I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. It doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with then either. I have to say all this to give some of my critics the benefit of the doubt, assuming they are thick, rather than deliberately taking things the wrong way.
I will be traveling 4/28 through 5/5, and will have little or no time and/or computer access, so there will be few or no daily digests. I will leave a few things of interest to post on the blog.
Voter anger fuels New Hampshire congressional candidates
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/25/AR2010042503470.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: Bounced out of Congress in the 2006 Democratic sweep, former congressman Charlie Bass is trying to win back his narrowly divided district in November. He's still a bellwether candidate. But Charlie Bass has changed. The old version, the one who didn't believe he would lose until the day it happened, was a traditional New England Republican, moderate in substance and style. The new Charlie Bass is full of fight. He accuses President Obama of "coddling terrorists" and advancing "extremist" policies, like the Wall Street overhaul bill now facing a Republican filibuster threat on the Senate floor. Bass said recently of "tea party" activists: "God bless every single one of them. Their agenda is exactly the same as mine." But for a career politician who served on Capitol Hill for a dozen years, addressing serious policy questions with people who profess to hold zero faith in the federal government can get awkward. Bass's challenge is to recraft his image in a way that will defang his conservative Republican opponents yet stay true enough to his centrist self to win back the crucial independent voters who defected to his Democratic opponent in 2006.
Republicans and Democrats alike voice optimism about midterm elections
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/25/AR2010042502893.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: With six months remaining before the November midterm elections, partisans in both parties are finding evidence -- some of it contradictory -- that things are looking up.
Gains are a near-certainty for Republicans in both the House and the Senate. But defining the extent of those pickups, as well as the criteria by which each side might be able to declare victory in November, remains a pitched partisan battle at the moment. In fundraising, for instance, the three Democratic campaign committees -- the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- ended March with $22 million more in the bank than their Republican counterparts. But Senate Republicans were quick to note that while they trailed the DSCC by $2 million in cash on hand, that was a far smaller deficit than at this time in 2006 ($15.6 million less) and 2008 ($20.6 million less).
Jumping into immigration reform could cut both ways for Democrats
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/94221-jumping-into-immigration-could-cut-both-ways-for-dems
I think they figure they better try to run the table now, as it might be 20 years before the voters forget and give them the chance to do this much damage again. Note they will take tough votes in a non-election year, secure in the voters’ short term memory loss. Excerpt: Immigration’s arrival as a possible legislative issue reflects the aggressive approach Democrats have taken since the passage of healthcare reform. Democrats have played offense since Obama signed the healthcare bill, first by pushing a Wall Street reform bill to the floor, and now by signaling a fight on immigration is on the horizon. The danger on immigration, however, is that it can cut both ways. Dozens of House and Senate Democrats representing more conservative districts or states will want to avoid voting on one of the most divisive debates in the country’s politics. House Democratic leaders have insisted they will not move on immigration reform before the Senate for precisely this reason. A move on immigration reform in the Senate would violate Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) pledge to not force her members to take tough votes in an election year unless the Senate acts first.
Will Arizona Immigration Law Help or Harm? Vote now
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/24/immigration-law-help-harm
The Hill's Lawmaker Ratings
http://thehill.com/resources/lawmaker-ratings
Excerpt: The Hill has tabulated scores that Washington advocacy organizations give members of Congress, so you can check them at thehill.com rather than roaming the Internet from site to site. We cite 31 organizations, which is a fair cross section rather than a comprehensive list. Click on a lawmaker's name to see his or her page.
Sen. John McCain’s ratings—this is a RINO?
http://thehill.com/resources/lawmaker-ratings/76163-sen-john-mccain-r-ariz%20
National Right to Life 100%
American Conservative Union 96%
Americans for Democratic Action 5%
AFSCME 0%
US Chamber 100%
NFIB 100%
Business-Industry PAC 100%
Citizens Against Govt Waste 100%
National Taxpayers Union 93%
Council for Security Policy 100%
Once we throw out all the RINOs who are more liberal than this on some issues, the Democrats will win every election.
The Fix: Charlie Crist's big decision
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/charlie-crists-big-decision.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) has until noon on Friday to decide whether he will run for Senate as a Republican, an independent or not at all. And, his only audience is the entire political world. Crist spent Thursday and Friday of last week meeting with key Republican strategists and donors that had come into his political orbit over the last decade, testing them on the idea of whether or not he should run as an independent, according to one senior Florida GOPer. Most Republican sources in Florida and Washington seem to believe that a Crist switch is a foregone conclusion -- there is even speculation about when this week he might choose to announce it -- but, as almost always in these sorts of delicate political situations, there are very few people who know the real deal and they are not talking much. The Florida Republican party as well as a series of national leaders clearly believe that Crist is switching, however, as they have lined up behind former state House Speaker Marco Rubio -- with former Vice President Dick Cheney being the last major figure to formally back Rubio. If Crist does switch, the first few days after he formalizes that decision will be critical. He will need to cast it as a grassroots uprising that led him to reconsider his lifelong affiliation with the GOP. Rubio -- and Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek -- will do everything they can to cast Crist's decision as simply the latest in a serious of opportunistic moves by Crist, an uber-ambitious politician focused more on moving up the ladder than doing the job he was elected to do. No matter what happens, this is going to be a remarkable week in Florida politics.
ObamaCare Mulligan: About those lower insurance costs we promised . . . .
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704133804575198322718759844.html
Excerpt: When President Obama signed his health-care reform last month, he declared it will "lower costs for families and for businesses and for the federal government." So why, barely a month later, are Democrats scrambling to pass a new bill that would impose price controls on insurance? In now-they-tell-us hearings on Tuesday, the Senate health committee debated a bill that would give states the power to reject premium increases that state regulators determine are "unreasonable." The White House proposed this just before the final Obama- Care scramble, but it couldn't be included because it violated the procedural rules that Democrats abused to pass the bill. Some 27 states currently have some form of rate review in the individual and small-business markets, but they generally don't leverage it in a political way because insolvent insurers are expensive for states and bankruptcies limit consumer choices. One exception is Massachusetts: Governor Deval Patrick is now using this regulatory power to create de facto price controls and assail the state's insurers as cover for the explosive costs resulting from the ObamaCare prototype the Bay State passed in 2006. National Democrats now want the power to do the same across the country, because they know how unrealistic their cost-control claims really are. Democrats are petrified they'll get the blame they deserve when insurance costs inevitably spike. So the purpose of this latest Senate bill is to have a pre-emptive political response on hand. (Simple. You require the insurance companies to spend more on coverage, stop them from getting more in premiums to cover those costs, and they go out of business, making a “public option” the only option.)
Andy Stern's debts: SEIU leader swims away while his organization sinks
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/23/andy-sterns-debts/
Excerpt: Purple may be the official color of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), but Andy Stern is leaving the union deep in the red. Last week, he surprised the labor community by announcing his resignation as president of SEIU. Mr. Stern has claimed victories in helping pass health care legislation and getting President Obama elected, but his impact within his own organization shows gaping budget deficits and massive underfunding of pensions. (Too big to fail. We taxpayers will have to bail them out.)
Public-sector unions bankrupting America
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/23/public-sector-unions-bankrupting-america/
The collapse is coming. Excerpt: Usually it takes a national government to spend itself into a debt measured in the trillions. Yet it comes as little surprise that the same profligacy that pervades the corridors of federal power infects this country's 87,000 state, county and municipal governments and school districts. By 2013, the amount of retirement money promised to employees of these public entities will exceed cash on hand by more than a trillion dollars. That's according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, which earlier this month released a troubling analysis of 126 state and local pension plans. The center's researchers found in the wake of the stock market collapse that measures of pension program solvency hit a 15-year low with no signs of improvement on the horizon. This means taxpayers will be left picking up the tab.
Tax day 101: Are some states driving people out with high state taxes?
http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/content/view/print/294580
More evidence. But conservatives don’t need more evidence, and liberals won’t care. Excerpt: Among the millions of Americans paying taxes this week more than a few of them probably feel like hiring a moving van. That's because what state they live in can have a big impact on they total tax bill. Some states, like California and New Jersey, have income taxes with top rates above 10 percent. Others charge no income tax at all. Taxes are just one reason people might move. But it's interesting to note the overlap between tax rates and migration trends in the past decade. Start by considering this: Nine states levy no income tax, according to the Tax Foundation, a research group in Washington. Those are Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington State, and Wyoming. Of those nine, all but one – Alaska – saw more people migrating in than out (within the 50 states) during the period from 2000 to 2008, according to research by the Empire Center for New York State Policy. Eight states, by contrast, saw significant outward migration – an amount equal to 4 percent or more of their population – during that time. And many of those states also happen to have higher-than average taxes. (Since 2008, the impact of recession has slowed migration trends but generally hasn't reversed them.) The eight states with big population outflows are California, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. The District of Columbia also saw heavy net migration outward.
Senate Republicans may offer their own measure to overhaul Wall St.
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/banking-financial-institutions/94299-senate-republicans-may-offer-own-wall-street-overhaul-measure
Senate Republicans may offer an alternate financial overhaul bill if a test vote pushed by Democrats fails on Monday. Senate Democrats are looking for 60 votes to open debate on a broad financial overhaul measure, while Republicans say they have the votes to prevent passage. The vote is scheduled for 5 p.m. on Monday. Republican aides said they may quickly offer an alternate measure that has been in drafting for months.
The Land Beyond Chitchat and Oughtta Be
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/austin-bay/2010/04/21/the-land-beyond-chitchat-and-oughtta-be/
Excerpt: Barack Obama isn't leading. Instead, events are leading the president -- and I don't mean stage-managed summits, puppet press conferences or White House dinners, but the international events that matter, the ones paid for in blood. Iran and North Korea are immediate cases where rogue regimes seeking nuclear weapons follow calculated strategies that harm American interests and allies.... Both nations bluster, but they also act. Last month, an event caught South Korea by surprise: an explosion sank a South Korean warship, killing 46 sailors. Last week, investigators examining the wreck said it appeared an external explosion (possibly a torpedo or mine) sunk the ship.... From its inception, the Obama administration has talked and talked a great deal about the way it wants the world to be. Rhetorical theatrics, to include sermons promoting visions, and emotionally charged media spectaculars hold pre-eminent and almost holy positions among administration elites. This is understandable, for these are the tools of domestic politics in a free, secure nation of laws -- the terrain where American community organizers operate. Obama believes that if he can chitchat long enough and with sufficient eloquence, the world will align with his words -- his rhetorical "oughtta be" becomes the way it is. It worked in Chicago. But talk does not stop mass-murdering dictatorships. Events -- especially unexpected, game-changing events -- demand action.
Obama's Plan -- A Regulatory Mess
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/22/john-lott-obama-financial-reform-speech-bailouts-chris-dodd-senate/
Excerpt: If President Obama's financial regulations are adopted, there will be fewer loans, credit will be more costly, and individuals will face more risk. Obama argues today that his reforms are necessary to prevent "a second Great Depression" from occurring, but he does nothing to fix what the government did. Nothing is done to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, despite their problems with fraud and costing taxpayers $400 billion in bailouts. Nothing is done to change government regulations that force banks to make risky mortgages. The powers that would be given to the president and the Federal Reserve are unprecedented. The bill gives the government the power to regulate the capital, liquidity and permissible activities for a long list of firms, including securities firms, insurance companies, bank holding companies, hedge funds, finance companies as well as others. The government will be also able to limit the size of these companies. The president claims today that he "believe(s) in the power of the free market." Yet, he is constantly demonizing companies. Even liberal New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned: The bashing of Wall Street is something that should worry everybody. According to Obama, there is "an ethic of greed, corner cutting, insider dealing, things that have always threatened the long-term stability of our economic system." In contrast, for government, Obama identifies its only failure as not doing enough regulation, not doing enough to control companies.
CBO Confirms You’re on the Hook for Wall Street Bailout Bill
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/04/26/morning-bell-cbo-confirms-youre-on-the-hook-for-wall-street-bailout-bill/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Excerpt: Now the President is bringing the same audacity to the financial regulatory debate, telling a handpicked audience at New York’s Cooper Union: “Now, there is a legitimate debate taking place about how best to ensure taxpayers are held harmless in this process. But what is not legitimate is to suggest that we’re enabling or encouraging future taxpayer bailouts, as some have claimed. That may make for a good sound bite, but it’s not factually accurate.” Before President Obama continues to go around accusing others of lacking legitimacy, he should read the official cost estimate of the financial regulation bill released by the Congressional Budget Office last Thursday. Assessing the budgetary impact of the $50 billion that “systemically important financial firms” would have to pay in assessments to pay for the bill’s “Orderly Resolution Fund,” the CBO writes: The total amount collected from assessments is estimated to be about $58 billion through 2020. But such assessments would become an additional business expense for companies required to pay them. Those additional expenses would result in decreases in taxable income somewhere in the economy, which would produce a loss of government revenue from income and payroll taxes that would partially offset the revenue collected from the assessment itself. In other words, these financial firms have to get that $58 billion dollars from somewhere, and that somewhere is you.
How Could the Fort Hood Massacre Happen?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704627704575204182680774338.html?
Excerpt: On March 27, 1792, the 2nd U.S. Congress voted to investigate the U.S. Army's devastating loss during the Battle of Wabash (near Fort Recovery, Ind.) at the hands of Indian warriors. A special committee was empowered "to call for such persons, papers, and records, as may be necessary to assist their inquiries"—and the first Congressional oversight investigation was set in motion. President George Washington's cabinet unanimously agreed the administration should "communicate such papers as the public good would permit, and ought to refuse those, the disclosure of which would injure the public." Congress began getting copies a few days later. The investigation revealed embarrassing problems with the War Department's recruitment, training and supplies, among other things. But revealing the problems enabled the government to fix them. And that, in a nutshell, is why we have congressional investigations. No administration should be the sole investigator or judge and jury of its own actions. The temptation to keep damaging information from Congress and the American people is too great. The rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2009—after which U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan was charged with 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder—has been reviewed by the administration and its group of handpicked outsiders, who were all formerly with either the Department of Defense or the Department of Justice. But the administration continues to withhold much of the crucial information from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which we are chairman and ranking member.
Is the U.S. Too Big to Fail?
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/26/is-the-u-s-too-big-to-fail/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=03ffd4f1e8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Excerpt: We have heard from the Obama administration that companies like General Motors or various major banks are simply “too big to fail”—a mantra whose meaning is ambiguous. On one interpretation, the sense is that such enormous enterprises, owing to the fallout attendant upon their collapse, should not be allowed to fail and need to be propped up by vast infusions of cash. At the same time, the implication is that what we might call “maximal structures” generate their own survival momentum, and while some tweaking here and there may prove beneficial they will continue to lumber on regardless. We must, it seems, have confidence in the incommensurably large. We must believe that what is “too big to fail” will either not fail or will not be permitted to fail Analogously, we have been instructed that countries, unlike individuals and certain corporations, are too big to go bankrupt. Walter Wriston, former director of Citibank, is a firm believer in the fiscal resilience of nations. This is no consolation, however, to the people of Zimbabwe today or the citizens of Argentina between1999-2002 during the great economic meltdown. Christopher Booker and Richard Fernandez warn that Britain is on the verge of crashing: the accumulating debt to GDP ratio is frankly unsustainable. When the welfare cheques stop coming, when inflation goes through the roof, when banks invest in padlocks, when essential services are no longer provided and salaries are a fond reminiscence, a nation is effectively in bankruptcy—which is merely another term for failure. The French word for bankruptcy says it all: faillite. There are, of course, many ways for a nation to approach the tipping point of potentially irreversible miscarriage. Economic implosion, as we have seen, is one; defenseless borders in times of conflict are another; unchecked immigration leading to ballooning social costs and a dilution of civic sentiment, as well as internal subversion, is a third; a flaccid, poorly educated and self-indulgent public unwilling to embrace austerity when necessary or bestir itself to the preservation of the polity is yet a fourth. Taken together, these factors amount to a perfect storm that will bring even a colossus to its knees.
Democrats’ Long-Held Seats Face G.O.P. Threat
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/politics/25campaign.html?pagewanted=all
That right-wing bunch at the NYT predicting GOP wins! Excerpt: Representative David R. Obey has won 21 straight races, easily prevailing through wars and economic crises that have spanned presidencies from Nixon’s to Obama’s. Yet the discontent with Washington surging through politics is now threatening not only his seat but also Democratic control of Congress. Mr. Obey is one of nearly a dozen well-established House Democrats who are bracing for something they rarely face: serious competition. Their predicament is the latest sign of distress for their party and underlines why Republicans are confident of making big gains in November and perhaps even winning back the House. The fight for the midterm elections is not confined to traditional battlegrounds, where Republicans and Democrats often swap seats every few cycles. In the Senate, Democrats are struggling to hold on to, among others, seats once held by President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Democrats are preparing to lose as many as 30 House seats — including a wave of first-term members — and Republicans have expanded their sights to places where political challenges seldom develop.
"This is war of religion, not just a war between Arabs and Israelis...this is an Islamic war, which will end in victory only under the banner of Jihad"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/04/this-is-war-of-religion-not-just-a-war-between-arabs-and-israelisthis-is-an-islamic-war-which-will-e.html
Gee. If we called the war on terror a “war of religion,” wonder what would happen? Excerpt:
Iranian technocrats, disillusioned with government, offer wealth of intelligence to U.S.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/24/AR2010042402710.html?wprss=rss_politics&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wp-dyn/rss/politics/index_xml+(washingtonpost.com+-+Politics)
Excerpt: Iran's political turmoil has prompted a growing number of the country's officials to defect or leak information to the West, creating a new flow of intelligence about its secretive nuclear program, U.S. officials said. The gains have complicated work on a long-awaited assessment of Iran's nuclear activities, a report that will represent the combined judgment of more than a dozen U.S. spy agencies. The National Intelligence Estimate was due last fall but has been delayed at least twice amid efforts to incorporate information from sources who are still being vetted. Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said in a brief interview last week that the delay in the completion of the NIE "has to do with the information coming in and the pace of developments."
Must Read: Obama Administration Report is a Devastating Critique of ObamaCare http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/obama-administration-report-is-a-devastating-critique-of-obamacare/
Excerpt: Rick Foster is my hero. Over the past year, he has proved over and over that he cannot be bullied, intimidated, threatened, cajoled, browbeaten, buffaloed, hornswaggled, seduced, tricked, duped, bamboozled, bribed, blackmailed, coerced or bought off. In a place like Washington, D.C., this means that most days he probably eats lunch alone. It’s amazing that he still has his job. Rick Foster is the Chief Actuary of Medicare, and his office has just released a devastating critique of the Administration’s health reform law. Before getting to details, let me say there is nothing in the report that is surprising to independent health economists. The conclusions are consistent with everything The Lewin Group and other private estimates have been saying for months. What is surprising is that one of the most respected agencies of the U.S. government is completely undermining the Alice-in-Wonderland fables being spun by the White House, on Capitol Hill and in the mainstream media.
AP-GfK poll: Recession helps GOP against Democrats
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100426/ap_on_bi_ge/us_ap_poll_voters__trust
Excerpt: Notch one more victim of the recession: With crucial midterm elections nearing, Democrats have lost the advantage they've held for years as the party the public trusts to steer the economy. The timing could be fortunate for the Republicans. With jobs and the economy dominating voters' concerns, the GOP will wield the issue as a cudgel in the battle to grab control of at least one chamber of Congress this November and weaken President Barack Obama.
Obama Is Enabling Nuclear Breakout
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/obama_is_enabling_nuclear_brea.html
Excerpt: Obama is now set to be the biggest loser of the last sixty years -- the man who let nuclear weapons explode out of control by fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of the threat. The implications for the future are unpredictable, but just as World War II was more consequential than the New Deal, there is nothing an American president can do that is more important that his national security actions. When -- not if -- nuclear proliferation runs out of control, it won't look like the Cold War, when only two superpowers had usable missiles and weapons, and when, after Stalin died, both sides acted fairly rationally. Instead, Obama's towering failure means a multi-polar race to get the baddest bombs, with the mullahs racing the Sunni Arabs and a very real chance that Hezb'allah or al-Qaeda will get enough material to build a dirty nuke. Only advanced missile defenses will save us, and if America doesn't speed up our defense development, then the saner nations in the world will do it. They are not going to wait for us.... Today we see murderous tyrannies rising again, and Obama is too busy navel-gazing to see them for himself. Hugging Mugabe is more his style. So nobody is driving this train, and an abyss yawns just ahead of us.
