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CRANSTON, R.I. – A Rhode Island public school district committee on Thursday voted not to appeal a federal court decision ordering the removal of a prayer banner displayed in a high school in a lawsuit brought on behalf of a 16-year-old atheist. The Cranston School Committee voted 5-2 at a public hearing to discuss the suit involving Jessica Ahlquist, a junior at Cranston High School West. After the vote, she said, "I'm thrilled." The hearing lasted more than two hours. The banner, put up in 1963, has been covered since a federal judge last month ruled it was unconstitutional and...

Rahm Emanuel does not plan to run for governor of Illinois. Not in 2014. Not ever. His proposal last week to register all Illinois handguns made it obvious. I'm sure that Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, wouldn't consider taking the step down to governor anyway — not any more than his predecessor, Richard M. Daley. You can be sure that Chicago mayors do see it as a demotion. Only one has ever stooped down to the Governor's Mansion and that was almost a century ago: ex-Mayor Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne served as governor from 1913-17. No wonder. Chicago mayors wield enormous...

Jim Rogers, the co-chairman and lead fundraiser for the Democratic National Convention host-committee, is well versed in the art of political cronyism. Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy Corp., one of the largest utility corporations in the country, has given generously to Democratic politicians over the years. Along with his wife, Mary Anne, he has contributed more than $210,000 to Democratic candidates and committees since 2008, more than double what the couple has given to Republicans. Of that figure, more than $150,000 went to the Democratic National Committee (DNC); $19,200 went to President Obama. Rogers is co-chairing the host committee...

Seeking to overturn a DOJ judgment that its voter photo identification law, passed in May 2011, violates the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA), the state of South Carolina recently announced that it is suing the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder in federal court. The decision by South Carolina comes as the DOJ is vigorously working to stop the spread of states enacting or implementing voter photo ID laws, prompting fears that the Obama administration is undermining the integrity of the upcoming 2012 elections. In December 2011, the DOJ blocked South Carolina’s new voter ID law from taking effect...

Many Democrats in the Assembly have not publicly reported the expenditure of thousands of dollars in campaign funds, including money for rent and living expenses during legislative sessions, the Sun has learned. According to multiple lawmakers familiar with internal caucus discussions, the lawyer for Assembly Democrats instructed them that they do not have to report spending on expenses related to their public office — for example, rent in Carson City during the legislative session or travel to professional conferences.

Two weeks ago when discussing the latest lunacy surrounding America's exponential curve #1 also known as its debt balance, we suggested what the GOP election strategy should be: "[if] the debt ceiling becomes a sticking point at the election, Obama's chances of reelection plunge. Which makes us wonder - will Republicans grasp that the paradox of defeating Obama is precisely in giving him a carte blanche on all the stimulus programs he wants? Because if Congress approves another $200, 300 or even $400 billion in stimulus pork (the only thing better than one Solyndra? One thousand Solyndras!) the Treasury will...

The Obama administration has released an economic report that claims everything is coming up roses, and it is making the rounds of the MSM's news outlets. Truth is, when you look into the numbers, it's rather easy to come to the conclusion that the economic reports are as screwy as the administration's employment numbers. In order to convince Americans that his economic measures are working, Obama is claiming there has been an increase in retail sales from December to January by a seasonally adjusted .4%. The administration goes on to explain that while the economy is moving in a positive...

The United Nations continually claims that their arms control treaty efforts are not directed at curtailing legal private ownership of guns. However, in a practice gun destruction exercise 4,000 firearms were destroyed in Jamaica in early February under the auspices of the UN Center For Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean.(UNLIREC) The United Nations has instituted a 10 day Training Course designed to help implement international “treaties” for gun control in Jamaica and throughout the Caribbean. Each session is led by a UN gun control trainer. The courses objectives are to give police technical skills related...

The recent revelation that the head of Media Matters walked the streets of Washington with a Glock-toting bodyguard may make it a little awkward for the group the next time it seeks a donation from a gun control advocacy group. Media Matters reportedly took more than $400,000 from the Joyce Foundation specifically earmarked to promote a $600,000 initiative on "gun and public safety issues." At the same time, Media Matters' gun-guarded boss David Brock reportedly obsessed over his own security. ....Brock reportedly told confidantes that he feared for his safety and needed hired guns to keep him safe.

