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.
Welcome Spring
Snow predicted here inChicago.
House leaders announce $940 billion health-care compromise bill
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/18/AR2010031801153.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
They can’t really believe it will be politically possible to cut billions from Medicare, or that a massive new government program will cut the deficit. I think this legislation will be the tipping point, that the collapse of the American Republic into fiscal chaos and perhaps civil war is close to being inevitable.
From a Reader
The best way to find out if they really believe the BS about the bill reducing the deficit would be to ask them if they would resign if the deficit increases following the bill’s passage. I doubt anyone in leadership would be willing to put their job on the line for that (even as they are willing to risk all the other Democrats who vote for this unconstitutional monstrosity). --Howard
Bob: Yes, except they would claim the deficit would have been higher if the bill had not passed. Plus it doesn’t take effect for several years, by which time the culprits will be retired full of wealth.
Quote
"Politically speaking, [the Slaughter Rule] is beyond sleazy. It's meant to protect House Democrats, who are all running for re-election in November, from having to make a tough vote up or down on health care reform. Pelosi says of this process, quote, 'I like it, because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill,' unquote. In Nancy Pelosi's world, accountability is a dirty word. ... This tactic has been used in the past, but never -- never -- for something as big and important as the $900 billion health care reform bill -- never. Republicans are jumping all over this, rightfully so. They're painting it as a way for Democrats to avoid taking responsibility, which is exactly what it is. Some even suggest it's unconstitutional. Meanwhile, President Obama's campaigning relentlessly, calling on lawmakers to pass health care reform, quote, 'I want some courage. I want us to do the right thing,' unquote. Well, the irony here is if Nancy Pelosi gets her way, it won't take much courage at all on the part of our so-called representatives, will it?" –CNN commentator Jack Cafferty, who is by no means a conservative. The Patriot Post www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/
How to Protect Your Stock Profits From Health Care
http://www.cnbc.com/id/35929753
Excerpt: After a year of some of the most sadly entertaining partisan theater ever seen in Washington, health-care reform is very close to becoming law. Democrats look ready to hold a vote as soon as Sunday, which means Monday’s opening bell could signal the beginning of a very different world for investors. If that’s the case, Cramer said during Mad Money, then they better prepare their portfolios. He expects a sell-off, “maybe even a big one,” if a new health-care bill passes.
Much Less Access To Decent Health Care Under Obamacare
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/03/18/less-access-to-decent-health-care-under-obamacare/
Excerpt: Left-wing supporters of Obamacare like Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times wants us to believe that Obamacare will improve “Americans’ access to decent medical care.”That is another in a long line of lies, manipulation and deceit being used to push Obamacare over the finish line. While cheap insurance will be made available to some thirty million more Americans, starting in about four years, the eighty percent of us who have insurance coverage that we are satisfied with will have far less access to quality care under Obamacare. There are two reasons for this.
Democrats frustrated with ‘no’ health votes
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/87479-democrats-frustrated-with-no-votes
If the weather’s nice, they could do all this outdoors, selling the nation’s future in a kind of open-air bazaar of deal making for short-term political advantage. Excerpt: Democratic strategists are growing frustrated with some members from safe districts who are threatening to vote against the healthcare bill. “Some of the ‘no’s are, frankly, kind of frustrating,” a senior Democratic strategist said.
Why physicians are working fewer hours
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/03/physicians-working-hours.html
Excerpt: Physicians are working fewer hours than they once did, the result of a decade-long decline that coincided with lower fees for their services, a study showed.
After two decades of stable hours, a steady decrease began in 1997, according to Douglas Staiger, PhD, of Dartmouth College, and colleagues.
CBO: Health Bill Would Force Families to Buy Insurance Costing a Minimum of $12,000 Per Year--Whether Government or Employer Helps Them or Not
http://larryh.newsvine.com/_news/2010/03/18/4036933-cbo-health-bill-would-force-families-to-buy-insurance-costing-a-minimum-of-12000-per-year-whether-government-or-employer-helps-them-or-not-thursday-march-18-2010-by-pete-winn-senior-writereditor
Excerpt: If Congress passes the Senate health-care plan, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, American families will be required by federal law to buy a federally approved health insurance plan that will cost a minimum of $12,000 per year--and, on average, will cost $15,000 per year -- whether their employer or the government helps them with the premium or not. Beginning in 2014, the Senate plan would require all individuals to buy health insurance. Anyone who does not obtain insurance through an employer would be forced to buy it out of their own pocket. Families of four that make up to 400 percent of poverty level--currently $88,200 per year--would receive a subsidy from the government to help pay for their premiums. That subsidy would attenuate as their income increased and would disappear when their income reached the 400 percent of poverty level.
Coburn Promises to Hold Future Nominations of Ex-House Democrats
http://www.redstate.com/jrichardson/2010/03/18/coburn-promises-to-hold-future-nominations-of-ex-house-democrats/
Excerpt: Excerpt: Senator Tom Coburn Thursday put his colleagues in the lower chamber on advance notice, vowing to torpedo any promises of patronage made by President Barack Obama to wavering House Democrats. Coburn promised at a health care presser on Capitol Hill today that he would exercise his senatorial prerogative to hold all nominations of vote-switching House Democrats who lose their reelection bids this Fall. The new maneuver aimed at scuttling Democratic vote whipping efforts sent an unmistakeable message to the White House: Senate Republicans will do everything in their power to prevent the bill’s passage, even if that means preemptively expending political capital. “I want to send a couple messages to my colleagues in the House. If you voted no and you vote yes and you lose your election, and you think any nomination to a federal position isn’t going to held in the Senate, I’ve got news for you,” Coburn, a physician whose been among the Senate’s most vocal opponents of the bill, said. “It’s going to be held.”
New Dem lawmakers feeling heat on health care
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j89d7mPoUc2qQZZ0Y98IaDHLzdzwD9EHABL00
Excerpt: Freshman Rep. Steve Driehaus is getting it from all sides on President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. The Ohio Democrat opened his local newspaper, The Cincinnati Enquirer, on Wednesday to find a giant ad urging him to vote against the bill — featuring a photo of him with his two young daughters. Tea party protesters stormed his office and berated his staff. On the other hand, he was heading to the White House Thursday to be wooed by Obama. And there was talk of Catholic nuns in his district organizing a candlelight vigil supporting the bill. Of the few dozen House Democrats who could cast the deciding votes on health care, none are getting more pressure than the first- and second-term moderates like Driehaus who gave the Democratic Party control of Congress in the past two elections — and whose fate in November could decide who's in charge next year. While many of these lawmakers are the young, rising stars in the party, they also are often the most vulnerable. They lack the name recognition and political identity that long-term incumbency affords, and many represent swing districts that could easily shift to the right on Election Day. Until now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has given them a long leash to vote in their own best interests, and many opposed the health care bill last November. But as Democrats scramble for votes — and advocacy groups unleash furious lobbying campaigns — the newcomers are coming under a spotlight like they've never seen.
Rep. Paul Broun, MD, rips ObamaCare
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/03/hero-rep-paul-broun-md-rips-arrogant-ignorant-incompetent-pelosi-video/
With Medicaid Cuts, Doctors and Patients Drop Out
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/health/policy/16medicaid.html?hp
Excerpt: Carol Y. Vliet’s cancer returned with a fury last summer, the tumors metastasizing to her brain, liver, kidneys and throat. As she began a punishing regimen of chemotherapy and radiation, Mrs. Vliet found a measure of comfort in her monthly appointments with her primary care physician, Dr. Saed J. Sahouri, who had been monitoring her health for nearly two years. She was devastated, therefore, when Dr. Sahouri informed her a few months later that he could no longer see her because, like a growing number of doctors, he had stopped taking patients with Medicaid. Dr. Sahouri said that his reimbursements from Medicaid were so low — often no more than $25 per office visit — that he was losing money every time a patient walked in his exam room. The final insult, he said, came when Michigan cut those payments by 8 percent last year to help close a gaping budget shortfall.
Rep. Darrell Issa: The lackluster record of government-run health care
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Rep-Darrel-T-Issa-The-lackluster-record-of-government-health-care-88463012.html
Before the Democrats who control Congress push through a trillion-dollar expansion of government-run health care, they might want to know the facts about how efficiently the government has handled health care in the past, and how much bigger the government will grow once the bill becomes law. When all is said and done, President Obama's plan mandates dozens of new entitlement programs and creates scores of new government offices, bureaus, commissions, and programs, all of which will have to be funded, staffed and managed at taxpayer cost. Moreover, an expansion of the federal bureaucracy at that rate will greatly increase the incidence of waste, fraud and abuse in health care. Already Medicare, which accounts for 14% of all federal spending, is rife with waste, fraud and abuse. Even Attorney General Eric Holder has said, “By all accounts, every year we lose tens of billions of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid funds to fraud.” A recent analysis by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that federal subsidy programs cost taxpayers about $100 billion every year in improper payments, with Medicare and Medicaid accounting for more than half of that. Harvard Professor Malcolm Sparrow, a specialist in health care fraud teaching at the Kennedy School of Government, has estimated that as much as 20% of the federal health program budgets – or approximately $150 billion – is eaten up by improper payments every year.
Democrats know better on health care
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Democrats-know-better-on-health-care-88432377.html
Americans resoundingly reject ObamaCare. What, then, accounts for the Democrats' determination? Democrats believe health care is a right. Start with that premise and everything else makes complete sense. Rights -- whether the right to vote or to freely assemble or to avoid self-incrimination -- exist independent of popular feeling, poll numbers or even, in the case of health care, the Constitution. Democrats don't care how much ObamaCare costs. When President Barack Obama addressed Republicans, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., carefully outlined the costs of this "reform." He explained why costs figure to go up, not down. To someone truly interested in a cost-benefit analysis, these points warrant a rebuttal. But as MSNBC host Ed Schultz said, when it comes to health care reform and money, "I don't care how much it costs." An owner of an NFL team fired his coach despite the team's winning record. He explained, "I gave him an unlimited expense account -- and he exceeded it." To Democrats, "economic justice" knows no price tag. Democrats consider election losses a small price to pay for health care "reform." Predictions range from moderate fall election losses to a bloodbath resulting in a Republican takeover of the House and possibly even the Senate. To this Democrats say, "So what?" Once health care reform becomes law, that's that. Only a Republican charge with a filibuster-proof Republican supermajority in the Senate could undo it. Besides, President Bill Clinton got re-elected when the Republicans took over the House. And although he gives Republicans no credit, Clinton thereafter governed closer to the center, turned House Speaker Newt Gingrich into a convenient whipping boy, cruised to re-election and left office with a budget surplus. Obama, Democrats figure, could do a lot worse.
16,500 more IRS agents needed to enforce Obamacare
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/16500-more-IRS-agents-needed-to-enforce-Obamacare-88458137.html
Guess this is the pivot to jobs BO promised. Excerpt: New tax mandates and penalties included in Obamacare will cause the greatest expansion of the Internal Revenue Service since World War II, according to a release from Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas. A new analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee minority staff estimates up to 16,500 new IRS personnel will be needed to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses in the ‘reconciliation’ bill being taken up by the U.S. House of Representatives this weekend.
Mark Steyn’s Mailbox
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/3053/59/
Always worth reading. Excerpt: 'In Ireland, the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs' - Sir John Pentland Mahaffy I don't know why Sir John restricted that observation to Ireland. He could've easily applied it to history in general. Nothing is trickier than predicting the future. That's why so much "classic" science fiction is now hopelessly dated. You, yourself, have made many (gloomy) predictions about the future, based on current trends - the demographic decline of the West, the rise of Radical Islam, and the social / cultural / economic / political collapse of the West. You have established, beyond all reasonable doubt, that these trends exist. In that, your observations are on absolutely solid ground. But trying to draw longterm conclusions from those trends leads one onto the shifting sands of History - where the fate of nations has all too often been decided by unforeseen events - world conquerors, natural disasters, charismatic demagogues, qreat leaps in technology, critical assassinations, etc. This is not to suggest that I think your predictions are necessarily "wrong" or unduly pessimistic. Far from it. I foresee an extremely violent 21st Century ahead of us. There will be "pushback" against current trends. I see many Western countries sinking into chaos and outright civil war - including America. Whole cities will be destroyed by WMDs - launched by terrorists and sovereign nations. Millions of Moslems will die, most of them "moderate " Moslems, dragged into the abyss by their Islamofascist brethren. And there is no guarantee that the "good guys" will win. Things will be bad. They will be very bad, in unexpected, nightmarish ways. --David C Parsons
Reflections on the Revolution in America
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/reflections-on-the-revolution-in-america/
Excerpt: These are exciting though scary revolutionary times, akin to the constant acrimony in the fourth-century BC polis, mid-nineteenth century revolutionary Europe, or — perhaps in a geriatric replay — the 1960s. This is an era when the fundamental assumptions of the individual and the state are now being redefined, albeit in a weird, high-tech, globalized landscape. A word of caution: we are not talking about hoi polloi versus hoi oligoi, or the commune on the barricades fighting the estate owners. No, not this time around. Instead, the present attempt to remake America is the effort of the liberal well-to-do — highly educated at mostly private universities, nursed on three decades of postmodern education, either with inherited wealth or earning top salaries, lifestyles of privilege indistinguishable from those they decry as selfish, and immune from the dictates they impose on others. Such are basically the profiles of the Obama cabinet and sub-cabinet, the pillars of liberalism in the Congress and state legislatures, the public intellectuals in the universities and foundations, the arts crowd, and the Hollywood elite. Let us be clear about that. They are all battling on behalf of “them,” the poorer half of America, currently in need of some sort of housing, education, food, or legal subsidy, whom the above mentioned elite, in the way they live, send their children to school, socialize, and vacation so studiously avoid. (The New York Times owners are likely to follow the cut-throat business practices of Wall Street, live in the most refined areas of New York, and assume privileges indistinguishable from other CEOs; the difference is that they so visibly care about those they never see or seek out). Note well the term “poor.” These are not Dickensian or Joads poor, but largely Americans who by the standards of the 1940s would be considered lucky.
National Debt Up $2 Trillion on Obama's Watch
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20000576-503544.html
The latest posting from the Treasury Department shows the National Debt has increased over $2 trillion since President Obama took office. The debt now stands at $12.6 trillion. On the day Mr. Obama took office it was $10.6 trillion. President George W. Bush still holds the record for the most debt run up on his watch: $4.9 trillion. But it took him over four years to rack up the first two trillion dollars in debt. It has taken Mr. Obama 421 days.
Broke?
I got a letter from the government telling me my census form was coming. Then I got the census form, and filled it out, checking “other” for race and writing in “American,” and mailed it back. Yesterday I got a post card telling me who to call if I have questions. I do have a question. If the government s broke, how can they afford to spend all this money on one census form?
