The New Black Panthers spoke out against the Koran burners this week.
…Because they’re the experts on Islam or torchings or something.
Via Western Jouralism:

Who knew?… We’re suddenly witnessing the perfect crackpot storm.
Has Code Pink chimed in yet?

The Westboro cult members are going to torch the Koran on Saturday… and the US flag.
The KC Star reported:

Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church announced tonight that it plans to burn the Qur’an and an American flag on Sept. 11, though the exact time and location haven’t been determined, a church spokeswoman said.

The burning would occur the same day that a Florida pastor had threatened to burn Qur’ans, which drew condemnation from President Obama, religious leaders and others.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, who announced Westboro Baptist’s plan, said they don’t think that pastor, Terry Jones, will carry out the burning.

Westboro Baptist Church has received international condemnation for its protests at the funerals of gay people and U.S. servicemembers. Church members burned a Qur’an two years ago in Washington, D.C.

A government spokesman in the Afghan province of Badakhshan said a crowd of protesters had hurled rocks at a Nato base run by German troops.

The spokesman, Amin Sohail, said soldiers opened fire and killed one protester. It was later reported that three protesters had been shot, and a total of 11 people wounded.

But Badakhshan police chief General Agha Noor Kemtuz said initial reports that one person was killed had proved false.

Here’s this year’s Blogcon schedule.

I’ll be attending the event and will be speaking during the opening session on Friday morning.
Stephen Kruiser, Mary Katharine Ham, Melissa Clouthier, John Hawkins, Bill Whittle, Steve Green, and Scott Ott will also take part in the session.

Warner Todd Huston and Tabitha Hale, who organized the event, pose for the camera.

I ran into FOX contributor, journalist and blogger Mary Katherine Ham at the reception.

My friends Warner Todd Huston and John Schulenburg who contribute at Gateway Pundit are also attending the event this weekend.

The AP reported:

An anti-Islamic preacher backed off and then threatened to reconsider burning the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, angrily accusing a Muslim leader of lying to him Thursday with a promise to move an Islamic center and mosque away from New York’s ground zero. The imam planning the center denied there was ever such a deal.

The Rev. Terry Jones generated an international firestorm with his plan to burn the Quran on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and he has been under intense pressure to give it up. President Barack Obama urged him to listen to “those better angels” and give up his “stunt,” saying it would endanger U.S. troops and give Islamic terrorists a recruiting tool. Defense Secretary Robert Gates took the extraordinary step of calling Jones personally.

Standing outside his 50-member Pentecostal church, the Dove Outreach Center, alongside Imam Muhammad Musri, the president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, Jones said he relented when Musri assured him that the New York mosque will be moved.

Musri, however, said after the news conference that the agreement was only for him and Jones to travel to New York and meet Saturday with the imam overseeing plans to build a mosque near ground zero.

Hours later, Jones said Musri “clearly, clearly lied to us.”

Don’t expect this story to go away for at least another 48 hours.

For those of you not familiar with this Delaware conservative, here again is my interview with Christine in July.
She told me then that she was hoping for Sarah’s endorsement.
Check it out – She’s a remarkable candidate:

It was a delight meeting Christine O’Donnell.

The Fix reported:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) offered a last-minute endorsement of Christine O’Donnell in the Delaware GOP Senate primary. O’Donnell is the underdog against centrist Rep. Mike Castle and has received a series of press hits in recent days.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The minister of a Florida church said he has canceled plans to burn copies of the Quran because the leader of a much-opposed plan to build an Islamic Center near ground zero has agreed to move its location. The agreement couldn’t be immediately confirmed.

The Rev. Terry Jones said Thursday that Americans oppose the mosque being built at the location and that Muslims do not want the Quran burned. He said instead of his plan to burn the books on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of 9/11, he will be flying to New York to speak to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf about moving the mosque.

“We are, of course, now against any other group burning Qurans,” Jones said during a news conference. We would right now ask no one to burn Qurans. We are absolutely strong on that. It is not the time to do it.”

Here’s a clue, leftists… Taking advice from a committed socialist on job creation will not likely lift the US out of the Obama Depression.

Barack Obama is pictured with close friend and union thug Andy Stern (on right).

