Greenacreshayfarms

I know, you’re pretty darned surprised. Who would have thought that so much money would be wasted on “green” projects by the Obama/Democrat Stimulus plan?

(Fox News) A federal audit shows that nearly a half-billion dollars in government funds was spent on training workers for so-called “green jobs.” The only problem is that not enough positions in the growing industry exist.

The findings — released in a June report by the Government Accountability Office — showed that only 55 percent of those trained were able to place in a new job, many of which were not technically green jobs. The $501 million in funding came from the 2009 stimulus law. The report also uncovered that the Department of Labor created a framework that led grantees to broadly interpret the program’s definition to include any job “that could be linked, directly or indirectly, to a beneficial outcome” which led to the gap between training programs and available green industry jobs.

Essentially, they were throwing money out into the wilds of private enterprise without any real knowledge of the marketplace, products, consumer interest, you know, basic economic and corporate decisions that all these folks in Government, who’ve mostly or solely spent their working lives in other than the private sector, have no idea about, except as academic notions.

“Basically, this is what can happen when you fund large programs amid much uncertainty and when there’s too little data available,” Mark Muro, senior fellow and policy director for the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, told FoxNews.com.

And a president who’s virtually never worked a day in the private sector in his life, who hires people who’ve mostly spent their lives in academia and government.

“The GAO report is just more evidence that the administration has no clue what drives a successful economy and job growth,” said Paul Chesser, an associate fellow at the National Legal and Policy Center. “President Obama tried to build this economic sector, but the buyers didn’t come. And now after the initial flurry, the ‘green jobs’ are evaporating.”

By “evaporating”, I assume he means “really never appeared, but Obama campaign contributors got some nice money out of it”.

Speaking of job, James Pethokoukis wonders where the 5% unemployment rate that the Stimulus promised by July 2013 is

Of course, we now know conclusively that this prediction — based as it was on the pixiedust magic of Keynesian fiscal multipliers — was a total failure, one even beyond what the July job numbers suggest.

Much like Obama’s reliance on “green” jobs training for jobs that didn’t exist, but were supposed to magically appear just because some people were trained.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — More than two dozen people were injured when a wood platform holding live fireworks tipped over, sending the pyrotechnics into a crowd at an annual 4th of July show northwest of Los Angeles, authorities said Friday.

Between 8,000 and 10,000 revelers were settling into their seats for the fireworks extravaganza at a Simi Valley park Thursday night when the spectacle of lights that were supposed to be launched in the sky never took off. A bright plume of red and white bursts spread across the ground, injuring 28 people and sending others fleeing for safety.

Police were investigating what led to the explosion, but said early indications show a platform designed and built to hold the fireworks gave way.

“For some unknown reasons the structure that holds these ordinances collapsed and caused them to be firing into the crowd,” said Simi Valley police Cmdr. Stephanie Shannon.

Four people were listed in serious condition, but their injuries were not life-threatening. Another 16 were taken to area hospitals with minor to moderate injuries. The remainder were treated at the park where emergency crew, already on hand as a safety precaution, set up a triage area.

A video clip show on KCAL-TV shows a pair of firework blasts at or near the ground. Another clip posted on YouTube shot from a distance shows three ground-level bursts. The fireworks continue for almost another minute before stopping.

“There was a big boom, everybody started running down the street, people were screaming,” Justice Allen, 17, of Simi Valley told the Los Angeles Times. “Everybody was just terrified. People hid in bushes.”

Authorities estimate people were about 900 feet away from where the fireworks were being launched. One police officer who ran into the crowd when the blasts occurred had shrapnel tear through his leather belt and his clothing, Shannon said. He had minor injuries to his back.

Shannon said most people responded admirably and left in an orderly fashion. A bomb squad was at the park to deactivate the remainder of the fireworks.

She added the fireworks primarily shot in one direction.

“They are going to travel the same distance across the park as they would in the air,” Shannon said. “The ones that had actually ignited that had to run their fuse were going directly into the crowd.”

The annual July Fourth celebration has been sponsored by the city and the local Rotary Club for the past 43 years. Shannon said she had no information about the company hired for the fireworks show.

Simi Valley, home to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, is about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

This post has been updated

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Pakistanis check damages at an election campaign office of Pakistan People’s Party, PPP, destroyed by a bomb blast in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, May 10, 2013. (AP)

The Election Commission of Pakistan is confident of seeing a better voter turnout in these elections despite the bombings.

