Tom Blumer of BizzyBlog is out today with his regular takedown of sloppy/lazy/uninformed/biased (take your pick) economic reporting from the Associated Press. Check it out.
Michael Yon is embroiled in an increasingly bitter battle with the US Army over one of his most gripping combat photos. Here is the backstory,
Boston Herald: Blogger battles Army
Michael Yon, a former soldier and an embedded blogger journalist in Iraq, took what some consider one of the more famous photos of the war last May �?? of a U.S. GI cradling a dying Iraqi girl.
The U.S. Army later released the photo, which was flashed around the world and prominently displayed by newspapers, broadcast stations and Web sites.
But Yon, who uses Massachusetts as his blogger base of operations, said he never intended to allow the Army to distribute the photo to commercial operations and he�??s now seeking damages. He said he may file a lawsuit within days, claiming thousands of dollars in damages.
�??I never authorized this distribution and immediately asked the Army to stop it,�?� Yon recently wrote Kennedy, the senior Massachusetts senator and a member of the U.S. Senate�??s Armed Services Committee.
In a written reply to Yon last fall, a U.S. Army attorney countered that Yon had signed a �??hold harmless�?� waiver that absolved the government of responsibility for any �??injury�?? Yon might suffer as an embedded blogger.
The army also said that Yon uploaded his photo onto government computer servers, creating an �??implied license�?� agreement for the Army to distribute the photo.
I’m no Eugene Volokh, and I won’t pretend to understand all of the copyright issues here. But I do know this, no citizen journalist or MSM journalist has done more to give an honest, balanced assessment of the US Army in Iraq than Michael Yon.
UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers. While your here, check out the rest of our blog and our radio show which is heard on Boston’s Talk Station WRKO.
First supposed front-runner Tom Reilly selects state representative Marie St. Fleur, a sponsor of the wildly unpopular tuition tax break for illegal immigrant bill, as his choice for Lt. Governor. Then, a few hours later, we learn that St. Fleur doesn’t feel the need pay federal income taxes, excise taxes on her car or her student loans back, to the tune of almost $60K total. And yes, she is against lowering the state income tax as voted on by the citizens of MA. Of course.
So let’s review: we cannot afford a cut in the state income tax as voted on by the people, but we can afford tax breaks for illegal immigrants college tuition. Got it.
A few hours after she resigned, Reilly’s opponent on the Democrat side in the governors race, Deval Patrick, disclosed his own tax problems,
St. Fleur quits race; Patrick reveals tax delinquency
Marie St. Fleur, a little more than 24 hours after entering the lieutenant governorâ??s race, decided Wednesday to abandon her campaign after revelations of tax and loan delinquency, according to a top aide to her running mate, Attorney General Tom Reilly.
St. Fleurâ??s financial troubles sparked revelations from another politician in the thick of this yearâ??s gubernatorial campaign: Deval Patrick, Reillyâ??s top rival for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, released a statement disclosing that he, too, had been a tax delinquent.
â??More than a decade ago, Diane and I had an installment agreement with the IRS to pay, on a monthly basis, an unexpected tax liability,â? Patrick said in a statement issued to The Associated Press. â??We missed one or two of our installments. This triggered an IRS lien. We took immediate steps to pay off the balance and within five months discharged in full the $8,778 we owed.â?Â
To be fair to Patrick, he paid his taxes back. Unexpected or large tax bills happen to people all the time. That’s one reason to do away with or at least dramatically alter the AMT tax, although it isn’t clear what the actual cause of his problem was.
He (Patrick) said the revelation won’t make it more difficult to talk about taxes on the campaign trail. Patrick has said the state can’t yet afford a cut in the income tax rate. “I don’t think this has anything to do with that,” he said.
I don’t either, it just means your wrong on tax policy. This is going to be a fun race, that’s for sure.
What a winter for Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly. In the course of six weeks he has committed slow motion career suicide.
It all started with a bizzare admission that he had been arrested for drunkenness way back in 1962. Maybe he was concerned because Massachusetts liberals would never put up with having a drunk in a high elected office?
Less than two weeks later, it became clear why he was nervous about the issue of drunkeness,
Boston Globe: Reilly says he discussed crash with supporter
January 11, 2006
Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly acknowledged yesterday that he discussed a fatal car accident with a prominent businessman and campaign supporter, but Reilly, a Democratic candidate for governor, strenuously denied that the supporter asked him to intervene in the investigation of the crash that killed two teenage girls.
Then, a bill Tom Reilly supported was surprisingly, resoundingly defeated in the state legislature. Against his wishes, the state had decided NOT to grant tax breaks to state colleges for illegal immigrants. Yes, you read that correctly, he was in favor of tax breaks for illegals attending state colleges.
Next up, his selection for his running mate. Two days of news stories say it will be Chris Gabrelli, a local investment pro/millionaire who would infuse much needed cash into Reilly’s campaign. But no, that didn’t happen.
Instead, Reilly shocked Massachusetts by selecting State Representative Marie P. St. Fleur, the author of the wildly unpopular tuition tax break for illegals bill. On that ground alone, I thought Reilly had completely blown the election. I was wrong.
Less than 24 hours after selecting St. Fleur, the Boston Globe gives Reilly a lesson in the value of real background checks,
Reilly’s pick delinquent on taxes, loans; St. Fleur says she is repaying debts
State Representative Marie P. St. Fleur, Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly’s choice to be his lieutenant governor running mate, has had three delinquent tax debts in the last four years, including an April 2005 federal tax lien of $12,711 against her and her husband, according to records examined yesterday by the Globe.