A former state trooper who was seeking election to the Precinct 1 constable’s seat was arrested Monday on money laundering charges after law enforcement officers found more than $1 million packed inside suitcases stored in his car’s trunk.

A taxpayer-funded electric vehicle battery company, that is considered in great danger due to its dependency on troubled EV company Fisker Automotive, has awarded its top executives big salary increases despite a steep downward trajectory in its stock price. Massachusetts-based A123 Systems -- whichreceived $279.1 million instimulus money from the Department of Energy, and up to $135 million in incentives from the State of Michigan -- boosted the base salaries of two vice presidents and its chief financial officer on February 8. Chief Financial Officer David Prystash was bumped 27 percent to $380,000; VP of Energy Solutions Robert Johnson’s...

I was given the honor of judging a word play contest that was put on by iOwnTheWorld, that Freepers may enjoy the results of. The contest is over, but add what you would've submitted to this thread, I've been posting here long enough to know some of the most clever stuff comes out of these threads :-D The rules (as outlined by iOTW's BigFurHat) are simple: The idea is to completely switch the meaning of a sentence midstream, like, the ultimate flip-flop. For example -Obama is the smartest guy in the room would never vote for Obama.This is a sentence...

I knew a long time ago that Jones was a serious player, who was going to be with us for the long haul, that's one of the reasons why this is being done. Now, Nancy Pelosi has confirmed what I knew a year ago: But as 3,000 Democrats met this weekend in San Diego for a three day convention here, Jones was lauded by Burton and Pelosi, who even described herself as “a fan” of Jones - a positive statement also once echoed by 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. Here is how the source article itself opens: Van Jones,...

Freshman Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) on Wednesday evening praised the Republican Party for consistently fighting for individual freedom over the last 150 years, and criticized Democrats for pursuing "handouts" to the less fortunate that he said are a modern form of slavery. "Our party firmly believes in the safety net," West said in a late Wednesday floor speech. "We reject the idea of the safety net becoming a hammock. "For this reason, the Republican value of minimizing government dependence is particularly beneficial to the poorest among us," he continued. "Conversely, the Democratic appetite for ever-increasing redistributionary handouts is in fact...

Supervisor Nadia Lockyer, wife of California treasurer, acknowledges substance abuse, affair (Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer at a public event in San Leandro, Calif., April 22, 2011.) Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer, wife of California Treasurer Bill Lockyer, said Tuesday that she's in rehabilitation for a substance-abuse problem after an extramarital affair culminated in a beating by her ex-lover. The announcement marked a sharp turn in the career of a woman who at 40 had been seen as a rising star in California politics. The scandal is also an ugly footnote on her husband's nearly four-decade-long career, which made him...

Democrats in tough races turn critical of Obama’s 2013 budgetBy Josh Lederman - 02/15/12 05:15 AM ET Democrats as a whole have commended President Obama’s budget proposal for 2013, but in a few telling instances, members of the president’s party are seeking a bit of distance. Those Democrats tend to come from red states where the president’s poll numbers are underwater, and their critique of Obama’s plan — or their choice to stay silent — could foretell reelection races where Democrats will run away from the president in the fall. Obama on Monday unveiled a $3.8 trillion budget that Republicans...

Democratic Rep. Waters calls GOP leadership 'demons' By Alicia M. Cohn - 02/15/12 03:17 PM ET Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), in video surfacing Wednesday, called Republican leaders House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor “demons” who are “destroying this country” last weekend in seeking to rally California Democrats to political action. “We’ve got to take back the House,” Waters told the crowd in the final moments of her speech to the California Democratic Convention. She pointed to the display behind her as she continued: "I saw pictures of Boehner and Cantor on our screens. Don't ever let me...

The firestorm of controversy over the January 20th HHS mandate requiring Catholic and other religious organizations to pay for contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs for their employees shows no sign of abating. This is notwithstanding the Obama administration's "accommodation," announced last Friday, that will permit insurance companies to pass the cost of contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs along to Catholic and other religious employers - as long as they do so surreptitiously, of course. Catholics bishops and countless others have characterized this regulation as direct government interference with the free exercise of religion and thus unconstitutional. In this, they are...

by John HillStand With Arizona The inmates are running the asylum. This Administration has served notice on every illegal alien invader across America: do not be afraid - you are above the law.Eleven illegal aliens who claimed ICE agents "violated their rights" in 2007 raids on their New Haven neighborhood have won a $350,000 settlement from the U.S. government, which also agreed to halt deportation proceedings against the plaintiffs, their attorneys said Tuesday. New Haven is American's most notorious "sanctuary city"- the first in the nation to offer identification cards to illegal immigrants, and critics including the mayor have contended...

