Three States Sue EPA Over Global Warming Ruling
FOXNews.com
The bitterly contested fight in Washington over global warming and pollution is also taking hold at the state level.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which is threatening to regulate carbon emissions if Congress won’t, is facing legal heat from states that say new regulations will kill jobs at the worst possible time.
Texas, Alabama and Virginia, all led by Republican governors, have filed petitions since December, when the EPA ruled that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide endanger human health, clearing the path for the agency to issue mandatory regulations to reduce them.
As the EPA grapples with the lawsuits, Congress is trying to block the agency from acting without congressional approval. Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., introduced legislation Thursday calling for a two-year suspension of potential EPA regulations.
Rockefeller and other lawmakers from coal mining states oppose the EPA’s plan to target power plants and other industrial facilities.
The EPA already agreed, after Rockefeller complained last month, to delay phasing in its regulations until the end of the year. But that hasn’t satisfied global warming skeptics.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said last month the finding could “create a staggering burden” on the state.
“Put into effect, the finding would a place a crushing burden on jobs and the economy of Virginia,” he said. “And while some parts of Virginia would be hit harder than others, every Virginian would take an economic beating if this goes forward.”
He added: “While we’re open to seeing where honest, unbiased science leads us in the climate policy arena, we’re not prepared to stand by while EPA proceeds to implement jobs-destroying regulations based on unverifiable and unrepeatable so-called science.”
Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the finding would usher in a new era that would destroy his state’s ability to provide energy to the rest of the world. Stacked with oil refining and other industries, Texas is the top carbon dioxide emitter in the country and would be heavily affected if mandatory emissions reductions go into effect.
“They’re using sweeping mandates, Draconian punishments to force a square peg of their vision into the round hole of reality,” he said. “In the process, they’re preparing to undo decades of progress while painting hardworking entrepreneurs as selfish and destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process.”
The EPA has responded to the lawsuits with a statement saying the “evidence of and threats posed by a changing climate are right before our eyes.”
“EPA is proceeding with common sense measures that are helping to protect Americans from this threat while moving America into a leadership position in the 21st century green economy,” the statement read. “Unfortunately, special interest and other defenders of the status quo are now turning to the courts in an attempt to stall progress. …
“EPA is confident the finding will withstand legal challenge, allowing the agency to protect the American people from the significant dangers posed by greenhouse gases and carbon pollution.”
Fighting back on behalf of the EPA is a coalition of 16 states and New York City, arguing that without regulations, climate change will adversely affect them.
Those states are: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
Most of these states sued the EPA during the Bush administration over its decision not to regulate carbon dioxide pollution as a contributor to global warming.
The White House would prefer for Congress to legislate climate change. The House narrowly passed a cap-and-trade bill in June that would allow industry to buy and trade pollution permits, but it has stalled in the Senate.
That has led to the EPA taking matters into its own hands, and lawmakers like Rockefeller fighting back.
“Today, we took important action to safeguard jobs, the coal industry and the entire economy as we move toward clean coal technology,” Rockefeller said in a written statement after unveiling his legislation.
Rockefeller acknowledged the EPA’s willingness to delay phasing in regulations, but he still wants more.
“This is a positive change and good progress, but I am concerned it may not be enough time,” he said. “We must set this delay in stone and give Congress enough time to consider a comprehensive energy bill to develop the clean coal technologies we need.”
“At a time when so many people are hurting, we need to put decisions about clean coal and our energy future into the hands of the people and their elected representatives, not a federal environmental agency.”
House Republicans introduced a resolution Tuesday that would allow Congressional intervention – one that has attracted about 90 Republicans so far.
“The last thing the American people need is a back-door energy tax,” Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., chairman of the House Republican Conference, said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced a similar resolution in the Senate last month. Reps. Collin Petereson, D-Minn., and Ike Skelton, D-Mo., crafted their own resolutions as well in late February.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., argued that Congress should move to quash the EPA.
“I don’t understand how EPA can go down this path without Congress speaking,” she said.
Many Democrats say privately that they agree with Republicans that Congress should be involved in the decision-making process and prefer congressional intervention.
