,"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket."
But now he claims it will only cost the price of a postage stamp a day?
Designed to combat global warming (well, “climate change” as they now call it to give themselves a measure credibility since global temperatures have actually dropped over the last decade), cap and trade will do little to help our planet...
READ MORE
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Before cap and trade, how about proof and truth?
Cap-and-Trade Bill Creates ‘Retrofit’ Policy for Homes and Businesses
The 1,400-page cap-and-trade legislation pushed through by House Democrats contains a new federal policy that residential, commercial, and government buildings be retrofitted to increase energy efficiency, leaving it up to the states to figure out exactly how to do that.
This means that homeowners could be required to retrofit their homes to meet federal “green” guidelines in order to sell their homes, if the cap-and-trade bill becomes law...
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Washington Post Notes 'Undocumented' Immigrant Rally, Fails to Include Critics in Story
Take three liberal policy advocates, stir into a 12-paragraph story, and strain out any dissenting voices.
That's the recipe for pushing Washington Post writer Martin Ricard's June 24 story on illegal immigrants who rallied yesterday in Washington, D.C., for a bill before Congress to make it easier for illegal immigrants to get access to financial aid for college.
In "Students Stage Mock Graduation To Advocate for Undocumented," Ricard noted "[a]lmost 400 students and their supporters" yesterday who "were drawn this year" to a mock graduation ceremony in Washington, D.C., "organized by United We Dream." Nowhere in his article did Ricard describe any of the students as "illegal immigrants," preferring instead to label them "undocumented."
[What bias?]
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Chicago public-school reform flops, biz-backed report says
Chicago Public [government-run] School reform largely has failed, with the vast bulk of students either dropping out or unprepared for college and apparent gains at the grade-school level more perceived than real.
That's the bottom line of a blockbuster report released Tuesday by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, a report that directly challenges the legitimacy of one of Mayor Richard M. Daley's major claimed accomplishments...
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No dropouts from this Camden, NJ, high school
... It's an extraordinary display of wisdom for students in a city where dropout rates are consistently among New Jersey's highest and test scores are among the lowest.
Neither is the case at MetEast, which graduated its first class of seniors on Friday.
It opened in 2005 as a laboratory for education in a city where the schools are part of an entanglement of problems.
It's one of about 60 schools nationwide established with the help of Big Picture Learning, a nonprofit with offices in San Diego and Providence, R.I. Three Big Picture schools are scheduled to open in Newark this fall...
[There's terrific and innovative ideas out there, but we need break the chains of our government run system to give them room to work...]
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Medical Arrogance
During his ABC infomercial last week, President Obama continued to insist that the type of reform he has in mind would reduce the cost of health care, improve its quality, and enable people to keep their current insurance policies and doctors.
He is wrong on all counts.
Very little in the Democratic bills making their way through Congress would do anything to reduce costs, while the new subsidies their authors envision would increase costs...
[How can any rational adult honestly believe that adding an additional layer of bureaucratic government can somehow reduce costs?]
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Obamacare failed in Europe
President Barack Obama's proposed "public insurance option" for universal health coverage seems logical: A large public insurance fund will provide quality coverage for the uninsured and force competing insurers to lower costs.
In practice, though, one needs only look at what decades of government health care have done to ramp up the financial and quality problems endured by Britain and France...
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GOVERNMENT HEALTH PLANS ALWAYS RATION CARE
President Obama objects when people use the word "rationing" in regards to government-run health care. But rationing is inevitable if we simply expand government control without fixing the way health care is reimbursed so that doctors and patients become sensitive to issues of price and quality, says Dr. Gottlieb, a physician and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
In countries such as France and Germany, layers of bureaucracy like health boards have been specifically engineered to delay the adoption of new medical products and services, thus lowering spending.
In France:
- Reimbursement rates are set by the National Union of Sickness Insurance Funds, a group that also negotiates pay to doctors.
- The Federal Joint Committee regulates reimbursement and restrictions on prescribing.
- The Social Insurance Organization is in charge of setting prices and sets their practice budgets.
- In the past 12 months, the 15 medical products and services that cleared this process spent an average 35 months under 'review'.
"spending can be moderated if diffusion of existing costly services are slowed."
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ACORN Rent-A-Mob ThugsHarass Lenders in 14 Cities
ACORN, which played a starring role in creating the subprime mortgage crisis, added insult to injury by harassing lenders across the nation with protests in an effort to coerce them into supporting President Obama's Making Home Affordable foreclosure-avoidance program.
Austin King, director of ACORN Financial Justice, sent out a press release saying its actions are part of its "Homewrecker 4" campaign.
Just for the record, this story is not on the front page of any major daily newspaper this morning.
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Bank clients' privacy shield survives challenge
A California law that lets customers keep banks from sharing information with affiliated companies about their savings accounts and buying habits survived a final legal challenge Monday. Without comment, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a hearing to the American Bankers Association.
The California privacy law, the broadest of its kind in the nation, allows customers to veto a bank's attempt to share certain types of information with affiliated companies.
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DUers Invent Highly Laughable Excuses to Explain Fox News Ratings Success
Few things drive the denizens of the Democratic Underground into a frenzy like the mere mention of Fox News. Therefore, as you can expect, a story in the Hollywood Reporter, Fox News set for best year yet, sent the members of what they call the "reality-based community" into some very unreal yet highly entertaining reactions to that unwelcome news.
