Patriot Success, October 2011

It may seem like the Socialists are winning all the battles, but here is some good news for the Patriots! (Most recent news: Wisconsin)

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In Kansas: Brownback: Kansas to Return $31.5 Million Health Exchange Grant -- NationalJounral.com, Aug. 10, 2011

"Kansas is the second state to turn back "early innovator" funds to set up health-insurance exchanges. Oklahoma refused a similar grant in April after initially applying for the funds."

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In Michigan:

Michigan's 401(k) plan saved state more than $4 billion -- LansingStateJournal.com, July 10, 2011

"A 14-year-old reform that ended defined pension benefits for new state employees has saved the state up to $4.3 billion in unfunded state employee pension liability, according to a new report by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy."

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In Wisconsin:

Good Stuff Happening in Wisconsin -- read about statewide cost savings and other quality of life improvements that started in Gov. Walker's office.

On, Wisconsin! GOP Holds State Senate, Left Devastated -- Townhall.com, Aug. 10, 2011

"Democrats, liberal groups, and labor unions spent roughly $20 million on these races -- an unfathomable sum for off-year, state level races. They were better organized, better funded, and seemed to have a distinct intensity advantage. And yet, when the people of Wisconsin had their say, Republicans prevailed."

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Oh Canada!: The Conservative Party won a majority of seats in the House of Commons.

"But the installation of a majority government by itself is not a political revolution. The biggest changes in Canada were indicated by the devastating defeats of two of the opposition parties.

The Bloc Quebecois was reduced from 50 seats to only four. Formerly it represented most of Canada’s second-largest province. Now it represents a tiny rump."

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The Netherlands:

The Netherlands to Abandon Multiculturalism -- hudson-ny.org, June 23. 2011

The Dutch government says it will abandon the long-standing model of multiculturalism that has encouraged Muslim immigrants to create a parallel society within the Netherlands. ....

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The Right Huff is Crista Huff's blog for politics and items of sociological or financial interest. Crista Huff also manages Goodfellow LLC, a subscription-only stock market website. We strive to identify financially healthy companies in which traders and investors can buy shares and earn dividends and capital gains. See disclaimer for the risks associated with investing in the stock market. See your tax advisor for the tax consequences of investing. See your estate planning attorney to clarify beneficiary and inheritance issues associated with your assets.

"Big media outlets ignore subpoena of entire top tier of Obama Administration"

by Anthony Martin, Conservative Examiner, www.examiner.com

Perhaps the biggest story in the political world since the U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach Bill Clinton in the 1990s, although the Senate refused to remove him from office, is the fact that this week a subpoena from the House was issued to the entire top tier of the Obama Administration. Yet as of today the big media outlets--ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post--have ignored the story entirely. And if they did mention it in passing, it was buried on a back page or relegated to an inconspicuous web page while never seeing the light of day on the air. Only Fox gave the story top billing.

Regarding the news blackout of the subpoena, one astute observer had this to say:

Big media complicity in the news blackout is a heavy indictment against modern journalism in America today.

As evidence, ladies and gentlemen of the jury of history, I present the undisputed fact that on the evening news shows of NBC, ABC and CBS this week not one -- NOT ONE -- mentioned the unprecedented subpoena by a Congressional committee of information regarding the entire top echelon of the Justice Department in the Gunwalker Scandal.

Had this scandal involved John Ashcroft and the Bush Administration, does anyone doubt that the story would have led the nightly half-hour "puppet theater"? Or, that it wouldn't have been covered like a blanket by all news departments from the moment the blood of Brian Terry dried in the desert sands of Rio Rico?

In a stunningly insightful piece at Sipsy Street Irregulars today, citizen investigative journalist Mike Vanderboegh writes that when history records the dreadful events leading to the Project Gunwalker scandal, and its subsequent cover-up, the mainstream media will not be treated kindly. In fact, they will be the subject of ridicule and scorn for their complicity in the scandal, giving aid to the Administration's attempt to hide its illegal activity and cover-ups by either refusing to report it or by slanting its reporting to imply that the key players at the top did no wrong.

The only exception to this stinging indictment against the mainstream media has been reporter Sharyl Attkisson at CBS News. Attkisson's has been a lone voice, an oasis of investigative integrity in a desert of journalistic malpractice within the hallowed halls of what was once the epitome of tenacious gum-shoe reporting, the foundation of which was laid by Edward R. Murrow, Marvin and Bernard Kalb, Douglas Edwards, and Walter Cronkite.

However, the vacuum of serious investigative journalism created by the mainstream media's abdication of its responsibility has been filled by the 'alternative media,' such as bloggers, free-lance writers, and columnists for lesser-known media outlets.

In the case of the Gunwalker scandal, had it not been for National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea, and investigative reporter Mike Vanderboegh, this story would have never been brought to the forefront of public attention. These astute and tenacious journalists set onto the trail that led to their breaking the Gunwalker story all the way back in December of 2010. Shortly thereafter this writer began to hammer away at the Administration, seeking answers concerning the scandal. At about the same time, writers such as Kurt Hofmann and Dave Workman, both of whom write at The Examiner, did the same thing.

