Thursday, May 21, 2009
Senate Dems Pull $80 Million in Gitmo Closure Funding, Oppose Transfer of Detainees to U.S
Senate Democrats threw cold water on President Obama's plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center Tuesday, pulling money for the closure from a $91 billion war spending request and publicly opposing the transfer of any detainees to U.S. soil.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats not only oppose the release of detainees into the United States but also oppose the transfer of detainees to U.S. prisons...
READ MORE
Iran: US 'capitulates' on enrichment program
I blogged on Saturday about the leaks coming from our State Department that the US would apparently acquiesce to the Iranians on nuclear enrichment.
Well, Iran is just thrilled with that idea as you can imagine and the headline in one of their papers was The United States capitulates to the nuclear goals of Iran."
Michael Rubin adds some other information:
Dennis Ross is a skilled diplomat and often argues that diplomacy is the best tool to utilize with Iran, but, to protect U.S. national security, Washington should lay the groundwork so that U.S. diplomats can negotiate from a position of strength.
So far, though, the Obama administration has done the opposite. Ray Takeyh, Ross's Iran advisor, told the Iranian press early last year that “Iran has the right not to suspend [enrichment]” (Source: Etemaad, Jan. 30, 2008), a statement which undercuts Ross's negotiation position if, indeed, the Obama administration is serious about holding the Islamic Republic to three U.N. Security Council Resolutions demanding a halt to Iranian enrichment.
Rubin adds, "So much for leverage. It's one thing to engage adversaries; it's quite another to have them laugh at us."
You would think Obama would have the decency to wait until some kind of formal sit down with the Iranians before he surrendered.
READ MORE
IRAN TESTS MISSLE IT SAYS CAN REACH ISRAEL
Iran -- Iran test-fired a new missile Wednesday it claimed had a range capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East, sending a provocative message days after President Barack Obama asked Tehran to accept his offer for dialogue.
Iran said the solid-fuel Sajjil-2 surface-to-surface missile has a range of about 1,200 miles. It is a new version of the Sajjil missile, which the country said it successfully tested late last year and has a similar range. Many analysts said the launch of the solid-fuel Sajjil was significant because such missiles are more accurate than liquid fuel missiles of similar range, such as Iran's Shahab-3.
READ MORE
Face of Defense: Drill Sergeant Excels in Senior Leader Course
A drill sergeant with two Iraq tours under his belt continued to show his mettle in the Senior Leaders Course at Fort Gordon, Ga.
"I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing," Gomez said. "It's been a dream of mine ever since I was in basic [training]; I love training new soldiers."
Staff Sgt. Mark Gomez finished as the honor graduate by maintaining a grade-point average of 97 percent, in addition to passing his physical training and field training exercise with flying colors.
"The most important thing NCOs do is to take care of soldiers and train them, set an example for them, be a good mentor, and show them what 'right' looks like,"
Army Lt. Col. Matthew Coleman, the 2-46th Battalion commander, said Gomez is a professional NCO who carries out his mission extremely well. "He is what 'right' looks like," Coleman said.
READ MORE
Singapore c.bank announces sharia bank measures
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore's central bank unveiled regulatory and tax measures on Thursday to help its Islamic banks do business, as the city-state steps up efforts to grab a slice of the rapidly growing $1 trillion industry.
READ MORE
Organs of 50 NHS donors are sold to foreigners who pay £75,000 for each operation
The organs of British donors are being given to private patients from overseas - despite a severe shortage of organs for people in this country. Documents show that 50 livers from British donors were given to patients from Cyprus, Greece and other countries, even though 259 British patients are waiting for a potentially life-saving transplant. It means British people with incurable liver disease could potentially die waiting for a transplant...