Fox News is on track to have its most-watched year ever. With the second quarter coming to a close, Fox News averaged about the same number of viewers as the top three other cable news networks combined.
READ MORE
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Add Staff@NNBrief.com to your Safe Sender List
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Outlook: Within received email, from top menu bar>Actions>Junk E-mail>Add Sender to Safe Senders List. (may take effect next delivery of NNBrief)
[safe-sender]
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Liberal New Republic Article Actually Makes Sense on Honduras 'Coup'
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The left can try to brush off articles in the Wall Street Journal or the National Review about the "coup" in Honduras as "rightwing propaganda." However, they will have a much harder time applying such a label to an article about the ouster of Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya (in photo with Hugo Chavez), which appeared in the very liberal New Republic.
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should have read Festishizing the Presidency by Francisco Toro before being so quick in joining Chavez in denouncing the removal of Honduran strong man Zelaya who was acting unconstitutionally:Seen in context, Sunday's military powerplay was different in important ways from the traditional Latin American putsch. The generals move came at the unanimous--yes unanimous--behest of a congress outraged by Zelaya's not-particularly-subtle attempts to extend his hold on power indefinitely. It followed a series of clearly unconstitutional moves on Zelaya's part, including his attempt to unilaterally remove the chief of the army, which, according to Honduras's Constitution, can only be done by a congressional super-majority.
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Time's Padgett: Bush's 'Excessive' Power Pushed Argentinians to Rebuke Their President
[Meanwhile, in the MSM...]
The recent midterm election drubbing of leftist legislative allies of Argentinan power couple President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and husband (and former president) Nestor Kirchner is partly thanks to the imperial designs of power-hungry former U.S. President George W. Bush and the consensus-building ethos of Barack Obama.
Or so Time magazine's Tim Padgett asserts without evidence in a June 30 piece, "Kirchner Loss a Lesson for Latin America":
[BDS: alive and well.]
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Obama re-designates FARC Marxist narcoterrorists as
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Who else can the Commander in chief be talking about but the FARC narcoterrorists in Colombia?"To combat lawlessness and violence, we don't need a debate about whether to blame right-wing paramilitaries or left-wing insurgents - we need practical cooperation to expand our common security."
It's inaccurate that our president characterizes paramilitaries (and what country, other than Colombia has them?) as ‘rightwing.' Those maggots are not rightwing, they are mere dopers who seek to politicize their business as a means of getting leverage over the government, that's it. President Uribe eats these types for breakfast.
But the redesignation of FARC as ‘insurgents' is especially outrageous. The only people Obama could be talking about as ‘insurgents' are FARC because there is nothing comparable anywhere else in the hemisphere.
What Obama is doing is exactly the same thing the msm did for the Iraqi AQs and terrorists, called them ‘insurgents'! Like they are some mass movement instead of reviled by 99% of the Colombian people.
Insurgents my keister!
[I'm actually more concerned with the increasingly prevalent use of "right wing" in association will all things bad. Do we really believe it's coincidence?]
READ MORE
FLASHBACKs >
- Cuba, FARC may be training guerrillas at Venezuelan camp
- FARC's 'Human Rights' Friends
- Colombian police: FARC responsible for most U.S. cocaine
- Mullen Says Colombia Making Progress Against Narcoterrorists
US troops leave anxious Iraqi cities
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With US troops about to withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities, there has been an upsurge in bomb attacks - but is this a sign of worse to come, asks Jim Muir, or a last throw of the dice from the militants?
And not to the Iraqi army, whose units had already redeployed elsewhere but to the Ministry of Agriculture, the original owners of the command building, which was their research station.
The military base was simply disappearing, swords being turned to ploughshares...
[While the attacks continue? Are we trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of hard-won {paid in the blood of Americans} victory?]
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Wikipedia Helps NYT Cover Up Reporter's Capture
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Just as the Times was able to keep 40 other media organizations from reporting on the capture of their own David Rohde, so too were they able to keep Wikipedia from reporting it. They also used his Wikipedia page to try to win favor with the Taliban.
Just three days after Rohde was captured, a user edited his Wikipedia page to reflect his capture, but that edit was quickly deleted, and with the help of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, news of Rohde’s capture was kept off the page until his release...
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Girls' school blown up
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Peshawar - Militants bombed a girls' primary school on the outskirts of Pakistan's Peshawar city on Friday, the latest in a series of such attacks blighting the northwest of the country, police said. The school was badly damaged during the attack in Mattni village.
There were no casualties as schools are closed for the summer in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province that borders Afghanistan...
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France’s Private Concentration Camp
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The banality of evil lived in that apartment building. Apartment dwellers, all Muslims, heard Ilan's screams and cries of torture over a period of three weeks, and yet did not call the cops. The screams must have been loud because the torture was especially atrocious: the thugs cut bits of flesh off the young man. They cut his fingers and ears. They burned him with acid. They poured flammable liquid on him and set him on fire. Not only did those in the building not go to the police -- they did nothing at all. Worse, many took part in the tortures.
So systemic is the Jew hatred in France that it impeded rescuing Ilan or securing his release.
