How have Native Americans fared in their single-payer federal health care system
At IHS headquarters in Rockville, it was eerily similar, except it was the out-stretched legs (and attitudes) of uncaring bureaucrats that provided the extended barriers to progress. And no, most of those bureaucrats weren't indifferent, racist whites; they were almost exclusively indifferent, brown and black-skinned representatives of the suppressed minority classes.
So think about that when you consider turning over responsibility for your health care to a federal bureaucracy that has been responsible for Indian health care for more than a century. I'll give good odds that Indian Health Service is an example of a nationally-managed health care program that I am sure the Obama Administration would wish you'd never heard of.
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Thursday, July 16, 2009
Single-payer health care in action - Indian health care's victims
All Three Nets To Interview Obama About Healthcare Wednesday
[Meanwhile, in our professional media...]
President Obama's healthcare initiative is currently in a lot of trouble on Capitol Hill as legislators grapple with finding money -- amidst staggering budget deficits and a declining economy -- to fund the new program.
As a result, on Wednesday, the news divisions of all three broadcast networks have decided to come to Obama's rescue, and on the very same evening, air interviews with the President concerning this issue.
It's good to be a Democrat president the press are in love with, isn't it?
As reported by TVNewser Tuesday (h/t Stewart Thomas):
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PRIVATE SCHOOLING FOR THE POOR
The peasants and slum-dwellers of India, Nigeria, Ghana and China have homes without toilets and one bed to a family. The way out of these circumstances, development experts say, is universal public schooling. The World Bank and large philanthropic groups have expended vast resources, increasing the number of public schools in such nations. The facilities they have built rival those in the West, and they have made sure the teachers employed in them have attended education school and been certified.
The problem with these schools is that very little teaching goes on in them, explains James Tooley, an education professor at the University of Newcastle in England:
- About one third of the time, these public school teachers simply don't show up.
- In their unannounced site visits, Tooley and his researchers found teachers who were often drunk, sleeping or just not teaching.
- The power wielded by their unions allows these teachers to neglect students without fear of punishment, let alone dismissal.
- In some slums, private schools enroll somewhere between 35 percent and 60 percent of all students.
- Nonetheless, these schools are often unknown, even to the country's government officials; in the developing world as in the West, people are convinced that private schools are for the rich.
That is at least in part because the mostly uncertified private-school teachers within them are much more likely than their certified public school counterparts actually to be teaching when they are visited unannounced.
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CALIFORNIA VS. TEXAS: AMERICA'S FUTURE
America's recent history has been a relentless tilt to the West -- of people, ideas, commerce and even political power. California and Texas, the nation's two biggest states, are the twin poles of the West, but very different ones. For most of the 20th century the home of Silicon Valley and Hollywood has been the trendier of the two: its suburbs and freeways, its fads and foibles, its marvelous miscegenation have spread around the world. But twins can change places. Is that happening now, asks the Economist?
It is easy to find evidence that California is in a funk:
- At the start of this month the once golden state started paying creditors, including those owed tax refunds, business suppliers and students expecting grants, in IOUs.
- California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, also said that the gap between projected outgoings and income for the current fiscal year has leapt to a horrible $26 billion.
- California's unemployment rate is running at 11.5 percent, two points ahead of the national average.
- Its roads and schools are crumbling; every year, over 100,000 more Americans leave the state than enter it.
By contrast, Texas appears to be much better off, says the Economist:
- It has coped well with the recession, with an unemployment rate two points below the national average and one of the lowest rates of housing repossession.
- It has no state capital gains or income tax, and a business-friendly attitude.
- It is home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other state -- 64 compared with California's 51 and New York's 56.
[We're being mismanaged to death. Shouldn't we fire the managers?]
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Major banks say they will no longer accept California IOUs
Sacramento - Thousands of vendors who do billions of dollars of business with the state of California are scrambling as major banks say they will no longer honor the state's IOUs. Despite pressure from the state treasurer, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., and Wells Fargo & Co. and other major banks planned to stick to their plans and not honor California's warrants after Friday.
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Neighborhood wakes up to torched American flags
CALIFORNIA
LAGUNA NIGUEL – Four U.S. flags were found burned in a South County neighborhood this morning, just a few days after neighbors hung them outside their homes for the Fourth of July weekend, authorities said.
The flags were found just after 7 a.m. today, when one of the residents was leaving for work and discovered his flag had been burned, said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department ...
[Eternal vigilance.]
