ANTI-WALKER ACTIVIST PONDERS ‘WHAT WOULD HITLER HAVE DONE WITH FOX NEWS?’

• Posted on June 8, 2012 at 6:16pm by  Christopher Santarelli

Progressives from across the country have come to Providence, Rhode Island, this weekend to party and network for the “giant family reunion for the left” — the Netroots Nation Conference. After a crushing loss Tuesday following the failed attempt to recall Governor Scott Walker, Wisconsin activists served as the reunion’s grumpy uncle.

At the “Take a Walk, Scott: Post-Mortem of the Wisconsin Recalls” session one particularly ticked-off panelist engaged in several frustrating rants slamming Walker’s reforms, campaign finance law, and the media.

“What would Hitler have done with Fox News,” exclaimed Harry Waisbren. “It’s impossible to imagine the power of propaganda system that we have right now, and there is no counter. The one percent is able to buy our media.”

Read more: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/wisconsin-activist-at-netroots-ponders-what-would-hitler-have-done-with-fox-news/

Putin to meet Iran's Ahmadinejad China: Kremlin

Agencies : Moscow, Mon Jun 04 2012, 09:59 hrs





Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of a summit in Beijing next week as tensions rise over Tehran's nuclear drive, a Kremlin official said.

“Meeting Ahmadinejad will let Putin personally feel the tension around the Iranian issue and how it is perceived in Tehran,” Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov told reporters last week in comments that were embargoed for release until yesterday.

Putin and Ahmadinejad agreed to meet over the phone and the initiative came “from both sides,” Ushakov said.

The meeting will come as Russia prepares to host the latest round of talks on June 18 and 19 between world powers and Iranian negotiators in a bid to find a diplomatic solution to the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme.

Read More: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/putin-to-meet-irans-ahmadinejad-china-kremlin/957624/

Israel Warns World War III May be Biblical War of Gog and Magog

US President George W. Bush says a nuclear Iran would mean World War III. Israeli newscasts feature Gog & Magog maps of the potential conflict.

By Ezra HaLevi

First Publish: 10/18/2007, 8:54 AM


US President George W. Bush said a nuclear Iran would mean World War III. Israeli newscasts featured Gog & Magog maps of the likely alignment of nations in that potential conflict.

Channel 2 and Channel 10 TV showed the world map, sketching the basic alignment of the two opposing axes in a coming world war, in a manner evoking associations of the Gog and Magog prophecy for many viewers. The prophecy of Gog and Magog refers to a great world war centered on the Holy Land and Jerusalem and first appears in the book of Yechezkel (Ezekiel).

On one side were Israel, the United States, Britain, France and Germany. On the other were Iran, Russia, China, Syria and North Korea.

US President Bush said Wednesday during a press conference that Iran attaining nuclear weapons raises the risk of "World War III."

"If Iran had a nuclear weapon, it'd be a dangerous threat to world peace," Bush said. "So I told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested [in preventing a nuclear Iran]…I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously.”
Read More: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123961#.T81dT9WPmAg

Fugitive 'cannibal' porn star arrested in Berlin internet cafe... looking at news stories about himself

Luka Magnotta fled Paris hotel just before French police arrived in raid
Magnotta is accused of murdering student Jun Lin in Montreal, dismembering him and eating his flesh
Travelled from France to Germany on night bus
By ALLAN HALL IN BERLIN

PUBLISHED: 06:34 EST, 4 June 2012





Under arrest: Suspected killer Luka Magnotta was finally tracked down to an internet cafe in Berlin

The international manhunt for the gay porn star and suspected murderer dubbed the Canadian Psycho has ended with his arrest in the German capital Berlin.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, was seized in Helin Tele and Internet Cafe on Karl-Marx-Strasse in the working class Neukoelln district of the city this morning.

The café was raided by armed police shortly after 11.30am after he was recognised by Kadir Anlayisli

Magnotta was pinned to the floor and handcuffed without offering any resistance.

It is understood he was searching the internet for articles about himself and his alleged crimes when he was caught.

Eyewitnesses said armed officers asked the suspect ‘Are you the wanted man?’ and he responded ‘Yes, that’s me,’ he said.

