Thursday, March 24, 2011

Walter Williams's Big Classroom


NATIONAL REVIEW
April 4, 2011
WALTER WILLIAMS'S BIG CLASSROOM
The George Mason professor has spent a career debunking damnfoolery
JOHN J. MILLER

At 7:30 in the morning, Walter E. Williams hobbles into his classroom, ready to teach. He's limping from a recent fracture to his foot. At six-foot-five, however, he remains an imposing physical presence. The economics professor is a second cousin to Julius Erving, the basketball legend nicknamed "Dr. J," and it's still possible to catch a glimpse of an athlete in his 74-year-old body.

Several of his three dozen students sit up straight. One yawns and another munches a Pop-Tart. The full bustle of campus life at George Mason University won't begin for another hour or two, but Williams likes to start early. "I could get going even earlier," he says. "I'm up at 4 o'clock every day."

He sets down a mug and passes out a homework sheet. His charges stare at its first equation, a long, complicated string of letters and numbers. Then Williams turns to a whiteboard, draws a pair of supply and demand curves, and talks about why corporations don't pay taxes ("only people pay taxes") and how government-mandated professional licensing hurts the poor. His students learn more about free markets before 9 a.m. than most college kids do all day ­ or maybe all semester, given the biases of the modern academy.

Enrolling in Williams's single spring course, known as Economics 306, is tough. "The spots fill up right away," says Catherine Ciskanik, a senior at GMU. "It doesn't matter that class is so early." The laws of economics can be brutal: The supply is low and the demand is high for receiving instruction from one of capitalism's great evangelists, a man whose influence as a public intellectual reaches far beyond the walls of Room 274 in GMU's Enterprise Hall.

It's an unlikely career path for a black kid who grew up poor and fatherless in Philadelphia. "My life," writes Williams in his new memoir, "illustrates one of the many great things about our country: just because you know where a person ended up in life doesn't mean you know with any certainty where he began." For Williams, it began in hardship. His autobiography, published last December by the Hoover Institution, is called Up from the Projects. The title refers to his humble roots and alludes to the self-help philosophy of Booker T. Washington. Williams claims that he had not planned to write about his life until his daughter insisted. "I told him he had to do it now, before he forgot everything," says Devyn Williams, laughing.

As a boy, Williams knew Bill Cosby in passing: "Fat Albert and Weird Harold ­ those were real guys in my neighborhood," he says. Williams tried to earn money any way he could. He stocked grocery shelves, shined shoes, and washed dishes. One of his favorite jobs was at the U-Needa-Hat millinery factory ­ and he lost it, he says, when a seamstress complained about the violation of child-labor laws. Williams was working long hours on nights and weekends, and his co-workers didn't appreciate the added competition. The experience would shape his adult views about government regulation. The nature of his schooling also would influence him. "I'm happy to have gotten my education before it became fashionable for white people to like black people," he says. In his book, he describes several white teachers who held him to high standards. Only with hindsight did he understand that they were doing him a big favor. Later on, he would see firsthand how many of today's teachers go easy on black students for fear of being called racists.

As a young man, Williams was "rudderless and drifting." Then the Army drafted him in 1959. Although the military had desegregated, he bristled at institutional prejudice ­ and demonstrated his willingness to challenge racial orthodoxy. He complained constantly about discrimination, even writing a letter about it to his commander-in-chief, President Kennedy. When he stepped off the plane for a posting in Korea, he was told to fill out a paper with personal information. In the box for his race, he claimed to be white. "No, you're not," said a warrant officer who reviewed the form. "Yes, I am," replied Williams, who knew perfectly well that he couldn't pass for a white guy. Williams explained his choice to the officer: "If I checked off 'Negro,' I'd get the worst job over here." He thinks the officer probably corrected the form later. In any event, his first assignment in Korea was what he considered a plum job in Seoul rather than with a front-line unit.

