Predictable Progression...

In 2006, Gov. Mitt Romney enacted the most sweeping health care reform in the nation by making Massachusetts the first state to require that its residents purchase health insurance employers make a minimum level of health insurance part of employee compensation.

The fruits of Romneycare have been exactly what you'd expect from a government program, and makes it a case study in the reforms that President Obama and congressional Democrats are trying to ram through Congress.

Particularly the Romneycare individual and employer mandates, says Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute:

• The individual and employer mandates give Massachusetts the power to ration care in a deliberate and systemic fashion and gives the government the power to dictate what types of coverage health plans must offer but also enables it to regulate the relationships between insurers and health care providers.
• Since individual and employer mandates are simply disguised taxes, imposing them would violate Obama's pledge not to tax the middle class.
• He vowed that no family making less than $250,000 a year would see any form of tax increase; yet House Democrats would force non-compliant employers to pay a tax equal to eight percent of payroll, while uninsured individuals would pay a tax equal to 2.5 percent of income.

Recently, the legislative commission recommended that Massachusetts impose price controls in the private sector as a means of rationing care...

[Again and again: bloated inefficient government can't compete with the free market - unless it legislates draconian rule toward killing its competition.]

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image toon - hcare = New plan = ambulance within ambulance

Afghanistan strategy must change, US commander McChrystal says

The west must change its strategy in order to prevail in Afghanistan, the top US commander in the country said today as he handed over to US and Nato commanders a sweeping review of operations that may lead to a demand for more troops...

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Hamas Gunman Hides Among Civilians Waving White Flag

[HT:DT]

In a new video released by the IDF spokesperson's office, a Hamas terrorist can be seen planting an explosive device, entering a civilian home and hiding among residents who are waving a white flag. The video was captured on January 8, 2009, during Operation Cast Lead.

After planting an explosive device, the heavily armed terrorist climbs into a house full of civilians. When IDF troops surround the house, the residents come out waving a white flag, and the terrorist attempts to blend in with them.

With help from the Israeli Air Force—which had been watching the terrorist the entire time—IDF ground forces identify and arrest the Hamas gunman.

Watch the video and check out the IDF spokesperson's YouTube page.

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Cheney Was Right

The CIA's harsh interrogation techniques saved countless American lives by forcing al Qaeda chieftains to disclose a string of sophisticated terror plots to infiltrate the United States with cold-blooded killers.

That fact is established in two documents released Monday by the Justice Department, hours after they released the CIA Inspector General report which Attorney General Holder has used as a basis to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA interrogators.

The successes produced by the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” are disclosed in two declassified CIA reports -- the same ones demanded to be released by former Vice President Dick Cheney. He made the demand after President Barack Obama ordered the release of a Justice Department memo outlining the techniques -- but not the results.

"Since his March 2003 capture, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the driving force behind the 11 September attacks as well as several subsequent plots against U.S. and Western targets worldwide, has become one of the U.S. government's key sources on al Qaeda," the report said.

"He has provided intelligence that has led directly to the capture of operatives or fleshed our understanding of the activities of important detainees, which in turn assisted in the debriefings of these individuals."

The two Cheney-requested documents also show the interrogations foiled an al Qaeda program to produce and spread anthrax, the deadly germ used in biological warfare... [snip]

There's more... [snip]

The bottom line: the two reports show the enhanced interrogation techniques protected America...

[This isn't a political game - Highly Recommended > ]

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image toon - gwot nsec = Liberal interrogation = mr. bunny

We’ll ease up on Muslim fanatics

LABOUR slammed the brakes on its war against violent extremism yesterday - amid fears it had upset Muslim voters.

Millions spent preventing Asian kids becoming terrorists will now be used to tackle right-wing racists in Whiteareas.

Community cohesion minister Shahid Malik admitted he was softening his stance because Muslims felt stigmatised.

But a former Labour aide called the move a "dangerous dilution" of the Government's counter-terrorism strategy.

Tories branded it a shameless bid to win back Muslim voters who deserted Labour over Iraq and Afghanistan.

More than £45million a year has been spent on measures to prevent Al-Qaeda recruiting young Muslims in the UK. It included action to break up Islamic ghettos and stop university hate preachers. But Mr Malik, the first British-born Muslim MP, yesterday unveiled plans to 'broaden' the scope of the campaign.

"We shall be putting a renewed focus on resisting right-wing racist extremism. We cannot dismiss or underestimate the threat."

His action contrasts with the tough stance of ex-minister Hazel Blears. She broke links with Muslim groups that failed to denounce extremists. Her adviser Paul Richards said:

"The good work by Hazel is being undone in the name of political correctness."

Former shadow home secretary David Davis said:

"This has been watered down for purely political reasons. Labour has always seen Muslim voters as its own property."

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Islam's European Conquest: Is America Next?

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"Islamic lands that were occupied by the enemies will once again become Islamic...We proclaim that we will conquer Rome, like Constantinople was conquered once, and as it will be conquered again."

- Ali Al-Faqir, the Jordanian Minister for Religious Endowment

Britain, birthplace of parliamentary democracy, has fallen to Islam. Oxford, once home to the likes of C.S. Lewis, now houses a giant Eastern Islamic Studies Center. If this were the only Islamic addition to Oxford, the mood would be less somber, but when Oxford citizens are forced to awake every morning to the Muslim call to prayer with the full consent of the Church of England, nothing short of conquest has taken place.

Britain's Muslim demographic is now so dominant that the British government recently began to allow Islamic civil and religious law, known as Sharia, to be enforced along side British law.

