Conservative Outpost

Abolished Planetarium Placed Under The Microscope

FMeekins — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 13:50:14 +0000

According to the 4/2/10 edition of the Washington Post, a number of school districts are on the verge of closing down their planetariums. Planetariums are structures where images of the stellar skies are recreated using assorted audio visual equipment.

Educational administrators claim that, in this era of limited budgetary resources, it costs too much to make the technological enhancements necessary to ensure a similar wow factor among the students of today accustomed to the visual wonders capable with advanced electronics. While that may be true to an extent, there is also an orientation of pedagogical methodology here that will impact generations of school children to come and possibly play a role in determining what kind of country America will become.

Constance Skelton, Science Supervisor for Arlington, Virginia schools mused according to the Washington Post, “...that while the space race provided a captivating, teachable moment for yesterday’s budding scientist, newer issues such as climate change are likely to inspire tomorrows.”

So in other words, instead of encouraging young minds to marvel at the wonders of the universe, expanding the frontiers of knowledge, and increasing prosperity, students are to be conditioned into embracing the limitations decided upon for them by elites and shamed for enjoying a standard of technology beyond that utilized by the hominid apemen from the opening scenes of "2001: A Space Odyssey". This is what it means to emphasize the Ecology Age over the Space Age.

It is not reading too much into things to make such a point. It is the systematic goal of progressivist liberalism at all levels of government and culture to curtail American power and influence even if the other world powers have no intentions of abiding by such diminished expectations.

For example, the Obama administration announced in 2010 the cancellation of the Constellation program, essentially scrapping plans to return to the Moon that would have eventually established a permanent lunar base. Neither is there even much of a plan to replace America’s decommissioned space shuttle fleet.

Instead, the NASA of the 21st century will rely primarily on the Russian space service to ferry personnel and supplies back and forth to the International Space Station. No wonder that orbital port’s intended name of “Freedom” was dropped before the project even got off the ground.

Just because Obama is giddy about U.S. power and influence receding into the sunset, that doesn’t mean other nations are going to be as contented about curtailing their scope. Both China and India have aspirations about visiting the Earth’s only natural satellite.

Big deal, those with terrestrially bound imaginations might respond. Isn’t going to the Moon nothing more than a photo op where astronauts do little more than plant the flag and knock a few golf balls around in microgravity?

The Moon represents much more to the planetary power willing to plant its flag there than a symbolic effort and gesture. It will be from the Moon that mankind will set sail out into the cosmos and the Moon could very well be a vital staging area for any planetary empire seeking to control or exert influence over the Earth itself.

Does anyone believe that the world will be better off with outer space under the control of the Red Chinese and Russia or rather the United States?

Whether or not school districts really have the financial resources to continue their planetarium programs is not the primary issue. What should concern every American is that such a reason would be invoked to justify dismantling imagination and thus the opportunities of future generations.

By Frederick Meekins

Obama ‘Strongly Objects’ to Religious Liberty Amendment

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:17:18 +0000

Source:

Todd Starnes

Original article:

Obama ‘Strongly Objects’ to Religious Liberty Amendment

The Obama Administration “strongly objects” to a proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday that would have protected the religious rights of soldiers – including evangelical Christian service members who are facing growing hostility towards their religion.

The amendment was authored by Rep. John Fleming, R-La. It would have “required the Armed Forces to accommodate ‘actions and speech’ reflecting the conscience, moral, principles or religious beliefs of the member.”

The Obama Administration said the amendment would have a “significant adverse effect on good order, discipline, morale, and mission accomplishment.”

“With its statement, the White House is now endorsing military reprimands of members who keep a Bible on their desk or express a religious belief,” Fleming told Fox News. “This administration is aggressively hostile towards religious beliefs that it deems to be politically incorrect.”

Fleming introduced the amendment after a series of high-profile incidents involving attacks on religious liberty within the military- including an Air Force officer who was told to remove a Bible from his desk because it might give the impression he was endorsing a religion.

He said there are other reports of Christian service members and chaplains being punished for their faith.

The Air Force censored a video created by a chaplain because it include the word “God.” The Air Force feared the word might offend Muslims and atheists.
A service member received a “severe and possibly career-ending reprimand” for expressing his faith’s religious position about homosexuality in a personal religious blog. ...

