Congressional candidate Ozzie deFaria is beginning to melt under the political spotlight, as he once again is displaying a lack of judgment and temperament that is necessary to sustain the rigors of a congressional campaign. The Shark Tank recently questioned deFaria’s campaign advertisements as well as certain aspects of his background, a scrutiny which all congressional candidates should expect. But deFaria’s knee-jerk reaction to our story is unfortunately revealing- rather than deal directly with our documented and legitimate criticisms, he chose to malign your humble correspondent and the Shark Tank. This response shows that deFaria is not only thin skinned, he wound up embarrassing the Republican Party and his campaign.

Our report cited the following facts:

• deFaria’s posting of DNC Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz wearing a dog collar
• deFaria stating that Wasserman Schultz needed to be “sent back to the pound.”
• deFaria untruthfully stating the reason why Congresswoman Allen West tore into Wasserman Schultz in an email last year
• deFaria’s admittance that he used a phony ‘Tea Party’ organization to promote his campaign
• a list of public record court cases in which deFaria is named as a Defendant or a respondent

deFaria took issue with our criticism that asserts that his own words and deeds are questionable and will diminish his campaign- did he not take the time to think that his line of attack against Wasserman Schultz not only isn’t very original, but that it could be potentially used against him if he were the Republican nominee? (Shark Tank- original deFaria story here)

deFaria is actively promoting this ‘Doggie Debbie’ website and told the attendees of the recent SRLC convention in Charleston that ‘DWS’ “needed to be sent back to the pound.”continuing with the “Debbie is a Doggie” motif. We simply questioned if deFaria’s repeated caricature of Debbie as a dog with an aggressive looking dog collar is really a smart way to criticize her and broadly appeal to the masses of people in her congressional district.

deFaria’s feeble response to our criticism was made in an obscure Broward website that has a history of running cover for the embattled Broward Republican Executive Committee (BREC), and the site that has done all but endorsed deFaria. It’s also the same website that Redstate’s Erick Erickson smacked down last year for its lack of journalistic integrity and hack reportage.

What’s most humorous about this sad saga is that deFaria’s official statement claims that he was the victim of a “vicious attack” that he posted on his campaign website:

We’ll never know who paid for his most recent attack on Ozzie, but it’s not a coincidence that Debbie Wasserman Schultz said ‘Ozzie will get what’s coming to him’ and then a local paid political blogger launched a full front assault on Ozzie’s character. The charges made on the hit piece are either false or extremely misleading.

The Shark Tank blog has lost all credibility as a legitimate source of information. As explicitly outlined on the website truthaboutjaviermanjarres.com, the blog’s owner, Javier Manjarres, is nothing more than a political bounty hunter who consistently and regularly attacks the conservative opponents of the people who pay to advertise on his website.- Ozzie deFaria

That’s right dear readers, deFaria thinks that the Shark Tank’s criticism of his campaign tactics comes at the behest of and is paid for by none other than DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. In addition to this LOL implication, deFaria also cites an anonymous and libelous website which targets yours truly- a site which was authored by the same Charlie Crist-supporting establishment Republicans in Broward County who are his chief supporters. Beginning to see the bigger picture here?

Unfortunately, knee-jerk reactions like deFaria’s tend to be devoid of rationality, and his response isn’t one that will reassure voters about his judgement. How can deFaria call our “charges” (his characterization) “false or extremely misleading,” when we’re simply calling attention to and questioning his own campaign advertisements and statements? Whether it is what he said to the SRLC (on video below), his depiction of Debbie with a dog collar around her neck, or his public records, did the Shark Tank fabricate or distort any of these? You be the judge.

deFaria tweeted that he has “nothing to hide,” yet he’d rather disparage his critics rather than provide a coherent response to his supporters that is grounded in fact. Instead of showing the requisite character, discipline, and leadership with his response, deFaria decided to attack the messenger rather than intelligently respond to the message. What’s to hide, right?

Well, we might begin by starting to respect and understand those very words in the Declaration,… the Constitution,… and the Bill of Rights,… words that came at such a great price that they cost brave men their lives,… and which words did set this nation in motion on its separate path!  And we might also do well to consider that these words were not just written by some speechwriter to pander for votes, or to position his boss for re-election, but that the people who expressed them, actually meant what they said, and they had everything to lose, and only the remotest possibility of freedom to gain.

So then if we can just remember these things, then maybe the same fervor that stirred up our country’s founders will also enable us to prove ourselves worthy of their sacrifices.  Let us at least try to prove ourselves worthy of all that those before us have accomplished. Amen.

You can read more of Scott’s work at www.LessGovIsTheBestGov.com.

Property rights are under attack again in Oregon this year by the State Constitution and by the Oregon Legislature! State Legislators refused again to give my Foreclosure Reform Bill (Senate Bill 929) a hearing for the second straight year! This fifteen year old Bill, first written and drafted as Oregon House Bill 3453, in the 1995 Legislative Session, was allowed to die in committee again, in Salem this year! There was just not a lot of support for the Bill. Apparently there are a lot more important things for our State Legislators to do in Salem, than to make sure that our Oregon State Constitution conforms to the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights! For the benefit of all of our Oregon legislators, who have never read it, the ‘Takings Clause’ of the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, which is a part of the Bill of Rights, reads as follows, “Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” For the rest of this story read on.

