Political Digest September 3, 2009

Ted Kennedy's Soviet Gambit
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/27/ted-kennedy-soviet-union-ronald-reagan-opinions-columnists-peter-robinson.html
If true, this was treason.

Taliban Surprising U.S. Forces With Improved Tactics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103908.html?wpisrc=newsletter
The enemy adapts to your tactics and strategy. Then you adapt. Such is war. Numberless battles and chess games have been lost by counting on the opposition to do what you hope or expect they will do.

So You Just Squandered Billions . . . Take Another Whack at It
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103847.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: Back during the heyday of the credit bubble, they were the financiers who earned huge bonuses for creating, trading and investing other people's money in those complex securities that resulted in trillions of dollars in losses and brought global financial markets to their knees. And now they're out there again hustling for investors and hoping to make another score buying and trading the same securities. Like golfers who treat themselves to a second drive after hooking the first one deep into the woods, these guys play on without apology or penalty. The maddening thing is that they're getting away with it and nobody seems to care.

Miss Piggy Would Have Sent the Wrong Message
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103135.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: This reliance on Muppets rather than medicine is not the fault of the Obama administration, which has done about the best it could with limited tools. It's the result of years of failure to build adequate vaccine-manufacturing capacity in the United States. Too little work on new vaccine technologies means producers of flu shots still rely on the ancient method of making inoculations with chicken eggs. And the anemic public health system will almost surely buckle this fall as flu sufferers flood emergency rooms. (Ah, government and healthcare, where decisions are made on the basis of short-term political payback, rather than long-term health consequences. Spend money now to build an infrastructure for ten years from now? How will that help me get elected this fall? I’m criticizing BOTH parties here, but even more the idea that government is the long term answer to all problems.)

Hoyer grilled on health care
http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/health-care/bal-md.hoyer02sep02,0,3619646.story
Excerpt: At a town hall meeting that in its often angry tone and hostile questioning echoed dozens around the country over the past month, the No. 2 Democrat in the House of Representatives was repeatedly pressed about tort reform. "You kind of glossed over this before," Dr. Michael Magee, an orthopedist from Edgewater, said after Hoyer told another questioner that he "certainly" expected the issue to be considered. Hoyer, a leading recipient of campaign contributions from lawyers and law firms, said he is concerned about excessive jury awards in malpractice suits. But he also said that if noneconomic damages are capped, some victims of medical malpractice "may not get anything of substantial value through the years." "I intend to look at this very seriously and discuss it with my colleagues," Hoyer said. "We do want to prevent specious suits. I think we can all agree on that." Trial lawyers are among the most powerful Democratic interest groups, and conservative opponents of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul have zeroed in on the fact that none of the Democratic proposals in Congress contain provisions on tort reform. Obama told the American Medical Association in June that he is not advocating a cap on malpractice awards.

MA-Senate Special: Who's In, Who's Out?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/senate/ma-senate-special-whos-in-whos.html?wprss=thefix
Republicans will doubtless nominate someone too conservative to win. Better to leave control of the US Senate in Democrat hands than vote for a RINO. Which is why Democrats control the US Senate.

Africa's Capitalist Revolution
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18393
Some African countries have discovered that free markets improve people’s lives. Hope they tell Washington.

White House collecting personal information on Americans?
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/09/red-alert-white-house-plans-massive.html
I hope this is over blown. Imaging if George Bush had done this. Where is the ACLU when we need them? I feel like I’m in an old movie. “You still have family in Germany, jawohl?” Imagine if Nixon had had the Internet?

What Happened To The 'Depression'?
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18395
Excerpt: The facts we face today are very different than the grim reality Americans confronted between 1929 and 1932. True, this recession is not over. But it would have to get improbably worse before it came close to the 42-month duration of the Great Depression, or the 25 percent unemployment rate in 1932, says Allan H. Meltzer, professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University. The current recession is also much less severe than the 1937-38 Depression. A more accurate comparison is to the 1973-75 recession. Today's recession is as deep and most likely won't be much longer than the one we experienced some three decades ago. So why do many opinion makers insist on inaccurate and frightening analogies that overstate the severity of present conditions? I believe there are several reasons. First, there is a strong political motivation to make this recession out to be worse than it actually is. (But if the Obama Administration’s spending gives us hyperinflation, like Zimbabwe, and Cap & Trade takes money from consumers’ pockets, and they block free trade by killing NAFTA plus strengthen the unions through card check, we could still have the depression they want. They will blame it on Bush.)

Why Oil Still Has a Future
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574370511700484236.html
Excerpt: The reason is something else that is new—the globalization of demand. No longer are the growth markets for petroleum to be found in North America, Western Europe and Japan. The United States has already hit "peak gasoline demand." The demand growth has now shifted, massively, to the fast-growing emerging markets—China, India and the Middle East. Between 2000 and 2007, 85% of the growth in world oil demand was in the developing world. This shift continues: This year, more new cars have been sold in China than in the United States. When economic recovery takes hold, what happens in emerging countries will be the defining factor in the path for overall consumption. (But ruining the US economy through “Cap & Trade” is going to stop global warming, which seems to have stopped on it’s own in the mid 1990s. No doubt about 2012, Obama will notice the world is now cooling and take credit for it.)