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Strong Grassroots Support For Palin’s SarahPAC
The political action committee associated with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin , SarahPAC, reported strong support from small donors in its mid-year report. SarahPAC reported $733,000 in total receipts through June 30, of which $420,000 was “unitemized” or from donors who contributed $200 or less...
[As predicted, the MSM's orchestrated opinion that Sarah's resignation was political suicide isn't selling with those who put their money where their mouths are.
Et Tu?]
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Hamas says Israel dumping aphrodisiac gum on Gaza
GAZA CITY — Hamas suspects that Israeli intelligence services are supplying its Gaza Strip stronghold with chewing gum that boosts the sex drive in order to "corrupt the young," an official said on Tuesday. "We have discovered two types of stimulants that were introduced into the Gaza Strip from Israeli border crossings," Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan told AFP...
[Yup, exactly what Israel wants: more Gazans.]
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[HT:MC]
Jesus and the Democrat
A Republican in a wheelchair entered a restaurant one afternoon and asked the waitress for a cup of coffee. The Republican looked across the restaurant and asked, "Is that Jesus sitting over there?"
The waitress nodded "yes," so the Republican requested that she give Jesus a cup of coffee, on him.
The next patron to come in was a Libertarian with a hunched back.He shuffled over to a booth, painfully sat down, and asked the waitress for a cup of hot tea.. He also glanced across the restaurant and asked, "Is that Jesus over there?" The waitress nodded, so the Libertarian asked her to give Jesus a cup of hot tea, "My treat."
The third patron to come into the restaurant was a Democrat on crutches. He hobbled over to a booth, sat down and hollered, "Hey there, honey! How's about gettin' me a cold glass of Miller Light?" He, too, looked
across the restaurant and asked, "Is that God's boy over there?"
The waitress once more nodded, so the Democrat directed her to give Jesus a cold glass of beer. "On my bill," he said.
As Jesus got up to leave, he passed by the Republican, touched him and said, "For your kindness, you are healed." The Republican felt the strength come back into his legs, got up, and danced a jig out the door.
Jesus also passed by the Libertarian, touched him and said, "For your kindness, you are healed." The Libertarian felt his back straightening up, and he raised his hands, praised the Lord and did a series of back flips out the door.
Then, Jesus walked towards the Democrat.
The Democrat jumped up and yelled, "Don't touch me ...
I'm collecting disability."
.
[ I just post 'em folks.]
.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Sotomayor's Unconvincing Backpedalling
I'm surprised and disturbed by how many times today Sonia Sotomayor has backed off of or provided less-than-convincing explanations for some of her more controversial speeches about the role of gender and ethnicity in judicial decision-making. Sotomayor's most quoted comment is,
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male."
she essentially disavowed...
[Because in today's media 'climate' {talk about warming}, it will work - despite all video evidence to the contrary.]
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Sotomayor on Sotomayor: Revises, extends her words
It's a good thing Sonia Sotomayor speaks Sotomayoran. The Supreme Court nominee at last got a chance to deconstruct her own words Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Fingers splayed, palms flat, hands bouncing up and then deliberately pressing down to the table, Sotomayor elaborated, clarified, expanded, retracted. She drew loopy circles on her paper; she ran rhetorical circles around her past words...
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Sotomayor hearings: Is judge a temperamental bully?
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Supreme Court by President Obama, an article in the New Republic appeared to damage her chances critically.The article, quoted the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary, a guidebook to federal judges.
Sotomayor was a "bully" and a "terror" on the bench, suggested she wasn't "that smart" and was rude to lawyers who made arguments she didn't like...
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WaPo Insists Sotomayor Is 'Mainstream' -- But Doesn't Say Study Proving It Came from Liberals
The Washington Post’s Saturday story on the approaching Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings tried to suggest that conservative allegations that the New York appeals judge is a liberal activist who rules with her feelings have been crushed.
The trio of reporters Robert Barnes, Michael Shear, and Perry Bacon cited "one recent study" that readers might suppose is nonpartisan – but the cited study came from a very liberal, pro-Sotomayor source, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University -- a think tank named after liberals' favorite activist justice.
Here’s where that study emerged:
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Former CIA Director: No One Told Me Not To Tell Congress
NPR finds the one person the New York Times should have interviewed.
Gen. Mike Hayden's statement is at odds with a New York Times report Sunday that said the CIA: Withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years.
Now we know...NY Times employees don't even read their own paper.
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If Cheney Really Had 'Assassination Squad'
Fox New's Bill O'Reilly has a fabulous response to Seymour Hersh's most-recent conspiracy theory about former Vice President Dick Cheney having an executive assassination squad responsible for covertly wiping out America's enemies:"If Cheney really had such a crew, Hersh would have been dead a long time ago, and so would most everybody at MSNBC."
