.
I think we are going to see, incrementally, perhaps, a rise in the ratings of former president Bush. Iraq is proving to be amazingly resilient, not only functioning as a democracy, but by withstanding the best efforts of Iran to kill it off, proving destabilizing to Iran itself.
By removing Saddam, and trying to isolate Ahmadinejad and appeal to the Iranian people, Bush at least tried to prep the landscape for democratic change....
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Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Thugophilia Isn't Moral
NYT's Friedman: Democracy Spreading in Mideast Thanks to Bush
[Yes, that Friedman...]
Neither did I, but much to my surprise, such was said by Thomas Friedman in his most recent piece entitled "Winds of Change?"
Readers are strongly advised to fasten their seatbelts tightly across their waists, for you are about to enter an alternate media reality:
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CBS Publishes New Republic Piece Comparing Bush to Ahmadinejad
In today's "Will Bush Derangement Syndrome Ever End" segment, CBSNews.com published an article from The New Republic comparing Iran's crazed leader who believes the holocaust never happened and Israel should be wiped off the face of the planet to -- wait for it! -- America's 43rd president.
Isn't that special?
In a piece hysterically titled "Meet Iran's George W. Bush," author Laura Secor said Iran's upcoming elections (this is from last Monday) were similar to ours in 2004...
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MSNBC Suggests Obama Helped Defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon
On Tuesday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann suggested that President Obama’s speech in Cairo may have been responsible for the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon’s parliamentary elections which occurred a few days after the speech.
After a clip of Obama’s speech, the MSNBC host continued: "Three days later, voters in Lebanon elected an American-backed coalition instead of a Hezbollah-backed coalition."
But as Olbermann discussed the possibility that Obama had a hand in the results, he neglected to inform viewers that the apparent 71 out of 128 seats won by pro-Western candidates in 2009 is nearly identical to the 72 won in the last such round of elections in 2005.
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Olbermann Calls Dick Cheney 'As Insane As Any Terrorist'
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has said a lot of disgraceful things in his tenure as "Countdown" host, but on Thursday evening, he attacked former Vice President Dick Cheney in a fashion that should make all of America's enemies both here and abroad proud."Neurotic, paranoid, false to fact and false to reason, forever self-rationalizing his inner rage at his own impotence, and failure dripping from every word, and as irrational, as separated from the real world, as dishonest, as insane as any terrorist; the former vice president has today humiliated himself beyond redemption."
But that was just the beginning, for moments later, Olbermann said Cheney was "culpable, morally, ethically" for 9/11: "At best, you are guilty of malfeasance and eternally lasting stupidity. At worst, sir, in the deaths of 9/11, you are negligent."
What follows is a video of this abomination along with a full transcript, some lowlights, and videos of Cheney's actual speech:
[And MSNBC is losing viewership - I can't understand it.]
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FLASHBACK s >
Cheney's Top Ten Points Every American Should Consider
CBS’s Schieffer Admits Cheney ‘Winning’ Security Debate
Cheney vs. Obama: A Mismatch
Favorable opinion of Dick Cheney on the rise
.Why is Dennis Ross being ousted as Obama envoy to Iran?
Washington insiders speculate that Obama has caved to Iran's persistent refusal to accept Ross as a U.S. emissary given the diplomat's Jewish background as well as his purported pro-Israel leanings.
Diplomatic sources in Jerusalem surmised that another possibility for Ross' ouster is his just-released book, "Myths, Illusions, and Peace - Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East."
Ross, who co-wrote the book with David Makovsky, a former journalist who is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argued against a linkage between the Palestinian issue and the West's policy against Iran's nuclear ambitions...
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Q&A: Caroline Glick on Netanyahu & the World
GLICK: Obama and his advisors have made clear that their view on the settlements is not based on facts. It is based on their acceptance of the false Arab narrative of the Middle East conflict. They accept Arab historical revisionism that places the cart before the horse by claiming that Israel’s presence in the disputed territories is the cause of the conflict when in fact Israel’s presence in the disputed territories is a consequence of their continuous attempts to invade and destroy Israel. Since the Obama administration’s view is based on a false assertion, it is impermeable to fact and rational argument and therefore it is unlikely to change.
GLICK: It is very significant for Israel and world Jewry and perhaps for Israel’s supporters that Netanyahu responded to Obama’s Cairo speech. That speech was full of distortions of Jewish history and deeply dismissive of the Jewish claims to our homeland. It was absolutely necessary for Netanyahu to respond to Obama’s false and hideous assertion that Israel owes its creation to the Holocaust. And in explaining that the Holocaust could only happen because Israel didn’t exist at the time and by setting out the true 3,500-year-old Jewish connection to the land Netanyahu provided a necessary corrective to Obama’s move to write the Jewish people out of the history of the Middle East. Here too, Obama’s position is based on an Arab myth that the Jews are interlopers in the region.
