Obama Administration Condones Sex With Minors. As Long As It Is Just Buggery With the Boys.
by Erick Erickson
Statutory rape? Who cares what goes on between a 15 year old and the man who picked him up in a bus station bathroom. You prude.
People with low IQ got to see Whoopee Goldberg defend Roman Polanski on the View yesterday. Goldberg had no problem with the man filling a thirteen year old girl with alcohol and drugs before raping having sex with her.
I say “people with low IQ” because demographically those are the only people who watch the View save for those few people forced to watch the show as part of their job.
In any event, Goldberg’s blasé attitude about raping having sex with drug filled children and the implications of statutory rape has spilled over into the Obama administration, which is taking the position that statutory rape is of no great consequence and should, if the child consents, be encouraged.
There is no other way to look at Barack Obama’s appointment of Kevin Jennings, the President’s “safe schools czar” who, the Washington Times reports unapologetically encouraged a homosexual relationship between a fifteen year old boy and much older man who, the boy reported to Jennings, picked the boy up in a bus station bathroom and promptly took the boy home.
Considering Jennings wrote about this in his one and only published book and spoke about this prior to his appointment, we can only assume the Obama administration knew about it and has no problem with it.
According to Mr. Jennings’ own description in a new audiotape discovered by Fox News, the 15-year-old boy met the “older man” in a “bus station bathroom” and was taken to the older man’s home that night. When some details about the case became public, Mr. Jennings threatened to sue another teacher who called his failure to report the statutory rape “unethical.”
Jennings’ defenders have claimed he did not know sex was taking place, which is akin to Roman Polanski saying he did not know his victim was underage despite having to get the written consent of the girl’s mother for the photo shoot that fateful night.
Despite the defenders’ defenses, a new audiotape has Jennings bragging about fostering the relationship between the fifteen year old boy and the bus station bathroom man. Jennings bragged that he told the boy “to use a condom,” which suggests Jennings would rather be the “safe sex schools czar.”
Jennings shows no remorse. He delights in encouraging the relationship. And Barack Obama delights in hiring Jennings and shows no remorse either.
At some point we must stop saying that there was a failure to vet these people and conclude that Barack Obama has no more of a problem with men like Kevin Jennings who encourage statutory rape than men like Bill Ayers who encourages cop killing.
Oh, but I may be mistaken about one thing. I wrote above that “there is no other way to look at” this. But there may be. One must wonder if Jennings would have had the same reaction and also encouraged the relationship had it been a fifteen year old girl meeting a man in a bus station restroom. I suspect he would have reacted differently, which raises even more basic and more serious questions about the world view of the men Barack Obama surrounds himself with. After all, the nation is seeking to extradite Roman Polanski, but then his was heterosexual statutory rape.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Obama Supports Local Terrorist
L.A. Times still conceals Obama terror video
Reportedly includes glowing testimonial for prof who excuses violence
By Aaron Klein
The Los Angeles Times has no plan to ever release a video it stated it obtained of President Obama attending an anti-Israel event in which he delivered a glowing testimonial for Rashid Khalidi, a pro-Palestinian professor who excuses terrorism.
At the 2003 event, poetry reportedly was read comparing Israelis to Osama bin Laden and accusing the Jewish state of terrorism.
"The story ran in 2008 and we pretty much said everything we are going to say about that event," Peter Wallsten, the Times reporter who claimed to have obtained the video, told WND yesterday.
Asked for details of the footage captured in the video, Wallsten replied, "I wrote an extensive article that described the event."
Wallsten referred to a previous statement from the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton, explaining, "The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it."
"The Times keeps its promises to sources," Stanton said.
But that explanation did not stop the camp of then-Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain from demanding the release of the video.
McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb accused the Times of "intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi."
"The election is one week away, and it's unfortunate that the press so obviously favors Barack Obama that this campaign must publicly request that the Los Angeles Times do its job – make information public," Goldfarb said at the time.
During the campaign, the blogosphere was abuzz with accusations alleging the Times was holding the video back because it contains embarrassing moments that would be damaging for Obama.
Andrew C. McCarthy, chairman of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies' Center for Law & Counterterrorism, claimed in an October 2008 piece in National Review Online the Times would have jumped at the chance of making such images public if McCain had been involved.
"Let's try a thought experiment," begins McCarthy. "Say John McCain attended a party at which known racists and terror mongers were in attendance. Say testimonials were given, including a glowing one by McCain for the benefit of the guest of honor ... who happened to be a top apologist for terrorists. Say McCain not only gave a speech but stood by, in tacit approval and solidarity, while other racists and terror mongers gave speeches that reeked of hatred for an American ally and rationalizations of terror attacks.
"Now let's say the Los Angeles Times obtained a videotape of the party.
"Question: Is there any chance – any chance – the Times would not release the tape and publish front-page story after story about the gory details, with the usual accompanying chorus of sanctimony from the oped commentariat? Is there any chance, if the Times was the least bit reluctant about piblishing (remember, we're pretending here), that the rest of the mainstream media (y'know, the guys who drove Trent Lott out of his leadership position over a birthday-party toast) would not be screaming for the release of the tape?" McCarthy asked.
The video the Times said it obtained reportedly captures Obama delivering an in-person testimonial for Khalidi, who at the time was departing the University of Chicago for a new teaching position at Columbia University in New York.
In a piece in April 2008, Wallsten reported that while praising Khalidi, Obama reminisced about conversations over meals prepared by the professor's wife, Mona Khalidi.
Unreported by Wallsten was that the event was sponsored by Mona Khalidi's anti-Israel Arab American Action Network, which, as WND first reported, received large sums of money from the Woods Fund, an ultra-liberal Chicago nonprofit for which Obama served as a board member alongside Weather Underground radical William Ayers.
According to Wallsten's account of the farewell dinner, Obama said his talks with the Khalidis served as "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. … It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation – a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."
Khalidi's farewell dinner was replete with anti-Israel speakers.
One, a young Palestinian American, recited a poem in Obama's presence that accused the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticized U.S. support of Israel, the Times reported.
Another speaker, who reportedly talked while Obama was present, compared "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden.
In the kicker, Wallsten wrote, "The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times."
But that detail went largely unnoticed until October 2008, when the Gateway Pundit blog made an issue of the tape.
Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel. He has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group.
During documented speeches and public events, Khalidi has called Israel an "apartheid system in creation" and a destructive "racist" state. He has multiple times expressed support for Palestinian terror, calling suicide bombings a response to "Israeli aggression."
He dedicated his 1986 book, "Under Siege," to "those who gave their lives ... in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon." Critics assailed the book as excusing Palestinian terrorism.
Obama, Khalidi closely tied
According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, Obama first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003, while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.
Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi.
Speaking in a joint interview with WND and the John Batchelor radio show, Khalidi was asked about his 2000 fundraiser for Obama.
"I was just doing my duties as a Chicago resident to help my local politician," Khalidi stated.
Khalidi said he supports Obama for president "because he is the only candidate who has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause."
Khalidi also lauded Obama for "saying he supports talks with Iran. If the U.S. can talk with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there is no reason it can't talk with the Iranians."
In 2001, the Woods Fund, which describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to Mona Khalidi's Arab American Action Network, or AAAN. The fund provided a second grant to the AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.
Speakers at AAAN dinners and events routinely have taken an anti-Israel line. The group co-sponsored a Palestinian art exhibit titled "The Subject of Palestine" that featured works related to what some Palestinians call the "Nakba," or "catastrophe" of Israel's founding in 1948.
Obama borrowed phrase from Khalidi?
In May 2008, WND noted Obama termed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a "constant sore" in an interview just five days after Khalidi wrote an opinion piece in the Nation magazine in which he called the "Palestinian question" a "running sore."
In his piece, "Palestine: Liberation Deferred," Khalidi suggested Israel carried out "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians and Western powers backed Israel's establishment due to guilt of the Holocaust. He lamented the Palestinian Authority's stated acceptance of a Palestinian state "only" in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern sections of Jerusalem, and he argued Israel should be dissolved and instead a bi-national, cantonal system should be set up in which Jews and Arabs reside.
Reportedly includes glowing testimonial for prof who excuses violence
By Aaron Klein
The Los Angeles Times has no plan to ever release a video it stated it obtained of President Obama attending an anti-Israel event in which he delivered a glowing testimonial for Rashid Khalidi, a pro-Palestinian professor who excuses terrorism.
At the 2003 event, poetry reportedly was read comparing Israelis to Osama bin Laden and accusing the Jewish state of terrorism.
"The story ran in 2008 and we pretty much said everything we are going to say about that event," Peter Wallsten, the Times reporter who claimed to have obtained the video, told WND yesterday.
Asked for details of the footage captured in the video, Wallsten replied, "I wrote an extensive article that described the event."
Wallsten referred to a previous statement from the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton, explaining, "The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it."
"The Times keeps its promises to sources," Stanton said.
But that explanation did not stop the camp of then-Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain from demanding the release of the video.
McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb accused the Times of "intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi."
"The election is one week away, and it's unfortunate that the press so obviously favors Barack Obama that this campaign must publicly request that the Los Angeles Times do its job – make information public," Goldfarb said at the time.
During the campaign, the blogosphere was abuzz with accusations alleging the Times was holding the video back because it contains embarrassing moments that would be damaging for Obama.
Andrew C. McCarthy, chairman of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies' Center for Law & Counterterrorism, claimed in an October 2008 piece in National Review Online the Times would have jumped at the chance of making such images public if McCain had been involved.
"Let's try a thought experiment," begins McCarthy. "Say John McCain attended a party at which known racists and terror mongers were in attendance. Say testimonials were given, including a glowing one by McCain for the benefit of the guest of honor ... who happened to be a top apologist for terrorists. Say McCain not only gave a speech but stood by, in tacit approval and solidarity, while other racists and terror mongers gave speeches that reeked of hatred for an American ally and rationalizations of terror attacks.
"Now let's say the Los Angeles Times obtained a videotape of the party.
"Question: Is there any chance – any chance – the Times would not release the tape and publish front-page story after story about the gory details, with the usual accompanying chorus of sanctimony from the oped commentariat? Is there any chance, if the Times was the least bit reluctant about piblishing (remember, we're pretending here), that the rest of the mainstream media (y'know, the guys who drove Trent Lott out of his leadership position over a birthday-party toast) would not be screaming for the release of the tape?" McCarthy asked.
The video the Times said it obtained reportedly captures Obama delivering an in-person testimonial for Khalidi, who at the time was departing the University of Chicago for a new teaching position at Columbia University in New York.
In a piece in April 2008, Wallsten reported that while praising Khalidi, Obama reminisced about conversations over meals prepared by the professor's wife, Mona Khalidi.
Unreported by Wallsten was that the event was sponsored by Mona Khalidi's anti-Israel Arab American Action Network, which, as WND first reported, received large sums of money from the Woods Fund, an ultra-liberal Chicago nonprofit for which Obama served as a board member alongside Weather Underground radical William Ayers.
According to Wallsten's account of the farewell dinner, Obama said his talks with the Khalidis served as "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. … It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation – a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."
Khalidi's farewell dinner was replete with anti-Israel speakers.
One, a young Palestinian American, recited a poem in Obama's presence that accused the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticized U.S. support of Israel, the Times reported.
Another speaker, who reportedly talked while Obama was present, compared "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden.
In the kicker, Wallsten wrote, "The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times."
But that detail went largely unnoticed until October 2008, when the Gateway Pundit blog made an issue of the tape.
Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel. He has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group.
During documented speeches and public events, Khalidi has called Israel an "apartheid system in creation" and a destructive "racist" state. He has multiple times expressed support for Palestinian terror, calling suicide bombings a response to "Israeli aggression."
He dedicated his 1986 book, "Under Siege," to "those who gave their lives ... in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon." Critics assailed the book as excusing Palestinian terrorism.
Obama, Khalidi closely tied
According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, Obama first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003, while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.
Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi.
Speaking in a joint interview with WND and the John Batchelor radio show, Khalidi was asked about his 2000 fundraiser for Obama.
"I was just doing my duties as a Chicago resident to help my local politician," Khalidi stated.
Khalidi said he supports Obama for president "because he is the only candidate who has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause."
Khalidi also lauded Obama for "saying he supports talks with Iran. If the U.S. can talk with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there is no reason it can't talk with the Iranians."
In 2001, the Woods Fund, which describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to Mona Khalidi's Arab American Action Network, or AAAN. The fund provided a second grant to the AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.
Speakers at AAAN dinners and events routinely have taken an anti-Israel line. The group co-sponsored a Palestinian art exhibit titled "The Subject of Palestine" that featured works related to what some Palestinians call the "Nakba," or "catastrophe" of Israel's founding in 1948.
Obama borrowed phrase from Khalidi?
In May 2008, WND noted Obama termed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a "constant sore" in an interview just five days after Khalidi wrote an opinion piece in the Nation magazine in which he called the "Palestinian question" a "running sore."
In his piece, "Palestine: Liberation Deferred," Khalidi suggested Israel carried out "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians and Western powers backed Israel's establishment due to guilt of the Holocaust. He lamented the Palestinian Authority's stated acceptance of a Palestinian state "only" in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern sections of Jerusalem, and he argued Israel should be dissolved and instead a bi-national, cantonal system should be set up in which Jews and Arabs reside.
Obama Attempts To Pay Back Supporters With Olympic Deal
All The President's Olympic Cronies
By Michelle Malkin
When government officials play the Olympic lottery, taxpayers lose. That has been the disastrous experience of host cities around the world. (Forbes magazine even dubbed the post-Olympic financial burden the "Host City Curse.") So, why are President Obama and his White House entourage headed to Copenhagen, Denmark, this week to push a fiscally doomed Chicago 2016 bid? Political payback.
Bringing the games to the Windy City is Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's "vision." The entrenched Democratic powerbroker -- in office since 1989 -- would like to cap off his graft-haunted tenure with a glorious $4 billion bread-and-circuses production. The influential Daley machine backed Barack Obama for the presidential primary. Obama lavished praise on Daley's stewardship of the city. Longtime Daley cronies helped pave Obama's path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Now, they're returning the favor for their hometown boss.
Senior White House adviser and Obama consigliere Valerie Jarrett is a Daley loyalist who worked as his deputy chief of staff, deputy corporation counsel and planning commissioner. She hired the future first lady of the United States, then-Michelle Robinson, as a mayoral assistant. Jarrett went on to serve as president and CEO of The Habitat Company, a real estate firm with a massive stake in federally funded Chicago public housing projects.
One of those public-private partnerships, the Grove Parc Plaza Apartments, was run into the ground under Jarrett's watch. Federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex a bottom-of-the-barrel 11 on a 100-point scale. "They are rapidly displacing poor people, and these companies are profiting from this displacement," Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle of Southside Together Organizing for Power, a community group that seeks to help tenants stay in the same neighborhoods, told the Boston Globe last year. "'The same exact people who ran these places into the ground,' the private companies paid to build and manage the city's affordable housing, 'now are profiting by redeveloping them.'"
Coincidentally enough, Grove Parc -- now targeted for demolition as a result of years of neglect by Obama's developer friends -- sits in the shadows of the proposed site of the city's 2016 Olympic Stadium. Jarrett served as vice chair of Chicago's 2016 Summer Olympics bid committee before moving to the White House, where she has helmed a new "White House Office on Olympic, Paralympic and Youth Sport" with an undisclosed budget and staff.
It's not just taxpayers in cash-strapped Chicago who should be worried about this field of schemes. Crain's Chicago Business reports that Jarrett and Chicago 2016 committee member Lori Healey met this month with federal officials at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development "to discuss financing options" for the estimated $1 billion Olympic Village.
The door is open, and the administration is "willing to meet and listen" to any federal subsidy proposals, Jarrett said. Hey, what happened to Obama's tough rules on interest-conflicted lobbying by his administration officials?
A majority of Chicagoans who live in pay-for-play-plagued Cook County oppose public funding for the Olympic party. The city has more than a half-billion-dollar deficit -- and just received word that its Olympic insurance policy will cover only about $1.1 billion of the $3.8 billion operating budget drawn up by Daley. Cost overruns, fraud and union-inflated contracts are inevitable. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs defended Obama's all-out campaign for Chicago's 2016 Olympics bid by claiming America will see a "tangible economic benefit."
But as is always the case with sports corporate welfare disguised as "economic development," an elite few will benefit far more than others.
Take senior White House adviser and Obama campaign guru David Axelrod. He's been a Daley loyalist since 1989, when he signed up as a political consultant for the mayor's first run. Axelrod's public relations firm, Chicago-based AKPD Message and Media, has pitched in work for the Chicago 2016 committee. It is unknown how much AKPD has received for its services -- or how much they'll make in future income if the bid is successful. AKPD currently owes Axelrod $2 million.
The head of the Chicago 2016 bid committee is Patrick Ryan, chairman of the Aon Corporation and a co-chair of Obama's deep-pocketed presidential inaugural committee. Also on both of those committees: Obama confidante Penny Pritzker, who, in addition, chairs the Olympic Village subcommittee and is president of Pritzker Realty Group -- a mega-developer in Illinois that could reap untold millions in project work if the Daley machine/White House campaign succeeds. Former Pritzker executive and Obama campaign treasurer Martin Nesbitt is also on the bid committee -- and serves as Daley's chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority.
Another bid committee member, Michael Scott Jr., is "trying to develop a for-profit real estate project that would sit within feet of the cycling venue if Chicago wins the 2016 Summer Games," according to the Chicago Tribune.
It takes a crony-filled White House to raise a Chicago Olympic village. Daley and Obama will get the glory. America will get stuck with the bill.
By Michelle Malkin
When government officials play the Olympic lottery, taxpayers lose. That has been the disastrous experience of host cities around the world. (Forbes magazine even dubbed the post-Olympic financial burden the "Host City Curse.") So, why are President Obama and his White House entourage headed to Copenhagen, Denmark, this week to push a fiscally doomed Chicago 2016 bid? Political payback.
Bringing the games to the Windy City is Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's "vision." The entrenched Democratic powerbroker -- in office since 1989 -- would like to cap off his graft-haunted tenure with a glorious $4 billion bread-and-circuses production. The influential Daley machine backed Barack Obama for the presidential primary. Obama lavished praise on Daley's stewardship of the city. Longtime Daley cronies helped pave Obama's path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Now, they're returning the favor for their hometown boss.
