White House czar urged 'resistance' against U.S.
Main speaker at rally sponsored by organization associated with Revolutionary Communist Party
By Aaron Klein
President Obama's environmental adviser, Van Jones, was the main speaker at an anti-war rally that urged "resistance" against the U.S. government, WND has learned.
The rally was sponsored by an organization associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party, which calls for the overthrow of the U.S. government and its replacement with a communist dictatorship.
WND previously reported Jones, special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is an admitted black nationalist and radical communist.
In 2002, Jones was a keynote speaker at a rally at People's Park in Berkeley, Calif., to mark the national launch of Not In Our Name, a Maoist, terrorist-supporting, anti-war group founded by Revolutionary Communist Party member C. Clark Kissinger. People's Park was created during the radical political activism of the late 1960s.
Jones spoke alongside Jeff Paterson, the first active-duty soldier to refuse orders to be part of the U.S. attack force during the Persian Gulf War.
Not In Our Name, which disbanded in March 2008, called on participants to take the "Pledge of Resistance," which begins with the following statement:
We believe that as people living in the United States it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government, in our names.
The pledge continues:
Not in our name will you invade countries bomb civilians, kill more children letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless ...
We pledge resistance.
We pledge alliance with those who have come under attack for voicing opposition to the war or for their religion or ethnicity."
Not In Our Name hosted a number of radicals at its events.
Get Glenn Beck's 'Common Sense' ... The case against an out-of-control government: Inspired by Thomas Paine
At an Oct. 6, 2002, rally, according to a Discover the Networks profile, two of the specially invited guest speakers were former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, who was accused of involvement with the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the radical attorney Lynne Stewart, who was convicted of illegally passing messages on behalf of her incarcerated client Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman – the terrorist mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
According to a report on the website of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, while Jones was hosting a rally in Berkeley, a sister rally for Not In Our Name was held at nearby Martin Luther King Park.
At that event, according to the site, 350 people marched through the streets behind a flatbed truck decorated with a huge "Not in Our Name" banner and a drawing of a "monstrous-looking" Uncle Sam stabbing the globe with a dagger.
Jones was also a leader of a radical group, United for Peace and Justice, or UFPJ, of which his Ella Baker Human Rights Center was an associate. Not In My Name was an affiliate of UFPJ.
The White House did not return multiple WND requests the past few weeks seeking comment on how Jones was screened for his position and whether the White House knew of his admitted radical past.
Jones on 9/11: Blame U.S. 'imperialism'
Last week, WND reported that one day after the 9/11 attacks, Jones led a vigil that expressed solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans as well as what he called the victims of "U.S. imperialism" around the world.
Jones was the founder and leader and of a radical group, the communist revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM. The group, together with Jones' Elle Baker Center for Human Rights, led a vigil Sept. 12, 2001, at Snow Park in Oakland, Calif.
STORM's official manifesto, titled, "Reclaiming Revolution," surfaced on the Internet.
A WND review of the 97-page treatise found a description of the 2001 vigil in Oakland. The event drew hundreds and articulated an "anti-imperialist" line, according to STORM's own description.
The radical group's manual boasted the 9/11 vigil was held to express solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans and to mourn the civilians killed in the terrorist attacks "as well as the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world."
"We honored those who lost their lives in the attack and those who would surely lose their lives in subsequent U.S. attacks overseas," STORM's manifesto recalls.
Also, WND obtained a press release of Jones' vigil, dated Sept. 11, 2001, and titled, "People Of Color Groups Gather to Stand In Solidarity With Arab Americans and to Mourn the East Coast Dead."
"Anti-Arab hostility is already reaching a fever pitch as pundits and common people alike rush to judgment that an Arab group is responsible for this tragedy," stated Jones in the release hours after the 9/11 attacks.
"We fear that an atmosphere is being created that will result in official and street violence against Arab men, women and children," he said.
Last week, Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck drew attention to a section of STORM's manual that describes Jones' organization as having a "commitment to the fundamental ideas of Marxism-Leninism."
"We agreed with Lenin's analysis of the state and the party," reads the manifesto. "And we found inspiration in the revolutionary strategies developed by Third World revolutionaries like Mao Tse-tung and Amilcar Cabral."
Cabral is the late Marxist revolutionary leader of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands.
WND previously reported Jones named his son after Cabral and reportedly concludes every e-mail with a quote from the communist leader.
STORM's newsletter boasted "we also saw our brand of Marxism as, in some ways, a reclamation."
STORM worked with known communist leaders. It led the charge in black protests against various issues, including a local attempt to pass Proposition 21, a ballot initiative that sought to increase the penalties for violent crimes and require more juvenile offenders to be tried as adults.
Speaking to the East Bay Express, Jones said he first became radicalized in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King riots, during which time he was arrested.
"I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th," he said. "By August, I was a communist.
"I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of.' I spent the next 10 years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary," he said.
Trevor Loudon, a researcher and opponent of communism who runs the New Zeal blog identified several Bay Area communists who worked with STORM, including Elizabeth Martinez, who helped advise Jones' Ella Baker Human Rights Center, which Jones founded to advocate civil justice. Jones and Martinez also attended a "Challenging White Supremacy" workshop together.
Martinez was a longtime Maoist who went on to join the Communist Party USA breakaway organization Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, or CCDS, in the early 1990s, according to Loudon. Martinez still serves on the CCDS council and is also a board member of the Movement for a Democratic Society, where she sits alongside former Weathermen radicals Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
STORM eventually fell apart amid bickering among its leaders.
Jones then moved on to environmentalism. He used his Ella Baker Center to advocate "inclusive" environmentalism and launch a Green-Collar Jobs Campaign, which led to the nation's first Green Jobs Corps in Oakland, Calif.
At the Clinton Global Initiative in 2007, Jones announced the establishment of Green For All, which in 2008 held a national green conference in which most attendees were black. Jones also released a book, "The Green Collar Economy," which debuted at No.12 on the New York Times' bestseller list – the first environmental book written by an African American to make the list.
Jones, formerly a self-described "rowdy black nationalist," boasted in a 2005 interview with the left-leaning East Bay Express that his environmental activism was a means to fight for racial and class "justice."
Jones was president and founder of Green For All, a nonprofit organization that advocates building a so-called inclusive green economy.
Until recently, Jones was a longtime member of the board of Apollo Alliance, a coalition of labor, business, environmental and community leaders that claims on its website to be "working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs."
Monday, August 31, 2009
Kennedy Tried To Undermine Two US Presidents
Remembering Teddy’s KGB Connection
by Connie Hair
The death of Sen. Edward M. “Teddy” Kennedy this week marks the end of an American political era colored in crayon by the media-generated notion of American royalty. Ted Kennedy will be laid to rest at Arlington Cemetery, the last of the three Kennedy brothers who once dominated the American political landscape, and the only one of the four Kennedy brothers to live to see his fifties.
As his fellow liberals attempt to shove the national takeover of health care through Congress, even suggesting renaming the bill after Kennedy in a memorial tribute, it becomes urgent to set aside the perfunctory kind words one usually says about the departed -- regardless of truth. A whitewash of Kennedy’s history cannot be used as an emotional power play to push through government-run health care in his “honor.”
I will not belabor the story of Mary Jo Kopechne, the young woman left behind in her own water torture at the hands of the late senator. That particular miscarriage of justice has come to mind for many as we all heard of Kennedy’s death this week and has even been reported as part of his sordid legacy by a few media outlets.
But Kennedy’s private outreach to the KGB Soviet intelligence agency in attempts to undermine first President Jimmy Carter then President Ronald Reagan say as much as Chappaquiddick did about the man who appeared to have no moral restraints whatsoever on his personal pursuit of raw political power.
Documents found in Soviet archives after the fall of the Iron Curtain revealed a great deal about the character of Ted Kennedy.
As HUMAN EVENTS first reported on December 8, 2003:
One of the documents, a KGB report to bosses in the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee, revealed that “In 1978, American Sen. Edward Kennedy requested the assistance of the KGB to establish a relationship” between the Soviet apparatus and a firm owned by former Sen. John Tunney (D-Ca.). KGB recommended that they be permitted to do this because Tunney's firm was already connected with a KGB agent in France named David Karr. This document was found by the knowledgeable Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats and published in Moscow's Izvestia in June 1992.
Another KGB report to their bosses revealed that on March 5, 1980, John Tunney met with the KGB in Moscow on behalf of Sen. Kennedy. Tunney expressed Kennedy’s opinion that “nonsense about ‘the Soviet military threat’ and Soviet ambitions for military expansion in the Persian Gulf… was being fueled by [President Jimmy] Carter, [National Security Advisor Zbigniew] Brzezinski, the Pentagon and the military industrial complex.”
Kennedy offered to speak out against President Carter on Afghanistan. Shortly thereafter he made public speeches opposing President Carter on this issue. This document was found in KGB archives by Vasiliy Mitrokhin, a courageous KGB officer, who copied documents from the files and then defected to the West. He wrote about this document in a February 2002 paper on Afghanistan that he released through the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times, found contemporaneous KGB documentation and published a story in February of 1992 of an additional communiqué by Ted Kennedy to the Soviet intelligence agency through Tunney. Full text of the letter from the appendix of Paul Kengor’s book The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism can be found here.
This time it was President Reagan in Kennedy’s crosshairs as he attempted to arrange a meeting between Kennedy and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Yuri Andropov.
In this May 14, 1983, letter written by underling Viktor Chebrikov to Andropov, he relayed Kennedy’s offer to meet, Chebrikov explaining that Kennedy blamed poor American-Soviet relations not on the Communist country, but on President Reagan. According to Chebrikov’s letter, Kennedy said he wanted to stop Reagan’s re-election effort in 1984.
Chebrikov’s letter also claimed that Kennedy was “very impressed” with Andropov and that Kennedy was reaching out to the Soviets to thwart Reagan’s forceful defense policies. Kennedy suggested the Soviets reach out specifically to Barbara Walters and Walter Cronkite to counter in the American media what he said Kennedy considered Reagan “propaganda.”
Chebrikov's letter to Andropov also stated that Kennedy himself had offered to travel to Moscow to meet with Andropov if he would extend an invitation.
These revelations reported in 1992 suggest insight into a man so obsessed with the acquisition of personal political power that he would reach out to the communist Soviet Union for help in undermining not one but two American presidents, one from his own political party.
Kennedy’s strong support for the government takeover of health care and the effort to pass this legislation in memorial tribute fails to warrant a second glance.
by Connie Hair
The death of Sen. Edward M. “Teddy” Kennedy this week marks the end of an American political era colored in crayon by the media-generated notion of American royalty. Ted Kennedy will be laid to rest at Arlington Cemetery, the last of the three Kennedy brothers who once dominated the American political landscape, and the only one of the four Kennedy brothers to live to see his fifties.
As his fellow liberals attempt to shove the national takeover of health care through Congress, even suggesting renaming the bill after Kennedy in a memorial tribute, it becomes urgent to set aside the perfunctory kind words one usually says about the departed -- regardless of truth. A whitewash of Kennedy’s history cannot be used as an emotional power play to push through government-run health care in his “honor.”
I will not belabor the story of Mary Jo Kopechne, the young woman left behind in her own water torture at the hands of the late senator. That particular miscarriage of justice has come to mind for many as we all heard of Kennedy’s death this week and has even been reported as part of his sordid legacy by a few media outlets.
But Kennedy’s private outreach to the KGB Soviet intelligence agency in attempts to undermine first President Jimmy Carter then President Ronald Reagan say as much as Chappaquiddick did about the man who appeared to have no moral restraints whatsoever on his personal pursuit of raw political power.
Documents found in Soviet archives after the fall of the Iron Curtain revealed a great deal about the character of Ted Kennedy.
As HUMAN EVENTS first reported on December 8, 2003:
One of the documents, a KGB report to bosses in the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee, revealed that “In 1978, American Sen. Edward Kennedy requested the assistance of the KGB to establish a relationship” between the Soviet apparatus and a firm owned by former Sen. John Tunney (D-Ca.). KGB recommended that they be permitted to do this because Tunney's firm was already connected with a KGB agent in France named David Karr. This document was found by the knowledgeable Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats and published in Moscow's Izvestia in June 1992.
Another KGB report to their bosses revealed that on March 5, 1980, John Tunney met with the KGB in Moscow on behalf of Sen. Kennedy. Tunney expressed Kennedy’s opinion that “nonsense about ‘the Soviet military threat’ and Soviet ambitions for military expansion in the Persian Gulf… was being fueled by [President Jimmy] Carter, [National Security Advisor Zbigniew] Brzezinski, the Pentagon and the military industrial complex.”
Kennedy offered to speak out against President Carter on Afghanistan. Shortly thereafter he made public speeches opposing President Carter on this issue. This document was found in KGB archives by Vasiliy Mitrokhin, a courageous KGB officer, who copied documents from the files and then defected to the West. He wrote about this document in a February 2002 paper on Afghanistan that he released through the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times, found contemporaneous KGB documentation and published a story in February of 1992 of an additional communiqué by Ted Kennedy to the Soviet intelligence agency through Tunney. Full text of the letter from the appendix of Paul Kengor’s book The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism can be found here.
This time it was President Reagan in Kennedy’s crosshairs as he attempted to arrange a meeting between Kennedy and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Yuri Andropov.
In this May 14, 1983, letter written by underling Viktor Chebrikov to Andropov, he relayed Kennedy’s offer to meet, Chebrikov explaining that Kennedy blamed poor American-Soviet relations not on the Communist country, but on President Reagan. According to Chebrikov’s letter, Kennedy said he wanted to stop Reagan’s re-election effort in 1984.
Chebrikov’s letter also claimed that Kennedy was “very impressed” with Andropov and that Kennedy was reaching out to the Soviets to thwart Reagan’s forceful defense policies. Kennedy suggested the Soviets reach out specifically to Barbara Walters and Walter Cronkite to counter in the American media what he said Kennedy considered Reagan “propaganda.”
Chebrikov's letter to Andropov also stated that Kennedy himself had offered to travel to Moscow to meet with Andropov if he would extend an invitation.
These revelations reported in 1992 suggest insight into a man so obsessed with the acquisition of personal political power that he would reach out to the communist Soviet Union for help in undermining not one but two American presidents, one from his own political party.
Kennedy’s strong support for the government takeover of health care and the effort to pass this legislation in memorial tribute fails to warrant a second glance.
Obama Is Out To Completely Change America
Czar: 'Spread the wealth! Change the whole system'
Using White House position to push communist policies?
By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Van Jones
Just days before his White House
appointment, Van Jones, President Obama's environmental adviser, used a forum at a major youth convention to push for what can easily be interpreted as a communist or socialist agenda.
As WND previously reported, Van Jones, special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is an admitted black nationalist and radical communist.
Jones' appointment was announced on March 10.
Two weeks before he started his White House job, however, Jones delivered the keynote address at Power Shift '09, which was billed as the largest youth summit on climate change in history. A reported 12,000 young people were at the D.C. Convention Center for the event.
During his speech, available on YouTube, Jones threw around terms like "eco-apartheid" and "green for some," and preached about spreading the wealth while positing a call to "change the whole system."
In one section of his twenty-minute speech, Jones referenced "our Native American brothers and sisters" who, he claimed, were "pushed," "bullied," "mistreated" and "shoved into all the land that we didn't want."
"Guess what?" Jones continued. "Give them the wealth! Give them then wealth! No justice on stolen land ... we owe them a debt."
"We have to create a green economy, that's true, that's true. But we have to create a green economy that Dr. King would be proud of," he exclaimed.
Jones spoke about using what he termed an environmental revolution to push for other policies, including anti-war activism.
"If all you did was have a clean energy revolution, you wouldn't have done anything. ... You'll have bio-fueled bombers and we'll be fighting wars over lithium for the batteries instead of oil for the engines," he said to applause.
"This movement is deeper than solar power. ... Don't stop there! We are going to change the whole system!" he exclaimed.
The White House did not return multiple WND requests the past few weeks seeking comment on how Jones was screened for his position and whether the White House knew of his admitted radical past.
Jones on 9-11: Blame U.S. 'imperialism'
Last week, WND reported one day after the 9/11 attacks, Jones led a vigil that expressed solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans as well as what he called the victims of "U.S. imperialism" around the world.
