Hilarious Clinton

Hey dumbies...... do you know how insurance even works?

_____, taking us back to the 7th century.

Bury him in Cambridge. That town LOVES to celebrate diversity.

Time for them to put up or shut up.

Doesn't the radical right do similar stuff?

Not really. It's more common on the left.

The interpretation of the Constitution has always changed. And it will continue to do so. Alarmist #######!

But the climate is supposed to stay the same.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-Ben Franklin

Maybe. I hate the American way of life, but love the money. I think that just makes me an ungrateful pr!ck, but I could be wrong.

That's OK. It's a far cry from being an Islamic terrorists killing and maiming children et al,

He hated our way of life but loved our money.

Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned.

State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits. Russell Tsarnaev’s attorney has claimed Katherine — who had converted to Islam — was working up to 80 hours a week as a home health aide while Tsarnaev stayed at home.

In addition, both of Tsarnaev’s parents received benefits, and accused brother bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were recipients through their parents when they were younger, according to the state.

The news raises questions over whether Tsarnaev financed his radicalization on taxpayer money.

Relatives and news reports have indicated that Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s descent into extremist Islam began around 2008 or 2009, when the ethnic Chechen met a convert identified only as “Misha,” began to become more devout, and sought out jihadist and conspiracy theorist websites, and the rabidly anti-Semitic propaganda tract, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

In 2009, he was quoted in a photo essay as saying, “I don’t have a single American friend, I don’t understand them,” adding that he believed Americans had lost their “values.”

His uncle Ruslan Tsarnaev said it was around that time his nephew gave up drinking and was devoting himself to “God’s business,” while Tamerlan’s mother, now wearing a hijab — an Islamic headscarf — began relating conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks to her cosmetology clients that she said her son had told her.

In early 2011, Tamerlan Tsarnaev first came to the attention of the FBI when the Russian FSB intelligence service contacted the U.S. agency to warn that he was suspected of being a dangerous radical and sought information.

“The request stated that it was based on information that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups.” The FBI reported finding no “terrorism activity.”

In mid-2011, he was being monitored by the FSB, apparently prompting the FBI contact, ahead of his six-month trip home to Dagestan in 2012, where Time magazine reported he is believed to have attended a notorious radical mosque.

The state did not say when the Tsarnaevs began receiving benefits. But Health and Human Services spokesman Alec Loftus said the Tsarnaevs “were not receiving transitional assistance benefits at the time of the incident,” a reference to the marathon bombing that killed three and injured 260.

Loftus declined to specify what kinds of benefits and the amount of benefits the family received.

Their taxpayer-funded status came to light last night after repeated calls and emails to welfare officials from the Herald. They refused to comment throughout the day, but pressure mounted last night when the Herald started asking lawmakers whether the Department of Transitional Assistance should release the information.

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/04/tamerlan_tsarnaev_got_mass_welfare_benefits

1. Coal is concentrated solar power. Gooooo coal!

2. People love electricity.... no matter how it's made. Even hippies.

Old news. I posted this story yesterday, in another thread.

http://www.visajourn...ost__p__6177396

It's a separate story that merits its own thread.

The 1970s were a lousy decade.

Popular culture was consumed with decline, especially Hollywood. The Omega Man, Soylent Green, Damnation Alley and countless other dystopian films showed a planet wrecked by war, pollution and neglect. In large part, the entertainment industry was reflecting the culture at large.

In 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated — okay, “celebrated” doesn’t capture the funereal tone of the event. The events (organized in part by then hippie and now convicted murderer Ira Einhorn) predicted death, destruction and disease unless we did exactly as progressives commanded.

Behold the coming apocalypse as predicted on and around Earth Day, 1970:

1. "Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." — Harvard biologist George Wald
2. "We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation." — Washington University biologist Barry Commoner
3. "Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction." — New York Times editorial
4. "Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years." — Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich
5. "Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born… [by 1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s." — Paul Ehrlich
6. "It is already too late to avoid mass starvation," — Denis Hayes, Chief organizer for Earth Day
7. "Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine." — North Texas State University professor Peter Gunter
8. "In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution… by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half." — Life magazine
9. "At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it's only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable." — Ecologist Kenneth Watt
10. "Air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone." — Paul Ehrlich
11. "By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate… that there won't be any more crude oil. You'll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill 'er up, buddy,' and he'll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn't any.'" — Ecologist Kenneth Watt
12. "[One] theory assumes that the earth's cloud cover will continue to thicken as more dust, fumes, and water vapor are belched into the atmosphere by industrial smokestacks and jet planes. Screened from the sun's heat, the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born." — Newsweek magazine
13. "The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age." — Kenneth Watt

http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/joncgabriel/the-13-worst-predictions-made-on-earth-day-1970

I honestly do not know. Is there a world wide network of Christan fundamentalists that kill and blow up 1000's in the name of God ?