Once upon a time there was a little boy and girl, who lived happily together with their parents, in a little house in Oregon, out in the country. Time passed, and as the years went by, the children grew up, their parents died, the house grew old, and so did the little boy and girl. A little community sprang up all around them, but the two siblings, who never married, never left home either. Then one day, along came a big bad wolf in disguise, actually it was two big bad wolves, Lane County and the City of Eugene, and together they huffed and they puffed, and while they didn’t actually blow the house down, it’s still there today with some alterations, they did blow Jack and Betty Neely right out of their home, the only home they’d ever known! Homelessness, followed by a heart attack and the untimely death of her brother, broke Betty Neely’s heart and she quietly left Oregon several years later! What we have here is a deplorable situation and a very horrible law, ORS 223.525, that violates the US Constitution and needs to be changed in this year’s session of the Oregon Legislature!   Read on:

Retrospective: Eugene Oregon, 1995
Foreclosure Reform Bill, HB 3453 passes Oregon House 43-7 but companion bill languishes in Senate

     In 1995 after a protracted dispute over a sewer assessment lien, the City of Eugene foreclosed on the childhood home of Jack and Betty Neely at 1600 Horn Lane, Eugene Oregon. Then Lane County evicted the elderly siblings, Jack age 76 and Betty age 66, and sold their home at a public sale at the county courthouse to the lone bidders, Marilyn Goss and Leroy Bench of Eugene for $7,411, the exact amount of the lien against it! The Neely home had been last appraised at $63,710. That forfeiture was quite a boondoggle for Goss and Bench!

Except for the sewer assessment lien, the property was owned free and clear by the Neely’s, and there were no other recorded liens against the deed.  The difference between the appraised value and the amount that the property sold for at foreclosure was $56,299.  This was the equity that Jack and Betty Neely had in their home.  It was their life savings!  It was effectively stolen from them by the City of Eugene and Lane County in order to perfect a $5000 sewer lien and then handed over to Marilyn Goss and Leroy Bench, currently of 2128 W 28th St., Eugene Oregon.  They bought the Neely house for $7,411and sold it 5 years later in 1999 for $100,650 and meanwhile they purchased a much nicer  house in the South Eugene Hills for $158,000, with the equity that rightfully belonged to Jack and Betty Neely!

Following the foreclosure on their house and their subsequent eviction, Jack Neely died homeless, one month later of a heart attack, and Betty Neely was forced to go into Public assistance housing.  She got an apartment at Yapoah Terrace.  I’m sure they couldn’t believe that their country would actually do this to them. Jack died broken hearted.  In 2005 Betty Neely left Oregon and moved south to California where she still lives with family members today.   It was a tragic story and an often forgotten one in the history of Eugene, and in the struggle between “Big Development”  and the residents of Lane County.

Many members of Eugene’s political establishment were around back then and they are still around today, as well as the same horrible law, ORS 223.525 that did the Neely’s in!  Mayor Kitty Piercy was then a freshman assemblywoman representing River Road and Santa Clara who only reluctantly agreed to sponsor the reform bill,  HB 3453.  Floyd Prozanski was a state assemblyman from South Eugene in 1995 but he was officially excused from voting on the bill. Peter Sorenson was a state senator from Eugene who was not at all helpful in supporting the bill. In 2009, I asked then state senator Floyd Prozanski to sponsor a new version of HB 3453. It did not even receive a hearing that year in the Democrat controlled legislature.  Floyd told me that they were very busy that year in Salem. Commissioner Peter Sorenson said he would work to bring some kind of reforms at the County level but then he never got back to me!

     The horrible law which allowed the Neely’s to loose everything and even cost Jack Neely his life, is still on the books today. The danger is still there!  ORS 223.525 is a deplorable law! It requires that a property in foreclosure be sold for no more than the actual amount of the lien against it! That’s correct, you could lose your home in a government foreclosure for the exact amount of an unpaid lien! This violates the “Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation” Clause of the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution commonly referred to as the “Takings Clause.” In 1995 I wrote Oregon HB 3453 to correct his inequity. If it had passed, it would have prohibited the government, when foreclosing on private property, from selling it for the exact amount of a lien. Instead it would have required the government to sell the property for not less than 80% of its fair market value and return to the judgment debtor, the balance of the sale price after the lien and interest, and all costs associated with conducting the sale were deducted. At least that would be just compensation! It passed the Oregon House 43-7, but a companion bill SB 572 died in the Senate.
   
Editors Note:   One aspect of what Eugene did in forcing the residents of River Road and Santa Clara to hook up to the Eugene Municipal Sewer System without jurisdiction and without actually even representing them was later declared to be illegal, in the Oregon Appellate Court, in the City of Eugene v. Kashin/Nalven.

ANALYSIS:   So much for Jack and Betty Neely’s high principles!  Marilyn Goss and Leroy Bench of Eugene took $7,411 and paid off the Neely’s original sewer assessment lien of $5,000 plus interest, and then regardless of the Neely’s high principles, and with the assistance of the City of Eugene, Lane County and the State of Oregon, they converted that $5,000 bill for sewers (which was illegal) into a $158,000 house in Eugene’s Southwest hills for themselves! The law that allowed this horrible injustice to occur to the Neely’s is ORS 223.525. It must be repealed or amended to conform to the US Constitution! HB 3453 or SB 929 needs to be reintroduced in the legislature and passed in order to protect all private property owners in Oregon and in order to bring the Oregon State Constitution into compliance with the United States Constitution!

You can read more of Scott’s work at www.LessGovIsTheBestGov.com.

On February 16, I published “Anatomy of a Global Warming Hoax” concerning the theft of the private records of The Heartland Institute’s board meeting and the creation of an alleged forged document intended to harm its reputation as a long time advocate of the real, not fake, science that has been the basis of the global warming—now called “climate change”—hoax.