Jones was the leader and founder of a radical group, the communist revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM. That group, together with Jones' Elle Baker Center for Human Rights, led a vigil Sept. 12, 2001, at Snow Park in Oakland, Calif.
STORM's official manifesto, titled, "Reclaiming Revolution," surfaced on the Internet.
A WND review of the 97-page treatise found a description of a vigil that Jones' group held Sept. 12, 2001, at Snow Park in Oakland, Calif. The event drew hundreds and articulated an "anti-imperialist" line, according to STORM's own description.
The radical group's manual boasted the 9/11 vigil was held to express solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans and to mourn the civilians killed in the terrorist attacks "as well as the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world."
"We honored those who lost their lives in the attack and those who would surely lose their lives in subsequent U.S. attacks overseas," STORM's manifesto recalls.
Also, WND obtained a press release of Jones' vigil, dated Sept. 11, 2001, and titled, "People Of Color Groups Gather to Stand In Solidarity With Arab Americans and to Mourn the East Coast Dead."
"Anti-Arab hostility is already reaching a fever pitch as pundits and common people alike rush to judgment that an Arab group is responsible for this tragedy," stated Jones in the release hours after the 9/11 attacks.
"We fear that an atmosphere is being created that will result in official and street violence against Arab men, women and children," he said.
Last week, Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck drew attention to a section of STORM's manual that describes Jones' organization as having a "commitment to the fundamental ideas of Marxism-Leninism."
"We agreed with Lenin's analysis of the state and the party," reads the manifesto. "And we found inspiration in the revolutionary strategies developed by Third World revolutionaries like Mao Tse-tung and Amilcar Cabral."
Cabral is the late Marxist revolutionary leader of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands.
WND previously reported Jones named his son after Cabral and reportedly concludes every e-mail with a quote from the communist leader.
STORM's newsletter boasted "we also saw our brand of Marxism as, in some ways, a reclamation."
STORM worked with known communist leaders. It led the charge in black protests against various issues, including a local attempt to pass Proposition 21, a ballot initiative that sought to increase the penalties for violent crimes and require more juvenile offenders to be tried as adults.
Speaking to the East Bay Express, Jones said he first became radicalized in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King riots, during which time he was arrested.
"I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th," he said. "By August, I was a communist.
"I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of.' I spent the next 10 years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary," he said.
Trevor Loudon, a researcher and opponent of communism who runs the New Zeal blog, identified several Bay Area communists who worked with STORM, including Elizabeth Martinez, who helped advise Jones' Ella Baker Human Rights Center, which Jones founded to advocate civil justice. Jones and Martinez also attended a "Challenging White Supremacy" workshop together.
Martinez was a longtime Maoist who went on to join the Communist Party USA breakaway organization Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, or CCDS, in the early 1990s, according to Loudon. Martinez still serves on the CCDS council and is also a board member of the Movement for a Democratic Society, where she sits alongside former Weathermen radicals Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
STORM eventually fell apart amid bickering among its leaders.
Jones then moved on to environmentalism. He used his Ella Baker Center to advocate "inclusive" environmentalism and launch a Green-Collar Jobs Campaign, which led to the nation's first Green Jobs Corps in Oakland, Calif.
At the Clinton Global Initiative in 2007, Jones announced the establishment of Green For All, which in 2008 held a national green conference in which most attendees were black. Jones also released a book, "The Green Collar Economy," which debuted at No.12 on the New York Times' bestseller list – the first environmental book written by an African American to make the list.
Jones, formerly a self-described "rowdy black nationalist," boasted in a 2005 interview with the left-leaning East Bay Express that his environmental activism was a means to fight for racial and class "justice."
Jones was president and founder of Green For All, a nonprofit organization that advocates building a so-called inclusive green economy.
Until recently, Jones was a longtime member of the board of Apollo Alliance, a coalition of labor, business, environmental and community leaders that claims on its website to be "working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs."
Using White House position to push communist policies?
By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Van Jones
Just days before his White House
appointment, Van Jones, President Obama's environmental adviser, used a forum at a major youth convention to push for what can easily be interpreted as a communist or socialist agenda.
As WND previously reported, Van Jones, special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is an admitted black nationalist and radical communist.
Jones' appointment was announced on March 10.
Two weeks before he started his White House job, however, Jones delivered the keynote address at Power Shift '09, which was billed as the largest youth summit on climate change in history. A reported 12,000 young people were at the D.C. Convention Center for the event.
During his speech, available on YouTube, Jones threw around terms like "eco-apartheid" and "green for some," and preached about spreading the wealth while positing a call to "change the whole system."
In one section of his twenty-minute speech, Jones referenced "our Native American brothers and sisters" who, he claimed, were "pushed," "bullied," "mistreated" and "shoved into all the land that we didn't want."
"Guess what?" Jones continued. "Give them the wealth! Give them then wealth! No justice on stolen land ... we owe them a debt."
"We have to create a green economy, that's true, that's true. But we have to create a green economy that Dr. King would be proud of," he exclaimed.
Jones spoke about using what he termed an environmental revolution to push for other policies, including anti-war activism.
"If all you did was have a clean energy revolution, you wouldn't have done anything. ... You'll have bio-fueled bombers and we'll be fighting wars over lithium for the batteries instead of oil for the engines," he said to applause.
"This movement is deeper than solar power. ... Don't stop there! We are going to change the whole system!" he exclaimed.
The White House did not return multiple WND requests the past few weeks seeking comment on how Jones was screened for his position and whether the White House knew of his admitted radical past.
Jones on 9-11: Blame U.S. 'imperialism'
Last week, WND reported one day after the 9/11 attacks, Jones led a vigil that expressed solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans as well as what he called the victims of "U.S. imperialism" around the world.
Jones was the leader and founder of a radical group, the communist revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM. That group, together with Jones' Elle Baker Center for Human Rights, led a vigil Sept. 12, 2001, at Snow Park in Oakland, Calif.
STORM's official manifesto, titled, "Reclaiming Revolution," surfaced on the Internet.
A WND review of the 97-page treatise found a description of a vigil that Jones' group held Sept. 12, 2001, at Snow Park in Oakland, Calif. The event drew hundreds and articulated an "anti-imperialist" line, according to STORM's own description.
The radical group's manual boasted the 9/11 vigil was held to express solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans and to mourn the civilians killed in the terrorist attacks "as well as the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world."
"We honored those who lost their lives in the attack and those who would surely lose their lives in subsequent U.S. attacks overseas," STORM's manifesto recalls.
Also, WND obtained a press release of Jones' vigil, dated Sept. 11, 2001, and titled, "People Of Color Groups Gather to Stand In Solidarity With Arab Americans and to Mourn the East Coast Dead."
"Anti-Arab hostility is already reaching a fever pitch as pundits and common people alike rush to judgment that an Arab group is responsible for this tragedy," stated Jones in the release hours after the 9/11 attacks.
"We fear that an atmosphere is being created that will result in official and street violence against Arab men, women and children," he said.
Last week, Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck drew attention to a section of STORM's manual that describes Jones' organization as having a "commitment to the fundamental ideas of Marxism-Leninism."
"We agreed with Lenin's analysis of the state and the party," reads the manifesto. "And we found inspiration in the revolutionary strategies developed by Third World revolutionaries like Mao Tse-tung and Amilcar Cabral."
Cabral is the late Marxist revolutionary leader of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands.
WND previously reported Jones named his son after Cabral and reportedly concludes every e-mail with a quote from the communist leader.
STORM's newsletter boasted "we also saw our brand of Marxism as, in some ways, a reclamation."
STORM worked with known communist leaders. It led the charge in black protests against various issues, including a local attempt to pass Proposition 21, a ballot initiative that sought to increase the penalties for violent crimes and require more juvenile offenders to be tried as adults.
Speaking to the East Bay Express, Jones said he first became radicalized in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King riots, during which time he was arrested.
"I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th," he said. "By August, I was a communist.
"I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of.' I spent the next 10 years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary," he said.
Trevor Loudon, a researcher and opponent of communism who runs the New Zeal blog, identified several Bay Area communists who worked with STORM, including Elizabeth Martinez, who helped advise Jones' Ella Baker Human Rights Center, which Jones founded to advocate civil justice. Jones and Martinez also attended a "Challenging White Supremacy" workshop together.
Martinez was a longtime Maoist who went on to join the Communist Party USA breakaway organization Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, or CCDS, in the early 1990s, according to Loudon. Martinez still serves on the CCDS council and is also a board member of the Movement for a Democratic Society, where she sits alongside former Weathermen radicals Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
STORM eventually fell apart amid bickering among its leaders.
Jones then moved on to environmentalism. He used his Ella Baker Center to advocate "inclusive" environmentalism and launch a Green-Collar Jobs Campaign, which led to the nation's first Green Jobs Corps in Oakland, Calif.
At the Clinton Global Initiative in 2007, Jones announced the establishment of Green For All, which in 2008 held a national green conference in which most attendees were black. Jones also released a book, "The Green Collar Economy," which debuted at No.12 on the New York Times' bestseller list – the first environmental book written by an African American to make the list.
Jones, formerly a self-described "rowdy black nationalist," boasted in a 2005 interview with the left-leaning East Bay Express that his environmental activism was a means to fight for racial and class "justice."
Jones was president and founder of Green For All, a nonprofit organization that advocates building a so-called inclusive green economy.
Until recently, Jones was a longtime member of the board of Apollo Alliance, a coalition of labor, business, environmental and community leaders that claims on its website to be "working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs."
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The Truth About Socical Security: Who Screwed It Up
How It All Started
Franklin Delano. Roosevelt 32nd. President, Democrat
Terms of Office March 4, 1933, to April 12, 1945
Franklin Delano. Roosevelt, introduced Social Security (FICA) Program. He Promised:
1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary,
2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program,
3.) That the money the participants elected to put Into the Program would be deductible from Their income for tax purposes each year,
4.) That the money the participants put into the Independent 'Trust Fund' rather than into the General operating fund, and therefore, would Only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and
5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.
Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to 'Put Away' -- you may be interested in the following:
----------THEN---------------------------------------------------
If I recall correctly, 1958 is the first year that Congress, not President Eisenhower, voted to remove funds from Social Security and put it into the General Fund for Congress to spend.
If I recall correctly, it was a democratically controlled Congress.
From what I understand, Congress' logic at that time was that there was so much money in Social Security Fund that it would never run out / be used up for the purpose it was intended / set aside for.
-------------WORSE STILL------------------------------------------------
Lyndon Baines Johnson 36th. President, Democrat
Term Of Office:
November 22, 1963 to January 20, 1969
Question: Which Political Party took Social Security from the Independent 'Trust Fund' and put it into the General Fund so that Congress could spend it?
Answer: It was Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat, Term of Office: November 22,1963 to January 20, 1969) and the democratically Controlled House and Senate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Question: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax Deduction for Social Security?
Answer: The Democratic Party.
William Jefferson Clinton
(Bill Clinton)
42nd. President
Democrat Term of Office: January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001
________________________________________
Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.
(Al Gore)
45th. Vice President
Democrat Term of Office: January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001
Question: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?
Answer: The Democratic Party, with Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. (Al Gore) [Vice President Term of Office: January 10, 1993 to January 20, 2001] casting the 'tie-breaking' deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US ....
------------------THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE CAMEL'S BACK !!---------------------------
James Earl Carter, Jr
(Jimmy Carter)
39th President, Democrat
Term of Office: January 20, 1977 to January 20, 1981
Question: Which Political Party decided to start giving Annuity payments to
immigrants?
AND MY FAVORITE:
ANSWER: That's right! JAMES EARL CARTER, JR. (JIMMY CARTER) (DEMOCRAT, TERM OF OFFICE: JANUARY 20, 1977 TO JANUARY 20, 1981 AND THE
DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
IMMIGRANTS MOVED INTO THIS COUNTRY, AND AT AGE 65, BEGAN TO RECEIVE SOCIAL SECURITY PAYMENTS: THE DEMOCRATIC PARTYGAVE THESE PAYMENTS TO THEM, EVEN THOUGH THEY NEVER PAID A DIME INTO IT!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!
And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it!
If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of Awareness will be planted and maybe changes WILL evolve! . Maybe not, some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn't so. But it's worth a try.
Franklin Delano. Roosevelt 32nd. President, Democrat
Terms of Office March 4, 1933, to April 12, 1945
Franklin Delano. Roosevelt, introduced Social Security (FICA) Program. He Promised:
1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary,
2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program,
3.) That the money the participants elected to put Into the Program would be deductible from Their income for tax purposes each year,
4.) That the money the participants put into the Independent 'Trust Fund' rather than into the General operating fund, and therefore, would Only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and
5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.
Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to 'Put Away' -- you may be interested in the following:
----------THEN---------------------------------------------------
If I recall correctly, 1958 is the first year that Congress, not President Eisenhower, voted to remove funds from Social Security and put it into the General Fund for Congress to spend.
If I recall correctly, it was a democratically controlled Congress.
From what I understand, Congress' logic at that time was that there was so much money in Social Security Fund that it would never run out / be used up for the purpose it was intended / set aside for.
-------------WORSE STILL------------------------------------------------
Lyndon Baines Johnson 36th. President, Democrat
Term Of Office:
November 22, 1963 to January 20, 1969
Question: Which Political Party took Social Security from the Independent 'Trust Fund' and put it into the General Fund so that Congress could spend it?
Answer: It was Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat, Term of Office: November 22,1963 to January 20, 1969) and the democratically Controlled House and Senate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Question: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax Deduction for Social Security?
Answer: The Democratic Party.
William Jefferson Clinton
(Bill Clinton)
42nd. President
Democrat Term of Office: January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001
________________________________________
Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.
(Al Gore)
45th. Vice President
Democrat Term of Office: January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001
Question: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?
Answer: The Democratic Party, with Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. (Al Gore) [Vice President Term of Office: January 10, 1993 to January 20, 2001] casting the 'tie-breaking' deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US ....
------------------THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE CAMEL'S BACK !!---------------------------
James Earl Carter, Jr
(Jimmy Carter)
39th President, Democrat
Term of Office: January 20, 1977 to January 20, 1981
Question: Which Political Party decided to start giving Annuity payments to
immigrants?
AND MY FAVORITE:
ANSWER: That's right! JAMES EARL CARTER, JR. (JIMMY CARTER) (DEMOCRAT, TERM OF OFFICE: JANUARY 20, 1977 TO JANUARY 20, 1981 AND THE
DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
IMMIGRANTS MOVED INTO THIS COUNTRY, AND AT AGE 65, BEGAN TO RECEIVE SOCIAL SECURITY PAYMENTS: THE DEMOCRATIC PARTYGAVE THESE PAYMENTS TO THEM, EVEN THOUGH THEY NEVER PAID A DIME INTO IT!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!
And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it!
If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of Awareness will be planted and maybe changes WILL evolve! . Maybe not, some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn't so. But it's worth a try.
Glenn Beck Asks White House 'What's Up?'
Glenn Beck Has Brass Gonads
by Doug Giles
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). (Are you an OPIBOB yet?) Yep, not only has Obama’s administration called Rush out, but the White House has now phoned Beck during his TV show in an attempt to get him to dial the heck down.
Glenn said this past week that Barack’s minions were actually calling his show while he was on air because he was being a meany. When I heard this I was sitting there eating pretzels and drinking a martini thinking: Are you kidding me? Is Perez Hilton running the White House? The White House is actually calling Beck during his program in an attempt to get him to cease and desist his digs? Wow . . . sounds, pretty gay to me. No offense to gay people, of course.
So, what’s next, Whine House? Are you gonna post an angry note on Beck’s Facebook wall? Are you going to place Glenn’s picture on the White House website and draw naughty stuff on his forehead? Unbelievable. Not only do we have to contend with and check a radical Socialist-in-Chief at every point, but we also have to a field a cheeky, paranoid, oversensitive staff that makes Nixon look like Andy Griffith’s Aunt Bee.
So, what’s all the hubbub about? Why is Beck under their epidermis? Well, it’s principally because he asks questions. And if there is one thing that derails the Hope and Change Train, it’s questions. Oh, I almost forgot: Facts also get them purty PO’ed. Questions and facts . . . can’t have that. Yep, both of those little damnable ditties are detrimental to Obama’s oligarchical grasp.