Leftist wunderkind Ezra Klein of Journolist fame believes former SEIU President and radical socialist Andy Stern holds the key to job creation.
Sure he does.

Here’s one of Stern’s ideas– Don’t cut jobs, Cut hours:

1) Adopt Job Sharing

This is an idea, supported by Kevin Hassett from the American Enterprise Institute and Dean Baker from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, that could rally broad support from the left and the right.

Both experts testified earlier this year that Congress should consider a plan that enables companies to avoid shedding employees by reducing hours instead of firing workers. If hours and wages are reduced by 10 percent or more, workers would receive a federal subsidy for 60 percent of their lost salary. As the economy truly begins to recover, employers would be able to add new employees rather than increase hours for existing employees until the recovery is on a self-sustaining path.

Reducing the rate of job loss by just 10 percent would have the same effect on employment as if the economy generated an additional 200,000 jobs a month or 2.4 million a year. Germany’s unemployment rate dropped from 9.1 percent to 7.6 percent after implementing such a policy in January.

Congress should immediately take up one of several bills that take this idea to a national scale.

Jobs Created/Saved: 2.4 million
Cost: $54 billion
Pay-for: Loans to Unemployment Insurance (UI) Funds to be repaid with a small UI surtax starting in 2013 on all employers.
Ultimate cost to Taxpayers: Zero

Great idea.
Don’t cut jobs, just cut hours.
And, Klein is supposed to be the smart one in the crowd?
Good luck libs.

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Hazleton, Pa., may not enforce its crackdown on illegal immigrants, dealing another blow to 4-year-old regulations that inspired similar measures around the country.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said that Hazleton’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act usurped the federal government’s exclusive power to regulate immigration.

“It is … not our job to sit in judgment of whether state and local frustration about federal immigration policy is warranted. We are, however, required to intervene when states and localities directly undermine the federal objectives embodied in statutes enacted by Congress,” wrote Chief Judge Theodore McKee.

Appeals courts are split on whether states and municipalities have the right to enforce laws dealing with immigration. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments over a 2007 Arizona law that prohibits employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

The progressive judge must be looking for a job in the Obama Administration, huh?

He said there might be rioting in “Pockistan” and Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama is warning that a Florida pastor’s plan to burn the Koran could result in “serious violence” against U.S. troops and is not in standing with American values.

Last month during his Ramadan Iftar Dinner President Obama spoke out in favor of the planned Ground Zero Victory Mosque.

And, they wonder why 1 of 4 Americans believe Obama is a Muslim?

Republican Congressman Roy Blunt now holds a 10-point lead over Democrat Robin Carnahan in Missouri’s race for the U.S. Senate.
More bad news for the radical progressives…
Roy Blunt just jumped to a 10 point lead over far left Obamacare-supporting Robin Carnahan in the Missouri Senate race.

Missouri does not need another rubber-stamp for Obama’s radical agenda.

Rasmussen reported:

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Blunt picking up 53% of the vote, with leaners included. Carnahan, Missouri’s secretary of state, draws support from 43%. Two percent (2%) prefer another candidate, and another two percent (2%) are undecided.

Just over two weeks ago, Blunt held a 54% to 41% over Carnahan when leaners were part of the totals. Leaners are those who initially indicate no preference for either of the candidates but answer a follow-up question and say they are leaning towards a particular candidate. From this point forward, Rasmussen Reports considers results with leaners the primary indicator of the race.

You can donate to Roy Blunt’s here.

The St. Louis Tea Party Coalition announced today the grand opening of the regional Liberty Headquarters in St. Louis City.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

LIBERTY HEADQUARTERS GRAND OPENING

New Non-Partisan Center will Help Drive Voter Turnout on November 2nd

St. Louis, MO (September, 9th, 2010)- As post-Labor Day election efforts begin in earnest, a coalition of local grassroots leaders and St. Louis Tea Party Activists are joining together with American Majority Action to open the St. Louis Liberty Headquarters in St. Louis, MO on September 14, 2010 from 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm. The St. Louis Liberty Headquarters is located at 4512 Hampton Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63119 and will serve as a hub of grassroots activity in St. Louis for the remainder of this election season.

