Bookeemonster: a voracious appetite for books, mostly crime fiction.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Current Events - April 9, 2013
Party at the White House, Again
Sequester? What sequester? The White House is still closed to the
public and little school children on spring break but it'll be open
tonight as President Obama hosts a slew of celebrities for yet another lavish party.
Tonight’s special White House “celebration” of Memphis soul music
marks the tenth time President and Mrs. Obama have been treated to an
exclusive East Room “command performance” of American music featuring
major stars, past and present.
While the performances are televised and celebrate the nation’s
culture, some may wonder whether during an era of soaring deficits it is
wise to stage what are also in effect private parties for the first
couple.
And with this evening’s event, the performances are officially part of
the “sequester-free zone” at the White House. As is well known, the
daily White House tours did not make the cut.
To attend any event at the White House, one must be invited. (The
White House is now closed for public access by members of the general
public.) And especially this one, with Hollywood and musical stars--and
with remarks by the president of the United States. Since it's an official event, we know who's picking up the tab. The taxpayers.
If you're feeling left out, you can join the party online tonight when the event is streamed live online at whitehouse.gov.
Obama declares Tuesday ‘National Equal Pay Day,’ despite paying female staffers less than male counterparts
President Barack Obama officially declared Tuesday “National Equal
Pay Day,” symbolically marking how much extra work women supposedly must
perform to reach pay parity with men.
“Women — who make up nearly half of our nation’s workforce
— face a pay gap that means they earn 23 percent less on average than
men do. That disparity is even greater for African-American women and
Latinas,” Obama said in a statement issued Monday. “On National Equal
Pay Day, we recognize this injustice by marking how far into the new
year women have to work just to make what men did in the previous one.”
While Obama, who signed the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to make
filing employment-discrimination suits easier, has repeatedly lamented
statistics showing that men generally earn more than women, the Obama
White House has failed in recent years to pay female employees the same
amount as male ones.
Coburn: GAO report reveals $95 billion in government overlap
The Government Accountability Office’s third annual report on government duplication revealed 17 areas of government fragmentation and overlap and 14 areas of potential cost savings.
Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn said that the amount of overlap
revealed in the report and in previous years could serve to cover the
cost of the sequester.
“While millions of Americans have been doing more with less, the
federal government continues to do less with more,” Coburn, who passed
an amendment three years ago requiring this annual report, said in a
statement. ”The $95 billion in overlap identified in this report,
combined with the $200 billion in overlap identified in GAO’s previous
two reports, could easily cover the costs of sequestration. Yet, instead
of preventing furloughs, reopening air traffic control towers and
restoring public access to White House, Congress and the administration
continue to defend billions of dollars in duplicative programs that are
little more than monuments to the good intentions of career politicians
in Washington.”
Tuesday’s report adds to the existing GAO data on government
inefficiencies as they pertain to fragmentation, duplication and
overlap. GAO’s two prior reports revealed 131 areas of fragmentation,
duplication and overlap and issued 300 recommendations.
According to a letter
to Congress from Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro, GAO released in
conjunction with the report, the GAO evaluated the progress made on the
area GAO highlighted.
“We found that the executive branch agencies and Congress have made
progress in addressing the 131 areas we identified in 2011 and 2012,”
Dodaro explained in his letter. “As of March 6, 2013, the date we
completed our audit work, 16 of the 131 areas were addressed; 87 were
partially addressed; and 27 were not addressed.12 We also found that of
the approximately 300 actions needed within these areas, 65 were
addressed; 149 were partially addressed; and 85 were not addressed.”
Tuesday’s report, “2013 Annual Report: Actions Needed to Reduce
Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Other Financial
Benefits” revealed an additional 31 areas with 81 recommended actions.
Some of the more egregious examples within Tuesday’s report, highlighted by Coburn’s office, include:
-679 renewable energy initiatives at 23 federal agencies and their 130 sub-agencies cost taxpayers $15 billion in FY 2010.
- 76 programs to prevent or treat drug abuse are spread across 15 agencies, costing $4.5 billion in FY 2012.
-Three federal offices are involved in overseeing catfish inspections.
-159 contracting organizations in 10 different Defense Department
components provide defense foreign language support. GAO estimates $50
to $200 million in potential savings by eliminating this duplication.
-The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) offers 69 different
language services. GAO found 23 instances of overlap involving 43 of
these services, accounting for $149 million, or nearly 20 percent, of
the BBG’s FY 2011 annual appropriations.
