Amid terror threat, Dems chip away at Patriot Act

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Byron York of the Washington Examiner focused attention on an unfolding story the liberal media doesn't want to highlight.

Some key parts of the Patriot Act are set to expire in December. Since the Democrats didn't really favor a War on Terror, their preference for the civil liberties of terrorist suspects over the civil liberties of future terrorist victims is becoming clear.

Even roving wiretaps, a widely accepted, common-sense feature of the Patriot Act, have come under question. At a Sept. 23 committee hearing, Sen. Al Franken, the newest member of the committee, challenged the constitutionality of such wiretaps, and in the process left an Obama Justice Department official -- who supports the law -- muttering in frustration.

That official, Assistant Attorney General David Kris, tried to explain to Franken that the law allows, and the courts have held, that investigators can wiretap a suspect based on a specific description of that suspect's activities, even if investigators don't know his name.

Franken, who pointed out that he is not a lawyer, was unimpressed. "That's what brings me to this," he said, pulling a copy of the Constitution from his coat pocket. He read aloud the Fourth Amendment re: unreasonable searches...


Kris seemed taken aback. "This is surreal," he said under his breath.

Indeed it was. Maybe Franken was serious, and maybe he was just clowning around. But it didn't make for an enlightening exchange -- or bode well for the Patriot Act.

Now the committee is down to the business of crafting an actual bill to reauthorize the act. Republicans believe they can beat back some of the more sweeping changes, but they are under no illusions about the Democratic majority's power to chip away at the government's ability to fight terrorism.

"I'm very worried that we could end up weakening the act, when we should be considering what we can do to make it stronger."

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Overstaying Their Welcome

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But for too many politicians, and even ordinary folks, support for border security is a cop out, a substitute for thinking about the overall immigration problem, only part of which has anything to do with our border with Mexico.

One vital issue that is neglected because of this tunnel-vision on border fences is visa overstays. The Dallas jihadist shows how important this is; I suspected he was an overstayer, and the Dallas Morning News confirmed [snip]

The brothers lived in a Santa Clara, Calif., apartment with an older relative until February 2008, when a small fire forced them to move. Smadi told his apartment manager, Joe Redzovic, that the family had come to America for a better life.

And when local cops checked on the Jordanian jihadist after an arrest earlier this month for not having a driver's license or insurance, they had no idea was an illegal alien... [snip]

So, are we getting serious about completing US-VISIT, the check-in/check-out system for foreign visitors? Of course not. This from a reader who works for a firm that worked on US-VISIT:

The outgoing part of USVISIT (Phase 2) – that would be the part that matched passports as people left, to make sure a) there was a record of them entering the US legally; b) the records showed that they had indeed left on or before the date stated on their entry papers; and c) that officials could compile lists of those who had NOT left on time so that they could be tracked – has never been funded...

We go round and round with the consulting firm each year, wondering if the Congress would fund the outgoing part of USVISIT – to no avail. They’ve finally dropped technical support for Phase 1, as they see no hope for funding for Phase 2...

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image toon - gwot nsec - Oby's neutered guard dog poodle

Prominent ‘Moderate’ Islamic Leader Linked to Terror

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Qatar’s Al-Qaradawi Center, which aims to direct its "moderation" towards "politicians and economists," train imams, and show the "huge difference between terrorism and jihad," is named for a scholar who has advocated killing Americans.

"The Islamic Movement should consider itself at the 'beck and call' of every Islamic Cause and respond to every cry for help wherever that cry may come from. It should stand with Eritrea in its jihad against the unjust Marxist Christian regime . . . It should stand by Sudan against the treacherous Christian racist rebellion . . . It should support the Muslims of Philippines against the biased Christian regime . . It should also help the Muslims of Kashmir in their struggle against Indian imperialism . . . Hamas is an embodiment of the Palestinian people's belief in its Muslim and Arab origins, and that jihad will be carried on by pure hands and clean hearts until victory is achieved with the Will of Allah."

"Conquest through da'wa [proselytizing], that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through da'wa."

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All Campus Free Speech Is Acceptable - Except About Islam

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As yet more evidence that American campuses have become, in Abigail Thernstrom's apt description,

"islands of repression in a sea of freedom,"

St. Louis University has demonstrated that that free speech on campuses begins and ends according to how well that speech conforms to existing political orthodoxies.

