Thursday, July 2, 2009
Hondouras and Chavez: What the centralized media is not telling you
The “coup” in the Central American nation of Honduras is the first major blow to the Marxist expansion sponsored by Hugo Chavez, but the American people are to a great extent being kept in the dark by the centralized news media.
The Associated Press, upon which most news outlets in the United States depend, appears to be slanting its reporting to support the pro-Chavez version of events in Honduras.... [snip]
Chavez has close ties with the most important guerrilla group in the region, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombian, a Marxist narco-terror army known by the Spanish acronym, FARC. Although recently battered by Colombian military, the FARC remains a potent force in Colombia and still retains a significant presence throughout much of the Latin American region.
Operating from Nicaragua, FARC fighters could easily cross the border into Honduras and inflict a great amount of suffering and death.
President Micheletti and his supporters did, as Chavez emotionally declared, “break the rules,” but only in the sense of opposing an abuse of power and “chavismo.”
How long Micheletti can withstand the assaults from the neo-communist elites remains uncertain, but a brave stand has been taken against Marxist tyranny, and the American people should have accurate knowledge about it...
[Recommended > ]READ MORE
U.S. Considering Restoring N. Korea to Terror List
Concerned by North Korean behavior that she called “very provocative and belligerent,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in an interview aired Sunday that the United States was considering putting North Korea back on its list of state sponsors of terrorism, a clear signal that any slim hopes once held for improved relations had been dashed.
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The Islamic world’s malevolent zeitgeist
Yesterday, Israeli President Shimon Peres gave the nod to Likud leader Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. He has six weeks (and an uphill struggle) to try and form a coalition government. Chances are he’ll manage, if only just.
Some believe choosing Netanyahu advances the chances of peace in the Middle East; many believe it sets it back. I think it makes no difference.
For over 60 years, Israel has been fighting to exist. For the same length of time, the Arab/Muslim world has been fighting for Israel not to exist. If peace came today, it would, by definition, be a victory for Israel. I don’t think the Arab/Muslim world is emotionally ready for that.
“Don’t you think there are Arabs and Arab leaders out there who truly believe in coexistence with Israel?” an Israeli friend wanted to know.
I’ve no doubt there are. The problem is, they don’t count... [snip]
That’s why it isn’t Peres’ choice that determines the chances of peace in the Middle East. Who couldn’t negotiate peace with al-Maari’s progeny?
And with bin Laden’s, who can?
[Recommended > ]
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PA: Death penalty for those who sell land to Jews
The Palestinian Authority has issued yet another warning to Palestinians against selling their homes or properties to Jews, saying those who violate the order would be accused of "high treason" - a charge that carries the death penalty.
The latest warning was issued on Wednesday by the Chief [Islamic] Judge of the Palestinian Authority, Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, who reminded the Palestinians of an existing fatwa [religious decree] than bans them from selling property to Jews.
Warning the Palestinians against engaging in "suspicious real estate deeds," the religious leader said that according to Islamic teachings it was a "grave sin" to sell houses and lands to Jews.
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"If Arabs laid down their arms there'd be no war.
If Israel laid down its arms, there'd be no Israel."Council ef ex-Muslims
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Russia stokes tensions with Georgia as troops gather near border
Russia was accused of stoking tensions with Georgia yesterday as it mounted a huge military exercise, in an ominous echo of last summer’s war. Thousands of troops and hundreds of armoured vehicles began the “Caucasus 2009” manoeuvres across southern Russia, close to the border with Georgia...
[It's coming. Remember the 'price' Russia paid for its aggression last time? There wasn't any, guaranteeing that they'll do it again to monopolize Europe's energy, after which Europe will do whatever it tells them to.]
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From Russia With No Love
Pravda, former official voice of the Soviet Union in the days of former President Mikhail Gorbachev, is cheering the Death of America under the leadership of “Marxist” Barack Obama.
In his Pravda-run piece, blogger Stanislav Mishin gloats in ‘American capitalism gone with a whimper’.“It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people”
The Russian people were not given the opportunity to roll over and give up their freedoms, because communism was forced upon them.“First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather than the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then (sic) the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger than for their constitutional rights...”
[This from a Soviet-Russian. Our moral decay and tolerance of mis-service by self-serving institutions have consequences - we're seeing them now...]
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Socialism won't work for Obama, either
In 1991, only days after the failed Soviet coup, a bunch of journalists, academics and others met with some gleeful Russians in Aspen. The visitors saw themselves as free at last.
They had capitalist aspirations – some were followers of Milton Friedman – and their hopes were as bright and optimistic as they were dull and pessimistic the very next year in a follow-up meeting.