Throughout Ilan's entire captivity, the French police refused to move on any of the evidence that pointed to an anti-Semitic motive. Instead, the police conducted a routine kidnap investigation (which invariably involves ransom, not death). The police refused to pursue the anti-Semitic motivations of the kidnappers in spite of the fact that, according to newspaper accounts,"in their e-mail and telephone communications with Ilan's family, his captors repeatedly referred to his Judaism, and on at least one occasion recited verses from the Koran while Ilan was heard screaming in agony in the background."
But law enforcement was not the only guilty party. The government refused to acknowledge the anti-Semitic motives behind the torture and killing a full week after Halimi turned up mutilated and dead...
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The Dis-Uniting Kingdom?
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Britain's European debate has gone septic. More than half of British votes cast in recent European elections went to euro-skeptic parties ranging from the mad, bad political fringes such as the British National Party to a Conservative Party promising to claw back powers from Brussels.
Radio shows pulse with anger as callers vent their frustration about the EU — complaining about everything from mass immigration to an EU ban on wasteful light-bulbs...
[Sound familiar? Luckily here we've a little thing called the 10th Amendment - past time we use it...]
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Media Mostly Ignore German and Hungarian Tax Cuts
At the same time, German chancellor Angela Merkel is pushing for lower taxes to help her nation's economy, and our press have similarly been less than enthusiastic about sharing the news.
One of the exceptions in both cases is the Wall Street Journal which reported the following Tuesday:The Hungarian parliament approved Monday a tax bill for 2010, a cornerstone of the country's attempts to boost its competitiveness.The bill will include a reduction in personal income taxes for average- income earners, a lowering of social security contributions for employers..
A Google news search identified only WSJ and Reuters reporting this news in the States; a LexisNexis search identified no television news reports on this subject.
As for Germany, WSJ reported this Tuesday:German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced her plan to cut taxes saying "it provide motivation" and encourage economic growth" and "It would be wrong not to do what is right and necessary for growth, and so prevent ourselves emerging quickly from this crisis,"
Much as with Hungary's cuts, Merkel's plans have not been widely reported here. In fact, although she began floating this idea in mid-June, a LexisNexis search identified no television news outlets addressing it.
Not one.
With Germany a member of the G-8, as well as a prominent U.S. ally and major trading partner, shouldn't its fiscal policy changes be newsworthy here? If Hungary and Germany were raising taxes, would our media be more interested in reporting it?
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WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY VERSUS UNPAID LEAVE
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The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) requires employers to allow employees to take 12 weeks of unpaid leave annually for a serious illness, to care for an immediate family member, or following an adoption or birth. The FMLA now applies to companies that employ 50 or more workers, but during the campaign President Obama supported expanding it to cover businesses with as few as 25 employees.
Expanding the FMLA will have many unintended consequences that will hurt, not help, working families. Businesses and their employees bear the cost of the FMLA. According to the Employment Policy Foundation, direct FMLA compliance costs totaled $21 billion in 2004.
Rather than relying on costly mandates like the FMLA, the government should consider policies that increase workplace flexibility:
- For instance, many employees would prefer to receive compensatory time off in lieu of overtime pay, but the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires overtime work to be compensated with time-and-a-half cash wages.
- This means that employees who work extra hours one week are unable to offset those hours with comp time in a subsequent week.
Shouldn't private sector workers have similar options?
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The Secret 'Friends of Angelo'
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Angelo Mozilo, the former Countrywide Financial CEO charged with fraud and insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission, had a lot of "friends." The Democratic leadership in Congress just doesn't want you to know their names -- or the details of their loans from Countrywide.
What we know is that Senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad were among the VIPs who received sweetheart mortgages under the "Friends of Angelo" program. What we don't know is how many other government officials also received such favors, or what exactly Countrywide expected in return.
A March report by Congressman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) highlighted internal Countrywide emails in which executives debated whether the mayor of Billings, Montana, was influential enough to warrant a waiving of his mortgage insurance premium. The company ultimately decided that he was.
We can only imagine what Countrywide's internal emails might say about the benefits of "friendship" with Mr. Dodd, who chairs the Banking Committee of the U.S. Senate, or about others who benefited from the program...
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POLL: 74% Trust Their Own Economic Judgment More Than Congress’
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By a two-to-one margin, voters believe that no matter how bad things are, Congress can always make them worse.
It's not just Congress that people are skeptical about on the economic front. Sixty percent (60%) of voters nationwide now trust their own economic judgment more than President Obama’s.
But then 60% of all Americans say most politicians will break the rules to help people who give them large campaign contributions.
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Everybody Wishes Obama Would Just Go Away
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So asked TVNewser's Chris Ariens Thursday in response to another anti-Obama demonstration by the outspoken CNBCer who appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" hours earlier:
"Well, I think that Americans - These are all sub-rows of issues. This is all about taxes, and there's a belief that until the economy recovers, we simply can't afford tax increases, a la what happened in 1937 in this country. And when they hear health care reform, it just means tax increases, and there's got to be someone who pays for it. And the under a trillion dollars, it is over many years as Ron Brownstein said, it just makes it at least somewhat palatable.
But until we get the economy moving again, I think everybody wishes that Obama would just kind of go away for a little bit."
[video avail. at source]
Think he'll soon be Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World?"
That was a rhetorical question.