Read the original article FoxNews
ACORN workers face voter fraud charges
Five Wisconsin residents have been charged with criminal counts of voter fraud in the November 2008 general election, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced Monday.
Two of those charged – Maria Miles, 36, of Milwaukee, and Kevin Clancy, 26, of Racine – worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the embattled community organizing group.
“The complaint alleges that Miles and Clancy submitted multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals, and also were part of a scheme in which they and other (special registration deputies) registered each other to vote multiple times in order to meet voter registration quotas imposed by ACORN,” the Van Hollen news release says.
Both were charged with one felony count.
ACORN could not be reached for comment Monday.
Also charged were a couple – Herbert Gunka, 60, and Suzanne Gunka, 54, both of Milwaukee – for supposedly double voting in November 2008, once absentee and once at the polls.
Michael Henderson, 40, was charged with two felony counts of being a felon who cast a ballot even though he was still on probation. The Milwaukee man was convicted in 2005 in Rock County with two felonies for bail jumping and one disorderly conduct misdemeanor.
He was sentenced to five years’ probation.
A felony for voter fraud carries a maximum penalty of up to 3 1/2 years behind bars and a $10,000 fine. All five individuals are scheduled to appear in court on April 20.
The charges were brought as part of the Milwaukee Election Fraud Task Force.
Van Hollen’s announcement comes the same day that the Journal Sentinel disclosed that a Milwaukee County prosecutor was accusing Milwaukee police of failing to investigate these cases for the first half of last year.
The prosecutor, Bruce Landgraf, said in an e-mail to a city elections official that the Milwaukee Police Department began looking at election fraud cases last year only after Van Hollen’s agency “stepped up to start the work MPD should have commenced immediately after your referral.”
Read the original article JSonline
Justices to hear case over protests at military funerals
Bill Mears,
Washington (CNN) — A small Kansas church that has gained nationwide attention for protesting loudly at funerals of U.S. service members will receive a Supreme Court hearing over free speech rights.
The justices Monday accepted an appeal from the father of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq over efforts to keep members of the Topeka-based
Westboro Baptist Church from demonstrating near memorial services and burials.
The Marine’s family won a $5 million judgment from the protesters, which lower courts overturned.
The church, led by pastor Fred Phelps, said it believes God is punishing the United States for “the sin of homosexuality” through events such as soldiers‘ deaths.
Members have traveled the country, shouting at grieving family members at funerals and displaying such signs as “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “God Blew Up the Troops.”
At issue is a balancing test between the privacy rights of grieving families and the free speech rights of demonstrators, however disturbing and provocative their message.
Several states have attempted to impose specific limits on when and where the church can protest.
Westboro members appeared outside the 2006 funeral for Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder in Westminster, Maryland, outside Baltimore.
A jury awarded Snyder’s family $2.9 million in compensatory damages plus $8 million in punitive damages. Those damages later were reduced to $5 million. It was the first lawsuit against the church over the protests.
Snyder’s father, Albert, testified his son was not gay, but church members said their broader message was aimed at the unspecified actions of the military and those who serve in it.
iReport: Westboro Baptist Church protest
The Supreme Court has never addressed the specific issues of laws designed to protect the “sanctity and dignity of memorial and funeral services” as well as the privacy of family and friends of the deceased. But the high court has recognized the state’s interest in protecting those from unwanted protests or communications while in their homes.
The justices will be asked to address how far states and private entities such as cemeteries and churches can go to justify picket-free zones and the use of “floating buffers” to silence or restrict speech or movements of demonstrators exercising their constitutional rights in a funeral setting.
According to a legal brief it filed with the high court, church members believe it is their duty to protest at certain events, including funerals, to promote their religious message: “That God’s promise of love and heaven for those who obey him in this life is counterbalanced by God’s wrath and hell for those who do not obey him.”
The congregation is made up mostly of Phelps and his family. The pastor has 13 children and at least 54 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. He described himself as an “old-time” gospel preacher in a CNN interview in 2006, saying, “You can’t preach the Bible without preaching the hatred of God.”
Church members have participated in hundreds of protests across the country.
In a separate appeal, the high court last year blocked Missouri’s effort to enforce a specific law aimed at the Westboro church.
