Political Digest August 22 2009

From a friend in London, a British WWII vet:
Re: Scotland releases Lockerbie bomber, on "Compassionate Grounds" as he is supposedly . . ... . . . "dying from Prostate Cancer" . . . .. .

You will note that I added "supposedly".

When I saw him, on the TV News, boarding the plane for his FREE flight home to Libya, he didn't look as if he were dying and he had his face carefully covered, probably so that the cameras could not see his grin of defiance and victory.

I wonder, yes I wonder, if his release is not really due to recent visits to Libya to meet Comrade Qaddaffi on the part of several British Governmental High-Ups, and their securing much-wanted Oil Concessions ?

Oh! yes I wonder, yes, I wonder!

Michael

Lockerbie bomber gets hero's welcome in Libya
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027297.php
Excerpt: GREENOCK, Scotland (CNN) -- The man convicted of murdering 270 people by blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, two decades ago received a boisterous welcome when he landed in his native Libya on Thursday. Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, suffering from terminal prostate cancer, was freed from prison in Scotland, with Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill citing compassionate grounds for the release and saying al Megrahi was "going home to die." A large crowd, waving flags and honking horns, greeted al Megrahi at the military airport in Tripoli.

Taxes
Say, if you got a $4,500 “cash for clunkers” credit on your new Government Motors Barackmobile, is that taxable income? After all, the car you turned in was destroyed, so had zero value.

Slipping into quicksand
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/19/slipping-into-quicksand/
Excerpt: His popular support is hemorrhaging because all of his major initiatives are either failing in execution or in the legislative process. According to a new USA Today/Gallup Poll, 57 percent of Americans say the $787 billion economic stimulus is having no effect on the economy or is making it worse. An even higher percentage -- 60 percent -- doubt the stimulus will improve the economy in the years ahead. A new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows a whopping 72 percent of Democrats, Republicans and independents would like to see the balance of the unspent stimulus money -- about $600 billion -- returned to taxpayers.

Who is for a single payer healthcare system like Canada?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndStT6c93rc&feature=player_embedded
Round up the usual suspects.

Detainees Shown CIA Officers' Photos
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/20/AR2009082004295.html
Did they give them the guys’ home addresses as well?

Our Ongoing Catharsis
www.pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/our-ongoing-catharsis/
Excerpt: So the Bush-era inability to articulate positions, to balance budgets, to explain what we were doing in Iraq, to admonish Wall Street grandees to slow it down a bit, translated into Obamism. By 2008, we did not wish to hear the surge finally worked and Iraq with it, that Bush gave billions to African AIDs relief, worked with allies, ran a clean government, and kept us safe from terrorist attacks for seven years. No, the country was angry for his lapses and was ripe for a Cleon right out of Aristophanes. And so again, we got Obama. And now the American public belatedly learns that the reaction to Bush is not balanced budgets, careful clear exegesis, but rather the Hollywood alternative of cap-and-trade, enormous tax increases, soaring deficits, nationalized health care, a general attitude that “they” owe “us,” and Europe is our model.

Attorney: FBI trained NJ blogger to incite others
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9A5GCC80&show_article=1
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A New Jersey blogger facing charges in two states for allegedly making threats against lawmakers and judges was trained by the FBI on how to be deliberately provocative, his attorney said Tuesday. Hal Turner worked for the FBI from 2002 to 2007 as an "agent provocateur" and was taught by the agency "what he could say that wouldn't be crossing the line," defense attorney Michael Orozco said.
"His job was basically to publish information which would cause other parties to act in a manner which would lead to their arrest," Orozco said. Prosecutors have acknowledged that Turner was an informant who spied on radical right-wing organizations, but the defense has said Turner was not working for the FBI when he allegedly made threats against Connecticut legislators and wrote that three federal judges in Illinois deserved to die.

Our Health Care Crisis: Age, Obesity, Lawyers
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0907/opinions-rich-karlgaard-digital-rules.html
Excerpt: The biggest cost is not malpractice awards, which annually drive up U.S. health care costs by 1% to 2%--$20 billion to $40 billion a year--although that's bad enough. Most costly is the individual doctor's perceived threat of a career-ending malpractice award and his or her incentive, therefore, to practice defensive medicine. This occurs when a doctor, fearing a lawsuit, orders a battery of costly diagnostic tests to rule out the highly improbable, even when the obvious cause of sickness or injury is staring him in the face. A Massachusetts Medical Society study discovered that in one year Massachusetts wasted $1.4 billion on defensive medicine. Prorated for the entire U.S. population, the cost would be about $66 billion a year. Another study cited by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons puts the cost of defensive medicine much higher--$100 billion to $178 billion per year. I believe it. …Age, obesity and defensive medicine are the trillion-dollar elephants in the room. Whether your preference for health care reform springs from the political left or right, you have to start with these three facts. Otherwise, you're just a political bloviator.

43 People in U.S., Mexico Face Drug Charges
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/20/AR2009082002036.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: Law enforcement officials announced criminal drug-trafficking charges Thursday against 43 people in the United States and Mexico, including suspected leaders of prominent cartels in a country that has been plagued with gun violence.
Federal agencies including the Justice Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the cases, filed in New York and Chicago. Eight defendants were arrested in the past week, and several current and former suspected kingpins in the organized-crime syndicate known as the Sinaloa cartel remained at large, authorities said.

Cap and trade hurts the economy without helping the environment
http://www.bizlex.com/Articles-c-2009-08-02-88744.113117_Cap_and_trade_hurts_the_economy_without_helping_the_environment.html
Excerpt: Businesses are not fans of the legislation. A study commissioned by the National Black Chamber of Commerce showed that cap and trade will reduce the national GDP by roughly $350 billion, cut net employment by 2.5 million jobs, and cost the average U.S. worker hundreds of dollars in annual earnings over the next 20 years. Cap and trade will result in higher energy costs, reduced salaries and higher prices for goods that are produced in the United States. Political conservatives call the legislation the "mother of all pork bills," and they view it as another in a long line of government handouts to industries favored by Democrats. In order to pass the legislation through the House, in fact, Democrats forged an agreement whereby 85 percent of the credits that are to be given away for free will go to companies and industries chosen by Democratic House leadership. Special interests, conservatives say, would profit on the backs of working families.

Whose Medical Decisions? Part IV
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/08/21/whose_medical_decisions_part_iv
Excerpt: What they are trying to do is to create an America very unlike the America that has existed for centuries-- the America that people have been attracted to by the millions from every part of the world, the America that many generations of Americans have fought and died for. This is the America for which Michelle Obama expressed her resentment before it became politically expedient to keep quiet. It is the America that Reverend Jeremiah Wright denounced in his sermons during the 20 years when Barack Obama was a parishioner, before political expediency required Obama to withdraw and distance himself. The thing most associated with America-- freedom-- is precisely what must be destroyed if this is to be turned into a fundamentally different country to suit Obama's vision of the country and of himself. But do not expect a savvy politician like Barack Obama to express what he is doing in terms of limiting our freedom.


As vets await checks, VA workers get $24M bonuses
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h3Kn6hbrBa2TaufScnz5x86wOXBAD9A7CCAO0
The folks who will soon be running our health care system.

Bike Raffle to support the troops
http://www.brassballsbobbers.com/blog/?p=501

Funny e-mail going around
"Let me get this straight. Obama's health care plan will be written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it, signed by a president who smokes, funded by a treasury chief who did not pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that is nearly broke. What could possibly go wrong?"

Quote
"You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
- Adrian Rogers, 1931