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Road-building in national forests halted for one year
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WASHINGTON — No new roads or logging will be allowed in 45 million acres of national forest land for the next year, the Obama administration announced Thursday. The one-year moratorium reinstates a Clinton-era ban on new road construction and development in remote national forests...
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Mass Bulldozing Urban Neighborhoods, And Replacing Them With .... Nothing
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Leave it to the British press to once again do the job of real reporting that U.S. journalists apparently won't do.
This is apparently what passes for sophisticated urban planning these days.
Here are key paragraphs from Leonard's story. Especially note the breathtaking anti-progress hostility of the idea's champion (bolds are mine; Getty picture at top right is from that story):
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How ABC Stacked the Deck for Obama
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"How many of you agree with the president that we need to change our healthcare system?"
Naturally they all raised their hands.
Imagine that. This handpicked crowd all agreed with ABC and Obama that "change" was paramount.
So, as the viewer is introduced to the infomercial, they start off with the unanimous affirmation that the president is right, radical changes have to be made. The premise is set and even the sharp questions to the president later in the show are blunted by the assumption that some major change is needed. And since the president is the only person allowed to offer any plan during this ABC special, the further assumption promulgated is that he is the one that must affect that change.
For viewers of this healthcare informercial, Obama wins thanks to an assist by ABC. The viewer is deftly led to the desired conclusion.
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Obama's 'Very Best Care' For His Own Family ABC Comment Unimportant
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Hot Air's Ed Morrissey noted that Obama's response should properly be seen as "a Michael Dukakis moment that exposed him as a hypocrite."
A video of the exchange is at YouTube. To the extent possible, see if you think Diane Sawyer, standing next to the inquiring doctor, looks a bit peeved as the nature of his question becomes clear.
ABC's Jake Tapper and Karen Travers understood the newsworthiness of what Obama said, and led with it in their post-forum coverage: [snip]
At the Associated Press, the wire service's Philip Elliott incredibly portrayed the President's "very best care" hypocrisy as almost heroic (bold is mine):
"At an ABC News town hall event on health care, a doctor asked Obama to promise that his wife and daughters would only get the services allowed under a new government insurance plan he's proposing.
Obama wouldn't bite."
Memo to Phil: Maybe the President didn't "bite," but he definitely got bitten. Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for us, the press is mostly making sure we don't learn about the self-inflicted wound.
Hot Air's Morrissey elaborated:
If ObamaCare isn’t good enough for Sasha, Malia, or Michelle, then it’s not good enough for America. Instead of fighting that impulse, Obama should be working to boost the private sector to encourage more care providers, less red tape and expense, and better care for everyone.
Sadly, the President is heading in the opposite direction for everybody -- oh, except the self-appointed elites like himself.
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Obama signing statement on war funding bill: Left is curiously silent
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Don't you miss the good old days of Bush's "unitary executive" presidency? The left got its panties in a twist every time Bush signed a bill and issued a signing statement listing his objections. They tried to outdo each other in outrage when talking about "dictatorship" and the like whenever these signing statements were published.
Sometimes it was even front page news in the New York Times and Washington Post."Balance of Power!" "Unitary executive!" "Bush is Hitler - or Worse!"
My how times have changed:
President Obama signed the $106 billion war-spending bill into law Friday, but not without taking a page from his predecessor and ignoring a few elements in legislation.
Obama included a five-paragraph signing statement with the bill, including a final paragraph that outlined his objections to at least four areas of the bill.
The Obama administration announced in the statement it would disregard provisions of the legislation that, among other things, would compel the Obama administration to pressure the World Bank to strengthen labor and environmental standards and require the Treasury department to report to Congress on the activities of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
John McCormack of the Weekly Standard reminds us that Obama made a big deal during the campaign of promising to end the nefarious practice of the Bush administration issuing signing statements.
The crickets are chirping on the left, but it hardly hides the towering hypocrisy of their position on this issue.
[Heard of this from our professional media?]
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TWOFER DOTS...
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CBS’s Schieffer: Media Bias ‘Irrelevant,’
Appearing on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal Tuesday, CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer dismissed the notion of liberal media bias:"...there is so much media out there now that the idea of bias in the media, it’s almost become irrelevant."
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[Well, he's half right: he's becoming irrelevant...]
Big 3 Nets' Evening News: Viewers Are Leaving
ABC's fall to less than 6.5 million total viewers is probably more of a surprise than CBS's plunge below 5 million...
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[Hence the Democrats Hush-Rush {aka 'fairness doctrine/localism'} campaign, as his audience ranges up to 30 million a day - or up to six CBSs.]
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The Post-American Presidency
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Judging a new American President's national security policies after six months in office is a perilous enterprise, especially in the case of Barack Obama, where constant incantations of "change" and serial criticisms of his predecessor are the order of the day.
Nonetheless, during the 2008 primaries, Democratic candidates fiercely debated their respective abilities to handle the "3am call," and Joe Biden later warned that the inexperienced Illinois Senator would be "tested" early in his tenure. Now there is a partial record, and, more importantly, a worldview on which we can grade Obama's performance.
Obama is the first post-American President. Central to his worldview is rejecting American exceptionalism and the consequences that flow therefrom.
Since an overwhelming majority of the world's population would welcome the demise of American exceptionalism, they are delighted with Obama.
One student interviewed after an Obama town hall meeting during his first presidential trip to Europe said ecstatically,
"He sounds like a European."
