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Good looks and the Trump campaign
2 weeks ago
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Tea Partiers Most Popular
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/Poll-TeaPartyPatriotsMostPopular/2009/12/17/id/343602?s=al
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Tea Party Activists are the New GOP
Tea Party Activists Are the New GOP
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 7:11 AM
By: Richard A. Viguerie Article Font Size
After withdrawing from the special election for New York’s 23rd Congressional District, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, who had been the Republican candidate, threw her support to the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, rather than Doug Hoffman, a Republican running on the Conservative Party ticket.
That was one more example of the “closed tent” mentality of big-government, establishment Republicans who have worked long and hard to keep conservatives out of power at the national, state, and local levels.
The GOP leadership’s backing of Ms. Scozzafava was a slap in the face to tea party activists, town-hall protesters, and conservatives across the country. The Washington GOP establishment’s abandonment of fiscal responsibility led directly to the election of Barack Obama as president, Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House, and Harry Reid as Senate majority leader.
The American people see the GOP leadership and establishment every bit as much a part of the problem as the Democrats.
Doug Hoffman and N.Y.-23 are an earthquake in American politics, the first of many challenges to establishment Republicans that we will see for the 2010 elections and beyond. The Republican leaders' stupid decision to pour $900,000 into the race against a conservative has unleashed a fury that will lead to new GOP leadership.
Conservatives’ anger at Washington-establishment Republicans will cost the national committees tens of millions of dollars, as conservative money will start flowing directly to the tea parties and their candidates.
It’s clear that the main opposition to President Obama and Pelosi’s agenda is not from Republican politicians, but rather conservative talk-show hosts, bloggers, cable TV hosts, tea party activists, town-hall attendees, and other grass-roots conservatives.
Tea party activists and conservatives feel betrayed by Republican leaders: John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Pete Sessions, Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Michael Steele, and Newt Gingrich.
These GOP leaders would rather follow the advice of professional political consultants, who are not small-government conservatives. These people would rather satisfy their friends in the media than win — and win with principle. They are the same people who try to denigrate the tea party and town-hall protesters by calling them “teabaggers.”
That type of thinking, which actively opposes the rise of conservatives and others who challenge the old Washington political establishment, will keep the GOP as a small tent. The tea party movement, like Reaganism, is the real big tent.
Over the last dozen years, Republican Party leaders have broken the bond of trust between them and the base of the party. It will not be restored until the GOP selects new leaders who represent the views and values of grass-roots Americans, not Washington views and values.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 7:11 AM
By: Richard A. Viguerie Article Font Size
After withdrawing from the special election for New York’s 23rd Congressional District, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, who had been the Republican candidate, threw her support to the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, rather than Doug Hoffman, a Republican running on the Conservative Party ticket.
That was one more example of the “closed tent” mentality of big-government, establishment Republicans who have worked long and hard to keep conservatives out of power at the national, state, and local levels.
The GOP leadership’s backing of Ms. Scozzafava was a slap in the face to tea party activists, town-hall protesters, and conservatives across the country. The Washington GOP establishment’s abandonment of fiscal responsibility led directly to the election of Barack Obama as president, Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House, and Harry Reid as Senate majority leader.
The American people see the GOP leadership and establishment every bit as much a part of the problem as the Democrats.
Doug Hoffman and N.Y.-23 are an earthquake in American politics, the first of many challenges to establishment Republicans that we will see for the 2010 elections and beyond. The Republican leaders' stupid decision to pour $900,000 into the race against a conservative has unleashed a fury that will lead to new GOP leadership.
Conservatives’ anger at Washington-establishment Republicans will cost the national committees tens of millions of dollars, as conservative money will start flowing directly to the tea parties and their candidates.
It’s clear that the main opposition to President Obama and Pelosi’s agenda is not from Republican politicians, but rather conservative talk-show hosts, bloggers, cable TV hosts, tea party activists, town-hall attendees, and other grass-roots conservatives.
Tea party activists and conservatives feel betrayed by Republican leaders: John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Pete Sessions, Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Michael Steele, and Newt Gingrich.
These GOP leaders would rather follow the advice of professional political consultants, who are not small-government conservatives. These people would rather satisfy their friends in the media than win — and win with principle. They are the same people who try to denigrate the tea party and town-hall protesters by calling them “teabaggers.”
That type of thinking, which actively opposes the rise of conservatives and others who challenge the old Washington political establishment, will keep the GOP as a small tent. The tea party movement, like Reaganism, is the real big tent.
Over the last dozen years, Republican Party leaders have broken the bond of trust between them and the base of the party. It will not be restored until the GOP selects new leaders who represent the views and values of grass-roots Americans, not Washington views and values.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Monday, November 30, 2009
A Year of Jihad in America
A Year of Jihad in America
By; Christopher Holton
www.StanduUpAmericaUS.com
There is mounting evidence that the global Jihadist insurgency is fully entrenched in the United States After the Fort Hood massacre news services seem divided between those hell-bent-for-leather on denying that the Fort Hood massacre was a case of anything other than a persecuted loner "snapping" and those who proclaimed it the first "terrorist" attack on US soil since September 11th.
This focus is wrong. Fort Hood was an act of Jihad and that's really all that matters: It is essential that we find out how extensive Nidal Malik Hasan's ties to other Jihadists were. Of this there can be no doubt.
But we must refrain from entering into a debate on what amounts largely to semantics about whether or not the Fort Hood massacre was an act of "terrorism." We need to get away from focusing on the term "terrorism" anyway. Some observers still don't consider the 1983 Beirut Barracks bombing by Hezbollah, which killed 241 Marines, sailors and soldiers, an act of "terrorism" because, by some widely recognized definitions, attacks on combatants cannot be termed "terrorism."
The Fort Hood massacre and the attack on the Marine Barracks were acts of Jihad. The Jihadis themselves don't refer to themselves as "terrorists." But they most assuredly refer to themselves as "Jihadis." We should let them own that title.
This was never a war on "terrorism." Jihad is being waged against us and we have tied ourselves in knots to deny that reality. Moreover, Fort Hood was hardly the first act of Jihad on US soil since September 11th. A few examples come to mind:
* The Anthrax Attacks (Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I do NOT buy the official line on these attacks, but that's a subject for another time and place.)
* The DC "Sniper" Shootings (There is a great deal of evidence that John Mohammed carried out these attacks in the name of Allah.)
* The LAX Shooting at the El Al Ticket Counter
Note that whether the perpetrators are members of a previously known terrorist organization (such as Al Qaeda) or were lone actors, these were still acts of Jihad.
It is difficult to combat a shadowy organization like Al Qaeda, but it is far more difficult to prevent "lone wolf" actors from attacking. Al Qaeda may be difficult to infiltrate and gather intelligence on, but how do we "infiltrate" a lone Jihadist?
This is symptomatic of a revolutionary Jihadist subculture metastasizing within the American Muslim community, especially within its mosques and organizations. This revolutionary subculture has produced an atmosphere in which Muslims are inspired to act violently. This is a very dangerous and volatile situation.
Over the last 12 months alone, we have been provided with a stack of evidence of the Jihadist insurgency inside America. Americans have largely ignored this evidence, or at least failed to "connect the dots." Seemingly completely unrelated cases do in fact have common threads: they are acts of Jihad.
I decided to go back and research examples of Jihad in America over the last 12 months, roughly 1 December 2008 to 1 December 2009. Here is a list of incidents, cases, actions, statements and plots which point to a Jihadist insurgency in our midst (Keep in mind that insurgencies are both civilizational/political and violent/militant.).
The list is compiled in reverse chronological order, meaning that the most recent items are listed first. We no doubt left out some cases. I believe that all of these cases and incidents brought together on a single listing will prompt most readers to conclude that the magnitude of the threat we face inside the United States is greater than they previously believed.
NOVEMBER 2009
* Ten Indicted in Philadelphia in Case Involving Material Support for Jihadist Terrorist Group Hezbollah
* Terrorism Charges Unsealed in Minnesota Against 8 Somali Members of Jihadist Terrorist Group al-Shabaab
* Feds in New York Move to Seize Assets of Iran-tied Alavi Foundation
* Nidal Malik Hasan Kills 13, Wounds 20 In Shooting Rampage at Fort Hood, Texas
OCTOBER 2009
* US Jails Al Qaeda Sleeper Agent (Ali al-Marri was previously held in brig at Charleston, SC Naval Station)
* Two Chicago Men Charged in Jihadist Terrorist Plot in Denmark
* Eleven Members of Jihadist Group Arrested in Detroit; Imam Killed in Shootout with FBI (Luqman Ameen Abdullah Shot and Killed FBI Dog During Arrest)
* Boston Muslim Charged in Plot to Kill Shoppers, Troops
* Three Ohio Residents Sentenced in Plot to Commit Terrorist Acts Against Americans Overseas
* Massachusetts Man Charged With Conspiracy to Provide Material Support for Terrorists
* University of California-Irvine Files Complaint with Feds that Muslim Student Union Raised Money for Jihadist Terrorist organization HAMAS
SEPTEMBER 2009
* Najibullah Zazi of Colorado Indicted in New York for Conspiracy to Use Explosives Against Persons or Property (Zazi had contact with Al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan). (More here and here)
* Illinois Jihadist Arrested in Plot to Bomb Illinois Federal Building
* Jordanian Muslim Arrested After Placing Inactive Bomb in Dallas High-Rise
* Lebanese-born Swede Sentenced to Life in Prison for Oregon Terrorist Training Camp Plot
* Three British Muslims Convicted In Plot to Bomb Airliners Bound for America (Plot could have killed 10,000)
* Apostate from Islam, Rifqa Bary, Flees Family After Her Father Threatens Her
AUGUST 2009
* Member of Prison Islamist Group Sentenced to 70 Months for Plot to Kill Jews, Attack Military Bases
* Atlanta Muslim, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, Convicted of Supporting Foreign Terrorist Organization (Supported Lashkar-e-Tayyiba which carried out Mumbai attack)
* German Jihadists Describe Hatred of US as Reason for Terror Plot
* Yemeni Sheikh Pleads Guilty to Aiding HAMAS in New York Court
JULY 2009
* "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid Sues to Resume Jihad From Prison
* The Odyssey of a Jihadist: From Long Island to Pakistan. (More here and here)
* Seven Charged in North Carolina for Terrorism (Plot to attack Marine Corps Base Quantico) (More here)
* American Al Qaeda Jihadist Sentenced to Life for Bush Assassination Plot
* Hizb ut-Tahrir Jihadi Conference Held in Chicago
JUNE 2009
* New Jersey Muslim Convicted of Providing Material Support to Jihadist Terrorist Group Hezbollah
* Tennessee Muslim Convert Kills One Soldier, Wounds Another Outside Little Rock Recruiting Office
* Ex-Georgia Tech Student Convicted on Terrorism Charges
MAY 2009
* Texas Muslim Charity Officials Sentenced to 65 Years for Financing HAMAS Jihadist Terrorist Organization
* New York Jihadist Plot to Target Synagogues Disrupted
* Canadian from Somalia Living in Minneapolis Pleads Guilty to Aiding Al Qaeda
* Five Miami Jihadists Convicted in Sears Tower Bombing Plot
APRIL 2009
* Three New Jersey Jihadists Sentenced to Life in Fort Dix Terrorist Plot
MARCH 2009
* Somali-Americans Recruited for Al Qaeda-linked Group, Says FBI
FEBRUARY 2009
* Ohio Jihadist Sentenced to 20 Years in Terror Bomb Plot
* Muslim Television Channel Founder Charged With Beheading His Wife in Honor Killing
* FBI Director Warns of Terror Attacks on US Cities
* Lashkar-e-Taiba Mumbai Attackers Had Worldwide List of 320 Targets
* Jailhouse Islam Convert Murders Philadelphia Police Officer
JANUARY 2009
* FBI Cuts Ties with Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) Over HAMAS Ties
* Terrorist Who Plotted to Bomb New York Targets in 1970s Released From Prison, Deported to Sudan. (More here)
* Chicago Cousins Plead Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Terrorism
DECEMBER 2008
* Staten Island Satellite TV Operator Pleads Guilty to Supporting Hezbollah
* Former University of South Florida Student Sentenced to 15 Years in Terrorism Case
--------------------
By; Christopher Holton
www.StanduUpAmericaUS.com
There is mounting evidence that the global Jihadist insurgency is fully entrenched in the United States After the Fort Hood massacre news services seem divided between those hell-bent-for-leather on denying that the Fort Hood massacre was a case of anything other than a persecuted loner "snapping" and those who proclaimed it the first "terrorist" attack on US soil since September 11th.
This focus is wrong. Fort Hood was an act of Jihad and that's really all that matters: It is essential that we find out how extensive Nidal Malik Hasan's ties to other Jihadists were. Of this there can be no doubt.
But we must refrain from entering into a debate on what amounts largely to semantics about whether or not the Fort Hood massacre was an act of "terrorism." We need to get away from focusing on the term "terrorism" anyway. Some observers still don't consider the 1983 Beirut Barracks bombing by Hezbollah, which killed 241 Marines, sailors and soldiers, an act of "terrorism" because, by some widely recognized definitions, attacks on combatants cannot be termed "terrorism."
The Fort Hood massacre and the attack on the Marine Barracks were acts of Jihad. The Jihadis themselves don't refer to themselves as "terrorists." But they most assuredly refer to themselves as "Jihadis." We should let them own that title.
This was never a war on "terrorism." Jihad is being waged against us and we have tied ourselves in knots to deny that reality. Moreover, Fort Hood was hardly the first act of Jihad on US soil since September 11th. A few examples come to mind:
* The Anthrax Attacks (Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I do NOT buy the official line on these attacks, but that's a subject for another time and place.)
* The DC "Sniper" Shootings (There is a great deal of evidence that John Mohammed carried out these attacks in the name of Allah.)
* The LAX Shooting at the El Al Ticket Counter
Note that whether the perpetrators are members of a previously known terrorist organization (such as Al Qaeda) or were lone actors, these were still acts of Jihad.
It is difficult to combat a shadowy organization like Al Qaeda, but it is far more difficult to prevent "lone wolf" actors from attacking. Al Qaeda may be difficult to infiltrate and gather intelligence on, but how do we "infiltrate" a lone Jihadist?
This is symptomatic of a revolutionary Jihadist subculture metastasizing within the American Muslim community, especially within its mosques and organizations. This revolutionary subculture has produced an atmosphere in which Muslims are inspired to act violently. This is a very dangerous and volatile situation.
Over the last 12 months alone, we have been provided with a stack of evidence of the Jihadist insurgency inside America. Americans have largely ignored this evidence, or at least failed to "connect the dots." Seemingly completely unrelated cases do in fact have common threads: they are acts of Jihad.
I decided to go back and research examples of Jihad in America over the last 12 months, roughly 1 December 2008 to 1 December 2009. Here is a list of incidents, cases, actions, statements and plots which point to a Jihadist insurgency in our midst (Keep in mind that insurgencies are both civilizational/political and violent/militant.).
The list is compiled in reverse chronological order, meaning that the most recent items are listed first. We no doubt left out some cases. I believe that all of these cases and incidents brought together on a single listing will prompt most readers to conclude that the magnitude of the threat we face inside the United States is greater than they previously believed.
