RNC Fires Staffer for Bar Expense

A Republican National Committee staffer who accompanied a group of young donors to a bondage-themed West Hollywood club and then expensed the nearly $2,000 tab has been fired by the committee, POLITICO has learned.

RNC chief of staff Ken McKay announced the firing in an internal committee e-mail obtained by POLITICO.

"This was not an RNC-sanctioned event and was not associated in any way with any RNC official event,” McKay wrote of the February outing to Voyeur, a West Hollywood club modeled after the risqué Tom Cruise-Nicole Kidman movie “Eyes Wide Shut.”

The late-night excursion followed an official RNC event in Los Angeles for donors in its “Young Eagles” program, McKay wrote, stressing that neither Chairman Michael Steele nor any senior staff were aware of either the outing or the committee’s reimbursement of the cost.

McKay wrote that the fired staffer, who is not named in the e-mail, “was aware that this activity was not eligible for reimbursement and had been previously counseled on this very subject. Accordingly, that staff person has been terminated.”

McKay also wrote that the donor who was reimbursed for footing the bill at Voyeur, Erik Brown, “has verbally agreed to repay the funds to the RNC.”

A source with knowledge of the situation said Brown, a churchgoing, midlevel political operative, “was not entirely thrilled with the venue that people ended up at” but nonetheless agreed to foot the bill after the RNC staffer in question told him the committee would reimburse the cost.

The RNC’s February Federal Election Commission report shows a $1,946.25 reimbursement to Brown, the owner of an Orange County direct-mail firm that has worked for top GOP candidates and committees, for “meals” at Voyeur.

The RNC, which came under fire earlier this month after POLITICO revealed an inflammatory fundraising presentation, has been doing damage control on the bondage story since The Daily Caller reported the expenditure Monday morning.

It emphasized that Steele did not attend and was unaware of the post-event foray to Voyeur and announced an investigation into how the reimbursement, which the source said violated RNC policy because the expense was not connected to an official event, slipped through accounting procedures.

In a statement Monday night, RNC spokesman Doug Heye said, “The committee has taken appropriate steps to address the issues relating to the reimbursement of certain expenses,” including “personnel actions” and revisions of “accounting and reimbursement processes ... to ensure that such an action cannot reoccur.”

Seeking to quell mounting discontent from some donors already unhappy with reports of lavish travel spending by Steele, Heye said, “We recognize the difficulty [the Voyeur] incident has caused and assure our members and supporters that any necessary and proper remediation is being implemented immediately.”

Of Brown, Heye said, “It is unfortunate that a loyal GOP donor who has recruited other donors became involved in this incident while merely trying to help what turned out to be the improper request of a staffer who is no longer with the committee.”

Brown could not be reached for comment, but Rebecca Schoenkopf, a liberal California blogger who co-hosted a now-defunct radio talk show with Brown, said he struck her as “just too uptight” to direct folks to a club like Voyeur.

He is “just a hell of a sweet guy,” Schoenkopf said.

And Leif Larson, the head of the Washington office for Brown’s firm, Dynamic Marketing Inc., or DMI, called Brown “a good husband” who is religious and is “strongly in favor of fiscal conservatism.”

Larson also said he’s concerned Brown’s ensnarement in the Voyeur controversy could hurt the firm’s business.

FEC filings show that federal campaigns and committees — including committees associated with 2008 GOP presidential candidates John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani — have paid DMI $161,200 since 2006. However, Larson said the bulk of the firm’s business is for California state candidates and committees.

The Hill newspaper reported Monday night that California state Rep. Chuck DeVore, who's seeking the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, announced Monday he "has severed all ties" with DMI.

In an online biography, Brown described himself as “a sportsman and a mentor to young athletes,” and an “ice hockey coach for over 12 years,” and indicated that he and his wife “are actively involved in the ministries of their local church.”

He also boasted via Twitter of his access to Steele, tweeting in October that he was “enjoying the football game with RNC Chairman Michael Steele. (Eagles vs. Redskins at FedEx Field).”

Obama Gets Aggressive

President Barack Obama, after a year of fitfully searching for compromise, is taking a more aggressive tack with his Republican adversaries, hoping to energize Democratic voters and possibly muscle in some Republican support in Congress.

On Thursday, the president challenged Republicans who planned to campaign on repealing his health-care bill with, "Go for it." Two days later, he made 15 senior appointments without Senate consent, including a union lawyer whose nomination had been blocked by a filibuster.

At a bill-signing event Tuesday, he is set to laud passage of higher-education legislation that was approved despite Republican objections through a parliamentary maneuver that neutralized the party's filibuster threat.

On Thursday, Mr. Obama will be in Maine, home state of two moderate Republican senators who opposed his health-care plan, to promote the health law.

Even his surprise trip to Afghanistan on Sunday mobilized the perks of the presidency to marshal public opinion, as pictures were beamed home of Mr. Obama mobbed by U.S. troops.

A senior Democratic official said the push was a textbook case of taking advantage of political momentum as the campaign season begins. Republicans are "on the defensive," the official said, "and as long as they're not cooperating, we ought to keep them there."

Republicans say Mr. Obama's overtures to them have been for show, whether it was his January meeting with House Republicans in Baltimore or last month's televised, bipartisan health-care summit.

The partisanship "may be more visible, and he may be more resolute about it, but as far as most of us are concerned, this is business as usual," said Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, a member of the Republican leadership.

But Mr. Alexander said the recent moves are broader, more public swipes that will hurt the president in the end.

He conceded that Republican leaders have tried to maintain unity in opposition. "When you have 40 Republicans, with your back against the wall and the gallows are right in your face, you're going to do your best to be unified," Mr. Alexander said.

The onus, however, is on the president to build relationships with minority leaders, Mr. Alexander said.