[governments are corrupt - and will corrupt health care if put into their hands]
READ MORE
'Hate crimes' law makes some more equal than others
Politico reports that Joel Hunter, a religious advisor to President Obama, and David Gushee, a Christian ethics professor at Mercer University, have signed on in support of the bill, which would add extra penalties for what a criminal thought (or what we think he thought) when committing a violent crime... [snip]
Actually, U. S. citizens are protected from physical attack already. The bill, however, adds extra penalties for the intention behind the attack. That foray into the thought world is a short step from prosecuting speech the government thinks might contribute to certain crimes, not just the crimes themselves.
Fairness is also an issue. Classifications listed in the bill single out some citizens for more protection than others. Last week, the House Judiciary Committee refused to include veterans and the elderly as protected classes in the bill.
Therein lies the trouble with government parsing out which citizens are more worthy of protection than others. The credo is equal justice under law, not equal justice unless you happen to be religious or a homosexual, in which case you receive preferential treatment...
READ MORE
AP Headline on Fed's Economy Downgrade: ''Fed sees hopeful signs ...."
.
Here's a CNN e-mail alert I just received a couple of hours ago:
So how did the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa report the above raw news? As you would expect an Obama apparatchik to do it (reproduced in full as it existed at 3:15 p.m.; bold after title is mine):
Fed sees hopeful signs but downgrades '09 forecast
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve expects the economy to improve in coming months, even as policymakers have downgraded their outlook for all of 2009. [snip]
I thought the stimulus legislation had to be enacted immediately to prevent the economy from going in the tank. Why, it was soooooo urgent that nobody even had the time to read it before they voted. Three months later, the economy's in the tank and the "stimulus" hasn't taken hold.
Meaningful tax cuts would have "taken hold" and actually stimulated the economy by now, and could have been made retroactive to January 1 -- and I'm not talking about the Obama cut that the vast majority of Americans have said is making no noticeable difference in their lives. Only nine percent say it's made a big difference, "fifty-eight percent say no difference, and the others don't know."
But to Jeannine Aversa, the "hopeful signs" are more important than the belief stated by the Fed that the economy will be worse than it originally thought...
[As expected. My fellow politicos and I have been counting the days went out that enough time had passed to implement the positive spin phase to economic reporting. And it's not just the AP, the memo's been sent: everything is given its absolute best spin. You know; just like was done for Bush.]
READ MORE
CALIFORNIA AS LIBERALISM'S LABORATORY
California's increasingly severe and largely self-inflicted economic crisis is impeding national economic revival.
- For four consecutive years, more Americans have moved out of California than have moved in.
- California's business costs are more than 20 percent higher than the average state's.
- In the last decade, net out-migration of Americans has been 1.4 million.
- California is exporting talent while importing Mexico's poverty.
- If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit, which is larger than the budgets of all but 10 states.
- Since 1990, the number of state employees has increased by more than a third.
- In Schwarzenegger's less than six years as governor, per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20 percent.
- In 2006, the top 1 percent of earners paid 48 percent of the income taxes. [and now they're leaving...]
- Unemployment, the nation's fourth highest, is 11.2 percent.
READ MORE
California voters exercise their power -- and that's the problem
Californians are well known for periodic voter revolts, but on Tuesday they did more than just lash out at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature over the state's fiscal debacle.
By rejecting five budget measures, Californians also brought into stark relief the fact that they, too, share blame for the political dysfunction that has brought California to the brink of insolvency...
[We can't keep returning the same crew to Sacramento and expect anything to get better.]
READ MORE
Overcome by Heat
Climate change alarmism has moved firmly into the realms of science-fiction with a piece in the Los Angeles Times claiming that Australia is being ravaged by "drought, fires, killer heat waves, wildlife extinction and mosquito-borne illness." The headline screams:
"What will global warming look like? Scientists point to Australia."
Yes, Australia has had deadly bushfires in the south-east recently, with more than 170 people killed. While there have been bushfires every summer, a major reason why the recent ones were particularly bad seems to have been that political pressure from city-based green groups prevented undergrowth being cleared by controlled burning so that it built up.
Nothing to do with climate change, only stupid, ignorant, meddling, and in this event homicidal, Greens and politically-correct officialdom...
