Political Digest December 27, 2009

I post articles because I believe they will be of interest, not because I agree with every—or even any—opinion in them.

New Reality Show for 2010
It will be called, “The Lies of Barack Obama.” Average, uninformed American voters will be shown a list of BO’s top 100 promises while running for president. They will have to select those promises he has already broken, for one point each. Two points if they can guess the month and year he broke it. One lost point for each wrong guess. The top winners each month will compete in a playoff where they pick the next ten promises he will break, and when. Losers become unemployed, have their taxes increased and have to live on government-run healthcare.

Man Attempts to Set off Explosives on Detroit-Bound Airplane
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/explosives-northwest-airlines-plane-amsterdam-detroit/story?id=9423871
Update on this story. Excerpt: The suspect was identified as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, who according to federal documents is an engineering student at University College of London. He was flying from Nigeria to the United States for a religious seminar, according to his entry visa, which was issued June 16, 2008 and was good until June 12, 2010. (Well, for large sections of Islam, murdering people is a religious experience.)

Jasper Schuringa subdued alleged terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Northwest Airlines 253
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/12/26/2009-12-26_jasper_schuringa_helped_subdue_alleged_terrorist_umar_farouk_abdulmutallab_on_no.html
The alleged terrorist received alleged burns from the alleged bomb on the alleged flight in the alleged air to the alleged city of Detroit. Excerpt: To ensure the suspect did not have other explosives on his body, Schuringa stripped off Abdulmutallab's clothes. He then handcuffed the alleged attacker with the help of a crew member. Schuringa said the other passengers applauded as he returned to his seat and that he sustained minor injuries during the take down. "My hands are pretty burned. I am fine," he said. "I am shaken up. I am happy to be here."

Making a bomb
I’m not an explosives expert, but based on what training I had in the USMC and my reading, I think it wouldn’t be that difficult to create a powerful bomb that would go through security. But I won’t go into details of why I think so because I hate to wonder if I gave the bad guys ideas when it happens. Not that they aren’t way ahead of me, I’m sure.

Why Was Known Terror Suspect Allowed to Fly?
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/25/more-security-after-attempted-act-of-terrorism-but-why-was-su/
Simple. Because it’s better than hundreds die and the economy take a hit through fear of travel, than foreign Muslims be profiled. PC tops safety always. If you and your kids have to die for it, that’s the breaks.

Solving the al-Awlaki problem http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/solving_the_alawlaki_problem.html
Reports crediting Obama for opening a new front on terror may have been wrong. Excerpt: It appears that the Yemeni government, doing the work that American intelligence agencies won't do, have sent a number of Al Qaeda bigwigs off to their virginal reward: "Initial reports that the airstrike may have been the work of the CIA seem to have been mistaken: Yemeni authorities say it was their jets that conducted the dawn operation, in the province of Shabwa, 400 miles south of the capital Sana'a. In a statement, the Yemeni embassy in Washington D.C. said the strike targeted a meeting of "scores of Yemeni and foreign Al Qaeda operatives." The meeting had been called to discuss retaliation for government raids in mid-December on al-Qaeda hideouts in Abyan and Sana'a provinces. Around 30 people are reported to have been killed in the strike, among them, Nasser Al-Wuhayshi, the regional al-Qaeda leader and his deputy, Saeed Al-Shihri, a former Gitmo detainee."

Radical cleric is said to be alive after Yemen airstrikes
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-yemen-awlaki26-2009dec26,0,6789406.story
Sad News. Excerpt: Sana, Yemen - A U.S.-born radical cleric is alive after reports he may have been killed in a Yemeni airstrike against a suspected Al Qaeda hide-out, friends and relatives said Friday. The government said it targeted a meeting of high-level Al Qaeda operatives in Thursday's airstrike in the remote province of Shabwa. It claimed that at least 30 militants were killed, possibly including Anwar al Awlaki, a radical cleric who has been linked to the accused gunman in last month's attack at the Ft. Hood military base in Texas.

Kerry of Tehran
https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/125cae184a2b0866
Hanoi John is still helping the enemies of Freedom after all these years. Excerpt: His trip would convey legitimacy that the dictatorship is especially eager to have at the current moment. Kerry lost the Secretary of State sweepstakes to Hillary Clinton, but that hasn't lowered his diplomatic ambitions. The Journal reported Thursday that the Senate Foreign Relations Chairman is mulling a trip to Iran, and with the blessing of the Obama Administration. If the mullahs had any sense, they'd send him a government plane. Beset by almost daily demonstrations by a democratic opposition that has been growing despite beatings and arrests since the stolen June election, Mr. Kerry would arrive from Washington to show the Iranian people that at least someone still favors the regime. He would be the most senior American to visit Tehran in 30 years and his trip would convey legitimacy that the dictatorship is especially eager to have at the current moment.