NOVEMBER 2009
* Ten Indicted in Philadelphia in Case Involving Material Support for Jihadist Terrorist Group Hezbollah
* Terrorism Charges Unsealed in Minnesota Against 8 Somali Members of Jihadist Terrorist Group al-Shabaab
* Feds in New York Move to Seize Assets of Iran-tied Alavi Foundation
* Nidal Malik Hasan Kills 13, Wounds 20 In Shooting Rampage at Fort Hood, Texas
OCTOBER 2009
* US Jails Al Qaeda Sleeper Agent (Ali al-Marri was previously held in brig at Charleston, SC Naval Station)
* Two Chicago Men Charged in Jihadist Terrorist Plot in Denmark
* Eleven Members of Jihadist Group Arrested in Detroit; Imam Killed in Shootout with FBI (Luqman Ameen Abdullah Shot and Killed FBI Dog During Arrest)
* Boston Muslim Charged in Plot to Kill Shoppers, Troops
* Three Ohio Residents Sentenced in Plot to Commit Terrorist Acts Against Americans Overseas
* Massachusetts Man Charged With Conspiracy to Provide Material Support for Terrorists
* University of California-Irvine Files Complaint with Feds that Muslim Student Union Raised Money for Jihadist Terrorist organization HAMAS
SEPTEMBER 2009
* Najibullah Zazi of Colorado Indicted in New York for Conspiracy to Use Explosives Against Persons or Property (Zazi had contact with Al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan). (More here and here)
* Illinois Jihadist Arrested in Plot to Bomb Illinois Federal Building
* Jordanian Muslim Arrested After Placing Inactive Bomb in Dallas High-Rise
* Lebanese-born Swede Sentenced to Life in Prison for Oregon Terrorist Training Camp Plot
* Three British Muslims Convicted In Plot to Bomb Airliners Bound for America (Plot could have killed 10,000)
* Apostate from Islam, Rifqa Bary, Flees Family After Her Father Threatens Her
AUGUST 2009
* Member of Prison Islamist Group Sentenced to 70 Months for Plot to Kill Jews, Attack Military Bases
* Atlanta Muslim, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, Convicted of Supporting Foreign Terrorist Organization (Supported Lashkar-e-Tayyiba which carried out Mumbai attack)
* German Jihadists Describe Hatred of US as Reason for Terror Plot
* Yemeni Sheikh Pleads Guilty to Aiding HAMAS in New York Court
JULY 2009
* "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid Sues to Resume Jihad From Prison
* The Odyssey of a Jihadist: From Long Island to Pakistan. (More here and here)
* Seven Charged in North Carolina for Terrorism (Plot to attack Marine Corps Base Quantico) (More here)
* American Al Qaeda Jihadist Sentenced to Life for Bush Assassination Plot
* Hizb ut-Tahrir Jihadi Conference Held in Chicago
JUNE 2009
* New Jersey Muslim Convicted of Providing Material Support to Jihadist Terrorist Group Hezbollah
* Tennessee Muslim Convert Kills One Soldier, Wounds Another Outside Little Rock Recruiting Office
* Ex-Georgia Tech Student Convicted on Terrorism Charges
MAY 2009
* Texas Muslim Charity Officials Sentenced to 65 Years for Financing HAMAS Jihadist Terrorist Organization
* New York Jihadist Plot to Target Synagogues Disrupted
* Canadian from Somalia Living in Minneapolis Pleads Guilty to Aiding Al Qaeda
* Five Miami Jihadists Convicted in Sears Tower Bombing Plot
APRIL 2009
* Three New Jersey Jihadists Sentenced to Life in Fort Dix Terrorist Plot
MARCH 2009
* Somali-Americans Recruited for Al Qaeda-linked Group, Says FBI
FEBRUARY 2009
* Ohio Jihadist Sentenced to 20 Years in Terror Bomb Plot
* Muslim Television Channel Founder Charged With Beheading His Wife in Honor Killing
* FBI Director Warns of Terror Attacks on US Cities
* Lashkar-e-Taiba Mumbai Attackers Had Worldwide List of 320 Targets
* Jailhouse Islam Convert Murders Philadelphia Police Officer
JANUARY 2009
* FBI Cuts Ties with Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) Over HAMAS Ties
* Terrorist Who Plotted to Bomb New York Targets in 1970s Released From Prison, Deported to Sudan. (More here)
* Chicago Cousins Plead Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Terrorism
DECEMBER 2008
* Staten Island Satellite TV Operator Pleads Guilty to Supporting Hezbollah
* Former University of South Florida Student Sentenced to 15 Years in Terrorism Case
--------------------
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
How To Cut Healthcare Costs Chapter 1: Kill Women
The Wall Street Journal
NOVEMBER 19, 2009
A Breast Cancer Preview
The mammogram decision is a sign of cost control to come.
A government panel's decision to toss out long-time guidelines for breast cancer screening is causing an uproar, and well it should. This episode is an all-too-instructive preview of the coming political decisions about cost-control and medical treatment that are at the heart of ObamaCare.
As recently as 2002, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force affirmed its recommendation that women 40 and older undergo annual mammograms to check for breast cancer. Since regular mammography became standard practice in the early 1990s, mortality from breast cancer—the second leading cause of cancer death among American women—has dropped by about 30%, after remaining constant for the prior half-century. But this week the 16-member task force ruled that patients under 50 or over 75 without special risk factors no longer need screening. [As a matter of fact, it was only 6 MONTHS AGO -- before health care legislation had moved to the front burner -- that this panel re-issued its own WARNING about the importance of early breast cancer detection, annual mammograms after age 40, and self-examinations. Now we have their VERY ABRUPT reversal of a VERY longstanding opinion, which for many years had concurred with the American Cancer Society's recommendations. The government panel has suddenly decided to oppose the ACS's recommendations -- on the basis of absolutely no new medical evidence.
So what changed? Nothing substantial in the clinical evidence. But the panel—which includes no oncologists or radiologists, who best know the medical literature—did decide to re-analyze the data with health-care spending as a core concern.
The task force concedes that the benefits of early detection are the same for all women. But according to its review, because there are fewer cases of breast cancer in younger women, it takes 1,904 screenings of women in their 40s to save one life and only 1,339 screenings to do the same among women in their 50s. It therefore concludes that the tests for the first group aren't valuable, while also noting that screening younger women results in more false positives that lead to unnecessary (but only in retrospect) follow-up tests or biopsies.
Of course, this calculation doesn't consider that at least 40% of the patient years of life saved by screening are among women under 50. That's a lot of women, even by the terms of the panel's own statistical abstractions. To put it another way, 665 additional mammograms are more expensive in the aggregate. But at the individual level they are immeasurably valuable, especially if you happen to be the woman whose life is saved.
The recommendation to cut off all screening in women over 75 is equally as myopic. The committee notes that the benefits of screening "occur only several years after the actual screening test, whereas the percentage of women who survive long enough to benefit decreases with age." It adds that "women of this age are at much greater risk for dying of other conditions that would not be affected by breast cancer screening." In other words, grandma is probably going to die anyway, so why waste the money to reduce the chances that she dies of a leading cause of death among elderly women?
The effects of this new breast cancer cost-consciousness are likely to be large. Medicare generally adopts the panel's recommendations when it makes coverage decisions for seniors, and its judgments also play a large role in the private insurance markets. Yes, people could pay for mammography out of pocket. This is fine with us, but it is also emphatically not the world of first-dollar insurance coverage we live in, in which reimbursement decisions deeply influence the practice of medicine.
More important for the future, every Democratic version of ObamaCare makes this task force an arbiter of the benefits that private insurers will be required to cover as they are converted into government contractors. What are now merely recommendations will become de facto rules, and under national health care these kinds of cost analyses will inevitably become more common as government decides where finite tax dollars are allowed to go. [IE, it is THIS PANEL which will be tasked with / authorized to determine what procedures will or won't be allowed for whom, under every single version of Health Reform Legislation sponsored by the Democrats. With the passage of any of these bills, this panel's recommendations will become the rules under which medical care is provided, BY LAW. Reminder: there are NO oncologists and NO radiologists on the panel. -- Morry]
In a rational system, the responsibility for health care ought to reside with patients and their doctors. James Thrall, a Harvard medical professor and chairman of the American College of Radiology, tells us that the breast cancer decision shows the dangers of medicine being reduced to "accounting exercises subject to interpretations and underlying assumptions," and based on costs and large group averages, not individuals.
"I fear that we are entering an era of deliberate decisions where we choose to trade people's lives for money," Dr. Thrall continued. He's not overstating the case, as the 12% of women who will develop breast cancer during their lifetimes may now better appreciate.
More spending on "prevention" has long been the cry of health reformers, and President Obama has been especially forceful. In his health speech to Congress in September, the President made a point of emphasizing "routine checkups and preventative care, like mammograms and colonoscopies—because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse."
It turns out that there is, in fact, a reason: Screening for breast cancer will cost the government too much money, even if it saves lives.
[And that money is needed for bailouts -- ie corporate welfare to the top 1% of the nation's business firms -- as well as for stimulus packages and all the pork and earmarks so crucial to keeping our essential political elite comfy in the style they've become accustomed to. -- Morry]
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
***************************************************************************
THE RELEVANT FACTS:
In England today, the success rate for curing breast cancer is 2 out of 4 cases. (Many cases become terminal while the woman is waiting for surgery.) In the US it is 3 out of 4. Breast cancer strikes roughly 12 % of women. This means that breast cancer will strike roughly 18 million women who are alive today in the US. Of those our present system, if it survives, will cure 13.5 million; the British system would cure 9 million. There is no reason to believe government run medical care in the US will be any more successful than it is in Britain. Indeed, Hillary Clinton and others have praised the British system and stated that we should do more or less the same thing in the US. This means that of the 18 million victims of breast cancer, 4.5 million will die unnecessarily. It is not unreasonable to expect that 4.5 million women, alive and healthy today in the US, will be killed by ObamaCare.
And that is just breast cancer. Consider colon cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease, . . . .etc.
Lewis
------------------------------------------------------------
THERE IT IS, FOLKS, THE 1st step to be taken by ObamaCare to fulfill its promise of making healrh care affordable. It's so simple, it's amazing no one thought of it before!! We inaugurate the plan with the beautiful-in-its-simplicity step of killing 4.5 million American women. True, this will only cut medical costs by 1 or 2% overall, but don't lose heart!! Remember, there's still colon cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, stomach cancer, heart disease, lung diseases, etc, etc,etc, each one a very promising area for effecting further cuts. We will probably be able to cut costs by up to 20% or more simply by arranging for the premature deaths of another 40-60 million Americans. True, simple tort reform has cut costs by an average of 30% in the few states which have enacted it, but this would be unfair to lawyers, as the currently considered Senate bill wisely recognizes. Lawyers are necessary because they are huge contributors to the Democrats' campaign chests, and the nation needs all the concerned, big-hearted Democrat accessories to murder it can get. (The bill currently under consideration in the Senate explicitly provides for substantial cuts in Federal funding to any state which places any restrictions or limits on awards in medical cases.) So . . . KUDOS FOR OBAMACARE. It's the smart way to go, and even if it is grossly dishonest and literally murderous, this is just part of the nature of many politicians, and in a nation of diversity, we must accomodate their viewpoint. So let's patch up our differences and all join together with the nation's medical malpractice attorneys and with our hard-working morticians in praising the virtues of ObamaCare!! -- Morry
NOVEMBER 19, 2009
A Breast Cancer Preview
The mammogram decision is a sign of cost control to come.
A government panel's decision to toss out long-time guidelines for breast cancer screening is causing an uproar, and well it should. This episode is an all-too-instructive preview of the coming political decisions about cost-control and medical treatment that are at the heart of ObamaCare.
As recently as 2002, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force affirmed its recommendation that women 40 and older undergo annual mammograms to check for breast cancer. Since regular mammography became standard practice in the early 1990s, mortality from breast cancer—the second leading cause of cancer death among American women—has dropped by about 30%, after remaining constant for the prior half-century. But this week the 16-member task force ruled that patients under 50 or over 75 without special risk factors no longer need screening. [As a matter of fact, it was only 6 MONTHS AGO -- before health care legislation had moved to the front burner -- that this panel re-issued its own WARNING about the importance of early breast cancer detection, annual mammograms after age 40, and self-examinations. Now we have their VERY ABRUPT reversal of a VERY longstanding opinion, which for many years had concurred with the American Cancer Society's recommendations. The government panel has suddenly decided to oppose the ACS's recommendations -- on the basis of absolutely no new medical evidence.
So what changed? Nothing substantial in the clinical evidence. But the panel—which includes no oncologists or radiologists, who best know the medical literature—did decide to re-analyze the data with health-care spending as a core concern.
The task force concedes that the benefits of early detection are the same for all women. But according to its review, because there are fewer cases of breast cancer in younger women, it takes 1,904 screenings of women in their 40s to save one life and only 1,339 screenings to do the same among women in their 50s. It therefore concludes that the tests for the first group aren't valuable, while also noting that screening younger women results in more false positives that lead to unnecessary (but only in retrospect) follow-up tests or biopsies.
Of course, this calculation doesn't consider that at least 40% of the patient years of life saved by screening are among women under 50. That's a lot of women, even by the terms of the panel's own statistical abstractions. To put it another way, 665 additional mammograms are more expensive in the aggregate. But at the individual level they are immeasurably valuable, especially if you happen to be the woman whose life is saved.
The recommendation to cut off all screening in women over 75 is equally as myopic. The committee notes that the benefits of screening "occur only several years after the actual screening test, whereas the percentage of women who survive long enough to benefit decreases with age." It adds that "women of this age are at much greater risk for dying of other conditions that would not be affected by breast cancer screening." In other words, grandma is probably going to die anyway, so why waste the money to reduce the chances that she dies of a leading cause of death among elderly women?
The effects of this new breast cancer cost-consciousness are likely to be large. Medicare generally adopts the panel's recommendations when it makes coverage decisions for seniors, and its judgments also play a large role in the private insurance markets. Yes, people could pay for mammography out of pocket. This is fine with us, but it is also emphatically not the world of first-dollar insurance coverage we live in, in which reimbursement decisions deeply influence the practice of medicine.
More important for the future, every Democratic version of ObamaCare makes this task force an arbiter of the benefits that private insurers will be required to cover as they are converted into government contractors. What are now merely recommendations will become de facto rules, and under national health care these kinds of cost analyses will inevitably become more common as government decides where finite tax dollars are allowed to go. [IE, it is THIS PANEL which will be tasked with / authorized to determine what procedures will or won't be allowed for whom, under every single version of Health Reform Legislation sponsored by the Democrats. With the passage of any of these bills, this panel's recommendations will become the rules under which medical care is provided, BY LAW. Reminder: there are NO oncologists and NO radiologists on the panel. -- Morry]
In a rational system, the responsibility for health care ought to reside with patients and their doctors. James Thrall, a Harvard medical professor and chairman of the American College of Radiology, tells us that the breast cancer decision shows the dangers of medicine being reduced to "accounting exercises subject to interpretations and underlying assumptions," and based on costs and large group averages, not individuals.
"I fear that we are entering an era of deliberate decisions where we choose to trade people's lives for money," Dr. Thrall continued. He's not overstating the case, as the 12% of women who will develop breast cancer during their lifetimes may now better appreciate.
More spending on "prevention" has long been the cry of health reformers, and President Obama has been especially forceful. In his health speech to Congress in September, the President made a point of emphasizing "routine checkups and preventative care, like mammograms and colonoscopies—because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse."
It turns out that there is, in fact, a reason: Screening for breast cancer will cost the government too much money, even if it saves lives.
[And that money is needed for bailouts -- ie corporate welfare to the top 1% of the nation's business firms -- as well as for stimulus packages and all the pork and earmarks so crucial to keeping our essential political elite comfy in the style they've become accustomed to. -- Morry]
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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THE RELEVANT FACTS:
In England today, the success rate for curing breast cancer is 2 out of 4 cases. (Many cases become terminal while the woman is waiting for surgery.) In the US it is 3 out of 4. Breast cancer strikes roughly 12 % of women. This means that breast cancer will strike roughly 18 million women who are alive today in the US. Of those our present system, if it survives, will cure 13.5 million; the British system would cure 9 million. There is no reason to believe government run medical care in the US will be any more successful than it is in Britain. Indeed, Hillary Clinton and others have praised the British system and stated that we should do more or less the same thing in the US. This means that of the 18 million victims of breast cancer, 4.5 million will die unnecessarily. It is not unreasonable to expect that 4.5 million women, alive and healthy today in the US, will be killed by ObamaCare.
And that is just breast cancer. Consider colon cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease, . . . .etc.
Lewis
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THERE IT IS, FOLKS, THE 1st step to be taken by ObamaCare to fulfill its promise of making healrh care affordable. It's so simple, it's amazing no one thought of it before!! We inaugurate the plan with the beautiful-in-its-simplicity step of killing 4.5 million American women. True, this will only cut medical costs by 1 or 2% overall, but don't lose heart!! Remember, there's still colon cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, stomach cancer, heart disease, lung diseases, etc, etc,etc, each one a very promising area for effecting further cuts. We will probably be able to cut costs by up to 20% or more simply by arranging for the premature deaths of another 40-60 million Americans. True, simple tort reform has cut costs by an average of 30% in the few states which have enacted it, but this would be unfair to lawyers, as the currently considered Senate bill wisely recognizes. Lawyers are necessary because they are huge contributors to the Democrats' campaign chests, and the nation needs all the concerned, big-hearted Democrat accessories to murder it can get. (The bill currently under consideration in the Senate explicitly provides for substantial cuts in Federal funding to any state which places any restrictions or limits on awards in medical cases.) So . . . KUDOS FOR OBAMACARE. It's the smart way to go, and even if it is grossly dishonest and literally murderous, this is just part of the nature of many politicians, and in a nation of diversity, we must accomodate their viewpoint. So let's patch up our differences and all join together with the nation's medical malpractice attorneys and with our hard-working morticians in praising the virtues of ObamaCare!! -- Morry
Sunday, November 15, 2009
What Will It Take for You to Take a Stand?