Voters oppose NSA program, most lack trust in government

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:50:46 +0000

Source:

Fox News

Original article:

Voters oppose NSA program, most lack trust in government

Most Americans find it unacceptable for the National Security Agency to collect the phone records of millions of U.S. citizens. In addition, a majority lacks trust in the federal government, and an increasing number of people say it’s too big.

These are just some of the findings of a Fox News poll released Wednesday.

Sixty-two percent of voters say the government secretly collecting the phone records of millions of Americans is an “unacceptable and alarming invasion of privacy rights.”

That’s nearly twice as many as think it’s an “acceptable government action to help prevent terrorism” (32 percent).

Republicans (by 74-18 percent) and independents (by 67-26 percent) think the NSA surveillance of Americans is unacceptable. Democrats split: 48 percent say it’s acceptable, while 46 percent say unacceptable.

Views are similar on the U.S. Department of Justice monitoring certain reporters as part of its leak investigation. By a 34 percentage-point margin, more voters think the government’s seizure of journalists’ records was mainly done for political reasons (63 percent) as opposed to national security reasons (29 percent).

The Justice Department secretly obtained phone records and emails from some news organizations that had broken stories based on government leaks.

In general, when asked how much “trust and confidence” they have in the federal government, 37 percent of voters say they have a great deal (5 percent) or a fair amount (32 percent). Sixty-three percent say they have not much confidence (41 percent) or none at all (22 percent). ...

Terror and Safety

admin — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:17:39 +0000

Source:

John Stossel

Original article:

Terror and Safety

This week, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the National Security Agency's data mining violates our Fourth Amendment right to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers" and is "tyranny that our founders rebelled against." Good for him.

In an op-ed, he adds, "We fought a revolution over issues like generalized warrants, where soldiers would go from house to house, searching anything they liked," and wonders "which parts of the Constitution this government will next consider negotiable." Good for him. I'm glad at least one senator reminds Big Government that our Constitution limits federal power.

And many libertarians are furious at this latest intrusion of "Big Brother."

So what's wrong with me? I just can't get that worked up about it.

I know Big Data now in NSA computers probably includes my phone calls. (I hope it's just time, duration, location and recipients, not my words, too, but I'm not sure.)

I know the snooping may be unnecessary. Government's claim that it prevents terror is weak: Officials say a terrorist was caught, but New York City police say he was caught via other methods. I'm skeptical about the very claim that any terribly important "secrets" are held by unhappy 29-year-olds and 4.8 million other people (that's how many Americans hold security clearance for classified material).

So it's invasive, probably illegal and maybe useless. I ought to be very angry. But I'm not. Why? ...

Would the government lie to you?

admin — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 17:06:15 +0000

Source:

Wes Pruden

Original article:

Would the government lie to you?

Trust us. Would your government – and the private contractors your government hires to do the work - do anything bad? Snooping into the intimate details of the lives of everyone is not nice. Besides, it could be worse, and that’s all the proof anyone needs to see that it’s not really bad at all.

So don’t worry. Be happy.

This is the emerging defense of the government in “the metadata scandal.” President Obama told a California audience Friday that before he was president he, too, had “a healthy skepticism” of the aggressive intelligence services, but now, with further safeguards, which he did not identify, he decided that snooping is worth it.

“You can’t have 100 percent security, and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,” he says. A speechwriter’s clever line, but it was an answer to a question that nobody had raised. Critics of Big Brother don’t expect a hundred percent of anything, they just don’t trust the big bully more than maybe 2 percent.

James Clapper, director of U.S. intelligence, pours on a little soothing syrup. The snooping, he says, “cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. persons located outside the United States.” Of course not. But note the weasel word “intentionally,” and what, exactly, is a “U.S. person” if he is not a citizen? The Washington Post reports that, while in one surveillance program American citizens are not “intended” to be targets of surveillance, large quantities of “content” from Americans are nevertheless screened to track or learn more about the target. ...

Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

admin — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:54:29 +0000

Source:

Rand Paul

Original article:

Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

When Americans expressed outrage last week over the seizure and surveillance of Verizon's client data by the National Security Agency, President Obama responded: "In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother . . . but when you actually look at the details, I think we've struck the right balance."