The arrest brought to an end an international trawl spanning thousands of miles and hundreds of police officers across two continents.

A man at the internet cafe who described himself as the ‘boss’ but who would not give his name , confirmed Magnotta had been there.

‘Then the cops came and it was all over for him,’ he said.

‘It all happened very quickly, in a blur. Everyone is beating a path to my door. But the police have told me not to say too much.’

The arrest – which took place in an area known for its gay bars and sordid sex joints – brought an end to an international trawl spanning thousands of miles and two continents.

It began after Magnotta, branded the 'Canadian Psycho', allegedly murdered and dismembered his former gay lover Jun Lin, 33 in his flat in Montreal on the night of May 24.

The university student’s torso was found in the apartment while parts of his body were posted to political offices in Ottawa, including the prime minister’s party headquarters.

A ten minute videotape purporting to record the horrific crime was posted online, showing a man stabbing his naked and bound victim with an ice pick.

The attacker then hacks him to pieces and eats part of his flesh. He is also seen performing sexual acts on the corpse.

One member of the investigative team said the murderer ‘tears the victim apart like a doll’.





Internet Cafe: The Spatkauf cafe in Neukoelln, a suburb of Berlin, where Magnotta was arrested





Terminal 25: Inside the internet cafe, at the cubicle where Magnotta was discovered by police. A cafe employee spotted him looking at stories about himself






Witness: Kadir Anlayisli recognised Magnotta at the cafe and called police

The video, entitled One Lunatic, One Ice Pick, was set to the soundtrack from American Psycho, earning the suspect his nickname.

Magnotta, who has worked as a bisexual porn star and a gay prostitute called Angel and often dresses as a woman, apparently fled to France on May 26.

Police have reluctantly admitted their suspect, who has also used aliases Eric Clinton Newman (his birth name) and Vladimir Romanov, should have been stopped on arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport.

But instead he passed through customs unchallenged and was able to spend several day at large in the French capital.

Witnesses came, claiming to have spotted him in the trendy Bastille district in the east of Paris, an area of the city highly popular with young British expats.

Parisian officers said the suspected killer stayed for two nights with a gay man he met in a nightclub before his terrified host spotted his photo on the internet.

Magnotta, who has worked as a bisexual porn star and a gay prostitute called Angel and often dresses as a woman,, apparently fled to France on May 26.

Police have reluctantly admitted their suspect, who has also used aliases Eric Clinton Newman (his birth name) and Vladimir Romanov, should have been stopped on arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport.

But instead he passed through customs unchallenged and was able to spend several day at large in the French capital.

Witnesses came, claiming to have spotted him in the trendy Bastille district in the east of Paris, an area of the city highly popular with young British expats.





CCTV: Interpol issued this undated photo of Magnotta passing through an unnamed airport security checkpoint. After the unsuccessful raid on Saturday, police do not know his whereabouts





Closing the net: Interpol had notified authroities in 190 countries to be on the lookout for Luka Magnotta, who was arrested today in Germany









Sick posting: An online animation shows a bloody hand print and the phrase 'It was Luka Magnotta'

Parisian officers said the suspected killer stayed for two nights with a gay man he met in a nightclub before his terrified host spotted his photo on the internet.

One bar owner told police: 'He came into my bar and sat drinking and chatting. He seemed very excited.'

A police source said another man had put Magnotta up in his flat for two nights early last week after meeting him in a gay nightclub.

The police source said: 'After he left, the man realised who he had had staying and contacted us.

'It is then thought he went out in the evenings drinking in the Bastille district and staying in a cheaper hotel in the east of the city.'

A receptionist at a four-star hotel near the Champs-Elysees also said she believed Magnotta had stayed there the same night.

The Paris police source said: 'She later identified him from a photo.'

Police eventually traced Magnotta, who had had plastic surgery to look more like James Dean - through mobile phone calls and closed in on the hotel where he was stayed. But he had left before officers arrived.

Some of his belongings – including pornographic magazines and air sickness bags - were recovered from the room and are undergoing DNA testing.

It is unclear how Magnotta managed to slip through the net, despite Interpol having issued a Red Notice wanted-persons alert to its 190 member countries last Thursday.