But if religious tolerance is good, why is this a problem? Simple-this is not an issue of religious liberty. Islam is not designed to co-exist with western civilization. It is designed to conquer it... [snip]

Most would agree that Judeo-Christian values are consistent with Anglo-American tradition. Can the same be said of Islam? Even Muslims don't think so. The chief Justice of London's Sharia Court made this chilling statement:

"If Sharia is implemented then you can turn this country into a haven of peace...Once a thief's hand is cut off, nobody is going to steal. Once an adulterer is stoned, nobody is going to commit this crime at all. This is why we say we want to offer it to British society."

Statements like this have not stopped prominent British figures from endorsing Sharia. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Protestant equivalent of the Pope, called Sharia "unavoidable"... [snip]

And, incredibly, we cooperate with this reverse assimilation. Somehow we Westerners now feel compelled to assimilate with Muslims instead of expecting the reverse... [snip] Paris fashion runways... [snip] ... 751 areas have been willingly ceded to Islamic residents by the French government as police "no go" areas... [snip] ...Dutch Muslims have such a grip on Holland that those who speak out must live in safe houses... [snip] ...Yet the Dutch Minister of Justice still wants to make full Sharia an option on the next ballot...[snip]

And Germany looks to be next. Matthias Rohe, Judge on the Court of Appeals in Nuremburg wants to see full Sharia in Germany, saying, "we are ready to accept these kind of differences and would apply the norms." Many areas of Germany are now off limits to police and other uniformed personnel, as in France and the UK.

And the US is steadily bowing to Islamic pressure. Many US banks and investment firms have formally adopted Sharia Finance. Harold Koh, recent Dean of Yale Law School and current Obama Advisor to the Secretary of State, openly talks about the compatibility of Sharia with American legal precedent...[snip]

Is this what we want?

Radical Islam is inconsistent with American ideals, plain and simple. Europe is among the walking dead; their future is an Islamic one. America, however, still has a choice if we have the courage to make it...

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Filthy lucre is behind Yale cartoon censorship

It is a shameful thing. Yale's decision to censor pictures of Muhammad from an academic text about them is one of those watershed moments that history will record as institutional capitulation to Sharia (Islamic law) at one of the storied centers of Western learning, American branch.

Yale is hardly unique in academia in bending to Islamic law. Harvard, for instance, boosts Sharia-compliant finance, operates a gym on Islamic rules separating the sexes, and permits a Harvard chaplain to condone the Islamic penalty of death for leaving Islam without sanction.

Such deference to Islam is the embodiment of what historian Bat Ye'or calls "dhimmitude," the stunted cultural existence of non-Muslims living in thrall to Sharia. If Yale is not unique in this, censoring its press according to Islamic restrictions on Muhammad imagery makes Yale a leading contender for All-Ivy dhimmi... [snip]

Still, Yale has yet to receive its massive annual infusion of cash from the typical Muslim sources. Georgetown and Harvard, for example, both accepted $20 million apiece from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who has likewise contributed millions to families of Palestinian "martyrs," and whose part-owned Iqra TV incites jihad.

Imagine the frustration. What's Yale gotta do for its share of Sharia bucks? Censor those Sharia-defying Danish Muhammad Cartoons? Hmm. Not a bad idea.

That's the same Saudi prince, by the way, to whom then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani defiantly returned $10 million after Alwaleed blamed U.S. Middle East policy for Sept. 11...

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image toon - bdd gwot islm - dry bones re tentacles vs Islamic head of the beast

Spinning for Russia

Russia is aggressively trying to spin the invasion of a tiny neighbor Georgia for the purpose of annexing its territory and intimidating its anti-Russian government into doing the Kremlin's bidding or, failing that, to promote domestic insurrection and regime change.

And an American PR firm, headed by a former LA Times editor is happy -- for a price -- to lend a helping hand... [snip]

Russia's annexation of Ossetia is one thing; there was at least an active military dispute going on there. But what about Abkhazia? Georgian forces did not set foot in Abkhazia, yet Russian tanks still rolled in. Russia has no justification of any kind for that action, a fact its covert PR operatives have conveniently swept under the carpet.

And that's not the worst part.

As I've previously reported, Russia's malignant intentions do not stop within what it believes is its "sphere of influence." Russia regularly menaces the U.S. coastline and worldwide military bases with nuclear bombers even though we are doing no such thing to the Russians.

Russia is seeking to destabilize the Middle East in order to provoke a rise in oil prices, giving support to Hezbollah, Hamas , Syria and Iran that includes both military hardware and nuclear technology...

[Yet we're the ones begging Russia to let us 'reset' our relationship with it?]

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As hybrids gobble rare metals, shortage looms

The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods.

That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells...

[An unexpected/unintended consequence of legislating demand. Who could have guessed.]

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Parade of Despots Heading For New York

The usual September parade of world leaders descending on New York City for the opening of the annual United Nations General Assembly will be characterized this year by the presence of some of the world’s most appalling figures.

Likely to provoke the most ire this year will be Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who plans his first visit ever to the United States at a time when his emergence from international isolation has been set back by the release of the Libyan convicted in the Lockerbie bombing. Of the 270 people killed when the New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up after taking off from London in 1988, 189 were Americans.

But his presence will still be provocative, with families of Lockerbie victims and the American Libyan Freedom Alliance among those planning to protest.

The alliance, which says its objective is to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Libya, said it had expressed its disappointment to U.S. and U.N. officials about the planned attendance by Gaddafi

“despite all his well documented international and domestic crimes"

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also plans to attend the UNGA session, as he has for the past four consecutive years, but this time the visit comes on the heels of his disputed re-election and subsequent state crackdown. Adding to the storm, Ahmadinejad has nominated as defense minister a man wanted by Argentina and Interpol for his alleged role in the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires... [snip]

Under the 1947 United Nations Headquarters Act, foreign delegates are permitted unimpeded access to a demarcated “headquarters district” in New York City.