"If you're the president or a governor and you don't have a good relationship with the other party, that's your problem to solve," he said.

Mr. Obama campaigned on calling for an end to partisan bickering in Washington, but once in office he launched an ambitious agenda that pursued several long-held Democratic goals.

Meanwhile, Republicans decided at an early stage to aggressively oppose most of Mr. Obama's agenda. Partisan tensions have run high for most of his term.

Recently, Mr. Obama has been swinging particularly hard. He followed up his "go for it" taunt Thursday with the recess appointment of union lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, adopting a tactic that presidents of both parties have used in recent decades to skirt the normal confirmation process. Mr. Becker's confirmation had been blocked in the Senate by a filibuster in February.

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama will sign what has been billed as a package of fixes to the health-care bill, approved under rules that required only a simple majority vote to pass in the Senate. That nullified Republicans' power to block it through a filibuster.

Democrats attached to the bill a major overhaul of student-lending laws, which eliminated a federal subsidy for private tuition lenders, federalized most student loans and plowed the savings into expanded federal higher education aid. Republicans say the bill will destroy the private student-lending market.

Mr. Alexander, the Tennessee Republican, called the student-loan move "really brazen" and "the most underreported, biggest Washington takeover in history."

In classic game theory, confrontation is sometimes necessary when cooperation breaks down to present a credible potential threat and get the two sides to re-engage, said Robert Axelrod, a University of Michigan political scientist and author of the game-theory book, "The Evolution of Cooperation." He isn't related to White House senior adviser David Axelrod.

The Senate doesn't work the way game theorists think, said Antonia Ferrier, an aide to Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. A body built on personal relationships is likely to spiral into endless tit-for-tat retaliations in the face of Mr. Obama's new turn, she said.

The new tone may be having an impact, though, among some Obama voters who had soured on what they saw as an electric campaigner gone soft.

Republicans are getting "better treatment than they deserve," said Don Miller, 68, a California independent and pipe line consultant who said his support for Mr. Obama was rising.

"He's not a politician yet, but he's learning fast. As he learns to work the Washington establishment he has become more and more effective," said James Shubert, 83, a transportation-services manager in Tennessee.

Robin Moyer, 48, a retired South Carolina school teacher, lamented that the president had been trying to "reach as many people as possible, but sometimes it is overkill."

Shots Fired At Republican Office

Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor said Thursday that his Richmond campaign office has been shot at and that he's received "threatening e-mails" -- but at the same time the House minority whip accused top Democrats of trying to exploit the threats they've been receiving for "political gain."

Cantor said "a bullet was shot through the window" of his campaign office. The incident happened Monday, Fox News has learned, the latest in a rash of apparent threats and acts of intimidation against members of Congress. Most of the threats so far have been reported by Democrats, but Cantor -- the No. 2 Republican in the House -- is one of about 10 lawmakers who has asked for increased security protection, Fox News has learned.

In brief and pointed remarks, Cantor said he would not be releasing any information about the other threats he's received, as some lawmakers have done, out of concern that it would "encourage more to be sent."

And he admonished his colleagues -- specifically Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine -- for "dangerously fanning the flames by suggesting these incidents be used as a political weapon."

"Any suggestion that a leader in this body would incite threats or acts against other members is akin to saying that I would endanger myself, my wife or my children," Cantor said. "It is reckless to use these incidents as media vehicles for political gain."

Van Hollen told MSNBC on Wednesday that Republican leaders were "pouring more and more gasoline on the flames." Kaine, in an interview with the Huffington Post, said Republican leaders are "trying to stoke anger" with lies.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., in an interview with MSNBC Wednesday night, said people are getting "signals" from lawmakers on how to behave and that lawmakers need to "disown" the activity before it gets out of control. He suggested his colleagues were culpable.

"If we participate in it, either from the balcony or on the floor of the House, you are aiding and abetting this kind of terrorism, really," Clyburn said.

And Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., told Fox News on Thursday that he thought House Republican Leader John Boehner should step aside for not being more vocal in denouncing the threats.

"He has a responsibility to step up and put an end to this," Hare said. "I think this is despicable."

Cantor said Thursday that such threats should not be a "partisan issue."

Cantor, as minority whip, is the highest elected Jewish politician in the country, and he said some of the threats he's gotten in the past have been because of his religion. But all the recent threats against lawmakers appear to be connected to the health care debate.

The Department of Homeland Security is involved in the Cantor case because he is a member of the House leadership. U.S. Capitol Police already provide Cantor with a security detail around the clock because of his leadership position, but he has asked for more security.

Fox News has also obtained a threatening message left Friday on the voicemail of Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, which comes on top of a slew of other threats.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced Wednesday that more than 10 lawmakers have been harassed in some way.

A senior Senate Democratic leadership aide told Fox News that threats also have been made against Senate Parliamentarian Alan Frumin.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., called that odd, given that Frumin just sided against the Democrats on a GOP challenge over the package of fixes being considered in the Senate, in effect sending it back to the House for an extra vote.

"The irony here is that he has people threatening him, but here's a guy who's held against us," Conrad said.

Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Colo., has also reportedly requested police patrols around her unoccupied home for fear it might be vandalized, after her office received a threatening message.

A coffin was found on the lawn of Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., though it apparently was intended to represent those who might die due to policies in the health care bill.

Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance Gainer, in a memo to lawmakers and their staffs Wednesday, exhorted members to "remain vigilant."

The memo came after at least four Democratic offices were vandalized, including Rep. Louise Slaughter's local office in upstate New York, which was was hit by a brick that shattered a window.

The office of Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. -- who initially opposed the Senate's health bill over concerns about abortion funding but switched to support the plan following assurance from the White House -- has received several threatening messages, recordings of which have been obtained by Fox News.

In one recording, a man swears at Stupak repeatedly while wishing for him to die.

