WE WILL NOT HAVE PROSPERITY WHEN POLITICIANS DOMINATE THE ECONOMY

Economic freedom is necessary to building a productive America with the best jobs and greatest prosperity in the world. We will not have new jobs when bureaucrats micromanage companies.

High taxes kill jobs and growth. Low taxes encourage jobs and growth.

Instead of spending $787 billion to reward Democratic interest groups, an effective economic stimulus would get the money to the people that work and the businesses that hire them in the form of lower taxes:

• If we had a two-year, 50 percent reduction in the Social Security and Medicare tax for both the employee and the employer, we would have an extraordinary explosion of small business.
• If we want to compete with China for jobs, we should match the Chinese on capital gains -- their rate is zero.
• If we want to compete for profitable businesses creating good jobs, we should adopt the Irish tax rate of 12.5 percent for corporations.
• If we want to build up capital for investments permanently, we should abolish the death tax.

Beyond tax policy, for American jobs and prosperity we need an American energy policy.

We need a policy that emphasizes the energy we have in America, especially our vast reserves of coal, oil and natural gas. The problem isn't a lack of resources or innovation. The problem is government, which has actually enacted policies which favor foreign imports over American energy...

READ MORE

SIGN THE PETITION

Polls find rising concern with Obama on key issues

.
– President Barack Obama faces growing concerns among voters over government spending, the auto industry bailout and other economic policies, according to two opinion polls released on Wednesday.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents said Obama and Congress should focus on keeping the budget deficit down, even if takes longer for the economy to recover. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal deficit could top $1.8 trillion this fiscal year -- by far a record.

Nearly 70 percent said they had concerns about federal intervention in the economy, including Obama's decision to take an ownership stake in General Motors and the prospect of more government involvement in healthcare...

READ MORE

image toon - sclm mny = Big Government ship pulled by future children tax payers

Bloomberg's Unchallenging Obama Interview

Maybe reporters Brian Faler or Nicholas Johnston at Bloomberg asked Barack Obama some really challenging questions when they had a chance to interview the President at the White House. Maybe they even did some basic fact-checking. If so, there's precious little evidence of either in their June 16 report.

They allowed the president to blame most of the current year's deficit on George W. Bush. They let him speak of "robust" growth when the best guesstimates they quoted for the second half of this calendar year and all of next year are anemic -- at least as the press benchmarked growth during the Bush 43 years.

The Bloomberg pair also ignored the alarming deterioration in federal receipts from economic activity that has continued into June, one of the four biggest collections months of the year.

Here are key paragraphs from Faler and Johnston's failed filing (bolds are mine):

[Our 'professional' media.]

READ MORE

image toon - mny reps crpt msm = Oby's crowd can't believe MSM bought 150K jobs

THE BIG CHILL

Sometime in the next few weeks Congress will begin consideration of the Waxman-Markey global warming bill to limit CO2 emissions. If passed, the bill will be the largest and widest intervention by government into the lives of Americans since the 1940s.

The Manhattan Institute's Jim Manzi concludes that the benefits of Waxman-Markey would not be much:

• Historical data show that the average rate of warming in the 30 years from 1977 to 2007 was just .32 degree Fahrenheit per decade.
• IF effective, the new bill is estimated to lower global temperatures by about .18 degree Fahrenheit ... by 2100.
• Manzi estimates the additional economic costs of the bill would be .8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), while the economic benefits would be just .08 percent -- so the costs would be 10 times the benefits. [taking proponents' unsubstantiated claims of 'benefits' at face value]

The cost of reducing emissions turns out to be greater than any benefits realized by societies:

• According to a 1999 Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimate, the emissions cuts the Kyoto Protocol would have required in 2010 were likely to reduce America's GDP by $275 billion to $468 billion, or $921 to $1,565 per person, and of course Kyoto does not apply to fast-growing developing countries such as China and India.

An April study by Charles River Associates tells us that if the Obama proposal to reduce CO2 emissions becomes law, that by 2025, just 16 years from now, the cost of natural gas would rise 56 percent, electricity 44 percent and motor fuel 19 percent; annual household purchasing power would annually decline by an average of $1,827; and America will lose 3.2 million jobs.

READ MORE

House of Representatives switchboard:
202.225.3121 - 202.224-3121
.

ABC Global Warming Special Makes Up Future, But It’s Not ‘Sci-Fi’

The world is about to end, or at least that’s according to ABC’s “Good Morning America.” The June 2 segment promoted a new special called “Earth 2100.” The program follows Lucy, a girl born in 2009, and her dramatic story about how if we don’t take drastic measures immediately climate change will cause droughts, floods, mass migration, and starvation.

This may sound straight from a science-fiction movie, but “Good Morning America” went to great lengths to assure viewers this wasn’t science fiction and that by airing this series they were changing journalism. Bob Woodruff, host of the special, called making up what will happen in the future “a different kind of journalism.” The segment quoted him saying, “not a prediction of what will happen, but what might happen.”

After the preview, “Good Morning America’s” Diane Sawyer responded and tried to pretend the whole program had some news value.

“Amazing someone born into 2009. We’re not talking about sci-fi here and to come up with a human voice for it, a family voice, for it.”

ABC left out the necessary crystal ball from the segment, so the audience was left to guess how they could predict 2100 so accurately.

READ MORE

image toon - grn msm bias = MSM = going to die from warming and cold

MEXICAN MEDICAL TOURISM FOR CALIFORNIANS?

The primary reason Californians head to Mexico for health treatment is to escape the state's expensive regulatory burden on health facilities,..

