This post was written by a Marine Vietnam Vet friend:
In 2008, the RAND Institute put out a report "Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery." In this report was an estimate that about 320,000 service members might have experienced a traumatic brain injury (TBI) during deployments up to that time.
Most people are now aware that an extreme TBI effectively scrambles the brain circuits badly, leaving the victim in awful condition, unable to care for themselves at all, often with very limited ability to communicate, and dramatically reduced cognitive ability. While some progress can be made to restoring functions, the lives of such men are pretty much permanently impaired to a terrifying degree.
Thus it seems the cost of war in Iraq/Afghanistan has brought about an unheard of level of suffering and loss to many thousands of our soldiers, and their families.
One would expect that an institute as prestigious as RAND would really have gotten this right. One would be wrong.
What they did was a phone survey of a sample of those who have served in those countries, and asked them if they had ever been near an explosion. Naturally, since even those who lived most of their tours behind the wire have heard explosions, many of respondents answered yes. They then applied that percentage to the total of those who had served by that time, and came up with the number of about 320K likely victims of TBI.
Which would actually have meant that for every single contact of any sort with opposing forces up until 2008 there would have had to be multiple TBI events, which is patently ridiculous.
I recently spoke with a veteran of Iraq, a psychologist intimately familiar with the facts, and in 2007 there were 23,000 reported head traumas, of which 85% were simple concussions from which people recovered completely in periods of a couple of days to a couple of weeks. These are pretty much the same kind of thing that happens daily on football fields in the US.
There are indeed major victims of TBI, something under 1000 right now. Still a number that is hard to dismiss, they are all terrible tragedies. But the RAND report was very inaccurate and misleading, and I see that same number cropping up in various articles and blogs today. Like so many bad reports, it rapidly became "what everybody knows".
And then there are the reports of very high levels of PTSD among returning troops. Repeated deployments in dangerous areas do bring this on, as it did in Viet Nam, and in fact among those Marines in WW2 who were involved in several different island campaigns. The cumulative effect of repeated periods of extreme high stress can affect even balanced personalities over time.
However, what is often referred to as PTSD is actually operational stress, which is comes from combinations of things like being away from home, rough living conditions (heat, dust, poor sleep), worries about home (girl friends or wives breaking away, family finances deteriorating), dislike of men or the officers of the unit, and of course, the really high frustration at times with the pages of Rules of Engagement everyone is supposed to know by heart even when bullets are flying past your head and explosions are rattling your brain. (Maybe add to that the worry as to whether the people in charge back in those panelled DC offices have any real idea of what they're doing.)
Operational stress does not condition someone for the rest of their life, any more than that really lousy first job you had does. You can move on from it. However, that stress on top of combat horrors can help cause PTSD. The real question is whether people are experiencing PTSD at rates well beyond our past wars, and so far the actual figures (as known by my contact) don't support that. Media coverage make it sound worse, and does contribute to people thinking they must have PTSD; after all, if you hear about it again and again and again, and you were in Iraq and now you have some problems in your civilian life, it becomes natural to think it must be PTSD.
It reminds me of a technician that worked with me in the early 1970s, who had a problem with alcoholism that he blamed on his 8 hours on Omaha Beach. He was in the 3rd wave, got on shore, laid flat on the sand under fire, had a German bullet crease one of his butt cheeks. He laid there until it was all over, the wound wasn't dangerous but they put him right back on a ship to England, he recovered completely, became a clerk, never saw combat again. But when he came home and got out, he started drinking.
He started complaining to the VA about this in the 1960s, finally got a minor disability, went back repeatedly over the years and kept getting it increased. He finally got it to 100%, quit working, and went home.
What was somewhat important to know was that "Stash" was from a very hard drinking Polish family, both parents were alcoholics, most of his uncles too, and more than half his siblings as well. None of them were ever on Omaha Beach. But he really sincerely believed his drinking problem came from that time lying on the sand.
It seems some things don't change, but they may get different names.
Anyhow, the point of all this is that when even RAND gets stuff seriously wrong, all of us have to be very cautious in accepting what we read and hear. --Del
Friday, April 30, 2010
Political Digest April 30, 2010
Squeezed out a little time in the middle of a long day to pull a few items together. New law here in DC. If you buy stuff in a store, costs five cents for a bag. Going green—but what kind of green.
35 years after fall of Saigon
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=146437
I was a member of the Massachusetts Senate on that terrible day. At my motion, the Senate adjourned that day in memory of the Americans who gave their lives in Vietnam. Little enough, but all I could do. Except hate. Excerpt: Thirty five years ago this Friday, the final chapter to the American portion of the Vietnam War was ingloriously concluded – even though American combat forces were largely gone by late 1971 and all remaining support troops, air crews and POWs were home in early 1973. Unlike Dec. 7, 1941, or June 6, 1944, or Aug. 15, 1945 (Victory over Japan Day), or any other notable day from World War II, April 30, 1975, will never be recalled in positive ways by those old enough to remember or those too young whose ideas have instead been shaped by contemporary media. For the more than three million American servicemen who honorably served in Southeast Asia between 1964 and 1973, there were no tumultuous homecoming parades, no victory celebrations in Times Square or any town square – nothing. For the remaining 200 million Americans alive then who did not go to Vietnam, the war was mostly a vicarious, unpleasant inconvenience. Where Americans might recall this day in 1975, if they recall it at all, they are likely to conjure tension-filled images of action at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, of Marines attempting to impose order from chaos, of throngs of Vietnamese clamoring to get aboard already overcrowded helicopters hoping to leave ahead of the invading communists, some of those same helicopters later being pushed over the sides of U.S. Navy ships, of barely seaworthy, ramshackle hobo freighters packed to the gunwales with star-crossed refugees steaming well in trace of the American armada. As negative as it all seemed, as bad as the day was, at least the bad dream that was, for Americans, the Vietnam "experience" was ending. Time to move on. For the left-behind 17 million citizens of the Republic of Vietnam, which ceased to exist the moment the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet retired over the eastern horizon, memories of that day are far different. While April 30, 1975, really did signal the conclusion of American involvement, all that changed for our discarded former allies was the manner of struggle and degree of difficulty. There would be no moving on. The new communist masters would impose a different kind of peace. It would be peace with retribution, peace with subjugation, peace with no forgiveness and peace with maximum pain.
Sonnet for the Vietnam Lost
They were but boys, whose lives you threw away,
They went because the country asked them to,
And served a cause their leaders would betray—
Thank Christ they never saw that bitter day.
They lived in holes and slept in soaking rain,
Grew thin and sick and weary through and through.
They knew each day the taste of fear and pain,
But never thought that sacrifice was vain.
And when the touch of death had come around
To valiant lives forever shaming you,
For love of comrades and by honor bound
They poured their blood like water on the ground.
And we who loved them, we cannot forget—
And won’t forgive, while breath is in us yet.
Robert A. Hall
Former SSgt, USMC
Vietnam: A Tale Of Two Westministers: 28 and 35 Years Later
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/14313-A-Tale-Of-Two-Westministers-28-and-35-Years-Later.html
Excerpt: Thirty-five years ago, South Vietnam fell to the communist North. Twenty-eight years ago, President Reagan addressed the British Parliament at Westminster in his famous “Ash Heap of History” speech, to where tyrants will be sent by those valiantly defending freedom. Yesterday, I went to Orange County’s “Little Saigon”, Westminster, to attend a forum marking the 35th anniversary of the fall.
Thirty Five Years After The War, Betrayal is Vietnam's Story
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=feedc164377e28d0b14dff14435e55ea
Excerpt: There are, of course, many kinds of betrayals. Thirty-five years ago, the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) was abandoned by the United States and its arms supplies dwindled to a few bullets per soldier at the end of the war, while the northern Communist tanks came rolling southward. Yet, betrayal is not restricted to those who lost the war. It plays itself out with even deeper irony among those who supposedly won. The Viet Cong –- guerillas in the National Liberation Front based in the South –- quickly found that they did not exactly “win” when Saigon fell. Within months, their units were dissolved or integrated under Hanoi commands, their own southern leadership forced into retirement. Though, of all factions, they suffered the highest casualties, the Viet Cong found themselves losing their autonomy and ending up playing underlings to northern leadership.
Post-ABC poll indicators suggest possible political climate change
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/28/AR2010042801910.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
Excerpt: The most intriguing findings in the Washington Post-ABC News poll published Wednesday are the barest hints of a possible upturn for the Democrats. They suggest that, while the political climate remains tilted strongly in the direction of the Republicans, the next months will be crucial in shaping what ultimately happens in November.
A law Arizona can live with
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/27/AR2010042702741.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline
Excerpt: It is passing strange for federal officials, including the president, to accuse Arizona of irresponsibility while the federal government is refusing to fulfill its responsibility to control the nation's borders. Such control is an essential attribute of national sovereignty. America is the only developed nation that has a 2,000-mile border with a developing nation, and the government's refusal to control that border is why there are an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona and why the nation, sensibly insisting on first things first, resists "comprehensive" immigration reform. Arizona's law makes what is already a federal offense -- being in the country illegally -- a state offense. Some critics seem not to understand Arizona's right to assert concurrent jurisdiction. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund attacks Gov. Jan Brewer's character and motives, saying she "caved to the radical fringe." This poses a semantic puzzle: Can the large majority of Arizonans who support the law be a "fringe" of their state?
Illegal immigrants plan to leave over Ariz. Law
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100428/ap_on_re_us/us_immigration_day_labor
Excerpt: Many of the cars that once stopped in the Home Depot parking lot to pick up day laborers to hang drywall or do landscaping now just drive on by. Arizona's sweeping immigration bill allows police to arrest illegal immigrant day laborers seeking work on the street or anyone trying to hire them. It won't take effect until summer but it is already having an effect on the state's underground economy. "Nobody wants to pick us up," Julio Loyola Diaz says in Spanish as he and dozens of other men wait under the shade of palo verde trees and lean against a low brick wall outside the east Phoenix home improvement store. Many day laborers like Diaz say they will leave Arizona because of the law, which also makes it a crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants.
'When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war:' US generals given baffling PowerPoint presentation to try to explain Afghanistan mess
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1269463/Afghanistan-PowerPoint-slide-Generals-left-baffled-PowerPoint-slide.html
Come on, figure it out!
Deconstructing the Outrage
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzhjYTZmZDlmMmNjNTljMzhkNzAzZDdhNDg5YWMwYWU=
Excerpt: I have been trying to collate all the furor over the Arizona law, much of it written by those who do not live in locales that have been transformed by illegal immigration. These writers are more likely to show solidarity from a distance than to visit or live in the areas that have been so radically changed by the phenomenon. On the unfortunate matter of "presenting papers": I have done that numerous times this year — boarding airplanes, purchasing things on a credit card, checking into a hotel, showing a doorman an I.D. when locked out, going to the DMV, and, in one case, pulling off a rural road to use my cell phone in a way that alarmed a chance highway patrolman. An I.D. check to allay "reasonable suspicion" or "probable cause" is very American. On the matter of racial profiling: No one wishes to harass citizens by race or gender, but, again unfortunately, we already profile constantly. When I had top classics students, I quite bluntly explained to graduating seniors that those who were Mexican American and African American had very good chances of entering Ivy League or other top graduate schools from Fresno, those who were women and Asians so-so chances, and those who were white males with CSUF BAs very little chance, despite straight A's and top GRE scores.
Everyone prospers with free trade
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=146465
Excerpt: As French economist Frederic Bastiat put it, "When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will." Palmer offered another way to think about trade: as a machine – "a machine that allows Florida farmers to turn oranges into (phones). They can't grow cell phones on their trees in Florida. They grow oranges really well. What they can do is take those oranges and trade them for cell phones." And when people do this worldwide, they get richer. "Just like the case of you buying some coffee at Starbucks. You could have made your own coffee. But your time might have been better spent doing something else. So you outsourced your coffee production. You made yourself better off. And that young lady who sold you the coffee made herself better off." Palmer points out that China was once the most advanced society in the world. It had developed the clock, printing, the compass and more. Not coincidentally, while it was advancing technology and science, it was a major world trader. "And it crumbled because they destroyed their trade. They made it illegal to trade with foreigners. And they turned inward. That set in process a stagnation that only now is being undone. We shouldn't do that to our country." (Far from doing nothing, Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Anti-Trade Bill, world trade collapsed, and the recession was turned into the great depression. But unions hate free trade and they elect Democrats.)
New comment on “I’m Tired.”
From the reading of your post, I imagine that you are the type of man that would say that you don't need any thanks but I can't begin to express to you sir how much I thank you for your service to our country. But maybe more than that, I thank you for your meaningful and real expression of concern right now for our country. I am a 42 year old mother of two and am scared to death of what kind of country my children and their children will be left with. My husband and I sit and watch the news, read the paper and on-line and can only believe that there have to be others who feel the way we do - and your words prove that there are and that gives me hope! I feel that there is a tipping point for middle-class Americans and we are rapidly approaching it. My only hope is that there are enough citizens brave enough to bring America back...back to her true self. Home of the free, home of the brave, home of the self-sufficient, home of the honorable!
DNC chairman fights race-baiting charges
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/95001-dnc-chairman-fights-race-baiting-charges
If racism ever disappeared, it would be a disaster for the Democrats. Keeping that wound fresh motivates their base. Excerpt: Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tim Kaine said Wednesday that GOP accusations of Democratic race-baiting are dishonest. He said Republicans have injected race into the election. “They’re just grasping at a whole lot of different stuff,” Kaine said at a lunch hosted by The Christian Science Monitor. “It was just a week ago that [Republican National Committee Chairman] Michael Steele said, ‘Our party hasn’t done enough to reach out to minority voters. We have to do more.’ I didn’t put out a press statement accusing him of race-baiting.
Gordon Brown's 'bigoted' comment threatens to shake up campaign
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/29/AR2010042901134.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline
Excerpt: --The headlines here Thursday morning told it all. "Day of Disaster," read the Telegraph. "A Hypocrite Who Shames Britain," screamed the Daily Express. The subhead in the Times added context: "Brown's 'Bigot' Blunder Plunges Labor Campaign into Crisis." Wednesday was a terrible day for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the worst so far of the British election campaign. On a campaign swing near Manchester, the embattled leader of the Labor Party encountered 66-year-old Gillian Duffy, who was out to buy a loaf of bread and, as one paper put it, ended up making "Brown Toast." Duffy asked Brown a series of questions, including one on immigration, an issue that is as politically charged in Britain as it is in the United States. It all seemed a civil and harmless conversation. But back with his aides, an angry Brown complained about having been told to talk to her at all and then called Duffy a "bigoted woman." He forgot he was wearing a live microphone. Brown's comment, which came a day before the third and final debate of the campaign, quickly spiraled into a full-blown calamity for the Labor Party. It was broadcast and rebroadcast all-day and overnight. The coverage could not have been more devastating. The question is how devastating it will prove for Brown and his party.
States Face Their First ObamaCare Test
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471204575210180628430268.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Excerpt: States have until tomorrow to let Washington know if they plan to participate in one of the first government programs to be launched under ObamaCare—new high-risk pools for the uninsured. The question states should be asking is: Why would we participate? The high-risk program is essentially insurance for individuals who have pre-existing conditions and are expensive to insure. The new health law allocates $5 billion for insuring them until 2014 when enrollees would be transferred to new health-insurance exchanges. But Richard Foster, chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reported last week that the high-risk program will run out of money next year or in 2012. Therefore, if states sign up for the program, they'll end up shouldering the burden for about two years after it runs out of federal money. This will be a heavy lift considering the other costs ObamaCare is foisting onto states, one of which is the expansion of Medicaid, a joint federal-state program originally designed to cover low-income Americans. Under ObamaCare, Medicaid will be expanded to cover 84 million people by 2019, up from about 50 million today, putting pressure on states' budgets. Georgia, Nebraska and other states have already taken a pass. The federal government will likely set up these risk pools without their participation. In a letter to federal Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Georgia's insurance commissioner John W. Oxendine said he feared the high-risk pools would "ultimately become the financial responsibility of Georgians in the form of an unfunded mandate." Kansas, Ms. Sebelius's home state, among many others, is considering opting out as well.
Senate Democrats to unveil immigration plan
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/95121-senate-democrats-set-to-unveil-immigration-plan
Hope it’s not, “Ally, Ally, in free!” Excerpt: The plan will emphasize border security over granting illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, according to a memo prepared by Senate Democratic offices. The memo indicates the Democrats' plan includes measures to bolster border security and unify standards for the detention and removal of illegal immigrants. The plan also provides a path to U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants who agree to some penalties, including paying back-taxes. The names of three Democratic senators are attached to the memo: Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Sens. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Bob Menendez (N.J.).
It’s simply harassment
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-oped-0428-page-20100428,0,7291680.column
My response to this column: Dear Editor: I understand Clarence Page’s concerns about the new Arizona Immigration Law. I wouldn’t want our laws to be as restrictive and racist as immigration laws in countries like, say, Mexico. But I suggest that Mr. Page test his principals. He should invite ten undocumented workers to live in his home. And they should be allowed to bring as many more in as they wish, without limit. Of course, the money they earn “doing jobs Americans won’t do” should go to pay for their food, clothing, healthcare and the education of their children, but if their incomes don’t cover the costs, Mr. Page must make up the rest. If he says no at any point, it’s only because he’s a racist. His home would then be in the same exact situation as our country, except that, being a much smaller system, the collapse of his family's standard of living and finances would happen much faster than it’s happening to our country. --Robert A. Hall
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/chi-100429hall_briefs,0,2635587.story
Border Patrol Agents Assaulted Daily, Kidnappings Every 35 Hours in Phoenix
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=64910
Excerpt: Three Border Patrol agents are assaulted on the average day at or near the U.S. border. Someone is kidnapped every 35 hours in Phoenix, Ariz., often by agents of alien smuggling organizations. And one-in-five American teenagers last year used some type of illegal drug, many of which were imported across the unsecured U.S.-Mexico border. These facts are reported in the recently released National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010, published by the National Drug Intelligence Center, a division of the U.S. Justice Department.
MN man gets hearing over charges of posting Islamic cartoons
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13756
Excerpt: An update to these posts on the persecution of Americans who oppose Islam and sharia law. You see, the cartoons this man posted were ruled protected by the Constitution. He wasn’t protected from zealous local politicians and prosecutors who pander to the tens of thousands of Muslims relocated from other countries to Minnesota – citing potential rage of the supposed religion of peace. Rather than protect an Americans rights and freedoms, they are protecting Muslims and sharia law.
Obama is a Bully
http://www.cnbc.com/id/36776494/
CNBC (The Complete National Barack Channel)—really? Excerpt: Will someone please rein in our relentlessly hectoring President? Barrack Hussein Obama has taken his gift for inspirational oratory—one of the traits that got him elected—and turned it into something darker and more insidious. Bam is a bully. Bad enough that he bashes Wall Street, but this President has gone farther than any in modern history in putting the wrong kind of “bully” back into what Teddy Roosevelt called the bully pulpit.... Can you remember any other modern President, wagging a finger from on high, so directly and bitterly criticizing a new law passed by any state?(...) And the worst part is, we’re barely calling out Obama the Bully on this behavior at all.
