THIS WEEK’S NEWS

Already wary of the federal government, Americans have grown even more critical, less trusting and even fearful of Uncle Sam since President Barack Obama took office, according to an exhaustive new study. The in-depth poll found Americans not only rejecting the idea of an activist government, but a growing number urging its power be curtailed. "By almost every conceivable measure, Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days.”

http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2010/04/americans_distrust_of_federal.html

Sarah Palin criticized President Obama for saying America is a military superpower "whether we like it or not," saying she was taken aback by his comment. "I would hope that our leaders in Washington, D.C., understand we like to be a dominant superpower," the former Alaska governor said. "I don't understand a world view where we have to question whether we like it or not that America is powerful."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100418/D9F58FG01.html

Another view: “We have a president loath to acknowledge American exceptionalism. Indeed, the weight of the evidence suggests that our chief executive, through both word and deed and with malice aforethought, seeks to undermine – if not dismantle – that exceptionalism.”

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/22055

President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging the public to create video advertisements that explain why federal regulations are "important to everyone." The contest, which ends May 17, will award $2,500 to the makers of the video that best explains why federal regulations are good and how ordinary citizens can become more involved in making regulations.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64297

While Goldman Sachs' lawyers negotiated with the Securities and Exchange Commission over potentially explosive civil fraud charges, Goldman's chief executive visited the White House at least four times. President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign received $994,795 in donations from Goldman's political action committee, its employees and their relatives.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/21/92637/goldmans-connections-to-white.html

“Is Goldman Obama's Enron? No, it's worse”

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Is-Goldman-Obamas-Enron-No-its-worse-91613449.html

A U.S. military jury cleared a Navy SEAL of failing to prevent another SEAL from punching an Iraqi prisoner suspected of masterminding a 2004 attack that killed four American security contractors. The trial of three SEALs has outraged many Americans who see it as coddling terrorists.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/22/seal-trial-jury-deliberates-iraqi-abuse-case/

President Obama hasn’t held a formal press conference in almost a year (274 days and counting) yet has golfed 32 times since he was elected—eight more times than President George W. Bush did during his entire presidency. Had Bush tried that, he’d have been clubbed by the media.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-21/the-medias-double-standard-on-presidential-golf/?cid=hp:mainpromo5

President Obama burned 9000 gallons of jet fuel to give an earth day speech in Iowa. “President Obama could have saved at least 9,116 gallons of fuel by giving his speech at the White House - but no wind turbines are manufactured here.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-4962384-503544.html

And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called a Capitol Hill press conference Wednesday to unveil new light fixtures in the House cafeteria. The “green” light fixtures cost $140,000 and will take almost 10 years to pay off in saved energy.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64503

The United Nations has quietly upped this year's peacekeeping budget for earthquake-shattered Haiti to $732.4 million, with two-thirds of that amount going for the salary, perks and upkeep of its own personnel, not residents of the devastated island. (Business as usual at the UN)

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/20/uns-massive-haiti-budget-goes-staff/

The Arizona House voted for a provision that would require U.S. presidential candidates who want to appear on the ballot in Arizona to submit documents proving they meet the constitutional requirements to be president, including their birth certificate.

http://www.kpho.com/news/23202195/detail.html

Wynn Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn told CNBC he was considering moving the company's corporate headquarters from Las Vegas to Macau. "The governmental policies in the United States of America are a damper, a wet blanket," Wynn said in a separate interview aired today on Bloomberg Television. "They retard investment, they retard job formation, they retard the creation of a better life for the citizens in spite of the rhetoric of the president."

http://www.lvrj.com/news/wynn-considers-moving-company-headquarters-to-macau-91696009.html

A crowd estimated at around 2,500 gathered on the steps of the Washington State Capitol in Olympia for the Tax Day Tea Party. Here are the pictures.

http://www.redcounty.com/thousands-gather-olympia-tea-party/38793

In response to Bill Clinton’s highly publicized linking of the Tea Party movement to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, former Clinton adviser Dick Morris disclosed on Monday that it was Clinton himself, and not Attorney General Janet Reno, as Americans have been led to believe for the past 17 years, who called the shots during the 1993 botched invasion that led to the death of seventy-six people.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/22200

The latest “progressive” trend: The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers' dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/travel/news/Vacationing+human+right+chief+says/2924330/story.html