Last night I attended a GOP “Meet and Greet,” hosted by a group of beautiful women at one of their gorgeous “House and Garden” homes in an affluent neighborhood. The food was delicious, the wine sublime, and the hospitality of genteel like minded couples unparalleled. The Governor and his delightful wife made an appearance, and both gave heartwarming speeches, as did a candidate for Governor of our state. It was a picture perfect evening which went off without a hitch.
So why did I awake the next morning with a sinking feeling? I had just met a great group of educated and presumably informed people who had an understanding of the issues which face our state and our nation. These are not your average folks; the resources at their disposal put them in a unique position, somewhat buffered by the economy which ravages the average working folks, and with the time, money, and access to information which give them a distinct advantage over those who live from paycheck to paycheck.
As I watched the speakers perched on an impressive staircase in front of a rapt audience discuss their ideas for a better tomorrow, I pictured similar scenes taking place 240 years ago, in which our founding fathers stood to make their pitch for the creation of new nation; a nation of the people, for the people, by the people. I imagine that those orators would have suggested to their listeners that the time had come for action; that as leaders of their communities, with resources, means to spread the word, and ability to sway the masses working simply for their everyday survival, that now was the time to take a stand for freedom. And not just for their freedom, but for the freedom of generations to come.
In my state and my country, we are at a not so dissimilar point in history. Our freedoms are under assault in all corners of our state and federal government. As the leader of the tea party movement in RI, I am proud and honored to have met thousands of average working folks who have had “enough” and are willing to take a stand for their freedom. Junkyard owners and nurses, retirees and teachers, stay at home moms, and small business owners; each and every one fills me with a sense of hope that all is not lost.
But some members of the political party which should embrace the tea party ideals of fiscal responsibility, accountability, and a return to Constitutional principles seem content to converse amongst themselves and host beautiful gatherings with beautiful people. By and large, they do not show the fortitude to speak amongst a room full of foes, and debate the merits of their stances on the issues. Why is this? Why are people, even educated people of means, cowed by the opposition, which has nothing but tired long disproved theories in their arsenal?
My charge to the leaders of our communities is this: it is time for bold action in defense of our freedom and freedom of our children. It is no longer acceptable to simply host gatherings and hope that change will come, for without the concerted action that only you can take, it will not. You must consider running for political office (no matter how distasteful that seems), you must donate your time and money to go on offense against the corrupt status quo, you must speak the truth, even if you feel you may offend some. Times which test us require men and and women of strength and resources to reach outside of our comfort zones. Be models for your children. Our future, and theirs, depends on it.
So why did I awake the next morning with a sinking feeling? I had just met a great group of educated and presumably informed people who had an understanding of the issues which face our state and our nation. These are not your average folks; the resources at their disposal put them in a unique position, somewhat buffered by the economy which ravages the average working folks, and with the time, money, and access to information which give them a distinct advantage over those who live from paycheck to paycheck.
As I watched the speakers perched on an impressive staircase in front of a rapt audience discuss their ideas for a better tomorrow, I pictured similar scenes taking place 240 years ago, in which our founding fathers stood to make their pitch for the creation of new nation; a nation of the people, for the people, by the people. I imagine that those orators would have suggested to their listeners that the time had come for action; that as leaders of their communities, with resources, means to spread the word, and ability to sway the masses working simply for their everyday survival, that now was the time to take a stand for freedom. And not just for their freedom, but for the freedom of generations to come.
In my state and my country, we are at a not so dissimilar point in history. Our freedoms are under assault in all corners of our state and federal government. As the leader of the tea party movement in RI, I am proud and honored to have met thousands of average working folks who have had “enough” and are willing to take a stand for their freedom. Junkyard owners and nurses, retirees and teachers, stay at home moms, and small business owners; each and every one fills me with a sense of hope that all is not lost.
But some members of the political party which should embrace the tea party ideals of fiscal responsibility, accountability, and a return to Constitutional principles seem content to converse amongst themselves and host beautiful gatherings with beautiful people. By and large, they do not show the fortitude to speak amongst a room full of foes, and debate the merits of their stances on the issues. Why is this? Why are people, even educated people of means, cowed by the opposition, which has nothing but tired long disproved theories in their arsenal?
My charge to the leaders of our communities is this: it is time for bold action in defense of our freedom and freedom of our children. It is no longer acceptable to simply host gatherings and hope that change will come, for without the concerted action that only you can take, it will not. You must consider running for political office (no matter how distasteful that seems), you must donate your time and money to go on offense against the corrupt status quo, you must speak the truth, even if you feel you may offend some. Times which test us require men and and women of strength and resources to reach outside of our comfort zones. Be models for your children. Our future, and theirs, depends on it.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Tribute to our Soldiers on Veteran's Day
Hi everyone,
On Veteran's Day, we take the opportunity to honor those who have served and are actively serving our country. We so often forget to thank those who have made the ultimate sacrifice so that all of us can continue to live freely. Considering many of the oppressive regimes overseas against which our brave servicemen have fought, it is easy to forget how much of a luxury it really is to be able to even argue about healthcare, global warming, or any other issue that matters to us.
It means so much to an a soldier in harm's way to receive a letter from an American civilian, telling them that we here at home are behind them 100%. These brave men and women are our country's best. Let them know!!
I strongly encourage you to consider sending a letter to a serviceman or woman. Please take just a few minutes!! Someone will really appreciate it.
Below are some directions on how to use the website anysoldier.com to do so:
First, follow this link
http://www.anysoldier.com/WhereToSend/
Look at the list at the far left of your screen. There are a list of officers in active duty. When you click on one's name, you can request their current address. Remember, the officer you are sending to is not the person to which you should address your letter, because the officer will hand the letters sent to him/her to the soldiers under his/her command. Just address it "Dear Soldier."
You can request the address by email. They ask that you be 18 or older to participate (as you need to give your information to get the address), so this can be a great thing to do with the family.
Follow the recommendations found in the "How to Send" tab at the top as well when writing your letter.
Thanks so much! Those fighting for your freedom will appreciate it.
U-S-A!!!!
On Veteran's Day, we take the opportunity to honor those who have served and are actively serving our country. We so often forget to thank those who have made the ultimate sacrifice so that all of us can continue to live freely. Considering many of the oppressive regimes overseas against which our brave servicemen have fought, it is easy to forget how much of a luxury it really is to be able to even argue about healthcare, global warming, or any other issue that matters to us.
It means so much to an a soldier in harm's way to receive a letter from an American civilian, telling them that we here at home are behind them 100%. These brave men and women are our country's best. Let them know!!
I strongly encourage you to consider sending a letter to a serviceman or woman. Please take just a few minutes!! Someone will really appreciate it.
Below are some directions on how to use the website anysoldier.com to do so:
First, follow this link
http://www.anysoldier.com/WhereToSend/
Look at the list at the far left of your screen. There are a list of officers in active duty. When you click on one's name, you can request their current address. Remember, the officer you are sending to is not the person to which you should address your letter, because the officer will hand the letters sent to him/her to the soldiers under his/her command. Just address it "Dear Soldier."
You can request the address by email. They ask that you be 18 or older to participate (as you need to give your information to get the address), so this can be a great thing to do with the family.
Follow the recommendations found in the "How to Send" tab at the top as well when writing your letter.
Thanks so much! Those fighting for your freedom will appreciate it.
U-S-A!!!!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Dismantling America
Dismantling America
By Thomas Sowell
Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?
Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers-- that is, to create a situation where some newspapers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?
Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?
Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?
Does any of this sound like America?
How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.
How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.
We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies. What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brown shirts of dictators than like anything American.
How far the President will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.
Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America," the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.
Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "God damn America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.
Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.
Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?
Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government-- people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world.
Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration's enemies list.
Nothing so epitomizes President Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year-- each bill more than a thousand pages long-- too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question-- and the biggest question for this generation.
By Thomas Sowell
Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?
Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers-- that is, to create a situation where some newspapers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?
Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?
Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?
Does any of this sound like America?
How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.
How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.
We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies. What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brown shirts of dictators than like anything American.
How far the President will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.
Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America," the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.
Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "God damn America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.
Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.
Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?
Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government-- people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world.
Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration's enemies list.
Nothing so epitomizes President Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year-- each bill more than a thousand pages long-- too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question-- and the biggest question for this generation.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Not One More Drop of American Blood
AMERICAN FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN ABANDONED
God in Heaven protect our warriors from the Washington, DC arm chair generals as You alone are the Hope we can trust.
Members of Congress and civilian bureaucrats that can't balance a budget, spending America into eternal debt, participate in all sorts of immoral behavior, fully corrupt, can't drive themselves from point A to point B, speak at the level of 8 year olds, are only focused on a personal self serving agenda, totally devoid of courage, integrity, personal responsibility...in short are greedy cowards...with no credible experience in national security and less than zero military service, now want to second guess a seasoned military chain of command in devising strategy and tactics in the Afghanistan war.
The political apparatus in Washington, DC has abandoned our troops in harms way, indecision is allowing the enemy to refit their forces and costing American lives, has sent a message of American political weakness and surrender to the Islamic butchers, while giving scant attention that our warriors are giving their lives and blood while indecision reigns.
If Afghanistan is a "war of necessity" as the Commander In Chief says, how can any level of leadership allow our men and women to be without the resources to win??
Nothing is more despicable than sending men and women into war and then betraying them while in battle...it would be entirely appropriate for the military chain of command to withdraw all troops to safe areas, expect a victory position within 72 hours from the Commander in Chief with credible proof of resources to win, otherwise, the military chain of command resigns.
Not one more drop of American blood spilled while Washington D.C. leadership cowers in surrender.
Harry Riley, COL, USA, Ret
God in Heaven protect our warriors from the Washington, DC arm chair generals as You alone are the Hope we can trust.
Members of Congress and civilian bureaucrats that can't balance a budget, spending America into eternal debt, participate in all sorts of immoral behavior, fully corrupt, can't drive themselves from point A to point B, speak at the level of 8 year olds, are only focused on a personal self serving agenda, totally devoid of courage, integrity, personal responsibility...in short are greedy cowards...with no credible experience in national security and less than zero military service, now want to second guess a seasoned military chain of command in devising strategy and tactics in the Afghanistan war.
The political apparatus in Washington, DC has abandoned our troops in harms way, indecision is allowing the enemy to refit their forces and costing American lives, has sent a message of American political weakness and surrender to the Islamic butchers, while giving scant attention that our warriors are giving their lives and blood while indecision reigns.
If Afghanistan is a "war of necessity" as the Commander In Chief says, how can any level of leadership allow our men and women to be without the resources to win??
Nothing is more despicable than sending men and women into war and then betraying them while in battle...it would be entirely appropriate for the military chain of command to withdraw all troops to safe areas, expect a victory position within 72 hours from the Commander in Chief with credible proof of resources to win, otherwise, the military chain of command resigns.
Not one more drop of American blood spilled while Washington D.C. leadership cowers in surrender.
Harry Riley, COL, USA, Ret
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Open Message from the Huntress RE: Neda Soltan
PLEASE forward this outstanding article to every liberty-loving person you know - especially to every woman you know. I'm forwarding it in honor of Neda Soltan, the young, innocent Iranian woman who wanted "peace for all." Recall she was randomly shot in the heart by government goons in mid June, shortly after Obama's Middle Eastern tour, in which he drew the moral equivalency between our Republic and these despot Islamic regimes. She was randomly shot just a little over one week after Obama said Iran should have nukes and nobody should stop Iran from having nukes. Shortly after the infamous video and photos of beautiful Neda dying like a dog in a dusty Tehran street flashed like a thunderbolt around the world, Obama mumbled vaguely about "not meddling" and rode in a 12-vehicle motorcade (paid for by taxpayers) across the the Potomac River to Alexandria,VA, to get ice cream. And for 8 DAYS after her death, as the uprising, beatings of women and deaths grew more violent, Obama said NOTHING, finally mumbling vaguely to the Iranian regime to "stop the violence," which it did by rounding up more people, beating, jailing and disappearing them. Now, more than 3 months later, the violence, beatings, rapes, disappearances and deaths continue, and Neda's family members and others are forbidden to visit her grave. Now, three months later, we have just learned that Iranian regime has a second secret underground nuclear facility and is preparing to test-fire missiles that could hit Israel and U.S. bases. Neda means, "a voice, calling." But, apparently, Obama did not and cannot hear. Rome in chaos and flames had its Emperor-Fiddler, Nero. France in riots and revolt had its "Let Them Eat Cake" Marie Antoinette. And America? ... Enjoy your ice cream, Barack, as the wolf approaches.
Diana the Huntress
September 6, 2009
The Sultan:
The Muslim Wolf at Feminism's Door
More than 5000 women are victims of honor killings each year. Most of those women are Muslim, and while most of them are killed in Muslim countries-- more and more of them are being killed in Europe, Canada and America. A 2007 study by Dr. Amin Muhammad and Dr. Sujay Patel in Canada's Memorial Hospital observed that honor killing spreads when those whose who practice it emigrate to Western countries.
Honor killings however are only the final act in the drama of a Muslim woman's life. Before that, she is expected to walk behind a man, to be a second class citizen, to cover herself as much as possible in order to deflect male desire and to take the blame for the sexual intentions that men have toward her. She knows that if she fails to deflect male desire, she may suffer a variety of penalties from imprisonment to death. In countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran, those penalties are imposed by courts. In countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan, they are imposed by rough tribal justice. In the West, where there is no Islamic court system or tribal courts, they are imposed by the family.
The burka, the chador, the hijab or any of the other covering garments are assigned to Muslim women to "protect" them from men, and to protect men from them. These garments are meant to cover their "Awrah", which in Arabic means nakedness, fault or defect. While for a Muslim man "Awrah" is only the swimsuit region, a Muslim woman is entirely "Awrah".
Al-Qadhi Ibn-Al-Arabi Maliki states: “And all of a woman is ‘awrah; her body, her voice, and it is not permissible for her to uncover that unless out of necessity, or need such as witnessing in court, or a disease that is affecting her body…” [Ahkam Al Quran 3/1579]
Imam Al-Qurtubi stated went even further stating; “It is forbidden for a woman to speak when non-related men are present and it is forbidden for men to hear the voice of a non-mahram woman as long as there is no need for that.”
What that means is that all of a woman is "a zone of shame" and obscene. Even the sound of her voice is a form of "nakedness" or "lewdness". Various Muslim authorities claim that this applies to even a woman's fingernails and eyes. A woman who fails to dress this way is behaving obscenely and is open to being assaulted, as the Koranic verse which orders Muslim women to cover themselves makes clear.
"O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested." -Al-Ahzab:59 (Qur'an)
The key word here of course is "that they shall be known as such and not molested". Conversely the failure to fully cover up (a covering that Mohammed demonstrated by cloaking himself and leaving only one eye uncovered in order to see) leaves them open to being molested under the code of "she was asking for it."
In the wake of the brutal Sydney gang rapes in which the perpetrators told the victims and exchanged messages among themselves making it clear that the attacks were motivated by the girls being Australian and Christian, Australia's top Muslim cleric, the infamous Sheikh Hilaly delivered a sermon stating;
"When it comes to rape, it’s 90 percent the woman’s responsibility. Why? Because a woman owns the weapon of seduction. It’s she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on make-up and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us, dallying. It’s she who shortens, raises and lowers. Then, it’s a look, a smile, a conversation, a greeting, a talk, a date, a meeting, a crime, then Long Bay jail. Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years."
"But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, writer al-Rafee says, if I came across a rape crime, I would discipline the man and order that the woman be jailed for life. Why would you do this, Rafee? He said because if she had not left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it."
The "uncovered meat" were girls as young as 14, whom the attackers brutalized for hours. Their crime was that they were meat, and they had left themselves uncovered by failing to wear Chadours or Hijabs to prevent themselves from being "molested".
This is the Muslim wolf that now stands growling outside the feminist door. The wolf dictates that women in any country with a sizable Muslim population have two choices, to cover up or be assaulted. By covering up the woman accepts her inferiority to the male. Refusing to do that could get her raped or killed. There is no third option within Islam. In Iraq, in Kashmir, in Pakistan; women have had acid thrown in their faces for not wearing the appropriate Muslim garb.