Rep. Scott Garrett (R., N.J.) had a nice gambit just now in a hearing with President Obama’s acting OMB director Jeffrey Zients. First he asked Zients if the Obama budget imposes any new taxes on Americans making less than $200,000. When Zients answered that it did not, Garrett followed up by asking if an individual making less than $200,000 a year opted not to carry health insurance, in contravention of the Affordable Care Act, is the fine associated with that decision a tax? After some hemming and hawing, Zients answered that the fine did not constitute an tax.

President Obama heads west today for a three-day, three-state swing aimed largely at filling the coffers of his re-election campaign and honing his message to supporters in key states. Obama will headline eight fundraisers across California and Washington through Friday night. The events are expected to net at least $8.6 million for the Obama Victory Fund. Much of Obama’s focus will be on mingling with some of his wealthiest – and most famous – supporters in Los Angeles and San Francisco, who will play a key role in underwriting his bid for a second term. Later he’ll dine with 80...

While headlines yesterday crowed and complained of the small rise in the budget and the focus on taxing the wealthy - which admittedly given the peak polarization in political parties is unlikely to actually move into legislation anytime soon - JPMorgan's Michael Cembalest finds perhaps the most controversial part of the proposal hidden deep in the report. While the JPM CIO notes the CBO baseline and alternative scenarios, it is the difference between the $293bn benefit (CBO estimate from last year) and the Administration's new estimate of $584bn that caught his eye as buried on Page 73 of the...

Gallup polled small-business owners (value under $20M) about their expansion plans in early January, which for some strange reason didn’t get reported until today. Among those who do not plan to hire — 85% of the entire sample — almost half of all such businesses cited expected costs from health care coverage and government regulation: U.S. small-business owners who aren’t hiring — 85% of those surveyed — are most likely to say the reasons they are not doing so include not needing additional employees; worries about weak business conditions, including revenues; cash flow; and the overall U.S. economy. Additionally, nearly...

Decrying "a decade of deficits" on Monday, President Obama declared that "my budget lays out a path for how we can pay down these debts." It is hard to see how that can be true, since his plan would add $6.7 trillion to the national debt during the next decade. Obama thus begins his fourth year in office the way he began his first, preaching prudence while practicing profligacy. Back then, you may recall, he promised to cut the deficit, at that point estimated to be $1.3 trillion, "at least in half by the end of his first term," as...

El Presidente had issued is edict and it is out of the closet. "Let me be clear, I will do whatever I want, when I want, by passing Congress, the Courts, The Supreme Court, for the good of the American People, whether they want it or not. Sometimes, I must make the tough decisions for you. These decisions may be hard to swallow, like overspending, laying off military personnel, and crony capitalisim. Let me be clear. Parents know better than their children. Therefore I as your President, will do anything to hold onto power till the course I have laid...

President Obama released his FY 2013 budget [Monday] morning. By his own numbers, his budget raises net taxes over the next decade by $1.56 trillion (Table S-9, page 225). As a percentage of the economy, tax revenues would rise all the way to 20.1% of GDP in 2022, far higher than the historical tax revenue average of 18.3% of GDP (Table S-1, page 205). Here are some of the tax lowlights: All 20 of the new or higher taxes in Obamacare are assumed to take place. That means that there will be a 3.8 percentage point surtax on investment income....

Obama and his campaign masterminds in Chicago are using the Recall against Gov. Walker in Wisconsin to ensure Obama’s re-election victory! Tea Party Express has been keeping you informed about the Obama Campaign’s covert strategy - it is a dangerous plan that aims to silence conservatives, while promoting Obama’s extreme liberal agenda, and it unfolds in front of us today. . . The White House has announced that Obama will be making a taxpayer-funded campaign trip to Wisconsin where he will take credit for Walker’s success in growing the state’s economy. He will probably go even further since his...