According to new research by Steven P. Wallace of the University of California, Los Angeles, almost a million Californian residents crossed the border into Mexico for treatment in 2004. The primary reason was to escape California's expensive regulatory burden on health facilities:

• California hospitals shift the costs of treating Medicare and Medicaid patients (for whom government reimbursement does not cover costs) to private insurers.
• Professor Daniel Kessler of Stanford University figures that premiums for private health insurance would be about 11 percent lower without this cost shift -- a hidden tax that private insurers can avoid by leaving the state.

California hospitals also suffer under laws that drive up their costs:

• For example, seismic retrofitting and nurse-patient ratios, which Mexican hospitals do not.
• California hospitals also have to deal with a militant union, the California Nurses Association, whose members parade in front of the Capitol by the hundreds in support of more government interference in health care, in the quest for "universal" coverage.

The political momentum in California, and the nation, will make our hospitals more accountable to government but less accountable to all patients. That will give Californians more reason to head south. In years to come, be prepared to have a margarita with your medical procedure...

READ MORE

image MAP = CA exodus = cali mny immig -

WHERE DOES SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE WORK?

The criticism of single-payer health care -- primarily as practiced in Canada and Europe -- has been that operations and procedures are long-delayed or denied and health care is rationed to control costs. For example:

• In Canada, the average wait for a 65-year-old man to get a hip replacement is six months, according to the Freedom Works Foundation.
• The average wait time in a Canadian emergency room is 16 hours and 18 minutes.
• Also, the average cancer test and radiation treatment cycles vary between 6 to 8 weeks, according to the foundation.

Meanwhile:

• In Great Britain, at any one time, there are about a million people waiting to get into hospitals.
• Almost 900,000 Canadian patients are on the waiting list at any point in time, according to the Fraser Institute.
• In New Zealand, 90,000 people are on the waiting lists, according to government figures.

"Many of the people waiting are waiting in pain. Many are risking their lives by waiting. And there is no market mechanism in these countries to get care to people who need it first."

Obama and most Democrats in Congress are pushing for a "public option," or government-run health insurance program that would compete with private health care companies. Many analysts agree that the private, market-driven companies will be unable to compete with a government-run insurance program, which would have nearly unlimited resources...

[Obama has said he expects these fist steps to eventually result in only a government run single-payer system "fifteen, maybe twenty years out". We're being sold a bill of goods.]

READ MORE

WHY THE HEALTH CARE RUSH?

President Obama seems to view his health care program as sink-or-swim, so Democrats are rushing the largest entitlement expansion since LBJ into law with a truncated debate and as little public scrutiny as possible. The Senate plans to begin marking up legislation in early June, voting by the August recess and sending the bill to the Oval Office by Thanksgiving.

However, it's not hard to see why Democrats are trying to hew to this full-speed-ahead timetable, says the Wall Street Journal:

• Their health overhaul will run up a 13-figure price tag at a time when spending and deficits are already at epic levels and hook the middle class to an intravenous drip of government health subsidies for generations to come.
• Yet, slowing the growth rate of U.S. health costs by 1.5 percentage points would increase real gross domestic product (GDP) by more than 2 percent in 2020 and nearly 8 percent in 2030.

Moreover, part of the need for speed comes from the fact that "stakeholders" -- such as doctors and hospitals -- still seem to be experiencing Stockholm Syndrome. Democrats have so far succeeded in conjuring an illusion of political inevitability, which has kept industry groups in line lest they be shut out of the negotiations. But once the policy details of Obama's new foundation are poured, even shell-shocked CEOs might stir up their courage to resist.

The reality is that Democrats are contemplating the most sweeping restructuring of the health markets since 1965, and they don't want to let the details slow them down. Better to grab what they will portray as a major domestic achievement while Obama is at the height of his popularity and before anyone understands what it will mean in practice. The consequences and the cost can be 'explained' later...

READ MORE

image toon - hcare = public donor for socialized system

Childless on Father's Day

Some kids will be surprising their fathers with breakfast in bed this weekend, while others will present a gift inscribed with the phrase, "world's best dad." Some men, though, will only be reminded of the heartache from losing the opportunity to become fathers.

They are the third victims of abortion...

[In which they have no say whatsoever.]

READ MORE

Delayed Dreamliner nears take-off

The US aerospace giant Boeing is getting its 787 Dreamliner ready for its first test flight within days, banking on the new fuel-efficient plane to sail above stiff market headwinds.

Boeing expects the much-delayed Dreamliner to have its maiden flight within the next eight days on a schedule that puts delivery of the plane to first customer, All Nippon Airways, in the first quarter of next year.

[And, as a private company unlike Europe's Airbus, has literally bet the solvency of the company on the project.]

READ MORE

‘Far Left’ Label on CBS First in More than Two Years

As my colleague Mark Finkelstein noted this morning, now that gay activists are unhappy with Obama, CBS has dusted off the “far left” label and used it to describe those who are upset that the President has not done more to advance the gay agenda. Co-host Harry Smith on Thursday:

“President Obama gets some pressure from an unlikely source, the far left....”

So when was the last time CBS even used the phrase “far left” to describe fringe groups beyond the liberal mainstream? A Nexis search reveals that the last time the phrase crossed the lips of a CBS reporter was more than two years ago. On the May 17, 2007 CBS Evening News, reporter Sharyl Attkisson was talking about an immigration reform bill:

“It’s a complete reform of US immigration law as we know it, worked out by a bipartisan group of negotiators, including Senator Ted Kennedy, politically on the far left, and Saxby Chambliss on the far right.”


[What bias? {Hint: ask yourself the last time you heard 'right-wing' used by the MSM. (Hint2: consult a clock not a calendar)}]

READ MORE

image toon - bbro legal fnn - NASA fixing hubble to see with more empathy?