But why speak of countries under medieval Islamic laws, when you can speak of the "Free West". A French survey found that 77 percent of the women who wear Hijabs did so because of threats by Islamist groups. 77 percent. France. We are not speaking about some backward little Third World nation where the tribal elders decide what goes. We are speaking of Paris, the glittering city of lights, the capital of art and music. The birthplace of Republican Europe.
This is what Hijab feminism looks like in France,
More often the girls were under orders from their fathers and uncles and brothers, and even their male classmates. For the boys, transforming a bluejeaned teen-age sister into a docile and observant "Muslim" virgin was a rite de passage into authority, the fast track to becoming a man, and more important, a Muslim man.... it was also a license for violence.
Girls who did not conform were excoriated, or chased, or beaten by fanatical young men meting out "Islamic justice." Sometimes the girls were gang-raped. In 2002, an unveiled Muslim girl in the cite of Vitry-sur-Seine was burned alive by a boy she turned down.
Jane Kramer, Taking the Veil, New Yorker
Despite that 77 percent number, American feminists insist on fighting for "the right" of Muslim women in France and America to wear the veil. They might as well be fighting for the right of women to be barefoot and pregnant, since they are one and the same.
Much as they might eagerly parrot the propaganda of the Muslim Student Association, itself an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, regarding the veil being liberating, the veil is a statement of female submission and degradation. There is nothing feminist about being inferior. The hijab is part of a larger agenda to force Muslims in the West, and even non-Muslims to live under Islamic law. A law which states that women are inferior to men.
In the process apologists for Islam like Karen Armstrong or Noah Feldman misrepresent key Arabic words, for example defining "Awrah" as beauty, or "Zina" as meaning only adultery, or seizing on whatever property Sharia law allowed women to hold as feminist, while completely ignoring the larger issue that women were considered inferior by Mohammed and his men, and are considered inferior under Islamic law today. Not simply in theory, but in fact. A fact that expresses itself in the rapes, beatings and murders of women, both Muslim and non-Muslim, by Muslim men on a regular basis.
Rather than confront the threat to women posed by Islamic law, feminist authors like Naomi Wolf are instead claiming that the wolf is really a misunderstood poodle. They have tried to transform the Hijab into a statement of Muslim feminism, while completing ignoring the fact that the Hijab only exists because Islamic law views all of a woman as obscene and treats the woman's presence in the public sphere as a source of Fitna and Zina, Discord and Immorality, that incites men to do immoral things, including rape her. Under Islam the woman is a threat to men that can only be rendered safe for men by fully covering her up and keeping her apart from men as much as possible.
What does Naomi Wolf think is an urgent issue? Based on her blog, it isn't women, but Muslim men. Specifically defending the sort of Muslim men who kill women who don't wear the veil. Wolf's blog is filled with posts fulminating against Guantanamo Bay and the plight of the Taliban and assorted other Islamists imprisoned there. The same men who if given a chance would have a knife to her neck in minutes.
This spring in Pakistan's Sindh province alone, 40 honor killings took place. One woman took refuge in a police station, only to be handed over to her brother who killed her. A 14 year old girl was burned to death. Two women had acid poured on them after being raped. Two women had their noses chopped off for violating family honor. The Sindh province had been overrun by the Taliban.
Rather than writing about any of these women, Naomi Wolf instead wrote demanding to know "What Happened to Mohamed al-Hanashi?" Her article describes Mohamed al-Hanashi as "a young man" who could shed light on many crimes. Not the crimes of Islamist terrorists, but the crimes of the US in detaining in Islamist terrorists. At no point in time throughout the article does Naomi Wolf mention that Mohamed al-Hanashi was a member of the Taliban. The same Taliban which mandated complete covering for women, forbade women to be treated by male doctors or to get an education.
In April 2009, Sitara Achakzai, a leading women's rights activist in Afghanistan, was murdered by the Taliban because she supported rights for women.
Three days later, Naomi Wolf did not write about her. Instead she wrote an article claiming that the American people had "blood on their hands" over Gitmo and demanded that we hold Nuremberg Trials to determine who gave the order to "torture" captured Al Queda and Taliban terrorists in order to gain information about future attacks against America.
Unfortunately Naomi Wolf, like most modern liberal feminists had no interest in defending those women, only in defending their abusers. While women were being murdered by the Taliban, she sweated blood and tears to defend members of the Taliban. Finally in August, Naomi Wolf went to a Muslim country, put on a headscarf and described how it made her feel free. That seems like a reasonable preparation for the sort of environment that Naomi Wolf and much of the feminist movement are helping to create for women in the West.
In 1984 the Party's slogan is "Slavery is Freedom." The political use of such an idea is that it is easier to enslave people, if they believe that being enslaved makes them free. It is why every one party Communist dictatorship made sure to call themselves a "Democratic People's Republic". It is why the Muslim Brotherhood fronts understand that it will be easier to sell Westerners on subjugation to Islam, if they believe that this subjugation makes them free.
For almost a decade, Wolf and those like her, have been assailing the brave men and women who helped liberate women from the Taliban... while fighting for the Taliban. In the name of freedom of course. The freedom of those who shot up girls' schools, who threw teachers down staircases and beat women in the streets. Now the Muslim wolf has its snout thrust into half of Europe, into Australia, Canada and America. The honor killings continue to rise. Bodies continue to show up in hospitals and morgues. The bodies of the victims of Islam.
Diana the Huntress
September 6, 2009
The Sultan:
The Muslim Wolf at Feminism's Door
More than 5000 women are victims of honor killings each year. Most of those women are Muslim, and while most of them are killed in Muslim countries-- more and more of them are being killed in Europe, Canada and America. A 2007 study by Dr. Amin Muhammad and Dr. Sujay Patel in Canada's Memorial Hospital observed that honor killing spreads when those whose who practice it emigrate to Western countries.
Honor killings however are only the final act in the drama of a Muslim woman's life. Before that, she is expected to walk behind a man, to be a second class citizen, to cover herself as much as possible in order to deflect male desire and to take the blame for the sexual intentions that men have toward her. She knows that if she fails to deflect male desire, she may suffer a variety of penalties from imprisonment to death. In countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran, those penalties are imposed by courts. In countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan, they are imposed by rough tribal justice. In the West, where there is no Islamic court system or tribal courts, they are imposed by the family.
The burka, the chador, the hijab or any of the other covering garments are assigned to Muslim women to "protect" them from men, and to protect men from them. These garments are meant to cover their "Awrah", which in Arabic means nakedness, fault or defect. While for a Muslim man "Awrah" is only the swimsuit region, a Muslim woman is entirely "Awrah".
Al-Qadhi Ibn-Al-Arabi Maliki states: “And all of a woman is ‘awrah; her body, her voice, and it is not permissible for her to uncover that unless out of necessity, or need such as witnessing in court, or a disease that is affecting her body…” [Ahkam Al Quran 3/1579]
Imam Al-Qurtubi stated went even further stating; “It is forbidden for a woman to speak when non-related men are present and it is forbidden for men to hear the voice of a non-mahram woman as long as there is no need for that.”
What that means is that all of a woman is "a zone of shame" and obscene. Even the sound of her voice is a form of "nakedness" or "lewdness". Various Muslim authorities claim that this applies to even a woman's fingernails and eyes. A woman who fails to dress this way is behaving obscenely and is open to being assaulted, as the Koranic verse which orders Muslim women to cover themselves makes clear.
"O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested." -Al-Ahzab:59 (Qur'an)
The key word here of course is "that they shall be known as such and not molested". Conversely the failure to fully cover up (a covering that Mohammed demonstrated by cloaking himself and leaving only one eye uncovered in order to see) leaves them open to being molested under the code of "she was asking for it."
In the wake of the brutal Sydney gang rapes in which the perpetrators told the victims and exchanged messages among themselves making it clear that the attacks were motivated by the girls being Australian and Christian, Australia's top Muslim cleric, the infamous Sheikh Hilaly delivered a sermon stating;
"When it comes to rape, it’s 90 percent the woman’s responsibility. Why? Because a woman owns the weapon of seduction. It’s she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on make-up and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us, dallying. It’s she who shortens, raises and lowers. Then, it’s a look, a smile, a conversation, a greeting, a talk, a date, a meeting, a crime, then Long Bay jail. Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years."
"But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, writer al-Rafee says, if I came across a rape crime, I would discipline the man and order that the woman be jailed for life. Why would you do this, Rafee? He said because if she had not left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it."
The "uncovered meat" were girls as young as 14, whom the attackers brutalized for hours. Their crime was that they were meat, and they had left themselves uncovered by failing to wear Chadours or Hijabs to prevent themselves from being "molested".
This is the Muslim wolf that now stands growling outside the feminist door. The wolf dictates that women in any country with a sizable Muslim population have two choices, to cover up or be assaulted. By covering up the woman accepts her inferiority to the male. Refusing to do that could get her raped or killed. There is no third option within Islam. In Iraq, in Kashmir, in Pakistan; women have had acid thrown in their faces for not wearing the appropriate Muslim garb.
But why speak of countries under medieval Islamic laws, when you can speak of the "Free West". A French survey found that 77 percent of the women who wear Hijabs did so because of threats by Islamist groups. 77 percent. France. We are not speaking about some backward little Third World nation where the tribal elders decide what goes. We are speaking of Paris, the glittering city of lights, the capital of art and music. The birthplace of Republican Europe.
This is what Hijab feminism looks like in France,
More often the girls were under orders from their fathers and uncles and brothers, and even their male classmates. For the boys, transforming a bluejeaned teen-age sister into a docile and observant "Muslim" virgin was a rite de passage into authority, the fast track to becoming a man, and more important, a Muslim man.... it was also a license for violence.
Girls who did not conform were excoriated, or chased, or beaten by fanatical young men meting out "Islamic justice." Sometimes the girls were gang-raped. In 2002, an unveiled Muslim girl in the cite of Vitry-sur-Seine was burned alive by a boy she turned down.
Jane Kramer, Taking the Veil, New Yorker
Despite that 77 percent number, American feminists insist on fighting for "the right" of Muslim women in France and America to wear the veil. They might as well be fighting for the right of women to be barefoot and pregnant, since they are one and the same.
Much as they might eagerly parrot the propaganda of the Muslim Student Association, itself an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, regarding the veil being liberating, the veil is a statement of female submission and degradation. There is nothing feminist about being inferior. The hijab is part of a larger agenda to force Muslims in the West, and even non-Muslims to live under Islamic law. A law which states that women are inferior to men.
In the process apologists for Islam like Karen Armstrong or Noah Feldman misrepresent key Arabic words, for example defining "Awrah" as beauty, or "Zina" as meaning only adultery, or seizing on whatever property Sharia law allowed women to hold as feminist, while completely ignoring the larger issue that women were considered inferior by Mohammed and his men, and are considered inferior under Islamic law today. Not simply in theory, but in fact. A fact that expresses itself in the rapes, beatings and murders of women, both Muslim and non-Muslim, by Muslim men on a regular basis.
Rather than confront the threat to women posed by Islamic law, feminist authors like Naomi Wolf are instead claiming that the wolf is really a misunderstood poodle. They have tried to transform the Hijab into a statement of Muslim feminism, while completing ignoring the fact that the Hijab only exists because Islamic law views all of a woman as obscene and treats the woman's presence in the public sphere as a source of Fitna and Zina, Discord and Immorality, that incites men to do immoral things, including rape her. Under Islam the woman is a threat to men that can only be rendered safe for men by fully covering her up and keeping her apart from men as much as possible.
What does Naomi Wolf think is an urgent issue? Based on her blog, it isn't women, but Muslim men. Specifically defending the sort of Muslim men who kill women who don't wear the veil. Wolf's blog is filled with posts fulminating against Guantanamo Bay and the plight of the Taliban and assorted other Islamists imprisoned there. The same men who if given a chance would have a knife to her neck in minutes.
This spring in Pakistan's Sindh province alone, 40 honor killings took place. One woman took refuge in a police station, only to be handed over to her brother who killed her. A 14 year old girl was burned to death. Two women had acid poured on them after being raped. Two women had their noses chopped off for violating family honor. The Sindh province had been overrun by the Taliban.
Rather than writing about any of these women, Naomi Wolf instead wrote demanding to know "What Happened to Mohamed al-Hanashi?" Her article describes Mohamed al-Hanashi as "a young man" who could shed light on many crimes. Not the crimes of Islamist terrorists, but the crimes of the US in detaining in Islamist terrorists. At no point in time throughout the article does Naomi Wolf mention that Mohamed al-Hanashi was a member of the Taliban. The same Taliban which mandated complete covering for women, forbade women to be treated by male doctors or to get an education.
In April 2009, Sitara Achakzai, a leading women's rights activist in Afghanistan, was murdered by the Taliban because she supported rights for women.
Three days later, Naomi Wolf did not write about her. Instead she wrote an article claiming that the American people had "blood on their hands" over Gitmo and demanded that we hold Nuremberg Trials to determine who gave the order to "torture" captured Al Queda and Taliban terrorists in order to gain information about future attacks against America.
Unfortunately Naomi Wolf, like most modern liberal feminists had no interest in defending those women, only in defending their abusers. While women were being murdered by the Taliban, she sweated blood and tears to defend members of the Taliban. Finally in August, Naomi Wolf went to a Muslim country, put on a headscarf and described how it made her feel free. That seems like a reasonable preparation for the sort of environment that Naomi Wolf and much of the feminist movement are helping to create for women in the West.
In 1984 the Party's slogan is "Slavery is Freedom." The political use of such an idea is that it is easier to enslave people, if they believe that being enslaved makes them free. It is why every one party Communist dictatorship made sure to call themselves a "Democratic People's Republic". It is why the Muslim Brotherhood fronts understand that it will be easier to sell Westerners on subjugation to Islam, if they believe that this subjugation makes them free.
For almost a decade, Wolf and those like her, have been assailing the brave men and women who helped liberate women from the Taliban... while fighting for the Taliban. In the name of freedom of course. The freedom of those who shot up girls' schools, who threw teachers down staircases and beat women in the streets. Now the Muslim wolf has its snout thrust into half of Europe, into Australia, Canada and America. The honor killings continue to rise. Bodies continue to show up in hospitals and morgues. The bodies of the victims of Islam.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Ramifications of Cap and Tax
Treasury Memo: Cap and Trade Would Devastate U.S. Industrial Base
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 7:11 PM
By: John Rossomando
President Obama's cap-and-trade plan could deliver several blows to the U.S. economy, according to a Treasury Department memo that one observer described as "damning."
The country could lose 1 percent of its gross domestic product, face accelerated outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and experience energy rationing if cap and trade became law, according to the memo, which the Competitive Enterprise Institute obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
“The memo was damning particularly . . . by pointing out what opponents of cap and trade have long said is the point of cap and trade, and has been proven by Europe’s experience,” said Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the institute. "You will chase off energy intensive industries — meaning manufacturing jobs. The memo singles out steel, cement, chemical . . . glass, plastic, and ceramics — the same ones that have been clobbered in Europe by this.
“This is the largest outsourcing scheme in history, not just in theory, but in practice,” he said.
The memo, prepared after Obama’s Feb. 24 speech to a joint session of Congress, details Treasury's analysis of the economic impact of cap and trade, which ties climate change to business practices.
The United States gained steel jobs from Spain because the manufacturer's costs under the European Union’s cap-and-trade program chased the jobs to Kentucky, Horner said. However, that foreshadows how cap and trade could cost the United States jobs that move abroad, he said.
The report concludes that cap and trade could result in the loss of the U.S. market share in the global economy.
The administration expects cap and trade to double the economic costs of all environmental regulations to the economy, and Horner said the 1 percent reduction in GDP would “institutionalize recession.”
Cap and trade could generate between $100 billion and $200 billion in federal revenue each year and would increase the cost of existing energy tax provisions, according to the memo.
The Treasury official who wrote the memo suggests using either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system that would price carbon at either a fixed tax rate or at a variable market price of emission allowances. The price would be set at a level where firms and consumers would experience enough financial pain to compel them to reduce their emissions.
“Cap and trade has one purpose, and that’s axiomatic, and that is to increase the cost of energy,” Horner said. “The president’s proposal — and that’s what the Treasury is talking about — would cause electricity prices to skyrocket [because] the cost of energy is embedded in everything, so you are talking about a very economically damaging proposal.
“Unless it really hurts, you are not going to really change your lifestyle.”
The memo also estimates that auctioning carbon allowances would generate $300 billion annually and could be used to offset taxes on labor and capital.
These internal revenue estimates stand in stark contrast to the Obama administration’s public statements concerning cap and trade.