But he was next seen calmly boarding a Eurolines bus at Bagnolet coach station in the eastern suburbs of the French capital at 7.30pm on Friday night.

Despite Magnotta buying a £100 ticket for the journey – and the fact the station is covered by 20 CCTV cameras – police did not trace his escape route until three days on.

He arrived in Berlin 14 hours after boarding the service at 9.15am on Saturday and has managed to avoid detection until today. The one-time porn star is likely to go before a judge tomorrow.







Sightings: Witnesses say they saw a person matching Bagnotta's description at Parisian bars, such as Le Petit Batignolles bar. Police in the French capital had lost Bagnotta before he turned up in Germany




Victim: Jun Lin, 33, was a Chinese student who had moved to Montreal to study. He dated Magnotta




Hotel raid: The La Soummam hotel in Bagnolet, outside Paris, in which fugitive Luka Magnotta was believed to be staying. He fled before police arrived

He will face a range of charges, including murder, defiling a corpse, threatening the Canadian prime minister and using the mail system for delivering 'obscene, indecent, immoral or scurrilous' material.

During Magnotta’s time on the run, he spent time on the computer playing war games and also made a number of disturbing postings.

Once included a short animation that involved a bloody hand print and the phrase 'It was Luka Magnotta'. Police say he was enjoying his notoriety.

Six months ago, Magnotta was living in a £40-a-night room above the Fusilier Inn in Wembley, north London, while sightseeing in the capital.

He was confronted by journalists after posting an Internet film showing a live kitten being fed to a snake.

In an email to The Sun in December, he supposedly said: ‘You will be hearing from me again. This time, however, the victims won’t be small animals.’ He sent a similar warning to the BBC.

At the same time, he appears to be denying that he is the person in the kitten-killing videos, writing on his own website: ‘Once and for all, I will set the record straight. Many hoax websites are created using my image and name, posing as me to seem more believable...

'I feel I don't need to list them specifically but people need not be told, not to believe what they read and to take it as fact.’

Magnotta is said to have once dated Karla Homolka, a notorious Canadian sex killer who slaughtered schoolgirls

FROM THE ANGEL TO CANADIAN PSYCHO, HOW LUKA MAGNOTTA BECAME THE WORLD'S MOST WANTED

The murder suspect dubbed the 'Canadian Psycho' has worked as a bisexual porn star, as a gay prostitute called 'Angel,' and is an alleged kitten killer with a string of fraud convictions.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, accused of chopping up his lover and filming the attack before mailing body parts to a series of addresses in Canada, was arrested on Monday in Berlin after initially fleeing to Paris and setting off an international manhunt.

In addition to having had plastic surgery on his face -- apparently to look more like James Dean -- he often wears lipstick and make-up, has dyed his hair and worn wigs, and sometimes dresses up as a woman.






Changeable image: Police suspected that Magnotta was disguising himself as a woman to evade capture, having been on the run for almost two weeks. A sketch of what he may look like was released

Described as handsome but narcissistic, the 29-year-old, who naturally has black hair and blue eyes, has also changed his name and used several aliases.

He was convicted under his birth name Eric Clinton Newman for defrauding several retailers and with stealing $16,900 from a woman in Toronto, culminating in a suspended sentence and probation in 2005.

A series of judge imposed conditions reportedly banned him from owning or using a camera or a computer, and from accessing the Internet.

Born in Toronto, family members told reporters they lost contact with him some time ago.

For years Magnotta built a profile through blogs, escort adverts in which he searched online for sex partners, and posted photographs showing himself as a trim, pouty-lipped model whose travels included Paris and other cities.

He used the name 'Angel' when working as a prostitute and stripper at Remington's, a well-known gay bar in Toronto, according to transsexual performer Nina Arsenault, who claims to have had a relationship with him.

The one-time supporter of white supremacists posted a video online of two kittens being suffocated in a plastic bag, according to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, ending an online hunt for the so-called 'Vacuum Kitten Killer.'



The Fusilier Pub in Wembley, North London, where Luka Manotta has previously stayed

At the same time, profiles he reputedly posted on online dating services conveyed an altogether different persona -- on one website he listed beach volleyball as a hobby and stated that finding a long-term relationship was his priority.

