By The P/Oed Patriot

H/T Breitbart Tv

OOPS!

Heavens To Murgatroid!

Saudi village discovers it prayed in wrong direction for 10 years.

TEN YEARS!

Riyadh – Worshippers at a mosque in a Saudi Arabian village near Mecca discovered they were praying for 10 years in the wrong direction, a newspaper in the country reported Thursday.

Muslims are meant to pray in the direction of the most sacred site in Islam, known as the Kaaba, a large granite structure in the holy city of Mecca.

Villagers in Hadda, 20 kilometres north-west of Mecca (that’s 12.5 miles), should have prayed southeast, but instead bent down five times a day in a northern direction.

After realizing the error, the mosque’s leaders changed the direction of the prayer carpets so the worshippers now face the Kaaba.

(Man, I sure hope they got it right this time.  Maybe we should send them a COMPASS!)

h/t Weasel Zippers

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of my early blogging assignments was the media bias beat over at Newsbusters, so I became particularly attuned to picking up on how the Old Media toes that “unbiased” journalistic line. Unfortunately, in sometimes subtle ways their rhetoric is geared to smear Republicans in any way possible.

Here is a perfect example. Last week in a a Chicago-based report on Illinois Republican Gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady, NBC Chicago’s Edward McClelland described suburban tea party events as “right-wing bloodfeasts.”

Catch this unbiased reporting:

Brady attended a Tea Party in Oglesby on Tuesday night. Like most of the right-wing bloodfeasts he holds south of I-80, it wasn’t reported on in the Chicago media.

“Right-wing bloodfeasts”? Yeah, not too biased there, eh? And what was with the “he holds,” line anyway. Bill Brady was just attending the tea party event, not “holding” it. He had precisely nothing to do with the planning or organization of the event. Yet here is this media hack trying to make it seem as if the candidate is the main guy behind all the suburban “bloodfeasts.” Here is this maven of the Old Media implying that Brady is the guy organizing tea parties obviously attempting to smear the candidate with the tea parties in the minds of his readers.

Entirely dishonest writing.

Additionally, one wonders if old Eddie McClelland of Chicago’s NBC ever called an anti-war protest a “left-wing screamfeast,” or an anti-WTO rally a “left-wing commiefeast”?

One would doubt the possibility, of course.

This is the sort of underhanded rhetoric the Old Media uses in every market across the country as well as the national scene to come to the support of Democrats and to try to undermine the political right.

Three Kenyans have been charged with the murders of 76 people killed when bombs exploded as they watched the World Cup on TV in Kampala, Uganda.

And remember, President Obama says they’re RACISTS!

Hussein Hassan Agad, 27, Mohamed Adan Abdow, 25, and Idris Magondu, 42, were also charged with terrorism and 10 counts of attempted murder.

They have yet to enter pleas and will remain in custody until their next court appearance on 27 August.

Al-Shabab, a Somali Islamist group, said it carried out the attacks.

[..]

The three men, all residents of Kenya, appeared on Friday in a Kampala magistrates court.

The charge sheet identified Hussein Hassan Agad as “a preacher of Islam”, while Idris Magondu was identified as an employee of a trading company in Nairobi, Kenya.

The men were charged with 89 offences. They face 61 counts of murder for those killed at the Kyadondo Rugby Club and 15 counts for those killed at the Ethiopian restaurant.

The charges also include three counts of terrorism and 10 counts of attempted murder.

The men did not speak during their court appearance.

The three will reappear at the magistrates court on 27 August, but will not be permitted to plead to the charges until Uganda’s Directorate of Public Prosecutions decides the case is ready to move to the High Court.

The three men were remanded in custody.

The BBC’s Ignatius Bahizi, who was in court, says the men were arrested on 12 July, the day after the bombings.

There was no indication of how long they had been in Uganda prior to the attacks, he added.

He says at least 27 people have been arrested by an international team of investigators, including the FBI.

Police said they will bring more suspects to court in the coming days.

Related:

Interpol Releases Images of Uganda Bombers From Heads Found at the Scene

Obama Concerned that Al-Qaeda Is Racist After Africans Are Killed in Bombings

BOMBINGS IN UGANDA KILL 64 – Al-Qaeda Affiliate Suspected

Pink Floyd’s anthem “Another Brick in the Wall” has become a hit for Iran’s resistance movement.

Video Link

By The P/Oed Patriot

The Center for American Progress (CAP) and SEIU launched a new attack ad against Arizona’s SB1070 law. Following the Progressive playbook, they have decided to bring race into the issue and compare it to old Jim Crow laws.