Radical Islam’s Defiling of Christmas
http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/25/icna%e2%80%99s-defiling-of-christmas-by-joe-kaufman/
Excerpt: Today, while Christians around the world are celebrating Christmas, radical Muslims will be gathering in Atlanta, Georgia for the beginning of their annual hatefest. The irony of this cannot be understated, as the group sponsoring the event, ICNA, and its followers openly denounce Christians and propagate material cursing and calling for violence against Christians ICNA or the Islamic Circle of North America was created nearly 40 years ago as the American affiliate to the terror-related Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan. But while JI has focused the majority of its faith-based ire on Hindus, the religious groups of choice for ICNA’s attacks have primarily been Jews and Christians.

National Organization for Irresponsible Women http://townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/12/25/national_organization_for_irresponsible_women
Excerpt: Cucolo's provocation was as follows: Pursuant to his powers as a general officer, he issued regulations for soldiers under his command. Some dealt with Iraqi sensibilities (soldiers were forbidden to enter mosques except in cases of "military necessity"), and others with good order and discipline (no gambling or drug use). Additionally, the general directed that soldiers who become pregnant or impregnate someone else while deployed would be subject to courts martial. Uh-oh. Cue the feminists. "How dare any government say we're going to impose any kind of punishment on women for getting pregnant," fumed Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. "This is not the 1800s.”Four Democratic senators dashed off a public letter. "We can think of no greater deterrent to women contemplating a military career than the image of a pregnant woman being severely punished simply for conceiving a child," protested Sens. Barbara Mikulski, Barbara Boxer, Jeanne Shaheen, and Kirsten Gillibrand. "This defies comprehension. As such, we urge you to immediately rescind this policy." But Cucolo was prepared. Asked about the critical reaction, he said, "I appreciate the inflamed -- I got it. Here's the deal. I'm the one responsible and I mean this sincerely and I mean this with -- I hope I'm not sounding -- it doesn't matter. I am the one responsible and accountable for these 22,000 soldiers. The National Organization for Women is not. Critics are not. (Outrageous. Let’s have total equality. Men and the pregnant women have to stay in their units, go into battle and perform all duties equally.)

The Role of Twitter in the Iran Elections of 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNkeP2T5Xvw
I’m sure BO sent a tweet of his support for freedom and democracy.

Police on the trail of attackers shown in YouTube video http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/70317887.html?elr=KArksUUUU
Bet they are mad Methodists. Excerpt: The creator of the video, who posted it online Monday, describes the attackers as "a group of Somali black males pulling pranks on people."

Harry Reid Turns Insurance into a Public Utility The health bill creates a massive cash crunch and then bankruptcies for many insurers. http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704304504574610040924143158-lMyQjAxMDA5MDIwNTEyNDUyWj.html
Excerpt: As Harry Reid's 2,000 page health-care bill is being rammed through the Senate, most of the public debate has been focused on its expanded coverage, its now defunct public option, and its high taxes. Lost in the shuffle has been its intensely coercive requirements on health insurance issuers, especially in the individual and small group markets. Taken together, these restrictions are likely to drive them out of business and run afoul of the constitutional guarantee that all regulated industries have to a reasonable, risk-adjusted, rate of return on their invested capital. The perils of the Reid bill are made evident in a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that focused on the bill's rebate program, which holds that once an insurance company spends more than 10% of its revenues on administrative expenses, its customers are entitled to an indefinite statutory rebate determined by state regulatory authorities subject to oversight by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Defining these administrative costs is a royal headache, but everyone agrees that they are heaviest in the small group and individual markets, where they typically range between 25% and 30%, without the new regulatory hassles. The CBO concluded that this one restriction turned the Reid bill into "an essentially governmental program." In other words, the targeted health insurers would become de facto public utilities whose profits are gutted when the huge compliance costs under the Reid bill are piled on top of the hefty costs inherent in running a labor intensive health-care insurance business.

Dems not worried about post-vote backlash at home
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=8201
Excerpt: On the floor before the vote, Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “We’re going to hear an earful, but it’s going to be an earful of wonderment and happiness that people waited for for a long time.”

