Tuesday, October 13, 2009
POLL: Most Say Politics Drive Nobel Awards
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Americans are much more skeptical of the motivation behind the awarding of the prestigious international Nobel Prizes following President Obama's win Friday of the Nobel Peace Prize.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58% of American adults now believe that politics plays a role in the awarding of the Nobel Prize. That's an 18-point jump from 40% a year ago.
Just 21% of Americans say politics does not play a role in the awarding of the Nobel Prize. Twenty-one percent (21%) are not sure.
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Stephanopoulos Laughs Re: Obama's Nobel Being 'Well-Deserved'
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A marvelous thing happened on Sunday's "This Week": Donna Brazile said Barack Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was "well-deserved," and host George Stephanopoulos couldn't restrain his laughter.
Such happened moments after George Will said,
"[T]he Nobel Prize committee would with this decision have forfeited its reputation for seriousness - if it had a reputation for seriousness."
Quite comically, Brazile was as serious as the Nobel committee (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, video available here for Internet Explorer users):
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A NEW ENTITLEMENT THAT CUTS THE DEFICIT?
Subject: txt 1st hcare mny -
Anyone who reads beyond the top-line numbers of the CBO's estimate of the Senate health care bill will find that the it creates massive new spending commitments that will inevitably explode over time, and that this is "paid for" with huge tax increases plus phantom spending cuts that will never happen, says the Wall Street Journal. For example:
- Baucus spends $10.9 billion to eliminate the scheduled Medicare cuts to physician payments --but only for next year.
- In 2011, he assumes they'll be reduced by 25 percent, with even deeper cuts later, with no specifics as to how provided.
- Congress has overridden this "sustainable growth rate" every year since 2003 and will continue to do so because deeper cuts in Medicare's price controls will cause many doctors to quit the program.
- Fixing this alone would add $245 billion to the bill's costs, according to an earlier CBO estimate.
Source: Editorial, "The Greatest Show on Earth; Step right up: A new entitlement that cuts the deficit!" Wall Street Journal, October 9, 2009.
[We're evidently not supposed to notice that while the taxation half of the bill would start immediately upon its passage, the benefit payouts won't start until 2013. I.e., several years of loading the pipe with 'free' money and the only way the CBO could arrive at its absurd claim of deficit reduction.
2013 is also after the next presidential election.]
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'Conceptual Language' Hides Health Care's Costs
Some of the headlines in recent days are not worthy of belief.
I'm referring to the headlines earlier in the week to the effect that the health care bill sponsored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus will cut the federal deficit by $81 billion over the next 10 years.
Yes, that is what the Congressional Budget Office estimated. But, as the CBO noted, there's no actual Baucus bill, just some "conceptual language." Actual language, CBO noted, might result in "significant changes" in its estimates.
No wonder Democratic congressional leaders killed requirements that the actual language be posted on the Internet for 72 hours before Congress votes... [snip]
More significant is the number most publications did not put in their headlines and lead paragraphs: CBO's estimate that the Baucus "conceptual language" would increase federal spending by $829 billion over 10 years. So how do you increase federal spending and cut the deficit at the same time?
In a word, taxes... [everywhere on everyone - snip]
We can reasonably conclude that the Baucus bill -- or whatever similar measure Reid and Schumer concoct -- would vastly and permanently increase public sector spending and impose a crushing burden on the private sector in a weak economy.
That burden would be particularly heavy on low earners forced to buy expensive policies or else pay stiff fines, with money they would otherwise receive as wages or salaries.
There are no good public policy reasons to pass such a bill hurriedly or otherwise. Only political ones...
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POLL: To Pay for Health Care Plan, 59% Say No New Taxes
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During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama said,
“No family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”
But 72% of voters say it is at least somewhat likely that taxes will be increased on those earning less than $250,000 during President Obama’s time in office. Fifty-two percent (52%) say it is very likely.
Fifty-nine percent (59%) of U.S. voters favor putting a provision in the health care reform plan that would prohibit any new taxes, fees or penalties on families who make less than $250,000 a year.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 22% of voters oppose such a provision. Nineteen percent (19%) are not sure.
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Show Me the Bill!
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Do you think Congress should vote on bills without reading them? How about voting on bills that don’t even exist yet, except in fragments? The Senate Finance Committee is poised to vote on a massive health care reform bill on Tuesday allegedly authored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.).
A glaring, outrageous, unreported fact is that the bill’s actual text has been kept secret. No one actually knows what’s in it – not even the senators...
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[Yet they're voting on it TODAY...
"REJECT BAUCUS BILL"
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
contact-template
Afghan official: Foreigners bolstering Taliban
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KABUL - Thousands of foreign fighters have poured into Afghanistan to bolster the Taliban insurgency, the country's defense minister said Saturday as he called for more international troops.