So wrote O'Reilly in a fabulously tongue-in-cheek column Sunday entitled "Coming Soon to a Lefty Rag Near You."
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The Cheney "Scandal"
"Please don’t look at the socialized medicine in the corner, we’re hunting Cheneys."
Okay, so I’ve had internet problems and staying abreast of the news has been a problem. So, I’m willing to concede that maybe I’m missing something. But, from what I can tell this Cheney scandal story (much hyped in our little New York Times digest thingamajig), is the mother of all nothingburgers.
It’s hard for me not to see it as a ploy by Democrats to distract from the fact that the stimulus bill is a dud...
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Iraq seeks to buy US-made F-16 fighter jets
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Iraq wants to buy an initial squadron of American F16 fighter jets this year to help to guard against perceived threats from Iran and Syria after US forces leave, the head of the Iraqi Air Force said yesterday.
Lieutenant-General Anwar Ahmed said that he hoped to sign a contract for 18 F16s, manufactured by the technology company Lockheed Martin, as the centrepiece of billions of dollars that Iraq is expected to spend on arms in coming years.“This is very important to us,” he said during a visit to Washington. “It is a priority.”
He said that if funds were made available by the Iraqi parliament his goal was to acquire up to 96 F16s by 2020. The US is also producing the fighter jets for Israel, Pakistan, Poland and Greece.
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CNN: U.S. 'Cannot Win the War in Afghanistan
Despite the change in administration, CNN’s Michael Ware, who regularly issued doom-and-gloom reports on Iraq in past years, bluntly stated during a report on Thursday’s Anderson Cooper 360 that
"To put it simply, America cannot win the war in Afghanistan. ... Right now, there’s as many as 100 Taliban on that mountaintop between the snowcapped peaks and amid those trees. They’re currently under siege from local villagers, who are driving them from their bunkers.
But at the end of the day, it’s the Pakistani military who tolerates the presence of groups like the Taliban, and it’s not until America can start cutting deals with these people that there’s any hope of the attacks on American troops coming to an end."
[So, villagers are kicking their asses out of towns, but the US military can't win the war. He seems to have forgotten that the US accomplished in months what Russia failed to do in a decade. I.e., it most certainly can do so again - provided it retains the will to do so.
But the MSM will do its best to defeate it, as always.]
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[Please don't use the word 'surge', that's a Bushism]
Panel dropped after invitation of Islam critic
The American Library Association has canceled a panel discussion on Islam planned for its annual conference over the weekend, after three speakers withdrew in protest at the inclusion of the fourth, a critic of the Muslim religion...
[25% dissenting opinion - can't have that]
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Death toll in Urumqi [China] riots may hit 258
BEIJING - The death toll in ethnic clashes in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region a week ago may climb to 258, China Daily reported on Monday.
Chinese authorities said the official death toll from July 5 riots in Urumqi, capital of China's northwest region, has increased to 184 and another 939 people have been hospitalized, with 74 of them in a critical condition.
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China is now an empire in denial
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it suddenly became obvious that the USSR had never been a proper country. It was a multinational empire held together by force.
Might we one day say the same of China?
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Russia's New Useful Idiot
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Let's review recent events:
- o Russia invades Georgia with no compelling American response.
- o Russia threatens nuclear war with Poland due to the inclusion of Poland in the new US missile defense shield.
- o Russia cuts off Ukraine's electricity as penalty for Ukrainian support of the US missile defense shield.
- Russia practices nuclear war on the United States in a joint exercise with China as a part of the new "Shanghai Cooperation Organization."
- o Russia is designing and adding next generation ICBMs in direct violation of its START commitments, even as the US is progressively reducing its deterrent options, even basing all our missiles in one location.
- o Russia provides extensive nuclear expertise and technology to enemies of the US.
- o Russia has spearheaded a new multilateral defense organization-noticeably similar to the Warsaw Pact-, which features Iran as one of its members.
- o Russia has begun reopening Cold War bases in the Mideast.
- o Russian Defense Minister Dmitry Rogozin has even threatened to attack US forces in Kosovo if Kosovo is not forcibly reintegrated into Serbia, raising the possibility that WWIII will happen in our lifetime.
The United States has for the last two decades engaged in an unnecessary experiment in "multilateralism" which has cost us critical strategic position with a weakened but potentially dangerous enemy. A dying bear can still inflict fatal wounds on the unwary.
