Mayor takes offense at Menino's 'blow up' Detroit comment

DETROIT (AP) -- Detroit Mayor Dave Bing accused his Boston counterpart of insensitivity Tuesday after Thomas Menino told a magazine that if he ever visited the Motor City, he'd "blow up the place and start all over."

In a New York Times Magazine article that first appeared online last week, Menino said Detroit is a place he'd like to visit, then added the rest when asked what he'd do there.

"It is extremely regrettable that Boston Mayor Thomas Menino used such an unfortunate choice of words to describe what he would do if he came to Detroit," said Bing, who is not running for re-election after one term as mayor. "I would think the mayor of a city that recently experienced a deadly bombing attack would be more sensitive and not use the phrase 'blow up."'

A spokeswoman for the Boston mayor said Menino "feels strongly about cities," cares about Detroit's problems and "would like to help in any way he can."

"The mayor is sorry that people have taken offense," Dot Joyce told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "It was never his intention."

She said that Menino's proposal to "blow up the place" meant to overhaul the broken systems that have helped bring down Detroit.

Three people were killed and more than 260 injured in April when pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails, ball bearings and metal shards detonated near the finish line of the popular Boston Marathon.

One of the suspects was killed three days later in a gun battle with police. His brother was captured and has pleaded not guilty to using a weapon of mass destruction charges.

Via: Lowell Sun

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Obama: 'In Europe, I'd Probably Be Considered Right in the Middle, Maybe Center-Left, Maybe Center-Right'

In Sweden, President Obama complained about the way he's sometimes treated back home in the United States, and suggested he'd be more welcomed in Europe:

"You know, I have to say that if I were here in Europe, I'd probably be considered right in the middle, maybe center-left, maybe center-right, depending on the country. In the United States, sometimes the names I'm called are quite different," Obama said at a joint press conference.

Via: The Weekly Standard

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Rubio accuses Sebelius of ‘misappropriating public funds’ with Obamacare ads

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is railing against what he calls the Obama administration’s “blatant misuse of federal dollars to promote a fundamentally flawed law.”

In a letter sent to Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday, the Republican lawmaker called on the department to cancel a planned $8.7 million advertising campaign promote President Obama’s health care law using taxpayer dollars.

“This blatant misuse of federal dollars to promote a fundamentally flawed law is extremely concerning, especially considering the extensive unknowns surrounding the coming launch and implementation of Obamacare,” Rubio said.

“Until critical questions can be answered regarding the availability and type of health insurance to be provided by Obamacare, it is unconscionable to spend taxpayer dollars to promote and advertise Obamacare plans that have yet to be finalized,” Rubio added.

According to Rubio’s statement, the ads are being run by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a federal agency.

“While the Administration should be abandoning this disastrous law, instead it is imprudently and blindly promoting poor policies that will harm Americans and American businesses, and misappropriating public funds in an effort to sell bad ideas to good people,” he said.

Via: Daily Caller

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Latino Group Wants to Expand Fraud-Ridden ‘Obamaphone’ Program -

(CNSNews.com) – The real problem with the Lifeline Program that provides free cell phones – commonly known as “Obamaphones” – to low-income individuals is not that it’s been abused, but that not enough low-income Latinos are using the subsidized phones, according to The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

“Probably about 30 to 35 percent of the people who qualify for Lifeline would be Latino, and yet only about 15 percent of the users of Lifeline are Latino,” Brent Wilkes, executive director of LULAC, said in a conference call Wednesday.

When CNSNews asked for a comment on documented reports of fraud and abuse in the “Obamaphone” system, he replied, “From our perspective, it’s not that there’s too much use, it’s actually too little.”

“Not every wireless carrier perhaps has been as vigilant as some,” Wilkes offered as an explanation for fraudulent activity, adding, “I don’t have a lot of evidence about drug dealers using the phone and things like that, I mean, if anything they should be able to pay for them.”

“I don’t have any particular comment on that except to say that . . . the criminal mind will use all kinds of tools for nefarious purposes,” Nicholas Sullivan, fellow at the Center for Emerging Market Enterprises at Tufts University's Fletcher School, added in response to CNSNews’ question.

Via: CNS News

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44% Have Favorable View of Unions, 45% Unfavorable

Americans continue to have closely divided views of organized labor, but there's a much clearer difference of opinion between Republicans and Democrats.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 44% of American Adults have at least a somewhat favorable impression of labor unions, but that includes just 14% with a Very Favorable opinion.  Forty-five percent (45%) view labor unions unfavorably, with 24% who have a Very Unfavorable impression of them.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)

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The national survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on August 26-27, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology

Via Rasmussen

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Rubio blasts $9M ObamaCare advertising campaign

A proposed $8.7 million TV advertising campaign to promote ObamaCare in the lead-up to a key launch date is being targeted by Sen. Marco Rubio, who calls the effort a “blatant misuse of federal dollars.”

The Florida Republican said Tuesday that such spending is “unconscionable,” considering the uncertainty of the law and urged the Department of Health and Human Services to halt the spending.