The University's College Republicans and Young America's Foundation had invited conservative author David Horowitz to deliver a speech entitled, "An Evening with David Horowitz: Islamo-Fascism Awareness and Civil Rights," and university administrators, once again choosing to avoid a close examination of radical Islam, canceled Horowitz's planned appearance.

Their decision seems to belie the University's own feckless contention, in its "Policy Statement on Demonstrations & Disruption," that it

"encourages students, faculty and staff to be bold, independent, and creative thinkers," and that "fundamental to this process is the creation of an environment that respects the rights of all members of the University community to explore and to discuss questions which interest them, to express opinions and debate issues energetically and publicly"

There are troubling issues here, putting aside the basic question of fairness of denying certain students, with certain political beliefs, the opportunity to invite speakers to campus to share their views. Horowitz's speech was cancelled (and he has appeared, by his own account, on more than 400 campuses in the past), not because it might contain speech that was demonstrably false or even incendiary, but because some individuals might be ‘offended'...

[It's getting worse - Highly Recommended > ]

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THE MESSAGE OF DOLLAR DISDAIN

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With U.S. debt set to exceed 100 percent of gross domestic product in 2011, it's no wonder people are looking for alternative ways to preserve wealth...

Unprecedented spending, unending fiscal deficits, unconscionable accumulations of government debt: These are the trends that are shaping America's financial future.

Even with the optimistic economic assumptions implicit in the Obama administration's budget, it's a mathematical impossibility to reduce debt if you continue to spend more than you take in:

By the end of 2019, according to the administration's budget numbers, our federal debt will reach $23.3 trillion -- as compared to $11.9 trillion today. To put it in perspective:

• U.S. federal debt was equal to 61.4 percent of GDP in 1999.
• It grew to 70.2 percent of GDP in 2008 (under the Bush administration).
• It will climb to an estimated 90.4 percent this year and touch the 100 percent mark in 2011.
• The projected federal debt will continue to equal or exceed our nation's entire annual economic output through 2019.

Source: Judy Shelton, "The Message of Dollar Disdain," Wall Street Journal, October 14, 2009.

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Obama The Impotent: A Dangerous Delusion

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A meme is forming in the popular consciousness that Barack Obama is a do-nothing president. This meme is a dangerous fantasy: Obama is doing much, and much that is destructive to both our economic health and our national security.

The Obama administration has vowed to "reset" our relations with strategic adversaries like Russia -- a country which has been gobbling up and threatening its smaller democratic neighbors. Obama is equally proud of his "outstretched hand" to declared enemies like Iran, which for years provided the Iraqi insurgents with the munitions to kill American soldiers, and which recently has been shooting its own people in the streets. Meanwhile, loyal allies like Poland and the Czech Republic are sold out and left defenseless when Obama reneged on the long-planned deployment of anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe.

The administration's disastrous economic stewardship has destroyed the dollar. Countries all over the world are reportedly preparing to ditch the dollar as the reserve currency; experts warn of a global shift away from a dollar-centric world economy. Here at home, Obama's economy continues to hemorrhage jobs, with unemployment now nudging near 10 percent -- 17 percent if you count those who have given up looking for work altogether, or those who have had to take part-time work because they can't find full-time employment. Obama's budget and stimulus package, packed with pork and political paybacks, have exploded the deficit to a ruinous and record $1.4 trillion

No, far from being a do-nothing president, Obama is in fact a busy body of the worst sort: He is bombing the moon instead of Iran's nuclear facilities; he deploys himself to Europe to help bring the Olympics to Chicago, but fails to deploy the troops necessary to win the war in Afghanistan.

And it is our children who will pay the price for all of this -- they will live with a maniacal Islamist regime blackmailing the free world with nuclear weapons; they will struggle to pay this enormous and disgraceful debt that Obama is shoveling onto their backs...