The Feb 21 issue of The Wall Street Journal published an editorial, “The Not-So-Vast Conspiracy” noting that “As for ‘the largest international science conference of skeptics’ Heartland will, according to the documents, spend all of $380,000 this year on the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. That’s against the $6.5 million that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) costs Western taxpayers annually, and the $2.6 billion the White House wants to spend next year on research into ‘global changes that have resulted primarily from global over-dependence on fossil fuels.’” (Emphasis added)

The global warming hoax has cost taxpayers billions since it was initiated and earned the purveyors of “carbon credits” millions as industry and others paid for the privilege of emitting “greenhouse gas”—primarily carbon dioxide—as part of doing business. Currently the European Union is trying to shake down the airline industry by charging them a surtax on their emissions as they fly tourists and businessmen to that beknighted continent. Most of the exchanges that sold the credits have since closed.

The infamous “Cap-and-Trade” legislation that thankfully died in Congress was part of this scam.

We now know that the document theft was either perpetrated or abetted by Dr. Peter E. Gleick, a water and climate analyst, and founder of the Pacific Institute. A contributor to Huffington Post and prolific castigator of global warming “skeptics” and “deniers”, Dr. Gleick has admitted his part in the effort to depict The Heartland Institute, its board and its donors as part of the worldwide conspiracy to debunk the hoax.

Since 2008 Heartland has sponsored six conferences that brought together scientists and others who presented ample evidence of the absurdity that carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” was causing the Earth to heat up. Unfortunately for the real IPCC conspirators, the Earth entered a natural cooling cycle in 1998 and, in 2009, thousands of email exchanges between the IPCC scientists were posted to the Internet revealing their growing panic over the failure of Mother Nature to cooperate with their lies, most if not all of which were based on bogus computer models.

Even The New York Times that had trumpeted the false allegations based on the purloined documents, published a Feb. 20 article, “Activist Says He Lied to Obtain Climate Papers” reporting that “Dr. Gleick distributed the documents to several well-known bloggers and activists who support the work of mainstream climate scientists and who have documented the Heartland Institute as a center of climate change denial.”

The Times is incapable to not slandering organizations and individuals who have fought long and hard to rip the mask of respectability from the perpetrators of the hoax. The “mainstream scientists” to whom it refers are, of course, the IPCC scientists behind the hoax. “Climate change denial” is nothing less than the propagation of the truth about the hoax.

For me, the most interesting aspect of all this has been the way The Heartland Institute has responded to Dr. Glieck’s chicanery. From the moment that documents, real, altered and fake, were posted on sites like DeSmogBlog.com and others, Heartland’s president, Joe Bast, went after the then-unknown identity of the person who secured the documents threatening legal action.

When Dr. Glieck publicly admitted his part in a Huffington Post statement, Bast released a statement saying, “Gleick’s crime was a serious one. The documents he admits stealing contained personal information about Heartland’s staff members, donors, and allies, the release of which has violated their privacy and endangered their personal safety.”

The key word in Bast’s statement is “crime.” As John Sullivan, a British-based attorney and an active “denier”, author and blogger, noted, Bast said “A mere apology is not enough to undo the damage”, adding that Dr. Gleick faces being financially ruined by a civil prosecution and “is also liable to a criminal investigation as such falsification of documents is a well-known brand of white collar crime.”

Some time ago I wrote a commentary saying that some of the global warming conspirators needed to go to jail for their crimes. As events unfold, that yet may occur insofar as they were the recipients of public funding and United Nations support as the IPCC published their false “science” amidst alarmist global warming claims.

Perhaps their greatest crime was the debasement of meteorological and climate science. Beyond that, their attacks on the reputation of the brave scientists who stepped forward to refute them is the very definition of slander and liable. The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, the National Geographic, and other “mainstream” news publications will unfortunately be given a pass for advancing their lies even to this day.

The Heartland director’s meeting was devoted to a program to deal with the torrent of false teaching in our nation’s schools intended to warp the perceptions and knowledge of students regarding global warming. That, too, is part of the crime committed against a national and worldwide population that was deliberately misled.

The warmists are in retreat and for that everyone owes a great debt of gratitude to The Heartland Institute and all the others who joined in the effort to refute the greatest hoax of the modern era.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

The job I loved most in my long career as a writer was as a journalist, first on weekly newspapers and then on a daily. I loved breaking news, the deadlines, and the thrill of seeing my words in print. Old enough to remember Linotype, I even would set pages with the newly minted metal strips of text.

The day The New York Times Jersey edition published a piece I wrote, I thought I had reached some magical place amongst my fellow journalists. What I had unknowingly reached was being published a newspaper with a long history of printing lies and doing everything in its power to influence events through its news columns. That’s a no-no.

In a long career as a public relations counselor I have counted many reporters and editors among my friends and still do. I have been a member of the Society of Professional Journalists since the 1970s.

Sadly, journalism never did and probably still doesn’t pay salaries commensurate with the economy. So, in the words of Mae West, “I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.”

In 1984, I founded The National Anxiety Center as a clearinghouse for information about scare campaigns that were designed to influence public opinion and policy. My primary concern was all the lies being told by self-identified environmentalists. Simply stated, if some Green group tells you something, get a second and third opinion. They are lying.

The worst of it that the media has taken their lies at face value and continue to pass them along to a public that is easily fooled and easily scared. This is especially true of “official” sources such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and others. All governments lie to their citizens and ours is no exception.

