Today, in 1968, Johnny Cash performed live at Folsom Prison:

Apparently Congressional Research Service employees are as good at research as ACORN employees are at registering voters.

Not surprisingly, the new Congressional Research Service report on ACORN continues the Democrats’ coverup of President Obama’s favorite advocacy group.

The CRS report commissioned by House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) –both longtime ACORN allies– is a whitewash.

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Federal stimulus plan’s spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on unemployment, research finds; “Spend a lot or spend nothing at all, it didn’t matter,” the analysis showed as “local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation”

· “It beats being at work!” Federal Aviation Administration spent $5 million to send 3, 600 managers to a conference in Atlanta that some say was little more than an excuse to throw a three-week-long party

· Congress spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to send politicians and staff on a junket to the global warming summit that failed to reach a climate agreement

· “Stealth” company whose address appears to be an empty office to receive $9.2 million federal grant

· The Postal Service’s top marketing executive directed more than $1.3 million in sole-source contracts to former business associates; As a result, some postal employees are sitting idle because the consultants are doing what previously were their jobs

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In the book Game Change penned by John Heilemann and Mark Halprin, Harry Reid is quoted as saying that people supported Obama because he was “light skinned,” and because he exhibited no “Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” This implies that Reid thinks dark skinned Negroes cannot win election. Since then the left has circled the wagons and refused to treat Reid as they’ve treated Republicans in similar instances. It’s an obvious double standard.

Now, we can look to no better authority on purported racism than The Root Magazine, an Internet publication founded in 2008 by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (he of Beer Summit fame) which is published by the Washington Post. Gates’ online magazine pretty much proves that this double standard is alive and well by its treatment of two situations of obvious racist sentiment from the left. Gate’s magazine summarily rejects the accusations of racism by these lefties.

First up we look at a post by Root writer Omar Wasow who proclaimed Harry Reid in the rights for his comments as reported by Game Change. Wasow wonders what the big deal is with Reid’s comments? He says it is true that white people will vote for a light skinned black over a dark skinned one and that it was true that Obama only utilized a black vernacular “when he wanted to.” Interestingly, Wasow saw nothing wrong with Obama shifting from proper English to black vernacular at will. Wasow said that just made Obama a good politician. He obviously doesn’t see this as a cynical political ploy at all.

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Today E&E News reports (subscription required) green group faux-rage that industry reps were consulted on drafting an amendment by Sen. Lisa Murkowski to (IMO, rather unwisely) grant the Democrats a one-year reprieve from their looming political nightmare of EPA threatening to actually try and regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources by regulation under a Clean Air Act never designed for such foolishness.

Such unseemly whimpering is about as credible as the greens’ phony “hacked emails!” outrage, over what was from all appearances a whistleblower releasing “ClimateGate” email evidence of dirty green tricks. These are the same crowd whose slimy green tactics include stealing my trash on a weekly basis and working with, e.g., the Guardian to dishonestly cobble together unrelated, out-of-context (unlike ClimateGate) excerpts from emails to paint a false picture. (“Greens involved in journalism process!”; sadly, the Guardian never called me for their “story” about, well, me, so I must confess I wasn’t involved).

Specifically, E&E notes how:

“the Washington Post reported yesterday that [Bracewell & Giuliani's Jeff Holmstead] and another former EPA official, Roger Martella, ‘helped craft the original amendment Murkowski planned to offer on the floor last fall.’…

Environmentalists pounced on the reports as evidence that coal and oil interests are behind Murkowski’s efforts. ‘We now have proof that lobbyists for Big Oil, dirty coal and other special interests are directly involved in recent attempts to bail out big polluters and gut the Clean Air Act,’ said a Sierra Club press release. ‘What’s more, these big polluter lobbyists are the same former Bush administration officials who completely disregarded the Clean Air Act and even disobeyed the Supreme Court for years.’

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Less than three months after he had received a positive performance review from his superiors at the St. Louis County (Mo.) Department of Health, Keith Gladney was fired Dec. 23 from his job as an animal control officer. Thanks to information I obtained today via the Missouri Sunshine Law, I learned his firing was something of an unusual — albeit rare — event.

Why should anyone care about the firing of Keith Gladney? Several reasons exist. For example:

1.Keith Gladney is the brother of Kenneth Gladney, the St. Louis man thrust into the national spotlight Aug. 6 after he was allegedly beaten by a group of thugs from the Service Employees International Union at a South St. Louis County health care town hall meeting hosted by ultra-liberal Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.). Video shows what happened to Kenneth Gladney after SEIU thugs found him selling conservative memorabilia outside the event at Bernard Middle School in South St. Louis, then judge for yourself whether allegedly is a term that adequately describes the beat-down.

2. Keith Gladney publicly criticized St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch and St. Louis County Counselor Patricia Redington for dragging their feet when it came to charging the individuals allegedly involved in the beating of his brother. Later, he joined a nationwide chorus of conservatives appalled by the fact that the duo — formerly known as the St. Louis version of an Obama “Truth Squad” — filed only ordinance violations Nov. 25.