Leading calls this year for Ahmadinejad to be denied a visa is Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

She argued in a letter to Obama that the threat posed by Ahmadinejad to American national security interests outweighed U.S. responsibilities under the U.N. Headquarters Act.

The Reagan administration in 1988 set a precedent by denying PLO chairman Yasser Arafat a visa, citing “associations with terrorism"...

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Rosey Storm Clouds

[HT:MM]
The Obama administration’s updated budget forecasts--which anticipate that the federal government will run up $9.05 trillion in new debt over the next decade--is predicated on the assumption of a robust rate of economic growth during that entire period, claiming that the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow at an average rate of 2.8 percent between 2009 and 2019...

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CNN Highlights Dangers of Obama’s Deficit: ‘Taxes That Would Make a Scandinavian Revolt’

CNN’s American Morning on Friday dug up a six-week old op-ed from the Tax Policy Center’s Len Burman warning that massive trillion-dollar deficits are a catastrophe that could lead to the end of the U.S. as a great power “or even a mediocre one.”

With the on-screen graphic reading “Higher Taxes Inevitable?” business correspondent Christine Romans announced to viewers

“I’ve just got to tell you about this handwringing that's happening, and what it's going to mean for you. We're spending vastly more than we take in. We will for the foreseeable future. We're racking up these deficits, we pay interest on all of this debt.”

Co-anchor John Roberts noted how the House health care bill calls for higher taxes on the rich. Romans shot back that the tax experts

“are saying that there's no way you can just raise taxes on the rich to fix all of our problems. It's got to be dramatic slashing in spending or much higher taxes down the road. ”

Burman and his Tax Policy Center — a joint creation of two liberal think tanks, The Brookings Institution and Urban Institute — were a lot more popular with the media during last year’s presidential campaign. The Center’s data was frequently cited on the broadcast networks as validating Obama campaign claims their candidate would offer a bigger tax cut to average Americans.

Now that Burman is scolding an out-of-control Democratic government, a Nexis search of ABC, CBS and NBC finds no stories mentioning either the Tax Policy Center or Burman during the past three months.

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U.S. Economy: Companies Cut More Jobs Than Forecast in August

Washington - U.S. companies cut more jobs than forecast in August and boosted their workers’ productivity the most since 2003 in the second quarter, signaling employers are seeking to cut costs further even as the economy stabilizes. [?]

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image toon - mny msm = ression's over rumor in unimployment line

THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF WAXMAN-MARKEY

[aka; Cap & Trade bill]
The Waxman-Markey climate change bill proposes a new national tax of historic proportions.

Though levied directly on carbon-based energy, the tax's impact spreads through the economy, increasing prices, reducing income, destroying jobs and significantly expanding the national debt, say researchers from the Heritage Foundation.

As the Waxman-Markey energy tax spreads through the economy, businesses and consumers will adapt as well as possible to these higher prices by spending more for less energy, say researchers. They will build smaller houses and buildings. They will drive smaller, less safe vehicles. They will turn thermostats up in the summer and down in the winter. But these activities will not be enough to offset the higher energy costs:

• Gasoline prices will rise 58 percent (or $1.38) above the baseline forecast, which already contains price increases, natural gas prices will rise 55 percent, heating oil prices will rise 56 percent and electricity prices will rise 90 percent.
• A family of four can expect to pay $1,241 more for energy costs per year, and including taxes, they will pay $4,609 more per year.
• That same family of four will reduce its consumption of goods and service by up to $3,000 per year, as its income and savings fall.
• Aggregate GDP losses will be $9.4 trillion, job losses will be nearly 2.5 million; and the national debt will rise an additional $12,803 per person.

All of these costs will be paid for no more than a 0.2 degree Celsius moderation in world temperature increases by 2100, and no more than 0.05 degree reduction by 2050.

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image toon - grn engry = Sorry but voting for C&Trade

White House Green Jobs Czar: Republicans Are 'Assholes'

Van Jones, the Obama administration's "green jobs" Czar, made the remark during an energy lecture in Berkeley, Calif., after a woman in the audience asked him why President Obama and congressional Democrats were having trouble moving legislation -- even though Republicans, with a smaller majority, didn't have as much trouble earlier in the Bush administration.

"Well, the answer to that is, they're assholes,"

Jones said. But Jones said that, even though Obama is "not an asshole," others have to step up the fight.

"Now, I will say this. I can be an asshole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity,"

[Another extreme appointment.]

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image toon - grn engry bbro - Whacky prof. failure = EPA head

Champagne Socialism

Senator Edward Kennedy was, and will remain, an outstanding example of a champagne socialist. Sociologically speaking, the type has been well recognized for quite some time.

Such people are exploiting their privileged position in society to curry favor with those less privileged, and so find the way to continue being privileged while also being applauded for it.

Clever, if immoral...

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MSNBC: Beck, Bachmann 'Actively' Trying to 'Get the President Killed'

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Only on MSNBC, the network that prides itself as the "place for politics" could you see this type of anti-religion, anti-conservative vitriol.

On MSNBC's Sept. 1 "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," host Keith Olbermann entertained the musings of Dan Savage, a syndicated sex columnist, author and gay-rights advocate about religious conservatives and their participation in public policy debate.

"The religious right is fomenting this kind of hatred in this country at our peril," Savage continued. "I really do think that the Michele Bachmanns of the world and the Glenn Becks of the world are actively and consciously, or subconsciously, trying to get - I'm just going to say it, trying to get the president killed."

Olbermann didn't challenge Savage on his accusations that Bachmann and Beck were trying to get the president killed, adding his own disclaimer that he didn't believe everyone opposing Obama's health care policy proposals was trying to get the president killed, just some:

"The overall picture - help me out on this overall picture and I'm not going to, I'm only going to moderate your remarks to this degree, that I think some of them who oppose this are not of that thinking that you just expressed," ... "But unfortunately a lot of who you are talking about, you nailed them perfectly."