Senior White House adviser and Obama consigliere Valerie Jarrett is a Daley loyalist who worked as his deputy chief of staff, deputy corporation counsel and planning commissioner. She hired the future first lady of the United States, then-Michelle Robinson, as a mayoral assistant. Jarrett went on to serve as president and CEO of The Habitat Company, a real estate firm with a massive stake in federally funded Chicago public housing projects.
One of those public-private partnerships, the Grove Parc Plaza Apartments, was run into the ground under Jarrett's watch. Federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex a bottom-of-the-barrel 11 on a 100-point scale. "They are rapidly displacing poor people, and these companies are profiting from this displacement," Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle of Southside Together Organizing for Power, a community group that seeks to help tenants stay in the same neighborhoods, told the Boston Globe last year. "'The same exact people who ran these places into the ground,' the private companies paid to build and manage the city's affordable housing, 'now are profiting by redeveloping them.'"
Coincidentally enough, Grove Parc -- now targeted for demolition as a result of years of neglect by Obama's developer friends -- sits in the shadows of the proposed site of the city's 2016 Olympic Stadium. Jarrett served as vice chair of Chicago's 2016 Summer Olympics bid committee before moving to the White House, where she has helmed a new "White House Office on Olympic, Paralympic and Youth Sport" with an undisclosed budget and staff.
It's not just taxpayers in cash-strapped Chicago who should be worried about this field of schemes. Crain's Chicago Business reports that Jarrett and Chicago 2016 committee member Lori Healey met this month with federal officials at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development "to discuss financing options" for the estimated $1 billion Olympic Village.
The door is open, and the administration is "willing to meet and listen" to any federal subsidy proposals, Jarrett said. Hey, what happened to Obama's tough rules on interest-conflicted lobbying by his administration officials?
A majority of Chicagoans who live in pay-for-play-plagued Cook County oppose public funding for the Olympic party. The city has more than a half-billion-dollar deficit -- and just received word that its Olympic insurance policy will cover only about $1.1 billion of the $3.8 billion operating budget drawn up by Daley. Cost overruns, fraud and union-inflated contracts are inevitable. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs defended Obama's all-out campaign for Chicago's 2016 Olympics bid by claiming America will see a "tangible economic benefit."
But as is always the case with sports corporate welfare disguised as "economic development," an elite few will benefit far more than others.
Take senior White House adviser and Obama campaign guru David Axelrod. He's been a Daley loyalist since 1989, when he signed up as a political consultant for the mayor's first run. Axelrod's public relations firm, Chicago-based AKPD Message and Media, has pitched in work for the Chicago 2016 committee. It is unknown how much AKPD has received for its services -- or how much they'll make in future income if the bid is successful. AKPD currently owes Axelrod $2 million.
The head of the Chicago 2016 bid committee is Patrick Ryan, chairman of the Aon Corporation and a co-chair of Obama's deep-pocketed presidential inaugural committee. Also on both of those committees: Obama confidante Penny Pritzker, who, in addition, chairs the Olympic Village subcommittee and is president of Pritzker Realty Group -- a mega-developer in Illinois that could reap untold millions in project work if the Daley machine/White House campaign succeeds. Former Pritzker executive and Obama campaign treasurer Martin Nesbitt is also on the bid committee -- and serves as Daley's chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority.
Another bid committee member, Michael Scott Jr., is "trying to develop a for-profit real estate project that would sit within feet of the cycling venue if Chicago wins the 2016 Summer Games," according to the Chicago Tribune.
It takes a crony-filled White House to raise a Chicago Olympic village. Daley and Obama will get the glory. America will get stuck with the bill.
Federal Government Ignores Constitutional Limits
Health Care and the Constitution... Remember that Document?
by Bobby Eberle
The debate continues on Capitol Hill as Barack Obama and the Democrats continue to force government control, higher taxes, and an unconstitutional health care system down our throats. Fortunately, for the American people, the plan runs so counter to the foundations of America and free enterprise, that its popularity continues to plummet.
But popularity aside, there is also the issue of whether Obama's plan is even legal. In today's times, the power of the federal government knows no bounds. Whether private companies are being taken over by the government or schools are using their platform to indoctrinate our children, the federal government has gone too far, and the American people are fighting back. It just shows how out of touch Obama and his socialist friends are that they never even saw it coming.
First... the latest on the state of the health care debate. A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows that Obama's health care plan is now at its lowest level of support since the plan started being tracked. "Just 41% of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That's down two points from a week ago."
According to Rasmussen, 56% of respondents are opposed to the plan, with seniors leading the way:
Senior citizens are less supportive of the plan than younger voters. In the latest survey, just 33% of seniors favor the plan while 59% are opposed. The intensity gap among seniors is significant. Only 16% of the over-65 crowd Strongly Favors the legislation while 46% are Strongly Opposed.
For the first time ever, a slight plurality of voters now express doubt that the legislation will become law this year. Forty-six percent (46%) say passage is likely while 47% say it is not. Those figures include 18% who say passage is Very Likely and 15% who say it is Not at All Likely. Sixty percent (60%) are less certain.
As far as the actual legislation, it appears that the so-called "public option" is out. Thank goodness! The "public option" was a euphemism for a government-run health insurance company that would "compete" against private insurers. The problem, of course, is that the "company" could charge as little as it wanted for premiums, thus driving private insurance out of business. It would never have to show a profit, because it is funded by the taxpayers... so bye bye private insurance. Fortunately, the uproar from the American people has been load and clear!
As noted in an AP news story on GOPUSA, "liberal Democrats twice failed on Tuesday to inject a government-run insurance option into sweeping health care legislation taking shape in the Senate, despite bipartisan agreement that private insurers must change their ways."
"My job is to put together a bill that gets to 60 votes" in the full Senate, Max Baucus (D-MT) said shortly before he joined a majority on the committee in defeating efforts to rewrite a key portion of his draft legislation. "No one shows me how to get to 60 votes with a public option," he said, using the term used to describe a new government role in health care. It would take 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to overcome any filibuster Republicans might attempt.
But don't get too happy with that one victory. This bill is still BAD news and needs to be defeated.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, cited private studies -- one by the conservative Heritage Foundation, the other by the Lewin Group, owned by United HealthCare -- saying millions would be pushed out of private insurance as the government held fees to doctors at artificially low levels. He said the result would be a violation of Obama's pledge that consumers would be able to keep their current insurance if they wanted once the legislation went into effect.
In addition, there is Obama's mandate that every single American be forced to purchase health insurance or face additional taxes and penalties. This is patently unconstitutional.
As noted in a story on FOXNews.com, "The requirement that everyone buy health insurance -- a central element to President Obama's health care plan -- is flatly unconstitutional, legal experts argue."
"At the heart of this plan is an unprecedented imposition on individual liberty," constitutional attorney David Rivkin told FOX News.
The constitution allows the federal government to regulate interstate commerce but Rivkin argues the insurance requirement is just an attempt to dictate personal behavior.
"What's unique about here is the mandate imposed on individuals merely because they live," he said. "Not connected with any economic activity, not because they grow something, make something, compose something. Merely because they live. And this is absolutely unprecedented."
And so there we have it: a socialist health care plan that seeks to drive private industry out of business, remove choices from the American people, and force Americans to buy a service as a condition for being an American. That pretty much sums up what Obama is selling. I'm not buying it, and neither should you.
by Bobby Eberle
The debate continues on Capitol Hill as Barack Obama and the Democrats continue to force government control, higher taxes, and an unconstitutional health care system down our throats. Fortunately, for the American people, the plan runs so counter to the foundations of America and free enterprise, that its popularity continues to plummet.
But popularity aside, there is also the issue of whether Obama's plan is even legal. In today's times, the power of the federal government knows no bounds. Whether private companies are being taken over by the government or schools are using their platform to indoctrinate our children, the federal government has gone too far, and the American people are fighting back. It just shows how out of touch Obama and his socialist friends are that they never even saw it coming.
First... the latest on the state of the health care debate. A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows that Obama's health care plan is now at its lowest level of support since the plan started being tracked. "Just 41% of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That's down two points from a week ago."
According to Rasmussen, 56% of respondents are opposed to the plan, with seniors leading the way:
Senior citizens are less supportive of the plan than younger voters. In the latest survey, just 33% of seniors favor the plan while 59% are opposed. The intensity gap among seniors is significant. Only 16% of the over-65 crowd Strongly Favors the legislation while 46% are Strongly Opposed.
For the first time ever, a slight plurality of voters now express doubt that the legislation will become law this year. Forty-six percent (46%) say passage is likely while 47% say it is not. Those figures include 18% who say passage is Very Likely and 15% who say it is Not at All Likely. Sixty percent (60%) are less certain.
As far as the actual legislation, it appears that the so-called "public option" is out. Thank goodness! The "public option" was a euphemism for a government-run health insurance company that would "compete" against private insurers. The problem, of course, is that the "company" could charge as little as it wanted for premiums, thus driving private insurance out of business. It would never have to show a profit, because it is funded by the taxpayers... so bye bye private insurance. Fortunately, the uproar from the American people has been load and clear!
As noted in an AP news story on GOPUSA, "liberal Democrats twice failed on Tuesday to inject a government-run insurance option into sweeping health care legislation taking shape in the Senate, despite bipartisan agreement that private insurers must change their ways."
"My job is to put together a bill that gets to 60 votes" in the full Senate, Max Baucus (D-MT) said shortly before he joined a majority on the committee in defeating efforts to rewrite a key portion of his draft legislation. "No one shows me how to get to 60 votes with a public option," he said, using the term used to describe a new government role in health care. It would take 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to overcome any filibuster Republicans might attempt.
But don't get too happy with that one victory. This bill is still BAD news and needs to be defeated.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, cited private studies -- one by the conservative Heritage Foundation, the other by the Lewin Group, owned by United HealthCare -- saying millions would be pushed out of private insurance as the government held fees to doctors at artificially low levels. He said the result would be a violation of Obama's pledge that consumers would be able to keep their current insurance if they wanted once the legislation went into effect.
In addition, there is Obama's mandate that every single American be forced to purchase health insurance or face additional taxes and penalties. This is patently unconstitutional.
As noted in a story on FOXNews.com, "The requirement that everyone buy health insurance -- a central element to President Obama's health care plan -- is flatly unconstitutional, legal experts argue."
"At the heart of this plan is an unprecedented imposition on individual liberty," constitutional attorney David Rivkin told FOX News.
The constitution allows the federal government to regulate interstate commerce but Rivkin argues the insurance requirement is just an attempt to dictate personal behavior.
"What's unique about here is the mandate imposed on individuals merely because they live," he said. "Not connected with any economic activity, not because they grow something, make something, compose something. Merely because they live. And this is absolutely unprecedented."
And so there we have it: a socialist health care plan that seeks to drive private industry out of business, remove choices from the American people, and force Americans to buy a service as a condition for being an American. That pretty much sums up what Obama is selling. I'm not buying it, and neither should you.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Obama Will Try To Sneak Obamacare as Amendment to Non-Related Bill
Congress’s Secret Plan to Pass Obamacare
by Brian Darling
President Obama and liberals in Congress seem intent on passing comprehensive health care reform, even though polls suggest it is unpopular with the American people. And despite the potential political risks to moderate Democrats, the President and left-wing leadership in Congress are determined to pass the measure using a rare parliamentary procedure.
The Senate plans to attach Obamacare to a House-passed non-healthcare bill. Ironically, nobody knows what that legislation looks like, because it has not yet been written. Yet many members plan to rubber-stamp Obamacare without reading or understanding the bill.
The Senate Finance Committee worked furiously last week to mark up a “conceptual framework” of health care reform. The committee actually rejected an amendment by Sen. Jim Bunning (R.-Ky.) to mandate that the bill text and a final cost analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) be publicly available at least 72 hours before the Finance Committee votes on final passage.
The following four-step scenario describes one way liberals plan to work the rules in their favor to get Obamacare through the Senate:
Step 1: The Senate Finance Committee must first approve the marked-up version of Sen. Max Baucus’ (D.-Mont.) conceptual framework. Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) can say that two Senate Committees have passed a health care bill, which will allow him to take extraordinary steps to get the bill on the Senate floor.
During the mark-up last week, members had difficulty offering amendments and trying to make constructive changed because they lacked actual legislative text and Baucus made unilateral last minute changes. For example, the AP reported that “under pressure from fellow Democrats, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee decided to commit an additional $50 billion over a decade toward making insurance more affordable for working-class families.”
Step 2: Sen. Reid will take the final product of the Senate Finance Committee and merge it with the product of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which passed on a party-line vote in July.
Usually, a bill is voted out of committee, and then the Senate takes up the final product of the committee so that all 100 senators can have a hand in the process. With some help from the Obama administration, Reid will decide what aspects of the HELP and Finance Committee bills to keep.
Step 3: Now, Obamacare will be ready to hitch a ride on an unrelated bill from the House. Sen. Reid will move to proceed to H.R. 1586, a bill to impose a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients. This bill was passed by the House in the wake of the AIG bonus controversy and is currently sitting on the Senate Legislative Calendar.
The move to proceed needs 60 votes to start debate. After the motion is approved, Sen. Reid will offer Obamacare as a complete substitute to the unrelated House-passed bill. This means that the entire healthcare reform effort will be included as an amendment to a TARP bill that has been collecting dust in the Senate for months.
Step 4: For this strategy to work, the proponents would need to hold together the liberal caucus of 58 Democrats (including Paul Kirk who was named last Thursday to replace Sen. Kennedy), and the two Independent senators (Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont). These members will have to all hold hands and vote against any filibuster. Once the Senate takes up the bill, only a simple majority of members will be needed for passage. It’s possible one of the endangered moderate Democrats, such as Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), could vote to stop a filibuster then vote against Obamacare so as not to offend angry constituents.
Once the Senate passes a bill and sends it to the House, all the House would have to do is pass the bill without changes and President Obama will be presented with his health care reform measure. If this plan does not work, the Senate and House leadership may go back to considering using reconciliation to pass the legislation.
Adopting this secret plan will not strike most Americans as a transparent, bipartisan, effective way to change how millions of Americans get their health care.
by Brian Darling
President Obama and liberals in Congress seem intent on passing comprehensive health care reform, even though polls suggest it is unpopular with the American people. And despite the potential political risks to moderate Democrats, the President and left-wing leadership in Congress are determined to pass the measure using a rare parliamentary procedure.
The Senate plans to attach Obamacare to a House-passed non-healthcare bill. Ironically, nobody knows what that legislation looks like, because it has not yet been written. Yet many members plan to rubber-stamp Obamacare without reading or understanding the bill.
The Senate Finance Committee worked furiously last week to mark up a “conceptual framework” of health care reform. The committee actually rejected an amendment by Sen. Jim Bunning (R.-Ky.) to mandate that the bill text and a final cost analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) be publicly available at least 72 hours before the Finance Committee votes on final passage.
The following four-step scenario describes one way liberals plan to work the rules in their favor to get Obamacare through the Senate:
Step 1: The Senate Finance Committee must first approve the marked-up version of Sen. Max Baucus’ (D.-Mont.) conceptual framework. Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) can say that two Senate Committees have passed a health care bill, which will allow him to take extraordinary steps to get the bill on the Senate floor.
During the mark-up last week, members had difficulty offering amendments and trying to make constructive changed because they lacked actual legislative text and Baucus made unilateral last minute changes. For example, the AP reported that “under pressure from fellow Democrats, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee decided to commit an additional $50 billion over a decade toward making insurance more affordable for working-class families.”
Step 2: Sen. Reid will take the final product of the Senate Finance Committee and merge it with the product of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which passed on a party-line vote in July.
Usually, a bill is voted out of committee, and then the Senate takes up the final product of the committee so that all 100 senators can have a hand in the process. With some help from the Obama administration, Reid will decide what aspects of the HELP and Finance Committee bills to keep.
Step 3: Now, Obamacare will be ready to hitch a ride on an unrelated bill from the House. Sen. Reid will move to proceed to H.R. 1586, a bill to impose a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients. This bill was passed by the House in the wake of the AIG bonus controversy and is currently sitting on the Senate Legislative Calendar.
The move to proceed needs 60 votes to start debate. After the motion is approved, Sen. Reid will offer Obamacare as a complete substitute to the unrelated House-passed bill. This means that the entire healthcare reform effort will be included as an amendment to a TARP bill that has been collecting dust in the Senate for months.
Step 4: For this strategy to work, the proponents would need to hold together the liberal caucus of 58 Democrats (including Paul Kirk who was named last Thursday to replace Sen. Kennedy), and the two Independent senators (Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont). These members will have to all hold hands and vote against any filibuster. Once the Senate takes up the bill, only a simple majority of members will be needed for passage. It’s possible one of the endangered moderate Democrats, such as Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), could vote to stop a filibuster then vote against Obamacare so as not to offend angry constituents.
Once the Senate passes a bill and sends it to the House, all the House would have to do is pass the bill without changes and President Obama will be presented with his health care reform measure. If this plan does not work, the Senate and House leadership may go back to considering using reconciliation to pass the legislation.
Adopting this secret plan will not strike most Americans as a transparent, bipartisan, effective way to change how millions of Americans get their health care.
Singing Heil Obama in New Jersey
Singing Heil Obama in New Jersey
by Phyllis Schlafly
Red alert to parents: If you send your children to a public school, they may be secretly indoctrinated in the cult of Obama-worship. If that's not your plan for your children, you had better act now, before it's too late.
We now know that the "I pledge" video shown in Utah in August, and only afterward discovered by parents, was not isolated evidence of indoctrination of public schoolchildren in the new cult of Obama-worship. Second-graders in New Jersey were taught to sing songs of praise and fidelity to Barack Obama in February and again in June, and parents only found out about it this September.
Public schoolchildren are now forbidden to sing Christmas carols that mention the real meaning of Christmas (only songs like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" are allowed), but in New Jersey, second-graders were taught to sing the spiritual "Jesus Loves the Little Children" in which Jesus' name was replaced with Obama's. They sang, "He said red, yellow, black or white/All are equal in his sight/Barack Hussein Obama."