Israel and the Axis of Evil

Less than two years ago, on September 6, 2007, the IAF destroyed a North Korean-built plutonium production facility at Kibar, Syria. The destroyed installation was a virtual clone of North Korea's Yongbyon plutonium production facility. We now know that Iran paid for the facility. Teheran viewed the installation in Syria as an extension of its own nuclear program. North Korea's intimate ties with Iran and Syria show that its nuclear and missile programs are not a distant threat, limited in scope to faraway East Asia. It is a multilateral program shared on various levels with Iran and Syria.

Despite the continuing existance of a globally networked Axis of Evil, there was a develoopment last week that made it apparent that the Obama administration will not revise its policy of placing its Middle East emphasis on weakening Israel rather than on stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

US Lt. General Keith Dayton, who is responsible for training Palestinian military forces in Jordan stated outright that if Israel does not surrender Judea and Samaria within two years, the Palestinian forces he and his fellow American officers are now training at a cost of more than $300 million will begin killing Israelis.

Dayton's statement laid bare the disturbing fact even though the administration is fully aware of the costs of its approach to the Palestinian conflict with Israel, it is still unwilling to reconsider it. Defense Secretary Robert Gates just extended Dayton's tour of duty for an additional two years and gave him the added responsibility of serving as Obama's Middle East mediator George Mitchell's deputy.

Four days after Dayton's remarks were published, senior American and Israeli officials met in London. The reported purpose of the high-level meeting was to discuss how Israel will abide by the administration's demands. By holding such a meeting the day after North Korea tested its bomb and after Iran's announcement that it rejects the US's offer to negotiate about its nuclear program, the administration demonstrated that regardless of what Iran does, Washington's commitment to putting the screws on Israel is not subject to change.

All of this of course is music to the mullahs' ears. Between America's impotence against their North Korean allies and its unshakable commitment to keeping Israel on the hot seat, the Iranians know that they have no reason to worry about Uncle Sam.

[Long, detailed, Highly Recommended > ]

READ MORE

Christian Man Raped, Murdered for Refusing to Convert to Islam

A young Christian man was raped and brutally murdered in Pakistan for refusing to convert to Islam, and police are doing nothing about it.

Pakistani police reportedly found the body of Tariq "Litto" Mashi Ghauri — a 28-year-old university student in Sargodha, Pakistan — lying dead in a canal outside a rural village in Punjab Province on May 15. He had been raped and stabbed at least five times...

READ MORE

image toon - gwot nsec islm = 'Mean while, in Pakistan...'

The Incredible Disappearing Nobel Prize-Winner

I’ve clipped and accumulated about a hundred news articles, decreasing in size and moving further back in the pages week to week, about the first political hostages of the Obama administration, the two reporters who work for Al Gore’s TV network. They were captured, held hostage, fake-tried and sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp in North Korea.

Given that two of the journalists in his employee have been snatched and held hostage, kangaroo court-convicted and are now beginning their term of enslavement, torture, and use as negotiating pawns by North Korea, shouldn’t we and the entire world be seeing at least as much of The Great Gore as when he was running around promoting his movie or preening about his award?

READ MORE

image toon - 1st othr immig intl = NKorea has secure borders re Al's reporters

FREE-TRADE OPPORTUNITY

South Korea has a $1-trillion-a-year economy, and it is already our eighth-largest trading partner. But it historically has had many barriers to imports that have prevented it from becoming an even bigger market for U.S. goods and services [i.e., Unions]:

• Last year, U.S. exporters shipped nearly $40 billion in manufactured and agricultural products to Korea, and in 2007, they sold nearly $13 billion in services there.
• Once the FTA takes effect, 95 percent of two-way trade in consumer and electronic goods will become duty-free within three years; nearly two-thirds of U.S. agricultural products will be duty-free immediately.
• The FTA provides strong legal protection that U.S. exporters and investors need to do business; it is such a good agreement that the European Union is close to concluding a similar FTA with Korea.
• The FTA will boost U.S. annual exports to South Korea by $10 billion to $12 billion a year; it will tie the United States more tightly into the broader East Asian market and stimulate the U.S. economy at no fiscal cost.

U.S. 'domestic politics' remain the only reason we have not moved forward with this deal. [i.e., Unions]

Some interest groups oppose any trade agreement.[i.e., Unions] While we need to find ways to address legitimate concerns expressed by those who feel left behind [i.e., Unions], it makes no sense to stop measures to expand trade relations.

READ MORE

image toon - immig trade = Teamsters watching border for MExican trucks

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Demands Answers on Voter Intimidation Case Dismissal

As was commented upon here at CONTENTIONS, and widely reported and remarked upon elsewhere, the Obama Justice Department took the unusual action last month of dismissing a default judgment against the New Black Panther Party in connection with a case of voter intimidation on Election Day on November 4, 2008. Members of the NBPP were caught on film blocking access to the polls and physically and verbally intimidating voters, even going so far as to wield a nightstick in front of voters and poll watchers.

The Justice Department’s lawyers gathered evidence, obtained the affidavit of former civil rights advocate Bartle Bull, and filed a complaint. When the defendants did not respond and the court invited the Justice Department to file a default judgment, the case was inexplicably withdrawn.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has now taken up the issue and sent a letter to Loretta King, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division, demanding an explanation. By a vote of 4-0 (with one member abstaining for reasons not yet clear), the Commission members voted to send the letter seeking to get to the bottom of this... [snip]

What is even more remarkable in this already eye-popping story is that an independent commission has been forced to take this matter up because the relevant oversight committees in Congress have failed to hold a single hearing concerning the matter..

READ MORE

A witness to Walpin-gate

The White House excuse for firing an IG falls flat

The belated White House explanation for firing the AmeriCorps inspector general doesn't ring true.

The White House claims Inspector General Gerald Walpin was effectively away without leave from his Washington office and that he was so "disoriented" and "confused" at a May 20 meeting that it made officials "question his capacity to serve." An exclusive witness told The Washington Times both charges are baseless.