Indeed he does... [snip]
Obama is daily acting out his worldview, and the prospect of more of the same should be deeply troubling to Americans and America's global allies.
Obama simply does not see America's strength as a particular asset, or its causes and interests as more than many other causes and interests competing in the world out there somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe.
Long after global Obamamania has worn off, the geostrategic consequences of this insouciance will be sorely felt...
[Long, Bolton, Highly Recommended > ]
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Thuggery 101
Pres. Barack Obama came into office apparently believing that his non-traditional background, charisma, and good intentions could placate dictators hostile to America and ease global tensions.
But so far the world’s thugs do not seem to appreciate that new goodwill.
Intelligence reports indicate that North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il is planning to launch a ballistic test missile in the direction of Hawaii between July 4 and July 8...
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US will not use force to inspect NKorean ship
-- The United States will not use force to inspect a North Korean ship suspected of carrying banned goods, an American official was quoted as saying Friday."The U.N. resolution lays out a regime that has a very clear set of steps," ... "I want to be very clear ... This is not a resolution that sponsors, that authorizes use of force for interdiction."
[It wasn't long ago that the mere mention of US Navy involvement was sufficient to change behaviors. Now the world laughs as it's (mis)used - by the UN.
Another tangible consequence of the progressive campaign to castrate all aspects of this nation's character {word choice intentional}]
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The 'Rape' of Israel
The analogy is appropriate:
A stronger power forces his will upon a weaker victim regardless of what is fair, moral, and without any concern for the trauma he inflicts. The rapist (in this analogy) does what he thinks is good for himself. He wants what he wants.
President Obama and his Jewish (and some Israeli) facilitators may believe that what they are doing is for Israel's own good. That might be acceptable if they explained how it works.
Would a second Arab Palestinian state run by terrorists enhance Israel's security, promote peace with Israel and in the region, resolve the issues of Jerusalem, and millions of "Palestinian refugees"? Would the Palestinians and Arab states recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and acknowledge facts of Jewish and world history? Would the proposed state include Jews with full rights, as Israel includes Arabs with full rights?
Nowhere in Obama's agenda are these questions even asked to say nothing of answered. Nowhere is there a hint of how his plan will be carried out, nor concern for what might happen if things don't go according to his visions.
For those whose "wet dream" (as Landau described it to Rice) is the destruction of Jewish homes and communities "in order to advance 'the peace process,' " to reward Arab terrorists with a state of their own, the consummation of rape may satisfy them for a while; it's no consolation for those being violated.
Nor will it prevent the next savagery...
[Recommended > ]
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U.S., EU court Hamas in bid for truce with Israel
The American government and the European Union are making efforts to include Hamas in a broader diplomatic effort that would include a long-term cease-fire with Israel, reconciliation among Palestinian factions and support for renewed negotiations with Israel on the basis of the Arab peace initiative.
According to the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Hayat reporting from Damascus, a U.S. official visiting Syria two weeks ago said that ''the Hamas leadership has recently made important and interesting statements.''
[Another overtly brutal terrorist organization rewarded.]
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Hamas threats to kidnap more Israeli soldiers
Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Hamas movement, threatened on Saturday to kidnap more Israeli soldiers to exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
[Israel's 'partner in peace']
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Will Germany's Army Ever Be Ready for Battle?
On June 15, the German army's General Wolfgang Schneiderhan found himself in front of an audience of politicians and senior officers defending military policy - on sleeping bags... [snip]
Schneiderhan's blunt comments do a good job of portraying the German army, or Bundeswehr, as a bunch of whining softies. But there's a serious side to his exasperation. The German army as it stands today is a relatively young creation, born after a period of demilitarization following the end of World War II. A defensive army, the Bundeswehr has become increasingly engaged in international missions and is coming under pressure to step up its involvement in out-and-out warfare [Translation: actually fight].
After what Schneiderhan said last week, however, many are wondering whether it's up to the task...
[When next you hear some simple lefty point to Europe's social welfare and claim that it seems to 'work' by virtue of their not having completely bankrupted themselves (yet), remember: their quasi solvency has been achieved by mortgaging something critical - their defense. There now remains only a hand full of EU member states that could arguably repel a serious invasion, and none that can project any serious power (consider: the British Royal Navy is now comprised of 42 capital ships - 42). They've relied on the US to handle all their serious defense needs for several generations now.]
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Barack Obama vs international law
Obama has called settlements "illegitimate." And he has said that Israel "has obligations under the road map," while referring disparagingly to "settlements that, in past agreements, have been categorized as illegal."
The problem with the Obama administration's characterization of a ban on Jewish building in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria as an Israeli legal obligation is that Israel has never taken upon itself a legal obligation to prohibit such building activities. Israel has never signed an agreement that has characterized any Jewish communities as "illegal."
It makes good political sense for the Obama administration to make its case against Israel in this fashion. According to a survey of US public opinion published in early 2006 by the Boston Review, whereas only 7 percent of Democrats support going to war to spread democracy - versus 53% of Republicans; 71% of Democrats - versus 36% of Republicans - support going to war to help the United Nations "uphold international law."
What this poll shows is that for Obama supporters, the idea that Israel should be treated poorly because it is in breach of international law resonates deeply... [And liberating suppressed states doesn't - snip]
Obama, the former law professor, never tires of invoking international law. And yet, when one considers his policies toward Israel on the one hand, and his policies toward illegal terrorist organizations on the other, it is clear that Obama's respect for international law is mere rhetoric.