For those who missed Beck’s week of must-see TV, he boldly parleyed into the President’s court questions several million of us want to ask but don’t have a top-ranked TV show on the most watched cable news channel to get the proper respect and response. Here’s a little sample of Beck’s mischievous queries. On Monday he inquired:
- We are in so much debt, why spend more borrowed money on cap-and-trade and healthcare programs before we stop the flow of red-ink?
- The stimulus package funneled billions of dollars to ACORN. How does giving billions of dollars to ACORN stimulate the economy?
- If it was so important for congress to pass the stimulus bill before they even had time to read it, why has only a fraction of the stimulus money been spent 6 months later?
- Why won’t members of Congress read the bills before they vote on them?
- Why are citizens mocked and laughed at when they ask their congressman to read the bills before they vote on them?
- How did Van Jones, a self-proclaimed communist, become a special advisor to the president?
- Did President Obama know of Van Jones’ radical political beliefs when he named him special advisor?
- The Apollo Alliance claimed credit for writing the stimulus bill—why was this group allowed to write any portion of this bill?
- If politicians aren’t writing the bills and aren’t reading the bills, do they have any idea what these 1,000-page plus bills actually impose on the American people?
- If the “public option” health care plan is so good, why won’t politicians agree to have that as their plan?
- If town hall meetings are intended for the politicians to learn what’s on our mind—why do they spend so much time talking instead of listening?
- Is using the economic crises to rush legislation through congress what Rahm Emanuel meant when he talked about “not letting a crisis go to waste”?
- What are the czars paid? What is the budget for their staffs/offices?
On Tuesday Beck wondered aloud:
- Who is “surrounding” the President in the White House?
- Do any of the President’s advisers have criminal records?
- Are the President’s advisers working to better the country or their own ideals?
- Who are the anti-capitalists in Washington?
- What roles do they have in crafting bills?
- What was “STORM”? What happened to the founders, and where are they now?
- What qualifications must one have to be a Presidential adviser?
- Should a communist have the ear of the President of the United States?
- What role did the Apollo Alliance play in crafting bills?
- Does the President know the co-founder of the Weather Underground is a board member of the Apollo Alliance?
On Wednesday Glenn wanted to know:
- Why does the FCC have a diversity “czar”?
- Who is Mark Lloyd, and how does he plan to “balance” the airwaves?
- Will he bring back the Fairness Doctrine, or worse?
- Cass Sunstein once said he wants to balance the Internet; is that next?
- Will broadcasters who leave the airwaves be allowed to go to satellite or Internet without government regulation?
- Is there any place (that has a mass audience) where the government won’t regulate free speech?
- Why does it seem every member of the Obama advisory team hates capitalism, unless those companies (like G.E.) are in bed with the administration?
If Lloyd has his way, stations that don't comply with the government’s definition of the “public interest” will have to pay a massive fine—which helps support public broadcasting:
- What will be the definition of “public interest”?
- Who defines “public interest”?
- Why should it be balanced? Because it's public airwaves? (Well, there are public roads that go by my house, and I don't count how many Republicans and Democrats are driving on them.)
On Thursday GB thought:
- Why do we need a civilian force?
- Who is posing a threat to us?
- Who will this “force” be made up of?
- Who is the real enemy?
- Does the president know of a coming event? If not, who builds an army against an unrecognized enemy?
- Why won't the media get off their butts and look into these radicals in the White House? And into this civilian army?
(*For the full list visit: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/29631/) You see, Beck was just asking questions. Hey, White House . . . Can we not ask questions anymore? Is that verboten? Can we not ask our elected officials to explain themselves, elucidate a bit about their odd buddies and make clear their policies and proposals?
Can we not question you boys with boldness, hold to the truth, and speak without fear of reprisal? Huh?
In the words of my redneck hunting buddy, better known as the West Texas Warrior, “Why, hell we can!” Not only can we, ladies and gents, but we must.
Uh, correct me if I’m wrong, but this is our nation; this ain’t Cuba or Venezuela yet. We pay the government’s bills, and therefore they answer to us, they represent us—and if they don’t then we take their airplanes, limos, mistresses and five-star hotels away from them. Yeah, I believe that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Keep asking the hard questions, boys and girls. Don’t let them tread on you.
Great job, Mr. Beck.
by Doug Giles
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). (Are you an OPIBOB yet?) Yep, not only has Obama’s administration called Rush out, but the White House has now phoned Beck during his TV show in an attempt to get him to dial the heck down.
Glenn said this past week that Barack’s minions were actually calling his show while he was on air because he was being a meany. When I heard this I was sitting there eating pretzels and drinking a martini thinking: Are you kidding me? Is Perez Hilton running the White House? The White House is actually calling Beck during his program in an attempt to get him to cease and desist his digs? Wow . . . sounds, pretty gay to me. No offense to gay people, of course.
So, what’s next, Whine House? Are you gonna post an angry note on Beck’s Facebook wall? Are you going to place Glenn’s picture on the White House website and draw naughty stuff on his forehead? Unbelievable. Not only do we have to contend with and check a radical Socialist-in-Chief at every point, but we also have to a field a cheeky, paranoid, oversensitive staff that makes Nixon look like Andy Griffith’s Aunt Bee.
So, what’s all the hubbub about? Why is Beck under their epidermis? Well, it’s principally because he asks questions. And if there is one thing that derails the Hope and Change Train, it’s questions. Oh, I almost forgot: Facts also get them purty PO’ed. Questions and facts . . . can’t have that. Yep, both of those little damnable ditties are detrimental to Obama’s oligarchical grasp.
For those who missed Beck’s week of must-see TV, he boldly parleyed into the President’s court questions several million of us want to ask but don’t have a top-ranked TV show on the most watched cable news channel to get the proper respect and response. Here’s a little sample of Beck’s mischievous queries. On Monday he inquired:
- We are in so much debt, why spend more borrowed money on cap-and-trade and healthcare programs before we stop the flow of red-ink?
- The stimulus package funneled billions of dollars to ACORN. How does giving billions of dollars to ACORN stimulate the economy?
- If it was so important for congress to pass the stimulus bill before they even had time to read it, why has only a fraction of the stimulus money been spent 6 months later?
- Why won’t members of Congress read the bills before they vote on them?
- Why are citizens mocked and laughed at when they ask their congressman to read the bills before they vote on them?
- How did Van Jones, a self-proclaimed communist, become a special advisor to the president?
- Did President Obama know of Van Jones’ radical political beliefs when he named him special advisor?
- The Apollo Alliance claimed credit for writing the stimulus bill—why was this group allowed to write any portion of this bill?
- If politicians aren’t writing the bills and aren’t reading the bills, do they have any idea what these 1,000-page plus bills actually impose on the American people?
- If the “public option” health care plan is so good, why won’t politicians agree to have that as their plan?
- If town hall meetings are intended for the politicians to learn what’s on our mind—why do they spend so much time talking instead of listening?
- Is using the economic crises to rush legislation through congress what Rahm Emanuel meant when he talked about “not letting a crisis go to waste”?
- What are the czars paid? What is the budget for their staffs/offices?
On Tuesday Beck wondered aloud:
- Who is “surrounding” the President in the White House?
- Do any of the President’s advisers have criminal records?
- Are the President’s advisers working to better the country or their own ideals?
- Who are the anti-capitalists in Washington?
- What roles do they have in crafting bills?
- What was “STORM”? What happened to the founders, and where are they now?
- What qualifications must one have to be a Presidential adviser?
- Should a communist have the ear of the President of the United States?
- What role did the Apollo Alliance play in crafting bills?
- Does the President know the co-founder of the Weather Underground is a board member of the Apollo Alliance?
On Wednesday Glenn wanted to know:
- Why does the FCC have a diversity “czar”?
- Who is Mark Lloyd, and how does he plan to “balance” the airwaves?
- Will he bring back the Fairness Doctrine, or worse?
- Cass Sunstein once said he wants to balance the Internet; is that next?
- Will broadcasters who leave the airwaves be allowed to go to satellite or Internet without government regulation?
- Is there any place (that has a mass audience) where the government won’t regulate free speech?
- Why does it seem every member of the Obama advisory team hates capitalism, unless those companies (like G.E.) are in bed with the administration?
If Lloyd has his way, stations that don't comply with the government’s definition of the “public interest” will have to pay a massive fine—which helps support public broadcasting:
- What will be the definition of “public interest”?
- Who defines “public interest”?
- Why should it be balanced? Because it's public airwaves? (Well, there are public roads that go by my house, and I don't count how many Republicans and Democrats are driving on them.)
On Thursday GB thought:
- Why do we need a civilian force?
- Who is posing a threat to us?
- Who will this “force” be made up of?
- Who is the real enemy?
- Does the president know of a coming event? If not, who builds an army against an unrecognized enemy?
- Why won't the media get off their butts and look into these radicals in the White House? And into this civilian army?
(*For the full list visit: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/29631/) You see, Beck was just asking questions. Hey, White House . . . Can we not ask questions anymore? Is that verboten? Can we not ask our elected officials to explain themselves, elucidate a bit about their odd buddies and make clear their policies and proposals?
Can we not question you boys with boldness, hold to the truth, and speak without fear of reprisal? Huh?
In the words of my redneck hunting buddy, better known as the West Texas Warrior, “Why, hell we can!” Not only can we, ladies and gents, but we must.
Uh, correct me if I’m wrong, but this is our nation; this ain’t Cuba or Venezuela yet. We pay the government’s bills, and therefore they answer to us, they represent us—and if they don’t then we take their airplanes, limos, mistresses and five-star hotels away from them. Yeah, I believe that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Keep asking the hard questions, boys and girls. Don’t let them tread on you.
Great job, Mr. Beck.
Obama's Agenda Is To Change America Into A Socialist Nation
What Is President Obama Really Trying To Do?
by Austin Hill
What are Barack Obama’s objectives? What is he really trying to accomplish, as our President?
Our current Commander-In-Chief won the presidency last year with very broad, generalized campaign themes of “hope,” “change,” and to a lesser degree, “transformation. ” He promised a foreign policy that would correct all the “mistakes” of George W. Bush, and an economic policy that would take wealth away from “rich” people and give it to people who were “deserving” of it.
Today, after roughly eight months in office, nobody doubts that President Obama has brought about a dramatic level of ”change.” But what is the purpose of Obama’s “change,” where is it leading, and what is all this “change” supposed to produce for the United States?
Despite philosophical and policy differences, most U.S. Presidents (certainly those of of recent history) have been, in their own ways, beholden to an agenda of keeping America safe and prosperous. But today I wonder if anyone believes that our President’s current agenda actually enhances safety and prosperity, or if, perhaps, some other agenda is being advanced.
In terms of foreign policy and national security, President Obama campaigned on, among other things, a promise to repair relationships between the U.S. and the rest of the world, relationships that he claimed President Bush had horribly damaged. Seven days after his inauguration – and before making any sort of televised address to the American people – President Obama made a regionally televised address to the “Muslim World” in the Middle East, to “reassure” Muslims that “Americans are not your enemy.”
Since then, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has scoffed at our President, publicly calling him “naïve,” and challenging Obama to a “debate.” A poll released last week indicates that, now, a mere 4% of Jews in the nation of Israel (our nation’s greatest ally and the most stable nation in the Middle East) believe that our President is “pro-Israel,” while a majority of Israelis oppose Obama’s demand for a a temporary freeze of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. And despite President Obama’s “demand” that Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the terorrist convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, be held under house arrest in his home of Libya after being released from a Scottland prison last week, the very Muslim Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi nonetheless provided a celebratory hero’s welcome to al Megrahi, and allowed him his freedom.
President Obama has unnerved the Jewish world, and appears to have emboldened the terrorist world. This does not provide a pathway to safety and prosperity for the United States.
In terms of his economic policy, President Obama is perhaps even more perplexing. As a candidate he expressed all-out disdain for American corporations and repeatedly promised to increase corporate taxes and regulations, expressed anger and “outrage” when corporations reported profits that were too big, and promised to “give back” corporate profits to “the American people.” At the same time, Obama was fond of reminding America that one of his chief economic advisors was investment and wealth creation guru Warren Buffett .
Today, Buffett stops short of admitting that his friend Barack has made any mistakes, but nonetheless admits that the so-called “economic stimulus bill” entailed tremendous waste, that the level of our national debt is staggeringly dangerous, and that the economy is in far worse condition than most people realize. And while I have been anticipating that, eventually, we would see an emergence in the press of the idea that President Obama is “in over his head with the economy,” I didn’t figure this would happen until after the 2010 elections . Only 3 months ago it seemed that President Obama could, politically speaking, continue for the foreseeable future to blame economic troubles on George W. Bush.
But reality has emerged in the media much sooner than I had predicted. Economic news outlets such as CNBC, Bloomberg, and Financial Times have raised concerns over the dangerous levels of deficit spending, while thoughtful writers like Fred Barnes and John Stossel have carefully analyzed the President’s own remarks about economics, and his behavior in office, and have concluded that Obama doesn’t know how the economy works.
But does President Obama simply not “get it” on economics, or is there another issue in play? Certainly the President has an agenda of re-distributing wealth, taking away from “rich people” and giving to those who he believes are deserving. But his policies reach beyond mere wealh re-distribution, and if current policy trends continue, there will simply be less wealth in the United States that can be re-distributed.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to argue that President Obama is seeking to advance American peace and prosperity – this is so, at least in terms of how “peace” and “prosperity” have customarily been defined. Does President Obama have his own definitions for these terms? And how might his agenda of “transformation” entail something entirely different from anything America has known before?
by Austin Hill
What are Barack Obama’s objectives? What is he really trying to accomplish, as our President?
Our current Commander-In-Chief won the presidency last year with very broad, generalized campaign themes of “hope,” “change,” and to a lesser degree, “transformation. ” He promised a foreign policy that would correct all the “mistakes” of George W. Bush, and an economic policy that would take wealth away from “rich” people and give it to people who were “deserving” of it.
Today, after roughly eight months in office, nobody doubts that President Obama has brought about a dramatic level of ”change.” But what is the purpose of Obama’s “change,” where is it leading, and what is all this “change” supposed to produce for the United States?
Despite philosophical and policy differences, most U.S. Presidents (certainly those of of recent history) have been, in their own ways, beholden to an agenda of keeping America safe and prosperous. But today I wonder if anyone believes that our President’s current agenda actually enhances safety and prosperity, or if, perhaps, some other agenda is being advanced.
In terms of foreign policy and national security, President Obama campaigned on, among other things, a promise to repair relationships between the U.S. and the rest of the world, relationships that he claimed President Bush had horribly damaged. Seven days after his inauguration – and before making any sort of televised address to the American people – President Obama made a regionally televised address to the “Muslim World” in the Middle East, to “reassure” Muslims that “Americans are not your enemy.”
Since then, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has scoffed at our President, publicly calling him “naïve,” and challenging Obama to a “debate.” A poll released last week indicates that, now, a mere 4% of Jews in the nation of Israel (our nation’s greatest ally and the most stable nation in the Middle East) believe that our President is “pro-Israel,” while a majority of Israelis oppose Obama’s demand for a a temporary freeze of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. And despite President Obama’s “demand” that Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the terorrist convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, be held under house arrest in his home of Libya after being released from a Scottland prison last week, the very Muslim Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi nonetheless provided a celebratory hero’s welcome to al Megrahi, and allowed him his freedom.
President Obama has unnerved the Jewish world, and appears to have emboldened the terrorist world. This does not provide a pathway to safety and prosperity for the United States.
In terms of his economic policy, President Obama is perhaps even more perplexing. As a candidate he expressed all-out disdain for American corporations and repeatedly promised to increase corporate taxes and regulations, expressed anger and “outrage” when corporations reported profits that were too big, and promised to “give back” corporate profits to “the American people.” At the same time, Obama was fond of reminding America that one of his chief economic advisors was investment and wealth creation guru Warren Buffett .
Today, Buffett stops short of admitting that his friend Barack has made any mistakes, but nonetheless admits that the so-called “economic stimulus bill” entailed tremendous waste, that the level of our national debt is staggeringly dangerous, and that the economy is in far worse condition than most people realize. And while I have been anticipating that, eventually, we would see an emergence in the press of the idea that President Obama is “in over his head with the economy,” I didn’t figure this would happen until after the 2010 elections . Only 3 months ago it seemed that President Obama could, politically speaking, continue for the foreseeable future to blame economic troubles on George W. Bush.
