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Detroit officials bristle at UN visit, scolding over water shut-offs

Detroit officials are fuming after two visiting United Nations lawyers scolded the city for cutting off water to delinquent customers and described the shut-offs as a “human rights” violation. 
The response follows a three-day visit to Detroit -- which desperately is trying to bail itself out of bankruptcy -- from two representatives with the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“It is contrary to human rights to disconnect water from people who simply do not have the means to pay their bills,” Catarina de Albuquerque, one of the two representatives, said Monday at the conclusion of their visit. 
“I heard testimonies from poor, African American residents of Detroit who were forced to make impossible choices -- to pay the water bill or to pay their rent.”
But the mayor's office blasted the U.N. review as one-sided. Alexis Wiley, Mayor Mike Duggan’s top aide, said the city is "very disappointed" with them. 
"They weren't interested in the facts," she said. "They took a position and never once [before Monday] reached out to the city for data."
The policy change shuts off water to businesses and residents who either are 60 days past due or owe more than $150.
Detroit -- the country's largest municipality to file for bankruptcy -- reports making 27,000 shut-offs from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30.
Most shut-offs were halted for several weeks this summer to give residents an opportunity to enter a payment plan, but they have resumed with 5,100 shut-offs in September alone.
Detroit officials have defended the decision, arguing that customers collectively owed more than $115 million in delinquent water-and-sewer department payments before the city took action and that their efforts are improving the situation.
The department said it collected about $2.5 million in 2012 and 2013 and about $3.7 million in the first nine months of this year.
Ordinary residents aren't the only ones subject to the policy. Service was shut off to one city council member. And an investigation by a local news organization found city officials have collected on the more than $80,000 owed by the Joe Louis Arena, home of the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings, and roughly $55,000 past due from Ford Field, where the NFL’s Detroit Lions play home games.
Wiley also said Detroit is helping residents by improving customer service, getting 33,000 people in the payment plans and cutting residential calls for water assistance by more than 50 percent.
De Albuquerque and the other representative, Leilani Farha, visited Detroit after activists appealed to the U.N. for assistance. Among them was the American Civil Liberties Union, whose Michigan director Kary Moss said: "It's unfortunate that, in the Great Lakes State, we need a visit from an international body to remind us of our most fundamental obligation to our citizens. Water is life." 
The representatives met with residents and with Duggan and water department officials for about two hours Monday morning.
De Albuquerque and Farha, also known as U.N. special rapporteurs, cited such other problems as the city’s drastic population decline, rising unemployment and the utility passing on higher costs associated with an aging system.
De Albuquerque said she has seen shut-offs in other U.S. cities and developed nations, but nothing like Detroit. "Our conclusion is that you have here in Detroit a man-made perfect storm," she said. "The scale of the disconnections in the city is unprecedented."
De Albuquerque and Farha say the mayor’s plan to help delinquent customers fails to help the chronically poor and those who face shut-offs. Farha also said at least some residents said their past-due bills were the result of city billing or accounting errors.
However, they called their conversation with Detroit officials "constructive." They also said they can't enforce recommendations but want to help the city and residents resolve the situation.
Some advocates took the issue to federal court, but the judge overseeing Detroit's municipal bankruptcy trial ruled last month he lacked authority to force the utility to stop the shut-offs.