He was granted a license to work as a stripper in Toronto in 2005 and also worked as a male escort.
Pierre Bonhomme, a Canadian filmmaker who recalled a meeting with Magnotta in Toronto in 2007 or 2008, told the Ottawa Citizen it was a 'creepy' experience that he quickly decided to escape from.

'I left within about five minutes. It was a really uncomfortable, awkward situation. He was in the shady, druggy, gay-sex prostitution world. He was on a lot of the gay hookup sites,' Bonhomme said.

Magnotta used Russian names, including the alias Vladimir Romanov, on such sites, according to Bonhomme, who also attested to the suspect's willingness to use fraud and deception.

'He was a hustler,' Bonhomme said. 'He was definitely not a gay village kind of guy. He was more of a suburban guy on the Internet, scamming married guys, that kind of thing.'

Psychologist Gilles Chamberland told Radio Canada that Magnotta exudes 'narcissistic, anti-social,' behaviour, having described himself as being 'incredibly beautiful.'

In 2009, he ironically posted advice on the Internet about how to vanish and never be found.

'A minimum of four months is really necessary to carry out the heroic actions necessary to leave your old life behind,' he reportedly wrote.

He said a person must withdraw from all social circles, possess two sets of false identification papers, convert all assets to cash and then take a bus to a chosen destination, after selling a car somewhere else to mislead police.

Magnotta did not do such a good job of staging his own disappearance: investigators believe he boarded a France-bound plane on May 26 in Montreal and police traced his cell phone signal to the suburb of Bagnolet, Paris on Saturday.

He was eventually tracked down by German police on Monday in an Internet cafe in Neukoelln, a working-class district of Berlin.

French police hunt 'Canadian Psycho' in Paris

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/french-police-hunt-canadian-psycho-paris-152331630.html

• 
  A picture released on May 31, by Interpol shows the red notice issued as part of …
• 
  The Bar "Le petit Batignolles" and the hotel "Studio-Batignolles", 36 rue des Batignolles …

French police said on Sunday they have been scouring the Paris region for the Canadian former gay porn star suspected of killing and carving up his Chinese boyfriend as his videocamera rolled.

Investigators were certain that Luca Rocco Magnotta "is or was in the Paris region and particularly in Paris since at least Friday," a police source said, citing witnesses and material evidence.

With the help of Magnotta's cell phone signal, police have traced him to a hotel in the suburb of Bagnolet, which they visited Saturday on a tipoff from a witness, a source close to the investigation said Sunday.

Magnotta, who has become known as the "Canadian Psycho", had left his hotel room where investigators found items such as pornographic magazines and airsick bags bearing the logo of the airline on which he left Canada for France more than a week ago, the source said.

Magnotta's cell phone signal was detected Saturday in the east of Paris, he added.

Magnotta, 29, allegedly filmed himself as he dismembered his boyfriend and then mailed the body parts.

French police have been carrying out "targeted searches" for Magnotta after Canadian investigators said the suspect boarded a France-bound plane on May 26 in Montreal.

They have searched a bar and two hotels in the trendy northwestern district of Batignolles in the French capital, the police source said.

A witness told AFP he saw police on Friday visit the bar Le Petit Batignolles where they viewed security camera footage, showed a photo of the suspect to the manager and left with empty bottles of Coke.

On Saturday the manager denied any visit by police.

The daily Le Parisien reported Sunday that investigators had questioned the manager of a bar in the northern area of Batignolles who said Magnotta had a Coke there late Wednesday.

"He was very nervous (and) he drank the Coke in one go. A man with an impressive physique came into the bar and started talking to him. They knew each other," the manager said, adding that the pair left together.

The daily also cited witness accounts that were "considered reliable" that the suspect was seen in two northern Paris suburbs.

Investigators have discounted many other alleged sightings of Magnotta.

Canadian media reported that Magnotta has been to Paris before, publishing photos showing him posing in front of the Eiffel Tower and the Moulin Rouge.

The suspect has been dubbed Canadian Psycho by the press because a video circulating online and believed to be linked to him shows a man stab another man with an ice pick and dismember him while a song from the film "American Psycho" plays in the background.