In 1991, only days after the failed Soviet coup, a bunch of journalists, academics and others met with some gleeful Russians in Aspen. Not only had unrepentant Communist hardliners failed to oust Mikhail Gorbachev from power, but it was clear the whole Soviet system was failing apart. The visitors saw themselves as free at last.
They had capitalist aspirations – some were followers of Milton Friedman – and their hopes were as bright and optimistic as they were dull and pessimistic the very next year in a follow-up meeting.
Things had not worked out well because continued government underwriting of faltering enterprises had not produced any better results in a non-Marxist state than in one that was mixing some old practices with some new ones.
I was at both sessions, and recall how American economists at the second tried to explain how you had to let market-blind businesses die out despite the sense of the Russian guests that this would lead to social catastrophe.
If the businesses were not producing what people wanted at a price people would pay, they were simply taking up resources that could be better allocated elsewhere, the economists said.
To have wealth and growth, you had to make room for productive, innovative enterprises that would eventually employ more people than had lost their jobs when the old companies withered into oblivion.
My question is, where are those economists now that we need them to preach the same lesson to the Obama administration,? [snip]
It’s one thing for Russians with little background in the workings of free enterprise to cling to disproven ways, but something far less understandable for this country to engage in a socialist experiment that will be damaging to the whole nation in the long run...
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Did Clinton cause the banking crisis?
On Wall Street and Main Street they call William Jefferson Clinton the "Comeback Kid," but it's not because of some Election Day surprise. It's because almost everything he did regarding financial-services regulation has come back to haunt us.
Clinton created a fertile environment for home-lending charlatans and hiding places for Wall Street swindlers, and upset a regulatory structure that had served the financial marketplace so well for more than six decades.
3 big mistakes
The first, in 1997, was a change to the amount of taxes a homeowner had to pay on the sale of his or her home, up to $500,000. That change effectively made buying and selling a home for profit the most compelling investment in America by tax standards. It shifted our housing market from one of supply and demand to one of rampant speculation.
The second mistake was one of inaction. In 1998, Long-Term Capital Management's use of derivatives and leverage required a massive $3.6 billion hedge fund bailout organized by the New York Federal Reserve Bank. After the fiasco rocked the markets, the administration still oppossed tighter regulation of this new form of 'investment vehicle' .
But perhaps the biggest mistake of the Clinton years regarding Wall Street and the one that rings loudest today was the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which effectively erased the division between investment banking and brokerages from commercial banks...
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CIGAR MANUFACTURER CLOSING TAMPA PLANT
Tampa will lose part of its cigar heritage in August when Hav-A-Tampa lays off about 495 employees and closes a factory that has been operating since 1902, says the Tampa Tribune.
The company couldn't cope with a steep drop in consumer demand brought on by a large new tax on tobacco products.
Altadis will begin laying off workers immediately and will continue until the plant closes.
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MAINE MIRACLE
At last, there's a place in America where tax cutting to promote growth and attract jobs is back in fashion. Who would have thought it would be Maine, asks the Wall Street Journal?
This month the Democratic legislature and Governor John Baldacci broke with Obamanomics and enacted a sweeping tax reform that is almost, but not quite, a flat tax. The new law junks the state's graduated income tax structure with a top rate of 8.5 percent and replaces it with a simple 6.5 percent flat rate tax on almost everyone.
This is a big income tax cut, especially given that so many other states in the Northeast and East -- Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York -- have been increasing rates."We hope these lower tax rates will encourage and reward work, and that the lower capital gains tax (of 6.85 percent) brings more investment into the state,"
Yet, these changes alone are hardly going to earn Maine the reputation of "pro-business," says the Journal. Last year Maine was ranked as having the third worst business climate for states by the Small Business Survival Committee.
Still, no state has improved its economic attractiveness more than Maine has this year, concludes the Journal...
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California Leads State Job Losses
Forty-four states lost jobs in April, led by California where employers slashed 63,700 positions, as the recession took a further toll on U.S. workers...
[Policy has consequences - bad policy, bad consequences.]
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How Golden State sank into budget morass
So how did it come to this - that powerhouse California, a nation-state of 33 million with a budget larger than most small countries, has again been brought to its knees in a life-or-death struggle for financial survival?
And just how familiar is this scenario?
Consider then-gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger lambasting California leadership over out-of-control finances - in 2003:"Our elected officials in Sacramento are facing a budget crisis unseen in this state since the Great Depression, and it was entirely avoidable. ... Teachers are getting pink slips, cops are getting laid off and the taxpayers are facing an increase in taxes and California's future is in danger."
