The Right Stuff - 3/13/2009
By Don O'Nesky | 03/12/09 | 05:08 AM EDT | 0 Comments
Give President Obama A Grade
If you were grading Barack Obama on his performance as president, what would he get?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29493093/
Obama's LBJ Syndrome
The 1967 board game was called "Credibility Gap." Created by two academics, it was inspired by what now might be called LBJ Syndrome, the pattern of behavior exhibited in the 1960s by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. A pattern of behavior that gradually led Americans to the belief LBJ was a hopeless teller of untruths. "Credibility gap" was the much used political term of the day applied to Democrat LBJ...
As Americans listen to the smooth assurances from President Obama that his health care plan would cost $634 billion over 10 years, a look back at how liberal assurances like these actually work out in practice is in order. Specifically, let's take a look at the smooth assurances in 1965 from LBJ as to the costs he saw for Medicare. Medicare, of course, was the liberal health care panacea for seniors enacted into law by LBJ and a Democrat Congress in July of 1965 and is a fixture of today's America.
So how much was Medicare supposed to cost the American people? Promised a solemn LBJ: $500 million a year. You read that right. The cost of Medicare was projected to be $500 million -- million with an "m" -- a year. So said LBJ himself. Repeatedly, as he noted in his 1971 memoirs. So too did a March 11, 1965 story in the New York Times insist that: "Federal appropriations of about $500 million a year from general tax revenues would be required" to pay for Medicare. What has the actual cost turned out to be? In a report in February 2008, barely a year ago, the Wall Street Journal noted the trustees of Medicare admitted "Medicare's unfunded liability is $74 trillion.... According to the Congressional Budget Office, health-care spending is on a course that could crowd out all other government programs."
Crowd out all other government programs. Think of what that means. The current Obama budget proposal is a mind-bending $3.5 trillion... In 2009 the country is $74 trillion hell and gone from the LBJ promise that $500 million a year and a few tax tweaks here and there would usher in the milk and honey of affordable health care for seniors... The trick the Obama crew learned from LBJ, who in turn learned it from FDR, is to focus always on the promise, never on the results...
And you think Rush Limbaugh is wrong to hope Obama fails? Rush may be deaf but like Reagan he isn't blind, which is precisely why the Obama White House is spending so much time demonizing him and trying to change the subject about what they are really doing here -- and by extension demonizing Reagan himself. Rush knows a red flag when he sees one -- and they knew he would he know. Instead of being raked over the coals by the naïve for saying he hopes the President fails in all of this Limbaugh should be praised as a latter-day Paul Revere. He knows what's coming, as Reagan would know, if we don't fight Obama's LBJ Syndrome. So should the rest of us.
---Jeffrey Lord, The American Spectator
March 10, 2009
Trojan Horse Alert
Americans need to ask themselves if they really want to drive private insurers out of the medical marketplace, because that's what President Obama's plan would do. The public should be thankful these days for any small favor it gets. Here's one: The White House health care reform juggernaut appears to be losing steam. A few weeks ago, the administration lost Tom Daschle, the man it was depending on to steer its agenda through Congress. Now it's finding that not everyone out there shares its sense of urgency. With the economy in deep trouble and the banking system still largely paralyzed, fixing health care -- which has lots of problems but no crisis -- can wait.
The debate has barely begun. Let it be a very long one. Maybe, for a year or two, the politicians should do nothing more than talk. That would be far better than to rush ahead with the plan that the president was promoting during his campaign and, we have to assume, would prefer to see enacted now. As we said at the time, Obama's plan is a blueprint for socialization in stages...
The private plans would have to be at least as generous as the public plan; this was stated explicitly by the Obama campaign. However, they would be denied its subsidy, so it would be impossible for them to match its benefits and still make money. It would be like herding sheep into the fold and letting the wolf in. Or you can think of the public plan as a Trojan horse. Once allowed inside the gates of the health insurance market and given an unfair advantage, it will eventually out-compete its private rivals and gain monopoly power... The choice is between giving consumers a real market of competing insurers, and steering them steadily toward single-payer. That's a weighty decision, and it must not be rushed.
---Editorial, Investor's Business Daily
March 10, 2009
Finding 'Moderate Radicals', Barack Obama Style
The words we use are important, and each has its own specific meaning. So when the Obama Administration says that it is open to dealing with "moderate Taliban," people should ask what in the world it means. The Taliban is by definition a radical organization that is not about to give on its maximalist demand of imposing Sharia law wherever it attains power. It is in its very essence contrary to everything we believe in as Americans. When the US President, who considers himself a master of words, speaks about moderate radicals, he needs to be asked, "Are you crazy?" Mr. Obama better take note of the price of appeasement.
---Dr. Richard Benkin, Canada Free Press
March 10, 2009
Nancy's Personal Airline ... The U.S. Military
I've been telling you about this for some weeks now ... ever since our wonderful Democrat congress started demonizing anyone who uses a private jet in their business.
Nancy Pelosi's business is running the U.S. House of Representatives, and Nancy not only has one private jet at her disposal; she has a fleet. That's right, a fleet of private jets, paid for by the taxpayers, that shuttle her and her friends and family where they please. Nancy's fleet is operated by the Pentagon. According to a report from Judicial Watch, Nancy repeatedly requested military aircraft and treated the Air Force as her "personal airline." Based on e-mails and other documents, Nancy regularly made special demands for high-end aircraft, often canceled at the last minute and racked up some serious expenses for the military .. and ultimately the taxpayers. What's more (and this is no surprise) Princess Nancy and her staff would be just a wee bit abusive when they couldn't get their way. In one email recovered with a FOIA request, Pelosi's aid Kay King wrote "It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are." In other words ... if you can't cough up a G5 for the Speaker, you had better tell her were your G5s are and who is using them so she can make a determination as to whether or not she is being slighted.