Fannie Mae owns patent on residential 'cap and trade' exchange
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Fannie-Mae-owns-patent-on-residential-_cap-and-trade_-exchange-91532109.html#ixzz0mVG4RyGi
Excerpt: When he wasn't busy helping create a $127 billion mess for taxpayers to clean up, former Fannie Mae Chief Executive Officer Franklin Raines, two of his top underlings and select individuals in the "green" movement were inventing a patented system to trade residential carbon credits. Patent No. 6904336 was approved by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office on Nov. 7, 2006 -- the day after Democrats took control of Congress. Former Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., criticized the award at the time, pointing out that it had "nothing to do with Fannie Mae's charter, nothing to do with making mortgages more affordable." It wasn't about mortgages. It was about greenbacks. The patent, which Fannie Mae confirmed it still owns with Cantor Fitzgerald subsidiary CO2e.com, gives the mortgage giant a lock on the fledgling carbon trading market, thus also giving it a major financial stake in the success of cap-and-trade legislation.
Democratic memo: a sliver of hope amid mostly gloomy data
http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/27/democratic-memo-a-sliver-of-hope-amid-mostly-gloomy-data/#ixzz0mUpBpJOL
Excerpt: Get ready to hear many times between now and Nov. 2 that Democrats are “on your side.” That’s a key phrase recommended in a polling memo released Tuesday by veteran Democratic strategists James Carville and Stan Greenberg.
Citizen’s Group Plans Extensive Audit of U.N. Climate Report
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/28/climate-change-ipcc-noconsensus/
Excerpt: The Union of Concerned Scientists was critical of Lafromboise's initial effort. Chief scientist Peter Frumhoff, a lead author of the deforestation section of the U.N.’s climate-change report, claimed that “by and large, the IPCC process works exceptionally well.” He welcomed an additional review of the IPCC data, saying that “independent review of IPCC procedures … will assess opportunities for further strengthening it.” But another former contributor to the IPCC process, Patrick J. Michaels, a scientist and senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, and the past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, told FoxNews.com that the real criticism of the U.N.’s climate report has just begun. In addition to Laframboise’s NoConsensus.org, he said, there is a new “parallel universe” of online publications emerging, manned by serious scientists critical of the approach by governments around the world to climate change. He includes sites such as Climate Audit, Watts Up With That?, and The Blackboard in that galaxy.
12 Of The Worst Signs From The Pro-Illegal Immigration Protests
http://rightwingnews.com/2010/04/12-of-the-worst-signs-from-pro-illegal-immigration-protests/
Excerpt: We've had a lot of attention focused on the signs of Tea Partiers lately, so, with illegal immigration back in the news, I thought it might be a good time to show you some of the signs that have been waved around at pro-illegal immigration protests in this country. When you hear the utterly silly and hysterical outcry over the new Arizona immigration law and the demands for a path to citizenship for illegals, understand that the sentiments you see on these signs are undergirding the reaction.
What's More Important: Liberty Or The Entity That Protects It?
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=1293
Excerpt: Let me ask readers a question. What's more important: freedom and its undergirding principles, or the entity meant to protect it? A word of caution: be careful how you answer that question, because the way you answer marks your understanding (or lack thereof) of both freedom and the purpose of government. Thomas Jefferson--and the rest of America's founders--believed that freedom was the principal possession, because liberty is a divine--not human--gift. Listen to Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men." (Declaration of Independence) Jefferson could not be clearer: America's founders desired a land in which men might live in liberty. By declaring independence from the government of Great Britain (and instituting new government), Jefferson, et al., did not intend to erect an idol (government) that men would worship. They created a mechanism designed to protect that which they considered to be their most precious possession: liberty. In other words, the government they created by the Constitution of 1787 was not the object; freedom's protection was the object.
Economic Development for Muslims
http://townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2010/04/29/economic_development_for_muslims
Excerpt: Unemployment in America is hovering at just below 10 percent, so President Obama hosted a "Summit on Entrepreneurship" in Washington, D.C., in an effort to boost economic development ... in Muslim nations. The president thinks more U.S. investment in Muslim lands and exchange programs that will bring Muslim women to America so they can work as interns will enhance U.S. prosperity and, thus, change Muslim attitudes about the United States. Pigs will fly first. The U.S. has been more than generous to Arab and Muslim nations in direct foreign aid, military assistance and other ways. Egypt receives about $2 billion of American taxpayer dollars every year, yet it still votes against American interests at the U.N. 79 percent of the time. Jordan, a "moderate" Muslim nation, receives nearly $200 million annually in U.S. foreign aid, but votes against America at the U.N. 71 percent of the time. Pakistan votes 75 percent of the time against the U.S. at the U.N. while pocketing nearly $7 million annually in foreign aid (in addition to the money it gets to supposedly fight al-Qaida).
Economic Development for Muslims?
Here’s my seven-point plan:
1. Renounce the provisions in Shari’a law that make half your population, women, legally second class citizens.
2. Renounce child marriage and FGM that makes Shari’a law detested in the modern world.
3. Renounce violence to advance Islam in the world.
4. Renounce provisions in the Qur’an that make Christians and Jews second class citizens under Muslim law.
5. Establish secular states, where no religion is given preference by the government. Separate government and religious leaders.
6. Work peaceable with people of other religions—they will help you improve the lot of your people.
7. Use oil money to improve your country, not buying gold-plated limos for sheiks.
Nigeria: Senator who oversaw introduction of Sharia in his state takes child bride from Egypt
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/04/nigeria-senator-who-oversaw-introduction-of-sharia-in-his-state-takes-child-bride-from-egypt.html
Excerpt: He's 49, she's 13. Of course, he's just following Muhammad's example, made sacrosanct per Qur'an 33:21. It is quite clear whose law Yerima is following, which sets up a conflict of interest with his role in the governance of Nigeria as a whole, as the country still has a non-Sharia constitution to uphold.
West Java, thousands of Islamic extremists attack a Christian center
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/West-Java,-thousands-of-Islamic-extremists-attack-a-Christian-center-18256.html
Excerpt: Thousands of Muslim extremists attacked a Christian educational center in Bogor regency, West Java province, Indonesia. The toll from yesterday’s attack is three destroyed cars and several buildings damaged or burnt. The wrath of fundamentalists was unleashed, and encouraged by the local Council of Ulema (MUI), by unsubstantiated rumours that the Christian community BKP Penabur were planning "to build a place of worship" within the complex.
Suntanned women to be arrested under Islamic dress code
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/7639728/Suntanned-women-to-be-arrested-under-Islamic-dress-code.html
Excerpt: Brig Hossien Sajedinia, Tehran's police chief, said a national crackdown on opposition sympathisers would be extended to women who have been deemed to be violating the spirit of Islamic laws. He said: "The public expects us to act firmly and swiftly if we see any social misbehaviour by women, and men, who defy our Islamic values. In some areas of north Tehran we can see many suntanned women and young girls who look like walking mannequins. "We are not going to tolerate this situation and will first warn those found in this manner and then arrest and imprison them."
DOJ Intel Report Downplays Terror Threat at Border
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64836
Good news, Rashid, they are asleep! Excerpt: A recent report by the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), a division of the U.S. Justice Department, downplays the threat of terrorists crossing the U.S.-Mexico border even as it paints a picture of a border wide open to the smuggling activities of Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), whose poisons and criminal co-conspirators are now found in every region of the United States. The NDIC’s National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010, released on March 25, twice appears to assert that there have been no documented cases of terrorists illegally entering the United States across the Mexican border, an assertion contradicted by a 2009 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, a 2007 statement to the El Paso Times by then-Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and 2005 testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by FBI Director Robert Mueller.
SWAT Team Called on Tea Party
http://www.thefoxnation.com/justice/2010/04/28/swat-team-called-tea-party
Signing “God Bless America”? Filthy radicals. Excerpt: As I reported on air this afternoon via Michelle Moore’s updates, Illinois sent in the riot squad to stop the couple hundred peaceful protesters from … doing what it isn’t exactly clear. Protesters sang “God Bless America” and apparently that was enough to invoke the riot squad. Illinois may be running a deficit but sure has money to burn for silly and unnecessary things. Who gave the order to call in the riot police on protesters? Word is that Secret Service from inside the venue and the presidential team pressured local law enforcement, who were against the idea. Local cops were overruled, I’m told by various sources, including a few members of local press. Moore reported that she overheard Secret Service telling the riot squad to “push them back, out of sight.“
Some Democrats See Drugs and Border Security As ‘Distraction’
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64947
Excerpt: Some congressional Democrats say concern about drug traffickers crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are distracting attention from the main issue of comprehensive immigration reform. At a Capitol Hill press conference on Wednesday, several House Democrats blasted the new Arizona law that makes it a crime to be in the state illegally. They said the law – which mirrors federal statutes -- highlights the need for comprehensive immigration reform. “The drug war that we have is another distraction from doing what we have to do right. If we do this right, we can move forward on the other issues,” Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, told CNSNews.com.
Judge asks feds to show militia did more than talk
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100429/D9FCD8I00.html
If being stupid is a crime, they got them dead to rights. Excerpt: federal judge challenged prosecutors Wednesday to show that nine members of a Michigan militia accused of plotting war against the government had done more than just talk and should remain locked up. U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts heard nearly 10 hours of testimony and arguments over two days. She did not make a decision about whether the nine will remain in custody, saying only that a ruling would come soon. The members of a southern Michigan group called Hutaree have been in custody for a month. An indictment accuses them of weapons violations and a rare crime: conspiring to commit sedition, or rebellion, against the government by first killing police officers.
Want to get rich? Work for feds
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Want-to-get-rich_-Work-for-feds-92316619.html
Excerpt: For decades, public sector unions have peddled the fantasy that government employees were paid less than their counterparts in the private sector. In fact, the pay disparity is the other way around. Government workers, especially at the federal level, make salaries that are scandalously higher than those paid to private sector workers. And let's not forget private sector workers not only have to be sufficiently productive to earn their paychecks, they also must pay the taxes that support the more generous jobs in the public sector. Data compiled by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis reveals the extent of the pay gap between federal and private workers. As of 2008, the average federal salary was $119,982, compared with $59,909 for the average private sector employee.
35 years after fall of Saigon
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=146437
I was a member of the Massachusetts Senate on that terrible day. At my motion, the Senate adjourned that day in memory of the Americans who gave their lives in Vietnam. Little enough, but all I could do. Except hate. Excerpt: Thirty five years ago this Friday, the final chapter to the American portion of the Vietnam War was ingloriously concluded – even though American combat forces were largely gone by late 1971 and all remaining support troops, air crews and POWs were home in early 1973. Unlike Dec. 7, 1941, or June 6, 1944, or Aug. 15, 1945 (Victory over Japan Day), or any other notable day from World War II, April 30, 1975, will never be recalled in positive ways by those old enough to remember or those too young whose ideas have instead been shaped by contemporary media. For the more than three million American servicemen who honorably served in Southeast Asia between 1964 and 1973, there were no tumultuous homecoming parades, no victory celebrations in Times Square or any town square – nothing. For the remaining 200 million Americans alive then who did not go to Vietnam, the war was mostly a vicarious, unpleasant inconvenience. Where Americans might recall this day in 1975, if they recall it at all, they are likely to conjure tension-filled images of action at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, of Marines attempting to impose order from chaos, of throngs of Vietnamese clamoring to get aboard already overcrowded helicopters hoping to leave ahead of the invading communists, some of those same helicopters later being pushed over the sides of U.S. Navy ships, of barely seaworthy, ramshackle hobo freighters packed to the gunwales with star-crossed refugees steaming well in trace of the American armada. As negative as it all seemed, as bad as the day was, at least the bad dream that was, for Americans, the Vietnam "experience" was ending. Time to move on. For the left-behind 17 million citizens of the Republic of Vietnam, which ceased to exist the moment the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet retired over the eastern horizon, memories of that day are far different. While April 30, 1975, really did signal the conclusion of American involvement, all that changed for our discarded former allies was the manner of struggle and degree of difficulty. There would be no moving on. The new communist masters would impose a different kind of peace. It would be peace with retribution, peace with subjugation, peace with no forgiveness and peace with maximum pain.
Sonnet for the Vietnam Lost
They were but boys, whose lives you threw away,
They went because the country asked them to,
And served a cause their leaders would betray—
Thank Christ they never saw that bitter day.
They lived in holes and slept in soaking rain,
Grew thin and sick and weary through and through.
They knew each day the taste of fear and pain,
But never thought that sacrifice was vain.
And when the touch of death had come around
To valiant lives forever shaming you,
For love of comrades and by honor bound
They poured their blood like water on the ground.
And we who loved them, we cannot forget—
And won’t forgive, while breath is in us yet.
Robert A. Hall
Former SSgt, USMC
Vietnam: A Tale Of Two Westministers: 28 and 35 Years Later
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/14313-A-Tale-Of-Two-Westministers-28-and-35-Years-Later.html
Excerpt: Thirty-five years ago, South Vietnam fell to the communist North. Twenty-eight years ago, President Reagan addressed the British Parliament at Westminster in his famous “Ash Heap of History” speech, to where tyrants will be sent by those valiantly defending freedom. Yesterday, I went to Orange County’s “Little Saigon”, Westminster, to attend a forum marking the 35th anniversary of the fall.
Thirty Five Years After The War, Betrayal is Vietnam's Story
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=feedc164377e28d0b14dff14435e55ea
Excerpt: There are, of course, many kinds of betrayals. Thirty-five years ago, the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) was abandoned by the United States and its arms supplies dwindled to a few bullets per soldier at the end of the war, while the northern Communist tanks came rolling southward. Yet, betrayal is not restricted to those who lost the war. It plays itself out with even deeper irony among those who supposedly won. The Viet Cong –- guerillas in the National Liberation Front based in the South –- quickly found that they did not exactly “win” when Saigon fell. Within months, their units were dissolved or integrated under Hanoi commands, their own southern leadership forced into retirement. Though, of all factions, they suffered the highest casualties, the Viet Cong found themselves losing their autonomy and ending up playing underlings to northern leadership.
Post-ABC poll indicators suggest possible political climate change
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/28/AR2010042801910.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
Excerpt: The most intriguing findings in the Washington Post-ABC News poll published Wednesday are the barest hints of a possible upturn for the Democrats. They suggest that, while the political climate remains tilted strongly in the direction of the Republicans, the next months will be crucial in shaping what ultimately happens in November.
A law Arizona can live with
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/27/AR2010042702741.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline
Excerpt: It is passing strange for federal officials, including the president, to accuse Arizona of irresponsibility while the federal government is refusing to fulfill its responsibility to control the nation's borders. Such control is an essential attribute of national sovereignty. America is the only developed nation that has a 2,000-mile border with a developing nation, and the government's refusal to control that border is why there are an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona and why the nation, sensibly insisting on first things first, resists "comprehensive" immigration reform. Arizona's law makes what is already a federal offense -- being in the country illegally -- a state offense. Some critics seem not to understand Arizona's right to assert concurrent jurisdiction. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund attacks Gov. Jan Brewer's character and motives, saying she "caved to the radical fringe." This poses a semantic puzzle: Can the large majority of Arizonans who support the law be a "fringe" of their state?
Illegal immigrants plan to leave over Ariz. Law
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100428/ap_on_re_us/us_immigration_day_labor
Excerpt: Many of the cars that once stopped in the Home Depot parking lot to pick up day laborers to hang drywall or do landscaping now just drive on by. Arizona's sweeping immigration bill allows police to arrest illegal immigrant day laborers seeking work on the street or anyone trying to hire them. It won't take effect until summer but it is already having an effect on the state's underground economy. "Nobody wants to pick us up," Julio Loyola Diaz says in Spanish as he and dozens of other men wait under the shade of palo verde trees and lean against a low brick wall outside the east Phoenix home improvement store. Many day laborers like Diaz say they will leave Arizona because of the law, which also makes it a crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants.
'When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war:' US generals given baffling PowerPoint presentation to try to explain Afghanistan mess
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1269463/Afghanistan-PowerPoint-slide-Generals-left-baffled-PowerPoint-slide.html
Come on, figure it out!
Deconstructing the Outrage
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzhjYTZmZDlmMmNjNTljMzhkNzAzZDdhNDg5YWMwYWU=
Excerpt: I have been trying to collate all the furor over the Arizona law, much of it written by those who do not live in locales that have been transformed by illegal immigration. These writers are more likely to show solidarity from a distance than to visit or live in the areas that have been so radically changed by the phenomenon. On the unfortunate matter of "presenting papers": I have done that numerous times this year — boarding airplanes, purchasing things on a credit card, checking into a hotel, showing a doorman an I.D. when locked out, going to the DMV, and, in one case, pulling off a rural road to use my cell phone in a way that alarmed a chance highway patrolman. An I.D. check to allay "reasonable suspicion" or "probable cause" is very American. On the matter of racial profiling: No one wishes to harass citizens by race or gender, but, again unfortunately, we already profile constantly. When I had top classics students, I quite bluntly explained to graduating seniors that those who were Mexican American and African American had very good chances of entering Ivy League or other top graduate schools from Fresno, those who were women and Asians so-so chances, and those who were white males with CSUF BAs very little chance, despite straight A's and top GRE scores.
Everyone prospers with free trade
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=146465
Excerpt: As French economist Frederic Bastiat put it, "When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will." Palmer offered another way to think about trade: as a machine – "a machine that allows Florida farmers to turn oranges into (phones). They can't grow cell phones on their trees in Florida. They grow oranges really well. What they can do is take those oranges and trade them for cell phones." And when people do this worldwide, they get richer. "Just like the case of you buying some coffee at Starbucks. You could have made your own coffee. But your time might have been better spent doing something else. So you outsourced your coffee production. You made yourself better off. And that young lady who sold you the coffee made herself better off." Palmer points out that China was once the most advanced society in the world. It had developed the clock, printing, the compass and more. Not coincidentally, while it was advancing technology and science, it was a major world trader. "And it crumbled because they destroyed their trade. They made it illegal to trade with foreigners. And they turned inward. That set in process a stagnation that only now is being undone. We shouldn't do that to our country." (Far from doing nothing, Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Anti-Trade Bill, world trade collapsed, and the recession was turned into the great depression. But unions hate free trade and they elect Democrats.)
New comment on “I’m Tired.”