Interpol on Thursday issued a Red Notice wanted-persons alert for Magnotta, also known as Eric Clinton Newman and Vladimir Romanov, to its 190 member countries after a video of the grisly killing surfaced online.

The killing came to light when Canadian police said Tuesday that a human foot had been sent to the headquarters of Canada's ruling Conservative Party.

A hand was later found in the mail at an Ottawa post office, and a torso was discovered in Montreal. Canadian police believe the remains belong to a man who was dating Magnotta -- and that Magnotta is to blame.

The victim, a student identified as Lin Jun, had been "in a relationship" with the porn star, according to Montreal police commander Ian Lafreniere.

Lafreniere said Magnotta wears wigs and sometimes disguises himself as a woman.

Are Americans Stupid?

Federal government’s and the teachers’ union takeover of the nation’s educational system


- Alan Caruba Monday, June 4, 2012

The most common opinion I hear is that “Americans are stupid.”

I think it would be more accurate to say they are often ignorant of things educated people are expected to know. Most certainly much of the news media leaves them uninformed or misinformed and our educational system—K through 12—has been doing a poor job for decades.

I, however, am more encouraged about American’s IQ. The rise of the Tea Party movement suggests quite a few Americans were paying attention when they attended school. In addition, polling data supports an encouraging picture of whether Americans are aware of the issues affecting their lives these days.

As of May 26, Rasmussen Reportssaid that 64% of likely voters prefer “a government with fewer services and lower taxes.” Just slightly more than half, 51%, think the government will go bankrupt. Few are fooled regarding the economy; 63% say the country is going in the wrong direction. In general, the majority has a good fix on what’s wrong and what has to be done.

That’s encouraging, but I also worry that too many likely voters and others do not know or do not possess a fundamental knowledge of math, science, and history. Their basic reading and writing skills often are minimal. Is it because they are less intelligent than earlier generations or, as I believe, they are poorly served in our nation’s schools.

If Congress, composed of our elected representatives, is an example, then it is clear that many Senators and Representatives are clueless when it comes to economics, science, history and other bodies of knowledge necessary to make informed decisions.

Every President wants to look like he’s solving the problem of a poorly performing educational system. President Obama has a “Race to the Top” program that is typically just another excuse to give away money. His predecessor, President Bush, introduced “No Child Left Behind” legislation that imposed a regimen of constant testing that is an abject failure, ignoring the fact that children learn at different rates, and altering the entire educational system to “teach to the test.”

The federal government’s and the teachers’ union takeover of the nation’s educational system threatens any progress, any reform, any repair. The problem has roots that reach back to the 1960s, nor should anyone be surprised that many of those youthful radicals became part of academia, shaping the nation’s educational system.

The facts about education in America are well known and well established. It is no surprise that a recent Wall Street Journal article reported that the “School-Test Backlash Grows” as “the increasing role of standardized testing in U.S. classrooms is triggering pockets of rebellion across he country from school officials, teachers and parents who say the system is stifling teaching and learning.”

William Bennett, a former Secretary of Education, led the Empower America Education Project and, in 2000 as the new century dawned, he noted the following:
American 12th graders rank 19th out of 21 industrialized countries in mathematics achievement, 16th out of 21 nations in science.
Since 1983 more than ten million Americans have reached the 12th grade without having learned to read at a basic level. More than 20 million had reached their senior year unable to do basic math. Almost 25% had reached 12th grade without knowing the essentials of U.S. history.

In February 2012 The National Center for Policy Analysis, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization released a report, “Restructuring Public Education for the 21st Century, noting that “Students in dozens of other countries, including China, South Korea, Germany and Finland, outperformed American students in reading, math and science, according to the Program for International Student Assessment results released in December 2010.” In the course of a single decade, they slid to a ranking of 23rd in science, 17th in reading, and 31st in math.”

The average dropout rate nationwide is between 30% and 40%. Urban centers report dropout rates as high as 80%. The Center concluded that “A six-hour school day and 190 day school year will not and cannot compete with other industrialized nations where students meet higher academic standards, have better prepared teachers, spend 30% to 50% more time in class, and are supported by a parental culture that expects and requires more from their children.”