3. Keith Gladney joined a nationwide chorus of conservative appalled by the fact that, on Nov. 25, Redington filed only orordinance violations — not felony chargees — against his brother’s alleged attackers.

Now, back to the issue of Keith Gladney’s firing.

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Like a phoenix released to spread it wings, ACORN founder and former chief organizer Wade Rathke has been letting it all hang out on his lively, but troubling blog.

He recently attacked no-nonsense Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, lamented the continuing questions regarding ACORN/SEIU involvement in the 2010 census, and even went after me on one occasion.

Now he’s attacking the concept of personal responsibility, something our society is sorely lacking. He’s encouraging homeowners who are falling behind on their mortgage payments to simply walk away from their homes, as if the money still owed is neither their problem nor their concern.

At least his message is consistent, because Rathke has always been the Johnny Appleseed of bad advice when it comes to housing.

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Hamas rally, March 30, 2005 (Reuters/Nayef Hashlamoun)

[Note: This is the latest segment in an ongoing series about Code Pink and its co-founder Jodie Evans. Click here to read earlier articles.]

How deep are the ties between the so-called antiwar group Code Pink and the terrorist group Hamas?  Deep enough that Hamas guaranteed Code Pink’s safety when the group led an international delegation of anti-Israel leftists to Gaza in late December for the ‘Gaza Freedom March.’

Code Pink claims to have delivered “tens of thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid” to Hamas-controlled Gaza to protest a blockade of the terrorist enclave by the civilized world.

Before Code Pink departed for Egypt where the march was based, co-founder Medea Benjamin told the Western Massachusetts publication The Reminder that Hamas “has pledged to ensure our safety.”

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Midterm elections can present a considerable risk for a new President.  Often viewed as a referendum on a President’s policies, the last 45 years featured such huge party losses as 54 House seats under Clinton, 48 seats under Ford, and 47 seats under Johnson.  While Ford’s fate was not entirely his own, the fates of Johnson and Clinton present foreboding scenarios for Democrats in 2010.

Johnson and Clinton: Unpopular Policies Lead to Midterm Losses.

In 1964, the Democrats were sitting atop the political world.  They held 68 Senate seats and gained 36 House seats for an overwhelming margin of 295 to 140 – not to mention winning the White House.  Just two years later, however, they lost 48 seats.  Why? A series of policies that were unpopular including a “credibility gap” on the Vietnam War and what one Democrat Governor said was “Frustration over Vietnam; too much federal spending and… taxation; no great public support for your Great Society programs; and … public disenchantment with the civil rights programs.”  Despite the economy growing 6% because of the Kennedy/Johnson tax cuts, the divide between Johnson’s policies and public opinion produced a 49% approval rating for Johnson and resulted in historic losses for the President and his party in 1966.

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Today, in 1915, the House of Representatives voted down a measure to give women the right to vote. The following year, Republican Jeanette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress.

Liberals are good at closing ranks behind their wounded and ignoring any character flaw as long as you are a believer in the cause.

So it should be no surprise that they are quickly and aggressively closing ranks behind Harry Reid (D-NV) in the wake of his antiquated views about President Obama’s blackness as revealed in the new book on the 2008 campaign, “Game Change.”

Republicans have, of course, drawn parallels to another famous majority leader’s race gaffe, Senator Trent Lott (R-MS).  There are major differences however that no number of Al Sharptons can – or should be allowed – to paper over.

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I think we may now know why the White House kept silent about the existence of a third intruder at the White House state dinner in late November. After the embarrassment of the incident with the Salahi’s, think about how much more embarrassing it would be if pictures of yet another uninvited guest began circulating throughout the media. How embarrassing? How about this embarrassing:

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Harry Reid’s comments have prompted a warning… to Republicans!

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is warning Republicans against trying to make hay out of Harry Reid’s comments about Barack Obama’s skin color and lack of a “Negro dialect.”

The nonvoting member of Congress said Reid’s opponents “will not find a welcome mat in the black community” if they try to seize on his remarks.

Thanks to the white washing of black history by liberal academics, the Democrat Party, and the media, Republicans don’t have a welcome mat in the black community now. Talk about a threat with no teeth….

That said, Eleanor Holmes Norton (IF she can be intellectually honest with herself) should look at all the things Democrats like Reid have done TO blacks instead of for them.

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A few weeks ago we were told that CT scans and mammograms can increase the risk of cancer. Since the rush to deploy the new total body scanners in our airports has been a topic of hot debate. There has been a burning question that has not been answered that needs to be. If CT scans and mammograms are no longer considered safe, what makes the total body scanners safe to use?

The technology used in the full body scanners is either backscatter x-ray or millimeter waves . Both use a form of radiation call terahertz photons (T-rays). T-rays are a form of infrared energy that lies between radio waves at the low-end and microwaves at its higher end. It may be non-ionizing unlike x-rays; however, the energy is able to penetrate tissue, clothing, paper, plastic, wood and ceramics among other things.

