Category: News

Quick Fact: Beck again falsely claims FDR, Sunstein were “pushing” to amend Constitution with “Second Bill of Rights”

On his Fox News program, Glenn Beck again falsely claimed that Franklin Roosevelt, in support of a “Second Bill of Rights,” “was pushing for a change to the Constitution.” Beck added that “progressives” like Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Director Cass Sunstein have “been pushing for the Second Bill of Rights since FDR,” and cited this as evidence that such progressives “know” that health care reform is “unconstitutional.”

From the January 11 broadcast of Fox News’ Glenn Beck:

BECK: [Franklin D. Roosevelt] was pushing for a change to the Constitution that included those things. Regulatory czar Cass Sunstein tried to resurrect that failed attempt at creating the ultimate government control in his book, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It. Again, the progressives know this is unconstitutional. That’s why they’ve been pushing for the Second Bill of Rights since FDR.

Fact: Sunstein said he (and FDR) “didn’t want to change the text of the Constitution”

Sunstein: “Roosevelt didn’t want to change the text of the Constitution,” but to create “a declaration which isn’t part of our legally binding text.” As Media Matters for America previously 9/8/04]

Sunstein said he shared Roosevelt’s view and was “nervous” about altering the Constitution. Sunstein also stated that Roosevelt’s “view of the Second Bill of Rights, which I share, is that what we should think of this as, is very much like Jefferson’s Declaration. Part of what we’re committed to, part of what defines our self-understandings, but we’re going to keep the judges out of it.” Further, Sunstein commented that “[i]f, if we are excited about judicial protection of individual rights, then we might want the Second Bill of Rights in our Constitution. I, myself, am nervous about that, because I’m nervous about the judges” and that “I’d much prefer that we recover this aspect of our history.”

Detroit is back!

At least that’s the message this week, at the Detroit Auto Show.

GM is re-opening factories and repaying some bailout money. Ford is on a roll, making money and winning awards, and Chrysler is, well, Chrysler.

In Detroit this year, they had it all: dancers, foreign automakers, hybrids, and of course, politicians!

Check out the scene here — >

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Jim Chanos: We’re Shorting Autos, China, And Commodities But Not Financials
• Detroit’s Unemployment Nears 50%
• GM China Sees Record Sales In 2009

Ex-FEMA Worker Charged With Stealing Katrina Relief Money
A former FEMA worker and her cousin have been charged in Mississippi with stealing $721,000 in disaster relief money, including allegedly diverting $58,000 directly from three victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Frank Supports Hearings On Fed-AIG Emails
Rep. Barney Frank said he supports hearings on whether the New York Fed, under Tim Geithner, improperly pressed AIG not to disclose key details about its massive federal bailout.

GOP Rep Launches Terror News YouTube Series, Warns Of Muslim Brotherhood Plot
Fed up with the mainstream media filter, Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) is taking her quest to inform Americans about the threat of jihad to the Internet — namely, YouTube — in a new weekly terror news video series that will be featured on her congressional Web site.

Rihanna is seeking a bone marrow donor for an Olympic hopeful battling leukemia.

The “Russian Roulette” singer received a letter from 26-year-old Seun Adebiyi, a Nigerian athlete who had hoped to compete in the 2014 Winter Games in skeleton sledding but was diagnosed with leukemia during training. Rihanna has promised to do everything she can to raise awareness about his condition and is working with Grey’s Anatomy star Justin Chambers find Adebiyi a bone marrow donor.

“Leukemia interrupted Seun’s dream of being the first Nigerian in the Winter Olympics, but together we can help him make his dream come true. We need to find him a bone marrow donor,” she said.

Giuliani “forgets” 9/11; hilarity ensues
The challenge facing the good ole boys at Fox News can best be understood via the old story about the Irish cop investigating a traffic accident.

Father and Son Ticket
As if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) “didn’t have enough problems, say hello to Rory Reid, his eldest son. Looks just like him. He’s running for governor of Nevada,” the Washington Post reports.

“It will be Reid and Reid atop the November ballot in this state, the father running for his sixth term, the son making his first bid at statewide office. So far, this double bill is not going so great. Each candidate is dragging down the other, to look at the polls and listen to the Silver State’s political oddsmakers. And neither is mentioning the other’s campaign.”

Daily Random Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

• 7 oz / 200 g can red kidney beans
• 1/2 green pepper
• 1 T vegetable oil
• 1/4 lb / 115 g tomatoes
• 1/4 cup walnuts
• 1/3 cup grated coconut
• 1 t tomato paste
• 1 T water
• 1/3 cup cooked rice
  

METHOD:
Drain and rinse the beans.

Chop the pepper and saute in the heated oil in a saucepan for a minute or two. Skin and chop the tomatoes. Chop the walnuts coarsely.