Peace through strength, a tried and tested policy, has been replaced with the less potent "peace through lots and lots of talk." It's the UN way:
"If you don't stop manufacturing WMDs, we'll send you a letter telling you how very angry we are, and then we'll give you more time. If you're smart you'll ship the weapons to Syria." [snip]
Russia is weaker now than it was at the end of the Cold War, and is running a very transparent bluff to test the state of American will-power. If we listen to President Obama and the defeatist elites that still dominate American government, we will do the very thing that would have spelled our defeat in the Cold War. Putin knows this. This time he's Reagan and Obama is Gorbachev. If we give ground now, it will without a doubt have disastrous consequences for American influence and power.
Russia understands strength; therefore we must be strong. As a great American once said,
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States when men were free."
Let's make sure the "evil empire" knows we're still alive.
[Recommended > ]
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It's worse than we think
Mort Zuckerman writing in the Wall Street Journal gives us 10 reasons why the unemployment numbers indicate the economy is in even worse shape than we believe.
A few of Mort's valuable observations:
- No fewer than 1.4 million people wanted or were available for work in the last 12 months but were not counted. Why? Because they hadn't searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.
- The number of workers taking part-time jobs due to the slack economy, a kind of stealth underemployment, has doubled in this recession to about nine million, or 5.8% of the work force. Add those whose hours have been cut to those who cannot find a full-time job and the total unemployed rises to 16.5%, putting the number of involuntarily idle in the range of 25 million.
This is why people are getting angry at Obama. He globetrots around the world being adored by foreigners while sticking to his plan to remake America by taxing and spending us into oblivion.
Meanwhile, unemployment is spiraling out of control and he doesn't seem to be doing anything about it. In fact, he says that he's done everything he plans on doing because the stim bill is going to work - despite the fact that unemployment has already exceeded the percentage he set as the ceiling if we passed the bill.
Read the rest of Zuckerman's piece to get an eyeful of why things are probably only going to get worse.
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A Lesson in Stupid Tax Policy
North Carolina is a state with a huge budget deficit. It is one of the worst state deficits in the nation at $4.6 billion or 21% of the general fund budget for fiscal year 2010. In addition, North Carolina has the 5th worst unemployment rate in the country at 11.1%, and just missed the top 10 lists of the worst states in the country for business (39th here, and 38th here).
So how has the Tar Heel State proposed it solve its budget crisis and spur economic growth? Not by cutting spending of course. Governor Beverly Perdue has proposed $1.5 billion in tax increases, much of which will come from taxing online retail sales from companies that have no physical presence in the state.
So instead of angering the education lobby that helped her get elected, Governor Perdue is pursuing more taxes that will only cause further damage to North Carolina's suffering economy.
Amazon has already put affiliates on notice that they will be terminated once the law is enacted.
This means that not only will North Carolina once again be unable to collect the sales tax from Amazon, but also now they won't even be able to collect the income taxes from affiliates who profited from their relationship with Amazon in the past. That is a net loss in tax revenue resulting from a bill that was supposed to increase taxes by $1.5billion.
In short it is a recipe for disaster... [snip]
The one benefit the Amazon Tax has brought about is a wonderful teachable moment on stupid tax policy. Conservatives have espoused for decades that raising taxes actually reduces revenue coming into a government, and the example of the Amazon Tax illustrates that point perfectly.
States with serious economic problems right now should not be looking for more tax opportunities to artificially sustain bad spending habits. Instead they should take this time to prioritize their expenditures and make cuts as necessary...
[But first we need elect 'representatives' that understand this, or nothing will change.]
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Lincoln: how to manage government
[HT:GC]
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You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.
Clearly It's Al Gore Who's In Denial
In the past we’ve questioned former Vice President Al Gore’s honesty (Gore's Deceptive Rolling Stone Interview); his use of intimidation tactics and character assassination to promote his lies (Gore's Grave New World); his proclivity for championing policy based wholly on erroneous facts (Gore Celebrates Israel's 60th With Whoppers) and, ultimately, his very soundness of mind (Al Gore's Global Warming Therapy). So comments he made to an Australian reporter last weekend which betrayed an evident disconnect with reality, while certainly mind-boggling, were by no means astonishing.
During a Melbourne interview discussing his trip down-under to pressure the Rudd government toward carbon emissions trading legislation (h/t Climate Depot), Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Heather Ewart forced Gore to do something from a distance he has steadfastly refused to do face-to-face --- address his growing hordes of detractors:
HEATHER EWART: When you were last visiting Australia, you were riding high on the success of your documentary 'Inconvenient Truth'. What has happened since then though is there have been a number of respected scientists who have suggested that perhaps you've been a little too alarmist and loose with the facts. Has that dented the credibility in any sense of what you're on about?