MSNBC personalities also regularly attack women on the network, once referring to Bachmann as a "Mata Hari," and calling the former female Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin a "mail order bride" and characterize her as a dragon and a dog.

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Obesity Report Calls For Government to Limit Access to ‘Unhealthy’ Restaurant Chains

A newly released report by the Institute for Medicine and the National Research Council details strategies for local governments to combat what it calls an epidemic of childhood obesity, including regulations that would “restrict fast food establishments near school grounds and public playgrounds.”

“This is about culture change,” Troutman said. “Every sector of society needs to be involved in this culture change.”

The report, unveiled at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington on Tuesday, also advises local governments to impose higher taxes “to 'discourage' consumption of foods and beverages that have minimal nutritional value”...

[Isn't that what parents for? Oh, forgot: we're too stupid to raise our own kids - government knows best. Is this still America?]

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image toon - vals sclm bbro = Warning labels on everything

Media Ignoring Conservatives' Return to Dominance of Political Book Market

Conservatives are resuming their historically dominant position atop the New York Times and Amazon.com bestsellers lists after a short hiatus that coincided, not coincidentally, with George W. Bush's tenure in the White House.

While the mainstream media raved about a new era of leftist intellectual supremacy during the liberal ascendance on the bestsellers lists, the return of conservative books to the tops of those lists seems to be going unnoticed.

Amazon, which, unlike the New York Times, ranks books according to the number of actual copies sold, shows Glenn Beck's Common Sense rounding out the top, with Michelle Malkin's Culture of Corruption coming in a close second. Ron Paul's End the Fed comes in at number seven, Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny is at number nine, and at number 22 is Dick Morris and Eileen Mcgann's Catastrophe, which carries the blunt sub-heading, "How Obama, Congress, and the special interests are transforming... a slump into a crash, freedom into socialism, and a disaster into a catastrophe... and how to fight back."

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Glenn Beck Has Brass Gonads

Don’t you know Obama and his ilk wish to God (or whoever the heck they wish to) that Glenn Beck would fall into adultery with an Argentinean newswoman, or cut his jugular vein while shaving, or show up drunk, high and naked to his FOX show and forever be publically vilified, marginalized and thus muzzled?

Beck has formally joined Rush as an Official Pain in Barack Obama’s Backside (OPIBOB)...

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Glenn Beck Wins Wednesday's Cable News Ratings Battle

Fox New's Glenn Beck might be losing advertisers due to liberal boycott campaigns, but he continues to remain popular with the public.

In fact, on Wednesday evening, with conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh as his guest -- not to mention NewsBusters' own Seton Motley! -- Beck stole the cable news night.

As reported by TVbytheNumbers.com moments ago:

Though a little scandal might alienate advertisers, it’s pure ratings gold. Last night Glenn Beck had over 3 million viewers at 5pm, second only to O’Reilly for the night. But, Beck had more 25-54 viewers than O’Reilly (888K to 876K). I don’t watch or really even care about the cable news wars, but still…wow. Even though Beck airs before primetime, when there are fewer people watching TV, he had the most 25-54 viewers in the cable news world for the night.

Amazing.

Here are the numbers (demo in first parentheses):

The O’Reilly Factor – 3,303,000 viewers (876,000) (1,468,000)

Glenn Beck – 3,040,000 viewers (888,000) (1,385,000)

Hannity – 2,592,000 viewers (752,000) (1,158,000)

On The Record w/ Greta Van Susteren—2,104,000 viewers (577,000) (985,000)

Special Report with Bret Baier– 2,067,000 viewers (463,000) (881,000)

Fox Report w/Shep Smith–1,590,000 viewers (454,000) (729,000)

Larry King Live—1,182,000 viewers (299,000) (473,000)

Hardball w Chris Matthews—1,123,000 viewers (381,000) (583,000)

Countdown w/ K. Olbermann– 1,091,000 viewers (320,000) (504,000)

Of course, Keith Olbermann will likely continue to tell his viewers that he was number one last night.

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ABC Uses California Fires to Tout Homeowner Who 'Would Gladly Pay More Taxes'

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[they just can't help themselves.]

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G, B, F...

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Republicans Take Four-Point Lead on Generic Ballot

Support for Republican congressional candidates has reached its highest level in over two years as the GOP lengthens its lead over Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Ballot.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 42% would vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate while 38% would opt for the Democratic candidate.

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Minnesota orders ISPs to blacklist gambling sites

The state of Minnesota has handed Internet providers a 7-page blacklist (PDF) of gambling Web sites that they're supposed to prevent customers from accessing, a move that raises First Amendment and technical concerns."We are putting site operators and Minnesota online gamblers on notice and in advance," said John Willems, a Minnesota Department of Public Safety official, in a statement.

Companies that received the list of off-limits Web sites(snip)include AT&T, Comcast, Qwest, and Sprint/Nextel...

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TWOFER

Cuba's Healthcare a model for the U.S. says CNN
Good thing for us that Rich Noyes of The Media Research Center keeps on eye on CNN. Good thing for CNN too. Given the latest Nielsen ratings (that finds them 17th during prime time) Ted "Fidel Castro is one helluva guy!" Turner's brainchild should be grateful for any and all viewers, whatever their motivation...
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Cash-strapped Cuba says toilet paper running short
HAVANA - Cuba, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, is running short of toilet paper and may not get sufficient supplies until the end of the year, officials with state-run companies said Friday. Officials said they were lowering the prices of 24 basic goods to help Cubans get through the difficulties provoked in part by the global financial crisis and three destructive hurricanes that struck the island last year...
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image c-art photo - 1st lbrty fnn action = Meet the new Czars

image toon = 1st reps crpt libs fnn = Town Hall in phone booth w/o phone

Will Media Notice ObamaCare Advocates Teaching Town Hall Attendees to Block Opposing Views?

