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Saturday, December 04, 2010

Congress Should Look At Reducing Federal Workforce ‘Across The Board,’ Republican Says

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) on Thursday declined to say whether salaries of federal employees should be cut, but he did say that Congress needs to look at “a reduction of federal employees across the board.”

For the year 2009, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that federal worker compensation including benefits averaged $123,049, which was more than double the private sector average (with benefits) of $61,051.

CNSNews.com cited these statistics in a question to Sen. DeMint and Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) at a press conference on Capitol Hill, asking whether they support a cut to federal employees’ salaries.

“I am concerned that more and more government employees are getting increases as Americans are having to sacrifice,” said DeMint.

“The president has made a good move talking about a freeze, but I think we need to do a lot more than that, not just to cut salaries but to look at a reduction of federal employees across the board,” said DeMint. “It’s not fair to come in to someone that was hired at one rate and say we’re going to cut it for political reasons. But I do think we need to look at devolving things out of Washington, cutting federal employees, and that’s a bigger discussion than what we plan to take on today.”

Rep. Pence did not respond.

Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis for 2009 also showed that the average salary for federal employees excluding benefits was $81,258 and $50,462 for workers in the private sector, excluding benefits.                          

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Heroism, Resilience… And Gnawing Questions

At midday on Friday, 25 hours after the start of the inferno that has taken more than 40 lives, forced 17,000 people from their homes and consumed vast swathes of the northern Israeli countryside, Israel’s pitifully under-equipped Fire Service offered the first real glimmer of hope.

“We do not have the fire under control, but we do have the situation under control,” said Hezi Levy, the Fire Service spokesman. “We have commanders deployed on the ground in all the key areas. We are properly coordinating our work, between the ground operations and the air forces. We have our priorities straight, focusing on preventing the blaze from destroying residential areas.”

Levy stressed that new blazes were erupting all the time, the battle complicated by the day’s fierce winds. “The fire is still spreading. I’m not sure we’ll put it all out today,” he said. “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen in 21 years, and colleagues with a lot more years of experience than me say they’ve never, ever had to fight anything like it.

“But,” he stressed, “we will beat it. We’ll fight it until we beat it.”

Fire-fighters from throughout the country have been fighting on raging hillsides amid clouds of thick smoke for hour after terrifying, vital hour. The fierce gusts of wind, sending flames leaping 20, 30 and 40 meters in unpredictable directions, mean this is constantly life-threatening work. Levy said some firemen and women have had to be pulled out of the field against their will by their commanders after hours at the front, simply to take a short break, rest, eat and drink a little.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu praised the “divine heroism,” the spirit of sacrifice, displayed by the fire fighters. By them and by the prisons service personnel, some 40 of whom who met their terrible deaths, burned alive on their stricken bus, as they dashed to try to evacuate a prison at risk from the blaze on Thursday afternoon. By them and by the Haifa police chief Ahuva Tomer, now in critical condition, having raced instinctively into the heart of the disaster. By other emergency personnel, some of them still missing and unaccounted for.

The army is deeply involved in the emergency effort. So too the air force, coordinating the air activity; the police; the various health organizations; Keren Kayemet LeYisrael. Diaspora Jewry is organizing assistance campaigns.

Such heroism, such willingness to sacrifice and such resilience have long since been a dependable characteristic of Israel’s response to emergency. It was emblemized, too, by the almost surreal sights and sounds of President Shimon Peres singing “Maoz Tzur” and other Hanukka tunes in a Tirat Carmel community center with families of evacuated residents.

Time and again, when required to pull together, this country has risen to the challenge. And the emergencies never seem to let up.

A second source of comfort, amidst a fire-zone described by eyewitness as “apocalyptic,” has been the scale and speed of the international response to Israel’s pleas for help. Often, in recent years, it has been Israel that stretched out a hand to other nations in distress, to the victims of natural disaster -- most recently to earthquake victims in countries including Haiti and Turkey.

This time the roles were reversed, and the international community has not failed us. Netanyahu, who has correctly placed himself at the heart of the emergency operation, began making phone calls on Thursday afternoon, and by first light Friday the first overseas respondents were already being deployed. From Greece came emergency aircraft, little yellow machines that fly out to sea, fill up with water, speed courageously into the thickest smoke to empty their tanks, and repeat over and over. By mid-afternoon, 20 airplanes were at work, eight of them from overseas. From Bulgaria came 100 experienced fire fighters, telling interviewers through their smoke masks that they felt “proud” to be able to offer assistance.

Cyprus, Britain, the United States, Russia, Jordan, Egypt and many more. They all answered the call, helping as best they could. France quickly dispatched an emergency load of fire-fighting materials. Alerted by Germany, which sent its own medical assistance, even our erstwhile allies turned vicious critics, Turkey, commendably placed the humanitarian interest above political frictions and sent help. “I greatly appreciate this,” said Netanyahu, promising, “We’ll find a way to show how much.” He even spoke by telephone with Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, their first such conversation since Netanyahu became prime minister, and said he was confident the interaction would yield a wider improvement in our chilly bilateral relations.