Rasmussen: 43% now strongly disapprove of Obama, same as Bush when he left office
http://volokh.com/2010/03/19/rasmussen-43-now-strongly-disapprove-of-obama-same-as-bush-when-he-left-office/
Excerpt: When George Bush left office he was deeply unpopular: in Bush’s last month, according to Rasmussen 43% strongly disapproved of the job Bush was doing, while only 13% strongly approved, for a staggering negative rating of –30%. Rasmussen’s Thursday release shows that after 14 months in office President Barack Obama has achieved Bush’s 43% of the people strongly disapproving of his performance, but Obama is still 10% ahead of Bush in those who strongly approve (23% v. 13% for Bush).
Global Warming on Trial
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/global_warming_on_trial.html
Excerpt: In 2005, the late Dr. Michael Crichton wrote a book of fiction called State of Fear. The plot of the storyline is the exposé of the fraudulent science behind the global warming theory in the middle of a fictitious court case. The book was a bestseller, and in a strange twist of circumstances, it landed Dr. Crichton in front of a Senate committee. Now it seems that life is indeed imitating art. In the past few years, there have been many court cases concerning the actions of governments to the alleged threat of global warming. The latest has been filed by Texas against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with respect to the Endangerment Finding of Carbon Dioxide (CO2).
The Rowdy Republican
http://republicanrowdy.blogspot.com/
Good blog.
Dem Congressman: "If You Don't Tie Our Hands, We Will Keep Stealing"
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/03/18/dem_congressman_if_you_dont_tie_our_hands_we_will_keep_stealing.html
A bit of honesty.
These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read
http://teapartypatriots.ning.com/profiles/blogs/these-are-possibly-the-5-best
Excerpt: 1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. 2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. 3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. 4. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. 5. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
The Slaughter on the Southern Border
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/03/19/the-slaughter-on-the-southern-border/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=7ac6cf2b89-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Excerpt: At a joint press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon last year, President Obama vowed to make ending border violence a “top priority.” How’s that hope and change working out? Drug-related crime is out of control, the State Department is warning spring-break vacationers to avoid the Mexican states of Durango, Coahuila and Chihuahua, and the bloodshed has now reached the U.S. consulate’s office. A young American consulate worker and her unborn baby were slain this weekend in Mexico, along with her U.S. detention officer husband and the Mexican husband of another consulate worker. The wanton murders appear to have been a coordinated drug cartel hit; the victims had all just left a children’s birthday party in Juarez and were headed across the border back into Texas. The pregnant American official, Lesley Enriquez, is reportedly the first consulate employee to die in drug-related violence since 1985. Her 7-month-old daughter, terrorized by the gunfire while strapped in her car seat, was the lone survivor of the attack. The State Department has now authorized the evacuation of dependents of U.S. personnel in six Mexican cities along its northern border with the U.S. And the resort town of Acapulco saw at least 13 murdered over the past week — including four beheadings. The total death toll over the past three years is nearing 20,000. Mexican government officials have been quite content to blame their neighbors for the outbreaks; to play the race card; to demand blanket amnesty for illegal aliens from their country trying to flee the violence and misery; and to collect massive infusions of U.S. aid that have fallen into the wrong hands. The question for this White House is: How many more Americans will be targeted for execution before we stop rewarding such fatally arrogant behavior?
Democracy Denied: The Obama Chart
http://americansforprosperity.org/obamachart.php
Excerpt: The below chart shows how it has become standard procedure in the Obama administration not to take no for an answer. When Obama's radical agenda is rejected by Congress and the American people, he goes around the democratic process to do what he wants anyway.
The Great Reneger
https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/127741d51000be03
Obama’s promises in his own words.
How Obama created the Biden incident
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/18/AR2010031802747.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline
Juden raus! Excerpt: The next day, however, the administration went nuclear. After discussing with the president specific language she would use, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Netanyahu to deliver a hostile and highly aggressive 45-minute message that the Biden incident had created an unprecedented crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations.
Clinton's spokesman then publicly announced that Israel was required to show in word and in deed its seriousness about peace. Israel? Israelis have been looking for peace -- literally dying for peace -- since 1947, when they accepted the U.N. partition of Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state. (The Arabs refused and declared war. They lost.) Israel made peace offers in 1967, 1978 and in the 1993 Oslo peace accords that Yasser Arafat tore up seven years later to launch a terror war that killed a thousand Israelis. Why, Clinton's own husband testifies to the remarkably courageous and visionary peace offer made in his presence by Ehud Barak (now Netanyahu's defense minister) at the 2000 Camp David talks. Arafat rejected it. In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered equally generous terms to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Refused again. In these long and bloody 63 years, the Palestinians have not once accepted an Israeli offer of permanent peace, or ever countered with anything short of terms that would destroy Israel. They insist instead on a "peace process" -- now in its 17th post-Oslo year and still offering no credible Palestinian pledge of ultimate coexistence with a Jewish state -- the point of which is to extract preemptive Israeli concessions, such as a ban on Jewish construction in parts of Jerusalem conquered by Jordan in 1948, before negotiations for a real peace have even begun.
Obama blocks delivery of bunker-busters to Israel
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2010/me_israel0217_03_18.asp
Teaching the Jews a lesson. Excerpt: The United States has diverted a shipment of bunker-busters designated for Israel. Officials said the U.S. military was ordered to divert a shipment of smart bunker-buster bombs from Israel to a military base in Diego Garcia. They said the shipment of 387 smart munitions had been slated to join pre-positioned U.S. military equipment in Israel Air Force bases. "This was a political decision," an official said.
Iran's link to China includes nukes, missiles
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/17/irans-link-to-china-includes-nukes-missiles/
This doesn’t scare me—that’s how pessimistic I am about the future. What’s one more disaster? Besides, I’m sure President Wobbly’s Kumbaya foreign policy will fix everything. Excerpt: Recent developments in Iran confirm that China is providing Tehran with critical defense technologies and weapons systems, including some that violate stated Chinese policies aimed at preventing nuclear proliferation. The disclosure of Chinese military aid comes as the Obama administration is trying to persuade Beijing to join other members of the U.N. Security Council, European Union member states and major non-aligned states such as Brazil to adopt a new set of tough sanctions to punish Iran for its nuclear-arms program.
"The Muslims were...commanded to fight not only those who fought against them but also those who did not, in order to establish the word of Allah"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/03/the-muslims-werecommanded-to-fight-not-only-those-who-fought-against-them-but-also-those-who-did-not.html
excerpt: In traditional Islamic theology there is the idea that the teaching on jihad was revealed in stages: first, tolerance; then, defensive warfare; then, offensive warfare to establish Sharia over the world. Many, many Islamic authorities, ancient and modern, teach this -- and it belies the soothing Religion of Peace™ lies and half-truths that Islamic apologists peddle so successfully in Western countries. Here is yet another Islamic authority teaching the same thing. "This is an article from online Arabic magazine Moheet, which has offices in Egypt and the UAE." "Moheet: 'The Purpose of Jihad Is to Establish the Word of Allah,'" from Translating Jihad, March 18:
Showing posts with label Government Healthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Government Healthcare. Show all posts
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Political Digest October 8, 2009
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.
Obama and the General (A Must-Read!)
The White House finds a four-star scapegoat for its Afghan jitters.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574428961222276106.html
Excerpt: Democrats have found someone worth fighting in Afghanistan. His name is Stan McChrystal. The other night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went after the commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, "with all due respect," for supposedly disrespecting the chain of command. Around the Congressional Democratic Caucus, we're told Members refer to General McChrystal as "General MacArthur," after the commander in Korea sacked by Harry Truman. White House aides have fanned these flames with recent leaks to the media that "officials are challenging" his assessment asking for more troops. In the last two days, the White House National Security Adviser and the Secretary of Defense have both suggested that the general should keep his mouth shut. President Obama called him in Friday for a talking-to on the tarmac at Copenhagen airport. Though a decorated Army four-star officer, the General's introduction to Beltway warfare is proving to be brutal. To be fair, Gen. McChrystal couldn't know that his Commander in Chief would go wobbly so soon on his commitment to him as well as to his own Afghan strategy when he was tapped for the job in AprilWe're told by people who know him that Gen. McChrystal "feels terrible" and "had no intention whatsoever of trying to lobby and influence" the Administration. His sense of bewilderment makes perfect sense anywhere but in the political battlefield of Washington. He was, after all, following orders. Recall that in March Mr. Obama unveiled his "comprehensive new strategy . . . to reverse the Taliban's gains and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government." The Commander in Chief pledged to properly resource this "war of necessity," which he also called during the 2008 campaign "the central front on terror." The President then sacked his war commander, who had been chosen by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in favor of Gen. McChrystal, an expert in counterinsurgency….Then Gen. McChrystal gave a speech last Thursday before the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. It was scheduled and approved by the Pentagon weeks before the Afghan political jitters seized official Washington. The General was hardly incendiary….No commander in uniform should ask his soldiers to die for a strategy he doesn't think is winnable—or for a President who lets his advisers and party blame a general for their own lack of political nerve. (Awkward choice for a scapegoat, since Obama picked him, but it looks to me like McC is toast.)
As Obama Faces Afghanistan Decision, Old Debates - and Dangers – Reemerge
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/10/06/as_obama_faces_afghanistan_dec.html
Excerpt: The debate, a defining moment for Obama, will take center stage in Washington again on Tuesday. The president's agenda includes a meeting with more than two dozen congressional leaders from both parties to discuss the war strategy. The group includes his rival from 2008, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the most prominent advocate for sending more troops, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who speaks for a liberal wing of her and Obama's party that is increasingly worried about increasing forces there. Vice President Biden, who has argued against accepting outright the recommendation for more troops from Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the Afghanistan commander, will be at the meeting with congressional leaders. His schedule Tuesday included a breakfast with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many more meetings could follow before Obama makes a decision. (Then he sent for replacements for his wounded and lame/But the troops that were comin', never came, never came, never came. –Ballad of the Alamo.)
Obama Needs More Than Personality to Win in Afghanistan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/05/AR2009100502783.html
Excerpt: But the ultimate in realism is for the president to gauge himself and who he is: Does he have the stomach and commitment for what is likely to continue to be an unpopular war? Will he send additional troops, but hedge by not sending enough -- so that the dying will be in vain? What does he believe, and will he ask Americans to die for it? Only he knows the answers to these questions. But based on his zigzagging so far and the suggestion from the Copenhagen trip that the somber seriousness of the presidency has yet to sink in, we have reason to wonder.
Obama tests political coalition on potential new Afghan war aims
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama-tests-political-coalition-on-potential-new-Afghan-war-aims-8352055-63635652.html
Excerpt: While congressional leaders told President Obama they will back him on Afghanistan, Republicans said they want buy-in from military leaders before they commit. Obama, devising a new way forward in Afghanistan, is looking to piece together a domestic political coalition to get behind his eventual plan. But different options already are drawing their own constituencies, and Obama's slow pace is carrying its own risk. "It's pretty clear that time is not on our side," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said after a 90-minute meeting of lawmakers from both parties with Obama. "We need to act with deliberate haste."
'We may have to save this president from himself on Afghanistan'
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/We-may-have-to-save-this-president-from-himself-on-Afghanistan-63663117.html
Excerpt: Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards, a vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, attended the premiere of the anti-war film, "Rethink Afghanistan" in Washington last night. In remarks afterward, Edwards quoted a House colleague, whom she did not identify, saying anti-war Democrats must work to rescue President Obama from his commitment to escalate the war in Afghanistan. "As one of my colleagues, who shall remain unnamed, said, 'Indeed, we may have to save this president from himself on Afghanistan,'" Edwards told the audience. "I take that really seriously." Edwards said she believes Obama is "capable of setting aside this language of a campaign" as he decides U.S. policy in Afghanistan. "Even though we talked about Afghanistan as sort of the good war, there is no good in that war," Edwards said. "We have to be vocal and insistent on this administration and this Congress not to fall prey to the language of the good war." "Rethink Afghanistan" is the work of left-wing documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald. Featuring commentary by war critics Juan Cole, Robert Baer, and others, the movie calls for the U.S. military offensive in Afghanistan to be replaced by a large-scale humanitarian effort. Rep. Alan Grayson, the self-styled "Democrat with guts" whom MSNBC host Ed Schultz recently dubbed "the new hero on the lefty block," also attended the showing.
Rangel Evades Taxing Questions Ahead of Calls to Surrender Chairmanship
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/07/AR2009100700738.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) isn't interested in talking about his tax troubles and the ethical questions they've raised in Congress. Reporters accosted him Monday as he strolled to the podium for a news conference outside a Manhattan subway station, but Rangel, 79, ducked his head and kept moving. "Let me thank you all for coming on this beautiful day," he began when it was his turn at the podium to tout the new subway entrance at 96th and Broadway. "And I would hate to see anyone attempt to mar this with questions that are not related to this exciting event." Everyone obliged, except a guy driving by in his car. "Charlie, pay your taxes! Come on, Charlie, pay your taxes!" the passerby shouted. (How long until he blames “”Racism”?)
Meanwhile, lest we forget, patriots are still dying
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2009/10/war_in_iraq_claims_former_dowa.html
Will Media Notice Resolution to Remove Rangel's Chairmanship?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/10/07/will-media-notice-resolution-remove-rangels-chairmanship
Excerpt: At issue is Rangel's potential tax evasion associated with a rental property he owns in the Dominican Republic that was first reported by the New York Times on September 5, 2008. The following day, the Times further revealed that Rangel was violating House ethics rules by paying no interest on the loan for this property thereby constituting a gift. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) at the time vowed a full ethics investigation; more than thirteen months later, Rangel is still chairman.
The Forest, the Trees and ACORN
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/06/AR2009100603098.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: Assigned only a minor role in this orgy of blame were ACORN and Lewis herself. "My biggest weakness is a certain naivete about folks coming after you," she said in a moment of self-interested introspection. "I guess maybe others might have known and could have set up some other barriers and could've been better with media and PR." But really, this isn't about PR. Without question, much of the assault on ACORN has been politically motivated, stirred up by conservatives and Republican politicians. Also beyond doubt: That ACORN does some good and important work in poor communities. But Lewis, in playing the victim, is her own worst enemy. Forget the film of the pimp and prostitute: Watching a film of Lewis's performance yesterday would probably be enough to cause lawmakers to cut off ACORN's federal funding.
