Friday, May 1, 2009
$1.5 Billion Request for Flu-Fighting Money Aimed at Long-Term Needs
The Obama administration's request for $1.5 billion to fight swine flu is more of a backup plan than a fast-track infusion to shield the United States from a global pandemic, say Democratic congressional aides who are familiar with the request.
The administration is steering clear of defining exactly what the money will be used for if approved, with Obama calling for "maximum flexibility" in dispensing the money...
[Since when {2009, evidently} can a president ask for 1.5 Billion dollars of our money for reasons he may get around to telling us later??
Can you imagine the media uproar had Bush even tried such a stunt? Now watch how our current MSM handle this latest insult to the American taxpayer...]
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AP's Calvin Woodward Does Astonishing Fact Check on Obama
It will be interesting to see how much distribution it gets. I would suggest not counting on too much, but being open to a pleasant surprise. Regardless of its distribution, you'd better believe they've read it in the White House, and they're wondering what in the world happened.
FACT CHECK: Obama disowns deficit he helped shape
“That wasn't me,” President Barack Obama said on his 100th day in office, disclaiming responsibility for the huge budget deficit waiting for him on Day One.
It actually was him — and the other Democrats controlling Congress the previous two years — who shaped a budget so out of balance.
And as a presidential candidate and president-elect, he backed the twilight Bush-era stimulus plan that made the deficit deeper, all before he took over and promoted spending plans that have made it much deeper still... [snip]
Enjoy it. Just don't delude yourself into thinking a lot of people will see it, or that it marks any kind of general change in direction at AP.
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HEROES
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U.S., Iraqi Soldiers Unleash ‘Lion’s Roar’
Iraq, – The 10th Iraqi Army Division sent out its ground troops and air support assets April 19 to conduct the first large-scale combined-arms live-fire exercise, nicknamed Operation “Lion’s Roar,” in southern Iraq April 19.
“They did outstanding,” said Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, commander of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division. “The Iraqi army is here to defend its citizens and protect their borders.”
The Long Knife soldiers have mentored the Iraqis since just after they arrived in the tri-province area of Dhi Qar, Muthanna and Maysan in June.
“It’s probably a once-in-a-lifetime or -generation chance to help another army develop their standards,”
said Army Staff Sgt. Randy Rice, mortar platoon sergeant for 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment.
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How to Shrink American Power
As President of the United States, it is not overly difficult to be liked, if that is what you want. The way you do that is to tell people what they want to hear. Tell the world that the United States has been arrogant and uncaring and has made lots of mistakes and is responsible for lots of the world's most serious problems, but that you are going to change all that.
Tell the Iranians that you are repudiating the prior administration's posture toward them, and that they are not part of the Axis of Evil, and that you are going to reach out and build a "bridge" to them, even if their leader says that America is the enemy, Israel should be destroyed, and is working on a nuclear bomb to make good on that threat;
Tell the Russians that you are repudiating the prior administration's policy toward them, that you want to "reset" your relationship with them, and that you will be willing to dismantle your missile defenses even though those defenses relate to possible attacks from other sources (like Iran), and even though Russia herself has shown a historic and recent willingness to invade neighbors;
Tell the Muslims that the prior administration was wrong to wage a war against Islam and that you want to build a bridge instead, even though the prior administration's war was not against Islam or Muslims but against terrorists, and that "war" has succeeded in protecting the United States from any terrorist attack since 9/11, has helped other countries foil potentially devastating attacks and has freed two countries -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- from brutal and bloody subjugation to dictators and murderous religious fanatics.
In fact, in your effort to distance yourself from your predecessor and to curry favor with the world, you even go so far as to tell everyone that there is no "war on terror" and that there are no acts of terror, only "man made disasters," as if 9/11 was the result of some sort of weather disorder or earthquake...
[Recommended > ]
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Sentenced to Die for Selling Real Estate to a Jew
Palestinian moderation was once again on display yesterday when a Palestinian Authority court in Hebron sentenced to death Anwar Brigith, 59, from the village of Bet Umar, north of Hebron, for the crime of selling land to Jews.
Mind you, this is not the act of the extremist Islamists of Hamas.