Nope. Radical Islam has cornered the market.

The hospitalized Boston Marathon bombing suspect charged Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction has told investigators that he and his brother were motivated by religion but were not in contact with overseas terrorists or groups, officials said.

Several officials familiar with the initial interrogation of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev described his behavior during questioning as cooperative.

A senior government official said Tsarnaev has told investigators — by writing some answers down, and by nodding yes or shaking his head no to others — that he and his brother were not in touch with any overseas terrorists or groups.

Tsarnaev, who has injuries to his tongue preventing him from speaking properly, also indicated that he and his brother conceived the bombing attack on their own, and were motivated by religious fervor.

They got their instructions on how to make bombs from the Internet, he said, according to these officials.

Earlier on Monday, the White House said he will be tried in a civilian court.

"He will not be treated as an enemy combatant. We will prosecute this terrorist through our civilian system of justice," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.

"Under U.S. law, United States citizens cannot be tried in military commissions. And it is important to remember that since 9/11 we have used the federal court system to convict and incarcerate hundreds of terrorists."

Tsarnaev, 19, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Chechen origin, made his initial court appearance at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he was listed in serious condition.

He was advised of his rights and charged with one count of using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction in the U.S. and one count of malicious destruction of property with an explosive device.

He was assigned three federal public defenders. The charges could carry the death penalty.

The suspect agreed to "voluntary detention," but declined to answer questions about bail, according to a court record. A probable cause hearing was set for May 30.

"Today's charges bring a successful end to a tragic week for the city of Boston and for our country," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.

"We will hold those who are responsible for these heinous acts accountable to the fullest extent of the law."

A criminal complaint laid out some of the evidence against Tsarnaev, who was arrested Friday after a daylong manhunt, and his brother, Tamerlan, who was killed during a firefight with police.

A black jacket and white hat, matching the ones worn by "Suspect No. 2" in surveillance video, were found in the younger brother's dorm room, along with green strands of fuse like those used in the marathon explosives that killed three and wounded more than 170.

The video also captured the suspect making a cellphone call seconds before the first bomb exploded on the east end of Boylston St. during last Monday's race, and his utter calm in the face of spreading panic, the complaint said. The footage showed him hurrying away from his knapsack just 10 seconds before a blast erupted where he left it.

Tsarnaev was brought to the hospital with gunshot wounds to the head, neck, leg and hand. He had been communicating with investigators in writing because he couldn't speak, federal officials told NBC News.

The FBI has not officially revealed a motive for the attack last Monday that killed three people -- one of whom, Krystle Campbell, was laid to rest in Medford on Monday. Investigators are still probing whether the brothers received assistance from others, officials said.

The feds have asked to speak with Tamerlan's wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, who converted to Islam after she met her future husband at a nightclub. She dropped out of college, got married and had a baby three years ago.

The feds have asked to speak with Tamerlan's wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, who converted to Islam after she met her future husband at a nightclub. She dropped out of college, got married and had a baby three years ago.

Her lawyer, Amato DeLuca, told The Associated Press he was trying to work out the details of an interview.

His client, he said, worked up to 80 hours a week as a home health aide while Tamerlan watched their daughter. He said she didn't have any suspicions he might be plotting something.

He said she last saw her husband at home on Thursday morning, hours before he and his younger brother allegedly executed a campus police officer, pulled off the carjacking, and led police on a wild bomb-tossing chase that ended in a 200-bullet gun battle.

http://usnews.nbcnew...y-religion?lite

The carjacking victim told police his abductor asked if he'd heard of the marathon bombing and then said "I did that."

The man, who has asked that his identity not be revealed, told NBC News that he managed to escape and called his captors "brutal and cautious."

The victim told police the two men said they "would not kill him because he wasn't American," according to a police report obtained by NBC News.

