RWC Unfiltered 6-13-2011

• Disgraced Congressman Quits
• Bachman Won Monday’s GOP Debate
• Fire fighting Planes Worn Out
• American Educators Not Educating
• In explicably Homelessness Decreasing
• Weiner Whacking: Hypocrisy and Wiseguys
• How High Will Fast and Furious Fiasco Go?
• 45% Say Gap Between Americans and Government as Big Now As Between Euro Rulers and Revolutionaries.

Several people have been stabbed and scores injured at NHL fans rioted overnight in Vancover, Canada after it shockey team lost to the Boston Bruins In the final game of a 7 game series for the Stanley cup championship.

 As this is written disgraced Congressman Tony Weiner (D) New York appears about to resign facing increasing demands from his party. Weiner is a protégée of Senator Chuck Schumer (D) NY who did not call for Weiner’s reignmation. S pregnant Mrs. Weiner is a key aide of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and an admirer of her impeached husband, Bill, who narrowly escaped removal from office after his White House sex with fellatrix Monica Lewinsky.

President Obama explained to NBC News that the reason companies aren’t hiring is  not because of his policies, it’s because the economy is so automated. .

“There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have  Learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the  Airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”

Michelle Bachman, 55, came out of Monday’s GOP debate very well. The debate was civil and by and large focused on Obama’s mishandling of domestic issues especially jobs.. Mitt Romney reproved himself and nobody embarrassed themselves nor distinquished themselves. Obama himself was nearby at a compoany that reeceived $51 million to stimulus money to tout its “success” to produce Obama’s new light bulb and extensively produce American jobs.

It was not accidental that Obama winged in to brag on the eve of the GOP debate. Critics raised issues about actual jobs created in the US versus in China, and at what cost to U. S. taxpayers. GOP debaters swarmed the issue and Obama while generally keeping away from pounding each other. Tim Pawlenty pretty much dropped his rebranding of Romney’s healthcare appraoch as Oromnetcare. Gingrich did not embarrass himeslf after a disasterous week when hie entire campaign staff jumped ship.  Romney looked Presidential and Sarah Palinhad a bad night compared to Bachman

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who did not debate, said on Tuesday he will announce his bid for the Republican presidential nomination on June 21, formally kicking off his campaign for the White House.

Michele Marie Bachmann (English pronunciation: /ˈbɑːxmən/; née Amble; born April 6, 1956)  is a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Minnesota’s 6th congressional district, and a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. She previously served in the Minnesota State Senate and is the first Republican woman to represent the state in Congress.She and her husband have provided foster care for 24 children.

It is absolutely clear that if President Barack Obama wants to convince Americans he can right the struggling U.S. economy and deserves four more years in office, he needs to come up — quickly — with a convincing plan to generate jobs.

Recent miserable economic data has raised fears of a double-dip recession, particularly a weaker-than-expected unemployment rate of 9.1 percent in May. And with polls showing voters are deeply concerned, Republicans vying for their party’s nomination to oppose Obama in 2012 have been hammering the incumbent on the issue.

A story emerging from the fires in the Southwest and elsewhere has exposed a serious national problem.

The large tanker planes leased by the agency to fight such blazes have been flying, on average, about 50 years and are rapidly becoming unsafe to deploy.

As worries deepen, the Forest Service is preparing - finally, critics say - to ask Congress this summer for money to replace its fleet of 18 large air tankers. The agency will either ask to buy new planes outright or, more likely, put out bids to lease newer ones.

A look at the U.S. Forest Service’s air tankers.

Owners and operators of private aviation companies that lease air tankers under contract or on a call-when-needed basis have been pressing for this kind of action since two air tanker crashes in 2002.

A C-130 Hercules built in 1956 had a wing break off while fighting a wildfire in California. Later in the year, the same thing happened to a 1945-vintage PB4Y-2 Privateer while it was working a Colorado fire. Both planes crashed, and five crew members were killed.