GLICK: If the Palestinians follow through with their threat to renew their terror war against Israel it will be quite bad. This is so not because Israel will be unable to defend itself. Israel has the means to defend itself. It will be quite bad because, in light of the hostile treatment Israel is suffering at the hands of the Obama administration, and given the central role the U.S. under Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton is playing in arming and training the Palestinian army that will likely be attacking Israeli targets in Judea and Samaria, the U.S. may well side with the Arabs against Israel. The administration is already placing limitations on arms sales to Israel. In this event, Israel will have to move quickly to find other suppliers.
[Highly Recommended > ]
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'U.S. Jewish leaders deeply troubled by Obama'
There is growing concern among the American Jewish community over Obama's Mideast initiatives, this according to the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein.
''President Obama's strongest supporters among Jewish leaders are deeply troubled by his recent Middle East initiatives, and some are questioning what he really believes'' ... ''I've heard it from some of his strongest supporters.''
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Obama to Jews: I'm just not that into you
.
American Jews and Israel would do well to take a page from the book of Saul Alinsky, who provides the radical underpinning for much of how the Obama left sees the world:
[rember this?]"As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be."
It is [past] time for American Jews to leave the Democratic Party.
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Monday, June 15, 2009
MAYDAY!...NEVER MIND
As the flu panic recedes, we are left to contemplate this embarrassing fact: we've done it again. That is, responded to a modest risk with a dangerous stampede. The tendency seems to be built into our genes, or into the self-interest of big headlines and high ratings and of government and international health officials, says Michael Fumento, a health writer with a specialty in epidemiology.
To put the risks in perspective:
- Seasonal flu infects 15 million to 60 million Americans a year, hospitalizing 200,000 and killing 36,000.
- The new swine flu has so far killed only 15 in the United States, including one Mexican national who came here for treatment.
- Even in Mexico, where poor health care translates into higher mortality, the disease is not as widespread as we were led to believe; originally, the death count was reported at 159, but in actuality it is only 25.
However, the real threat is what hysteria will do to a sick global economy:
- The SARS panic cost the economies of East and Southeast Asia 0.6 percentage points of 2003 gross domestic product (GDP).
- Last year a World Bank report estimated that just the impact of avoiding infection during a flu pandemic, not the illness itself, would shave 1.9 percent off world GDP.
- Some poorer parts of the world -- including that containing Mexico -- would lose 2.9 percent of GDP.
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Politico's Cummings Whines Cheney's 'Made It Much Harder to Close Guantanamo'
So he's done an awful thing in daring to oppose something President Obama is “committed to doing.” Dreadful.
In fact, she soon charged that in complicating Obama's intention to close Guantanamo -- which Obama had announced without any plan for where to place the detainees -- “Cheney really did damage to the effort to keep our country secure [?] by turning this into a political issue. We were going to have to deal with this and to make it a political issue is not helpful. It's just not.”
To which columnist Charles Krauthammer retorted by pointing out the overwhelming bi-partisan vote to block the closing: “Cheney is the one who turned it into a political issue? I thought it was a 90-6 vote in the Senate. Just about every Democrat in the Senate-”
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Cheney's Top Ten Points Every American Should Consider
1. "I've heard occasional speculation that I'm a different man after 9/11. I wouldn't say that, but I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities."
2. "The first attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a law- enforcement problem, with everything handled after the fact: arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed."
3. "By presidential decision last month, we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public's right to know. We're informed as well that there was much agonizing over this decision. Yet somehow, when the soul searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth."
4. "It's hard to imagine a worse precedent filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessor. Apart from doing a serious injustice to intelligence operators and lawyers, who deserve far better for their devoted service, the danger here is a loss of focus on national security and what it requires."
5. "We had a lot of blind spots after the attacks on our country, things we didn't know about al Qaeda. We didn't know about al Qaeda's plans, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a few others did know. And with many thousands of innocent lives potentially in the balance, we did not think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all."
6. "On his second day in office, President Obama announced he was closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. This step came with little deliberation, and no plan. Now the president says some of these terrorists should be brought to American soil for trial in our court system. Others, he says, will be shipped to third countries; but so far, the United States has had little luck getting other countries to take hardened terrorists."
7. "The administration has found that it's easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo, but it's tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interest of justice and America's national security."
8. "If fine speechmaking, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field."
9. "It's worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the president himself. President Obama has used his declassification authority to reveal what happens in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what did not happen thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials."
10. "To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, 7- 1/2 years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized."It's indisputably an achievement of the Bush administration that it prevented the US from being attacked after 9/11. By ramming this point home, Cheney tees things up for some very tough questioning of Obama in the event that the US is attacked again.
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Middle East fertility wars
What does Hillary Rodham Clinton have against Jewish babies? Last week, the secretary of state issued a demarche to Tel Aviv stating that Washington "wants to see a stop to [West Bank] settlements - not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions."