Sebelius Praises Abortion Accounting Trick in Senate Bill
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=8193

Bonus goodie in reform bill: 26 new opportunities for trial lawyers to sue doctors http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/bonus_goodie_in_reform_bill_26.html
Excerpt: At least 26 sections in the House bill and 21 sections in Senator Reid's bill require that doctors adhere to certain standards of care in patient care, payment initiatives, payment determinations, and wellness-prevention programs that do not now exist in law. Each of these provisions could be used by a plaintiff's lawyer to assert that the doctor failed to comply with "best practices" guidelines and become the basis for a medical-malpractice lawsuit. What frustrates physicians and state policymakers alike is that none of these proposed guidelines actually enhance patient care or safety. Instead, in inventing all these new standards of care - relating to such things as effectiveness research, accountability provisions, medical training standards, research and data recorded by pilot programs, task force and demonstration projects, qualification standards for medical personnel, and quality standards (many with enhanced civil penalties) – Congress is creating a regulatory nightmare for physicians and hospitals. If this bill becomes law, hardly a day will go by when a physician will meet all of the required administrative and regulatory processes proposed by Congress in these bills. Physicians across the country will be exposed to many frivolous liability lawsuits based not on how they treated their patients but instead on whether they complied with certain government standards.

Why Are We Tiring of Obama?
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson122309.html
Excerpt: Something of the same is happening with our President. He is experiencing the sharpest popularity decline in the history of first-year administrations. The problem is not just that he inherited a bad economy; Reagan did too. Or that the war in Afghanistan heats up, since it is not nearly as bad as the mess Nixon inherited in Vietnam. Instead, after 11 months there has emerged a series of bothersome incidents that the public has come to associate with Obama, both the man and his philosophies. Some are major policy issues; others trivial acts of no cosmic importance. None in themselves matter all that much. Each gaffe or mistake was contextualized and mended, or attended to by Robert Gibbs. Some are Obama’s fault; others the work of associates. Sometimes mere chance is the culprit. I know Bush had his own list of catastrophes; other Presidents did as well. Again, my point is not trying to adjudicate relative culpability, but rather just to remind us all how and why Obama dived over 20 points in the polls in just 11 months—and his speeches transformed from inspirational to caricatures.

Michigan Forces Business Owners Into Public Sector Unions http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703478704574612341241120838.html?mod=djemITP
Accelerating the decline of Democrat-controlled Michigan, which they will blame on…George Bush! Excerpt: Michelle Berry runs a private day-care service from her home on the outskirts of this city, the birthplace of General Motors. "The Berry Patch," as she calls the service, features overstuffed purple gorillas, giant cartoon murals, and a playroom covered in Astroturf. Her clients are mostly low-income parents who need child care to keep their jobs in a city that now has a 26% unemployment rate. Ms. Berry owns her own business—yet the Michigan Department of Human Services claims she is a government employee and union member. The agency thus withholds union dues from the child-care subsidies it sends to her on behalf of her low-income clients. Those dues are funneled to a public-employee union that claims to represent her. The situation is crazy—and it's happening elsewhere in the country. A year ago in December, Ms. Berry and more than 40,000 other home-based day care providers statewide were suddenly informed they were members of Child Care Providers Together Michigan—a union created in 2006 by the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The union had won a certification election conducted by mail under the auspices of the Michigan Employment Relations Commission. In that election only 6,000 day-care providers voted. The pro-labor vote turned out.

Judges Gone Wild --Michigan defines judicial bias down. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240504574585754116196202.html?mod=djemITP
Destroying us from within. Excerpt: "Starting today," Justice Maura Corrigan wrote in a fiery dissent from the Supreme Court's recusal ruling, "those contesting traffic tickets will enjoy greater constitutional protections than the justices of this court." The plan, she added, "imperils civility among the justices" and "will precipitate a constitutional crisis.” This mayhem is the strategy of the George Soros-funded Brennan Center and Justice at Stake that see draconian recusal standards as a way to stigmatize judicial elections. By impugning a judge's ability to rule impartially by attacking his campaign statements, these groups hope more states will choose their judges through "merit selection"—a process that gives disproportionate influence to lawyers and tilts state courts to the left. They've scheduled an event in Michigan in February to push the state to consider an end to judicial elections.

Charlie Sheen Arrested on Domestic Assault Charges
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FppIBNNEwo http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091226/ap_on_en_tv/us_charlie_sheen_arrested
Excerpt: Charlie Sheen spent the better part of Christmas Day in a Colorado jail cell after being arrested on domestic violence allegations. The 44-year-old actor was taken into custody Friday morning by officers responding to a 911 call from a house in this ski resort town about 200 miles west of Denver. An ambulance went to the house, but the accuser was not taken to the hospital. Sheen, the star of CBS' "Two and a Half Men," was taken to the Pitkin County jail and booked for investigation of second-degree assault and menacing, both felonies, along with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor, Aspen police spokeswoman Stephanie Dasaro said. (Never turn your back on a liberal.)

I Won't Be Home For Christmas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGyEtog_w_Y&feature=player_embedded
Good song for the troops.

Quotes
We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must be. –Benito Mussolini.

The statesman who should attempt to direct people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council or senate whatever, and which would no where be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it. –Adam Smith.