-21 programs, including eight tax expenditures, are in place to help
students save for, pay, and repay the cost of higher education, annually
costing $45 billion, $104 billion in financial loans, and $25 billion
in lost revenue from tax spending.
-Six programs to employ and train veterans are operated by two
government agencies, which spent $1.2 billion in FY 2011 to serve
880,000 participants. The GAO found, “Despite these efforts, the
unemployment rate for veterans who have recently separated from the
military is higher than that for other veterans and nonveterans.”
-The Department of Commerce’s National Technical Information Service
(NTIS) was established in 1950 and tasked with collecting and
distributing certain reports. Despite the fact that nearly 75 percent of
these reports are now available online for free, NTIS continues to
charge the public, and even other federal agencies, for these
reports. GAO explains, “These results show that NTIS disseminates and
charges for many reports that overlap with information that is available
for free from federal agencies and other public websites.” Over ten
years ago, the GAO issued a report highlighting this clear overlap and
government waste. In a November 2012, GAO “estimated that approximately
621,917, or about 74 percent, of the 841,502 reports were readily
available from one of the other four publicly available sources GAO
searched.” Even more, 95 percent of those on other websites, were
available for free. Making the government looking even more foolish, GAO
explains, “The source that most often had the reports GAO was searching
for was another website located at http://www.Google.com.”
-Six separate offices at the Department of Homeland Security are
involved in research and development. In one example, “two DHS
components awarded five separate contracts that each addressed detection
of the same chemical. Moreover, DHS did not have the policies and
mechanisms necessary to coordinate or track research and development
activities across the department.”
Feds pay millions for data they could have just Googled, audit finds
Congress’s top auditor said Tuesday that the Commerce Department has been charging other government agencies millions of dollars for reports that the other agencies could just as easily have gotten online, for free.
“The source that most often had the reports GAO was searching for was another website located at http://www.Google.com,” the auditors said.
The
reports don’t amount to much — the agency reported revenues of $1.5
million in fiscal year 2011 — but overall, duplication and waste are
likely costing the federal government billions of dollars a year, the auditors said.
In one example GAO said the federal government
paid for 679 separate renewable energy programs in 2010. The 2009
stimulus alone created or boosted 157 of the initiatives. Altogether,
23 federal agencies have renewable energy programs.
But the Government Accountability Office
said it can’t even begin to measure how much overlap there is because
the agencies don’t keep sufficient records to evaluate that.
GAO
said the Defense Department has so many different branches that each
pay separately for foreign language services, but if the department
were to coordinate it could save hundreds of millions of dollars a
year.
COMMUNISM SURVIVOR BLASTS SALEM GUN GRABBERS: “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT FREEDOM IS!”
”You don’t know what freedom is because you never lost it!” With a
pointed finger Manuel Martinez called out Anti-Gun Committee Leader
Floyd Prozansky during heated testimony on Friday. You can bet
Prozansky got the message.
To quote Mr. Martinez:
“malicious individuals, masquerading as Democrats,..
established … a dictatorial regime … in my nation called Communism,
Socialism, Stalinism, Marxism, and whatever other named -ism you want to
put on it. The reason why it was done was to take away the guns from
the People.”
Mr. Martinez escaped the brutal Communist regime in Cuba in 1954.
His testimony included how citizens under Castro were first disarmed by
legislation similar to that being shepherded along by Gun-Grabber in
Chief Floyd Prozanski. Defenseless, many Cuban Citizens were later
summarily slaughtered. Having been present at the testimony, I can assure you even the
Liberal hacks in the press pool were visibly shaken. The expressions on
the Senators faces … well they spoke for themselves (I’ve included a
few stll shots here). I’d wager no one in room did not feel a chill up
their spine, or a tear in the corner of their eye, as Martinez described
scenes of sons being torn from their mothers arms, and shot dead in the
street, because they lacked the means to protect themselves. He spoke
from the heart: no notes or teleprompter required.
TL: Martinez points finger and let’s loose – “You don’t
know what freedom is!” TR: Stunned … Sen. Jackie Dingfelder. BL:
Arnie Roblan seems visibly affected. BR: Gun-Grabber in Chief
Prozanski can’t move things along fast enough Enjoy Mr. Martinez’s testimony which is provided unedited and in full
HD. Near as I can tell you won’t find it anywhere else in the Portland
mainstream media. [For completeness and searchable reference I have transcribed Mr.