“Until critical questions can be answered regarding the availability and type of health insurance to be provided by ObamaCare, it is unconscionable to spend taxpayer dollars to promote and advertise ObamaCare plans that have yet to be finalized,” Rubio wrote in the Sept. 3 letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The agency did not return a request for comment late Tuesday.

Obama signed his signature health care proposal into law in March 2010.

However, the administration has more recently delayed implementing parts of the law, most notably the requirement for businesses to offer insurance to employers.

The administration has tried rigorously to promote the program over the past several months, knowing that its success depends largely on a large pool of customers. The start for people to sign up for insurance in so-called “exchanges” is Oct. 1.

Via: Fox News

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[VIDEO] KERRY TO CODE PINK: 'WHEN I WAS 27 I HAD SIMILAR FEELINGS'

During his testimony Tuesday before the Senate about the U.S. intervening in Syria, as Secretary of State John F. Kerry finished his opening statement, Code Pink's Medea Benjamin started an intentional ruckus, shouting, "Secretary Kerry, the people do not want" war with Syria! As security hauled her out, Kerry talked about how he agreed with her "the first time I testified before this committee" when he was 27-years old, forty-two years ago.

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You know the first time I testified before this committee, when I was 27 years-old, I had feeling very similar to that protester … and I think we can all respect those who have a different point of view, and we do.

Via: Breitbart
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WaPo Poll: 70% Oppose Arming Syrian Rebels, 59% Against Military Intervention…

Second poll of the day showing major opposition to getting involved militarily in Syria.

Via: Weasel Zippers

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California's Dubious Course on Prison Crowding

In 1976, under the golden dome of the State Capitol in Sacramento, a governor responsive to what he later called the anti-crime "mood" of the day signed legislation significantly increasing the length of prison terms in California.

The new law scrapped indeterminate sentencing, which gave judges and parole boards wide flexibility, and replaced it with a system that imposed fixed prison terms for most crimes. California’s “determinant sentencing” statute was the beginning of a trend. Over the years, ballot initiatives and legislative actions mandated ever lengthier sentences for repeat offenders. By 2011, California housed more than 143,000 inmates in 33 prisons built for 83,000, and the Supreme Court ordered the state to reduce its prison population. Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said California prison overcrowding had exacerbated mental illness and caused “needless suffering and death.”

California’s governor, after fiercely resisting the Supreme Court order with legal and political maneuvers, eventually reduced the prison population by more than 40,000. Mostly, this was accomplished by a process called “re-alignment,” in which those convicted of specified crimes were sent to county jails instead of state prisons. Now, the governor is balking at another federal court requiring him to release another 9,600 prisoners by year’s end.

The governor is Jerry Brown, the man who signed the determinate sentence bill in 1976. He was then the nation’s youngest governor, an eccentric and unfocused politician who earned the sobriquet of “Governor Moonbeam” from columnist Mike Royko. Judging by the debate at the time, neither Brown nor the legislators who approved the bill contemplated the possibility of prison overcrowding.

Brown subsequently mastered the gritty nuts-and-bolts of governance as a no-nonsense mayor of troubled Oakland, and California voters in 2010 gave him another chance as governor. Now 75 years old, Brown has on balance been an effective governor -- some would say an exceptional one -- the second time around. Brown notably persuaded voters to raise taxes while also making cutbacks that restored the state to fiscal solvency. Polls give him strong approval ratings; he is favored to win re-election if he runs again next year.

Even so, Brown has displayed what California journalist Richard Ehisen, who has written on prison issues, calls a “puzzling” reluctance to endorse sentencing reform at a time when states not known for their liberalism are doing just that. In 2003, Texas passed a law that substituted probation for a prison term for persons convicted of possessing less than a gram of drugs. In 2007, under conservative Republican Gov. Rick Perry, Texas allocated $241 million for drug treatment and other prison alternatives. Both inmate populations and violent crime are down in the state. Republicans also control statehouses in Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, among others, which have embraced drug rehabilitation and sentencing reform with positive results.

Via: Real Clear Politics

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Weekly Update: Founding Fathers Extremists

Obama DOD: Mainstream Conservative Views “Extremist”

Did you ever think there would come a day in this country when the federal government would compare a person speaking about “individual liberties” to a member of the Klu Klux Klan? Unfortunately, such is the state of affairs in Obama’s America.

Judicial Watch recently obtained “educational” materials from the Department of Defense (DOD) depicting conservative organizations as “hate groups” and advising students to be aware that “instead of dressing in sheets or publicly espousing hate messages, many extremists will talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place.”

The documents repeatedly cite the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a resource for identifying “hate groups.”  (More on this contemptible group here.)

Pursuant to our original Freedom of Information (FOIA) request, filed on April 8, 2013, JW sought from DOD:  “Any and all records concerning, regarding, or related to the preparation and presentation of training materials on hate groups or hate crimes distributed or used by the Air Force.”

And here’s what we have received so far: 133 pages of lesson plans and PowerPoint slides provided by the U.S. Air Force.  Included in these documents is a January 2013 Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute “student guide” entitled “Extremism.”  The document is marked “for training purposes only” with the instruction “do not use on the job.” 

Via: Judicial Watch

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