Obama's credibility crisis
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Obama_s-credibility-crisis-91958294.html
Excerpt: Hard on the heels of that shocking Pew Research Center survey finding that four out of five Americans don't trust government comes a blitz of new revelations about the Obama administration that amount to a full-fledged credibility crisis. The latest disclosures are especially damaging because they concern President Obama's possible misrepresentation of his relationships with former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and convicted felon Tony Rezko, his administration's misleading statements about Obamacare costs, and questions about improper manipulation of government-owned General Motors and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
What about 'hateful' rhetoric from the Left?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/What-about-_hateful_-rhetoric-from-the-Left_-92050019.html
Excerpt: Clinton dredged up this issue and specifically mentioned the so-called "Tea Partiers," and it's significant that the only example of violence that Chen could think of was McVeigh's, who was way out there on the right-wing fringes. He sure as heck didn't mention the history of domestic violence and terrorism perpetrated by left-wingers. Let's see, there was the Weather Underground, in which Bombin' Billy Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, played prominent roles. The Puerto Rican FALN committed more than 100 bombings across the United States and its homeland. Members of the Symbionese Liberation Army murdered Oakland, Calif., schools Superintendent Marcus Foster in 1973.
Wisconsin and the Voter Fraud Agenda
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704671904575193930226978178.html
Excerpt: An attempt to hijack the state's election laws and open the door for voter fraud failed at the last minute this week in Wisconsin's legislature. But threats to ballot integrity continue in other states, and Congress may rush to pass ill-conceived legislation this year that would only sow confusion and increase the potential for chaos on a national level. Wisconsin's story shows how high the stakes are. Late in March, a 72-page bill was suddenly introduced and rushed forward with only abbreviated hearings. The bill would have given "nationally recognized" community organizing groups access to the state driver's license database to encourage voter turnout. After the infamous registration scandals involving Acorn in 2008, this was clearly a strange priority. Requests for an absentee ballot in a single election would also become permanent (without requiring a legitimate reason, such as infirmity), and the ballots would be automatically mailed out in future elections. Coercion and chicanery are made much easier by the excessive use of absentee ballots. Most of the elections thrown out by courts—Miami, Florida's mayoral election in 1998, the East Chicago, Indiana's mayor's race in 2005—involved fraudulent absentee votes. Three decades ago absentee and early ballots were only 5% of all votes cast nationwide. In 2008, they exceeded 25%. Wisconsin's bill would also have allowed voters to register on the Internet without supplying a signature—thus removing a valuable protection against identity theft and election fraud.
Battle for Kandahar
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/battle-for-kandahar.htm
Wish I was there (and younger and in better shape!)
Obama Rejects ‘Empathy’ as High Court Nominee Litmus
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=4570
Satire: Eager to avoid the controversy that surrounded his last Supreme Court pick, President Barack Obama today categorically rejected “empathy” as a characteristic he seeks in a court nominee. “On the contrary,” the president said emphatically, “I’m looking for a judge who cannot be swayed by the subjective feelings that the Founding Fathers enshrined in the Constitution. My Supreme Court nominee will strictly enforce justice without regard to the vagaries of human emotion that swept away Madison, Washington, Franklin, Hamilton and the others.” President Obama’s remarks come after recent White House suggestions that he’s scouring the nation to find candidates, not with empathy, but with “a keen understanding of how the law affects the daily lives of the American people,” which is an entirely different quality. The president noted that he, as a former Constitutional law lecturer and past president of the Harvard Law Review, is “eminently qualified to locate an associate justice for the high court who can overcome the Framers’ knowledge deficit regarding the actual impact of the law on citizens.” “Those old, white men drafted this charter of negative liberties,” Mr. Obama said, “and like a band of grandfathers, gone soft out of compassion for their grandchildren, they tried to free the individual from bondage to the government, when in fact, it’s the government that has their best interests at heart. It’s the government that can deliver so much more justice to them than any Constitution could ever hope to accomplish.” Mr. Obama added that, “Empathy was the Framers’ undoing, and I intend to restore to the court a steely-eyed regard for established law…as it may be established from time to time by the court.”
Joe Wong at RTCA Dinner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buSv1jjAels
Very Funny.
Quote
A truly humble president would occasionally evince some doubt as to whether he is worthy to lead America. Obama seems to doubt whether America is worthy of being led by him. ~James Taranto
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Political Digest April 26, 2010
I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article.
Book Recommendation
Kicking the Sacred Cow, by James P. Hogan is a book about controversies and suppression of evidence in science, which I have just re-read and think is a “must read.” I doubt all the heretics and suppressed claims are true, but find it very interesting that in supposedly “fact based” science, too often scientists who don’t agree with the current orthodoxy are vilified, attacked and suppressed. Climategate wasn’t the only “gate” in science.
Hogan’s website has a section on “heretic book” which challenge the conventional wisdom. http://www.jamesphogan.com/index.php
A correspondent reported a bad link yesterday. Sorry. Try this one.
The Settled Science by James P. Hogan
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/hogan4.1.1.html
Excerpt: Science is concerned with objective reality: the way things are, that lie beyond the power of human desires or action to change. The purpose is to discover what's true, which means accepting that the answers will remain what they are regardless of how passionately we might wish them to be otherwise or how many others we might persuade to share our convictions. Preconceptions are discarded as far as is humanly possible. Facts alone determine what is believed, and whether the consequences are considered socially, politically, ethically, or otherwise good or bad falls where it may. Science of itself has no judgment to pass on such aspects. Politics is concerned with affairs that human activities determine and influence. Beliefs are encouraged that advance political agendas, and perceptions are manipulated in ways that foster beliefs conducive to such ends. In this case, all too often, truth is left to fall where it may.
And in politics, the preconception is everything. To be able to move an agenda toward a goal, you first have to know what the goal is. It has only been realized comparatively recently in the history of human thought that such phenomena as how the planets move or why lighting strikes are indifferent to the antics of humans and not the whims of gods that be angered or placated. Hence, it isn't so surprising that the kind of thinking that serves political ends goes back a lot further in our cultural development and comes more naturally to most people. In the day-to-day business of life, the object is to close the sale, win the election, get a favorable verdict. The slant is set from the beginning, and information and arguments are amassed that will persuade in that direction. Finding information and arguments against is the other side's problem. With those as the ground rules, bending or stretching the story to the extent that opportunism allows, or burying the other side's version if they'll let you get away with it, all becomes part of the game. It's how the visions were inspired that built empires, the rages provoked that won wars, and the fanaticisms born that created religions and swept mass movements into power. But it won't change the law of gravity or the speed of light by an iota. Or the dynamics of the Earth's climate. When beliefs that are normally regarded as the province of science become subject to an ideology that decides in advance what answers are required and censors the evidence in ways that steer beliefs toward them, then, regardless of what incidental use might be made of computers, satellites, and other kinds of advanced engineering and technology, what's going on isn't science. But most of the world has never learned to tell the difference – or maybe cared that much. And that's serious in a society where scientists have come to occupy the position previously enjoyed by the high priesthood, of being revered as the source of true knowledge and providing the justifications for the policies that the governing authority pursues. The danger is that pronouncements made in the name of science will continue to be unquestioned and used as pretexts for controversial or oppressive rulings long after any grounds on a scientific basis have ceased to exist. I'm writing this at Christmas time, 2009. We've just witnessed a circus of deception and foolishness in Copenhagen that marks a new high in the attempted foisting of a politically motivated ideology upon the world in the guise of bogus science. Fortunately – for the time being at any rate – the canniness of the developing nations in demanding that the supposedly rational West literally put its money where its mouth was by playing out a lemming-like stampede to economic self-destruction brought home the absurdity to a degree that even our scientifically clueless best and brightest couldn't buy, and the whole thing largely came to nothing. Claims that human activity was – or was even capable of – measurably affecting the Earth's climate made little sense to begin with. For as far back as patterns can be reconstructed, the climate has always cycled between being warmer or cooler, wetter or drier, stormy or settled, and the changes observed during the industrial era have been well inside the swings that have taken place in the past. So there's no reason to suppose that anything, human-induced or otherwise, is affecting the climate abnormally. Compared to water vapor and the activity of the Sun, carbon dioxide plays a minor role in determining temperature, and the amount generated by Nature dwarfs anything that humans add. In any case, the times of rising temperature recorded over the ages have all happened first, not the other way around, so increases in CO2 levels are a consequence not a cause.
Nuclear No-Contest by James P. Hogan
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/hogan3.1.1.html
Excerpt: Before the 1950s, the future confronting the human race was bleak. With the global population increasing and becoming more dependent on energy-dense technologies to sustain its food supplies and rising living standards, there seemed no escape from the catastrophe that would come eventually when the coal and the oil ran out. But few worried unduly. It was only after an escape from the nightmare presented itself with the harnessing of nuclear processes and the prospect of unlimited energy that people began to worry. People can be very strange.
Seattle cartoonist launches "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day"
http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=313170
She has more courage than our government and the Leftstream media put together. Excerpt: After Comedy Central cut a portion of a South Park episode following a death threat from a radical Muslim group, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris wanted to counter the fear. She has declared May 20th "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day." Norris told KIRO Radio's Dave Ross that cartoonists are meant to challenge the lines of political correctness. "That's a cartoonist's job, to be non-PC."
Road to Radicalism: The Man Behind the ‘South Park’ Threats
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13476
Excerpt: By all appearances, Zachary Adam Chesser was the boy next door. He played football and was on the crew team at one of the best high schools in the country. He even studied Japanese. He was hardly the sort of boy you’d expect would suggest on a radical Islamic website that the creators of the edgy cartoon series “South Park” will be targeted for death. But Chesser also had a dark side. He was a “loner,” a former classmate said, one who frequently drew pictures of Satanic figures in his notebooks and had just a few friends, most of them male. “He was definitely sort of weird,” the classmate told FoxNews.com. “He was very into violent industrial music, borderline Satanic bands and stuff like that. He had dark undertones in his interests.” Two years later, Chesser is literally a changed man. He now uses an alias and has a new set of hobbies. He now likes to be called Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, and his primary interest in this world appears to be Islamic radicalism. Last week, Chesser, 20, posted a warning on the website RevolutionMuslim.com following the 200th episode of “South Park,” which included a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad disguised in a bear suit. The young man, who just two years ago was studying foreign languages at George Mason University, wrote on the site that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the cartoon’s creators, “will probably end up” like Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was murdered in 2004 after making a film critical of Islamic society.
'Last and best shot' at climate change bill hangs by a thread
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/94157-last-best-shot-at-climate-change-law-hangs-by-a-thread
Cut the thread. Excerpt: President Barack Obama’s hopes for winning climate change legislation in this Congress appeared to be hanging by a thread on Saturday. The key Republican senator negotiating on the bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), threatened to abandon his work out of fury that Democratic leaders may take up immigration legislation before a global warming bill. Hours later, the principal Democrat working the issue, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), announced that a press conference to unveil the legislation on Monday was being “temporarily” postponed due to “external issues.”
Immigration Decision Endangers Climate Change Bill
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04/24/immigration-decision-endangers-climate-change-bill/?icid=mainmaindl1link5http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicsdaily.com%2F2010%2F04%2F24%2Fimmigration-decision-endangers-climate-change-bill%2F
Excerpt: Sen. Lindsey Graham, the lead Republican sponsor of the climate bill, sent a letter Saturday to supporters of the measure threatening to abandon the effort without assurances from President Obama that climate change, and not immigration reform, will be his highest legislative priority. After hearing this, Sen. John Kerry said that, "regrettably," he would postpone the long-awaited unveiling of a comprehensive energy and climate bill that he had hoped to introduce Monday with Graham's support, the AP reported. He tried to assure environmentalists the delay was only temporary.
Benny Peiser: Political Climate Change
http://thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/863-benny-peiser-political-climate-change.html
Excerpt: Whatever the outcome of the forthcoming election, Britain's extravagant climate policies are unlikely to survive intact. The coming battle over the cost of unilateral CO2 targets and utopian decarbonisation will be overshadowed by the next government's desperate attempt to revive the UK economy, raise its competitiveness and radically reduce the rising debt burden. In short, the economic crisis has rendered costly and unilateral climate policies unsustainable, both financially and politically. The climate agenda has become unpopular among voters and businesses who are increasingly hostile to any climate taxes that are amplifying their energy, petrol and heating bills. In many ways, carbon and climate taxes have turned into considerable political liabilities. While the Australian government has been forced to shelf its controversial emissions trading scheme, President Obama's administration is struggling to push its cap-and-trade bill through the US Senate because senators of his own party, the Blue Dog Democrats, are opposed to proposals they fear as being too costly and too risky. After suffering a crushing electoral defeat, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been forced to scrap his unpopular carbon tax. The French government made clear that its climate tax has been postponed indefinitely "in order not to damage the competitiveness of French companies", fearing that it would be too risky for France to go it alone without the rest of the EU. Similar concerns over the economic risks of unilateral climate policies are likely to ascend in Britain after the general election. What is more, concern among the British public about the potential threat of climate change has declined sharply after months of Climategate controversies and growing disillusionment with costly Government schemes.
Earth Day? No thanks, I already have a religion
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13506
Excerpt: This bizarre holiday was started in the 70’s, when everyone was worried that our exhaust fumes and hair spray were bringing on the next ice age. As reality collided with propaganda, and the earth actually started warming up, believers jumped on the global warming bandwagon. Now that truth has inconveniently reared its head again, revealing that the earth is once again in a cooling cycle, and sustainability devotees have decided to admit that “climate change,” happens, and simply focus on trying to seize control the fact that it causes populations to migrate. Whether the earth is warming or cooling, and whether or not this is a good or bad thing, we are assured that it is a crisis, and that we must demonstrate our reverence for the scientific consensus of the day, and faithfully teach our children to unquestioningly cooperate and comply with the latest eco-chic trends – whatever they are this week.
Predictions Of Global Mean Temperatures & IPCC Projections
Girma Orssengo, B. Tech, MASc, PhD
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/predictions-of-gmt.pdf
Excerpt: The data required to establish the effect of CO2 emission on global mean temperature already exist. The global mean temperature data are available from the Climate Research Unit of the Hadley Centre shown in Figure 3, and the CO2 emission data are available from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre [8]. For the period from 1880 to 1940, the average emission of CO2 was about 0.8 G-ton, and the increase in the GMTA was 0.13+0.22=0.35 deg C. For the period from 1940 to 2000, the average emission of CO2 was about 4 G-ton, but the increase in GMTA was the same 0.48-0.13=0.35 deg C. This means that an increase in CO2 emission by 4/0.8=5-fold has no effect in the increase in the GMTA. This conclusively proves that the effect of 20th century human emission of CO2 on global mean temperature is nil.
It worked so well for Bush
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13462
Excerpt: Whenever President Bush talked about immigration, his approval ratings went down. It was like clockwork: liberals never understood that the fatal decline in Bush’s popularity during his second term had at least as much to do with his advocacy of “comprehensive immigration reform” as with war-weariness. Now President Obama has entered the lists, urging Congress to take up immigration. One can only wonder what Congressional Democrats make of this. Maybe they figure their own approval ratings can’t possibly get any lower. But Obama’s can, and they will if he keeps talking about immigration. In Arizona, frustrated by ongoing lack of enforcement of immigration laws by the federal government, the legislature has taken matters into its own hands, adopting legislation to try to crack down on illegals. This is how the Associated Press summarizes the Arizona statute……Barack Obama thinks Arizona’s effort to sustain the rule of law is “irresponsible.”
Saturday Night Card Game (The Arizona Immigration Bill Is Not Racist)
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/04/saturday-night-card-game-arizona.html
Excerpt: William A. Jacobson, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Cornell Law School, Ithaca, NY This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain: The Governor of Arizona just signed a bill which, in the words of opponents, is the equivalent of the Japanese internment during WWII, the Nazi Nuremberg laws, and a host of other racist or allegedly racist wrongs which have been committed since the dawn of mankind. Cassy Fiano has a good roundup of the reaction. I then did something almost no one else has done. Certainly not the people claiming the bill is racist. I actually read the bill, not just the news reports. The bill does raise public policy issues as to whether we really want to enforce the immigration laws, but it is not racist.
Google backs Yahoo in privacy fight with DOJ
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20002423-38.html
Excerpt: Google and an alliance of privacy groups have come to Yahoo's aid by helping the Web portal fend off a broad request from the U.S. Department of Justice for e-mail messages, CNET has learned. In a brief filed Tuesday afternoon, the coalition says a search warrant signed by a judge is necessary before the FBI or other police agencies can read the contents of Yahoo Mail messages--a position that puts those companies directly at odds with the Obama administration. Yahoo has been quietly fighting prosecutors' requests in front of a federal judge in Colorado, with many documents filed under seal. Tuesday's brief from Google and the other groups aims to buttress Yahoo's position by saying users who store their e-mail in the cloud enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy that is protected by the U.S. Constitution. "Society expects and relies on the privacy of e-mail messages just as it relies on the privacy of the telephone system," the friend-of-the-court brief says. "Indeed, the largest e-mail services are popular precisely because they offer users huge amounts of computer disk space in the Internet 'cloud' within which users can warehouse their e-mails for perpetual storage." (Interesting, the same kind of protest against the warrantless searches under Bush to look for Al Qaeda communications to and from the US (which were restricted specifically to traffic coming to or going from this country to other countries) now has to be raised against the present Administration who want to see any and all e-mails freely. The law has always hinged on the "expectation of privacy" concept, which means if you broadcast your message by open radio waves it's the same as yelling out your door, and you cannot have such expectation. (So cell phone calls and calls from portable handsets can be listened to without a warrant.) But when you send messages that are on the Net through a service like Yahoo and allow them to be stored for your own later consideration, you do expect privacy (at least everybody I know does). Telling the agency that has such message storage to open up the files is like telling the bank where you have letters in a safe deposit box to open them up. So where is the screaming about privacy that arose about the Bush policy on international phone calls, when a very parallel situation (in fact, somewhat more extensive) has arisen today? --Del)
A New Sheriff in the Strait
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/j-e-dyer/283931
Excerpt: In the flurry of mildly interesting disclosures from the Iranian military exercise this week, one is likely to be overlooked. Iranian state media report that on Friday, April 23, the Revolutionary Guard’s naval arm stopped two ships for inspection in the Strait of Hormuz. The ships, according to Iran’s Press TV, were French and Italian. The photo accompanying the story depicts a Kaman-class guided-missile patrol boat on which the boxy, Chinese-designed C802 anti-ship-missile launchers can be seen amidships. The stated purpose of the inspections was to verify “environmental compliance.” The names of the foreign ships were not provided; sketchy details make it difficult to be certain exactly where in the strait they were stopped. But European ships — even private yachts — rarely venture outside the recognized navigation corridors in the Strait of Hormuz. If this news report is valid, it almost certainly means that Iran detained ships that were transiting those corridors. That, as our vice president might say, is a big effing deal.
Iran strikes secret nuclear mining deal with Zimbabwe's Mugabe regime
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/7628750/Iran-strikes-secret-nuclear-mining-deal-with-Zimbabwes-Mugabe-regime.html
Delicious irony. The regimes in Iran and Zimbabwe were birthed with the assistant of American liberalism, to the never ending grief of their people and the world. Excerpt: In return for supplying oil, which Zimbabwe desperately needs to keep its faltering economy moving, Iran has been promised access to potentially huge deposits of uranium ore – which can be converted into the basic fuel for nuclear power or enriched to make a nuclear bomb.... The revelation came after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, visited Zimbabwe last week to show his support for Mr Mugabe. At a lavish official dinner in his honour on Thursday evening, Mr Ahmadinejad blasted what he termed "expansionist countries" for exerting "satanic pressures on the people of Zimbabwe", adding: "We believe victory is ours, and humiliation and defeat is for our enemies."