New neighborhoods were being threatened by new outbreaks of fire all afternoon Friday. Arsonists were arrested in at least two spots, viciously bent on exacerbating the nightmare.                             

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World Jewry To Raise Funds To Help Victims Of Carmel Fire

As flames continued to consume large parts of the Carmel mountain range in northern Israel killing at least 42  people and causing the evacuation of tens of thousands of local residents, Jewish organizations and communities around the world began mobilizing on Friday to provide relief for those in need.

The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), two of the largest Jewish organizations, already had people on the ground in northern Israel helping residents flee the flames and putting plans in place to help victims rebuild their lives once the conflagration abates.

"We are going to take 2,000 Druze and Jewish children - at a time of crisis we see no difference between Jews or non-Jews - on outings this week so that their parents can run errands and try to organize their lives," Yehuda Sharf, the head of JAFI social activities in Israel, said. "We've also helped around 100 families be evacuated to three separate locations." He added that after the mourning period ends, JAFI will contact the bereaved families and offer them aide that the government does not provide. At the same time JDC spokesman Michael Geller said his group will soon be accepting donations through its Website that would be used to help vulnerable segments of society in the areas affected by the flames.

"Immediately as the fire began we activated our emergency response team in northern Israel and they began reaching out with to the elderly and children," he said. "We're going to be looking at the areas that have been hit and offer rehabilitation to families, businesses and municipalities." The Jewish Federations of North America, which funds both JDC and JAFI, said that it is already in the process of raising funds to help their brethren in Israel.

JFNA spokesman Dani Wassner said Federation leaders in the US and Canada said some Federations leaders were being updated on the ongoing situation on the ground in the Carmel mountain range.                              

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No Opting Out Of Pro-Gay School Propaganda

If your child attends school in Vallejo, California, he will watch pro-gay propaganda videos whether you like it or not.

Forced by the ACLU to provide "mandatory diversity training" to students and faculty, the Vallejo Unified School District is now showing all students "anti-bullying" films produced by a homosexuality affirming San Francisco group called GroundSpark. Among other topics, the films discuss same-sex relationships.

"No one should take my rights and tell me what can be shown to my children," said Vallejo mother Cookie Gordon at a fractious Nov. 18 school board meeting.

"We do not feel that this is an area that students can opt out," school superintendent Floyd Gonella told KNTV after the meeting. He continued, "We feel this is an area we don't have to give prior notification." 

"There are six protected classes in California that cannot be discriminated against, harassed or bullied," said Pacific Justice Institute Chief Counsel Kevin Snider. "Religion, race/ethnicity national origin, gender, disability, and sexual orientation. The school district is showing three films, but the films don't protect all six classes equally, as the law requires." Snider contended that two of the GroundSpark films being shown, 'That's a Family' and 'Straightlaced,' are primarily pro-gay.

"One of the problems is that African-Americans who have seen the film shown to the board were offended and distressed by the representations of African-Americans, that they were drug addicts, broken families, inarticulate," Snider added. "However, in contrast, the lesbian and gay parents that were portrayed had much more information on them than other groups, and it was all extremely positive. There was no protection of religion at all."

"This is sex education because you have to be involved in sex to be a lesbian or to be a gay man," contended a second mother at the meeting. "Now what you do in your home, that's your home, but as far as me and mine, my children are not ready for this."

"Nowhere in the state law does it prohibit you as a school board from doing an opt-in policy," argued a third woman.

According to Snider, the school district has the authority to offer both opt-out and prior notification of the diversity sessions if it chooses to do so.

California law permits parents to opt out of sex education classes, but the school district denies that the "anti-bullying" films constitute sex ed.

"There is no formal opt-out provision in the laws. California law specifically excludes these areas from the formal opt-out provisions in the law regarding sex education. This is not sex education. It is education about respecting differences" said Tish Busselle, public information officer for Vallejo schools.

KNTV reported that in May 2009 the ACLU sued the district on behalf of an "openly gay" student who claimed she was being harassed by "teachers and staff." According to KNTV, "The student won the suit, and now the district is required to hold mandatory training, which include these videos, and some parents don't like it."

Busselle insisted that "there was no lawsuit," and claimed the district had simply resolved the dispute by reaching an agreement with the ACLU which included showing the films.                                   

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O'Leary: SPLC Aims Hate Crimes Law At First Amendment Freedoms

If you are a Christian who believes marriage should be between a man and a woman, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has a Christmas message for you:  Keep your religious beliefs to yourself, or risk criminal prosecution.

What else are we to make of the SPLC’s recent labeling of 18 Christian groups as “hate groups,” including the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Liberty Counsel, the National Organization for Marriage and the Traditional Values Coalition.

Their crime?  These groups represent millions of Americans and speak for tens of millions more who support traditional marriage and believe that homosexuality is biblically wrong.

I don’t use the word “crime” lightly.  Calling an organization a “hate group” used to be nothing more than a slur.  But in today’s America, such a pejorative may have serious legal connotations.

SPLC knows this, because in 2009 the group was instrumental in getting the Democrat-led Congress to pass, and President Obama to sign, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law.