Bomb blasts killed at least 16 people today as voters cast ballots in historic Pakistani elections.
VOA reported:

Violence on election day in Pakistan has killed at least 16 people, as voters cast ballots in the first election that will see one civilian administration give way to another after a full term in office.

As Pakistanis vote in parliamentary elections to fill 272 seats in the National Assembly, twin bomb blasts in Karachi killed at least 10 people. The blasts took place at a political campaign office for the Awami National Party, one of the parties targeted by the Taliban for election-related attacks.

Shootings in the southwestern province of Baluchistan left another four people dead.

However, considering the huge turnout at polling stations across the country, relatively few attacks have taken place so far on election day.

More than 100 people have been killed and scores wounded since late April in attacks, as the Taliban seeks to undermine the election. Taliban members have warned of suicide attacks on election day.

Tea Party protesters in St. Louis (The Gateway Pundit photo)

An upcoming report found that senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew that agents were targeting conservatives since 2011.

Despite this, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views.

That’s also Jenny Beth Martin from the Tea Party Patriots in the video.

The AP reported:

A federal watchdog’s upcoming report says senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups in 2011.

The disclosure contradicts public statements by former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who repeatedly assured Congress that conservative groups were not targeted.

On Friday, the IRS apologized for what it acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if those groups were violating their tax-exempt status.

The Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration is expected to release the results of a nearly yearlong investigation in the coming week.

The Associated Press obtained part of the draft report.

That report says the head of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups learned that groups were being targeted in June 2011. It does not say whether Shulman was notified.

UPDATE: (From previous post) The IRS has some explaining to do.
Beyond Political posted this earlier:

This cannot possibly be. As someone who has gone through IRS certification (due to the off chance we may encounter taxpayer data during investigations), I can attest for the extensive rigor and controls that prevent such low level activities. For instance, the mere act of someone pulling up a neighbor’s tax data would set off numerous alarms; investigation and prosecution would be inevitable. Cases are distributed in a manner that a low-level worker would not have access to all “tea party” and “patriot” filings.

This means one of two things. Either ALL low-level employees in the IRS are operating in collusion, conspiring to attack all citizens of a particular political orientation (which would be necessary to cause low level employees randomly assigned and supervised with such extensive controls to consistently flag and punish people of that political interest), or senior level IRS employees who are able to pull up files of a particular interest (“patriot” “tea party”) were involved. Furthermore, if it was low-level employees, they would be investigated and disciplined as a matter of routine process. Only senior level IRS executives are able to bypass those controls.

And that IRS spokespersons are lying suggests how far up the conspiracy goes. I’m rather confident that a competent investigation would show White House political appointees had directed these actions, in collusion with senior level IRS officials. Nobody down below would be able to have such a broad reach and get by without being terminated and criminally prosecuted.

Hat Tip Andrea

Hillary Clinton Fired From Watergate Committee For Fraud, Ethics Violations – Fire Andrea Mitchell . Did you know Hillary Clinton was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C.? Clinton was advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal back in 1974. I didn’t either until I read her Wikipedia […]

Let's have Joe Biden tell us how important this is.

That's right -- this really is a "big effing deal". The American people were lied to yesterday about when IRS officials knew about illegal activity with regards to tax exempt status for Tea Party and other conservative groups!

Senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011, according to a draft of an inspector general's report obtained by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner.

The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.

But on June 29, 2011, Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog's report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with "Tea Party," ''Patriot" or "9/12 Project" in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says.

The criteria for flagging groups got changed in January 2012 to target "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement".

Wow! Educating Americans about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was made a criteria for harassment and punitive treatment by the government? That's just outrageous -- the Constitutiona and Bill of Rights are the birthright of every American and every American should be educated about them.

And more outrageous is that the head of the IRS then denied this sort of targeting was going on in March of 2012. That, my friends, is perjury.

And as Legal Insurrection notes, part of a larger pattern of Obama Administration officials targeting conservatives.

No wonder the IRS has made this decision.

IRS on conf call saying no disciplinary action against employees who targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny.