Cutting Greenhouse-Gas Emissions Is No Small Task
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18396
Ah, but we have “The One”!

CIA Counterterrorism Expert: Obama and Holder 'At War' with Agency
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/obama_holder_war_with_cia/2009/08/31/254698.html?promo_code=81BB-1
From my Marine buddy, Del (A Vietnam vet): Yeah, how sweet it must be to have always been safe, highly paid, widely respected, living the American Dream in safety and comfort, while others went out into the cold and dangerous world to try to do what they could, however they could, to make sure that you and all Americans could relax and not worry so much about the next attempt to slaughter American civilians en masse. And to now, years later, to take up the blindingly white flag of moral purity and lead a charge against those others who were out in that cold and danger, away from their families and a morning latte, to examine under a microscope their every action; and now to bring down as much punishment as you can possibly arrange for whatever you can today, in the cool light of another time when the grass is thick over the graves of the 3000 who died on 9-11, be determined by you and other intellectuals to have been less than perfect in those efforts to forestall the next 9-11. You can be so proud, so very, very proud of yourself, Mr. Holder. –Del

Kissing Off Eastern Europe
http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=336351734192480
Excerpt: This is a stark reversal of past policy and reneges on promises made by the current administration. Worse, it shows weakness. We got into a staredown with the Russian bear and we blinked.

Few tickets sold for Clinton CNE speech
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/few-tickets-sold-for-clinton-cne-speech/article1267477/
News Flash: Canadians smarter than expected!

Another day, another fake “hate crime”
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/08/31/another-day-another-fake-hate-crime/
Excerpt: Eleven windows were smashed at the Democratic Party headquarters in Denver, Colorado. Now immediately following that act of vandalism, the head of Colorado’s Democratic Party alleged that the damage was probably inflicted by an opponent of President Obama’s health care plan. But Maurice Schwenkler, the only person charged in the incident so far, is far from a conservative. In fact, he was at one time a paid operative of the Democratic Party and even went door-to-door for candidates.

Van Jones and His STORMtroopers Denounced America the Night After 9/11
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/08/31/van-jones-and-his-stormtroopers-denounced-america-the-night-after-911/
Excerpt: The vehemently anti-American group held a vigil in Oakland, California, “mourning the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world” on the night after Sept. 11, 2001. Jones does not appear to have distanced himself from his past communist activities and is now part of the Obama administration’s push to turn Sept. 11 into a National Day of Service focused on the promotion of the radical environmentalist agenda. (Another anti-American Obot. Ho-hum.)

California's Man-Made Drought
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574384731898375624.html?mod=djemITP
Excerpt: The state's water emergency is unfolding thanks to the latest mishandling of the Endangered Species Act. Last December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued what is known as a "biological opinion" imposing water reductions on the San Joaquin Valley and environs to safeguard the federally protected hypomesus transpacificus, a.k.a., the delta smelt. As a result, tens of billions of gallons of water from mountains east and north of Sacramento have been channeled away from farmers and into the ocean, leaving hundreds of thousands of acres of arable land fallow or scorched. For this, Californians can thank the usual environmental suspects, er, lawyers. Last year's government ruling was the result of a 2006 lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other outfits objecting to increased water pumping in the smelt vicinity. In June, things got even dustier when the National Marine Fisheries Service concluded that local salmon and steelhead also needed to be defended from the valley's water pumps. Those additional restrictions will begin to effect pumping operations next year.

Global Warming and the Sun
http://townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2009/09/02/global_warming_and_the_sun
Excerpt: During what scientists call the Maunder Minimum -- a period of solar inactivity from 1645 to 1715 -- the world experienced the worst of the cold streak dubbed the Little Ice Age. At Christmastime, Londoners ice-skated on the Thames, and New Yorkers (then New Amsterdamers) sometimes walked over the Hudson from Manhattan to Staten Island.

Modern, moderate Malaysia: Muslims threaten violence over construction of Hindu temple
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027429.php
The religion of peace and tolerance is at it again. I mean “still.”

American Exceptionalism
http://www.pjtv.com/video/Afterburner_with_Bill_Whittle/__Bill_Maher%2C_Barack_Obama_and_the_Truth_About_American_Exceptionalism/2378/

September 8th is Brainwash the Kids Day
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10582301/President-Obama’s-Address-to-Students-Across-America-September-8-2009
Imagine the howls if Bush did this.