True champions of law in both Israel and the US should demand an end to his administration's contempt for the US's actual - rather than imaginary - legal obligations.
[Think you know how our government is now spending its 'international aid'? MUST READ > ]
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Communists turn to Stalin to fight crisis
MOSCOW-Russian communists have put up giant billboards of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in a southern city, promoting his tough methods as the best remedy for the world economic crisis.
Stalin killed millions of people during his 30 year rule until his death in 1953, but many in recession-hit Russia have grown nostalgic for his strong leadership, and he was voted the third most popular historical figure in a nationwide poll [of the survivors]...
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Price buster Putin makes his markdown
Moscow - The Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has paid a surprise visit to a Moscow supermarket, instructing startled managers to lower their prices.
The visit appeared to be the latest in a series of media stunts by Russia's strongman to show the public that the Government is in control of a financial crisis that shows no sign of easing...
[So, this sound like a 'new' Russia?]
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America's Socialist Past
There seems to be a need in American society to have to relearn the same hard lessons over and over again, regardless of whether the results were seen on the other side of the planet or suffered through by our own people.
The lesson we, and the rest of the world, seems to fail to learn is how socially and economically destructive this sort of system is. The problem is, these lessons don't have to be learned from studying the histories of far off lands, for we have numerous examples of collectivist/socialist experiments here at home... [snip]
The date is January 1, 1816, and a man named Robert Owen proposed a new type of model society. In his plans, each of these communities of 2,500 individuals would "be self-governing and hold its property in the common."[vii] So popular was Owen that when he reached America from Britain, President John Quincy Adams displayed one of Owen's architectural models for this ideal community. He established his community in Indiana, christening it New Haven in 1825. In New Haven, "not only work, but also recreation and meditation were communal and regimented."[viii] Everything was collectivized, including "cooking, child care, and other domestic work."[ix]
The community lasted two years.
The term "socialism" was actually coined by Owen's followers around the time New Haven failed. [snip]
These few examples, and there are more out there, show how American culture even before the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, depending on your location) tried communal living and centrally planned economic models. Despite the good intentions of the people involved, they always fail because of the inherent flaws in Socialism. Unfortunately, given the reach of the federal government and current make-up of the executive and legislative branches, we are set to learn this lesson the hard way.
Again.
[Highly Recommended > ]
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The Fed: Our economy's protector?
There has been a curiously subdued muddle of finger pointing to the cause of the financial crisis. Apparently, after the Administration and Congress finish legislating appropriate remedies, at some point they will convene a blue-ribbon commission or some such to determine what actually caused the problem.
In the meantime, we cannot remind ourselves too frequently of the real cause of the asset price bubble and especially of the fact that the bubble itself was the cause of the current economic crisis. The bubble was the problem -- not the failure to sustain the bubble by either adding more monetary air to it or by omnisciently regulating business...
It is, thus, an amazing irony that the Obama Administration touts the Federal Reserve System as the logical choice to become a new "systemic regulator." Having recently financed the asset bubble that undermined the financial system, the Fed is the only institution that has the power to cause similar catastrophes in the future.
This will be our economy's protector?
[We must never forget that, contrary to the mantra emanating from Washington, it was the government regulatory interference in home lending rules which was the genesis (followed by other contributing components) that set the stage for our current condition. The solution isn't more regulation but less to assure market forces constantly and accurately balance risk and reward.]
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FLASHBACKs >
GOVERNMENT POLICIES LED TO WALL STREET'S RISKY BUSINESS
Many observers blame the current financial crisis on a breakdown of private markets. A more careful look shows that government policy, step by step, led to the current crisis...
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Gerstner Says Short-Term Gains Should Be Taxed at 80%
“If you buy something -- a stock or a bond -- in the morning, and you sell in the afternoon, the tax probably ought to be 80 percent,”
said Gerstner, also a former chairman of Carlyle Group, the world’s second-largest private equity firm.“If you hold it for six months, maybe it ought to be 60 percent,”
Gerstner told Bloomberg Television.
Selling an investment after five years should carry a zero rate“to try to get the incentives for investment to go back to being a true investor and not a trader”
[Here here.]
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Administration Is Near a Financial Overhaul Plan
The Obama administration will soon propose a comprehensive plan to expand the authority of the government to seize large troubled companies, create a new regulator for companies that pose risks to the financial system and possibly establish an agency to oversee consumer debt like mortgages and credit cards...
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Electric Cars Will Not Decrease Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Says Federal Study
The stimulus law enacted in February promoted the purchase of plug-in electric cars by the federal government and the broader market, but a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released this month says that the use of plug-in electric vehicles will not by itself decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
To do that, the report argues, the United States would have to switch from coal-burning plants to lower-emission sources to generate electricity such as nuclear power...
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How green is my Prius?
The short answer is: nowhere near as green as Leonardo diCaprio and the eco-glitterati were led to believe when they bought it. Powered by two engines - a standard 76hp, 1.5-litre petrol engine and a battery engine (an immediate extra cost) the Toyota Synergy System sounds like the answer to an eco-dream. Well it was under the pre-2008 EPA regime of standard tests (including running the car at 8 mph) that allowed makers to make unrealistic claims for its mileage. When the EPA introduced a more realistic standard of testing in 2008 the average mileage dropped to 45 mpg, around the same as a normal [sub-compact] car .