Firefighters lose large U.S. grant to ACORN
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/07/firefighters-lose-large-grant-to-acorn/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_headlines
Excerpt: Nearly $1 million in Homeland Security funding typically earmarked for fire departments has been awarded to ACORN, despite a clear signal from Congress that it intends to cut off federal funding to the embattled group. The grant to ACORN's Louisiana office became public on Oct. 2, less than three weeks after the House and Senate voted to cut off ACORN funding after employees were caught on video advising a fake prostitute and pimp on scams. It was one of only three such grants issued to the state and made up almost 80 percent of the firefighting money earmarked for Louisiana, prompting one of the U.S. senators from the state to demand that the funds be taken back. (Rewarding the Obots—your tax dollars at work.)
Paging Doctors (and Nurses)
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/morning-fix-paging-doctors-and.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: By putting doctors and nurses so far forward in the final days (weeks?) of the health care fight, Obama is seeking to capitalize on the tremendously positive public perception of those two professions to help vouch for the legislation's necessity and quality. Years of data prove that nurses and doctors are -- far and away -- two of the most admired lines of work in the country. In a late 2008 Gallup survey, 84 percent of respondents said that nurses had either "very high" (24 percent) or "high" honesty and ethical standards while 64 percent said the same of doctors. (Journalists, in case you were wondering, were near the bottom of the charts with just 25 percent of people saying we are honest and ethical. Seems about right.)
The Lesson of State Health-Care Reforms
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574455560453947646.html
Excerpt: Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously envisioned the states serving as laboratories, trying "novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." And on health care, that's just what they've done. Like participants in a national science fair, state governments have tested variants on most of the major components of the health-care reform plans currently being considered in Congress. The results have been dramatically increased premiums in the individual market, spiraling public health-care costs, and reduced access to care. In other words: The reforms have failed.
Medicare: Largest Denier of Health Care Claims
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/06/medicare-largest-denier-of-health-care-claims/
Excerpt: According to AMA’s National Health Insurance Report Card, Medicare denies 6.85 percent of its claims, higher than any private insurer (Aetna was second, denying 6.80 percent of its claims), and more than double any private insurer’s average….The Obama administration repeats ad nauseum that we need a government option to “keep insurance companies honest” and to make sure they don’t deny anyone coverage. Well what does one say about the fact that Medicare denies more claims than private insurers?
What We Would Have Told Obama
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574449513730221946.html
Dr. Palmisano, president of the American Medical Association from 2003-2004, is spokesman for the Coalition to Protect Patients' Rights, a group of more than 10,000 physicians. Drs. Plested and Johnson were presidents of the American Medical Association from 2006-2007 and 1996-1997 respectively. Excerpt: We aren't among the doctors invited to a Rose Garden event today to "join the President in pushing for health insurance reform this year and [who] have offered their help and support," as a White House press release put it. It's unfortunate only supporters of the president's plans will be there. Mr. Obama has missed an opportunity to learn more about the real issues facing patients and doctors and to formulate a plan that truly puts patients in control with doctors as trusted advisers. The United States has the best health care in the world today, and thanks to the ever-expanding frontiers of science and medical innovation the brightest days are ahead. It is true that there are Americans who fall through the cracks of our medical system every day—and as a caring nation, we must do what we can to expand access to medical care to those who need it. But this can be accomplished without a costly and inefficient government overhaul of the entire system. One easy reform would be to enable individuals to buy policies offered in any state, not just where they live. This will enhance competition. But more government-run health insurance will only lead to disaster. Today, Medicare already reimburses doctors less than what many of their treatments cost to provide. Now the government is saying that additional Medicare cuts are coming—thus forcing doctors to try and make up the difference in volume, by seeing more patients. If you ask patients about this, they understand that more volume means less time with the doctor. That's something that all patients and doctors should oppose. In time, it will be difficult to find a physician.
Can we please read the bill?
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/three-days-of-obama-care/#more-5750
Excerpt: It’s such a simple idea. Yet powerful. Compelling. Alluring. Irresistible. And it’s scaring the bejeebies out of the health reform crowd on Capitol Hill. Here it is: Before Congress votes on a final health reform bill, the full text goes up on the Internet for everyone in the nation to read, along with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score — giving the expected price tag and the expected impact on seniors, small business, employer-based coverage, etc. Think about it. For three days and three nights, everybody in the country can read, debate, discuss and give last-minute “up” or “down” input to their congressional representatives. What’s so terrifying about that?
Oh, not if they don’t read it!
"I don't expect to actually read the legislative language [of the health care bill] 'cause reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I've ever done in my life." --Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE)
Will President Obama Veto Health Reform?
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33854
Excerpt: With the Senate Finance Committee poised to pass health care legislation, the final contours of the bill that could come out of Congress are starting to come into focus. The bill will contain new taxes on the middle class. It will add to the deficit. And it will put government bureaucrats between Americans and their doctors, among other things. So it’s not too early to ask the obvious question: Will President Obama veto health care reform? It’s worth asking because so many of the costs to taxpayers the President has repeatedly promised won’t be in the legislation are, and so many of the benefits are not.
(I think you could put a used diaper on Obama’s desk, and if it said “Health Care Reform” on it someplace, he’d sign it.)
Loyal Democrats support Obamacare
http://www.redstate.com/brianfaughnan/2009/10/06/loyal-democrats-endorse-obamacare/
Excerpt: The White House made a big deal of the support it has garnered from physicians around the country. Yesterday they even held a doctors’ rally - complete with white smocks - to show support. Yet the physicians in attendance weren’t the disinterested crowd President Obama suggested - many were longtime Democrat donors.
Based on the list of attendees provided to Time, it seems that the crowd was full of ringers. Here is a look at the history of political donations by some in attendance. It is not complete, but this is what I was able to find by searching the database at Congressional Quarterly
Record Teen Unemployment: Only WSJ Seriously Looks At Minimum-Wage Hikes as Cause
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/10/05/record-teen-unemployment-only-wsj-seriously-looks-minimum-wage-hikes-cau
Excerpt: Earlier this year, economist David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, wrote on these pages that the 70-cent-an-hour increase in the minimum wage would cost some 300,000 jobs. Sure enough, the mandated increase to $7.25 took effect in July, and right on cue the August and September jobless numbers confirm the rapid disappearance of jobs for teenagers. The September teen unemployment rate hit 25.9%, the highest rate since World War II and up from 23.8% in July. Some 330,000 teen jobs have vanished in two months..... The biggest explanation is of course the bad economy. But it's precisely when the economy is down and businesses are slashing costs that raising the minimum wage is so destructive to job creation. Congress began raising the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour in July 2007, and there are now 691,000 fewer teens working. (Actions have consequences. So does ignorance of economic principles, which do not care how “compassionate” you intended to be.)
Clunkers in Practice
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703628304574453280766443704.html
Excerpt: Remember "cash for clunkers," the program that subsidized Americans to the tune of nearly $3 billion to buy a new car and destroy an old one? Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood declared in August that, "This is the one stimulus program that seems to be working better than just about any other program." If that's true, heaven help the other programs. Last week U.S. automakers reported that new car sales for September, the first month since the clunker program expired, sank by 25% from a year earlier. Sales at GM and Chrysler fell by 45% and 42%, respectively. Ford was down about 5%. Some 700,000 cars were sold in the summer under the program as buyers received up to $4,500 to buy a new car they would probably have purchased anyway, so all the program seems to have done is steal those sales from the future. Exactly as critics predicted. Cash for clunkers had two objectives: help the environment by increasing fuel efficiency, and boost car sales to help Detroit and the economy. It achieved neither. According to Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer, at best "the reduction in gasoline consumption will cut our oil consumption by 0.2 percent per year, or less than a single day's gasoline use." Burton Abrams and George Parsons of the University of Delaware added up the total benefits from reduced gas consumption, environmental improvements and the benefit to car buyers and companies, minus the overall cost of cash for clunkers, and found a net cost of roughly $2,000 per vehicle. Rather than stimulating the economy, the program made the nation as a whole $1.4 billion poorer. The basic fallacy of cash for clunkers is that you can somehow create wealth by destroying existing assets that are still productive, in this case cars that still work. (Actions have consequences. So does ignorance of economic principles, which do not care how “compassionate” you intended to be. Oh, wait—I already said that. ~Bob)
Footnotes and Footstools by Mark Steyn
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/2504/28/
Excerpt: I was overseas when Senator Edward Kennedy died, and a European reporter asked me what my “most vivid memory” of the great man. I didn’t like to say, because it didn’t seem quite the appropriate occasion. But my only close encounter with the Lion of the Senate was many years ago at Logan Airport late one night. A handful of us, tired and bedraggled, were standing on the water shuttle waiting to be ferried across the harbor to downtown Boston. A sixth gentleman hopped aboard, wearing the dark-suited garb of the advance man, and had a word in a crew-member’s ear, and so we waited, and waited, in the chilly Atlantic air, wondering which eminence was the cause of our delay. And suddenly there he was on the quay, looming out of the fog. He stepped aboard. The small launch lurched and rocked, waves splashed the deck, luggage danced in the air, and the five of us all grabbed for whatever rail was to hand as the realization dawned that we’d been signed up for a watery excursion with Senator Kennedy. This was Ted at his most ravaged, big and bloated, before his new wife (also in attendance) had had a chance to get his excesses under control. One of the recurring refrains of the weeks of eulogies was his apparently amazing affinity for “ordinary people”, as if this is now some kind of personal achievement for a United States senator, who after all can’t be expected to have the same careless ease with the common run of humanity as, say, one of the more inbred late Ottoman sultans. But Ted, we were assured, was great with “ordinary people”. Not that night, he wasn’t. He stood in the center and glanced at us, awkwardly, in the way of celebrities who find themselves outside their comfort zone, and aren’t sure the “ordinary people” know quite what the rules are. I assumed he’d offer a casual, “Hey, sorry for keeping you waiting”, and then the roar of the motor would have prevented further conversation. But he said nothing, which, given that the other passengers were his constituents, struck me as a little odd.
Elites and Tyrants
http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/10/07/elites_and_tyrants
Excerpt: The most authoritative tally of history's most murderous regimes is in a book by University of Hawaii's Professor Rudolph J. Rummel, "Death by Government." Statistics are provided at his website. The Nazis murdered 20 million of their own people and those in nations they captured. Between 1917 and 1987, Stalin and his successors murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of, 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, Mao Tsetung and his successors were responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese. Today's leftists, socialists and progressives would bristle at the suggestion that their agenda differs little from Nazism. However, there's little or no distinction between Nazism and socialism. Even the word Nazi is short for National Socialist German Workers Party. The origins of the unspeakable horrors of Nazism, Stalinism and Maoism did not begin in the '20s, '30s and '40s. Those horrors were simply the end result of long evolution of ideas leading to consolidation of power in central government in the quest for "social justice." It was decent but misguided earlier generations of Germans, like many of today's Americans, who would have cringed at the thought of genocide, who built the Trojan horse for Hitler to take over.
Random Thoughts by Dr. Thomas Sowell
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/10/07/random_thoughts
Excerpt: After political crusades for "affordable housing" ended up ruining the housing market and much of the economy with it, many of the same politicians are now carrying on a crusade for "affordable health care." But what you can afford has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of producing anything. Refusing to pay those costs means that you are just not going to continue getting the same quantity and quality-- regardless of what any politician says or how well he says it….Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Think things, not words." In words, many see a need for "social justice" to override "the dictates of the market." In reality, what is called "the market" consists of human beings making their own choices at their own cost. What is called "social justice" is government imposition of the notions of third parties, who pay no price for being wrong. Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Muammar Qaddafi and Vladimir Putin have all praised Barack Obama. When enemies of freedom and democracy praise your president, what are you to think? When you add to this Barack Obama's many previous years of associations and alliances with people who hate America-- Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Father Pfleger, etc.-- at what point do you stop denying the obvious and start to connect the dots?
We've Figured Him Out by Ben Stein
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/24/weve-figured-him-out
Excerpt: The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith. They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright. They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.
Obama Cuts Off Funding for Iranian Human-Rights Documentation
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTNmY2VlMDliMDFhZTk4ZjJmMTdhNmE4ZjkzMWIzMzg
Whose side is he on?
Love Jihad: luring girls online and forcing them to convert to Islam
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=16507&size=A
Excerpt: The High Court of Kerala asks the state police and the Interior Minister in New Delhi to investigate the forced conversion campaign dubbed "Love Jihad" and "Romeo Jihad." Young people attracted by promises of marriage end up in the hands of Islamic organizations. It is feared that there are over 4 thousand cases. For the boys who act as bait there is a reward of 100 thousand rupees.
Dilbert gets it!
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-10-06/
Racist!
Is Moore Anti-Semitic?
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=3773
Excerpt: I found it unsettling that in attacking the banking system, Moore presented quite a parade of Jewish names and faces. He never says the word “Jewish,” but I think the anti-Semitic theme is there. We receive long lectures about how capitalism is inconsistent with Christianity, followed a heavy-handed array of — it’s up to you to see that they are — Jewish villains.
Great Quotes from The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/)
"Now that Obama is in the Oval Office, erstwhile Bush bashers want everyone to be a cheerleader. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, for example, has discovered 'the politics of spite' -- and not after looking in the mirror. After eight years of watching some on the left root for defeat in Iraq and snicker at every international slight against Bush, I must admit it is rather special that the left has discovered patriotism -- to such an extent that there now is a duty to root for Chicago to host the [Olympic] Games." --columnist Debra Saunders
"In the Niagara of words spoken and written about the Obamas' trip to Copenhagen, too few have been devoted to the words they spoke there. Their separate speeches to the International Olympic Committee were so dreadful, and in such a characteristic way, that they might be symptomatic of something that has serious implications for American governance. Both Obamas gave heartfelt speeches about ... themselves. Although the working of the committee's mind is murky, it could reasonably have rejected Chicago's bid for the 2016 games on aesthetic grounds -- unless narcissism has suddenly become an Olympic sport." --columnist George Will
"Some of my best memories are sitting on my dad's lap, cheering on Olga and Nadia, Carl Lewis, and others for their brilliance and perfection." --Michelle Obama ("Mrs. Obama was 20 years old when Lewis first competed in the Olympics in 1984." --Michelle Malkin)
"Michael Moore's new movie slamming U.S. capitalism was boycotted by the teachers' union. They say he used a non-union crew to shoot the movie so he could save money and make more profit. Next they'll find out that he shot the whole thing in Vancouver." --comedian Argus Hamilton
Obama and the General (A Must-Read!)