— Karen Tumulty(@ktumulty) May 10, 2013

Which goes back to the acknowledgement of IRS wrongdoing on a Friday. The goal was obviously to bury the story and make sure that information like this, if reported, got the most limited audience possible. They needed to do so because the results of an internal investigation on the matter are set to come out in the coming week. So much for the most open and transparent administration in American history!

By the way -- such use of the IRS during the Nixon years was the basis for one of the articles of impeachment prepared against him.

So that Joe Biden quote is truly correct on this matter.

 Comment by Jim Campbell, Citizen journalist, Oath Keeper, and Patriot.

Calling this landmark legislation akin to Kurt Flood’s win over becoming a free agent when essentially club owners owned you contract an until it ran out the player would not be signed to another team with a new contract is a bit of a stretch.

Case Summary: On June 19, 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court rules against Curt Flood in Flood v. Kuhn, denying Flood free agency as a baseball player. Flood was trying to break the reserve clause that had tied baseball players to one franchise since the establishment of professional baseball.

The opinion, delivered by Justice Harry Blackmun, affirmed the 1922 Federal Baseball Club v. National League opinion of Oliver Wendell Holmes that baseball is a sport and not a business, and therefore exempt from anti-trust law. The blistering dissent by Justices Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan and William O. Douglas maintained that the ruling was incorrect because baseball was and is a business, and a big business, packaged with liquor sales, broadcasting and many other industries.

As Miller predicted, Curt Flood never played baseball again. Three years later, in 1975, an independent arbitrator ruled in a similar case brought by Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally that the men were free of their contractual obligations and could file for free agency. Today, free agency is as much a part of baseball as Cracker Jack and hot dogs.

Radio isn’t about “Free agency in sports.  Savage signed a contract and should have honored.  We still are a country based on law.   Savage has accomplished little.

In a ruling that is being compared to the case that led to free agency in baseball, a federal judge in California upheld an arbitration panel’s decision to release talk-radio host Michael Savage from a contract with his former syndicator, Talk Radio Network.

Savage’s lawyer, Dan Horowitz, called it a landmark case for talk radio.

“Michael is to talk radio what Curt Flood was to Major League Baseball,” Horowitz told WND, referring to the player who challenged baseball’s reserve clause, which kept a player bound to his team even after fulfillment of his contract.

Savage told WND the ruling “should free talent from the threats and extortionist behavior of ruthless Old-Hollywood types who can still be found in the corners of the radio industry.” Entire article below.

“For me, personally, it finalizes a struggle to perform for my audience in an atmosphere of freedom, not working on a ‘radio plantation,’” he said.

Read the federal court order

The judge who issued the order Thursday, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, was appointed by President Obama.

“This should give all of us faith in the legal system,” Savage said, “where there is increasing distrust and cynicism about government in general. In this case, an Obama-appointed judge followed the law without bias.”

Savage said the case cost him $1 million in legal fees “and many lost days and nights.”

“I discovered who decent folks were in my radio life,” he said, “those who would not sign false affidavits despite being threatened and the purely rotten souls who put their signatures to completely false statements in an attempt to stab me in the back, although they lived off my talent and hard work.”

Savage said it is “now time for me to expose these people, and I intend to do so, to prevent them from hurting others.”

Horowitz noted that the arbitration panel and the court completely rejected any claims by TRN against Savage. Entire article below.

He said Savage’s victory establishes the ability of radio talent to break away from an employer like any other employee.

Radio hosts, he explained, have been bound by restrictive clauses in their contracts that treat them like businesses instead of regular employees. The law, therefore, has allowed the networks to enforce non-compete agreements with radio hosts that would be illegal if applied to individual employees.

Get Savage’s free weekly insider newsletter five days a week in your email inbox by going to the top of the home page on Savage’s website and clicking the green “SUBSCRIBE” box.

Savage filed the suit in December 2010 regarding his contract, alleging the network used “illegal and unenforceable contract provisions” and “other strong-armed tactics” to intimidate him and force him into accepting a “sub-standard agreement.”

In September, as WND reported, the arbitration panel awarded Savage $863,454.92, plus all other money from withheld earnings and permanent ownership of all his archived radio shows.

The decision enabled Savage to sign with Cumulus Media Networks in October, which now airs “The Savage Nation” from 9 p.m. to midnight Eastern, Monday through Friday. Cumulus Media calls itself the largest pure-play radio broadcaster in the United States, with approximately 525 stations in 110 markets.