The Scud Saga Continues
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/pollak/283866
Excerpt: Michael Young, the opinion editor of the Beirut Daily Star, has a fine column parsing the latest developments on Syria, Lebanon, and the Obama administration. He confirms the interpretation I made recently on this blog, that the administration is puzzled at the failure of its opening gambits and unsure of what to do next.... Young’s worry is confirmed by this remarkable report from Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin: As for why Syria seems to be playing such an unhelpful role, “that’s the million-dollar question,” the [Obama administration] official said….”We do not understand Syrian intentions. No one does, and until we get to that question we can never get to the root of the problem,” the official said. “Until then it’s all damage control.” This is quite simply amazing. The Assads, father and now son, have run the same foreign policy for decades. It is a very simple model, and one that gets discussed in detail on a regular basis: They are the arsonists who sell water to the fire department.
In Praise of Cheerful Men
http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2010/04/25/in_praise_of_cheerful_men
Excerpt: Hearing about a shortage of farm laborers in California, the couple who would become Susumu Ito's parents moved from Hiroshima to become sharecroppers near Stockton. Thus began a saga that recently brought Ito, 91, to the Holocaust Memorial Museum here, where he and 119 former comrades in arms were honored, during the annual Days of Remembrance, as liberators of Nazi concentration camps. While his Japanese-American Army unit was succoring survivors of Dachau, near Munich, his parents and two sisters were interned in a camp in Arkansas. Ito attended one-room schools, graduated from high school at 16 and was accepted at Berkeley. His parents, however, believed Japanese-Americans could not rise in the professions -- even the civil service -- for which the university would prepare him. So he attended community college, studying auto mechanics, although he could not join the mechanics union.
Ray Stevens - Throw the Bums Out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q59ZcFguUOo&feature=channel
Book Recommendation
Kicking the Sacred Cow, by James P. Hogan is a book about controversies and suppression of evidence in science, which I have just re-read and think is a “must read.” I doubt all the heretics and suppressed claims are true, but find it very interesting that in supposedly “fact based” science, too often scientists who don’t agree with the current orthodoxy are vilified, attacked and suppressed. Climategate wasn’t the only “gate” in science.
Hogan’s website has a section on “heretic book” which challenge the conventional wisdom. http://www.jamesphogan.com/index.php
A correspondent reported a bad link yesterday. Sorry. Try this one.
The Settled Science by James P. Hogan
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/hogan4.1.1.html
Excerpt: Science is concerned with objective reality: the way things are, that lie beyond the power of human desires or action to change. The purpose is to discover what's true, which means accepting that the answers will remain what they are regardless of how passionately we might wish them to be otherwise or how many others we might persuade to share our convictions. Preconceptions are discarded as far as is humanly possible. Facts alone determine what is believed, and whether the consequences are considered socially, politically, ethically, or otherwise good or bad falls where it may. Science of itself has no judgment to pass on such aspects. Politics is concerned with affairs that human activities determine and influence. Beliefs are encouraged that advance political agendas, and perceptions are manipulated in ways that foster beliefs conducive to such ends. In this case, all too often, truth is left to fall where it may.
And in politics, the preconception is everything. To be able to move an agenda toward a goal, you first have to know what the goal is. It has only been realized comparatively recently in the history of human thought that such phenomena as how the planets move or why lighting strikes are indifferent to the antics of humans and not the whims of gods that be angered or placated. Hence, it isn't so surprising that the kind of thinking that serves political ends goes back a lot further in our cultural development and comes more naturally to most people. In the day-to-day business of life, the object is to close the sale, win the election, get a favorable verdict. The slant is set from the beginning, and information and arguments are amassed that will persuade in that direction. Finding information and arguments against is the other side's problem. With those as the ground rules, bending or stretching the story to the extent that opportunism allows, or burying the other side's version if they'll let you get away with it, all becomes part of the game. It's how the visions were inspired that built empires, the rages provoked that won wars, and the fanaticisms born that created religions and swept mass movements into power. But it won't change the law of gravity or the speed of light by an iota. Or the dynamics of the Earth's climate. When beliefs that are normally regarded as the province of science become subject to an ideology that decides in advance what answers are required and censors the evidence in ways that steer beliefs toward them, then, regardless of what incidental use might be made of computers, satellites, and other kinds of advanced engineering and technology, what's going on isn't science. But most of the world has never learned to tell the difference – or maybe cared that much. And that's serious in a society where scientists have come to occupy the position previously enjoyed by the high priesthood, of being revered as the source of true knowledge and providing the justifications for the policies that the governing authority pursues. The danger is that pronouncements made in the name of science will continue to be unquestioned and used as pretexts for controversial or oppressive rulings long after any grounds on a scientific basis have ceased to exist. I'm writing this at Christmas time, 2009. We've just witnessed a circus of deception and foolishness in Copenhagen that marks a new high in the attempted foisting of a politically motivated ideology upon the world in the guise of bogus science. Fortunately – for the time being at any rate – the canniness of the developing nations in demanding that the supposedly rational West literally put its money where its mouth was by playing out a lemming-like stampede to economic self-destruction brought home the absurdity to a degree that even our scientifically clueless best and brightest couldn't buy, and the whole thing largely came to nothing. Claims that human activity was – or was even capable of – measurably affecting the Earth's climate made little sense to begin with. For as far back as patterns can be reconstructed, the climate has always cycled between being warmer or cooler, wetter or drier, stormy or settled, and the changes observed during the industrial era have been well inside the swings that have taken place in the past. So there's no reason to suppose that anything, human-induced or otherwise, is affecting the climate abnormally. Compared to water vapor and the activity of the Sun, carbon dioxide plays a minor role in determining temperature, and the amount generated by Nature dwarfs anything that humans add. In any case, the times of rising temperature recorded over the ages have all happened first, not the other way around, so increases in CO2 levels are a consequence not a cause.
Nuclear No-Contest by James P. Hogan
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/hogan3.1.1.html
Excerpt: Before the 1950s, the future confronting the human race was bleak. With the global population increasing and becoming more dependent on energy-dense technologies to sustain its food supplies and rising living standards, there seemed no escape from the catastrophe that would come eventually when the coal and the oil ran out. But few worried unduly. It was only after an escape from the nightmare presented itself with the harnessing of nuclear processes and the prospect of unlimited energy that people began to worry. People can be very strange.
Seattle cartoonist launches "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day"
http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=313170
She has more courage than our government and the Leftstream media put together. Excerpt: After Comedy Central cut a portion of a South Park episode following a death threat from a radical Muslim group, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris wanted to counter the fear. She has declared May 20th "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day." Norris told KIRO Radio's Dave Ross that cartoonists are meant to challenge the lines of political correctness. "That's a cartoonist's job, to be non-PC."
Road to Radicalism: The Man Behind the ‘South Park’ Threats
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13476
Excerpt: By all appearances, Zachary Adam Chesser was the boy next door. He played football and was on the crew team at one of the best high schools in the country. He even studied Japanese. He was hardly the sort of boy you’d expect would suggest on a radical Islamic website that the creators of the edgy cartoon series “South Park” will be targeted for death. But Chesser also had a dark side. He was a “loner,” a former classmate said, one who frequently drew pictures of Satanic figures in his notebooks and had just a few friends, most of them male. “He was definitely sort of weird,” the classmate told FoxNews.com. “He was very into violent industrial music, borderline Satanic bands and stuff like that. He had dark undertones in his interests.” Two years later, Chesser is literally a changed man. He now uses an alias and has a new set of hobbies. He now likes to be called Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, and his primary interest in this world appears to be Islamic radicalism. Last week, Chesser, 20, posted a warning on the website RevolutionMuslim.com following the 200th episode of “South Park,” which included a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad disguised in a bear suit. The young man, who just two years ago was studying foreign languages at George Mason University, wrote on the site that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the cartoon’s creators, “will probably end up” like Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was murdered in 2004 after making a film critical of Islamic society.
'Last and best shot' at climate change bill hangs by a thread
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/94157-last-best-shot-at-climate-change-law-hangs-by-a-thread
Cut the thread. Excerpt: President Barack Obama’s hopes for winning climate change legislation in this Congress appeared to be hanging by a thread on Saturday. The key Republican senator negotiating on the bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), threatened to abandon his work out of fury that Democratic leaders may take up immigration legislation before a global warming bill. Hours later, the principal Democrat working the issue, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), announced that a press conference to unveil the legislation on Monday was being “temporarily” postponed due to “external issues.”
Immigration Decision Endangers Climate Change Bill
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04/24/immigration-decision-endangers-climate-change-bill/?icid=mainmaindl1link5http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicsdaily.com%2F2010%2F04%2F24%2Fimmigration-decision-endangers-climate-change-bill%2F
Excerpt: Sen. Lindsey Graham, the lead Republican sponsor of the climate bill, sent a letter Saturday to supporters of the measure threatening to abandon the effort without assurances from President Obama that climate change, and not immigration reform, will be his highest legislative priority. After hearing this, Sen. John Kerry said that, "regrettably," he would postpone the long-awaited unveiling of a comprehensive energy and climate bill that he had hoped to introduce Monday with Graham's support, the AP reported. He tried to assure environmentalists the delay was only temporary.
Benny Peiser: Political Climate Change
http://thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/863-benny-peiser-political-climate-change.html
Excerpt: Whatever the outcome of the forthcoming election, Britain's extravagant climate policies are unlikely to survive intact. The coming battle over the cost of unilateral CO2 targets and utopian decarbonisation will be overshadowed by the next government's desperate attempt to revive the UK economy, raise its competitiveness and radically reduce the rising debt burden. In short, the economic crisis has rendered costly and unilateral climate policies unsustainable, both financially and politically. The climate agenda has become unpopular among voters and businesses who are increasingly hostile to any climate taxes that are amplifying their energy, petrol and heating bills. In many ways, carbon and climate taxes have turned into considerable political liabilities. While the Australian government has been forced to shelf its controversial emissions trading scheme, President Obama's administration is struggling to push its cap-and-trade bill through the US Senate because senators of his own party, the Blue Dog Democrats, are opposed to proposals they fear as being too costly and too risky. After suffering a crushing electoral defeat, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been forced to scrap his unpopular carbon tax. The French government made clear that its climate tax has been postponed indefinitely "in order not to damage the competitiveness of French companies", fearing that it would be too risky for France to go it alone without the rest of the EU. Similar concerns over the economic risks of unilateral climate policies are likely to ascend in Britain after the general election. What is more, concern among the British public about the potential threat of climate change has declined sharply after months of Climategate controversies and growing disillusionment with costly Government schemes.
Earth Day? No thanks, I already have a religion
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13506
Excerpt: This bizarre holiday was started in the 70’s, when everyone was worried that our exhaust fumes and hair spray were bringing on the next ice age. As reality collided with propaganda, and the earth actually started warming up, believers jumped on the global warming bandwagon. Now that truth has inconveniently reared its head again, revealing that the earth is once again in a cooling cycle, and sustainability devotees have decided to admit that “climate change,” happens, and simply focus on trying to seize control the fact that it causes populations to migrate. Whether the earth is warming or cooling, and whether or not this is a good or bad thing, we are assured that it is a crisis, and that we must demonstrate our reverence for the scientific consensus of the day, and faithfully teach our children to unquestioningly cooperate and comply with the latest eco-chic trends – whatever they are this week.
Predictions Of Global Mean Temperatures & IPCC Projections
Girma Orssengo, B. Tech, MASc, PhD
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/predictions-of-gmt.pdf
Excerpt: The data required to establish the effect of CO2 emission on global mean temperature already exist. The global mean temperature data are available from the Climate Research Unit of the Hadley Centre shown in Figure 3, and the CO2 emission data are available from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre [8]. For the period from 1880 to 1940, the average emission of CO2 was about 0.8 G-ton, and the increase in the GMTA was 0.13+0.22=0.35 deg C. For the period from 1940 to 2000, the average emission of CO2 was about 4 G-ton, but the increase in GMTA was the same 0.48-0.13=0.35 deg C. This means that an increase in CO2 emission by 4/0.8=5-fold has no effect in the increase in the GMTA. This conclusively proves that the effect of 20th century human emission of CO2 on global mean temperature is nil.
It worked so well for Bush
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13462
Excerpt: Whenever President Bush talked about immigration, his approval ratings went down. It was like clockwork: liberals never understood that the fatal decline in Bush’s popularity during his second term had at least as much to do with his advocacy of “comprehensive immigration reform” as with war-weariness. Now President Obama has entered the lists, urging Congress to take up immigration. One can only wonder what Congressional Democrats make of this. Maybe they figure their own approval ratings can’t possibly get any lower. But Obama’s can, and they will if he keeps talking about immigration. In Arizona, frustrated by ongoing lack of enforcement of immigration laws by the federal government, the legislature has taken matters into its own hands, adopting legislation to try to crack down on illegals. This is how the Associated Press summarizes the Arizona statute……Barack Obama thinks Arizona’s effort to sustain the rule of law is “irresponsible.”
Saturday Night Card Game (The Arizona Immigration Bill Is Not Racist)
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/04/saturday-night-card-game-arizona.html
Excerpt: William A. Jacobson, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Cornell Law School, Ithaca, NY This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain: The Governor of Arizona just signed a bill which, in the words of opponents, is the equivalent of the Japanese internment during WWII, the Nazi Nuremberg laws, and a host of other racist or allegedly racist wrongs which have been committed since the dawn of mankind. Cassy Fiano has a good roundup of the reaction. I then did something almost no one else has done. Certainly not the people claiming the bill is racist. I actually read the bill, not just the news reports. The bill does raise public policy issues as to whether we really want to enforce the immigration laws, but it is not racist.
Google backs Yahoo in privacy fight with DOJ
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20002423-38.html
Excerpt: Google and an alliance of privacy groups have come to Yahoo's aid by helping the Web portal fend off a broad request from the U.S. Department of Justice for e-mail messages, CNET has learned. In a brief filed Tuesday afternoon, the coalition says a search warrant signed by a judge is necessary before the FBI or other police agencies can read the contents of Yahoo Mail messages--a position that puts those companies directly at odds with the Obama administration. Yahoo has been quietly fighting prosecutors' requests in front of a federal judge in Colorado, with many documents filed under seal. Tuesday's brief from Google and the other groups aims to buttress Yahoo's position by saying users who store their e-mail in the cloud enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy that is protected by the U.S. Constitution. "Society expects and relies on the privacy of e-mail messages just as it relies on the privacy of the telephone system," the friend-of-the-court brief says. "Indeed, the largest e-mail services are popular precisely because they offer users huge amounts of computer disk space in the Internet 'cloud' within which users can warehouse their e-mails for perpetual storage." (Interesting, the same kind of protest against the warrantless searches under Bush to look for Al Qaeda communications to and from the US (which were restricted specifically to traffic coming to or going from this country to other countries) now has to be raised against the present Administration who want to see any and all e-mails freely. The law has always hinged on the "expectation of privacy" concept, which means if you broadcast your message by open radio waves it's the same as yelling out your door, and you cannot have such expectation. (So cell phone calls and calls from portable handsets can be listened to without a warrant.) But when you send messages that are on the Net through a service like Yahoo and allow them to be stored for your own later consideration, you do expect privacy (at least everybody I know does). Telling the agency that has such message storage to open up the files is like telling the bank where you have letters in a safe deposit box to open them up. So where is the screaming about privacy that arose about the Bush policy on international phone calls, when a very parallel situation (in fact, somewhat more extensive) has arisen today? --Del)
A New Sheriff in the Strait
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/j-e-dyer/283931
Excerpt: In the flurry of mildly interesting disclosures from the Iranian military exercise this week, one is likely to be overlooked. Iranian state media report that on Friday, April 23, the Revolutionary Guard’s naval arm stopped two ships for inspection in the Strait of Hormuz. The ships, according to Iran’s Press TV, were French and Italian. The photo accompanying the story depicts a Kaman-class guided-missile patrol boat on which the boxy, Chinese-designed C802 anti-ship-missile launchers can be seen amidships. The stated purpose of the inspections was to verify “environmental compliance.” The names of the foreign ships were not provided; sketchy details make it difficult to be certain exactly where in the strait they were stopped. But European ships — even private yachts — rarely venture outside the recognized navigation corridors in the Strait of Hormuz. If this news report is valid, it almost certainly means that Iran detained ships that were transiting those corridors. That, as our vice president might say, is a big effing deal.
Iran strikes secret nuclear mining deal with Zimbabwe's Mugabe regime
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/7628750/Iran-strikes-secret-nuclear-mining-deal-with-Zimbabwes-Mugabe-regime.html
Delicious irony. The regimes in Iran and Zimbabwe were birthed with the assistant of American liberalism, to the never ending grief of their people and the world. Excerpt: In return for supplying oil, which Zimbabwe desperately needs to keep its faltering economy moving, Iran has been promised access to potentially huge deposits of uranium ore – which can be converted into the basic fuel for nuclear power or enriched to make a nuclear bomb.... The revelation came after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, visited Zimbabwe last week to show his support for Mr Mugabe. At a lavish official dinner in his honour on Thursday evening, Mr Ahmadinejad blasted what he termed "expansionist countries" for exerting "satanic pressures on the people of Zimbabwe", adding: "We believe victory is ours, and humiliation and defeat is for our enemies."
The Scud Saga Continues
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/pollak/283866
Excerpt: Michael Young, the opinion editor of the Beirut Daily Star, has a fine column parsing the latest developments on Syria, Lebanon, and the Obama administration. He confirms the interpretation I made recently on this blog, that the administration is puzzled at the failure of its opening gambits and unsure of what to do next.... Young’s worry is confirmed by this remarkable report from Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin: As for why Syria seems to be playing such an unhelpful role, “that’s the million-dollar question,” the [Obama administration] official said….”We do not understand Syrian intentions. No one does, and until we get to that question we can never get to the root of the problem,” the official said. “Until then it’s all damage control.” This is quite simply amazing. The Assads, father and now son, have run the same foreign policy for decades. It is a very simple model, and one that gets discussed in detail on a regular basis: They are the arsonists who sell water to the fire department.
In Praise of Cheerful Men
http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2010/04/25/in_praise_of_cheerful_men
Excerpt: Hearing about a shortage of farm laborers in California, the couple who would become Susumu Ito's parents moved from Hiroshima to become sharecroppers near Stockton. Thus began a saga that recently brought Ito, 91, to the Holocaust Memorial Museum here, where he and 119 former comrades in arms were honored, during the annual Days of Remembrance, as liberators of Nazi concentration camps. While his Japanese-American Army unit was succoring survivors of Dachau, near Munich, his parents and two sisters were interned in a camp in Arkansas. Ito attended one-room schools, graduated from high school at 16 and was accepted at Berkeley. His parents, however, believed Japanese-Americans could not rise in the professions -- even the civil service -- for which the university would prepare him. So he attended community college, studying auto mechanics, although he could not join the mechanics union.
Ray Stevens - Throw the Bums Out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q59ZcFguUOo&feature=channel
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Political Digest April 25, 2010
I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article.
Obama slams American cops, but not criminal aliens
http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2010m4d23-Obama-slams-American-cops-but-not-criminal-aliens?cid=examiner-email
Excerpt: "We have a President who uses harsh words when talking to Americans, but is meek as a lamb when talking to our enemies. His latest vitriol is for law enforcement in Arizona. He's no friend of cops." - NYPD Detective. On Friday, President Barack Obama revealed his disdain for a new law in Arizona that would require police in the state that borders Mexico to determine if people are in the United States illegally. The law, signed by Governor Jan Brewer, requires state and local police to determine the status of people if there is "reasonable suspicion" that they are illegal immigrants and to arrest people who are unable to provide documents proving they are in the country legally "If we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country," Obama said. Obama also said that the Justice Department will monitor enforcement of this new law, a statement many believe is a threat aimed at Arizona cops.