"Congressman Stupak, you baby-killing motherf---er. ... I hope you bleed out your a--, got cancer and die, you motherf---er," he says.

Somebody also cut a propane line attached to a grill at the Virginia home of Rep. Tom Perriello's brother, whose address was mistakenly posted online as being that of the congressman.

What the Critics Say

President Obama is ready to reform health care in America. His $634 billion health care bill proposal is said to be just a down payment for future insurance reform. Of course with that much money being spent and with health insurance reform being a hot topic since the failed universal health care proposal by President Clinton, Obama is going to have his critics. So, what are the main points that the opposition is saying about health insurance reform as proposed by President Obama? A few of the main problems that experts feel America will face if we do indeed reform health care the way that Obama wants is done is:

1. The Government Will Be Unfair Competition
This is a legitimate complaint and Obama has agreed it needs to be addressed. The problem may come when the government does offer a health care plan that is so reasonable, even people with good insurance currently will drop their to choose the new government run program. This would not only cause problems with insurance companies loosing business (and the domino effect of job losses) but it would put more people on the government plan than was previously planned for.

2. Employers May Stop Offering Health Care
This again could cause a problem. Employers may just drop their health care offerings altogether expecting the government to pick up the cost of providing health care for them. And again, like above, this could cause a ripple effect that would not be favorable for anyone.

3. We Should Work on Competition and Not a Government Run Health Care System
This really comes deep from the American roots. Critics of the Obama health care bill and health care insurance reform feel it is not the American way for the government to take away the natural competition that America was built on. They feel, yes there are problems in the health care system but the solution is not to just have the government jump in and take over but to fix the problems we have by promoting better competition.

Besides the above oppositions, others are concerned about what it will cost to reform health care. One of the proposals for payment include lowering the tax deduction on charitable contribution. Charities have mixed emotions on this one - they want better health insurance reform but will it cost them in the long run?

Really, no one knows if Obama's plan is really the best solution for America. But right now it is the only plan and it looks like it will become "The Plan." Fortunately, President Obama is taking the time to look at all the problems that may arise and is making a good faith effort in addressing those problems. America needs health care reform and it may be a bumpy ride in the beginning but it seems nothing can be worse than the health care crisis we are already experiencing... let's hope not.

Death Threats Towards House Members

Many of the Democrats who voted for the health care reform bill have received death threats. Others are victims of senseless vandalism as a sign that some of the public is going a bit too far with their disagreement with the passing of the bill Sunday night.

There have been assassination threats posted on Twitter, directly referencing President Obama. At least 10 House members have voiced their concerns about their personal security.

Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a Democrat from New York, received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against lawmakers and their families.

Slaughter also reported that a brick was thrown through a window of her office in Niagara Falls.

Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, reported that her Tucson office was vandalized.

Not limited to phone calls and vandalism, the threats even took the form of a fax. The Associate Press reported that Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina said he received an anonymous fax showing the image of a noose.

Landmark legislation was passed on Sunday night and there are certainlystrong differences of opinion about it. However, assassination threats and vandalism are a very unhealthy sign for this "One nation under God."

It is not clear who the people are who are making threats and causing vandalism, but the FBI has stated that they are involved. However, it seems that there are also politicians who are making waves that are going to cause the further breakdown of a country that is already in the midst of an economic crisis.

This week, Sarah Palin posted her "political hit list" on her Facebook account. It is a list that includes 17 Democrats in Congress who her political action committee will work to defeat in the November elections. It's not the list that is disturbing, it's the fact that she used gun crosshairs on a map detailing who she wants ousted.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “What we want to be sure is that people know that these threats have no place in our country.”

Boehner Tells Democrats: Shame On You

At the end of almost four hours of debate Sunday night, House Republican Leader John Boehner and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made memorable final statements in advance of a historic health care vote.

Boehner took the floor and proclaimed, acknowledging likely passage, that he had a "sad and heavy heart."

He said "no one in this body" believes the bill is satisfactory and argued "we have failed to listen to America, and we have failed to reflect the will of our constituents."

"Shame on each and every one of you who substitutes your will and your desires above those of your fellow countrymen," said Boehner.

He grew agitated when asking rhetorical questions about the impact of the bill, asking members if they could really promise their constituents that it would not have a variety of negative consequences.

"Do you really believe that if you like the health plan that you have that you can keep it? No you can't," he said. At one point he offered an angry "hell no" to one of his rhetorical questions.

In response to noises from the gallery in response to Boehner, Rep. David Obey, acting as speaker, said, "Both sides would do well to remember the dignity of the House."

"I beg you...do not further strike at the heart of this country and this institution with arrogance, for surely you will not strike with impunity," Boehner said.

He asked for a roll call vote to be taken, as opposed to an electronic vote tally, a call Obey denied. Roll call votes are almost never taken in the House.

After Boehner, Pelosi rose to speak to a standing ovation from Democrats in the gallery.

She said the House was about to "make history for our country and progress for the American people."

The bill, she said, would lead to "healthier lives, more liberty to pursue hopes and dreams and happiness."

"This is an American proposal that honors the traditions of our country," Pelosi said in a more measured address than Boehner. She hailed President Obama's leadership on health care.

She added that the one word to use to describe the legislation is "opportunity," and said it would unleash "entrepreneurial power" in the economy because it meant people could change jobs or start a small business without risking their health insurance.

"With this health care reform, 32 million more Americans will have health care insurance, and those who have insurance now will be spared being at the mercy of the health insurance industry," Pelosi said.

Once the bill passes, she added, "being a woman will no longer be a pre-existing medical condition."

She also noted that the bill has more than 200 Republican amendments, even if it lacked Republican votes.

The vote, she said, "honored the character of this country," calling health care a "right, not a privilege."


"The time has chosen us," said Pelosi.