From the reading of your post, I imagine that you are the type of man that would say that you don't need any thanks but I can't begin to express to you sir how much I thank you for your service to our country. But maybe more than that, I thank you for your meaningful and real expression of concern right now for our country. I am a 42 year old mother of two and am scared to death of what kind of country my children and their children will be left with. My husband and I sit and watch the news, read the paper and on-line and can only believe that there have to be others who feel the way we do - and your words prove that there are and that gives me hope! I feel that there is a tipping point for middle-class Americans and we are rapidly approaching it. My only hope is that there are enough citizens brave enough to bring America back...back to her true self. Home of the free, home of the brave, home of the self-sufficient, home of the honorable!
DNC chairman fights race-baiting charges
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/95001-dnc-chairman-fights-race-baiting-charges
If racism ever disappeared, it would be a disaster for the Democrats. Keeping that wound fresh motivates their base. Excerpt: Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tim Kaine said Wednesday that GOP accusations of Democratic race-baiting are dishonest. He said Republicans have injected race into the election. “They’re just grasping at a whole lot of different stuff,” Kaine said at a lunch hosted by The Christian Science Monitor. “It was just a week ago that [Republican National Committee Chairman] Michael Steele said, ‘Our party hasn’t done enough to reach out to minority voters. We have to do more.’ I didn’t put out a press statement accusing him of race-baiting.
Gordon Brown's 'bigoted' comment threatens to shake up campaign
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/29/AR2010042901134.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline
Excerpt: --The headlines here Thursday morning told it all. "Day of Disaster," read the Telegraph. "A Hypocrite Who Shames Britain," screamed the Daily Express. The subhead in the Times added context: "Brown's 'Bigot' Blunder Plunges Labor Campaign into Crisis." Wednesday was a terrible day for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the worst so far of the British election campaign. On a campaign swing near Manchester, the embattled leader of the Labor Party encountered 66-year-old Gillian Duffy, who was out to buy a loaf of bread and, as one paper put it, ended up making "Brown Toast." Duffy asked Brown a series of questions, including one on immigration, an issue that is as politically charged in Britain as it is in the United States. It all seemed a civil and harmless conversation. But back with his aides, an angry Brown complained about having been told to talk to her at all and then called Duffy a "bigoted woman." He forgot he was wearing a live microphone. Brown's comment, which came a day before the third and final debate of the campaign, quickly spiraled into a full-blown calamity for the Labor Party. It was broadcast and rebroadcast all-day and overnight. The coverage could not have been more devastating. The question is how devastating it will prove for Brown and his party.
States Face Their First ObamaCare Test
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471204575210180628430268.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Excerpt: States have until tomorrow to let Washington know if they plan to participate in one of the first government programs to be launched under ObamaCare—new high-risk pools for the uninsured. The question states should be asking is: Why would we participate? The high-risk program is essentially insurance for individuals who have pre-existing conditions and are expensive to insure. The new health law allocates $5 billion for insuring them until 2014 when enrollees would be transferred to new health-insurance exchanges. But Richard Foster, chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reported last week that the high-risk program will run out of money next year or in 2012. Therefore, if states sign up for the program, they'll end up shouldering the burden for about two years after it runs out of federal money. This will be a heavy lift considering the other costs ObamaCare is foisting onto states, one of which is the expansion of Medicaid, a joint federal-state program originally designed to cover low-income Americans. Under ObamaCare, Medicaid will be expanded to cover 84 million people by 2019, up from about 50 million today, putting pressure on states' budgets. Georgia, Nebraska and other states have already taken a pass. The federal government will likely set up these risk pools without their participation. In a letter to federal Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Georgia's insurance commissioner John W. Oxendine said he feared the high-risk pools would "ultimately become the financial responsibility of Georgians in the form of an unfunded mandate." Kansas, Ms. Sebelius's home state, among many others, is considering opting out as well.
Senate Democrats to unveil immigration plan
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/95121-senate-democrats-set-to-unveil-immigration-plan
Hope it’s not, “Ally, Ally, in free!” Excerpt: The plan will emphasize border security over granting illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, according to a memo prepared by Senate Democratic offices. The memo indicates the Democrats' plan includes measures to bolster border security and unify standards for the detention and removal of illegal immigrants. The plan also provides a path to U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants who agree to some penalties, including paying back-taxes. The names of three Democratic senators are attached to the memo: Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Sens. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Bob Menendez (N.J.).
It’s simply harassment
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-oped-0428-page-20100428,0,7291680.column
My response to this column: Dear Editor: I understand Clarence Page’s concerns about the new Arizona Immigration Law. I wouldn’t want our laws to be as restrictive and racist as immigration laws in countries like, say, Mexico. But I suggest that Mr. Page test his principals. He should invite ten undocumented workers to live in his home. And they should be allowed to bring as many more in as they wish, without limit. Of course, the money they earn “doing jobs Americans won’t do” should go to pay for their food, clothing, healthcare and the education of their children, but if their incomes don’t cover the costs, Mr. Page must make up the rest. If he says no at any point, it’s only because he’s a racist. His home would then be in the same exact situation as our country, except that, being a much smaller system, the collapse of his family's standard of living and finances would happen much faster than it’s happening to our country. --Robert A. Hall
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/chi-100429hall_briefs,0,2635587.story
Border Patrol Agents Assaulted Daily, Kidnappings Every 35 Hours in Phoenix
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=64910
Excerpt: Three Border Patrol agents are assaulted on the average day at or near the U.S. border. Someone is kidnapped every 35 hours in Phoenix, Ariz., often by agents of alien smuggling organizations. And one-in-five American teenagers last year used some type of illegal drug, many of which were imported across the unsecured U.S.-Mexico border. These facts are reported in the recently released National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010, published by the National Drug Intelligence Center, a division of the U.S. Justice Department.
MN man gets hearing over charges of posting Islamic cartoons
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13756
Excerpt: An update to these posts on the persecution of Americans who oppose Islam and sharia law. You see, the cartoons this man posted were ruled protected by the Constitution. He wasn’t protected from zealous local politicians and prosecutors who pander to the tens of thousands of Muslims relocated from other countries to Minnesota – citing potential rage of the supposed religion of peace. Rather than protect an Americans rights and freedoms, they are protecting Muslims and sharia law.
Obama is a Bully
http://www.cnbc.com/id/36776494/
CNBC (The Complete National Barack Channel)—really? Excerpt: Will someone please rein in our relentlessly hectoring President? Barrack Hussein Obama has taken his gift for inspirational oratory—one of the traits that got him elected—and turned it into something darker and more insidious. Bam is a bully. Bad enough that he bashes Wall Street, but this President has gone farther than any in modern history in putting the wrong kind of “bully” back into what Teddy Roosevelt called the bully pulpit.... Can you remember any other modern President, wagging a finger from on high, so directly and bitterly criticizing a new law passed by any state?(...) And the worst part is, we’re barely calling out Obama the Bully on this behavior at all.
Fannie Mae owns patent on residential 'cap and trade' exchange
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Fannie-Mae-owns-patent-on-residential-_cap-and-trade_-exchange-91532109.html#ixzz0mVG4RyGi
Excerpt: When he wasn't busy helping create a $127 billion mess for taxpayers to clean up, former Fannie Mae Chief Executive Officer Franklin Raines, two of his top underlings and select individuals in the "green" movement were inventing a patented system to trade residential carbon credits. Patent No. 6904336 was approved by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office on Nov. 7, 2006 -- the day after Democrats took control of Congress. Former Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., criticized the award at the time, pointing out that it had "nothing to do with Fannie Mae's charter, nothing to do with making mortgages more affordable." It wasn't about mortgages. It was about greenbacks. The patent, which Fannie Mae confirmed it still owns with Cantor Fitzgerald subsidiary CO2e.com, gives the mortgage giant a lock on the fledgling carbon trading market, thus also giving it a major financial stake in the success of cap-and-trade legislation.
Democratic memo: a sliver of hope amid mostly gloomy data
http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/27/democratic-memo-a-sliver-of-hope-amid-mostly-gloomy-data/#ixzz0mUpBpJOL
Excerpt: Get ready to hear many times between now and Nov. 2 that Democrats are “on your side.” That’s a key phrase recommended in a polling memo released Tuesday by veteran Democratic strategists James Carville and Stan Greenberg.
Citizen’s Group Plans Extensive Audit of U.N. Climate Report
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/28/climate-change-ipcc-noconsensus/
Excerpt: The Union of Concerned Scientists was critical of Lafromboise's initial effort. Chief scientist Peter Frumhoff, a lead author of the deforestation section of the U.N.’s climate-change report, claimed that “by and large, the IPCC process works exceptionally well.” He welcomed an additional review of the IPCC data, saying that “independent review of IPCC procedures … will assess opportunities for further strengthening it.” But another former contributor to the IPCC process, Patrick J. Michaels, a scientist and senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, and the past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, told FoxNews.com that the real criticism of the U.N.’s climate report has just begun. In addition to Laframboise’s NoConsensus.org, he said, there is a new “parallel universe” of online publications emerging, manned by serious scientists critical of the approach by governments around the world to climate change. He includes sites such as Climate Audit, Watts Up With That?, and The Blackboard in that galaxy.
12 Of The Worst Signs From The Pro-Illegal Immigration Protests
http://rightwingnews.com/2010/04/12-of-the-worst-signs-from-pro-illegal-immigration-protests/
Excerpt: We've had a lot of attention focused on the signs of Tea Partiers lately, so, with illegal immigration back in the news, I thought it might be a good time to show you some of the signs that have been waved around at pro-illegal immigration protests in this country. When you hear the utterly silly and hysterical outcry over the new Arizona immigration law and the demands for a path to citizenship for illegals, understand that the sentiments you see on these signs are undergirding the reaction.
What's More Important: Liberty Or The Entity That Protects It?
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=1293
Excerpt: Let me ask readers a question. What's more important: freedom and its undergirding principles, or the entity meant to protect it? A word of caution: be careful how you answer that question, because the way you answer marks your understanding (or lack thereof) of both freedom and the purpose of government. Thomas Jefferson--and the rest of America's founders--believed that freedom was the principal possession, because liberty is a divine--not human--gift. Listen to Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men." (Declaration of Independence) Jefferson could not be clearer: America's founders desired a land in which men might live in liberty. By declaring independence from the government of Great Britain (and instituting new government), Jefferson, et al., did not intend to erect an idol (government) that men would worship. They created a mechanism designed to protect that which they considered to be their most precious possession: liberty. In other words, the government they created by the Constitution of 1787 was not the object; freedom's protection was the object.
Economic Development for Muslims
http://townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2010/04/29/economic_development_for_muslims
Excerpt: Unemployment in America is hovering at just below 10 percent, so President Obama hosted a "Summit on Entrepreneurship" in Washington, D.C., in an effort to boost economic development ... in Muslim nations. The president thinks more U.S. investment in Muslim lands and exchange programs that will bring Muslim women to America so they can work as interns will enhance U.S. prosperity and, thus, change Muslim attitudes about the United States. Pigs will fly first. The U.S. has been more than generous to Arab and Muslim nations in direct foreign aid, military assistance and other ways. Egypt receives about $2 billion of American taxpayer dollars every year, yet it still votes against American interests at the U.N. 79 percent of the time. Jordan, a "moderate" Muslim nation, receives nearly $200 million annually in U.S. foreign aid, but votes against America at the U.N. 71 percent of the time. Pakistan votes 75 percent of the time against the U.S. at the U.N. while pocketing nearly $7 million annually in foreign aid (in addition to the money it gets to supposedly fight al-Qaida).
Economic Development for Muslims?
Here’s my seven-point plan:
1. Renounce the provisions in Shari’a law that make half your population, women, legally second class citizens.
2. Renounce child marriage and FGM that makes Shari’a law detested in the modern world.
3. Renounce violence to advance Islam in the world.
4. Renounce provisions in the Qur’an that make Christians and Jews second class citizens under Muslim law.
5. Establish secular states, where no religion is given preference by the government. Separate government and religious leaders.
6. Work peaceable with people of other religions—they will help you improve the lot of your people.
7. Use oil money to improve your country, not buying gold-plated limos for sheiks.
Nigeria: Senator who oversaw introduction of Sharia in his state takes child bride from Egypt
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/04/nigeria-senator-who-oversaw-introduction-of-sharia-in-his-state-takes-child-bride-from-egypt.html
Excerpt: He's 49, she's 13. Of course, he's just following Muhammad's example, made sacrosanct per Qur'an 33:21. It is quite clear whose law Yerima is following, which sets up a conflict of interest with his role in the governance of Nigeria as a whole, as the country still has a non-Sharia constitution to uphold.
West Java, thousands of Islamic extremists attack a Christian center
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/West-Java,-thousands-of-Islamic-extremists-attack-a-Christian-center-18256.html
Excerpt: Thousands of Muslim extremists attacked a Christian educational center in Bogor regency, West Java province, Indonesia. The toll from yesterday’s attack is three destroyed cars and several buildings damaged or burnt. The wrath of fundamentalists was unleashed, and encouraged by the local Council of Ulema (MUI), by unsubstantiated rumours that the Christian community BKP Penabur were planning "to build a place of worship" within the complex.
Suntanned women to be arrested under Islamic dress code
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/7639728/Suntanned-women-to-be-arrested-under-Islamic-dress-code.html
Excerpt: Brig Hossien Sajedinia, Tehran's police chief, said a national crackdown on opposition sympathisers would be extended to women who have been deemed to be violating the spirit of Islamic laws. He said: "The public expects us to act firmly and swiftly if we see any social misbehaviour by women, and men, who defy our Islamic values. In some areas of north Tehran we can see many suntanned women and young girls who look like walking mannequins. "We are not going to tolerate this situation and will first warn those found in this manner and then arrest and imprison them."
DOJ Intel Report Downplays Terror Threat at Border
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64836
Good news, Rashid, they are asleep! Excerpt: A recent report by the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), a division of the U.S. Justice Department, downplays the threat of terrorists crossing the U.S.-Mexico border even as it paints a picture of a border wide open to the smuggling activities of Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), whose poisons and criminal co-conspirators are now found in every region of the United States. The NDIC’s National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010, released on March 25, twice appears to assert that there have been no documented cases of terrorists illegally entering the United States across the Mexican border, an assertion contradicted by a 2009 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, a 2007 statement to the El Paso Times by then-Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and 2005 testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by FBI Director Robert Mueller.
SWAT Team Called on Tea Party
http://www.thefoxnation.com/justice/2010/04/28/swat-team-called-tea-party
Signing “God Bless America”? Filthy radicals. Excerpt: As I reported on air this afternoon via Michelle Moore’s updates, Illinois sent in the riot squad to stop the couple hundred peaceful protesters from … doing what it isn’t exactly clear. Protesters sang “God Bless America” and apparently that was enough to invoke the riot squad. Illinois may be running a deficit but sure has money to burn for silly and unnecessary things. Who gave the order to call in the riot police on protesters? Word is that Secret Service from inside the venue and the presidential team pressured local law enforcement, who were against the idea. Local cops were overruled, I’m told by various sources, including a few members of local press. Moore reported that she overheard Secret Service telling the riot squad to “push them back, out of sight.“
Some Democrats See Drugs and Border Security As ‘Distraction’
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64947
Excerpt: Some congressional Democrats say concern about drug traffickers crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are distracting attention from the main issue of comprehensive immigration reform. At a Capitol Hill press conference on Wednesday, several House Democrats blasted the new Arizona law that makes it a crime to be in the state illegally. They said the law – which mirrors federal statutes -- highlights the need for comprehensive immigration reform. “The drug war that we have is another distraction from doing what we have to do right. If we do this right, we can move forward on the other issues,” Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, told CNSNews.com.
Judge asks feds to show militia did more than talk
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100429/D9FCD8I00.html
If being stupid is a crime, they got them dead to rights. Excerpt: federal judge challenged prosecutors Wednesday to show that nine members of a Michigan militia accused of plotting war against the government had done more than just talk and should remain locked up. U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts heard nearly 10 hours of testimony and arguments over two days. She did not make a decision about whether the nine will remain in custody, saying only that a ruling would come soon. The members of a southern Michigan group called Hutaree have been in custody for a month. An indictment accuses them of weapons violations and a rare crime: conspiring to commit sedition, or rebellion, against the government by first killing police officers.
Want to get rich? Work for feds
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Want-to-get-rich_-Work-for-feds-92316619.html
Excerpt: For decades, public sector unions have peddled the fantasy that government employees were paid less than their counterparts in the private sector. In fact, the pay disparity is the other way around. Government workers, especially at the federal level, make salaries that are scandalously higher than those paid to private sector workers. And let's not forget private sector workers not only have to be sufficiently productive to earn their paychecks, they also must pay the taxes that support the more generous jobs in the public sector. Data compiled by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis reveals the extent of the pay gap between federal and private workers. As of 2008, the average federal salary was $119,982, compared with $59,909 for the average private sector employee.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Political Digest April 29, 2010
I’m in DC, but snagged some computer time. May be the last for awhile…..
Knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/knowing-the-price-of-everything-and-the-value-of-nothing/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HA#more-10317
Excerpt: One of the stated goals of health reform is to make medical prices more transparent. In fact, one provision will force insurers to reveal what they pay doctors. No matter how ill-advised that policy, there is a conceptual problem that plagues advocates of consumer-directed health care. Consider this circularity: Having patients pay out of pocket will not work unless prices are transparent. Real prices will never be transparent unless patients are paying out of pocket. Here are five principles to help us get out of the trap:
The Most Tax-Burdened States
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/26/tax-burden-california-state-government-opinions-contributors-jason-clemens-robert-murphy.html
Excerpt: Our recent study, Taxifornia, is unique in its approach. Unlike several other excellent studies on this topic, ours separates two distinct aspects of tax policy: (1) burden and (2) structure. In other words, the study examines how many resources a government consumes from the economy and how, exactly, the state extracts those resources. The premise is that both the tax burden and manner of imposition influence behavior and economic performance. We calculate the total burden of government by comparing total state and local spending as a share of the state economy (gross state product). We believe that government spending is a more accurate measure of the burden of government than alternative measures such as current tax receipts. The main reason is borrowing. If governments use debt (deferred taxes) to finance current spending, then measures of revenues will underestimate the burden of government. The nature of the reallocation from the private sector to the government sector remains the same. In addition, we incorporate local government spending as well as state-level spending in order to avoid rewarding states that decentralize their programs to local governments yet still extract resources from their citizens. South Dakota had the lowest burden of government (11.6% of the state's economy). Other low-burden states include Delaware and Texas. Alaska had the largest burden of government with 20.2% of the state's economy consumed by government spending. However, Alaska is a relatively unique case because of its energy-related dividend and savings, the nature of which is at least debatable. The other states with large burdens of government were South Carolina, California, New York and New Mexico.
America Needs More Jobs, Not More Lawsuits
http://www.uschambermagazine.com/article/america-needs-more-jobs-not-more-lawsuits
Excerpt: As policymakers consider ways to put Americans back to work, they should keep this simple formula in mind: more lawsuits equals less job growth.
