerful for our faith-based organizations to speak out on this in a more forceful fashion. This may sound self-interested because there have been — these are areas where I agree with the evangelical community and faith-based groups, and then there are issues where we have had disagreements around reproductive issues, or same-sex marriage, or what have you. And so maybe it appears advantageous for me to want to focus on these issues of poverty, and not as much on these other issues.” If only, he sighs, the church weren’t so obsessed with social issues. “There is great caring and great concern, but when it comes to what are you really going to the mat for, what’s the defining issue, when you’re talking in your congregations, what’s the thing that is really going to capture the essence of who we are as Christians, or as Catholics, or what have you, that this is oftentimes viewed as a ‘nice to have’ relative to an issue like abortion.” Anyone involved in faith-based ministry must have needed a strap to pick their jaws up off the floor. This President is accusing the church — the most effective social outreach program in the history of America — of ignoring the poor to fight a war on social issues that, oh by the way, he started? That’s not only ignorant of the church’s activities — it’s insulting. The religious community hasn’t ignored the poor. On the contrary, there’s no more generous segment of society than Christian conservatives and the ministries that their giving makes possible. In North American disaster relief alone (not counting hunger and clothing outreach, medical and elder care, treatment programs, prison assistance, and more), the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) spent more than $6,120,000 in 2014 — making it the third largest provider behind the Red Cross and Salvation Army. (And that figure doesn’t include the more than 25,000 volunteer days, worth about $2.5 million!) That’s a tiny sliver of the dozens of SBC’s ministries, and it still dwarfs the $3,187,000 it spends on those “other issues” President Obama mentioned. Not to mention that the SBC is just one of the more than 600 evangelical ministries in America! “How many Americans, of every faith and every economic status, have received world-class health care in Catholic hospitals?” FRC’s Dr. Pat Fagan and Rob Schwarzwalder ask. “In total, the Economist estimates that of the Catholic Church’s $170 billion total income, about 57%, or roughly $97 billion, goes to ‘health-care networks, followed by 28% on colleges, with parish and diocesan day-to-day operations accounting for just 6%, with the remaining $4.6 billion going to national charitable activities.'” The irony is that if the President would actually leave these ministries alone to do that work, they’d be even more powerful agents of change. Instead, he attacks their motives, demands their surrender on core values, and punishes them when they refuse. The Obama administration is tying the church’s arms behind its back and then complaining that it doesn’t serve enough soup! If the President cares more about poverty than his social agenda, why did he sacrifice a program for thousands of sex trafficking victims on the altar of his radical abortion policy? Or make allegiance to same-sex “marriage” a condition of nonprofits’ tax exemption? In the hostile environment created by this administration, Christians are spending precious time defending their faith, when they could be putting it in practice. Frankly, we’d love to focus on strengthening families and ending poverty — but the President won’t lay down his weapons of sexual radicalism long enough for us to try. So if you’re wondering who’s obsessed with these issues, try 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The church didn’t start this debate. We didn’t introduce transgender bathrooms into elementary schools or force the redefinition of marriage on America. We didn’t decide that killing was “choice.” We’re just responding to the assault on our values. When the President decides to put aside those “other issues,” so will we.