This is just another way of calling all of those that are against Illegal Immigration racists.

The Tired Old Race Card…. Will they ever get sick of using it?

H/T Breitbart Tv

.

Rep. Paul Hodes has represented New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional district since 2007.   Hodes is a rank-and-file Democrat and is considered a follower according to our statistical analysis of bills in this legislative session. Hodes tends to cosponsor the bills of other Members of Congress who do not cosponsor Hodes’ own bills.   Hodes missed 80 (2%) of 3,221 roll call votes since Jan 4, 2007.

Paul Hodes has sponsored 37 bills since Jan 4, 2007 of which 33 haven’t made it out of committee and 1 was successfully enacted. Hodes has co-sponsored 478 bills during the same time period.

Yep, wicked smart!

N.H. Rep. Hodes to N.Y. colleague Rangel: Step down

“After reading these very serious charges, I believe that it has come time for him to step down,” Hodes said.   He said Rangel served the United States honorably as a decorated veteran of the Korean War, and he has represented constituents in New York for decades.

New Hampshire Republicans have called on Hodes to return $17,000 in campaign contributions that he has received from Rangel.

But Hodes campaign spokesman Mark Bergman said the money was received in previous election cycles and has been spent.

(Hmmmm…)

2009:   Hodes to Attend Liberal Blogger Bash in Lieu of Town Hall Meetings

Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes (NH-02) has no publicly scheduled town hall meetings with constituents planned for the August (2009) recess but he will appear in Concord as the “featured guest” at the Blue Hampshire Bash, a party for liberal bloggers on August 24th, NowHampshire.com has learned.

[...]

News of Hodes’ participation in the Blue Hampshire Bash is causing some to question his priorities. In addition to holding no town hall events, which are vital opportunities for constituents to discuss issues with their members of congress, Hodes was criticized by a constituent in the media on Wednesday for refusing him an appointment.

(Double Hmmmm….)

Hodes is also known for saying that  “Reading Every Bill “Not Realistic”.

Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes (NH-02) believes reading every bill in Congress “would slow down the business of Congress to a crawl and it would be hard to get done what needs to be done.”

Members of Congress who don’t read the bills they are voting on “is not necessarily the major problem with the way Congress functions,” he said.

Yep, wicked smart!

JULY 30:  HODES MISSES VOTES ON BENEFITS.

After repeatedly prodding his Republican opponents in the U.S. Senate race to support extending unemployment benefits, Democratic U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes last week missed the vote.

(Can you say “Hypocrite”?)

A spokesman for the Hodes campaign said an unspecified “scheduling issue” prevented the congressman from voting July 22 when the U.S. House approved restoring jobless pay for millions of Americans who had been out of work six months or more. Spokesman Matt House said Hodes remains a strong supporter of extended benefits.

Hodes was scheduled to appear in Las Vegas the next day at the liberal bloggers convention Netroots Nation, and by Saturday afternoon he had told a Huffington Post reporter at the conference that Republicans who opposed the extension were “extremist, obstructionist, lying hypocrites who think you don’t have to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest but are holding up help for the neediest.”

(Anyone see a Pattern?)

In a video posted last week on his campaign website, Hodes describes his plans to attend the annual Netroots Nation convention, a gathering of liberal activists and bloggers that attracts attention from Democratic politicians.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spoke at the convention, and President Obama made a video appearance.

Hodes told viewers of his video he was the only progressive candidate in the New Hampshire Senate race and promised to reject special interests.

“As they say in Vegas, I’m All In!,” Hodes said.

Say It With Me:  “WICKED SMART!”

-By Warner Todd Huston

Let’s go back to those hopey-changie days of the Obama campaign for president when he railed constantly against all those “special interests” and eeeevil lobbyists that he claimed were ruining the political process. Let us recall that once elected he claimed he’d have the “strictest ethics rules” of any president ever.

Obama has made sure that his message has been anti-special interests, anti-lobbyists, anti-business-as-usual… heck just plain anti-business, for that matter. It’s all been quite a show. Unfortunately for all the talk his actions speak to the opposite of his spin — more on that in a moment. But even if President Obama was serious about his anti-lobbyist rhetoric his party has utterly ignored him on the issue.

A recent Bloomberg report reveals that lobbyists have raised $1.5 million for Democrat campaign funds during the first six months of the Obama regime quite despite Obama’s constant anti-lobbyist refrain. That is far more than the GOP has been able to raise.