Add the tomatoes, walnuts, coconut, tomato paste and water to the saucepan and
stir well. Add the beans. Cover pan and leave the mixture to simmer on a very
low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve over the rice.

10 Good Reasons You Should Hate Oprah Winfrey
She’s an incredibly successful self-made philanthropist, yes. But she’s also a materialistic fat-shamer. And lest we forget, Dr. Phil is her fault.

She's an incredibly successful self-made philanthropist, yes. But she's also a materialistic fat-shamer. And lest we forget, Dr. Phil is her fault.

What Reid’s Race Gaffe Tells Us About Inequality
If we weeded out every lawmaker guilty of racial insensitivity, Congress would be empty. A far bigger problem is the structures of inequality reflected in gaffes like Reid’s.

If we weeded out every lawmaker guilty of racial insensitivity, Congress would be empty. A far bigger problem is the structures of inequality reflected in gaffes like Reid's.

Drumbeat to Boot Geithner Gets Louder, on Eve of Hearings on Disastrous Economic Crash
The Treasury Secretary’s pro-Wall Street policies, along with those of adviser Larry Summers, are failing. Time to give them the boot.

The Treasury Secretary's pro-Wall Street policies, along with those of adviser Larry Summers, are failing. Time to give them the boot.

10 Pounds Overweight? Got High Cholesterol? It Could Cost You Big Unless the Dems Fix the Health Care Bill
A little-discussed provision of the Senate bill allows insurers to penalize subscribers by hundreds — and even thousands — of dollars for not meeting certain "wellness targets."

A little-discussed provision of the Senate bill allows insurers to penalize subscribers by hundreds — and even thousands — of dollars for not meeting certain "wellness targets."

Heilemann: Palin ?regularly? said that ?that Saddam Hussein had been behind 9/11.?
In September 2008, then-Alaska governor Sarah Palin raised eyebrows when she appeared to link the invasion of Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks, telling “an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would ‘defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of […]

In September 2008, then-Alaska governor Sarah Palin raised eyebrows when she appeared to link the invasion of Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks, telling “an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would ‘defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.’” The McCain campaign claimed at the time that Palin “was referring to al-Qaeda in Iraq, a terror group that formed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and claims to be allied with the global al-Qaeda organization.” But in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes last night, New York magazine’s John Heilemann, who is a co-author of a recently released book on the 2008 campaign, said that Palin “regularly” claimed during the campaign “that Saddam Hussein had been behind 9/11.” Watch it:

The overwhelming diversity of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference: one woman, one person of color.
Today, the Southern Republican Leadership Conference announced that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had agreed to speak at its April 8-11 event in New Orleans. The conference bills itself as “the most prominent Republican event outside of a Republican National Convention.” Reflecting the Republican Party’s difficulty in reaching out to minority voters — despite […]

Today, the Southern Republican Leadership Conference announced that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had agreed to speak at its April 8-11 event in New Orleans. The conference bills itself as “the most prominent Republican event outside of a Republican National Convention.” Reflecting the Republican Party’s difficulty in reaching out to minority voters — despite the RNC’s election of Michael Steele as chairman — the line-up of confirmed and invited speakers has just one woman (former Alaska governor Sarah Palin) and one person of color (Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal):

– Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (invited)
– Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (invited)
– Texas Gov. Rick Perry (invited)
– Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (invited)
– California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (invited)
– Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin
– Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (invited)
– Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
– Fox News Host Sean Hannity (invited)
– Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (invited)
– Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (invited)
– Radio Host Rush Limbaugh (invited)

When Steele became RNC chairman last year, there were only five African-American committeemembers — including Steele himself. There are no black Republican members of Congress; the three Cuban-Americans, one Vietnamese-American, and one Hispanic American represent the caucus’ entire minority membership.

The Fix: Is Harry Reid the next Chris Dodd?
Lost amid the controversy caused this weekend by the revelations about racially-tinged comments by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) about President Barack Obama is the fact that a new independent poll shows the Nevada Democrat in the direst of straights in his re-election fight.

Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes is penning a different script for the world stage
In a scene from a recent HBO documentary about the Obama campaign, the candidate’s chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau, looks exhausted after churning out a victory address following the last Democratic primary.