Comcast has announced a new venture with RightNetwork, "an independently-owned media company" whose mission is "to entertain, engage, and enlighten Americans who are looking for content that reflects and reinforces their perspective and worldview.” RightNetwork's YouTube page features cameos from Kelsey Grammar and previews for such shows as "Politics & Poker":

http://www.politico.com/blogs/onmedia/0410/Report_Comcast_to_acquire_rightwing_network.html?showall

Philadelphia sports mogul and longtime backer of conservative causes, Ed Snider, is backing the new cable TV network.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20100420_Snider_funding_conservative_RightNetwork.html?posted=y&viewAll=y#comments

Former New York Gov. George Pataki (R) on Sunday debuted "Revere America" a new 501(c)(4) organization that seeks to drum up support for a prompt repeal of Democrats' healthcare reforms.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/92915-pataki-launches-anti-healthcare-group-amid-2012-talk

A public transit authority in Florida has reversed a decision to take down banner advertisements on buses that offer help to Muslims wanting to leave their faith. Activists are hailing the move as a victory for free speech and religious freedom. Not only will the ten originally planned ads appear on Miami-Dade Transit buses in coming days, but an additional 20 ads will be run at no extra cost. The decision came after the group initiating the ad campaign threatened a lawsuit, claiming breach of contract and violation of First Amendment rights. It

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64527

Homosexual activists are pressuring the House to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). A conservative group warns that the bill could ban employers (including schools) from firing transsexuals, cross-dressers or men who think of themselves as women.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64523

______________________________________________________________________________________

THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN

Phyllis Schlafly 4/13

Income tax day, April 15, 2010, now divides Americans into two almost equal classes: those who pay for the services provided by government and the freeloaders. The percentage of Americans who will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009 has risen to 47 percent.

That isn't the worst of it. The bottom 40 percent not only pay no income tax, but the government sends them cash or benefits financed by the taxes dutifully paid by those who do pay income tax. The outright cash handouts include the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which can amount to as much as $5,657 a year to low-income families. Other financial benefits can include child tax credits, welfare, food stamps, WIC (Women, Infants, Children), housing subsidies, unemployment benefits, Medicaid, S-CHIP and other programs. This is both a massive transfer of wealth and a soak-the-rich racket. The top 10 percent pay 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has become the congressional leader in explaining details of the recently passed Health Control Law. He says that, based on Congressional Budget Office figures, taxes to pay for Obamacare will have to skyrocket to an 88 percent income tax rate within 30 years.

Although all wage-earners help fund their own Social Security and Medicare benefits, only federal income taxpayers pay the costs of running the federal government, and are responsible for paying off our $12.8 trillion national debt and for bailing out Social Security, Medicare, and Fannie and Freddie when they collapse.

Even the recently passed Health Control Law contains financial subsidies to unmarried couples that are denied to married couples. This rewards the unmarried women who were the second largest demographic constituency that voted for Barack Obama for president in 2008.

When Obama told Joe the Plumber he wanted to "spread the wealth around," Obama wasn't kidding. That's exactly what he is now doing: taking money from taxpayers and spreading it around to non-taxpayers.

Nor was Obama kidding when, on the eve of his election, he threatened, "We are going to fundamentally transform the United States of America." Converting the earnings of American workers into handouts for those who voted for Obama in 2008 is certainly a fundamental transformation.

Obama's promise not to raise taxes on middle-Americans is already down the drain. Obama brought former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker out of obscurity to serve as chairman of an Economic Recovery Advisory Board and announce that we need to raise taxes. Volcker was blunt in predicting that the new tax increase will be a Value-Added Tax (VAT). That's the tax European socialists love because its rates can be hidden and frequently raised, while producing rivers of revenue for the bureaucrats. Volcker claimed that a VAT is "not a toxic idea." It really is -- Charles Krauthammer called it "the ultimate cash cow" because it transfers so much money from individuals to the government.

Having already co-opted the executive and legislative branches of government for his fundamental transformation, Obama now wants to use the judiciary, too. The retirement of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens gives him this opportunity. On Jan. 18, 2001m on Public Radio WBEZ-FM, Chicago, Obama complained that the Earl Warren Court "wasn't that radical" because "it didn't break free from the essential constraints placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution. ... The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and serve more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society."