Boston's top police official said Monday that while there are many unanswered questions, the city can rest easy.

"We're satisfied the two main actors, the people that were committing the damage out there, have been either captured or killed," Police Commissioner Ed Davis said on TODAY.

"There is still an open question as to exactly what happened in this investigation," he said. "We can't say with 100 percent certainty...anything, actually, at this point."

Among the mysteries Tsarnaev could solve is what his brother did when he traveled to Russia last year and who he met.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on "Meet the Press" that trip could be when Tamerlan "got that final radicalization to push him to commit acts of violence and where he may have received training."

FBI, Homeland Security and counterterrorism officials on Tuesday will provide a classified briefing to members of Congress on the Boston Marathon bombings.

Authorities are also trying to figure out where the suspects got their bomb-making supplies and guns. Cambridge Police said neither one had the necessary permits to carry firearms.

Immigration officials have arrested two of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's friends on immigration violations, days after they were detained and questioned by police in New Bedford, Mass.

In another development on Monday, the FBI turned the street where the bombings occurred – Boylston Street -- back over to the city of Boston, which will begin a cleanup and decontamination process before it is reopened to the public. A specific date has not been set.

As part of a handover ceremony, the FBI presented Mayor Thomas Menino with an American flag that flew at half-staff over the Boston Marathon finish line.

Perhaps you are denying the existence of radical Islamic jihadists?

That is their modus oprandi. Muslims cannot question Islam. Therefore, Islamic terrorism doesn't exist.

So their uncle is also Muslim and had hard words to them and also spoke his views on America. Do his religious beliefs make him involved?

He criticized them, not Islamic terrorism, Islam or Muslims. He was very specific about that.

Do you believe Islamic terrorism exists?

Does any Muslim believe Islamic terrorism exists?

SEAN PENN'S SON

RAMS Photog

F*** YOU N***ER

Sean Penn's son handled a paparazzo in Beverly Hills today much the way his father used to ... violently ramming the photog -- and also calling the guy a "f***ot" and a "n***er."

19-year-old Hopper Penn was following his dad into a medical building when he got into the altercation with an African-American photographer (not TMZ's).

The nuclear exchange was all caught on tape ... Hopper gets up in the photog's face, pushing him, then says, "F*** you ... you're a f***ing f***ot ... shut up you f***ing n***er."

Cops happened to be nearby at the time and heard the commotion. Law enforcement sources tell us, officers asked what happened ... but the photog said it was just a verbal argument, and he didn't want to press charges.

Hopper tells TMZ his side of the story is ... "I was accosted by paparazzi and made to feel like an animal - threatened and under attack, but that does not condone my own actions."

He adds, "I deeply regret my choice of words."

FYI, Sean was 100% calm and cool in today's video.

It's been nearly four years since Sean's infamous kicking altercation with a photog. He was sentenced to three years probation stemming from that incident.

http://www.tmz.com/2...deo/?adid=hero4

Is anyone surprised?

whole story:

ROME Pope Francis washed the feet of a dozen inmates at a juvenile detention center in a Holy Thursday ritual that he celebrated for years as archbishop and is continuing now that he is pope. Two of the 12 were young women, an unusual choice given that the rite re-enacts Jesus' washing of the feet of his male disciples.

Play Video

Pope Francis' no-frills ways changing papacy

The Mass was held in the Casal del Marmo facility in Rome, where 46 young men and women currently are detained. Many of them are Gypsies or North African migrants, and the Vatican said the 12 selected for the rite weren't necessarily Catholic.

Because the inmates were mostly minors — the facility houses inmates aged 14-21 — the Vatican and Italian Justice Ministry limited media access inside. But Vatican Radio carried the Mass live, and Francis told the detainees that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion in a gesture of love and service.

• Pope Francis brings no frill style to papacy
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"If the Lord has washed his disciples' feet, you should do the same to one another," Francis said in his homily. "I have given you the example so that you may do the same."

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio would celebrate the ritual foot-washing in jails, hospitals or hospices — part of his ministry to the poorest and most marginalized of society. It's a message that he is continuing now that he is pope, saying he wants a church "for the poor."

Pope Francis kisses the foot of an inmate at the juvenile detention center of Casal del Marmo, Rome, on March 28, 2013.

/ AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano

26 Photos

Pope Francis

Previous popes would carry out the foot-washing ritual on Holy Thursday in Rome's grand St. John Lateran basilica and the 12 people chosen for the ritual were priests to represent the 12 disciples.

That Francis would include women in this re-enactment is symbolically noteworthy given the Vatican's prohibition on female priests.

The full text of Pope Francis' four-minute homily at Rome's juvenile prison "Casal del Marmo":

"This is moving, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. Peter understands nothing. He refuses but Jesus explains to him. Jesus, God did this, and He Himself explains it to the disciples.. 'Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me 'teacher' and 'master,' and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do'.

It is the example set by Our Lord, it's important for Him to wash their feet, because among us the one who is highest up must be at the service of others. This is a symbol, it is a sign - washing your feet means I am at your service. And we are too, among each other, but we don't have to wash each other's feet each day. So what does this mean? That we have to help each other...sometimes I would get angry with one someone, but we must let it go and if they ask a favor of do it!

Help one another. This is what Jesus teaches us. This is what I do. And I do it with my heart. I do this with my heart because it is my duty, as a priest and bishop I must be at your service. But it is a duty that comes from my heart and a duty I love. I love doing it because this is what the Lord has taught me. But you too must help us and help each other, always. And thus in helping each other we will do good for each other.

Now we will perform the ceremony of the Washing of the Feet and we must each one of us think, Am I really willing to help others? Just think of that. Think that this sign is Christ's caress, because Jesus came just for this, to serve us, to help us".

A Florida college professor causing national outrage for requiring students to write “Jesus” on a piece of paper, then put it on the floor and stomp on it, turns out also to be a top official in the local Democratic Party – the latest in a string of acute leadership embarrassments.

Although one student who refused to participate claims he was punished by being suspended from the class, Florida Atlantic University is defending the controversial assignment.

The dissenting student, Ryan Rotela, told the local CBS TV affiliate WPEC that his instructor, associate professor Deandre Poole, told everyone in the class to write the word “Jesus” on a piece of paper in bold letters, then put it on the floor and stomp on it.

Rotela, a junior from Coral Springs, said some of his classmates complied, but he refused.

“Anytime you stomp on something it shows that you believe that something has no value. So if you were to stomp on the word Jesus, it says that the word has no value,” he told WPEC.

A religious Mormon who attends church every Sunday, Rotela complained to school officials but said they responded by suspending him from the class.

According to Florida Atlantic University, Poole was conducting an exercise from the textbook “Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach, 5th Edition.”

A synopsis of the lesson plan in question, obtained by Fox News, goes like this:

Grove City College professor Paul Kengor, author of “The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor,” told Fox he wasn’t surprised by the “lesson.”

“These are the new secular disciples of ‘diversity’ and ‘tolerance’ – empty buzzwords that make liberals and progressives feel good while they often refuse to tolerate and sometimes even assault traditional Christian and conservative beliefs,” Kengor told Fox, saying classes like the one at FAU reflect “the rising confidence and aggression of the new secularists and atheists, especially at our sick and surreal modern universities.”

Kengor added: “Gee, I wonder if the instructor would dare do this with the name of Muhammed.”

It turns out, the “stomp-on-Jesus” professor, Poole, also has a prominent position in local politics. As Bizpacreview reports, Poole is vice-chairman of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party.

Moreover, this isn’t the local party’s first brush with negative publicity.

The former chairman of the county Democratic Party was forced to resign in September after comments he made at the Democratic National Convention last year in Charlotte, N.C.

As WND reported, Mark Siegel reportedly told an interviewer Christians who support Israel want to see Jews “slaughtered.”

Siegel was quoted as saying, “Oh no, the Christians just want us to be there so we can all be slaughtered and converted and bring on the second coming of Jesus Christ.”

And two months earlier, a Democratic Executive Committee member from Palm Beach County also slammed Israel. Evelyn Garcia sent an email accusing the Jewish state of atrocities, writing, “By supporting Israeli occupation with U.S. foreign aid, we are all complicit and guilty of their crimes against humanity.”

“And, I deeply resent U.S. taxpayer funds being used to continue Israeli aggression (yes, confiscating other peoples’ land and building illegal settlements is aggression), not to mention ‘incursions’ that kill PEOPLE, destroy civilian homes and infrastructure all over, mass concentration prison camps, etc,etc,etc,” she added.

Garcia quit her post after a public outcry.