[]

After his discharge, Williams found himself married and in Los Angeles. He enrolled at Cal State and began to pursue a degree in sociology. He switched to economics and earned a grade of D in his first class on the subject ­ again, from a white teacher who wouldn't let him cut corners. Williams thought about dropping out but instead he decided to work harder. Soon, he flourished. Next came advanced degrees from UCLA, whose economics department by pure coincidence housed a small bastion of free-market scholars. "I had no idea about the strength or the character of the department," Williams says.

He took classes with Armen Alchian as well as a visiting professor named Milton Friedman. Another visiting economist at UCLA was Thomas Sowell. "Walter was never a student of mine," says Sowell. "He just suddenly showed up in my office and wanted to talk about race issues. It turned out that we were thinking almost the same way." In other words, they questioned emerging liberal orthodoxies about group rights and federal programs. The two men thought their fellow blacks were best served when treated as individuals and left alone by government. They became chess partners and close friends. By this point, Williams was reading Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. "Some thought I might be a Black Panther because I wore dashikis, a beret, and a tiger's tooth necklace," he writes in Up from the Projects.

Nowadays, he looks every inch the professor, with close-cropped hair, a mustache above his lips and a soul patch below, and a couple of pens sticking out of his shirt pocket. "I'm not a member of any party ­ I'd call myself a Jeffersonian or Madisonian liberal," he says. "We need to take back the word 'liberal' because the people who use it to describe themselves today are not liberal at all." Williams is in large part a libertarian ­ what some people call a classical liberal ­ though he says he splits with many libertarians on national defense and foreign policy: "We live in a hostile world, and isolationism is not the right way." He doesn't mind being labeled a conservative.

His first brush with notoriety came in the 1970s, when he was teaching economics at Temple. Student activists demanded the creation of a "black economics" course, and several white professors were taking the idea seriously. This display of racial guilt outraged Williams ­ and he fought back with satire. He distributed a homemade certificate that absolved his colleagues of responsibility for the actions of their ancestors. This has become a running gag: Today, visitors to Williams's website can print their own copies of a "full and general amnesty and pardon to all persons of European ancestry," which obliges its white holders "not to act like damn fools in their relationships with Americans of African ancestry."

The economics class didn't form, but Williams continued to fight similar battles. In 1975, he found himself on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer for having written an open letter to Temple faculty in which he criticized professors for their "differential treatment" of black students ­ in specific, for handing out better grades than what many of these students truly deserved. He believed black students would benefit from the evenhanded approach that had marked his own upbringing.

When the Joint Economic Committee of Congress asked Williams to prepare a report on the minimum wage, it may not have been aware of the professor's willingness to provoke. He returned a sharply critical evaluation, pointing out that teenage unemployment was lower among blacks than whites before the coming of the minimum wage, and higher in its wake. "People weren't making these kinds of arguments in 1977," says Williams. The committee refused to publish his findings. It took the intervention of two Republican senators, Orrin Hatch of Utah and the late S. I. Hayakawa of California, for the study to see the light of day. The dispute drew attention to Williams and his work. "If nobody had tried to suppress my report, it probably would have gone into the circular file," he says. "But I started getting calls for interviews." Williams was becoming a minor celebrity among right-of-center economists. Books followed. The State Against Blacks became a PBS documentary, and South Africa's War Against Capitalism took an unconventional approach to the heated subject of apartheid. (His next book, Race and Economics: How Much Can We Blame on Discrimination? comes out in April.)

As his exposure increased, so did his skills at promoting his ideas. The day after a televised debate on school vouchers ­ Williams favored them (and still does) ­ he took a call from Milton Friedman, another school-choice advocate. "He said that I was right about everything but that I had made one mistake: I didn't smile," recalls Williams. "He pointed out that when you talk about liberty, you have to smile. It was one of the most valuable pieces of advice I ever received." So Williams became a happy warrior. He also assumed a couple of responsibilities that he continues to hold today: his weekly newspaper column and his job at GMU.