This comes from a court whose officers and judges are all affiliated with the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority — the supposedly moderate peace-partner to whom most of the world is pressuring Israel to make concessions... [snip]
It will be interesting to see whether the State Department or the White House, both eager to portray the P.A. as a worthy peace-partner and deserving of statehood, will call upon Abbas to pardon or commute the sentence of Brigith.
We’ll also be waiting to see whether this outrage is taken up by the United Nations and its various agencies that are usually busy condemning Israel for having the temerity to defend its citizens against terrorism.
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Airline glitch takes Mideast conflict to new heights
ERUSALEM – Irate Israeli passengers have complained to British BMI airline that the Jewish state was wiped off the inflight map which showed flights bound for Israel were instead heading to Mecca.
But the airline denied any anti-Israel agenda and insisted there was a simple explanation: the planes were recently bought from a bankrupt charter company that flew mainly to Muslim countries...
[Oh, well that's ok then...]
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Muslim-owned shop bans customers wearing veils
A Muslim-owned jewellery shop has decided to ban customers wearing veils after being targeted by robbers disguised as Islamic women. Everyone entering ATAA Jewellers in Glasgow must reveal their faces under planned new rules to protect staff from further attacks.
The store owners decided to act after two Asian men wearing traditional Muslim women's clothes – including niqab veils – made away with thousands of pounds worth of jewelery earlier this month...
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Europe's age crisis begins to bite
The EU's working age population will peak next year before tipping into decline for half a century This will cause a relentless rise in pension and health costs that risk asphyxiating the region's economy.
A new report by the European Commission said this financial crisis could turn into a "permanent shock to growth" from which Europe never fully recovers unless it moves fast to bring its public debts under control...
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The Flight Of Rosales
Americas: Even after consolidating his rule, Hugo Chavez's appetite for power is growing. He's now driven a top opponent into exile and Venezuela's democracy to a new low.
So who would like to challenge him now?
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When Our Trade Isn't Free, Neither Is Our Work
When trade is considered by economists and commentators, too often the discussion centers on countries. This evolves from the misbegotten notion that countries, rather than individuals, trade.
Thanks to a facile approach to what is a very basic concept, we’re as a result bombarded with strange notions of trade “surpluses” and “deficits” as though free exchange could be anything but a positive. Happily, as former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has reminded us, for
“the world as a whole, of course, exports must equal imports, and the world consolidated current account balance is always zero.”
Greenspan’s underlying point is that the trade that so many discuss in terms of countrywide imports and exports is really about individuals freely exchanging their surplus for that produced by others. In that case, all trade by definition balances.
And with the individual in mind, we can see clearly the faulty premise of protectionism. For an individual to act in ways protectionist would be for that person to live needlessly a life of deprivation...
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70% See Big Government As Threat
Earlier this week, Gallup released new data showing that most Americans still view big government as a more serious threat to the nation than big business.
The results weren’t terribly surprising since Gallup has asked the question periodically since 1965 and government has always been seen as the biggest threat.
The Gallup Poll found that most Democrats view big business as a bigger threat than big government. Republicans and independents held the opposite view.
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This Way Lies MADDness
It’s becoming clearer, with each appointment President Obama makes, that his agenda is a simple one: control. The latest example is the naming of Chuck Hurley as the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Hurley is currently the CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
While it’s encouraging that a group with “Mothers” in its name would allow a man to be its CEO, that brief amusement is dwarfed by the realization of just what MADD has become: a profound exemplar of the “nanny state” mentality.
MADD has shown up to sobriety checkpoints (presumably, to make sure the offenders are properly scolded), they’ve called for the legal limit for blood alcohol to be cut in half, and they’ve argued for ALL cars to have mandatory alcohol-testing interlock devices installed on them.
And Hurley himself has been a strong advocate of “red light cameras” which have been shown to actually increase accidents under some circumstances.
With Hurley heading up NHTSA, we can rest assured that the government will do everything it can to keep us from taking silly, foolish chances or thinking for ourselves. All we have to do is just sit back, relax, and let them do our thinking for us...
["Appointments are policy."]