In another case Pelosi wanted her husband to tag along on a congressional trip to Iraq. The Pentagon had to remind Madam Speaker that spouses are not allowed to go along on military trips. Public servant? Yeah right .. these people are our RULERS, folks. We are here to provide for them ...to provide a basis for their power. What good is a ruler without someone to rule? That would be us.
---Neal Boortz, Nealz Nuze
March 11, 2009
Top 10 Senate RINOs
As part of HUMAN EVENTS ongoing campaign against Republicans in name only (RINOs) we have compiled a list of the Top 10 Most Liberal Republican Senators based on the American Conservative Union Ratings for 2008 (110th Congress, second session. The ratings all compare rather unfavorably with that of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), chairman of the Republican Steering Committee. Sen. DeMint's score was a perfect 100). On the conservative scale, the ten lowest-scoring senators are:
1. Olympia Snowe, Maine: (ACU Rating: 12)
(Only one point higher than liberal Democrat Hillary Clinton who the ACU scored an 11, and an astonishing 4 points lower than Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid's 16.)
2. Susan Collins, Maine: 20
(Collins received the same score as liberal Claire McCaskill, and 4 points lower than Russ Feingold's 24)
3. Arlen Specter, PA: 42 (Only 10 points higher than Mary Landrieu's 32)
4. George Voinovich, OH: 52
5. Lisa Murkowski, AL: 58
6. Mel Martinez, FL: 60
7. John McCain, AZ: 63
8. Richard Lugar, Ind: 63
9. Robert Bennett, UT: 64
10. Thad Cochran, Miss: 68
---Human Events
March 11, 2009
Obama's Fear Mongering
Imagine a child falls down a well. Now imagine I offer to lend the parents my ladder to save her, but only if they promise to paint my house. Would you applaud me for not letting a crisis go to waste? Or would you think I'm a jerk, for want of a harsher word not printable in this space?
I ask because I'm trying to come to terms with Rule No. 1 of the Obama administration. "Rule 1: Never allow a crisis to go to waste," White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told the New York Times right after the election. "They are opportunities to do big things." Over the weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told an audience at the European Parliament, "Never waste a good crisis." Then President Obama explained in his Saturday radio and Internet address that there is "great opportunity in the midst of" the "great crisis" befalling America...
Well, now we have the president, along with his chief aides, admitting -- boasting! -- that they want to exploit a national emergency to further their preexisting agenda, and there's no scandal. No one even calls it a gaffe. No, they call it leadership. It's not leadership. It's fear mongering.
Franklin Roosevelt said that all we have to fear is fear itself. Now, Barack Obama tacitly admits that all he has to fear is the loss of fear itself. In other realms of life, exploiting a crisis for your own purposes is an outrage. If a business uses a hurricane warning to price-gouge on vital supplies, it is a crime. When a liberal administration does it, it's taking advantage of a historic opportunity...
Every president thinks his agenda is what's best for the country; every politician believes his motives are noble. The point is that scaring people about X in order to achieve Y is fundamentally undemocratic...
---Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online
March 11, 2009
Obama's 'Exploits'
"Recall that not long ago, the first item on the bill of indictment against the Bush administration was that it was 'exploiting' 9/11 to enact its agenda," Jonah Goldberg writes in the Los Angeles Times. "Al Gore shrieked that President Bush 'played on our fears' to get his way. In response to nearly every Bush policy proposal, from the Patriot Act to the toppling of Saddam Hussein, critics would caterwaul that Bush was taking advantage of the country's fear of terrorism," Mr. Goldberg said.
"The Bush administration always denied this, and rightly so. If the president admitted that he was using a national calamity for narrow partisan or ideological advantage, it would be outrageous. Indeed, every time Karl Rove or some other administration official said anything that could be even remotely interpreted as using the war or 9/11 for partisan or ideological gain, the editorial pages and Democratic news-release factories churned into overdrive with righteous indignation. Well, now we have the president, along with his chief aides, admitting - boasting! - that they want to exploit a national emergency for their pre-existing agenda, and there's no scandal. No one even calls it a gaffe. No, they call it leadership."
---Greg Pierce, Inside Politics
March 11, 2009
The New American Class Structure
A new aristocracy walks among us. The formerly enormous middle class that dominated the American social structure for most of a century is crumbling before our eyes, as retirement accounts and home equity evaporate, while health care costs continue to grow inexorably by nearly 10 percent a year. In the face of rising unemployment and tumbling personal net worth, life has gotten much riskier for a vast swath of the American populace.
However, the new aristocrats, government employees both currently employed and retired, are guaranteed generous pensions that are insulated from both retirement and stock market fluctuations. They occupy a privileged class position, their bonanza protected by law, and underwritten by the ability of the state to raise taxes on the rest of us, no matter how meager or nonexistent our own retirement arrangements or health care access...