Before Obama's election, it was considered a political no-no for Republicans to use his middle name. Beginning with his inauguration in January, he and his followers use Hussein to glorify his Muslim heritage and connections.
The revised lyrics teach the kids that Obama will "make this country strong again." The lyrics promote Obama's Lilly Ledbetter law by including the line: "He said we must be fair today/Equal work means equal pay."
Proving that this rewritten Jesus-song wasn't an aberration, New Jersey second-graders were taught to sing a second Obama-personality-cult song to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Here are some of the lyrics: "Mr. President we honor you today!/For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say 'hooray.'/Hooray, Mr. President! You're number one!/Hooray Mr. President, we're really proud of you!/So continue, Mr. President, we know you'll do the trick/So here's a hearty hip hooray, hip, hip hooray!"
These songs were not spontaneous kiddie exuberance or extracurricular playground activity. The video makes clear that the teacher was methodically instructing the children, using one talented second-grader to demonstrate exactly how to sing the songs, and coaching students who forgot the words.
The teacher also led the children in giving a sort of Heil Obama salute. On cue, they outstretched their right hands, accentuating their community of action in praising Obama.
The New Jersey songs were first taught to the children at B. Bernice Young Elementary School in February to celebrate Black History Month, and then videotaped in June as part of a Father's Day tribute to Barack Obama. Only after the video was later posted on the Internet did parents learn about it.
Who's responsible for this outrage? The teacher has retired with full pension and benefits, and the principal, Dr. Denise King, defended the controversial song, making no apologies.
Parents quoted the principal as saying she would allow the performance again if she could. King touted her trip to Obama's inauguration in the school yearbook along with Obama campaign slogans and pictures she took in Washington on Jan. 20, and she has posted pictures of Obama in the school's hallways.
Superintendent Christopher Manno issued a written statement that the taping and its distribution were unauthorized, but failed to say whether the singing lesson was approved. State Education Commissioner Lucille Davy directed the superintendent to review this matter but declined to say what the review will cover or if any action would be taken.
Some shocked comments from parents included: "I can't believe it's our school. We don't want to praise this guy like he's a god or an idol or a king." "I felt this was reminiscent of 1930s Germany, and the indoctrination of children to worship their leader."
RNC Chair Michael Steele said: "This is the type of propaganda you would see in Stalin's Russia or Kim Jong Il's North Korea." A poster for the book "I Am Barack Obama" by activist Charisse Carney-Nunes can be seen near the chanting second-graders.
The songs' lyrics sound like a follow-up of the "I pledge" video shown in Utah in which kids were invited to pledge to support all sorts of left-wing goals, such as national health care. Specific legislative pledges culminated in pledges "to be a servant to our president" and "to be of service to Barack Obama."
The New Jersey songs are further proof of Obama's plan to indoctrinate schoolchildren, which was evident in Education Secretary Arne Duncan's instructions to all school principals to use the "historic moment" of Obama's Sept. 8 speech to all schoolchildren as a tool to "inspire" them and teach them to be cheerleaders for Obama.
by Phyllis Schlafly
Red alert to parents: If you send your children to a public school, they may be secretly indoctrinated in the cult of Obama-worship. If that's not your plan for your children, you had better act now, before it's too late.
We now know that the "I pledge" video shown in Utah in August, and only afterward discovered by parents, was not isolated evidence of indoctrination of public schoolchildren in the new cult of Obama-worship. Second-graders in New Jersey were taught to sing songs of praise and fidelity to Barack Obama in February and again in June, and parents only found out about it this September.
Public schoolchildren are now forbidden to sing Christmas carols that mention the real meaning of Christmas (only songs like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" are allowed), but in New Jersey, second-graders were taught to sing the spiritual "Jesus Loves the Little Children" in which Jesus' name was replaced with Obama's. They sang, "He said red, yellow, black or white/All are equal in his sight/Barack Hussein Obama."
Before Obama's election, it was considered a political no-no for Republicans to use his middle name. Beginning with his inauguration in January, he and his followers use Hussein to glorify his Muslim heritage and connections.
The revised lyrics teach the kids that Obama will "make this country strong again." The lyrics promote Obama's Lilly Ledbetter law by including the line: "He said we must be fair today/Equal work means equal pay."
Proving that this rewritten Jesus-song wasn't an aberration, New Jersey second-graders were taught to sing a second Obama-personality-cult song to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Here are some of the lyrics: "Mr. President we honor you today!/For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say 'hooray.'/Hooray, Mr. President! You're number one!/Hooray Mr. President, we're really proud of you!/So continue, Mr. President, we know you'll do the trick/So here's a hearty hip hooray, hip, hip hooray!"
These songs were not spontaneous kiddie exuberance or extracurricular playground activity. The video makes clear that the teacher was methodically instructing the children, using one talented second-grader to demonstrate exactly how to sing the songs, and coaching students who forgot the words.
The teacher also led the children in giving a sort of Heil Obama salute. On cue, they outstretched their right hands, accentuating their community of action in praising Obama.
The New Jersey songs were first taught to the children at B. Bernice Young Elementary School in February to celebrate Black History Month, and then videotaped in June as part of a Father's Day tribute to Barack Obama. Only after the video was later posted on the Internet did parents learn about it.
Who's responsible for this outrage? The teacher has retired with full pension and benefits, and the principal, Dr. Denise King, defended the controversial song, making no apologies.
Parents quoted the principal as saying she would allow the performance again if she could. King touted her trip to Obama's inauguration in the school yearbook along with Obama campaign slogans and pictures she took in Washington on Jan. 20, and she has posted pictures of Obama in the school's hallways.
Superintendent Christopher Manno issued a written statement that the taping and its distribution were unauthorized, but failed to say whether the singing lesson was approved. State Education Commissioner Lucille Davy directed the superintendent to review this matter but declined to say what the review will cover or if any action would be taken.
Some shocked comments from parents included: "I can't believe it's our school. We don't want to praise this guy like he's a god or an idol or a king." "I felt this was reminiscent of 1930s Germany, and the indoctrination of children to worship their leader."
RNC Chair Michael Steele said: "This is the type of propaganda you would see in Stalin's Russia or Kim Jong Il's North Korea." A poster for the book "I Am Barack Obama" by activist Charisse Carney-Nunes can be seen near the chanting second-graders.
The songs' lyrics sound like a follow-up of the "I pledge" video shown in Utah in which kids were invited to pledge to support all sorts of left-wing goals, such as national health care. Specific legislative pledges culminated in pledges "to be a servant to our president" and "to be of service to Barack Obama."
The New Jersey songs are further proof of Obama's plan to indoctrinate schoolchildren, which was evident in Education Secretary Arne Duncan's instructions to all school principals to use the "historic moment" of Obama's Sept. 8 speech to all schoolchildren as a tool to "inspire" them and teach them to be cheerleaders for Obama.
WORSHIPPING AL GORE AS GOD OF WEATHER HARMS THE WORLD'S POOR
Costly Carbon Cuts
Proposed Strategies Would Hurt the Most Vulnerable
By Bjorn Lomborg
COPENHAGEN -- In speech after rousing speech at the United Nations summit on global warming last week, politicians emphasized the need to protect the world's most vulnerable, who will be hit hardest by climate change. The rhetoric did little to disguise an awful truth: If we continue on our current path, we are likely to harm the world's poorest much more than we help them.
Urged on by environmental activists, many politicians are vowing to make carbon cuts designed to keep expected temperature rises under 3.6 degrees (2.0 Celsius). Yet it is nearly impossible for these promises to be fulfilled.
Japan's commitment in June to cut greenhouse gas levels 8 percent from its 1990 levels by 2020 was scoffed at for being far too little. Yet for Japan -- which has led the world in improving energy efficiency -- to have any hope of reaching its target, it needs to build nine new nuclear power plants and increase their use by one-third, construct more than 1 million new wind-turbines, install solar panels on nearly 3 million homes, double the percentage of new homes that meet rigorous insulation standards, and increase sales of "green" vehicles from 4 percent to 50 percent of its auto purchases.
Japan's new prime minister was roundly lauded this month for promising a much stronger reduction, 25 percent, even though there is no obvious way to deliver on his promise. Expecting Japan, or any other nation, to achieve such far-fetched cuts is simply delusional.
Imagine for a moment that the fantasists win the day and that at the climate conference in Copenhagen in December every nation commits to reductions even larger than Japan's, designed to keep temperature increases under 2 degrees Celsius. The result will be a global price tag of $40 trillion in 2100, to avoid expected climate damage costing just $1.1 trillion, according to climate economist Richard Tol, a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change whose cost findings were commissioned by the Copenhagen Consensus Center and are to be published by Cambridge University Press next year. That phenomenal cost, calculated by all the main economic models, assumes that politicians across the globe will make the most effective, efficient choices. In the real world, where policies have many other objectives and legislation is easily filled with pork and payoffs, the deal easily gets worse.
Yet the real tragedy is that, by exaggerating the threat of global warming, we have awoken the beast of protectionism. There are always forces in society that demand that politicians create more barriers to trade because they cannot compete on an even, fair playing field. Global warming has given them a much stronger voice.
Already, politicians are responding -- and using the fear of global warming to create "green fences" against free trade. The U.S. House has passed the Waxman-Markey climate change bill with clear provisions to impose new trade tariffs on countries that don't agree to emission reductions. Eyes are on the Senate, where John Kerry sees these as "sanctions" against "renegade countries."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly called for a Europe-wide tax on imports from nations whose global warming efforts do not measure up to Europe's. German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently backed the idea.
There is a real and growing prospect of an all-out trade war being waged in the name of climate change.
The struggle to generate international agreement on a carbon deal has created a desire to punish "free riders" who do not sign on to stringent carbon emission reduction targets. But the greater goals seem to be to barricade imports from China and India, to tax companies that outsource, and to go for short-term political benefits, destroying free trade.
This is a massive mistake. Economic models show that the global benefits of even slightly freer trade are in the order of $50 trillion -- 50 times more than we could achieve, in the best of circumstances, with carbon cuts. If trade becomes less free, we could easily lose $50 trillion -- or much more if we really bungle things. Poor nations -- the very countries that will experience the worst of climate damage -- would suffer most.
In other words: In our eagerness to avoid about $1 trillion worth of climate damage, we are being asked to spend at least 50 times as much -- and, if we hinder free trade, we are likely to heap at least an additional $50 trillion loss on the global economy.
Today, coal accounts for almost half of the planet's electricity supply, including half the power consumed in the United States. It keeps hospitals and core infrastructure running, provides warmth and light in winter, and makes lifesaving air conditioning available in summer. In China and India, where coal accounts for more than 80 percent of power generation, it has helped to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
There is no doubt that coal is causing environmental damage that we need to stop. But a clumsy, radical halt to our coal use -- which is what promises of drastic carbon cuts actually require -- would mean depriving billions of people of a path to prosperity.
To put it bluntly: Despite their good intentions, the activists, lobbyists and politicians making a last-ditch push for hugely expensive carbon-cut promises could easily end up doing hundreds of times more damage to the planet than coal ever could.
Bjorn Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and the author of "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming."
Proposed Strategies Would Hurt the Most Vulnerable
By Bjorn Lomborg
COPENHAGEN -- In speech after rousing speech at the United Nations summit on global warming last week, politicians emphasized the need to protect the world's most vulnerable, who will be hit hardest by climate change. The rhetoric did little to disguise an awful truth: If we continue on our current path, we are likely to harm the world's poorest much more than we help them.
Urged on by environmental activists, many politicians are vowing to make carbon cuts designed to keep expected temperature rises under 3.6 degrees (2.0 Celsius). Yet it is nearly impossible for these promises to be fulfilled.
Japan's commitment in June to cut greenhouse gas levels 8 percent from its 1990 levels by 2020 was scoffed at for being far too little. Yet for Japan -- which has led the world in improving energy efficiency -- to have any hope of reaching its target, it needs to build nine new nuclear power plants and increase their use by one-third, construct more than 1 million new wind-turbines, install solar panels on nearly 3 million homes, double the percentage of new homes that meet rigorous insulation standards, and increase sales of "green" vehicles from 4 percent to 50 percent of its auto purchases.
Japan's new prime minister was roundly lauded this month for promising a much stronger reduction, 25 percent, even though there is no obvious way to deliver on his promise. Expecting Japan, or any other nation, to achieve such far-fetched cuts is simply delusional.
Imagine for a moment that the fantasists win the day and that at the climate conference in Copenhagen in December every nation commits to reductions even larger than Japan's, designed to keep temperature increases under 2 degrees Celsius. The result will be a global price tag of $40 trillion in 2100, to avoid expected climate damage costing just $1.1 trillion, according to climate economist Richard Tol, a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change whose cost findings were commissioned by the Copenhagen Consensus Center and are to be published by Cambridge University Press next year. That phenomenal cost, calculated by all the main economic models, assumes that politicians across the globe will make the most effective, efficient choices. In the real world, where policies have many other objectives and legislation is easily filled with pork and payoffs, the deal easily gets worse.
Yet the real tragedy is that, by exaggerating the threat of global warming, we have awoken the beast of protectionism. There are always forces in society that demand that politicians create more barriers to trade because they cannot compete on an even, fair playing field. Global warming has given them a much stronger voice.
Already, politicians are responding -- and using the fear of global warming to create "green fences" against free trade. The U.S. House has passed the Waxman-Markey climate change bill with clear provisions to impose new trade tariffs on countries that don't agree to emission reductions. Eyes are on the Senate, where John Kerry sees these as "sanctions" against "renegade countries."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly called for a Europe-wide tax on imports from nations whose global warming efforts do not measure up to Europe's. German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently backed the idea.
There is a real and growing prospect of an all-out trade war being waged in the name of climate change.
The struggle to generate international agreement on a carbon deal has created a desire to punish "free riders" who do not sign on to stringent carbon emission reduction targets. But the greater goals seem to be to barricade imports from China and India, to tax companies that outsource, and to go for short-term political benefits, destroying free trade.
This is a massive mistake. Economic models show that the global benefits of even slightly freer trade are in the order of $50 trillion -- 50 times more than we could achieve, in the best of circumstances, with carbon cuts. If trade becomes less free, we could easily lose $50 trillion -- or much more if we really bungle things. Poor nations -- the very countries that will experience the worst of climate damage -- would suffer most.
In other words: In our eagerness to avoid about $1 trillion worth of climate damage, we are being asked to spend at least 50 times as much -- and, if we hinder free trade, we are likely to heap at least an additional $50 trillion loss on the global economy.
Today, coal accounts for almost half of the planet's electricity supply, including half the power consumed in the United States. It keeps hospitals and core infrastructure running, provides warmth and light in winter, and makes lifesaving air conditioning available in summer. In China and India, where coal accounts for more than 80 percent of power generation, it has helped to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
There is no doubt that coal is causing environmental damage that we need to stop. But a clumsy, radical halt to our coal use -- which is what promises of drastic carbon cuts actually require -- would mean depriving billions of people of a path to prosperity.
To put it bluntly: Despite their good intentions, the activists, lobbyists and politicians making a last-ditch push for hugely expensive carbon-cut promises could easily end up doing hundreds of times more damage to the planet than coal ever could.
Bjorn Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and the author of "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming."
Monday, September 28, 2009
A Letter To Obama On Abortion
The Un-Aborted Obama
by Mike Adams
Hello Barry. I’ve decided to write you a few questions in response to the unsolicited emails I keep getting from BarackObama.com. Since most of your form emails concern health care I’ll confine most of my questions to one health-related subject: Abortion.
1. Did you know that about 150 young black people were admitted to Howard University School of Law this year? But, unfortunately, about 1370 black babies were aborted today. How can we effect “social justice” if the health profession kills far more blacks than the legal profession is currently accepting into its ranks?
2. Isn’t abortion sort of like liberalism in a nutshell? It’s just a way of asking others to suffer the consequences of your own bad decisions.
3. Doctors are supposed to save lives and not take them. Shouldn’t abortion doctors then be required to take the hypocritical oath?
4. You been supported by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals throughout your political career. What if I trapped a dog in a cage and dismembered him slowly with a pruning tool I stuck through the bars of the cage? What if I then sucked out the bloody body parts with my Black & Decker power vacuum? Would PETA demand my arrest? Would they succeed? Would this not be eerily similar to what licensed doctors do to babies? Isn’t that more serious than animal abuse? Even more serious than ACORN funding brothels with tax-payer dollars? Is this a procedure we want to nationalize?
5. When a white abortion doctor kills a black baby is it a hate crime?
6. Jesse Jackson was pro-life before he decided to run for president. He switched to the “pro-choice” position because he wanted to be the first black president. This, he thought, would show that America is no longer racist. Jesse still opposes the death penalty because – at least he claims - it is racist. In the American health care system, over 9000 black babies are aborted every week. Has the criminal justice system ever executed 9000 innocent blacks in a single week?
7. A Democrat historian once told me that, during its history, the mostly Democratic KKK lynched almost 5000 blacks. Today, the mostly Democratic pro-choice movement applauds (and even defends as a “right”) the mutilation of over 9000 blacks on a weekly basis. You probably think it is unfair to compare pro-choicers to the KKK. But unfair to whom? Klansmen were never such prolific killers.
8. What would happen if we started shooting unborn babies with guns? Would you then decide to oppose abortion?
9. I was recently told that, as a Christian, I should support your health reform bill. But I would not want to be treated in a universal Canadian-style health care system. So why should I wish my neighbor to be treated the way I do not want to be treated?
10. I just ran into a fellow who was wearing a "Jesus" fish around his neck and an "Obama" hat on his head. That's like wearing a Star of David around your neck and carving a swastika on your forehead. Jesus was the greatest friend of the weak and powerless. Are you not the most powerful opponent of the weakest segment of society, the unborn?
11. Social Security is going bankrupt because large numbers of people born before Roe v. Wade are drawing from the system. But 50 million people who would be paying into the system have been aborted since Roe. Is it fair to say that in the same way Democrats destroy lives they created they also destroy government programs they created?
12. Since abortion kills so many black males, shouldn't we call it "homie-cide"?
I didn’t sign up for your email newsletter but I guess someone did it for me as a joke. And I can’t seem to get off the list no matter how many times I ask to be removed. So, I’ll keep sending questions like these until you start responding with more than just your form email responses. Or maybe I’ll find a way to send them directly to your teleprompter.
by Mike Adams
Hello Barry. I’ve decided to write you a few questions in response to the unsolicited emails I keep getting from BarackObama.com. Since most of your form emails concern health care I’ll confine most of my questions to one health-related subject: Abortion.