“We are excited to have the chance to partner with tea parties and 912 organizations across the United States. They are the ones leading the charge. They are the ones impacting their cities and states. We view our role as facilitating and meeting a need,” said Drew Ryun, president of American Majority Action. “We are convinced that this effort will provide the resources and infrastructure for citizens to make a dramatic difference this fall. Our goal is to partner with grassroots conservatives and restore the principles of limited, responsible government both in Washington and at state capitols across the nation.”

St. Louis Tea Party activists Bill Hennessy and Dana Loesch will be available for comment during the grand opening. The Missouri Field Director of American Majority Action, Raz Shafer, will also be available for interviews during the event.

St. Louis Liberty Headquarters is one of seven Liberty Headquarters being opened around the country simultaneously, including a location in Joplin.

Tea Party Headquarters St. Louis

Family Security Matters reported on this CNN interview:

Imam Rauf threatens America:

“If this is not handled correctly, this crisis could become much bigger than the Danish cartoon crisis, which resulted in attacks on Danish embassies in various parts of the Muslim world…. If we don’t handle this crisis correctly it could become something which could really become very, very, very dangerous indeed.”

Imam Rauf, in all sincerity sir, you can take your victory mosque and shove it.

It is the most important hill that folks interested in good government have yet to conquer and that is the elimination of government employee unions. The Heritage Foundation reports the sad and disgusting news that the majority of union members now work for government, an intolerable situation to say the least.

The BLS’s annual report on union membership shows the labor movement’s decline in membership continued in 2009. While a full 23.0 percent of Americans belonged to labor unions in 1980, by 2008 only 12.4 percent did. In 2009, that figure dropped slightly to 12.3 percent.[2] There are now 15.3 million union members in the United States, 770,000 fewer than in 2008.

…What is newsworthy, however, is another figure reported by the BLS: 52 percent of all union members work for the federal or state and local governments, a sharp increase from the 49 percent in 2008. A majority of American union members are now employed by the government; three times more union members now work in the Post Office than in the auto industry.

This is a travesty. Unions are one of the main causes of budgets going into the red in states all across the country. The incestuous relationship between politicians greedy for union political contributions and unions donating to them in order to get ever grater pay and benefits (all conveniently cutting out the will of the voters and destroying good, fiscally responsible government) has about ruined this country.

The Heritage Foundation’s piece also details how these greedy, needless, corrupt unions are spending millions of dollars to campaign to raise your taxes. You see, without higher taxes, these greedy union thugs can’t continue to push their bought and paid for politicians to continue raising union pay scales, benefits, and pension rates — all of which are exceeding that of the private sector at this point.

Heritage writer James Sherk suggests that Congress reject union demands for higher taxes and should also reject “proposals to increase union membership in the government.” I’d go further. Governments, all governments, should make unions for public employees again illegal like they once were.

It may not be well known but public employee unions did not exist prior to 1958 when New York Mayor Robert Wagner (Dem.) first signed what he called “The Little Wagner Act” to allow city employees to collectively bargain with the government. A few years later, in 1962, President John Kennedy followed that with Executive Order 10988 that did the same thing for federal employees.

It has become wholly obvious, though, that unionizing government employees is one of the worst ideas ever. In fact, much as I dislike Franklin D. Roosevelt and disagree with the socialist policies that he foisted on America as “helping” her, I have to agree with him on public employee unions. He was against them because he clearly saw the conflict of interest that it would cause.

Our goal as American voters should be to work towards eliminating these destructive unions, not reforming them.

Previously:
For the First Time Ever Most Union Members Now Work for the US Government

"We know that the first step to reversing direction is to remove from office those that will advocate for growth in the size and scope of the federal government. Washington DC is broken and the only way to fix it is to send people there that understand the proper role of government and the power that regular citizens should have. We are dedicated to doing our part to help by letting every single Nevadan know what damage Harry has done to our State and our Country."

Muslims were upset that German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke at an awards ceremony today with Danish Mohammad cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.

Reuters reported:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel risked angering Muslims by speaking at an awards ceremony on Wednesday for a Dane whose cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed provoked sometimes violent protests by Muslims five years ago.

The 75-year-old cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, whose drawings of Mohammed that offended Muslims worldwide first appeared in Danish paper Jyllands-Posten in 2005, was due to receive a prize Wednesday evening at a conference on freedom of the press.