The euphemism "natural growth" refers to children. About 9,600 babies were born in West Bank settlements in 2007, and the State Department views these bundles of joy as a threat to its precious peace process.
The new arrivals require larger houses, schools, playgrounds and other facilities, hence the need for the settlement growth that is upsetting Foggy Bottom. [despite no additional land being annexed - i.e., they're not to build housing additions as their families grow. Why is this important to Palestinians? ... ]
The no-baby declaration came as welcome news to Palestinians, who are rapidly losing their advantage in the breeding battle.
Aggressive international family-planning programs contributed to Palestinian fertility rates dropping almost 30 percent between 2003 and 2008, to 3.31 children born per woman. This compares to 2.77 births in Israel, which experienced a 10 percent increase over the same five-year time period. If these trends continue, Israelis will be outpacing Palestinians in a few years.
For this reason abortion is now a crime in the Palestinian Authority... [snip]
The State Department would do well to stay out of this issue.
The West Bank settlers will not respond well to finger-wagging from the United States over how many children they choose to have. Behind the euphemism "natural growth" are thousands of babies, girls and boys, who are objects of love and adoration of their doting parents.
Secretary Clinton's devotion to the peace process is a much less powerful force than the love of Israeli parents for their children....
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Judicial 'Activism' Isn't the Issue
Liberals and conservatives both show too much deference to Congress.
The growing dispute between conservatives and liberals over the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor obscures a more troubling point of agreement: The government should almost always win.
Many conservatives who think of themselves as proponents of limited government would be surprised to discover that conservative judges begin their constitutional analyses in almost every context by placing a thumb firmly on the government side of the scale. It's called "judicial deference." Many liberals, who take pride in being "empathetic," would be surprised to learn that liberal judges also subscribe to judicial deference.
The practical result is that judges of both persuasions almost never enforce any constitutional limit on the power of government to regulate property and the economy. Given that the vast majority of law concerns these two areas, the real crisis in constitutional law is not judicial "activism" but judicial passivism... [snip]
Bad government is usually the result of runaway government. And runaway government is usually the result of government exceeding its constitutional prerogatives. Because they have a far stronger stake in the integrity of checks and balances on government power than in the culture war, conservatives and liberals should declare a truce over "activism" and reflect on the need to take the whole Constitution seriously...
[Highly Recommended > ]
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44% Believe Constitution Doesn’t Restrict Government Enough
Eighty-three percent (83%) of voters nationwide rate the U.S. Constitution as good or excellent, and there is little public support for changing the document.
However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% believe the Constitution doesn't place enough restrictions on the government. Only 10% hold the opposite view and say the nation’s governing charter places too many restrictions on government. Thirty-eight percent (38%) say the balance is about right.
Those figures reflect a modest shift from a year ago. The number who believe that there are not enough restrictions on government is up five points while the number who see too many restrictions is down four points.
As on many issues, there is a huge gap between the Political Class and the rest of the nation. Most who share Political Class views believe the current constitutional balance is about right. But 50% of those with populist or Mainstream views believe that there aren’t enough restrictions on government.
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Judges Order Own $$ Hike
All those in favor of giving yourself a raise, say ''aye.'' A state appeals court yesterday ordered legislators to give New York's 1,250 judges a raise within 90 days, saying the lawmakers "abused their power" by not doing so.
[Does anyone not recognize how out of control our judiciary has become? It's past time it be fixed.]
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52% Still Fear Government Will ‘Help’ Economy Too Much
Most U.S. voters continue to worry that the federal government will do too much in reacting to the country’s current economic problems.
For the second month in a row, 52% of voters express concern about the possibility of too much government action, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. That’s up from a low of 43% in mid-February to and remains the highest level of concern since Barack Obama was elected president in November.
The survey was conducted just before the government took a 60% percent ownership stake in General Motors in exchange for an additional $30 billion in taxpayer funds to keep the auto giant in business. GM has already gotten $20 billion in government loans to stay afloat.
Sixty-seven percent (67%) of voters oppose the GM bailout deal, a view shared by most Americans for months...
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LEAP IN U.S. DEBT HITS TAXPAYERS WITH 12 PERCENT MORE RED INK
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Taxpayers are on the hook for an extra $55,000 a household to cover rising federal commitments made just in the past year for retirement benefits, the national debt and other government promises...
Source: Dennis Cauchon, "Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink," USA Today
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NTERVENTION BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE
Neither the $700 billion bank bailout known as TARP and the $787 billion stimulus package approach the civic munificence displayed by the Federal Reserve.
In the past year, the Fed has undertaken interventions in the economy broader and deeper than anything attempted since its founding in 1913. And with the credit system paralyzed, the central bank increasingly looks like the lender of both first and last resort. Take the examples below:
- In October, the Commercial Paper Funding Facility was given up to $1.8 trillion to buy commercial paper (short-term debt that companies use to fund day-to-day operations like payroll).