By all accounts, the May 20 meeting was contentious. It was then that Mr. Walpin chastised the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service for failing to exercise enough oversight over AmeriCorps grants.

In response the board was hostile and rude. The board repeatedly interrupted Mr. Walpin and peppered him with questions on multiple issues. He fully confirmed Mr. Walpin's account that the board excused Mr. Walpin for 15 minutes and that when Mr. Walpin returned to find his notepapers out of order, the board refused to give him time to get them straight... [snip]

The fact remains that an inspector general does not serve at the president's pleasure and can be removed only for a specified just cause.

No legitimate cause has been given for the firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin.

[An insight by what's meant by the phrase "Chicago politics" - Recommended > ]

READ MORE

Walloping Walpin

On Tuesday, ranking member Darrell Issa sent a letter to White House Counsel Gregory Craig, demanding the release of all e-mail and other communications between the Department of Justice's Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California regarding the dismissal of IG Walpin.

The U.S. Attorney connection arose from a 2008 Walpin investigation into allegations of misused taxpayer funds via AmeriCorps to the St. HOPE Academy of Sacramento, Calif., founded by Obama supporter and former NBA player -- now mayor of Sacramento -- Kevin Johnson. Walpin determined that Johnson's program misused almost $1 million in AmeriCorps funding, referred the case to the U.S. Attorney in Sacramento.

But Obama then fired Walpin immediately saying only that he no longer enjoyed his 'full confidence', despite a law that he cosponsored requiring that Congress be given a 30-day notice of his intent and a detailed justification for the removal... [snip]

"We need to see everything that Walpin pulled together. We have people inside this administration trying to smear him. The proof will be in his work product. Everything he pulled together for the investigation in Sacramento against Mayor Johnson should be made available for review,"

Meanwhile, a White House source says the White House is trying to find out if dispersal of parts of the $6 billion budget for CNCS can be sped up under a Presidential request that the funds be considered part of the economic stimulus program. ..

READ MORE

THE POLITICS OF ENVY

There is little reason to believe that reducing income inequality would improve the welfare of the poor. Instead, our focus should be on advocating measures that will advance the absolute well-being of the working poor, say Jeffrey M. Jones, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Daniel Heil, a graduate student at Pepperdine University.

How much income mobility exists in America? Research consistently affirms that there is substantial upward income mobility in the United States, with the lowest income earners typically showing the strongest results:

• From 1996-2005, the Treasury found that more than 55 percent of taxpayers moved to a different income quintile; more than half the people in the lowest fifth of earners moved to a higher quintile over this period.
• The study also reveals that income mobility has increased, not decreased, during the past 20 years.
• For example, 47.3 percent of those in the lowest income quintile in 1987 saw their incomes increase by at least 100 percent by 1996; that number jumped to 53.5 percent from 1996 to 2005.

Family poverty is largely a single-parent phenomenon -- for 2007 show that 24.5 percent of all single-parent families lived below the poverty line, compared to only 4.9 percent of married-couple families.

Finally, income mobility is due to persistence in work.

Sensible, time-tested steps that produce upward income mobility point to one conclusion: there are no shortcuts. The goals are to work, invest, partner, learn and to focus on personal responsibility.

READ MORE

image toon - mny reps crpt msm = Oby's crowd can't believe MSM bought 150K jobs

THE IMMORALITY OF WAXMAN-MARKEY

If the pending Waxman-Markey energy and climate bill (HR 2454) becomes law, utility bills will soar. Farm and business energy costs will skyrocket -- and be passed on to consumers, or defrayed by layoffs. Everything Americans grow, make, buy and do will be far pricier. And bureaucrats will control our lives, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD).

Written largely by professional environmentalists, the complex 942-page bill would require an 83 percent reduction in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 -- a level last seen in 1908.

Its costly provisions would dictate every aspect of our lives, for example:

• Compared to the no cap-and-trade regime, Waxman-Markey would cost the United States a cumulative $9.6 trillion in real gross domestic product (GDP) losses by 2035.
• The bill would also cause an additional 1.1 million job losses each year, raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation, provoke a 74 percent hike in inflation-adjusted gasoline prices [which raises the price of everything else] and add $1,500 to the average family's annual energy bill.

When the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted to approve Waxman-Markey, they also defeated amendments that would have suspended its punitive provisions if electricity prices go up 10 percent after inflation, unemployment reaches 15 percent or gasoline prices hit five dollars. [I.e., green no matter the cost to humans]

Thus, the bill radically "transforms" energy and economic systems, taxes and hobbles hydrocarbon use, mandates and subsidizes "green" energy and doles out innumerable preferences and penalties.

[I.e., THE mechanism by which Government can control and profit from all activity. ]

READ MORE

Then >

"OPPOSE WAXMAN-MARKEY, HR 2454"


House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...

and as always, pass it on...
.



House of Representatives switchboard:
202.225.3121 - 202.224-3121
.

THE PHANTOM UNINSURED

At a town hall meeting in Green Bay, Wis., last week, President Obama spoke of the need to cover the "46 million people who don't have health insurance." At another point he simply referred to the "46 million uninsured." At neither point did he refer to them as "Americans," says Investor's Business Daily (IBD). That was wise, because not all them are, says the Census Bureau:

• According to "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States," a Census Bureau report published last August, of the 45.6 million persons in the United States that did not have health insurance at some point in 2007, 9.7 million, or about 21 percent, were not U.S. citizens.
• The Census Bureau does not ask if anyone is here legally or illegally, so we can't tell how many are actually illegal aliens; we do know that throughout the Southwest and elsewhere, emergency rooms have been overburdened by a continuous flood of illegal aliens.
• Also among the uninsured are 17 million Americans who live in households where the annual income exceeds $50,000; 7 million of those without coverage have incomes of $75,000 a year or more.