Nixon aide Colson said The Post needed to curry favor with administration
Charles Colson, special counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, suggested in January 1973 that The Washington Post fire Executive Editor Ben Bradlee, pull Watergate stories off the front page or produce “obviously friendly editorials” on the Vietnam War as ways to prove it wanted to end its warfar…

Up to a Point, Mr. President
Michael Barone, Washington Examiner

Health Care Tall Tales
Robert Robb, Arizona Republic

Don’t Panic. Fear is al-Qaeda’s Real Goal
Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post
In responding to the attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day, Sen. Dianne Feinstein voiced the feelings of many when she said that to prevent such situations, "I'd rather overreact than underreact." This appears to be the consensus view in Washington, but it is quite wrong. The purpose of terrorism is to provoke an overreaction. Its real aim is not to kill the hundreds of people directly targeted but to sow fear in the rest of the population. Terrorism is an unusual military tactic in that it depends on the response of the onlookers. If we are not terrorized,…

Ryan McBride wrote:

[Clarification—1/12/10, 1 pm ET] Nadya Suleman, aka the Octomom, grabbed headlines this time last year when she gave birth to octuplets conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Now, Molecular Biometrics is grabbing venture dollars for technology that could help other IVF users avoid a similar fate.

The Norwood, MA-based firm raised $12.5 million in a Series B round of venture capital to begin sales of its product that identifies the most viable embryos produced in IVF, according to the company. The technology could help doctors reduce the number of embryos they need to transfer to the mother to produce a successful pregnancy—and fewer embryos should mean fewer women wind up carrying triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, or more babies.

Atlas Venture of Waltham, a new investor in Molecular Biometrics, led the new round of financing, and Atlas partner Peter Barrett has joined the company’s board of directors. The round also included backing from Boston-based venture firm Oxford Bioscience Partners and Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE:SFE), a Wayne, PA, holding company that invests in life sciences and technology firms. Oxford and Safeguard invested in Molecular Biometrics’s $12 million Series A round, which closed in fall 2008. The company, which earlier raised about $3 million in a seed round, has attracted a total of $27.5 million since it was incorporated in 2005.

Jim Posillico, president and CEO of Molecular Biometrics, said in an interview that the new financing will enable his firm to begin shipping its “ViaMetrics-E” system for sales in the IVF market in Europe next month. The firm will sell the system, which consists of a near-infrared spectroscopy device and single-use test cartridges, through distributors. The firm also plans to use the capital to ramp up an ongoing clinical trial of the product in order to gain the FDA’s permission to sell it in the U.S., hopefully by the first or second quarter of 2011, Posillico said. Molecular Biometrics will also use some of the new funds to produce its products through contract manufactures.

The potential global market for the IVF product—which is one of multiple uses for the firm’s technology—is believed to be hundreds of millions of dollars, said Atlas’s Barrett. “It’s a significant opportunity,” he said, “and all the thought leaders that we talked to said that anything you can provide an increased chance of a pregnancy, people will be willing to pay for it.” [Clarification: This paragraph was changed to clarify the estimated global market for the company’s IVF product, which Barrett says is  hundreds of millions of dollars, not $100 million, as we first quoted him saying.]

Atlas was drawn to Molecular Biometrics’s technology for the reproductive market because it allows doctors to test the nutrient solution in which an embryo is grown before being transferred to the mother, meaning that no cells from the embryo itself are required to gauge whether it is likely to lead to a pregnancy. The system also includes disposable test cartridges, giving the company the potential to receive recurring revenue from sales of the cartridges used in each spectrometry machine it sells (an example of the battle-tested “razor-razorblade” business model).

Another big plus is that the firm could be the first company in years to come out with a new way to test the viability of embryos used in IVF. Posillico explained that fertilization labs typically examine …Next Page »

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Small business owners aren’t optimistic yet, the latest monthly survey by the National Federation of Independent Business found. The NFIB index fell 0.3 points in December to 88. That’s up from the lows of March 2009, but has been below 90 for 15 months. “Optimism has clearly stalled in spite of the improvements in the economy,” the NFIB said.

NFIB Chief Economist William Dunkelberg added, “Continued weak sales and threatening domestic policies from Washington, have left small business owners with little to be optimistic about in the coming year.”

Highlights:

• Jobs: 10% of the owners increased employment (the highest reading of 2009), but 22% reduced employment (seasonally adjusted). Over the next three months, 15% plan to reduce employment (down two points), and 8% plan to create new jobs (up one point), yielding a seasonally adjusted net-negative 2% of owners planning to create new jobs, a one-point improvement from November.

• Credit: Regular borrowers (accessing capital markets at least once a quarter) continued to report difficulties in arranging credit at the highest frequency since 1983. A net 15% reported loans harder to get than in their last attempt, unchanged from November. Although “that is not nearly as severe as the financial distress reported in the pre-1983 period, 24 months of recession have sapped the financial strength of many small firms,” Dunkelberg said. Eight percent of all owners reported that their borrowing needs were not satisfied, down two points from November. The remaining 92% of all owners either obtained the credit they wanted or were not interested in borrowing.  Only 4% of the owners reported finance as their number one business problem (down one point).