But reality has emerged in the media much sooner than I had predicted. Economic news outlets such as CNBC, Bloomberg, and Financial Times have raised concerns over the dangerous levels of deficit spending, while thoughtful writers like Fred Barnes and John Stossel have carefully analyzed the President’s own remarks about economics, and his behavior in office, and have concluded that Obama doesn’t know how the economy works.
But does President Obama simply not “get it” on economics, or is there another issue in play? Certainly the President has an agenda of re-distributing wealth, taking away from “rich people” and giving to those who he believes are deserving. But his policies reach beyond mere wealh re-distribution, and if current policy trends continue, there will simply be less wealth in the United States that can be re-distributed.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to argue that President Obama is seeking to advance American peace and prosperity – this is so, at least in terms of how “peace” and “prosperity” have customarily been defined. Does President Obama have his own definitions for these terms? And how might his agenda of “transformation” entail something entirely different from anything America has known before?
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Courts Take Freedom of Parents Control Over Childs Education Away
Court orders Christian child into government education
10-year-old's 'vigorous' defense of her faith condemned by judge
By Bob Unruh
A 10-year-old homeschool girl described as "well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising and intellectually at or superior to grade level" has been told by a New Hampshire court official to attend a government school because she was too "vigorous" in defense of her Christian faith.
The decision from Marital Master Michael Garner reasoned that the girl's "vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view."
The recommendation was approved by Judge Lucinda V. Sadler, but it is being challenged by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, who said it was "a step too far" for any court.
The ADF confirmed today it has filed motions with the court seeking reconsideration of the order and a stay of the decision sending the 10-year-old student in government-run schools in Meredith, N.H.
The dispute arose as part of a modification of a parenting plan for the girl. The parents divorced in 1999 when she was a newborn, and the mother has homeschooled her daughter since first grade with texts that meet all state standards.
In addition to homeschooling, the girl attends supplemental public school classes and has also been involved in a variety of extra-curricular sports activities, the ADF reported.
But during the process of negotiating the terms of the plan, a guardian ad litem appointed to participate concluded the girl "appeared to reflect her mother's rigidity on questions of faith" and that the girl's interests "would be best served by exposure to a public school setting" and "different points of view at a time when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief ... in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs."
According to court documents, the guardian ad litem earlier had told the mother, "If I want her in public school, she'll be in public school."
The marital master hearing the case proposed the Christian girl be ordered into public school after considering "the impact of [her religious] beliefs on her interaction with others."
"Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children. In this case specifically, the court is illegitimately altering a method of education that the court itself admits is working," said ADF-allied attorney John Anthony Simmons of Hampton.
"The court is essentially saying that the evidence shows that, socially and academically, this girl is doing great, but her religious beliefs are a bit too sincerely held and must be sifted, tested by, and mixed among other worldviews. This is a step too far for any court to take."
"The New Hampshire Supreme Court itself has specifically declared, 'Home education is an enduring American tradition and right,'" said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. "There is clearly and without question no legitimate legal basis for the court's decision, and we trust it will reconsider its conclusions."
The case, handled in the Family Division of the Judicial Court for Belknap County in Laconia, involves Martin Kurowski and Brenda Kurowski (Voydatch), and their daughter.
The ADF also argued that the issue already was raised in 2006 and rejected by the court.
"Most urgent … is the issue of Amanda's schooling as the school year has begun and Amanda is being impacted by the court's decision daily," the court filing requesting a stay said. "Serious state statutory and federal constitutional concerns are implicated by the court's ruling and which need to be remedied without delay.
"It is not the proper role of the court to insist that Amanda be 'exposed to different points of view' if the primary residential parent has determined that it is in Amanda's best interest not to be exposed to secular influences that would undermine Amanda's faith, schooling, social development, etc. The court is not permitted to demonstrate hostility toward religion, and particularly the faith of Amanda and Mother, by removing Amanda from the home and thrusting her into an environment that the custodial parent deems detrimental to Amanda."
"The order assumes that because Amanda has sincerely held Christian beliefs, there must be a problem that needs solving. It is a parent's constitutionally protected right to train up their children in the religious beliefs that they hold. It is not up to the court to suggest that a 10-year-old should be 'exposed' to other religious views contrary to the faith traditions of her parents. Could it not be that this sharp 10-year-old 'vigorously' believes what she does because she knows it to be true? The court's narrative suggests that 10-year-olds are too young to form opinions and that they are not yet allowed to have sincerely held Christian beliefs," the ADF said.
"Absent any other clear and convincing evidence justifying the court's decision, it would appear that the court has indeed taken sides with regard to the issue of religion and has preferred one religious view over another (or the absence of religion). This is impermissible," the documents said.
The guardian ad litem had an anti-Christian bias, the documents said, telling the mother at one point she wouldn't even look at homeschool curriculum
.
"I don't want to hear it. It's all Christian based," she said.
10-year-old's 'vigorous' defense of her faith condemned by judge
By Bob Unruh
A 10-year-old homeschool girl described as "well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising and intellectually at or superior to grade level" has been told by a New Hampshire court official to attend a government school because she was too "vigorous" in defense of her Christian faith.
The decision from Marital Master Michael Garner reasoned that the girl's "vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view."
The recommendation was approved by Judge Lucinda V. Sadler, but it is being challenged by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, who said it was "a step too far" for any court.
The ADF confirmed today it has filed motions with the court seeking reconsideration of the order and a stay of the decision sending the 10-year-old student in government-run schools in Meredith, N.H.
The dispute arose as part of a modification of a parenting plan for the girl. The parents divorced in 1999 when she was a newborn, and the mother has homeschooled her daughter since first grade with texts that meet all state standards.
In addition to homeschooling, the girl attends supplemental public school classes and has also been involved in a variety of extra-curricular sports activities, the ADF reported.
But during the process of negotiating the terms of the plan, a guardian ad litem appointed to participate concluded the girl "appeared to reflect her mother's rigidity on questions of faith" and that the girl's interests "would be best served by exposure to a public school setting" and "different points of view at a time when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief ... in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs."
According to court documents, the guardian ad litem earlier had told the mother, "If I want her in public school, she'll be in public school."
The marital master hearing the case proposed the Christian girl be ordered into public school after considering "the impact of [her religious] beliefs on her interaction with others."
"Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children. In this case specifically, the court is illegitimately altering a method of education that the court itself admits is working," said ADF-allied attorney John Anthony Simmons of Hampton.
"The court is essentially saying that the evidence shows that, socially and academically, this girl is doing great, but her religious beliefs are a bit too sincerely held and must be sifted, tested by, and mixed among other worldviews. This is a step too far for any court to take."
"The New Hampshire Supreme Court itself has specifically declared, 'Home education is an enduring American tradition and right,'" said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. "There is clearly and without question no legitimate legal basis for the court's decision, and we trust it will reconsider its conclusions."
The case, handled in the Family Division of the Judicial Court for Belknap County in Laconia, involves Martin Kurowski and Brenda Kurowski (Voydatch), and their daughter.
The ADF also argued that the issue already was raised in 2006 and rejected by the court.
"Most urgent … is the issue of Amanda's schooling as the school year has begun and Amanda is being impacted by the court's decision daily," the court filing requesting a stay said. "Serious state statutory and federal constitutional concerns are implicated by the court's ruling and which need to be remedied without delay.
"It is not the proper role of the court to insist that Amanda be 'exposed to different points of view' if the primary residential parent has determined that it is in Amanda's best interest not to be exposed to secular influences that would undermine Amanda's faith, schooling, social development, etc. The court is not permitted to demonstrate hostility toward religion, and particularly the faith of Amanda and Mother, by removing Amanda from the home and thrusting her into an environment that the custodial parent deems detrimental to Amanda."
"The order assumes that because Amanda has sincerely held Christian beliefs, there must be a problem that needs solving. It is a parent's constitutionally protected right to train up their children in the religious beliefs that they hold. It is not up to the court to suggest that a 10-year-old should be 'exposed' to other religious views contrary to the faith traditions of her parents. Could it not be that this sharp 10-year-old 'vigorously' believes what she does because she knows it to be true? The court's narrative suggests that 10-year-olds are too young to form opinions and that they are not yet allowed to have sincerely held Christian beliefs," the ADF said.
"Absent any other clear and convincing evidence justifying the court's decision, it would appear that the court has indeed taken sides with regard to the issue of religion and has preferred one religious view over another (or the absence of religion). This is impermissible," the documents said.
The guardian ad litem had an anti-Christian bias, the documents said, telling the mother at one point she wouldn't even look at homeschool curriculum
.
"I don't want to hear it. It's all Christian based," she said.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Healthcare Gone Stupid, Courtesy of the Democrats
The Opportunity of a Century
by Phyllis Schlafly
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said one correct thing: health care legislation is our "opportunity, not of a lifetime, but of the century." Passage of the bill she supports would put us forever on the road to trillions of dollars in debt, bankruptcy, and European mistakes; defeat of the bill will safeguard the unique American recipe for liberty and prosperity.
Pelosi and her friends would give more control to patients over their medical care IF the liberals really wanted to improve quality and reduce cost. Instead, they are trying to push our nation in the opposite direction, taking away control from patients over access and choices for medical care.
We should eliminate the roadblocks that are built into current law to restrict our use of health savings accounts (HSAs) and high-deductible insurance (such as $2,500). Pre-tax money put into HSAs by the individual and by the employer can be used for costs not covered and, if not spent, can be saved and grow as a savings account for the individual.
This puts the individual in charge of spending for health-care costs up to the deductible limit when insurance coverage kicks in. This assures that the first $2,500 will be spent more carefully and thereby promote competition and lower costs.
We should give individually owned health insurance the same tax deduction that has been enjoyed for decades by employer-provided health insurance. This is a matter of fairness; where are the equal-protection litigators when we need them?
The Democrats are toying with going in the opposite direction: eliminating the tax deduction for employer-based plans. That translates into a big tax increase for the middle class.
We should repeal all state laws that forbid insurance companies to compete across state lines, so that individuals can buy health insurance in states other than their own. Where are the free-trade devotees when we need them?
We should repeal all government mandates on benefits that health insurance is required to cover so individuals can choose the insurance package that fits their needs. These last two changes would be the best way to establish real insurance company competition.
Again, the Democrats are going in the opposite direction: imposing a federal mandate on what benefits health insurance must cover (which will include abortion, mental health, and all sorts of services demanded by special-interest groups). Insurance mandates are how the Democrats expect to control the health-care industry if they can't round up the votes to impose the "public option."
We should enact tort reform so that doctors won't be chased out of practice by ruinous lawsuits and over-the-top malpractice insurance rates. The Democrats won't do this because the trial lawyers are their biggest source of campaign contributions.
The left has started a nasty attack against John Mackey, founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc., because he wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal endorsing these common-sense reforms. He practices what he preaches; his company provides a popular HSA plan for its employees.
The left is incensed that Mackey not only supports practical reforms but also explained the folly of making health care a massive and costly entitlement that would create trillions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and empower government instead of people. The left is venting its rage on Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere and even trying to organize a Whole Foods Boycott.
I prefer Whole Foods over Nancy Pelosi, so I'm going to double my shopping at Whole Foods and urge liberty-loving and cost-conscious Americans to do likewise. I'm a fan of Whole Foods' healthy foods and vitamins anyway.
Here are two more health-care reforms that Mackey didn't mention that I would add to the list. The Democrats craftily built two loopholes into their 1,000-page bill that must be closed.
Pelosi's bill deceitfully covers abortion at taxpayer expense by refusing to exclude it. The Democrats and the feminists consider abortion merely routine health care like appendectomies, and they know that the traditional Hyde Amendment, which denies taxpayer funding for Medicaid abortions, will not apply to the health-care bill.
The bill does mention excluding illegal aliens but provides no verification mechanism. Therefore, illegal aliens will be covered by the Democrats' health care bill unless proof of citizenship is specified as a requirement.
Don't let anybody tell you that "co-ops" are an acceptable alternative to the public option. Co-op is just a code word for the government to mandate the benefits that private insurance must provide, so co-ops will rapidly move us to socialist control of the health-care industry just as fast as the public option.
by Phyllis Schlafly
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said one correct thing: health care legislation is our "opportunity, not of a lifetime, but of the century." Passage of the bill she supports would put us forever on the road to trillions of dollars in debt, bankruptcy, and European mistakes; defeat of the bill will safeguard the unique American recipe for liberty and prosperity.
Pelosi and her friends would give more control to patients over their medical care IF the liberals really wanted to improve quality and reduce cost. Instead, they are trying to push our nation in the opposite direction, taking away control from patients over access and choices for medical care.
We should eliminate the roadblocks that are built into current law to restrict our use of health savings accounts (HSAs) and high-deductible insurance (such as $2,500). Pre-tax money put into HSAs by the individual and by the employer can be used for costs not covered and, if not spent, can be saved and grow as a savings account for the individual.
This puts the individual in charge of spending for health-care costs up to the deductible limit when insurance coverage kicks in. This assures that the first $2,500 will be spent more carefully and thereby promote competition and lower costs.
We should give individually owned health insurance the same tax deduction that has been enjoyed for decades by employer-provided health insurance. This is a matter of fairness; where are the equal-protection litigators when we need them?
The Democrats are toying with going in the opposite direction: eliminating the tax deduction for employer-based plans. That translates into a big tax increase for the middle class.
We should repeal all state laws that forbid insurance companies to compete across state lines, so that individuals can buy health insurance in states other than their own. Where are the free-trade devotees when we need them?
We should repeal all government mandates on benefits that health insurance is required to cover so individuals can choose the insurance package that fits their needs. These last two changes would be the best way to establish real insurance company competition.
Again, the Democrats are going in the opposite direction: imposing a federal mandate on what benefits health insurance must cover (which will include abortion, mental health, and all sorts of services demanded by special-interest groups). Insurance mandates are how the Democrats expect to control the health-care industry if they can't round up the votes to impose the "public option."
We should enact tort reform so that doctors won't be chased out of practice by ruinous lawsuits and over-the-top malpractice insurance rates. The Democrats won't do this because the trial lawyers are their biggest source of campaign contributions.
The left has started a nasty attack against John Mackey, founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc., because he wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal endorsing these common-sense reforms. He practices what he preaches; his company provides a popular HSA plan for its employees.
The left is incensed that Mackey not only supports practical reforms but also explained the folly of making health care a massive and costly entitlement that would create trillions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and empower government instead of people. The left is venting its rage on Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere and even trying to organize a Whole Foods Boycott.
I prefer Whole Foods over Nancy Pelosi, so I'm going to double my shopping at Whole Foods and urge liberty-loving and cost-conscious Americans to do likewise. I'm a fan of Whole Foods' healthy foods and vitamins anyway.
Here are two more health-care reforms that Mackey didn't mention that I would add to the list. The Democrats craftily built two loopholes into their 1,000-page bill that must be closed.
Pelosi's bill deceitfully covers abortion at taxpayer expense by refusing to exclude it. The Democrats and the feminists consider abortion merely routine health care like appendectomies, and they know that the traditional Hyde Amendment, which denies taxpayer funding for Medicaid abortions, will not apply to the health-care bill.
The bill does mention excluding illegal aliens but provides no verification mechanism. Therefore, illegal aliens will be covered by the Democrats' health care bill unless proof of citizenship is specified as a requirement.
Don't let anybody tell you that "co-ops" are an acceptable alternative to the public option. Co-op is just a code word for the government to mandate the benefits that private insurance must provide, so co-ops will rapidly move us to socialist control of the health-care industry just as fast as the public option.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
This Is The Way Illegal Immigration Should Be Handled
What these 3 men have in common
HOOVER , TRUMAN, AND IKE!
What did Hoover, Truman, and Eisenhower have in common?
Here is something that should be of great interest for you to pass around.
I didn't know of this until it was pointed out to me.
Back during The Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover ordered the deportation of ALL illegal aliens in order to make jobs available to American citizens that desperately needed work..
Harry Truman deported over two million Illegal's after WWII to create jobs for returning veterans.
And then again in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower deported 1. 3 million Mexican Nationals! The program was called 'Operation Wetback'. It was done so WWII and Korean Veterans would have a better chance at jobs.. It took 2 Years, but they deported them!
Now...if they could deport the illegal's back then - they could sure do it today?
lf you have doubts about the veracity of this information, enter Operation Wetback into your favorite search engine and confirm it for yourself.
Reminder: Don't forget to pay your taxes...
