NY students suspended indefinitely for displaying Confederate flag

FILE: Jan. 9, 2008: A Confederate flag waves over the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol in Columbia.Reuters

Two Long Island high school students have been suspended indefinitely for allegedly bringing a Confederate flag to a sporting event.
Brother Gary Cregan, the principal at St. Anthony's High School in South Huntington, told WCBS-TV the boys walked into the after-hours sporting event with the flag draped around their shoulders.
"The African-American students who immediately saw it really exercised heroic restraint and fortunately a teacher immediately confiscated the flag and took the students out of the gym,” Cregan said. 
The two seniors were initially suspended for 10 days, but Cregan decided Tuesday they won’t be allowed back, the station reported.
Cregan wrote a letter to their parents, telling them that the use of symbols “designed to revive past injustices or to inflame discrimination or racial intolerance, is completely unacceptable and profoundly offensive," Newsday reported.
“I find it just very hard to even imagine why any student in 2014 would even consider or think that a Confederate flag would be anything other than a symbol of hate,” Cregan told WCBS-TV. 
While St. Anthony’s is a private Catholic school and generally not subject to First Amendment limitations, a New York Civil Liberties Union official said students be able to openly express their views, even those considered offensive.
“Our motto is more speech, not censorship or punishment,” NYCLU director Donna Lieberman told Brown told the station. “Helping children understand the impact of this patently offensive expressive activity.” 
Cregan said there are limits to students' free speech rights. 
“I certainly think this particular symbol of hate falls in the category of something that should be excised from our culture,” he said.
The students involved did not respond to WCBS-TV's requests for comment.

Feds accused of leaving trail of wreckage after Nevada ranch standoff

(Bailey) We the people no longer have any say or control of our Government.

The federal agency that backed down over the weekend in a tense standoff with a Nevada rancher is being accused of leaving a trail of wreckage behind. 
Fox News toured the damage -- allegedly caused by the Bureau of Land Management -- which included holes in water tanks and destroyed water lines and fences. According to family friends, the bureau's hired "cowboys" also killed two prize bulls. 
"They had total control of this land for one week, and look at the destruction they did in one week," said Corey Houston, friend of rancher Cliven Bundy and his family. "So why would you trust somebody like that? And how does that show that they're a better steward?" 
The BLM and other law enforcement officials backed down on Saturday in their effort to seize Bundy's cattle, after hundreds of protesters, some armed, arrived to show support for the Bundy family. In the end, BLM officials left the scene amid concerns about safety, and no shots were fired. 
The dispute between the feds and the Bundy family has been going on for years; they say he owes more than $1.1 million in unpaid grazing fees -- and long ago revoked his grazing rights over concern for a federally protected tortoise. They sent officials to round up his livestock following a pair of federal court orders last year giving the U.S. government the authority to impound the cattle. 
The feds, though, are being accused of taking the court orders way too far. 
On a Friday night conference call, BLM officials told reporters that "illegal structures" on Bundy's ranch -- water tanks, water lines and corrals -- had to be removed to "restore" the land to its natural state and prevent the rancher from restarting his illegal cattle operation. 
However, the court order used to justify the operation appears only to give the agency the authority to "seize and impound" Bundy's cattle. 
"Nowhere in the court order that I saw does it say that they can destroy infrastructure, destroy corrals, tanks ... desert environment, shoot cattle," Houston said. 
Bundy's friends say the BLM wranglers told them the bulls were shot because they were dangerous and could gore their horses. One bull was shot five times. 
But Houston said the pen holding the bull wasn't even bent. "It's not like the bull was smashing this pen and trying tackle people or anything," he said. "The pen is sitting here. It hasn't moved. No damage whatsoever. Where was the danger with that bull?" 
Plus he said BLM vehicles appear to have crushed a tortoise burrow near the damaged water tank. "How's that conservation?" he asked. 
The BLM has not yet responded to a request for comment on these allegations. 
Bundy has refused to pay the grazing fees or remove his cattle, and doesn't even acknowledge the federal government's authority to assess or collect damages. 
The bureau has said if Bundy wasn't willing to pay, then they would sell his cattle. 
However, there was a problem with that plan -- few in Nevada would touch Bundy's cattle for fear of being blacklisted. 
"The sale yards are very nervous about taking what in the past has been basically stolen cattle from the federal government," Nevada Agriculture Commissioner Ramona Morrison said. 
Documents show the BLM paid a Utah cattle wrangler $966,000 to collect Bundy's cattle and a Utah auctioneer to sell them. However, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert refused to let Bundy cattle cross state lines, saying in a letter: "As Governor of Utah, I urgently request that a herd of cattle seized by the Bureau of Land Management from Mr. Cliven Bundy of Bunkerville, Nevada, not be sent to Utah. There are serious concerns about human safety and animal health and well-being, if these animals are shipped to and sold in Utah." 
That letter was sent three days before the BLM round-up, which is why the cattle were still being held Saturday in temporary pens just a few miles from Bundy's ranch. Morrison says BLM was sitting on cattle because it had no way to get rid of them -- setting up a potential tragedy as orphaned calves were not getting any milk and feed costs were about to skyrocket. 
The showdown is far from over. The BLM says it will "continue to work to resolve the matter administratively and judicially," though Bundy still doesn't recognize federal authority over the federal lands that he continues to use in violation of a court order. The federal judge who issued that decision says Bundy's claims "are without merit." 
That order from October 2013 says Bundy owes $200 per day per head for every day he fails to move his cattle. That amounts to roughly $640 million in damages owed to the federal government for illegally grazing his cattle.

