Via MRC TV:

On July 26, 2011, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois) was arrested outside of the White House after refusing to move when asked by authorities.

Gutierrez, who sat in front of a sign that read “Stop Separating Our Families” with a line of protesters, refused to leave when asked by the police. Gutierrez was in attendance at a rally urging President Obama to do more to stop the deportation of illegal immigrants.

Via NBC News’ Luke Russert

Allahpundit has more on the CBO score.

He’s a regular one-man Tea Party.

(POLITICO) — On the eve of a House vote, new cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office could pose a problem for Speaker John Boehner as he tries to rally conservative support for his two-step plan to raise the federal debt ceiling and avert default next week.

The first installment of $900 billion is contingent on enacting 10 year caps on annual appropriations which the leadership had hoped would save well over $1 trillion. But CBO late Tuesday came back with a report showing the legislation would reduce deficits by $850 billion when measured against the agency’s most current projections for spending.

At one level, Boehner is the victim of his own success, since that same baseline is $122 billion lower in direct spending because of concessions the speaker won in the April government shutdown fight. But that won’t help him much with restless conservatives and this could force him now to readjust the bill with tighter caps to meet his goals.

Kerry better hope this doesn’t turn into a trend.

(Politico) — The Navy Times reported last week that Navy Secretary Ray Mabus stripped the Silver Star from a Vietnam swift boat veteran, Capt. Wade Sanders:

“Had the subsequently determined facts and evidence surrounding both the incident for which the award was made and the processing of the award itself been known to the Secretary of the Navy in 1992, those facts would have prevented the award of the Silver Star,” [Mabus spokeswoman Pamela] Kunze said.

Sanders is now in jail on child pornography charges. But he’s best known as the man who introduced John Kerry at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and, ironically, vouched for the authenticity of Kerry’s service.

I’m positive the Obama regime has no problems with their two close allies teaming up to take down the evil capitalists.

(Big Government) — Newly created ACORN front groups across America have signed on to SEIU’s economic terrorism and sabotage campaign. ACORN, long associated with President Obama, is participating in the disruptive campaign through its newly renamed state chapters. Mortgage and student loan strikes, crippling bank boycotts, intimidation, and who knows what else are all on the agenda.

I reported on the emergence of the “new” ACORN groups in my new book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers. Although ACORN filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy last Election Day, its state chapters have been quietly restructuring under assumed names. Mortgage bubble generator ACORN Housing changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America while ACORN’s vote fraud factory Project Vote continues operating out of ACORN’s old Washington, D.C. office.

The subversive plan hatched by Stephen Lerner, an international board member of the radical Service Employees International Union, aims to destroy the nation’s financial system. Lerner is influential in leftist organizing circles and has reportedly visited the Obama White House at least four times.

After Greeks rioted over austerity measures, the stock market fell, Lerner observed. “The folks that control this country care about one thing: how the stock market does; how the bond market does; and what their bonus is.”

Lerner said a strategy was needed that addressed the following questions: “How do we bring down the stock market, how do we bring down their bonuses, how do we interfere with their ability . . . to be rich?” It is important “to politically isolate them, economically isolate them and disrupt them,” he said.

JPMorgan Chase is the first target of SEIU and its longtime allies at ACORN. Other Saul Alinsky-inspired pressure groups nationwide are participating in the effort, including the Alinsky-founded Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), National People’s Action (NPA), PICO National Network, and Alliance for a Just Society, according to ChaseHomeFinanceSux.com.

Keep reading…

HT: J.

(AFP) — A Taliban group in Pakistan on Tuesday burned a huge quantity of cloth taken from shopkeepers, saying it was too thin to be made into suitably modest garments, officials said.

The Islamist extremists stormed shops in Wana, the main town of the lawless South Waziristan tribal region, which borders Afghanistan, and made a bonfire of the cloth in a public area near the bazaar.

Shopkeeper Rahimullah Khan told AFP that at least eight armed men burst into his premises and took away bundles of raw cloth that they said was too thin to make respectable clothing.

“They said it was un-Islamic to wear clothes that don’t properly cover the human body,” Khan said.

A local official in Wana who declined to be named said the perpetrators were local Taliban, adding that shop owners calculated thousands of metres of material had been destroyed.

“The men confiscated big bundles of raw cloth which they declared was too thin to wear from dozens of shopkeepers in the main bazaar and burnt them,” he told AFP.

“They had warned shopkeepers almost a week ago to stop selling un-Islamic cloth. Today, the militants stormed the shops and confiscated the rolls.”

Taliban militants in Pakistan have often targeted shops selling music and films that they say break Islamic moral codes.

Isn’t this the same woman who cried during a press conference claiming she was worried overheated rhetoric could lead to violence?

(TPM) — Speaking to a crowd of union workers on Capitol Hill today, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi unloaded on Republican plans to lower the deficit through deep cuts to government services in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Frustrations are running high in Congress with the default deadline rapidly approaching, and Pelosi spoke with a fire that suggested the endless debate over the debt ceiling is taking its toll on her patience.