How many records did the NSA seize from Verizon? Hundreds of millions. We are now learning about more potential mass data collections by the government from other communications and online companies. These are the "details," and few Americans consider this approach "balanced," though many rightly consider it Orwellian.

These activities violate the Fourth Amendment, which says warrants must be specific—"particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." And what is the government doing with these records? The president assures us that the government is simply monitoring the origin and length of phone calls, not eavesdropping on their contents. Is this administration seriously asking us to trust the same government that admittedly targets political dissidents through the Internal Revenue Service and journalists through the Justice Department?

No one objects to balancing security against liberty. No one objects to seeking warrants for targeted monitoring based on probable cause. We've always done this.

What is objectionable is a system in which government has unlimited and privileged access to the details of our private affairs, and citizens are simply supposed to trust that there won't be any abuse of power. This is an absurd expectation. Americans should trust the National Security Agency as much as they do the IRS and Justice Department.

Monitoring the records of as many as a billion phone calls, as some news reports have suggested, is no modest invasion of privacy. It is an extraordinary invasion of privacy. We fought a revolution over issues like generalized warrants, where soldiers would go from house to house, searching anything they liked. Our lives are now so digitized that the government going from computer to computer or phone to phone is the modern equivalent of the same type of tyranny that our Founders rebelled against. ...

IRS Caught on Tape Telling Nonprofit: “Keep Your Faith to Yourself”

admin — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 18:21:56 +0000

Source:

LifeNews

Original article:

IRS Caught on Tape Telling Nonprofit: “Keep Your Faith to Yourself”

The IRS scandal is deepening as a new tape has been released today showing a disturbing phone call the Internal Revenue Service placed to a non-profit organization.

Alliance Defending Freedom, a pro-life legal group, made the audio available today of IRS officials telling a group that provides support to women in abusive pregnancy situations to keep its faith to itself. In the recorded phone conversation, an IRS agent lectures the president of the organization about forcing its religion and beliefs on others and inaccurately explains that the group must remain neutral on issues such as abortion.

ADF is providing legal representation for the group — which did not receive its tax-exempt status until last week after waiting nearly two and a half years after applying for it.

“The IRS is a tax collector; it shouldn’t be allowed to be the speech and belief police,” said Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. “The current scandal isn’t new but has merely exposed the abuse of power that characterizes this agency and threatens our fundamental freedoms.”

ADF tells LifeNews that, in January 2011, Pro-Life Revolution, which operates from Texas under all three purposes for whcih religious groups can obtain nonprofit status, filed an application for tax-exempt status with the IRS. Four months later, the IRS sent a letter requesting “more information” and an explanation of how the organization’s activities are educational or charitable even though IRS rules specify that an organization need only operate for “one or more” of the three exempt purposes. President of Pro-Life Revolution Ania Joseph nonetheless replied and answered the IRS’s questions.

ADF indicates Joseph received a call from IRS Exempt Organization Specialist Sherry Wan in March 2012. ...

The Wacko Birds and their war on DC

admin — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:49:24 +0000

Source:

Christopher Bedford

Original article:

The Wacko Birds and their war on DC

There is rebellion afoot in the United States Senate. A new breed of conservatives and libertarians are loosed, unconcerned with The New York Times, unfettered by back-bench rank and unintimidated by Washington politics.

Elected over the past three years, Republican Sens. Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz have had a meteoric impact in Washington, soaring to grassroots stardom, crashing into the Democratic majority and raining down on the old bulls of the Republican Party.

Dubbed “Wacko Birds” by top Republican John McCain, these three wear the senior Arizona senator’s scorn as a badge of honor.

The Democrats and Republican leadership are furious. And it isn’t simply because these young upstarts exist — it’s because they’re scoring real points. Using the difficult and arcane rules of the Senate to their advantage, they have several victories under their belts that have earned them the respect and support of the conservative grassroots. And despite the ire of both parties — and both parties’ well-connected allies in the press — the Wacko Birds continue undeterred.

Their tradition is an old one. Before their arrival in the Senate, now-Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint held the torch, using the rule book to hold fast on conservative principles and frustrate the leadership of both parties. Before DeMint, Sen. Jesse Helms was the rock, twisting Republican arms and forcing Democrats to publicly vote for their agendas. But today is different. Today, the conservative voice isn’t alone in the wilderness, nor is it even limited to these three: The Wacko Birds are finding allies across the GOP, with even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell rushing to their side when politically convenient. ...

