China 'extremely concerned' by proposed U.S. challenge to claims

China said on Friday it was "extremely concerned" about a suggestion from a top U.S. commander that U.S. ships and aircraft should challenge China's claims in the South China Sea by patrolling close to artificial islands it has built. --China's increasingly assertive action to back up its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea have included land reclamation and the construction of ports and air facilities on several reefs in the Spratly Islands. --The work has rattled China's neighbors, in particular U.S. ally the Philippines, and raised concern in the United States.

Read more at Yahoo News
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Report: Boehner avoiding vote on his speakership before August recess

Rep. Mark Meadows put John Boehner on the spot with his “motion to vacate” the speakership last week, and now it appears that the challenge has legs. According to an exclusive report by Matthew Boyle of Breitbart, Boehner’s forces have been “whipping” members (calling them up, asking them how they would vote, and possibly applying pressure) and as a result have concluded that they would lose a vote if the matter were taken up before the August recess.

Read more at American Thinker
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Cantor's fall still haunts lawmakers

One year later, the aftershocks from Tea Party favorite Dave Brat’s stunning win over then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) are still rippling across Washington. --Once a little-known economics professor from Randolph-Macon College, Brat has been fielding calls from conservatives around the country mulling whether to mount a primary challenge of their own GOP member of Congress. White House hopefuls like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Donald Trump have been wooing Brat, campaigning and raising money for him in his district.

Read more at The Hill
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

EPA says WATER is a pollutant; Virginia AG sues

A heated legal battle between Virginia officials and the Environmental Protection Agency over what EPA critics describe as a land takeover gets its day in federal court Friday. ✧ The EPA, citing an abundance of stormwater runoff, has proposed a plan that Virginia officials say would cost them nearly half a billion dollars -- and could cost homeowners and businesses their private property.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican, says what the EPA has proposed is "illegal," and he's not alone in the fight. He's been joined in a lawsuit against the federal agency by the Democratic-controlled Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. ✧ Cuccinelli argues that what the EPA has planned would require state and county officials to "take people's houses, evict them, knock the houses down and plant grass." Read more at Fox News...

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Post & Email: Will Obama Be Vetted for Eligibility in 2012?

On September 2nd, The Post & Email published a letter by Jim Black to Roseanne Catalano, Director of the Division of Elections in Tallahassee, Florida citing case law and eight points of evidence (A-H) for the state to consider before issuing eligibility for Barack Obama's name to be placed on the 2012 Florida ballot for the office of president. The letter is interesting in that it serves as a collection of data on heretofore stand alone challenges and evidence formerly presented regarding Obama's "natural born" status as required by the U.S. Constitution. So far, the courts have ruled against petitioners on the basis of 'standing.' Would a state have standing? Read the letter at Post and Email... Read More......

Glenn Beck: Fundamental Transformation

America is at a crossroads. We have known this for 10 years now but after each tragic event or “bubble” America has gone back to sleep because we wanted to believe that we could have it all and “it just isn’t as bad as they say.” Our gut however, has told us that it was time to wake up and use what used to be known as “common sense.” It is what Americans from all points of the political compass meant when focus groups gave every politician the presidential campaign slogan, change.

After spending years, and thousands of man-hours, in research, reflection, and prayer, my team and I have come to realize that a “Fundamental Transformation” is required. While it is just as powerful, it’s also the polar opposite of what President Obama touted last election. President Obama and the progressive ruling class of both parties believe in the collective planned society. I believe America’s answers are to be found with, by, and in the individual American honestly pursuing happiness not in 2,000 page bills.

If one is looking for a “collective” based solution it can be found in the phrase: America is great because America is good. When we look for our answers in Washington we ask our politicians or parties to “make us good.” They cannot. But we can, must, and will. The secret our Founders understood was that America is good because individual Americans are honest, just, thrifty, responsible, educated, charitable and God fearing. Read more at www.glennbeck.com...
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James Cameron -- King of the Hypocrites

Via Email from Ann McElhinney
August 22, 2010

Friends,
Last March James Cameron sounded defiant. ∴ The Avatar director was determined to expose journalists, such as myself, who thought it was important to ask questions about climate change orthodoxy and the radical "solutions" being proposed. ∴ Cameron said was itching to debate the issue and show skeptical journalists and scientists that they were wrong. ∴ “"I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads," he said in an interview. ∴ Well, a few weeks ago Mr. Cameron seemed to honor his word. ∴ His representatives contacted myself and two other well known skeptics, Marc Morano of the Climate Depot website and Andrew Breitbart, the new media entrepreneur. ∴ Mr. Cameron was attending the AREDAY environmental conference in Aspen Colorado 19-22 August. He wanted the conference to end with a debate on climate change. Cameron would be flanked with two scientists. It would be 90 minutes long. It would be streamed live on the internet. ∴ They hoped the debate would attract a lot of media coverage.

"We are delighted to have Fox News, Newsmax, The Washington Times and anyone else you'd like. The more the better," one of James Cameron's organizers said in an email.