Obama Signs Healthcare Bill

Cost:

$940 billion over ten years.

Deficit:

Would reduce the deficit by $143 billion over the first ten years. That is an updated CBO estimate. Their first preliminary estimate said it would reduce the deficit by $130 billion over ten years. Would reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion dollars in the second ten years.

Coverage:

Would expand coverage to 32 million Americans who are currently uninsured.
Health Insurance Exchanges:

The uninsured and self-employed would be able to purchase insurance through state-based exchanges with subsidies available to individuals and families with income between the 133 percent and 400 percent of poverty level.
Separate exchanges would be created for small businesses to purchase coverage -- effective 2014.
Funding available to states to establish exchanges within one year of enactment and until January 1, 2015.

Subsidies:

Individuals and families who make between 100 percent - 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) and want to purchase their own health insurance on an exchange are eligible for subsidies. They cannot be eligible for Medicare, Medicaid and cannot be covered by an employer. Eligible buyers receive premium credits and there is a cap for how much they have to contribute to their premiums on a sliding scale.
Federal Poverty Level for family of four is $22,050

Paying for the Plan:

Medicare Payroll tax on investment income -- Starting in 2012, the Medicare Payroll Tax will be expanded to include unearned income. That will be a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for families making more than $250,000 per year ($200,000 for individuals).
Excise Tax -- Beginning in 2018, insurance companies will pay a 40 percent excise tax on so-called "Cadillac" high-end insurance plans worth over $27,500 for families ($10,200 for individuals). Dental and vision plans are exempt and will not be counted in the total cost of a family's plan.
Tanning Tax -- 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services.

Medicare:

Closes the Medicare prescription drug "donut hole" by 2020. Seniors who hit the donut hole by 2010 will receive a $250 rebate.

Beginning in 2011, seniors in the gap will receive a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs. The bill also includes $500 billion in Medicare cuts over the next decade.

Medicaid:

Expands Medicaid to include 133 percent of federal poverty level which is $29,327 for a family of four.

Requires states to expand Medicaid to include childless adults starting in 2014.

Federal Government pays 100 percent of costs for covering newly eligible individuals through 2016.

Illegal immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid.

Insurance Reforms:

Six months after enactment, insurance companies could no longer denying children coverage based on a preexisting condition.

Starting in 2014, insurance companies cannot deny coverage to anyone with preexisting conditions.

Insurance companies must allow children to stay on their parent's insurance plans until age 26th.

Abortion:

The bill segregates private insurance premium funds from taxpayer funds. Individuals would have to pay for abortion coverage by making two separate payments, private funds would have to be kept in a separate account from federal and taxpayer funds.
No health care plan would be required to offer abortion coverage. States could pass legislation choosing to opt out of offering abortion coverage through the exchange.

**Separately, anti-abortion Democrats worked out language with the White House on an executive order that would state that no federal funds can be used to pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or health of the mother.


Individual Mandate:

In 2014, everyone must purchase health insurance or face a $695 annual fine. There are some exceptions for low-income people.
Employer Mandate:

Technically, there is no employer mandate. Employers with more than 50 employees must provide health insurance or pay a fine of $2000 per worker each year if any worker receives federal subsidies to purchase health insurance. Fines applied to entire number of employees minus some allowances.

Immigration:

Illegal immigrants will not be allowed to buy health insurance in the exchanges -- even if they pay completely with their own money.

DMN Editorial on Drug Conviction

Interesting editorial from the Dallas Morning News.
I'm interested on what the good citizens of the Loop 298 feel about this.


It's usually not anyone's place in Dallas to tell Tyler jurors what to do or not to do in dealing with felons in their community. Smith County's law-enforcement officials are not accountable to outsiders on how they prosecute cases.

But here's the big "but": In sending defendants off to state prison, every county pushes the incarceration cost onto the rest of us. It costs roughly $50 a day to house offenders in Texas prisons.

And so it got our attention big time when a jury in Tyler sentenced a man to 35 years recently for possessing 4.6 ounces of marijuana, a sentence that tests our tolerance for prosecution of drug laws.

Let's be clear: Most of Texas' state prisoners deserve their punishment or need to be put away to protect society. About half the prison system's head count consists of violent offenders, and another 17 percent stole something or cheated somebody out of money.

Then there are the drug offenders, who constituted about 19 percent of the population of more than 155,000 inmates last year. Those convicted of possession alone made up about 11 percent.

A recent addition to that population is one Henry Walter Wooten, 54, of Tyler, who had the poor judgment to stand around a park with a joint in his mouth and baggies of weed in his pockets. Cops found more in his car.

Bottom line: guilty as charged on possession charges and guilty for sure of first-degree stupidity.

If Wooten's record had been clear, the amount of pot might have gotten him no more than two years behind bars. But two convictions from the 1980s – one for packing a gun, another for dealing drugs – boosted the sentencing range. And the fact that he was within 1,000 feet of a day care center added more years, to a maximum of life.

The prosecutor asked for 99 years, to set a precedent for punishing such crimes in Tyler. That kind of precedent would have been grotesque. From our vantage point, 35 years still is too costly and out of proportion to the crime, considering that it was a nonviolent offense. Plus, Wooten will serve more – unserved time from his previous drug conviction – since he was on parole at the time of his marijuana bust.

What's the proper sentencing range? Something far less than the rest of his life, which could be the case now and could stick the state with the tab for health care in Wooten's last years.

In recent years, the state of Texas has been moving in the right direction in expanding drug-treatment programs to break the costly cycle of incarceration and avoid the need to build more prisons.

Testing the upper limits of sentencing laws for nonviolent drug crimes may help rid streets of local riff-raff, but the cumulative effect is a state prison system of unaffordable and unreasonable proportions.

Mexican Tycoon New Wealthiest Man

For the third time in three years, the world has a new richest man.