[Again and again. G.W.O.T.]
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Cherry-picking Intelligence
Subject: txt gwot nsec - ... Again
For Vice President Joe Biden and some senior Obama White House staff members (we do not know the position of the president yet), the alleged weakness and ineffectiveness of al-Qaida is sufficient justification for ending our major ground troop presence in Afghanistan.
The current discussion of al-Qaida's capacities in Afghanistan is being carried out with cherry-picked intelligence. The assertion of al-Qaida's weakness by the White House is merely an excuse to justify the political decision that already has been made (by some) to get out of Afghanistan.
On Sept. 30, the Post ran a spectacular front-page, above-the-fold lead story, headlined
"Success Against al-Qaeda Cited: Infiltration of Network Is a Factor as Administration Debates Afghanistan Policy."
The White House-fed article leaked to the Post by "senior U.S. officials, who spoke about intelligence matters on the condition of anonymity," expressly argued that al-Qaida had been penetrated recently by our spies and other intelligence and can be hit by drones and that therefore, such "an improved counterterrorism effort" is
"evidence that Obama's principal objective -- destroying al-Qaeda -- can be achieved without an expanded troop presence."
The next day, the Pentagon responded through Jake Tapper's blog on ABC News' Web site, arguing that those successes were
"largely because of better intelligence, stemming from a stronger U.S. counter-insurgency program on the other side of the border in Afghanistan."
Nor, regarding al-Qaida's alleged inability to reach young Muslims nowadays, was the Post reporter directed by the White House leakers to FBI Director Robert Mueller's testimony last week that al-Qaida in Somalia is having great success with al-Shabab, which translates as "mujahedeen youth." "They could strike the United States," the FBI director testified.
We must trust that the president will not permit himself to be misled by some of his most senior aides, who clearly are trying to cherry-pick the intelligence to gain their political objectives rather than honestly assess the intelligence on behalf of our national security needs.
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POLL: Plurality Say U.S. Can Win War in Afghanistan,
Subject: txt gwot - 29% Disagree
Voters aren’t brimming with confidence that the United States can win the war in Afghanistan, but, despite news reports of a worsening situation there, support for a continued U.S. military presence in the country is unchanged.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% of voters believe it is possible for the United States to win the eight-year-old war in Afghanistan. Twenty-nine percent (29%) do not think a U.S. victory is possible there, and another 25% aren’t sure.
But 52% of voters continue to believe that no firm timetable should be set for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. That number is unchanged from a survey at the beginning of September.
Fifty-eight percent (58%) of men say America can win the war in Afghanistan. Women are evenly divided.
Sixty percent (60%) of Republicans say a U.S. victory is possible, a view shared by just 35% of Democrats.
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NBC Reporter Waves the White Flag: 'Time to Start Leaving' Afghanistan'
[Meanwhile, our professional media...]
In 2006, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz found that NBC correspondent Richard Engel had strong political feelings: "I think war should be illegal...I'm basically a pacifist." That pacifist opinion is still surfacing, Kurtz reported Monday, although he didn’t recall the sentence from 2006:
"I honestly think it's probably time to start leaving the country. I really don't see how this is going to end in anything but tears,"
"The idea of going in to nation-build and win hearts and minds, I think, over the long term is kind of a loser."
[As usual, the Left learned all wrong lessons from Viet Nam.]
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Black Nationalism Provides Foundation for African-American Islamist Movement
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"America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem,"
Malcolm X wrote in 1964 during his pilgrimage to Mecca. Malcolm's words now appear on countless Islamist websites dedicated to finding black, English-speaking converts. The assumption that all African-American Muslims broke their ties with the anti-Western, anti-white, and anti-Semitic worldview of the NOI [Nation Of Islam] is a naive one.
Islamists have harnessed these radicals' anti-Western black nationalism for their own purpose: establishing an indigenous Islamist movement in the United States that can advocate their political agenda in the foreign and domestic policy spheres. The Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA) and the As-Sabiqun movement are proof that their efforts have not been in vain.
Imam Siraj Wahhaj, the founder of the primarily African-American MANA, is a product of the volatile intersection of black nationalism and politicized Islam. A former member of the NOI, Wahhaj often has been portrayed as a "moderate" by the mainstream media. However, his words speak for themselves:
"In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing, and the only thing that will remain will be Islam,"
Imam Abdul Alim Musa of the As-Sabiqun movement is even more overt about his Islamist worldview. As-Sabiqun, founded in the early 1990s, advocates the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in place of America's democratic system... [snip]
Today, many African-American prisoners are turning to radical Islam. The government has neglected its oversight responsibilities, allowing men like Imam Warith Deen Umar to become influential Islamic chaplains in the prison system. Umar has noted the utility of prisons for terrorist recruitment and made such reassuring statements as,
"Even Muslims who say they are against terrorism secretly admire and applaud the 9/11 hijackers."