- Up to $1.45 trillion was appropriated to buy debt from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks, as well as mortgage-backed securities from Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie Mae ('expanded' from an initial $600 billion commitment in November 2008).
- The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) was given up $1 trillion to spur consumer lending by purchasing securities back by credit cards, student loans, auto loans and other debt.
Largely unencumbered by congressional meddling, the Fed has in most cases refused to reveal the beneficiaries of its largesse lest panicky investors and depositors lose faith...
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45% Say Cancel Rest of Stimulus Spending
Forty-five percent (45%) of Americans say the rest of the new government spending authorized in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan should now be canceled. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 36% disagree and 20% are not sure.
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The Alice in Wonderland World of the Greens
"Curiouser and curiouser", said Alice. Not an unnatural response to the wholesale departure from reality she experienced at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. And we have precisely the same head-scratching response to the refusal of green ideologues to grasp the energy realities of our age, especially as they affect a realistic role for renewable energy sources.
"We all know ..." Is that so? Because it seems that all the scientists and informed climate observers who signed the Manhattan Declaration clearly don't "already know". Neither do a raft of the world's leading climatologists and scientists in Japan, the UK, Australia, Russia, New Zealand, Denmark, Poland, the United States and hundreds of other prominent scientists, not to mention the 66 percent of Americans who are not convinced.
Indeed of the famous 2,000+ who proclaimed to "know" on behalf of the UN's IPCC, it seems a mere 20 percent (yes, around just 400) worked in any climate science capacity. None of which should come as a surprise when even the UN's own objective climate data reveals that the latest cycle of global warming ended in 1998.
So when Greenpeace states: "We all know..." what they actually mean is all Green ideologues "know"... [snip]
As we have said elsewhere, by the year 2030, while world energy demand is likely to increase by 50 percent, all serious projections agree that oil, gas and coal will still account for around 87 percent of world energy production.
Somebody's math somewhere is clearly wildly awry. So let's look at some basic facts...
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Coal plant to put power of CO2 to test
MOBILE —- Alabama Power Co.’s Barry Electric Generating Plant north of Mobile will be the site of the nation’s first large-scale attempt to capture carbon dioxide emitted from a coal-fired power plant and to inject the gas deep underground.
Tens of thousands of tons of the potent [?*] greenhouse gas will be piped 9,000 feet underground around the Citronelle oil fields, about 10 miles from the Barry plant.
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[Again and again.
From the Global Warming Petition Project, at http://www.petitionproject.org/, where "31,478 American scientists have signed this petition, including 9,029 with PhDs" in climate related fields:The global warming hypothesis with respect to CO2 is not based upon the radiative properties of CO2 itself, which is a very weak greenhouse gas. It is based upon a small initial increase in temperature caused by CO2 and a large theoretical amplification of that temperature increase, primarily through increased evaporation of H2O, a strong greenhouse gas. Any comparable temperature increase from another cause would produce the same calculated outcome.
[That's right, water vapor, which represents roughly 95% of all greenhouse 'gas' in our atmosphere, has a much stronger effect than does CO2. But cars don't put out water, hence the focus on CO2 so alarmists can somehow make industrial man responsible for their claimed problem - for which they must pay...
BTW: this is a great primer site, especially THIS PAGE, which is very good at conveying the broad scope and depth of varied data available to anyone looking beyond TV to see.
But reading is optional, just scroling down the page for the graphs is instructive, like this one:
and
and
and more.... Highly Recommended > ]
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OBAMA'S HEALTH PLAN IS NO BARGAIN
The so-called public option is now included in both the Senate and House health care reform bills, and is strongly endorsed by President Obama. Under the public option, the government would offer a plan resembling Medicare for more than 100 million working Americans. Today, most of them are covered by their employers' plans. But the Democrats' proposals contain a "pay or play" provision that would allow companies, in effect, to drop their coverage and substitute a payroll tax.
Because their health care costs are growing so rapidly, it's likely that most companies would dump their plans. "That's what will happen," says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, which champions free-market solutions to health care. "Employees could then go to the exchanges and get subsidized insurance."
The problem here is that the public option would compete directly with the private plans, says CNNMoney.com:
- Both would be heavily subsidized, with Americans making up to $110,000 eligible for assistance under the Senate proposal.
- It's likely that the Medicare-like option will drive out private insurers, since the government plan has several advantages.
- The plans impose public-utility-like restrictions on the insurers, capping their profits and transferring premiums from the insurers with the younger, healthier patients to those who serve an older, sicker population.
- Those restrictions will hardly make them nimble competitors.
- At the same time, the imposition of costly benefits packages and community rating will raise their costs.
The demand for everything from knee surgery to mental health counseling will soar. But the government will keep a lid on prices, so Americans, for the first time, will be faced with rationing.