In Wisconsin, it was the teachers’ union that was the most vocal in its opposition to changes in collective bargaining rules. A recall election of Gov. Scott Walker will occur on June 5th. The Heartland Institute just released a study of Gov. Walker’s reforms known as Act 10.

“Act 10 virtually eliminated [Wisconsin’s] $3.6 billion budget deficit ... and provided school districts with measures previously unavailable to them to accomplish spending reductions,” writes report author Maureen Martin, a Wisconsin resident and general counsel and senior fellow for legal affairs at The Heartland Institute “Many districts have balanced their budgets for the first time in years” and “some even have surpluses and are hiring more teachers and reducing class size.”

Not only do the nation’s schools continue to pose an obstacle to the education of young Americans and by extension to the nation’s ability to compete in a world where other nations are emerging to challenge us, the nation’s school system has been turned into a threat to freedoms we take for granted.

Schools have become places where what children eat is of greater concern than what they learn. Students are tracked like criminals with educational data collection. A government mental health curricula through the third grade has been imposed. The widespread use of behavioral drugs for children who are bored by the daily straight jacket imposed is commonplace. Many middle and high schools are analogous to minimum security prisons.

As voters go to the polls in November, studies indicate that the majority will not know the names of their congressman or opposing candidates. Fully 45% do not know that each State elects two senators, 40% do not know the name of the vice president, and 63% cannot name the chief justice of the U.S.

This is ignorance, but it contributes to the impression of a nation of stupid people making critical decisions about who will lead it.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/47088#When:09:11:55Z

Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Constitutionally Ignorant and Politically Tone-Deaf

June 4, 2012
By Sara Goodman

A Miami synagogue recently canceled DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz's planned speech about "Maintaining a Strong U.S.-Israel Relationship" at a Friday night religious service after an influential Republican member of the congregation, Stanley Tate, resigned.

The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel published an editorial shortly after the incident decrying the temple's "stifling" of Wasserman Schultz's speech and criticizing the synagogue for "advanc[ing] the voices of intolerance." What the editorial board of the Sun-Sentinel failed to tell its readers was that Mr. Tate had not wanted Schultz's speech muffled, but had merely asked for equal time for rebuttal and to have the entire discussion moved to a venue other than in the sanctuary during a religious service. It was a plea to his congregation of 70 years (whose Joni & Stanley Tate Early Childhood Center bears his family's name) not to endorse or give even an appearance of religious endorsement of Wasserman Schultz's political speech, and by extension a religious endorsement of President Obama and the Democratic Party's 2012 election campaign message.

There is an irony in this church-state "speech stifling or speech endorsement" incident, because Debbie Wasserman Schultz was involved in another "church-state" "speech stifling or speech endorsement" issue in Florida almost ten years earlier -- an incident which the Sun-Sentinel characterized as a "nationwide controversy" but which received only eleven lines in the local section of the paper, buried within minutiae about local school board officials and a local judge's political ad.


In the summer of 2004 -- the same summer that Floridians were experiencing the devastating effects of Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Jeanne, then Florida Democratic State Senator Wasserman Schultz had picked a fight with Governor Jeb Bush over the First Amendment, "separation of church and state," and what Wasserman Schultz complained was a "hurtful and offensive" display of a religious symbol inside the governor's office in Tallahassee that should "not [have been] imposed on the public" because it conveyed the wrong "message."

It wasn't a Nativity scene in the Florida capitol's entranceway during the Christmas holiday season or a sculpture of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. Nor was it a loan to the Republican governor of Titian's Pieta from the Gallerie dell'Accademia of Venice. Wasserman Schultz complained about the display of a greeting card on the bulletin board hung above the Republican Governor's General Counsel's receptionist's desk along with several personal family photos belonging to the receptionist. The greeting card featured a picture of the American flag with a white cross superimposed amongst the white stars on the flag's blue field background. According to the Palm Beach Post's report about Wasserman Schultz's complaint, the artwork on the greeting card was designed by a Tallahassee photographer to commemorate the victims of 9-11, but Wasserman Schultz objected to its display because it sent a hurtful and offensive message that the country was a "Christian nation." The Palm Beach Post article reported that Governor Bush's general counsel's response for its request for comment was that "it warrants no response."