1. Did you know that about 150 young black people were admitted to Howard University School of Law this year? But, unfortunately, about 1370 black babies were aborted today. How can we effect “social justice” if the health profession kills far more blacks than the legal profession is currently accepting into its ranks?
2. Isn’t abortion sort of like liberalism in a nutshell? It’s just a way of asking others to suffer the consequences of your own bad decisions.
3. Doctors are supposed to save lives and not take them. Shouldn’t abortion doctors then be required to take the hypocritical oath?
4. You been supported by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals throughout your political career. What if I trapped a dog in a cage and dismembered him slowly with a pruning tool I stuck through the bars of the cage? What if I then sucked out the bloody body parts with my Black & Decker power vacuum? Would PETA demand my arrest? Would they succeed? Would this not be eerily similar to what licensed doctors do to babies? Isn’t that more serious than animal abuse? Even more serious than ACORN funding brothels with tax-payer dollars? Is this a procedure we want to nationalize?
5. When a white abortion doctor kills a black baby is it a hate crime?
6. Jesse Jackson was pro-life before he decided to run for president. He switched to the “pro-choice” position because he wanted to be the first black president. This, he thought, would show that America is no longer racist. Jesse still opposes the death penalty because – at least he claims - it is racist. In the American health care system, over 9000 black babies are aborted every week. Has the criminal justice system ever executed 9000 innocent blacks in a single week?
7. A Democrat historian once told me that, during its history, the mostly Democratic KKK lynched almost 5000 blacks. Today, the mostly Democratic pro-choice movement applauds (and even defends as a “right”) the mutilation of over 9000 blacks on a weekly basis. You probably think it is unfair to compare pro-choicers to the KKK. But unfair to whom? Klansmen were never such prolific killers.
8. What would happen if we started shooting unborn babies with guns? Would you then decide to oppose abortion?
9. I was recently told that, as a Christian, I should support your health reform bill. But I would not want to be treated in a universal Canadian-style health care system. So why should I wish my neighbor to be treated the way I do not want to be treated?
10. I just ran into a fellow who was wearing a "Jesus" fish around his neck and an "Obama" hat on his head. That's like wearing a Star of David around your neck and carving a swastika on your forehead. Jesus was the greatest friend of the weak and powerless. Are you not the most powerful opponent of the weakest segment of society, the unborn?
11. Social Security is going bankrupt because large numbers of people born before Roe v. Wade are drawing from the system. But 50 million people who would be paying into the system have been aborted since Roe. Is it fair to say that in the same way Democrats destroy lives they created they also destroy government programs they created?
12. Since abortion kills so many black males, shouldn't we call it "homie-cide"?
I didn’t sign up for your email newsletter but I guess someone did it for me as a joke. And I can’t seem to get off the list no matter how many times I ask to be removed. So, I’ll keep sending questions like these until you start responding with more than just your form email responses. Or maybe I’ll find a way to send them directly to your teleprompter.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Democrats Forming A 'Blind Pool' For Healthcare Bill
Passing a Shell of A Bill: Congress’ Secret Plan to Ram Through Health Care Reform
By Brian Darling
With the President and Congress’s plan to pass comprehensive health care reform reaching increasingly high levels of unpopularity, and reconciliation becoming an impediment, the leadership of the Senate is rumored to be preparing a new secret plan to railroad the bill through the Senate in record time by using a seldom used parliamentary procedure.
Their plan is to proceed to a House passed non-health care bill to provide a shell of legislation to give Obamacare a ride to the House then to the President’s desk. Sound confusing? We lay out the steps below, but essentially the Senate would pass health care reform as an amendment to a completely unrelated bill so the Senate and House could act quickly and without further debate. Even worse? Nobody really knows what that legislation looks like but they plan on voting for it anyway.
Right now, the Senate Finance Committee is i n the midst of marking up health care reform “legislation.” Due to Senate procedure, what they are actually marking up is a 200+ page conceptual framework of the actual legislation, not a real bill. That means that not only has no Senator even read the bill but, there is a high probability that the bill hasn’t even been written yet. If the Committee sticks to their artificial deadline of completing work by this Friday then they would have passed a conceptual document reforming the nation’s health care system, spending trillions, without ever seeing an estimated 1,500 pages of legislation, which may or may not be written.
The current plan is to start debate on Obamacare as early as next week under the following four-step scenario:
STEP ONE: The Senate Finance Committee will finish work on the marking up of Senator Max Baucus’ (D-MT) conceptual framework for legislation by this Friday. Baucus has not unveiled final legislation and, according to the Associated Press, he a dded some new language to the mark up today. AP reports that “under pressure from fellow Democrats, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee decided to commit an additional $50 billion over a decade toward making insurance more affordable for working class families.”
Senators have not been provided any real legislation and are offering amendments this week to Baucus’ 200+ page outline. It is expected that at the end of the process the Senate Finance Committee may produce a bill longer than the 1,000 page House bill that proved so controversial over the August recess. Many Senators are upset that they don’t have final language for a bill, yet still they sit in a Committee Hearing Room this week marking up a draft document that is not in the form of legislative language. The plan is to have this document voted out of the Senate Finance Committee by Friday.
STEP TWO: Next, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will take the final product of the Senate Finance Committee and merge it with the product of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee. This was the la te Senator Kennedy’s (D-MA) bill, introduced by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), which passed the HELP Committee on July 15, 2009 on a party line vote. Remember, most Senators will still not know what they voted for in the Finance Committee.
STEP THREE: Senator Reid will then move to proceed to H.R. 1586, a bill to impose a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients. This bill was the bill passed by the House in the wake of the AIG bonus controversy and is currently sitting on the Senate Legislative Calendar. Reid will move to proceed, and he will need 60 votes to act on this bill. After the motion is approved, he will then offer a complete substitute bill purportedly including the combined Senate HELP and Finance Committee products. This means that the entire health care reform effort will be included as an amendment to a TARP bill that has been collecting dust in the Senate for months.
STEP FOUR: For this strategy to work, the proponents would need to hold together the liberal caucus of 57 Democrats, 2 Independents (Senators Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont), and a potential new member replacing the late Senator Kennedy. This scenario would most likely be implemented after the Massachusetts state legislature gives Governor Deval Patrick the power to appoint a new Senator and that Senator is seated by the Senate. According to CQ, the state legislature may pass a bill and present it to Governor Patrick by next week.
Once the Senate passes a bill and sends it to the House, all the House would have to do is pass the bill, without changes, and President Obama will be presented with his health care reform measure thereby transforming within a few weeks 1/6th of the US economy. If this plan does not work, the Senate and House Leadership may consider using reconciliation to pass the legislation. For a more detailed explanation of the reconciliation scenario, please see the Heritage Foundation’s Fact Sheet on Reconciliation here or a handy guide on Reconciliation published in Human Events earlier today.
Does this sound like a transparent, bipartisan and effective way t o change the way millions of Americans get their health care? Of course not.
By Brian Darling
With the President and Congress’s plan to pass comprehensive health care reform reaching increasingly high levels of unpopularity, and reconciliation becoming an impediment, the leadership of the Senate is rumored to be preparing a new secret plan to railroad the bill through the Senate in record time by using a seldom used parliamentary procedure.
Their plan is to proceed to a House passed non-health care bill to provide a shell of legislation to give Obamacare a ride to the House then to the President’s desk. Sound confusing? We lay out the steps below, but essentially the Senate would pass health care reform as an amendment to a completely unrelated bill so the Senate and House could act quickly and without further debate. Even worse? Nobody really knows what that legislation looks like but they plan on voting for it anyway.
Right now, the Senate Finance Committee is i n the midst of marking up health care reform “legislation.” Due to Senate procedure, what they are actually marking up is a 200+ page conceptual framework of the actual legislation, not a real bill. That means that not only has no Senator even read the bill but, there is a high probability that the bill hasn’t even been written yet. If the Committee sticks to their artificial deadline of completing work by this Friday then they would have passed a conceptual document reforming the nation’s health care system, spending trillions, without ever seeing an estimated 1,500 pages of legislation, which may or may not be written.
The current plan is to start debate on Obamacare as early as next week under the following four-step scenario:
STEP ONE: The Senate Finance Committee will finish work on the marking up of Senator Max Baucus’ (D-MT) conceptual framework for legislation by this Friday. Baucus has not unveiled final legislation and, according to the Associated Press, he a dded some new language to the mark up today. AP reports that “under pressure from fellow Democrats, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee decided to commit an additional $50 billion over a decade toward making insurance more affordable for working class families.”
Senators have not been provided any real legislation and are offering amendments this week to Baucus’ 200+ page outline. It is expected that at the end of the process the Senate Finance Committee may produce a bill longer than the 1,000 page House bill that proved so controversial over the August recess. Many Senators are upset that they don’t have final language for a bill, yet still they sit in a Committee Hearing Room this week marking up a draft document that is not in the form of legislative language. The plan is to have this document voted out of the Senate Finance Committee by Friday.
STEP TWO: Next, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will take the final product of the Senate Finance Committee and merge it with the product of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee. This was the la te Senator Kennedy’s (D-MA) bill, introduced by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), which passed the HELP Committee on July 15, 2009 on a party line vote. Remember, most Senators will still not know what they voted for in the Finance Committee.
STEP THREE: Senator Reid will then move to proceed to H.R. 1586, a bill to impose a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients. This bill was the bill passed by the House in the wake of the AIG bonus controversy and is currently sitting on the Senate Legislative Calendar. Reid will move to proceed, and he will need 60 votes to act on this bill. After the motion is approved, he will then offer a complete substitute bill purportedly including the combined Senate HELP and Finance Committee products. This means that the entire health care reform effort will be included as an amendment to a TARP bill that has been collecting dust in the Senate for months.
STEP FOUR: For this strategy to work, the proponents would need to hold together the liberal caucus of 57 Democrats, 2 Independents (Senators Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont), and a potential new member replacing the late Senator Kennedy. This scenario would most likely be implemented after the Massachusetts state legislature gives Governor Deval Patrick the power to appoint a new Senator and that Senator is seated by the Senate. According to CQ, the state legislature may pass a bill and present it to Governor Patrick by next week.
Once the Senate passes a bill and sends it to the House, all the House would have to do is pass the bill, without changes, and President Obama will be presented with his health care reform measure thereby transforming within a few weeks 1/6th of the US economy. If this plan does not work, the Senate and House Leadership may consider using reconciliation to pass the legislation. For a more detailed explanation of the reconciliation scenario, please see the Heritage Foundation’s Fact Sheet on Reconciliation here or a handy guide on Reconciliation published in Human Events earlier today.
Does this sound like a transparent, bipartisan and effective way t o change the way millions of Americans get their health care? Of course not.
ACORN Skirting Transparancy To Fund Itself With Tax Dollars
ACORN Uses Tax-Exempt Entities to Funnel Money to Itself
by Connie Hair
09/25/2009
ACORN is using a tangled web of tax-exempt organizations to funnel tax money to itself according to a detailed review released last night by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.
Some or all of them may be nothing more than shell companies used to pass money from the government directly through to ACORN and its affiliates.
“This analysis regarding the vast number of charitable organizations that ACORN set up to funnel money to itself raises questions about whether ACORN used the entities to advance the charitable mission of helping poor people get housing, or whether the entities were used as part of a shell game to funnel charitable funds to a taxable entity,” Grassley said of his report.
“Despite the fact that ACORN set up 42 tax-exempt entities and even housed 31 of them at the same address in New Orleans, ACORN told me three times in 2006 and 2007 that it did not operate as a tax-exempt entity. The public deserves an accounting of ACORN’s conglomerate of tax-exempt organizations given the public dollars involved, both through direct government support and tax-exempt status.”
Grassley also said that the potential abuse of charitable dollars is no different than Jack Abramoff’s use of charities to launder money but on a much larger scale.
From the report:
"Our research indicates that ACORN’s response that it is not tax-exempt is disingenuous and misleading. Millions of charitable dollars from individuals, foundations and federal, state, and local governments flow to ACORN and its related taxable entities from ACORN-affiliated charitable organizations. A memo prepared for ACORN executives, which was provided to us anonymously, confirms the existence of numerous charitable organizations. The memo dated June 19, 2008, details issues regarding governance and commingling of funds, among other things."
The analysis prepared by Grassley’s professional tax staff at the Senate Committee on Finance and posted with supporting documents on their websites: http://finance.senate.gov/ and http://grassley.senate.gov/.
Senate Republicans to Sebelius: Repeal the Gag Order
The entire Republican U.S. Senate leadership yesterday signed a letter informing Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius that unless and until she rescinds the unconstitutional gag order barring all Medicare insurance providers (except the AARP) from communicating with their customers about the Democrats’ healthcare “reform” legislation, they will slow or halt the confirmation process of her department nominees.
The letter also highlights the fact that HHS had previously held that there is no legal authority to justify prohibiting a health plan “from informing its members of proposed legislation and exhorting them to express their opinions” about it.
The ranking Republican senators on both committees of jurisdiction over the health care legislation also signed on.
From the letter:
As the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, our constitutional tradition is one of “a profound commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” Health plans, of course, have the right to speak on matters of public concern, a fundamental principle that your department, until recently, recognized and respected. Specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had previously noted that there was no legal authority to justify prohibiting a health plan “from informing its members of proposed legislation and exhorting them to express their opinions” about it. In fact, HHS had previously determined that shutting down communication of this sort “would violate basic freedom of speech and other constitutional rights of the Medicare beneficiary as a citizen.”
Jonathan Blum, an acting director at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) -- part of the bloated HHS bureaucracy -- was apparently responsible for issuing the order late Monday in collusion with his old boss, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mt.), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Baucus is at the center of the controversy, having earlier this week claimed responsibility in media reports for the free speech ban by CMS.
I asked Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) at a press conference yesterday about the Baucus-Blum gag order that apparently overlooked the AARP.
“The AARP is by all appearances supporting what the administration is doing,” McConnell said. “The other health insurance plans have some questions. But the core issue is this: you all here are free to write whatever you want to because of the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is outrageous for the government to shut down either individuals or companies expressing themselves about legislation before the Congress. This is a true outrage. And you have not heard the last of this. There will be more chapters, shall I say, in this story.”
And before the end of the day, another page had turned.
The best descriptive line of the day in the health care debate yesterday came from Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander. Medicaid is greatly expanded under the Baucus plan outline being marked up in committee, placing more unfunded mandates on state governments.
“It puts more low income Americans in the largest government-run program we already have -- one which forty percent of doctors won’t serve,” Alexander said. “That means we’ll be giving 70 million low income Americans a ticket to a bus line that only operates 60 percent of the time.”
Clinton Administration HHS Directive
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, released the directive issued during the Clinton administration yesterday stating that private health care plans offering Medicare benefits have the right to inform their enrollees about pending legislation.
The Baucus-Blum actions at CMS reversed the long-standing policy by not only barring communications by Medicare Advantage plan private insurers with their customers but CMS also initiated an investigation into Humana, Inc., for informing their customers of Medicare benefit cuts proposed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats.
“The more we uncover about this gag order, the more disturbing it becomes,” Camp said. “The White House is clearly trying to keep seniors from learning the facts about their proposed Medicare cuts. Reversing precedent and abusing the federal government’s regulatory authority to restrict the constitutionally protected flow of information is wrong and unethical. We need to get to the bottom of this and we need to make sure all Americans, and especially seniors, know the facts about what the President and Congressional Democrats’ health care bill will mean for them.”
by Connie Hair
09/25/2009
ACORN is using a tangled web of tax-exempt organizations to funnel tax money to itself according to a detailed review released last night by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.
Some or all of them may be nothing more than shell companies used to pass money from the government directly through to ACORN and its affiliates.
“This analysis regarding the vast number of charitable organizations that ACORN set up to funnel money to itself raises questions about whether ACORN used the entities to advance the charitable mission of helping poor people get housing, or whether the entities were used as part of a shell game to funnel charitable funds to a taxable entity,” Grassley said of his report.
“Despite the fact that ACORN set up 42 tax-exempt entities and even housed 31 of them at the same address in New Orleans, ACORN told me three times in 2006 and 2007 that it did not operate as a tax-exempt entity. The public deserves an accounting of ACORN’s conglomerate of tax-exempt organizations given the public dollars involved, both through direct government support and tax-exempt status.”
Grassley also said that the potential abuse of charitable dollars is no different than Jack Abramoff’s use of charities to launder money but on a much larger scale.
From the report:
"Our research indicates that ACORN’s response that it is not tax-exempt is disingenuous and misleading. Millions of charitable dollars from individuals, foundations and federal, state, and local governments flow to ACORN and its related taxable entities from ACORN-affiliated charitable organizations. A memo prepared for ACORN executives, which was provided to us anonymously, confirms the existence of numerous charitable organizations. The memo dated June 19, 2008, details issues regarding governance and commingling of funds, among other things."
The analysis prepared by Grassley’s professional tax staff at the Senate Committee on Finance and posted with supporting documents on their websites: http://finance.senate.gov/ and http://grassley.senate.gov/.
Senate Republicans to Sebelius: Repeal the Gag Order
The entire Republican U.S. Senate leadership yesterday signed a letter informing Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius that unless and until she rescinds the unconstitutional gag order barring all Medicare insurance providers (except the AARP) from communicating with their customers about the Democrats’ healthcare “reform” legislation, they will slow or halt the confirmation process of her department nominees.
The letter also highlights the fact that HHS had previously held that there is no legal authority to justify prohibiting a health plan “from informing its members of proposed legislation and exhorting them to express their opinions” about it.
The ranking Republican senators on both committees of jurisdiction over the health care legislation also signed on.
From the letter:
As the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, our constitutional tradition is one of “a profound commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” Health plans, of course, have the right to speak on matters of public concern, a fundamental principle that your department, until recently, recognized and respected. Specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had previously noted that there was no legal authority to justify prohibiting a health plan “from informing its members of proposed legislation and exhorting them to express their opinions” about it. In fact, HHS had previously determined that shutting down communication of this sort “would violate basic freedom of speech and other constitutional rights of the Medicare beneficiary as a citizen.”