Michelle feeds the birthers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M7Rp_Ghv6k
Supreme Court refuses ACORN appeal of funding ban
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/ap/acorn-seeks-supreme-court-help-in-lawsuit-claiming-congress-was-wrong-to-stop-its-funding-91939069.html
A blow to the under-age, Hispanic prostitute trade. Excerpt: The Supreme Court has turned down ACORN's request for help in its lawsuit claiming Congress was wrong to shut off the activist group's federal funding. The high court on Friday refused to throw out a decision by the federal appellate court in New York City. That court had decided to freeze a judge's determination that Congress acted unconstitutionally in yanking the group's funding
Heretic Books
Picked these up from James Hogan’s website, in his Heretic Archives. www.jamesphogan.com.
Haven’t read any of them. Global Warming False Alarm -- By Ralph Alexander -- The Bad Science Behind the United Nations' Assertion that Man-made CO2 Causes Global Warming
The Real Global Warming Disaster -- By Christopher Booker -- Is the Obsession with "Climate Change" Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?
Heaven and Earth -- By Ian Plimer -- Global Warming, the Missing Science
Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century -- By Ian Hore-Lacy -- An authoritative primer on all aspects of nuclear energy and its role in the 21st century.
Why the Gun in Civilization?
https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/1282ccbdfd84ad28
Excerpt: Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it. In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some. When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
The President Who Won't Grow Up
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_president_who_wont_grow_up.html
Excerpt: Everything I need to know about Barack Obama I learned as a Cub Scout den leader. Last week I watched an American president and a Russian leader sign a START treaty. I almost checked the calendar, wondering if I'd been transported back to 1980. In news stories of the summit I found a link to an article Barack Obama had written in 1983 while at Columbia University titled "Breaking the War Mentality." Back then, Obama was firmly in the nuclear freeze camp. It's true that many of us held views as college students that seem quaint and naïve after two or three decades. But compare the (nearly incomprehensible) writing of the 22-year-old Obama to the news reports last week. Incredibly, Obama's worldview has not changed. The Soviet Union is kaput, he is the leader of the free world, and he's still thinking the same way. He's the president who won't grow up.
Colleague Disputes Case Against Anthrax Suspect
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/us/23anthrax.html?ref=science
Excerpt: Dr. Heine told the 16-member panel, which is reviewing the F.B.I.’s scientific work on the investigation, that producing the quantity of spores in the letters would have taken at least a year of intensive work using the equipment at the army lab. Such an effort would not have escaped colleagues’ notice, he added later, and lab technicians who worked closely with Dr. Ivins have told him they saw no such work. He told the panel that biological containment measures where Dr. Ivins worked were inadequate to prevent the spores from floating out of the laboratory into animal cages and offices. “You’d have had dead animals or dead people,” he said....The public remarks from Dr. Heine, two months after the Justice Department officially closed the case, represent a major public challenge to its conclusion in one of the largest, most politically delicate and scientifically complex cases in F.B.I. history. The F.B.I. declined to comment on Dr. Heine’s remarks on Thursday. In its written summation of the case in February, the bureau said Dr. Ivins’s lab technicians grew anthrax spores that the technicians incorrectly believed were added to Dr. Ivins’s main supply flask. But the summary said the spores were never added to the flask, suggesting that surplus spores might have been diverted by Dr. Ivins for the letters. (From a Marine buddy: I hate to sound like a conspiracy novelist, but I've had doubts about this investigation since the first announcement they were looking at Army techs. I find it hard to believe an Army facility, knowingly working with such a deadly biogen, would have such lax security as to allow any quantity of anthrax to escape their control. Further, if it had been smuggled out in a secure manner--not an easy thing in itself--in a tiny-to-small quantity, the perp would have had to then grow more on his/her own, leaving a fairly elaborate laboratory to be easily discovered by law enforcement. While simply handled compared to nuclear materials, it is far more difficult to contain (think Andromeda Strain), certainly not something to cook up in your home's cellar. The currently offered explanation just doesn't make sense. Ron P.)
David Harsanyi commentary: Tea Party is pretty far from radical
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2010/04/19/tea-party-is-pretty-far-from-radical.html?sid=101
Excerpt: As it turns out, earlier I happened to peruse a new CBS/New York Times poll detailing the attitudes of Tea Party activists, who, it turns out, are more educated than the average American, more reflective of mainstream anxieties than any populist movement in memory and more closely aligned philosophically with the wider electorate than any big-city newsroom in America. What seemed to be the biggest news derived from the poll nationally? A plurality of Tea Party activists do not deem Sarah Palin qualified for the presidency - proving, I suppose, that some people have the ability to be exceptionally fond of a political celebrity without elevating her to sainthood. More significantly, the polling showed that most Tea Party activists believe the taxes they pay are "fair." The largest number of them want their movement to work to reduce the size of government rather than focus on cutting budget deficits or lowering taxes. Whether you concur or not with this viewpoint, it exhibits more economic sophistication than we often hear from pandering senatorial candidates. It was news that Tea Party activists - unlike our president or most senators - send their children to public schools. (With a public monopoly in place, where else are they expected to send their children?) The majority of them also deem Social Security and Medicare worthy taxpayer burdens, putting a crimp in the left-wing mythology that the anarchist mob is about to explode. And though Tea Party supporters are more conservative than the average voter on social issues, as well - particularly abortion, according to a separate Gallup Poll - The New York Times reports that eight in 10 Tea Party activists believe the movement should focus on economic issues rather than cultural ones. How long have we been hearing from moderate, sensible, worldly Republican types that if only - if only - the right found God on economic issues and lost God on the social ones, there would be an expansion of appeal and support? Apparently, they were right. Now, I won't allege to have observed any sweeping displays of multiculturalism at the Tea Party shindig I attended (though without question, it featured more diversity than my own cloistered rock-ribbed lefty neighborhood).
Gay Softball World Series SUED: Bisexual Men Claim Discrimination http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/21/gay-softball-world-series_n_545763.html
Apparently it’s against the rules to hit from both sides of the plate. Excerpt: Three bisexual men from the San Francisco area have filed a lawsuit claiming they were discriminated against during the Gay Softball World Series in the Seattle area two years ago. The Seattle Times reports that the men filed the federal complaint Tuesday against the softball tournament's organizer, the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance. It alleges that after another team complained, the alliance ruled the three men were "nongay," and took away the team's second-place finish.
Syria seeks a military return to Lebanon
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=113806#axzz0lzFvWQFk
Risking a strongly worded note from President Wobbly! Excerpt: When Syria’s President Bashar Assad withdrew his army from Lebanon in 2005, there was a naive belief he had accepted the new situation and would be satisfied merely with reasserting Syrian political influence in Beirut. In fact, his ambition always was, and remains, to return Syria militarily to Lebanon. In recent weeks, the US has accused Syria of transferring advanced weaponry to Hizbullah. Kuwait’s Al-Rai al-Aam newspaper and Israeli media have suggested this may include Scud-D missiles. There have also been reports, including statements by Israeli officials, that Syria has sent the party anti-aircraft missiles, including possibly the advanced SA-24 Igla. Damascus has denied this, but in 2007, when Hizbullah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said the party had acquired a new “surprise” weapon against Israel, many believed that he meant an advanced anti-aircraft capability. It is hard to accept as credible Syria’s denials that it has sent improved weapons to Hizbullah when Assad has repeatedly stated that he would not allow the “resistance” to be defeated. Senator John Kerry, a prominent defender of American engagement of Damascus, is said to have raised concerns about the weapons when he last visited with the Syrian president. Why is Damascus upping the ante in Lebanon today?
Doctors pursue House, Senate seats
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20100419/1adoctors19_st.art.htm
Excerpt: In an election year dominated by health care, dozens of candidates for Congress have a catchy campaign slogan at their disposal: Send a doctor to the House. Forty-seven physicians — 41 Republicans and six Democrats — are running for the House or Senate this year, nearly three times the number of doctors serving in Congress today, according to a USA TODAY review. An influx of doctors to Congress could alter the landscape for future debates over Medicare and rising insurance premiums months after lawmakers approved President Obama's 10-year, $938 billion health care law. Physician candidates start with at least one political advantage: voter confidence. A Gallup Poll in March found 77% of Americans trust doctors to do "the right thing" on health policy, compared with 32% for Republican leaders and 49% for Obama. "Physicians just have a different mind-set toward problem solving," said Larry Bucshon, a Republican heart surgeon running for a House seat in Indiana. "It's very good training for being a congressman."
Even CNN’s Anderson Cooper has had enough of this [Muslim] crap!
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13459
White House Pushes Back On Schumer’s Criticism Of Israel Policy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/23/white-house-pushes-back-o_n_549536.html
Excerpt: The remarks were, far and away, the toughest Israel-related criticism leveled at this administration to come from a congressional Democrat (and White House ally) to date. A hawkish Israel supporter, Schumer also charged the Obama administration with having a less-than-firm commitment to Israel; that cabinet officials (namely Sec. of State Hillary Clinton) had demanded too many concessions of the Jewish state, and that the White House had been overbearing and one-sided in its demands during the nascent peace process.
Bank failure a nail in Giannoulias’ campaign
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-giannoulias-bank-politics-20100423,0,7126236.story
He blames the family bank’s failure on “Republican Policies.” Like lending $20M that ain’t coming back to mobsters when he was senior loan officer? Of course, they didn’t know they were mobsters. You don’t do background checks for a little loan like that. Excerpt: U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias took a big swig of water and labeled his day personally "devastating." Now Giannoulias must convince the White House and voters that it's not politically devastating as well. The closing of the doors at Broadway Bank for the final time Friday failed to slam shut ongoing concerns over Giannoulias' relationship with the bank and the impact on Democratic hopes to retain the Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama.
Introducing the 11-2 Movement – “Remember November”
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/04/introducing-the-11-2-movement-remember-november/
Excerpt: The Republican Governor’s Association put together this tribute to the radical socialist regime in Washington in dedication to their constant attacks on the American economy, freedom and prosperity this past year. Several conservatives suggest the Obama-Pelosi regime is working to transform America into a socialist entity like we see in Western Europe. Actually, these radicals more resemble Marxist and third world thugs with their tactics and policies. Never before has America witnessed such organized destruction as we have seen this past year. It will take this great nation years to recover from this devastation.
ADL Calls For “Major Law Enforcement Operation” To Deal With Obama critics
http://noisyroom.net/blog/2010/04/23/adl-calls-for-major-law-enforcement-operation%e2%80%9d-to-deal-with-obamacare-critics/
Seems improbably to me—but so does much of what has happened in the last year. Excerpt: The Anti-Defamation League is calling for a major national law enforcement operation to quiet our voices. Silly me, I thought we had a right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution. Notice in the following report/hit piece, that they print the comments put on certain blogs including Fox News, gun and survivalist blogs. News Flash to the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center – it is not illegal to express your thoughts – YET!
A Marine General at War: Gen. James Mattis thinks about when, and how, American troops should put their lives at risk.
http://www.slate.com/id/2251031
Excerpt: Any risks—whether, for example, singing onstage, starting a company, or rock climbing—pale compared with the risks a soldier takes in combat. A soldier risks his own life, the lives of his comrades, and the lives of innocent civilians. An officer has this burden, and more, because he also makes the decision to risk the lives of his soldiers, knowing that some of them will come to harm. Marine Gen. James Mattis, 59, has been making these decisions for almost 40 years since his graduation from Central Washington University. He led combat troops in the first Iraq invasion as a lieutenant colonel. He commanded Marines as a brigadier general in Afghanistan in 2001. In 2003 he was the Marines ground commander in Iraq, leading the 20,000 troops of the 1st Marine Division for 500 miles over 17 days, the longest sustained march in Marine Corps history. He returned to Iraq months later to direct the fight against insurgents in the raging Al-Anbar province. Now a four-star, Mattis is commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command. It's his job to help the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines fight in coordination. He has also become a key figure in the debate over how the military should adapt to irregular warfare, the kind in which enemies hide in mosques or deploy computer viruses. And Mattis has made a special study of risk. After returning from Iraq, he pushed to create the Marine Infantry Immersion Simulator. Built in an enormous former tomato-packing plant, the training course helps reduce the risk of friendly-fire accidents by re-creating the chaos of close-quarter combat. It also uses holograms to help Marines make the split-second decision between shooting an enemy turning the corner with a bomb and sparing the woman with a loaf of bread. In 2006, Mattis and Army Gen. David Petraeus led the push to write the Army/Marine Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which guides troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. The manual articulates a new concept of risk: Troops use less force and accept more short-term vulnerability to build ties with locals that will bring longer-term security.
Arizona's immigration law too tough? Not if you live there.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/arizonas_immigration_law_too_t.html
Excerpt: You can dress your opposition to the new Arizona immigration law up any way you want to, but if you're so all fired concerned about it, I suggest you move to the border towns that are under virtual siege by drug gangs and do your protesting there. The number of kidnappings and murders related to illegal crossings of the border have skyrocketed and the feds seem powerless to stop it. It is a tough law for tough times, and under ordinary circumstances, would be seen as "draconian." But given the fact that it is impossible to delineate where the US border ends and where Mexico's begins in many places in that state, the right of sovereignty should rule. Even the New York Times admits that the law basically calls for enforcement of existing statutes:
Obama orders government to buy more GM cars!
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2009/04/09/obama-orders-government-to-buy-more-gm-cars/
Excerpt: President Obama has ordered the United States government to speed up its stimulus-inspired plan to purchase 17,600 new American-made cars by June 1st. The purchases are designed "to increase demand for American auto companies during these difficult economic times," according to the White House. It's actually unbelievable: The United States government lends an enormous sum of money to General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) and Chrysler but insists that they meet certain targets to demonstrate viability. Then the government buys a bunch of cars to help them meet those targets: Can someone please tell me what exactly Bernie Madoff did that was so bad? (And if they cost more than, say, Hondas made my American workers in American plants, well, the taxpayers can afford it.)
Medieval Warm Period as Warm as Today and Global
http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/852-medieval-warm-period-as-warm-as-today-and-global.html
Excerpt: Understanding how the climate has changed in the past is essential if we are to put today’s warm climate into its proper perspective. There is a key question in the post-hockey stick era, and that is how warm was the Medieval Warm Period of a thousand years ago and how warm was the Roman Warm Period of a thousand years before that. Some scientists have looked at the data for the MWP and whilst conceding that it was warm they have doubted its extent, suggesting that it was confined to Europe. This was despite the fact that there are very few temperature proxies outside Europe for the period. A new study into the question of the extent of the MWP has been carried out by Fredrik Ljungqvist et al in a paper to be presented at the European Geosciences Conference next month. They mapped the spatial and temporal temperature pattern between the 9th and the 20th century using about 150 temperature proxies including tree-rings, ice-cores, marine sediments, lake sediments and speleothems. Most of their data was from Europe and North America, a small minority from Siberia, northern Africa and the Middle East. Their data was compiled to give a resolution of 100 years. Their conclusion is that there was widespread Medieval warming in the 10th and 11th centuries, followed by a gradual cooling into the 17th century (the Little Ice Age) and then a warming from the 18th century that accelerated in the 20th. Significantly, they find that the warmth of the MWP was as widespread and as uniform as the 20th century. Although it was as warm as it is now it was not possible to make an exact comparison because of the study’s 100 year time resolution. (As Joe Biden might say: "This IS a BFD!" The MWP is one of the areas mentioned in the CRU emails as "unexplainable," UNLESS the MWP was only a regional event confined to the European area (or, at most, the Northern Hemisphere). A great deal of trouble was taken in various papers bearing on the IPCC 4th report to minimize (or "hide") the problems it creates for AGW proponents. There WAS no industrial input to ascribe the warming to in 1100 A.C.E., and even less a thousand years earlier. Of course, since it conflicts with the party line, no doubt it will be pooh-poohed. But, this could really be the straw that breaks the jackass's neck. Ron P.)
Jon Stewart’s Punching Bag, Fox News
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/arts/television/24stewart.html?emc=eta1
Excerpt: On the subject of Fox, Mr. Stewart is pretty relentless too. As demonstrated by that crescent segment and dozens of others since Mr. Obama took office, he may well be television’s pre-eminent fact-checker of Fox News, the nation’s highest-rated cable news channel.
It has been noticed by, among other people, the Fox host Bill O’Reilly, who called Mr. Stewart a “devoted critic” of Fox News and said “his influence is growing.” Separately, this week Mr. Stewart’s contract was renewed by Comedy Central into 2013. Combining the earnestness of a journalism professor and the sarcasm of a satirist, Mr. Stewart routinely charges that Fox’s news anchors and commentators distort Mr. Obama’s policies and advance a conservative agenda. He reminds some viewers of the left-wing group Media Matters but much funnier.
Running on Empty
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/opinion/24collins.html?emc=eta1
Excerpt: The election season is starting in earnest, and already one thing is crystal clear. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are hopeless. It seems inconceivable that either party can possibly win anything. This may be the year when the Whigs finally get to make their comeback. The whole world is expecting a cataclysm for the Democrats in November. After all, the economy is still a mess, and the party is still ... the party. In Illinois, which was first out of the box this season, the Democrats have already moved beyond the primary and into buyer’s remorse. They’ve already dumped the voters’ pick for lieutenant governor. This week, their question is whether they can get rid of their Senate nominee, Alexi Giannoulias, the son of a Chicago banking family, whose bank failed on Friday. The Democratic disaster scenario would make absolute sense if it did not also require that the Republicans do something right. But in one state after another, they seem bent on nominating the worst possible candidate. The world is one big scavenger hunt, and their clue says, “Find somebody unelectable.” (Because the problems are now so bad, that no one running on a platform that would have a hope of fixing them could get 5% of the vote. See: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/03/essay-coming-collapse-of-american.html)
Should police be required to question people they suspect of being in the country illegally about their immigration status
http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/privacy-law-280/topics/should-police-required-question-people
Excerpt: President Barack Obama harshly criticized a newly-passed law in Arizona to crack down on illegal immigration and said his administration would examine the measure to see if it is consistent with federal law. It was the first time the president addressed the controversial legislation that makes it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally. The law also requires police to question people they suspect to be in the U.S. illegally about their immigration status. What do you think? Does such questioning violate a trust relationship between citizens and police, as the president outlined? Or does the question help with law enforcement and immigration-reform efforts? What should be done with people who admit to being illegal?
Do you feel violated yet?
http://www.usobserver.com/archive/april-10/america-do-you-feel-violated-yet.html
Excerpt: As I write this column, the national debt created by the U.S. Congress without the consent of we the people is $12.7 TRILLION dollars. The people's treasury is bankrupt with current obligations running into numbers most people can't even grasp - Social security and Medicare have $99 TRILLION dollars in unfunded mandates: "Let's say you and I and Bruce Ericson and every U.S. citizen who is alive today decided to fully address this unfunded liability through lump-sum payments from our own pocketbooks, so that all of us and all future generations could be secure in the knowledge that we and they would receive promised benefits in perpetuity. How much would we have to pay if we split the tab? Again, the math is painful. With a total population of 304 million, from infants to the elderly, the per-person payment to the federal treasury would come to $330,000. This comes to $1.3 million per family of four—over 25 times the average household's income."
On Earth Day, Did You Thank a Hunter?
http://townhall.com/columnists/HumbertoFontova/2010/04/23/on_earth_day,_did_you_thank_a_hunter
Excerpt: Well, I’ve got news for our President. Millions of Americans who had never heard of Gaylord Nelson “took action on behalf of the environment,” decades before the good Senator “raised his voice.” More newsworthy still, most of these belonged to those insufferable rustics who “cling to guns and bibles.” To wit: The Pittman-Robertson Act (1937) imposed an excise tax of 10 per cent on all hunting gear. Then the Dingell-Johnson act (1950) did the same for fishing gear. The Wallop-Breaux amendment (1984) extended the tax to the fuel for boats. All of this lucre goes to “protect the environment” in the form of buying and maintaining National Wildlife Refuges, along with state programs for buying and maintaining various forms of wildlife habitat. For the last couple of decades hunters and fishermen have contributed over $1.5 billion per year towards Senator Gaylord Nelson’s lofty goal. To date, hunters and fishermen have shelled out over $20 billion “on behalf of the environment.” A study by the National Shooting Sports Foundation found that for every taxpayer dollar invested in wildlife conservation, hunters and fishermen contribute nine.