In the old Soviet Union, the ruling elite shopped at different stores, lived in different areas, and enjoyed a life apart, one very different from the lives of ordinary citizens. America is all too rapidly going down the same path. We are at a peculiar moment in history where the top American political leadership excoriates the perquisites of private wealth and power -- the luxury retreats, the private jets -- while shamelessly helping themselves to unprecedented levels of the same levels of consumption, or more.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made news in 2007 when she had the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House formally ask the Air Force for a jet to transport her to her home district without a refueling stop. A furor erupted when it appeared that she was asking for use of a C-32, the military executive transport based on the Boeing 757... At the top, while America tightens its belt, President Obama jets off on his presidential 747 to take his bride out for Valentine's Day at a favorite Chicago restaurant...
In China and Japan under Confucian political ideology, sumptuary laws regulated the material goods which members of the ordinary public would be allowed to own. Most famously, silk was reserved for the elite class of mandarins and samurai. The much-despised merchant class faced criminal prosecution if discovered using the wrong type of ceramics or cloth.
In today's America, the new mandarins of government seem to despise those who accumulate wealth in the private sector almost as much as the Confucians of Asia's past. Public humiliation in front of Congressional hearings, punitive legislation, and regulatory hell are rained down upon those who seem to trespass on the ground reserved to the higher caste of public officials.
Life at the top used to be good for everyone. These days, it pays to be what we still laughingly call a public servant.
---Thomas Lifson, American Thinker
March 11, 2009
We Must Make Obama And Congress Listen
This administration can call it whatever they want, rescuing our country with this exploitive bailout, trying to recover from the Bush administration and horrible policies, or having to have drastic Government spending and intervention due to our dire financial challenges. Most of us get it though. It is nothing more than following the rulebook of socialism and plans for a Government take over while we are distracted by endless crisis.
Obama has surrounded his life with neo Marxists, socialists, anti American communists, anti Semitic racists and bold and happy terrorists. Either there is a ridiculous amount of niativity in Obama's efforts, education and career as he has tried to find himself or he is methodical, brilliant, organized, connected and unfolding systematic plans to infuse his neo Marxist worldview on the U.S. This is not new, socialism, neo-Marxism and the slippery slope to communism. We have seen this religion, obsession and grand manipulation infiltrating our country, boldly since the 60s and before. Obama surrounded himself with influences and people like Richard Cloward and Francis Piven who were radical socialists and Columbia Professors, talking and teaching for years about overthrowing capitalism by overloading our Government with a sea of impossible demands and pushing society into crisis and economic collapse. They were known for the "Cloward-Piven Strategy."
Not only did Obama dig Cloward and Piven, but we all know about his connection and friendship with Bill Ayers, who only recently has been touring around the country talking about education to Universities. He is only the arrogant terrorist formerly with the Weather Underground who blew up people and buildings.....oh yeah and who wanted to take over the country and put people in internment camps, murdering millions more if necessary. According to the FBI informant who I have interviewed, who was implanted in the Weather Underground, Bill Ayers was never just an innocent war protestor!
The green slime continues. Then there is the connection and huge influence of radical, socialist organizer Saul Alinsky and Mr. Porno and Communist Mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. The more you look at the endless friendships and associations you see anti Americanism, radicalism and socialism. Why would you shape your career and life around these types of people if they didn't in some way reflect your beliefs and worldview? You wouldn't, but he did and does!
The anti-Semitic, socialist, radical activist, pro communist anti gun and extreme abortion fans surround Obama's new administration and first executive orders...
---Dr. Laurie Roth, Canada Free Press
March 11, 2009
When Is The Economic Recovery Due?
When can we expect economic recovery from the current steep recession causing so much suffering for the American people? That has been the main focus of Obama's Administration so far. Will his policies speed or delay, and strengthen or weaken, the recovery? The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is the official scorekeeper as to when recessions start and end. The NBER says the current recession started in December, 2007. NBER also reports that the average length of U.S. recessions since World War II has been 10.4 months. With the current recession starting in December, 2007, we have long since blown past that average.
The NBER further reports that the longest recession since World War II has been 16 months. We will break that record next month. Even granting some leeway, we should expect recovery, defined as the return of economic growth, by mid-spring, when otherwise we will be breaking records every day for the longest recession in the modern era. If economic growth does not resume by then, we can legitimately ask whether Obama's policies are delaying the recovery rather than helping to restore it. When the economy falls into recession, it does not keep falling until the government comes up with the brilliant policy to turn it around. Though with foolish policies the government can keep the downturn going for a long time -- see, e.g., The Great Depression.
We still have the biggest, most powerful, capitalist economy in world history. Every morning, hundreds of millions of hard working, skilled Americans wake up and go to work trying to make the economy more productive than the day before. That is what makes the economy eventually recover on its own, always within 16 months since World War II. Government can make this recovery faster and stronger with smart policies that contribute to economic growth. Or the government can delay the recovery and make it weaker with dumb policies that hold the economy back.
I expect Obama's policies to delay recovery and make it weaker than it would be otherwise. The stimulus package just added a trillion dollars to government spending and the national debt... The Fed is saying it will sharply tighten its loose monetary policies when recovery comes, to preempt inflation. But that will cause interest rates to soar further, so I expect the Fed to back off of that, out of fear it will preempt the recovery as well...
This abandonment of every component of the Reagan free market economic policies is what caused the current economic crisis. Conservatives and Republicans need not waste any political capital defending that. And by this spring, the American people will be entitled to ask, how long are we going to continue to do what doesn't work?