The hospitals and physicians simply won't be able to satisfy the unhinged demand for the services that look like a bargain. The lines will grow. And so will the spending, and the taxes.
And that's what Obama isn't telling you.
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Toxic Mortgage Tycoons Herb & Marion Sandler and the ACORN Connection
The "Glenn Beck Program" did an excellent piece on June 3 about Herb and Marion Sandler, the toxic mortgage king and queen, and their connection to ACORN and the inappropriately named Center for Responsible Lending. (The video clip is embedded above.)
Through their charity, the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation, they gave at least $5,723,222 to the ACORN network. Specifically, the charity gave $4,498,222 to American Institute for Social Justice (since 2003), $700,000 to Project Vote (in 2005), $525,000 to ACORN (2000–2001 according to Activist Cash). This excludes any contributions that either Sandler may have made personally to ACORN or its affiliates.
According to the "Glenn Beck Program," the Sandlers paid ACORN to send out protesters to hound Wells Fargo Bank, which competed with Golden West, the Sandlers' bank...
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ACORN Officials Set Sights On Gunowners
ACORN, the publicly funded national organization linked to voter fraud in several states, is now actively interfering with the exercise of firearm civil rights in New Jersey, and the Second Amendment Foundation is calling for an immediate federal investigation.
One example of ACORN's gun control activism is when its officials intervened in an unsuccessful attempt to defend Jersey City, New Jersey's local gun control ordinance, which was struck down December 13, 2006 in New Jersey state court as a violation of state law pre-empting stronger local gun ordinances.
"ACORN has, since 1998, received an estimated $31 million in government funding," said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. "Now they have intervened in a New Jersey gun rights case in defense of an illegal Jersey City one-gun-a-month ordinance that violates the state preemption statute."
"For the past few election cycles," Gottlieb noted, "ACORN has clearly grown more partisan toward the political Left. ACORN'S PAC, in fact, endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president, even though their tax-exempt status prohibits endorsement of political candidates.
That's hardly surprising since he used to serve as their legal counsel and he taught the group about community organizing. ACORN and Obama are lockstep in seeking to destroy our Second Amendment rights," he stated.
The organization is currently under FBI investigation over allegations of voter fraud in several states.
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Federal appeals court: Gun maker, dealer can't be sued in attack on LA Jewish center
Pasadena, Calif. - A federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit against gun maker Glock Inc. and a Seattle gun dealer stemming from a white supremacist's 1999 shooting rampage at a Los Angeles-area Jewish center and the murder of a postal carrier.
A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' panel ruled Monday that a 2005 federal law shielding gun makers from lawsuits over criminal use of their products was constitutional...
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N.Y. Republicans Regain Control of Senate as Democrats Switch
New York Senate Republicans regained majority control of Senate in a surprise maneuver with the help of two Democrats who switched sides.
Pedro Espada from the Bronx and Hiram Monseratte from Queens sided with 30 Republicans on key votes to change the Senate’s leadership.
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Coalition Denied Keys to New York Senate Chamber After Coup
ALBANY, N.Y. -- The leader of a coalition that mounted Monday's coup in New York's Senate says he's being denied the keys to the historic chamber. The alliance of Republicans and two dissident Democrats is asking for the resignation of the secretary of the Senate, a position appointed by the Democratic conference that appears to have lost its majority.
The secretary holds the chamber's keys.
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All Reporters Rise for Obama?
Patrick Gavin of the Politico put on display an eye-opening contrast on YouTube over the weekend. From February 28, 2008, President Bush made a morning appearance in the White House briefing room and is greeted unsurprisingly with reporters remaining seated.
But on May 1, 2009, when President Obama walks in the room (that would be the "dream sequence" appearance, as an NBC reporter put it), the reporters all stand until he asks them to be seated. You see them rise in the video.
This could be a rather mild outbreak of old-fashioned politeness to the chief. But in my two years in the White House press corps, I never saw reporters in the informal all-business setting of the briefing room stand up to greet the president...
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Only Politico Reports Palin a Thud at NRSC Dinner
This spurred our friend Videmus Omnia to wonder if Isenstadt went to the same dinner as everyone else? After looking it over, I have to ask the same question...
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Obama's America: There's no place like homelessness
When a Republican is in the Oval Office, you can count of the media to hyperventilate over homelessness, and blame the heartlessness of the GOP.
As America's economy falters under the weight of Obama's policies, homelessness has and will only get worse.
But don't hold your breath waiting for the stories on network news casts linking the condition in any way to the current president...
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51% Say Cut Everybody’s Taxes To Stimulate the Economy
Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans favor an across-the-board tax cut for all Americans to stimulate the U.S. economy, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Thirty-four percent (34%) oppose such a tax cut, and 15% are undecided.
Fifty-nine percent (59%) of both Republicans and adults not affiliated with either major political party think an across-the-board tax cut is a good idea.
Democrats are fairly evenly divided.