At the university, Williams occupies a corner office. On the wall above his desk hang a couple of framed photos of black soldiers who served in the Confederate army ­ more evidence of Williams as provocateur. "Someone sent them to me," he says, offering no other explanation for their presence, as if they were the ho-hum decorations of a mild-mannered academic. Although he has taught at GMU for three decades, he still lives just outside his native Philadelphia, in Valley Forge, Pa., making the two-and-a-half-hour drive up and down I-95 at the start and end of each week. Williams fills the time by listening to recorded lectures sold by the Teaching Company. His favorite subjects are scientific: cell biology, particle physics. During one of his recent classes, he illustrated a point about economics by referring to polymorphonuclear neutrophils, a term he scribbled on the board and teased his students for not knowing.

The GMU economics department has had its share of worthies, including a pair of Nobel Prize winners: James Buchanan in 1986 and Vernon Smith in 2002. Yet neither of them has guest-hosted Rush Limbaugh's radio show, something that Williams started doing with regularity after appearing on the air for an interview in 1992. Listeners won't hear him smile, but they can tell he's having a good time. One of his catch phrases is "black by popular demand!" As with the best radio talkers, he's usually making an argument, and in his case it often has to do with economics. "I like to think of Rush's audience as my big classroom," he says. Williams says he's received offers to start his own radio show but never has wanted one. "It's a full-time job," he says. "I enjoy teaching too much."

Yet he's a born showman. In 1997, at the Cato Institute's 20th-anniversary black-tie dinner, Cato president Ed Crane buzzed through his opening remarks. He skipped the routine, common in Washington, of introducing a long list of dignitaries. "I just asked all the famous people to stand up," he says. "It was sort of a joke." But Williams rose from his seat near the front of the room and waved a white handkerchief over his head. "He stood up and brought the house down," says Crane. What most observers didn't notice was one of Williams's table companions: the actor Kurt Russell, whose movie Breakdown would open No. 1 at the box office the next day. Russell remained planted in his chair, laughing at the stunt with everyone else. Remembering the incident, Williams quotes his grandmother: "It's a poor dog that won't wag its own tail."

When it comes to President Obama, Williams prefers to bark: "He's a mistake for the country and a mistake for black people." He turns to a sports metaphor, as he often does: "When Jackie Robinson broke into baseball, he had to be the best. There was no alternative. Today, black athletes can show up and fail and nobody will say blacks can't play. We can afford incompetent athletes, but we can't afford an incompetent president. The first black president needed to be better than Jimmy Carter."

Yet America's problems run much deeper than the politics of a single White House administration. Williams the economist is quick to make a cultural observation: "People have always wanted to live at the expense of others. That's human nature. But there was a time when it wasn't acceptable," he says. "When I was a kid, one way to insult people was to say that they were 'on relief,' meaning they were on welfare. My mother was on relief from time to time, and she was always embarrassed by it. She got upset when the case officer came by in his uniform. But now nobody's embarrassed by it. We've become a nation of thieves."

He goes on like this for a couple of minutes, sounding like the radio jock he chose not to become. "I love what I do," says Williams. "A lot of people look forward to Friday. I don't. I look forward to the classroom."

http://www.heymiller.com/2011/03/walter-williams/

What Should the Government Tell the Mother of a Dead American Soldier . . .

What Should the Government Tell the Mother of a Dead American Soldier . . .
Posted by Thomas DiLorenzo on March 24, 2011 12:31 PM

. . . who loses his life in Libya? Answer: That he died for the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaida, two organizations that have been identified as being part of "the rebels" opposing Gadhafi who are apparently our new "allies."

Re: Wringing-the-Neck of Empty Ritual.

John,

Are you serious? "Fair play and democracy shall have supremacy in the USA!"

Who decides what is "fair play"? You? Mob rule?

"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting to decide what's for lunch."