12 million Illegal Aliens are depending on you
HOOVER , TRUMAN, AND IKE!
What did Hoover, Truman, and Eisenhower have in common?
Here is something that should be of great interest for you to pass around.
I didn't know of this until it was pointed out to me.
Back during The Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover ordered the deportation of ALL illegal aliens in order to make jobs available to American citizens that desperately needed work..
Harry Truman deported over two million Illegal's after WWII to create jobs for returning veterans.
And then again in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower deported 1. 3 million Mexican Nationals! The program was called 'Operation Wetback'. It was done so WWII and Korean Veterans would have a better chance at jobs.. It took 2 Years, but they deported them!
Now...if they could deport the illegal's back then - they could sure do it today?
lf you have doubts about the veracity of this information, enter Operation Wetback into your favorite search engine and confirm it for yourself.
Reminder: Don't forget to pay your taxes...
12 million Illegal Aliens are depending on you
Obama Lies About Abortion, Again
Abortion 'explicitly' covered under ObamaCare
By Pete Chagnon
FactCheck.org says the National Right to Life Committee is correct concerning abortion provisions in ObamaCare.
According to FactCheck.org, President Barack Obama was right to a "limited extent" when he stated that his healthcare reform plan does not allow for "government-funded abortion." Although FactCheck.org states that under H.R. 3200 federal money is not used to fund abortion, under the public insurance option there is a provision for abortion coverage -- as well as provisions for government-subsidized public and private insurance plans that cover what are described as "reproductive services."
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the Washington, DC-based National Right to Life, says the president purposely neglected to tell the whole story.
"Well, President Obama really brazenly misrepresented the abortion-related components of this bill that his congressional allies have crafted and that his staff had a role in," Johnson contends.
"As the bill was amended by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on July 30, it includes something called the Capps amendment which was put in by the pro-abortion side. And it explicitly authorizes the government plan to cover all elective abortions -- explicitly."
The Capps amendment has proposed by Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-California) as a supposed "compromise" on the abortion issue as it relates to healthcare reform. Johnson doubts Capps was trying to limit abortion funding, telling LifeNews.com that the California Democrat has never cast a pro-life vote in her 11+ years in Congress.
Johnson believes Obama, in trying to squelch discussion on abortion coverage, tried to hide behind a technical distinction between tax funds and government-collected premiums -- both of which, the pro-life activist notes, are collected and spent by government agencies.
By Pete Chagnon
FactCheck.org says the National Right to Life Committee is correct concerning abortion provisions in ObamaCare.
According to FactCheck.org, President Barack Obama was right to a "limited extent" when he stated that his healthcare reform plan does not allow for "government-funded abortion." Although FactCheck.org states that under H.R. 3200 federal money is not used to fund abortion, under the public insurance option there is a provision for abortion coverage -- as well as provisions for government-subsidized public and private insurance plans that cover what are described as "reproductive services."
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the Washington, DC-based National Right to Life, says the president purposely neglected to tell the whole story.
"Well, President Obama really brazenly misrepresented the abortion-related components of this bill that his congressional allies have crafted and that his staff had a role in," Johnson contends.
"As the bill was amended by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on July 30, it includes something called the Capps amendment which was put in by the pro-abortion side. And it explicitly authorizes the government plan to cover all elective abortions -- explicitly."
The Capps amendment has proposed by Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-California) as a supposed "compromise" on the abortion issue as it relates to healthcare reform. Johnson doubts Capps was trying to limit abortion funding, telling LifeNews.com that the California Democrat has never cast a pro-life vote in her 11+ years in Congress.
Johnson believes Obama, in trying to squelch discussion on abortion coverage, tried to hide behind a technical distinction between tax funds and government-collected premiums -- both of which, the pro-life activist notes, are collected and spent by government agencies.
ACLU Supports America's Enemies
ACLU: Spying for America's Enemies
by Michelle Malkin
Savor the silence of America's self-serving champions of privacy. For once, the American Civil Liberties Union has nothing bad to say about the latest case of secret domestic surveillance -- because it is the ACLU that committed the spying.
Last week, The Washington Post reported on a new Justice Department inquiry into photographs of undercover CIA officials and other intelligence personnel taken by ACLU-sponsored researchers assisting the defense team of Guantanamo Bay detainees. According to the report, the pictures of covert American CIA officers -- "in some cases surreptitiously taken outside their homes" -- were shown to jihadi suspects tied to the 9/11 attacks in order to identify the interrogators.
The ACLU undertook the so-called "John Adams Project" with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers -- last seen crusading for convicted jihadi assistant Lynne Stewart. She's the far-left lawyer who helped sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing and N.Y. landmark bombing plot mastermind, smuggle coded messages of Islamic violence to outside followers in violation of an explicit pledge to abide by her client's court-ordered isolation.
The ACLU's team used lists and data from "human rights groups," European researchers and news organizations that were involved in "(t)racking international CIA-chartered flights" and monitoring hotel phone records. Working from a witch-hunt list of 45 CIA employees, the ACLU team tailed and photographed agency employees or obtained other photos from public records.
And then they showed the images to suspected al-Qaida operatives implicated in murdering 3,000 innocent men, women and children on American soil.
Where is the concern for the safety of these American officers and their families? Where's the outrage from all the indignant supporters of former CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose name was leaked by Bush State Department official Richard Armitage to the late Robert Novak? Lefties swung their nooses for years over the disclosure, citing federal laws prohibiting the sharing of classified information and proscribing anyone from unauthorized exposure of undercover intelligence agents.
ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero refused to comment on Project CIA Paparazzi and instead whined some more about the evil Bush/CIA interrogators. Left-wing commentators and distraction artists are dutifully up in arms about such "inhumane" tactics as blowing cigar smoke in the faces of Gitmo detainees. But it's Romero blowing unconscionable smoke:
"We are confident that no laws or regulations have been broken as we investigated the circumstances of the torture of our clients and as we have vigorously defended our clients' interests," he told the Post. "Rather than investigate the CIA officials who undertook the torture, they are now investigating the military lawyers who have courageously stepped up to defend these clients in these sham proceedings."
Courage? What tools and fools these jihadi-enablers be. Civil liberties opportunism is literally a part of the al-Qaida handbook. A terrorist manual seized in a Manchester, England, raid in 2005 advised operatives: "At the beginning of the trial ... the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by state security before the judge. Complain of mistreatment while in prison." Jihadi commanders rehearsed the lines with their foot soldiers "to ensure that they have assimilated it."
Since 9/11, the selective champions of privacy have recklessly blabbed about counter-terrorism operations, endangered the lives of military and intelligence officials at Gitmo, and undermined national security through endless litigation. They accused Bush immigration officials of xenophobia for pursuing visa over-stayers from jihadi-friendly countries. They accused local law enforcement, FBI and other homeland security officials of "racial profiling" for placing heightened scrutiny on mosques and jihadi-linked charities.
Now, caught red-handed blowing the cover of CIA operatives, they shrug their shoulders and dismiss it as "normal" research on behalf of "our clients."
But don't you dare question their love of country. Spying to stop the next 9/11 is treason, you see. Spying to stop enhanced interrogation of Gitmo detainees is patriotic. And endangering America on behalf of international human rights is the ultimate form of leftist dissent.
by Michelle Malkin
Savor the silence of America's self-serving champions of privacy. For once, the American Civil Liberties Union has nothing bad to say about the latest case of secret domestic surveillance -- because it is the ACLU that committed the spying.
Last week, The Washington Post reported on a new Justice Department inquiry into photographs of undercover CIA officials and other intelligence personnel taken by ACLU-sponsored researchers assisting the defense team of Guantanamo Bay detainees. According to the report, the pictures of covert American CIA officers -- "in some cases surreptitiously taken outside their homes" -- were shown to jihadi suspects tied to the 9/11 attacks in order to identify the interrogators.
The ACLU undertook the so-called "John Adams Project" with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers -- last seen crusading for convicted jihadi assistant Lynne Stewart. She's the far-left lawyer who helped sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing and N.Y. landmark bombing plot mastermind, smuggle coded messages of Islamic violence to outside followers in violation of an explicit pledge to abide by her client's court-ordered isolation.
The ACLU's team used lists and data from "human rights groups," European researchers and news organizations that were involved in "(t)racking international CIA-chartered flights" and monitoring hotel phone records. Working from a witch-hunt list of 45 CIA employees, the ACLU team tailed and photographed agency employees or obtained other photos from public records.
And then they showed the images to suspected al-Qaida operatives implicated in murdering 3,000 innocent men, women and children on American soil.
Where is the concern for the safety of these American officers and their families? Where's the outrage from all the indignant supporters of former CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose name was leaked by Bush State Department official Richard Armitage to the late Robert Novak? Lefties swung their nooses for years over the disclosure, citing federal laws prohibiting the sharing of classified information and proscribing anyone from unauthorized exposure of undercover intelligence agents.
ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero refused to comment on Project CIA Paparazzi and instead whined some more about the evil Bush/CIA interrogators. Left-wing commentators and distraction artists are dutifully up in arms about such "inhumane" tactics as blowing cigar smoke in the faces of Gitmo detainees. But it's Romero blowing unconscionable smoke:
"We are confident that no laws or regulations have been broken as we investigated the circumstances of the torture of our clients and as we have vigorously defended our clients' interests," he told the Post. "Rather than investigate the CIA officials who undertook the torture, they are now investigating the military lawyers who have courageously stepped up to defend these clients in these sham proceedings."
Courage? What tools and fools these jihadi-enablers be. Civil liberties opportunism is literally a part of the al-Qaida handbook. A terrorist manual seized in a Manchester, England, raid in 2005 advised operatives: "At the beginning of the trial ... the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by state security before the judge. Complain of mistreatment while in prison." Jihadi commanders rehearsed the lines with their foot soldiers "to ensure that they have assimilated it."
Since 9/11, the selective champions of privacy have recklessly blabbed about counter-terrorism operations, endangered the lives of military and intelligence officials at Gitmo, and undermined national security through endless litigation. They accused Bush immigration officials of xenophobia for pursuing visa over-stayers from jihadi-friendly countries. They accused local law enforcement, FBI and other homeland security officials of "racial profiling" for placing heightened scrutiny on mosques and jihadi-linked charities.
Now, caught red-handed blowing the cover of CIA operatives, they shrug their shoulders and dismiss it as "normal" research on behalf of "our clients."
But don't you dare question their love of country. Spying to stop the next 9/11 is treason, you see. Spying to stop enhanced interrogation of Gitmo detainees is patriotic. And endangering America on behalf of international human rights is the ultimate form of leftist dissent.
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Truth About Illegal Immigrants
Tale of an Illegal and Legal worker
by Chris Peters
Pretty solid breakdown of why giving Illegal immigrants government sponsored Anything is absurd!!!
Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal
Here is an example of why hiring illegal aliens is not
economically productive for the State of California... You have 2
families... "Joe Legal" and "Jose Illegal".
Both families have 2 parents, 2 children and live in California.
"Joe Legal" Works in construction, has a Social Security
Number, and makes $25.00 per hour with payroll taxes deducted.
"Jose Illegal" Also works in construction, has "NO" Social
Security Number, and gets paid $15.00 cash "under the table".
Joe Legal...$25.00 per hour x 40 hours, $1000.00 per week,
$52,000 per year
Now take 30% away for state federal tax,
Joe Legal now has $31,231.00
Jose Illegal...$15.00 per hour x 40 hours, $600.00 per week,
$31,200.00 per year
Jose Illegal pays no taxes...
Jose Illegal now has $31,200.00
Joe Legal pays Medical and Dental Insurance with limited
coverage, $1000.00 per month, $12,000.00 per year, Joe Legal now has
$19,231.00
Jose Illegal has full Medical and Dental coverage through the
state and local clinics at a cost of $0.00 per year.
Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00
Joe Legal makes too much money is not eligible for Food Stamps
or welfare. Joe Legal pays for food, $1,000.00 per month, $12,0 00.00
per year
Joe Legal now has $7,231.00
Jose Illegal has no documented income and is eligible for Food
Stamps and Welfare
Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00
Joe Legal pays rent of $1,000.00 per month, $12,000.00 per year
Joe Legal is now in the hole, minus (-) $4,769.00
Jose Illegal receives a $500 per month Federal rent subsidy
Jose Illegal pays rent $500.00 per month, $6,000.00 per year
Jose Illegal still has $25,200.00
Joe Legal now works overtime on Saturdays or gets a part time
job after work.
Jose Illegal has nights and weekends off to enjoy with his
family.
Joe Legal's and Jose Illegal's children both attend the same
school.
Joe Legal pays for his children's lunches while
Jose Illegal's children get a government sponsored lunch.
Jose Illegal's children have an after school ESL program.
Joe Legal's children go home.
Joe Legal and Jose Illegal both enjoy the same Police and Fire
Services, but Joe paid for them and Jose did not pay.
HAVE WE LOST OUR MINDS?????? THIS IS NOT A
PARTY ISSUE: IT'S A COMMON SENSE ISSUE.....
Don't vote for or support any politician that supports illegal
aliens...
Make it a point to know how your representative votes, State
and Federal.....
Its PAST time to take a stand for America and Americans!
by Chris Peters
Pretty solid breakdown of why giving Illegal immigrants government sponsored Anything is absurd!!!
Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal
Here is an example of why hiring illegal aliens is not
economically productive for the State of California... You have 2
families... "Joe Legal" and "Jose Illegal".
Both families have 2 parents, 2 children and live in California.
"Joe Legal" Works in construction, has a Social Security
Number, and makes $25.00 per hour with payroll taxes deducted.
"Jose Illegal" Also works in construction, has "NO" Social
Security Number, and gets paid $15.00 cash "under the table".
Joe Legal...$25.00 per hour x 40 hours, $1000.00 per week,
$52,000 per year
Now take 30% away for state federal tax,
Joe Legal now has $31,231.00
Jose Illegal...$15.00 per hour x 40 hours, $600.00 per week,
$31,200.00 per year
Jose Illegal pays no taxes...
Jose Illegal now has $31,200.00
Joe Legal pays Medical and Dental Insurance with limited
coverage, $1000.00 per month, $12,000.00 per year, Joe Legal now has
$19,231.00
Jose Illegal has full Medical and Dental coverage through the
state and local clinics at a cost of $0.00 per year.
Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00
Joe Legal makes too much money is not eligible for Food Stamps
or welfare. Joe Legal pays for food, $1,000.00 per month, $12,0 00.00
per year
Joe Legal now has $7,231.00
Jose Illegal has no documented income and is eligible for Food
Stamps and Welfare
Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00
Joe Legal pays rent of $1,000.00 per month, $12,000.00 per year
Joe Legal is now in the hole, minus (-) $4,769.00
Jose Illegal receives a $500 per month Federal rent subsidy
Jose Illegal pays rent $500.00 per month, $6,000.00 per year
Jose Illegal still has $25,200.00
Joe Legal now works overtime on Saturdays or gets a part time
job after work.
Jose Illegal has nights and weekends off to enjoy with his
family.
Joe Legal's and Jose Illegal's children both attend the same
school.
Joe Legal pays for his children's lunches while
Jose Illegal's children get a government sponsored lunch.
Jose Illegal's children have an after school ESL program.
Joe Legal's children go home.
Joe Legal and Jose Illegal both enjoy the same Police and Fire
Services, but Joe paid for them and Jose did not pay.
HAVE WE LOST OUR MINDS?????? THIS IS NOT A
PARTY ISSUE: IT'S A COMMON SENSE ISSUE.....
Don't vote for or support any politician that supports illegal
aliens...
Make it a point to know how your representative votes, State
and Federal.....
Its PAST time to take a stand for America and Americans!
An Interesting Look At The Last 50 Years
History Unfolding
by Dr. David Kaiser
�
I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.
�
Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it.. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
�
We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?
�
We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "we the people", who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.
�
We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?
�
We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
�
We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting sy stem into a banana republic. To what purpose?
�
Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth... It is potentially 1929 x ten... And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
�
And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our b orders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. (Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more important.)
�
Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?
�
I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.
�
This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is only the beginning.
�
As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have�felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory. Conservative "losers" read it right now.
�
And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fe ar that his "brown shirts" would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand - the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were, at first,encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course.
�
How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world. He did it with a compliant media did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and ... change. And the people surely got what they voted for.
�
If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It's all there in the history books.