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Matt Lauer: Scarborough 'New Face' of the Republican Party
NBC’s "Today" picked their leader to revive the Republican party: MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. The former congressman (and former conservative) who admitted to bashing Republicans more than Democrats, appeared on the June 9 edition of "Today" to promote his new book "The Last Best Hope."
[I think it's just terrific how helpful the MSM want to be in 'fixing' the Republican Party's problems.]
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Friday, June 12, 2009
Science Magazine and the WHO Promote Pandemic Panic
Although the “worried well” are still swamping emergency rooms, our pig flu is appearing to be a piglet. But a study in Science magazine claims the outbreak portends a pandemic and the media have gone hog wild over it. “Swine Flu Is as Severe as 1957 Pandemic,” blared a typical headline about the outbreak that killed 1-3 million people worldwide and 70,000 Americans.
Actually reading the study and its accompanying citations – rather than just the summary and press release, as most reporters do – the data shows both that swine flu is less contagious and far less severe than ordinary seasonal flu...
[That's 'Science' magazine and the World Health Organization {WHO} - if you don't already associate their names with junk science, remember this for future reference when they next grand stand {and they will; it's their bread & butter}.]
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Congressional Democrats try to push an ambitious agenda before recess
President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress are pushing hard to reform the nation’s health care system, pass sweeping climate change legislation and confirm a Supreme Court justice —
all in the seven [3-day: Tue-Thur] workweeks ...
[Same rush-stunt as was pulled for the unread porkulus bill. When do we start learning from our mistakes?]
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Qualms and Questions About Obama's Health Plan
Michael Barone
Barack Obama has said he wants to pass a national health care bill this year, with a government insurance policy option. Democratic congressional leaders have called for passage of such a bill before the beginning of the August congressional recess.
What they want more than anything else is a government insurance program that will tend over the next few years to crowd out private insurance. We are told that a government insurance plan reduces the amounts spent on health care by using "comparative effectiveness research" -- in other words, by rationing care and limiting options through the use of statistics. Unfortunately, statistics are constantly in flux and do not capture the differing needs of actual patients as well as skillful practitioners can.
Obama and his party are pursuing an ambitious goal. It could drastically change health care in the United States.
And there's not much time. Congress is scheduled to be in session for only six weeks from next week to the August recess. Six weeks of Tuesday-to-Thursday sessions means 18 days for actual legislating - ant that will other work on the table like annual appropriations and cap-and-trade. Still, Obama and the Democratic congressional leaders see this as a rare chance to make "transformational" changes in America.
Unfortunately, they may be right...
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Carbon costs add to health regions' woes
The Lower Mainland's health authorities will have to dig more than $4 million a year out of their already stretched budgets to pay B.C.'s carbon tax and offset their carbon footprints.
Critics say the payments mean the government's strategy to fight climate change will further exacerbate a crisis in health funding...
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Dem mutiny on climate bill grows
More and more Democrats are ready to vote against Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s climate change bill, according to a congressional committee chairman who opposes his leader.
The House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) said Wednesday that he’s at an impasse with the lead sponsor of a climate change bill strongly backed by Pelosi (D-Calif.), and that his list of Democratic members who would join him in voting against the measure is growing rather than shrinking....
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[ACT now >
"OPPOSE PELOSI CLIMATE BILL"
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...
.
MSNBC Guests Provide 'Clarity' on Iraq, Pre-War Intelligence and WMD
Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, appearing on Maddow's show and criticizing Dick Cheney's assertion that harsh interrogation of captured al Qaeda prevented terrorist attacks after 9/11 --
WILKERSON: You'll notice that Cheney always says, seven and a half years or almost eight years, no terrorist attack and so forth. That's because he has the honor of being, or the dishonor of being the man on whose watch 3,000 Americans died. More Americans died from a terrorist attack under Dick Cheney's leadership, if you will, than any other president in our history. [classy]
The reason we have not had another attack in this country, more than any other thing, is over 200,000 Americans who have been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq against al Qaeda and other associated enemies. So we have had 200,000 Americans overseas presenting al Qaeda with very, very lucrative targets and therefore, why would they want to come here?* This is idiocy of the first order that Dick Cheney is putting out. [?!?...]
*> Also known as fighting them there instead of here. Chief proponents? George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
A better example of "idiocy of the first order"?
Keeping those 200,000 Americans at home after 9/11 instead of deploying them abroad, the better to provide al Qaeda with "very, very lucrative targets" on the homefront. In addition to the skyscrapers, nuclear plants, bridges, dams and malls that al Qaeda would have targeted in the process...
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CBS’s Schieffer Admits Cheney ‘Winning’ Security Debate
While discussing Thursday’s opposing national security speeches by President Obama and former Vice President Cheney, on Friday’s CBS Early Show, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer acknowledged:
While both Smith and Schieffer recognized Cheney’s success at countering Obama on issues like closing Guantanamo Bay, near the end of the segment Schieffer still declared:"I think most people think that Guantanamo is an open sore. That it in many ways it's a recruiting tool for these terrorists."