In the meantime, still no word from Florida Atlantic University on whether it will discipline the professor who urged students to stomp on “Jesus” and whether Ryan will have his suspension from class lifted.

FAU did, however, email this press statement: “Faculty and students at academic institutions pursue knowledge and engage in open discourse. While at times the topics discussed may be sensitive, a university environment is a venue for such dialogue and debate.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/03/dem-party-official-makes-students-stomp-on-jesus/#sFtA5XTpfvxTR8uw.99

whole story:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Veterans groups are rallying to fight any proposal to change disability payments as the federal government attempts to address its long-term debt problem. They say they've sacrificed already.

Government benefits are adjusted according to inflation, and President Barack Obama has endorsed using a slightly different measure of inflation to calculate Social Security benefits. Benefits would still grow but at a slower rate.

Advocates for the nation's 22 million veterans fear that the alternative inflation measure would also apply to disability payments to nearly 4 million veterans as well as pension payments for an additional 500,000 low-income veterans and surviving families.

"I think veterans have already paid their fair share to support this nation," said the American Legion's Louis Celli. "They've paid it in lower wages while serving, they've paid it through their wounds and sacrifices on the battlefield and they're paying it now as they try to recover from those wounds."

Economists generally agree that projected long-term debt increases stemming largely from the growth in federal health care programs pose a threat to the country's economic competitiveness. Addressing the threat means difficult decisions for lawmakers and pain for many constituents in the decades ahead.

But the veterans groups point out that their members bore the burden of a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the past month, they've held news conferences on Capitol Hill and raised the issue in meetings with lawmakers and their staffs. They'll be closely watching the unveiling of the president's budget next month to see whether he continues to recommend the change.

Obama and others support changing the benefit calculations to a variation of the Consumer Price Index, a measure called "chained CPI." The conventional CPI measures changes in retail prices of a constant marketbasket of goods and services. Chained CPI considers changes in the quantity of goods purchased as well as the prices of those goods. If the price of steak goes up, for example, many consumers will buy more chicken, a cheaper alternative to steak, rather than buying less steak or going without meat.

Supporters argue that chained CPI is a truer indication of inflation because it measures changes in consumer behavior. It also tends to be less than the conventional CPI, which would impact how cost-of-living raises are computed.

Under the current inflation update, monthly disability and pension payments increased 1.7 percent this year. Under chained CPI, those payments would have increased 1.4 percent.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that moving to chained CPI would trim the deficit by nearly $340 billion over the next decade. About two-thirds of the deficit closing would come from less spending and the other third would come from additional revenue because of adjustments that tax brackets would undergo.

Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at The Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, said she understands why veterans, senior citizens and others have come out against the change, but she believes it's necessary.

"We are in an era where benefits are going to be reduced and revenues are going to rise. There's just no way around that. We're on an unsustainable fiscal course," Sawhill said. "Dealing with it is going to be painful, and the American public has not yet accepted that. As long as every group keeps saying, 'I need a carve-out, I need an exception,' this is not going to work."

Sawhill argued that making changes now will actually make it easier for veterans in the long run.

"The longer we wait to make these changes, the worse the hole we'll be in and the more draconian the cuts will have to be," she said.

That's not the way Sen. Bernie Sanders sees it. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs said he recently warned Obama that every veterans group he knows of has come out strongly against changing the benefit calculations for disability benefits and pensions by using chained CPI.

"I don't believe the American people want to see our budget balanced on the backs of disabled veterans. It's especially absurd for the White House, which has been quite generous in terms of funding for the VA," said Sanders, I-Vt. "Why they now want to do this, I just don't understand."

Sanders succeeded in getting the Senate to approve an amendment last week against changing how the cost-of-living increases are calculated, but the vote was largely symbolic. Lawmakers would still have a decision to make if moving to chained CPI were to be included as part of a bargain on taxes and spending.

Sanders' counterpart on the House side, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, appears at least open to the idea of going to chained CPI.

"My first priority is ensuring that America's more than 20 million veterans receive the care and benefits they have earned, but with a national debt fast approaching $17 trillion, Washington's fiscal irresponsibility may threaten the very provision of veterans' benefits," Miller said. "Achieving a balanced budget and reducing our national debt will help us keep the promises America has made to those who have worn the uniform, and I am committed to working with Democrats and Republicans to do just that."