The damage that Green lies do can get people killed. Since the publication of Rachel Carson’s “The Silent Spring” millions, particularly in Africa and subtropical nations have died from malaria because DDT was banned as the result of her book. Similarly, the least reported, but most current story is the deep freeze that has affected much of Europe and which has caused several hundred deaths.

Like a biblical punishment, newspapers are feeling the brunt of the changes the Internet has brought about. With search engines at our fingertips, anyone can research any topic of interest, often finding that what the daily newspaper or news magazine had to say about it is replete with omissions of critical facts or the deliberate dissemination of falsehoods.

Then there’s the way the newspapers and other news media tend to focus on stories like the death and funeral of Whitney Houston or some local tragedy that briefly attracts national attention. Wars are usually reported in terms of casualties. Political campaigns are reduced to horse races. Religious and moral issues barely tolerated.

Almost anything published about Islam must be read through the thin gauze of political correctness that ignores the menace of Islam to those living in Muslim nations and in nations where they gain a population foothold. It is a religion that sanctions stoning women to death, decapitating “infidels”, and even sending children into mine fields to clear them. It is pure barbarism and has zero tolerance for freedom of speech, the press, other religions, or independent thought.

All of this has much to do with the decline of newspapers nationwide. In January, on the website of Editor& Publisher, Alan D. Mutter, a former editor who blogs at Newsosaur, wrote the “Daily Paper Going the Way of the Milkman.” That caught my eye because I am old enough to remember a horse-drawn milk wagon (it was during WWII) pulling up at the driveway of my home to make deliveries.

The thought that newspaper delivery will cease in many cities around the nation is disquieting, but circulation is plunging.

The result is that reductions of newsroom staffs, reporters and editors, have been surging, with jobs eliminated in 2011 reaching nearly 30% more than the prior year. There have been five years of revenue declines. One blogger, Erica Smith, who follows the trends, estimated that 3,775+ newspaper jobs were eliminated in 2011.

According to an annual survey by the American Society of News Editors, nearly one in three newsroom jobs have been eliminated since the number of journalists peaked at 56,900 in 1989. By the end of 2010, there were only 41,600 ink-stained wretches left on the industry’s payrolls.

In recent weeks The Wall Street Journal reported “Gannett’s Profit Drops 33%” and “Thompson Reuters Posts Loss.”

Putting aside why advertisers are seeking greener pastures and platforms to sell their goods, let me suggest that an underlying and largely unexplored reason for the declines being felt throughout traditional print journalism outlets is that people simply do not want to pay for lies every day between the horoscope, the crossword puzzle, and the obituary page.

Lies? The print media and its broadcast counterpart fell totally in love with Barack Obama in 2008 and we ended up with a completely unknown and largely unvetted former Senator who hadn’t even served a full term there. People remember stuff like that.

They remember years of unmitigated lies about “global warming” when there wasn’t any threat at all.

They remember being told that coffee was bad for you followed by stories that coffee is good for you.

There are many factors at play in the decline of newspapers, but I think one factor is the general disenchantment with the product—the news—that too often tends to turn out to be false.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Wisconsin is Just the Beginning.

In an effort to oust Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (along with the Lieutenant Governor and 4 Senators) the union backed group United Wisconsin led a massive drive to fill petition pages by any means necessary, flooding Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board with more signatures than anyone ever expected. When the GAB stated they couldn’t process such an influx and planned only to do visual spot checks, True the Vote decided to take action. True the Vote, together with Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty and We the People of the Republic, launched an effort to engage citizens in an independent, comprehensive audit of recall petition signatures. Why? Because if government can’t or won’t stand up to such Cloward and Piven-esque strategies, then citizens must.

Fellow Patriots, It’s Go Time!

We need your help! All we ask for is 100 minutes. In 100 minutes you can enter data for approximately 100 petition signatures. Nearly 13,000 volunteers from 49 states have signed up to participate in this recall effort – if we all work together this weekend, we can get the job done. This is the real deal – citizens are taking control – let’s stand together!

We Can See the Finish Line

Ours is the only effort with manpower and technology to crowd-source the 152,000+ documents that were meant to drown the GAB and we are 75% of the way done. But WE NEED MORE HELP to get all the signatures entered and THE CLOCK IS TICKING! All challenges in the Walker recall are due on February 27th. We want to post our findings online by February 25th. This timetable requires all signatures to be entered by February 23rd at the latest. Citizens have already found tens of thousands of ineligible names. Here’s an example – Donald Duck signed the petition – and his address is a Starbucks. Signup to help identify this kind of fraud!

If we don’t complete this audit, United Wisconsin wins by default and the clenched fist tactic of recall petition overwhelm will rage across our nation. Wisconsin is just the beginning.

Sign up right here right now

Soon after you signup you’ll receive an email with your password and instructions – then you’ll be ready to go! This audit effort is not about politics – it is about principle. Either we the people are strong enough to stand against union strong-arm tactics or we’re not. Government has already given up. The citizens of this country must hold the line. Invest 100 minutes this weekend, help the citizens of Wisconsin finish strong, and take a stand for election integrity!

And one more request – after you sign up, PLEASE FORWARD this information to your own email lists and ask them to forward it, too.

We can do this, we can do anything, when we stand together.

Onward -

Catherine Engelbrecht
True the Vote
http://www.truethevote.org/

This political malady is not exclusive to one side of the aisle or the other. Neither is it exclusive to the elected class. In fact, some of the most egregious abusers of truth and honesty come in the form of agendized media operatives. It is an across-the-board problem that comes with the intellectual infections that are the “inside-the-beltway mentality” and the special interest mentality, both of which are shared by the elected class, the media who cover them and the special interest groups who try to sway them both.