It looked like James Cameron really was a man of his word who would get to take on the skeptics he felt were so endangering humanity.

Everyone on our side agreed with their conditions. The debate was even listed on the AREDAY agenda.

But then as the debate approached James Cameron's side started changing the rules.

They wanted to change their team. We agreed.

They wanted to change the format to less of a debate—to "a roundtable". We agreed.

Then they wanted to ban our cameras from the debate. We could have access to their footage. We agreed.

Bizarrely, for a brief while, the worlds most successful film maker suggested that no cameras should be allowed-that sound only should be recorded. We agreed

Then finally James Cameron, who so publicly announced that he "wanted to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out," decided to ban the media from the shoot out.

He even wanted to ban the public. The debate/roundtable would only be open to those who attended the conference.

No media would be allowed and there would be no streaming on the internet. No one would be allowed to record it in any way.

We all agreed to that.

And then, yesterday, just one day before the debate, his representatives sent an email that Mr. "shoot it out " Cameron no longer wanted to take part. The debate was cancelled.

James Cameron's behavior raises some very important questions.

Does he genuinely believe in man made climate change? If he believes it is a danger to humanity surely he should be debating the issue every chance he gets ?

Or is it just a pose?

The man who called for an open and public debate at "high noon" suddenly doesn't want his policies open to serious scrutiny.

I was looking forward to debating with the film maker. I was looking forward to finding out where we agreed and disagreed and finding a way forward that would help the poorest people in the developing and developed world.

But that is not going to happen because somewhere along the way James Cameron, a great film maker, has moved from King of the World to being King of the Hypocrites.

- Ann McElhinney Read More......

'It's time to take control,' say 'tea party' groups

WASHINGTON POST, 12/11/2009 by Dan Eggen and Perry Bacon Jr. (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - For conservatives, a political surge of NEW PACS AND FUNDRAISING as tea party conservatives gear up for 2010. The energized "tea party" movement, which upended this year's political debate with noisy anti-government protests, is preparing to shake up the 2010 elections by channeling money and supporters to conservative candidates set to challenge both Democrats and Republicans. Read more at Washington Post... Read More......

WSJ: Democrats Present Hurdles for Obama

WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/29/2009 by Naftali Bendavid and Greg Hitt - WASHINGTON: As Congress tackles President Barack Obama's top two domestic priorities -- climate change and health care -- he faces some of his most serious challenges from fellow Democrats. ∴ The narrow passage Friday of an environment bill came with nearly one in five Democrats defecting, and only after supporters from coal-producing and agriculture districts won concessions that eased the impact on business and aggravated some environmentalists. Prospects for the measure remain uncertain in the Senate, even though Democrats hold a 59-40 voting majority. Read more at WSJ... Read More......

Shedding Light on the Professoriate

The Washington Examiner, August 16, 2007 - Winfield Myers wrote,

[Note: This version is slightly amended from that which appears in the Washington Examiner.]

Lisa Anderson, the former dean of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs best remembered for her failed attempt to bring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to campus, had a complaint yesterday for the Web publication Inside Higher Ed.

"Young scholars of Middle Eastern literature or history are finding themselves ‘grilled' about their political views in job interviews, and in some cases losing job offers as a result of their answers," Anderson said. She carefully stressed that she wasn't talking about those who study policy or the current political climate.

This situation has arisen, Anderson said, because "outside groups that are critical of those in Middle Eastern studies ... are shifting the way scholarship is evaluated."

Anderson's lamentations are part of a rising chorus from professors who consider themselves besieged by external organizations whose mission is to critique the performance of scholars. These include the one I head, Campus Watch, to which Anderson clearly alluded in her remarks.

Academic radicals have for years controlled campus debate by blackballing internal opponents, intimidating students and crying censorship whenever their views or actions were challenged.

They got away with such behavior for two principal reasons: A sympathetic media assured the nation that universities were in the front lines of the fight for liberty and justice, and there were few external organizations or individuals offering sustained critiques of politicized scholarship and teaching. These helped ensure that the public's reservoir of good will toward universities remained full.

But times are changing.

Scholars no longer operate in an information vacuum. Their words carry great weight not only with their students, who pay for and deserve far better than they receive, but with the media, which funnel their often politicized, tendentious views to a broader public. Given such influence, it should shock no one that the professoriate is scrutinized and, when found wanting, challenged.

Anderson and company's frequently alleged claims that outsiders threaten their freedom of speech is, on the one hand, risible. Campus Watch and other organizations or individuals who critique academe don't possess the authority of the state; we have no subpoena power, no ability to force their acquiescence, nor do we seek it.

What we've challenged isn't the academics' right to speak as they wish. Rather, we've challenged their ability to practice their trade in hermetically sealed conditions free from the need to answer to anyone but themselves. We've held them accountable much as countless organizations and journalists have critiqued the behavior of other professions, from doctors and lawyers to clergy and businessmen.

Given this new reality on campus, it's almost understandable that outside critics could make the doyens of Middle East studies long for the days when they could operate behind closed doors. Continued...

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