The notion that the uninsured are 'without' health care is bogus:

• They consumed an estimated $116 billion worth of health care in 2008, according to the advocacy group Families USA.
• Many of the uninsured are young and healthy (40 percent are between ages 18 and 34) and at this point in their lives, particularly in this economy, choose to put their dollars elsewhere.

Subtract noncitizens and those who can afford their own insurance but choose not to purchase it, and the number of uninsured falls dramatically.

"Many Americans are uninsured by choice," wrote Dr. David Gratzer in his book "The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care."

Gratzer cited a study of the "non-poor uninsured" from the California HealthCare Foundation.

"Why the lack of insurance (among people who own homes and computers)?" Gratzer asks. "One clue is that 60 percent reported being in excellent health or very good health."

[And critically, states have mandated expansive coverage that most people refuse to pay for. We need to de-regulate the insurance industry (starting with making it an inter-state system vs. the closed markets which prevail today) so folks can buy insurance against truly catastrophic circumstance instead of politically correct (i.e., sex change) coverage at premium cost.

Involving the government will only move us in the wrong direction on all counts.]

READ MORE

image toon - hcare = Side effects of Oby care = death

LESSONS OF THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE

For five years the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigated whether "broadcasters are appropriately addressing the needs of their local communities." It concluded that the responsiveness of broadcasters has been less than ideal, and that FCC policies should change to foster more 'responsiveness' to local audiences.

In a new study, Cato Institute scholar John Samples argues, "Broadcast localism, like the Fairness Doctrine, is likely to do significant harm to freedom of speech. Policymakers who are aware of history will recall the lessons of the Fairness Doctrine and reject localism mandates for broadcasters."

For example:

• History suggests that the Fairness Doctrine served as a way for presidential administrations to systematically reduce or intimidate dissent of their policies.
• The doctrine also haphazardly restricted the speech of marginal individuals on the left and the right.
• The most frequently targeted speakers were conservative Christian ministers with a strong hostility to communism.

The current period seems similar to the Kennedy era:

• A new liberal president is pushing an ambitious agenda and fears the influence of conservative critics; now, as then, the president's political allies hope to manage speech with the help of the FCC.
• But newly empowered advisory boards could demand that license holders broadcast critics of the president's critics during the time set aside for local programming.
• Should a broadcaster refuse to follow that 'advice', the renewal of its license could easily come into question; after all, as members of the advisory board might testify, the license holder had refused to meet the needs of its local audience.
• The broadcaster might also choose to stay on the good side of its advisory board by deciding not to air "unfair" attacks on the president or his administration.

The history of the Fairness Doctrine suggests that the word "localism" will be defined in practice as the "raw political advantage" of those in charge of managing speech. Moreover, both the Fairness Doctrine and the localism proposal share a common weakness: they make broadcasters subservient to politics...

READ MORE

.

Women turn history into a bizarre soap opera

Women historians have feminised history by focusing on the 'soap opera' of key figures' love lives rather than their achievements, David Starkey claims.

The TV historian said his female counterparts concentrated on 'big box-office' subjects such as the six wives of Henry VIII instead of major political events of the time.

Dr Starkey, 54, said: 'One of the great problems has been that Henry, in a sense, has been absorbed by his wives. Which is bizarre.

'But it's what you expect from feminised history, the fact that so many of the writers who write about this are women and so much of their audience is a female audience. Unhappy marriages are big box-office.'

In an interview with Radio Times, he said the programmes would focus on the monarch himself, adding:

'Wives appear simply to explain or complicate the story of Henry. This is his development, his psychology and, above all, why he matters.'

Dr Starkey said the 'soap opera' of Henry's personal life should come second to the political consequences of his rule, such as the Reformation and the break with Roman Catholicism. And he added:

'If you are to do a proper history of Europe before the last five minutes, it is a history of white males because they were the power players, and to pretend anything else is to falsify.'

[He obviously didn't get the memo: White men are to blame for {fill in 'problem' here}...]

READ MORE

[HT:GC]

image toon = 1st fnn hcare = Swine being profiled at airport

600 protest Pelosi in Houston

Hundreds laid down their money to watch an onstage interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in Houston, the epicenter of Bush Country, on Friday night. And hundreds turned up outside the venue to Tea-Party Pelosi. And the protesters themselves seemed pretty hardcorewith signs like,

"I'm the ProLife gun toting Consitutionalist the D.H.S. warned you about."

READ MORE

image toon 1st reps bdd fnn - Speaker = tweeter woofer Pelosi= Liar

83% Say U.S. Legal System Should Treat All Americans Equally

Eighty-three percent (83%) of U.S. voters say America’s legal system should apply the law equally to all Americans rather than using the law to help those who have less power and influence. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 8% disagree.

This belief is shared overwhelmingly by Republicans, Democrats and voters not affiliated with either party.

However, voters are more divided when asked how the legal system is actually performing today. Thirty-seven percent (37%) say the U.S. legal system generally provides unfair advantages to minorities, while 34% say it generally treats all Americans equally.

Eighteen percent (18%) of voters say the American legal system generally discriminates against minorities.

[Coincidence that 17% don't think the legal system should apply equally and 18% think minorities are discriminated against??]

READ MORE

image toon - 1st fnn bbro legal = Sotomayor's ankle due to shooting self in foot

Hiroshima, 2.0

I am referring to Siobhan Gorman's front-page story in last Wednesday's Journal, in which she reported widespread cyberspying of the U.S. electricity grid, much of it apparently originating in China and Russia.

"Authorities investigating the intrusions have found software tools left behind that could be used to destroy infrastructure components." ... "If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on." [snip]

If you shut down power for about three days it causes very little damage. We can handle a long weekend. But if you shut down power for longer, all kinds of other things begin to happen. After about 10 days the curve levels off with about 72% of all economic activity shut down...