Martinez's testimony below. However, it really has to be heard and seen
to be appreciated.]
My name is Manuel Martinez. Born in
Cuba. American Citizen for more than 40 years. I oppose any
manipulation, any regulation or disruption of the Second Amendment of
the Constitution of the United States.
In 1957 a Revolution … individuals …
malicious individuals, masquerading as Democrats, revolutionaries,
established a regime … a dictatorial regime … in my nation. Called
Communism, Socialism, Stalinism, Marxism, and whatever other named -ism
you want to put on it. The reason why it was done was to take away the
guns from the People. The right of the People to wear guns. That is a
God-given Right. It’s not given by anybody. It’s not given by any
group. It’s the same thing as freedom, which is a God-given Right.
And no one, absolutely no one, has the authority to take it away. To
cease to defend the Second Amendment, and my God-given Right of freedom,
will cease only with my death.
I’ve been through it. I’ve been
there. You people don’t know what freedom is because you never lost it.
You haven’t been tortured. You haven’t been [sic] assassinations, you
haven’t been mothers begging for the life of their son not to be killed
because the only reason is they wanted to be free. And they killed the
mothers and they killed the son.
So my way to protest, the way to
oppose, because if we keep tangling with the Second Amendment, we are
open the same way that Cuba was open for Communism. China, Poland,
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Venezuela, on and on. A dictatorial regime
that will destroy this country, in the same way that it destroyed those
ones that I mentioned to you.
Gun Control does not protect anybody.
It doesn’t protect the citizens, it doesn’t protect the People. The
only reason for gun control is for the Government to be protected from
the Citizens. In that way the Government can manipulate the People
and subjugate them. That’s what’s happened in Cuba for 52 years … 54.
I came here for freedom. At the time
I came here it was different. This country opened their arms for me … I
couldn’t get it in Cuba. And they opened their arms for me, I probably
wouldn’t get it here today. I hope that I get clear with you, and you
understand my point of view. I think that concludes my testimony.
A Tulane professor and MSNBC host named Melissa Harris-Perry, in a video found here, suggests that your children do not belong to you, but rather, they belong to the collective. If only we can "break through the idea that children belong to their parents or kids belong to their families," she says, then we can make "better investments" in public education.
The problem with our educational system is that not enough taxpayer money has ever been applied to it, she says. No number of college degrees can make this assumption plausible. Since the 1970s, federal spending on public education has more than doubled,
and the results have been not only dismal, but regressive in many
areas. So a logical person might come to the opposite conclusion -- that
increased government influence in education has a negative effect on
our children, if educating them about math, science, and linguistic
skills is indeed the aim of "education."
But traditional
educational metrics are not what she is talking about. That stuff is
just a red herring. No, her true intention is purely socialistic, and
the motive is political, not scholastic.
She suggests that
children should not be educated by their families, but rather, they
should be educated by the state in a manner which the state approves.
Since the state administers the education system, it decides upon the
textbooks that children read, and the lessons they learn. And if only
the state can be given more authority and resources to do so, the
collective will thrive.
Another, more famous socialist said something quite similar:
"Let
me control the textbooks and I will control the state. The state will
take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.
Your child belongs to us already... what are you?"
These
are the words of Adolf Hitler. One has to be careful with references to
Nazism, because often they are interpreted as outrageous hyperbole. But
this is not hyperbole. The purpose of both statements is to destroy the
individualism that results from unique family and cultural experiences,
and replace it with a homogenized humanity that is engineered by the
state. What are you, after all, in the context of the greater
collective?
Individualism is the problem, and collectivism is the
solution. Occasionally, while outwardly promoting the supposedly
high-minded ideas of "equality" and "fairness," the mask slips and
progressives expose themselves as hardline adherents to this thoroughly
un-American and extremely dangerous socialist concept. This was Ms. Harris-Perry's moment. And perhaps more frightening than the video itself is the fact that too few Americans seem frightened by it.
The Rutgers basketball story continues to transfix the media, and why
shouldn’t it? Mike Rice, the disgraced former Rutgers basketball coach
allegedly killed a woman and at least seven viable, born-alive babies
“by plunging scissors into their spinal cords” in his filthy, macabre
“house of horrors” abortion clinic.
Oh wait, my mistake. Rice was fired last week from Rutgers over video
of him shoving, kicking and yelling at his players, throwing basketballs
at them and – most damning – using “homophobic slurs.” That’s made Rice
the most notorious villain in America. And in one week it earned him 36
network news stories clocking in at 41 minutes, 26 seconds of air time
on ABC, CBS and NBC.