On 03/24/2011 09:36 AM, NoEinstein wrote:
Dear Jonathan:  If you had spent 14 years of your life writing a New Constitution for the benefit of most Americans, you'd realize that "ego" just wouldn't be a suitable enough motive.  Apparently, I pegged you right that you are simply jealous that I have already accomplished things you've only talked about.  Conservatives such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh like to talk about this country's problems, but can't be taken seriously that they actually want those problems to be solved. Judge Andrew Napolitano has close to the right assessments of the unconstitutionality of much that the WH is doing.  But he always grins and stops short of calling for the immediate arrest of Barack Obama for TREASON.  My New Constitution will hang any public official not upholding this simple sworn statement: "Fair play and democracy shall have supremacy in the USA!"  Since socialism and communism are the anti-theses of fair play and of democracy, I highly recommend that no socialist-communist-minded air-heads ever seek public office.  If they do, there could become a shortage of hangman's nooses!  — John A. Armistead — Patriot 
 
On Mar 23, 12:50 pm, Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashle...@lavabit.com> wrote: 
It always comes back to John's ego: "I suspect you can't see the positive tone, because you are jealous of my commitment and talent to accomplish what I have."  On 03/23/2011 09:05 AM, NoEinstein wrote:   
Dear Mark:  Should I be flattered that you remember what I say from one day to the next?  If indeed you can read and comprehend, you wouldn't need to put those words in capitals.  Unlike you and MJ, I don't depend on YELLING to make my points.  If you find what I'm writing to be interesting enough to read every day, then you are either very much in favor of what I'm saying or very threatened and thus opposed.  The "tone" of my document is pro control of government by the people; maximum civil liberties; having the most efficient use of tax dollars; respect for the environment; and respect for the rights of others.  I suspect you can't see the positive tone, because you are jealous of my commitment and talent to accomplish what I have.  If you are FOR the people, Mark, embrace my New Constitution. If you are AGAINST the people, then stop replying on my posts.  No socialist-communists are welcomed in the USA!  ï¿½ John A. Armistead � Patriot On Mar 22, 7:50 pm, Mark<markmka...@gmail.com>  wrote: 
The biggest problem Einstein will have with his "New Constitution" is that we CAN READ AND COMPREHEND. 
 
The other immediate problem is that he can't remember one day to the next what he says. 
 
On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 4:47 PM, MJ<micha...@america.net>  wrote: 
 