Marshall Archer, 30, a former Marine Corps corporal who served two stints in Iraq, has a unique perspective about the impact of slowing the growth of veterans' benefits. He collects disability payments to compensate him for damaged knees and shoulders as well as post-traumatic stress disorder. He also works as a veterans' liaison for the city of Portland, Maine, helping some 200 low-income veterans find housing.

Archer notes that on a personal level, the reduction in future disability payments would also be accompanied down the road by a smaller Social Security check when he retires. That means he would take a double hit to his income.

"We all volunteered to serve, so we all volunteered to sacrifice," he said. "I don't believe that you should ever ask those who have already volunteered to sacrifice to then sacrifice again."

That said, Archer indicated he would be willing to "chip in" if he believes that everyone is required to give as well.

He said he's more worried about the veterans he's trying to help find a place to sleep. About a third of his clients rely on VA pension payments averaging just over $1,000 a month. He said their VA pension allows them to pay rent, heat their home and buy groceries, but that's about it.

"This policy, if it ever went into effect, would actually place those already in poverty in even more poverty," Archer said.

The changes that would occur by using the slower inflation calculation seem modest at first. For a veteran with no dependents who has a 60 percent disability rating, the use of chained CPI this year would have lowered the veteran's monthly payments by $3 a month. Instead of getting $1,026 a month, the veteran would have received $1,023.

Raymond Kelly, legislative director for Veterans of Foreign Wars, acknowledged that veterans would see little change in their income during the first few years of the change. But even a $36 hit over the course of a year is "huge" for many of the disabled veterans living on the edge, he said.

The amount lost over time becomes more substantial as the years go by. Sanders said that a veteran with a 100 percent disability rating who begins getting payments at age 30 would see their annual payments trimmed by more than $2,300 a year when they turn 55.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-politics/20130330/US-Budget-Battle-Veterans/

The terrorists at the NRA lied about the whole thing. All you gun nuts in support of this lying piece of cheap propaganda are free to feel like total arseholes now. You fell for a big, fat lie of a bunch of terrorists. So, you are free to feel stoopid, too.

Really. Wow, that's a stretch.

I wish my ethnic background was as pure as yours.

By JEFFREY SCOTT SHAPIRO

In the wake of the horrific elementary-school shootings in Newtown, Conn., last month, many Americans, desperate to do something in response, have decided that much stricter gun control is the answer. Democrats have proposed reinstating the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein has proposed legislation that would even restrict the use of some semiautomatic handguns.

As a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who enforced firearms and ammunition cases while a severe local gun ban was still in effect, I am skeptical of the benefits that many imagine will result from additional gun-control efforts. I dislike guns, but I believe that a nationwide firearms crackdown would place an undue burden on law enforcement and endanger civil liberties while potentially increasing crime.

The D.C. gun ban, enacted in 1976, prohibited anyone other than law-enforcement officers from carrying a firearm in the city. Residents were even barred from keeping guns in their homes for self-defense.

Some in Washington who owned firearms before the ban were allowed to keep them as long as the weapons were disassembled or trigger-locked at all times. According to the law, trigger locks could not be removed for self-defense even if the owner was being robbed at gunpoint. The only way anyone could legally possess a firearm in the District without a trigger lock was to obtain written permission from the D.C. police. The granting of such permission was rare.

The gun ban had an unintended effect: It emboldened criminals because they knew that law-abiding District residents were unarmed and powerless to defend themselves. Violent crime increased after the law was enacted, with homicides rising to 369 in 1988, from 188 in 1976 when the ban started. By 1993, annual homicides had reached 454.

The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department also waged a war on firearms by creating a special Gun Recovery Unit in 1995. The campaign meant that officers were obliged to spend time searching otherwise law-abiding citizens. That same year, the department launched a crackdown called Operation Cease Fire to rid the District of illegal firearms. But after four months, officers had confiscated only 282 guns out of the many thousands in the city.

Civil liberties were endangered. Legislative changes empowered judges to hold gun suspects in pretrial detention without bond for up to 100 days, and efforts were made to enact curfews and seize automobiles found to contain firearms. In 1997, Police Chief Charles Ramsey disbanded the unit so that he could assign more uniformed officers to patrol the streets instead, but the police periodically tried other gun crackdowns over the next decade—with little effect.