Pol nabbed on NH Booze Run
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20090901pol_nabbed_on_new_hampshire_booze_run/srvc=home&position=0
Excerpt: A Westport lawmaker who voted to hike the state sales and alcohol taxes was spotted brazenly piling booze in his car - adorned with his State House license plate - in the parking lot of a tax-free New Hampshire liquor store, the Herald has learned. Michael J. Rodrigues’ blue Ford Crown Victoria, emblazoned with his “House 29” Massachusetts license plate, was parked outside a Granite State liquor store on Interstate-95 South over the weekend, according to a witness who provided pictures to the Herald…. He also blamed the brouhaha on “Republican demagoguery.” “Unfortunately, I think that’s why the Republican Party is in such bad shape in Massachusetts,” Rodrigues is quoted as saying. “The electorate here is smart enough to figure out what they’re up to.” (There are still Republicans in Massachusetts? Who knew?)

How a congressman brings business to K Street
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/How-a-congressman-brings-business-to-K-Street-8182767-56627042.html
Excerpt: Skeptical Capitol Hill staffers call the bill a "bailout for Harry Reid." Reid, in re-election trouble, may be hoping government advertising for the Las Vegas Strip might win him some votes and campaign cash from grateful casinos. But the legislation championed by hotels, airlines, and other giants in the travel industry is modest in some ways: Its price tag is only $200 million per year. And rather than a tale of corporate America's clout in Washington, it's a tale of K Street and Capitol Hill luring corporate America into the Beltway swamp. Consider the bill's conception: In 2005 Rep. Bill Delahunt, a Democrat who represents Cape Cod, addressed the Washington Summit of the Travel Business Roundtable, and urged it to lobby more. Fed News reported, "The Congressman called on the industry to wage a more aggressive, bipartisan campaign."

Tax Dollars to British distiller for Captain Morgan rum
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-dc-rum,0,1491418.story
Excerpt: With little fanfare, a deal is moving forward to direct billions in U.S. tax dollars to an unlikely beneficiary -- the giant British liquor producer that makes Captain Morgan rum.

ACORN quick to collect from feds, but slow to pay taxes
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/ACORN-quick-56583277.html
Excerpt: The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is perhaps best known for its volunteers' habit of signing up fake voters. This has resulted in numerous state investigations and convictions of ACORN members for voter fraud activities. But the group is also a tax scofflaw to the tune of more than $1 million, according to documents unearthed by another Louisiana-based non-profit, the Pelican Institute. Pelican researcher Steve Beatty has come across dozens of outstanding and released tax liens against ACORN and ACORN affiliates, headquartered at two addresses in New Orleans. Although some of the liens have been paid, Beatty found that several are still outstanding, including a $547,000 lien by the federal government against ACORN itself. (I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you!)

Reid meeting bans opponents of Obamacare
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3QRIZ34HcE&feature=player_embedded

Health Care for the Peasants
In May 2008 Senator “Ted” Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor -glioblastoma multiforme. The senator underwent surgery at Duke University, probably to reduce the bulk of the tumor. The surgery followed a meeting at Massachusetts General Hospital. The meeting was attended by Kennedy’s own doctor and doctors from the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and Dr. Allan Friedman from Duke University.
Surgery took place at Duke University, reportedly 3½ hours in duration. Of course Senator Kennedy flew by private jet to Duke with his attendants. He would have had at least one day pre-operative stay and one day post operative stay.
Senator Kennedy lived for 16 months after the diagnosis was made; the cost, being a prince or maybe a king, of Senator Kennedy’s care probably exceeded $1,500,000. Six hundred fifty three patients with malignant brain tumors were studied with regard to costs. A group without malignant brain tumors was used as control. The cost per month of the malignant tumor group was $6364. If Senator Kennedy is a peasant $101,824 for 16 months of care.
So what does Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health advisor to Barak Obama say about the treatment of a malignant brain tumor in an over 65 year old patient? “Treating 65 year olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not.” Dr. Emanuel is the brother of Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff.
The kings, queens, princesses and princes that occupy the seats of government will of course not be subject to the “health care reform” policies being proposed in the House and Senate. They, of course, have a much more generous program with no limitations regardless of age. Senator Kennedy was 75 or 76 when his malignant brain tumor was diagnosed. In Obama’s health plan no surgical treatment, no radiation, no chemotherapy would have been provided to the unwashed masses. More likely corticosteroids would have been given to the poorly-connected, not-so-rich patient and death would have followed in a few months.
I too am a peasant. I was a neurosurgeon. I treated patients with malignant brain tumors for more than 30 years. I do not believe only princes, princesses, kings and queens should receive quality medical care. If Obama and his ilk have their way, bend over and kiss yourself good bye. –Bill Seidman
This essay was written on the day after Senator Kennedy’s death by Saul William Seidman, MD, FACS. seidmanmd@gmail.com and is reprinted here with his kind permission.

Quote
"Ted Kennedy's friends laughingly recalled Friday the time N.Y. Daily News photographers caught him making love to a woman on a boat on the Riviera. The opposition loved it. Republicans saw the photos and thought he'd changed his position on offshore drilling." --comedian Argus Hamilton. "The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/)"