Six years later, under his leadership, it's deja vu: With the June 30 fiscal year deadline looming, the Legislature is frantically at work trying to close a $24.3 billion budget gap in the state's main bank account.
There are several factors that contribute to the state's recurring inability to deliver an on-time, balanced budget. Among them:
-- Partisanship: California's gerrymandered legislative districts protect incumbents and encourage more political extremes - Republicans on the right and Democrats on the left with less incentive to reach out to the political middle, much less compromise at the Capitol. [To his credit, Arnie tried to amend this with a state initiative establishing a three-judge panel to redistrict the state - but, and it's currently predominantly Democratic the union spent a few million of deceiving ads and we were again duped into defeating something that would have benefited the majority.]
-- Ballot-box budgeting: Initiative-loving Californians mandated set-aside funding for all kinds of single-interest issues, from education to stem cell research. [the system needs be reformed to exclude use by the government {now the predominant submitter of initiatives}, and serve only as a grass-roots tool.]"It's not just the governor and the Legislature who have roles in this problem, but also the voters. "
[As long as we keep sending the same folks back they'll keep doing the same things. I.e., waiting us out and eventually blackmailing us with the disastrous consequences of not paying down the massive debts they keep running up - and we cave every time.
It's the spending. It must be rolled back wholesale. Then no more deficit spending; if the budget isn't balanced it's not legal.]
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No climate debate? Yes, there is...
IN HIS WEEKLY address on Saturday, President Obama saluted the House of Representatives for passing Waxman-Markey, the gargantuan energy-rationing bill that would amount to the largest tax increase in the nation’s history. It would do so by making virtually everything that depends on energy - which is virtually everything - more expensive.
Obama has stated that his energy policy would require the ruin of the coal industry. “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.’’
The justification for inflicting this financial misery, of course, is the onrushing catastrophe of human-induced global warming - a catastrophe that can be prevented only if we abandon the carbon-based fuels on which most of the prosperity and productivity of modern life depend.
But what if that looming catastrophe isn’t real? What if climate change has little or nothing to do with human activity? What if enacting cap-and-trade means incurring excruciating costs in exchange for infinitesimal benefits?
Hush, says Obama. Don’t ask such questions.“There is no longer a debate about whether carbon pollution is placing our planet in jeopardy,’’
he declared Saturday.
No debate?
The debate over global warming is more robust than it has been in years, and not only in America. “In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming,’’ Kimberly Strassel noted in The Wall Street Journal the other day. “In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country’s new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted . . . Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the ‘new religion.’ ’’
Closer to home, the noted physicist Hal Lewis (emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara) e-mails me a copy of a statement he and several fellow scientists, including physicists Will Happer and Robert Austin of Princeton, Laurence Gould of the University of Hartford, and climatologist Richard Lindzen of MIT, have sent to Congress. “The sky is not falling,’’ they write. Far from warming, “the Earth has been cooling for 10 years’’ - a trend that “was not predicted by the alarmists’ computer models.’’
No one who cares about the environment or the nation’s economic well-being should take it on faith that climate change is a crisis, or that drastic changes to the economy are essential to “save the planet.’’
If the case for a war on carbon dioxide were unassailable, no one would have to warn against debating it.
The 212 House members who voted against Waxman-Markey last week plainly don’t believe the matter is settled.
They’re right.
[If we allow this to happen our children will come to curse our stupidity.]
READ MORE
Before cap and trade, how about proof and truth?
,"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket."
But now he claims it will only cost the price of a postage stamp a day?
Designed to combat global warming (well, “climate change” as they now call it to give themselves a measure credibility since global temperatures have actually dropped over the last decade), cap and trade will do little to help our planet...
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Cap-and-Trade Bill Creates ‘Retrofit’ Policy for Homes and Businesses
The 1,400-page cap-and-trade legislation pushed through by House Democrats contains a new federal policy that residential, commercial, and government buildings be retrofitted to increase energy efficiency, leaving it up to the states to figure out exactly how to do that.
This means that homeowners could be required to retrofit their homes to meet federal “green” guidelines in order to sell their homes, if the cap-and-trade bill becomes law...
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Washington Post Notes 'Undocumented' Immigrant Rally, Fails to Include Critics in Story
Take three liberal policy advocates, stir into a 12-paragraph story, and strain out any dissenting voices.
That's the recipe for pushing Washington Post writer Martin Ricard's June 24 story on illegal immigrants who rallied yesterday in Washington, D.C., for a bill before Congress to make it easier for illegal immigrants to get access to financial aid for college.