Last month, one of the nation's leading advocates for ObamaCare published a playbook containing detailed instructions for members to counter "the 'tea-bagger' protesters and right-wing activists" showing up at town hall meetings.

On Monday, a representative of Health Care for America Now was caught on tape actually coaching people on how to block opposing viewpoints at Rep. Jan Schakowsky's (D-Ill.) town hall meeting in Skokie, Illinois.

Given all the attention that's been given to such gatherings the past four weeks, one would think an honest media would be interested in this video

As the media members spent the last month claiming conservative town hall meeting protesters were organized by right-wing organizations, it would be nice if they reported what left-wing organizations are doing.

Or would that be too much like journalism?

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Media Ignore Reid, Baucus' Co-op Comparisons to Public Option, Exclude Conservative Critics

The threat of a government-run public option plan in health care legislation was frightening enough to spur thousands of people to attend town hall meetings across the country and voice their dissent, sometimes angrily.

Now legislators and the national media are talking about a possible "compromise" that could replace the public option with health care co-ops. Conservatives are concerned that such an attempt will just be "government health care in yet another set of clothes," but national broadcast or print media have practically omitted that perspective.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., stirred up those concerns July 9 when he said,

"We're going to have some type of public option, call it 'co-op,' call it what you want."

According to Nexis, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, as well as the five major newspapers, all ignored this admission from Reid. In fact, on the three broadcast networks Reid wasn't even mentioned in any of the 21 health care co-op stories, most of which used the word "compromise" to discuss the co-ops - and only 2 conservatives critical of co-ops were included among all 21 stories.

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Who Owns Your Body?

We are berated, ad nauseam, with imprecations that America is the only advanced nation that fails to have universal health care. This statement is often followed by the rueful remark that the debate over government controlled health care has been going on without progress for 60 years and, ipso facto, it is time to settle it.

All right, let's do that. Let's look a little deeper. Why is there no settlement of the issue, and why is America unique in its obstinate reluctance to follow the example of our older cultural brothers in Europe?

When a debate continues for decades without resolution, it is prudent to consider the deeper underlying assumptions. Principles which underpin the arguments are likely being ignored and marginalized rather than addressed in a forthright manner.

America is the only advanced country whose founding assumption is popular sovereignty. This is a proposition that stands with hardly a seconding voice throughout the contemporary international community. Yet it is the taproot of American exceptionalism.

Even here, however, the principle of government subordination to the people is by no means universally accepted. It has never been firmly ratified by our political class, those spiritual descendants of Europe's nobility. Our self-styled elite appear to view with dismay their countrymen's continuing preference for self-rule.

Thus arises the question of corporal ownership. For Americans, the answer has been settled. Since the terrible bloodletting of the Civil War, and now excepting military service, ownership of one's body is a matter between the individual and God, with no intermediation by government.

Yet assertions are now being made that government should have responsibility for, and thus authority over, the maintenance of our bodies. Be aware that support for such a view is opting for veterinary medicine, for you are now accepting the moral status of a domestic animal... [snip]

The wisdom expressed in the Federalist Papers began with the insight that men are not angels. The system that the authors designed placed liberty at the head of other considerations. The Founders were determined that concentrations of power should be confounded.

The view of human nature recognized by the Founders is now in grave peril. Whither goes America? Was liberty merely an 18th-century fad, or is there still something exceptional about our country?

[If we cede this most intimate and irresistible level of control to the mush heads in Washington we could literally lose the ability to ever get it back. Consider, Canada has had its government run system for 40 years now, and every election cycle the poor status of that system is the #1 issue. They create panels and study groups and inquiries again and again, to no avail - it's government. If we're foolish enough to start down that path we deserve what awaits where it will inevitably, inexorably lead.]

[Highly Recommended > ]

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image toon hcare = Oby offers to shove hcare down throat

India's first stealth fighter to fly in 4 months

[HT:MG]
In less than four months from now, India's first stealth fighter will fly for the first time. It is called the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft or FGFA being developed in Russia by Sukhoi.


The FGFA is designed to have a top speed of approximately Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound. It has the ability to supercruise or operate at speeds beyond the speed of sound without engaging systems such as afterburners which consume huge amounts of fuel...

[Just like the F-22


Which we've canceled.]

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image toon - nsec gwot = government bailouts incl. F22

Sarkozy Slams Iran, Threatens Stronger Sanctions

French President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened on Wednesday to press for tougher sanctions on Iran if the Islamic Republic refuses to halt its illicit nuclear work, Reuters reported.

"It is the same leaders in Iran who say that the nuclear program is peaceful and that the elections were honest. Who can believe them?"

The French president's warnings echoed those of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who earlier this week said world powers are discussing sanctions targeting Iran's energy sector.

President Obama has given Iran until mid-September to take up his offer of engagement.

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PA Leader: Jews Have No History in Jerusalem

[HT:DT]

The Palestinian Authority's (PA) chief Islamic judge said Wednesday that there was no evidence that Jews had ever lived in Jerusalem or that the Temple had ever existed there, The Jerusalem Post reported.

"Jerusalem is an Arab and Islamic city and it always has been so,"

Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi declaration came in response to statements made earlier this week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said that Jerusalem

"is not a settlement," ... "the Jews built it 3,000 years ago."

The PA has consistently denied the Jewish connection to Jerusalem. The city is home to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest sites. There are more than 800 mentions of Jerusalem in the Hebrew Bible, and literally thousands of references to the city throughout more than 2,000 years of rabbinic literature.

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The Nuclear Blackmail of Israel -- and of the World

Consider this: for the full eight months that the dream of dreams became a reality and the blessed O occupies the Oval office, Iran keeps spinning its uranium-enrichment centrifuges as if nothing happened.