At a time of fierce debate in Germany over disparaging remarks about Muslim immigrants made by a central bank member, some Muslims criticized the center-right chancellor and the media said she was taking a risk by honoring a man whom many Muslims believe insulted their faith.

Aiman Mazyek of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany said in a statement: “Merkel is honoring the cartoonist who in our view trampled on our Prophet and trampled on all Muslims.”

“By having her photo taken next to Kurt Westergaard, Merkel is taking a huge risk,” wrote the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung before the ceremony.

“It will probably be the most explosive appointment of her chancellorship so far.”

The mass-circulation Bild, which has voiced admiration for Bundesbank member Thilo Sarrazin for depicting Turkish and Arab immigrants as welfare spongers who fail to integrate, praised Westergaard and said Merkel’s presence showed Germany “does not back down in the face of threats from Islamist fanatics.”

Radical Muslims blew up over the offensive cartoon.

Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba’s communist economic model doesn’t work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear of local issues since stepping down four years ago.

The fact that things are not working efficiently on this cash-strapped Caribbean island is hardly news. Fidel’s brother Raul, the country’s president, has said the same thing repeatedly. But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba’s 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba’s economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore” Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.

He said Castro made the comment casually over lunch following a long talk about the Middle East, and did not elaborate. The Cuban government had no immediate comment on Goldberg’s account.

But instead, we are out in full force not paying any attention to the EXTREME reaction to it, but rather the act itself.

The Dove World Outreach Center is a tiny cult church…50 people, burning some Korans. Big deal!

And now the MSM is running with the narrative all over the country that, “Hey, see, we told you mainstream America hates all Muslims” and “See, this proves all Americans are Islamophobes“. Have you seen the latest cover of Time Magazine?

Think about it…With the crazies at Westboro Baptist Church, we never had to have a conservative media blitz denouncing their horrible activities.  We ignored them. They are crackpots. They don’t represent us. They don’t even deserve to be dignified with an answer….And therefore, the MSM can’t “claim” that we are them.

Now we (the conservative media) are out in full force denouncing “Burn a Koran Day” by as if it’s Rush Limbaugh’s church or something.  What the eff?

Oh, and by the way, today it was discovered that the Dove World Outreach Center has ties to the crazy Westboro’s. What a shock!

Can we stop denouncing and start ignoring them?  No matter how stupid, provocative, retarded, extreme or radical the Dove World Outreach Center is, the story of the day is the worldwide Muslim reaction and not some tiny crackpot group who got lucky enough to get some press about burning a few Korans.

cross-posted at IAC

Barack Obama also told supporters today that the US can’t afford not to raise taxes.
…Especially after his disastrous policies.

Obama is the worst jobs president since the Great Depression. The Obama-Pelosi economic plan resulted in a cumulative 7.5 million jobs deficit. By every objective measure the democrat’s Trillion dollar stimulus bomb was a complete disaster.

Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi tripled the national deficit last year by nearly a trillion dollars – something unheard of in our nation’s history.

After an unheard of record deficit last year of $1.4 Trillion the economy is on track to experience a $1.3 Trillion deficit this year.

Instead of focusing on the economy the past two years the radicals in Washington beat up on business and rammed through an unpopular nationalized health care entitlement program.

Now Obama wants to raise taxes.
The AP reported:

President Barack Obama strongly defended his opposition to extending Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans on Wednesday and delivered a searing attack on Republicans and their House leader for advocating “the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place.”

Obama said the struggling U.S. economy can’t afford to spend $700 billion to keep lower tax rates in place for the nation’s highest earners despite a call by House Minority Leader John Boehner and other GOP leaders to do just that.

Speaking in the same city where Boehner, an Ohio Republican, recently ridiculed Obama’s economic stewardship, Obama said Boehner’s policies amount to no more than “cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations.”

Obama’s comments came as the administration rolled out new proposals designed to re-ignite a sputtering recovery, including new tax breaks for businesses and $50 billion for U.S. roads, rails and airports.

“Let me be clear to Mr. Boehner and everyone else. We should not hold middle class tax cuts hostage any longer,” the president said. The administration “is ready this week to give tax cuts to every American making $250,000 or less,” he said.