• Profits: 54% reported lower earnings compared to the previous three months. Of those, 65% cited weaker sales, 4% each blamed rising labor costs, higher materials costs and higher insurance costs, while 6% blamed lower selling prices. Poor real sales and price cuts are responsible for much of the weakness in profits.

• Prices: 10% of the owners reported raising average selling prices, but 33% reported price reductions yielding a net-negative 22% (seasonally adjusted) of owners who cut prices in December. Plans to raise prices fell one point to a seasonally adjusted net 3% of owners, 35 points below the July 2008 reading. “The weak economy continued to put downward pressure on prices,” said Dunkelberg. “Widespread price cutting contributed to the reports of lower nominal sales.”

• Costs: On the cost side, the percent of owners citing inflation as their number one problem (e.g. costs coming in the “back door” of the business) fell two points to 2%, and only 3% cited the cost of labor.

Regular readers of this blog know that Surfray’s MondoSearch and Ontolica (search for SharePoint) products have a bit of a checkered past. First vendor MondoSoft went bankrupt; it was then sold to SurfRay; then SurfRay went bankrupt; then it was restructured to SurfRay 2009. But I’m happy to report that the Danish company now seems to be doing a lot better.

It’s now owned by a Danish venture capital outfit called Vækstfonden (a "government backed investment fund") with Vækstfonden’s Søren Pallesen as CEO. And even though the company went through several rough patches, it seems the revenue stream for its software remained  solid enough; the company claims its U.S. subsidiary kept turning profits throughout.

While that is promising for future stability, the vendor has remained relatively quiet on other fronts. Unsurprisingly, for some time no new products were coming out.

But it seems that, too, is changing: in the past few months new minor versions of MondoSearch and Ontolica were announced. MondoSearch is still going to need a lot of work before it’ll be up to par with modern offerings, but Ontolica is still a pretty good alternative to SharePoint 2007’s rather basic search functionality. It now also includes search analytics (previously a separate product), something which alone might merit a license — assuming you have sufficient resources to analyze and act upon the potential goldmine of search metrics.

As a company, SurfRay is now expanding beyond the Danish borders. Though it has always maintained a presence in the U.S. (and had a booth at last year’s SharePoint conference), we’ll now see an office here in The Netherlands, as well.

However, the elephant in Ontolica’s room, of course, is SharePoint 2010. Microsoft has finally addressed one of the oddest deficiencies: the lack of wildcard search. That’s always been one of the things Ontolica marketing pivoted on (for a while, you could get the free "Ontolica wildcard search add-on" as a teaser preview for the complete product.) So how’s SurfRay going to keep competitive, in between SharePoint 2010 and FAST for SharePoint 2010? Well, Ontolica 2010 has already been announced, and it offers many of the modern search interface features that SharePoint lacks, without adding all of the complexity of a FAST server.

While we’ll have to see whether Ontolica 2010 will deliver on its promises, SurfRay is certainly positioning the product in exactly the gap Microsoft’s coming line-up is leaving. We’ll be keeping tabs on how that works out, and sharing our findings with our Search & Information Access subscribers.

Industry’s first four-seat Sport Side-by-Side is here, thanks to Polaris, who recently introduced the first Robby Gordon edition, dubbed RANGER RZR 4. With an ability to carry four people, the vehicle is powered by a 800cc High Output Twin EFI engine and weighs just 1,255 lbs/569.3 kg, which means that it is lighter than many two-passenger vehicles.

Polaris saw a market for a multi-passenger Sport vehicle at a significantly lower price than an expensive Sand Car or Rail, said Eric… (read more)

Filed under: Recalls, Safety, Lexus, Toyota

From the “things that should probably already be there” file comes the announcement that Toyota will be installing brake override systems in response to recent incidents of runaway cars. Toyota North America president Yoshi Inaba told Automotive News that the system will force the engine into idle if it senses the driver is trying to apply the brakes unsuccessfully.

The Toyota Camry and Lexus ES350 will be the first models to get the new system, with installation beginning this month. Toyota’s effort follows on the heels of a massive 3.8 million vehicle recall to reshape and replace accelerator pedals. The automaker is attributing reports of runaway cars on floor mat interference with the pedals, though the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reportedly remains suspicious of other contributing factors.

[Source: Automotive News – sub. req.]

BREAKING: Toyota said to install brake override systems in all cars by end of 2010 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 07:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yvan Muller finally got to test his brand new car for the 2010 FIA World Touring Car campaign, none other than the Chevrolet Cruze he signed to compete on a few months ago. With Italian Nicola Larini announcing his departure from the championship following the 2009 season finale, the team found him a perfect replacement in the person of 2008 FIA WTCC champion and 2009 runner-up Yvan Muller.

The Frenchman competed the last 4 years in the FIA WTCC on Seat Leons (either petrol or die… (read more)