Nice comment on the Blog
I have to hand it to 'ya. You manage to find the best selection of news out there, grab the most important excerpts and then let US decide...And your "comments" don't hurt these old eyes one damn bit, either...lol. I'm surprised FOX news hasn't sent you a job app yet. Keep up the good work. --Bob G.
Separated at Birth
http://posuerpresident.blogspot.com/2010/04/separated-at-birth.html
Too funny. (Except to the folks who thought comparing Bush to Hitler or a monkey was funny—they won’t like this turn about at all.)
Obama slams American cops, but not criminal aliens
http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2010m4d23-Obama-slams-American-cops-but-not-criminal-aliens?cid=examiner-email
Excerpt: "We have a President who uses harsh words when talking to Americans, but is meek as a lamb when talking to our enemies. His latest vitriol is for law enforcement in Arizona. He's no friend of cops." - NYPD Detective. On Friday, President Barack Obama revealed his disdain for a new law in Arizona that would require police in the state that borders Mexico to determine if people are in the United States illegally. The law, signed by Governor Jan Brewer, requires state and local police to determine the status of people if there is "reasonable suspicion" that they are illegal immigrants and to arrest people who are unable to provide documents proving they are in the country legally "If we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country," Obama said. Obama also said that the Justice Department will monitor enforcement of this new law, a statement many believe is a threat aimed at Arizona cops.
Michelle feeds the birthers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M7Rp_Ghv6k
Supreme Court refuses ACORN appeal of funding ban
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/ap/acorn-seeks-supreme-court-help-in-lawsuit-claiming-congress-was-wrong-to-stop-its-funding-91939069.html
A blow to the under-age, Hispanic prostitute trade. Excerpt: The Supreme Court has turned down ACORN's request for help in its lawsuit claiming Congress was wrong to shut off the activist group's federal funding. The high court on Friday refused to throw out a decision by the federal appellate court in New York City. That court had decided to freeze a judge's determination that Congress acted unconstitutionally in yanking the group's funding
Heretic Books
Picked these up from James Hogan’s website, in his Heretic Archives. www.jamesphogan.com.
Haven’t read any of them. Global Warming False Alarm -- By Ralph Alexander -- The Bad Science Behind the United Nations' Assertion that Man-made CO2 Causes Global Warming
The Real Global Warming Disaster -- By Christopher Booker -- Is the Obsession with "Climate Change" Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?
Heaven and Earth -- By Ian Plimer -- Global Warming, the Missing Science
Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century -- By Ian Hore-Lacy -- An authoritative primer on all aspects of nuclear energy and its role in the 21st century.
Why the Gun in Civilization?
https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/1282ccbdfd84ad28
Excerpt: Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it. In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some. When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
The President Who Won't Grow Up
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_president_who_wont_grow_up.html
Excerpt: Everything I need to know about Barack Obama I learned as a Cub Scout den leader. Last week I watched an American president and a Russian leader sign a START treaty. I almost checked the calendar, wondering if I'd been transported back to 1980. In news stories of the summit I found a link to an article Barack Obama had written in 1983 while at Columbia University titled "Breaking the War Mentality." Back then, Obama was firmly in the nuclear freeze camp. It's true that many of us held views as college students that seem quaint and naïve after two or three decades. But compare the (nearly incomprehensible) writing of the 22-year-old Obama to the news reports last week. Incredibly, Obama's worldview has not changed. The Soviet Union is kaput, he is the leader of the free world, and he's still thinking the same way. He's the president who won't grow up.
Colleague Disputes Case Against Anthrax Suspect
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/us/23anthrax.html?ref=science
Excerpt: Dr. Heine told the 16-member panel, which is reviewing the F.B.I.’s scientific work on the investigation, that producing the quantity of spores in the letters would have taken at least a year of intensive work using the equipment at the army lab. Such an effort would not have escaped colleagues’ notice, he added later, and lab technicians who worked closely with Dr. Ivins have told him they saw no such work. He told the panel that biological containment measures where Dr. Ivins worked were inadequate to prevent the spores from floating out of the laboratory into animal cages and offices. “You’d have had dead animals or dead people,” he said....The public remarks from Dr. Heine, two months after the Justice Department officially closed the case, represent a major public challenge to its conclusion in one of the largest, most politically delicate and scientifically complex cases in F.B.I. history. The F.B.I. declined to comment on Dr. Heine’s remarks on Thursday. In its written summation of the case in February, the bureau said Dr. Ivins’s lab technicians grew anthrax spores that the technicians incorrectly believed were added to Dr. Ivins’s main supply flask. But the summary said the spores were never added to the flask, suggesting that surplus spores might have been diverted by Dr. Ivins for the letters. (From a Marine buddy: I hate to sound like a conspiracy novelist, but I've had doubts about this investigation since the first announcement they were looking at Army techs. I find it hard to believe an Army facility, knowingly working with such a deadly biogen, would have such lax security as to allow any quantity of anthrax to escape their control. Further, if it had been smuggled out in a secure manner--not an easy thing in itself--in a tiny-to-small quantity, the perp would have had to then grow more on his/her own, leaving a fairly elaborate laboratory to be easily discovered by law enforcement. While simply handled compared to nuclear materials, it is far more difficult to contain (think Andromeda Strain), certainly not something to cook up in your home's cellar. The currently offered explanation just doesn't make sense. Ron P.)
David Harsanyi commentary: Tea Party is pretty far from radical
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2010/04/19/tea-party-is-pretty-far-from-radical.html?sid=101
Excerpt: As it turns out, earlier I happened to peruse a new CBS/New York Times poll detailing the attitudes of Tea Party activists, who, it turns out, are more educated than the average American, more reflective of mainstream anxieties than any populist movement in memory and more closely aligned philosophically with the wider electorate than any big-city newsroom in America. What seemed to be the biggest news derived from the poll nationally? A plurality of Tea Party activists do not deem Sarah Palin qualified for the presidency - proving, I suppose, that some people have the ability to be exceptionally fond of a political celebrity without elevating her to sainthood. More significantly, the polling showed that most Tea Party activists believe the taxes they pay are "fair." The largest number of them want their movement to work to reduce the size of government rather than focus on cutting budget deficits or lowering taxes. Whether you concur or not with this viewpoint, it exhibits more economic sophistication than we often hear from pandering senatorial candidates. It was news that Tea Party activists - unlike our president or most senators - send their children to public schools. (With a public monopoly in place, where else are they expected to send their children?) The majority of them also deem Social Security and Medicare worthy taxpayer burdens, putting a crimp in the left-wing mythology that the anarchist mob is about to explode. And though Tea Party supporters are more conservative than the average voter on social issues, as well - particularly abortion, according to a separate Gallup Poll - The New York Times reports that eight in 10 Tea Party activists believe the movement should focus on economic issues rather than cultural ones. How long have we been hearing from moderate, sensible, worldly Republican types that if only - if only - the right found God on economic issues and lost God on the social ones, there would be an expansion of appeal and support? Apparently, they were right. Now, I won't allege to have observed any sweeping displays of multiculturalism at the Tea Party shindig I attended (though without question, it featured more diversity than my own cloistered rock-ribbed lefty neighborhood).
Gay Softball World Series SUED: Bisexual Men Claim Discrimination http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/21/gay-softball-world-series_n_545763.html
Apparently it’s against the rules to hit from both sides of the plate. Excerpt: Three bisexual men from the San Francisco area have filed a lawsuit claiming they were discriminated against during the Gay Softball World Series in the Seattle area two years ago. The Seattle Times reports that the men filed the federal complaint Tuesday against the softball tournament's organizer, the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance. It alleges that after another team complained, the alliance ruled the three men were "nongay," and took away the team's second-place finish.
Syria seeks a military return to Lebanon
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=113806#axzz0lzFvWQFk
Risking a strongly worded note from President Wobbly! Excerpt: When Syria’s President Bashar Assad withdrew his army from Lebanon in 2005, there was a naive belief he had accepted the new situation and would be satisfied merely with reasserting Syrian political influence in Beirut. In fact, his ambition always was, and remains, to return Syria militarily to Lebanon. In recent weeks, the US has accused Syria of transferring advanced weaponry to Hizbullah. Kuwait’s Al-Rai al-Aam newspaper and Israeli media have suggested this may include Scud-D missiles. There have also been reports, including statements by Israeli officials, that Syria has sent the party anti-aircraft missiles, including possibly the advanced SA-24 Igla. Damascus has denied this, but in 2007, when Hizbullah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said the party had acquired a new “surprise” weapon against Israel, many believed that he meant an advanced anti-aircraft capability. It is hard to accept as credible Syria’s denials that it has sent improved weapons to Hizbullah when Assad has repeatedly stated that he would not allow the “resistance” to be defeated. Senator John Kerry, a prominent defender of American engagement of Damascus, is said to have raised concerns about the weapons when he last visited with the Syrian president. Why is Damascus upping the ante in Lebanon today?
Doctors pursue House, Senate seats
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20100419/1adoctors19_st.art.htm
Excerpt: In an election year dominated by health care, dozens of candidates for Congress have a catchy campaign slogan at their disposal: Send a doctor to the House. Forty-seven physicians — 41 Republicans and six Democrats — are running for the House or Senate this year, nearly three times the number of doctors serving in Congress today, according to a USA TODAY review. An influx of doctors to Congress could alter the landscape for future debates over Medicare and rising insurance premiums months after lawmakers approved President Obama's 10-year, $938 billion health care law. Physician candidates start with at least one political advantage: voter confidence. A Gallup Poll in March found 77% of Americans trust doctors to do "the right thing" on health policy, compared with 32% for Republican leaders and 49% for Obama. "Physicians just have a different mind-set toward problem solving," said Larry Bucshon, a Republican heart surgeon running for a House seat in Indiana. "It's very good training for being a congressman."
Even CNN’s Anderson Cooper has had enough of this [Muslim] crap!
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=13459
White House Pushes Back On Schumer’s Criticism Of Israel Policy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/23/white-house-pushes-back-o_n_549536.html
Excerpt: The remarks were, far and away, the toughest Israel-related criticism leveled at this administration to come from a congressional Democrat (and White House ally) to date. A hawkish Israel supporter, Schumer also charged the Obama administration with having a less-than-firm commitment to Israel; that cabinet officials (namely Sec. of State Hillary Clinton) had demanded too many concessions of the Jewish state, and that the White House had been overbearing and one-sided in its demands during the nascent peace process.
Bank failure a nail in Giannoulias’ campaign
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-giannoulias-bank-politics-20100423,0,7126236.story
He blames the family bank’s failure on “Republican Policies.” Like lending $20M that ain’t coming back to mobsters when he was senior loan officer? Of course, they didn’t know they were mobsters. You don’t do background checks for a little loan like that. Excerpt: U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias took a big swig of water and labeled his day personally "devastating." Now Giannoulias must convince the White House and voters that it's not politically devastating as well. The closing of the doors at Broadway Bank for the final time Friday failed to slam shut ongoing concerns over Giannoulias' relationship with the bank and the impact on Democratic hopes to retain the Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama.
Introducing the 11-2 Movement – “Remember November”
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/04/introducing-the-11-2-movement-remember-november/
Excerpt: The Republican Governor’s Association put together this tribute to the radical socialist regime in Washington in dedication to their constant attacks on the American economy, freedom and prosperity this past year. Several conservatives suggest the Obama-Pelosi regime is working to transform America into a socialist entity like we see in Western Europe. Actually, these radicals more resemble Marxist and third world thugs with their tactics and policies. Never before has America witnessed such organized destruction as we have seen this past year. It will take this great nation years to recover from this devastation.
ADL Calls For “Major Law Enforcement Operation” To Deal With Obama critics
http://noisyroom.net/blog/2010/04/23/adl-calls-for-major-law-enforcement-operation%e2%80%9d-to-deal-with-obamacare-critics/
Seems improbably to me—but so does much of what has happened in the last year. Excerpt: The Anti-Defamation League is calling for a major national law enforcement operation to quiet our voices. Silly me, I thought we had a right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution. Notice in the following report/hit piece, that they print the comments put on certain blogs including Fox News, gun and survivalist blogs. News Flash to the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center – it is not illegal to express your thoughts – YET!
A Marine General at War: Gen. James Mattis thinks about when, and how, American troops should put their lives at risk.
http://www.slate.com/id/2251031
Excerpt: Any risks—whether, for example, singing onstage, starting a company, or rock climbing—pale compared with the risks a soldier takes in combat. A soldier risks his own life, the lives of his comrades, and the lives of innocent civilians. An officer has this burden, and more, because he also makes the decision to risk the lives of his soldiers, knowing that some of them will come to harm. Marine Gen. James Mattis, 59, has been making these decisions for almost 40 years since his graduation from Central Washington University. He led combat troops in the first Iraq invasion as a lieutenant colonel. He commanded Marines as a brigadier general in Afghanistan in 2001. In 2003 he was the Marines ground commander in Iraq, leading the 20,000 troops of the 1st Marine Division for 500 miles over 17 days, the longest sustained march in Marine Corps history. He returned to Iraq months later to direct the fight against insurgents in the raging Al-Anbar province. Now a four-star, Mattis is commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command. It's his job to help the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines fight in coordination. He has also become a key figure in the debate over how the military should adapt to irregular warfare, the kind in which enemies hide in mosques or deploy computer viruses. And Mattis has made a special study of risk. After returning from Iraq, he pushed to create the Marine Infantry Immersion Simulator. Built in an enormous former tomato-packing plant, the training course helps reduce the risk of friendly-fire accidents by re-creating the chaos of close-quarter combat. It also uses holograms to help Marines make the split-second decision between shooting an enemy turning the corner with a bomb and sparing the woman with a loaf of bread. In 2006, Mattis and Army Gen. David Petraeus led the push to write the Army/Marine Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which guides troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. The manual articulates a new concept of risk: Troops use less force and accept more short-term vulnerability to build ties with locals that will bring longer-term security.
Arizona's immigration law too tough? Not if you live there.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/arizonas_immigration_law_too_t.html
Excerpt: You can dress your opposition to the new Arizona immigration law up any way you want to, but if you're so all fired concerned about it, I suggest you move to the border towns that are under virtual siege by drug gangs and do your protesting there. The number of kidnappings and murders related to illegal crossings of the border have skyrocketed and the feds seem powerless to stop it. It is a tough law for tough times, and under ordinary circumstances, would be seen as "draconian." But given the fact that it is impossible to delineate where the US border ends and where Mexico's begins in many places in that state, the right of sovereignty should rule. Even the New York Times admits that the law basically calls for enforcement of existing statutes:
Obama orders government to buy more GM cars!
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2009/04/09/obama-orders-government-to-buy-more-gm-cars/
Excerpt: President Obama has ordered the United States government to speed up its stimulus-inspired plan to purchase 17,600 new American-made cars by June 1st. The purchases are designed "to increase demand for American auto companies during these difficult economic times," according to the White House. It's actually unbelievable: The United States government lends an enormous sum of money to General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) and Chrysler but insists that they meet certain targets to demonstrate viability. Then the government buys a bunch of cars to help them meet those targets: Can someone please tell me what exactly Bernie Madoff did that was so bad? (And if they cost more than, say, Hondas made my American workers in American plants, well, the taxpayers can afford it.)
Medieval Warm Period as Warm as Today and Global
http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/852-medieval-warm-period-as-warm-as-today-and-global.html
Excerpt: Understanding how the climate has changed in the past is essential if we are to put today’s warm climate into its proper perspective. There is a key question in the post-hockey stick era, and that is how warm was the Medieval Warm Period of a thousand years ago and how warm was the Roman Warm Period of a thousand years before that. Some scientists have looked at the data for the MWP and whilst conceding that it was warm they have doubted its extent, suggesting that it was confined to Europe. This was despite the fact that there are very few temperature proxies outside Europe for the period. A new study into the question of the extent of the MWP has been carried out by Fredrik Ljungqvist et al in a paper to be presented at the European Geosciences Conference next month. They mapped the spatial and temporal temperature pattern between the 9th and the 20th century using about 150 temperature proxies including tree-rings, ice-cores, marine sediments, lake sediments and speleothems. Most of their data was from Europe and North America, a small minority from Siberia, northern Africa and the Middle East. Their data was compiled to give a resolution of 100 years. Their conclusion is that there was widespread Medieval warming in the 10th and 11th centuries, followed by a gradual cooling into the 17th century (the Little Ice Age) and then a warming from the 18th century that accelerated in the 20th. Significantly, they find that the warmth of the MWP was as widespread and as uniform as the 20th century. Although it was as warm as it is now it was not possible to make an exact comparison because of the study’s 100 year time resolution. (As Joe Biden might say: "This IS a BFD!" The MWP is one of the areas mentioned in the CRU emails as "unexplainable," UNLESS the MWP was only a regional event confined to the European area (or, at most, the Northern Hemisphere). A great deal of trouble was taken in various papers bearing on the IPCC 4th report to minimize (or "hide") the problems it creates for AGW proponents. There WAS no industrial input to ascribe the warming to in 1100 A.C.E., and even less a thousand years earlier. Of course, since it conflicts with the party line, no doubt it will be pooh-poohed. But, this could really be the straw that breaks the jackass's neck. Ron P.)
Jon Stewart’s Punching Bag, Fox News
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/arts/television/24stewart.html?emc=eta1
Excerpt: On the subject of Fox, Mr. Stewart is pretty relentless too. As demonstrated by that crescent segment and dozens of others since Mr. Obama took office, he may well be television’s pre-eminent fact-checker of Fox News, the nation’s highest-rated cable news channel.
It has been noticed by, among other people, the Fox host Bill O’Reilly, who called Mr. Stewart a “devoted critic” of Fox News and said “his influence is growing.” Separately, this week Mr. Stewart’s contract was renewed by Comedy Central into 2013. Combining the earnestness of a journalism professor and the sarcasm of a satirist, Mr. Stewart routinely charges that Fox’s news anchors and commentators distort Mr. Obama’s policies and advance a conservative agenda. He reminds some viewers of the left-wing group Media Matters but much funnier.
Running on Empty
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/opinion/24collins.html?emc=eta1
Excerpt: The election season is starting in earnest, and already one thing is crystal clear. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are hopeless. It seems inconceivable that either party can possibly win anything. This may be the year when the Whigs finally get to make their comeback. The whole world is expecting a cataclysm for the Democrats in November. After all, the economy is still a mess, and the party is still ... the party. In Illinois, which was first out of the box this season, the Democrats have already moved beyond the primary and into buyer’s remorse. They’ve already dumped the voters’ pick for lieutenant governor. This week, their question is whether they can get rid of their Senate nominee, Alexi Giannoulias, the son of a Chicago banking family, whose bank failed on Friday. The Democratic disaster scenario would make absolute sense if it did not also require that the Republicans do something right. But in one state after another, they seem bent on nominating the worst possible candidate. The world is one big scavenger hunt, and their clue says, “Find somebody unelectable.” (Because the problems are now so bad, that no one running on a platform that would have a hope of fixing them could get 5% of the vote. See: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/03/essay-coming-collapse-of-american.html)
Should police be required to question people they suspect of being in the country illegally about their immigration status
http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/privacy-law-280/topics/should-police-required-question-people
Excerpt: President Barack Obama harshly criticized a newly-passed law in Arizona to crack down on illegal immigration and said his administration would examine the measure to see if it is consistent with federal law. It was the first time the president addressed the controversial legislation that makes it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally. The law also requires police to question people they suspect to be in the U.S. illegally about their immigration status. What do you think? Does such questioning violate a trust relationship between citizens and police, as the president outlined? Or does the question help with law enforcement and immigration-reform efforts? What should be done with people who admit to being illegal?