Although almost no one in South Florida ever knew about the "nationwide controversy," the pre-Facebook and pre-Twitter internet lit up in angry response. Among the more benign comments was a post by "Colorado Doug," who wrote, "Suppose a muslim employee had a greeting card with a crescent moon displayed, would Wasserman Schultz or anyone else be offended? I think the answer would be no." "ZULU" commented, "If Ms. Wasserman ever took the time to visit Normandy, she would see a sight which, no doubt would horrify her -- rows and rows of crosses and stars of David." Someone named "Anonymous" wrote: "To me, your face is offensive and hurtful, but my solution is to avoid looking at it." Most of the comments were so vile and anti-Semitic that neither the Palm Beach Post nor the Sun-Sentinel would reprint them.

I wrote to the Sun-Sentinel about the "nationwide controversy," and although almost every letter I have ever submitted to the paper has been published, this one wasn't. My letter contained a message that the Sun-Sentinel didn't want its readers to hear, although I did get a personal note from the reporter who had written the eleven lines thanking me for "sharing" my thoughts with him.

In my letter to the paper, I explained that 20 years earlier, in the mid-'80s, I had represented seven churches in Scarsdale, New York that had sued the Village of Scarsdale when their jointly and privately owned Nativity scene was no longer allowed to be displayed for two weeks in a public park in the center of town, where it had been displayed amongst other Christmas decorations for over a quarter of a century. The case was so controversial that the large New York City law firm where I was a junior associate didn't put its name on the briefs -- just mine and the senior partner's. We argued that the temporary display of a crèche in a public park during Christmas was constitutionally protected symbolic speech and that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment -- often colloquially referred to as the "separation of church and state" portion of the First Amendment -- didn't permit Scarsdale to suppress our clients' speech in the absence of any reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions governing the use of Scarsdale's parks. We never expected the case to end up in the United States Supreme Court, but it did, and we won by a 4-4 split vote affirming our victory below in the Second Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. I told the Sun-Sentinel in my letter that not only was Wasserman Schultz wrong on the law -- there was no governmental endorsement of religion by a secretary's display of a cross on a greeting card in her own personal workspace, no matter how visible the location was to the general public -- but the state senator was also wrong on the facts. My experience in the Scarsdale crèche case had taught me that constitutionally ignorant and tone-deaf politicians like Wasserman Schultz engender more anti-Semitism when they use "offense" and the "First Amendment" to attack their political opponents. The reaction to the Anti-Defamation League's Amicus Curiae brief against our church-clients' nativity scene was a perfect example of this regrettable phenomenon.

Wasserman Schultz currently faces a Republican opponent in the upcoming 20th Congressional District -- Karen Harrington -- who has already received the endorsement of prominent Jews in Florida (including Stanley Tate) as well as many national and state representatives. Harrington is a small business owner who has run a family restaurant with her sister for thirty years. Now that South Florida synagogues will likely turn off the speech spigot for Wasserman Schultz and other Obama surrogates, the DNC chair will no doubt turn to making more rounds on the Florida condominium circuit praising President Obama and the Democratic Party. But she has a tough sell: Florida's seniors as well as the state's general electorate are ravaged by Florida's real estate crises and unemployment figures. And Florida's seniors, who are deeply worried about funding ObamaCare, recognize that there are wiser and more surgically precise approaches to Medicare and Medicaid reform.

After the Temple Israel debacle in Miami, the Obama Team and the DNC have figured out that that the choice of Wasserman Schultz was a perverse choice for "Jewish outreach" in Florida. Many of Wasserman Schultz's Jewish constituents don't care deeply about Israel. (Those who do would have voted for Romney anyway.) The others are more like Wasserman Schultz herself on the subject: agnostic, uninformed about Middle East history, and uninformed about Obama's "Love Me I'm Not George Bush" Middle East foreign policy. The Wall Street Journal published an eye-opening piece about the Florida congresswoman back in February this year, which did a light air kiss on Wasserman Schultz's polarizing comments about the Republicans' "Jim Crow" laws and the Tea Party's blame for the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The Journal piece mentioned Wasserman Schultz being asked by President Obama's advisers to meet with "two seasoned Democratic female pros, Anita Dunn and Hilary Rosen." Hilary Rosen, of course, was the "seasoned" expert who decided that attacking breast cancer and MS survivor Ann Romney for "never working a day in her life" was a brilliant way to frame the Republican "War on Women."