Under the supervision of men like Umar, Saudi-funded programs have introduced the most intolerant Salafi and Wahhabi interpretations of Islam to convicts. We face a well funded and increasingly effective network of Islamists who seek to take advantage of black nationalism's lingering racial intolerance.
It is therefore imperative to marginalize fringe Islamist elements of the African-American Muslim community and empower those who seek personal fulfillment, not political dominance, in their Islamic faith...
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Newsweek: Rejecting 'Religion-based Bigotry'
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[The usual anti-religious bigotry - albeit just for religions of the Cross. Can you imagine such a graphic, in Newsweek, based on the Koran? You know, that document that calls for the murder of homosexuals? Oops, forgot: there we need be 'tolerant' of the diverse view...
As an atheist I tell you: the liberal left in all its guises (judicial, academia, old media, DNC) is at war with the religion that this country was and continues to be founded on (as in 3 out of 4, below) - to our nation's detriment. ]
[click to enlarge]
[Interesting re: the decline in Judaism and Agnostic - I wonder which way the Agnostics 'broke'...]
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Obama adviser: Sharia Law is 'Gender Justice'
Subject: txt islm - Barack
President Barack Obama's adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist group to talk about Sharia Law.
Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was "oversimplified" and the majority of women around the world associate it with "gender justice"...
[On our Presidents council...]
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Russia confirms plans to help Iran enrich uranium
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Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday that a plan for Russia to help enrich uranium for an Iranian reactor has yet to be finalized, in the highest-level Russian confirmation of a tentative agreement reached between Tehran and six world powers last week. Lavrov said that experts would have to work out specifics of the deal involving the United States, France, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
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Decision to Cut Funding to Iran Watchdog Is Misguided
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A decision by the Obama administration to deny federal funding to a group that keeps track of human rights abuses in Iran is a misguided attempt by the White House to appear non-confrontational with the Islamic republic, critics say.
The Connecticut-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center has received more than $3 million in grants from the State Department since its inception in 2004. Executive Director Rene Redman learned in July that the group's federal funding request was denied, an unexpected decision given the abuse of protesters in Iran following the country's disputed June 12 presidential election.
The State Department has not divulged the reason the request was denied.
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Barack Obama to talk tough to Japan
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Tokyo - Barack Obama will visit Japan next month, putting his hosts under pressure to resolve pressing alliance issues arising from the recent change of government in Tokyo.
[Last I checked, Japan was an ally, so yeah - there he'll talk tough...]
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image toon - intl - NKorea out of toilet paper - grab another American
THE TRADE DEFICIT AND JOBS
The idea that job losses can be blamed on the trade deficit is simplistic and wrong
The Wall Street Journal reports that the
"U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly narrowed for the first time in four months in August, with exports rising to their highest level of the year and imports easing despite higher oil prices."
Given how trade skeptics often argue that job loss can be ascribed directly to the trade deficit, this might be a good moment to reflect on the relationship between the trade deficit and jobs:
- Between 1993 and 2007, the U.S. economy created 26 million new jobs, net; this is one of the greatest job creation booms in American history.
- During the same period, the trade deficit swelled from 1 percent of gross domestic product to 6 percent of GDP.
- Since 2007 the trade deficit as a percentage of GDP has fallen by half, to about 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) today; but the U.S. economy has shed 6 or 7 million jobs.
Did the growth in the trade deficit create 26 million jobs? No.
Did the collapse of the trade deficit cause the loss of 6 or 7 million jobs? No.
But what these recent experiences have done is exploded the simplistic myth that job losses can be blamed on the trade deficit.
[Recall: we only run deficits because the consumer - that would be 100% of us - feel they're getting a better deal on imported goods. And unlike exports, every dollar saved on less expensive but acceptable goods by consumers - that would still be all of us, without exception - is 100% profit - dramatically more beneficial to our collective standard of living than artificially supporting a comparatively few union jobs because they've bribed politicians to do so.
We claim to be a consumer-based society for good reason. What's best for the average consumer should be our strongest and nearly sole guide in setting related policy - starting with the win-win benefits of free trade.]
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Another Hush Rush Campaign
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MSNBC Features Lefty Sports Writer to Trash ‘Racist’ ‘Swine’ Rush Limbaugh
"about having somebody in an NFL owners box who [players] know views them with naked and open contempt because of the color of their skin."Read more
Sportswriter: Black NFLers Claiming They Won't Play for Rush 'Are Lying Through Their Teeth'
Limbaugh Transcends 'Today' Attempt to Discredit Him
“Lord, thank you for my enemies.”Read More
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SOAK-THE-RICH STRATEGIES BACKFIRE IN STATE AFTER STATE
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When David Paterson became governor of New York, he shocked New Yorkers by declaring that taxes were too high and that he had many friends who had left the state because there were better opportunities elsewhere.