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TAKING THE NATIONAL DEBT SERIOUSLY

The interest on the national debt makes our future unstable

• As of Sept. 30, 2009, the national debt was almost $12 trillion and interest on that debt was $383 billion for the year, according to the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Public Debt.
• The Congressional Budget Office on Oct. 7 estimated the 2009 budget deficit to be almost $1.4 trillion (about 10 percent of GDP).
• In August, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimated total government revenues at about $2 trillion; the revenue estimate included $904 billion from individual income taxes.
• This means the cost of interest alone on the debt represented more than 40 cents of every dollar that came in from individual income taxes.

Left unchecked, this destructive deficit-debt cycle will leave the White House and Congress with either having to default on the national debt or instruct the Treasury to run the printing presses into a policy of hyperinflation.

It is against this background that Washington is now working to add health care entitlements of record breaking cost...

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image toon - mny = USam's empty pockets getting deeper

POLL: Most Want Government To Sell Amtrak, GM and Chrysler

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Amtrak and the ownership stakes in General Motors and Chrysler can go, as far as voters are concerned.

Just 28% say the government should retain ownership of the Amtrak rail service for a long time. Fifty-seven percent (57%) think the government should sell Amtrak to private investors as soon as possible. Fifteen percent (15%) aren’t sure.

Voters feel even more strongly that the government should sell off its ownership stakes in General Motors and Chrysler.

Seventy-six percent (76%) say the government should sell its ownership of the auto companies to private investors as soon as possible. Only 11% disagree and think the government should retain its shares of GM and Chrysler for a long time. These views remain virtually unchanged from June.

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image toon - sclm bbro auto = Oby does-doesn't want to direct car companies

Gore On The Grill

An inconvenient truth Al Gore can't bear, one that seals the case against his claim

The United Kingdom's High Court in London determined that An Inconvenient Truth contains "alarmist and exaggerated" content which can only be legally shown to school children if accompanied by a warning regarding the film's blatant "political brainwashing."

In his ruling, Judge Michael Burton said the "apocalyptic vision presented in the film was politically partisan and thus not an impartial scientific analysis of climate change."

Judge Burton mandated the creation of the detailed instructor's guide which is now required to be used by teachers in the U.K. in conjunction with classroom viewings of the movie. In its introduction, the guide states:

"...in parts of the film, Gore presents evidence and arguments which do not accord with mainstream scientific opinion."

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CBO Says Climate Bill Will Hurt Not Help Economy

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The director of the Congressional Budget Office warned the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that proposed climate change legislation would impose "significant costs" on America's GDP and employment. That’s not exactly what proponents had promised.

According to CBO chief Douglas Elmendorf, the Waxman-Markey bill passed in the House last June would reduce GDP and equate to the average household annual costs of up to $925. Hardly the “cost of a postage stamp” promised by the White House.

And the CBO director admitted that even those figures may be severely understated:

"The uncertainties are very large, even for 2020, and they get larger over time”

He identified one of the uncertainties of “the cost of reducing carbon emissions” as just “how readily the economy can move" in response, admitting that the CBO is only "guessing the rate."

The highest accounting authority in the land is only guessing the rate used in its cost analysis of the proposed largest tax-hike in history?

Wow hardly covers it.

['Insanity' works better. If we're dumb enough to allow this we deserve the consequences - but our children?]

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imag toon - grn engry - C&T pills: over 47M bought it

Government Behavioral Control Through Health Care

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North Carolina is about to become the second state to penalize its employees for being obese, with government workers who are overweight to pay more for their health insurance.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 63% are opposed to making overweight government workers pay more for health coverage.

A number of states penalize smokers already, but Alabama in January of this year became the first state to charge overweight employees more for their health insurance coverage...

[And within the same year is joined by a second.

Any remaining question as to how government control of health care will evolve? A: At the expense of your liberties.

Next up, meat eaters. Then high risk takers: mountain climb? hang glide? ride a motorcycle?

The list only expands, so it will eventually get to what's important to you...]

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AP Howler: Snowe, Not Palin, Is 'Real GOP Maverick'

[Right. And running a 'moderate', say, someone like McCain, is the path to electoral victory. There's a reason the Left is so interested and full of advice on what would be 'good' for the GOP...]


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Why people like Palin

She isn’t another summa cum laude graduate from Princeton like Sonia Sotomayor. She doesn’t strike anyone as an academic, or even draw upon her education during interviews with the media in order to impress upon people her knowledge and insights. That's what makes her so alluring to millions of Americans, and a fair share of Canadians, in the first place.

