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A House committee held an important hearing Thursday morning on the issue of "libel tourism." That's the practice of bringing libel suits against American authors in other nations, particularly the United Kingdom, where First Amendment protections do not apply and where the burden of proof is placed on the defendant rather than on the plaintiff. Saudi Arabian businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz has brought several such lawsuits, winning a default judgment against American researcher Rachel Ehrenfeld for her book Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It, and forcing a Cambridge University Press to destroy copies of the...

While everyone is distracted with the Pelosi Reid Obama artery–choking, cardiac arrest, Pork Barrel Spending Bill, congress is sneaking-ly trying to pass the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. Left-wing environmentalists are behind this bill to purposely undercut current progress toward affordable domestic energy. Essentially they will be stealing 300 million barrels of proven oil and 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from any future use.

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE TO ALL AMERICANS - THIS IS NOT A DRILL! Good information to pass on to the sleeping public. It is preaching to the choir for most of you. Redistribute to the sleepers. 9+ States have now declared sovereignty... Add Washington to the list. In case you didn’t hear about it on the mainstream media (which you haven’t because they want to keep us asleep), numerous states are currently declaring or have already declared sovereignty, including: Washington http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?year=2009&bill=4009 New Hampshire http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2009/HCR0006.html Arizona http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/1r/bills/hcr2024p.htm Montana http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2009/billhtml/HB0246.htm Michigan http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?2009-HCR-0004 Missouri http://www.house.mo.gov/content.aspx?info=/bills091/bills/HR212.HTM Oklahoma http://axiomamuse.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/state-legislator-charles-key-wants-to-limit-federal-power California http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/93-94/bill/sen/sb_0001-0050/sjr_44_bill_940829_chaptered Georgia http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/1995_96/leg/fulltext/sr308.htm Possibly: Colorado, Hawaii, Pennsylvania,...

WASHINGTON - "Fore!" The federal government is preparing to spend millions to purchase a fleet of small electric vehicles that critics compare to golf carts. The $838 billion economic stimulus bill that passed the Senate yesterday contains $300 million for the government to purchase a fleet of "green" cars. But the money won't just go to buy fuel-efficient hybrids such as the Ford Escape or Chevy Volt. The cash also can be used to purchase "neighborhood electric vehicles." The NEVs, which resemble streamlined golf carts, scoot at up to 25 mph, operate on battery power and can be plugged into...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says Caterpillar's chief executive has told him the company will rehire some laid-off workers if the stimulus bill passes. The heavy equipment maker announced more than 22,000 job cuts last month as it scales back production amid the economic slowdown. During a visit to a transportation construction site just outside Washington in Springfield, Va., on Wednesday, Obama urged Congress to pass the bill. The House and Senate are

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the far left anti-gun group under investigation for voter fraud, could be eligible to receive millions, if not billions of dollars from the economic bailout bill that passed out of the House of Representatives. ACORN was an aggressive supporter of Barack Obama -- who had served as the group's legal counsel and even trained ACORN in "community organizing" -- in the presidential election. The Obama campaign even paid the group $800,000 for "voter turnout," the very activities that came under scrutiny by the FBI. In October 2008, ACORN's Las Vegas office...

Covertly slipped into GL Obama’s faux “stimulus bill” last weekend—by leftist Democrats—was the Socialist Universal Healthcare program. Contained within the bill is the provision that doctors will now be forced to report any and all of their patient treatments to the federal government for approval to treat. Also contained within this portion of Obama’s non-stimulus bill is the rationing of healthcare services to senior US citizens and the withholding of potentially life-saving measures. As Democrat Tom Daschle wrote in his book “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis” senior citizens “should be more accepting of the conditions that...

American Patrol Report Opinion -- February 1 The Senate passed a stimulus bill has $9.6 billion in aid for California's Medicaid system (medical care for low income families). The house version has $11 billion. The House version has $7.9 billion for California's education system. The Senate version has $4 billion. The fight between the House and Senate is over whether California gets $18.9 billion for schools and health care, or $13.6 billion. And there is much more for California buried in the bill. Illegal immigrants and their anchor baby children cost California about $10 billion per year and this is...

The Senate has passed an $838 billion economic stimulus package with a vote of 61-37. The Senate bill as it stands allows for the hiring of illegal aliens. The House and Senate will now confer to come up with a unified proposal that will then need approval from both the House and Senate before being sent to the President. Both the Senate Democrats and Republicans have named their conferees, which

Following Leon Panetta’s confirmation hearing Thursday, several reporters approached the CIA director-designate in the hallway outside room G-50 in the Dirksen Building. There, CongressDaily reporter Chris Strohm — upon asking a question — was physically restrained by a man who accompanied Panetta at hearings both days. Strohm, when reached by phone Friday, said he was unsure of the man’s role. “I felt this hand grab my right arm and push me aside,” Strohm said. By his account, Strohm told the man, “Please don’t touch me” more than once. Eventually, the man let him go. Tim Starks, a reporter for Congressional...