“They are only vowing in their budget proposals, both in February and just three weeks ago in August, that they plan through selling all the ration coupons to raise only $65 billion,” Horner said. “The key is [they are] admitting privately what they won’t admit publicly.”
Cap and trade is a tax scheme, Horner said, noting that even Obama budget director Peter Orszag repeatedly wrote reports and testified that cap and trade is a tax when he ran the Congressional Budget Office.
“It quacks like a tax, looks like a tax, and does everything else like a tax,” Horner said. “The problem is cap and trade is too high of a tax.”
Horner speculated that the Treasury admission could impact the votes of certain senators such as Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who have sat on the fence regarding cap and trade. It also could affect the votes of some moderate House Democrats if cap and trade goes back to the House for a final vote.
The liberal Center for American Progress believes a large shift of U.S. jobs abroad is unlikely as a result of cap and trade because much of the world already has far more stringent environmental rules than the United States does.
“Unlike the United States, the rest of the world is actually already governed by a climate treaty,” said Brad Johnson, a climate researcher with the Center for American Progress. “And the entire European Union has not only committed to act, they have committed to essentially redouble their efforts if the U.S. joins. Other nations have already enacted things that are above and beyond what the United States is considering to enact.”
The free trade policies of the Reagan, Clinton, and both Bush administrations have had a far greater negative economic impact on the American manufacturing base than cap and trade would have, Johnson said.
“The idea that the reform of the energy sector — that closing this huge pollution loophole and increasing regulatory oversight over the energy markets — would do harm in a way that hasn’t been done by our current system . . . I find hard to stomach,” Johnson said.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 7:11 PM
By: John Rossomando
President Obama's cap-and-trade plan could deliver several blows to the U.S. economy, according to a Treasury Department memo that one observer described as "damning."
The country could lose 1 percent of its gross domestic product, face accelerated outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and experience energy rationing if cap and trade became law, according to the memo, which the Competitive Enterprise Institute obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
“The memo was damning particularly . . . by pointing out what opponents of cap and trade have long said is the point of cap and trade, and has been proven by Europe’s experience,” said Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the institute. "You will chase off energy intensive industries — meaning manufacturing jobs. The memo singles out steel, cement, chemical . . . glass, plastic, and ceramics — the same ones that have been clobbered in Europe by this.
“This is the largest outsourcing scheme in history, not just in theory, but in practice,” he said.
The memo, prepared after Obama’s Feb. 24 speech to a joint session of Congress, details Treasury's analysis of the economic impact of cap and trade, which ties climate change to business practices.
The United States gained steel jobs from Spain because the manufacturer's costs under the European Union’s cap-and-trade program chased the jobs to Kentucky, Horner said. However, that foreshadows how cap and trade could cost the United States jobs that move abroad, he said.
The report concludes that cap and trade could result in the loss of the U.S. market share in the global economy.
The administration expects cap and trade to double the economic costs of all environmental regulations to the economy, and Horner said the 1 percent reduction in GDP would “institutionalize recession.”
Cap and trade could generate between $100 billion and $200 billion in federal revenue each year and would increase the cost of existing energy tax provisions, according to the memo.
The Treasury official who wrote the memo suggests using either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system that would price carbon at either a fixed tax rate or at a variable market price of emission allowances. The price would be set at a level where firms and consumers would experience enough financial pain to compel them to reduce their emissions.
“Cap and trade has one purpose, and that’s axiomatic, and that is to increase the cost of energy,” Horner said. “The president’s proposal — and that’s what the Treasury is talking about — would cause electricity prices to skyrocket [because] the cost of energy is embedded in everything, so you are talking about a very economically damaging proposal.
“Unless it really hurts, you are not going to really change your lifestyle.”
The memo also estimates that auctioning carbon allowances would generate $300 billion annually and could be used to offset taxes on labor and capital.
These internal revenue estimates stand in stark contrast to the Obama administration’s public statements concerning cap and trade.
“They are only vowing in their budget proposals, both in February and just three weeks ago in August, that they plan through selling all the ration coupons to raise only $65 billion,” Horner said. “The key is [they are] admitting privately what they won’t admit publicly.”
Cap and trade is a tax scheme, Horner said, noting that even Obama budget director Peter Orszag repeatedly wrote reports and testified that cap and trade is a tax when he ran the Congressional Budget Office.
“It quacks like a tax, looks like a tax, and does everything else like a tax,” Horner said. “The problem is cap and trade is too high of a tax.”
Horner speculated that the Treasury admission could impact the votes of certain senators such as Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who have sat on the fence regarding cap and trade. It also could affect the votes of some moderate House Democrats if cap and trade goes back to the House for a final vote.
The liberal Center for American Progress believes a large shift of U.S. jobs abroad is unlikely as a result of cap and trade because much of the world already has far more stringent environmental rules than the United States does.
“Unlike the United States, the rest of the world is actually already governed by a climate treaty,” said Brad Johnson, a climate researcher with the Center for American Progress. “And the entire European Union has not only committed to act, they have committed to essentially redouble their efforts if the U.S. joins. Other nations have already enacted things that are above and beyond what the United States is considering to enact.”
The free trade policies of the Reagan, Clinton, and both Bush administrations have had a far greater negative economic impact on the American manufacturing base than cap and trade would have, Johnson said.
“The idea that the reform of the energy sector — that closing this huge pollution loophole and increasing regulatory oversight over the energy markets — would do harm in a way that hasn’t been done by our current system . . . I find hard to stomach,” Johnson said.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Obamacare Assault on the US Constitution
Michael Connelly is a Constitutional lawyer and has read the
entire health care bill. He has some comments, not just about the
bill, but also about the effects it would have on our
Constitution. It's a much broader picture than just health care
"reform." Here's what he as to say:
Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.
To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.
The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled.
However, as scary as all of that it, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.
The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.
This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.
If you decide not to have healthcare insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed “acceptable” to the “Health Choices Administrator” appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a “tax” instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn’t work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the “due process of law.
So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much out the original ten in the Bill of Rights that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn’t stop there though. The 9th Amendment that provides: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;” The 10th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.
I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to “be bound by oath or affirmation” to support the Constitution. If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.
For those who might doubt the nature of this threat I suggest they consult the source. Here is a link to the Constitution: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
And another to the Bill of Rights: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.
Michael Connelly
Retired attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton, Texas
mrobertc@hotmail.com
entire health care bill. He has some comments, not just about the
bill, but also about the effects it would have on our
Constitution. It's a much broader picture than just health care
"reform." Here's what he as to say:
Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.
To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.
The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled.
However, as scary as all of that it, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.
The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.
This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.
If you decide not to have healthcare insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed “acceptable” to the “Health Choices Administrator” appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a “tax” instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn’t work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the “due process of law.
So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much out the original ten in the Bill of Rights that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn’t stop there though. The 9th Amendment that provides: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;” The 10th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.
I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to “be bound by oath or affirmation” to support the Constitution. If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.
For those who might doubt the nature of this threat I suggest they consult the source. Here is a link to the Constitution: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
And another to the Bill of Rights: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.
Michael Connelly
Retired attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton, Texas
mrobertc@hotmail.com
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Romanian Ode to America
We rarely get a chance to see another country's editorial about the USA
Read this excerpt from a Romanian Newspaper. The article was written by Mr. Cornel Nistorescu and published under the title 'C'ntarea Americii, meaning 'Ode To America ') in the Romanian newspaper Evenimentulzilei 'The Daily Event' or 'News of the Day'.
~An Ode to America ~
Why are Americans so united? They would not resemble one another even if you painted them all one color! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations and religious beliefs.
On 9/ll, the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the heart. Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the Army, or the Secret Service that they are only a bunch of losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed out onto the streets nearby to gape about.
Instead the Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand.
After the first moments of panic, they raised their flag over the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colors of the national flag. They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car a government official or the president was passing. On every occasion, they started singing: 'God Bless America !'
I watched the live broadcast and rerun after rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who gave his life fighting with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that could have killed other hundreds or thousands of people.
How on earth were they able to respond united as one human being? Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put into collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit, which no money can buy. What on earth can unites the Americans in such way? Their land? Their history? Their economic Power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases with the risk of sounding commonplace, I thought things over, I reached but only one conclusion... Only freedom can work such miracles.
Cornel Nistorescu
Read this excerpt from a Romanian Newspaper. The article was written by Mr. Cornel Nistorescu and published under the title 'C'ntarea Americii, meaning 'Ode To America ') in the Romanian newspaper Evenimentulzilei 'The Daily Event' or 'News of the Day'.
~An Ode to America ~
Why are Americans so united? They would not resemble one another even if you painted them all one color! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations and religious beliefs.
On 9/ll, the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the heart. Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the Army, or the Secret Service that they are only a bunch of losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed out onto the streets nearby to gape about.
Instead the Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand.
After the first moments of panic, they raised their flag over the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colors of the national flag. They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car a government official or the president was passing. On every occasion, they started singing: 'God Bless America !'
I watched the live broadcast and rerun after rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who gave his life fighting with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that could have killed other hundreds or thousands of people.
How on earth were they able to respond united as one human being? Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put into collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit, which no money can buy. What on earth can unites the Americans in such way? Their land? Their history? Their economic Power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases with the risk of sounding commonplace, I thought things over, I reached but only one conclusion... Only freedom can work such miracles.
Cornel Nistorescu
Opposing Obama is Not a Hate Crime
Thursday, September 17, 2009
by The Sultan
It is the ninth month of the year 2009 of the reign of what was supposed to be our post-racial administration, and racism is a more common topic than ever. Where before racism applied to individuals, now opposing government policies has itself become a racist act.
Politicians and pundits spend enormous amounts of time analyzing the racial implications of Obama posters at rallies, and former President and active bigot, Jimmy Carter crawled out of his cage to proclaim that Congressman Joe Wilson's famous shout of "You Lie" was motivated by racism. Which is frankly quite obvious. "You Lie", is there any phrase more obviously racist than that?
At the New York Times, Maureen Dowd wrote, "what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!" Which is a lot like the patient who studies a series of Rorschach ink blots and comes up with increasingly racist interpretations of them. When the psychiatrist finally calls him on it, he exclaims, "I'm prejudiced? You're the one with all the racist cartoons!"
When the collective wisdom of the liberal media finds racism where there isn't any, it's fair to ask whether the racism they're finding is imaginary or in their own heads. And by fair, of course I mean it's unacceptably racist. But that's the kind of polarization that living in a black and white world gets you. You're either racist or you're not. And the only way to not be a racist is to be a visibly condescending liberal who makes a point of talking about how much of a racist he or she isn't.
Political correctness has spent a long time defining liberalism, and the attitudes that go with it, as the opposite of racism. The result is a thermometer that instead of running from -40 to 50 degrees Celsius, instead runs from liberal to racist. The more liberal you are, the less racist you can be judged as. The less liberal you are, the more likely you are to be considered a racist. Actual racist content has very little to do with it, or an ex-President from Georgia who called Obama a "black boy" would not be trotted out to denounce an Obama opponent as a racist in the first place. Nor would a Klansman on the Democratic side of the aisle still be sitting in the Senate.
So Maureen Dowd who couldn't hear Jimmy Carter say "black boy" when he did, heard Joe Wilson say, "boy", when he didn't. Because it's not what you actually say that counts, but what the New York Times columnists and op ed writers decide you really meant. Accordingly Ex-Klansman Senator Byrd's use of a racial slur was completely harmless, while a Tea Party protester condemning deficit spending is a bigot. It's not the crime of bigotry that we're dealing with here, but the thoughtcrime. The thing which your opponents, who conveniently enough happened to be the New York Times columnists and op ed writers, think you really meant.
What we are talking about then is actual prejudice and bigotry vs political racism or the race card. Actual bigots spout racial slurs, discriminate against, abuse and assault people for their race or national or religious background. Political bigotry by contrast is the modern day version of the witchhunt that involves denouncing someone you don't like as a racist or a witch.
When denouncing someone for political bigotry, you don't actually need to get your facts straight. You don't even need any facts. All you need is a vague feeling that he probably might and could very well be bigoted, as proven by your politically correct seventh sense tingling with the warning that there's a "boy" at the end of his sentence. It was the classic Soviet way of doing things. And it still works.
Why bother debating whether Joe Wilson's claim was true or not true, when instead you can trot out a man who rejected a Christian professor for the board of the Holocaust Memorial Council because his name "sounded too Jewish" to condemn Joe Wilson as a racist. Now the debate becomes is Joe Wilson a racist, and when you haven't actually made any racist statements, the only way to defend yourself is by going on the defensive, which easily comes across like an admission of guilt.
Before Democrats had been forced to subsist on borrowed Mau-Mauing. Today with Obama in the White House it has become childishly easy to condemn anyone in the opposition for racism. After all they're in the opposition, and why would they be in the opposition... unless they had problems with a black man in the White House? This kind of reductio ad absurdum racial argument has become the default party line when dealing with political opponents. "There's only one possible reason they could oppose our wholly reasonable political program, because they're racists."
Democrats had spent eight years calling Bush a liar. Eight years. But calling Obama a liar is now a hate crime. Drawing a cartoon of him is a hate crime. Attending a rally protesting his policies is of course a hate crime. Voting while Republican is also naturally a hate crime. Essentially being on the opposite side of Obama has become a hate crime, by the convenient logical trick of presuming that Obama is equivalent to all black people, and that therefore opposition to him is equivalent to opposing all black people.
Taking that argument to the next level, since Obama is also half-white, anyone black or white who opposes him, is a bigot. And FDR's opponents probably just hated disabled people. JFK's opponents hated the Irish. And Al Gore lost the election, because Joe Lieberman was Jewish. While there's humor in that absurdity, there is also the ominous stench of dictatorship.
It's Un-American to ban political dissent, unless you define all political dissent as bigotry. And next thing you know, your secret ballot has been determined to make you a statistically probable candidate for domestic terrorism. After all it's just a small hop from not wanting a government boondoggle of a health care program to being a racist to blowing up FBI buildings. That's the way liberal logic runs and that's who runs the Justice Department now.
We have now entered the golden post-racial age in which it is proof positive of racism to call a politician a liar. So long as the politician is a democrat and of a race different than yours. Yet if anything 2008 proved that Americans were willing and even eager to vote for a black man. But 2008 did not birth the post-racial society, it was there for a long time already.
That isn't to say that prejudice is dead. Most human beings have their prejudices, acknowledged and unacknowledged, which is what gives liberal accusations of racism such power. But most people also have long ago put aside those prejudices when it comes to working, going to school, living side by side with, and yes voting into office. We have been living in a post-racial country for some time now. The old divisions have the most power when interested parties begin playing them like an organ, because for all their talk about overcoming prejudice they are determined that we go on living in a black and white world, because it suits them. Because it gives them power.
The opposition to Obama has not come over racial issues, with only the exception in the Gates case. It has come over political issues, over the key question of how much power government can wield over people. It is in the interests of those wielding that power to frame the question as a racial one, rather than a political one, in order to delegitimize those daring to ask the question. It is in their interest to play the race card, because then instead of being forced to explain their misconduct, they can successfully force their critics to account for that invisible "boy" at the end of a sentence.
Criticizing the government is not a hate crime, being suspicious of politicians is a great American tradition and the essence of democracy, and opposing Obama is not a hate crime. Much as the talking heads and the op ed writers may try to spin dissent as racism, dissent is not racism, it is simply dissent. Without the right to dissent, there would be no civil rights movement. Without the right to dissent, there will be no America.
by The Sultan
It is the ninth month of the year 2009 of the reign of what was supposed to be our post-racial administration, and racism is a more common topic than ever. Where before racism applied to individuals, now opposing government policies has itself become a racist act.
Politicians and pundits spend enormous amounts of time analyzing the racial implications of Obama posters at rallies, and former President and active bigot, Jimmy Carter crawled out of his cage to proclaim that Congressman Joe Wilson's famous shout of "You Lie" was motivated by racism. Which is frankly quite obvious. "You Lie", is there any phrase more obviously racist than that?
At the New York Times, Maureen Dowd wrote, "what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!" Which is a lot like the patient who studies a series of Rorschach ink blots and comes up with increasingly racist interpretations of them. When the psychiatrist finally calls him on it, he exclaims, "I'm prejudiced? You're the one with all the racist cartoons!"
When the collective wisdom of the liberal media finds racism where there isn't any, it's fair to ask whether the racism they're finding is imaginary or in their own heads. And by fair, of course I mean it's unacceptably racist. But that's the kind of polarization that living in a black and white world gets you. You're either racist or you're not. And the only way to not be a racist is to be a visibly condescending liberal who makes a point of talking about how much of a racist he or she isn't.