Plainly, we have a problem. And as we consider ever-more elaborate defenses for our vulnerable networks, here's a modest suggestion: Gently alert our non-NATO "partners" that we might be in their electricity grids, too.

READ MORE

FLASHBACK > China deploys secure computer operating system

"China is playing chess while we're playing checkers"
.

image toon - china sclm lbrty - Chinese flab wallpapered over American

Willful Deafness about the Real Meaning of Two States

[HT:DT {-1 demerit for not 'briefing'}]
The Palestinians, Saudis and Egyptians propose two states. The U.N., E.U., U.S. demand two states. Most Israeli governments have agreed to the concept of two states. Other than Israel, none of the proponents of a "two-state" solution ever planned for one of the states to be the Jewish State of Israel.

Just the thought of such a state is an insult to those who live in all-Muslim countries. On Sunday, when Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu offered a Palestinian State if there is recognition of a Israel as the national homeland for Jewish people, a senior Palestinian negotiator responded,

"Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu can wait a thousand years without finding a single Palestinian prepared to accept his offer."

The offer of living side-by-side in peace and tolerance is too offensive to discuss even for the "moderate" Arab Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people

"schuttles [sic] the chances for peace."

So what are these two states supposed to look like?

The Arab spokesmen are crystal clear on their intentions. One Judea/Samaria, a.k.a. the West Bank, will be 100% Palestinian immediately. Not a single Jew will be allowed to live there. It will be armed and ready to fire at close range into Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.

If history is a guide [and it's the only guide we have], within a short time, Hamas will challenge and beat the P.A., gain control and begin firing... [snip]

The other state, now Israel, will not only have to defend itself from terrorist and rocket attacks on all borders, it will need to open its doors to millions of Arabs, who have fabricated a “right” to return to Israel rather than a “right” of return to a Palestinian State.

Israel will then face destruction from within... [snip]

The President certainly doesn’t publicly chastise the Palestinian and other Arabs who reject a Jewish state as he did Israel’s Prime Minister for rejecting another terrorist state on Israel’s border.

The President praises the proposal for two states as an `important step` forward even though Palestinians and their Arab brothers have for over 60 years flatly rejected countless proposals for two-states if one of those states happens to be Jewish...

[Another sham. Again and again, our 'leaders' speak of a "two state solution" and our 'professional' media never ask any of them to name those two states...]

READ MORE

Obama`s Real Agenda: Israel`s Dimona Nuclear Facility

[HT:DT {2nd demerit for again not 'briefing'}]

And any nation - including Iran - should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the Treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal."

Pres. Barack Obama, June 4, 2009

As a policy statement, this means that America (or any other country) cannot deny the right of any country to WMD. It undercuts the reasons for America`s attack in Iraq, assents to nuclear proliferation and precludes any action against Iran.

It also turns the focus on Israel.

Amidst all of the distortions and inaccuracies of Pres Obama`s speech in Cairo, this paragraph sends chills through Israel`s intelligence community. Obama`s emphasis on a commitment to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, something which Israel has refused to agree, since that means opening all of its facilities to inspection - including its top secret plant in Dimona - is a direct threat to Israel`s security.

Aware of Israel`s long-standing policy in this matter, Obama shifts the attack. By linking support for Israel against Iran with the existence of Dimona and Israel's refusal to sign the pact, Obama can blame Israel for American inaction against Iran, and lack of support for its war in Afghanistan.

It`s a perfect excuse: `Israel didn`t do enough; it`s Israel`s fault.`

[Shameful. 'With friends like us... ]

READ MORE

Carter Wants Obama to Remove Hamas from Terror List

[HT:DT {-3rd demerit for not 'briefing' - you're pushing it}]

Carter’s comments came during a joint press conference with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh following their meeting today in Gaza. The former president said he tried to convince Hamas leaders to denounce violence, accept the existing interim agreements and recognize the right of the Jewish state to exist.

Haniyeh told Carter that he supported any plan that aims at preserving Arab rights and leads to the establishment of a sovereign Arab state on all the territories that were occupied by Israel in 1967 "with Jerusalem as its capital." He urged Carter to pressure Israel to lift the security blockade which was imposed on Gaza’s border crossings to prevent weapons smuggling. [presumably so they could flow once more]

During his visit Carter handed over a letter from kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit’s [kidnapped on 25 June 2006 by Palestinian militants] parents and asked the group to deliver it on humanitarian grounds.

Haniyeh said Hamas desired to end the Shalit case [prove it: free him] and welcomed Carter's mediation [media] efforts [exposure].

[Some things are recession proof: useful idiocy is alive and well...]

READ MORE

Gilad Shalit (image courtesy of the Shalit family)

"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

.

[spot the example that's not funny]

image toon = israel gwot islm = Iran's idiot 3 truth examples

Earnest goodwill doesn't substitute for foreign policy

President Obama likes to see himself as a pragmatist, but in foreign policy he is proving to be a supreme idealist of the Woodrow Wilson variety.

Like Wilson's, Obama's foreign policy increasingly seems to rest on the assumption that nations will act on the basis of what they perceive to be the goodwill, good intentions or moral purity of other nations, in particular the United States. If other nations have refused to cooperate with us, it is because they perceive the United States as aggressive or evil. [snip]

In the speech, the Washington Post reports, "Obama made his own biography the starting point for a new U.S. relationship with Islam." Or as the New York Times put it, while "the president offered few details on how to solve problems around the globe," his basic argument "boiled down to this: Barack Hussein Obama was standing on the podium in this Muslim capital as the American president." [I.e., all about him. snip]

The last president who sincerely pursued this approach was Woodrow Wilson. He, too, believed that the display of evident goodwill and desire for peace, uncorrupted by the base motives of national interest or ambition, gave him the special moral authority to sway other nations. And Wilson was as beloved around the globe as Obama is today, possibly more beloved, at least for a moment.