Paterson quickly got rolled by the big-government wing of his own party, which passed a budget for this year with $6.1 billion in projected new taxes and fees, led by sharply higher rates starting for those earning more than $200,000 a year.
Asked if the budget made sense in the recession, an outgunned Paterson said: "None of this makes sense."
Revenue from tax increases was running 20 percent below projections and that, in particular, the wealthy were not paying up - they were leaving.
"You heard the mantra, 'Tax the rich, tax the rich,'" ... "We've done that. We've lost jobs and driven people out of the state."
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STUDY ASKS $10 TRILLION FOR CLIMATE
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An 'investment' of $10 trillion in 'renewable' energy and 'carbon-abatement' technology will be "necessary" over the next two decades to limit the rise in the Earth's temperature, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warns in a new report.
The IEA, energy adviser to the world's richest nations, urges more-aggressive reductions in carbon emissions than what many nations are already planning:
- The IEA calls for investment -- in clean-energy initiatives such as solar power, new nuclear plants and other measures -- of $500 billion a year over the next 20 years.
- That is 37 percent more investment than what the IEA estimated was necessary just a year ago.
The additional investment called for could be particularly expensive for consumers in developed nations such as the United States which would likely face higher costs to fill up their vehicles and keep their lights on.
The IEA also says sales of vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine will need to fall from around 95 percent of the world's total purchases today to 40 percent in 2030; electric and hybrid vehicles would need to account for the majority of new vehicle sales over the next 20 years.
[If we're stupid enough to buy this scam we'll deserve what we get - but our children?]
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SQUEEZING MORE OIL FROM THE GROUND
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Forecasts that global oil production will soon start to decline and that most oil will be gone within a few decades are pessimistic hogwash, says Leonardo Maugeri, group senior vice president for corporate strategies and planning at the Italian energy company ENI. For example:
- When Kern River Oil Field of California was discovered in 1899, analysts thought that only 10 percent of the crude was recoverable.
- In 1942 after more than four decades of modest production, the field was estimated to still hold 54 million barrels of recoverable oil, a fraction of the 278 million barrels already recovered.
- In the next 44 years, the field produced 736 million barrels, and it had another 970 million barrels remaining.
The Ken River in California is not an isolated case, as most of the world's oil fields have revived over time. This is in defiance to the common theory that suggests that a field's production should follow a bell-shaped trajectory (known as the Hubbert curve) and peak when half of the known oil has been extracted.
Advanced technologies are just half the story though. The real cornucopia is that new and larger oil deposits continue to be found around the world, and in fact continue to outstrip growing demand...
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[Again and again: the history of oil has been one of always finding more, faster, than even our growing demand needs. 'Peak Oil' is a myth not supported by the facts.]
FLASHBACK >
'PEAK' OIL SHORTAGE IS POLITICAL FICTION, NOT REALITY
· Bailey, who did a thorough survey of the "peak oil" debate, found that most of the world's leading analysts and agencies simply do not think we are running out of oil.
[Yet] The disinformation cycle keeps repeating itself: [snip]
Estimates put the amount of shale oil in the Intermountain West at 1.2 to 1.8 trillion barrels. If we chose to recover just the 'easiest' 800 billion barrels of that, it alone would represent an American reserve three times Saudi Arabia's oil stockpile...
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Subject: txt reps libs msm bias fnn - CNN:
White House Attacks On Fox Help Its Ratings,
Three days before Howard Kurtz talked with White House communications director Anita Dunn about the Obama administration's attacks on the Fox News Channel, a number of CNN contributors pointed out how this strategy is helping FNC's ratings while hurting Democrats.
Such was discussed on Thursday's "Situation Room" by a panel consisting of CNN's Gloria Berger, David Gergen, and John King, as well as Politico's Nia-Malika Henderson and Republican strategist Tony Blankley.
Makes you wonder why Kurtz on Sunday didn't ask Dunn about the following tremendously relevant conversation that happened on his own network a few days earlier (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Mediaite):
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UPDATE: Fox officials agree that all this attention is helping ratings.
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Irony Alert: White House Praises 'Unbiased' CNN as Network Runs Promo Appealing to Democrats
Yesterday, Sheppard posted a story about White House communications director Anita Dunn whining at length on Howard Kurtz's "Reliable Sources" about how supposedly unfair Fox News is. Her appearance on that show was instigated by Dunn's complaints about White House coverage by Fox News in a Time magazine story by Michael Scherer.
Among her attacks upon Fox News was the assertion that it wasn't a real news network "the way CNN is." Well, Michael Scherer himself wrote a followup blog post and pointed out the supreme irony of attacking Fox News as biased while CNN was running "Anderson Cooper 360" promos pitching that show as appealing to liberals....
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