Now, had Rice been accused of killing a woman and eight babies, he’d be enjoying the same anonymity as Kermit Gosnell–
provided the killings were carried out in an abortion clinic. Gosnell
is the West Philadelphia abortionist who ran an unimaginable charnel
house of a “clinic,” for 30 years. Witnesses testified that he may have
murdered over 100 babies outside the womb. Gosnell’s trial, underway for
weeks, has featured wrenching testimony and horrific details. And it
has received exactly zeroseconds of airtime on the broadcast networks.
Let’s break it out by network.
ABC
Rutgers: 8 min., 1 sec.
Gosnell: 0 min., 0 sec.
CBS
Rutgers: 14 min., 27 sec.
Gossnell: 0 min., 0 sec.
NBC
Rutgers: 18 min., 58 sec.
Gosnell: 0 min., 0 sec
Last week, Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell and 20 other leaders of the conservative movementpublicly demanded
the networks end their blackout of the Gosnell trial. They haven’t.
Perhaps they’ve been too traumatized by Rutgers and the “shocking
videotapes,” as ABC’s Jenna Wolfe called them on “Good Morning America”
April 6. NBC’s Erica Hill also called them “shocking” on that morning’s
“Today.” At CBS “This Morning” on April 3, anchor Norah O’Donnell found
the video “stunning.”
“We`ve all been in environments, basketball courts, locker rooms, where
the coaches can get fiery, they can get animated with you, CBS special
correspondent James Brown allowed, “but putting your hands on a player
and engaging in that kind of – those kind of homophobic slurs and
abusive behavior, you don`t treat animals that way.”
And you certainly don’t call them “faggot” or “fairy.” Rice’s bullying
might have been excused had he not used those terms. In fact, they
merited a special apology from Rutgers President Robert Barchi “to the
LGBT community and all of us who share their values for the homophobic
slurs shown on that video. I personally know how hurtful that language
can be.”
ABC was so troubled by the antics of an overbearing basketball coach
that on the April 5 “World News Tonight,” correspondent David Muir
promised that the network’s “20/20” news magazine show “is now exploring
the bigger question, the conversation started by that tape this week.
How common is this bad behavior, how early does it start?”
And explore it they did, with Muir talking to “a mother devastated by
that video the nation watched this week. Her son towering over that
Rutgers coach, but still defenseless.” Stacy Williams, the mother of
Rutgers player Austin Johnson, told Muir, “We have to now empower our
children to say enough is enough and that we are not gonna stand idly by
because you dangled a scholarship in our hands and allow you to get
away with all manners of evil.”
“All manners of evil” … like severing a newborn’s spinal chord? Like JB said, “you don`t treat animals that way.”
Denver, Colorado: Disgraced CBS newsman Dan Rather returned with an appearance in a new film, “Shadows of Liberty,”
which had its U.S. premiere at the “National Conference for Media
Reform” in Denver last Thursday night. The film—and Rather—contend that
corporate power has taken control of the American media, leaving the
American people uninformed about current events.
The conference is based on the premise that the media are not
left-wing enough, and that government regulations and subsidies are
necessary to restore the concept of a “public media” that people can
rely on for news and information. A big focus of this year’s conference
is urging the Obama Administration to promote more federal control over
the Internet, under the guise of “net neutrality.”
Rather, who left CBS after being caught up in a scandal in which fake
documents were used to smear former President George Bush, was hired by
billionaire Mark Cuban for his HDNet channel, which is now called AXS TV. He narrates a little-watched show called “Dan Rather Reports.”
It is telling that he has now become a hero of the far-left.
The film also featured Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, whose service to the Russians included hosting a program on the Kremlin-funded Russia Today (RT) channel, before he went into hiding from rape charges.
While the film had its good parts, such as a segment on the official
cover-up in the TWA 800 tragedy, the constant refrain about “corporate
power” being at the root of all major media scandals was not only
disputable but tiresome. It demonized President Ronald Reagan for
deregulating the media, a policy decision that gave rise to conservative
talk radio and more, not less, diverse voices in the media.
The rise and influence of left-wing media, including outlets such as MSNBC, was completely ignored in “Shadows of Liberty.”
