Political Digest for July 24 2009

Wishful Thinking and Indecisive Wars
http://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/2009/16/peters.php
If you read nothing else, read this. Great article. We are losing the future.

Concerns Rise Over 2010 Census
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/22/AR2009072203695.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
Not to worry. ACORN & BO will be on the job, ensuring a fair count.

Obama: Things stink
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25315.html
Excerpt: President Obama promises something else: He will soak the rich. Getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse will pay only for two-thirds of his health care plan. The remaining third will be paid for by limiting the “the itemized deductions for the wealthiest Americans.” What about the “s” word? What about “sacrifice” for the rest of us? Happily, the future contains no such need.

Durbin Says No Health Care Vote until September
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2009/07/durbin_says_no_health_care_vot.html?wprss=capitol-briefing
And BO says delay is fatal.

A Massachusetts Model to Fix Health Care?
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18239
Excerpt: The state will spend $595 million more on health insurance this year than it did three years ago, a 42 percent increase. Its latest budget proposal calls for eliminating insurance subsidies for 30,000 legal immigrants in an effort to save money.

China vs. Civil Society
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574299913158787226.html
Excerpt: The Gongmeng group, or Open Constitution Initiative, was shuttered Friday for allegedly violating laws that govern nonprofits The organization was founded in 2003 and brought together human-rights lawyers and academics to research legal topics and take on politically sensitive pro bono cases. Gongmeng’s work was a rarity in a country where authorities brook little public dissent.

The Small Business Surtax
The Obama Democrats pick income redistribution over job creation and economic
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124753106668435899.html
Excerpt: Jason Furman owes an apology to Michael Boskin, the Stanford economist who wrote a year ago on these pages that Barack Obama would raise American income tax rates nearly to 60%. Mr. Furman, then in the Obama campaign and now at the White House, claimed this was wrong and that Democrats would merely raise taxes back to their Clinton-era level. House Democrats are now proving that Mr. Boskin had it right, and before it's over even he may have underestimated how high taxes will go. In the middle of a recession and with rising unemployment, Democrats have been letting it leak that they want to raise U.S. tax rates higher than they've been in nearly 30 years in order to finance government health care.

Mexican brothels coming to a neighborhood near you
http://www.examiner.com/x-5919-Norfolk-Crime-Examiner~y2009m7d16-Mexican-brothels-coming-to-a-neighborhood-near-you
Finally, change we can believe in--exploiting illegals.

Osama bin Laden’s Son Thought Killed in Predator Strike
http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2009/07/22/osama-bin-ladens-son-thought-killed-in-predator-strike/
Praise Allah!

Nationally ranked hospital victim of universal healthcare
http://onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=608422
Coming soon to a hospital near you.

Obama’s Sinking Approval Ratings are Even Worse than They Look
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-roff/2009/07/21/obamas-sinking-approval-ratings-are-even-worse-than-they-look.html
You can fool some of the people….

Take the red pill, Mr. President
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Take-the-red-pill-Mr-President-51473502.html
Excerpt: In last night's press conference, President Obama seemed to be reliving that famous scene from The Matrix. The main character is offered a choice between a red pill that makes him see reality for what it is, and a blue pill that allows him to continue living in a pleasant world of illusions. Last night, President Obama appeared to have taken the blue pill before his press conference. How else could he convince himself, the Congressional Budget Office's numbers notwithstanding, that his health care reform bill will not increase both health care costs and the federal deficit? How else can he continue to make the argument that a massive expansion of government spending on health care will solve rather than exacerbate the current problems? How can he repeatedly express such absolute certainty that such a measure will easily pay for itself several times over in the long run? Why can he not at least acknowledge the possibility that it will become a costly and useless trillion-dollar boondoggle that follows in the footsteps of his stimulus package?

Big drugmakers' secret D.C. meeting
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Big-drugmakers-secret-DC-meeting-51487512.html
Their exec is a former Dem Congressman, who is paid about $2M a year, according to public records. Now we know why.

Gun-Shy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/22/AR2009072203282.html?referrer=emailarticle
Excerpt: How do you outgun the NRA? Very, very carefully. Mark Pryor knows all about that. The Democratic senator from pro-gun Arkansas was nowhere to be seen on the Senate floor during Wednesday's showdown over a proposal, championed by the National Rifle Association, that would have gutted state gun-control laws across the nation. (Gee, the Senate was playing games with the bill. I’m shocked.)

Quote
"Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution -- or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement." -- Ayn Rand