[Like it recruited the 9/11 terrorists. Just like CO2 & global warming: effect preceding cause. We're not smart enough to notice.]
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CBS News Chief Legal Analyst: Is Cheney Just A D**k?
It appears CBS News's Chief Legal Analyst doesn't agree with his colleague Bob Schieffer that former Vice President Dick Cheney is winning the national security debate with Barack Obama.
Quite the contrary, Andrew Cohen thinks Cheney is still living in "the world of September 11, 2001, a world where hijacked planes are screaming toward their targets, chaos reigns, and anything goes."
As a result, Cohen wondered in a Friday posting at his CBSNews.com blog "Court Watch" if Cheney is, "as many people say, just a d**k":
[And they're losing viewership - imagine.]
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Dude, Where's My Torture Prosecutions?
There has been very little attention paid in the MSM to a meeting on Wednesday between President Obama and various leftwing "human rights" groups,except for a brief mention at the CBS News Political Hotsheet.
However, according to a detailed report provided by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, Obama has revealed that there won't be any prosecutions of Bush administration for so-called torture.
Perhaps this was the reason for so little MSM coverage on this meeting.
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'Booby-trapped horses used in attack'
Under the cover of morning fog, a group of around 10 Palestinian gunmen armed with "huge amounts of explosives" launched a failed Gaza border assault at the Karni Crossing on Monday, in which booby-trapped horses were used, a security source told The Jerusalem Post.
{Israel's continuing 'thanks' for having unilaterally and completely left Gaza.]
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Obama: “No You Can’t!”
North Korea is launching missiles, Iran is building nukes, Saudi Arabia is sponsoring hate that translates into worldwide terrorism, Sudan is still massacring and raping, China is busy ethnic cleansing Tibet into a Chinese province… but the Obama Administration is furious, yes “furious” at only one country, Israel.
What did Israel do? Well it’s building a hotel in Jerusalem...
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Obama's 2 pictures of Middle East
Two high-stakes speeches exactly a year apart, both delivered by Barack Obama, both focused on the Middle East. Same message, same tone? Not really.
The president reached out Thursday to the world's billion-plus Muslims in a conciliatory Cairo speech that included a bow to that religion and its contributions to the United States. He spoke of the U.S. desire to remove its troops from Muslim Iraq and Afghanistan, lamented that Palestinians have spent decades suffering "intolerable" treatment, and decried their "daily humiliations" under Israeli "occupation."
On June 4, 2008, presidential candidate Obama's emphasis was different when he addressed his country's most influential Jewish lobbying group. He promised the American Israel Public Affairs Committee an "unshakable commitment" to Israel's security, bemoaned the "rockets raining down" on Israeli towns from Palestinian territory, and said he would never force the Jewish nation to make concessions to its Palestinian and Arab antagonists... [snip]
When he was seeking Jewish-American votes a year ago, he said the holy city "will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."
After Palestinians complained, he later said the city's fate should be decided by 'negotiation'...
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Most Reject Government Control of Executive Compensation If Bailout Is Repaid
If a company repays its bailout funds, 61% of Americans say the government should not regulate the company’s executive pay and bonuses. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey also found that 31% disagree.
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Americans Disapprove of GM Takeover
Most Americans are unhappy with the actions the federal government has taken with General Motors, and people are uncertain about GM's future -- even with the government's help, according to a FOX News poll released Thursday.
By 58 percent to 38 percent voters across the country say they disapprove of the government takeover and majority ownership stake in General Motors. Majorities of Republicans (79 percent) and independents (59 percent) think it was a bad move, as well as a sizable minority of Democrats (39 percent).
And by an 8 percentage point margin slightly more Americans think the government should have let the market decide GM's fate (52 percent) than believe it was in the country's best interest to save the car maker (44 percent).
A majority of Democrats (62 percent) support the government intervening in GM, while majorities of Republicans (72 percent) and independents (54 percent) back letting market forces decide.
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Almost half of top unions have underfunded pension plans
Almost half of the nation’s 20 largest unions have pension funds that federal law classifies as “endangered” or in “critical” condition due to being underfunded, an Examiner review of federal actuarial reports shows...
[And the vast majority of the public (government) unions, meaning they're underwritten by guess-who?]
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State's budget crisis opens rift between unions and Democrats
Reporting from Sacramento -- The Capitol's usual political alliances are being tested by the state's severe financial problems as interest groups scramble to hold onto as much as possible of the state's shrinking coffers.
The union leaders say they are appalled that Democratic leaders are talking openly now about decimating government programs without first making a stand for bigger, broader tax hikes that could substantially offset budget cuts...
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The Man Who Cried Doom
If you ever wondered why the idea of Global Warming never sounded quite right....