AL GORE: I don't agree with that assessment. I think that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the world scientific authority on this issue, has been saying exactly the same things that I have been saying.
Of course, as a colossal group of U.N. bureaucrats controlling a substantially smaller group of rented scientists, the only thing the IPCC is the world authority on is the corrupting of climate science for political gain. As we’ve reported time and time again, the latest IPCC synthesis report, much-hyped-and-hallowed by alarmists and media-drones alike, represents the combined work of only 52 UN scientists -- as carefully cherry-picked as they were micromanaged.
Surely, the 255-page U.S. Senate Minority Report containing the IPCC-countering findings of more than 13 times that number (now over 700 dissenting -- including many current and former U.N. IPCC -- scientists) holds more authoritative weight to climate realists.
Okay, so Ewart wasn’t about to challenge the exalted IPCC’s scientific standing, but she did indirectly challenge Gore’s claim that the U.N panel was on board with the imminent planetary destruction depicted in his film:
“There was also, though, a British judge who ruled that there were in fact, I think, nine errors when it was challenged in court?”
And Gore’s response was that of a man in complete denial:
“Well, the ruling was in my favor. There have been a number of deniers trying to say that this isn't real. Of course there are always going to be that, but the overwhelming majority of the scientists who've looked at this have said, ‘We've got to confront this.’"
In his favor? In October of 2007, the British High Court found that Gore’s film “represents 'partisan political views' and must be treated as such by teachers in British schools.” The judge mandated that teachers wishing to project the film in class must inform students that “some of Mr. Gore's views were not supported or promoted by the Government, and there was ‘a view to the contrary’".
The decision was based on Mr. Justice Burton’s assessment that the film included at least nine errors “in which statements were made that were not supported by the current mainstream scientific consensus.”
The IPCC agrees with him? The British Court ruling was in his favor?
From where does he muster the unmitigated gall to refer to tens of thousands of skeptical scientists and a growing majority of unalarmed Americans as the deniers?
[Highly Recommended > ]
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Palin makes the case against cap and tax
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Sarah Palin makes a well argued case against Obama's cap and tax in an Op-ed in today's Washington Post:
There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive. Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America's economy.
Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion dollars. So much for creating jobs.
In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.
The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.
The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet. As the president eloquently put it, their electricity bills will "necessarily skyrocket." So much for not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.
It will be very interesting to see how Sarah Palin uses her position as one of the big Republican names not in office.
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'Hardball' Promotes Ted Kennedy HBO History, Which Completely Leaves Out Death at Chappaquiddick
On Friday night’s Hardball, guest host Lawrence O’Donnell enthusiastically promoted HBO’s new, glowing Ted Kennedy documentary.
He began by declaring "There‘s so much ground to cover. We don‘t have enough time for this. And I want to show the people out there, people under 60, who don‘t know the early Ted Kennedy, don‘t remember the early Ted Kennedy, I want to show what you have got in this movie."
But O’Donnell’s interview completely left out the biggest scandal of Kennedy's career – the death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick.
[Our 'professional' media. Typical.]
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Judge rules L.A. Unified can fire special ed teacher paid to stay out of schools
A Los Angeles Unified School District special education teacher who has been paid to stay away from classrooms for more than seven years while the district tried to fire him for alleged sexual harassment should be dismissed, a county Superior Court judge has ruled.
[After seven years on the payroll. What's it going to take to privatize our education system?]
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Public Protests Slowing Down Health Care Takeover
It appears that moderate Democrats in Congress are getting nervous. The public doesn't like the idea of wrecking the economy in the name of stopping warming, especially when the climate hasn't actually warmed any for a decade.
People aren't responding any better to the idea of turning hospitals into the medical equivalent of the post office. Reports Roll Call.
Call it the hangover effect...
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[We can stop it, if we act now...
"OPPOSE GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE"
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...
Oh shut up
The Washington Post has a long and unfortunate piece today on how very hard it is to work at the White House. I know a lot of infantrymen who would love to have the soft life these people have.
I think this sort of mewling is what happens when you staff the White House mainly with people who think the hardest thing you can do in life is take the bar exam...
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009
What Ricci Says About Sotomayor - and Obama
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Ricci indicates that it will.
When New Haven firefighters took the lieutenant promotion test, only whites scored high enough to fill the eight current vacancies (for details about these exams, see Justice Kennedy's opinion). The specific legal question in Ricci was: May an employer disregard the results of a promotion exam because too many individuals of one race had the best scores?