Catholic Archbishop: Wake Up! Religious Liberty at Risk in USA

admin — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:43:50 +0000

Source:

CNS News

Original article:

Catholic Archbishop: Wake Up! Religious Liberty at Risk in USA

Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles J. Chaput is calling on Americans to wake up and recognize that the Founding Fathers' vision of religious freedom is now threatened by the federal government.

"The day when Americans could take the Founders' understanding of religious freedom as a given is over," said the archbishop. "We need to wake up."

Chaput, who leads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, pointed to Obamacare's sterilization-contraception-abortifacient regulation as one example. The regulation, issued by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, requires almost all health-care plans in the United States to provide coverage for sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs to all women of reproductive age--even if the person or employer providing the insurance coverage and even if the female beneficiaries themselves do not want the coverage and believe it is morally wrong and violates their religious beliefs.

"[T]he HHS mandate can only be understood as a form of coercion," the archbishop wrote in a recent column posted on the website of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The column is entitled, "Religious Freedom and the Need to Wake Up."

Last year, the Catholic bishops of the United States unanimously approved a statement describing the HHS regulation as an "unjust and illegal mandate." The unanimous bishops said the regulation not only violated the religious freedom of religious institutions but also the "personal civil rights" of individual Americans who will be forced to comply with it either as employers or employees. ...

The Bullying Pulpit

admin — Tue, 28 May 2013 17:45:11 +0000

Source:

Thomas Sowell

Original article:

The Bullying Pulpit

We have truly entered the world of "Alice in Wonderland" when the CEO of a company that pays $16 million a day in taxes is hauled up before a Congressional subcommittee to be denounced on nationwide television for not paying more.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was denounced for contributing to "a worrisome federal deficit," according to Senator Carl Levin -- one of the big-spending liberals in Congress who has had a lot more to do with creating that deficit than any private citizen has.

Because of "gimmicks" used by businesses to reduce their taxes, Senator Levin said, "children across the country won't get early education from Head Start. Needy seniors will go without meals. Fighter jets sit idle on tarmacs because our military lacks the funding to keep pilots trained."

The federal government already has ample powers to punish people who have broken the tax laws. It does not need additional powers to bully people who haven't.

What is a tax "loophole"? It is a provision in the law that allows an individual or an organization to pay less taxes than they would be required to pay otherwise. Since Congress puts these provisions in the law, it is a little much when members of Congress denounce people who use those provisions to reduce their taxes.

If such provisions are bad, then members of Congress should blame themselves and repeal the provisions. ...

Obama’s Dangerous Contempt for the Rule of Law

admin — Tue, 28 May 2013 14:24:03 +0000

Source:

Ramesh Ponnuru

Original article:

Obama’s Dangerous Contempt for the Rule of Law

Whatever the investigation into misconduct at the Internal Revenue Service reveals, we already have all the evidence we need to understand President Barack Obama’s fundamental attitude toward the rule of law. That evidence is right there in the public record, and what it shows is indifference and contempt.

The Constitution gives the president the power to appoint officials to fill vacancies when the Senate isn’t in session. In 2012, Obama made such “recess appointments” to the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- even though the Senate had stayed in session precisely to keep him from doing so.

Obama’s lawyers argued that the Senate wasn’t really in session even though it claimed to be: It was going through the motions to block Obama, but it wasn’t taking up bills or nominations. No previous president had ever tried this maneuver, and an appeals court has just ruled that it was unconstitutional.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the sweeping health-care law that Obama signed in 2010, asks state governments to set up health exchanges, and authorizes the federal government to provide tax credits to people who use those exchanges to get insurance. But most states have refused to establish the online marketplaces, and both the tax credits and many of the law’s penalties can’t go into effect until the states act.

Obama’s IRS has decided it’s going to apply the tax credits and penalties in states that refuse, even without statutory authorization. During the recent scandal over the IRS’s harassment of conservative groups, many Republicans have warned that the IRS can’t be trusted with the new powers that the health law will give the agency. They are wrong about the verb tense: It has already abused those powers. ...

Turning the tables on the IRS

admin — Mon, 27 May 2013 21:49:54 +0000

Source:

Robert Knight

Original article:

Turning the tables on the IRS

It’s pretty clear that the Internal Revenue Service acted illegally in its abuse of Tea Party and other conservative groups and individuals since 2009.