St. Fleur, in an interview last night, disclosed that she also owes $40,000 in delinquent federally backed student loans.
St. Fleur told the Globe last night that she had paid down the federal tax debt to about $8,000 by making $500 monthly payments since last spring. But later last night, Corey Welford, a Reilly campaign spokesman, corrected her, saying that she had in fact made only one $500 payment last May and that the balance is still more than $12,000.
Is there anything more infuriating than a tax and spend liberal who doesn’t feel the need to pay taxes themselves?
Let’s summarize. Reilly decides to select the woman behind this wildly unpopular bill to give tax breaks to illegals attanding state schools. Then it turns out that she herself never felt the need to pay back her own student loans, or her taxes. This guy is the top law and order man in Massachusetts and his background check on this woman didn’t know any of this? If it did, and he nominated her anyway? What does this say about Tom Reilly’s judgement?
Speaking as someone who paid back student loans for 13 years without missing a payment, this is a total outrage. This woman should be in jail for tax evasion, let alone in the state house as a legislator and even worse, on the ballot for Lt. Governor.
CASE CLOSED AGAINST TOM REILLY. UNFIT FOR OFFICE.
This email was too funny not to share…
Caption:
The picture shows that this soldier has been thru Survival School and learned his lessons well. He’s giving the sign of “coercion” with his left hand. These hand signs are taught in survival school to be used by POW’s as a method of posi! ng messages back to our intelligence services who may view the photo or video. This guy was obviously being coerced into shaking hands with Hillary Clinton. It’s ironic how little she knew that he would so inform us about the photo—perhaps because she’s never understood our military to begin with.
Jay Tea over at Wizbang has the story of how the Army is trying to screw Michael Yon over one of his most powerful combat photos. What is the Army thinking? Nobody has done more to spread the truth about Iraq more than Michael Yon.
In Jay Tea’s post, he links to a Boston Herald article by our old friend Jay Fitzgerald. We had Jay in studio with us to participate in one of our interviews with Michael Yon from Iraq. You can listen to that show here.
Last night on Pundit Review Radio, State Rep. Ted Spiliotis (D-Danvers) was kind enough to join us in studio to discuss House Bill 1641 “An Act to Provide Health Education in Schools.” The bill is nothing but a sop to Planned Parenthood and the radical homosexual lobby whose fingerprints are all over this treacherous piece of legislation. Rather then spending time and tax payers’ money devising new ways to indoctrinate pre-schoolers, our elected representatives should read this article from today’s Wall St. Journal by Gov. Jeb Bush entitled “Five Rules for School Reform.” (subs req.)Given the fact that Mass education ranks toward the bottom in student achievement and graduation rates nationally especially among minorities trapped in failing goverment run schools, the reps responsible for drafting HB 1641 should be ashamed of themselves that they are so focussed on teaching transgenderism 101 to 4-year olds instead of solving the real problems facing our children in this state:
The governor lays out five rules that our legislators should emulate:
The first rule is that when you run for office, you need to say what you’re going to do and then do what you said you would. Candidates who aren’t willing to take political risks won’t take the policy risks required to drive real change.
By taking a stand during our campaign, my running mate and I gave voters a chance to examine and debate our plan to transform Florida schools. As a result, our election came with a mandate to implement a comprehensive education reform based on high standards and expectations, clear measurement and accountability, and rewards and consequences for results
The second rule of reform is that if you don’t measure, you don’t care. You have to be willing to measure the outcome of reform and to let the world know what the real results are — the ones you’re proud of and the ones that show more work is needed.
Today, 53% of Florida students are reading at or above grade level, up from 46% in 2001. That’s 161,000 more students with this critical skill. Our graduation rate is up from 60% to 72%, our drop-out rate is down by half, and our students are making greater learning gains than their national counterparts. The biggest gains are being made by our minority students as they close the achievement gap more each year.
The third rule is that big reforms require long-term commitment. We’ve been testing 4th grade reading since the 1998-99 school year. At that time, only 51% of our 4th graders could read at grade level — two years later, the number had risen to just 53%. Now that our education reforms have been in place for six school years, 71% of all Florida 4th graders have the ability to pick up a book and read it independently. It’s the cumulative effect of incremental improvement that creates significant progress.
Another rule — the fourth — is to communicate what you’re doing, especially to parents. Education reform can only be sustained when families know it’s working. Florida gives parents a comprehensive report card tracking their child’s performance year-over-year, along with the school’s performance against state and national standards and explanations of each.
The fifth rule is that success is never final and reform is never finished. You are either in ascendance or decline, so if you aren’t moving forward you are losing ground as well as opportunities for students.
This year, Florida will introduce the largest reform package since the sweeping changes we made in 1999.
These reforms include differentiated pay and performance-based pay for teachers to attract and retain talented educators in critical subject areas, encourage them to teach in economically challenged schools and reward them for improving student performance.
For critics who claim that private choice voucher programs are ineffective the governor provides this info:
Researchers from the Manhattan Institute, Harvard and Cornell have independently studied Florida’s private school choice programs. All three studies concluded that the threat of vouchers actually creates the greatest improvement in struggling schools. Given the choice between losing students and raising the quality of education, schools rise to the challenge and make tremendous gains.
Memo to Rep. Wolf (Alice Wolf of Cambridge who is the author of HB 1641) and the rest of the liberals at the state house who are endorsing this legislation:
We elected you to reform education not use our children for your sick social experiments. Scrap the sexual indoctrination and teach our kids how to read, write, and reason effectively so they can compete in the global marketplace. That’s the the best way to achive a high standard of living and good “health.”