Do you feel violated yet?
http://www.usobserver.com/archive/april-10/america-do-you-feel-violated-yet.html
Excerpt: As I write this column, the national debt created by the U.S. Congress without the consent of we the people is $12.7 TRILLION dollars. The people's treasury is bankrupt with current obligations running into numbers most people can't even grasp - Social security and Medicare have $99 TRILLION dollars in unfunded mandates: "Let's say you and I and Bruce Ericson and every U.S. citizen who is alive today decided to fully address this unfunded liability through lump-sum payments from our own pocketbooks, so that all of us and all future generations could be secure in the knowledge that we and they would receive promised benefits in perpetuity. How much would we have to pay if we split the tab? Again, the math is painful. With a total population of 304 million, from infants to the elderly, the per-person payment to the federal treasury would come to $330,000. This comes to $1.3 million per family of four—over 25 times the average household's income."
On Earth Day, Did You Thank a Hunter?
http://townhall.com/columnists/HumbertoFontova/2010/04/23/on_earth_day,_did_you_thank_a_hunter
Excerpt: Well, I’ve got news for our President. Millions of Americans who had never heard of Gaylord Nelson “took action on behalf of the environment,” decades before the good Senator “raised his voice.” More newsworthy still, most of these belonged to those insufferable rustics who “cling to guns and bibles.” To wit: The Pittman-Robertson Act (1937) imposed an excise tax of 10 per cent on all hunting gear. Then the Dingell-Johnson act (1950) did the same for fishing gear. The Wallop-Breaux amendment (1984) extended the tax to the fuel for boats. All of this lucre goes to “protect the environment” in the form of buying and maintaining National Wildlife Refuges, along with state programs for buying and maintaining various forms of wildlife habitat. For the last couple of decades hunters and fishermen have contributed over $1.5 billion per year towards Senator Gaylord Nelson’s lofty goal. To date, hunters and fishermen have shelled out over $20 billion “on behalf of the environment.” A study by the National Shooting Sports Foundation found that for every taxpayer dollar invested in wildlife conservation, hunters and fishermen contribute nine.
Nice comment on the Blog
I have to hand it to 'ya. You manage to find the best selection of news out there, grab the most important excerpts and then let US decide...And your "comments" don't hurt these old eyes one damn bit, either...lol. I'm surprised FOX news hasn't sent you a job app yet. Keep up the good work. --Bob G.
Separated at Birth
http://posuerpresident.blogspot.com/2010/04/separated-at-birth.html
Too funny. (Except to the folks who thought comparing Bush to Hitler or a monkey was funny—they won’t like this turn about at all.)
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Political Digest April 24, 2010
I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article.
White House Exults in General Motors Repayment
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20003116-503544.html
Excerpt: No one was cheering louder than the White House about General Motors' repayment of $6.7 billion in loans from the federal government. First thing this morning, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs alerted his 56,000 followers on Twitter of "BIG NEWS." "GM pays back US $6.7 billion used to save jobs," Gibbs exulted. But he had more. "BIGGER NEWS," he trumpeted. "Payment was 5 years ahead of schedule." And Gibbs still had a few of his 140 characters left to link to a New York Times article about it. Later at his daily press briefing, Gibbs didn't wait for a reporter to ask him about the GM payback. He portrayed it as a vindication of President Obama's decision to provide a federal bailout to GM and Chrysler:
GM Money Game
http://wsbradio.com/blogs/jamie_dupree/2010/04/gm-money-game.html
Excerpt: The issue came up yesterday at a hearing with the special watchdog on the Wall Street Bailout, Neil Barofsky, who was asked several times about the GM repayment by Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), who was looking for answers on how much money the feds might make from the controversial Wall Street Bailout. "It's good news in that they're reducing their debt," Barofsky said of the accelerated GM payments, "but they're doing it by taking other available TARP money." In other words, GM is taking money from the Wall Street Bailout - the TARP money - and using that to pay off their loans ahead of schedule. "It sounds like it's kind of like taking money out of one pocket and putting in the other," said Carper, who got a nod of agreement from Barofsky. "The way that payment is going to be made is by drawing down on an equity facility of other TARP money." Translated - they are using bailout funds from the feds to pay off their loans. For you and me, that might be like using one credit card to pay off another, eh?
So here’s my deal for BO
We bought a little condo in the Chicago area last June, for $160k. We still owe $121k. If President Obama will send me $121,000 in TARP Money, I’ll pay off my home loan 29 years early. And he can be exultant, take all the credit and blame George Bush for my being in debt. Deal or no deal? Sure, the taxpayers get screwed, but given the deficits, they will hardly notice. It won’t be like I’m the only one in line for government handouts. I figure a few more beers and I’ll be “too big to fail.”
Second Navy SEAL found not guilty of prisoner abuse
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/second_navy_seal_found_not_guilty_SrdAXqEHg9ItuIidpBLVGJ
Excerpt: A second U.S. Navy Seal facing charges of prisoner abuse was acquitted in Baghdad Friday. Petty officer Jonathan Keefe's acquittal followed a similar not guilty verdict against fellow serviceman Julio Huertas on Thursday. Keefe reportedly appeared in court in his sailor uniform and was sitting between two defense counselors, one civilian and one Navy. In a last minute decision, Keefe changed his request from a jury verdict to a military judge. In opening remarks, his counsel questioned the validity of the prisoner's testimony, arguing that terrorists were trained to claim abuse when they are arrested. Ahmed Hashim Abed's, the alleged victim, diverged from his testimony given in the Huertas case Wednesday. In that case, he said he was punched in the stomach and fell to the ground, but Friday he said he was kicked in the stomach. Keefe and Huertas were accused along with fellow Seal Matthew McCabe of brutality in connection with Abed's arrest. Abed was arrested in conjunction with the brutal murder of four American Blackwater contractors in Fallujah, Iraq. (In a just world, they would have shot Abed, then had drinks and medals all around.)
Gangster Government Becomes a Long-Running Series
http://jewishworldreview.com/michael/barone042210.php3
Excerpt: Almost a year ago, in a Washington Examiner column on the Chrysler bailout, I reflected on the Obama administration's decision to force bondholders to accept 33 cents on the dollar on secured debts while giving United Auto Worker retirees 50 cents on the dollar on unsecured debts. This was a clear violation of the ordinary bankruptcy rule that secured creditors are fully paid off before unsecured creditors get anything. The politically connected UAW folk got preference over politically unconnected bondholders. "We have just seen an episode of Gangster Government," I wrote. "It is likely to be a continuing series." Fast forward to last Friday, when the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against Goldman Sachs, alleging that the firm violated the law when it sold a collateralized debt obligation based on mortgage-backed securities without disclosing that the CDO was assembled with the help of hedge fund investor John Paulson. On its face, the complaint seems flimsy. Paulson has since become famous because his firm made billions by betting against mortgage-backed securities. But he wasn't a big name then, and the sophisticated firm buying the CDO must have assumed the seller believed its value would go down. That's not the only fishy thing about the complaint. Yesterday came the news, undisclosed by the SEC Friday, that the commissioners approved the complaint by a 3-2 party-line vote. Ordinarily, the SEC issues such complaints only when the commissioners unanimously approve. Fishy thing No. 3: Democrats immediately used the complaint to jam Sen. Christopher Dodd's financial regulation through the Senate.
Government report: New healthcare reform law could lead to higher prices, employers dropping coverage
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/93947-govt-report-new-health-law-could-lead-to-higher-prices-employers-dropping-coverage-
Surprise! The hangover gets worse. Excerpt: A new government report from Rick Foster, the chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), finds that President Barack Obama's new healthcare reform law would cost $828 billion over the next decade while saving $577 billion. Foster notes that CMS's projections do not take into account changes to the tax code that have been enacted. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that over the next 10 years, the healthcare package would decrease the deficit. The CMS analysis, provided to The Hill on Thursday, concludes that the healthcare overhaul will reduce the number of the nation's uninsured from 57 million to 23 million. However, the report raises several warnings about the impact of healthcare reform. Foster states, "The additional demand for health services could be difficult to meet initially with existing health resources and could lead to price increases, cost shifting, and/or changes in providers' willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage." The report also suggests that some employers will stop offering their employees healthcare coverage benefits: "A number of workers who currently have employer coverage would likely become enrolled in the expanded Medicaid program or receive subsidized coverage through the [Health] Exchanges. For example, some smaller employers would be inclined to terminate their existing coverage, and companies with low average salaries might find it to their -- and their employees' -- advantage to end their plans..." Foster claims that the law's penalties on employers who don't offer their workers health insurance "are relatively low compared to prevailing health insurance costs."
States assess health law's impact on physician shortages
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/states-assess-health-laws-impact-physician-shortages/2010-04-12
And the hangover gets even worse. Excerpt: The consensus generally indicates that health reform will exacerbate current or looming physician shortages across the country, particularly in primary care. Long term, the nation may see a shortage of about 160,000 physicians by 2025, reports the American Medical News. Although the health law includes provisions to get more medical students enrolled, states worry they may not be able to beat the clock. Mississippi, already suffering the worst doctor shortage in the country, will have an additional 500,000 insured patients in 2014 when the individual health insurance mandate takes effect. Although the University of Mississippi Medical Center--the state's only medical school, which already produces half of its physicians--has been working to increase enrollment, lean budgets likely will thwart their efforts for at least the next two years, the school's dean told the Clarion Ledger.
Majority of Americans 'confused' about health care law
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/1-health-care-poll-2.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: Majorities of Americans described themselves as "confused" about the new health care bill and acknowledge they don't have enough information about it to grasp how it will affect their lives, according to a new poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The numbers -- fifty-five percent of those tested expressed confusion about the law while 56 percent didn't know what impact it would have on them -- suggest that President Obama and his administration have their work cut out for them in the runup to the midterm elections. Obama and his team have long argued that once people found out what is in the bill (and what's not) public opinion would shift in their favor. And, the Kaiser poll does show -- as have a slew of other national surveys -- that many of the early-implementing provisions are quite popular. More than eight in ten people support tax credits for small companies who offer coverage to their employees (86 percent), back the idea of making it harder for insurance companies to drop you when a major medical problem occurs (81 percent) and like the idea of barring health plans from charging a co-pay for basic services (82 percent). The potential problem for the administration is that it has proven harder than it may have at first appeared to educate the public about the politically popular elements of the legislation.
Will the VAT Lady Sing? If so, it's over for America.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704133804575198370425467284.html
Excerpt: A cultural battle is under way in America, a battle between, in columnist Michael Barone's, words, "the culture of dependence and the culture of independence." The culture of dependence is the belief by American liberalism that government can make better decisions for people than people can make for themselves. The U.S. has now created the largest government spending increases, takeovers, and regulation expansion in the past 65 years, since the end of World War II. It is going to get even worse, as the President's budget plans to spend $45 trillion in the next 10 years, a 70% increase in spending over the last 10. Estimated tax revenues will only be $35 trillion--or maybe even less if the current economic difficulty lasts for a while. The Tax Foundation estimates that we would have to more than double current income tax rates for everyone to balance the 2010 budget, or increase the rates by 50% or more to balance the budgets over the next 10 years. To put America's new spending policy into perspective, the Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl reports that federal spending in the 1980s and 1990s remained flat--about $21,000 per household. During George W. Bush's administration, the figure rose to $25,000 per household, and President Obama's budget plans to spend $32,000 per household by 2019. And that number is before all the baby-boomers retire and another $10,000 or so in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid costs will be spent in addition. So the new, European America that we have become will need some serious new money to pay for all this spending. Doubling all personal income tax rates would be politically unlikely, and doubling the rates for the top 1% or 2% of taxpayers would not raise anywhere near enough. So what to do? Reducing federal spending is the most sensible approach, but Congress is unlikely to do it. It is pretty easy to argue that this administration's necessary course will instead be to hike taxes, and not just higher income tax rates will be on the table. We recently saw the White House preference when economic adviser and former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volker said, "If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes," suggesting what we should do is enact a value-added Tax, which he believes is "not as toxic an idea" as it once was.
Arizona Deals With Illegal Alien Immigration
http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty563.htm
Excerpt: Arizona citizens suffer drunk driving deaths, rapes, schools destroyed, hospitals bankrupting and a host of problems from nearly 500,000 illegal aliens working and living in their state. A whopping 57,000 Arizona citizens walk out to find their cars stolen every year. Mexican drug gangs use those vehicles for transport of their billion dollar enterprises. People traffickers use those stolen cars for the far-reaching illegal alien smuggling network that commences in Phoenix. Arizona schools suffer the children of an estimated 460,000 illegal alien migrants that crossed over the border in violation of federal laws. Arizona’s prisons remain full of illegal aliens while citizens and police suffer death at the hands of criminal aliens. This month, an illegal alien walked over the border to execute lifelong Arizona rancher Rob Krentz on his own property. National Parks Ranger Chris Eggle suffered death at the hands of a drug runner on the Arizona border at Organ Pipe National Park.
Ariz. governor signs immigration enforcement bill
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042301250.html?wpisrc=nl_natlalert
Excerpt: "We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act," Brewer said after signing the law. "But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation." Obama said in Washington that he's instructed the Justice Department to examine the Arizona bill to see if it's legal, and said the federal government must enact immigration reform at the national level - or leave the door open to "irresponsibility by others." "That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona, which threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe," Obama said. 9AZ—doing jobs the Feds won’t do, like enforcing the law.)
U.S. Navy Veterans Association takes out newspaper ad, says it's legit
http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/navy-veterans-group-takes-out-newspaper-ad-says-its-legit/1089568
Excerpt: The U.S. Navy Veterans Association, now being investigated by two Florida agencies, placed a quarter-page ad in the Tampa Tribune Thursday urging veterans to continue donations to the group and making assurances that its fundraising is beyond reproach. Though the nonprofit already has been shut down in one state, the ad says the Navy Veterans group continues to conduct activities for veterans across the United States. The ad features a color photograph showing a patient at James A. Haley Veterans Hospital who benefited from a charitable gift last year. The patient is surrounded by 14 people, some of whom are described as members and officers of the Navy Veterans group who "really exist." None are identified. The ad takes a slap at the St. Petersburg Times for stories published in March that revealed the nonprofit's members and officers are nowhere to be found and millions of dollars in charitable gifts are mostly undisclosed and unverifiable. "A recent newspaper series attempted to poke holes in our operation," the ad says. "We want to assure you that we meet every standard in our fundraising efforts and the administration of the Association.”This is America and our supporters know that character assassination is not the American way."
And these people want to run what's left of our free-market economy?
http://northernmuckraker.blogspot.com/2010/04/and-these-people-want-to-run-whats-left.html
Excerpt: Two of Hillary Clinton's State Department minions give a tiny (and recently in bankruptcy) "minority-owned company" a large no-bid contract for expensive crystal stemware. Strangely enough, that company doesn't even make glasses and therefore outsources the work to Sweden, and the diplomats are now disingenuously "blaming US firms for failing to compete" for the work. Well, how are legitimate American stemware companies such as Steuben supposed to competitively bid for a job that wasn't opened up for general bidding in the first place. Would it surprise anyone to find out that the high-level State Department geniuses behind this scheme are big-time Obama donors who made offering a minority business a lucrative contract, regardless of whether or not the company could fulfill the work order, the overriding priority in the process?:
Greece asks for activation of aid package
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042301437.html
An improvement on our system. When US politicians buy votes with irresponsible spending, US taxpayer suffer. In this case, Greek politicians bought the votes, but German and French taxpayer must cough up. Germans retire at 66, must be happy at paying for Greeks to retire at 56. Excerpt: Pushed to the brink of bankruptcy, Greece on Friday requested a massive, $56 billion rescue that is aimed at preventing a financial meltdown in the heart of Europe and will test the resolve of the European Union to uphold its pledge to bail out the troubled Mediterranean nation. The desperate move to seek billions from European nations and the International Monetary Fund potentially locks Greece into fresh rounds of austerity cuts and could worsen public unrest. It came as investors lost faith in the accuracy of Greece's financial reporting and as flight of capital was threatening to undermine the Greek banking system.
The Climate Swindle
http://www.oregoncatalyst.com/index.php/archives/3165-The-Climate-Swindle.html
I’m Shocked! Excerpt: Are you worried about your carbon footprint hurting the earth? Don’t worry. Now climate doomsayers can sleep easy at night. For a fee a carbon offset provider will gladly funnel your money into earth friendly projects aimed to reduce greenhouse gases, such as planting trees in Ecuador or supporting a wind farm in Texas. But are carbon offset providers really delivering what they claim? Studies of international carbon offset schemes have revealed examples of widespread fraud and abuse. And now, investigations into two of the most prominent carbon offset providers in the U.S. have revealed that neither of them actually offers real reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
My Carbon Offset Scheme
You send me money. I’ll spend it on whisky and dissipated living. I’ll die earlier, thus reducing my carbon footprint, offsetting your AC this summer. The more you send, the worse I’ll live.
U.S. Faces Choice on New Weapons for Fast Strikes
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/world/europe/23strike.html?hp
Excerpt: In coming years, President Obama will decide whether to deploy a new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United States in under an hour and with such accuracy and force that they would greatly diminish America’s reliance on its nuclear arsenal. Yet even now, concerns about the technology are so strong that the Obama administration has acceded to a demand by Russia that the United States decommission one nuclear missile for every one of these conventional weapons fielded by the Pentagon. That provision, the White House said, is buried deep inside the New Start treaty that Mr. Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev signed in Prague two weeks ago. Called Prompt Global Strike, the new weapon is designed to carry out tasks like picking off Osama bin Laden in a cave, if the right one could be found; taking out a North Korean missile while it is being rolled to the launch pad; or destroying an Iranian nuclear site — all without crossing the nuclear threshold. In theory, the weapon will hurl a conventional warhead of enormous weight at high speed and with pinpoint accuracy, generating the localized destructive power of a nuclear warhead. The idea is not new: President George W. Bush and his staff promoted the technology, imagining that this new generation of conventional weapons would replace nuclear warheads on submarines.
The Left’s secret plan for state takeover may be coming to a 2010 election near you http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/23/the-lefts-secret-plan-for-state-takeover-may-be-coming-to-a-2010-election-near-you/#ixzz0lwLTLalD
Excerpt: The story begins in 2004, when four affluent liberals decided to pool their money and began organizing for Democrats. Tim Gill, Rutt Bridges, Jared Polis, and Pat Stryker — progressives all, and collectively worth billions — spent just $2.5 million during their first election cycle. Result: Republicans lost majorities in both houses of the state legislature for the first time since the Kennedy administration. Democrats also flipped a congressional seat and picked up one of the two Senate seats the party took control of that year. (The other was Barack Obama in Illinois). By 2008, the transformation of Colorado was complete, with Democrats taking the governorship, the other Senate seat and 5 of 7 congressional seats.
Cops: Man shot, killed in self defense
http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/crime/cops-man-shot-killed-in-self-defense
There’s good news if you look for it. Excerpt: Metro Police say it appears that a man opened fire and shot another man in self defense during an attempted robbery at a downtown apartment complex. Brian Blevins, 24, told police he was moving into a building near 16th and Pennsylvania on Sunday when he was approached by 38-year-old Christopher Hampton. Blevins said Hampton asked him if he had change for a $5 bill. “The one guy said no the other guy said yeah let me go get it, it's in the apartment so he then followed him into the apartment, once they were in he pulled a gun out on them and ordered them into the back room,” said Sgt. Matt Mount of the Indianapolis Metro Police Department. Police say Blevins kept his gun in a back room. He came out and opened fire shooting Hampton in the back. Hampton was pronounced dead at the scene. Detectives say Hampton was wearing an ankle bracelet at the time of the shooting for an invasion of privacy, violation of a protective order arrest on April 5.