In the Republican Primary Elections we have seen a good example of spin, and viciously so. In one of the most negative political cycles in recent times, we have witnessed each of the nominees unleash barrage after barrage of negative attacks ads against whomever they deem the threat of the day. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, although not as blatant about their approval of such tactics, are just as guilty of partaking in the art of spin; in stretching the truth to achieve an ideological goal, as Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney. It can be argued that Mr. Romney is the biggest abuser, but I am sure that Romney supporters will spin that to their advantage.

But the Republican field’s negative campaigning and spinning of fellow candidates’ stances and records pales in comparison to the outright dishonesty that is coming from the Progressive Left, the media who supports them and the Obama Administration. Ironically, an unspoken penchant for decorum and civility kept the word “liar” – and the accusation of lying – from being employed just one short decade ago. Chronicling the genesis of this sad and reprehensible turn of events, one can point to the Progressive Left’s disingenuous assault of President George W. Bush with, “Bush Lied, Soldiers Died” as the moment it became acceptable to level the charge of “liar” against an elected official, never mind a sitting President. Although many may have thought it – and perhaps even known it – we, as a people, refrained from actually saying it.

Today, it doesn’t even garner an eyebrow-raise when the likes of US Rep. Maxine Waters (P-CA) calls Speaker of the House John Boehner or House Majority Leader Eric Cantor “liars.” Recently, the radically Progressive lawmaker went so far as to call the whole of the House Republican contingent “demons.” So much for the civility speech that President Obama gave after the shooting of US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona.

Three recent events serve as perfect examples – three articles of evidence, if you will – of how the Progressive Left has “fundamentally transformed” the art of spin to a campaign of dishonesty, and, again, simply for the retention of political power.

The first item comes in the form of a declaration by the Obama White House that Catholic Charities USA stood with Mr. Obama and Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in support of their plan to mandate that the insurance companies of religious institutions provide free “contraception coverage” for all employees.

According to FOX News, the organization that Media Matters and the Progressive Left love to hate:

“Catholic Charities USA has occasionally been cited as a supporter of the new policy, after the administration announced last week it would no longer require religious organizations to directly offer contraceptive coverage to workers. That’s almost certainly because the White House listed the group on an official blog that cited ‘praise from a wide range of individuals and organizations’ for the policy change…

“But the organization has since posted a clarification on its website, after that statement was interpreted by some as an endorsement.

“‘We have not endorsed the accommodation to the HHS mandate that was announced by the administration last Friday,’ the group said. Rather, the group said it would ‘unequivocally share the goal’ of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to ‘uphold religious liberty. Any representation to the contrary is false,’ Catholic Charities said.”

It is interesting to note how the Obama White House cherry-picked and abbreviated a quote by Catholic Charities USA to fit their narrative. Catholic Charities USA had issued a statement saying it welcomed, “the administration’s attempt to meet the concerns of the religious community” and that they were “hopeful that this is a step in the right direction.” That’s a far cry from an endorsement or even convoluted support.

Out of this same subject came another assault against honesty, this time at the hand of habitual spinner and a Progressive operative herculean in her ability to weave fiction out of any given issue, Rachel Maddow.

On her MSNBC program, speaking on the Obamacare contraception mandate issue, Maddow said:

“In these 28 states there’s already State law that requires employers – including in many cases employers associated with religious institutions – to provide health insurance that covers contraception. That is already the law of the land in these 28 States.

“There is a reason you have not been deafened by the cries of outrage over that policy in these 28 States. It’s because no one in the Republican Party decided that that sort of thing would be an outrage until now – until they could somehow try to use it against President Obama even though they never cared about it before.

“Actually eight of those States that require health insurance to cover contraception – in these eight States there’s not even an exemption for churches. That’s true of all these Godless places you see here, like Georgia and Iowa and Montana.

“So, in fact, the Obama Administration’s proposed new rule on health insurance, which says religious institutions like churches do not have to provide health insurance that covers contraception – those new rules from the Obama Administration would actually give churches a new exemption from that law that they’ve never had before. In eight States the Obama Administration rule would carve out more space for churches to evade the rules that everyone else has to operate by, on the basis of their religious beliefs…

“I, personally, along with many other people across this country, along with eight States across the country, think it is bizarre that there should be religious belief exemptions from having to follow laws like this, but the Obama Administration is willing to go there. Their rules will exempt churches, which eight states right now don’t even do.”

There is so much wrong with this statement one can hardly find a place to begin. So, we are thankful that the Media Research Center captured one of Ms. Maddow’s own MSNBC colleagues, Lawrence O’Donnell, debunking the blatant lie foisted on the American public by Ms. Maddow and her production team:

“Now you’ve heard many, many times in the last couple of days that there are now 28 States that have passed [measures] similar to the regulation in the Obama healthcare law and that all of that has suddenly become so controversial.

“You’ve also been told – and I’ve been told – repeatedly on television that eight of those States have absolutely no exemptions to the law. None. No religious exemptions at all. No way out for Catholic churches, Catholic schools, Catholic hospitals…their stuck. And I’ve got to tell you, when I heard it, every time I heard it, it just didn’t sound right to me. And whenever I hear people in Washington or New York say what’s happening out there in the States, in some State law, in a place where they’ve never been, I just don’t believe them, and you shouldn’t either.