Political correctness has spent a long time defining liberalism, and the attitudes that go with it, as the opposite of racism. The result is a thermometer that instead of running from -40 to 50 degrees Celsius, instead runs from liberal to racist. The more liberal you are, the less racist you can be judged as. The less liberal you are, the more likely you are to be considered a racist. Actual racist content has very little to do with it, or an ex-President from Georgia who called Obama a "black boy" would not be trotted out to denounce an Obama opponent as a racist in the first place. Nor would a Klansman on the Democratic side of the aisle still be sitting in the Senate.
So Maureen Dowd who couldn't hear Jimmy Carter say "black boy" when he did, heard Joe Wilson say, "boy", when he didn't. Because it's not what you actually say that counts, but what the New York Times columnists and op ed writers decide you really meant. Accordingly Ex-Klansman Senator Byrd's use of a racial slur was completely harmless, while a Tea Party protester condemning deficit spending is a bigot. It's not the crime of bigotry that we're dealing with here, but the thoughtcrime. The thing which your opponents, who conveniently enough happened to be the New York Times columnists and op ed writers, think you really meant.
What we are talking about then is actual prejudice and bigotry vs political racism or the race card. Actual bigots spout racial slurs, discriminate against, abuse and assault people for their race or national or religious background. Political bigotry by contrast is the modern day version of the witchhunt that involves denouncing someone you don't like as a racist or a witch.
When denouncing someone for political bigotry, you don't actually need to get your facts straight. You don't even need any facts. All you need is a vague feeling that he probably might and could very well be bigoted, as proven by your politically correct seventh sense tingling with the warning that there's a "boy" at the end of his sentence. It was the classic Soviet way of doing things. And it still works.
Why bother debating whether Joe Wilson's claim was true or not true, when instead you can trot out a man who rejected a Christian professor for the board of the Holocaust Memorial Council because his name "sounded too Jewish" to condemn Joe Wilson as a racist. Now the debate becomes is Joe Wilson a racist, and when you haven't actually made any racist statements, the only way to defend yourself is by going on the defensive, which easily comes across like an admission of guilt.
Before Democrats had been forced to subsist on borrowed Mau-Mauing. Today with Obama in the White House it has become childishly easy to condemn anyone in the opposition for racism. After all they're in the opposition, and why would they be in the opposition... unless they had problems with a black man in the White House? This kind of reductio ad absurdum racial argument has become the default party line when dealing with political opponents. "There's only one possible reason they could oppose our wholly reasonable political program, because they're racists."
Democrats had spent eight years calling Bush a liar. Eight years. But calling Obama a liar is now a hate crime. Drawing a cartoon of him is a hate crime. Attending a rally protesting his policies is of course a hate crime. Voting while Republican is also naturally a hate crime. Essentially being on the opposite side of Obama has become a hate crime, by the convenient logical trick of presuming that Obama is equivalent to all black people, and that therefore opposition to him is equivalent to opposing all black people.
Taking that argument to the next level, since Obama is also half-white, anyone black or white who opposes him, is a bigot. And FDR's opponents probably just hated disabled people. JFK's opponents hated the Irish. And Al Gore lost the election, because Joe Lieberman was Jewish. While there's humor in that absurdity, there is also the ominous stench of dictatorship.
It's Un-American to ban political dissent, unless you define all political dissent as bigotry. And next thing you know, your secret ballot has been determined to make you a statistically probable candidate for domestic terrorism. After all it's just a small hop from not wanting a government boondoggle of a health care program to being a racist to blowing up FBI buildings. That's the way liberal logic runs and that's who runs the Justice Department now.
We have now entered the golden post-racial age in which it is proof positive of racism to call a politician a liar. So long as the politician is a democrat and of a race different than yours. Yet if anything 2008 proved that Americans were willing and even eager to vote for a black man. But 2008 did not birth the post-racial society, it was there for a long time already.
That isn't to say that prejudice is dead. Most human beings have their prejudices, acknowledged and unacknowledged, which is what gives liberal accusations of racism such power. But most people also have long ago put aside those prejudices when it comes to working, going to school, living side by side with, and yes voting into office. We have been living in a post-racial country for some time now. The old divisions have the most power when interested parties begin playing them like an organ, because for all their talk about overcoming prejudice they are determined that we go on living in a black and white world, because it suits them. Because it gives them power.
The opposition to Obama has not come over racial issues, with only the exception in the Gates case. It has come over political issues, over the key question of how much power government can wield over people. It is in the interests of those wielding that power to frame the question as a racial one, rather than a political one, in order to delegitimize those daring to ask the question. It is in their interest to play the race card, because then instead of being forced to explain their misconduct, they can successfully force their critics to account for that invisible "boy" at the end of a sentence.
Criticizing the government is not a hate crime, being suspicious of politicians is a great American tradition and the essence of democracy, and opposing Obama is not a hate crime. Much as the talking heads and the op ed writers may try to spin dissent as racism, dissent is not racism, it is simply dissent. Without the right to dissent, there would be no civil rights movement. Without the right to dissent, there will be no America.
Monday, September 14, 2009
An Open Letter to Marty from the Huntress
Marty:
I realize you may not like or want to have your head clouded with facts. Nevertheless, here are a few:
You are incorrect about about “50% of the country supports him.” 50% of the country DID not support and currently DOES not support Barack Hussein Obama nor his policies. Do you even know what percentage of the electorate participated in this last election? Obviously not.
No, this country was not “set up,” as you call it, as a democracy nor to practice democracy, which is mob rule. This nation was established as a democratic republic and is based on U.S. constitutional law, not mob rule. And it remains (barely, “thanks” to people like YOU) a Republic. And the overwhelming majority of Americans intend to keep it that way – because the overwhelming majority of Americans value and support the Constitution and want to preserve it as it was written – a FACT that every independent poll in this country shows.
Your definition of conservatism is biased and patently absurd. Conservatism seeks to CONSERVE, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And I, like millions of Americans, will fight with my last breath those who seek to usurp, diminish and destroy it – or as you so quaintly put it “change.” It appears that you were either too lazy and disinterested – or worse, intent on helping to weaken this nation – to even bother to ask, “Change what? And change into what? What SPECIFIC change?” Can you even articulate the change you want or sought, Marty? State your case, SPECIFICALLY, and we will listen – because Obama sure didn’t specify and STILL does not specify what he wants to change that he believes is so “fundamentally flawed” (his own words) about the Constitution and the United States.
A FACT about the right wing, Marty: the majority of Americans describe themselves as right of center, not left. Additionally, numerous polls show that, if given the chance, more voters would vote for a Republican candidate over a Democrat candidate. Rather than seeking to restore your once great Democrat Party, through your insults (and probably your actions, too) you seek to destroy the other party. And thus, though you say otherwise, you seek to destroy the check and balances of our two-party system and thus, you really seek one-party rule (which is also Obama’s policy and actions to date, so at least you’re consistent), which is tyranny. Thus, you insult the majority of Americans (which is also what Obama constantly does, so again, at least you’re consistent with him in your shared hatred of most Americans); and unknowingly or not, you support tyranny, which is the enemy of America and American principles. What does that make YOU, Marty?
Wrong again, Marty, the right was not built around all the utter nonsense you parrot. It was and remains built around the Constitution, and that which is outlined by the Constitution, including: limited government, not this big, bloated, ever-growing, ever-invasive, ever-spending behemoth we now have “thanks” to people like you; the right was and remains built on equal rights and justice for all under the law, not special rights for one group over another group based on race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, income, etc, etc, that we now have “thanks” to people like you; the right was and remains built on a strong national defense and national security based on diplomacy and peace through strength, not appeasement of our enemies whilst they use the time to strengthen and further arm themselves to attack us and/or our national interests and our allies, which is the situation we now have, “thanks” to people like you.
BTW, “peace through strength” is the foundation of what’s called Neo-Realism in foreign affairs/relations and diplomacy, Marty, a subject that you should spend a little bit of time actually reading, studying and understanding before you attempt to expound upon it or criticize previous administrations and/or individuals who are far more skilled and knowledgeable in that area than are you. Read a little bit of economics, military affairs, and history, too, and definitely read the U.S. Constitution. Since you obviously don’t do a lot of reading in any of those areas, I would also strongly suggest you at least check out these two links, as they will explain more to you than you currently seem to know:
http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment/
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/20081012YB
The latter link is a very interesting video of a 1985 interview with Yuri Bezmenov, ex-KGB. It is as relevant today as it was then, and speaks to our current financial melt-down. Listen to it, Marty, and perhaps you will begin to understand or at least have an inkling (one would hope) as to just how much of a “useful idiot” you and Barack Hussein Obama are to those who seek to do us real harm.
Now, of course, I realize you - being resistant and close-minded as you are whilst accusing others of the same – will instinctively take your ostrich-head-in-the-sand stance and dismiss the latter as “right wing scare tactics.” I assure you this video is not. It reveals the very real and ongoing strategy of those who are anything BUT right wing, those who very much appreciate what Barack Hussein Obama is doing to this country. You must understand something, Marty: There are individuals throughout the world who wake up every morning actively seeking ways in which to literally destroy this nation and everything its represents and destroy you. That is not a scare tactic, Marty, that is a FACT. They do this not because of anything we’ve done to them. They do it because they hate the founding principles on which this nation stands, they hate our liberty, they hate our independence (that which remains of it and hasn’t yet been squandered) and they hate who and what we are. And they hate you, Marty.
And speaking of scare tactics, Marty, it is astonishing - even from one so myopic and naïve as you seem to be - that you do not and/or chose not to see the conspiracy, fear and scare tactics that this Obama administration constantly propagates and puts forth. Obama handpicked and appointed a czar who actually believes in that absurd 9/11 conspiracy – such an insult to the families of those 3,000 lost lives. And please don’t say he “didn’t know.” You’re not still buying that line from Obama are you? Obama knows the backgrounds, beliefs and worldviews of those whom he chose. So what can you logically conclude, Marty (that is. if you CAN logically conclude) that says about the background, beliefs and worldview of Barack Hussein Obama? As a candidate, Obama ran as a centrist, a moderate, a post-racial and post-partisan president. He lied. He is none of those things. And we all know that by what Barack Hussein Obama said himself about himself: “Judge me and judge me for who and what I am by the people I will have around me in my administration.” Tax evaders, Marxists, radicals, self-avowed communists. Need I go on, about who and what they and Obama are, Marty? These are FACTS.
Inscribed upon the fireplace mantel in the State Dining Room of the White House is the prayer/blessing that John Adams wrote to his wife on Nov. 2, 1800: “I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”
HONEST and WISE. We now inarguably know – by HIS OWN criteria of how we should judge him by whom he has CHOSEN to have around him - that the current occupant of the White House, Barack Hussein Obama, is neither a honest nor wise man.
Wise and honest leaders and their administration do not set up Web sites that encourage citizens to turn upon one another, to snitch on ordinary citizens for something vaguely described as “fishy.” This is the tactic of fascists. It was used by the Nazis in 1930s Germany. All for change. A wise and honest leader whose party dominates all branches of government, and who gets every stimulus, bailout and other legislative bills he has sought since taking office (legislation that he has repeatedly said will improve the economy and save jobs but in fact has made the economic and employment situation far, far worse) does not behave as a little boy and constantly blame it on previous administrations nor seek to shirk responsibility for an economy he OWNS and for which he IS responsible. This constant juvenile behavior and shirking of responsibility is unseemly and unprecedented – especially from someone who relentlessly sought the high office he now occupies and said he was prepared and knew what he was getting into. This is not the behavior of a wise and honest man, but of a child seeking to make excuses for his own bad decisions and refusing to accept the consequences of them. My six and eight-year-old nephews know better than to try that and aren’t allowed to get away with that behavior. So I cannot expect less of a president than what I would expect from a six or eight-year-old.
Some things for you to consider about what you call “messes.” You do not define those “messes,” you only parrot. So because you then immediately follow that parroting with vague, ill-defined statements about war, money, the will of the American people and foreign aid/assistance, one has to assume those are the primary areas of concern for you. Yet the following appears to be perfectly OK with you: In less than six months, Barack Hussein Obama spent at least four times the amount of money that the previous administration did in eight years. In fact, the Obama administration has now spent more than all the other combined previous administrations. So Barack Hussein Obama abysmally fails the test on money spending. With the exception of those strategies of the Bush administration, Obama himself has no strategies for victory in Afghanistan and Obama himself has no exit strategy. Only days into his administration, Obama approved bombing that killed women and children on the Pakistan border. So on all these, Obama fails your test standards on war.
In fact, Obama does more than just fail those test standards about war – because he has made some of those changes you love so much and he is in the process of making more. And since he has done so, these changes have and will continue to get some of our best and bravest needlessly killed. But you probably like that ours and our troops’ enemies should be marandized. Obama has also changed the ROE over there. That’s Rules of Engagement for people like you who have never served and know NOTHING about the military. And BTW, Marty, the VASTLY overwhelming majority of military members are also those right wing and conservatives for whom you have such contempt, and who also did not vote for Barack Hussein Obama – and that, too, is a FACT. Additionally, you make reference to the war in Afghanistan being the “right" war and the one in Iraq being the “wrong” war. You might want to learn more about the difference between Al Qaeda and the Taliban and learn more about the primary areas out of which Al Qaeda and the Taliban operate before you offer any further critiques of “where we should have been in the first place.”
Know this: The inexperienced junior senator Obama wanted war in Afghanistan and the still inexperienced and unskilled Obama, who has never studied military affairs or foreign affairs, still wants war in Afghanistan and this is HIS war, he OWNS it, it's on HIM. Know that those Russian battleships armed with nuclear missiles that recently sailed into the Carribean are on him too. Do you have any idea how close that is to the southern shores of the U.S.? Do you have any idea of the range of those missiles? I doubt it. I doubt you're even aware of that situation. That's on Obama too. So is North Korea's first time ever threat to target Hawaii with missiles. You speak of "inflaming." You have no idea of what's been inflamed in world in the past eight months the since Obama the apologetic and appeasing "peacemaker" has taken office. It's all on him. So, yeah, Mary he sure has brought up some "issues," as you call them. And in his "dealing" with them, notice that with his historical recordbreaking big spending programs (including his recent enormous funding of Brazil's oil industry - gee, ya think the Brazilian government will cover all the expenses of and do a good job of cleaning any their oil spills that float up on our southern shores?), he continues to ensure China - a real bastion of "liberty" - will own a bigger part of yours, your children's and grandchildren's lives. Know, too, that the recent sale of missiles to Iran by Russia is on Obama, too, as well as everything else currently happening in the Middle East. I’ve been in the Middle East, Marty, as well as lived in some of the socialist countries of Europe. You should visit and/or live in both of those regions of the world and under their cultures and systems of government for a while, as I have. I assure you that it will be an enlightening experience for you and will open your eyes – especially in regards to what we should or shouldn’t change – which brings me to another topic you raised:
Some facts about Islam, Marty: Well, FINALLY an Obama supporter admits the obvious: Obama is Islamic, if not in actual daily practice, then certainly in acculturation and attitudinally. The rest of us knew what people such as you chose to ignore and deny along with his denials in his campaign. And that is another lie. What does it matter? For one thing, it was part of the information deliberately withheld from voters because he and his advisors knew he would not be elected if most voters knew what they now know about Obama, his background and his true policy positions.
Have you ever read anything in the Qur’an / Koran, Marty? I have. I own a copy. This enables me to check for myself the accuracy and validity of what the media and others quote. Contrary to what you said and apparently believe, Islam is far more than simply a religion, and far more than a creed. It is also a geo-socio-politico-government system. It is not compatible with western democracy or democratic republics. Now, you might be shocked by and you might think, “oh, how intolerant” that last sentence is, Marty, but that is true Islam. And if you think that sentence is intolerant, you ain’t seen nothing yet until you’ve experienced the “tolerance” of Islam. So you go ahead and buy all that those secular catch phrases, whitewashing and packaging / rebranding that they’re trying to sell to you as being Islam, but I don’t. Why? Because I’ve been in that part of the world and because I’ve heard it straight from the horses’ mouths numerous times, in detail and at length. I’ve talked with people who’ve grown up under the Islamic system, people who have successfully escaped it, and people who would like to escape it. One of its main principles/tenets is expansionism and conversion. In other words, Marty, that means world domination and you not having a choice or any say whatsoever in whether or not you convert to Islam. Unlike Christianity, Islam has not undergone a Reformation. So all those arguments about it being no more bloody and violent than and just as peaceful as Christianity are absurd and patently false. Furthermore, unlike Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism, which all accommodate other regions, Islam does NOT accept or accommodate any other religion (BTW, Hinduism is extraordinarily accommodating). Islamic (or what you know as Sharia law) does not recognize or accept any other law as being equal to or above it, usurping all others, including the secular laws of western democracies and republics and including our U.S. Constitution. What that means, Marty, is that Islamists in our country can and MUST, according to their law, ignore our laws and our Constitution, and obey only Islam. OK with you?