His gifts to persuade, however, proved ephemeral, and the results of his efforts were, from his own perspective, an utter failure...

READ MORE

image toon - gwot nsec intl = kim nkorea to Oby = still want to talk

GM needs fresh start from UAW, too

In March of this year, GM President Rick Wagoner was forced to resign at the insistence of the Obama administration. That Ron Gettelfinger, Wagoner's counterpart at the UAW, has clung to his own position is an injustice, but one that could easily be remedied with some pressure from Deese. Continuing to invite Gettelfinger to the table for restructuring talks makes as much sense as tapping Bernie Madoff to reform the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Gettelfinger oversaw the implementation of a UAW contract that runs to more than 1,110 pages, nearly five times larger than the nimble non-union contract Toyota works with. While GM bled $70 billion during the past two years, Gettelfinger resisted all significant cost-savings measures while loudly trumpeting trivial concessions like eliminating Viagra from the UAW health plan and giving up the Easter Monday holiday.

GM's workforce has seen countless layoffs and plant closures caused by deep-rooted union legacy costs and head-in-the-sand denial. When GM made a last-ditch attempt at viability by trying to restructure in 2007, the union instigated a futile 41-hour "shot across the bow" strike that in many ways sealed the automaker's fate.

The UAW has failed its members, and GM will never be competitive with the UAW's noose around its neck. The American public is set to become 60 percent shareholders, so we've all got a stake in Brian Deese's performance. We the shareholders can only hope that President Obama's fledgling car czar will exceed expectations, make the tough call, and sever the union cord for good.

The UAW had a good run, but it's time to go...

READ MORE

80% want government to sell its stake in Car Companies Now

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 11% disagree and want the government to retain ownership for a long time.

Support for ending the government ownership is so strong that 64% favor a proposal that would force the government to sell the auto companies within a year. Only 26% are opposed.

Voters feel nearly as strongly about the ownership interest the government has taken in several bailed-out U.S. banks. Seventy-one percent (71%) say the government should sell that ownership to private investors as soon as possible.

READ MORE


Americans Have Voted ‘No' on GM Bailout From Day One

When GM came begging to the federal government last fall, driven to the brink of bankruptcy by poor management, high labor costs and a faltering economy, America signaled that the love affair was over. In survey after survey since, Rasmussen Reports has found that Americans are not in a bailout mood, for GM or anybody.

In November just after the election, 45% of Americans were opposed to the loans, 35% favored them, and 20% were undecided. Four-out-of-five (80%) were concerned the government would get too involved in the private economy.

That same month, nearly half of U.S. voters (48%) said it was better for the economy to let companies like General Motors fail rather than providing government subsidies to keep them in business.

READ MORE

Once, We Would Have Called It a Scandal

In 1921, oil tycoon Harry Sinclair gave several prize head of cattle and around $269,000 to President Harding's Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall.

In return, Sinclair got the exclusive rights to drill in an oil field in Wyoming. Sinclair's no-bid contract became the Teapot Dome scandal, the most notorious example of political corruption in America prior to Watergate.

Between 2000 and 2008, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union gave $23,675,562 to the Democratic Party and its candidates.

In 2008 alone, the UAW gave $4,161,567 to the Democratic Party and Barack Obama.

"At a Time When Some American Workers are Facing Stiff Pay Cuts, UAW Workers Gave Up Their Customary Paid Holiday on Easter Monday"

In return, the UAW received 55 percent of Chrysler and 17.5 percent of GM, plus billions of dollars.

"Never Has an American Union Done So Well At the Expense of Shareholders and Creditors"

But nobody's calling this a scandal.

"The issue of secured creditors' rights is bigger than Chrysler. It's an essential foundation of our capital markets. And fundamentally, this is about the law."

It's time we start.

READ MORE

image toon - sclm bbro auto = How goes GM goes the nation...

GOVERNMENT'S PROFLIGATE FISCAL POLICIES LIKELY TO LEAD TO 1970S-STYLE STAGFLATION

Rather than cure Great Britain's economic recession, Gordon Brown's current fiscal policies are more likely to lead to 1970s-style stagflation, says David B. Smith, a professor at the University of Derby:

• Using the 2009 Budget forecasts, Smith calculates that next year the ratio of government expenditure to national income will rise to 53.4 percent, the highest ratio since World War II and 6.9 percent above the peak recorded in World War I.
• The ratio of public expenditure to private spending, which was 92.4 percent in 2008, will rise to 107 percent in 2009 and 114.5 percent in 2010 -- the highest burden since 1945; the private sector will therefore have to carry more than its own weight in government activity.
• To fund this, public sector net borrowing will increase from 8 percent of national income in 2008-09, to 14.1 percent in 2009-10, and 13.5 percent in 2011-12.

This represents the longest and largest run of fiscal deficits in Britain's peacetime history. There must be serious doubt whether deficits on this scale can be financed in a non-inflationary manner, without very large capital inflows from abroad. And it is hard to see why such inflows should be forthcoming now that the British economy has become so highly taxed by international standards.

[Sound familiar? And by a trivial 2/10th of a percent (49.7 v 49.9%), America is the second highest taxed industrial nation in the world...

and of course; FLASHBACK >

US Budget Deficit: $1.8T; Debt to GDP Ratio Hits Shocking 70% ]

READ MORE

Will Widespread Global Cooling Reports Freeze Al Gore Media Credibility?

It is "an inconvenient truth" for Al Gore that the world is currently experiencing some of the coldest weather in decades. Just how cold? How about snow in Saudi Arabia in May according to this report?

According to a story in the Saudi Gazette and sourced to the American News Agency, the Associated Press, snow fell in Al-Baha city, to the south-west of Riyadh, on Tuesday.