READ MORE
Let other states produce California's power
As the Democrats make extraction, refining and utilization of traditional fossil fuels increasingly impossible, touting alternative sources, the party's leaders put their own aesthetic NIMBYism first.
Ted Kennedy has worked to block windmills that might hamper his ocean view. Now Diane Feinstein wants to block solar panels in the California desert.
California's Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population [like provide shade] is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies seeking to develop renewable energy. [snip]
Feinstein said she intends to push legislation that would turn the land into a national monument, which would allow for existing uses to continue while preventing future development.
Maybe suckers in places where people bitterly cling to their guns will agree to be overrun with windmills and solar panels to provide energy to those who demand fossil-free energy in California and Massachusetts.
READ MORE
Our Energy Future: Oil Shale or Bloviating Bombast?
Ken Salazar, Obama’s new Secretary of the Interior, is so excited to help his boss build more than half a million unreliable wind mills to provide “green power” for America that he is lying about our available oil reserves.
Barron’s Jim McTague has summed up Salazar’s position in a stunning article titled “Sensible Drilling: Gone With the Wind?”:
INTERIOR SECRETARY KEN SALAZAR, THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S energy architect, apparently thinks the answer to all our energy worries is blowing in the wind.
Salazar has slammed the brakes on efforts to develop vast new gas and oil fields offshore and in his home state of Colorado. During the campaign, candidate Obama said he would drill to find oil offshore. But Salazar now says he needs six months to formulate a comprehensive offshore-energy plan and to have "an open and honest conversation" about it with the American people.
Salazar is talking about providing 1,900 gigawatts of energy for America – all of it provided by the wind. But as McTague points out:
Divide Salazar's 1,900 gigawatts by 0.0036 and the result is 528,000 windmills.
Even worse, Salazar claims that America contains only 3% of the world’s oil reserves but uses 25% of the world’s oil. That is simply not true:
THE NUMBER DOESN'T ACCOUNT for recent oil and gas discoveries. Salazar in his speech conveniently ignored a study by the U.S. Geological Survey that estimates a total of 1.5 trillion barrels of oil in place in 17 oil-shale zones in the Eocene Green River Formation in the Piceance Basin, which is located in northwestern Colorado.
How "significant" is 1.5 trillion barrels?
"Let's see if I can put it in perspective," gibes McKenna in an e-mail. [Michael McKenna, president of MWR Strategies] "Since oil was discovered in Titusville in 1857, we have used about one trillion barrels."
He is talking about the entire planet, not just the U.S.
The problem is that the Interior Department has simply locked down all but 6 Research and Development leases that would allow companies to develop oil shale as a viable source of energy.
Wind power is not going to cut it when it comes to providing power for America’s future energy needs. Someone needs to tell this to Obama soon. Obviously, it will not be Ken Salazar who delivers that message.
READ MORE
Obama's 'Support' of Poor and Minority Seniors
Medicare Advantage (MA) is an alternative health coverage vehicle created for seniors as part of the Bush administration's market-based Medicare reforms. These reforms, collectively known as the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, established a system in which private health care plans compete with one another to provide Medicare and drug coverage to seniors.
This competition was intended to put downward pressure on health care costs and did just that. As early as 2007, the Washington Post was forced to admit that"the new Medicare drug benefit appears to be slowing the growth in national spending on prescription medicines because the drug plans are negotiating lower prices with drug companies."
The Democrats have, predictably, been gunning for Medicare Advantage since they retook Congress in 2006. They see MA, with its emphasis on the free market and patient choice, as a threat to their plans for a government-run health care system. Thus, shortly after returning to power, they tried to use expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program as a pretext for killing the program.
The public was told that we had to choose between "the kids" and the insurance companies. When that fraud failed to produce results, they hit upon the more efficacious strategy of attaching a physician payment increase to a bill that would cut funding for Medicare Advantage. This allowed the Dems to co-opt the AMA, with whose help they successfully pushed through modest reductions in the program.