Meanwhile, South Floridians expecting any balanced editorializing on the subject of Debbie Wasserman Schultz will have a tough time finding it at the Sun-Sentinel. This is, after all, the same newspaper whose local editorial columnist, Stephen L. Goldstein, thinks nothing of exhorting readers to perform a "Mitzvah" by voting Democratic, not Republican ("Democratic Punch": Sun-Sentinel January 31, 2010).

Sara Goodman is an attorney practicing in the areas of intellectual property law and commercial contracts. She may be emailed at lawofficeofsaragoodman@gmail.com.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/debbie_wasserman_schultz_constitutionally_ignorant_and_politically_tone_deaf.html#ixzz1wocdvjBL

Animal Rights Legislation Would Make Eggs a Luxury Food

June 1, 2012

Animal Rights Legislation Would Make Eggs a Luxury Food

By Mindy Patterson 

One day soon, America could wake up to a dozen eggs costing $8 or more. And unless you are involved in some aspect of farming or agriculture, you would never know that egg prices are about to skyrocket or the reason why. With food prices already increasing due to high grain and fuel costs, extraneous so-called animal welfare regulations are being imposed on U.S. food producers, large and small, by the animal rights powerhouse known as the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

With HSUS' vegan animal rights platform as the motivations behind crafting a controversial egg bill, S. 3239 was introduced in the U.S. Senate on Friday, May 25, 2012, inching U.S. egg producers closer to a mandate which would require them to phase out conventional cages for egg-laying hens and transition to a system called "enriched colony cages" by 2029, at a cost to U.S. egg producers ranging between $4 billion to $10 billion.

And while most Americans shrug their shoulders and live their lives, they are completely unaware of how this regulation will affect the cost of food and its availability in the future. The current egg shortage in the U.K. should be a jolting wake-up call for Americans, illustrating that the onerous animal welfare regulations which have phased out conventional cages there have caused egg prices to quadruple, while diminishing egg supply to a "crisis" level. This is a glimpse of what's coming to America if HSUS' egg bill becomes law.

Instead of improving productivity for the American egg industry and supporting our farmers and ranchers, these imposed regulations will incrementally squeeze egg producers out of business. Fewer egg farmers means fewer eggs. Fewer eggs mean higher prices for the consumer, and importing more of our food from other countries where neither animal welfare nor food safety is top priority.

While these regulations may seem reasonable on the surface, the agenda behind them lies within the organization pushing these cleverly crafted laws, cloaked in a disguise of emotional propaganda used to advance these proposed regulations into law. HSUS is an organization that makes no bones about its mission to push anti-animal agriculture regulations, or any stiff regulatory reform on American farmers and ranchers. Just consider the goal of HSUS' lead policy director and vegan activist, J.P. Goodwin, who has gone on record by saying, "My goal is the abolition of all animal agriculture." 

HSUS' goal is to provide relief to chickens, not provide food for humans. Will enriched cage systems truly satisfy the vegan animal rights organization which has repeatedly wielded its bully tactics to gain a hold on animal agriculture? My prediction is no. After all, the ultimate goal of HSUS is about empty cages, not bigger cages. 

At a time when jobs are scarce, and the looming possibility that affordable food may become more difficult to come by, now is not the time to stand by and allow an anti-egg-consuming animal rights organization to righteously dictate the future of U.S. egg producers and the future of our domestic food supply. Years ago, as an observation of foreign oppression, Henry Kissenger once said, "If you control the food supply, you control the people." Today, Americans are facing food tyranny on our own shores, which must be stopped. I implore everyone to contact his or her U.S. representative and senator and urge them to vote no on this rotten egg bill, S. 3239, and its identical counterpart in the House, H.R. 3798. 

Mindy Patterson is president and co-founder of The Cavalry Group, an organization working to fight against the radical animal rights movement which threatens American farming and ranching cultures, animal ownership, and private property rights. www.thecavalrygroup.com

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/animal_rights_legislation_would_make_eggs_a_luxury_food.html#ixzz1wmOGYNDh