All nine Supreme Court justices ruled it was wrong for New Haven to discard the test results merely because there was a racial disparity in test scores.
Did Judge Sotomayor agree with any of the Supreme Court justices?
No. Instead, she decided that an employer can disregard test results whenever a test disproportionately favors members of one race over another, even though the employer has no "strong basis in evidence" or "good cause" to believe any discrimination occurred.
President Obama's selection of Judge Sotomayor should disappoint white supporters who saw his election as absolving them from the sin of racism. His selection of Judge Sotomayor shows that he still considers whites to have unfairly benefited from racism and that it's still okay to discriminate against whites to remedy past sins.
[This is a life time appointment, occuring this week -
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FLASHBACKs >
- Sotomayor Ruled That States Do Not Have to Obey Second Amendment
- Sotomayor, Ricci and White Male Privilege
- Sotomayor Failed to Disclose to Senate Memo in Which She Argued Death Penalty Is 'Racist'
- Media Ignores Obama's SCOTUS Nominee's Membership In Radical La Raza Organization
- Supreme Court Nominee Sotomayor: You Read, You Decide
Sotomayor: 'Task of a judge is not to make the law'
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[Just policy >
Supreme Court Nominee Sotomayor: You Read, You Decide"All of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people with Court of Appeals experience. Because it is - Court of Appeals - is where policy is made. And I know, and I know, that this is on tape, and I should never say that. Because we don't 'make law,' I know. [laughter] Okay, I know. I know. I'm not promoting it, and I'm not advocating it. I'm, you know. [laughter]"
hysterical. And why should she 'never say it'?
Once appointed, she's there for life with NO oversight/recourse whatsoever.
This week.]
"OPPOSE SOTOMAYOR CONFIRMATION "
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
The cornpone Arlen Specter
For the first time in the memory of most, we have a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on a Supreme Court nominee in which Sen. Arlen Specter is not participating as a Republican.
Unfortunately, the Republican committee membership still includes Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Arlen Specter of the South. And in his opening statement, Graham served up a cornpone rendition of Specter.
Graham opined that, barring a meltdown, Judge Sotomayor wil be confirmed.
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"OPPOSE SOTOMAYOR CONFIRMATION"
Sen. Lindsey Graham : CALL (ask for Graham's office): (202) 224-5972 http://lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=contact.emailsenatorgraham
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Obama Threatens to Veto His Own Defense Bill Over F-22 Funding
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But that's the rare position President Obama finds himself taking after senators made an 11th hour addition of $1.75 billion to buy seven F-22 fighter jets ...
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[Working together. Reaching across the isle. Compromise. Seven jets?
No. Scuttle the whole budget.]
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FLASHBACKs >
Axing the Air Force
“This budget guarantees that the oldest Air Force in the history of our nation will get even older" ... “B-52s, built in the 1950s, will have to be kept on duty for a minimum of another 15-20 years.”
Killing the F-22
The F-22 is very expensive, but delivers air superiority in return. Imagine US {or any military's} capabilities without air superiority. We cannot do without it. The F35 does not provide it. This is a foolish decision at any time - with the obvious intentions of China and Russia it's lunacy..
Obama wants investigation of 2001 Afghan massacre
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Obama goes for the easy applause rather than standing up for American interests"
President Obama has ordered his national security team to look into an apparent massacre of Taliban prisoners by an Afghan warlord back in 2001, according to Jake Tapper of ABC News:
Human rights groups applauded President Obama's remarks.
Of course they did. They are not responsible for the security and strength of the Afghan government. Apparently, Obama doesn't believe he is either.
Would it have been better to prosecute the warlord rather than protect him? In a perfect world, of course. But war is about making bad choices sometimes and Bush made the right one. Those who do not have the responsibility - or, like Obama, who refuse to accept responsibility - can get on their moral high horse and feel very good about themselves and their superior position above the rest of us cretins.
But risking the stability of the Afghan government in order to get human rights groups to praise us is a little too high a price considering all the blood and treasure we have expended in Afghanistan to bring stability to that country.
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CBS Commended for Having Honesty, Guts to Air Video That Broadsides Media
[Credit where due.]
CBS’s “Sunday Morning” yesterday aired a remarkable segment that broadsided the national media for refusing to give our nation’s fallen soldiers the attention they deserve. Martha Gillis offered an uninterrupted, 3-minute monologue sharing the pain of losing her nephew, 1st Lt. Brian Bradshaw, who was killed on June 25 by an IED in Afghanistan. Gillis faulted the media for its virtual non-coverage, which, as NewsBusters reported last week, amounted to just 1/20th the broadcast network evening newscast airtime given to Michael Jackson's death.