---Peter Ferrara, The American Spectator
March 11, 2009
Sleeping Blue Dogs
It's not just conservatives who publicly doubt President Obama's economic plans. Moderates and even some on the left have begun to speak up and sound off. Yet there's little bark, and even less bite, from the Blue Dogs -- a group of 53 Democratic House members who claim to be champions of fiscal prudence. Might that be connected to the $741 million of earmarks for the Blue Dogs in the bloated omnibus spending bill? It's a standard storyline to silence watchdogs by feeding them. In the classic Sherlock Holmes tale Silver Blaze, the most revealing clue was a dog that didn't bark when the crime was committed.
A few individual Blue Dogs have cast votes against parts of the tidal wave of spending. But as a group, they've not blocked the spending spree even when they had the chance to do so. They've gone along with the spending promoted by Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Two Democratic Senators publicly called for a Presidential veto of the $410 billion "omnibus" spending bill. None of the Blue Dogs did so. Given a chance to vote for a freeze of federal spending -- as an alternative to the bill's 8% increase -- only seven of the 53 Blue Dogs did so. Ultimately, less than a third of the Blue Dogs voted against the bill -- and none raised vociferous objections...
Both on short-term spending and long-term commitments like entitlements, the Blue Dogs could play an important role if they assert themselves. While others bark about this Congress' unprecedented spending binge, it doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out why so many Blue Dogs are silent.
Washington has a long tradition of trading votes for pork-barrel spending, Blue Dogs are probably no more inclined to do so than anyone else in Congress. And no less.
---Ernest Istook, (Former Congressman--OK), Human Events
March 11, 2009
Americans Open To Force To Rein In Iran On Nukes
Americans favor military action against Iran if sanctions and diplomacy fail to persuade the regime to cease efforts toward building nuclear weapons, according to a new IBD/TIPP poll. President Obama has said he wants to engage Iran in dialogue. In an interview with Al-Arabiya TV in late January, he said Tehran's past actions have been detrimental to Middle East peace, but said, "It is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are but where there are potential avenues for progress." If talks or sanctions don't work, 52% of Americans say they think the U.S. should use military action vs. 37% who say it shouldn't. Among Republicans, 65% favor military action while 23% oppose it. Democrats back it 48%-43%. Independents split 44%-45%... The IBD/TIPP poll also found slightly stronger support for Israel taking military action to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, with 57% favoring it and 29% opposed.
---David Hogberg, Investor's Business Daily
March 10, 2009
Good News From Iraq
IP receive tools for investigating crime scenes
CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, TIKRIT, Iraq - Iraqi crime scene
investigators in Salah ad-Din Province evidence sections received 16 forensic evidence processing kits to enhance their crime scene evaluations throughout the region. The kits were presented by the 733rd Military Police Battalion and other Multi-National Division-North personnel at the Joint Expeditionary Forensic Facility on Contingency Operating Base Speicher. "These kits will be very helpful for our crime scene investigators to find fingerprints within a crime scene," said Col. Laith Mohammed Hameed, Salah ad-Din crime scene investigator chief. "We have a shortage of helpful materials to use in our efforts to protect our people, but with the additional equipment we have now, we will be able to find the truth at the crime scene and apply the law in a better way." The investigation kits are part of a province-wide initiative known as Iraqi Police Primacy.
The initiative's goal is to establish a unified and capable Iraqi Police force that has the sole authority to maintain security through law enforcement and civil order actions in accordance with Rule of Law. "The contents in the investigation kits are the same materials you could find in a patrol car back in the United States. The 16 Iraqi Police Department Headquarters in Salah ad-Din province will receive the investigations kits and incorporate the equipment in their daily operations, according to Laith.
Truck handover brings hope of clean future
FOB LOYALTY, Iraq - Twenty waste sanitation trucks were turned over to the Government of Iraq during a ceremony at Forward Operating Base Loyalty. The new trucks, used for sewage maintenance and repair, give the Iraqis additional capacity to work out sanitation problems in eastern Baghdad, said Conrad Tribble, chief of the Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division. "It's a tangible sign of what the U.S. government is doing to help Baghdad really address concrete needs. We're not doing this to make ourselves look good, but to make their country better," explained Tribble. "Ultimately, the goal is to increase the capacity of the municipal government and government legitimacy," said Maj. Brad Hofmann, the civil military operations chief, 401st Civil Affairs Battalion, 3rd BCT, 82nd Abn. Div. Hoffman and his team purchased the sewage trucks with
Commander's Emergency Response Funds to enable the municipal governments
of Baghdad's Karadah, Rusafa and 9 Nissan districts. "The trucks are going to fix the sewage and people are going to love it," said Abel Hassan Al Fetlawi, the chief engineer of the New Baghdad province. "This is a pretty good thing."
Opening classrooms, opening minds
FORWARD OPERATING BASE WARRIOR, Kirkuk, Iraq - The Government of Iraqi's
commitment to progress is continuing in the form of three new classrooms which opened at the Hegna Primary School. The additional classrooms will allow younger children to focus on educational fundamentals. "This is a great opportunity for the children of Hegna to have greater access to a learning environment and will allow teachers to be able to focus more closely on the children by reducing the classroom sizes said,," Cpt. Justin Michel, commander, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. According to Michel, the Government of Iraq has taken the responsibility of providing for its country's future and is determined to create better lives for its citizens and its children by continuing to add on to this school and schools like it around the country. "Opening more classrooms creates opportunities for local teachers to use their skills to benefit the village's children," said Michel. "The continuing improvements to the infrastructure of Iraq are beginning to be more and more apparent in towns like Hegna. The GoI is providing its citizens the vital social services they need to continue to build a bright future for their country," said Michel.