In "Students Stage Mock Graduation To Advocate for Undocumented," Ricard noted "[a]lmost 400 students and their supporters" yesterday who "were drawn this year" to a mock graduation ceremony in Washington, D.C., "organized by United We Dream." Nowhere in his article did Ricard describe any of the students as "illegal immigrants," preferring instead to label them "undocumented."
[What bias?]
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Chicago public-school reform flops, biz-backed report says
Chicago Public [government-run] School reform largely has failed, with the vast bulk of students either dropping out or unprepared for college and apparent gains at the grade-school level more perceived than real.
That's the bottom line of a blockbuster report released Tuesday by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, a report that directly challenges the legitimacy of one of Mayor Richard M. Daley's major claimed accomplishments...
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No dropouts from this Camden, NJ, high school
... It's an extraordinary display of wisdom for students in a city where dropout rates are consistently among New Jersey's highest and test scores are among the lowest.
Neither is the case at MetEast, which graduated its first class of seniors on Friday.
It opened in 2005 as a laboratory for education in a city where the schools are part of an entanglement of problems.
It's one of about 60 schools nationwide established with the help of Big Picture Learning, a nonprofit with offices in San Diego and Providence, R.I. Three Big Picture schools are scheduled to open in Newark this fall...
[There's terrific and innovative ideas out there, but we need break the chains of our government run system to give them room to work...]
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Medical Arrogance
During his ABC infomercial last week, President Obama continued to insist that the type of reform he has in mind would reduce the cost of health care, improve its quality, and enable people to keep their current insurance policies and doctors.
He is wrong on all counts.
Very little in the Democratic bills making their way through Congress would do anything to reduce costs, while the new subsidies their authors envision would increase costs...
[How can any rational adult honestly believe that adding an additional layer of bureaucratic government can somehow reduce costs?]
READ MORE
Obamacare failed in Europe
President Barack Obama's proposed "public insurance option" for universal health coverage seems logical: A large public insurance fund will provide quality coverage for the uninsured and force competing insurers to lower costs.
In practice, though, one needs only look at what decades of government health care have done to ramp up the financial and quality problems endured by Britain and France...
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GOVERNMENT HEALTH PLANS ALWAYS RATION CARE
President Obama objects when people use the word "rationing" in regards to government-run health care. But rationing is inevitable if we simply expand government control without fixing the way health care is reimbursed so that doctors and patients become sensitive to issues of price and quality, says Dr. Gottlieb, a physician and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
In countries such as France and Germany, layers of bureaucracy like health boards have been specifically engineered to delay the adoption of new medical products and services, thus lowering spending.
In France:
- Reimbursement rates are set by the National Union of Sickness Insurance Funds, a group that also negotiates pay to doctors.
- The Federal Joint Committee regulates reimbursement and restrictions on prescribing.
- The Social Insurance Organization is in charge of setting prices and sets their practice budgets.
- In the past 12 months, the 15 medical products and services that cleared this process spent an average 35 months under 'review'.
"spending can be moderated if diffusion of existing costly services are slowed."
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ACORN Rent-A-Mob ThugsHarass Lenders in 14 Cities
ACORN, which played a starring role in creating the subprime mortgage crisis, added insult to injury by harassing lenders across the nation with protests in an effort to coerce them into supporting President Obama's Making Home Affordable foreclosure-avoidance program.
Austin King, director of ACORN Financial Justice, sent out a press release saying its actions are part of its "Homewrecker 4" campaign.
Just for the record, this story is not on the front page of any major daily newspaper this morning.
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Bank clients' privacy shield survives challenge
A California law that lets customers keep banks from sharing information with affiliated companies about their savings accounts and buying habits survived a final legal challenge Monday. Without comment, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a hearing to the American Bankers Association.
The California privacy law, the broadest of its kind in the nation, allows customers to veto a bank's attempt to share certain types of information with affiliated companies.
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DUers Invent Highly Laughable Excuses to Explain Fox News Ratings Success
Few things drive the denizens of the Democratic Underground into a frenzy like the mere mention of Fox News. Therefore, as you can expect, a story in the Hollywood Reporter, Fox News set for best year yet, sent the members of what they call the "reality-based community" into some very unreal yet highly entertaining reactions to that unwelcome news.
But before we allow the DUers to take the comedy stage, let us take a look at the Hollywood Reporter story by James Hibberd that sent them into a divorced-from-reality frenzy:Fox News is on track to have its most-watched year ever. With the second quarter coming to a close, Fox News averaged about the same number of viewers as the top three other cable news networks combined.
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