Riding surging prices of his various telecom holdings, including giant mobile outfit America Movil, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu has beaten out Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the wealthiest person on earth and nab the top spot on the 2010 Forbes list of the World's Billionaires.

Slim's fortune has swelled to an estimated $53.5 billion, up $18.5 billion in 12 months. Shares of America Movil, of which Slim owns a $23 billion stake, were up 35% in a year.

That massive hoard of scratch puts him ahead of Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, who had held the title of world's richest 14 of the past 15 years.

Gates, now worth $53 billion, is ranked second in the world. He is up $13 billion from a year ago as shares of Microsoft rose 50% in 12 months. Gates' holdings in his personal investment vehicle Cascade also soared with the rest of the markets.

Buffett's fortune jumped $10 billion to $47 billion on rising shares of Berkshire Hathaway. He ranks third.

The Oracle of Omaha shrewdly invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs and $3 billion in General Electric amid the 2008 market collapse. He also recently acquired railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe for $26 billion.

In his annual shareholder letter Buffett wrote, "We've put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years. When it's raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble."

Many plutocrats did just that. Indeed, last year's wealth wasteland has become a billionaire bonanza. Most of the richest people on the planet have seen their fortunes soar in the past year.

This year the World's Billionaires have an average net worth of $3.5 billion, up $500 million in 12 months. The world has 1,011 10-figure titans, up from 793 a year ago but still shy of the record 1,125 in 2008. Of those billionaires on last year's list, only 12% saw their fortunes decline.

U.S. billionaires still dominate the ranks--but their grip is slipping. Americans account for 40% of the world's billionaires, down from 45% a year ago.

The U.S. commands 38% of the collective $3.6 trillion net worth of the world's richest, down from 44% a year ago.

Of the 97 new members of the list, only 16% are from the U.S. By contrast, Asia made big gains. The region added 104 moguls and now has just 14 fewer than Europe, thanks to several large public offerings and swelling stock markets.

The new billionaires include American Isaac Perlmutter, who flipped Marvel Entertainment to Disney for $4 billion last December. The Spider-Man mogul netted nearly $900 million in cash and 20 million shares of Disney in the transaction.

Also new to the ranking: 27 billionaires from China, including Li Shufu, whose automaker, Geely, announced plans to buy Swedish brand Volvo from Ford in December. The deal is expected to close in March 2010.

Finland and Pakistan both welcomed their first billionaires.

For the first time China (including Hong Kong) has the most billionaires outside the U.S. with 89.

Russia has 62 billionaires, 28 of them returnees who had fallen off last year's list amid a meltdown in commodities. Total returnees to the list this year: 164.

Eleven countries have at least double the number of billionaires they had a year ago, including China, India, Turkey and South Korea.

Thirty members of last year's list fell out of the billionaire's club. Moguls who couldn't make the cut: Iceland's Thor Bjorgolfsson, Russia's Boris Berezovsky and Saudi Arabia's Maan Al-Sanea.

Another 13 members of last year's list died. Among the deceased: real estate developer Melvin Simon and glass tycoon William Davidson.

SCOTUS to Enter Phelps Fray

The Supreme Court, taking on the emotionally charged issue of picketing protests at the funerals of soldiers killed in wartime, agreed Monday to consider reinstating a $5 million damages verdict against a Kansas preacher and his anti-gay crusade. This was one of three newly granted cases. The others test the constitutionality of background checks for workers who work for the government under contract, rather than as regular employees, and a case testing the right to sue in state court when a child is injured or dies after receiving a vaccine. All of the cases will come up for review in the Court’s next Term, opening Oct. 4.

The funeral picketing case (Snyder v. Phelps, et al., 09-751) focuses on a significant question of First Amendment law: the degree of constitutional protection given to private remarks made about a private person, occurring in a largely private setting. The family of the dead soldier had won a verdict before a jury, but that was overturned by the Fourth Circuit Court, finding that the signs displayed at the funeral in western Maryland and later comments on an anti-gay website were protected speech. The petition for review seeks the Court’s protection for families attending a funeral from “unwanted” remarks or displays by protesters.


In March four years ago, Marine Lance Corporal Matthew A. Snyder was killed while serving in Iraq. His family arranged for a private funeral, with Christian burial, at St. John’s Catholic Chruch in Westminster, Md. When word of the planned funeral appeared in the newspapers, the Rev. Fred W. Phelps, Sr., pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., who has gained notoriety in recent years by staging protests at military funerals, decided to stage a demonstration at the Maryland funeral. In response to such protests, some 40 states have passed laws to regulate funeral demonstrations.

The Rev. Phelps’ church preaches a strongly anti-gay message, contending that God hates America because it tolerates homosexuality, particularly in the military services. The church also spreads its views through an online site, www.godhatesfags.com. When the Snyder funeral occurred, the Rev. Phelps, two of his daughters and four grandchildren staged a protest nearby. They carried signs with such messages as “God Hates the USA,” “America is doomed,” “Matt in hell,” “Semper fi fags,” and “Thank God for dead soldiers.” The demonstration violate no local laws, and was kept at police orders a distance from the church. After the funeral, the Rev. Phelps continued his protest over the Snyder funeral on his church’s website, accusing the Snyder family of having taught their son irreligious beliefs.

The soldier’s father, Albert Snyder, sued the Rev. Phelps, his daughters and the Westboro Church under Maryland state law, and won a $5 million verdict based on three claims: intrusion into a secluded event, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy. (The verdict included $2.9 million for compensatory damages and $2.1 million for punitive damages; the punitive award had been reduced from $8 million by the trial judge.) The Fourth Circuit Court overturned the verdict, concluding that the protesters’ speech was protected by the First Amendment because it was only a form of hyperbole, not an assertion of actual facts about the soldier or his family. While finding that the Phelps’ remarks were “utterly distasteful,” the Circuit Court said they involved matters of public concern, including the issue of homosexuality in the military and the political and moral conduct of the United States and its citizens.