The US Government continues actions that will result in its own demise. That might seem fitting, except that its failure will seriously harm the citizenry. Government decisions and actions have assured an economic collapse that will result in another depression. Federal debts and promises are too large to be honored, a conclusion based not on economics but on simple arithmetic. The government collapse will likely trigger the economic collapse, although the order could be reversed. Arguably, we are already in a depression which has been disguised by juicing GDP via excessive government spending. This spending has been funded increased government...

During an interview with WAGA, President Obama attempted to make excuses for his failed promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office.

Tuesday Must Read: Soros Gives $500,000 for Three-Strikes Reform; Brown Appointee Weakens Ethics Panel POLITICS / LAW ENFORCEMENT & CRIME / Stories you shouldn’t miss: 1. Billionaire progressive George Soros has donated $500,000 to a ballot measure proposal that would reform California’s draconian three-strikes law, the LA Times reports. The measure is proposed for November and it would require that a defendant’s so-called third strike be a violent felony. Current law allows defendants to be sentenced to life in prison even if their third strike is not violent, and the law has contributed to overcrowding in California prisons and the...

President Obama's proposed 2013 budget contains a decade-long surge of tax hikes that, if approved, would affect everything from income to investment to inheritance. The budget blueprint contains roughly $2 trillion in new taxes and fees. When other tax cuts and credits are counted, the net impact from the proposals is still about $1.5 trillion. Though Republicans already are mounting a vigorous campaign against the proposal, many of the tax provisions still could become law unless Congress takes action to stop them. ,,,, But the budget also imposes various fees, such as a hike in the airline "security fee," as...

ABC News and George Stephanopoulos have a credibility problem with conservatives and Middle America. And it seems to be getting worse. It’s not just that ABC News hired Bill Clinton’s White House spokesman and counselor George Stephanopoulos as a journalist; it’s that the pack mentality at ABC News doesn’t see it as a problem. “The planning meetings [at ABC News] have little political diversity. Everyone is left of center and at ease with their liberal ideals. The other viewpoint is rarely raised and never fully represented,” a current ABC News producer told me last week. ,,,,, But the bias at...

The Obama administration is weighing options for sharp new cuts to the U.S. nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons, The Associated Press has learned.

Desperate to win re-election, President Obama is taking inspiration from a tactic used by China’s Chairman Mao during so-called "Cultural Revolution."In order to spread his ideology, he creates his own army of brainwashed propagandists who are supposed to popularize talking points sent to them directly from the White House. Modern days hongweibings (Chinese for red guards) are called the Truth Team, and if everything goes as planned, the president will have an army of over two million Americans on his side.The Obama administration unveiled on Monday a campaign created to crush the GOP competition come November, a mission that...

RUSH: This is from Rayford, North Carolina. Carolina Journal. I'm gonna read it to you exactly as it printed out here: "A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious. The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips and apple juice did not meet US Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day." Again, let me read this to you again: "The...

A mother in Hoke County complains her daughter was forced to eat a school lunch because a government inspector determined her home-made lunch did not meet nutrition requirements. In fact, all of the students in the NC Pre-K program classroom at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford had to accept a school lunch in addition to their lunches brought from home.

RUSH: I want to move on to this Dick Morris business and the attack on the Catholic Church last week by Obama. I want to ask you, if you remember back in January there was a presidential debate, a Republican debate in Manchester. Do you remember -- 'cause this is a setup for what's coming -- do you remember, we were all perplexed here. George Stephanopoulos kept hounding Romney on contraception. It had not come up, nobody had said anything about it, and we were all confused, as was Romney, what the deal was. Well, it is Dick Morris' theorem...

It is certainly no surprise for gun owners to see the New York Times run a story belittling the United States Constitution. After all, the Times has worked for decades to devalue our founding document. "[I]ts influence is waning," opines the Times. It is "terse and old, and it guarantees relatively few rights." The paper faults the Constitution for being difficult to amend and reflective of the times in which it was written. While the Times does not go so far as to claim the U.S. Constitution has been bad for America, it does lament that it is of "little...

Illinois state Sen. Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston) has endorsed Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's proposal to create a statewide gun registry in order to decrease gun violence, according to a news release issued Friday. Emanuel proposed requiring gun owners to register each handgun in their possession at a fee of $65 per gun. Currently, Chicago's gun control laws ban weapon sales in the city and prohibit people from taking guns out of their homes. For 28 years Chicago banned gun ownership entirely, until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that policy in June 2010. Prospective Illinois gun owners must obtain a firearm owner's...