---Multi-National Corps - Iraq
If you were grading Barack Obama on his performance as president, what would he get?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29493093/
Obama's LBJ Syndrome
The 1967 board game was called "Credibility Gap." Created by two academics, it was inspired by what now might be called LBJ Syndrome, the pattern of behavior exhibited in the 1960s by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. A pattern of behavior that gradually led Americans to the belief LBJ was a hopeless teller of untruths. "Credibility gap" was the much used political term of the day applied to Democrat LBJ...
As Americans listen to the smooth assurances from President Obama that his health care plan would cost $634 billion over 10 years, a look back at how liberal assurances like these actually work out in practice is in order. Specifically, let's take a look at the smooth assurances in 1965 from LBJ as to the costs he saw for Medicare. Medicare, of course, was the liberal health care panacea for seniors enacted into law by LBJ and a Democrat Congress in July of 1965 and is a fixture of today's America.
So how much was Medicare supposed to cost the American people? Promised a solemn LBJ: $500 million a year. You read that right. The cost of Medicare was projected to be $500 million -- million with an "m" -- a year. So said LBJ himself. Repeatedly, as he noted in his 1971 memoirs. So too did a March 11, 1965 story in the New York Times insist that: "Federal appropriations of about $500 million a year from general tax revenues would be required" to pay for Medicare. What has the actual cost turned out to be? In a report in February 2008, barely a year ago, the Wall Street Journal noted the trustees of Medicare admitted "Medicare's unfunded liability is $74 trillion.... According to the Congressional Budget Office, health-care spending is on a course that could crowd out all other government programs."
Crowd out all other government programs. Think of what that means. The current Obama budget proposal is a mind-bending $3.5 trillion... In 2009 the country is $74 trillion hell and gone from the LBJ promise that $500 million a year and a few tax tweaks here and there would usher in the milk and honey of affordable health care for seniors... The trick the Obama crew learned from LBJ, who in turn learned it from FDR, is to focus always on the promise, never on the results...
And you think Rush Limbaugh is wrong to hope Obama fails? Rush may be deaf but like Reagan he isn't blind, which is precisely why the Obama White House is spending so much time demonizing him and trying to change the subject about what they are really doing here -- and by extension demonizing Reagan himself. Rush knows a red flag when he sees one -- and they knew he would he know. Instead of being raked over the coals by the naïve for saying he hopes the President fails in all of this Limbaugh should be praised as a latter-day Paul Revere. He knows what's coming, as Reagan would know, if we don't fight Obama's LBJ Syndrome. So should the rest of us.
---Jeffrey Lord, The American Spectator
March 10, 2009
Trojan Horse Alert
Americans need to ask themselves if they really want to drive private insurers out of the medical marketplace, because that's what President Obama's plan would do. The public should be thankful these days for any small favor it gets. Here's one: The White House health care reform juggernaut appears to be losing steam. A few weeks ago, the administration lost Tom Daschle, the man it was depending on to steer its agenda through Congress. Now it's finding that not everyone out there shares its sense of urgency. With the economy in deep trouble and the banking system still largely paralyzed, fixing health care -- which has lots of problems but no crisis -- can wait.
The debate has barely begun. Let it be a very long one. Maybe, for a year or two, the politicians should do nothing more than talk. That would be far better than to rush ahead with the plan that the president was promoting during his campaign and, we have to assume, would prefer to see enacted now. As we said at the time, Obama's plan is a blueprint for socialization in stages...
The private plans would have to be at least as generous as the public plan; this was stated explicitly by the Obama campaign. However, they would be denied its subsidy, so it would be impossible for them to match its benefits and still make money. It would be like herding sheep into the fold and letting the wolf in. Or you can think of the public plan as a Trojan horse. Once allowed inside the gates of the health insurance market and given an unfair advantage, it will eventually out-compete its private rivals and gain monopoly power... The choice is between giving consumers a real market of competing insurers, and steering them steadily toward single-payer. That's a weighty decision, and it must not be rushed.
---Editorial, Investor's Business Daily
March 10, 2009
Finding 'Moderate Radicals', Barack Obama Style
The words we use are important, and each has its own specific meaning. So when the Obama Administration says that it is open to dealing with "moderate Taliban," people should ask what in the world it means. The Taliban is by definition a radical organization that is not about to give on its maximalist demand of imposing Sharia law wherever it attains power. It is in its very essence contrary to everything we believe in as Americans. When the US President, who considers himself a master of words, speaks about moderate radicals, he needs to be asked, "Are you crazy?" Mr. Obama better take note of the price of appeasement.
---Dr. Richard Benkin, Canada Free Press
March 10, 2009
Nancy's Personal Airline ... The U.S. Military
I've been telling you about this for some weeks now ... ever since our wonderful Democrat congress started demonizing anyone who uses a private jet in their business.
Nancy Pelosi's business is running the U.S. House of Representatives, and Nancy not only has one private jet at her disposal; she has a fleet. That's right, a fleet of private jets, paid for by the taxpayers, that shuttle her and her friends and family where they please. Nancy's fleet is operated by the Pentagon. According to a report from Judicial Watch, Nancy repeatedly requested military aircraft and treated the Air Force as her "personal airline." Based on e-mails and other documents, Nancy regularly made special demands for high-end aircraft, often canceled at the last minute and racked up some serious expenses for the military .. and ultimately the taxpayers. What's more (and this is no surprise) Princess Nancy and her staff would be just a wee bit abusive when they couldn't get their way. In one email recovered with a FOIA request, Pelosi's aid Kay King wrote "It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are." In other words ... if you can't cough up a G5 for the Speaker, you had better tell her were your G5s are and who is using them so she can make a determination as to whether or not she is being slighted.