Jonathan Blum, an acting director at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) -- part of the bloated HHS bureaucracy -- was apparently responsible for issuing the order late Monday in collusion with his old boss, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mt.), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Baucus is at the center of the controversy, having earlier this week claimed responsibility in media reports for the free speech ban by CMS.
I asked Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) at a press conference yesterday about the Baucus-Blum gag order that apparently overlooked the AARP.
“The AARP is by all appearances supporting what the administration is doing,” McConnell said. “The other health insurance plans have some questions. But the core issue is this: you all here are free to write whatever you want to because of the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is outrageous for the government to shut down either individuals or companies expressing themselves about legislation before the Congress. This is a true outrage. And you have not heard the last of this. There will be more chapters, shall I say, in this story.”
And before the end of the day, another page had turned.
The best descriptive line of the day in the health care debate yesterday came from Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander. Medicaid is greatly expanded under the Baucus plan outline being marked up in committee, placing more unfunded mandates on state governments.
“It puts more low income Americans in the largest government-run program we already have -- one which forty percent of doctors won’t serve,” Alexander said. “That means we’ll be giving 70 million low income Americans a ticket to a bus line that only operates 60 percent of the time.”
Clinton Administration HHS Directive
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, released the directive issued during the Clinton administration yesterday stating that private health care plans offering Medicare benefits have the right to inform their enrollees about pending legislation.
The Baucus-Blum actions at CMS reversed the long-standing policy by not only barring communications by Medicare Advantage plan private insurers with their customers but CMS also initiated an investigation into Humana, Inc., for informing their customers of Medicare benefit cuts proposed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats.
“The more we uncover about this gag order, the more disturbing it becomes,” Camp said. “The White House is clearly trying to keep seniors from learning the facts about their proposed Medicare cuts. Reversing precedent and abusing the federal government’s regulatory authority to restrict the constitutionally protected flow of information is wrong and unethical. We need to get to the bottom of this and we need to make sure all Americans, and especially seniors, know the facts about what the President and Congressional Democrats’ health care bill will mean for them.”
Friday, September 25, 2009
USA To Be Socialist Nation With Obama
Obama's Plan to Spread the Wealth
by Phyllis Schlafly
When Barack Obama told Joe the Plumber he planned to "spread the wealth around," many people didn't realize he was not talking about spreading the wealth only of the super-rich. Now that Obama is elected, he is moving rapidly to expand welfare handouts for non-taxpayers, running up a tremendous national debt that will inevitably lead to higher taxes on the Middle Class.
The enormity of this transfer of money away from working, taxpaying Americans to non-taxpayers (who voted overwhelmingly for Obama for President in 2008) has just been detailed in a sensational 53-page report by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation. There are not enough superlatives in the English language to adequately describe the colossal amounts of money involved in the Obama Administration's shocking cash transfers.
Most people don't realize that the federal budget has become a vast machine for transferring wealth from the upper third of Americans (who pay 90 percent of federal income taxes) to the lowest third who earn less than 200 percent of the government-stipulated "poverty" level and pay no income tax. The size of this massive annual transfer rose by 40 percent to $714 billion over the last ten years, and is projected to rise to $1 trillion per year by the end of Obama's first term.
The term "welfare" embraces much more than the single program formerly called AFDC that was "reformed" (and renamed TANF) in 1996. It includes 70 other programs that provide unearned cash and non-cash benefits to people living in low-income households (but does not include Social Security, Medicare and unemployment compensation, which are earned through work and available to almost everyone).
Obama didn't invent these means-tested transfers; they mostly started with Lyndon Johnson's Great Society welfare programs. Like most government programs, the cost of these welfare and aid-to-poor-and-low-income persons has increased, and Obama demanded vast additional increases, which Congress passed in the Stimulus and Omnibus bills.
Welfare spending was 13 times greater in FY 2008 than it was when LBJ started the Great Society in 1964. Means-tested welfare spending then was 1.2 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and now has reached 5 percent.
These programs are now the third most expensive government activity, ranking below Social Security and Medicare spending, and education spending. National Defense ranks only fourth.
The real cost of these programs is unknown to the American people (one could say, kept secret from them) because the spending is distributed by 14 departments and agencies though 71 different programs. We are fortunate that Rector, a numbers expert, has made a painstaking analysis and shone light upon these transfers.
In fiscal year (FY) 2008, government spending on means-tested welfare or aid to the poor amounted to $714 billion, of which approximately three-fourths was federal spending and one-fourth came from state government funds. States are required to match a percentage of federal welfare outlays.
Of the total means-tested spending in FY 2008, 52 percent was spent on medical care for the poor and low-income persons, 37 percent was spent on cash, food, and housing aid, and 11 percent was spent on social services, training, child development, federal education aid, and community development for low-income persons and communities. Roughly half goes to disabled or elderly persons, and the other half to households with children mostly headed by single mothers.
Rector ran an adding machine tape and concluded that means-tested handouts in FY 2008 amounted to about $16,800 for every poor person, defined as below 100 percent of the designated poverty level. When welfare spending is related to the larger group of persons who qualify for benefits below 200 percent of the "poverty" level, we are giving $28,000 per year to every lower-income four-person household.
Why are we told that we have so inequality in the United States? That's because the Census counts only 4 percent of these welfare gifts to low-income people as their income, and most government discussions of poverty do not even refer to the massive transfers of money taking place.
To get an idea of how big is the debt Obama is creating, which ultimately will have to be paid by the Middle Class, let's compare spending on welfare to spending on fighting wars. Since the beginning of LBJ's Great Society spending, our government has spent $15.9 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars) on means-tested welfare, which is more than twice the cost of all major fighting wars in U.S. history. We spent only $4.1 trillion (in 2008 dollars) on World War II, which was the most expensive single undertaking in U.S. history.
Under Obama's budget, which has already been passed by Congress, federal welfare spending will increase by $88 billion in 2009, plus an additional $175 billion in 2010. This two-year increase of $263 billion will bring total federal and state welfare handouts to $890 billion a year, which is more than 6 percent of GDP.
by Phyllis Schlafly
When Barack Obama told Joe the Plumber he planned to "spread the wealth around," many people didn't realize he was not talking about spreading the wealth only of the super-rich. Now that Obama is elected, he is moving rapidly to expand welfare handouts for non-taxpayers, running up a tremendous national debt that will inevitably lead to higher taxes on the Middle Class.
The enormity of this transfer of money away from working, taxpaying Americans to non-taxpayers (who voted overwhelmingly for Obama for President in 2008) has just been detailed in a sensational 53-page report by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation. There are not enough superlatives in the English language to adequately describe the colossal amounts of money involved in the Obama Administration's shocking cash transfers.
Most people don't realize that the federal budget has become a vast machine for transferring wealth from the upper third of Americans (who pay 90 percent of federal income taxes) to the lowest third who earn less than 200 percent of the government-stipulated "poverty" level and pay no income tax. The size of this massive annual transfer rose by 40 percent to $714 billion over the last ten years, and is projected to rise to $1 trillion per year by the end of Obama's first term.
The term "welfare" embraces much more than the single program formerly called AFDC that was "reformed" (and renamed TANF) in 1996. It includes 70 other programs that provide unearned cash and non-cash benefits to people living in low-income households (but does not include Social Security, Medicare and unemployment compensation, which are earned through work and available to almost everyone).
Obama didn't invent these means-tested transfers; they mostly started with Lyndon Johnson's Great Society welfare programs. Like most government programs, the cost of these welfare and aid-to-poor-and-low-income persons has increased, and Obama demanded vast additional increases, which Congress passed in the Stimulus and Omnibus bills.
Welfare spending was 13 times greater in FY 2008 than it was when LBJ started the Great Society in 1964. Means-tested welfare spending then was 1.2 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and now has reached 5 percent.
These programs are now the third most expensive government activity, ranking below Social Security and Medicare spending, and education spending. National Defense ranks only fourth.
The real cost of these programs is unknown to the American people (one could say, kept secret from them) because the spending is distributed by 14 departments and agencies though 71 different programs. We are fortunate that Rector, a numbers expert, has made a painstaking analysis and shone light upon these transfers.
In fiscal year (FY) 2008, government spending on means-tested welfare or aid to the poor amounted to $714 billion, of which approximately three-fourths was federal spending and one-fourth came from state government funds. States are required to match a percentage of federal welfare outlays.
Of the total means-tested spending in FY 2008, 52 percent was spent on medical care for the poor and low-income persons, 37 percent was spent on cash, food, and housing aid, and 11 percent was spent on social services, training, child development, federal education aid, and community development for low-income persons and communities. Roughly half goes to disabled or elderly persons, and the other half to households with children mostly headed by single mothers.
Rector ran an adding machine tape and concluded that means-tested handouts in FY 2008 amounted to about $16,800 for every poor person, defined as below 100 percent of the designated poverty level. When welfare spending is related to the larger group of persons who qualify for benefits below 200 percent of the "poverty" level, we are giving $28,000 per year to every lower-income four-person household.
Why are we told that we have so inequality in the United States? That's because the Census counts only 4 percent of these welfare gifts to low-income people as their income, and most government discussions of poverty do not even refer to the massive transfers of money taking place.
To get an idea of how big is the debt Obama is creating, which ultimately will have to be paid by the Middle Class, let's compare spending on welfare to spending on fighting wars. Since the beginning of LBJ's Great Society spending, our government has spent $15.9 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars) on means-tested welfare, which is more than twice the cost of all major fighting wars in U.S. history. We spent only $4.1 trillion (in 2008 dollars) on World War II, which was the most expensive single undertaking in U.S. history.
Under Obama's budget, which has already been passed by Congress, federal welfare spending will increase by $88 billion in 2009, plus an additional $175 billion in 2010. This two-year increase of $263 billion will bring total federal and state welfare handouts to $890 billion a year, which is more than 6 percent of GDP.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
ACORN Lies About White House Connections
A Review of ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis’s Rolodex Suggests Strong White House Ties
It is implausible to think, based on Bertha Lewis’s White House contacts, that Barack Obama is not paying attention to ACORN.
by Erick Erickson
The story in a nutshell:
• Bertha Lewis is the CEO of ACORN.
• In a review of Lewis’s contacts list, which was leaked to RedState, Bertha Lewis has the office, cell phone, home number, and private personal email address of Patrick Gaspard.
• Patrick Gaspard holds Karl Rove’s position in the White House and was Obama’s Political Director during the campaign.
• In addition to Patrick, Bertha has Patrick’s brother Michael in her rolodex. She lists Michael as working at the Advance Group.
• The Advance Group is ACORN’s lobbying organization.
• In other words, besides having Obama’s political director’s contact info, the political director’s brother works for ACORN via its lobbying shop.
On Sunday, Barack Obama played ignorant on the situation with ACORN. Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, “Frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.” Never mind that Barack Obama used to work for ACORN.
Based on information obtained by RedState, we think Barack Obama may live to regret those words.
With everybody focused on ACORN these days, what if we could dig around and see who in the Obama administration shows up in Bertha Lewis’s rolodex? Bertha Lewis is the CEO of ACORN.
Bertha Lewis is considered one of the 100 most influential women in New York according to Crain’s New York Business. She is an activist, organizer, and radical of the far left. When she calls, union bosses and others pick up the phone.
It’s not that hard to look into her contacts. RedState has seen a list of Bertha Lewis’s contacts. We did not seek it out. It just showed up one day unsolicited. We did not ask for it. We did not expect to get it. But now that we have it, we should see who is in there.
The contacts came from a credible source who is no fan of ACORN. An ACORN employee gave it to him. Having examined the file for a week and after consulting with others, we believe the list is legitimate. It fits a recent pattern of leaks out of ACORN as the rats scramble from the sinking ship.
The list contains the private email addresses and cell phones of scores of powerful and influential people from Al Sharpton to Charlie Rangel. It contains several people inside the Barack Obama administration including one of the closest ties to Barack Obama other than his wife.
One word about the list of contacts — some of the contacts are outdated. Like with most people’s contact lists, some of the people have not had their contact information updated in a while. I know the file has at least been updated because it also contains Michael Steele and lists him as Chairman of the GOP — an act that did not take place until this year. To be fair though, it is just his generic email address. That is not the case with some others. Likewise, other names on the list are very current and some have portions of their information outdated and other data current.
The Advance Group
To get a sense of the ties to the White House, one must first understand what the Advance Group is. The organization appears over and over again in the list of contacts.
Were you to look at its website you’d see nothing of interest. It is a rather innocuous “under construction” page. But behind that page is a host of connections.
A review of the Advance Group’s lobbyist filings with the State of New York shows it represents several organizations that fight for social justice, minority rights, etc. It also represents the New York Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN. And not just any branch of ACORN, but the main branch. Though its name is New York ACORN, it’s registered address is New Orleans, LA. While ACORN keeps its organization somewhat nebulous, and also for profit so it does not have to reveal details about its organization, New York ACORN with a registered address in Louisiana is, for all intents and purposes, ACORN.
It’s registered lobbyist with the Advance Group is Scott Levenson. Mr. Levenson is also named ACORN’s national spokesman. He made headlines recently when Glenn Beck threw Mr. Levenson off his show during a segment on ACORN.
Patrick Gaspard
Patrick Gaspard was the Executive Vice President for the SEIU until Barack Obama asked Gaspard to become his Presidential Campaign’s National Political Director. Once in the White House, Gaspard became Barack Obama’s Director of the Office of Political Affairs. He is Barack Obama’s Karl Rove, but unlike Rove, eschews the spotlight, which is why so many compare David Axelrod to Rove.
Here is a good profile of Patrick Gaspard.
Mr. Gaspard’s official responsibility is to provide the president with an accurate assessment of the political dynamics affecting the work of his administration, and to remain in close contact with power brokers around the country to help push the president’s agenda.
In practice, he’s something of an all-purpose fixer, if not the carte blanche policy architect that Mr. Rove was for George W. Bush, or the number-one politics guru that David Axelrod is for Mr. Obama.
And while he looks after the president’s interests in Washington, he also uses his position as a lever to manage politically messy situations closer to home.
Gaspard is in the news this week as the man who delivered the horse head to New York Governor David Paterson — telling Paterson not to run for re-election.
Patrick Gaspard intentionally keeps a low profile, preferring to work behind the scenes. It makes him effective.
Michael Gaspard
Patrick Gaspard’s brother Michael Gaspard works for The Advance Group. Michael apparently keeps a lower profile than his brother. He does not appear on lobbyist disclosures for The Advance Group in the State of New York. Nonetheless, he works there. Ms. Lewis’s contacts list confirms Michael Gaspard’s employment there.
Tying Bertha Lewis to the Gaspard Brothers
The level of detail Bertha Lewis has for contacting Patrick Gaspard suggests a closeness between the two.
Ms. Lewis has Patrick Gaspard’s office number, home number, and cell phone number. Patrick’s information still contains the 212 area code, which suggests it has not been updated since he moved to Washington, D.C. However, only 131 of the 1,894 contacts, or 7% of the total, list home phone numbers, let alone home, office, and cell phone numbers. For perspective, only 31 of the 1,849 contacts have home, office, cell phone, and business email addresses listed. Patrick Gaspard makes that list.
Gaspard’s contact information also contains his private personal email address making him among the most detailed contacts on the list. Only Wade Rathke, the founder of ACORN, and a handful of others have as much personal information in Lewis’s contacts list as Patrick Gaspard.
Bertha Lewis also has Michael Gaspard’s office number and cell phone. In addition, as noted above, Michael Gaspard works for ACORN’s registered lobbying organization and with ACORN’s national spokesman.
Other Administration Connections
A cursory view of Ms. Lewis’s contacts lists shows a couple of other obvious administration contacts too.
It will come as no surprise that Ms. Lewis keeps up with Shaun Donovan. Mr. Donovan is now the Secretary for Housing and Urban Development. Before that, Mr. Donovan was the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). In New York City, he worked on affordable housing initiatives right up ACORN’s alley. His contact information has not been updated since he left the HPD.
Then there is Karine Jean-Pierre. She originally worked for John Edwards. In fact, Ms. Lewis’s contacts list still has her listed with John Edwards’ campaign, but also has Ms. Jean-Pierre’s personal and presumably still working personal email address, etc. Ms. Jean-Pierre left there to work for Congressman Anthony Weiner, then became Barack Obama’s regional political director.. She is now the White House liaison for the Department of Labor. That’s a handy contact.
The web of connections from Ms. Lewis’s contacts list goes straight into the White House and out the other door into the Departments of Labor and Housing and Urban Development, circling back to ACORN’s lobbying operation.
With the White House trying to distance itself from ACORN, Ms. Lewis’s contacts there might make it more difficult. She has clear ties to Patrick and Michael Gaspard, the President’s fixer and the man who gets ACORN projects and money.
The President can say “I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money,” but a review of Ms. Lewis’s contacts list suggests that is not the case.
It is implausible to think, based on Bertha Lewis’s White House contacts, that Barack Obama is not paying attention to ACORN.
by Erick Erickson
The story in a nutshell:
• Bertha Lewis is the CEO of ACORN.
• In a review of Lewis’s contacts list, which was leaked to RedState, Bertha Lewis has the office, cell phone, home number, and private personal email address of Patrick Gaspard.
• Patrick Gaspard holds Karl Rove’s position in the White House and was Obama’s Political Director during the campaign.
• In addition to Patrick, Bertha has Patrick’s brother Michael in her rolodex. She lists Michael as working at the Advance Group.
• The Advance Group is ACORN’s lobbying organization.
• In other words, besides having Obama’s political director’s contact info, the political director’s brother works for ACORN via its lobbying shop.
On Sunday, Barack Obama played ignorant on the situation with ACORN. Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, “Frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.” Never mind that Barack Obama used to work for ACORN.
Based on information obtained by RedState, we think Barack Obama may live to regret those words.
With everybody focused on ACORN these days, what if we could dig around and see who in the Obama administration shows up in Bertha Lewis’s rolodex? Bertha Lewis is the CEO of ACORN.
Bertha Lewis is considered one of the 100 most influential women in New York according to Crain’s New York Business. She is an activist, organizer, and radical of the far left. When she calls, union bosses and others pick up the phone.
It’s not that hard to look into her contacts. RedState has seen a list of Bertha Lewis’s contacts. We did not seek it out. It just showed up one day unsolicited. We did not ask for it. We did not expect to get it. But now that we have it, we should see who is in there.