According to the court order, the dispute arose when TRN attempted to exercise a “right to match” provision in an independent contractor agreement with Savage.

Savage asserted TRN failed to exercise its right to match properly, and the dispute was settled by arbitration.

However, Mark Masters, CEO of the Original Talk Radio Network, tells WND: “We are appealing this ruling. We are confident of a successful outcome for OTRN in this next round of appeals.”

No. 1 on the ‘Net

Days after he ended his relationship with TRN, “The Savage Nation” was ranked the No. 1 talk-radio show on the Internet for the third quarter. After consistently winning the No. 2 spot, Savage surpassed Rush Limbaugh on the Internet, according to TalkStreamLive.com.

Savage is the author of 29 books, including six New York Times bestsellers. He was awarded the coveted Freedom of Speech Award by Talkers Magazine and earned his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Get an autographed copy of “A Time for War” exclusively at the WND Superstore now while supplies last.

Savage’s new novel, “A Time for War” is a sequel to “Abuse of Power,” which spotlighted the threat of radical Islam.

His latest book continues the adventures of Jack Hatfield, a freelance TV producer who lost his top-rated opinion show because of a liberal media smear campaign by a group that resembles Media Matters.

Hatfield has an attractive Muslim sidekick in “Abuse of Power,” and this time he teams up with Dover Griffith, an idealistic young woman staffer at the Office of Naval Intelligence. They pursue a trail leading to a billionaire American electronics entrepreneur who has sold out his own country with the help of officials at the highest level of the American government.

The book opens with a familiar scene as a Chinook helicopter carrying a squad of Navy SEALs suddenly plummets to earth in Afghanistan.

There’s more to come after “A Time for War.” As WND reported, Savage has signed a deal with St. Martin’s Press for a third book in the series.

Savage’s previous book, Train Tracks: Family Stories for the Holidays,” released in October, takes his readers on an engaging, thought-provoking journey back in time, to the Bronx of the late 1940s and early 1950s, beginning with a vivid portrayal of a train trip from New York City to Pennsylvania to visit relatives at Thanksgiving.

He other bestsellers include “Trickle Down Tyranny: Crushing Obama’s Dream of the Socialist States of America,” “Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama’s Attack on Our Borders, Economy, and Security,” “The Savage Nation,” “The Enemy Within,” “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder,” “Political Zoo,” “Psychological Nudity: Savage Radio Stories” and “Banned in Britain.”

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Rush Limbaugh Radio Show

This Via The Blaze:
A Sunday night POLITICO report claims Rush Limbaugh, host of the most listened to radio program in the country, is considering a major shake-up at the end of 2013.

Sources reportedly say he is considering ending his affiliation agreement with Cumulus Media, which would mean roughly 40 Cumulus-owned radio stations across the country would no longer be able to broadcast the program.

POLITICO continues:

According to the source, Limbaugh is considering the move because Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey has blamed the company’s advertising losses on Limbaugh’s controversial remarks about Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student. In Feb. 2012, Limbaugh referred to Fluke as “a slut” because she had called on congress to mandate insurance coverage of birth control. The subsequent controversy over those remarks resulted in a significant advertising boycott.

The true extent of Limbaugh’s effect on Cumulus’s advertising revenue is not known. In an August 2012 earnings call, Dickey said Cumulus’s top three stations had lost $5.5 million, in part because of the boycott. In a March 2013 earnings call, Dickey said the company’s talk radio side had “been challenged… due to some of the issues that happened a year ago.”…

Read More @ TheBlaze

By Jim Hoft

“There is no relationship at all between what Weather Underground members did and the bombings that two brothers allegedly committed on April 15 in Massachusetts”

STORY HERE

Tonight, Piers Morgan took to Twitter to proudly display his bigotry against law-abiding gun owners.

It started when Morgan’s CNN colleague Dana Loesch tweeted that she had taken some friends to her gun range earlier today.

Took a crew of friends to my home range where we fired all manner of rifles, pistols, and yes, some fully auto. #Merica—
Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) May 06, 2013

My AR-15 with standard capacity mag to the side there. instagram.com/p/Y87UpjL5JY/—
Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) May 06, 2013

Loesch did not violate any law. She is a responsible, law-abiding gun owner.