�
So read your history books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in theHouse of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.
�
Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in Europe. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.
�
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me.
�
I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe and why I believe it.
�
I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.
�
David Kaiser
Jamestown, Rhode Island
United States
by Dr. David Kaiser
�
I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.
�
Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it.. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
�
We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?
�
We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "we the people", who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.
�
We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?
�
We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
�
We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting sy stem into a banana republic. To what purpose?
�
Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth... It is potentially 1929 x ten... And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
�
And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our b orders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. (Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more important.)
�
Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?
�
I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.
�
This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is only the beginning.
�
As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have�felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory. Conservative "losers" read it right now.
�
And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fe ar that his "brown shirts" would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand - the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were, at first,encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course.
�
How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world. He did it with a compliant media did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and ... change. And the people surely got what they voted for.
�
If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It's all there in the history books.
�
So read your history books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in theHouse of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.
�
Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in Europe. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.
�
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me.
�
I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe and why I believe it.
�
I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.
�
David Kaiser
Jamestown, Rhode Island
United States
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Google Blocks Information Site On Illegal Immigrants
Contact: Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), WilliamG@alipac.us, (866) 703-0864
ALIPAC is issuing an emergency broadcast to our 25,000 supporters and media contacts across the web, blogosphere, and talk radio channels in America!
WARNING! Google is now blocking the worlds largest archive of information about the negative impact of illegal immigration on American citizens from view via false warnings of Malware.
Public access to the extensive information archived by ALIPAC over the last five years has been blocked on Google, by Firefox web browsers, and on Twitter!
"Google's own software admits we have no viruses or malware on our site," said William Gheen of ALIPAC. "The readings indicate that Google scanned our site on the 19th and we were clean and now they are arbitrarily blocking us for the second time this week. Our technicians tell us our site is clean and Google will not offer us any explanation or assistance despite mulitple attemps to reach out to them."
ALIPAC is issuing an emergency broadcast to our 25,000 supporters and media contacts across the web, blogosphere, and talk radio channels in America!
WARNING! Google is now blocking the worlds largest archive of information about the negative impact of illegal immigration on American citizens from view via false warnings of Malware.
Public access to the extensive information archived by ALIPAC over the last five years has been blocked on Google, by Firefox web browsers, and on Twitter!
"Google's own software admits we have no viruses or malware on our site," said William Gheen of ALIPAC. "The readings indicate that Google scanned our site on the 19th and we were clean and now they are arbitrarily blocking us for the second time this week. Our technicians tell us our site is clean and Google will not offer us any explanation or assistance despite mulitple attemps to reach out to them."
Heritage Foundation Explains results of Cap and Trade
Impact of the Waxman–Markey Climate Change Legislation on the States
by David Kreutzer, Ph.D., Karen Campbell, Ph.D., William W. Beach, Ben Lieberman and Nicolas Loris
WebMemo #2585
On June 26, the House of Representatives narrowly passed climate change legislation designed by Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA). The 1,427-page bill would restrict greenhouse gas emissions from industry, mainly carbon dioxide from the combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas.
If passed by the Senate, the bill would burden families with thousands of dollars per year in direct and indirect energy costs. According to a new study produced by Heritage's Center for Data Analysis (CDA), forecasts severe consequences—including crushing energy costs, millions of jobs lost and falling household income—if Congress enacts the so-called Waxman-Markey bill.
Inevitably the bill will affect each state differently. Some states are more energy-intensive than others and some rely a great deal on manufacturing to fuel its economy. Regardless, the costs in every state are significant. Increases in electricity and gasoline are a dreadful site for any American. Moreover, the projected losses in jobs and Gross State Product (GSP) illustrate how each state's economy will be operating well under its potential directly because of the Waxman-Markey bill. What follows are 50 state-by-state breakouts of the impact the bill would have on jobs and the economy.
Go to this link to see what the results are for your state: http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2585.cfm
by David Kreutzer, Ph.D., Karen Campbell, Ph.D., William W. Beach, Ben Lieberman and Nicolas Loris
WebMemo #2585
On June 26, the House of Representatives narrowly passed climate change legislation designed by Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA). The 1,427-page bill would restrict greenhouse gas emissions from industry, mainly carbon dioxide from the combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas.
If passed by the Senate, the bill would burden families with thousands of dollars per year in direct and indirect energy costs. According to a new study produced by Heritage's Center for Data Analysis (CDA), forecasts severe consequences—including crushing energy costs, millions of jobs lost and falling household income—if Congress enacts the so-called Waxman-Markey bill.
Inevitably the bill will affect each state differently. Some states are more energy-intensive than others and some rely a great deal on manufacturing to fuel its economy. Regardless, the costs in every state are significant. Increases in electricity and gasoline are a dreadful site for any American. Moreover, the projected losses in jobs and Gross State Product (GSP) illustrate how each state's economy will be operating well under its potential directly because of the Waxman-Markey bill. What follows are 50 state-by-state breakouts of the impact the bill would have on jobs and the economy.
Go to this link to see what the results are for your state: http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2585.cfm
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Obama's Healthcare Nothing But 'Death Panel'
Obamacare will be 1 big 'death panel'
Just as in U.K., government system will lead to early demise of seniors
By Richard Poe
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Editor's note: Have you wondered what Sarah Palin is talking about when she refers to Obamacare's "death panels"? Does government health care really mean rationing – which is to say, denial – of medical care for the elderly and infirm? What is it about Obama's health-care advisers that has critics up in arms? Following is an excerpt of a shocking investigative report published in the August edition of Whistleblower magazine, titled "MEDICAL MURDER: Why Obamacare could result in the early deaths of millions of baby boomers."
President Obama has promised huge cuts in medical spending. In fact, he has warned that, if America fails to make such cuts, it will face financial Armageddon.
"Make no mistake: the cost of our health care is a threat to our economy…," Obama told the American Medical Association in Chicago June 15. "It is a ticking time bomb for the federal budget. And it is unsustainable for the United States of America. … If we fail to act, one out of every five dollars we earn will be spent on health care within a decade. And if we fail to act, federal spending on Medicaid and Medicare… will eventually grow larger than what our government spends on anything else today."
To avoid this catastrophe, America must make drastic cuts in health spending, says Obama. The size of his proposed cuts varies from speech to speech, but the figure cited most often by Obama's advisers is 30 percent per year – up to $700 billion annually.
A 30-percent annual cut is going to take a big bite out of somebody's health care. The only question is whose.
The numbers make clear that most of these cuts will have to come at the expense of those who need health care the most – the elderly, the disabled and the gravely ill.
"Older, sicker societies pay more on health care than younger, healthier ones," Obama told the AMA.
He is right. According to a 2006 study by the Department of Health and Human Services, five percent of the U.S. population accounts for nearly 50 percent of health care spending in America. Who are those five percent? Most are people over 65 years of age with serious, chronic illnesses.
By contrast, the study notes, half of the U.S. population "spends little or nothing on health care… with annual medical spending below $664 per person." These, of course, are mostly healthy young people – people without serious, chronic illnesses.
Obviously, Obama will not meet his cost-cutting targets by reducing care to healthy young people. They are already spending next to nothing. It is the old, the dying and the chronically ill whose health care he will cut. The numbers make this clear.
At present, the main vehicle of Obamacare is the so-called America's Affordable Health Choices Act, introduced on June 9.
This law will force Americans to enroll in "qualified" health plans – that is, plans approved and controlled by the government. Americans will be invited to "choose" between "public" and "private" insurance plans, but will find little difference between them. "Public" or "private," they will all follow the same rules, dictated by the Department of Health and Human Services – the same agency, incidentally, which issued the report, titled "The High Concentration of U.S. Health Care Expenditures, 2006."
How will Obama cut costs? His June 13 radio speech gave some hints. Obama said his plan would provide "incentives" to doctors to "avoid unnecessary hospital stays, treatments and tests that drive up costs."
And what sort of treatment does Obama consider "unnecessary?" In an ABC News special June 24, he implied medical treatment might be wasted on elderly people with grave illnesses, citing his own grandmother as an example.
Dying of cancer, with less than a year to live, Obama's grandmother broke her hip. "[T]he question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?" asked the president.
It turns out that Obama's grandmother did get the hip replacement – though he did not say so on ABC that night. Obama left the story about his grandmother unfinished, but went on to suggest that other people faced with such choices might do well to forget about surgery and settle instead for palliative or comfort care – treatment that helps you feel better while you are dying, but does not prolong your life.
"Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller," Obama concluded.
It's already happening in Europe
In Europe, governments already ration health care, just as Obama plans to do here. The older and sicker people are, the less care they get.
In England, for example, bureaucrats determine a patient's eligibility for health care using the QALY system (quality-adjusted life years). They divide the cost of treatment by the number of "quality" years the patient is expected to live. Older, sicker patients are expected to live fewer "quality" years, so why bother treating them at all? On this basis, British elders are routinely denied treatment for cancer, heart disease and other deadly illnesses.
Many die in filthy, overcrowded hospitals or nursing homes, rife with pestilence, including the deadly, antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" Clostridium difficile and MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). Each year in the U.K., nearly three times more people die from hospital infections than from traffic accidents.
In the nation where Florence Nightingale invented modern nursing 150 years ago, cleanliness has become a lost art. British newspapers reported in 2007 that patients in government hospitals were told to "go in their beds" when they had diarrhea.
In March 2009, British health inspectors reported that poor treatment at one hospital may have killed up to 1,200 people in three years. That's 1,200 people at just one hospital.
Denied food, water and medicine, patients at Stafford Hospital in Staffordshire were left screaming in agony, drinking from flowerpots and lying helpless in their own waste. Many waited for operations which were repeatedly postponed.
British officials were quick to label the Stafford horror an "isolated incident." But many health care professionals in England say it is typical. Unfortunately, dissenters have little voice in Britain's National Health Service. The system is notoriously hostile to whistleblowers.
Take Margaret Haywood, for instance, a nurse of 20 years, who went undercover for the BBC, filming abuse and neglect of elderly patients at Royal Sussex Hospital. In April 2009, British health authorities punished Haywood for going to the press, banning her from practicing nursing. If she had complaints, they told her, she should have made them through proper channels.
In England, whitewashing medical scandals is a bipartisan activity. Conservative and liberal politicians alike defend the National Health Service from all critics.
After a harrowing stay at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, Lord Benjamin Mancroft, a Conservative member of the House of Lords, spoke out in Parliament, declaring, "It is a miracle that I am still alive." He described "filthy" wards that were "never cleaned" and nurses who were "grubby… slipshod, lazy… drunken and promiscuous."
Fellow Tories denounced Lord Mancroft for defaming British medicine. But his observations may help explain why Royal United Hospital leads Britain in superbug fatalities, having racked up 306 superbug deaths in four years.
Government health care supposedly works better in France. But in August 2003, when temperatures in France soared to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly 15,000 elderly people dropped dead – that is, 15,000 more than the average or expected death rate for that time of year.
Most died in institutions, such as government-run nursing homes, which lacked air conditioning and other basic amenities.
Time magazine reported that deaths from the heat wave in France were "geometrically higher than anywhere else in sunbaked Europe," thanks to "a chronically underfunded and understaffed elder care system."
Less money, less care
For 20 years, health care reformers from Edward Kennedy to Hillary Clinton have praised the government-run health systems of Europe and Canada. Obama and his team have taken up the same cry.
A June 1 report from Obama's Council of Economic Advisers praised European health care and urged Americans to emulate it.
If health care is so abominable in Europe, why did Obama's economic advisers commend it? Simple. It's cheaper.
Titled "The Economic Case for Health Care Reform," the report noted that six countries – Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Britain and France – spend only 9.6 percent of their Gross Domestic Product on health care, while America spends 15.3 percent. It recommended bringing our health spending down to European levels through "efficiency improvements in the U.S. healthcare system."
This is the dirty secret behind the movement for universal health care. Its true purpose is to cut medical care, not increase it.
Every plan put forth by health care "reformers" in the last 20 years features drastic cuts – not increases – in health spending. During her 2008 presidential run, for example, Hillary Clinton vowed to slash medical spending in America by $120 billion per year. Obama says he will cut even more.
With "the right kind of cost-effectiveness," Obama's chief economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers told MSNBC's "Meet the Press" on April 19, "we could take as much as $700 billion a year out of our health care system."
Current annual health spending in America is about $2.5 trillion, so Obama and his team are talking about a 30-percent cut.
It happens that the Health Care Financing Administration, or HCFA, reports that 27-30 percent of annual Medicare spending goes to end-of-life care for the elderly – specifically, health care during the last year of life.
These figures suggest Obama could meet his target of a 30-percent cut simply by denying treatment to the sickest and feeblest of America's elderly – those with a life expectancy of one year or less.
Obama's special adviser for health policy, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, appears to have something like that in mind.
In a Jan. 31 article in the British medical journal Lancet, Emanuel advised steering health dollars toward the young and fit; specifically those between the ages of 15 and 40, while reducing health spending for the elderly.
Weirdly, Emanuel – along with his co-authors Govind Persad and Alan Wertheimer – made a special point of arguing that age-weighted medical rationing does not violate the rules of political correctness. They wrote:
"Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination … Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years. Treating 65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not."
In other words, to put it crudely, deciding to let the elderly die because we think of them in "stereotypical" terms – say, as useless old dodderers –would be "ageism." However, letting them die for a "good" reason – for example, because they have already had their chance at life, and now it's time to give someone else a chance – is perfectly OK.
In Emanuel's view, letting old people die is not the problem. The problem is finding the right words to justify it.
Words are very important to Emanuel – for example, the words of the Hippocratic Oath. He blames the Hippocratic Oath for much of what he considers wrong in American medicine.
Until the 1970s, all doctors swore this oath upon graduating medical school. It is believed to have been written by the Greek physician Hippocrates of Cos, the father of modern medicine, some 2,400 years ago.
The oath forbids doctors to kill, and expressly forbids administering any "deadly drug" or performing an abortion. For that reason, it has fallen out of favor with modern medical schools, which often use edited versions of the oath, or different oaths entirely, written in modern times.
Still, the tradition of Hippocrates dies hard. Doctors still honor him, and many feel guilty when they violate his precepts.
Emanuel would like to steer modern medicine away from the Hippocratic tradition. In a June 18, 2008, article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, he wrote that strict adherence to the Hippocratic Oath caused "overuse" of medical care.
"Medical school education and postgraduate
training emphasize thoroughness," he complained. "When evaluating a patient, students, interns, and residents are trained to identify and praised for and graded on enumerating all possible diagnoses and tests that would confirm or exclude them. The thought is that the more thorough the evaluation, the more intelligent the student or house officer."
Particularly galling to Emanuel is "the Hippocratic Oath's admonition to 'use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment'" which he says "doctors interpret as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of cost or effect on others."
Emanuel would like to see less thoroughness and more cost-cutting. Instead of being "thorough" and "meticulous," doctors should be "prudent" in assessing how much time, effort and money each patient is worth, for the greater good of society, he argues.
Evidently, President Obama likes what Dr. Emanuel is preaching. In December 2008, Obama made him special adviser for health policy to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Given Emanuel's views, it can be expected that age-weighted rationing will figure prominently in Obama's health care "reforms." Should Obamacare become the law of this land, many of those 80 million Americans born between 1946 and 1965 can look forward confidently to a nasty, European-style death.
It is already happening in Oregon
You don't have to go to Europe to see age-weighted rationing at work. Just take a look at Oregon. Its state-run Oregon Health Plan works very much as our president says Obamacare will work.
Barbara Wagner of Springfield, Ore., was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2005. Chemotherapy and radiation put her cancer into remission. But the cancer returned in May 2008.
Wagner's doctor prescribed Tarceva, a pill which slows cancer growth. There was a good chance it might extend her life by a few weeks or even months.
At age 64, Wagner had two sons, three daughters, 15 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Every moment she could spend with her loved ones was precious.
But Oregon's health commissars nixed the plan. Her Tarceva treatment would cost $4,000 per month. Wagner was going to die anyway, so why waste the money?
Wagner received a letter stating that the Oregon Health Plan would not approve any treatment for her "that is meant to prolong life, or change the course of the disease …" However, if Wagner opted for physician-assisted suicide, Oregon would be happy to pick up the tab, said the letter.
Physician-assisted suicide is legal in Oregon and costs only about $50.
"It was horrible," Wagner told reporters. "To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel. Who do they think they are?"