If this were the only such report, it could be written off as just an isolated incident of freak weather. Unfortunately for Al Gore's credibility there have been widespread reports of unseasonably cold weather from many sources including a story yesterday in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about a "year without summer"...

[A: nope; there's too much money at stake to give up.]

READ MORE

Al Gore invests millions to make billions in cap-and-trade software

Al Gore’s venture capital firm has invested $6 million in a software company that stands to make billions of dollars from cap-and-trade regulation — further fueling controversy that Gore lied about his profiteering from cap-and-trade to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee during testimony in April.

READ MORE

State Department Says China to Get U.S. Aid under New Climate Deal

(CNSNews.com) - U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern said that there was “no question” that China would receive both financial and technological assistance from the United States as part of upcoming climate change talks to be conducted in Copenhagen, Denmark.

China, called a developing country by the U.N., is being given a special definition by U.S. negotiators who want any final agreement to reflect that despite its vast swaths of undeveloped rural countryside, China is rapidly urbanizing, boasting fully modern cities.

Regardless, the United States will be spreading the wealth China’s way, helping them to meet whatever final carbon emissions reduction goals come out of Copenhagen.

The Copenhagen talks are part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the U.N. body responsible for negotiating the Kyoto Protocol and its successor treaty, negotiation of which will be finalized in Copenhagen this December

]What's our trade deficit with that nation again?]

READ MORE

.

Raising taxes by the mile

During the 2008 presidential campaign, President Obama endeared himself to many voters with a promise that 95 percent of Americans would get a tax cut and those making under $250,000

"would not see a single dime of tax increase - not on anything."

Since Obama won and he's already spent so much, it was only a matter of time before this promise too went by the wayside...

READ MORE

The Russians, Arabs, Drug Cartels and our Southern Border

immig
On June 3rd Sara Carter and the Washington Times reported, “Al-Qaeda Eyes Anthrax Attack On U.S from Mexico.” The story is based on an Al-Qaeda recruitment video first broadcast back in February on Al Jazeera.

In it, Kuwaiti dissident Abdullah al-Nafisi tells a roomful of people that Al-Qaeda is currently casing the U.S. border with Mexico to see how they could smuggle weapons through border tunnels and into the U.S....

READ MORE


Meanwhile, in the SRM {State Run Media}...


CBS: Immigration Raid Left Iowa Town’s Economy ‘In Tatters’

On Saturday, CBS’s Anthony Mason blamed tough economic times in a small Iowa town on immigration enforcement:

"...the small town of Postville, Iowa, is still struggling to recover from an immigration raid last year that left its economy in tatters."

In November, Doane issued an almost identical report on the impact of the raid on the Early Show:

"With empty streets and shuttered shops, this small town is facing economic calamity. Mayor Bob Penrod is taking steps this weekend to declare a state of emergency here. But it's not a natural disaster. Rather, one that's manmade...It all started May 12th, when hundreds of federal immigration authorities raided Agriprocessors and arrested 389 workers."

What Doane failed to report in both stories was the numerous labor law violations that Agriprocessors has been accused of by many of the illegal immigrants who once worked at the Postville plant. A July 27, 2008 article in the New York Times detailed those allegations: ...

[Again and again: portraying the law breakers as the victims.]

READ MORE

The Civil Rights Challenge of Our Time

edu
An incensed Andrew Sullivan -- homosexual journalist and activist -- told CNN anchor Anderson Cooper the other night that Barack Obama is ducking the "core civil rights challenge of his time."

Most recently, and flagrantly, was the announcement that Obama would sit by and allow Congress to pull the plug on the five-year old voucher program enabling 1700 kids in Washington, DC to attend private schools. This despite a new study from Obama's own Department of Education saying that these kids outperformed their peers in DC public schools in reading. And that the vouchers, valued up to $7500 per scholarship, cost less than half the $17,000 per student that DC spends to maintain one of the worst public school systems in the country.

Today's real minority group is low to middle income parents who want their children educated with traditional values. Of the 1700 kids in DC's soon to be defunct voucher program, 879 had been attending Catholic elementary or high schools.

Liberating our kids from the cesspools in our urban areas that we call public schools is the great "civil rights challenge" of our time.

[Recommended > ]

READ MORE

WaPo Highlights D.C. Graduation Speaker Denouncing 'Snarl of Hatred' of Pro-Lifers at Notre Dame

edu msm vals
[once again; if you disagree with the left, it's because you 'hate']

READ MORE

image toon - vals libs crpt - Notre Dame degree next to abortion trophys

On Gov. Palin All the Lies Fit to Print

It seems that Froma Harrop of Creator's Syndicate news service was on vacation from just about five days before the general election until today and she's just catching up on all the Palin hatin' she must have missed. Unfortunately for Harrop, she still hasn't caught up with the truth yet because her latest is filled with every lie about Governor Palin she could jam into one column.

In hers headlined, "Palin should move to TV talk show," Harrop proves that she should move from Creator’s Syndiacte to the National Enquirer...

[why the continuing attacks? A: genuine fear - of genuine conservatives]

READ MORE

Trip Outside shows Palin's national star still blazes

Gov. Sarah Palin returned to the national stage in a big way this past week, rocketing back into the national consciousness with her David Letterman feud, slams on the Obama administration and drama with national Republican leaders.

"Katie Couric doesn't have a lot of fans in Des Moines, Iowa, and Manchester, New Hampshire,"

Mueller said.

"Sarah Palin does."

READ MORE


Sarah Palin, the 21st Century 'It' Girl

The best and the brightest on the left go into politics. The best on the right run their own businesses. So it is no surprise that the left is far more adept, even expert at the art of hardball politics. And they are telling us something profound.

The left is telling us something many feel, many know intuitively; that Sarah Palin is the most dangerous threat to the Obama administration...

READ MORE