It does so, because indeed nothing happened vis-à-vis Iran. The talk about sanctions remains just talk, as is a talk about talks with Iran. A thought of an A-bomb in the hands of the mullahs should have urged action in any leader, let alone the savior of the world, and one expected that Obama would have worked from day one to unite the world against nuclear threat from Iran, and at least slapped debilitating sanctions on it if not from day two, than from day three of his administration. But, contrary to expectations, he has not.

Obama's bullying Israel into unconscionable concessions to the Arabs that are unlikely to solve the conflict anyway as precondition for US' involvement in resolving Iran's nuclear issue should be plainly called "nuclear blackmail of Israel", as is the finding of analyses by both Britain's Guardian and Israel's Haaretz. [Hardly typical collaborators - snip]

In using nuclear blackmail in a vain hope of solving Middle East conflict, Obama engages in political brinksmanship that is so risky that it just can not fail; he puts not only Israel, but the entire Western civilization on the brink.

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image toon - gwot israel = Iran nuke = Oby needs another talk

Just 4 Percent of Israelis Think Obama is Pro-Israel

Only 4 percent of Jewish Israelis believe President Barack Obama's policies are pro-Israel, and 50 percent oppose a temporary freeze of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, a poll out on Friday showed.

The survey showed 51 percent considered Obama's administration more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israeli, and the percentage of Jewish Israelis who consider Obama as pro-Israel was down to four percent.

By comparison, 88 percent of those interviewed for the June survey thought former U.S. President George W. Bush was pro-Israel.

[Yet >4 in 5 American Jews voted for Obama.]

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Dhimmiheart

If only there were a conspiracy to blame, but there isn’t. It would be comforting, in a perverse way, to discover a home video showing Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill, CIA Director Leon Panetta and the bosses of Yale University Press smoking cigars and playing cards with Muammar Gaddafi.

But there is no conspiracy, only a rampant loss of will to defend freedom in the West.

Today’s release of the long-awaited CIA Inspector General’s report on terrorist interrogations rides close upon the heels of Scotland’s “compassionate” release of a terrorist mass-murderer and an act of self-censorship by Yale Press that are, each in its turn, acts of surrender to the terrorist nations that war against us. [snip]

But -- as pointed out in an August 19 letter to Attorney General Holder signed by nine Republican senators --

“The CIA’s Inspector General report on interrogations, which reportedly would be a basis upon which you would seek to justify a special prosecutor, has been available to the Department of Justice for more than five years.

Three former Attorneys General and numerous career prosecutors have examined the findings of that report and other evidence and determined that the facts do not support criminal prosecutions.”

Holder will ignore that letter, as he has so many others from Republican senators, and appoint a special prosecutor to go after CIA interrogators, breaking the promise he made in a pre-confirmation interview to Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo).

His goal -- and the president’s -- is not the security of this nation but to keep a political issue alive and thus keep the George Bush albatross hanging around Republicans’ necks... [snip]

Do not look for Obama or Holder or Panetta to object to Yale’s action. They are too busy following their own path to American dhimmitude.

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Weapons Seizure Turns Spotlight Onto Two Rogue States

The Australian government is investigating the seizure of weapons being shipped from North Korea to Iran that were found on an Australian cargo vessel in the Persian Gulf.

Iranian officials are denying the incident, calling the reports a “Zionist” plot aimed at increasing international pressure over its nuclear activities....

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image toon gwot nsec = Oby's sand castles v Iran NKorea's rockets

Merkel, Sarkozy Urge G-20 to Limit Bank Size, Bonuses

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will press fellow Group of 20 leaders to limit the size of banks, regulate the bonuses they pay out and tighten capital requirements....

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The U.N.'s Shocking Sexuality Guidelines

During the summer slump, two United Nations agencies -- United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) -- issued highly controversial new guidelines for sexuality education of children around the world.

These groups have a long history of pushing "reproductive health care," and the new report, International Guidelines on Sexuality Education, builds on an earlier report released by the International Planned Parenthood Federation to promote the "need and entitlement" for sexuality education for children beginning at age five.

In the view of the United Nations, sexuality education is the responsibility of "education and health authorities" not parents.

Teachers and doctors, so the liberal line goes, understand the big picture and have the conceptual understanding necessary -- the "rights based approach" that excludes parents and incorporates appropriate "practitioner experience and expert opinion." Excluding parents from the process keeps them from being aware of how frequently "sexuality education" indoctrinates against traditional values, especially "discrimination based on sexual orientation."

At the outset, the report makes it clear that "good" sexuality education should "take priority over personal opinion" -- which, being translated, means trample all over traditional morality.

The report states as fact that "teachers remain the best qualified and most trusted providers of information and support for most children and young people." [Last I checked, virtually all of those were government administered positions... - snip]

• Five- to eight-year-olds are told that "touching and rubbing one's genitals ... ‘can feel pleasurable.'" They learn about "gender stereotypes" and that anybody (regardless of sexual status) can "raise a child and give it the love it deserves."
• Nine- to twelve-year-olds learn how to get and use condoms, emergency contraception, the "signs and symptoms" of pregnancy, and all about sexual pleasure and orgasm. They learn that abortion is safe and discuss "homophobia, transphobia and abuse of power." They learn about their rights - to decide for themselves about whether to become a parent and to have access to anti-retroviral therapy (ART).
• Twelve- to fifteen-year-olds are told about their right to safe abortions and post abortion care, how to use emergency contraception, and that the size and shape of the penis or breasts does not affect sexual pleasure.

All this information must be conveyed, of course, in the "school setting" as part of a "formal curriculum" for maximum impact and effectiveness. After all (get ready for high-powered scare tactics) ignorance and misinformation can be life threatening... [snip]

You've got to love the way the left spins their craziness - just cloak all the controversial stuff in lofty goals and protective rhetoric. Over half of the new STDs every year occur among young people, but don't promote abstinence.