An enthusiastic participant in this travesty was the Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. And, now that the voters have put him in the White House, Obama plans to deliver the coup de gras to MA... [snip]
So, Medicare Advantage has to go, regardless of the harm done to low-income and minority seniors. The White House Budget Director has strict orders to pull the plug.
If low-income seniors must pay higher Medicare deductibles, that's the breaks. If they have fewer health benefits, oh well. If rural seniors must watch helplessly as their access to primary care disappears, c'est la vie.
They'll just have to face the fact that "change has come."
['Private', 'competition' and 'choice': three things socialistic governments cannot abide.]
READ MORE
New curbs on private Medicare plans
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is putting new curbs on private insurance plans that are popular with seniors in Medicare, but have been criticized for 'marketing abuses'... [snip]
Administration officials said the changes include 'winnowing' the number of versions of a plan that insurers can offer and banning an occasional practice of charging patients more for brand name drugs...
[Step one: remove competition.]
READ MORE
Former ACORN Organizer Warns of Census Fraud
Former ACORN organizer Gregory Hall warns in a Washington Examiner op-ed about the dangers of letting ACORN participate in the U.S. Census.
From the top of his column:
Following calls by a reform group known as the “ACORN 8,” many are rightly worried about the prospect of taxpayer money flowing to the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for the stated purpose of counting Americans in the 2010 U.S. census.
After all, this is the same group that couldn’t count to “1″ when registering voters during last year’s election...
[Yet they're still to be involved...]
READ MORE
'Today' Turns to Leftist and a 'Moderate' for Advice on GOP Comeback
.
When NBC's "Today" show, on Wednesday, devoted an entire segment asking the question "How Should the GOP Battle Back?" who did they turn to, to offer strategic advice? Leftist Nation editor/publisher Katrina Vanden Heuvel and self-described "moderate" radio talk show host Michael Smerconish.
Not surprisingly neither guest suggested the Republican Party should be consistent in expressing and acting on conservative principles as Vanden Heuvel railed:
"America needs a modern, tolerant opposition party. This party isn't it. Especially with, you know, poor Michael Steele, you got Dick Cheney roaming the country on his "I am not a torturer" tour, as if he's working this country like a defendant working a jury. Michael Steele has a lot of problems when you've got Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh out there."
And for his part Smerconish offered:
"The party exists for one reason, to win elections. And in order to win elections, it can't just be a conservative message. There's got to be something in there for a guy like me who's a moderate."
[The disinformation campaign continues - don't believe it. Steel's speech went over very well, and is where the party's base wants it to head: back to Reagan conservatism.
The libs know this as well, and that it would spell their doom - hence their full court press to offer their 'advice' on how to salvage the party.
Right. Sure. Who could suspect an ulterior motive.]
READ MORE
GOP Goes RINO Hunting for Candidates
The GOP is hoping that by recruiting left-leaning 'Republicans' they will make some gains in the 2010 election.
For many Republicans, including Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, the reaction to Sen. Arlen Specter’s party switch was unequivocal: good riddance.
Yet even as his jilted former party slams the door behind him, the GOP is quietly pursuing a 2010 strategy that relies heavily on candidates nearly identical to Specter. The party’s road to winning back a Senate majority, it seems, is paved with 'moderates' whose records are sure to make conservatives stay home.
For the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s recruitment list for 2010 reads like a roster of some of the party’s best-known RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and squishes — the derisive terms applied to centrists by movement conservatives.
Maybe this will win the GOP a few seats and slow some of the Democrats momentum, but they lost their base when they strayed from their ideas and principles and started acting like Democrats making them indistinguishable from their opponents.
[Reminder: the GOP just ran its most liberal member for POTUS (McCain) - who lost abysmally {despite Palin's bump}. The lesson having been {again} that liberal-light loses to liberal-rabid every time; the party needs return to its roots and compete against the Left with true alternative to our downward slide.]
READ MORE
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