As much as Obama rails against the influence held by lobbyists in Washington, candidates rely on them to help fund increasingly expensive campaigns. Reports released today show lobbyists also personally contributed to Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Bloomberg reports that just two campaign donation “bundlers” have brought in a combined $860,700 into the coffers of the Democratic Congressional Committee since Obama took office. The most successful fundraiser, former Pelosi operative Ryan Rudominer, brought in $716,300 from the electric energy lobby while the second highest fundraiser was Tony Podesta. Podesta represents BP oil, among others and brought in $144,400.

Apparently the party at which Obama sits as headman isn’t paying much mind to the boss’ entreaties. More likely, they all know it’s just hokum and hopey-changie jaw-jaw and not really meant to be taken seriously.

Me, I’d auger for the later because since Obama took office all those “strict ethics rules” have gone out the window for every other appointee and associate that Obama has put in place. Seemingly hours after he took the oath, the president’s office began to waive those “strictest” rules to allow his favorite lobbyists and lawyers to take up residence in his administration.

By Feb. 2, for instance, despite his acclaimed ban on lobbyists a dozen high profile lobbyists had already had those “strict” rules waived for them to join the administration. And by May of 2009, Obama completely lifted his so-called ban on lobbyists from joining his administration. Over a year into his term, he’s still waiving those “rules” for his pals.

By April of 2010 Obama had waived those rules so many times that dozens and dozens of lobbyists, those same lobbyists he attacked endlessly during the campaign, left their lobbying firms to come and work for the big money in Obama’s administration. And this is not to mention that lobbyists have been found to be making a killing in Obama’s Washington especially the army of lobbyists that streamed to D.C. to make cash off the healthcare issue. Even in August of 2009 Obama was still waiving his “strictest ethics rules” to allow his favorite folks into his administration.

In fact, lobbying has become such a lucrative business under Obama that Democrat staffers throughout Washington are quitting government to go work for lobbying firms and doing so with a healthy raise in pay.

Fast forward to May of 2010 and Obama waived those “strictest ethics rules” ever yet again. This time to allow Bob Bauer to replace Craig Craig as Obama’s chief White House counsel. Bauer had rules waived that are meant to prevent administration officials from working on things that would affect people they’ve worked for before. Obama gave Bauer a two-year waiver.

I love how the White House explained this waiver, too.

Eisen, who works under Bauer and wrote the waiver, stressed that it is limited, applying only to Bauer’s work at the powerhouse Democratic firm Perkins Coie as a private lawyer for the Obama family, and for the Democratic National Committee.

Right. And they’ve said the exact same thing about the dozens and dozens of other waivers they’ve made, too. It seems that Obama has waived these “rules” more than he’s observed them and in every case they had those rules waived “only” for that one person.

Obama thinks we are stupid. He thinks he can just go before the public, announce rules he has no intention of ever following, then ignore them and put in whom ever he wants in his administration. Yet he still claims he’s being strictly ethical. Look, no one is denying that a president has a right to put in the people he wants into his own administration but this lie that he is employing the “strictest ethics rules” ever is simply a lie, a smoke screen used to fool people into thinking he isn’t running his administration in a business-as-usual mode.

Will voters continue to fall for this?

Finally, there is one reason and one reason only that all these lobbyists are so free wheeling with their spending in Washington: Congress has taken on too much power unto itself. All these lobbyists and big money men would have no need to buy a President, Senator, or Congressman if there wasn’t so much government regulation for them to try and wade through. Take more government out of the picture and fewer lobbyists will have any need to fill politician’s pockets.

Helen Thomas poses next to a model of her statue

Yep, this Helen Thomas.

Helen Thomas statue campaign stirs controversy.

The Arab American National Museum in Dearborn has launched a fund-raising drive to pay for a statue of legendary journalist Helen Thomas that concerns some in the Jewish community.

Thomas, a former White House correspondent and native Detroiter born to Lebanese immigrants, was forced to quit her job at Hearst Newspapers last month after saying Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine.” She apologized.

On Tuesday, the museum started a 45-day campaign to raise the remaining $10,000 for the roughly $30,000 statue. Some in the Jewish community are wary of honoring Thomas.

“I just hope that the support for this memorial is there despite her anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views and not because of them,” said Richard Nodel, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council.

Maybe they can carve Thomas’ own words at the base of the statue?