Phelps, his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper and other church members protested near the August 2005 funeral of an Army soldier in St. Joseph, Missouri.
State lawmakers later passed the Spc. Edward Lee Myers Law, criminalizing picketing “in front or about” a funeral location or procession.
Read the original article CNN
Rep. Massa Alleges Emanuel Forced Resignation Over Healthcare Vote
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — New York Rep. Eric Massa is blaming his resignation on a conspiracy led by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and House Democratic leaders to force him out before a crucial vote on healthcare.
Massa was one of 39 Democrats who voted against an earlier House version of the healthcare bill in November. Democratic leaders will “stop at nothing” to advance the healthcare overhaul, he said.
He also had some choice words for Emanuel during a recent radio interview in which he called the top Obama adviser “the son of the devil’s spawn.”
“He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive,” Massa said of Emanuel’s desire to lock up vital votes on healthcare reform.
“You think that somehow they didn’t come after me to get rid of me because my vote is the deciding vote in the healthcare bill? Then, ladies and gentlemen, you live today in a world that is so innocent as to not understand what’s going on in Washington, D.C.”
Massa spoke Sunday night on his weekly radio show on WKPQ-FM in Hornell, N.Y.
Facing a harassment complaint from a staffer, Massa said last week he’s stepping down from his seat Monday. He earlier announced he wouldn’t seek re-election because of health problems.
He said he learned he was the subject of an ethics complaint by a male staffer who felt “uncomfortable” during an exchange with Massa. The exchange reportedly had sexual overtones.
In his account, Massa said he and Emanuel have had many tense confrontations during the past year, including one incident in the shower of the Congressional gym.
“Let me tell you a story about Rahm Emanuel,” Massa continued. “I was a congressman in my first eight weeks, and I was in the congressional gym, and I went down and I worked out and I went into the showers…I’m sitting there showering, naked as a jaybird and here comes Rahm Emanuel not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me because I wasn’t going to vote for the president’s budget. Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?
“By the way, what the heck is he doing in the Congressional gym,” Massa continued. “He goes there to intimidate members of Congress… He’s hated me since day one, and now he wins.”
In the same interview on WKPQ radio, Massa accuses Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of lying about the time line of the ethics inquiry, and more broadly of a conspiracy against him by House Democratic leaders to force him out ahead of a critical vote on healthcare.
Massa was a firm “no” vote against the bill, but with his resignation, the number of votes needed to pass the bill drops by one to 216.
“Mine is now the deciding vote on the healthcare bill, and this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this healthcare bill, and now they’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass,” he said.
Read the original article and see video on NewsMax
It’s Rahm vs. Axelrod, and Rahm Is Winning
In the days of the old Pravda, one could determine who was winning secret Politburo power struggles by just looking at the official Soviet newspaper. Those winning simply got better press.
Perhaps it may be no different here in the United States.
This week two of the heaviest guns in American media, The Washington Post and The New York Times, unloaded their missiles at Obama adviser David Axelrod while heralding White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel as a centrist and pragmatist.
This Sunday’s New York Times, for example, features Axelrod and describes him as the ideological courtier advising the president into darkness as Emanuel remains the level-headed counselor.
Here’s an excerpt from “Message Maven Finds Fingers Pointing at Him”:
“Recent news reports have cast the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, as the administration’s chief pragmatist, and Mr. Axelrod, by implication, as something of a swooning loyalist. ‘I’ve heard him be called a “Moonie,”’ dismissed Mr. Axelrod’s close friend, former Commerce Secretary William Daley. Or as the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, joked, ‘the guy who walks in front of the president with rose petals.’”
The Times speculates that the “No Drama Obama” Team is indeed “fracturing.” The Times report follows the page one, top-of-the-fold story in Tuesday’s Washington Post that screamed “Hotheaded Emanuel May Be White House Voice of Reason.”
The Post story details the enormous transformation Rahm has been making.
Once considered a “caricature,” the paper says he has had a reputation as D.C.’s “resident leviathan, a bullying, bruising White House chief of staff who is a prime target for the failings of the Obama administration.”