But building a hybrid like the Prius causes far more environmental damage than producing a normal car.
All of this was put into perspective by a 2006 report ‘Dust to Dust' Automotive Energy Cost Study from CNW research. As the report points out, the Prius requires almost 50 percent more energy to build and drive than even the SUV Hummer and other non-hybrids. The battery contains nickel, one of the worst polluting metals when smelted. The batteries are shipped to Europe, then to Asia and Japan, then back to America before finally being fitted in the car. Are you getting the truer picture on the raft of hidden economic and environmental costs that make this one of the most expensive of specialist cars which mostly only eco-zealots can afford?
[More, Recommended > ]
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Disability, Inc.
This is not a joke. Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision that required an Oregon public school district to pay a $5,200 monthly tuition (plus fees) for a private boarding school for a high-school senior whose psychologist had diagnosed him with ADHD, depression, math disorder and cannabis abuse.
Also not a joke: The Obama administration had urged the big bench to so rule. Thus the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which mandates that all "children with disabilities" have the right to a "free appropriate public education," is turning into a cash cow for disability lawyers... [snip]
It's one of those nice people things. The government has expanded the notion of disability to the point of absurdity. But nice people refuse to look at the impending drain on public school budgets, or how one child's boarding school tuition can mean that much less funding for all the other students' educational needs...
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DOLLARS DON'T SPELL LEARNING
Many, including the courts, have blindly accepted the assumption that more money will improve student performance at our nation's public schools. However, almost no one has seriously examined the empirical evidence to determine its validity, say authors Eric A. Hanushek and Alfred A. Lindseth.
The authors look at four states -- Wyoming, Kentucky, New Jersey and Massachusetts -- where courts ordered the legislatures to appropriate more money for public schools on the presumption that increased spending would improve performance.
Their conclusion: Court-ordered funding does not necessarily improve test scores, and blacks, despite the increased spending, are even worse off.
In Wyoming:
- Despite unprecedented court ordered increases in school funding, the achievement of Wyoming's students has failed to keep up with the nation or even with its much lower-funded, although demographically similar, neighboring states.
- The 1989 Rose decision resulted in a court order for certain structural changes and increased funding; the structural changes were implemented, but they produced no improvements in learning levels.
- Despit a court-ordered $1.5 billion in additional education spending (per-pupil spending in New Jersey exceeded $20,000 last year), there is little evidence that the state's students have progressed much, if at all, relative to students nationwide.
[If more money did result in better education, don't you think we'd be drowned in studies showing such paid for by the public teachers' unions? So what does it mean that we aren't?]
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Census to castrate American Caucasians
President Barack Obama’s 2010 Census Form asks if you go to work by ferryboat or trolleycar, if you are mentally challenged, if you are of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin. It asks if you use coal, gas, oil, electricity, or solar energy to heat your home or apartment. and if you speak a language other than English at home. It asks your income, your educational level, and the time you leave your home in the morning.
But infinitely more telling is what the new census form doesn’t ask.
It doesn’t ask if you are a citizen of the U.S.A.
Naturally, the questions are in English and Spanish, lest anyone think that America is an Anglo nation... [snip]
But there are problems with the Obama census beyond the intrusive nature of the comprehensive survey. To assist in the hiring of census takers, the Obama Administration has opted to partner with the following special interest groups (not one of which represents the despised race of whites who settled this country):
- ACORN
- 100 Black Men of America
- African American Women’s House of Imagene (sic) Shelter
- American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
- Arab American Institute
- Asian American Federation
- Asian American Justice Center
- Asian and Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS
- Association of Professors and Scholars of Iranian Heritage
- Boat People SOS
- Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute
- Hispanic Federation
- Fundacion Azteca
- Latino Justice PDLDEF
- Mas New Mexico
- Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
- Minority Access
- National Alliance for Hispanic Health
- National Alliance of Black School Educators
- National American Indian Housing Council
- NAACP National Voter Fund
- NAACP (National Association of Colored People)
- National Association for Black Social Workers
- National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs
- National association of Hispanic Federal Executives
- National Association of Hispanic Publications
- National Association of Latino Elected Officials
- National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs
- National Black Chamber of Commerce
- National Black Child Development Institute
- National Black Justice Coalition
- National Black Leadership Forum
- National Coalition on Black Civic Participation
- National Congress of Black Women
- National Federation of Filipino American Associations
- National Hispanic Leadership Institute
- National Hispanic Business Information Clearinghouse
- National Latino Research Center
- National Minority AIDS Council
- National Puerto Rican Coalition
- National Puerto Rican Day Parade
- Rainbow Push Coalition
- U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
- Voto Latino
Get the picture? Notice a racial bias?
This racial bias inherent in the coming census has raised the concern that the results will be rigged - - a concern that has been intensified by Mr. Obama’s selection of Robert M. Groves, a sociology professor at the University of Michigan, to head the program.
Republican legislators have expressed alarm because Mr. Groves’s specialty is statistical sampling — roughly speaking, the process of extrapolating from the numbers of people actually counted to arrive at estimates of those uncounted and, presumably, arriving at a realistic total.