More @  The Blog Prog

By The P/Oed Patriot

Apparently the arrogance of those in Government does not begin and end on the Federal Level.  The “I know better than you” attitude even effects City Councilmen. 

Below is a Video of a City Council Meeting in Chattanooga Tennessee where concerned citizens are doing their civic duty by addressing their grievances to their public servants.

When it appears that several other speakers wish to yield their time to another speaker the Councilman objects  by saying, “We aren’t going to have that.”  As the argument continues about what is allowed and what isn’t, the Councilman eventually states:

“We Don’t have to listen to Anybody”. 

This comment is around 3:15 on the Video. 

The Audio is out of sync and running faster than the video itself.  Just FYI

-By Warner Todd Huston

I just returned from a nice little luncheon given by the Heartland Institute (www.heartland.org) in beautiful downtown Chicago, Illinois. The purpose of the gathering of free-market supporters and like-minded individuals was to celebrate the life’s work of famed economist and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman.

The principal speaker was Richard H. Timberlake*, student and friend of the celebrated economist and an accomplished free-market economist in his own right.

I’ve done several such events for some of the conservative think tanks and state policy groups in the Windy City and I enjoy these events in Chicago because I always get the uneasy feeling that our little conclave of right-thinking fellows well met is the last vestige of civilization and that we are putting on the timbers to secure the gates as the barbarians mount their attack. The barbarians of which I speak are, of course, the city full of Democrats and socialists that looms on all sides surrounding our little events.

But I digress. Mr. Timberlake’s talk was very informative but can be boiled down to a few main points.

• The Fed has too much power to interfere in the economy
• We should go back to the gold standard
• Let the Markets work. They maximize motives, morals and real production

And this one is the most salient of them all…

• This “Great Recession” is a result of over regulation, not a failure of the market

Mr. Timberlake began his talk retracing some of the early 20th century history of the fed and he made a point that I was not aware of. In the late 1920s and into the early 30s the fed actually instituted a policy that it termed “direct pressure” on America’s financial milieu in order to punish “speculators” and that policy overtly levied against the country’s economy actually, in Timberlake’s opinion, “initiated the catastrophe” of The Great Depression. So, far from just reacting to the depression — and badly at that — the fed actually caused it.

During the question and answer period one of the things that Mr. Timberlake said concerning the government’s gold stockpile got a hearty agreement from the assembled. We should empty the govt’s gold stockpiles and return ownership of gold to the people, Timberlake advised.

After all, what is the government doing with all that gold? We aren’t using it to back our fiat paper money. So why has it been squirreled away hundreds of feet beneath the earth? As Richard Lorec of America’s Future Foundation said to me after the event, “we spend all that time, sweat, and blood to dig all that gold out from beneath the earth only to build vaults underground and put it all right back again.” Man is a strange creature, isn’t he?

In any case, I had a great time and thanks to Zack Christenson of The Heartland Institute for helping me with the arrangements.

*Dr. Timberlake, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Georgia, has chafed at what he considers misrepresentations by some Federal Reserve policymakers of Dr. Friedman’s views to justify wholesale intrusion into the U.S. economy. “The monetary excesses that current Fed policymakers have put into place in the banking and financial systems are a pending nightmare,” Dr. Timberlake has warned.

-By Warner Todd Huston

When companies are found to have violated regulations that govern their industry, is it right that a jury of non-experts can award damages the amount of which will wipe the company off the face of the earth? That is a question that has been raised in a case recently decided against Skilled Healthcare LLC of California.

A class action lawsuit (lawsuit info here) brought by trial lawyers was filed late last year against Skilled Healthcare of California claiming that the company had violated state regulations that stipulates that nursing homes must maintain 3.2 nursing hours per patient, per day (ppd). The lawsuit claimed that the nursing homes operated by Skilled Healthcare often did not meet the requirement.

Interestingly, there was never any claim from any patient that there’d been harmed or put in danger. Not a single patient claimed personal injury before these lawyers began to file their class action lawsuit.

After a six-month trial the jury decided that the company did violate the rules and awarded the plaintiffs $613 million in statutory damages and $58 million in restitutionary damages.

There is a problem with this award, however. The company only has borrowing credit of $94 million. If the company were to be held to this outrageously high award it would go bankrupt and would be forced to close its doors.

Not only that but some 32,000 people — patients/residents and healthcare workers alike — would lose their heatlhcare facilities and jobs if this award were enforced.

Does this make sense?