The crash of the C-130 tanker - which had just finished a dive to drop fire retardant near Yosemite National Park - was captured on video by a passerby and played around the world. Soon after, at the height of the wildfire season, federal regulators grounded the entire fleet of U.S. air tankers.

At least three large air tankers have crashed since, killing eight people, according to a memorial posted by Associated Aerial Firefighters.

At a recent conference in Crystal City, owners and operators of private aviation companies said the Forest Service should have begun lobbying Congress for funds to start replacing the fleet of large fixed-wing air tankers years ago, during the George W. Bush administration.

“There’s not a nice way to say this, but the Forest Service has been dragging their feet for a number of years to get what they want,” said Tom Eversole, executive director of the American Helicopter Services and Aerial Firefighting Association. Eversole said that current air tankers are capable but that but forestry officials should have acted before now

The government also leases hundreds of helicopters and smaller fixed-wing airplanes to fight wildfires, but the large tankers are coveted because they can lay down three times the amount of flame suppressant that smaller planes can. Forest Service officials said that six of the 18 air tankers the agency leases - from three aviation companies in Nevada, California and Montana - are fighting the Arizona fire.

At the time of the 2002 crashes, the Forest Service had contracts with aviation companies that provided 44 air tankers, but more than half were permanently grounded after tests uncovered flaws. The planes that were cleared for service, such as Lockheed’s P2V Neptune, bore a heavier burden of fighting a growing number of fires.

The toll of that burden was addressed in a 2009 report by the Agriculture Department’s inspector general, “Forest Service’s Replacement Plan for Aerial Firefighting Resources.” According to the report, the remaining leased air tankers should fly for only one more year. After 2012, they will be too expensive to maintain or no longer airworthy, the Forest Service concluded.

A new study add evidence that Americanm doctors should repledge their oath to ” above all do no harm. In 2007 alone, for instance, there were nearly 11,500 deaths related to prescription opioids - “a number greater than that of the combination of deaths from heroin and cocaine,” according to the researchers.

Some 4 million prescriptions for long-acting opioids are written every year, with side effects ranging from addiction to constipation to sleepiness. To counter some of this overprescribing, Schiff and colleagues urge doctors to think beyond drugs and to prescribe new ones much more cautiously.

American students are less proficient in their nation’s history than in any other subject, according to results of a nationwide test released on Tuesday, with most fourth graders unable to say why Abraham Lincoln was an important figure and few high school seniors able to identify China as the North Korean ally that fought American troops during the Korean War.

Over all, 20 percent of fourth graders, 17 percent of eighth graders and 12 percent of high school seniors demonstrated proficiency on the exam, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Federal officials said they were encouraged by a slight increase in eighth-grade scores since the last administration of the history test, in 2006. But even those gains offered little to celebrate, because, for example, fewer than a third of eighth graders could answer even a “seemingly easy question” asking them to identify an important advantage American forces had over the British during the Revolution, the government’s statement on the results said.

The tests were given last spring to a representative sample of 7,000 fourth graders, 11,800 eighth graders and 12,400 12th graders nationwide. History is one of eight subjects - the others are math, reading, science, writing, civics, geography and economics - covered by the assessment program, which is also known as the Nation’s Report Card.

“This administration is all about power and nothing about performance,” Newt Gingrich.” His policies have failed and his policies are wrong.”

The number of people who are homeless on any given day in Los Angeles County has decreased about 3% in the last two years despite the recession, according to a new survey released Tuesday.

The study, conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority in January, put the homeless figure at 51,430 in L.A. County, including 23,359 in the city of Los Angeles. Although the
county saw a 3% drop in its homeless population, the city of Los Angeles saw a steeper 9% decrease.

Michael Arnold, executive director for the homeless services authority, which is funded by the city and county, credited the reduction in homelessness to local efforts to prevent homelessness and rapidly re-house people. Also helping was President Obama’s stimulus funding, which has allocated $52 million over three years to Los Angeles County. The program provides rent subsidies that last up to 18 months and also offers move-in assistance.