Wagner finally got her Tarceva when the manufacturer Genentech offered to supply it free of charge. She died in October 2008.
A humble, retired schoolbus driver, Wagner touched more people in death than she had in life. Local and national press picked up her story, alerting many Americans to the danger of medical rationing.
One person who remains untouched by her story is Dr. Walter Shaffer, who heads Oregon's Division of Medical Assistance Programs, which runs the Oregon Health Plan. Regarding the Wagner case, Shaffer told the Eugene Register-Guard, "We can't cover everything for everyone. Taxpayer dollars are limited for publicly funded programs. We try to come up with policies that provide the most good for the most people."
Equally unsympathetic is Barack Obama, who views Oregon's medical rationing system as a model for the nation.
On March 23, 2008, asked to comment on Oregon's assisted suicide law, candidate Obama told the Mail Tribune of southern Oregon: "I think that the people of Oregon did a service for the country in recognizing that as the population gets older we've got to think about issues of end-of-life care."
The preceding is excerpted from the shocking August edition of Whistleblower, titled "MEDICAL MURDER: Why Obamacare could result in the early deaths of millions of baby boomers." Until the end of August, Whistleblower subscription and renewal prices are being rolled back to 2002 levels, and you will also receive a FREE copy of either "Glenn Beck's Common Sense" or "Liberty and Tyranny" by Mark Levin. To get the whole, incredible story of Obamacare that no other news organization is willing to tell, subscribe to Whistleblower now.
Just as in U.K., government system will lead to early demise of seniors
By Richard Poe
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Editor's note: Have you wondered what Sarah Palin is talking about when she refers to Obamacare's "death panels"? Does government health care really mean rationing – which is to say, denial – of medical care for the elderly and infirm? What is it about Obama's health-care advisers that has critics up in arms? Following is an excerpt of a shocking investigative report published in the August edition of Whistleblower magazine, titled "MEDICAL MURDER: Why Obamacare could result in the early deaths of millions of baby boomers."
President Obama has promised huge cuts in medical spending. In fact, he has warned that, if America fails to make such cuts, it will face financial Armageddon.
"Make no mistake: the cost of our health care is a threat to our economy…," Obama told the American Medical Association in Chicago June 15. "It is a ticking time bomb for the federal budget. And it is unsustainable for the United States of America. … If we fail to act, one out of every five dollars we earn will be spent on health care within a decade. And if we fail to act, federal spending on Medicaid and Medicare… will eventually grow larger than what our government spends on anything else today."
To avoid this catastrophe, America must make drastic cuts in health spending, says Obama. The size of his proposed cuts varies from speech to speech, but the figure cited most often by Obama's advisers is 30 percent per year – up to $700 billion annually.
A 30-percent annual cut is going to take a big bite out of somebody's health care. The only question is whose.
The numbers make clear that most of these cuts will have to come at the expense of those who need health care the most – the elderly, the disabled and the gravely ill.
"Older, sicker societies pay more on health care than younger, healthier ones," Obama told the AMA.
He is right. According to a 2006 study by the Department of Health and Human Services, five percent of the U.S. population accounts for nearly 50 percent of health care spending in America. Who are those five percent? Most are people over 65 years of age with serious, chronic illnesses.
By contrast, the study notes, half of the U.S. population "spends little or nothing on health care… with annual medical spending below $664 per person." These, of course, are mostly healthy young people – people without serious, chronic illnesses.
Obviously, Obama will not meet his cost-cutting targets by reducing care to healthy young people. They are already spending next to nothing. It is the old, the dying and the chronically ill whose health care he will cut. The numbers make this clear.
At present, the main vehicle of Obamacare is the so-called America's Affordable Health Choices Act, introduced on June 9.
This law will force Americans to enroll in "qualified" health plans – that is, plans approved and controlled by the government. Americans will be invited to "choose" between "public" and "private" insurance plans, but will find little difference between them. "Public" or "private," they will all follow the same rules, dictated by the Department of Health and Human Services – the same agency, incidentally, which issued the report, titled "The High Concentration of U.S. Health Care Expenditures, 2006."
How will Obama cut costs? His June 13 radio speech gave some hints. Obama said his plan would provide "incentives" to doctors to "avoid unnecessary hospital stays, treatments and tests that drive up costs."
And what sort of treatment does Obama consider "unnecessary?" In an ABC News special June 24, he implied medical treatment might be wasted on elderly people with grave illnesses, citing his own grandmother as an example.
Dying of cancer, with less than a year to live, Obama's grandmother broke her hip. "[T]he question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?" asked the president.
It turns out that Obama's grandmother did get the hip replacement – though he did not say so on ABC that night. Obama left the story about his grandmother unfinished, but went on to suggest that other people faced with such choices might do well to forget about surgery and settle instead for palliative or comfort care – treatment that helps you feel better while you are dying, but does not prolong your life.
"Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller," Obama concluded.
It's already happening in Europe
In Europe, governments already ration health care, just as Obama plans to do here. The older and sicker people are, the less care they get.
In England, for example, bureaucrats determine a patient's eligibility for health care using the QALY system (quality-adjusted life years). They divide the cost of treatment by the number of "quality" years the patient is expected to live. Older, sicker patients are expected to live fewer "quality" years, so why bother treating them at all? On this basis, British elders are routinely denied treatment for cancer, heart disease and other deadly illnesses.
Many die in filthy, overcrowded hospitals or nursing homes, rife with pestilence, including the deadly, antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" Clostridium difficile and MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). Each year in the U.K., nearly three times more people die from hospital infections than from traffic accidents.
In the nation where Florence Nightingale invented modern nursing 150 years ago, cleanliness has become a lost art. British newspapers reported in 2007 that patients in government hospitals were told to "go in their beds" when they had diarrhea.
In March 2009, British health inspectors reported that poor treatment at one hospital may have killed up to 1,200 people in three years. That's 1,200 people at just one hospital.
Denied food, water and medicine, patients at Stafford Hospital in Staffordshire were left screaming in agony, drinking from flowerpots and lying helpless in their own waste. Many waited for operations which were repeatedly postponed.
British officials were quick to label the Stafford horror an "isolated incident." But many health care professionals in England say it is typical. Unfortunately, dissenters have little voice in Britain's National Health Service. The system is notoriously hostile to whistleblowers.
Take Margaret Haywood, for instance, a nurse of 20 years, who went undercover for the BBC, filming abuse and neglect of elderly patients at Royal Sussex Hospital. In April 2009, British health authorities punished Haywood for going to the press, banning her from practicing nursing. If she had complaints, they told her, she should have made them through proper channels.
In England, whitewashing medical scandals is a bipartisan activity. Conservative and liberal politicians alike defend the National Health Service from all critics.
After a harrowing stay at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, Lord Benjamin Mancroft, a Conservative member of the House of Lords, spoke out in Parliament, declaring, "It is a miracle that I am still alive." He described "filthy" wards that were "never cleaned" and nurses who were "grubby… slipshod, lazy… drunken and promiscuous."
Fellow Tories denounced Lord Mancroft for defaming British medicine. But his observations may help explain why Royal United Hospital leads Britain in superbug fatalities, having racked up 306 superbug deaths in four years.
Government health care supposedly works better in France. But in August 2003, when temperatures in France soared to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly 15,000 elderly people dropped dead – that is, 15,000 more than the average or expected death rate for that time of year.
Most died in institutions, such as government-run nursing homes, which lacked air conditioning and other basic amenities.
Time magazine reported that deaths from the heat wave in France were "geometrically higher than anywhere else in sunbaked Europe," thanks to "a chronically underfunded and understaffed elder care system."
Less money, less care
For 20 years, health care reformers from Edward Kennedy to Hillary Clinton have praised the government-run health systems of Europe and Canada. Obama and his team have taken up the same cry.
A June 1 report from Obama's Council of Economic Advisers praised European health care and urged Americans to emulate it.
If health care is so abominable in Europe, why did Obama's economic advisers commend it? Simple. It's cheaper.
Titled "The Economic Case for Health Care Reform," the report noted that six countries – Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Britain and France – spend only 9.6 percent of their Gross Domestic Product on health care, while America spends 15.3 percent. It recommended bringing our health spending down to European levels through "efficiency improvements in the U.S. healthcare system."
This is the dirty secret behind the movement for universal health care. Its true purpose is to cut medical care, not increase it.
Every plan put forth by health care "reformers" in the last 20 years features drastic cuts – not increases – in health spending. During her 2008 presidential run, for example, Hillary Clinton vowed to slash medical spending in America by $120 billion per year. Obama says he will cut even more.
With "the right kind of cost-effectiveness," Obama's chief economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers told MSNBC's "Meet the Press" on April 19, "we could take as much as $700 billion a year out of our health care system."
Current annual health spending in America is about $2.5 trillion, so Obama and his team are talking about a 30-percent cut.
It happens that the Health Care Financing Administration, or HCFA, reports that 27-30 percent of annual Medicare spending goes to end-of-life care for the elderly – specifically, health care during the last year of life.
These figures suggest Obama could meet his target of a 30-percent cut simply by denying treatment to the sickest and feeblest of America's elderly – those with a life expectancy of one year or less.
Obama's special adviser for health policy, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, appears to have something like that in mind.
In a Jan. 31 article in the British medical journal Lancet, Emanuel advised steering health dollars toward the young and fit; specifically those between the ages of 15 and 40, while reducing health spending for the elderly.
Weirdly, Emanuel – along with his co-authors Govind Persad and Alan Wertheimer – made a special point of arguing that age-weighted medical rationing does not violate the rules of political correctness. They wrote:
"Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination … Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years. Treating 65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not."
In other words, to put it crudely, deciding to let the elderly die because we think of them in "stereotypical" terms – say, as useless old dodderers –would be "ageism." However, letting them die for a "good" reason – for example, because they have already had their chance at life, and now it's time to give someone else a chance – is perfectly OK.
In Emanuel's view, letting old people die is not the problem. The problem is finding the right words to justify it.
Words are very important to Emanuel – for example, the words of the Hippocratic Oath. He blames the Hippocratic Oath for much of what he considers wrong in American medicine.
Until the 1970s, all doctors swore this oath upon graduating medical school. It is believed to have been written by the Greek physician Hippocrates of Cos, the father of modern medicine, some 2,400 years ago.
The oath forbids doctors to kill, and expressly forbids administering any "deadly drug" or performing an abortion. For that reason, it has fallen out of favor with modern medical schools, which often use edited versions of the oath, or different oaths entirely, written in modern times.
Still, the tradition of Hippocrates dies hard. Doctors still honor him, and many feel guilty when they violate his precepts.
Emanuel would like to steer modern medicine away from the Hippocratic tradition. In a June 18, 2008, article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, he wrote that strict adherence to the Hippocratic Oath caused "overuse" of medical care.
"Medical school education and postgraduate
training emphasize thoroughness," he complained. "When evaluating a patient, students, interns, and residents are trained to identify and praised for and graded on enumerating all possible diagnoses and tests that would confirm or exclude them. The thought is that the more thorough the evaluation, the more intelligent the student or house officer."
Particularly galling to Emanuel is "the Hippocratic Oath's admonition to 'use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment'" which he says "doctors interpret as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of cost or effect on others."
Emanuel would like to see less thoroughness and more cost-cutting. Instead of being "thorough" and "meticulous," doctors should be "prudent" in assessing how much time, effort and money each patient is worth, for the greater good of society, he argues.
Evidently, President Obama likes what Dr. Emanuel is preaching. In December 2008, Obama made him special adviser for health policy to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Given Emanuel's views, it can be expected that age-weighted rationing will figure prominently in Obama's health care "reforms." Should Obamacare become the law of this land, many of those 80 million Americans born between 1946 and 1965 can look forward confidently to a nasty, European-style death.
It is already happening in Oregon
You don't have to go to Europe to see age-weighted rationing at work. Just take a look at Oregon. Its state-run Oregon Health Plan works very much as our president says Obamacare will work.
Barbara Wagner of Springfield, Ore., was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2005. Chemotherapy and radiation put her cancer into remission. But the cancer returned in May 2008.
Wagner's doctor prescribed Tarceva, a pill which slows cancer growth. There was a good chance it might extend her life by a few weeks or even months.
At age 64, Wagner had two sons, three daughters, 15 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Every moment she could spend with her loved ones was precious.
But Oregon's health commissars nixed the plan. Her Tarceva treatment would cost $4,000 per month. Wagner was going to die anyway, so why waste the money?
Wagner received a letter stating that the Oregon Health Plan would not approve any treatment for her "that is meant to prolong life, or change the course of the disease …" However, if Wagner opted for physician-assisted suicide, Oregon would be happy to pick up the tab, said the letter.
Physician-assisted suicide is legal in Oregon and costs only about $50.
"It was horrible," Wagner told reporters. "To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel. Who do they think they are?"
Wagner finally got her Tarceva when the manufacturer Genentech offered to supply it free of charge. She died in October 2008.
A humble, retired schoolbus driver, Wagner touched more people in death than she had in life. Local and national press picked up her story, alerting many Americans to the danger of medical rationing.
One person who remains untouched by her story is Dr. Walter Shaffer, who heads Oregon's Division of Medical Assistance Programs, which runs the Oregon Health Plan. Regarding the Wagner case, Shaffer told the Eugene Register-Guard, "We can't cover everything for everyone. Taxpayer dollars are limited for publicly funded programs. We try to come up with policies that provide the most good for the most people."
Equally unsympathetic is Barack Obama, who views Oregon's medical rationing system as a model for the nation.
On March 23, 2008, asked to comment on Oregon's assisted suicide law, candidate Obama told the Mail Tribune of southern Oregon: "I think that the people of Oregon did a service for the country in recognizing that as the population gets older we've got to think about issues of end-of-life care."
The preceding is excerpted from the shocking August edition of Whistleblower, titled "MEDICAL MURDER: Why Obamacare could result in the early deaths of millions of baby boomers." Until the end of August, Whistleblower subscription and renewal prices are being rolled back to 2002 levels, and you will also receive a FREE copy of either "Glenn Beck's Common Sense" or "Liberty and Tyranny" by Mark Levin. To get the whole, incredible story of Obamacare that no other news organization is willing to tell, subscribe to Whistleblower now.
Dems Plan To Outlaw Private Heathcare
Dem wants to eliminate private health insurance altogether
by Ed Morrissey
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) returned to the ObamaCare battle on MS-NBC’s Morning Joe today, preaching the public-plan gospel just as he did yesterday on CNBC. However, this time, Joe Scarborough goaded Weiner into a little more honesty than he’s offered on the effort to “reform” health care. Declaring that “health care is not a commodity,” Weiner says his aim is to eliminate all private insurance — which is why he will not yield on the public-plan option:
The key points come at 2:31, 4:44, 5:15, and 7:15, but the 5:15 is when the light dawns for Scarborough. Jazz Shaw transcribes the moment:
S: It sounds like you’re saying you think there is no need for us to have private insurance in health care.
W: I’ve asked you three times. What is their value? What are they bringing to the deal?
S: Again… I’m astounded by your question. It sounds like you’re suggesting that there’s no need to have a country that’s run on free market principles.
W: Time out. Let’s focus on one thing at a time. This isn’t a commodity, Joe. Health care isn’t a commodity.
S: You’re saying that health care is different than everything else.
W: Health care is not a commodity.
S: But you are making the conservatives’ point. You are making the point of the people at the town hall meetings who say this is Barack Obama’s opportunity to get rid of private health care and turn it completely over to the government. I’m sitting here stunned, saying Oh My God, you’re making the point of the health care protesters.
W: If Barack Obama doesn’t want to do it, I want to do it.
Of course health care is a commodity. Weiner wants to use this populist pet phrase, which goes along with the notion of a “right” to health care, but it’s absurd. Food is a commodity, water is a commodity, clothing and shelter are commodities. Until cap-and-trade came up in the House, air was not a commodity, but carbon dioxide will shortly become one, even though life itself cannot exist without it. People have to produce the goods and services that comprise the health-care industry, which means that the supplies are finite and they expect to get compensated for their work. That makes it a commodity, regardless of Weiner’s socialist rhetoric. Anything with a cost is a commodity, by definition.
Anyone who doesn’t understand that much about economics has no business creating policy.