Calling for the Supreme Court to participate in the "redistribution of wealth" is shockingly revolutionary. Any judicial nominee who agrees with Obama's theory should be rejected.

Obama's game plan to "fundamentally transform" America is based on both Saul Alinsky's modus operandi for community organizing and on the Cloward-Piven spending strategy. Saul Alinsky was a famous Chicago radical, and Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were less-well-known Columbia University sociologists.

The goal of all three of these agitators was the overthrow of the private enterprise system. The Alinsky strategy is to use community organizing and mass demonstrations by those he labeled the "Have Nots," and the Cloward-Piven strategy is to overload the bureaucracy with enormous demands for entitlements, thereby causing a financial crisis.

Obama used Alinsky methods by taxpayer financing of ACORN and subprime mortgages. Obama used Cloward-Piven methods by massive deficit spending for entitlements for more and more millions of people.

Fortunately, hardworking, taxpaying Americans are beginning to understand how they are being ripped off and rushed into bankruptcy. The one way to save ourselves and our country is to elect a Congress in November pledged to stop the spending.

http://townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2010/04/13/america_becomes_a_two-class_society?page=full&comments=true

_______________________________________________________________________________

FROM OTHER COLUMNS

"The value-added tax has become the designated panacea for massive federal budget deficits. It's touted by think-tank economists and mentioned by congressional leaders. A VAT could, it's said, raise stupendous amounts of money, which, Lord knows, are needed to cover projected deficits. A VAT is likened to a 'national sales tax,' so once in place, most Americans would barely notice it -- just as they barely notice state and local sales taxes. How's that for friendly politics? A VAT would also discourage consumption and encourage saving and investment, making America richer in the future. What's not to like? ... Almost every pro-VAT argument is exaggerated, misleading, incomplete or wrong. The VAT is being merchandised as an almost-painless way to avoid deep spending cuts. The implicit, though often unstated, message is that a VAT could raise so much money it could eliminate future deficits by itself. This reasoning, if embraced, would create staggering tax burdens and exempt us from a debate we desperately need. How big a government do we want -- and what can we afford?"

-Robert J. Samuelson

"I am as irate as anyone at the way that Obama and Pelosi, like a pair of old-time bootleggers, strong-armed members of Congress into voting for ObamaCare. But just because the Republicans fought back, I'm not as prepared as some to give them a pass. ... I would say to GOP politicians, you had control of the House, the Senate and the Oval Office from 2001-2007, but you didn't do a darn thing about health insurance. It's only now that the liberals are gobbling up one-sixth of the economy that you're suddenly all for tort reform and allowing insurance companies to compete across state borders. When you had the power, all that people like John McCain and the rest of you punks did was cozy up to people like Feingold and Kennedy, like a bunch of school girls hoping the liberals would ask you to the prom. ... [I]nstead of behaving responsibly, you cheered Bush on when he signed a blank check to cover pharmaceuticals. You patted him on the back and took a few bows yourself, as if you or he were personally picking up the tab for granny's meds. ... I'm not suggesting that I don't despise Obama, Pelosi, Waxman and the other left-wing gnomes, but just letting you know that there's more than enough well-deserved contempt to go around. So don't assume that simply because you call yourself a Republican and make nice with the Tea Party crowd that we trust you any farther than we can throw Barney Frank."

-Burt Prelutsky

_____________________________________________________________________________________

ACTIVISM

A new political action committee (PAC) has been formed to run conservative black candidates against liberal black members of Congress. Bishop E.W. Jackson, Sr., has set up the Stand America PAC to challenge members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

http://standamerica.us/

____________________________________________________________________________________

BOOKS

When wrapping up the nuclear security summit, President Barack Obama said, “Whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower.” The president’s comment was a very subtle example of how liberals tend to talk only to each other and are isolated from most Americans, according to R. Emmett Tyrell Jr., author of the forthcoming book “After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64300

____________________________________________________________________________________

LEFTIST WATCH

An atheist group is calling on President Obama to ditch the National Day of Prayer and formally recognize its own “non-theist” version called “The National Day of Reason.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64358