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Senators want to expel junk food from US schools
U.S. schools with vending machines that sell candy and soda to students could soon find the government requiring healthier options to combat childhood obesity under a bill introduced on Thursday by two Senators.
While school meals must comply with U.S. dietary guidelines, there are no such rules on snacks sold outside of school lunchrooms that can be high in fat, sugar and calories...
[Sounds like the right mix to me as it is - but the Nanny state never stops of its own; it only increases until stopped.]
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At What Price?
On Tax Day, Apr. 15, President Obama declared his belief in simplifying the tax code. His Economic Recovery Advisory Board, chaired by Paul Volcker, has been tasked with presenting recommendations by Dec. 4. Is the flat tax coming? No. Simpler code? Yes. Lower tax rates (plural)? Yes.
The catch: The improved income tax code will come with a European-style value-added tax.
Politicians love the VAT. First, because the levy applies to every transaction phase and includes services as well as products, it is difficult to avoid. It's no surprise, therefore, that the VAT was invented by the French. Second, consumers don't see it. By the time a product hits the shelf, the VAT is embedded in the retail price, unlike a sales tax, which is added at the checkout counter.
Thus, in Europe, a $50 item actually includes upward of $10 in value-added taxes. The White House figures this will be a revenue bonanza that will finance not only the socialized health care system it wants to impose on us but also President Obama's second-term (if he's reelected, of course) big initiative: providing free college to everyone.
Remember, this Administration still holds to its obese ambition to remake our capitalist economy into a western-Europe-like socialized economic system, in which government dependency is high, job creation is anemic and cutting-edge innovation in health-related areas and technology is almost nonexistent.
A VAT is not just a serpent in a simple low-tax Garden of Eden--it's a nest of pythons...
[I.e., another >20% tax on everything, on top of current taxes. ]
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A CLEANER, GREENER EARTH
Of the estimated 1 billion people who will observe Earth Day worldwide this year, few will know about the progress already being made. The world, especially in developed nations, is a cleaner -- and greener -- place, contradicting the alarmists' warnings that the world is on the edge of environmental cataclysm.
From evidence "that tropical rain forests may now be expanding faster than they are being cut down" to the improving health of U.S. ocean fisheries to better outdoor air quality in American cities with the worst air pollution, there's more to be optimistic about than there is to be troubled about.
- Americans are actually generating no more trash per-capita than they were in 1990.
- Our production of hazardous waste has fallen from 36 million tons in 1999 to 28 million tons in 2005.
- Lead levels in our blood have shown "a steady decline since the 1980s."
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An inconvenient film
Al Gore is about to feature in a new movie, but he's not going to like it very much. Titled Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria, the film presents a devastating account of the shaky foundations and hefty price of Mr. Gore's brand of self-interested and hypocritical alarmism.
The world's crisis-beset nations are due to meet in Copenhagen in November to concoct a new policy straitjacket to succeed the meddlesome but utterly failed Kyoto Accord. If global warming's U. N.-based ringmasters have their way, this will lead to a slashing of industrial production in developed countries and to a huge extension of boondoggle redistributionist schemes to fund "green" technologies in developing countries.[snip]
The truly astonishing feature of this policy fandango is that it will have little or no effect on the climate, the science of which is still only dimly understood. However, alarmists such as Mr. Gore have successfully sold the notion that the science is "settled." This is just one of the claims to which Not Evil Just Wrong puts the lie... [snip]
Not Evil Just Wrong which will be released later this year -- is an important film that deserves the widest possible distribution, both in theatres and schools. The only quibble that I have with it is that its title might be too generous to those it exposes.
(To find out more about the movie and the fundraising campaign to help its distribution visit its website: noteviljustwrong.com).
[Recommended > ]
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Offshore Oil Drilling: An Environmental Bonanza
On Earth Day, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis wanted to make Obama's energy policy perfectly clear:
"If we are going to create clean energy industry jobs in this country," they write in a widely syndicated op-ed, "break the stranglehold that foreign oil has on our economy and punish the polluters who are devastating our natural resources, then we've got to be honest about the difficult tasks and tough choices ahead. It's going to mean telling the special interests that their days of dictating energy policy in this country are over."