In another case Pelosi wanted her husband to tag along on a congressional trip to Iraq. The Pentagon had to remind Madam Speaker that spouses are not allowed to go along on military trips. Public servant? Yeah right .. these people are our RULERS, folks. We are here to provide for them ...to provide a basis for their power. What good is a ruler without someone to rule? That would be us.
---Neal Boortz, Nealz Nuze
March 11, 2009
Top 10 Senate RINOs
As part of HUMAN EVENTS ongoing campaign against Republicans in name only (RINOs) we have compiled a list of the Top 10 Most Liberal Republican Senators based on the American Conservative Union Ratings for 2008 (110th Congress, second session. The ratings all compare rather unfavorably with that of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), chairman of the Republican Steering Committee. Sen. DeMint's score was a perfect 100). On the conservative scale, the ten lowest-scoring senators are:
1. Olympia Snowe, Maine: (ACU Rating: 12)
(Only one point higher than liberal Democrat Hillary Clinton who the ACU scored an 11, and an astonishing 4 points lower than Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid's 16.)
2. Susan Collins, Maine: 20
(Collins received the same score as liberal Claire McCaskill, and 4 points lower than Russ Feingold's 24)
3. Arlen Specter, PA: 42 (Only 10 points higher than Mary Landrieu's 32)
4. George Voinovich, OH: 52
5. Lisa Murkowski, AL: 58
6. Mel Martinez, FL: 60
7. John McCain, AZ: 63
8. Richard Lugar, Ind: 63
9. Robert Bennett, UT: 64
10. Thad Cochran, Miss: 68
---Human Events
March 11, 2009
Obama's Fear Mongering
Imagine a child falls down a well. Now imagine I offer to lend the parents my ladder to save her, but only if they promise to paint my house. Would you applaud me for not letting a crisis go to waste? Or would you think I'm a jerk, for want of a harsher word not printable in this space?
I ask because I'm trying to come to terms with Rule No. 1 of the Obama administration. "Rule 1: Never allow a crisis to go to waste," White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told the New York Times right after the election. "They are opportunities to do big things." Over the weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told an audience at the European Parliament, "Never waste a good crisis." Then President Obama explained in his Saturday radio and Internet address that there is "great opportunity in the midst of" the "great crisis" befalling America...
Well, now we have the president, along with his chief aides, admitting -- boasting! -- that they want to exploit a national emergency to further their preexisting agenda, and there's no scandal. No one even calls it a gaffe. No, they call it leadership. It's not leadership. It's fear mongering.
Franklin Roosevelt said that all we have to fear is fear itself. Now, Barack Obama tacitly admits that all he has to fear is the loss of fear itself. In other realms of life, exploiting a crisis for your own purposes is an outrage. If a business uses a hurricane warning to price-gouge on vital supplies, it is a crime. When a liberal administration does it, it's taking advantage of a historic opportunity...
Every president thinks his agenda is what's best for the country; every politician believes his motives are noble. The point is that scaring people about X in order to achieve Y is fundamentally undemocratic...
---Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online
March 11, 2009
Obama's 'Exploits'
"Recall that not long ago, the first item on the bill of indictment against the Bush administration was that it was 'exploiting' 9/11 to enact its agenda," Jonah Goldberg writes in the Los Angeles Times. "Al Gore shrieked that President Bush 'played on our fears' to get his way. In response to nearly every Bush policy proposal, from the Patriot Act to the toppling of Saddam Hussein, critics would caterwaul that Bush was taking advantage of the country's fear of terrorism," Mr. Goldberg said.
"The Bush administration always denied this, and rightly so. If the president admitted that he was using a national calamity for narrow partisan or ideological advantage, it would be outrageous. Indeed, every time Karl Rove or some other administration official said anything that could be even remotely interpreted as using the war or 9/11 for partisan or ideological gain, the editorial pages and Democratic news-release factories churned into overdrive with righteous indignation. Well, now we have the president, along with his chief aides, admitting - boasting! - that they want to exploit a national emergency for their pre-existing agenda, and there's no scandal. No one even calls it a gaffe. No, they call it leadership."
---Greg Pierce, Inside Politics
March 11, 2009
The New American Class Structure
A new aristocracy walks among us. The formerly enormous middle class that dominated the American social structure for most of a century is crumbling before our eyes, as retirement accounts and home equity evaporate, while health care costs continue to grow inexorably by nearly 10 percent a year. In the face of rising unemployment and tumbling personal net worth, life has gotten much riskier for a vast swath of the American populace.
However, the new aristocrats, government employees both currently employed and retired, are guaranteed generous pensions that are insulated from both retirement and stock market fluctuations. They occupy a privileged class position, their bonanza protected by law, and underwritten by the ability of the state to raise taxes on the rest of us, no matter how meager or nonexistent our own retirement arrangements or health care access...