The TSA website represents the full body scanner as a safe method of screening. However, not only are we giving up our privacy, we are also playing Russian roulette with our safety. It is important to note:

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[Note: This is the latest segment in an ongoing series about Code Pink and its co-founder Jodie Evans. Click here to read earlier articles.]

Fresh on the heels of their Hamas-protected trip to Gaza, the so-called feminist, American antiwar group Code Pink, co-founded by top Obama funder Jodie Evans, is running banner advertisements on the English language version of the official Web site of a terrorist sympathizing group, the Muslim Brotherhood, one of which invites the Muslim Brotherhood to “join us in cleansing our country.”

The ad, titled “Arrest the War Criminals” with a subhead that contains the invitation to “join us in cleansing our country” links back to a Code Pink site that calls for the kidnapping of former President George W. Bush, his wife Laura and other former members of his administration through ‘citizens arrests’ for defending America against terrorists in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks by Al Qaeda.

The Jawa Report first reported the advertising in a post this morning (January 11, 2010).

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It takes a lot to shock us Nevadan’s. We live in a state where gambling is open and legal. Prostitution is legal in some counties.  Taxi cabs are wrapped with pictures of strippers and ads promoting Las Vegas take great pride in telling visitors that they can come here, do what they want, go home and pretend like it never happened (What happens here, Stays here!).  You can’t tell me a little ol’ statement by Pinky from Searchlight (as Harry Reid called himself in a 2004 campaign ad) would set off a firestorm bloodier than a Mike Tyson ear bite. It has. It also sets up a bunch of spy vs. spy scenarios that would make Bugsy Segal proud.

In 2008, during the Barack Obama campaign for President, Reid said privately that it would help Obama that he was a “light-skinned”  African-American, and that Obama speaks “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one”.  The quote is in the new book titled, “Game Change”. Reid has given all the apologies and I’m sure he hopes this all goes away quickly, there is that election coming up Nov. 2

Let’s get this out of the way. Harry Reid is not a racist. I’ve known him for 26 years and that is not a problem here. Of course, words have meaning. Republicans George Allen and Trent Lott had their political careers virtually destroyed for much less and Democrats worked overtime to create the impression that the words were enough to send then packing. In 2006, Allen was hammered non-stop for calling an opposition campaign worker, “macaca”. It took days for the media to figure out what a “macaca” was, but they would make sure it was enough to run Allen out of his Virginia Senate seat, destroy any chances he had at the White House, and give the Democrats a majority in the Senate.

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From Tim Carney in today’s Examiner:

With Democrat Martha Coakley in trouble in the Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat, Democrats could lose vote No. 60 for President Obama’s health-care bill. In response, an army of lobbyists for drug companies, health insurance companies, and hospitals has teamed up to throw a high-dollar Capitol Hill fundraiser for Coakley next Tuesday night.

COAKLEY –

Of the 22 names on the host committee–meaning they raised $10,000 or more for Coakley–17 are federally registered lobbyists, 15 of whom have health-care clients. Of the other five hosts, one is married to a lobbyist, one was a lobbyist in Pennsylvania, another is a lawyer at a lobbying firm, and another is a corporate CEO. Oh, and of course, there’s also the political action commitee for Boston Scientific Corporation.

All the leading drug companies have lobbyists on Coakley’s host committee: Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Sanofi-Aventis, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Astra-Zeneca, and more. On the insurance side of things, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cigna, Humana, HealthSouth, and United Health all are represented on the host committee.
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Climate-gate could further complicate the re-election prospects of congressional representatives from industrialized states who are already playing defense over the economic costs of climate change legislation.

Thousands of  emails leaked to the Internet from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom appear to substantiate a growing body of research that questions the idea of man-made global warming. Climate-gate has the potential to emerge as an unexpected gift to Republican candidates in this year’s midterm elections. But there’s the rub.

With the exception of Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), and a handful of other elected officials, Republicans have been reticent to engage and debate the dubious claims of human induced global warming, laments Steve Milloy, editor and founder of JunkScience.com.

“Too many of them don’t understand the issue and the extremism that stands behind green activism,” he observes. “They are afraid of being labeled as anti-environment and are just not well-equipped or well informed enough to confront policies that could result in an unprecedented expansion of government power.”

At the very least, 2010 Republican challengers could invoke the email scandal to demonstrate how research has been falsified and distorted to advance a political agenda at odds with the economic well-being of many Americans. This in turn could open the way to a larger discussion of global warming science and the role of the United Nations.

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Isn’t it finally time for the behind-closed-door racial slurs to die?  If our legislators truly do represent the people, then, how is it possible that in this nation, with so many people, of so many different ethnicities and races, an individual could  be castigated for accented speech or the texture of their hair or the color of their skin?

I was born in 1958, at the cusp of one of the biggest change in our country’s ideology– the civil rights movement.  But, six years later, desegregation had still not infiltrated all aspects of our national society and in Louisiana, it had had almost no effect at all.

As  a six year old, desegregation had little impact, until the day that Bobby Kennedy came to our house and, sitting at our kitchen table, convinced my dad to “try once more” and apply to have me attend an all-white, private school in New Orleans.  That day changed my life.

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