“…we spent the day today studying the statutes in the eight States that everyone is saying provide absolutely no exception. The other twenty States, everyone agrees, provides bigger, more comfortable exemptions for the Catholic Church, including Massachusetts, which has falsely been reported as being identical to the provision inserted into the federal law. In all of those other twenty State laws there’s an exemption big enough for the White House to drive through.

“Let’s look then at the Georgia law, which you’ve been told and I’ve been told, repeatedly, has absolutely no exemptions and does have that astonishingly Liberal sounding prose introduction to it that I just read.

“The Georgia Law actually says, ‘This code section shall not be construed to require coverage for prescription coverage benefits in any contract policy or plan that does not otherwise provide coverage for prescription drugs’…And there is the huge exemption to the Georgia law. You are exempt from it if your policy simply does not provide for prescription drugs. And so all religious institutions have to do in Georgia to avoid the requirement to provide birth control pills is to just not provide any drug benefit in their policies….which is true about an awful lot of policies out there anyway.”

Refreshing to have an MSNBCer calling one of their own out on the carpet.

But perhaps the quintessential example of governmental and political dishonesty came in the form of a statement Obama Chief of Staff Jack Lew made during a taping of CNN’s State of the Union, defending the blatant and grotesquely partisan obstructionism of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid where passing a budget is concerned:

“Let’s be clear, what Senator Reid is talking about is a fairly narrow point. In order for the Senate to do its annual work on appropriation bills they need to pass a certain piece of legislation which sets a limit. They did that last year. That’s what he’s talking about. He’s not saying they shouldn’t pass a budget, but we also need to be honest, you can’t pass a budget in the Senate of the United States without sixty votes and you can’t get sixty votes without bi-partisan support. So, unless Republicans are willing to work with Democrats in the Senate, Harry Reid is not going to be able to get a budget passed.”

Of course, there is one major thing wrong with that statement: it doesn’t take 60 votes to pass a budget in the US Senate.

As The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler points out in The Fact Checker:

“Lew is completely wrong when he claims that 60 votes are needed to ‘pass a budget in the Senate.’ As he well knows, a budget resolution is one of the few things that are not subject to a filibuster. In fact, that is one reason why a bill based on reconciliation instructions cannot be filibustered.

“You don’t even need 50 votes, just a simple majority. Here are a few of the recent close votes for the budget resolution, as listed by CRS: 48-45 (2009 budget); 51-49 (2006); 51-50 (2004); 50-48 (2001). Senate Democrats may have reasons for failing to pass a budget plan — such as wanting to avoid casting politically inconvenient votes — but a GOP filibuster is not one of them.”

It needs to be noted here – for those who don’t know his prior positions in federal government – that Mr. Lew was not only the most recent budget director for President Obama; he was also the budget director for former President Bill Clinton. That said, it is impossible for him not to have known that it does not take sixty votes to pass a budget resolution in the US Senate.

In fact, Mr. Lew made the statement repeatedly that day, pointing to a concerted effort to move that political talking point into the mainstream so as to manipulate the truth and, thereby, manipulating the public’s perception of the issue. The bottom line here is that the President of the United States’ Chief of Staff went on several national media outlets professing an out-and-out lie in order to confuse and manipulate the American people; solely for political gain.

Joseph de Maistre, a key figure of the Counter-Enlightenment and defender of hierarchical societies and monarchical States, in opining against a democratic form of government, whether a Direct Democracy of a Constitutional Republic, such is the United States, is quoted as saying: “Every country has the government it deserves.” Given the pathetic performance of the American Electorate in not only turning out the vote but in abdicating our constitutional obligation of governmental oversight, I’d say Monsieur de Maistre was spot on.

We talk a lot today about how we must act to save our country. To be sure, this action is incredibly necessary. We the People have allowed government to fall into the hands of nefarious men and women; partisans and opportunists; men and women more loyal to their political parties than to their constituents. We have an opportunity to right this wrong by enlightening ourselves to the many truths of the matters, by educating ourselves on the philosophies of the Charters of Freedom and then engaging in the process of electoral decision making and properly discharging our constitutional duties to governmental oversight.

We can also go a long way to “getting back to good” by making honesty and truthfulness election year issues. If we accept dishonesty from our elected officials and do nothing to right that wrong, then Monsieur de Maistre was right, we have the government we deserve.

Full disclosure: Years ago I received a small stipend from The Heartland Institute to help cover the costs of writing articles regarding the global warming hoax, well before it was exposed in 2009 when emails between its perpetrators—the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—revealed the total lack of real science involved. I have continued to expose the hoax without any support from Heartland or any other entity.

A total of six conferences on climate change have been sponsored by The Heartland Institute. I attended the first conference in New York City in 2008 and my initial observation was that virtually no one from the press was there and the meager coverage it received disparaged it.

This week, a major smear campaign against the Institute erupted as the result of an act of deception and thievery that may well result in criminal charges against its as yet unknown perpetrator.

The President of the Institute, Joe Bast, immediately informed its supporters, directors, donors and friends that someone pretending to be a board member had sent Heartland an email claiming to be a director and asking that documents regarding a January board meeting be re-sent.

A clever ruse, but the result was that elements of the confidential documents were then posted on a number of so-called climate blogs and from there to various members of the media who, with the exception of The Guardian, took no steps whatever to verify the authenticity of the documents, some of which Heartland says were either a concoction of lies or altered to convey inaccurate information.

The leading disseminator of the global warming hoax, The New York Times, published its version on Wednesday, February 15th, titled “Leak Offers Glimpse of Campaign Against Climate Science.”

Suffice to say, the “climate science” served up by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been a pack of lies from the day it first convened. Its “science” was based on computer models rigged by co-conspirators that include Michael Mann of Penn State University and Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia.