The business community has long warned that increased litigation can suck the life out of a state’s economy. For businesses both large and small, one frivolous lawsuit can mean the difference between job creation and stagnation. To document America’s legal climate on a state-by-state basis, the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) commissioned the nonpartisan research firm Harris Interactive to ask senior litigators and general counsels at some of America’s largest employers to offer their impressions of state legal climates. Perceptions matter—two-thirds of those surveyed said that the litigation environment in a state is likely to impact corporate decisions such as where to locate a company or do business. ILR recently published the results of this survey in Lawsuit Climate 2010: Ranking the States.
Administration only partially complies with Ft. Hood subpoenas
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/94747-obama-administration-only-partially-complies-with-ft-hood-subpoenas
Excerpt: The Obama administration has only partially complied with congressional subpoenas for information on the deadly November shootings at Fort Hood, Texas. The failure by the Defense and Justice departments to turn over all the requested documentation — which they say they do not intend to do — is not likely to ease the growing tension between some key senators and the Obama administration over the incident at the Army base on Nov. 5, 2009.
Stocks slump as Greece debt downgraded to junk
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/27/AR2010042700868.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Beware of Greeks bearing Chits. Don’t laugh—we’re next. Excerpt: A leading credit agency lowered Greece's rating to junk status, dealing a blow to an international rescue plan for the country and hammering U.S. and European stock markets. The junk rating, unusual for a developed nation, deepened fears that big fiscal deficits and debt burdens elsewhere could threaten the economic recovery in Europe. Stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic tumbled about 2 percent or more after the downgrade by Standard & Poor's.
'This Is Alabama; We Speak English'
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/alabama-gubernatorial-candidate-tim-james-this-is-alabama-we-speak-english/19456080?icid=mainhtmlws-main-ndl2link3http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fnation%2Farticle%2Falabama-gubernatorial-candidate-tim-james-this-is-alabama-we-speak-english%2F19456080
Excerpt: Tim James is betting his election that Alabama voters prefer what he calls "common sense" to "political correctness." The Republican gubernatorial candidate is running a provocative ad arguing that Alabama's driver's license exam should be given only in English. "This is Alabama; we speak English," James says. "If you want to live here, learn it." The campaign spot has had more than 60,000 views on YouTube. The son of former Alabama Gov. Fob James promises to do away with the 12 foreign languages the test currently offers if he is elected in November. In the ad, James suggests his goal is to save taxpayers money. "Maybe it's the businessman in me," he says. (Since studies show that Hispanics who speak English have higher incomes, are not those who want them to keep speaking only Spanish the ones hurting them?)
How could this happen? Former Land Girl honoured by Brown dies after she is left to ‘wallow in her own filth’ on National Health Service ward
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13702
Ah, the joy of government healthcare! Excerpt: Her ‘loyal and devoted’ service as a Land Girl in the Second World War won her praise from Gordon Brown. But this is the horrifyingly undignified state in which Clara Stokes had to live out her last days on an NHS [National Health Service] ward. Helpless and confused after suffering a stroke, the 84-year-old was left dehydrated, hungry and lying in her own feces in a hospital bed for six hours. Relatives claim overworked nurses had ignored her.
Inquiry Says Health Care Charges Were Proper
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/business/27health.html?ref=business
Excerpt: When major companies declared that a provision of the new health care law would hurt earnings, Democrats were skeptical. But after investigating, House Democrats have concluded that the companies were right to tell investors and the government about the expected adverse effects of the law on their financial results. At issue is a section of the law that eliminates a tax break available to companies that provide drug benefits to retirees as part of their insurance coverage. The tax change, expected to generate $4.5 billion of revenue over the next 10 years, will help offset the cost of providing coverage to the uninsured. Within days after President Obama signed the law on March 23, companies filed reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying the tax change would have a material adverse effect on their earnings. The White House suggested that companies were exaggerating the effects of the tax change. The commerce secretary, Gary F. Locke, said the companies were being “premature and irresponsible” in taking such write-downs. Representative Henry A. Waxman of California and Bart Stupak of Michigan, both Democrats, opened an investigation and demanded that four companies — AT&T, Caterpillar, Deere and Verizon — supply documents analyzing the “impact of health care reform,” together with an explanation of their accounting methods.
Dems Hid Damning Health Care Report Until A Month After Vote
http://biggovernment.com/jhoft/2010/04/27/breaking-dems-hid-damning-health-care-report-from-public-until-a-month-after-vote/
Excerpt: A damning health care report generated by actuaries at the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department was given to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the health care vote. She hid the report from the public until a month after democrats rammed their nationalized health care bill through Congress. The results from the report were troubling. The report released by Medicare and Medicaid actuaries shows that medical costs will skyrocket rising $389 billion 10 years. 14 million will lose their employer-based coverage. Millions of Americans will be left without insurance. And, millions more may be dumped into the already overwhelmed Medicaid system. 4 million American families will be hit with tax penalties under this new law. Of course, these were ALL things that President Obama and Democratic leaders assured us would not happen.
Welcome To The Constitutional Crisis
http://rightbias.com/news/news11.aspx
Excerpt: Through recent actions, the federal government has demonstrated that absolute power is its sole desire. They have ignored the message delivered through tea parties and have now directly engaged in political battles with state governments empowered by their citizenry. If “we the people” lose these battles, ALL power will centralize in Washington D.C. and the dynamics of our free country will rapidly change from a government that serves the people to a government that dictates to the people. The crisis ultimately revolves around this question: “Who decides the constitutionality of a federal law?”
Lobbyist bundling: Money pipeline for Democrats
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Lobbyist-bundling_-Money-pipeline-for-Democrats-92262859.html
Excerpt: Lobbyists bundling campaign contributions, often from clients, to pass on to powerful politicians is exactly the sort of corruption Democrats came to power promising to fight. But the lobbyists doing the most bundling, and the politicians pocketing the cash, tend to be Democrats, a recent study shows. A study by the Center for Public Integrity finds that the top four lobbyists in terms of bundling contributions for federal candidates and committees are powerful Democrats who contributed and raised cash exclusively to elect Democrats. These lobbyists' big business clients stand to benefit from Democratic policies on health care, the environment and trade.
Ousted Kyrgyz President Charged With Murder
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/world/asia/28kyrgyz.html?src=mv
Excerpt: Kyrgyzstan’s new authorities have charged the country’s former president with mass murder in the deaths of scores of antigovernment protesters earlier this month, an official in the provisional government said Tuesday. The police and presidential guards opened fire on thousands of demonstrators on April 7, killing at least 85 people. They failed, however, to stop the protesters, who commandeered weapons and an armored personnel carrier and overran the government. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the former president, was forced to flee the country, and is currently in Belarus, where the president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has guaranteed his security. (He was probably just cracking down on Teabaggers.)
Climate party risks losing its guests
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2010/04/climate_party_loses_its_guests.html
Excerpt: There's an oft-cited view among close observers of the US situation that if legislation is to go through, Mr Obama is going to have to throw a lot of personal weight behind it, just as he did behind the equally controversial healthcare reforms. Will he? The analysis from this group of observers continues with the contention that the two key groups of people advising the president on this issue are pulling in opposite directions. Those from the "smart climate" camp are saying "yes, do it, do it now". Those in the "smart politics" camp - chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel is widely named here - are advising the opposite, not because of any opposition to the climate bill per se but because they believe Mr Obama stands to lose more personally than he gains. Well, that's the theory. If it's correct, Mr Obama clearly has an important choice to make - not only for his reputation, not only for national climate legislation, but for the prospects of a global climate deal that can actually restrain emissions.
RE: Obama’s Nastiness Is Not New
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/285396
Excerpt: When challenged on his facts, he gets prickly and defensive; the more effective the challenge, the more contemptuous Obama becomes. One can see what is going around in his mind: “Do you presume to criticize the Great Oz! You ungrateful creatures. Think yourselves lucky that I’m giving you an audience…”
Hypersonic Cruise Missile: America's New Global Strike Weapon
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/4203874
Faster than a speeding camel! Excerpt: When the order comes, the sub shoots a 65-ton Trident II ballistic missile into the sky. Within 2 minutes, the missile is traveling at more than 20,000 ft. per second. Up and over the oceans and out of the atmosphere it soars for thousands of miles. At the top of its parabola, hanging in space, the Trident's four warheads separate and begin their screaming descent down toward the planet. Traveling as fast as 13,000 mph, the warheads are filled with scored tungsten rods with twice the strength of steel. Just above the target, the warheads detonate, showering the area with thousands of rods-each one up to 12 times as destructive as a .50-caliber bullet. Anything within 3000 sq. ft. of this whirling, metallic storm is obliterated.... The question is whether such an attack can be deployed without triggering World War III: Those tungsten-armed Tridents look, and fly, exactly like the deadliest weapons in the American nuclear arsenal.
Comment posted on “I’m Tired”
Bill, you're a dope. Try studying economics. Try understanding capitalism. Try understanding an open-market economy. You mention Somalia. I spent time in Somalia, your fat ass wouldn't last 15 minutes in Somalia, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, hell even Panama. Trust me, I've been there, several times over in my 23 year Army career (as an infantry officer, not pushing a desk). We've opened our borders to everyone. Fine, this country was founded on that principle. But if you don't have something to contribute to this society, then why should we let you in? To provide you with food, clothing, medical access, and free education? There are people in this country who are not receiving these things, people who work hard, who have lived here their entire lives. Ultimately, nearly everyone here is an immigrant by virtue of their ancestry. I personally, was born and raised on an Indian reservation in upstate NY, so don't even pretend to tell me you understand hardship. Democrats want big government - big brother will take care of us all, legal or illegal, drug-addicted or not. Socialism works great until you run out of other people's money. Brother Hall has simply said what thousands, perhaps millions, of us feel. If you've never worn the uniform of this country, then you have no right to complain about those of us who have spilled our blood in defense of your freedoms to bitch and complain. They say there are no Atheists in foxholes. Lately, there aren't any Democrats either. I'm sad to say that I long for the day when the revolution comes...because the veterans, the people who have worked hard to survive and live, will know what to do. The rest of you, who have lived off the teat of the government, will be the first to experience the social Darwinism of conflict. The veterans will survive, the Marines, sailors, coasties, zoomies and grunts will survive. That's what we do. And it will be those people who carry the likes of you on our backs, a burden now, and a burden later. --Another Tired Old Combat Veteran (Most comments come in “no reply.) But I appreciate them.
Comparing the Tea Party to al-Qaeda
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/comparing_the_tea_party_to_al_1.html
Excerpt: We live in a world where hundreds of thousands of radical Muslims, given the opportunity, would happily detonate a dirty bomb in New York, or an electromagnetic pulse bomb to bring down the world's financial system. This threat is consistently downplayed by the left: George Bush overreacted to 9/11, using the time-tested Republican strategy of fear-mongering to scare Americans into going to war for oil, or some such nonsense. The phrase "War on Terror" exaggerated the threat from a ragtag group of disgruntled Asian youths and thus has been banned by the current administration. The Tea Party, however, is portrayed as a powerful, dangerous force. Many such accusations -- playing the violence card, as Rush Limbaugh described it in the Wall Street Journal -- have been in the news lately.
Why reporters are down on President Obama
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36454.html#ixzz0mPIg3EYa
Excerpt: One of the enduring story lines of Barack Obama’s presidency, dating back to the earliest days of his candidacy, is that the press loves him. “Most of you covered me. All of you voted for me,” Obama joked last year at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. But even then, only four months into his presidency, the joke fell flat. Now, a year later, with another correspondents’ dinner Saturday night likely to generate the familiar criticism of the press’s cozy relationship with power, the reality is even more at odds with the public perception. Obama and the media actually have a surprisingly hostile relationship — as contentious on a day-to-day basis as any between press and president in the past decade, reporters who cover the White House say.
Arizona's Immigration Frustration
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703465204575208382473306238.html
Excerpt: Arizona's new immigration law shows what happens when a state on the front lines of a failed immigration policy reaches the bursting point. What you get is a blunt instrument that produces lawsuits, more political polarization (if that's possible) and the risk of hostility between the local police and the public. The law makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. without proper documents. It allows the police to stop anyone on "reasonable suspicion" that they may be in the country unlawfully and arrest them on the spot if they can't produce identity papers. The police aren't required to have a search warrant or even to suspect some illegal action has occurred before questioning a person. Traditionally the federal government has enforced immigration laws, so this is an extraordinary state criminalization of a heretofore federal authority. Not every undocumented U.S. resident is Latino, but most are. Given that about one-third of Arizona residents are Latino, opponents of the measure fear it will raise charges of "racial profiling." The ever-helpful Al Sharpton has already announced that he's headed to Phoenix. More legal challenges are expected before the law takes effect later this summer. The loud voices denouncing "Arizona" should understand that the results of the nation's failed immigration policies have come down on this state. Hundreds of local immigration measures have been enacted nationwide with the goal of restricting access to everything from housing to jobs to drivers' licenses. As these efforts squeezed the border in the 1990s via three-tier fencing, remote-control cameras and motion-detection devices in Texas and California, Arizona became the major, often violent, entry corridor.
How Mexico Treats Illegal Aliens
http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/mmalkin/2010/mm_04281.shtml
Excerpt: Mexican President Felipe Calderon has accused Arizona of opening the door "to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement." But Arizona has nothing on Mexico when it comes to cracking down on illegal aliens. While open-borders activists decry new enforcement measures signed into law in "Nazi-zona" last week, they remain deaf, dumb or willfully blind to the unapologetically restrictionist policies of our neighbors to the south. The Arizona law bans sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce immigration laws, stiffens penalties against illegal alien day laborers and their employers, makes it a misdemeanor for immigrants to fail to complete and carry an alien registration document, and allows the police to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving they are in the U.S. legally. If those rules constitute the racist, fascist, xenophobic, inhumane regime that the National Council of La Raza, Al Sharpton, Catholic bishops and their grievance-mongering followers claim, then what about these regulations and restrictions imposed on foreigners? -- The Mexican government will bar foreigners if they upset "the equilibrium of the national demographics." How's that for racial and ethnic profiling? -- If outsiders do not enhance the country's "economic or national interests" or are "not found to be physically or mentally healthy," they are not welcome. Neither are those who show "contempt against national sovereignty or security." They must not be economic burdens on society and must have clean criminal histories. Those seeking to obtain Mexican citizenship must show a birth certificate, provide a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove they can provide their own health care.
Bernanke: savings from Obamacare are ‘uncertain’
http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/28/bernanke-savings-from-obamacare-are-uncertain/#ixzz0mPFQzCIy
NOW they go on the record, to avoid future blame. Excerpt: As Washington fixated Tuesday on expletive-laced excoriations of Goldman Sachs executives, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was across town delivering some grim warnings about America’s fiscal future to President Obama’s fiscal commission. But Bernanke also voiced a surprisingly pessimistic view of Obama’s recently passed health plan, questioning whether the nearly $1 trillion piece of legislation will do much of anything to reduce overall health care spending. “At this point, the effects of the recent legislation on federal health-care spending over the long term are uncertain, in part because they depend importantly on implementation,” Bernanke said.
Barack Obama’s top ten insults against Israel
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100036389/barack-obama’s-top-ten-insults-against-israel/
Excerpt: Last week Israel celebrated its 62nd year as a nation, but there was major cause for concern amid the festivities as the Israeli people faced the looming menace of a nuclear-armed Iran, as well as the prospect of a rapidly deteriorating relationship with Washington. The Israel-bashing of the Obama administration has become so bad that even leading Democrats are now speaking out against the White House. New York Senator Chuck Schumer blasted Barack Obama’s stance towards Israel in a radio interview last week, stating his “counter-productive” Israel policy “has to stop”. (Jessie Jackson told us during the campaign. Why the surprise?)
Hezbollah armed with improved missiles
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8647909.stm
Excerpt: The US defence secretary has warned that Hezbollah now has more rockets and missiles than most governments. Robert Gates accused Syria and Iran of supplying weapons of "ever-increasing capability" to the military wing of the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement. (Stand by for a strongly worded note!)
Head of the religious police in Mecca, men and women can pray together
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Head-of-the-religious-police-in-Mecca,-men-and-women-can-pray-together-18247.html
Killed? But I thought Islam was a religion of peace? Excerpt: Ahmed al-Ghamdi says that the strict separation between the sexes that exists today did not exist at the time of Muhammad. Conservatives respond harshly: a fatwa says that he "must be killed." The official Saudi news agency reports his removal and a few hours later deletes the story. The issue also has economic implications.
Immigration Issue Threatens 9/11 Bill (No benefits for sick/injured 9-11 responders)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471204575210642778651102.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird
Excerpt: The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is threatening to block a health-care bill for post-9/11 recovery workers if it bars illegal immigrants from treatment. New York Democratic Reps. Jose Serrano and Nydia Velazquez have warned fellow lawmakers—including the bill's chief backer, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat representing Manhattan—that the caucus could pull support for the bill. The legislation, which is awaiting review by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, would provide about $5 billion over 10 years in health care and treatment for tens of thousands of people who suffered health problems after working at the site of the collapsed World Trade Center or living nearby.
The Real Story of the Oklahoma City Bombing
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-real-story-of-the-oklahoma-city-bombing/
Seems far fetched…. Excerpt: While liberal news outlets such as MSNBC were cynically exploiting the April 19 anniversary of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by attempting to tie the terrorist attack to the anti-government sentiments of the modern-day Tea Party movement, investigative reporter Jayna Davis was setting the record straight in an exclusive interview on the AIM radio show, Take AIM. The Oklahoma City bombing was an Arab/Muslim terrorist attack on the United States, she says. Davis, author of a blockbuster book on the attack, The Third Terrorist, has examined and presented the evidence showing that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was in fact a front man for Middle Eastern terrorists. The third terrorist, in addition to the two, McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who were convicted, was an Arab. This was the mysterious "John Doe" who was never found. But other members of an Arab terrorist network were involved, she says. She says the evidence was ignored and dismissed because the Clinton Administration didn't want to go to war with Iraq, the likely culprit, and wanted to blame the attack on domestic right-wingers for political reasons.
Hollywood Conservatives ‘Have to Meet in Secret’
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=64745
Excerpt: Screenwriter and author Andrew Klavan said that in Hollywood, “(i)f you’re a conservative, especially a religious person, people have to meet in secret. They talk in whispers. It’s a very disturbing kind of culture.”
Knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/knowing-the-price-of-everything-and-the-value-of-nothing/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HA#more-10317
Excerpt: One of the stated goals of health reform is to make medical prices more transparent. In fact, one provision will force insurers to reveal what they pay doctors. No matter how ill-advised that policy, there is a conceptual problem that plagues advocates of consumer-directed health care. Consider this circularity: Having patients pay out of pocket will not work unless prices are transparent. Real prices will never be transparent unless patients are paying out of pocket. Here are five principles to help us get out of the trap:
The Most Tax-Burdened States
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/26/tax-burden-california-state-government-opinions-contributors-jason-clemens-robert-murphy.html
Excerpt: Our recent study, Taxifornia, is unique in its approach. Unlike several other excellent studies on this topic, ours separates two distinct aspects of tax policy: (1) burden and (2) structure. In other words, the study examines how many resources a government consumes from the economy and how, exactly, the state extracts those resources. The premise is that both the tax burden and manner of imposition influence behavior and economic performance. We calculate the total burden of government by comparing total state and local spending as a share of the state economy (gross state product). We believe that government spending is a more accurate measure of the burden of government than alternative measures such as current tax receipts. The main reason is borrowing. If governments use debt (deferred taxes) to finance current spending, then measures of revenues will underestimate the burden of government. The nature of the reallocation from the private sector to the government sector remains the same. In addition, we incorporate local government spending as well as state-level spending in order to avoid rewarding states that decentralize their programs to local governments yet still extract resources from their citizens. South Dakota had the lowest burden of government (11.6% of the state's economy). Other low-burden states include Delaware and Texas. Alaska had the largest burden of government with 20.2% of the state's economy consumed by government spending. However, Alaska is a relatively unique case because of its energy-related dividend and savings, the nature of which is at least debatable. The other states with large burdens of government were South Carolina, California, New York and New Mexico.
America Needs More Jobs, Not More Lawsuits
http://www.uschambermagazine.com/article/america-needs-more-jobs-not-more-lawsuits
Excerpt: As policymakers consider ways to put Americans back to work, they should keep this simple formula in mind: more lawsuits equals less job growth.
The business community has long warned that increased litigation can suck the life out of a state’s economy. For businesses both large and small, one frivolous lawsuit can mean the difference between job creation and stagnation. To document America’s legal climate on a state-by-state basis, the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) commissioned the nonpartisan research firm Harris Interactive to ask senior litigators and general counsels at some of America’s largest employers to offer their impressions of state legal climates. Perceptions matter—two-thirds of those surveyed said that the litigation environment in a state is likely to impact corporate decisions such as where to locate a company or do business. ILR recently published the results of this survey in Lawsuit Climate 2010: Ranking the States.
Administration only partially complies with Ft. Hood subpoenas
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/94747-obama-administration-only-partially-complies-with-ft-hood-subpoenas
Excerpt: The Obama administration has only partially complied with congressional subpoenas for information on the deadly November shootings at Fort Hood, Texas. The failure by the Defense and Justice departments to turn over all the requested documentation — which they say they do not intend to do — is not likely to ease the growing tension between some key senators and the Obama administration over the incident at the Army base on Nov. 5, 2009.
Stocks slump as Greece debt downgraded to junk
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/27/AR2010042700868.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Beware of Greeks bearing Chits. Don’t laugh—we’re next. Excerpt: A leading credit agency lowered Greece's rating to junk status, dealing a blow to an international rescue plan for the country and hammering U.S. and European stock markets. The junk rating, unusual for a developed nation, deepened fears that big fiscal deficits and debt burdens elsewhere could threaten the economic recovery in Europe. Stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic tumbled about 2 percent or more after the downgrade by Standard & Poor's.
'This Is Alabama; We Speak English'
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/alabama-gubernatorial-candidate-tim-james-this-is-alabama-we-speak-english/19456080?icid=mainhtmlws-main-ndl2link3http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fnation%2Farticle%2Falabama-gubernatorial-candidate-tim-james-this-is-alabama-we-speak-english%2F19456080
Excerpt: Tim James is betting his election that Alabama voters prefer what he calls "common sense" to "political correctness." The Republican gubernatorial candidate is running a provocative ad arguing that Alabama's driver's license exam should be given only in English. "This is Alabama; we speak English," James says. "If you want to live here, learn it." The campaign spot has had more than 60,000 views on YouTube. The son of former Alabama Gov. Fob James promises to do away with the 12 foreign languages the test currently offers if he is elected in November. In the ad, James suggests his goal is to save taxpayers money. "Maybe it's the businessman in me," he says. (Since studies show that Hispanics who speak English have higher incomes, are not those who want them to keep speaking only Spanish the ones hurting them?)
How could this happen? Former Land Girl honoured by Brown dies after she is left to ‘wallow in her own filth’ on National Health Service ward
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13702
Ah, the joy of government healthcare! Excerpt: Her ‘loyal and devoted’ service as a Land Girl in the Second World War won her praise from Gordon Brown. But this is the horrifyingly undignified state in which Clara Stokes had to live out her last days on an NHS [National Health Service] ward. Helpless and confused after suffering a stroke, the 84-year-old was left dehydrated, hungry and lying in her own feces in a hospital bed for six hours. Relatives claim overworked nurses had ignored her.
Inquiry Says Health Care Charges Were Proper
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/business/27health.html?ref=business
Excerpt: When major companies declared that a provision of the new health care law would hurt earnings, Democrats were skeptical. But after investigating, House Democrats have concluded that the companies were right to tell investors and the government about the expected adverse effects of the law on their financial results. At issue is a section of the law that eliminates a tax break available to companies that provide drug benefits to retirees as part of their insurance coverage. The tax change, expected to generate $4.5 billion of revenue over the next 10 years, will help offset the cost of providing coverage to the uninsured. Within days after President Obama signed the law on March 23, companies filed reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying the tax change would have a material adverse effect on their earnings. The White House suggested that companies were exaggerating the effects of the tax change. The commerce secretary, Gary F. Locke, said the companies were being “premature and irresponsible” in taking such write-downs. Representative Henry A. Waxman of California and Bart Stupak of Michigan, both Democrats, opened an investigation and demanded that four companies — AT&T, Caterpillar, Deere and Verizon — supply documents analyzing the “impact of health care reform,” together with an explanation of their accounting methods.
Dems Hid Damning Health Care Report Until A Month After Vote
http://biggovernment.com/jhoft/2010/04/27/breaking-dems-hid-damning-health-care-report-from-public-until-a-month-after-vote/
Excerpt: A damning health care report generated by actuaries at the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department was given to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the health care vote. She hid the report from the public until a month after democrats rammed their nationalized health care bill through Congress. The results from the report were troubling. The report released by Medicare and Medicaid actuaries shows that medical costs will skyrocket rising $389 billion 10 years. 14 million will lose their employer-based coverage. Millions of Americans will be left without insurance. And, millions more may be dumped into the already overwhelmed Medicaid system. 4 million American families will be hit with tax penalties under this new law. Of course, these were ALL things that President Obama and Democratic leaders assured us would not happen.
Welcome To The Constitutional Crisis
http://rightbias.com/news/news11.aspx
Excerpt: Through recent actions, the federal government has demonstrated that absolute power is its sole desire. They have ignored the message delivered through tea parties and have now directly engaged in political battles with state governments empowered by their citizenry. If “we the people” lose these battles, ALL power will centralize in Washington D.C. and the dynamics of our free country will rapidly change from a government that serves the people to a government that dictates to the people. The crisis ultimately revolves around this question: “Who decides the constitutionality of a federal law?”
Lobbyist bundling: Money pipeline for Democrats
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Lobbyist-bundling_-Money-pipeline-for-Democrats-92262859.html
Excerpt: Lobbyists bundling campaign contributions, often from clients, to pass on to powerful politicians is exactly the sort of corruption Democrats came to power promising to fight. But the lobbyists doing the most bundling, and the politicians pocketing the cash, tend to be Democrats, a recent study shows. A study by the Center for Public Integrity finds that the top four lobbyists in terms of bundling contributions for federal candidates and committees are powerful Democrats who contributed and raised cash exclusively to elect Democrats. These lobbyists' big business clients stand to benefit from Democratic policies on health care, the environment and trade.
Ousted Kyrgyz President Charged With Murder
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/world/asia/28kyrgyz.html?src=mv
Excerpt: Kyrgyzstan’s new authorities have charged the country’s former president with mass murder in the deaths of scores of antigovernment protesters earlier this month, an official in the provisional government said Tuesday. The police and presidential guards opened fire on thousands of demonstrators on April 7, killing at least 85 people. They failed, however, to stop the protesters, who commandeered weapons and an armored personnel carrier and overran the government. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the former president, was forced to flee the country, and is currently in Belarus, where the president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has guaranteed his security. (He was probably just cracking down on Teabaggers.)
Climate party risks losing its guests
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2010/04/climate_party_loses_its_guests.html
Excerpt: There's an oft-cited view among close observers of the US situation that if legislation is to go through, Mr Obama is going to have to throw a lot of personal weight behind it, just as he did behind the equally controversial healthcare reforms. Will he? The analysis from this group of observers continues with the contention that the two key groups of people advising the president on this issue are pulling in opposite directions. Those from the "smart climate" camp are saying "yes, do it, do it now". Those in the "smart politics" camp - chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel is widely named here - are advising the opposite, not because of any opposition to the climate bill per se but because they believe Mr Obama stands to lose more personally than he gains. Well, that's the theory. If it's correct, Mr Obama clearly has an important choice to make - not only for his reputation, not only for national climate legislation, but for the prospects of a global climate deal that can actually restrain emissions.
RE: Obama’s Nastiness Is Not New
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/285396
Excerpt: When challenged on his facts, he gets prickly and defensive; the more effective the challenge, the more contemptuous Obama becomes. One can see what is going around in his mind: “Do you presume to criticize the Great Oz! You ungrateful creatures. Think yourselves lucky that I’m giving you an audience…”
Hypersonic Cruise Missile: America's New Global Strike Weapon
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/4203874
Faster than a speeding camel! Excerpt: When the order comes, the sub shoots a 65-ton Trident II ballistic missile into the sky. Within 2 minutes, the missile is traveling at more than 20,000 ft. per second. Up and over the oceans and out of the atmosphere it soars for thousands of miles. At the top of its parabola, hanging in space, the Trident's four warheads separate and begin their screaming descent down toward the planet. Traveling as fast as 13,000 mph, the warheads are filled with scored tungsten rods with twice the strength of steel. Just above the target, the warheads detonate, showering the area with thousands of rods-each one up to 12 times as destructive as a .50-caliber bullet. Anything within 3000 sq. ft. of this whirling, metallic storm is obliterated.... The question is whether such an attack can be deployed without triggering World War III: Those tungsten-armed Tridents look, and fly, exactly like the deadliest weapons in the American nuclear arsenal.
Comment posted on “I’m Tired”
Bill, you're a dope. Try studying economics. Try understanding capitalism. Try understanding an open-market economy. You mention Somalia. I spent time in Somalia, your fat ass wouldn't last 15 minutes in Somalia, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, hell even Panama. Trust me, I've been there, several times over in my 23 year Army career (as an infantry officer, not pushing a desk). We've opened our borders to everyone. Fine, this country was founded on that principle. But if you don't have something to contribute to this society, then why should we let you in? To provide you with food, clothing, medical access, and free education? There are people in this country who are not receiving these things, people who work hard, who have lived here their entire lives. Ultimately, nearly everyone here is an immigrant by virtue of their ancestry. I personally, was born and raised on an Indian reservation in upstate NY, so don't even pretend to tell me you understand hardship. Democrats want big government - big brother will take care of us all, legal or illegal, drug-addicted or not. Socialism works great until you run out of other people's money. Brother Hall has simply said what thousands, perhaps millions, of us feel. If you've never worn the uniform of this country, then you have no right to complain about those of us who have spilled our blood in defense of your freedoms to bitch and complain. They say there are no Atheists in foxholes. Lately, there aren't any Democrats either. I'm sad to say that I long for the day when the revolution comes...because the veterans, the people who have worked hard to survive and live, will know what to do. The rest of you, who have lived off the teat of the government, will be the first to experience the social Darwinism of conflict. The veterans will survive, the Marines, sailors, coasties, zoomies and grunts will survive. That's what we do. And it will be those people who carry the likes of you on our backs, a burden now, and a burden later. --Another Tired Old Combat Veteran (Most comments come in “no reply.) But I appreciate them.
Comparing the Tea Party to al-Qaeda
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/comparing_the_tea_party_to_al_1.html
Excerpt: We live in a world where hundreds of thousands of radical Muslims, given the opportunity, would happily detonate a dirty bomb in New York, or an electromagnetic pulse bomb to bring down the world's financial system. This threat is consistently downplayed by the left: George Bush overreacted to 9/11, using the time-tested Republican strategy of fear-mongering to scare Americans into going to war for oil, or some such nonsense. The phrase "War on Terror" exaggerated the threat from a ragtag group of disgruntled Asian youths and thus has been banned by the current administration. The Tea Party, however, is portrayed as a powerful, dangerous force. Many such accusations -- playing the violence card, as Rush Limbaugh described it in the Wall Street Journal -- have been in the news lately.
Why reporters are down on President Obama
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36454.html#ixzz0mPIg3EYa
Excerpt: One of the enduring story lines of Barack Obama’s presidency, dating back to the earliest days of his candidacy, is that the press loves him. “Most of you covered me. All of you voted for me,” Obama joked last year at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. But even then, only four months into his presidency, the joke fell flat. Now, a year later, with another correspondents’ dinner Saturday night likely to generate the familiar criticism of the press’s cozy relationship with power, the reality is even more at odds with the public perception. Obama and the media actually have a surprisingly hostile relationship — as contentious on a day-to-day basis as any between press and president in the past decade, reporters who cover the White House say.
Arizona's Immigration Frustration
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703465204575208382473306238.html
Excerpt: Arizona's new immigration law shows what happens when a state on the front lines of a failed immigration policy reaches the bursting point. What you get is a blunt instrument that produces lawsuits, more political polarization (if that's possible) and the risk of hostility between the local police and the public. The law makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. without proper documents. It allows the police to stop anyone on "reasonable suspicion" that they may be in the country unlawfully and arrest them on the spot if they can't produce identity papers. The police aren't required to have a search warrant or even to suspect some illegal action has occurred before questioning a person. Traditionally the federal government has enforced immigration laws, so this is an extraordinary state criminalization of a heretofore federal authority. Not every undocumented U.S. resident is Latino, but most are. Given that about one-third of Arizona residents are Latino, opponents of the measure fear it will raise charges of "racial profiling." The ever-helpful Al Sharpton has already announced that he's headed to Phoenix. More legal challenges are expected before the law takes effect later this summer. The loud voices denouncing "Arizona" should understand that the results of the nation's failed immigration policies have come down on this state. Hundreds of local immigration measures have been enacted nationwide with the goal of restricting access to everything from housing to jobs to drivers' licenses. As these efforts squeezed the border in the 1990s via three-tier fencing, remote-control cameras and motion-detection devices in Texas and California, Arizona became the major, often violent, entry corridor.
How Mexico Treats Illegal Aliens
http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/mmalkin/2010/mm_04281.shtml
Excerpt: Mexican President Felipe Calderon has accused Arizona of opening the door "to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement." But Arizona has nothing on Mexico when it comes to cracking down on illegal aliens. While open-borders activists decry new enforcement measures signed into law in "Nazi-zona" last week, they remain deaf, dumb or willfully blind to the unapologetically restrictionist policies of our neighbors to the south. The Arizona law bans sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce immigration laws, stiffens penalties against illegal alien day laborers and their employers, makes it a misdemeanor for immigrants to fail to complete and carry an alien registration document, and allows the police to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving they are in the U.S. legally. If those rules constitute the racist, fascist, xenophobic, inhumane regime that the National Council of La Raza, Al Sharpton, Catholic bishops and their grievance-mongering followers claim, then what about these regulations and restrictions imposed on foreigners? -- The Mexican government will bar foreigners if they upset "the equilibrium of the national demographics." How's that for racial and ethnic profiling? -- If outsiders do not enhance the country's "economic or national interests" or are "not found to be physically or mentally healthy," they are not welcome. Neither are those who show "contempt against national sovereignty or security." They must not be economic burdens on society and must have clean criminal histories. Those seeking to obtain Mexican citizenship must show a birth certificate, provide a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove they can provide their own health care.
Bernanke: savings from Obamacare are ‘uncertain’
http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/28/bernanke-savings-from-obamacare-are-uncertain/#ixzz0mPFQzCIy
NOW they go on the record, to avoid future blame. Excerpt: As Washington fixated Tuesday on expletive-laced excoriations of Goldman Sachs executives, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was across town delivering some grim warnings about America’s fiscal future to President Obama’s fiscal commission. But Bernanke also voiced a surprisingly pessimistic view of Obama’s recently passed health plan, questioning whether the nearly $1 trillion piece of legislation will do much of anything to reduce overall health care spending. “At this point, the effects of the recent legislation on federal health-care spending over the long term are uncertain, in part because they depend importantly on implementation,” Bernanke said.
Barack Obama’s top ten insults against Israel
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100036389/barack-obama’s-top-ten-insults-against-israel/
Excerpt: Last week Israel celebrated its 62nd year as a nation, but there was major cause for concern amid the festivities as the Israeli people faced the looming menace of a nuclear-armed Iran, as well as the prospect of a rapidly deteriorating relationship with Washington. The Israel-bashing of the Obama administration has become so bad that even leading Democrats are now speaking out against the White House. New York Senator Chuck Schumer blasted Barack Obama’s stance towards Israel in a radio interview last week, stating his “counter-productive” Israel policy “has to stop”. (Jessie Jackson told us during the campaign. Why the surprise?)
Hezbollah armed with improved missiles
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8647909.stm
Excerpt: The US defence secretary has warned that Hezbollah now has more rockets and missiles than most governments. Robert Gates accused Syria and Iran of supplying weapons of "ever-increasing capability" to the military wing of the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement. (Stand by for a strongly worded note!)
Head of the religious police in Mecca, men and women can pray together
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Head-of-the-religious-police-in-Mecca,-men-and-women-can-pray-together-18247.html
Killed? But I thought Islam was a religion of peace? Excerpt: Ahmed al-Ghamdi says that the strict separation between the sexes that exists today did not exist at the time of Muhammad. Conservatives respond harshly: a fatwa says that he "must be killed." The official Saudi news agency reports his removal and a few hours later deletes the story. The issue also has economic implications.
Immigration Issue Threatens 9/11 Bill (No benefits for sick/injured 9-11 responders)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471204575210642778651102.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird
Excerpt: The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is threatening to block a health-care bill for post-9/11 recovery workers if it bars illegal immigrants from treatment. New York Democratic Reps. Jose Serrano and Nydia Velazquez have warned fellow lawmakers—including the bill's chief backer, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat representing Manhattan—that the caucus could pull support for the bill. The legislation, which is awaiting review by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, would provide about $5 billion over 10 years in health care and treatment for tens of thousands of people who suffered health problems after working at the site of the collapsed World Trade Center or living nearby.