Court throws out Hamdania conviction
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/military/article_5c4f1616-8c6e-5c0d-9500-3e63464e695b.html
Excerpt: A military appeals court on Thursday overturned the murder conviction of a Camp Pendleton Marine who had been found guilty of leading his squad in the 2006 kidnapping and slaying of an Iraqi man in the village of Hamdania. The U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Appeals said Thursday that it made the ruling because an attorney for Sgt. Larry Hutchins' was improperly dismissed prior to the man's 2007 trial. That act alone is sufficient to set aside Hutchins' conviction for the April 2006 incident and erase his 11-year prison sentence, the nine-member court found. "I'm just so happy," said Hutchins' mother, Kathy, when reached at her Boston-area home. Thursday afternoon. "After everything that's happened, I just can't believe it." Hutchins, 26, was told of the court decision during a telephone call from his attorney, Marine Capt. S. Babu Kaza.
Brewer to sign immigration bill Friday
http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=1286888
Enforce the law? What an outrage! Excerpt: News/Talk 92.3 KTAR has learned that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer WILL sign controversial Senate Bill 1070 - the bill that would require police to arrest anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally. Sources familiar with the governor's decision tell KTAR the governor will sign the bill into law Friday afternoon. On Thursday night, Brewer, a keynote speaker at the 41st annual Chicanos Por La Causa anniversary dinner in downtown Phoenix, was faced with protestors outside.
North Carolina cools on President Obama
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36241.html
Excerpt: While North Carolina Republicans feel emboldened by the national political climate, the state’s Democrats, once united by their support for Obama, are beginning to fracture. Obama’s approval rating has slid in the state he won by just 14,000 votes, hovering in the low 40s, according to some polls. Several House Democrats from North Carolina broke ranks with the White House in the health care vote. Their decision galvanized pro-labor Democrats to work to form a third party, North Carolina First, which could jeopardize Democrats’ congressional majority. So perhaps it’s no coincidence that not a single elected official or candidate is expected to greet Obama on the tarmac after Air Force One touches down in the district of Rep. Heath Shuler – one of the 39 Democrats who voted against health care reform.
Iran begins war games in Persian Gulf oil route
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100422/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_war_games
If they aren’t real careful, President Wobbly will send them another strongly worded note! Excerpt: Ahead of the military maneuvers, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Washington of trying to dominate the world through its nuclear arsenal and vowed that Iran would not bend before what he called "implicit atomic threats."
'Muhammad' now a dirty word on 'South Park'
http://livefeed.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/04/south-park-censorship-.html
The state of Freedom of Speech. It can be shut down by intimidation as well as government. Excerpt: Now "South Park" can't even say the words "Prophet Muhammad." After last week's episode of the Comedy Central series sparked a threat (and yes, it was certainly a threat) from a radical Islamic website, the network has cracked-down-for-their-own-good on creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone during last night's continuation of the show's storyline. For those who missed the drama, the show's 200th episode last week mocked the one "celebrity" that the series has been largely unable to depict, the Prophet Muhammad, who was hidden from view in a bear costume. A U.S.-based website RevolutionMuslim.com then warned Parker and Stone they could end up like Theo Van Gogh (the Dutch filmmaker who was murdered by Muslim extremists after depicting Muhammad on his show) and even posted the address of the show's production office. The site has since been shut down. Last night, "South Park" continued the controversial Muhammad storyline, but with a key difference: every instance of the words "Prophet Muhammad" was bleeped out, making the episode practically incomprehensible, especially to anybody who missed the previous week.
Afghanistan: Girls inhale 'poison' at Kunduz school
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=3.1.281862305
Poisoning girls: Islamic. Showing Mohammad in a bear’s costume? An outrage and you must die! Excerpt: At least 12 female students were hospitalised in Afghanistan on Wednesday after inhaling a poisonous substance sprayed at a school in northern Afghanistan. The 12 students of the Fatima Zahra Girl School, and a teacher and an assistant were mysteriously poisoned, Hamayon Khamush, director of the hospital in Kunduz city, was quoted as saying by Xinhua. The Taliban's strict form of fundamentalist Islam prohibits girls from attending school. To defend their ideology, Taliban militants have attacked girl students with gas and acid.
Obama Appeases U.S. Muslims
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36639
Excerpt: The New York Times reported Monday, with no hint that it understood the implications of what it was reporting, that Barack Obama is reaching out to Hamas-linked groups in the United States, while hamstringing our response to the terror threat by making obfuscation of the ideology of jihad terrorists official U.S. policy.
Iran: Doing Nothing Is Not an Option
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/iran_doing_nothing_is_not_an_o.html
Excerpt: Obama not only refuses to act, but he blocks any meaningful action by Congress. Today, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act (IRPSA), the only bill with some actual teeth in it, is languishing in conference committee. The bill targets Iran's dependence on foreign oil imports. It tells companies who supply, ship, or insure shipments of refined petroleum to Iran that they have a choice: Do business with Iran, or do business with the U.S. While Iran is the fourth-largest oil exporter in the world, it imports a reported 40% of its gasoline and another 11% of its diesel fuel. Even though IRPSA passed the Senate with a unanimous vote and got an overwhelming majority of 412 votes in the House, it has been stuck in conference since December. Representative Mark Kirk (R-IL) told Foxnews.com, "The Obama administration is pushing Congress to postpone action on the bill[.]" The House and Senate issued letters to President Obama urging him to impose "crippling sanctions" on Iran. The letters further urge the president to sanction Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's banking system, and Iran's ability to import refined petroleum. The bipartisan House letter was spearheaded by Reps. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) and Mike Pence (R-IN), while the bipartisan Senate letter was led by Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The administration is hoping for international action through the U.N., which is another way of saying that he will do nothing.
The Tea Party, Timothy McVeigh, and Tainted History
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_tea_party_timothy_mcveigh.html
Excerpt: After conducting twenty-five thousand witness interviews, the FBI could not find one witness who tied the neo-Nazi suspects to downtown Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh, the Ryder truck, getaway vehicles, or the bombsite. All had irrefutable alibis. In short, the FBI failed to produce one eyewitness account, fingerprint, motel registration log, or phone record linking these alleged conspirators to the commission of the crime. The judge who presided over Terry Nichols' 2004 state murder trial ruled the Bureau's pursuit of additional domestic terrorists amounted to nothing more than "hyperbole and a dry hole." The FBI compliantly accepted the court's rebuke rather than take receipt of my voluminous dossier indicting Iraqi soldiers in the crime. In 1997, when I attempted to surrender the witness statements and corroborative evidence, the FBI flatly refused to take it. But I persisted, and in 1999, FBI Agent Dan Vogel accepted the witness affidavits and investigative file. From there, the documents simply vanished.
South Korean ship ‘hit by North Korean torpedo’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7104498.ece
Excerpt: "Military intelligence made the report to the Blue House [the presidential palace] and Defence Ministry immediately after the sinking of the Cheonan that it is clearly the work of North Korea’s military,” an unnamed military source was quoted as telling Yonhap. “North Korean submarines are all armed with heavy torpedoes with 200kg warheads. It is the military intelligence’s assessment that the North attacked with a heavy torpedo.” A separate report suggested that the ship was sunk in a suicide mission, with a manned, midget submarine exploding after being steered under the ship’s hull. The Chosun Ilbo newspaper suggested that this was an act of retaliation for a naval skirmish in November in which a handful of North Korean sailors are believed to have been killed after an exchange of fire with South Korea’s more modern navy.
Blagojevich sends not-so-subtle message to Obama
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-friday-20100423,0,1271799,full.column
Excerpt: Rod Blagojevich finally made good on a promise: He put President Barack Obama right in the middle of Blagojevich's own political corruption case. And now it's finally clear why, from the moment of Blagojevich's arrest in December 2008, White House spinners loudly portrayed our former Gov. Dead Meat as some drooling, raving lunatic. A lunatic is not to be believed, and Dead Meat will continue to be characterized as such by Obama defenders. But raving lunatics care little for their own survival. And in an amazing defense motion filed Thursday, Blagojevich proved once again that he is quite sane. He wants Obama to testify in his federal criminal case. The feds allege that Blagojevich conspired to sell off Obama's old U.S. Senate seat, among other charges. Obama's former patron and real estate fairy, the convicted influence peddler Tony Rezko, is a key player in the government's case. Blagojevich's aim is to undercut what Rezko has told investigators. And now Blago wants the president to do the undercutting from the witness stand, with the nation riveted to his every recollection of his days in Chicago politics, hanging with Tony and the guys, with the midterm November elections approaching.
Redactions Revealed: The Six Secrets You Need to Know From the Obama Subpoena Request
http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/The-Six-Secrets-You-Need-to-Know-From-the-Blagojevich-Filing-91848634.html
Excerpt: Former governor Rod Blagojevich's defense team asked Thursday to issue a trial subpoena to the President of the United States of America. The motion, intended to be heavily redacted, was improperly edited -- the full document was easily viewable if the text is copied and pasted to another document (an error first revealed on Capitol Fax). Below, the six revelations the redacted portions were meant to conceal: 1. Obama may have lied about conversations with convicted fraudster Tony Rezko.
Ms. Weaver Goes to Washington
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/04/22/ms-weaver-goes-to-washington/
Excerpt: Today in Washington: actress Sigourney Weaver testifies before the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on the topic of ocean acidification. Because, you know, she played an environmental scientist in Avatar. It’s the best fit since Jane Fonda, Jessica Lange, and Sissy Spacek — all of whom had played farm women — testified on America’s agricultural crisis. Congress doesn’t have time to vote on presidential nominations. It doesn’t bother engaging in serious oversight of presidential power and civil liberties abuses. It looks at the ceiling and whistles as the national debt approaches Greek levels. But members of Congress have time to listen to an actress discuss the topic of ocean acidification. (Reminds of the time I suggested the short, low-cut skimpy black dress my step-daughter had on for a job interview might not be appropriate. “She rolled her eyes and said, “Bob, Ally McBeal dresses like this and she’s a lawyer! They can no longer tell TV and movies from reality.)
Obama should return Wall Street's money
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Obama-should-return-Wall-Street_s-money-91850159.html
Excerpt: On the one hand, Obama and congressional Democrats like Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut accuse Wall Street executives of routinely taking dangerous gambles with investors' money, fraudulently packaging and selling securities that are guaranteed to become worthless, lining their pockets with outrageous bonuses, and, worst of all, dispatching armies of high-paid lobbyists to Washington to keep the federal regulators off their backs. These sins and more are why, according to the Democrats' narrative, Congress must pass the Obama-Dodd financial reform bill that will make "too big to fail" a permanent part of federal regulatory policy. It will also empower Washington to designate selected financial firms as "systemically essential" and thus eligible for federal bailouts and other forms of regulatory favoritism like government-backed credit. On the other hand, the reality is that Obama-Dodd puts satin sheets on that king-sized bed federal regulators have shared for years with favored Wall Street executives. That's why Goldman Sachs and other huge Wall Street securities firms are quite comfortable with being bashed by Obama even as he makes deals with them and cashes their checks. By the way, Obama-Dodd does nothing about Fannie and Freddie, the government-created mortgage giants whose obsession with subprime mortgages and paying off influential congressmen to look the other way actually led to the economic meltdown. Obama, Dodd and other Democratic leaders want to keep taking Wall Street's campaign contributions, which they are raking in at a phenomenal rate. Nearly 70 percent of Goldman Sachs political donations went to Democrats in 2009, according to OpenSecrets.org. And, as the Washington Examiner's J.P. Freire reported earlier this week, combine Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's $415,595 in Goldman Sachs contributions to her 2008 presidential campaign with Obama's beaucoup bucks from the firm and the total is 10 times what President George W. Bush got from Enron. This is hope and change?
White House Exults in General Motors Repayment
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20003116-503544.html
Excerpt: No one was cheering louder than the White House about General Motors' repayment of $6.7 billion in loans from the federal government. First thing this morning, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs alerted his 56,000 followers on Twitter of "BIG NEWS." "GM pays back US $6.7 billion used to save jobs," Gibbs exulted. But he had more. "BIGGER NEWS," he trumpeted. "Payment was 5 years ahead of schedule." And Gibbs still had a few of his 140 characters left to link to a New York Times article about it. Later at his daily press briefing, Gibbs didn't wait for a reporter to ask him about the GM payback. He portrayed it as a vindication of President Obama's decision to provide a federal bailout to GM and Chrysler:
GM Money Game
http://wsbradio.com/blogs/jamie_dupree/2010/04/gm-money-game.html
Excerpt: The issue came up yesterday at a hearing with the special watchdog on the Wall Street Bailout, Neil Barofsky, who was asked several times about the GM repayment by Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), who was looking for answers on how much money the feds might make from the controversial Wall Street Bailout. "It's good news in that they're reducing their debt," Barofsky said of the accelerated GM payments, "but they're doing it by taking other available TARP money." In other words, GM is taking money from the Wall Street Bailout - the TARP money - and using that to pay off their loans ahead of schedule. "It sounds like it's kind of like taking money out of one pocket and putting in the other," said Carper, who got a nod of agreement from Barofsky. "The way that payment is going to be made is by drawing down on an equity facility of other TARP money." Translated - they are using bailout funds from the feds to pay off their loans. For you and me, that might be like using one credit card to pay off another, eh?
So here’s my deal for BO
We bought a little condo in the Chicago area last June, for $160k. We still owe $121k. If President Obama will send me $121,000 in TARP Money, I’ll pay off my home loan 29 years early. And he can be exultant, take all the credit and blame George Bush for my being in debt. Deal or no deal? Sure, the taxpayers get screwed, but given the deficits, they will hardly notice. It won’t be like I’m the only one in line for government handouts. I figure a few more beers and I’ll be “too big to fail.”
Second Navy SEAL found not guilty of prisoner abuse
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/second_navy_seal_found_not_guilty_SrdAXqEHg9ItuIidpBLVGJ
Excerpt: A second U.S. Navy Seal facing charges of prisoner abuse was acquitted in Baghdad Friday. Petty officer Jonathan Keefe's acquittal followed a similar not guilty verdict against fellow serviceman Julio Huertas on Thursday. Keefe reportedly appeared in court in his sailor uniform and was sitting between two defense counselors, one civilian and one Navy. In a last minute decision, Keefe changed his request from a jury verdict to a military judge. In opening remarks, his counsel questioned the validity of the prisoner's testimony, arguing that terrorists were trained to claim abuse when they are arrested. Ahmed Hashim Abed's, the alleged victim, diverged from his testimony given in the Huertas case Wednesday. In that case, he said he was punched in the stomach and fell to the ground, but Friday he said he was kicked in the stomach. Keefe and Huertas were accused along with fellow Seal Matthew McCabe of brutality in connection with Abed's arrest. Abed was arrested in conjunction with the brutal murder of four American Blackwater contractors in Fallujah, Iraq. (In a just world, they would have shot Abed, then had drinks and medals all around.)
Gangster Government Becomes a Long-Running Series
http://jewishworldreview.com/michael/barone042210.php3
Excerpt: Almost a year ago, in a Washington Examiner column on the Chrysler bailout, I reflected on the Obama administration's decision to force bondholders to accept 33 cents on the dollar on secured debts while giving United Auto Worker retirees 50 cents on the dollar on unsecured debts. This was a clear violation of the ordinary bankruptcy rule that secured creditors are fully paid off before unsecured creditors get anything. The politically connected UAW folk got preference over politically unconnected bondholders. "We have just seen an episode of Gangster Government," I wrote. "It is likely to be a continuing series." Fast forward to last Friday, when the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against Goldman Sachs, alleging that the firm violated the law when it sold a collateralized debt obligation based on mortgage-backed securities without disclosing that the CDO was assembled with the help of hedge fund investor John Paulson. On its face, the complaint seems flimsy. Paulson has since become famous because his firm made billions by betting against mortgage-backed securities. But he wasn't a big name then, and the sophisticated firm buying the CDO must have assumed the seller believed its value would go down. That's not the only fishy thing about the complaint. Yesterday came the news, undisclosed by the SEC Friday, that the commissioners approved the complaint by a 3-2 party-line vote. Ordinarily, the SEC issues such complaints only when the commissioners unanimously approve. Fishy thing No. 3: Democrats immediately used the complaint to jam Sen. Christopher Dodd's financial regulation through the Senate.
Government report: New healthcare reform law could lead to higher prices, employers dropping coverage
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/93947-govt-report-new-health-law-could-lead-to-higher-prices-employers-dropping-coverage-
Surprise! The hangover gets worse. Excerpt: A new government report from Rick Foster, the chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), finds that President Barack Obama's new healthcare reform law would cost $828 billion over the next decade while saving $577 billion. Foster notes that CMS's projections do not take into account changes to the tax code that have been enacted. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that over the next 10 years, the healthcare package would decrease the deficit. The CMS analysis, provided to The Hill on Thursday, concludes that the healthcare overhaul will reduce the number of the nation's uninsured from 57 million to 23 million. However, the report raises several warnings about the impact of healthcare reform. Foster states, "The additional demand for health services could be difficult to meet initially with existing health resources and could lead to price increases, cost shifting, and/or changes in providers' willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage." The report also suggests that some employers will stop offering their employees healthcare coverage benefits: "A number of workers who currently have employer coverage would likely become enrolled in the expanded Medicaid program or receive subsidized coverage through the [Health] Exchanges. For example, some smaller employers would be inclined to terminate their existing coverage, and companies with low average salaries might find it to their -- and their employees' -- advantage to end their plans..." Foster claims that the law's penalties on employers who don't offer their workers health insurance "are relatively low compared to prevailing health insurance costs."
States assess health law's impact on physician shortages
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/states-assess-health-laws-impact-physician-shortages/2010-04-12
And the hangover gets even worse. Excerpt: The consensus generally indicates that health reform will exacerbate current or looming physician shortages across the country, particularly in primary care. Long term, the nation may see a shortage of about 160,000 physicians by 2025, reports the American Medical News. Although the health law includes provisions to get more medical students enrolled, states worry they may not be able to beat the clock. Mississippi, already suffering the worst doctor shortage in the country, will have an additional 500,000 insured patients in 2014 when the individual health insurance mandate takes effect. Although the University of Mississippi Medical Center--the state's only medical school, which already produces half of its physicians--has been working to increase enrollment, lean budgets likely will thwart their efforts for at least the next two years, the school's dean told the Clarion Ledger.
Majority of Americans 'confused' about health care law
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/1-health-care-poll-2.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: Majorities of Americans described themselves as "confused" about the new health care bill and acknowledge they don't have enough information about it to grasp how it will affect their lives, according to a new poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The numbers -- fifty-five percent of those tested expressed confusion about the law while 56 percent didn't know what impact it would have on them -- suggest that President Obama and his administration have their work cut out for them in the runup to the midterm elections. Obama and his team have long argued that once people found out what is in the bill (and what's not) public opinion would shift in their favor. And, the Kaiser poll does show -- as have a slew of other national surveys -- that many of the early-implementing provisions are quite popular. More than eight in ten people support tax credits for small companies who offer coverage to their employees (86 percent), back the idea of making it harder for insurance companies to drop you when a major medical problem occurs (81 percent) and like the idea of barring health plans from charging a co-pay for basic services (82 percent). The potential problem for the administration is that it has proven harder than it may have at first appeared to educate the public about the politically popular elements of the legislation.
Will the VAT Lady Sing? If so, it's over for America.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704133804575198370425467284.html
Excerpt: A cultural battle is under way in America, a battle between, in columnist Michael Barone's, words, "the culture of dependence and the culture of independence." The culture of dependence is the belief by American liberalism that government can make better decisions for people than people can make for themselves. The U.S. has now created the largest government spending increases, takeovers, and regulation expansion in the past 65 years, since the end of World War II. It is going to get even worse, as the President's budget plans to spend $45 trillion in the next 10 years, a 70% increase in spending over the last 10. Estimated tax revenues will only be $35 trillion--or maybe even less if the current economic difficulty lasts for a while. The Tax Foundation estimates that we would have to more than double current income tax rates for everyone to balance the 2010 budget, or increase the rates by 50% or more to balance the budgets over the next 10 years. To put America's new spending policy into perspective, the Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl reports that federal spending in the 1980s and 1990s remained flat--about $21,000 per household. During George W. Bush's administration, the figure rose to $25,000 per household, and President Obama's budget plans to spend $32,000 per household by 2019. And that number is before all the baby-boomers retire and another $10,000 or so in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid costs will be spent in addition. So the new, European America that we have become will need some serious new money to pay for all this spending. Doubling all personal income tax rates would be politically unlikely, and doubling the rates for the top 1% or 2% of taxpayers would not raise anywhere near enough. So what to do? Reducing federal spending is the most sensible approach, but Congress is unlikely to do it. It is pretty easy to argue that this administration's necessary course will instead be to hike taxes, and not just higher income tax rates will be on the table. We recently saw the White House preference when economic adviser and former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volker said, "If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes," suggesting what we should do is enact a value-added Tax, which he believes is "not as toxic an idea" as it once was.