The contacts came from a credible source who is no fan of ACORN. An ACORN employee gave it to him. Having examined the file for a week and after consulting with others, we believe the list is legitimate. It fits a recent pattern of leaks out of ACORN as the rats scramble from the sinking ship.
The list contains the private email addresses and cell phones of scores of powerful and influential people from Al Sharpton to Charlie Rangel. It contains several people inside the Barack Obama administration including one of the closest ties to Barack Obama other than his wife.
One word about the list of contacts — some of the contacts are outdated. Like with most people’s contact lists, some of the people have not had their contact information updated in a while. I know the file has at least been updated because it also contains Michael Steele and lists him as Chairman of the GOP — an act that did not take place until this year. To be fair though, it is just his generic email address. That is not the case with some others. Likewise, other names on the list are very current and some have portions of their information outdated and other data current.
The Advance Group
To get a sense of the ties to the White House, one must first understand what the Advance Group is. The organization appears over and over again in the list of contacts.
Were you to look at its website you’d see nothing of interest. It is a rather innocuous “under construction” page. But behind that page is a host of connections.
A review of the Advance Group’s lobbyist filings with the State of New York shows it represents several organizations that fight for social justice, minority rights, etc. It also represents the New York Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN. And not just any branch of ACORN, but the main branch. Though its name is New York ACORN, it’s registered address is New Orleans, LA. While ACORN keeps its organization somewhat nebulous, and also for profit so it does not have to reveal details about its organization, New York ACORN with a registered address in Louisiana is, for all intents and purposes, ACORN.
It’s registered lobbyist with the Advance Group is Scott Levenson. Mr. Levenson is also named ACORN’s national spokesman. He made headlines recently when Glenn Beck threw Mr. Levenson off his show during a segment on ACORN.
Patrick Gaspard
Patrick Gaspard was the Executive Vice President for the SEIU until Barack Obama asked Gaspard to become his Presidential Campaign’s National Political Director. Once in the White House, Gaspard became Barack Obama’s Director of the Office of Political Affairs. He is Barack Obama’s Karl Rove, but unlike Rove, eschews the spotlight, which is why so many compare David Axelrod to Rove.
Here is a good profile of Patrick Gaspard.
Mr. Gaspard’s official responsibility is to provide the president with an accurate assessment of the political dynamics affecting the work of his administration, and to remain in close contact with power brokers around the country to help push the president’s agenda.
In practice, he’s something of an all-purpose fixer, if not the carte blanche policy architect that Mr. Rove was for George W. Bush, or the number-one politics guru that David Axelrod is for Mr. Obama.
And while he looks after the president’s interests in Washington, he also uses his position as a lever to manage politically messy situations closer to home.
Gaspard is in the news this week as the man who delivered the horse head to New York Governor David Paterson — telling Paterson not to run for re-election.
Patrick Gaspard intentionally keeps a low profile, preferring to work behind the scenes. It makes him effective.
Michael Gaspard
Patrick Gaspard’s brother Michael Gaspard works for The Advance Group. Michael apparently keeps a lower profile than his brother. He does not appear on lobbyist disclosures for The Advance Group in the State of New York. Nonetheless, he works there. Ms. Lewis’s contacts list confirms Michael Gaspard’s employment there.
Tying Bertha Lewis to the Gaspard Brothers
The level of detail Bertha Lewis has for contacting Patrick Gaspard suggests a closeness between the two.
Ms. Lewis has Patrick Gaspard’s office number, home number, and cell phone number. Patrick’s information still contains the 212 area code, which suggests it has not been updated since he moved to Washington, D.C. However, only 131 of the 1,894 contacts, or 7% of the total, list home phone numbers, let alone home, office, and cell phone numbers. For perspective, only 31 of the 1,849 contacts have home, office, cell phone, and business email addresses listed. Patrick Gaspard makes that list.
Gaspard’s contact information also contains his private personal email address making him among the most detailed contacts on the list. Only Wade Rathke, the founder of ACORN, and a handful of others have as much personal information in Lewis’s contacts list as Patrick Gaspard.
Bertha Lewis also has Michael Gaspard’s office number and cell phone. In addition, as noted above, Michael Gaspard works for ACORN’s registered lobbying organization and with ACORN’s national spokesman.
Other Administration Connections
A cursory view of Ms. Lewis’s contacts lists shows a couple of other obvious administration contacts too.
It will come as no surprise that Ms. Lewis keeps up with Shaun Donovan. Mr. Donovan is now the Secretary for Housing and Urban Development. Before that, Mr. Donovan was the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). In New York City, he worked on affordable housing initiatives right up ACORN’s alley. His contact information has not been updated since he left the HPD.
Then there is Karine Jean-Pierre. She originally worked for John Edwards. In fact, Ms. Lewis’s contacts list still has her listed with John Edwards’ campaign, but also has Ms. Jean-Pierre’s personal and presumably still working personal email address, etc. Ms. Jean-Pierre left there to work for Congressman Anthony Weiner, then became Barack Obama’s regional political director.. She is now the White House liaison for the Department of Labor. That’s a handy contact.
The web of connections from Ms. Lewis’s contacts list goes straight into the White House and out the other door into the Departments of Labor and Housing and Urban Development, circling back to ACORN’s lobbying operation.
With the White House trying to distance itself from ACORN, Ms. Lewis’s contacts there might make it more difficult. She has clear ties to Patrick and Michael Gaspard, the President’s fixer and the man who gets ACORN projects and money.
The President can say “I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money,” but a review of Ms. Lewis’s contacts list suggests that is not the case.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Obama Wants To Override Courts
Sunstein: Obama, not courts, should interpret law
'Beliefs and commitments' of nation's leader should supersede judges
By Aaron Klein
The interpretation of federal law should be made not by judges but by the beliefs and commitments of the U.S. president and those around him, according to President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein.
"There is no reason to believe that in the face of statutory ambiguity, the meaning of federal law should be settled by the inclinations and predispositions of federal judges. The outcome should instead depend on the commitments and beliefs of the President and those who operate under him," argued Sunstein.
This statement was the central thesis of Sunstein's 2006 Yale Law School paper, "Beyond Marbury: The Executive's Power to Say What the Law Is." The paper, in which he argues the president and his advisers should be the ones to interpret federal laws, was obtained and reviewed by WND.
Sunstein debated the precedent-setting 1803 case, Marbury v. Madison, which determined it is "emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is."
He lamented multiple recent examples of U.S. presidents interpreting law only to have their interpretations overturned by the Supreme Court.
"Why is the executive not permitted to construe constitutional ambiguities as it sees fit?" asks Sunstein. "The simplest answer is that foxes are not permitted to guard henhouses ... but who is the fox?"
He concludes "the executive should usually be permitted to interpret (law) as it reasonably sees fit."
"The allocation of law-interpreting power to the executive fits admirably well with the twentieth-century shift from common law courts to regulatory administration if the governing statute is ambiguous," he writes.
Sunstein is not shy about expressing his radical beliefs in papers and books, although many of his controversial arguments have received little to no news media attention or public scrutiny.
Earlier this week, WND first reported Sunstein drew up in an academic book a "First Amendment New Deal" – a new "Fairness Doctrine" that would include the establishment of a panel of "nonpartisan experts" to ensure "diversity of view" on the airwaves.
WND also reported Sunstein proposed a radical new "bill of rights" in a 2004 book, "The Second Bill of Rights: FDR'S Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever," in which he advanced the radical notion that welfare rights, including some controversial inceptions, be granted by the state.
WND has learned that in April 2005, Sunstein opened up a conference at Yale Law School entitled "The Constitution in 2020," which sought to change the nature and interpretation of the Constitution by that year.
Sunstein has been a main participant in the movement, which openly seeks to create a "progressive" consensus as to what the U.S. Constitution should provide for by the year 2020. It also suggests strategy for how liberal lawyers and judges might bring such a constitutional regime into being.
Just before his appearance at the conference, Sunstein wrote a blog entry in which he explained he "will be urging that it is important to resist, on democratic grounds, the idea that the document should be interpreted to reflect the view of the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party."
In his book, Sunstein laid out what he wants to become the new bill of rights, which he calls the Second Bill of Rights:
Among his mandates are:
• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.
On one page in his book, Sunstein claims he is "not seriously arguing" his bill of rights be "encompassed by anything in the Constitution," but on the next page he states that "if the nation becomes committed to certain rights, they may migrate into the Constitution itself."
Later in the book, Sunstein argues that "at a minimum, the second bill should be seen as part and parcel of America's constitutive commitments."
'Beliefs and commitments' of nation's leader should supersede judges
By Aaron Klein
The interpretation of federal law should be made not by judges but by the beliefs and commitments of the U.S. president and those around him, according to President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein.
"There is no reason to believe that in the face of statutory ambiguity, the meaning of federal law should be settled by the inclinations and predispositions of federal judges. The outcome should instead depend on the commitments and beliefs of the President and those who operate under him," argued Sunstein.
This statement was the central thesis of Sunstein's 2006 Yale Law School paper, "Beyond Marbury: The Executive's Power to Say What the Law Is." The paper, in which he argues the president and his advisers should be the ones to interpret federal laws, was obtained and reviewed by WND.
Sunstein debated the precedent-setting 1803 case, Marbury v. Madison, which determined it is "emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is."
He lamented multiple recent examples of U.S. presidents interpreting law only to have their interpretations overturned by the Supreme Court.
"Why is the executive not permitted to construe constitutional ambiguities as it sees fit?" asks Sunstein. "The simplest answer is that foxes are not permitted to guard henhouses ... but who is the fox?"
He concludes "the executive should usually be permitted to interpret (law) as it reasonably sees fit."
"The allocation of law-interpreting power to the executive fits admirably well with the twentieth-century shift from common law courts to regulatory administration if the governing statute is ambiguous," he writes.
Sunstein is not shy about expressing his radical beliefs in papers and books, although many of his controversial arguments have received little to no news media attention or public scrutiny.
Earlier this week, WND first reported Sunstein drew up in an academic book a "First Amendment New Deal" – a new "Fairness Doctrine" that would include the establishment of a panel of "nonpartisan experts" to ensure "diversity of view" on the airwaves.
WND also reported Sunstein proposed a radical new "bill of rights" in a 2004 book, "The Second Bill of Rights: FDR'S Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever," in which he advanced the radical notion that welfare rights, including some controversial inceptions, be granted by the state.
WND has learned that in April 2005, Sunstein opened up a conference at Yale Law School entitled "The Constitution in 2020," which sought to change the nature and interpretation of the Constitution by that year.
Sunstein has been a main participant in the movement, which openly seeks to create a "progressive" consensus as to what the U.S. Constitution should provide for by the year 2020. It also suggests strategy for how liberal lawyers and judges might bring such a constitutional regime into being.
Just before his appearance at the conference, Sunstein wrote a blog entry in which he explained he "will be urging that it is important to resist, on democratic grounds, the idea that the document should be interpreted to reflect the view of the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party."
In his book, Sunstein laid out what he wants to become the new bill of rights, which he calls the Second Bill of Rights:
Among his mandates are:
• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.
On one page in his book, Sunstein claims he is "not seriously arguing" his bill of rights be "encompassed by anything in the Constitution," but on the next page he states that "if the nation becomes committed to certain rights, they may migrate into the Constitution itself."
Later in the book, Sunstein argues that "at a minimum, the second bill should be seen as part and parcel of America's constitutive commitments."
Left: We Can Criticize You, But You Can't Criticize Us
Strangers to Dissent, Liberals Try to Stifle It
By Michael Barone
It is an interesting phenomenon that the response of the left half of our political spectrum to criticism and argument is often to try to shut it down. Thus President Obama in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress told us to stop "bickering," as if principled objections to major changes in public policy were just childish obstinacy, and chastised his critics for telling "lies," employing "scare tactics" and playing "games." Unlike his predecessor, he sought to use the prestige of his office to shut criticism down.
Now, no one likes criticism very much, and most politicians would prefer to have their colleagues and constituents meekly and gratefully agree with them on pretty much everything. And yes, Rep. Joe Wilson did seem to have broken the rules and standards of decorum of the House (though not of the British House of Commons) when he shouted, "You lie!" in the middle of Obama's speech.
But none of this justifies the charges, passed off as cool-headed analysis, that Obama's critics are motivated by racism. There are plenty of non-racist reasons to oppose (or to support) the Democrats' health care proposals.
I would submit that the president's call for an end to "bickering" and the charges of racism by some of his supporters are the natural reflex of people who are not used to hearing people disagree with them and who are determined to shut them up.
This comes naturally to liberals educated in our great colleges and universities, so many of which have speech codes whose primary aim is to prevent the expression of certain conservative ideas and which are commonly deployed for that purpose. (For examples, see the Website of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which defends students of all political stripes.) Once the haven of free inquiry and expression, academia has become a swamp of stifling political correctness.
Similarly, the "mainstream media" -- the old-line broadcast networks, The New York Times, etc. -- present a politically correct picture of the world. The result is that liberals can live in a cocoon, an America in which seldom is heard a discouraging word. Conservatives, in contrast, find themselves constantly pummeled with liberal criticism, on campus, in news media, and in Hollywood TV and movies. They don't like it, but they've gotten used to it. Liberals aren't used to it and increasingly try to stamp it out.
"Mainstream media" try to help. In the past few weeks, we have seen textbook examples of how MSM have ignored news stories that reflected badly on the administration for which it has such warm feelings. It ignored the videos in which the White House "green jobs czar" proclaimed himself a "communist" and the "truther" petition he signed charging that George W. Bush may have allowed the Sept. 11 attacks.
It ignored the videos released on Andrew Breitbart's biggovernment.com showing ACORN employees offering to help a supposed pimp and prostitute evade taxes and employ 13- to 15-year-old prostitutes. It downplayed last spring's Tea Parties -- locally organized demonstrations against big government that attracted about a million people nationwide -- and downplayed the Tea Party throng at the Capitol and on the Mall Sept. 12.
Actually, "mainstream media" are doing their friends in the Obama administration and the Democratic Party no favors, at least in the long run. Obama comes from one-party Chicago, and the House Democrats' nine top leadership members and committee chairmen come from districts that voted on average 73 percent for Obama last fall. They need help in understanding the larger country they are seeking to govern, where nearly half voted the other way. Instead, they get the impression they can dismiss critics as racist or "Nazis" or as indulging in (as Sen. Harry Reid said) "evil-mongering."
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has warned us that there's a danger that intense rhetoric can provoke violence, and no decent person wants to see harm come to our president or other leaders. But it's interesting that the two most violent incidents at this summer's town hall meetings came when a union thug beat up a 65-year-old black conservative in Missouri and when a liberal protester bit off part of a man's finger in California.
These incidents don't justify a conclusion that all liberals are violent. But they are more evidence that American liberals, unused to hearing dissent, have an impulse to shut it down.
By Michael Barone
It is an interesting phenomenon that the response of the left half of our political spectrum to criticism and argument is often to try to shut it down. Thus President Obama in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress told us to stop "bickering," as if principled objections to major changes in public policy were just childish obstinacy, and chastised his critics for telling "lies," employing "scare tactics" and playing "games." Unlike his predecessor, he sought to use the prestige of his office to shut criticism down.
Now, no one likes criticism very much, and most politicians would prefer to have their colleagues and constituents meekly and gratefully agree with them on pretty much everything. And yes, Rep. Joe Wilson did seem to have broken the rules and standards of decorum of the House (though not of the British House of Commons) when he shouted, "You lie!" in the middle of Obama's speech.
But none of this justifies the charges, passed off as cool-headed analysis, that Obama's critics are motivated by racism. There are plenty of non-racist reasons to oppose (or to support) the Democrats' health care proposals.
I would submit that the president's call for an end to "bickering" and the charges of racism by some of his supporters are the natural reflex of people who are not used to hearing people disagree with them and who are determined to shut them up.
This comes naturally to liberals educated in our great colleges and universities, so many of which have speech codes whose primary aim is to prevent the expression of certain conservative ideas and which are commonly deployed for that purpose. (For examples, see the Website of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which defends students of all political stripes.) Once the haven of free inquiry and expression, academia has become a swamp of stifling political correctness.
Similarly, the "mainstream media" -- the old-line broadcast networks, The New York Times, etc. -- present a politically correct picture of the world. The result is that liberals can live in a cocoon, an America in which seldom is heard a discouraging word. Conservatives, in contrast, find themselves constantly pummeled with liberal criticism, on campus, in news media, and in Hollywood TV and movies. They don't like it, but they've gotten used to it. Liberals aren't used to it and increasingly try to stamp it out.
"Mainstream media" try to help. In the past few weeks, we have seen textbook examples of how MSM have ignored news stories that reflected badly on the administration for which it has such warm feelings. It ignored the videos in which the White House "green jobs czar" proclaimed himself a "communist" and the "truther" petition he signed charging that George W. Bush may have allowed the Sept. 11 attacks.
It ignored the videos released on Andrew Breitbart's biggovernment.com showing ACORN employees offering to help a supposed pimp and prostitute evade taxes and employ 13- to 15-year-old prostitutes. It downplayed last spring's Tea Parties -- locally organized demonstrations against big government that attracted about a million people nationwide -- and downplayed the Tea Party throng at the Capitol and on the Mall Sept. 12.
Actually, "mainstream media" are doing their friends in the Obama administration and the Democratic Party no favors, at least in the long run. Obama comes from one-party Chicago, and the House Democrats' nine top leadership members and committee chairmen come from districts that voted on average 73 percent for Obama last fall. They need help in understanding the larger country they are seeking to govern, where nearly half voted the other way. Instead, they get the impression they can dismiss critics as racist or "Nazis" or as indulging in (as Sen. Harry Reid said) "evil-mongering."
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has warned us that there's a danger that intense rhetoric can provoke violence, and no decent person wants to see harm come to our president or other leaders. But it's interesting that the two most violent incidents at this summer's town hall meetings came when a union thug beat up a 65-year-old black conservative in Missouri and when a liberal protester bit off part of a man's finger in California.
These incidents don't justify a conclusion that all liberals are violent. But they are more evidence that American liberals, unused to hearing dissent, have an impulse to shut it down.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
NEA Screws Students
Union: Give teachers a pass on bad antics
By YOAV GONEN
It's like a "Get out of jail free" card for everyone.