Nevertheless, Morgan had some issues:

Yee-haw! > RT @DLoesch Took crew of friends to my home range where we fired all manner of rifles, pistols, and yes, some fully auto. #Merica—
Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 06, 2013

The assault rifle used at Aurora & Sandy Hook > RT @DLoesch My AR-15 with standard capacity mag to the side there. instagram.com/p/Y87UpjL5JY/—
Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 06, 2013

Like Mrs Lanza? > RT @DLoesch @piersmorgan And everyone safe with all these rifles in the hands of law-abiding citizens!—
Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 06, 2013

Wait. What?

Let’s spell out Morgan’s logic:

1. Dana Loesch is a law-abiding owner.
2. Nancy Lanza was a law-abiding gun-owner.
3. Therefore, Dana Loesch is like Nancy Lanza.
4. By implication, Loesch’s children are potential mass murderers. Just like Newtown, Conn., shooter Adam Lanza!

When Loesch questioned Morgan’s logic, he doubled down:

No. But she was a law-abiding, gun-loving, AR-15 owning citizen like you > RT @DLoesch @piersmorgan Are you calling me Nancy Lanza?—
Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 06, 2013

No @DLoesch – I'm saying Adam Lanza and his mother were both 'law-abiding citizens' with a house full of guns. Then he shot up a school.—
Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 06, 2013

No @DLoesch – that's not what I said. You insist law-abiding citizens with AR-15s don't kill people. The Lanzas were law-abiding citizens.—
Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 06, 2013

Of course, every criminal is law-abiding up until the moment he or she commits a crime. It’s tautological. One could just as easily argue that since serial rapists are law-abiding initially, all law-abiding people must be viewed as potential serial rapists.

It is, in short, an insipid, utterly pointless attack on Loesch and her family.

This much is clear: Sneering Musket Morgan is not just content to stand on the graves of dead children in the name of gun control. He’ll happily smear the parents and children of any law-abiding, gun-owning family who dare to defend and enjoy their Second Amendent rights publicly.

Meanwhile, he continues to lionize a gun-loving, violence-glorifying rapper who has had multiple run-ins with the law.

That’s liberal “logic” for you.

The Daily Rash

WASHINGTON – During an appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, Al Gore revealed that prior to divorcing his wife Tipper he was ordained a Catholic priest. He added that he plans to spend the rest of his life listening to confessions “before the impending global warming apocalypse kills everyone on the planet.”

A surprised Chris Matthews asked the former vice president why he chose the priesthood.

“I can’t really explain why,” Gore replied. “I guess a big part of it is that I really love wearing the priest suit and listening to people tell me their secrets. I first experienced it a few years ago in a very poor South American village. Tipper and I traveled there to convince people that they would die in ten years if they didn’t give us money to stop global warming. Since nobody in the village had a dime to spare I decided to spend the two days I had left to act out a fantasy I’d always had — to be a priest and listen to confessions.”

Mr. Gore paused and then smiled.

“I’ll tell you, after three or four confessions I was hooked. I mean, I couldn’t stop! I must have heard a hundred confessions that first day and even more the next. Tipper was so irritated that she went home early.”

When the Daily Rash contacted the Archdiocese of New York we were told that Al Gore is not a priest, that he could not be ordained by the church since he’d been married and, most importantly, he isn’t a Catholic. “The priesthood is not a whim, but a calling from God!” a church representative exclaimed before hanging up the phone.

“I told the church that I hadn’t had sex with Tipper since 1987,” Gore told Matthews. “That’s over twenty years! If there isn’t a statute of limitations on this issue, then there damn well should be. I feel vilified by the Archdiocese and feel that I am being persecuted by right wing zealots who are obviously religiously biased.”

Although he is not officially a Catholic priest, the former vice president regularly wears his black suit and white collar when he travels to third world countries to hear confessions. Although he attended Vanderbilt University Divinity School in the seventies, Gore told Chris Matthews he never intended to become a minister.

“My actions actually have nothing to do with religion. I mean, I’m not only not a Catholic, but I don’t really even know what those people believe in. I just feel I have been called, by whom I don’t know, to hear confessions and build an ark to save as many people as I can when the world is engulfed by water in ten years. I feel it in the very essence of my being. I feel it in my bones. I feel it! I feel it!”

-Lee