The White House finds a four-star scapegoat for its Afghan jitters.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574428961222276106.html
Excerpt: Democrats have found someone worth fighting in Afghanistan. His name is Stan McChrystal. The other night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went after the commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, "with all due respect," for supposedly disrespecting the chain of command. Around the Congressional Democratic Caucus, we're told Members refer to General McChrystal as "General MacArthur," after the commander in Korea sacked by Harry Truman. White House aides have fanned these flames with recent leaks to the media that "officials are challenging" his assessment asking for more troops. In the last two days, the White House National Security Adviser and the Secretary of Defense have both suggested that the general should keep his mouth shut. President Obama called him in Friday for a talking-to on the tarmac at Copenhagen airport. Though a decorated Army four-star officer, the General's introduction to Beltway warfare is proving to be brutal. To be fair, Gen. McChrystal couldn't know that his Commander in Chief would go wobbly so soon on his commitment to him as well as to his own Afghan strategy when he was tapped for the job in AprilWe're told by people who know him that Gen. McChrystal "feels terrible" and "had no intention whatsoever of trying to lobby and influence" the Administration. His sense of bewilderment makes perfect sense anywhere but in the political battlefield of Washington. He was, after all, following orders. Recall that in March Mr. Obama unveiled his "comprehensive new strategy . . . to reverse the Taliban's gains and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government." The Commander in Chief pledged to properly resource this "war of necessity," which he also called during the 2008 campaign "the central front on terror." The President then sacked his war commander, who had been chosen by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in favor of Gen. McChrystal, an expert in counterinsurgency….Then Gen. McChrystal gave a speech last Thursday before the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. It was scheduled and approved by the Pentagon weeks before the Afghan political jitters seized official Washington. The General was hardly incendiary….No commander in uniform should ask his soldiers to die for a strategy he doesn't think is winnable—or for a President who lets his advisers and party blame a general for their own lack of political nerve. (Awkward choice for a scapegoat, since Obama picked him, but it looks to me like McC is toast.)
As Obama Faces Afghanistan Decision, Old Debates - and Dangers – Reemerge
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/10/06/as_obama_faces_afghanistan_dec.html
Excerpt: The debate, a defining moment for Obama, will take center stage in Washington again on Tuesday. The president's agenda includes a meeting with more than two dozen congressional leaders from both parties to discuss the war strategy. The group includes his rival from 2008, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the most prominent advocate for sending more troops, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who speaks for a liberal wing of her and Obama's party that is increasingly worried about increasing forces there. Vice President Biden, who has argued against accepting outright the recommendation for more troops from Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the Afghanistan commander, will be at the meeting with congressional leaders. His schedule Tuesday included a breakfast with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many more meetings could follow before Obama makes a decision. (Then he sent for replacements for his wounded and lame/But the troops that were comin', never came, never came, never came. –Ballad of the Alamo.)
Obama Needs More Than Personality to Win in Afghanistan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/05/AR2009100502783.html
Excerpt: But the ultimate in realism is for the president to gauge himself and who he is: Does he have the stomach and commitment for what is likely to continue to be an unpopular war? Will he send additional troops, but hedge by not sending enough -- so that the dying will be in vain? What does he believe, and will he ask Americans to die for it? Only he knows the answers to these questions. But based on his zigzagging so far and the suggestion from the Copenhagen trip that the somber seriousness of the presidency has yet to sink in, we have reason to wonder.
Obama tests political coalition on potential new Afghan war aims
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama-tests-political-coalition-on-potential-new-Afghan-war-aims-8352055-63635652.html
Excerpt: While congressional leaders told President Obama they will back him on Afghanistan, Republicans said they want buy-in from military leaders before they commit. Obama, devising a new way forward in Afghanistan, is looking to piece together a domestic political coalition to get behind his eventual plan. But different options already are drawing their own constituencies, and Obama's slow pace is carrying its own risk. "It's pretty clear that time is not on our side," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said after a 90-minute meeting of lawmakers from both parties with Obama. "We need to act with deliberate haste."
'We may have to save this president from himself on Afghanistan'
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/We-may-have-to-save-this-president-from-himself-on-Afghanistan-63663117.html
Excerpt: Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards, a vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, attended the premiere of the anti-war film, "Rethink Afghanistan" in Washington last night. In remarks afterward, Edwards quoted a House colleague, whom she did not identify, saying anti-war Democrats must work to rescue President Obama from his commitment to escalate the war in Afghanistan. "As one of my colleagues, who shall remain unnamed, said, 'Indeed, we may have to save this president from himself on Afghanistan,'" Edwards told the audience. "I take that really seriously." Edwards said she believes Obama is "capable of setting aside this language of a campaign" as he decides U.S. policy in Afghanistan. "Even though we talked about Afghanistan as sort of the good war, there is no good in that war," Edwards said. "We have to be vocal and insistent on this administration and this Congress not to fall prey to the language of the good war." "Rethink Afghanistan" is the work of left-wing documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald. Featuring commentary by war critics Juan Cole, Robert Baer, and others, the movie calls for the U.S. military offensive in Afghanistan to be replaced by a large-scale humanitarian effort. Rep. Alan Grayson, the self-styled "Democrat with guts" whom MSNBC host Ed Schultz recently dubbed "the new hero on the lefty block," also attended the showing.
Rangel Evades Taxing Questions Ahead of Calls to Surrender Chairmanship
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/07/AR2009100700738.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) isn't interested in talking about his tax troubles and the ethical questions they've raised in Congress. Reporters accosted him Monday as he strolled to the podium for a news conference outside a Manhattan subway station, but Rangel, 79, ducked his head and kept moving. "Let me thank you all for coming on this beautiful day," he began when it was his turn at the podium to tout the new subway entrance at 96th and Broadway. "And I would hate to see anyone attempt to mar this with questions that are not related to this exciting event." Everyone obliged, except a guy driving by in his car. "Charlie, pay your taxes! Come on, Charlie, pay your taxes!" the passerby shouted. (How long until he blames “”Racism”?)
Meanwhile, lest we forget, patriots are still dying
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2009/10/war_in_iraq_claims_former_dowa.html
Will Media Notice Resolution to Remove Rangel's Chairmanship?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/10/07/will-media-notice-resolution-remove-rangels-chairmanship
Excerpt: At issue is Rangel's potential tax evasion associated with a rental property he owns in the Dominican Republic that was first reported by the New York Times on September 5, 2008. The following day, the Times further revealed that Rangel was violating House ethics rules by paying no interest on the loan for this property thereby constituting a gift. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) at the time vowed a full ethics investigation; more than thirteen months later, Rangel is still chairman.
The Forest, the Trees and ACORN
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/06/AR2009100603098.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: Assigned only a minor role in this orgy of blame were ACORN and Lewis herself. "My biggest weakness is a certain naivete about folks coming after you," she said in a moment of self-interested introspection. "I guess maybe others might have known and could have set up some other barriers and could've been better with media and PR." But really, this isn't about PR. Without question, much of the assault on ACORN has been politically motivated, stirred up by conservatives and Republican politicians. Also beyond doubt: That ACORN does some good and important work in poor communities. But Lewis, in playing the victim, is her own worst enemy. Forget the film of the pimp and prostitute: Watching a film of Lewis's performance yesterday would probably be enough to cause lawmakers to cut off ACORN's federal funding.
Firefighters lose large U.S. grant to ACORN
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/07/firefighters-lose-large-grant-to-acorn/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_headlines
Excerpt: Nearly $1 million in Homeland Security funding typically earmarked for fire departments has been awarded to ACORN, despite a clear signal from Congress that it intends to cut off federal funding to the embattled group. The grant to ACORN's Louisiana office became public on Oct. 2, less than three weeks after the House and Senate voted to cut off ACORN funding after employees were caught on video advising a fake prostitute and pimp on scams. It was one of only three such grants issued to the state and made up almost 80 percent of the firefighting money earmarked for Louisiana, prompting one of the U.S. senators from the state to demand that the funds be taken back. (Rewarding the Obots—your tax dollars at work.)
Paging Doctors (and Nurses)
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/morning-fix-paging-doctors-and.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: By putting doctors and nurses so far forward in the final days (weeks?) of the health care fight, Obama is seeking to capitalize on the tremendously positive public perception of those two professions to help vouch for the legislation's necessity and quality. Years of data prove that nurses and doctors are -- far and away -- two of the most admired lines of work in the country. In a late 2008 Gallup survey, 84 percent of respondents said that nurses had either "very high" (24 percent) or "high" honesty and ethical standards while 64 percent said the same of doctors. (Journalists, in case you were wondering, were near the bottom of the charts with just 25 percent of people saying we are honest and ethical. Seems about right.)
The Lesson of State Health-Care Reforms
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574455560453947646.html
Excerpt: Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously envisioned the states serving as laboratories, trying "novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." And on health care, that's just what they've done. Like participants in a national science fair, state governments have tested variants on most of the major components of the health-care reform plans currently being considered in Congress. The results have been dramatically increased premiums in the individual market, spiraling public health-care costs, and reduced access to care. In other words: The reforms have failed.
Medicare: Largest Denier of Health Care Claims
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/06/medicare-largest-denier-of-health-care-claims/
Excerpt: According to AMA’s National Health Insurance Report Card, Medicare denies 6.85 percent of its claims, higher than any private insurer (Aetna was second, denying 6.80 percent of its claims), and more than double any private insurer’s average….The Obama administration repeats ad nauseum that we need a government option to “keep insurance companies honest” and to make sure they don’t deny anyone coverage. Well what does one say about the fact that Medicare denies more claims than private insurers?
What We Would Have Told Obama
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574449513730221946.html
Dr. Palmisano, president of the American Medical Association from 2003-2004, is spokesman for the Coalition to Protect Patients' Rights, a group of more than 10,000 physicians. Drs. Plested and Johnson were presidents of the American Medical Association from 2006-2007 and 1996-1997 respectively. Excerpt: We aren't among the doctors invited to a Rose Garden event today to "join the President in pushing for health insurance reform this year and [who] have offered their help and support," as a White House press release put it. It's unfortunate only supporters of the president's plans will be there. Mr. Obama has missed an opportunity to learn more about the real issues facing patients and doctors and to formulate a plan that truly puts patients in control with doctors as trusted advisers. The United States has the best health care in the world today, and thanks to the ever-expanding frontiers of science and medical innovation the brightest days are ahead. It is true that there are Americans who fall through the cracks of our medical system every day—and as a caring nation, we must do what we can to expand access to medical care to those who need it. But this can be accomplished without a costly and inefficient government overhaul of the entire system. One easy reform would be to enable individuals to buy policies offered in any state, not just where they live. This will enhance competition. But more government-run health insurance will only lead to disaster. Today, Medicare already reimburses doctors less than what many of their treatments cost to provide. Now the government is saying that additional Medicare cuts are coming—thus forcing doctors to try and make up the difference in volume, by seeing more patients. If you ask patients about this, they understand that more volume means less time with the doctor. That's something that all patients and doctors should oppose. In time, it will be difficult to find a physician.
Can we please read the bill?
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/three-days-of-obama-care/#more-5750
Excerpt: It’s such a simple idea. Yet powerful. Compelling. Alluring. Irresistible. And it’s scaring the bejeebies out of the health reform crowd on Capitol Hill. Here it is: Before Congress votes on a final health reform bill, the full text goes up on the Internet for everyone in the nation to read, along with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score — giving the expected price tag and the expected impact on seniors, small business, employer-based coverage, etc. Think about it. For three days and three nights, everybody in the country can read, debate, discuss and give last-minute “up” or “down” input to their congressional representatives. What’s so terrifying about that?
Oh, not if they don’t read it!
"I don't expect to actually read the legislative language [of the health care bill] 'cause reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I've ever done in my life." --Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE)
Will President Obama Veto Health Reform?
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33854
Excerpt: With the Senate Finance Committee poised to pass health care legislation, the final contours of the bill that could come out of Congress are starting to come into focus. The bill will contain new taxes on the middle class. It will add to the deficit. And it will put government bureaucrats between Americans and their doctors, among other things. So it’s not too early to ask the obvious question: Will President Obama veto health care reform? It’s worth asking because so many of the costs to taxpayers the President has repeatedly promised won’t be in the legislation are, and so many of the benefits are not.
(I think you could put a used diaper on Obama’s desk, and if it said “Health Care Reform” on it someplace, he’d sign it.)
Loyal Democrats support Obamacare
http://www.redstate.com/brianfaughnan/2009/10/06/loyal-democrats-endorse-obamacare/
Excerpt: The White House made a big deal of the support it has garnered from physicians around the country. Yesterday they even held a doctors’ rally - complete with white smocks - to show support. Yet the physicians in attendance weren’t the disinterested crowd President Obama suggested - many were longtime Democrat donors.
Based on the list of attendees provided to Time, it seems that the crowd was full of ringers. Here is a look at the history of political donations by some in attendance. It is not complete, but this is what I was able to find by searching the database at Congressional Quarterly
Record Teen Unemployment: Only WSJ Seriously Looks At Minimum-Wage Hikes as Cause
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/10/05/record-teen-unemployment-only-wsj-seriously-looks-minimum-wage-hikes-cau
Excerpt: Earlier this year, economist David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, wrote on these pages that the 70-cent-an-hour increase in the minimum wage would cost some 300,000 jobs. Sure enough, the mandated increase to $7.25 took effect in July, and right on cue the August and September jobless numbers confirm the rapid disappearance of jobs for teenagers. The September teen unemployment rate hit 25.9%, the highest rate since World War II and up from 23.8% in July. Some 330,000 teen jobs have vanished in two months..... The biggest explanation is of course the bad economy. But it's precisely when the economy is down and businesses are slashing costs that raising the minimum wage is so destructive to job creation. Congress began raising the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour in July 2007, and there are now 691,000 fewer teens working. (Actions have consequences. So does ignorance of economic principles, which do not care how “compassionate” you intended to be.)