The Real Story of the Oklahoma City Bombing
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-real-story-of-the-oklahoma-city-bombing/
Seems far fetched…. Excerpt: While liberal news outlets such as MSNBC were cynically exploiting the April 19 anniversary of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by attempting to tie the terrorist attack to the anti-government sentiments of the modern-day Tea Party movement, investigative reporter Jayna Davis was setting the record straight in an exclusive interview on the AIM radio show, Take AIM. The Oklahoma City bombing was an Arab/Muslim terrorist attack on the United States, she says. Davis, author of a blockbuster book on the attack, The Third Terrorist, has examined and presented the evidence showing that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was in fact a front man for Middle Eastern terrorists. The third terrorist, in addition to the two, McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who were convicted, was an Arab. This was the mysterious "John Doe" who was never found. But other members of an Arab terrorist network were involved, she says. She says the evidence was ignored and dismissed because the Clinton Administration didn't want to go to war with Iraq, the likely culprit, and wanted to blame the attack on domestic right-wingers for political reasons.
Hollywood Conservatives ‘Have to Meet in Secret’
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=64745
Excerpt: Screenwriter and author Andrew Klavan said that in Hollywood, “(i)f you’re a conservative, especially a religious person, people have to meet in secret. They talk in whispers. It’s a very disturbing kind of culture.”
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Political Digest April 28, 2010
I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. It doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with then either. I have to say all this to give some of my critics the benefit of the doubt, assuming they are thick, rather than deliberately taking things the wrong way.
I will be traveling 4/28 through 5/5, and will have little or no time and little or no computer access, so there will be few or no daily digests. I will leave a few things of interest to post on the blog.
Threat on my life for “I’m Tired”?
http://electionink.com/showthread.php/596-What-White-America-Refuses-To-Admit-About-Capitalism./page5
May have to scroll down. “Iceberg” (without the courage to identify himself by name as I do in my posts), describes himself as an “Ultra-Liberal Progressive” who wants to euthanize me. Excerpt: Robert A. Hall is just another belligerent old racist. The subversive racist diatribe trobbins just submitted in Obama's house is nothing short of blasphemy. I am proud to say that I support legislation to euthanise (sic) any of these degenerate beasts who purport to be "American Patriots".
Is this not a threat on my life?
I’m a “racist” how? Was it my $100 contribution to a black candidate for Congress, Allen West? Or my promotion of the books of the brilliant economist, Dr. Thomas Sowell, who happens to be black? But a black bigot calling you a racist is supposed to be an argument-stopper, especially when delivered with a whiff of menace. It is wearing thin, though.
“Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.”- Victor Hugo (conservatives would do well to remember this.)
More Violent Threats and Foul-Mouthed Hate
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/04/26/more-violent-threats-and-foul-mouthed-hate/
Excerpt: My pal Tabitha Hale at FreedomWorks compiled this four minute video montage of some of the violent and hateful messages the organization receives from angry leftists. Among the threats and vitriol:
Must read: Filtering History by Thomas Sowell
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/04/27/filtering_history
Excerpt: The kind of thinking that produced a passing misconception about me has, unfortunately, produced much bigger, much longer lasting, much more systematic and more poisonous distortions about the United States of America. Slavery is a classic example. The history of slavery across the centuries and in many countries around the world is a painful history to read-- not only in terms of how slaves have been treated, but because of what that says about the whole human species-- because slaves and enslavers alike have been of every race, religion and nationality. If the history of slavery ought to teach us anything, it is that human beings cannot be trusted with unbridled power over other human beings-- no matter what color or creed any of them are. The history of ancient despotism and modern totalitarianism practically shouts that same message from the blood-stained pages of history. But that is not the message that is being taught in our schools and colleges, or dramatized on television and in the movies. The message that is pounded home again and again is that white people enslaved black people.
Undocumented individuals make hospital discharge difficult
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/04/undocumented-individuals-hospital-discharge-difficult.html#more-43673
Excerpt: Mr. M is in his fifties. He speaks Spanish. He is an undocumented immigrant from Central America. He came to the U.S. to seek employment, and send money home to his family. He has no family here that can help care for him when he’s ready to be discharged from the hospital. Unfortunately, three months ago, he had a big stroke. He was paralyzed on his right side. He couldn’t swallow, walk, or use his hand. He could barely speak. He’s been in the hospital all that time. This won’t surprise you, but he doesn’t have health insurance.... We can’t keep him in the hospital forever, though it feels like that to the intern on my team (the one whose job it is to round on Mr. M every day, examining him and formulating his ‘daily plan’). There has to be somewhere he can go, right? If he had a home or family nearby, of course we’d send him there. But he doesn’t. So, our discharge planners have investigated doing the ultimate: sending him home–to his native country. (THIS IS WHY ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS THE BANE OF OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM! This case is scary. Mr. M was getting 3-times-weekly "free" dialysis even before his hospitalization. He's been hospitalized for 3 months. If they actually send him "home," medical airfare alone will run about $50,000 (don't even consider regular air service: these doctors would be sued by every interest group you can think of before Mr. M even got on the plane). Sadly, he still won't get the care he needs when he gets home. Who do you suppose will have to pay for all this compassionate treatment? You and me, friend. That $50 grand is only the capstone. I spent about one month hospitalized back in 2000. My hospital bill alone came to more than a quarter million dollars, not including the greedy doctors and evil surgeons who saved my life (God bless'em, every one!). The economics is like this: If the hospital and doctor don't make enough money to stay in business, THEY AREN'T THERE the next time we need them. The only thing they can do is pass the costs of those who can't/won't pay on to the rest of us who can/will. Even if we have to do it indirectly through our taxes, it still comes out of our pockets. This one man, Mr. M--who shouldn't have been here to begin with--will end up costing his community close to a million dollars. It isn't right. We've got to control the borders. RP)
Undocumented Workers
I have compassion for Mr. M, above. I also have compassion for the millions of black, brown and yellow kids who have died from Malaria because we panicked and banned DDT, for the Gays hanged and women stoned in Iran, and for the blacks who have starved under black rule in Zimbabwe, all at the behest of American Liberals, who care not at all. But anyone who thinks we shouldn’t control the borders and enforce the immigration laws you should invite illegal immigrants to come live in your house—as many as want to—the open door policy. Promise that whatever they cannot afford in food and healthcare from doing “jobs Americans won’t do” you will make up. Promise you will pay for the children’s education, all costs. And you can’t place a limit. If you already have 50 and another 25 want to move in, fine. You house will just be a small scale of what America will be like with no enforced immigration laws. If you support an open door policy, you should try it first and bear the costs before you force it on others. And if you say no, you are a racist.
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
http://www.angelfire.com/or/sociologyshop/lazlong.html
I was a strong Science Fiction fan in my younger days; still enjoy the occasional novel between reading history, economics and political books. My all time favorite author was Robert Heinlein (it was a thrill when he called me once to talk about a political campaign—I haven’t washed that ear since). In his best novel, Time Enough for Love, his hero lays out some great guidelines for life in these notebooks. Click on “Intermission” for the first section, then “Second Intermission.” Lazarus Long (and presumably Heinlein) was a secular conservative-libertarian, if I read these right.
Vietnam, in sadness but not in shame
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/26/sanders-vietnam-in-sadness-but-not-in-shame/
America's more than 1.5 million Vietnamese-Americans this week will mourn the 35th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the Republic of [South] Vietnam. Defying conventional wisdom, many will remember and honor the bravery and sacrifice of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. They want recognition for the heroic struggle that South Vietnamese troops put up against overwhelming odds after the withdrawal of American forces and the cutoff of U.S. military aid. Fortunately, a new group of revisionist scholars is setting the record straight, even in the face of the long history of American media and academic malfeasance on the Vietnam disaster. The mourners also will recall the enormous loss of life and suffering — "the bloodbath" which, again, conventional wisdom has tried to deny — that followed Saigon's fall. Thousands died in "the Vietnamese gulag," communist "re-education camps" where Prime Minister Pham Van Dong publicly admitted that more than 1 million people had been imprisoned. Few but the Vietnamese remember that in addition to the 255,000 boat people who reached the shelter of the miserable refugee camps, thousands drowned at sea, often refused entry by neighboring countries. That is not in any way to minimize the enormous loss of life and the sacrifice of Americans in what was a noble if tragic struggle. But it is an effort to retell the whole story of "Vietnam" for fellow Americans, particularly younger generations who have grown up amid a vast media and pseudo-scholarly distortion of facts. The remembrance also glories in the thousands of young Vietnamese now serving with distinction in the U.S. armed forces. Unfortunately, in Vietnam itself, the oppression continues unabated. The communist regime persecutes religious and ethnic minorities, and in its own ham-handed way, attempts to stamp out political dissent. An endlessly feuding politburo guides the one-party state — so enmeshed in petty personal rivalries and ideological confusion that it publicly arrested the Communist Party official newspaper editor after he wrote an anti-Chinese editorial. And, since 1995, when Sens. John McCain of Arizona and John Kerry of Massachusetts — both veterans of the war — pushed for U.S. diplomatic recognition without quid pro quos, official Washington has obfuscated the true nature of the regime. U.S. policy has naively and ignominiously sought favor with Hanoi through economic and trade concessions in a fruitless effort to promote political liberalization.
Climate Change and the dinosaurs
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/26/climate-change-and-the-dinosaurs/#more-18928
Excerpt: Despite being located in the Arctic Circle, Svalbard was home to numerous species of dinosaur and was typically characterised by warm, shallow seas and swamps. But the research team, led by Dr Gregory Price of the University of Plymouth, found evidence in fossils and carbonate materials preserved in marine rocks in the region of a transient shift to cooler glacial conditions around 137 million years ago. Dr Price said: “At certain times in the geological past, the world has been dominated by greenhouse conditions with elevated CO2 levels and warm Polar Regions, and hence, these are seen as analogues of future global climate. But this research suggests that for short periods of time the Earth plunged back to colder temperatures, which not only poses interesting questions in terms of how the dinosaurs might have coped, but also over the nature of climate change itself.”
More Global Warming Profiteering by Obama Energy Official
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/more-global-warming-profiteering-by-obama-energy-official/?singlepage=true
Surprising? I’m hardly surprised. Excerpt: Surprising documents made available to this author reveal that Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi has a huge financial stake in companies likely to profit from the Obama administration’s “green” policies. Zoi, who left her position as CEO of the Alliance for Climate Protection — founded by Al Gore — to serve as assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, now manages billions in “green jobs” funding. But the disclosure documents show that Zoi not only is in a position to affect the fortunes of her previous employer, ex-Vice President Al Gore, but that she herself has large holdings in two firms that could directly profit from policies proposed by the Department of Energy.
Texas Medical Association: Stop the Medicare meltdown
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/04/stop-medicare-meltdown.html#more-43880
Excerpt: For the past decade, physicians have had to live with the uncertainty of a potential Medicare cut. However, nothing has topped the gut-wrenching events of the past four months. Four times since Jan. 1 physicians have waited and worried about a Medicare payment cut. First came the potential cut of more than 21 percent starting Jan. 1. Congress postponed it until March 1. Then until April 1, and now through June 1. Twice in the past four months, the steep cuts actually took effect. The March cut lasted one day. The April cut lasted 14. Each time Congress stepped in only to delay the cuts — never to fix the problem. Twice this year, CMS has held payments because of congressional inaction. These constant payment disruptions create an administrative catastrophe for our practices. The continued uncertainty complicates our ability to make decisions for our practices. Many physicians are postponing equipment purchases or taking on more patients or staff because we simply cannot plan in this environment. Others are opting out of Medicare or choosing not to take any new Medicare patients. Meanwhile, senior citizens, people with disabilities, and military families are left without a doctor of their choice. It was hard enough on physicians to worry about Medicare cuts year to year — now it’s month to month. We are frustrated, worried, and not sure what the future holds for our patients or our practices. We are the foundation of any health care system. The government simply cannot build a new health care system if the foundation of Medicare is crumbling. Add your name to the Stop the Medicare Meltdown petition.
Pension Bomb Ticks Louder
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303695604575181983634524348.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion
The collapse will start in the Democrat-run cities, as the entitled riot when promised entitlements can no longer be paid by a productive economy bled dry by mob rule. Democracy must be something more than the unproductive/less fortunate/government employees banding together to use their votes to take property from the productive (money is property) and transfer it to themselves until the system collapses. Excerpt: The time-bomb that is public-pension obligations keeps ticking louder and louder. Eventually someone will have to notice. This month, Stanford's Institute for Economic Policy Research released a study suggesting a more than $500 billion unfunded liability for California's three biggest pension funds—Calpers, Calstrs and the University of California Retirement System. The shortfall is about six times the size of this year's California state budget and seven times more than the outstanding voter-approved general obligations bonds. The pension funds responsible for the time bombs denounced the report. Calstrs CEO Jack Ehnes declared at a board meeting that "most people would give [this study] a letter grade of 'F' for quality" but "since it bears the brand of Stanford, it clearly ripples out there quite a bit." He called its assumptions "faulty," its research "shoddy" and its conclusions "political." Calpers chief Joseph Dear wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle that the study is "fundamentally flawed" because it "uses a controversial method that is out of step with governmental accounting standards." Those standards bear some scrutiny.
Five myths about green energy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042302220.html
Excerpt: Americans are being inundated with claims about renewable and alternative energy. Advocates for these technologies say that if we jettison fossil fuels, we'll breathe easier, stop global warming and revolutionize our economy. Yes, "green" energy has great emotional and political appeal. But before we wrap all our hopes -- and subsidies -- in it, let's take a hard look at some common misconceptions about what "green" means….Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His fourth book, "Power Hungry: The Myths of 'Green' Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future," will be out Tuesday, April 27.
Health Care's History of Fiscal Folly
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703709804575202563381275260.html
Excerpt: The Affordable Care Act—otherwise known as ObamaCare—isn't the first attempt to expand health insurance coverage in America. Before Washington passed its law, a number of states took smaller-scale cracks at the job—each of which proved far more expensive than planned. As the nation dives further into debt, the destabilizing fiscal effects of those programs don't bode well for how ObamaCare will shape the U.S. budget. As spectacular failures go, it's hard to do worse than Tennessee. This early state attempt to dramatically increase health coverage, dubbed TennCare, started off promisingly. In 1994, the first year of its operation, the system added half a million new individuals to its rolls. Premiums were cheap—just $2.74 per month for people right above the poverty line—and liberal policy wonks loved it. The Urban Institute, for example, gave it good marks for "improving coverage of the uninsurable or high-risk individuals with very limited access to private coverage." At its peak, the program covered 1.4 million individuals—nearly a quarter of the state's population and more than any other state's Medicaid program—leaving just 6 percent of the state's population uninsured. But those benefits came at a high price. By 2001, the system's costs were growing faster than the state budget. The drive to increase coverage had not been matched by the drive to control costs. Vivian Riefberg, a partner at consulting firm McKinsey & Company, described it as having "almost across the board, no limits on scope and duration of coverage." Spending on drug coverage, in particular, had gone out of control: The state topped the nation in prescription drug use, and the program put no cap on how many prescription drugs a patient could receive. The result was that, by 2004, TennCare's drug benefits cost the state more than its entire higher education program. Meanwhile, in 1998, the program was opened to individuals at twice the poverty level, even if they had access to employer-provided insurance. In other words, the program's costs were uncontrolled and unsustainable. By 2004, the budget had jumped from $2.6 billion to $6.9 billion, and it accounted for a quarter of the state's appropriations.
Jones apologizes for joke about Jewish merchant
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/04/jones-apologizes-for-joke-abou.html?wprss=44
I heard this joke years ago, have told it. My take was it was -anti terrorist, not against the Jewish tie salesman. But in the Land of the Perpetually Offended, anything is grist for the PC mill. Excerpt: National security adviser Jim Jones has apologized for telling a Jewish joke last week. The joke -- about a Jewish salesman who refuses to give water to a member of the Taliban -- has been making the rounds via e-mail for more than a month. It was not clear how Jones came across it, or decided it would be a good idea to add it to his speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. In his statement of apology, issued Monday through the White House, Jones said it was just "off the cuff."
Talks continue as GOP senators block advance of financial overhaul bill
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/26/AR2010042601969.html?wpisrc=nl_politics
High risk indeed. The public wants to stick it to Wall Street, doesn’t realize how easily that “sticking” can be passed to them in higher loan and banking costs, decreased IRAs and 401Ks. In the economy, we are all “the man.” Excerpt: Republicans voted unanimously Monday to block an effort to overhaul financial regulations from reaching the Senate floor, pledging to hold out for significant changes to the bill even as they acknowledged the political risk of appearing to obstruct a popular cause.
Democrats' young voter problem
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/democrats-young-voter-problem.html?wprss=thefix
Young voters had to learn for themselves that voting for a charismatic Socialist just because it felt good to vote for a black guy was a bad idea. Same thing they discovered in Zimbabwe. Excerpt: Less than 24 hours after President Barack Obama announced his plan to re-build the coalition that helped elect him in 2008, new numbers from Gallup suggest one of the pillars of that foundation is decidedly shaky. Less than one in four voters aged 18-29 described themselves as "very enthusiastic" about the 2010 midterm election. Those numbers compare unfavorably to voters between 50 and 64 (44 percent "very enthusiastic"), 65 and older (41 percent "very enthusiastic") and 30 to 49 (32 percent "very enthusiastic"). "The fact that voters under age 50 -- and particularly those under 30 -- are less enthusiastic about voting this year is not a new phenomenon," wrote Gallup's Frank Newport. "Voter turnout typically skews older." While the data is in keeping with traditional voting patterns, it makes obvious the difficulty facing the White House as they seek to reconstruct the combination of young voters, independents and African Americans who helped propel Obama into the White House. Looking back at exit polls from the last three presidential races, it's clear that the story is not how young people comprised larger and larger segments of the electorate but rather how much more Democratic they voted between 2000 and 2008. (I don’t believe I’ve missed an election I could vote in—maybe once a local primary. But in High School, I was thought weird because I was interested in politics, history and poetry, not sports and cars.)
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) on Free Trade
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/03/guest-blogger-rep-henry-cuellar-d-tx-on-free-trade/
A Democrat who gets it. Alert the Unions for a DINO hunt. Excerpt: For two decades, the word “trade” has been a dividing force in Congress. Its supporters, like me, see trade as a boon to our economy. As the free leader of the world, the U.S. is also one of the largest trading nations, supporting millions of American workers and millions of American jobs. Increased trade is good for America. In the past decade, U.S. exports have nearly doubled to $2 trillion a year. More exports from the U.S. can increase production of American-made products, spurring and stabilizing local jobs while supporting small business and increasing consumer choice. In my home state of Texas, over 20,000 small and medium-size businesses rely on exporting goods and 1 in 5 manufacturing jobs relies on trade.
Will federal govt. ever enforce our immigration laws?