What makes her so popular is that she doesn't impress people with her five different institutions of education, or how many books she has written on Russian foreign policy. No, she manages it by what she accomplishes and, equally important to the vast majority of Americans, how and why she does so.

It doesn’t matter whether she 'finished' one term in office as Governor, or if she looked lost in one interview, or even that her book will likely be panned by elitist reviewers. Her supporters continues among the same people who aren’t going anywhere soon: the average American with 2 cars, and 3 or more kids, football practice during the week, hunting and fishing on the weekends, and the “down home” family values that seem to say “we’re not perfect, but we’re trying”.

You can’t buy that kind of “in” with the people. It has to come naturally, and that’s why Sarah Palin fits the bill.

[Which is why the left is so dreadfully afraid of her, as evidenced by the ceaseless ludicrous attacks.]

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Sen. Kerry: ‘Too bad’ Gov. Sarah Palin didn’t go missing

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Kerry must have been channeling his inner Letterman:

“Too bad, if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin."

The Democratic-centric crowd laughed.


[The fear continues...]

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image toon - 1st fnn reps libs - Oby's list of accomplishments = all no's

Nobel Dynamite

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"His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

- Nobel Peace Prize Committee of the Norwegian Parliament
announcing the award to Barack Obama of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace.

The unambiguous message of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee of the Storting, Norway's parliament, is candidly stated in the public announcement of the Prize.

It is the dream of a world in which the role of the United States of America in all respects is vastly diminished.

That's the message of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

Through our history, the success and survival of the American Experiment have depended on the approval of no potentates, pundits, philosopher-kings, or peoples chained to the old orders. They have resented us for it, but they have been able to do nothing about it, because America's fate was in the hands of the American people, and the Americans knew, understood, treasured, and defended their heritage of constitutional liberty.

Until now.

Are Americans still revolutionaries, free and brave, determined to go our own way, the benighted "values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population" be damned?

Do we still "yearn to breathe free"? Or have we sold our birthright for a mess of pottage, of the cradle-to-grave "security" that is promised, in varying visions, by those old men in power in Oslo, Teheran, and Beijing?

It's not about Barack Obama.

It's about the United States of America and its role in history and in the world.

It's is about us.

[Recommended > ]

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image toon 1st owg = Oby peace prize knock-knock joke

Robert Reich Reveals Brutal Health Care Truths; MSM Snores

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Paging Congressman Alan Grayson! Here is a quote that validates what you said about those EVIL Republicans:

"We're going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive...so we're going to let you die."

So it turns out that Grayson was right when he said "Republicans want you to die quickly." Only one "little" problem here. That quote did not come from a Republican. In fact it came from the very liberal former Labor Secretary Robert Reich who is now an economics adviser for Barack Obama.

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THE LESSON OF STATE HEALTH CARE REFORMS

The major provisions of ObamaCare already have been tried and they've led to increased costs and reduced access to care

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously envisioned the states serving as laboratories, trying "novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." And on health care, that's just what they've done, says Peter Suderman, an associate editor at Reason magazine.

The results have been dramatically increased premiums in the individual market, spiraling public health care costs, and reduced access to care. In other words: The reforms have failed. New York is exhibit A:

• In 1993, the state prohibited insurers from declining to cover individuals with pre-existing health conditions ("guaranteed issue").
• New York also required insurers to charge those enrolled in their plans the same premium, regardless of health status, age or sex ("community rating").
• The goal was to reduce the number of uninsured by making health insurance more accessible, particularly to those who don't have employer-provided insurance.

It hasn't worked out very well, according to a Manhattan Institute study released last month by Stephen T. Parente, a professor of finance at the University of Minnesota and Tarren Bragdon:

• In 1994, there were just under 752,000 individuals enrolled in individual insurance plans, or about 4.7 percent of the nonelderly population.
• This put New York roughly in line with the rest of the United States.
• Today, that percentage has dropped to just 0.2 percent of the state's nonelderly.
• In contrast, between 1994 and 2007, the total number of people insured in the individual market across the United States rose to 5.5 percent from 4.5 percent.

Despite state-level failures, President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are pushing forward just such 'reforms'...

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