Clunkers in Practice
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703628304574453280766443704.html
Excerpt: Remember "cash for clunkers," the program that subsidized Americans to the tune of nearly $3 billion to buy a new car and destroy an old one? Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood declared in August that, "This is the one stimulus program that seems to be working better than just about any other program." If that's true, heaven help the other programs. Last week U.S. automakers reported that new car sales for September, the first month since the clunker program expired, sank by 25% from a year earlier. Sales at GM and Chrysler fell by 45% and 42%, respectively. Ford was down about 5%. Some 700,000 cars were sold in the summer under the program as buyers received up to $4,500 to buy a new car they would probably have purchased anyway, so all the program seems to have done is steal those sales from the future. Exactly as critics predicted. Cash for clunkers had two objectives: help the environment by increasing fuel efficiency, and boost car sales to help Detroit and the economy. It achieved neither. According to Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer, at best "the reduction in gasoline consumption will cut our oil consumption by 0.2 percent per year, or less than a single day's gasoline use." Burton Abrams and George Parsons of the University of Delaware added up the total benefits from reduced gas consumption, environmental improvements and the benefit to car buyers and companies, minus the overall cost of cash for clunkers, and found a net cost of roughly $2,000 per vehicle. Rather than stimulating the economy, the program made the nation as a whole $1.4 billion poorer. The basic fallacy of cash for clunkers is that you can somehow create wealth by destroying existing assets that are still productive, in this case cars that still work. (Actions have consequences. So does ignorance of economic principles, which do not care how “compassionate” you intended to be. Oh, wait—I already said that. ~Bob)
Footnotes and Footstools by Mark Steyn
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/2504/28/
Excerpt: I was overseas when Senator Edward Kennedy died, and a European reporter asked me what my “most vivid memory” of the great man. I didn’t like to say, because it didn’t seem quite the appropriate occasion. But my only close encounter with the Lion of the Senate was many years ago at Logan Airport late one night. A handful of us, tired and bedraggled, were standing on the water shuttle waiting to be ferried across the harbor to downtown Boston. A sixth gentleman hopped aboard, wearing the dark-suited garb of the advance man, and had a word in a crew-member’s ear, and so we waited, and waited, in the chilly Atlantic air, wondering which eminence was the cause of our delay. And suddenly there he was on the quay, looming out of the fog. He stepped aboard. The small launch lurched and rocked, waves splashed the deck, luggage danced in the air, and the five of us all grabbed for whatever rail was to hand as the realization dawned that we’d been signed up for a watery excursion with Senator Kennedy. This was Ted at his most ravaged, big and bloated, before his new wife (also in attendance) had had a chance to get his excesses under control. One of the recurring refrains of the weeks of eulogies was his apparently amazing affinity for “ordinary people”, as if this is now some kind of personal achievement for a United States senator, who after all can’t be expected to have the same careless ease with the common run of humanity as, say, one of the more inbred late Ottoman sultans. But Ted, we were assured, was great with “ordinary people”. Not that night, he wasn’t. He stood in the center and glanced at us, awkwardly, in the way of celebrities who find themselves outside their comfort zone, and aren’t sure the “ordinary people” know quite what the rules are. I assumed he’d offer a casual, “Hey, sorry for keeping you waiting”, and then the roar of the motor would have prevented further conversation. But he said nothing, which, given that the other passengers were his constituents, struck me as a little odd.
Elites and Tyrants
http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/10/07/elites_and_tyrants
Excerpt: The most authoritative tally of history's most murderous regimes is in a book by University of Hawaii's Professor Rudolph J. Rummel, "Death by Government." Statistics are provided at his website. The Nazis murdered 20 million of their own people and those in nations they captured. Between 1917 and 1987, Stalin and his successors murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of, 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, Mao Tsetung and his successors were responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese. Today's leftists, socialists and progressives would bristle at the suggestion that their agenda differs little from Nazism. However, there's little or no distinction between Nazism and socialism. Even the word Nazi is short for National Socialist German Workers Party. The origins of the unspeakable horrors of Nazism, Stalinism and Maoism did not begin in the '20s, '30s and '40s. Those horrors were simply the end result of long evolution of ideas leading to consolidation of power in central government in the quest for "social justice." It was decent but misguided earlier generations of Germans, like many of today's Americans, who would have cringed at the thought of genocide, who built the Trojan horse for Hitler to take over.
Random Thoughts by Dr. Thomas Sowell
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/10/07/random_thoughts
Excerpt: After political crusades for "affordable housing" ended up ruining the housing market and much of the economy with it, many of the same politicians are now carrying on a crusade for "affordable health care." But what you can afford has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of producing anything. Refusing to pay those costs means that you are just not going to continue getting the same quantity and quality-- regardless of what any politician says or how well he says it….Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Think things, not words." In words, many see a need for "social justice" to override "the dictates of the market." In reality, what is called "the market" consists of human beings making their own choices at their own cost. What is called "social justice" is government imposition of the notions of third parties, who pay no price for being wrong. Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Muammar Qaddafi and Vladimir Putin have all praised Barack Obama. When enemies of freedom and democracy praise your president, what are you to think? When you add to this Barack Obama's many previous years of associations and alliances with people who hate America-- Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Father Pfleger, etc.-- at what point do you stop denying the obvious and start to connect the dots?
We've Figured Him Out by Ben Stein
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/24/weve-figured-him-out
Excerpt: The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith. They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright. They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.
Obama Cuts Off Funding for Iranian Human-Rights Documentation
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTNmY2VlMDliMDFhZTk4ZjJmMTdhNmE4ZjkzMWIzMzg
Whose side is he on?
Love Jihad: luring girls online and forcing them to convert to Islam
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=16507&size=A
Excerpt: The High Court of Kerala asks the state police and the Interior Minister in New Delhi to investigate the forced conversion campaign dubbed "Love Jihad" and "Romeo Jihad." Young people attracted by promises of marriage end up in the hands of Islamic organizations. It is feared that there are over 4 thousand cases. For the boys who act as bait there is a reward of 100 thousand rupees.
Dilbert gets it!
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-10-06/
Racist!
Is Moore Anti-Semitic?
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=3773
Excerpt: I found it unsettling that in attacking the banking system, Moore presented quite a parade of Jewish names and faces. He never says the word “Jewish,” but I think the anti-Semitic theme is there. We receive long lectures about how capitalism is inconsistent with Christianity, followed a heavy-handed array of — it’s up to you to see that they are — Jewish villains.
Great Quotes from The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/)
"Now that Obama is in the Oval Office, erstwhile Bush bashers want everyone to be a cheerleader. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, for example, has discovered 'the politics of spite' -- and not after looking in the mirror. After eight years of watching some on the left root for defeat in Iraq and snicker at every international slight against Bush, I must admit it is rather special that the left has discovered patriotism -- to such an extent that there now is a duty to root for Chicago to host the [Olympic] Games." --columnist Debra Saunders
"In the Niagara of words spoken and written about the Obamas' trip to Copenhagen, too few have been devoted to the words they spoke there. Their separate speeches to the International Olympic Committee were so dreadful, and in such a characteristic way, that they might be symptomatic of something that has serious implications for American governance. Both Obamas gave heartfelt speeches about ... themselves. Although the working of the committee's mind is murky, it could reasonably have rejected Chicago's bid for the 2016 games on aesthetic grounds -- unless narcissism has suddenly become an Olympic sport." --columnist George Will
"Some of my best memories are sitting on my dad's lap, cheering on Olga and Nadia, Carl Lewis, and others for their brilliance and perfection." --Michelle Obama ("Mrs. Obama was 20 years old when Lewis first competed in the Olympics in 1984." --Michelle Malkin)
"Michael Moore's new movie slamming U.S. capitalism was boycotted by the teachers' union. They say he used a non-union crew to shoot the movie so he could save money and make more profit. Next they'll find out that he shot the whole thing in Vancouver." --comedian Argus Hamilton
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Political Digest September 3, 2009
Ted Kennedy's Soviet Gambit
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/27/ted-kennedy-soviet-union-ronald-reagan-opinions-columnists-peter-robinson.html
If true, this was treason.
Taliban Surprising U.S. Forces With Improved Tactics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103908.html?wpisrc=newsletter
The enemy adapts to your tactics and strategy. Then you adapt. Such is war. Numberless battles and chess games have been lost by counting on the opposition to do what you hope or expect they will do.
So You Just Squandered Billions . . . Take Another Whack at It
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103847.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: Back during the heyday of the credit bubble, they were the financiers who earned huge bonuses for creating, trading and investing other people's money in those complex securities that resulted in trillions of dollars in losses and brought global financial markets to their knees. And now they're out there again hustling for investors and hoping to make another score buying and trading the same securities. Like golfers who treat themselves to a second drive after hooking the first one deep into the woods, these guys play on without apology or penalty. The maddening thing is that they're getting away with it and nobody seems to care.
Miss Piggy Would Have Sent the Wrong Message
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103135.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: This reliance on Muppets rather than medicine is not the fault of the Obama administration, which has done about the best it could with limited tools. It's the result of years of failure to build adequate vaccine-manufacturing capacity in the United States. Too little work on new vaccine technologies means producers of flu shots still rely on the ancient method of making inoculations with chicken eggs. And the anemic public health system will almost surely buckle this fall as flu sufferers flood emergency rooms. (Ah, government and healthcare, where decisions are made on the basis of short-term political payback, rather than long-term health consequences. Spend money now to build an infrastructure for ten years from now? How will that help me get elected this fall? I’m criticizing BOTH parties here, but even more the idea that government is the long term answer to all problems.)
Hoyer grilled on health care
http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/health-care/bal-md.hoyer02sep02,0,3619646.story
Excerpt: At a town hall meeting that in its often angry tone and hostile questioning echoed dozens around the country over the past month, the No. 2 Democrat in the House of Representatives was repeatedly pressed about tort reform. "You kind of glossed over this before," Dr. Michael Magee, an orthopedist from Edgewater, said after Hoyer told another questioner that he "certainly" expected the issue to be considered. Hoyer, a leading recipient of campaign contributions from lawyers and law firms, said he is concerned about excessive jury awards in malpractice suits. But he also said that if noneconomic damages are capped, some victims of medical malpractice "may not get anything of substantial value through the years." "I intend to look at this very seriously and discuss it with my colleagues," Hoyer said. "We do want to prevent specious suits. I think we can all agree on that." Trial lawyers are among the most powerful Democratic interest groups, and conservative opponents of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul have zeroed in on the fact that none of the Democratic proposals in Congress contain provisions on tort reform. Obama told the American Medical Association in June that he is not advocating a cap on malpractice awards.
MA-Senate Special: Who's In, Who's Out?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/senate/ma-senate-special-whos-in-whos.html?wprss=thefix
Republicans will doubtless nominate someone too conservative to win. Better to leave control of the US Senate in Democrat hands than vote for a RINO. Which is why Democrats control the US Senate.
Africa's Capitalist Revolution
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18393
Some African countries have discovered that free markets improve people’s lives. Hope they tell Washington.
White House collecting personal information on Americans?
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/09/red-alert-white-house-plans-massive.html
I hope this is over blown. Imaging if George Bush had done this. Where is the ACLU when we need them? I feel like I’m in an old movie. “You still have family in Germany, jawohl?” Imagine if Nixon had had the Internet?
What Happened To The 'Depression'?
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18395
Excerpt: The facts we face today are very different than the grim reality Americans confronted between 1929 and 1932. True, this recession is not over. But it would have to get improbably worse before it came close to the 42-month duration of the Great Depression, or the 25 percent unemployment rate in 1932, says Allan H. Meltzer, professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University. The current recession is also much less severe than the 1937-38 Depression. A more accurate comparison is to the 1973-75 recession. Today's recession is as deep and most likely won't be much longer than the one we experienced some three decades ago. So why do many opinion makers insist on inaccurate and frightening analogies that overstate the severity of present conditions? I believe there are several reasons. First, there is a strong political motivation to make this recession out to be worse than it actually is. (But if the Obama Administration’s spending gives us hyperinflation, like Zimbabwe, and Cap & Trade takes money from consumers’ pockets, and they block free trade by killing NAFTA plus strengthen the unions through card check, we could still have the depression they want. They will blame it on Bush.)
Why Oil Still Has a Future
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574370511700484236.html
Excerpt: The reason is something else that is new—the globalization of demand. No longer are the growth markets for petroleum to be found in North America, Western Europe and Japan. The United States has already hit "peak gasoline demand." The demand growth has now shifted, massively, to the fast-growing emerging markets—China, India and the Middle East. Between 2000 and 2007, 85% of the growth in world oil demand was in the developing world. This shift continues: This year, more new cars have been sold in China than in the United States. When economic recovery takes hold, what happens in emerging countries will be the defining factor in the path for overall consumption. (But ruining the US economy through “Cap & Trade” is going to stop global warming, which seems to have stopped on it’s own in the mid 1990s. No doubt about 2012, Obama will notice the world is now cooling and take credit for it.)
Cutting Greenhouse-Gas Emissions Is No Small Task
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18396
Ah, but we have “The One”!
CIA Counterterrorism Expert: Obama and Holder 'At War' with Agency
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/obama_holder_war_with_cia/2009/08/31/254698.html?promo_code=81BB-1
From my Marine buddy, Del (A Vietnam vet): Yeah, how sweet it must be to have always been safe, highly paid, widely respected, living the American Dream in safety and comfort, while others went out into the cold and dangerous world to try to do what they could, however they could, to make sure that you and all Americans could relax and not worry so much about the next attempt to slaughter American civilians en masse. And to now, years later, to take up the blindingly white flag of moral purity and lead a charge against those others who were out in that cold and danger, away from their families and a morning latte, to examine under a microscope their every action; and now to bring down as much punishment as you can possibly arrange for whatever you can today, in the cool light of another time when the grass is thick over the graves of the 3000 who died on 9-11, be determined by you and other intellectuals to have been less than perfect in those efforts to forestall the next 9-11. You can be so proud, so very, very proud of yourself, Mr. Holder. –Del
Kissing Off Eastern Europe
http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=336351734192480
Excerpt: This is a stark reversal of past policy and reneges on promises made by the current administration. Worse, it shows weakness. We got into a staredown with the Russian bear and we blinked.
Few tickets sold for Clinton CNE speech
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/few-tickets-sold-for-clinton-cne-speech/article1267477/
News Flash: Canadians smarter than expected!
Another day, another fake “hate crime”
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/08/31/another-day-another-fake-hate-crime/
Excerpt: Eleven windows were smashed at the Democratic Party headquarters in Denver, Colorado. Now immediately following that act of vandalism, the head of Colorado’s Democratic Party alleged that the damage was probably inflicted by an opponent of President Obama’s health care plan. But Maurice Schwenkler, the only person charged in the incident so far, is far from a conservative. In fact, he was at one time a paid operative of the Democratic Party and even went door-to-door for candidates.
Van Jones and His STORMtroopers Denounced America the Night After 9/11
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/08/31/van-jones-and-his-stormtroopers-denounced-america-the-night-after-911/
Excerpt: The vehemently anti-American group held a vigil in Oakland, California, “mourning the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world” on the night after Sept. 11, 2001. Jones does not appear to have distanced himself from his past communist activities and is now part of the Obama administration’s push to turn Sept. 11 into a National Day of Service focused on the promotion of the radical environmentalist agenda. (Another anti-American Obot. Ho-hum.)
California's Man-Made Drought
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574384731898375624.html?mod=djemITP
Excerpt: The state's water emergency is unfolding thanks to the latest mishandling of the Endangered Species Act. Last December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued what is known as a "biological opinion" imposing water reductions on the San Joaquin Valley and environs to safeguard the federally protected hypomesus transpacificus, a.k.a., the delta smelt. As a result, tens of billions of gallons of water from mountains east and north of Sacramento have been channeled away from farmers and into the ocean, leaving hundreds of thousands of acres of arable land fallow or scorched. For this, Californians can thank the usual environmental suspects, er, lawyers. Last year's government ruling was the result of a 2006 lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other outfits objecting to increased water pumping in the smelt vicinity. In June, things got even dustier when the National Marine Fisheries Service concluded that local salmon and steelhead also needed to be defended from the valley's water pumps. Those additional restrictions will begin to effect pumping operations next year.