In Albert Snyder’s appeal, his lawyers argued that the Supreme Court’s protection of speech about public issues, especially the Justices’ 1988 decision in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, does not apply “to private individuals versus private individuals.” If it does apply, the petition said, “the victimized private individual is left without recourse.” The Circuit Court decision, it added, encourages private individuals to use hyperbolic language to gain constitutional protection “even if that language is targeted at another private individual at a private, religious funeral.”

Even if the Hustler decision does apply to the kind of remarks at issue, the petition asserted, the case also raises the issue of whether those who attend a funeral are like a “captive audience” and thus need protection against intruders who were not invited.

In another case bearing on claims of privacy, the Court Monday added to its decision docket a case involving the broad issue of whether the Constitution protects a “right of informational privacy” — that is, a form of Fifth Amendment protection against government demands for personal information. The Supreme Court mentioned such a right in a 1977 decision, and has seldom mentioned it since. A group of workers employed by California Institute of Technology, and working under contract at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory outside of Pasadena, won a court order against some of the government demands for information about their private lives — part of background checks similar to the security reviews that regular federal employees often undergo.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration took the issue to the Supreme Court in NASA v. Nelson, et al. (09-530). The petition argued that the lower court ruling not only jeopardizes the government’s authority to get information about contract employees, but also about its capacity even to demand information from its own agencies’ employees. “The ramifications of the decision below are potentially dramatic,” the petition contended.

In the third newly granted case, Bruesewitz, et al., v. Wyeth, Inc., et al. (09-152), the Court will be reviewing the scope of a 1986 federal law that sought to bar all state-court damages lawsuits claiming that vaccines given to children caused injury or death because of a design defect, and that a safer alternative was available but was not used. The appeal by a Philadelphia family for themselves and their disabled daughter contended that the Third Circuit Court ruled that the 1986 law only bars state court claims where the harmful side-effects were unavoidable. They argued that all such claims are barred, whether the side-effects were avoidable or not.

The Court agreed to hear the Bruesewitz case after asking for the U.S. Solicitor General’s views on the underlying legal issue. The SG urged that the Court grant review of this case, rather than another pending on the same issue (08-1120).

Establishment Case From 2009

The Supreme Court appeared divided along philosophical lines Wednesday as justices heard arguments in a long-running legal battle over a cross built as a memorial to U.S. war dead on federal park land in California's Mojave Desert.

The Obama administration argued that Congress removed any constitutional questions over the separation of church and state when it transferred ownership of the land where the cross stands to a private owner. The approach appeared to have some traction with the court's conservative justices.

Justice Samuel Alito asked, "Isn't that a sensible interpretation" of a court order prohibiting the cross' display on government property?

But the more liberal justices seemed to agree with a federal appeals court that invalidated the transfer, saying Congress was trying to maneuver around the First Amendment.

Opponents of the cross have argued that the presence of a Christian symbol on public land violates the First Amendment's prohibition against the government favoring a particular religion. But those who want the cross to remain say it's a historical symbol that is intended to honor all war dead.

The cross has stood on an outcropping of rock in a remote part of the California desert for 75 years. It was originally erected in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars without the permission of the government and been rebuilt twice since then.

In 1999, a Buddhist asked the National Park Service for permission to build a Buddhist shrine near the cross, but the request was refused.

Enlarge Courtesy of the Liberty Legal InstitutePending legal review, the cross at the Mojave National Preserve has been hidden within a plywood box. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether its status violates the Constitution's ban on establishment of religion.

Courtesy of the Liberty Legal InstitutePending legal review, the cross at the Mojave National Preserve has been hidden within a plywood box. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether its status violates the Constitution's ban on establishment of religion.
That led a former park service employee, Frank Buono, to challenge the presence of the cross, saying it was unconstitutional to have a religious symbol on public land. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco has sided with Buono in several instances and ordered the cross removed. Each time, Congress has intervened, and for now, the cross stands covered with plywood.

In addition to transferring ownership of the land, lawmakers have also prohibited the park service from spending money to remove the cross, and later designated the site a national memorial to those who died during World War I.

On Wednesday, Obama administration attorneys contended that Buono did not have legal standing to file the suit in the first place because he's a Christian and was not harmed by the cross' presence.

Veterans groups are on both sides of the case, Salazar v. Buono. Some worry that other religious symbols that serve as war memorials might be threatened if the court sides with Buono.

Some Jewish and Muslim veterans maintain that the Mojave cross honors Christian veterans.

And in other Legal News.....

A Houston judge this afternoon declared the death penalty unconstitutional in a pretrial hearing in response to a motion from defense lawyers.

State District Judge Kevin Fine's ruling is unlikely to withstand appellate review.

Fine granted a motion from defense attorney Bob Loper to declare Texas' death penalty unconstitutional. Further details about the motion were not immediately available.

Fine, a judicial maverick, was elected in the 2008 Democratic near sweep of Harris County's benches. The judge came under fire last year for questioning a victim during the punishment phase of rape trial.

The defendant in Thursday's hearing, John Edward Green, Jr., is accused of fatally shooting a Houston woman and injuring her sister on June 16, 2008.

Green, 23, faces charges in the shooting death of Huong Thien Nguyen, 34. Nguyen and her sister, My Huong Nguyen, had returned to their home in the 6700 block of Bellaire Gardens about 1:20 a.m. Sunday, when police said Green approached them, made a demand and shot them.

Huong Thien Nguyen died at the scene. Her sister was taken to Ben Taub General Hospital in critical condition.

Establishment Case in Prisons

Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries.

The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups.