Five years in the making, the film seemed strangely out of date,
focusing on an alleged “media monopoly in American journalism” when one
of the featured commentators, Amy Goodman, who is a star at this
conference, claims to be broadcasting on 1,149 stations around the
world. This figure includes dozens of public TV stations in the U.S.
The liberal tilt of public broadcasting was also ignored in the film.
Goodman, co-host of Democracy Now!, is so far to the left that she ran a special program honoring Castro collaborator Che Guevara. Her co-host, Juan Gonzalez, who also writes for the New York Daily News, was a member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which spawned the terrorist Weather Underground. Gonzalez is on the conference panel called “The Media’s Influence on
the Immigration Debate,” which is described as dealing in part with “the
Republican Party’s anti-Latino positions…”
In 2008, Goodman and Gonzalez used their program as a platform
for Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, so they could dispute then
GOP-vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s charge that they were
terrorist associates of Barack Obama.
Another star at the conference is University of Illinois Marxist
Professor Robert McChesney, the co-founder of Free Press, the sponsor of
the conference. He is identified as a “media scholar,” even though he hosts a public radio show that excludes conservatives
In an article in the socialist Monthly Review, “Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle,”
McChesney had declared, “Our job is to make media reform part of our
broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it,
socialism.”
He once introduced Obama’s notorious anti-American pastor, Jeremiah Wright, at an event to celebrate the socialist publication.
At the time, we noted that Free Press had received at least $1
million from the Open Society Institute of billionaire George Soros, a
mega-capitalist who seems to have dedicated his life to overturning the
system that made him wealthy.
However, a major new player at this year’s Free Press conference is
the New America Foundation, another Soros-funded group. Indeed, a Friday
morning session, “More Diversity, Less Consolidation: How to Change the
Media,” will be moderated by Mark Lloyd, who is in charge of the New
America Foundation’s “Media Policy Initiative.”
A former Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer at the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Lloyd had praised the Marxist
revolution in Venezuela, where the regime has attempted to control or
even eliminate private media sources.
Funding for the New America Foundation includes $1 million each from:
The Ford Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Eric and Wendy Schmidt (the Google chairman and his wife)
Funding in the category of $250,000 – $999,999 comes from two Soros
entities, the Foundation to Promote Open Society and the Open Society
Institute. But a similar amount is also listed from the U.S. Department
of State.
In an interesting development, former Obama State Department official Anne-Marie Slaughter was just named as the New America Foundation’s next president, effective September 1.
As the Free Press conference was preparing to get under way here in
Denver, The New America Foundation issued a release saying that its Open
Technology Institute and Media Policy Initiative had “joined over 40
other public interest groups on a letter,
led by former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, that calls on President
Obama to appoint an FCC chairperson committed to prioritizing the public
interest, not one who works for the will of corporate interests.”
Copps was on the Friday panel hosted by former FCC official Mark Lloyd.
The outgoing FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, has failed to subject
Al Gore’s sale of Current TV to Al Jazeera to any scrutiny at all. But
that doesn’t bother the left-wing “Free Press” organization one tiny
bit.
They seem to welcome government funding or sponsorship of media
organizations, even if the money comes from the Obama Administration,
Qatar or Russia.
Al Jazeera is funded by the pro-Jihadist government of Qatar and is
regarded as the voice of the pro-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood.
On Sunday, the National Conference for Media Reform featured a
panel discussion titled, “Manufacturing Terror: The Media’s Anti-Arab
and Anti-Muslim Problem,” with Ahmed Shihab-Eldin of HuffPost Live. He
is a former producer for Al Jazeera.
Liberal group linked to Soros won't fully disclose tax forms
A liberal nonprofit linked to an embattled North Carolina
organization with deep ties into the left-wing philanthropic network is
refusing to provide a copy of its tax forms as required by law. State Voices is a nonprofit umbrella organization
that supports state-based nonprofits to energize political involvement,
in particular, it says, among “those who are underrepresented.” A reporter from the Washington Free Beacon requested State
Voices’ most recent IRS tax form over email and in person at the group’s
Washington, D.C., office on March 7 and regularly returned to the
office over the past month to reiterate the request. Two reporters went
on Monday morning, April 8, to request the form once more. A State Voices official directed the two reporters on Monday to the group’s online form.