$10G to watch grass grow: Coburn report details worst examples of gov't waste

As American taxpayers worried about the terror threat from the Islamic State, the crisis at the border and the economy, the U.S. government spent their money to give rabbits massages, to teach sea monkeys to synchronize swim and to literally watch grass grow.
These and other examples of wasteful government spending were detailed by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn in his annual “Wastebook,” his final edition since he is retiring early next year.
“I have learned from these experiences that Washington will never change itself,” Coburn, R-Okla., said in a statement. “But even if the politicians won’t stop stupid spending, taxpayers always have the last word.”
The first example cited in the report is the millions spent on what one attorney called the government’s “dirty little secret”: paid administrative leave for troublesome employees. Workers who were placed on leave for disciplinary reasons, such as misconduct, security concerns or criminal issues, received $20 million while on leave this year.
These workers, according to Coburn, were essentially on a paid vacation that can last for months or years. The GAO also detailed this phenomenon in a report Monday. According to the GAO, during a three-year period more than 57,000 employees were placed on leave for 30 days or more, costing taxpayers $775 million in salary alone.
Another wasteful project with a big price tag is the Pentagon’s plan to destroy $16 billion in military-grade ammunition that it deems no longer useful. Sounds pricey, right? Well add in the fact that on top of that, the feds plan to spend $1 billion just to destroy the ammo.
“The amount of surplus ammunition is now so large that the cost of destroying it will equal the full years’ salary for over 54,000 Army privates,” the report notes.
Other examples vary from the serious, to the aggravating, to just plain bizarre. One that takes the cake is the $10,000 the government spent to watch grass grow --- seriously.
That project is the brainchild of the Department of Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is paying for the growth of the smooth cordgrass to be observed on a Florida reserve. The money covers “the cost to monitor grasses, restore two acres as a demonstration and publish a guide on best practices for cultivating the cordgrass, known formally as Spartina alterniflora.”
Still more examples show that while some Americans are struggling to make ends meet in a rough economy, there is a group in the U.S. getting major perks: animals.
In one instance, the government shelled out $387,000 to provide rabbits with a relaxing daily massage. The critters were treated to a “mechanical device that simulates the long, flowing strokes used in Swedish massages” to study the effect of massages on exercise recovery, according to the report.
Another animal getting a fun extracurricular activity courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers are sea monkeys. The government dropped $50,000 on a project to study the swirl of sea monkeys’ collective movements. The researchers did so by choreographing a synchronized swimming routine for the tiny shrimp.
The government also spent $856,000 to throw mountain lions on a treadmill and $171,000 to watch monkeys gamble. They also spent $331,000 on a study that led to a mind-blowing discovery, that "hungry people get cranky and aggressive."
“With no one watching over the vast bureaucracy, the problem is not just what Washington isn’t doing, but what it is doing.” Coburn said in the statement. “Only someone with too much of someone else’s money and not enough accountability for how it was being spent could come up some of these projects.”
Other notable examples include $90 million spent to promote U.S. culture around the world, $414,000 spent on a U.S. Army video game that some in the intelligence community have worried could inadvertently train terrorists and $4.6 million spent on “lavish” homes to house Border Patrol agents in areas temporarily.
Coburn, known as “Dr. No” for his strong stance against excess spending in Washington, announced in January he is retiring from the Senate early due to ongoing health issues. The Republican had already announced he would not seek reelection but decided to leave his term two years early, in January 2014.
A Coburn spokesperson told FoxNews.com that the senator has said that answers about if and how the “Wastebook” will continue will have to wait until next year. The spokesperson said Coburn hopes every lawmaker will make monitoring government waste a priority, but that one does not have to be a current lawmaker to do so.'

US working closely with Kurds to save Kobani, report says

U.S. and Kurdish commanders are collaborating closely to ensure that the Syrian border town of Kobani does not fall to Islamic State militants, in a change of earlier policy, according to a published report. 
According to The Wall Street Journal, U.S. and Syrian Kurdish military leaders are coordinating air and ground operations around Kobani, with one Kurdish general even helping to spot targets for U.S. airstrikes and delivering battlefield intelligence reports daily to American military planners. 
The extent of this new cooperation was demonstrated earlier this week, when American C-130s made 28 separate airdrops of weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies to Kurdish forces fighting to hold the city. The Journal reports that the planned airdrops were presented this past Friday to President Obama, who gave the operation immediate approval. According to the paper, the airdrops were proposed after an assessment that Kobani's defenders could run out of ammunition in as little as three days without them. 
The weapons were Kurdish arms, shipped from Irbil in Iraq to Kuwait, where U.S. soldiers sorted them into drop-ready packages, the Journal reports. 
In addition to revealing the close cooperation between Washington and the Syrian Kurdish forces, the airdrops also reveal a change in U.S. goals for the airstrikes that have targeted Islamic State fighters in Syria for the past month. 
Initially, the Journal reports, the goal of striking positions near Kobani was purely to kill as many members of Islamic State, also known as ISIS, as possible. On Friday, the same day the supply drops reportedly were proposed at the White House, Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, head of U.S. Central Command, cautioned reporters at a Pentagon news conference that "it's highly possible that Kobani may fall." Meanwhile, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the ISIS focus on Kobani had created "a rather target-rich environment ... for American and coalition air strikes."
However, that changed as ISIS came close to capturing the town, forcing the Kurdish fighters into a desperate battle as thousands of refugees made a run for the Turkish border just a few miles away.
"By stopping them, and by doing tremendous damage to them, you begin to blunt the sense of momentum, particularly in Syria," a senior defense official told the Journal. Another senior U.S. official put it more bluntly: "This is a war of flags. And Kobani was the next place Islamic State wanted to plant its flag ... Kobani became strategic."
Meanwhile, Turkey Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Monday that it would allow Syrian Kurdish refugees to cross through Turkish territory on their way to Kobani from Iraq to fight ISIS. However, The paper reports that no such forces had arrived as of Tuesday.