Instead lament that more than half have never been taught how to use a condom or where the local sexual health office is located, and rejoice that there is greater access to anti-retroviral therapy (ART).

More than four million girls will seek abortions every year, but don't promote abstinence.

Instead, "introduce and strengthen sexuality education." Remove the stigma against sexual activity, and then introduce worldwide programs to remove the stigma against STDs, and establish a bureaucracy to teach masturbation and contraception.

[There's more, it's worse - you should read it to be aware of how our 'world government' is bent on stripping parents of their right to set their children's education - Recommended > ]

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Welcome to the Unionized States of America

The growing government labor force will add to organized labor's clout.

The stranglehold unions have over politicians (and more importantly, us) will get that much worse as more of the unionized labor force consists of government workers.

From a piece by William Voegeli on the Claremont Institute:

In 2008, a mere 7.6% of all private-sector workers belonged to labor unions, while 26.9% of utility companies' employees were unionized - utilities being, in most cases, regulated monopolies retaining considerable power to set their own rates. And, of course, the only "industry" where unions have flourished in the past 40 years has been government, the ultimate monopoly.

The same Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows that 36.8% of public-sector employees were union members last year. (To put the point another way, while private-sector workers were more than five times as numerous as public-sector ones in 2008 - 108 million compared to 21 million - the number of private-sector unionized employees was only 6% larger than the number of public-sector ones; 8.3 million versus 7.8 million.)

Unless the trends that have held for decades are reversed, the majority of American union members will soon be government employees.

This figure does not even include quasi-government workers such as the United Auto Workers.

Unions have already been amply rewarded through taxpayer bailouts of industries they dominate. Democrats are working on card check and mandatory arbitration legislation to help strengthen the power of unions. Obama has placed key union leaders in pivotal spots in our government - among them, the Federal Election Commission, and as head of the key Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

A devoted union supporter now heads the Department of Labor.

Unions, especially 'public sector' government employee unions, may very well become the 4th branch of government...

[Think that through; the ranks of those who take our money by force swelling to the point that they outnumber their victims... i.e., a permanent ruling class of government employees because they have the votes to sustain it.

We need repeal the ability of public sector, i.e. taxpayer funded and so void of the mitigation effect of market competition, workers to unionize - period. It will soon become a matter of economic survival {if not already: California anyone?}]

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image toon c-art - crpt - EYEBALL on Card Check card

AFL-CIO, Dems push new Wall Street tax

The nation’s largest labor union and some allied Democrats are pushing a new tax that would hit big investment firms such as Goldman Sachs reaping billions of dollars in profits.

The AFL-CIO, one of the Democratic Party’s most powerful allies, would like to assess a small tax — about a tenth of a percent — on every stock transaction...

[And principle be damned...]

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AP Coverage of Ford-UAW Negotiations Ignores Union's Ownership Interests In Competitors

Ford and the United Auto Workers are set to begin new contract talks under a set of circumstances radically different from any previously faced by either party.

There is the "minor" matter of the union's ownership stakes in General Motors and Chrysler.

But you wouldn't learn about any of this, let alone its potential effect on negotiations, from reading coverage of the situation by the Associated Press's Kimberly Johnson. Additionally, there's quite a bit of emphasis on the idea that Ford can supposedly afford to be more generous with pay and benefits than its two major Detroit rivals.

How convenient -- for the union and the the other two companies.

Here are key paragraphs from Johnson's very incomplete report:

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CNN Reports Car Price Spike Coming Due to 'Success' of Clunkers

[HT:SE].

CNN "Newsroom" admitted Aug. 27 that new car prices are "expected" to go up as a result of the government Cash for Clunkers giveaway.

Heidi Collins told viewers,

"The success of the Cash for Clunkers program may be pushing new car prices higher. Dealerships are expected to have lower inventory over the next few months, meaning higher prices for consumers. Around 700,000 people took advantage of the Cash for Clunkers program."

Collins' use of the word "success" to describe the program was consistent with the media's advocacy of the program. All three broadcast networks called it a "victim of its own success," after the initial $1 billion in funding ran out after just a week - instead of the 14 weeks projected.

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FLASHBACK >

Clunky Economics

The unseen, however, is the investment that doesn't occur so that windows can be fixed...

image toon - mny sclm bbro auto = Clunkers pogram a clunker

Probability and Global Warming

(1) The planet is getting exponentially warmer. This is only a possibility. So we are talking about a percentage of warming in a possible world -- not necessarily our real world. (No one knows the exact temperature of the real world. In fact, there is no such thing as an exact world temperature. Temperatures vary throughout the planet.)

(2) This warming is caused by man-made releases of CO2. This is also only a possibility. So, we are talking about an approximate amount of CO2 in a possible world -- not the actual amount in our real world. (No one knows the exact amount of CO2 being released in the real world.)

The exact same logic is true for steps 3, 4, and 5. All of the logic is inductive; all of the arguments are based on probability. If the conclusion (#5) is true, all of the previous arguments must also be true.

And, as anyone who studies induction knows: the longer the string of conditionals (steps), the lower the probability that the entire set of conditionals is true... [snip]

(1) The world is getting exponentially warmer. The key word here is exponentially. I didn't say it and I don't believe it -- but proponents of global warming do. Here is their very famous "hockey stick" graph.

But, oops, here is a NASA graph that shows that nothing remotely resembling exponential warming has been going on in at least the last ten years.

Lastly, what is the chance that all of the governments of the world will unite to significantly lower emissions of CO2? A rational person would have to put the probability at close to zero.

If I ran America, I would not bet the future of our economy on the successful outcome the proposed cap and trade legislation. The odds are against it.