Global Warming and the Sun
http://townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2009/09/02/global_warming_and_the_sun
Excerpt: During what scientists call the Maunder Minimum -- a period of solar inactivity from 1645 to 1715 -- the world experienced the worst of the cold streak dubbed the Little Ice Age. At Christmastime, Londoners ice-skated on the Thames, and New Yorkers (then New Amsterdamers) sometimes walked over the Hudson from Manhattan to Staten Island.
Modern, moderate Malaysia: Muslims threaten violence over construction of Hindu temple
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027429.php
The religion of peace and tolerance is at it again. I mean “still.”
American Exceptionalism
http://www.pjtv.com/video/Afterburner_with_Bill_Whittle/__Bill_Maher%2C_Barack_Obama_and_the_Truth_About_American_Exceptionalism/2378/
September 8th is Brainwash the Kids Day
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10582301/President-Obama’s-Address-to-Students-Across-America-September-8-2009
Imagine the howls if Bush did this.
Pol nabbed on NH Booze Run
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20090901pol_nabbed_on_new_hampshire_booze_run/srvc=home&position=0
Excerpt: A Westport lawmaker who voted to hike the state sales and alcohol taxes was spotted brazenly piling booze in his car - adorned with his State House license plate - in the parking lot of a tax-free New Hampshire liquor store, the Herald has learned. Michael J. Rodrigues’ blue Ford Crown Victoria, emblazoned with his “House 29” Massachusetts license plate, was parked outside a Granite State liquor store on Interstate-95 South over the weekend, according to a witness who provided pictures to the Herald…. He also blamed the brouhaha on “Republican demagoguery.” “Unfortunately, I think that’s why the Republican Party is in such bad shape in Massachusetts,” Rodrigues is quoted as saying. “The electorate here is smart enough to figure out what they’re up to.” (There are still Republicans in Massachusetts? Who knew?)
How a congressman brings business to K Street
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/How-a-congressman-brings-business-to-K-Street-8182767-56627042.html
Excerpt: Skeptical Capitol Hill staffers call the bill a "bailout for Harry Reid." Reid, in re-election trouble, may be hoping government advertising for the Las Vegas Strip might win him some votes and campaign cash from grateful casinos. But the legislation championed by hotels, airlines, and other giants in the travel industry is modest in some ways: Its price tag is only $200 million per year. And rather than a tale of corporate America's clout in Washington, it's a tale of K Street and Capitol Hill luring corporate America into the Beltway swamp. Consider the bill's conception: In 2005 Rep. Bill Delahunt, a Democrat who represents Cape Cod, addressed the Washington Summit of the Travel Business Roundtable, and urged it to lobby more. Fed News reported, "The Congressman called on the industry to wage a more aggressive, bipartisan campaign."
Tax Dollars to British distiller for Captain Morgan rum
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-dc-rum,0,1491418.story
Excerpt: With little fanfare, a deal is moving forward to direct billions in U.S. tax dollars to an unlikely beneficiary -- the giant British liquor producer that makes Captain Morgan rum.
ACORN quick to collect from feds, but slow to pay taxes
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/ACORN-quick-56583277.html
Excerpt: The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is perhaps best known for its volunteers' habit of signing up fake voters. This has resulted in numerous state investigations and convictions of ACORN members for voter fraud activities. But the group is also a tax scofflaw to the tune of more than $1 million, according to documents unearthed by another Louisiana-based non-profit, the Pelican Institute. Pelican researcher Steve Beatty has come across dozens of outstanding and released tax liens against ACORN and ACORN affiliates, headquartered at two addresses in New Orleans. Although some of the liens have been paid, Beatty found that several are still outstanding, including a $547,000 lien by the federal government against ACORN itself. (I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you!)
Reid meeting bans opponents of Obamacare
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3QRIZ34HcE&feature=player_embedded
Health Care for the Peasants
In May 2008 Senator “Ted” Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor -glioblastoma multiforme. The senator underwent surgery at Duke University, probably to reduce the bulk of the tumor. The surgery followed a meeting at Massachusetts General Hospital. The meeting was attended by Kennedy’s own doctor and doctors from the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and Dr. Allan Friedman from Duke University.
Surgery took place at Duke University, reportedly 3½ hours in duration. Of course Senator Kennedy flew by private jet to Duke with his attendants. He would have had at least one day pre-operative stay and one day post operative stay.
Senator Kennedy lived for 16 months after the diagnosis was made; the cost, being a prince or maybe a king, of Senator Kennedy’s care probably exceeded $1,500,000. Six hundred fifty three patients with malignant brain tumors were studied with regard to costs. A group without malignant brain tumors was used as control. The cost per month of the malignant tumor group was $6364. If Senator Kennedy is a peasant $101,824 for 16 months of care.
So what does Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health advisor to Barak Obama say about the treatment of a malignant brain tumor in an over 65 year old patient? “Treating 65 year olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not.” Dr. Emanuel is the brother of Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff.
The kings, queens, princesses and princes that occupy the seats of government will of course not be subject to the “health care reform” policies being proposed in the House and Senate. They, of course, have a much more generous program with no limitations regardless of age. Senator Kennedy was 75 or 76 when his malignant brain tumor was diagnosed. In Obama’s health plan no surgical treatment, no radiation, no chemotherapy would have been provided to the unwashed masses. More likely corticosteroids would have been given to the poorly-connected, not-so-rich patient and death would have followed in a few months.
I too am a peasant. I was a neurosurgeon. I treated patients with malignant brain tumors for more than 30 years. I do not believe only princes, princesses, kings and queens should receive quality medical care. If Obama and his ilk have their way, bend over and kiss yourself good bye. –Bill Seidman
This essay was written on the day after Senator Kennedy’s death by Saul William Seidman, MD, FACS. seidmanmd@gmail.com and is reprinted here with his kind permission.
Quote
"Ted Kennedy's friends laughingly recalled Friday the time N.Y. Daily News photographers caught him making love to a woman on a boat on the Riviera. The opposition loved it. Republicans saw the photos and thought he'd changed his position on offshore drilling." --comedian Argus Hamilton. "The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/)"
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/27/ted-kennedy-soviet-union-ronald-reagan-opinions-columnists-peter-robinson.html
If true, this was treason.
Taliban Surprising U.S. Forces With Improved Tactics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103908.html?wpisrc=newsletter
The enemy adapts to your tactics and strategy. Then you adapt. Such is war. Numberless battles and chess games have been lost by counting on the opposition to do what you hope or expect they will do.
So You Just Squandered Billions . . . Take Another Whack at It
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103847.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: Back during the heyday of the credit bubble, they were the financiers who earned huge bonuses for creating, trading and investing other people's money in those complex securities that resulted in trillions of dollars in losses and brought global financial markets to their knees. And now they're out there again hustling for investors and hoping to make another score buying and trading the same securities. Like golfers who treat themselves to a second drive after hooking the first one deep into the woods, these guys play on without apology or penalty. The maddening thing is that they're getting away with it and nobody seems to care.
Miss Piggy Would Have Sent the Wrong Message
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103135.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: This reliance on Muppets rather than medicine is not the fault of the Obama administration, which has done about the best it could with limited tools. It's the result of years of failure to build adequate vaccine-manufacturing capacity in the United States. Too little work on new vaccine technologies means producers of flu shots still rely on the ancient method of making inoculations with chicken eggs. And the anemic public health system will almost surely buckle this fall as flu sufferers flood emergency rooms. (Ah, government and healthcare, where decisions are made on the basis of short-term political payback, rather than long-term health consequences. Spend money now to build an infrastructure for ten years from now? How will that help me get elected this fall? I’m criticizing BOTH parties here, but even more the idea that government is the long term answer to all problems.)
Hoyer grilled on health care
http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/health-care/bal-md.hoyer02sep02,0,3619646.story
Excerpt: At a town hall meeting that in its often angry tone and hostile questioning echoed dozens around the country over the past month, the No. 2 Democrat in the House of Representatives was repeatedly pressed about tort reform. "You kind of glossed over this before," Dr. Michael Magee, an orthopedist from Edgewater, said after Hoyer told another questioner that he "certainly" expected the issue to be considered. Hoyer, a leading recipient of campaign contributions from lawyers and law firms, said he is concerned about excessive jury awards in malpractice suits. But he also said that if noneconomic damages are capped, some victims of medical malpractice "may not get anything of substantial value through the years." "I intend to look at this very seriously and discuss it with my colleagues," Hoyer said. "We do want to prevent specious suits. I think we can all agree on that." Trial lawyers are among the most powerful Democratic interest groups, and conservative opponents of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul have zeroed in on the fact that none of the Democratic proposals in Congress contain provisions on tort reform. Obama told the American Medical Association in June that he is not advocating a cap on malpractice awards.
MA-Senate Special: Who's In, Who's Out?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/senate/ma-senate-special-whos-in-whos.html?wprss=thefix
Republicans will doubtless nominate someone too conservative to win. Better to leave control of the US Senate in Democrat hands than vote for a RINO. Which is why Democrats control the US Senate.
Africa's Capitalist Revolution
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18393
Some African countries have discovered that free markets improve people’s lives. Hope they tell Washington.
White House collecting personal information on Americans?
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/09/red-alert-white-house-plans-massive.html
I hope this is over blown. Imaging if George Bush had done this. Where is the ACLU when we need them? I feel like I’m in an old movie. “You still have family in Germany, jawohl?” Imagine if Nixon had had the Internet?
What Happened To The 'Depression'?
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18395
Excerpt: The facts we face today are very different than the grim reality Americans confronted between 1929 and 1932. True, this recession is not over. But it would have to get improbably worse before it came close to the 42-month duration of the Great Depression, or the 25 percent unemployment rate in 1932, says Allan H. Meltzer, professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University. The current recession is also much less severe than the 1937-38 Depression. A more accurate comparison is to the 1973-75 recession. Today's recession is as deep and most likely won't be much longer than the one we experienced some three decades ago. So why do many opinion makers insist on inaccurate and frightening analogies that overstate the severity of present conditions? I believe there are several reasons. First, there is a strong political motivation to make this recession out to be worse than it actually is. (But if the Obama Administration’s spending gives us hyperinflation, like Zimbabwe, and Cap & Trade takes money from consumers’ pockets, and they block free trade by killing NAFTA plus strengthen the unions through card check, we could still have the depression they want. They will blame it on Bush.)
Why Oil Still Has a Future
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574370511700484236.html
Excerpt: The reason is something else that is new—the globalization of demand. No longer are the growth markets for petroleum to be found in North America, Western Europe and Japan. The United States has already hit "peak gasoline demand." The demand growth has now shifted, massively, to the fast-growing emerging markets—China, India and the Middle East. Between 2000 and 2007, 85% of the growth in world oil demand was in the developing world. This shift continues: This year, more new cars have been sold in China than in the United States. When economic recovery takes hold, what happens in emerging countries will be the defining factor in the path for overall consumption. (But ruining the US economy through “Cap & Trade” is going to stop global warming, which seems to have stopped on it’s own in the mid 1990s. No doubt about 2012, Obama will notice the world is now cooling and take credit for it.)
Cutting Greenhouse-Gas Emissions Is No Small Task
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18396
Ah, but we have “The One”!
CIA Counterterrorism Expert: Obama and Holder 'At War' with Agency
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/obama_holder_war_with_cia/2009/08/31/254698.html?promo_code=81BB-1
From my Marine buddy, Del (A Vietnam vet): Yeah, how sweet it must be to have always been safe, highly paid, widely respected, living the American Dream in safety and comfort, while others went out into the cold and dangerous world to try to do what they could, however they could, to make sure that you and all Americans could relax and not worry so much about the next attempt to slaughter American civilians en masse. And to now, years later, to take up the blindingly white flag of moral purity and lead a charge against those others who were out in that cold and danger, away from their families and a morning latte, to examine under a microscope their every action; and now to bring down as much punishment as you can possibly arrange for whatever you can today, in the cool light of another time when the grass is thick over the graves of the 3000 who died on 9-11, be determined by you and other intellectuals to have been less than perfect in those efforts to forestall the next 9-11. You can be so proud, so very, very proud of yourself, Mr. Holder. –Del
Kissing Off Eastern Europe
http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=336351734192480
Excerpt: This is a stark reversal of past policy and reneges on promises made by the current administration. Worse, it shows weakness. We got into a staredown with the Russian bear and we blinked.
Few tickets sold for Clinton CNE speech
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/few-tickets-sold-for-clinton-cne-speech/article1267477/
News Flash: Canadians smarter than expected!
Another day, another fake “hate crime”
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/08/31/another-day-another-fake-hate-crime/
Excerpt: Eleven windows were smashed at the Democratic Party headquarters in Denver, Colorado. Now immediately following that act of vandalism, the head of Colorado’s Democratic Party alleged that the damage was probably inflicted by an opponent of President Obama’s health care plan. But Maurice Schwenkler, the only person charged in the incident so far, is far from a conservative. In fact, he was at one time a paid operative of the Democratic Party and even went door-to-door for candidates.
Van Jones and His STORMtroopers Denounced America the Night After 9/11
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/08/31/van-jones-and-his-stormtroopers-denounced-america-the-night-after-911/
Excerpt: The vehemently anti-American group held a vigil in Oakland, California, “mourning the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world” on the night after Sept. 11, 2001. Jones does not appear to have distanced himself from his past communist activities and is now part of the Obama administration’s push to turn Sept. 11 into a National Day of Service focused on the promotion of the radical environmentalist agenda. (Another anti-American Obot. Ho-hum.)
California's Man-Made Drought
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574384731898375624.html?mod=djemITP
Excerpt: The state's water emergency is unfolding thanks to the latest mishandling of the Endangered Species Act. Last December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued what is known as a "biological opinion" imposing water reductions on the San Joaquin Valley and environs to safeguard the federally protected hypomesus transpacificus, a.k.a., the delta smelt. As a result, tens of billions of gallons of water from mountains east and north of Sacramento have been channeled away from farmers and into the ocean, leaving hundreds of thousands of acres of arable land fallow or scorched. For this, Californians can thank the usual environmental suspects, er, lawyers. Last year's government ruling was the result of a 2006 lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other outfits objecting to increased water pumping in the smelt vicinity. In June, things got even dustier when the National Marine Fisheries Service concluded that local salmon and steelhead also needed to be defended from the valley's water pumps. Those additional restrictions will begin to effect pumping operations next year.