“We may be doing a little bit better at helping people,” Arnold said.

But he cautioned that the slow economic recovery could make these improvements in the homeless rate fragile. And the federal stimulus money runs out next year.

“This may be as good as it gets for a while. Many people are barely hanging on,” Arnold said, citing those who are staying with friends or relatives — unstable arrangements that can end in homelessness.

Only 49% think the U.S. needs to retain its membership in NATO. Americans are very skeptical of how much our allies will help in Afghanistan and Libya.

 

Forty-five percent (45%) believe that the gap between the American people and their political leaders is as big as the gap between the American colonies and England during the 18th Century.

23% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove,

 Roger Stone of the StoneZone.com thinks the following:

If tax cheat Rep. Charlie Rangel (D) New York can remain a member of Congress after evading Federal income taxes and lying in official documents to hoard three cheap rent controlled apartments in violation of State and City law, how can the Democrats demand the resignation of Rep. Anthony Weiner? There is no proof Weiner used public funds or resources in his indiscretions or, unlike Rangel, that he broke any laws. He is guilty of narcissism, horniness and lying. Now that he has fessed up to the lies, he is guilty of bad judgment and excess testosterone. The is no evidence Weiner’s proclivities interfered with his ability to be an effective Congressman.

Now Obama has jumped on the bangwagon. Funny, I don’t recall him calling on Rangel to resign.

Let the Congressman who hasn’t cheated on his spouse with a groupie, intern, campaign volunteer, or staffer throw the first stone. This is a House of Hypocrites. Rep. Barney Frank allowed a gay escort service to operate out of his home and Rangel robbed the taxpayers. The Democratic majority ran off neither.

Eliot Spitzer was frequenting prostitutes while pushing to assure seeing a hooker became a felony. He violated Federal money laundering laws and the Mann Act - transporting a prostitute across state lines, for which a Republican New York State Supreme Court Justice went to prison in 2009. Which Democrat was calling for his prosecution?

Frankly, it is now a matter between Weiner and his wife. His claim of seeking treatment is disappointing. There is no such thing as sex addiction. I considered this cop-out when the National Enquirer published photos of my wife and I with allegations that we were “swingers.” There is no therapy for Weiner’s predilection: he’s a narcissist who likes sex.

Weiner apparently needs more sex than his wife can provide. His crime - other than being an unfaithful husband - is being indiscreet, then lying about it. Bringing disgrace on the House? Please! Rangel did that and the House slapped his wrist. Rangel should have done time and if he were a white Republican, he would have.

If Weiner resigns and his wife sticks around he should consider a personal training business - “Anthony Weiner gets you buff in 10 customized sessions.” The man’s got remarkable side delt and upper pec development. If Huma splits, Anthony has the most famous wiener since John Bobbitt and a porn career beckons. His anatomically correct action-figure doll is already on the market.

Given these options, I’d fight resignation from the House. Weiner has proven during his political career that he’s got that fight in him, and far more.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D) Vermont, a top Senate Democrat branded Pakistan as a “putative ally” after officials there arrested Pakistanis who helped the US operation to kill Osama bin Laden. Putative meaning “generally considered or reputed to be: “the putative father of a boy of two”.  

At issue is why five CIA informants arrested by Pakistan’s secret services include a Pakistani Army major serving as a doctor and the owner of the safe house used by the CIA to spy on Usama bin Laden

Congressman Darrell Issa (R) California and Senator Charles Grassly ( R) Iowa both say they are getting the runaround from the Department of Justice and White House over an Operation Fast and Furious to sell guns so they could be traced to Mexican Drug cartels. Issa demanded who OK the scheme that ent wrong when a Border Patrol agent was murdered with one of the supplied guns. At hearings Wednesday DOJ officials refused to say who Ok’s that scheme.