The measure was passed as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. In other words, a vote against the hate crimes bill would have been a vote against funding our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such is the underhanded way Congress conducts business.

As I detail in my recently released book, America’s War on Christianity, this new law adds homosexuals and transsexuals to the list of uber-protected citizens under existing federal hate crimes law.

The measure effectively criminalizes any speech that may be “proven” to incite hatred that leads to violence against any of the special classes of citizens (homosexuals, transsexuals, etc.) who are protected under the law.

Many refer to the law as the “The Pedophile Protection Act” because, in the process of extending special federal protection to individuals on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, the majority in the U.S. House refused to exclude any of the 547 forms of sexual deviancy or “paraphilias” listed by the American Psychiatric Association, including pedophilia.

Nor would the majority agree to extend those same “enhanced penalty” protections to military veterans attacked because of their service, as happened in Little Rock, Arkansas, when a Muslim convert shot and killed a 24-year-old Army recruiter in June 2009, reportedly for ideological reasons.

Democratic champions of the bill claim a special provision in the law specifically protects “a person’s exercise of religion, speech, expression, or association” as proof the bill doesn’t eviscerate the First Amendment. However, this is intentionally misleading.                                 


Read more at the Washington Examiner

Financial Exec To Plead Guilty In Clinton Fundraising Scheme

A prominent New York financial manager plans to plead guilty to making false statements to federal election regulators involving tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, in a two-page charging document Friday, said Evan H. Snapper caused the Clinton campaign "unwittingly to file materially false reports" with the Federal Election Commission.

These reports showed that 21 unnamed persons had given $2,300 each to Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign when, in fact, Mr. Snapper "well knew" that the money actually had come from somebody federal authorities identified only as "Person A," according to the filings.

Mrs. Clinton now serves as secretary of state in the Obama administration.

Evan Barr, an attorney for Mr. Snapper, declined to comment on the case Friday.

Mr. Snapper is listed as a $2,300 contributor to the Clinton campaign, according to FEC filings. He disclosed his employer on the FEC filings as Anchin Block & Anchin LLP, an accounting and consulting firm in New York.                


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Our Youth Giving Back

Hi Joe,

Thanks for all you do for the community.

Just a quick note about the volunteers at the Salvation Army kettle at Crown Sports Center.

Our baseball family (the West Salisbury Little League) is manning the kettles at the north Salisbury Walmart.

Our youth soccer families are manning the kettle at Crown.  The teams doing this group effort are the U12 Ballistics, U12 TDFC, U6 Vaders, U10 Fruitland Falcons and the U12/U14 Fruitland Falcons.

Thanks again and Merry Christmas!!!!

Jeff Johnson.

HISTORICAL COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER

Dancing Around Town

How many of us remember the dances of our youth? Over the years new fads in dancing have been the norm in young society. I imagine that back in the 1890’s dancing was much more formal than it is today. There was no place that catered to dancing, and the only chance that boys and girls had to dance was the occasional event at Christmas time. I’m sure there were dances sponsored by a local church at Christmas.
          
When the Wicomico Hotel was opened in 1925, the entire seventh floor was a ballroom. Dancing had become very popular in the 1920’s, and the local guys and gals were no different from the rest of the country. This trend continued through the depression years of the 1930’s and provided much relief from the real world.
          
The Second World War really changed how the sexes intermingled on the dance floor. While the Charleston was considered quite risqué, it couldn’t hold a candle to the jitterbug. Even at my class reunions, there are some couples that can still jitterbug as good as ever.
          
There were places around Salisbury that catered to dancing. The most popular one over the years has to be the Northwood Bar (pictured above c. 1960). What began as an ordinary house was transformed by Winfield Dennis into the night spot of the Eastern Shore. Patrons would come from as far north as Dover in Delawareand as far south as Exmore on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Winfield was a man who couldn’t read or write anything but his name, yet he knew business and what people wanted. The place was packed every Friday and Saturday night. No doubt, it was the place to be.
          
Over the years, there have been many places that list themselves as “night clubs”, and most of them had a juke box for listening or dancing. Spots such as the Cozy Cabin on the old Delmar Road or the Log Cabin Service Station on Spring Hill Road (now Route 50 west) that advertised “dancing, beer, refreshments and soft drinks” were listed in the Yellow Pages in 1940. By 1950, there was only one listing and that was for Rick’s Motel and Bar on Foskey Lane in Delmar. By 1960, there are no “night clubs” listed in the Yellow Pages. I don’t know what they were listed under, but there were several places that catered to the imbibers with itchy feet.
          
When I was in high school, the local churches would sponsor dances on Friday night. The most popular was Bethesda. After a Friday night football game, it was really crowded. They also had a dance at the Fellowship Hall on N. Division Street which was under the auspices of Asbury Church. St. Peter’s had some dances in their Parish House basement. In all, the parents tried very hard to provide wholesome entertainment for the teenagers. Whether dancing or watching, everyone seemed to have a good time and they were always under the watchful eyes of the chaperones.