In 2007, a panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the city's gun ban was unconstitutional. Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman wrote in the majority opinion that "the black market for handguns in the District is so strong that handguns are readily available (probably at little premium) to criminals. It is asserted, therefore that the D.C. gun control laws irrationally prevent only law abiding citizens from owning handguns."

The ruling was affirmed the following year by the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller. Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion said that citizens were guaranteed a right to keep firearms that were in common use in their homes for self-defense, but that the government could pass reasonable regulations concerning firearms and ammunition.

Heller created a panic among gun-control advocates because it condoned the ownership of semiautomatic handguns, which are among the most common firearms in use but also the target of many restriction efforts. Supporters of the District gun ban maintained that because a semiautomatic handgun could potentially be converted into a machine gun—a class of firearms not expressly protected by Heller—they were in fact machine guns and therefore not protected by the Second Amendment. In response, Congress threatened to pass a law that specified the legality of semiautomatic handguns in the District. To avoid the embarrassment of being dictated to by Congress, the D.C. Council passed emergency legislation in September 2008 amending the gun ban to allow ownership of semiautomatic handguns for home defense.

<a name="U90402792486ZXC">Since the gun ban was struck down, murders in the District have steadily gone down, from 186 in 2008 to 88 in 2012, the lowest number since the law was enacted in 1976. The decline resulted from a variety of factors, but losing the gun ban certainly did not produce the rise in murders that many might have expected.

The urge to drastically restrict firearms after mass murders like those at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month and in Aurora, Colo., in July, is understandable. In effect, many people would like to apply the District's legal philosophy on firearms to the entire nation. Based on what happened in Washington, I think that would be a mistake. Any sense of safety and security would be a false one.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324081704578235460300469292.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

Just call him Al Gorezeera.

Yesterday morning, the still shell shocked staff at Current TV was called to an all hands staff meeting at its San Francisco headquarters, which was teleconferenced to their offices in LA and NYC, to meet their new bosses.

That would be two of Al Jazeera’s top guys: Ehab Al Shihabi, executive director of international operations, and Muftah AlSuwaidan, general manager of the London bureau.

Ominously missing was the creator of Current, the self proclaimed inventor of the Internet and savior of clean energy, Al Gore, although his partner, Joel Hyatt, stood proudly with the Al Jazeera honchos.

Getty Images FIRST MEETINGS: Current TV staffers teleconferenced with their new bosses. “Of course Al didn’t show up,” said one high placed Current staffer. “He has no credibility.

“He’s supposed to be the face of clean energy and just sold [the channel] to very big oil, the emir of Qatar! Current never even took big oil advertising—and Al Gore, that bulls***ter sells to the emir?”

The meeting, while not contentious, was, according to staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, miserable.

The mostly left-leaning group—some still in denial —weren’t buying what Al Jazeera was selling.

And what are they selling? Al Jazeera’s image of —are you ready?— “inform, inspire and entertain!”

The “new” American Al Jazeera will, according to Shihabi, appeal to the American audience with a mixture of national and international news—and, of course, entertainment.

But you won’t be getting that Middle East merriment until April, which is when the network says it will be ready to take over.

“Sometime within three months—no more, no less—we were told,” said the Current staffer.

One person at the meeting, who has already announced that she’s leaving, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, tried to ask about severance packages for those who wouldn’t be staying.

“This isn’t the place to discuss this!” Hyatt barked at her.

“After that, everyone kept their questions pretty much to themselves,” according to the staff member.

How do they feel about Gore the savior of green energy now?

The displeasure with Gore among the staff was thick enough to cut with a scimitar.

“We all know now that Al Gore is nothing but a bulls***ter,” said the staffer bluntly.

We do stories on the tax code, and he sells the network before the tax code kicked in?

“Al was always lecturing us about green. He kept his word about green all right—as in cold, hard cash!”

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/current_situation_XLE3W50v6I9Gbyqe6Z4pFP

Did they drive their Unicorn powered green-mobile or did they use fossil fuels to get to the protest?

Hey Stevie,

Why don't you run up every credit card you have to it's max, then live in austerity to pay them off.

When you're eating beans and rice during the austerity phase will you be honest and blame it on the spending or ignorant and blame it on the austerity?

President Obama's Aunt and Uncle both illegal aliens in the USA. Both get a pass and can stay.

If I'm in a jam I don't want any special treatment... just treat me like an illegal alien.