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City threatens to arrest ministers who refuse to perform same-sex weddings

Two Christian ministers who own an Idaho wedding chapel were told they had to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to a $1,000 fine, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court.
Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Donald and Evelyn Knapp, ordained ministers who own the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene.
“Right now they are at risk of being prosecuted,” their ADF attorney, Jeremy Tedesco, told me. “The threat of enforcement is more than just credible.”

“The Knapps are in fear that if they exercise their First Amendment rights they will be cited, prosecuted and sent to jail.”- Alliance Defending Freedom attorney, Jeremy Tedesco

According to the lawsuit, the wedding chapel is registered with the state as a “religious corporation” limited to performing “one-man-one-woman marriages as defined by the Holy Bible.”
But the chapel is also registered as a for-profit business – not as a church or place of worship – and city officials said that means the owners must comply with a local nondiscrimination ordinance.
That ordinance, passed last year, prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, and it applies to housing, employment and public accommodation.
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City Attorney Warren Wilson told The Spokesman-Review in May that the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel likely would be required to follow the ordinance.
“I would think that the Hitching Post would probably be considered a place of public accommodation that would be subject to the ordinance,” he said.
He also told television station KXLY that any wedding chapel that turns away a gay couple would in theory be violating the law, “and you’re looking at a potential misdemeanor citation.” 
Wilson confirmed to Knapp my worst fear -- that even ordained ministers would be required to perform same-sex weddings.
“Wilson also responded that Mr. Knapp was not exempt from the ordinance because the Hitching Post was a business and not a church,” the lawsuit states.
And if he refused to perform the ceremonies, Wilson reportedly told the minister that he could be fined up to $1,000 and sentenced to up to 180 days in jail.
Now all of that was a moot point because, until last week, gay marriage was not legal in Idaho.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an order on May 13 allowing same-sex marriages to commence in Idaho on Oct. 15. Two days later, the folks at the Hitching Post received a telephone call.
A man had called to inquire about a same-sex wedding ceremony. The Hitching Post declined, putting it in violation of the law.
City officials did not respond to my requests for an interview, nor did they respond to requests from local news outlets.
“The government should not force ordained ministers to act contrary to their faith under threat of jail time and criminal fines,” Tedesco said.
“The city is on seriously flawed legal ground, and our lawsuit intends to ensure that this couple’s freedom to adhere to their own faith as pastors is protected, just as the First Amendment intended.”
Alliance Defending Freedom also filed a temporary restraining order to stop the city from enforcing the ordinance.
“The Knapps are in fear that if they exercise their First Amendment rights they will be cited, prosecuted and sent to jail,” Tedesco told me.
It’s hard to believe this could happen in the United States. But as the lawsuit states, the Knapps are in a “constant state of fear that they may have to go to jail, pay substantial fines, or both, resulting in them losing the business that God has called them to operate and which they have faithfully operated for 25 years.”
The lawsuit came the same week that the city of Houston issued subpoenas demanding that five Christian pastors turn over sermons dealing with homosexuality and gender identity.
What in heaven’s name is happening to our country, folks? I was under the assumption that churches and pastors would not be impacted by same-sex marriage.
“The other side insisted this would never happen – that pastors would not have to perform same-sex marriages,” Tedesco told me. “The reality is – it’s already happening.”
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told me it’s “open season on Americans who refuse to bow to the government’s redefinition of marriage.”
“Americans are witnesses to the reality that redefining marriage is less about the marriage altar and more about fundamentally altering the freedoms of the other 98 percent of Americans,” Perkins said.
Why should evangelical Christian ministers be forced to perform and celebrate any marriage that conflicts with their beliefs?
“This is the brave new world of government-sanctioned same-sex unions – where Americans are forced to celebrate these unions regardless of their religious beliefs,” Perkins told me.
As I write in my new book, “God Less America,” we are living in a day when those who support traditional marriage are coming under fierce attack. 
The incidents in Houston and now in Coeur d’Alene are the just the latest examples of a disturbing trend in the culture war – direct attacks on clergy.
“Government officials are making clear they will use their government power to punish those who oppose the advances of homosexual activists,” Perkins said.
I’m afraid Mr. Perkins is absolutely right.
No one should be discriminated against but have you noticed that any time a city passes a “nondiscrimination” ordinance, it’s the Christians who wind up being discriminated against?