LOTS of detailed passages are in the Qur’an/Koran about how to deal with/what do do with Unbelievers (like you, Marty) of the “One and Only True Religion,” and they’re not pretty. And under Islamic law, women are absolutely NOT equal. LOTS of Koranic passages about that too, and about how unclean, evil and seductive women and EVERY part of women’s bodies are. So they must not be shown. Even exposed ankles and hands are such dangerous spell casters and tempting body parts, ya know. And bonus, Marty! – as a True Beliver, you legally get to beat your wife if she has a “headache” and isn’t in the mood to share your bed and/or if she’s disobedient to you in others ways both small and large. Another example: In matters of justice when a jury of men is selected – if and ONLY if there aren’t enough men around for that ALL MALE jury, then TWO women must be selected to replace ONE man. You see, Marty, that’s because, at best, one woman is only equal to half a man and is only half as valuable as a man. (To hell with being entitled to a jury of your peers, as we are entitled to under our system.) I forget which Qur’anic passage number (Surah) that one is. Ah, but here’s one number I do remember (Surah 4:11) because it’s interesting and just sooo reeks of “equality” too: A female heir can only inherit half the portion that a male inherits. In fact, Marty, YOU have little say to no say in who gets what of your estate because Allah (Islamic law) determines all that for you in great detail.
Innocence and ignorance of these obscene repressive and oppressive laws is not an excuse. Let me tell you of just one of the many incidents that happened during the time I was in an Islamic country. It was one of those more “moderate” Islamic countries, though there’s really no such thing as “moderate Islam.” That’s just what they tell you to get you to accept their expansionism in the West and what some of those so-called moderate Islamic countries do to attract businesses and tourism and to show a very, very thin veneer of tolerance to secularism to outsiders and other foolish Unbelievers. Four young Dutch women were in bathing suits at a seaside beach. So other folks in bathing suits were there, as well (most of them vacationing Europeans). But these Dutch girls happened to be quite good looking and without male escorts, which is not good. The Islamic “justice” for those four Dutch girls: they were brutally gang raped. Of course, the rapists would probably get a minimum of 6 to 10 years in most states of the U.S., but in this case, the perps – the “guilty” party - were those innocent women. Of course, being a “moderate” Islamic country, there were no arrests and no trial where the women would’ve – and should have, according to their laws - received further punishment for their “crime.” So you bet your butt that I wore a scarf on my head, loose ankle-length skirts and loose long sleeved shirts that covered my arms and kept a low profile in public and went almost everywhere in the company of men – definitely in the bazaars – while I was over there. (And I always tried to conduct my routine business with shop keepers who were known to me, thus to reduce the risk of my being kidnapped - or worse - all of which happens often over there to women.) And even all that was considered racy in some places. And I’m absolutely sickened that Barack Hussein Obama apologized for us to these regimes. I am sickened that Barack Hussein Obama (and YOU, Marty) had the temerity to lecture us about tolerance, and say that we as a nation need to show more respect and tolerance towards Islam and Islamic countries. I am sickened that he draw a moral equivalency between Islamic and American principles.
More than 50% of the U.S. population is female, Marty, and I can assure you that most Americans will resist and will NOT tolerate those kinds of backward and oppressive laws, values and attitudes here in our country. I can assure you that both conservative and liberal American women will not tolerate that kind of oppression in our own homeland, and for you to suggest we do so, is - unintentionally or not - an obscenity and an affront to liberty-loving people.
This will be harsh for you Marty, but someday you will realize this, and hopefully, you won’t realize this too late: You are ignorant, inexperience and too arrogant to know you’re both. You are young, Marty, and you must open your eyes because you will likely live a long time and you must protect what’s been hard won and given to you by others before you. You must open your eyes and protect the personal liberty and and rights that have been handed to you. Otherwise you may someday wake up and no longer have those liberties and rights and the sovereign nation in which you live and the associate opportunities all of these allow for you to pursue. These things are a gift that has been handed to you and to all of us. That gift has been at great cost to others before you. And you must think well, hard and long before you would so casually exchange or trade that gift for something of far less value. That you would cast away so rare a more than 200-year-old heirloom gift simply for the sake of change is both shortsighted and immature. And your casting it aside is also viewed as incredibly selfish by the millions of people who share in that 200-year-old gift and VALUE it and do NOT want to change it.
Lastly, in regards to your last sentence – “So, if you don't like that America can elect someone who wants change, then leave” you don’t speak for all Americans, Marty, nor were you elected to do so. And as the lower voter turnout of the last election shows and as all the current polls show, neither does Barack Hussein Obama speak for all Americans; nor does he even appear to be interested in speaking for or representing all Americans, as evidenced by his months long relentless attempts to ignore the will of more than 85% of the American people and ram ObamaCare down our throats. My family has been in this country for almost 375 years, Marty, the length of which matters not, except to point out to you that members of my family and others like them have bled for this country; and thus, they and others like them were and are heavily invested in the survival and future of this Republic with a fierce devotion and in ways that you cannot even begin to fathom. They and others like them bled and continue to bleed for future generations, including foolish and easily beguiled young puppies like you, Marty. But they did NOT bleed for the Republic so that you and others like you would give it away. Know this: Those of us who did NOT vote for Obama’s hopey-changey crap and those of us who hear the spirits of our Founders and Framers crying out are NOT leaving, Marty. We will NOT leave or sit down or be silent. There are PLENTY of socialist countries in the world (and funny how so many of their citizens always want to come here, huh?); and since you seem to prefer socialism, as evidenced by your support of Obama and his socialist programs and policies, here’s an invitation for YOU, Marty: YOU leave. Take your pick of any one of those countries, pack up, go there, live there, and leave this Republic alone! Or stay here, but only if you open your eyes and GROW UP! Meanwhile, as you ponder you decision, here’s a clue for you and all the foolish pups like you so blindly eager to be shackled:
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget ye were our countrymen.” – Samuel Adams
As for the rest of us - in the finest American tradition (which is contrast to change), we choose perseverance, strength, self-reliance, and liberty. We stand faithfully by and in honor of the Republic and the Constitution.
- Diana
I realize you may not like or want to have your head clouded with facts. Nevertheless, here are a few:
You are incorrect about about “50% of the country supports him.” 50% of the country DID not support and currently DOES not support Barack Hussein Obama nor his policies. Do you even know what percentage of the electorate participated in this last election? Obviously not.
No, this country was not “set up,” as you call it, as a democracy nor to practice democracy, which is mob rule. This nation was established as a democratic republic and is based on U.S. constitutional law, not mob rule. And it remains (barely, “thanks” to people like YOU) a Republic. And the overwhelming majority of Americans intend to keep it that way – because the overwhelming majority of Americans value and support the Constitution and want to preserve it as it was written – a FACT that every independent poll in this country shows.
Your definition of conservatism is biased and patently absurd. Conservatism seeks to CONSERVE, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And I, like millions of Americans, will fight with my last breath those who seek to usurp, diminish and destroy it – or as you so quaintly put it “change.” It appears that you were either too lazy and disinterested – or worse, intent on helping to weaken this nation – to even bother to ask, “Change what? And change into what? What SPECIFIC change?” Can you even articulate the change you want or sought, Marty? State your case, SPECIFICALLY, and we will listen – because Obama sure didn’t specify and STILL does not specify what he wants to change that he believes is so “fundamentally flawed” (his own words) about the Constitution and the United States.
A FACT about the right wing, Marty: the majority of Americans describe themselves as right of center, not left. Additionally, numerous polls show that, if given the chance, more voters would vote for a Republican candidate over a Democrat candidate. Rather than seeking to restore your once great Democrat Party, through your insults (and probably your actions, too) you seek to destroy the other party. And thus, though you say otherwise, you seek to destroy the check and balances of our two-party system and thus, you really seek one-party rule (which is also Obama’s policy and actions to date, so at least you’re consistent), which is tyranny. Thus, you insult the majority of Americans (which is also what Obama constantly does, so again, at least you’re consistent with him in your shared hatred of most Americans); and unknowingly or not, you support tyranny, which is the enemy of America and American principles. What does that make YOU, Marty?
Wrong again, Marty, the right was not built around all the utter nonsense you parrot. It was and remains built around the Constitution, and that which is outlined by the Constitution, including: limited government, not this big, bloated, ever-growing, ever-invasive, ever-spending behemoth we now have “thanks” to people like you; the right was and remains built on equal rights and justice for all under the law, not special rights for one group over another group based on race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, income, etc, etc, that we now have “thanks” to people like you; the right was and remains built on a strong national defense and national security based on diplomacy and peace through strength, not appeasement of our enemies whilst they use the time to strengthen and further arm themselves to attack us and/or our national interests and our allies, which is the situation we now have, “thanks” to people like you.
BTW, “peace through strength” is the foundation of what’s called Neo-Realism in foreign affairs/relations and diplomacy, Marty, a subject that you should spend a little bit of time actually reading, studying and understanding before you attempt to expound upon it or criticize previous administrations and/or individuals who are far more skilled and knowledgeable in that area than are you. Read a little bit of economics, military affairs, and history, too, and definitely read the U.S. Constitution. Since you obviously don’t do a lot of reading in any of those areas, I would also strongly suggest you at least check out these two links, as they will explain more to you than you currently seem to know:
http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment/
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/20081012YB
The latter link is a very interesting video of a 1985 interview with Yuri Bezmenov, ex-KGB. It is as relevant today as it was then, and speaks to our current financial melt-down. Listen to it, Marty, and perhaps you will begin to understand or at least have an inkling (one would hope) as to just how much of a “useful idiot” you and Barack Hussein Obama are to those who seek to do us real harm.
Now, of course, I realize you - being resistant and close-minded as you are whilst accusing others of the same – will instinctively take your ostrich-head-in-the-sand stance and dismiss the latter as “right wing scare tactics.” I assure you this video is not. It reveals the very real and ongoing strategy of those who are anything BUT right wing, those who very much appreciate what Barack Hussein Obama is doing to this country. You must understand something, Marty: There are individuals throughout the world who wake up every morning actively seeking ways in which to literally destroy this nation and everything its represents and destroy you. That is not a scare tactic, Marty, that is a FACT. They do this not because of anything we’ve done to them. They do it because they hate the founding principles on which this nation stands, they hate our liberty, they hate our independence (that which remains of it and hasn’t yet been squandered) and they hate who and what we are. And they hate you, Marty.
And speaking of scare tactics, Marty, it is astonishing - even from one so myopic and naïve as you seem to be - that you do not and/or chose not to see the conspiracy, fear and scare tactics that this Obama administration constantly propagates and puts forth. Obama handpicked and appointed a czar who actually believes in that absurd 9/11 conspiracy – such an insult to the families of those 3,000 lost lives. And please don’t say he “didn’t know.” You’re not still buying that line from Obama are you? Obama knows the backgrounds, beliefs and worldviews of those whom he chose. So what can you logically conclude, Marty (that is. if you CAN logically conclude) that says about the background, beliefs and worldview of Barack Hussein Obama? As a candidate, Obama ran as a centrist, a moderate, a post-racial and post-partisan president. He lied. He is none of those things. And we all know that by what Barack Hussein Obama said himself about himself: “Judge me and judge me for who and what I am by the people I will have around me in my administration.” Tax evaders, Marxists, radicals, self-avowed communists. Need I go on, about who and what they and Obama are, Marty? These are FACTS.
Inscribed upon the fireplace mantel in the State Dining Room of the White House is the prayer/blessing that John Adams wrote to his wife on Nov. 2, 1800: “I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”
HONEST and WISE. We now inarguably know – by HIS OWN criteria of how we should judge him by whom he has CHOSEN to have around him - that the current occupant of the White House, Barack Hussein Obama, is neither a honest nor wise man.
Wise and honest leaders and their administration do not set up Web sites that encourage citizens to turn upon one another, to snitch on ordinary citizens for something vaguely described as “fishy.” This is the tactic of fascists. It was used by the Nazis in 1930s Germany. All for change. A wise and honest leader whose party dominates all branches of government, and who gets every stimulus, bailout and other legislative bills he has sought since taking office (legislation that he has repeatedly said will improve the economy and save jobs but in fact has made the economic and employment situation far, far worse) does not behave as a little boy and constantly blame it on previous administrations nor seek to shirk responsibility for an economy he OWNS and for which he IS responsible. This constant juvenile behavior and shirking of responsibility is unseemly and unprecedented – especially from someone who relentlessly sought the high office he now occupies and said he was prepared and knew what he was getting into. This is not the behavior of a wise and honest man, but of a child seeking to make excuses for his own bad decisions and refusing to accept the consequences of them. My six and eight-year-old nephews know better than to try that and aren’t allowed to get away with that behavior. So I cannot expect less of a president than what I would expect from a six or eight-year-old.
Some things for you to consider about what you call “messes.” You do not define those “messes,” you only parrot. So because you then immediately follow that parroting with vague, ill-defined statements about war, money, the will of the American people and foreign aid/assistance, one has to assume those are the primary areas of concern for you. Yet the following appears to be perfectly OK with you: In less than six months, Barack Hussein Obama spent at least four times the amount of money that the previous administration did in eight years. In fact, the Obama administration has now spent more than all the other combined previous administrations. So Barack Hussein Obama abysmally fails the test on money spending. With the exception of those strategies of the Bush administration, Obama himself has no strategies for victory in Afghanistan and Obama himself has no exit strategy. Only days into his administration, Obama approved bombing that killed women and children on the Pakistan border. So on all these, Obama fails your test standards on war.
In fact, Obama does more than just fail those test standards about war – because he has made some of those changes you love so much and he is in the process of making more. And since he has done so, these changes have and will continue to get some of our best and bravest needlessly killed. But you probably like that ours and our troops’ enemies should be marandized. Obama has also changed the ROE over there. That’s Rules of Engagement for people like you who have never served and know NOTHING about the military. And BTW, Marty, the VASTLY overwhelming majority of military members are also those right wing and conservatives for whom you have such contempt, and who also did not vote for Barack Hussein Obama – and that, too, is a FACT. Additionally, you make reference to the war in Afghanistan being the “right" war and the one in Iraq being the “wrong” war. You might want to learn more about the difference between Al Qaeda and the Taliban and learn more about the primary areas out of which Al Qaeda and the Taliban operate before you offer any further critiques of “where we should have been in the first place.”
Know this: The inexperienced junior senator Obama wanted war in Afghanistan and the still inexperienced and unskilled Obama, who has never studied military affairs or foreign affairs, still wants war in Afghanistan and this is HIS war, he OWNS it, it's on HIM. Know that those Russian battleships armed with nuclear missiles that recently sailed into the Carribean are on him too. Do you have any idea how close that is to the southern shores of the U.S.? Do you have any idea of the range of those missiles? I doubt it. I doubt you're even aware of that situation. That's on Obama too. So is North Korea's first time ever threat to target Hawaii with missiles. You speak of "inflaming." You have no idea of what's been inflamed in world in the past eight months the since Obama the apologetic and appeasing "peacemaker" has taken office. It's all on him. So, yeah, Mary he sure has brought up some "issues," as you call them. And in his "dealing" with them, notice that with his historical recordbreaking big spending programs (including his recent enormous funding of Brazil's oil industry - gee, ya think the Brazilian government will cover all the expenses of and do a good job of cleaning any their oil spills that float up on our southern shores?), he continues to ensure China - a real bastion of "liberty" - will own a bigger part of yours, your children's and grandchildren's lives. Know, too, that the recent sale of missiles to Iran by Russia is on Obama, too, as well as everything else currently happening in the Middle East. I’ve been in the Middle East, Marty, as well as lived in some of the socialist countries of Europe. You should visit and/or live in both of those regions of the world and under their cultures and systems of government for a while, as I have. I assure you that it will be an enlightening experience for you and will open your eyes – especially in regards to what we should or shouldn’t change – which brings me to another topic you raised:
Some facts about Islam, Marty: Well, FINALLY an Obama supporter admits the obvious: Obama is Islamic, if not in actual daily practice, then certainly in acculturation and attitudinally. The rest of us knew what people such as you chose to ignore and deny along with his denials in his campaign. And that is another lie. What does it matter? For one thing, it was part of the information deliberately withheld from voters because he and his advisors knew he would not be elected if most voters knew what they now know about Obama, his background and his true policy positions.