In the old Soviet Union, the ruling elite shopped at different stores, lived in different areas, and enjoyed a life apart, one very different from the lives of ordinary citizens. America is all too rapidly going down the same path. We are at a peculiar moment in history where the top American political leadership excoriates the perquisites of private wealth and power -- the luxury retreats, the private jets -- while shamelessly helping themselves to unprecedented levels of the same levels of consumption, or more.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made news in 2007 when she had the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House formally ask the Air Force for a jet to transport her to her home district without a refueling stop. A furor erupted when it appeared that she was asking for use of a C-32, the military executive transport based on the Boeing 757... At the top, while America tightens its belt, President Obama jets off on his presidential 747 to take his bride out for Valentine's Day at a favorite Chicago restaurant...
In China and Japan under Confucian political ideology, sumptuary laws regulated the material goods which members of the ordinary public would be allowed to own. Most famously, silk was reserved for the elite class of mandarins and samurai. The much-despised merchant class faced criminal prosecution if discovered using the wrong type of ceramics or cloth.
In today's America, the new mandarins of government seem to despise those who accumulate wealth in the private sector almost as much as the Confucians of Asia's past. Public humiliation in front of Congressional hearings, punitive legislation, and regulatory hell are rained down upon those who seem to trespass on the ground reserved to the higher caste of public officials.
Life at the top used to be good for everyone. These days, it pays to be what we still laughingly call a public servant.
---Thomas Lifson, American Thinker
March 11, 2009
We Must Make Obama And Congress Listen
This administration can call it whatever they want, rescuing our country with this exploitive bailout, trying to recover from the Bush administration and horrible policies, or having to have drastic Government spending and intervention due to our dire financial challenges. Most of us get it though. It is nothing more than following the rulebook of socialism and plans for a Government take over while we are distracted by endless crisis.
Obama has surrounded his life with neo Marxists, socialists, anti American communists, anti Semitic racists and bold and happy terrorists. Either there is a ridiculous amount of niativity in Obama's efforts, education and career as he has tried to find himself or he is methodical, brilliant, organized, connected and unfolding systematic plans to infuse his neo Marxist worldview on the U.S. This is not new, socialism, neo-Marxism and the slippery slope to communism. We have seen this religion, obsession and grand manipulation infiltrating our country, boldly since the 60s and before. Obama surrounded himself with influences and people like Richard Cloward and Francis Piven who were radical socialists and Columbia Professors, talking and teaching for years about overthrowing capitalism by overloading our Government with a sea of impossible demands and pushing society into crisis and economic collapse. They were known for the "Cloward-Piven Strategy."
Not only did Obama dig Cloward and Piven, but we all know about his connection and friendship with Bill Ayers, who only recently has been touring around the country talking about education to Universities. He is only the arrogant terrorist formerly with the Weather Underground who blew up people and buildings.....oh yeah and who wanted to take over the country and put people in internment camps, murdering millions more if necessary. According to the FBI informant who I have interviewed, who was implanted in the Weather Underground, Bill Ayers was never just an innocent war protestor!
The green slime continues. Then there is the connection and huge influence of radical, socialist organizer Saul Alinsky and Mr. Porno and Communist Mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. The more you look at the endless friendships and associations you see anti Americanism, radicalism and socialism. Why would you shape your career and life around these types of people if they didn't in some way reflect your beliefs and worldview? You wouldn't, but he did and does!
The anti-Semitic, socialist, radical activist, pro communist anti gun and extreme abortion fans surround Obama's new administration and first executive orders...
---Dr. Laurie Roth, Canada Free Press
March 11, 2009
When Is The Economic Recovery Due?
When can we expect economic recovery from the current steep recession causing so much suffering for the American people? That has been the main focus of Obama's Administration so far. Will his policies speed or delay, and strengthen or weaken, the recovery? The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is the official scorekeeper as to when recessions start and end. The NBER says the current recession started in December, 2007. NBER also reports that the average length of U.S. recessions since World War II has been 10.4 months. With the current recession starting in December, 2007, we have long since blown past that average.
The NBER further reports that the longest recession since World War II has been 16 months. We will break that record next month. Even granting some leeway, we should expect recovery, defined as the return of economic growth, by mid-spring, when otherwise we will be breaking records every day for the longest recession in the modern era. If economic growth does not resume by then, we can legitimately ask whether Obama's policies are delaying the recovery rather than helping to restore it. When the economy falls into recession, it does not keep falling until the government comes up with the brilliant policy to turn it around. Though with foolish policies the government can keep the downturn going for a long time -- see, e.g., The Great Depression.
We still have the biggest, most powerful, capitalist economy in world history. Every morning, hundreds of millions of hard working, skilled Americans wake up and go to work trying to make the economy more productive than the day before. That is what makes the economy eventually recover on its own, always within 16 months since World War II. Government can make this recovery faster and stronger with smart policies that contribute to economic growth. Or the government can delay the recovery and make it weaker with dumb policies that hold the economy back.
I expect Obama's policies to delay recovery and make it weaker than it would be otherwise. The stimulus package just added a trillion dollars to government spending and the national debt... The Fed is saying it will sharply tighten its loose monetary policies when recovery comes, to preempt inflation. But that will cause interest rates to soar further, so I expect the Fed to back off of that, out of fear it will preempt the recovery as well...
This abandonment of every component of the Reagan free market economic policies is what caused the current economic crisis. Conservatives and Republicans need not waste any political capital defending that. And by this spring, the American people will be entitled to ask, how long are we going to continue to do what doesn't work?