Indeed, and we can start with groups like the Sierra Club.
"Environmentalists" wake up in the middle of the night sweating and whimpering about offshore oil platforms only because they've never seen what's under them. Louisiana produces almost 30 per cent of America's commercial fisheries. Only Alaska (ten times the size of the Bayou state) produces slightly more. So obviously, Louisiana's coastal waters are immensely rich and prolific in seafood.
The original plan, mandated by federal environmental "experts" back in the late '40s, was to remove the big, ugly, polluting, environmentally hazardous contraptions as soon as they stopped producing. About 15 years ago some wells played out off Louisiana and the oil companies tried to comply.
Their ears are still ringing from the clamor fishermen put up. Turns out those platforms are going nowhere, and by popular demand of those with a bigger stake in the marine environment than any "environmentalist." Every "environmental" superstition against these structures was turned on its head.
Marine life had exploded around these huge artificial reefs... [snip]
These same coastal waters contain 3,200 of the roughly 3,700 offshore production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. These oil production platforms off the Bayou state's coasts also extract 80 percent of the oil and 72 percent of the natural gas produced in the Continental U.S., without causing a single major oil spill in half a century of this process.
This record stands despite dozens of hurricanes -- including the two most destructive in North American history, Camille and Katrina -- repeatedly battering the drilling and production structures.
So for those interested in evidence over hysterics, by simply looking bayou-ward, a lesson in the "environmental perils" of offshore oil drilling presents itself very clearly.
If a picture's worth a thousand words of proof, then this video should be worth ten million.
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Bam's Health-care Dodge
If President Obama believes so much in open government, why is he trying to block an honest, open debate in Congress over his health-care scheme?
Blocking debate is precisely what's behind the effort by the White House and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill to fast-track health-care reform via a parliamentary trick called ''reconciliation'' ...
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NATIONAL HEALTH CARE IN 20 HRS.
Late last week President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders agreed to use "budget reconciliation" if necessary to jam a massive health-care bill through Congress.
This decision is a deeply troublesome attempt to circumvent the normal and customary workings of American democracy, and it promises bitter divisiveness under an administration that has made repeated promises to reach across the partisan divide.
Reconciliation was established in 1974 as a procedure to make modest adjustments to mandatory spending such as farm programs, student loans and Medicare that were already well established in law. Over the past 35 years, it has been used only 22 times.
The power of a reconciliation bill is this:
- Senate rules allow only 20 hours of debate and then passage with a simple majority of 51 votes.
- This represents a lightning strike in the normal deliberative time-frame of the Senate.
- The historic precedent of open debate, and the requirement of 60 votes to close debate, are completely short-circuited.
Moreover, changes made under reconciliation expire after five or 10 years, depending on the budget. This is clearly not the appropriate process for implementing significant new entitlement...
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Protecting Medical Professionals Who Morally Oppose Abortion Is ‘Short-sighted,’ Democratic Senator Says
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told a gathering of pro-abortion activists that the Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations put in place by the Bush administration to protect medical professionals who work in institutions that receive federal funding and morally oppose certain practices, such as abortion, is ''short-sighted'' and should be rescinded by President Obama.
[I.e., tolerance and understanding aren't for the right of center - just the left.
Guess that's 'liberal compassion'.]
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ABC Frets ‘No Real Urgency' on ‘Meaningful Gun Control' to Stop ‘Signature American Shooting Rampages'
Of the three network evening newscasts, ABC's World News, substitute hosted by Diane Sawyer, uniquely seemed to lament the lack of political interest in enacting new gun laws to combat what correspondent Dan Harris earlier called "a signature American disaster"
[Once again, the real tragedy here is that a lone gunman could reek such havoc because no one else was armed. Our defense is primarily our responsibility, anything else is sending sheep to the slaughter.]
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Ted Nugent Blasts Gun Free Zones As 'Forced Victimization'
Gun control policies wrought by the likes of liberal Sens. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Schumer (D-N.Y.) amount to "cruel indecency and forced victimization" argues rocker Ted Nugent in an April 20, 2009 column in U.S. News & World Report.