Some inmates are outraged. Two of them, a Christian and an Orthodox Jew, in a federal prison camp in upstate New York, filed a class-action lawsuit last month claiming the bureau’s actions violate their rights to the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, said the agency was acting in response to a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department. The report recommended steps that prisons should take, in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, to avoid becoming recruiting grounds for militant Islamic and other religious groups. The bureau, an agency of the Justice Department, defended its effort, which it calls the Standardized Chapel Library Project, as a way of barring access to materials that could, in its words, “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.”

Ms. Billingsley said, “We really wanted consistently available information for all religious groups to assure reliable teachings as determined by reliable subject experts.”

But prison chaplains, and groups that minister to prisoners, say that an administration that put stock in religion-based approaches to social problems has effectively blocked prisoners’ access to religious and spiritual materials — all in the name of preventing terrorism.

“It’s swatting a fly with a sledgehammer,” said Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowship, a Christian group. “There’s no need to get rid of literally hundreds of thousands of books that are fine simply because you have a problem with an isolated book or piece of literature that presents extremism.”

The Bureau of Prisons said it relied on experts to produce lists of up to 150 book titles and 150 multimedia resources for each of 20 religions or religious categories — everything from Bahaism to Yoruba. The lists will be expanded in October, and there will be occasional updates, Ms. Billingsley said. Prayer books and other worship materials are not affected by this process.

The lists are broad, but reveal eccentricities and omissions. There are nine titles by C. S. Lewis, for example, and none from the theologians Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth and Cardinal Avery Dulles, and the influential pastor Robert H. Schuller.

The identities of the bureau’s experts have not been made public, Ms. Billingsley said, but they include chaplains and scholars in seminaries and at the American Academy of Religion. Academy staff members said their organization had met with prison chaplains in the past but was not consulted on this effort, though it is possible that scholars who are academy members were involved.

The bureau has not provided additional money to prisons to buy the books on the lists, so in some prisons, after the shelves were cleared of books not on the lists, few remained.

A chaplain who has worked more than 15 years in the prison system, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is a bureau employee, said: “At some of the penitentiaries, guys have been studying and reading for 20 years, and now they are told that this material doesn’t meet some kind of criteria. It doesn’t make sense to them. They’re asking, ‘Why are our tapes being taken, why our books being taken?’ ”
Of the lists, he said, “Many of the chaplains I’ve spoken to say these are not the things they would have picked.”

The effort is unnecessary, the chaplain said, because chaplains routinely reject any materials that incite violence or disparage, and donated materials already had to be approved by prison officials. Prisoners can buy religious books, he added, but few have much money to spend.

Religious groups that work with prisoners have privately been writing letters about their concerns to bureau officials. Would it not be simpler, they asked the bureau, to produce a list of forbidden titles? But the bureau did that last year, when it instructed the prisons to remove all materials by nine publishers — some Muslim, some Christian.

The plan to standardize the libraries first became public in May when several inmates, including a Muslim convert, at the Federal Prison Camp in Otisville, N.Y., about 75 miles northwest of Manhattan, filed a lawsuit acting as their own lawyers. Later, lawyers at the New York firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison took on the case pro bono. They refiled it on Aug. 21 in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.

“Otisville had a very extensive library of Jewish religious books, many of them donated,” said David Zwiebel, executive vice president for government and public affairs for Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox Jewish group. “It was decimated. Three-quarters of the Jewish books were taken off the shelves.”

Mr. Zwiebel asked, “Since when does the government, even with the assistance of chaplains, decide which are the most basic books in terms of religious study and practice?”

The lawsuit raises serious First Amendment concerns, said Douglas Laycock, a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, but he added that it was not a slam-dunk case.

“Government does have a legitimate interest to screen out things that tend to incite violence in prisons,” Mr. Laycock said. “But once they say, ‘We’re going to pick 150 good books for your religion, and that’s all you get,’ the criteria has become more than just inciting violence. They’re picking out what is accessible religious teaching for prisoners, and the government can’t do that without a compelling justification. Here the justification is, the government is too busy to look at all the books, so they’re going to make their own preferred list to save a little time, a little money.”

The lists have not been made public by the bureau, but were made available to The Times by a critic of the bureau’s project. In some cases, the lists indicate their authors’ preferences. For example, more than 80 of the 120 titles on the list for Judaism are from the same Orthodox publishing house. A Catholic scholar and an evangelical Christian scholar who looked over some of the lists were baffled at the selections.

Timothy Larsen, who holds the Carolyn and Fred McManis Chair of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, an evangelical school, looked over lists for “Other Christian” and “General Spirituality.”

“There are some well-chosen things in here,” Professor Larsen said. “I’m particularly glad that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is there. If I was in prison I would want to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” But he continued, “There’s a lot about it that’s weird.” The lists “show a bias toward evangelical popularism and Calvinism,” he said, and lacked materials from early church fathers, liberal theologians and major Protestant denominations.

The Rev. Richard P. McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame (who edited “The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism,” which did make the list), said the Catholic list had some glaring omissions, few spiritual classics and many authors he had never heard of.

“I would be completely sympathetic with Catholic chaplains in federal prisons if they’re complaining that this list is inhibiting,” he said, “because I know they have useful books that are not on this list.”

Freedom of Expression Case

I couldn't wait until next week for this one....

An Iowa shop teacher who refused to allow a student to build a Wiccan altar in class has been placed on leave in a flap over religious freedom of expression.

Dale Halferty, who has taught industrial arts at Guthrie Center High School in Guthrie, Iowa, for three years, admits he forbade the student to construct an altar dedicated to the religion as part of a class assignment, The Des Moines Register reports.

Wicca is known as the modern form of witchcraft and typically involves the worship of multiple gods.

A 20-year veteran of the classroom, Halferty asserts that he was well within his rights to prevent the teen from building the structure, which he says poses a threat to the separation of church and state. He previously prevented another student from building a cross in the class.