“The gunwalking story has never been mentioned on either NBC Nightly News or the Today show,” Geoffrey Dickens reports in a Feb. 8 Media Research Center “Reality Check” piece. Perhaps that’s not quite fair. After all, MSNBC’s “Politics Nation” with Al Sharpton gave Rep. Elijah Cummings unchallenged time to make his case that the congressional Fast and Furious investigation is an “election-year witch hunt” against Eric Holder by Republicans, gunwalking was George Bush’s fault, and the real problem is we need more gun control. So leave it to “Today” to send “national investigative correspondent” Jeff Rossen to Phoenix of all...

Scandal: A drug enforcement agent says other agencies knew in 2009 about the Justice Department's gunrunning operation and even tried to interdict the weapons flow. And, yes, it was a gun-control plot. The notion that Fast and Furious was a localized operation run out of the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives of which few, particularly the arguably clueless Attorney General Eric Holder, were aware continues to be exposed as the lie it is. "In 2009, I became aware that ATF was walking guns," Tony Coulson, who was in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency-Tucson...

I think late January and February have been the busiest time for Operation Fast & Furious. The media still doesn’t give it proper coverage, especially this news: On February 4th, Mexico arrests a key figure in Fast & Furious. Not only is he a key person in Fast & Furious, but he was also a top lieutenant to El Chapo. I first found out about it on Borderland Beat, a great website keeping us up to date about the drug war in Mexico. The Los Angeles Times reported it on February 7th and my colleague AWR Hawkins published commenrary on...

At least 1.8 million registered voters won’t be showing up to the polls this fall - because they’re dead. The shocking finding emerged in a report from the Pew Center on the States that concluded a whopping 24 million - or one in eight - of the nation’s active voter registrations have serious errors. In addition to the 1.8 million dead on America’s rolls of registered voters, the study, released Tuesday, also found that 2.75 million in the U.S. are registered as active voters in more than one state.

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 13, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Within weeks, the top lawyers in a dozen states may file a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration’s controversial requirement that all insurance plans include access to abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, the attorney general of Nebraska told LifeSiteNews. Jon Bruning told LifeSiteNews.com that 12 states had signed onto a scathing critique of the mandate and were preparing to take more serious action. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning On Friday, ten state attorneys general addressed a scathing letter to President Obama, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis....

A left-wing freebie newspaper in Toronto, called NOW magazine, has published a photoshopped picture of the conservative mayor, Rob Ford, pointing a gun to his head. This from a magazine that claims to be against guns and gun violence. NOW magazine is unimportant to most people, but there is an important point buried amidst its smut: Liberals don’t mind promiscuous suggestions of gun crime, if it’s someone they hate in the crosshairs. It’s like when the movie, Death of a President, came to the Toronto International Film Festival. It wasn’t about a historical assassination. It was a Hollywood liberal fantasy...

The U.S. House this week will vote on H.R. 4013, a bill which will continue payroll tax relief for the remainder of 2012. In all of 2011 and through February of 2012, the Social Security payroll tax rate nominally paid by employees has been reduced by two percentage points, from 6.2% to 4.2%. For someone earning $50,000 annually, this has reduced their FICA tax by $1000 over the year. Americans for Tax Reform is supportive of this extension of payroll tax relief: Now is not the time for workers to see their take-home pay decline because their taxes went up....

A healthcare worker has filed a complaint alleging the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West and Chapman Medical Center illegally ...

A switchboard operator has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against the local American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, alleging violations of labor laws. Rebecca Holt, who works for Regions Hospital in St. Paul, filed the complaint filed the charges with the NLRB Region 18 office in Minneapolis claiming that she was threatened ...

Democrats look back to 2008Written by Christopher Cadelago 10:30 a.m., Feb. 12, 2012 Democratic leaders this weekend implored attendees at the state party convention in San Diego to harness the energy and enthusiasm of 2008, casting the upcoming elections as pivotal moments that will determine the trajectory of the country for decades to come. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Saturday that the only way to maintain the firewall against Republican and tea party “extremism” is to re-elect President Barack Obama, return her to the U.S. Senate for another term and marshal the resources to regain control of the House of Representatives....