What do insurance companies do for health care? Weiner asks this question repeatedly as if there is no answer, but it’s as obvious as the fact that goods and services are commodities. Insurance companies provide risk pools for consumers that allow them to indemnify themselves against catastrophic health-care costs. It’s that simple. By paying a few hundred dollars a month in premiums, customers can get access to a wide range of goods and services in health care when needed. Insurance companies or private-sector co-ops attempt to calculate the risks to set the premiums at a point where customers find the pricing acceptable, investors in the risk pool can get a profit from its creation and maintenance, and providers get adequate compensation for their goods and services. The more these insurers compete against each other, the better pricing consumers get and the more efficient they become at controlling costs.
Anyone who doesn’t understand that much about economics has no business creating policy.
Weiner has a single goal in mind, which he announces at the end:
S: So, Anthony, I figured it out over the break. You actually do want the federal government to take over all of health care.
W: Only in the sense that the federal government took over health care for senior citizens 44 years ago.
S: You want to expand that for all Americans.
W: Correct. I want Medicare for all Americans.
Weiner wants to destroy the private sector insurance market, which accounts for 15% of the American economy, in order to have government control health-care decisions. At least, as Jazz says, he’s honest … for what that’s worth.
Video here: http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/18/video-dem-wants-to-eliminate-private-health-insurance-altogether/
by Ed Morrissey
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) returned to the ObamaCare battle on MS-NBC’s Morning Joe today, preaching the public-plan gospel just as he did yesterday on CNBC. However, this time, Joe Scarborough goaded Weiner into a little more honesty than he’s offered on the effort to “reform” health care. Declaring that “health care is not a commodity,” Weiner says his aim is to eliminate all private insurance — which is why he will not yield on the public-plan option:
The key points come at 2:31, 4:44, 5:15, and 7:15, but the 5:15 is when the light dawns for Scarborough. Jazz Shaw transcribes the moment:
S: It sounds like you’re saying you think there is no need for us to have private insurance in health care.
W: I’ve asked you three times. What is their value? What are they bringing to the deal?
S: Again… I’m astounded by your question. It sounds like you’re suggesting that there’s no need to have a country that’s run on free market principles.
W: Time out. Let’s focus on one thing at a time. This isn’t a commodity, Joe. Health care isn’t a commodity.
S: You’re saying that health care is different than everything else.
W: Health care is not a commodity.
S: But you are making the conservatives’ point. You are making the point of the people at the town hall meetings who say this is Barack Obama’s opportunity to get rid of private health care and turn it completely over to the government. I’m sitting here stunned, saying Oh My God, you’re making the point of the health care protesters.
W: If Barack Obama doesn’t want to do it, I want to do it.
Of course health care is a commodity. Weiner wants to use this populist pet phrase, which goes along with the notion of a “right” to health care, but it’s absurd. Food is a commodity, water is a commodity, clothing and shelter are commodities. Until cap-and-trade came up in the House, air was not a commodity, but carbon dioxide will shortly become one, even though life itself cannot exist without it. People have to produce the goods and services that comprise the health-care industry, which means that the supplies are finite and they expect to get compensated for their work. That makes it a commodity, regardless of Weiner’s socialist rhetoric. Anything with a cost is a commodity, by definition.
Anyone who doesn’t understand that much about economics has no business creating policy.
What do insurance companies do for health care? Weiner asks this question repeatedly as if there is no answer, but it’s as obvious as the fact that goods and services are commodities. Insurance companies provide risk pools for consumers that allow them to indemnify themselves against catastrophic health-care costs. It’s that simple. By paying a few hundred dollars a month in premiums, customers can get access to a wide range of goods and services in health care when needed. Insurance companies or private-sector co-ops attempt to calculate the risks to set the premiums at a point where customers find the pricing acceptable, investors in the risk pool can get a profit from its creation and maintenance, and providers get adequate compensation for their goods and services. The more these insurers compete against each other, the better pricing consumers get and the more efficient they become at controlling costs.
Anyone who doesn’t understand that much about economics has no business creating policy.
Weiner has a single goal in mind, which he announces at the end:
S: So, Anthony, I figured it out over the break. You actually do want the federal government to take over all of health care.
W: Only in the sense that the federal government took over health care for senior citizens 44 years ago.
S: You want to expand that for all Americans.
W: Correct. I want Medicare for all Americans.
Weiner wants to destroy the private sector insurance market, which accounts for 15% of the American economy, in order to have government control health-care decisions. At least, as Jazz says, he’s honest … for what that’s worth.
Video here: http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/18/video-dem-wants-to-eliminate-private-health-insurance-altogether/
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Obama Can't Tell The Same HealthCare Story Twice
ObamaCare's Contradictions
The President does both sides now on his health insurance plan.
Over the past week, President Obama has held three town-halls to make the case for his health-care plan. While he didn't say much that he hasn't said a thousand times before, his remarks did offer another explanation for the public's skepticism of ObamaCare. Namely, the President contradicts himself every other breath. Consider:
He likes to start off explaining our catastrophe of a health system. "What is truly scary—what is truly risky—is if we do nothing," he said in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We can't "keep the system the way it is right now," he continued, while his critics are "people who want to keep things the way they are."
However, his supporters also want to keep things the way they are. "I keep on saying this bt somehow folks aren't listening," Mr. Obama proclaimed in Grand Junction, Colorado. "If you like your health-care plan, you keep your health-care plan. Nobody is going to force you to leave your health-care plan. If you like your doctor, you keep seeing your doctor. I don't want government bureaucrats meddling in your health care."
Mr. Obama couldn't be more opposed to "some government takeover," as he put it in Belgrade, Montana. In New Hampshire, he added that people were wrong to worry "that somehow some government bureaucrat out there will be saying, well, you can't have this test or you can't have this procedure because some bean-counter decides that this is not a good way to use our health-care dollars."
So no bureaucrats, no bean-counters. Mr. Obama merely wants to create "a panel of experts, health experts, doctors, who can provide guidelines to doctors and patients about what procedures work best in what situations, and find ways to reduce, for example, the number of tests that people take" (New Hampshire, again). Oh, and your health-care plan? You can keep it, as long your insurance company or employer can meet all the new regulations Mr. Obama favors. His choice of verbs, in Montana, provides a clue about what that will mean: "will be prohibited," "will no longer be able," "we'll require" . . .
Maybe you're starting to fret about all those bureaucrats and bean-counters again. You shouldn't, according to Mr. Obama. "The only thing I would point is, is that Medicare is a government program that works really well for our seniors," he noted in Colorado. After all, as he said in New Hampshire, "If we're able to get something right like Medicare, then there should be a little more confidence that maybe the government can have a role—not the dominant role, but a role—in making sure the people are treated fairly when it comes to insurance."
The government didn't get Medicare right, though: Just ask the President. The entitlement is "going broke" (Colorado) and "unsustainable" and "running out of money" (New Hampshire). And it's "in deep trouble if we don't do something, because as you said, money doesn't grow on trees" (Montana).
So the health-care status quo needs top-to-bottom reform, except for the parts that "you" happen to like. Government won't interfere with patients and their physicians, considering that the new panel of experts who will make decisions intended to reduce tests and treatments doesn't count as government. But Medicare shows that government involvement isn't so bad, aside from the fact that spending is out of control—and that program needs top-to-bottom reform too.
Voters aren't stupid. The true reason ObamaCare is in trouble isn't because "folks aren't listening," but because they are.
The President does both sides now on his health insurance plan.
Over the past week, President Obama has held three town-halls to make the case for his health-care plan. While he didn't say much that he hasn't said a thousand times before, his remarks did offer another explanation for the public's skepticism of ObamaCare. Namely, the President contradicts himself every other breath. Consider:
He likes to start off explaining our catastrophe of a health system. "What is truly scary—what is truly risky—is if we do nothing," he said in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We can't "keep the system the way it is right now," he continued, while his critics are "people who want to keep things the way they are."
However, his supporters also want to keep things the way they are. "I keep on saying this bt somehow folks aren't listening," Mr. Obama proclaimed in Grand Junction, Colorado. "If you like your health-care plan, you keep your health-care plan. Nobody is going to force you to leave your health-care plan. If you like your doctor, you keep seeing your doctor. I don't want government bureaucrats meddling in your health care."
Mr. Obama couldn't be more opposed to "some government takeover," as he put it in Belgrade, Montana. In New Hampshire, he added that people were wrong to worry "that somehow some government bureaucrat out there will be saying, well, you can't have this test or you can't have this procedure because some bean-counter decides that this is not a good way to use our health-care dollars."
So no bureaucrats, no bean-counters. Mr. Obama merely wants to create "a panel of experts, health experts, doctors, who can provide guidelines to doctors and patients about what procedures work best in what situations, and find ways to reduce, for example, the number of tests that people take" (New Hampshire, again). Oh, and your health-care plan? You can keep it, as long your insurance company or employer can meet all the new regulations Mr. Obama favors. His choice of verbs, in Montana, provides a clue about what that will mean: "will be prohibited," "will no longer be able," "we'll require" . . .
Maybe you're starting to fret about all those bureaucrats and bean-counters again. You shouldn't, according to Mr. Obama. "The only thing I would point is, is that Medicare is a government program that works really well for our seniors," he noted in Colorado. After all, as he said in New Hampshire, "If we're able to get something right like Medicare, then there should be a little more confidence that maybe the government can have a role—not the dominant role, but a role—in making sure the people are treated fairly when it comes to insurance."
The government didn't get Medicare right, though: Just ask the President. The entitlement is "going broke" (Colorado) and "unsustainable" and "running out of money" (New Hampshire). And it's "in deep trouble if we don't do something, because as you said, money doesn't grow on trees" (Montana).
So the health-care status quo needs top-to-bottom reform, except for the parts that "you" happen to like. Government won't interfere with patients and their physicians, considering that the new panel of experts who will make decisions intended to reduce tests and treatments doesn't count as government. But Medicare shows that government involvement isn't so bad, aside from the fact that spending is out of control—and that program needs top-to-bottom reform too.
Voters aren't stupid. The true reason ObamaCare is in trouble isn't because "folks aren't listening," but because they are.
Obama May Decide What Every American Gets Paid
The Pay Czar's Power Grab
by Michelle Malkin
Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg's official government title is "Special Master for Compensation." You'll be happy to know that he's really getting into the confiscatory spirit of his role. Asked by Reuters whether his powers include reaching back and revoking bonuses awarded to financial industry executives before his office was created earlier this year, Feinberg asserted broad and binding authorities -- including the ability to "claw back" money already paid out.
Regulations governing his office explicitly limit his jurisdiction over contracts signed before Feb. 11, 2009. But the fine print is no obstacle to Obama's czars. "The statute provides these guideposts, but the statute ultimately says I have discretion to decide what it is that these people should make and that my determination will be final," Feinberg claims. "Anything is possible under the law."
Yes, he said "anything." It's not just senior executive officers who fall under Feinberg's purview. "These people" also includes "the next 100 most highly paid employees" of all bank bailout recipients, who must file compensation proposals with their pay overlord by Friday.
But why stop there? The Troubled Asset Relief Program has morphed from a toxic asset buy-up to a capital injection plan and back to a toxic asset buy-up. The money has been doled out to auto supply companies and life insurance companies. Congress wants to siphon off more of it to bail out bankrupt California and create a "national housing trust fund" to bail out low-income renters. Grabby-handed politicians have used TARP as a crowbar to pry open new areas for command-and-control meddling under the guise of saving the economy.
How much longer until the pay czar is determining all corporate pay he wishes to deem "inappropriate, unsound or excessive"? House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank has yapped all year long about extending pay curbs to all financial institutions and perhaps to all U.S. companies.
Let's remember that the Beltway hysteria over bonuses served as a convenient distraction from the responsibility of subprime meltdown-enabling lawmakers like Frank and Obama's crony economic team. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner landed his previous job as head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York thanks to heavy lobbying by his Wall Street mentors Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, both of whom sat on the New York Fed's selection committee. Their cronyism had multi-billion-dollar consequences for taxpayers.
Rubin was also an executive at New York-based Citigroup, which Geithner regulated. Or was supposed to regulate. Instead, he helped foster Citi's spending binge and engineered the teetering company's $52 billion federal bailout. This makes the Obama administration's recent protestations about one Citi employee's $100 million compensation package look like the very kind of manufactured outrage of which it incessantly accuses its political opponents.
Geithner also had a hand in the $30 billion Bear Stearns bailout and the multilevel AIG bailouts ($85 billion and $38 billion under President Bush and another $30 billion in March 2009 under Obama). Massive sums of that taxpayer money went to major financial institutions that had employed Obama's moneymen and their closest confidants. Goldman Sachs, for example, raked in nearly $13 billion in December 2009 from AIG in federal TARP funds -- and reported record profits this quarter with a bonus pool of more than $11 billion.
The "solution" isn't to empower a pay czar to curb bonus payouts ex post facto. The solution is to stop dumping billions into failing companies in the first place.
As for private businesses (what's left of them, anyway), this is a teachable moment, to borrow one of the president's favorite phrases. Government strings are like sexually transmitted diseases: They attach forever. If a basket-case company is willing to take bailout money, it will pay an interminable price. The long arm of regulators can and will reach back and open sealed deals and signed contracts on a whim. The Obama campaign chant is the czars' chant, too: "Yes, we can!"
by Michelle Malkin
Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg's official government title is "Special Master for Compensation." You'll be happy to know that he's really getting into the confiscatory spirit of his role. Asked by Reuters whether his powers include reaching back and revoking bonuses awarded to financial industry executives before his office was created earlier this year, Feinberg asserted broad and binding authorities -- including the ability to "claw back" money already paid out.
Regulations governing his office explicitly limit his jurisdiction over contracts signed before Feb. 11, 2009. But the fine print is no obstacle to Obama's czars. "The statute provides these guideposts, but the statute ultimately says I have discretion to decide what it is that these people should make and that my determination will be final," Feinberg claims. "Anything is possible under the law."
Yes, he said "anything." It's not just senior executive officers who fall under Feinberg's purview. "These people" also includes "the next 100 most highly paid employees" of all bank bailout recipients, who must file compensation proposals with their pay overlord by Friday.
But why stop there? The Troubled Asset Relief Program has morphed from a toxic asset buy-up to a capital injection plan and back to a toxic asset buy-up. The money has been doled out to auto supply companies and life insurance companies. Congress wants to siphon off more of it to bail out bankrupt California and create a "national housing trust fund" to bail out low-income renters. Grabby-handed politicians have used TARP as a crowbar to pry open new areas for command-and-control meddling under the guise of saving the economy.
How much longer until the pay czar is determining all corporate pay he wishes to deem "inappropriate, unsound or excessive"? House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank has yapped all year long about extending pay curbs to all financial institutions and perhaps to all U.S. companies.
Let's remember that the Beltway hysteria over bonuses served as a convenient distraction from the responsibility of subprime meltdown-enabling lawmakers like Frank and Obama's crony economic team. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner landed his previous job as head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York thanks to heavy lobbying by his Wall Street mentors Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, both of whom sat on the New York Fed's selection committee. Their cronyism had multi-billion-dollar consequences for taxpayers.
Rubin was also an executive at New York-based Citigroup, which Geithner regulated. Or was supposed to regulate. Instead, he helped foster Citi's spending binge and engineered the teetering company's $52 billion federal bailout. This makes the Obama administration's recent protestations about one Citi employee's $100 million compensation package look like the very kind of manufactured outrage of which it incessantly accuses its political opponents.
Geithner also had a hand in the $30 billion Bear Stearns bailout and the multilevel AIG bailouts ($85 billion and $38 billion under President Bush and another $30 billion in March 2009 under Obama). Massive sums of that taxpayer money went to major financial institutions that had employed Obama's moneymen and their closest confidants. Goldman Sachs, for example, raked in nearly $13 billion in December 2009 from AIG in federal TARP funds -- and reported record profits this quarter with a bonus pool of more than $11 billion.
The "solution" isn't to empower a pay czar to curb bonus payouts ex post facto. The solution is to stop dumping billions into failing companies in the first place.
As for private businesses (what's left of them, anyway), this is a teachable moment, to borrow one of the president's favorite phrases. Government strings are like sexually transmitted diseases: They attach forever. If a basket-case company is willing to take bailout money, it will pay an interminable price. The long arm of regulators can and will reach back and open sealed deals and signed contracts on a whim. The Obama campaign chant is the czars' chant, too: "Yes, we can!"
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