From ABC

A suburban Pennsylvania woman known by the alias “Jihad Jane” has been arrested and charged with trying to recruit Islamic fighters and for plotting to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist who made fun of the Prophet Mohammed, according to a federal indictment unsealed today.
Photo: Pa. Woman Charged With Recruiting Jihadists Online: Pa. woman charged with recruiting jihadists online, agreeing to kill Swede in overseas plot

A Pennsylvania woman has been charged with using the Internet to recruit jihadist fighters and help…

A Pennsylvania woman has been charged with using the Internet to recruit jihadist fighters and help terrorists overseas. A federal indictment charges Colleen R. LaRose with agreeing to kill a Swedish citizen on orders from the terrorists and traveling to Europe to carry out the killing. It doesn’t say whether the Swede was killed.

Colleen R. LaRose, 46, of Montgomery, Pa., described by neighbors as an average “housewife,” is better known to federal authorities as “Fatima Rose” or “Jihad Jane.”

The indictment, obtained by ABC News, charges LaRose with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill in a foreign country.

She is also accused of making false statements to a government official and of attempted identity theft, a passport she allegedly stole with the intention of giving to an Islamic fighter. The court papers claim that LaRose reached out through the Internet to jihadist groups saying she was “desperate to do something to help” suffering Muslim people, and that she desired to become a martyr.

The war on terror is not simple. Our enemy comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, and sexes. They come from every continent but Antarctica. And they are even in our suburban neighborhoods. While this acknowledgment makes it harder to be optimistic…it certainly does us no favors to lie to ourselves about the enemy, who they are, and how deep they have their claws in us.

The prohibitionists say their rules are necessary for either the public’s or the particular individual’s own good. I’m skeptical. I think of what Albert Camus said: “The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.” Prohibition is force. I prefer persuasion. Government force has nasty unintended consequences.

I would think that our experience with alcohol prohibition would have taught America a lesson. Nearly everyone agrees it was a disaster. It didn’t stop people from drinking, but it created new and vicious strains of organized crime. Drug prohibition does that now.

The prohibitionists claim that today’s drugs are far more dangerous than alcohol.

But is that true? Or is much of what you think you know ... wrong?

I believed the Drug Enforcement Administration’s claim that drugs like crack and meth routinely addict people on first use.

But Jacob Sullum, who wrote “Saying Yes”, says, “If you look at the government’s own data about patterns of drug use, it clearly is not true.”

The data is remarkable: 8.5 million Americans have tried crack, but there are only 359,000 regular users. (The government defines “regular use” as using a drug at least once in the past 30 days.) More than 12 million tried meth, but only 314,000 still take it. The story is similar for heroin. Most people who try these “instantly additive drugs” do not get “hopelessly addicted.” They give them up on their own.

These numbers are a refutation of the dangers of drugs, and more proof that some people will abuse any substance. That 2.6% of users abuse something is little reason to ban or criminalize it.

Fat people abuse food. Alcoholics abuse alcohol. Many diabetics abused sugar. Teens get high off of paint fumes. Anything can be abused. Attempts to protect us from ourselves will fail, and are nothing more than government busybodying.

http://townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2010/02/19/rethinking_political_virtue?page=1

Asked by a radio host about the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FCC, Newt Gingrich said something that I imagine many conservatives have always believed—that political contributions are a form of speech, and as such should be unlimited provided they are immediately disclosed on the Internet. That was my view.

But perhaps that was wrong. Not the speech part—thankfully, even the Supreme Court has come to its senses on that score (the justices were reportedly scandalized to discover that the McCain/Feingold law permitted the banning of books under certain circumstances), but the disclosure part. Perhaps we are paying too high a price in political freedom to avoid the appearance of undue influence.

Professor Brad Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and a leading opponent of campaign finance (or speech limitation) laws, makes the case that disclosure, which most of us automatically associate with political virtue, may not be desirable after all.

Writing in City Journal, Smith begins with the following question: Suppose in its waning days, the Bush administration had proposed Patriot Act II. “To prevent terrorists and foreign agents from influencing American governments and political parties, the act would require political campaigns and other groups to report the names, addresses, and employers of their supporters to the federal government, which would enter the information into a database. The act would also give businesses access to this database, enabling them to make hiring decisions, credit determinations, and other choices based on political activity. Can anyone doubt that Patriot II would be widely considered a gross violation of civil liberties?”

...

Well, say the law’s supporters, it’s not for the sake of intruding into private citizens’ lives that we require disclosure of political contributions, but to ensure that corrupt influences on political figures are limited. If that’s the rationale, Smith notes, then the thresholds for disclosure are ludicrously low. “People who donate $20 to a Michigan candidate or even $200 to a federal one will exercise zero influence on the candidate if he’s elected.”

...

As for large contributions from wealthy individuals, political action committees, or unions, the disclosure requirement carries significant and largely unexamined costs. One unrecognized consequence is the greater scope it gives elected politicians to intimidate donors. Remember the notorious “K Street Project” inaugurated by House Republicans when they took control of Congress in 1994? Using lists of contributors filed with the federal government, Republican leaders targeted the 400 largest PACs and demanded that they adjust their giving to reflect the new sheriff in town. The Democrats howled—and then did the identical thing when they retook power in 2006. ...

I must admit, there are quite a few persuasive points in there. Prop 8 opponents actually committed violence against supporters, and tried to destroy businesses that voted against them. Politicians of both parties have wielded this knowledge against their enemies.

However, in the last election we had both foreign contributions AND hundreds of small donations in the names Abbaca Dabbaca and Asdf Jkl; that pointed to problems in our system.

Small businesses are a job engine in an expanding economy. But many are just trying to get by now in the face of slumping sales.