Asked and answered -- only you tried to change the subject while pretending it did not occur. ELSEWHERE in THIS thread: Socialism and communism are the anti-thesis of a representative republic or a democracy.  My New Constitution RETURNS civil liberties to the People and will fire, jail or hang those in government who support socialism and communism.  When you attack my New Constitution with your "include me" talk, you are attacking THE most pro capitalism and pro civil liberties person on the planet!  Get lost, Jonathan!  ï¿½ J. A. A. � And now HERE in THIS thread the same person: I am personally recommending that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Unemployment Insurance ALL be privatized�while continuing to "cover" only those older or sicker people who have no other means of surviving or of getting first rate care.   The implications are rather OBVIOUS, but perhaps the author fails to see his EMBRACE of socialism. There is ALSO this from the same person: Businesses or professions meeting licensing standards germane to the type and scope of work such perform, and being regularly apprised of substantive new developments, may control their own work without governmental sanction, nor, once licensed, being required to be other than self-trained to maintain continuing competency for doing safe work within their chosen type. Professionals qualified by training, testing and experience who perform safe and acceptable work within an area of their competency shall not be sanctioned for being unlicensed in another job class or licensing jurisdiction�beyond fair registration cost.  No more than 25% of regulatory board members shall have been employed in the profession or industry regulated. Again continuing to EMBRACE socialism. It should no longer be a 'mystery' why this 'constitution' is NEVER fully presented NOR that the author cannot support what drivel he presents.<sigh> Sad. As noted, were you to actually PROVIDE the text ... one would see MORE examples -- one might easily conclude THAT is essentially the reason you refuse to present and merey proclaim. Regard$, --MJ Much of the intellectual legacy of Marx is an anti-intellectual legacy. It has been said that you cannot refute a sneer. Marxism has taught many-inside and outside its ranks-to sneer at capitalism, at inconvenient facts or contrary interpretations, and thus ultimately to sneer at the intellectual process itself. This has been one of the sources of its enduring strength as a political doctrine, and as a means of acquiring and using political power in unbridled ways. -- Thomas Sowell At 06:43 PM 3/22/2011, you wrote: MJ: You are a deranged, socialist-communist who is clearly LYING about the people-oriented content of my New Constitution!  Please reference a single location whereby intervention is allowed in how private property is used.  You can't do that, I'm sure!  Ha, ha, HA!  ï¿½  John A. Armistead �  Patriot On Mar 22, 1:03 pm, MJ<micha...@america.net>  wrote: 
Capitalism is the FOUNDATION of a successful USA!  You aren't telling me anything that I don't tout, daily.  You are probably doing so to make the readers think it is you who have the right Ideas and I the converse. It only takes a cursory review of those pieces you have offered to see 
how it fails to embrace capitalism -- much less utilize it as a foundation. 
Capitalism is the system in which people are free to use their private 
property without outside interference. 
Your 'constitution' is filled with intervention. Regard$, --MJ "Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy 
when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy" -- Charles Peters.If you agree with me say something like this:  "I 
applaud your New Constitution!  We need less, more efficient government and the return of lost civil liberties.  Outlawing career politicians from Congress seems like a great place to start.  Good luck in everything you are seeking to do for the good of the country! � J. A. Armistead  ï¿½ On Mar 21, 11:54 am, Jonathan Ashley<jonathanashle...@lavabit.com> wrote: 
John, eBay is a perfect example of capitalism at work. Over 2,000 
transactions 
are performed every minute throughout the world with no need for government. Both parties involved in those transactions report they are happy with the transaction 96% of the time. There is no need for government involvement in commerce. On 03/21/2011 07:15 AM, NoEinstein wrote: 
Socialism and communism are the anti-thesis of a representative republic or a democracy.  My New Constitution RETURNS civil liberties to the People and will fire, jail or hang those in government who support socialism and communism.  When you attack my New Constitution with your "include me" talk, you are attacking THE most pro 
capitalism 
and pro civil liberties person on the planet!  Get lost, Jonathan! 
� 
J. A. A. � On Mar 19, 10:57 pm, Jonathan Ashley<jonathanashle...@lavabit.com> wrote: 
Civil liberties require government permission. As I choose to be a 
free 
sovereign, I do not consent. As for free enterprise, I sell on eBay. No government interference, 
96% 
successful transactions worldwide. That is as pro free enterprise as 
it 
gets. On 03/19/2011 07:45 PM, NoEinstein wrote: 
Jonathan Ashley isn't pro civil liberties nor pro free enterprise. So, like I first assumed, he is a socialist-communist bent on 
tearing 
down this country rather than saving it.  He should be railroaded 
out 
of the USA!  ï¿½ J. A. A. � On Mar 18, 5:49 pm, Jonathan Ashley<jonathanashle...@lavabit.com> wrote: 
Wanna-Be-Dictator John A. Armistead has spoken once again! He wants to close down all news networks and outlaw political 
parties. 
He also thinks world government proponent Newt Gingrich has "the 
smarts 
and the temperament to be President." On 03/18/2011 02:35 PM, NoEinstein wrote: 
Bill O'Reilly and Chris Wallace get hot-under-the-collar if a 
"guest", 
like Sarah Palin, avoids answering questions that tie her hands 
on 
issues that are in flux.  Those two Fox jerks suppose that since 
they 
are high paid and elitist, that people must do exactly like they 
say 
or face ridicule.  Within one week after my New Constitution is ratified, the entire Fox News Network will likely be closed down 
for 
not being in the best interest of the country.  But not to 
worry!  The 
other News Networks will be shuttered as well.  The "problem" is 
that 
NEWS, and commentary on that news, cannot occur on the same 
network. 
Of course that is only for news relating to elections or 
"politics". 
I put that word in quotes, because political parties will be outlawed!  Socialism will become a non issue, because any 
"politician" 
proposing anything like socialism will be hanged for TREASON! 
Believe 
me, people, I can straighten out this country faster than any 
yellow- 
livered politician.  Newt Gingrich has the smarts and the 
temperament 
to be President. But he is too much in love with our FAILED 
system of 
government to save the country from economic doom.  The Donald 
has a 
good idea to make IRAQ pay for all we have done for those 
people.  We 
should do those things AND tell China they will get back ONLY the principle on their loans to the USA.  ï¿½Walk tall and carry a 
big 
stick!�  Only tough-love can save this country... NOT more 
God-damned 
politics and wasted campaign money... as usual.  After Barack 
Obama 
has been hanged and has rotted to the ground for TREASON, this 
country 
will be on the path to 
 ..  read more » 
 