[Or, as I've been know to say, we're not just being told that we've 'caught' this problem in the eleventh hour, but the eleventh hour and 59th minute -- BUT, if we spend enough money now-right-now we've still enough time to fix it {four months to be exact, according to UN President Moonbat [sic]}.

It must be divine intervention to have caught this at the last possible instant - I mean, what the odds?

By ANY measure, scientific evidence [historical record vs. 'models'], human behaviors [refuse debate, prosecute 'deniers'], vested interests [100 Trillion $ and the power to control all activity - sweet], or probabilities ['READ MORE'], this is the largest scam, for the largest reward in wealth and power, ever perpetrated in our solar system.

Given these huge payoffs those attempting it will risk much constituent ire to achieve it as, once in place, their energy tyranny will be virtually irreversible {and bear in mind, Waxman-Markey has already passed the House}.

Consequently it's up to us little people to convince our 'representatives' before the die is cast that they will be replaced should they continue to pursue this scam.

Silence will be interpreted as consent, and it will be we little folk who pay most dearly for this insanity should it come to pass.]

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Publisher Accuses Reid of Bullying' Nevada Newspaper

The publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Sunday accused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, of "bullying" his newspaper by telling an employee he wants the Review-Journal shut down.

Sherman Frederick alleged in a column in his newspaper that the "full-on threat" was made during a brief exchange between Reid and the newspaper's advertising director Wednesday at a luncheon for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce...

[Gangster government: it's spreading.]

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Enough is enough, Harry Stop the childish bullying

This newspaper traces its roots to before Las Vegas was Las Vegas. We've seen cattle ranches give way to railroads. We chronicled the construction of Hoover Dam. We survived the mob, Howard Hughes, the Great Depression, several recessions and two world wars.

So, let me assure you, if we weathered all of that, we can damn sure outlast the bully threats of Sen. Harry Reid...

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How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America

With his new book, "Secular Sabotage: How Liberals are Destroying Religion and Culture in America." Bill Donohue could be expected to be stricken from all manner of Christmas card lists -- except the people he exposes don’t believe in Christmas.

"Secular Sabotage" is serious business. Donohue insists the United States should be considered unequivocally a Christian country. Eight out of ten Americans consider themselves as such. Indeed – and I didn’t realize this – the United States is the most Christian country, in quantitative terms, in the world.

"In fact," states the author, "the U.S. is more Christian than Israel is Jewish." And yet if this is so, why can’t we celebrate Christmas? Why can’t our children pray in school? How did we just elect a president who insisted the United States ought not to be considered a Christian nation?

The 'popular culture’s' [media] hesitation to acknowledge the truth of this country’s Christian identity is a direct measure of the success a tiny minority of Americans has enjoyed in thoroughly intimidating the majority. While Donohue discusses secular sabotage, he is clear that these ought not to be considered simple secularists existing alongside the faithful. They are nihilists out to expel Christianity not just from the public square but from the public conversation entirely.

And they are powerful enough to be succeeding...

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Does someone have answers to the questions?

I am perplexed about so many issues in the news that I can only ask questions today. Maybe someone else has the answers.

* Why is the issue of health care being decided by government and not by the consumers, health professionals and insurance companies? Isn't government the one that can't defend our borders, win the war on poverty or control the cost of stamps? And if Medicare and Medicaid are rampant with corruption and cost overruns, what will government do to a much broader program?

* Why are the 10 poorest cities in America the ones that always elect Democrats to public office? Is it because their solutions to problems is welfare, not work?

* Why is it considered desirable to register every uninformed voter to cancel out the votes of informed, well-educated people?

* What does it mean when cities with strict gun control laws, like Chicago and Washington, D.C., can't control gangs, drugs and shootings?

* Why is global warming even an issue when the increase in worldwide temperatures during the past 100 years has been only one degree Celsius and, for the past three years, has declined?

* Why does President Obama prefer to house terrorists in the United States rather than at Gitmo?

* With Cash for Clunkers and $8,000 bribes to first-time home buyers, what will happen to car and home sales when these "incentives" end? (I'm waiting for my 10 grand for grandpas.)

* Should I buy a car from a company owned by unions that caused their own bankruptcies and by a government stupid enough to invest taxpayer money to prop them up?

* Whatever happened to the great all-American principle that when a business fails, it provides opportunity for others to step in and do a better job? Has our government become the No. 1 enabler of inefficiency?

* Why is the stimulus package loaded with funding that obviously will not stimulate the economy, but will stimulate people to vote a certain way?

* Why is it that public schools that spend $10,000 per pupil can't do any better educating children than private, religious schools spending $4,000 per pupil? Shouldn't more resources go to those who succeed and less to those who are proven failures?

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Newspapers their own worst enemy

Newspapers, who have spoon fed the progressive movement to the United States for the last several decades will now have to do with $2.8 BILLION DOLLARS less than they took in at this time last year. That's a quarterly result.

Newspapers will blame the Internet but if there were any value in the product advertisers would be there. The people have spoken and if newspapers don't want to ask the hard questions we don't want the product. Online or off.

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image toon - msm bias - MSM = OB Abe Lincoln while McCain voters crazy

G.B.F...

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Texas rally at Texas Capitol sparks talks of secession

The Texas State Sovereignty or Secessions movement is backed by those who think the federal government is getting too involved in state and local government affairs...

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Resolve

A secret report predicts the Freedom Tower - billed as America's defiant answer to terrorism - won't be finished until 17 years after the 9/11 attacks

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Reuters Implores AP to 'Stop Whining'

Huzzah: A president at newswire operator Thomson Reuters says traditional journalism is not actually being strangled by Google, blogs and the rest of the internet.

And that anyone who thinks so — *cough* AP *cough* — should get a grip..

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