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/26/will-federal-govt-ever-enforce-our-immigration-laws/?hpt=T2
From Progressive CNN? Excerpt: So Arizona passes a tough law against illegal immigration and suddenly they get Washington's attention. One poll finds 70 percent of Arizona voters support the new law... hey, maybe we better do something too. So like the lemmings they are when they smell a chance to score political points... and some of them need a lot of help with the midterms approaching - there is talk now of rushing immigration reform through Congress. President Obama called the Arizona law "misguided." What is misguided, Mr. President, is the federal government's refusal to enforce the laws already on the books. Read the Arizona law... parts of it are word-for-word the same as the federal laws - which continue to be ignored. Now we'll hear all sorts of blathering from our Washington gerbils about the need for a new federal law. There will be press conferences, interviews, committee hearings, draft legislation, polling... all the usual carnival acts that accompany any hot-button issue in Washington, DC.
Sharpton, other activists compare Arizona immigration law to apartheid, Nazi Germany and Jim Crow
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/04/26/2010-04-26_rev_al_plans_immig_rally.html
Left out the Rape of the Sabine Women. And Tawana Brawley. Excerpt: New York activists, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, compared Arizona's new immigration law to apartheid, Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South - and vowed to shut it down with mass protests. "We will bring Freedom Walkers to Arizona just like Freedom Riders went to the deep south 50 years ago," Sharpton said yesterday. Standing with local clergy, elected officials and a leader of the Hispanic Federation, Sharpton said he would mobilize people from across the country to march in Arizona - and get arrested, if necessary - to stop the controversial new law. "We cannot sit by and allow people to be arbitrarily and unilaterally picked off as suspects because of the color of their skin," Sharpton said.
Illegal aliens riot in Arizona; Media silent
http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2010m4d26-Illegal-aliens-riot-in-Arizona-Media-silent
Inciting violence? Who knew Rev. Al was in the tea Party? Excerpt: Arizona, now home to about a half-million illegal aliens, was invaded by Rev. Al Sharpton and his minions who decided to play racial politics with the public safety of American citizens. The man to whom reporters rush for soundbites was there to protest the state's news law to fight illegal immigration. Sharpton, who commands the attention of so many members of the mainstream news media, is notorious for whipping up fury and then disappearing when destruction -- even death -- occurs. Short memories appears to be a prerequisite for being a news reporter or else these denizens of America's newsrooms are intentionally ignoring Rev. Al's modus operandi. For example, in Brooklyn, New York, Sharpton started a protest against Korean store owners. The store owners were being singled out by Sharpton and his goons because their businesses were located in a predominately black neighborhood. For weeks protesters marched and yelled epithets against the Korean families. The protest became so heated that a grocery store owner was beaten to death. Now, Rev. Sharpton has set his sights on Arizona's new immigration enforcement law, a law supported by 70 percent of the state's residents including the membership of the Arizona Sheriffs Association. At one rally, what the media characterized as a “small riot” broke out as police attempted to escort away a supporter of the bill who had come under attack from opponents. A number of protesters began throwing objects at the supporter and his police escorts.
ABC: 'Mostly Peaceful' Immigration Protests vs. 'Very Ugly' Tea Party Rallies
http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2010/20100426060932.aspx
Excerpt: On Saturday's Good Morning America, reporter Mike Von Fremd downplayed the violence of protesters against Arizona's new immigration law. He spun, "Riot police were called in to try and control demonstrators protesting outside the capital. Most were peaceful. A handful threw bottles at police and were arrested." Yet, ABC derided March's Tea Party rallies as "very ugly," despite the fact that there were no arrests.
CBS Again Focuses on Victims in Arizona: 'Many Feel the Sting of Racism in New Law'
http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2010/20100427015953.aspx
Excerpt: For the second consecutive weeknight, the CBS Evening News on Monday framed Arizona’s new anti-illegal immigrant bill around the fears and charges of its supposed victims. With “ANGER & ANXIETY” on screen below video of signs hostile to the new law (“LAND OF THE FREE! REALLY?” and a Swastika sign with “Achtung! Papers Please”), Katie Couric teased: “Anger in Arizona against a new law allowing police to make you prove you’re in the country legally” – followed by a man who impugned supporters: “They’re just focusing on us because we’re brown.”
The US is Not "Like Nazi Germany"
http://plumwoodroad.blogspot.com/
Oh, Brother. I just heard a radio sound bite of some anti-anti-illegal immigration protester claiming that America is like Nazi Germany: We are putting up a border fence in Arizona and storm troopers are demanding to see people's papers. The easy explanation would be to point out that in Nazi Germany those things were done to keep people in -- in Arizona they are being done to keep people out. That's a significant difference right there, but also an over-simplification itself. It is commonly agreed that The United States is a nation of immigrants. What is seldom stated is legal immigrants. For over two hundred years in all parts of the world -- people have left their homes, their extended families, their possessions and moved to the New World of the United States. Those huddled-masses built this nation. An immigrant today doesn't just join us, but in a real sense joins them, too.
Obama’s Racist Southern (Hemisphere) Strategy
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/04/27/obamas-racist-southern-hemisphere-strategy/
Excerpt: For 40 years the “Southern Strategy” has been a staple of liberal political history. The story goes that Republicans under Nixon got tough on crime in order to appeal to racist white Southerners– who apparently would have been okay with rising rape and murder rates as long as rednecks were the primary suspects. But now, Obama and the Democrats are doing precisely what they accuse (mostly dead) Republicans of having done. They are deliberately picking a fight over immigration reform and fanning fears of cops stopping people for LWL–Living While Latino– in order to fire up the base and make Hispanic voters afraid to vote Republican. Harry Reid is blatantly pushing for the issue because he needs Latino voters to show up in droves for him to have any chance of winning; and Obama would love to have the issue for the next 2 years, if need be, to help with his re-election– though he’d MUCH rather have 12 million new voters! The President was pretty open about it:
The Next Empire
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/04/the-next-empire/8018/
Excerpt: All across Africa, new tracks are being laid, highways built, ports deepened, commercial contracts signed—all on an unprecedented scale, and led by China, whose appetite for commodities seems insatiable. Do China’s grand designs promise the transformation, at last, of a star-crossed continent? Or merely its exploitation?
Obama(doesn't)care Taking Surprise Hits
http://townhall.com/columnists/DavidLimbaugh/2010/04/27/obamadoesntcare_taking_surprise_hits
Excerpt: As President Barack Obama is attempting to steamroll yet another enormous policy change through Congress against the best interests of Americans, we would be well-advised to keep abreast of the frauds that are already being exposed about Obamacare. Last week, reality dealt Obamacare twin blows -- not that Obama will care. An analysis inside his own administration and a report from New York state shed the grim light of reality on this monstrosity before its Draconian provisions have even gone into effect. Economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department issued a report last week, conveniently after Obamacare was shoved through, finding that though more people will end up with health insurance (many of them against their will, of course), costs are going to increase. Shocker.
Cartoonist Molly Norris Erases 'Draw Muhammad' Gag
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpps/news/cartoonist-molly-norris-draw-muhammad-gag-dpgoha-20100426-fc_7252284
Jihadist terror silences another. Free speech is slipping away. Excerpt: In more fallout around the decision by Comedy Central to censor an episode of "South Park" that contained comedic depictions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a cartoonist has now censored herself . Seattle artist Molly Norris originally posted on her website a cartoon showing many different objects – including a purse, a domino, a coffee cup and a spool of thread – claiming to be a likeness of Muhammad. Norris said that May 20 would be the first annual "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" and created a fictional group, Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor, to sponsor the event. She dedicated the illustration to Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of "South Park." She sent the illustration to some bloggers and talked to a local radio host, saying "it's a cartoonist's job to be non-PC." Now Norris has backed off from that position. She no longer has the illustration on her website and she claims responses to the idea were overwhelming. Instead she has a drawing of herself, with various word balloons containing her feelings about the incident, including "I said that I wanted to counter fear and then I got afraid." But she may have started something she can't stop. Others have taken up the cause of "Everybody Draw Muhammed Day."
Joke—not that funny, though
An atheist passes a priest and shouts "Jesus is a lie!" He then passes a Jew and shouts "God is a lie!" He then passes a Muslim Imam and shouts, "Good day Sir!"
French Muslim man hits back in polygamy row
http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/french-news/french-muslim-man-hits-back-in-polygamy-row_62638.html
The Tiger Defense. And we complain about immigrants with one family on welfare. Excerpt: A Muslim butcher who could be stripped of his French passport over allegations of polygamy hit back on Monday, insisting that he had not broken the law. Lies Hebbadj, an Algerian-born 35-year-old, has been at the centre of a political storm since last week when his wife complained that she had been fined for driving while wearing her "niqab" full-face veil. The woman has refused to pay the fine and Hebbadj has taken her defence. Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux suggested the man could lose his French passport, saying he was believed to have four wives who had borne him 12 children and that each was receiving welfare benefits. But Hebbadj called a news conference on Monday to contend that, while he has several mistresses, he had not engaged in polygamy, which is illegal in France. "As far as I know, it is not forbidden to have mistresses in France, nor is it forbidden under Islam," said Hebbadj, who runs a halal butcher shop in the western city of Nantes. "Maybe under the Christian faith, but not in France," he added.
Congress Urged to Drop Evangelist From Event
http://www.aolnews.com/politics/article/muslim-group-wants-franklin-graham-booted-from-capitol-hill-prayer-event/19454971
Excerpt: A Muslim civil liberties group urged Congress to disinvite evangelist Franklin Graham from a prayer event, just days after the Pentagon booted the minister from another gathering because of his anti-Islam remarks. Graham is scheduled to attend the congressional National Day of Prayer event on Capitol Hill on May 6. He was to have led services at the Pentagon the same day but was told last week that he was no longer welcome after Army leaders decided his comments that Islam is a "very evil and wicked religion" were a problem. Graham refused to back down, saying on Fox News that Muslims were "enslaved" by their beliefs.
AZ State Capitol Vandalized
Arizona immigration law: Vandals leave Swastikas, beans at Capitol
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13602
Must have been a Tea Party. Left wouldn’t do this.
Risk grows that Israel will go alone to take out Iranian nukes
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Risk-grows-that-Israel-will-go-alone-to-take-out-Iranian-nukes-92138599.html
Excerpt: The growing rift between the Obama administration and Israel, coupled with the administration’s failure to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program, has increased the chances that the Israelis will eventually launch an attack on Iran, experts said.
This day comes
You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves. -Winston Churchill
I will be traveling 4/28 through 5/5, and will have little or no time and little or no computer access, so there will be few or no daily digests. I will leave a few things of interest to post on the blog.
Threat on my life for “I’m Tired”?
http://electionink.com/showthread.php/596-What-White-America-Refuses-To-Admit-About-Capitalism./page5
May have to scroll down. “Iceberg” (without the courage to identify himself by name as I do in my posts), describes himself as an “Ultra-Liberal Progressive” who wants to euthanize me. Excerpt: Robert A. Hall is just another belligerent old racist. The subversive racist diatribe trobbins just submitted in Obama's house is nothing short of blasphemy. I am proud to say that I support legislation to euthanise (sic) any of these degenerate beasts who purport to be "American Patriots".
Is this not a threat on my life?
I’m a “racist” how? Was it my $100 contribution to a black candidate for Congress, Allen West? Or my promotion of the books of the brilliant economist, Dr. Thomas Sowell, who happens to be black? But a black bigot calling you a racist is supposed to be an argument-stopper, especially when delivered with a whiff of menace. It is wearing thin, though.
“Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.”- Victor Hugo (conservatives would do well to remember this.)
More Violent Threats and Foul-Mouthed Hate
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/04/26/more-violent-threats-and-foul-mouthed-hate/
Excerpt: My pal Tabitha Hale at FreedomWorks compiled this four minute video montage of some of the violent and hateful messages the organization receives from angry leftists. Among the threats and vitriol:
Must read: Filtering History by Thomas Sowell
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/04/27/filtering_history
Excerpt: The kind of thinking that produced a passing misconception about me has, unfortunately, produced much bigger, much longer lasting, much more systematic and more poisonous distortions about the United States of America. Slavery is a classic example. The history of slavery across the centuries and in many countries around the world is a painful history to read-- not only in terms of how slaves have been treated, but because of what that says about the whole human species-- because slaves and enslavers alike have been of every race, religion and nationality. If the history of slavery ought to teach us anything, it is that human beings cannot be trusted with unbridled power over other human beings-- no matter what color or creed any of them are. The history of ancient despotism and modern totalitarianism practically shouts that same message from the blood-stained pages of history. But that is not the message that is being taught in our schools and colleges, or dramatized on television and in the movies. The message that is pounded home again and again is that white people enslaved black people.
Undocumented individuals make hospital discharge difficult
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/04/undocumented-individuals-hospital-discharge-difficult.html#more-43673
Excerpt: Mr. M is in his fifties. He speaks Spanish. He is an undocumented immigrant from Central America. He came to the U.S. to seek employment, and send money home to his family. He has no family here that can help care for him when he’s ready to be discharged from the hospital. Unfortunately, three months ago, he had a big stroke. He was paralyzed on his right side. He couldn’t swallow, walk, or use his hand. He could barely speak. He’s been in the hospital all that time. This won’t surprise you, but he doesn’t have health insurance.... We can’t keep him in the hospital forever, though it feels like that to the intern on my team (the one whose job it is to round on Mr. M every day, examining him and formulating his ‘daily plan’). There has to be somewhere he can go, right? If he had a home or family nearby, of course we’d send him there. But he doesn’t. So, our discharge planners have investigated doing the ultimate: sending him home–to his native country. (THIS IS WHY ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS THE BANE OF OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM! This case is scary. Mr. M was getting 3-times-weekly "free" dialysis even before his hospitalization. He's been hospitalized for 3 months. If they actually send him "home," medical airfare alone will run about $50,000 (don't even consider regular air service: these doctors would be sued by every interest group you can think of before Mr. M even got on the plane). Sadly, he still won't get the care he needs when he gets home. Who do you suppose will have to pay for all this compassionate treatment? You and me, friend. That $50 grand is only the capstone. I spent about one month hospitalized back in 2000. My hospital bill alone came to more than a quarter million dollars, not including the greedy doctors and evil surgeons who saved my life (God bless'em, every one!). The economics is like this: If the hospital and doctor don't make enough money to stay in business, THEY AREN'T THERE the next time we need them. The only thing they can do is pass the costs of those who can't/won't pay on to the rest of us who can/will. Even if we have to do it indirectly through our taxes, it still comes out of our pockets. This one man, Mr. M--who shouldn't have been here to begin with--will end up costing his community close to a million dollars. It isn't right. We've got to control the borders. RP)
Undocumented Workers
I have compassion for Mr. M, above. I also have compassion for the millions of black, brown and yellow kids who have died from Malaria because we panicked and banned DDT, for the Gays hanged and women stoned in Iran, and for the blacks who have starved under black rule in Zimbabwe, all at the behest of American Liberals, who care not at all. But anyone who thinks we shouldn’t control the borders and enforce the immigration laws you should invite illegal immigrants to come live in your house—as many as want to—the open door policy. Promise that whatever they cannot afford in food and healthcare from doing “jobs Americans won’t do” you will make up. Promise you will pay for the children’s education, all costs. And you can’t place a limit. If you already have 50 and another 25 want to move in, fine. You house will just be a small scale of what America will be like with no enforced immigration laws. If you support an open door policy, you should try it first and bear the costs before you force it on others. And if you say no, you are a racist.
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
http://www.angelfire.com/or/sociologyshop/lazlong.html
I was a strong Science Fiction fan in my younger days; still enjoy the occasional novel between reading history, economics and political books. My all time favorite author was Robert Heinlein (it was a thrill when he called me once to talk about a political campaign—I haven’t washed that ear since). In his best novel, Time Enough for Love, his hero lays out some great guidelines for life in these notebooks. Click on “Intermission” for the first section, then “Second Intermission.” Lazarus Long (and presumably Heinlein) was a secular conservative-libertarian, if I read these right.
Vietnam, in sadness but not in shame
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/26/sanders-vietnam-in-sadness-but-not-in-shame/
America's more than 1.5 million Vietnamese-Americans this week will mourn the 35th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the Republic of [South] Vietnam. Defying conventional wisdom, many will remember and honor the bravery and sacrifice of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. They want recognition for the heroic struggle that South Vietnamese troops put up against overwhelming odds after the withdrawal of American forces and the cutoff of U.S. military aid. Fortunately, a new group of revisionist scholars is setting the record straight, even in the face of the long history of American media and academic malfeasance on the Vietnam disaster. The mourners also will recall the enormous loss of life and suffering — "the bloodbath" which, again, conventional wisdom has tried to deny — that followed Saigon's fall. Thousands died in "the Vietnamese gulag," communist "re-education camps" where Prime Minister Pham Van Dong publicly admitted that more than 1 million people had been imprisoned. Few but the Vietnamese remember that in addition to the 255,000 boat people who reached the shelter of the miserable refugee camps, thousands drowned at sea, often refused entry by neighboring countries. That is not in any way to minimize the enormous loss of life and the sacrifice of Americans in what was a noble if tragic struggle. But it is an effort to retell the whole story of "Vietnam" for fellow Americans, particularly younger generations who have grown up amid a vast media and pseudo-scholarly distortion of facts. The remembrance also glories in the thousands of young Vietnamese now serving with distinction in the U.S. armed forces. Unfortunately, in Vietnam itself, the oppression continues unabated. The communist regime persecutes religious and ethnic minorities, and in its own ham-handed way, attempts to stamp out political dissent. An endlessly feuding politburo guides the one-party state — so enmeshed in petty personal rivalries and ideological confusion that it publicly arrested the Communist Party official newspaper editor after he wrote an anti-Chinese editorial. And, since 1995, when Sens. John McCain of Arizona and John Kerry of Massachusetts — both veterans of the war — pushed for U.S. diplomatic recognition without quid pro quos, official Washington has obfuscated the true nature of the regime. U.S. policy has naively and ignominiously sought favor with Hanoi through economic and trade concessions in a fruitless effort to promote political liberalization.
Climate Change and the dinosaurs
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/26/climate-change-and-the-dinosaurs/#more-18928
Excerpt: Despite being located in the Arctic Circle, Svalbard was home to numerous species of dinosaur and was typically characterised by warm, shallow seas and swamps. But the research team, led by Dr Gregory Price of the University of Plymouth, found evidence in fossils and carbonate materials preserved in marine rocks in the region of a transient shift to cooler glacial conditions around 137 million years ago. Dr Price said: “At certain times in the geological past, the world has been dominated by greenhouse conditions with elevated CO2 levels and warm Polar Regions, and hence, these are seen as analogues of future global climate. But this research suggests that for short periods of time the Earth plunged back to colder temperatures, which not only poses interesting questions in terms of how the dinosaurs might have coped, but also over the nature of climate change itself.”
More Global Warming Profiteering by Obama Energy Official
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/more-global-warming-profiteering-by-obama-energy-official/?singlepage=true
Surprising? I’m hardly surprised. Excerpt: Surprising documents made available to this author reveal that Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi has a huge financial stake in companies likely to profit from the Obama administration’s “green” policies. Zoi, who left her position as CEO of the Alliance for Climate Protection — founded by Al Gore — to serve as assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, now manages billions in “green jobs” funding. But the disclosure documents show that Zoi not only is in a position to affect the fortunes of her previous employer, ex-Vice President Al Gore, but that she herself has large holdings in two firms that could directly profit from policies proposed by the Department of Energy.