In a statement released today, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell applauded CBS for the tribute (click here to view it online):
Congratulations to CBS News. This is nothing short of remarkably candid journalism. The raw emotion of 1st Lt. Bradshaw’s aunt Martha Gillis is heartbreaking. It moves the audience to see undue suffering – caused by the media – for a family that has already been crushed by the death of one of their young.
I commend CBS News for having the courage to air such honesty, and hope other networks take note of their editorial strength. There are consequences to bad journalism and some bear greater consequences than others. The media should have looked past the temptation of ratings to do what was right and honor our nation’s heroes. CBS has now done that.
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UPDATE:
Obama Rewrites the Cold War
The President has a duty to stand up to the lies of our enemies
There are two different versions of the story of the end of the Cold War: the Russian version, and the truth. President Barack Obama endorsed the Russian version in Moscow last week.
Speaking to a group of students, our president explained it this way:"The American and Soviet armies were still massed in Europe, trained and ready to fight. The ideological trenches of the last century were roughly in place. Competition in everything from astrophysics to athletics was treated as a zero-sum game. If one person won, then the other person had to lose."
The truth, of course, is that the Soviets ran a brutal, authoritarian regime. The KGB killed their opponents or dragged them off to the Gulag. There was no free press, no freedom of speech, no freedom of worship, no freedom of any kind. The basis of the Cold War was not "competition in astrophysics and athletics." It was a global battle between tyranny and freedom.
The Soviet "sphere of influence" was delineated by walls and barbed wire and tanks and secret police to prevent people from escaping. America was an unmatched force for good in the world during the Cold War. The Soviets were not. The Cold War ended not because the Soviets decided it should but because they were no match for the forces of freedom and the commitment of free nations to defend liberty and defeat Communism.
It is irresponsible [and damaging to our future interests] for an American president to go to Moscow and tell a room full of young Russians less than the truth about how the Cold War ended. One wonders whether this was just an attempt to push "reset" -- or maybe to curry favor.
Perhaps, and most concerning of all, Mr. Obama may believe what he said...
[Recommended > ]
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Medvedev defies West with South Ossetia visit
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Moscow - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev flew to the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia on Monday for his first visit since last year's war, ignoring a plea [?] by Washington to respect Georgia's borders.
Medvedev held talks with regional leader Eduard Kokoity, inspected military hardware at a Russian military base and promised economic and military aid...
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EUROPEAN HOT AIR
Restrictions on greenhouse-gas emissions involve huge costs for uncertain gains and are just what economies in recession don't need.
Western European leaders are the latest to discover that climate-change talk is cheap, but carbon-emissions regulation is expensive. That might be bad news for green activists, but it could be very good news for Europeans worried about their jobs and their economy, says the Wall Street Journal.
Governments in industry-heavy countries are now less willing to sacrifice jobs for cooler temperatures:
- Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted on exemptions for her country's industry from December's European Union (EU) climate package, which pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
- Germany also plans to build several dozen coal-fired power plants in the next few years.
- Italy insisted on a clause in the December climate deal that requires the EU to renegotiate its climate policy after the United Nations summit in Copenhagen later this year. [I.e., get the good press, then renege]
- Any renegotiated EU deal is likely to contain even more loopholes and exemptions to keep from denting European competitiveness.
Before the December negotiations, the London-based think tank Open Europe estimated the EU climate package would cost governments, businesses and householders in the EU-25 more than $102 - billion - a year -.
A recent paper by Gabriel Calzada Álvarez, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, said that since Spain started investing in "green jobs" policies in 2000, the country has lost 110,500 jobs in other parts of the economy. That amounts to 2.2 jobs lost for every new "green job" created.
A global slowdown and an increasing body of evidence is forcing a rethink on whether emissions control is worth the cost...
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TAX OPPRESSION INDEX RANKS AMERICA IN BOTTOM HALF OF INDUSTRIALIZED NATIONS
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A thorough new study of 30 nations from the Institut Constant de Rebecque in Switzerland reveals serious shortcomings in America's tax system. The study, entitled "Tax burden and individual rights in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): An International Comparison," creates a Tax Oppression Index based on three key variables: the overall tax burden, public governance, and taxpayer rights.
According to the researchers the United States is tied for 19th, behind the welfare states of Scandinavia.
The ugly news is that America has a very low rating for protecting taxpayer rights -- largely because politicians have tilted the playing field to favor the IRS, including the fact that taxpayers lose the presumption of innocence provided in the Constitution.