Thus, unlike the Watergate scandal during which the Washington Post and investigative reporters Woodward and Bernstein made sure that the Nixon fiasco stayed at the top of the news heap for months until Nixon was driven from office, this story--which is infinitely worse and much more widespread than Watergate--has been the work of alternative media journalists. And the mainstream media have been dragged kicking and screaming into it due to their dogged determination to bury any story that places Obama or any member of his Administration in a negative light.

The pressure, however, has been building to the point to where it is nearly impossible for the media moguls to continue to bury the Gunwalker story. Even now, with the historic events that have occurred this week, there is much more to come that will stun even the most seasoned political observers.

Waiting in the wings, in the shadows, are numerous figures who know the score and who are ready to tell all they know.

"We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies."

written by jmarzulli@nydailynews.com

A former NYPD narcotics detective snared in a corruption scandal testified it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas.

The bombshell testimony from Stephen Anderson is the first public account of the twisted culture behind the false arrests in the Brooklyn South and Queens narc squads, which led to the arrests of eight cops and a massive shakeup.

Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez, whose buy-and-bust activity had been low.

"Tavarez was ... was worried about getting sent back [to patrol] and, you know, the supervisors getting on his case," he recounted at the corruption trial of Brooklyn South narcotics Detective Jason Arbeeny.

"I had decided to give him [Tavarez] the drugs to help him out so that he could say he had a buy," Anderson testified last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

He made clear he wasn't about to pass off the two legit arrests he had made in the bar to Tavarez.

"As a detective, you still have a number to reach while you are in the narcotics division," he said.

NYPD officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Anderson worked in the Queens and Brooklyn South narcotics squads and was called to the stand at Arbeeny's bench trial to show the illegal conduct wasn't limited to a single squad.

"Did you observe with some frequency this ... practice which is taking someone who was seemingly not guilty of a crime and laying the drugs on them?" Justice Gustin Reichbach asked Anderson.

"Yes, multiple times," he replied.

The judge pressed Anderson on whether he ever gave a thought to the damage he was inflicting on the innocent.

"It was something I was seeing a lot of, whether it was from supervisors or undercovers and even investigators," he said.

"It's almost like you have no emotion with it, that they attach the bodies to it, they're going to be out of jail tomorrow anyway; nothing is going to happen to them anyway."

The city paid $300,000 to settle a false arrest suit by Jose Colon and his brother Maximo, who were falsely arrested by Anderson and Tavarez. A surveillance tape inside the bar showed they had been framed.

A federal judge presiding over the suit said the NYPD's plagued by "widespread falsification" by arresting officers.

Ballot Question 1A on Term Limits, Douglas County, CO

Many voters don’t know that Proposition 1A gives a third term to the current sheriff, already in his second term.

Supporters tell us we can vote out a bad Sheriff. In Douglas County partisan races, delegates decide who runs for Sheriff, and the incumbent always wins. I know this because I hosted a caucus and chose delegates specifically to help our current Sheriff win his place on the ballot in March 2006, and I have since trained another 2000 Colorado citizens how to become delegates and select candidates for office. There hasn’t been a real two-party contest in the Sheriff’s general election in decades.

The truth is that in Douglas County, November voters don’t really select the Sheriff. This is because our voting population majority is Republican, and the Republican always wins. (There is no elected Democrat in a partisan office anywhere in Douglas County.) Therefore, the candidate chosen at the Republican Assembly or at the Republican Primary becomes the winner of the November election. Our best chance at having a new person take on a fresh, supervisory role at the Sheriff's Department is to keep the current maximum of eight years in office.

Also, a change to elected official rules shouldn’t apply to those already in office. When term limits started, they didn’t affect incumbents. Why should we give our current Sheriff special treatment?

Supporters of 1A say we can’t afford $2,000 for special training required for a new Sheriff. The Sheriff’s budget is $46 million! We could send a new Sheriff to dozens of courses and not hurt the budget!

Supporters tell us the Department will fall apart when we change Sheriffs. The Douglas County Sheriff Department is a large enterprise, and I am confident that there are many qualified employees who would jump at the chance of serving the County in a future elected capacity.

Another more serious problem with ballot question 1A is that, if successful, it will open the door for more ballot questions to extend term limits in other elected offices. Here's how I know this:

In the 1990's in Colorado, a few small rural towns wanted to institute legal gaming in order to shore up their struggling economies. Many voters, including myself, thought, "How bad could this be?" And we voted yes. Gaming was instituted in those three towns.

In the next one or two election cycles, a plethora of Colorado towns put forth ballot initiatives in order to also institute gaming in their towns as well. We had opened the floodgates! The voters got wise to the big picture, and voted "no" repeatedly from that point onward.

Opening the door to the extension of term limits for the Sheriff in Douglas County will invariably lead to efforts to extend term limits for many more offices, which could include Treasurer, County Commissioner, Clerk & Recorder, and more.

I’m voting No on 1A. Eight years in office is long enough.