IRS considers taxing work perks like food, gym memberships

In competitive job markets like Silicon Valley, companies are doing everything they can to entice the best and brightest -- offering freebies that have become the stuff of legend. 
Employee perks like free food at lavish cafeterias, laundry and even yoga are not unheard of. 
But the taxman could soon crack down. 
The IRS reportedly is looking at these perks and seeing if these companies need to start paying up for the free stuff they offer employees. 
David Gamage, a tax expert and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said it would really boil down to who benefits from these perks. 
"To what extent is this intended as a perk, a form of compensation, for the benefit of the employee, or to what extent is this just another way the employer gets the employee to work harder and longer and do things for the benefit of the employer?" he said. 
If it's the latter, then it's harder for the IRS to tax it. 
The Wall Street Journal first reported that the agency is considering whether the freebies like food, shuttles, haircuts and more are really fringe benefits on which workers should be taxed. Some tax experts see the perks as skirting the edges of the law, and warn the companies may be violating it -- but also think it would be a very aggressive move for the already-busy IRS to pursue this when they have much more on their plate. 
Silicon Valley-based Clari, which has several dozen staffers developing cloud technology for smart phones, is one such company that offers free food -- to workers who rarely leave their desks. 
CEO and co-founder Andy Byrne argues that providing good, healthy food is a necessity, not a luxury, and that everyone benefits. 
"They win [because] they're happier, our customers win [because] they get a higher quality product and then our shareholders win because they see our momentum in the market. For a small company like Clari, the idea of taxing the perks would have a devastating effect, not only for the employers who would have to cancel the perk, but also for the workers who would have lower productivity," he said. 
IRS officials declined to comment for this article. 
According to Gamage, these perks have become a necessity in the workplace. 
"Tech is a really competitive world at the high end, in terms of employers recruiting the top talent, and employers have responded; not just by paying high salaries, but by providing all sorts of perks," he said. 
Even if the IRS does crack down on this perk, the high-tech lunch isn't likely to completely disappear. Legal experts suspect most companies will probably just report it as "taxable income" to employees and then pay them more in salary to cover the cost. 
Claudia Cowan currently serves as Fox News Channel's (FNC) San Francisco-based correspondent. She joined the network in April 2008.

IRAN

Carson: White House wanted me to apologize for 'offending' Obama

FILE: March 8, 2014: Possible GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson at the Conservative Political Action Conference, in Oxon Hill, Md.REUTERS

Conservative sage Dr. Ben Carson is claiming the White House was offended by his now-famous keynote address at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast and asked at the time for an apology call to President Obama -- which he didn’t make.
The anecdote is found in Carson’s upcoming book “One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America’s Future.”
Carson, who became a conservative sensation after the address, was highly critical of the direction of the country though he never blamed the president, who was sitting just a few feet away.
“He did not appear to be hostile or angry,” Carson wrote in the book. 
“But within a matter of minutes after the conclusion of the program, I received a call from some of the prayer breakfast organizers saying that the White House was upset and requesting that I call the president and apologize for offending him. I said that I did not think that he was offended and that I didn’t think that such a call was warranted.” 
The passage was verified Tuesday by publisher Sentinel, a division of Penguin Group (USA). 
Carson, a former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University, also suggests in the book he has no plans to run for president in 2016 unless called by God. However, he has placed third in two recent straw polls and is being courted by the well-funded National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee.