Issa ripped into high-level Justice Department officials, saying that they were fully aware of the deadly sale of guns to Mexican drug cartels, and declared that the entire operation “looks an awful lot like Iran Contra.”

The California Republican maintains that both the Justice Department and its agency of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) ignored repeated warnings from federal agents, who complained that the ATF’s program of allowing thousands of AK-47s and 50-caliber sniper rifles to be sold to Mexican drug lords would result in the murder of innocent people.

And it did.

The goal of the the controversial “Project Gunrunner” and Operation Fast and Furious” programs was to use serial numbers on weapons sold to “straw purchasers,” who planned to resell the guns to the drug cartels, to trace the weapons after Mexican police apprehended them later at crime scenes.

The objective was to link the gun smuggling to a Mexican cartel.

Four Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents in transcribed interviews with top GOP oversight official Darrell Issa’s office are contradicting the Justice Department’s account of “Operation Fast and Furious,” saying hundreds of weapons — including assault rifles and military grade sniper weapons — were allowed to escape into the clutches of Mexican drug cartels in an apparently reckless investigative strategy.

Their testimony raises the question of whether Ronald Weich, a deputy to Attorney General Eric Holder, lied to congressional investigators in a Feb. 4 letter denying the allegations. Weich is testifying before Issa’s committee Wednesday.

Issa’s report says since the Feb. 4 letter, Justice Department officials have clarified that their denial was only meant to encompass instances when the weapon purchasers themselves physically crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with the weapons they had purchased illegally under ATF surveillance.

Finding theliteral  smoking gun´could reach all the way to the White House implicating officials at the highest levels of Obama’s administration. One of the guns was traced directly to a murder of a border patrol agent.

Only 49% think the U.S. needs to retain its membership in NATO. Americans are very skeptical of how much our allies will help in Afghanistan and Libya.

Since Obama’s trillion dollar “stimulus” 1.4 million more Americans are jobless.

 Forty-five percent (45%) believe that the gap between the American people and their political leaders is as big as the gap between the American colonies and England during the 18th Century.

23% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove,

 18 year-old Junrey Balawing, from a remote town in the southern Philippines, stands just under two feet tall and has been officially declared the World’s Shortest Man by Guinness World Records

Following a revolt by the English nobility against his rule, King John puts his royal seal on the Magna Carta, or “Great Charter.” The document, essentially a peace treaty between John and his barons, guaranteed that the king would respect feudal rights and privileges, uphold the freedom of the church, and maintain the nation’s laws. Although more a reactionary than a progressive document in its day, the Magna Carta was seen as a cornerstone in the development of democratic England by later generations.

John was enthroned as king of England following the death of his brother, King Richard the Lion-Hearted, in 1199. King John’s reign was characterized by failure. He lost the duchy of Normandy to the French king and taxed the English nobility heavily to pay for his foreign misadventures. He quarreled with Pope Innocent III and sold church offices to build up the depleted royal coffers. Following the defeat of a campaign to regain Normandy in 1214, Stephen Langton, the archbishop of Canterbury, called on the disgruntled barons to demand a charter of liberties from the king.

In 1215, the barons rose up in rebellion against the king’s abuse of feudal law and custom. John, faced with a superior force, had no choice but to give in to their demands. Earlier kings of England had granted concessions to their feudal barons, but these charters were vaguely worded and issued voluntarily. The document drawn up for John in June 1215, however, forced the king to make specific guarantees of the rights and privileges of his barons and the freedom of the church. On June 15, 1215, John met the barons at Runnymede on the Thames and set his seal to the Articles of the Barons, which after minor revision was formally issued as the Magna Carta.

In immediate terms, the Magna Carta was a failure–civil war broke out the same year, and John ignored his obligations under the charter. Upon his death in 1216, however, the Magna Carta was reissued with some changes by his son, King Henry III, and then reissued again in 1217. That year, the rebellious barons were defeated by the king’s forces. In 1225, Henry III voluntarily reissued the Magna Carta a third time, and it formally entered English statute law.