The teachers' union is set to seek a free pass for all its misbehaving members in ongoing contract talks with the city, bargaining documents show.
Among the items contained in the teachers' six-page wish list is a provision that would prohibit teachers from being written up for misconduct unless they had already received a counseling memo -- akin to a warning -- about their behavior.
Written documentation, by contrast, can be used as evidence against teachers in disciplinary hearings.
But a Queens elementary-school principal, who insisted on anonymity, said adding the extra padding was "simply ludicrous."
"As instructional leaders, principals need to devote more time to supporting teaching and learning -- not on formatting counseling memorandums for adults with masters' degrees," she said.
Another provision being sought by the United Federation of Teachers would effectively relieve teachers from having to do any computer work -- including checking e-mails -- outside of the school day.
A third contract goal would prohibit teachers out sick with the swine flu from being docked any sick days.
Several principals objected to the computer-work provision. They said that in the new data-heavy world of education, where parents can access information about their kids' performance and behavior at the click of a mouse, pulling the computer plug after 3 p.m. wasn't an option.
"This is data that only teachers have, and it has to be made available to parents," said a Bronx high-school principal. "If they're not willing to do it after hours, then there would have to be a way to negotiate a time they can do it in the school day."
Officials with the teachers' union declined to comment on the contract talks.
But a UFT source said the counseling memo was simply a bid to keep tiny infractions from marking a teacher's permanent record.
The source also said that the computer requirement was meant to ensure that schools provide teachers with time and equipment during the day to do their data work.
Several principals said the real problem with the time issue was that the contract broke down the workday into minutes, rather than having a more generally defined workday.
By contrast, most charter schools-- even those with teachers' contracts -- have managed to lengthen the school day by not documenting duties to the minute.
Not surprising, the first item on the UFT's wish list is a "substantial" salary hike in each year of the agreement.
The Post broke the news that the city has already budgeted enough money to grant the union two years of 4 percent pay raises -- in line with the pattern established by other unions.
Many observers said that, in this economy, maintaining that pattern would be a big win for the union but would likely also rule out other significant concessions from the city.
The union's wish list is mum on several prominent issues -- including what to do with a pool of more than 1,500 unassigned teachers who are costing the city an average of $100 million per school year.
By YOAV GONEN
It's like a "Get out of jail free" card for everyone.
The teachers' union is set to seek a free pass for all its misbehaving members in ongoing contract talks with the city, bargaining documents show.
Among the items contained in the teachers' six-page wish list is a provision that would prohibit teachers from being written up for misconduct unless they had already received a counseling memo -- akin to a warning -- about their behavior.
Written documentation, by contrast, can be used as evidence against teachers in disciplinary hearings.
But a Queens elementary-school principal, who insisted on anonymity, said adding the extra padding was "simply ludicrous."
"As instructional leaders, principals need to devote more time to supporting teaching and learning -- not on formatting counseling memorandums for adults with masters' degrees," she said.
Another provision being sought by the United Federation of Teachers would effectively relieve teachers from having to do any computer work -- including checking e-mails -- outside of the school day.
A third contract goal would prohibit teachers out sick with the swine flu from being docked any sick days.
Several principals objected to the computer-work provision. They said that in the new data-heavy world of education, where parents can access information about their kids' performance and behavior at the click of a mouse, pulling the computer plug after 3 p.m. wasn't an option.
"This is data that only teachers have, and it has to be made available to parents," said a Bronx high-school principal. "If they're not willing to do it after hours, then there would have to be a way to negotiate a time they can do it in the school day."
Officials with the teachers' union declined to comment on the contract talks.
But a UFT source said the counseling memo was simply a bid to keep tiny infractions from marking a teacher's permanent record.
The source also said that the computer requirement was meant to ensure that schools provide teachers with time and equipment during the day to do their data work.
Several principals said the real problem with the time issue was that the contract broke down the workday into minutes, rather than having a more generally defined workday.
By contrast, most charter schools-- even those with teachers' contracts -- have managed to lengthen the school day by not documenting duties to the minute.
Not surprising, the first item on the UFT's wish list is a "substantial" salary hike in each year of the agreement.
The Post broke the news that the city has already budgeted enough money to grant the union two years of 4 percent pay raises -- in line with the pattern established by other unions.
Many observers said that, in this economy, maintaining that pattern would be a big win for the union but would likely also rule out other significant concessions from the city.
The union's wish list is mum on several prominent issues -- including what to do with a pool of more than 1,500 unassigned teachers who are costing the city an average of $100 million per school year.
Obama Determined To Destroy Our Prosperity
Cass Sunstein wants to spread America's wealth
Echoes Van Jones on using 'environmental justice' to redistribute money
By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Cass Sunstein
JERUSALEM – It is "desirable" to redistribute America's wealth to poorer nations, argued President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein.
According to Sunstein, global climate change is primarily the fault of U.S. environmental
behavior and can, therefore, be used as a mechanism to redistribute the country's wealth.
The argument bears striking resemblance to comments made by Obama's former environmental adviser, Van Jones. WND reported Jones used a major environmental convention to argue for spreading America's wealth.
Now WND has learned Sunstein made similar, more extensive arguments.
The Obama czar penned a 2007 University of Chicago Law School paper – obtained and reviewed by WND – in which he debated whether America should pay "justice" to the world by entering into a compensation agreement that would be a net financial loss for the U.S.
Sunstein heavily leans on the side of such an agreement, particularly a worldwide carbon tax that would heavily tariff the U.S.
A prominent theme throughout Sunstein's 39-page paper, entitled "Climate Change Justice," maintains U.S. wealth should be redistributed to poorer nations. He uses terms such as "distributive justice" several times. The paper was written with fellow attorney Eric A. Posner
"It is even possible that desirable redistribution is more likely to occur through climate change policy than otherwise, or to be accomplished more effectively through climate policy than through direct foreign aid," wrote Sunstein.
He posited: "We agree that if the United States does spend a great deal on emissions reductions as part of an international agreement, and if the agreement does give particular help to disadvantaged people, considerations of distributive justice support its action, even if better redistributive mechanisms are imaginable.
"If the United States agrees to participate in a climate change agreement on terms that are not in the nation's interest, but that help the world as a whole, there would be no reason for complaint, certainly if such participation is more helpful to poor nations than conventional foreign-aid alternatives," he wrote.
Sunstein maintains: "If we care about social welfare, we should approve of a situation in which a wealthy nation is willing to engage in a degree of self-sacrifice when the world benefits more than that nation loses."
Sunstein is not the only Obama czar to make such an argument. Jones made similar remarks before he resigned earlier this month after WND exposed he is an admitted radical communist.
Two weeks before Jones started his White House job in March, he delivered the keynote address at Power Shift '09, 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 used terms such as "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 29-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," Jones exclaimed.
Echoes Van Jones on using 'environmental justice' to redistribute money
By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Cass Sunstein
JERUSALEM – It is "desirable" to redistribute America's wealth to poorer nations, argued President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein.
According to Sunstein, global climate change is primarily the fault of U.S. environmental
behavior and can, therefore, be used as a mechanism to redistribute the country's wealth.
The argument bears striking resemblance to comments made by Obama's former environmental adviser, Van Jones. WND reported Jones used a major environmental convention to argue for spreading America's wealth.
Now WND has learned Sunstein made similar, more extensive arguments.
The Obama czar penned a 2007 University of Chicago Law School paper – obtained and reviewed by WND – in which he debated whether America should pay "justice" to the world by entering into a compensation agreement that would be a net financial loss for the U.S.
Sunstein heavily leans on the side of such an agreement, particularly a worldwide carbon tax that would heavily tariff the U.S.
A prominent theme throughout Sunstein's 39-page paper, entitled "Climate Change Justice," maintains U.S. wealth should be redistributed to poorer nations. He uses terms such as "distributive justice" several times. The paper was written with fellow attorney Eric A. Posner
"It is even possible that desirable redistribution is more likely to occur through climate change policy than otherwise, or to be accomplished more effectively through climate policy than through direct foreign aid," wrote Sunstein.
He posited: "We agree that if the United States does spend a great deal on emissions reductions as part of an international agreement, and if the agreement does give particular help to disadvantaged people, considerations of distributive justice support its action, even if better redistributive mechanisms are imaginable.
"If the United States agrees to participate in a climate change agreement on terms that are not in the nation's interest, but that help the world as a whole, there would be no reason for complaint, certainly if such participation is more helpful to poor nations than conventional foreign-aid alternatives," he wrote.
Sunstein maintains: "If we care about social welfare, we should approve of a situation in which a wealthy nation is willing to engage in a degree of self-sacrifice when the world benefits more than that nation loses."
Sunstein is not the only Obama czar to make such an argument. Jones made similar remarks before he resigned earlier this month after WND exposed he is an admitted radical communist.
Two weeks before Jones started his White House job in March, he delivered the keynote address at Power Shift '09, 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 used terms such as "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 29-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," Jones exclaimed.
Obama Government Demands ALL Info On ALL Students
'Stimulus' Requires States to Put All Students on a Database
The $787 billion stimulus bill, signed into law in February, designated over $100 billion for education and job training. It's no surprise that this money, earmarked in the hundreds-of-pages-long American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), comes to states with plenty of strings attached. ARRA requires states to maintain their own state-level education budgets at 2006 levels; to rate teacher performance and report on the number and percentage of teachers rated as high performing in the classroom; and to develop tests showing that students are progressing toward college readiness.
Hidden among these "so-what" bureaucratic requirements, however, is an ominous requirement moving the country a giant step closer to national electronic databasing of students, and ultimately of all Americans.
According to the Department of Education, any state that wants to receive funds for education must "establish a longitudinal data system that includes the elements described in section 6401(e)(2)(D) of the America COMPETES Act." The America COMPETES Act sets out a vision for statewide, longitudinal databasing of "student-level enrollment, demographic, and program participation information" for all students "P-16" - from preschool through postsecondary education. According to the bill, for students in grades preK-12, these electronic databases should contain "yearly test records of individual students," "a teacher identifier system with the ability to match teachers to students," "student-level transcript information, including information on courses completed and grades earned," and "student-level college readiness test scores."
For postsecondary students, states should database "information regarding the extent to which students transition successfully from secondary school to postsecondary education, including whether students enroll in remedial coursework," and "other information determined necessary to address alignment and adequate preparation for success in postsecondary education."
The ostensible purpose of all this is so that federal and state governments can "use the data in the system to . . . inform education policy and practice in order to better align State academic content standards, and curricula, with the demands of postsecondary education, the 21st century workforce, and the Armed Forces." The America COMPETES Act authorized the Secretary of Education to provide grants to states that wanted to develop such statewide databases. The ARRA makes databasing mandatory for all states that want to receive stimulus money for education.
In Teacher magazine this summer, teacher and author Dan Brown set forth an enthusiastic vision of all that a massive national student database could contain and achieve. "With access to comprehensive ESRs [electronic student records] — containing an e-portfolio of grades, test scores, teacher commentary on academics and behavior, curricular information, scanned work samples, and relevant health information — our schools could serve children far more effectively."
Brown's editorial did not neglect the workforce-development angle of federal involvement in such extensive databasing. Detailed electronic records on every student would yield "better-functioning schools and better-equipped students — and therefore a more competitive, productive workforce," he claimed.
The $787 billion stimulus bill, signed into law in February, designated over $100 billion for education and job training. It's no surprise that this money, earmarked in the hundreds-of-pages-long American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), comes to states with plenty of strings attached. ARRA requires states to maintain their own state-level education budgets at 2006 levels; to rate teacher performance and report on the number and percentage of teachers rated as high performing in the classroom; and to develop tests showing that students are progressing toward college readiness.
Hidden among these "so-what" bureaucratic requirements, however, is an ominous requirement moving the country a giant step closer to national electronic databasing of students, and ultimately of all Americans.
According to the Department of Education, any state that wants to receive funds for education must "establish a longitudinal data system that includes the elements described in section 6401(e)(2)(D) of the America COMPETES Act." The America COMPETES Act sets out a vision for statewide, longitudinal databasing of "student-level enrollment, demographic, and program participation information" for all students "P-16" - from preschool through postsecondary education. According to the bill, for students in grades preK-12, these electronic databases should contain "yearly test records of individual students," "a teacher identifier system with the ability to match teachers to students," "student-level transcript information, including information on courses completed and grades earned," and "student-level college readiness test scores."
For postsecondary students, states should database "information regarding the extent to which students transition successfully from secondary school to postsecondary education, including whether students enroll in remedial coursework," and "other information determined necessary to address alignment and adequate preparation for success in postsecondary education."
The ostensible purpose of all this is so that federal and state governments can "use the data in the system to . . . inform education policy and practice in order to better align State academic content standards, and curricula, with the demands of postsecondary education, the 21st century workforce, and the Armed Forces." The America COMPETES Act authorized the Secretary of Education to provide grants to states that wanted to develop such statewide databases. The ARRA makes databasing mandatory for all states that want to receive stimulus money for education.
In Teacher magazine this summer, teacher and author Dan Brown set forth an enthusiastic vision of all that a massive national student database could contain and achieve. "With access to comprehensive ESRs [electronic student records] — containing an e-portfolio of grades, test scores, teacher commentary on academics and behavior, curricular information, scanned work samples, and relevant health information — our schools could serve children far more effectively."
Brown's editorial did not neglect the workforce-development angle of federal involvement in such extensive databasing. Detailed electronic records on every student would yield "better-functioning schools and better-equipped students — and therefore a more competitive, productive workforce," he claimed.
Pot Calling The Kettle Black
Who Lied?
by Phyllis Schlafly
The sanctimonious shock at Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-SC) calling out "You lie" when Barack Obama said the health care bill will not insure illegal aliens reminds me of the Casablanca police chief saying he was "shocked, shocked" to learn that gambling was taking place in the saloon. Barack Obama's congressional pals had defeated the Republican amendment to require proof of legal residency in order to be covered by the health care bill, and the American people know that illegals are now getting free health care at emergency rooms.
The surprise was that nobody cried "You lie" when Obama said "Under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions." Anyone who follows this issue knows that all Democratic sponsored bills cover abortion funding, and that the Hyde Amendment does not apply to the health care bill because it only prohibits federal taxpayer funding of abortions financed through Medicaid.
Obama promised Planned Parenthood that "In my mind, reproductive care is essential care. It is basic care, and so it is at the center, and at the heart of the plan that I propose."
Obama also stated, "We're going to set up a public plan that all persons and all women can access if they don't have health insurance. It'll be a plan that will provide all essential services, including reproductive services." Nobody disputes the fact that "reproductive services" includes elective abortions.
Obviously, the feminists in Obama's audience knew he was lying when he said that no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions. If they hadn't believed Obama was lying, the feminists from Nancy Pelosi to Barbara Boxer to Barbara Mikulski would have erupted in audible protest.
No way will the feminists allow Obama's health care "reform" to exclude payment for abortions-on-demand. The feminists have already demonstrated their considerable clout in the Obama Administration, and abortion funding is central to their long-term and short-term goals.
Rush Limbaugh pointed out the media's hypocrisy about the use of the word lie: there was no outcry when the other Joe Wilson (Valerie Plame's husband) accused President George W. Bush of lying in his State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress. Liberal etiquette decrees that it's okay to call Bush a liar, but not Obama, with whom the media, as Bernard Goldberg detailed in his most recent book , have "a slobbering love affair."
Obama told another lie when he claimed that the Democrats' health care plan does not set up "panels of bureaucrats" with the authority to withhold life sustaining treatment from elderly patients. He compounded his lie by accusing anybody who talks about such death panels of "a lie, plain and simple" (and everybody recognized as a not-so-subtle reference to Sarah Palin).
Another lie in Obama's speech was saying that the plan does not jeopardize Medicare benefits which seniors currently receive. He plans to cut $500 Billion out of Medicare "waste and inefficiency" which can't be done without reducing benefits.
Other lies in Obama's speech included his claim that the health care plan will not add to the deficit, that anyone who is satisfied with his current health plan can keep it, and that his plan will not require raising taxes on people earning less than $250,000 a year.
The fundamental lie in all the Democrats' plans is the pretense that they can insure an additional 50 million people without increasing costs and/or without reducing benefits for the other 250 million people who are basically satisfied with their current health care. People are protesting at Tea Parties and Town Meetings because they realize this is not possible no matter how many passionate speeches Obama gives.
The Tea Party march down on Pennsylvania Avenue on September 12 was not only impressive in its size but also because of the messages on the hand-made signs they carried. They proved the marchers were authentic grass roots, not astroturf.
Here are some samples of the home-made signs that show the rising activism of We The People: "The change I hoped for was freedom." "Recycle Congress." "1 Czar down, 43 to go." "Don't Tread On Me." "You are not entitled to what I have earned." "I love my country but I'm scared of my government." "Investigate ACORN." "Your fair share is NOT in my wallet." "Obamacare makes me sick." "I'm not your ATM." "Nurses Against Obamacare." "Abortion is not health care." "Undocumented worker" (under picture of Obama). "Congress pack your bags; you're going home in 2010." "If you're not outraged, you're not paying taxes." "Read the bill." "Bolsheviks promised change too." Quotes from John Adams. And a sign carried by a two-year-old child: "I owe $38,000."
Some signs were carried by immigrants: "Latinos are conservative too." "I had enough Socialism in the USSR."
by Phyllis Schlafly
The sanctimonious shock at Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-SC) calling out "You lie" when Barack Obama said the health care bill will not insure illegal aliens reminds me of the Casablanca police chief saying he was "shocked, shocked" to learn that gambling was taking place in the saloon. Barack Obama's congressional pals had defeated the Republican amendment to require proof of legal residency in order to be covered by the health care bill, and the American people know that illegals are now getting free health care at emergency rooms.
The surprise was that nobody cried "You lie" when Obama said "Under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions." Anyone who follows this issue knows that all Democratic sponsored bills cover abortion funding, and that the Hyde Amendment does not apply to the health care bill because it only prohibits federal taxpayer funding of abortions financed through Medicaid.
Obama promised Planned Parenthood that "In my mind, reproductive care is essential care. It is basic care, and so it is at the center, and at the heart of the plan that I propose."