--
"Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt." - Mahatma Gandhi

Learn How To Protect Your Identity And Prevent Identity Theft

Can you guess the party? Former KKK leader wants to be mayor of Florida town




Can you guess the party? Former KKK leader wants to be mayor of Florida town

Scotty Starnes | March 24, 2011 at 6:30 AM | Tags: Democrats, Florida, John Paul Rogers, KKK, Lake Wales | Categories: Political Issues | URL: http://wp.me/pvnFC-4Qf

As most of us know, the KKK and the Democratic Party have a long history...since the Dems founded the KKK. Anyway, here is a story about an ex-KKK leader (no not Democratic Senator Robert Byrd from WV) who wants to be mayor of a small Florida town. Pay attention because you will not know what party he is from until the very last sentence of the article.

Tammie Fields reports, via WTSP.com:

Lake Wales, Florida - A mayoral candidate in Lakes Wales is speaking out about his involvement with the Klan. 

70-year-old John Paul Rogers wants to become the next mayor of Lake Wales, but critics say he could have a tough time bringing the town together because he's a former member of Ku Klux Klan.

Rogers, who is currently a commissioner, spoke with 10 News Tuesday afternoon and says, "I'm not running for the Klan for Grand Dragon." That's because Rogers has already had that title.

Photo Gallery: Pictures of a 1977 KG rally in Tallahassee (photos courtesy State Library Archives of Florida)

He blames his opponent Mike Carter for bringing up his former involvement in the United Klans of America.

"My opponent's been going around saying I hung somebody in the park two years ago. Well, we have a city ordinance against that and I'm sure the police would have put me in jail if I would have done that."

He adds, "It's a shame that in a small city like Lake Wales where most everyone knows one another you have this kind of muckraking and character assassination." 

That's because the KKK is a racist group. Who would be proud to be a member of such a cowardly group of hooded idiots?

In this small town of a little more than 13,000 people, times have changed since the Jim Crow laws of segregation and Rogers isn't apologizing or renouncing his time with the Klan.

He says, "Well I resigned years ago, about 30 years ago. Jesus said, 'He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone,' and so far no one's hit me with a rock. I don't know of any act of any violence that was sanctioned by our organization, either national or in Florida."

...Voters will make the final decision when they cast their votes in the non-partisan mayoral race on April 5. Though party affiliation is not a factor in the race Rogers and Carter are both Democrats.

Yes, this reporter would like you to forget what party affiliation this KKK leader has behind his name on the ballot. Now why would a black female reporter want this to be buried until the last line?

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Re: WI Progressives Blame Scott Walker For Teacher’s Suicide (Updated) | The Gateway Pundit

What else would you expect from progtards.

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 7:54 AM, Bruce Majors <majors.bruce@gmail.com> wrote:








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Even if We Had No Second Amendment. . .




Even if We Had No Second Amendment. . .

Laurence M. Vance 3/23/2011 The Irrelevance of the Second Amendment The killing of six people on January 8, 2011, in Tucson, Arizona, and attempted assassination of a "public servant" and her staff members has brought forth a predictable response from the left and gun-control groups: We need stricter gun-control laws to prevent tragedies like the [...]