Why else would Lois G. Lerner, director of the IRS’ division of exempt organizations, take the Fifth Amendment before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee?

She invoked it last Wednesday after reading a statement in which she claimed, “I have not done anything wrong.” My lying eyes conclude that the lady has something to hide, but hates the idea that we think so. By contrast, most organized-crime figures who are dragged before congressional committees shrug, look down, plead the Fifth, and don’t bother pretending that they’re innocent. That’s why they have lawyers.

For the past three years, the IRS has behaved like Soviet-style apparatchiks, using power and fear to stunt a grass-roots movement that flexed mightily in 2010, but then mysteriously quieted down. Now we know why. When the IRS began carpet-bombing conservatives with punitive audits and demanding to know things like what kind of prayers were uttered at meetings, the Big Chill was under way.

In fact, it’s still going on despite misleading media reports that all that bad stuff was in the distant past, such as 2012. As Hillary Rodham Clinton might insist, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

A 40-page memorandum released on May 20 by Cleta Mitchell, a prominent lawyer representing conservative nonprofit organizations, shows exactly why the IRS is still a threat to our constitutional republic.

“Prior to 2010, the time frame for review and receipt of IRS tax-exempt status would typically be three months to one year for a 501(c)(3) organization and three to six months for a 501(c)(4) or (c)(6) organization,” she writes. In 2010, the IRS “changed its system for reviewing and processing applications.

The ground under Obama is starting to shift

admin — Fri, 24 May 2013 18:12:53 +0000

Source:

Scott Rasmussen

Original article:

The Political Ground Is Shifting Under the President

Despite a tough couple of weeks, President Obama's job approval ratings are holding up fairly well. As I write this, 47 percent of voters nationwide offer their approval. That's little changed from attitudes of late and essentially the same as the president enjoyed during most of his first term in office.

But if you dig just a bit beneath the surface, it becomes clear that the controversies dogging the White House have had an impact. So far, there are three major issues -- the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservatives, the Justice Department's secret media probe and the circumstances surrounding the murder of the U.S. ambassador to Libya in Benghazi last Sept. 11.

White House press secretary Jay Carney, speaking on CNN, dismissed "the premise, the idea that these were scandals." However, voters see it differently. Just over half believe each of the three qualifies as a scandal. Only one out of eight sees them as no big deal.

Voters also reject the notion that the IRS targeting was the work of some low-level rogue employees. Just 20 percent believe that to be the case. A slightly larger number (26 percent) thinks the decision came from IRS headquarters. But 39 percent believe the decision to target conservative groups was made by someone who works at the White House.

This isn't just a case of people believing politicians always behave this way. Only 19 percent think the IRS usually targets political opponents of the president.

Skepticism is so high that few are convinced the IRS acted alone. Sixty percent believe that other federal agencies also were used to target the tea party and other conservative groups. Ominously for Democrats, two out of three unaffiliated voters share that view. ...

Giant octopus: IRS has 8 offices to enforce Obamacare

admin — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:28:59 +0000

Source:

Washington Examiner

Original article:

Giant octopus: IRS has 8 offices to enforce Obamacare

The Internal Revenue Service, charged with implementing the biggest change in tax laws in 20 years due to Obamacare, has created eight offices and special "teams" to handle the chore, way more than initially revealed.

Besides the top office headed by the woman in the middle of the IRS-Tea Party scandal, there are seven others and a special enforcement team that make up an organization chart that mirrors the organization of the IRS itself, according to a Treasury Inspector General's report.

The June report focused on concerns that the IRS, which is filling the Obamacare offices with 2,137 agents and officials to make sure citizens and companies comply with the new health law or pay a fine, isn't clear on its new role and how many new workers it will actually need. For example, the IRS will be in charge of analyzing hospital "community benefit activities," which it has never done before.

But in that report was the organizational chart revealing the series of Obamacare offices. They are led by a steering committee that coordinates Obamacare implementation across the IRS. It is led by the agency's deputy commissioner for services and enforcement, the office linked to the IRS scandal. Ousted acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller recently had that job.

Other branches include three program management offices, four services and enforcement offices, and services and enforcement exchange working teams. ...