The original leak of their emails in November 2009 instantly revealed the extent of their efforts to spread the hoax and to suppress any expression of doubt regarding it. A second release in 2011 confirmed what anyone paying any attention already knew.

The “warmists”, a name applied to global warming hoaxers, launched into a paroxysm of denial that has not stopped to this day. Their respective universities have since engaged in every possible way to hide the documentation they claimed supported their claims. Suffice to say, the global warming hoax was the golden goose for everyone who received literally billions in public and private funding.

We have reached the point where the warmists have been claiming that global warming causes global cooling! Along the way the bogus warming has been blamed for thousands of utterly absurd events and trends. What really worried the perpetrators was the fact that the planet had entered a cooling cycle in 1998.

At the heart of the hoax was the claim that carbon dioxide (CO2) was causing the Earth to heat and that CO2 emissions must be reduced to save the Earth. Next to oxygen, CO2 is vital to all life on Earth as it sustains all vegetation which in turn sustains every creature that depends on it as a source of food. It represents a mere 0.033% of the Earth’s atmosphere and is referred to by warmists as a “greenhouse gas.” It is, as any meteorologist or climatologist will tell you, the atmosphere that protects the Earth from becoming a dissociated planet like Mars.

The New York Times article is a case study in bad journalism and bias on a scale for which this failing newspaper is renowned. The Times reported that “Leaked documents suggest that an organization known for attacking climate science is planning a new push to undermine the teaching of global warming in public schools, the latest indication that climate change is becoming part of the nation’s culture wars.”

Wrong, so wrong. Polls have demonstrated that global warming is last on a list of concerns by the public. It barely registers because the public has concluded that it is either a hoax or just not happening. Teaching global warming in the nation’s schools constitutes a crime against the truth and the students.

The Times article makes much of the amounts some donors to Heartland have contributed, but in each cited case, with one exception, the donations had nothing to do with its rebuttal of global warming science.

“It is in fact not a scientific controversy”, said the Times article. “The majority of climate scientists say that emissions generated by human beings are changing the climate and putting the planet at long-term risk, although they are uncertain about the exact magnitude of that risk.”

The exact magnitude is zero. Thousands of scientists have signed petitions denouncing global warming as a hoax. The Times lies.

A post at The Daily Bayonet on February 14th said it well, “What the Heartland documents show is how badly warmists have been beaten by those with a fraction of the resources they’ve enjoyed. Al Gore spent $300 million advertising the global warming hoax. Greenpeace, the WWF (World Wildlife Fund), the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council, NASA, NOAA, the UN and nation states have collectively poured billions into climate research, alternative energies, and propaganda, supported along the way by most of the broadcast and print media.

The Times will continue to publish lies about global warming, as will others like Time and Newsweek magazines. The attacks on Heartland and the many scientists and others like myself who debunk this fraud will continue, but their efforts are just the dying gasp of the greatest hoax of the modern era.

There’s a reason the theme of Heartland’s sixth conference in 2011 was “Restoring the Scientific Method.” Real science does not depend on declaring “a consensus” before the hypothesis has been thoroughly tested, a process that often involves years of effort. Meanwhile, the planet continues to cool.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

A lot of things that a President cannot control can gravely affect his chances of being reelected. In 1979, the combination of an oil embargo and the Iranians taking U.S. diplomats hostage ended any hope of a second term for Jimmy Carter.

As this is written, there are 19 U.S. citizens being held hostage in Egypt, but you are hearing little to nothing about that in the mainstream media.

The economy is going to affect President Obama’s odds of being reelected this year and Americans who are notorious for gaging the impact of inflation by watching the cost of gasoline at the pump rise are going to blame Obama. An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and a possible conflict will drive prices through the roof.

When Obama took office, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was $1.61.Averaging $3.50 at present, the price of a gallon of gas is predicted to rise to $4 and even $5 by summertime.

If the U.S. was not dependent on imported oil, we could control our own fate, but for decades every effort possible has been made to drive up the cost of automobiles and gasoline, led by environmental organizations like Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club, two notorious anti-energy foes, in combination with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Little wonder they are in a full war against the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada or that the Obama administration has been trying to convince Americans it favors opening access to existing and new oil reserves.

Dan Kish, vice president of the American Energy Alliance, recently took note of the political maneuverings over the American Energy and Infrastructure Act of 2012, saying “At the end of the day, the American people don’t care whether federal lands are opened in one large piece of legislation or in separate smaller pieces.”

“The bottom line is that the Federal government currently leases approximately 2.4 percent of the land owned by U.S. citizens, while lands equaling ten times the State of Texas are kept off limits by Federal regulators. With reports coming out that gasoline could approach five dollars a gallon by this summer, we cannot wait any longer to begin tapping these resources.”

If the Obama administration really wanted to create jobs and improve the economy, it would “lift the embargo on American energy,” said Kish, “and open our onshore and offshore resources for robust exploration and development.”

“The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the nation has six times the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia”

In 2010, while oil, natural gas and coal accounted for 78 percent of U.S. energy production, its producers received 11 percent of all federal energy subsidies. By contrast, subsidies to the wind industry increased 10-fold, from $467 million in 2007 to $4.9 billion in 2010.

Closer to the pump for Americans was the deal the Obama administration struck with thirteen auto manufacturers in July 2011 to boost new car fuel economy standards from 35.5 miles per gallon (mpg) in 2016 to 54.5 mpg in 2025.