How much will ObamaCare cost you in taxes?

On this April 15, filers and accountants alike are finding a new array of taxes resulting from the president’s health care legislation. These include at least 20 ObamaCare-related tax increases totaling  $409 billion over the next ten years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
The new taxes are especially irksome to ObamaCare opponents, because they are imposed by a law that passed on a straight party-line vote and are being enforced by an agency that some accuse of party favoritism.
"I think it's rather unfortunate that the IRS has this huge role in the Affordable Care Act because it's always controversial," said Mark Everson, a former IRS Commissioner. "Then, to tie it up with this very controversial domestic law, it just makes the job tougher," he said.
"I think you can take issue with the way ACA was paid for. But, the fact of the matter is, it’s sustainable over the long run," said Yvette Fontenot , a former Senior Policy Director at the White House Office of Health Reform.
 "It slows health care cost growth for people. And it reduces the deficit, and it was in fact paid for. The Medicare prescription drug benefit that was passed by the Republicans added $400 billon to the deficit and not a dime of it was paid for," she said.
Among  the new taxes:
- A Medicare Tax Increase of .9 percent for individuals earning over $200,000 or married couples earning $250,000
-A net investment income tax of 3.8 percent tax on individuals, estates, and trusts worth more $200,000 or $250,000 for joint filers.
- And an increase in the threshold for itemized deductions for medical expenses from 7.5 percent  to 10 percent of gross income.
There are also new taxes on insurance companies, drug makers, and medical device manufacturers. Architects of the Affordable Care Act say those businesses can afford it, given the millions of new customers they'll be serving. "More people will have health insurance and be able to use their product more effectively," said Fontenot.
But one skeptic said the projected 10-year tax increases from ObamaCare are more than twice what the Joint Committee on Taxation forecasts. "It raises the costs of these things," said Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. "One of the promises of ObamaCare is that it will reduce costs.  These more than a trillion dollars in tax increases on health care raise the cost of health care and that's why you're seeing the price of health care, the cost of insurance, going up, not down,"  he said.
One study  by AdvaMed, a trade association, finds the medical device tax alone may put 45,000 jobs at risk. The National Federation of Independent Businesses  projects that new taxes on insurance companies may jeopardize another 125,000 to 249,000 jobs.
That figure does not include the man-hour costs of complying  with 20,000 pages of regulations.
The Fox News Taxpayer Calculator  breaks down the tax burden over the next 10 years by income level. If you make under $15,000:  it's just over $59.00. If you make between $50,000 and $100,000, it's $6,069.90. And if you make between $200,000 and $250,000, it's $38,200.66
Those  numbers appear to confirm  the observation  of Cato Institute Senior Fellow Michael Tanner that ObamaCare is "a wealth-transfer program with health insurance attached."

The Gettysburg Address, Esquire Political Blog, and Sean Hannity.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

(Bailey) There is a Blogger named Charles P. Pierce
 
  that works at Esquire Magazines political, that slams Fox news and Sean Hannity for covering the story of the Government showing armed force against one of it's own citizens, Cliven Bundy .

    Maybe Mr. Pierce should read the Gettysburg Address before he blogs his mouth off next time. If people like Sean Hannity & Fox News had not been there to cover this story, it would probably have ended much worst.

Eric Holder and the Race Card: The issue the media can't resist

April 8, 2014: Attorney General Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