Global Warming and the Sun
http://townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2009/09/02/global_warming_and_the_sun
Excerpt: During what scientists call the Maunder Minimum -- a period of solar inactivity from 1645 to 1715 -- the world experienced the worst of the cold streak dubbed the Little Ice Age. At Christmastime, Londoners ice-skated on the Thames, and New Yorkers (then New Amsterdamers) sometimes walked over the Hudson from Manhattan to Staten Island.
Modern, moderate Malaysia: Muslims threaten violence over construction of Hindu temple
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027429.php
The religion of peace and tolerance is at it again. I mean “still.”
American Exceptionalism
http://www.pjtv.com/video/Afterburner_with_Bill_Whittle/__Bill_Maher%2C_Barack_Obama_and_the_Truth_About_American_Exceptionalism/2378/
September 8th is Brainwash the Kids Day
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10582301/President-Obama’s-Address-to-Students-Across-America-September-8-2009
Imagine the howls if Bush did this.
Pol nabbed on NH Booze Run
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20090901pol_nabbed_on_new_hampshire_booze_run/srvc=home&position=0
Excerpt: A Westport lawmaker who voted to hike the state sales and alcohol taxes was spotted brazenly piling booze in his car - adorned with his State House license plate - in the parking lot of a tax-free New Hampshire liquor store, the Herald has learned. Michael J. Rodrigues’ blue Ford Crown Victoria, emblazoned with his “House 29” Massachusetts license plate, was parked outside a Granite State liquor store on Interstate-95 South over the weekend, according to a witness who provided pictures to the Herald…. He also blamed the brouhaha on “Republican demagoguery.” “Unfortunately, I think that’s why the Republican Party is in such bad shape in Massachusetts,” Rodrigues is quoted as saying. “The electorate here is smart enough to figure out what they’re up to.” (There are still Republicans in Massachusetts? Who knew?)
How a congressman brings business to K Street
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/How-a-congressman-brings-business-to-K-Street-8182767-56627042.html
Excerpt: Skeptical Capitol Hill staffers call the bill a "bailout for Harry Reid." Reid, in re-election trouble, may be hoping government advertising for the Las Vegas Strip might win him some votes and campaign cash from grateful casinos. But the legislation championed by hotels, airlines, and other giants in the travel industry is modest in some ways: Its price tag is only $200 million per year. And rather than a tale of corporate America's clout in Washington, it's a tale of K Street and Capitol Hill luring corporate America into the Beltway swamp. Consider the bill's conception: In 2005 Rep. Bill Delahunt, a Democrat who represents Cape Cod, addressed the Washington Summit of the Travel Business Roundtable, and urged it to lobby more. Fed News reported, "The Congressman called on the industry to wage a more aggressive, bipartisan campaign."
Tax Dollars to British distiller for Captain Morgan rum
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-dc-rum,0,1491418.story
Excerpt: With little fanfare, a deal is moving forward to direct billions in U.S. tax dollars to an unlikely beneficiary -- the giant British liquor producer that makes Captain Morgan rum.
ACORN quick to collect from feds, but slow to pay taxes
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/ACORN-quick-56583277.html
Excerpt: The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is perhaps best known for its volunteers' habit of signing up fake voters. This has resulted in numerous state investigations and convictions of ACORN members for voter fraud activities. But the group is also a tax scofflaw to the tune of more than $1 million, according to documents unearthed by another Louisiana-based non-profit, the Pelican Institute. Pelican researcher Steve Beatty has come across dozens of outstanding and released tax liens against ACORN and ACORN affiliates, headquartered at two addresses in New Orleans. Although some of the liens have been paid, Beatty found that several are still outstanding, including a $547,000 lien by the federal government against ACORN itself. (I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you!)
Reid meeting bans opponents of Obamacare
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3QRIZ34HcE&feature=player_embedded
Health Care for the Peasants
In May 2008 Senator “Ted” Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor -glioblastoma multiforme. The senator underwent surgery at Duke University, probably to reduce the bulk of the tumor. The surgery followed a meeting at Massachusetts General Hospital. The meeting was attended by Kennedy’s own doctor and doctors from the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and Dr. Allan Friedman from Duke University.
Surgery took place at Duke University, reportedly 3½ hours in duration. Of course Senator Kennedy flew by private jet to Duke with his attendants. He would have had at least one day pre-operative stay and one day post operative stay.
Senator Kennedy lived for 16 months after the diagnosis was made; the cost, being a prince or maybe a king, of Senator Kennedy’s care probably exceeded $1,500,000. Six hundred fifty three patients with malignant brain tumors were studied with regard to costs. A group without malignant brain tumors was used as control. The cost per month of the malignant tumor group was $6364. If Senator Kennedy is a peasant $101,824 for 16 months of care.
So what does Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health advisor to Barak Obama say about the treatment of a malignant brain tumor in an over 65 year old patient? “Treating 65 year olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not.” Dr. Emanuel is the brother of Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff.
The kings, queens, princesses and princes that occupy the seats of government will of course not be subject to the “health care reform” policies being proposed in the House and Senate. They, of course, have a much more generous program with no limitations regardless of age. Senator Kennedy was 75 or 76 when his malignant brain tumor was diagnosed. In Obama’s health plan no surgical treatment, no radiation, no chemotherapy would have been provided to the unwashed masses. More likely corticosteroids would have been given to the poorly-connected, not-so-rich patient and death would have followed in a few months.
I too am a peasant. I was a neurosurgeon. I treated patients with malignant brain tumors for more than 30 years. I do not believe only princes, princesses, kings and queens should receive quality medical care. If Obama and his ilk have their way, bend over and kiss yourself good bye. –Bill Seidman
This essay was written on the day after Senator Kennedy’s death by Saul William Seidman, MD, FACS. seidmanmd@gmail.com and is reprinted here with his kind permission.
Quote
"Ted Kennedy's friends laughingly recalled Friday the time N.Y. Daily News photographers caught him making love to a woman on a boat on the Riviera. The opposition loved it. Republicans saw the photos and thought he'd changed his position on offshore drilling." --comedian Argus Hamilton. "The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/)"
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Political Digest August 18 2009
How the White House's Deal With Big Pharma Undermines Democracy
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/08/white-houses-deal-with-big-pharma.html
Excerpt: I'm a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I'm appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying arm to buy their support. Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. (What he doesn’t mention is that the Pharma Association exec is a long-time Democrat Congressman, whose salary is about $2M. Worth every penny, too, it looks like.)
New Poll: 54% say better to pass no health bill
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/New-Poll-54-say-better-to-pass-no-health-bill-53306262.html
Excerpt: Allies of President Obama have paid his two favorite advertising firms $12 million to push his health care plan. But they'll probably need a lot more money than that. A new poll from Rasmussen Reports shows that 54 percent of Americans would rather see Congress pass no health care bill this year. Only 35 percent believe that passage of the bill being developed in Congress bill would be better than passing no bill at all. Two key cross-tabs: First, only 60 percent of Democrats prefer passage of the congressional plan, whereas only 23 percent of independents felt the same way. Second, middle income voters -- people making between $40,000 to $75,000 per year, are the most strongly opposed.
No Treats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XivhwO_zWWg
One smart dog
Key Feature of Obama Health Plan May Be Out
Administration Hints That Public Option Isn't Only Way to Go
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/16/AR2009081602248.html?wpisrc=newsletter
And: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1916791,00.html
Is the ship leaking?
Hired Stooges
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/npo/1299047025.html
BO & Company have been accusing the Healthcare Takeover opposition of being not only un-American, but hired stooges of the insurance industry (Never mind that the insurance industry has been bought off like big Pharma). Now we see who needs to hire supporters. This is BO creating jobs, I suppose:
Now is our chance to make health care work.
America's health care system is broken. Health care costs are spiraling out of control, throwing families, businesses and government into financial crisis. Families are worried their health coverage won't be there when they need it. Our country can't afford to wait for health reform that keeps costs down and protects consumers. We can't wait for affordable, dependable health care. We're fighting for health care that will protect families' financial health, lay out a clear path for all Americans to afford health care, and improve patient safety and quality care.
You can work for change this summer. Join motivated staff around the country working to make change happen. You can make great friends and money along the way. Earn $4000-$6000 this summer.
To apply for a job, visit our website—http://www.jobsthatmatter.org/—or call Chris at [202-546-3965.]
Morning Fix: Creigh Deeds's Presidential Dilemma
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/081709-morning-fix-creigh-deed.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: Most interestingly, however, was that just 23 percent of Independents said the support of Obama increased their likelihood of voting for Deeds while 37 percent said it made them less likely to support the Democratic nominee.
More bad poll numbers for Patrick (Duval, D-Mass)
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/08/more_bad_poll_n.html
Excerpt: The latest quarterly poll from MassInsight, a nonprofit research institute, spells more bad political news for Governor Deval L. Patrick: His job-approval numbers have plunged to levels not seen in decades for a Massachusetts governor.
In a survey of 445 residents, taken last month and released this week, only 19 percent of respondents gave him a positive job rating, while 77 percent rated it fair or poor. One percent said he was doing an excellent job. Those numbers are significantly worse than last month's Globe poll, which also found him to be struggling politically.
Republican Health Care Ideas
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18329
Excerpt: Two interesting GOP proposals, so far not adopted by party leaders, have been offered from opposite ends of the Republican ideological spectrum -- conservative and moderate. They differ in one major way. Conservatives would end employer-based health care, while moderates would keep it. But both are aimed at using free-market competition to lower costs and make private insurance more affordable to businesses and individuals, says Morton Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill. The conservative health care proposal has been offered in the House by Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) and in the Senate by Richard Burr (N.C.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.). The moderate plan has been proposed by Reps. Mark Kirk (Ill.) and Charlie Dent (Pa.) and reportedly will form the basis of a full-blown GOP alternative developed by the GOP Health Care Solutions Group headed by Rep. Roy Blunt (Mo.), but not yet unveiled.
What is the Optimum Size of Government?
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18333
Excerpt: Previous studies have tried to determine and quantify the optimum size of government, recognizing that not all governments and societies are the same, and most have shown that the optimum size is between 12 and 30 percent of GDP. However, IME finds that the government sector should be no larger than 25 percent (and perhaps considerably smaller) to maximize GDP growth. All major governments, including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy greatly exceed the 25 percent level. The average government sector for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries now exceeds 41 percent of GDP.
The Price We All Pay For High Tax Rates
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18330
Excerpt: President Barack Obama wants Americans to believe that they can enjoy all of his proposed programs without paying for them because "the rich" will cover the cost. But taxing "the rich" will only be the start. To get real money, the big spenders are going to have to tax the middle class as well, says Bandow.
AP: Canada Considering Healthcare Overhaul with Private Insurance
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/08/16/ap-canada-considering-healthcare-overhaul-private-insurance
Excerpt: The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it. Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made. "We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doig said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Where Do We Find Good Leaders?
http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/tsegel/2009/ts_08131.shtml
Excerpt: Those questions the American people are asking today don't seem to have any positive answers. Citizens want to know why their views relative to proposed federal legislation are not being taken into account. They want to know why favoritism is being shown toward political supporters to the detriment of the entire country. They want to know why they should be forced into government-mandated programs ranging from the cars they drive to the healthcare they receive. They want to know why unelected or unconfirmed czars are being placed in positions of great power and control.
Climate Science: The Devil’s In the Details (Which Apparently No Longer Exist)
http://www.redstate.com/vladimir/2009/08/16/climate-science-the-devils-in-the-details-which-apparently-no-longer-exist/
You have to trust them, because they don’t keep the data!
Egyptian charged with genital mutilation of 11-year-old girl
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027255.php
Excerpt: An Egyptian man has been charged with practicing female circumcision on an 11 year-old girl, reports the website of TV station Al Arabiya today. Ahmed Gad al-Karim, 69 year-old, is the first person to be tried for this type of procedure since an Egyptian law came into effect which treats all types of female genital mutilation as a crime. The law, which was passed in 2008, was fiercely criticised by the Islamic Brotherhood and by supporters of the Egyptian parliament, who maintained that they supported the practice as "conforming to Sharia law (Islamic law) and protecting the chastity of women". However, the Islamic Institution responsible for religious opinion (Dar al-Iftaa) responded by saying that female genital mutilation is not part of the Islamic culture.
Jihadists demolish 20 churches, murder three pastors
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027254.php
No big deal. Not very news-worthy. Now if it were Jews accused of desecrating a Qur’an….
Afghanistan's "no sex, no food" law for Shi'ite women goes into effect
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027253.php
Excerpt: An Afghan bill allowing a husband to starve his wife if she refuses to have sex has been published in the official gazette and become law. (These are our allies, the good, moderate Muslims!)
You've Had a Good Innings
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTAxYzFjODdiN2E3OWUyNzY1MDU1ODM1ZjZjYmY3YjM=&w=MA
Excerpt from the always-entertaining Mark Steyn: Which brings us to the United States and its allegedly worst health system in the developed world. Here's the reality: The longer you live in America, the longer you live. If you're one of those impressionable Meet the Press viewers who heard Mayor Bloomberg bemoaning U.S. life expectancy and you're thinking, "Hey, I'm 77. Just about at the end, America-wise. Maybe it's time to move up north or over to Europe, and get a couple of bonus years," don't do it! If you're old enough to be a Meet the Press viewer, your life expectancy is already way up there. America is the Afghanistan of the western world: That's to say, it has a slightly higher infant mortality rate than other developed nations (there are reasons for that which I'll discuss in an upcoming column). That figure depresses our overall "life expectancy at birth." But, if you can make it out of diapers, you'll live longer than you would pretty much anywhere else. By age 40, Americans' life expectancy has caught up with Britons'. By 60, it equals Germany's. At the age of 80, Americans have greater life expectancy than Swedes.
Don't Go There
Martha's Vineyard is not the best presidential vacation site.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/819iwhon.asp?pg=2
Excerpt: Dear Mr. President, How nice to know you will summer on Martha's Vineyard at Blue Heron Farm, where the amenities are said to be fabulous. "The 28-acre estate, $20 million enclave is located in Chilmark," CBS told us. "The farm suits Obama to a tee with golf facilities, a pool, basketball court, private beach, and a rental price tag of up to $50,000 a week." What happened? Versailles and The Breakers were rented already? Is this how you empathize with the suffering masses, whose pain you feel so at town meetings? What is it with real estate and you liberal Democrats? There's John Kerry, who has five mansions, including a ski chalet whose every last stone was brought over from England; and John Edwards, whose "house" looks like five of them strung together, and which has not one, but two, stages, and its own private gym.
Obama fighting for his presidency, not reform
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama-fighting-for-his-presidency_-not-reform-8114039-53354747.html
Excerpt: The big question for President Barack Obama right now isn't about health care, but his own political survival. If he fails to deliver health legislation, Obama will prove right those who said he was in over his head. That would make him something of a lame duck after only seven months in office. But if he does manage to squeeze a bill out of Congress, it would be a Pyrrhic victory. By delivering unwanted changes to unwilling voters on a life-or-death issue, the president would squander the goodwill he earned during the campaign. Voters now say passing nothing would be better than any of the plans stewing in Congress, so it's hard to imagine that lawmakers will return from their recess ready to take political risks.