---Peter Ferrara, The American Spectator
March 11, 2009
Sleeping Blue Dogs
It's not just conservatives who publicly doubt President Obama's economic plans. Moderates and even some on the left have begun to speak up and sound off. Yet there's little bark, and even less bite, from the Blue Dogs -- a group of 53 Democratic House members who claim to be champions of fiscal prudence. Might that be connected to the $741 million of earmarks for the Blue Dogs in the bloated omnibus spending bill? It's a standard storyline to silence watchdogs by feeding them. In the classic Sherlock Holmes tale Silver Blaze, the most revealing clue was a dog that didn't bark when the crime was committed.
A few individual Blue Dogs have cast votes against parts of the tidal wave of spending. But as a group, they've not blocked the spending spree even when they had the chance to do so. They've gone along with the spending promoted by Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Two Democratic Senators publicly called for a Presidential veto of the $410 billion "omnibus" spending bill. None of the Blue Dogs did so. Given a chance to vote for a freeze of federal spending -- as an alternative to the bill's 8% increase -- only seven of the 53 Blue Dogs did so. Ultimately, less than a third of the Blue Dogs voted against the bill -- and none raised vociferous objections...
Both on short-term spending and long-term commitments like entitlements, the Blue Dogs could play an important role if they assert themselves. While others bark about this Congress' unprecedented spending binge, it doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out why so many Blue Dogs are silent.
Washington has a long tradition of trading votes for pork-barrel spending, Blue Dogs are probably no more inclined to do so than anyone else in Congress. And no less.
---Ernest Istook, (Former Congressman--OK), Human Events
March 11, 2009
Americans Open To Force To Rein In Iran On Nukes
Americans favor military action against Iran if sanctions and diplomacy fail to persuade the regime to cease efforts toward building nuclear weapons, according to a new IBD/TIPP poll. President Obama has said he wants to engage Iran in dialogue. In an interview with Al-Arabiya TV in late January, he said Tehran's past actions have been detrimental to Middle East peace, but said, "It is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are but where there are potential avenues for progress." If talks or sanctions don't work, 52% of Americans say they think the U.S. should use military action vs. 37% who say it shouldn't. Among Republicans, 65% favor military action while 23% oppose it. Democrats back it 48%-43%. Independents split 44%-45%... The IBD/TIPP poll also found slightly stronger support for Israel taking military action to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, with 57% favoring it and 29% opposed.
---David Hogberg, Investor's Business Daily
March 10, 2009
Good News From Iraq
IP receive tools for investigating crime scenes
CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, TIKRIT, Iraq - Iraqi crime scene
investigators in Salah ad-Din Province evidence sections received 16 forensic evidence processing kits to enhance their crime scene evaluations throughout the region. The kits were presented by the 733rd Military Police Battalion and other Multi-National Division-North personnel at the Joint Expeditionary Forensic Facility on Contingency Operating Base Speicher. "These kits will be very helpful for our crime scene investigators to find fingerprints within a crime scene," said Col. Laith Mohammed Hameed, Salah ad-Din crime scene investigator chief. "We have a shortage of helpful materials to use in our efforts to protect our people, but with the additional equipment we have now, we will be able to find the truth at the crime scene and apply the law in a better way." The investigation kits are part of a province-wide initiative known as Iraqi Police Primacy.
The initiative's goal is to establish a unified and capable Iraqi Police force that has the sole authority to maintain security through law enforcement and civil order actions in accordance with Rule of Law. "The contents in the investigation kits are the same materials you could find in a patrol car back in the United States. The 16 Iraqi Police Department Headquarters in Salah ad-Din province will receive the investigations kits and incorporate the equipment in their daily operations, according to Laith.
Truck handover brings hope of clean future
FOB LOYALTY, Iraq - Twenty waste sanitation trucks were turned over to the Government of Iraq during a ceremony at Forward Operating Base Loyalty. The new trucks, used for sewage maintenance and repair, give the Iraqis additional capacity to work out sanitation problems in eastern Baghdad, said Conrad Tribble, chief of the Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division. "It's a tangible sign of what the U.S. government is doing to help Baghdad really address concrete needs. We're not doing this to make ourselves look good, but to make their country better," explained Tribble. "Ultimately, the goal is to increase the capacity of the municipal government and government legitimacy," said Maj. Brad Hofmann, the civil military operations chief, 401st Civil Affairs Battalion, 3rd BCT, 82nd Abn. Div. Hoffman and his team purchased the sewage trucks with
Commander's Emergency Response Funds to enable the municipal governments
of Baghdad's Karadah, Rusafa and 9 Nissan districts. "The trucks are going to fix the sewage and people are going to love it," said Abel Hassan Al Fetlawi, the chief engineer of the New Baghdad province. "This is a pretty good thing."
Opening classrooms, opening minds
FORWARD OPERATING BASE WARRIOR, Kirkuk, Iraq - The Government of Iraqi's
commitment to progress is continuing in the form of three new classrooms which opened at the Hegna Primary School. The additional classrooms will allow younger children to focus on educational fundamentals. "This is a great opportunity for the children of Hegna to have greater access to a learning environment and will allow teachers to be able to focus more closely on the children by reducing the classroom sizes said,," Cpt. Justin Michel, commander, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. According to Michel, the Government of Iraq has taken the responsibility of providing for its country's future and is determined to create better lives for its citizens and its children by continuing to add on to this school and schools like it around the country. "Opening more classrooms creates opportunities for local teachers to use their skills to benefit the village's children," said Michel. "The continuing improvements to the infrastructure of Iraq are beginning to be more and more apparent in towns like Hegna. The GoI is providing its citizens the vital social services they need to continue to build a bright future for their country," said Michel.
---Multi-National Corps - Iraq
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