When Eric Holder became attorney general in 2009, he declared that when it comes to discussing race, we have become “a nation of cowards.”
Now there’s plenty of discussion of race, some of it swirling around Holder himself.
In recent days, conservative critics have accused Holder of playing the race card to deflect criticism—while his liberal allies believe some of that criticism is racially motivated. It reflects a classic cultural divide in this country and in the media establishment.
Just days ago, I was questioning whether New York Magazine went too far in proclaiming that everything about the Obama presidency was somehow colored by race. The argument this time is over who’s responsible.
What set off the racial fireworks was a Hill confrontation between the nation’s first black attorney general and Rep. Louie Gohmert, who cited the House holding him in contempt two years ago over the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal.
“I realize that contempt is not a big deal to our attorney general but it is important that we have proper oversight,” Gohmert said.
“You don't want to go there, buddy,” Holder shot back.
Holder was steamed, and in a speech the next day to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, it showed.
Decrying “unprecedented, unwarranted, ugly and divisive adversity,” Holder said: “If you don`t believe that, you look at the way -- forget about me, forget about me. You look at the way the attorney general of the United States was treated yesterday by a house committee. Have nothing to do with me. What attorney general has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment? What president has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment?”
Holder never mentioned race. He didn’t have to. Since the AG and his boss are black, and he was speaking to a largely African-American audience, it’s surely not a wild inference to say that he was implying the attacks are racially motivated.
Factually speaking, Congress gave other attorneys general—Alberto Gonzalez, John Ashcroft, Janet Reno—a very hard time. John Mitchell went to jail. Ed Meese was investigated three times by special prosecutors. But Holder seems convinced that he has been singled out.
There is something about Eric Holder that gets under the skin of his detractors, who point to the IRS investigation, Benghazi and a litany of other cases. This lit the fuse.
“He should have been fired a long time ago,” Fox’s Bill O’Reilly said. “And I don't know what -- I don't care what color he is. Do you think that the House committee called him in and say, ‘Let's get the black guy today’? Is that what they did? Does anybody believe that?”
Karl Rove, a top Bush lieutenant, called Holder’s remarks “very unattractive whining and self-pity.”
But the view from the left part of the spectrum is very different.
Sharpton, on his MSNBC show, agreed with the AG’s assessment, saying that “a strategic reason that they`re going after Holder is he`s on the line dealing with voting rights, which a lot of them want to, in my opinion, suppress the vote. I think that this is the man what is holding his finger in the dike, protecting the rights of voters and that`s why I think a lot of the venom is going against him.”
President Obama, in his own address to the Sharpton gathering, blamed Republicans as “people who try to deny our rights” through bogus claims of voter fraud.
Charlie Rangel also chimed in: “If there’s anyone that believes the color of the president is not an issue, they’re not realistic.”
Are at least some people who can’t stand Obama and Holder influenced by the color of their skin? That’s hard to deny. But there are plenty of folks who are just unhappy with their policies and the way they do their jobs. Turning every round into a litmus test—“He played the race card!” “No, they’re prejudiced against him!”—isn’t terribly helpful.

Another Democrat suggests racism within GOP, drawing another sharp response

In this Sept. 3, 2013 file photo, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y. is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington.AP/File

New York Rep. Steve Israel said Sunday a significant part of the Republican Party is “animated by racism,” marking the third time in recent days that a leading Democrat has appeared to make race an issue and drawn a sharp response from Republicans.
Israel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, whose major role is the get his House members re-elected, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that not all of his Republican colleagues are racist.
“Not all of them, of course not,” he said. “But to a significant extent, the Republican base does have elements that are animated by racism.”
Israel made his comments after Attorney General Eric Holder testified Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee, then suggested the next day at a forum on civil rights that the past five years in Washington have been marked by "unprecedented, unwarranted, ugly and divisive adversity."
"If you don't believe that … you look at the way the attorney general of the United States was treated yesterday by a House committee," Holder continued.
The comment drew a sharp response from House Speaker John Boehner, who on Thursday told reporters: “There's no issue of race here. The frustration is that the American people have not been told the truth about what happened at the IRS.
“The American people have not been told the truth about what happened in Fast and Furious. The administration has not told the American people the truth about Benghazi. We've been going through all of these hearings, having to hold people in contempt because they've made it impossible to get to the documents. They have not been forthcoming.”
On Sunday, Washington Republicans suggested Democrats, at risk in November of losing more House seats and their control of the Senate, in large part over problems with ObamaCare, are trying to change the topic of public discussion.
“Dems are desperate to try to discredit conservatives because they don’t have the facts on their side,” the Republican National Committee said in a statement. “Holder tried to play the same racism card. … This must be the Dems’ latest strategy to distract from ObamaCare. Like their previous attempts, though, this one won’t work either.”
On Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi appeared to suggest race is playing a part in why congressional Republicans do not want to act on comprehensive immigration reform.
“I think race has something to do with the fact that they’re not bringing up an immigration bill,” the California Democrat said. “I’ve heard them say to the Irish, ‘If it were just you, this would be easy.’ ”