_____________________________________________________________________________________

NEWS FROM THE ISLAMIC WORLD

Islamist insurgents have ordered Somali radio stations to stop playing music, a ban that went into effect last Tuesday. This order follows the Islamists’ ban on musical ringtones, movies, men without beards, football, women’s beauty salons, and bras. Those not adhering to the new ban risk a grave threat to their physical well-being, which includes getting assassinated or undergoing Sharia-based punishments. Such punishments include having your limbs amputated, your eyes gauged out, your tongue cut out, and your ears cut off.

http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/19/the-day-somali-music-died/

A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1267262/Iranian-cleric-Women-wear-revealing-clothing-cause-earthquakes.html#ixzz0lZZdPVMd

Spengler: “A decade ago I argued that radical Islam might horrify the West into submission through the mass sacrifice of Muslim lives. During the past two weeks Iran has virtually invited a nuclear exchange with the West, in a series of statements that blend a deranged sort of bluster with malevolent calculation… Iran has taken our measure well: the theocratic regime evinced an unlimited appetite for sacrifice during its decade-long war with Iraq in the 1980s. It is persuaded, and with good reason, the prospective horror of a military confrontation is too terrible for the West to bear.”

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LD20Ak01.html

_____________________________________________________________________________________

GLOBALONEY

Just in time for Earth Day at your local supermarket newsstand, Newsweek has published “100 Places to Remember Before They Disappear,” a shrill, apocalyptic, scaremongering photo album of favorite hot spots the world over that are threatened with destruction by global warming. The lush west coast of Kauai, Hawaii? Ruined. The Caribbean? Destroyed. Big Sur, California? Wiped out by wild fires. Chicago, Illinois? Parched and flooded. (Huh?). And so on.

http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGYzN2ZlYjFiMzliMzk2OTM5YzBhYmE0OTE0NDE2ZGU=

Agence France-Presse puts the volcanic belch from Eyjafjallajökull in perspective. The Iceland volcano is “emitting between 150,000 and 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide per day, a figure placing it in the same emissions league as a small-to-medium European economy. . . . Extrapolated over a year, the emissions (55 million metric tons) would place the volcano 47th to 75th in the world table of emitters on a country-by-country basis.” That perspective is also relevant to the U.S., where spoiled, rich elites pretend CO2 is the greatest challenge that mankind faces.

http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmQyODY3ZWY4YWRiMTY4OTQyNDY5NTMyMmVkZDM5NjU=

It is no accident that April 22, Earth Day, is also the birth date of Vladimir Lenin, an acolyte of Karl Marx, the lunatic who invented communism as an alternative to capitalism. Earth Day is naked communism. To begin, it substitutes a worship of the Earth, Gaia, for the worship of God, creator of the universe and the instructor of moral behavior for mankind. The Earth does not demand a moral code of personal behavior. Indeed, the lesson it teaches is “the survival of the fittest “and an indifference to suffering.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/22235

If you were faced with by far the biggest bill of your life, would you not want to be confident that there was a very good reason why you should pay it? That is why we need to know just how far we can trust the science behind the official view that the world is threatened with catastrophe by global warming – because the measures proposed by our politicians to avert this supposed disaster threaten to transform our way of life out of recognition and to land us with easily the biggest bill in history.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7601929/Climategate-a-scandal-that-wont-go-away.html

_____________________________________________________________________________________

ARTICLES

The reason pension plans are headed toward financial disaster is simple. Ever-expanding public-sector unions have flexed their political muscle and larded up with lavish benefits to be be paid out decades from now. (For example)…California's public-employee retirement system stands in the most perilous condition, facing a half-trillion in unfunded liabilities. That's not surprising when you consider a California highway patrol officer can retire at age 50 and collect up to 90 percent of his salary for the rest of his life. According to the agency's website, a typical officer's pay will reach $109,147 after just five years on duty….That means a fit and healthy 50-year-old "retiree" who began work at age 20 would receive $98,232 a year from taxpayers for the rest of his life, and nothing prevents him from taking another government job to collect two paychecks.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/23/public-sector-unions-bankrupting-america/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_must-read-stories-today

John Stossel & Michael Medved: “I won 19 Emmy Awards by reporting a myth: that business constantly rips us off -- that capitalism is mostly cruel and unfair. I know that's a myth now….."You can only make a profit in this country by giving people a product or a service that they want…..It's the golden rule in action.”

http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2010/04/21/myths_about_capitalism?page=full&comments=true