Cindy Sheehan heads to the Vineyard; wants anti-war demonstrators to emulate health-care protesters; will anyone cover the story?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Cindy-Sheehan-heads-to-the-Vineyard-wants-anti-war-demonstrators-to-emulate-health-care-protesters-will-anyone-cover-the-story-53406107.html
Excerpt: This morning the anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan -- the woman who spent so much time leading well-publicized protests outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas -- announced that she will demonstrate next week at Martha's Vineyard, where President Obama will be vacationing. "There are several things that we wish to accomplish with this protest on Martha's Vineyard," Sheehan said in a statement: “First of all, no good social or economic change will come about with the continuation or escalation of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We simply can't afford to continue this tragically expensive foreign policy.”
Keeping Score
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/keeping-score/#more-4715
Excerpt: Why is it that Washington is spending so many hours over so many months — on top of two decades of prior conversation, analysis and debate — and is still failing to come up with a reasonable way to reform the health care system? Today I will slice through the Gordian Knot and give you a simple way to keep score. There are four basic questions to be asked of any health care system. If you answer these questions the right way, the path to reform is rather easy and straightforward. But if you answer even one question the wrong way, you will get caught up in a cycle of complexity — with fix upon fix, each trying to patch up the problems created by the previous fix. Hint: Right answers are the ones that give people socially good incentives. Those are incentives to meet your own needs without imposing external costs on others. Wrong answers are the ones that give people socially bad incentives. These are perverse incentives to impose external costs on others in the process of pursuing your own interests.
Bob Dylan Arrested for Walking
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/bob_dylan_arrested_for_walking/
police said he was very cooperative. He should have screamed, “This is what happens to a folksinger in America!” Would have gotten him a beer at the White House.
From a Marine vet:
Without encroaching on anyone's partisan political persuasions, this is an opportunity for American's (in general) to unite for a common cause that will serve all. Collectively throw all incumbents out. Keep your existing party preference (if that's how you vote/operate), but vote the professional politicians out. Effectively hit the "reset" button in order to return government to the people. Maybe then we will see results and stop the polarization that is causing so much turmoil (and waste) correcting our current inability to make sound decisions that enhance America, rather than divide it. America needs to be more dynamic. It's okay to disagree, but the bickering I'm seeing on both sides of the fence is offensive to me. This is not what government was set up to achieve, but it is exactly what we have going on! Relative to issues facing us today I am hopeful the American spirit of innovation, free enterprise, independence, self-reliance and sense of justice for our fellow man is beyond the current flirt we are having with socialistic ideology and agenda. Are we going to toss that which has brought us so far? A quotation I just read, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, perhaps best sums up what I believe the majority of Americans (left/right/middle-of-the-road) still believe: "Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them."
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/08/white-houses-deal-with-big-pharma.html
Excerpt: I'm a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I'm appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying arm to buy their support. Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. (What he doesn’t mention is that the Pharma Association exec is a long-time Democrat Congressman, whose salary is about $2M. Worth every penny, too, it looks like.)
New Poll: 54% say better to pass no health bill
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/New-Poll-54-say-better-to-pass-no-health-bill-53306262.html
Excerpt: Allies of President Obama have paid his two favorite advertising firms $12 million to push his health care plan. But they'll probably need a lot more money than that. A new poll from Rasmussen Reports shows that 54 percent of Americans would rather see Congress pass no health care bill this year. Only 35 percent believe that passage of the bill being developed in Congress bill would be better than passing no bill at all. Two key cross-tabs: First, only 60 percent of Democrats prefer passage of the congressional plan, whereas only 23 percent of independents felt the same way. Second, middle income voters -- people making between $40,000 to $75,000 per year, are the most strongly opposed.
No Treats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XivhwO_zWWg
One smart dog
Key Feature of Obama Health Plan May Be Out
Administration Hints That Public Option Isn't Only Way to Go
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/16/AR2009081602248.html?wpisrc=newsletter
And: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1916791,00.html
Is the ship leaking?
Hired Stooges
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/npo/1299047025.html
BO & Company have been accusing the Healthcare Takeover opposition of being not only un-American, but hired stooges of the insurance industry (Never mind that the insurance industry has been bought off like big Pharma). Now we see who needs to hire supporters. This is BO creating jobs, I suppose:
Now is our chance to make health care work.
America's health care system is broken. Health care costs are spiraling out of control, throwing families, businesses and government into financial crisis. Families are worried their health coverage won't be there when they need it. Our country can't afford to wait for health reform that keeps costs down and protects consumers. We can't wait for affordable, dependable health care. We're fighting for health care that will protect families' financial health, lay out a clear path for all Americans to afford health care, and improve patient safety and quality care.
You can work for change this summer. Join motivated staff around the country working to make change happen. You can make great friends and money along the way. Earn $4000-$6000 this summer.
To apply for a job, visit our website—http://www.jobsthatmatter.org/—or call Chris at [202-546-3965.]
Morning Fix: Creigh Deeds's Presidential Dilemma
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/081709-morning-fix-creigh-deed.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: Most interestingly, however, was that just 23 percent of Independents said the support of Obama increased their likelihood of voting for Deeds while 37 percent said it made them less likely to support the Democratic nominee.
More bad poll numbers for Patrick (Duval, D-Mass)
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/08/more_bad_poll_n.html
Excerpt: The latest quarterly poll from MassInsight, a nonprofit research institute, spells more bad political news for Governor Deval L. Patrick: His job-approval numbers have plunged to levels not seen in decades for a Massachusetts governor.
In a survey of 445 residents, taken last month and released this week, only 19 percent of respondents gave him a positive job rating, while 77 percent rated it fair or poor. One percent said he was doing an excellent job. Those numbers are significantly worse than last month's Globe poll, which also found him to be struggling politically.
Republican Health Care Ideas
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18329
Excerpt: Two interesting GOP proposals, so far not adopted by party leaders, have been offered from opposite ends of the Republican ideological spectrum -- conservative and moderate. They differ in one major way. Conservatives would end employer-based health care, while moderates would keep it. But both are aimed at using free-market competition to lower costs and make private insurance more affordable to businesses and individuals, says Morton Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill. The conservative health care proposal has been offered in the House by Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) and in the Senate by Richard Burr (N.C.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.). The moderate plan has been proposed by Reps. Mark Kirk (Ill.) and Charlie Dent (Pa.) and reportedly will form the basis of a full-blown GOP alternative developed by the GOP Health Care Solutions Group headed by Rep. Roy Blunt (Mo.), but not yet unveiled.
What is the Optimum Size of Government?
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18333
Excerpt: Previous studies have tried to determine and quantify the optimum size of government, recognizing that not all governments and societies are the same, and most have shown that the optimum size is between 12 and 30 percent of GDP. However, IME finds that the government sector should be no larger than 25 percent (and perhaps considerably smaller) to maximize GDP growth. All major governments, including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy greatly exceed the 25 percent level. The average government sector for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries now exceeds 41 percent of GDP.
The Price We All Pay For High Tax Rates
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18330
Excerpt: President Barack Obama wants Americans to believe that they can enjoy all of his proposed programs without paying for them because "the rich" will cover the cost. But taxing "the rich" will only be the start. To get real money, the big spenders are going to have to tax the middle class as well, says Bandow.
AP: Canada Considering Healthcare Overhaul with Private Insurance
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/08/16/ap-canada-considering-healthcare-overhaul-private-insurance
Excerpt: The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it. Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made. "We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doig said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Where Do We Find Good Leaders?
http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/tsegel/2009/ts_08131.shtml
Excerpt: Those questions the American people are asking today don't seem to have any positive answers. Citizens want to know why their views relative to proposed federal legislation are not being taken into account. They want to know why favoritism is being shown toward political supporters to the detriment of the entire country. They want to know why they should be forced into government-mandated programs ranging from the cars they drive to the healthcare they receive. They want to know why unelected or unconfirmed czars are being placed in positions of great power and control.
Climate Science: The Devil’s In the Details (Which Apparently No Longer Exist)
http://www.redstate.com/vladimir/2009/08/16/climate-science-the-devils-in-the-details-which-apparently-no-longer-exist/
You have to trust them, because they don’t keep the data!
Egyptian charged with genital mutilation of 11-year-old girl
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027255.php
Excerpt: An Egyptian man has been charged with practicing female circumcision on an 11 year-old girl, reports the website of TV station Al Arabiya today. Ahmed Gad al-Karim, 69 year-old, is the first person to be tried for this type of procedure since an Egyptian law came into effect which treats all types of female genital mutilation as a crime. The law, which was passed in 2008, was fiercely criticised by the Islamic Brotherhood and by supporters of the Egyptian parliament, who maintained that they supported the practice as "conforming to Sharia law (Islamic law) and protecting the chastity of women". However, the Islamic Institution responsible for religious opinion (Dar al-Iftaa) responded by saying that female genital mutilation is not part of the Islamic culture.
Jihadists demolish 20 churches, murder three pastors
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027254.php
No big deal. Not very news-worthy. Now if it were Jews accused of desecrating a Qur’an….
Afghanistan's "no sex, no food" law for Shi'ite women goes into effect
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/027253.php
Excerpt: An Afghan bill allowing a husband to starve his wife if she refuses to have sex has been published in the official gazette and become law. (These are our allies, the good, moderate Muslims!)
You've Had a Good Innings
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTAxYzFjODdiN2E3OWUyNzY1MDU1ODM1ZjZjYmY3YjM=&w=MA
Excerpt from the always-entertaining Mark Steyn: Which brings us to the United States and its allegedly worst health system in the developed world. Here's the reality: The longer you live in America, the longer you live. If you're one of those impressionable Meet the Press viewers who heard Mayor Bloomberg bemoaning U.S. life expectancy and you're thinking, "Hey, I'm 77. Just about at the end, America-wise. Maybe it's time to move up north or over to Europe, and get a couple of bonus years," don't do it! If you're old enough to be a Meet the Press viewer, your life expectancy is already way up there. America is the Afghanistan of the western world: That's to say, it has a slightly higher infant mortality rate than other developed nations (there are reasons for that which I'll discuss in an upcoming column). That figure depresses our overall "life expectancy at birth." But, if you can make it out of diapers, you'll live longer than you would pretty much anywhere else. By age 40, Americans' life expectancy has caught up with Britons'. By 60, it equals Germany's. At the age of 80, Americans have greater life expectancy than Swedes.
Don't Go There
Martha's Vineyard is not the best presidential vacation site.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/819iwhon.asp?pg=2
Excerpt: Dear Mr. President, How nice to know you will summer on Martha's Vineyard at Blue Heron Farm, where the amenities are said to be fabulous. "The 28-acre estate, $20 million enclave is located in Chilmark," CBS told us. "The farm suits Obama to a tee with golf facilities, a pool, basketball court, private beach, and a rental price tag of up to $50,000 a week." What happened? Versailles and The Breakers were rented already? Is this how you empathize with the suffering masses, whose pain you feel so at town meetings? What is it with real estate and you liberal Democrats? There's John Kerry, who has five mansions, including a ski chalet whose every last stone was brought over from England; and John Edwards, whose "house" looks like five of them strung together, and which has not one, but two, stages, and its own private gym.
Obama fighting for his presidency, not reform
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama-fighting-for-his-presidency_-not-reform-8114039-53354747.html
Excerpt: The big question for President Barack Obama right now isn't about health care, but his own political survival. If he fails to deliver health legislation, Obama will prove right those who said he was in over his head. That would make him something of a lame duck after only seven months in office. But if he does manage to squeeze a bill out of Congress, it would be a Pyrrhic victory. By delivering unwanted changes to unwilling voters on a life-or-death issue, the president would squander the goodwill he earned during the campaign. Voters now say passing nothing would be better than any of the plans stewing in Congress, so it's hard to imagine that lawmakers will return from their recess ready to take political risks.
Cindy Sheehan heads to the Vineyard; wants anti-war demonstrators to emulate health-care protesters; will anyone cover the story?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Cindy-Sheehan-heads-to-the-Vineyard-wants-anti-war-demonstrators-to-emulate-health-care-protesters-will-anyone-cover-the-story-53406107.html
Excerpt: This morning the anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan -- the woman who spent so much time leading well-publicized protests outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas -- announced that she will demonstrate next week at Martha's Vineyard, where President Obama will be vacationing. "There are several things that we wish to accomplish with this protest on Martha's Vineyard," Sheehan said in a statement: “First of all, no good social or economic change will come about with the continuation or escalation of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We simply can't afford to continue this tragically expensive foreign policy.”
Keeping Score
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/keeping-score/#more-4715
Excerpt: Why is it that Washington is spending so many hours over so many months — on top of two decades of prior conversation, analysis and debate — and is still failing to come up with a reasonable way to reform the health care system? Today I will slice through the Gordian Knot and give you a simple way to keep score. There are four basic questions to be asked of any health care system. If you answer these questions the right way, the path to reform is rather easy and straightforward. But if you answer even one question the wrong way, you will get caught up in a cycle of complexity — with fix upon fix, each trying to patch up the problems created by the previous fix. Hint: Right answers are the ones that give people socially good incentives. Those are incentives to meet your own needs without imposing external costs on others. Wrong answers are the ones that give people socially bad incentives. These are perverse incentives to impose external costs on others in the process of pursuing your own interests.
Bob Dylan Arrested for Walking
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/bob_dylan_arrested_for_walking/
police said he was very cooperative. He should have screamed, “This is what happens to a folksinger in America!” Would have gotten him a beer at the White House.
From a Marine vet:
Without encroaching on anyone's partisan political persuasions, this is an opportunity for American's (in general) to unite for a common cause that will serve all. Collectively throw all incumbents out. Keep your existing party preference (if that's how you vote/operate), but vote the professional politicians out. Effectively hit the "reset" button in order to return government to the people. Maybe then we will see results and stop the polarization that is causing so much turmoil (and waste) correcting our current inability to make sound decisions that enhance America, rather than divide it. America needs to be more dynamic. It's okay to disagree, but the bickering I'm seeing on both sides of the fence is offensive to me. This is not what government was set up to achieve, but it is exactly what we have going on! Relative to issues facing us today I am hopeful the American spirit of innovation, free enterprise, independence, self-reliance and sense of justice for our fellow man is beyond the current flirt we are having with socialistic ideology and agenda. Are we going to toss that which has brought us so far? A quotation I just read, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, perhaps best sums up what I believe the majority of Americans (left/right/middle-of-the-road) still believe: "Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them."
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