However, the 990 available online lacks a Schedule B, which contains
the names of donors and is typically redacted. Signatures on the portion
of the form available online have also been redacted, meaning it would
not qualify under the “widely available” exception to the requirement that a 990 must be presented upon request. The official indicated she would not be of any more assistance and
directed the reporters to call State Voices’ communications director. The communications director did not return a request for comment. IRS rules
mandate that barring any “unusual circumstances” a tax-exempt
organization provide its Form 990 the day of an in-person request. State Voices was caught up in controversy
last month surrounding the liberal North Carolina nonprofit BluePrint
NC. BluePrint was linked to a heavily partisan strategy memo that
encouraged, among other things, sending political operatives to follow
Republican state politicians and document their “every move.” The memo
also contained polling data and messaging points tailored against the
state’s Republican leadership. The email that allegedly contained the strategy memo and other
electoral information listed a State Voices official as one of the
recipients. BluePrint NC’s director Sean Kosofsky denied his group sent out the strategy memo, although he did not distance himself from it. Kosofsky also sits on State Voices’ board of directors and serves as secretary. BluePrint and State Voices are 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations, meaning they are barred from partisan electioneering activities. George Soros, a well-known liberal donor and founder of the liberal dark money group Democracy Alliance, is just one of several liberal financers of State Voices, records show. According to the portions of State Voices’ 2011 tax form available
online, the group brought in well over $5 million in “contributions and
grants” over that year. Data provided by the Capital Research Center indicate that the
Foundation to Promote Open Society, part of the Soros-backed Open
Society Foundations, gave State Voices more than $1 million in 2011. One 2011 grant for $220,000 was given “to support the Wisconsin civic
engagement project.” Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker faced a
recall election the next year after his opponents secured enough
petition signatures to force the recall early in 2012. The same
foundation gave State Voices $250,000 in 2010 for the same reason. A representative of Open Society Foundations said there was no
connection between the grant and the recall election and that “We do not
have record of funding State Voices for Wisconsin specific efforts.” Overall, Soros’s foundations have pumped almost $2.3 million into State Voices since 2008. The Gill Foundation, a pro-gay rights group founded by liberal dark money guru and Democracy Alliance member Tim Gill, also strongly supports State Voices. The Gill Foundation gave $375,000 to State Voices in 2011. The
smallest grant, $25,000, was intended as “general operating support for
Ohio voice.” It is unclear if this was in preparation for the 2012
election battle in Ohio. The Gill Foundation had given only $150,000
before 2011. A Gill Foundation spokesman said the group does not comment on their grants. The Gill Foundation’s website describes States Voices as one of its “Progressive Allies.” The Gill Foundation’s senior vice president for programs, Katherine Peck, serves as the chair of State Voices’ board of directors. State Voices’ connections to progressive groups extend into the group’s staff. The group’s executive director used to work at the Center for Progressive Leadership, while others worked for a state office of Common Cause and the Congressional Black Caucus. A spokeswoman for George Soros’s Open Society Foundations said the
groups’ support for State Voices “is to advance nonpartisan civic and
community engagement of underrepresented constituencies who face
historic and ongoing barriers to full participation in our democracy and
equality in our society.” Targeting “underrepresented constituencies” raises red flags among
some critics of liberal nonprofits like State Voices and BluePrint NC.
Matthew Vadum, senior editor for Capital Research Center, called that
term “code for Democratic voters.” These nonprofits “were vital in helping to get the vote out for President Obama in the last election,” Vadum said. Many of State Voices’ grants in 2011 were for either “civic and voter
mobilization” or “voter outreach activities,” according to its 2011 tax
form. Such groups skirt election law by focusing their efforts on
nonpartisan groups, Vadum said. “They can’t overtly be pro-Democrat.
Often the line is very thin.” The spokeswoman for the Open Society Foundations defended the foundations’ grants to State Voices. “A more engaged citizenry, which includes all members of a community,
advances the necessary elements in an open society including,
educational equity, a fair economy, an open democracy, and racial
justice,” she said. “The Open Society Foundations is a nonprofit, nonpartisan
organization, and we do not support political candidates or parties,”
she said. http://freebeacon.com/misguided-by-voices/
— face a pay gap that means they earn 23 percent less on average than
men do. That disparity is even greater for African-American women and
Latinas,” Obama said in a statement issued Monday. “On National Equal
Pay Day, we recognize this injustice by marking how far into the new
year women have to work just to make what men did in the previous one.”
TL: Martinez points finger and let’s loose – “You don’t
know what freedom is!” TR: Stunned … Sen. Jackie Dingfelder. BL:
Arnie Roblan seems visibly affected. BR: Gun-Grabber in Chief
Prozanski can’t move things along fast enough
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