"... This kid was practicing his religion during class time, and I don't agree," Halferty tells the Register. "I don't want any religious symbols in the shop. We as Christians don't get to have our say during school time, so why should he?"


The student in question reportedly told the teacher that he is, indeed, a practicing witch. Halferty tells the Register he initially permitted the student to build the altar, on the condition that the teen keep any religious materials out of the classroom. However, Halferty says, the boy continued to bring a book about witchcraft to class.

The teacher re-evaluated his decision to allow the altar's construction and recanted his permission, deciding it "was wrong on every level."

"It scares me. I'm a Christian," Halferty tells the Register. "This witchcraft stuff -- it's terrible for our kids. It takes kids away from what they know, and leads them to a dark and violent life. We spend millions of tax dollars trying to save kids from that."

The school district begs to differ with Halferty, and points to several district policies -- and some at the state and federal level -- that prohibit religious discrimination, no matter what faith a student practices or how he or she chooses to express that faith in classroom assignments. Superintendent Steve Smith and Principal Garold Thomas have placed Halferty on leave while they confer with the district attorney.

The debate is causing some raw emotions among the 185 Guthrie Center students who say they do not want "witchcraft" practiced in their school. A petition circulated in late February stating as such garnered at least 70 signatures, the Register reports.

Ben Stone, the executive director of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union, says this appears to be a clear-cut case of religious discrimination.

"The teacher may have good intentions. It's a learning process," Stone tells the Register. "But he needs to respect that students can exercise their religious viewpoints within the context of an assignment."

2nd Amendment Incorporation

WASHINGTON (AP) - Gun control advocates think, if not pray, they can win by losing when the Supreme Court decides whether the constitutional right to possess guns serves as a check on state and local regulation of firearms.

The justices will be deciding whether the Second Amendment - like much of the rest of the Bill of Rights - applies to states as well as the federal government. It's widely believed they will say it does.

But even if the court strikes down handgun bans in Chicago and its suburb of Oak Park, Ill., that are at issue in the argument to be heard Tuesday, it could signal that less severe rules or limits on guns are permissible.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence is urging the court not to do anything that would prevent state and local governments "from enacting the reasonable laws they desire and need to protect their families and communities from gun violence."

By some estimates, about 90 million people in the U.S. own a total of some 200 million guns.

Roughly 30,000 people in the United States died each year from guns; more than half of them are suicides. An additional 70,000 are wounded.

The new lawsuits were begun almost immediately after the court's blockbuster ruling in 2008 that struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban. In that case, the court ruled for the first time that individuals have a right keep guns for self-defense and other purposes. Because the nation's capital is a federal enclave, that ruling applied only to federal laws.

The challenges to the Chicago area laws, which are strikingly similar to the Washington law, are part of an aggressive push by gun rights proponents in the courts and state legislatures.

Courts are considering many gun laws following the justice's 2008 decision. Massachusetts' highest state court is examining the validity of a state law requiring gun owners to lock weapons in their homes.

Two federal appeals courts have raised questions about gun possession convictions of people who previously had been convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors. A suit in Washington challenges the capital's ban on carrying loaded guns on public streets.

Lawmakers in several states are pushing for proposals favored by the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups. The Virginia Legislature is considering repealing a law that limits handgun purchases to one a month. That law was enacted in 1993 because Virginia was the No. 1 supplier of guns used in crimes in other states. A separate proposal in Virginia would allow people with a concealed-weapon permit to take hidden guns into restaurants that sell alcohol, as long as those patrons don't drink.

Chicago is defending its gun laws at the high court. Mayor Richard Daley said a ruling against his city would spawn even more suits nationwide and lead to more gun violence.

"How many more of our citizens must needlessly die because guns are too easily available in our society?" Daley said at a Washington news conference last week that also included the parents of a Chicago teenager who was shot on a bus as he headed home from school.

Annette Nance-Holt said her only child, 16-year-old Blair Holt, shielded his friend when a gang member boarded a bus and began shooting at rival gang members.

"You might ask, 'What good is Chicago's handgun law if so many of our young people are still being shot?'" Nance-Holt said. "All I can say is, imagine how many more would be if the law were not there."

Gun rights advocates say such killings should serve as reminders that handgun bans and other gun laws do nothing to protect people who obey the law.

Indeed, 76-year-old Otis McDonald said he joined the suit in Chicago because he wants a handgun at home to protect himself from gangs.

The thrust of the legal arguments in the case is over how the Supreme Court might apply the Second Amendment to states and cities.

In earlier cases applying parts of the Bill of Rights to the states, the court has done so by using the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, passed in the wake of the Civil War to ensure the rights of newly freed slaves.

The court also has relied on that same clause - "no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law" - in cases that established a woman's right to an abortion and knocked down state laws against interracial marriage and gay sex.

This is the approach the NRA favors.

But many conservative and legal scholars - as well as the Chicago challengers - want the court to employ another part of the 14th amendment, forbidding a state to make or enforce any law "which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

They argue this clause was intended as a broad guarantee of the civil rights of the former slaves, but that a Supreme Court decision in 1873 effectively blocked its use.

Breathing new life into the "privileges or immunities" clause might allow for new arguments to shore up other rights, including abortion and property rights, these scholars say.

This approach might enable challenges to arcane state laws that limit economic competition, said Clark M. Neily III of the public interest law firm Institute for Justice. He pointed to a Louisiana law that protects existing florists by requiring a license before someone can arrange or sell flowers. The licensing exam is graded by florists, he noted.

"No reasonable person thinks that law has a legitimate purpose," Neily said. But he said, "Right now, once you get a law like this on the books, it's almost impossible to get rid of."

The case is McDonald v. Chicago, 08-1521.