The claim made was that it would save Americans $1.7 trillion over the lifetime of vehicles and $8,000 per vehicle by 2025. Higher gas prices as the result of increased costs of imported oil and higher automobile prices that will result from this deal will cancel out any alleged savings.

Who wants to be fooled again by this administration?

And what business is it of the federal government how much mileage an auto gets?

The U.S. government has been messing around with the fuel economy program—believe it or not—for forty years. The result was the rise in sales of Japanese auto companies and European imports while Detroit saw General Motors and Chrysler come so close to collapse they had to be bailed out with billions of taxpayer dollars.

The culprit has been the Corporate Average Fuel Economy program and Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute calls it “a case study of unintended consequences. If the fuel-saving technologies requisite to meet the new standards are such a great bargain, why do we need a law forcing automakers to adopt them?” Good question!

Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation crowed that “Today’s announcement is the latest in a series of executive actions the Obama administration is taking to strengthen the economy and move the country forward because we can’t wait for Congressional Republicans to act.” That’s right, they blamed by-passing Congress and the deal on Republicans!

Meanwhile, the only thing CAFE standards accomplish is an increase in the cost of automobiles and a decrease in the safety of their occupants as cars are forced to be lighter and more vulnerable in a crash.

In a February 2nd opinion published in The Wall Street Journal, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell welcomed news that Congress might finally be moving in the direction to permit Americans benefit from access to their own oil.

Opening the Artic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) to oil exploration and production would have obvious benefits. “This legislation opens 400,000 acres of the ANWR coastal plain’s 1.5 million acres” that represent “less than three percent of ANWR’s 19 million total acres.”

The other way Americans have been forced to pay more at the pump have been the mandates for the mix of ethanol in every gallon of gasoline. Why? Because its advocates claimed that this would reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but in fact ethanol increases CO2 emissions while at the same time reducing the mileage of every gallon of gasoline. And there is absolutely no scientific justification for reducing CO2 emissions because the mandate is based on the totally debunked global warming hoax.

The cost of building new oil refineries in America was increased exponentially by the Clean Air Act of 1970. There have been no new refineries since 1976. There are currently 149 refineries in the U.S. Requiring them to make different blends for different regions of the nation has done little more than to drive up the cost at the pump. The taxes on gasoline have been a bonanza for the federal government and the states.

The good news is that two new refineries are being developed, one in Yuma, Arizona, and one in Union County, South Dakota. The bad news is that Sunoco Inc has just announced it will continue to exit the refining business due to the lack of profitability. In business for 117 years, Sunoco has been gradually shifting out of refining, reducing its capacity 43 percent since 2009.

Come November, if drivers of cars are shelling out $5 a gallon at the pump, a lot of voters are going to be very unhappy. If our citizens are still being held hostage in Egypt they will be even less happy.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

But to say that there is nothing ever worth fighting for, is to allow the next big bully who comes along on the world stage, to take over Europe, without so much as a single shot, even being fired in self defense! To say there is nothing worth fighting for is to lay down your freedom, along with your weapons, to whoever is strong enough or crazy enough to try to take them away from you! To say there is nothing worth fighting for, is to say that you’d rather live as a slave than die as a free man!

The Bible says, that a living dog is better than a dead lion. This is true. But is a living slave actually better than a dead free man? I don’t think so. Somehow it doesn’t have the same inspirational ring to it. I prefer to think upon such inspiring slogans as these:

“Give me liberty or give me death.”
Patrick Henry

“Live free or die.”
New Hampshire State Motto

“It is better to die on our feet than to live on our knees.”
F.D.R.

“We are willing to fight to maintain freedom.”
F.D.R.

“It is better to live one day as a lion than one hundred years as a sheep.”
Old Italian Saying

“Peace will come soon, and come to stay, and come so as to be worth keeping. Then it will be proved that among free men, there is no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet…”
Abraham Lincoln

“There is a time for everything and for every purpose under Heaven … a time of war and a time of peace.”
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
Thomas Jefferson

Over the years, I have seen more than one anti war demonstrator holding up signs that read “War is not the answer” or “War doesn’t solve anything.” They certainly have short memories don’t they? War certainly stopped Adolph Hitler, and it was the only thing that could have stopped him! It ended the Nazi death camps and it stopped the genocide of the Jewish people! It also stopped the Nazi war machine in its tracks and liberated an entire continent from tyranny! War was the only realistic answer that we could have given back to the threat posed by the Nazi juggernaut!

War also put an end to fascism in Spain and Italy by stopping Franco and Mussolini. The resounding declaration of war by our own Congress in 1941, certainly stopped the Japanese Imperial aggression against China, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, and most of the rest of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, not to mention our own westernmost states of Hawaii and Alaska! War between the North and the South, the Civil War, freed the slaves in our own country! And as if I should even need to remind you of the fact that war, the Revolutionary War, led to the very founding of our republic!

Without war, we would still be a colony of England! Without war, there would still be slaves in America! Without war, there would probably be no Jews left in the world, and the people in China, Korea, and the Philippines would probably all be speaking Japanese today! So you see, war sometimes is the answer. Sometimes it is the only answer!

To say that war is never the answer is a rather naïve and simplistic view, that will lead to the ultimate defeat and to the eventual disappearance of all those who have such a world view. If they would say that war is only the answer of last resort, then I would wholeheartedly agree, because NO ONE LIKES WAR, no matter what side of the political issues of war and peace they are on!

As William Tecomseh Sherman said in 1879, “War is hell.”

But as we should all ask ourselves today in 2011, “Peace at what price?”

You can read more of Scott’s work at www.lessgovisthebestgov.com.