Now, I’ve looked at many stories about this lawsuit and cannot find any claims by the State of California that Skilled Healthcare LLC was found wanting during any of the many surprise inspections of the company’s 22 healthcare facilities. I have seen no evidence from state regulators that any citations were issued or that there has been any allegations in this case that the nursing homes in question violated any statutes.

Skilled Healthcare has reported that it has passed all inspections. That’s notable because the healthcare industry in California is almost as highly regulated as the state’s nuclear power industry.

Yet six healthcare clients from Humbolt County, CA have been allowed the status for the levy of an award so great that it will wipe the corporation of the face of the earth?

The California Association of Health Facilities agrees that this lawsuit makes no sense. James Gomez, CEO and President of the CAHF, called the whole thing “outlandish.”

The July 6, 2010 verdict against Skilled Healthcare Group Inc. and subsidiary Skilled Healthcare LLC is outlandish, excessive and extreme. The $671 million award of damages is disproportionate to the facts of the case. It’s a by-product of a series of unprecedented and erroneous rulings of law by the trial judge, and a jury that applied the flawed rulings to the maximum extent. These maximum damages were applied over a six year period to every patient in the 22 skilled nursing facilities, regardless of whether they were named in the complaint. More importantly, the allegations specifically excluded any assertion of harm.

Gomez also laments that if the judgment stands the healthcare company will be forced to close its doors causing the loss of thousands of jobs and putting the healthcare of thousands of patients in jeopardy.

And Gomez also reports that Skilled Healthcare LLC is “widely regarded as a good provider of skilled nursing care in California and elsewhere.”

The case, now concluded, is going into a mediation phase and the company hopes that the award will be lowered to one it could actually pay instead of the punitive one that they now face.

In the end this trial is evidence that this country needs some major tort reform. Here we had a company that was going about its business, and by all accounts has a good reputation in its industry yet found itself with a multi-million dollar award levied against it because of some trial lawyers that went ambulance chasing to float a class action lawsuit. And now thousands of people’s healthcare and livelihood is in jeopardy.

What are all theses elderly patients supposed to do if the company is forced to fold? And what of all the jobs lost in this, one of the worst economies in decades?

If the company was violating state regulations on the required number of nursing staff to patient ratios, then, sure, the state should force it to comply with regulations. No one would deny that fines of some sort would legitimately be part of such a finding. But this $671 million award is not corrective, it is destructive.

And what unforeseen consequences might this award have in the healthcare industry throughout California and the rest of the country? Will it drive costs up? Will it cause smaller healthcare facilities to just close up shop for fear of giant, punitive awards for minor infractions? And what other industries might next be a target of this class action feeding frenzy?

Questions that we would not be faced with were it not for an out of control tort system.

A Taliban spokesman has issued a warning that all US Spies revealed in the documents will be hunted down and killed.

via the Telegraph

The Taliban has issued a warning to Afghans whose names might appear on the leaked Afghanistan war logs as informers for the Nato-led coalition.

In an interview with Channel 4 News, Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said they were studying and investigating the report, adding “If they are US spies, then we know how to punish them.”

The warning came as the US military’s top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen said that Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, may already have blood on his hands following the leak of 92,000 classified documents relating to the war in Afghanistan by his website.

“Mr Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family,” he said.

The countless lives that have been put in danger because of the leak of these documents is unprecedented.  Who knows how many names are in those docs.

And it’s not just Julian Assange who will have blood on his hands because of this leak.  A Wall Street Journal article yesterday reported that Investigators found concrete evidence that PFC. Bradley Manning was the source of the leak.

Investigators have found concrete evidence linking Pfc. Bradley Manning with the leak of classified Afghanistan war reports, a U.S. defense official said.

A search of the computers used by Pfc. Manning yielded evidence he had downloaded the Afghanistan war logs, which span from 2004 until 2009, the official said. It’s not clear precisely what that evidence is.

hattip WZIP

Anthony Weiner delivered an epic performance on the House floor last night.

via Freedom’s Lighthouse

Above is video of New York Rep. Anthony Weiner delivering a screaming rant on the House Floor as he attacked Republicans for questioning why the Democrats in control of the House insisted on a two-thirds vote to pass a bill setting up a long-term compensation fund for September 11 Emergency responders sick or injured as a result of their work that day. New York Rep. Peter King had pointed out the Democrats could have easily used a simple-majority process for the bill, but knew many Republicans opposed it on principle and wanted the two-thirds vote in order to embarrass the GOP and win political points. The bill did not get the necessary two-thirds vote.