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CODE PINKOS NAKED (Viewer Discretion Advised)

Use of air freshner advised.


CODE PINKOS NAKED (Viewer Discretion Advised)

barenakedislam | March 24, 2011 at 2:26 PM | Categories: EnemyWithin-American | URL: http://wp.me/peHnV-ruZ

CODE PINKO activists strip to protest accused WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning's treatment. At least they did this in San Fransicko.

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Islamic Group Jamaat-ud-Dawah Places $2.2 Million Bounty on Florida Pastor Terry Jones' Head for Burning Qur'an




Islamic Group Jamaat-ud-Dawah Places $2.2 Million Bounty on Florida Pastor Terry Jones' Head for Burning Qur'an

doctorbulldog | 24 March, 2011 at 11:26 am | Categories: muslim Intolerance | URL: http://wp.me/p1NPg-6YO

That's odd.  I don't seem to recall any Christian groups placing a bounty on the heads of Islamists who routinely burn churches, Bibles, crosses, and even the parishioners:

watch?v=BX4Yjlg0l0I

Islamic Group Places $2.2 Million Bounty on Head of Koran-burning Florida Pastor
March 24, 2011 by Howard Portnoy - HotAir.com

Well, Florida pastor Terry Jones has gone and done it. The evangelical minister, who threatened last September 11 to burn a copy of the Koran and then backed down in the face of public pressure, has made good on his incendiary promise. With 30 people present as witnesses, he set fire to a copy of the embattled religious text.

And, as happens in the event of real or imagined slights, the other shoe summarily dropped. No sooner had Jones fired up his Bic than an Islamic "court" in Pakistan found him guilty of the crime of desecrating the religion's most holy book. The court then issued a fatwa—loosely translated as "death order—against him, as is their wont.

But here is where the story gets interesting. Pakistan's Jamaat-ud-Dawah, a banned Islamic organization and suspected terrorist group, announced a bounty of 10 crore rupees for anyone who fulfills the fatwa on Jones. In case you're wondering, that amount is equivalent to around $2.2 million—not exactly chicken feed. What ever happened to 72 virgins?

CLICK HERE to continue reading this over at Hot Air.

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Unbelievable (or not) Clinton Criminal to be FBI Director

I can think of some comments but .............







http://cnsnews.com/news/article/clinton-official-embroiled-911-controver

 

Former Clinton Official Paid $26 Million by Fannie Mae Before Taxpayer Bailout Now on Obama Shortlist to Run FBI

Wednesday, March 23, 2011
By Chris Neefus

jamie gorelick

Former Clinton Administration official Jamie Gorelick. (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – Jamie Gorelick, a former Clinton administration official who reportedly has made the Obama administration's short list to become the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was paid more than $26 million in total compensation as a top executive at Fannie Mae--before taxpayers had to bail out the mortgage giant.

Gorelick, who left the Clinton Justice Department in 1997 to work for Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, was paid $26,466,834 in salary, bonuses, performance pay and stock options from 1998 to 2003, according to the Report of the Special Examination of Fannie Mae (2006), conducted by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.

Gorelick served as vice chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) when the government-sponsored enterprise was bundling subprime loans into securitized financial instruments. Prior to that, she served as deputy attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department under then-Attorney General Janet Reno from 1994 to 1997.

Raines had served as Clinton's budget director before assuming the top post at Fannie Mae.

In 2001, Gorelick announced that Fannie was buying subprime loans encouraged by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and bundling them as securitized financial instruments. Securities made from bundles of guaranteed mortgages were to contribute to the banking crisis later in the decade.

"Fannie Mae will buy CRA loans from lenders' portfolios; we'll package them into securities; we'll purchase CRA mortgages at the point of origination; and we'll create customized CRA-targeted securities," she said in 2001. "This expanded approach has improved liquidity in the secondary market for CRA product, and has helped our lenders leverage even more CRA lending. Lenders now have the flexibility to use their own, customized loan products."