We have examined all the evidence we need to know that calling 911 is a joke, unless of course they bring a dustpan and a mop to clean up the dead monster we just shot while protecting our family.
So why in God's good name would any human being wish to force unarmed helplessness on another? That level of cruel indecency and forced victimization is incomprehensible to me and about 100,000,000 Americans who own guns. Self-defense is the most powerful, driving instinct of good people everywhere. To deny this is evil personified. Write this down—GunFreeZones are a felon's playgrounds. Ban GunFreeZones now.
Nuge is on to something. As we at NewsBusters can attest, the media's call for more gun control is often coupled with a patronizing liberal view of the average American that he/she is not capable of confidently, safely, and competently handling a gun for self-defense. Invariably pro-gun control bias in the media denigrates the rights and responsibilities of private citizens while holding forth liberal politicians as guardians of public safety, standing up boldly to a shadowy "gun lobby."
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To Arms
A week ago, a horrendous crime took place in a nursing home in Carthage, North Carolina. Seven innocent lives were taken by an unhinged dirtbag apparently upset at his ex-wife. Fortunately, a brave police officer answered the call, engaged the perpetrator in a gun fight, and though he took three rounds to the legs, managed to deliver a center-mass hit onto said dirtbag, dropping him in his tracks. This courageous officer kept his head, and, with bullets pounding around and into him, kept his muzzle on target long enough to bring to an end a tragedy that may have been a whole lot worse.
A few days ago, an even more egregious travesty upon the innocent occurred in upstate New York. A disgruntled man blocked off the exit to a community service building with his car, then went around front and entered the building firing a high-powered rifle. Before the rampage was done, fourteen souls were gone, including the shooter’s.
Predictably, there surfaced immediately the usual suspects who painted this tragedy as further evidence that more comprehensive and restrictive gun laws are needed, now more than ever.
In reality, nothing could be further from the truth...
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‘Angels of Democracy’? Time Editor Hails Leftist Women of ‘The View’
They're rude, annoying, smug and biased. And to Time magazine's managing editor, they're "angels?" Richard Stengel called the four-fifths liberal hosts of ABC's "The View" on April 30 "Angels of Democracy" in an appearance on the show. As he discussed the release of "The Time 100: The World's Most Influential People, " which includes all five women, and lavished praise on them... [snip]
Things like sex, porn and sex toys, sex ed for five-year-olds, and more sex? Or maybe its bashing the Catholic Church, hypocritically defending Barack Obama or sniffing at religious Christmas cards?
[Don't know which is the bigger embarassment to the country: the show or the magazine.]
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Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin was arguably the most influential person in 2008, but no one notices because she wasn't influential enough to overcome the deficits of her running mate and win the election.
Until Palin, 45, burst onto the scene, Obama was headed for a Nixon/McGovern landslide. Palin may not have changed the election result, but she killed what otherwise would have been a rout
John McCain was so preposterous a candidate (at least on a Republican ticket) that Palin was responsible for far more votes than the usual vice-presidential candidate.
The biggest red flag proving her popularity with normal Americans is that liberals won't shut up about her. Palin is a threat to liberals because she believes in God and country and family — all values liberals pretend to believe in but secretly detest.
There's a reason there's no "Stop Olympia Snowe before it's too late!" movement...
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Fox beats networks without Obama
While Obama's prime-time news conference aired on the Big Three broadcast networks — ABC, NBC, and CBS — Fox opted out and instead aired an episode of the drama "Lie to Me."
That move seems to have paid off: Fox drew 7.9 million viewers and won the 8 p.m. time slot, according to TVNewser. However, approximately 19 million viewers tuned into Obama on the Big Three combined.
Obama's presser aired on Fox News, although Major Garrett was the only one of the major networks' White House correspondents not to get a question.
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Obama’s List: Who Gets To Ask A Question?
As one among a throng of reporters last evening in the East Room, I was struck by the degree to which the White House Press Corps has been tamed, if not mollified, on one aspect of our conduct.
Nowadays, it’s standard practice at these sessions to wait quietly for the President to call the name of the next reporter from whom he’ll take a question...
[Right. The press is known far and wide for its civility and patients in having their questions answered. Nothing special here - move along...]
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