Arizona Deals With Illegal Alien Immigration
http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty563.htm
Excerpt: Arizona citizens suffer drunk driving deaths, rapes, schools destroyed, hospitals bankrupting and a host of problems from nearly 500,000 illegal aliens working and living in their state. A whopping 57,000 Arizona citizens walk out to find their cars stolen every year. Mexican drug gangs use those vehicles for transport of their billion dollar enterprises. People traffickers use those stolen cars for the far-reaching illegal alien smuggling network that commences in Phoenix. Arizona schools suffer the children of an estimated 460,000 illegal alien migrants that crossed over the border in violation of federal laws. Arizona’s prisons remain full of illegal aliens while citizens and police suffer death at the hands of criminal aliens. This month, an illegal alien walked over the border to execute lifelong Arizona rancher Rob Krentz on his own property. National Parks Ranger Chris Eggle suffered death at the hands of a drug runner on the Arizona border at Organ Pipe National Park.
Ariz. governor signs immigration enforcement bill
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042301250.html?wpisrc=nl_natlalert
Excerpt: "We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act," Brewer said after signing the law. "But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation." Obama said in Washington that he's instructed the Justice Department to examine the Arizona bill to see if it's legal, and said the federal government must enact immigration reform at the national level - or leave the door open to "irresponsibility by others." "That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona, which threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe," Obama said. 9AZ—doing jobs the Feds won’t do, like enforcing the law.)
U.S. Navy Veterans Association takes out newspaper ad, says it's legit
http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/navy-veterans-group-takes-out-newspaper-ad-says-its-legit/1089568
Excerpt: The U.S. Navy Veterans Association, now being investigated by two Florida agencies, placed a quarter-page ad in the Tampa Tribune Thursday urging veterans to continue donations to the group and making assurances that its fundraising is beyond reproach. Though the nonprofit already has been shut down in one state, the ad says the Navy Veterans group continues to conduct activities for veterans across the United States. The ad features a color photograph showing a patient at James A. Haley Veterans Hospital who benefited from a charitable gift last year. The patient is surrounded by 14 people, some of whom are described as members and officers of the Navy Veterans group who "really exist." None are identified. The ad takes a slap at the St. Petersburg Times for stories published in March that revealed the nonprofit's members and officers are nowhere to be found and millions of dollars in charitable gifts are mostly undisclosed and unverifiable. "A recent newspaper series attempted to poke holes in our operation," the ad says. "We want to assure you that we meet every standard in our fundraising efforts and the administration of the Association.”This is America and our supporters know that character assassination is not the American way."
And these people want to run what's left of our free-market economy?
http://northernmuckraker.blogspot.com/2010/04/and-these-people-want-to-run-whats-left.html
Excerpt: Two of Hillary Clinton's State Department minions give a tiny (and recently in bankruptcy) "minority-owned company" a large no-bid contract for expensive crystal stemware. Strangely enough, that company doesn't even make glasses and therefore outsources the work to Sweden, and the diplomats are now disingenuously "blaming US firms for failing to compete" for the work. Well, how are legitimate American stemware companies such as Steuben supposed to competitively bid for a job that wasn't opened up for general bidding in the first place. Would it surprise anyone to find out that the high-level State Department geniuses behind this scheme are big-time Obama donors who made offering a minority business a lucrative contract, regardless of whether or not the company could fulfill the work order, the overriding priority in the process?:
Greece asks for activation of aid package
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042301437.html
An improvement on our system. When US politicians buy votes with irresponsible spending, US taxpayer suffer. In this case, Greek politicians bought the votes, but German and French taxpayer must cough up. Germans retire at 66, must be happy at paying for Greeks to retire at 56. Excerpt: Pushed to the brink of bankruptcy, Greece on Friday requested a massive, $56 billion rescue that is aimed at preventing a financial meltdown in the heart of Europe and will test the resolve of the European Union to uphold its pledge to bail out the troubled Mediterranean nation. The desperate move to seek billions from European nations and the International Monetary Fund potentially locks Greece into fresh rounds of austerity cuts and could worsen public unrest. It came as investors lost faith in the accuracy of Greece's financial reporting and as flight of capital was threatening to undermine the Greek banking system.
The Climate Swindle
http://www.oregoncatalyst.com/index.php/archives/3165-The-Climate-Swindle.html
I’m Shocked! Excerpt: Are you worried about your carbon footprint hurting the earth? Don’t worry. Now climate doomsayers can sleep easy at night. For a fee a carbon offset provider will gladly funnel your money into earth friendly projects aimed to reduce greenhouse gases, such as planting trees in Ecuador or supporting a wind farm in Texas. But are carbon offset providers really delivering what they claim? Studies of international carbon offset schemes have revealed examples of widespread fraud and abuse. And now, investigations into two of the most prominent carbon offset providers in the U.S. have revealed that neither of them actually offers real reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
My Carbon Offset Scheme
You send me money. I’ll spend it on whisky and dissipated living. I’ll die earlier, thus reducing my carbon footprint, offsetting your AC this summer. The more you send, the worse I’ll live.
U.S. Faces Choice on New Weapons for Fast Strikes
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/world/europe/23strike.html?hp
Excerpt: In coming years, President Obama will decide whether to deploy a new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United States in under an hour and with such accuracy and force that they would greatly diminish America’s reliance on its nuclear arsenal. Yet even now, concerns about the technology are so strong that the Obama administration has acceded to a demand by Russia that the United States decommission one nuclear missile for every one of these conventional weapons fielded by the Pentagon. That provision, the White House said, is buried deep inside the New Start treaty that Mr. Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev signed in Prague two weeks ago. Called Prompt Global Strike, the new weapon is designed to carry out tasks like picking off Osama bin Laden in a cave, if the right one could be found; taking out a North Korean missile while it is being rolled to the launch pad; or destroying an Iranian nuclear site — all without crossing the nuclear threshold. In theory, the weapon will hurl a conventional warhead of enormous weight at high speed and with pinpoint accuracy, generating the localized destructive power of a nuclear warhead. The idea is not new: President George W. Bush and his staff promoted the technology, imagining that this new generation of conventional weapons would replace nuclear warheads on submarines.
The Left’s secret plan for state takeover may be coming to a 2010 election near you http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/23/the-lefts-secret-plan-for-state-takeover-may-be-coming-to-a-2010-election-near-you/#ixzz0lwLTLalD
Excerpt: The story begins in 2004, when four affluent liberals decided to pool their money and began organizing for Democrats. Tim Gill, Rutt Bridges, Jared Polis, and Pat Stryker — progressives all, and collectively worth billions — spent just $2.5 million during their first election cycle. Result: Republicans lost majorities in both houses of the state legislature for the first time since the Kennedy administration. Democrats also flipped a congressional seat and picked up one of the two Senate seats the party took control of that year. (The other was Barack Obama in Illinois). By 2008, the transformation of Colorado was complete, with Democrats taking the governorship, the other Senate seat and 5 of 7 congressional seats.
Cops: Man shot, killed in self defense
http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/crime/cops-man-shot-killed-in-self-defense
There’s good news if you look for it. Excerpt: Metro Police say it appears that a man opened fire and shot another man in self defense during an attempted robbery at a downtown apartment complex. Brian Blevins, 24, told police he was moving into a building near 16th and Pennsylvania on Sunday when he was approached by 38-year-old Christopher Hampton. Blevins said Hampton asked him if he had change for a $5 bill. “The one guy said no the other guy said yeah let me go get it, it's in the apartment so he then followed him into the apartment, once they were in he pulled a gun out on them and ordered them into the back room,” said Sgt. Matt Mount of the Indianapolis Metro Police Department. Police say Blevins kept his gun in a back room. He came out and opened fire shooting Hampton in the back. Hampton was pronounced dead at the scene. Detectives say Hampton was wearing an ankle bracelet at the time of the shooting for an invasion of privacy, violation of a protective order arrest on April 5.
Court throws out Hamdania conviction
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/military/article_5c4f1616-8c6e-5c0d-9500-3e63464e695b.html
Excerpt: A military appeals court on Thursday overturned the murder conviction of a Camp Pendleton Marine who had been found guilty of leading his squad in the 2006 kidnapping and slaying of an Iraqi man in the village of Hamdania. The U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Appeals said Thursday that it made the ruling because an attorney for Sgt. Larry Hutchins' was improperly dismissed prior to the man's 2007 trial. That act alone is sufficient to set aside Hutchins' conviction for the April 2006 incident and erase his 11-year prison sentence, the nine-member court found. "I'm just so happy," said Hutchins' mother, Kathy, when reached at her Boston-area home. Thursday afternoon. "After everything that's happened, I just can't believe it." Hutchins, 26, was told of the court decision during a telephone call from his attorney, Marine Capt. S. Babu Kaza.
Brewer to sign immigration bill Friday
http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=1286888
Enforce the law? What an outrage! Excerpt: News/Talk 92.3 KTAR has learned that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer WILL sign controversial Senate Bill 1070 - the bill that would require police to arrest anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally. Sources familiar with the governor's decision tell KTAR the governor will sign the bill into law Friday afternoon. On Thursday night, Brewer, a keynote speaker at the 41st annual Chicanos Por La Causa anniversary dinner in downtown Phoenix, was faced with protestors outside.
North Carolina cools on President Obama
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36241.html
Excerpt: While North Carolina Republicans feel emboldened by the national political climate, the state’s Democrats, once united by their support for Obama, are beginning to fracture. Obama’s approval rating has slid in the state he won by just 14,000 votes, hovering in the low 40s, according to some polls. Several House Democrats from North Carolina broke ranks with the White House in the health care vote. Their decision galvanized pro-labor Democrats to work to form a third party, North Carolina First, which could jeopardize Democrats’ congressional majority. So perhaps it’s no coincidence that not a single elected official or candidate is expected to greet Obama on the tarmac after Air Force One touches down in the district of Rep. Heath Shuler – one of the 39 Democrats who voted against health care reform.
Iran begins war games in Persian Gulf oil route
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100422/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_war_games
If they aren’t real careful, President Wobbly will send them another strongly worded note! Excerpt: Ahead of the military maneuvers, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Washington of trying to dominate the world through its nuclear arsenal and vowed that Iran would not bend before what he called "implicit atomic threats."
'Muhammad' now a dirty word on 'South Park'
http://livefeed.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/04/south-park-censorship-.html
The state of Freedom of Speech. It can be shut down by intimidation as well as government. Excerpt: Now "South Park" can't even say the words "Prophet Muhammad." After last week's episode of the Comedy Central series sparked a threat (and yes, it was certainly a threat) from a radical Islamic website, the network has cracked-down-for-their-own-good on creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone during last night's continuation of the show's storyline. For those who missed the drama, the show's 200th episode last week mocked the one "celebrity" that the series has been largely unable to depict, the Prophet Muhammad, who was hidden from view in a bear costume. A U.S.-based website RevolutionMuslim.com then warned Parker and Stone they could end up like Theo Van Gogh (the Dutch filmmaker who was murdered by Muslim extremists after depicting Muhammad on his show) and even posted the address of the show's production office. The site has since been shut down. Last night, "South Park" continued the controversial Muhammad storyline, but with a key difference: every instance of the words "Prophet Muhammad" was bleeped out, making the episode practically incomprehensible, especially to anybody who missed the previous week.
Afghanistan: Girls inhale 'poison' at Kunduz school
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=3.1.281862305
Poisoning girls: Islamic. Showing Mohammad in a bear’s costume? An outrage and you must die! Excerpt: At least 12 female students were hospitalised in Afghanistan on Wednesday after inhaling a poisonous substance sprayed at a school in northern Afghanistan. The 12 students of the Fatima Zahra Girl School, and a teacher and an assistant were mysteriously poisoned, Hamayon Khamush, director of the hospital in Kunduz city, was quoted as saying by Xinhua. The Taliban's strict form of fundamentalist Islam prohibits girls from attending school. To defend their ideology, Taliban militants have attacked girl students with gas and acid.
Obama Appeases U.S. Muslims
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36639
Excerpt: The New York Times reported Monday, with no hint that it understood the implications of what it was reporting, that Barack Obama is reaching out to Hamas-linked groups in the United States, while hamstringing our response to the terror threat by making obfuscation of the ideology of jihad terrorists official U.S. policy.
Iran: Doing Nothing Is Not an Option
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/iran_doing_nothing_is_not_an_o.html
Excerpt: Obama not only refuses to act, but he blocks any meaningful action by Congress. Today, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act (IRPSA), the only bill with some actual teeth in it, is languishing in conference committee. The bill targets Iran's dependence on foreign oil imports. It tells companies who supply, ship, or insure shipments of refined petroleum to Iran that they have a choice: Do business with Iran, or do business with the U.S. While Iran is the fourth-largest oil exporter in the world, it imports a reported 40% of its gasoline and another 11% of its diesel fuel. Even though IRPSA passed the Senate with a unanimous vote and got an overwhelming majority of 412 votes in the House, it has been stuck in conference since December. Representative Mark Kirk (R-IL) told Foxnews.com, "The Obama administration is pushing Congress to postpone action on the bill[.]" The House and Senate issued letters to President Obama urging him to impose "crippling sanctions" on Iran. The letters further urge the president to sanction Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's banking system, and Iran's ability to import refined petroleum. The bipartisan House letter was spearheaded by Reps. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) and Mike Pence (R-IN), while the bipartisan Senate letter was led by Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The administration is hoping for international action through the U.N., which is another way of saying that he will do nothing.
The Tea Party, Timothy McVeigh, and Tainted History
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_tea_party_timothy_mcveigh.html
Excerpt: After conducting twenty-five thousand witness interviews, the FBI could not find one witness who tied the neo-Nazi suspects to downtown Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh, the Ryder truck, getaway vehicles, or the bombsite. All had irrefutable alibis. In short, the FBI failed to produce one eyewitness account, fingerprint, motel registration log, or phone record linking these alleged conspirators to the commission of the crime. The judge who presided over Terry Nichols' 2004 state murder trial ruled the Bureau's pursuit of additional domestic terrorists amounted to nothing more than "hyperbole and a dry hole." The FBI compliantly accepted the court's rebuke rather than take receipt of my voluminous dossier indicting Iraqi soldiers in the crime. In 1997, when I attempted to surrender the witness statements and corroborative evidence, the FBI flatly refused to take it. But I persisted, and in 1999, FBI Agent Dan Vogel accepted the witness affidavits and investigative file. From there, the documents simply vanished.
South Korean ship ‘hit by North Korean torpedo’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7104498.ece
Excerpt: "Military intelligence made the report to the Blue House [the presidential palace] and Defence Ministry immediately after the sinking of the Cheonan that it is clearly the work of North Korea’s military,” an unnamed military source was quoted as telling Yonhap. “North Korean submarines are all armed with heavy torpedoes with 200kg warheads. It is the military intelligence’s assessment that the North attacked with a heavy torpedo.” A separate report suggested that the ship was sunk in a suicide mission, with a manned, midget submarine exploding after being steered under the ship’s hull. The Chosun Ilbo newspaper suggested that this was an act of retaliation for a naval skirmish in November in which a handful of North Korean sailors are believed to have been killed after an exchange of fire with South Korea’s more modern navy.
Blagojevich sends not-so-subtle message to Obama
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-friday-20100423,0,1271799,full.column
Excerpt: Rod Blagojevich finally made good on a promise: He put President Barack Obama right in the middle of Blagojevich's own political corruption case. And now it's finally clear why, from the moment of Blagojevich's arrest in December 2008, White House spinners loudly portrayed our former Gov. Dead Meat as some drooling, raving lunatic. A lunatic is not to be believed, and Dead Meat will continue to be characterized as such by Obama defenders. But raving lunatics care little for their own survival. And in an amazing defense motion filed Thursday, Blagojevich proved once again that he is quite sane. He wants Obama to testify in his federal criminal case. The feds allege that Blagojevich conspired to sell off Obama's old U.S. Senate seat, among other charges. Obama's former patron and real estate fairy, the convicted influence peddler Tony Rezko, is a key player in the government's case. Blagojevich's aim is to undercut what Rezko has told investigators. And now Blago wants the president to do the undercutting from the witness stand, with the nation riveted to his every recollection of his days in Chicago politics, hanging with Tony and the guys, with the midterm November elections approaching.
Redactions Revealed: The Six Secrets You Need to Know From the Obama Subpoena Request
http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/The-Six-Secrets-You-Need-to-Know-From-the-Blagojevich-Filing-91848634.html
Excerpt: Former governor Rod Blagojevich's defense team asked Thursday to issue a trial subpoena to the President of the United States of America. The motion, intended to be heavily redacted, was improperly edited -- the full document was easily viewable if the text is copied and pasted to another document (an error first revealed on Capitol Fax). Below, the six revelations the redacted portions were meant to conceal: 1. Obama may have lied about conversations with convicted fraudster Tony Rezko.
Ms. Weaver Goes to Washington
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/04/22/ms-weaver-goes-to-washington/
Excerpt: Today in Washington: actress Sigourney Weaver testifies before the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on the topic of ocean acidification. Because, you know, she played an environmental scientist in Avatar. It’s the best fit since Jane Fonda, Jessica Lange, and Sissy Spacek — all of whom had played farm women — testified on America’s agricultural crisis. Congress doesn’t have time to vote on presidential nominations. It doesn’t bother engaging in serious oversight of presidential power and civil liberties abuses. It looks at the ceiling and whistles as the national debt approaches Greek levels. But members of Congress have time to listen to an actress discuss the topic of ocean acidification. (Reminds of the time I suggested the short, low-cut skimpy black dress my step-daughter had on for a job interview might not be appropriate. “She rolled her eyes and said, “Bob, Ally McBeal dresses like this and she’s a lawyer! They can no longer tell TV and movies from reality.)
Obama should return Wall Street's money
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Obama-should-return-Wall-Street_s-money-91850159.html
Excerpt: On the one hand, Obama and congressional Democrats like Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Chris Dodd of Connecticut accuse Wall Street executives of routinely taking dangerous gambles with investors' money, fraudulently packaging and selling securities that are guaranteed to become worthless, lining their pockets with outrageous bonuses, and, worst of all, dispatching armies of high-paid lobbyists to Washington to keep the federal regulators off their backs. These sins and more are why, according to the Democrats' narrative, Congress must pass the Obama-Dodd financial reform bill that will make "too big to fail" a permanent part of federal regulatory policy. It will also empower Washington to designate selected financial firms as "systemically essential" and thus eligible for federal bailouts and other forms of regulatory favoritism like government-backed credit. On the other hand, the reality is that Obama-Dodd puts satin sheets on that king-sized bed federal regulators have shared for years with favored Wall Street executives. That's why Goldman Sachs and other huge Wall Street securities firms are quite comfortable with being bashed by Obama even as he makes deals with them and cashes their checks. By the way, Obama-Dodd does nothing about Fannie and Freddie, the government-created mortgage giants whose obsession with subprime mortgages and paying off influential congressmen to look the other way actually led to the economic meltdown. Obama, Dodd and other Democratic leaders want to keep taking Wall Street's campaign contributions, which they are raking in at a phenomenal rate. Nearly 70 percent of Goldman Sachs political donations went to Democrats in 2009, according to OpenSecrets.org. And, as the Washington Examiner's J.P. Freire reported earlier this week, combine Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's $415,595 in Goldman Sachs contributions to her 2008 presidential campaign with Obama's beaucoup bucks from the firm and the total is 10 times what President George W. Bush got from Enron. This is hope and change?
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