It's been more than 20 years since James Hansen first warned America of impending doom. On a hot summer day in June 1988, Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, came to Washington to announce before a Senate committee that "the greenhouse effect has been detected and it is changing our climate now."
The greenhouse effect would have looked obvious enough to anyone watching on television. The senators conducting the hearing, including Al Gore, had turned the committee room into an oven. That day it was a balmy 98 degrees, and as former Colorado senator Timothy Wirth later revealed, the committee members "went in the night before and opened all the windows. And so when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and [high ratings], but it was really hot."
Hansen has been a media star ever since.... [snip]
But Hansen's "testimony is not working out". The earth has been cooling since 2001. . . .
They're scrambling," he says.
And indeed Hansen got caught with his hand in the cookie jar in 2007, when Stephen McIntyre, the man who debunked the infamous "hockey stick" graph showing stable Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures for most of the last millennia before a sharp upturn, found a flaw in Hansen's numbers. McIntyre analyzed NASA's temperature records for the last century and found that, contrary to Hansen's charts, 1998 was not the hottest year on record. That honor belongs to 1934, and five of the ten hottest years on record are now found prior to World War II.,, [snip]
"They don't understand what the hell is going on." Theon says, but evidently they don't need to because "Gore was in his corner and now the president is in his corner"...
[The state of 'science' in America.]
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‘Climate Change’ Is the Terrorist the U.S. Should Be Fighting, Muslim Leader Says
The Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, and on Monday, the agency held the first of two hearings to hear what the public thinks of its finding. Among the dozens of people offering comments on Monday, one Muslim leader claimed that the war on terror is ''really a euphemism'' for the battle to control the world’s oil supply...
[To a degree true - but only because we still refuse to develop our own vast reserves (literally greater than the Middle-East's).]
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Essay: Beltway and Media Induce Conservative Stockholm Syndrome
It’s small wonder the fawning media continue to note how “confident” and “cool” the new president is in office. The Sun King has assumed the throne and found it to his liking. Barack “L’État c’est Moi” Obama is a company man in a company town – a statist in a place where he needs only to stretch a hand to stretch the state. The federal apparatus in Washington, D.C. is vast, and designed to do one thing: grow and assume power. Obama is large. He contains multitudes.
Small wonder too that the GOP lost its identity after 12 years controlling Congress. No matter how strong your small-government credentials, or how “in-touch” you are with the folks back home, living and working at the heart of a sprawling, powerful government apparatus “dulls the edge of husbandry,” as Shakespeare might have put it. Conservatives can end up captive to Beltway norms and mores, and end up conservative no more.
It’s Stockholm Syndrome for conservatives.
This is particularly so because the inherently liberal news media doesn’t question whether government should expand. So when the party of small government strays, who’s going to call them on it? Not the party of big government, and not the press.
So government grows...
[Recommended for its specific examples of the systems put in place to guarantee government growth... > ]
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Schwarzenegger suggests state consider flat tax
California
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said today that he would like to see such “radical” proposals come out of a commission now studying an overhaul of the state’s tax system. The governor told the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee that he hoped the commission would not be afraid to propose something like “a 15% straight tax.”
“That’s the kind of radical, daring kind of a proposal that I want to see on the table so we can look at it and say, ‘Oh, let’s study this, maybe that is the way to go,’ ” Schwarzenegger said during the discussion, which was webcast.
The current system, based on highly unstable income tax revenue that fluctuates with the economy, “doesn’t work,” Schwarzenegger said.
Advocates of a flat tax, which applies a single tax rate to all income, say it increases compliance with the tax codes because it is so simple and easy to understand. But opponents dislike that it taxes the wealthy at the same rate as the poor.
[Note that a15% state income tax represents a near doubling of the current 8% average - probably just an innocent slip.
And as long as the states controlled by liberals, a perfectly progressive flat tax will never be acceptable: it undermines the divide and conquor class warfare relied upon by the left to retain power. We want it done, we'll have to do it with a grass roots initiative - our politicians never will. ]
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Fox Newsers Are 'Extremists' Who View the World Through 'S**t-Colored Glasses'
Then Stewart just let the hate flow, mocking Fox's Gretchen Carlson with these words:
"What a torture it must be for such pretty people to have to see such ugly things. That's what happens when you view the world and apparently hear the world through "s--t-colored glasses."
[Class]
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Poll: Americans Want Sarah Palin for Neighbor
Republican vice presidential candidate Palin topped the poll of most desirable celebrity neighbors with 14 percent, closely followed by Winfrey, who was particularly popular with women.
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National Review Skewers Newsweek's Obama Fixation
Articles in the satirical issue include "The 'Toned' Debate: Barack's Pecs or Michelle's Arms?" by Jonathan Alter, and "Bo's Amazing Adventures" by Jon Meacham.
Last but not least, Evan "Obama Is 'Sort of God'" Thomas's "Better Than FDR (And Cooler Than JFK."
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