In remarks before the American Bankers Association on Oct. 30, 2000, Gorelick explicitly how the procress would work and what Fannie Mae would do to make it feasible for banks to lend to low-income applicants.

"We will take CRA loans off your hands--we will buy them from your portfolios, or package them into securities--so you have fresh cash to make more CRA loans," she said. "Some people have assumed we don't buy tough loans. Let me correct that misimpression right now. We want your CRA loans because they help us meet our housing goals."

By 2008, securities containing subprime loans were causing problems for financial institutions that had them on their balance sheets. Ultimately the federal government bailed out banks with the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Fannie and Freddie were taken under direct conservatorship by the federal government when Congress passed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. In exchange for injecting $100 billion of liquidity into each government-sponsored enterprise, the government took an ownership stake of 79 percent in each, leaving the taxpayer with an unknown liability dependent upon future performance.

Gorelick left Fannie Mae in 2003.

Gorelick was named in a story in the Wall Street Journal as someone being considered for nomination as the next FBI director.

In a 1995 Justice Department memo, written when she was deputy attorney general, Kagan prescribed a policy for limiting the flow of information between intelligence gatherers and criminal investigators within the Justice Department.

In the memo, "Instructions on Separation of Certain Foreign Counterintelligence and Criminal Investigations," Gorelick set out guidelines for concurrent investigations into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by both criminal investigators and intelligence officers within the Department of Justice.

Rules stemming from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), under which the intelligence community was operating as part of its investigation, stipulates that information may only be gathered by way of surveillance for the primary purpose of intelligence, not to contribute to a criminal case under which defendants have more constitutional protections.

FBI Director Robert Mueller

FBI Director Robert Mueller waits to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010, before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing to examine nine years after 9/11, focusing on confronting the terrorist threat to the homeland. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Gorelick sought to make clear in her memo that investigators of both stripes were adhering to FISA precedent and not misappropriating the authority to undermine the rights of any defendant.

"These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that FISA is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation," Gorelick wrote.

Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft later testified before the 9/11 Commission that Gorelick's "wall" was a "structural cause" in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 being allowed to occur.

In his prepared testimony, he said, "In 1995 the Justice Department, imposing a series of restrictions on the FBI that went beyond what the law required. … The single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents. Government erected this wall. Government buttressed this wall. And before September 11, government was blinded by this wall." 

After Ashcroft's commission testimony, Gorelick published a commentary in The Washington Post saying that his accusations were false, and that the "wall" predated her tenure by decades.

"I did not invent the 'wall,' which is not a wall but a set of procedures implementing a 1978 statute (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA) and federal court decisions interpreting it," she wrote.

Gorelick made no mention in the commentary of her statement in the 1995 memo that she was going "beyond what [was] legally required" in her prescriptions for handling the cases related to the 1993 bombings.

However, in the months leading up to 9/11, Ashscroft's Justice Department also did not dismantle the rules or challenge the more general culture in the department that information should be partitioned.

Gorelick's name appears on the shortlist along with counterintelligence experts such as former Bush Deputy Attorney General James Comey; former Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein; U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald; and D.C. Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland, whom President Obama also reportedly considered for a Supreme Court appointment. She has lobbied on behalf of beleaguered British Petroleum (BP) in congressional inquiries and White House meetings.

Current FBI Director Robert Mueller's 10-year term expires in September of this year.

 


 


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Now, THIS is a beheading!

Get out an obama barf bag and watch the short video.







Now, THIS is a beheading!

Posted: March 21, 2011 | Author: barenakedislam | Filed under: Beheadings (GRAPHIC) | 24 Comments »

You can see the Saudis are real pros at this. One swift swipe of the neck, no muss, no fuss, and none of that agonizingly slow sawing off of the head with a dull knife as favored by al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

A friend who lived in Saudi Arabia for a long time says public beheadings take place nearly every Sunday in the town square. Fun for the whole family and no admission charge

.

 





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