“This isn’t just about them saying we should reduce the deficit,” she said, adding: “This is an excuse. The budget deficit is an excuse for the Republicans to undermine government plain and simple. They don’t just want to make cuts, they want to destroy. They want to destroy food safety, clean air, clean water, the department of education. They want to destroy your rights.”. . .

“We all want to be fiscally sound,” she said. “We don’t want to do harm to our economic growth but we know that if we can save some money, we’d like to do that.”

The Republicans, Pelosi said, her voice rising, have something very different in mind.

“They do not like the government,” Pelosi said. “They’re riding an engine of popular support for, ok we have to reduce the deficit. And they’re using that to destroy.”

“The Speaker has said that between him and the president they have a different vision of America and that’s how come their budget proposals are different,” she sad. “Quite different. . . We get the sacrifice, they get the wealth.”

HT: Brian B.

Well deserved.

(Rasmussen) — Voter approval of the job Congress is doing has fallen to a new low — for the second month in a row.

Just six percent (6%) of Likely U.S. Voters now rate Congress’ performance as good or excellent, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Last month, Congressional approval ratings fell to what was then a record low with eight percent (8%) who rated its performance good or excellent.

Sixty-one percent (61%) now think the national legislators are doing a poor job, a jump of nine points from a month ago.

Most voters don’t care much for the way either party is performing in the federal debt ceiling debate. The majority of voters are worried the final deal will raise taxes too much and won’t cut spending enough.

Actually, yes we do.

(Weekly Standard) — The White House briefing room is often known as the place where news goes to die. Reporters try hard to get the press secretary to “make news” — or say something useable for their television/radio/print/web stories of the day. They often fail, in part because the job of the press secretary, in many respects, is to avoid doing exactly what the reporters in the room are trying to get him to do — make news. Every once in a while, though, there is an exchange in the White House briefing room that provides clarity on a major issue of the day. This happened today in an exchange between NBC’s Chuck Todd and White House press secretary Jay Carney.

Todd asked Carney about the White House’s reluctance to release its plan to deal with the national debt and raising the debt ceiling. Carney acknowledged the White House was playing games. “We’re showing a lot of leg,” he said. When Todd pressed for details — “Why not just release it?” — Carney seemed surprised. “You need it written down?”

What a difference two years makes. In the spring of 2009, with Republicans in the minority in the House of Representatives, the White House and its Democratic allies were demanding specifics. The House GOP had to produce an alternative budget, the White House demanded, in order to show that they were serious about governing.

Keep reading…

(click image for video)

Ed Henry, FOX News: “But over the weekend, Democrats were saying there’s going to be a drop if there is no action. Asian markets are going to crash on Sunday. It didn’t happen. American markets didn’t crash on Monday, hopefully they haven’t crashed — why should people believe. . .”

Jay Carney, WH press secretary: “You should go on the air and tell your viewers there is nothing to worry about.”

Carney now putting this guy to shame:

Just say it, Obama. You want the U.S. government to default.

Via WhiteHouse.Gov (PDF)

HT: Jay

Good for them. Boehner boned us last time and there’s every reason to believe this deal is the same.

(The Washington Times) — House Republicans do not have enough support to pass their debt-ceiling increase plan on their own, a top conservative said Tuesday as his party’s leaders tried to cobble together a coalition of Republicans and Democrats to put the bill over the top.

“There are not 218 Republicans in support of this plan,” Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who heads the powerful conservative caucus in the House, told reporters Tuesday morning.

That means Speaker John A. Boehner will have to rely on Democrats to pass the $1.2 trillion spending cuts plan — support Democrats’ top vote-counter said he’ll be hard-pressed to gain. Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer said “very few” Democrats will vote for the Boehner plan, though he acknowledged there could be some.

A vote in the House is expected Wednesday, and Republican leaders are trying to round up enough support to pass their version. They hope that if it can pass the House, that will pressure Senate Democrats to drop their alternative and accept the GOP’s plan.

Mr. Boehner’s bill would reduce future discretionary spending by $1.2 trillion, grant an immediate debt increase of $1 trillion, and set up a committee to work on trillions of dollars in future deficit reduction either through more spending cuts or tax increases, which would then earn another future debt increase. It would also require both the House and Senate to hold votes on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

But conservative Republicans in the House, many allied to the tea party movement, said they don’t just want votes on the amendment, they want an assurance it will be sent to the states. Mr. Jordan and other conservatives said they would prefer the Senate vote on the debt increase the House passed last week, that includes deeper spending cuts and requires both chambers approve a balanced budget amendment and submit it to states for ratification before any debt increase happens.

Because parents are too stupid to make their own decisions.

(Reuters) — McDonald’s Corp said on Tuesday it will soon tweak its children’s Happy Meals, reducing the French fry portion by more than half and automatically adding apples to the popular meals, after coming under pressure from consumer groups to provide healthier fare.

McDonald’s — which consumer groups say should lower calories, sugar and sodium in its meals for children — said that it would start making the changes in September and that the new Happy Meals would be available in all of its 14,000 U.S. restaurants by the first quarter of 2012.