Have you ever read anything in the Qur’an / Koran, Marty? I have. I own a copy. This enables me to check for myself the accuracy and validity of what the media and others quote. Contrary to what you said and apparently believe, Islam is far more than simply a religion, and far more than a creed. It is also a geo-socio-politico-government system. It is not compatible with western democracy or democratic republics. Now, you might be shocked by and you might think, “oh, how intolerant” that last sentence is, Marty, but that is true Islam. And if you think that sentence is intolerant, you ain’t seen nothing yet until you’ve experienced the “tolerance” of Islam. So you go ahead and buy all that those secular catch phrases, whitewashing and packaging / rebranding that they’re trying to sell to you as being Islam, but I don’t. Why? Because I’ve been in that part of the world and because I’ve heard it straight from the horses’ mouths numerous times, in detail and at length. I’ve talked with people who’ve grown up under the Islamic system, people who have successfully escaped it, and people who would like to escape it. One of its main principles/tenets is expansionism and conversion. In other words, Marty, that means world domination and you not having a choice or any say whatsoever in whether or not you convert to Islam. Unlike Christianity, Islam has not undergone a Reformation. So all those arguments about it being no more bloody and violent than and just as peaceful as Christianity are absurd and patently false. Furthermore, unlike Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism, which all accommodate other regions, Islam does NOT accept or accommodate any other religion (BTW, Hinduism is extraordinarily accommodating). Islamic (or what you know as Sharia law) does not recognize or accept any other law as being equal to or above it, usurping all others, including the secular laws of western democracies and republics and including our U.S. Constitution. What that means, Marty, is that Islamists in our country can and MUST, according to their law, ignore our laws and our Constitution, and obey only Islam. OK with you?
LOTS of detailed passages are in the Qur’an/Koran about how to deal with/what do do with Unbelievers (like you, Marty) of the “One and Only True Religion,” and they’re not pretty. And under Islamic law, women are absolutely NOT equal. LOTS of Koranic passages about that too, and about how unclean, evil and seductive women and EVERY part of women’s bodies are. So they must not be shown. Even exposed ankles and hands are such dangerous spell casters and tempting body parts, ya know. And bonus, Marty! – as a True Beliver, you legally get to beat your wife if she has a “headache” and isn’t in the mood to share your bed and/or if she’s disobedient to you in others ways both small and large. Another example: In matters of justice when a jury of men is selected – if and ONLY if there aren’t enough men around for that ALL MALE jury, then TWO women must be selected to replace ONE man. You see, Marty, that’s because, at best, one woman is only equal to half a man and is only half as valuable as a man. (To hell with being entitled to a jury of your peers, as we are entitled to under our system.) I forget which Qur’anic passage number (Surah) that one is. Ah, but here’s one number I do remember (Surah 4:11) because it’s interesting and just sooo reeks of “equality” too: A female heir can only inherit half the portion that a male inherits. In fact, Marty, YOU have little say to no say in who gets what of your estate because Allah (Islamic law) determines all that for you in great detail.
Innocence and ignorance of these obscene repressive and oppressive laws is not an excuse. Let me tell you of just one of the many incidents that happened during the time I was in an Islamic country. It was one of those more “moderate” Islamic countries, though there’s really no such thing as “moderate Islam.” That’s just what they tell you to get you to accept their expansionism in the West and what some of those so-called moderate Islamic countries do to attract businesses and tourism and to show a very, very thin veneer of tolerance to secularism to outsiders and other foolish Unbelievers. Four young Dutch women were in bathing suits at a seaside beach. So other folks in bathing suits were there, as well (most of them vacationing Europeans). But these Dutch girls happened to be quite good looking and without male escorts, which is not good. The Islamic “justice” for those four Dutch girls: they were brutally gang raped. Of course, the rapists would probably get a minimum of 6 to 10 years in most states of the U.S., but in this case, the perps – the “guilty” party - were those innocent women. Of course, being a “moderate” Islamic country, there were no arrests and no trial where the women would’ve – and should have, according to their laws - received further punishment for their “crime.” So you bet your butt that I wore a scarf on my head, loose ankle-length skirts and loose long sleeved shirts that covered my arms and kept a low profile in public and went almost everywhere in the company of men – definitely in the bazaars – while I was over there. (And I always tried to conduct my routine business with shop keepers who were known to me, thus to reduce the risk of my being kidnapped - or worse - all of which happens often over there to women.) And even all that was considered racy in some places. And I’m absolutely sickened that Barack Hussein Obama apologized for us to these regimes. I am sickened that Barack Hussein Obama (and YOU, Marty) had the temerity to lecture us about tolerance, and say that we as a nation need to show more respect and tolerance towards Islam and Islamic countries. I am sickened that he draw a moral equivalency between Islamic and American principles.
More than 50% of the U.S. population is female, Marty, and I can assure you that most Americans will resist and will NOT tolerate those kinds of backward and oppressive laws, values and attitudes here in our country. I can assure you that both conservative and liberal American women will not tolerate that kind of oppression in our own homeland, and for you to suggest we do so, is - unintentionally or not - an obscenity and an affront to liberty-loving people.
This will be harsh for you Marty, but someday you will realize this, and hopefully, you won’t realize this too late: You are ignorant, inexperience and too arrogant to know you’re both. You are young, Marty, and you must open your eyes because you will likely live a long time and you must protect what’s been hard won and given to you by others before you. You must open your eyes and protect the personal liberty and and rights that have been handed to you. Otherwise you may someday wake up and no longer have those liberties and rights and the sovereign nation in which you live and the associate opportunities all of these allow for you to pursue. These things are a gift that has been handed to you and to all of us. That gift has been at great cost to others before you. And you must think well, hard and long before you would so casually exchange or trade that gift for something of far less value. That you would cast away so rare a more than 200-year-old heirloom gift simply for the sake of change is both shortsighted and immature. And your casting it aside is also viewed as incredibly selfish by the millions of people who share in that 200-year-old gift and VALUE it and do NOT want to change it.
Lastly, in regards to your last sentence – “So, if you don't like that America can elect someone who wants change, then leave” you don’t speak for all Americans, Marty, nor were you elected to do so. And as the lower voter turnout of the last election shows and as all the current polls show, neither does Barack Hussein Obama speak for all Americans; nor does he even appear to be interested in speaking for or representing all Americans, as evidenced by his months long relentless attempts to ignore the will of more than 85% of the American people and ram ObamaCare down our throats. My family has been in this country for almost 375 years, Marty, the length of which matters not, except to point out to you that members of my family and others like them have bled for this country; and thus, they and others like them were and are heavily invested in the survival and future of this Republic with a fierce devotion and in ways that you cannot even begin to fathom. They and others like them bled and continue to bleed for future generations, including foolish and easily beguiled young puppies like you, Marty. But they did NOT bleed for the Republic so that you and others like you would give it away. Know this: Those of us who did NOT vote for Obama’s hopey-changey crap and those of us who hear the spirits of our Founders and Framers crying out are NOT leaving, Marty. We will NOT leave or sit down or be silent. There are PLENTY of socialist countries in the world (and funny how so many of their citizens always want to come here, huh?); and since you seem to prefer socialism, as evidenced by your support of Obama and his socialist programs and policies, here’s an invitation for YOU, Marty: YOU leave. Take your pick of any one of those countries, pack up, go there, live there, and leave this Republic alone! Or stay here, but only if you open your eyes and GROW UP! Meanwhile, as you ponder you decision, here’s a clue for you and all the foolish pups like you so blindly eager to be shackled:
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget ye were our countrymen.” – Samuel Adams
As for the rest of us - in the finest American tradition (which is contrast to change), we choose perseverance, strength, self-reliance, and liberty. We stand faithfully by and in honor of the Republic and the Constitution.
- Diana
A Few Questions for Liberals
Why would some twenty eight states feel it necessary to enact legislation to protect their sovereignty today?
Why are so many people purchasing ammunition and weapons at a rate never seen before in this country?
Why does the White House think it necessary to have an Internal Security Force as large, as well equipped, as the entire US Military? What is the requirement for that?
Why, if the second stated purpose of the Stimulus Bill was to provide relief to "those recently unemployed", has nothing been done to get people back to work quickly?
Why did so many states consider not accepting the government money from the Stimulus Bill?
If the Republicans are correct, and the national debt is going to increase to $20 Trillion as a result of the Stimulus Bill and the
Government Bailouts of Wall Street, Banks, AIG, and Detroit, are you aware that every man, woman, and child in the United States, all 300 million people, will each owe $66,666.66?
Do you like the idea of paying your mortgage and someone else's mortgage? Do you like the idea of paying for your health care, and someone else's health care, and in return receiving lower quality and rationing of that care?
Do you like the idea of the government telling your doctor what he can prescribe for you?
Why would Obama pay attorneys a million dollars to hide virtually all his records if he has nothing to hide? Is this transparency?
Why won't Obama release the names of the visitors to the White House since 20 January 2009? Is this transparency?
Why have Inspector Generals been muzzled? Is this transparency?
Do you like the idea of Government taking over banks, the mortgage industry, and the automobile industry?
Do you still think ACORN is a “swell bunch of community organizers”?
Why are so many people purchasing ammunition and weapons at a rate never seen before in this country?
Why does the White House think it necessary to have an Internal Security Force as large, as well equipped, as the entire US Military? What is the requirement for that?
Why, if the second stated purpose of the Stimulus Bill was to provide relief to "those recently unemployed", has nothing been done to get people back to work quickly?
Why did so many states consider not accepting the government money from the Stimulus Bill?
If the Republicans are correct, and the national debt is going to increase to $20 Trillion as a result of the Stimulus Bill and the
Government Bailouts of Wall Street, Banks, AIG, and Detroit, are you aware that every man, woman, and child in the United States, all 300 million people, will each owe $66,666.66?
Do you like the idea of paying your mortgage and someone else's mortgage? Do you like the idea of paying for your health care, and someone else's health care, and in return receiving lower quality and rationing of that care?
Do you like the idea of the government telling your doctor what he can prescribe for you?
Why would Obama pay attorneys a million dollars to hide virtually all his records if he has nothing to hide? Is this transparency?
Why won't Obama release the names of the visitors to the White House since 20 January 2009? Is this transparency?
Why have Inspector Generals been muzzled? Is this transparency?
Do you like the idea of Government taking over banks, the mortgage industry, and the automobile industry?
Do you still think ACORN is a “swell bunch of community organizers”?
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Unionizing Healthcare
Read the Union Health-Care Label
Get ready for Detroit-style labor relations in our hospitals.
By MARK MIX
In the heated debates on health-care reform, not enough attention is being paid to the huge financial windfalls ObamaCare will dole out to unions—or to the provisions in the various bills in Congress that will help bring about the forced unionization of the health-care industry.
Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health-care sector and the American economy at large.
The Senate version opens the door to implement forced unionization schemes pursued by former Govs. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in 2005 and Gray Davis of California in 1999. Both men repaid tremendous political debts to Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care (and child-care) contractors as state employees—and forcing them to pay union dues.
Following this playbook, the Senate bill creates a "personal care attendants workforce advisory panel" that will likely impose union affiliation to qualify for a newly created "community living assistance services and support (class)" reimbursement plan.
The current House version of ObamaCare (H.R. 3200) goes much further. Section 225(A) grants Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius tremendous discretionary authority to regulate health-care workers "under the public health insurance option." Monopoly bargaining and compulsory union dues may quickly become a required standard resulting in potentially hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses across the country being forced into unions.
Ms.=2 0Sebelius will be taking her marching orders from the numerous union officials who are guaranteed seats on the various federal panels (such as the personal care panel mentioned above) charged with recommending health-care policies. Big Labor will play a central role in directing federal health-care policy affecting hundreds of thousands of doctors, surgeons and nurses.
Consider Kaiser Permanente, the giant, managed-care organization that has since 1997 proudly touted its labor-management "partnership" in scores of workplaces. Union officials play an essentially co-equal role in running many Kaiser facilities. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the Kaiser plan "a framework for what every health care delivery system should do" at a July 24 health-care forum outside of Washington, D.C.
The House bill has a $10 billion provision to bail out insolvent union health-care plans. It also creates a lucrative professional-development grant program for health-care workers that effectively blackballs nonunion med ical facilities from participation. The training funds in this program must be administered jointly with a labor organization—a scenario not unlike the U.S. Department of Labor's grants for construction apprenticeship programs, which have turned into a cash cow for construction industry union officials on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
There's more. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has suggested that the federal government could pay for health-care reform by taxing American workers' existing health-care benefits—but he would exempt union-negotiated health-care plans. Under Mr. Baucus's scheme, the government could impose costs of up to $20,000 per employee on nonunion businesses already struggling to afford health care plans.
Mr. Baucus's proposal would give union officials another tool to pressure employers into turning over their employees to Big Labor. Rather than provide the lavish benefits required by Obamacare, employers could allow a union to come in and negotiate less costly benefits than would otherwise be required. Such plans could be continuously exempted.
=0 A
Americans are unlikely to support granting unions more power than they already have in the health-care field. History shows union bosses could abuse their power to shut down medical facilities with sick-outs and strikes; force doctors, nurses and in-home care providers to abandon their patients; dictate terms and conditions of employment; and impose a failed, Detroit-style management model on the entire health-care field.
ObamaCare is a Trojan Horse for more forced unionization.
Get ready for Detroit-style labor relations in our hospitals.
By MARK MIX
In the heated debates on health-care reform, not enough attention is being paid to the huge financial windfalls ObamaCare will dole out to unions—or to the provisions in the various bills in Congress that will help bring about the forced unionization of the health-care industry.
Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health-care sector and the American economy at large.
The Senate version opens the door to implement forced unionization schemes pursued by former Govs. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in 2005 and Gray Davis of California in 1999. Both men repaid tremendous political debts to Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care (and child-care) contractors as state employees—and forcing them to pay union dues.
Following this playbook, the Senate bill creates a "personal care attendants workforce advisory panel" that will likely impose union affiliation to qualify for a newly created "community living assistance services and support (class)" reimbursement plan.
The current House version of ObamaCare (H.R. 3200) goes much further. Section 225(A) grants Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius tremendous discretionary authority to regulate health-care workers "under the public health insurance option." Monopoly bargaining and compulsory union dues may quickly become a required standard resulting in potentially hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses across the country being forced into unions.
Ms.=2 0Sebelius will be taking her marching orders from the numerous union officials who are guaranteed seats on the various federal panels (such as the personal care panel mentioned above) charged with recommending health-care policies. Big Labor will play a central role in directing federal health-care policy affecting hundreds of thousands of doctors, surgeons and nurses.
Consider Kaiser Permanente, the giant, managed-care organization that has since 1997 proudly touted its labor-management "partnership" in scores of workplaces. Union officials play an essentially co-equal role in running many Kaiser facilities. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the Kaiser plan "a framework for what every health care delivery system should do" at a July 24 health-care forum outside of Washington, D.C.
The House bill has a $10 billion provision to bail out insolvent union health-care plans. It also creates a lucrative professional-development grant program for health-care workers that effectively blackballs nonunion med ical facilities from participation. The training funds in this program must be administered jointly with a labor organization—a scenario not unlike the U.S. Department of Labor's grants for construction apprenticeship programs, which have turned into a cash cow for construction industry union officials on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
There's more. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has suggested that the federal government could pay for health-care reform by taxing American workers' existing health-care benefits—but he would exempt union-negotiated health-care plans. Under Mr. Baucus's scheme, the government could impose costs of up to $20,000 per employee on nonunion businesses already struggling to afford health care plans.
Mr. Baucus's proposal would give union officials another tool to pressure employers into turning over their employees to Big Labor. Rather than provide the lavish benefits required by Obamacare, employers could allow a union to come in and negotiate less costly benefits than would otherwise be required. Such plans could be continuously exempted.
=0 A
Americans are unlikely to support granting unions more power than they already have in the health-care field. History shows union bosses could abuse their power to shut down medical facilities with sick-outs and strikes; force doctors, nurses and in-home care providers to abandon their patients; dictate terms and conditions of employment; and impose a failed, Detroit-style management model on the entire health-care field.
ObamaCare is a Trojan Horse for more forced unionization.
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