The current version of the Senate’s stimulus bill would provide about 300,000 jobs in the construction industry to illegal aliens since it does not contain the E-Verify mandate of the House bill. A Heritage Foundation study by Robert Rector used the government’s own figures to arrive at that figure. The Senate bill would provide about $104 billion in funding for construction projects, creating jobs for about 2.04 million construction workers over several years.

A citizen of India, Rajendrasinh B. Makwana attempted to sabotage the computer database at Fannie Mae. He was, according to news reports, employed as a so-called temporary foreign worker who had been authorized to work in the United States temporarily under the provisions of the H1B visa that had been issued to him. Here’s how this appalling situation can be summed up: This is the real threat to society, not the sinking of Fannie Mae. But the strange case of Makwana does bring up a number of issues. The main one is the use of H1B visa workers – and...

Our late colleague Jim Boulet last year unearthed the facts here and here and here on how the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) ‘localism' schemes could shut down or inhibit talk radio. Last Thursday, Ishmael Jones, nom de plume of a former officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) clandestine service, gave his take on the danger radio ‘localism' poses to free political speech in his American Thinker article "What the CIA's Censors Can Teach Us about Plans to Muzzle Talk Radio" here. Here is Ishmael Jones on this Administration and their possible ‘localism' approach to shutting down political speech on...

In what many see as a foreboding sign about what Congress and President Barack Obama will try to do with the so-called "Fairness Doctrine," Democrats are continuing their attacks on talk radio icon Rush Limbaugh over his opposition to what he has described as "Obama's Porkulus Bill." Radio and television ads are being launched by MoveOn.org and other organizations condemning Limbaugh's opinion that such government spending is wrong, and then linking Republican lawmakers to Limbaugh through their opposition to Obama's massive $1 trillion "stimulus" plan.

The Obama administration backed off Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s statement last week that China is “manipulating” its currency. In an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden said the administration has made “no judgment” on whether the Chinese have manipulated their currency, an accusation that would have international legal ramifications. “The policy of this administration is going to be to say to China, which occasionally the last administration was reluctant to do. `You're a major player on the world scene economically, and you've got to play by the rules that

This is great news, but I still wonder what took the FBI so long. "FBI Cuts Off CAIR Over Hamas Questions," by Mary Jacoby for IPT News, January 29 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm): The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has cut off contacts with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) amid mounting concern about the Muslim advocacy group's roots in a Hamas-support network, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned. The decision to end contacts with CAIR was made quietly last summer as federal prosecutors prepared for a second trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF),...

President Obama held a "very sober meeting" about the economy with 10 of the nation's business leaders at the White House Wednesday as the House debated his proposed $825 billion economic stimulus package. "They understand when it comes to rebuilding our economy, we don't have a moment to spare," Mr. Obama said of the chief executive officers attending the meeting. "They are looking for action from Washington, bold and swift." Mr. Obama characterized them as being "on the frontline of people who are seeing enormous problems in the economy right now" and said the economic difficulties were a reason for...

Former Vice President Al Gore brought a stark message to the Senate on Wednesday: A new climate change treaty is critical to continuing human life on Earth. The Nobel Peace Prize winner urged the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to push for a U.S.-brokered treaty in December in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the United Nations will host a climate change conference. Only the United States can lead such an effort, he said. “This is the one challenge that could completely end human civilization, and it is rushing at us with such speed and force,” said Gore, who won an Oscar for the...

The key players are now all in place in Washington and in state governments across America to officially label carbon dioxide as a pollutant and enact laws that tax we citizens for our carbon footprints. Only two details stand in the way, the faltering economic times and a dramatic turn toward a colder climate. The last two bitter winters have lead to a rise in public awareness that CO2 is not a pollutant and is not a significant greenhouse gas that is triggering runaway global warming. How did we ever get to this point where bad science is driving big...

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., criticizes mainstream media for not reporting loads of pork in proposed legislation. Is the new Obama administration taking cues from the Bush administration to get Congress to act? It certainly seemed that way to, South Carolina’s junior Republican senator, Jim DeMint. DeMint, speaking Jan. 27 at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., explained the Obama administration will “create crisis and widespread panic” just like its predecessor in order to get Congress to act expeditiously. “I’ve been around long enough to know whenever someone tells me I have to make a decision right now, my response is...