The world’s largest hamburger chain also said it would reduce sodium, added sugars, saturated fats and calories across its entire U.S. menu by 2020.

“We are going to be casting our gaze more closely on portion management as well as how we can introduce more food groups such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains,” Cindy Goody, McDonald’s senior director of nutrition, said on a webcast.

The new child’s French fry portion will be 1.1 ounces, down from 2.4 ounces previously. The new child’s fry portion has about 100 calories, the company said.

The new apple portion includes a half-cup of peeled fruit and has no added sugar or accompanying dipping sauces.

The move will reduce calorie counts for Happy Meals by about 20 percent. As a result, the new Happy Meals will be well under 600 calories.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the race-baiting tree.

Via Naked Emperor News

The Humanist-in-Chief wouldn’t have it any other way.

(Fox News Radio) — A Texas lawmaker is calling for a Congressional investigation of the Houston National Cemetery after he went undercover and determined that cemetery officials are still preventing Christian prayers at the funerals of military veterans.

“The Obama administration continues to try to prevent the word ‘God’ from being used at the funerals of our heroes,” said. Rep. John Culberson (R-TX). “It’s unacceptable and I’m going to put a stop to it as fast as humanly possible.”

Culberson told Fox News Radio he attended a burial service at the cemetery under cover on July 8 where he said volunteer members of the honor guard from the Veterans of Foreign Wars were prohibited from using any references to God.

“The Obama administration had told the nation and me they were not interfering with the prayer said over the graves of veterans,” he said. “And I went undercover to personally verify that claim.”

V.A. officials have strongly denied they’ve banned any religious speech — and have offered support for Arleen Ocasio, the cemetery’s director.

Keep reading…

(Daily Mail) — Somalia’s al-Shabaab group has banned samosas after ruling the popular snacks are ‘offensive’ and too Christian.

Militant Islamist fighters last week used vehicles mounted with loudspeakers to announce the bizarre ruling across the regions of the war-torn country it controls.

The extremist group has offered no official explanation for the ban on the triangular snacks, which are commonly cooked up and served across the Horn of Africa.

The bizarre ban comes just days after militants linked to Al-Qaida in Somalia refused to let some aid workers into the country as tens of thousands suffered in the nation’s massive famine.

Aid groups including the UN Food Programme say they were not given permission by militants to provide aid in the country, where it has been warned that 800,000 children could die from starvation.

It is now thought islamist militants have taken offence at the three-sided samosa’s supposed resemblance to symbol of the Christian Holy Trinity.

Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper today reported that residents of the Somali town of Afgoye, 20 miles south of the capital Mogadishu, had confirmed the samosa ban had been imposed.

The fried snacks, usually filled with spicy meat or vegetables, have been served for centuries in the East African country.

But the newspaper said locals believed al-Shabaab leaders had decided the triangular shape was not compatible with their strict version of Islam.

Assploding irony.

(Financial Times) — George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund manager best known for defeating the Bank of England on “Black Wednesday” in 1992, is to close his Quantum fund to outside investors and hand back the remaining outside capital.

Blaming the requirement under new financial regulations to register next year with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the fund will continue to manage around $24.5bn of family money.

“An unfortunate consequence of these new circumstances is that we will no longer be able to manage assets for anyone other than a family client as defined under the regulations”, Jonathan and Robert Soros, his sons who are co-deputy chairmen of the fund, wrote in a letter to investors on Tuesday.

Keep reading…

There’s a special place in hell reserved for these sub-human scumbags.

(Fox News/Michael Yon) — Over the past several days there have been news stories here in Afghanistan about the Taliban strangling an 8-year-old boy. The reports say that his father refused to turn over a police vehicle to the enemy, and so they murdered his son. Late last night, a courageous Afghan journalist named Mustafa Kazemi emailed an image of the boy that Mustafa said had been murdered. Afghans are enraged. They hate this behavior as much as we do. The boy appears to have had his eyes gouged out before being strangled to death.

And so last night I walked to the Headquarters of 4-4CAV here in Zhari District, the most active district in Afghanistan at this time. I asked what was going on tonight. A noncommissioned officer filled me in on the day’s events. We had been in a minor ambush resulting in a slight injury and a damaged MRAP, so I knew about that one. But then he explained about a boy whom he said the Taliban forced to step on an IED just down the road from here. Apparently, according to Afghans, the Taliban may have been testing a new bomb made from a soda bottle. The boy’s name is Jalil, and our people estimate that Jalil is 6 to 8-years-old. Jalil was picking grapes with his brother when the Taliban, according to reporting, told the boy to step on the bomb. It blew off his right leg below the knee, leaving hamburger on the stump, and fractured his femur. Afghans brought Jalil to the nearby American base called COP Kolk, where 4-4CAV Soldiers treated him. A helicopter took Jalil and his father to Kandahar Airfield for advanced treatment.

Click here to view the image. (Warning: Graphic content)

Related: 8-Year-Old Boy Is Hanged by the Taliban