Dem candidate Nunn uses HW Bush image in campaign ad -- despite being warned

WASHINGTON –  Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn once again has used former President George H.W. Bush’s image to push her own Senate bid, despite repeatedly being asked by the 41st president not to do that. 
Bush already endorsed Nunn's Republican opponent, David Perdue, and his office is not happy about Nunn defying his wishes again. 
Nunn’s new ad is meant to respond to Perdue's narrative that she is a President Obama lackey. The ad, which began airing Saturday, tries to explain a photo the Perdue camp has used of her standing next to the sitting president. The picture was taken at an Oct. 16, 2009, event that Nunn and Obama attended.
Nunn’s new 30-second ad starts off with the same picture that Perdue uses in his ads. In the ad, Nunn asks, “Have you seen this picture? It’s the one David Perdue has used to try and attack me in this campaign. But what he doesn’t tell you is that it was taken at an event honoring President [H.W.] Bush, who I worked for as CEO of his Points of Life Foundation.” 
The ad then shows an image of Nunn next to the 41st president. (Nunn, as noted in the ad, previously ran the Points of Light Foundation alongside Neil Bush, the ex-president's son, for several years.) 
Bush spokesman Jim McGrath made clear that the former president did not approve that message. 
“Michelle and her team have been clearly, repeatedly and consistently told that President Bush did not want them to use his photo as part of this campaign,” McGrath said in an email to FoxNews.com. “Apparently, the Nunn team feels they can repeatedly disregard the former president’s wishes, which is very disappointing because it’s so disrespectful.”
This is not the first time Bush 41 has emerged as an issue in the Georgia Senate race. 
Earlier in the campaign season, Perdue aired ads claiming the foundation previously led by Nunn and founded by Bush gave money to organizations linked to terrorists.
The ad triggered a feud of sorts between the Perdue camp and the president’s son, Neil Bush, who is the current chairman of the Points of Light Foundation. The younger Bush called the allegations “ridiculous.” 
"Neither Points of Light nor Michelle Nunn have had anything to do with funneling money from our organization to terrorist organizations," Neil Bush said in an interview at the time with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 
The office of George H.W. Bush, though, did not speak out against the ad. 
McGrath has criticized Nunn before, saying that she did not have permission to use the president’s photos in any of her campaign ads and that Bush’s objections had been privately communicated to Nunn’s camp. 
The Georgia Senate race is one of the most competitive in the country. Nunn and Perdue have been trading the lead in the polls; an average of polling from Real Clear Politics shows the race virtually tied. 
Democratic groups have turned their attention to the Georgia Senate race and recently allocated another $1 million in television ads for Nunn.
Both candidates come from political families.
Nunn is the daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn – a conservative Democrat who served as Georgia’s senator from 1972-1997. Perdue’s cousin, Sonny Perdue, served as a state senator for more than a decade and was governor of Georgia from 2003 until 2011.
Calls to Nunn’s campaign headquarters for comment were not immediately returned.

Ebola ‘czar’ to skip House hearing, aide says

America's newly appointed Ebola ‘czar’ is not yet in the House — at least not the ones on Pennsylvania Avenue or Capitol Hill.
Ron Klain, appointed last Friday by President Obama to direct the nation's response to the Ebola crisis, sent his regrets Monday to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which had invited him to testify this Friday, a committee aide told Fox News.
Klain was invited to join Defense and Health and Human Services department officials also slated to testify at the hearing.
“The White House has informed us that he has not yet officially started and will not be able to attend Friday,” the committee aide told Fox News.
Klain, a former chief of staff to vice presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden, has yet to formally start his new assignment — though he was spotted on the White House campus on Saturday. Fox News was told, however, that he did not meet with the president – and was not part of an all-hands-on-deck Ebola meeting that same day.
He is expected to start sometime this week.
Despite bipartisan calls for an Ebola czar, however, the selection of Klain angered some Republicans, who complained he has no health care experience. Klain, after leaving Biden's staff, went into the private sector, serving as president of Case Holdings and general counsel for venture-capital firm Revolution LLC. 
“That the president chose a political operative rather than a health care expert to head up his administration’s response to an outbreak of a deadly disease says a lot – and nothing positive – about the White House’s line of thinking,” Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., said in a statement on Friday.
Health officials, though, have defended Klain as someone who brings needed managerial experience to a complex task.
“He's a highly experienced, highly talented manager. He's been chief of staff for Vice President Gore, for Vice President Biden, has had experience in the Congress,” Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Monday at a town hall-style meeting. “He will be coordinating the interactions among a multi-agency endeavor that are involved, each of which have their own responsibility.”
Fauci also stressed that Klain is not a “czar.”
“It's an Ebola response coordinator is the title for Ron Klain,” Fauci said.