But then the dagger falls on Axelrod as Emanuel is played as the White House voice of reason, as the Post describes:
“But a contrarian narrative is emerging: Emanuel is a force of political reason within the White House and could have helped the administration avoid its current bind if the president had heeded his advice on some of the most sensitive subjects of the year: health-care reform, jobs and trying alleged terrorists in civilian courts.“
Emanuel could have saved Obama from falling poll numbers if only he had avoided all the agenda items pushed by Axelrod!
For instance, the Post notes that Emanuel pressed Obama not to allow Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed to be tried in civilian court.
Attorney General Eric Holder argued for doing just that as a matter of “principle.”
The Post says: “David Axelrod, senior adviser to Obama, supported Holder, the source said. The president agreed that letting the Justice Department take the lead was the right thing to do.”
The paper quotes Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham: “During this whole civilian-trial debate, Rahm’s gut instincts knew that taking KSM to New York for civilian trials was going to be a misstep. He has a better ear for domestic politics on this issue than anybody in the administration, quite frankly.”
Kremlinologists can see the handwriting on the wall. Axelrod will soon be ousted or sidelined. Rahm emerges, and so does a more pragmatic and moderate Obama.
Read the original article NewsMax
Charitable Money Laundering For Democrats: Tides Foundation
Clarice Feldman
Activist Cash.com does a fantastic job of tracing foundation and activist activities and has long cast a jaundiced eye on the actions of the Tides Foundation and its offshoot the Tides Center.
Most of America’s big-money philanthropies trace their largesse back to one or two wealthy contributors. The Pew Charitable Trusts was funded by Joseph Pew’s Sun Oil Company earnings, the David & Lucille Packard Foundation got its endowment from the Hewlett-Packard fortune, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation grew out of General Motors profits, and so on. In most cases, the donors’ descendants manage and invest these huge piles of money, distributing a portion each year to nonprofit groups of all kinds (the IRS insists that at least 5 percent is given away each year). This is the way philanthropic grantmaking has worked for over a century: whether a given endowment’s bottom line occupies six digits or twelve, the basic idea has remained the same.Now comes the Tides Foundation and its recent offshoot, the Tides Center, creating a new model for grantmaking — one that strains the boundaries of U.S. tax law in the pursuit of its leftist, activist goals.Set up in 1976 by California activist Drummond Pike, Tides does two things better than any other foundation or charity in the U.S. today: it routinely obscures the sources of its tax-exempt millions, and makes it difficult (if not impossible) to discern how the funds are actually being used.In practice, “Tides” behaves less like philanthropy than a money-laundering enterprise (apologies to Procter & Gamble), taking money from other foundations and spending it as the donor requires.
Bret Jacobson of Big Government has carefully scanned Tides’ 2008 tax returns and we can see who the recipients of all this charitable, tax- exempt money are, though:
A look at their 2008 tax return, 160-plus pages, reads like a directory of the New Left. I’ve pulled out the donations to ACORN groups and Big Labor’s Working America Education Fund (not many people know unions take in ostensibly charitable donations) and one theme is clear: “general support” seems to be a popular phrase. Another theme: notice that states receiving money are critical to election-year success for Democrats. And finally, notice just how much money is being thrown around.ACORN, Inc – 100,000 Latino voter registration and engagement canvassACORN International – 100,00 general supportACORN Institute 49,500 – general support 25,293 – general support 10,000 – general supportProject Vote 275,000 – 2007-08 Election Administration Program 225,000 – election administration work in Arizona, Florida, and Pennsylvania 115,00 – general support 100,000 – 2008 Voter Participation Program 100,000 – Election Administration Program 100,000 – general support 100,000 – civic engagement work in New Mexico 75,000 – general support 65,000 – general support 53,086 – voter registration program 50,000 – Voter Participation Program 48,000 – nonpartisan Get Out The Vote work 35,000 – general support 30,000 – general support 25,000 – general support 10,000 – general supportWorking America Education Fund 261,661 – general support 245,000 – general support 200,000 – civic engagement in Ohio 125,000 – organizing in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Colorado, and Maine 115,000 – general support 100,000 general support 65,006 – general support 30,000 – general support 30,000 – General support.
Of course, this makes a mockery of campaign finance laws and as well the charitable tax exemptions.