Obama also stated, "We're going to set up a public plan that all persons and all women can access if they don't have health insurance. It'll be a plan that will provide all essential services, including reproductive services." Nobody disputes the fact that "reproductive services" includes elective abortions.
Obviously, the feminists in Obama's audience knew he was lying when he said that no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions. If they hadn't believed Obama was lying, the feminists from Nancy Pelosi to Barbara Boxer to Barbara Mikulski would have erupted in audible protest.
No way will the feminists allow Obama's health care "reform" to exclude payment for abortions-on-demand. The feminists have already demonstrated their considerable clout in the Obama Administration, and abortion funding is central to their long-term and short-term goals.
Rush Limbaugh pointed out the media's hypocrisy about the use of the word lie: there was no outcry when the other Joe Wilson (Valerie Plame's husband) accused President George W. Bush of lying in his State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress. Liberal etiquette decrees that it's okay to call Bush a liar, but not Obama, with whom the media, as Bernard Goldberg detailed in his most recent book , have "a slobbering love affair."
Obama told another lie when he claimed that the Democrats' health care plan does not set up "panels of bureaucrats" with the authority to withhold life sustaining treatment from elderly patients. He compounded his lie by accusing anybody who talks about such death panels of "a lie, plain and simple" (and everybody recognized as a not-so-subtle reference to Sarah Palin).
Another lie in Obama's speech was saying that the plan does not jeopardize Medicare benefits which seniors currently receive. He plans to cut $500 Billion out of Medicare "waste and inefficiency" which can't be done without reducing benefits.
Other lies in Obama's speech included his claim that the health care plan will not add to the deficit, that anyone who is satisfied with his current health plan can keep it, and that his plan will not require raising taxes on people earning less than $250,000 a year.
The fundamental lie in all the Democrats' plans is the pretense that they can insure an additional 50 million people without increasing costs and/or without reducing benefits for the other 250 million people who are basically satisfied with their current health care. People are protesting at Tea Parties and Town Meetings because they realize this is not possible no matter how many passionate speeches Obama gives.
The Tea Party march down on Pennsylvania Avenue on September 12 was not only impressive in its size but also because of the messages on the hand-made signs they carried. They proved the marchers were authentic grass roots, not astroturf.
Here are some samples of the home-made signs that show the rising activism of We The People: "The change I hoped for was freedom." "Recycle Congress." "1 Czar down, 43 to go." "Don't Tread On Me." "You are not entitled to what I have earned." "I love my country but I'm scared of my government." "Investigate ACORN." "Your fair share is NOT in my wallet." "Obamacare makes me sick." "I'm not your ATM." "Nurses Against Obamacare." "Abortion is not health care." "Undocumented worker" (under picture of Obama). "Congress pack your bags; you're going home in 2010." "If you're not outraged, you're not paying taxes." "Read the bill." "Bolsheviks promised change too." Quotes from John Adams. And a sign carried by a two-year-old child: "I owe $38,000."
Some signs were carried by immigrants: "Latinos are conservative too." "I had enough Socialism in the USSR."
More Economic Truth Revealed
Job-Killing Policies Could Doom Democrat Hopes
Michael Barone
"The level of unemployment is unacceptably high. And will, by all forecasts, remain unacceptably high for a number of years."
Who do you suppose said that? A Republican political operative? A Fox News political analyst? One of those several hundred thousand Tea Partiers who assembled in Washington on Sept. 12? No, it was Lawrence Summers, the director of Barack Obama's National Economic Council and, by common consent, one of the world's leading economists.
Summers made this gloomy forecast in the course of arguing that our economy is headed to "sustained recovery." And while it sounds like self-protective political rhetoric, it is also in line with the thinking of Democratic economists who bemoaned a "jobless recovery" during the first Bush term.
They argued then that a variety of factors -- big increases in the incomes of high earners, the crowding-out of wage increases by the fast-rising costs of health insurance -- prevented the rapid job growth that followed previous recessions. There was something to these arguments.
But it's also true that job creation accelerated in 2004 and kept going for another three years. Perhaps, although Democrats would not like to admit it, the Bush economic policies had something to do with that.
And perhaps the rather different policies of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress may help Summers' gloomy predictions come true.
Tax policy is one example. The Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire next year, and the Democratic Congress will surely allow income tax rates on high earners to go up to 39.6 percent again, or even more if it enacts the administration's proposed policy of limiting high earners' charitable deductions.
These increases will produce revenue that the government needs to reduce the enormous budget deficit, though surely not as much revenue as static economic models indicate. But they will also depress economic growth to some non-trivial extent, and thereby depress job creation.
Then there's trade protectionism. A week ago Friday, late at night, the Obama administration slapped import tariffs on Chinese tires. The Chinese retaliated by imposing tariffs on auto parts and chickens -- take that, United Auto Workers and Tyson Foods! Upshot: American consumers will pay more for tires, and auto-parts and chicken-processing jobs will be at risk.
And more of that may be in store. "The smell of trade war is suddenly in the air," writes The Wall Street Journal, and Global Trade Alert reports that 130 protectionist measures are ready to be implemented by countries around the world. Are we seeing a repeat of the job-destroying protectionism that followed the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930? It's starting to look like it.
Then there are the additional burdens on the private-sector economy that would be piled on by the congressional Democrats' health care bills and the cap-and-trade legislation passed by the House in June. In the job boom of the middle years of this decade, these policies looked like something we might be able to afford. They look less like that now.
Meanwhile, it's plain that consumers are not going to spend money anytime soon at the rates they did when their house prices were bubbling up and that the $787 billion stimulus package passed last February was not -- how to put this? -- optimally designed for job creation.
The Obama administration, along with the Federal Reserve, deserves credit for stabilizing financial markets. But administration policies have put us on the path to increasing the national debt from 40 percent to about 80 percent of gross domestic product -- a level we haven't seen since the years just after World War II. Interest rates are low now, but when they rise it's going to take an uncomfortably large chunk of federal revenues just to service this debt.
"After the health care debate ends, and whatever its outcome may be," writes William Galston, deputy domestic adviser in the Clinton White House, "the administration and congressional Democrats would be well advised to turn their attention back to the economy and ask themselves whether there is anything more to be done to jumpstart job creation."
Good advice, but why wait? The Office of Management and Budget now projects unemployment at 9.7 percent, the same as last month, in the fourth quarter of 2010, when the off-year elections take place. Maybe the administration and congressional Democrats should consider job-creating rather than job-destroying policies right now.
========
Michael Barone is senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
Michael Barone
"The level of unemployment is unacceptably high. And will, by all forecasts, remain unacceptably high for a number of years."
Who do you suppose said that? A Republican political operative? A Fox News political analyst? One of those several hundred thousand Tea Partiers who assembled in Washington on Sept. 12? No, it was Lawrence Summers, the director of Barack Obama's National Economic Council and, by common consent, one of the world's leading economists.
Summers made this gloomy forecast in the course of arguing that our economy is headed to "sustained recovery." And while it sounds like self-protective political rhetoric, it is also in line with the thinking of Democratic economists who bemoaned a "jobless recovery" during the first Bush term.
They argued then that a variety of factors -- big increases in the incomes of high earners, the crowding-out of wage increases by the fast-rising costs of health insurance -- prevented the rapid job growth that followed previous recessions. There was something to these arguments.
But it's also true that job creation accelerated in 2004 and kept going for another three years. Perhaps, although Democrats would not like to admit it, the Bush economic policies had something to do with that.
And perhaps the rather different policies of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress may help Summers' gloomy predictions come true.
Tax policy is one example. The Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire next year, and the Democratic Congress will surely allow income tax rates on high earners to go up to 39.6 percent again, or even more if it enacts the administration's proposed policy of limiting high earners' charitable deductions.
These increases will produce revenue that the government needs to reduce the enormous budget deficit, though surely not as much revenue as static economic models indicate. But they will also depress economic growth to some non-trivial extent, and thereby depress job creation.
Then there's trade protectionism. A week ago Friday, late at night, the Obama administration slapped import tariffs on Chinese tires. The Chinese retaliated by imposing tariffs on auto parts and chickens -- take that, United Auto Workers and Tyson Foods! Upshot: American consumers will pay more for tires, and auto-parts and chicken-processing jobs will be at risk.
And more of that may be in store. "The smell of trade war is suddenly in the air," writes The Wall Street Journal, and Global Trade Alert reports that 130 protectionist measures are ready to be implemented by countries around the world. Are we seeing a repeat of the job-destroying protectionism that followed the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930? It's starting to look like it.
Then there are the additional burdens on the private-sector economy that would be piled on by the congressional Democrats' health care bills and the cap-and-trade legislation passed by the House in June. In the job boom of the middle years of this decade, these policies looked like something we might be able to afford. They look less like that now.
Meanwhile, it's plain that consumers are not going to spend money anytime soon at the rates they did when their house prices were bubbling up and that the $787 billion stimulus package passed last February was not -- how to put this? -- optimally designed for job creation.
The Obama administration, along with the Federal Reserve, deserves credit for stabilizing financial markets. But administration policies have put us on the path to increasing the national debt from 40 percent to about 80 percent of gross domestic product -- a level we haven't seen since the years just after World War II. Interest rates are low now, but when they rise it's going to take an uncomfortably large chunk of federal revenues just to service this debt.
"After the health care debate ends, and whatever its outcome may be," writes William Galston, deputy domestic adviser in the Clinton White House, "the administration and congressional Democrats would be well advised to turn their attention back to the economy and ask themselves whether there is anything more to be done to jumpstart job creation."
Good advice, but why wait? The Office of Management and Budget now projects unemployment at 9.7 percent, the same as last month, in the fourth quarter of 2010, when the off-year elections take place. Maybe the administration and congressional Democrats should consider job-creating rather than job-destroying policies right now.
========
Michael Barone is senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
More Healthcare Lies Exposed
Liberal Lies About National Health Care: Bonus Joe Wilson Edition
Ann Coulter
I'm trying to get to the next installment of my Pulitzer Prize-deserving series on liberal lies about national health care, but apparently liberals have decided to torture us by neurotically fixating on one lie.
After President Barack Obama gave a speech to a joint session of Congress last week passionately defending his national health care plan, the Democrats were agog at the brilliance of the speech. Nancy Pelosi was so thrilled, her expression almost changed.
But as Obama ticked off one demonstrably false claim after another -- eliciting 37 standing ovations from the Democrats in the audience -- America's greatest living statesman, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., yelled out, "You lie!" in response to Obama's claim that the bill will not cover illegal aliens.
There are a number of theories about why America's greatest living statesman shouted "You lie!" at that juncture, but mine is that Wilson said it because Obama told a big, fat stinking lie.
Every single American knows it's a lie. But liberals take pleasure in repeating it -- and then condescendingly accusing anyone who doesn't accept their lie of being a toothless, illiterate racist.
Our politicians, media and courts have done everything they can to encourage illegal immigration, including obstinately refusing to enforce the border. While illegals streaming across the border generally aren't prosecuted, U.S. border patrol agents who naively try to guard the border often are.
Wise (and pregnant) Latinas dash across the border just in time to give birth at American hospitals -- medical services paid for by U.S. taxpayers -- gaining instant citizenship for their children, thereby entitling them to the entire Chinese menu of American welfare programs.
In 2004, 42.6 percent of all babies born at taxpayer expense in California were born to illegal aliens, according to a state report on Medi-Cal-funded deliveries. In hospitals close to the Mexican border, the figure is closer to 80 percent. Remember: This is before health care becomes "free" to every U.S. resident.
Hospitals across the country are going bankrupt because the federal government forces them to provide free services to illegals. This situation appears to have angered some segment of the population, in particular, American citizens who pay taxes to support the hospitals, but then are forced to spend hours writhing in pain in hospital waiting rooms.
With Americans in a boiling cauldron of rage about the government's impotent response to the tsunami of illegal immigrants, last year, both political parties ran candidates for president who favor amnesty for illegal immigrants.
And now Democrats have the audacity to tell us to our faces that national health care won't cover illegals. Not only that, but they tell us we must not be able to read if we think it does.
The crystalline example of this sneering liberal pomposity came from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Monday night:
"Reading the House health care bill would show you that (the bill does not cover illegal aliens). But you know, sometimes reading is hard. Fortunately, in the case of the health reform bill, there is a way to get all of the information that's in it without any of that pesky reading.
"It's called HearTheBill.org. Volunteer voiceover actors have donated their time to read all 1,017 pages of the house health care reform bill, HR-3200, the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.
"So if you don't want to tire out your eyes, you could just listen to the thing that disproves (Rep. Wilson)."
Maddow then played an audio clip of Section 246 from the bill. This section, which liberals keep brandishing like a DNA-stained dress, states: "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
In other words, illegal aliens are excluded from precisely one section of the thousand-page, goodie-laden health care bill: Section 246, which distributes taxpayer-funded "affordability credits" to people who can't afford to pay for their own health care.
Even this minor restriction on taxpayer largesse to illegals will immediately be overturned by the courts. But the point is: Except for vouchers, the bill does not even pretend to exclude illegals from any part of national health care -- including the taxpayer-funded health insurance plan.
Moreover, liberals won't have to wait for some court to find that the words "nothing in this subtitle shall allow" means "this bill allows," because the bill contains no mechanism to ensure that the health care vouchers aren't going to illegal aliens. Nor does the bill prohibit the states from providing taxpayer-funded health care vouchers to illegals.
Democrats keep voting down Republican amendments that would insert these restrictions -- just before dashing to a TV studio to denounce anyone who says the health care bill covers illegal aliens.
It's as if we have a relative who shows up at every holiday gathering, gets bombed and totals the family car. At the 18th Christmas celebration, he's not only demanding a drink, but also calling us liars for saying he's already totaled 17 family cars. Gimme a gin and tonic and the car keys, you lying racist!
I think that's why America's greatest living statesman erupted with rage when Obama retailed this particular lie during his speech on health care.
It's bad enough to be lied to, but to be lied to by people who accuse us of not being able to read when the problem is that we can read -- and also can remember what happened at the last 17 family Christmases -- is more than even Mother Teresa could bear without a quick heckle.
Ann Coulter
I'm trying to get to the next installment of my Pulitzer Prize-deserving series on liberal lies about national health care, but apparently liberals have decided to torture us by neurotically fixating on one lie.
After President Barack Obama gave a speech to a joint session of Congress last week passionately defending his national health care plan, the Democrats were agog at the brilliance of the speech. Nancy Pelosi was so thrilled, her expression almost changed.
But as Obama ticked off one demonstrably false claim after another -- eliciting 37 standing ovations from the Democrats in the audience -- America's greatest living statesman, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., yelled out, "You lie!" in response to Obama's claim that the bill will not cover illegal aliens.
There are a number of theories about why America's greatest living statesman shouted "You lie!" at that juncture, but mine is that Wilson said it because Obama told a big, fat stinking lie.
Every single American knows it's a lie. But liberals take pleasure in repeating it -- and then condescendingly accusing anyone who doesn't accept their lie of being a toothless, illiterate racist.
Our politicians, media and courts have done everything they can to encourage illegal immigration, including obstinately refusing to enforce the border. While illegals streaming across the border generally aren't prosecuted, U.S. border patrol agents who naively try to guard the border often are.
Wise (and pregnant) Latinas dash across the border just in time to give birth at American hospitals -- medical services paid for by U.S. taxpayers -- gaining instant citizenship for their children, thereby entitling them to the entire Chinese menu of American welfare programs.
In 2004, 42.6 percent of all babies born at taxpayer expense in California were born to illegal aliens, according to a state report on Medi-Cal-funded deliveries. In hospitals close to the Mexican border, the figure is closer to 80 percent. Remember: This is before health care becomes "free" to every U.S. resident.
Hospitals across the country are going bankrupt because the federal government forces them to provide free services to illegals. This situation appears to have angered some segment of the population, in particular, American citizens who pay taxes to support the hospitals, but then are forced to spend hours writhing in pain in hospital waiting rooms.
With Americans in a boiling cauldron of rage about the government's impotent response to the tsunami of illegal immigrants, last year, both political parties ran candidates for president who favor amnesty for illegal immigrants.
And now Democrats have the audacity to tell us to our faces that national health care won't cover illegals. Not only that, but they tell us we must not be able to read if we think it does.
The crystalline example of this sneering liberal pomposity came from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Monday night:
"Reading the House health care bill would show you that (the bill does not cover illegal aliens). But you know, sometimes reading is hard. Fortunately, in the case of the health reform bill, there is a way to get all of the information that's in it without any of that pesky reading.
"It's called HearTheBill.org. Volunteer voiceover actors have donated their time to read all 1,017 pages of the house health care reform bill, HR-3200, the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.
"So if you don't want to tire out your eyes, you could just listen to the thing that disproves (Rep. Wilson)."
Maddow then played an audio clip of Section 246 from the bill. This section, which liberals keep brandishing like a DNA-stained dress, states: "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
In other words, illegal aliens are excluded from precisely one section of the thousand-page, goodie-laden health care bill: Section 246, which distributes taxpayer-funded "affordability credits" to people who can't afford to pay for their own health care.
Even this minor restriction on taxpayer largesse to illegals will immediately be overturned by the courts. But the point is: Except for vouchers, the bill does not even pretend to exclude illegals from any part of national health care -- including the taxpayer-funded health insurance plan.
Moreover, liberals won't have to wait for some court to find that the words "nothing in this subtitle shall allow" means "this bill allows," because the bill contains no mechanism to ensure that the health care vouchers aren't going to illegal aliens. Nor does the bill prohibit the states from providing taxpayer-funded health care vouchers to illegals.
Democrats keep voting down Republican amendments that would insert these restrictions -- just before dashing to a TV studio to denounce anyone who says the health care bill covers illegal aliens.
It's as if we have a relative who shows up at every holiday gathering, gets bombed and totals the family car. At the 18th Christmas celebration, he's not only demanding a drink, but also calling us liars for saying he's already totaled 17 family cars. Gimme a gin and tonic and the car keys, you lying racist!
I think that's why America's greatest living statesman erupted with rage when Obama retailed this particular lie during his speech on health care.
It's bad enough to be lied to, but to be lied to by people who accuse us of not being able to read when the problem is that we can read -- and also can remember what happened at the last 17 family Christmases -- is more than even Mother Teresa could bear without a quick heckle.
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