New York Gov. Cuomo pushes to exempt Hollywood from gun law

Another case of liberal doublespeak ... Guns are evil, but not when there's money to be made...

New York may have some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation, but government officials are scurrying to carve out legislative exemptions for Hollywood, to ensure the new crackdowns don’t apply to movie-makers.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is pushing to revise a January gun law so that movie makers and Hollywood executives could still use real weapons, rather than fake ones, in their shots -- even in scenes that take place on public streets, Fox News reports. The guns could not contain real ammunition, however.

“There’s no reason not to make a change like that to give an industry comfort, especially when it’s an industry we want to do business in the state,” said Cuomo, according to Fox News. “We spend a lot of money in the state bringing movie production here, post-production here, so obviously we would want to facilitate that.”

The governor also wants to expand tax credits for Hollywood. Movie and television producers have spent more than $7 billion in the state since 2004, Fox News said.

Originally posted here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/28/new-york-gov-cuomo-pushes-exempt-hollywood-g/

First lady Michelle Obama for Supreme Court?

Forget the Oscars. First lady Michelle Obama ought instead to set her eyes on the U.S. Supreme Court – as a justice, according to one very liberal columnist in the Washington Post.

“She ought to be under consideration for a seat on the Supreme Court, not recruited as a presenter in some Hollywood movie contest,” opined Courtland Milloy, a local columnist in the Post.

“Nothing wrong with telling kids to eat their peas or showing them how to Hula-Hoop,” he continued. “But after four years of focusing on the body, she’d do well to spend these next four on building strong minds. … Where is that intellectually gifted Princeton graduate, the Harvard-educated lawyer and mentor to the man who would become the first African American president of the United States?”

The time has come for the first lady to “raise her game,” Mr. Milloy added, and take on expanded roles in the second term.

Really? And she's doing such a great job telling us all what to eat ....

Original here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/for-michelle-obama-the-oscars-were-an-unbecoming-frivolity/2013/02/26/57d2105c-8050-11e2-a350-49866afab584_story.html

Rush Limbaugh on sequester talks: ‘I am ashamed of my country’

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh shocked his listeners Thursday with a blunt assessment of how the White House has taken control of the sequester message: “It just makes me ashamed,” he said.

“Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in my life, I am ashamed of my country,” he said, according to statements published in The Blaze. “To be watching all of this, to have my intelligence – all of us – to have our common sense and intelligence insulted the way it’s being, is – it just makes me ashamed.”

He made the statements in context of discussing the automatic spending cuts that will hit federal budgets at the end of this month. Congress and the White House are engaged in discussions to offset these cuts – and it’s like old times. The talks are the same that have gone forth again and again, Mr. Limbaugh reminded, in The Blaze.

It goes like this: First, President Obama paints himself as a Washington outsider, seeking only to benefit the average American, according to The Blaze. Then, the he points fingers at Congress – specifically, Republicans in Congress – for stymying his plans to help middle-class Americans. And then – the cuts he does propose are actually cuts in planned spending. In other words, they’re not really cuts at all.

“Here we get worked up over $44 billion,” Mr. Limbaugh said, according to The Blaze. “That’s the total amount of money that will not be spent that was scheduled to be spent this year. And in truth, we’re going to spend more this year than we spent last year. We’re just not going to spend as much as projected.”

The media is nonetheless drumming up mass hysteria over the supposed dramatic and looming budget cuts, he explained.

“It’s insulting,” he said, according to The Blaze. “I don’t know how else to describe it.”

Exactly. And for those who think these arguments are all new -- read Bob Woodward's, "The Price of Politics." It's a play-by-play of the same budget discussions that are taking place now -- only years ago.

Read original story here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/22/rush-limbaugh-sequester-talks-ashamed-my-country/

USDA workers caught in video chant, ‘Pilgrims were illegal aliens’

Watchdog nonprofit Judicial Watch has released video of U. S. Department of Agriculture worker caught on video at a cultural diversity seminar banging on tables and chanting, “The Pilgrims were illegal aliens.”

During mandated Cultural Sensitivity Training, USDA workers were also told to stay away from the word “minorities” and instead use the phrase, “emerging majorities,” Judicial Watch reported.

The group received the video via a Freedom of Information Act, made in May 2012.

Trainer Samuel Betances – a self-described “citizen of the world” who rejoiced on a Fox News broadcast of the video of the emerging majority of minorities – held the seminars on USDA premises, Judicial Watch reported.

Previously, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack had called for USDA workers to embrace a “new era of civil rights” and “a broader effort toward cultural transformation at USDA,” Judicial Watch reported.

See here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/15/usda-workers-video-chant-pilgrims-illegal-aliens/

See video and full Judicial Watch report here: http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/jw-releases-confidential-usda-videos-revealing-cultural-sensitivity-training-program/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

State of the Union stretch: Fact checkers find Obama skewed big on job numbers

 On jobs, President Obama did some fast spinning, State of the Union speech fact-checkers say.

Mr. Obama claimed that “after years of grueling recession, our businesses have created over six million new jobs,” he said, according to an Associated Press report. The truth?

Mr. Obama rolled back his job count to the time in his first term when job losses were at the highest level, AP said. But doing that, AP reported, leaves out the five million-plus jobs that were lost during his administration up to that point.

The facts: Since February 2010, private sector positions grew by 6.1 million, AP reports. But job gains since Mr. Obama became president stand at 1.9 million, according to AP. And once overall losses in the public sector are considered, the number of jobs created under Mr. Obama’s watch falls even farther – to 1.2 million, AP reports.

Other exaggerated claims, according to AP fact-checkers: Mr. Obama said, “We have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas.” More to truth, AP reported, that claim is projected to come true in 12 years.

And one more item of contention, when Mr. Obama claimed, “already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to reduce the growth of health care costs,” AP reported. Fact-check reveals that proof of these cost reductions have not yet materialized, according to AP. While some health care costs have eased, some experts say those reductions are due to the slow economy, and not Obamacare, AP reports.