With President Obama promising to raise tax rates and increase the power of the IRS, it may just be a matter of time before the United States is competing for the world's most oppressive tax regime...
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Small-town cops in coastal Maine face a big problem
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Reporting from York, Maine -- The obituary in the York Weekly was heartbreaking. (snip)New England may be thousands of miles from the producers and brutal drug enterprises of Mexico and Colombia.
But a busy pipeline from Mexico resolutely moves heroin and cocaine to emerging markets as far away as coastal Maine, where more and more addicts fill courtrooms, jail cells, treatment facilities and morgues.
[If only we'd control our borders, before the bombs come across as well {if they haven't already}]
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D.C. COUNCIL WANTS VOUCHERS
Why does the national Democratic Party have such fierce opposition to a program that successfully helps poor children to escape failing inner city schools and get the education they deserve?
The life and death saga of the D.C. voucher program for low-income families continues, says the Wall Street Journal. A majority of the members of the D.C. Council recently sent a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan expressing solid support for continuing the program.
"We strongly urge you to stand with us in supporting these children and continuing the District's Opportunity Scholarship Program," ... "We believe we simply cannot turn our backs on these families because doing so will deny their children the quality education they deserve."
Earlier this year Illinois Senator Dick Durbin added language to a spending bill that phases out the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program after next year:
- The program provides 1,700 kids $7,500 per year to use toward tuition at a private school of their parents' choosing.
- Durbin's amendment says no federal money can be spent on the program beyond 2010 unless Congress reauthorizes it and the D.C. Council approves.
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GAG THE INTERNET
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AN OBAMA OFFICIAL'S FRIGHTENING BOOK ABOUT CURBING FREE SPEECH ONLINE
Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law professor who has been appointed to a shadowy post that will grant him powers that are merely mind-boggling, explicitly supports using the courts to impose a "chilling effect" on speech that might hurt someone's feelings. He thinks that the bloggers have been rampaging out of control and that new laws need to be written to corral them.
In Sunstein's new book, "On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done," considering the prominence with which Sunstein is about to be endowed, his worrying views are fair game now. Sunstein is President Obama's choice to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. It's the bland titles that should scare you the most."Although obscure," reported the Wall Street Journal, "the post wields outsize power. It oversees regulations throughout the government, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Obama aides have said the job will be crucial as the new administration overhauls financial-services regulations, attempts to pass universal health care and tries to forge a new approach to controlling emissions of greenhouse gases."
Sunstein was appointed [I.e, no congressional approval required, thank you), no doubt, off the success of "Nudge," his previous book, which suggests that government ought to gently force people to be 'better' human beings.
Czar is too mild a world for what Sunstein is about to become.
How about "regulator in chief"? How about "lawgiver"?
He is Obama's Obama... [snip]
Sunstein also believes that - whether you're a blogger, The New York Times or a Web hosting service - you should be held responsible even for what your commenters say. Currently you're immune under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. "Reasonable people," he says, "might object that this is not the right rule," though he admits that imposing liability for commenters on service providers would be "a considerable burden."
Sunstein dreams of an impossibly virtuous America:"We could also imagine a future in which those who spread false rumors are categorized as such, discounted and marginalized . . . people would approach rumors skeptically even they provide comfort and fit their own biases."
But if his chilling wind doesn't work, Sunstein may try to make good on the implicit threat that runs through his book: that he would redefine libel as the spread of false information and hold everyone up the ladder responsible.
If this happened, the blogosphere would turn into Pluto overnight. Comments sections would slam shut. Every writer would work on a leash shorter than a shoelace.
Sunstein is an enemy to every news organization and blogger. We should return the favor and declare war on him.
[Yet another extremely-radical appointment.]
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Maybe Lawmakers should read what they are voting on
Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby highlights a phenomenon that has made Congress something of a laughingstock in recent months.
But according to Steny Hoyer, lawmakers should refrain from reading what they are to vote on:
At a news conference last week, he was talking about the healthcare overhaul being drafted on Capitol Hill, and a reporter asked whether he would support a pledge committing members of Congress to read the bill before voting on it, and to make the full text of the legislation available to the public online for 72 hours before the vote takes place
That, reported CNSNews, gave Hoyer the giggles: The majority leader "found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question.
‘I'm laughing because . . . I don't know how long this bill is going to be, but it's going to be a very long bill,' he said.''
The cap and trade bill and health care monstrosity will fundamentally alter the relationship between the governed and the governors and Steny Hoyer doesn't think our representatives should read how that is going to occur before voting on it?
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