If minorities, immigrants, the poor and the homeless are those most likely to be missed in an actual head count, as Mr. Grove presumably believes, and if political stereotypes hold true, then the statistical sampling of the 2010 census will produce a windfall for the Democrat Party.
This result is certain since the census results as gathered by the above groups coupled with Mr. Grove’s calculation of the missed head count will determine which states gains seats in Congress and which ones lose them, as well as the allocation of federal dollars to states and cities based on population...
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This Boomer Isn't Going to Apologize
Last weekend I attended my niece's high-school graduation from an upscale prep school in Washington, D.C. These are supposed to be events filled with joy, optimism and anticipation of great achievements. But nearly all the kids who stepped to the podium dutifully moaned about how terrified they are of America's future -- yes, even though Barack Obama, whom they all worship and adore, has brought "change they can believe in."
A federal judge gave the commencement address and proceeded to denounce the sorry state of the nation that will be handed off to them. The enemy, he said, is the collective narcissism of their parents' generation -- my generation. The judge said that we baby boomers have bequeathed to the "echo boomers," "millennials," or whatever they are to be called, a legacy of "greed, global warming, and growing income inequality."
And everyone of all age groups seemed to nod in agreement. One affluent 40-something woman with lots of jewelry told me she can barely look her teenagers in the eyes, so overcome is she with shame over the miseries we have bestowed upon our children.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that graduation ceremonies have become collective airings of guilt and grief. It's now chic for boomers to apologize for their generation's crimes. It's the only thing conservatives and liberals seem to agree on. Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor of Indiana, told Butler University grads that our generation is "just plain selfish." At Grinnell College in Iowa, author Thomas Friedman compared boomers to "hungry locusts . . . eating through just about everything." Film maker Ken Burns told this year's Boston College grads that those born between 1946 and 1960 have "squandered the legacy handed to them by the generation from World War II."
I could go on, but you get the point. We partied like it was 1999, paid for it with Ponzi schemes and left the mess for our kids and grandkids to clean up. We're sorry -- so sorry.
Well, I'm not.
I have two teenagers and an 8-year-old, and I can say firsthand that if boomer parents have anything for which to be sorry it's for rearing a generation of pampered kids who've been chauffeured around to soccer leagues since they were 6.
This is a generation that has come to regard rising affluence as a basic human right, because that is all it has ever known -- until now. Today's high-school and college students think of iPods, designer cellphones and $599 lap tops as entitlements. They think their future should be as mapped out as unambiguously as the GPS system in their cars.
CBS News reported recently that echo boomers spend $170 billion a year -- more than most nations' GDPs -- and nearly every penny of that comes from the wallets of the very parents they now resent. My parents' generation lived in fear of getting polio; many boomers lived in fear of getting sent to the Vietnam War; this generation's notion of hardship is TiVo breaking down.
How bad can the legacy of the baby boomers really be? Let's see: We're the generation that spawned Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Google, ATMs and Gatorade. We defeated the evils of communism and delivered the world from the brink of global thermonuclear war. Now youngsters are telling pollsters that they think socialism may be better than capitalism after all. Do they expect us to apologize for winning the Cold War next?
College students gripe about the price of tuition, and it does cost way too much. But who do these 22-year-old scholars think has been footing the bill for their courses in transgender studies and Che Guevara? The echo boomers complain, rightly, that we have left them holding the federal government's $8 trillion national IOU. But try to cut government aid to colleges or raise tuitions and they act as if they have been forced to actually work for a living.
Yes, the members of this generation will inherit a lot of debts, but a much bigger storehouse of wealth will be theirs in the coming years. When I graduated from college in 1982, the net worth of America -- all our nation's assets minus all our liabilities -- was $16 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve. Today, even after the meltdown in housing and stocks, the net worth of the country is $45 trillion -- a doubling after inflation. The boomers' children and their children will inherit more wealth and assets than any other in the history of the planet -- that is, unless Mr. Obama taxes it all away. So how about a little gratitude from these trust-fund babies for our multitrillion-dollar going-away gifts?
My generation is accused of being environmental criminals -- of having polluted the water and air and ruined the climate. But no generation in history has done more to clean the environment than mine. Since 1970 pollutants in the air and water have fallen sharply. Since 1960, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh have cut in half the number of days with unsafe levels of smog. The number of Americans who get sick or die from contaminants in our drinking water has plunged for 50 years straight.
Whenever kids ask me why we didn't do more to combat global warming, I explain that when I was young the "scientific consensus" warned of global cooling. Today's teenagers drive around in cars more than any previous generation. My kids have never once handed back the car keys because of some moral problem with their carbon footprint -- and I think they are fairly typical.
The most absurd complaint of all is that the health-care system has been ruined by our generation. Oh, really? Thanks to massive medical progress in the past 30 years, the chances of dying from heart disease and many types of cancer have been cut in half. We found effective treatments for AIDS within a decade. Life expectancy has risen and infant mortality fallen. That doesn't sound so "selfish" to me.
Yes, we are in a deep economic crisis today -- but it's no worse than what we boomers faced in the late 1970s after years of hyperinflation, sky-high tax rates and runaway government spending. We cursed our parents, too. But then we grew up and produced the largest leap forward in health, wealth and scientific progress the world has ever seen.
Let's see what this next generation of over-educated ingrates can do.
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