Texas Medical Association: Stop the Medicare meltdown
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/04/stop-medicare-meltdown.html#more-43880
Excerpt: For the past decade, physicians have had to live with the uncertainty of a potential Medicare cut. However, nothing has topped the gut-wrenching events of the past four months. Four times since Jan. 1 physicians have waited and worried about a Medicare payment cut. First came the potential cut of more than 21 percent starting Jan. 1. Congress postponed it until March 1. Then until April 1, and now through June 1. Twice in the past four months, the steep cuts actually took effect. The March cut lasted one day. The April cut lasted 14. Each time Congress stepped in only to delay the cuts — never to fix the problem. Twice this year, CMS has held payments because of congressional inaction. These constant payment disruptions create an administrative catastrophe for our practices. The continued uncertainty complicates our ability to make decisions for our practices. Many physicians are postponing equipment purchases or taking on more patients or staff because we simply cannot plan in this environment. Others are opting out of Medicare or choosing not to take any new Medicare patients. Meanwhile, senior citizens, people with disabilities, and military families are left without a doctor of their choice. It was hard enough on physicians to worry about Medicare cuts year to year — now it’s month to month. We are frustrated, worried, and not sure what the future holds for our patients or our practices. We are the foundation of any health care system. The government simply cannot build a new health care system if the foundation of Medicare is crumbling. Add your name to the Stop the Medicare Meltdown petition.
Pension Bomb Ticks Louder
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303695604575181983634524348.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion
The collapse will start in the Democrat-run cities, as the entitled riot when promised entitlements can no longer be paid by a productive economy bled dry by mob rule. Democracy must be something more than the unproductive/less fortunate/government employees banding together to use their votes to take property from the productive (money is property) and transfer it to themselves until the system collapses. Excerpt: The time-bomb that is public-pension obligations keeps ticking louder and louder. Eventually someone will have to notice. This month, Stanford's Institute for Economic Policy Research released a study suggesting a more than $500 billion unfunded liability for California's three biggest pension funds—Calpers, Calstrs and the University of California Retirement System. The shortfall is about six times the size of this year's California state budget and seven times more than the outstanding voter-approved general obligations bonds. The pension funds responsible for the time bombs denounced the report. Calstrs CEO Jack Ehnes declared at a board meeting that "most people would give [this study] a letter grade of 'F' for quality" but "since it bears the brand of Stanford, it clearly ripples out there quite a bit." He called its assumptions "faulty," its research "shoddy" and its conclusions "political." Calpers chief Joseph Dear wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle that the study is "fundamentally flawed" because it "uses a controversial method that is out of step with governmental accounting standards." Those standards bear some scrutiny.
Five myths about green energy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042302220.html
Excerpt: Americans are being inundated with claims about renewable and alternative energy. Advocates for these technologies say that if we jettison fossil fuels, we'll breathe easier, stop global warming and revolutionize our economy. Yes, "green" energy has great emotional and political appeal. But before we wrap all our hopes -- and subsidies -- in it, let's take a hard look at some common misconceptions about what "green" means….Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His fourth book, "Power Hungry: The Myths of 'Green' Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future," will be out Tuesday, April 27.
Health Care's History of Fiscal Folly
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703709804575202563381275260.html
Excerpt: The Affordable Care Act—otherwise known as ObamaCare—isn't the first attempt to expand health insurance coverage in America. Before Washington passed its law, a number of states took smaller-scale cracks at the job—each of which proved far more expensive than planned. As the nation dives further into debt, the destabilizing fiscal effects of those programs don't bode well for how ObamaCare will shape the U.S. budget. As spectacular failures go, it's hard to do worse than Tennessee. This early state attempt to dramatically increase health coverage, dubbed TennCare, started off promisingly. In 1994, the first year of its operation, the system added half a million new individuals to its rolls. Premiums were cheap—just $2.74 per month for people right above the poverty line—and liberal policy wonks loved it. The Urban Institute, for example, gave it good marks for "improving coverage of the uninsurable or high-risk individuals with very limited access to private coverage." At its peak, the program covered 1.4 million individuals—nearly a quarter of the state's population and more than any other state's Medicaid program—leaving just 6 percent of the state's population uninsured. But those benefits came at a high price. By 2001, the system's costs were growing faster than the state budget. The drive to increase coverage had not been matched by the drive to control costs. Vivian Riefberg, a partner at consulting firm McKinsey & Company, described it as having "almost across the board, no limits on scope and duration of coverage." Spending on drug coverage, in particular, had gone out of control: The state topped the nation in prescription drug use, and the program put no cap on how many prescription drugs a patient could receive. The result was that, by 2004, TennCare's drug benefits cost the state more than its entire higher education program. Meanwhile, in 1998, the program was opened to individuals at twice the poverty level, even if they had access to employer-provided insurance. In other words, the program's costs were uncontrolled and unsustainable. By 2004, the budget had jumped from $2.6 billion to $6.9 billion, and it accounted for a quarter of the state's appropriations.
Jones apologizes for joke about Jewish merchant
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/04/jones-apologizes-for-joke-abou.html?wprss=44
I heard this joke years ago, have told it. My take was it was -anti terrorist, not against the Jewish tie salesman. But in the Land of the Perpetually Offended, anything is grist for the PC mill. Excerpt: National security adviser Jim Jones has apologized for telling a Jewish joke last week. The joke -- about a Jewish salesman who refuses to give water to a member of the Taliban -- has been making the rounds via e-mail for more than a month. It was not clear how Jones came across it, or decided it would be a good idea to add it to his speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. In his statement of apology, issued Monday through the White House, Jones said it was just "off the cuff."
Talks continue as GOP senators block advance of financial overhaul bill
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/26/AR2010042601969.html?wpisrc=nl_politics
High risk indeed. The public wants to stick it to Wall Street, doesn’t realize how easily that “sticking” can be passed to them in higher loan and banking costs, decreased IRAs and 401Ks. In the economy, we are all “the man.” Excerpt: Republicans voted unanimously Monday to block an effort to overhaul financial regulations from reaching the Senate floor, pledging to hold out for significant changes to the bill even as they acknowledged the political risk of appearing to obstruct a popular cause.
Democrats' young voter problem
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/democrats-young-voter-problem.html?wprss=thefix
Young voters had to learn for themselves that voting for a charismatic Socialist just because it felt good to vote for a black guy was a bad idea. Same thing they discovered in Zimbabwe. Excerpt: Less than 24 hours after President Barack Obama announced his plan to re-build the coalition that helped elect him in 2008, new numbers from Gallup suggest one of the pillars of that foundation is decidedly shaky. Less than one in four voters aged 18-29 described themselves as "very enthusiastic" about the 2010 midterm election. Those numbers compare unfavorably to voters between 50 and 64 (44 percent "very enthusiastic"), 65 and older (41 percent "very enthusiastic") and 30 to 49 (32 percent "very enthusiastic"). "The fact that voters under age 50 -- and particularly those under 30 -- are less enthusiastic about voting this year is not a new phenomenon," wrote Gallup's Frank Newport. "Voter turnout typically skews older." While the data is in keeping with traditional voting patterns, it makes obvious the difficulty facing the White House as they seek to reconstruct the combination of young voters, independents and African Americans who helped propel Obama into the White House. Looking back at exit polls from the last three presidential races, it's clear that the story is not how young people comprised larger and larger segments of the electorate but rather how much more Democratic they voted between 2000 and 2008. (I don’t believe I’ve missed an election I could vote in—maybe once a local primary. But in High School, I was thought weird because I was interested in politics, history and poetry, not sports and cars.)
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) on Free Trade
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/03/guest-blogger-rep-henry-cuellar-d-tx-on-free-trade/
A Democrat who gets it. Alert the Unions for a DINO hunt. Excerpt: For two decades, the word “trade” has been a dividing force in Congress. Its supporters, like me, see trade as a boon to our economy. As the free leader of the world, the U.S. is also one of the largest trading nations, supporting millions of American workers and millions of American jobs. Increased trade is good for America. In the past decade, U.S. exports have nearly doubled to $2 trillion a year. More exports from the U.S. can increase production of American-made products, spurring and stabilizing local jobs while supporting small business and increasing consumer choice. In my home state of Texas, over 20,000 small and medium-size businesses rely on exporting goods and 1 in 5 manufacturing jobs relies on trade.
Will federal govt. ever enforce our immigration laws?
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/26/will-federal-govt-ever-enforce-our-immigration-laws/?hpt=T2
From Progressive CNN? Excerpt: So Arizona passes a tough law against illegal immigration and suddenly they get Washington's attention. One poll finds 70 percent of Arizona voters support the new law... hey, maybe we better do something too. So like the lemmings they are when they smell a chance to score political points... and some of them need a lot of help with the midterms approaching - there is talk now of rushing immigration reform through Congress. President Obama called the Arizona law "misguided." What is misguided, Mr. President, is the federal government's refusal to enforce the laws already on the books. Read the Arizona law... parts of it are word-for-word the same as the federal laws - which continue to be ignored. Now we'll hear all sorts of blathering from our Washington gerbils about the need for a new federal law. There will be press conferences, interviews, committee hearings, draft legislation, polling... all the usual carnival acts that accompany any hot-button issue in Washington, DC.
Sharpton, other activists compare Arizona immigration law to apartheid, Nazi Germany and Jim Crow
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/04/26/2010-04-26_rev_al_plans_immig_rally.html
Left out the Rape of the Sabine Women. And Tawana Brawley. Excerpt: New York activists, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, compared Arizona's new immigration law to apartheid, Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South - and vowed to shut it down with mass protests. "We will bring Freedom Walkers to Arizona just like Freedom Riders went to the deep south 50 years ago," Sharpton said yesterday. Standing with local clergy, elected officials and a leader of the Hispanic Federation, Sharpton said he would mobilize people from across the country to march in Arizona - and get arrested, if necessary - to stop the controversial new law. "We cannot sit by and allow people to be arbitrarily and unilaterally picked off as suspects because of the color of their skin," Sharpton said.
Illegal aliens riot in Arizona; Media silent
http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2010m4d26-Illegal-aliens-riot-in-Arizona-Media-silent
Inciting violence? Who knew Rev. Al was in the tea Party? Excerpt: Arizona, now home to about a half-million illegal aliens, was invaded by Rev. Al Sharpton and his minions who decided to play racial politics with the public safety of American citizens. The man to whom reporters rush for soundbites was there to protest the state's news law to fight illegal immigration. Sharpton, who commands the attention of so many members of the mainstream news media, is notorious for whipping up fury and then disappearing when destruction -- even death -- occurs. Short memories appears to be a prerequisite for being a news reporter or else these denizens of America's newsrooms are intentionally ignoring Rev. Al's modus operandi. For example, in Brooklyn, New York, Sharpton started a protest against Korean store owners. The store owners were being singled out by Sharpton and his goons because their businesses were located in a predominately black neighborhood. For weeks protesters marched and yelled epithets against the Korean families. The protest became so heated that a grocery store owner was beaten to death. Now, Rev. Sharpton has set his sights on Arizona's new immigration enforcement law, a law supported by 70 percent of the state's residents including the membership of the Arizona Sheriffs Association. At one rally, what the media characterized as a “small riot” broke out as police attempted to escort away a supporter of the bill who had come under attack from opponents. A number of protesters began throwing objects at the supporter and his police escorts.
ABC: 'Mostly Peaceful' Immigration Protests vs. 'Very Ugly' Tea Party Rallies
http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2010/20100426060932.aspx
Excerpt: On Saturday's Good Morning America, reporter Mike Von Fremd downplayed the violence of protesters against Arizona's new immigration law. He spun, "Riot police were called in to try and control demonstrators protesting outside the capital. Most were peaceful. A handful threw bottles at police and were arrested." Yet, ABC derided March's Tea Party rallies as "very ugly," despite the fact that there were no arrests.
CBS Again Focuses on Victims in Arizona: 'Many Feel the Sting of Racism in New Law'
http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2010/20100427015953.aspx
Excerpt: For the second consecutive weeknight, the CBS Evening News on Monday framed Arizona’s new anti-illegal immigrant bill around the fears and charges of its supposed victims. With “ANGER & ANXIETY” on screen below video of signs hostile to the new law (“LAND OF THE FREE! REALLY?” and a Swastika sign with “Achtung! Papers Please”), Katie Couric teased: “Anger in Arizona against a new law allowing police to make you prove you’re in the country legally” – followed by a man who impugned supporters: “They’re just focusing on us because we’re brown.”
The US is Not "Like Nazi Germany"
http://plumwoodroad.blogspot.com/
Oh, Brother. I just heard a radio sound bite of some anti-anti-illegal immigration protester claiming that America is like Nazi Germany: We are putting up a border fence in Arizona and storm troopers are demanding to see people's papers. The easy explanation would be to point out that in Nazi Germany those things were done to keep people in -- in Arizona they are being done to keep people out. That's a significant difference right there, but also an over-simplification itself. It is commonly agreed that The United States is a nation of immigrants. What is seldom stated is legal immigrants. For over two hundred years in all parts of the world -- people have left their homes, their extended families, their possessions and moved to the New World of the United States. Those huddled-masses built this nation. An immigrant today doesn't just join us, but in a real sense joins them, too.
Obama’s Racist Southern (Hemisphere) Strategy
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/04/27/obamas-racist-southern-hemisphere-strategy/
Excerpt: For 40 years the “Southern Strategy” has been a staple of liberal political history. The story goes that Republicans under Nixon got tough on crime in order to appeal to racist white Southerners– who apparently would have been okay with rising rape and murder rates as long as rednecks were the primary suspects. But now, Obama and the Democrats are doing precisely what they accuse (mostly dead) Republicans of having done. They are deliberately picking a fight over immigration reform and fanning fears of cops stopping people for LWL–Living While Latino– in order to fire up the base and make Hispanic voters afraid to vote Republican. Harry Reid is blatantly pushing for the issue because he needs Latino voters to show up in droves for him to have any chance of winning; and Obama would love to have the issue for the next 2 years, if need be, to help with his re-election– though he’d MUCH rather have 12 million new voters! The President was pretty open about it:
The Next Empire
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/04/the-next-empire/8018/
Excerpt: All across Africa, new tracks are being laid, highways built, ports deepened, commercial contracts signed—all on an unprecedented scale, and led by China, whose appetite for commodities seems insatiable. Do China’s grand designs promise the transformation, at last, of a star-crossed continent? Or merely its exploitation?
Obama(doesn't)care Taking Surprise Hits
http://townhall.com/columnists/DavidLimbaugh/2010/04/27/obamadoesntcare_taking_surprise_hits
Excerpt: As President Barack Obama is attempting to steamroll yet another enormous policy change through Congress against the best interests of Americans, we would be well-advised to keep abreast of the frauds that are already being exposed about Obamacare. Last week, reality dealt Obamacare twin blows -- not that Obama will care. An analysis inside his own administration and a report from New York state shed the grim light of reality on this monstrosity before its Draconian provisions have even gone into effect. Economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department issued a report last week, conveniently after Obamacare was shoved through, finding that though more people will end up with health insurance (many of them against their will, of course), costs are going to increase. Shocker.
Cartoonist Molly Norris Erases 'Draw Muhammad' Gag
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpps/news/cartoonist-molly-norris-draw-muhammad-gag-dpgoha-20100426-fc_7252284
Jihadist terror silences another. Free speech is slipping away. Excerpt: In more fallout around the decision by Comedy Central to censor an episode of "South Park" that contained comedic depictions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a cartoonist has now censored herself . Seattle artist Molly Norris originally posted on her website a cartoon showing many different objects – including a purse, a domino, a coffee cup and a spool of thread – claiming to be a likeness of Muhammad. Norris said that May 20 would be the first annual "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" and created a fictional group, Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor, to sponsor the event. She dedicated the illustration to Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of "South Park." She sent the illustration to some bloggers and talked to a local radio host, saying "it's a cartoonist's job to be non-PC." Now Norris has backed off from that position. She no longer has the illustration on her website and she claims responses to the idea were overwhelming. Instead she has a drawing of herself, with various word balloons containing her feelings about the incident, including "I said that I wanted to counter fear and then I got afraid." But she may have started something she can't stop. Others have taken up the cause of "Everybody Draw Muhammed Day."
Joke—not that funny, though
An atheist passes a priest and shouts "Jesus is a lie!" He then passes a Jew and shouts "God is a lie!" He then passes a Muslim Imam and shouts, "Good day Sir!"
French Muslim man hits back in polygamy row
http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/french-news/french-muslim-man-hits-back-in-polygamy-row_62638.html
The Tiger Defense. And we complain about immigrants with one family on welfare. Excerpt: A Muslim butcher who could be stripped of his French passport over allegations of polygamy hit back on Monday, insisting that he had not broken the law. Lies Hebbadj, an Algerian-born 35-year-old, has been at the centre of a political storm since last week when his wife complained that she had been fined for driving while wearing her "niqab" full-face veil. The woman has refused to pay the fine and Hebbadj has taken her defence. Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux suggested the man could lose his French passport, saying he was believed to have four wives who had borne him 12 children and that each was receiving welfare benefits. But Hebbadj called a news conference on Monday to contend that, while he has several mistresses, he had not engaged in polygamy, which is illegal in France. "As far as I know, it is not forbidden to have mistresses in France, nor is it forbidden under Islam," said Hebbadj, who runs a halal butcher shop in the western city of Nantes. "Maybe under the Christian faith, but not in France," he added.
Congress Urged to Drop Evangelist From Event
http://www.aolnews.com/politics/article/muslim-group-wants-franklin-graham-booted-from-capitol-hill-prayer-event/19454971
Excerpt: A Muslim civil liberties group urged Congress to disinvite evangelist Franklin Graham from a prayer event, just days after the Pentagon booted the minister from another gathering because of his anti-Islam remarks. Graham is scheduled to attend the congressional National Day of Prayer event on Capitol Hill on May 6. He was to have led services at the Pentagon the same day but was told last week that he was no longer welcome after Army leaders decided his comments that Islam is a "very evil and wicked religion" were a problem. Graham refused to back down, saying on Fox News that Muslims were "enslaved" by their beliefs.
AZ State Capitol Vandalized
Arizona immigration law: Vandals leave Swastikas, beans at Capitol
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13602
Must have been a Tea Party. Left wouldn’t do this.
Risk grows that Israel will go alone to take out Iranian nukes
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Risk-grows-that-Israel-will-go-alone-to-take-out-Iranian-nukes-92138599.html
Excerpt: The growing rift between the Obama administration and Israel, coupled with the administration’s failure to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program, has increased the chances that the Israelis will eventually launch an attack on Iran, experts said.
This day comes
You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves. -Winston Churchill
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