“Think tank analysts usually brim with pride when the president of the United States goes around claiming that his policies are based on their work. But when President Obama tries to sell his health-care law as a moderate approach that borrows ideas developed by the Heritage Foundation, we get incensed…. This is why we at the Heritage Foundation respectfully ask President Obama and his acolytes to stop misrepresenting our research. We think this massive health law is abominable and should be repealed.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/18/AR2010041802727_pf.html

Tea party activists are divided roughly into two camps, according to a new Politico/TargetPoint poll: one that’s libertarian-minded and largely indifferent to hot-button values issues and another that’s culturally conservative and equally concerned about social and fiscal issues. A survey was conducted by Edison Research at the massive Tax Day protest on the National Mall..

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35988.html

“In 2006, then-governor Mitt Romney signed a sweeping health-insurance overhaul in Massachusetts into law. It relied on subsidies, exchanges, and mandates to extend coverage to the uninsured. Now, four years later, it has become the model for President Obama's new national law—and a big political problem for Romney, who risks alienating Republican critics of the president's plan as he attempts strike a delicate balance between refusing to renounce his own reforms and criticizing Obama's very similar plan.”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/236632

As the left works overtime to underestimate, if not outright disparage, the import and impact of the growing tea party movement, some telling demographics have been revealed by the unlikeliest of sources -- The New York Times and CBS News. A poll sponsored by the traditionally liberal news organizations takes a baby step in debunking the talking points of "progressive" puppet-masters that tea partyers are lemming-like Cro-Magnons, necks painted red, who tuck sawed-off shotguns into their bib overall cut-offs. Truth be told, these modern-day Sons and Daughters of Liberty are wealthier than the general public and better educated. That is, they are industrious -- they actually work and pay taxes -- and know that tickling sensation at their knees is not someone getting fresh but the hands of Leviathan administering a continual fleecing through the hole torn in their pockets.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_676868.html

Barack Obama's Missing Girlfriends

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/barack_obamas_missing_girlfrie.html

As I watch the left pile on the Catholic Church, I am fascinated by the priorities of the critics: they much prefer to attack the institution itself, even as they blatantly ignore the essence of the crimes committed. In virtually every case of sexual molestation that has been reported, a young boy was violated by an older man. In other words, it was homosexual adults talking advantage of their stature as religious figures to abuse young boys. Perhaps pointing this out to liberals, who have long championed every aspect of the militant homosexual agenda, is indelicate.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0410/ahlert.php3

“America's liberals are consumed with guilt. If not soon purged from our society, their guilt will kill us all. Bent on rewriting history, or else entirely ignorant of it, they deny that the United States has brought more freedom and well-being to more people most of the time than any other nation in history.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_grand_illusions_of_america.html

Wauconda, Wash., is the most recent town to be sold on ebay, purchased by an unemployed couple from Bothell Wa. “5% down?? Are Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac behind this loan?”

http://specials.msn.com/A-List/Woman-sells-town-on-eBay.aspx?cp-documentid=23972280&imageindex=1

_______________________________________________________________________________________

NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES

Respecting our history, protecting our future:

http://www.revereamerica.org/

Pictures from tax day tea parties around the country:

http://lucianne.com/article/?pageid=Tea_Party_page

Clever student puts Obama budget cuts in perspective.

http://www.wimp.com/budgetcuts/

The ABCs of Repealing ObamaCare

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36452

_________________________________________________________________________________________

LATE NITE

Jimmy Kimmel: A volcano in Iceland has shut down air travel all across Europe. Apparently they dumped too much baking soda and vinegar into the thing and it just won’t stop erupting……The German airline Lufthansa said it plans to resume some flights. Apparently there are so many Germans in France right now that the French government surrendered.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

WISE WORDS

"I want to speak to you this evening about my highest duty as president: to preserve peace and defend these United States. ... One cannot sit in this office reviewing intelligence on the military threat we face, making decisions from arms control to Libya to the Philippines, without having that concern for America's security weigh constantly on your mind. We know that peace is the condition under which mankind was meant to flourish. Yet peace does not exist of its own will. It depends on us, on our courage to build it and guard it and pass it on to future generations. George Washington's words may seem hard and cold today, but history has proven him right again and again. 'To be prepared for war,' he said, 'is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.'"

-Ronald Reagan