It’s way past time that the IRS thoroughly investigates this sham operation and Congress end the practice of allowing such money laundering. Tax-exempt operations should have to contribute in ways that are direct and traceable.
Read the original article American Thinker
Levin Repays Property Tax Credit
Newly anointed House Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.) repaid a Maryland property-tax credit Friday that he should not have received, his office confirmed.
Levin, who owns a home in Chevy Chase, Md., received a $690 credit on his most recent property tax bill, the result of Montgomery County program that provided one-time credits to residential property owners in the 2009-10 tax year.
Levin, who purchased the home in 1977, received the tax credit although it was intended for only “owner-occupied” properties, and he does not live in the home. The credit reduced his tax bill to just under $9,500.
“This is not a tax credit that Rep. Levin applied for and in an abundance of caution he has paid the full amount to Montgomery County to correct their mistake,” Levin Chief of Staff Hilarie Chambers wrote in an e-mail Friday.
Chambers said the Michigan lawmaker moved out of the home in September 2008, following the death of his wife. His daughter and her family now occupy the home, and he stays at a Silver Spring condominium owned by his daughter when he is in the Washington, D.C. area.
Levin repaid the credit Friday, Chambers said, after being contacted by Roll Call.
“Since Mr. Levin was not residing in the property for the full year and it is not his ‘principal residence,’ Mr. Levin has written a check of $690 to the County and clarified and confirmed once again to them that the correct classification of the Morgan Drive property is ‘Not a Principal Residence,’” Chambers wrote in an e-mail.
Chambers referred to public records maintained by Montgomery County, which indicate the Chevy Chase home is a principal residence. Property records available from a Maryland state Web site indicate the property is not used as a principal residence.
Montgomery County property tax records dating to 1999 show that Levin’s home has changed classifications — principal or not principal — four times.
Chambers said the property was designated as a principal residence in 2009, after Levin’s attorneys submitted a revised deed to the county.
“It appears that when Mr. Levin’s lawyers submitted a deed to the County in April 9, 2009 that removed Mrs. Levin’s name from the deed and transferred Mrs. Levin’s share into a trust the County mistakenly changed the record on the property to ‘principal’ residence without request from or notification to Mr. Levin,” Chambers wrote.
She also said that a change-of-address form Levin submitted after he moved to the Silver Spring condo prompted another change to “not a principal residence” in January 2010.
The Chevy Chase home has also received negligible homestead tax credits intended for permanent residents of the state at times during the past 10 years.
Chambers said that Levin repaid homestead taxes several years ago.
“The County has inconsistently classified the property on Morgan Drive,” she wrote. “In April 2006 when Mr. Levin learned of the earlier mis-classifications he repaid the full amount for the Homestead Tax Credit mistakenly applied to the property. We confirmed [Friday] with the Montgomery County Department of Finance the amount repaid was $531.51.”
Levin replaced Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) at the Ways and Means Committee helm this week after pending ethics investigations forced Rangel to step down from the post.
The ethics committee admonished Rangel in February for taking part in two trips to the Caribbean that violated House rules, citing his staff’s knowledge that the trips received prohibited corporate funding.
The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, commonly known as the ethics panel, is also still reviewing Rangel’s personal finances under an investigation opened in September 2008.
That review includes Rangel’s failure to report rental income from a Dominican beach house; his lease of three rent-controlled apartments in his district; his use of House parking facilities for long-term vehicle storage; personal assets he failed to report on financial disclosures; and his fundraising efforts for a City College of New York facility named in his honor. Rangel has denied any wrongdoing.
Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), the second-ranking Ways and Means Committee member who was passed over for the chairmanship, also recently faced an ethics committee review of his Maryland home.
The committee dismissed allegations that Stark had improperly received a Maryland homestead property tax break.
The Office of Congressional Ethics, which recommended the Stark probe to the ethics committee, also reviewed several other lawmakers who own Maryland homes and had received the same tax break, but did not forward the inquiries to the ethics panel.
A handful of lawmakers also repaid taxes to the District of Columbia in 2009 after Roll Call discovered those Members had nearly $100,000 combined in homestead tax breaks for which they were ineligible. District official attributed the discrepancy to a clerical error, and said the Members had not sought the tax breaks.
Read the original article RollCall
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