To help them avoid laying off workers and encourage them to hire new ones, some business groups are calling for a payroll tax holiday that would give all companies a break from Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, which total 15 percent.

Half the tax is paid by the employer, the other half by the employee. Suspending the taxes would lower the cost of both existing and new workers while at the same time putting more money in the pockets of employees. That, in turn, could boost consumer spending, which powers about 70 percent of the economy.

“Our membership is saying that their number one problem is lost sales,” says Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business. The group has been pushing a payroll tax holiday since last year, and estimates it could cost $300 billion.

A temporary break on payroll taxes would enable small business to keep more of the cash that is still coming in and “eliminate one cost of doing business,” he said.

Other economists favor a temporary tax cut targeted only at new hires. Companies that add to their payrolls would get a tax break, equal to perhaps 15 percent of pay for the new hires.

That would provide more “bang for the buck,” says Lawrence Katz, a professor at Harvard University, because it would cost taxpayers less than an across-the-board cut. On the other hand, it wouldn’t necessarily help companies struggling to keep their current workers, he admits.

A targeted tax cut could be “gamed” by employers, who might lay off some workers, only to hire them back as “new” employees to claim the credit. That can be prevented by requiring employers to increase their total payrolls to benefit, Katz said.

Of course, these are common sense ideas. Make hiring cheaper and easier, and more hiring will occur. Saddle businesses with endless regulations and taxes and watch the jobs dry up. Kind like we have been.

And if we want to “stimulate” the economy, it makes more sense to let people keep more of their money than to have them pay it in, then fill out endless forms, and pay an accountant, only to get a fraction of that money back.

The best thing government can do is just get out of the way, and let the economy fix itself.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/national_world&id=6983196&rss=rss-kabc-article-6983196

CAPE COD, Mass.—Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy, the youngest Kennedy brother who was left to head the family’s political dynasty after his brothers President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, has died at age 77.
Known as the “liberal lion of the Senate,” Kennedy championed health care reform, working wages and equal rights in his storied career. In August, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor—by President Obama. His daughter, Kara Kennedy, accepted the award on his behalf.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, known as Ted or Teddy, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in May 2008 and underwent a successful brain surgery soon after that. But his health continued to deteriorate, and Kennedy suffered a seizure while attending the luncheon following President Barack Obama’s inauguration.
For Kennedy, the ascension of Obama was an important step toward realizing his goal of health care reform.
At the Democratic National Convention in August 2008, the Massachusetts Democrat promised, “I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate when we begin the great test.”
Sen. Kennedy made good on that pledge, but ultimately lost his battle with cancer.

While the general rule is that you mourn even the staunchest of your enemies, I find no sadness in the death of Ted Kennedy. And I cannot find any kind words for the killer of Chappaquidick. I hope that in his final hours he begged for forgiveness for his sins, and I pray that he found it. But Kennedy is now off to meet his maker, and to attone for his role in leaving a poor woman to drown as he went home to sleep comfortably.

May the creator be kinder to his worthless creation than Kennedy was to Mary jo Kopechne at Chappaquidick.

In this particular case, Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium, according to Sarasota, Fla., attorney Dan McKillop, who represents the condo owner.
As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself.
... court documents clearly label “Wells Fargo Bank NA” as the plaintiff and “Wells Fargo Bank NA” as a defendant.
Wells Fargo hired Florida Default Law Group., P.L., of Tampa, Fla., to file the lawsuit against itself.
And then Wells Fargo hired another Tampa law firm—Kass, Shuler, Solomon, Spector, Foyle & Singer P.A.—to defend itself against its own lawsuit, according to court documents.
Wells Fargo’s defense lawyers even filed an answer to their client’s own complaint.
“Defendant admits that it is the owner and holder of a mortgage encumbering the subject real property,” the answer reads. “All other allegations of the complaint are denied.”

h/t Michelle Malkin

The insanity of a business hiring a lawyer to sue themselves cannot be overstated. It’s practices like this that made Wells Fargo need the TARP money so bad, and is also the reason they shouldn’t have gotten any.

In a rational world, they’d collapse under the weight of their own stupidity. In ours? They’re propped up in perpetuity with tax payer bailouts, because they’re “too big” to fail.

The answer seems to be a clear yes.

Protesters engaged in very public displays of affection in front of the Mormon church headquarters in Salt Lake City after two men were detained for sharing a kiss on the cheek in a plaza owned by the church.

The couple caused a scene, refused to leave private property when nicely asked, and were arrested as a result. They provoked conflict, and they got it.

This is not behavior to be celebrating, or showing solidarity with. But it is a great stimulus for protests and ham handed tactics to try and advance the gay agenda.

And that seems to have been the plan all along.

Referring to the long history of Russia-U.S. trade stretching back more than two centuries, Obama told an audience of business people in Moscow:
“Along the way, you gave us a pretty good deal on Alaska. Thank you.”
Czar Alexander II’s sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million in gold, around 1.9 cents per acre, was regarded by Russians as a national disgrace — particularly once it became clear that the province was rich in oil.

Pointing out something that is sure to annoy the Russians is surely good diplomacy. And this is probably WITH his vaunted teleprompter.

Well, now that Barack Obama is Pres…other victims are speaking.

Families of 9/11 victims want to keep Guantanamo open

GUANTANAMO BAY US NAVAL BASE, Cuba, (AFP) – Parents of five 9/11 victims called for the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay to remain open and for the military commissions to try the five men accused of perpetrating the attacks.
“We demand that this camp stay open and that the process continue,” said Joe Holland, whose son was killed during the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, and the Pentagon in Washington.
“Right here, right now, this is a good process, they are getting a fair trial,” Holland told reporters, referring to the military commissions established by the administration of President George W. Bush to try “war on terror” detainees held at the controversial facility.

Not that we care about these people. They’re just…well….not people we like.

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